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hawktrainer · 10 months

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Evolutionary orientation

When I was a kid my father seemed to have a fascination with human evolution and ancient peoples. I remember he read Donald Johanson’s book “Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind” and excitedly talked about it each night at the dinner table for several nights in a row. We took several trips to the Southwestern US to visit Ancestral Pueblan sites, like Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, etc. We was a geologist for the petroleum industry and I think from that he gleaned an interest in fossils, the history found in rocks, and the amazing ways that humans had inhabited the rock formations on the Southwestern desert of the US.

I had always had a deep interest in how everything around me came into being, but especially anything human-made, so there was certainly an overlap between his interests and my own, and I his excitement impressed upon and transferred to me in a lot of ways. During my teens and much of my 20′s my interest was more in socializing and other things, but my work with coiled basketry and cotton rope rekindled my interest in human evolution in my early 30′s. I understood, or at least had some strong hunch, that the roots of the techniques and materials I was using were quite ancient, and I wanted to get an idea of just how ancient. Quick spoiler alert: we have no real answer, but some of the most current evidence goes back around 50,00 years ago.

While making that type of work I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts and audiobooks, and gravitated toward science, and nonfiction in general. Carl Sagan’s books and Cosmos series helped me to get an understanding of Deep Time, Big History, and Deep History. These concepts profoundly effected my understanding of everything, and will continue to give me goose bumps and shake me to my core.

Later, in 2014 or 2015, I read Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, after reading Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee the preceding year. These really lit a fire in me. My knowledge of human evolution had been quite basic, something like the deeply flawed popular 1965 illustration, “March of Progress”. I now see that most people, if they believe in evolution at all, also seem to carry this basic understanding of human evolution, and of evolution in general, which is unfortunate. Anyhow, reading those books introduced me to the idea that not only had numerous other humans species existed (as the genus Homo), but several of them existed concurrently with us (homo sapiens) for many thousands of years.

So, over the last 10 years I have read at least a couple dozen books, and watched countless documentaries and videos around this topic. I can’t seem to get enough of the subject, and have been seriously considering getting another degree in anthropology, though I’m quite hesitant. Through all this reading there have been many changes in my perspective human culture/behavior, past and present. There’s obviously an infinite amount to talk about on the subject (literally, as there will never be “answers”), but one thing has been on my mind a lot lately, enough to take the time to write this.

In speaking and writing about evolution, there is often (maybe even mostly) usage of words/phrases that imply either an intentionality or the sense of being consciously directed by a force/deity/higher power. Perhaps more often, words are used that imply something happened instantly. Of course this appears in most of the articles and videos in mass-media related to evolution, but I’ve noticed in many books written by experts in biology, anthropology, sociology, and other related sciences. It always irks me because it seems to undermine the very idea of evolution, and thwarts much of the effort to educate people about evolution. Some examples of these types of words often used to describe evolutionary phenomena, which I find to be problematic:

-strategy (like an animal has an evolutionary “strategy” for survival) -tool (used much like “strategy”) -design (obviously implying some intentional shaping my an outside force or conscious internal force) -created (used in a way that implies active, intentional creation) -suddenly (this is often used in a way that implies things appeared within one generation of even a few years; or that they appeared one time in one place) -missing link (lots of writing about why this is incorrect) -using the word “developed” or phrase “came up with” in reference to some biological feature in a way that implies that an animal or group of animals consciously decided to change their genes. -first (as in “the first neanderthal”, the “first dinosaurs”)

If you watch or read anything about evolution try to notice this type of language. You will probably find that it is everywhere. Even when an author is trying to be careful to be accurate, they’re often thwarted by the same pitfalls in thinking about evolution and the nature of how everything came to be as it is. Evolution happens very slowly, over many generations. Genetics and archeology have shown us that there is no purity of species- that all living things are an incredibly complex and always changing blend of ingredients from many sources, and those sources were also all incredibly complex blends. There was no “first” Neanderthal, or dog, etc. What we have defined as a species came about through a gradual series of changes over a very long period of time. Its not like suddenly a Homo Habilis female one day gave birth to a baby Homo Erectus. Evolution is also basically random and chaotic. The biological traits and behavior of living things were not designed, strategized, or created, given tools, or given abilities. Those traits and behaviors developed randomly over many generations, through the chaos of time and nature. Traits also tend to fade in and out multiple times, very gradually, across time and geography, blending together in complex ways. Furthermore, changes in traits and behaviors brought about by human intervention (such as the many breeds of dogs, or different types of tomatoes for example) are not considered natural evolution. Those are referred to as “artificial evolution” or “selective breeding”, but are often confused with the process of evolution.

Beyond this, there’s a general attitude that evolution = improvement. This seems to arrive from the old idea of evolution as “survival of the fittest”, which sees evolution as a process of “weeding out” species that aren’t well-enough adapted to pressures in their environment. This implies that evolution is a process of optimization, and that the current/latest form of the species is the “best” or most finely adapted or perfected to their specific environment. We don’t have to look much further than our own homo sapiens bodies to see that this isn’t the case. Our bipedalism introduces so many potential orthopedic problems, causes us to move quite slowly, etc., that if evolution were a process of optimization our skeletons and musculature would be very different.

I’m not a writer, so I’m sure there are many weakness in how I’ve tried to make these points, but in general I hope the idea is getting across. I’m also not an evolutionary biologist - so I’m sure some of what I’ve written is incorrect in a number of ways. There’s so much more to say about this topic, though, and maybe I’ll expand upon this in the future. Learning about evolution has taught me as much about how humans currently tend to, or want to think about and explain the world than how the world actually is/was. My issues with this says a lot about me specifically, perhaps - how my brain works, my insecurities and fears, etc.

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anotherkindofmindpod · 2 years

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I just started listening to your podcasts because, well, I just became a Beatles deepfan (should be a term if it's not) when I got COVID in mid-Jan and left "Get Back" on for the duration. On repeat. I was always a huge fan of the music, but like a lot of us when I was born they were already broken up, so it wasn't until I saw them together in GB that I became sucked into *them* and their relationships. (They're fascinating af and I get it now.)

Thing is, as I my body began to get better, my brain refused to come along. It just got stuck.†︎ It was slow and plodding and my "genetically over-curious" nature was completely flattened. It was as if the world around me shrunk, and the immediate effect of that was that I couldn't move to another topic. I literally couldn't think of what to think about. It was maddening! I tried and tried, but at some point I realized that even paying attention to The Beatles was hard, and that I had no choice but to take what I could get, and after a few weeks I slowly found that I could, very slowly, shift slightly within the topic. That happened without directed thought, so I was glad of it. It was something, you know? The best way I can describe it is that it was like my world became a checkers board: the board was "The Beatles" and I could move one space away from wherever I was. My brain couldn't leap any more, but it was learning to crawl. And so it did. It's been a bit like consuming a very large meal spread out over miles one nibble at a time. Not really sure why I wrote all that — except that I was probably trying to explain it to myself for the first time? — and it's not really important, except to kind of say how absolutely ignorant I was 6 months ago and how everything is still new and fascinating, but that it's also impossible to always know what's been talked about to death. Sometimes I think I know, but often I've just not discovered that corner of the fandom, and the OST & AKOM ladies are your own lovely island that I've yet to explore — bite by crawling bite — thoroughly. Yet.

So with those caveats... I just read the absolutely insane 1980 Playboy article last week, then — believe it or not — today I listened to "How Do You Sleep" for the first time. Yes, the first. The strange "Muzak" line actually jumped out at me when I read the article because it's so almost anti-Lennon-ish, but after seeing the "Muzak" lyric in "How Do You Sleep" it seemed possibly significant that in 1980 he made the Muzak remark. Like John-code. But that is also why I mentioned that I just started listening to AKOM. I figure there's a very good chance you've talked about it and I just haven't gotten to it yet, but also it turns out I couldn't wait to listen to them all to find out. *ducks* 💜

†︎ It took almost 3 months to see any improvement, but there has been some recently. ⭐️ 🧠

Hello @mythserene! First of all, thanks for sharing your COVID experience. It’s been a hell of a worldwide mind-fuck that we’re all still surviving/recovering from/processing and it’s helpful to many of us to talk about it.

The one genuinely hilarious thing about HDYS is how John managed to highlight so many of Paul’s most extraordinary qualities and accomplishments. All the alleged “insults” in retrospect look incredibly backwards and conservative, and actually shine a better light on Paul!

You live with straights This young dad chooses not to work with junkies? I think we can all agree that’s a good call

Jump when your mama tell you anything Linda wears the pants in the family? Wow, cool

Pretty soon we’ll see what you can do Amazing how John foretold not only Paul’s illustrious legacy but also his incredible artistic range and unprecedented, thriving career as both a recording artist and live performer into his 80s!

Since you’ve gone you’re just Another Day Choosing one of the most interesting (and newly celebrated) songs of Paul’s catalog that highlights his unusual focus on working women, was just… chef’s kiss

The sound you make is muzak to my ears If this is a reference to M1, John is actually foreshadowing the album’s distinction as one of rock’s first lo-fi albums (certainly its first mainstream one). Paul’s creation of “muzak” both in M1 and more obviously on 1980’s M2, show innovation in a new genre of ambient music that fully emerges in the 90s and 00s and continues to flourish today. McCartney explores other subgenres such as electronica and trance further with the Fireman projects, but his work with M1 and M2 are really decades ahead of what will eventually become a major genre of electronic pop music.

Lennon’s use of the term “muzak” in 1971 was surely meant as an insult; so-called Elevator Music was considered mass-produced shmaltz, background noise for mindless consumers. But as someone who LOVES ambient and electronic music, “Elevator Music” is definitely not an insult and ironically draws attention to Paul’s musical eclecticism and innovation!

Lennon’s use of the term Muzak here in 1980 -and admitting it’s something that “relaxes” him- is definitely interesting! There’s no way John isn’t conscious of the association with Paul. What it means is hard to say; maybe it’s a subtle back-pedal on HDYS; maybe it’s John’s way of showing he’s matured/expanded his tastes over the years; maybe it’s just a shout-out to Paul? Or maybe he’s just speaking freely, and the Paul reference is incidental. In any case, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! If I’d read it before, I’d overlooked it.

P.S. If you are new to Beatles Deepfandom (I agree, this should become a thing!), I actually recommend Understanding Lennon/McCartney. It gives a TON of information without all the commentary, so you’re free to interpret and draw your own conclusions. And if you're into rabbitholes, this series is over 10 hours long, so get ready for the deepest of dives!

#AKOM #Another Kind of Mind #How Do You Sleep #Muzak

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msommers · 2 years

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I would love more Maeve + Superstore thoughts, her friendship with Jonah sounds amazing

(i forgot about this in my drafts for too many days bc i’m a huge dummy don’t look at me here we go slamming post lmfao) oh boy, the tags were a 30 second long goof experiment but i'm always prepared to extend that for any scenario. let's make up some absolute nonsense for the lulz and cuteness.

literally do not ask me why posh brit accent maeve is working at a store in missouri because i don't have time for it and that's not part of the "everything here is for fun" theme.

one of her running gags is that she’s always talking about concepts for stories and tropes that she wants to explore/deconstruct, but anytime she’s asked about progress she’ll have some wild explanation for why she didn’t get very far into writing. there have been at least two rr martin comments made about how long it’s taken her to finish her first book. jonah, amy, sandra and cheyenne have all read some of her short stories/misc chapters of the first book because they’re here favorites full stop. final two seasons are for sure the “oh [bleep], maeve published her book and it’s really taking off” arc for her.

cheyenne is the little sister that she never had, they have matching nails and accessories all the time. maeve often does her hair for her because it’s fun to them and gives them chat time.

she did sandra’s hair and make-up for her wedding 🥰

was genuinely intimidated and putoff by dina for a good while but i cannot be talked out of believing that they wouldn’t have a c-plot in a later season episode of maeve making dina look as hot as can be and trying to teach her how to flirt without being so blunt. is she successful with that last bit?? not really, but she gets to dress dina up and also receive some good advice on not taking people’s shit along the way so that’s fantastic (garrett’s dying in the background and that’s all part of the plan tbh)

obligatory b-plot of maeve having to explain bisexuality and polamory to the breakroom clowns because most of them can’t understand her love life. probably came about as a result of another running gag where maeve talks about one of her dates and it doesn’t add up with her former comments much to the confusion of her coworkers, and then she has to whip out the lecture because she gets accused of straight up lying or fooling around on her partner.

once accidentally made people think she and amy were going on a date because she told justine they were "going out for dinner tonight" and it started an entire Discussion behind their backs (she does, in fact, put out the offer to amy before leaving work. gotta shoot that shot, maybe amy’s feeling a little curious that night who knows a girl can dream)

she and jonah instantly connected and became great friends. they share a specific optimistic outlook in the way that they can see the world for what it could be instead of what it currently is and it’s something that brought them together, then kept them close even through the rough times. she loves his commitment and dedication to any cause that he undertakes, his efforts are inspiring and keep her going whenever her own start to waver. she is absolutely obsessed with how he consistently finds a way to put his foot in his mouth during any conversation, the yin to her yang as maeve’s known for being able to spin a web as quickly and for as long as necessary. their shared need to be validated and praised goes a long way between them because they’re annoyingly nice to each other all the time. they’re those two at the breakroom table talking animatedly about their latest interest or topic they picked up from a podcast/news article/reddit post (toxic masculinity, current politics, feminism, some obscure piece of history or a cryptid of the week, etc). he’s endlessly patient with her and she’s beyond thankful for it. flipside is that she unironically loves listening to him go off on his Woke Rants and gets bullied about it but doesn’t care, she’s there for him through the relationship struggles and does her best to give advice while not stepping over the line (might toe it once or twice but. what can you do, she’s a drama lover). she might have been late because beauty routines but she was also there each step of the way for the union work, besties get it done. maeve sweet talks them and then jonah goes on a righteous rant it’s a win/win.

i think it’s entirely possible she and jonah dated because of how well they get along, but i don’t see it lasting a crazy long time. maybe two, three months at the most (perhaps it’s mostly bc i’m an amy/jonah hoe and they belong together forever but whatever, don’t perceive me). a scenario where they’d both decide it’s better they stay friends and they get away with it without much weirdness, aka maeve’s fine and jonah or the coworkers makes it awkward sometimes before it settles. i do in fact think he’d be the first love interest of maeve’s that i can see her using “baby” as the primary petname because like,,,it’s jonah. you get it. if they dated, she has a photo taken of them from one of their dates taped up in her breakroom locker and it stays up there until she leaves the job bc she adores it so much.

insert bit where maeve makes a threesome joke with her + jonah and amy, and there’s a pause Just long enough with everyone looking between each other that it appears genuine consideration is there but the camera cuts before anything else is said. the world may never know what happened after that

everyone keeps trying to make drama between her and amy because they’re both close to jonah, but i fully believe maeve would adore and respect her far too much to reach any level of rivalry. she’d be in awe of how strong of a woman amy is between raising her children and working her ass off so successfully, and i imagine a lot of their bonding would be maeve persuading her into taking time for herself or them having girls’ nights (whether by themselves or with some of the others).

put the tabby obligated “they have two hands” joke here about maeve/amy/jonah. i haven’t put any thought into if it’d work out or if the other two could be into that sort of relationship but i’m legally and morally obligated to bring it up on the principle that it’s My Thing.

#ch: maeve sommers #i don't know what else to tag this as so i simply won't #days later tabby here: i have vague memories of writing these things super late at night so that's prolly why it was forgotten #between that and dnd the day after lol #a whole load of rambles and y'know what that's tabby all over so i'm leaving it like this #we're not here for neatly organized or fancily worded thoughts #thank you for the ask!!! it was so fun n cute

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wild-chaser · 7 months

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A little rant on the quality of writers' resources or: how to find good advice on writing

And if not a rant, then at least a little bitter observation.

I am recently grabbing a lot of books that tackle the problem of structuring the story - because I am attempting to outline my novel and that is a big task.

And some books are helpful, like the book I have mentioned before - "Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction" by Orson Scott Card.

But others, I can't help but feel, are a waste of paper. That sounds harsh, but I have just opened one such book, read several pages, and then closed it because it feels like a waste of my time. Even if I am not busy. There was just very little value from this book.

It occurred to me that nowadays people print out what should have maybe stayed on their blogs. When one is researching a topic and sharing the results of the research, that is cool and often helpful, but I have this inherent expectation that when I grab a book, I get to interact with an expert. And yes, I understand how it's very much not the case nowadays, and what do I expect, and that I should know better, but... Eh, I guess this rant is about my annoyance with the quality of printed resources.

If one tries to look for books on the craft of writing, there are so many to chose from! It is so hard to pick! And it's so hard to sort the wheat from the chaff, and when one picks wrong at first, they might get misled into believing that all such books are useless.

If I might give one hint towards what can help with discerning which book to go for, just google the author. Really. If they have published several novels and are often asked for advice in writers' podcasts like "Writing Excuses", that might be a hint.

If they are a "creative writing major and an aspiring novelist" and are working on their first novel, then... yeah, maybe also take it as a hint. Or they have several self-published novels, but most of the popularity they get not from the novels themselves but from talking about the novel writing...

Like, I am not saying it's not okay to write about writing when you're just working on your first novel. Hell, I am literally posting on it myself. But sometimes I get the feeling some of those people put more of their effort into blogging and social media marketing than in actually working on their novel, and that's their choice, but maybe this choice turns them more into bloggers than novelists.

My point is, if you are an aspiring writer looking for real writing advice, make sure to get this advice from experienced published writers.

I think Brandon Sanderson has some videos on YT on the craft of writing and boy, the quality of the video is crap, but the quality of the advice is pure gold. Meanwhile, oftentimes when you listen/read the bloggers and social media posters, the audio/video quality is wonderful. It's just that the content is lacking.

So what I am trying to say is that writers are often not the social media ninjas that we see when we first google our question. To get to the good writing advice, one needs to learn how to dig deeper and lean into the old-fashioned web design and video quality from the 90s. Because the writers you want to get advice from have spent most of their time actually focused on the craft of writing, and not the craft of SEO and web design.

#writing #writing advice #writing resources #novel writing #writeblr

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kaypeace21 · 3 years

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Rebel Robin podcast (ep 3 &4 analysis)

For those who haven’t read them yet. Here’s the analysis for podcast ep 1&2. Analysis of Rebel Robin book-here. And eastereggs from rebel robin novel- here.

So the main things I noticed in ep 3 was how Robin spying was shown as a huge NEGATIVE-and Mr Hauser got upset over her doing so. Robin listens to mr. Hauser’s phone call (like Karen with Mike in s3/ us gov spying on calls in s1) & on a different occasion Robin also eavesdrops on a private convo he is having with someone else in his classroom ( like El spying on Mike talking to Lucas in s3). And when he finds out about this he tells her how wrong it was to spy on other people like that. In the past, I also talked about how the theme of spying is shown for many other st characters ( in the show) and how it isn’t romanticized like people think it is- here .

Anyways , Ep 3 ends with a call from a h*mophobic teen( Dash) telling Robin to “stay away” from Mr. Hauser cause he’s “dangerous”. Why he thinks he’s dangerous is solely for the fact he’s gay.I think this theme may come into play in s4 Hawkins (in relation to the satanic panic). In ep 4 Robin jokes to (gay) Mr. Hauser : “ So what are you into... satanism?” (Sadly most queer people have been told over and over we’re going to hell for being gay/lgbt+. it’s sadly an almost universal experience.) For those unaware- the ‘satanic panic’ was a right wing christian movement in the 80′s that WRONGLY associated certain things with supposed satanism. Just some of the many things they demonized : rock music , stephen king , wearing black, horror/fantasy media, and of course queer people and d&d (hellfire club - the name is a a xmen ref but in the show it’s probably an inside joke about the satanic panic and people being scared of d&d). We see foreshadowing of the satanic panic hinted in s3 (in relation to d&d)- on tv the narrator asks if “satanism” (pans to d&d set) is to blame for the odd occurrances in Hawkins. And given how the s4 el-trailer had the clock say 3:00am for the “witching hour” also called “the devil’s hour” since it’s supposed to be a subversion of jesus dy*ing at 3:00 pm. And the possibility s4 may take place around Easter. I think we’ll see that religious (Christian) extre*sm causes many people in Hawkins to interpret the supernatural as ‘satanic’. And no , I’m obviously not talking poorly about all religious/christian people).

After this Mr. Hauser jokes how Hawkins is like “lord of the flies” and how he “worries” what would happen if teens were left to their own devices-like in the book. The themes in the book mostly focus on the dangers of ‘mob mentality’ and how human beings can become v*olent and turn on each other- if the safety of civilization disappears...

This I believe is foreshadowing - i mentioned in a post a while back (here). How movies on the s4 list had the theme of : a supernatural event indirectly causing towns people to act irrationally and turn on eachother v*olently. Despite literal monsters attacking them from outside (they chose to turn on eachother instead). In the end some townspeople become the real monsters via mob mentality/v*oence/false witch hunts (the mist, the birds, etc). In ‘the birds’ (while people are hidding in a store)- they wrongly blame certain characters for the supernatural chaos. Similarly, in ‘the mist’ (crowd of townspeople are trapped in a store) and some start interpreting the monsters as being sent as punishment by god- some town’s people start quoting the bible and saying the only way to stop the punishment is to start “sacrificing the s*nners and nonbelievers”. BIG YIKES.ST references mapple street (where the wheelers and sinclairs live). It’s based on the twilight zone ep of the same name “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” .The ‘monsters’ of that episode -were the townspeople turning on eachother because they incorrectly think their own neighbors are part of an invading supernatural army. The enemy was actually the paranoia/mob mentality-not the supernatural force they feared. And yes i do think this concept is linked with 80s satanic panic and will cause some town division/obstacles for our heroes to deal with . **I also think the s4 bts of the Hawkins blood clinic-may be used to show h*mophobia (linked to satanic panic) in the town. Like in one s4 movie “paradise lost”the punk rock boys who were into black clothes, rock music , horror/stephen king books- were accused by the town’s people of being gay AND have demonic powers that are k*lling fellow town’s people.

Mr Hauser says he thinks steve Harrington is Ralph from lord of the flies. And Robin disagrees saying he’s Jack. Personally- since this was when Robin didn’t know/hated Steve. I think Mr hauser is right that Steve is Ralph (one of the oldest boys) who’s “commitment to civilization and morality is strong”. But Jack (perhaps the popular s4 kid Jake?) and his savage crew take control of the group and start trying to attack Ralph and his friends (steve’s crew- over satanic panic?). How this begins is -

Jack, torments Ralph and others. And some kids begin to develop savage personalities, after someone claims to have seen a Beast (demongorgan?) in the woods. This creates fear among the boys, which allows Jack to access more power.Ralph gets into an argument with Jack, who splits from the tribe. Many of the other boys follow Jack, who uses fear to manipulate the boys into leaving Ralph. And Jack’s crew begin attacking Ralph and his friends.

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Ok, next topic of ep 4- the sentimental part of my brain got emotional when hearing how upset Robin was. And than Mr Hauser-telling her she’s wrong and she’s not “broken” or “rotten” and “nothing about her needs to be fixed’” (got me right in the feels) . As a queer person- I feel like every lgbt+ kid/teen needs to hear what Mr. Hauser said to Robin.

However, the analytical part of my brain -did notice some easterggs/ series parallels.

The convo starts with them talking about music Mr hauser likes (such as Bowie). And transitions to Mr Haauser asking about things she likes, whether she’s being bullied, and he later tells her “ DON’T let other people’s small mindedness make you fell bad about yourself. you don’t need to change yourself-no matter what anyone else says” . And Mr Hauser than says him calling her the “weirdest girl in Hawkins” was a compliment (not an insult-like she initially assumed).

This is remarkably similar to certain scenes in s1/2. In s1, Jonathan mentions musicians he likes such as Bowie, asks Will about what he likes, and tells Will “don't like things cause people tell you you’re supposed to-especially not him (their dad who called him h*mophobic names)” . In s2, Jonathan tries to cheer Will up after asking if he's being being bullied. And calls Will “a freak” (and says it’s a good thing) and he should be content with being a “freak “ and compares Will to Bowie ( who was openly queer since the 70s) .

In ep 4, Robin also mentions how sad she is that her parents won’t let her ride her bike anymore cause their paranoid about her safety (like what happened to Will in s2).

Robin (before Mr. Hauser comforts her) says she feels like she has a “rot” inside her . This is a s2 eastergg that could be linked to either Will or El. Will says his now-memories are “growing”, spreading”, and killing.” Later Kali says the emotional pain caused by her father caused a “wound” to “spread”. Later allusion-Brenner tells El she has a “terrible wound “ (“a rot”) that Will “grow, spread, and kill.”

The reason Robin rants about feeling like she has a “rot” inside her is because she’s being bullied, and lost all her Hawkins friends and says “maybe I’m broken maybe there is just something about me that drives people away? I’m the only common denominator-there’s something wrong with me! There’s something inside of me that’s just rotten and there’s nothing i can do to fix it”. Which 1)-poor Robin. 2) I feel like could easily be How Will feels in s4(who will be the same age as Robin is here in the podcast)- his dad abandoned him, all his hawkins friends are gone , the st s4 movies have h*mophobic bullying in them (and he was bullied in the past). In a interview Noah said Will in s4 “doesn’t really get along with people-it’s just him and Mike.” I think it fits more so with Will than El . But they may feel similar: it’s implied in s4 audition tapes she’ll be bullied too, she moved away from her friends, and her father (Hopper) fake “passed away.” It could easily be how both Will and El feel in s4- that there is something “broken”/ “rotten” about them . In fact, in the rebel Robin novel there is even a character named Sheena. Sheena reminds me a bit of a mix between Will and el . She is very quiet, queercoded, and is often bullied. And she finds mean notes and other things stuffed in her locker- placed there by bullies. A bit like how Will found the zombie-boy note in his locker. A teacher doesn’t stop her bullying just blames her and says “ This wouldn’t happen if you made it just a smidgen easier for PEOPLE to understand you.”(sort of reminding me of that Noah quote about s4 Will not getting along with most people/Jonathan saying not to change himself cause “people” say to). But sheena can be another name for Jane (there was also a 80s show character named Sheena who was psychic) so ...maybe foreshadowing of el/jane being bullied in highschool? Along with Will?

*It’s not a eastergg/parallel...just speculation. Unlike the rebel robin book... in the podcast (in multiple episodes) almost every time she opens up to Mr Hauser about her problems she says it’s ok for him to do the same and she’ll be supportive and listen. However, Mr Hauser (so far) always rejects her offer-much to her hurt/frustration. In ep 4, she asks if he has someone his “own age” he can talk to about his problems-which he says he does. Now... since in ep 4 Mr hauser is paralleled to Jonathan maybe Jonathan will have someone his own age to talk to about his problems (maybe his new friend Argyle?) We see similar to Mr Hauser giving advice/pep talks to (gay) Robin. Jonathan is always giving advice/peptalks to our (gay-coded) Will. But so far- Jonathan has no one he really emotionally leaned on in the same way (Will does with Jonathan). I also wonder if Will in s4 starts gets tired of how he always confides in Jonathan (but Jonathan never does the same with Will in return)? Like Robin with Mr. Hauser?

#robin buckley #steve harrington #will byers #el hopper #jonathan byers #stranger things #stranger things theory

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thisdreamplace · 3 years

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I read a post today about manifestation content consumption, and they said we should stop consuming too much content because we might get confused. I do agree that seeing for example 5 different coaches, might confuse a few people. But also, I think that constantly lurking through manifestation blogs/ig accounts/reddit/fb groups, keeps you in a state of not having your desires. This might just be me, but I started seeing major movement in my manifestations the moment I limited my cosumption of this content. I felt like although I was applying the law and doing the internal work, everytime I lurked through blogs I would read someone's old story and relate to it, or even a success story and wished that were me, or I would find a new technique and think about applying it (didn't apply them, but still had the thought of doing so) and all of these thoughts meant the same thing: I do not have what I want. Subtle thoughts can sometimes be strongest ones. Do you also think we should limit the amount of content we consume?

Honestly, yes. You make SUCH good points. It really IS so subtle, that's the thing about it. Things definitely started to change more for me when I first got off Reddit, and stayed off. I deleted the Youtube app so I could stop lurking on Dylan James' success stories. And I honestly need to stay off this blog too haha I've been taking more breaks from it often and I think you guys are going to see less of me moving forward.

Sometimes it's hard, because I truly do enjoy this content so much. Like, I love the law. It's my favorite topic and I could talk about it all day. And it's the majority of what I know, because I dedicated the past year to accumulating knowledge on the law. And I truly love the community! But I have to ask myself why do I keep coming back to it? Deep down and truly. Because the truth is, I relate to you. I read a success story and lowkey take mental notes of what that person did. I see how much time it took someone else to manifest, so I make a mental note about it and compare it to myself. It's subtle, but it clearly says I don't have what I want.

I mean, when we are beginners it's cool. We need to learn what this is all about! But after a few months, what else are we looking for? We've read it all, we need to figure out what feels best to us as individuals (which is going to be figured out offline), then stick to it. We need to practice self validation and self confidence and trust and faith. But instead, we keep turning towards this content looking for validation. I know I do sometimes. If I'm feeling off, I'll go read an article that'll help me feel better about myself. And that's okay... to an extent. I think it's more important I practice validating myself. Since that's literally how the law works, it's all a reflection of me. I can read that inspirational article 500 times, but it's me who's gonna have to actually apply the work even when it gets difficult, you know?

I think there's a fine line though. I remember listening to a podcast episode and Jen said how every morning when she gets ready she listens to a Neville lecture. And clearly Jen is one of the most skilled master manifestors. I think that for her though, she comes from the angle of understanding who she truly is more and more. She's not listening to try and get something to manifest. But I think for many of us, we are definitely keeping engaged with this content because deep down we think we are going to find something that makes it all click, which then would make all our desires come rushing to us. And actually yeah, that does come from a place of feeling like you're not fulfilled because you think there's more work to be done.

So yeah, I definitely agree. And the law is all about being a doer, not a hearer. I think that we can do the inner work and still consume this content. But I think that if we are having underlying thoughts like what you mentioned, it's better to take a step back and build more inner confidence. So that when you are reading law related content one day, it's coming from a place of pure enjoyment and not a subtle place of lack.

Thanks so much for bringing this topic up! I really loved reading about your perspective. 💖

#basics #i am

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florianwirtz · 3 years

Text

2020 is coming to an end and honestly I don’t really believe it. I still feel like I’m processing events happening in May. But I wanna say that I’m proud that you made it through that year and hope many good things will come to you in 2021. It was an awful situation for all of us and I hope you are not too harsh on yourself if you didn’t achieve want you wanted due to what is going on right now.

I want to take the time and say thank you for making the majority of my time a good one. Regardless of what is going on sometimes, I’m glad I got to meet so many cool people here, friends I wanna keep for life and started to treasure. I’ve been keeping myself lowkey the past month but I hope you know that I still appreciate and love you.

now my list of special people in my heart. I hope we will see us in 2021 again and thank you for everything. ❤️

@modricmio - we haven’t been in much contact lately but I hope you are well! I know I can always count on you and I love you. After all these years, I’m still grateful that I get to call you my friend. <3

@trentalexanders - milaa! Although we’ve been knowing us for quite a long time already, I feel like this year we grew particularly close! I feel like we have the perfect banter rivalry friendship where we can have a mix of banter and serious talk! It’s always so fun to talk with you and push my James Justin propaganda (I’m sorry for being quiet for a while but I hope you know it’s always gonna be him) 😘 #teamjj

@dancefaeries - I’m still mad that your first association with me is probably that Harvey Barnes pic 🙃 because I associate you with Boilerman and I think that’s waaaay cooler (we probably should do a rate the mascot list one day) Also your awfully bland taste in men. Regardless, it’s always good to see you on my dash even if most posts consists of complaining about how you’re much older than all of us and we’re all babies 😂

@footballffbarbiex - Amy, I hope you are well and didn’t forget me! It’s been an awfully long time since the last time we talked to each other but I haven’t forgotten you! I’m still sorry for never turning in my piece for the writing challenge (maybe one day I can make it up to you 😬) but I hope you know that you are still one of the most talented writers out there! I also enjoy our talks about how salad should be eaten and tomatoes shouldn’t exist. Because having good food opinions automatically makes you the best!

@stydiaherondale - Meliiii my love! Oder sollte ich sagen Jadon’s love? 😂 ich erinnere mich immer noch gern an den Moment zurück als du mich einfach mal angeschrieben hast und ich finde immer noch, dass es einer der besten Momente war. Weil wir zusammen gerade versuchen Erwachsensein zu meistern und beide iwie keinen Plan davon haben. Auch wenn du gefühlt 80.000 Clubs supportest, für mich bleibst du der einzige Dortmundfan den ich akzeptiere. 💕

@neckarinselstrand - es ist immer wieder schön dich hier wiederzusehen! Lia, ich hoffe du hast 2020 gut überstanden und wir werden wieder tolle Konversationen in Spanisch haben nächstes Jahr 😁 Theoretisch sollte meins ja besser sein, aber ich muss sagen, ich kann immer noch nicht viel mehr 😂

@theweatha - we haven’t been much in contact lately but I hope you know that I still appreciate you! I’m proud of you going through with that idea of the podcast as it’s always a pleasure listening to you and Liz. I hope 2020 wasn’t too messed up for you and I hope you are well xo. May we talk more in 2021 again!

@julianbrandtrelated - Ich weiß du nutzt kein tumblr mehr (ohne dich ists nicht dasselbe) aber ich will trotzdem sagen, dass du einer der coolsten Menschen bist, die ich hier getroffen haben (man findet echt selten Leute, die 100% immer das Gleiche fühlen wie man selbst haha). Ich hoffe, dir gehts gut und wir reden mal wieder öfter demnächst ❤️

@ehrenbrandt - was soll ich noch zu dir sagen haha? Mein Tag wär nicht mehr derselbe ohne den content den du mir jeden Tag schickst oder unsere täglichen Zusammenbrüche und Jubel über Leverkusen. Auch wie du immer wieder mein liveblogging über United tolerierst, ist einfach das Beste und ohne dich Fußball zu gucken, ist seltsam! Dass du mich am Anfang des Jahres noch besuchen konntest, war eines der besten Dinge in diesem Jahr ❤️ allein die unzähligen Insider, die währenddessen passiert sind, werd ich nie wieder vergessen hahaha! auf das wir uns hoffentlich bald wiedersehen <3

@tottenhamsstuff - you’re a weirdo. In a good way because so am I. Will I ever tolerate your taste in men? no - but if we’d agree on everything, it wouldn’t be the same between us, so I’m fine with that. I hope you are doing well with the situation going on at your country right now and I am sorry for not reaching out sooner. I’m glad I got to know you 🤍

@danieljamesmufc - my favourite welsh ❤️ the reason why I always have an eye on the Welsh nt and I am an honorary fan! I’m glad I got to know you and although you rep a shit footballer, I think that’s fine. Also us sharing the same bland taste in men and knowing it never gets old. Grateful for our endless chats this year and hopefully one day we do will see each other, regardless if it’s in Germany or Wales. I hope you are doing well X

@zalimaaa - so actually I have no words for you because I feel like I’ve already said everything I ever wanted to say to you. But I will never stop saying how much I actually love you, the way you always care about me and help me out of every life situation, it’s hard to imagine what I would do without you. The first time we facetimed or when we rant about life or literally everything else, it feels like we’ve known each other for an eternity. I’m always here for you and the day we meet each other will be one of the best in my life. You always know how to make me the happiest, thank you for everything in 2020 <3

@emwritesfootball - you know what you’re annoying but in a good way. Annoying because you will never stop to take that name from the chipmunk out of your mouth. Regardless of that, you made time during lockdown bearable and I will never forget the fun chats we used to have but also the rather serious ones! I’m grateful that I got to know you and hope 2021 has something better for you in mind! Also you’re one hell of a writer and thank you for dedicating so many pieces to me (even those with the wrong person 😘), I always feel honored to be a source of inspo haha.

@shockintha - Alice!! With you, everything is fun and positive and I feel like everyone needs a person like you in life. I feel like I already said what I always wanted to say to you on your birthday but I will say once again how much I appreciate you. I know I can always turn to you about literally every topic because we either absolutely agree with each other or have a vastly different opinion about it. And I feel like these dynamics are what makes our friendship so wonderful. Thanks for always seeing the positive things in life when no one else does. I love you and hopefully we will see each other soon! <3

@idiotsfc - Alicia!! Nothing will beat your weird taste in men but since it’s so amusing and making my day, I’m fine with it 😂 thank you for always sending me lovely messages in my inbox, I love and appreciate you so much and hope you are doing well 💕

@magicmartinelli - I know you don’t like sappy texts so I will try to keep myself short. I think it’s super cool that you like my taste in music and literally every song I send to you and how you started liking CHVRCHES because of me ☺️ the way we are secretly both sore losers and get mad about our clubs is what connects us. See ya in 2021 and congrats for avoiding relegation so far!

@donnyvandered - I feel like I’m repeating myself but it’s true that getting to know you was one of my highlights this year too. I have so much love to you and I feel like we are always on the same wave length when talking. Together with Radia we just vibe so well and I feel like if we’d ever do a triple meeting we’d get along so well. Facetiming with you both was so fun and hopefully we can repeat this much more often next year. I love you and I hope you are doing well. Thank you for everything and see you in 2021 ❤️

@duckysweater - seeing you in my inbox every time I’m here, makes me so happy and I hope you know that I have so much love for you although I don’t say it very often! You deserve the world and more, with you it’s never a bad day here, thank you for everything you do! <3

@kingkepaff - Lily you are a very sweet person and I hope you know that you are loved! You are always brightening my day when I see you on my dash and it makes me happy that you’re always in my notifications and thoughts. Love you lots!

Other blogs I like a lot (give them a follow too):

@fredtheredsarmy @tierneystescobag @jackiexxgroenen @lucystani4th @giirlinterrupted @footballerimaginess @felltoabove @yonceutd @dioogoo @inlovewithamess @barkleysbabe @turtlelightwood @songofachillespdf @leahwilliamson @joytayloranya @danieljamesthighs @skb7 @lea-schuller @ansu--fatsi @elleeceunknown @ivanafuso @farmers-league

I also wanna say thank you to those mutuals who unfortunately deactivated or are inactive. You are always in my thoughts and I hope you are doing well.

Another special shoutout to my arsenal anon and german learning anon. I don’t know what you are up to but I hope you’re having a great time, it’s always good to have you in my inbox!

Also any other reoccurring anon who is always making my day or simply needs to rant, you make it worth leaving the anon feature turned on!

In the end, I love all of you very much. Thanks for making my tumblr experience the way it is

over and out, Liv XO

#mutuals tag

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foundthe8wing · 4 years

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Okay, doing this over here because my main tumblr is usually a place for me to vibe and I don’t want all the bullshit tied to that account, but basically: I’m really angry and disappointed with the dndads cast for how they’ve put a lot of the minors in their fanbase in danger. Everything below is a repost from twitter (with permission from the OP, crypticjoy), and I’ll link the thread in a reblog.

Under a cut because it’s long and potentially triggering (content warnings for grooming, sexualizing minors, and sexual assault)

[OP tagged the relevant cast accounts; I added slashes here bc I’m not sure if those same urls exist on tumblr and I don’t want to be randomly tagging people over here]

5:49 PM Sep 5, 2020

“I don’t usually do this, but: the way that the cast of @/dungeonsanddads engages with their audience is actively dangerous to minors, and they need to get it together. (cw for discussion of grooming, sexualizing minors, sexual assault)

First off, there are some iffy jokes and situations in the podcast itself. I’m not going to get into all of it right here, but have a google doc: [doc will also be linked in reblog]

Yes, the kids in #dndads are fictional, but that doesn’t mean this stuff doesn’t affect real kids listening. a. it normalizes talking/joking about kids in that way and b. There’s a lot of inconsistancy and confusion on the lines they draw--

Paeden saying “baby” is weird but Ron sitting in Terry Jr’s lap isn’t? I’m confused. You know who the fuck relies on that type of confusion and unclarity? Fucking predators

And I’m not saying every in-character decision has to be perfectly moral or acceptable, but the way the cast, out of character, discuss what’s weird and what’s not sends a lot of mixed messages. And that’s legitimately dangerous.

So then you take all of this, and you add a patron discord server that lets nsfw discussions run virtually unchecked--you create a fandom space that allows adults to discuss kinks, and porn searches, and just, all this other stuff, with teenagers...

... and it becomes a breeding ground for grooming and abuse.

The creators aren’t responsible for babysitting their fanbase or for how people engage with their content outside of their spaces (though, again, I’d urge them to be very careful about what kind of messages they’re sending)

But they ARE responsible for taking basic steps to keep the spaces that THEY create and engage with safe.

“But the rules for the server say 18+!” The rules say you have to be 18 *or have parental permission.* They also say to keep things PG-13. That’s vastly different than establishing something as an adult-only/nsfw space.

“Minors shouldn’t be joining/listening anyway!” The cast can’t control who listens and neither can I, but there’s a difference between knowing teens are listening to you discuss sex with your adult friends vs facilitating conversations between teens and adults on those topics.

“If people are uncomfortable they can just leave.” First off, this situation isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s unSAFE. Second: fuck that. It’s not on minors to set and maintain boundaries about this stuff; a lot of them literally do not know how

Not because they’re stupid, but because they’re young and inexperienced. It’s the responsibility of adults to set and enforce healthy boundaries around sexual discussions, and this particular group of adults has done a fucking terrible job

(Maybe don’t encourage listeners to DM you about kinks! Maybe especially don’t do that when you’ve communicated, intentionally or not, that making and escalating sexual jokes is a really good way to get a reaction from you guys)

I get that they didn’t expect to have so many young listeners, but to be aware of that fact and make no adjustments whatsoever is irresponsible and it WILL lead to someone getting hurt. Does their “young, thirsty, female” audience only exist to them when they can laugh about it?

And let’s be absolutely 1000% clear: this isn’t an issue they’re unaware of. The stuff I’m talking about is an ongoing problem with how their server is run, but it came to a head with one specific situation very recently:

They released a bonus, patron-exclusive episode about the dads taking the bdsm test. Given the general state of the server, I was worried about where those discussions might lead, so before it dropped, I reached out to @/anthony_burch to express my concern

He told me he raised the issue with @/fwong and Ashley, meaning at least three members of the dndads team were aware of the situation, and decided it didn’t warrant any type of preemptive action on their part

(alternatively, it means Anthony lied, which would be a whole separate issue)

[Image ID: a discord DM conversation from Sep 1, 2020, between a crossed out username and reverendanthony. It reads:

OP: heyyyyy have you guys considered that releasing an episode focused on the bdsm test is almost inevitably going to lead to a bunch of 15 year olds sharing their results in your server because you might want to get ahead of that before someone gets hurt

reverendanthony: oh holy shit, really good idea

OP: thanks, I know it's easy to veer into that territory just because of the nature of your show but I wanted to bring it to your attention because I figured you don't want to create a situation that's like, actively dangerous (and for the record I'm willing to discuss what I think would make it safer but I'm also not going to assume you want/need my input, obviously you can handle it however you see fit)

reverendanthony: No, thank you for bring it up, I really appreciate it -- I just raised the issue with Freddie and Ashley

OP: Good to know, thank you /End ID]

I’m not overreacting. I have seen this shit happen, to my friends and to myself, and watching the dndads cast take absolutely no meaningful action to prevent situations like that from occurring directly under their noses makes me fucking livid

I can guarantee that the #dungeonsanddaddies fanbase includes both predators and survivors of abuse, grooming, etc (including those currently living through it), and I need them to think very, very hard about which group they’re prioritizing.

And I need that choice to be evident through more than just their words, because it doesn’t fucking matter how much you “really appreciate” that I brought up my concerns if you do fuck-all to address them.

It doesn’t matter how many times you say the word “consent” if apparently everyone was okay that “Darryl gets sexually assaulted” was almost a plot point played for laughs.

(His dare from Scam would have been rape, straight up. Just because no one said the word doesn’t mean it wasn’t coercive and gross).

I’d like to think the @/dungeonsanddads cast isn’t intentionally encouraging abuse, but they’re sure as hell enabling it, and they needed to get their shit together ages ago, because they’re not the ones their negligence hurts.”

Quote retweet by OP 6:51 PM Sep 7, 2020

“So, they updated the rules for the patron server, but I want to be really clear that from my perspective, it’s way too little, way too late.

The new rules don’t adequately address the core issues and they certainly don’t absolve the cast of the harm they’ve already caused.

[Tweet includes 2 screenshots: one of a bot asking people to click thumbs up to confirm they’re 18+ (or have a parent’s permission) and agree to the rules, and one that includes two of the rules. It reads:

“This is an 18+ space. Them’s the rules: per Patreon’s policy, you must be 18+ or have parental permission.

Use language as if you’re at your parents dinner table. Don’t get people in trouble because of your SPICY POSTS. Keep conversation polite. NSFW content is not allowed!”]

(and before anyone says I should bring up my concerns privately, a quick refresher on how well that went last time I did it:)

[links back to the “(alternatively, it means Anthony lied . . .)” tweet from the original thread]

So hey, @/fwong, some thoughts:

1.The rules are vague and unclear: what /exactly/ do you mean when you say “NSFW content is not allowed!” when the content of your show itself is so often nsfw? And how are you planning to enforce this?

Does it mean you’ll shut down the MBIC conversation that is literally just kink discussion? I need you to be clear on where the line is, because, again, predators rely on that confusion. Don’t give them a gray area to play in.

For an example of a more clear policy, it’s pretty easy to say, “yep, ‘Henry gets pegged’ sure is a sentence we said on our show and you don’t have to pretend it’s not, but if you’d like to discuss it in any more detail at all, you need to move”

2. Remember how I said I needed to be clear on whether you’re prioritizing survivors or predators? While I doubt it was intentional, the language you’re using here is prioritizing predators.

It’s not “don’t get people in trouble,” it’s “don’t make people uncomfortable.” It’s “we all have a responsibility to make sure this space is safe for everyone, especially the younger members of the community.”

You’re setting people up to be afraid of expressing concerns for fear of “getting people in trouble” or “inciting unnecessary drama.” Even if it’s not what YOU meant, it’s very easy for those words to be manipulated, so +

You absolutely have to be explicitly clear that if someone expresses their discomfort, you’ve got their back. Being safe is more important than being polite.

3. I need every cast member to take responsibility for their own actions. I’ve gotten no indication from any of you that you understand the ways in which the in-show things I brought up were harmful.

Acknowledging that harm is important not just because of the immediate effects of that content, but also because it implicitly sets an example for how similar complaints should be dealt with going forward.

When someone says “hey, I was uncomfortable that you seem fine with the Glennary ship, because she reads as very young to me,” I don’t need a dissertation on how the perception of characters can evolve due to your improvisational nature

I need to hear “oh, I interpreted her differently, but you’re right, we should have been more clear, and I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable.” Because your responses to your own mistakes set the tone for any other situations like that going forward.

How comfortable is someone going to be with coming to you, or Ash, or any of the mods about someone making them uncomfortable if they’ve seen that when people call YOU out, they’re argued with and shut down?

Don’t tell people you’ve “made it clear that you won’t go there” when they tell you that you ARE there. Listen to them and do better.

Set the expectation that people will be respected when they raise their concerns. “If you want to come at me you have to bring the heat” is not an appropriate response on a subject that made people genuinely uncomfortable.

In essence: set people up to be supported and protected, not dismissed.

[It’s like a matriosche of tweets over here. This one links to another thread, also by crypticjoy. That thread reads:

A non-comprehensive guide to keeping discord servers safe for minors:

1. Make designated channels for nsfw/18+ discussion. Generally speaking, this is a lot more effective than banning those discussions altogether, because it’s a lot easier to say “hey, can you move this conversation?” than “hey, I need you to stop”

In fandom spaces, it’s usually a good idea to have separate channels for talking about nsfw fiction vs discussing your personal sex lives.

2. Give everyone minor/adult roles; make sure your 18+ channels are locked to people who don’t have an adult role. It’s important that there’s more of a barrier there than just checking a box.

3. NSFW channels shouldn’t necessarily be a free-for-all; be aware of people’s boundaries and respect them (for example, r*pe jokes aren’t funny or okay, even if you’re not making them around kids)

4. Explicitly state in your rules that people should feel free to come to mods if anyone is making them uncomfortable. Actually listen to people and resolve the situation if they do approach you.

5. Make it clear that creepy behavior via DMs or other means is also not tolerated--you can’t control what people do outside your server, but you can make the choice to not allow people like that in your space

6. Make sure mods are on top of things BEFORE people have to say anything; sometimes being a mod means being willing to be the “asshole” who shuts things down before they get out of hand, even if they’re not asked.

Be generally aware of signals that people are uncomfortable or that things are escalating too far, and address those situations sooner rather than later.

*It should be noted that safety involves a lot of components beyond just containing nsfw discussions; this thread just happens to be focused on that one specific element.

oh also! It's a good idea to provide resources on grooming so people know what to look out for [links to some resources; again, this’ll be in the reblog]]

So, @/dungeonsanddads, if you’re interested in anything beyond just having a flimsy excuse you can point to to cover your own ass, I’m gonna need you to try again.

Sorry I can’t be nicer about it, but I’ve given so many benefits of the doubt I could be running a successful charity, and this isn’t an issue I’m willing to drop.

10:02 PM

Thought I was done but actually I've got a few more questions: to what extent were @/HeyBethMay, @/WillBCampos, and @/mattLarnold included in conversations about this issue/the new rules? Is this something your whole team is involved in?

Have you discussed what you're doing on a team and individual basis to keep your fan interactions safe, and are you on the same page about how much it matters? Are you holding each other accountable? Is everyone okay with where this ended up?”

#dungeons and daddies #dndads #cw grooming #cw SA #8wing

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all-that-tmnt-jazz · 3 years

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Hi there! If you're still doing match ups, I'd love to see if I get my fav of the boys!

I'm a short (5'1") feisty little Leo that loves to cook, crochet, woodwork and sew! My pronouns are she/they and I'm turning 28 (yikes@me) this year!

I've had blue, pink, black, orange, red, blonde, green, and grey hair over the course of my life and usually let it grow a bit before I buzz it all off when I get tired of it.

I work for a library and usually end up recommending scifi or fantasy novels to our patrons, but I love nonfiction titles too.

I've taken muay thai in the past and found it to be an amazing outlet.

I love listening to podcasts while I work, and one of my favs is the Magnus Archives (relistening again).

I'm very outspoken to the point of probably being obnoxious for various societal issues such as company ethics, workers' rights, and the US immigration policies.

My love language is probably gifts or acts of service and if I don't know how to comfort or please someone, I'll try to cook or bake for them or ask if I can do anything.

Of course, you have a match up, Friend! :)

Warnings: None.

Incarnation: Bayverse

Extra Info: I could see you being friends with Raph

I match you with…

Leo!

You are literally so small compared to him

He loves your height- especially when you’re getting feisty

(he affectionately calls you his Angry Kitten)

He loves watching how your hair changes

He is secretly glad that you know a way to defend yourself if he couldn’t get to you on time

He loves to cook

(he doesn’t do much crochet, woodworking, or sewing- but that’s why you’re such good friends with Raph)

He loves hearing your stories about patrons from work

And also, he often asks you to borrow your favorite books so you can read them to him

(his favorites are the sci-fi ones)

Will throw down anyone who doesn’t use your pronouns

He loves listening to podcasts, too, so you often talk about your favorites

(you actually are the one who got him into horror podcasts)

If he had a better platform to be as outspoken as you are about social justice topics, he would be

(that’s another reason why he hates being stuck in the sewers)

He literally has the same love language

He is always offering to do things for you

He cares about you way too much, and wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let you down

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtle imagine #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt x reader #tmnt match ups #tmnt anon ask #anon ask #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2016 #tmnt leonardo #tmn raphael #tmnt donatello #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt leo #tmnt x reader sfw #tmnt bayverse #tmnt michael bay

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lnc2 · 4 years

Text

tongue tied (1/?)

Summary: Chat Noir’s podcast is a viral success.

A/N: This is for @labyrinthofchaos who wanted to see my dumbass idea fleshed out into a full story. Thank you for being patient with me <3 I hope it was worth the wait.

AO3

It started with a black envelope on her balcony.

You’ve been cordially invited to paw-ticipate in Le PodChat…

Marinette rolled her eyes, checked the box marked No, thank you and doodled a sad kitten in the corner before resealing the envelope and leaving it tucked under one of her plants.

She knew the invitation was imminent. Ladybug may have refused to be a part of his little side project in a permanent or official capacity but that didn’t mean that Chat Noir didn’t talk her ears off about future episodes all the same.

“Think about it, bug! Akuma victims coming forward to share their stories– what it was like, what Hawkmoth said, how it felt when they ultimately and inevitably fell at the hands of their favorite heroes.” Here he waggled his eyebrows as he leaned forward on his baton. “How awesome would that be?”

Ladybug smiled, pushing back her eager partner with the pad of her finger. “I think you’ll find people are less willing to come forward about being akumatized than you anticipate, minou. Most people would rather forget the whole thing, not broadcast it to strangers.”

“Exactly! But think about the good it could do if we got people talking about it?” He was all hands in his excitement, frantic waving that nearly managed to catch her in the face. “People like Chloe Bourgeois won’t be able to shame people into being reakumatized if we can just normalize the experience right?”

“But it isn’t normal, Chat.” She sighed. “At least it shouldn’t be.”

“And we’re working on that, my lady.” He said, his voice gentle. “I just think this might be another way to help out. Ease the emotional pressure cooker everyone is under.”

After that, there was really no arguing with him. After all, Chat Noir wasn’t wrong and any and all help that they could provide to prevent future akuma attacks would make their jobs easier in the long run. What had started out as a biweekly way to blow off steam quickly transformed into something Bigger. Marinette couldn’t say she was surprised– everything Chat touched seemed to spiral into more.

When he first broached the idea about starting a podcast hosted by the Ladyblogger Ladybug had laughed. They’d brainstormed silly ideas throughout patrol only for her to realize her partner had been entirely serious. In the end she’d capitulated to his kitten eyes on the condition that this was his thing.

“I have enough on my plate as it is, Chat. I can’t promise to be on every episode with you.”

His eyes sparkled when he bowed over her hand. “Any time you can spare is perfect, as always.”

What Ladybug hadn’t anticipated (although really she should have) was just how successful this particular scheme would be. Calling Le PodChat an overnight sensation did a disservice to how quickly the premier episode managed to crash the Ladyblog’s servers.

Alya was over the moon.

“I don’t know whose ass I kissed in a past life to get this lucky but you won’t find any regrets here.” She squealed the following day at school. “How many journalists can say they have literal superheroes dropping by on a semi-weekly basis to shoot the shit? Nadja Chamack wishes she had so much exposure.”

That much at least was true. She’d heard it from the cat himself who had been more than a little frazzled by how much attention his little side project generated. That evening on patrol he’d been a nervous, twitching agitated wreck as not one but two news outlets had reached out offering to be the “legitimate” homes for the podcast.

“I’d never move it of course,” He said, tail waving with his hands as Ladybug watched him in amusement. “I couldn’t do that to Alya. But the fact that they even offered…!”

It was his good-natured nervous Q&A on the fourth episode that ultimately brought her aboard.

“Okay, last one.” Alya said, clearing her throat. “Cattheclysm87 wants to know, are you guys always Ladybug and Chat Noir or do you have lives outside of the mask?”

There was a pause, longer than the previous ones. Chat Noir tapped his claws against a hard surface.

“Chat?” Alya prompted. He laughed and Ladybug could practically see him shaking his head.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about what my lady would say. What she’d want me to say.”

“And?”

Chat Noir sighed. “Probably something about keeping our identities a secret. And something about how our lives outside the mask are something that makes Paris worth protecting.”

“Do you agree?”

“Naturally.” He said. Even if she couldn’t hear it in his voice, Ladybug knew he was shrugging here. “But I think my life inside the mask is just as important to me. Some days even moreso.”

Alya pressed him. “Oh?”

If she hoped to glean more however Chat Noir wasn’t going to cooperate. At least not today.

“Of course! I don’t know of anyone in Paris who wouldn’t give their left foot to spend time with Ladybug.”

Alya laughed. “She can come by and collect mine any time. I’ll be waiting.”

Ladybug’s first appearance on Le PodChat the following week landed them at #1 on French Twitter’s trending topics something that she regretted almost immediately when #ladynoir hit #3.

“Good luck beating cataclysm with a fork.” Chat Noir’s sneered.

Ladybug laughed. “If you don’t think I could fork you up you have another thing coming.”

“I’m just saying, my lady. There’s not much good your lucky charm can do if it’s in ashes.”

“And I’m just saying it will be pretty hard for you to destroy anything when I’ve got you all tied up.”

He leaned forward and grinned. “Is that a promise?”

Alya had been insufferable for weeks after that.

“God can’t they just date already?”

Her frustrated wails were muffled by her pillow but Marinette heard the familiar lament all too well. She rolled her eyes and continued fidgeting with her sewing machine. At this point she knew it was a waste of breath to point out that no matter how often Chat Noir flirted with Ladybug there was nothing at all romantic between Paris’ superheroes. Her best friend had shipping goggles and nothing Ladybug or Marinette could say about it would dissuade her otherwise.

“Like, seriously,” Alya continued, propping her chin up with her elbow and waving frantically with her free hand. “The UST between them is just unbearable.”

“Then why do you bear it?”

Marinette’s dry remark was met with a pillow thrown to the back of her head. She turned and scowled at her best friend who scowled right back.

“The only thing worse than witnessing their obliviousness would be not being able to see it at all.”

She giggled. “Of course.”

Alya ignored her. “Besides, Le PodChat is fucking killing it in ratings. The Ladyblog hasn’t seen this much traffic since I posted that picture of them kissing after Nino and I were akumatized.”

Marinette valiantly squashed her waspish retort at that reminder and said, “Activity has been pretty high lately.”

“Try astronomical.” Alya shot her a sly smile. “And just imagine, you could be a part of it all.”

Marinette groaned.

She knew this was coming. After she’d rejected Chat Noir’s invitation to come on the show and talk about her experience working with “Paris’ Best and Bravest” during Nathaniel’s akumatization, her partner had been a cauldron bubbling with curiosity.

“Why do you think she said no?” He’d asked Ladybug on patrols, after akuma attacks, before one of her occasional drop ins on the podcast recordings.

Ladybug could only shrug. “Maybe she’s shy.”

Alya laughed. “Nah, there’s only one thing in this world that Marinette’s shy about and public speaking isn’t it.”

“Oh?” Chat said, looking ready to dive into what Ladybug knew would be a too revealing conversation. Fortunately Alya didn’t take the bait and merely waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get her to agree.”

Silently, Ladybug laughed.

Because if there was one thing Marinette Dupain-Cheng was not going to do it was agree to be a guest on her crime-fighting partner’s internet radio show. Not when her alter ego was also a frequent guest on said podcast. She didn’t know how much of her identity was protected by the miraculous but she wasn’t willing to test it to appease Chat Noir’s whims.

It would only take one perceptive binge listener (or an overly eager feline partner) to notice that Ladybug and Marinette’s voices sure do sound alike …

Pfft. Yeah, no.

“Not gonna happen, Als.”

“But whyyyyyyy,” Alya whined, sitting up from her prone position on the chaise to shoot her best friend her patented puppy dog eyes. They were nearly as devastating as Chat Noir’s. Marinette was unmoved.

“I’m not embarrassing Nathaniel like that.”

She pouted. “But he’s with Marc now. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“Even if he said he didn’t, the answer is no.”

Thankfully Alya knew when to drop the subject.

Unfortunately for Marinette,

Chat Noir did not.

#miraculous ladybug #lnc2 writes #marichat #ladynoir #le podchat #labrinthofchaos

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literaticat · 2 years

Note

Hi Jennifer! I was wondering if you could give some examples of author platform for nonfiction? As in, what types of things can an author do to create platform other than just posting to social media?

A platform for nonfiction is basically, like, why people will want to buy this book from you. Why should they listen to you about this. Your expertise, say, because of your education, or background or your career - your popularity, etc.

So your platform isn't usually just posting on twitter, unless you are an influencer of some sort and your book is nonfiction ABOUT that. What might your platform be? That totally depends what kind of book you have. The answer to this question is one of those "why are you the person to write this book" scenarios.

Is it a nonfiction book about Penguins? Well - maybe you are the foremost Penguin expert in North America, Doctor Popper, and you have a house full of Penguins right now. Maybe you have a degree in zoology and often write articles about Penguins that are well-received. Maybe you spearheaded a charity to save the Penguins. Maybe you are an expert on Climate Change and Penguins are just one of the things that is affected by that. Maybe you are an enthusiastic journalist or educator who has spent a lot of time doing research about Penguins. Maybe you host a podcast where Penguins come on to complain about climate change. I don't know! You tell me.

Is it a cookbook? Well -- do you have a popular cooking TV show or YouTube channel? Or has your cooking won awards or been lauded publicly? Or do you write for food magazines? Or do you own/run a popular restaurant or bakery? Or do you teach at the Culinary Institute? Or do food tours of Paris for well-heeled tourists? What's your deal?

Is it a self-help book? Well, why should people listen to YOU about it? Are you a doctor? A psychiatrist? A life coach? A relationship counselor? A spiritual Guru of some sort? An herbalist? A sassy TikTokker whose catchphrase-filled videos went viral? What angle are you coming at this from, and why? What is your expertise here? Have you had articles published? Do you have an advice column? You don't have to be BFFs with Oprah or something (though if you are, that wouldn't hurt!) -- but there's gotta be some reason you are writing THIS book THIS way, and why people besides yourself would want to read it and listen to you. That's your platform.

ETA - I realized I didn't answer the SECOND part of your question too much. ...So... you know what a platform IS -- what can you do to add to it? If you have the knowledge but nobody else KNOWS you have the knowledge, it's not really much of a platform. But different topics would lend themselves to different kinds of things, obviously. If it is something scholarly or scientific, maybe you write articles for magazines, teach classes, get on panels at conferences. If it is something pop-culture related, start a podcast or a you-tube channel. If you're a beauty guru, maybe you share makeup tutorials on social media. Whatever it is - your platform will be stronger if you position yourself as SOME kind of expert about whatever topic, that people want to listen to.

For example: My friend Jean likes comics. Lots of people like comics - that's not much of a platform. But Jean knows literally everything about comic books. He draws them, he knows the artists, etc. Because of that - he started a popular comic book shop. He now has a platform, because of his interests and his job. He started a podcast, so MORE people would know about the things he knows about. That added to his platform, because now he also has an audience beyond the people he sees in real life. Because of that expertise and audience, he got on a TV show to be an appraiser of comic books, which added still more to his platform. Now, if he wanted to write a book about comic book history or some such -- he's not just "a dude who reads comics in his basement" -- but is a comic book store owner with a popular podcast on all things comics-related, and a pop culture art appraiser for a national TV show. That's a good platform! He wasn't trying to build it - he just did the things he was passionate about, and it built itself.

Am I suggesting that you need to devote decades to study of a topic, invest your life savings in a store and wangle a way to get on TV? No. But what CAN you do to share your knowledge with others, as you build up to "writing a book about it"?

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megandzane · 3 years

Note

I joined Twitter in March 2021, literally the Sunday night of the Harry and Meghan interview as sort of an experiment. (I knew they'd be trending). I saw so many people who didn't watch the interview from start to finish comment on how Harry and his wife are going to kill the Queen with "the drama".

After the podcast, I went back on Twitter to see what persons are going to say, already knowing Harry would be trending. I've seen so many people, yet again, complaining about Harry whinging and crying like a baby and so on.

I asked someone the question, did you listen to what was said on the podcast? She answered no, she was busy. Instead, she read the paper and went based of the headlines. I said to this poor lost soul, Harry not once disrespected, complained or trashed his father/family. Harry simply stated, what is already public knowledge, that his father's way of showing love was how Charles' himself received love from his parents. She was shocked and asked my source, so I told her that there's an autobiography that Charles contributed to and permitted to be published when he spoke of his parents. She swiftly deleted her comment and in doing so all of the retweets.

Everyday, I hold out hope that person's would educate themselves on a topic before they lash out at person's speaking about their personal experiences. If William wanted to speak in depth about his mental health and the trauma, he has every right to do so and he has the platform. No one is stopping him. Person's believe that because both William and Harry lost their mum, they are to have the same experiences, the same pain, the same trauma. For all we know, William may have brushed himself off and moved on from the death of his mum. Harry didn't have that luxury.

People really need to stop comparing these two because they had a shared experience. They are two grown men, with different lifestyles and choices.

This toxic mentality that we're to forgive our parents for their shitty way of raising a child is antiquated and quite frankly harmful. There's so much internalized pain that person's hold on to and with doing so many people walk around like a ticking time bomb. One word or phrase may trigger them.

The human race is essentially hopeless at this point. Misinformation is a disease and there's absolutely no cure.

It’s ridiculous. From all the outraged tweets I saw, it was very clear that those people hadn’t listened to the podcast. I think the biggest problem is people just looking at sensationalized headlines from the British media, and not bothering to do their own research.

I admire your patience in taking the time to explain the truth to folks, I often just block because usually they aren’t willing to listen.

Yeah there’s shitty ignorant people everywhere , but when all the “news” in the UK is reporting sensationalized false stories about them, it’s no surprise that most of the outrage comes from beans on bread twitter

And there’s been numerous scientific studies about trauma proving what Harry was saying. Including what he said about the cycle of pain, parents do often pass on their own issues to their children.

#we got mail

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iam93percentstardust · 4 years

Note

I'm bombarding you with those prompts, so I fully understand if you just ignore all those you don't like, lol. Would WinterIronFalcon be an OT3 you're intrested in writing? Some established WinterFalcon with Tony pining helplessly after them, not believeing he could have a chance? With a dash of angst in it? Thank you ♡

There isn’t much angst in this but there is hopeless pining so yay?

Also on ao3 here

“Share Bear, it’s not fair,” Tony whines into the phone.

“What isn’t?” his cousin asks, sounding patient but also kind of amused. He takes the phone away from his ear and squints at it. Is she making fun of him? She probably is, Sharon always makes fun of him. She’s mean like that; he’s pretty sure she gets it from Natasha.

“They’re so fucking gorgeous, I can’t stand it.”

“Oh. Them again. Seriously Tony, didn’t you used to have better taste?”

“Excuse you,” he says, offended. “My taste is perfect.”

“They think arguing is foreplay.”

“It’s bickering! And it’s cute!”

“Gross,” Sharon says cheerfully.

“God hates me,” Tony says dramatically, flinging his hand over his eyes. “That’s why he cursed me to work with two such beautiful humans who are already dating each other.”

“Tony—”

“I know Bucky stays up to date with the fandom,” he continues, going a little quieter. “He’s gotta know that tons of people ship the three of us. But he doesn’t say anything about it. Share Bear, why doesn’t he say anything?”

“Probably because for every person who ships all three of you, there’s twice as many who ship just you and him,” she admits. “I know that if someone were shipping Maria and Nat and ignoring that I even exist, I’d be pretty upset.”

“Yeah,” he says glumly.

“What’re you filming today anyway?” she asks.

“True Crime. We were supposed to be doing an episode of Supernatural at the Odinson Mystery House, you know, over in Norway where the son found out he was adopted and then got super into Norse mythology and supposedly disappeared into a rainbow?”

“Oh yeah, that guy was crazy.”

“Wasn’t,” Tony insist stubbornly. “There are three different eyewitnesses and they all saw the same thing.”

“All three eyewitnesses tested positive for meth.”

“It was trace amounts and ruled irrelevant to the case. Anyway, there’s some sort of blizzard so our flight got canceled. We figured we’d get a jump on this season’s True Crime episodes instead.”

“What are you doing this week?”

He scowls into the phone. “Fandom episode. They voted for Captain America.”

He can practically hear Sharon wince. “I’m sorry. That fucking sucks.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, not least because both of them know exactly what happened to Captain America. He was recovered from the Arctic back in the 50s and went on to live a very happy and fulfilling life with Aunt Peggy. But that’s a very closely guarded state secret; the U.S. government can’t let it get out that Steve Rogers survived nearly a decade in the ice. Technically, Tony and Sharon aren’t even supposed to know but Aunt Peggy had insisted she be allowed to tell them after she took custody of Sharon and Tony moved out of Howard’s and into her home. It’s kind of cool actually, knowing that Uncle Steve is really Captain America. He’s a pretty great guy. It just kind of sucks that he can’t tell anyone about it and now he has to do a whole episode about it when everyone knows he’s a shitty liar.

He’d talked it over with Uncle Steve and Aunt Peggy when the results of the vote had first come in. Aunt Peggy’s advice had been to act more manic than usual, throw even more outlandish theories into the mix, and really make this episode about the banter between him and Bucky. “Direct their attention away from Steve,” she’d said. “They’re already going to be looking at you. Just make sure they’re doing it for the wrong reason.”

He kind of wants to kiss Bucky. That would definitely draw attention away from the episode. But that’s not fair to either Bucky or Sam, who are very happy with their relationship and don’t need a homewrecker like Tony throwing a spanner into the mix.

“Good luck,” Sharon tells him before they hang up. “You’re gonna need it.”

“Wow, thanks,” he mutters but she’s already gone.

Marvels Unsolved was never supposed to be this popular. It started off as a novelty webseries about Tony trying to convince Bucky about the existence of the supernatural—he firmly believed that if science could turn Uncle Steve from an actual shrimp to the god of muscles, then magic had to be out there—and then they’d started talking about an unsolved crime from the early 20th century after filming an episode one day, forgetting that the camera was still rolling, and had ended up with enough footage to make a second episode about real crimes. They had stayed pretty unknown throughout that first season but then true crime podcasts had exploded in popularity and Unsolved along with them.

Now they have a fandom and merchandise and actual fanfiction written about them, which is the craziest thing. They both have several often-quoted gifs floating around the Internet and Bucky has somehow become the poster child for being unimpressed by literally everything (he actually makes some of the best faces when something genuinely scary happens but they always end up editing those parts out—he has an image to maintain after all).

They brought Sam on once they started gaining in popularity. Tony, by that point, already had a pretty well-established crush on Bucky. He’d even thought that he had a chance with his co-host, small as it may be, and at first, it hadn’t seemed like Sam was going to change anything. He and Bucky argued all the time so Tony had been absolutely stunned when he’d stumbled upon them making out like it was the end of the world.

They had just finished filming their second season. Sam had suggested going out to a local bar. He’d suggested it for all three of them but Tony had, inexplicably, felt like a third wheel all night as Sam and Bucky bickered. At one point, Sam had disappeared off to the restroom and a couple minutes later, Bucky had followed him. Tony doesn’t know how long he had sat there waiting for them but he’d eventually gone looking for them only to find Sam pressing Bucky up against a wall.

And that had been that.

Three years later, Sam and Bucky are still going strong, Tony is as smitten with Sam as he is with Bucky despite knowing how hopeless both crushes are, and the fandom seems convinced to either write Sam out of Tony and Bucky’s relationship or write Tony into Sam and Bucky’s. He wishes they would stop. He stays pretty up to date with the fandom as well and they have all these meta posts about the way Bucky looks at him or something. It just keeps giving him hope but, well, it’s been three years. If Bucky wanted him, or if Sam did for that matter, they would have done something long ago.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Sam asks him as they’re setting up.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” He avoids meeting Sam’s eyes, focusing instead on adding creamer to the coffee. Marvels had presented them with these mugs last year to congratulate them on four years of Unsolved. They’ve got their most iconic quotes printed on them, Bucky’s with “Obviously I killed JFK” and Tony’s with “I’m the dramatic bitch your mom warned you about.” Sam has one too with his one and only line in the entire show printed on it (“Why did I agree to work with you?”) but since he’s always behind the camera, he doesn’t have to use the same mug for each episode.

“You just seem a little off.” The worst part is that Sam genuinely looks concerned. If they didn’t care about him, he thinks his crush might be easier to manage but they do because they’re just nice guys like that. “I know you weren’t too thrilled when we announced this week’s case.”

“Howard worked with him, practically hero-worshipped the damn guy. Of course, I’m not excited.”

Sam winces. They know all about Tony’s shitty relationship with Howard after his dad called Marvels furious that his son was hosting a webseries instead of coming home to grovel at his feet and take over the business. The whole team had been brought in to listen as Fury tried to placate him. By the end, Bucky had been furious on Tony’s behalf and Sam had berated Fury for twenty minutes for making Tony listen to the vitriol his dad had spewed. It had cemented his crush on Sam, then just a passing fancy, into something real and permanent.

“Seriously, Sam, I’m fine. Might be a little off today but I would have said if I didn’t think I could do it.”

Sam doesn’t look convinced but he agrees anyway. Tony sits down next to Bucky and passes him his mug. Bucky shoots him a grin and murmurs, “Thanks, doll.”

Tony doesn’t blush but that’s only because he has five years of practice. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Sam counting them down and he turns to face the camera, settling his hands in front of him.

“This week on Marvels Unsolved True Crime and in celebration of our 100th episode,” he begins, “we asked you what you’d like us to investigate and you came back—”

“—overwhelmingly,” Bucky interjects.

“Many, many times,” Tony agrees, “with a topic near and dear to my own heart: Captain America.”

“That’s right,” Bucky says, sounding surprised though Bucky had been the first to point out that maybe they shouldn’t do this episode because of Tony’s connections to Project Rebirth. “Your dad helped turn Steve Rogers into Captain America, didn’t he?”

“And he never let me forget it!” Tony says cheerfully.

“One hundred episodes,” Bucky says slowly, enunciating each word. “Can you believe that, doll?”

Sometimes, he wonders why the fans ship them when Sam is right there. Other times, Bucky says things like this and he understands completely.

“Not even a little bit, Bucky Babe.” Okay, so maybe he doesn’t help.

“One hundred. The big one zero zero.”

“We tried to do something extra special and get Sam in front of the camera for you guys—”

“—so you could see what a hunk he is—”

“—but Sam said that he didn’t trust anyone else to film us properly—”

“—which makes sense because Tony? If you put him in the wrong light, he’s practically a gremlin—”

“Hey!”

“I’m just telling the facts.”

“Well, the facts are wrong.”

“They’re facts, sweet thing, they can’t be wrong.”

“Can too. Anyway, since Sam refuses to join us—”

“—and that just breaks my heart because Sam, he’s one of my favorite guys, you know?”

Tony pauses. It’s not like Bucky to say anything nice about Sam. Usually, it’s all good-natured insults and bickering. He must really be fed up with the Starkbucks shippers to say something like this when they’re still this early in the show.

“Only one of?” he asks curiously.

Bucky shoots him one of those filthy grins that their audience loves so much. “Well, it’s hard not to include you on that list,” he drawls.

He’s not going to blush.

He’s not going to—

Damn it.

Whatever. It’s no big deal, that’s what editing is for. So what if Sam has never edited out one of Tony’s blushes yet? Maybe Tony will get lucky and he will this time.

“You know, I was actually named for Captain America’s sidekick?” Bucky asks, getting them back on track.

“Wow, that is deeply unfortunate,” Tony deadpans.

“Yeah, Dad’s a fanboy. His whole troop was pinned down and rescued by the two of them. He tells the story all the time—kind of like your dad.”

“Except my dad goes straight past into fanboy and directly into obsession territory.”

“…Fair enough.”

“Really? That’s all you’re going to say?”

Bucky shrugs and takes a sip out of his mug. “I’ve been inside your house. I’ve seen the Steve Rogers shrine. I’m not going to argue with you.”

Tony thinks about that for a moment. “It is kind of a shrine, isn’t it? Anyway, we’ve got some great stuff for you today. We’re going to crack open this cold case, show you some never-before-seen footage courtesy of my mom sneaking my dad’s old war tapes out of the mansion, and then we’ll talk a little bit about the theories out there.”

“How many of them are going to be ridiculously outlandish and physically impossible?”

Tony glares at him. “None of them. I have never once presented a ridiculously outlandish and physically impossible theory.”

“Right because alien abduction is a valid—”

“Aliens are real!”

“You said that crabs might have eaten Amelia Earheart!” Bucky shouts over him.

“It’s a valid theory!”

“I take it back, you’re not one of my favorite people anymore.”

“That really hurts me, deep inside,” Tony says sarcastically, trying to cover up that maybe that does send a small pang shooting through his chest. He likes the thought of being one of Bucky’s favorite people. He doesn’t want to lose that.

“How deep?” Bucky asks and winks.

“Very deep. Way, way deep down. Practically in my—”

Bucky’s eyes widen and he nearly chokes on his coffee. “Okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s get into the facts.”

“Hey, that’s my line!”

“With a missing plane and pilot and so much redaction in the files, we’re lucky to even have a name, let’s get into the theories.”

“Actually, wait, before we do that,” Bucky says, “I want to ask if you’ve ever noticed that your voice changes when you’re doing the voiceovers.”

“Wait, what?” Tony asks. He glances at him, to one of the cameras, then back to Bucky. “What do you mean?”

“You know, it gets all deeper like you’re trying to voice movie trailers or something.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Sure it does.”

Tony shakes his head. “There’s no way.”

They both turn toward Sam, who thinks about it and then makes a ‘sort of’ motion with his hand.

“Told you!” Bucky says triumphantly.

“You’re such a child,” Tony sneers.

“Yeah, that’s why you like working with me so much.”

Behind the camera, Sam silently snickers and Tony glares at him before telling the camera, “If you’re watching, let us know in the comments. Is my apparent movie trailer voice okay or does it need to go like Bucky clearly thinks?”

Bucky goes paler. “Hey, wait, I didn’t say it had to go.”

“It was implied when you brought it up,” he argues.

“No!” Bucky insists. “I was just wondering if it was on purpose.”

They both turn toward Sam, who thinks about it and then makes a ‘sort of’ motion with his hand.

“Aha!” Tony says triumphantly.

“Traitor,” Bucky mutters into his coffee.

Sam signs, “I’ll make it up to you when we get home tonight.”

“And that was more than I ever wanted to learn about Sam and Bucky’s love life,” Tony lies through his teeth. “Let’s get into the theories. I only have two for you today, one of which I think Bucky will particularly like.”

“Oh no.”

“Our first theory is that Steve Rogers died in a plane crash on December 16, 1944. Winter months in the Arctic are known to be particularly stormy. There would have been low visibility due to the high latitude and time of year and with the waters and surrounding land being well below freezing, it’s possible that, even if Captain Rogers survived the impact, he would have frozen to death in the stormy seas.”

Bucky thinks about it for a second. “Yeah, that seems plausible.”

“In addition, Howard Stark, a known Captain America aficionado and the father of Marvels Unsolved’s best host—”

“You lie like a rug!” Bucky howls.

Tony snickers and then when Sam signs, “He’s really not,” bursts out into full-out laughter.

Once he’s recovered, he continues, “Howard Stark has spent the first fifty years after the crash of the Valkyrie and the last twenty funding searches in the Arctic in the hopes of recovering Captain Rogers’ body. He has found no evidence that Captain Rogers survived the crash although he did find part of the remains of the Valkyrie and has since stated that, ‘No human could have survived that crash.’”

The expeditions are a scam and have been since Howard first found the Valkyrie crash site and Uncle Steve along with it. He hadn’t been planning on continuing the expeditions—too costly, as he claims—but when Aunt Peggy had told him that Uncle Steve’s survival had to remain a secret, he’d kept them up for pretense’s sake.

Bucky is saying something about how it sucks that the first superhero is gone and when he finishes, Tony grins and says, “Then you’ll like our second theory.”

“Somehow, every time you say that, I end up completely hating it. Wonder why that is.”

“Our second theory is that Steve Rogers survived the crash and is still alive but cryogenically frozen in the ice. There—”

“Bullshit!”

Tony starts laughing but he tries to continue on over Bucky shouting that it’s complete nonsense. It’s hard and he knows that Sam will probably have to do some editing and maybe make Tony do some voiceover work in order to make the theory audible but he thinks he manages to do a pretty good job.

Bucky is pouting by the end of it, arms crossed over his chest. “What fucking bullshit,” he mutters.

“The supersoldier serum—” Tony starts to point out.

“Isn’t a miracle drug.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

“No, it just made him big and strong. It doesn’t just magically keep people alive when they should have died.”

And then they’re off into familiar territory, arguing about the merits of either theory. Tony’s actually feeling pretty good about himself, convinced that he’s doing a decent job of steering the conversation away of anything classified, right up until Bucky says, about halfway through the episode, “I’m surprised at you, Tony.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Surprised?”

“Usually, you have some absolutely batshit, off-the-walls crazy theory but these have actually been pretty normal for you.” He pauses and then adds for effect, “And you’re usually much better at your research than this.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh come on, even I know that there’s one more theory.”

He starts tapping at his chest nervously, almost wishing that he had a pair of sunglasses. Aunt Peggy always said that his lies are in his eyes, that they’re too expressive to hide the truth. When he was living with Howard, in the spotlight, he always had a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes but he hasn’t wanted to use those since he moved out. He wishes he had them now.

“And what’s that?” he asks, feigning a casualness he doesn’t feel.

“That Steve Rogers lived and came out of the ice at some point and has been living out his life in anonymity.”

He barks out a nervous laugh. “I didn’t mention it because even I know that that theory is completely impossible.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.” Sam nods agreeably. Bucky nods back at him and adds, “Even Sam agrees with me.”

“He’s your boyfriend, he’s practically required to.”

Both Sam and Bucky laugh at that one and yeah, okay, it was a pretty ridiculous statement. Anyone who knows them knows that being boyfriends is less likely to make them agree with each other.

“Look, Steve Rogers didn’t come out of the ice alive. Howard would have known for one thing and if you think, he could keep something like that quiet, then you don’t know him very well.”

“Maybe the government insisted it be a secret,” Bucky suggests, shrugging. “There have been plenty of people who have claimed over the last couple decades to be Captain America.”

Tony scoffs. “Oh come on, by that logic, anyone could be Captain America.”

“Maybe they could be.”

“No,” Tony says flatly. “It’s like that crazy conspiracy theory guy over on Reddit who’s convinced that Bruce Wayne is Batman.”

“Maybe Bruce Wayne is Batman.”

“Ooh do the butts match?” Tony says mockingly. “I mean, really, Bucky Babe, if we’re going off of lookalikes, then my fucking Uncle Steve is secretly really Steve Rogers, which is ridiculous because the guy’s like practically ancient and faints at the sight of blood in PG-13 movies.”

That sets off another round of arguing that lasts the rest of the episode until finally Tony wraps it up with, “Whether Steve Rogers died in 1944 or is still alive today is a mystery that will remain unsolved.”

They both pause for a moment to provide time for Sam to edit in the theme music and closing title. Usually, there would be some lighthearted bantering afterwards, maybe a joke about something they said earlier in the show. This time though, Bucky says thoughtfully, “The thing is, though, I’ve met your Uncle Steve—”

Tony goes cold.

“—and he really does kind of look like—”

Tony panics. That’s the only explanation that he has for declaring, “I’m done waiting,” reaching across the tables and grabbing hold of Bucky’s shirt, and yanking him forward to kiss him.

For a moment, Bucky is too startled to do anything but then he melts into Tony, mouth opening under his, tongue pushing forward to meet his. Bucky’s arms come around him, pulling him up and out of his chair and settling him into his lap. Tony makes a small greedy sound, swallowed by Bucky’s kiss, and then they’re both pulling away. Bucky’s lips are very red; Tony can’t stop staring at them even as he’s filled with dismay.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Why not?” Bucky demands.

“You—Sam—” He glances toward the camera but Sam isn’t standing there anymore. His heart drops into his stomach—has he just ruined Bucky and Sam’s relationship? But then he hears someone drop to their knees behind him and when he turns slightly, Sam’s fingers are on his chin, gently turning his head.

“How long?” Sam asks.

“How long what?”

“How long have we been wasting our time when we could have been kissing you instead?”

Three years, two months, and fifteen days. “Too long.”

Sam kisses him then, mouth gentler than Bucky’s but no less consuming. Bucky is a hard, hot line against his front; Sam is warm against his back and Tony? Tony loses himself in the storm that is the two of them, sparks shooting through him as Bucky’s hands find their way to his hips, as Sam’s tongue slips into his mouth, as Bucky whispers into his ear, “We’re not wasting any more time.”

Marvels Unsolved’s 100th episode shoots to their most watched, most liked video in less than a day and when asked, maybe the smallest handful of viewers could have said what it was about.

The day after it posts, only a week after it was filmed, Tony’s phone rings.

“Kill it with fire,” Sam says sleepily.

Tony, however, recognizes Aunt Peggy’s ringtone and he rolls over to grab it before Bucky can throw it at the wall. “Hello?” he asks groggily.

“Congratulations on not blowing Steve’s cover,” she says.

“Oh yeah,” Tony mutters. “Can I go back to bed now?”

“One more thing, duck.”

“What’s that?”

“Congratulations on the new boyfriends.”

#winterironfalcon #alle writes #alle answers #ooh boy this got long #if you like please consider reblogging #justsomeoneunordinary

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kelasparmak · 3 years

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hello! might i ask for podcast recs? literally anything ! i trust your taste xxxx

Awwww, you! I’ve kept the descriptions short because there’s a LOT, but I’ve given you genre/vibe because I’m not sure which aspect of my taste you like. Also it’s still very long so sticking it under a cut.

Campaign Podcast: Always my number one rec. Improv comedians play a TTRPG and chaos predictably ensues. There’s two campaigns, Star Wars and Skyjacks, the first one is complete and the second one is ongoing – they have slightly different vibes (think TAZ Balance vs Amnesty, I guess). VERY funny and will occasionally punch you in the heart.

Wooden Overcoats: Very funny, frequently heartwarming, excellent acting. Easy to get through (there’s 3 seasons with ~8 episodes each) and even though the characters are usually very stressed and in ridiculous situations, it feels pretty low stakes to listen to so it’s a fun one for if you’re stressed.

Caravan: Western/fantasy which I don’t think is actually a comedy but is still frequently very funny. Great acting, very fun and relatable protagonist who just keeps on choosing compassion over violence. Thoughtful coverage of mental illness, being brown and queer, and sexy vampires. 18+ but not super smutty and has content warnings.

The Strange Case of Starship Iris: Sci-fi drama about revolution and found family. The plot is pretty serious and involves galaxy-level stakes, but/and the series is very much driven by very well-written and realistic human connection right from the start – it’s very good at making you-the-listener genuinely invested in what happens. Loads of queer characters and the crew has two South Asian women, an East Asian woman, a trans Jewish man, and a nonbinary character. I probably don’t need to tell you this, but the world of popular audio fiction is Pretty White, so it’s nice to see podcasts where that’s not the case esp in genre fiction.

Victoriocity: Drama/comedy set in an alternate universe London. Feels very Discworld – really inventive worldbuilding, fun twisty plot, political intrigue, hilarious deadpan narrator, great acting.

In Strange Woods: Musical about grief, trauma, and how small and powerless humans are compared to nature. Really, really good. You’ll cry. It’s a quick listen – 5 episodes, all less than an hour long.

Oblivity: Sci-fi drama comedy, very funny, very found family. You’ll be surprised how much you care about the characters given how stupid it is.

Alice Isn’t Dead: You’ve probably been recommended this already but it bears repeating. Really well-written, acted and produced. This one’s not got a lot of humour in which isn’t usually my preference, but it’s really good. It’s got a lot of the Something’s Not Right energy of Nightvale, but goes full creepy with it. Really immersive but maybe not one you’d binge or listen to right before bed...

Greater Boston: Drama more than comedy but also deeply funny. Lots of apparently separate stories converging, clever writing (really good at giving a massive cast of characters distinct personalities), really emotionally impactful coverage of topics like grief, racial inequality, addiction, classism and more, doesn’t try to give easy answers but is also very focused on community power and optimism. Also there are cheese robots.

We Fix Space Junk: Sci-fi drama comedy, very anticapitalist, big found family feelings. Lots of fun, job-of-the-week episodic format makes it a relatively low-focus thing, even when the stakes are high it feels very safe to listen to, and the characters are v likeable (even the ones you really wouldn’t have expected).

Girl In Space: Sci-fi drama, found family and revolution, you may be noticing a pattern. It’s a lot of fun, the protagonist is super likeable and draws you in from the start. For Vorkosigan Saga fans, if you liked Shards of Honour, you’ll like this. Deals with fraught parental relationships, grief, loneliness, anti-imperialism, and more, but even though the stakes are high I didn’t find it stressful to listen to.

Death By Dying: Dark surreal drama. I don’t know if I’d call it a comedy per se but it’s very funny. Big Nightvale vibes. Deals with grief and mental illness pretty prominently, but in a very reassuring way.

The Prickwillow Papers: Fantasy drama. Lots of fun and incredible voice acting. Deals with the difficulty of letting yourself be helped, coping with guilt, and not being ‘special’. Features the most cantankerous fae you’ve ever encountered. I love her.

Middle:Below: It has GHOSTS it has CATS it has a PICARDIGAN. What more do you need to know? It’s a lot of fun to listen to, often funny and sometimes genuinely spooky (which hits all the harder for how chilled out and cosy it feels most of the time).

Mabel: Dark fantasy drama. Really poetic, well-acted, really good at suspense. Very cool modern take on changeling/fae mythology. Not much humour and very intense, which is not my thing at all, and I’ll be honest I didn’t find it an easy listen, so it took me a long time to get through it. But it’s really good and it’s definitely worth checking out, I did enjoy it, it’s just not necessarily one you’d want to de-stress to at the end of the day.

The Amelia Project: Drama/comedy about an agency that helps people fake their deaths. Great voice acting, very fun, and I really enjoy how international it is. Uses the episodic ‘client of the week’ format in combination with big picture plot in a really engaging way. Feels a bit Leverage-y especially because of how clever/absurd the plans are.

Harlem Queen: Drama set in the Harlem Renaissance. Another serious one, and deals explicitly with heavy issues including racism and violence, without much reprieve in the form of soft moments or humour. But it’s very well-made and worth a listen, and there’s not a lot of it.

The Orphans: Sci-fi drama. Expansive space opera type show with mindblowing amounts of worldbuilding. Revolution, ethics of cloning, anticapitalist, etc. Not a comedy but has some really funny bits. You’ll need to pay attention especially because it starts off with a pretty big cast of characters who don’t refer to each other by name super often and many of them have similar voices. But don’t worry too much about that – you’ll still know what’s going on even if you can’t tell them apart for the first few episodes, and you’ll be able to tell at least some of them apart.

Midst: I’m only a few episodes in but I’m enjoying it so far! Cool worldbuilding, really interesting collaborative narration/storytelling, not a comedy per se but often funny.

I Am In Eskew: Surreal horror, mostly psychological. It’s another Nightvale-y one but again without really any of the humour. It’s really good, but I’ll be honest, I’ve only listened to about 10 episodes so far, even though I started it ages ago.

….and probably lots more that I’m forgetting? I listen to less stuff at the moment because I’m working pretty much all the time, so anything I need to really focus on or that’s emotionally challenging is p much out of the question.

#anonymous

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