#i had a lot of ideas for this actually (mostly based on other posts) but this was my favourite.

[t4tstarrailing]

afab, amab, fem, and masc: basic terminology 101

hi! are you wanting to be more inclusive towards trans audience members and are an x-reader writer? well, this is the guide for you!

my name is jules and i'm a trans x-reader writer. i focus mostly on true gn!readers, trans!m!readers, and cis!m!readers. i also like to read x-reader fics. unfortunately, i struggle to find x-reader fics to read, because i don't want to risk having my gender dysphoria triggered. and i am hoping that this guide will help you be more accessible to trans readers.

and you may have seen this guide before and yes, that was also me. i lost the post, am too lazy to go and look for it, and i am also a certified yapper and would like to add some additional things.

so in this guide, i am going to be over the terms afab, amab, fem, and masc; explaining how i see people using them incorrectly and what they actually mean; explaining what words you should be using in what scenarios; how to be even more inclusive towards trans readers; and emphasizing why trans isn't a dirty word.

if you are trans yourself, please feel free to add any additional notes or experiences that you have personally had, especially in fandom spaces. and if you aren't trans yourself and want to double-check yourself, see if any of your trans mutuals are willing to chat about it! sometimes they aren't, sometimes they are, but don't be afraid to ask.

so what do the terms afab and amab mean, and where do they come from?

simply put, afab means "assigned female at birth" and amab means "assigned male at birth". it means the doctor looked at you at birth and designated your gender based off your genital presentation.

the terms were never intended to describe someone's present sexual anatomy. in fact, they come from the intersex community and how doctors designate intersex individuals at birth, either surgically or sometimes taking a guess. the terms, however, have been adopted by the wider community, sometimes successfully but many times unsuccessfully.

i see a lot of people using these terms to designate what sexual anatomy the reader has, which is wildly incorrect. not every afab person has a pussy. some afab people have dicks. not every amab person has a dick. some amab people have pussies. not every afab person with a pussy refers to their anatomy as a pussy. sometimes they call it a front hole or just a hole. not every amab person with a dick calls it a dick. sometimes they call it a strap, or they call their own hole a pussy.

afab and amab should also not be used in sfw settings. you're more than likely looking for a different term, such as masc!reader or fem!reader, or just f!reader or m!reader.

what terms are frequently used by the trans community to refer to their anatomy?

bro, there are so many. off the top of my head, for trans men and trans masc, there's front hole, mancunt, boybox, boypussy. for trans women and trans fems, the only ones i can think of off the top of my head is girlcock, girldick, and strap.

when in doubt, go the gender-neutral route and say "hole" or "chest" if you're referring to the chest/breast area.

with that being said, there's nothing wrong with trans men calling their anatomy a pussy or trans women calling their anatomy a dick. in fact, many do.

however, there does come a point where it becomes a tad bit uncomfortable seeing non-trans men/mascs people insistent on using pussy/cunt for trans men and mascs, or non-trans women/fems insistent on using dick/cock for trans women and fems. especially if people flatout refuse to entertain the idea of using other words that trans folks may find more comfort in, or force the character to conform to characteristics stereotypically associated with the anatomy (eg. usually assertive guy in canon is depicted as being submissive and needy [example: dr. ratio in honkai star rail, childe in genshin impact, kabru in dungeon meshi], only difference being he's being written with a pussy. usually quiet girl in canon is depicted as being a dommy mommy [example: hanya in honkai star rail, ayaka in genshin impact, falin in dungeon meshi], with the only difference being she's being written with a dick)

so what do fem and masc mean?

fem and masc just refer to gender presentation. it doesn't have anything to do with gender or assigned gender at birth. fem =/= female, masc =/= male. fem cis gay guys exist, masc cis women exist.

so if i go into a fanfic and it's labeled fem!reader, i'd expect a fem reader with a slightly more feminine gender presentation. words like perfume, clothes like skirts or dresses, etc. if i go into a fanfic and it's labeled masc!reader, i'd expect a reader with a slightly more masculine gender presentation. words like cologne, clothes like suits and ties, etc.

nuance: yes, this is a very basic breakdown of gender and gender presentation. mascs wear skirts and fems wear suits, i am well aware of that fact. but this is fandom, and this is what i have personally noticed in fandom spaces. i'm not trying to teach gender studies 101. i just want to read fanfics.

how are these terms being misused? again, it is improperly designating the reader's sexual anatomy. fem does not automatically mean pussy. some fems have dicks. masc also does not automatically mean dick. some mascs have pussies. these terms also do not have anything to do with sexual preferences. some fems like to top and/or dom, some mascs like to bottom and/or sub.

if you're wanting to designate a female reader, the most common usage i see is f!reader. same with male reader using m!reader. if you're wanting to specify that you're writing a cis reader, you can always write cis!f!reader or cis!m!reader.

is your reader truly gender neutral?

there's been a few times where i'll go into a fic that's labelled as gender neutral and be slapped with gendered terms. most of the time it's a one and done thing, but other times it'll be throughout the fic and i'll need to exit out of it. and, to be honest, a lot of the time i just chalk it up to people not editting.

my advice is just comb through your work very carefully. look for any instances of gendered terms, like pronouns or pet names or descriptions of clothing. if someone is willing, find a beta reader to go over it and maybe pick up on something you've missed. learning to degender your thinking is difficult given how heavily a gendered world we live in, and people are bound to slip up every once in a while. hell, i do it as well and find myself having to correct myself in my writing sometimes.

gender neutral does not mean non binary!

this isn't as common as other instances, but i do see it every once in a while. not every non-binary person uses they/them pronouns and may, in fact, use neopronouns or he/him or she/her. or use multiple pronouns! so gender neutral fics aren't inherently non-binary fics.

trans is not a dirty word!

this is honestly kind of inspired by a recent uptick in people describing male characters as afab!male character, and seemingly refusing to use the word trans in any of their content. and to be completely honest, when it's coming from non-trans people, it's kinda weird and an auto block for me at this point. because like, you're wanting to write about fucking men with pussies or fucking women with dicks, but it reads like you're scared of using the word trans like it's a bad word. it also sounds like you're centering the fact that this male character has a pussy, or this female character has a dick, and making it like a "ohhhh look at this!!! this is so unique!!!". and fandoms are notorious for fetishizing trans people, so it feels a bit borderline fetishy, especially when it comes from non-trans folks.

side note: i am a single trans person. i do not speak for the hundreds of thousands of trans people in existence. please do not harass people that do this, i am just stating my own personal opinion. as said at the beginning, i am a yapper with opinions.

this is also about non-trans men/mascs writing afab!male characters or non-trans women/fems writing amab!female characters, i am not talking about trans men/mascs writing trans men/mascs or trans women/fems writing trans women/fems.

but men with pussies exist in real life! women with dicks exist in real life! trans people exist in real life! trans is not a dirty word! just say trans and explicitly state the anatomy terms and pronouns you're using! it's so much easier to communicate to your readers what to expect!

so what formatting would you recommend to communicate well with my readers?

honestly, it's gonna sound weird, but just lay everything out so the reader can make a choice on whether or not they want to read your content. some examples that i've used in the past as well as a few others i can think of atm.

this is for specific characters i write bc i got tired of writing reader over and over again lmao.

blade is depicted as trans masc and uses he/they pronouns. he is non-op for both top and bottom surgery. his chest is referred to as his chest with descriptions of him wearing a compression top, and his anatomy is referred to as tdick and tcock. his strap is referred to as his dick.

jing yuan is depicted as a trans man and uses he/him pronouns. he is described as having top surgery scars and a fully healed phalloplasty. his anatomy is referred to as dick and hole. his partner calls him "prince" and "handsome" throughout the series.

pantalone is depicted as a trans masc and uses he/him pronouns. he is described as having top surgery scars, silver bar nipple piercings, but no bottom surgery. his anatomy is referred to as chest and tdick/tcock. his partner calls him "sir".

reader is gender neutral and uses they/them pronouns. they are described as having a chest, and their anatomy is referred to as hole. there are references to wetness, but it can be interpreted as spit, natural lubricant, or artificial lubricant. their partner does not use pet names with them.

sampo is depicted as crossdressing in this fic, but continues to use he/him pronouns. he is described as wearing a dress and heavy make-up. his chest is referred to as breasts, while his anatomy referred to as dick and hole.

luocha is depicted as a trans woman and uses she/her pronouns. she is described as having breast growth but no bottom surgery. her chest is referred to as breasts while her anatomy is referred to as clit and pussy. her partner uses the terms "princess" when talking to her.

ningguang is depicted as a trans fem and uses she/her pronouns. she is described as having breast growth but no bottom surgery. her chest is referred to as breasts while her anatomy is referred to as her strap.

if it sounds weird me using the word "anatomy" for a person's sexual anatomy, it's bc i'm trying to avoid any possible moderation lmao.

anywho. i'm done yapping for now. if you've got any well-intended questions, please feel free to shoot me an ask and i'll try to get to it in a timely manner. i'm also happy to discuss how trans people are frequently fetishized in fandoms, or anything else that people may be curious about.

but please do remember that i am one single trans person, i am not the end all be all of trans opinions. i just yap a lot.

[monocle-teacup]

Disclaimer: People may assume that I don't like the show going by the numerous critique posts I've made, but the reality is that if Season 1 didn't drop the ball so hard in the writing department ES would honestly be my favorite TF show. What I am is disappointed.

Something I've noticed is that every time an "ES is getting cancelled" rumor appears, Tumblr is pretty much the only place that has the "OH NO!" reaction. tfw2005 has some of that as well, but the general consensus at this point seems to be that the show getting cancelled is inevitable.

If you look at the threads on tfw2005 and the transformers subreddit dealing with the latest rumor, most people were more disappointed about Takara Prowl getting cancelled than the show itself.

The show already had so many things going against it: -Being on a streaming service that no one really has -Batch releases for episodes -The aesthetic alone made a lot of people avoid it. -Pretty much no advertising whatsoever -The toyline being regarded as terrible quality by mostly everybody -The Nightshade controversy. While it's utterly ridiculous this even caused such a stir, the fact of the matter is that the negative publicity actually made more people aware that the show even existed.

You know why I came back to Tumblr after years of being inactive? Because Tumblr was pretty much the only place where there was active discussion about the show while it was airing. tfw2005 also had discussion, but not like here. Reddit hardly mentions the show and I have no idea about Twitter/X since I don't use it. As annoying as the cancellation rumors are, it actually gets other parts of the web talking about the show.

When people say ES is popular, I'm honestly curious where they're getting that impression from. It's very telling that the teaser trailer for Season 2 presents a run of the mill TF story and doesn't mention anything from Season 1. The whole point of a trailer is to generate interest and Hasbro/Paramount seems to realize that Season 1 wasn't appealing to general audiences. In doing so, they pissed off a lot of the fan base the show actually has.

I'm still watching Season 2 because I'm honestly curious if the writing is going to improve and Weird Al and Flea are going to be in it. And obviously I'm hoping for more Mandroid.

[occasionaltouhou]

regular touhou #34: tsukasa's learning about the classics.

[nostalgebraist]

Honestly I'm pretty tired of supporting nostalgebraist-autoresponder. Going to wind down the project some time before the end of this year.

Posting this mainly to get the idea out there, I guess.

This project has taken an immense amount of effort from me over the years, and still does, even when it's just in maintenance mode.

Today some mysterious system update (or something) made the model no longer fit on the GPU I normally use for it, despite all the same code and settings on my end.

This exact kind of thing happened once before this year, and I eventually figured it out, but I haven't figured this one out yet. This problem consumed several hours of what was meant to be a relaxing Sunday. Based on past experience, getting to the bottom of the issue would take many more hours.

My options in the short term are to

A. spend (even) more money per unit time, by renting a more powerful GPU to do the same damn thing I know the less powerful one can do (it was doing it this morning!), or

B. silently reduce the context window length by a large amount (and thus the "smartness" of the output, to some degree) to allow the model to fit on the old GPU.

Things like this happen all the time, behind the scenes.

I don't want to be doing this for another year, much less several years. I don't want to be doing it at all.

----

In 2019 and 2020, it was fun to make a GPT-2 autoresponder bot.

[EDIT: I've seen several people misread the previous line and infer that nostalgebraist-autoresponder is still using GPT-2. She isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Her latest model is a finetuned LLaMA-13B.]

Hardly anyone else was doing anything like it. I wasn't the most qualified person in the world to do it, and I didn't do the best possible job, but who cares? I learned a lot, and the really competent tech bros of 2019 were off doing something else.

And it was fun to watch the bot "pretend to be me" while interacting (mostly) with my actual group of tumblr mutuals.

In 2023, everyone and their grandmother is making some kind of "gen AI" app. They are helped along by a dizzying array of tools, cranked out by hyper-competent tech bros with apparently infinite reserves of free time.

There are so many of these tools and demos. Every week it seems like there are a hundred more; it feels like every day I wake up and am expected to be familiar with a hundred more vaguely nostalgebraist-autoresponder-shaped things.

And every one of them is vastly better-engineered than my own hacky efforts. They build on each other, and reap the accelerating returns.

I've tended to do everything first, ahead of the curve, in my own way. This is what I like doing. Going out into unexplored wilderness, not really knowing what I'm doing, without any maps.

Later, hundreds of others with go to the same place. They'll make maps, and share them. They'll go there again and again, learning to make the expeditions systematically. They'll make an optimized industrial process of it. Meanwhile, I'll be locked in to my own cottage-industry mode of production.

Being the first to do something means you end up eventually being the worst.

----

I had a GPT chatbot in 2019, before GPT-3 existed. I don't think Huggingface Transformers existed, either. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

I had a denoising diffusion image generator in 2021, before DALLE-2 or Stable Diffusion or Huggingface Diffusers. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

Earlier this year, I was (probably) one the first people to finetune LLaMA. I manually strapped LoRA and 8-bit quantization onto the original codebase, figuring out everything the hard way. It was fun.

Just a few months later, and your grandmother is probably running LLaMA on her toaster as we speak. My homegrown methods look hopelessly antiquated. I think everyone's doing 4-bit quantization now?

(Are they? I can't keep track anymore -- the hyper-competent tech bros are too damn fast. A few months from now the thing will be probably be quantized to -1 bits, somehow. It'll be running in your phone's browser. And it'll be using RLHF, except no, it'll be using some successor to RLHF that everyone's hyping up at the time...)

"You have a GPT chatbot?" someone will ask me. "I assume you're using AutoLangGPTLayerPrompt?"

No, no, I'm not. I'm trying to debug obscure CUDA issues on a Sunday so my bot can carry on talking to a thousand strangers, every one of whom is asking it something like "PENIS PENIS PENIS."

Only I am capable of unplugging the blockage and giving the "PENIS PENIS PENIS" askers the responses they crave. ("Which is ... what, exactly?", one might justly wonder.) No one else would fully understand the nature of the bug. It is special to my own bizarre, antiquated, homegrown system.

I must have one of the longest-running GPT chatbots in existence, by now. Possibly the longest-running one?

I like doing new things. I like hacking through uncharted wilderness. The world of GPT chatbots has long since ceased to provide this kind of value to me.

I want to cede this ground to the LLaMA techbros and the prompt engineers. It is not my wilderness anymore.

I miss wilderness. Maybe I will find a new patch of it, in some new place, that no one cares about yet.

----

Even in 2023, there isn't really anything else out there quite like Frank. But there could be.

If you want to develop some sort of Frank-like thing, there has never been a better time than now. Everyone and their grandmother is doing it.

"But -- but how, exactly?"

Don't ask me. I don't know. This isn't my area anymore.

There has never been a better time to make a GPT chatbot -- for everyone except me, that is.

Ask the techbros, the prompt engineers, the grandmas running OpenChatGPT on their ironing boards. They are doing what I did, faster and easier and better, in their sleep. Ask them.

[collaredkittyboy]

Well it's come up multiple times today so I'll make a post about it.

I think the popularization of the word "twink" has ultimately been really bad for people in general.

I know it's hard to track the positive and negative effects of language but I don't think it's hard to see how creating a word for a group of people wherein the most consistent qualifying trait is "being skinny" is healthy for people's self image. Obviously people have lots of ideas about what it means to be a twink- gay, lacking body hair, feminine, beautiful, young, white- but the most consistent descriptor I've seen is "skinny." Hell, it's even a body type on Grindr; the size below "average."

So it kind of functions as a code word in the gay community: anyone can say that they're only interested in twinks and they don't have to look shallow by saying they only like skinny guys. It's such an accepted attitude that no one really bats an eye when they hear it.

I'm not even going to get into how it's become part of the larger issue of people turning "top" and "bottom" into gender roles 2.0, but that is closely related, because people with any internalized homophobia can look at a skinny, feminine man and turn off their fag alarms by viewing him as a woman or not a "real" man, and it makes twinks more acceptable to society at large.

No, ignoring all of that, one of the biggest issues is that gay men are taught by society that they are only attractive while they are skinny. Just having the label "twink" reminds a boy that people are looking at his body and judging it. There were countless times when I was growing up that people would tell me, "You're such a twink," or argue about whether or not I qualified as a twink because I had body hair. People around you, unpromted, judge your body and give you a label based on it, and that label has a large influence on whether or not you're seen as objectively attractive. I know many other gay people who say they wish they were a twink so they could be more attractive to guys.

So think, you have all these kids growing up being told whether or not they qualify as a twink, and then we have the gay community as a whole where it's completely acceptable to say you're only attracted to twinks. I think its because of all of this pressure to be a twink (in other words, to have a below average weight) that many of the gay people that I interact with struggle with a negative body image or eating disorders.

I mean, people talk about "twink death" like it's an actual event that makes a gay man much less attractive, and no one thinks that, maybe, it's harmful to tell a guy that the very day he stops being young and thin and pretty, he will stop being attractive and celebrated?

I'm not qualified to speak on fatphobia in physical queer spaces because I don't have the ability to frequent them where I live, but I can't imagine that these aren't issues at social gatherings as well. I also can't speak on my own experiences with weight discrimination because so far in my life I have had a naturally thin body, but I have experienced a lot of outside pressure to be thin that have caused me to pick up unhealthy eating habits to reduce my weight in fear that I could become fat later on. Thankfully that is something that I've mostly been able to work past. I'm not an expert, but idk, I just wanted to rant on my silly tumblr blog.

Obviously it's impossible for a word to be inherently bad. I'm not trying to imply that saying "twink" is a magic word with evil powers. Obviously the real issues at play here are fatphobia and harmful beauty standards and body shaming. But in my opinion, the popular use of the word twink has made it much easier and acceptable to express fatphobia, etc, in the gay community by turning "skinny person" into a "type of guy that you should try to be so you can be attractive."

[zhongrin]

— a short and casual genshin impact otome game.

⟣ 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 ⟢

┊ (Windows 🪟, Linux 🐧, or Mac 🍎 only!)

◇ 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? ◇

Just a simple something I had in mind for a Genshin otome game... I have 0 attention span, 0 time, and 0 knowledge to write and build a full-fledged 3D game with intricate stories, plot, and mechanics. This is just a simple visual novel with a streamlined plot and partial voices. You should be able to complete everything in like... 30 minutes long in total. Might be less, even.

◇ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 ◇

The game will contain the following: established relationship, FLUFF, comfort, lots of pet names, suggestive themes, lots of kissy sounds on some routes, implications of violence (not towards player), a sprinkle of protective behavior

◇ 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 ◇

Zhongli, Xiao, Childe, Diluc, Kaeya, Itto, Kazuha (Zhongli is selected by default because who doesn’t love geo daddy???)

◇ 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫? ◇

This is a very self-indulgent project, hence the dialogues were written with fem!player in mind. It will contain suggestive themes, so please be aware of that before downloading / playing!

◇ 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? ◇

Yes, it's totally free - in fact, I do not accept payment.

◇ 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? ◇

Click the link to download the appropriate file based on your OS. Only Windows, Linux, and Mac are supported. No, I won't release it on other platforms.

Open the game, and you’ll find that it’s pretty straightforward. Customize your profile, select your love interest, then start the game.

There are no wrong answers and the love interest can be changed anytime (just go back to main menu and select the character’s picture on the right side).

◇ 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐢 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬? ◇

You can personally send links to this post / the game’s itch.io page to your friends via DMs, but outside of that (reposting), NO. For example, posting about this on Reddit is prohibited.

◇ 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞? ◇

This is a super casual project.

Scripts are not proofread. Probably lots of grammar mistakes.

Novel format without narration (full dialogs).

There are no actual sprites, just official art and something akin to a speech bubble to cater to the characters’ changes in ‘expression’.

There are voices, but only partial - mostly just grunts, chuckles, kisses, and stuff. I’m using JP voices EXCEPT for Itto because Max Mittelman is a gem. No, I will not add other languages' voice versions.

Sound cues and voices are quite important for this game so I recommend using headphones.

Depending on when you open the game (morning, afternoon, nighttime, midnight), your currently selected love interest might greet you differently.

To reiterate, there are no wrong answers.

Selecting all talk/act options for a character will unlock a small event where they'll give you unique gifts.

I lowkey have so many ideas on how to expand on this in terms of gameplay and options but let’s be real here it probably won’t happen lol why can’t my brain be this creative when it comes to work

◇ 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐮𝐬??? ◇

No... That said, anyone can literally say that. Please be responsible for your own actions.

I have also released other games on the same itch.io profile, so this isn't my first rodeo. Feel free to check the reviews on those before making your decision if you're wary about downloading!

◇ 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 ◇

hyv please don't sue me i gain 0 dollars for this and i just wanna simp in peace

⟐ 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚜 🄸 𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑.𝚒𝚘 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎 🄸 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 ⟐

© zhongrin | 2022 ◆ do not repost or share without permission. reblogs much appreciated. feel free to reach out to submit suggestions, feedback, comments, or if you just want to talk!

[lisafication]

For those who might happen across this, I'm an administrator for the forum 'Sufficient Velocity', a large old-school forum oriented around Creative Writing. I originally posted this on there (and any reference to 'here' will mean the forum), but I felt I might as well throw it up here, as well, even if I don't actually have any followers.

This week, I've been reading fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a site run by the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit. This isn't particularly exceptional, in and of itself — like many others on the site, I read a lot of fanfiction, both on Sufficient Velocity (SV) and elsewhere — however what was bizarre to me was encountering a new prefix on certain works, that of 'End OTW Racism'. While I'm sure a number of people were already familiar with this, I was not, so I looked into it.

What I found... wasn't great. And I don't think anyone involved realises that.

To summarise the details, the #EndOTWRacism campaign, of which you may find their manifesto here, is a campaign oriented towards seeing hateful or discriminatory works removed from AO3 — and believe me, there is a lot of it. To whit, they want the OTW to moderate them. A laudable goal, on the face of it — certainly, we do something similar on Sufficient Velocity with Rule 2 and, to be clear, nothing I say here is a critique of Rule 2 (or, indeed, Rule 6) on SV.

But it's not that simple, not when you're the size of Archive of Our Own. So, let's talk about the vagaries and little-known pitfalls of content moderation, particularly as it applies to digital fiction and at scale. Let's dig into some of the details — as far as credentials go, I have, unfortunately, been in moderation and/or administration on SV for about six years and this is something we have to grapple with regularly, so I would like to say I can speak with some degree of expertise on the subject.

So, what are the problems with moderating bad works from a site? Let's start with discovery— that is to say, how you find rule-breaching works in the first place. There are more-or-less two different ways to approach manual content moderation of open submissions on a digital platform: review-based and report-based (you could also call them curation-based and flag-based), with various combinations of the two. Automated content moderation isn't something I'm going to cover here — I feel I can safely assume I'm preaching to the choir when I say it's a bad idea, and if I'm not, I'll just note that the least absurd outcome we had when simulating AI moderation (mostly for the sake of an academic exercise) on SV was banning all the staff.

In a review-based system, you check someone's work and approve it to the site upon verifying that it doesn't breach your content rules. Generally pretty simple, we used to do something like it on request. Unfortunately, if you do that, it can void your safe harbour protections in the US per Myeress vs. Buzzfeed Inc. This case, if you weren't aware, is why we stopped offering content review on SV. Suffice to say, it's not really a realistic option for anyone large enough for the courts to notice, and extremely clunky and unpleasant for the users, to boot.

Report-based systems, on the other hand, are something we use today — users find works they think are in breach and alert the moderation team to their presence with a report. On SV, this works pretty well — a user or users flag a work as potentially troublesome, moderation investigate it and either action it or reject the report. Unfortunately, AO3 is not SV. I'll get into the details of that dreadful beast known as scaling later, but thankfully we do have a much better comparison point — fanfiction.net (FFN).

FFN has had two great purges over the years, with a... mixed amount of content moderation applied in between: one in 2002 when the NC-17 rating was removed, and one in 2012. Both, ostensibly, were targeted at adult content. In practice, many fics that wouldn't raise an eye on Spacebattles today or Sufficient Velocity prior to 2018 were also removed; a number of reports suggest that something as simple as having a swearword in your title or summary was enough to get you hit, even if you were a 'T' rated work. Most disturbingly of all, there are a number of — impossible to substantiate — accounts of groups such as the infamous Critics United 'mass reporting' works to trigger a strike to get them removed. I would suggest reading further on places like Fanlore if you are unfamiliar and want to know more.

Despite its flaws however, report-based moderation is more-or-less the only option, and this segues neatly into the next piece of the puzzle that is content moderation, that is to say, the rubric. How do you decide what is, and what isn't against the rules of your site?

Anyone who's complained to the staff about how vague the rules are on SV may have had this explained to them, but as that is likely not many of you, I'll summarise: the more precise and clear-cut your chosen rubric is, the more it will inevitably need to resemble a legal document — and the less readable it is to the layman. We'll return to SV for an example here: many newer users will not be aware of this, but SV used to have a much more 'line by line, clearly delineated' set of rules and... people kind of hated it! An infraction would reference 'Community Compact III.15.5' rather than Rule 3, because it was more or less written in the same manner as the Terms of Service (sans the legal terms of art). While it was a more legible rubric from a certain perspective, from the perspective of communicating expectations to the users it was inferior to our current set of rules  — even less of them read it,  and we don't have great uptake right now.

And it still wasn't really an improvement over our current set-up when it comes to 'moderation consistency'. Even without getting into the nuts and bolts of "how do you define a racist work in a way that does not, at any point, say words to the effect of 'I know it when I see it'" — which is itself very, very difficult don't get me wrong I'm not dismissing this — you are stuck with finding an appropriate footing between a spectrum of 'the US penal code' and 'don't be a dick' as your rubric. Going for the penal code side doesn't help nearly as much as you might expect with moderation consistency, either — no matter what, you will never have a 100% correct call rate. You have the impossible task of writing a rubric that is easy for users to comprehend, extremely clear for moderation and capable of cleanly defining what is and what isn't racist without relying on moderator judgement, something which you cannot trust when operating at scale.

Speaking of scale, it's time to move on to the third prong — and the last covered in this ramble, which is more of a brief overview than anything truly in-depth — which is resources. Moderation is not a magic wand, you can't conjure it out of nowhere: you need to spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on building, training and equipping a moderation staff, even a volunteer one, and it is far, far from an instant process. Our most recent tranche of moderators spent several months in training and it will likely be some months more before they're fully comfortable in the role — and that's with a relatively robust bureaucracy and a number of highly experienced mentors supporting them, something that is not going to be available to a new moderation branch with little to no experience. Beyond that, there's the matter of sheer numbers.

Combining both moderation and arbitration — because for volunteer staff, pure moderation is in actuality less efficient in my eyes, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post, but we'll treat it as if they're both just 'moderators' — SV presently has 34 dedicated moderation volunteers. SV hosts ~785 million words of creative writing.

AO3 hosts ~32 billion.

These are some very rough and simplified figures, but if you completely ignore all the usual problems of scaling manpower in a business (or pseudo-business), such as (but not limited to) geometrically increasing bureaucratic complexity and administrative burden, along with all the particular issues of volunteer moderation... AO3 would still need well over one thousand volunteer moderators to be able to match SV's moderator-to-creative-wordcount ratio.

Paid moderation, of course, you can get away with less — my estimate is that you could fully moderate SV with, at best, ~8 full-time moderators, still ignoring administrative burden above the level of team leader. This leaves AO3 only needing a much more modest ~350 moderators. At the US minimum wage of ~$15k p.a. — which is, in my eyes, deeply unethical to pay moderators as full-time moderation is an intensely gruelling role with extremely high rates of PTSD and other stress-related conditions — that is approximately ~$5.25m p.a. costs on moderator wages. Their average annual budget is a bit over $500k.

So, that's obviously not on the table, and we return to volunteer staffing. Which... let's examine that scenario and the questions it leaves us with, as our conclusion.

Let's say, through some miracle, AO3 succeeds in finding those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer moderators. We'll even say none of them are malicious actors or sufficiently incompetent as to be indistinguishable, and that they manage to replicate something on the level of or superior to our moderation tooling near-instantly at no cost. We still have several questions to be answered:

How are you maintaining consistency? Have you managed to define racism to the point that moderator judgment no longer enters the equation? And to be clear, you cannot allow moderator judgment to be a significant decision maker at this scale, or you will end with absurd results.

How are you handling staff mental health? Some reading on the matter, to save me a lengthy and unrelated explanation of some of the steps involved in ensuring mental health for commercial-scale content moderators.

How are you handling your failures? No moderation in the world has ever succeeded in a 100% accuracy rate, what are you doing about that?

Using report-based discovery, how are you preventing 'report brigading', such as the theories surrounding Critics United mentioned above? It is a natural human response to take into account the amount and severity of feedback. While SV moderators are well trained on the matter, the rare times something is receiving enough reports to potentially be classified as a 'brigade' on that scale will nearly always be escalated to administration, something completely infeasible at (you're learning to hate this word, I'm sure) scale.

How are you communicating expectations to your user base? If you're relying on a flag-based system, your users' understanding of the rules is a critical facet of your moderation system — how have you managed to make them legible to a layman while still managing to somehow 'truly' define racism?

How are you managing over one thousand moderators? Like even beyond all the concerns with consistency, how are you keeping track of that many moving parts as a volunteer organisation without dozens or even hundreds of professional managers? I've ignored the scaling administrative burden up until now, but it has to be addressed in reality.

What are you doing to sweep through your archives? SV is more-or-less on-top of 'old' works as far as rule-breaking goes, with the occasional forgotten tidbit popping up every 18 months or so — and that's what we're extrapolating from. These thousand-plus moderators are mostly going to be addressing current or near-current content, are you going to spin up that many again to comb through the 32 billion words already posted?

I could go on for a fair bit here, but this has already stretched out to over two thousand words.

I think the people behind this movement have their hearts in the right place and the sentiment is laudable, but in practice it is simply 'won't someone think of the children' in a funny hat. It cannot be done.

Even if you could somehow meet the bare minimum thresholds, you are simply not going to manage a ruleset of sufficient clarity so as to prevent a much-worse repeat of the 2012 FF.net massacre, you are not going to be able to manage a moderation staff of that size and you are not going to be able to ensure a coherent understanding among all your users (we haven't managed that after nearly ten years and a much smaller and more engaged userbase). There's a serious number of other issues I haven't covered here as well, as this really is just an attempt at giving some insight into the sheer number of moving parts behind content moderation:  the movement wants off-site content to be policed which isn't so much its own barrel of fish as it is its own barrel of Cthulhu; AO3 is far from English-only and would in actuality need moderators for almost every language it supports — and most damning of all,  if Section 230 is wiped out by the Supreme Court  it is not unlikely that engaging in content moderation at all could simply see AO3 shut down.

As sucky as it seems, the current status quo really is the best situation possible. Sorry about that.

[sundrop-writes]

Push and Pull

Emily Prentiss x Fem!Reader

Summary:

While playing games with Viper, Emily (accidentally) plays on your attraction to her - something you had been trying to hide since you started with the BAU. The results end up being more than interesting.

Emily Prentiss x Fem!Reader - Co-Workers to Lovers. Smut, Sexual Tension.

Word Count: 2,800 words

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Detailed warnings and author’s notes below the cut.

Warnings: smut; this is set during Season 4, Episode 9 (52 Pickup) and there is a lot of references to the episode in this, but I think you could read this without having seen the episode; mentions of typically sexist practices - in the form of ‘pickup artistry’: the reader character replaces Jordan Todd on the team; there is an age gap between Emily and the reader - Emily is older and the reader character is younger; the reader character uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina; mention of the reader wearing a dress and makeup; the reader has sexual fantasies about Emily - which include: pussy eating, fingering, rough sex, semi public sex, being called 'naughty girl’; most of the sex acts are in fantasies (this fic is mostly tension and build up and sexually adjacent situations rather than actual sex); masturbation (the reader masturbates); mentions of masturbation being unsatisfying or not feeling 'as good’ as having sex with the desired partner; caught masturbating - Emily walks in on the reader; Emily refers to herself as 'Mama’ (once); rough kissing, Emily gropes the reader through clothing, very light choking (from Emily toward the reader) (Emily puts her hand on the reader’s neck and applies pressure for a few seconds to get her attention), Emily calls the reader 'needy little thing’ (in this case the word 'little’ is meant to be condescending and not a description of size); undertones of degradation kink; I believe that is everything.

A/N: This was based on a request, and the original request mentioned fake dating (and I would love to do that trope with Emily), but I couldn’t stop thinking about how stunning and gorgeous Emily looks in this episode, and I thought it would be interesting to use it. Also the idea of a man basing his pickup techniques on women needing male validation when - hey, what kind of women wouldn’t want or need male validation? A woman who is obsessed with the other gorgeous woman at the table. It was such a fun scenario to write about. I definitely wanna write more Emily fics in the future.

...

At first, you really weren’t looking forward to it. 

Though it seemed fun in concept - having an excuse to dress up and go out to a club while on the job - Emily assured you that it was going to be miserable. 

The way Emily talked about the man - Viper. She almost made him sound worse than some of the confirmed killers you had dealt with during your short time at the BAU. She said that he was the scum of the earth, a waste of oxygen, that made her feel dirty just by giving her a weird look. She joked that she was ‘dragging you along’ because she didn’t want to suffer alone (that, and she needed backup, in case the guy truly was dangerous). 

From the way she talked about it, you thought the night was going to be miserable. 

You certainly didn’t expect it to be one of the best nights of your life. 

Viper frequented bars and nightclubs. So of course, nightclub appropriate attire was required. You rushed to a store and grabbed the first tight dress you could find (a red one with spaghetti straps that would pair well with a pair of modest black heels you already had in your bag for the job). You didn’t expect to come back and see Emily getting changed into a clingy black dress that fit her like sin, her makeup subtle but smokey. 

You had been actively suppressing your attraction to her, a gorgeous older woman, since you had joined the BAU a month ago. You told yourself that you could keep your lustful feelings under control because you would only be there temporarily, to replace their usual media liaison - who was on maternity leave. But seeing her dressed up like this, it certainly didn’t help with that suppression. 

Things only got worse when you got to the club and Viper descended upon the two of you. (You quietly whispered to Emily that his name should have been Vulture and the soft laughter she let out had your insides fluttering.) 

Turns out, Emily had been paying extra attention to the ‘push and pull’ technique that Reid had talked about. And even though you knew that it was just in the name of messing with the cocky man - you fell hook, line, and sinker for Emily’s combatants of this technique. 

See, rather than letting him push and pull the two of you - compliment one of you and leave the other one reeling for validation, Emily complimented you herself. She never let Viper leave room for you to need that validation. Not that you would ever need it from someone like him. But she certainly threw him off with this tactic. 

She supported you, focused far more of her attention on you than she did on him. The two of you never fell to the traditional ‘women in constant competition’ market that his techniques were built on. If she put far more of her focus on you and actively ignored him (or even not-so-subtly insulted him), then what could he do? 

Women not vying for his attention? It was a curveball for the ages. 

Clearly, he had no backup plan. He was struggling to keep up. 

If he called your dress cheap, Emily said how well the fabric complimented your amazing body. If he said your mascara was clumpy and poorly done, Emily said your eyes were naturally beautiful and shined bright without makeup anyway. 

The more annoyed it seemed to make him, the more she fawned over you. 

And it left you staring at her all night. Captivated by her beauty, her silky voice. You barely even knew that he was there as she laughed at him, engaged in his silly games, taunted him. 

By the time you left the club, you were almost high on the affection Emily had given you. 

The rest seemed to go by in a blur. The real killer was caught at a different club, and the team retired back to their hotel to get some rest before returning home. As you and Emily walked back to your shared room, you were still laughing and joking about the pathetic man who somehow made his living off of scamming men more pathetic than him. 

“And did - did you see the look on his face when I said ‘you probably go home alone, don’t you?’ - Like he - he couldn’t believe that I wasn’t falling for his BS,” Emily said, stuttering through her words as hardy laughter disrupted her speech. 

“It’s like he’s never met a confident woman in his life.” You replied, a delicate chuckle in your voice. 

It was a subtle compliment toward Emily, admiring her confidence in how well she had dealt with the scummy, overly cocky man. 

“No, not quite.” Emily sighed, using the keycard to open the hotel room door. 

Your insides fluttered even more when she held the door open for you. You couldn’t help but enjoy the domestic feeling behind it as you brushed past her body in order to get inside. 

Of course, she wasn’t even paying attention to the dreamy, starstruck look on your face as she continued speaking. 

“He’s never approached a confident woman before.” She quickly corrected, letting the door fall shut and click locked behind her. “He’s never approached a woman he thought he couldn’t con.” 

“And for some reason he dared you to ‘meet him on his turf’?” You questioned, repeating the words she had told you, when ranting about the previous interaction she had with the awful man. “You, of all people?” 

You had to wonder what about Emily Prentiss would come off as even slightly insecure or - what about her said that she would fall for his stupid tricks. In your opinion, it was like trying to outrun a cheetah using a tricycle. 

“Yeah, I guess he was counting on me being drunk and blinded by all his guyliner.” Emily joked, tossing her bag down onto one of the twin beds. 

You collapsed down onto the other bed with intense laughter. The joke itself was funny, but her delivery, her confidence, and her smile caused a spark through you that forced you to laugh off the tension before you jumped her bones. You had to be professional. You had to keep reminding yourself of that. 

“I call the bathroom first.” She announced. “I really need a shower after being drowned in Drakkar Noir all night.” 

You had to ignore the dryness in your throat and the heat between your thighs at the thought of her in the shower. Previously, it was something your mind could have easily glossed over, but after she spent the night fawning over you and capturing your attention completely, it was like you were a horny teenager again. Now all you could think about was her completely naked, droplets of hot water rolling across her skin, surrounded by steam. 

You had to pull yourself together. You had to be professional, for fuck’s sake. 

“But of course.” You told her, giving a smile and a nod. You motioned toward the bathroom, as if presenting it to her in a gentlemanly fashion. “I’ll probably just shower in the morning.” 

Emily nodded in acknowledgement of this, and there was no further conversation. 

This left your mind reeling, your body entirely tense and hyper aware of her every movement as she got ready. You had to busy yourself with grabbing your pajamas out of your own bag - an oversized X-Files tee shirt and a pair of comfortable cotton shorts - while she grabbed her toiletries bag and went into the bathroom. 

The water turned on and you tried your hardest not to think about her undressing and stepping under the stream as you changed into your pjs. You tried your hardest not to think about her tight, fit body relaxing under the steam. You tried your hardest not to think about soft bubbles rolling across her soft, pale skin. 

Clearly, you were failing. Failing not to think about her. Failing miserably when it came to suppressing your attraction for her. 

By the time you climbed into bed, there was a hard, hot pain between your thighs. 

You wanted so badly to simply roll over and go to sleep. You wanted to ignore it. But a very large part of you worried that if you didn’t ‘take care’ of that nagging arousal, then you wouldn’t be able to sleep. And if you didn’t sleep and you rolled into the next day with this attraction to Emily still at the forefront of your mind - then you wouldn’t be able to act normal around her for the travel day home tomorrow. You might say or do something stupid. 

You had to do something. 

The longer you laid there in bed, unconsciously squeezing your thighs together, feeling your pussy throbbing between them - thinking about Emily’s head being trapped between your legs - the more it bothered you. 

You had some time while she was in the shower, right? You could be quick. Of course you could. And if you heard the water turn off, you would simply stop. 

Before any true logic could catch up between your ears, a hand was sneaking below the waistband of your shorts. That hand easily went inside your underwear and found a natural place on your throbbing clit. You dipped down into your wetness (leaking out of you abundantly from how much you had been thinking about Emily) and slicked up the hot button before you began rubbing it in hard circles. You were determined to cum quickly and be done with it. 

You closed your eyes and tiled your head back against the pillow, your mind drifting back to her once again. You couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect she looked in that ruby lipstick. All night, you had felt jealous of the glass when she brought her drink up to her lips. 

You imagined her approaching you at a bar. 

You would be out by yourself, and she would see you from across the room. So entirely confident, she would see you and in a moment, know that she could have you. 

She would come up behind you, whisper sweetly in your ear, telling you how perfect you looked. She would smirk at your initial shyness when you giggled at the compliment. She would tell you that she couldn’t wait to get you home - that she wanted you and she wanted you now. 

So she would pull you into a bathroom, pinning you against a counter. And then she would shove her hand under your dress, only to find that you weren’t wearing any panties, just for her. She would scold you, call you a naughty girl. Her voice so sweet and condescending, only making you wetter. And then she would shove her fingers into your slick cunt and shove her other hand over your mouth, trying in vain to keep your whorish moans from being heard as you begged for her. 

“Emily, please,” You couldn’t stop the faint, needy moan that escaped you as you got lost in the fantasy. 

Of course, so lost in it, that you didn’t hear the shower turning off. 

Your pussy ached, leaking freely into your underwear, and your clit throbbed, emanating a needy pain out through your pelvis. You worked your fingers in more frantic circles, doubling down. Your hips canted up off the bed, knocking the covers off you slightly as dull pleasure radiated out across your hips. 

(Dull compared to what Emily would have given you, you were sure.) 

Even if it was unsatisfactory, you were close. 

“Emily-!” You cried out desperately, right on the edge of orgasm. 

“Hey, do you have some makeup remover I can borrow? I forgot-” 

Shock cascaded through your system and you instantly stilled your movements. This caused your orgasm to become a low hum in your pelvis once again as your eyes shot open in disbelief. 

Your gaze locked onto Emily where she stood in the bathroom doorway. Your insides were still with shock - embarrassment or any other emotion hadn’t even caught up yet. 

Steam ploomed around her and she was forced to hold up the hotel towel with one hand as it couldn’t fully wrap around her body, leaving a sliver of her skin exposed from her armpit to her knee - the curve of her breast, her waist, and her hip on full display. With her hair soaked and her bangs slicked back from her face, and true to what she had said, her makeup still on but slightly smudged from the shower - she looked utterly delicious. 

She was like a pornographic dream, live in front of you. 

You let out a quiet whimper at the sight. 

It was only then that your brain began to unfreeze from the shock, and you realized how truly incriminating you looked. The covers pooled around your thighs, your hand quite visibly inside your shorts, your face contorted with pleasure as your eyes scanned over her half naked body. You rushed to rip your hand out of your underwear - and you realized the sight wasn’t much better as your fingers glistened in the light. 

Emily’s eyes moved from your glistening fingers to your stiff, nervous body, your thighs still parted (as it would be too uncomfortable to clamp them down on your wet underwear and aching cunt). She smirked at you. She looked at you with the same devious, cocky expression that Viper had started out the night with - before she had taken him down notch by notch. 

The look alone caused any apology to be stuck in your throat. You waited for her to speak before you made any moves. 

“What were you thinking about?” She asked, her voice breathy, soft, yet entirely commanding. 

In that moment, caught in the smoldering gate of her eyes, you could find nothing but honesty pounding inside of your chest. 

“You.” You whined quietly. 

Emily chuckled gently. 

Your stomach twisted with embarrassment for the split second that you thought she might be laughing at you. But then you realized that it was, in fact, a sound of satisfaction. 

That realization hit you when she dropped the towel completely. She stood in front of you proudly, showing off all of her naked, wet glory. Her dark nipples pebbling in the air, the damp sheen of water making her skin glow like a dewy goddess. Quite obviously, she wanted you to look.

Your eyes traced a few thick droplets of water as they escaped her hair and ran down her body. You became absolutely mesmerized by the way gravity pulled the water over her collarbones, the teardrop curve of her breasts, the plushness of her stomach, across her pelvis, down her thighs. You imagined yourself tracing over those exact lines with your tongue. 

“Come to me.” 

Her silken voice snapped you out of your trance. Your eyes shot back up to her face once again, and in the sluggish moment that it took the words to get to your brain, she added something onto the command that absolutely knocked the wind out of you. 

“Come on. Come to Mama.” 

Her calling herself that name, so self assured, so certain - the phrase almost had you down on all fours, crawling to her like a dog. 

But instead, you scrambled to get upright and practically ran across the room to her on shaking legs. Entirely eager, you stood in front of her and leaned in to press your mouth against hers. Naturally, you expected that the interaction would start with a kiss. 

But she quickly reached up and stopped you with a hand on the side of your neck. You let out a harsh whimper of disappointment - one that quickly turned into a moan when she pressed her thumb into your windpipe with just enough pressure to make your brain go fuzzy. 

She was showing you who was in charge. 

“Not so fast,” She told you, her breath cascading against your lips now. 

Although she was completely naked and you were clothed, it was very apparent that she was the one in complete control. 

“Tell me how badly you want it.” She ordered, her voice low and almost gentle - a soft domineering that caused the hairs on your arms to stand up straight. 

“I want it so badly,” You easily replied, your voice intensely needy. “I need it. I need you, Em.” 

Emily reached up with her other hand and - with no warning - harshly gripped your pussy through your underwear and shorts. This caused sharp shocks of arousal to flow through you, making you moan out weakly. It was a dizzying euphoria that had you bucking into her hand. You almost came from that single touch alone. 

“Needy little thing.” She purred. “I am gonna have so much fun with you.” 

This was her last verbal sentiment before she pulled you forward by that hand on your neck and silenced any further moans with a bruising kiss.

...

A/N: This is a standalone oneshot, so there will not be a sequel or a continuation of it. If you enjoyed the fic, please comment about the body of work that has been written here. And if you like my writing style, please check out my Criminal Minds Masterlist or my other Masterlists for other fandoms.

[chirpsythismorning]

The Vanishing of BLANK Wheeler

I wanted to make a list, from least likely to most likely, for which Wheeler I think is going to go missing.

But I also wanted to give a little disclaimer first, that even if these titles are real, they could still be fake, or could even possibly change given how much time we still have until s5 actually premieres.

For s2-3, the Duffers literally released official promo videos announcing episode titles for their upcoming season, with some of them changing when the season finally premiered.

Like in the case of s3 for example, they dropped a s3 episode promo video only a day after they completed filming. Meaning them titling 3x06 The Birthday, made absolutely no sense. They knew they didn't film anything birthday related for that episode. So they intentionally gave that one a fake name.

In the case of s4, that was the first time they promoted an upcoming season without giving fake titles, with the s4 promo announcing them following through with what we ended up with when s4 finally dropped.

I guess I sort of assumed s5 would follow in s4's footsteps, but from a leak standpoint, it might be smart to remember that fake titles are still a possiblity regardless. Especially in this case, where it's getting to the point in production where leaks are unavoidable. And so that might even explain why they play with this idea of fake episodes, which is because they can rest easy knowing leaks will mostly consist of half fake titles they planted there.

But for the sake of this post, lets humor the title for episode 2.

For starters, it's worth noting that the person who shared this leak originally said 'BLANK wheeler'. So as far as I know, they did not give any number of letters via underscores (_) to hint at who this Wheeler could possibly be. It's when ST news accounts caught wind of the leak and started rolling out posts, replacing BLANK with 5 underscores, that led a lot of fans to assume that the Wheeler had to have 5 letters in their name, which would have obviously ruled out Ted and Mike. But since all the Wheeler's are still on the table based on the original leak, they will all be included in this list.

5. Ted Wheeler

Believe it or not, there is something that I think actually warrants considering Ted as a possiblity.

There were some posts @stranger-chichka made a while back, comparing visual parallels between Stranger Things and Chernobyl, which could be hinting at this concept of Ted being in danger.

TBH though I think Ted being in danger or ending up dead is a possiblity regardless of him actually being the missing Wheeler.

Technically speaking, quite literally no one on the show is ruled out from being in danger at this point, so that's not saying much.

And considering the show is going to need to kill off some people next season and they are insistent on not killing any of their leads, supporting characters amongst the ranks have a high risk at being taken out. The emotional connection for Ted from the audience isn't as strong as other characters, but at least him being in close relation to a few main characters is something? I mean, he's funny I guess?

Quite frankly I don't think it's likely nor do I think it would actually make sense narratively for Ted to be the one to go missing out of all of them. I think it's a lot more likely they'd just kill him off, hence the Chernobyl parallels which imply he's gonna die. And so wasting time by having him go missing, only to kill him, just doesn't track. I think they'd just get that over with without dragging it out for very long, if anything.

Can you just imagine someone on the show shouting emotionally, It's Dad (Ted). He's gone.' Like, okay... And? I have a hard time imagining the characters being in serious turmoil over this, at least not enough for it to warrant like final season stakes amongst a bunch of other crazy shit happening. At best, the characters would be indifferently guilty for getting him roped into all this.

So yeah, I really don't see it happening.

4. Nancy Wheeler

I honestly feel like Nancy is even less likely to go missing than Ted, but the un-seriousness of an episode titled The Vanishing of Ted Wheeler is so astronomical, that I really had no choice but to put him last.

The reason I think Nancy is just very unlikely to go missing is because they technically already had her go missing as a cliffhanger between Vol 1 and 2 last season. It would just fall flat if they repeated something along those lines, with that same character, 3 episodes later. Vecna could have killed her and yet he didn't. His point was to send her a message, which was why he did what he did and then released her. The choice to target Nancy and taunt her about her family's safety in the first place, felt like their attempt at foreshadowing the danger that is to come for all of them, but one specifically. One of them that is not her. Which will make this moment back in s4 feel a lot more impactful upon rewatches.

So yeah, not feeling like Nancy is very likely.

3. Karen Wheeler

Karen is sort of a hard nut to crack all around. In the case that she is somehow connected to the Creels (Alice), anything is possible in terms of not only her being targeted, but again the entire family being at risk in some capacity. Without much to go off of outside of the obvious very haphazard timeline confusion, I feel like putting her somewhere in the middle. She was given a poster for s4. If she is Alice, then yeah it would make sense to target her. The stakes are also a lot stronger in comparison to Ted, because she was the parent in the family that actually came to Mike or Nancy and told them verbally that she wanted them to open up to her and is actually shown trying on several occasions. Whereas Ted is sort of just there when he's on screen. So the characters' distress would be a lot more dire and interesting to see unfold amongst everyone.

I also remember there being a leak in relation to Karen, Holly, Mike and Nancy all being at the hospital filming. And this was also like a day or so after ST dropped a video of Cara saying she was filming that day to hype up fans. So that leak did check out on the Karen front at least. Which puts her at the hospital at some point, potentially along with the rest of the Wheelers. Now that I'm thinking about it though, this could all fit with a Ted Wheeler death...

At this point, I'm sort of like indifferent to the possiblity, but it's still more likely than Ted and Nancy to me.

2. Holly Wheeler

It all goes back to s1, when Karen was visiting the Byers to console Joyce after Will went missing, when Holly sort of ventures off to Will's room, being guided by the lights, and sees the demogorgan in the wall.

I feel like people overlook this moment too, because it's kind of crazy that Holly has seen UD shit for herself. She was young enough that she could rule it out as just imagining things. And that could be partly the case even if she is skeptical.

There is something about Holly that makes her curious and sort of open to this world that most around her have no idea exists. And yet simultaneously some of the people closest to her do know about it and could easily clue her in when the time comes to do so, and because of that, I think she would probably be able to believe it all a lot faster than others.

Maybe this is a story where things need to happen and it just always ends up this way, but she has this tendency to be included in things that feel very important. Like in s4 with her playing with the lite-brite, and how that ended up being used to communicate with the others in the UD. There's this almost clairvoyance vibe about her. Her feeling the need to follow the Christmas lights to Will's room and her noticing and then fixating on the trees in s3.

Like I said, I don't know if it's something deeper, but it very well could be in the case she is connected to the Creels.

And while that is all somewhat compelling, at the same time it also feels very convoluted. Even if the Wheelers are Creels, I don't think that means the Wheelers would have powers, given that Henry got them when he was a child, meaning none of his family could have gotten them unless they too were taken in by the lab at some point, or were born with it.

Though I'm being full serious when I say the theories about Mike having time powers or maybe just manifestations from his emotions connected to the powers of others around him is one of my favorite theories of all time. I want it to happen. It would be cool. But that just opens the door to all of the Wheelers in my opinion, assuming his time powers came from being related to Henry. And if it was done that way, I feel like it would add way too much confusion to the story, where now all the Wheelers are gonna need to have powers, and then as a result would just takes away from the uniqueness that is already associated with Henry, El and potentially Will. One person potentially having powers without us knowing until the end aka Will, is enough honestly. Adding the Wheelers to the mix might be a bit much.

I'm also not totally convinced of the Wheeler's being Creels, and yet I also can't seem to want to rule it out entirely. But the prospects of Holly having powers or some sort of ability and just going through the same thing as Will when he was young and unaware of his powers, who is just now finding out the truth about his experiences... It just feels like serious whiplash honestly, when they haven't spent much of any time on Holly up to this point.

Like what are the stakes here exactly? What makes her disappearance and what that would look like compelling, on her front specifically? Because sure, I can see it being compelling watching the perspective of those around her reacting to this, what they would do to try to save her and all that, but what does that mean for her exactly? Are we going to see what she's doing? Are they going to hide it from us like they did with Will and then have to spend even more time uncovering it later on. And what does she even gain from being alone and taunted by Vecna presumably? What does the audience gain from witnessing that sort of event? There isn't a lot of story to explore there, outside of maybe making direct parallels to Will in s1? And then wouldn't that sort of take away from the importance of Will's role in it all just now being uncovered, if it all just repeats for Holly?

Which brings me to something that I see a lot of people using as strong evidence for why it has to be Holly, which is the fact that they recast her character.

What I think people are failing to consider is the fact that the twins who were cast to play Holly originally, were like 3-4 years old while filming s1. They weren't just kid actors, they were damn near baby actors. And while I know a big part of the reason why they gave Holly such few lines over the years was because the actors were aging way faster than the character they played, I think another factor could have been the fact that their acting experience is near nothing outside of Stranger Things, which is also pretty little on its own as well given that they have very few lines on the show.

It's not at all uncommon for child actors, let alone toddler actors to leave the industry once they start getting older. It could be for personal reasons, like wanting to explore other ventures, or it could be that they just don't perform as well with all the added expectations that come with acting as a character who is a kid with a lot of lines vs. a baby with 2 lines.

The girls got cast because at the time, they were able to perform as well as a 3 year old possibly could and would be expected to be in that role. But does that skill carry forth as they grew older? When now they have to deliver full sentences and carry conversations for scenes that are longer than 5 minutes? They've never really had to do that up to this point. Is it something that they feel comfortable with doing? Is their performance believable and is it something the writers feel confident about?

Honestly, I think they might have recast Holly, not because I think she is going to be targeted and focused on as this missing person they have to find, going through a near identical situation to 11 year old Will, but because they simply want her to be more apart of the story in general. And maybe because either the twins and/or the production didn't feel that they would be able to perform it in the way that they wanted it to be done.

And I mean, even if Holly isn't the one to go missing, one of the Wheelers is going to go missing based on this leak. If it was one of her parents, she would get a lot more scenes than she has in the past. If it was one of her siblings, again it would make sense for her to be more involved with the story. No matter what she is going to have a bigger role.

So no I don't think her being recast is as strong enough of proof as some might believe. If anything I think there is much stronger evidence that, like Karen, if they are related to the Creels, Holly is as fair game as any of them. The stakes could be high because she i such s a child. And her parents and Nancy and Mike worrying about her seems like something they would obviously do because she is so innocent and completely ill-equipped to endure something like that. But like I said, I just can't picture an focus like that on her, for her character, being very compelling given that Holly isn't really someone that needs like alone time with us witnessing it...

But there is one Wheeler left, and boy oh boy would he benefit from being alone.

1. Mike Wheeler

The most simple explanation for why it makes sense for it to be Mike, is that he genuinely benefits more than anyone when it comes to being alone with his thoughts, and with the audience watching. There's a lot of stuff dude has to work through in his own head, and since they haven't really let us have a moment alone with him that isn't under ten seconds since s3, an episode or two dedicated to making that a priority would make him coming back and things building up to the end, feel a lot more earned.

The audience needs to feel confident about how Mike feels about things. It can't be a guessing game for much longer when so many different factors are involved.

And while I think Mike may be the strongest possiblity in terms of the value it would add to the overall story is compelling enough to put him at number 1, the evidence supporting it happening is even stronger.

If we want to be crazy we can go back to the beginning. Plenty of fans have already speculated about how Mike is always late at the start of every season and how that might play into the beginning of season 5 again. I made a post about this recently and speculated it would happen one last time around the 15 minute mark. And maybe I was wrong... but maybe I was also right? Because if the second episode is called The Vanishing of Mike Wheeler, it's likely Mike's fate wouldn't be confirmed by the opening of 5x01, but in fact the closing scene of 5x01.

Throughout the show Mike plays a key role in leading the others, he's even referred to as 'the key' in s3 by Hopper. You know this show and their keys, they don't joke about that sort of thing. It's likely that Mike's story and what it is leading to is going to be central to how all of this ends.

Also in s3, there is one scene in particular that I think could be hinting at Mike being targeted, along with the s4 main poster with all of the characters. In the poster, we see El at the top, with Max and Mike as near equals on each side of her. Of course their roles are central and that's a fair layout on it's own arguably, but the equal-ness provided to Mike and Max feels very intentional. While she is slightly bigger than Mike in the frame, that could be a hint in regards to her being central now in s4, with Mike joining the mix alongside her in s5. Honestly, they could have made it so these two were beside other characters that also played a huge role in s4, and yet they chose those two to give a specific focus to. I think that is interesting (and probably intentional).

But if I'm being honest, there are so many moments in s4 specifically that hint at Mike being in danger, that I will not be able to include it all in detail in this post. So I'm going to link those below and then build off of some of it with some new details I've recovered that are worth re-contextualizing again with all of this in mind.

Hints regarding Mike and Will being targets of the town, but Mike specifically being focused on after the word 'missing' is said...

I'm gonna expand on this one because I think it's important to recognize the massive curtain in the background as this is all happening. And I vaguely reference this concept here as well which is worth checking out. But not is this whole concept of the curtain pretty blatant in this episode, this scene of the town all fleeing to hunt down hellfire club, is followed directly after, by this:

Notice how Mike is nearly always central in these moments? And how what follows feels eerily similar to what is about to go down at the end of s4 aka Suzie = Mike.

Now, this has already been talked about plenty so I won't go into detail, but... based on everything else happening surrounding this, this would apply to Mike in the sense that not only is he not in love with El, he's gay and in love with Will aka a boy. A BOY!

And then this mention of 'the terrible truth'. This word has been used like 3 times in the last few minutes. First intensely during Jason's speech about a terrible truth, with Ted and Karen being focused on with the Mike and Will extra in the background.

But what is even more crazy is that what follows sort of seals the deal for me that, this IS about Mike and it's foreshadowing what is about to come in s5.

5:02... 5x02!!!!

Also peep the watch and the letter from Dustin under it... I don't want to speculate but lettergate is looking extra relevant within all of this as well...

And to close off this point, lets show the shot that follows directly after this one.

Then later in the season, after Nancy is back from being taken by Vecna, here we have this long and emotional pause before she says Mike's name, last after her mom and Holly.

If they wrote and filmed this scene, knowing Mike would be the Wheeler missing early s5, it would make sense for them to list off the characters like this.

Mike peeking in the frame at this moment is not suspicious at all...

If it wasn't enough that Jason hyped up the whole town to see the Hellfire club as their enemy responsible for all of this, here we have a focus on Mike specifically being targeted by Jason.

The Duffer's statement about the show overall in the Piggyback script, and I gotta say it fits Mike a lot more than any of the other Wheelers.

Mike is a Paladin. And when they break an oath, they might spend an all-night vigil as a sign of penitence... aka everything is going to come to a head and Mike is going to be alone dealing with this shit for a bit, until he can come back ready to face it.

And I know it's controversial, but this post explains perfectly why Mike being central to this would make the show go full circle in a really compelling way.

Mike hasn't really unpacked...

Karen lookalike standing in front of the missing persons board. Could be any one of them but still, considering the costume of this extra looks closer to what Karen was wearing when she reunited and hugged Mike... I'm gonna put it more so with him.

Mike's guilt and shame regarding the past and what it has led them to could also play a big role and why him going missing would be worthwhile to explore. Part 1 / Part 2

Mike paralleling Yuri, who eventually reveals the truth (in his pocket) after stalling. If Mike parallels him all throughout the start of that moment, what does that mean for how it ends for Mike?

An antique funeral home fan behind Mike in the s4 character promo photos in the Creel attic, how Mike is seen sitting before Will sits beside him shortly after and it involving upside down imagery, Mike's first line in the show being used to later foreshadow his fate in early s5, and also bringing it back to Suzie's house which I already went into but it might be helpful to look at it again from this lens.

The Duffers would not pass up on the opportunity to parallel Mike with Finn's other character Richie in IT, which is literally based on a book that heavily inspired ST in the first place. And how all of that plays into the queer-coding for Mike going all the way back to s1.

The Duffers revealed after posting the funko-pop shotplanning pictures (2) that they were finished with planning for 5x01-5x02.... meaning this shot of Mike all by himself, is going to occur in one of those episodes...

We could still hypothesize Holly is the one to be taken, given that she doesn't have a funko and so they couldn't include her here regardless. But the fact that Nancy is with the other seems to imply to me that they are all likely working together to get Mike back, who is alone.

This one is a little more hard to pinpoint for sure, but it comes from a BTS Ross posted recently.

We are clearly in the Wheeler's house here. And if you zoom in, it looks like someone is standing (hiding?) behind a doorway/curtain. And the only person that seems to fit it imo is Mike... But why would he be hiding in his own house...?

It just makes me think about what is going on with Mike in early s5. What would be occurring that has him in this sort of situation? And it makes me wonder if him going missing has solely to do with him being taken and gone in one single moment, or if it could involve him avoiding his family and others potentially, with him being taken after that.

Lastly, I'm going to go into more choppy territory, stuff I know only a couple of people will actually consider. But it is pretty fucking fitting of what is about to go down so I can't not mention it.

In the Puzzle Tales' most recent Hellfire Campaign, this is the title...

Like the whole chapter is just a big joke on Mike about him being scared to be alone, which is painfully ironic if this is the direction the show is about to go for the next 2 upcoming episodes.

And then we have a song WSQK posted on Twitter back in January. I know people don't believe that this account is connected with anyone in the production, which is fair because I myself rarely believe leaks from anonymous accounts as it is. But I've been keeping up with it and it genuinely doesn't seem like a fan could come up with these songs.

The song I'm about to mention is the 7th song they posted, called Army Dreamers by Kate Bush. And you might fight it sounds a lot like the situation Mike might find himself in in early s5.

And though I'm sure I didn't cover everything, I feel like all the things I've mentioned and referenced from other posts are plenty to at least consider this as opposed to rejecting it all together.

At the end of the day I think there are some valid arguments for all of them to some extent. And quite frankly all of the Wheelers and most of the characters in the show will find themselves in danger in a way that is going to probably last longer than just one single moment the entire season. So even if it's just one of them, I don't think that rules out the others playing a bigger role in what is going down.

I just think narratively, there is one person that benefits from being on-screen and alone with their thoughts. And the other 4 being confronted with what that person discovers eventually will also make all of this a lot more worthwhile than any of the other options in my opinion.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let me talk Church and the Revolution

Okay, let me post this preemptively. Because I already know that soon enough those people looking for reasons to hate on Castlevania Nocturne because it is not like the games will also come to cry a river about "they depict the church as evil!!!!"

So, let me quickly talk about the role of the church in the French Revolution. Because there is something you gotta understand about the Church during the French revolution: That there was not THE Church.

Basically within the Catholic church in France there was a fracture over the entire revolution happening. A lot of the higher ranked clergy men stood on the side of the nobles and royals, while a lot of the lower ranked clergymen stood with the revolutionaries. The reason behind that mostly was money.

See, before the revolution the church was allowed to collect taxes themselves, while also being tax exempt. So they did not have to pay taxes on all the stuff they sold and made to the nobility. Which was why the bishops and general higher ups within the church could have the lavish lifestyle of nobility themselves, often of course ignoring their vows.

Meanwhile a lot of lower clergy (and especially certain groups of monks - especially the franciscans) were like: "We are all equal in the eyes of god. Rich folks do not get into heaven. Equality is what god wanted from us" and supported the revolution because of it.

But of course there was also the thing that the show mentioned: Given the show is set in summer it seems (probably just before the Reign of Terror) it would have been not even a year before that a lot of clergy got slaughtered. Why did they get slaughtered?

Well, short explanation: Royalists and also some of the bishops provoked the war with Prussia in an attempt to overthrow the revolutionary forces with the help of the Prussian military. This of course failed and the revolutionaries were out for blood. So nobles fled into the churches for sanctuary. And in retaliation a lot of clergy died for haboring the nobles in question.

And, yeah. There is of course the other aspect: The church at the time for a lot of historcal and religious reasons very much supported slavery. Meanwhile this is already a point where the revolution at large had decided that slavery should be done away with. And that leads to what we see in the show here: Clergy going on about the revolution being against "the natural order".

(Being frank: I LOVE that they brought this into the show. Which is almost like a whole other thing I could write about. The entire idea of the revolution and the "natural order" and how it is all linked to colonialism.)

Another interesting part here is the order the abbot and Mizrak are from. On the Castlevania discord server I already went into a whole thing trying to figure that out, but my last idea was right: They are from the Knights Hospitaller. The order of St. John.

This order arose during the crusades and as the name Knights Hospitaller suggests: Yeah, they mostly created hospitals (though historically those were not only to cure the sick, but also to be a home - "hospitality" - for those on the road). They were based in Jerusalem for a while, but ended up moving to Malta, which was of course for a long while ruled by France. They referenced here that the Abbot came to France from Malta, which is the reason.

But yeah, they actually were about helping people for the most part. But they also made money from it. And when the revolution came, they seized all the assets from the order, which made the order join into the ranks of clergy who stood against the revolution by 1792.

[prettyboykatsuki]

wyll, in my opinion, gets the standard fare treatment for characters that are unequivocally good. i.e. people think he's boring and uninteresting. standard fare might be kind actually given the level of racism and unexplained slander (which is often just more thinly veiled racism). his reputation about being boring is not helped by the very blatant neglect of his storyline post his rewrite and release. as a wyll enjoyer i am hyperaware of the sorry state of his current story in all three acts

despite all of that and the glaring flaws - i still believe that wylls storyline is worth of being engaged with and explored.

one of the reasons (not the most major one, but one) i think wyll experiences so much neglect as a companion stems from a wider idea that "goodness" is always the uncomplicated, easy choice.

it's something i see a lot. wyll is boring because of his archetype as a princely and universally righteous guy. and this is interesting, because it always seems to functions under the assumption that wylls moral character is innate. that his heroic and righteous actions are in some capacity, uncomplicated.

uniquely among the male origin companions, through the course of wylls story - there is never a point in which he is at risk of making a truly 'bad' choice. both gale and astarions story have them at risk of making choices that are ultimately bad for them and others (especially tav when each character is romanced). gales godhood and astarions ascension are their in game moral failings. they are the result of having not broke the cycle and are 'bad' choices for the individual character.

wylls main choice is however his pact and the choice to break that pact. notably - wyll is never at risk of making a bad choice, only a selfish one.

from the critique i see of wyll - it seems like this is the element of him people find most egregious. he's too smooth, not rugged enough, not gritty enough. but i don't think wyll's character needs grit, necessarily.

if you take any time to dissect wyll at all, based on dialogue and character interaction, many of his choices put himself at the forefront of sacrifice. the game strips wyll of a lot of agency, but wyll also always abides by and sticks to his core belief. so often towards his own detriment.

not only does wyll bear the consequence of being turned into a devil (stripping him of the last remaining shred of identity he's ever had and one of the most important things in his life), he bore the burden of being banished when he made his pact, and was willing to do the same for the sake of his father when he is taken to moonrise.

and unlike gale (who i adore, to be clear) who's concept of self-sacrifice stems mostly from a low self-worth - the belief that dying is the best he can do - wyll truly views that it's better him than them.

wyll does not think twice about allowing himself to be the one to take the fall. he can play any part, take any role, even when these choices haunt him so obviously. wyll claims that he forgives his father, but opens up to you about fearing his feelings of missing him are one-sided. he believes that making his pact was the right choice, the one he would make again - but doesn't deny the obvious pain and solace that came along with being a wandering traveler and banished son.

wylls goodness is so deliberate. he is so staunch in upholding and acting on his beliefs that it is always narrative to his own detriment. when you view wyll like this , and view his choices with regards this character attribute, it is imo very hard to hate him.

wyll's goodness is his double edged sword. it makes him heroic, brave, fearless. and it makes him scared, uncertain and lonely. again, the story itself is bare bones and i understand that - but it is so very beautiful to me thinking of him and tav or just his general romance.

as wylls romance partner, encouraging wyll to break his pact is as tragic as it very beautiful. tav is wylls one selfish thing. one of the only reasons that would move him to not give himself up. one of the only reasons he is okay with forgoing his beliefs. he loves tav enough to break his own oaths, and make choices for himself and no one else. not as the blade, or as a ravengard - but just as wyll.

and that aspect of him is in my opinion, enforced, by the mindflayer tav ending. in which wylls monster-hunting and morals are made exceptions with / for tav. my enjoyment of hero corruption might be speaking for me, but i digress.

in every way though - i truly love wyll as a character. and while im well aware of the critical flaws in his in game story state, i think it's both unfortunate and unfair that people call him boring. to me he is anything but

[jq37]

So, that lady FH episode was amazing and all, but...

Hoo boy, I already see the discourse around the Ratgrinders' fates forming and it is going to be painful. Be careful around the fandom space.

(I mean, resurrection is still on the table for them, but that's based on if the players feel like it and right now, we're looking at 50/50 odds at bests)

Yeah, don't worry about me. This isn't my first rodeo and also I post a lot about D20 and respond to asks I get but I don't actually personally engage with any of The Discourse (tm).

And I'm not really surprised at the reaction. I know people have been opinionated all season in two main camps (that have a lot of overlap): people dissatisfied with the narrative direction and people deeply sympathetic to the Rat Grinders to the point of being mad at the Bad Kids.

The first camp I mostly understand. I get wishing the cast would explore a certain storyline more. For example, I've been on the Aelwyn redemption arc train since literally the first episode of Fantasy High so I was a little disappointed that when that finally came to a head in Freshman Year, it was a big fight and then very little aftermath/unpacking because Aelwyn was sent to jail right after. And Sophomore Year hadn't been announced so I had no idea that she was gonna get another shot. But I wasn't upset or anything. Adaine at that point still hated her sister. She had no reason to want to reach out. And at the end of the day this is other people playing a game. Brennan presented them all the possible plot threads and they were most interested in self discovery, hanging out with each other, doing Shenanigans, and playing Tomb Raider re: Ankarna. Those are all options they were presented and it's not like they were doing crazy off-roading. It's well within the parameters of what D&D is. If you're gonna watch a show like this (or honestly any show), you have to accept that what's most interesting to you isn't always going to be the most interesting thing to the people in the driver's seat.

So yeah, I feel like this side of things I get (even though I'm fine with how things turned out).

The other camp--people being legit mad at the Bad Kids (and in some cases the actual cast) for treating the Rat Grinders like antagonists instead of victims that they were responsible for empathizing with and redeeming--I find kind of wild.

Like…you're mad at the kids who go to Child Murder School for killing kids who want to end the world and kill them specifically? Literally the first day of school the principal of the school says that adventurers are violent wanderers who engage in shenanigans and enact violence. This is the exact assignment they were given and that's what they're doing.

I think it's wild to at the same time believe that the Rat Grinders (who have killed people) are not responsible for their actions and deserve to be talked down while in the process of causing an apocalypse because they're just kids who were manipulated while at the same time calling the Bad Kids evil lunatics for trying to stop them by killing them (in a world where Revivify and Resurrection exist) even though they are ALSO kids who are doing what they've learned at Child Murder School. The Bad Kids have to be mature enough to thoroughly investigate the situation and have nuance about it but the Rat Grinders don't have any responsibility to not join a shady evil murder plan*? And do the Bad Kids really hate the Rat Grinders to the point where they're doing some overkill in this fight? Absolutely. But it's not like they're killing them because they hate them. They're killing them because they're trying to end the world--and they also happen to hate them. Are we forgetting that Kipperlilly killed Buddy--her own teammate--with a gleeful smile on her face? That was so out of pocket.

They're adventurers! Not guidance counselors! If Jawbone was like, "We need to kill these kids," yeah that would be weird but why would the Bad Kids extend an olive branch to the kids who (1) famously hate them, (2) killed at least one maybe 2 of their own party members, (3) endangered the entire student body population an hour ago, (4) are currently trying to end the world. Hell, Adaine was ready to be mean to her own sister in elf jail literally up until the point Brennan described how rough she looked from the torture and that's when she changed her mind. The Power of Love and Empathy is on the menu but it's a special item you only can get if you know the chef. Everyone else is getting a serving of These Hands. Just because you can find a vegan solution to a problem it doesn't mean you're obligated to.

This all comes down to, "Maybe teenagers shouldn't have godlike powers and the ability to play judge, jury, and executioner" but that's literally the premise of the entire show so you can't get around it without rejecting the show's entire premise. If they were like, "Hmm the systems that underpin our world are questionable and we should change the power structures" instead of, "Let's kill some bad guys!" then that's a totally different thing we're doing here!

And, idk man, this show has always had a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style morality where the normal rules of ethics stop applying when it's funny. They beat the crud out of Ragh and then lied to him that he shit his pants just for the bit. A pirate was rude/kinda racist to Riz so they scared him into killing himself. Riz ate the remains of the sentient (albiet evil) dragon he killed. That's all unhinged behavior but none of that is meant to be serious. Getting upset about Fig sending Ruben to hell to me feels like getting mad that Jerry hit Tom with a cartoonishly large mallet.

None of this is new so I have to assume that people are having a big reaction because they relate to the Rat Grinders or just really like them so it feels bad that the Bad Kids are treating them like fodder rather than beloved NPCs.

But again, this is a world where you can bring people back from the dead and the Rat Grinders have showed intent that is grievously neglectful at best and insanely murderous at worst so I can't muster a lot of sympathy for the fact that the Bad Kids are just taking them down without remorse. I don't think you have to try to empathize with the people who are trying to harm you if you don't want to especially while they are in the process of harming you.

(*And we still don't know how voluntarily they joined this plan. We don't know if they were killed and basically forced into resurrecting with rage or if they just leapt at the chance to join a plan that would let them get one over on their rivals. It literally could be either. We've had kid villains on this show strong armed into being party to evil plans by threat of harm (Aelwyn) as well was kid villains who just had their own selfish motivations and weren't tricked at all (Penelope and Biz). We actually don't have any clear answer on how culpable they are. We don't know if they all have rage crystals (except for Buddy). And we don't know how much having a Rage Crystal effects your actions. The best indicator we got is in this latest ep when Brennan said that there was a mechanic where Porter was going to call anyone with a rage crystal to fight for him but that says to me that he's only directly puppeting them when he uses that action and otherwise they have free will and are just angrier. The Bad Kids don't have a reason to believe definitively that the Rat Grinders are just unwilling puppets even if that is the case so of course they're treating them like enemies. Anyway, this is a whole lot of "I don't knows" but that's only because I've seen a lot of people talking like the Rat Grinders literally aren't in control of their actions but that's not info that we have. It could be true but we don't actually know that so it's not a good argument.)

[faeiri-tft]

PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly

this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go

toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game

see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices

(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)

but ok let's talk about the actual game first.

toontown online (tto)

the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game

the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode

*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed

that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there

the gameplay:

the Free Account

there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game

i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats

(source)

there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it

2. the Paid Account

mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes

a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown

some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"

combat:

(source)

toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.

early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.

an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:

(source)

you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless

eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway

(isn't he charming)

cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it

(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)

anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:

toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;

trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;

lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work

sound, which does low damage to every cog;

throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";

squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;

and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first

each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right

a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system

every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.

in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!

in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:

use sound

as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.

(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)

sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it

(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)

if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed

in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever

(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)

the bosses:

each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.

(pictured: your convincing disguise)

when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:

(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)

the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird

once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)

and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai

the grind:

so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:

(source/source)

you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).

by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.

the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10

this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.

it wasn't, um. it wasn't good

ok so what else is wrong with this game:

i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them

(source)

(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it

(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to

(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)

i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that

(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)

the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:

the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.

a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it

the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow

these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed

like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.

i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying

and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second

it couldn't have kept going, not like this.

on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...

there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over

hey wait.

[rubra-wav]

Vox HCs entry #2

Warnings/CW: discussion of toxic masculinity, SFW

A/N: just various thoughts I've had about this man.

- He is a musical theatre/drama fan

He gives me this energy so much due to how dramatic he is in general. His first instinct when Alastor comes back is to instantly make a callout on live TV in the form of song. 💀

I feel like he listens to musicals in 'secret' - but it's not actually nearly as much as a secret as he thinks it is. I feel like in general he gets very loud when he's passionate or excited about something.

I just have a mental image of him thinking nobody in Vee tower can hear him while he absolutely yells the lyrics of a song with headphones on at full volume while dancing out the choreography to the song.

He'd deny everything about it if you brought this up however. He grew up in the 50's and due to that I feel as if he would be very insecure about it. I'll elaborate more on that in the next point.

- Still has a fair few beliefs to deconstruct

He is from around the 50's time period, and due to that I feel like he would have a lot of internalised toxic masculinity.

He is on and off with Val who's obviously GNC, so I think he doesn't gaf too much about others and what they wear and do anymore

But I think he has a lot of shit he directs towards himself still.

Elaborating on the liking theatre thing and denying it: I think he would stubbornly deny it because he thinks it's 'too feminine' for himself to be interested in and that he thinks it makes him 'less of a man' and shit kinda like that.

I also think because of this he also has horrendous perspectives on showing emotion.

It is already canon that he hides behind a mask at all times, but I feel like even if he 100% trusts someone to be genuine around them he still wouldn't let himself do so due to thinking he's 'less man' if he does things like cry or directly seek any kind of support - especially emotional - outside of his usual compliment fishing behaviours.

I don't think his perspectives usually pertain to others as he's had a lot of exposure to different more up-to-date / nonconforming people with Val and Vel - but I do definitely feel like he has hella internalised bullshit.

Dating him in this aspect would be hard because you would need to be there reassuring him that it's okay to do things which society deems as 'feminine' - especially with what 1950's society deemed as being normal and abnormal for men.

He needs reassurance so bad about it.

I can see him as trying to keep up his mask of not needing any kind of help from you even when it's obvious he's cracking under whatever (pressure, overwhelm, stress, etc. Etc.)

- This man can't dress himself well for shit

(Mostly based upon past Voxtagram posts)

This man's closet outside of his usual outfits is largely button-up/polo shirts and cargo shorts with the most horrifically ugly patterns you've ever seen in your life.

The only reason his outfits look good ever is because of Vel forcing him to not dress like shit.

I can imagine him walking out of his room in a blue and red polo and black cargo shorts with a snapback on and Velvette and Valentino just looking at him in utter horror. 💀

I also like the idea of him having equally chaotic socks. Like you have the usual put together outfit he has on, but then he takes off his shoes, and they are eye shatteringly ugly with words printed on them.

It's ironic because if you date him he will be probably pissy about you dressing well going out together.

He's a hypocrite 🙏

- He doesn't like sweets

I can see him as not liking things that are sweet at all.

He absolutely takes his coffee black as well, it's the most bitterest gag-worthy flavour ever and you are terrified at how much he seems to like the taste.

The sweetest thing he does like in the way of drinks is diet coke.

I feel like he survives on energy drinks, but I don't think he enjoys them at all and just tolerates them.

He doesn't like desserts either. Maybe tiramisu but not frequently.

I can see him actually liking dark chocolate though. I feel like he likes bitter things.

He's totally an absolute cunt about it as well.

If he sees you having coffee with milk/creamer and sugar he's the type of person to go "ugh. I don't know how you can drink that." While fake gagging at you.

He's that mf

A/N I have multiple ideas for drabble/fics, but my brain decided to write this out for now.

If you like sweets a lot he would be annoying as fuck about it 100%

I'm a bit hesitant to post like full fics or drabbles as I don't want to in the moment be like 'yeah, this is great!' Then look at it the next morning and be tweaking out because it feels OOC or I could have worded things better. Perfectionism is a fucking nightmare 🗣/lh

[dresshistorynerd]

Hey, I noticed that in one of your posts you showed an Iron Age Finnish woman's dress. Would you happen to have a good idea of what Finnish men were wearing in that era? The information on it seems sparse. I do have a relevant book that I'm about to look through, but I'd like to hear your insight too!

Hi! Thanks for the question (and sorry for the slow answer), I do love Finnish Iron Age clothing so it's always my pleasure to write about it. I've been wanting to do a deep dive into this for a long while, so maybe I'll do at some point a post about women's dress too.

Unfortunately no one has good idea of the Finnish Iron Age men's dress (and if you find any book or other source that claims otherwise, do not trust it), since there's much fewer archaeological finds of men's dress than women's dress. The most accepted theory on why the textiles of women's dress survived surprisingly well is because of the bronze ornamentation commonly sewn into especially the fine women's dresses of the era. The bronze protected them from decomposing fully. Presumably men's dresses were not decorated similarly then. There are some finds though and we can piece together at least some kind of vague picture.

I will be discussing the period from Viking Age to Crusade Age in Finland. Viking Age is often defined to cover 800s to mid-1000s and the Finnish Crusade Age started right after the Viking Age and ended in the end of 1200s, where the Finnish Medieval era begins. Crusade Age refers to the period where mostly Swedish (also German) crusaders in the span of couple of centuries conquered lands of the Baltic-Finnic pagans. The crusades of this period targeted pagans all over eastern Baltic Sea, including Baltic-Finnic Karelians, Livonians and Estonians, and Baltic peoples, and the Scandinavia too, where Sámi people were targeted. After that the Finland and Sápmi were colonized by Norse people and stayed that way untill Finland was transferred under Russian rule, but to this day Sápmi still stays under colonial rule, including Finnish colonial rule. The current Finland was very multicultural area, mostly populated by Finno-Ugric peoples, including Sámi people, Karelians and various Finnish peoples.

It's important to understand that even just Finnish peoples where not homogeneous, but had distinct, yet of course strongly related cultures. These were Finns (suomalaiset) (yes most people we now call Finns were not in fact called that) in the coast of southwestern and western Finland, Tavastians (hämäläiset) in central-western lake-Finland and Savonians (savolaiset) in central-eastern lake-Finland. This means we can't mix findings from all over Finland to reconstruct a dress without evidencing that all the elements were actually used in one place. These three tribes had broadly similar base for their clothes, but distinctive jewelry and detailing. The big divide was and has always been between eastern and western Finnish peoples. This is because western Finnish people were in close contact through the sea with Norse people and southern Baltic-Finnic peoples, while eastern Finnish people, Savonians mostly, were influenced a lot by their proximity with Karelians. Another dividing factor was the very different environmental conditions between western and eastern Finland. The Finnish coast especially in west is very flat and fertile land, while the lake area, especially in eastern Finland is very rocky, hilly and quite infertile. The main way it effected clothing differences was that western Finland being more wealthy had more elaborate clothing. Tavastians in both occasions fall quite in between, but they tended to be more in the western cultural camp.

My most important sources are a study by a doctor of cultural anthropology, Jenny Kangasvuo, Savon historia I (Savonian history) digitized and open sourced here and the digitized archeological collection of Finnish Heratage Agency. They are all in Finnish so not very useful for most people unfortunately.

Finnish Men's Dress in Viking and Crusader Ages

The basic garments men wore were broadly similar as women. They wore a shift/shirt, knee or above-knee length dress, cloak, belt, shoes and some kind of headwear. Wool was used most commonly, though the shirt would sometimes be linen too. Even evidence of silk has been found in some western Finland graves. I would assume that would be from a dress of some great man, who traveled to gain riches, possibly with vikings. Embroidery and decoration with metals was a typical feature of the whole Eastern Baltic Sea area. In Finland during this period bronze was the most common decorative metal, but silver was used too. Decorative elements were usually woven with small bronze spirals into all kinds of patterns. Here's examples from the reconstructed Ravattula's dress (Finns) used by women.

Shirt

The shirt (in Finnish shift of both women and men was called shirt) was basically a long shirt or under dress. We can assume it was similar to those of women's except shorter since the dress men wore was shorter too. They were made from wool or linen, I would assume wool was used in winter and linen in summer, when linen was even available. The neckline had a cut and closed with a bronze brooch. Horseshoe brooch was common. The first one is a quite typical bronze horseshoe brooch with a bit of ornamentation from Salo (Finns). The second one is from Tuukkala, (Savonians), it has exceptional ornate detailing and is uncommonly silver, not bronze. The third picture has two quite uniquely ornamented horseshoe brooches, first from Köyliö (Finns), second from Kurikka (Finns).

Legwear and footwear

Very little of men's legwear has survived and it's unclear weather men wore pants or separate pant legs, leg wraps or perhaps long socks. Evidence of strings decorated with bronze spirals and tablet woven band has been found in leg area of men's graves. This could mean that they wore either leg wraps, long sock or some sort of pant legs that needed to be secured with string or band under knee. Women used strings and tablet woven tape to secure leg wraps and socks, which I think supports that theory. Sometimes both bronze decorated string and tablet woven band was found in the leg area, which would still be explained by this theory, since it was common to decorate the ends of the bands with bronze decorated strings. Here's an example of sock bands just like that from the earlier mentioned reconstruction of the Ravattula's women's dress. Since men's dress was shorter, I think it would make sense if they still wore some kind of pants or separate pant legs with socks or leg wraps like that.

However, the strings and bands could have also been part of the shoes. Everyone probably wore similar shoes - laced leather shoes with a bit of pointed end. They might have been short or ankle length and the lacing was done with either leather cord or tablet woven band, which would also explain the findings. Socks or feet wraps would have been used in them, and straw or wool could be added as filling for warmth. Here's a pair of traditional Izhorian shoes from Estonia from early 1900s, and a pair of traditional Sámi shoes. The designs were likely roughly similar in Viking and Crusader Ages, though obviously more simple, and it's probable that Finnish shoes very something like that too. Here's a 1893 drawing of what findings of shoe material from Korpiselkä (Savonian or Karelian) might have looked like. Considering the quality of archaeology of that time, copious amounts of salt should be applied. And finally as a fourth picture there's reconstruction shoes from Ravattula's dress.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive theories. The lacing of the shoe could have been laced up the leg and used also to secure either sock or leg wrapping, or they could have been separately secured in ankle and knee respectively.

In some graves twill fabric has been found in the leg area. It could be part of pants or for example leg wrapping, which was often made of twill. One theory about pants is that they were similar as some findings in Sweden, where fairly tight pants made of twill were secured at the hem with buttons similar to cuff studs. These kinds of cuff stud buttons are quite a common find in Finland and some have been found in men's graves close to legs.

Dress

Again there's not much findings of dresses, but a little more perhaps. It was usually from wool. The shape was either a tunic or an open coat. In Karelia there's findings of men's dress suggesting tunics thicker than women's dresses and made from sarka, a type of broadcloth. On the other hand, in Masku (Finns) they found buttons in a row on top of the torso, which suggest a coat closed with buttons. The first picture is a drawing of the grave find. Similary coak closing amounts of buttons have also been found in other places in western Finland. This suggests that Finns and probably Tavastians too wore long coats buttoned to the waist and Savonians wore tunic of Karelian influence. Below there's couple of version of what might this western Finnish men's coat dress could've looked like. The first is an imagined version of the coat based on the Masku grave finds, second is just as imagined version based on Eura (also Finns) grave finds.

Take these "reconstructions" with a strong dose of salt. These are more artistic reconstructions than scientific, since there's not enough material and too much guesswork needs to be done. And because we can see in the Masku grave drawing right here that the other deceased has a large buckle to (probably) close the shirt (to be fair, it could for a cloak too), like was typical, I find it implausible that the coat neckline would be small and round covering the buckle. If you make a decorated big buckle, I assume you want to show it. I would find a v-neckline more probable. It's also easier to make without wasting expensive fabric.

The buttons are interesting. There were what you would imagine - your typical buttons made of bronze like seen in the first artifact from Hattula (Tavastians). But then there was silver jingle bells used as buttons, found for example in both Masku and Eura graves, Eura findings pictured below.

It's possible, even probable I'd say, that the hemlines of men's dresses were finished with tablet weaving patterns, like women's dresses. Also I would assume the pattern of the men's dress (and shirt) was mostly similar to the women's underdress/shirt patterns. So here's couple of different reconstruction patterns for women's dress. Different historians have made different interpretations of the patterns, so it's very much undecided what it really was like.

Belt

This is likely the most ornamental part of men's dress. They could be made out of leather or tablet woven band. And there's another east-west cultural divide here. Karelian belts were made out of leather, were usually 1,5-2,5 cm wide, decorated with iron or bronze studs and had a buckle made out of iron or bronze. These types of belts have been found in Savonia too, for example in Tuukkala grave find, which you can find very cool pictures of in this photo documentation of the dig in pages 173-175. In western Finland a "hela" belt was the common style. I don't think there's a world for hela in English. It's a sort of decorative lamella, small metallic plate (not necessarily square but often so) attached to fabric or leather with studs or sewing. Hela belt came from the Permians of Kama river, who were one of the many Finno-Ugric peoples who used to populate much of European side of Russia. Karelians lived closer to Permians, so you might think Permians would influence eastern Finland more, but my theory is that the costal Finns, who frequently joined viking crews and at least were in close contact with merchants including vikings, who would travel along the eastern route through the eastern European rivers, where they could go all the way to Kama river or at least meet traveling Permians. Here's yet another Finnish source more on the Finno-Ugric people around Kama river.

Anyway, hela belt was made of leather and filled with small decorated lamellas, often in square shape, but various other shapes too, like animal ornamentation. In this period hela belt helas were bronze. First image is a nice full set of hela belt metal pieces found in Pirkanmaa (Finns). Second is an older example, right before Viking Era, from Vaasa, costal settlement, (Finns), depicting a very Permian style. The third one is a lion hela found separately in Pälkäne (Tavastians). They are also found in Tuukkala, showing that both eastern and western cultural influences were present there at the same time.

Another western Finnish belt type for men had intricate tassels decorated with bronze spirals hanging on the waist at the end of the belt. They could be made out of leather or tablet woven band. First image depicts a reconstruction of such tassel. Belts in east and west would have strap dividers to hang straps for things like purse, knife and sword. The first picture above has couple of those, but the second picture below has two more of them in more detail in the middle of the picture. These finds are from Lieto (Finns).

Cloak

Like women's cloak, men's cloak was woolen and either a square or trapezoid. Cloak is yet another east-west divide. In western Finland men's cloaks have embroidery with bronze spirals. They in fact appeared earlier in men's cloaks (in 900s) than in women's cloaks (1100s). They were also a little different in men's cloaks. The spirals and the patterns themselves were bigger and the fastening thread itself was also used for the pattern creation, unlike in women's dresses, where the thread was mostly covered. In eastern Finland there has been no finds of bronze decorations in men's cloaks, mostly only cloak brooches have been left of them. Unsurprisinly same applies to Karelia. This also means there's very little fabric left too. There's one exception. In Tuukkala (Savonians) they found a piece of fabric probably from men's cloak, though it could be from a men's dress too. It was striped, with possibly white or brown base and wide stripes of red, blue and yellow. So perhaps eastern Finnish cloak was not non-decorated, but the decoration was in the fabric pattern. Unfortunately it's hard to know how common fabric like that was, when so little of it is left.

Accessories

It's safe to assume men too wore some type of headwear, but none of those has survived. It probably means it was entirely made out of fabric whatever it was. Some type of hat or cap was certainly used in cold weather at the very least. Tablet woven headband was also possible option for not too cold weather.

In Tuukkala there was couple of interesting jewelry finds too. Two graves had a necklace type mostly found in Karelia. It was birchbark tape covered with nettle fabric and had square helas sewn into it. There were also more typical Finnish necklaces made of beads and bronze spirals.

Razors have also been found with men in their burials, so we can assume shaven faces or at least trimmed beards and moustaces were fashionable.

[arbiterlexultionis]

Danny and the Spooks Pt2

This is a continuation of my other post Here

More specifically, this is where I’m dumping my ideas for it that involve crossovers, mostly with DC, as I know that stuff isn’t some peoples cuppa tea, and wanted to make sure it could be viewed and enjoyed by all.

So, I’ve come up with two ways for Danny and the spooks to mix with other fandoms. 1) Danny’s a known entity and (somewhat) trusted ally who is super protective/secretive about the tiny ass town he micromanages and 2) Danny and the ghost issues of Amity are more less unknowns and the hero’s of the verse show up only to be met with a (somewhat) functional crime fighting organization.

I’ll do the first version in this post and the second probably in a different post.

Phantom was one of the founding members of the league, and one of the most mysterious members at that. Although most of them had known about each other and occasionally worked together long before they came together officially 3 years ago to fend of Darkseid and found the league Phatom himself had come out of left field so to speak. Appearing with no warning in his bulky Hazmat suit and barely saying a word for most of the crisis, they didn’t really have any choice but to accept his help regardless of their (Batman’s) skepticism, and that decision to trust him payed out in the end as Phantom, despite being a complete unknown that could stay under the radar at that point, was apparently strong enough to give Supes and Wonder Woman a run for their money. They threw around a lot of theories about the guy, Superman seemed convince he was some type of alien while others thought he was a meta. Batman’s theory of choice was that he was a time traveler form the future with advanced nano technology, using cave paintings and historical records from across the globe that duplicated him as evidence. Aquaman and Dr. Fate think he’s some type of lord of order or God, with a capital G, because there was apparently some strikingly similar being who fought a Chaos deity to try and stop Atlantis from sinking.

But every attempt to actually investigate has ended “inconclusively”, as after Batman finally tracked down which town Phantom watched over he only got a few steps in before he got gently grabbed buy the cape and flew several states away like a misbehaving kitten getting grabbed by the scruff. Flash got the farthest in of anyone, sprinting in and getting about a block in before just appearing in Canada with sticky note attached to his forehead reading “Please stop stalking my grandson. :-) -CW.”

So when they were all in a meeting discussing where to keep the young justice team they were all surprised, to say the least, when Phantom offered to take them in and look after them Inside of Amity. Apparently(supposedly) the main reason he keeps everyone so far away from his town is because no one in the league has the experience and skill set necessary to properly combat his rouges, and gaining the experience and skill would probably include several mind control/body snatching/cloning/imposters/potential world endangering events and that just wouldn’t be worth the risk, especially with all of that resulting in their own rouges getting into contact with his, a recipe for one shitty weekend as he put it. But a little less than a week ago Luther used an intermediary to hire one of phantoms rouges to hunt Superman, which explains the bandage on Superman’s side. So now that the cats out of the bag Phantom want to make the kitty purr and prepare the rest of the heroics community for “the complete and utter nonsensical shenanaganery that he’s stuck dealing with” and The Team seems like a good opportunity for it.

I envision this whole meeting probably being told from Flash’s point of view, as he’s smart and goofy enough for some good humor and exposition but I guess it works for anyone. The Young Justice team wind up in mount justice while the main base of the Spooks, called the Grave or something else suitably on brand, is prepared just long enough to get bored and go rescue Superboy. Then the whole team and some of the justice league step foot into Amity for the first time, and then get a whole PowerPoint presentation explaining the town and its BS and are just Shook when they find out that Phantoms not some meta or alien or time traveling genius inventor but just some dead dude.

The team essentially gets fast tracked through the training for Spooks to make sure there up to snuff and begin patrolling and stuff. At first Superboy just can’t handle working in the R.I.P.D. and then he finds a ghost who whole shtick is “I need to punch shit”, which bridges the gap between the fighting he knows and the negotiations he doesn’t and helps him learn more about diplomacy and chill out, can’t decided if I want the ghost in question to be a boxer, sumo wrestler or really over the top westler.

As practice living a double life and going under cover they all have to get jobs and be Normal, but they all suck at being Normal. It just straight up doesn’t cross Superboy mind that normal people can’t use motorcycles to beat up convenience store robbers. At first he goes for the car, stops and goes wait a second that’s not something normal people can do and I’m Normal, so he picks up a Harley like “Yep, this is completely average amount of strength.”

Wally’s working in the kitchen of a restaurant and keeps accidentally using his super speed. Not enough to glow or spark, but more than enough for people to freak out. But he’s doing the work of 4 people which means management need 3 less people to pay so they just let him do his thing.

Robins such a gremlin that people think he’s straight up a child ghost very poorly disguising himself as a human child, using rafters and vents as short cuts with the justification “it’s not weird if they don’t see me do it” which makes it seem like he’s using invisibility, intangibility and teleportation to get around. He’s so quite when he walks that people come to the conclusion that he’s forgetting to walk and just floating places and/or trying to look like he’s walking like a Perfectly Normal Human Child but not actually making contact with the ground on accident.

All the locals see all this stuff and just go “Kids are kids, ghost, human or ecto-contaminated to hell and back.” And all make a group effort to hide them from the Fentons and GIW. The team, which is actively trying to investigate both groups, becomes convinced that the people they work for are in cahoots with the GIW and hiding their activities, but every time they switch jobs it takes like, a week for the GIW to get to them again(for them to go “oh poor children” and try and keep them safe).

It doesn’t help that the first friend they made in town is a scrawny little black haired blue eyed twink that they saw beat a mothafucka with another mothafucka in an alleyway on the first day of class, constantly pulls off what should be nearly impossible acts and disappears without a trace, further twisting their idea of what is within normal human limits. (They saw Danny fighting Skulker in human form at 3am in the Nasty burger parking lot because he was to lazy to shift forms, and they use the fact that the kid that can nonchalantly throw hands with a nine foot tall T9000 knock off as an excuse to get away with stuff. “Mr. I-fight-death-bots-with-my-bare-hands is the weakling at the bottom of the food chain, so me being able to do this it Normal. Probably.”)

Just a few ideas I had for this, will probably post more later. Drink some water and chill, peace out.