#fought tumblr putting all those links in

[frostbytemyrik]

Land back is literally Nazi 'blood and soil' ideology. The idea that a certain people have a unique connection to the land of a certain region and are the only rightful rulers of it. Every group of 'indigenous' people killed or forced some other group of people off of that land they're on before they took over it. Everyone is a colonizer if you go back far enough. It's totally incoherent.

Posting this publicly so other people can see this too to confirm I'm not just going completely mad. Are y'all seeing this? Did someone really just roll up to my inbox and claim the Land Back movement is comparable to Nazi ideology? Am I making up this clownery?

Anyway, cite your sources. EVERY group is a bold claim. And even then, that doesn't excuse the atrocities committed unto them by the European colonizers, nor the devastation that said colonizers continue to bring upon the planet and Her people.

From an ecological standpoint, stewardship is crucial to many environments. Native humans have tended to the land, and when colonizers "settled" it, they disregarded any care that it may need and, through a mix of killing Natives off and forbidding them from lands they were on first, keept and still keep them from tending it and never bothered learning to tend it themselves. It's the major reason why the Australian wildfires were so devastating.

But we aren't looking at this from a purely ecological standpoint, are we? We're looking at it from a humanitarian perspective, too. When we show up where other people already are and violently remove them from where they've lived for countless generations, make them houseless, starve them, defile their sacred spaces, mass murder their main sources of food and fabric, forcibly convert them to our religions, separate them from their families, and punish them for speaking their own languages... is it right? Does the fact that some of these nations have warred with others in the past make this okay? Does that make this treatment justified? (I'd think this is a rhetorical question, but considering this anon showed up I feel the need to specify: the answer is OBVIOUSLY NOT.)

This is just the list that I, a white man in the US, came up with on the spot, and this is only about a few of the abuses committed by the US alone. There's a lot more to be added here. No people deserve such mistreatment and no people ever will.

The continued persecution of Native peoples around the world will not end until the rights to stewardship of lands they had stolen from them are acknowledged.

LAND BACK NOW

Edit: Whenever I come back to edit this, Tumblr deletes all my sources in that big block of atrocities, so I'm just posting them all here below. TW for racism, genocide, and...just about everything else.

[merrycrisis-if]

So I just want to say that I'm definitely not a suspicious person sending you a suspicious link - suspicious people wouldn't say that outright, right? I just tried to send an ask, hit the character limit, then tried to send a message, and uh, hit the character limit again. Haha. Anyway, here's what Qiu has done to me: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hcQ_-WQ635cSrgWtEWX1gz7Xv9GbzopT_A5MpvRZA64/edit?usp=sharing

THIS MESSAGE IS THE BOMB!!! I love that you created a google doc just to gush about / psychoanalyse Qiu because of Tumblr asks's character limit, that's so hilarious and amazing!!

OK, now to reply to the message :D

[Re: Qiu] ...They're NOT EVEN AN ADULT YET. It's easy to say "just give up on the only structure you've known all your life because it's toxic" but reality is not always kind; even ignoring any kind of emotional support (which we unfortunately don't really get to see one way or another. Maybe Qiu would have been better off just running off and taking a leap of faith and relying on MC but it's not wrong to feel that the unknown is far more terrifying than the known and there was no way for them to know that choosing MC would have been better. The love of her parents - in whatever form, whether or not it's actually love, is what Qiu has known for most of their life - is a constant as long as they meet expectations.

Exactly, this!! Like, we first meet Qiu when they're still very much finding themselves / figuring out what they want in life. It's definitely a 'coming-of-age' story for them — as much as it is for MC. So their relationship with MC takes place at a point where, like you mentioned, they are still a teen(!) and their parents' expectations and (conditional) love is all that they know. It's never easy to distinguish between what one's own desires, dreams etc. are, and what's simply fed to us by society, by the people we trust/care about (in Qiu's case, it's their parents).

So I think one of the greatest joys of writing Qiu (and their relationship with MC) is acknowledging the imperfection, the growth, and their initial failure to 'do right' by each other back in high school (and the potential to re-visit that and make different choices the second time around).

There are probably bits of “it would be entirely way too selfish of me to ask MC to give up on their opportunity and stay”, among other things, but I’d like to think that feelings of “I don’t deserve to ask this of MC” are also there... Asking or hoping for Qiu to ask them to stay - I get it, I really do, but there’s also a part of me that feels like god DAMN if that isn’t fair, putting the choice on Qiu... Just as Qiu could have stood up for MC, could have shouted their love for MC from the rooftops, could have asked MC to stay; MC could have CHOSEN to stay, could have CHOSEN to prioritize their relationship with Qiu. Could have written emails, snail mail, video calls, flew back for visits, could have given long distance a shot. Maybe it was just the wrong time, wrong place. Maybe back then, neither of them could have made those choices, said those things.

And you bring this up beautifully here, where I think I was really interested in portraying MC's hurt (from MC's perspective) regarding the way Qiu never fought for them, even when they were so ready to throw it all away for Qiu — but then also slowly unpeel the layers of Qiu's perspective as well, i.e. that MC expected grand gestures from Qiu, but truth is, reality was tugging them in opposite directions, and perhaps Qiu did fail to jump off a cliff the way MC wanted them to, but they both failed to try to figure out a more mundane, less grandiose way of keeping in touch, staying in each other's lives etc.

MC back then had been seeing things in a very 'black and white', 'you do or you die' kind of way (as most 'first love' stories go), but I think now that they've had years to mature / grow, there's space for both MC and Qiu to appreciate the nuances of what had happened between them, how things fell apart etc. and acknowledge that in some ways, they were each incapable of doing the things they needed from each other, but nobody was truly at fault.

Again, thanks for the lovely message <3

[molagboop]

Metroid Dread Model Deep Dive: Raven Beak, Part 1

You know him, you've (probably) fought him, he's a staple of this blog...

It's Raven Beak! We're finally doing this.

Today, I'm providing a comprehensive look into Raven Beak's model. I probably won't have enough space to cover the entire thing, as the image limit for Tumblr posts is capped at 30, but we're starting with the head and working our way down.

The rest of this post is under the cut for your convenience.

Navigation:

Fullbody turnaround and helmet meshes

Helmet details

Shoulders, arms, and hands

Arm cannon

Wings and torso

Legs and feet

Raven Beak is referred to as chozocommander in the files: his textures are abbreviated to "commander[whatever]" in the files, with the name of a mesh or general purpose specified in the square brackets (commanderbody, etc). Raven Beak appears in three maps: Hanubia, Artaria, and Itorash. As Metroid Dread's cutscenes are executed in-engine, his model can be extracted from the map packages for the aforementioned regions.

There are several models linked to him during cutscenes that aren't part of his base model: chozocommander_arm, chozocommander_face (appears in Hanubia and after the mask breaks in Itorash), chozocommander_wing_r (which he rips off during the cutscene preceding phase 3 of his fight). chozocommander_arm is a more detailed version of his left arm that exists in the actor files for both Artaria and Itorash, the two zones where a cutscene involves the camera getting close to his arm while he chokes Samus out.

With that out of the way, our first order of business is his helmet, and there's a lot to look at.

Here's a list of all his meshes. We'll go over each part as they become relevant. Relevant to our current objective is helmethead, helmethead_clean, helmethead_cinematic, and brokenmask.

You'll notice that each of these have two meshes to their name. The names that are lower on the hierarchy are the actual helmets, and those higher on the hierarchy are overlays for the eyes to make them glow.

Here's what that looks like without scene lighting:

With the overlay...

... and without the overlay.

helmethead_clean features Raven Beak's helmet without the crack from the Super Missile: this is what we see during the opening cutscene in Artaria.

helmethead bestows the crack over the right eye.

Of all the helmet meshes, the cinematic version is the cleanest and most detailed: this one is used during parts of cutscenes where the camera zooms in on Raven Beak's face.

I'll be using this model to explore the smaller details.

All helmet meshes except the broken mask have their own textures: the broken mask uses the basic helmethead's textures.

brokenmask (left) and brokenmask01 (right). These are used to animate the sequence where the helmet breaks in the post-boss fight cutscene.

Earlier, I mentioned that the cinematic mesh is cleaner than the others. The textures and geometry on the cinematic mesh are crisper and more defined because it's used when we want to get a good look at his face: you don't need to see every plane of his beak in high definition during combat.

Here's a closeup of each primary model for the helmet to demonstrate. From left to right, we have helmethead_clean, helmethead, and helmethead_cinematic. helmethead_clean appears to have the lowest clarity in its textures. helmethead is passable, but the planes on helmethead_cinematic are leagues cleaner: there's very little artifacting (the janky crunch affiliated with lower quality jpgs), the colors appear richer, and effort was made to define the negative space.

Look at the owl-shaped crest in the center of the headdress (helmethead left, helmethead_cinematic right): there are darker lines between the arch behind the head, and care was put into darkening the spaces between the eyebrows, around the eyes, etc.

I've already hit the image limit, so we're going to examine the details on his face even further in another post: I've waited so long to share all the little differences between these helmet meshes in excruciating detail, so I suppose it's only fitting that our first entry is about more about that than it is showing off the finer details of the headdress and mask themselves.

I would not have been able to dive this deep a year ago when the image limit was capped at 10. I hope they increase it further so I can inflict you with more model facts.

I am working on the second post. The navigation section at the top of the post will be updated as things go live.

[talisidekick]

My life is on Tumblr. Not all of it, but enough. Why? Because I finally broke out of the illusion I made for myself growing up. I felt like a monster because thats how I was told to feel for feeling what I felt, and so I lied to myself until I believed I didn't feel the things I did. It was a self-made, bunker thick, mysoginistic and misandristic shell of toxicity that made me miserable for the purposes of others convenience in upholding a fantasy world of simplicity. Upon rediscovering truth and having to face all I'd lost in making unappreciated sacrifices, I started to learn how to reclaim and rebuild myself. I want to show people it's okay to be yourself. That being transgender doesn't make you inherently evil. That I, at the end of today, am human, a person, like any of you.

I've shared my thoughts, my frustrations, some of my joys, my hardships. I've made statement pieces, analysis, and even science posts. I've, on occasion, written papers on here with citations/links to my sources. I've put a sizeable amount of time and energy into letting everyone on this site into my life in some small way to combat the idolization and demonization political actors on the local, provinicial/state/territorial, national, and global stage are doing to transgender people. Because the term "transgender" is not synonymous, a thesaurical equivalent, or a replacement for the words "predator", "pedophile", "rapist", "adulterer", "monster", "assaulter", "victim", or "survivor" to name a few. It means "to identify as any gender other than the one assigned at birth". Thats it. Someone could literally decide "I'm just not the gender the doctor said I was" or "I'm not just what the doctor said I was" or " I'm just me" and that's enough. Those are people you know, love, talked to, interact with, laughed with, but maybe also argued with, had a heated discussion with, fought with, or got mad at in traffic for not using a turn signal to change lanes (we've all done it by mistake). Transgender people are just people. Capable of making mistakes, helping others, needing help, and fucking up like everyone else. We all make bad calls, and stupid decisions. We learn, we correct, we hold eachother accountable.

Logging in today to see a long-standing transgender persons blog getting nuked for the either the stupidest idle threat ever made (or so thats the official reason by the Tumblr CEO) or for simply being transgender (as other and numerous members of the public claim) has made me personally a bit wary. The way I see it, it's both. An idle threat was made to a Tumblr executive and because of the prejudice thats become common place world wide, Tumblrs CEO felt vindicated in going to the excessive lengths of full account deactivation on a transgender persons blog. It's absolutely expected to have a zero-tolerance policy on issuing threats, especially to staff. It's not okay in an online forum of supposed neutrality to utterly silence a person completely without fair warning of a Terms of Service failure and a chance to remove, redact, or re-edit a response. We ALL get heated, even myself, and do stupid things in a reactionary moment of passion. What the issue here is, is the disproportionate response. Given I and numerous other transgender people have recieved threats, those on our very lives in fact, which have gone completely ignored, why is there suddenly a zero-tolerance immediate ban policy on a threat that was, in comparison, the kind of insult you'd expect from a grumpy five-year-old?

I see why this is blowing up, because it's a clear display of power privilege. And rather than going through the established review path, as far as anyone can tell, this was a direct response. This sends, whether intentional or not, a clear message: if you're transgender, you're on thin ice here. And it's not just transgender people and queer and cisgender allies who are getting the message. The transphobes, the so called 'gender critical' crowd, the terfs, are seeing it too. That is why I'm calling for Predesterone's account, all associate blogs, be reinstantiated.

The constant misgendering, libel, misinformation, verbal violence, abuse, and conjecture transgender people of all identities face on this site without any reprocussion to those responsible has, for a long while, helped set a clear standard that users of this platform are afforded the privilege of a degree of disrespect towards marginalized groups and minorities. Ableists attack the disabled and neurodivergent, Nazi's attack Jews, Transphobes attack Transgender people, homophobes attack the gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and racists attack people of colour with -very- little the victims of such hate can do to make it stop. The bigots know this. And this ... this is going to make it worse. Bigots are going to try and instigate harsh responses from minority groups with the intent of forcing queer people and other minority groups off Tumblr. It has already begun in the reblogs of several posts like this one directed at transgender people. Predestrogen is already getting misgendered and disrespected outside the scope of the issue. Conjecture is already being made enmasse.

I'm on Tumblr because Reddit and Twitter were too unsafe. I'm not on any other blogging sites because Tumblr has, for the moment, a supportive queer community. That can change, given this whole situation has been done in such a way that it's being interpreted on all sides as an attack on transgender people.

Tumblr has no obligation to listen to me or others, but Tumblr has always struggled to get by, and I have to ask: is one persons dumb 'threat' really the spark you want to make to get people to leave. Is becoming a truly unprofitable cesspit and hate-haven like Twitter what's desired? Because this is the exact kind of rallying cry to make if you do.

I'm adding my voice to this. Bring back predesterone, this response is out of proportion. No, the CEO does not deserve to be threatened to have hammers thrown at his car until it explodes, or whatever. The point has been made: DO NOT THREATEN TUMBLR STAFF. But neither does a long-standing account deserve to be wiped off the face of Tumblr permanently for a blog post that is so benign compared to what the average transgender site user has to deal with on a regular basis with no recourse. Someone threatened to actually shoot me, kill me, if I was walking down the sidewalk and they saw me, and that post is still up and so is the account despite being reported. It's been 2-3 months or more. If I'm expected to stomach that, you can stomach someone saying they'll throw hammers at your car from a person who in all likelyhood is paying so much into transition she can't afford to buy one tiny kids-sized hammer. The person who threatened me actually openly admits to already owning guns.

[pommunist]

Hello pommunist dot Tumblr dot com, I just wanted to say thank you for your posts! I may not agree with all of your perspectives but they are a very good source of differing views to keep my own bias in check. I always see you making sure that discussion stays overall respectful and that is very swag of you 👍 I come from an environment where it's very common for workers to be exploited in the ways that are relevant rn (as far as I know, all of my friends have been). I also, as a person, have a very hard time being angry or taking a strong stance against anything (the more I disagree with someone's actions, the harder I subconsciously try to empathize with them) so your expressions of outrage help me remember that things like this are not normal and should be fought against.

It's very hard for me to condemn any of the things that quackity or others involved with q studios have done. To be clear, I completely support the admins' rights to proper treatment and pay; it's just that I know that if I was in the place of those higher-ups/quackity, I would have made the same or very similar mistakes, so it feels very fallacious to hold them to higher standards than I would hold myself. Is this a strange or inappropriate position to hold? I just do not know how to flex my brain in the right way to look at qstudios as a 'corporate entity' rather than a 'collection of individuals.' That plus the fact that in my opinion, all these problems with the server's management are much easier to make than people (at least in my experience) want to think, and have a good chance of happening with any project just because communication is so inherently infallible and human nature is complicated.

Again, I do really appreciate your point of view and perspective. I just have a hard time truly understanding the more "zero-tolerance" approach to—well, to anything, but in this case to abuse of workers' rights. Would you be willing to explain more of your perspective? I really truly do want to understand better.

I hope you are having a good day/night, and that the tone of this does not come off as anything other than genuine. Lots of love! ❤️❤️

Hey anon !! First do not worry your message came off as nothing but genuine, no problem at all 🫶

Also I don’t think it’s strange or inappropriate for you to have the position you described in your ask ! I actually relate a lot to you saying you can have a hard time being angry at something because same, the more I analyse someone’s actions the more I tend to see their pov and empathise.

Also about holding yourself to a different standard if you were in their shoes, the question is : would you, in a similar scenario, have made decisions that would have put you in the same situation they are now ? Personally, I know that I don’t have the money, ressources or abilities to manage such a big project, so by realising it, I wouldn’t have gone through with it.

For the others things you brought up I’m gonna link you to a previous ask I answered, as well as to the very pertinent addition by @blockgamepirate to it, which I hope can bring some elements of answers to your questions.

And personally, there are many reasons I feel so strongly about the topic of workers rights. Them being that I just care about politics and have an interest in them, but also the current political climate of my own country and my personal background makes it that I kinda HAD to strongly make my mind on this topic. In this particular case it angers me even more because the admins were mostly young people, who had a great love and admiration for the project, and for the passion of young fans be taken advantage of is just heartbreaking.

I hope this was at least somewhat helpful, sending love back ♥️

[zeltqz]

niyaaaa do u have any tips for people who wanna get into fic writing? 👀

i don’t really get how the whole posting format for fics works on here tbh 😭 and like your info area it’s so cool

YEAH OFC!! btw dm me your username so i can follow and support you <3

tip 1- the posting format isnt that hard to get used to actually its just you create a tumblr text post and then copy and paste your fic onto it, add the tags and stuff then post it. if you want to add banners, headers and stuff to make it look better then go ahead, just add images to the text post

tip 2- the info area is the same as above, just add pictures of your choice etc to the text post, add your information, name, age, fav things etc and then to link posts to your post, highlight where u want the link to go, then copy the link of the post u want linked then press the hyperlink that looks like two chains linked together when you highlight the text if that makes sense? sounds like a lot but its rlly not i promise haha

tip 3- always type your fics on other apps like word or google docs since they have an auto save feature!! i dont reccomend typing your fics on tumblr since one if the app crashes, it doesn't automatically save your work so everything you wrote will get deleted (some versions of tumblr do have autosave, my laptop has it but my phone and iPad doesn't, so i dont rely on it)

tip 4- idk if you want tips on actual fic writing or just how to get your fics onto tumblr but ill help you with that anyway. with me when i write fics i always imagine it out in my head. theres some of my fics where i just went with the flow and wrote wgatever came to mind and those are the fics i hate the most because they dont rlly make sense to me. theyre always so random and it just seems rushed and bad.

i picture my fics like a scene in my head and whatever i want the character to do, think, say or feel i write that shit down asap. i use other online sources to help get more descriptive like the emotion theasurus <- honestly one of my favourite things to use ever, they have so much body language to use for every emotion in the damn book

dialogue is also something i find difficult. i've improved i personally feel like but its still hard for me especially if im writing a new character. i never want to make the character seem OOC so i do lots of research before hand. i normally use the wiki to read up on a characters personality.

for example i'll use ran for this since he's like 99% of my account lmao. in the wiki, he's described as "naturally whimsical toward others which makes him inscrutable" though ran doesnt have many scenes in the manga (which i hate bc i love him sm) its impossible to actually write him down to a tee so i use that naturally whimsical description to make him playful, charismatic, carefree etc, going off what little information i have with him.

getting a characters personality down is what can make or break a dialogue. for me when im reading a fic of a character and their dialogue is so OOC it puts me off and i dont even wanna read. so i apply my same fic icks to myself and think if I don't like seeing this and that in a fic, why would I incorporate those in my fics and have ppl get put off it if they have the same fic icks as me?

hope that makes sense!!

tip 5- dont rush yourself at all. i used to rush a few of my fics and i just ended up hating it so much after and fought bck the urge to delete them so many times but then i'd see people's comments and realise i was being too harsh on myself. i'd keep them up but i'd just hate seeing them get attention.

rushing only makes you hate your work and the quality of your work will decline if you are not in the right headspace.

thats also why i have the don't rush me thing in my rules because not only is it annoying to see people constantly asking for updates, it also makes me mad because i know i'll just put out a piece of garbage if i did rush.

also another tip don't give yourself deadlines!! if you know your writing consistency can be a little sloppy, don't tell your followers that you're going to upload every so and so day. if something happens and you miss the deadline, you'll feel bad and rush something out and most times out of ten, a rushed fic doesn't do well. so take your time and don't rush.

tip 6- dont listen to what other people say or feel obligated to write something you don't wanna. establish your boundaries!! for example, from day one i started this blog i said im accepting requests but i will not write anything to do with non-con, incest or minors. i made sure that was out there so i wouldn't feel uncomforable writing anything i wasn't comfy with.

there are people on this app that may like your writing and request you to write something for them. you are not obligated to write anything for anyone! don't feel like you have to just because they asked nicely.

if you want to accept requests you can im not saying you shouldn't, im saying don't feel like you have to. you always have a choice. its your blog.

tip 7- remember this isn't a job. you're allowed to take breaks, allowed to have a personal life. don't feel like you need to be updating every day. i used to think i was obligated to be uploading consistently at least every week because i was obsesssed with engagement and seeing peoples comments and was scared if i took a break ppl will unfollow. now i honestly don't care. i'm not active as much as i used to because of school and that's fine! if ppl want to leave, let them. don't feel like you're forced to keep being active in order to keep your follower count stable.

tip 8- this app can get really toxic sometimes. luckily enough i've only had one toxic anon in my inbox and i've been on this app for a year. some people have so many, some ppl get harrassed etc. if that happens to you just be prepared since there's no actual way to find out who's behind anons. you can turn off your anon options which means if ppl want to inbox you something then their account will be showing. some people arent comfortable with that and that's fine! i keep mine on because i want people to feel comfortable on my page.

just remember though if you ever feel like this app is getting overwhelming take breaks! for the sake of your mental health take breaks. i know so many writers on here that took breaks and came back healthier and stronger.

i feel like this tip goes for social media in general. as much as i love social media im aware how unhealthy it is. breaks are so important for you. remember that.

i can't think of anymore tips right now but if i have some more i will edit the post and add it on.

if u have anymore questions about the tumblr posting format dm me and ill help you out :))

[spacetimeconundrum]

I totally understand! If you do have any suggestions for good current sources or more updated sources, let me know -- like I said, we're not in the fandom so we're limited to what's easily findable online, and if Fanlore doesn't link it, we're limited more or less to Tumblr's search algorithm, which we all know is not the most functional. The follow-up won't be until at least next August since that's when the Religious Wars happened, so no rush or pressure to reply right away, but I am genuinely intrigued by the event and I love watching people love the things they love, so I would totally be down to follow some dS blogs between now and then!

In light of your expected timeline for the follow-up, I think it would be appropriate that the “Corrections Corner” segment you offered to do on the podcast be included in the NEXT episode you publish, NOT a year from now.

Because, as I said in my previous message, the harm done was NOT simply that you made a factual error in stating that the Ray Wars were on-going to this day, but that when you say things like:

“So these negative attitudes just kept intensifying and intensifying and honest-to-god, they really never got to a point where they were like, ‘this is silly, let’s just let bygones be bygones’. For whatever reason, due South,” “-is still like this-” “...despite being a silly cop show about a guy talking to his ghost of a dad with his wolf dog. Like, people refuse to set their differences aside for due South and say, ‘you can like RayV, I’m gonna like RayK and we’re both okay with that.’” “To this day, you have to pick a Ray, or have Benton choose actively to swing both Rays.”

To a live audience at a fan convention, without doing more than cursory research (even fanlore.org lists the Ray Wars as a concluded historical event) to ensure that you’re being accurate, you’re doing a disservice to the current members of the due South fandom, who either lived through the Wars and fought to make the fandom a better space afterwards, or were not participants and yet also continuously put in work to keep our fandom welcoming.

As for your question regarding sources for information on the due South “Religious War of ‘96”, I’m afraid that pre-dates my involvement in the fandom by a good four years, and as much of those events took place over private mailing lists, your best bet is to speak with older members of the fandom with firsthand experience. I’m going to publish your ask so that any fans who might remember those events know to contact you. :)

[thecaseforspacecases]

S01E01 We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

First off, apologies to the 12 people who followed this account back when I was camping on a SpiderDevil themed Marvel account name. This is now a Space Cases tumblr, feel free to unfollow if you're still around.

I decided to start writing here because I am, to this day, still in love with the 1996 Nickelodeon kids' show Space Cases. I'm a.) starving for content and b.) desperate to put my thoughts down somewhere and so here we are.

I'm going to use this space to do an episode-by-episode rewatch, go though the official website and show bible, find and curate other content I stumble across on the internet, post some old magazine scans I have that haven't seen the light of day since Livejournal, etc etc.

Today, I'm starting at the start and watching S01E01 "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place." I have the old VHS rips saved to my computer, HOWEVER, for this I'll be watching the uploads on the youtube channel "thespacecases" (link below) which has them in much better quality. My thoughts under the cut!

I'm going to be scribbling down my thoughts as I watch:

(For trivia and behind the scenes info, check out the episode guide on spacecasestv.com)

I'm trying desperately to read the Starcademy motto but I can't make out the first word. So something Sine Fronteras - ...Without Borders? I took a quick look around the wiki and spacecasestv.com but couldn't find it. Darn!

The opening intro to the characters is ICONIC. I can still quote it to this day.

Davenport: I believe in regulations and procedure, Mr. Band. If you added those two words to your vocabulary you could...

Catalina: Double it?

Hello, police? I'd like to report a murder.

Here we learn that Radu is the first Andromedan at Starcademy and it seems via context that he is the only one. Probably hasn't been there too very long. What a difficult thing to do, and then to end up in the remedial class at least partly because the students are prejudiced against Andromedans because their parents fought against them in Spung-Andromedan War. I believe I also read somewhere (maybe in the show bible??) that he was chosen to go by the other Andromedans because he didn't fit in with them. Maybe I made that up.

Anyway, fair warning, Radu has always been my favorite and I'm endlessly fascinated by the potential I saw in developing the Andromedan people.

I've also developed a soft spot for Harlan and his character development/potential for growth, and the development of his relationship with Radu, who he initially hated due to his prejudices against Andromedans. And I also ship it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(@shmeiliarockie posted their thoughts after a season 1 rewatch awhile back and has a head-canon that Andromedans don't have gender which I LOVE and have not stopped thinking about. Click this for the post.)

Ok, I have got to be more brief I think, I'm only a minute and a half into this episode. BUT THIS EP IS SO GOOD.

Davenport: The vacuum of space isn't fair either, Mr. Band. It can destroy anyone who doesn't have what it takes to survive. And...none of you has what it takes.

Devastating.

I want breakdowns of all the different symbols on their uniforms and what they mean. Maybe the prominent shoulder ones symbolize the planet they come from? Harlan has three polyhedral like pillars which I've only just now thought may stand for Earth and the Lunar and Mars colonies.

Catalina is the eye roll champion.

Radu's "What is your problem?!" to Harlan. Yes, bby, don't take his shit.

Yes, why IS the Christa named after an Earth teacher, why IS Thelma a Techno-HUMAN emulating machine?? I do wonder if the creators knew or if they were just planning to figure it out if they ever got that far.

Personally, I subscribe to the time loop theory wherein the crew in the future sends Thelma and the Christa back in time to pick up their younger selves.

Thelma has the best gags.

Goddard: Band, Helm. Catalina, Engineering. Rosie, Bova, Scanning and Tactical. Radu, take Navigation.

I love this scene, chills.

They end up going through the White Circle anyway: 7 years, 4 months, and 22 days from home. Definite Star Trek: Voyager vibes, which had begun the year before in 1995.

Davenport is complaining that she had theater tickets for tonight. Where, ma'am?? The wiki says that Starcademy orbits Pluto.

Harlan is yelling at Radu and Radu looks INDIGNANT. I love him.

Goddard: I was three weeks shy. Three more weeks and my career as a teacher would have been over. I'd have been back out in space with a crew. Instead I'm...

Catalina: Back out in space.

Radu: With a crew.

Interestingly, a similar line was used against me in a DnD campaign when my ship captain then-Warlock was bemoaning his fate. :)

This episodes rules. What a great start to a series. The creators wanted Space Cases to be a "Star Trek for kids" and as someone who is also obsessed with Star Trek, well, well done, you hooked me as a child.

If you've made it this far, thank you very much for reading. And if you want to talk Space Cases, feel free to reblog/reply to this post or send me an ask. I'd love to chat about SC!

[rainbowvamp]

So, my original author's note in "Mess of a Dreamer (With the Nerve to Adore You)" is oppressively long. I'm going to post it here and link to it at the beginning of the fic.

I could just say less but... it's me. I'm not gonna do that.

Hello All, If you’re coming here from the letters fic (Unsent Letters: Nameless Stranger), welcome back. If you’re new, then simply welcome. This fic series has wormed it’s way very deeply into my heart (and soul, and all my other body parts honestly). I adore this second installation to the series, even though it has fought it’s own creation every step of the way I have been working on this beast of a fic for 6 months, and it is only half way finished. At the time of writing, this fic is a work in progress, but it is very thoroughly planned and I currently have enough completed chapters to post one chapter hopefully every week or two for the rest of the summer. Posting schedules and I don’t really get along, though, so we’ll see how that goes. I would like to thank everyone who read and commented so generously on the previous installation of this series. Reading through those comments has been what kept me motivated to work on this project when it was refusing to be cooperative. I'm not kidding about the fight it's put up. I will not promise that this fic will be what you wished for, or that it will be good, but I promise that it is written with love, and it is an offering from me to the very concept of dreams coming true. This fic is written in third person, limited to either Dream or Hob with a very occasional intercession of a more omniscient narrator. The first part of the first chapter is that omniscient narrator, so if you hate it, don't worry. It's not going to be like that often. I also want to talk about Gender as it applies to Dream of the Endless in this fic. Dream (in my own self-indulgent head canon) uses both he/him and they/them pronouns. My aim (and if all went well in the editing, my achievement) is to use they/them pronouns in the narrative spaces relegated to The Dreaming and he/him pronouns when Dream is in The Waking World. My rationale for this is that Dream is everything in The Dreaming, is every aspect of it, in fact, and so it would make sense that Dream would think of himself as “themself” not bound by gender, even though in the Waking World he takes on a masculine presentation (and pronouns). Of course, Dream never communicates this pronoun preference to Hob (shocker), and so anytime we’re reading through Hob’s point of view, Dream will be referred to with he/him pronouns, no matter if it’s in The Dreaming or The Waking World because that’s what Hob knows. I am very much taking the approach of “Dream is casual about their gender” and is in fact one of those people who when asked explicitly about their pronouns would respond “any”. While I was writing Unsent Letters I spent a lot of time exploring the depth of Hob’s love for Dream, his wonder at the world, and his growth over 600 years alive on earth. I don’t know if I can write prose as poignant as some of those letters felt, but these aspects of Hob’s character are so important to me, and so I am trying to do them justice while giving Dream the same sort of death and development. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit out of practice with writing prose, and so "trying" is the best I can do. This is still a work in progress, subject to small revisions and edits even after I’ve posted, so if you feel you have guidance to offer as a beta reader, please come and see me on Tumblr. I’d prefer these conversations happen in private. All that being said, I hope you enjoy this second installment. I have put my soul into this project and I hope that means it turns out well. Shout out to insanityallowance on Tumblr for doing an initial beta read. I have messed with this fic a lot since then, though, so all mistakes are 100% my bad. With all my love, Lore aka Rainbowvamp

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy and the Prince #2

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

Well, here’s where we try to figure out if I can do the tumblr queue thing.

I do have a Ko-fi, if anyone would like to help me pay for rent and bills. An It may not be, uh, organized, and I’m not sure how I’m going to make it easy to find in order. But you won’t have to pay for it. I’d put it on AO3 but I don’t think they allow for original writing and I don’t want to get them in trouble, they’re embattled enough. Ko-Fi link’s on my profile and at the end of the post.

By the time someone noticed the youngest prince in the palace was missing, it was suppertime. By the time he was found, seven people had been fired, three had been threatened with beheading, and the Dowager had written increasingly scathing letters to the monastery that provided her with teachers. Adam was dragged into a bath, sunburnt and windburnt and eyes full of wild glee, soot-black from where he'd made his way into an unused chimney and climbed down and out through the hearth. Linden had shown him the chimney, and watched him begin his descent. "Be careful, Adam," they'd warned the prince, those shattered eyes gleaming in the setting sunlight. "I can't catch you if you fall here."

"There's steps, it's fine. A baby could climb this. Will I see you tomorrow?"

"Maybe." Linden had laughed. "You know where to find me."

He was grounded, and quickly forgotten once again. The problem with that, of course, is that it's hard to keep a young boy in a giant palace grounded if you start ignoring him. He slipped out through the cellar once, when he'd been given punishment duty there. The master-at-arms lost track of him in the training yard, busy with the older boys whom he actually had faith in. He climbed up the beams in the stables when he was supposed to be doing punishment detail shoveling hay, and slipped out through the open shutters where hay bales where shuttled back and forth. Twice he climbed out of windows, his own and the one in the secondary library. He nearly fell once.

Linden was always there to catch him, with a merry laugh and those shattered, many-colored eyes. The palace rooftop and the cool dark woods were their playground, and they went everywhere together. In shallow cisterns and tiny pools carved out of the stumps of fallen forest giants Linden showed him impossible fish that spoke in tiny strings of bubbles, like pearls from a spilling necklace. They fought with imaginary swords, back to back, defending against savage barbarians and wicked pirates and murderous raiders, legions upon legions of them. It was always his ideas that they chased after, but Linden never seemed to mind falling in with the young prince's wild imaginings.

In the end, with summer growing heady and sweet and hot, he got grounded for good, his windows barred shut while the sour-faced, pinched-mouthed man that handled the princes made "other accommodations". His door was barred and there was a guard set upon it, and he couldn't force the windows open even a little bit. He'd tried to climb out of his hearth, but it shared a chimney with something that had a fire going at all hours of the day.

So he'd hid in the laundry pannier.

The staff panicked. How had their charge slipped out? How had he made it past the guard, the barred windows, the locked door? People dashed in and out, but no one thought twice of the laundry basket, least of all the burly-armed maid that carried it down to the boiling pools of lye water. Someone shouted when Adam squirmed his way free, but in the vast forests of laundry hung to dry hardly anyone could see him, let alone catch him. He scrabbled over a stone wall and raced along the top, leapt onto the low eaves of the kitchen, sprinted away and clambered up a gutter, thanking each water spout he passed by name, as Linden had taught him. He was almost to the top when his feet went out from under him and he slammed against the edge of a steep roof with punishing force, blowing all the breath out of him. His grip slipped.

A strong, tiny, brown hand caught him by the wrist. "Are you ever gonna get any better at this?" Linden accused him cheerfully.

"I hope so," he admitted, groaning.

"That took forever!" Linden helped him onto the roof, and Adam flopped down on his stomach to catch his breath. "What happened, where have you been?"

"They locked me up." Adam sighed.

"Uuuuugh!" Linden dropped to sit next to him, playing with the black curls of his hair. "Are they even allowed to do that? You're their prince!"

"I'm one of, like, fifty princes, Linden." Adam felt himself relax at last under that familiar, friendly touch, like a bird making a nest of his hair. "And I'm the youngest. I'm never gonna be king, so they don't care."

"If they don't care, why'd they lock you up?" Linden sprawled on their back next to him.

Adam turned his head to look at them, frowning a little as he put his words together; that, he'd learned from no teacher in the palace, but from his mother, who hadn't wanted to leave him behind. "Because I made them look bad," he explained at last. "When you're a prince, they have to know where you are and what you're doing, always and always. And if I told them about you, they'd say it's too dangerous and wouldn't let me do any of it."

"That's so dumb."

"Right?" Adam was silent for a long moment. "What about you? What does your family think of me?"

"They think I'm very silly for spending time with you," Linden tucked their arms under the gold-tipped burst of their white hair. "But they've always thought I'm silly."

"You're not silly!"

"Well, of course not." Linden looked pleased at Adam's staunch and immediate defense. "But they think everyone that's young is silly, and I'm the youngest, and you're the youngest. So we're twice the silly."

"Ugh." Adam was very familiar with that sort of thinking, and kept as much distance between himself and it as possible.

"And who cares what they think anyway." Linden whipped upright. "Now come on, I found a stork's nest!"

Adam sprung up to a sitting position. "With storks?!"

"How else would I know it's a stork's nest? Come on!"

[the-firebird69]

There's a whole slew of laws that people are looking at who are more like and they can't figure out why they missed all of it and we say it's cuz you're stupid and he owns tons of companies and they can't figure out the tide to him and mostly Mac can't really get a tie to work either. Which is not true Mack and the max and will and Bill even can have several ties and Ken is sitting there threatening trying to get his stock.

Have you heard him one day see who the f*** care is the answer is no I don't give up stock cuz someone's threatening stock that's retarded and it goes like this it is kind of stupid yeah cuz then you won't have any so that was a conversation Ken thought about until it's right it's been other stuff because and it seems real but it doesn't necessarily mean that

But these are people at work can Phillips and his buddy Chad and Mr O'Connor all sorts of people are sitting there with a grin cuz they know what stocks are and there's a few people that know he bought specific stocks at storm Western development and he kicked their ass and took over and huge companies does he know they were big one of them is Big Blue that's his dad's company he took over his dad's company I don't know if you get that there's some other things he was taking over that were George's and George couldn't tell it was him and people of these companies knew it and held it and kind of fought for him and he took them over and mac daddy knows about it and a lot of Max and they know what they were doing to make it work and they say they had him do it because they were but he still owns them and he's kind of a pervasive person as we are and we need to own them and he gives out decisions on this device on Tumblr he's telling us what to do and those are all hardcore things that can be used and it's all about wisps and all sorts of nuances things that you can't explain it all as you say because of trump but you get it you get stuff through with Trump and you're telling everyone it's him and this guy Tommy and that's what you're saying so we do see what you're saying but others are getting into it and they say a myriad of things they can threaten

1. What we brought up just now is that there's probably 20 companies that are Fortune 500 our son is linked to that he has controlling share of and it's in writing and it's his name. We have a lot of your products and goods that we can hold on to we don't want you threatening our son we want these assholes to stop and we want you to do your job so far you're dragging your heels you're dragging your toes you're leaving him to wallow and we don't like it you need tons of stuff right now it's extortion no what you do is I'm counting it if you don't like it so what

2. There's also something called a hegemony where he's having his wife to the work and get the money together and they're both in order together but he doesn't know much about it and Arnie used to do it and our son learned from him. And she has records of all his stocks and bonds and money and she's hitting them and they're not really on the planet Earth and they're not really on Mars and we don't want to tell you where they are but really you guys probably going to go after her which you are already and you're going after Katya mainly who's actually Jen Merrick you say that it's also Melissa and it's also these Jersey girl and Amanda garden flow Robin good friend and that small blonde and you never get that one right all sorts of people with her and the girl at the party and she knows what happened and she helped blow the building up.

2. Is aware of what she's doing and how's her doing it hands are money on screen you can see him giving her money and it's a lot of money thousands of dollars she's smiling saying thank you and puts it away like she's a secretary or something and she goes in and she's very business like and I'll tell you what they look like the scam artist team it's great cuz that's what they're doing nothing you treat them like nothing

3. They also doing a lot of other things that have to do with money and finance they're buying things and moving things around and being creating companies and moving and factories and forcefully buying companies it's in writing and Trump is not even lifting a finger when we've done more damage to him and his companies than anybody that's ever existed and we pointed out the robots to have people fight over them to dissipate them and to take a whole bunch into false flag it but that's besides the point we did it to take the factories and we forced him to sell and he doesn't get that cuz he did it for the money he says you have to change his entire motif he would

4. He has a lot of personal money but a lot of money is in the assets and part of your tax form you have to declare your assets as something that you have and is liquidatable and there's a non liquidatable in their classified by what they are his liquidatable assets equal almost what Trump has in his accounts as money which is kind of an odd coincidence and a son cannot sell and won't and Trump is trying to buy it but it wouldn't work and our son says it's because we're manning the places it's not because I say it on them and give you a piece of paper which I will not it's true too

5. Really huge number of things to talk about but this is a really hot topic there's more in finance that he's doing it can be considered to be very illegal he has created almost a new currency no he doesn't do anything like that but he's moved massive amounts of money around and not told anybody and it is something to do with companies relocating out of the country and it's a form of tax evasion and the government up there is request requesting tax money and we're paying them and we're not making a ton of money yet but they're getting more money than ever dreamed of and they are buying stuff and they feel really good people can't tell these days they don't look that some do but not much they're out for lunch and that's also a form of tax evasion we haven't filed taxes in the United States for companies that were operating there like Briggs & Stratton automobile cuz we simply weren't selling that many and making much money and passed a couple quarters and haven't submitted yet inviting is going after that Biden is going after that and he's going to fail. The fact that our son has no money at all from any of his scams means that you could be chasing a straw man and he's not but he doesn't have anything which means that you are going to get yourself in a bind and you are and you're going to go to jail Bobby does it's illegal to make someone into a straw man including the max

6. Tons of other things are happening we are at War but this is a great one and I'm there's a huge number of people wondering where his money is and it's in Banks and finance centers and investments and they're looking up his name and they don't find anything no they find several trillion dollars in the bank and they fight about 450 trillion dollars in investments and people who know how to look very hard find about 10 trillion in the banks in about 700,000 trillion which is about seven quadrillion dollars which is pretty light and they look at the assets too and they think it's about 200 quadrillion and our numbers are in the octillions and he wants to buy stuff Donald Trump wants to buy stuff and her son simply is not going to sell to him cuz he doesn't have any power to enforce the money it's not even real it's not worth the check it's written on if you wrote One.

7. I have a couple more and he's got to get his dinner going there's about 500 million of his that is invested in things that can be immediately liquidated like gold and so forth it's much more money than that it's really about seven octillion dollars no it's more like 7 million octillion dollars and those kind of assets are what they call mega billionaires and they're supposed to be reporting every week his report anything because he's not allowed to see it or touch it by anybody here the max plan to use it once they're gone and they're going to be surprised foreigners are here and we're here

8. Along with all those assets and money that he has he has things that are antiquities they're really priceless and the value of them far exceeds the dollar amount you can put on it and he has them insured and refuse to lose them he would be five times wealthier than if he liquidated all his assets and collected all the money which is ridiculous because he is just an amazing amount it is a lot of that stuff and it's stored in secret places and you've seen some of them artifacts and they're real and they're actually Kaiju stuff and it's very valuable and they're not yours he's taking them back after using them on you including his knives it's a very valuable knife set and he saved lives and he saved mine with them personally saved me

I'm writing this to ensnare more people into it and in order to head off the max there's a lot more and it's about war crimes and racism and mass murder and more and more or less starts with the apartment to complex in Worcester that he and his wife blew up and they actually did that some people think they drove off together like Bonnie and Clyde

Thor Freya

They're announcing it as bait and we approve it and so do Zeus and Hera

Olympus

We do and he has to go to dinner going but I thank him very much for doing this it's awesome and he's got a ton of stuff but he is acquiring more and so are our people they're keeping me up it's about 50/50

Hera Zues

We have a portion of what they do know they have tons of stuff yeah we have to manage it and everything is offspring or holding their share we have our share too and we need things and they help us get it they're very generous

Frank Castle hardcastle

He says it sounds like I'm holding on to too much but you're using all of it and we are part of all those programs and really can't take much of it with us even the gold so you know how it is

We know how it is still

Duke Nukem Blockbuster and we can't take it off planet you no can poops

[if-music-be-the-food-of-love]

Do you have any tips for writing? Or do you just have an unbelievable natural talent?

Oh. 

I don’t— I don’t even know how to answer this bc…😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰 I would not consider myself talented at all 😫 I personally feel like I’m breaking all the rules when I write bc I don’t know them, the do’s and don’ts. I read an article the other day, and I def did everything on their “never do this” list. I look at other ppl’s writing and constantly think “dammit, I’ll never be that good!” So I dunno. I’m just making it up as I go along and learning a bit more each time. I still feel like a newbie even tho I’ve been writing fic for 2 years now. Since I never wrote before that, I feel like I’m playing catch up all the time. So yeah, no idea if this made sense, but I was blown away and am kinda reeling about your ask. Like, “who me?” So thank you from the bottom of my heart 💕💕💕 gonna turn into a puddle now 😭

To get to the other part, I did answer an ask awhile back that included suggestions for writing motivation and what works for me (again with the caveat that I’m more familiar with nonfiction writing). It’s super long, but I think it applies to your ask. I’ll link it here. There’s a lot of info there. I will say. I did try writing sprints after I wrote this, and honestly they got me thru last year’s Skam Big Bang. I’m easily distracted, but the sprints kept me focused. No sneaking off to tumblr 😂. And I also liked seeing how much progress I was making in real time. So yeah, sprints are great!

Other advice I didn’t mention in that post:

Write what makes you happy, what excites you, what brings you joy. It’s so easy to get bogged down with “will anyone like this? ” It doesn’t matter. Unless you’re trying to publish, which is a whole diff world outside of my experience, fic writing is for you and about you. It’s about your love for the characters or the show or the world. You’re sharing that love with ppl, and whether 30 or 300 or 3000 ppl read it, you’ve made someone’s life better. I still struggle with this, but in the end I ask myself what matters most, being proud of my story and being happy that I wrote it, or the kudos? I have a fic with 11 kudos, and that’s okay. So I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t focus on the numbers. Focus on writing what makes you happy. (Also the age old, write what you know 😂—but I have a whole shadowhunters collection, and I’ve def never swung a sword or fought a demon, so...).

So in a similar vein, there’s also the “is this any good?” question that haunts us. Honestly, just put words on the paper!! It doesn’t matter. Try something new. Experiment. See what you’ve got in you. You’ll never know if you don’t try. Try try again. You’ll grow and improve and learn about yourself, but that only works if you start somewhere. Fic writing isn’t about being a perfect, great literary author, it’s about finding joy in sharing the story that’s in your head with ppl who also love those characters. Plenty of ppl slap up unedited stories. There’s no expectation. We’re out there having fun. And anyway, writing is a process, your stories will improve from one to the next. Just keep writing. 

Don’t be afraid to take ideas from real life. So many of my fics are grounded in reality. Anything can be inspiration for a story. I had an ER nurse who looked like Merlin, and a sobbe fic was born (odd correlation, i know). I got bogged down thinking about how kinnporsche got their shirts off while handcuffed together, and another sobbe fic was born. You can also use fic/plot generators or ask for prompts if you need ideas. 

I don’t do this bc I don’t like being bombarded by information, but a lot of ppl follow writing and author’s blogs. They give out great advice, and Neil Gaiman in particular is very active and often adds to posts. 

Internet searches are your best friend. I have at least 30 tabs open when I’m writing fic. A thesaurus tab and all kinds of research tabs. You can google anything. Need to know what exact set list Queen with Adam Lambert played in Brussels in 2019, you can find that. (I did, haha). Sometimes it helps to ground your story in reality so that it feels more real to you. Will anyone notice? Probably not, but we can get a lot of enjoyment out of our research dives, and you’ll know, which is all that matters.

Read, read, read. As I said before, I never wrote stories, nor did I study creative writing. But i read a hell of a lot. I think that helps. I understand plot and character. I know grammar. I know the mechanics of story writing. I think there’s something to be said that the more you expose yourself to the literary world, the more you will be able to function within it. You’ll pick up on how things are done--plot organization, character development, etc. Also sometimes it can be just as helpful to learn what not to do.

I don’t know if this is even remotely helpful. I hope it is. I am a very insecure writer, and I still don’t think of myself as one. I’m still surprised I’ve written half a million words of fic. I hope this came across as more hopeful and helpful than negative nancy, but i do understand the woes and struggles of writing too. Please let me know if there’s something more specific. This was very general.

I apologize for the length of this and for the length of the linked ask. You know me, I always write too much. I wish you all the best in your writing journey, and I hope to read your work some day!!!  Thank you for this ask and for blowing my mind and making my day and making me cry. 💕💕💕

[ynscrazylife]

Can I please please request one where Natasha and Yelena have another younger sister (Y/N) and she gets badly injured and her older sisters are hysterical since they’re afraid to lose one they love the most

A Race Against Time | romanoff fam fic

Summary: Natasha and Yelena do their best to help their hurt younger sister.

Authors Note: Thanks for requesting!

Request to be on a taglist (or multiple) here! (Taglists are at the end of the fic)

MCU Masterlist #1 | MCU Masterlist #2 |  Main Masterlist

PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

header c @/twitalents

“Everybody alright?” Natasha asked as Alexei and Melina approached her and Yelena. The redhead herself definitely hadn’t gotten out of the whole ordeal without injuries. In fact, from Dreykov punching her to the fight against the Widows, and the fight against Antonia (not to mention the injuries from the past few days that she hadn’t taken care of), she was in some pain. However she didn’t worry about herself, she knew she’d be fine. She always was.

Natasha glanced over and spotted Y/N making her way over to them, too. From the distance, Natasha couldn’t tell that she was limping and was very hurt.

“I am clearly injured,” Melina deadpanned, causing Natasha to look back over and send her adoptive mother a smile as an apology. With a quick glance, Natasha could tell that she’d be okay, she’d just need a cast on that ankle and-

Thump.

The sound, accompanied by Yelena’s loud gasp and yelp, broke through Natasha’s thoughts and caused her to whip around suddenly. The sight her eyes landed on instantly sent what felt like an ice shard plunging into her chest. No. No.

By the time she snapped out of it, Yelena was already by Y/N’s unconscious figure, which the thump must have been - her plummeting to the ground - and Alexei was helping Melina over as fast as he could. Natasha sped past them and dropped to her knees, her brain wired to already be processing the situation and formulating a plan, while she lightly stopped Yelena’s wrist to prevent her from going to shake Y/N.

“You don’t move someone who is unconscious unless necessary - it could injure them,” she breathed out. Yelena, who could see that her older sister was in autopilot mode, sat back and let her do her thing, opting to look up at her parents, instead.

Both their eyes were glued to Y/N. Alexei’s eyebrows crinkled and, after taking a big breath, muttered (just loud enough for them to hear), “There’s blood on you.”

Natasha’s eyes snapped down and sure enough, her knees were bloodied. She quickly looked up only to see blood beginning to come from Y/N’s stomach where she had fallen on her side. Closing her eyes for a moment to allow herself to think, Natasha carefully and gently pulled up Y/N’s shirt, only to see an open gash in the shape of the Widow hourglass.

“Wha-?” She said, barely forming a word, and Yelena leaned over to see.

She immediately began shaking her head and pushed Y/N onto her back. “I-I know what this is, I think. I remember hearing about a weapon that’d leave that mark,” she rambled out.

Melina peered over Natasha’s shoulder and when she saw it, her face went pale. “That-that weapon, it ejects a blast that makes that mark when it meets the skin. It was made as a precaution in case any of the Widows went rogue - it was made years ago. But only a few were made because they were so confident in themselves. It-it goes along with a process they constructed to re-brainwash the Widows. The blast gets under her skin, in her body, with a chemical that’s in it, and that chemical starts the brainwashing process,” she explained.

A park of hope entered Yelena’s eyes. “So she won’t be fully brainwashed?” She asked.

“Not without the rest of the procedure,” Melina began, but then her eyes widened when she remembered something and horror quickly flashed across her face. “But if the process isn’t completed within a certain time period, the chemical will wear off its brainwashing effects and instead will start hurting her . . . A lot . . . But I have an antidote-” her tone sped up now, “-It’s back at the house. We need to get her there.”

Natasha and Yelena nodded, both having gone through a great wave of emotions throughout Melina’s words. Yelena, while racked with worry, still remained hopeful, and Natasha did her best to be, too, but her tears were drying and she was sniffling.

“The jet is-” Alexei began to say, when the sound of the engines of cars rapidly approaching cut him off.

Natasha looked over. “Shit, Ross,” she said, regretting even tipping him off to their location in the first place.

Melina bit her lip. “You girls go. Take Y/N home. The antidote is labelled ‘Ant-Widow,’,” she told them firmly.

Yelena’s lips parted to protest, not wanting to split up, but catching Natasha picking up Y/N out of the corner of her eye stopped her. She nodded, rising to her feet.

“We’ll distract them. They won’t want anything to do with us when they realize you’re not here,” Melina insisted.

Natasha sent her a look that she could only hope was conveying everything she wanted it to. A million thoughts whizzed about in her mind, none making room for each other. She wondered, would they leave them alone? Or would they be taken into questioning? Shouldn’t she be the one facing Ross - since she called him there? Is Y/N going to be okay? Will they get there in time?

By the way Melina looked back at her, Natasha thought that her message had been received. There was no time to go over the plan any longer, if they stayed even a couple more seconds they’d get caught by Ross, whose army of cars headed to a halt.

Natasha bolted off in the jet’s direction, Yelena quick on her heels. They rushed inside and Natasha took her time to gently put Y/N down before going to the pilot seat. Yelena sat down in the back, wanting to watch over their little sister.

Neither of them said anything until Natasha had gotten them off the ground and away from the field. Yelena could hear the engine whirring and she knew that Natasha was going as fast as this aircraft could probably go.

“Natasha,” she said, her voice small and hesitant, reminding Natasha of her own self when she was younger. The redhead braced herself for her sister’s words. “Do you think we’ll get there in time?”

Natasha let out a slow yet steady breath, fighting back the urge to tell her not to say that. She wondered the same thing, and she hated it. She didn’t answer, though, because she didn’t want to lie. She didn’t know herself, and she also hated that.

Yelena looked down in defeat when she didn’t get an answer and continued watching Y/N. She couldn’t stop herself from worrying and when she spotted the other injuries — bruises, cuts, scrapes — littering her body, she got up and went to the back.

The blonde grabbed the med kit they had stored and went back, quickly opening it up and getting everything she needed. First, bandages. Yelena put pressure on the wound even though she knew it wouldn’t bleed out, and a twinge of guilt hit her when Y/N moved and groaned unconsciously.

She then wrapped up Y/N’s stomach and tended to her other injures, every so often glancing at Natasha, who she could see by the way she was sitting up straight that she was tense. Upset. Worried. Yelena had to admit she was feeling those same things but busied herself by taking care of Y/N.

This carried on and they were about ¾ there when everything shifted. Y/N, who had been mostly quiet throughout the journey, suddenly rolled onto her side, eyes opening with a startled gasp.

Natasha frantically looked up at Yelena and the latter jumped to resolve the situation. Gently, she put her hands on her younger sister’s shoulders and tried to turn her onto her back, but Y/N fought her off and scurried back, against the wall.

“Y/N,” Yelena said, slowly putting her hands up in a “surrender” gesture.

The younger one shook her head as tears began to flow down her cheeks. “It-it hurts,” she got out, wrapping her arms around herself.

Yelena sent Natasha a frightened, desperate look and the glint in Natasha’s eyes held tears in them. “I can’t go any faster!” She cried out in frustration, her anger at her helplessness beginning to grow.

Yelena turned back to Y/N. “Take deep breaths with me, okay?” She said, and took a couple deep breaths to show her. It took Y/N a second, but she followed along. However, the pain didn’t take a break for long, and quickly came crashing back to her, like a magnet.

She let out another cry, but this one filled with that much more anguish, desperation, a pure rage from wanting it to be over, a rage that nearly caused her to vomit. Y/N leaned forward, hoping that there was something - anything - that could relieve this pain for even just a second. The warmth she was soon filled with from her older sister’s arms wrapping around her and pulling her close did nothing to soothe pain, but she found someone to have a steady grip on, someone to hold.

This continued on. In every cry let out, Yelena could’ve sworn each one was louder than the last. She didn’t know what to do so she did the only thing she could and stayed there. After  a particularly loud cry from Y/N, Yelena couldn’t stop a “Natasha!” from escaping.

“I’m trying!” She shouted over the engine and over Y/N, doing her best to blink away the tears and focus, but everytime she was on the brink of it, something tore her away.

After what felt like what could only be described as eons, Natasha managed to touch down in the same spot she had just a day ago. The moment they made contact, she leapt out of her seat, nearly tumbling to the floor, and practically fell against the door.

“Stay with her,” was all she said to Yelena before pushing all her weight against the door and breaking off into a run towards the house.

Natasha had run fast before. To escape Antonia, on countless SHIELD missions, and even to beat Sam in a race, but none amounted to this. The mountains and trees whipped by so fast that she felt like she was in a race car and it made her head spin. Nonetheless (and she thanked her extensive training for that), Natasha’s stamina held out and she ran through the house, tripping over things and knocking others over, until she reached Melina’s office.

At first, everything looked like a normal office space for a normal business woman, but the underlying science and spy secrecy that she knew had to be inside was revealed. Cabinets upon cabinets filled with vials upon vilas and files upon files. She scoured the entire room and nearly dropped the green-filled file when she saw its label. This was it.

A moment of victory passed until Natasha remembered the weight of the situation and she got back on her feet, running like the wind, and leaving behind the office looking like some raccoons had gotten inside.

By the time she reached the top of the hill, Natasha could make out the outline of Yelena carrying Y/N (who was draped over her like a curtain, by the way) toward her.

They met in the middle and Yelena put Y/N down, the older sisters kneeling beside her. Y/N was half-conscious at this point and Natasha moved at the speed of light to get the vial lid off. “She was getting worse, I couldn’t wait!” Yelena yelled.

When she got it open, Natasha pushed it towards Y/N’s lips. “Y/N, honey, c’mon, you gotta drink,” she encouraged, hand trembling as Y/N attempted to fight her off. It was only Yelena running her hands through her hair that calmed her down, and she took a small sip of the vial’s contents at first before gulping it down.

When she stopped squirming and seemed to no longer be in pain, instead falling into a peaceful sleep, that’s when both Natasha and Yelena had calmed down. It had been a rollercoaster, but they did it, and she was okay. The two held each other, relieved.  

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[balillee]

tommy's character gets far too much shit.

hi tumblr. i'm gonna need a few bitches to spread this post everywhere, essentially because i want someone, or just tommy really, to see it. so if you really want, you can screenshot it and post it on twitter, reddit, link it everywhere - go absolutely buck wild. i know he reads the VODS comments a lot, but they're chock full of people just insulting him, his character, his writing and everything about his story in the dream smp simply because they don't understand it and because they refuse to acknowledge his character's perspective (mainly because they only care about the pig). reading that many critical comments on something you've created can only make you feel worse about it eventually, and in light of all the awful techno apologist takes on his character, i wanted to basically just word vomit about how wonderfully crafted c!tommy is, as well as compile some other tumblr posts about his character.

there is a massive fuckin community of people who enjoy the character of tommy, because the character is incredible. i myself have made post after post after post commenting on and analysing tommy's character because i find that there's so much to pick apart. but that enthusiasm for his character only seems to be found on tumblr. reddit and twitter seem to hate his character, the VODS seem to be filled with comments from people who only care about techno's perspective (and treat techno as a reliable narrator, which, is the furthest thing from the truth - that guy lies through his teeth all the time), and the smp wiki is a hellscape of godawful takes and mistruths, not even on just tommy's character.

c!tommy is brilliantly acted and brilliantly written, and almost everything he does is either justifiable or has been rectified or admitted as a mistake. you can clearly make connections as to where he got his conclusions from. you feel what his character experiences, as a member of the audience, vividly.

if you look in the more objective sense, c!tommy, and this is especially in the context of him being the youngest character, is a scapegoat. people claim he's awful and destructive when in reality he's a lot less destructive than most characters on the server. a moment that comes to mind is where he diverts schlatt and quackity's attention from pogtopia by breaking part of the flag in manberg, and then replacing it so as to buy tubbo some time - he literally monologues after it about how he doesn't want to destroy but instead rebuild, and how he feels as if nobody else seems to understand that.

his arc in season two was incredible. it was very character driven, and it gave a spotlight to his motivations. at the start we see him in new l'manberg, and he's enjoying his time there, he's skeptical of his friend's presidency, but his main goal is to get back the discs so that he can stop dream and eliminate that threat. he made one screw up that didn't even matter to george, and he paid for it tenfold, even after dream had spent a while with puffy griefing the server and framing it on tommy - what tommy and ranboo did was convinient. then, in exile, we see c!tommy straight up get abused. he's gaslit and conditioned into being c!dream's friend, and in his brain he teaches himself that those acts of abuse are moments of bonding, and it eventually brings him to the point of wanting to end his own life - he's been torn away from his friends and his support system, and nobody will visit him consistently anymore because they only showed him pity, and all he had left was dream, who had hurt him.

but he doesn't die there, because while he didn't understand the full gravity of it back then like he does now, he recognises that dying isn't an escape, and he can beat dream, even if he doesn't know how. so this is where he goes to techno's place, and here's where the fandom starts to misinterpret the situation wildly.

it's the problem similar to when your parents tell you that they're owed something back because you put a roof over their head, despite that being Not How It Works. techno took tommy in and severely mistreated him emotionally. sure, and i understand this, c!techno is a bad communicator who isn't really that empathetic to anyone who isn't phil or wilbur, but that doesn't excuse the blatant lying to c!tommy's face, the guilt tripping, the friendship buying and the degrading. the day before the festival, tommy finally does something violent in his interrogation of fundy, and only then does techno tell him,,,,

that tommy's not equal to him, that techno doesn't respect him all that much, and that they're not friends.

from techno's perspective, and at the time, this was viewed as a positive development in their relationship. oh, he's starting to warm up to tommy! this friendship could really blossom!

no. from a more objective standpoint, what techno has just said to tommy is : 'i respect you only a little bit more now, because while you're starting to act more like me, you're still annoying and a burden.'

and i haven't even touched on the whole 'erasing the words 'Destroy L'manberg' from techno's to-do list' thing, because that instantly refutes the point of 'techno was upfront with his intentions the whole time' - because he wasn't! he may have said it the first time, but you also know what else he did? he repeatedly told tommy that they'd 'air the details out later' whenever the discs were brought up, and from a tommy viewer's perspective at the time, it was framed as if techno was no longer going to do that.

and i also haven't dared touch the 'i would have fought them all for you', because that's major guilt tripping if ever i've seen it.

so, the day of the festival comes, and here's where c!techno and his apologists completely misread c!tommy's thought process, and why he makes the decision he does.

tommy instantly regrets valuing the discs over tubbo, and it's framed as the culmination of tommy having become all the people he said he would never want to be like. and what does he immediately do? he tells tubbo to give up the disc, and he sides with tubbo. he puts his value in his friends, and, by proxy, l'manberg. and when he betrays techno, he tells him 'i'm sorry'.

from a more objective standpoint, tommy's time with techno is him valuing the discs over almost anything else. so, in leaving techno to be with tubbo again, he is valuing people above the discs. so when, on doomsday, techno says his 'discs aren't people' line, what he doesn't realise is that he himself fueled tommy's valuing of discs above people when attempting to fuel tommy's vengeance against tubbo and l'manberg. techno doesn't realise that he was an unhealthy presence for tommy, and an even worse influence.

what techno also doesn't seem to understand is that tommy never hated tubbo or l'manberg - tommy recognises, now at least, that his exile wasn't a product of tubbo, but a product of dream's manipulation, likely in part because at the time, especially with dream lying about tommy blowing up the community house, tommy was the only one who could see it because he had experienced it firsthand. so when techno sides with dream, it's like kicking tommy in the teeth.

and i want to mention that betraying someone doesn't necessarily make the person who was betrayed good, or in the right, or even justified, because tommy was entirely justified to leave techno. you know who else was betrayed? schlatt. but i don't see many schlatt apologists around angry at quackity for joining the rebellion.

tommy stole the axe of peace? good. it was a moment of tommy defining his self-worth, instead of having it defined by others. gone is the age of c!techno belittling him and deciding how much c!tommy should be respected. NEXT!

here's a moment i wanted to talk about that will forever be funny to me.

'i am a person.'

techno's very famous line from doomsday. techno says to tommy that discs aren't people, and that tommy should value people, despite not understanding that by leaving techno, he did just that. and what does tommy say in return, which has been omitted from every c!tommy-critical analysis, and every animatic?

'yes you are, but so are we.'

an acknowledgement of techno's hurt, to which tommy has already apologised for. a statement that says 'your hurt does not excuse, nor justify, the hurt you have inflicted onto us.' an acknowledgement that tommy has already learnt the lesson techno seems to be trying to 'teach' him. but you can't teach him anything by destroying.

c!tommy has had almost everything he has ever owned or built either taken from him or destroyed. ranboo even points out that the only two things of tommy's left standing are his house and his hotel, and if i'm honest, his house is dissheveled. it's a labyrinth of terror due only to how many times it's been torn apart. l'manberg being blown up didn't teach anyone anything about anarchy, or about valuing people over possessions. logstedshire being blown up didn't teach tommy to be obedient.

i could honestly ramble for ages about how nuanced tommy's character is and how much depth and complexity there is to his character's process and his relationship with others, but more than that, c!tommy is forgiving. he invites almost everyone who hates him to the grand opening of his hotel - if that isn't an indicator that he just wants friends, and not to be treated like the embodiment of evil, then i don't know what is. he holds grudges, but he doesn't really actively hate anyone, other than c!dream. but, we'll let him. c!dream deserves nothing but to be pummeled into the floor.

tommy doesn't spoonfeed his character nuance, and he doesn't really spell it out for his audience. he'll mention things like trauma and triggers in passing, but a lot of analysis on his motivations has to be picked up from what is said in passing or from what can be seen in between the lines.

i'd be here for hours if i were to talk about everything i love about c!tommy, because honestly he's one of my favourite characters, and there are so many angles you can look at his character from in terms of his age, his relationships with others, his motivations, his personality, his character arcs etc etc. so instead of doing that, i'm going to compile some much more specific analysis posts below to skim through because they highlight so many good aspects of his character.

^^ A thread about the 'yes you are, but so are we' line.

^^ About how shit the VODS comments are.

^^ A comment on how c!Tommy is actually pretty peaceful, and is actually less destructive than most characters on the server.

^^ Possibly the best c!Tommy analysis thread I've ever seen in relation to his trauma, which gives multiple perspectives.

^^ About how c!Tommy is treated as a scapegoat, and how, from an objective standpoint, he is no more violent than any other character, it's just that the little violence that is committed is blown far out of proportion.

^^ Tumblr user flypaw being a bad bitch, as per usual.

^^ c!Tommy being incredibly intelligent, and talking about wanting to rebuild and not destroy. A very underrated monologue of his.

^^ Something short about c!Tommy and c!Wilbur's relationship in Pogtopia.

^^ Less about c!Tommy, more a meta on L'Manberg. Really interesting to think about.

^^ A take on Doomsday.

I'll add some more posts in a reblog in the notes, but if anyone's post(s) is on this and they want me to take it off, let me know and I'll do that for you! Feel free to add your own banger c!Tommy takes or ones that you've found.

[esther-dot]

@fallofarosepetal I’m responding to your comments on this post here. I’m sorry that you saw my Dark Dany post, I put the anti tags on it to avoid these interactions, but Tumblr is being weird so unless you filter those tags, you’re going to stumble across anti content. You aren’t going to change my mind, and we both know I’m not going to change yours, but I did want to go ahead and share this quote from Martin:

INTERVIEWER: For people who are not familiar with your work, the series takes place in an imaginary world. There is a struggle for control of the kingdom. This dynastic war is essentially one of three main plot lines. There are the other plot lines involving these sort of superhuman characters, and then there’s the exiled Targaryen daughter who seeks the return of her ancient throne. Why those three main plot lines?

MARTIN: Well, of course, the two outlying ones — the things going on north of the Wall, and then there is Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons — are of course the ice and fire of the title, “A Song of Ice and Fire.” The central stuff — the stuff that’s happening in the middle, in King’s Landing, the capital of the seven kingdoms — is much more based on historical events, historical fiction. It’s loosely drawn from the Wars of the Roses and some of the other conflicts around the 100 Years’ War, although, of course, with a fantasy twist. You know, one of the dynamics I started with, there was the sense of people being so consumed by their petty struggles for power within the seven kingdoms, within King’s Landing — who’s going to be king? Who’s going to be on the Small Council? Who’s going to determine the policies? — that they’re blind to the much greater and more dangerous threats that are happening far away on the periphery of their kingdoms. (link)

There is nothing you or I can do about the fact that the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons etc are involved in what Martin is calling the “central stuff” and that The Others and Dany/dragons are the two “greater and more dangerous threats” that they’re ignoring. The man clearly said this back in 2014. The fans who decided to interpret his words to mean that the Others are the threat and that Dany isn’t, that Dany will defeat them, are free to do so, but they’re choosing to ignore that he included Dany in his “threats” category.

I specifically said that Dany might be involved with the war against the Others, so I don’t know why you’re trying to convince me she will be. I know. I already said so. But, Martin has also said he thinks it’s dumb when all the good guys unite to fight the bad guys which to me means, there’s no way Dany is a good guy who allies with the Starks, defeats the Others together, and then remains on the same side. Martin already said he hates that. 🤷🏻‍♀️ And, he didn’t leave it at that, he has written into the story specific reasons why the Starks would view Dany as a threat.

Their father fought to overthrow hers

Her father murdered their uncle/grandfather

Her ancestors conquered Westeros with dragons, so to them, she will be Aegon come again and it takes a weird leap in logic to imagine people would be happy to be conquered or welcome their invaders especially when we know what this looks like, that Dany knows what’s involved in conquering:

The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.         

But before she could do that she must conquer. (ACOK, Daenerys II)

She knows what she is bringing to Westeros, she knows what she is doing will cause great suffering, but she is determined to do it anyway. Just because she doesn’t want people to suffer doesn’t mean it absolves her of taking actions that will lead to unnecessary suffering. And, she’s consciously decided that that suffering is worth it:

She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne. (AGOT, Daenerys VII)

Seeing what it means, what it costs, doesn’t deter her from her pursuit. The dark path she is on isn’t going to be limited to the people who deserve to die. She already has blood on her hands and she will have much more. She has the option to not go to war, but she has chosen to. So, knowing that Martin is anti war, knowing that because Robb chose the sword instead of making peace and he died for it, we know this was never going to end well for Dany. And it isn’t right that she die a hero at the hands of the Others when...she’s not particularly connected to them. She is very pointedly connected to the Stark v Targ story though, and her wrongs are against humans she’s allowing to pay the price for her quest, so it makes more sense to me that our heroes will defeat her rather than her end being a Dany v Others thing. But continuing my list:

The Starks believe that Rhaegar kidnapped and raped their aunt, and Jon will discover that woman is his mother. It is possible that Lyanna went willingly, that some truth about what happened will come to light, but it’s a very real possibility that Martin purposefully has written into his story a family with specific grievances against the Targs so that when they end the Targaryens once and for all, it is justice for every wrong they suffered at their ends. Dany is somewhat worshipful of Rhaegar and Jon may hold grievances for his mother’s sake.

From Dany’s perspective, the Starks helped Robert usurp her father, she does not see things from the perspective of the Westerosi or change her view of her family/heritage and think about all the wrongs her family committed against theirs. She doesn’t understand that overthrowing her father was just and right. Rather, she believes she still has a claim to Westeros regardless and plans to take it. To make the characters just throw up their hands and say, “Oh, that’s ok. Be our queen. We can get along in spite of all that” feels trite.

Other people have written beautiful meta about all of this with specific quotes etc, but to me, there’s just no way Martin will vindicate the Targs or justify Dany’s decision to go to war just because she felt it was her birthright. It’s an entirely different thing from throwing off an unjust ruler, and even Poor Robb wasn’t in the clear in Martin’s eyes. Dany certainly isn’t, and he’s been writing the groundwork for antagonism between her and our heroes before they’ve even met. I don’t think he did that just to throw it away. That’s not even mentioning the whole fire/burning people alive thing which is horrific.

Anyway, my point in the first post was simply that, based on his choice of words,you can tell that the author always intended to bring Dany to the point of burning KL, that in his mind, Dany and her father are linked. I wasn’t over analyzing because I didn’t even do much beyond putting those quotes together. It doesn’t take me twisting stuff to get there, the author chose to describe things using the same words, and he wouldn’t do that unless he was purposefully making a connection. We can dislike that, but neither of us can prevent Martin from doing what he is clearly going to do. And again, no, I don’t hate book Dany. Personally, I would never write a story in which an abused child is forced to marry a grown man who rapes her until she winds up pregnant at 13. I would never do that or follow that up with her engaging in a sexual relationship with other grown men, and I wouldn’t make any of that  part of her path to villainy. But just because I find it distasteful doesn’t mean that Martin isn’t doing just that.

And no, I’m not dodging your questions, I chose not to respond to them and just point you to something that Martin said was good. How I feel about what he is doing has no impact on whether or not he is doing it. I think the man himself has said enough for us to know that what the fandom at large says is happening is absolutely not the story that we will be getting. If y’all aren’t going to listen to him, you aren’t going to listen to me. But, actually, I do agree with you on one point. I agree that Dany is Azor Ahai. I just don’t think it’s a good thing and here’s a wonderful set of essays about that. I’m sharing in case you’re genuinely interested in a different perspective and with the assumption you will not argue with the author for viewing things differently. Tumblr etiquette is to just let the blogger be and gripe in your own post aka “vague blog.”

As for why I personally think Dark Dany is a good story, if you read that article I linked, he goes on to talk about “the villain is the hero of the other side” and I believe that that is who Dany is. He’s created a story for her in which she is the hero, but when she encounters the Starks, she will be their villain, as they will be hers. The Others, Cersei, Euron...they’re all evil-evil, so reading his description of what he wants to do there...Dany is the only option:

I think the struggle between good and evil is central to fantasy and, indeed, in some ways, central to most fiction. It’s certainly a worthy subject for fiction. But I regard the struggle between good and evil as being waged within the individual human heart. It’s not waged as fantasy would have it, where a character called the Dark Lord gathers all the evil people together and puts them in black clothing and you know they're evil ’cause they’re really ugly and all the good people are handsome and they wear white and they meet on a big battlefield. In the real world … very few people get up in the morning and say, “Oh, I’m evil. What evil can I do today? I'm gonna cover the world with darkness, and my legions of evil will rule all.” That’s silly.

You know, the greatest monsters of history, as we look back on them, thought they were the heroes of the story.

You know, the villain is the hero of the other side, as sometimes said. That doesn’t mean that it’s all morally relative. That doesn’t mean that all things are equally good and evil.

Making readers travel along with a character, suffer with her, sympathize with her, understand that her desires, watch her struggle...to then have her go up against the heroes, for her to be their villain, and they hers...it’s a great idea. I admire this ambition, and I hope he finds it in himself to do the idea justice. As a reader, I like the idea of being challenged this way. Rarely are we given a story in which victory is mixed with grief because we actually do care about the villain because they didn’t purpose to be evil, but their actions damn them anyway. This is a much more mature take on heroes/villains than we are generally offered.

So, I guess my answer to your question is that...it makes sense for the fire (Dany/dragons) of the title to be extinguished because they’re a threat just as the Others. I think theoretically it’s a great approach to hero/villain stuff. Whatever my reservations about his specific choices, I appreciate Martin not giving us a cartoonishly evil villain and instead giving us someone who is very human, and ultimately, someone who is very wrong.

Anyway, as I already said, filtering is how you make sure you don’t see this stuff. If you go to the gear icon, click on general settings, click on “filtering,” click on “new,” you can type in tags to filter so that next time you search Daenerys, you won’t see anti Dany posts.

[storytellerofuntoldlegends]

an icarus and his sun: chapter 14

A/N: hello i return!! just one more chapter after this, it's so wild to think that this fic is almost over!

Warnings: kissing, self-worth issues, talk of near death situations and past injury

AO3 Link - Tumblr Masterpost

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Kissing Scott felt like Jimmy was cradling sunlight in his hands. Something that should have been impossible, and yet all the same it was happening. And now that Scott had Jimmy, he seemed determined not to let him go. Not that Jimmy was exactly complaining about Scott’s new mission to kiss him breathless- but considering not too long ago Scott was trying to make him breathless in an entirely different sense, and that the others didn’t even know what all went down… they should probably stop. So with great regret, Jimmy tried to pull away from Scott- key word there being tried.

“Scott, c’mon, let go of me,” Jimmy chuckled, dodging yet another kiss. Scott settled for pressing his lips to Jimmy’s cheek before tucking his head under Jimmy’s chin. His wings shifted to curl around the both of them, and as nice as it felt, they really needed to get up from the floor so that Jimmy could let his friends know what happened.

“Mm… no,” Scott hummed with a giggle.

“We should probably tell the others what happened- they all think you’re still fighting off the corruption, or are possessed,” Jimmy pointed out.

“I don’t see why we can’t just tell them later,” Scott pouted. Jimmy let out a fond, incredulous sigh.

“You also haven’t properly eaten anything in a few days, you’ve been living off of splash health potions for the most part,” Jimmy said sternly.

“Well, I know something I’m hungry for,” Scott teased, and Jimmy didn’t even need to see his face to know that he was smirking. Jimmy sighed again.

“And I thought you were incorrigible when we hated each other,” he commented with a chuckle. Scott pulled away enough to look at Jimmy with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“You’re stuck with me now, better get used to it, sweetheart,” he murmured. Jimmy could feel his face warm up considerably at the petname, and Scott grinned at the sight. Well, two could play that game.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, sunshine,” Jimmy replied with a grin. Scott’s eyes went wide, and he flushed pink all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Oh you can flirt back now. Right,” Scott managed to get out, voice coming out a bit strained. Jimmy just grinned wider.

“So what do you say, sunshine? How about we let everyone know that neither of us are dead and that you’re also not possessed?” Jimmy offered. Scott made a flustered sound at being called “sunshine” again, but collected himself enough to let out a sigh of defeat.

“Fine,” he grumbled, before getting up off of Jimmy. Jimmy stood up as well- just in time to catch Scott as he suddenly tilted to one side. Scott was leaning against Jimmy heavily, and Jimmy looped an arm around his waist as he tried to keep Scott upright.

“Scott?!” Jimmy gasped, unable to keep the panic from his tone.

“M’okay- think that lack of actual food thing is catching up to me. Just stood up too fast and got dizzy, that’s all,” Scott reassured him, standing up a bit more but still holding on to Jimmy, just to be sure.

“Then we’d really better tell the others so that we can work on getting your strength back,” Jimmy said with a relieved smile. He led Scott over to the lever for the secret door, and the moment he flicked it, a group of people came tumbling in. Nearly all of them fell to the floor in a heap, except for Pearl and Pixl, who sheepishly smiled at Jimmy and Scott. Gem was the first to pick herself up from the floor, dusting off her robes and letting out a nervous laugh.

“We uh. We might have been listening for a little bit there! We just didn’t want to interrupt,” Gem explained sheepishly. The others picked themselves off from the floor as she spoke, and Shelby was the last to get up from the floor, holding a black shulker box to her chest.

“Where’d the corruption go, I’ve got a box for it!” Shelby chirped, peering around Jimmy and Scott. The two of them blinked in surprise, and Scott looked to his arm. The corruption was long gone, all that was left was a scar from the initial cut. Jimmy looked around the room, and soon spotted what was left of the corruption lying on the floor near where he and Scott had fought. It looked like a mass of red vines that twitched every so often, and Jimmy’s stomach turned with nausea at the sight. Scott seemed to notice Jimmy’s sudden distress, and followed his gaze, only for Scott himself to turn several shades paler than he already was as he clung to Jimmy a bit tighter. Shelby noticed where the two of them were looking, and quickly scrambled over to carefully gather up the corruption and put it in the shulker box.

“Hey, easy, just look at me- you’re okay,” Jimmy soothed, reaching out to gently turn Scott’s head towards him. Scott’s look seemed far away even as he was looking into Jimmy’s eyes, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before blinking them open with a shaky sigh, gaze looking much more focused than before as he leaned his forehead against Jimmy’s.

“I think it’s probably good I’ve only been living off of health potions, pretty sure I would have just lost whatever I would have eaten right then,” Scott got out with a short laugh.

“So… how did you get the corruption out anyway?” Pixl asked after pointedly clearing his throat. Jimmy and Scott jumped slightly, pulling away from each other (but not far enough for Scott to be without standing support) with a pair of sheepish smiles.

“Well I uh. We were fighting, and I might’ve kissed Scott to throw him off, but it ended up being the push to snap him out of it and fight against the corruption,” Jimmy explained with a blush. Scott looked at Jimmy with a perplexed expression.

“Jimmy… I didn’t do anything against the corruption. It- before I woke up with you uh… holding me, the last thing I remembered was losing to another version of myself in some sort of red dreamscape. Your kiss saved me, not anything I did,” Scott explained. A series of adoring coos and gasps sounded from the group, and Jimmy felt his face burn.

“True love was the key this whole time?” Shelby pondered, looking down at the shulker box she held with the now contained corruption.

“Well- I- surely it’s gotta be more than that,” Jimmy managed to get out, feeling incredibly flustered.

“So a mix of love and wills, then. It sounded like Scott maybe could have beaten it on his own, he just needed the extra help!” Shelby replied with a shrug. Scott frowned.

“I don’t know, honestly. The other me- it- he?- was mostly toying with me, I think. Said something about how ‘he’ would be pleased to know that I was specifically under the corruption’s control,” Scott explained shakily.

“He?” Gem asked, brows furrowed in concern.

“The other me referred to some other person that he was sent by, maybe? Then when I asked about who the ‘he’ was, the other me said something about how I didn’t ‘remember’ and how that made me easy to control,” Scott continued.

“The corruption is sentient?!” Shelby gasped, holding the shulker box away from herself.

“And apparently sent by someone else? And seemed to already know you somehow?” Gem pondered. Scott shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know. All I know is that it’s gone now, and I’m extremely glad for that,” Scott said, voice tight with nerves as the barrage of questions began to overwhelm him.

“And we’re glad you’re okay too!” Katherine piped up, stepping forward with a smile, clearly picking up on Scott’s discomfort. Scott blinked in surprise at her words.

“You.. are?” he asked in disbelief. Katherine just looked as surprised, if not more, than Scott did. The others had a mixture of concern and confusion on their faces as well, and Scott shifted uncomfortably at the attention.

“Why would I not be?” Katherine asked. Scott swallowed nervously.

“I- I knew about Fwhip’s plan for the ball, and didn’t say anything. Your- your castle was destroyed because I was too afraid to do anything about it,” he replied, voice barely above a whisper, as if he was afraid speaking any louder would awaken the wrath of those around him. An almost wounded expression came across Katherine’s face.

“Scott, even if I was still mad at you when we found you lying in front of Gem’s home, I wouldn’t have wanted you to die. Besides, between Fwhip’s gloating monologue and what we knew from what Pearl and Gem had told us, we know that you weren’t exactly a willing participant in Fwhip’s plan,” Katherine said softly, taking a slow step closer to Scott. His wings shifted anxiously, and Jimmy gently squeezed Scott’s arm to comfort him.

“I- you’re not mad?” he asked, voice still hushed and timid. Katherine smiled gently.

“No, I’m not. If castles can be rebuilt, so can friendships,” Katherine replied softly, holding out her arms. Scott barely hesitated at the invitation, letting go of Jimmy to instead hug Katherine tightly. Any remaining tension Scott held seemed to melt away as Katherine hugged him back. He hesitantly drew back after a few moments, a contemplative expression on his face.

“Is something wrong?” Jimmy asked. He reached out towards him, intending to put a comforting hand on his shoulder- but was pleasantly surprised by Scott taking his hand and tugging him closer so that they could stand side-by-side, fingers intertwined. Jimmy felt his face flush, and Scott smirked at him for a brief moment before schooling his expression into something more serious.

“So now that the uh- the corruption is dealt with. For now. Hopefully. Anyway what I’m trying to say is- what do we do about Fwhip and Sausage?” Scott asked. The others exchanged glances, seemingly having an entire conversation without words that Jimmy was hopelessly unable to decipher. Scott didn’t look like he knew what was going on either, and seemed a little apprehensive at that fact.

“We’ll protect you,” Katherine said firmly. The rest of the group nodded in agreement. Jimmy found himself nodding too- and to his shock, Scott seemed a little flustered.

“I- that’s a nice gesture, but not really what I meant- I was talking about them in a more general sense, not just if they try to come after me specifically. Again,” Scott explained with a sheepish laugh.

“Well I can definitely handle whatever they throw at us. Fwhip ran like a coward after I chased him away a few days ago,” Pearl said with a confident grin.

“Sausage won’t be an issue either, not with my magic to defend us!” Gem added.

“If I’m not gonna take out my rage on Scott for playing with Jimmy’s heart, then I guess I can settle for Fwhip or Sausage,” Lizzie said with a shrug. Scott paled slightly, and Jimmy frowned at Lizzie with a disapproving glare.

“Lizzie, you don’t need to be mad at him anymore, we made up!” Jimmy protested, raising their joined hands as proof.

“Think a little more than that happened,” Pixl commented dryly. Joel let out a laugh that he was quick to stifle, pushing at Pixl with one hand while covering his mouth with the other. Lizzie rolled her eyes at the two of them before looking at Jimmy again.

“Well I’m not mad because of that, but how do I know he’s good enough for you?” Lizzie said, glaring at Scott in a way that Jimmy could tell was playful, but Scott didn’t seem to realize that, wings stiffening before relaxing as he took a deep breath.

“I know I have a lot to make up for. And I know it’s not gonna be as easy as me nearly dying on you all to gain your trust again. But I’m willing to make an effort-” Scott paused, looking at Jimmy the gentlest he ever had, the ice in his eyes melting for Jimmy and for Jimmy alone- “because he’s worth it.”

“Scott…” Jimmy trailed off, unsure of what to say after all of that. Scott just smiled at him and squeezed his hand. Lizzie just blinked at them, dumbfounded for a moment.

“I was mostly just messing with you, but… I’m glad to know that you’re serious about him,” Lizzie said with a smile. Scott let out a breath of relief, smiling back before his expression settled into something more resolute.

“Speaking of serious, we should probably discuss more concrete defense plans in case of any other sort of attack from Fwhip and Sausage,” Scott said. Various sounds and mutters of agreement filled the room, and they began discussing defensive strategies- things like making moats, building walls, and sharpening their fighting skills. Jimmy didn’t contribute much to the conversation, not that he exactly had much to offer- but even if he did, he was too busy listening to Scott with rapt attention, a smitten expression on his face all the while.

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