#for context: the original argument was me voicing out that I was upset bc that first “friend” had invited and planned with with our friend

[bloomingsalma]

i think one of the most disappointing things is to see that your childhood friends have grown up to represent the kind of people you're disappointed in

[raraeavesmoriendi]

Hi, @idreamtofmanderleyagain, I’m your anon (linking here for context). I approached you that way initially bc I didn't think that we had interacted enough times to have me approaching you about this not seem confrontational, but since you’ve been kind enough to put so much serious thought into your answer, I think it would only be fair to respond at all with my face attached. I tried to reblog this in direct response to your own post, but between the two of us, we seem to have hit tumblr’s post length limit. go figure.

Ahead of my response, I have to explain part of my perspective outside just being a fic writer: I’m a grad student in a literature department, still work there currently, and have taught undergrad english during my program, so this issue has already had a massive impact on my field. My own experiences have given me reasons to be wary of LLMs in particular, so that does influence my views to some degree. But your original post was mostly about fandom, so I won’t expand on those unless you’d want me to, for whatever reason.

keeping it to just fandom stuff, even with your research, I hate to say none of my previously voiced concerns are assuaged.

AI users have, knowingly or not, justified the initial theft by corporations to train their products that are potentially going to be made into for-profit models as something unfortunate but ultimately worth overlooking in the long run, and already, I know we’re going to disagree at a fundamental level. You said it yourself above, where you acknowledge this is a factor, but this doesn't give you enough pause to question your own use of these models.

You could stop reading now to save your own time and I would understand, but I still wish to respond to these other points.

While I appreciate your apparent genuine effort to interrogate these systems to the degree of their training and use of this data... you'll have to forgive me if I remain skeptical. I'm not surprised it told you what it told you, and as you yourself pointed out, it could easily be spitting out boiler plate answers programmed by the people in whose interest it would be answering. There is no promise of authenticity, as you noted, and I wouldn't be surprised if the program that generates prose based on user prompts is presenting to you what it thinks you'd want to read. Thanks nonetheless.

The arguments presented here seem to invoke the disabled community multiple times in ways that I’ve seen the larger community disagree with, and while we’re not? a monolith? I think this is something I want to address on from my corner of it. Let’s start with the Amazon/Bezos comparison. You could argue I should only shop locally, sure. But I’m sure you’re aware lots of people (myself included) use Amazon bc for things we absolutely need of limited access to certain supplies in our communities, etc, and that’s not even uncommon among non-disabled people. But the fact remains that LLMs are not like Amazon in the sense they’re a super conglomeration that has made itself almost unavoidable, especially to people who live in more isolated areas. I don’t think your exercises in a character chat bar are exactly comparable to that, primarily because using AI in your creative work is not a necessity; people are only doing so out of curiosity.

That, I think, is primary issue actual artists and writers find uncomfortable: people who don’t have to use this technology that was, again, built to some degree on the exploitation of people who have been developing their skills for whole careers, are taking umbrage against the fact that those same creatives are upset with those that don't think this exploitation is worth curtailing or interrogating their personal use of AI. This is an entirely optional part of your writing. Metaphorically, I would argue that this is not Amazon, this is closer to eating Chik-fil-a - you know something sucks for a particular community, but you still have the option to patronize it yourself if you really wanted to.

If that sounds unfair to you, sure, you can assert your right to use the LLMs. But the rest of us who didn’t consent to having our work scraped, especially in the era of a writer’s strike where AI is specifically an issue, maybe won’t be as receptive to the fact that this is something you’re willing to disregard to some degree for the sake of whatever benefits you see to AI in your work. You might not frame it this way, but this is still what it comes down to. Your experience with this new technology is ultimately outweighing voiced concerns that people, as you pointed out yourself, are going to see their livelihoods impacted. I don’t mean to be blunt, but that is genuinely what I believe is being weighed in this issue.

I also disagree as someone who is neuroatypical that the idea of “hard work” the artists and writers are invoking in their arguments against AI is ableist? Because I know exactly what they’re referring to; I have spent literal years working on my craft. I’ve dedicated a great deal of my education to it. I know you didn’t just start writing yesterday, either, and that this is a process that you find fulfilling in some not-minor sense, hence perhaps your initial desire for AI experimentation. While you seem to read the creatives against AI as invoking an ableist standard of “hard work” as in working towards literal health problems (the recent ComicsBrokeMe discussion on various platforms is timely), no one who’s trying to make a serious living out of their craft in the current economic climate is going to say that what they do isn’t hard work, or that they haven’t put hard work in to work at the level they do. Saying that the idea of hard work is in itself ableist downplays the effort many creatives, disabled and not, actually conscientiously undertake in their creative endeavors. I know we both know disabled creatives can do hard work. AI users trying to frame this idea as ableist are well-meaning, but this argument kind of shoots itself in the foot if you believe that talent in the humanities is learned, and not somehow inborn. People who try to frame AI as something to level the playing field are more or less saying on some level that the efforts to learn art or writing either don’t work, or aren’t worth the time needed to practice.

As said previously, disabled people are not a monolith, and disabled people using AI doesn’t mean other people, also disabled or not, have to find it acceptable. As you’re well aware, there are lots of disabled artists and writers who have established distinguished careers for themselves well before LLM and visual models were ever even a concept. There are many ways we’ve found to participate in these disciplines, which makes me deeply skeptical of anyone trying to claim this is the only way they’re able to create something, especially if they use their disability as a shield to excuse it. Again, this is not a necessity in any artistic endeavor, as there are plenty of us who are disabled who manage to create regularly.

As to AO3, I’ll be honest, I am one of the people calling for AI exclusion, or at least open labeling of such products. The process of generating a fic or even just a summary with an LLM is completely different from actually writing a fic yourself and the level of intention involved, as I’m sure you’re aware. The AI isn’t making creative decisions as much as it is filling out a written parameter based on previous examples it’s been given, no? It's not even something I'd really consider "brainstorming" -- It’s just a series of words the algo has arranged in what it believes to be the “correct” order. The operator can refine their prompt, but we both know that doesn’t engage the same process of planning and executing a story yourself does - even, I’d argue, down to a drabble.

You can argue this differentiation would create a culture of secrecy, but that secrecy only flourishes if people using AI purposefully try to conceal doing so. If AI is something you're going to continue to peruse in your own work, I don't see why other users wouldn't adopt with open identification, both so y'all can find each other and so those of us who would rather not engage with AI can filter appropriately. I don't think generations should be engaged with in same way, because they are in themselves the product of a different kind of effort, which you can argue is fannish/fen, but I will gently disagree.

And, if the results of the generated fics are just as vague, confused, and overly general as you describe in your own personal experience, I see that as a further argument as to why we shouldn’t want them there. If the AIs have stopped training, as you’ve read, they’re certainly not going to get any better. And if the AI is still learning, then that only underscores the original problem in the first place. Even if it’s not scraping AO3 or other sources anymore, people like yourself who are feeding their own fics in will help teach it, which you may not see as a problem. AO3 currently agrees with you, so if you want to post the products of your research, you’re certainly able to. If AO3 doesn’t want to ban AI fics, I don’t think the rest of us are in the wrong to either ask for them to be taggable, or to be filed as a completely separate option from fan fic or fan art. You can call them Fan Generations, even, idk  but I do think there should be some delineation between the process that went into these and user-written fiction.

AO3 does have a public source code, IIRC, so if people like yourself wanted to gather and set up a dedicated archive of machine-generated work, I imagine you’d find some takers for volunteering and fundraising - not as many at first as the original, sure, but if this is something that a side of fandom wants it then has potential to grow.

On top of that, people continuing to feed/refine the models will only remove that vagueness/confusion you cite to justify why it’s harmless. We’ve already seen this be true of imaging AI being distinctive from human-created art with the numerous human fingers gradually whittling down, right? If that’s the case, then I don’t see why people who generate their fics wouldn’t want to have them tagged as AI, if it really makes no difference to them.

All of the above, plus citing some artists being incorrect about how AI works or being too mean as an argument towards why people should be able to use AI without pushback from the creatives they stand to impact, has made me think that your problem is less with community fracturing/safety and more an issue with the tone other people take when discussing this. This is where we come back to our initial disagreement over your examples w/r/t discussions of trans issues and vegan issues - because I do feel the people angry about the way they’re being treated unfairly/exploited are justified in expressing anger at the people who do so, but also those willing to ignore this treatment.

You can argue that this is people turning their anger with the AI threatening their livelihoods at the people using the AI, but then we come back to something similar to the “guns don’t/people do” argument that we’ve both doubtless heard a lot in the past few decades. Sure, you could say AI itself isn’t threatening our fields, people are - and maybe not even always the people directly using the AI, but the suits that will hire them for cheap, or the person who doesn’t see the value in human intention and artistry in the pop culture they want to consume. But if people continue to work with these models and they continue to learn, it only increases an ongoing social devaluation of our disciplines, and therefore decreases the value of our labor/effort by the people who don’t see the difference.

Again, as you seem fine to further experiment with AI yourself and feed it your own work, you might think that this is just a necessary trade to be made in the name of optimized individual experience with these systems. I don’t know.

So, ultimately - I centrally disagree with the initial framing of this as fans attacking other fans, or even an issue of safety or witch hunts. This is people who do creative work, professionally or for fun, having a problem with it being infringed upon by corporate entities in the name of training a machine, and then having the use of that exploitation justified by people who are seeking to ultimately take advantage of it. And not even due to the inescapable nature of doing so, but out of what ultimately boils down to their personal desire to use AI in their own work.

This lands especially heavy in a time where lots of creative people are already trying to

convince the powers that be that their cultivated knowledge and skills are worth respect and proper restitution,

convince the people that consume the work that they aren’t entitled to a creative’s labor for free just because it’s Art,

deal with this weird resentment from people who want to use AI even though many have explained how they’re being hurt by them, and seeing arguments that we’re somehow censoring the creativity of these people by doing so.

It’s a shitty hydra, and we don’t appreciate the people who are contributing to any of its heads.

If you want to call the initial theft a “technicality” and claim it shouldn’t be controversial to continue your use of AI, my only suggestion is to not ask creatives impacted by this to forfeit their right to be angry at this use. That doesn’t excuse targeted abuse, of course; nothing does, end of. But I also don’t think that artists, writers, and other people who have been exploited being generally frustrated and even angry at AI, and the people who perpetuate that exploitation by creating the demand for AI is on the same level as someone being shitty to you as a person or anyone else. There’s not a witch hunt. It’s just going to have to be recognized as a pushback to this ongoing adoption of AI that its makers, funders, and users are pulling for.

You frame this as innocent people getting hurt, but innocent people already have been hurt by these systems, and have detailed how, and that doesn’t seem to warrant as much concern by the proponents now calling for amnesty when that they’ve got something new to tinker with.

You’ve already said you won’t be making any further posts about it, so don’t feel obligated to respond to this. I want to respect your space, and I’m also not really looking to argue - I didn’t intend to write this much about it, as it’s something I find disheartening and frustrating all around.

I don't think I'm actually going to convince you of anything, having read your own justifications, etc. I just wanted to acknowledge the work you put into this post with my own thoughts. Thanks for the willingness for dialogue, you have been someone whose takes/analysis I enjoyed previously.

[calpalsworld]

Not "autistic anon," but also autistic, (being called maybe ableist made me want to put this out there before go to bed) i thought Zane was depicted that way purposefully by the writers. He has stereotypical traits like taking things literally, and has an actual humor switch. The writers have done things with Zane before like have him lose bodily autonomy (during that one Wu's teas short) and did something with his voice be it making him unable to be understood or talking too loud and the forced pirate voice by Jay. (what you're doing isn't too different from that, right?) I thought it was just a little iffy to distort his body and memory bc that could be interpreted as something not that I'm sure what exactly, it's some kind of disability. I dunno. I'm not good with putting this to words. I hope this makes sense.

Sorry I went to bed but now I’m awake 😭

Also I ended up totally spilling all my thoughts here rather than only specifically replying to you please forgive me context: my scary zane concept design, & my ninjago rewrite i refer to a lot 

Im a little confused but I think I get what you're saying? You're saying the Ninjago writers absolutely DON'T write Zane well (you listed examples of this) and you don't want me to fall into the same trap?

I had the opposite logic earlier. I thought: If Ninjago writers made Zane have stereotypical autisitic traits while also being a dehumanized robot, I may as well embrace it, say he is autistic blatantly, while also making him do funny/cool non-human robot things, so its clear as possible the two aspects of his character are literal and separate and not a metaphor for each other. But you're right! I do have a choice and I dont have to embrace things! :)

Like there were a couple ways I was gonna reject the original, for example, I never wanted Zane to have a funny switch, and I hated how other characters could fuck with Zane and he didn't even care 😬. I want to change that stuff. So youre right, if I am changing shit like that, it would be counterproductive for ME to GIVE him MORE traits along that theme. 😬😬😬 I should try to feel less obligated to portray Zane like he originally is. I still like the concept of "scary zane" (for reasons i explain below the cut) but I might tone it down a bit like with the claws and weird proportions and shit. I’d def make him look more skeletal and undead. That was my original intention, but i didnt execute it as good as I could have.... idk if anyone could tell thats what he was supposed to be like...my bad! But rn I dont wanna redesign him I wanna draw other stuff like normal alive Zane. Sorry LMAO 😳. Like I said in some earlier asks I think, I think Im gonna focus rn on how I should portray season 1 normal not dead Zane so thank you and feel free to share any other Zane thoughts ^_^ SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

Also I Wanna Argue Some Stuff But I Understand its a Weak Argument Since All of This Context was Just In My Brain (so don't take this as an argument, just as me rambling): I don't want messed up things to happen to Zane and for it to just be ignored. I think if Zane is going to have fucked up things happen to him, as all characters must, its best for it to happen during a season where he actually addresses his feelings about being a robot (learning to accept that he will always be himself, regardless if hes "human" or the "original" or whatever. (thats how I always interpreted his emotions)). But I wouldn't have the other Ninja be very phased by Zane's looks because the whole point is they already love who he is (seasons 1-3 were about getting to know Zane) and now Zane himself just has to learn the physical, robot part of him is okay. Its about person-hood rather than humanity. Because the season focuses around Zane's soul, and because he lost his original body, I feel like I could mess around with his current, temporary body and have fun and make it scary. Because that body should be irrelevant. I understand it possibly being upsetting for an autistic character to be designed like this, but other people I talked to see it the opposite way. They find it comforting for him to look so different but still be himself and be so loved. SO IM ABSOLUTELY NOT saying its wrong to be bothered or to hate it or to feel any way. Just that I personally think it would be cool for Zane to be portrayed with a little spice lol, so thats why I like scary Zane for season 4.

Another Thing I Wannna Say But Is REALLY Hypocritical: (this isnt directed at anyone I just REALLY want to say this) I know I say "this is Zane but scary, he looks like fnaf" so he's obviously dehumanized, but I always felt like "scary" is more of an objective fact. Its an instinct. But what's "not human" is subjective. I think there is a problem with saying anything different from "average" human is dehumanized because that could extend to real people. Lol I know its bad for me to compare FNAF-ass Zane to real people, but I mean he could be real. People can have exposed teeth, and people can be shaped weird. And when someone first sees a person who looks like that they'll probably think "woah those features are scary" by instinct. And that surprise doesn't make someone ableist obviously. But bring that person’s humanity into question is NOT an instinct, and is fucked to shit. This is kinda a bad point for me to make since its about the fictional FNAF Zane I drew, and I am NOT implying ANYONE was thinking like this. [especially not the original asker anon who I am totally forgetting about at this point OOPS]. But I just thought it was an opinion of mine I couldn't go without mentioning when talking about dehumanization and disabilities.

^^^ I think you (anon) understand what I mean and might’ve said the exact same thing as me if you were writing a long ass response? I think this because you started to bring physical disabilities up and you said it was "a little iffy." ^_^ So we agree, but I don't see Zane's relation to real life disabilities as "a little iffy" I see it more like "complicated"? IF THAT DIFFERENCE EVEN MAKES ANY SENSE?????? I feel like a lot of things about Zane are really just complicated and need the right context, rather than the concepts necessarily being wrong -- NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT! THATS THE WHOLE REASON I DO THIS STUPID REWRITE! XD thats why a lot of my rewrite SO FAR has been the same concepts and plot beats, but different dialogue n specifics and such. I like a lot of concepts in Ninjago but I dont think they were presented correctly.....! :( So I guess all we can do is wait and see if I make Zane offensive or not....???

Also something about the memory part - yeah i agree i was surprised no one thought that was weird to make jokes out of his memory issues..... BUT I am like 100% firm on making his memory take longer to come back because I think its stupid how quick Zane was able to recover from literally dying. Like its just dumb to me. Hate it. (also bc memory & soul mechanics is ummm kinda important in my rewrite.... for reasons). Another memory thing btw, I was going to make his original amnesia come from hitting his head in an attack against the Skulkin when they stole his dads corpse, rather than his dad fucking choosing to make him forget. (its a sweet & iconic scene, but Um, WHY?!!!?!?!?!?) He has to follow data recovery instructions he finds in his dads diary. I think in that context it makes moments of memory loss somewhat different for Zane's character? Instead of loss of autonomy associated with disability, its a literal violent loss of autonomy associated with being traumatized by physical force. Idk how to phrase it exactly but I think that makes some vibes different?

Sorry, I think I got really distracted, and I don't know if I responded well to your points. Because uhhhh I think I agree with your stance actually? If I understand correctly? Fuck Ninjago writers for making the robot lose autonomy (a stereotypical robot theme) while also making him seem clearly autistic (NOT A HAPPY THEME FOR AUTISTIC PEOPLE) and not addressing it. And also auuugh Zane with a weird body is a difficult topic - kinda sussy pretty iffy.

Lol anyway idk if this made any sense and I REALLY rambled on you. but this was nice 👉👈 more Zane criticism pls love you and i love zane. i hope u dont feel mad at me because then it would be weird that im saying that lol. if you do feel mad at me tho you can send another ask (ILL TRY TO JUST LISTEN NOT RAMBLE NEXT TIME) but assuming ur chill rn, love you thnx

Take this page, don’t mind cole’s ass.

[bigbrotherlouis]

✨✨

hello lovely!! if it’s okay with you, i’m going to do a scene from the latest chapter of tried to keep myself from hurting bc i am proud of that one a lot!

Mitch tips forward again, determined to try again, and get stopped by the press of Dylan’s palm to his forehead.

“Mitch,” Dylan says, his voice shot through with something. “What are you doing?”

He blinks at him. “What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” (i really went into this last chapter not wanting to do an happy ever after. like, yeah, they’re going to end on a positive bc i like those kinds of stories, but i didn’t want everything to be fixed by talking to each other. they still have stuff they have to work out, and i wanted it to be realistic)

There’s a pause. “Okay, fuck this,” he mumbles and shoves carefully at him, enough so Mitch tumbles back and he can stand. It’s a weird sense of deja vu, sprawled on the ground, watching Dylan fix himself up after rejecting him again. (parallels!) It aches in a way Mitch didn’t know still ached. He swallows hard.

“Where are you going?”

“Hotel.”

“Why?”

“I’m not doing this shit,” he says and pulls out his phone, tapping at it too quickly. (they both try to solve things mostly by ignoring them, and this is dylan doing that) His hands are shaking slightly. Mitch swallows again, the taste of Dylan still on his tongue, and his throat way too dry.

“Are you, uh,” he says, still aching. “Are you breaking up with me.” (this maybe was a little too obvious for mitch to ask straight up, but i think it made sense in context. the last time dylan did this, they broke up. it’s reasonable for him to think that history’s repeating itself)

That gets Dylan’s attention; he glances up from his phone to stare at him. “What? No.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Yes,” Dylan says and then frowns. “No. I don’t know.”

“Okay, then why are you leaving?”

“Why are you trying to blow me on the sofa?” (i never know how to refer to blowjobs. it’s awkward for me every time.)

“Getting you to the bedroom seemed like too much work,” he says, too honest and too unthinking. Dylan levels a look at him. (this is less supposed to be flippancy and more supposed to be mitch not thinking. his brain’s busy trying to think through what’s happening)

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

He shrugs his shoulder. “You looked like you needed a blowjob,” he mutters and makes a face, nothing left in him to keep it away. (mitch in this fic has a history of trying to fix things with sex and this was him trying to fix the weirdness between them, or manage dylan’s mood)

Dylan stares at him some more and then sighs. “Just— hold on for a second.”

Mitch watches as he turns around and disappears in the direction of the kitchen, holding his breath until he reappears with another protein bar. He drops it on Mitch’s stomach.

“Eat that.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Take a fucking bite, Marner.” Mitch obediently unwraps it and takes a bite, chewing quickly. (more managing) “You told me that you wanted to gargle bleach.”

“Huh?”

“Every time you suck a dick, you said you want to gargle bleach,” Dylan says and then nods at the protein bar. “For the taste.” (i really tried to make dylan attentive and and thoughtful in his own way and this was the culmination of that)

Mitch looks at what’s left in his hand, tastes the mild sweetness on his tongue instead of— well. “Oh. Thanks?”

“Why the fuck did you try to suck my dick?” (very delicate, dylan)

“Why not?”

“Jesus Christ, do you have to play so dumb? Or have you forgotten the massive fight we had about this?”

“I’m an adult, Dylan. I can do what I want.”

“Sure, but what if I didn’t want a blowjob, huh?”

“Dunno, dude, you were enjoying it for a while there,” (trying to balance dylan’s interest as someone who experiences sexual attraction with his refusal to make mitch do something he doesn’t want to do was really hard in this scene! i don’t know if i did it well, honestly, but i sure as hell tried. dylan’s still trying to figure out what boundaries are) Mitch tells him and finishes the rest of the protein bar, feels it settle uncomfortably in his stomach. “You were still mad and I thought it would snap you out of your sulking. I was wrong, apparently.”

“I wasn’t sulking.”

“Oh, yeah you were, bud. Big time.”

Dylan breathes hard for a second. “So, what? You decided to try and suck it out of me?”

“It was working until you got pissy.”

“I’m never pissy.” (they’re still young and dumb)

Mitch snorts, pushing himself into a better sitting position. “Sure.” Dylan looks down at his phone again and then moves, snagging his jacket and looking for his shoes. “Shit, wait, you’re still leaving?”

“I— yeah?”

“Because I tried to hook up with you? You, my boyfriend?” (mitch is also trying to figure out boundaries!)

“I’m still mad at you and I don’t want you throwing yourself at me as, like, some weird omega thing.”

“Weird omega thing,” Mitch repeats, testing the words against his teeth. (unapologetically one of my favourite phrases) “Okay.”

“You’re telling me it’s not?”

“I’m telling you that I’m an adult who makes my own decisions and I can do what I want.”

“Fine,” Dylan says and looks at him head on, eyes keen and sharp. “Did you want that?” (i really wanted to show dylan changing and learning through this fic and this is one of the ways i hoped it showed!)

“I wanted you to be in a better mood.”

“Not what I asked.” (okay, maybe it’s a bit much to ask hockey players in their early twenties to understand the nuance between wanting sex and wanting the outcome of sex, but it was an important point to make to the reader, in my eyes)

Mitch tries again. “You wanted it.”

“Also not what I asked,” Dylan tells him. Mitch thinks about it for a second and then drops his shoulders, sighing.

“I mean, does it matter?”

“Does it— of course it fucking matters, Mitchell. What the fuck.”

“You’re upset, I can make you feel better, it’s what I’m supposed to do. (something something we live in a society) So it doesn’t matter,” he explains, watching emotions cross over Dylan’s face too fast to catch fully. Dylan seems to settle on a determined sort of anger, mouth pressed into a tight line.

“Listen to me, no, listen. I don’t— I don’t care about the whole fucking omega thing, okay? I really don’t. I’m trying to care less about the alpha thing, but it’s me so it’s a little harder. (meaning, it’s really easy to give people grace sometimes while beating yourself up for the same thing. dylan doesn’t care about mitch being a good omega, but desperately cares about being a good alpha) But you? This? I care about you, as my— as my boyfriend, not as my fuckin’— omega, or whatever.” (there’s probably a whole other fic here about what omegas mean in this particular au but i will most likely not be writing it)

“Dylan—”

“Shut up, I’m making a point. I already told you, and I don’t know how many times I’m going to tell you again, but I don’t fucking care that you don’t like sex. You don’t want to have it, so we won’t, and you can stop feeling so fucking gulity about it. I can deal with my own dick and you can just leave it alone. Can you get that into your thick skull, already?”

Mitch is quiet for a second, waiting, but the anger doesn’t fade from Dylan’s face, from his body. “Then why are you so mad?”

“I’m mad because you just do shit instead of talking about it, or, like, asking, and I know I’m not one for talking about feelings, but shit, Mitch, at least I’m not trying to fuck my way into feeling secure.” (could he have said this more delicately? probably. would it have been true to character? no. also it’s nice and succinct, thanks dylan for wrapping that up so neatly)

“Hey,” Mitch says lowly. It’s the only thing he can make himself say.

“You don’t trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“No,” Dylan says. “You don’t. Which, like, it has to be earned n’shit, but that goes both ways, and I can’t trust you if you’re not going to be honest with me. I can’t trust you if I think you’re going to keep bulldozing over your own emotions to make me happy. Or, what you think will make me happy.”

“I don’t want you to—” He cuts himself off because he doesn’t know how to end that sentence, everything muddled in his brain. (this was where i thought about starting the whole “i’m scared you’ll leave me if i don’t want to have sex with you” argument but then decided it was too much for the last chapter) “You liked it, though.”

“Yeah, because I like sex and I think you’re hot, and there was not enough blood in my brain to understand what was happening right away. I’m sorry, though. I should’ve stopped you sooner.” (originally, they weren’t going to get as far as they did with the blowjob but it didn’t work to stop it any sooner, so i kept writing. this is also not an excuse necessarily but again: hockey player)

Mitch’s ass is starting to hurt, so he hauls himself up from the floor to sit on the couch again, twisted around to keep Dylan in his sightline. “I’m sorry too,” he says and tips his head up. “Are you still going to leave.”

“Depends,” he says warily. Mitch digs his fingers into the back cushion and hates the thought of him walking away.

“I’ll keep my hands to myself. (*selena gomez voice* i mean i could by why would i want to) C’mon, Dyl, we’re not going to see each other in forever.”

Dylan visibly hesitates, but eventually he drops his coat again, toes off his shoes, crosses around the sofa to stand in front of him, Mitch twisted the right way around. “Okay, fine, but I want to go to bed. I’m tired.”

“It’s still early,” Mitch says, just to be difficult. He’s tired too, bone-weary from the game and from the rest of the night, and he gives over his hands so Dylan can pull him up. (it’s about the hand touching!! the intimacy!!)

anyway this was a tricky scene to balance while being respectful of 1) where characters currently are 2) where they used to be and 3) where i wanted them to end up. so mitch defaulting to sex to make dylan feel better and dylan letting him fulfills point 2, dylan stopping them but only after he realises fulfills point 1, and agreeing to talk fulfills point 3! not sure if it was executed well re: motivations and reactions, but i definitely did my best :)

[starcitysirens]

Here’s a collective anonymous asks dump, regarding this post

anon #1: I think the fandom is also quite biphobic when it comes to Sara and her past relationships. Even the character of Ava is written pretty biphobic about Sara being with Oliver and hooking up with John that one time. I know Oliver sucked and all but Sara did care about him and Ava put her feelings about him over Sara's. Stuff like that just enforces biphobia in the fandom. anon #2: i totally feel u on the john/zari thing. i also think it's in part bc straight fans hate to see a bi man date a woman bc it doesn't give them their uwu precious gay babies and also because like... this fandom (and the main dctv fanbase at large) tend to um... hate woc like i think it's a lot of really bad + harmful things at once. anon #3: oh it's ok, i got your point and i know people have other opinions, i just wanted to voice mine as somebody who only knows him by the show, sorry if it came out the wrong way! in other note, i think a lot of people shit on ava as a girlfriend just because they don't like her (and because she became co-lead), calling her abusive and stuff and i think it is because they still want sara to end up with a man (captain cold mostly). if you say something they say "i liked her with nyssa". any thoughts?

I put these three asks together to 1) stop spamming my dash so much and 2) because they're quite similar in topic and I thought I could best express myself collectively.

I've talked about this before, but this is what can happen when you [general you] conflate your shipping preferences with your advocacy for representation. They can go hand in hand, I would never suggest otherwise. Seeing healthy relationships on screen is such an important part of representation. But ultimately, only one of these can be your absolute top priority.  And unfortunately there is also a harmful belief across fandom spaces where queer rep only counts as rep as long as characters are dating people of their same gender. And we've definitely seen this in Legends.

Fandom has always had strong opinions about the idea of Sara being with a man, even if CC was a fairly popular ship (a lot of the backlash that got was also surrounded by 'don't go back on her bisexuality by having her be with a man'!) And I'm always a little wary of the 'but she said she prefers girls' argument because if we look at it in context we know they made her say that during that period they were actively trying to backtrack on her attraction to men. And we know this because we heard it directly from Greg Berlanti himself. We can love that Sara is a bisexual woman with a canonical preference for women, because that's 100% valid, while acknowledging the iffy origins of that development.

We've seen it with John, too (who also is a bi with a preference for women). Only John/Woman ships seem to cause the most upset in the fandom (first they worried about Sara, then it was Zari 1.0, then Nora, then Charlie, and now Zari 2.0). People don't seem too worried about his cooties when it comes to Gary, for example.

We saw it this season with Charlie. I'll concede that Charlie's pansexuality could've and should've been handled better, but her hookup with Behrad does not by any means erase her queerness, but some people were acting like it did. Like her queerness only counted if she got to kiss Zari. And I often wondered, what would've been these people's reaction if Charlie got with Astra for example. And that's my point about the conflating shipping with advocacy: are you advocating for Charlie to have a female love interest in the name of representation or do you just want your ship to be canon?

Cause honestly? That's what a lot of this boils down to. People trying to use moral high ground to justify their ship preferences. In the case of Sara she gets this shit from both ends, let's be clear. Her affairs with men are Bad, but then on the flip side you 100% have the people to who use these arguments I've been laying out to hate on Ava and avalance. To be clear, that's not a conversation I want any part of. I've had to block people for hijacking my LOT critical posts to shit on Ava and avalance.

I don't hate Ava at all. It was a bit of a slow burn between us but I enjoyed her so much this season, after being neutral on her for the previous two. But I have to say I was a bit disappointed with how the writers chose to write her reaction to John back in season 3 because they could've written the same story without making it about Sara's sexual past. I get that the point was to address Ava's insecurity with where she stands with Sara. And John is the first object of Sara's attraction that she meets and he is everything she's not. But the wording of 'who sleeps with a warlock and then turns around and starts calling me her girlfriend' and 'maybe Sara isn't a one woman kind of woman' felt loaded. And I hated it. I don't hold grudges against the character for that, but it's true that some people who are already inclined to be prejudiced can take things like that and run with them. On both sides, actually. 

We could keep talking about this all day. But I think I'm gonna leave it there. Hopefully that clarifies some things.

PS. ANON #3: To your first point, I completely understood where you were coming from, don’t worry. 

[quantumfeat72]

Hey, sorry to break this to you, but that post about Asriel hugging Chara is wrong. In game it's got Asriels voice chirps instead of the normal narrator blips. I think the game removes portraits sometimes if Frisk can't actually see their face

(the post in question)

ok idk why you feel the need to start discourse with me by picking apart an argument i didn’t even write but i’m just irritable enough rn to respond so

“In game it’s got Asriels voice chirps instead of the normal narrator blips.”

this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen someone change their voice blips to someone else’s - i’d like to present as evidence the sans date at mtt resort

i for one don’t find it hard to believe chara actively changes their voice as the narrator so they dont sound like a kid OR changes their voice here because they don’t want frisk (or you, the player) to notice that they’re speaking

note we don’t hear any voice blips for chara pre-death or post-murder run so like, we wouldn’t know if that’s closer to how they actually sounded than the blips they use as the narrator

honestly the more i think about it the more i headcanon chara as mute, so it could be that they’re actively or subconsciously mimicking asriel’s voice via narration-powers (maybe because they see themself as “acting like him” when they say it)

“I think the game removes portraits sometimes if Frisk can’t actually see their face”

i’m not gonna go through the whole game but if you can find an actual example of this i’m all ears.  i looked through the undertale text project’s bit on the sans date since i remembered sans’ face being obscured for part of it and:

granted, he’s not facing away from frisk, but they probably can’t see his face too well from that angle so it certainly doesn’t confirm your theory.  again i could be proven wrong on this

“The “narrorator star” also doesn’t mean anything, in this context anyway. Every character in the game that isn’t Papyrus has it”

that’s true, but it’s hardly definitive proof against the theory

and i’m just gonna throw a couple extra thoughts at ya that weren’t in the original post

“Ha… ha…”

chara’s established as dealing with stressful situations by laughing. asriel, not so much

he does actually laugh one other time in this scene, after his line about how everyone really loves you despite hardly knowing you - this strikes me as more of a “this is actually kind of funny and i’m tired of being depressed” thing than an “i’m upset and using laughter to cope” thing

chara on the other hand - i think we all know about the “I should’ve laughed it off, like you did” line, and there’s a couple of places where the narrator shows a similar tendency to distance themself from stress using laughter.  i’m not gonna get too deep into that here bc other people have said it better than i could.  (not gonna hunt down the posts tonight but i can later)

i’m not saying this makes it definitive, but that line definitely feels more like the way chara uses laughter than asriel

i looked it up and asriel is the first to let go

idk about you, but when i hug someone and say i don’t wanna let go, they usually let go first so i don’t have to initiate it

and like, i dont think someone would say that and then let go less than a second afterward.  i think asriel doesn’t say or hear that line, and just lets go on his own

in conclusion, i reblogged that post because it’s a theory that gives me feelings and makes me want to hug someone and that’s all i want out of this dang fandom half the time anyway so like, i’m not sure i even care if it’s canon? (i say after defending it for 500 words… i’ll take any excuse to infodump, don’t judge me)

but i mean, any theory is gonna have counter-theories that are also canon-compliant as long as we’re not talking about stuff that’s directly implied by the text of the game  (like, uh… frisk and chara’s pronouns… but that’s unrelated.  i digress)

so yeah i didn’t reblog that with the intention of defending it as a Totally Canon Thing but if you wanna argue about undertale with me you’re gonna need some better arguments my dude