#so yes I'm feeding the troll this once | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thewertsearch · 1 month

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Ask Comp 12/8

@williamjakespeare asked: One of the recent posts concludes that the circumstances around Vriska's god tiering were "so much worse than anything I thought was going to happen" and I'm curious. What exactly did you think was going to happen?

Back before I knew how God Tier ascension worked, my theory was that Vriska's Quest Bed might grant her access to a special dream moon, and that Tavros's presence there might throw some sort of spanner into the works. I wasn't sure what kind of spanner, and my theories were very vague.

Vriska's a huge taskmaster, and I thought she might have given him an instruction that he was unwilling or unable to carry out. Like, maybe she told him to leave her God Tier Moon, and he was unwilling to abandon her to a fate he didn't understand.

I guess I was right. In the end, she did give him an instruction he couldn't carry out.

Anonymous asked: For the kid who was the most vocal about her 'distaste' for their guardian, having Mom be the reason that Rose snaps is actually very sweet, in a sad way. ~DJ

The above line from Rose implies that she had a lot more affection for her mother than she was letting on.

Their relationship was complicated, but if Rose viewed her as a sister, I think there had to have been some camaraderie between the two. We just never saw it on-panel, because the narrative began on the most stressful day of Mom Lalonde's life.

@elkian asked: So, fun fact about that time John joked about rescuing Rose from the Broodfesther Throes and you were going "yes it's a joke BUT IT'S ALSO SERIOUS JOHN!!!": Hussie's author note for that page is almost verbatim your reaction. Homestuck is as serious as it is silly and typically both at once.

Every time Hussie and I share the same thought, a subtle chill runs down my spine.

@gl1tchypyr0 asked: In regards to the thing about LOWAA potentially corrupting Eridan, itd be a little smart to remember what Sollux said in his conversation with Terezi about a prophet has to go blind to earn their stripes or how an angel earns its wings, Sollux states that 'angels are terrible feathery demons that paradox space uses to usher in the end' and Eridan was actually killing them even if he wasn't Supposed to. If you really think about it I actually kinda find it sad? If he was already a troubled individual Before Sgrub and then was on a planet of 'terrible feathery demons' that whisper prophecies in his earfins for an entire month that he was made to feel he Had to kill, honestly it makes me nervous imagining just how many doomed timelines there are where Eridan snapped far earlier. Not to mention the fact he's also on the Blue Team ie Derse players ie most susceptible to waking up in his sleep and seeing tentacles and eyeballs staring back at him (not that he wouldn't be /used to that/ back on alternia with his job of feeding glybgolyb so Feferi wouldn't have to). Not really defending eridan but just, food for thought kinda? About how LOWAA might have affected him enough for Doc Scratch to bring up such a hypothetical. The idea that Eridan was already pretty bad before the inevitable Sgrub trauma and then LOWAA made thinks /worse/.

Oh, don't get it twisted - Eridan's just as much of tragedy as any of the other trolls. He's certainly written to be less sympathetic, but he didn't deserve to be raised in the Alternian Empire. Just like Vriska and Equius, he could have been a much better person, if only he was raised in a less violent and oppressive culture.

Of course, he could still be an asshole if he was born on Earth - but at least he'd have a chance to be better. Alternia stacks the deck against you in ways that simply aren't fair.

@galaxa-13 asked: It is very satisfying watching you pick apart everything Doc Scratch says without playing his game. Rose wishes she could, but unfortunately she is a child and not as smart as she pretends to be. Usually it's fun to watch people theorize because of what they don't know, so it's extra fun when someone as smart as you doesn't have the pieces I already do. Just chortling to myself, "Oh ho ho, just you wait!" @elkian asked: I may have sent this before but I ADORE your Doc Scratch dissertations. What few liveblogs (and fandom during/after the run) I've followed have other strengths and focuses, so these moments where you stop everything to shred his dialogue to see if fhere's even a GRAIN of truth are novel and absolutely fascinating. I think you've done the most thorough analyses of any 1 of his convos let alone all of them and I'm here for it. Rip that shady motherfucker apart! :D

Despite myself, I am enjoying puzzling out the true meaning of what he says. I've just got to remember that he is fully capable of lying.

I do think, on balance, that there is some hidden meaning to his words - it's just hard to find. His '50% chance of ascending' statement is definitely foreshadowing something, I just can't figure out what. I think it has something to do with the reboot session, but I'm waiting to learn more about the reboot before I really start theorizing about it.

Anonymous asked: In case the 7 Gates haven’t been fully explained yet — the Gates over a player’s house are all either entry (transport to somewhere on their planet) or exit (destination of a gate on the planet of the previous player in the chain). Using John as example: Build to gate 1, which takes him somewhere on LOWAS. Find gate 2 elsewhere on LOWAS, this will take him to the matching gate over Rose’s house — build up to her gate 3, which will lead to somewhere on LOLAR, then find the planet’s gate 4, etc.

Here's my old interpretation of the Gate system, from way back in Act 4. I'm fully in agreement with you about John's path here - the problem is that when you use it to extrapolate Rose's path, things start to fall apart.

See, this ordering method implies that in a four-player chain, your own Seventh Gate is located on the Land preceding yours, rather than your own. This means that Rose's Seventh Gate is the one that got John killed on LOWAS - the one which leads to his Denizen. It additionally implies that John's Seventh Gate should have been on Jade's Land instead. It's all very confusing.

Anonymous asked: Something I love about how this god-tier immortality system is described, however it works, is that "remaining neutral" will PROBABLY keep you alive… but when you think about it, remaining neutral means not making a REAL DIFFERENCE. As a God, if you want to make a difference in the world around you -- good or bad -- you have to be willing to stake your life on it.

True! It's an interesting balancing mechanism, where each God Tier has to decide whether their life is more valuable than their personal agency. Gods who avoid Heroic and Just situations are almost invincible, but they're also completely ineffectual.

I'd obviously try to game the system somehow, but the vague, subjective definitions of Heroic and Just make this a difficult system to game.

@spyril4132 asked: with the reveal of the heroic-just system, there's now a reason you might not want to god tier immediately: sacrificing one of your selves for a heroic cause and then doing what aradia did (but intentionally)

Good point. Although, I'm not sure I'd want to rely on the Quest Slab for my resurrection - at least, not yet. We don't really know the rules are, and how they differ from normal Quest Bed rules.

Anonymous asked: "I don't really care if Paradox Space sanctions his actions - he needs to be taken down, and if that upsets the natural order, then it's time for a new natural order." i think you for sure lean more lifeways on the life/doom player axis lol. oh, the laws of the multiverse say death is inevitable? well, that fucking sucks and i hate it, so i'm gonna wedge myself into the cracks and loopholes and *make* it evitable one day at a goddamn time, life finds a way motherfucker.

Life finds a way, motherfucker!

I actually find both Life and Doom fairly interesting, as Aspects go. I think, at this point, I'm committed to giving one to my kidsona, and the other to my trollsona.

If another Aspect ends up catching my eye, we'll have to start workshopping a Carapaciansona!

Anonymous asked: I think you got it kinda twisted what's going on with Rose. Yes she is slightly corrupted by the Horrorterrors powers/boons and Scratch's… Sheer Existence. But in her mind, she's doing this to Save her session, so if she does go God Tier and gets killed, her death wouldn't be Just, it would probably be Heroic. As she probably would've died tryong to save her session, which would cancel out the corruption from Scratch and Horrorterrors. Either way she still dies, but it's the difference in Why she dies that's important. […]

See, this is the whole problem, isn't it? These terms are incredibly subjective.

I personally think Rose's attempt to save her session is extremely Heroic - but Skaia couldn't possibly approve of her assault on the game, so I don't think it would cancel out her Horrorterror corruption. Sburb itself is probably the last word on what qualifies as a Just death, so I think that's what she'd get tagged as, if she died as a God Tier in the Green Sun's explosion.

I'm also not sure if getting tagged as Heroic would cancel out a Just tag. They're not necessarily opposites - Vriska, for example, is designed to have a controversial alignment, and could easily die in a way that counts as both.

@ben-guy asked: Small correction, you referred to the Alternian empire as "intergalactic" when it only exists within one galaxy as far as I'm aware. Yes, kind of a silly nitpick, and one that I could be wrong about, but I happen to enjoy thinking about the comparative scale of space faring societies lol. If there is a quote contradicting that, I'd like to see it! Pretty sure it's merely a galactic empire tho :)

Nah, that's fair - that's the kind of nitpick I'd point out, too.

Galaxy, singular. I think I parsed the Empire as intergalactic because massively faster-than-light travel is clearly possible in this setting, via time manipulation. We don't actually know if Alternia had access to time manipulation before Sgrub - but Earth seemingly did, so who knows?

@abacusdictator asked: Found your liveblog a few days ago and furiously binged it. Happy to find another Homestuck liveblog! Especially one I can see happen in-progress! I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

Thanks - and you're certainly coming in at an interesting time!

Anonymous asked: Scratch "chooses not to lie," but he also has the privileged position of knowing in advance that Rose will misunderstand what the Scratch is, leading to her doing what he wants. If he knew that not lying wouldn't get him what he wants, or even if he didn't know for certain that it would, would he lie? If so, that basically means it's pointless to try to figure out his true meanings, because if you succeed, he'll have retroactively lied about it anyway.

Yeah, this is pretty much my take.

Does it really matter if he 'doesn't lie' if he can foresee all the truths that will mislead you? When you're playing at his level, the actual truth of your statements barely matters.

@skelekingfeddy asked: to my knowledge this has never been commented on by hussie, but i feel like doc scratch doesnt lie in part because he was made from the cueball. its a fortune telling device that predicts the future with remarkable precision and accuracy. you wouldnt expect it to lie, would you? its just that the difference between scratch and the cueball is that he can pick and choose WHICH truths to reveal at which moments. (his penchant for jokes thus probably comes from cal (‘haa haa hee hee hoo hoo’) i feel like him never lying is also a way to feed his own ego. its a self-imposed(!!!!) restriction, and yet despite it he effortlessly plays everyone like fiddles. and he KNOWS it. he CHOOSES never to lie. he VOLUNTARILY hands the people he manipulates an advantage on a goddamn silver platter, and he STILL wins. ‘Isn't it funny how during our various matches, I can tell you what my moves will be in advance, and still win?’ hes so fucking smug. what a pompous dipshit. i love him Anonymous asked: I think that when Scratch say he don't lie, he mean it, and not because of some vilainous valor but out of sheer ego. Scratch is prideful, he love beating other by "playing with cards face up" and tricking them with exact word, he doesn't tell the truth because it's "honorable", he tell the truth because he doesn't need to lie to win.

Also, this. He's just a smug fuck.

Do we know for sure if the cueball is always truthful, actually? Scratch heavily implies it here, but he's only stating it as a hypothetical.

Anonymous asked: Scratch is like a fae, he doesn't lie but you better watch out how he word what he say.

I'd be so screwed against the fae. Not because I couldn't parse their statements, but because I'm only halfway competent with human social customs, let alone weird alien ones.

@manorinthewoods asked: Honestly, I think it's great for his character if Scratch is actually completely dead of emotion inside, possibly even thoughts, and is just near-mindlessly carrying out the necessary parts of his role in the story so that his desired outcome is achieved. He's omniscient, he doesn't need to think. On the other hand, he does seem to have experienced genuine emotion, on occasions… ~LOSS (24/7/24)

A pseudo-omniscient character, mindlessly following the optimal path to their ultimate goal? This smells suspiciously like a Certified Contessa Moment...

Anonymous asked: In the trolls game all the trolls got to see and speak to their lusi after they died because they put them in the sprites. Meaning Gamzees dad coming back wouldn’t get him sober. Ideally Gamzee would be able to interact with his dad way more then he ever had in the past because his dad now had to guid him as his sprite.

Fair point. Although, we know that prototyping tends to affect your personality, and shifts your priorities towards guiding your Player through the game.

Goatsprite's sprite knowledge might have informed him that Gamzee needed to be on Sopor Slime, or game would become unwinnable.

@heliotropopause asked: "Well, no! That’s the problem! The cueball’s omniscience is completely redundant, because the MEOW code already contains an omniscience gene! According to the Scratch loredump, any ‘intelligent’ host for the MEOW code will be granted near-omniscience. Scratch didn’t need the cueball," I think it's worth considering the what exactly he meant with that- it seems perfectly plausible that the teleportation-based powerset established for bequerel would make an intelligent agent very good at observation, either by physically hopping around, or by teleporting light around to see distant places, or by sending out telekinetic "feelers"; we know bec has the capability to separately manipulate individual objects in physical contact from afar. None of this would give him knowledge of the future, or of physically disjoint spaces like the human session, so the cueball is not at all redundant.

It's possible. See, this is another situation where we're really being hampered by our small sample size. We've only seen two First Guardians, and only one of them has been a 'standard' First Guardian, unaltered by HONK. As such, we don't really know how First Guardian clairvoyance is supposed to function.

Another Guardian with human-level intelligence is desperately needed, for science. It's almost enough to make me want the Scratched Guardian of Earth to be made from a human...

@manorinthewoods asked: As an alternative explanation for the double-omniscience problem, one could say that the cueball, in being used to create Scratch, retroactively and conceptually gained his omniscience - so effectively, any use of a cueball allows you to attune to Scratch's awareness (as long as he's alive, perhaps?). This would subsequently imply that First Guardians are all linked to their components - for instance, there would be some link between Bec and all dogs, or specifically Halley. ~LOSS (23/7/24)

As this ask points out, I might just be drawing the causal arrows in the wrong direction. If the cueball is omniscient because of Scratch, rather than the other way round, then there's really only one root cause for his clairvoyance.

I'm not sure why it would work like that, but I do like the idea of Colonel Sassacre running around the early 1900s with a suspiciously powerful dog.

@manorinthewoods asked: The link between 'Skaia's final gate of defense' and 'first to find Alternia' is something I just didn't notice (because I didn't really pay attention to the words and botched my experience by not watching the Flashes), but it would imply, to me, that the gates run in reverse order, Skaia to World - first meteor in, last meteor out. This would mean that the moon which dropped on Jade was the last meteor to hit […]Skaia. ~LOSS (23/7/24)

Hey, good catch!

Jade's meteor was the last to arrive on Earth. By this logic, wouldn't it have been the first thing to leave the session, rather than the last?

That makes a sort of sense, actually. A meteor this enormous would dwarf the entire Incipisphere, so the game would probably want it out of the picture as soon as possible.

@manorinthewoods asked: You seem to have run with the interpretation that all First Guardians run on the same fundamental genetic code, identical to MEOW but using different letters. Not really how I thought of it - I interpret that every FG's code is different, although I also didn't think too hard about the FGs. No reason that they'd necessarily all have to have the same genetic code - after all, Bec's a dog and Scratch's a Scratch. You'd only really need a single gene to code for Green Sun powers… ~LOSS (23/7/24)

It does say they share a genetic sequence, rather than an entire genome. Becquerel presumably contains some dog DNA - the 'host' - which is absent in Scratch, so their genome can't be identical.

Unlike Becquerel, Scratch's hosts were entirely synthetic. They didn't have DNA - which, to me, implies that his entire genome is just an amalgamation of the BR8K H34DS T1CK T0CK HONK sequences. His DNA is just the First Guardian sequence, plus whatever is in HONK.

...what the hell is in HONK, then? If it's DNA, it has to come from some living thing, and I have a horrible feeling that Gamzee spliced his own DNA into the sequence. Why else would he call it HONK?

@skelekingfeddy asked: ‘…the fucking bow-tie! He’s wearing Cal’s Alternian clothes! The proof’s been staring us in the face this entire time, and we were none the wiser!’ look at what regular cal is wearing underneath his blue ‘CAL’ shirt :)

My guy's been pulling the long con.

@morganwick asked: "#but now that i have an antimatter pellet I can feed it to my bees. they can create nuclear waste honey without all the fission rigmarole" Minecraft, Sollux style. (Or maybe Minecraft, Problem Sleuth style?)

Sollux would be a Productive Bees specialist, wouldn't he? That, alongside every computer mod in existence.

@elkian asked: Sorry if I'm the 80th person to mention this but Vriska's 8r8k could also refer to the act of shooting the cue ball at the group of pool balls at the start of a game, known as a "break". @ben-guy asked: Fun fact: In pool terms, the "8r8k" actually refers to the opening shot that sends all the balls flying everywhere. Additional fun fact: The game of pool has a history of being used as a metaphor for causality, which lends some interesting metaphorical weight to Doc Scratch as a cue ball.

Oh, that's true - pool balls are often used as an analogy when talking about causality. Surprising that that's never occurred to me before.

I like to think that when the Felt storm a rival gang's lair as a group, they call their maneuver The Break.

@manorinthewoods asked: Oh my god, Aradia uses Jack to go to the Green Sun. That's such a cool detail. It's so fast, I didn't even see it. To be fair, although the timing is ridiculously impressive, Aradia is both a god and specifically a god of time. Although it's never stated, perfect timing is an obvious power for Time God Tiers to have, which does mean that Aradia would be a half-Flechette. ~LOSS (18/7/24)

And Kanaya's a fashion designer, too. Aradia x Kanaya when?

Anonymous asked: Hey, unfortunately the reqs list link seems to be janked out on my mobile client so I hope this is ok but if you haven't already heard of it I highly highly reccomend Jon Bois' 17776: What Football Will Look Like In the Future It's about football in the same sort of way that homestuck is about video games

Love that story - and I still have to read the sequel, actually!

Anonymous asked: Forwarding another question from the person without a Tumblr account: ~DJ. [I think the change in Equis and Nepeta's behavior is explained by "being together and solving problems together for a long time was great for Equius' and Nepeta's relationship" and "the destruction of Alternia helped Equius realize some facets of Alternian culture he believed where false" (because unlike Eridan he is able to change his mind about stuff like this). - RM]

I really want to see what Equius and Nepeta got up to for a month, as well as all the other trolls. It'd be great to get an 'untold stories of Homestuck' anthology at some point - and hopefully, that's something we'll see in some of Homestuck's tie-in media.

Anonymous asked: I’ve been thinking about Bec prototyping himself and I think I’ve got an answer that works for me - not necessarily the whole answer or the only answer, but I think it’s got something. Basically, Bec knows he can’t / shouldn’t get rid of the meteor entirely (he came down in a meteor that built the frog ruins, so even if we’re just going off what he’s experienced we can say that he probably on some level understands that these meteors landing is important) but he also understands he doesn’t have the type of power or the finesse with that power to only delay it until Jade can take the shot. After all, he could’ve just teleported the living room junk to a different part of the house, but he sent it into deep space because his doggy brain can only deal in absolutes when it comes to perceived danger to his best friend, and the only power we’ve seen First Guardians use (to my recollection) that would in any way help with slowing the meteor is teleportation. He can’t reliably teleport it back only far enough that it will keep falling, but won’t yet land, and he doesn’t have anything else at his disposal - except becoming a sprite, who we’ve seen use beam attacks, which allows Bec to push the meteor back as a delaying measure. Don’t know if he knew it would help so specifically, but even so, I can see Bec understanding it as the only option he has that isn’t either ‘send thing as far away as possible’ or ‘let thing squish most beloved person’. I do think the weakest parts of this theory are What Bec Understands, but puzzling through that devilbeast’s thoughts is hardly a new impossibility. If nothing else, we can all understand that he did this to save Jade, because he loves her, and we love him for that. -Megido (am a new anon, just spent the past couple days catching up and have enjoyed this liveblog immensely)

I think this theory is a good one, and Hussie's comments support it.

The meteor needed to be destroyed in a very specific way for the timeline to retain its integrity, and Bec should instinctively know that, born from Sburb as he is.

Anonymous asked: There are three lenses I think you can view troll romance through: the Xenopsychology lens, the Propaganda lens, and the Parody lens. The Xenopsychology lens is that trolls do in fact experience alien emotions which cannot be felt by humans. It's not just that troll society chooses to categorize the same types of feelings and relationships that humans have differently; these are genuinely unique and original emotions, like a new color that a human couldn't imagine. Describing kismesissitude as hatemance or rivalry or abuse, or moirallegiance as bromance or besties or queer platonic partnership, or auspisticism as third wheeling or mom friending or refereeing are all fundamentally incorrect, because there is no human analogue. You can take this a step further and say that matespritship is also fundamentally different from human romance, even if it appears similar. Therefore all attempts to analyze or write troll romance should be forays into xenofiction, attempting to understand things within a nonhuman framework. The Propaganda lens is that actually troll emotions aren't really any different than human ones, but the quadrant system benefits the hemocasteist militaristic empire by keeping trolls divided enough to become either fucked up killers or submissive victims by the time they reach maturity, but have the minimum support structure needed to actually reach maturity. Kismesissitude is fundamentally unhealthy, auspisticism serves as a counterbalance to keep everyone from killing each other, and moirallegiance serves to prevent trolls from having multiple close friendships or from being fully open with their matesprit by arbitrarily sequestering who it’s appropriate to have certain positive interactions with. None of this is really romance except the one that’s analogous to human romance, but trolls are raised to buy into the system under threat of death. It’s hard to form community and contemplate uprising if everyone confines the meaningful relationships in their life to like 4-5 other people, half of which are based on negative interactions. Also it’s a commentary on how human rules about love and relationships and where the platonic ends and romantic or sexual starts are socially enforced rather than wholly natural and can be arbitrary and unhealthy. Anonymous asked: The Parody lens is that this is all Hussie making fun of fandom shipping tropes. All sufficiently devoted rivalries are actually romantic love. All sufficiently strong friendships are actually romantic love. These two are so hopelessly oblivious to the fact that they actually want to get with the guy they hate, or that the other person they think just wants to be friends actually feels the same way, they need a third party to push them together. (Okay this one doesn’t work because auspisticism seems to basically be the opposite of that? Maybe auspisticism is supposed to be like, contrived elimination of competing romantic options to assure an OTP. Idk if anyone really knows what auspisticism is supposed to be, least of all Hussie.) Also because this was early 2010’s Hussie, there’s maybe a certain level on which trolls being societally obliged to polyamory and bisexuality is also making fun of shippers, although if it was I think Hussie turned around pretty quickly to actually being cool about it. Much like how light is a wave, and a particle, and a ray, all of these are true at different times. This is because the nature of Hussie's writing is that even when things are serious business, they are also jokes. And this is also why the Homestuck fandom will never agree on the correct way to understand and depict the quadrants.

Great breakdown. As you could probably predict, I lean a lot more towards the Propaganda lens, with a healthy dose of Parody mixed in.

The Xenopsychology lens isn't necessarily untrue - it's just that, as I've discussed before, the trolls read as extremely human to me. I honestly believe that if you raised a human on Alternia, they'd probably be compelled to form the same quadrants as everyone else.

I once got an ask stating that, according to Hussie, each of the quadrants are meant to be exaggerated versions of human relationship dynamics. I'd really like to check out that full quote, so if anyone's got a link, send it my way!

#asks #full liveblog #act 5.2

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gachawolfiebloom · 4 months

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A Grumpy Troll and A Prince

Chapter 5: Escape Artists

Tags: Comedy, action, adventure, and romance

The guards walked through the halls past the burning torches. One in particular looked quite strange. It was actually Three and Four in an adequate disguise. They used their hair to swing over to a shelf at the other side of the hall, without drawing attention of course. Four looked around and asked Three "Where do you think our friends are?" This time he didn't notice that Four had said they were his friends too because he retorted back with a sarcastic comeback.

"If I had to guess, I'd say inside a Bergen's stomach."

Four groaned and placed his hands on his hips in a sassy way. "Could you try to be more positive!? Just once. You might like it." Three swung around and shot back "Okay. I'm sure they're not only alive, but about to be delivered to us on a silver platter."

Four didn't get the memo and instead breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. That wasn't so hard was it?" Three smacked his face once again from how irritating this was getting. How was he this stupid!? The prince's hug time bracelet went off and he gasped. "Three!"

"Really!? Hug time aga-" Four immediately shushed and told him to listen. Multiple chimes with faint colored lights could be seen around a corner. "There they are!" Now who's the smart one Three? He rushed off while Three blinked for a few seconds and ran off after him.

The captured trolls were all huddling together in quivering fear while their bracelets went off. Many bergen guards were busy setting the tables and fixing the lights on the ceiling. "This is going to be the best Trollstice ever!" X cheered. He flattered himself with his excellent idea while his royal entertainer walked by his side and FM pushed the cart with the cage on top. Mr Puzzles instructed "Tomorrow is Trollstice everyone and it must be perfect!"

"Yes Mr Puzzles!" He smirked to himself and the commanding orders reminded him of when he was so high and mighty all those years ago...before the trolls had made their escape... "It feels great to be ordering everyone around again!"

Three and Four slipped down onto a chandelier and the prince was the first to spot their friends. "Three look!" He studied the cage and tilted his head. "They're alive?" The two ducked down before anyone heard their whispering and Four said "And on a silver platter. We were both right."

It always bugged Three to be shown up, but him being right on a sarcastic note seemed to not nag him as much.

Mr Puzzles knew that his plan was working, but if he was really going to win the king over, he needed more convincing. With his devilish charm, Mr Puzzles pulled out a worn out piece of cloth and said "To mark the occasion your highness, I found your old Troll bib." What was the king going to do with an old bib now!?

Apparently, it somehow won X over as he took it out of the TV man's hands and stared at it in awe. "Wow! I bet it still fits-" He tried tying it around, but it was a little too tight. Within seconds, the bib had exploded into millions of little pieces and a faint sound of giggling could be heard. X angrily turned to see Mario laughing until the others shushed him. "Oh so you think that's funny do you? We'll see who will be laughing when I eat you all!"

Mario's laughter turned into sheer panic and his friends expressed the same. X then raised an eyebrow. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7....8? "Mr Puzzles, this won't be enough to feed all of Bergen Town!" Sweat drops played on Mr Puzzles screen while the king had another thought. "How do we have Trollstice if there isn't enough trolls!?"

Mr Puzzles patted his head and reassured "There's plenty more where that came from your majesty. I can just go back and grab more!" Four gasped as he realized that the TV guy was right. Because of him, Mr Puzzles knew where they lived and could capture them all. He shared a worried glance with Three, who he could tell was sharing the same thought.

"Are you sure? Because I promised everyone a troll." Mr Puzzles quickly shut that problem down by sticking his hands out, defensively. "No! No! No! It will all be taken care of!" He then eyed the cage deviously. "If I was truly worried....would I do...THIS!" He slammed open the cage and grasped tight onto Tag6.

"TAG6!"

Three quickly pulled Four down as Mr Puzzles turned towards the chandelier. He could have sworn he saw...

The suspicion was shut down when X eyed her and said "My first troll!" Mr Puzzles handed the troll to the king and said "Go on. Eat up King X. Enjoy a taste of true happiness." X started to raise Tag6 up to his mouth while the others whimpered. She was suddenly saved for a moment when X asked "Shouldn't we wait for Trollstice?" The others breathed a sigh of relief.

Mr Puzzles then tried to entice him by putting Tag6 in a taco. "Yeah, I guess." Mr Puzzles looked in excitement as once again, the king raised her up to his mouth. "But my dad said the first time should be special." Another wave of relief. Mr Puzzles was starting to lose his patience as he poured hot sauce on the poor troll. "Well you're the king now."

"Yeah, I am!" Here we go...any second now... "But I think I should share this moment with all the kingdom." That was the last straw. In irritation, Mr Puzzles shoved the taco in his mouth. "JUST EAT IT YOU BUFFOON!"

"NO!"

"YES!"

The guards started playing some really cringe Mexican music and Mr Puzzles stuck a sombrero on X's head and maracas in his hands. Twirling him around the room for a few seconds, Mr Puzzles took X into the hall, but before they left, he turned and commanded "IM! Lock these trolls in your room and guard them with your life!" He make a slit neck gesture and told him "If you lose them, YOU'RE DEAD!"

FM quickly nodded and said "Yes Mr Puzzles!" He rolled the cart toward his room while Four was standing there, horrified.

Tag6 couldn't be gone. She just couldn't. He refused to believe it. "Three! We have to save her!" He pulled the prince back and asked "Save her from what!? His stomach!?" Four pointed back at him. "We didn't see him chew or swallow!"

"Face it Four! Sometimes people go into other people's mouths and they don't come out! If we go after Tag6 now, we're going to get eaten." Four could feel tears building up in his eyes and turned back towards the door. Three's expression softened a little. "I'm sorry. It's too late for her." Four looked back and saw the Bergen, pushing the cart with the rest of their friends.

Okay, back on track. Four dove off the chandelier as Three tried to grab him and watched over the side. "Four!" The prince slid down the railing of a ladder and slid on a spoon across the table until he was hitching a ride with the servant. Three quickly followed, jumping off the caps of the guards and swinging over, right next to Four. They shared a quick smile with one another's before the cautiously observed FM going down a flight of stairs until he reached his room.

The two hopped off as FM set the cage onto a counter, when a voice rang out. "SERVANT!" What did that TV head want now? Multiple dishes came crashing down onto FM as Mr Puzzles shot back "Wash these dishes for Trollstice! The King is inviting everyone...except you." FM couldn't take the abuse. He had hoped that just for once, he could finally hang out with X, but he was mistaken.

In a fit of tears, he collapsed onto his rickety old bed with muffled cries into the pillow. Four was trying to sneak over to the cage with Three, but stopped to watch the heartbroken Bergen, feeling quite sorry for him. Three stopped in his tracks as well. "Four? The hell are you doing!?"

FM wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve and took out a picture of X from his drawer.

"I've been alone with you inside my mind."

A fantasy plays where fm is spinning around with X in his arms.

"And in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times!"

Flashbacks now from when X was walking past FM's window.

"I sometimes see you pass outside my door."

FM wishes he could just tell X how he felt, but instead watches from afar.

"Hello!"

He's been doing this ever since they were kids.

"Is it me you're looking for!"

"I can see it in your eyes."

He scrubs a plate to see a faint reflection of X laughing and smiling.

"I can see it in your smile..."

"You're all I ever wanted and my arms are open wide!"

Even when X was yelling at his guards, FM found him irresistible.

Cause you know just what to say and you know just what to do."

"And I want to tell you so much...I love you."

FM kept crying into his pillow until he eventually wore himself out and fell asleep.

Three was confused, but Four thought it was adorable. "Aww he's in love with the king." Three gave him a deer in headlights look and said "What are you talking about!? Boys don't love other boys!" Why did he blush a little when he said that?

Four rolled his eyes and shot back "Well maybe you don't know everything about the Bergens!" There was no time for bickering so the two immediately ceased their argument and snuck past FM to the cage. Three pulled back the cover and Four shouted "Guys!"

"FOUR! You came to save us!"

He nodded and cheered "Let's have a celebration!" Three ran up and went "SHHHH!" Mario went down to a whisper and said "Let's have a party right here with spaghetti." Three grabbed some kind of Usb to use as a key and said "There is no parties going on here!" He set down the huge lock and replied "The sooner we get you guys out of here-"

"The sooner we can save Tag6!"

"WHAT!?"

The noise startled FM so much as he awoke instantly. "Hello?" All of them froze, praying he wouldn't look in their direction. Thankfully, sleep got the best of FM and he dozed off again. "Is it me you're looking for...

Once it was safe again, Three opened the cage door and told Four "I know that you're looking for the fun and laughter here, but let's face it. Tag6's been eaten!" Mario walked past, whispering "They put her in a taco!" Meggy followed. "It was horrible." Luigi put a hand on the prince's shoulder and said "Sorry Smg4. Tag6 is gone."

Three sighed and said "Four? How can you possibly think that Tag6 is still alive?" He spun around and responded "I don't think she's alive, I hope she's alive and that's enough." Three really didn't get it. "How do you always look on the bright side? There is no bright side here! None!"

"There's always a bright side!"

A light then flickered on as FM was standing there with a lamp in his hand. "Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Oh crap. They were spotted...

Chapter 6: Broken Hearts and Awkward Dates

#comedy #adventure #action #romance #smg4 #smg3 #smg34 #smg4 au #smg34 fanfiction #trolls #trolls au #trolls movie #trolls bergens #smg4 trolls #trolls poppy #trolls branch

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chaifootsteps · 10 months

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Ok, if you want to not post this I'm ok with it. I'm the Nick anon

So Nick, well a lot of people speculate that the crap he's doing is staged and blah blah. Here's my beef, even if it was, why the hell would he do it? He's literally diminishing his health for money and views because he needs those clicks.

The reason I bring it up is because idk, I just have a gut feeling that maybe Viv is starting drama and this other crap so she gets the attention. She wants people to go click on her videos and get her the views. I even remember hearing how page views on a website someone operates can get them some extra cash too. She wants us to go look at her merch so she can get the views.

Now, the thing with Nick. I think Nick is very mentally ill. Why? Because he's been to the doctor for issues he's had for gaining weight. Even if that stuff is an act, just why? There was an video nick made that was called I think "Orlin ran away" and in this video nick drove places and found pictures Orlin drew for him. Honestly, some were so well done I was very impressed with Orlin's art skills and if they got someone to draw those they need a round of applause since I laughed. Why is he trying to troll his audience? He keeps saying they break up, orlin cheats, and the most dumbest things that I roll my eyes to the back of my head. Nick is so good at feeding his audience literally. He knows people won't turn away and will continue watching.

That's why I'm comparing him to Viv, but Nick is so much smarter than her. Nick knows the right buttons to push while Viv is running in the dark. She's in Japan right now, and yes she's documenting it like sharing pictures of where she goes, and she still makes the time to get into internet fights.

Ok sorry for ranting. I just feel like Viv is trying to troll and make people watch her more so she can literally monetize the attention.

As plausible as that seems, I don't think Vivzie's anywhere near clever or forward thinking enough to put on the kind of prolonged act Nick Avocado does. If you look back as far as her Deviantart days, you realize pretty quickly that this is who she's always been, with hauntingly little growth or change.

I think the biggest common denominator between Nick and Vivzie is that they're both addicts. Someone once said that Nick has an "addiction to food, views and meaning," and I think that's true for Vivzie too. More than the cash, maybe even more than the fame, she needs her fandom to assure her that she's as great as she believes she is and that nothing is her fault.

Nick's slowly killing himself for his audience. Vivzie needs to know that these people would praise her even if she killed someone else.

#Anonymous #vivziepop critical #actual blog post

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awesomefringey · 1 year

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hello I'm new larrie and I wanted to know who is Mr X? I think that's how it is written, I saw someone talk about him and I don't understand who he was, do we like him? the person who was talking about it said they were confused by how they felt about it appearing in the credits of the documentary. Is it a general hatred in the fandom?

Hi nonnie, welcome to the madness! ✨ How are you holding up? What made you a larrie?

I don’t follow these accounts but from what I remember Mr. X has been a continuation of a fandom troll account that started back in 2013.

It was once about “exposing Modest” and the boys’ “coming out”. Sharing details about stunts and so on. What people tend to forget is that the initial Mr. X was a crazy person who threatened to k*ll Harry. Yes, you read that right. They shared their plans to sh**t Harry on stage. The account disappeared eventually and returned on different social media platforms - all proceeding with the similar approach of teasing and sharing insider information.

I don’t know why, but people in this fandom love the idea of someone feeding them vague predictions. No matter how deranged their backstory is.

Best you don’t waste your time on any of them, if it’s Mr. X (who planned to k*ll Harry), CrownBeeOlive (a Brazilian woman who steals content and blurs it to play Niall’s secret baby mama) or Hscox94 (who started off as a Haylor account before switching their brand to b/w photography). There have been hundreds of others all trying the same.

No, they’re not Louis or Harry. No, they’re not insiders.

The AOTV credits you mentioned were for Mister X which equipped the LTWT Milan production.

#ask #twitter trolls #mister x #mr. x #aotv #aotv credits

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leothil · 1 month

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“You gave the person more fuel”

LMFAO you legitimately cannot stop victim blaming, and the fact that you got more upset about someone’s comment about the Buddie fandom than the harm the troll has caused to SA survivors, says so much about you.

Alright, I'll answer this once and then leave it be since I don't think you deserve to get more attention at this point. I assume you're the same one who sent me this too?

So. I'll do you the favour of assuming you've never encountered proper internet trolls before. First of all, victim blaming would be me insinuating that the people who received those messages deserved to see them, which isn't something you'll see me say because I am a normal person that doesn't wish harm on other people. Second of all, me publicly making posts lamenting what happened would help the situation how exactly? I don't have to inform everyone that I find this person's actions disgusting because, again, I am a normal person and that's how normal people react. I don't want to know what kind of sad world you live in if you don't go in assuming that being upset is the baseline reaction for everyone when something like this happens.

Third of all. As I have repeated many times in tags and posts: this person wants attention. They want to cause harm, they want to sow discord, they want a lot of people to be loudly upset and spread their work around. And when people play into this, they get encouraged and the risk increases that they'll do it again. We already saw this happen: people interacted with their "apology" post (with the best intentions, I'm absolutely sure, but nonetheless) where they said they'd remove themselves, posted asks they (at least presumably it's the same person) sent, and today that person went and published more fics again. I know it sounds like advice on how to deal with a school bully, but it's quite literally the best thing to do: starve them of what they want, don't give them attention, don't play into their hands. This has been widely understood on the internet since the gosh-darn 90's and I quite honestly can't believe there are people to whom this apparently is a foreign concept. Do. Not. Feed. The. Trolls.

Warning people that this sadly is a thing that's happening is obviously good. I've seen several of those posts, written in a neutral tone with just the relevant information (i.e. no triggering material visible), and I appreciate that people have wanted to look out for others in the fandom. But you won't be able to convince me that e.g. posting asks containing csam or violent fantasies is helping anyone. Putting potentially triggering material out there for anyone to see is NOT doing a favour to anyone. And that's without even taking into account that that's exactly what this person wants you to do.

Also fuck yes I'm upset that someone openly in their tags say "nice to know the buddie fandom is okay with csam material" because that's an absolutely insane and incredibly cruel thing to say. Besides nobody even knowing who is behind this, how the hell are you making a sweeping statement like that, effectively blaming hundreds of people on here for one deranged person's actions and insinuating all of them are okay with csam? Sorry but if you don't see how fucked up that is, you need to re-evaluate your life a bit. I also don't appreciate your insinuation that I care more about this than the hurt other people have experienced. It's possible to care about and be upset about several things at once since, once again, I am a normal person.

Have the day you deserve!

#ask frida #anon #fandom discourse #i'm going to bed now lmao. christ.

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morganlefaye79 · 2 years

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I hate people that try to lecture me about my OCs!

I ignored both anons (and deleted them) because I generally don't feed trolls and drama, but since I'm nearly certain I will get a third one, I will take away their fun instead.

I'm going to talk about Valaire and Joris Dercks today, My OWN and self created twins.

I was now two times told that Valaire and Joris couldn't be twins, because they don't look alike.

Valaire(1) and Joris (2)

First of all, there is a difference between monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (nonidentical) twins. But since they are identical twins there is no further debate needed.

It was claimed that because Joris hair is dark they couldn't be identical twins. You heard of hair dye right? Maybe? Also if you would check my content, I stated just that more than once.

For the first picture you just need to look at my pinned Tumblr post, the second one can also be found in my pinned post via the linked OC spreadsheet.

Further was stated that their eyes faces etc all wouldn't match.

Now watch out! MAGIC!

And before I get another lecture, yes I know that Joris is missing his cyberarm, the mod wasn't working at the time, so chill. Thanks!

And more magic:

The only thing different with Joris is, of course his scars, and his ears, eyebrows (he is a bit vain with pinching them) and eye color, but since both have Kiroshi's this should be easy to get. They also have different skin colors. Valaire grew up in mostly sunny California while Joris lived in more rainy and cold central Europe.

So you might see now that I put much time and even more thought into my OCs. So if you really want to pick on me find something I didn't think of.

IF you would have asked me, or talked to me in a sincere way I would have explained it and shown it. But from the way you stated your opinion I am convinced that you are just a bully that hides behind an anon ask.

If that is what your life looks like, bullying others to feel better, then I feel deeply sorry for you and I hope you can feel better sometime soon without taking it out on others.

#cyberpunk 2077 #anon #oc: Valaire #oc: Joris

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sarasa-cat · 2 years

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I'm amused you had never run across one of my primary reasons for using Tumblr as my social media platform of choice, due to my old-fashioned views about online privacy.

All Tumblr asks us for, like Twitter, is a contact email to set up our account. It could be spying on our location and online behavior to build up a social profile as Twitter does, but either it isn't, or it can't because it's incompetent.

To misquote ons of my favorite Babylon 5 sayings,

"You know, I used to think Tumblr ads were awful. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if Tumblr ads were good, such that they actually reflected our interests and demographics, which could only happen if Tumblr was spying on and successfully compiling information about us? So now I take great comfort in the terrible ad targeting and general incompetence of Tumblr coding."

Lololol! Yes, all of the above for me too. Unfortunately I need to use some of the big name social platforms for professional reasons, and I always feel that sense of too slick ick.

But I never use them socially— never have — tried briefly in the late 00s when friends who were previously on my instant messaging app moved there, so I followed to continue talking but noped out of all major platforms within months. Just no. And that was before the advertisers really came in and before the algos fine tuned everything about ppl’s feeds. My online socializing moved almost entirely to fandom platforms. ;)

I love how wacky Tumblr is and how the ads feel like the worst of very late night TV ads from a couple of decades ago. And we all make fun of the ads. And tumblr staff are trolls, to a certain extent. We’re all in on the joke, and none of the users want any gentrification and we let staff know, often, repeatedly.

This is low rent property which means we are left to our own devices to create our own sense of fun. It is perfect. Weird. A living dada experiment. And it attracts the sorts of ppl whom I find fun and genuine. Plus it is still very good for fandom media.

Also, given what I once knew (aca-professionally) about how big data is amassed and used/weaponized crossed with my weird aca background across a swath of different mathematical, statistical, & machine learning modeling techniques applied to social science and cognitive science issues, I have always been suspicious of the sorts of social media that arose in the late 00s. I knew where it was going, and most unfortunately I was not wrong. :(

Here’s to keeping tumblr awful! 🥂🍻

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iamgodsoopsie · 3 months

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Tips for enjoying fan spaces, from an old f*cker- Pt. 1: Trolls.

Ship wars nerfing your fun? Stans and antis got you feeling down? Do you just want to consume content about your favorite media without having to worry about people who have the dumbest of takes?

If you answered "Yes" to any of the questions above then boi do I have a guide for you! Learn more under the cut!

Trolls, bad faith arguments, and when to disengage:

What is a troll? A troll is a person who posts their thoughts online (especially in comment sections) with the explicit goal of sowing chaos and earning the ire of other commenters.

Why do they do it? Many reasons: boredom, a lack of positive attention irl, validation, "owning" people (is that term even still in use? Gods I'm old.)

How do we stop them? I don't know when this saying fell out of favor, but it really needs to be brought back: "Don't feed the trolls". Don't engage with them, don't talk to or about them, don't give them what they want (aka don't feed them): attention. The only way to win is not to play.

Trolls often employ bad-faith arguments to lure people into engaging with them based on the erroneous idea that the trolls mind can be changed if presented with the right argument. This is false. They have no intention of having their minds changed.

"But what about people who might read the trolls comments and agree with them, shouldn't we present our arguments so they can see how wrong the troll is!?"

Ahh, my sweet summer child. This is but another tactic employed by the common troll, for it garners them what they want: engagement. You can refute their ideas and claims in an effort to prevent others from falling down their line of thinking. But there is a way to do so without feeding the troll(s).

Calling out misinformation and arguing with the trolls are two separate things, but they look very similar. A good rule of thumb is: if you have 3 or more replies directly to the poster of an inflammatory comment, then you are arguing with the troll. Post once about why they're wrong and then move on. Clarify to those who are asking questions in good faith, but do not engage the troll directly. **This is something that requires your discretion and is not applicable to all situations.**

Don't show your anger or annoyance:

>If the statement is something like: "BTS sucks!!" Move on without engagement. Either they actually believe it or they want BTS stans to swoop in and defend BTS. Replying to them is what they want. Don't feed the trolls.

>If the statement is something like: "The Jews deserved the holocaust." Report their comment, block them, and don't engage. They want moral outrage. Don't feed the trolls.

>If the statement is something like: "The sun revolves around the earth." Drop a link to NASA or make a general reply of "This person is wrong, please looks at facts from a .gov website." Or ignore them. Do not reply further.

>In any and other instances: A simple "Don't feed the trolls." to remind others is generally sufficient.

Roll your eyes and move on. Do not engage. Do not feed the trolls. The only way to win is not to play.

Don't engage with comments that make you upset. Life is too short.

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uniasus · 1 year

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Hot take - I like the algorithms.

I'm never getting rid of the 'Following' tab, and it's my home, but after being on Tumblr for idk, at least a decade, I'm following a diverse group of people, some of whom no longer reblog the stuff I followed them for, and so when I have a ✨fandom craving✨ it doesn't often feed me. Now, I use it to check up on what people are doing and say hello to fandoms that aren't at the forefront of my brain.

I love the For You dashboard for feeding current obsessions. Tumblr noticed I reblogged a Nimona post, and now I have 10 more to enjoy! Do I think Nimona will be a forever fandom for me? No, so I'm not gonna follow a Nimona blog, but yes, please give me content for it this week!

And Your Tags is brilliant for a few reasons. If I have a fandom that I'm trying to protect - aka not letting it leave my brain in an effort to push through finishing a fanfic - I follow associated tags! (it's amazing how many more posts are tagged #yugi muto vs #viktor hargreeves, which yes, has had an impact on me not updating Grocery List Goals, and damn does that say something about the current state/evolution of fandom.) That means this dashboard is full of things to get me in the writing mood. I also have a sideblog, but I don't always want to follow blogs to feed it. It's a different topic than my main, it'd spoil my Following dash, and I really want to keep those two usernames separate, so following with my main is not the best. So once again, I follow tags!

Favs, I will admit, is usually a bit redundant - there's a lot of overlap between it and Following, especially if someone I follow doesn't use the queue, but occasionally I'll see something I missed.

My Following/chronological dashboard is soo good at giving me Tumblr culture, keeping up with people, and helping me discover new things, but the algorithms are good at giving me specific, curated content and I've used it to find new fan artists. Maybe 70% of my reblogs come from them. It does tend to prioritize recent posts, and sometimes I'd love to find older works (damn, finding a string of yugioh posts about DSOD predictions was wild and delightful, but that was via trolling older blogs and sometimes I'd love to see spiderverse art from the first movie too, you know? ) but I do get a mix of wildly popular posts and those that only have 10 notes.

I guess, in short, I like having options and enjoy using parts of tumblr in different ways for different reasons. Not that I want them to add more algorithms, these are good, and there are other features I'd love more (*cough* sideblog usability *cough*), but I also get those are for seasoned Tumblr users and not the newbies they're trying to attract.

#tumblr #rl #fingers crossed people are polite about this #internet culture #experience curation #fandom #these are tools #use them or not #but don't hate people for using them #the only algorithm I don't like is the one they use for blaze posts #I get some weird posts from that #that are SUPER ad-y #but that might be an issue with a shifting blaze culture #i only allow blaze posts by users to appear on my dash #and a lot of those posts now are sales focused and not users saying look at my frog #as I think more potentially corporate/span/affiliate accounts are formed due to migrations

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futurebird · 2 years

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block not

There is this pop-wellness advice about "cutting out toxic people" and I'm really uncomfortable with the implications of this advice, at least for my own life. It seems like an invitation to insulate myself from challenges AND give up on challenging bad ideas when I encounter them.

It's not for me to say what's best for anyone else. And, it's not so much that I assume that anyone who blocks-a-lot is "avoiding a challenge" or doing anything wrong. It's more that I'd started to do the blocking thing myself because others encouraged me to "just block them!" A friend would see me in some back and forth with a right winger and msg me with "why not just block them?" This made me feel like I was doing something wrong or foolish or contrary to "self care" by staying in the argument. And while I'm aware that it's not the kind of activity I really enjoy I do feel obligated to engage.

People say that no one ever changed anyone else's mind in a political debate. But, this isn't really true. People change their minds all the time.

Not on the spot because of an argument... but rather over time. Strong arguments accumulate and weak ones flounder. For others it's not about the arguments at all it's about what they perceive to be normal in their peer group. If I don't engage and say something how can these views that I feel are fundamental to keeping me and the people care about safe ever be normalized?

The whole "don't engage, don't feed the troll" thing... it's for trolls. Not every person who is wrong and arguing is a troll. Many are. Yes, some just like to fight. But, I don't think this is something one can assume.

(This is another way that trolls are toxic. They have made real arguments all suspect. They have made "block first, ask no questions later" prudent. I think that's one of their goals. To kill all discourse.)

There are some things that I've learned ONLY because someone took the time to argue with me. Stuff about feminism & politics that I didn't really get. I kept asking questions and raising objections. They kept responding and explaining. Often, after it was all over, I thought I'd won the debate!

Only to later, as time went by, as I encountered others making the same flawed arguments I once made I realized I was just... wrong. There isn't a way to go back in time and thank the people (mostly on livejournal) who were patient with me. But, if you had an annoying argument about feminism on livejournal in the early 2000s? You might have made a big difference. I have this fantasy about banding together with people from here and from twitter, banding together with all of the people I know who abandoned facebook years ago and going back together. Forming a kind of information army to save our parents, and forgotten high school friends from the reality distortion cloud that's gobbling so many parts of the world.

I thought that by leaving facebook I could help kill that place. It's only grown worse. We, the gladiators aren't there and the goblins have taken over the shire. Silence isn't working. I thought it was more mature to not engage in arguments that go round and round. To never stay up late just because "someone is wrong on the internet" ... but I wonder if I were a teen online today. An awkward black girl full of science facts and half-backed objectivist ideals would anyone help me?

#debate #arguement #politics #livejournal #facebook #social networks

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waybeforeyourtime · 2 years

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so you think people should just ignore the hate that Omar gets???

When it's sitting in your inbox, and no one else has seen it - yes. Because then it dies right there and then. You sharing it is giving a platform to hate. That's 100% on you for sharing it.

If it's someone tweeting shit? Well, I say to ignore that too. Because this is how it goes...

... 1 troll shares something hateful

.... 10,000 people all start talking about it

Then people who love drama see this attention, and then more people start sharing hateful thoughts just to keep it going.

Then everyone starts talking about the hate. Then hate talk, whether it's stating it or decrying it, takes over the fandom. And then fandom is a sucky place to be. People who don't want to be in an unhappy place take their happy thoughts and leave. Then fandom is just a bunch of trolls and drama-lovers.

Listen, I get the desire to white knight your fav. But it doesn't stop the haters. Not ever. Not once. No - this time will not be different.

The only way to destroy a troll is to ignore them. Block them. Trolls feed off seeing people angry and upset. The more you talk about it, the more energized they get. Not once has a troll ever said, "Oh, all of you people who've dogpiled me are right. I'm sorry. I have changed my ways and will now become a productive member of fandom." No, they see the reactions and then they just share more and more hate.

AND before you think that the talent appreciates your white knighting, have you asked them? Maybe they aren't even seeing it. Maybe it gives them anxiety to have the conversation keep going. Maybe it distresses them to see their fans distressed on their behalf. IDK how they feel about it and neither do you until they tell us.

And I'm going to listen to my own advice, and this is my last post on the subject. If you want to talk about it, don't ask me anon, msg me, and I'll be glad to have a private conversation with you.

ETA: I also want to add that I think many of the defensive reactions aren't so much to "protect" the person (in this recent case Omar) but rather because people feel like they are personally being attacked when someone doesn't like their fav. That's why I think these things escalate - ship and stan wars are always personal.

#can we please learn from fandom history #do you all know that many times the people decrying the hate the loudest were actually the anons or sockpuppets spreading the hate too #people just love drama more than they love happy peaceful fandom spaces #young royals #young royals fanom #omar rudberg #edvin ryding

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not-a-space-alien · 2 years

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All Creatures Great and Small Chapter 2: Doxxed

There's a good reason why you're not supposed to feed the trolls...

As always thanks to my collaborator @static-stars and my beta/sensitivity reader @appelsiinilight! <3 And special thanks to @ratcatcher0325 for some beta reading as well!!

Story masterpost

AO3 link

P.S. To stave off the inevitable tidal wave of references to this I'm sure is coming: Yes, Mr. Crocker from Fairly Odd Parents exists, hahahaha hilarious

Thistle’s phone sat in the center of the table, with Marcy, Teddy, and Colin sitting at the chairs on three sides. Thistle sat at the fourth place, sitting on the table with his wings folded close to his body, shoulders hunched. His leg bounced nervously.

Marcy had a stormy look on her face, hands clasped in front of her.

“Okay, so he doesn’t know exactly where we live,” said Colin. “Right?”

“I don’t think so,” said Marcy. “But the incident at the electronics store was so nearby, it’s–”

“I’m sorry,” said Thistle, for the millionth time.

Marcy held her hand out. He shut his mouth.

“What were you thinking?” said Teddy.

Thistle found his shoes very interesting. “I–I don’t know. I’m sorry. I guess–It just made me nervous to see–that he was telling everyone, and–and I guess I thought I could get him to take it down–”

“All right,” said Colin. “It’s already happened, so now we just have to deal with it.”

Marcy said, “We deleted all his comments, and we combed through everything on all his profiles on every site for identifying information.”

“We deleted a lot,” said Thistle shame-facedly. “I never posted anything about my location though. I swear.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, but who knows what those computer people can do these days.” He stroked his chin as though he’d said something particularly insightful.

“Who is this guy?” said Teddy. “You said the employee who saw Thistle was being interviewed?”

“He’s a conspiracy theorist of some kind,” said Marcy. She’d watched a few of his videos, but had to stop because it felt like her brain was melting. She picked Thistle's phone up, scrolling. “It’s all bullshit, but there’s no way this is satire or a joke. He’s too committed to it. But I don’t know how anyone believes it. I mean, look at this stuff.”

“Oh god,” said Teddy, “he has multiple videos about how Trump won the 2020 election.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Colin, “What was that about–stem cells from abortions being used in–”

“That’s antisemitism,” said Teddy, pointing to a video Marcy nearly scrolled past. “That’s a dog whistle in the title.”

“That’s what most of it is like,” said Marcy, taking the phone back. “But he has a few videos about the ‘truth’ being hidden from the public on supernatural creatures. Mostly it’s about demons, but there’s some other stuff too. This is his first video about fairies. Or more specifically, 'tiny people in the walls.'"

“What was that?” said Colin. “The thumbnail was a snake skeleton.”

Marcy rolled her eyes. “He claims to have a naga skeleton.” She brought up the clip and paused it, zooming in. “How are there so many people eating this dumb shit up? This is clearly some sort of monkey skeleton put onto a ball python. There was a fake mermaid in the Barnum museum made the same way.”

“Actually,” said Thistle, very quietly, “Those are real.”

All three giants looked down at him incredulously.

“Once when I was young, a snake monster found our nest and ate two of my older siblings. We were able to drive it off, but we had to just up and move to a new tree miles away to get away from it. That’s what it looked like. Torso like ours. Snake instead of legs. They’re about that size, too.”

Teddy burst into nervous laughter. “Oh great. Great. Some batshit insane conspiracy theorist happens to be right about our particular slice of the unbelievable.”

“We don’t know that he’s going to come here,” said Marcy hopefully.

“He was here,” said Teddy, almost hysterical. “Look, he’s in the shopping center in this video.”

Colin put an arm around her. “It’s all right, Teddy bear, don’t freak out. We can deal with this.”

“There’s no way he could get our address,” said Marcy. “Right? Unless…”

“It’s on your mobile account,” said Teddy. “The one you added Thistle to, right? Does the employee he interviewed have access to it?”

“He–he’s surely not supposed to give that information out,” said Marcy.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t.”

They all grimaced.

“Well… his branding is good, I’ll give him that,” said Teddy.

His logo was a cartoon alligator with a magnifying glass, with the word InvestiGator underneath of it. It was so ridiculous that Marcy couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“This is fucking stupid,” she said. “I can’t believe this.”

“Aaaaand of course he’s into cryptocurrency,” said Teddy with a scowl.

“It’s–it’s called fucking—” Marcy was having trouble getting words out between peals of overwhelmed laughter. “Fucking–TruthCoin, and–and he’s selling alligator NFTs.”

“How did someone so wrong about everything else get this one specific thing so exactly right?” said Teddy.

“I don’t like this one bit,” said Colin. “This guy is nothing but trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” said Thistle, voice wobbly.

The laughter stopped at his serious tone, and all three giants looked down at him again.

“If–if–if–if it’ll fix this, I’ll leave if–if you want me to.”

Marcy's looming hand reached over to Thistle. He shrunk back a little. She picked him up by the back of his shirt and plopped him into her outstretched hand. “I think you're a little too eager to sacrifice yourself at every opportunity.”

“But I made–but I put everyone in danger.”

Colin rolled his eyes. He got up and walked over to the front door, pulling it open. “Well, go on, then. Leave.”

Thistle's face crumpled.

“I'm kicking you out. We hate you now, and we think you deserve to get eaten by the neighbor's annoying dog.”

Thistle stared at him, baffled, eyes glazed over. “You–are you being serious?”

“Of course not!” He slammed the door shut. “Does that sound like something any of us would say? No? So stop treating us like we're heartless monsters. You’re our little buddy. We’re not going to kick you out.”

Thistle wiped his eyes and looked down.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” said Teddy gently. “...Even if it’s a stupid mistake, it doesn’t mean you deserve to be abandoned.”

Marcy brought her other hand over and folded it over him, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “It isn’t the end of the world, Ardo. We’ll deal with whatever happens together, okay?”

He grabbed her pointer finger, giving it a squeeze back.

***

“Shut up! Shut up!”

Marcy tried to ignore Colin’s increasingly annoyed shouts from upstairs as the neighbor’s dog continued to bark intermittently. “I get one day off to sleep in with my girlfriend and you wake me up! Shut up!!”

Marcy laced her shoes up, looking down at Thistle, parked by her ankle.

“Okay,” she said. “Teddy and Colin are both home today, so if anything happens they can deal with it. Okay?”

He nodded. “Right. I…I think I’m going to go upstairs to their bedroom until they get up for the day.”

“Good thinking.” She brushed his jaw delicately with one finger. “There might not even be anything to worry about, okay?”

He nodded.

Marcy reached over and held Thistle’s phone up. “Now do you want me to leave this here today?”

He wrung his hands. “Uh…No, I think–I think you take it with you again.”

“Okay.” She slipped it into her bag. “Have Colin and Teddy text me occasionally to check in, then.”

“I will.”

There came a holler from upstairs: “Marcy, when you go out, drag that stupid dog back to Kristi’s house.”

“Okay, Colin!” She leaned over and plucked Thistle off her pant leg, where he’d started to climb up. She gave him a kiss on the top of his head. “Have a good day.”

“You too!”

She set him on the bannister, and he scrabbled up it into Teddy and Colin’s bedroom. She watched him go, then turned and opened the front door.

There was a man with a white van parked nearby their driveway–just enough that he was still technically on public property. The neighbor’s dog was standing in front of him, tail wagging, occasionally barking.

Marcy stood frozen in the doorway. Oh God. The beard. The stupid beard. It’s–

“Hey!” said the man, giving a friendly wave. “Is this your dog?”

Marcy stepped out onto the porch and slammed the door behind her, locking it. She saw that the adjacent window was open, so she quickly stepped over and shut it, too.

“He’s cute!” said the newcomer as the dog stood with paws on his thighs, jumping up on him.

Feeling numb, Marcy drew near. “Uh–No–No, he’s–he belongs to the neighbor.”

“What’s his name?”

“B…Buster…”

“Cute. He’s cute.” The man lifted the dog gently and plopped him onto the ground. “Ahem, ah, are you Marcella Lester?”

“Uh…” Marcy broke into a cold sweat. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

He put a hand to his chest, smirking. “Not formally. My name is Robert, I host a show on YouTube where I go on fact-finding missions. Can I ask you some questions?”

Marcy decided that the distance she’d already walked was close enough, and stopped. “What–What kinds of questions?”

“What’s the stuff in this truck bed? This yours?” He tapped Colin’s truck with his foot, nodding towards the grass-stained equipment in the back.

“That’s–That’s Colin’s, he works in landscaping.”

“Really? That’s cool. A likely story. It’s interesting that you’re both at home and not at work at 9AM on a Monday. Courtesy of the taxpayers, I’m sure. Will you tell me about your work?”

Marcy’s heart started to pound. “Uh, mine?”

“Yeah! Unless you have something to hide about it?” He leaned in. “Do you?”

Marcy’s voice squeaked despite her best attempts to not be intimidated. “Excuse me for one moment I need to go to go I’llberightbackstayrightthere.”

She sprinted back to the porch, jamming her key into the door and whirling back inside. She did up the deadbolt, then walked over and locked the window and pulled the curtain shut. “Colin!” she yelled, moving to the living room and locking the windows there. “Colin! Teddy! Help!”

Colin appeared on the stairs in a flash. Marcy turned back around when she saw he was only in his boxers, hairy chest fully out. “Woah!” she said, covering her eyes.

“Dammit Marcy, don’t yell like that unless someone is actively attacking you.” Colin darted back upstairs. “I’ll be right there.”

Thistle’s face appeared at the top of the stairs, peering over the top step.

“Go hide in the sock drawer,” said Marcy. “Don’t come out until I come get you. Don’t look outside. Don’t come out. Don’t make a sound.”

He darted away, zigzagging to avoid Teddy’s feet as she came out next. “What is it?” she said, drawing her robe around herself.

“He’s here,” said Marcy. “YouTube guy. Crocodile guy. Fucking guy.”

Teddy’s eyes boggled. “Well, tell him to leave!”

“But how?”

“Just go outside and say ‘Please leave!’”

“But what if he gets mad?”

Colin reappeared on the stairs, this time in pants. “What did he do so far?”

Marcy started to drape the blanket from the couch onto Thistle’s little house and his craft station in the living room, to hide them. “He just kinda asked me to talk.”

“Well, why don’t you go talk to him?”

“Are you crazy?” said Teddy. “No, nope. Talking with those kinds of people always backfires. Just politely tell him to leave. Ah!”

This last exclamation was prompted by the appearance of the newcomer’s face in the little window at the top of the front door. Marcy whipped around, suddenly worrying if she’d shouted at Thistle to go hide loudly enough that he could hear.

“Just tell him whatever it takes to get him to go away,” said Colin. “Go on.”

Marcy bit her lip. “Uh. Okay.”

Drawn by the commotion, Mochi was stretching in the entryway when Marcy walked back over. She picked Mochi up to stop her from darting out, then opened the door a crack.

“Woah, cute cat!” said Robert. He extended a finger and rubbed Mochi’s head. Mochi leaned into it, eyes squinting. Traitor.

“All right,” said Marcy. “Look, I’m sorry but I’m really busy, I was just on my way to work–”

“It won’t take long.” Robert put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any of my videos?”

“Uh…��

“Well, I’m just putting together a follow-up to an interview I had recently in this area. It was pretty closeby to where I live, so I figured it could pop over for some fact-finding.”

“I don’t think I can–”

“Sure you can!”

“But-”

“What exactly do you study at your job? You work for the government, don’t you?”

Marcy rubbed the back of her head. “Look, I’m not really comfortable answering that.”

Robert nodded, tongue in his cheek. “Mm-hmm. You have an NDA?”

“A–A what? An ND–No, I don’t have one. Look, can you, can you please leave?”

“Sure, I’ll be out of your hair fast enough. Have you seen anything unusual in this area recently? Have you ever seen–”

“For God’s sake!” Colin’s shout echoed distantly. Marcy felt him before she saw him, shoving past Marcy to lean into the doorframe. “Get off my porch!”

Robert’s hand came from out of his pocket where it had been resting, holding a phone that was already recording.

Oh of course. Of course. Now he starts recording.

“Sir, I’m just asking questions,” said Robert. “What’s wrong with that? You don’t think freedom of speech should be–”

“Go speak freely on someone else’s porch,” Marcy snapped. “Leave me alone.”

“Aha!” said Robert. “You seeing this? This government scientist refusing to answer my questions, avoiding the issue, harassing me, threatening me, covering up the truth. I’m getting this all on film. You’re being filmed.”

“This is private property,” said Marcy. “Please leave. I’m not saying you can’t ask questions, but–”

“I am,” said Colin. “Get off my property.”

“Call the police then,” said Robert. “We’ll have a nice discussion with them, I’m sure.”

“If you don’t get off my fucking porch soon you’ll wish I’d called the police instead of what I’m about to do to you,” Colin hissed with shocking venom, getting right up into Robert’s face.

“I got this all on video, you see this? Threatening me over just looking for the truth.” He said this with the same amount of bravado, but he’d begun to slowly back down the front steps off the porch.

Colin grabbed Marcy’s arm and pulled her inside, slamming the door and locking it. “Jesus Christ,” he said, rubbing his temples. “What part of ‘tell him to go away’ didn’t you understand?”

“I did! He didn’t listen!”

“Whatever.” In the ensuing pause, Robert could be heard talking to his camera, but his voice was gradually getting further away as he presumably moved back towards his van. That was a relief, at least.

“Sorry,” said Marcy awkwardly.

Colin sighed. “Okay. Whatever. Teddy?”

“Yeah?” She was still standing at the top of the stairs. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“You’re right as always, dear. Is T okay?”

“He hasn’t come out.”

“I’ll go get him,” said Marcy.

Teddy padded down the stairs to stand next to Colin, who was watching out the window through parted blinds. Marcy paused to peek out the upstairs window; the interloper was sitting in his parked van, still talking to the camera. Overwhelming, irrationally intense hatred boiled over inside her immediately. She walked forward and closed that curtain.

She made double sure that her bedroom blinds were closed and closed her door before doing anything. “Thistle, it’s me, it’s safe to come out.”

When she got no response, she extended a hand and gently rolled her sock drawer open. Thistle was hard to spot, but there was one particular pile of socks that quivered slightly. She reached down and touched it gently, and it jumped. “Are you okay?”

Thistle rose up from under the pile. His face was splotchy, his cheeks streaked with tears, ugly-crying with snot running down from his nose. “N-no.”

Marcy gave a tsk and scooped him up. He balled up in her hand, shaking. “It’s okay,” she said. “We got him to leave.”

“Please don’t kick me out,” said Thistle. He was in the throes of a panic attack like he hadn’t had in a long time, imagining how much easier it would be for Marcy to just open the door and toss him out to face the consequences of his own actions than it would be to try and untangle the mess he’d made. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry–”

“Hey, hey, hey, relax.” She wiped his cheek with the pad of her thumb. “I’m not going to kick you out.”

“But-but I–I f–I led a predator back to the nest.”

It suddenly snapped into place for Marcy–Thistle’s seemingly overeager offer to sacrifice himself by leaving, the paranoid hysteria over being kicked out. It was the same reason he staunchly refused to let any human, even one he trusted, near his family. Leading a predator back to the nest was one of the worst offenses possible in his mind. Putting others in danger by being careless was a fatal mistake. He expected to suffer new consequences on par with not being able to go back to his original home, the exile he’d been enduring, and was waiting for the hammer to drop.

Marcy sat down on the bed with him cupped to her chest. She did something that she’d discovered often calmed him down once they’d established the requisite level of trust: being careful of his wings, she squished him between her hands, pressing down carefully with enough force to act like a weighted blanket, but not enough to hurt him. His lithe frame trembled, warm and vibrating against her skin.

She lifted her hand, to see him splayed limply out in her palm, facedown. She felt a slick spot where his face met her skin. “Better?”

“I’m sorry,” said his muffled voice.

“We already went over this. You made a mistake, but we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you because of it. We’ll deal with this together, okay?”

“Okay.”

She rubbed his shoulder blades with her finger. “You think we’d kick you out? Is that what your family would have done? I know you love your family, but….they sound so cruel. They would just kick you out of the nest for making a mistake like that?”

Thistle pushed himself up to kneeling. “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t. That’s what I’m saying. Would they really abandon you? They wouldn’t want you to return?”

Thistle wiped his face. “Of course they would want me to come back if it was safe. They love me. You make them sound so mean.”

“I’m not trying to, I just…”

“It’s different. It’s different for us. We have so much we need to be careful of. It’s not a matter of what you deserve, or what you want…it’s a matter of what you have to do to make sure your family survives. The world is so much more dangerous for me than it is for you.”

Marcy put him down on her lap. “Is it really that hard out there for you guys?”

“Marcy,” said Thistle, voice breaking, “do you not remember what I said about the snake monster that ate some of my family?”

“Well, yeah but…”

“If the entire group risked itself for the sake of one individual every time we were in danger, our nest would have been wiped out a long time ago. We are not humans. We have a different way of thinking. We all understand that it is not cruelty. It is being careful, and if you fail to be careful, you have to put the family’s best interest first at whatever cost to yourself.”

“You make yourself sound so disposable,” said Marcy coldly.

“They would do anything for me, and I would do anything for them. If any of them were in the same situation, I know they would do the same to keep me safe. That is what family means for a pixie.”

“And yet you started this by begging me to not do what you think is best for the group.”

Thistle raised himself up to all fours, still facedown. His arms trembled, and tears rolled down his cheeks. “I–I–I know it’s selfish, but, but, but, I just can’t–”

Thistle looked up and was shocked to see that Marcy was crying too. “Well, you’re not with a family of pixies anymore,” Marcy said. “You’re with a family of humans now, and we don’t need you to do that. Please be selfish. Please. Please.”

Selfish. It was one of the worst things a pixie could be. A selfish pixie was what caused hives to be destroyed in one fell swoop. He still had the image embedded in his mind, of his older brother wrapped in the coils of a snake monster, fighting it with all his might as the rest of the family escaped. How could a hive even function if its members were selfish? Thistle had been struggling ever since he got here to have a sense of self outside his hive, his identity as an individual and not part of a group.

Marcy wordlessly tilted his head up to make eye contact. “I promise we can handle it.”

But that’s right. He was part of a group. He wasn’t alone.

“Thank you,” Thistle wept. “Thank you. Thank you, Marcy. I do think I want to go back in the sock drawer now, though.”

She smiled at him sadly. “Okay. Whatever will make you feel better before I leave.”

***

Despite Marcy’s reassurances that the guy in the van was gone, Thistle stayed hidden in the sock drawer for the rest of the day, until she came home from work and discovered him there with a sad gasp. He mostly just wallowed.

He had people in his corner, he had a group, it was true. But everything was still such a struggle. All it took was little mistakes here and there to bring on such terror. He was operating completely in Marcy’s world, one he still didn’t fully understand and had few ways to interact safely with.

He didn’t even miss his phone or talking to Sierra. He’d been staving off loneliness by supplementing his friendship with Marcy and Teddy and Colin with online socialization, but that had all just turned sour in his mouth. All he could think of was how disastrous it would be if he ever actually met any of the people he’d been talking to online. None of them could ever know the simple truth of what kinds of microscopic fingers typed those messages, or just how close he had to stand to the mic when he voice chatted to sound normal-sized.

He thought of Sierra’s pictures of her holding kittens and cats and small bugs, and the way she would certainly gasp with delight upon seeing his real person, and imagined her enormous fist closing around him. They talked as though they were equals, but if they actually met, she could do whatever she wanted to him and he couldn’t do anything to stop her except ask Marcy for help.

He would never be a person to any of the humans. It had taken ages to establish any sort of rapport with the three humans that were on his side now, after a period of terrifying uncertainty and danger, and he’d only done that was because he was forced to. It seemed like an impossible task imagining all the effort it would take to meet anyone else new. He was just some particularly interesting animal to them, to the other 7,999,997 billion humans he shared the planet with.

And maybe he was just some animal. Humans didn’t spend all their time worrying about being eaten. They didn’t hide in a sock drawer all day, powerless to defend themselves. They didn’t have anxiety about being stepped on or squished or grabbed or avoid meeting new people because they were afraid of being put in a jar. They didn’t revolve every waking decision around the risk that it would expose them to predators. They didn’t skitter away reflexively at loud noises or sudden movements. They didn’t worry about coming home to find that their entire family had been eaten. They didn’t conduct themselves like a neurotic prey animal, safe from all manner of garden-variety monsters by virtue of their sheer size. They didn’t have nightmares nearly every night about being tortured and gutted by their friends.

They didn’t have nightmares about being eaten by a snake, which was a nightmare Thistle hadn’t suffered since childhood, but which had resurfaced to come torment him that night.

It was a snake with a human face, which made it even more disturbing when it unhinged its jaw to swallow Thistle. Thistle scrambled backwards to try and escape, but it felt like he was moving through molasses, his limbs sluggish. By the time the muscular coils encircled him, squeezing him, his pleas for mercy had already been exhausted.

He woke up crying, relieved that the horrible situation disappeared into the blackness of Marcy’s bedroom. The feeling of skin pressing in on him remained though, but after a moment he realized it was because Marcy’s hand was on top of him, pinning him to the pillow where he’d fallen when she rolled over.

Even with Thistle having to occasionally wake up and shift positions to avoid being squished as Marcy moved restlessly in her sleep, he still consistently slept better in bed with her than he did alone. It was the swarming instinct. He’d never slept alone in the hive, not once since he was born. They were safe in a group, the more the better.

But he was alone now. A lone pixie was basically a dead man walking. They rarely survived for very long after getting separated from their hive. Despite Marcy’s presence, he still had nightmares.

Thistle shifted under Marcy’s hand, pathetically trying to imagine the warmth radiating from her was coming from fellow pixies sleeping peacefully next to him. He buried his face in the pillow, squeezing taut fistfulls of the fabric beneath him.

Wait a minute. He’d just gone over this. Thistle wasn’t a lone pixie… He was alone as a pixie, but he wasn’t alone.

For the first time out of all the times he’d had nightmares, it occurred to Thistle that he should wake Marcy up.

He scooted out from under Marcy’s hand, which plopped limply down behind him. Marcy let out a snoring breath. Hugging his arms around himself, Thistle wiped his face on the back of his hand, sniffling, and leaned over, shaking her hand. “Marcy.”

No response. He raised his voice and shook a bit harder. “Marcy?”

She jerked slightly, eyes just barely cracking open, voice heavy with sleep. “Hm? Mhmmmmwha? What is it?”

He suddenly felt very silly and self-conscious. What did he really expect her to do? “I, um…”

She blinked sleep out of her eyes. “Is everything okay?”

“I…I had a bad dream.”

She made a sympathetic sound and curled her hand around him. “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

Thistle leaned into her hand, hiding his face. “I got eaten by a predator.”

“Oh, sweetheart…” Marcy gathered him up, curling her fingers around him to form a protective wall. “That’s not going to happen.”

He hugged his arms around himself and gave a little tremble.

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

“I–” His voice cracked. “I don’t think so… It’s just…”

“Are you scared of that guy?”

“I’m scared–I’m scared of every guy. Every human. They’re–” He broke eye contact, looking down. “It’s–it’s stupid.”

“It isn’t stupid.”

“I…I’ll never be able to–to just meet new people like you do.” That was definitely wholly inadequate to describe his entire train of thought, but it was what he managed to choke out.

Marcy rubbed his hand with her pointer finger. “Do you want your phone back now?”

He shook his head. “No. I…I don’t think I want it back.”

Marcy frowned. Thistle wiped his eyes again.

Marcy reached over and retrieved Thistle’s device from where it sat charging on the end table. She held it up to him. “Unlock it, please.”

He swiped in the passcode unenthusiastically. Marcy lifted it up and away from him, scrolling and pressing buttons.

She looked at him, then held the phone up. He sniffled and examined what she was showing him.

It was his DM with Sierra.

Is everything okay?

When you get the chance, can you let me know you’re okay? I’m starting to get a bit worried about you.

Please don’t ghost me. I really like talking to you. I know you’re busy. I’d just like to know you’re okay.

Do you want to voice call?

Thistle looked down, lip wobbling. “Marcy, you know I can’t actually be friends with someone like her for real.”

“Why not? You’re friends with me.”

Thistle squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his hands around his knees. “You know why!”

Marcy removed the phone. “Have you ever voice chatted with her?”

“Once or twice.”

Marcy pressed some buttons, then set the phone down. To his horror, he saw the phone was ringing. “You can’t call her!”

But after a few shuffling noises, a woman’s voice crackled out through his phone speaker. “Hello? Hey, Thistle? Can you hear me?”

“Hey, this is Marcy.”

Sierra’s voice ratcheted up with excitement. “Marcy! Hi! Oh my gosh, the famed Marcy!”

Privately, Marcy thought Sierra had the voice of a particular kind of young adult who was very, very annoying, and would leave her out of inside jokes in college. She tactfully set the thought aside. “Sierra?”

“Yes! Thistle’s told me about you! I’m so happy to finally meet you!”

Thistle had folded himself up on Marcy’s thigh, hiding his face, wings vibrating. Marcy said, “All good things, I hope.”

“Yes! Is–is he there? Is everything okay?”

Marcy slid the phone over to Thistle, putting the mic right next to his head. He looked up at her with watery eyes, face stretched taut with anguish.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Thistle choked out.

“Hey! You sound so upset! You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“There’s…Everything isn’t okay.”

“Oh no!”

“But Marcy is helping me.”

“I wish I could help.”

“Sierra,” said Marcy, sliding the phone back over.

“Woah,” she said, “for some reason you’re so much louder than he is, can you lean away or something? Sorry!”

Marcy gave a small smirk and pushed the phone back towards Thistle. “Sierra, Thistle is upset thinking he has no friends.”

Thistle hid his face, going red, ears pinned to his head. “M-Marcy.”

“What!” said Sierra. “I don’t count?”

Thistle started to sob, shoulders wracking.

“So, so Sierra. Thistle hasn’t sent you any pictures of himself because he thinks you’d treat him differently if you knew what he looked like.”

Thistle let out a choked gasp, absolutely mortified.

“What?!” said Sierra. “No, of course not! I–Why would I? I’m not shallow like that! You’re my friend!”

Thistle slammed his whole hand down on the end call button. He looked at Marcy with angry tears in his eyes. “Marcy, you know she thinks you mean I’m ugly or something! You know what’s going on here! It’s pathetic! I’m pathetic!”

“You aren’t pathetic.”

“I can’t ever actually meet her,” said Thistle. “What’s the point? I have to hide behind a phone and a screen, no one can ever get more than just my voice, and even then I have to stand right next to the mic to make sure they don’t hear that I’m five inches tall!” Tears streaked down his cheeks.

The call icon lit up again, indicating Sierra was calling again, but he ignored it. “I can’t ever meet anyone else! The whole process of meeting you, and Colin and Teddy, it nearly killed me! I can’t do anything! I can’t go back to my family, I can’t meet new humans, there aren’t any other pixies around… I can’t–I can’t go outside and explore–and I’m not the kind of guy who always wants to be leaving the nest–I–I’m okay with staying inside most of the time, but I–it feels so so bad to–to know that no one will ever see me as a person–because even you didn’t at first, and…”

He trailed off as Marcy’s hand made comforting circles on his back. “Thistle, listen. Listen to me.”

His ears twitched.

“The way we met, and the way you and Teddy and Colin met. First of all, that was my fault completely.”

“But–but that’s probably what everyone else would do, too!”

“Listen, let me finish. I promise you–I promise–you will never have to go through that awful experience again. You’re braver than when we first met. You learned how to shout. You know how to tell others what you need. You can introduce yourself now. And you have me to help you. You can do anything you want to.”

Thistle sniffled. Marcy had used her fingers to hold his hands, so they were trapped.

“You’ve powered through some extremely scary stuff way, way better than I could have.”

“But–But, but you’re not afraid of anything.”

Thistle was jostled slightly as Marcy laughed. “Thistle, you haven’t seen me be scared of anything you’re scared of because that stuff isn’t scary for me. If I were your size, I would be terrified of everything you’ve been dealing with. I wouldn’t last five minutes.”

“...really?”

“Really. I did a study abroad in Germany in undergrad, and I didn’t speak a word of German. On my first day I got lost on the way home, took the wrong bus, and ended up on the other side of the city. I had to call my host family to come rescue me at like 10PM. It was one of the scariest things in my life. And everyone else was the same size as me! There weren’t monsters prowling around that wanted to eat me! You’ve gone way further out of your comfort zone than I have.”

Thistle flittered his wings. “Well, when you put it like that…”

“I know you can handle anything this big wide world can throw at you.”

Thistle blushed, squirming.

The call icon lit up on the phone again. Marcy gave him a reassuring pat. “Now…Do you want to try this again?”

He gave a tearful smile and answered the call.

———————————–

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