#making myself finally start posting this

[sylibane]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Control (Video Game) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Original Characters, Jesse Faden, Other Characters Mentioned But Not Present Additional Tags: Epistolary, Canon-Typical Violence, Altered Items (Control), Accidental Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Canon Compliant, (as much as possible), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, preemptively tagging for violence, expecting things to get nastier in future chapters Summary:

In 2003, a group of kids discovered a birdcage with the ability to make any letter left inside it disappear, supposedly sent to the future. But nobody realized the birdcage’s true power until it was almost too late. In 2019, a pair of low-level FBC employees wait out the Hiss Invasion by sorting through the letters and other documents of the birdcage incident to figure out what happened, only to realize that something is alive in the words. Presented here are the transcripts of their taped conversations, along with the relevant documents of the case.

[heartorbit]

a fool and a sinner

[destinyandcoins]

ALSO the show draws a very clear line between how Ed acts when he's upset and processes his emotions and how Blackbeard acts when he's gone off the deep end.

Ed repeatedly retreats, hides himself somewhere safe, and tries to process his feelings of inadequacy and hurt. we see it when he hides in Stede's bathtub, when he hides in the blanket fort, when he leaves dinner at Mary and Anne's to curl up on the sofa under a blanket. FURTHERMORE we see Ed post-Kraken turn in s1 and in the first episodes of s2 crying alone in the captain's cabin, sighing wistfully over the wedding cake toppers, and just generally being a sad little lump of a man who is hurting

the violence Blackbeard displays is only ever in public, performative. He cuts Izzy's toe off in s1 to announce his return to this aggressive, violent persona that Izzy has demanded of him. He pushes the crew to violently raid ships and gets in Frenchie's face to intimidate him and shoots Izzy and makes Archie and Jim fight each other. and part of that is him pushing them to kill him in a way he can't bring himself to do (he always outsources the big job), but it's very important to remember that the way Ed reacts to being left by Stede and the way Blackbeard is being violent and traumatizing the crew are two different things entirely.

one is a reaction to being left by the man he loves and feeling unlovable, and the other is the direct result of being told he needs to be a monster and an extended performance of being that monster (and way of shielding himself from the threat to himself Izzy presents at the end of s1).

Ed and Stede are both men desperate to be seen and understood for who they are and not what people have told them to be. Stede tries to create a pirating environment that embraces softness and talking about your feelings, but he's still so caught up in running from himself and his problems that he has to go home and fix things with his family before he can truly live that way. Ed is suffering and feels like a monster because he's been told his only worth is being this fearsome pirate persona, and being that thing hurts, so he makes sure everyone else becomes that thing and hurts along with him.

it's not until the final episode that Ed realizes being a fearsome thing doesn't have to hurt, being capable of violence doesn't mean you are a monster, sometimes it's a thing you are (a thing you do) to protect the ones you love. you're not a dick, life's a dick; you're not your father just because you're capable of violence, you're a man who has something worth fighting for

[do-you-know-this-adhd-character]

Do you know this (noncanon) ADHD character?

Evidence below the cut!

can be pretty hyperactive, forgets things regularly (even important things, forgot he turned into a heartless in kh1), distractable, later on he seems to have some problems with emotional dysregulation. hes constantly called lazy by his friends but as soon as hes doing something he likes he has all the energy in the world, and also tends to dismiss his own intelligence despite actually being pretty smart, both of which are things that i think are decently common with undiagnosed adhd

[softpine]

okay i just made maybe my favorite thing ever 🤭 i'm so excited i wish i could just post it now but there's still more to do, but i'm grinning ear to ear even though that's highly inappropriate for the subject matter

[pup-pee]

ur bartkon art legendary

TYSMM!!!!! IM GLAD U LIKE ITT!!!!! <33

heres a silly sketch i prolly wont color :3

[deoidesign]

.

[amber-tortoiseshell]

Something new under the sun - Phoenix

During the cat color tournament, I stumbled into a Russian maine coon breeder's, Natalia Yakhontova (Doma Yahontoff Maine Coons) facebook page (via this messybeast article which got updated since, and know includes phoenix on its own rights), and I found a very interesting, unique new color: phoenix.

The first phoenix cats were born in 2021 august to a black golden tortie mother and a black smoke father, and were believed to be particularly bright goldens.

The parents, Karamel Sanatacun and Ice Cream Dom Sapfiroff

According to the breeder:

в первом помете она дала трёх фениксов,трёх черепах,одного черного золотого кота и одного красного мраморного (In the first litter she [Karamel] gave birth to three phoenixes, three tortoiseshells, one black golden cat and one red blotched cat.)

Obama,a mystery-colored kitten from the first litter, and his siblings.

Along with Karamel, one of the kittens, Obama Iz Doma Yahontoff was tested for several known colors: chocolate and cinnamon, serdolic and amber, and got negative results for all. Obama started to grow up and he looked less and less like a golden cat:

He moved to the Dom Sapfiroff cattery and was paired several different females.

One of Obama's mates, Nicole Kidman of Lionsgate alone and together with Obama. According to the breeders working on the color they are both genetically red (the only difference is the phoenix mutation).

In the last year thanks to Obama the number of phoenix kittens went up quite a bit:

...but there's still too few cats to really understand how this mutation works. There's much too see in future, and I can't wait the learn about it!

[mads-is-tired]

the code “growing” on his arm, it’s gotta be an exposure thing, particularly when you also look at etolies and his arm/eye

etolies has been in contact with them the most from what i know, and while i’d previously assumed it was from using the code breaker shield, it’s either not that or the shield itself is made from code

and in the past three days, slimecicle has spent a lot of time with codeflippa, the first time he saw her was rather brief but now he’s spent hours by her side. iirc even etolies hasn’t spent that much time with one in one go, hence the speed at which this is happening

from what we know, the codes seem to want to work with the members against the federation. the code monsters attacked and then came to a discussion with etolies, where a different strategy has been applied for charlie, a grief stricken, isolated man with a history of murderous tendencies seems far easier to manipulate. but the code monsters with etolies seem to be upfront, leading me to believe they are manipulating the islanders as well, but where do their true intentions lie?

it’s fascinating to think about what will happen when the code starts to take over both of these guys more. we’ve seen glitches happening in charlie, will this become more frequent, or will he start loosing control, maybe he’ll still be charlie and etolies will still be etolies, but fundamentally changed in terms of their being. Maybe they won’t be able to leave the island once it’s spread too far, and this was the goal all along. I’ve seen theory posts about the code being previous island members before, they might have been closer than we thought.

full disclosure i get pretty much all of my lore updates from the twitter screenshots people upload here so i could be so far off lmao. im also not too familiar with maxo lore but i know there’s stuff going on with AI there? that might be linked

[crossbackpoke-check]

it’s all the rest of what i want with you

connor dewar/brandon duhaime :: 8k

Summary:

“Brandon,” Connor says with a sigh. “There’s no baby in there.”

“Not yet,” Brandon says. Connor feels his stomach twist, almost like what he would imagine a baby kicking to feel like.

in these trying times of dewvorce, may i offer you 8k of pwp inspired by @stillfertile’s wonderful art which i had. several breakdowns about 🫶 anyway please enjoy!!!

[batfossil-fr]

I’ve been really thinking of reopening my art shop soon… I’ve been taking some practice doodles (hence all the posting lately) while I shake off my rust and I’m finding things I enjoy working on again. I miss trying my hand at more dragons/OCs and colors. my shop’s so broken rn lmao but that’s a problem for a later date it’s just nice getting back into art

[skunkes]

beginning to understand the power of a traditional sketchbook

[w1tchybusiness]

i could write a 100 page essay about what a fucking masterpiece warframe is. i will write many words in the tags. please readem if you want my 'tism.

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

silly vampire costumes and their added benefits™️ (directly based on this)

[kira-light0]

While on mandatory shore leave at a space station, Spock meets the two best surgeons in the Federation: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and "Trapper" John McIntyre of the starship NCC-4077

Star trek × Mash crossover

(Image description in the Alt text if you can't read my handwriting)

[unforth]

I've been trying for ages to figure out how to put something into words about The Youth In Fandom and I still don't think I've quite got it but I did reach an insight about it that I think is valuable enough that I'm gonna take a stab at writing it.

For starters, I want to make it clear, there is no "The Youth In Fandom Problem." Based on my efforts running the art sideblogs for danmei fandoms, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that a vast minority of people of all ages are antis, purity wankers, pro-censorship, ageist, etc. Even among people who mark their bios with their age, it's a shockingly low percentage of people under 18 who are being super weird about this stuff, and I think that's something a lot of older folks bemoaning The Younger Generation could stand to know and be reminded of. This isn't a majority, it's just a vocal minority, and tbh...that vocal minority has always been there, at least in my own fandom experiences.

That said, I've personally been the target of "y r u in fandom, old woman? Go take care of your kids!" bullshit, and yes it's definitely real and yes it definitely happens. (I am not old, I am not a woman, I was here before the people who said that to me were born, and I spend all the rest of my time taking care of my kids, so...).

All that introduction is to posit a theory:

The kinds of people who say "you should grow out of it, you're too old for fandom, etc." don't actually really...like what they like.

I know that sounds batshit. They're here blogging about it 24/7, of course they're obsessed! But I really genuinely find myself wondering...like...are they actually obsessed? Or are they just performing obsessed because that's what their peer group is doing? Are they just following along with their friends, mimicking their friends' enthusiasm, going with the flow because they're scared of what will happen if they say "actually I didn't think that show was very good"?

I ended up with this as a theory to posit because is to arrive at "you should grow out of it," you have to start with "I will grow out of it." And to get to "I will grow out of it," you have to start with "I may be into this now but I will definitely Change." And to get to "I will definitely Change," you have to start with the base assumption that loving certain types of media isn't just part of who you are, but rather a temporary persona you've assumed overlaying some deeper Self that will be revealed with time - or that's already been revealed and that you're deliberately masking for whatever reason.

Lemme put it less abstractly (but more longwindedly, lmao).

When I was 16, I was fucking terrified. There were all these things I loved - Star Trek, Hercules and Xena, Babylon 5, Slayers, Evangelion, Fushigi Yuugi, the Wheel of Time, many others - some I'd been into for years, some I'd only just discovered. And I looked at the adults in the world around me, who didn't sleep with stuffed toys, who got into long-term romantic and sexual relationships, who settled into careers that they stuck with for 20, 30, 40 years, who had heaps of responsibilities, and it was so frightening I literally had trouble sleeping at night. My senior year of high school, I trained myself to sleep with a pillow instead of a stuffie because "what would people in college think if they saw me snuggling a stuffed wolf?" That was something I was prepared to sacrifice to be An Adult (tm), something I was (irrationally) ashamed of, something that wasn't so much a part of my personhood that I couldn't give it up. When I left home to go to school at 17, I left my wolf at home. (I brought him with me a year later, and he's now on my bookshelf. Less disposable than 16-year-old me thought, as it turns out, but that's another story.) But there were things about myself I wasn't prepared to sacrifice to fit in during college. I still wore my Star Wars shirt. I still hung my anime posters. I still listened to J Pop. My roommate might judge me. My classmates might judge me. My professors might judge me. I didn't care. Loving those were part of who I was, and I wasn't prepared to give that up.

I found solace by looking at the adults in my life who hadn't had to give up their "childish fancies." I looked at my mother, who introduced me to Star Trek, and thought if she didn't have to stop loving Star Trek to be An Adult, then why should I? I looked at my grandfather, on whose bookshelves I first found the Lord of the Rings, and thought if he didn't have to give up LotR to be An Adult, then why should I? They might not wear fandom shirts, they might not go to conventions, they might not engage in the same way that I did, but they still loved these things, and it gave me hope.

When I was saw adults who still did fan things, who dressed how they wanted, who had cool hair styles or colors, who had tattoos, I thought "wow, what a cool person. I hope I get to grow up to be like them. I hope I'll be that comfortable in my own skin when I'm that age, because I'm sure not that comfortable in my own skin NOW."

I'll have to change in some ways - find A Career, figure out this "attraction" thing everyone keeps fucking talking about, buy a house, all the rest - but I'll be able to love the things I love.

I will still be "me" when I'm an adult, just Me-Plus-More.

I wanted to grow up to be that adult. I was prepared to take figurative arrows, to fight, to slog through, to retain the part of me that felt most valuable - my ability to love the things I loved without apologizing for it. And I knew I could do that, because I already had. Man, the shit people gave me in middle school for being an out-and-proud Trekkie? smh. It was baaaaad.

Time passes. Now I'm 40, and yes, I have changed. I've had more than one career. I got married. I figured out I never did have to figure out that "attraction" shit because I learned asexuality existed and. uh. Oh. I had children. I bought a house.

And I still have a bookcase of manga and I still have a Tumblr blog and I've found new fandoms - many, many new fandoms - nearly all for franchises that didn't even exist when I was 16 and so so scared that I used to literally break down and cry over the prospect of "having" to "give up childish things."

I got myself through on the belief that I'd still be me, and I was right. More than 20 years later, I AM still me.

And that's what leads me back to "why do The Youth think they'll age out of fandom?" And it leads me back to "I can only assume their fandom participation is mostly performative." Because look. This is who I was when I was 10 and read Lord of the Rings, and it was who I was when I was 12 and I started watching Star Trek when Voyager debuted, and it's who I was when I was 17 and I pulled an all-nighter to watch the second season of Fushigi Yuugi, and it's who I was when I was 21 and spent my birthday totally sober and gaming with my friends, and it's who I was at 26 when I got buried up to my eyeballs in Supernatural, and it's who I was at 37 when I watched The Untamed and knew as easy as breathing oh my god I've found the next obsession.

If it's an embraced, realized, adored part of your persona, there's absolutely no reason to think it's going to go away. And there's no reason nor need for it to. There are always gonna be people who judge others for having passions, and there are always gonna be people who embrace others for having passions, and you just gotta identify and avoid the former and find and adore the latter. If you're young, and you love fandom, and you're afraid you, too, will "have to" give up childish things...congratulations! You've got nothing to be afraid of! You never have to change that aspect of yourself!

But...I know these teens on Tumblr who are bullying others already know that because they can see us everywhere. And instead of going, as I did, "oh wow, those older people who still love the things they love are cool! how reassuring! I can be like them!" they think "EW OLD PERSON NOT ALLOWED THIS IS MY ROOM DO NOT ENTER."

And that's weird. When I try to think, "What kind of mentality would lead someone to feel that way, act that way, etc.?" I arrive at: being in fandom is something that they're embarrassed about. Something they're ashamed of, that they think is shameful. Something childish and therefore only for kids, even when the media they're a fan of is entirely made for and by adults. Something they think is made for them in that moment but that they'll be able to easily discard when they move on to more important parts of their lives. Something they know in their heart is transient. Something they're just doing because their friends are doing it.

That's when they'd think "why would an adult still do this?"

When it's something you "know" will be "just a phase," you don it like you don the identity of "high school student," something that'll get shucked a minute after graduation.

And while I found the idea of giving up fandom terrifying, I again can only assume that for these type of person, NOT giving up fandom becomes something terrifying. "Of course this is transient. Of course I'm going to change. I can't wait to change, I hate who I am now! Why did these so-called adults not change? Changing to not like this kind of thing is a sign of Maturity and Adulthood that I am eagerly waiting for, because I believe there's something wrong with being this way, and therefore I assume the adults I see doing this are immature, have something wrong with them, are childish, cannot be Doing Adulthood Right, because they didn't give up the thing."

"I know, in my heart, that I can't WAIT to change, so if they don't want to change, if they haven't changed, something must be wrong with them."

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is the only reason. People are way too complex for there ever to be One Explanation Of All. I'm sure some of the teens who engage in ageist bullying just think they're ~cool~ and ~different~ and their name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Others are just uncomfortable with adults, with or without cause, and think "you don't belong in the same space as me." Some surely have drank the conservative kool-aid even as they've tried to change and are pantomiming the bullshit they were fed by those around them in new and unpleasant ways. Some think "this media was made for people like me and anyone who isn't like me can't possibly be engaging it in the Correct And Proper Way."

Some will grow out of it - out of fandom, or out of thinking that being an adult in fandom is wrong/bad/inappropriate/immature/whatever.

A few especially unpleasant ones...won't.

Unlike young!me, who looked at fannish grown ups and thought "wow, I could grow up to be like them, they're so cool!", you think "ew, I hope I don't grow up to be like them, they're so weird!"

And if that's you...why are you here?

If you don't actually like who are you when you're in fandom, that's okay. You don't have to stay. If you lose your friends because your interests change, then those friends stink and you didn't need them anyway; people who actually care about you will always keep by your side even if your interests and theirs diverge. But just cause YOU are performing your interest in fandom...doesn't mean the rest of us are. Some of us genuinely like it here. And you might think that's fucked up of us, but it's honestly none of your fucking business. You do what you gotta do to grow up, and leave the rest of us already-grown-ups alone.

And if you do genuinely love it and you're just scared because you think you'll have to change - that you'll reach some mystical age of majority and suddenly wake up a different person...you won't. For better and for worse, you'll still be you, so if there's things about yourself you don't like, it'd be better to start working on unpacking that psychological baggage now, because there's never gonna be a miracle point where you Feel Better And Like An Adult unless you put in the effort to change.

Teenagers...you will not grow up to be a new person. You will never give up who you are. You will grow up to be You-Plus-More.

And if that's something you hear and go "omg that's great news!" then I'm glad to be the one who told you. Take heart. There's hope. You can be you and that WILL be okay. You can face up to and grow from the things about yourself you don't like. You can learn more about yourself. You have time, and you will be able to improve yourself, to become more like the parts of yourself you like and less like the parts you hate.

And if that's something you hear and go "oh god no that's the worst" then you need to stare that reaction in the face and understand that the only way change is coming is if you make it happen for yourself. No one is strong-arming you into being a fan. If it's not for you...then stop. It's literally that easy. But don't take out your uncertainty and fear on other random people who are more comfortable with themselves than you are. Most of us are not here because of fear. We're here in the face of our fear, as a fuck you to our fear, because we also grew up being told we'd have to give up so-called childish things to be An Adult, and it turns out that was a pile of bullshit and we can have careers AND anime posters. And we can afford more anime posters, cause our parents are no longer telling us how to spend our money.

If your participation in fandom is primarily performative...just stop performing. Be yourself, and find your OWN passion, and stop shitting on the people who have managed to be more true to themselves and their own interests. You're not cool and edgy and different; you're just an asshole and a bully, and I pity you.

Anyway as you can tell from this rambly mess of a post, I haven't really gotten my finger on my point yet, but idk. I've been thinking about this and I think there's something there???