#complete with in-universe 'callouts' of a sort

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Valicer In The Dark -- Accused

Time for more Valicer In The Dark, with my current favorite of the snippets I have written so far. :D This entry takes place a little while after "Discoveries" -- after getting a gondola to Brightstone and the Everglot Manor, the trio and Emily invaded the Barkis/Everglot wedding reception, causing chaos and causing the guests to scatter. Barkis himself fled into the streets with Victoria, but Victor, Alice, and Smiler were able to get her away from him (with Victor encouraging her to run for help, which she did), and Emily ended up possessing Barkis to stop him trying to kill Victor. Which led to her finding a couple of electroplasm bombs on his person, tossing one to Alice ("in case you need it to solve your problem"), and using the other to blow both herself and Barkis up. Of course, the local Bluecoat squad (run by Sargent Tannen) showed up only AFTER this had all happened...and while the trio were doing their best to explain the whole mess, one of Tannen's men just made a very unfortunately discovery on Barkis's corpse...

---

“Ah – Sargent Tannen?”

Everyone turned toward the Bluecoat – Alice was reasonably certain he was named Thomas – examining Barkis’s fried corpse. “We – we have a bit of a problem,” Thomas continued, holding up a partially-melted mask.

A partially-melted bronze mask.

Alice’s jaw damn near hit the cobbles. “What – how – he – he couldn’t have been,” she said, shaking her head against the damning evidence before her. “Not a chance!”

“To be fair, all of them are completely anonymous,” Smiler pointed out, looking as stunned as she felt. Beside them, Victor gaped, equally as shocked by the implications. “And it would explain why he had electroplasm bombs on him.”

“I refuse to believe it!” Alice insisted. “That asshole, a Spirit Warden? It boggles the bloody mind!”

“Purrhaps, but no one said you had to be good to be a Warden,” Cheshire told her, though even his smile looked a little fainter in the light of this news.

“And Bumby’s convinced everyone that he’s the heart and soul of charity,” the Queen of Hearts reminded her, rolling her eyes. “Why should this Barkis be any different? He fooled at least one woman to her death, after all.”

Tannen stared at the mask for a very long moment. Then a cold smile spread over his face. “Well well well,” he said, turning back to the three. “Seems like your little story just doesn’t hold up.”

“What? Sir, with all due respect, nothing about our story changes just because he happened to be a Spirit Warden,” Smiler said, putting on an increasingly-nervous smile of their own.

“Really? You want me to believe a Spirit Warden got killed by a ghost? One that you lot claim he himself murdered?” Tannen tched a few times. “I don’t think that’s very likely, do you?”

“Well, no, but it can’t be impossible,” Smiler argued. “There’s all sorts of scary spirits out there.”

“And these folks are the best of the best when it comes to dealing with them.” Tannen paced back and forth in front of them, hands held behind his back. “No, I think I know exactly what happened. I think this little slip of a dogsbody girl, the one who everyone knows ain’t right in the head, the one that poor Dr. Bumby took in out of the goodness of his heart, found herself an Advocate willing to listen and talked ‘em around into helping her kidnap the son of one of the richest families in the city to see what they could get for a ransom, striking the day before his wedding to make sure he would be missed. And when his family didn’t pay up, and his bride just married someone else...” He went over and nudged Barkis’s corpse with his toe. “Well. Somebody got a little mad and murdered that new husband in a fit of rage.”

“What?!” Alice stepped forward, balling her fists. The other Bluecoats immediately closed in tighter around them, raising their batons. “That – that isn’t what happened and you know it!”

“You – cannot possibly – have you met any other Advocates?” Smiler demanded, waving a hand in the air. “We believe in happiness! How am I going to foster that by kidnapping someone?!”

“Wouldn’t it make you happy to get a nice fat payday?” Tannen chuckled. “I don’t blame you for trying, mind. Just a shame that the fellow you ended up offin’ was a Spirit Warden. If you’re lucky, you might just end up with life down in Ironhook. If not...” His grin got wider and meaner. “They always need new souls to power the Hulls they got makin’ the hunter boats.” He casually flicked his hand. “Boys, if you could cuff Miss Liddell and–”

“No!”

Victor stepped forward, eyes narrowed in righteous fury. “You’ve got this completely wrong!” he continued, hands held tight at his sides. Around him, the Bluecoats glanced at each other, wondering if they dared do anything to someone known to be rich. “I was taken away into the ghost field while practicing my vows after the rehearsal by a ghost who thought I’d agreed to marry her! Alice and Smiler were the closest people around when I finally found my way back into the real world, and they helped me! Took me somewhere warm and made sure I got a good meal in me! And they didn’t hesitate an instant to come with me and Emily when we learned that Victoria’s husband was likely the man who’d murdered her! They were just trying to make sure that – that b-bastard down there didn’t kill anyone else! I don’t care if he was a – a Spirit Warden! That doesn’t automatically mean he was a good person!” He pointed a finger at Tannen’s chest. “And it doesn’t mean you can j-just make up a story to throw two undeserving people in jail!”

Tannen looked at the finger, then back up at Victor. He chewed his lip, then leaned in conspiratorially. “Well – I may be willing to admit I’ve made a mistake,” he said softly, holding out a hand. “You know. If you can back that story up.”

Victor sighed heavily, then plunged a hand into his pocket. “Yes, of course, I – I...”

He paused. He felt around for a moment. Then the anger drained from his face as a briefly-forgotten fact suddenly came back to him. “Oh...I – I don’t have my wallet,” he breathed, glancing back at Smiler and Alice.

Tannen raised an eyebrow. “No? Nothing? Huh.” He smirked and stepped back, raising his voice again. “Oh dear me – it looks like Master Van Dort was in on this ‘kidnapping,’ lads! Conspiracy to defraud his own loving parents! We’re gonna have to haul him in too!”

Alice’s head snapped left and right as the Bluecoats began to move in, unhooking manacles from their belts with a fiendish glee. Fuck – and there’s no point in telling this lot about Bumby, they’ll never believe me...or even if they do, they’ll never do anything about it. It’s just so much easier to take the lot of us to jail for a murder we didn’t commit, and – and Victor’s parents will almost certainly bail him out, and Smiler’s fellow Advocates rescue them from the cells, but me – I’m going straight back to Rutledge, and since I’m old enough this time they’re just going to Hollow me out and that’ll be the end of me and Bumby will continue ruining all those children’s lives forever –

“Unless you stop waiting for help and get moving!” Cheshire said, appearing by her side with claws outstretched and tail lashing the air.

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step!” Caterpillar added, flitting about her head. “Or, perhaps in this case, a single stab.”

“That idiot Carpenter had the right of it before – are you a pawn, or a Queen?” the Queen of Hearts snarled, tentacles slithering like snakes through the cobbles around her. “Do something, or we are all lost! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”

A furious heat surged through Alice’s veins, almost akin to the spray of a Ragebox or the explosion of Hysteria. “You miserable, self-important, misbegotten toadies!” she yelled, tearing her knife from her apron strings. “I’ll show you I’m not to be trifled with!”

The Bluecoat behind her snorted and raised his baton – Alice spun on the spot and jabbed her blade between his ribs, causing him to stumble back screaming. Alice tore the Vorpal Blade from his flesh and whipped around, parrying the next blow from his companion before kicking him in the knee. A third came in, truncheon swinging – Alice ducked under it and stabbed him in the groin, getting a pained sympathetic hiss from all the menfolk (and one nonbinary person with the right equipment) in the area. The fourth, Thomas, straight-up dove for her like she was a runaway dog – she flung herself out of the way, and he cracked his chin on the cobbles. The fifth attempted to pull his gun, but he hadn’t even gotten it halfway up when her knife went through his wrist, making him shriek and drop it. Alice kicked it away, then – spotting a shadow coming up on her fast – whirled again and put the Blade straight through eye of the unlucky sixth member of Tannen’s squad. He roared in agony and fell to his knees, scrabbling at the weapon – Alice did him the favor of pulling it out, then looked up. Tannen, Victor, and Smiler all stood there, eyes wide and mouths agape, as if they could see her at her Wonderland best. Which was admittedly quite gratifying, but... “Run?” she suggested to her new friends.

Fortunately, that was all it took for Victor and Smiler to get moving, darting down a side alley. Alice was straight on their heels, managing to weave around Tannen as he broke from his trance to try and grab her. “Get up! Get up!” she heard him scream at his injured squad as they booked it. “They’re getting away!”

“Damn straight we are – that was brilliant!” Smiler added, shooting Alice an impressed grin as she caught up. “I didn’t know you could do that!”

“To be fair, I didn’t either!” Alice replied, unable to help a laugh of mingled shock and relief. “Not outside my head, at any rate!”

“Best time to learn!” Victor called from his position at the head of the pack. He skidded to a brief stop as they reached the mouth of the alley, then hooked a left. “Come on, this way!”

“Right behind you!” Smiler said, swinging left after him.

“And they are right behind you, so keep a move on!” Rabbit warned Alice, darting past her as the sound of booted footsteps started closing in on her.

“Wasn’t planning on stopping!” Alice shouted back, skidding left as she left the alley. She booked it down the street (this one full of shops and restaurants) after Victor and Smiler, past some startled ladies out for their evening constitutional. “Ugh, if only I could pull off that damn butterfly dodge here...”

“You may want to try anyway – incoming!” Hatter yelled, leaping past her.

Alice immediately looked behind her – just in time to see Thomas, now bleeding from the chin and with a look that could melt iron – lunging for her, arms spread wide to envelop her in the world’s worst embrace. She let out a rather undignified shriek and whipped sideways in an attempt to escape –

Only to find a fancy carriage pulling up beside her like a rolling roadblock. Without even thinking, she jumped like she might in Wonderland, hoping somehow to get enough height to clear it – her foot hit something hard – the door handle? The little window sill? – and she leapt again –

And found herself indeed atop the carriage, swaying but upright. Thomas gaped up at her, as did the startled carriage driver – Alice couldn’t blame them, as she was pretty shocked herself. “How in the Emperor’s name–”

“Running now, questioning later!” Rabbit cried, leaping off the other side of the carriage and sprinting toward Victor and Smiler, who’d apparently had the same thought she’d had about crossing the street to get away from their pursuers and a bit more luck in doing so. “Come on, come on!”

“Right!” Alice hastily clambered off the carriage, ignoring the baffled shouts of those within, and ran to meet Victor and Smiler as they doubled back toward her “No, no, it’s okay, I’m fine!” she assured them, waving a hand. “Keep moving!”

“How did you do that?” Victor demanded, slowing deliberately as he and Smiler turned back around so she could keep up. “I swear, when I turned around and saw you jumping like that, it looked for a moment like you’d learned how to levitate!”

“Sheer luck, I think – and an active imagination,” Alice added, glancing down and seeing blue overtaking the black in her skirt. Not the best time, brain, but if you keep it to that, I’ll allow it. “We can figure out how I learned to fly when we’re free of this lot!”

“Keep going!” Tannen’s voice roared behind them, reminding them of the danger. “Thomas, you idiot, Donovan’s already gone on ahead! How have you not gotten a hand on them yet?!”

“Not my fault, sir!” Thomas replied furiously. “That bitch has the devil’s footsteps!”

“And doesn’t she count herself lucky to have them,” Alice muttered as they pounded on, down another alley beside some sort of jewelry store. “Desperation breeds all sorts of talents, I suppose...”

“That I can believe – I’m really good at climbing things thanks to having to escape bullies in Nightmarket when I was small,” Victor admitted, pushing his hair back from his face. “Still, that was incredible.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to teach us how to do it!” Smiler said, shooting her a smile.

“I don’t know if it can be taught,” Alice said, swiping a hand across her eyes to knock the sweat out of them. “It really was just luck. I doubt I’ll be able to do it again.”

“Well, hey, if you do pull it off again, let us know and we’ll – whoa!”

A Bluecoat with a bleeding wrist – almost certainly the “Donovan” Tannen had just mentioned – burst out of a side door in the jewelry store, slamming into Smiler and knocking them into the nearby wall. “Got you now!” he declared, digging his fingers into Smiler’s collar despite his injury. “Like to see you smile your way out of this one!”

“Leave them alone!” Victor yelled, grabbing the offending arm and trying to drag it off. Alice yanked her knife out again, ready to assist as violently as the situation called for.

“No, no, it’s fine, you two – I know just how to deal with people like him,” Smiler assured them, waving a hand as the other one disappeared into their pocket. “They just need a little more joy in their lives!”

“Oh yeah?” Donovan snarled, jerking his arm to free it from Victor’s grip. “And you’re the one to give it to me?”

Smiler grinned and winked. “Well – I am a bit of an alchemist.”

And with that, they yanked their out their fist and jabbed Donovan in the neck with what Alice recognized as a Joy Serum syringe. Donovan yelped and stumbled back, clawing the emptied needle out of his neck. “There we go – have fun!” Smiler said with a cheery wave, before gently giving Victor a shove. “I always keep a spare on me, just in case – he won’t be a problem now, but how about we keep moving anyway?”

“Sure...that’s, uh, safe?” Victor asked as Donovan wobbled in place, a rather dazed-looking smile starting to spread across his face as he giggled vaguely.

“Oh perfectly, he’ll be fine! You know, so long as someone sees to the blood loss from that wrist,” Smiler qualified with a quick look back at the puddle spreading across the cobbles.

“I don’t particularly care if anyone ever tends to that or not,” Alice admitted, pushing them both along. “Rabbit’s going to have our heads if we don’t keep on, so...”

“Right, right...” Victor took point again – not that he had much choice, given he had the longest legs of the three of them – and paused briefly at the junction ahead. “Okay, so...I think the Sanctorium is that way, so...the other direction should be Shimmer Canal. . .right, come on, this way – NOT THIS WAY, NOT THIS WAY!!”

Victor did an about-face out of the alley he’d chosen so fast, Alice was half-certain he’d just flipped around without actually going through any of the intervening bits. He shoved Alice and Smiler backward, down a gap between two stores, eyes wide with sudden horror. “What? What is it?” Alice demanded, trying to peer around him to see what had frightened him so.

“Ambush?” Smiler asked, doing the same.

“No, no,” Victor squeaked, rapidly shaking his head. “It’s–”

“Really, Master Van Dort?”

The trio all froze, then skittered deeper into their hiding spot, Victor holding himself protectively in front of them. “‘Not this way’ shouted at the top of your lungs?” Tannen’s voice continued, as his booted footsteps drew closer and closer to the junction. “That is the most amateur bit of work I’ve seen since I started on the force!”

A moment later, Tannen himself emerged into the T, accompanied by Thomas (apparently the only Bluecoat of his squad still both able and willing to walk). “These rich snobs don’t know the first thing about properly escaping pursuit,” Tannen groused, getting a nod from Thomas. “No, it’s all just throwing money at the problem – which, don’t get me wrong, I’m quite happy with, but still. Like that sort of thing would fool anyone.” He turned down the alley Victor had originally picked, not even bothering to turn his head, Thomas right behind. “I’ve got you now, you little–”

“ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!”

The most spectacular electroplasmic display Alice had ever seen erupted out of the alley – glowing, sparking goop splattering across the walls and cobbles while great arcs of current shot through the air, making her hair stand on end. A horrible gray something that Alice thought might have once been a woman streaked forward after it, seizing Tannen in its grip before he could even have a chance to scream. It howled with the mad rage that only a feral specter could properly express and raked ghostly claws across his chest – claws that still, somehow, managed to cut, tearing deep gouges into his flesh that crackled as they burned with a distressing pale light. Thomas shrieked and tore back the way they had come – Good thinking, Alice decided, and grabbed Victor and Smiler by the hand and towed them away down the gap, leaving the screams of the feasting specter and the deeply unlucky Tannen behind.

They ran for a little bit in silence, across a couple more toff-filled streets, concerned only with putting as much distance between themselves and the specter as possible. Finally, though, they paused in yet another alley behind a dress shop, Alice releasing her compatriots’ hands so she could press hers to her breast. “...well,” she said as she caught her breath. “That was – horrifying.”

“Yup,” Smiler said simply, taking off their cap and running their fingers through their hair.

“I know,” Victor agreed, wiping off his face. “Oh, that...that is going to...haunt my nightmares...”

“Mine too...but...how did you know she was there?” Alice asked, turning to him as she leaned against the wall. “Ghosts like that usually don’t make themselves known until they pounce on their prey.”

“I – I ju-just saw her,” Victor stammered, waving a hand around. “The m-moment I stepped into the alley. I could s-see her plain as day, and I could f-f-feel how powerful she was. I – I just count myself lucky she didn’t see us.”

“Me too,” Smiler said, shaking themselves like a dog spraying water. They shot Victor a grateful smile. “You probably just saved our lives there.”

“I c-couldn’t just let you walk into that! Even if I’m not...I’m not...I...what’s happened to me?!” Victor demanded of the world generally, flailing his arms. “How could I see her before – she’s a ghost! You don’t see ghosts! Not unless they let you! I’d never seen a ghost at all before until Emily came along! And now they’re just – everywhere?”

“Everywhere?” Alice repeated, abruptly keenly aware of just how haunted the city was supposed to be even with the help of the Spirit Wardens (and if they let people like Barkis into their little club, suddenly she understood why).

“Yes! I – that street we just ran across – there’s three ghosts on it!” Victor declared, pointing behind them. “N-not dangerous ones, not like her, but – I saw them, going t-through the motions of their lives! And I don’t know why!”

“You did just spend about an entire day in the ghost field,” Smiler pointed out, expression thoughtful. “Maybe you’ve developed a sort of – ‘ghost mind’ as a result? An extra sensitivity to the supernatural?”

“Seems logical to me,” Alice nodded.

Victor stared at them a moment. “So I’m – I’m just stuck seeing ghosts now?”

“Maybe? I mean, we’d have to keep an eye on you for the next few days, see if the effect wanes any,” Smiler said, smiling brightly now that the immediate danger was over and the fun of scientific exploration was before them. “Oh, and see if you can consistently tell the difference between echoes, specters, horrors, reconciled...”

“Easy there, Advocate,” Alice said, pulling on Smiler’s sleeve gently as Victor began tugging anxiously on this tie. “Let’s get out of Brightstone first – then we can start worrying about Victor possibly being a little bit ghosty.”

[spikehunter]

i mentioned this in the tags of a post the other day but i want to share more of my vintage tumblr memories for those who werent there to experience them (you lucked out)

the block button didnt do anything except hide that blog from your notifications. they could still follow you and interact with all your posts you just wouldnt see it in your activity.

pursuant to that, if someone violated your DNFI (blog rules were called DNFIs before they were called BYFs before they were called DNIs) and you wanted them off your blog the only option was to send them an ask saying "unfollow me" and hope on the honor system they did.

this is probably why callouts were such a massive part of the blogging ecosystem , if someone annoyed you or was mildly problematic the only sure way to get them to stop was to run them off the site completely.

you probably remember that being able to actually disable reblogs on a post is a pretty new feature, before that it was part of the same honor system as DNFIs. in the old days there were roving gangs of troll blogs solely dedicated to finding vent posts tagged "dont reblog" and reblogging them, including copying over text that was in the tags / readmore.

to evade the troll blogs people had to start tagging their posts with increasingly obtuse typing quirks like "d0%t r38l09". speaking of tags,

the habit of adding slashes to the end of trigger tags is because tumblrs search feature and url parsing used to be Even More Dogshit than it is now and if a tag had certain characters in it (hyphens and i believe asterisks also worked) you couldnt browse it on the blog. this was considered good etiquette to show you cared about your followers wellbeing by not letting them doomscroll the trigger tags, and also made it harder for trolls to find triggering pics to spam your inbox with when you had a controversial take on steven universe ship dynamics. sometimes people just added a bunch of random numbers to the end of a tag like "blood 363820" which had the same effect of making it unsearchable but still worked for the blacklist because

blacklisting was a browser extension. you couldnt blacklist on the app for YEARS. old school users remember when xkit was an actual necessity to interact with the site. ancient school users remember tumblr savior.

this post is already too long so lets do a lightning round: having your blog index page automatically redirect to your aesthetic tag. custom cursors with particle effects. everyones blog being an unreadable pastel-on-white 8pt text nightmare. alternatively, everyones blog being a garish red-on-black knife emoji nightmare. follow forevers. i hear promo hour still survives as a relic population in some circles. kin pages with 75 grid icons sorted into literally me / primary / secondary / tertiary with discrete DNFI rules. every personal post being tagged "lms if read". post limit blogs. hunger games simulator and xyzzy and rabb.it and drawpile and skype groupchats. if you remember tanburu honestly you should be getting paid survivors benefits. i could list a bunch of big name callouts that would overtake some of you with a precipitous feeling of dread but i wont because i know some of them are still on this website Right Now. im not even a real Tumblr Old i was 11 years old in 2014 and i know the true elders have secrets i cannot comprehend. its so dark in here. i remember when DMs were new.

[annoyangle]

Personally I'm hoping for a break from the very much callouts/lore, all this typing in stuff and staying up a whole day has been mentally waning, but its worth it. You'd think the book was the end, but no the train keeps going. I don't think its on the track anymore, if it was to begin with. I think my favorite being 'MONSTER' and getting 'There's a Monster at the End of this Book' has to be my favorite, I used to read that book all the time. Do you have a silly one you at least like despite the implications?

WELL, I'VE TALKED ABOUT A CASE OF STRIPES IN THE PAST, WHICH IS ONE THAT I ENJOY QUITE A BIT, ALTHOUGH I'M RATHER DISAPPOINTED BY HOW IT ALL ENDED UP! STILL TRYING TO LOCATE THAT GIRL AND ELEVATE HER UP HERE, I COULD USE A CHAMELEOID SHAPESHIFTER IN THE NEW CREW. I ALSO RECOMMENDED "THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK", THOUGH IN THE BERENSTEIN UNIVERSE, IT HAS A MIRROR ON THE LAST PAGE SO THAT YOU KNOW THE ACTUAL MONSTER AT THE END OF THE BOOK YOU WERE TRYING TO HELP GROVER HIDE FROM WAS YOU!! I ALWAYS FELT THAT VERSION OF THE ENDING MADE SO MUCH MORE SENSE, AND FULLY CONTEXTUALIZED THE CONCEPT! I DON'T KNOW WHY IT CHANGED! PROBABLY SOME ROTTEN ANTI FUN NUNS GOT INVOLVED, AS THEY TEND TO.

AS FAR AS THE CALLOUTS GO, THOUGH. WELL, I THOUGHT THE TAD STRANGE WAS A GOOD ONE. MM, THAT BREAD LOOKED SO ENTICING IT EVEN SORT OF CAUGHT MY EYE! HUBBA HUBBA, HERE COMES THE YEAST INFECTION! HEHEHE. ALSO? THAT ONE OF PINE TREE COMPLETELY HUMILIATING HIMSELF SINGING POP SONGS FROM BABBA IN THE BATHROOM. I NOTICED THAT THE SONG WAS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE AUTHENTIC SOUNDING THAN THE LAST TIME THEY HAD THAT ON AIR. THAT WAS GREAT. AND THE ROMANCE NOVEL. ABOUT TIME SOMEONE GAVE THAT A LITTLE BIT OF PROMOTION! I MEAN, THERE'S A LOT OF HOT OLD LONELY LADIES OUT THERE THAT COULD USE A LITTLE CHEEKY TICKLE IN THE BRAINSTEM! I WROTE THAT JUST FOR YOU, GIRLS. KISS NOISE!!

[neet-princessthing]

It's like, everyone wants to have the aesthetics of the cool radical freaks but without all the yucky problematic elements. People here like edgy words, not edgy content. Everyone wants toxic yuri until the yuri is actually toxic, everyone wants more evil female characters until the female characters are actually evil, everyone wants to be a pervert until someone is actually a pervert, everyone wants to read dark fucked up fiction with blood and sex and gore until the fiction is actually dark and fucked up and has blood and sex and gore. At this point how do you signalize to other edgy freaks that you're one of them without attracting a bunch of very annoying people who have imagined some sort of Steven-Universe-esque version of Higurashi in their heads and will make a callout about you if they ever find out that you actually like edgy stuff for real and not as the running gag of the month?

And I know, the refutation I see some people making against this kind of vent is that "the people who say they want toxic edgy problematic fiction and the people making callouts over children's cartoons are two different people." While there is some degree of truth to that, I think everyone saying this is VASTLY overestimating how coherent the average tumblr user's beliefs are. Need I remind everyone that "X and Y can and should coexist" (in which X and Y were often, in fact, completely incompatible ideas) was one of the biggest memes on this site? People making up completely arbitrary and contradictory lines to what kind of fiction is and isn't "irredeemable" is a very observable phenomena!

[madsway]

#MADSWAY, is an independent & highly selective portrayal of madison clark from amc's fear the walking dead, with an emphasis on apocalyptic settings, including but not limited to the walking dead universe. heavily headcanon based and canon divergent post stadium "sacrifice." TWENTY1+ ONLY. BY BRI, 27, SHE/HER.

slides ( wip ), prompts, multi. + IN AFFILIATION WITH: tba.

GENERAL RULES - will be moved to slides once completed.

PORTRAYALS BY BRI, 27, SHE/HER. established oct 2024. revived june 2025. TWENTY1 ONLY+ ( no exceptions ).

to start, basic roleplay etiquette applies. don't be an asshole. be kind, have fun, no god-modding, no stealing, no ooc drama. lets keep that ic.

portrayal specifically, to keep with canon, i do still run the stadium sacrifice story line, however, madison is released by a group of survivors not p.a.d.r.e finding her and she then becomes a lone wolf survivor whilst looking for her children, injured and generally distrusting but every bit as lethal and dangerous as madison has always been.

i do not claim the rights to any media found on this blog. i'm not apart of amc or the walking dead, but i do absolutely take pride in my portrayal of madison as a whole -- and i'll know if you take anything that is aggressively personal to how i choose to portray her character. i won't tolerate that on any level.

all graphics made on this blog are made by me. [ do not steal ]

i do not follow everyone back. i've been on tumblr for many years now and have learned how best to curate a space for myself that i am happy to be in. it would be a disservice not only to myself but to everyone if i acted as though i could keep up with a quick moving dash by interacting with every single person. for the most part, i tend to try and follow people back within twenty four hours if i can see us writing together. otherwise i do make sure to softblock unless rules state you'd prefer to be hardblocked to avoid confusion.

IMPORTANT: if you support or condone racism, homophobia, transphobia, white-washing, suicide baiting, bullying, military propaganda, d*nald tr*mp or bigotry of any kind i will immediately block you. this also goes for zionists. we have nothing in common and i do not want that energy in my space. this is your one and only warning.

in terms of callout culture: i do not partake in it just for the sake of it. i typically do not reblog or engage with callout posts, but if someone is actively harmful to the community as a whole then of course that's different. i'm not interested in watching anyone to try to chase somebody out of a community simply because they don't like them. i am an adult with a mind of her own who can make decisions for herself. just because i don't interact doesn't mean i don't see it nor does it mean i'm supporting or not supporting it. if by chance i'm ever interacting with someone harmful, please let me know privately but do not do this if you don't plan to tell me why / how because again, i'm not interested in entertaining the removal of someone from a community over a friendship fallout.

this blog is heavily dynamic based with an emphasis on plotting. i love to plot and i find i am most inspired to write when i'm comfortable plotting with someone. it doesn't always have to be long and intense, but establishing some sort of dynamic between our muses is the best way to start off in my opinion. please never hesitate to come to me to do so. in fact, i'll be happy to jump into it at any time and create something together. it helps build something we'll both look forward to writing -- and gives us somewhere to go, because writing without a goal long term just isn't the energy i tend to go for. all this to say, i'm incredibly patient. i do not expect partners to be quick at replying or to do a constant back and forth. i'm simply happy to vibe while plotting too.

^IN ADDITION: i also ask that you also be patient with me. i work in finance and sometimes my job extends into my home hours [ not often luckily but it does leave me tired and brainless ] so naturally, i can get busy and there'll be days or even weeks where i don't feel like writing at all. give grace, and the same will be returned to you.

if anything is ever confusing to you or you have any questions, do not hesitate to ever reach out to me. communication is key and i'm an advocate for that in all situations. anon is off, though not for any specific reason ... i got used to doing it and now i just do it on all my blogs for my own peace of mind. but my dm's are always, always, always open. <3

[prokopetz]

Speaking of weirdly universal experiences: if you were a teenager circa 2000, and you were active in forum culture when forums were still the primary form of social media, did your main forum have a member who fits this description? 

Artist of some kind  

Not always a furry, but probably had some sort of birdsona  

Frequently made reference to a vaguely defined chronic illness, implied but not directly confirmed to be a heart condition, that could kill them at any moment  

Was one of the most popular and prolific posters for several months after you joined, then abruptly went dark  

Shortly thereafter, a newly registered member claiming to be a friend of theirs showed up to confirm that they’d died  

Everyone was very sad; speeches were given and memorial shrines posted  

Until a couple of months later, when a big callout post went up alleging that the poster in question had never really existed, and was in fact a false identity created by a bored thirtysomething from, like, Nebraska or wherever in order to catfish a bunch of teenagers for no reason  

Apparently this wasn’t even the first forum where they’d pulled this routine, and they had an established pattern of faking their online identity’s death in order to avoid discovery

For years I’d assumed my experience was an outlier in this respect, but at this point I’ve met at least half a dozen people who were members of completely unconnected forums circa 2000 who’ve reported experiencing this exact scenario, right down to the bit about the birdsona.

[aeolian-mode]

A rant I wrote in a Discord server but because of the recent BNHA chapter I thought I'd post it here. TL;DR it's about "All Might slander" in the fandom and why I find it a bit trite.

I feel like the "All Might slander" side of the BNHA fandom is comprised mostly of young kids or people who just aren't good media critics. They want BNHA to cater to their own personal interpretations and headcanons, and often their interpretation doesn't have citable support from the actual content of the story. Horikoshi missed the mark on a lot of BNHA's storytelling but there are a few themes and symbols that he's extremely intentional about. All Might's character arc and what he represents, juxtaposed with Midoriya, is one of those things he's clearly planned out very well. The All Might critics often fail to take into consideration the medium of BNHA. for example: yes, on the surface, in a real-world setting, a responsible 55 year old adult shouldn't leave a middle school child stranded on the top of a roof after telling him that his dream for the future is unrealistic. What actually happened: All Might is a superhero who just launched himself flying through the air with the sheer force of jumping and a middle school child clung to his legs and went sailing through the sky like a slapstick bullet before somehow landing unharmed on a rooftop. He immediately tells this overworked superhero (who just captured a dangerous villain in his pocket and needs to immediately get to the police station) that he also dreams of being a superhero even though he doesn't have a superpower. This superhero then reveals that he's missing half of his internal organs because of ridiculous superpowers in this world and warns (wisely) that Midoriya's dreams will lead him, a quirkless kid, to absolute annihilation. He then leaves Midoriya alone, which is admittedly a bad choice on his part, but it's probably the worst decision he made here- NOT telling Midoriya his dream is unrealistic. Because: none of this that I just described is feasible in an average, realistic, slice of life, run of the mill Earth setting. BNHA is a manga/cartoon for children that takes larger-than-life, exaggerated anime slapstick in a world full of superpowers that would realistically destroy any normal human upon use. (Like, come on. Nitroglycerin sweat??? Bakugo's skin would ignite or explode upon contact with any open flame throughout his life. Sure you can use an excuse that maybe his superpower specifically compensates for this by providing him with some sort of self-protection mechanism, but at that point you can make the "superpower" excuse for virtually any observed loophole.) We're dealing with cartoon physics here, and a cartoon world often creates a wider barrier for suspension of disbelief between the audience and the media.

Some major themes of BNHA are: the definition of heroism, friendship, and the power of community/working together to achieve a common goal. They're very common themes in shonen anime, and the way BNHA handles it offers a few unique perspectives, but ultimately what we have here is a shonen cartoon for teenagers. so yes: you're going to have slapstick, exaggerated cartoon violence, characters behaving badly without realistic consequences, and unscientific/unrealistic super powers.

(such as: there's SEVERAL instances where Aizawa takes his scarf and briefly chokes one of his students. If this happened in an actual real life setting, Aizawa would be criminally charged with child abuse, lose his teaching license, probably go to jail. Also, he regularly naps during class and is still somehow a respected teacher at UA.)

So a whole lot of the All Might criticism can be viewed in the same way: you can't really keep 'calling out' this cartoon superhero for his perceived missteps on the standards of what would happen in real life. We are already dealing with a cartoon universe where the laws of reality don't apply.

One of the common criticisms of All Might is the fact that he gave Midoriya a superpower knowing full well that if Midoriya used the power before he was ready, he would explode his bones and potentially kill himself. Like, no, in real life: don't give a child a loaded gun. Anything that they could kill themselves with if it was misused. That's Bad.™️ I don't think ANY All Might fan is arguing that he made a good decision if we were judging him on the grounds of reality.

When Midoriya uses the power during the entrance exams to explode the 0 Pointer robot, All Might looks on at his student with pride, instead of abject horror at watching the boy explode all the bones in his arms and legs. Because BNHA's storytelling is not operating in the realm of reality! At all! The scene where Midoriya explodes his bones by using All Might's power is directly correlating to the main theme of BNHA's storytelling: the definition of heroism. Cartoon physics aside, it's about being selfless. Midoriya exemplified selflessness here, a virtue that All Might also exemplifies and values in his disciple. But: watch this show and try applying real-world consequences to every single character's behavior and you'll find something "callout worthy" in virtually every scene, from virtually every character. People who hate All Might just want to hate All Might (and often do so divorced from context). Disliking a character is completely fair, everyone's got their tastes in characters and stories. And you don't have to justify your reason for disliking them. If you want to write a 20 paragraph dissertation on why you don't like them, totally go for it. That's why I'm writing my own 20 paragraph dissertation on why I do. :P Anyway all I'm doing with this dumb rant/post is to just point out that folks are arguing over a colorful superhero cartoon for teenagers. Instead I prefer to take a peek at the core values of what Horikoshi wants to show us with this story and examine whether or not he's successful with that.

[microbiologynerdd]

Notion - BASIC and EASY Note taking system FOR STUDENTS

Hello everyone!

I hope you are well!

For this weeks #Microbiologynerddweeklytips post, I shall be sharing my university note taking and organisation system using Notion.

I have been using Notion for roughly 1 year, and have used it to organise my second year university studies, in addition to my voluntary position as the VP of my society.

So below is a very BASIC and EASY to use format you could adapt for yourselves! Enjoy😊

Contents

As a directory to everything I need at university, I have a contents page. Here I have each of my modules, as though they were chapters of a book. Each leading to a separate page of their own.

After this I have the required ‘modules’ for my placement year. I have arranged this slightly differently to my regular university notes - more details on this later.

Below this you can find pages for my summer microtalks hosted by SFAM. I attend these weekly and make notes in that subsection.

And finally I have a section for Taekwondo, to organise tasks I have to complete as the VP of Taekwondo.

Module pages:

So i have tested 2 different methods for module layout, each only having a slight twist.

- Please click the photos to enlarge -

In the photos above, I visualise the 2 different systems. Each of the systems involves having a new cell per lecture. However, in the first 2 photos (from left to right) I have separate pages for my lectures vs my lab notes. Whereas on the right, I have my lectures, labs, extra reading and questions all formulated into one table. Clicking the See All button at the top left of the table, above the search bar, you can choose to view classes by type i.e. just see my lectures or just see my lab notes for example.

The second system I have found works best, otherwise you are just clicking too many buttons to get to the area you need. However, in future I shall implement the ‘breadcrumb’ at the top the page, like i did with the first and second photos. (Breadcrumb = univeristy/ BMS2037:cellu../lecture below the page titles). Breadcrumbs make it easier to shift between pages instead of clicking the back button all the time. They are essientally hyperlinks to other pages.

Tip: to insert a breadcrumb simply put /breadcrumb and a breadcrumb will appear. This works for anything you are trying to insert e.g. a table

You can also choose to insert materials e.g. any lecture slides or resources you used within that lecture. Personally I dont find this helpful, as our VLE is clearly laid out with our lectures. But it might be something worth trying, as you can also insert pictures or any sort of media you require.

I also use the tick box function to keep track of whether I have written the lecture into Anki cards (flashcards)/ attended the lecture.

Side note: Please ignore my spelling/ how I label lectures, they make sense to me, they dont need to be 100% correct - right?

Internship/Placement Page:

I have recently been dabbling in the layout I would like to use for my internship year, however, I shall update you at a later date with any additional details, as due to COVID-19 the formate of the year and my assessments has changed. I also will find out more when I start my internship... which is soon - yay!

I’ve decided to have reminders at the top, which I inserted using /callout - you can change the emoji to anything you would like. This is for me to know instantly any important documents or tasks that I need to complete.

The external work to that provided by my internship is included in the table. This is essientally the coursework I have to complete on the side of the placement. Here i decided to note the deadlines and percentage of the year that it is worth. This is just to help me grasp the format of this year, since as mentioned above, it is slightly different.

Underneath this I have a selection of details to do with the company. This includes my acceptance letter and any insurance forms I need to send off. I just wanted to have them at hand so i can reference them at any time.

Summer 2020/Taekwondo pages:

These pages I format the same as the ‘Module’ Pages, so I haven’t included any pictures etc.

Miscellaneous things:

- NOTION IS FREE FOR STUDENTS - if you have an educational email, you can sign up for free! If not, packages start at $4 a month, which isn’t too bad for something you use frequently!

- This service is avaliable on tablets and computers, so anyone can take advantage of this organisational software!

- You can change the cover and icon at the top of each page. They include emojis and a standard image database, but you can also upload your own unique images if you desire.

- There are also template designs for pages, with different themes for different needs. So if you don’t want to start one from scratch you have lots of options to choose from. Use those as a base and edit them from there! For example, there are calendars, habit trackers, resume trackers and whole load of other things.

- Using a device for notes, such as notion, allows you access to any notes you have made at ease. It is organised, and you are unlikely to lose your notes. Paper is great until you scrunch up that important sheet, or it rains and the paper gets wet, or you are carrying every single note you have ever made - that can become heavy. Just something to bear in mind, especially if you can afford a laptop/ note taking device of some kind.

- You can create multiple pages for different aspects of your life (photo below). For example I have 2 additional pages, 1 for personal things and another for blog post ideas - to keep you guys entertained... haha! 😆

Conclusion :

What I have shared here is a very BASIC overview of how I use notion. If you desire a detailed in depth report of how notion works, it might be worth checking out Ali Abdaal, who can give you this information. As for me and what I require from the service, Notion has been working really well, keeping me organised with all my notes in one area. Knowing what I am doing, when, and being able to keep up with the speed of lectures - considering my writing speed is questionable. 😂

When you first download notion and look at all the templates, it can be a bit overwhelming/ exciting. Start with what you need, and then explore new ideas that you want to incorporate. There is no point setting up hundreds of pages if you aren’t going to use them, just like writing out pretty notes doesnt help you learn content - but more about that in a future post. Start small, being organised involves consistency, you can’t be consistent if you have given yourself too many things to do daily. Or at least you are unlikely to be.

One word of warning, Notion is not compatible with the Apple Pencil, so if you like writing notes on your iPad, this may not be the best software for you. As well as this, if you are a faster writer than you are typer, DO NOT USE NOTION. The whole basis of this app or at least how I use it, is to stay organised and write notes productively and efficiently. If you prefer writing, keep at it! Don’t just switch because suddenly you hear lots of tapping on keyboards in the lecture theatre.

Play to YOUR STRENGTHS , enhance what you are good at, not what everyone else is doing. As always, you’ve got this 💪

Let me know if you have any questions, or whether you’d like any further posts/details about my notion workflow. I’m happy to answer any queries you have.

Speak soon,

Lucinda x

[bao3bei4]

i have basically covered the material in this post several times on my twitter. but this is, in my opinion, the only s*xy t*mes with w*ngxian take you need. 

(cw transphobia, transphobic slurs, antiblack racism, mentions of csa and bestiality in fiction)

edit 6/10/21: hi! i’m realizing people are still reading this! this was written in response to aja romano’s vox article on the fic that was published in late february of this year. i had been frustrated with how their article seemed to miss the point in many ways, because they never talked about the substance of the fic. which, i mean, fair. i wouldn’t want to read a 1million word fic either.

but i already had, so i thought i’d write about some things that i believed needed to be part of the conversation. namely, that its author wasn’t a harmless troll, but a person i genuinely disliked who i believed should be deplatformed.

i think virtual1979 is a bad person. 

i think a lot of people mainly know about sexy times the phenomenon more than they do sexy times the fic itself. i have the dubious honor of being one of the few people who has actually read large portions of the million word fic, and that’s why i wanted to write this meanspirited hit piece. 

the fic is down right now and the author’s notes and comments have both been deleted, which is why i cannot provide screenshots. however, these are all quotes i have saved from when the fic was online, and i’m happy to talk with anyone if you feel any of these quotes are mischaracterizations of the fic. 

i also want to be clear this is not a “callout post” and i’m not trying to “cancel” them or whatever. i am just explaining why i don’t like them, why i don’t feel bad they’re being harassed, and why i do not find them sympathetic at all, and perhaps why you should also adopt these stances. 

let’s start with transphobia. 

sexy times with wangxian is transphobic. this much is apparent from the tags. virtual1979 tagged the following: F*tanari, d*ckgirl, Sh*male. they use this language in the chapters that include a character with both a vagina and a penis. 

they refer to this character (wei wuxian) with the pronouns “he-she.” the following excerpt is a fair representation of how this wei wuxian is referred to in the chapters where wei wuxian has a vagina and a penis. 

[Lan Zhan] would never be turned on by a female, and he would actually be turned off by a drag queen - but this… this Wei Ying, it’s Wei Ying, and he-she looks [...]

i know these words are common in porn categories, but they are also slurs. virtual1979 also uses hermaphrodite to refer to this set of anatomy, which is not strictly a slur, but definitely a stigmatizing choice of language. 

they have repeatedly made clear they are not open to criticism. they have also since removed the comment section. making an intersex character for the express purpose of using transmisogynistic language towards them in your million word porn fic isn’t annoying the way their tags are, it’s actively fucked up. 

fanfiction has a transphobia problem, and if we’re talking about sexy times with wangxian in any capacity, we must be clear: sexy times with wangxian is part of that problem too. 

secondly, virtual1979 is also complicit in ao3’s racism problem.

i think the way they write about chinese characters and settings is annoying and racist, but they are a malaysian chinese person, so i do have some sympathy for them. i am committed to having some patience for people who are annoying if they themselves are working through the prejudice they have faced. 

they’ve commented as much: 

Not gonna lie, this fic has been a steep learning curve for me despite my roots being Chinese as well, but I have absolutely zero knowledge in some of these aspects!

and i’m happy on some level they can get in touch with their roots. who among us has not been cringe and diaspora. any criticisms i have of their portrayal of chinese people will stay private and be made to other people of color.

i’m going to be clear here i don’t think the actual comment they made makes them super evil or anything. but this essay IS clearly in response to That Article, which did mention racism in fandom. so.

i think we have all seen the infamous karen comment they made, in which they compared people who criticized their tagging with “Karens,” equating antiblack state violence to... mean comments on ao3? and “SJWs,” which, eye roll. no ageism but you’re 41 why the hell are you complaining about sjws

anyway. i am deeply frustrated by the co-option of the word karen. a stand-in for a particular type of racist violence white women specifically can and do inflict has become fused with that reddit-type mommy issue “can i speak to the manager” internecine white resentment. 

so their trivialization of antiblack racism is another reason i don’t like them. again i KNOW it’s petty to point this out here, but this to me shows that virtual is afflicted with the same kind of fandom brainrot that aja is, where everything comes back to that same sort of self-centered bullshit. 

sorry for that jab. julian told me that aja thought that cql was about callout culture and all i could think was “wow! just like virtual thinking that--” because i also have spent too much time on twitter this week. 

this is just like. part of this ongoing pattern i’ve noticed with virtual, where they’re aware enough of real problems to acknowledge they exist (police violence, accessibility issues caused by their tagging) but are determined to double down on their minor relative persecution as king, shittily drawing parallels between like... real problems and fandom problems. equating the two or allowing the second to take priority over the former is like... par for the course for this type of person! 

third, this is just another clarification on more parallels between ao3 discourse and sexy times that went completely unremarked on by That Article. 

i would rather DIE than get into discourse. but why did they write this sentence: 

Lan Zhan’s rational mind finally broke with a tsunami of pedophilic lusts [...]

by the way that is the start of a 430 word sentence. and yes this fic does contain hundreds of thousands of words of aged down wei wuxian. make of that what you will. 

also why would you make wei wuxian teach baby chickens how to sexually pleasure him. do you hate these characters. what’s going on. i think mxtx should be able to sue virtual for that one. 

there’s a very obvious connection between mainstream ao3 discourse and sexy times that went completely unremarked on in That Article. sexy times contains multitudes and some of those multitudes are bestiality and explicit childfucking. 

this is not unrelated to fannish culture, they are not unfamiliar with fannish norms, blah blah blah. this is just normal fandom. they’re not subverting shit, they’re just a normal fan who unlike 99% of fanfiction writers on twitter, spends more time writing than posting. this has taken their fannish tendencies to cartoonish heights. 

finally, they don’t care about mdzs or wangxian. they’re literally just horny and spiteful that’s it. this isn’t a question of like... “ohh they were a good faith participant in fandom until they went joker mode” and the REAL villain is society/ao3. like no they wanted to write shitty porn, and when they found out they were annoying people, they decided to double down because they could be the main character of the mdzs ao3 tag every time they found a spare hour to write. 

here are some select receipts on that topic:

they do not care about canon: 

MDZS has quite a complicated and expansive plot and history, and enough content that one can choose to tune out certain parts and still get to the end of the story in one piece. Also, because of its source, some fans may not fully realize the nuances, cultural aspects (ooh, cultural appropriation is another triggering topic) or the full breadth and depth of the source material, such as a person like me, who is half-baked in terms of knowing what the canon universe is all about. So I end up playing with characters and settings technically borrowed from the story, and make them do things that would otherwise run counter to the original source material - and that draws quite some flak from those opinionated people I mentioned just now. It's part of what makes the fandom toxic. It's like they're the self-appointed guardians of the source material and they act like they own the rights to question such questionble fanworks, and dare I say, try to take down those that cross certain lines too.

they are just horny: 

After that giddines of extra drunken Lan Wang Ji scenes at the beginning, I'm blessed with Lan Wang Ji (Wang Yibo's, actually) fuzzy nips! Bless Bless Bless, and Amen! muahs the nips on the screen

anyway they did get nuked over wishing covid on people. 

so yeah. i want to be really clear. this is my thesis: i do not feel bad for them. you should not either. i do not like them. you should not either. that’s ALL!!!! 

[fremedon]

Brickclub 2.7.4 - 2.7.7

@everyonewasabird suggested in 2.7.7 that, in defending the right to withdraw from society, Hugo was talking about his own exile. I get some of that here as well, but even more strongly, I’m getting more echoes of “The Dead Are Right and the Living are Not Wrong”--

Men come together and live under one roof. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right of association.

They shut themselves up in their communal home. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right that every man has to open or shut his door.

They do not go out. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right to come and go, which implies the right to stay at home.

The blank, closed doors that almost doomed Valjean and do doom the barricade are, Hugo is very clear, permissible. Cutting oneself off from the struggles of the world--voluntary, internal exile--may or may not be admirable, but the right to do so is absolute.

And a community of voluntary exiles, practicing complete equality and fraternity, shut up inside four walls--that’s the barricade. “Liberty is all that is required to transform the monastery into a republic.”

...and then Hugo spends two chapters on his concept of God, which. Um. Seems to be working well for him? Hugo has some sort of vague weird deism going on which he is adamant is NOT the same as atheism, but also doesn’t really have any place to get a philosophical toehold.

I got nothing. This is exactly the sort of navel-gazing that made me decide even Unitarian Universalism is much more religion than I can handle, and I’m just not going to bother. I think I may finally have found a genuine digression.

If it has a point, beyond Victor wanting to tell you he’s VERY CERTAIN about the nature of God, it’s as a place to hide this:

“History and philosophy have duties that are eternal and at the same time simple: to oppose Caiaphas as bishop, Draco as judge, Trimalchio as legislator, Tiberius as emperor. That is clear, straightforward and transparent, and presents no uncertainty.”

CENSORS ARE ASLEEP, POST NIII CALLOUTS.

...ah. And in the final chapter, Hugo defends the work of prayer as work, as a subset of intellectual and philosophical work and therefore valuable and necessary, and begins wrapping it up with this paragraph:

Besides, in this moment through which we are passing, a moment that fortunately will not leave its stamp upon the nineteenth century; in this hour, which finds so many with their foreheads bowed but their souls so little uplifted, among so many of the living whose motto is pleasure, and who are occupied with the brief, misshapen things of matter, whoever is self-exiled seems venerable to us.

Welp. That answers that.

The monastery is a renunciation. Self-sacrifice, even when misdirected, is still self-sacrifice.

And we’re back at Waterloo.

To assume as duty a strict error has its peculiar grandeur.

And hello, Javert. (And to be honest--from this point on, hello, Valjean.)

And a little later:

This monastic existence, austere and gloomy as it is, of which we have indicated a few characteristics, is not life, for it is not liberty; it is not the grave, for it is not completion; it is that strange place from which, as from the summit of a lofty mountain, we see, on one side, the abyss in which we are, and on the other, the abyss where we are to be; it is a narrow and misty boundary separating two worlds, at once illuminated and obscured by both, where the faint ray of life mingles with the uncertain ray of death; it is the twilight of the tomb.

Hello barricade, and hello tomb illuminated by the dawn.

And in light of that--hello, Enjolras:

As for us, we who do not believe what these women believe, but live like them by faith, never could look without a sort of tender and religious awe, a kind of pity full of envy, at those devote beings, trembling yet confident--those humble yet august souls, who dare to live on the brink of the great mystery, waiting between the world closed to them and heaven not yet opened; turned toward the daylight not yet seen, with only the happiness of thinking that they know where it is; their aspirations directed toward the abyss and the unknown, their gaze fixed on the motionless obscurity, kneeling, dismayed, stupefied, shuddering, and half carried off sometimes by the deep breath of Eternity.

That wraps up the Convent Digression, and we all know what that means for tomorrow: NUN CORPSE HEIST! NUN CORPSE! WITH LEFT HEIST!

[gothicprep]

also with vaush specifically, i have this personal theory that the reason why people say stuff about how they hope he’s accused of something serious is because he’s clearly pretty unbothered by the fact that Twitter has tried to cancel him 37,652 times and wont make symbolic concessions to people if he thinks they’re acting in bad faith. and this acknowledgement of the fact that a lot of this is, well, bad faith gets to the kind of person who gets mad online about twitch streamers as a hobby. so they want something thats a little bit more tangible than Discourse they can point to, even though their dislike of him comes from ideological clashes entirely

like, this being meant to say the fact that twitter callout stuff doesn’t bother one guy specifically sort of challenges the idea that this is a legitimate form of activism. and they don’t really want to evaluate that belief so they like to relish in this hypothetical narrative where deplatforming him is a completely fair thing to want instead of reconciling that this urge is more punitive than it is moral.

I mean, it’s obviously just my opinion that this is happening. But yeah. There’s my Vaush extended universe theory. I deeply regret being born into a world that enables me to spend an ounce of emotional or intellectual energy on psychoanalyzin g the critics of a streamer that i sometimes have on as background noise when I’m cleaning my bathroom. and guys, my bathroom is in pretty rough condition

[silvermoonartz]

The Messed up Definitions and Assumptions of Anti vs Proship:

Before I get into this, I would just like to address that this is not directly targeted at anyone, this is just a general thing I want to get out. 

On the internet you see the term “proship” and “proshipper” quite a lot. It’s good, right? You’re supportive of shipping. And by the general definition, it is! Proshipping is basically defined as not harassing, threatening, or going after someone for shipping something that you don’t like, or that you do not equivalate fiction to reality as a real person’s life is more valuable than a shipping opinion. That is good. But, if that’s the case, then why do people, including myself, feel uncomfortable with the term or see it as a red flag? If someone is against proshipping, it does not mean that we are against the basic definition of it. Only an asshole or crazy person would think that harassing someone over a ship (not including something I’m going to mention in a bit here) is okay, that cartoons = real people, or that someone’s life is less important than them shipping something you do not like. If you do think like this, get off the internet, or IGNORE that thing you don’t like. So, again if this is not why we’re uncomfortable with the term, then what is?

It’s because of pedophiles, or people who ship minor/child characters with adults (also pedophillic!) or think it’s okay. 

Yes, this is yet another case out of thousands where gross people take a term that is good and use it for their own benefit, turning it into something else. Something that it wasn’t meant to be. Now before going more into this, yes shipping cartoon characters (or other fictional char.) kids with adults isn’t the same as being okay with it irl, but you are still looking at a relationship between an adult and a child and romanticizing/sexualizing it regardless of if it’s fiction or reality and that is not okay. Same goes for sexualizing minor characters in general. Now, back to the main point. People who are okay with this decided to use the proshipper term as a “safe” way to point out being okay with said things. The term proshipper itself is now an issue because so many pedophiles and the like have used this term to support their own... interests? Also being a more unknown term and having so many of them using it as opposed to those who should use it responsibly, causes people to only see it in that light. I myself had only seen it used in support of those who sexualize minors and pedophillic relationships (in fiction! because hell if the fact that you’re seeing that as okay has anything to do with your irl self/mind!) and it has made me uncomfortable and disgusted. Only upon searching up the real definition did I see that the real definition was something entirely different. Even so, the term remains a red flag as it has turned into something else. These people have collectively dumbed the term down to proship = minorxadult is okay because it’s fiction, as opposed to its initial, general definition going against antis (I will get to the term anti next). Anyways the fact is that if someone says they’re a proshipper, it will usually mean the recontextualized (dumbed down) definition of it because most people who use the term is going to be one of them, even though some people may still be using it as the original definition, not meaning harm. However, with all of this, it has become a red flag for many people whether we like it or not.

Now onto the term anti for a lil bit as it goes hand in hand with this proshipping thing. Anti is a term that is meant to describe the people who go and harass people for shipping things that they do not like, whether it’s commenting on an artist’s hard work about not liking the ship or that it should be a different one, going after people who don’t ship your ship trying to point out how theirs is inferior (sometimes with rather dumb logic), or straight up sending people death threats or self harm threats over it. With pro being the polar opposite of anti, it’s no doubt that this is what the proshipper term was meant to combat. But, if proshipper as a term is twisted, then you can guess that anti is as well. And so, anti as a term has been used to put people against proshippers (of course in the way I defined it) in the same gross light as those going out of their way to harass people. Calling out someone who ships or is okay with shipping minors/adults and sexualizing minors so that people can unfollow if that sort of thing makes them uncomfortable, mentioning it in your own space, casually reminding them that isn’t okay, etc. is not the same as harassing someone or doing some big callout so that others can join you in the harassment. The term is also used loosely now for those who may be casually against or uncomfortable with something or someone despite not going after them or it. 

One last point I kinda want to make here is that it is completely different story to ship a child with an adult, for example ships like Mendy (Fairy Tail, 12x25) or Stevinel (Steven Universe, 16x1000ish), versus two consenting adults with a big age gap like OFC I’m going to ship a nineteen year old with some “ageless” celestial being or alien that’s been around for idk how long, they are cute! Also, a 17 year old with a 19 year old is totally okay too, like that’s two years. Just because we may find the former wrong (and are behaving reasonably about it), doesn’t mean that we should be dubbed antis like those who go out of their way to harass people. Anti as a prefix is a lot different than the term alone, like I feel as if anyone would be happy to be anti-harrasment or something like that. One more note, is that putting these kinds of things in a story, as long as it is not romanticized or sexualized, is okay! Just make sure to warn people as they’d be uncomfortable with it. 

In summary, due to the behavior of certain groups of people, two terms once meant to be specific in their origin are no longer so, as now the case is that proshippers are people who think it’s okay to sexualize or ship minors and adults because it’s fiction and anti is widely mis-used term that needs to be used for what it was meant to be used for instead. Regardless or how things started, this is the fact now, and I wish I were wrong. 

[rpbetter]

Urgh. Okay, full disclosure, I haven't been on tumblr much over the last week or so, because I was one of the people that Raven initially called out after the COAR mess, and it was in the interest of my own mental health to fuck off for a while so I didn't stress myself out into oblivion. So I'm scrolling through most of this stuff for the first time, and talking to other people who were targeted. And pardon my French here, but I'm fucking disgusted at the lengths Raven has gone to assert themselves as a victim, how many people they've affected, and the waving around of something as serious as suicide for brownie points.

I have sympathy for people who overinterpret things in a strictly emotional and mental sense (actual reactions aside) because they lack the maturity. There's always a reason for that, and it's not their fault. And I have sympathy for people if they legitimately feel suicidal. That, too, isn't their fault. If I hadn't been blocked, I would've reported Raven in case their claims were true as well, because yeah, I don't mess around with that stuff either. But what's unacceptable is how Raven acted on those sentiments and behaved towards others, even after people tried to provide perspective. How Raven claimed to be done with the drama, but continued inciting it; how they claimed to be suicidal and had left tumblr, but wrote what amounts to a "fuck you" in their header and were still putzing around on their blog, and were apparently still editing their posts until as late as today; how they claimed to have deleted but only changed the url; how they weaponized all of this stuff and used it as a tool for guilt-tripping. Like, come on. It's okay if you're down in the dumps, but it's not okay to treat innocent people like garbage, and carpet bomb half the RPC. To me, it really feels like there was an intent to weaponize all of their hurt, offense, anger, and suicidal ideations, despite the possibility it did come from somewhere genuine, and that's so harmful to anyone who is actually struggling with depression.

Every time someone weaponizes mental illness in this way, it just makes people more and more apathetic the next time someone is genuinely just hurting, and saying they feel like they're at the end of their rope. And it makes people suspicious of whether those words are being used maliciously, or legitimately. That suspicion and that association is now there, unconscious or not. And every time this kind of stuff happens, the association gets stronger. What happens if Raven does this again? Some people will still report, but some people might just scoff and walk away - people who might've actually acted before. So in a way, that kind of behaviour impacts Raven as much as it impacts other people.

And you know what? They're not the only one dealing with serious shit. I've been suffering from MDD for the last fifteen years, and I've been in the process of changing medications and having little success for months. I've been going through hell offline. I have a shit list of people I want to yell at because they're dragging their feet on really important things I need to function; I'm constantly running a deficit on spoons. Until a week or so ago, roleplay was one of the only ways I could unwind. So for Raven to bully me by sticking that stupid post in my tags, because they needed to make a scene on COAR, which I was obviously going to comment on (like many other people), then to "like" an unsubstantiated callout about me and other innocent people related to that mess, it's only worsened my own mental health. It sounds melodramatic, but really. Someone else mentioned this too, but the fear of being in another callout, and the fear of that first callout somehow exploding, was in the back of my mind all week, despite being away from tumblr. So that was a little anxiety-inducing, much as I tried not to think about it.

And I'm debating whether to return now, or take more time off, and I have no idea what to do. Because that callout post is still in my blog's tag. I'm freaking out because I was planning on approaching some people to roleplay, which is something I rarely ever do, but now I'm concerned that I'll contact someone, they'll look at my tag to get an idea of my writing/partners/who I am, and see the callout post, and immediately dismiss me because even seeing the word "callout" on its own will send up red flags, by unconscious association with more impactful drama. And as long as that callout is up, these fears are going to be there.

That's just not fair.

And Raven's "apology" is completely unacceptable. Like you and others said, it doesn't reach anyone who needs to hear it, because they've all been blocked. I would fucking love an apology if it came from a place of honesty, but am I going to receive one? Probably not. And even for the followers who can still see that apology, it doesn't address anything. It isn't directed to anyone in particular. It doesn't mention the specific behaviours that were wrong on their part. And miss me with the "my intentions were good" part. No, they weren't; going around blocks and sticking shit in peoples' tags is vindictive and entirely intentional in all the worst ways, and shame on them for pretending otherwise, and by leading with such a poor example for many roleplayers, some of whom are in their teens. One of the people who tried to message Raven (they, too, were called out on Raven's blog) was speaking to a nineteen-year old who was completely clueless about the extent of the manipulation Raven was pulling. They thought all of it was normal and acceptable behaviour. That genuinely terrifies me. And while I imagine if Raven was genuinely apologetic, they would've gone to the callout blog and ask them to delete the callout post (attempt it, at the very least), somehow, I don't think that would've happened given all of their prior actions. God forbid something else is going on there.

Phew. Yeah, I'm angry. Maybe I'm just biased and tired. But honestly, I have a right to be. Raven's apology is a handwave, and they know it. It's a slap in the face to me, to you, and to everyone else who was involved in this clusterfuck. They're not the center of the universe. They affected real people, with real problems of their own. Anyways, I am so sorry for this, argh. Really had to get this out, and I didn't want to dump it on discord or somewhere else; I sure as heck didn't want to go to COAR with it. But hey, maybe people here will feel less alone if I added my own account to the mix. The more, the merrier? In a sense, anyways. Sometimes if you feel like you've been singled out, it's nice to know you're not actually the only person it's happened to.

Sorry for saving your reply for last, Anon. It's such an important one, I wanted to be properly thoughtful!

I think that it is going to make some people feel less alone, and there is always some relief in sharing one's trials. That might be especially true when one has been unable to share them anywhere else. It's not like you can address this on your own blog right now, COAR is definitely not a safe place to do so, it's a very isolating feeling that is made worse for having done nothing.

Coming back and being required to wade through this shit was really damn disgusting to me as well, but at least in my case, I had neither been obliged to distance myself for the sake of mental health nor was I treated to the sickening display of drumming up ideas of victimization from someone who victimized me. What I experienced was just incredulity and disgust, I cannot imagine how incensing this must be for you, I am so very sorry. If it makes me angry having a degree of removal and watching in it real time? What you're experiencing...there really isn't a single word to adequately encapsulate that, I'm sure.

You've still expressed so many of the things I've thought and felt. I found all that initial behavior uncalled for, shameful, yet another display of what's actually wrong in the RPC, but it was increasingly upsetting to me the more I looked into it because it did feel a little (a lot) too reminiscent of the sort of bullying experienced in person. It's really something else to be viciously picked at by someone who keeps upping the game until such point as it begins to cause them trouble, then get to be painted the wrongdoer and punished in some way for it because they're presenting as a sympathetic victim. A more sympathetic victim than you, that's really what I mean, I'm just going to say it.

And that was already in swing by the time I got from the launch point to the smoking crater of then current events. I got to Raven's again after bouncing back and forth between their interactions with others, largely from COAR, yes, and the shit on the callout blog...to see...everyone else being blamed in increasingly drastic ways.

Because on tumblr, unlike reality, if you throw out enough times ahead of time that you have disorders people can get behind, you're more sympathetic, not less. So long as one has set that foundation and has others to broadcast it once convenient, any horrible action one undertakes is given a pass. Anyone disagreeing, anyone not tolerating the abuse, is in the wrong now. In the worst possible way, of course.

This whole thing began with incredibly unnecessary bullshit and every, I mean fucking every, further action taken was a new level of fucked up, but the trivializing of and damage done to the perception of mental health and differences is quite possibly the worst. Are those things that need any more of that? It's already such a problem! I already see suspicion and fatigue with this, every time it's given validation, it grows.

Even if I wasn't mentally ill, with one of the disorders that gets vilified even on tumblr, even if I were not autistic, even if I never knew a single person who suffered worse than I do from the the complications they won by way of being born, hadn't anyone I loved that took their lives, this would be extremely upsetting to me. Using the idea that "whatever I do, it's got to be acceptable because I am X" while not caring that anyone else is X, Y, and/or Z. Weaponizing it for bullying and sympathy simultaneously. Way too much. Incredibly gross and harmful, legitimately fucking problematic.

I want people to be taken seriously when they choose to speak of the boundaries their mental health requires, I want muns to be able to say that they are having a difficult time without it coming off (even to the rest of us with mental health conditions) as a ploy for attention/guilting for whatever action they desire be taken by partners, and I want people to take threats of oncoming, serious harm seriously. How are they to do this, when it is continually used as tool or weaponized against others? At very best, it becomes another thing to ignore and scroll by on the dash.

As we've all had the misfortune to experience or witness so recently, once it is weaponized, it's a problem of priority. I've said in damn near every message I've gotten that Raven isn't the only person involved here who has serious shit going on, but like the absurdity with trying to spin an accident as transphobia, or having the audacity to attempt speaking from a place of peace in a way that might benefit everyone, Raven included, resulting in a callout about being against ND people...it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that any of us are neurodivergent, have serious chronic mental health complications, or are not cisgender. Raven was swinging that around like a flaming sword to drive off bigots real and imagined before we ever got their attention.

Attention they fucking asked for.

Reblogging that post from COAR was just like posting those rules. The intention was to get attention, and it was asked for with extreme hostility. I have no idea how that is coming off to anyone as simply them defending themselves. It was a great moment to either not out themselves as the person in the confession at all, not engage with it, quietly remove the post, or to reblog it and take responsibility in a meaningful way at that point. Can you imagine what a difference that would have made then? If Raven had chosen instead to reblog it and apologize for doing what they had. Just that. No shitty, snide little comments about how they're sorry, but still absolutely correct and here are five reasons why everything they've misconstrued won't be tolerated. Just an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, an apology for doing so, and awareness gained moving forward.

Their decision to interact with that post in the way they did wasn't just more of the same nonsense, it was actively upping the game. I don't really care if it was intentional bait or just continuing to let malicious impulse run free, it was used as bait. Everyone who interacted with that post was effectively consigning themselves to harassment, and if they happened to interact on literally any other topic that group held a passionately opposing opinion on, they were attacked for it. Curiously, it became necessary for them to be harassed by way of the callout blog, but that is getting a little close to off-topic, so, I'll leave it at that.

So, while I initially really wanted to have the appeal to Raven work because their expressions of regret that I was greatly on the fence about being genuine, I'd say those flags were accurate. I cannot believe that someone who took every opportunity to do the wrong thing is genuinely sorry. Sorry for themselves, absolutely, sorry for anything they did, not so much. This constant narrative I got of "they SAID they were sorry" and "they apologized again and again and took the posts down," including from Raven, is incredible. On that last one, they, yet again, couldn't actually address me.

Appropriate response: messaging me or reblogging that post (you know, the rules snippet I found right the hell there still, despite the claim of it being deleted and the final catalyst of me needing to say something after I saw that, nope, surely was not) with the acknowledgment of a single thing I said.

Extra appropriate response: ^ plus going to everyone who could still be located that they harmed with a genuine, individual, private apology.

Inappropriate response that was had: new post, shitty, childish tone like they at once wanted to argue with me and didn't want to drop the act, restating of this apology that had already been deleted and meant exactly shit while it existed, restating of how they deleted this post and couldn't control reblogs, ignoring that I literally reblogged the original copy from their blog.

Apology neither believed nor accepted. Just as it wouldn't be if my nephew came to my house, broke a bunch of my things, said he was sorry while throwing the pieces at my pet, then threw himself on the floor screaming that he said he was sorry when I told him to go have a time out.

(Yes, I absolutely did just make a comparison to a child, y'all can shit yourselves again. It's not my problem if you want to misconstrue "this person's actions are not befitting of an adult" as "Vespertine said autistic people are children!" Fucking miss me with that. I'm an autistic adult who pays my bills, apologizes, doesn't treat people like shit while trying to excuse it by being ND. You're offensive with that shit, and contributing to the negative perception people have of those on the spectrum. Be a good ally today! Don't valid that! Free ninety-nine offer!)

Again, sorry for yourself does not equal being sorry for what you've done. The former can contribute to the development of the latter, but as I said in a response yesterday, there has been no display of that beginning to transpire. I genuinely hope that will eventually be the case because that would be the best outcome, the only "best" outcome at this point. Even if it was two years from now, if it did happen, I certainly would not be kind to people refusing them any such growth in peace, and I hope that, by some distant chance, I get to prove that.

But...stating "my intentions were good" over any part of this is not remotely promising. When? Where? At what point? Oh, right, when you took it upon yourself to label a random mun you took issue with. That's when your intentions were good. Then, when you vehemently needed to defend that point by callouts and individual attacks under the guise of it definitely not being about your pride, no! It was the defense of everyone else! Defending the community by carpet-bombing it, yes. This is not a "the path to Hell is paved with good intentions" situation.

I am so disturbed about the nineteen-year-old mun, my god. I'm telling y'all, my anger and disgust almost reach what I think is a pinnacle, then there's something new like this.

I don't even subscribe to tumblr's ideology that anyone under twenty-five is an actual infant who needs be kept in a protective bubble and forgiven for all bad behavior with infinite kindness, nineteen-year-olds deserve the agency of the adultier adults they are becoming, but it is a transitional age. Especially today. Most socialization and formative ideas take place online, and by the time younger RPers are entering the adult sphere of RP here, they've already got some really unhealthy ideas. About themselves, about others. There is such a demand for rabidly performative action that gets internalized, it shouldn't be being heartily fed by people in the community they might look up to.

At that age, someone like Raven is going to be a person looked up to. They espouse all the right ideas, and it's an age in which aggressive interaction over those things is seen as amusing and correct, no matter how wrong the actions taken are or the basis upon which they are founded. When these people foster an environment of cruelty for questioning, of course, that is not going to be the natural response. The response is now going to be the requirement of being told otherwise with adequate proof.

I have suspected that many of the hateful anons I've gotten were from Raven's even younger followers who feel like it's normal, acceptable, and that everything they're being told by Raven's sales team over at the callout blog is absolutely true. Of course, they're now morally obligated to come harass me for the things they were told I did! I think it's likely that several of the anons people got were from actual minors, which is so many levels of scary and irresponsible. Really great example all around, yes!

Because whether it is one's intention or not, that is potentially exposing minors, or muns who are still close enough to be more negatively impacted, to who even knows what. As well as violating the rules of blogs who do not interact with minors for good reason, setting those blogs up for yet another callout for treating someone they didn't know was a minor the way they did or having "freak shit" on their blog. Setting up the other party to be treated with full hostility as an adult would be. Very cool, very responsible.

There is just so much here that is unacceptable, I don't think people who were not directly impacted or have never had a callout against them understand the results, and that is one more unacceptable thing you've been good enough to talk about.

Even while taking a break from the RPC, it affects you negatively. Wondering what you're coming back to, your blog is no longer a safe feeling space, and there's nothing you can do to "cultivate your blog" to change that. They've taken away the ability to simply block and avoid others, the thing that keeps all of us comfortable here as well as allowing that to be all of us no matter how disagreeable we might be to each other. Callouts negate adult behavior. Callouts mean that one doesn't know where more potential for harassment might be coming from, or how long we might have to be worried about that.

It would be a major concern for me as well about what putting myself out there to new writing partners might bring. What the success of that might be. It's incredibly unfair that they've made finding new people precarious and more unpleasant than it can be anyway. That puts all of the future of your RP here in question, and if you're like me, just dropping a muse, picking up another, and moving to a new URL isn't going to be a good choice for you. It isn't that simple if you dedicate time to a muse for a long period of time, when that's the case, that's the RP you want to do and have laid the groundwork for.

I don't know if it will help at all, but it has seemed to me, over the past several days, that there are fewer people in the RPC who are inclined to believe or support callouts than there once was. I was hoping that was the case, since there is always so much interaction on my posts against callout culture, but until this crap went down, I had no idea just how many people are not positive toward it. It has seemed to be that the people who are inclined to listen to callouts are just louder.

I've also noticed that those people have the same set of red flags, so maybe sharing that will help you or others?

They don't have simple, basic, reasonable Do Not Interacts. It isn't simply asking that minors don't interact because the mun is over eighteen, that muns writing a triggering topic not interact, or that sort of thing. No, it's URL dropping of specific muns, outright links to callouts or "receipts," and an accusatory tone about any topics or types of muns who shouldn't interact. Such as "nasty ass proshippers" or "pedo apologists shipping incest."

Their rules are reflective this as well. A statement cannot be made that they do not write, let's say, toxic ships and left at that. There will be some morality wank present about normalizing or romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

There are less assured flags, but literally, anything that stands out as an interest in RPC or fandom-based activism as opposed to an interest in writing, their muses, or even their friendships with a variety of muns. I don't mean a rounded-out interest in things, I really do mean a glaring predominance of buzzword-laden reblogs and PSA's while they've not written a reply, headcanon, or answered a meme in months.

I'm not saying any of that because I feel like you, or anyone else's, judgment is terrible or that you're oblivious to warning signs! It's just that when we've experienced bad situations, it can compromise our ability to see clearly. It becomes easy to see a potential threat everywhere, and maybe that seems contrary, but it's then easy to fail to see real threats from those we're blowing up. We question whether we're being just as judgmental as the people who wronged us, putting words in other muns' mouths and thoughts in place of their own as was done to us. While we still are afraid to be wrong in giving someone an in to ruining our time again.

So, please, don't feel like I'm questioning your intelligence or speaking from a place of ultimate knowledge, never making mistakes in such a choice! I just really hate that you, and many others, are going through this, and anything at all that I can think of that might help you move forward from this utter bullshit you've been through, I've got to try to grab it.

Because, Anon, like all those sharing their experiences these last few days, you sound like the kind of mun we need in the RPC.

You're someone willing to share with others for the benefit of others. You're being honest about your feelings of anger and even the hopeless sensation of whether it's even worth it to try to return, having your progress on and offline stomped on, while still maintaining a sort of fairness and calm that I know is not easy. Because that's the mature thing to do, it's the right thing, and unfortunately, those are usually the harder things to do as well.

You did the right thing in expressing your opinion and doing what people like Raven's group love to be on about, can only do through bullying: not tolerating it. I'd hate for the RPC to lose someone like you!

Just as your message matters to more people out there than myself, I have no doubt that your choice to not quietly allow this behavior mattered to more muns than you'll ever know. I'm sure that none of them would have wanted this result for you, but so many muns have experienced such toxic, bullying behavior over the years in which not a soul spoke up.

Many of you proved something very important with challenging Raven and the callouts blog, that unlike them, it isn't necessary for good people to even know each other to do the right thing. They have to dogpile and engage in cliquish behavior, what they do isn't coming from a place of inner ethics and strength, but what you all did? It's the opposite.

So, not only do I thank you again for sharing and providing the important support of simply not being alone to others, I thank you for being the example to the RPC that people dealing in callouts and generalized shaming cannot be, no matter their platform.

I hope that, whether you choose to remain, leave, or take a very long break, everything you've been dealing with starts to look up. I know it's easy to say things made hollow for their repetition and flippant use, like telling you not to let them win, or that their bullshit just isn't that important. So, I'm not going to say them.

It doesn't work that way when you're dealing with mental health concerns! You can logically know that this is just petty bullshit not worth being run out of something important to you, but that doesn't stop the worry, frustration, or depression. You can have all the determination in the world to hang in there, even the spite to back it up, but neither is a match for the things you cannot control coming from your brain. That is the cruelty of mental illness on the very best of days.

You have all of my respect, support, and genuine sympathy that this happened to you. No one should be allowed to continually and unapologetically go out of their way to throw a wrench into someone's hard-won progress. You did nothing to deserve this, and the people out there worth interacting with are going to be the same ones who will have no question of that.

Lastly, I also hope that some of the anons sharing their experiences have helped you feel less alone, or like you're not just irrationally upset. Please know that you're seen and supported as well! And that you are always welcome to talk more, vent, share successes here.

Thank you, Anon.

[frederickabberline]

William T. Spears' Fault-Finding Habit

I've always thought the implication that Will was quick to blame collections for the mysterious walking corpses was odd, when he later showed up and was immediately aware and accepting that there was an outside culprit. Why and how did he find out there was an outside perpetrator to blame, when Ronald was acting like William had been looking for excuses to blame collections, including the potential of collections having been covering up demon involvement?

In retrospect, I think Will being quick to blame collections during that time (when they all were, I assume, being put under pressure by the higher-ups) and then quick to accept there was an outside culprit is possibly just because he thinks in a sort of "who is the one responsible for this bad thing?" pattern and does not like being considered the one "at fault". (See: the way he avoids owning up to how badly he's doing at being undercover during the circus arc).

So, when the higher-ups said "who is at fault for this walking corpse issue?", of course William would find the easiest and most likely target to blame. It wasn't management, so it must be collections - "don't look at me, it must have been them".

Then, seeing that Grelle and Ron had been beat up, the fault must shift to an outside party. Whether that was a demon or someone else doesn't really matter. (Though it still begs the question of how he could know or guess that their being beat up had anything to do with the bizarre doll case, if we're assuming he meant that when he said Grelle and Ron needed to write a report on the culprit).

Anyway.

Perpetual fault-finding would be one of his most negative character traits, even if it's situationally useful (finding fault with the things a demon says to tempt him, for one, and he probably has a keen eye for proofreading lol), but it's also one that makes complete sense for him to have as a grim reaper.

Reapers in the kuro universe are defined by one thing they did "wrong". Just one mistake, that they could never have known the repercussions for. And if you're already the sort of person who tends towards being pessimistic and fussy, then to have your existence defined by your mistakes would naturally result in those traits getting amplified over time.

A fear of making more mistakes, a fear of being held accountable for something that shouldn't have been such a big deal, a fear of having someone else's mistakes put on his record.

A desire to not get blamed for anything more, becoming a habit of pointing out how others are the ones to blame, snowballing into a habit of actively looking for people's faults.

(As an aside, I would love to see the kind of extensive callout posts this man could make on tumblr if he had a blog lmfao)

Nobody is safe from his criticism; even if he won't talk back to his superiors directly, he still complains about the tasks they give him and how unfair they are whenever he gets the chance. Subordinates, peers, and higher-ups, enemy or ally, he's critical of them all.

Which begs the question... Does William believe he did anything wrong, when he killed himself?

If he isn't convinced of his own moral culpability in the defining event of his life and undeath, and that's what's feeding his fear/hatred of ever being the one held accountable for things, then that could have serious repercussions later if it turns out (or just William himself becomes convinced) that Dispatch isn't a morally neutral, natural part of the world order, or that their salvation and purgatory are based on false premises. If he isn't convinced he did anything that bad to begin with, it would mean he's already uncertain of Dispatch at its very core.

And if nobody is safe from his fault-finding, and he only avoids directly going against the higher-ups because it would harm his chances of redemption/ascension, then if something happens that (in his opinion - and it only needs to be his opinion, not the truth) disproves the very existence of those chances, I'm sure he'd have a hell of a lot to say against the higher-ups that he's been bottling up or redirecting into his frustrations with other people.

[farelian]

Humans Are Weird “Passing Out”

Hello again guys! Here’s another fun thing I just thought about in class, I don’t think this has been written before so hope you enjoy and uh sorry for the quite shitty English

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Michael is both proud and regretting accepting this offer, being invited to a GA meeting for Intergalactic Migration is something he thought he'd never be able to attend. He had to catch a shuttle at 5 in the morning that would transport him to the GA headquarters in the Murumu homeworld, a species of bird-like mammals. Their fur is black and white and they can grow up to around 5-6 feet tall. They have a beak for eating small nuts and fruits, and because their nature is flying and vegetarian, they have two strong eagle wings, able to make them fly in the air for long periods

He's personally chosen by the Minister of Immigration of the UTA as a representative in the meeting since he's the first human, species even to migrate to another planet that's under control of a different government.

Of course following the tight morning schedule, and waking up later than usual, he had no time to eat breakfast or even have a small snack, since there's none in the shuttle. So he's on his way to a GA meeting with an empty stomach, and his trusty Zarqonian guide that's always by his side, Yaku Latatarun

He could feel his stomach rumbling, begging for food to support his body, but the Murumu pilot said there's no food on the ship. He sighed deeply and could only hope for food or a buffet when they arrive later. He glanced at Yaku, looking fine and dandy as usual, he then strikes a conversation. "Hey Yaku... you've eaten yet?" He asked

Yaku looked up at the Human, forming a sort of smile. It's hard for Zarqonians to smile due to their horizontal locked jaw, but she tried her best. "Yes sir Michael, I have eaten food 6 cycles ago" If he heard that right, and his math doesn't fail, she ate breakfast at 3 AM in the morning, and it's 6AM

He stared on in disbelief, breakfast at 3 in the morning? He did sometimes get midnight snacks when he's busy researching stuff on his Computer but not a full-on heavy breakfast, usually just instant cup noodles or leftover Zarqonian-made pizza whose taste is not bad, but still unsatisfying to him. "O-oh... that's quite early for a breakfast Yaku"

"It's our normal eating period sir Michael, we've always been eating at 6-morning cycles" That just blows his mind, he just shook his head and nods to her explanation, then sighed again. "Damn..." He doesn't want to tell Yaku about not eating breakfast, he doesn't want to worry her.

But Yaku had noticed the human's strange behavior and decides to confront him with it. "What's wrong sir Michael?"

"N-nothing... nothing Yaku" He answered still attempting to hide the fact he didn't eat breakfast, but it was too obvious by his scrunched up face and rumbling stomach

Yaku wanted to continue, she's starting to get worried but from her previous experiences, when a human says no, it means no. And if he says nothing, then it's probably nothing. So she kept silent and sat in her comfy seat.

The intercom becomes online and the Murumu pilot talks. "Passengers please strap into your seat, we are about to warp" From the callout the two passengers put on the strap around their bodies, essentially gluing their bodies to the seat. "Entering warp in 3, 2, 1"

The ship began to warp and constrict, bending space and time around it as they open an artificial portal, and travel through it. For first-timers, the experience is sickening and shocking, but to Michael, it's just another Tuesday. In 5 seconds the ship went out of warp and glancing out the window, they can see the beautiful tropical homeworld of the Murumurs, Corta.

Neither of them talked with each other as the ship break through the atmosphere and landed on a pad, they took off their straps, as he fixes his tie and pat down his Tuxedo. 2000 years and it’s still a popular formal attire. He stood up accompanied by Yaku as the doors and a ramp extends out for them. Stepping out into the sunlight, they are now in a completely new environment. Unlike the Zarqonians, Murumur architecture uses hexagonal building blocks for their skyscrapers, making a satisfying pattern of hexagons, like a beehive.

Their buildings also climb up towards the sky, and he smells the wonderful air letting out a sigh and form a smile, at least that’s enough to keep his mind off his hungry stomach. Only taking a few steps forward they are met by the GA escorts, three Murumurs, all dressed in modest yellow and white robes. Without many talking, they get escorted to the GA headquarters

Entering the massive building that is the GA headquarters, he’s reminded of his empty stomach as it growl and rumble. He’s starving but doesn’t know how to approach the escorts to ask for food or where the buffet is. There’s gotta be a buffet somewhere, there has to be!

But instead, they are led straight to the meeting room. Pressing a button the door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, and they step aside. The pair enters the wide meeting room, looking around and notices every other species is here. Thankfully they’re not late for the meeting, it hasn’t even started. Taking a seat on their reserved chairs, Michael began to sweat, gulping as he felt his stomach rumble once again.

He looked around and noticed how many aliens there are in the room, there’s the Janids, Zarqons, Murumurs, Likoti. A species of green snakes that evolved arms on the side of their slithering body. He continues to look around the room to see if there’s a table of food anywhere, none.  He turned back towards the podium, then the table in front of him, not even a cup of water.

Before he could go out on a treasure hunt for food, the president of the GA stepped up to the podium, a Murumur of course, it was their idea for a Galactic Assembly that unites all the race in the universe. Then the meeting starts.

He’s been sitting here for TWO hours, his face looked pale trying to stay strong in the meeting and hear everything. The last two hours are filled with speeches and the species' opinion on immigration, and he also got a text from the General Secretary for when it’s Michael’s turn to go up.

He glanced at Yaku that’s sitting beside him, she’s looking on towards the podium focused and doesn’t want to be interrupted. “Michael Stone of the UTA” The announcer called for him and he stood up, and everyone else looked up at him. There it is, the predator that defeated the Janids in the war.

Michael took a deep breath and tries to ignore his stomach’s cries for food, but his body cannot. He feels weak, his stomach aching. He walked up to the podium with the script on his holophone. Setting his holophone and hold one end of the lectern, he started his speech although with difficulty. No one else in the room seemed to notice except for Yaku, his voice sounded strained, and his face is unusually white.

Half an hour in and he’s halfway into the speech, he suddenly stopped in the middle of a word, panting, his eyes bouncing all around the room as he looked down holding his temples with his finger and thumb. “Is something wrong Michael Stone?” The announcer asked without a tone of worry.

He looked back up, his face is a sweaty mess as he swallowed and shook his head. He covered his eyes with her hand to block the lights around the room “Nothing... nothing is wrong...” He looked down at his Holophone, opening his mouth to talk again, and then he fell to the floor.

The crowd gasped in shock as the 6-foot tall predator just flopped to the floor without any reason at all. Yaku being the one more familiar with the human immediately left her seat and ran up to the podium, kneeling down with her tentacles holding the human’s cheeks in her hands. “Call for a human doctor!” She cried out as some of the delegates rushes out of the room in search of a human medic, meanwhile, the ones inside are in shock, sat silently in their seat staring at the unconscious human.

It’s not normal to go unconscious without reason, there has to be a reason. Is it a disease? Either way, everyone in the room is confused and speechless.

A few moments later a human medic from their military arrived in the meeting room, kneeling beside Michael and motioned Yaku to step away, but she won’t leave him, she won’t leave his side. Watched by 20 aliens in the room, the medic began checking Michael’s condition,  his heartbeat, breathing, temperature. It looks like he might be having a migraine and a fever.

Both from not eating and drinking anything the entire day, and standing for thirty minutes while talking. More human medics arrived bringing a stretcher, and carefully places Michael onto it and brought him into the human medical bay where he rests on a real bed.

All the while Yaku staying by his side, making sure he’s not hurt or anything. And when asking one of the medics, he said that he has a fever. Which translates to  having a temperature above the normal range due to an increase in the human body's temperature set point.  

It appears the meeting needs to be pushed to a later date, everyone did learn a valuable lesson though. Humans are fragile and if not maintained well by no feeding it enough or drink water, it could collapse from exhaustion and it’s body’s’ strange behaviors from such deprivation of sustenance and water

Strange, very strange

[auncyen]

Name: Raaj/Auncyen

Fandoms: I am incredibly focused on one fandom at a time so right now it’s Persona 5, but others I’ve written for: Bravely Default, a tiny bit of Miraculous Ladybug, one Utena fic, and a number of FF7 fics.  Shadow Hearts and a few other fandoms if you go digging deep enough and find the ff.net account lol

Most popular oneshot: Sorting by kudos-- Stall and Crash, to which my response is thank you.�� My one shots are usually “I have an idea, I feel inspired, I’m going to write most of this in one day and toss it out to see who likes it”.  Stall and Crash otoh took several months and there was much rewriting.  So much rewriting.  (Enough so that I eventually posted the concept draft as its own work because they’re just That Different to me.)

Most popular multichapter: again sorting by kudos, When The Cat Dragged In The Trickster.  ...This is both ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry I manage to stump myself on this so often’.

Fics Nervous to post: if my brain cooperates long enough to write a story to my satisfaction I am inflicting it on everyone else

but I guess I have been nervous with posting Cat & Trickster which, at least initially, was partially due to how the fandom can be about the Ryuji & Morgana fight.

Coming Soon:

NEXT CAT & TRICKSTER chapter which I hope will completely kill the nervousness by getting to next part of story

though I increasingly question the very premise I still want to complete “two assholes and a murder” fic.  The assholes are Morgana and Akechi.

a royal fic I can’t fully explain without huge spoilers but to keep it simple: Kasumi, how Shujin would really react to her and how that affects the rumor mill, and Ren’s friendship with her.

Favorite things to write: @cateringisalie I’m stealing your answer: alternate universes, what-ifs, and missing scenes are all very fun to write.

Actual worst part of writing: “I swear I knew how I was getting to the next point before....but now I don’t remember and can’t figure it out”.

How you choose your titles: Most of them are figured out at time of posting.  I would not say they are particularly inspired, though a couple I like anyway.

Do you outline: ..........nnnnnot really.  There was one time early on in my fic-writing that I DID outline an entire fic over the course of about 3 pages--not as meticulous as some people can get, but PRETTY nitty-gritty for me.

I then lost all motivation to actually write it, because I already knew what would happen.

But I will mention with Cat & Trickster’s last chapter I did do a rough outline of scenes and I’ll probably start doing that more often when I get stumped--try to break down what needs to happen to progress and write that down so I work on those smaller parts.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?

Royal version of “Cat & Trickster” still seems vaguely interesting, but what I originally thought of wouldn’t work.  It kind of completely changed how events panned out based on certain factors from Royal and an overhaul like that is too much work if I can’t do exactly what I want.  And I do think a Royal framework would completely change things, so yeah.

Slapping Vanilla’s “good deal” ending up against Royal elements for fun and devastating fallout

I swear there are other things I can’t think of right now

Callouts @ Me: so much repetitive word usaaaaage

Spicy Tangential Opinion: I love spitefic.  When you can be annoyed and get that out by arguing a point in fic form and then people actually like it as a fic it’s like, oh.  no more annoyance.  now I’m happy.

tagging: @chidorinnnnn, @darrelodin, @0ssianic?  I’m a little tired rn so I’m not sure who’s done it and who’s not