#fandom wank Sunday I guess

[c-e-d-dreamer]

I know I answered in that ask game about how Rhysand is a bad High Lord (aka bad at his job), but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it's just a world building oversight of SJM. It seems, to me at least, pretty clear that SJM loves to give characters tragic backstories or tragedies to overcome without fully thinking through the implications and big picture of what she's creating.

Like, you have Illyria, this brutal, sexist place. And Rhys's mother suffered there until his father swooped in and saved her, and his mother's trauma is still something he shoulders. And Cassian's mother also suffered there to the point it literally killed her and he was thrown into the snow and forced to fend for himself without a scrap of anything. And even Azriel's trauma is rooted in this terrible, awful place. And it's this big triumph that they banded together and they conquered Ramiel, that they escaped and are now living the dream in Velaris.

And that's great and beautiful... in a bubble. But Illyria is still there. It's still brutal. They overcame these tragedies but the tragedies now still exist for everyone else once you step back and look at the big picture. That's the implications created with these backstories.

It's the same for the Hewn City! You have this horrific place where Mor rarely saw sunlight because she was stuck underground. Where women are literally auctioned off into marriages where they're beaten and worse. And it's so great that Mor overcame that, that she got out and was a dreamer who escaped. But again, by creating this horrific place, it implies all those horrible things are just... Still happening. SJM gave Mor this beautiful story of rising out of that but what does that mean for all the other women?

You even see it in Velaris. SJM has Nesta in a literal rock bottom to reflect her figurative rock bottom, and isn't it so great she's able to pull herself out of that? But okay, you've now created a seedy, slums of Velaris full of sketch people and run down houses and awful taverns in order to do that...

Honestly, even Feyre's book 1 story shows this oversight. SJM gives her this tragic life and these horrible sisters and all this hardship for her to overcome. For her to find happiness and a better life and a real family in Prythian. And again, a beautiful story in a bubble. But then she brings back the sisters into the story and wonders why so many people hate them and don't care about Nesta's or Elain's own journeys.

And I know this is rambley and ranty, but the way I just want to shake SJM and her editor. Like please. I don't need crazy, intricate and detailed world building, but at least think it through a bit more.

Tragic backstories are all fun and games until you've now ended up with a High Lord who looks like he's absolutely terrible at his job and taking care of his Court...

#fandom wank Sunday I guess #I could not stop thinking about this this morning #so I had to write it all down #because it lowkey really bothers me #honestly I could go on five rants about the world building oversights #from unnamed characters to unanswered questions about Court politics to this

[nanoland]

am writing hellblazer fic asfdfsfff

title: The Cave

fandom: Hellblazer

characters: John Constantine, Chas Chandler, the First of the Fallen

blurb: John gets lost in a cave. 

warnings: Depression, covid19, demons getting themselves Extremely murdered. 

0 

It was when the death toll had crested 100,000 that he’d snapped and made his way to Number 10 Downing Street with murder in his eyes and a briefcase full of every cursed artefact he owned.

“What are you gonna do, eh?” bellowed Chas, who’d been following behind him in his cab for the last half mile. He’d already tried to physically drag John into it and had received a bite on the hand for his trouble. “Chuck ‘em through the windows? That’s bulletproof glass, John! Fuck’s sake! Be reasonable!”

“Stop sodding shouting!” John shouted over his shoulder, wiping rain off his face. “You’ll spread sodding germs!”

“John, I already had it. Four months ago, remember?”

“You can have it more than once! Christ, does nobody in this city read the papers but me?”

It was fair to say that John wasn’t at his best. In his defence, he’d spent the last year sitting inside his tiny, poorly-ventilated, roach-ridden flat, vividly imagining what a respiratory virus would do to lungs that had suffered over forty years of heavy smoking, two run-ins with cancer, and the actual devil sticking his actual great big grubby clawed hand in ‘em. No fucking thank you.

Chas sighed heavily and climbed out of the cab again, slamming the door as he did. He splashed through a dozen puddles before coming to stand in John’s path, arms folded. “Listen, Conjob. I love you. Even when you’re a complete prick, which is most of the time. And I know you can do amazing things. But mate, hear me out; you cannot assassinate the British Prime Minister.”

“Someone bloody has to!” John Constantine, greatest wizard of his age, screamed at the top of his wretched, ragged, Satan-besmirched lungs.

Eventually, Chas managed to calm him down and get him home for a cup of tea.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” John grunted as his socks dried in front of the heater and the rational parts of his mind re-exerted themselves.

“S’alright.”

“How’s the bite?”

“Didn’t pierce the skin. John, you need a break. A holiday. You need to get out of town for a few weeks. Go breathe fresh country air, do some weird mystical shit with a goat, whatever it is that sorts your head out these days. But you can’t carry on like this, mate. I haven’t seen you this miserable in years.”

He handed John one of Renee’s strawberry-patterned towels. Dragging it across his face, John grunted, “Holiday? At a time like this?”

“Why not? Makes as much sense as any other time.”

“What if you come down with it again? Or Geraldine? Or Renee?”

“John,” said Chas, gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You already tried to cure me with magic. It didn’t work. At all. Just wasted a lot of chicken blood and Renee’s best spoons. Get this in your skull: there’s nothing you can do. Alright? I know you hate that, but it’s the truth.”

John swallowed thickly. “Yeah. Yeah. Alright.”

So he went home to his tiny flat, stuffed fresh socks and his toothbrush into a backpack, booby-trapped his front door, and fled London in the dead of night, feeling like one of those gits in Boccaccio’s Decameron.

0

“It’s called glamping.”

“Some new wizardy stuff, I’m guessing?”

Chas’s voice over the phone was distracted, like he was half-watching the telly. John was relieved; he’d wanted to hear another human speak but wasn’t feeling up to a proper conversation demanding his usual levels of sparkling charisma and staggering wit. Not right now. Not without weed, and he’d not thought to bring any.

Nestling deeper into his teak folding chair and drawing a thick woven blanket up over his knees, John said, “Nah. Not buggering about with any of that old guff until I’m back in town. Promised myself.”

“Right.”

“Don’t sound so sceptical, you git. I’ve done it before.”

“Mm-hmm. What’s your record? The longest you’ve ever gone without doing anything mystical and creepy?”

“‘Bout… hmm. Three days.”

“You’re coming up on the tail end of that right about now.”

“I know. Chas, on my word, I am going to make it to Sunday without so much as sniffing around a graveyard or wanking off a werewolf. I am on holiday.”

“Alright, alright, if you say so. Good for you, mate. So what’s this ‘glamping’ business, then?”

“It’s camping. But posh. I’m sitting up here atop a hill in Yorkshire with a tent the size of a cathedral and me chic woodburning stove and me box of white wine and feeling like the yuppiest old cunt who ever drew breath.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“It does, doesn’t it? That’s why I chose it over a nice comfy bed and breakfast. Figured I’d wake up with a cow shitting on my head and could use that as an excuse to come home early. Actually, though… it’s alright. Quiet. There’s a river at the bottom of the hill where these giggling honeymooners like to have a morning bonk but it’s far enough away that I can’t hear them unless they’re really having fun. And the weather’s been alright. It’s all surprisingly decent.”

“And you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Yep.”

“Hmph. I should have come with you. You get all weird and introspective when you’re left alone for more than a couple days.”

“I’m not alone. There’re birds. Squirrels. A few ghosts hanging out by the toilets.”

“John.”

“Ain’t gonna talk to ‘em! Mind you, one did give me a wink when I was zipping up. How’s everything back home?”

“Er – look, I won’t lie, it’s shit. It’s all shit. But it’s not any more shit than it was when you left three days ago. Not any worse, not any better, yeah?”

“Right.”

(Stupid to be disappointed. Stupid that a part of him had secretly believed that as soon as he abandoned the sinking ship that was London, things would miraculously get better for everyone, even as another part of him, on the opposite side of his brain, had been convinced – maybe even hoped – that the moment he was gone, the entire city would descend into screaming anarchy, at which he could point and laugh from a safe distance.)

“Listen, John, I’ve gotta go. Renee needs groceries. Be careful, please?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Don’t fuck about with any occult bollocks. Don’t go foraging for brain-melting mushrooms. Don’t do anything. Just stay in your tent and read your dirty books, yeah?”

“Heard and understood, Mum.”

“Bastard.��

“Love you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

John dropped his phone onto the grass and stared up at the sky. A herd of thin grey clouds drifted past. Off in the distance, he could just make out the shape of a barn – or was it a church? Either way, there were sheep next to it.

A squirrel scurried down a nearby tree trunk and then up another one.

Yawning, he scratched his chin. (Getting scruffy. Hadn’t shaved in two days now.)

“Should prob’ly do some reading,” he mumbled to no one.

A few minutes passed.

He dangled his head back behind his seat and sang quietly: “First produced my pistol… then produced my rapier… said ‘stand and deliver’, for he were a bold deceiver… mush a-ring dum-a do dum-a da…”

Heaving a sigh, he stood up and walked around his tent to dispel pins and needles, then went inside to read his book.

“I am not bored,” he muttered fiercely, staring down at pages that might as well have been blank.

“Oh, but you are, John.”

England’s greatest wizard jumped up, wielding his novel as though it were a club, and dealt a devastating blow to empty air while screaming something along the lines of, “Raargh die die die!”

Then he waited for a moment to see if the voice returned. Tried to determine whether he could sense anything. Nope. Admittedly, that didn’t mean much these days. Lots of beasties and bastards out there had learned how to hide from him.

“Either I’m hallucinating or someone’s pissing me about,” he concluded, placing his hands on his hips. “Chas, mate, I’m sure you would agree that either constitutes a fine reason to leave this fucking tent.”

And leave he did. 

0

He went caving.

The BBC had published an article a couple years back calling the UK’s cave systems its ‘last true wilderness’. He and Chas had had a good long laugh over that, Chas suggesting that John take the caver quoted on an expedition to Faerie or maybe direct him toward any of the two hundred portals to Hell between Plymouth and the Orkney Islands.

But the article had stuck with him. Perhaps it was the obvious love the caver had for his hobby, the clean and simple joy he got out of crawling around in dark, damp holes. John was always drawn to people like that, and not just because it sounded smutty.

(Imagine if he’d loved something clean and simple; gotten into bird-watching or carpentry instead of magic. Would have saved him a lot of hassle.)

Idly, one evening, he’d poked around on the internet – now that, that really was the last true wilderness – until he’d found a map listing all the cave systems in the UK, along with a guide to which were popular, which were dangerous, which were good for a family holiday, and yes (inevitably), which had been the scenes of grisly accidents.

(Wikipedia said that historically there’d been only 136 fatalities ‘associated with recreational caving’ in the UK and that, statistically, it wasn’t a particularly dangerous hobby. Hadn’t stopped him from having vivid dreams about bodies wedged in tiny tunnels miles below ground, cooling and rotting and bloating, except how could they bloat when there simply wasn’t enough room, what happened when…

Anyway, Chas had eventually rescued him from his maudlin musings and dragged him to the pub.)

And while his memory was a messy old thing, especially these days, that just happened to be the sort of useless information that tended to hang around in his head for years, like the words to every song in Sweeney Todd or the rituals required for an exorcism spell that didn’t actually work, doing nothing but taking up space.

There was a cave only a few miles from the campsite.

When he arrived, he beheld a clumsily painted sign nailed to an oak tree next to the entrance:

CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC UNTIL SPRING

NO TRESPASSERS

HAZARDOUS! ENTER AT OWN RISK

He lingered at the cave’s mouth. Though it was big enough for him to stand up in, it made for an unassuming sight. Squirrels played in the old oak with three sets of lovers’ initials carved into it that stood at its left and the pathway leading up to it was strewn with weeds and wildflowers.

“Am I really this stupid?” he pondered aloud, before correcting himself: “Am I really this bored?”

After five minutes’ internal debate, he decided that yes, he was.

He took a step towards the narrow crevice, before stopping himself. No. This was ridiculous. What was he thinking? Shaking his head, he turned and walked away.

Three hours later he was back, now with a good pair of leather boots (stolen from an arsehole in a nearby village), a Power Rangers backpack (given to him by a kid in exchange for a cigarette and some magic tricks), a cheap flashlight, two cans of lager, and a packet of crisps (paid for with the last of his cash).

“Off we go, then,” he said, and marched into the dark. 

0

Like a well-fed leopard on a low-hanging branch, the First of the Fallen lounged across his throne of vertebrae, long black hair dribbling off his broad shoulders and pooling on the ground. Though he was wide awake, his eyes were closed. This, combined with the corpses of three supplicants dangling from nearby steel hooks, would hopefully discourage anyone from bothering him for the next few hours.

“My liege?”

Shit.

He kept still. Said nothing. Perhaps they would go away.

“Um… my liege, I’m terribly, monumentally sorry to disturb you, but…”

With a wave of his claw, the messenger exploded into red mist.

When, ten minutes later, a second messenger summoned up the courage to approach him, he realized that it must be very serious indeed.

“You have five seconds,” he said cordially, holding them up by the neck.

“Con… constantine!” they croaked.

Brightening, the First set them down. “Indeed? What’s the little bastard up to this time, eh?”

“Nothing, my liege. He’s dead.”

A few minutes later, a fourth corpse hung from a hook and the throne of Hell was empty. 

0

To the First of the Fallen, caves were still a novelty.

Confined spaces, in general, were still a novelty.

At 13.6 billion years, he was only slightly younger than the universe. While solid planets had come into existence around the same time, he’d not actually visited one until the emergence of homo sapiens and his subsequent quarrel and falling-out with God – a mere 300,000 years ago.

Cast from Heaven, naked and freezing cold, he’d stumbled into a rocky cranny by the shoreline and wedged himself between its slimy walls. That was his earliest memory of ever being ‘indoors’. No surprise, then, that he avoided such places when he could. He had built no castles in Hell; his throne sat atop a mountain beneath an endless red-gold sky.

But right now, it wasn’t the cave that had his attention, dark and chilly and, yes, slimy as it was.

“Stupid turd,” he grumbled, glowering at the corpse. “Ow!”

He’d bumped his head on the cave ceiling again. It was too low for the average human to stand upright, much less an eight-foot primordial being.

Constantine stared at him, blue eyes blank and glassy. His body was unmarred save for the dent in the left side of his scalp, which had stopped leaking some time ago. As far as the First could tell, his nemesis had simply tripped and fallen onto an unfortunately positioned, unfortunately sharp rock.

The First spat on his tie and snarled, “Pathetic! What the fuck are you even doing here, eh? And – God’s hairy bollocks, when did you last bathe?”

His soul was still dangling off him, like drool from a dog’s mouth. Heaven, obviously, had no interest in him and the First hadn’t yet authorised his admission into Hell.

Because he wasn’t ready, dammit.

He’d not been expecting to welcome John home for at least another thirty years.

“Always have to make it difficult, don’t you?”

When he reached down to take hold of the soul – such a grubby, tattered thing – it bit, blazing gold for a sliver of an instant before he snatched his hand back. Stuck his index finger in his mouth until the sting abated. Fumed.

He tried again, grasping it firmly, as one might a snake. It thrashed. He gave it a disciplinary shake before opening Constantine’s mouth with a claw and forcing it down his gullet.

Coming back to life was never enjoyable. Constantine spasmed and gurgled, legs and arms contorting as pink foam gathered at his lips. The First, bored, sat down beside him, reclining against the cave wall with one knee crooked. Surveyed their surroundings. The ground was – oh dear – littered with crisp crumbs, an empty foil packet, two cans, and dozens of cigarette butts. How foul.

“Disaster in your wake, as ever,” he commented, tutting.

Constantine groaned, eyelashes fluttering.

Belatedly realizing that he wouldn’t be able to see in this subterranean gloom, and very much wanting to afflict him with the identity of his saviour, the First snapped his fingers. A dozen lit candles appeared across the cavern, hovering ghost-like in mid-air.

“Urgh… fffu… whu… oh, Christ Almighty.”

Watching him sit up, the First assumed a lordly expression, tilting his head. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

Unhealthily pale skin and facial muscles stretched and twisted to an indeterminable end.

Then John Constantine set his jaw.

Growled: “I’m on holiday, you bellend.”

And passed out. 

0

He awoke to the smell of slightly burnt waffles.

Better than burnt flesh, which was what he’d anticipated after His Infernal Bloody Majesty had popped in for a fag and a chat. Certainly better than sulphur.

“For you,” the First of the Fallen purred.

A white plate – averagely-sized but rendered absurdly dainty by the dimensions of the clawed fingers holding it – was set down in front of him.

He frowned at its golden-brown contents. “The catch?”

“No catch. I was peckish. I imagine you are, too.”

“Come on. Not in the mood. Did you piss on ‘em? Did you mix a baby’s blood into the batter?”

“Honestly, John.”

Scratching his chin, he reviewed the facts. Still in the same sodding cave, albeit far better illuminated than the last time he’d been conscious. Alive, but with that unmistakable stiffness that he’d come to associate with having recently been dead. Cold. Irritable.

Hungry.

His archenemy’s smug smile was almost enough to make him spit the first bite back out. Instinct borne from months of extreme poverty forced him to swallow instead.

“Tastes like shit,” he remarked, wiping his lips. “But I suppose you usually have minions to prepare food for you. Where’s the syrup?”

A regal sigh, before a bottle appeared beside the plate. He emptied a third of it and spent the next few minutes in delicious, sticky silence.

There were, as ever, consequences to allowing the First of the Fallen centre stage. The moment the big smelly git realised that John really wasn’t in the mood for banter, he waved a hand and conjured up a thin hardback with Into the Underworld: The Amateur’s Guide to Caving in Britain on the front.

As John rolled his eyes and stuffed another waffle into his mouth, the First cleared his throat and read: “‘According to the National Speleological Society, the minimum number of people required to safely embark on a recreational caving expedition is four – at least one of whom should have prior caving experience.’ Did you know that, John?”

John chewed sullenly.

“I did. I’d wager that most people do. At least, I’d wager that most people know that going caving in groups smaller than two – going caving alone – is wildly inadvisable. Caves are dangerous, John.”

Where were his cigarettes? Had the bastard nicked them?

“And… let’s see – ah! Here we are. ‘There is a great deal of commercial equipment available to a first-time caver, some of which is necessary, some of which is not. Two items, however, that are absolutely non-negotiable are a helmet and a helmet-mounted light.’ Do you have either of those, John?”

“Do I criticise your fucking hobbies?” he exploded, knowing better, knowing it would only encourage him. Sugary crumbs flew everywhere.

“You do, in fact. Often. And quite understandably. My favourite hobby is murdering your friends, after all.”

John threw the plate at his head. 

0 

He’d had a good sense of direction even before he’d learned how to see psychic residue coating streets and walls, left behind by previous travellers. Always scurrying around in places no kid should; subways, sewers, dirty basements, any haunted house his greedy little eye fell upon.

When he’d reached sixteen, burgeoning schizophrenia had muddled him up now and then. Occasionally, it’d even left him standing in streets he didn’t recognise with no earthly idea how he’d got there. PTSD had compounded the problem.

Even so, at fifty plus, he didn’t make a habit of getting lost. Meds, practice, and years of experience meant that he could walk from Chas’s house to Saint Paul’s with a blindfold on.

Long story short: This was embarrassing.

“I’m fairly sure we’re going in circles. That stalactite is very familiar.”

And he certainly wasn’t fucking helping.

(The floating candles, following them like ducklings, were. John’s torch had broken when he’d tripped. Still, he didn’t need the First of the Fallen for light. Could conjure it up himself, no bother. It just made sense to avail himself of a primordial being’s infinite magical resources before dipping into his own, far more limited stockpile.)

“Do you know the way out?” John asked, not breaking his stride.

“I do.”

“Will you tell me where it is?”

“I will not.”

“Then shut up.”

In his defence, John hadn’t thought the cave was big enough to get lost in. It hadn’t looked it from the outside.

But he’d wandered, then crawled, down at least a mile of twisting, increasingly narrow tunnels before getting himself killed. He’d kept meaning to stop; said to himself five times, ‘Okay, Conjob, this is getting stupid, let’s trot our arse back to civilisation’. Then he would notice another crevice wide enough for him to squeeze into.

“Curious place for a holiday,” the First of the Fallen commented after bravely keeping his tongue still for an unprecedented five minutes.

“Curious times we’re living in, innit?”

He hummed in agreement. “Are you really not here for any particular reason? Not – I don’t know – trying to find a missing child abducted by the fae? Searching for a wicked spirit who’s been cursing the local shepherds? Treasure-hunting, perhaps?”

“No.”

“You’re just here.”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“I told you. I’m on holiday. Taking a nice long break.”

“John. We’ve known one another for some time. I am familiar with the ways in which you ‘take a break’. You either go to the pub or you go to several pubs. Attempting to reconnect with nature is hardly your style.”

“Being oblivious to current events – especially shit ones – is hardly your style. Been too busy shaving your chunky arse to pick up a newspaper lately?”

“Print is dying. Besides, you try managing an entire dimension. See how much spare time it leaves you. Honestly, I’m run off my feet most days.”

“So quit.”

“Don’t be silly. What else would I do?”

“I dunno. Could be a camgirl. You’ve got the legs for it.”

“Stop trying to change the subject. Why aren’t you at home?”

John stopped walking and spun to face him. “There’s a plague, you gormless, oblivious prick. I can’t go to the pub. I can’t meet up with me mates. I can’t visit people’s homes to perform exorcisms. I can’t do anything but sit indoors, on my own, for months on end, just watching everything get worse, and that… and that’s not an option. Not for me. I crack too easy. So I got out. Before I killed someone. Now, for the last time, shut up and let me concentrate.”

He bent down to tug off his shoes and socks.

Telepathic magic tended to work best when you were naked. But sod that. Not with the First of the Fuckheads watching. Waffles or no waffles, he did not deserve a treat.

“Oh, is this what we’re doing now? Marvellous! I do love watching your quaint party tricks,” he oozed with a mocking round of applause as John dropped to his knees.

Ignore him.

Taking a deep breath, John let his awareness expand.

It was hard, with the First standing right there. His presence was staggeringly heavy, weighing on the ley lines like an iron ball on a lace hammock. And so alien; elements found nowhere on Earth, bones and muscles formed before Earth had been a glint in God’s eye.

John sneered into the darkness. Piss on that. On him. This was child’s play. Buggered as his brain might be, John Constantine wasn’t going to falter at the sound, scent, or sensation of a mean-spirited old cosmic relic.

Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.

Seven years ago, three people came this way. A family. A woman; her sister; her daughter. They were having fun. The sisters had done this before; the daughter had been begging to come along for years. Afterwards, they were going for pizza. It was a good day.

Two years ago, four people came this way. All friends from work. Well – ‘friends’. One was the company CEO, the other three wanted promotions. Everyone but the boss was miserable. One was arachnophobic.

Eight months ago, a… sheep? Yeah. A sheep. Barely more than a lamb. It was lost. There was a storm and it came down here looking for shelter. Went too deep. By the time the shepherd found it, it was half-starved.

“John? What are you-…”

Ignore him.

Ten years ago, another family. Fifty years ago, a frightened child running from a monstrous father. And others – a hundred others – a thousand. The cave had a rich and storied history. Almost against his will and entirely against his better judgement, John followed its threads through the rock layers, chasing faded ghosts, brushing up against magic so ancient it had fossilised.

“John!”

Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore-

His head was ringing. His blood was on fire.

Fuck, I’ve gone too far, too bloody deep, fuck, oh fuck.

“Constantine! Heed me!”

His eyes snapped open.

“Ah,” he said.

“Precisely,” said the First of the Fallen, who was holding him up by his coat collar like a jizz rag in need of a bin.

The cave had changed.

It was brighter, thanks to a small, well-constructed fire in its centre.

The walls were covered in paintings. Deer. Hogs. Great red and brown bulls.

A woman sat in the corner, wrapped in furs, adding detail to what might have been a fox. She didn’t seem to have noticed them.

“Did you mean to do that?” the First of the Fallen queried. 

0

“In thirty thousand years, a monk will come down here and find them. He’ll be horrified, believing that they’re the work of… well, me. So he’ll leave and return with water in buckets and scrubbing brushes. As he lies on his deathbed, he will be firmly under the impression that this great good deed will grant him entrance into Paradise.”

The First of the Fallen paused for effect, then added, “Alas, he will be mistaken.”

Without looking away from her work, the woman spoke several words in a language miles removed from any contemporary tongue John had ever heard.

“The young lady says she doesn’t mind spirits wandering her caves, but requests that we don’t chatter while she’s trying to concentrate.”

Crouching next to freshly-etched cow and her calf, feeling uncharacteristically dazzled, John said, “Ask her if I can take a picture. Ask her!”

“Homo neanderthalensis, John. She won’t have the faintest idea what you mean.”

Rolling his eyes, he fished his phone out of his trenchcoat pocket and waved it at her. When she deliberately ignored him, he shrugged and took the shot.

The flash won her attention. She stood – revealing a faded seashell necklace and a long, curving scar across her left thigh – and approached them, limping slightly. John held out the phone to show her the picture and, after a resoundingly unimpressed inspection, she uttered a terse sentence.

“She’s unsure why the sickly-looking spirit thinks shrinking her beasts in any way improves them,” said the First of the Fallen.

The woman raised her head (hard to tell how old she was; younger than him, definitely) and looked John in the eye, squinting. Another few sentences followed, some of which sounded like questions.

Sarcastic questions, unless he was mistaken.

“She asks if you shrink them because large beasts frighten you. She speculates that, if the only beasts you can bear to approach are scrawny ones, it’s no wonder that you yourself are such a measly creature. She says that she too was scared of bulls when she was a child, but that her mother taught her not to be. She wonders why your mother failed you in this regard. Should I tell her your mother died in childbirth, John?”

“Stick your head up your own arse and choke. But ask her name first.”

Tossing back his thick black hair, he scoffed. “Why? What does it matter? She’s a primitive, doomed creature and she’s not even really here. This is just one of the cave’s memories.”

“Christ – are you jealous I’m talking to her more than I’m talking to you? Because that’s fucking inane. This is a one-in-a-lifetime type deal. I’ve never spoken to a legit bloody Neanderthal. I speak to you all the blasted time, more’s the pity.”

Yellow eyes narrowed. “Maybe I’ll kill her.”

John laughed. “You said it, squire; she’s a memory. You can’t kill her. She’s long dead. Now shut up.”

He wasn’t able to learn her name. Still, via pantomime and pointing, he eventually managed to convey his desire to find a way out of the cave – or so, at least, it seemed.

She took a bundle of sticks from beside her fire, lit them, and walked towards the nearest inky-black tunnel.

“See?” he said to the First of the Fallen as they followed her. “Politeness. All it takes.”

“Don’t act like you have any real idea what’s going on. She could be leading you straight into a trap. You’re aware, I’m sure, that archaeologists generally agree Neanderthals practised cannibalism? Ten muscular relatives might be waiting right around the corner with clubs and a cooking pot.”

“For fuck’s sake – I have literally stood and watched you slouching on that colossally pathetic bone throne of yours and nibbling the edge of someone’s pelvis like it was a turkey drumstick. Loathsome bloody hypocrite.”

“That doesn’t remotely count as cannibalism, John. That was a human pelvis. I’m not a human. I’m the prototype. A species of one. Which, I suppose, means it’s technically impossible for me to commit cannibalism. Hmm. What an interesting philosophical notion.”

Walking a short way ahead, bare feet soundless against the rock, their new self-appointed guide said something.

“What was that?” John whispered.

“‘If you must burden my ears by bickering like children, you could at least do it in a language I can understand’. Then she called us a rude word.”

Then the First of the Fallen spoke several sentences in his usual bored, drawling cadence and, to John’s surprise, she laughed.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” the First of the Fallen said, innocently.

“I’m serious, bastard. What’re you saying to her?”

“Nothing important, John, really.”

More than once after that, he caught her glancing back at them and snickering. 

0

The artist and the twisting stone galleries through which she led them – it couldn’t possibly have all been hers; the monk had destroyed the work of generations – were insufficient to keep John’s mind from straying back to important matters.

“Hey. Ponce. What’ve you done with my cigarettes?”

The First of the Fallen had plucked them from his trenchcoat pocket while he was unconscious. When it came to his sorcerer, he’d learned, you always wanted a bargaining chip to hand.

“We’re in the company of one whose lungs are as yet unsullied by the Industrial Revolution, Constantine. Are you really planning on exposing her to second-hand smoke?”

It was a prospect John, it seemed, hadn’t even considered. Obviously angry with himself for that (oh John), he snapped, “No! I was – it’s – look, she can’t get lung cancer, can she? She’s dead. Doesn’t matter what she breathes in now.”

Smothering a smile, the First of the Fallen said, “Oh? So the fact that she won’t actually perish upon inhaling your fumes is all that matters, is it? Never mind her comfort or dignity, I suppose; as long as you don’t have to clean up another corpse.”

Nostrils flared. Fists clenched. Blue eyes gleamed with something hotter and even more violent than divine wrath.

“Like you give a shit about her,” John growled.

So much in this miserable world reminds me of Heaven. The grass. The sky. The beauty. You alone remind me of the time before Heaven; that bizarre, unpredictable time when there were no rules, no beauty, only feelings, only sudden bursts of light, fierce and erratic, cutting through the void.

“Or anyone,” John continued, gathering steam. Nicotine withdrawal, the First of the Fallen suspected, was kicking in. “Remind me, what was that you said the day we met? ‘To be mortal is to be stupid, proud, conceited – and ultimately pathetic’. You showed your hand, idiot; you loathe us all. Ergo, any taunts that depend on you concealing that are a total bust. Forget about the ciggies. If they’ve been anywhere near you, I don’t want ‘em.”

For years, the First of the Fallen had secretly hoped John had forgotten his, in hindsight, ill-considered words.

(He’d meant every one of them, but at the time he’d been trying to come off as a Gentleman Devil, the quintessential Man of Wealth and Taste, affable and urbane, not a bitter, angry old monster.)

Should have known better. John was so foolishly protective when it came to humanity as an abstract concept, even while his attitude towards actual humans tended to be far more variable. He’d probably been furiously gnawing on that phrase – ‘ultimately pathetic’ – like a dog with a bone for thirty years.

Thirty years.

Was that really all the time they’d known one another? John Constantine, his Constantine, He Who Was Most Hated… a mere thirty year acquaintance?

“What’re you laughing at?”

“Heh. Nothing, John. Reminiscing, that’s all.”

“About what? Poor old Brendan?”

Brendan, Brendan. Who -? Oh yes. John’s friend. The one who’d sold his soul. The catalyst, in fact, for their meeting. Pity the bastard was in Heaven; he’d have liked to thank him.

“You see these?” said the artist, holding up her torch to illuminate a painted wolf pack. “My grandfather did these.”

“What’s she saying?” John demanded.

As the First of the Fallen translated, he gazed dispassionately at her.

The first time he’d encountered a human, they’d looked much the same. Small. Unremarkable. Clad in skins and hardened from a life exposed to this planet’s weather (he personally hated weather and had made sure there was no such thing in Hell).

Mind you, the ones he’d run into while naked and terrified and still injured from being swatted down to Earth like some insect had been much less hospitable. They hadn’t known what he was; only that he was wrong. When he’d tried to approach their campfire, they’d thrown stones at him. Slaying them all hadn’t even occurred to him. Father had said that they were precious and at that stage, he’d still given a toss about His rules. Instead, he’d slunk away.

Catching food wasn’t a problem. He was faster than any buck or bird. It was loneliness, not hunger, that drove him to try again, and again, and again. In time, they grew used to him. Even showed him kindness. They had an extraordinary capacity for that. (For all that it was so often conditional and withdrawn the moment one became too strange or too frightening.)

But he’d never grown used to them. They were, at heart, creatures of community. And he simply wasn’t. He was a species of one. The prototype. He’d always been alone but for God’s company, and adjusting to life as a member of a tribe had proved impossible. Their norms, their traditions, their complicated etiquette – it had all bewildered him, then intimidated him, then irritated him. That, combined with his ageless body and supernatural strength, had driven an inevitable wedge between them, and he’d returned to the wilderness to wander alone.

He considered telling John that story.

(Why not? He’d told him everything else and the idea that his nemesis might have an incomplete view of him was, for some reason, concerning.)

Then he considered John’s likely reaction. The curled lip. The scornful snort. “What, you looking for pity? ‘Boo-hoo, my rotten childhood turned me into a git’? Hah! Jog on, squire.”

No. John’s hatred was a hard-won prize. John’s contempt was to be avoided at all costs.

“You realise most people aren’t allowed down here,” the artist said, glancing his way. She was shorter than John, who himself was slightly shorter than the average man; her eyes were level with the First’s navel. “Only elders and those who’ve earned the right. There are grave penalties awaiting any who sneak in.”

“Really?” he replied, interested only in John’s furrowed brow and silent, aggravated attempts to work out what they were saying.

“Yes. Because this place is important. Sacred. When I was young, I spent years dreaming of being allowed to venture this deep. I don’t know the ways of spirits – but I’ll not pretend it doesn’t rankle that you spend more time studying your sickly friend than your surroundings.”

“You’re still young. Compared to me, everyone is.”

“He doesn’t even seem to like you very much. Why are you travelling with him?”

“I don’t know. Why do urine and semen come out the same hole?”

“‘It’s none of your business’ would have sufficed. Are you always this rude? Is that why the sickly one doesn’t like you?”  

“No. No, he dislikes me for other reasons.”

“Well, well, well. Hullo,” came John’s voice, and they both realised that he’d stopped walking.

Turning, the First of the Fallen spied his nemesis standing with his hands in his pockets, studying a man dressed like a thirteenth-century peasant.

“Eh? Where did he come from?” the woman asked.

In quavering tones, the peasant said, “Are you angels?”

The First of the Fallen laughed. “John! He’s asking if-…”

“Just because I can’t speak Neanderthal doesn’t mean I don’t know sodding Middle English. Give me an ounce of credit. I’m only a cocking wizard, after all,” John snapped, before addressing the new arrival: “No. Just travellers.”

The peasant’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. I thought maybe God had sent me angels. I’ve been requesting them for several days.”

John shuddered. “Bad idea. Trust me. You don’t want to mess around with that lot.”

“But I need guidance. Protection.”

“From what?”

Eyes wide, the peasant took his hand and clutched it. “My friend, can’t you see? I am being pursued.”

“By who?”

“By demons.”

(to be continued) 

#hellblazer #john constantine #chas chandler #first of the fallen #fanfic #my fic

[lemondropsonice]

Hey sugar cubes! Not sure I am ready to crawl out of my con bubble yet, but maybe it is time to stick at least my little toe out ;) So here comes some rambling about Rome 2018 if you are interested - sorry for bad grammar and typos - you know me and English = work in progress *lol* And I will post some con pics and start a queue again soon (first cookie of this post goes to Lauren @secretsandgreeneyes​ for keeping my activity alive).

First of all tight hugs and some kisses for everyone who left me a cute little message before and during my trip to Rome! All my love to you for being so excited for and with me!!! Sharing all the fun makes it even better.

And let me tell you it was such a great and fun trip. Rome is freaking beautiful and there is still so much to explore. This year the Pantheon made me cry - besides many moments at the con ;)

I know there was a lot of wank during and after the con and to be honest it made me very sad and even mad. I get that everyone has different expectations and experiences and I think everyone has the right to complain about things or articulate criticism. But for me there is a right way to do it and one I can not accept. I won’t open up the whole topic again - there is no point in doing so now - but I wanna say that I will never stand for or understand all the hate and viciousness I stumbled upon. Staff and actors go out of their way (sometimes to a point they really do not have to - we saw that) to give everyone the best experience possible - in return they deserve the right to make it a great experience for themselves too - everyone wins so much more if there is some fun for everyone in the end.

Anyway - I wanna make this a positive post.

I am very thankful I had the chance to go back to Rome for a second year. Like last year the memories will make me smile for a long time. Knowing now how things go down made me much more relaxed this year and I even mastered the OPs I added to the whole experience (I hugged Jared Padalecki *screams* and maybe next year I get an other chance and master a Jensen hug *lol*). The jibcon staff is the cutest and loveliest in my eyes and I admire how they go through all the days with smiles on their faces while taming a crowd of “wild fangirls”. So thank you to the whole staff from the bottom of my heart for creating this magic bubble! You deserve all the hugs and cookies.

Also thank you to the amazing guests. It was very cool to see actors from different fandoms mix during panels and how they interact with each other. I had the loveliest autograph moments with Tom Ellis and David Giuntoli. And it was such a unique experience to see people like Brett Dalton or Manu Bennett during their panels. I watch AoS and used to watch Arrow, but seeing them live and on stage was a complete new experience for me and let me tell you - they rocked! Especially if they were thrown together for panels. So the JIBLAND days definitely brought their own awesome flavor to the mix.

And I guess I do not have to tell you how amazing our SPN cast is. Meeting and seeing them live even if it is for just a few minutes is such a delight even if you are a nervous wreck and can’t remember most of it after *lol* All my love to them for doing cons and giving it their all!!! I hope they know how happy they make most people.

The best moments get even better if you can share and experience them with amazing people, so here we go: First the tightest hugs and all my love to @dustydreamsanddirtyscars - you brought the con world to me and I will be forever thankful. You are the best copilot I could have for this week of endless bliss and our second round was as amazing as the first. Maybe even better because we added 365 more days of friendship to the mix. I hope the universe will gift us with another round ❤️ Also a huge thank you and tons of love and cookies to @trinity1975 We met Danny last year at the airport on our way back from Rome and kept in touch during the year. So when it was time to prep for jib9 she introduced Jenny and me to a group she knew from other cons. And they are such a lovely pack!! I heart you all. You are so kind and sweet and lovely and it was amazing to have you there to fangirl and for support. The tightest hugs for @fangirl1138 and the tumblrless rest of the pack! Big hugs go to @bold-sartorial-statement too. Therese, I am so happy I had the guts to talk to you this year. Thanks for the lovely convo in line for the j2 Op and sharing the excitement after. And big hugs for @sayurishiro. Even if we did not sit together during panels it was so lovely to have you there for all the rest again and my heart still aches a little remembering the moment we parted ways Sunday evening. Hope we’ll meet again next year! And last but not least a warm shout out to all my sugar cubes here who push me and support me and fangirl with me the whole year and without whom I never would have gone so far out of my comfort zone and missed out on this amazing experience! Love you all with all my heart!!! 💋

#jib9 #jibcon 2018 #rome adventures #littlemesmk

[govthookercoulson]

San Diego Comic Con: Line jumpers, scalpers, crass commercialism even for fandom, and disorganization that beggared belief.

Saddle fucking up kiddies, this nerd isn’t about to wank off to this convention. And it’s possible my experience was unique... but I severely doubt it.

Exhausted rant below the cut.

Before I dig into this, I should say that this was my first Comic Con. I walked in ill-prepared in spite of my friend who brought me’s best intentions. 

My previous convention attendance include Mephit Furmeet and Anthrocon so long ago it barely counts, AKon DFW from 2013 through this year, Anime Boston 2013, and a Wizard World 2016. I’m not professional by any means, and my funds/paid time off are limited. So it really chives my spuds when things go straight to hell and I’m left wondering why I’m even fuckin’ here. Previous to this past weekend, Wizard World won for the most miserable excuse for a convention I’ve been to. Now SDCC wins that award. Holy shitballs, there’s so little excuse for any of this.

Let’s be clear: A lot of my standards were set by Anime Boston, a blockbuster convention whose attendance rivals SDCC I’m reasonably certain. It also basically never shut down. Events ran from breakfast to well past midnight. Anything past eight PM was clear adult-only territory. The dealer den/artist alley may have shut but the rest of the con was a scream of activity. Very little was pay to play. If you were willing to show up, they’d pack the fucking room to fire capacity. So there was a certain element of first come first serve, but even for Bad Hentai Dubbing, I only had to turn up about an hour before the doors opened.

AKon has elements of this. Less adult-only but a lot of late dances, raves, balls, little niche events.

Wizard World pissed me off right out the door by basically pulling the plug on the convention at seven PM at the fucking latest. No dances or raves or anything I could find. I did attend a screening of Winter Soldier narrated by the directors but the rest of the con was locked up tighter than fucking Fort Knox.

HOWEVER, Wizard World was A) pay to play, and B) very anti-scalper. Events that were limited were largely badge tied. In other words, if you won something, IT WAS ADDED TO YOUR BADGE. Your badge itself was scanned. No wrist band, no ticket. The only exception I saw was Platinum Pass (oh, y’know, $1100 con badge) had a limited number of cards that came with them to give to friends. I got bumped to Platinum for ONE panel because I was alone... and I still would have gotten in because my badge was Avengers (Renner VIP). I paid for it. I was attending. I had a guaranteed seat. I got every autograph and every photograph I paid for, I just had to be willing to wait in line. People who couldn’t get through the lines were refunded.

These are the standards I was loosely used to. Framed against that: WELCOME TO THE UNFAIR HELL OF SAN DIEGO COMIC CON.

Every single major event was ticketed or raffled.

This doesn’t sound like a huge complaint, but it was implemented so poorly it kneecapped ANY fairness out the gate. These problems came about in several ways.

One: No policing of vendor badges.

Vendors were allowed to enter the Dealer Hall well before anyone else. As such, people bought vendor badges, entered the hall before anyone else, and swamped the raffles. There were literally hundreds of people loose in the Dealer Hall before the doors even opened. This prevented almost anyone from reaching the raffles before the lines were capped, and those that did had literally lined up to enter the hall at three in the fucking morning.

Two: No policing of scalpers.

So I was buddypassed, which meant I had to renew my badge daily. I got my badge as early as possible, lined up for the Dealer Hall and sprinted in as soon as I cleared the goddamn doorway. In full cosplay. Pelted down the main aisle and hit the capped line ropes.

As I’m standing there just fucking fuming, a teenager turns, looks me in the eye and says, “If I get it, I will sell you it of the price is right.”

There are no fucking words.

The friend that brought me to the con was working autographs and said someone actually came to staff and asked where they could resell a raffle pass. The mind fucking boggles.

Three: Communication as clear as fucking lead

If there was any solid list of attending actors, the staff couldn’t tell you where to find it. The SDCC app had no actors/actresses listed as guests. Finding out autograph times was impossible. I ran into someone who had attended a ticketed AoS signing, and when I asked my friend working the con about it, it was news to her or she would have told me.

On another note, a booth employee was like hey jump in our line (Dark Horse) there’s barely one at all! So I did, thinking yay, free posters! Nope. FUCKING AUTOGRAPHS. I blundered face first into getting free autographs. No obvious signs. No real clue who they were. Just ???

Four: Overpopulation leads to no one getting jack shit.

The con is overblown beyond all reason. It’s fifteen pounds of capitalism in a two pound communism bag. I NEVER SAW THE INSIDE OF HALL H, WHERE PANELS HAPPENED. Were there panels? I heard legend, but to even BEGIN to get into them, people literally lined up the day before.

Lunacy.

And so, onto another problem: San Diego turns out the entire town for the con. By which I mean I’m pretty sure everything doubled in price.

Okay yeah it’s VERY impressive to see entire fucking city blocks shut and massive interactive experiences and whole buildings and fucking trains decorated for fandoms, then about two days in you realize you are walking through marketing hell and the shine comes off real fucking quick.

Around about the time you find a restaurant that asks for $28 for steak and eggs. Okay I was hungry and cleared the plate but JFC.

I guess if I had a bottom line, it’d be this: while all conventions are intrinsically designed to remove money from your pocket, at previous conventions I was more than a wallet. There were events I could attend almost around the clock, most things were clearly signposted. It was a fandom gathering that was a GATHERING. SDCC made none of those overtures. Didn’t even try. By Sunday it turned into a blur of wandering circles in a dealer hall, with literally nowhere else to go.

Or, to put it another way. I asked the Marvel Legends booth about the Crossbones/Cap set and Hawkeye. They said they weren’t out yet and asked if I collected Marvel Legends. I said I would if they’d sell me the ones I fucking wanted. They stared at me blankly. Crickets. End scene.

#SDCC #Rant #oh she mad #but it was really nice to see my friends there #they were awesome #a highlight in a miasma of marketing

[janiedean]

Dude you need to stop. OP hadn't even been aggressive, they just made a random statement on their own blog. It's a personal space. Why do you all have to feel personally offended when 1) it was ONE POST on someone's personal blog, and 2) you're the first whining about how everyone is always offended at nothing! How insensitive. Maybe they were being dramatic, but then what? Show a little compassion, if it bothers you so much just fucking ignore it and move on, jesus. Are you 12?

Also seriously, you're constantly whining about how fed up you are about wank and "Discourse™" in your fandoms, but then you're also continuously participating in said wank by upping it up and up. Ever heard it takes two to tango? Kettle, meet pot?

my dearest darling anon, wow, you really got irked over a post that has..... 50k notes and it’s not such a personal thing anymore at that point. I mean. 50k notes. it’s not just PERSONAL. but however, let’s go over this.

a) it’s my blog. I reblog what I want. If anything, assholes on tumblr who keep disguising their fairly immature rants as *venting* should stop, not me. also, that post has 50k notes and out of the reblogs on the version I reblogged, I didn’t even say the worst thing. did you send this message also to the previous three people in my reblog? :’)

b) one post? that reblog was already two, and if you go on that person’s blog there’s another three reblogs of that same OP with additions which are all OMG STRAIGHT PEOPLE SUCK SO MUCH. lol. venting. with fifty thousand notes. it’s not venting anymore when a post is that viral and they posted it on a public website most likely fully knowing that it would go viral since tumblr dot com is basically ‘straight is an insult but it’s okay to say it because who cares straight people can just take it *SHRUG*’. 

c) HOW INSENSITIVE! MAYBE THEY WERE BEING DRAMATIC! SHOW A LITTLE COMPASSION! okay, you know what?

I’m now going to take OP and reword it with my favorite subject when it comes to show you how this line of thinking is hypocritical af. and at least it’s something I am and I can relate to so y’all can’t accuse me of appropriating someone’s struggles.

good? good!

now let’s imagine this was the op:

Being in a room with religious people talking about religious things is so exhausting.

at that, someone asks me:

What the hell are ‘religious things’?

and I reply:

sunday school and reciting prayers and going to mass and confession talk and discussing about how saudi arabia is actually a very pro-feminist country (spoilers: I heard that irl myself) without being made to feel like you are making people uncomfortable and hearing catholic people talk about how horrible it is for them to talk to atheists and christians in western countries talk about how they are such victims and their lives are shit when what this really means is they are never told that they don’t have morals because of course they believe in a deity and so they are and homophobic and racist crap that drives me crazy like how the only true family is man and woman  and how great religion (ps: this was in the OP so thanks for assuming that all straight assholes in the world are also religious but okay) is and how the world is so lovely and kind and great because people have god watching out for them and he will always be with them and how religious people are like “this person is so lovely” when you know they think you’ll go to hell for being anything other than their religion or listening to religious people say atheists are the worst or talk about people who don’t want to attend religious ceremonies (ie. people who don’t want to go to masses held for dead people) as being weird or rude because WHY WOULDN’T YOU GO, or asking “but have you ever read the bible?” judgmentally as if the moment you read that you suddenly hear jesus speaking to you or getting annoyed at you when you tell them about how not nice it is to be asked all the damned time if you’re gonna kill someone one day just because you’re atheist is because it’s easy for them cause they are religious and wouldn’t know the first thing about it or having to tell people you ‘really don’t practice’ to people all the time cause they just assume you’re catholic and you’ll be getting weird looks if you don’t like, and ‘wait but really??? HOW???’ or “but you look so nice it’d be a pity if you went to hell just because you refuse to believe in god” or “well as long as you keep it for yourself but DON’T TELL YOUR GRANDMOTHER!!!” or having to hear religious people talk about how great christmas is or about the amazing shit they read in church or about how all holy books are ABSOLUTELY NOT WRITTEN BY MEN AND THEREFORE NOT FALLIBLE and about all the amazing movies about jesus or just watching people live super conventional lives and do really sexist old fashioned things just because no one is brave enough to question or think about anything… and worst of all knowing that if you were to say or talk about anything atheist everyone would get uncomfortable and not join in on the conversation and wish you had said nothing… and then people will be like “you hardly said anything”, “you’re so quiet”, “you don’t talk much”, “are you shy”, “you’re boring”.

No bitch I’m atheist and I don’t relate to nor am I really interested in any of the shit that you have been yelling to my face for the last hour.

now, I’ll tell you what would happen: ANY DECENT RELIGIOUS PERSON I FOLLOW WOULD ASK ME WHAT THE FUCK I WAS SMOKING AND IF I REALLY THINK ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE LIKE THAT AND ALL RELIGIONS ARE LIKE THAT, AND EVERYONE WOULD ASSUME I WAS A PROPER FUCKING ASSHOLE BECAUSE I JUST GENERALIZED 70% OF THE PLANET IN A LONGWINDED RIDICULOUSLY EMBARRASSING RANT WHERE ON SOME THINGS I MIGHT BE RIGHT AND ON OTHERS I JUST SHOWED A HORRID AMOUNT OF IGNORANCE.

also, since atheists are all assholes, I’d just confirm their ideas that all atheists are assholes who think they’re so much better than anyone else.

does that post look so harmless, put like this? would it look harmless, if the category mocked was anything but straight people? let me tell you: it wouldn’t. not on here, anyway. and now we get to the best part of this frankly ridiculous ask that you of course sent on anon because like hell you’d say that to my face, hm?

Show a little compassion, if it bothers you so much just fucking ignore it and move on, jesus. Are you 12?

no, I’m 29. and OP of that post, who definitely fucking sounds like he’s twelve, because I could have written the above post about how religion sucks when I was in my dawkins phase and I was THIRTEEN and like two years later I already learned to be a little less dramatic, is twenty-seven. out of someone who’s almost thirty, I’d expect some maturity.

but never mind that. the point is: actually, I did it. I ignored a fucking shitload of posts like this since the year of the lord 2013 when they started becoming a thing on tumblr. I ignored posts saying that ‘the only good use straight allies have is getting thrown off a cliff’, I ignored posts about how horrid cishets are, I ignored posts about cishets ‘are like omg they want a cookie for being nice to us that should be the basics’ as if in some places just being pro-lgbt can’t get you fired or put you against your family or get yourself in a hospital, but of course hey, we’re straight, we’re the majority, we inherently oppress anyone who’s not, who cares, amrite? I had to watch this website spiral into a mentality where straight is an insult, basically, and so hey we have a post laughing about straight girls’s tastes, straight girls being into ***ugly boys***, straight girls being brainwashed by the patriarchy because they actually like men when they could be lesbians and be so much better off in tumblr’s amazing pastel unicorns and rainbows lesbian aesthetic where no one feels sexual attraction and everything is platonic and we don’t talk about bills because how fucking boring. I ignored all of that shit for years because y’all were VENTING and you could only do it online so hey what’s the harm in it, and guess what, I’m done. It bothers me so much because it normalizes a mentality where it’s okay to insult people for things they can’t change about themselves rather than aim at, like, HOMOPHOBES. WHO ARE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM. but nah, hey, I just have to scroll by the umpteenth post insulting straight people because they talk about things also lgbt people talk about APPARENTLY, because is2g I can assure you that in my fandom group of friends where *I* am camp straight 90% of the time and everyone else is not we actually fucking talk about mortgages and bills and how much renovating a house sucks and how it costs and how it doesn’t and about taxes and about how poor we’re going to be when we retire.

but apparently to OP all this kinda shit is just STRAIGHT TALKING. yeah, lol. anyway, this is kindergarten level attitude and people should have been told to can it years ago, and honestly given that ‘scroll by and ignore’ is an attitude I had for years to avoid conflict and it only caused me trouble, excuse me if I’m done helping feeding a mentality that’s completely fucking useless, because this line of thinking just alienates people. also wow now that I read this post I should feel bad for talking to my non-hetero friends about pretty much anything according to OP? some straight kid younger than me and more impressionable who might actually buy into this website’s bullshit reads this and what will they think? that every time they discuss anything with a gay friend nearby that person is seething inside and hating all of them? could happen. anyway, point is: that post is ridiculous, it has 50k notes and I’m 99% sure most of them actually agree with OP and I wasn’t taught to keep my mouth shut if I hear people saying dumbass things and everyone agrees. that’s not how you do activism. enabling this way of thinking is not helping anyone, least of all OP.

other than that: 

you're constantly whining about how fed up you are about wank and "Discourse™" in your fandoms, but then you're also continuously participating in said wank by upping it up and up

so excuse me, telling people who are actually fucking wrong and spew and enable actually dangerous concepts like idk the fact that people up until eighteen years old have the same decisional capacity as five year olds, that you cannot consent to sex if you aren’t eighteen and one hour old, that you can’t date someone older or younger than you even if you’re both of age because PEDOPHILIA and that consuming problematic fiction is wrong is UPPING THE WANK?

ANON, WHAT THE FUCK. so now if donald trump does ridiculous things and says dumb shit people who disagree should just shut up and let him work and ignore it when the things he does are dangerous? anti thinking is dangerous and keeping your mouth shut and going like ‘they’ll grow out of it’ is not going to work, it’s going to make the situation worse and it’s going to get people hurt.

telling people to FUCKING CAN IT and explaining them a few basic concepts about the difference between fiction and real life is not upping the fucking wank, and calling people out on fucking dumb opinions is not the same as enabling toxic ways of thinking. good lord, if someone irl tells me that interracial marriages are wrong and disgusting what should I do, shrug and let them think I agree or MAYBE EXPLAIN THEM THAT IT’S REALLY RETROGRADE TO THINK SUCH A THING?

I mean, do you need a power point to get the difference?

kettle meet pot like hell. I never started any wank, I never posted one thing purposefully offending an entire category of people just to VENT, none of my posts ever got more than 3k notes - honest I think I had ONE that got that much and it was convention pictures of SPN actors so sure as hell I’m not getting seen by 50k people so OP actually has more leverage than me in this discourse - and assuming I’m actually doing the same thing as OP when everything I’m doing is pointing out that it’s not a healthy way of thinking and that this fucking website is turning into a worse dumpster with every passing moment since at this point the fact that I was born being fine with my sexual characteristic and liking dick is apparently enough to decide that I inherently oppress minorities just by existing and it’s not a line of thinking that activists anywhere should support, is intellectually dishonest and frankly fucking laughable especially coming from someone who doesn’t even put their face to what they ask.

and anyway, OP is a grown ass man and can take care of themselves and of a few disagreeing opinions if he wants to be on a public website where his posts go viral.

and I have absolutely no obligation to keep my mouth shut about things that are imo very fucking dangerous slip-slopes.

there. and now, since I am not going to keep my mouth shut just to make you or OP feel better, you can click the unfollow button if you dislike my opinions that much or you can stick around and learn that sometimes being an adult is a thing that should happen, especially if you frame shit as activism.

anyway, I don’t even know who you are so it’s not like I’ll miss you personally. :’)

#long post for ts #extra wank for ts #santoddio #va bene va bene va bene in verità #quanto mi piaci mai semplicità #sopra l'ultimo neurone tutto tumblr piangerà #notte e giorno faticar per chi nulla sa gradire #m'avete veramente rotto comunque #dsjkgldksgj #certo come no la gente dice stronzate ma noi MUTI perché sia mai che glielo fai notare #è arrivato fra cazzo da velletri #ma veramente #pls statte zitto va #religion cw #religion for ts #btw: I DON'T THINK 95% OF THE THINGS IN THE REBOOTED POST and the remaining 5% is rl experience #and anyway I never actuallY DID SUCH A POST #and the two times I did it I never said ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE #but keep on with your presumption that you can have an adult conversation #because lmao you can't #bye #Anonymous #ask post

[leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid]

Hi Sundae. Here's my problem - I'm majorly losing my motivation to write. The hate and negativity I see on my dash, in my ask box, and in my friends ask box has got me ready to walk away. But I have several unfinished requests to fill. What do I do? Why is there so much negativity?

Honey, I honestly don’t know why there is so much negativity and hate going around right now. It’s very disheartening to see so many getting such mean and hurtful things said to them but then again I guess that’s life. We are surrounded by people who hate with and without reason, and when those people have a platform like tumblr where they can be mean without a face they take it. We can take some of that power away from them. Turning off the anon function, blocking those that do show up instead of responding to them but that doesn’t stop the hate you see on your dash. Which I know I see some of it too. Like today I know that there are some ship hating over Destiel again because of Jensen’s response to a question at Jaxcon, a response that he’s said time and time again. It saddens me that people can’t just let it go. Jensen doesn’t like it and its not canon but if you like it and ship it great, if not also great. If people could just let it go and remember there is so many other things in the world to worry about, things would be a lot more positive in the fandom. The best advice I can give you sweetie is to ignore it. Spend less time on your dash, unfollow those spreading hate, blacklist the wank tag, ask those politely to tag their wank that usually don’t because it is upsetting to see or just step back for a little while. Focus on your writing and what made you start your blog in the first place. Rewatch the show and fall in love with it again. Let it inspire you and don’t worry about the requests you have right now. You can do them later or never and let the person know you just can’t do it. Do what is best for you but don’t let others decide for you. If taking a break or walking away is what you really want, do it. If you wanna push through and wait for this stuff to die back down, do it. Do what you need to to be happy. You have my support in any decision you make.

Sundae’s Sunday Confessions

#sundae's sunday confessions #Anonymous