gwynoblade

[gwynoblade]

yeah actually we removed the big bad wolf from the little red riding hood story because portraying violence against minors is really messed up. yeah. yeah also the wolf narrative was really predatory and had had some icky grooming vibes and a fable meant for literal children shouldn’t have implied p*do shit and grape so now little red riding hood goes into the woods and nothing happens and she goes to grandma’s house. don’t worry our kids will still stick to the path and know not to follow to wolves implicitly because we told them to and children should always do as their told. just like little red riding hood does now.

[gwynoblade]

I saw some weird ass conspiracy video thing today of like 'we were never meant to have access to yeast, that was cultivated in a lab and it harms us' bullshit and I was like well first off there's no such thing as 'meant to' and second of all um? the long history of acquiring yeast from beer foam stretching so far back ??????

[gwynoblade]

The problem w writing fiction is that you'll be like tee-hee I'm going to write a story about a fucked up little scenario that's got nothing to do with anything in real life, just some pure messed up nonsense, and then you finish it and take a step back and go aw rats I made a metaphor again

[gwynoblade]

[gwynoblade]

oh no my pornography is turning into an angst-filled character study

[gwynoblade]

[gwynoblade]

so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.

and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.

...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.

see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.

while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.

especially if the president of the united states is on board.

yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.

and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."

but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.

...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.

not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.

yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.

but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire

[gwynoblade]

sometimes nifty characters come from lousy media, but they still deserve a loving home! and that's where fanfic comes in

[gwynoblade]

mychart loves to send you eight emails that you need to use 2 factor authentication to view in the webapp that say like "You went to the doctor Today."

[gwynoblade]

ordering a pup cup for my chikorita in lumiose

[gwynoblade]

Someone should publish a pronunciation guide for bookish children with words like boatswain, victuals, epitome and so forth. It could probably just be a slim pamphlet, but it would save a lot of nerds a lot of embarrassment down the line.

[gwynoblade]

Superheroes need media training

The first video that loads when you open the app is of a woman sitting on a park bench. She looks like a university student, with an open tote bag filled to the brim with books and folders. Her head is bent over a book and heavy black headphones sit over her ears. The sound of children playing and cars zipping past fill the background in a not unpleasant drone. Then the man holding the camera starts speaking.

“It’s important to always remain vigilant when in public,” he says. He circles the camera and the view shudders as he props his phone up on a picnic table. He’s wearing a striped mask that looks like it came out of one of those generic hero costume boxes. His hair looks like he blew dry it straight up into the air. He checks the view as he talks. “Today I’ll show you why you should never wear headphones in public.”

The man jogs out of frame. You’ve got a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. It doesn’t look like she’s in on whatever skit this is. She’s enjoying a nice day at the park, reading her book on her break. The man reappears behind the line of benches, approaching her from her blind spot. He’s got rope in his hands and is tiptoeing with cartoonishly high knees.

These sort of pranks have been really popular lately. You hate them. Your grip tightens on your phone as he creeps closer and closer, raising the rope above his head. Oh shit. He’s going to try and wrap it around her neck. That’s going too far, that’s an actual threat—

The man shouts out as he drops the rope around the woman’s shoulders, yanking it so hard that her head whips when her back hits the bench. Her hands fly up to pull at the rope around her chest and you can see terror on her face. He’s not intelligible to the camera from this far away, but you think he might be yelling “Be aware!” over and over again as he fights to keep the woman trapped.

The prank is going on for too long. You think you might hear someone shout from the playground. Maybe for him to stop?

Before anyone comes to her aid, the woman gives up trying to get out of the rope. Instead, she twists in it so she can look up into the face of her attacker. Before he can shout anything else, she breathes out a cloud of icy mist that swallows him instantly.

Oh.

You set your phone down and flush the toilet. What an idiot. Not only did he plan an assault disguised as a prank, but he tried to pull it on a super-powered individual. You don’t know what her ice breath did to him, but did it matter? He was asking for the worst by surprising someone in this day and age.

After you wash your hands, you Google the aftermath. You’re gratified to see a picture of her standing in front of the courthouse, her headphones around her neck, and an icy NOT GUILTY spelled out in the air in front of her.

The next video is of Strongwoman’s last battle. It’s rare for you to see footage of the DC heroes, and even rarer to see her. You stay to watch. She’s one of the few heroes that don’t wear a mask. Her strength means that, civilian or not, there’s precious few that can hurt her.

She slaps a chunk of concrete out of the air with one hand. Her hands are up and ready to fight for a good few seconds until the dust begins to settle. Her head cocks and you see her press one finger against her ear. Probably receiving the all clear. Strongwoman’s shoulders drop and she goes to re-tie her hair.

The video freezes on her with her hair tie in her mouth, brown eyes focused on something in the distance, her hands tangled in her wild mane of hair. A thirst trap song starts playing and the creator of the video clips in close up shots of Strongwoman’s biceps, her steely gaze, the way her muscles tense and jump in her thighs when she catches debris–

You’ve spent too long on SuperTok now. You scroll past a woman rattling off the current graduating class at the Hero Academy. You don’t care where people think a Hero will be placed. You only care what they do when they get to their city and that city happens to be yours.

Speaking of which, a video with Hero Cowboy pops up. You hold your thumb over the screen, frowning. The western-themed hero has on his cowboy hat, sure, and his tasseled leather vest, yes, but there’s something strange about the video. After a moment, you realize what it is. This isn’t a press conference or the aftermath of a battle. There’s a kitchen table with fruit in the background and the light catching on his stubble is from cold overhead lighting.

The username at the bottom of the screen confirms your suspicions. Hero Cowboy has a Tiktok.

“Morning routine of a superhero,” he says and winks at you. “Because super or not, we all wake up the same!”

You nearly choke on your coffee when the video cuts to him sleeping shirtless in bed, still wearing his hat and leather mask. The time scrolls across the screen as he stretches provocatively.

 4:30am. Because crime isn’t a 9-5.

He gets up and the camera switches to show his back as he looks across the city.

You check the comments. They seriously doubt he got up at 4:30 considering the sunrise for the day was at 5:30 and it was already cresting the horizon.

4:32 am. Push ups.

Yep, there he is doing shirtless push-ups.

A commenter wants to know if he’s trying to get her pregnant. Another one wants to know if pushups even do anything if you have enhanced strength.

4:37 am. Pull ups.

Hero Cowboy uses his doorframe, apparently, and not the state-of-the-art gym kept in Headquarters.

The comments are wildly in favor of him pulling up to their apartments anytime.

The rest of the video is Hero Cowboy spending more time setting up his shots than actually doing what he claims to do. He makes an omelet that looks very similar to the one served at the canteen, washes his face in ice water, and prints out an email for the day’s patrol.

It’s when he shows how he plots out his patrol based on villain activity on a giant map of the city hanging in his living room that you actually have to do something about this. You download the video and send it to your boss with “security breach lol” in the subject line. You let her know you will be billing for the off hours work.

She calls within thirty seconds. She doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Uploaded an hour ago,” you say.

“A map?”

“Yep.”

“Of his team’s actual patrol schedule?”

“Yep.”

“The one they’re meant to be executing today?”

“As we speak.”

“Why are you the first one to catch this?”

Because you’re twenty years younger than the second youngest in the department. Half-jokingly you say, “Maybe you should put me in charge of socials. I think I found the last one too.”

 “You know what? Yes. Until we get actual media training scheduled for these assholes, this is your job.”

You pause making yourself a second cup of coffee. “Like actually? Billable hours actually?”

“Don’t go crazy.”

Holy shit. You’re getting paid to scroll now. You’d thank Hero Cowboy,  if the guy wasn’t such a psychopath. How many times did he realistically need to wash his face in ice water?

You swipe to the next video.

----

Thanks for reading! The next post is already up on my Patreon:

Summary: You are a retired villain. It feels like the villains are winning a lot lately. You decide to do something about it.

I appreciate all the support :)

[gwynoblade]

Just realized the cover i did for the Monster High World’s Scare series is also live! 😈

[gwynoblade]

Vintage belt

[gwynoblade]

would zuko give the blue spirit a full pardon after the war is over or do you think he would mess with everyone and raise the bounty even higher

[gwynoblade]

FYI if your favorite creators start having AI dubbing on their videos - it is now on by default and not everyone bothers to read these emails. So be kind when you let them know it's enabled.

Also FYI you don't have to have any published videos to turn off the auto-dubbing, and when you turn it off, it comes up with a little survey asking you why you don't want to use the auto-dubbing.

Personally, I told them it was because AI translation is a half-baked technology that has actually set the industry back by several years, but I'm sure you can think of your own reasons too.

[gwynoblade]

its honestly bananas to me that so many on this website seem to assume that someone's tumblr output is an accurate reflection of their real life priorities and activism and all of their beliefs in order of how hard they believe them. like. idk about you guys but i'm reblogging things that i want to reblog not keeping a minute by minute record of my deepest held beliefs. for one thing my deepest held beliefs are mostly not about star wars