#technically still active just on break with fan fictions

[ghoulical]

Notes on FDA

A list of notes and possible FAQs about certain decisions and ground rules I’ve made throughout the writing process. If you do have any other questions, feel free to shoot me an Ask or a DM, and I'll try my best to answer!

Canonicity

Establishing the canon for this story, and this series as a whole, is difficult, to say the least. For one, while most of the Slenderverse series share a canon universe, Marble Hornets does not. I also did not follow the ARGs as religiously as other fans do when they were at peak activity, so I might be missing details from there. As of editing this in 2023, the canon comic sequel series to Marble Hornets has introduced new lore that makes it even more difficult for me to fit it into everything I've established with this work so far (the Ark sequence was cool as hell but it sure threw a wrench to my plot planning).

Obviously, add in popular creepypastas like Eyeless Jack and Jeff the Killer into the mix, as well as a pinch of SCP Foundation, and it is, indeed, a horrifying amalgamation of something.

That being said, I still want to make this work, and to do that, I do need to bend, or even break, a few rules. I will try to be as faithful to the original material as much as possible, but to find a way to connect everything in a way that ties the most loose ends and makes the most sense with what bits of lore and information from each series, it may mean that I will have to omit some things and change others.

If you don't like it, don't read it, and don't come at me with torches and pitchforks. Make your own thing if you want. I am but a simple fan-fiction writer trying to make something that made me happy once.

Time & Setting

I first wrote this story in 2017, hence why the story is set in 2017, because up until that point, I was still pretty much up-to-date with what goes on in all the fandoms attached to this story. 2017 also happened to be the year that everything sort-of started to die out; EMH, which was the only series with some activity back then, was in "full ARG mode" as I was told, and I did not participate in any of it because I had IRL things to worry about.

During the 3-year hiatus I took in writing, I did work on the timeline of this series—a lot—and I can safely say that it is better for this first book to be set in 2017 rather than present time, considering most creepypastas were set/created in the early 2010s. I also did the math, as best as I could with what little information I have, for when all the pre-story events would have taken place (including canon events) and it's all conveniently lined up if I had the present story set in 2017.

As for location, “New Haven” is indeed the name of several real-life locations in the United States. But none of them are the actual setting for this story—I really just chose a generic town name that's nice and possibly has a metaphorical meaning to the story, but don't sweat trying to look into it. Other named locations would be established canon settings (e.g. Alabama for Marble Hornets), or derived connections to other canon settings (e.g. Skye, Jack and Toby are from Denver, because Toby was canonically from Denver, so story-wise it would make most sense if Skye and Jack were too).

Theme, Content, Genre

You won't find fluff here—not technically, anyway. The reason I say this is because I want to clarify to potential readers that this is not the type of fan-fiction where everybody knows each other, everybody’s friends with each other, and they all live in a giant mansion in the middle of the woods. This story is about as real as the ARGs would be, where not everybody is guaranteed to like each other. Really, it's more likely that they don't.

But I don’t often see creepypasta fan works that focus on the humanity and psychology of these characters. I know the more monstrous ones technically don’t have humanity, and they don’t have typical psychological processes either because they’re monsters and they’re not real. However, I as the author, and as someone who enjoys and majored in Psychology, am very much interested in these topics and how they would apply to these characters, if they ever exist. These people, their characters, and their relationships—it’s what drew me to the ARG series in the first place. I want to explore that more throughout this story, as much as I can.

So yes, relationships exist, but their nuances are much more complicated, and that's personally the best part about writing this story.

Ticci Toby

So about halfway through the book, Toby Rogers (F.K.A. Ticci Toby) has like one actual appearance, and only mostly mentioned or referred to by other characters, despite originally being billed as one of the main characters in the story. This was done on purpose.

In the time I've worked on this story, Toby's creator grisgrisdoll (F.K.A. Kastoway) has publicly stated that they are distancing themselves from the creepypasta community, and wish to move on to other non-pasta-related art projects. Presently, their new concept of Tobias Rogers has no affiliations to Slender Man or creepypasta. All in all, the character belongs to them, so I want to respect their wishes as much as I can.

My original plan was for Toby to have a larger role as we go along (think recurring character getting promoted to series regular). He does still have a pretty big part in the plot of the first book, and frankly, a big part in the background story preceding the book's written plot, especially Skye's background. Because of this, while I can eventually remove him from the plot in future installments, it's impossible for me to remove him completely from the first book, without pretty much completely overhauling the entire damn thing.

So instead, what I can do is minimize his appearances for as much as possible, and only writing him into scenes when absolutely necessary. In the meantime, I'll also be taking caution in staying true to the original material as much as possible, as I do with almost all creepypasta I include in this story.

Tr*beTw*lve

If you've been here a while and read the story in its previous iterations, you would know that Tr*beTw*lve was originally one of the series this story was heavily referencing from. It was also one of the bigger contributors to the Slender Man mythos and lore in general, most notably expanding the concept of proxies.

In 2020, it became apparent through multiple allegations that the series' creator has done terrible things that I personally condemn and do not condone, and as such, I will no longer support anything from him, nor do I want this dear project of mine to be affiliated to anything derived from him in any way, shape or form.

Since then, I've worked to remove all references to TT from this story, and changed all the plot-relevant details that were derived from TT, to tie in more into either Marble Hornets or EverymanHYBRID, or more original ideas (yeah, I have those too). There are some previous drafts that are still currently available to read that still have some references, but in the future these will likely be rewritten, and these references will be removed as well.

It was fun while it lasted, but hey at least my brain spawned another couple sequel ideas because of this development, so it really did work out for the better for me.

More to be added in the future!

#ghl: averno #ghl: fda #facilis descensus averno

[episodicnostalgia]

Reading Break: “Retiring” from comic book collecting

The Reading Break continues, mainly because work is still hindering my ability to write structured reviews with any regularity.  It’s a bit of a bummer, because I genuinely enjoy writing them, and it’s made blogging fun for me, but doing so requires more mental energy than I can currently afford to spend.  Sometimes you just gotta prioritize payin’ them bills, and staying alive. In the meantime, I don’t want to sacrifice writing altogether, because I value this platform as an outlet, and since it is MY flippin’ blog, I figure I’ll just relax the structure a bit and write about other shit; less episodic, and more nostalgic, I suppose.

So anyways.  Comic Books.

More of my leisure time has been spent reading comics these days, and if you’ve been tuning into any of my most recent posts, then you already know that I’ve been on something of a Spider-man kick for a while, and that’s unlikely to change in the immediate future.  Obviously, the fact that I’ve been reviewing the 90’s cartoon has fanned the flames of my current fixation, but it’s been a long time coming.  Over the past few years I’ve been casually focused on completing my ideal Spidey-Comics-collection, and I’m very nearly finished.

Incidentally, that also means that I will also be, by-and-large, finished actively collecting comic books altogether.

Technically I kind of “stopped collecting” (heavy on the quotations there) shortly after DC’s ‘New 52’ reboot kicked off.  It wasn’t that I particularly disliked the changes, but I found myself lacking the energy to maintain my interest.  Since Marvel wasn't exactly doing anything more appealing (and the MCU was still scratching that itch), I just stopped altogether. To this day, I haven’t really felt that I’ve been missing out. 

I’m still prone to casually glancing at subreddits, Wikipedia blogs, and the occasional review/pop-culture think piece, just to check in on all my old fictional friends, and see how they’re doing.  Superman and Lois have a kid who grew up, and also became another Superman. Batman and Catwoman got married, and then unmarried, I think?  I know it resulted a in a bunch of fans getting angry. I understand Miles Morales has been transported to the 616 universe (after his was destroyed), and I seem to recall that Wolverine was dead for a while. Maybe he still is?

I admittedly I did start reading the new Ultimate Spider-man, and intend to continue doing so, but I’ll drop it in a heartbeat if I get bored, meanwhile the other books in the new ‘Ultimate’ line don’t really appeal at all. I’m not trying be pretentious either; All the new stuff being published today looks like it’s probably reasonably entertaining, and there are some fantastic new artists working in the industry, but I’ve just mostly had my fill.

That said, there were a decent number of older issues that I’d always wanted to read when I was a kid, but never got to.  So, shortly after I stopped buying any of the new books coming out (a little over a decade ago), I began removing the issues that I had no intention of re-reading, to make room for the various ‘missing’ issues I needed to complete my "essential" collection once and for all.

After all, is any reading list complete without Super-merman?

During my comic-hunt, there are two characters who I predominantly focused on: Superman (Merman or otherwise) & Spider-man (there are no Spider-mermen. Because that would be stupid.)

Two-or-three years ago, I successfully completed my collection of Superman comics ranging between late 1986 to early 1995.  That’s the era that includes, among other things:

Lex faking his death, swapping his brain into an enhanced clone body, and returning with a full head of hair as his own super hot, Secret, Australian-raised son, aka Lex Luthor II.  I’m not making any of that up, but it’s actually a great Lex Luthor arc, and I mean that unapologetically.

Lois getting engaged to Clark, and being trusted with his super-secret. (And also, hilariously, in that order.)

The artificial protoplasmic lifeform aka ‘Matrix-Supergirl’ from “the pocket dimension,” who easily ranks as my favourite iteration of the Supergirl property.

The evil Kryptonian AI aka “The Eradicator,” and of course…

The world-famous ‘Death of Superman’

As ridiculously 90’s as that all sounds (and was), it was a truly solid 8-year run that has (in my millennial opinion) never been matched for its combined quality, diverse-and-dynamic supporting cast (which no other set of writers have ever come close to utilizing as effectively), and tight continuity. Most importantly, by the beginning of ‘95, the story sort-of comes to a natural close that leaves our characters happy, with most of the major arcs and plotlines resolved. 

That itself is nothing short of a small miracle for an ongoing comic book series to achieve, and so I’ve always privately considered that to be "the end" of MY definitive Superman story. That respective collection begins with ‘Man of Steel’ #1, spans across the four Superman books of-the-time (plus select mini-series, annuals, and crossovers), and ends with ‘Action Comics’ #706, some 350-odd issues later. 

It's an impressive achievement in storytelling that seems to finally be getting more recognition (from what I’ve seen on various forums and subreddits), but I still don’t think it gets enough credit for allowing our beloved Kryptonian’s story to move forward for (arguably) the first time in the character’s then-50+ years of existence. Suffice to say, while it was no small feat tracking down each of the necessary back-issues, it was relatively simple process to figure out WHICH issues I needed to buy, since it was all part of one consecutive run.

Finishing my Spider-man Collection was a little trickier.

Technically, the Spider-man books have never broken their continuity (with some room for debate, but I don’t feel like getting into that), and as such, any truly complete collection of the 616* Spider-man would span several thousand issues, many of which I don't consider essential reading.  So it’s been a longer, more meticulous process of figuring out which artists, writers, and story arcs I actually want to sink money into. 

[*616 = The OG Marvel universe from the comics]

With a few exceptions (and where I’ve had to accept trade paperback collections as a vital alternative to spending at LEAST several tens-of-thousands of dollars), I’ve now collected nearly all of the main eras throughout Spidey’s career that interest me.  I’ve very nearly completed the Roger Stern run,  along with a healthy sampling of Tom Defalco’s work, leaving me roughly 10 issues away from my goal.

If you care to know, it comes to the equivalent of some 420+ issues from the various 616 Spidey books, between Amazing Fantasy #15, to The Amazing Spider-man #508. 

Why stop there? Because much of what has come out beyond that point feels either like a departure from, or a retread of, the character I grew up with. I don’t begrudge anyone who enjoys the current Spidey books, but he seems to have been stuck in a holding pattern that TPTB have decided the writers aren't permitted to move beyond. I imagine that’s also why the new ‘Ultimate Spider-man’ has captured my interest, at least for the time being, by letting him grow up and raise a family. Still, I won’t be surprised if/when even that version of the character ends up getting caught in his own version of an editorially-mandated limbo.

In the end, that’s what it really boils down to, the lack of endings.  I won’t pretend I’m making a new observation in this regard, since most ongoing series are tailor made to reset every few years, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon.  Even so, knowing when to end a story is as important to me as the plot itself, and since the writers aren’t ever granted the power to offer definitive endings to major proprietary characters, I decided to pick one that I can be content with.  I find doing so makes going back and re-reading these stories from the beginning more enjoyable, since I know it will eventually end on my terms.

Speaking of ending things, It’s probably time I wrapped up this post.  It’s possible I might come back with more specific observations about the Spidey books, depending on how long my “reading break" continues.  Or maybe by the time I’m back, I’ll be able to focus on the reviews again.

Guess we'll see.

Thanks for Reading.

#reading break #comic books #comic book collection #superman #spiderman #spiderman comics #superman comics #triangle era #roger stern #tom defalco #mark bagley #kirk alyn #comic collection #jerry ordway #dan jurgens #new 52 #new 52 comics #star trek #the amazing spiderman #ultimate spiderman #action comics #adventures of superman #superman man of steel #episodic nostalgia

[stormiepassions]

Open Letter to the Good Omens Fandom

Fellow Good Omens Fans,

The past few weeks, maybe even a month or longer really, things have been tense. There is a lot of drama going on within the fandom and I thought it was time for me to say something. 

What on the Almighty’s green earth is happening here?

When I first found the Fandom, it was after I saw Good Omens on Amazon Prime. I saw an Angel and a Demon completely mess everything up (”Just imagine how awful it might have been if we'd been at all competent.”) but still save the world from Armageddon. I saw an Angel and Demon who were friends, even if their respected sides were not and I saw them love one another (”To the World”). I also a kid deciding that his life, family, and friends were more important than power. I saw a witch who decided to break free from her familial expectations and burn the second book of prophecies. I fell in love with all of them and I found the most amazing group of people who loved this tale too, everyone was open and loving and welcoming writers and artists and readers and musicians... Queer friendly and cheered one another on. It was awesome. 

I slowly became brave myself and decided to take a stab at writing fan fiction and frankly reading that story now make my eyes hurt, it was bad. But again, there were cheerleaders out there who rooted for my writing and I have never felt so much support in my life. 

Then, things started to change. I think I was subconsciously effected by the shift because I stopped spending a lot of time in the Facebook groups and I never really got into Twitter until recently. My favorite writers and artists were no longer active in the groups. One of the most supportive writers (and beta) was kicked out of a group. Writers who weren’t the Select Few were getting less and less readers and support. Artists who also weren’t the Select Few were getting less support and love. Whispers started about bullying and blacklisting writers.

 Now I am, as someone who loves Good Omens and these characters, is stressed about everything that has been happening. It is difficult to write when you hear about “Two Pies” and if you’re going to be next in someone saying you’re copying them. It’s horrible to see this amazing group of artists and writers fight for Power... The Select Few can destroy a new, inexperienced writer or artist; just the fact that they only interact with one another’s fics and art creates a line of Us and them. Gatekeeping is a term that I just recently learned but it fits the bill on what is happening within the Fandom.

It hurts my heart. 

The only person who should have any say within this Fandom is Neil Gaiman. (Terry is no longer with us but if he were, he too would be right next to Neil) Us writers and artists should be grateful that Neil likes that we create. We could love a tale that the Original Writer would try to shut us down for creating fan fiction but instead we have the lovely Mr. Gaiman. If you want to be technical, we’re stealing from him his characters to tell stories that we want to tell and put them into situations that, perhaps, Neil wouldn’t want them in. But he lets us and supports us. 

I don’t want to walk away from this Fandom. It has helped me make it through my own issues with Depression and ADHD, survive Covid, stay a float when things got hard. I have made a few friends that I can’t imagine not talking to on a regular bases because of this Fandom. It gets so hard with the power struggles and the cattiness and watching people want to stay on top just as much as they want to keep people down. 

It hurts my head.

I plan to continue to write, at least my most recent WIP and I plan to continue to read whoever’s fics and look at whoever’s art. I enjoy them, kudos them, might write a comment if I have time and then read some more. But something has to give, this Fandom is going to destroy itself because of people sense of Self importance. We should love and support one another. Enjoy the gift that we have in Good Omens and Neil. The Select Few are not Gatekeepers if we don’t let them be Gatekeepers. 

Everything Hurts.

Lets build each other up. No one else will do it for us. 

Much love to you all.

Stormie

#good omens #good omens fandom #Crowley and Aziraphale #anathema #the them

[siflshonen]

Oh! Didn't know that Saiki K. is a Shounen. Aside that, what are your opinions on that anime? On another note, In terms of fan fiction, what are the fandoms that you actively read on? Do u have recommendations?

Saiki K:

Saiki K is a lot of things. Personally, my brain classifies it as slice of life/comedy FIRST AND FOREMOST but it is also technically a shonen (and yeah, it was published in Shonen Jump.) It’s simultaneously a lot like MP100 and yet also NOTHING like MP100.

In terms of the anime, I have a lot of fun with it! Honestly it’s super overwhelming on first watch because there is SO MUCH overlapping dialogue happening so fast that it’s tough to catch if you aren’t a super fast reader (sub) or are keen to absorb all that stimulus (dub) but I do enjoy it greatly as just something fun and funny and relatively easy to consume (speed of quips notwithstanding). Shun Kaido and his “eighth grade delusion” self in particular charms me as much as it makes me feel bad for him or embarrassed to have to witness him, but honestly the friendships he strikes up with with Aran (who is… likely my favorite. Because delinquent.) and Saiki in particular make me smile. Actually, over time, pretty much all the characters grew on me so even though Miss Ganguro transfer student is my favorite girl, I do also believe in Teruhashi supremacy at the same time. (…If it matters, I also believe Saiki himself is the king of all tsunderes since if he really didn’t like the people around him, he could simply make them cease to be OR change his life so that it wasn’t very particularly structured as a slice of life comedy manga/anime.)

Fanfiction list under the cut.

Fanfiction:

Ah. Well, this is tough… there are SO many good stories out there, Anon. But whatever fandoms I am writing for also tend to be what fandoms I am reading for. The exception seems to be that when I miss a character badly enough I will loop back and re-visit those fandoms, hahaha. Usually this means I revisit the Legend of Zelda recent submissions and scour it for non-Zelink and General content ha ha ha!

Right now, I’m mostly sticking to BNHA/MHA content because that is also what I am writing.

Generally I prefer things that are canon-compliant, canon-adjacent, or AUs that hold very closely to canon or painstakingly careful considerations to characterization… with a few exceptions (I am not quite as self-limiting with Bakudeku/Dekubaku content, though I’m still horribly picky about it.) My Ao3 bookmarks (and most of my Ao3 history, though I don’t curate it as well to junk the ones I clicked on and immediately backed out from) can also function as recommendations, but I’ll list a few favorite authors:

Chymerical (Gen and Bakudeku. I really appreciate Diamond Grind so much but Twice in a Lifetime makes me laugh the most. Absolutely incredible author.)

Kanthia (Legend of Zelda and Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z. Honestly, they’re a personal fandom hero to me and major inspiration. Recently published more post-Cell-Saga stuff that I absolutely ADORED.)

young_crone (A NSFW BKDK author. My favorite is One Day at a Time, the one where their air conditioner breaks and nothing actually happens besides both of them being total dumbasses about handling their day onwards, BUT everything they write is just beautiful. It doesn’t matter to me when they stray farther from their original characterizations because they are just THAT good at doing what they do!)

Seeress (BKDK. Many stories. A little, um, sweeter and more domestic than I usually favor for BKDK, but hey! They’re great! Some are hit-and-miss for me, but I have a special soft spot for Panacea and Let Me Assist You Personally.

MySecretFandomMoments (BKDK, KRBK, TDBKDK. Read Big Protien. Read it right now.)

SmartiMart (Bakudeku, EraserMic, Dadzawa content. By far the most relatively “sappy” author recommendation on this list, but there’s so much energy, real love, and joyful passion in all of their stories.)

Sour_Idealist (BKDK and General. I have a VERY high opinion of their work and wish I could be like them. My favorite is actually a fic that is a meeting between Todoroki Rei and Hawks called Hope That Soul is Changing. It’s fantastic.)

Pikahlua (yeah, like @pikahlua. Someone who writes detailed meta about a series usually brings the same insight and love of the canon material into their work.)

Rironomind (One Punch Man GenoSai and BKDK. Includes an experimental piece for BKDK that I… like I can’t tell you what happened and there’s no way to experience it and I ahsidoemeosoek anyway Colourless Saitama and his Years of Training as well as Mouth in the Door - which is an original work - are my favorites.)

Roadtripwithlucifer (BKDK. Despite several of these authors having a large proportion of NSFW in their works, I somehow want to say she’s the horniest of all my listed authors. Also plays the most fast and loose with most AU concepts, but like. There’s something comforting and very “fanfiction for fanfiction’s sake” about it that I just find super appealing. THAT SAID my favorite is Zero-Sum Game which is a completely and intentionally fucked up story but does earnestly take a lot of the core parts of the BKDK dynamic, crank them up to MAXIMUM VOLUME, and then perform surgery on them under a microscope in front of a live audience.)

Honestly? There are SO many more out there. I stuck to BNHA and BKDK authors predominantly because it’s where I’m at recent to you asking, but there’s always more…

#thanks for the ask! #aks

[peekbackstage]

Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. I've found your posts very informative and appreciate your time and effort. I saw you mention something about XZ's team not doing a great job responding to the situation, though of course they aren't to blame for it. If you don't mind, would you share your thoughts on what a better response might have looked like, and what impact it might've had if they'd done things differently?

One of the things that stands out most to me is how unprepared XZ Studio was when dealing with a PR crisis. It seems to me like they most likely did not have a strong social media team at the time who would have been tracking any trends or conversations associated with XZ. (By the point at which 227 happened, XZ Studio had already been established for about five months.)

It is pretty standard to track your artist’s name and keep an eye on trending topics, especially to get in front any major issues. As 227 began to develop, had XZ Studio been tracking the development on social media, they could have potentially defused the situation very quickly when the big call to action first emerged from XZ fans to report a fanfic to the government. It was so out of hand, and there was no statement from either the company or the artist that it seemed as though both were complicit in allowing it to continue, which is precisely why so many antis emerged, incensed against XZ’s apparent lack of action to rein in his fans and guide them appropriately. 

Much of the backlash that occurred against XZ and his fans is because there was no initial response when the call to action first appeared - they could have essentially stopped it before it got too far and prevented AO3 and Lofter from getting banned. A simple statement from the artist and the management company to defuse everything could have potentially stopped the movement in its tracks, with the amount of influence XZ does have over his fans.

When things did go sideways, there still was no statement or even an apology from management or XZ, who was being criticized for the actions of his fans. Though it wasn’t his fault (technically), the ways in which his fans behave reflected poorly upon him as an artist and an influencer. Had he taken “responsibility” immediately and apologized, it might not have gone so far as a boycott against him that resulted in so many brands dropping him. 

What I think a better response would have looked like once 227 occurred would have been this:

1. Immediately issue a PR statement condemning the actions of the fans and take responsibility for not initially “guiding” fans properly. Apologize on behalf of the company, the fans, and the artist. Statement should also include a note that states the offending content is merely fiction and that there is no truth to the story. There is no reason to be upset over something that is not true or defamatory, as it is imaginary. (This would essentially be a coded statement denying a certain relationship to begin the process of dissociating and creating a different narrative.) 

2. Artist should issue a statement condemning the actions of the fans and apologizing as well. Call to action for any fans who might continue to act out to behave appropriately. Remind fans that fiction is not real, and to stop acting out against something that is imaginary. 

3. Meet with Weibo privately. Ask them to help with community management to ban accounts that are breaking their TOS. Do this very early on in the process. Also, invest a good deal of money to hire an entire social media management team or a company to heavily monitor Weibo and aggressively report accounts that are engaging in defamatory behavior and potentially breaking Weibo’s TOS. Take legal action against anyone who is actively breaking the law. 

4. Book an interview with a large media outlet or a well-known media personality. Allow and even encourage questions about the incident. Artist should condemn the actions of the fans who caused the incident and apologize to the public for their behavior. Artist should also say something like, “The story is fake/imaginary/fiction/not real.” (Saying something like that more or less demonstrates how dumb all of this is.) I am assuming that questions won’t be asked about AO3/Lofter being placed behind the Great Firewall due to China censorship. 

5. Dissociate from anything and everything that might allow others to continue associating the artist with the incident. In XZ’s case, that means dissociating from WYB, because he’s associated with said incident given the fact that this was all caused by a fanfic. Put a moratorium on kadians and any other potential “interactions” that would allow fans to continue to have “content” to discuss on Weibo. The point here is to change the narrative - this way antis won’t also have content they can use to criticize XZ.

6. While this is happening, call all brands and schedule meetings. Attempt to rescue the brand deals. For brands who are very unhappy, offer a contract revision to suspend the contract terms for a set amount of time (such as four months) to see if the issue blows over. (It’s better to put it on hold than it is to have to try and get a new brand deal, especially once the brand’s annual sponsorship monies have already been allocated for the year.)  

Potentially work with third party PR team to circulate rumors among XZ’s fanbase that he is losing brand deals to create urgency for a counter-campaign against antis trying to boycott XZ’s brands. If there are just as many people calling brands to support XZ as there are calling for a boycott, then it would potentially be a 50/50 toss up as to whether or not a brand deal manages to be saved. This might also lead to a surge of sales for all of XZ’s brands, which would then maybe demonstrate to the brands that XZ shouldn’t be dropped.

7. Track sentiment/feedback once all of the above has been completed. If all of the above didn’t help at all, create new action plan which might include withdrawing the artist from all activity for a set amount of time. 

So there you have it. Maybe a response like the above could have potentially ended up with a different outcome for XZ. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped at all and everything would have still been just as bad. We’ll never actually know. 

What I hope is that XZ now has a better team who can handle issues like this in the future, and that he will see a full recovery for his career this new year. If 2020 has proven anything to anyone watching, it’s that XZ’s consumer power is still massive, and that his popularity has not waned at all. The fact that he is still sweeping all the awards that require fans to vote, often winning by millions of votes, and the red sea that fans managed to put on for him during the Tencent awards are undeniable symbols of his enduring popularity.  

This kind of influence is staggeringly powerful - brands and media outlets that previously might have felt uncertain about XZ as an artist most likely will have positive sentiments towards him as a result. 

So, let’s hope that 2021 will be the best year for XZ. 

The future is full of possibilities and the sky above is endless.

Edit: @pepeyee Made it clear to me in the replies that I definitely did not clarify myself or my thoughts on all of the above well enough, so I will be writing a response to all of the above to further clarify some points so that there is no confusion about my stance here. 

#Anonymous #ask #xiao zhan #pr response #artist management #227 incident #xz studio #peek answers

[ultimatebethylficlist]

Veteran Author of The Month: September 2021

The featured veteran author for September is a well-known and beloved name in the fandom, @rckyfrk !

Rckyfrk can be found on AO3 and FFN under the same penname.

When asked what got her into Bethyl and what the fandom means to her, she said:

I did not start watching TWD until late into Season 3. I don’t do well with horror. My husband would watch and I would just read a book in our bedroom or something. Well, one fateful night, I needed to get some work done on my laptop and didn’t feel like sitting in bed to get it finished, so I just stayed in the living room (our house was teeny tiny - there weren’t a lot of other places to go), and I turned so I wasn’t looking at the TV, plugged in my headphones, and got to work. Well, I glanced over and there was the wonder that is Daryl Dixon gracing my screen. I was instantly intrigued. (I believe my exact words were, “Who is that? What is he...DON’T DO THAT THERE’S ZOMBIES THERE!” and I was instantly hooked. Dammit. I found that as long as I could watch some of the behind the scenes stuff on how they make the walkers, it took some of the horror out of it and I could just focus on the artistry of all the makeup and stuff. Season 4 premiere, we had some friends come over for a “watching party,” (remember those?) and I was actually up getting refills for everyone (being the good hostess that I am) so I completely missed the hug in Beth’s cell and when I came back into the room, NO ONE THOUGHT THAT WAS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO TELL ME ABOUT. (I thought they were my friends…) So I really didn’t start *shipping* Bethyl until “Alone.” I mean, I saw how close they were getting during “Still,” but I guess I didn’t realize what I was really seeing, you know? (Keep in mind, I was still a relatively new fan and had missed most of Season 3 and THE HUG.) Anyway, I couldn’t stand waiting for the next week to find out what happened to Beth, and thus began the ONLY time I have EVER looked for spoilers. That’s how I happened upon this crazy thing called “fan fiction,” (I honestly had never known such a thing existed before that fateful search.) I got to know some of the Bethyl writers, and someone suggested joining tumblr and writing my own stories, and the rest is history. Bethyl is the only pairing I’ve actually, actively shipped, before or after. The only two characters I’ve invested time in. The only two I’ve cried over (just ask @jbird9...hubs has seen me go through all kinds of emotions over these two). My boys can identify Beth and Daryl (they’ve NEVER seen an episode, not even a commercial for TWD, but recognize them from pics I’ve shown them.) The Bethyl fandom has brought me to meet some wonderful people, who probably know me better than members of my actual family. This fandom has been such a bright spot in my life, and has been so supportive even when the well has been dry for years (at least as far as new content from the show). I love you guys.

For her personal fic rec list, she recommends:

(Ugh. I’m really hesitant to come up with personal lists because I’ve read SO MANY WONDERFUL STORIES and I don’t want to leave any of them out, but I also know my brain and I’m not always the best at recalling names and places when I need to. I do want to give some love to:)

@gneebee [AO3] Love’s Highway and One Cold Night live in my head rent free

@piper1016 (basically anything she’s written) [AO3]

@inkinmytea (Audriss) [AO3] especially By Any Other Name

These ladies have been super supportive of my writing, and I can’t thank them enough.

I also really miss Pussyfoot by SaraiVe

is this how you say hello (in the zombie apocalypse) by the queen conquers (dastardly_dame)

Also, @leftmywingshome [AO3]

and @majicmarker​ [AO3] who not only write amazing Bethyl stories, but have their own original work published, all of which I strongly recommend reading.

There’s about a gazillion other stories that I’d like to recommend, but we’d be here all day if I listed them all. PLEASE don’t feel left out or disheartened if I didn’t pull your name from the deep recesses of my brain. I swear I’m not doing it on purpose. There are so many gifted writers in this fandom - we are SO lucky! - and I truly do appreciate @ultimatebethylficlist​ for recognizing the veterans and newbies equally.

Rckyfrk’s Works & Personal Thoughts:

Lady in Red and Man in Black Summary: It's finally the big day, Maggie and Glenn's wedding day. Beth is maid of honor, Daryl is the best man. - This started as a one-shot/prompt for Bethyl Week on Tumblr, but has evolved into becoming a full-sized story. Thoughts: I miss these babies. I had to take a break to try and get Terms and Conditions going because they are so drastically different from it, but now it’s been so long I almost have to get T & C out of my system before I can get my head back in the syrupy sweetness. Lady in Red started as a prompt (technically two) WAY back in the day. We’re talking back in the summer of 2014. The first two chapters received such a supportive response that it took on a life of its own, but it was solely from Beth’s POV, and I had Daryl in my head basically screaming to be heard, so Man in Black made its way in. The goal is to get MiB caught up with LiR, then write them simultaneously (mainly so no one knows what will be coming next and the reader gets to decide which “side” to read first).

Terms and Conditions Summary: It was Beth's first time in Atlanta by herself when the world decided to end. When she lost her way home, she winds up meeting a crossbow-toting man with steel blue eyes and a smile that gives her chills. This is not your typical Bethyl story - imagine if Daryl were more like Merle. Thoughts: I think this is the darkest thing I’ve written (and really, it’s not even that dark). I had this idea in my head for Daryl to be a lot more like Merle and all these little scenarios kept popping into my head of Beth “taming the beast,” and having them slowly fall in love despite how they met and him being a total jerk - at least in the beginning. I think there’s only going to be a couple more chapters of this one, I just need to buckle down and write them. Maybe that’s why I’m dragging my feet to do it. 

And once upon a time, I was writing a non-Bethyl story called “Summer of Learning,” which is actually kind of misleading. Back to that summer of 2014, where I was going through some fandom drama and was about to give up writing and tumblr all together when this group of Norman fans (we called ourselves his Harem...I miss you @basswipe and @unicorns-and-myblacksoul) came along and included me into their shenanigans. Anyway, they gave me the prompt “Imagine Sean Patrick Flanery is your dad’s best friend and teaches you everything there is to know about sex.” In the story, the main character’s parents are Norman and Emily, so it’s...Bethyl adjacent?

#bethyl fanfiction #veteran author of the month

[stagandsteer]

Complete transcript of the Wonderland interview, by Catherine Santino, below the cut :)

In 1993, the year in which Freeform’s new thriller series Cruel Summer opens, actor Froy Gutierrez was yet to be born. Chat rooms and beepers, just two of the symbols of 90’s culture featured in the show, were absent in Gutierrez's own childhood. Instead, the 22 year old grew up among the endless, glowing feeds of social media — and the inevitable pressures that they create.

“There’s a kind of self-awareness that comes from growing up with the internet, which everyone in our cast did,” Gutierrez, who stars in the upcoming series, tells me over Zoom — his boyish charm tangible across the screen. “We’re all technically Gen Z or like, older Gen Z. And so you have to unburden yourself from curating a persona online.”

Due to the dizzying evolution of technology in the past two decades, Gutierrez and I had drastically different experiences with the internet growing up — even though he’s only seven years my junior. I fondly remember a time without the prevalence of social media, while Gutierrez was born into an era where internet presence was not only common, but expected.

Like most of Gutierrez’s peers, the actor was active on social media from a young age, but his presence has quietened over the years — even with 1.7 million instagram followers. “If there’s a general consensus on the internet of a certain readership or viewership, you know about it, because people tweet about it directly to you,'' he says. “There’s a kind of lumping in of the character you’re playing with who you are, that people do. I don’t know if it’s intentional. It’s probably just a human thing, but that happens. And it can be hard not to internalize what you read about yourself, you know? Words have power.”

In 2017, Gutierrez appeared on supernatural MTV drama Teen Wolf, a show with a massive internet fandom. Suddenly, fan theories and commentaries about his character, Nolan Holloway, came in droves, something that the young actor wasn’t necessarily prepared for. “I was still a teenager,” he says. “Around that time, you're an adult, but you’re still figuring things out. So I learned where to set my boundaries because I didn’t know where they were beforehand.”

When Cruel Summer came around, Gutierrez assumed he would be portraying the “desirable young male” he was used to auditioning for. “The first time I read the character, it definitely felt like an archetype. When I auditioned for it, I walked in and was very much myself, and Michelle Purple and Jessica Biel responded very well to it.” However, after he got the role and production ramped up, he was pleasantly surprised. “It didn’t really hit me that they were wanting to take him in such a unique direction until I showed up for wardrobe one day to do my first fitting for the pilot,” Gutierrez recalls. “I looked at the mood board for Jamie and it was like, young Heath Ledger, Keanu Reeves and Kurt Cobain. And I was like ‘Oh shit, I need to step my game up,’” he laughs. “I couldn’t get by doing the same thing that I’ve always done when it comes to characters like that.”

Cruel Summer takes place over the course of three years — ‘93, ‘94, and ‘95 — showing splices of each year in every episode. Produced by Jessica Biel, Tia Napolitano, and Michelle Purple, it centres around the kidnapping of a teenage girl and the fallout of the crime in her community in Skylin, Texas. Gutierrez plays Jamie Henson, the boyfriend of the missing girl, Kate. In her absence, a quiet nerd named Jeanette suddenly rises the social ranks and assumes Kate’s place — including dating Jamie. When Kate returns, Jeanette is suspected to be involved in her disappearance, throwing Jamie into some seriously challenging circumstances. His character could easily be a one-dimensional archetype — and truthfully, I expected him to be — but Cruel Summer took the opportunity to explore toxic masculinity and its widespread impact.

We see Jamie caught in the middle of conflict, unsure how to respond to a traumatic event that certainly no teenager expects to be faced with. He’s not a hero, but he’s not a villain either. It’s unclear whether we’re supposed to root for Jamie or not, which makes him that much more interesting to watch. “He talks a lot about his desire to protect the people around him, regardless of whether or not they asked him to protect them,” Gutierrez says of his character. “He kind of superimposes his own idea of what the people around him need. In order to maintain the peace of the people around him, he kind of robs the people around him of their agency. It’s just a really fascinating character to play in that way.”

Gutierrez has also been able to explore the ethics of true crime in a time when the genre is exploding in popularity. Though Cruel Summer is fictional, it questions the effect that public opinion can have on criminal cases — and perhaps more importantly — the well-being of the people involved. “When it comes to the investigation of a crime, you have to weigh the good it can bring into the world versus the bad it can bring. Or making one person seem suspect, or airing the dirty laundry of a private citizen for the viewership of loads of people.”

Despite his eloquent reflections on Jamie throughout our conversation, it’s clear that Gutierrez doesn’t take himself too seriously. He speaks into the camera like we’re old friends on FaceTime, and when my dog unexpectedly jumps into my frame, he gushes excitedly and asks what her name is. He’s able to laugh at himself one minute and share poignant truths the next. It’s refreshing, much like Cruel Summer.

Another likely contributor to the show’s authenticity? The fact that the cast was kept in the dark when it came to overarching plot points. Instead of knowing the show’s trajectory ahead of time, the actors would receive scripts for the next episode while they were filming — and they were subject to change. “We didn’t know where it was going,” Gutierrez says. “And we were told, “‘This might happen here, or this might happen there.’ And it would shift around.”

Without foresight into their character’s arc, the actors have no choice but to focus only on where they were in that moment — a difficult task when a single episode spans three very different years. Gutierrez faced an even greater challenge, as, unlike the two female leads, his character didn’t undergo any drastic physical transformations over the three years.

“I didn’t really compartmentalise the character,” he explains. “I kind of thought of the different years as different phases in my own life. The first year, ‘93, was a complete absence of any regret. You’re still very young, I was just thinking of like, a complete golden retriever,” he laughs. “A 16-year old boy who just wants the best and isn’t aware. ‘94 is me right before I made the decision to go to therapy, where I was making all these bad decisions and I didn’t know why. And then ‘95 was a whole desire to wrestle with those things and really look at yourself in the mirror and take accountability.”

Gutierrez didn’t only infuse personal experience into his behind-the-scenes work — some aspects made it onto the screen. The actor, whose father is Mexican, grew up spending time between Mexico and Texas and is a native Spanish speaker. Because Cruel Summer is set in Texas, Gutierrez suggested creating a similar background for Jamie.

“I was talking with Tia Napolitano, the show-runner, and I was like, ‘Hey, you know what would be really cool? What if the character is half-Mexican, too?’” Gutierrez says. “And she's like, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s write it in the script.’ And I got to write a couple lines in Spanish, which is really cool. [Jamie] could have been this mould of a cool, likeable jock. And then he ended up being this very nuanced human being, which is awesome.”

Though he is learning to appreciate all parts of his heritage, Gutierrez hasn’t always embraced his identity. “I remember feeling like I might have been not American enough for America, and not Mexican enough for Mexico,” he says. “And I remember having a bit of time in which I had an accent in both languages. Even my name — in Mexico I always went by ‘Froylan’, which is my full name. And then in the U.S., I went by Froy, because I thought it would be easier for other people to say.”

He continues: “I identify as Latino, but I”m also very wary of auditioning for Latino roles because I’m aware I don’t look like a typical Latino person. I don’t want to be someone that you can just sub in for that role, when I’m really white and blonde. And so whenever I do get a role like this, one where he’s not written to be any particular direction and we’re able to collaborate, I’m able to inject some of myself in there. So it’s been really cool to embrace all sides of my history.”

But of course, as is true for Gutierrez, Jamie’s cultural background is only a small part of who he is. Cruel Summer is committed to portraying him as a nuanced character that breaks the moulds of masculinity while tackling complex inner conflict. “Living in his shoes and walking in them, a big question that came up for me was, ‘What is the difference between guilt and shame? [Jamie]’s coping mechanism was terrible and unhealthy, and caused more pain for the people around him. But at the same time, the shame that he internalized made it worse for him. One thing I really learned, is that shame is about yourself and beating yourself up. And guilt is about taking accountability and apologising, moving forward without expecting the relationship to come back. It's just about trying to heal what happened and then moving on, on the terms that the other person sets. It’s not about you, and I think that’s what the character learns throughout the show.”

#froy gutierrez #wonderland magazine #froylan gutierrez #interview #cruel summer #catherine santino

[hellmry]

What do you think of this whole "ppl shipping SessRin are basically supporting paedophilia” on tumblr? I've seen lots of japapense fans on twitter and they're all basically happy for the huge possibility of having Rin as Sesshomaru's wife and the mother of Towa and Setsuna, and then I go to tumblr and see all these SessRin bashing, saying that their bond should have kept platonic, the "real" sesshomaru will not behave romantically with Rin, etc. Idk what to think? :/ What are your thoughts?

oh goody, this is going to be a long one.

it’s so ridiculous 🙄 I’ve seen this “paedophilia” argument so many times and it’s triggering how they misuse this term so much. Especially as a law student (pet peeve: people misusing technical terms and making very serious (false) accusations).

Paedophilia tends to be the umbrella term for everything with a big age gap or when one party of the couple knew the other party as a child, which shows how uneducated they are with their try hard activism. Paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder, when an adult is primary or exclusively sexually attracted to prepubescent children.

No one in their right mind ships Sesshomaru with Rin while she was still a kid, I’ve yet to see someone who actively ships them in a romantic setting with her still being a kid. All the shippers I’ve come across and fanworks made, are her being a young adult or adult.

The other term they’re throwing around is “grooming”, while thinking it means he groomed her into his wife, which is also false and a misuse of the term. Grooming happens, when an adult is befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child in order to lower the child’s inhibitions with the object of sexual abuse. Sessh didn’t approach her with any sexual intentions in mind, he tolerated her following him out of pity, which turned into being her protector after a while. As I see it, Jaken was more of a father figure for her than Sessh was. He ignored her most of the times, just watching over her and made sure she was safe (i mean, like a dog...a guard dog). And he certainly didn’t “groom” her into being his wife, that dude did not show any signs of romantic interest while she was a child. Heck, he was pretty stoic most of the times.

The fact, that people who saw Sessh as a father figure for Rin exist, is actually our strongest argument against their paedophilia accusation. They wouldn’t have been able to perceive their relationship as such in the first place, if there were ANY romantic advances or signs while she was a child. Wanna see and read about a real pedophile story/relationship? Go read Lolita by Vladimir Nobakov, it’s disturbing.

Another form of grooming happens, when someone is manipulated until they’re isolated, dependent and more vulnerable to exploitation (can also happen with adults). Though it was only a filler episode, in episode 162 (Forever with Lord Sesshomaru), Sessh even gave her the free choice to either stay with humans or follow him (with his trademark line “do as you please”). In the Manga she was staying with Kaede in the end. And she was friends with Kohaku. She mostly fended for herself (with Jaken), foraging for food in the wild or secretly on farms. Rin was certainly not isolated or dependent. I’m not even digging into the exploitation point, because there is nothing to say.

I admit, they way SessRin developed is not completely unproblematic and the biggest factor is, that he met her while she was still a child. I can agree with that, but most SessRin shippers do not ship them because he knew her as a child, but because she was the first one who he cared for. If you break it down, it’s pretty much the cold-emotionless-bad boy-falls-for-a-girl-after-being-shown-kindness-for-the-first-time trope. SessRin shippers would’ve also shipped them if Rin was the same age as Kagome the first time they’ve met. Rin being a child when they met is not the base of this ship, it’s their relationship and how she broke through Sessh’s walls and that she was the first (human) being he ever cared for. She was also the reason Sessh slowly began to accept Tenseiga as his sword.

People who are saying Sessh went out of character and should’ve stayed on platonic terms with Rin, clearly have no idea about storytelling and character development. Sessh is a dog demon. Inuyasha is a dog demon. Inu no Taisho was a dog demon. Rin is a human, Kikyo was a human, Kagome is a human, Izayoi was a human. Basically, dogs love humans and create very strong bonds with them. Even staying loyal when their owner mistreats or abuses them. The whole series builds up on this dog-human dynamic. Basically every romantic interest involving a dog demon ended up being a dog-human pair. What’s not clicking?

I also find it quite funny, how some of those people can also ship Kagome and Inuyasha while preaching their (false) paedophilia speech in the same sentence. Kagome was 15 when she met 200 year old Inuyasha. 15. That’s a teenager. I’m 26 and when I see 15 year olds, they look like toddlers to me. I don’t see anyone advocating for Kagome’s minor rights. The whole world flipped when Drake was dating a 18 year old but the fandom is still pretty silent about the fact, that Kagome was also 18 when she was married to 203 y/o Inuyasha in the epilogue. InuKag and SessKag shippers don’t get the same criticism as SessRin shippers, even though Kagome is also still a minor and that’s where you see the hypocrisy.

They can ship her because her design looks older and it’s easier to forget that she’s 15/18. Usagi from Sailor Moon was 14 when she met and began a romantic relationship with Mamoru, who was 17. Even though both are considered minors, 14 is a lot different than 17 but nobody bat an eye for that either. Probably it’s because Usagi doesn’t look like a 14 year old. Kagome doesn’t look like a 15 year old. But Rin looks her age, she looks like an 8 year old when they first met, evoking a different perception in people of being a minor, the age gap and her vulnerability. That’s the only reason I can think of, why people are fine with InuKag, SessKag, KogaKag and whatever, even though it’s essentially almost the same setting as with SessRin. Rin is a minor, Kagome is a minor, they both are protected by their stronger and much older demon travel partners. And its hypocritical to try and argue a difference because grooming and abuse of an 8 year old is such as horrific as of an 15 year old. If one of them is a victim, then both are.

I’m not trying to shit on InuKag or other Kagome ships btw., I love Kagome and InuKag, I’m just trying to show the hypocrisy in their fake activism, because it’s not based on facts and information but rather on subjective feelings and perception. It’s fine and legitimate to not like SessRin because of said reasons, but it is wrong to judge others for shipping it and accuse them of supporting paedophilia. People who are triggered by SessRin, should stay away from it but leave those alone, who enjoy it.

Oh and before someone runs their mouth at me and use personal history as an argument, I’ve been a victim of paedophilia and grooming myself. I was touched and molested by my private tutor for years between 5th and 7th grade. But I’ve overcome my trauma, educated myself and I’m able to tell fiction from reality. Nobody watches Inuyasha for relationship and dating advice. Misusing terms is actually harming the ones involved and projecting one own’s traumas and struggles onto others, by shaming them for shipping something is not helping anyone and doesn’t make a difference at all.

Lastly, no SessRin shipper is condoning real life child/adult relationships. We are able to ship them because fictional stories are less dimensional than real life situations are. Fictional relationships have less nuances, cherry picked dynamics and moments that make us perceive them in a specific way. It is man made. What seems romantic in a fictional story (even between two adults) may be littered with red flags or less exciting and boring in a real life setting. People consume fiction mainly for entertainment, not for real life and dating advice.

Remember, this is just a fictional story, just chill the f out.

#ask #sessrin #Anonymous

[katcadecascade]

Reader Study (Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint Oneshot)

*spoilers up to chapter 79

Summary: 

“Your face is getting red, Kim Dokja.”

“No it’s not.”

She didn’t need to use lie detection.

Han Sooyoung clapped her hands, peering down at him with a wide grin. “What kind of fanfics did you read?”

Kim Dokja is both impressed and exhausted by the fact that he’s surviving in the apocalypse.

Most of that credit is due to him being the sole reader to know about the webnovel that just happens to become is new reality. There’s still a lot of confusion on how that came to be. Kim Dokja has encountered character from the novel, the deadly scenarios, and even people who were never a part of this once fictional world.

“Are you finally taking a break from your airbending training?”

There were other readers. They didn’t stay with the novel like he did so his title as sole reader remains.

Techniqually…

“Stop ignoring me.” Despite that, Kim Dokja tried his best to ignore his current companion. She continues, “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Why can’t I learn the Way of the Winds skill?’ Its because you’re not the protagonist Kim Dokja.”

Han Sooyoung. The first Apostol, she read the most of the original Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse aside from his truly. Except she does know a lot more about the novel than others.

Because she plagiarized it.

Or not as she claims every time he calls her out.

Either way she knows about the world. That means she’s dangerous if left alone. Hell, she’ll gather up another cult like what she did with the Apostles and Prophets.

So since Kim Dokja has been separated from his companions, living in the consequences of a kingless world, he struck a temporary contract with Han Sooyoung until the next main scenario.

He’s really regretting his decision.

“Maybe I’ll ask Lycaon to teach me to be an airbender since it’s so important to you. I probably have the SSS grade talent you lack.”

“No.”

Someone needs to learn the Way of the Wind skill to go against the Disaster of Questions. Kim Dokja doesn’t trust Han Sooyoung with that power and the original protagonist is nowhere nearby to get this skill in time.

Logically, he thought he should get the skill but apparently, Lycaon has deemed him void. Despite that, Kim Dokja tried to train with the wolf monster. So after a good few hours of nothing, he finally took a break and is lying flat on his back in the remains of the business district.

“You’re a real rat bastard, Kim Dokja.”

“And you’re a real rat plagiarist.”

“I didn’t plagiarize!” She’s sitting away from him but close enough to kick his foot. “Everything I wrote I saw in a dream and from that point on my novel became popular due to my own writing skills. It became so popular I even got fanfics!”

“I can’t believe you’re bragging about that. They’re probably not even good.”

[Han Sooyoung has activated the skill ‘Lie Detection.’]

[‘Lie Detection’ has verified his words as false.]

“Oh?”

Why did he open his mouth? It’s been a long day of (futile) training under Lyacon. The world is in more ruin because of his choice at the Absolute Throne scenario. He’s away from his friends. The Disaster scenarios are arrive in a few days. Kim Dokja is with the one other person who has read his favorite novel in depth.

Ways of Survival didn’t get popular, it lost a lot of readers. In other words, it never got any fanfics.

But Han Sooyoung’s SSSSS-Grade Infinite Regressor did get a plethora of fanart and fanfics.

So maybe one night curiosity got the better of Kim Dokja and searched for some fanfics of a protagonist very similar to Yoo Jonghyuk.

“Your face is getting red, Kim Dokja.”

“No it’s not.”

She didn’t need to use lie detection.

Han Sooyoung clapped her hands, peering down at him with a wide grin.

“What kind of fanfics did you read?”

Kim Dokja has been lying back, slowing regaining his breath from training. He only has enough stamina to simply roll over and face the opposite direction.

Han Sooyoung merely scooted over to his other side, still grinning.

He turns again.

“You read the steamy fics,” she accused.

“I did not.”

[Han Sooyoung has activated the skill ‘Lie Detection.’]

[‘Lie Detection’ has verified his words as truth.]

“Boo.”

“Did you read your novel’s fanfics?”

“Of course not! That goes against an author’s ethics of copyright.”

He just stares at her.

She glares, “I’m not a plagiarist.”

Kim Dokja would love to have the lie detection skill right now.

Han Sooyoung rolls her eyes and offers up, “Occasionally I’ll check the number of fics and see what the most popular tags is. That’s about it.”

A dangerous expression washes over her face as she remembers what exactly the most popular type of fic is. He can see her calculating the probability of Kim Dokja ever reading those type of fics.

Han Sooyoung stares at him with an open mouth smile.

“You, Kim Dokja, may be one of the strongest incarnations, a pain in the ass to me, the dokkaebi, and the constellations, but in reality,” she snorts at that word, “you are weak.”

She didn’t even need to ask. And yet Kim Dokja already feels defeated.

At least he did not admit it aloud.

No way will Kim Dokja verbally admit that he read self-insert fics as the protagonist’s lover.

It gets a little more worse when he remembers he read female self-inserts before finally scavenging the he or they pronoun fics.

But look at him now.

He’s in his favorite novel and met its protagonist.

Kim Dokja wouldn’t call their first introduction a ‘meet cute.’

No way does any of their encounters qualify as romantic. They fought and disagreed and their last encounter ended with Kim Dokja punching Yoo Jonghyuk into unconsciousness. If anything, Kim Dokja’s aim to be Yoo Jonghyuk’s companion is a fantasy.  

Han Yoosong apparently thinks otherwise.

She mockingly pats his shoulder with comfort, “You must be living your fics. Charming your way into Yoo Jonghyuk’s cold barriers.”

“He wants to kill me.”

“Yeah but has he yet?”

Despite the fact that Kim Dokja could come up with many reasons, he says nothing.

Yoo Jonghyuk could’ve killed him at the bridge, at the stations, and, well maybe not at the Throne because of Kim Dokja’s strategy. Every time Kim Dokja said something or did something to convince Yoo Jonghyuk that they are equals and needed each other for upcoming scenarios.

They have yet to ever be on the same page without annoying the other.

And yet Kim Dokja expected this.

It’s the one thing many self-insert fics lack.

As much as Kim Dokja secretly enjoyed the gooey romance orientated stories, none ever measured up with the real stubbornness of Yoo Jonghyuk.

He’s a protagonist who has suffered and thrived and flourished and dealt with impossible odds and despaired and will eventually reach the ending of this story.

Kim Dokja stayed with him for three thousand chapters. Now he wants to stay with Yoo Jonghyuk to… to…

Ah… he got too caught up with the self-inserts fics. A lot of those ended with marriage or something equally domestic.

That’s not an ending deserving of Kim Dokja.

All he wants is for Yoo Jonghyuk and the tohers to make it to the end of this story.

“Hey, you lost in thought about kissing Yoo Jonghyuk?”

“No!”

[Han Sooyoung has activated the skill ‘Lie Detection.’]

[‘Lie Detection’ has verified his words as false.]

She raises an eyebrow, smirking.

“Only because you just said it.”

“Sure,” she smiled like a liar.

Somehow it is the opposite smile of Yoo Jonghyuk’s smile when he threw Kim Dokja off the bridge and into the sea serpent’s mouth.

It’s frustratingly easy to remember how the last sunrays of the normal world is casted behind the protagonist. Seeing that damning smirk finalized the reality Kim Dokja is in.

This wouldn’t be Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse without Yoo Jonghyuk.  

This wouldn’t be Kim Dokja’s favorite novel without Yoo Jonghyuk.

This wouldn’t be Kim Dokja’s life without Yoo Jonghyuk.

So if Kim Dokja indulged into a few reader-insert fics where Yoo Jonghyuk fought by his side, survived by his side, was happy by his side, then call Kim Dokja a hopeless romantic.

“You are a hopeless romantic.”

“Why?” He demanded, less embarrassed and more worried if Han Sooyoung read his thoughts.

“I was there when Yoo Jonghyuk came bursting through the room before the Throne scenario. His eyes were only on you and you just exploded with sunshine.” She sticks her tongue out in disgust.

“I did not,” he shuttered, finally sitting up to defend himself with the little dignity he has left. “Sunshine?”

Han Sooyoung nods as if her words are obvious. She crossed her arms and scowled, “You read too many self-inserts.”

Kim Dokja shuts his jaw. If he says nothing she would not use lie detection.

The results are the same though.

Han Sooyoung laughs meanly, “I don’t blame your taste. Well he’s not for me but I guess he could be a real heartthrob.”

Kim Dokja sighs instead of agreeing.

Technically, all those fics were derived from Han Sooyoung’s protagonist.

As for Kim Dokja’s protagonist, he never got the creative drive (or sacrifice his dignity) to ever write his own self-insert with Yoo Jonghyuk.

Kim Dokja is a reader first and foremost.

And yet he still ends up inserted into Ways of Survival trying to overcome the scenarios, to outsmart the dokkaebi, and to eventually face off against the constellations.

All the while being Yoo Jonghyuk’s companion.

That last one is a work in progress.

“How many fanfics I’ve read doesn’t matter,” Kim Dokja says to Han Sooyoung, but it’s mostly to remind himself too.

“Oh I don’t know about that,” she smirks. “I think we’re in a classic canon divergence story.”

He scratches his chin, “That could be true.” As Han Sooyoung grins triumphantly, he says, “Maybe you didn’t plagiarize. You just wrote a big fanfiction.”

“Hey!”

He slow claps, “What a devoted fan.”

“At least I’m not in love with the protagonist.”

Kim Dokja nearly chokes, “I’m no-“

He shuts up before the display message appears.

[Han Sooyoung has activated the skill ‘Lie Detection.’]

She bats her eyelashes. “I’m waiting.”

“I hate you.”

[‘Lie Detection’ has verified his words as truth.]

“Because I’m not Yoo Jonghyuk,” she said, undefeated.

“Would you drop it?”

“No because it’s kind of flattering. You read fanfics of my novel and it has prepared you for the real deal! So what have you’ve done so far to capture his heart?”

“I’m not going to capture his heart.”

“Why not? He’s already obsessed with you.”

“Why would you think that?”

Han Sooyoung shrugged, “I’m a writer. I see things.”

Kim Dokja just blinks and lies back down.

“Don’t you want to know what I see?”

“Absolutely not, Han Sooyoung.”

“Imma tell you anyway.” His cry in protest is ignored. “In a crowded room where nearly everyone is killing each other, the time limit for the qualifying kings is ticking away-“

“You don’t have to describe it. I was there.”

“…and there! Fashionably late and very dramatic, the last king arrives but he pays no mind to anyone except one-“

“That was the one and only time you’ve seen us together and it was very short.”

“Nah uh,” she shakes her head, “My beheaded avatar. Yoo Jonghyuk practically presented it to you like a cat presenting their kill.”

Kim Dokja opens his mouth and closes it, having nothing to counter that simile.

“If you think I know little then what does that say about you?” She counters as if this is a riddle. “Kim Dokja believes he hasn’t made an impact on Yoo Jonghyuk? The only one who dares to upstand him, shouldering on herculean challenges, and hindering the plans of a great author?”

He frowns, “Are you insulting me or complimenting me?”

“Insulting because you’re too stupid realize that not only are you in a fictional genre, you will easily fall into a romance genre.” She angrily clicks her tongue, “How did an ugly guy like you get a hot harem?”

“My friends are not a harem.”

“Sort seems like it.”

Kim Dokja rubs his eyes, too tired of all this nonsensical conversations.

“My point is,” Han Sooyoung pokes his forehead to make sure he’s paying attention, “that you’re really becoming a reader-insert story. That usually leads to getting dicked down by the protagonist.”

Kim Dokja buries his red face in his hands.

“I’m just saying!”

“Then stop talking!”

“No way,” she pauses for a moment and taps her forehead, “where was I going with this again?”

“You decided to stop talking,” Kim Dokja said in hopes that this conversation will end.

“Nah,” Han Sooyoung waves her hand flippantly and then suddenly snaps her fingers with a grin, “Oh yeah, I was going on about the fact that Yoo Jonghyuk is in love with you like how you are in love with him.”

He just stares at this awful woman and quietly says, “He wouldn’t.”

“Must I repeat all the things I’ve told you?” Fortunately, she doesn’t but instead says, “You’re becoming way too important to a lot of people, including your protagonist.” Han Sooyoung grins, “I’ve read enough fanfiction to know where that goes.”

Kim Dokja unfortunately has read enough fanfiction too.

“Well Han Sooyoung, you’re wrong because the next time I see Yoo Jonghyuk he will likely kill me.”

His confidence does not change Han Sooyoung’s mind. “I think he’s trying to find you at this very moment.”

“To kill me,” he reinstates.

“But,” she flashes a smile, “if he doesn’t kill you immediately, it could be a sign.”

Again, Kim Dokja says nothing to argue against that because… well…

Han Sooyoung interrupts his thoughts with a singsong voice, “Sign of love!”

He stands up and goes back over to Lycaon to try training again, thoroughly ignoring the woman’s complaints.

Everything Han Sooyoung said has some misguided truths. This is the apocalypse. Everyone is depending on someone stronger to survive.

But this isn’t just any other apocalypse, this is the a story Kim Dokja knows from beginning to end. In spite of whatever future awaits them, he will do everything he can to use his knowledge to save everyone.

It’s almost expected that there will be moments where he did not see things coming.

For example, Yoo Jonghyuk showing up and not killing him.

It’s mostly because he’s poisoned.

Oh and the fact that the Disaster of Questions is waking up.

After buying their Midday Tryst and agreeing to the Oath of Existence, Yoo Jonghyuk agreed to not harm and instead cooperate with Kim Dokja for the time being.

All at the price of that Yoo Jonghyuk can hit Kim Dokja once.

Kim Dokja has no idea if this is a sign of love or not.

Maybe he’ll find out once that hit comes.

#my fic #kim dokja #han sooyoung #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #orv fic

[cannibalisticapple]

Okay, so I have some thoughts on Kurikuri’s decision to delete a large number of her fan fics, and on fan fiction as a whole.

For those who don’t know, Kurikuri (@letaizawarest) is a popular fan fiction author with numerous popular Erasermic fics, along with other fandoms. Around the end of May/start of June she deleted a large number of her stories, specifically those that featured either police, or those set in the My Hero Academia universe where they work as Pro Heroes.

To quote her post:

as you may have noticed, roughly half of the fics on my ao3 have been deleted.

i’ve deleted all my fics about police officers. also, after some thought, i also deleted my non-AU bnha fics, because although they might not be “cops” in name, they are law enforcement. i do not want to be a part of the system that glorifies the police. 


at the moment i haven’t deleted other profession AUs and high school era fics, but i will continue to reflect on their relation to the source material. even if you enjoyed the deleted fics, please do not circulate them in other formats (PDFs, EPUBs, etc). 


i also encourage other writers to think about cop fic they’ve written. while it may be fun and escapist for you, it still encourages the idea that antiblack and killer cops are just “bad apples” and that good cops exist. let’s dismantle that system of thought.

I have some very, very mixed feelings on this.

To start: I respect her reasoning, but I don’t agree with it. I fully agree that it’s not just a bunch of “bad apples”, there’s a serious issue with the system and how the police operate in the United States. I’ve always been bothered by how the police let other officers get away with horrible BS, even as a kid, and that rage has only grown as I’ve grown older and found out more about how screwed up it is on every single level.

But the way that last paragraph is written rubs me the wrong way because you can’t paint every single person in an entire career field as unequivocally corrupt, bigoted and all around callous murderers. Good cops DO exist. Plenty of people go into the career hoping to fix things, or just genuinely want to help their community in whatever way they can. But the thing is, they’re fighting a losing battle because the system is working against them. When they DO speak up against the corruption, bigotry, violence and other issues, they tend to get fired and blacklisted from the field. Or sometimes, they get outright murdered and it’s treated as a “suicide.”

A shitty fact of life: sometimes, the people who are more willing to resort to underhanded tactics and willing to turn a blind eye to corruption are the ones who climb up the career ladder furthest. And in the case of the police, it’s deep-rooted enough that it can’t be fixed internally anymore. But that doesn’t make literally every police officer corrupt.

I’m not posting this to make some political point or argument though. I obviously disagree with Kurikuri’s opinion, but I respect it. I can even respect her decision to remove the stories featuring the police, or even the ones heavily focusing on the characters’ jobs as pro heroes. I can see how heroes are just another version of law enforcement, because honestly, they are.

As a writer and a reader, I fully respect that it’s ultimately her choice to delete her stories. It’s not my place to make demands. She’s the one who created it, and as a writer I know the hard work and time that goes into crafting stories, so I believe she has a right in how it’s used and shared. The fact she shared it in the first place was something she didn’t have to do.

But the thing is, she DID share it, which is why I have this conflict.

As a writer, I’ve always believed that fiction can be more powerful than fact.

Fiction can give readers a window into mindsets you’d never imagine before, because you can connect more easily with fictional characters than real people on the news. That’s why Uncle Tom’s Cabin was so critical in the battle against slavery: it didn’t just gave a face to slavery, it let readers experience the characters’ lives directly. People got to see the struggles and suffering firsthand, feel the rising crescendo of hope each time freedom is in reach, and the soul-crushing despair every time that hope gets dashed by outside forces.

Fiction may not always be “true” or even “accurate,” but it can help us understand other people, see them as fellow humans, in ways that nonfiction just can’t. It can evoke emotions, empathy and familiarity in a reader that a news story or biography can’t capture because it draws you directly into their world.

And it’s that part—the part where readers enter this fictional world to connect to characters they’ll never meet—that leads to the other power of fiction that many people overlook:

Fiction has the ability to help readers persevere.

How many people reading this have used books to get away from trouble in their lives? To take a breather from all their anxieties and stress, and dive head-first into this other world for just a moment, where nothing else matters? How many people reading this had their whole lives changed by reading a story where a character’s words resonated with them? Where it helped them come to an epiphany about how to do better, how to be better.

Sometimes, the world is too overwhelming and we need to escape it. That’s the beauty of fiction. It lets us go to a world where our problems just don’t matter. Even if the world in question is worse than our own, it can still be a relief and give us hope because hey, at least we’re not living in 1984 or the Hunger Games, right? Stories are what keeps many people going through the hardest time, what gives them hope that life isn’t utterly hopeless.

And even after a story is finished, whether it’s fan fiction, a book, a show, or any other medium, that story will have a special place in people’s hearts. Many people will go back to those stories years later when they’re faced with immense stress and need a break from the real world, so that they can dive into the world that helped them persevere the last time they felt so bad. Just having a copy of it on hand can be a source of comfort even if you never read it again.

I want to highlight one phrase Kurikuri used in her post to describe how people feel writing stories about police and heroes: "fun and escapist”. That’s honestly so accurate, those stories are escapist, and that is why I’m so conflicted.

Stories about superheroes, while technically revolving around themes of law enforcement, are a form of escapism FROM police corruption.

There’s a reason that superhero comics are so popular in America. Superheroes appeal to a natural desire for justice because as so aptly pointed out, the real world doesn’t always HAVE that justice. It gives an ideal for people to aspire to, a glimpse of what could be, what should be. (Come to think of it, that’s probably why I hate the DC cinematic universe so much, it’s skewed way too much to favor the villains/antagonists and maximize suffering for the good guys.)

Right now, the world is full of more injustice than ever before. I can’t turn on the news without feeling my rage and stress boil over. Every day it gets worse and worse somehow, and I (and many others) genuinely fear that the United States may be heading towards a civil war this November. Donald Trump’s voice alone is enough to make my blood boil at this point.

I, and many others, turn to fan fiction so I can break away from reality because that amount of rage and fear just isn’t healthy.

I don’t have depression, or anxiety, or an abusive family, or a chronic illness. I’m not at risk of being made homeless anytime soon, nor do I need to worry about bills right now or going hungry. I’m a privileged white girl who has barely anything to worry about. What I’m saying is I’m fucking lucky and I know it, but I STILL can’t stand thinking about the state of the world and need to get the fuck away from it to take a breather for my own mental health.

And I also know that many people don’t have that option because their situation is so bad, they NEED to be aware of it at all times.

In the past when writing for other fandoms, I’ve had people tell me my fan fiction was the reason they did not commit suicide.

In my early college years I fell into the creepypasta community and was pretty active in it, especially on deviantArt. I don’t know if that particular fandom’s subject and focus makes it more appealing to teenagers going through rough times or what, but I swear, more than half the people I spoke to suffered from some form of mental illness, abusive or broken family and home situations, bullying, and every other way the world can screw someone over through means beyond their control.

During that time, a few readers left comments that waiting for my stories to update were what kept them going. They didn’t explicitly say that it was the only reason they didn’t kill themselves. It was more just remarks like, “Your writing is the only thing keeping me going.”

I’m not vain enough to believe my stories are so good, it made people decide to continue living JUST to see what happens next. Suicidal thoughts and urges are much more complex than that. But it’s still not something you expect to hear on something you write for fun.

I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t because my stories were "just that good.” I think it was because they needed something to cling to in bleak times. That sometimes at the lowest point where all seems lost, people need just one little thought, just the smallest thing to push away those dark urges before they could fully overwhelm them. Something like, “If I die now, I won’t get to see how that story ends.” It’s such a small thing, but having something to look forward to can be so powerful in fighting off impulsive decisions.

It’s made me hyper-aware of just how powerful writing is.

To me, I see writing as a way of helping others. I give people that option for escape. It’s a large part of why I update on a regular, weekly schedule, and why I published extra chapters when the pandemic got announced and when the riots started. People need that comfort, that little break from reality to just sit and breathe so they can get through the rest of the day. I can’t do much to fix the world, but I can at least give people that.

Right now, people need that escape more than ever.

And deleting the stories is taking that escape away and causing MORE stress.

In times like this, people often turn to the stories they know will help most, and plenty of people in fandoms will first search up their favorite ships. They look for fluff, smut, angst... It helps people feel better to focus on these two people who are obviously in love as they work through their troubles.

Many times, readers will be more drawn to stories in the canon universe than radical AUs set in other universes. That’s how they were introduced to those characters. I myself can enjoy no-power and fantasy AUs sometimes, but what I really crave are how they interact in the canon world because that’s the world and versions of them I want to see the most. By deleting EVERY SINGLE STORY IN THE CANON UNIVERSE, that option was removed.

In many of the stories that were deleted, the characters’ careers were honestly a minor facet of the story. Some used it to establish the setting, such as treating injuries after a patrol. Some just simply used it to explain they work at UA, a school for teaching kids with superpowers. Some just had them work as heroes because it’s set in the canon universe, and never directly show ANTTHING about the work.

I’m not always looking for a story about how being a hero shapes and impacts their lives, and most of those stories that got deleted AREN’T about being a hero. That’s just one piece of their character, it’s far from the focal point. It could honestly be removed from several of them without changing the rest of the story.

I can get wanting to make a political point and I respect that, but by deleting those stories, you’ve taken away a key source of comfort from hundreds, thousands of people. By deleting the stories, you’re making the stress worse.

On Saturday night, I realized several of my favorite stories are suddenly gone. I knew Kurikuri had deleted a bunch of her stories, but I hadn’t realized just how many of them I liked. Some of them I’ve specifically sought out to reread multiple times in the past, never really paying attention to the author. Realizing they’re just gone caused me heavy stress because it made me paranoid about all these other stories I like to reread. I don’t expect those stories to be around forever, but I still didn’t expect them to vanish so suddenly. I never thought I’d need to download them to make sure I’d still be able to read them while the site is still up.

I spent hours searching out specific stories to see if they were written by her, and make sure they’re not gone forever. I have no way of knowing which ones she’d written and deleted because there’s not exactly a list out there anymore. My desperate search for those stories and one in particular (which I still haven’t found) contributed to the lack of sleep I got that night.

And I need to reiterate: I am mentally healthy and have no major stresses in my immediate life. And that’s why I’m hyper-aware of how this stress will affect people who AREN’T as lucky as I am.

If an author decides to delete their stories because they feel the stories themselves push harmful values or themes, fine. If they’re getting harassed, or it reminds them of a bad time in the lives, or they just don’t like that story anymore, okay. I can respect that and accept it.

But these stories were deleted for the EXACT reasons that people will be looking for them now more than ever, and that’s where I draw the line.

This applies to ALL fandoms.

If you as a fan fiction writer have more than, say, 100 kudos on a completed story or one-shot, there’s a good chance people will read and reread your story in stressful times. If you have a reasonably popular story that updates on a regular or even semi-regular basis, there is a chance that someone is using it as a lifeline to have something to look forward to while the rest of their lives go to hell. Maybe not because they specifically love it, but because it gives them something routine.

I want to make it clear that it’s not our job to care for other people’s mental health. Fan fiction writers don’t have an obligation to people, we’re doing it for fun first and foremost. We’re not some sort of saviors, and we shouldn’t think of ourselves that way or we can honestly screw people up worse. We’re not obligated to write these stories JUST for our fans.

At most, our stories are sources of support and comfort for readers. A little break from reality. If writing a story is causing you more stress than enjoyment, stop. Fan fiction, and all other fan media and stories in general, is ultimately created for the creator’s enjoyment more than anything.

Your own mental health comes first. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.

But with how utterly fucked and unfair the world is right now, people need those stories now more than ever. So if you’ve got a story out there that’s fairly popular, please, please, PLEASE be mindful of your readers before deciding to delete it. Now is the absolute last time people need more stress trying to find a single story. And if you’re going to delete it, maybe give readers a heads up so that those who need it or have some powerful attachment to it for all the reasons I’ve discussed here can download a copy for their own personal use.

Don’t hurt your readers to make a point.

#fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic #fandom #my hero academia fanfiction #boku no hero academia fanfic #kurikuri #letaizawarest #erasermic #maizawa #writing #stories #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #tw suicide #superhero #superheroes

[hollyethecurious]

1, 2 and 17 for the fanfic asks, if you haven't done those yet.

1. If you’re an author, how many WIPs do you currently have? (Be honest!)

Oh, man... okay. Currently, I have three posted wips (not including two that I might have given up on at this point??), but one is technically complete, I just haven’t posted the final chapter yet. 

I have three others in my current wips folder that I am actively working on any given day, and another nine in my backburner folder. 

This does not include the seven other docs in my concepts folders which represent fics that are only in the notes/idea phase.

So.. altogether... 22ish??

2. What’s next on your ‘to-read’ list? (Fan fiction or otherwise)

Just answered this one. My to-read list is criminal, but as soon as I get a chance to binge read I’m gonna start with the ones from the cssns and csmm I haven’t gotten to yet.

17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.

This one isn’t even in my concepts folder yet. It’s so new an idea that I haven’t made a doc for it. 

It comes from a convo in the Discord about S1 cursed Killian and even though I have tackled that trope already with @winterbaby89 when we wrote Dark Hook Comes to Storybrooke, it got the wheels turning.

When Killian met Nemo during the Dark Curse while he’s still “frozen” in the EF, things go slightly better then they did in canon. He gets the chance to make amends with Liam and the Younger and that experience is what sets him back on the path away from revenge and towards Good Form and being a man of honor. He declines Nemo’s offer to travel to the Land of Untold Stories, so the captain offers him something else. A magic bean. 

Having just set things right with one boy he’d wronged, Hook uses the bean to seek out the other. Baelfire. He arrives during the time where Neal is living in NYC during S1, and although Neal isn’t exactly thrilled to see him, they do manage to work things out and begin to form a bit of a friendship. A bit later, August arrives with news.

Things are changing. His leg has become wooden. He thinks the curse may be about to break, considering Emma’s 28th birthday has recently come and gone. He’s heading to Storybrooke and wants Neal to come along. During his visit Hook has a ton of questions and the whole story about Emma, from the wardrobe to abandoning her in prison, comes out and Hook insists they all go.

Instead of a strange man, with a strange box, riding into town astride a motorcycle, I give you three men sailing into SB harbor on a pirate ship with one goal in mind. 

Help the Savior break the curse, and face their pasts head on.

I guess this makes the answer to the first question a solid 23, huh?

#ask game #fanfic asks #my wips #tomeandflickcorner

[buzzdixonwriter]

The Four Gospels Of Sci-Fi

The “canon” of science fiction is in the news again in the wake of the recent Hugo awards, and since I’m nothing if not opinionated and I also want to load up my posting queue before diving into my next big project, this struck me as an apt topic to write on.

So settle back; we’re going to touch on the history of sci-fi, the influence of its old guard, how it pertains to religious literature, and perhaps even delve a little bit on Christianity itself at the end.

First off, a quick recap of Christian scripture for those who aren’t read up on the subject.  Vacation Bible School veterans can skip this part.

. . .

The foundational works in the Christian New Testament are the four gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The first three are referred to as the synoptic gospels because they tell basically the same story in the same beats, differing in style and detail, but essentially the same.

Mark is considered the oldest of the three and the primary source for Matthew and Luke (boy howdy! Am I ever streamlining a lot of Biblical scholarship here but bear with me; I’m doing this to make a point about sci-fi, not religion).

The common Christian reading of the three synoptic gospels are that Mark is the basic story, Matthew (because of its focus on Old Testament prophecies) was written with a Jewish audience in mind, Luke was written for gentiles.*

John is the gospel that sticks out.

To grossly oversimplify, the biggest difference is that the synoptic gospels mainly record what Jesus said and did, John focuses more on the who and why.

And that’s all we need to know at this moment…

. . .

The four gospels of sci-fi are Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury.

(Before we go further, let us stipulate this applies only to those who came to the genre prior to Star Wars -- indeed, an argument can be made it only applies to those who were fans before Star Trek.)

Sci-fi’s synoptic gospels are the oeuvre of Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke; Ray Bradbury is the oddball.

I say they are the synoptic gospels because truth be told, you can only tell them apart by style, not content, certainly not by point of view.

If all three exchanged story ideas and plot outlines, the end results would be different only in tone and vocabulary, not theme or character.

Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were all technically trained and worked professionally as engineers or chemists when not writing; Bradbury was a gosh-wow! fanboy.**

If Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury are the gospels of sci-fi, their John the Baptist was another John:  John W. Campbell

Campbell is a problematic figure in sci-fi, so let’s just get him out of the way ASAP.

He was a good but not outstanding writer, but when you write “Who Goes There?” (basis of the various film versions of The Thing From Another World) you’ve earned your place at the table.

He was a visionary editor and under his helm Astounding / Analog set the gold standard for sci-fi for decades to come.

He was a white supremacist of the paternalistic bent, and while on the one hand that’s better than being an outright hate monger, on the other it’s more insidious since it presupposes a correct worldview without challenging that assumption.

He was a male chauvinist of the same stripe, not particularly open to female writers but willing to publish the occasional story with a female protagonist…written by a male.

He was a crank who believed a bunch of goofball ideas, from psionics (ESP, telekinisis, etc.) to dowsing to the Dean Drive to the Hieronymus Machine (a device so wonderous that even a schematic drawing of it would work!).***

Campbell by all accounts was not a bad individual and the field is still replete with those who knew and loved him, but like the cranky patriarch**** who refuses to divulge the contents of their will, forcing everyone in the family to kowtow to them, Campbell’s position atop the highest paying / most prestigious market in science fiction shaped much of the genre around him.  (Full disclosure:  One of the greatest highlights in my writing career was finally placing a story in Analog after fifty years of trying!)

Writers would typically aim at Astounding / Analog first, and failing to sell there, the Campbell rejects would start a long, laborious trudge down the stairs to the cheaper markets.

This held true even in the 1950s when sci-fi magazines of a more literary bent (Fantasy & Science Fiction and Galaxy in the US, New Worlds in the UK) started attracting stories written for them, not Campbell hand-me-downs.

As Jeannette Ng observed in her acceptance speech for the 2019 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer*****:  “Through his editorial control of Astounding Science Fiction, [Campbell] is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day.  Sterile.  Male.  White.  Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists.”

Campbell’s absolute faith in science and technology to solve all our problems (including the ones created by science and technology) while ignoring the very real problems that plague humanity since time immemorial (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride) coupled with his prime market position led to a genre that unquestionably accepted those settings as the only viable ones.

Campbell certainly held more direct sway over the writings of Heinlein and Asimov than he did Clarke, but Clarke’s earliest sci-fi sales were to Astounding and nothing he wrote in his first decade as a writing professional fell outside the big cushy box Campbell crafter for the genre.

And even though Heinlein and Asimov broke off for cushier writing gigs elsewhere (Heinlein in novels, Asimov mostly as a popular science promoter), they remained steadfastly loyal and respectful -- as did Clarke -- to the ends of their lives.

And on a personal, individual level, that’s a good thing -- we all need friends who will stick by us.

But Bradbury never got invited to the party.

Which is not to say he didn’t try to crack Astounding -- he did, on four occasions, two of them humorous short-shorts for the magazine’s “Probability Zero” feature, one run of the mill magic-shop-disguised-as-super-science-store tale sold in the middle of WWII when Campbell’s best writers were on active duty, and the last in 1950 when he was no longer Ray Bradbury, fanboy, but Ray Bradbury, Important American Writer!!! and Campbell published an excerpt from The Martian Chronicles.******

. . .

We’re going to take a sidebar here to discuss one of Al Ries’ immutable laws of branding.

Ries long observed there are only two models for any brand category:

A single dominant top brand with a distant second place competitor then a host of niche brands (Microsoft then Apple then everybody else)

Two big rivals fighting for first place with a competitor placing a distant third then a host of niche brands (Coke vs Pepsi with RC Cola trailing third then everybody else)

The way to break through in branding is not to waste time and effort trying to knock out a dominant brand but to create a new category to dominate!

That’s what Bradbury did in the late 1940s and early 1950s:  He stopped aping the default Campbell / Astounding style and began writing more lyrical / less techno-focused sci-fi.

Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were no dummies and soon they too branched out more consciously to mainstream audiences.

But as successful as they were, none of them ever fully shook the influence Campbell weighed down upon them.

That is why telling people today they must read the old masters results in eyerolls.

Too often the old masters trafficked in cleverness, not as Faulkner observed “the human heart in conflict with itself.”

Heinlein managed to transcend the genre a few times, but finding the gems in his work requires a lot of effort.  

Clarke remains dry and antiseptic:  it speaks volumes that his best known character is HAL 9000.

And Asimov just isn’t that goof in either concept or execution.  His Three Laws of Robotics demonstrates a failure of nerve and imagination:  Humans won’t build robots programmed not to harm humans because the first thing humans will make robots do it kill other human beings!

So there’s our canon: Mostly irrelevant, often impenetrable. 

The last author standing is the least technology oriented of the lot and Bradbury’s stories continue to work and delight because he doesn’t lecture on weights and measures but allows the reader to imagine along with him.

. . .

Okay, short Christian content now; if you came just for the sci-fi you can either stop reading or skip ahead to the footnotes.

Any field of human endeavor that does not constantly re-examine itself and challenge previous assumptions is doomed to irrelevance.

This does not mean established works need to be rejected out of hand, but we do need to ask what those works mean to us right now.

Truth is indeed timeless, but the package has a sell-by date and the contents do no one any good if they aren’t periodically taken down from the shelf and examined.

Modern Christianity -- in particular mainstream American protestantism -- has failed to closely examine the contents for quite some time.

While the field of sci-fi brims over with exciting new voices, we’re still straining to listen to the cracked / garbled / low fidelity wax cylinders of theologians long dead.

We need fewer Christians.   We desperately need better Christians.

Instead of demanding those outside or struggling with the faith must read things the way we were taught to read them, understand them the way we were taught to understand them, follow along the way we were taught to follow along, perhaps we should show faith in the material and let those who will read and re-imagine the text in the light of their own experience a fair hearing.

The old canon in sci-fi fails today because it is too dated, too rooted in the mindset of a bygone era.  The exception -- Bradbury (he himself a Christian and it shows in his stories) -- stays vibrant and alive and appealing because he doesn’t tell us what to think, he walks with us as we discover things for ourselves.

  © Buzz Dixon

  *  Acts Of The Apostles is a sequel to Luke and while Jesus appears briefly in the beginning in almost a flashback fashion, that book focuses on what his disciples did afterwards.

** An interesting trait Bradbury shared with Harlan Ellison was that despite their fanboy origins, both were one helluva lot more savvy to the business of writing and publishing than anyone else in the genre, and both skillfully created public personas that served them well (Bradbury’s better than Ellison’s, granted) while they guided their careers through the treacherous shoals of gatekeepers and public fancies.  Bradbury has written of his fanboy epiphany when he asked himself if he was satisfied being a fan / autograph hound or if he really wanted to be a creator, and immediately began directing his career in a fashion that could only be described as ruthless were it not attached to such a charming gentleman.  Wannabees are urged to study his career and how he did it if they want to be truly remembered.

***  All well and good as fodder for sci-fi stories, not so good in reality.  As the movie They Might Be Giants states:  “[Don Quixote] carried it a bit too far.  He thought that every windmill was a giant.  That's insane.  But, thinking that they might be... well… all the best minds used to think the world was flat. — But, what if it isn't? — It might be round — and bread mold might be medicine.  If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we'd all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.”

**** To stretch our Biblical analog to the breaking point, if Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury are the New Testament gospels and John W. Campbell is John the Baptist, then sci-fi’s Old Testament has patriarchs such as Swift, Verne, and Wells plus the matriarch Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, a major prophet in Hugo Gernsback, and a host of minor prophets in various pre-WWII niche media including comics.

*****  An acceptance speech which in turn won a 2020 Hugo for Best Related Work -- how cool is that? ******  Basically, Bradbury was perceptive enough to recognized he turned a creative corner in 1944 with “The Lake” and broadened his submission range to include far more prestigious slick magazines such as The American Mercury and Mademoiselle and Collier’s and The New Yorker and when tipped off that Warner Bros. planned to plagiarize “The Foghorn” as the basis for The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms he didn’t waste time or money suing but sweetly judo leverage this to get his name prominently displayed on the movie posters as “Ray Bradbury…Saturday Evening Post” writer and then holy %#@& he was a Major American Writer!  I loved Ray, but his gosh-wow sweet exterior camouflaged one of the most brilliant strategists I’ve ever met.

#science fiction #sci-fi #Robert A- Heinlein #Isaac Asimov #Arthur C Clarke #Ray Bradbury #John W Campbell #Christianity

[erintoknow]

everything and nothing

Spiraling - A Fallen Hero: Rebirth Fan-fiction

Funding a one-woman revenge mission isn’t cheap. You might work for free but Rosie doesn’t. Or Mortum. Or Marcie. The list goes on. [Feed Me Diamonds]

[Read on AO3]

It was the incident at Joes that gave you the initial idea: you need money to fund your operation. And where is flush with – conveniently untraceable – funds, but Los Diablos’s criminal underground?

Using Jane’s luck to gamble your way through the casino circuit would be suicide. She’d end up in a ditch or worse. But you don’t need to. You’ve got a state-of-the-art power armor suit.

In a way, it’s a return to the old days, to being Sidestep. You could never manage to hold down a job back then, but the guilt over skimming kept you from being able to afford much of anything. So, you know, occasionally when busting a villain’s lair or rounding up drug dealers, maybe some of their funds were… misplaced. It was either that or starve.

Or worse, admit your situation to somebody and ask for help.

But it wasn’t really stealing, was it? The money was probably wrongfully gotten to begin with. And it’s not like the city paid vigilantes.

Whatever. You were stealing the whole time. You can admit it to yourself now. It doesn’t matter who it was from. It was still theft. You’ve always been a liar and a fraud. Those last moments before throwing yourself out a fourth-story window crystalized it for you. People lauding Sidestep as some sort of ‘hero’ when she was barely any better than the people she beat up. She just stuck to the government approved list of acceptable targets.

But if you did it before, you can do it again. You know who the real villains are, and it’s not Larry Ray selling weed at the corner of Market Street.

Once more now, with feeling.

Check the seal on your helmet. The Rat-King curls around you. Paul Howard Koch’s penthouse is in the heart of the city. Technically not inside the bounds of Los Diablos proper itself. More a richie-rich enclave. Great view, above the air pollution, slightly less likely to die in a horrific one-two earthquake/tsunami punch.

To his neighbors on the floors above and below, Mr. Koch is a reclusive retired businessman who made his fortune in the early days of the chaos following the establishment of the Free Economic Zone over southern California. Back when anything really did fly.

And maybe there’s a truth in that.

Or maybe he’s just a self-hyped boost with magnetic powers with the audacity to hide in plain sight who robbed a bunch of banks and also maybe the Rangers HQ one time and okay okay fine, maybe there’s an element of revenge to tonight, so what?

Start with the small ones.

Work your way up.

Getting inside is easy enough. It reminds you of Marconi’s mansion that way. Amazing how much security is just theatre. Wall? Climb over. Guards? Walk between the patrols. CCTV? Oh, what a shame, the woman watching fell asleep at her desk, and oh, the whole system needs to be rebooted now? Technology these days, tsk tsk.

The building doesn’t even have dampeners.

Closing the door to the camera room, you let your hand linger on the doorknob. It takes some finesse to control the Nanovores this tightly but you’re able to collapse the mechanism. They’ll have to break the door down.

You’ve got two targets today. Koch, and his fortune. You know where Koch is. He’s up in his bedroom, half-asleep watching TV. Play the right notes, and he’ll stay that way until you need him.

So, then, where’s the goods?

It’s been, what, a decade since Pennybags was active. Had a big spree robbing banks, culminating in an attack on Rangers HQ. You were – Sidestep was still pretty new to the scene, but even she knew it took some guts to pants the Rangers like that. And then he was never heard from again.

Almost have to admire the restraint of the man. To realize he peaked and it was time to get out. Can’t say it’s an example you intend to follow.

The penthouse is a split-level deal. Whole lot of empty space for a man who lives alone. The second floor and you find his office. Very fancy looking computer. And of course, there’s the password in the middle drawer. Man’s gotten lax. You plug in a USB stick as you log in. Search through the files. Records, transactions. Looks like Mr. Koch has been busy in his ‘retirement.’ Blackmail material? Not the pile of cash you were aiming for but it’s something to start with. Another crack in the city’s shell. Another point of attack.

One file name catches your attention: Regenerator sale? It’s been awhile since you’ve gotten a lead on that name, and here it is. Just waiting for you. Opening the file and it’s a text document. At first glance there doesn’t seem to be much you don’t already know. PharmaCore, shut down by the government, confiscated, then ‘vanished.’ Oh, here’s something new: an actual description of what it does…

Ugh. There’s no time to stand here and parse all this. You copy everything that looks even remotely promising and move on to the rest of the room.

An oddly spaced bookshelf, by the window, draws your attention. Push the texts away and there’s a safe. Have to smile at that. At least it’s not behind a portrait. The metal melts into dust under the Nanovores and you’re free to reach inside. A gun, some rolled up hundred dollar bills and a collection of black unmarked USB looking bits of plastic and silicon.

Jackpot.

DS Chips. Or ‘Dark Script’ if you want to be wordy. Criminal computer scientists are disappointingly lacking in imagination. Physical bills can be traced by serial number, and digital transactions through bank and credit systems. Cryptocurrencies like these DS chips are the current fashion du jour for avoiding surveillance.

The exchanges aren’t cheap, and Hollow Ground keeps a tight grip on Los Diablos’s little corner. But attach a ‘wallet’ to a specific chip and you carry thousands of dollars in a little box of plastic and silicone smaller than your palm.

That’s business sorted then.

Time for the pleasure half.

When you reach the bedroom, you don’t need to kick the door in. The hinges disintegrate into dust and it falls over, all on it’s own. The crash against the floor breaks Koch out of his stupor. With a cry of alarm he scrambles to his feet, tripping on his own night robe.

“Evening, Pennybags.”

“Who the blazes let you in here?” His heart is pounding. Scenarios running through his mind. Scrambling for an answer. Really? You’d have expected someone a little more paranoid.

You fold your hands behind your back. Nod towards the door. “I did.”

He narrows his eyes, not seeing the humor. Oh well, his loss.

You’re on him before he can even finish his thought about using his power on you. Is enough of the suit metal for it to be a problem? You’re not sure and you’d rather not find out. His head cracks against the wall as you shove him up off the ground with an arm against his neck.

You tap your head. “Don’t even think about it.”

He doesn’t stop struggling. Bare feet kicking against your armor. Up close he doesn’t look as old as you pictured. Bald, sure. But… how old is he? Maybe he just has one of those faces. “You’re–” He wheezes, “you’re going to regret this.”

He’s already plotting your death. Cute. Have to laugh. “I’ll add it to the list.”

...now what are you going to do?

Maybe you should have thought of that before barging in here.

You press against his neck a little harder. Not enough to choke him, but to give you some room to think.

“Alright… Here’s what’s going to happen,” You growl, lacing your words with a telepathic push. An urgency to be followed.

It’s not mind control, not technically.

Just a push.

You’re not even going to make him jump out a window.

–––

You don’t need to hear the stomping of boots in the hallway to know your time is almost up. You drop Koch to the floor. “Consider what we’ve talked about tonight.” Walking over to his desk, you rip off a piece of his day planner and turn it over. Write out the list of instructions.

Three simple suggestions. They’re in his own best interest, really.

You return to him, holding the paper out to take. He hesitates so you reach into his mind and give him a push before stepping away. By the time the riot police show up the scrap paper is gone, inside his pocket. You watch the police fill the other end of the room, shields up and guns drawn. The idiots. They’ll kill Koch if they shoot like this.

You don’t see or sense any of the Rangers.

That’s fine with you, if maybe a little strange. The man in charge steps forward, hand on the trigger finger. “Ghost, you’re under arrest. We have you surrounded.” You don’t need to read his mind to know from the look on his face and the way he’s holding his gun that he’s seriously regretting coming in to work tonight. What does the LDPD think they’re doing? They’re no match for you. Sure, you aren’t immune to bullets, but when has that ever stopped you?

You reach out to the captain’s mind and coax him to lower his gun before he sets off the whole room. “Ghost?” You fake a laugh, the distortion hollowing it out, then say innocently, “Don’t know anyone by that name.”

You crouch down, bracing yourself, placing a hand on the floor. You’ll only have a second before the tension of the situation wakes them up again. “More of a Banshee.” There’s a moment where it seems like nothing is going to happen and then the Nanovores eat a hole in the floor directly beneath you, dropping you down. You grunt, letting the armor absorb most of the shock, though the landing still plays hell on your knees. Going to regret that in the morning.

Above you the room erupts in shouts of alarm and someone fires their gun, setting off another gunshot, then another. You grimace in frustration and, telepathically reach back up to give them a metaphorical shake of the shoulders. You can’t have them killing your new informant.

You break into a run, following your thread to the nearest elevator shaft and breaking the door open with a mixture of force and Nanovores. As you make your escape sliding down the elevator cable you can’t help humming a few bars aloud as you try to steady your nerves.

The chittering of the Rat-King creates an accompaniment in the back of your head.

It’s getting scary just how comfortable with this life you’re starting to get.

Hitting the basement level you barely manage to clear the doors when Lady Argent is on you, all knives and quicksilver. Her claws dig into your arm before you’re able to get her to back off with an uppercut to the head. Argent flexes her jaw and gives you a predatory grin. “I had a feeling I’d find you down here Ghost.”

You study her face, waiting for a sign of any sudden movement. Getting out predicted like this is embarrassing but you need to save the over-analysis for when a woman capable of opening you up like a can-opener isn’t staring you down. You’ve got to reassert control of the situation. You make sure to put an edge to your voice, “It’s Banshee now. If you’re going to play lap dog, at least remember to fill in the incident report form correctly this time.”

Her eyes widen and then Argent leans down, her grin deepening into a scowl. “Ugh. I don’t care,” and she moves in.

Can feel your heart in your throat as the two of you exchange blows. When you try to slide past her, Lady Argent is ready for you, raking claws against the side of your armor, trying to find a point of purchase to pry you apart. Grab her wrist and pull her down on top of you. It’s a stupid move, and you pay for it with razor filings running down your sides but because it’s stupid she doesn’t expect it and you’re able to knee her in the gut and kick her away.

You hate fighting Argent in enclosed spaces like this. It’ll be a game of attrition as to whether you can get away before she can land a clean hit. The two of you are back to circling each other when you bump up against a support pillar.

Maybe….? You mentally check your map.

You’ll need to stall Argent. “So, what was your plan, if I went a different route?” As you talk you rest your hand on the concrete pillar beside you, coaxing the Nanovores to get to work. “Not a good look, hiding in a basement.”

Lady Argent narrows her eyes, “The Handyman’s watching the front door.”

“He’s out of the hospital now?” You sigh. “Are you really that eager to put him back in there?”

There’s a shark-toothed grin and the distinct feeling that she’s sizing you up. “You’re awfully concerned for being the bastard that put him there.”

“Healthcare’s not cheap in this city. Should we hold a fundraiser for him?” You give a theatrical flip of your free hand. “Any suggestions?” Too flippant? You’re never really sure how to approach Argent.

There’s always the temptation; in the back of your head. Let her know who you are, what you’ve done. See if she’ll kill you. But you always end up holding back. Why is that? You don’t understand yourself.

“My only ‘suggestion’ is bringing you to justice.” She keeps her focus trained on you, ready for the moment you make a move. Part of you is surprised she’s still letting you talk. Is backup on the way? That’s not Argent’s style.

“That’s a good thought about justice.” You rap your armored fingers against the pillar, testing to see if it’s hollowed out yet. “But who gets to decide what justice is?”

Would Argent feel bad, if she did kill you? Or would it just make things worse for her? How do you atone for something like this? Is revenge justice? Is it really enough to just make someone hurt?

You used to be sure.

“I liked you better when you didn’t talk.”

You tsk. “Oh and now you’re hurting my feelings?” You can’t keep operating like this. Need to compartmentalize better. Remember the goal. Remember revenge. The damage to Argent is done. Don’t fuck this up and make it be in vain.

Argent eyes your hand, still pressed to the pillar, and growls. “What are you up to?”

“Are you talking about, in general or just right now?” You smirk under your helmet. “Care to find out?” You push hard against the concert. The stone breaks like glass and the ceiling sags from the sudden lack of support, tiles crashing down around you. You jump backwards as the ceiling starts to give in.

No time for any last-minute taunts. You book it for the sewer entrance before Argent can realize the whole building isn’t going to collapse.

In the back of your head, she's still there, watching through the dust.

Smile like a shark.

Reminding.

---

“So, this isn’t what I had planned on talking about; but you’ll never guess what happened last night.” Ortega looks at you, leaning in, an edge to her smile. The two of you are meeting for an early lunch before heading up to the Children’s Hospital again.

You’d half a mind to order something alcoholic, but resisted. Instead, you’re watching Ortega over the rim of your milkshake, straw in your mouth. “Mm?”

“You remember Pennybags?”

You drum the side of the glass with your fingers, making a show of thinking back. “The magnetic guy?”

Ortega nods. “Yeah. Big bank robber, stole a bunch of things from the old Rangers HQ too, remember?”

You nod, grimacing. “Yeah, that was a mess.” Of course you remember. One of the few times you had actually seen Julia really upset. The first time actually. Didn’t know what to do, how to handle it. Ortega was always so confident, so in control of herself and the situation all the time. And there she was, tears and snot yelling at cardboard boxes about failing and… you did the only thing you could think of to do.

“Well, did you see the news this morning?” Ortega’s excitement pulls you back to the present. She leans in further over the table.

You sit back, shaking your head. “I was a little busy last night.” You wince, “This morning. I mean. Uh.” Shit shit shit. “Well. Both? Long night. Working.” You shrug, try to keep your face blank.

Ortega tilts her head, side-eyeing you. “Yeah, I still need to ask you about that job of yours.” She waves it off with a hand. “Anyway, Banshee made a mess again. North end of Beverly Hills this time.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Was anyone hurt?” You bite your lip, looking away. “Did… um. Did anyone else…?”

You know Banshee didn’t kill anyone last night. But…

Don’t breathe, don’t relax until Ortega shakes her head, “One guy had some minor injuries, but that’s it.”

Oh thank god. “That’s a relief.” You match Ortega’s smile, swipe a fry from the basket in front of her.

“I’m more convinced than ever that Marconi’s murder was something else.”

“That’s…” You look away, watch the window, fingers worrying the fry in your hand. Shit. What do you say to that? Fuck fuck fuck. “If you say so.” You look back at her. Need to push this conversation along before she can think about that response. “So, uh, are you just this excited that no one was hurt or did the Rangers finally bring Banshee in, or – or what?”

“No, they got away. Again.” Ortega gives you a curious look, eyes flickering down to the fry in your hand and then back up to your face. With an air of deliberate purpose, you put the fry in your mouth. She politely doesn’t say anything.

“So then…?”

“You’ll never guess.”

You shrug, steal another fry. “Okay.”

She frowns. “Don’t be a spoilsport.”

You keep your face blank, only raising an eyebrow as you silently eat your ill-gotten prize.

“Fine.” She huffs. “The guy Banshee attacked, the one that had to go to the hospital… It’s Pennybags. Bastard was hiding under our noses the whole time.”

“Money’s a pretty good cover.”

“Believe me, I’m wildly aware.” The tired expression on Ortega’s face is only there for a brief second and then it’s gone. “He practically turned himself in. It was… kind of creepy, actually. Reading the report.”

You swallow, goosebumps on the back of your neck. “Creepy?”

“Like he felt… compelled.” Ortega jabs a fry in your direction. “You’re the expert, what do you think? Can telepathy force a confession like that?”

“Ortega…” You make yourself meet her eyes. “You’re as much of an expert as me, at uh, at this point. M–maybe more.”

“Maybe.” She meets your gaze. “But I want to know what you think.”

Goddamnit, why does she keep doing this?

You focus on the basket of fries instead, it’s safer. “It’s… possible.” You concede. Would it be better to lie? It already feels like you’re lying about so much. It’s better to minimize the amount of bullshit you have to keep track of. “How are you… sure it’s a confession, and not like… uh, a delusion or something? False suggestion?”

“Yeah, that’s fair. That was my first assumption but uh…” She lowers her voice. “We uh, we found some stuff when searching the apartment. The signed Marshall Hood figure Pennybags stole actually…”

“Oh.” You say. You hadn’t expected her to actually talk about this.

“I… don’t really have a lot left of him. I thought I’d lost that one for good.”

“I remember.” You remember seeing the front door of its hinges, running through wrecked room after room, finding an alarmingly sobbing Ortega.

The first time you willingly hugged someone.

“There’s maybe five people who know about that figure, Ari, and two of them are dead now.” Ortega’s voice is quiet, her hand on the table balled into a fist.

“Do…” You fish for an idea, “do you think they’re trying to send you a message?”

Ortega looks you straight in the face, half-eaten hamburger now completely forgotten. You wish she wouldn’t. “A message? For what?”

You look back, willing yourself not to look away, not to look guilty. “I don’t know… I mean, it’s no secret you and Hood were close, is it?”

The look on Ortega’s face only intensifies. “You think maybe it was a threat?”

Your face blanches, and you shake your head. This is not at all going how you thought it would. “I’m not in this game anymore, remember?” You shrug your shoulders theatrically, “for all I know it could be a love letter.” You freeze. Face threatening warmth. Oh god. What the fuck, Ariadne?

The absurdity of the idea gets a laugh out of Ortega and you both relax. “Mierda,” she shakes her head. “That’s a hell of a way to send a letter.”

You steal another fry. She lets you.

#fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero fanfic #fanfiction #fhr/Ariadne

[queensbrother]

interview tag!

rules: answer the questions and tag 20 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better!

tagged by @baguettemagiqu7 thank you!! c:

- nickname: cass 

- pronouns: she/her

- star sign: capricorn

- height: 5′5″/168cm

- time currently: i started this at 6:16pm, went and made dinner then stared at the last question for ages so it’s 9:24pm now

- when is your birthday: january 13

- favorite bands/groups:  oh god um?? recently i’m not so sure? maybe dnce? bastille? otherwise if i look waaay back there’s always... linkin park... fall out boy... mcr... lol 

- favorite solo artists: according to my spotify thing last year it was shawn mendes lmao (maybe avicii for real though :( ...also does he count as a solo artist?) 

- song stuck in your head: i’m listening to music rn so it’s whatever’s playing in my playlist. so at this moment: kryptonite by rymez/james arthur 

- last movie watched: the end of the new mortal kombat because my parents had it on and i can’t remember the last movie i watched in full before that OH WAIT it might have been the untamed - fatal journey 

- last show you binged: what we do in the shadows

- when you created your blog: according to postlimit.com........... september 2010 LMAO (i mean i kind of took a break for a couple years tbf but still) 

- last thing you googled: “when did i start my tumblr blog” (also "dream burger" because i saw something on my dash today)   

- other blogs: tbh i don’t really update them anymore besides @arogueelf occasionally? but i GUESS @shakarian is the only real “active” one i have (though it’s just a queue of reblogs that comes out like once a day haha)

- why you chose your url: queensbrother is like a sort of title given to uldren sov in destiny lore sooo (and it was between this or bastarion and as much as i’d like an astarion related url i am not a huge fan of that one lol) 

- do you get asks: not really! the last time i got some was when i wasn’t really using tumblr but now it’s a bit awkward to answer them :x but i will try to answer any new ones??

- how many people are you following: 303 

- how many followers do you have: i’ve had this blog for over a decade apparently and i’m sure most people are like gone but it’s uh 1436 :x also im sorry if you ever followed me for one of my old fandoms

- average hours of sleep: 3-5 lol 

- lucky number: 6 or 17

- instruments: i wanted to learn to play guitar once upon a time 

- what I’m currently wearing: a yellow dress 

- dream job: video game story/lore/character writing would be really cool 

- dream trip: europe!! or japan! basically where i wanted to go for my honeymoon but we didn’t get a chance to. maybe one day~

- favorite food: cheeseburgers 

- favorite song: of all time? probably iris by the goo goo dolls 

- top three fictional universes you’d like to live in: hmm this is hard! like animal crossing would be great, and actually i’d be down to live in the last city/destiny-verse (but as a guardian so technically i’d be undead haha) and... i genuinely have no idea. like my brain is like “faerun?” because what else have i been thinking of lately? but i feel like faerun is kind of a mess? but i could learn magic and there are elves so that’s neat? but there are also monsters everywhere and i feel like there’s always some cataclysmic event happening somewhere so i don’t know if it would be ideal. maybe TAZ Balance’s version would be kind of nice?

TAGGING: 20 people is so many... uhh @ocheeva and @dalish-spectre​ if you want? ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

#tag meme #sorry i wrote so much here omg

[afoolforatook]

A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....

Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse.  So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain. 

I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could.  That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed. 

And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours.  Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness. 

The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely. 

The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me. 

To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling.  Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others. 

With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself. 

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.  

That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them. 

In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents.  While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again. 

 But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall. 

Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open. 

Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.

On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.

The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy. 

Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?  

Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment. 

There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work. 

But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to. 

The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died. 

But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that?  So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad. 

Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD.  I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t?  I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed. 

But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her. 

My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do. 

I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again.  Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY). 

This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things. 

So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself.  Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)  

And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love. 

And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c.  I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.

Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed. 

There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support.   And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow. 

And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay.  Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover.  And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty.  There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it. 

I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope. 

And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away. 

And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.

It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile. 

It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot?  If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor. 

I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there. 

I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me. 

Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?

If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)

And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.

And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you.  And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless. 

And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.

Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.  

This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them. 

In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life. 

I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it.  I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces?  I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it. 

There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?” 

But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true. 

And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma. 

The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently.  My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.

RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.

RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try. 

A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important. 

And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic. 

But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm. 

Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.

Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do. 

I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that. 

I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us. 

That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor. 

And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing. 

And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid. 

Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death,  they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own. 

This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.

I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that. 

It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends

It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them.  I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain. 

This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still. 

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can. 

#rwby spoilers #rwby7 #rwby v7 #rwby #fairgame #fair game #rwby volume 7 #qrow #rwby v7 spoilers #rwby v7 e12 #qrow branwen #clover ebi #clover deserved better #qrow x clover #really scared to post this #was gonna get a few people to edit for me #but then it got so long and late #and didn't feel like asking them to do that with such little time #since I wanted to post before the finale #so hopefully there's nothing awful here I've overlooked #this probably wont even get much attention #if any #especially cause it's so stupidly long #ooof sorry about that #really #I just needed to vent and.... #Emma #grief #mine

[iwouldfuckantisepticeye]

You need to tone down the nsfw content on this blog, and any other blogs in your little 'community'. Minors look through these tags. Mark and Sean both look through these tags, and they've expressed not liking nsfw content derived from them. This is morally reprehensible as you snd your mod friends are sexualizing demonic worship, both detestable topics, but together, damning. Your little community of sinners needs to refrain from posting anything else lewd. Kindly calm yourselves.

I... okay. This is going to be fun. Let’s break this down bit by bit, shall we?1. Tumblr is a place where N/S/F/W content is (supposed to be) banned. Images, fanart, etc. are not permitted on this site. However, written content of N/S/F/W variety is not (and has never been) banned. Therefore, you have no right to come tell us what to do at all concerning that topic.

2. We’re well aware that minors look through this tag, but just as minors look through P*rnhub, there’s only so much we can do concerning that topic. We tag every single thing on this blog with the appropriate (and clearly stated) tags as to not expose anyone to N/S/F/W or triggering content that they don’t want to see. We do this specifically so people that don’t want to see that content can filter it out clearly and easily. Also... it’s called iwouldfuckantisepticeye. It’s quite obviously going to have that content on it. If you don’t wish to see it, simply block us and move on. It’s not that difficult. We understand that some people get squicked out by that content. Seriously, do whatever you need to to not expose yourself to what you don’t want to see, but that does not give you the right to tell us what to do on our own blog.

3. We’re aware that Mark and Sean have said that they dislike being exposed to N/S/F/W content concerning themselves. This is why we

Don’t allow submissions concerning the actual people (i.e. submissions about actual Mark or Jack are immediately deleted)

Don’t post fanart to our blog, as that would technically be their bodies

Don’t use the actual #Markiplier or #Jacksepticeye tags, as that’s what they most likely look through. They haven’t given us a list of the tags they go through, so there’s no way to effectively filter out ever single tag they might look at.

We’re all fans of Mark and Jack here (Mark being my actual personal hero, inspiration, and quite frankly, the reason I’m still alive to be writing this). We would never do anything that we actively knew was hurting them, and to be honest, the implication that we would pisses me off more than your demands.

4. “This is morally reprehensible as you and your mod friends are sexualizing demonic worship, both detestable topics, but together, damning. Your little community of sinners needs to refrain from posting anything else lewd. Kindly calm yourselves.”

I... Morally reprehensible? Really? This... this entire thing reads like my old Mormon bishop found my Tumblr and is trying to bring me back to The Light of God™. We run blogs of fictional characters where people can send N/S/F/W and NOT N/S/F/W submissions. And you know what? I’ll admit, I don’t know/follow Jack as much as I do Mark. If you can send me a link to where he said he doesn’t want people making any N/S/F/W content of him or his egos, I’ll change my stance on this. I’ll change this specific blog (the only Jack-related one we have) to be SFW only, and delete all N/S/F/W content from this blog. But until then, don’t come at me and the community we’ve built here based on what looks like you trying to force your religious beliefs down my throat.

I’m a bisexual, feminist, mixed-race, ex-Mormon pagan that spends her time actively fighting against the societal force of any religion onto others. If we want to talk religion, let’s talk.

#Mod L #Mod Talk #discourse