#fun fact: the q has run out on that blog and though I have posts to fix that I've done nothing

[muse-bs]

gonna try to get to all my replies. including eldbitch. we shall see what happens

[lemotmo]

Oh my god PSA, please don't do that, EVER! Protect your identity! As for all the other asks, hahahaha, color me surprised.

Q. So they're not not cute. Whatever.

Q. I was told hating Eddie was necessary and easy but I was in that man's side the entire episode. I don't know what to do with myself. Seriously I'm a little stunned.

Q. I hate that I absolutely get it after that episode. Their chemistry is definitely tangible.

Q. Shit fine if I'm going to do this do I need season 1 or can I go straight to season 2 when Eddie arrives? Your blog makes it sound like I need to watch season 1.

Q. I get the hype. I think I might actually want to watch this unfold because their chemistry really is wild, but it will be difficult to break away from the Tommy stuff because they have my personal email and I get daily reminders to post something. I haven't posted anything since Thursday morning and I get nearly hourly emails telling me I'm behind and need to step up. I don't know what to do.

A. Okay I lumped these asks all together because I have many, many variations of all these currently sitting in my ask box. I'm honestly not surprised that many of you are finally aware, or willing to acknowledge, that their chemistry really is unlike anything else. It's okay to let yourself enjoy it. I promise it's better. If you are going to watch the entire series now then you cannot skip season 1. I know lots of people don't like Buck in season 1, I personally find that blasphemous because that is my lost baby and I would commit crimes for that himbo, but it also provides context for the Bobby, Athena, Chimney(!) and Hen. Season one is necessary. Go and enjoy it.

To the anon who sent the ask about the email. Change your email address and change it now. There is no one, NO ONE in charge of running a fandom. Your fandom experience is your own, and there is no fandom that has an executive branch setting laws everyone else must follow. Fandom is not a job, or a government. It's bullshit fun. And anyone who tries to make you believe it should be something else is lying to you. No matter what fandom spaces you choose to occupy in the future you keep anything about your real life identity out of those spaces. Period. If you make friends within that fandom and mutually choose to take that friendship into the real world then that's an entirely different thing, but don't EVER give anyone your personal information because that's not how fandoms work. And unfortunately the harassment will probably get worse. Yes it will be a pain in the ass to change your email address, you can of course try blocking but who knows how many people have that information now. At this point it's about protecting your peace of mind and your real life identity. There is no fandom experience worth your mental health or real life privacy. They're not your friends. Protect yourself and go. Please feel free to message me if you have anything else you would like to ask or discuss 🩷

Thank you Nonny! As always much appreciated.

Okay... yeah, once you open yourself up to see the Buddie chemistry, there is really no way back. I can understand that people who started watching during season 7, because of biBuck and BT, needed some time to adjust to the fact that BT was just a stepping stone for Buddie.

If you've never seen all the other seasons and only started in 7x04, you have no other context than BT. As soon as you see Buck and Eddie acting and reacting all naturally together it just hits you how the chemistry flows between them.

So trust me, if there's anyone reading this that started watching in 7x04 and 8x09 got you curious about Buddie? Please, start watching from season 1 on. It's like Ali said... there is a lot of important back story in season 1. And yes, I am one of these people who didn't like Buck at all in those first episodes of season 1 when I watched it for the first time.🫣 Sorry Ali! But I love him now though, because now I understand why he acted the way he did during that season.

As for the person who is being stalked through email. Follow Ali's advice IMMEDIATELY! Remember people, NEVER give a stranger on the Internet your real life information unless it's someone you have known for a long time and you know you can trust them 100%. I have been in fandom spaces for 25 years now and, for the most part, I've always kept my private life and my fandom life strictly seperated.

If you have to give someone your email address for something, just create a new one you can easily get rid of if necessary. Use that email address strictly for fandom stuff and nothing else. Make sure that your real name is nowhere to be found in the email name itself.

Also, people emailing you and telling you that you need to post and step it up? That is very concerning to me. It borders on cultish behaviour, definitely not fandom behaviour. It is NOT normal. In all of my years in fandom, I have never encountered this kind of stalkerish behaviour. Fandom is supposed to be fun, it isn't supposed to be a chore and give you anxiety like this.

Please get rid of that email address, create a new one, start over again and join us here in the Buddie fandom. I know that you were told a lot of lies about our fandom and how terrible we are, but I promise you that most of us here on Tumblr are actually really nice and a lot of the things that you were told by these cult people? They were blatant lies.

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[pumpkinhcad]

GET TO KNOW ABC'S: MUN EDITION.

A. AGE: Turning 27-years-old next month!

B. BIRTHPLACE: Somewhere in north Spain.

C. CURRENT TIME: 6:13Pm

D. DRINK YOU HAD LAST: Water, it's what I usually have during my break.

E. EASIEST PERSON(S) TO TALK TO: Probably my mom, and some of my non-RP friends and mutuals. Lately I've barely spoken to anyone tho' lol, I haven't been doing too how socially lately, sorry I'm lame like that.

F. FAVORITE CURRENT SONG(S): Found Footage by ■37. I can't stop putting it on repeat when I'm doing anything that doesn't involve writing.

G. GOALS: Keep this blog alive until SM7 releases is my main priority.

H. HORROR YES OR HORROR NO: Oh, the irony... I think I've said this before but I'm not a horror person. Like I'll watch a horror movie with friends on VC, or watch a playthrough of a horror game, but it has to be on my own terms. I don't like playing or watching stuff by myself, and that especially applies to horror (because I'm skittish, whoops).

I. IN LOVE?: Nope. It has never crossed my mind. Tho', sometimes I will ponder whether I'd hypothetically date X or Y person or not. I do have (1) fictional husband, but it took me like 20+ years to actually get one lmao.

J. JEALOUS OF PEOPLE: Yeah, it's definitely one of the reasons I feel insecure sometimes. I feel bad when I cannot post consistently enough, or play games well enough (because I'm painfully mid at everything), very general stuff.

K. KILLED SOMEONE: In videogames, yeah. Maybe I've killed a person or two through my writing, but it's been a while.

L. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT OR SHOULD I WALK BY AGAIN?: I've never fallen in love, so I can't say I believe in love at first sight IRL. In fiction, tho', I think the trope can be cute (one of my older muses' main ship, which is also canon, was the product of love at first sight).

M. MIDDLE NAME: I don't have a middle name because Spaniards have two (2) ✌️ last names. My first last name (lol) is very unique, tho', so I won't reveal it.

N. NUMBER OF SIBLINGS: None (in my mom's words, "one was enough"). But, as a fun fact I guess, I'm the youngest out of my cousins on my father's side and a middle child out of my mother's.

O. ONE WISH: "God, I hope tomorrow is better" - me literally every day only to go to sleep the same way the next day.

Q. QUESTIONS YOU'RE ALWAYS ASKED: My RP mutuals keep asking me "you're angel, you know that, right?" or "does Pump know he's the most important boy in the world?" and I'm always like HHHHH YA'LL ARE TOO NICE!! And, I guess, amongst my non-RP friends, "um, the stream is down??" is a running gag (because sometimes I need to restart Discord if I wanna continue streaming a game or talk without it cutting off).

S. SONG YOU LAST SANG: No Wind Resistance by Kinneret. I'm surprised I remember still, but some lyrics just stick to me.

T. TOP 3 FICTIONAL CHARACTERS: Oh boy, this is why I have a Favorite Character Bingo, I can't just choose three! Though, obviously, Pump is up there somewhere. Like he's MY adopted son, has been for years, and will likely never NOT be my son, so he's practically one of my staple favorite characters. If I had to choose two other staples, in no particular order?? Doraemon and Pip from South Park, no questions asked.

U. UNEXPERIENCED OR EXPERIENCED WRITER: I'm inclining more towards experienced?? After all, I have a master's degree in English literature and writing, and academically-speaking I have always been more proud of my written work than whatever results I've ever gotten in tests. Not to mention, I've technically been RPing for over a decade at this point.

V. VACTION: I haven't gone on vacation in the last couple of years because of money, tbh. More often than not, I go on single-day trips with my mom and, last time, we went to Burgos to see the Sad Hill Cemetery of movie fame! This year, tho', I'm going to visit one of my college buddies for a whole week, and I'll be staying at his house and meet his friends and stuff.

W. WHEN'S YOUR BIRTHDAY: August 4th! Less than a month left!

X. X-RAYS: Oh yeah, I've had them before for dental work (three of my wisdom teeth have been extracted for various reasons). I believe I've also had them when I had a tendinitis on my left wrist (which is ironic because, well, I'm right-handed, whoops!).

Y. YOUR FAVORITE FOOD: Oh man, that's a difficult one. It's either bread (any bread, I just can't have enough of it) or Spanish omelet (or eggs in general, egg days are the best days). Though... definitely inclining towards bread more because it's something I buy and eat every day.

Z. ZODIAC SIGN: Leo (and I think it shows lmao).

tagged by: Nobody! I actually stole this one hehe. tagging: YOU should do it if you haven't already.

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: mcyt-quotes

today's interviewee is mcyt-quotes, one of the first MCYT quotes blogs, member of MCYTblr since SMPLive, and winner of the first MCYTblr elections! below is a transcript of their questions and answers.

Q: To begin with, what was your overall MCYTblr experience like? Does anything particularly stick out to you?

A: it was fun, by and large. a good outlet for me to talk with likeminded people, and a good distraction to get me through my senior years of high school. i’ve been a public figure in a few online fandom spaces, now, and i think what stood out the most in the mcytblr space is the fact that some of the larger blogs were almost treated like mini-content creators themselves ? i got fanart a few times, especially through the whole election fiasco, and i remember there being incorrect quote blogs etc that i would pop up on now and then. i’ve never seen it happen on that scale before - it was odd, but fun in its own way. defiantly gave early-mid MCYTblr its own personality

Q: Speaking of the elections, do you remember what it was like to run in them? I remember that you won, but I'm interested to hear what it was like from your point of view.

A: ahahaha that was an experience. i fully signed up as a joke - i wasn’t very active on discord or very close with many of the other blogs, and i didn’t realise that my follower count was on the higher end of the spectrum, so i didn’t think i had a chance. just wanted to muck around and procrastinate studying for my final exams. things sorta spiralled though - i got hooked up with two bloody fantastic vice candidates (@the-royal-bat-snake and @sosigshoney) who did literally everything, and i also underestimated MCYTblr’s tendency to do it for the bit. i remember my campaign being something to the effect of promising a militia of arsonists, kitten genocide, cannibalism generally, and a total removal of free speech and thought ? and then i was elected and i was like ah fuck, i don’t have time for this. and then suddenly i was in the middle of some vast RP conspiracy that i was mostly asleep through, being Aussie, and very lost

Q: You mentioned that in the MCYT fandom, blogs were treated like smaller content creators-- how was that different from your other fandom experiences, out of curiosity?

A: so that sort of environment has popped up in other fandom spaces that i’ve been in - most obvious would be (and i want no judgement) the instagram DC and Marvel comics community, where i spent a few years running a large page. there were definitely elements of it - pages would get memes dedicated to them, etc. but lore ? i’ve never seen that before. i think it might be something about the nature of MCYT - aspects of the fandom, especially post Dream SMP (when this behaviour became most common) was built on mythologising people. not in the sense of worshipping them, but more so in the sense of fitting them into fictional narratives, just like the Dream SMP. and the blog owners themselves were primed to happily accept RP scenarios (something which has historically been seen as ‘cringe’), particularly those which blend absurdism and emotion. so the prison blogs, the election and subsequent RP, the penis SMP, the incorrect quotes blogs dedicated to fandom blogs (literally fandom-ception) came pretty naturally

idk, with more and time and reflection there’s probably something interesting there - Dream SMP was pretty unique in it’s time, and tumblr (especially post 2012) is a unique platform, so it makes sense they combined like that

Q: That makes me wonder, too-- it hasn't come up much before this, but I think it's an important aspect to examine: Do you think that large numbers of people (especially younger ones) being quarantined contributed to the intense/fast-paced fandom?

A: oh absolutely. it was pretty crazy to watch as a (semi) outsider. i joined the fandom in 2019, when it was Very small on tumblr - there maybe three other blogs i could follow who were MCYT related ? and then Covid hit and it bloody exploded. as i’ve mentioned, i was in my final year of high school, plus my town was only quarantined for a small period of time, so i didn’t really get that classic quarantine experience of having nothing to do. but christ, you could tell that so many people were spending practically their whole lives living through MCYT. and i don’t think that was a bad thing - it was clearly a great experience for a lot of people. but that’s why you had things popping up like the high school au blog dedicated to other MCYTblr blogs (where i think i was actually used as some evil class president or something ?? idk), which you would Not have seen in any other environment, i reckon

and i cannot stress your fast paced comment enough - every time i woke up it felt like heaps of astronomical events had happened in the few hours of USA timezone that had passed

it was fun - i felt like a long suffering older cousin at some points, but i don’t mind. that’s part of why i leaned into the election RP - if i could be as evil as possible, i gave them something to have fun with

Q: Now that you mention it, it's really interesting how that played out almost exactly as it did in the DSMP itself! A less-invested party coming in with a cartoonishly evil plan and winning the election to be played off of in roleplay, it's amazing how it worked out like that.

A: ahaha and it wasn’t lost on people at the time !! i was known for quite a while afterwards as a Schlatt-kinnie, which i was happy to lean into. a lot of the plot after that was lost on me - it was my two vice’s that i mentioned before and the rest of the cabinet which really carried things, and i would just pop in whenever i happened to be awake to endorse kitten genocide or something like that then go back to studying. but i’m pretty sure it did continue to trace the DSMP for a while afterwards - i banned the cult party [silverfish2020], so they were pretty quick to form a rebellion group, while i just continued to make worse and worse decisions. to be honest, though, it eventually spiralled out of control - i was taking it so laissez-faire that i forgot some people were genuinely invested, and while i forget details i definitely genuinely pissed a few people off at some point. i remember pretty vividly at one point someone made a post where they said they were worried i was going to doxx them or something like that (?) and i was like damn, this shits more serious than i thought it was. so i arranged to have my character assassinated and noped out - i couldn’t tell you what happened after that (or, frankly, before it). honestly, if you’re interested in niche fandom history though there’s probably something interesting in what went down - worth looking into if you’re bored

Q: Do you remember any other 'Big MCYTblr events'? It's alright if you don't remember what happened during them-- if you can't recall, I'll use them to ask around for people who participated!

A: i don’t rlly remember any other events…i know they happened, but i really had no interest in getting involved beyond answering whatever asks i would get about them. the election from memory was the first Big one (unless prom was first ? idk they were close together) and after that i was very happy to let Quotes as a character die, and i mostly ignored them

plus, it was about that time i started leaving the fandom - maybe a month or so later. by that point the community was Big, and moving fast, and a lot of drama had begun to leak in. you’ve covered some of the controversial blogs etc, and while i didn’t care about them personally they were indicative that the fandom space was different. combine that with me moving out of home and starting university, and i pretty much shut the blog down

Q: What led you to create the mcyt-quotes blog in the first place?

A: ummm i reckon just to have somewhere to talk about minecraft monday. there wasn’t a very dedicated fan base, and fuck knows i wasn’t gonna be talking about minecraft irl in a public aussie high school (i don’t have a death wish) so it just gave me somewhere to collect my thoughts. nothing interesting 🤷‍♀️

Q: Now that you mention it-- what are some of your most memorable moments from Minecraft Monday, whether from creators or the fandom?

A: ahhhhh there were some good ones. the fandom was deeply toxic during minecraft monday, but in a fun way - it felt sorta like following a sport more than anything. a niche reference here, but it felt the same as being a fan of australia’s soccer leagues - everyone hates each other, the organisers are greedy pricks who have no idea what’s going on, and there’s a new, entirely avoidable catastrophe happening every week. i think top moments include: the /top incident, where the fandom was divided after a scandal where Techno used an exploit to beat Vikkstar in an arena game; the a6d beef, where a6d was banned for not having enough viewers and then snuck back in and got into twitter drama with Keemstar; the week were Carson tried to sabotage Techno, leading to some of the most awkward moments possible and resulting in a lot of hate for the guy when he was otherwise still popular; week 7, where literally everything that could be broken was broken; James Charles getting adopted by the Minecraft community after his first cancelling but before everything that went down afterwards; and week 14, where a hacker griefed the arena, destroyed the event, and then accidentally doxxed himself while streaming it all. a fitting end

the main outlet for MCYT back then was actually reddit - there was a very active MCM subreddit which had a ton of statistics etc. the fandom was very into statistics back then, and actually analysing who would be a threat. that increased even more when serious esports players were added to the mix, like XQC and T1yler. they brought the toxic sweaty gamer energy to the competition, and the MC youtubers generally found them hilarious

it’s actually funny how much the vibe of the fandom changes depending on what’s most popular - MCM felt like sports fans, SMPEarth felt like historians, and DSMP was a giant role play arena

Q: Were you a part of the subreddit? (And, if so-- was it any different from MCYT Tumblr?)

A: yeah, i was crazy active on that subreddit !! i was always rooting for either Techno, Schlatt, or James Charles - Techno because he permanently dominated, Schlatt cause i was a casual SMPLive fan, and JC for the meme - and because at the time he was pretty widely accepted, since people loved that he genuinely seemed to get into the competition. funnily, the only time i’ve seen this competitive energy recreated was in the Techno vs Dream duel (which i also got way too competitive about). MCM was the first serious introduction of old school MC youtubers to the new generation - it was fun seeing all the classics slowly come around to Techno when they realised he wasn’t a sweat he was just good, or seeing them try to navigate conversations with the SMPLive gang when the old guard was still trying to be family friendly. the best week was actually Week 14, when a collection of old MCYTbers and new MCYTbers (and James Charles) decided fuck it and went to play on Hypixel for a few hours. it was great. i was also, later, very active on the SMPEarth wiki (the main hub for the fandom in those days) - that place is a gem to this day, and i’m not just saying that because i wrote far too much of it

Q: As time went on, did you see the culture of the fandom shift? What was it like to watch?

A: it shifted a Lot between different phases. even the demographic changed, at different points. you would be hard pressed to imagine that the fans of SMPLive were the same as DSMP, even though there was overlap in creators. even something more recent, like SMPEarth to DSMP - totally different vibe. you can see aspects that influenced each other, though - for example, the SMPE fandom’s obsession with making flags for different factions and putting factions at war with each other absolutely led into the establishment of L’Manburg. then Eret had his betrayal moment, and it turned from SMPE style war roleplay (which you would have on SMPLive, even, for example with the Stal conflict) to actual personal role play, where there were characters separate from the content creators. that division had never been identified before. that was when u started to see a lot of the mainstay parts of today’s fandom pop up - e.g. the c! vs cc! shorthand, or the constant division of content creators onto duos or other groups, and (of course) the shipping debates started up. they had always been there, especially in the Dream side of the fandom (which evolved spiritually from the Skeppy side, imo, which had similar debates) but they Really blew up with DSMP

that’s sort of when i stepped out - nothing against that style of fandom, it’s just not for me

Q: I've heard a lot of people who were in 2019-2020 MCYTblr say that the fandom was a lot more close-knit during that time-- was that your experience of it, too?

A: very much so. it was inevitable, we were a small bunch. i wouldn’t go so far as to say that everyone knew everyone, but everyone definitely had a mutual friend. i mean, hell, even connections to the creators were common - a lot of people on stuff like love or host were fans themselves. of course, looking back at the way that power was abused by certain creators paints it in a different light, but at the time it was fun

Q: Are there any fandom in-jokes, copypastas, running bits, or anything similar that you can remember from your time in the fandom?

A: too many to name. most of them id get in my inbox and just be confused, tbh, like the Kroger anon or some of the kinnies. i’ll try to go through some pre-DSMP era ones from the top of my head. the Hey Wilbur copypasta was cursed, as was SMPRompa (which i actually read the first couple chapters of, out of morbid curiosity. it was an experience). Stal, of course, was iconic in its time, as was the cuck shed. there was Keemstar being referred to as a gnome, his beef with the Skeppy gang, the ‘I could kiss you’ incident, ‘Hey Technoblade’. Jschlatt’s love or host bit where he was a closeted, deeply christian man made the rounds. Technoplane, of course. the Carson crying meme, and Gumball killing James Charles. Petezahutt dropping MCM to spite Keemstar, and Keemstar lying about it. ‘Preston is rusty’ was a classic MCM era meme, after the two fucking dominated. the sheer amount of times MCM got hacked was a bit of an in-joke, as was who actually won week 7 (to this day we didn’t know)

Q: Alright, and last one! Is there anything else you can remember/want archived, or any comments about MCYTblr as a whole?

A: ummmm i don’t think so ! i’ve said pretty much everything that immediately comes to mind. definitely an interesting fandom - one of the most unique i’ve seen. i appreciate your account a lot ! it’s funny to see old posts pop up again

[syn4k]

The CC's Responses to the MCYTBlr Sexyman Polls, Thread 4: This Is Getting Seriously Out Of Hand

welcome welcome welcome all and sundry to the fourth thread we've had to make on this topic, because folks, there is a LOT of material!

our name is Keys and we'll be your host for... the rest of this event, since nobody else is really doing anything else like this. since we're on thread four, i figured i might as well let y'all know what's going on here and a quick recap of what we've been covering, as well as some facts and questions that literally nobody has asked.

if you are anywhere in MCYTBlr and indeed in other fandoms here on Tumblr, there's a good chance you've heard about the MCYTBlr Sexyman Polls, which I've helpfully put in the title of this post so that people don't get confused! if you haven't, though, the polls themselves are hosted by the @mcytblrsexymen blog and are heavily inspired by Tumblr's own Sexyman Polls of 2022, but specifically for the MCYT fandom. they've been going on since Feb. 5th, 2023, or 6 days ago as of today, with the later polls often gaining upwards of 20,000 votes!

if you want to see all of the shenanigans and hijinks going on within the fandom (and subfandoms) itself here on tumblr, the best place to get a good luck at all of that is at the blog itself, which I linked above. fellow journalist @salemoleander has also whipped together some INCREDIBLE short videos going over the events and tragedies of this event since day 1, one of which I've been featured on myself!

this thread, and all threads before it, which if you're interested are linked to in my pinned post on my blog, are focused rather on the nominees' reactions and responses to this poll. i take screenshots on Twitter to post here, and also try and get stream clips to quote, although since I never watch streams this is a bit difficult for me. i also have done an interview with a nominee himself, and with one of the mods on the official blog itself!

FAQ

Q: Lots of nominees are campaigning really hard for themselves. Are you going to cover that? A: I have before, yes, but to keep things as unbiased as possible in the spirit of journalism I'm probably just going to drop that. Sorry Joe Hills.

Q: There's a lot of people submitting things as soon as they happen to the blog itself. If that's going on faster than you can cover it yourself, then what's the point of this? A: Well, this has always been something we've been doing for fun. I assume people follow the main account as well if they follow me for this, but they can get their news fresh from the spigot there. I'm just here to make funny jokes about it and vibe.

Q: I've seen you refer to yourself as "we" and "us" sometimes despite maintaining that you're just one person running the blog- what's up with that? A: That is not a typo! The person behind this blog (hello, that's me, I'm typing this) is plural, and in fact we are very casually open about it. We regularly switch between referring to ourself as "us" and "we." This is an advantage in several ways because not only can we accurately pull off the "over to you, Keys! over to you, Keys!" joke like, forever, it also provides some Headmate Enrichment™️ whenever someone wants to join in on the fun. Also plural people are just inherently cool and wouldn't you want to have a cool person bringing you news?

Q: Where's the Dominion coverage of this? A: We have made the executive decision to not include the Dominioners since they have single-handedly made our life hell and made up half of our second thread. No hard feelings.

And now to the actual reporting.

JoeHills and ZombieCleo have been spotted campaigning quite heavily for themselves over on Twitter, as per the norm the past few days!

Martyn has been spotted on his stream voting!

Quackity made a tweet yesterday evening saying he didn't know what he won but thanks anyways!

Also, this isn't exactly a nominee update nor an external one but shhh, the polls have gone live during the U.S.A Superbowl. This is hilarious to me because our father is a huge sportsball fan and this is like, gay person sportsball for the rest of Tumblr. Godspeed to the mods.

[bisluthq]

Let me ask you this, what do you think TTB gets out of all of this? I’ve asked other blogs this question and I’ve gotten “sHe haZzzZ aLL tHE poWerrZzzzz” but, I don’t buy that. Like I’m sure she gets way more hate and angst than actual stans in her inbox, especially with bratty mean girls constantly trying to troll her. That and constantly having to come up with the next narrative has to be extremely mentally exhausting. I’m not saying I believe her, I’m just really curious as to what the pay out is for her. I know you don’t know her and you aren’t inside her head, but I’m interested in your opinion. Thanks!

Hahaha I love that “I don’t know and I don’t live inside that person’s head” is like this blog’s MANTRA now. But yes THANKFULLY I do not know her krazy ass and I deeeefinitely don’t live in her head though if I could visit for like an afternoon I’d ABSOLUTELY GO. Saddle in it’s story time:

I mean... Y’all I think she’s just A CONSPIRACY NUT. I’ve gone through every possible theory: she’s drunk off the power, she’s sekritly kloseted, she’s a troll (yup I even entertained that). But tbh I think she’s just a conspiracist. Like... She blatantly denies reality. She speaks in konspiracist phrases and ways (if she wasn’t doing this I am CONVINCED that she’d be a QAnon so actually thank goodness for this keeping her out of that, it’s for sure the lesser of two evils). She constantly moves the goal posts. She thinks there are sekrit forces controlling The Girls. And again she blatantly denies reality. Idk. I think she’s just a cult leader of a cult she genuinely beliebs in, same as a lot of Qs and same as people who think the British Royal Family are Lizards and same as people who think the Earth is flat and people who think it’s donut shaped and and and

Like I don’t know if it’s deeper than that. She borrows on other conspiracies to support this one (Q is lowkey one tbh, general antisemitic conspiracy fantasies are another). She looks for “signs” (from WHO WE DO NOT KNOW). She is not a fan of either of The Girls, she clearly lowkey hates both, and her understanding of sexuality is non-existent. People on her blog just repeat and repeat stuff with no fact checking and think it’s true. It’s a standard conspiracy.

So I think she’s just a straight lady who found a conspiracy/konspiracy she highkey loved and got into it. And it’s really hard to break out of konspiracist thinking. I hope she manages to one day because I don’t actually think she’s having fun rn. I kinda feel sorry for her. But I don’t excuse her racism and antisemitism and homophobia and biphobia so only kinda.

Anyway, what we’re doing here is not that. Firstly, we’re not saying we know anything. Secondly, we accept reality because... Dudes, it’s reality. All we’re doing is saying pop star Taylor Swift doesn’t seem 100% straight, and that it’s okay to speculate about it because 1) her entire life is an Easter Egg and 2) if she isn’t queer, she queerbaited. It’s that simple. It’s not deeper than that. It’s totally possible to have this discussion without being a highkey conspiracist. Same as you can poke holes in the Kennedy assassination story without being like WOAH HERE IS THE REAL TRUTH!!! THE ALIENS DID IT!!!! Like we don’t ever know the whole truth in these types of stories, we just know when evidence doesn’t completely add up. That’s not indulging a conspiracy, it’s just speculating. Critical thinking is BRILLIANT. Cults are not. The fact that people go from her to being passionately anti and like... trying to ‘free’ people is also part of the cult mentality. 

So ya You Know Who runs a conspiracist cult and that’s the simple truth of it.

[noxtms]

AFTER THE OVERNIGHT SUCCESS of rita skeeters second biographical novel, the boy who lived & other tragic tales, the audacious blonde tells us here at the prophet that she very briefly considered fading into anonymity. ”it was the perfect time,” she admits, that charming smile never fading, “and my publisher certainly would have had me do it. get out at the height of it, rita, and leave them ALWAYS wanting more. that’s what he told me, and that was the plan. put down the quill. move to france. write... travel blogs, maybe, for the rest of my days.” she LAUGHS, and it’s difficult not to laugh with her. the image of this woman ever leaving down that iconic peacock quill is laughable. “but you know better than anyone : once i get a hint of a story that needs to be told, there is nothing, not even that desire for sandy beaches and endless sunshine alongside a strong cocktail, that can pull me away from it. and that is what this is. ‘SEVERUS SNAPE: SWAN SONG’ might be, perhaps, my own... i won’t say. but it is also a story that deserved to be told.”

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE :  

rita skeeter’s book launch, being held on june 10th, 2020, includes a questions and answers panel at flourish and botts ( please clear your questions with miss skeeters publicity team in advance ), after party in the leaky cauldron ( booked out entirely for the event ) & discounts and special treats in shops all along diagon alley itself ( madam malkin’s is giving out imitations of miss skeeters iconic spectacles, amanuensis quills is providing quality peacock quills at a 20% discount and fortescue’s ice cream parlour promises your ice cream, free, if you promise you didn’t purchase and don’t plan on purchasing a copy - unrelated to the event, but they’ll never know if you lie ! ). 

to date, she has now written three books : 

the life & lies of albus dumbledore : a tell all exposé on albus dumbledore and his young life, that ‘stripped away the popular image of serene, silver bearded wisdom, revealing a disturbed childhood, lawless youth, lifelong feuds and guilty secrets carried to his grave’.

the boy who lived & other tragic tales : a biographical book claimed to be the true life stories of a number of the victims of the battle of hogwarts ( among them fred weasley, padma patil, colin creevey, remus lupin, vincent crabbe and, for some reason, cedric diggory ) but focusing a frankly INNAPROPRIATE amount upon harry potter himself. rita had initially been intending on writing a biography for him along until her publisher convinced her otherwise, but some of her ‘hot takes’ could be pried from her cold dead hands. it sit on the bestseller list in england and america for several weeks.

severus snape, swan song : another biographical book, the blurb of which reads ‘severus snape was known by many as the ill temptered and largely unliked potions master at hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. his highly publicized role in the death of albus dumbledore and his brief period as headmaster at the aforementioned school during the time it was run largely by the dark lords most loyal followers painted a narrative of a man dedicated to the wrong sides cause : but what if i were to tell you that despite the story spun all these years... we were wrong? through the lens of severus snape’s own ( verified ) memories, i, rita skeeter, bring you a new narrative. one of a boy raised in a volatile home in spinners end, a teen who made a mistake, a young man who lost the love of his life... and a war wearied individual who tried his whole life to save her son, and played the role of villain so that no one else had to.’

OUT OF CHARACTER:

she’s sure gone and done it now ! rita skeeter has proven to be quite the master of dropping bombshell level books when the wizarding community least expects them, and let me confirm what i’m sure you’re all wondering, right off the bat : she really HAS revealed severus snapes life story to the wizarding world, with this new book of hers. rita’s unregistered animagus form came in CLUTCH, for her, as she fell into possession of memories that were lost in the cleanup of the war ( and subsequently verified by the ministry of magic themselves, papers confirming which will be released through the prophet on the morning of her surprise book release ). memories that harry potter watched before heading off to the forbidden forest. memories that changed everything : told him the real role he was to play, exposed the truth about severus snapes role in everything, and revealed just how far albus dumbledore went in his striving to defeat the dark lord. i know. it’s a doozy ! 

 rita skeeter now possesses the most valuable information of all, and unfortunately for everyone, she hasn’t kept her big mouth shut : though colored by the vapid voice she employs to write her greatest hits, the information is now out in the world. public opinion is naturally going to shift on severus snape as more and more people read / hear about her work, but since the book is heavily biased against dumbledore, opinions are going to change there, too - and many might begin assigning to the idea of one man being an unsung hero, while the other was an over glorified VILLAIN. the only person getting off easy is harry potter, who of course, is just yet another tragic sidenote. 

the event is beginning NOW ( june 15th ) and will end in a week, or there abouts - the end date might change based on wider involvement, but you’ll be informed in advance if it does !

for the purpose of the event, i’ve set up a sideblog @skeetertms - you read it right ! rita skeeter herself is making an appearance, and her open starter is right here for you to reply to if you so choose ! depending on how fun it is, and whether i can come up with a good reason to justify it, she might be sticking around a while past the event - we’ll see ! 

the book release ( including the early morning q & a session, the late night party at the leaky cauldron where there will be live music, an open bar and free food & of course, the wider event upon diagon alley ) is an open event, meaning that while press was invited, everyone else is just sort of.. turning up. your character might just stumble upon it, while on diagon alley. they might genuinely want to be there, as a fan of rita skeeters work. really, it’s up to you - but given the fact this is not an intensive event, you are more than welcome to continue your older threads in addition to starting new ones ! 

speaking of event starters : they should be tagged as nox.event003 ! the location is diagon alley, but feel free to specify where ! 

if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to message the main ! please reply to this post with ‘beetle’ once you’ve read it ! 

[trainsinanime]

Red Web Mystery Reviews

Red Web is a podcast by Rooster Teeth featuring two guys from that whole Achievement Hunter thing that I can never tell apart (but you don’t need to know anything about this) about unsolved mysteries that often but not always have something to do with the internet. Let’s review the episodes out so far, because… well, no reason, honestly, I just wanted to.

Lake City Quiet Pills

Based on their information presented here, this whole thing and their explanation for it seem plausible enough. You have to assume that this group of apparently assassins is kind of bad at operational security, but there’s actually a lot of cases where big criminals got exposed because they used the same URL or E-mail address or similar.

Satoshi Nakamoto

I already knew about this beforehand, and I would say they did a good job explaining it. Personally, I think they should have gone into a bit more of how much a shit-show the whole Newsweek Dorian Nakamoto thing was; in short, there was no reason to believe this person had anything to do with Bitcoin, he didn’t even speak good english (which is probably what caused some of the misunderstandings), and it was both a huge embarrassment for Newsweek (at least I hope they felt embarrassed) and they needlessly hounded a completely uninvolved person for this.

But then they get into new evidence, and we see a problem that I think is a bit systematic: They don’t really go into how trustworthy the evidence is. Specifically, they say that the one person who can cast light on this might be… John McAfee. Fucking John McAfee. Seriously, that guy?

For context: John McAfee did indeed create the antivirus company that still bears his name. But he sold it in the 1990s, and thanks to money and drugs, he’s just gotten plain crazy ever since. There was the whole thing where he was implicated in a murder in Belize a couple of years ago; he kept blogging from a jail in Guatemala, later returned to the US, and keeps being part of outlandish schemes (including two presidential runs, though he failed to get the nomination for libertarian candidate both 2016 and 2020), controversies, and supposedly super-awesome tech startups that never go anywhere. It makes perfect sense that he’d claim to be involved in the creation of Bitcoin. It makes no sense whatsoever to believe him. If you’re interested and have way too much time, read what El Reg has to say about him.

Mortis

Oh god. This one makes me both want to laugh and cry. Mostly laugh, to be honest, because it is such an obvious nothing burger, but also weep for the internet that was.

The story is that they found a participant in an early internet warez network who wasn’t that great at OpSec. This is only fully revealed at the end, and they don’t even seem to have noticed that this case is clearly and completely solved.

Most of the humour for me comes from the fact that they’re rediscovering the old pre-social web, and are convinced that it’s all weird and nefarious. Why would one person register websites for their interests, and then never do anything with them? Because that’s what the internet was like back then in the late 1990s and early 2000s! Hey, look, here’s my ugly special-interest website from that era that hasn’t been updated in years and isn’t going to be updated any time soon either. That’s just what was normal back then. Same with a website for every person, or trying to do your own garage sales via your website. That was the thing to do back then. And yes, obviously it sucked and didn’t work very well.

They even realise that this is what „might“ have been going on, and theorise about this hypothetical early web. „Maybe if there was some website that linked all these together and allowed you to search“ - yeah, those existed. Digg and Technorati and Del.icio.us, remember those? All bought by Yahoo and promptly forgotten. And to be fair, they never worked as well as real social networks did.

But back then we had this glorious freedom. No sudden porn bans like here on Tumblr; no need to match any predefined template for what posts are, no user tracking by Facebook, nobody telling you that you’re tagging your posts wrong…

It’s understandable why we lost that web. Linking together is much easier if all content is owned and controlled by like four companies. It also makes it much easier to set up a new account; setting up a new website is just a lot of pain and knowledge you have to have that you don’t necessarily want to have.

But now we live in our monocultures and must live with whatever content decisions our corporate overlords make and then sell us as „community standards“, and the wild and weird web that we used to have is only a memory. And sometimes not even that; sometimes these new young kids treat it as a „weird nefarious mystery“. Actually, I just looked it up, and Alfredo and Trevor are both around 30, just a few years younger than I am. They were alive for at least the tail end if this. These guys could have known this shit!

So, yeah, the story here is not the mystery; it’s a lament for the web we lost.

D.B. Cooper

Again one I already knew, and I think they gave a good overview. Personally I’m in the camp of people who assume that he failed to make a safe landing.

Happy Valley Dream Survey

This seems vaguely interesting. One thing that kind of annoys me about this podcast is that they (well mostly Alfredo) generally assume that everything strange is necessarily nefarious, without any evidence. The whole thing here leads nowhere, after all.

Lead Masks Case

Again, I’m not sure how much weight to put on the other evidence they listed, especially that whole supposed UFO sighting. Yes, that one woman may have been very respected in her community and/or had a high social status, whatever that means. But the thing is that rich people who are super-involved in their church community or whatever can still (through no fault of their own) be unreliable witnesses and invent things that weren’t there, or not the way they were described.

Cicada 3301 (parts 1 and 2)

Personally I find this one less interesting because it’s not a mystery, it’s a riddle, and that’s way less fun. Much of the circumstances are weird enough, I guess.

What confuses me the most about this is how it’s supposed to be a recruitment tool, but it doesn’t seem to be very good at that. A lot of the steps don’t really seem to be that difficult and require just some fairly standard hacker skills. This is similar to the Satashi Nakamoto case, where one hint was „knows C++ programming“. Lots of people know that, and it’s something you can totally teach yourself. And if the people who were recruited through this were really supposed to program software, well… why did no part of this test whether they could do so? That’s a whole different skill. My conclusion is that this Cicada group is either a long con or a group that is nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is.

One thing to note here: They just casually assume that the FBI and NSA and so on are monitoring the whole internet, in real time, all the time. Which is true, we know that thanks to Edward Snowden. Isn’t that much more nefarious than any of the other mysteries here put together? How did we get to a place where Americans both think „this is the country that has all the freedom“ and „if you say or search for the wrong things you’ll get put on a government watchlist that’s just normal“ at the same time? Pervasive monitoring of a population is pretty much the exact opposite of freedom, but apparently we all in the western world just take it in stride anyway. That’s nothing to do with this podcast, though.

Conclusion

Generally okay podcast. The hosts are good storytellers, even if the stories are sometimes a bit shaky. It is at least at no point overly gross or insultingly stupid (unlike the official Rooster Teeth Podcast, which is both). So I think I can recommend it if you need something, anything to fill the quiet, and you’re already out of episodes of Black Box Down.

[commandomal]

ATTENTION! TORD ATTEMPTED SUICIDE!!!

        Before we start, I would like to give a special thanks to @waffledoesablog for finding this hilarious comic that was drawn by Tord.

Now, onto the matter of life and death findings. When I went to Tord’s Wiki page to see if I could locate anymore information on him, I noticed in the external links, there was a Wayback Machine link to his account on SheezyArt, a website that no longer exists on the web anymore. I will link the page here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060111175516/http://kalashnicola.sheezyart.com:80/ I was unable to access everything on the archive due to the Wayback Machine not recording everything for some reason but I was able to obtain a lot of critical information. Believe me when I say that I went through everything with a thin-toothed comb.

        As you can see here: I have collected as much of his art that I could access, including the custom avatars he made for his page and as you can see, he is a very, talented artist. I have also listed the groups he was in and as you can see, he was definitely a very, nice person.

        I have also collected all of his profile info which not only shares his interests but also shows more evidence of his sever bullying. We will address that a little later, though. Several of the profiles list his name as: Tord Maximillion Cyrano Welhaven. I do believe that this is his actual name for a couple of reasons, one being that Tom has stated in his Q&A video that Tord has gone under a fake name before, the second reason being that Edd Gould himself confirmed his middle name to be Maximillion on this very website and the third reason being the fact that Larsson is often spelled wrong when referring to Tord. Not only is the last name, Larson Swedish, not Norwegian but Tord often spells it wrong. Larson only has one S. while Tord always spells his supposed, last name with two.

While Tord claims to not have Communistic views, his pages are often Communist-themed. I don’t know if he was lying about not having Communistic views to repel any, further negative attention, he changed his mind a bit later into the future or he was just joking around. Though he claims to have never owned or even touched a real gun, his love as well as his knowledge of guns seems to stem from his love of shooting video-games as seen in this journal entry, here.

        Here is more of Tord’s art as well as more evidence of Tord being a kind and generous person. Not only did he love The Lord with all his heart but Tord was also very uplifting toward the followers of his that had low self-esteem. Judging by some of the titles of certain pictures (that I unfortunately could not get to appear) as well as quite a few comments in certain comment sections, Tord clearly drew a lot of erotic art that he often got flack for. This is most-likely the true origin of his bullying: Annoying S.J.W.s who believe that erotic art is just as ‘cringy’ as the comments they go out of their way to leave on the pieces but if this is not enough proof that Tord could never possibly be afraid of his fangirls, then I am not sure what is.

        In this next collection of posts, consisting of question-based games that Tord often played: We are given a bunch of interesting information about Tord such as: His interests, his allergies and even what he smells like. We also get more proof that he was not only bullied online but in person as well. Proof of clinical depression as well as his suicidal wishes and attempts are also shown. He also mentions two of his exes, one of which is dead (and no, it is not Edd) while the other one cheated on him but we’ll talk about her a little later.

Tord tends to be a very secretive person so I’ve cut out the questions where he gave a vague answer for the sake of saving space.

        As mentioned prior, Tord is a very, secretive person, who seems drops obvious hints that something may be wrong in his life as a silent cry for help.

        Below is proof of Tord’s dead girlfriend as well as more interesting facts about him, more of him being a sweetheart and his backstory of meeting Edd from his perspective. As you can see: He and Edd were close enough to be brothers.

As you can see: Tord was so generous, that he refused to accept money for requests and would draw them for free.

       In this post, Tord shows clear signs of clinical depression such as: Sleeping a lot just to pass time and openly admitting that he thinks no one cares about him enough to read his posts, example being the post, referring to his new tattoo. The picture of Tord’s tattoo will not show up on the site and the only picture where it can be seen, it is a bit hard to tell what it is but thanks to Kofi.Na, who found an old, yet hilarious drawing of Edd’s, which I will link here: https://aminoapps.com/c/eddsworld-community/page/blog/guys-guys/7eMk_nkjCPu4xYBgjqwBlBrjj23mq8NmXzq we can finally see Tord’s tattoo, clearly. As you can see: Tord’s tattoo is of an oddly-shaped, Oriental dragon of which he hilariously, yet cleverly named ‘Wang’.

        I have enhanced and colored the tattoo so you can all see it more clearly and yes, I promise this is all relevant. There are a few, more hate-comments from both trolls as well as femi-nazis but this is where things begin to go too far. A website, that Tord really seemed to enjoy and was a loyal follower of decided to betray one of their most-loyal followers my making an entire hate-page about him. This one especially makes me sick to my stomach because I have been in Tord’s position before in this particular situation so I know exactly what he’s feeling: He feels frightened by the fact that someone would actually hate him badly enough to go this far and stalk him in such a manner. He also feels angry for the same reasons and is jealous of other content-creators, wondering why they are not subject to this type of harassment as well, which also makes him feel alone.

        His passion has been tainted by all of these feelings, leading him to not only lose his passion but grow to hate it as well. Due to how threatened he felt by all of this hate, he becomes colder and more untrusting, he begins to exert aggression in an attempt to appear more intimidating in the hopes that his stalkers will leave him alone. I have enlarged a few of the titles that have angered me most and in all honesty, this discrimination against erotic artists has got to stop; it has gone way, too far at this point. Tord was already contemplating suicide before this by planning what he wants his own gravestone to look like, which this terrible website shamelessly made fun of and someone drawing erotic pictures is not a valid reason to nearly push them to a fellow human-being to suicide. This website is still around but this page is no longer up.

        Nevertheless, they still need donations to keep this site running and Tord is not the only victim they’ve harassed so please do not donate to this site, they do not deserve it and if you give them money, you are a bad person. This site should honestly be taken down immediately and why people have actually donated money to this hate is beyond my understanding.

       Now to discuss the infamous, cheating-ex, mentioned prior: As you can see Tord was dating a user by the name of Crybaby. They have met in real life before but not often enough for this girl’s liking. Upon clicking on this girl’s page, we can see that her real name is Cheryl, she lives somewhere in Britain and in the most-recent capture of her page, is married to someone, who is clearly not Tord. I am unsure if she is still married to this person but judging by her ‘nature,’ it is highly unlikely that anyone would stay with her long. She mentions in several of her journal entries that her and Tord have not been getting along, her main complaint being that he is not online often enough, which was most-likely due to his harassment-induced depression.

        She seemed to be a very, slutty person as she has not only posted on her page ‘a list of people that she has sex with for free,’ WHILE SHE WAS STILL WITH TORD but she also posted a link on Tord’s page that clearly upset him. Now, I could not get the link to work but judging by Tord and Cheryl’s lingo, it was mostly an inappropriate picture of one of her various side-dudes. She even went as far as to flirt with Edd, who is clearly uncomfortable with this, which if this is not how Tord found out about her tendencies, this was then most-likely the final straw for him. She has also openly admitted in one of her journal-quizzes that she has cheated ‘once.’ Now, I am not sure if this is a lie because she appears to have cheated a lot or if she only cheated on Tord with multiple people to spite him for reasons that are still unclear. Coincidentally, she posted this journal entry quiz in which she admits that she Tord has officially broken up with her and he will most-likely never forgive her, shortly after posting an entry explaining that she and Tord were ‘taking a break.’

        I would also like to elaborate on the verbal-abuse that Cheryl often inflicted upon Tord. I was unable to access the picture but judging but judging by their conversation, Cheryl drew a picture of Tord with grey hair to make fun of him for having really, light-blond hair, which is most-likely why Tord dyed his hair brunette. Tord was not the only person Cheryl bullied with her art (despite him being her boyfriend) but she also bullied Edd as well. She not only posted a picture, calling them both ‘pervs’ but she also proceeded to trash-talk them in the comments. She even made fun of them directly when they expressed that they were clearly upset by this.

       Tord was not only bullied by strangers but a few people, who were once his friends even decided to suddenly turn on him, jumping on this bandwagon. I also know what it feels like to have my friends suddenly turn on me for the sake of joining my bullies. It is almost as if the bullies planted them there in advance to cause extra pain during the attack. This is one-hundred percent how Tord developed trust-issues as well as his introverted tendencies. Can anyone really blame him, though? People he loved and trusted legitimately betrayed him, I know exactly how he feels.

        Judging by how these people have not been blocked yet: Tord is clearly a lot like me and can be convinced to forgive people like this easily. However, trust is like a mirror; you can fix it if it broke but you can still see the crack in the reflection. Tord very noticeably either ignores the offenders when they comment, replies to them with snarky comments or interrogates their true intentions.

        To add insult to injury, Tord’s girlfriend at the time, Cheryl also betrayed his trust and jumped on that bullying-bandwagon. She even went as far as to call him the L.G.B.T. F-word, which is most-likely why Tord has stopped talking to her. I can honestly say from experience that when a friend betrays you by bullying you, it can be very hurtful to the point of being nearly impossible to fully forgive the person but I do not even want to imagine the pain of a significant-other doing this to you. For Tord to stay in a relationship with her after this, despite barely talk to her afterwards, he really must have cared about her. The betrayals also seem to be what finally lead to Tord’s downfall seeing as how he began to disable comments on certain submissions of his only to disappear for a month shortly after. Upon his return, he posted a disclaimer, discouraging people from leaving hateful comments on his page.

        Now, to talk about Edd. To say that Edd was Tord’s best-friend would be an understatement. Tord and Edd were not just friends; they loved each other (platonically as brothers). Edd even looked up to Tord like a role-model, admiring every, single aspect of his personality as well as his appearance while Tord clearly viewed Edd as almost a son, even going as far as to openly claim that Edd was his favorite person. When Tord was being bullied, Edd not only continuously attempted to comfort him but also went out of his way to defend Tord in noticeable posts. When Tord returned from his hiatus, Edd continued to be defensive of him, even going as far as to monitor comments that people have left on his posts.

       And now for the main point of this blog: Tord’s suicide attempt. Before Tord took his month-long hiatus, he posted a journal-entry, claiming that he was not feeling well and upon his return, Tord posted a journal entry, claiming that while he would be active, he would be unable to draw for a bit, due to hurting his right hand. He would not disclose how exactly he injured his hand but the secretiveness of this entry as well as the conversations he has had with others heavily imply that this injury was intentional. He eventually forced himself to draw a picture of himself with his injured hand, which I could also not get to show. The comments on this post further indicate self-harm and that there was a lot of blood.

        If this alone is not evidence enough that Tord has attempted suicide, he openly admits in a conversation with another user that he is currently unable to join this user’s group due to his suicide attempt. Now, I don’t think Tord admitting to attempting suicide or posting a suicide note alone would provoke the SheezyArt admins to suspend him as well as place a strike on his account that prohibits him from joining groups so I believe Tord took pictures of his fresh injuries when the attempt failed to kill him and posted them online, submitting them to every, single group he was in so everyone who hurt him would see. There are three posts that I suspect contained the image due to how vague and unusual they are.

Furthermore, Edd was incredibly defensive toward someone who was demanding to know why Tord left Eddsworld, almost as if Tord had asked him to keep his suicide attempt a secret. It is also possible that Tord may have went on hiatus to go to rehab for his attempt. Judging by this conversation that Edd and Tom had with the concerned-fan; it is likely that Tom knew about the suicide attempt as well. Now, I do not believe that Tord is dead like Tom said since not only did @le-goopy confirm that he was alive, just in hiding but the motivational private-message I sent to Tord has also been marked as read so he obviously came online recently. However, I do think that Tom said this to make the bullies feel bad for nearly pushing him to suicide.

        DISCLAIMER: This next part is just speculation and I do not know for sure if this is what happened or not. From the previous posts, we know that Tord has intentionally injured his right hand and that there was a lot of blood. However, neither Tord, Edd or Tom ever disclose how Tord hurt himself. However, it is possible that Edd and Tom have subtly slipped hints of Tord’s attempt into their artwork.

        Why would they do this, you may ask? Well, Tord most-likely did not want a lot of attention drawn to his suicide attempt at the time, due to a lot of people gaslighting him so he most-likely begged both Edd and Tom to keep it a secret. Edd however, being the loving person he is, most-likely felt that some light needed to be shined on the situation, due to how out of control the bullying has gotten so he briefly incorporated Tord’s suicide attempt into one of his videos. What video am I referring to?

        The Tord Says Whatever video. Now, it is no secret that Edd practically idolized Tord and would do anything for him. With that being said, it is pretty obvious that Tord Says Whatever was clearly meant to be a motivational video that was meant to cheer Tord up after the bullying incident. The video parodys the original Whatever video by Liam Lynch very closely and whatever did not copy the video, made sense for Tord’s personality, except for one scene. The scene I am referring to involves Tord intentionally sticking a fork in an outlet and electrocuting himself. Not only was this nowhere to be found in the original music-video but it also does not make sense for Eddsworld-Tord to intentionally jam a fork into an electrical, outlet out of nowhere.

        More evidence to support this theory is the fact that Tord clearly uses his right hand in the video to stick the fork in the outlet, the very hand he claimed to have injured to the point of bleeding. I have included a couple of pictures of electrical-burns in this next post and yes, they do indeed bleed at first. Remember that oddly-shaped, dragon tattoo Tord has on his RIGHT arm that I mentioned earlier? Notice how unusual and messy the lines are, some of them being in places they are not supposed to be in, such as inside of the dragon’s body? The lines almost seem to follow the lines of an electrical-burn. Could this tattoo be a cover-up to hide the scarring?

        Also, take notice to how Tord is wearing a wristband on his RIGHT wrist, near his RIGHT hand, the hand he had claimed to have injured. Could this wristband also be hiding a burn-scar? Before you ask: Electrical-burns do sprout up in random patches of the afflicted area as shown in the second picture I included of the burn-wounds. I would also like to point out how the skin between Tord’s wristband as well as his Tattoo appears to be red and irritated; most-likely, the cover-ups only covered the more-gruesome, noticeable parts of the large scar. I would also like to note that Edd took down the Whatever video from his main channel suspiciously-shortly after uploading it only for Tom to later repost it on a channel he created for lost Eddsworld episodes.

        Why did Edd remove this from his main page? Was Tord offended by the hint at his suicide, demanding that Edd take it down and why did Tom repost it? Well, much like Edd, Tom might have wanted people to know about Tord’s attempt as well, seeing as how he actively attempted to make the bullies feel bad for causing it so he hinted at Tord’s attempt in The End. At the end of The End Part 2, Tord is seen with a bad burn on his RIGHT arm, which is once again, not only bleeding but is also in the same area as his actual tattoo. Seeing as how Tom wanted to keep the character of Tord alive as an intimidating villain in one of his upcoming, cartoon series’, it is obvious that he wanted Tord to see himself in the light of a bigger, better person, who fights back after having had enough.

        He wanted Tord to see a remake of himself that was intimidating in order to encourage him not to be afraid of mean people on the internet. AGAIN: This is just speculation; I am unsure if Tord really did try to kill himself by sticking a fork in an outlet but there is evidence in the form of a direct confession from Tord that HE DID indeed try to commit suicide. With that being said: If any of you find any proof that Tord either did try to kill himself via electrocution or proof of a different way he could have attempted his suicide, please send it to me and I will post it as an update.

[trender-sollux]

anti anti discourse megapost

I’m probably not the Best Most Informed person to ask about this stuff but!! here’s the disc horse as I understand it. this is pretty much a tumblr formatted argumentative essay, so buckle up or scroll to the tl;dr as fast as you can.

(I’ll put it under a cut bc 1.) things are gonna get pretty controversial, and 2.) things got Very long Very fast.)

the bg (the intro paragraph)

in fandom, as most people know, people tend to ship characters together. it’s fun to think about what two characters may act like in a relationship, and this gives way for loads of innovative and unique content to be made around ships! communities can be built, friends can be made, and lots of original fan content can be made centered around shipping characters together!

now, everyone has different tastes in ships, whether it be gay straight or somewhere in between, as well as different tastes in dynamics! (take the fave ship dynamics art meme that’s been going around for reference on what that means lmao)

some people may not even like to ship anyone with anyone, choosing instead to focus on lore or more platonic but no less important relationships, which is also just fine!

la problema

there however is copious amounts of people who deem other people’s ships “problematic”.

this in and of itself is not the problem: whether the ship makes them uncomfortable because of:

a large age gap (typically of 10+ years)

one person being a minor and the other an adult

it being an incestuous relationship of any sort (whether by blood or not)

they don’t enjoy the dynamic of the characters (perhaps it’s an unhealthy or simply turbulent relationship)

that is not the problem.

people are allowed to be uncomfortable with pairings! it’s not something they can help! content reminding people of real world issues or trauma are especially touchy, and that’s understandable and completely okay.

people may even be uncomfortable with those that consume that content, whether they have a sound reason or just simply because they don’t like it (they don’t really owe an explanation), and if they should want that content tagged so that they can avoid it, or ask simply that people who like it and post about it not interact with them so that they can further avoid it, that is perfectly okay.

ships can squick people out or even badly trigger them (in the serious mental terminology way not the internet watered down ‘this makes me mad’ way)!

the real problem comes when you have people harassing others for ships they don’t like.

you have loads and loads of call out culture where hundreds of people ridicule targeted shippers for their problematic pairings, calling them pedophiles or incest supporters or whatever buzz word of the day is to make them out to be awful scummy people.

they make call out posts to “expose them”, get people on their side, tell them they shouldn’t enjoy this thing that makes them happy, and in a rather awful amount of cases, send death threats and attempts to dox them/leak their information, things that can ruin actual lives.

all over the enjoyment of fictional pairings.

you can replace “ships” with just “fictional characters” or “stories” and you have anti-fiction discourse, where people harass the fans (or authors/creators!) of specific “problematic” characters or stories the same way they do shippers.

(also, about to get real controversial here, but you could also replace shippers w/ fujoshi/fudanshi and get the same effect. I know that saying fujoshi are gross is the hot new trend, but anti-fujoshi are just as bad as anti-shippers. I’m significantly less qualified to talk on that and I can link some really great posts if you want more info on that mess, but for now I’ll just say I’m pro-fujoshi and go.)

(if you go through the vld ship tags, I guarantee you will run into a lot of this for reference, though tw for death threats and A Lot of them. kl@nce has an infamous anti following, and anti-sh@l@din has a very fervent following as well.)

these people commonly refer to themselves as the broad and catch-all term “anti”. anti-insert ship here, anti-insert character here, anti-insert story here. they are against them, those who create content for them, and those who just sit back and enjoy them.

why that’s bad

at first glance, this seems like a good thing.

after all, people who consume that content must condone it, right? why else would they enjoy it? and if they condone such awful things, they’re awful people and they must deserve whatever happens to them! they’re dangerous! they deserve threats and misery and the loss of their jobs! they don’t deserve to be happy! they don’t deserve to be alive!

this mentality is really why a lot of antis end up being young people with an interest in activism. social activism is a good thing, after all. raising awareness about real problems through a social platform is a good thing.

it also tends to attract young trauma survivors who went through similar experiences as those portrayed in fiction.

not all antis are young/naive. that’s too much of a scapegoat (that they already use themselves too much). there are a lot of adult antis.

however, a lot of anti rhetoric is specifically targeted at minors. some antis will go out of their way to harass adults that make explicit content for other adults, saying that they are predatory for making it because it makes the anti uncomfortable.

I’m not saying I was immune either; for a while I thought that was just.

antis have a tricky way of worming themselves out of responsibility like that, after all. they make the victim out to be deserving of punishment, whatever it may be, whether it be some public humiliation or threats or leasing information that could put them in real actual danger (which is illegal, by the way.)

I never participated in death threats or anything (they made me,, really uncomfortable), but for a while, at very least, the public shaming made sense.

however, this doesn’t actually help trauma survivors. it doesn’t help people that actually go through horrible situations like the ones depicted in fiction. it doesn’t help those who are groomed by pedophiles, or abused by family members, or in abusive relationships.

what it does do is bully and ridicule people for something that inspires them and brings them happiness. people who did nothing wrong.

this is commonly referred to as performative activism.

you take the name of something vile and awful, and use it to say you are doing something for the greater good, a righteous and necessary evil, but really you are doing nothing at all. nothing progressive to help those in need, nothing daring or brave, nothing to make the world a better, kinder place. nothing.

it can be done out of the desire to help, or the desire to make a difference as someone who isn’t sure how, but your intent isn’t the issue on the table. the fact is that anti rhetoric hurts innocent people.

walking through common anti talk points (q&a)

now, I know that there are people who interact w/ my tiny blog who are antis, and actually one of my super tiny follower count is an anti (which I’m a lil sad about bc they have super cool art and a generally positive blog; not to be indirect but I also don’t wanna be like Hey I Don’t Agree With You In Particular. like nah they’re really cool actually and I hope they’re having a chill day), and for you antis reading this, you may be thinking, “sol, I see what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced antis are all that bad!”

well, it’s time for a lil bit of q&a!!

What makes problematic content innocent?

the content itself isn’t hurting anyone.

content, online especially in this day and age , is oftentimes tagged to make sure no one is triggered by the content they want to enjoy. if not tagged, usually descriptions or summaries include warnings. if not in the summary, ratings (like in movies) are also a good indicator of what you should look out for.

let’s say, for example’s sake, someone ends up ignoring the warning and consuming the content anyway, and ends up hurt because of it.

the content is not at fault, the willful ignorance of the person is.

What if they didn’t know to read the warning?

they were still warned. this should be taken as a learning experience, and they should be more careful in the future. it may sound harsh, but not knowing how something works isn’t exactly any excuse. people aren’t exempt from consequences because they didn’t know how something works.

What makes the creators of problematic content innocent?

a lot of people have the misconception that if someone makes content for something, they think it’s okay or would do something like it in real life.

this is not inherently true.

I’m not saying there may be predatory content creators out there, but that definitely does not mean that all content creators that produce things with dark themes always always think that it’s okay in real life.

there is such a thing as exploratory fiction. this is where although you know something is bad and dangerous, you’d like to know more about it and envision scenarios around it from a safe environment. writing or making art won’t leave you with permanent life ruining trauma, but you still get to explore that concept and sate that curiosity.

exploratory fiction can even be used as a coping mechanism for trauma survivors! that’s right!! some of the exact same trauma survivors that antis claim to want to protect and give voices to are some of the people hurt by their rhetoric.

my own traumas and potential anecdotes aside, I don’t really know much about this topic and as such I’ll let other survivors get more in depth/talk more personally if they’d like (as no survivors deals with their trauma the same way), but I know for a fact that exploring something that hurt you badly in the past can be an excellent way for someone to better understand themselves, what they went through, and better cope with what happened.

it may seem like making light of a bad situation, but it’s their trauma to deal with, not anyone else’s. no one can tell them that they’re reacting wrong. if it makes them happy and isn’t inherently hurting anyone, it shouldn’t be taken away from them.

(I’ve seen anti rhetoric directly harm trauma/abuse survivors and for their privacy I won’t name them but don’t come @ me w/ your “But I’m A Trauma Survivor And I’m An Anti” junk. I’m not saying you can’t be a trauma survivor and an anti. I’m simply saying that antis can’t exactly be counted as completely innocent and uwu-unproblematic either.)

What makes the fans/consumers of problematic content innocent?

by reading something or looking at something, did you just hurt somebody?

did you read this book or look at this art and in doing so just ruin someone’s entire life by violating them or some other heinous act?

no. that’s not how anything works ever.

by writing about murder, did someone just take a knife and kill someone? did someone die because they wrote a book? is every murder mystery author actually a murderer?

no. (but that would make an excellent murder mystery novel. an unreliable narrator who is revealed to be the murderer all along lol writing prompt)

by that same token, reading about someone dying doesn’t make you a murderer or as good as one.

people may come to realize things about themselves through fiction, as access to terminology and information may help them develop, but someone can enjoy fiction simply because it makes them happy and they enjoy it.

But consuming problematic content can inspire someone to do something problematic! Fiction affects reality!

taking inspiration from something and putting something into action are two entirely different things.

assuming a person has the presence of mind not to be so susceptible to suggestion that they do everything they see on tv, fictional content on the damn internet shouldn’t be any different.

But what about Jaws? Shark hunting saw a huge spike after its release because people were all afraid of sharks because of it!*

people were already afraid of sharks. people probably already wanted to hunt sharks, dude. what do you think inspired the original movie?

I mean, a huge carnivorous fish with rows and rows of teeth? and it occasionally came up and just took chunks out of people?? it was horror/thriller material just begging to be used.

shark attacks definitely got more publicity because of the success of the movie, but if you think there wasn’t a fear of sharks before Jaws, you’re either super dense or super short sighted.

also, if you think hunters won’t hunt something just because it’s super big and scary, you have never met a hunter. Jaws’ story is not exactly the perfect comparison to the average person minding their business who would never ever consider doing something heinous.

if someone already wants to do something, they will do it whether or not they have fiction to blame for it. they may never consume that fiction and still do it.

they are the screwed up ones, and it is not because they consume screwed up fiction. that is correlation, not causation.

fiction in and of itself does not affect reality. it is the people who use fiction as a scapegoat to weasel themselves out of the consequences for their actions who say it do.

Does that mean that all fiction is exempt from criticism?

hell no. in fact, fuck no.

fiction can still be bad. fiction can be piss poorly written. the characters can be well presented but executed poorly. the designs might be good but they might not make sense. the anatomy might be fuckin wack and the story might not go anywhere. it might just be pure self indulgent nonsense that no one on earth but the creator enjoys.

this does not mean anyone gets the right to completely forget all sense of human decency and make people feel like shit for the things they created.

as a creator, creating stuff is hard. it takes time energy and practice.

some professional artists’ work aren’t really my thing and their work may make me a little uncomfortable to look at, but I’m not all in their comment sections making their days worse. I recognize that they put time and effort into it, and they may not even be too confident about it!!

sometimes the nicest things you can say is absolutely fucking nothing. however, if you have to say something mean, if you have to give those damn two cents, at least recognize that there is a real human being with thoughts and feelings on the other side of your screen, and they’d probably appreciate some manners and maybe some well wishes for the trouble. no sense belittling people when you can uplift them and inspire them to do better instead.

Does this mean you hate antis?

in any other post I would just say yes. I hate their rhetoric and the awful shit they put creators and fans alike through. however, because this post is informative, my precise answer is not technically.

I do not wish harm on antis. I don’t wish death on them. they deserve their privacy as much as anyone, and I won’t harass them though they may harass others.

I think the things that they do is often times abhorrent and I think that their toxicity is largely a contributing factor in how draining fandom culture has become and I hate that. I hate feeling unsafe in spaces meant to be fun and community driven. I hate looking through blogs to make sure I don’t accidentally come into contact with someone who may potentially try to dox me because I read a comic they think is garbage.

however, I don’t think all antis deserve real hatred. some are simply misguided and don’t do this super invasive awful shit. even if they do this awful shit, I still hope they can change for the better and address their issues, apologize even if they can’t/won’t be forgiven, and become happier chiller people who can focus their energy towards better things.

like... I don’t think I hate them as much as I hate who they are right now. despite what another bit of anti rhetoric says, people aren’t static. even if it doesn’t excuse what they’re doing and consequences will find them accordingly, they deserve room to grow. all people deserve room to grow. they aren’t entitled to my forgiveness, nor my time, nor company, but I wish the best for them at the end of the day. I hope this passes for them and they learn better.

and w/ that I think we’re done!

I think that about explains everything I know, and while at the time I’m writing this it is very late and I’ve been staring at this for a few hours now, I don’t think I’ve missed much of anything!

if I’ve missed a talking point you’d like to see explained, have any questions this post doesn’t answer, or have a post that disproves anything I said, my ask box is always open!!

I humbly request that any debate that may happen on this post if any stay polite and sexy. negativity earns yourself a hearty block from me bc it’s my blog and I do what I want. take it to dms if you must but please don’t be all up and rude. this may not be the most polite and neutral post around but I don’t think any argumentative piece is. I am in fact opinionated and I won’t present both sides of the argument as equal when they quite clearly are not, thank you.

tl;dr

antis are harmful to the very people they claim to protect and stand for and can do better things w/ their time like ride a bike or roll in some grass. they can go step on an entire bucket of legos. just plunge their feet in the sharpest of lego bricks. I hope all their library books are dog-eared to death and their internet is slow. I wrote an entire essay on this practically for over 2 hours no breaks. I’m tired. I’m more tired of their shit but I’m tired.

* this was a real and original argument I saw to justify fiction affects reality that I saw while I was scrolling someone’s blog. it sucked bc the rest of their blog was pretty positive and cool and I even wanted to follow them but like,, ya know, yikes. they seemed condescending and close minded and I was outta there.

edit: this is actually being posted bc it’s been brought to my attention that the antis have already taken to “calling me out” (lmao okay jan) so like. this is wildin - I’m by no means an influencer (I have?? 8 followers. I’m not actually famous.) nor have I been super vocal about it thus far but like,, my dudes I am laughing this is exactly what I knew would happen and I still manage to be surprised.

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: Wild Hunt

Next up is @addude to talk about her Resbang, Wild Hunt! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: Asking how you came up with the plot seems like a good place to start. What was your process?

ADdude: Well, I tried to do something with the theme of out of the woods. I tried to think of something that might be scary and comes out of the woods. So, I thought okay werewolf but then remembered that Free was the last one and that got me sad. So I decide let's do a wedding and a fairy king coming to ruin things and he came out of the forest. That was literally my train of thought. I don't know why, but I always imagine weddings going wrong. I've been to several weddings, none go as planned.

Q: I love the running joke about the pool whether Spirit would interfere with the wedding or not. Plot-wise, it felt like the fun times, the calm before the storm lol, but it also felt so in-character. How did you manage to keep everyone in character?

ADdude: I did love that joke. At one point I worried I was overdoing it, but I figured at that point, go through it. I think in the end Spirit did the right thing, so it worked out. Keeping everyone in character was a little hard. I mean this story took place a number of years after the end of the manga and people have changed in that time. Kid is Lord Death and he and Liz are married and have kids. Black Star and Tsubaki are raising Angela and... Black Star is Black Star, he doesn't change that much. I think the key is to having a good idea of who the character is at their cores and building on that.

Q: I love how you balanced not only a large cast of characters, but your OC’s on top of that. How did you manage juggling everyone and their backstories? Did you ever get frustrated or confused or have to backtrack?

ADdude: I start with the main characters and spin from that. Kami and Nene are getting married so they take a lot of focus. They are going through a lot of course, so yeah. Maka is getting a new stepmom so I touched on that, she knows they love each other so she's okay. Her biggest worry is that she doesn't have the right gift. Everyone else is their reactions, like with Spirit having to accept his Ex is getting married and everyone’s reactions to everything. As for keeping track, I made a short outline to keep track of everything important and I fill in the gaps as I go, then try to touch on the side characters. Though yeah, I had to check back every once in a while to make sure I wasn’t getting something wrong. Since I'm doing the story from last Resbang, I had to reread the past stories to make sure everything was in line.

Q: Was writing this sequel easier than writing your last Resbang?

ADdude: Maybe harder, cause yeah I had to go back and make sure I kept everything in the same canon. At the start of this story is talking to Nene about how she meet Kami. I had an idea of how it went but went back and noticed I changed some things when retelling the story. I honestly forgot that Nene actually punched Kami. Makes more sense in context. They were in the middle of a battlefield and Nene thought she was an enemy.

Q: Speaking of Nene, I just love her lol. She's so cute and strong and loves Kami so much. Where do you draw inspiration for your Soul Eater OC’s? They all have such detailed backstories and each has their own distinct personality.

ADdude: Actually Nene came from another series, she was a minor character in another anime called Is this a zombie. I built a lot on that character, she was very minor so there wasn't much there to start with. But I saw a lot of potential.  And Kami came from a joke I made with Soul Dwelling on tumblr, about how Kami was the opposite of Spirit. He was super protective about Maka and Kami was just waiting for grandkids. Both Kami and Nene are an example of just no one stopping me. I got an idea and it just started growing and eventually I had to fully fledged characters. Like yeah, I got a whole story of how they met in battle and how fell in love. Kami's history got even more crazy cause yeah the idea has been around a lot longer for me.

Q: Where did you get the inspiration to make Eu write everything down instead of verbally communicating? That’s so unique and makes her intriguing.

ADdude: Eu is another character from Is this a zombie. Again, that came out from a joke. Eu can fight with a scythe like Maka and I joked that because of that Kami adopted her. Then I actually wrote it, finding a way for it to be canon in both series. The notepad thing is her thing, she has a lot of magic that she can't control. It’s so strong that if she speak it will make her words come into reality so writing it down is the only way for her to communicate. Oddly enough, her armor was to keep her powers in check and was made by Nene in canon. When I found that out I started to connect things and that’s where I eventually got the idea for Kami and Nene to meet and fall in love.

Q: I know a lot of Soul Eater fans have their own ideas of how Maka's mom acts or is, just because she wasn't seen at all in canon. How did you go about characterizing her?

ADdude: I started an RP blog for Kami years back. It started with that joke. There were a bunch of RPers back then who shipped Soma and I thought of a joke of Kami showing up and asking when she was gonna get grandchildren. At some point the joke kept going and had to get serious and slowly I developed a long and strange back story about her life. I just did my best not to contradict canon.  Just little by little, she grew as a character.

Q: Where did you get the idea to make Excalibur related to Maka and Kami? I busted out laughing when I read that, poor Maka!

ADdude: It started with Kami being one of the few people who could deal with him.  Then I noticed Maka had a soul with wings and how Excalibur gave wings to his user. I eventually connected the things. In one my previous stories I touched more on the relationship with Kami and Excalibur. And I thought, yeah okay he's her ancestor, let’s give him family. And yeah. Maka is a pretty accepting person but... yeah she does everything she can to not think [about] how he could have kids with a person. Just like, try not to think of how that would work. And yeah, in canon Excalibur did hook up with a woman. That HAPPENED!

Q: With so much backstory and characters to balance, what’s your editing process? Did any plot points or scenes not make the final cut?

ADdude: Yeah, some things. I mean, I did want to touch on other people. Like what you brought up about Patty now calling herself the duchess of death, it didn't add to the overall story but I want to touch on the others. Marie had a kid and she's retired. She wants to help Kami but everyone insists she stay behind because she's earned her retirement and they trust her to watch the children.  There was a lot of other stuff I wanted to add in about others but [it got] cut out. Like Anya from Soul Eater was actually inspired to go to DWMA because she met Kami and I was going to have her at the wedding but cut her out cause it slowed down the story. I also had a whole other plot that the fairy king was actually working for someone else but cut that off since it would have doubled the story.

Q: It would've doubled the word count??! Dang that sounds interesting, can you give us a summary of what that would've been like, or are you planning to save it for writing later in the future?

ADdude: In the last resbang story I had it that Kami had a history with Arthurian mythology along with Excalibur himself. Kami sorta dated the witch Morgan le Fey. Didn't end well. In fact, due to weird circumstances Morgan was actually the witch that Kami and Spirit killed to make him a death scythe. But a witch of such power and legendary status had tricks. Like Voldemort before her she split her soul, but she survived until Asura woke up the remains of her soul. Then Kami and Co killed her for good. The thing is that Morgan had a fairy teacher and that one would have been behind The Fairy King in this story, coming for revenge for her student. The Fairy King leads an army of shadow monsters, but this person would have been a whole lot scarier and worse.  I think I might save them for next year’s Resbang though.

Q: How did you handle the deadlines for check-ins and posting?

ADdude: I tried to pace myself. I tend to write a lot naturally so it helps just to work little by little working my way up to the word count. Luckily for me I was sometimes sick in bed so I got ahead of one of the deadlines and just kept at it. I tend to get sick in winter so that bought some time to work with.

Q: What was your favorite scene to write? And least favorite?

ADdude: I honestly had a lot of fun with Maka and her new family. Just her and Eu and Excalibur trying to figure what gift to get. Soul finally getting fed up and telling her to get anything because her mom would always love it.  The end scene with everyone together as a family moment was just nice to give them a nice moment like that.  My least favorite would have to be the thing right before the wedding. I do love this character and I hated writing Kami breaking down, knowing she wouldn't get the wedding with the woman she loved.

Q: Congrats on finishing your Resbang! How are you feeling about it overall?

ADdude: Overall I'm happy with what I wrote and that I gave my character a happy ending. What can I say, I love happy endings.

Q: I don't know anything about the "Is this a zombie?" series but i loveeeeeee how you're exercising your artistic freedom and doing a crossover no one else has or would ever consider. I do want to hear more about what exactly inspired you to put these two series together -- was it something as simple as both Maka and Eu having scythes as weapons?

ADdude: So, yeah, it started simply I was watching Is this a zombie and made a dumb joke that Kami was going to adopt Eu because she had a scythe. A lot of stuff I do is just because no one stops me, not even me. But there were connections in both series that pushed that along. Like, how both series deal with death and evil. And both have an arrogant loud mouth that is pretty short. Yes, I’m talking about Black Star and Haruna. Then of course there were the weapons. Meisters had their own weapon and the magical garment girls had weapons too, and they didn’t transform but also seemed to be alive. I thought up the idea that the magical garment girl weapons were somehow based on the demon weapons in soul eater.

Q: Also, why the pairing of Nene and Maka's mom as opposed to another pairing?

ADdude: Yeah, again another joke that took on a life of its own. The joke was that Kami had a thing for red heads and big boobs. Because Spirit was a red head and he himself was a big boob. Then I went past the joke and it kinda made sense. From what we got in canon, Nene had been the strongest warrior and a glimpse to the pass showed her being devoted and serious to her duty. Now she was far more relaxed and didn’t seem to have any real desire to fight anymore. That reminded me of Kami, how she was one the best meisters but seemed to quit to travel around. I started putting a history for them together, they were fighting together standing alone in their fights, so [there was] a lot of mirroring. Until it clicked that maybe they could have something more than just a friendship. And it worked, they were two warriors who’d been through a lot and developed feelings. It worked, so I kept at it.

Q: It sounds like you really like character development and writing characters with a lot of "potential" (that is, not a lot is mentioned about them in canon and much is left up to the audience to speculate). I know you had a fave scene to write but did you have a fave CHARACTER that you enjoyed writing as well, such as a quirk or fact or backstory that you thought up and gave them?

ADdude: Isn’t that what fanfiction is for? Like to fill in gaps the author never got around to… filling. We didn’t know a lot of Nene so I started to put in stuff for the gaps. As a writer my favorite thing is when characters develop, I literally scream when characters regress for no reason or just do stupid stuff for plot. Maka and family were fun to write because none of them have a lot of family normally. I got to explore a little what they would do in a family setting. It always felt weird when I made Excalibur serious and trying to keep in character. But, yeah, he was angry, so I had an excuse. Spirit was fun. He’s usually so goofy and here he had some serious moments dealing with letting go. I tried to stay in character and yeah, he would be upset and a bit hurt but would try to let the person he loved move on. I liked adding some growth to him. Hell, I’m pretty sure everyone had some growth in this story. Crona is calmer now off the moon from my last story. Maka and Soul are comfy as a couple and pretty much family. Kami pushing through her issues that she got from her nasty break up with Spirit. Liz is a responsible mom and helping everyone out. Black Star is being a dad, sort of. But yeah, development for all.

Q: I'm kind of curious as to where in canon it says that Excalibur hooked up with a woman LMAO... or maybe I saw it myself and just erased it from memory...

ADdude: Okay, that might have been a bit of a stretch. We saw him in bed with a woman in one of his stories. So, you have to take that with a grain of salt. Then again, it’s canon that the Arthur stuff was true and he was different back then. So who’s to say what’s true. But yeah, I’m taking that as true.

Q: What do you think you'll write about next?

ADdude: I’m still trying to edit my own book, so progress is slow. I’ve somehow got like four Star Vs the Forces of Evil stories going along with other fanfics of various fandoms. And I am working on a Soul Eater Abridged series as its writer and several voices and editor.  Working on episode two. And I’m writing Thanos snap fics, like what it would happen if the snap affected other worlds and yeah the Soul Eater world is on the chopping block list. I do have some idea for how I want to continue this Resbang story, maybe for next year.  I don’t have everything ready, but maybe Maka has her own family in the near future.

---

Thanks to addude for stopping in! Stay tuned for one final transcript tomorrow!

[theycallmebeccawrites]

Adventures in Parenting - Get to Know Nikki Evans

With Tumblr holding my original writing blog @beccaheartschrisevans captive (aka flagged as explicit), I have made a secondary writing blog and may end up closing the other all together. In the meantime, I am reposting all of my stories on my new blog.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Nikki Evans (OFC) Rating: PG Warnings: n/a Summary: Some extras (mostly Q&As) for my Chris & Nikki story. The goal of most of these extras is to give a little more background on Chris & Nikki’s relationship as the focus of the Adventures in Parenting series is after they’re married and have kids.

Adventures in Parenting (Chris & Nikki) Masterlist

Get to Know Nikki Evans (July 2016)

Please note that these questions were “answered” based on what Nikki’s life was like in July 2016.

Name: Nicole Marie (Ashworth) Evans, but I go by Nikki

How old are you? I’m currently 31, I will be 32 in September

Who are you in a relationship with? Chris Evans, the hot American actor…

Are you married? If not would you marry them? Yes, we’ve been married for four years.

What about kids? Do you have them? Would you like them? We have two adorable little boys that are their dad’s mini mes. Seriously, it’s like my genes didn’t even make it into their DNA… Our oldest is Josh and he just turned 3 on the Fourth of July and our youngest is Aiden and he turned 1 in May. We plan on having more kids, we’d both love to have a little girl… but we’re not actively trying to get pregnant… we’re not exactly not trying though… as Chris says ‘if it happens, it happens… if not, at least we had fun trying’

What do you do for a living? Before Chris and I were reintroduced in 2011, I was working as a yoga instructor at a dance/yoga studio I was running with my best friend. I kept working there after we met, but after the kids came along it kind of got put on the back burner. I’m still a part owner of the studio and I will occasionally teach a class, but I’m usually there as a participant, especially for wine and yoga night.

Do you like your job, if you don’t have one, what’s your dream job? I guess you could say my current job really is mom… and I love it. It can be draining, especially when Chris is gone, but we both have amazing families that are there whenever they’re needed

Where are you from? I’m originally from sunny California, but my mom and I moved to Boston in 1996 because she got a job transfer. It was supposed to be for two years, but she ended up meeting my step-dad and they got married. That is actually how I met Chris, he and my step-brother have been best friends since they were kids.

Favorite TV show? I watch a lot of kids shows… but when I get to pick the channel, I love watching HGTV and Food Network. I’m a sucker for Dancing With the Stars… every season I say I’m done watching and then they bring a celebrity that I love on the show and I have to watch.

Favorite book? How does one pick a single book to be their favorite? Chris and I both love to read and our boys love being read to. We’re in the process of building a house and there is an upstairs sitting area that we’re going to set up as our family library. I’m not sure we’ll have enough bookcases…

Do you have any hobbies? I love doing yoga, especially first thing in the morning when the boys are all still asleep. It’s very peaceful. But I also love to cook and bake. I dabble in photography. I try to be crafty, but I stick to the easy, fool proof stuff because I get distracted so easily. I also enjoy bubble baths.

Sexuality? Straight.

What’s your best trait? I’d say it’s that I look for the best in people. I’m also a glass half full type of person.

What’s your biggest flaw. I over think the simplest things and I’m horrible about making decisions. I’m also terrible with not putting my clothes away. I get the kids and Chris’s put away though.

Would you give up your job to start a family? I already did and I don’t regret it for a moment. Right now it gives the boys and I the freedom to travel with Chris when he is filming. We’re actually looking for a rental house in Georgia right now where we’ll be living for the duration of the Infinity Wars filming.

What’s your favourite thing about your significant other? He has the biggest heart. He isn’t afraid to express his love for myself, the kids and our family members. He also loves to make people happy, especially kids. He is also a great listener whether it’s me talking about my day or listening to our youngest babbling to him over a video chat. What else… oh, he’s pretty cute… kind of muscly. And he can grow a magnificent beard.

What’s their most annoying habit? Where to begin? No, I’m just kidding. Like every couple, we both have habits that drives the other crazy, especially when our kids pick up those same habits (can you say socks all over the house?), but that’s just the way life is. He doesn’t like it when I click pens or tap my fingers… so it’s all fair in the end.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? I’m not sure, I’m pretty happy the way I am… though, maybe slightly bigger boobs? I’m not nursing anymore, so my chest isn’t as full as it was and that kind of made things fun. Chris liked them. But I’m not interested in going under the knife for that… a pushup bra works wonders.

What would be the perfect holiday for you and your S/O to take together? It’s been a busy summer, so I’m definitely looking forward to some quiet time at our cabin. We’re actually going in a couple weeks to spend a week alone together and then his mom will bring our boys and the rest of the family out to join us. My parents own a cabin nearby, so my side of the family will be there as well. I’m definitely looking forward to it.

How do you feel about your s/o being friends with their ex? There are some of his ex’s that I am totally ok with him being friends with because they are respectful of the relationship he and I have. I’ve even become friends with a couple of them… I’m not going to say it’s awkward knowing that they’ve been with my husband because it is, There are others though, that are better in his past. I think he would say the same about some of my ex’s as well.

Do you care about other people flirting with your S/O? He’s a celebrity and people like him. It’s part of the business… I know he doesn’t encourage it or get off on it, it actually embarrasses him a little, but at the end of the day, he comes home to me.

Do you trust your s/o not to cheat on you? Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind that he is completely loyal to me.

Do you think there would be ever a circumstance where you would cheat on them? No.

Anything else we should know? The first time I ever saw Chris was when I was 12 years old and right after my mom and step-dad got married. I was in the kitchen eating breakfast when he came in with my step-brother and he didn’t wait for my step-brother to introduce us, he just held out his hand and said, “My name is Chris.” Then he gave me that smile, you know the one, and I swear I fell in love with him in that moment. He was 16 at the time so it didn’t mean anything to him… but I still tease about the fact that it took him 13 years to notice me at my brother’s wedding. We reconnected at both the best and worst time of our lives, I was starting a business and he was about to shoot to mega stardom with the first Captain America movie… and those other things should have made starting a relationship hard, but it was exactly the opposite… we had someone to share the ups and downs with and it brought us together.

Want to find me off tumblr? I’m @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3 and Wattpad.

My tag list is always open, just let me know if you’d like to be added!

[thalassomania]

goku and chichi for the character thing!!

brace yourselves i’m gonna gush about my spouses. yes i’m married to both of them why do you ask

chichi first because she’ll be less overwhelming

favorite thing about them: she’s like. The Lesbian Experience. okay not really but i’m sure she was at least someone’s gay awakening, and for good reason. like… have you seen how much ass this gal kicks? she’s fantastic! i love the dynamic she has with her father and just how cutesy she is around goku even if she deserves way better than him but i could go on about that forever. ALSO i have a couple of the classic dragon ball manga and i adore the way they translated her speech? she sounds like a country bumpkin and it’s adorable. admittedly i’ve only really watched dragon ball classic but i love her and i get really happy every time she’s around!

least favorite thing about them: chichi is a very cool character. very, very cool! but she’s heavily underutilized in the narrative of dragon ball because she’s delegated to Wifey and nothing else. she could have a role alongside the z fighters but she doesn’t because toriyama doesn’t know how to write women or relationships or anything. i also really hate how even though kid chichi’s outfit is super cute it’s also weirdly revealing for a little kid and Who thought it was a good idea to have her stop wearing the helmet? the helmet was kickass! SHE’S MORE OF A CHARACTER THAN JUST “GOKU’S WIFE” Y’ALL I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS I CAN MAKE THIS!!! NOT THAT I DON’T LOVE GOCHI TO SOME DEGREE BUT JESUS CHRIST!!!! THEY BOTH WORK BETTER WITH OTHER CHARACTERS!!!!!!!!! their relationship needs some serious reworking. i guess that’s my biggest issue, coupled with the fact that it’s practically chichi’s entire character…

favorite line: ooh i’m gonna quote the manga volume i have for this one because i’m no good at remembering lines. “OO, THIS IS JES’ TOO DANG FREAKY! GIT OUTTA HERE!!!” this translation of the manga is the only valid iteration of dragon ball there is, ever.

brOTP: chichi is friends with everyone. that is canon and the truth. also since i only know classic i’m not the best judge of this… but she probably gets along with vegeta pretty well at least? they hang out. talk about how dumb goku is. you know the drill.

OTP: i love how i can’t say gochi for this because their canon interactions are… Yikes. i love the ship in theory but in execution? they’re both better off dating my self-insert and they’re all married and they love one another very much anyway um… bulchi. bulma and chichi. yeah. that’s it. that’s what i was gonna say.

nOTP: lol gochi (jk i’m sure there are worse ships out there… somewhere)

random headcanon: she’s weirdly good at understanding other people’s feelings. when people vent to her she can just listen on and on and even connect with them to some degree. she’s a supportive presence and her very existence is a positive influence on the rest of the cast!

unpopular opinion: she is more of a character than just goku’s wife and she also deserves better than him. gochi is such a circumstantial thing for me haha

song i associate with them: is the song “chi-chi” too obvious? prrrrrrobably. but until i get a better idea that’s what we’re sticking with! additionally i’d like to bring up the song waves! maybe it’s too urban for her but i love it very much so. it’s chichi now. god i love chichi so much <3 OH SHIT I THOUGHT OF ONE MORE!!! sorry i’m looking for a song for goku and it just occurred to me that Apple Blossom suits her WONDERFULLY i’m going to cry THAT’S MY GIRL!!!!!!!!!

favorite picture of them: look at how cute she is i love her so much i will protect her with my goddamn life!!!

now it’s Boy Hour

favorite thing about them: I LOVE SON GOKU SO DAMN MUCH!!!! HE IS SO CUTE AND SUCH A FUN AND VERSATILE CHARACTER AND HIS VOICE IS PRECIOUS AND HE’S SUPER HANDSOME IN DBZ AND??? AND I LOVE AND SUPPORT HIM SO MUCH? HE HAS AN ACCENT IN THE MANGA LIKE CHICHI DOES ONLY LESS PRONOUNCED AND IT’S PRECIOUS AND HE FOLLOWS MY LITERAL FAVORITE TROPE IN THE UNIVERSE, AKA “CHARACTER FROM ANOTHER TIME/PLACE HAS TO ADJUST TO MODERN TIMES” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa… okay with a little less capslock now, goku has legitimately been a positive influence on me recently. he is a Happy Boy and i wanna be happy too! i just got my goku varsity jacket in the mail last friday and i’m still swooning over how wonderful it is? i’m wearing it right now y’all. Right Now. also i have a goku plush and he’s precious have a nice day!

least favorite thing about them: okay there’s a lot to say here. a Lot a lot a lot. but my biggest issue is the fact that goku is an incredibly static character. he doesn’t change or express himself almost ever. i don’t know how much of this is Shounen Protagonist Syndrome and how much of it is toriyama’s flaws as a writer but it really stresses me out! saiyajin emotional suppression is one thing and not knowing how to feel is another, but goku’s levels of Feeling Nothing are off the fucking charts. he’s also a terrible father and family man and is totally willing to just run off somewhere and get badly hurt without telling anyone. most of this would be fine if it was actually addressed and if goku changed as a character, but he never does. how do we know if he’s happy with chichi when even love seems like a foreign concept to him?

favorite line: okay we’re getting positive again. “You can tell girls and boys apart just by looking? Awesome!”  let me use a manga quote for this because i have them on me and i love the way his dialogue is written. goku’s reaction to getting shot multiple times: “Ha! Dummy! Stupid! Y’think you can hurt me?! With little owchies like that?! Hah!” (note: i had to take a break from the character meme here because i got too distracted by my incredible love for this manga)

brOTP: GOKU AND BULMA ARE BFFS!!! also goku and oolong even though oolong totally has a thing for goku and goku doesn’t notice because he’s an oblivious baby

OTP: GOKRILLIN GOKRILLIN GOKRILLIN ALSO KAKAVEGE THOSE ARE BOTH REALLY GOOD WHAT IF THEY WERE ALL DATING AT THE SAME TIME. OH SHIT. OH DAMN. goku is also married to my self-insert and chichi at the same time they all love one another a lot and

nOTP: …well, i mean. gochi i guess. i love it but at the same time it’s so… GgghghgHGghghhh sometimes. also i’m not the biggest fan of goku/bulma, whatever that ship is called.

random headcanon: goku is legitimately traumatized from the “training” he experienced with roshi. there is a reason i don’t have a tag for roshi on my blog and only call him Nasty Man. it’s because i hate him and he hurt goku and kuririn and i’ll kick his gross p*dophilic ass. ALSO GOKU IS A BOTTOM. DON’T FIGHT ME ON THIS I KNOW I’M RIGHT

unpopular opinion: he’s a bisexual icon. actually no that should be commonly accepted. Actually that’s just canon what am i doing ha ha lol

song i associate with them: honestly i can’t think of any off the top of my head so give me a moment here. ok so i’m gonna toss we’re going to be friends into the void here even though it’s not nearly as energetic as most “goku music” would be. and maybe uhh. i’ve been going through my music folder for like half an hour and i’ve found nothing else that suits him so i give the fuck up. i’m sorry goku pwease don’t hate me

favorite picture of them: S q u i s h y.

also this other one that i’m linking to directly so i can be sure it will play because i love it so much <3 i spent like an hour on this fucking post holy christ

[skulduggerypleasant]

Q&A w/ Skulduggery (2008)

With a bunch of website revamps in recent years, I noticed a lot of old content was also going missing, so I’m posting certain things on my blog for archival purposes. This is an interview that was available on the old HarperCollins website, just before the release of Playing With Fire. [x]

Hello Skulduggery! Or do you prefer Mr Pleasant?

Skulduggery is fine, and hello to you, too. I don't do many interviews, if I'm to be honest, but I am going to try my best to be humble. I have an associate who keeps telling me I'm egotistical, but she falls over a lot, so I don't really listen to her.

How are you? What have you been up to today?

Nothing that would interest you, I'm sure. Part of my job is dealing with unruly types, troublemakers and the like, so the only stories I have to tell involve lots of hitting, screaming, and my associate falling over in an amusing fashion.

Are you enjoying your new found fame as the star of your own book series?

It is an interesting experience, I have to admit. I stay out of the limelight as much as possible, but my associate is loving it. She is always on the Internet, checking what people are saying about her. I swear to you, if they knew how much she fell over, they wouldn't think she was quite so cool.

Playing With Fire is the new book, out on 31st March. Can you tell us a bit about it?

There's a new villain and a new threat, but the overall evil scheme is still in place. Basically, the bad guys want their dark old gods to return, and we're doing our best to stop that from happening. It gives me something to get out of bed for, you know? (If I had a bed.)

Is the villain in the new book as full-on-scary as Serpine from book one?

Let's just say I am not the biggest fan of Baron Vengeous. The man has NO sense of humour. At least Serpine laughed occasionally, even if it was a laugh of the maniacal sort. But Vengeous... Vengeous is just MEAN.

Are you still crime-solving with Stephanie in the new book?

Oh, yes—that is what I do, after all. Stephanie, or Valkyrie as my associate is now called, has a lot to learn when it comes to deductive reasoning. She's all too eager to leap into the fray or say something at the wrong time or just generally annoy me, but I have a lot to teach her about being a detective.

I suppose she's a quick study, though, but don't tell her I said that.

Have you always wanted to become a detective?

I was born for this job. I'm quite brilliant, you know.

What would you be if you weren't a magical crime-solving skeleton?

I'd be a magical skeleton who collected stamps, or pictures of butterflies, or pebbles. 

Do you enjoy spooking and scaring people?

There is a common misconception that I am a scary person. Just because I happen to be a skeleton, that doesn’t make me scary. I think I'm rather cuddly, in fact. And I'm always smiling. How can that be scary?

Are there any advantages to being a skeleton in the living world?

I never have a bad hair day, I don't get sunburnt, and I look good in suits.

You're an Elemental—what does that mean?

Elementals have the ability to manipulate the four elements—air, fire, water and earth. I've been an Elemental since I started learning magic, when I was just a boy. I've got quite good at it.

What's the best magic trick you've ever done?

“Trick”? "TRICK"? I don't do tricks, my friend. I am not onstage, pulling rabbits out of a hat. I don't pluck coins from behind people's ears (although I can). I do magic. It's fierce and frightening and it would make ordinary people quake in their shoes. It's fun being me.

You're a bit of a comedian. Does that come naturally to you?

When you're killed and come back as a living skeleton, you can either wallow in self-pity and brood for the next few hundred years, or you can develop a razor-sharp wit to use every bit as effectively as any weapon.

I happen to be a very funny person. I'm always telling people that.

It's acknowledged that you are, indeed, a super-slick detective (if you don't mind me saying!). Who do you think would crack the case first if you went head-to-head against a spy like Alex Rider on a mystery solving adventure?

From what I know, young Rider is an extremely gifted spy and adventurer, and I have nothing but respect for him. That said, I am, let's be honest, me. I'm a few hundred years older and wiser, I dress better, I'm infinitely more charming, and I can throw fire.

I am the best there is.

You're a snazzy dresser. Do you get your suits made especially for you?

So glad you noticed! Yes indeed, a friend of mine makes my suits. He has to, you see, because as a skeleton, I can't wear just any clothes. Ghastly Bespoke has made all of my suits, designing them around a frame to make it look like I'm a tad heavier-set than I actually am.

He makes the clothes, I make the clothes look good. It's a team effort.

I loved reading about your adventures. Do you like to read in your spare time?

Oh, I adore reading. I have always been an avid reader. My favourite book is "How To Make Your Own Fireplace,” by C.H. Davenport. Wonderful book. Simply wonderful.

What do you like to do when you're not solving crime?

You mean, in my time off? Oh. Oh well, I... That is, I like to, to... Time off? I don't really do the whole “time off” thing. If people like me, and my associate, took time off from saving the world, then there'd be no one to save the world. We couldn't have that, now could we? 

What's your most favourite thing?

My car.

What's your most hated thing?

People trying to kill me. It grows wearisome.

How do you get on with Derek Landy, who writes your stories down and turns them into books?

Mr. Landy is an interesting gentleman who lets his imagination run away with him from time to time. It's my job to reign him in, to refocus his attention on the story at hand. He's not too bright, which is a shame, and when he was a child his head was shaped like a potato. He got over it.

Will there be more books available for us to read about you?

Oh, indeed, yes. Valkyrie and I have many more adventures to embark on, and many more stories to tell. Over the course of the series, I'm sure you will see her grow up, get stronger, learn more magic, and face bigger and badder bad guys. Rest assured, I will be my usual hilarious self the whole way through.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell us in this interview that we've not covered?

I have a wonderful singing voice, yet I hate to sing.

Thanks for speaking to us! What are you going to be doing with the rest of your day?

Rescue Valkyrie. She just called. Apparently she's in a spot of trouble. Her friend Tanith is with her, but as usual they need me to swoop in and save the day. It's not easy being me, you know. It's fun, yes, but not easy.

But sometimes fun is enough.

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Rise of the Radiotrons

Here it is folks, the first fan canon spotlight, showcasing Rise of the Radiotrons created by sleeveev! You can find this over at @riseoftheradiotrons and also on AO3! This is a long post, fair warning.

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

the cont, despite being called Rise of the Radiotrons, revolves around five main groups of characters, and the mystery that accidentally intertwines all of them. a lot of false identities, undiscovered pasts, mystery that you need to read all the way through to really uncover. it also takes place during the attrition phase of the Autobot-Decepticon war, and Megatron and Optimus are... dead. but... weren't they made immortal by the Eternal Surge? where are they?

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

characters that take the lead? hoo, boy, there's a lot. and be warned, this is OC-heavy. Wavecrash, Blackarachnia, Sparkplug, Pascal, and Ness make up the Earth detective team, the first to investigate the Radiotrons: Nanotube, Quicksilver, Greenscreen, and [REDACTED] (that is not their name, you will learn it later!).

Starscream, Moonkiller, and Pharma investigate a series of rust-related murders, later with the help of Eclipse and Terraform. the two they investigate? two hulking beings that carry a rust of sheer destruction of anything metal, Turbulence and someone known only as The Crimson Doctor. the third part is mostly with just a few characters. Dial-Up and Absolute Zero are in a cat-and-mouse chase, Dial-Up attempting to capture Absolute Zero and return him to the prison he escaped from. other 'bots come into this story, including Pylon, Airachnid, Suture, and Cyclonus, but they are not the main focus.

Turbulence.  this motherfucker. this moldy bitch.

my personal favorites? i love Sparkplug, i love my little gaming PC gal. The Crimson Doctor has also grown on me quite a bit. i'm gonna make fat robots and you can't stop me.

Sparkplug above, Crimson Doctor (Crim) below

Q) I love how he isn’t crimson at all.

oh you'll learn why he's crimson

Q) Ominous! Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

a bigger point to this? well, i have quite my fair share of trauma for being in a military family - being on the home front of a war i never even learned about until i was like 12. i wanted to show the horrors of attrition above all, because attrition is the part of war that everyone seems to forget, but is possibly the most dangerous part of it. everyone's killing each other over resources, dying of preventable diseases, resources are spread thin among soldiers and thinner among civilians. it also lets new, perhaps worse groups arise from the dust.

war was never about who was right. it was about who could live longer. and RotR, with its rampant killings that people can't even begin to investigate until their leaders are toppled from their thrones and complete anarchy reigns among military sites, is a testament to that.

war was the cause for part of the namesake of the Radiotrons themselves - the Great Radiation Crisis. war was where everything went wrong

Q) How long have you been working on it?

now, for the slightly less dark - it varies from character to character! while the official plot of RotR was established on August 25 this year, some 'bots go much further back - Pascal's earliest concepts were made on May 8, Nanotube's were made on April 25, and The Crimson Doctor's roots go as far back as a character called The Crimson-Eyed Doctor, a character created on Dec 11, 2019 (happy belated birthday, Crim!).

Q) You’re very meticulous with your dates!

i lose track of all time otherwise

Q) Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

behind the scenes.

this is a mystery cont.

THERE'S A LOT BEHIND THE SCENES.

i will start with some no-context spoilers, here.

and, now for something a bit more genuinely secret.

whether this is a crimson doctor or a red herring, you decide.

Q) Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

this varies from subtle to shameless.

my cont would fit best in an comic format, so it makes sense that i was inspired by IDW - and that it was my entry into the TF fandom! there is also some TFA bits in there, but the majority of it is personal robot worldbuilding, with a couple sprinkles of headcanons and OCs taken from Afterburn, a cont made by a longtime friend of mine.

other fiction i took inspiration from is mostly in the character designs. Blackarachnia was loosely inspired by Tawna from Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (you went through such a good revamp sweetie. neon lesbian.). if you can't tell that Turbulence took inspiration from Cioccolata from JJBA: Golden Wind, i don't know what to tell you. Crim took less inspiration from a character and more from a trope - the "ever-obedient villain subordinate". i just sucked all of the homoeroticism out of it, and also decided to give him more of a self than just someone who serves the villain.

here's Tawna (specifically Crash Bandicoot 4), one of the big inspirations for Blackarachnia's design! we don't talk about your past sweetie.

and Blackarachnia headshot to compare, because her fullbody is still in progress.

i am sharing this specific image of cio, one of turb's inspos, because i BASED A TURB PIECE OFF OF IT.

real life? RADIATION, RADIATION. i have radiation and radioactive things and the PERIODIC TABLE as a special interest and it SHOWS. it's all radiation. even the names. Quicksilver comes from mercury, Starborn comes from all elements being created from stars in space, Nanotube comes from carbon nanotubes, and [REDACTED] comes from... well, you don't know yet. there's also the whole attrition war thing, for real life inspiration, too.

Q) Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

this piece of Eclipse and Turbulence('s hand), for one

(the image is at the end of the post under a readmore, as it contains eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

and another thing i am particularly proud of are all my worldbuilding posts! they look like textbook entries kinda but i really really love em. here's one of them, though there are many more on the blog!

lastly, my favorite character introduction post. if you know Afterburn, you may be pleasantly surprised seeing this.

Q) Ah, that guy.

fun fact about RotR Absolute Zero! his color palette is taken from a diagram of a human heart. here is the motherfucker in question,

Q) What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

Afterburn. my best friend made this i can't just NOT advertise it. go look at it there's murderers and there's an OC that's actually very inspired by not one but two of my creations (the original OC he was a fanformer of, and his altmode - I'd had thoughts of various greenhouse 'bots like that). @transformersafterburn​. please don't simp for Abzero. or maybe do. he's a better option than Turbulence.

Mirror Mirror. found at @transformers-mirror-mirror​, it's got so many epic character designs and realistically sized altmodes despite not having realistically sized altmodes this makes me go happy flappy and is also inspiring a future project of mine, also Shattered Glass!

NEW PRIMES OF CYBERTRON. RITO I LOVE YOUR CONT SO MUCH. i summed it up in "transformers ungunned" but THERE IS MUCH MORE GO CHECK IT OUT AFTER YOU FINISH READING THIS INTERVIEW @thenamesblurrito​

Q) [insert flattered keysmashing from me, creator of New Primes of Cybertron, otherwise known as TF:SNAP]

Thank you very much veev! Everyone go check out Rise of the Radiotrons! Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll get to see some Shattered Glass...

(aforementioned image under the cut, warning for eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

[jacobsmith321]

Target Audience Research.

From personal experience watching these films and animations made by Aardman, watching the Netflix documentary, looking on their twitter for shares from fans and talking to a good friend of mine who is a massive fan of their works, I know who my target audience is.

Personal Experience

From personal experience, I used to watch a lot of these films with my family. Me, my sister, mom, dad and even at times some relatives come over and we watch a Wallace and Gromit film that comes on. 

I found it funny how a man and his dog go on wacky, silly adventures based on mundane tasks, with a spin of how Wallace creates magnificent machines just for the simplistic tasks. But I also loved their other films and shows too, such as Chicken Run, Flushed Away and even used to watch Shaun the Sheep as a kid, Though I am older and don’t watch childish thing anymore, it is nice to occasionally look back at some nostalgic piece of media which I adored as a kid and can appreciate as a young adult.

Documentary. The History of Aardman: A Grand Night In

Watching this gave me a lot more information and gems than even their own page; their website mentioned a lot of details but the Netflix show gave a lot more. They mentioned how these films are for everyone, so there’s no specific target demographic because everyone is welcome. Which provides a lot of good insight because it can appeal to anyone from any generation, young or old.

Fans on their Twitter

(Because these are children and their parents sending fan art of their shows, I will not personally post direct links or images of their faces, names, posts, etc from those accounts, for their protection. I have seen these creations via Aardman’s twitter page witch I will link: https://twitter.com/aardman )

Kids and their parents post creations of Shaun the Sheep, Wallace and Gromit, as well as Morph, showing support and enjoyment for the shows that Aardman has created, with adults assisting in their kids connecting to the company, displaying their love for their creations.

Interview with a fan of their work

My good friend Ryan Brewer of Wooster University, has given me permission to post images that I have been sent and have taken, as well as question and answers on my blog.

Though he is an exceptional artist with insane talent. His university course is working in animation (hand drawn/digital) but the work he’s doing in clay animation and Plasticine, is all in his spare time. He even creates his own models.

This process he shows, displays how a animation models are made, though it’s the not the same as how Aardman made their’s exactly, it’s a good comparison and idea how. By creating a wire frame structure, adding base Plasticine, then going over it with filling for the clothes, adding on coloured Plasticine for the skin and such, adding on clothing then placing on hands and feet.

He was very inspired by them and so I thought it would be appropriate to get his view, stance and experience on their works.

Q= Question (Me) A= Answer (Ryan Brewer)

Q: Why do you like Aardman?

A: There’s a lot of personality in their work, it gives it an edge and it’s very British. They are also not defined by one kind of brand and they experiment in different ways to tell their story. These story telling aspects are unique from any other animation studio.

Q: What attracted you to their style?

A: Their ability to take ordinary subjects to create exciting stories from them. 

Q: How do you think they revloutionised animation?

A: The fact they’re able to branch out and evolve, constantly pushing the boundaries of what could be done in stop motion animation. They’re adding new people with personality to their projects.

Q: Who is Aardman for?

A: There’s a broad appeal to anyone, kid or adult.

Q: You work in clay animation and Plasticine, did they make an impact on you?

A: Yes, they have. Not even my main course, it’s for fun and practice.