#not general questions just wanking

[sunny-sainz]

Lando letting his intrusive thoughts win there

[olderthannetfic]

i was listening to the fanficmaverick podcast episode you did on fanfiction history, in which you mentioned (~55 min in) that you were one of the main people writing the terms of service for AO3 and bringing up the types of "would this be allowed" test cases, that these were not "oh it's a slightly problematic kink" but "violent snuff porn of gillian anderson, not scully, but gillian anderson" — and that you all eventually landed on "kinda gross, but legal in the US, and therefore would host." question: was this the most contentious case? any other memorable/notable test cases, or other interesting discussions you can remember?

i'd also love to hear more about how the major archive warnings were decided on — on what basis were these chosen? which others were considered? — if you happen to know!

sincerest thank you for all the work you've done for fandom and the preservation of fandom history. ❤️ seriously, such a feat, and so interesting!

--

I think even then my personal level of wallowing in annoying wank or looking at horrifying fic was vastly higher than everyone else's, so this was pretty much the example we looked at.

Though, if you want to laugh, astolat's original post is still up on LJ with the comments, and there were totally people going "I'd be interested in this new archive project, but not if it includes RPF!" or "Not if it includes any underage fic at all!" etc.

--

On usenet in the 90s, there was somebody or somebodies who were reaaaaally into that specific type of snuff story. I remember noticing how many of them involved not only hangings but very specific imagery of one high heel falling off. I was 13, so I really couldn't tell you if it was one dude with a specific fetish or genuinely super widespread. But it made an impression.

The alt.sex.stories hierarchy was a wild time.

Anyway, in practice, badwrong RPF of female celebs that sounds like it's aimed at straight dudes ends up on fetish sites for whatever the fetish is, not on fic archives for the most part, but I thought it was a useful example because it was so far into actually offensive to AO3y types. We're not talking the weaksauce shit people are always asking me about on here like "Oooh, what if someone posted [bog standard slash trope] to AO3?" as though it's a gotcha.

--

Man... were there other test cases? I'm trying to remember. This was all in like 2008, and of course, I didn't keep internal documents when I left OTW. Not that half of this was stuff I'd have had documented on my computer anyway.

My memory is that the general shape of the content policy had been decided by the founding Board before Content Policy started up. I don't think we were actually making the ruling on RPF ourselves.

I'm pretty sure most of what we were up to was looking at wank and trying to determine how to head off shitty behavior with the ToS. Trying to define harassment is a mega pain in the ass, let me tell you.

One major internal wank there was was deciding whether to allow Original Work. I was the one who'd been in anime fandom, and I was very used to archives that have an original section, often for the "original slash" and "original yaoi" that had nowhere else to go at the time. (These days, you'd just become a "m/m romance" author, as I in fact have.) Fanfiction.net had spun off its original years ago at that point, but a lot of the non-English archives and a lot of the archives in other parts of English-speaking fandom found fannish-but-original to be a normal thing.

I am a grudgy bitch, and I am still not over how much pushback I got on this.

AO3 went live with a ban on original work, but the policy never ended up being heavily enforced. We waited to see what would happen with posting, and it was predictably that people from those backgrounds outside of US Media Fandom posted some original without even thinking it might be banned, but they didn't post so much it overwhelmed the archive.

The big fears had been that #1 people would flood AO3 and drown out the fic. This was predicated on the idiotic notion that original = inherently not fannish, so there's no dividing line. In reality, the people who were used to posting original to fic archives had an internal sense of what belongs and what doesn't. Fear #2 was that people would try to post chapter 1 of a commercial story and then go "See here to buy the rest". Little did we know that this would soon be a problem with fucking fan fiction itself. (Also, commercial spam was always against the rules and needed no extra anti-original work rule.)

People didn't just disagree with me: they looked at me blankly.

Pretty sure I vented about this on that podcast too though. Anyway, most of the shit people find contentious now was already decided before we started writing the ToS, I think... though I don't really remember clearly. We were more looking to plug up holes in the rules that nitpicking trolls could use to harass.

The kinds of things we were deciding were often like the policy that AO3 doesn't necessarily tell you if someone reported you. If they need info, they'll contact you, and if they decide you broke the ToS, you'll hear about it, but obviously bogus reports don't get passed on. This is to remove the temptation to use the team as a proxy to harass a target. An official e-mail, even if it's "You're fine, actually", can be disturbing.

--

Re the warnings themselves, I know I'd done a survey of what archives were out there at the time and had come up with a list of a few dozen. This was early on in OTW's development process, not just for Content Policy. You can still find the list somewhere on that LJ group. Anyway, for the ToS writing, we looked at the commonplace warnings from archives past, which were basically character death, character death, and also character death.

It always cracks me up when people are like "Um, rape makes sense, but how dare they downplay these other bad things with a character death warning?" Old fandom places were full of unwarned for rape, but woe betide the person who posted surprise character death of a main ship!

We needed an under-18 warning because we had a lot of Australian fans who were like "Dude, my government is a bitch, and I cannot use this archive at all if I can't filter that out". Past archives had mostly just banned it entirely or been full of death eaters raping teenage Harry Potter characters with nary an underage warning in sight.

I don't remember why we picked the violence one. It really wasn't common, but maybe we wanted to make a philosophical point that sex doesn't have more cooties than violence.

CNTW was a compromise with older fandom standards where people objected to literally any warnings existing. A lot of the really oldschool warnings debates aren't about which ones you should have but about whether you should have them at all.

I think people around here miss how non-universal warnings are and how many other communities and spaces even today don't think you need all that.

I don't recall if we seriously considered any specific others. I don't think we had a big list, then ruled them out. It's more like we accreted a few must-haves as we went along. We probably looked at the metadata for the eFiction archives that actually had ticky boxes for search (as opposed to the very low-metadata norm on many archives). But a lot of those filters would have been fandom-specific or redundant or hella vague.

One thing to keep in mind is that this was an Era of Archives, so there were fucktons of examples to look at, though only a few flavors of example since a bunch used eFiction or otherwise copied each other's design. It was possible to make some judgements about past norms on archives, not just go "Are we copying FFN or not?" A lot of fans now see fic hosting as the big three or see AO3 as the only option, but we were used to having many archives with many designs.

I know we wanted a short and manageable list of warnings, and we wanted unambiguous things that could be effectively enforced. If I'm populating my hard-coded 90s website with other people's fics, I can go through each for dubcon before I post it (not that you'd ever have warned for dubcon in the 90s). On a big fic archive, making judgement calls on vague ass categories like dubcon is a nightmare.

We did do some focus groups where other interested fans came in and critiqued our work. I can't recall how much was about our ToS wording and how much was about the actual policies. But we did workshop this shit extensively with people who were around at the time. I think many of the whiners now assume it wasn't enough of a community effort (since we didn't decide things they like). But actually, a bunch of people weighed in. Maybe elf remembers what we actually asked them. I think she was in a focus group.

[zimthandmade]

Hey! Seeing the first picture, it being their first time together, the question comes in my head if they were each others firsts? Did Matt and Mello have partners, guy or girl, before each other?

Oh sweet, you actually got my intention with that cryptic title haha

Here are some thoughts:

They absolutely were each others first same-sex partner.

Matt had crushes left and right but I can’t imagine he ever got the guts to act upon any of them.

Matt isn’t picky and is like “ass is ass”. He caught himself staring at butts before only to realise “OH that’s a guy. It’s a good butt though.”

I like to imagine Matt going into the relationship with Mello pretty inexperienced and insecure, whether or not he had a partner before and being overly conscious about virtually anything. He doesn’t want to overstep.

I generally don’t see Mello lusting after or crushing on anybody. I can see him trying things out of curiosity though. Getting with a girl who’s clearly into him just because it’s fun seeing her melt at his advances. It’s a huge ego boost to see him having an effect on people. But it’s always ending in heartbreak on her side or him feeling a numbing emptiness inside. Like he cheated on himself.

“sobbing Did you ever love me though??” “Uh NO?? Duh?? We spent one night together, Isabelle, jeez, chill the fuck out…” He’s quickly at the point of being like “bruh it’s just not worth the drama, holy shit. Wanking is much less stressful.”

So, I’m about 99% sure Mello had sex with women before he and Matt got together but never any serious relationships. Like @not-orphaned-account said, he fucks because he’s Supposed To, maybe because it feels good, but it doesn’t feel right. Matt is the first to make everything make sense.

[rationed-passion]

Supervised Masturbation

We know a number of you are interested in the concept of being supervised doing your little habit. Lace and Ginger sat down to take a frank look at why it's often necessary and answer your questions about the practice.

What is supervised masturbation?

Recognising that disrespectful thoughts and images may be used during solo masturbation, you - the subject - agrees that someone else will be present at each and every moment that you pleasure yourself. Let that sink in: you will have a responsible adult overseeing all your wanking for the immediate future.

I've been told I may need it. Why?

You have probably shown a propensity to use non-fully clothed images or otherwise disrespectful materials when masturbating. Or you might have shown boorish, misogynistic attitudes in your conversations. It's important not to over analyse the why, but look at what positive things you can take from this oversight by a more responsible adult.

I'm really embarrassed that I have to be supervised.

That's perfectly understandable. And the subject is encouraged to show regret for any actions that have led to this sanction. A little embarrassment will do you no harm. But it's also important to realise that being supervised has proven to be a very reliable way of conditioning the subject into fully clothed denial.

Who will supervise me?

Given the intimate nature of the act we recommend you ask your significant other to supervise you.

What will happen during a supervised masturbation session?

The lady* concerned will be in the room with you, fully clothed and sitting or standing a short distance from your naked self. You will be encouraged to get comfortable and have your respectful materials to hand (photographs, magazines or computing device) and select the imagery you will be pleasuring to. This will be vetted by your supervisor and providing it is appropriate you will then be encouraged to do your thing. Conversation is fine but we generally advise against doing too much talking. As she deems necessary, the supervisor may remind the subject what they should focus on and why they are in this situation. [*the supervisor can, of course be male, non-binary or other genders. It's just we're all ladies here]

How long will I have to be supervised for my self-pleasure?

A post-orgasm conversation is encouraged, where you should share your thoughts, concerns and any future sexual aspirations. How long supervision is necessary will be at the absolute discretion of the supervising lady. Though she will likely take your opinions into consideration, her judgement is final.

How can I get somebody to supervise me? Can you ladies supervise me?

As we said earlier, we strongly recommend you get your significant other to supervise you. If you are currently single we suggest using your imagination (always a fertile ground) envisaging perhaps one of our staff as your virtual supervisor. Please understand though, we do not provide actual supervision either through asks, chat or any other forum.

I find the whole idea a massive turn-on. Is that normal?

Well it's not really normal is it? But who wants to be normal? You're already a very special individual for wanting to be put into fully clothed denial. It's hardly surprising you're now getting excited at the prospect of this further intrusion into your most private act. But we suspect if you've read this far you are pretty much committed, and we hope you'll be very happy in your newly Rationed Passion.

[divinekangaroo]

Thanks @palmviolet for tagging me!

How many works do you have on AO3? 154

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 900k

3. What fandoms do you write for? Peaky Blinders, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Age II, The Professionals.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Interesting and not straightforward question: I've been writing since 2007 and only rebooted my fics to AO3 in 2023. I backdated them to time of writing rather than posting live into the current update stream. I was vaguely curious to see what *actually* attracts readers through the AO3 search engine. So, my current top five are all Peaky Blinders Tommy/Lizzie fics, and given my small followers list, everyone following me will probably already have read them!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do, and it’s my vain (both senses of the term) struggle with how to do it appropriately. I am conscious of how comments, particularly on an AO3 "archival" fic, can weight a reader's further interpretation/engagement of or with fic by that author, and that I'll never put so much time into comments as I do into fic.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The fics I thought of picking for these two pretty much overlapped. Perhaps this shows just how I approach happiness – it’s moments, it’s never an ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Only old Dragon Age fics. Interesting period of time where any fic author that didn't unequivocally support the moral rightness of one particular character's opinions was targeted. Like: ok to write torture/rape fics of this character, but only if it was clear the author thought this character was morally right. Such a destructive troll.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I'll write sex, mostly as part of a larger arc rather than standalone smut; often it is a partial scenario rather than linear start-to-end event written in a rhythm to support a coherent wanking rise-to-climax read. I'm pleased if people find it pushes their buttons, but I'm also not bothered if it doesn't. I do approach smut as one of many possible lenses or frames for a character, however, so smut that detaches from character confuses me.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Sometimes but they have to feel really right. I think I tend more to fusion or pastiche (I think those are the terms?) rather than crossover: I take a particular character concept/theme and port them into a particular environmental context which is not possible in the canon to see what happens. The only one I still have up is a FFXII/Dragonriders of Pern fic (incomplete) which was going to be all about the horrible knowledge of socially accepted and endorsed ritualised rape and forced feminisation of a character.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I'm not that popular to notice.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have a memory of one in FFXII but can't recall.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Taught me a lot, including the kind of writer I am - difficult to collaborate as my push to complete within a motivational urge period will always be greater than a long-haul effort, and I struggle to be available for other people. I’m either good at the front end ideas-generation, or a micro detail ‘write this particular thing/scene and fill it with goodness’, and not very good at the middle bit – the long slot of planning and plotting and aiming for consistency etc. I am so grateful fandom exists to support non-traditional prose formats which let me play with writing and thinking and engagement without needing to produce to book-style production standards.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? I usually fixate on a character, and pairings allow means to explore that character rather than being an end game.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Oh they all carry this potential. *cries* The issue for me is loss of motivational drive/thinking; because I rarely have good structural notes etc if I lose my immediate thread of 'thinking of everything all at once' I find it hard to pick up again later. I also stop some fics because I realise how ambitious the scope really is, and I feel like I can’t do them justice.

16. What are your writing strengths? Speed-sketcher? Completionist? Tests multiple ideas rapidly and freely and never worries about something 'being wrong' because there's always another fic to try? Intuitive gut level hits on characterisation here and there?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Editing, pacing, I can't sustain long fic, I frequently move characters around like paper dolls for the sake of the cool and forget they need their own internal motivation.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I prefer the kind of cant-based/dialect-based approach which splices non-English terms fluidly into English dialogue, mostly because as a child of many migrants this has been my world experience. I do suck at writing this, hence my frequent use of cop-outs to say 'language shift here, meanwhile still writing in English'. But when it’s done well it hits so many of my sweet spots.

19. First fandom you wrote for? FFVII.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Anything in my Personal Favourites list: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3728710. (I'm still too close to Peaky Blinders to pick a fav, it'll take about five years of distance!)

[virtualcarrot]

Ok, I need to get this off my chest because it's a double standard in terms of character analysis that has been bugging me.

The general zeitgeist in the Naruto fandom (afaik) is:

Obito was a misunderstood and wounded tragic figure who caused mass destruction out of understandable trauma

Hiruzen was a despicable neglectful ruler who let Konoha's orphans fend for themselves and ordered the gratuitous slaughter of a whole clan

One caused the definitive death of hundreds of thousands of people in the search of an ideal

The other caused an unspecified but lesser amount of deaths in hope of a greater good

Both are definitely questionable.

Hiruzen is a former teen soldier burnt out by war, which made him weak-willed and unwilling to take moral stances out of fear of the risks incurred. His compromising lead to Hyuga Hizashi's sacrifice, and there were probably better ways of dealing with the coup the Uchiha were planning than killing them all (but make no mistake there definitely was a coup, the Uchiha massacre wasn't undertaken for the lolz). He's also left Danzo and Orochimaru running around doing their nonsense, which, really my dude? Really? Come on.

So yeah, not your garden variety nice old grandpa after all.

For his part, Obito was a child in great pain groomed by a completely unhinged demigod of a man into an adult of great resentment. Between the Kyubi attack, the Uchiha massacre, the Akatsuki's actions and the Ninja War, he caused numerous deaths and destruction. And I mean numerous. The death toll of the shinobi war is something I really don't see discussed enough, which is probably why it gets so easily swept aside in the face of his own personal tragedy.

And it baffles me, the hostility with which people will talk about Hiruzen in their very serious metas and his place in the Uchiha massacre like it's some form of hate-prompted slaughter he orchestrated and not a (bloody and questionable) reaction to an opposing political force trying to take over Konoha. While comparatively being so apologetic of Obito's actions who very much participated to that same massacre.

It's a strange thing, to criticize the shinobi system and yet refuse to acknowledge that this very system has a hold on everyone, not just singled out faves.

I don't particularly like Hiruzen. As a fanfic writer, he has his place and uses to me because of his own ties to the characters I'm interested in writing about. But he's not likeable to me.

I don't really like Obito either, but I'll also admit part of that dislike would be more neutral if he wasn't key player in my most hated arc of Naruto, and if fandom was more normal about him, so that's on me.

I just think it's kind of a shame to make one character some sort of scapegoat, and another a tragic antihero failed by the system, and deny the connections between them all, and the fact they were all, ultimately, failed by that system. We lose nuance there, which is sad because nuance is where analysis flourishes.

(And also this is how you get people calling the Uchiha massacre a genocide and my dudes I am trying very hard not to fandom wank, but you guys are terrible for my blood pressure)

[sexhaver]

Even regardless of the ableism n "artistic value" and whatnot, you have to admit that AI image generation — because it is certainly not art, it is the literal generation of an image as prompted by a user but i digress — is a bit wanky ngl. Like it's not inherently good or bad, but it is just at the end of the day a bit wank, especially to argue about it. Like why does anyone care? Its just shite image done by a computer and some tech fans typing in image prompts.

im actually impressed that you managed to both beg the question ("it certainly is not art" right at the beginning) AND demonstrate a complete lack of imagination ("technology that converts text to comprehensible images in seconds and it's only getting better over time? sounds like a dumb fad"). throw in an ad-hominem attack about how im just a tech bro shill next time for the full trifecta

[variousqueerthings]

something about asexuality that is underappreciated is its potential to recontextualise -- this is true of queer reads + disabled reads generally, but asexuality is very much still widely in a space considered unworthy of looking at closer, because for many people it simply represents “not doing anything.” 

this also embedded in irl acephobic wank that claims it’s “not as queer” as other kinds of queerness, because again, all that is perceived is a surface-level idea that as it is apparently just “not having sex,” that must mean it is at odds with liberatory queer sexual theory/practice 

and so what does this apparent “not doing anything” have to say about our fictional reads? what does it say about desires for closeness, lack of language or gain of language, what does it say about characters who have never had sex, or about characters who have? what does it say about (lack of) agency and consent? about desire? how does it play into bdsm and kink? into concepts of sexiness and attractiveness (both wanting or not wanting to be perceived as such and perceiving or not perceiving of others as such)? into bodies and our relationships with them? how does it recontexualise characters goals or lack of goals for life? how does it put them at odds with social expectations for them in the times/stories they exist in? 

and once one starts asking actual curious questions, one can easily see that a character being read as -- or, hell being, if we’re so lucky -- asexual, is potentially doing a heck of a lot! 

[forestshadow-wolf]

Unplanned part 3 final part || Part 2

It was a while later, when the sun had moved to shine into soap's eyes through the window, that simon prompted them into moving. Or rather his stomach did.

Soap lifts himself up, his knee cracks, simon laughs at him. He's about to step away to give simon some room to get up himself.

"Uhh.. Johnny? Could you uh- give me a hand?" Simon's still sat on the floor, facing him. Soap puts a hand out dor him to grab, and simon grunts with the effort of getting his legs underneath himself. Well, legs was a generous statement. He kept his weight on one leg and used the other to stabilize.

"So what's the damage?" He asked once simon was firmly leaned against the wall.

"Might be easier for you to just read it." Simon limped heavily toward a stack of papers on the kitchen island. Soap's isn't afraid to say the sight made him panic just a bit.

"Woah! Hey, should you even be walking right now? It doesn't look like you should be walking!" Soap rushed to his side. Simon just handed him the papers in lieu of answering.

"Jesus, Si, you really shouldn't be walkin' around," soap leased a breath. " puncture wound under the clavical, torn deltoid- shouldn't you be wearing a sling for that?" Simon gave a noncommittal shrug with his good shoulder. "Five broken, and nine fractured ribs, torn abdominal wall, internal bleeding, surgery to remove shrapnel in the thigh, and a fractured knee cap- you got crutch or something for that?

"Yes, I'm wearing a splint, mister "it probably isn't even that bad, and now I need a knee brace"" simon rolled his eyes.

"Well excuse me for trying to save you from also having a wank knee." Soap grumbled. "Where's your crutch, 'cus I know they didn't leave you without a crutch." Simon stayed silent. "Simon." Soap scowled at him.

"Left it upstairs." Simon mumbled.

"Simon!" Soap scolded him with a frown.

"Whaaat? It gets in the way!" He whined, childishly.

Soap pushed simon to sit down with an exasperated huff, before running to grab the crutch. Simon was still pouting when he returned. Soap chuckles as he sets the crutch down.

"Actually use is." He says sternly. And then simon is pushing himself up off the couch, crutch in hand. And Simon's response to soap's questioning is truely brilliant...

"I'm using the crutch like you asked. I'm hungry." It looks like he would have stamped his foot as well if he could've. Soap urges him back down, promising to finish making his food for him.

Once simon is settled, ans all of soap's things are put away, they snuggle together on the couch and watch whatever shitty movie they want.

And at the end of the night soap carries simon bridal style up the stairs. Simon ends up stretched out on his back, with soap's head resting over his heart, tracing idle shapes on his belly. And they fall asleep wrapped up in eachother's arms.

[olderthannetfic]

I have a question. I’m new to the discourse around fanfiction & censorship, so I was curious about what the general consensus regarding fic about underaged characters in live action media was. Underage is my biggest squick, but I feel pretty neutral about how people write/draw smut of cartoon characters, as they barely register as human for me. Characters played by actual child actors though… I guess I’m just wondering what’s going through the heads of people who write that stuff? Or minor rpf for that matter. What is appealing about it? I’m willing suspend my disbelief & accept that they don’t actually want to abuse kids, but like, what is fulfilling about that fantasy? I’m not in favor of censorship or arresting anyone over a fictional story, but I just can’t wrap my head around it.

--

That's quite a failure of imagination there, anon.

Other people are not you, and they don't necessarily have this squick. That's the main answer.

From people who don't try to problematize this, there isn't really any discourse. Fiction is fiction.

Cartoon characters register as people to plenty of viewers. (And moron antis think cartoon characters count just as much as live action ones when it comes to screaming about problematicness.) Actors playing teenagers are often in their 20s. Coming of age novels dealing with sexuality have been normal all over the world since forever.

--

But let's start with some low hanging fruit:

If you're 17 years + 364 days, you're below the age of consent lots of places. Do you, anon, honestly think it's weird to be into someone one day before their 18th birthday but not the day after? What if you live somewhere where the age of consent is 16? Is it still weird to be into 17-year-olds from places where the age of consent is 18?

Most people remember being teenagers. They may feel nostalgic. They may want to imagine the nice teenage experiences they never got to have.

Lots of fic writers are currently teenagers. Not as many as ageist online spaces think, but still quite a lot. Is it weirder for a 15-year-old to have a crush on a 15-year-old than a 40-year-old?

"They looked 18, Your Honor" is a weak-ass excuse for fucking underage people in real life, but that's not the same as finding characters on your tv hot. Not only are the actors usually above 18 because filming underage actors is a fucking nightmare logistically due to work constraints, but a lot of younger actors are often made up in ways that make them look like they could be way older. People also vary widely in how they look at various ages.

If you can accept that lust exists and is valid, you can accept that lots of people will see some teen and think they're hot. There isn't some specific categorical difference in how all teenagers look and how all 20-somethings look.

Doing something about it in real life and doing something about it in fiction are different.

--

Now, as for "child actors", that term is used for a wide variety of ages, but let's assume you mean Stranger Things wank, like most people moaning about underage actor RPF do, so we're talking about tweens who genuinely do look pretty young to grown-ass adults.

The first thing I have to ask you is why the fuck you would imagine that writers identify with some adult fucking these kids? It's far, far more likely that they identify with the characters themselves or the actors.

Why would they identify with them? It could be anything from working through their own trauma at a similar age to just liking the vibe of a character because of how the show is written.

Lots of people's brains barf out dark scenarios 24/7 without them ever having experienced any major trauma and without it meaning anything much. Some people channel that into fiction.

If you are a boring person who has both a vanilla brain and no imagination, this might seem surprising to you, but it shouldn't.

--

Moreover, your ask implies that underage fic is highly sexual or maybe coercive or something, but you haven't actually stated that. Are we talking about rapefic of 5-year-olds or about someone writing the Stranger Things characters holding hands?

Are you just not sexual at all, anon? Personally, I went from zero to MEGA HORNY at thirteen and a half. It was like a switch flipped. Sure, I wasn't getting any action because I was a zit-covered and socially incompetent 13-year-old, but I was definitely interested.

It's not strange that an artist or author of whatever sort would explore puberty in their art. It's not strange that they'd remember their own sexual awakening or that this awakening would be long before age 18.

It's also not strange if people write super dark shit about small children because it being extreme and taboo and horrible is often the point of art.

--

You're "willing to suspend disbelief"? How magnanimous! How generous!

Seriously, anon?!

The way you've phrased this question makes it sound like you have a brain the size of a walnut.

Would you ask such a stupid question in such an offensively loaded manner about all the coming of age novels that are considered Great Literature™? Would you ask why YA exists?

And if you wouldn't, why is it that amateur writing by women and sexual minorities makes you nervous when mainstream-approved things don't?

[in-omni-scientia]

Do you blue skills have specific activities to bond with each other? Other than arguing.

Of course we do, what sort of a question IS this? You've practically only seen our arguments -- we have plenty of other ways to get along, and *do*. Let's see here...

Personally, I can enjoy a nice, fun game of Scrabble with others here. The only issue is, Conceptualization tends to try to make up their own words to use. Then, when I try to tell them that the words have to be *in the dictionary*, Rhetoric comes in and starts using my own prattling on the roots of different parts of whatever word Conceptualization made up to try and say they'd be *justified*. It always turns into a big argument and honestly I'm just not prepared for that sort of thing. I'd rather play with Empathy; he's always a good games partner to me. Also, I think Drama ate most of the pieces, so we can't play anymore because of that, too. I am very annoyed about that.

Mh. Okay, maybe that one wasn't a great example to start off with. How about this one? Conceptualization and Drama actually had a little thing going briefly where they would organise plays together! Occasionally got me and Visual Calculus involved as well for some extra hands; I could talk at length about ideas for set pieces, Visual Calculus organising the lights... it was fun. Anyways, that didn't last though since they separated due to. Ah. "Creative differences". I understand it was a rather explosive argument, from what I gathered talking to them. When I consulted Conceptualization on the matter, he responded, and I quote: "That intransigent vexing little self-wank-fest of a fucking ball of gloop can't even *hold* a pen let alone understand the nuanced symbolism inherent to all media, they don't even fucking understand basic media literacy God help us all, their ability to write romance is surface-level at best and[...]". You can only imagine how long that continued on for. Anyways, when I asked Drama, all they did was think for a moment before allowing a wry smile to ripple over a great many of their faces, and saying: "Their writing was sub-par and their costuming was ill-fitting". So.

...Aaaalright, not *that* one either. Here, something much simpler, then. I can enjoy a good crossword every now and then, and Logic a Kakuro puzzle (though he much prefers Heyawake and Killer Sudoku), so he suggested collaborating on a neat step up from these, the cross-figure. Well, we *attempted* to collaborate -- I found myself only useful on general knowledge questions, which did not appear often as they are considered beginner, and Logic found beginner puzzles far too easy. So then we tried cryptic crosswords, which I did not find myself very useful in either, since while I may possess plenty of knowledge I don't have the logical capabilities to know when a clue could be referring to that. Then we hopped around cipher and fill-in crosswords, which turned out even *worse*. It culminated in a minor dispute between us where I claimed Logic was only prioritizing his *own* fun, which he argued to be untrue. Not really a fault on his part, in hindsight, and only heated on *my* end as a result of my own feeling of inefficacy... ultimately we agreed to be contented with doing our own puzzles, for now. (Well, aside from Heyawake. I'm *smashing* Heyawake.) Now it's mostly just Visual Calculus arguing with Logic to let *him* do the Kakuro in the fortnightly logic puzzle magazine for once.

Huh. Well, this one's *bound* to be a good example. At one point, Conceptualization was making little locked-room-style mysteries for Logic and Visual Calculus to solve. Full-size rooms they could walk around in -- it was quite impressive to watch them work. Didn't ever take them too long to solve them, but still. It was nice seeing something Conceptualization had asked me about crop up there. *Then* they started writing little honkaku-style mysteries for them, too, to see how fast they could figure out the solution to the crime before the end of the story. By my recommendation, obviously; I thought they would appreciate the rational, chess-like approach to mystery, compared to thriller novels which may not adhere to Van Dine's Commandments as strictly. Conceptualization appreciated it, too; "none of that hard-boiled crap, it's all shit" they said. I think they liked the digressions into criticism of the detective genre as a whole and fourth-wall breaking; Logic liked *all* the pieces being perfectly available and within grasp for a shrewd reader, Visual Calculus liked the heavy use of diagrams and such. Whenever Conceptualization didn't turn one of these diagrams into a three-dimensional playset, Visual Calculus was doing that. Anyways, the dear art snob never could quite seem to get the upper hand in their writing -- the pair were *unstoppable* in their natural disposal towards ratiocination. That is, until it started to get... rather strange. More and more the story would divagate into long-winded social commentary that served no purpose for the narrative (*not* a hallmark of honkaku, mind you), would make the solution increasingly convoluted (Rube Goldberg-type machines aren't out of place in honkaku, but they were getting quite far beyond the reasonable suspension of disbelief for a story within the detective genre), introduce irrational narrative elements such as supernatural phenomena (*also* not a hallmark of honkaku, though can and does crop up in shin honkaku -- I regret convincing the pair to continue giving Conceptualization a chance. The opportunity to grant them knowledge was not worth it, in the end. Come to think of it, that's happened *more* than once, hasn't it? Thinking back to the Moray Eel Incident... mmh). And, well, in hindsight it was an inevitability... but it all came to a boiling point when one such mystery, giving Logic and Visual Calculus quite a lot of grief, concluded *not* with a proper solution, but with a plain metaphor for-- love or capitalism or something ridiculous like that, I don't try to actively remember. The ensuing argument somehow had Logic and Visual Calculus turning against one another, too, despite the fact they were both on the *same side*. Probably had something to do with Drama being their throwing stones, as per usual. And Rhetoric, arguing whatever side they thought would inflame everyone else the most. Also, I was there too. Also, I was turning against Logic and Visual Calculus despite being on *their* side as well. Also, it was Drama and Rhetoric's fault as well. Damn those two. Embarrassing for me... anyways, we're not allowed to write our own mysteries anymore because Harry nearly had a stroke and died.

...

Ah. Maybe *quite a lot* of our pastimes do involve arguing after all.

Perhaps I should stick to who I have already established myself as being able to get along with...

[esta-elavaris]

Been getting a few instances lately of some very snotty reviewers on HWFG across the different sites being all "waaaah you're using memory loss as a way to avoid answering questions//an easy hand-wave explanation about the OC!!!"

And uh? Wrong.

It's integral to the plot, it's a set-up for things to come rather than just a device for pointless angst, and it's very hysterically bold to assume that she won't get her memories back a significant stretch of time before the story is over. Which means we then get to deal with a character having to grapple with the combining of the person they've been for the last ten years, and the person they were - that they can now remember - before their memories were cut off. Which? Is arguably going to be way harder to pull off satisfyingly than if she'd been fully aware of everything this whole time?

And it's also because I literally just wrote a modern girl! story without the memory loss aspect and the amnesia adds a new twist for the folk who followed on from that, so they weren't just reading Catch the Wind 2.0.

As a rule I generally ignore wank in the comment section of any fic, but it's just? So weird to see such bad faith engagement in a fandom space? Like why go into it instantly assuming the writer doesn't know what they're doing, and is making a decision out of laziness rather than "oh man I know how I can turn this into a really good story"?

I'd even get it from a constructive criticism standpoint of like "just a heads up, this can look lazy at times, so I hope you have some sort of pay-off planned for this trope!" - I got a lot of that kind of stuff on CTW and I was so happy to see it, because it helped me get an idea of what people wanted to see more of, and that really helped make that story good, but in this case it's always stated in the most condescending way...and on anon accounts, so we can't all go marvel at their masterpieces, which says it all.

It is what it is, though! And the loveliness far outweighs the snide assholes 💜

[copperbadge]

you might have answered this somewhere before, but what's the story behind calling it radio free monday?

Oh, the question comes up every few years but if I can't find the old answers to it on tumblr I don't expect anyone else to :D

Radio Free Monday was created in response to a very old wank about fandom fundraisers; prior to roughly 2005, it wasn't the acceptable and common occurrence it is today. I was asked to publicize some fundraisers and I did so, but (as happens with popular blogs) that started a spiral where every time I posted one, I got requests to post three more. It wasn't just that I could reach a largeish audience within fandom, but also that my posting fundraisers gave them a kind of weight, legitimizing both the need and the ask. The dilemma became how to share all these fundraising posts while not becoming a fundraising-post blog, which would lower my readership and thus get those donation requests to fewer people. So I decided to do a once-weekly links roundup.

I decided since I was going to be posting on Mondays I would call it Radio Free Monday; I used the Radio Free title mostly on a whim, because I thought it sounded cool. "Radio Free" is actually primarily a term for a propaganda tool; the CIA began setting up "Radio Free [country]" all over the world so that they would have a broadcast presence in countries of "special interest" to the US intelligence apparatus. You can get an idea of the history at the Radio Free Europe article here.

It's had some evolutions since then; until I introduced the form, people would just comment on a post or email me, and I had to keep all the requests together and make sure I had all the data. The form allows me to weed out fakers (they generally won't bother filling out a form, even a very simple one that doesn't capture any information involuntarily), make sure I always get the pronouns right, and ensure that I never have to go chasing down a URL. I still code it all by hand, but because I have a spreadsheet, the coding has gone down from "roughly two hours on Sunday night" to "roughly forty minutes on Monday morning".

(Funny story: since instituting the form in 2014, the fact that I ask for pronouns and include they/them as an option has led to two nonbinary awakenings and one trans coming-out that I'm aware of.)

So yeah -- mostly "it sounded cool" combined with "seemed kinda apt" :D

[thetentaclecommander]

20 questions for fic writers

Sures, I'll bite @the-bar-sinister!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 49 on my TheTentacleCommander main 2 on SerpentineAndWet 1 on SoftTentacledJazz (which I will get back to!) and 1 on Waymaiden Jelecia (shelved for now) so in total: 53

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?  471,114 in total spanning all accounts the huge bulk being under TTC.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Resident Evil. I'm very much a ride or die writer when it comes to fandom longevity lol

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Electronic Brawling (the Nem/Reader fic I wrote over a weekend, 322) Tentacles Are -Not- Toys (Until They Are) (the Nem/Jill I wrote over a weekend, 288) To Teach a (b)oy (the femdom Jill/Nem fic I wrote cause I wanted to just be as kinky as possible about it, 138) Need. Excite. Take. (a morning warm up I did for a Tyrantfucker chat, 130) Teaching the Devil (my 'serious' drabble that turned into a longfic/1st part of a myth arc around Nem/Jill and all the whatifs that could happen, 105) *yes, I'm aware the smut is what sells lol*

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! I love receiving them and answer, especially in depth ones.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Ah, ha haha this one's tough. My main ship (Nemesis/Jill) is in my hands intentionally angsty so many do end on that note. If I had to chose it'd be a tie between After The Fall - Where Nemesis *really* struggles between caring for her and wanting to hurt the absolute fuck out of her. Necromancy - It's hard surreal/dreamy on purpose (also a fic staple of mine) that ends with Nemesis having done all he has to make Jill 'happy' is so deeply unhappy with himself in the end - but still continues to perpetuate the lotus eater world he's crafted for them.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?  Where the wild things... - a really hard surreal dream fic of where Nemmy's head was at halfway through the 3rd arc. He has such an idealized, near childlike hope which is big for a generally angry and resentful creature. He clearly wants the world with Jill, where the chase benefits them both but a lot of the edges - like her own traumas - are shaved off. It's telling his dream was inspired by a children's book about dealing with anger, fear and finding/seeking comfort. But it's happy in the sense he gets that comfort he wanted so badly throughout his creation, and that when he awakens, it's with him now determined to reunite with her and their offspring. (con't after the cut)

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really? When I was on ff.net I got snippy comments (I was a young babby then) but looking back it was just what we'd call today fanpol wanking to wank. These days I assume ppl are aware what I'm about so if I were to garner hate, I'd just laugh and write Nemmy fucking Jill even harder in unfortunate places. I can always go darker, kids.

9. Do you write smut? *stares at the camera deeply* Yesss? All the smut? They tend to range from soft heartwarming lovemaking, to conflicted should we be doing this, to rapey horrors, just weird monstery shit and then the kink. Just kinky shit all over the place. Very character study leaning.

10. Do you write crossovers?  Nah. I already have a lot in my head just handling one franchise!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?  Not to my knowledge but with the way I write it's gunna be a pretty fun time in pulling off imitating my voice as I sound high on my own fumes about a decidedly rare pair no one seems to wanna admit liking rofl That and all the formatting hell

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?  Yea! In Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?  Nah, I'm too much of a prima donna to share billing /jk I just don't like collabing unless it's for an rp but I'm also never say never about such things!

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? *stares even harder at the camera* I...I'm the longest running one trick pony about having a parasitized Tyrant try to not murder with prejudice the most well trained person on the RE cast I make no secret about this :3 Also let me note my other most liked ships I have written on: Weskertine, Creva, and the Ada and Carlos tour. Valenfield ig (I do truly like em but they aren't as exciting to write for in comparison but I indeed do write them sometimes). Note these are for canons, I have loads more favs but they are ocs.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I have like 15+ wips in my drafts. I don't wanna pick one cause it's just painful to look at them begging to be finished. The ones on my account I have every intent to finish. Mostly because they are related to the AU and it wouldn't make sense if I didn't finish them.

16. What are your writing strengths? The sex lol (and being weird with it). I've been told my imagery and word play in general is stellar.  

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I feel my dialogue could be better and it's where I struggle (unless it's my muses Nem, Jill, Trent and Zeus as they are the ones I've written for the most in fic/rps) so I always try to improve on that always.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Don't wanna. I tried, hated not knowing if the language was correct (looking at you, Carlos) so just did ye old << >> to imply he's not speaking English.

19. First fandom you wrote for?  Resident Evil. I am nothing if not persistent. (like my first fic was like in 2005-6? I think?)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?  Again another tie but it's a 3 way *eyebrow wiggle*! A Slumber Recalled, A Devil Held - this was my 'can I do something soft but pained at the same time' fic. It's a revisit of the time they finally after 20+ chapters did the do, and it's from her pov instead. A lot of re contextualizing and 'wow both of these people have baggage and are doing this not out of love but to feel heard and it *hurts*'. Proved to myself that I can write something hard hitting without a single cry of physical pain. St. Valentine - where what was to be a simple Valentine's Day fic became a fun sacrilegious love poem from a very not at all obsessive Tyrant and then had an added chapter of the reverse side of Jill sounding mentally not all there almost fragmented in her feelings towards what this was between them. So much enjoyable word play was had. Necromancy - discussed above but has my brand of word play, leaning on the fourth wall/formatting/surreal and increasing uncomfortable.

------- All my writer mutes, have at! @damadisangue @naerwenia @coiled-dragon @s-dei @lmshady @azulas-daddy-kink @depraveddove @unchartedperils @sweet7simple @goth-automaton @dekujin @katophoenix (If I missed one of ya or you do write also join in :D)

[witchofthesouls]

Okay, but what if a Decepticon sparked up an Autobot or vice versa? Whether Decepticon!s/o or Autobot!s/o, I just want to hear your thoughts on the general shenanigans that would follow

I'm so torn about this one because it has Thundercracker's SO in the Autobot hands series written all over it. It has so many shenanigans in it.

Thundercracker with a Con!SO (it's a starting point)

Wankformers with Optimus guilty wank over Ratchet's high-priority patient since the Matrix is starting to focus on the TC's SO's carriage

Con!carrier went into heat inside the Ark's walls and Jazz hunting them

Context on why Con!carrier is an Autobot "guest"

General shenanigans after Con!carrier got shoved into Optimus' hab

Optimus having some one-on-one time with a newspark Seeker

Optimus contemplating the Matrix's influences and its weird preferences

A short reunion between SO and TC as he recovers from Quintessons

The Matrix has babies. The Matrix wants more babies. So, of course, it will take advantage of the only carrier that's ripe for the picking in its Prime's direct vicinity. (Insert It's free real estate meme on Matrix's quest to increase bitty presence after 4 million+ years of inactivity. ) It has no shame whatsoever to whisper or directly exert its influence. If it could laugh, it would crackle like a 90s evil anime girl at a mere baffle being enough to stop its almighty power.

I swear to Primus it will end up with an armistice because of all the sparklings with Elita and Megatron kicking each other's afts during family movie nights, while Starscream heckles at both as all the kids climb on Optimus, you, and Thundercracker. Skywarp is knocked out by all the good contraband booze since he handled the sugar rush.

OR, I raise you a new G1 scenario for more ridiculous shenanigans: Undercover!Jazz, aka Ricochet, with Con!Booty call that got sparked prior to the crash, gets caught by the Autobots, and completely denies that Jazz-is-Ricochet and truly believes they are split-spark twins. You're so firm with that false belief that it gets to the point that others actually question if Jazz does have a brother since he can't exactly prove, nor disprove without burning his covers.

It would explain some of his quirks, goes the rumor mill. Jazz is beyond frustrated and honestly impressed by the sheer gall. Ratchet is frothing at your refusal to budge out of the cell. And you would like to return to your cold berth on the dilapidated warship under the sea.

[saintsenara]

Just for argument's sake, what's a sibling incest ship in hp that you think /could/ be compelling?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

it's certainly an interesting question - which i've popped the answer to below the cut, not only because it's about sibling incest, a trigger warning in and of itself, but because it also discusses physical and sexual abuse.

in the response which inspired this ask, i said that it seems to me that the reason why people ship sibling pairings is primarily because they find the taboo engaging - and "engaging" here can refer to anything on a spectrum from "mildly interesting" to "hot".

and i have no moral objection to this in a fictional context. many of the best books i've ever read - the secret history and ada or ardor chief among them - have sibling incest, and sibling incest which is presented specifically as romantic, as a prominent theme. i've also [like any other millennial with too much time on their hands] seen game of thrones...

but in fanfiction, while i understand the fun of a taboo fantasy in which siblings hook up in an imaginary setting where nobody is getting hurt, i find this quite uninteresting. by which i mean, i don't vibe with the fact that the standard presentation of sibling incest is as something that everyone involved is broadly fine with.

and i think the reason for this is that it ends up being woven - a lot of the time - into the fanon which has sprung up around "pureblood culture", which presents aristocracy as something dark and sexy, the class system as something it's legitimately important to maintain, and notions that pureblood families are genuinely special [i.e. that they have certain "family magics"].

a lot of the time, sibling incest pairings - and parent/child ones - are situated within this context: that it is natural for someone who is special by virtue of their birth to think that the only person worthy of their attention is their own blood relative.

i'm on the record as finding this aristocracy wank uninteresting in general - and so i find it uninteresting in this specific form as well. and it's why i don't vibe with pairings like sirius/regulus or bellatrix/narcissa - they are typically written as making perfect sense.

what I think would be compelling, however, is an approach to such pairings which takes a view of sibling incest closer to our real-world understanding of the phenomenon. not as something which is taboo in a naughty, forbidden way - but as something which is corrosive, almost certainly abusive, and highly like to be accompanied by other forms of violence.

which is to say... there is a sibling incest pairing actually implied in the canon text who i think are fascinating to explore: morfin and merope gaunt.

the gaunts’ extreme incestuousness is played for laughs in half-blood prince:

“Marvolo, his son, Morfin, and his daughter, Merope, were the last of the Gaunts, a very ancient Wizarding family noted for a vein of instability and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins. Lack of sense coupled with a great liking for grandeur meant that the family gold was squandered several generations before Marvolo was born. He, as you saw, was left in squalor and poverty, with a very nasty temper, a fantastic amount of arrogance and pride, and a couple of family heirlooms that he treasured just as much as his son, and rather more than his daughter.”

this alludes to common jokes in britain about how inbred the aristocracy are. it also winks conspiratorially at the reader about the irony of a family which considers itself to be of such “pure” blood living in filth and fucking their own blood relations - and morfin and merope both have a birth defect associated with inbreeding [exotropia, eyes which stare in different directions] which serves as a visual metaphor for the gaunts' hubristic decline, in that it is written as making them look ugly, simple-minded, and poor.

but there is also a subtext here - in the way that dumbledore talks about the family's increasing isolation from the rest of the world -that the gaunts' incestuousness is narrowing from first cousins to siblings.

[indeed, i always wonder if we're supposed to imagine that morfin and merope's - presumably - dead mother was marvolo's sister, and that's why the siblings have this birth defect while marvolo does not...]

the three gaunts do not appear to go anywhere or know anyone, and morfin and merope evidently did not attend hogwarts. this isolation - especially when coupled with their appearances, since many of the pureblood families we meet in canon are described as being good-looking, and their finances - means that neither child has any hope on the upper-class marriage-market.

but the way that both morfin and marvolo talk to and about merope - especially the way morfin taunts his sister about tom riddle sr. - suggests that this doesn't matter, since morfin and merope will be keeping it in the family...

“‘Darling,’” whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. “‘Darling,’ he called her. So he wouldn’t have you anyway.” Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint. “What’s that?” said Gaunt sharply, also in Parseltongue, looking from his son to his daughter. “She likes looking at that Muggle,” said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. “Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn’t she? And last night - ”  Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, “Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn’t she?”  “Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?” said Gaunt quietly. All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping. “Is it true?” said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. “My daughter - pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin - hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?”  Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak.  “But I got him, Father” cackled Morfin. “I got him as he went by and he didn’t look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?”

morfin's hatred of tom riddle sr. is obviously driven by his blood-supremacist beliefs. but it is also transparently sexual - he loathes the idea that riddle might "have" merope, he attacks riddle in response to his sister's unrestrained display of romantic/sexual interest in a man who is not him, and he delights in the knowledge that hurting riddle [and telling his father why he did so] will only secure his power over merope.

indeed, merope is "defeated" by marvolo - dejected and broken in his presence and by his violence - but the only person of whom she is "terrified" is morfin.

merope is also treated - as dumbledore says - as little more than an heirloom. she is the conduit for slytherin's blood - and she is, therefore, the person who is the primary victim of her father's desire to keep this bloodline pure. with no other candidate on the horizon, if this pure bloodline is to continue... then it is because she will be forced to bear children for morfin, extending the cycle of abject poverty and pain which defines the decaying last generations of slytherin's line.

and this raises questions which i think are genuinely compelling, both within the canon timeline and outside of it. what understanding of consent and bodily autonomy can merope have, and how does this play into her rape of tom riddle sr.? what happens if merope doesn't escape - if morfin gets away without prison time and returns to the shack? what happens to her and her baby if - when riddle sr. flees her - she is forced to come home? what would her life have been like as a mother to her brother's children - especially if she had daughters she knew would be similarly abused? how might she have resisted - since, if she can brew a love potion, she can brew an abortifacient - if she had been trapped with morfin? what would morfin have done to tom riddle jr. if his nephew hadn't been holding a wand?

and what does the teenage voldemort make of it all? after all, he attacks his uncle, knocks him out and frames him for murder... immediately after morfin has called his mother a "slut".