#i have another account and this isn't happening there. why my art account??? why...

[petricorah]

🚨🚨if you followed me in the last two days, please like this message. Last night, over two hundred bots followed me, and some even left really vague comments on my art, almost making it seem like a real person. i'm about to go and block people especially if you have the default icon.

i'm sorry. i know not everyone with a default icon is a bot, but there are viruses going around for if you check, and with 272 bots, I just don't have time to check. The are following me quicker than I can report and block, so I have to block default icons on sight.

please reply with something that sounds real to this post or like it or something if you followed recently.

edit: like twenty more followed me in the two minutes it took to post this. i can't block them fast enough. Not all of them have default icons, some are sneaky, but they're still bots.

edit edit: over 700 in the last 12 hours

[emmett6]

i am being attacked by antis.

this is emmett. emmettnet, emmettverse, emmettland, emmettundead, emmettlab. whichever blog you knew me from.

i am a whump creator. i've been in the whump community for a few years now. and now, i am unable to share my work with the community on here because people are mass reporting me for being a proshipper, and Tumblr keeps deleting my blogs as a result.

(if that isn't the reason why, i would be more than happy to get the explanation from @staff that i've been asking for.)

now, that is speculation on my part based on the timing of each termination (it's after i put my pinned post in the whump tags).

but here are the facts:

months ago, i became comfortable enough to share proshipping content. seeing as how every other artist would link their nsfw work on here, i thought it was acceptable for me to do the same so long as the preview image did not violate any rules.

an anon asked if i was a proshipper, and i said i didn't ascribe to that label*, but i agreed with the philosophy.

*i don't have any choice BUT to use it now because my posts get removed for describing what the content is

note that this anon asked multiple people in the whump community if they were proshippers. it was the same person each time, same copy-and-pasted responses.

i kept posting my proshipping content, all with links and extensive content warnings.

i started getting anon hate.

my account was terminated. after further reflection and rereading the terms of service AGAIN, i figured maybe links are not allowed and so i switched to DM only.

this time, the anon hate was consistent. every week was something new. every day felt like bracing myself to open my inbox. i kept anon on, since i have so many people who feel uncomfortable sending asks off anon and didn't want to take away their safe space.

months pass. i go on hiatus for all of July. i find out someone stole my old nsfw art and reposted their edited versions of it to rule34, a site that i never wanted my work to be on. this person waited until the exact starting day of my hiatus to do this.

i come back to more anon hate in my inbox.

suddenly, out of nowhere, my account is terminated again.

i make a new blog. more anon hate. another termination.

lather, rinse, repeat.

i stopped doing DM only stuff. i figured, if i just link my other platforms and only post safe things on Tumblr, there's nothing in the rules against that. everyone has links to their social media.

i still get terminated. and again, i keep getting terminated after i post my pinned post in the whump tags. which -- speculation again -- leads me and others to think that these antis are stalking the whump tags, waiting for me to show up so they can mass report me and get me terminated.

i have NO idea what they would report, aside from claiming i'm trying to "dodge being blocked". which, i'm not. in fact, i say every single time i come back that i WANT people to block me if they need to.

but regardless, it keeps happening.

i'm losing a place i considered home.

i'm being forced out of a community on here i love so dearly.

and you want to know something funny? for some strange reason, i'm unable to block my anons. yup. an 'error' message comes up. and i'm apparently unable to report them too -- like reporting the one who called me a 'tumblr tranny' and said i would 'always be a woman' for hate speech. oops, sorry. error message.

by now, i've been called evil. told to listen to my intrusive thoughts. told that i should be on a watch list. told that it's disgusting that someone's mutuals still interact with me. told that i have no place in the whump community.

i know that's not true.

i'm so sick and tired of being treated like this. i'm tired of being dehumanized. and i'm disgusted with this behavior.

at this point, i'm just screaming as many times as i can. i'll keep losing blogs, because i know my attackers will read this and just keep on reporting me. what do they have to lose? nothing. they don't have enough of a conscience to care. and why should they? clearly, i'm a monster. i'm a piece of shit. i don't deserve basic respect, and i apparently don't deserve to keep my 'platform'. to stay in my community and to keep my livelihood.

my discord is emmettnet. send me a DM if you don't want to lose me, because there is no point in following me repeatedly just for every blog to be terminated.

if you want to reblog this to spread the word and show your support, i would be eternally grateful. but i understand if you choose not to; i don't want anyone to be subjected to what i'm going through.

thank you for reading.

[skania]

OnK Chapter 158 Thoughts

This is literally me every time Akane shows up 😭

It was so cute to see Ruby so happy to see Akane! It feels like the two must have grown close again off-panel after this happened:

Akane looks so cute, too 😭

Onto the more pressing matters, first thing that caught my eye was that the concert took place in Miyazaki, aka the town where Goro & Sarina lived and died. According to Akane, she had "some business" there. This business is quite obviously not something she is keen to discuss, considering her reaction.

Could the business be keeping tabs on our resident psycho, the one and only Nino?

To be perfect honest, I'd also hope that "business" involves Akane doing some digging about Goro...

...But since I've gotten used to not having nice things in this manga, I'll just settle for Akane tailing Nino and keeping an eye on her, because that feels like the in-character thing for her to do.

So we could say that the beginning of the chapter establishes that Akane may be tailing Nino.

That's one thing to keep in mind.

Moving on, Akane says that she "might not be able to make it" to the Christmas concert. The very concert Kana will Graduate in. The one where Kana is expecting a reply from Aqua.

Akane (and her now patented ^^ smile) is vague enough that we can read it in various ways. Could it be that Akane doesn't quite want to watch the concert where she's expecting Kana and Aqua to get together? Or could it be that she has something more important to do that day?

And if she does, could that involve the 'Happy Ending' she and Aqua discussed two chapters ago?

That's another thing to keep in mind.

Speaking about Aqua, since Christmas in Japan is a holiday for couples, we get this very funny, very interesting panel from Ruby, who looks anything but supportive at the thought of Akane dating someone new lol

Looks like Ruby isn't too keen on Akane moving on from her precious brother. It's up in the air whether that's just Ruby being a brocon or because Akane still has her seal of approval to date him, though.

Akane really has this fake smile down to an art lmao

Next we get an Akane monologue where we're told that despite Kana being a force to be reckoned with, she can't match up to Ruby, who outshines her.

When I read those words, they automatically reminded me of Nino, who went through the same thing with Ai. Fittingly enough, we later get this Nino panel, where Memcho's face is obscured and only Ruby and Kana can be seen.

We also happen to get this ominous panel where Akane shows she's aware that there are people out there who want to "destroy" Ruby's sparkle. This is another thing to keep in mind.

I'm curious as to what Ruby was about to say when the scene cuts to Nino, but I won't speculate about it. Tsukuyomi's monologue was also interesting, in the sense that it tells us how Aqua's, Nino's and Kamiki's love for Ai has gotten all twisted.

Next thing we know, we get a timeskip. Aka has literally timeskipped us straight to Christmas, aka Kana's graduation concert.

The rushed pacing alone would've been hilarious if it weren't for what happens next.

Let's summarize everything Aka has established in the past few chapters up to now, shall we?

Aqua and Akane know that Nino is behind all the deaths in the manga. We have no idea how they realized this, but Aka took the time to show that they magically knew it. We're thus led to believe that this is important.

Akane wants to ensure everyone's future holds a happy ending, and Aqua is aware of this. Considering that both of them outright discuss Nino, we're led to assume that they may team up to make sure she's dealt with.

To this end, Akane may be, quite literally, tailing Nino.

Meanwhile, Ruby herself is being constantly watched by Miyako and Ichigo, to the point she says she doesn't have a single second of alone time.

Moreover, Akane pretty much summarizes in this chapter why Nino would target Ruby.

So I must ask:

Taking all of this into account, in what world does this make any sense at all?

The door even had a window! A window!

And even if it isn't see-through, we've been told over and over again that idols need to have keychains and security systems to protect themselves from crazy fans. Ai herself says so.

So in what world does it make sense for Ruby to get stabbed like that?? lol

Now, the stab in and of itself is anything but surprising. The manga hasn't exactly been subtle lately about Ruby likely becoming Nino's target. Some of us thought that Gotanda's line about Kana protecting Ruby was foreshadowing and that Kana would tank the stab for Ruby. Others thought that Kamiki would be the one to step in to save his daughter, one good deed to help atone for his past wrongs.

Whatever the case, despite our personal preferences and hopes for this manga, we all knew that Ruby was in danger and that someone would be getting stabbed. Some of us even expected it to happen this week because it's the week where Sayahime would be getting slashed in the manga lmao

So how am I supposed to believe that Aqua and Akane, who somehow even figured out Nino killed Yura and thus her motif, didn't take the necessary measures to not let it happen? lol

Even the lead up to it is... bland. Forced. Nonsensical. Why isn't Ruby shown curiously peeking at the door just like Ai would've done? Why don't we see her behaving normally at all before she opens the door?

The stab page is pretty much a copy-paste from Ai's, so why not go all the way and have a repeat of these panels, too?

This all could be explained by forced, bad writing — an Aka staple, certainly. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. In fact all of this must sound silly coming from me, since I've been laughing about Aka's mess for weeks now. But biased as I am, I'm kind of forced to take the bad writing more seriously when my favorite character is directly impacted by it 😂

So I'd like to think that Akane and Aqua did see this coming and that they have a contingency plan. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying that I'd like to believe that the stab itself is staged. There are certainly enough weird things about it to make room for that possibility. The first thing I wondered about when the leaks dropped was if it could be someone pretending to be Ruby to trick Nino, and the lead-up to the stab does leave room for that possibility imo

Akane (or Aqua) with a wig, or even Ruby herself but aware of the plan — I would literally take anything at this point except the very empty, very forced scenario where Ruby truly just got stabbed because everything established in the previous chapters suddenly ceased to matter lol Heck, I'd even take Akane using a prop knife to give Ruby a scare and force Miyako & Ichigo to take measures to keep Ruby safe during the concert. Would it be silly? Absolutely. But this entire situation is already silly as it is, so I'll settle for the lesser evil lol

The story can't keep making Aqua & Akane ridiculously intelligent when it suits it, and normal when it doesn't. It's inconsistent and most of all, it's unnecessary. They could just as well have figured it out after the fact, alongside the reader, which would have drastically increased the emotional impact of the Nino reveal from: predictable and rushed to predictable but impactful.

If this was done so that Aqua and Akane can question themselves and their desire to shoulder the darkness to protect others, couldn't this be done in a better way? Because as it is, if everything is just as it seems, then Aka has deliberately kept Aqua and Akane from growing just so he can force them to do so through shock value alone.

I know I always say that I don't like predicting Aka, but I thought it'd be revealed that they had enlisted everyone's help to deliberately lure Nino into targeting Ruby during the Christmas concert, and that they would catch her red-handed before she could hurt Ruby. Since I figured that Aka may want someone to get stabbed anyway so that Aqua could put his medical knowledge to use, I thought that something would go wrong during the confrontation with Nino and that she would manage to hurt someone either way.

Maybe it was my mistake to expect any sort of consistency from Aka. Time and time again he shows that all he cares about is his perfect timing, and so characters will do whatever they have to do and will be kept as stagnant as they need to be in order for their development to happen only when that perfect timing has been reached. Like the way he rushed and rushed just so the stab could happen at the same time as the Saya slashing in the anime.

I do wonder though, aside from Ruby being immortalized as the ultimate idol through surviving the same attack Ai died from (and Kana's graduation happening at the Dome, because who wouldn't want B-Komachi at the Dome after this), what would be the point of this? Will Aqua magically get there in time so he can use his medic knowledge? Will Tsukuyomi perform a miracle? Or will we get a few chapters of people crying over Ruby's hospital bed while Nino keeps being crazy in the background?

No matter how I look at it, I feel like the only scenario where the writing is (somewhat) salvaged is the one where things aren't as they seem and this is all part of a plan we aren't privy to. Making Nino think that she has killed Ruby, only for Ruby to get on-stage brighter than ever would be a pretty cool twist.

If there is no twist though, then characters were made to look circumstantially dumb and incompetent just so Aka can have some last hurrah in the form of forced drama lol

So yeah, as per usual, I'll be hoping for the better option out of the two while preparing myself for the worst outcome.

Edit: I literally forgot KAMIKI lmao if not Aqua and Akane, KAMIKI should know that Nino is definitely going to go after Ruby. Why would he just sit on his butt and let it happen??

If there's no twist at all, this will seriously be an all-out character massacre 💀

[palskippah]

Hi!!

Here's two pages of sketchy drawings of Queen River and baby Bowser bonding I did for @raysbrainrot! I loved drawing it, thank you very much!!

(Here's my commission info btw!)

Also, here's a few points that I think are nice to say but didn't fit in the drawings :''v (I have so many thoughts of them hepl 🧍)

-Queen River tried to sew a bib for baby Bowser bc he was drooling everywhere and of course she could buy them the nicest bibs in the whole kingdom and all- but she wanted for it to be special. She knew that many koopa mothers usually made clothes (only when needed because koopas don't really use clothes but babies sometimes need them) or accessories for their koopalings, so she tried that too.

>Thing is, she's much bigger compared to her own baby, and she struggled a lot to sew Bowser's name on the tiny cloth, she used no more than five stitches for each letter and even then she didn't account for the space needed, so all she could put there was 'BOWS' with a crooked S.

>She was embarrassed as hell when Kamek asked what was it that had her so upset and she showed him the sewn bib while he looked at it and she covered her face in shame, he started to laugh- and then the drawing happened and that.

>Kamek started almost always dressing baby Bowser in that bib, and soon the nickname 'Bows' stuck for a while, until the queen died and from then on Kamek started calling him Bowser or 'little prince' or 'your *insert current emotion*-ness' solely, bc it was the queen who (without meaning to) gave Bowser the nickname, and it was like a reminder that she wasn't there anymore. With time, the nickname faded into forgetfulness, and no one ever called the koopa prince that anymore.

-Btw remember that baby Bowser had like they/them pronouns mostly bc they didn't have idea if the baby was boy or girl 🧍something about royal koopas idk

-When Kamek told Luigi of all he could remember of the queen and Bowser bonding, there was a very clear fondness in the way he remembered her, even after so many years (Bowser's like thirty-and-a-few years old, so it has been so long ago), and that's another part Luigi thought was very adorable, aside from the mom and baby.

-I imagine babies marvel at the fact that there's a very big being taking care of them, so imagine baby Bowser also thought so of the very big koopa that always was very sweet and congratulated him even when he didn't do anything and cuddled him very lovingly- and then one day she wasn't there anymore and it felt like he lost a part of himself (I can't remember when is it that babies realize their mom isn't a part of themselves?? But :''''v), even if the other being that took such good care of him (dada) was still there, he cried a lot because the main one (mama) wasn't there anymore and no matter how much they called her she didn't come to comfort them.

That's all pipipi :'v I love them

Addition!

-After Queen River's death her portraits and pictures had to be taken down in the whole castle (maybe except the one in Kamek's room, which he looked at very sadly-) because baby Bowser kept seeing them and getting excited and making grabby hands to the portraits to reach them, and then they'd get sad and would cry when the paintings obviously didn't reach back for them. Kammy and Kamek (with a big pain in their heart) had the paintings and any art representing the queen to be taken down, so the prince wouldn't see them. That's also why Bowser started forgetting about her very quickly, and then they didn't get sad nor missed their mom 👍 cries

[cynthiav06]

With Percy, we know that he hates going to school and his goals don’t really line up with Annabeth’s, but Annabeth is kind of forcing him to do it with her because he can’t say no to her. Say Rick didn’t make Annabeth Percy’s entire personality, what do you think he would’ve done in the mortal world rather than go to university?

I was checking my drafts cause I am trying to catch up on all the asks in my inbox ( as I said in one of my earlier posts I was in middle of a medical situation so I have at least a month of backlog) and found this draft.

The funny thing is I had already written most of the post in the draft version, and this ask wasn't even being displayed in my inbox, so I was very confused as to when it was from.

But it's such a good prompt and a sort of controversial question in the fandom, so I wanted to post it asap.

Percy doesn't like studies, but he knows the importance of it, so I am sure he will finish his initial college, probably either in the science or arts section. We know at one point he got better grades than Annabeth at one point so he certainly isn't quitting studies and doing way better than what people expect. He also wouldn't like just staying at home and doing nothing (I am looking at certain Percabeth stans here), so he definitely would be doing one job or another.

1.

I don't think he would study marine biology like most believe. After a conversation I had with someone who had taken the course, I am convinced Percy wouldn't like it. It's heavily based on chemistry, and we know how much Percy is affected by sea creatures being mistreated or caged, so having to study marine biology wouldn't really be something he would choose.

2.

An interesting twist would be if he chose to be a writer like his mother.

We all know that Percy writes or at least dictates and narrates the first five books, which are written and narrated entirely from his perspective. Moreover, there are books on Percy just narrating his own sarcastic takes on Greek gods and Greek heroes. What if he did actually catalogue his own adventures in those books as a sort of manual for other demigods on how to deal with certain monsters and gods and such.

Through Percy's thoughts, even as 12 years old, we can certainly say he has advanced vocabulary despite being dyslexic and given how much he admires Sally, why wouldn't he be interested in following her footsteps. Sure, he has trouble reading, but that's not to say he wouldn't love expressing his thoughts through humorous retelling of his own adventures which he can pass as fiction to normal readers but actual experiences in demigod world. Who doesn't want to know the exploits of Percy Jackson?

Plus, it's a good money hack. And don't for a second tell me he wouldn't. Sally petrified Gabe, and then they sold his statute to a museum as a sculpture and earned money off of that. So Sally would definitely encourage it, and Percy would even follow through on it just for shits and giggles and the added benefit of helping demigods and earning money.

[I literally want this to happen just for the Godly reactions. I am all for god slander, especially Zeus slander. Poseidon would be half laughing at the book and half worried cause of the sheer catastrophes his son seems to fall into almost on a daily basis.

Apollo would be having a grand time, and Hermes will be half depressed and half impressed throughout. Overall, it would be hilarious all around, and it might finally make the gods feel a bit more accountable . It's literally the Reading Percy Jackson Series trope, and that's always fun.]

3.

One other option is that Percy will get into environmental preservation, specifically the protection of Rivers and Seas from pollution by actively involving himself and others in its cleanliness and purification. He would also run Beach cleanliness programs.

I think he and Grover would become environmental activists and would definitely get into preserving forest areas and other places where nature spirits dwell frequently. I can see them doing it a lot, long-term wise, too.

4.

I think he would kind of like marine explorations, but that might cause his powers to be somewhat exposed, so he might not do that, but it's a possibility.

That's all I can think of. I would like to hear everyone else's opinions on this.

[percheduphere]

honestly I'm more at a loss when people say sylki is canon. I am...very confused by what people mean by that. they were never anything romantic together? I honestly feel like I've missed a whole season of the show when that gets said. that's not from a shipping standpoint; that's from nothing happening that'd make them "canon"

like, to ship sylki is still to ship something that isn't and didn't become "canon". it's still wanting something that didn't happen between them

like, even if sylvie was an intended "love interest" (was she? even? on the basis of her being a woman that loki connects with?), I don't call that alone a romantic relationship between them being "canon". Like, if elizabeth bennet and mr darcy never became anything, they're not "canon". that's just something that could have been but wasn't.

they were never actually anything?

LET'S TALK ABOUT "CANON" & BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION, THE SERIES' MIDPOINT & THE THEME OF BETRAYAL, AND THE SUBJECTIVITY OF ROMANCE

I've been sitting on this inbox comment/ask for a long time because I wanted to make sure I respond in a way that feels productive, kind, and doesn't step on other fans' joy. Having said that, as a Lokius shipper, I think it's really important for Lokius shippers and Sylki shippers to unite on at least one subject and that's positive bisexual representation. This isn't meant to be a harsh reply--I understand what the anon is saying from their point of view--but I also want to delineate between canon and personal interpretation/taste.

I also want to note that it's unfair to disavow Mobius and Sylvie's impact on Loki, Loki's impact on each of them as a result of his individual relationships with them, and thus the impact Mobius and Sylvie have on one another separate from Loki. Doing so really halves the overall richness of the story, and taking this into account is why my metas are so annoyingly long. This one, in particular, is a mess but hopefully I've managed to wrangle it into some kind of coherence that addresses the anon ask that is respectful to Sylki. Fear not, Lokius shippers, I discuss Lokius in this post, too. But first, let's talk about canon and bisexual representation ...

CANON AND BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION

Canon is often defined as: 1.) what is actually written in text (as opposed to subtext), AND 2.) what the creator(s) verbally confirm.

I've said before and I'll keep repeating: the most important aspect of art is art's relationship with the reader/viewer. Individual interpretation is what escalates a medium to a deeply personal and, at times, spiritual level. Art is supposed to make us think and feel. We're supposed to interact with it and do with it what we will. This is particularly important when we consider that much of consumable art is hampered by the demands of capitalism. Fan-interpretation democratizes what people without power want to see and hear, whereas canon (especially mass media canon) often self-censures to sell to the widest audience.

From the creators' standpoint, Sylvie has always been intended to be Loki's romantic interest, and Loki was always intended to have romantic feelings for her. This is what the creators tell us. Whether or not one likes Sylvie and Loki together is subjective.

As for the text, the plot between Loki and Sylvie has the markers of a romance, albeit one that doesn't come into full fruition. By full fruition, I mean a happy ending with each character affirming one's love for the other and committing to being together. Now, a relationship doesn't have to be successful or reciprocal to be considered romantic. Heck, it can be absolutely toxic and still be romantic. Whether or not the plot is convincing in its execution of romance, however, is also subjective.

What romance requires is: 1.) at least one of the characters desiring the other, and 2.) at least one of the characters willing to sacrifice for the other. Sacrifices don't have to be big, either. They can be small and cumulative.

Canonically, Loki fulfills both of these romantic requirements for Sylvie. (More on Sylvie below).

Subtextually (that is, not canon as defined above), Loki and Mobius fulfill both of these requirements for one another.

I'm gonna soap box for the next two paragraphs, so you can skip over this if that's not your jam. Both romances, canonical and subtextual, can exist concurrently without erasing the existence of the other. Even if Loki and Mobius had miraculously become canon in S2 (it's Disney, this never would have happened but let's explore the hypothetical), that doesn't erase Loki's former romance with Sylvie in S1. To erase that history is bisexual erasure, which isn't okay. Likewise, quashing the importance of queer subtext in order to "kill the other ship" isn't okay either, as it reinforces optical heteronormative romance in mass media and is also a form of bisexual erasure.

What's more important than either ship "winning" is the positive portrayal of a bisexual character. This means a character who demonstrates genuine love and devotion to people of more than one gender. If we accept the canon AND the subtext (we don't have to like it; Sylki's not my cup of tea personally, but I accept it as real), Loki fulfills positive bisexual representation, however restrained that representation may be. The social goal is to get to the point where a media juggernaut like Disney allows its franchise characters to experience relationships with more than one gender canonically and positively. We're not there yet and I'll probably be dead before Disney ever gets there, but Loki can be seen as a historical stepping stone distinct from Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens) and Steve Bonnet and Edward Teach (Our Flag Means Death).

(NOTE: Polyamory is a whole separate subject matter, which I'm won't get into here.)

ON SYLVIE

There's fan dispute over Sylvie's interest in Loki. I've previously written meta on Sylvie's sexuality and how she responds to Loki's romantic advances here. In S1, while she starts off frustrated, I think Sylvie slowly develops interest and was cautiously hopeful that she and Loki could figure out their futures together. Loki has been consistent about wanting to be with Sylvie and supporting her up until the necessary plot conflict of the series midpoint (S1E6; the S1 finale). This midpoint is the root cause for why Loki and Sylvie's relationship becomes strained. Again, this doesn't mean that the romance never existed--the plotpoints are there--but it does mean Loki's character development got in the way.

So let's talk about the series' midpoint and the interplay of Mobius, Loki, and Sylvie's mutual impact. The three are so deeply entangled that it's worth untangling their cause and effect on one another.

THE SERIES' MIDPOINT & THE THEME OF BETRAYAL

I keep stressing in my other metas that the series' midpoint (S1E6) is the most critical. Structurally, midpoints are where the story turns. Midpoints occur on multiple scales: at the episode level (typically in acts 3 or 5, depending on how the screenwriter divides their screenplay), at the season level, and at the series level. Midpoints are what provide the overall narrative and character arcs with movement.

As a whole, there are 3 key midpoints in the entire series:

1.) S1E2/E3 - When Loki betrays Mobius for Sylvie (midpoint of S1)

2.) S1E6 - When Loki betrays Sylvie for the "bigger picture" (midpoint of the whole series)

3.) S2E3/E4 - When it's revealed HWR betrayed Renslayer; Victory Timely is brought into the mix, and Sylvie reluctantly joins the TVA (midpoint of S2)

There is another betrayal that runs near-concurrently with #2, which is Mobius's betrayal of Renslayer (it begins in S1E4 and continues into the S1 finale). Thematically, we can take Loki's betrayal of Sylvie and Mobius's betrayal of Renslayer as mirrors of one another because these are the only betrayals that are motivated by good rather than selfishness. The selfish betrayals of #1 and #3 bookend betrayal #2 to highlight the beginning Loki's readiness to become a hero in S1E6. Where S1 focuses on Loki exploring who he is, S2 focuses on the hero Loki will become. S1E6 therefore serves as Loki's turn, his launching point to get to where he lands in S2E6. The story is really well-structured!

The poetic irony is that Loki's S1E6 betrayal was not an act of villainy, but an act of character growth.

There is plot set-up for Loki's betrayal of Sylvie, and that set-up is 2-pronged: 1.) from Sylvie's end, her misinterpretation of Loki's intentions, and 2.) from Mobius's end, the provision of unconditional friendship. Building up to these prongs are S1E1 - S1E3, in which Loki's self-interest and impulsivity are emphasized. S1E4 pivots Loki from self-interest and impulsivity to consideration for others and caution. Sylvie did not bear witness to Loki and Mobius's interactions in S1E1-S1E2 and S1E4 in the time loop chamber. She has no context for why Loki would hesitate killing HWR. I'll discuss this more under "Prong 2".

PRONG 1: SYLVIE'S MISINTERPRETATION

In the scene below (S1E5), Sylvie makes an assumption about what Loki wants and Loki admits via subtext that ruling a timeline actually won't make him happy.

Sylvie smiles in response, implying she understands what Loki means, however Loki often speaks in double-meanings (he cannot be trusted) and Sylvie has doubts (she cannot trust). From Sylvie's point-of-view, Loki has discussed the desire to rule with her 3 times (writers' magic 3s again). Above is the third. The previous 2 are:

1.) In their first confrontation in S1E2, when Loki offers Sylvie the opportunity to be his lieutenant. (Can't find the gif of this. Grr ...)

2.) On Lamentis (S1E3) in the scene below:

By S1E6, Loki has no interest in rule.

He's honest when he says he's worried about the greater ramifications of killing HWR. Sylvie doesn't believe him. The question is how did Loki arrive at this point in his character arc? Why slow down now? Why worry about the consequences now?

The answer is in S1E4.

PRONG 2: MOBIUS'S UNCONDITIONAL FRIENDSHIP

It's established in S1E1 that Mobius knows Loki better than Loki knows himself and consequently better than Sylvie knows Loki. A lot of Mobius-haters despise Mobius's cold confrontational tactics but it is those same tactics that force Loki to self-reflect. And to be clear, Mobius uses cruelty in S1E1 because 2012 Loki would not believe in, let alone listen to, softness and compassion. Cruelty is a language 2012 Loki understands, therefore Mobius communicates with him on that level to get him to listen and start thinking about the answers to the hard questions.

Not exactly the gif I wanted, but close enough. In this scene, Mobius wonders why Loki, who "has so much range", wants a throne. He then asks Loki, what's next? The implication of these questions is that Mobius knows Loki will never be satisfied. He knows, deep down, a throne is a poor substitute for what Loki really wants: love, acceptance, and companionship.

Mobius's tone is mocking, his note that Loki has a wide range is complimentary, and the question is serious. Further, and this important, Mobius gives Loki respect in conjunction with his cruelty, his compliments, and his seriousness by acknowledging Loki's intelligence ("I am smart"; "I know") and his potential to be more than a villain ("That's not how I see it"). Understandably, this strange, dizzying mix of seemingly contradictory truths puts Loki off-balance.

Their tenuous allyship becomes a friendship in Mobius's eyes near the end of S1E2. Mobius is practically squeeing about Loki's multiple breakthroughs and how well they work together to Renslayer:

And Loki genuinely looks excited to help Mobius. Look at that fist-pump. Mobius doesn't see it, he's ahead of Loki, so his enthusiasm isn't an act. The seeds of mutual trust (rather than doubt) have been planted.

Unfortunately, Loki's poor impulse control and need to hedge his bets out of self-interest lead him to betraying Mobius. Both Sylvie and Mobius take Loki's betrayals poorly.

The key difference is that Mobius cannot resist the desire to trust Loki, to want to be his friend. This desire creates Mobius's doubt in Renslayer, which in turn leads to his betrayal of her.

Forgiveness isn't easy. It requires the ability to accept disagreements and another person's shortcomings. It requires good will, faith, and a willingness to move on. It requires compromise and, at times, letting go entirely.

Mobius torturing Loki with the Sif memory loop was awful. His personal hurt is directly tied to the below admission, which informs Loki what Mobius thought of their relationship:

And that revelation startles him. It forces him to evaluate his actions that led to Mobius saying such a thing (impulsivity; self-interest). Loki, who doesn't want to be alone, desires Mobius's friendship.

So when Mobius returns to Loki with an olive branch ...

Loki offers Mobius an olive branch of his own by affirming the friendship Mobius believed in but felt betrayed by.

Thus, Loki and Mobius accept each other's olive branches. They forgive each other and repair their relationship from there. This is critical thematically because Loki and Mobius each extend olive branches to Sylvie and Renslayer respectively, both of whom reject those olive branches more than once. Sylvie and Renslayer represent opposite ends of the chaos versus order ideology, for which neither is willing to compromise. Loki and Mobius also start out at opposite ends before meeting in the middle.

Sylvie unfortunately does not know anything about Loki's interactions with Mobius and how those interactions have impacted Loki's motivations. She doesn't know that Loki wants to "slow down and think about this" because the last time he acted on impulse, it turned out he almost threw Mobius's friendship out the window without realizing he had his friendship in the first place.

For her, the seeds of doubt have already been planted: Loki betrayed the TVA to pursue her, Loki expressed shock at Sylvie's desire to "walk away" rather than taking advantage of the "ultimate power vacuum" once the TVA is destroyed, he expresses the desire to rule 3 times. Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable for Sylvie to assume Loki would betray her for power even though she had hopes to the contrary. Romantic tragedy? Absolutely. Believable? Depends on who you ask and what your personal taste is.

There must be some kind of sentiment on Sylvie's part, however, because she chooses not to kill Loki. Instead, she kisses him goodbye and throws him through a time door.

Mobius's friendship is therefore the catalyst for everything that unravels between Loki and Sylvie in S1E6 (the series' midpoint). I think it's safe to interpret Sylvie's tearing into Mobius in S2E4 as not only due to being in the TVA and having all her traumas brought to the surface, but also due to experiencing jealousy. This level of anger matches Mobius's outrage about Sylvie in S1E4! Note, however, that this interpretation of Sylvie's interaction with Mobius is subtext. Subtext goes many ways!

THE SUBJECTIVITY OF ROMANCE

Are Loki and Sylvie a believable romance? It depends on your taste.

A fictional couple's overall successful reception by the audience (which is rarely if ever 100%) is contingent on a few things:

1.) Character development

2.) Story execution

3.) Chemistry between the actors

Reception and interpretation of the above are all subjective. In addition to these elements, another important factor is couple trope. Depending on your preference, some tropes might be nope while others are yum. You might even like most tropes but the actor chemistry, character development, and/or plot are just not doing it for you.

Loki and Mobius follow the tropes of:

Opposites attract/Complementary set

Sunshine and cynic

Enemies to allies to friends to lovers

Sherlock and Watson

Slow burn

Ride or Die

Loki and Sylvie, on the other hand, follow the tropes of:

Exceptionally similar but with key differences/Matching Set

BAMF duo

Enemies to allies to lovers

Bonnie and Clyde

Fast and passionate

Ride or Die

Loki and Sylvie's romantic dynamic may be compared to the following couples in other media:

Batman and Catwoman

Jack Sparrow and Angelica Teach

Benedict and Beatrice

If you notice, they all have very similar personality traits. They also fight and fight a LOT. It's part of their charm and can add to their chemistry.

Personally, I didn't feel any chemistry between Loki and Sylvie, I didn't feel like there was enough warmth between them, and I really wanted Loki to be loved by someone who makes an effort to understand him rather understanding his core traits off the bat by being the same entity. Loki and Mobius hit all the right story beats for me. Tom and Owen's chemistry as actors is remarkable. I'm also a sucker for ball of sunshine and cynic dynamics.

But that's just me. That doesn't mean I don't see what the creators tried to do with Loki and Sylvie in terms of plot, character development, and couple tropes. Some people felt chemistry between Tom and Sophia, others (like me) didn't. Whatever the case, the canon exists and the romantic tropes are there. I just feel the subtextual romance between Loki and Mobius is stronger and that, again, is my subjective judgment.

[the-thursday]

Hello everyone, this post was long overdue, and finally, prompted by our beloved Howls also leaving, it's time for me to rip off the bandaid as well.

I would also like to announce a sort of departure from Ranger's apprentice fandom.

I do not know how many from RA fandom era from few years back are still here but I assume mostly newer blogs keep up with this account.

Take a lil history walk with me, if you will. I joined this fandom around 2017-18. I was very active around here, posting all kinds of stuff, fics, takes, incorrect quotes, art and whatnot. I made many friends with whom I had a great time and I am happy and honoured that I am friends with some of them till this day. Fandom became the second home to me as things hadn't been exactly easy irl and maybe I fixated on it too much, but gods know I loved this place so much. And I wish for everyone to experience this happiness and just as I made friends who became a significant part of my life, I wish that for you as well. Being surrounded by amazing and wonderful people and sharing similar interests is one of the most pure joyous feelings in this world.

As 2020-2021 rolled around, some of you know that things in my life picked up a harsh pace and I started to drift away. In 2021 I left the fandom because of that and unpleasant things with one of the people here. It was one of the most gut wrenching decisions I had made.

In 2022, I started gradually getting worse, but also had the courage to come back at the end of the year. I felt happy and welcomed and I am so grateful to everyone who made it happen, who supported me and gave me another breath. My mental health kept getting worse but I wasn't alone and that has been everything to me.

Now it's about a little more than a year since I've been back and again, I've met wonderful amazing people who I am happy and honoured to call friends. I don't regret coming back and I am happy I did, however I think it's time for me to go again. And below, I hope to explain why.

Like I said, I've been getting worse. Last autumn and this winter have been very difficult for me and I had to rethink some priorities, as life is going on the time left for me to invest in fandoms is getting thinner and thinner. Unfortunately, among them, isn't keeping up with this fandom. With my next words I hope not to insult anyone. The truth is, I don't find enjoyment in the fandom and content itself anymore, or more like, as much as I used to. I don't exactly vibe with posts for roughly the past half a year and I don't mean this in negative way, I just think it's for me to move on. All of the new people that I've seen have wonderful content and while I don't exactly vibe like I used to, I can see that you're having fun and that's important! People come and go and I do wish all the newcomers and seniors who are still here to have a great time, but I don't think I have energy, capacity and vibes to be part of it anymore. As you know, my blog has been very much inactive for a long time, aside from dumping my dumb sketches or reblogging something here and there. And rather than letting it rot, I'd like to cleanly move on. Anyhow, on self deprecating note, since really it's not like I've been someone prominent I don't think this is a loss to the fandom and this makes it easier for me.

So to summarise, my leaving is about personal things, my life moving and the fact I don't have the mental capacity or motivation to actively keep up.

So what does this mean? I won't be posting RA related stuff on this blog anymore. This blog will turn into a neutral main blog and I'll create one side blog for art that I hope to continue to make and maybe one blog dedicated to the work of Brandon Sanderson.

However, it doesn't mean that I am not up to goof around about RA anymore, however this will be done in DMs. If I sometimes get to draw and post RA related art, it shall be posted on my new art blog with RA tag. However, I don't think there's a high probability of public RA art from me anymore, because 1) need to move on and 2) I have a very strong and maybe confrontational opinion about art in this fandom that has given me a bad taste and discouraged me from enjoying making it and posting it. I won't go into details because I don't want to sour this post for myself and for y'all with it.

I want to thank this fandom for everything it has been for me and for everyone and I wish y'all some happy fandoming!

Yours only,

The Ranger Thursday 11

[genericpuff]

no but listen, rachel has truly embodied herself as persephone because she's constantly trying to "distance herself" from her past as a medical fetish artist but then keeps the name that's affiliated with her medical fetish art-

Like, I can't believe I never noticed it before tbh, but that was the thought that hit me while I was explaining to someone on reddit what the name "used bandaid" meant and why it was weird that Rachel is STILL using it on her print cover books, even now when she just recently set up a new Facebook account with her REAL NAME and not the used_bandaid penname (I feel like this is an attempt to "legitimize" herself in the industry but idk).

But that leads me into talking about how she keeps lying about LO being her first webcomic project and that really pisses me off. And yes, this is related to the used_bandaid thing, just bear with me here.

A lot of my contempt for this is for reasons that go beyond her, I just hate the notion that people should succeed on their "first try" and that's an idea that's often sold by people like Rachel who spin these grandiose stories of how they were just "trying it out" and suddenly wham! Fame and fortune! You can achieve all this and more if you just xyz!

Literally, in every interview I've found over the past couple years, she always heavily implies that LO was her "first attempt", that she had never used Webtoons prior to LO, and that she was just "dipping her toes" into the medium. None of this is true, she's literally been drawing webcomics since the early 2000's (possibly earlier but the earliest documentation we can find is of The Doctor Pepper Show), LO wasn't even her first webcomic on the Webtoons platform (that goes to The Doctor Foxglove Show which she ended up dumping a chapter in to work on LO almost immediately after starting it on Tumblr) and as much as she'll claim she "couldn't pay anyone to look at her work", she had landed a number of gigs that got her work out there, had been printed in anthology collections, and IIRC she had even won some small local NZ awards for her comics prior to LO. Shit, there was a local beer brand that had her art on its labelling.

But it really feels like she's trying her damn hardest to hide all that, never mentioning or implying that she did anything prior to LO, that she was just a "struggling graphic artist working in retail" until LO happened.

So why keep the penname that's directly affiliated with that past identity ??

It boggles my mind, honestly, especially considering she had gone by MULTIPLE usernames back then, some of which were actually pretty sane that she could have used instead (such as Rach Alex, which she uses in her FB groups, and Rachel Royale).

I wouldn't blame her if she was trying to hide her old medical fetish stuff, whether she didn't want it affiliated with her new LO branding or if she's just embarrassed by it, I can totally empathize with that because god knows I wouldn't be all that proud to show off the cringy shit I got up to during my early days on the Internet. But if she IS embarrassed by it, you'd think the last thing she'd want to keep is the name that's directly affiliated with the thing she's embarrassed by. Almost like a certain pink protagonist who goes by the name she earned after doing the thing she doesn't want to talk about.

But if she ISN'T embarrassed by it, then why lie?

Why paint this picture that LO was a one hit wonder, that she lived on "struggle street" until she found fame and fortune on Webtoons?

Oh right. Because it's a better story.

Because it's way more romantic to be some struggling indie darling who "came from nothing" and achieved fame through one big idea. Because it looks good for the platform who's trying to attract people to their app and website on the promise that you, too, can be a success story simply because you followed the exact same perceived steps that you saw another person follow and advertise.

If you can't tell from my tone, I really fucking hate this kind of disingenuous wish fulfillment advertising. It's manipulative, it's cruel, and it sets people up with expectations far beyond their scope of reaching, both due to the luck and "being in the right place at the right time" involved at best (which is a HUGE factor in stories like these that people never talk about), or through joy-killing comparison at worst when you don't achieve worldwide fame on your first try and wonder why everyone else did (spoiler: they didn't, they just want you to think that because it makes for better headlines and it gets you using whatever product they're affiliated with.)

If Rachel doesn't want to be tied down to her past, that's fine. But it's incredibly irresponsible and flat out cruel to lie about that past existing at all because it sets a horrible precedent to those who look up to her and want what she has.

And I say all that because I've seen what happens to the people starting out who admire these creators who painted the picture that they were just successful right off the bat. It's not a fun headspace to be in, it's robbed many creators like myself and others of their joy in creating, and it's really all just a ploy to get you to spend time and money and energy on a stupid corporate phone app that profits off your emotional investment and labor. Don't fall for it. Pretending like the Act of Wrath didn't happen doesn't remove it from history.

Anyways, I was gonna leave it at that, but then I ended up doing another rabbithole deep dive through her Wayback Machine and found album art she had illustrated for NZ band PorcelainToy. Enjoy this piece of her "dark era" art that still exists without needing to use the Wayback Machine.

[baskeigh-ball]

Ignoring the fact that ibis had the ai paint feature a couple years before this whole ai fiasco, after seeing your post, I decided to try it out to see if it really held up. I already knew what you said made no sense, as even stuff like ai painting requires heavy human input that isn't just someone typing a prompt in a thing and looking through thousands of images and somehow still calling it 'art'. Really, it's just some weird advanced bucket.

The ibis ai paint... really sucks. I'm pretty sure it hasn't even been touched since it was added. No matter what I did, I got random colours and whatever colours I had put there looked like it were from a filter, not to mention how my lineart bled everywhere like it was blurred out.

Ibis isn't problematic for adding that feature as not only was it added ages ago, but it was also just a gimmick only added because a few more popular paid programs added them, like Clip Studio Paint. I highly doubt even the company took it seriously considering how poorly built it is. This is actually the one time I'm glad some feature in an app sucks so much.

Another reason why ibis isn't problematic by the mere feature alone is that, when you look at the artists making content during the time of that update, it was received with humour. It was something fun to try, but ultimately dismissed for actual artwork, as nobody would use it to fully paint their works. Nowadays we see something slapped with the words 'ai' and think that it's instantly bad due to the latest issues with it and big corperations/ certain production companies but it isn't. It's just a lot of people abusing what was previously some fun gimmick, which it can still be, and for certain apps, still is. Nobody throws pitchforks at character ai, after all.

You can tell just by the size of this that I'm procrastinating on something. Ima go and let this rot away in your askbox now lol

You really thought this would fade away in my ask box, mwahahaha /j

I wanna start off by saying thank you for holding me accountable, I will admit that I got buzzworded pretty hard in this situation lmao

This information came as a surprise to me-- I was seeing posts pop up within the past week complaining about the ai feature on ibis, so I assumed it was recent. As it turns out, after reading your ask, I discovered that I got a few wires crossed! Because yes, the auto paint feature I referred to in my post has been around for years now, and was never taken seriously anyways

So that was my bad (and yea ur right it's completely unusable, lmao)

But as it turns out, the feature that people have been complaining about DID come out recently. It was called the AI Example feature, I think the idea was that you make a simple drawing and the AI adds 99% of the detail and color, which I've seen a bunch of other programs do.

...and then it was immediately removed due to some pretty major backlash, which, duh

^ This is the only evidence I can find of the 11.2.0 update that included the AI feature on the actual site; their update history stops at 11.1.0. But there's also the news page about the removal of the update, so it's not like they're trying to pretend it never happened.

So tl;dr, I jumped on the hate train a little too quickly and never did enough research to figure out what the actual update was, and that it's been removed by now anyway (which I couldn't have known until today, ofc, but i did kinda post that thing about ibis today so it's still a pretty major oopsie)

I think I can say with confidence now that I agree, ibis paint isn't problematic to use-- they made a mistake with this update, but they actually listened to their users and removed it LITERALLY the next day. So, thanks for letting me know! I'll also edit my last post to prevent any misinformation, just in case people make the same mistake I did :]

[littengamer909]

MMFC Fandom, let's debrief! (important)

As anyone in the Mega Man Fully Charged community may know, there is a new account that is posting some downright despicable stuff. Before we get into the "why", let me first say: do not engage with this person. It is not out of the question that you might be attacked as well if you send them hate.

I want to talk about this, as a way to make sure people understand what's going on here.

Cyberbullying is defined as "the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person," and that is exactly what this person is doing. The repeated offense of drawing someone else's OC in a disrespectful way after they have asked you to stop is bullying. Cyberbullying is unacceptable, and it is important to make sure that those you engage with online are making you feel safe.

Now, the big question: WHY are they doing this?

Well, let's take a look at their bio. It states that the character this person made is 11 years old. Not 10, not 12, but 11. That's a specific number, and not an age that typically gets chosen for OCs. I believe that the creator of this account is 11 years old. They're a child, barely old enough to be in sixth grade. They were 5 years old when MMFC started airing.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I was 11, I wanted the older kids to see me as cool. I wanted to find things in common with them and be their friend. I think that this kid wants us, the older community members, to think they're cool as well.

Just so we're clear, cyberbullying is NEVER "cool". It just makes you a jerk.

My running theory is that this kid thinks that being edgy equates to being cool, and there's nothing more edgy than hating people and drawing their OCs dying, so they should do that. And, looking at the way they interact with people, they're not taking accountability or seeing anything wrong with what they're doing, which only solidifies my theory that they're just a child.

Now, what can we do about this?

First of all, block them. Don't show remorse. Just block. We need to show them that this cry for attention will not get them anywhere and should not be tolerated. (We're already doing good at this, as the only notes on their recent posts are just themself.)

Second, report the posts. I've already reported all the gore art, and reported the account itself for harassment.

This community is supposed to be fun. We're supposed to be making silly AUs and OCs, not tearing each other down. The best thing we can do right now is support each other and keep this a safe space for people to be happy.

And to Sophie, I'm so sorry this happened to you. You've done absolutely nothing wrong, and you don't deserve this at all. I wish you all the best, and I hope this kid realizes that this isn't funny.

TL;DR: Some dumb kid thinks that gore is funny. Block and report!

[tastescomics]

Personal Update

This is not comic/posting/etc news! But for those of you that have been worried about me, asking me things, trying to talk to me over the last few months, I hope this clears some stuff up. I will not be going into deeper detail than what is written below. ___________________

I haven't been as active as I have wanted, I've been getting by, getting art and projects done, but my head hasn't really been here. Not for my friends or readers, not as much as I would like. I've been through a lot in the last 8-9 months. I have been gaslit and told things opposite of what I thought were true of people that were close to me. I lost trust I had with another, I lost any feelings of safety or security I would have for myself and my husband. Maybe I was foolish to put my life in the hands of someone else's. But I was told it would be safe. How wrong that was. For months I've had anxiety attacks, breakdowns, blackouts. And while that's normal for me, happening a few times DAILY isn't. All because someone decided to live in their own reality instead of the one that was real and true. All because of their white lies that piled up so high they couldn't see that they had friends and love and care. All those feelings are gone. I can't be around someone who destroys good in their and others lives. I haven't shared this until now because I don't like mixing life and work. You don't need or want to hear of my daily struggles. That, and I have been stalked online by them despite everyone agreeing to keep a distance after the fallout between us occurred. If they hated me, wanted me to leave, wanted me to die, then why are they still following me? Listening to me? Stalking my sites and private accounts and listening to me as they creep quietly down the halls of our home? Now that I have finally moved apartments, no longer living with them, and have the chance to breathe, I'm just a bit less scared to say it all. And if 'THEY' see this? Then that continues to prove my point that they don't know what reality they are in. Between using their friends and making fake accounts to hunt me down to see what I am saying and posting, it's getting tiring and ridiculous... I won't be 100% for a while, I'm still not, this message was originally written for private supporters a month ago and I'm still struggling. It's why I haven't spoken much to my friends and followers and supporters beyond comments for appearances. But I promise to keep working for you all. You are the reason I have purpose in myself. These stories and characters and connections between us gives me so much life. And despite all that's been happening, I love and thank you all. ✦ Nox

[yvesdot]

@zennialemo said in the tags of this post: #I get this #But I have a genuine question... do the people with this take support for profit art? #if you do support for profit art then what do you think the solutions are to taking and selling someone else's art as your own? #I keep seeing and UNDERSTANDING these arguments but it feels out of touch with the capitalist world we live in #genuinely asking

Good question!

To put it briefly, I don't see a way to prevent "plagiarism" in the legal sense without making everything worse for everyone forever. I would certainly be sad if, e.g., Disney took my unknown-person-art and somehow turned it into a film and made infinite money from it, but it seems simultaneously unlikely to happen (likelihood of being plagiarized increases with one's influence in the world) and, more importantly, impossible to stop without making things worse for everyone else.

For example, say the law is as simple as "no making money off of the full and complete text of an author's book without their prior authorization." To be clear, this isn't what copyright is; I'm just taking a much more specific view to hopefully better answer your question about why I don't support even limiting copyright to such specific cases as "making money off of someone else's full and complete work when they explicitly don't want you to."

Then someone uploads Something's Not Right to some book-piracy site without my consent—perhaps I wouldn't have consented if they had asked, or perhaps I would have, but I am unreachable for any number of reasons, from hypothetically not having a public email address to simply being busy. Perhaps I did consent, but to another pirate site, which this reader cannot use for an accessibility or location-related reason. Perhaps I was unable to consent, because I was concerned about doing so informally, outside of the bounds of a legal contract, or because I was concerned allowing one site but not another would be seen as frivolous and unenforcable. Perhaps I was simply afraid of what this personal stance would imply for my general political opinions, which could get me dogpiled on Twitter. (What if the pirate site is run by people with horrible opinions? What if it runs suspicious ads? Do I even have time to check?) Whatever the reason, they don't get my permission.

Now, the piracy site needs to pay for servers. Should they run ads? Offer premium accounts? Take donations? If they do any of these, I can sue, because they are making money off of a project that includes the full text of my work, and it doesn't matter what they use the money for, even if it only ever goes to server costs—and should the people maintaining the website not be paid for their labor? why should I be paid for my labor and not them?—I can sue, and get the website taken down.

This is almost exactly what happened to Club Penguin Rewritten. They reused the assets of the original, and Disney owned the copyright, so when the CPR team added optional ads for in-game rewards (in addition to their Patreon), Disney shut them down. And I lost my puffle Xx_nootkin_xX, which is probably the worst thing to ever happen to anyone, ever, and on its own merits not only abolishing copyright but also burning down the earth.

There's just no way to have copyright law for me but not for thee (in this case, Disney). Even excising corporations and only allowing individuals to stake their copyright claims leaves room for the many, many Anne Rices of the world. The law will always favor those with more power, influence, and money.

So, while I do support the seemingly impossible goal of UBI alongside the seemingly impossible goal of copyright abolition, I think a much more important answer to your direct question of why abolish copyright even without everyone's financial safety and security already assured is: I think copyright is an active harm, not a good, and I do not see a way to stop people from doing things I don't want them to do with my writing that doesn't also make things worse for everyone, everywhere—myself included.

(Or, put another way: I don't support people whitewashing my characters in fanfiction, but I have no way of stopping it legally without creating the framework for people to stop me writing whatever they deem objectionable with their work. The question is not one of ethics alone, but practicality.)

Also, thanks so much for asking, and for being open about your disagreement and not running away into the distance! Hopefully this hour-long spiel was helpful to you. I really do appreciate your respecting me, and my opinion, enough to stick around and ask.

[marygih]

My Stlaker

I think one of my most traumatic experiences on the internet was having a Stlaker for years.

I met him on the damned Amino app. At first he introduced himself as a friend who would give me art tips, and I, at 13, thought that was amazing. But obviously I didn't give him any important personal information about myself. We used to chat in a Telegram group. The group had 3 people, me, him and another boy who I later found out was another account of his, he pretended to be two people to talk to me. He would say strange things sometimes, but I took it as a joke. Things started to get weird when he told me: "I wish I had twin sisters like you." At first I laughed and said that my sisters weren't twins, they just had very similar names because my dad isn't very creative. But then I realized that I had never told him I had sisters. I had never shared my art account on Instagram, we only talked on Telegram and sometimes on Amino. I should have distanced myself from him after the first incident. But I already had some attachment to this guy.

His second mistake was when he randomly called me "my white" and that chilled me to the core. The only person who called me that was my father. I decided to analyze my sisters' social media to see if I could find him among their followers. He was somehow discovering things about my personal life. I didn't find him, but I found an old story of my sister's in a very old highlight where I appeared in the background and you could hear my father calling "my white, come here" and I would get up and walk out of view in the video. My "friend" had been spying on my sisters' social media a lot. I thought it was really weird and decided to nip it in the bud and deleted both Telegram and Amino. I just didn't know it was going to get much worse. He actually found my Instagram and for weeks fake accounts would send me messages. At first the messages would ask what had happened, then they would apologize, and then the next messages would be strange and aggressive. In some of them, he blamed my best friend for "poisoning me against him" and said he would make her pay dearly for it. In others, he literally harassed me, in others he said that I must be a lesbian and that's why I didn't like him, and that he could become trans to please me (this was getting so absurd that I was already scared). I didn't respond to any of the messages, I just read them and blocked the account. I made my Instagram private and removed strange followers to try to get rid of it, and he kept bothering me, he found my Pinterest account, sent me text messages, found my YouTube channel, I even received emails from this obsessed motherfucker. I created new social networks without photos and with completely different nicknames to get rid of him. But I didn't get rid of him.

[steamberrystudio]

30/07/2023 Devlog

Hallo! Time for another quick devlog here on tumblr.

Summary:

All Sprite expressions coded in Yuu's route

One additional sprite finished and added

The Ramble:

So...I have finished sprite expressions for Yuu's route. 😵

It was gruelling.

It took me a while to realise why it felt like so much more work than the last couple of routes and I realised it was due to the fact that it's Endgame.

The Endgame routes tend to have a lot of huge group scenes as the characters have group training sessions, missions, and lots of meetings.

When I thought about it, I realised that the last three routes I coded were Lance, Quill, and Reuben. While there *are* group scenes in those routes, none of them happen with as frequency or as many characters as a lot of the Endgame group scenes.

So yeah. This was pretty tedious and I gave myself several headaches (LoL).

But the expressions are complete.

I have a few more sprite images to complete and put in the game but all the expressions are coded so once the images are done, I should be able to just plug them in and have them show up properly. That said, I'll still need to go through and double check that nothing is broken and no one is randomly stripping or losing their face (which is what happens if I typo something. LoL)

So yeah, the main remaining things are the sprite and CG art.

Upcoming Weeks:

As I said, it's really down to the sprites and CGs. I do have a few other small things to do like the ending card and other minor stuff. But the *big* thing is the art.

That's what I'll be working on in the upcoming weeks. It's really difficult to gauge how long CGs and sprites will take. Sometimes I can finish an entire CG in one day and sometimes it takes three days for one CG.

And of course it comes down to how much my hand cooperates.

Once the art is done and coded, we'll move into the beta stage for Yuu's route. =O But I don't think we'll quite be there by my next update here. But we shall see! 

I'll basically be in drawing-mode going forward! 💪💪

When Stars Collide:

There isn't a whole lot to talk about for WSC this time around - I got the new "bridge" background for The Ophelia. It has a really different vibe than the old image but it makes me excited to see all the new ones.

I decided to add in a "Music room" in the extras which is not something I've done before. But since this game won't have a consolidated OST anywhere, I thought it would be useful. And I'm planning a fun little feature for it.

I haven't written much more than what I had two weeks ago. Maybe 10,000 words or so (a little less, I think). But I have done a lot of planning regarding the new character and new chapter. And I have started making edits to existing scenes to account for Kav's presence. 

I have written all of Noel's chapter 5 scenes, and all of Raif's chapter 5 scenes, and started Yren's chapter 5 scenes as well.

So yeah, that slow-moving train is....slow moving still.

That's all for now - see you in a couple of weeks!

[cosmica-galaxy]

Okay. Clarification time.

Regarding the concern for Smols situation, I will state MY point of view regarding this little hiccup now that Turtleduck deactivated so suddenly. Just to help settle some confusion or worries some people have for what may have happened.

So, what happened?

Basically, Turtleduck was asked by Smol if they were upset with the wars going around on our blogs, which started this little hiccup.

Please keep this in mind for a little bit later.

So Turtleduck stated that they don't like to see the fighting going around the blogs. Aight, that's fair. Not everyone cared about the DILF/MILF wars and that's totally fine!

However.

It was this comment that followed this conversation that probably snagged things a little bit.

(Yes. I blocked out turtleduck's profile to prevent their identity from being leaked as I consulted a friend for a comment to double check if I was be a little miffed for no reason or not.) As you can see, the last sentence is worded pretty poorly. This came off to me as "I want ruin people's fun so that they can go back to entertaining me". Even if that was not the intention, the comment painted a really rude and entitled picture on turtleduck. Even my friend that I consulted for an outside eye on this comment spoke about how rude the comment was toward the end and how even they felt like they were self-serving in a way. Not only that--

--Even STRUX felt that it was rude. This is why Strux is saying this in the original post.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, while Turtleduck claimed to have not liked our blog battles (which would've been find on it's own), they were actively ENCOURAGING blog battles.

I'm pretty sure a lot of my moots got THIS same message.

They sent it to multiple large skibidi blogs (strider, strux, another dead, ect.) in some hope that we would all jump on coolbeardrunaway with smol bottles. But my question is, if you are against blog battles...why are you actively encouraging them?

That's a little hypocritical, right? In short, I got the same ask and I didn't respond to it because I saw the previous message and was a little miffed.

Nothing overtly major happened. It was just a series of poorly communicated comments that rubbed a fair bit of us the wrong way.

Wait, is THIS the whole reason for this hiccup?

As far as I know, yeah. If anything was said otherwise, I have no knowledge of it. But it was mostly because of that second comment that lots of brows got raised and Smols became upset. Smols is doing fine, by the way! Don't worry! But why did Turtleduck deactivate their account??

I have no clue.

This isn't some scalding hot tea, it's barely lukewarm at best. This isn't some large scale drama either, its just someone being a little too honest with their intentions and desires.

Does this make turtleduck a villain?

Obviously no. I had no intention to hate nor despise turtleduck nor shame them. In short, us in this skibidi community are moots of moots and we entertain each other through these "wars" for both interaction and fun. We share art, stories, characters, ideas, ect. We love doing these with each other and sorry if that is not what followers came here for, but I'm not going to apologize for having fun with my Tumblr friends. I am not being chained up and made to be your source of "content" and entertainment. I, like all of my skibidi moots, are people with lives and interests. We don't live on this platform to serve and entertain you. Don't insult artists when they give you everything they can for absolutely free. Treating us with basic respect isn't that hard. If I had to say anything at all, I would have only have some parting advice for turtleduck. You are the type of person who makes group activities, roleplays, and fandom collabs not as fun as they can be. If your first reaction to seeing a bunch of people having fun in a community by sharing ideas and making art for one another is to throw a wrench into the works to make everyone pay attention to you and cater to your own personal interest...I can't blame Smols. I would've of blocked you too. That's all!

[montague-fortnite]

What is this site... oh, whatever, I'm Montague, you probably know me. In fact, you SHOULD know me.

Alright, I'm not gonna be on this site a hell of a lot, but listen up because theres rules you need to follow. My blog isn't some place to mess around, so lets keep it civil.

1. Im here because of other people, so dont expect me to be a dog to answer at every mention of my name or every question you just have to ask me.

2. No disrespectful behaviour under my posts or towards me. Im too busy working to tolerate peoples foolish behaviour. (No homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism and the likes of it. You get it by now, right? Good.)

3. No NSFW, im always working, so nothing unsafe for that should happen here. I can't have people look over my shoulder at work and see that. (Suggestive is ok but minimal)

4. I may not be what you expected me to be, just because I dont follow your perfect little perception of me does not mean you can tell me off on it. (My canon is my own, simple as that.)

5. Keep your gross problematic stuff away from me, your weird ships, and inappropriate stuff. And that being said, don't pick a fight if I get with someone not of your liking. I pick and choose who I get to stay around, not you.

(No proshippers, and this blog might contain ship content, dont get mad if it's not someone you like. Not your choice, never was.)

{Keep reading to find tags, guides, and my idea of canon for this blog}

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Alright, now here's a few guides for you. Since some people don't know how to contact me, this is how;

My ask blog, I won't check it super often, but it's where you can contact me easiest. Anything weird asked in there is being ignored, so dont bother really.

Mentioning me in posts, feel free to, questions, posts, fanart, whatever you want. But if it's fanart, I prefer you only tag me in content you've made. {That's just to avoid random artists getting uncomfortable by rp accounts}. In reality, I can't stop you doing whatever, though.

-----------------------

Tags I'll be using just to organise. It keeps me sane instead of getting lost in my own blog.

#Montague Asks - self-explanatory, ask me things, I reply and tag it with that.

#Montague RP Art - any art I make relating to this blog will be tagged with this. If you make an ask or mention me somewhere, there's a chance I will reply with an artwork so this will be the tag for it.

#Montague Puppet - I'll use that when speaking OOC, because well... I'm puppeting this account. I will also use {} when speaking OOC to make it clearer when it's not Montague talking.

#Fortnite tumblrverse - Another tag I'll use when in character, open for other fortnite RP accounts to use.

Montague canon;

Hi hello!! Its the puppet behind Montague here, im not fully knowledged on how Montague may act or what lore he may have besides the society and character lines from NPCs. So if anything seems off its most likely me trying to define my own canon. As time goes on canon may change.

Important note, this account is run by a minor. If this bothers you, not my problem. You can stay or you can leave that is up to you.

HCs applying to this account:

Montague, in my perception, is definitely not straight. I personally haven't applied a specific attraction to Montague, so it'll be vague whenever mentioned.

Montague is not Cis in this blog! But more often than not, he won't openly discuss that, and not many people know. He's rich, he got the surgerys before meeting most people he knows.

Whenever Montague gets hurt and has an open scar, sometimes diamonds will grow there depending on stress levels. This can cause a wound to open up more, so Montague, being an often stressed person, doesn't help this. This is why he has so many guards. Montague without guards is fine. He's fully capable of winning a fight. But it's a safety precaution he put in for himself.

Montague wears makeup, lots. He most likely has plenty of scars from when he got into fights as a teen. Because of this, he spends an hour covering them up. Some need makeup because of their positioning. The scars follow the previous HC of diamond growth, making them more permanent.

Any other HCs youll have to find out by asking the man himself. Asks appreciated!! Thats all for now.