#politics has to happen before emotional stuff

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay so I saw this post about dark percy (really him reaching his Limit and fighting full strength with everything he had) and I was imagining the potential fallout of that. Pretty bad, as you can guess.

The thing is a lot of percys strongest moments happen out of view of the olympians, especially in hoo. The hurricane atop the glacier in alaska, the poison scene in tartarus, bending the depression river and the one in the palace of nyx.

Stuff like the St Helens eruption got him washed up on an inescapable island literally removed from reality until calypso gave him the OK, the achillies curse he got tricked into losing by hera. Smaller moments, the minotaur, fighting ares, the stolen pirate ship, walking on water vs hyperion, freshwater sources, him knowing both Latin and Greek, they're more easily brushed off or at least mostly due to cunning, sword skills and sheer luck and grit.

But basically the olympians don't actually know the full extent of percys strength and divine power. They have hints - percy standing on the throne, winning against ares, his many victories - but what they aren't willing to brush aside in the heat of (an important) battle there have been pretty strong consequences for.

Heck, just look at Frank, he's no prodigy with weapons, he's polite and respectful, but his distant relation to two olympians letting him inherit shapeshifting earned him direct divine meddling and his life force tied to a hunk of half toasted firewood. Man is a honey bear with lactose intolerance and he was punished with a mythical death curse for being too strong.

If Percy's true strength came out, he would risk losing everything. His freedom, most certainly. If he wasn't straight up executed he might wind up in a Greek myth style imprisonment, the way of atlas, prometheus, calypso, or something like the myriad of ways Greek heroes met their end. Good scenario he survives a dozen curses and gets on with life with a dozen new disabilities, best case scenario he's stripped of every inch of divine power and dropped back to the mortal world, not even clear sighted. Total separation from the Greeks and Romans. Oh, annabeth would marry him either way, and his friends would hardly abandon him despite the gods wishes, but they'd hardly be able to see him, and no long range contact without the ability to IM him or vice versa.

All of that to say Percy is hiding his true strength from the gods themselves - maybe not consciously, and it's not even power he particularly wants - but if they ever find out?

It's game over.

But why is he so strong? I don't know. What I do know is that the half bloods of the books are so much stronger than the ones of myth. Used to be that divine blood would get you divine favour and a great fate whether you liked it or not. Maybe some cunning and bow skills. A spot of spell casting if you were really lucky. Achillies got his curse after he was born, Perseus had a dozen magic artifacts, orpheus had something going on but hercules is to my knowledge an outlier. Now? Everyone in camp has some special power. Flight, fire, necromancy, hypnotism, dream walking etc. However it's happening, half bloods are slowly but surely getting a lot, lot stronger every century that passes. Meta? I mean I guess. But.

What no one has done before is something that their godly parent couldn't.

Except.

Except Percy.

Except Percy, in tartarus, at his mental, emotional and physical limit, controlling poison with his mind, overpowering the goddess of poison in her home, making misery choke on misery. Feeling something in his chest crack. Doing something poseidon could not, and doing it better than the person who could.

Down there, hidden away from the gods, he evolved. For that brief moment, he did something, was something new.

And that was how the gods overthrew the titans.

And that's why they must never find out.

[myfanfic-urfantrash]

Omg I got a nickname ( ≧∀≦)ノ yippee!

(๑/////๑ " ) Food for thought, imagine these fine Alpha men courting their soon to be mate (〃ω〃)

-emoti anon (^-^)/

Emoti anon your ideas and emotes are fantastic! :D

Just Blade, Jing Yuan and Luocha this time.

Cw: omegaverse

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Blade

Met his future omega as he was escaping the IPC. He's heavily injured hiding in an alleyway a bit out of is mind when they find him on their way home from work. Normally he'd be lashing out at whoever approaches him but their scent calms him and he doesn't fight them as they patch him up. He even relaxes and tries to seek out their touch before passing out. When he wakes up hours later all he's left with is their scent and the warmth he feels from the jacket they left on him.

It really isn't hard to find out who this mysterious omega was with his connections but it is harder to find a good time to thank them for their foolish kindness. So he doesn't bother for sometime just watching and protecting them from a distance. When by chance the omega spots him from one of his hiding spots and gives him a smile he feels his heart flutter but tries to ignore it.

After this the omega actually starts leaving gifts for him first in the form of snacks and medical supplies. He returns the jacket freshly cleaned with a few snacks he's seen them buy at the store. This continues for some time of the two just giving each other snacks and him looking out for them.

He doesn't actually start giving them proper courting gifts until Kafka and Silver Wolf see just how awkward he is while trying to pick a gift. They're also the ones to suggest exchanging phone numbers since he can't always be there to watch over them.

Jing Yuan

Probably met his future omega during his time as a cloud knight when he had much more freedom to wander and interact with the public. That or it happened during one of his days off as he was wandering the streets.

He's actually subtle with his courting preferring to let his little gifts show that they're being courted by someone and that others should back off. His gifts are simple accessories like hair ribbons, bracelets and the like. When he's more serious about courting them does he start gifting them necklaces and other accessories that go on the neck. It's his way of saying this omega is claimed without out right saying it.

If the omega he's courting finally gets the hint and reciprocates his advances by gifting him little presents he's over the moon and increases his gift types. He'll start giving them clothes and nesting materials after he asks them what sort of stuff they're looking for. He might also just offer to take them to buy nesting materials as a cute date idea.

Luocha

He met his future omega during his travels when he was stuck on a planet as he waited for repairs on his ship. They weren't a merchant but loved to travel the stars. He didn't think much of them at first but he was polite and responded to their questions of his travels and listened to stories of their own.

Unfortunately for him the repairs would take longer than anticipated but at least he wasn't bored, this omega kept him rather entertained. They weren't a native there but they had stayed on that planet for sometime now that they would bring him to a new location almost every day as he waited.

At first he just went with them to be polite and to ease his boredom seeing as his business was completed but over time he began to look forward to their visits and little adventures. So when the repairs on his ship were complete he felt a bit sad that he had to go, he has business elsewhere after all. They were sad to see him go but they decided to exchange phone numbers and keep contact.

As the months went by in their friendship and he kept meeting them every so often on other planets he found himself wanting them to be by his side as more than a friend. He sets up a meeting with them at a nice Cafe where he tells them flat out he'd like to court them, he's not one to waste time after all. The joy he feels when they say yes is indescribable.

He starts by giving them rather small knickknacks and flowers from his trips, but later on when things become more serious between them does he present them with items for their nest. The first time he gives his omega a nesting blanket is also the first time he's invited into their nest, it's rather sweet.

[tanadrin]

Imagine one day a new social trend starts spreading. It’s something unbelievably dumb. Not harmful per de, but truly silly to believe. Let’s say, I dunno, healing crystals start going mainstream. Everybody’s talking about their crystals. It becomes impolite to criticize people who believe in healing crystals. They become a big part of people’s personalities, and people on TV start talking about them, and one day years down the line politicians are debating funding for crystal-based medicine. And through it all you are sitting there going, what the fuck is happening. I thought we were all on the same page on this. You want to get along and be friendly and open minded but you cannot pretend to believe in healing crystals, this is nonsense, and when the topic comes up you refuse to lie about it. This eventually starts to have social consequences—they’re that popular!—but what can you do? You cannot pretend a lump of quartz can cure the flu or whatever. It’s just all so unbearably embarrassing.

I think what the centrist/liberal/center-left reactionary turn driven by culture war stuff feels like. And I think the key emotion is probably cringe. Not hate, not fear, though those emotions may reinforce the turn. I think in a lot of cases people who imagine themselves pretty open minded and flexible have as part of their worldview something they thought was bedrock social consensus—on the level of “healing crystals are silly woo”—so bedrock maybe that it didn’t even need to be a conceptual boundary they actually policed in their minds.

For instance, when she started her anti-trans turn, JK Rowling made a big show of not being really anti trans, just arguing that Some People Had Gone Too Far. She wasn’t a frothing religious reactionary, after all. And I believe that’s probably true! I think Rowling probably did have a mental model of sex and gender with a little bit of give in it—of the “we can humor the odd weirdo” type. But as the discussion of trans rights in the UK got more serious over her lifetime, trans people went from “the odd weirdo” to “a recognized minority,” and eventually this ran against a bedrock belief that on some level men are men and women are women and never the twain shall meet. To act otherwise was just too embarrassing. And she wasn’t going to embarrass herself in the name of political correctness.

Other people whose brains have been eaten by the anti-woke mind virus (as @eightyonekilograms calls it) have something going of the contrarian in them, who enjoys yelling “up yours, woke moralists!” or w/e. Im thinking of ppl like Glenn Greenwald here, or Dave Chapelle, people who seem not to feel alive except when people are mad at them. That’s a separate but interesting dynamic. And there are people like Graham Linehan who become totally unhinged through this process of auto-radicalization, moths drawn ever closer to a particular source of validation within their chosen reactionary subcommunity, until they are truly parodies of themselves. That is also an important dynamic, but it’s one that only takes hold after the initial turn has begun.

I think the role of that feeling of cringe, that refusal to entertain an idea because it is too embarrassing (even if it does actually have a decent body of research behind it, unlike crystals) is important to think about, because I am interested in how to get people over it. I know that feeling has affected my own thinking over my lifetime. I wasn’t raised particularly conservative, but I had to learn not to cringe at a lot of feminist thought before I could appreciate it and learn from it. I explicitly didn’t have that cringe when it came to gay people for whatever reason, so it never entered my mind that it might be a problem. I remember being surprised to learn when I was very young that some boys wanted to marry other boys, but my response was “huh. Go figure.” Because for whatever reason I had not picked up that this was something I was supposed to be grossed out by. A general doctrine of empathy, of trying to understand people on their own terms, can help forestall some of this stuff, but it’s not foolproof in either direction—I don’t want to believe crystals have healing powers if it becomes socially popular to do so, just because it is socially popular to do so! And if they do, I don’t want to not believe they do just because it is socially unpopular!

(Obviously the crystals thing is not a one to one metaphor for the trans thing, so don’t read too much into that. Maybe astrology would have been a better analogy. Also I’m not talking just about people whose reactionary turn is predicated on trans issues—I think this dynamic applies to everything from gay rights to the Tridentine Mass. But trans issues are a handy example bc, as the adage goes, somebody posts once about trans people and they never post anything normal again. I think the classic rapid-onset trans derangement syndrome is closely tied to the fact that gender norms are a really deep element of many people’s social-consensus-based worldview, and so challenged to that worldview are felt as really cringe.)

I’m curious if other people who grew more liberal in their thinking over time had a similar experience of having to overcome what was basically a feeling of embarrassment at certain ideas.

[inkwolvesandcoffee]

I can’t get this thought out of my head.

CoD ML

The taskforce has gotten used to Ghost saying “Can’t wait to get home to the missus.” It came as a surprise at first because he’s not the best, if not the downright worst, at expressing his emotions. Nonetheless, they’ve gotten used to the phrase and any other variation of it.

However, no one was prepared for this time. “Finally going home to my lady and the kids.”

Kids?

KIDS?!

When did this happen? Simon didn’t mention you were pregnant and neither did you. John is absolutely baffled because surely you would’ve told him since he’s the second to know this type of stuff. After all, he’s the closest to you after your man.

Soap is overjoyed, already fancying himself the fun ‘uncle’ and congratulating his mate. “Didn’t think you’d ever be a father, Ghost, but look at ye! I do hope your daughters get the looks from their bonnie mother. Unless you’re handsome.”

“We had this convo before, McTavish. I’m quite handsome.”

“I still don’t believe ye.”

Kyle is absolutely gobsmacked, but keeps it at a polite “congrats, sir”.

Little do any of them know the ‘kids’ have four sturdy legs, whiskers, and gorgeous thick fur. You’ve even deemed them the most handsome fluffy children of the neighbourhood.

Simon and you adopted two Norwegian Forest Cats before he had to leave on deployment, named Ragnar and Rollo. He wasn’t a fan of the names at first, but agreed to them to please you. Then again, he’d let you pick the names for your children if you ever decide to start a family.

Until then, this is more than enough.

Simon quietly slips beneath the covers beside you. It’s a bit of a struggle to manoeuvre his large frame around your two sons, who are quick to pounce on their father and loudly start purring.

“You’re back,” you drowsily murmur, awoken by Ragnar’s and Rollo’s sonorous purrs. Your subconscious registers his presence so you instinctively turn onto your side and snuggle up to him. “Should’ve said you’d come. Would’ve-“

He kisses your forehead. “Shh, go back to sleep.”

He knows you’d have shown up at the airport. You always do since he usually lets you know in advance whether he’s home bound and at what time he expects to be back in England. However, tonight was a very late flight though the shift in time zones made it a very, very early morning one.

Whatever the case, Simon would rather you stay at home, in bed with your sons, than be out in the dark. If he could, he’d forbid you to go out in the evening after sunset unless you’re taking him with you. Fortunately, despite never having explicitly agreed nor have it actually mentioned, you’re of one mind when it comes to that. After all, it’s hard to miss the posters and flyers against sexual assault and intimidation of women.

And you do feel safer when Simon’s with you.

Vice versa is also the case. Indeed, your big burly bastard of a man shares the sentiment.

He’s been doing a lot of mental work recently to work on his emotional intelligence. One thing that’s been helping a lot in opening up and trying to form connections, well, an even deeper connection to you (he’s not a people person so you’re pretty much the only one he talks to outside the taskforce) is gaming.

Yup, Simon Riley is a gamer.

A massive Assassin’s Creed fan too. This is a hill I will die on, you can’t convince me otherwise.

So imagine his surprise when after breakfast you slip a present across the table to him. How his eyes light up, the delight banishing the suspicion that cast a darkness over them, when he sees you bought him a special edition of AC: Mirage. Little does he know you placed a pre-order the moment he told you Ubisoft was coming out with a new game in the franchise.

“Thought you might like this. As a ‘welcome home’ prezzie,” you say, hiding the smile spreading on your lips behind your coffee mug.

“Thank you, love.” He stands up and walks over to your side. You get up too, arms outstretched in anticipation of one of his rare bear hugs. In spite of his stone cold persona, Simon seems to radiate heat whenever he’s home. So you stand there for a few moments, simply enjoying the feel of his arms around you.

After cleaning up and changing into a pair of sweats, he turns the PS5 on. Ragnar and Rollo plop down on the couch on either side of the both of you, freshly returned from their habitual morning stroll around the yard. You snuggle up to Simon, basking in his warmth while watching him play.

A perfect lazy family day.

[jounosparticles]

reply to the tags of your reply to my previous ask: PLEASE RANT TO ME ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP!!!! i want to hear. they rot my brain too and im glad that i found someone who's also suffering the suegiku takeover

OKAYOKAY YAY!!!!! this will be fun >:)

a huge suegiku analysis:

okay in the last ask you mentioned how tetchou stabs jouno for fun and sillies and stuff which happened to make me think a lot about how tetchou acts decently different around jouno than others.

tetchou is typically rather formal in the way he acts in a way? as in he's very straightforward, generally composed and calm in his words, and polite to anyone he's dealing with.

an example of this is when he still treated the cafe owner kindly despite him being an "accessory to terrorism" in jouno's words.

basically, in most situations, he remains very composed. even when he's up to his sillier antics (like when he was watching ants or doing pushups during a meeting). he's direct and straight-faced almost always around most people. he doesn't act that way to be seen as silly, it's just who he is (and i love it).

i would imagine he could act this way for many reasons. it is most likely him being professional, likely as a reference to the irl tetchou who had samurai lineage; making him act with the tone and professionalism of samurai.

despite his professionalism, maybe he has difficulty being expressive around most people, or maybe he doesn't want to be expressive around people by choice.

but this is where he's different around jouno.

firstly, i'll talk about the times he's stabbed jouno. this has happened twice, and both were to de-escalate jouno from his tendancy to mentally torment people.

the wording in these panels implies this is a regular occurrence. which is a little funny to me hehe.

anyway, we see by the way that he acts around others that usually he de-escalates situations by talking first instead of acting. he will turn to violence if he believes it's needed, but typically he talks first. we see this when he confronts kenji verbally before attacking.

yet with jouno he doesn't bother to tell him to stop first, instead opting to jab him. remembering that the hunting dogs have enhanced physical strength, a small stab wound probably isn't a huge deal for them.

because of this i think the stabbings are tetchou partially teasing jouno. him messing around like that isn't something he does with anybody else but he seems to enjoy pissing off his partner.

also. stabbing him directly in the ass? gay as hell. jouno following up by saying "don't poke my ass every single time" implies that his ass specially gets jabbed a lot. hmmmm

anyways

another example of this is when tetchou smirks/chuckles at jouno insisting that he's the greatest hunting dog. the small laugh was most definitely to bother jouno.

mmmm theyre both so pretty.

once again, tetchou pushes aside his composed self and being intentionally silly only really happens towards jouno.

arguably, this can be shown again in the pushups scene.

tetchou acting unbothered and then calling jouno's weight "just right" while he continues to exercise seems like a combination of him trying to (jokingly) annoy jouno as well as his tendency to not acknowledge his own actions as bothersome or odd to others.

anyway to sum up this segment: tetchou is only seen intentionally bothering and teasing jouno and nobody else. he acts much differently towards others but seems to let his professional guard down around only his partner. this shows a great layer of trust and comfort between the two!

oh. but im not done talking about this. not at all.

the other huge display of emotions for tetchou was everything that went down with kenji.

as displayed throughout most of tetchou's appearances, he's incredibly justice-orientated. he has a tendancy to put justice above everything. here's a couple panels showing this:

ooog tetchou is so pretty. i love that left panel so much

using his own logic here, he should have went after bram after having found him. tetchou even admitted that, but there was one other thing more important to him than that. jouno.

starting here, this panel takes place after bram and aya escape. at this point, tetchou had assumed the agency was using bram to control people; meaning it wasn't just kenji he technically had business with at that time.

i will also preface this by saying the book's influence likely had an impact on tetchou attacking kenji before they could finish talking.

however, the book's writing didn't stop tetchou from insisting on finding jouno before taking down the agency. his worry towards jouno's whereabouts made him change his stance on justice as well as deterred him from prioritizing taking down the agency.

now that he's talking to kenji, i'd like to start it by showing that he seemed genuinely grateful and happy when kenji initially offered to help him find jouno.

as well in the anime, his eyes soften when kenji offers to help.

after talking to kenji for a brief moment, he opts to attack instead of continuing. this seems out of character for tetchou; he even apologized to kenji before saying he needs to find jouno as quickly as possible.

the fact that he apologized, combined with how we've seen him treat people in the past shows that this isn't typically what he resorts to.

also, in the anime we can see the gloss his eyes slightly shaking as he says this line, which could display worry, sadness, or anger towards whatever could be happening to his partner.

he seems almost distraught, which is a huge contrast to his typically-composed self.

and, of course; there's the fact that mid-fight tetchou had to tell kenji that jouno is a good person despite what people think.

he looks genuinely sad here, as if he's speaking from his heart. jouno has very-clearly put up a tough exterior that he uses around everyone, but tetchou goes out of his way to defend him even when he absolutely doesn't need to.

he could have stayed silent or just said he wants his coworker back, but he insisted on stating that jouno is a good person.

it's also important to note that nobody else tends to speak kindly of jouno, which puts a lot more depth on their closeness to each other. tetchou sees through jouno's words and actions and knows that he is heavily misunderstood.

and of course, we have tetchou directly saying that he will place jouno above justice despite knowing what the right course of action should have been.

he is putting jouno above the very thing he basis his career as well as his morality on. that's how worried he is. that's how much he cares.

and in this panel, we see he's extremely angry towards kenji's lack of response.

lets compare this to the first time tetchou fought the agency.

in chapter 61, when he was fighting the agency alongside jouno; he kept a more menacing/intimidating look as he attacked. when he was not attacking, he kept calm-looking despite being pissed off. compared to when he was fighting kenji in chapter 100 and looked infuriated. even the different fonts used for the dialogue puts further emphasis on this.

now, i'm going to jump ahead to the end of tetchou and kenji's fight. tetchou recognizes his mistake and asks kenji to kill him.

it's important to note that his reasoning as to why he should have chased justice was because he doesn't think jouno would have condoned his choice.

he specified it again, even opting to call jouno his friend. also note how white his eyes are here, meaning his intent was pure and he genuinely felt awful for misjudging what jouno would have wanted. he cares so much that he was asking to be killed for misunderstanding what was the correct course of action.

and then after kenji insists on helping him find jouno instead, he smiles in relief before the two pass out.

one last small note is that we've only ever seen tetchou smile three times throughout the manga so far, and all of them were mentioned here and involved jouno.

to sum it all up: tetchou, who is typically very composed and justice-orientated, is willing to throw aside his entire stance on justice for jouno. he lets his professional guard down around his friend, allowing them to tease each other and be silly as well, which he doesn't appear to do around others often. this shows that the two have a close bond and genuinely care so much about each other.

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as for jouno, i don't have as much to say however there definitely is a few things i'd like to touch on.

firstly, despite claiming to hate tetchou a lot, jouno still uses a respectful honourific (-san) whenever he refers to him. i'm not a japanese speaker so please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but there's a good chance jouno would opt to not use an honorific at all if he genuinely detested tetchou as much as he claims.

and when it comes to teasing, jouno does it much more often than tetchou does (however he also messes with more people, it's just a personality difference between the two).

clearly with the way they act around each other, jouno does not actually hate tetchou. i think they like to bother each other by play-bullying.

also, noting on jouno's criminal past, he was given an easy oppurtunity to be thrown into the DoA where he could be incredibly powerful and would likely not face any consequences for his actions had he joined.

we know he declined fukuchi's offer because he found joy in saving innocent people. but i would the influence of the other hunting dogs helped set him into that place of mind. tetchou seems to be the one he works with most, so there's a good chance he takes a lot of inspiration from how tetchou handles justice.

another thing i noticed with jouno is that his displaying of emotions is almost an inverse of how tetchou acts. jouno keeps smiling a lot despite who he's speaking to. in contrast, he can keep a straight face when interacting with tetchou a lot.

of course, that could make it seem as if jouno is unhappy around tetchou, but i would argue it's the opposite.

some people will force a happy expression to appear unassuming or kind (or in a lot of jouno's cases, intimidating). so him allowing himself to maintain a straight face around tetchou could mean that he is comfortable enough around him to not feel the need to express everything. he doesn't need to keep his guard up around tetchou.

jouno almost always keeps a very happy or calm composure around enemies, likely as an intimidation factor. yet he allows himself to express frustration and annoyance around the hunting dogs in general, and most often with tetchou. i'd like to imagine this just shows his security in his partner.

jouno talking to an enemy, for reference ^ i also just really love this page hehe

the last thing i'll mention here is a lot of speculation on my behalf. however i think that jouno seems like the type to push away those close to him. i kind of perceived his supposed hatred towards tetchou to be a combination of joking around as well as possibly a defense mechanism to try and avoid keeping people close?

my main reason in stating that is that he's claimed to not like any of his coworkers yet still opts to not betray them and still works well with them. if he truly hated tetchou, he probably wouldn't allow them to work together. he likely says such things to avoid being liked too much, and these actions proved to work since tetchou acknowledged that everyone sees jouno as cold.

yet through all that tetchou still knew he was good despite the exterior, which makes them well-suited for each other.

anyways: i feel like these two really do treat each other much differently than they treat the other people around them. that puts a lot of emphasis on their bond and closeness in general. they can be silly around each other, they can get through arguments no problem, they make a great team, and clearly care about each other a ton! they mean so much to me <3

i love my sillies :)

[lady-of-endless]

Husband!Lawyer!Dio Brando x reader headcanons

(requested by: @00aw)

Author's Note: Thank you for such an interesting request and for being so polite and patient. Hope you'll enjoy it!

- Dio knows he's good-looking, and he uses this well. Even as a lawyer, he uses this fact as an advantage. However, he will always wear the wedding ring so that no one would get foolish ideas.

- You will be able to tell when he had a bad day at work because it's all over his face. He won't have that proud smirk on his lips, his eyes are dead and he doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't want you to pity him. The best thing you can do when he's like that is to distract him. He prefers these distractions to take place in the bedroom.

- Dio is a very skilled lawyer and that comes not just from experience but from constant intense studying as well. You always notice how he gets extremely focused while reading. As unapproachable as he might look at that moment, he actually craves for you to come from behind and kiss him on the nape of his neck briefly.

- He will sometimes twist the meaning of your words or even put words in your mouth to get what he wants but he won't play with your emotions. You're his wife though, the only one person who trusts and cherishes.

- He loves how you wrap your arms around him from behind in the morning when he's fixing his tie in the mirror, before work. The warmth of the bed still clings to your body and for him, it feels like a reminder of what he will come back to after work hours.

- Dio is putting his sharp tongue into good use even with you. He always has the right words to charm you and even forget that you're upset with him if you had a fight with him. And he always knows what buttons to push when it comes to you.

- His love language is mainly teasing and playful banter. Be careful, sometimes he might say some offensive stuff. But even so, going to bed knowing he offended you doesn't feel right to him.

- Because Dio is one of the best in his branch of work, he is popular and highly requested by many. Therefore to say that he is a busy man is an understatement. He knows that he doesn't have that much free time for you and he is grateful that you didn't get sick of this already. He might be busy, and mean, but in reality, he is deeply grateful that you're still there with him.

- If he has a complex case that frustrates him, not knowing where exactly to start with it, he will need you. He'll give you the files (because he trusts you) and ask you to read the pages to him out loud. Somehow listening to the same information he read being recitated by you helps him.

- If you happen to be in court just to watch him in action, he won't hesitate to playfully steal glances at you and then switch to full professional mode in less than seconds.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Hewo I know Halloween is over but may I have TADC cast x Jack Skellington!Reader? Plus their dog also got transported and turned into Zero.

Imagine an 11ft tall skeleton rising out the giant ballpit thing

If Jax or Caine pisses them off they do the scary face thing

TADC cast x jack skellington! Type reader!

I dont mention the dog much since I dont really. Have many ideas for them <\3

Also I have not seen nightmare before Christmas in YEARS so UHUH! This may be a bit off

Written on mobile

I'm down with the sickness but the sickness is not down with me (too sore to sleep)

CAINE:

You guys walk bubble and your dog together/j

Actually no that would be.. kind of funny.. I can definitely see caine doing that if hes trying to befriend you

Chaotic gentleman (is that a thing? Honestly I'm just basing the gentleman part on the fact caine says stuff like "my dear" and goes out of his way to welcome new circus members but uhuh) and calm gentleman duo

Things happen

Honestly I think you would balance him out, like either he tones down or you compliment his personality enough to make it more bearable to others

POMNI:

Similar to the skeleton reader post, pomni is a little offput by you being a skeleton. It's like how you instinctively get freaked out when you see an exposed brain, usually means somethings very wrong. Same case with your bones I think. At least for pomni while shes getting used to things. Though your gentle and kind demeanor really helps ease things along, and pomni finds herself comfortable around you!

AND you come with a dog? Tbh I can see pomni being a dog person

... If that's your dog, assuming it's not an NPC, does that mean your dog got a mini headset...?

RAGATHA:

Kind lady and kind person. You guys kind of just brighten up the room whenever you two are around, and even more so if you're together... though, that isn't saying much given the general attitude of the others..

You both tend to band together to look out for the others during IHAs, I think

Let's you rattle on about your interests; I'm sure most others would let you do the same, but I think Ragatha would actually be actively engaged in it! I think Kinger would be too...

Sets you three down in a corner and observes

JAX:

Writing this down first before I forget but Jax would do an exaggerated fake scream when you do the scary face thing. I don't think jax would be all the phased by it. If you're a skeleton you're cursed with him trying to undo your bones, very similar to the TADC cast x skeleton reader post from a few days ago

Personality wise? Jax is going to try to find your limits and break them. Oh you're a gentleperson who handles things with grace? Not for long.. unless you have the patience and forgiveness of a god

KINGER:

I think he would enjoy your prescence! Just dont do the face thing around him, hes probably gonna freak out even if it's not directed towards him. Kinger doesnt strike me as the type to like scary things..

Pets your dog, a lot

Emotional support animal/j but actually I can see him becoming attatched to your dog

Not much to be said here but I'm chalking that more up to me being tired <\3

ZOOBLE:

Is a little annoyed by your enthusiasm to learn as much as you can about whatever topic ha syour interest; bonus if you're current interest is the digital world and trying to figure out all the ins and outs of it

....they're more of a cat person, I think... ir maybe a snake person... or reptile person in general.. doesnt hate your dog, though

Can at least appreciate your mannerisms and politeness

I can see you two being decent friends , I think

GANGLE:

Another one where I think you guys could make decent friends. Honestly, I didnt write this to be romantic (though some of these can be interpreted as such!) But I wholeheartedly believe gangle would develop a crush on you. I mean, come on! You're a gentleman, you're a lil quirky, you're kind and curious, and so on! Bonus if you look the part, too. I have a hc lying around somewhere where I believe gangle used to play dating sims in the real world and tbh. She would definitely go after characters that reflected you... and oh look youre a real person, hell yeah

It was either characters like you or the dark mysterious ones

But maybe I'm hella projecting onto gangle

Gangle is our x reader enjoyer rep/hj

[dduane]

The Novel as Cake

    I was reading through the 'writing' tag on your blog, and came across your wonderful post about how you outline your novels using Cherryh's 'Shopping List' technique. My question is - how do you decide/come up with the 10 things in the novel? I have about 3-4 things I know must happen in my idea, and other random details about the world. But what is important enough to be one of the 10 things? And also, how do you generate your ideas for those 10 things? - Asked by Anonymous

…Okay, let’s take this from the top. (And for convenience’s sake, let’s stay in the shopping-list idiom; it’s useful enough.) (ETA: the blog entry that discusses the Shopping List outlining method is here.)

Let’s say you want to make a cake. …This cake also being your novel.

To have a solid story (in the western-novel tradition, anyway), you need at least two things: plot and theme. The plot is what happens. The theme is the why of what happens, and (to a certain extent) the book-wide spectrum of thought and emotion that underlies that; the answer to the question “But what’s the book about?”* …Think of this duality, for the moment, as the equivalent of having both liquid and solid stuff in your cake. You’ve got to have both or it won’t rise. A book with a plot but no theme has no soul.

So: you’re going to make a cake. What kind?

As an example, I’m going to ease myself out onto a limb here and equate “chocolate-chip devil’s food with chocolate buttercream frosting” with “epic-fantasy quest fiction with strong political, exoreligious, and quasiromantic components.” (A favorite for me, over time, as some folks will have noticed. I just can’t get enough of those chocolate chips…)

So how do you determine the ten things you need (or whatever number you like, but ten works for me) as major ingredients / sections?

Well, ideally from some familiarity with what has gone in other/similar cakes/works of fiction in the past: because (in genre fiction, anyway) you have at least some reader expectations to manage. If you haven’t been reading in your chosen genre, you really should be. ...Now, this doesn’t mean you have to do what other people working in the genre have done. Indeed, at all times you remain at liberty to “flip the punchcard” and do exactly the opposite of what everybody else has been doing, if that’s what suits you. But they’ve set out possible recipes for you, so (as a beginner at this work) it'd seem wise to examine those recipes and see what’s in them that might be useful for you. Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you don’t need to go looking, just as an experienced baker doesn’t need to run for the recipe book every time they want to make a cake.

Naturally you can substitute ingredients, add some or lose some, when you’re creating something new; just as you like—while always making sure you don’t throw away anything routinely required/expected in your genre. (Such as, for example, the Happily Ever After at the end of a genre romance.) But certain basics must be in place, things that make what you’re creating recognizably A Cake, as well as your own additions and embellishments.

In this case, that could be:

For a cake: flour, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, cocoa, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, seasonings, a little bit of salt (because without that, even the sweetest cake tastes just a little insipid somehow)

For a novel: a protagonist/pairtagonist (is that a word? It is now…); an antagonist (not necessarily a character: an antagonistic or stymie-ing situation that keeps the antagonist from easily getting what they want/need will do just as well. This is where at least some of the interior drama will derive from); a change in interior or exterior conditions that sets events in motion; a “ticking clock” or similar construct that means the desired result must be achieved within a certain time or before certain conditions change or expire; various reversals or hiccups in the flow of the story that will inject a sense of realism (because when does anything ever go perfectly smoothly…?); a crisis point at which everything assembled against the protagonist rises up to be dealt with, and the protagonist rises up to meet the challenge and deal with it; and finally, a set of resolution events that (even if it doesn’t absolutely finish the story proper) brings about an end state that will leave you, and any theoretical reader, satisfied with the completion of the current story arc.

…Needless to say, this is an incredibly oversimplified take on the kind of strategizing needed when you’re creating the recipe for a novel that won’t simply collapse the minute you take it out of the oven. But starting simply is often best. The more you do this kind of work, the easier it gets.

Now: “How do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?”

There are a lot of possible answers to this, but the simplest is: Make them up out of nothing, as usual. :)

…This isn’t meant to sound like sass. You made up those first three or four things you came up with out of nothing, and now (because they’ve been there for a while, probably) they may well have started to acquire a kind of secret, temporally-based superiority in your mind—starting to feel somehow more valid than what needs to come next to fill in the gaps. This kind of creeping sense of validity-via-temporal-primacy is a commonplace when you’re in mid-process, and I invite you to ignore it.

Just insert those three or four things into your shopping list in (roughly) story-temporal order, and then spend some time thinking about what kinds of events could usefully come between / flow from them. Hints:

Events that could realistically have been caused by the ones you’ve got already, and could also realistically be seen as causal to later ones you’ve already established, are always useful. Ideally, you’re trying to establish a chain of events in which none of them look accidental, or coincidental (because readers are rightfully sensitive to plots that only work because all the characters are idiots, or keep having “lucky accidents”). What you’re working toward is an event flow that seems, when viewed in completion, inevitable: as if it couldn’t have happened any other way. You will almost certainly not achieve this easily, early on in your novel work, and maybe not at all. But it strikes me as a good thing to be striving for.

Events that badly screw things up for the main characters are also always useful. Heroes do not become heroes by having everything go their way. Their heroism is achieved and manifested by having things go to shit around them again and again and AGAIN, and nonetheless still finding their way through all that shit to do what needs to be done. The lines attributed to the Confucianist philosopher Meng-tse (sometimes translated from Japanese into English as “Mōshi”) are a touchstone in this regard:

When Heaven is about to confer a great office upon a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil: it exposes him to poverty and confounds all his undertakings. Then it is seen if he is ready.

So put your protagonists through the wringer. This is the greatest service you can do them: showing who they are by showing what they're made of.

A variant on this theme: Spend a little time thinking, “What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to these characters in this story / in this world?” And when you’ve figured that out, stick it into one of those gaps as a Main Thing—ideally one between the story’s midpoint and its already-planned crisis, if you’ve got that in place—and then start thinking about how to best exploit it to show how terrific your characters can become if you kick them around a bit. (Addendum: you are allowed to have one Absolutely Terrific and Beautiful Thing happen to assist your characters in recovering from this awfulness. Because they deserve it; but also, all invented worlds [if you ask me] should have beautiful things in them—things to long for, things that make your reader wish they could live there. And that you find beautiful, and worth returning to. You are absolutely allowed to keep yourself entertained, and emotionally refreshed, while you’re creating.)

…Anyway, take your time about getting those gaps filled in. It may take a little while: laying down basic story structure is worth not rushing, if you can avoid it. Once you’ve got everything major in place, the secondary lists will follow more easily.

HTH!

*This is a hilarious oversimplification, but my job at the moment is not (as the saying goes) to explain the workings of the entire universe while standing on one foot. :)

[too-antigonish]

Morse and drinking in the 70s...

Long....because I can't write short. And obviously, a lot of you will already know this stuff...

Just want to take a moment to talk about alcohol and alcoholism in the context of the early 1970s and remind folks of how totally and completely different it is from how we see it today.

Drunk driving had not been outlawed in most countries. Not only that, it was widely regarding as funny—funny enough to be used as a regular “gag” in movies. Problem drinking was also seen as funny. There were regular cartoon strips about it. The “drunk” was a funny stock character in all sorts of plays and movies.

Alcohol was ubiquitous. We’re not just talking liquid lunches. We’re talking drinking at work, while you work—just as you see in Endeavour. Think about that for a second.

And politely saying no wasn’t something you did without social consequences. It wasn’t just seen as a personal preference. Unless you had a specific, acceptable reason, turning down a drink was often seen as stand-offish and judgmental or as a social snub. Teetotalism was regarded as rather naive and ridiculous—not something any man or woman of the world would embrace.

In the early 1970s, there was no widespread understanding of alcoholism as a disease. It was still seen very much as the consequence of personal weakness—still a matter of “If you cared enough or tried hard enough, you wouldn’t do this so it must be a character flaw.”

Plus, most people, “normal” people don’t have problems with alcohol, so if you do then there’s something abnormal and defective about you—most likely something you brought upon yourself.

And as a “personal weakness” and a “defect,” the shame around it was profound and the secrecy matched. If someone went away for treatment, it was very much akin to an unwed mother going off to have her baby and then returning without the child. You never spoke of it. You pretended that it had never happened.

If you were a kind person, you also didn’t go out of your way to parade babies in front of her or talk constantly about children when she was with you. But refer to it directly? Never. Ask for help? Never. It was always something to be hidden. Everyone did their best to forget that it had ever happened and saw this as the "kindest" thing to do.

When Morse returns from his “cure,” it would simply be assumed that everyone would pretend that nothing unusual has happened. Why he’s  just been off on a tour of the West Country and nothing else! Hope you had a lovely time! That sort of polite fiction was exactly what he would have expected upon his return. Anything more direct—at least in a public setting—would have been shocking to him and everyone else.

Where things break down, however, is in the more personal interactions. His relationship with Thursday is such that they can at least broach the topic of drinking. When they do, my impression is that Thursday is well-aware that Morse not “cured.” However, in the context of the time, saying this would be akin to saying, "You failed," because there was no disease model of alcholism in widespread use. You went to be cured and it worked or it didn't.

However, I'd also add that Thursday is almost to the breaking point with the cumulative strain he is under. He can’t cope with the “burden” of Morse being in a precarious state and he knows it. He feels desperately guilty about that—as well as about other things like Strange and Joan or about life having moved on so much while Morse was gone—and so he just shuts down. 

Shutting down is Thursday’s go-to strategy when he’s overwhelmed. We’ve seen him do it many times before. And part of that for him, is that he pretends that the people around him are ok—even if they are anything but ok. Not surprisingly, he does it the most with the people he has the closest emotional ties with—Win, Joan, Sam, and Morse.

So the only way that Thursday can cope is by having Morse be perfectly fine. Conveniently, his preferred coping strategy fits exactly with his society's expectations about how alcoholism works. If Morse is "cured," you don’t need to worry about sparing him the constant offers of alcohol in the same way that the young unwed mother might hope to be spared babies. You certainly wouldn’t embarrass him (especially after he’s been through the humiliation of rehab) by drawing attention in any way to a possible to the idea that he still has a problem. 

And finally, a last note on time context. The scene in the pub where Morse has that first drink after finding out that Joan is marrying Jim is utterly heartbreaking for so many reasons. One of those reasons, however, is that we know it’s the first drink—and that the first drink leads to the second, and so on and so forth. Then Morse says to Thursday, “They said the, the odd beer, the odd shot, does no harm…"Everything in moderation," they said,”  and we automatically assume he’s lying.

I’m fairly sure that those scenes were meant to be interpreted through our modern viewpoint. However, it’s worth noting that again, the model of alcoholism in the 1970s was nothing like what we have today. The idea that someone with a drinking problem/addictions needs to abstain entirely was not even close to universal at that point. It’s perfectly possible that the advice Morse is quoting is the advice he received!

[rye-bread-soda-iceberg]

discussion and a little theory about black swan and sparkle's companion mission under the cut (+ spoilers) aka listen to me yap about the blue thing until I go insane

the First sampo we meet in penacony, specifically the one that follows us as we're hanging out with firefly, is nothing like how sampo himself is

his personality is a poor attempt from sparkle to try and convince us that it's him, but perhaps she's not familiar enough with him anymore to know exactly how he acts. "he" is acting weird and a little bit mean towards firefly for not knowing things about penacony even though she should

I don't think sampo would do that, at least the one we met on jarilo-VI wouldn't

the second (and third) time sampo appears, and this time it's actually him, is during the girls' companion mission

during the entire quest him and black swan play this little detective game orchestrated by sparkle where she writes herself in as a murder victim and has the two find her murderer. it's fun and silly and very chaotic

the entire story unfolds inside a dream bubble created by black swan, and when it's over the giant eyeball guy tells us that even though we recognized the people in the dream, it is still a dream. it doesn't represent reality and could have been tampered with

I don't believe that

anyways so. in this sampo acts a little bit more like the one we know, maybe slightly over the top at times but I think he was putting on a performance to spice things up. he was helping out sparkle with the whole thing in exchange for his mask that she probably stole from him (that we sadly don't get to see) so I bet he really put some effort into that, even begging black swan to not skip the last murder case

But. the MOST important part of this entire quest is.. the end. and the end is definitely not a dream

after the trio finishes talking, the dream stops and we briefly return to the real world before going into a memory. and boy there's some stuff to unpack in here

first of all the way they talk to each other? they almost seem like friends. of course, their views on the pursuit of elation are still different

he is still very polite about it

sparkle doesn't mention anything except muttering "why so serious" to herself

but they do talk like old friends and it's clear that in a sense they may be

after he asks for his mask back, sparkle remarks that it is not like the sampo she knows and then this little exchange happens

it is now canon, as in acknowledged out loud by a character (in this case himself) that sampo Really did orchestrate almost every thing that happened in jarilo-VI

how did he know this was going to happen? how can sparkle guess the reason why he wants his mask back? has he done this before? well clearly, thinking back to all the chaos he unleashes on that planet, maybe some kind of catastrophe has already came to it that we don't know about?

also slightly unrelated but I think he likes living there. he genuinely enjoys living in belobog because if he didn't, he'd find a way to leave

so anyways what we can deduct from this sequence is that:

- this entire quest is most likely a memory, not a dream. black swan deals with memories and it could be possible that she had some slight changes done to it and passed it off as a dream. maybe. and this would mean that it's a real event, that happened before the jarilo-VI story

- consequently, before that sampo and sparkle were on friendly enough terms that he was willing to help her put on a show for black swan in exchange for his mask (of course, he's always willing to do something to get something in return)

so I did say I have a theory

sparkle is the reason for That One sampo eidolon, "the deeper the love the stronger the hate"

she's the only character so far that we are SURE he dislikes, and that's something knowing he doesn't admit that stuff so openly. source: listen to his lines about other characters, he always masks any kind of negative emotion about other people yet tells giovanni that if it were for him, he'd never see her again (still said in a polite way)

so the "hate" he feels, that he still masks by smiling even though his eyes are devoid of any light, as of right now can only be towards sparkle

I believe she betrayed him somehow and maybe doesn't fully realize that

she's childish, really mean, DEFINITELY cannot "read the room" in any way and I doubt she cares about other people's feelings enough, so if sampo who by nature almost does everything to hide how he truly feels about people ever felt betrayed by her, there'd be miscommunication and possibly confusion on her side and feelings of hate towards her on his side

in the main quest, before sparkle reveals herself, she mentions hearing about his deeds on jarilo-VI but doesn't seem to hold a grudge against him. she probably dislikes him as well but perhaps not as much as he does, which also leads me to think she wouldn't understand if she did anything wrong

them not talking anymore would explain why sparkle's rendition of sampo feels off and kind of out of character

this is a theory I had actually already saw circularing on here, around the time sampo and giovanni's conversation in the memory bubble got leaked. but if I'm correct it's not as discussed

sad cause it's very interesting and you know what this also means?

penacony might not be the last we see of sampo

he has so much going on behind him and this just adds to it. he doesn't speak much about his past himself, he is clearly hiding so so many things and hoyoverse wouldn't keep leaving these little crumbs of information behind if it wasn't for a greater purpose

I feel like I say this every time I talk about him and maybe I'm slowly going insane but I'm also very happy cause I want to see what my beautiful man will do in the future

thanks for reading this far if you did and sorry if this is really messy

I just wanted to let some thoughts out!

[shadyvoxtruth]

How ShadyVox Threatened Myself & Others For Years

My name is Martin Billany but I am also known as LittleKuriboh in the YouTube sphere/Yu-Gi-Oh fandom.

I am posting this here for posterity in case all of my other posts elsewhere about it are removed. Also because there has never been a single unified place to find all of this information presented in sequence.

Patrick, also known by his pseudonyms of ShadyVox or Scratch21's Matt Robinson or Blake Swift, spent the better part of 2019-2023 both threatening me and manipulating a group of real victims.

A brief history - for those who don't know, Patrick/ShadyVox and myself were heavily involved in the "abridged series" world in the late 2000s/mid 2010s. I myself started the whole abridged parody nonsense with Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged, and Patrick would follow suit by doing a Yu-Gi-Oh GX Abridged. We met through content creation and formed a friendship through it. Not best friends or anything, but friendly enough.

Patrick would later leave the abridged series stuff behind and start over making music, working in original animation for popular internet channels, etc. Stuff he was genuinely very good at. It was a strong choice to move away from parody content, as it likely would have held him back at some point.

At a certain point in 2018, I received a communication from him that requested I remove certain YouTube comments on my videos that featured him. These comments were demanding to know why Patrick was following various right wing channels and were calling him alt-right, etc.

I agreed to remove the comments because I considered him a friend and automatically assumed there was some big misunderstanding. As it turned out, he was subscribed to a few channels that caused me to confront him.

I was emotional and upset, admittedly. Things politically were at a fever pitch and I had been swept up by it. I have included screencaps of our conversation.

Later I would apologize to him for my outburst and try to make amends. You're probably wondering why I would include this since it doesn't seem to involve Patrick threatening me, and it seems if anything to suggest I got upset at him.

That is because I truly believe this is the moment Patrick decided he was going to find some way to come after me. I believe that Patrick had spent a lot of time creating a mask for himself, and had worn it very well, and the moment someone saw through it for even a moment he decided I had to be dealt with somehow.

At this point - mid 2018 - Patrick and I were not close. We hadn't worked on anything together in half a decade. We really only kept in touch in a cursory fashion. So I imagine this interaction stuck in Patrick's craw something awful.

I was, however, closer with the person Patrick had worked in conjunction with on his abridged series, X. These days X is my best friend. Back then, I don't know how close we were. But definitely closer than either of us were with Patrick.

One day in 2019, entirely out of the blue, Patrick messages me privately to inform me that X once slept with a girl who was 17 when he was in his early 20s.

My own spouse was sexually assaulted before I met them, and as a result I have a no tolerance policy on anything that even could resemble assault. So I immediately ended my friendship with X.

And as I was doing so, Patrick told me repeatedly that I was overreacting.

As you can see, by Patrick/Shady's own words, this was a long time ago. Just under a decade or so, by my count.

And most importantly, Patrick had been aware of this for the whole decade or so and chose this very moment to tell me that this happened.

I want you to keep that in mind, especially the fact that when I said I was ending my friendship with X, Patrick's actual response was "it was a long time ago, he's gotten better."

It was painful to end my friendship with X, but I did. I told him that if he could provide satisfactory proof that what Patrick had said didn't represent the facts of the situation, I could be his friend again. Until then, I cut off all communication from X.

A week or so later I received specific evidence that pointed to a situation wherein Patrick was intentionally misrepresenting what happened, or the alleged victim's story. The alleged victim VERY specifically disagreed with Patrick.

You'll note that I'm not including screen caps of these conversations - that is because the alleged victim, and other involved parties, DO NOT WANT to be part of any of this and have needed actual therapy because of Patrick's behavior in the past. Not just here.

Anyway.

I returned to Patrick/Shady and told him there had been a misunderstanding. I wanted to clear the air and give him a chance to say something along the lines of "oh okay, obviously I had my facts wrong." I mean, as you yourself have just read - he said himself that this was a long time ago. Maybe he got some wires crossed.

This is how Patrick actually responded:

The screenshots were taken on different dates, hence why his twitter icon looks different suddenly.

But yes. His response to me explaining that the alleged victim disagreed with his stance, was to insist that the alleged victim must be lying and that I should be absolutely infuriated.

After he'd tried to tell me that there was no point in being upset about this information that he had sat on for the better part of a decade.

Patrick continued to scream at me via dm, repeatedly requesting that I give him my phone number so we could talk about this. I assume this is because he didn't want any kind of text evidence of what he was going to say to me, or what he was doing.

He would later, mid-conversation, tell me that he was deleting all of his dms to me. Not sure why. It doesn't remove them from my side of the conversation, so I still have access to all of them. I have not shared the entire private message thread yet, because it's sensitive and involves people beyond just myself. But if the dms ever do need to be made public entirely, I have them.

I ended up blocking Patrick during this very conversation because he had begun screaming at me, behaving extremely unhinged and in a frightening manner. I honestly think he had hoped that I would initially try to defend my friend from his accusation, in which case he was going to fly off the handle then. But because I had genuinely believed him and removed my friend from my life, only to then learn Patrick's story didn't hold water, he had no choice but to lash out now. When it didn't make any sense to suddenly be irate about a thing he had told me about, and had literally just said "it was a long time ago."

Within 24 hours, Patrick had sent me a threatening email saying he was going to expose me for everything I was doing. I have attached the highlights of the email, parts that don't involve other people's names.

Some of the references in this email - specifically about how I've associated with others and ignored people calling me out for it - are related to a podcast I was on, alongside Patrick. Until recently I had indeed tried to move on with my life after a number of the people involved had revealed themselves to be toxic. I had made efforts to separate myself from those people. It had been years since I'd really had any direct connection to any of them.

I do indeed regret not speaking out about it sooner.

Having said this, Patrick himself was equally as guilty for not speaking out - and had in fact spent a significantly larger amount of time talking to/working with the people in question.

As such, I believe a lot of this is some form of bizarre projection on his part.

I ignored the email because I was a) worried that he had suddenly snapped, and b) I didn't think any of the content warranted a response.

A day later, I received this email from Patrick where his tone has changed entirely:

As you can see, this is more in line with the reality of the situation. He is apologizing profusely and insisting I didn't actually do anything wrong, and that he was the one in the wrong.

You'll also note that he signs this particular email "Patrick." That is because it is his real name, and I believe he was possibly appealing to my humanity and the part of me that might still have seen a friendship worth salvaging. Otherwise I could not tell you why he signed his real name - he typically hates using it.

I still did not reply because at this point I was confused and scared and wanted him to leave me alone. And to that point, he had specifically stated at the end of his email that he was the problem and he would not "involve himself in my life any longer."

The police were contacted and they told him to stop. I had hoped that my part in all of this was over.

Later that very month, Patrick announced on his ShadyVox twitter account that a new GX Abridged was coming out for April Fools.

When it is posted on April 1st - less than a month after he had sent his email saying he would remove himself from my life, and not long after the police have visited him - the video contains many references to our conversations, and specifically the fact that the police got involved.

Yes, after being told by the police to stop - and after writing an email that insisted he knew he was the real problem and would be getting help - he decides to make a mockery of the situation publicly, in a manner that nobody else will understand. Except the people it is targeting.

The tweets about this video are the only thing remaining on Patrick's twitter account, as he had purged it some time ago.

(An aside - I do recall someone attempting to call Patrick out for being toxic previously on twitter, and his response was to spam them with the words "PROVE IT. PROVE IT. PROVE IT." until they gave up. I would include screenshots of this, but like I said - he purged his entire twitter except for this specific GX Abridged video he'd thrown together in a week to respond to the fact that the authorities had intervened to get him to stop)

One other important element of this video - which is where, I believe, this whole thing veers into genuinely disturbing territory - is that it is interspersed with garbled footage intended to look like some sort of creepypasta/vhs effect. At the end of the GX Abridged video, it is clear that Patrick is using this video to allude to some upcoming song tracks he is producing.

Songs that are tailored to threaten me in cryptic, indirect ways that very few people pick up on.

But I'll get to those later.

During 2019, Patrick reaches out to actual victims of the toxic individuals from the podcast I used to be on more than half a decade before any of the stuff chronologized in this post. He tells them lies, and demonizes me to the point that it convinces them that I am still both defending/supporting the toxic individuals, and actively mocking their victims in private.

I am aware of this because Patrick tweets about it - before deleting the tweets entirely. He even attempts to throw popular abridging group TeamFourStar under the bus, which I assume was merely out of spite because they had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.

I wish I had screengrabbed the tweets when they were still up, but there is still remaining evidence that they did exist.

Here is someone posting on Reddit about it - he only references one tweet, but this was around the time Patrick was posting and then immediately deleting what he'd said. I honestly can only assume - but I think he was fishing for people to latch on to what he was saying and contact him privately.

Not to mention the fact that the police had specifically told him to stop, so that was likely in the back of his mind also.

Here is someone replying to a since suspended twitter account that was discussing what Patrick was saying about TeamFourStar. Obviously I have no clear way to prove it, but please know that I have no reason to make that much up and point to a random ass tweet.

I imagine Patrick (not the suspended person in the above screencap) realized the best way to not seem directly to blame or involved at all was to remove any and all posts he'd made. Admittedly it would have worked if I didn't have the dms and these emails.

Speaking of emails, I received a third one in late 2019 - as you can see, Patrick's promise of leaving me alone forever didn't even last a year.

You'll note that he's speaking as though the second email never even happened. He's also just plain lying through his teeth for a significant part of it, but I think it's most important to note that this email requires you to assume the second email never got written.

He has gone from pages and pages of "of course it wasn't your fault, I'm the problem, you're good, I'm bad" to "I told you..."

Also, I think the words "You tried to damage me" should be highlighted here as it reinforces my theory that all of this was about me insulting him for all the right wing channels he'd subscribed to. Which, to me, was barely even a thought in my mind at this point.

So I choose to ignore this email also. Because y'know, why would I even humor responding to the guy at this point? I decide that I will only speak on any of this if it becomes public conversation. Until then, anything that happens would be because of Patrick's actions.

I do let my friends know about all of this - including TeamFourStar, who through this entire thing have been blameless and didn't even do anything to Patrick to begin with. And every time Patrick does something, I make sure people in my circle are aware and to be cautious.

Meanwhile Patrick alludes to all of this indirectly in the songs he posts to his YouTube channel. Yes, a situation that involves actual victims and one alleged victim that Patrick hadn't spoken to in years. He chose to make reference to all of this in videos where he raps, amongst other things.

There are a number of songs that feature references to this, it's mainly these two that I want to focus on

Birdy Boy is a song that is explicitly referencing Patrick's issues with me, without actually going into any details about what the issue is.

It is so clearly about me that people pick up on it - and rather than confront the issue or have a dialogue, Patrick decides to pin the comment about it to the top of the comments page.

Of course, if Patrick made any attempt to directly describe the issue or explain himself, it would likely result in the police becoming involved once again.

So he sticks to singing about the whole thing.

This next song is the most upsetting one.

Patrick/Shady writes a song called "Joker" about a psychotic individual murdering someone who "used to be funny." This is, specifically, the song that he teases at the end of the GX Abridged Episode 21 video he posted earlier in 2019 for april fools.

He has teased it multiple times on his twitter, and elsewhere, with the words "Coming Soon." The very same words he used to title his third threatening email.

Here is the email, placed next to some lyrics from the song Joker.

He is seemingly very specifically trying to threaten me without anyone noticing, in plain sight. I was unable to watch the video in full until after all of this stuff came out into the public. It was only through reading people's responses and the lyrics that I realized what he was doing.

Again, at this point I am doing and saying nothing publicly. Just watching this behavior and waiting.

Meanwhile in 2021, a videogame based on the web series TOME gets fully funded and Christopher Niosi - the creator of TOME - reaches out to the voice cast to see if they'll return. I myself was the voice of Nylocke, one of the main characters, and Patrick was the voice of THE main character.

As such, I told Christopher no and explained my reasons.

And here is Christopher's response.

Please pay careful attention to the fact that Christopher Niosi flat out says he already knew Patrick was doing this stuff - it isn't just me imagining it.

As a result of this interaction, I do not reprise my role as Nylocke and Christopher Niosi chooses to just recast every single character. Please note that he could have just recast Patrick, but did not. As a result, I feel responsible for all of the original cast losing out on work. It hurts to think about. But at least I feel like I did the right thing.

One member of the TOME production staff takes it upon themselves to reach out to Patrick personally. They discover that he is planning to write more songs/raps that target me. They ask him nicely to stop. He insists that he has to do this. Y'know, make vague allusions to extremely sensitive topics that he lied about in the form of song. Has to do it.

The member of production staff tells Patrick he should seek professional help.

Patrick ignores them.

Patrick continues to engage in behavior that, while not openly hostile or even specifically targeting anyone, is very clearly intended as mockery at best and a threat at worst until 2023 when all of this comes to a head.

In August of 2023, the real victims that Patrick has manipulated make a callout post aimed at myself and TeamFourStar. It specifically cites Patrick's testimony and the songs he has posted. They have been misled, but their anger is understandable.

Within a week, it becomes apparent to all sides that this is Patrick's fault. The person who posted the callout takes it down and apologizes to everyone. Not just me. They apologize to TeamFourStar, and to X.

And only then do I speak publicly about what Patrick has been doing.

I share all of the screencaps I've posted here, and give context. It's all a little muddled as at the time, my cat was dying of terminal cancer and so all of my posts are somewhat scatterbrained and aren't in chronological order. But it's still remarkably clear to everyone that Patrick has manipulated this whole thing, starting in 2019.

And that's only the stuff I feel comfortable sharing.

Since the callout post first dropped in 2023 and I began pointing people's attention toward Patrick, Patrick himself has been entirely silent. He has dropped off the internet with nary a word in defense. Not a single person directly associated with what happened has attempted to dispute my description of events.

This isn't my word versus his. It is my word versus silence.

I have it on good authority that Patrick is alive and well. I am grateful for that much. My attempts have not been to hurt him, but to defend myself. My efforts have not been to hunt him down and crucify him, but to make people aware of what transpired - and what could have easily been undone by Patrick/Shady just choosing to stop.

Instead a number of victims, and people who never did a thing, experienced a considerable amount of trauma as a result of his thoughtless and spiteful actions.

Patrick is a remarkably talented individual, and it makes me sad I have to be the one to show people who he is. I genuinely think all of this could have been avoided. It's so meaningless. It's just pain on top of pain.

And Patrick stood in the center of it all, not just pulling people's strings but practically uprooting them and then acting like he didn't do a thing.

I'm not expecting an apology, and I'm not asking for his cancelation, whatever shape that would take. But I do think it's important that people know this happened, that he chose this.

He did this for almost no reason to a person he considered a friend, who worked on videos with him.

It just seems like the responsible thing, to make sure people are somewhat aware that he could do this to them if they aren't cautious and careful and super aware.

I'm sorry to anyone disappointed and hurt by all of this information.

Believe me, I understand.

[bean-bean2000]

The Hacker - Part 3

Pairings: Bucky x Reader

Warnings: angst, yelling, self-deprecating thoughts (lbody dismorphia, self-hatred), recall of past traumatic events including physical and mental abuse & murder, guns, depression (suicidal thoughts).

Please note that I am not responsible for what you consume online. proceed at your own caution.

Feedback is welcome and very appreciated!

Part 2 here

Series masterlist

———————————————————————————

You wake up to loud banging on your door and yelling.

“YOU BRAT!! GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!” Steve yells.

You giggle at his anger. You get up and open the door swiftly with a smirk.

“What’s wrong Cap? Couldn’t sleep?”

“What is wrong with you?! Why can’t you just be a quiet nerd that does what she’s told to do? Why can’t you follow simple orders? Why must you always create problems?!”

“Geez Cap, I always took you for a morning person. Who’s got your panties in a twist?”

“Cut that out right now! I know it was you! This never happened until you showed up. What did you want to achieve from this?”

“I’m not property. I am not a soldier. As Tony said, I’m a cyberpunk. A simple ‘Thank you for saving my life’ would have been nice. You’re too high strung and refuse to admit that you were wrong and I was very right for interfering. I will not be your puppet. I am my own person, whether you like it or not! I may be a part of this team, against my own will, but that doesn’t mean you can bark orders at me like a dog!”

“GAH! you’re unbelievable!” Steve says as he stomps away.

You snort and roll your eyes. You head to the kitchen and living room to grab some breakfast; not like you were going to fall back asleep now anyway.

As you walk in you see a certain blue-eyed brooding super soldier sitting at the kitchen island, sipping on coffee.

Your heart skips a beat but you ignore it and walk nonchalantly to the coffee machine.

“Good morning.” you say politely.

Bucky doesn’t reply but you can feel his eyes boring into your back. You turn around slowly and sip on your coffee, staring back at him. You’re not that easily intimidated.

Bucky snorts as a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth. “You’re something else you know that? Nobody has ever angered Steve like you have.”

“Nobody has treated me as poorly as he has”

Bucky sighs “Give him a chance. He doesn’t understand how to use the TV remote half the time. He’s scared. he doesn’t know how to guide you and lead you during missions. He’s lost when it comes to modern age technology and it’s frustrating him.”

You stare at him as you consider what Bucky has told you.

“Regardless, his behaviour towards me is ridiculous. Considering he’s from the 40’s I expected a bit more chivalry and respect from him. I will make it clear as much as I can and as many times as needed that I am not his dog that he can bark orders at. End of conversation.”

“Wow this generation has really raised some ballsy women.” He says while shaking his head with a smile.

“Is that a problem old man? Want me to be little miss submissive? Running to you every night with a fresh meal on the table and do everything at your bidding?” you reply in a mocking voice.

Bucky gets up from the bar stool and walks towards you, he gently lowers his elbows on the kitchen island and stares at you directly in your eyes.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Honestly, I respect you the most out of everyone. You came here, alone and scared, and you still stand your ground, no matter the consequences. You’re confident and self-assured. They underestimated you.”

Your tongue is caught in your throat. His blue eyes are stormy. You swear you can see admiration and pride in his eyes but you quickly look away before you let your body take over and do what you really want to do to him. This is strictly professional. No emotions, you promised yourself.

You clear your throat and back up a bit “I um - i’m going to go to my office and do some stuff…alright bye.” You stammer as you quickly run off before he can stop you.

Unbeknownst to you, Bucky watches you runaway with a smile on his face and his heart beating so fast. He can’t remember the last time he’s felt like this for someone. He just met her and feels like he’s known her forever.

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

You run to your office and sit on your chair abruptly. You dim the light, close the shades and turn on the purple LED lights. You let out a long breath you didn’t realize you were holding in. You embrace the calming atmosphere of your office as you begin to work.

You check your emails and notice a slew of small jobs Tony has delegated to you. Hacking into some servers to retrieve some sensitive information; nothing you haven’t done before. You put your headphones on and blast some music to drown out any background noise and help you focus on finishing the task at hand.

As you’re working through your to do list, you didn’t realize how fast time flew by. The once early morning sun has now set into the late evening. You’re continuously tapping away on your keyboard, your eyes glued to the screens in front you. You’re so hyper focused you don’t realize someone is watching you from the doorframe of your office.

Suddenly you feel a hand squeeze your shoulder. You shriek so hard that your headphones fly off your head and you leap so high out of your chair that it flips over, making you fall backwards to the ground. As you’re trying to get back up, you look to the culprit and see Steve scrambling to help you up. He grabs you by your arms and pulls you up in one swift motion, all while apologizing profusely.

“Oh god I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, are you ok? I was calling your name but you couldn’t hear me so I tried to get your attention.” Steve rambles while analyzing you, looking for injuries.

You sigh a breath of relief and rub your head, already feeling a bump forming from the fall.

“It’s fine Steve. What do you want?” you answer coldly.

“Look, I wanted to apologize. I’m really sorry for how i’ve been acting. I don’t understand a fraction of what you do or how you do it and I have no idea how to lead you through the missions. I was frustrated and took it out on you. It’s not right and I’m sorry.” Steve says, blue eyes boring into yours, swirling with pleading sadness, begging to be forgiven.

“I get it Steve. I do, and I accept your apology. However, you understand that I don’t need guidance right? The internet, hacking, technology in general is my life. All I need from you is to lead, to tell me what to do and when and I’ll do it but if there is something else that I can do to help the team further or save you, I will do it. Whether you like it or not, I know the consequences of my actions and I know what I’m doing. I trust you. The real question is, do you trust me?”

“I— I do. I will. from now, I will trust you and your instincts. I promise. You’re part of the team now and I will treat you as an equal like I treat everyone else.”

“Good. Thank you for being honest with me and clearing this up. Let’s start over.”

“Deal. Thank you Y/N.”

“Just don’t piss me off again or I’ll make it way worse for you than a few simple alarms and blaring red lights in your room as payback.” you smirk at him and wink.

He rolls his eyes and smile “Understood, scouts honour.” He salutes you jokingly and walks out with a quick goodbye.

You decide to call it a night and close up your office for the day. You walk to the kitchen and realize you haven’t eaten all day.

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

As you reach the kitchen and start making yourself a quick sandwich you hear footsteps approaching you.

“Hey there Cyberpunk, what are you up too? You disappeared all day today.” Bucky says as he sits next to you on a kitchen bar stool.

“I was working on some things Tony needed. I didn’t realize how time flew by. I haven’t eaten yet so i’m just making a quick snack.”

“You didn’t take a single break? How did you not eat, drink, go to the bathroom?…” Bucky looks at you with a concerned look.

“Um, no, not really. I tend to get really hyper focused on my tasks, especially when my brain is in overdrive. It’s kind of like a coping mechanism. I escape into my own cyber world and I don’t leave until my body basically wakes me up.” You say nonchalantly.

“Well, not anymore. Not on my watch.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” you ask while giggling.

“I have decided to make it my job to make sure that you’re taking enough breaks, eating, drinking water, going outside for some fresh air…”

“You don’t have to do that. I like my little cyber-cave. It’s my space, it’s fine.”

“Doll, you are stubborn.” he chuckles to you as he playfully pushes his shoulder against yours.

You reply with a scoff as you finish making your snack.

"You're too cute to treat yourself like this. Let me take care of you for a bit, I want to help."

You stare at him in disbelief.

Is he... flirting with me? There's no chance James Buchanan Barnes is flirting with me. He's just being nice to me. With women like Natasha around him, there is no way he would even look my way. I'm a freaking nerd, a computer geek that stays indoors all day and hides from the world through the internet. The other women in the compound are gorgeous with the perfect bodies to match. I'm not exactly the most fit, I can't even jog for more than 10 seconds without my lungs hurting. I dress is loose comfortable clothes, my hair is always in either a messy bun or air dried to let its natural pattern go free. I put minimal makeup at most because I'm alone indoors all day. Remember, no emotions. It's all in your head. Focus Y/N. He is just being polite and welcoming as you're a new team member.

Your thoughts are running a mile a minute as Bucky is looking into your eyes, waiting for an answer. You must have been staring at him for too long because Bucky asked you if something was wrong.

"No I um - i'm good. Just exhausted. Long day. Thanks for keeping me company for a bit. I have to go now, bye." you say awkwardly as you grab ur plate of food and scurry to your room.

"Hey, wait where are you going?" Bucky questions as he sees you run off.

You ignore him and quicken your pace. Your heart is racing. You reach your room and close the door behind you as you let out a huge sigh of relief.

Why am I so awkward? Why can't I just have a normal conversation with him? He's too damn gorgeous thats why. How can I not be attracted to him? He's built like a greek god with these captivating blue eyes and that dark hair that you just want to run your fingers through - stop it. No no no stop that right now. If you develop a crush on him, you will only get hurt. You're being delusional. He doesn't like you. Look at yourself.

You stare at yourself in the mirror.

What could he possibly be attracted to? The dark circles under my eyes? My messy hair? My loose fitting clothes that give me no shape whatsoever? It's not like my body is perfect either. I have stretch marks, I'm not fit, I don't have abs by any means, my arms are not muscular or toned, my thighs are large.... I do have a nice ass and some great boobs, I will admit.

Bucky is a man that goes for super model type women. Not computer nerds that eat take out almost religiously and never leave their computer chair except to go to the bathroom. I think the most steps i've done in an entire day is 500. Who am i kidding? Why am I doing this to myself? Just stop. Focus on work, nothing else. This will only lead to more and more heartbreak that I just can't take anymore.

There is so much they don't know about me. They can't know. I've worked so hard to erase it from the world all together, to make myself disappear into thin air, to hardly exist. I know Tony is probably trying to deep dive into my past and find some trace of who I am and where I'm from but I know I've gotten rid of it all years ago and I plan on keeping it that way.

Start of flashback

You're hiding under your desk in your room, shaking as you hear your parents screaming at each other in the kitchen. You had accidentally dropped a plate and it crashed to the floor, pieces flying everywhere which had caused your father to erupt in a rage. He stalked towards you as a slew of insults that have been repeated to you over the years flew from his mouth: worthless, stupid, waste of life, ugly. You name it, he said it.

Taking out his anger on you, leaving you no chance to breathe until your mother pried his hands off of you while screaming for him to stop. As soon as he let go of you, you had run to your room where you're now hiding. You can feel the blood leaking from your nose and lip, one eye almost shut so tight you can hardly see out of it. You grabbed your phone and dialed 911 - terrified as to what your father might do, especially if he found out you had called the cops on him. The first responder tells you to stay where you are and keep the phone open. As you're about to reply, your door swings open and your father storms in. He rips you out from your desk and drags you to the kitchen again. You're too scared to even scream or cry.

He throws you to the floor, on the pieces of glass that remained on the floor from the broken plate you had dropped. The shards cut your hands and knees and crush into your skin. All you can do is lay there and pray that the first responder heard the scene unfold and sent police officers to your address. You're waiting to be saved, you feel helpless as always, you just want to get out.

You watch as your father punches your mother unconscious. You watch in fear as he approaches you and laughs. He tells you that this is all your fault. You watch him pull out his gun and point it as your mother who is laying on the floor lifeless. You scream as you lunge towards him to stop him but it was too late. The shot resonated throughout the tiny apartment with a sharp thud as you jumped him.

You wrestled him with all your might, grabbing a shard of glass from the floor and stabbing it into his thigh. He screamed in agony and cursed at you, punching you hard and sending you flying across the floor. You scramble to get up as you watch him point the gun to you this time. You make a split second decision and duck as you tackle his waist and force him to the ground. Wrestling again, you manage to grab the gun that is pointed at you and turn it the other way, facing your fathers chest directly. You look him in the eye as you tell him that his reign of terror has ended and you pull the trigger. You keep pulling the trigger until you hear the gun click.

You get up and look at yourself, covered in blood. Your father’s lifeless body laying there in a pool of his own blood. You hear the sirens and realize what you've done. You have to get out, now.

You grab everything you can and you run. You wash your hands, arms and chest in a pond in the forest you ran into and changed your clothes. Grabbing a pair of scissors in your bag you cut your hair to change your appearance. You take one look back at your apartment, now covered with flashing red and blue lights. You turn around and head into the forest, never looking back again.

You had found yourself in a homeless shelters for 4 years. Continuously dying your hair different colours and moving around from shelter to shelter. You had to because you were too recognizable, with a deep scar slashing across your lip and multiple scars littering the plans of your hands- a final gift from your father. When you couldn’t find a new shelter to stay at, the alleys outside were your best bet. Stealing food from trash cans and people’s lunches when they weren’t paying attention is how you survived. Keeping your appearance hidden and constantly different is how you evaded the cops. You were a missing person and a person of interest in the case of your parents. You had to get out of here to make it out alive. You decide to hop on a train and never look back.

When you woke up to the train halting to a stop. You look outside and realize you’re now in New York. You jump off the train and make your way to the city.

One day, at another random shelter, you met someone who ended up teaching you your way around computers. One thing led to another and you were a cyber whiz with an online community, making money off of rich assholes by hacking into their bank accounts and stealing some money they would never even notice was missing. You managed to get yourself a small shitty apartment, but you welcomed it as anything is better than the streets and shelters.

Once you were settled in a makeshift homb- the same home which the Avengers gracefully kidnapped you from - you decided you had to find a way to kill the old you and let the new you stay hidden.

You figured out a way to erase yourself from the world. You hacked into the government system and erased all documents pertaining to you; your birth certificate, medical records, dental records, school enrollments; everything. You manufactured one item and left it in the system for good measure; a death certificate. Nobody would search for a dead girl.

End of Flashback

You don't notice that you've sunken to the floor, shaking as you bring your knees up to your chest. Sobbing quietly as the horrific memory haunts your mind. You beg to whoever and whatever is listening to you for forgiveness. You beg to have your life taken from you. Your fathers dying words replaying in your mind forever: Worthless, stupid, waste of life.

Maybe he's right.

You hold yourself tighter as you continue crying, balled up on the floor until you fell asleep from exhaustion.

———————————————————————————-

Part 4

Please let me know if you would like to be added to the tag list!

Tag List:

@unaxv

@winterslove1917

[pruning-the-minds-garden]

Unsafe Hypnokink Creators and Hypnotists List

And other unsafe persons

This list is to lead to the posts that I come across that detail credible (and I am using my own definition of credible; I'm not a lawyer nor a court of law) accusations of wrongdoing by hypnokink creators, and therefore people to Avoid. The article names here are going to be the names of the people who are detailed in the linked article, and where parenthetical attribution is given that is to indicate that the post is not written by me. I'm doing a Read More in order to make sure that as I edit the content below the cut (the list of creators), it updates the text that appears on Reblogs.

Potentially Unsafe Hypnokink Creators:

Nimja (via FetLife and his website): Dealing with underage partners, mistreating partners, dubious content in files. A list of red flags in Nath's dealings with him, which I also find to be credible. Evidence. Evidence. (by @writtenbynath)

Blueberry Empire (via Discord and YouTube): Transphobic and homophobic attitudes by creator as well as a history of allowing underage persons on her NSFW server. The Tumblr post is written by me, but that comes from a Twitter post written by someone else.

Inventive Mind (via Discord and FetLife): Highly abusive and non-consensual brainwashing and cult leader-like behavior, all laid out here. (note: link removed because someone was using the linked page - and my link to it - for nefarious purposes. Suffice to say it supports my prior point.)

NeuralNets (On FetLife, Reddit, and as AKAs DeepDreamStates, NeuroPlex here on Tumblr. Probably more places also): Since he basically asked me to, here's a basic primer on NeuralPlex's history of misdeeds and abuse. The essentials of it is that he doesn't directly create himself, but he sets up the structures for and allows to flourish, a culture of abuse and dangerous parasocial relationships - that is, a cult of personality with them at the center - on his Discord server and takes an attitude toward safety in his files that is at best perfunctory ("this is what I have to do in order to get to the good stuff") and at worst performative ("be careful with this file because it's really powerful!" is NOT a legitimate content warning, except to them it sometimes is). While I'm sure there are a lot of people who like that sort of content, you should know that if things go bad - and that's a nonzero possibility - then he is not going to be there to help you after and is going to sweep you under a rug after. It has happened before.

Dr. Headcrash: This one is most directly supported by a sort of secondary accusation, but that speaks back to a larger pattern. So, Headcrash is known to have abused past partners and there have been issues with conventions out on the West Coast for that reason, and so I feel the need to add him here as an unsafe creator/hypnotist. He doesn't have a Tumblr so far as I'm aware, so this links to his Twitter, but I'm sure he also has a FetLife as well.

Professor Mesmer: This person used a combination of recreational drugs and hypnosis, most especially b*mbi content, to condition and abuse a number of people across several (at least three) years. Because of a combination of safety and ethical concerns with the specific pieces of evidence to which I was linked I will not link them, however I find based on those links that the accusations are credible. All I'll do by way of substantiation is say to contact Bubbles for more, if you have questions. But, be polite. Update: This is one of the rare events in the hypnokink community to break out of the hypnokink community and get noticed by the wider world. Here is a Buzzfeed News article about Professor Mesmer. Yes, he is "James."

Vassalreturns: This person has an admitted - by them - history of serial (in the dozens of past partners/victims) abuse and consent violation. I do not know the precise details, but they describe violating limits, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, and other classic abuse tactic in broad terms without specific details. I take them at their word. They are a creator of b*mbi-themed bimbo hypnokink content, and with their admitted history of abuse (which was shared with me on the condition I not broadcast it publicly, but I have vetted it and found it to be authentic) the fact they focus on "extreme" BS content is especially concerning. Also concerning is their language around their history, which shows less a genuine desire to change and more a belief that they are not capable of it coupled with a desire to fail to change and thus indulge in what is to them a forbidden fruit. Here is my post on the topic. --- Edit (05/13/24): In the comments on this post you will see a report of him discontinuing making BS (B*mbi Sl**p) files, and leaving the hypnokink community altogether. That report has at this point not been corroborated by me, but it is worth bearing in mind. It also might demonstrate genuine remorse and a desire to change, though I cannot say that for certain. If I get more information in this regard I will add it to this post.

Other potentially unsafe people:

Ernesto / -stealth-; a photographer who advertises a willingness to take pictures of especially young, attractive women in his area for free. He buys dinner and transportation and then holds the pictures hostage in exchange for a glowing review, and uses the shoot as a chance to take advantage of his prospective model while emotionally abusing and threatening her. This is a pattern of behavior. It's also not new, but I was just made aware of it and it's ongoing.

savagemadeink: For harassing and aggressive behavior toward a content creator.

The Whack-a-Mole Rogues' Gallery:

This is the place where I will link to the rogues' gallery of predatory hypnotists who I come across on Tumblr, as I come across them. These are people who almost always delete their blog within a week or two of being called out, but reappear a month or two later under a different pseudonym (hence the name, based on me playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole with them). I'm going to link their blog even though the link will almost certainly go dark, and link to the evidence. Since all of the accusations are basically copypasta of one another - disregarding consent, bad safety practices, treating subs poorly, etc - I'm not going to detail them. Read the evidence links for more.

Hypnotica2: Evidence

I will add to this as needed and as more come across my dash. This list is also still under construction.

[pakhnokh]

I keep coming back to this specific panel and thinking about how vulnerable Wei Wuxian looks in the last frame. Thinking about it and assuming everything that happened before the start of HoG was canon, this is probably the first time ever Wei Wuxian was allowed to be human without everyone judging him for it or demanding that he explain why he fucked up again.

Lan Wangji just says Wei Wuxian doesn't need to explain, doesn't owe him that, he's not *entitled* to Wei Wuxian or his thoughts and feelings. Irony of finally owning himself while also feeling trapped aside, I can't imagine how raw that must have made Wei Wuxian feel.

(this late analysis brought to you by me being bored at work 😂)

Awwww thank you so much for being bored at work because I loved this analysis a lot! 🥺

If there's one thing that guides this story is LWJ understanding WWX's harsh position and trying to respect him as a man, as a former part of the proper cultivation world of their society, as a boy who was happy and enthusiastic once, and as a person who always stood up for what is right, even if it brought destruction upon himself and others.

In several parts of this arc I saw many people comment stuff like "hug him, lan wangji!" "kiss him!" etc, and I know it was people getting really emotional hahaha I would've commented the same.

But LWJ won't do that unless he earned WWX'S trust and love. He wants to show him support not by words of love, but by words of understanding, of taking action, of making him know that he has someone to rely on. LWJ knows what it's like to be a cultivator, how much hard work it takes, and what it means to be a part of their society. He knows that WWX position and honor as a cultivator in their world was harmed and he knows how hard it is, so if he offers any comfort, it's standing by his side as an ally in this political world and trying to find a solution to redeem his reputation. Offering romantic love is something that he'd really want to do, but doing it to a person who's been through all that hardship feels like mocking him and belittling from his status, or at least, the status WWX once had. So he's being patient and wants to help WWX the best he can. To be honest, he doesn't even rely on the possibility of his feelings being returned. He just wants to save his Wei Ying from those who wish to harm him, and to make things better for him.

In this part you shared, LWJ knows how it must feel like for WWX. Even without knowing about his trauma of being pushed from the sword, LWJ suspects that WWX might not have his core anymore (see arc 1) and plus, he feels guilty for all that WWX had to deal with on this day he planned to take him out. So even if WWX says that it's just cause he's tired, LWJ believes it too, since it's a huge emotional toll to have to sneak out hiding your identity, then the fear of being discovered, being the cause of mass panic and hate, hearing insults and accusations, realizing he's hated by all, and on top of it all - staying hungry 😭

He doesn't need WWX to explain nothing. He just wants him to rest and be safe, so that he could figure out how to help him 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Thank you again for your message ❤❤❤❤❤ hope it got better at work lol

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

I suspect I know the answer but. AITA for "disappearing" from my online accounts pretty regularly?

I (22) have been fairly active in online fandom culture since I was ~13. Most of that has been on tumblr, some on twitter/tiktok/discord. I bounce around between different fandoms-- there's not really any one fandom that has stuck since I was a kid-- and I'm not a big creator. I don't do art, I occasionally write fanfic but never anything that's gotten super famous (which I'm cool with, I write for the enjoyment of myself and the like 5 other freaks who like the same things I do. it would honestly really bother me if I got too much attention.)

I also have some issues with paranoia and social detachment. I dealt with rather severe childhood abuse, which I'm not going to discuss, but which basically means I'm very emotionally detached. I have solo hobbies i really enjoy, and I like discussing common interests (like fandom stuff) with people, but I've never really had friends/romantic interests, and have zero interest in either of those things. The only people I'm really close to are my siblings. I'm definitely not an introvert, not shy/socially anxious, and not lonely. I have morals and care about society in a general sense, and I want the best for people, so I try to be polite and a Good Person as much as possible-- but ultimately I don't feel any kind of attachment to other people. I really don't want to hurt people, I just want to be left alone.

I really try to politely communicate this to people, since I've had quite a few incidents where I've been told I "lead people on", or people thinking we're friends and then getting upset when they realize I really don't care that much about them. It does make me feel bad to hurt others like that (and is also frustrating to deal with), but I can't exactly force myself to have emotions. I get along well with my irl coworkers/classmates/roommates, since they understand I just need a lot of space. Where I may be TA is with online friends.

About once every 6-12 months, I delete my entire online presence and start over. I orphan my ao3 fics, delete any and all accounts, and make sure my new accounts don't in any way link back to my old accounts. Usually when I do this it's because 1 I've changed interests and don't care about my old fandom, or 2 I feel like the people I know online start getting too close and emotionally attached to me. I usually post an explanation a few days before so people don't think something bad happened, saying that I'm going to be taking a break from social media for a while, and if anyone asks me for another way to contact me I just say I'm going to be completely offline. Then I just.... wipe everything and start over. I don't really know what my old mutuals are doing and don't particularly care? Like obviously I wish all the best for them, but I just don't think about them at all.

I've been doing this since I was a young teenager, but I was discussing fandom/social media presence with some irl classmates recently and brought it up. The reactions ranged from "weird but harmless" to "super mean and hurtful to the people you abandoned".

So: tumblr, AITA for disappearing?

What are these acronyms?

[dduane]

I was reading through the 'writing' tag on your blog, and came across your wonderful post about how you outline your novels using Cherryh's 'Shopping List' technique. My question is - how do you decide/come up with the 10 things in the novel? I have about 3-4 things I know must happen in my idea, and other random details about the world. But what is important enough to be one of the 10 things? And also, how do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?

...Okay, let's take this from the top. (And for convenience's sake, let's stay in the shopping-list idiom; it's useful enough.) (ETA: the blog entry containing the description of the Shopping List outlining method is here.)

Let's say you want to make a cake. ...This cake also being your novel.

To have a solid story (in the western-novel tradition, anyway), you need at least two things: plot and theme. The plot is what happens. The theme is the why of what happens, and (to a certain extent) the spectrum of thought and emotion that underlies that; the answer to the question “But what’s the book about?”* ...Think of this duality, for the moment, as the equivalent of having both liquid and solid stuff in your cake. You’ve got to have both or it won’t rise. A book with a plot but no theme has no soul.

So: you’re going to make a cake. What kind?

As an example, I’m going to ease myself out onto a limb here and equate “chocolate-chip devil’s food with chocolate buttercream frosting” with “epic-fantasy quest fiction with strong political, exoreligious, and quasiromantic components.” (A favorite for me, over time, as some folks will have noticed. I just can’t get enough of those chocolate chips...)

So how do you determine the ten things you need (or whatever number you like, but ten works for me) as major ingredients / sections?

Well, ideally from some familiarity with what has gone in other/similar cakes/works of fiction in the past. If you haven’t been reading in your chosen genre, you should be. This doesn’t mean you have to do what other people working in the genre have done. (Indeed, at all times you remain at liberty to “flip the punchcard” and do exactly the opposite of what everybody else has been doing, if that’s what suits you.) But they’ve set out possible recipes for you, so (as a beginner at this work) examine those recipes and see what’s in them that might be useful for you. Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you don’t need to go looking, just as an experienced baker doesn’t need to run for the recipe book every time they want to make a cake.

Naturally you can substitute ingredients, add some or lose some, when you’re creating something new; just as you like—while always making sure you don’t throw away anything routinely required/expected in your genre. (Such as the Happily Ever After at the end of a genre romance.) But certain basics must be in place, things that make what you’re creating recognizably A Cake, as well as your own additions and embellishments.

In this case, that could be:

For a cake: flour, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, cocoa, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, seasonings, a little bit of salt (because without that, even the sweetest cake tastes just a little insipid somehow)

For a novel: a protagonist/pairtagonist (is that a word? It is now...), an antagonist (not necessarily a character: an antagonistic or stymie-ing situation that keeps the antagonist from easily getting what they want/need will do just as well. This is where at least some of the interior drama will derive from), a change in interior conditions that sets events in motion, a “ticking clock” or similar construct that means the desired result must be achieved within a certain time or before certain conditions change or expire, various reversals or hiccups in the flow of the story that will inject a sense of realism (because when does anything ever go perfectly smoothly...?), a crisis point at which everything assembled against the protagonist rises up to be dealt with, and the protagonist rises up to meet the challenge and deal with it; and finally a set of resolution events that (even if it doesn’t absolutely finish the story proper) brings about an end state that will leave you, and any theoretical reader, satisfied with the completion of the current story arc.

...Needless to say, this is an incredibly oversimplified take on the kind of strategizing needed when you’re creating the recipe for a novel that won’t simply collapse the minute you take it out of the oven. But starting simple is often best. The more you do this kind of work, the easier it gets.

Now: “How do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?”

There are a lot of possible answers to this, but the simplest is: Make them up out of nothing, as usual. :)

...This isn’t meant to sound like sass. You made up those first three or four things you came up with out of nothing, and now (because they’ve been there for a while, probably) they may well have started to acquire a kind of secret, temporally-based superiority in your mind—starting to feel somehow more valid than what needs to come next to fill in the gaps. This kind of creeping sense of validity-via-temporal-primacy is a commonplace when you’re in mid-process, and I invite you to ignore it.

Just insert those three or four things into your shopping list in (roughly) story-temporal order, and then spend some time thinking about what kinds of events could usefully come between / flow from them. Hints:

Events that could realistically have been caused by the ones you’ve got already, and could also realistically be seen as causal to later ones you’ve already established, are always useful. Ideally, you’re trying to establish a chain of events in which none of them look accidental, or coincidental (because readers are rightfully sensitive to plots that only work because all the characters are idiots, or keep having “lucky accidents”). What you’re working toward is an event flow that seems, when viewed in completion, inevitable: as it if couldn’t have happened any other way. You will almost certainly not achieve this easily, early on in your novel work, and maybe not at all. But it’s what you should be striving for.

Events that badly screw things up for the main characters are also always useful. Heroes do not become heroes by having everything go their way. Their heroism is achieved and manifested by having things go to shit around them again and again and AGAIN, and nonetheless still finding their way through all that shit to do what needs to be done. The lines attributed to the Confucianist philosopher Meng-tse (sometimes written as “Moshi” in Japanese) are a touchstone in this regard:

When Heaven is about to confer a great office upon a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil: it exposes him to poverty and confounds all his undertakings. Then it is seen if he is ready.

So put your protagonists through the wringer. This is the greatest service you can do them.

A variant on this theme: Spend a little time thinking, “What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to these characters in this story / in this world?” And when you’ve figured that out, stick it into one of those gaps as a Main Thing—ideally one between the story’s midpoint and its already-planned crisis, if you’ve got that in place—and then start thinking about how to best exploit it to show how terrific your characters can become if you kick them around a bit. (Addendum: you are allowed to have one Absolutely Terrific and Beautiful Thing happen to assist your characters in recovering from this awfulness. Because they deserve it; but also, all invented worlds [if you ask me] should have beautiful things in them—things to long for, things that make your reader wish they could live there. And that you find beautiful, and worth returning to. You are absolutely allowed to keep yourself entertained, and emotionally refreshed, while you’re creating.)

...Anyway, take your time about getting those gaps filled in. It may take a little while: laying down basic story structure is worth not rushing, if you can avoid it. Once you’ve got them all in place, the secondary lists will follow more easily.

HTH!

*This is a hilarious oversimplification, but my job at the moment is not (as the saying goes) to explain the workings of the entire universe while standing on one foot. :)