#to the people who do like my posts fairly regularly

[wanderingmind867]

I don't want to be neurotic or insecure or anything, but I'm worrying nobody (or next to nobody) has seen my posts. And that's upsetting, because I've probably made at least 5-6 new posts today. So for my own peace of mind, can you tell me that you've seen my posts today. At least people saw them will make me a tiny bit better. I'll probably still end up wishing my posts had more notes, leading to me futilely reposting the same thing over and over. That seems to be a trend with me.

#less of my posts get zero notes now #but even still a bit of insecurity remains #so i felt I had to make another post about it #to the people who do like my posts fairly regularly #this isn't directed at you (at least not very much) #It's just me being #neurotic #insecure #neuroticism #insecurity #insecurities #autism #asd #neurodivergent #autistic #adhd #my thoughts #overthinking #audhd #actually autistic #vent

[theminecraftbee]

so, you've been considering getting into hermitcraft.

that's great! welcome! we are an extremely enthusiastic fandom, i admit, but we are very happy to have you watching the hermits! however, with over a decade of existence and twenty-seven current hermits, it can feel very intimidating to get into hermitcraft. luckily, as of the time of this posting--january 31st, 2024--it's also the BEST time to get into hermitcraft, because a new season starts on february 3rd! (and if you're reading this later: don't worry. this is ALSO the best time to get into hermitcraft. don't worry about it i'll get into that.)

the shortest version of this advice is: start wherever you want, with whoever you want. it doesn't matter, you can catch up.

still, it can seem like a lot. so, from someone who's been around since mid season seven, here is a more detailed guide on how to start watching hermitcraft!

what is hermitcraft?

hermitcraft is a collection of people who all play on the same survival multiplayer minecraft server. that server is a mostly vanilla minecraft server; i don't really call hermitcraft "vanilla" anymore, as they rely on a number of largely cosmetic mods, but the things they do on hermitcraft should, broadly, all be possible in vanilla minecraft, and the server still "feels" vanilla, so. vanilla minecraft. they do this in "seasons", which are periods of time between a year and two years, after which they reset and start on a fresh server.

in comparison to something like qsmp or even the life series, hermitcraft leans heavily on the "building cool things and hanging out" side of the spectrum as opposed to the roleplay side. however, at least once a season the hermits like to do a big storyline; sometimes, it's more frequent. many of the storylines are more natural escalations of things like server prank wars or a failing server economy, though, as opposed to things that are clearly in-universe roleplaying. don't worry, though; you'll know a hermitcraft storyline when you see it. by everyone's bad acting. also, by rendog putting on a silly accent.

if your only impression of hermitcraft has been from the fandom, you... probably have a somewhat mistaken impression. my bad. in my defense, i am a horror writer at heart, and in the fandom's defense, a LOT of crossover has happened with the life series fandom, which leads to both sort of leaking into each other. in general, expect things to be on the lighthearted goofy shenanigans side with very few exceptions when you're actually watching hermitcraft, despite the way the fandom tends to be.

where is hermitcraft?

broadly, youtube! hermitcraft is an almost entirely video series, and if you want to watch a hermitcrafter, you will almost certainly need to watch them on youtube. there are only very rarely streamed hermitcraft events, and these are normally announced ahead of time.

what if i prefer twitch?

skip the rest of this and just watch joe hills. i promise i'm not saying that because i'm a joe hills guy; i'm saying it because he's the only hermit that consistently streams from hermitcraft. impulse, tango, cleo, pearl, xisuma, iskall, and hypno all also appear to stream fairly regularly, but it's not always from hermitcraft.

where should i start?

now, that's the real question, isn't it? my answer is simple: start Now. if you're reading this as i post it, that means start this saturday on everyone's episode one. if you're reading this long after i post it, though, just... go ahead and start with whoever you want to watch's latest episode! the nice thing about hermitcraft is that you can GENERALLY jump in wherever you want.

but what about old seasons?

you do not need to watch older seasons of hermitcraft. unless you want to, of course; the world is your oyster and they are very good! however, there's also a LOT of old hermitcraft, and if you want to join in with what hermitcraft is doing now, old seasons aren't necessary. very little carries over from season to season. while sometimes old "lore" or recurring bits can carry references over, and the relationships between hermits will often carry over to some extent (if often not in the same patterns), it is never to an extent that you need the old seasons for context. each season is a clean new slate, and where "lore" carries over, the relevant hermit will almost always explain it to you.

what about helsknight/evil x/hotguy/boatem/convex/some other thing i've been hearing about?

i promise, if they are relevant to this season, they will explain it to you in the relevant episode and/or it will be easy enough to pick up. do not worry about it. each season is a soft reset for a reason, and one of those reasons is to make it easier on new viewers! and if you're here because you WANTED one of those specific things... ask an older fan! they'll be able to direct you to the places they're from.

do i need to watch all the hermits?

absolutely not! in fact, i strongly recommend you don't. there are going to be... hold on let me count... twenty-seven hermits? (i am bad at counting don't quote me on this) in this season alone. keeping up with all those videos is too much for basically anyone! instead, pick a few hermits that you like best, and if you want to keep up with everyone else, go to the hermitcraft recap youtube channel and watch that! it is a vital hermitcraft resource where pixlriffs, zloyxp, and lyarrah all watch every single hermit so that we don't have to. honor their sacrifice and don't try to watch everyone.

but how do i pick someone?

few ways! there exist, if you google, plenty of "choosing your hermit pov" quizzes; if you head over to the hermitcraft subreddit, for example, i'll be SHOCKED if they don't have one, and if you go over to the recap channel, they had one of those for a while too. this is the starting place for many people.

another way is to watch the recap and choose whoever's project interests you most. for early episodes, this may be hard, but since hermits tend to go hard for their first episode, you'll normally at least be able to pick up a sense of pace and build style.

just watching whoever it is your friends are obsessed with is also a tried and true method of finding your first hermit; frequently, like with the recap, this is a good method for then figuring out whose style you like best, and switching to them, if you don't end up clicking with the same people your friends click with.

finally, you can just... click a random hermit's channel! try a few out! maybe you heard about decked out and want to watch tango; maybe there's a storyline you want to start watching because the dash has been rambling about it; maybe you just want to know who this grain character is. clicking around until you find the guy whose editing you click with is a totally valid strategy!

that sounds hard. just pick someone for me.

if you like well-edited shenanigans: grian or mumbo jumbo. (these are also good starter hermits in general, i've found; if you aren't sure where else to start, start with one of them.)

if you like long background noise-type videos: docm77

if you like minigames: tangotek.

if you like a chill video: xbcrafted or, if the texture pack gets you, vintagebeef.

if you like storylines: rendog or grian, again. (i was trying not to double-up, but if you're here from an rp-heavy server, grian remains a great entry point in that regards.)

if you like to see something new and bizarre: zedaph if you prefer highly-edited videos, joe hills if you prefer lightly edited videos.

if you want the best building on hermitcraft: pearlescentmoon or bdoubleo100, special mention to goodtimeswithscar.

if you want someone as new as you: i'll come back and edit in whoever the new hermits are once we know! but them.

if you just want one of my favorites: zombiecleo or iskall85.

thank you! what if i DO want to know what the fandom is always on about?

that, i'm afraid, i don't know how to help you with. you'll just have to watch hermitcraft from here--and maybe read some of the fanworks that have intrigued you--and find out for yourself!

good luck out there, and i hope this has helped someone!

#mcyt #hermitcraft #long post #...a tag i normally resolutely don't use but i don't want this under a cut and it IS very long #ANYWAY HERE IT IS MY THEORETICAL GUIDE!

[cherrifire]

Hello this is probably super random but I’m personally curious on how to start working with content creators like people from the traffic life serries? Like specifically with YouTube video thumbnails. I really think it would be a good thing to try out and I feel confident in my skills to do it.

I'm unfortunately not going to be much help since I don't usually find work, work finds me. I don't even have my commissions page public yet and CCs keep showing up in my dms like "heyyyy 🥰"

I think the only time I specifically reached out to a creator was Rendog. He said something on stream about wanting to find an emote artist. Told stream to send artists to him on Twitter. So I decided to shoot my shot and sent him a message basically saying "Hey Ren, I heard you were looking for an artist! Here are some examples of my emote work, hope to hear from you soon <3" and it worked!

I guess in the case of Spiff and Martyn (who both just showed up one day), keep a steady social media. Regularly post art and keep up with the creators you like. If they see your work and they like it, they WILL do something about it. This doesn't always work of course and is not a genuine suggestion to find work, but this is how it happened for me.

The better advice I can give is in the case of Ren. Keep an eye out for opportunities and ALWAYS try to take them. The worst they can do is say no. So there is no harm in trying. When Creators want to commission an artist, they will sometimes go to the community to ask for suggestions. Tweets like "looking for an artist with ___ style, reply with examples or artists you think are good ^-^" are fairly common.

ALSO! This is going to sound so cliche, but take any job you can and PRACTICE. I MEAN IT MAN.

Reason 1: I started working for Grian because he saw my work through Martyn. Plus, Grian isn't the only one to find me this way.

Reason 2: Improvement is real and WILL get you.

As proof, here's my first and super ugly thumbnail from a year ago (don't be fooled by the high view count, the other videos around it had views in the millions. So this thumbnail did not help):

And here's my newest thumbnail:

Hope this helps at least a little. Sorry I can't say much else. Things just keep happening to me and I didn't do much to get there.

#cherri.speaks

[antimony-medusa]

Gonna be honest with you though if someone outright says “don’t ship my character with other people” or something to that extent regarding smut or whatever I don’t think there should be any ambiguity

I get your point about the nature of fanfic being inherently encroaching upon people’s images so that levity should be extended to otherwise uncommon avenues but I really believe hardline boundaries should be respected, end of, no discussion. If I see people violating creators’ boundaries for their characters Or themselves (and these can be intertwined, it’s not up to the audience to pick apart their boundaries, cuz I’ve seen people try to do that) I’m not going to judge them fairly and I feel like neither should you.

Lines can be crossed and intimacy (not even necessarily romantic!) is a very different monster than the other avenues of storytelling because of how it involves real life relationships seeping into character relationships. Its’s uncommon for people to be like “I wrote A’s character being tortured because I feel like A is tortured in real life” but they Can and Often do that with ship work. So I don’t know, I feel like you’re not affording this the right nuance.

Alright, so, this is another post I'm gonna slap with a discourse and long post warning right away, buckle in.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and this is not an uncommon opinion to have! It's still the opinion of twitter/x so far as I know, and I think it's probably the opinion of the bulk of dsmp fans here, as well. I know my posts get notes once they start circulating in hermitblr, but I don't kid myself that I have the majority view. I am posting to explain my views expressly because I know a lot of people don't agree with me!

And in this case we do have a difference of opinion. There's two sort of points as I see it in your posts— we have hardline boundaries about shipping/nsfw from some people, and everyone in the fandom should be abiding by those no exceptions or be thrown out of the fandom; and we have shipping boundaries but not boundaries for other things because shipping is uniquely boundary-crossing and terrible and invasive, in contrast to anything else we can do in fandom.

Taking the second part first, I just don't think that's true. Let's not forget, boundaries discourse started with SMPLive and SMPronpa, and it was not the shipping that caused the discussion, it was the death games. The first real fandom reckoning we had with the notion of boundaries as mcyt fandom was over gore and murder and portraying people in violent ways. Shipping was barely a blip on the radar. The way the discourse has developed now, shipping is framed as the absolute worst thing anyone could ever do with your public image, and everything else is fine, but that is not the case for everyone. Recently the Pirates SMP creators were asked repeatedly for their boundaries (bothered on twitter, really) until they gave them and thus we saw people being fine with shipping but not wanting family dynamic, or being against both shipping and gore, or being fine with shipping but not wanting to be gender bent or trans headcanoned, etc. Not everyone feels the same way about the same things, despite the us-american cultural viewpoint that romance and sexualization is uniquely bad but gore and torture is fine, that everything else is fine.

Like, if we're looking at DSMP, I think there are a lot of creators who would feel just as strongly if not stronger about fics in which their character died of a terminal illness than they would about a fic in which they kiss someone, for understandable reasons. But I see those tropes in the tags regularly!

I think if we are honest with ourselves, if we are going to hardline boundaries about things that are uniquely invasive or bad to do to a creator's character with the view that we are putting all of this up for the creator's approval, we need to accept that this excludes us from writing anything where a character is abusive or is tortured or dies of a terminal illness or is psychologically broken or is age regressed or is neurodivergent or is queer if the cc is straight or trans if the cc is cis or cis if the cc is trans or straight if they're gay— the list of things that would be weird to do in the face of the real guy is really long. And it has most of our favourite tropes on it!

I love writing autistic philza. It would be really fuckin' weird to go up to Philza and tell him about how I write his character as whumped and autistic. Come on now. (But that's within boundaries, so that's— fine? I really don't think it's fine!)

Which is why my stance is that we should be thinking critically about these things, and keeping the fandom seperate from the creators. Some of these things are just not for the creators. They're fine but they shouldn't go on twitter. Y'know?

The idea that shipping draws uniquely on the real person and leads to invasive behaviour but nothing else does— that nobody does "I wrote A being tortured because I think A is tortured in real life"— Look. I have been in the fandom a long time. I remember how all the abused tommy narratives fed right into people assuming his family in real life were abusive— and talking about this on twitter! Where he and his family could see! People did this with WIlbur and Techno too!

I remember people reading about trans tommy and then truthing that the creator either was transmasc or was going to come out as transfemme any day now, publically, on twitter and in his chat. I have seen people she/her tubbo to his face on twitter, with fancams. I have been in chat when people who have clearly assigned Phil "dad" start asking WILDLY invasive things in TTS. If you think that shipping is the only fandom behaviour that can lead to people drawing directly from the streamers for their work and treating the creators weirdly about it, you simply have not been paying attention.

The way the fandom insists on treating benchtrio as children despite the fact that they're almost twenty and viciously attacking their friends for treating them as adults and chiding tommy and tubbo and ranboo for inappropriate behaviour. The list goes ON.

So. The recieved DSMP wisdom is that we should TTS the streamers to check if it's okay if we write a fic in which they die of cancer. We should DM them on instagram to ask if it's okay if we write them as a gender or sexual identity they don't share. We should show up in their twitter mentions to ask if it's okay if we write them as a physically abusive parent.

No????????

My view on that is that it is frankly bizzare it is that we have decided that "asking creators for detailed instructions regarding porn or gore" (especially in TTS! When they're fucking at WORK and can't step away! Stop doing this to the hermits!) is normal and fine and responsible but "post your shit in appropriate places and leave the creators out of it" will make you a monster.

Once again, the experience of someone coming up and saying "i think of you as age regressed" and someone saying "i found this fic where you're age regressed" and someone saying "can I write a fic where you're age regressed" is not that different. In all cases you know that the person has been thinking about it and putting it out there, and in all cases you didnt seek out this information, it was brought to you. In all cases it's weird. Just do not bring this information up to them!

If you just think about it for a while, you see that there is an entire host of things that would be weird to force into the view of a creator, especially when you consider that half the time we got these clips from TTS information when we have no idea if the person answering knew the context of what they were being asked, if they were specifically aware of the creator/cc divide that the fandom works with, or if they felt pressured into it. Oh yeah, let's take a TTS clip from Tubbo when it was 2 in the morning for him and he was deep in a minecraft mod when someone asked him about alters and delusions and he was like "oh you mean like— when they can't help it? I guess that's fine." That definately counts as freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific consent to show him anything we want at all times forever. That's never going to make him uncomfortable.

Think a little here.

So I think there's a lot of the fandom that we should not be putting up for the approval of the creators, and if we don't have a firm answer on if they would like potential edge cases, we should probably be thinking about it and keeping it away from them (and I would err on the side of caution), we should NOT be showing up in the TTS to ask them about narratives in which they're institutionalized, or making them a GOP conservative in fiction, or if Wilbur was canon about seeing them as a bottom, or whatever bizzare thing someone is cooking up now. Honestly if you think to yourself "I don't know if the creator would like seeing this", I would be much more comfortable if the two choices we were picking between there were "simply don't write it" or "write it but keep it away from them", and "harass the creator for an answer on this subject and only write it if they say yes" never entered the equation at all.

And to return to your first point, if we already have a class of fiction that we are keeping away from the creators because basic intellectual curiosity would show that it would be weird to show someone, I don't think it's the end of the world to go "okay, creator doesn't like NSFW, so we also keep the NSFW away from them, keep this shit off twitter, block them if you create it, don't show it to them" and then we archive lock it and continue on our little weirdo on the internet ways.

Now, I don't expect to convince you of this, the phrasing of your post does not indicate that you're open to discussion on this topic. That's fine. Nobody has to agree with me. But I grew up conservative christian, and I have already had people try and get me to throw people out of the community for their perceived sins where I was like "well, I really don't think this is that bad", and I'm really resistant to being forced to do that again. I don't think it's a healthy way to run a fandom, to be shunning people for what they're doing in fiction. Harassing creators in chat? Sure, I will block them from my events as untrustworthy. That's hurting someone in the real world. Writing something that I don't vibe with privately on the archive for an audience of 50 people? That is not doing harm to real people. As long as they're not showing it to the creators, I don't count that as offensive.

How's that for nuance.

#discourse #fandom meta #dsmp shipping #qsmp shipping #anon #ask #long post

[axel-skz]

hey!! I have a request🤭;

Ok what about chan w a vv sleepy s/o like their always falling alseep everywhere or they can fall alseep rlly easily not like narcoleptic but just sleepy🤷‍♀️

Chan had always been very accepting of the fact that you were always sleepy. You had a talent of falling asleep anywhere and everywhere, he was actually a little jealous. He struggled to sleep. It made him feel good to look after you though. Randomly feeling you fall asleep on his shoulder or somehow leaning on him or holding his hand.

It made him happy. He felt like you trusted him. To be able to fall asleep without worries around him. He slowly started to keep items in all the spaces he was in regularly. Things that would help keep you comfortable. He had a special drawer in his office with a nice pillow and there was always a blanket on the back of the sofa.

People noticed it in his live and he chalked it up to him taking naps in the office. But no, it was for you. He kept snacks for when you woke up and felt hungry. He would turn his music down as to not wake you as well as shushing anyone who came in.

You never realised just how strict he was about his shushing when one day, you were half asleep and jisung came in. He said something, fairly quietly. But there was Chan. This man, fully jumped like it was jumpscare in a movie. Then turned and so dramatically shushed Han that you would think he was Hyunjin.

He really loved you and made you feel so comfortable in your own skin. He never let you feel nervous or self conscious about it. He’d always say, ‘I get to hold you while you sleep. How could I be upset? I’m winning here.’

A/N: I’M CRYING RN! OMFG DO NOT LISTEN TO SAD SONGS WHILE READING THIS! I was listening to same boat by Lizzie Mcalpine and I’m just breaking down. The thought of someone so loving and accepting- my soul is dead.

Listen to cielings if you really wanna cry cus Istg that would hit so hard.

I hope this was better then the other stuff I’ve been posting lately :’) my brain is just not on my side lately and I’m so tired and sad. It’s hard to be anything rn.

I said this in my other post, todays song is Muddy water.

#stray kids #skz #skz fanfic #skz imagines #skz x reader #stray kids scenarios #love stray kids #skz scenarios #bang chan #bang chan best leader #bang chan x y/n #bang chan x reader #bang chan imagine #bang chan oneshot #skz bang chan #skz world domination #bang chan fluff #stray kids fluff #stray kids world domination #stray kids fanfic

[andmaybegayer]

can you actually talk about bitwarden / password managers, or direct me to a post about them? Idk my (completely uneducated) instinct says that trusting one application with all your passwords is about as bad as having the same password for everything, but clearly that isn’t the case.

So it is true that online password managers present a big juicy target, and if you have very stringent security requirements you'd be better off with an offline password manager that is not exposed to attack.

However, for most people the alternative is "reusing the same password/closely related password patterns for everything", the risk that one random site gets compromised is much higher than the risk that a highly security focussed password provider gets compromised.

Which is not to say it can't happen, LastPass gets hacked alarmingly often, but most online password managers do their due diligence. I am more willing to stash my passwords with 1Password or Bitwarden or Dashlane than I am to go through the rigamarole of self-managing an array of unique passwords across multiple devices.

Bitwarden and other password managers try to store only an encrypted copy of your password vault, and they take steps to ensure you never ever send them your decryption key. When you want a password, you ask them for your vault, you decrypt it with your key, and now you have a local decrypted copy without ever sending your key to anyone. If you make changes, you make them locally and send back an encrypted updated vault.

As a result, someone who hacks Bitwarden should in the absolute worst case get a pile of encrypted vaults, but without each individuals' decryption key those vaults are useless. They'd still have to go around decrypting each vault one by one. Combining a good encryption algorithm, robust salting, and a decent key, you can easily get a vault to "taking the full lifetime of the universe" levels on security against modern cryptographic attacks.

Now there can be issues with this. Auto-fill can be attacked if you go onto a malicious website, poorly coded managers can leak information or accidentally include logging of passwords when they shouldn't, and obviously you don't know that 1Password isn't backdoored by the CIA/Mossad/Vatican. If these are concerns then you shouldn't trust online password managers, and you should use something where you remain in control of your vault and only ever manually handle your password.

Bitwarden is open source and fairly regularly audited, so you can be somewhat assured that they're not compromised. If you are worried about that, you can use something like KeePassXC/GNU Pass/Himitsu/ (which all hand you the vault file and it's your job to keep track of it and keep it safe) or use clever cryptographic methods (like instead of storing a password you use a secret key to encrypt and hash a reproducible code and use that as your password, e.g. my netflix password could be hash(crypt("netflixkalium", MySecretKey)), I know a few people who use that method.

Now with any luck because Apple is pushing for passkeys (which is just a nice name for a family of cryptographic verification systems that includes FIDO2/Webauthn) we can slowly move away from the nightmare that is passwords altogether with some kind of user friendly public key based verification, but it'll be a few years before that takes off. Seriously the real issue with a password is that with normal implementations every time you want to use it you have to send your ultra secret password over the internet to the verifying party.

#computer stuff #ask #anonymous #cryptography #password managers

[ladykailitha]

Can Anybody See Me? Part 6

Yes, my darlings, you read that right. I promised I would get back on this one once I was done with In the Midnight Hour and admittedly I did get side tracked for a week doing the Valentine’s fics, once that was out of my head I have written almost 7000 new words for this story. I went from half way through this one to a few hundred words into part 10. So yeah. Expect to see this one updated fairly regularly. I haven’t given up on Star Child I’m just trying to decide which direction the next part should take.

Also on the tagging, I HAVE REACHED MY HARD AND FAST LIMIT OF 50. I love the response this story has gotten. I do. I love you all. I love every reply, like, and reblog. It brings me so much joy, you don’t even know. But tagging is hard for my ADHD brain. I have gone up from 20 to 30 and finally 50 as my system improved but I think if I do any more than that I’ll go insane. So any future tagging requests will be ignored. Sorry.

The best way to keep update on these stories is follow me and set me on notifications. I rarely do a lot of reblogging these days (too busy churning out stories like whoa), so more often then not a post will be a story. I try to post at least once a day (some times twice if I’m trying to rush through the posting a bit like I did to make sure the Valentine fic got out in time without making people wait on Vamp!Eddie), just never at set time.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

*

They all met up by the fountain in the middle of the mall. Eddie was bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously.

“You sure he’s going to come?” Jeff asked.

Eddie tried to peer around the crowd. “That’s what he said.”

And then they spotted him. He was in a nice red sweater with a white polo underneath and fitted jeans. Eddie ran his tongue over his teeth in appreciation.

But then he noticed the gaggle of children following behind him. And what a gaggle it was. It consisted of Red, his new best friend, another girl with a thousand yard stare. The tall black kid must be the Sinclair boy. The remaining three were also very interesting. There was the short curly haired kid with no front teeth. The last two were both dark haired, but the one on the right was darker. Hair and attitude, judging from the rounded shoulders and down cast expression of the other boy.

Steve sighed. “I’m sorry I’m late. Dustin called asking me to take him to the arcade, only when I told him that I was going to the mall, suddenly they all wanted to come.”

“And then I got roped into this because they wouldn’t all fit in Steve’s car,” a voice called from the back.

The person jostled his way to stand next to Steve. Jonathan clasped Steve on the shoulder. “I gave Will money to call me when you’re done so I can pick up him and El. Make sure he doesn’t spend it on the gumball machine.”

Steve nodded. “Thanks, man. I’ll see you later.”

Jonathan nodded and waved goodbye to everyone, but especially the timid one. Which Eddie figured must have been Will.

“Your children, I presume?” Eddie asked, eyeing the thirteen year-olds warily.

“Yup,” Steve said with a put on expression. He pointed to each of them in turn. “That’s Dustin, Mike, Will, Lucas, Max and El.”

Eddie did the same to his friends. “I’m Eddie, these are Jeff, Gareth, and Brian. Or collectively, the band Corroded Coffin.”

“That’s bitchin’,” El said with a smile.

Steve ducked his head as he tried not to laugh.

“Hell yeah, it is,” Jeff said, taking an immediate liking to her.

“All right,” Steve said, turning to the kids. “You are to stay in pairs at the very least. And you know who your partners are. Will and Mike, Max and El, and Dustin and Lucas. Regardless of what you are doing, you will meet up here at 2pm. No later. I have plans with these guys at three and I’m not going to be late because of you guys a second time.”

There were a lot of eye rolls but everyone agreed to meet at the fountain at two.

Once they had left, Steve turned back to see that all four of them were struggling not to laugh.

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Go ahead and laugh. Because fuck knows it’s hilarious.”

So they promptly burst out laughing.

“Oh my god,” Gareth wheezed. “It was like watching ducklings.”

“Yes!” Eddie agreed. “My dude, I hope you are charging their parents for this.”

Steve shrugged. “It’s not like I need the money.”

They all just shook their heads.

Eddie clapped his hands together and rubbed. “Right, Stevie, this is how it is going to go. You’ll have one hour to get the most outrageous gift. Ten dollar maximum.”

“Each person or total?”

“However you want to swing it,” Jeff said. “But forty bucks is a lot.”

Steve nodded. “I guess my one concern is that I don’t know you guys very well and I don’t want to offend anyone.”

“So take Eddie with you,” Gareth said. “And then for the last ten minutes split off to buy something for each other.”

Eddie and Steve looked at each other.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “that could work. What do you say, Stevie?”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

Every one but Steve set a timer on their watches. Steve’s wasn’t a digital one, so he couldn’t.

“On your marks, get set,” Brian said. “And go!”

Eddie grabbed Steve’s hand and suddenly he was being dragged along.

Steve giggled. “Where to first?”

“We are going to Suncoast,” Eddie said with a grin. “It’s the best place for all your metalhead needs.

“Lead on, MacDuff!” Steve said with a grin.

Eddie finally let go of Steve’s hand as they neared the store.

“I found out in drama that a lot of the sayings and words we use today are because Shakespeare couldn’t find the right word and made them up,” Steve said nervously.

“Wait, really?” Eddie asked, coming to a complete stop. “Like what?”

“Well, ‘Lead on, MacDuff’,” Steve said, “just for starters. It’s from Macbeth. Green eyed-monster. Just loads that I can’t think of off the top of my head.”

Eddie stood there for a moment blinking. “If they had taught that in English, I think would pay more attention.”

Steve laughed. “I know, right?”

They entered the store and everything had a dark red neon glow to it and it was clearly separated between the movie part of the store and the music part of the store. It was almost jarring. The movie part was dark like the inside of a movie theater. The music part was well lit and almost sterile white in its design.

They wandered around the music section. And they stopped by the minuscule instrument section. It had mostly accessories but also a couple of guitars. Mostly acoustic but one or two electric as well.

“This is pitiful,” Steve said staring at the selection.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, dude,” Eddie said. “There is an actual record shop with a full on instrument section. But that is not the point of this.”

Steve stopped by the drumsticks. “Gareth is the drummer right?”

Eddie nodded.

“I’ve been to a couple of concerts and I saw that the drummer had a bucket of sticks...”

“Are you asking if you should get Gareth more drumsticks?” Eddie asked. Steve nodded. “Go for it.”

“What’s his favorite color?” Steve asked.

Eddie frowned, but Steve pointed to the drumsticks on display and the had all sorts of different colors and patterns.

“The black ones with the flames on them, for sure.”

Steve grinned and picked them up. They got a couple more things here, but it was time to move on.

They hit up the stationary store, the weird little shop that sold incense and little Egyptian figurines, and Hammond’s Toys.

As they were passing Shapiro’s on their way to Hammond’s Toys, Steve found his gift for Eddie. It took every bit of will power not to just rush back and grab it, afraid it would be gone by the time he got back.

Eddie came up to him. “All right, Stevie. This is where we have to part ways. We only have ten minutes left and we need to get each other something, too.”

Steve smiled and nodded. He doubled back to Shapiro’s and quickly bought it. He raced to the fountain to be there first. He sat down on the edge of the fountain, his packages tucked under his legs so people wouldn’t steal them.

It wasn’t long before the others started showing up. Brian showed up first.

“How the hell did you beat me, man?” he asked as he sat down next to Steve. “I’m always the first to arrive.”

Steve blushed. “I got lucky.” He was practically vibrating with anticipation.

Brian eyed him suspiciously. “And you got a present for everyone?”

Steve pressed his lips together and nodded.

Gareth was the next to show up. “Now that’s just embarrassing. Being beaten by Brian is one thing, he’s a shopping guru. But Steve Harrington, too? However will I get over the shame?”

Jeff laughed from behind him, having just shown up himself. “You’ll live.”

Eddie was the last to arrive showing up exactly at the hour.

“Ooh,” Jeff teased. “By the skin of your teeth. Is Steve-o here really that hard to buy for?”

Eddie grabbed his knees, panting for breath. “No,” he huffed. “Just on the other side of the fucking mall.”

“So,” Gareth said turning to Steve. “Now for the next phase of our little get together. We meet up at my house at three and exchange gifts and play a one-shot.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Is that like a D&D thing?”

“Yup!” Brian said gleefully rubbing his hands together. “It a story meant for a single day instead of multiple days like a campaign.”

“Yeah,” Jeff said. “We roll up quick character that are meant to die and just go to town no real rules. Just fun.”

Steve nodded. “Sure I could do that.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got twenty minutes before the kids show up.”

The other three backed away slowly.

“Yeah,” Jeff said, “we aren’t going to wait for that mob.”

“Oh, hell no,” Brian agreed. “I’m sure they’re great kids and all but I have three younger siblings, if I wanted chaos, I’d hang out with them.”

“Middle schoolers, man,” Gareth said, “are the plague of the earth. See you at three.”

Steve laughed. “Agreed on all accounts. I see you at Gareth’s. I’ll get the address from Eddie.”

The three boys walked off, shoving and pushing each other, laughing as they made their way to the exit.

“So what about you?” Steve asked. “You going to run before the hoard gets here?”

Eddie laughed. “I should. Leave you to the wolves.” He grinned. “But nah. I want to properly meet the kids that Steve the pied piper of Hawkins has taken under his wing.”

Steve blushed. “I wouldn’t call myself that. They barely listen to me.”

Eddie’s face softened. “I’m sure that’s not true. I bet the little sponges are just soaking up everything you tell them.”

Steve huffed out a laugh. “That would explain the language problem.”

Eddie tilted his head to side. “What language problem?”

“They swear like sailors.”

Eddie blinked a couple of time before he burst out laughing. “Having trouble not swearing around kids, Stevie?”

“You would be swearing too if you had to deal with them all the time,” he said with a shake of his head.

“So why do you do it?” Eddie asked.

Steve huffed out a sigh and kicked the side of the fountain with the heel of his foot. “Most of them don’t have great home lives. Except the Sinclairs, of course. Especially when it comes to caring adult men. I know what that’s like, so I try to be that for them.”

“Huh.”

Eddie didn’t have much time to comment on that because the first of the terrors had arrived.

The two dark-haired boys that seemed joined at the hip.

“Hey, Mike,” Steve greeted, “hey, Will. Did you already call Jonathan to come get you?”

Will nodded.

“Good,” Steve said. “Eddie here DMs for his friends.”

Both heads turned to him in shock.

“There is no way,” Mike said. “Steve would never be friends with someone who likes D&D.”

“Hey!” Steve protested. “I’m friends with you assholes!”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Steve wouldn’t be friends with people his own age that play D&D.”

“Mike...” Will protested, speaking up for the first time. “What’s your favorite class?”

“Bard. It’s kinda self-insert type of thing,” Eddie said. “I play guitar, so I get the class. Um...second favorite would druid. I have a twelfth level druid named Kilmar Goatfiend in a campaign my club is doing right now.”

“You have a D&D club?” Dustin asked coming up from behind Will and Mike. “No way!”

“Yep!” Eddie said with pop of his lips. “The Hellfire club. Lenny Fitzpatrick is president this year. Next year, it’ll probably be Janice Montgomery.”

“You have a girl in your club?” Lucas asked, think of his sister Erika.

“Girls don’t play D&D,” Mike growled.

Steve hit him on the back of the head. “Oi! Your sister played. She’s the one that taught you. Show her some respect.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Nancy Wheeler plays D&D.”

“Did,” Will clarified. “She’s the one that gave me my wizard robes to DM in.”

“You dress up?” Eddie asked. “That’s so cool.”

Will blushed.

Just then girls arrived both of them eating ice cream cones.

Dustin spotted them and gasped. “You got ice cream cones?” He turned to Steve. “Why didn’t we get ice cream cones?”

Steve stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Because they saved their money and bought themselves ice cream cones?”

Max stuck out her tongue at him and El giggled.

“You better finish those up before you get into my car,” Steve said wagging his finger at them.

“Hey, I could take Max home,” Eddie said with a shrug. “I’m heading that way anyway.”

Steve looked at Max. “It’s up to you. You can go home with him or I could drop you off at Hopper’s and you and El can continue to hang out.”

Max thought about it for a minute. “I’ll think I’ll go home with Eddie and hang out with El tomorrow.” She turned to El. “Is that okay?”

El nodded. “I wanted to spend time with Will and Mike today.”

Mike blushed.

“What about you two?” Steve asked. “Where am I dropping you two off?”

Dustin and Lucas just shared a glance and shrugged.

“Well then you two can sort it out in the car,” Steve said and then turned to Eddie. “So what’s Gareth’s address?”

Eddie pulled out a pocket notebook and pen and scribbled out the address. “There you go, see you later, man.”

Steve took the piece of paper with a smile. “Do you always carry a notebook and pen with you wherever you go?”

Eddie grinned. “Sure, sometimes the muse will strike while I’m out and about so I need something to jot down lyrics or chord progressions as needed.”

“That’s sooo cool,” Mike said, a little star struck.

Will and Lucas looked over at each other and rolled their eyes. Eddie fought back a grin.

They split off, with Will, Mike and El, staying at the fountain to wait for Jonathan.

Part 7  Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14  Part 15  Part 16  Part 17 Part 18  Part 19 Part 20  Part 21

@shrimply-a-menace @strangersteddierthings @throwbackthrowaway @novelnovella @cursedfoxteeth @babyblender @lifeisnotsobadonceyoustopcaring @swimmingbirdrunningrock @steve-the-hairrington @winterbuckwild @spectrum-spectre @matchingbatbites @garden-of-gay @anaibis @thing-a-ling @fandemonium-takes-its-toll @artiststarme @sundead @nelotegreitic @gregre369 @butterflysandpeppermint @thedragonsaunt @kodaik97 @messrs-weasley @scarletzgo @deadlydodos @renaissan-vvitch @evix-syne666 @emly03 @justforthedead89 @ashwinmeird @huniibee @phantypurple @stevesbipanic @shucks-yuckyuck @awkwardgravity1 @bookbinderbitch @reportinglivefromsoda @chasinggeese @be-the-spark-bitch @jinxjinn @kohlraedirectioner @cr0w-culture @xjessicafaithx @whimsicalwitchm @jaywhohasthegay @dangdirtydemons @lovelyscot @howincrediblysapphicofyou @the-redthread

#My writing #stranger things #steddie #canon divergence #the boy with the bat #ladykailtiha writes

[nightgoodomens]

I mean my husband's best friend since kindergarten is my own best friend's husband an we always joke that she and I are wives and they're husbands cuz were all so close and it's absolutely platonic so that can very well be the case with the Sheens and Tennants so that's not confirmation of anything

I do however get a vibe from DT and MS so it really wouldnt surprise me 😆 sus for real

No but that’s the whole point isn’t it. The joke was to call Michael David’s wife. The point is that she called him his boyfriend.

Here is the thing though - people keep on finding an excuse for every single moment between them in the last four or so years. So, let’s say in those four years Michael looked at David with adoration once. That’s not proof of anything. If they once jokingly called each other wives. That’s not proof of anything. I agree.

But when you add up everything that has happened within all these years and especially the last few months, to me if I were to excuse it as ah it’s just besties, I would feel like I’m just lying to myself. I would be insulting my intelligence because I really dislike choosing to pretend I don’t see anything. And if it came out that actually all of this is absolute bullshit then I’d just go - what was all the drama for then? All this hard work? They’re not promoting anything. Everyone would be absolutely content and happy if Michael and David were simply best friends. There was zero need to make it seem as more because they do make awesome best friends. So why make it more? And what, they’d be basically queer baiting? Tennant’s?! Sheen?!

Also… what would be the confirmation then? Because Michael saying David is easy to fall in love with means nothing. Michael saying “David, who I love” means nothing. Michael saying “I set him on fire fairly regularly” means nothing. The two of them looking at each other like they’re each other’s world means nothing. Michael beaming so brightly when he’s with David in comparison to others means nothing. David wearing Thin Dark Duke (trademarked by Michael) outfits and winking at the camera means nothing. David wearing “queer was always here” and other queer gear that GT highlights every time means nothing. Michael/David ensuring they live close to each other means nothing. The looks they share mean nothing. The bloody poems they write about each other mean nothing. That love beaming from them means nothing. The hug during awards, the happiness, the red carpet outing means nothing. Macbeth means nothing. Lapland means nothing.

Finally GT calls them boyfriends and it still means nothing.

I feel like even if we had a leaked sex tape then people would say that they’re just dedicated to their craft and it means nothing.

It doesn’t bother me if people don’t see it though, I’m just surprised about some of the hatred that’s coming from some posts… like, damn, why are people so angry at the prospect of maybe them two simply loving each other. I understand if people were suggesting there’s bad blood or cheating involved and it would be making people uncomfortable but all this information is coming from the four of them. They’re the ones who make people talk. They’re showing there’s no bad blood. Instead of stopping they’re carrying on and adding more each time the rumours are increasing.

So why so much hatred.

I also have friends who I’m really close with. I am sure many of us do. We do “couple” things with them. I buy my girl friends flowers. It looks like we are going on dates, I like taking care of people.

But the line is still so thick between what I do and what MS/DT do. That’s why I can’t pretend that this is the same.

#NightGoodOmens talks Michael and David

[luvtonique]

I realized something this morning.

This is probably gonna be a long post. (Edit, yep)

I'm a pretty fairly public figure on the internet, and I very regularly interact with a huge amount of people. From YouTube Comments to Discord to Tumblr Asks/Comments to Newgrounds Reviews to MMO Chat to Mic-Chat on Games to Twitch Chat to Stream Chat, blah blah blah.

I've, for years now, over a decade (hell over two decades) talked to probably thousands of people, and have been able to get a gauge on a pretty safe to say "average" of collective human intelligence on the internet.

I've come to realize that not everybody has that kind of experience talking to people online as I do. I've talked to literally thousands, probably near ten thousand, people online in my life.

This is a staggeringly high number and puts me in an outlier position among the rest of you, who likely have only interacted with a double digit number of people online in your life.

Now that you have that information in mind, here's what I realized this morning.

I realized that the reason I don't listen to people, ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics, is because I have learned through talking to all these people that fucking nobody knows what they're fucking goddamn talking about.

I study a lot of things in my spare time, and history is a huge one that I study. I very regularly read and listen to multiple sources talking about historic events, and I make sure to look at as many sources as possible, sometimes including reading encyclopedias in my own home that we've owned for like 40 years.

I cross-reference all of these things and paint a picture of the most likely truths through various means.

Why's that important? Because sometimes a 14 year old on Twitter, literally nearly less than a third my age, will occasionally come along telling me that I'm wrong. Not about history necessarily, but about some opinion that I have based on my own experience and my own knowledge that I've researched myself.

I usually ask them where they got their information, and I'm met with boldfaced idiocy. Completely braindead shit like "180,000 people said it on Twitter," or they link me a Tumblr post with 100k notes, or they say "It's common knowledge," (which is the biggest red flag of them all because not only does it prove they have no evidence to back up what they're saying, but as this post will go on to explain, "common knowledge" is quite literally the worst source of information on anything. People commonly think the earth is flat and that Scientology is real. People commonly think that walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror gives you bad luck. People commonly think that naturally blue food exists.)

In my life I have met thousands of people, and THOUSANDS of them are fucking idiots who very very smugly state completely incorrect knowledge. Earlier today someone tried to tell me that the creators of Beat Saber never sold the company to Facebook, and I showed them proof and they went silent for 3 hours and then went "Yeah so what, Facebook is still a good company" and I wanted to beat my head against the desk.

The internet is full of people who are fascinatingly ignorant. I'm not calling myself "better" or "smarter" than anyone here, I'm just saying that I have learned better than most people that people on the internet are not, and never fucking will be, a good source of information. I don't care if they're your best fucking friend, the coin-toss of them knowing what they're talking about or actually having the facts is so heavily weighted against them, it's seriously like a 98% chance they have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

I urge everyone to take a moment and realize that the internet is, in fact, a good place to find information and do research, but PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET, especially MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA, are NOT SMART PEOPLE AND ARE NOT GOOD SOURCES FOR YOUR INFORMATION.

These are angry, smug, annoying little idiots who are likely 14 years old with a 1st grade reading comprehension who aspires to be a TikTok content creator as a career, and under no fucking circumstance should you ever, ever, EVER listen to any social, financial, religious, gendered, medical or political advice they give.

The world has gotten vastly out of control with how much people think "A lot of people agree with me" is a good enough reason to solidify your opinions. "A lot of people agree" is the biggest red flag ever, because people on the fucking internet are complete fucking idiots, I'm sorry, but I'm someone with far more experience talking to people on the internet than literally any of you reading this. I talk to people on the internet as a career and have been doing this for longer than most of you reading this have been alive.

So what's the point of this? What's the take-away?

The take-away is that I'm saddened by how many people will attack each other vehemently, cut off friends and family members, label people as toxic or problematic, jump to conclusions, etc. based on complete and utter misinformation spouted to them by people who have never once in their entire life actually looked up what the fuck they're talking about. They treat random strangers on Twitter as "experts" because that person is well articulated or put together a YouTube video with really good editing that's softly spoken by a British accent guy and has scary music whenever some "evil" person is on the screen.

The take-away is that people, like yourself (don't you dare try to deny it) will just believe whatever they read on social media, or whatever their Discord friend-group is talking about, because they are living in a complete falsehood that people on the internet know better than they do.

You are not incapable of doing your own research. You are not incapable of finding the truth. You are not stupid. Just do your own research, look into things yourself, cross-reference, use the scientific method, go to a library, read books, for fuck sake please adopt the basic social skill of "If someone says it on the internet it is most likely not true and I should look into it myself."

Because the current state of people is monstrous.

Y'all get so fucking mad about things that are just plain not true, and you revolve your entire life around things you were told by complete idiots and/or children on Twitter and other social media websites.

Stop.

Look at yourself, look at how angry you get about things, and consider that there may be a possibility that anger stems from a complete lack of any foundation or truth in your own beliefs.

Consider the almost 100% guaranteed possibility that you have been blatantly lied to by people who have no fucking idea what they're talking about, and that you are violently upholding standards that are incorrect because you have placed trust in the word of untrustworthy people.

Look up confirmation bias, read about it.

Look up manipulation tactics, read about it.

Look up "Plato's Republic" and read about it.

Absolutely, under no circumstances, should you ever, EVER, form your social or religious or political or financial or gendered or sexual etc. opinions based on SHIT YOU READ ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

And while we're here, don't listen to the news either. They're just a bunch of parrots saying what needs to be said to get you all fighting with each other so that the government can fuck things up while you're distracted. Do your own research, check multiple sources, don't consider social media or regular media to be a 'source,' get every bit of information from every angle, and for fuck sake, stop attacking people for disagreeing with you when you, yourself, only believe what you believe because your friend group believes it and you know that if you disagree with your friend group they'll all attack you so you'd rather be on their side, which only further proves my point that y'all need to fucking chill.

"Democracy will never work. If 3 medical experts tell you that you must eat a ginger root to cure your ailments, but 100,000 idiots with no medical experience tell you otherwise, you're more likely to believe the 100,000 idiots. They are louder, there are more of them, and you will gamble on the hope that among those 100,000 idiots, there must be more than 3 medical experts. The voice of the ignorant will always drown out the voice of the educated."

-Plato's Republic, 375BCE (Paraphrased)

"I can't believe Jay just called us all idiots and expects us to listen to him"

-Someone in the comments of this (It's gonna happen)

PS: If you looked up "Naturally Blue Food," and found out it does in fact not exist, good for you for doing your own research!

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

I think one of the reasons that kaladin can deal with actively killing as a soldier but not with accidentally (passively) letting someone die as a surgeon is the sense of failure (plus of course the obvious protection aspect and the whole me-vs-them mentality he only really starts to question when Shin joins bridge four, and he starts interacting fairly regularly with a light-eyes he can genuinely respect). dalinar himself said that he "love(s) taking responsibility for things", which is especially clear in the way he still can't quite blame amaram for tien's demise (because he feels like this is his failure, too).

like we can see in the first book that the deaths of the people he swore to protect weigh on him not only because of the dying people per se, but also (and I would argue: especially) because of his FAILURE to keep them alive. he always makes this connection to himself, thinks of their demise in relation to HIS own person and HIS role and HIS failure (cue the whole "stormfather cursed me specifically" thing). like, besides tien and the bridgemen (who we know because they are active current characters), can we truly say much of anything about the people he failed to protect in the past? the only thing we really know is how HE feels about it and how it messed HIM up. but the people themselves??

kaladin just has insane main character syndrome, and everything happening to him (first dark-eyed to have the rank of a light-eyed, one of the only surgebinders, guy able to survive multiple fights with actual shardbearers, etc etc) do the opposite of helping him dissuade the notion. I feel like I lost the plot of my own post. Kal is honorable and a good guy and everything but he is also pretty self-centered? which I actually find really cool because many times people who do objectively good actions are still kind of demonized if they don't do it for the "right" reasons (aka purely 1000% selflessness), but Kal explicitly starts helping the bridgemen not because he actually cares about them but because he needs a reason to not commit suicide. and when he loses bridgemen (especially in the beginning where he barely knows them) he always immediately thinks back to the other people he FAILED to save. he isn't devastated because that person in particular died, he is upset because he is very bad at dealing with his own failures and also terrified that the wretch will use this to lure him back onto the ledge. i mean, he loathes failure so much he was resigned to never see his parents again (who he clearly loves a lot and who he knows would welcome him back with open arms; it's his own shame that he can't confront)

he helps people primarily to try to make up for the failures of the past, an attempt to dissuade the guilt and shame eating him alive 24/7 (which of course never works because guilt is a very unreasonable emotion and as long as he doesn't change his mindset and confronts his own beliefs about himself and the world it will never go away.)

"do the fire sprin create the flames or are they attracted by them?" of course syl was compelled to follow kaladin around. dude keeps actively (even if semi-unconsciously) putting himself into the same role and situation over and over again in the hopes that if he can only succeed one time it will somehow redeem him for his past failures. literally every single thing Kal does and thinks and believes is rooted in the fact that he blames himself for tien's demise. he needs to somehow redeem himself in order to be able to live with himself but at the same time he can never be redeemed because letting tien die is an unforgivable crime and yet he needs to make it up somehow because the wretch is always in the back of his mind and he's actually terrified of it but he is equally scared of actually somehow managing to get over this sense of guilt and failure because wouldn't forgiving himself mean he thinks tien is less important than his own stupid (and, in his mind, deserved) feelings?

that guy is so not over his brother's death it actually isn't funny anymore 💀 please get that dude some fucking therapy 😭😭

#am at words of radiance rn btw #does this even make sense i feel like this is just word vomit lol #idk if this is a hot take #it seems fairly obvious to me tbh #but then jasnah being one of the most caring characters in stormlight and the alethi being horrible seemed pretty self evident to me too #and apparently some ppl still dont get that #(i completely avoid going into the tags in order not to spoil myself so im only going off the comments people leave beneath my posts btw) #also i apologize if i spelled any names wrong i experience stormlight through audio only ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #kaladin stormblessed #stormlight archive #cosmere #brandon sanderson

[percheduphere]

Hi! Firstly, I wanted to say, I LOVE your analysis, and your detailed deep dive into characters!!! I love your view of Sylvie, and I especially love your metas on Mobius (my beloved). I always jump with happiness, when your new meta shows up! :D Anyway, I wanted to ask - I know, you mentioned it many times but - how do you think the timeline of falling in love for the other looked like? I was thinking about it a lot. Like when Loki started to fall for Mobius? How s2e1 and the fact, that Mobius didn't remember him impacted him? What you think, that was THE moment, when Loki fall for Mobius as heard as he could? And what was the moment he realized he loved him? (and what did he THINK ABOUT THAT????) Also how do you think he was copying with this love for Mobius for those centuries in a loop?? ... And same for Mobius :D When do you think he actually fell for THIS specific Loki? When did he had that OH moment? :D (when he realized he love him) (Also how the 1893 DATE impacted them??? xD ) And lastly, what they think the other is feeling? They seem to me, like classic IDIOTS IN LOVE trope, but I would really REALY love to see your thoughts on that!!! Once again, I thank you for all your work, you're brilliant (I fell in love with your meta on sense and sensibility) Have a great day!!! ❤️ PS: I'm sorry for mistakes (I'm terrible at English) Tru

LET'S TALK ABOUT WHEN THEY STARTED FALLING FOR EACH OTHER

As always, thank you to all the lovely gif artists who make my metas possible.

Thank you so much for your patience @trutrustories!

With respect to the individual timelines of when Mobius and Loki "fall for each other", obviously my take is subjective and there are plenty of viewers who don't see any romantic angle between them at all. That's fine because even without the romantic angle, I think the timelines I map out still demonstrates key moments in which Mobius and Loki's relationship with each other deepens.

As a warning, since this is a timeline request from the perspective of two characters, this post is MASSIVE.

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES

As a general note, the Loki series uses a few narrative techniques fairly regularly.

A.) REFRAMING / REVERSE PAY-OFF

The series has a habit of reframing the interpretation of previous episodes with the presentation of new information in future episodes. That is, reverse pay-off. Here are key examples, which I discuss in the "timelines" later:

Sylvie tells Loki she can't sleep in front of people she doesn't trust in S1E3; Loki falls asleep in front of Mobius in S1E2

Loki describes love as a dagger in S1E3; Mobius gives Loki daggers in S1E2.

Loki timeslips "uncontrollably", yet manages to timeslip back to Mobius with increasing accuracy in S2E1; Loki realizes timeslipping can be controlled by thinking about "who" in S2E5.

B.) MIRRORING

Loki mirrors Mobius's emotional trajectory from S1E1 - S2E1 (S1E3 has no Mobius). Episode 5 in BOTH seasons is when they both give each other up for the sake of the other.

Sylvie (chaos) & Ravonna (order) and Loki (chaos) & Mobius (order).

C.) REPETITION

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he wants and returns his friendship. Mobius is pruned. (S1E4)

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he and Sylvie "don't see things the same way". Mobius has no memory of him. (S2E1)

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he (Loki) loves him. Mobius (as Don) spaghettifies. (S2E5)

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he has to give him up to save everyone. Mobius is left behind. (S2E6)

Let's keep these narrative techniques in mind as we proceed!

MOBIUS

Mobius is pretty straightforward. Though I didn't perceive any romantic love in my first watch through of S1, the angle of romance feels more credible when reviewing S1 after having seen S2E1. S2E1 reframes how we can view Mobius's emotional motivations.

The inferred backstory, as the audience understands it, is that Mobius has studied Lokis for eons. Loki is his area of expertise. His pet project. His special interest. As I mentioned in another meta, it's perfectly reasonable for someone to gradually fall in love with the subject matter of their work over time. In this case, that subject matter happens to be an actual person.

By the time Loki is apprehended by the TVA, Mobius already had a plan in motion to save him from deletion. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision for him. Mobius had been preparing for this encounter for a while. Likely centuries. This is inferred through the fact another TVA agent seeks Mobius out immediately with Loki (L1130)'s file. Why bother doing that if all variants who cause a nexus event get "reset"?

And boy, is Mobius eager to have Loki by his side once he has him. In what world would anyone offer 2012 Loki a handshake? Mobius's, apparently.

Mobius also doesn't hesitate to touch Loki right off the bat. When Loki pauses to look at the TVA "world", Mobius lays a guiding hand on Loki's back. (Unfortunately couldn't find the gif for this).

It also doesn't take Mobius long to get emotionally compromised once he has Loki under his wing. I talk about the exact moment I believe this happens here.

This reaction from Loki, in response to Mobius's praise, is a big moment for both of them. They genuinely like and enjoy one another in this scene.

Moments later, Mobius absolutely gushes about Loki to his best friend boss lady, Ravonna.

He's so proud of Loki's breakthroughs and is really happy with how well they work together as a team. So much so that his judgment gets clouded and he insists on bringing Loki out into the field, where Loki's most likely to betray him.

NOTE: The moment above is when I believe he's officially compromised.

By the middle of S1E2, Mobius fell first. However, I don't think Mobius realizes the exact nature of his feelings for Loki until S1E5. From a platonic standpoint, Mobius definitely started thinking of Loki as a friend by this time. Otherwise, he wouldn't have called Loki a "bad friend" in S1E4.

In a S1 interview, Tom describes Mobius as having love for Loki, and Loki, at that point in his character development, "not wanting that" (you can see a compilation of interviews with Tom and Owen here). Based on this, I think it's safe to say that Mobius's love for Loki is not only genuine but also unconditional and abiding.

This unconditional, abiding love is what allows Mobius to want to believe in Loki despite his evident betrayal in S1E4. In the same episode, he implies via rhetorical question that Loki doesn't deserve to be alone and accepts that it's Sylvie that Loki wants to be with.

If Mobius hadn't accepted this, he wouldn't have made it his focus to bring Sylvie to Loki in S2E5.

And as I mention elsewhere, the moment below was the first instance in which I felt there could be unrequited love. I think Mobius's realizes it, too, in this scene:

Mobius maintains his acceptance of Loki's feelings for Sylvie throughout S2, however grudgingly. A microanalysis of the McDonald's scene may be reviewed here.

In S2E1, Mobius's love for Loki is demonstrated throughout. I discuss how pivotal this episode is here.

In terms of Mobius's personal perspective on their relationship. I think Mobius believes he will only ever Loki's friend and #2, as opposed to #1, a position he believes Sylvie holds.

While Mobius knows Loki will support him as a friend and can count on his protection on the field, I don't think it ever crosses his mind that Loki would prioritize him (that is, place Mobius as #1). Their last private interaction would reinforce Mobius's notion that Loki will take Sylvie's side if given the choice to choose between the two of them:

And while Mobius might not like it, while Mobius is clearly hurt by it, he doesn't allow this interaction to ruin his friendship with Loki. Because he loves Loki deeply.

It can even be argued that, in addition to personal guilt due to his role in the TVA, Mobius doesn't fight Sylvie's accusations because to do so would hurt Sylvie, and hurting Sylvie would hurt Loki, which is unacceptable. Therefore, Mobius just takes it, even though it would be very easy to point out to Sylvie that killing HWR triggered the crisis they're in.

As far as Mobius is concerned, he mostly likely thinks his love continues to be unrequited and has made peace with that since S1. His final scene could be interpreted as grief over the loss of a friend as well as grief over the loss of what could have been.

LOKI

Loki's feelings for Mobius evolve much more gradually, and the emotional journey of those feelings is accordingly more complex.

In S1E1, I believe Loki appreciates Mobius's directness. I know I've stated this multiple times, but I think it bears repeating: a lot of Loki fans absolutely hate Mobius's treatment of Loki in this episode, but I think it's important to remember where Loki's state of mind is at.

There was no way 2012 Loki would have been receptive to soft compassion. He doesn't understand soft. He sees softness as a weakness and refuses to engage with it because he doesn't want to be seen as soft. What 2012 Loki does understand is cruelty. He will listen and pay attention to cruelty because cruelty is a gesture of power, and power is control. His default mode is the desire and respect of power, which Mobius has over him. He respects that he has been bested. Crucially, Mobius balances his cruelty (to get Loki to listen) with genuine kindness. This is what allows Loki's first breakthrough of choosing to be vulnerable with Mobius. Admitting he doesn't like hurting people, that he is weak, (that he isn't happy), requires trust on Loki's part that Mobius will not mock him for it.

Unlike Mobius, Loki does not have access to files and tape recordings on Mobius's life. As such, Loki starts out with less power in their dynamic. All he knows about Mobius is what he gleans from Mobius's treatment of him and others. And Mobius, even when he is frustrated and annoyed with Loki, consistently gives Loki chances to demonstrate his ability outside of the context of being a villain. He never gives up on him.

Mobius, through his consistency of compassion and refusal to abuse his power (until he's betrayed in S1E4), proves he is trustworthy to Loki.

Nevertheless, the power imbalance puts Loki in a corner where he can't afford to place all his eggs in the Mobius basket. There's manipulation happening between them, and they both know it, so their interactions in S1, while entertaining for both of them, are also colored with mutual distrust.

For this reason, in addition to raw curiosity and poor impulse control, Loki runs after Sylvie and betrays the friendship with Mobius he didn't know he already had.

In S1E3, we have our first instance of new information paying off the meaning of a scene from a previous episode. On the train, Sylvie informs Loki she cannot sleep in front of people she doesn't trust (can't find the gif with the quote). Since Sylvie is a Loki, the audience can infer the same baseline nature may apply to "our" Loki as well.

In S1E2, we find Loki sleeping across Mobius. The significance of this is implied but not confirmed until S1E3.

When Sylvie wakes up (having fallen asleep despite herself, reinforcing the relational impact of Mobius to Loki to Sylvie, as well as affirming tentative trust on her part), she finds Loki drunk. When people are drunk, subconscious feelings come to the fore.

It is here that we have our second instance of new information paying off a scene from the previous episode. Or alternatively, Loki's interpretation of a previous moment with Mobius defined in a scene with Sylvie: "Love is a dagger."

Personally, I don't think Loki feels any love for Mobius when he makes his infamous metaphor. What I think happens in this scene, is that Loki has subconsciously interpreted the gift of daggers as an act of love.

Why?

Because daggers are for stabbing people in the back. For someone to give another a dagger implies absolute trust. That level of trust entails love.

But at this point in the story, Loki's experience with love and trust is very new. Perhaps it stands to reason, at least in Loki's hindbrain, that those feelings would be better directed at someone familiar, someone like himself: Sylvie. It certainly helps that he's immediately fascinated with her to begin with and he genuinely cares for her.

Significantly, upon Loki making the dagger disappear, Sylvie describes the dagger, love, as "it isn't real". This is an answer Loki intentionally draws out of Sylvie, because he and Sylvie are the same, which reinforces the thought that the love he subconsciously feels from Mobius cannot possibly be real. I think this may be what Tom is alluding to when he describes Loki as not wanting Mobius's love (because he isn't ready for it yet, even if it's purely platonic).

Loki and Sylvie's capture in S1E4 lead to the interrogation scene, which in turn leads to the tension of mutual distrust and mutual desire for trust snapping. This is articulated when Mobius calls Loki a "bad friend", which startles him. Within the MCU canon, no one has ever called Loki a 'friend'.

The tension breaks when Mobius returns to Loki, and they make very clear, active choices about what they want:

They choose to forgive one another

They choose to trust one another

They choose to affirm that a friendship between them exists

They choose to be on the same page and side

They talk through their fight in a very direct and healthy way. In addition to being called a 'friend' for the first time, it's highly likely this is the first time Loki has successfully mended fences with someone who isn't family. Thus, in one episode, Loki has had not 1 but 2 substantive milestones that contribute not just to his relationship with Mobius but his personal healing and growth.

But the narrative demands that as soon as the main character experiences triumph, they must experience tragedy, too.

Loki loses Mobius a total of 4 times in the series:

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he wants and returns his friendship. Mobius is pruned. (S1E4)

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he and Sylvie "don't see things the same way". Mobius has no memory of him. (S2E1)

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he (Loki) loves him. Mobius (as Don) spaghettifies. (S2E5)

Loki loses Mobius after realizing he has to give him up to save everyone. Mobius is left behind. (S2E6)

If you notice, Loki's emotional journey, at least as far as romantic reciprocation is concerned, is more or less a season behind Mobius's. Its progression is also punctuated by loss almost as soon as the personal epiphany occurs.

After Sylvie, for lack of a better word, "dumps" him, Loki has time to reflect on what has transpired, the dire consequences likely awaiting, and who has chosen to support him all along (a review of Mobius's decision-making where Loki's well-being is concerned may be read here.)

With this in mind, Loki runs in search of Mobius.

Which makes encountering a Mobius who doesn't know him, that much more devastating.

Tom's acting here is something else. Loki's desperation to have his Mobius back is visceral and foreshadows a similar desperation in S2E5. This moment, I feel, is the beginning of Loki's feelings tilting from platonic love to romantic. He's not fully there yet like Mobius already is, but it's starting.

And that gradual build-up of investment in Mobius spreads over S2E1 - S2E5. In these S2 episodes, Loki mirrors Mobius's emotional trajectory from S1E1 - S2E1 (S1E3 has no Mobius). Keep this mirroring in mind because Episode 5 in BOTH seasons is when they both give each other up for the sake of the other.

In S2E2, Loki protects Mobius physically:

And supports him emotionally:

In S2E3, Loki enjoys his magic and curbs its intensity for Mobius:

In S234, unbeknownst to Mobius, Loki defends his character and his efforts to save the timelines:

Now, S2E5 is where it all culminates.

I'm getting close to the gif threshold and the fit-check has been discussed at length, so I want to focus on this scene. Here, Loki tells Mobius that he "belongs" in the TVA and that he saved Loki's life when he first arrived. This shot of Loki saying Mobius's name echoes Mobius's look of unrequited love in S1E5's goodbye scene.

But I don't think Loki has fully articulated, in his mind, exactly what his feelings are because he's rushing. His sole focus for the time-being is getting Mobius back, and he does so, temporarily, through recruiting Don.

It's when Loki find's Sylvie that he has the time to once again reflect on the nature of his and Mobius's relationship and his regard for it as he did in S1E6. And it is, once again, Sylvie who acts as the catalyst for Loki's emotional epiphany.

When Sylvie challenges Loki to say what he actually wants, he struggles to respond. The want is too vulnerable to reveal.

I love Tom's micro-expressions in the above gifs (thank you @starrose17!) The pursed lips, the hard swallow, and the tears welling up in his eyes ... This is it, this is the moment I believe Loki finally realizes he's in love with Mobius.

He phrases his desire as wanting his friends back. That's true enough (an analysis of what the TVA means to Loki and Mobius may be read here). However, Loki later reuses the word "belong" and applies it to himself. Mobius, in his words, "belongs" in the TVA. Without his friends (the TVA) where does Loki "belong"?

This is outside of text and the sociopolitical conflict between the artists and the studio, but the case can be made that Loki doesn't entirely trust Sylvie with his feelings. Loki did, after all, witness Sylvie reprimand and humiliate Mobius. To directly admit love for the same person Sylvie harshly rebuked may not be received well, but I think Sylvie already knows and may have known as far back as when she commented "he cares about you" in S1E5.

From Loki's perspective, I think Loki knows Mobius loves him, but I am less certain if Loki knows Mobius loves him romantically. That said, prior to his sacrifice, I think Loki was emotionally ready to confess. I also believe Loki, while not 100% confident his romantic love would be reciprocated, senses his odds for reciprocation are good.

Unfortunately, their fate was to become star-crossed lovers.

(For now).

#loki #mobius #lokius #loki series #loki season 2 #loki meta #my meta #loki analysis #my analysis #asks

[traffic-light-eyes]

Ninja as influencers

My previous post got me thinking, and now I have to write this down.

Kai:

He for sure has Twitter/Chirp and uses it regularly. Very popular. He also has the ninjago equivalent to Instagram and is also very popular there, too. I could imagine him having a yt channel and doing silly vlogs and the occasional game, but that's about it. The other ninja were a bit weirded out by the vlogs at first because they didn't really want to feed into the whole idolizing the ninja thing, but realized that they could show the world that they're just. People. Normal people who save the world sometimes but are normally just passed out on the couch. They all love being in his vlogs now. When he records something embarrassing, he makes absolutely certain that the person it's of is okay with it being posted. Like, he gives them weeks to think about it. He has a video of Zane singing let it go (due to Jay's programming skills), and he was ecstatic to be able to post it. He's also a tiktok star. He does the silly dances and lip-syncing.

Nya:

She has Chirp but doesn't use it for social media purposes? If that makes sense. Like, she mainly only scrolls through her friends' chirps and responds to those. She gets into the groove and made a really sweet and chill community once the people that were only there for the "inside scoop" of the water ninja's life left. Now there's just her friends and a bunch of nice people. She comments on and rechirps? a lot of fanart, though. She has an Instagram but only to comment on Kai's posts with a thumbs down. She has a tiktok. It's secret. She posts little edits about her artwork or mechanics. It's fairly popular. She sometimes uses the filters and makes videos using them but never posts them.

Cole:

Similar to Nya, he has a Chirp account but doesn't really use it much. He'll respond to fanart and fans, but he only really posts occasionally. His posts normally consist of song recommendations or riffs of his friends. He threads callouts when he feels especially petty. It's pretty chill. He probably has a secret second account for art. He doesn't want people to like his art just because he's the earth ninja, so he made a second account. He has a tumblr too. I don't make the rules. He tries to stay in the loop with everyone's thoughts and shuts down the gross people. He's pretty well-known on the site. He likes reblogging the ship content and misdirecting people because it's funny. Pixal found him drawing techno and he scrambled for an excuse but she silently put a finger to her lip, winked, and left. He was very confused. She was absolutely dying on the inside from laughter because she knew of his account but wanted to freak him out. He couldn't look her in the eye for a week because he thought she thought he shipped them or something. She purposefully spoke to him often. He kept trying to explain, but Pixal always had an excuse to leave or change the subject before he could say it.

Lloyd:

He has Chirp. He has tumblr. He has ao3. He's not allowed on Instagram. He has a yt channel where he exclusively talks about comics and games. On his Chirp, he is completely unhinged some times, and other times, he posts cute animals he finds on missions or on patrol. He found a stray cat once and named her mittens because a follower commented it. He has #mittensmonday, where he posts a picture of her. It's always trending on Monday. His tumblr is once again about games and stuff, but he has a semi-secret side blog for Ninja Shenanigans where it's theorized that it's him, but no one has proof and he doesnt give a direct answer. He has unknowingly reblogged and messaged Cole on multiple occasions because he doesn't know about the Secret account. Cole doesn't know what to do. His ao3 account is mostly to check up on what people are thinking. If he sees something unsavory, he immediately logs off because that's him. Avid tiktok enjoyer. He could make a video of just him staring at the screen, and it would go viral. He finds it hilarious. It's his goal to find the most obscure thing to post and for it to finally not get viral.

Zane:

He has Chirp, but he hasn't used it. Either that or he uses it so terribly incorrectly. I could be convinced that he has a cooking yt channel. He'd call it something nerdy or informational, but people kept chirping about it calling him cookingmama, and he doesn't get it? But due to Jay's persistence, he changed his @ to cookingmama.

Jay:

He has Chirp. He uses it to keep up with the world + just talk to fans. He has a gaming channel and a Twitch account. He streams at least once a week. He loves it! He has a pretty chill community, and he often asks his friends to play with him. He makes sure that the games he play with them are suited to them first. He doesn't ask. He just knows. He picks action-based games for Kai - maybe LoL or, like, Left 4 dead. He plays silly smart games with Nya, like Portal or Keep talking and nobody explodes (they are ridiculously good at this). He and Cole would play scary games. They exclusively play them at night; phasmaphobia has caused many of the ninja to awaken to a shriek. Comfy and typically non-violent games are his and Lloyd's go-to. They'll play Minecraft or stardew for HOURS before they realize the sun is coming up. He and Zane play semi-stressful cooking games, or Zane is just there for commentating. They'll be seen playing overcooked or cooking simulator (they always play that one with a challenge somehow). He makes silly follower goals, and he has unfortunately had to do many, many things because his followers keep rising.

Honorary Ninja, Pixal:

She has an account for every platform that the ninja have just to crowd control + to support them in their comments. She rarely, if ever, posts anything aside from commenting on her friends' posts. Hc that Borg owns every platform, so she uses that to weed out the weirdos by asking him to make the platform very buggy on their device specifically. It's only a matter of time before they delete the app, and she loves watching the downfall via their posts and complaints about the website. She knows of everyone's account, even the Secret ones. She never lets them know that she knows of them, even if they do something strange because of it (check Cole's). She loves messing with them. If someone posts something recently, she conveniently talks about it the same day and gives them whiplash because what are the chances that she said that today. She's the go-to gal if there are any tech issues on stream or during editing.

Here ya go! Hope you enjoy my brainrot <3

#ninjago #queue #lloyd garmadon #kai smith #kai jiang #august's opinion #nya jiang #nya smith #jay walker #zane julien #cole brookstone #pixal borg #lloyd montgomery garmadon #ninjago lloyd #lloyd ninjago #ninjago kai #kai ninjago #ninjago nya #nya ninjago #ninjago jay #jay ninjago #jay gordon walker #jay gordon #ninjago zane #zane ninjago #cole brookestone #ninjago cole #cole ninjago #ninjago pixal #ninjago headcanons

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

I suspect I know the answer but. AITA for "disappearing" from my online accounts pretty regularly?

I (22) have been fairly active in online fandom culture since I was ~13. Most of that has been on tumblr, some on twitter/tiktok/discord. I bounce around between different fandoms-- there's not really any one fandom that has stuck since I was a kid-- and I'm not a big creator. I don't do art, I occasionally write fanfic but never anything that's gotten super famous (which I'm cool with, I write for the enjoyment of myself and the like 5 other freaks who like the same things I do. it would honestly really bother me if I got too much attention.)

I also have some issues with paranoia and social detachment. I dealt with rather severe childhood abuse, which I'm not going to discuss, but which basically means I'm very emotionally detached. I have solo hobbies i really enjoy, and I like discussing common interests (like fandom stuff) with people, but I've never really had friends/romantic interests, and have zero interest in either of those things. The only people I'm really close to are my siblings. I'm definitely not an introvert, not shy/socially anxious, and not lonely. I have morals and care about society in a general sense, and I want the best for people, so I try to be polite and a Good Person as much as possible-- but ultimately I don't feel any kind of attachment to other people. I really don't want to hurt people, I just want to be left alone.

I really try to politely communicate this to people, since I've had quite a few incidents where I've been told I "lead people on", or people thinking we're friends and then getting upset when they realize I really don't care that much about them. It does make me feel bad to hurt others like that (and is also frustrating to deal with), but I can't exactly force myself to have emotions. I get along well with my irl coworkers/classmates/roommates, since they understand I just need a lot of space. Where I may be TA is with online friends.

About once every 6-12 months, I delete my entire online presence and start over. I orphan my ao3 fics, delete any and all accounts, and make sure my new accounts don't in any way link back to my old accounts. Usually when I do this it's because 1 I've changed interests and don't care about my old fandom, or 2 I feel like the people I know online start getting too close and emotionally attached to me. I usually post an explanation a few days before so people don't think something bad happened, saying that I'm going to be taking a break from social media for a while, and if anyone asks me for another way to contact me I just say I'm going to be completely offline. Then I just.... wipe everything and start over. I don't really know what my old mutuals are doing and don't particularly care? Like obviously I wish all the best for them, but I just don't think about them at all.

I've been doing this since I was a young teenager, but I was discussing fandom/social media presence with some irl classmates recently and brought it up. The reactions ranged from "weird but harmless" to "super mean and hurtful to the people you abandoned".

So: tumblr, AITA for disappearing?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[star-sparkler]

Hey there. I'm a little nervous to ask this since I admire you and your artwork in the Rise community surrounding your adorable OC, August. She is so precious, by the way! In fact, you're one of the artists who inspired me to make and develop my own Rise OC, though I don't know if I will be ready to share them or my stories online yet.

I was wondering about August's ninpo and her abilities. I don't think I've ever seen her demonstrate having powers other than a post showing her having enhanced strength and inheriting her father's intelligence. Does she have other abilities, related or non-related to mystical powers? I also understand that she struggles with accessing and using her ninpo. Is there a reason as to why she struggles so much with this?

I apologize if this ask is a bit long. Again, I really do love your work and your OC. I hope that one day I can have enough confidence and skill to share my own stories and characters online. Have a good rest of your day!

No reason to be nervous dude - I’m literally just a normal person with an oc a few people like. I’m glad to hear you enjoy her too! It’s SUCH a joy and honor to hear she inspired anyone. I hope your own oc brings you tons of happiness and creativity. ☺️💓

I’ve admittedly been kinda dodgy about August’s ninpo cause I’m not ready to disclose it yet 🙈 More to come later on that! But! You can mark August down as being a bit of a kid genius (on whatever level Donnie would have been at her age). And there is very much a reason for why she struggles with her ninpo!

I think I’ve been hiding some of this for a fun reveal. But I’m not telling a linear story anyway and I may have gotten excited and posted about this before so whateveeeeer it’s all for fun. August spoilers (?) ahead.

💜

August is super keen to carry on the Hamato legacy and prove herself to her family, so she’s constantly pushing herself and working hard to measure up to a clan of highly skilled and powerful mystic ninjas. She trains regularly, and, in aus with cousins, takes her role as oldest cousin and future leader very seriously.

But overcoming her desire to be More and Better and a perfect example of her family, finding AUGUST within Hamato, is her personal arc that takes place in her later teens. And this uncertainty of self is reflected in her ninpo. So although August unlocks her ninpo fairly young she struggles with it for a long time - it’s amorphous, and changes, refusing to decide what it is. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes she knows what to expect from it, sometimes it surprises her. For someone who thrives on consistency and control, this becomes wildly upsetting and frustrating, which only seems to worsen the problem.

Each of her family members have different theories on what the issue might be, and each of them are a little right. There are a few compounding factors at play. But once August starts to understand herself better and gain more confidence, her ninpo flows more naturally and finally takes a shape of her own. Personal growth!

#millenniamoon #AugustineHamato

[shit-my-asexual-friend-says]

So, I recently reblogged a post about the asexual experience and realized that my addition was twice as long as the two other comments combined. This feels a little weird, since of the three posters, I am the one who is not asexual.

However, I am fairly confident that I know why.

The asexual community is regularly shunted to the side in other sex-positivity and queer-positivity movements, which is horrible. One of the side-effects of this, though, is that allosexuals who experience these same types of love and lifestyles - for example, my own bisexual queerplatonic ass - are not only shunted to the side, but basically invisible to the community at large. This isn't just harmful to me. If you read the post, I talk about @why-are-the-allos-like-this and my's shared experience of feeling that our relationship is lesser than any romantic relationship I might be a part of. Which is bullshit. It's not.

Love is love is kind of the slogan of the entire Queer community, but I know I'm not the only one who has had this experience. So I'm telling it to everyone: love is love is a radical idea. Love is love applies to everyone. It applies to me as a bisexual woman who is in love with a man; my love for him does not negate my bisexuality. It applies to me as an allosexual person who is in a queerplatonic relationship; my asllosexuality doesn't destroy that relationship.

When you shunt one part of the community to the side - asexuals, bisexuals, whichever trans identity we're villainizing today (it's always somebody), people who have detransitioned but remain allies, literally anyone - you are erasing a lot more experiences than the ones you have decided are lesser or unimportant. You're also erasing the ones that you literally do not know exist, because you never made a space for them.

To be clear, it is correct and important to give special attention to people who are going through specific extreme challenges. It is also important not to pretend that all of our challenges are the same; I have never faced violence in the way the trans women I know have, for example. Amplifying voices that need amplifying does not need to come with a side dish of invalidating and shouting down the voices that you don't think need amplifying.

#Shout out to: #Trans women who are currently under another fucking wave of accusations #Trans men who are currently being loudly told that they do not actually experience oppression because they are not women #Asexual people who are treated as second class citizens in most queer-friendly spaces because of the overwhelming focus on sex #People who do not know how to self-describe because they were systematically denied access to education #People who are not trans but were pressured to transition and have since detransitioned #Trans people (especially butch lesbians or former butch lesbians) who felt like transitioning would betray some cause #People who are currently in the closet and plan to stay that way long-term #People who experience queerness in a way that doesn't feel as life-altering as it is for the people around you so you keep quiet #queer culture #queer solidarity #asexual #bisexual #queerplatonic relationships #queerplatonic

[triflesandparsnips]

(eta 10/10/23: Having just realized that this is now a very easy to google explainer, please also see the full end-of-game roundup here: "when something is definitely not a game, but most definitely a gift" or my related #definitely not a game tag. We now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense, currently in progress.)

So... so.

So this just dropped.

And listen. LISTEN. For people who haven't been following this Our Flag Means Death-related alternate-reality-shenanigan fest, the following will make no sense to you-- or, wait, fuck it--

A Brief History of the Javid Denkins Alternate-Reality Game

(I didn't intend "overly long essays about in-depth fandom-related shenanigans" to be my brand, but by god I'm here now and I will make us all suffer through it.)

Reality (As We Know It)

Established and verified gay pirate showrunner David Jenkins is a regular shenanigineer on twitter: retweets fanart, retweets cosplays, calls fans sluts (endearment), has ongoing fight with medieval cats.

Back in 2022, David Jenkins implied heavily that he had joined tumblr, but did not cough up his account name.

This is the sum total of real and actual events and identities.

Through the Looking Glass

Fans started looking for David Jenkins's tumblr. What fans found is the tumblr of one Javid Denkins, who appeared to be new, had a variant of Jenkins's twitter icon, and seemed to be cheekily maintaining an incognito by steadfastly asserting that he is definitely not David Jenkins.

Fans got weird about it, because that is the nature of fandom. I said something about it here, because I have Feelings about the Rules of Incognito and also about Not Being Weird About People Who Make the Content We Like. I put it as a reblog to the post, as per regular tumblring, no response requested/required because babes, if I'm going to be perceived, I want it to be organic. (ahem... FOOTNOTE 1)

I kept a cursory eye on things, because it can be Really Lonely to be a famous person who just wants to have a regular online experience, and if that's what whoever was on the other end wanted, then that's what they should get to have imo. Unlike a regular tumblr that I might reply to directly or engage with on a same-level kinda way, I let them set the rules of engagement because unless/until they came clean, they would always be Schrodinger's Showrunner to me, and therefore subject to my internal Don't Be Creepy ruleset.

My second Javid reblog was pretty much what I would do to any other newbie tumblr person (as they professed to be): adding on to a gag by referencing the "color of the sky" meme and also a seagull, for OFMD-related reasons (which fit within the ruleset, because Javid was actively connecting himself with OFMD type things). And Javid reblogged it, so hey, I was winning at tumblr interactions, a thing that is normal to want and possible to achieve.

Time passed. Javid dropped (what will be revealed to be the first of many) photo manipulations. (FOOTNOTE 2)

On the same day, Javid posted what looked like an accidental smashkey. I reblogged with a seagull, because again, established rules of engagement and me winning at tumblr interactions. He reblogged himself, though, with what looked like another smashkey, but was actually a goddamn Caesar cipher-- and started using the tag #definitely not a game.

From there, Javid started up a stream of fairly fun puzzles. I didn't keep up with it fully, but since it looked like Javid wanted people to interact, I interacted (while trying to ensure that other people could keep having fun too). He also started subtly changing his icon, his tumblr header, etc., expanding the bounds of the puzzle space, as it were. (And if you want a complete rundown of the puzzle history and the associated answers, this twitter thread is enormous and thorough, thank you @eefaevie.)

The seagull made an appearance every once in a while; I threw together various season 2 bingo cards in response to these potential spoilers; I spent my time largely keeping back so I could eat popcorn and Not Be Creepy. But... but.

The thing was, Javid's method of posting (in a "heeeere fishy fishy fishy" manner) seemed, to me, to be the actions of someone trying to play with the audience and/or provide enrichment for the enclosure. So after some thought and, again, remembering the loneliness of being a Creative Person but trying to be mindful that this person was still incognito and could be the actual dude, I started using the seagull to reblog extra content, links, whathaveyou, with the tag #enrichment can go in BOTH enclosures-- with the idea that, if Javid wanted to look, he had the option to do so-- and if he did, he'd be rewarded with, again, no demands on him or his attention, but just: some content. Some enrichment. Some fun. A "picking up what you're putting down" kind of vibe from one person to another, both of whom are, at the very least, interested in communicating with an audience.

To be clear: For me, at the end of the day, it had to be a choice. I needed to provide room for Javid to choose to enter the magic circle of my additional game play-- but I also wasn't going to hold my breath about it. This was Javid's space, with intentions and purposes I had no way of knowing (nor should I)-- I was just, metaphorically, bringing another set of dice and maybe some graph paper with an extra room drawn on it that he could easily enter if he wanted, to play in a space intended to complement his. He was putting in a shitton of labor for what was essentially just a gift; I wanted to show appreciation for that labor, while putting in some of my own to gift back.

So when the first round of puzzles ended, and a new one began, I linked the answers to one of his anagram puzzles inside some seagull gifs-- but I figured, why not add something extra? I used his pigpen cipher to dare him to use a book code next. To even see the dare he'd have to want to decode the gifs-- and if he ultimately didn't want to engage, no skin off my nose. (That's why there's a border around the magic circle with clear entrances and exits.) Either way, I was having a nice time.

The next puzzle type was a stereogram. (Neat.) The puzzle after that, though? I get tagged and informed that Javid has, in fact, posted a motherfucking book code. (FOOTNOTE 3)

Enter the Thunder Parasocial Dome

This is the point where I first have to be pulled down from the curtains by rational people who have only my best interests at heart.

(Having a whole Thesis Statement about why I was engaging with Schrodinger's Showrunner is one thing. Having possible evidence that my engagement was, like, actually engaged with is quite another.)

By sweet and loving friends and family I was reminded that:

Other people are, in fact, allowed to be clever about things too.

That all sorts of pre-planning may have gone into all this, and that therefore the timing was a coincidence.

That there are a limited number of easily accessible ciphers out there, so the code type could also be a coincidence.

And that either way I still have my important Don't Be Creepy code of ethics.

So. I took a deep breath. Cool. I was totally and absolutely cool about this.

...And in a totally normal manner I proceeded to lay an elaborate trap.

AHAHAHA JUST JOKING what I mean is: I replied to the tagged post, acknowledging that the sphere of potential puzzling had now expanded beyond tumblr. I used Javid's own fake-link trick to link to a seagull laugh. And in the tags I threw in a lot of potential internet-related alternate reality stuff.

But also, crucially... some more ideas for Javid to use. (FOOTNOTE 4) If he wanted them. If he was actually looking.

Since I was now playing In Earnest, I spent some time putting together a youtube channel, an alternate tumblr, a neocities account -- a whole new field of play, if Javid wanted to engage there. I pulled out the dusty memories of a Yuletide fic I wrote several years ago that used similar shenanigans to tell an interactive fiction story about Monty Python. (Hilariously enough, my first RPF.) I continued to play with all these new and fascinating toys.

A Strange Ship on the Horizon

What with one thing and another three years pass, a Javid puzzle eventually lead to an AO3 account-- which to me definitively opened Schrodinger's box: maybe this was a member of the production playing with fire, more likely it was a clever fan whose brain is fucking fascinating, but it most definitely was not David Jenkins.

But. Javid was still in incognito. And I still don't know if I had been perceived.

I read the fic the Javid account is writing (which is still a work in progress and pretty great ngl)-- it's a fandom AU, where Ed and Stede are fans of a gay pirate romcom called Blow the Man Down, featuring Sam Bellamy and Olivier Levasseur. The showrunner is named Javid, who doesn't have social media but gets cornered into agreeing to join twitter (rather than our universe's tumblr). And Ed decides, on a lark, to start a fake twitter account, tag it #definitelynotjaviddenkins... and then freak out because a large contingent of fandom shows up on his metaphorical doorstep saying HELLO, JAVID.

As if this weren't enough: beyond the fic itself, suddenly a whole multimedia alternate universe suddenly appeared, with multiple twitter and AO3 accounts beyond just Stede and Ed, forming an entire fucking fandom, Goncharov-style, around Blow the Man Down. It was and continues to be fucking wild. It's also amazing. And the porn is surprisingly approachable. (BUT SEE AGAIN FOOTNOTE 1)

Grappling Hooks Breaching the Parasocial Divide

The thing is, though. The thing. That is.

I have officially reached Level 2 Curtain Clawing.

As I read the fic and the accompanying universe, I started to. Notice things.

References to soap (but... but surely that's normal. Many people talk about soap, not just amateur history enthusiasts like myself).

References to obscure scents (LABDANUM. Someone referenced labda-motherfucking-num. But surely. Surely it is not an entirely unheard of thing; I am not the first person to discover it or the fact that it gets combed from goats jesus christ the goat thing I forgot about that--)

References to the drilled coin from the wreck of Sam Bellamy's ship, which appeared as a random bit of possible future lore for Javid in this bit of enrichment (but I put in lots of possible lore! I had a whole thing going about figureheads! Bad luck to kill a seabird! I had a whole thing for a while where I thought maybe the digraph code Javid was hinting at was actually a Playfair cipher! I have been wrong many times before and added lots of random possible narratives. SO SURELY THE COIN IS A COINCIDENCE).

References to... okay not really references, and I've never articulated it quite like this (though this is definitely my vibe), but references to the idea of these puzzles and enrichment being a conversation in and of themselves, held at a remove and existing entirely in call (Javid) and response (the audience).

Finally... I started to notice that Stede decodes/interprets Ed-as-Javid's puzzles in a long twitter thread (like... like the one linked above) but also... sends back puzzles. Like, well, me.

"But STILL," I screech from the top of the curtain rail. "This could ALL BE COINCIDENCE," I yowl as friends and family try to bat me down with a broom. Even, by god, today's drop... which uses a password-protected url shortener. The exact same one I used in an earlier enrichment. But! It's not like there are a lot of those! Maybe this was just the first one that cropped up for Javid, just as it was the first that cropped up for me! (BUT THEN AGAIN, MAY I REFER YOU BACK TO FOOTNOTE 4)

The fic is at chapter 14. There are, if AO3 is to be believed, 7 more chapters to go, plus who knows how much additional extra-universe material. There is so. much. here.

...And so many more opportunities to climb all the curtains.

“It's a great huge game of chess that's being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know.”

So at this point... what, in fact, is happening?

I'm inside a Schrodinger's box whose sides are entirely composed of parasocial uncertainty.

Maybe Javid is here. (HELLO, JAVID.)

Maybe he isn't! (HELLO, THE MIRROR IN MY ENCLOSURE.)

Maybe I'm not actually being referenced at all, but the writer of that twitter thead, @eefaevie, is (HI EEFAEVIE WHAT'S UP HOW'S THE PARASOCIAL AIR IN YOUR ENCLOSURE DOIN')

I don't know. I can't know. Unless someone opens the box.

and my god, what if they never do?

tl;dr. This is the most enriching fun I've had in months, and if the magic circle is going to widen to include me, then friend, I intend to BRING MY A-GAME.

---

FOOTNOTES

1. During the course of that mini-essay, I say the following:

"If it's someone who is not the dude but just a tumblrite who managed to catch on really quick? Well goddamn, good for them, and also A+ Wink-Nudge acrobatics. Real dude can have a peaceful time reading critical analyses of Goncharov, Javid here can quietly start introducing strange lore and running gags and other fun-with-plausible-deniability shenanigans".

One day later Javid starts answering questions about characters with enigmatic season 2 spoilery things; a little less than ten days later, we get the first fake link (which, imo, is the real start of the game).

2. This is now only 24 days after my "strange lore and fun with plausible deniability" post.

3. My dare: January 26. Javid's book code: February 4.

4. My tags on the post wherein I acknowledge that the dare has, possibly, been taken up, read: #you know what's cool? besides how #enrichment can go in BOTH enclosures #is how much you can do with html #like sure sure we've all seen the embedded links #but I remember the days of hidden source code messages #websites with delayed redirects #passwords hidden on one site to open the locked contents of another #you know #~normal things~ #I'm certain none of this will become relevant #because this is #definitely not a game

#OH HEY also eta 10/10/23: changed 'augmented' to 'alternate' because that's a more accurate description #definitely not a game #our flag means death #enrichment can go in BOTH enclosures #the absolute wildness of narrative and alternate reality games #a brief history of #javid denkins #and probably someone needs to start spritzing me with a spray bottle or something because this is #this is a lot