#sometimes when i make rambling posts i feel like a school essay.

[autisticlee]

so many christian conservatives that hate/criticize science and don't believe in it because "it's not always right/it always changes/they don't know for sure/there's no solid proof/etc" sure do love to believe in their magical sky daddy they never saw with their own eyes but swear is real, just because mommy and daddy and the old bald man at church had told them this since they were babies.

just like much of the scientific theories they're talking about, this god also has no actual solid proof. no one knows for absolute sure that this magical being exists, or anything in the bible actually happened. this god, his son, and every other religious figure could be nothing more than a character in an ancient fictional fantasy novel the ancient people wrote for fun because they had nothing better to do. some say there's proof the "person" existed. but there's no proof they performed magic or had magical things happen to them. maybe the readers got so engrossed and obsessed that it took on this religious culture that persisted for centuries. (imagine if the twilight series took on this form and a religion about worshiping vampires emerged and people a few centuries from now though bella and edward are their original, very real existing, saviors and everyone worships them hoping to become a vampire. I remember seeing articles that thar series started getting religious cults around it. don't know if it was true of just male journalists hating that teenage girls enjoyed something —let's be honest, it was probably that.)

but if you say those things to conservatives, that there's no proof, that it could be nothing more than an ancient fantasy novel, they get so upset and defensive. they won't admit it. they come up with excuses. they turn around and point fingers instead. at least the science they hate for "having no proof" or being proven wrong always admits when it's wrong and is always trying to disprove *itself* in order to find the truth. it's based on theory and everyone should have learned about that in school, so i won't explain it. science, in general, is the study of trying to prove and disprove theories and gain evidence needed to reach a truth. it's ongoing. even these truths are usually accepted as things that can still expand and get rewritten as we learn more.

yet most christian conservatives are often over there saying those bad things about science, which actually realistically applies better to their sky daddy and his son's story. even the meanings of their bible change depending on the language/translation and who's interpreting it, with no solid proof one way or another. their religion is very stagnant. they have forbidden questioning it. they know it won't hold if you do.

they can't believe in science because there is never any concrete evidence, and scientists never know for sure....... yet at the same time, though they won't admit it, they truly don't even know if their magical god exists up in the clouds for sure. all they do is "believe" but "belief" is not proof, no matter how much they try telling you it is. but,,,,it only is if it's directed at their god. if it's belief in anything science? "no, you're brainwashed! it's all fake!"

they preach to you from a kid that you need to blindly believe and if you question it or don't believe hard enough, you get sent to hell to suffer. you're not allowed to think or choose for yourself! but they try really hard to make it look and feel like you're "choosing" it. it sounds very brainwashy to me. it FELT very brainwashy as a kid experiencing this, being foeced to go to church 2-3 times a week and a catholic school for 11 years. it's truly the opposite of what most conservatives preach and rant about. they're all about ~individualism and not being a sheep and free speech and freedom of choice~ and whatever else they yell about that is generally the opposite of how they actually live, lead, and raise their young.

science doesn't do that to you. science is more forgiving. if you dont believe, go prove it wrong! yet they claim scientists are trying to "brainwash" everyone; if you listen to and believe science, you are being "brainwashed." but *they* aren't. no. they're definitely not brainwashed by their big benevolent sky daddy and his magical story book, who threatens to strike them down into the pits of hell to suffer if they get even the smallest inkling of questioning or doubt in their tiny brains.

hypocrites they are!

[spicyicymeloncat]

Can you do Nya for the doodle/ramble? :o

Nya!!

DISCLAIMER: sorry sorry sorry this is so dang late, I have been sitting on this essay for like 2 months and I feel really bad about it. I just had so many passionate thoughts about Nya until school and work and assignments meant I lost flow and I probably won’t finish it. Tbf I did write lots so Oop lol. I’m just gonna post it unfinished like this so take away what you will :)

Awww hell yeah! So in the last post of this series, I said that Cole is probably the best written character, but i think Nya is the most interesting, and Cole’s only higher because sometimes Nya falls into kinda sexist cliches sometimes. But for the most point Nya is such an inspiring character who goes through so much strife. Honestly I think that her writing is actually a really good commentary on modern day misogyny, which is unexpected since this is just a Lego show marketed to mainly boys, and even if it wasn’t, Nya’s arc hits so much harder than you’d expect. But either way, regardless of the societal analysis, Nya is generally a really strong character who gets a lot of development simply bc was more of a side character who basically fought her way into the plot.

So the main themes of Nya is her struggle with destiny, whether she has free will or choices or if she just has to do what other expect her to. Like so many of her arcs are her struggling against what other people have told her to be or what she tells her self she has to be.

First of all, her time as samurai x and how she initially kept it a secret. In s1, in like, the first episode, we see Nya training on the training course trying to beat Kai’s score, wishing she had a dragon, and generally trying to tag along with the guys despite not being included in their team. Maybe you could argue she always wanted to be a ninja, to prove that she could do that too. However it never really caught on (until much later), and she ended up abandoning that idea in favour of becoming something else; samurai x.

I’ve always thought it was weird that she kept samurai x a secret when there wasn’t really any consequence to it when everyone found out. I think that maybe she felt a little bitter about not being included with the ninja so she decided not to share in what she got up to. Also I bet she just kept it up because the guys’ annoyance at not knowing who she was, would’ve been actually hilarious. But also she may have kept it a secret because no one could tell her how to be if no one knew it was her. Samurai X was her way of having freedom and independency, and her way of proving that she was useful, most importantly, in her own way on her own. She wanted the power to make her own choice and in order to do so, she didn’t even risk letting other people in the know in case they took it from her.

Short mention of s2 but the scene where we see Nya get corrupted is actually so horrific and invasive but it completely fits Nya’s narrative of getting her choices taken away as she’s corrupted by the dark matter. Ooh, quick s2 rewrite concept but the dark matter doesn’t immediately make you evil, but it only builds upon already dark feelings present, and in Nya’s case its her struggle with being alone, presently the fact that she was captured and overall how she gets singled out for not being a ninja or how she has to work harder to be seen alongside everyone else. With both her and Kai, they both seem to equate their worth and right to be in the family with how much they can contribute, and Nya especially puts a lot of pressure on herself, to be just as good or even better than the other ninja.

Now s3. S3… is a mixed bag. Bc it’s notorious for having a god awful love triangle that arose out of nothing but then if you think hard about it, everything after the set up kinda makes sense. Jay and Nya have kinda a strained relationship, where if we view s1 and s2 skeptically, their feelings aren’t really justified further than “jay likes girls and Nya is girl” and “Nya happens to like the colour blue”. It feels very forced hetero 2011 writing because it kinda was, but at least s3 is consistent. If you’re generous and are invested in making the most of a Lego show’s writing, then you’ll be happy to know that all of that accidentally works really well. Because we can assume that jay and Nya were quite young and it’s very common for kids/teens to just get into relationships in only name, for the pure reasoning of “we are guy and girl who hang out sometimes” Nya and jay being in a loveless, one sided relationship where neither are on the same page is pretty realistic actually, and the show tells us that Nya isn’t as invested as jay is and how there seems to be a fundamental imbalance of affection between them. Whilst I hate that Nya changes her whole mind as soon as the computer tells her to, it kinda works in that its consistent with Nya’s incredibly surface level reasoning for attraction. Her mind set is basically: if she was told a guy liked her, then she’s supposed to like them back right? That’s just what you do! Compulsive romance is so real and it’s how I personally see Nya in s3. Also it links in either s3’s theme of relying too much on technology, with Nya being swayed because of it.

Now the actual love triangle links back in with Nya and choice. She’s forced to pick between Jay and Cole but even if she does pick one, she’ll let the other down, or they might not accept it. It looks like she has a choice but there are no good options. And when she feels like she’s fighting against the grain, just like when she gave up from being a ninja, she too retreats from the conflict, avoiding giving an answer that she knows wouldn’t be accepted. She just lets them duke it out until they’ve forgotten about her and any relationship she had or could’ve wanted. By not picking a side, both sides left her after s3 and she just accepts it.

…or maybe I’m looking into to it too much as a way of coping with awful love triangles.

Quick note about s4, bc Nya kinda just kicks ass that season and I honestly don’t have too much to say. She’s just very cool. I will say that’s it’s interesting that she stayed home with wu Lloyd etc when the rest of the team dispersed. You could say she again was left behind. She stayed rebuilding the bounty, which may have been in tribute to zane considering he found the bounty. You could say zane brought the family together and found them a home, so when he died, Nya tried to fix it by remaking their home. Im gonna make a separate post about this actually.

Okay s5 is where we really get going and tbh, this season should’ve been more officially Nya. Because she’s actually becoming a ninja. I think with Nya interpretations, people usually see Nya being a ninja as a bad thing, something that was again forced upon her, which is true. I’ll talk about this again when we get to crystalized. But idk if this is a hot take but I think ninja Nya is a good thing, if you interpret samurai x as being a last resort because she didn’t become a ninja. It’s her learning to not give up, to keep at it, which is how she unlocks her true potential. That she’s just as valuable, in fact, uniquely valuable on the team. Idk I think it’s nice if you look at samurai x being her giving up on trying to be a part of the ninja. Her arc of needing to be perfect at what she does, without allowing herself to be messy or vulnerable or confront what makes her weak because she always thought that if she was a ninja, she’d be the weak link, and confronting why she hadn’t become a ninja makes her vulnerable. And her facing that fear and realising she’s more than she gives herself credit for is so so so good. Nya actually has such a low self esteem and tbh you can’t blame her when it looks like she has to fight tooth and claw to be as good as everyone else, but I’d bet on her being the strongest ninja, in some ways stronger than the green ninja. It’s very fitting that she wears the green gi in s5’s finale, because when the ghosts realise she isn’t the green ninja, they’re actually more terrified. Because she is something more feared than the green ninja. The water ninja. One of the only elements that the fsm couldn’t control. She single handedly drowned the preeminent (and destroyed an 1/8 of the universe but shhh).

And then we get to s6, which is only really good because Nya. Because even when she figures out she’s super op, society hasn’t. We get the whole news stuff in the first episode where the ninja deal with their acquired fame (nice acknowledgment of the rest of the world tbh), and we’re highlighted of how, whilst Nya took down a literal eldritch monster in the last season, she’s still only known for the love triangle, and it feels a little meta because I bet that’s what a lot of fans knew her for too (and I say this because unfortunately 13 ye old me was that, but I’ve rewatched since). We see Nya having to face everyone else’s expectations of her and the media doesn’t see her as anything but the girl ninja and she’s just told to accept that. And even when she’s trying to go against the grain, the fact that she’s only doing it to prove or disprove someone else still means she’s technically still controlled by something else. This is how I interpret the (admittedly mess of) the romance plot. Nya has and does love Jay, but she’s scared of that being all there is to her, that doing what the media expects her to means giving in to it, and losing her sense of independence. She basically can’t do what she wants because she’s holding herself to standard in response to other standards placed on her. It’s like a form of toxic masculinity but for feminism, where women feel like they have to be tough and never vulnerable because they’re trying to fight against being defined by those traits of vulnerability. Nya and Dogshank in particular, have a very specific relationship, they’re on opposite sides but play exactly the same roles, women who fought against the grain and did what was not traditionally expected of them, but in they’re fight to do so they ended up sacrificing their own freedoms anyways (Nya stops herself from getting close to the others in her need to be independent, Dogshank traded her life to be Nadakhan’s pirate just so she could win at something once). And say what you will about s6 but Nya’s death scene will always be the saddest thing, because we truly see Nya just give up her life. She’s so resigned to her fate, finally giving up on changing it and tells Jay that she never wanted to be apart of their boys club anyways. The reference of the “boys’ club” comes up 3 other times in the show: when Nya reasons why she became samurai x - she felt excluded in the group, when Nya is corrupted with dark matter and the guys fight her - Kai quipping that the “club” just became boys only and when the love matcher machine in s3 describes Nya as an independent self confident young woman who refuses to be part of a boy’s club. The evolution of the use of the quote, going from the reason Nya felt excluded, to Nya being defined by it and lastly as an acceptance of her own death, sums up what I mean, Nya internalising that “othering” and just growing to accept it. Nya then says that she guesses it’s true, the greatest love stories end in tragedy, which I think shows how she’s been told and sold so many expectations of how she wouldn’t end up happy, and it further shows how she’s given up. And the resolution of the plot isn’t perfect but I actually do like how Jay essentially bent time and space to show her that it doesn’t have to be true. Metaphorically, Jay erasing the timeline feels like he’s erasing the proposed bad end Nya’s predicted of herself. S6 is definitely flawed but I do like the theme of inevitability and the defiance of that with Nya in particular.

~~~

Yeah sorry friends that’s where I stopped. But I’ll paste my little planning stage so you guys know what I would’ve started writing about?? Anyways Nya good!!

Intro- hell yeahhh - good writing altjough ppl don’t think so

- boys club - choices

- Samurai x inventing her own identity but in retaliation

- Water ninja - child of destiny

- S6 choosing her own fate - crystalise

- S11 powers significant + seabound

- Crystalised

- Tidbits such a cool narrative but like s567 could’ve been even cooler

Conc honestly I get emotional bc she’s actually so cool man

[welivetodream]

Crippling loneliness in the age of the internet:

"Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?"

~Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart (1999)

Let me set the scene:

In a dark room, the only light is coming from the phone of a girl laying on the bed, as she mindlessly scrolls for hours on end. She is typing fast, she is running multiple apps in the background, she is listening to the latest hits while doing all of this, her earphones never leave her ears; even when she closes her eyes, she is still listening to a podcast. Despite all these activities happening around her. The girl looks bored and apathetic, her eyes are blank, no emotions, no thoughts. And for hours to come she stays in that state, waiting for something to happen, even if it doesn't, she doesn't care.

This could be the opening lines of a sci-fi novel but this is actually how I act when I am alone. This is how my life has become. And while people like to blame this on the internet that has made Gen Z mindless zombies; I think the only reason I haven't died is because of the internet. To normal people it's a curse that makes humanity fall to its lowest. To me it gave a purpose, a want and a direction to live for.

The Internet isn't the evil mastermind to me, it's a necessity that has kept me alive and not succumbing to the fact I have no one to talk with.

Internet to me isn't Instagram, Snapchat, Discord,Twi--X (someone stop Elon Musk from cooking), it's the "quirky" apps like Pinterest, Tumblr and Reddit as well as the depths of content that is YouTube. It's the places where I found "my" people who understood me, who accepted me, who appreciated me. Growing up I had no one to talk with, even my own family wasn't understanding, let alone my friends.

During my school life I had always been surrounded by friends or as I like to put it, people I can talk to and have lunch with during school hours. That's what it was, nothing more than that. My idea of friends was just different from others, I didn't want emotional connection or people to hang out with. I wanted friends who would listen to my ramblings and be able to debate and discuss things with.

I don't want to seem pretentious or snobbish and definitely not above others in any way. But....when I am surrounded by so many frustratingly stupid people, I don't have any other words to describe them than "not good enough for me". They may be wonderful people, who are warm and lively. I do not care about being around such people. I am someone that watches video essays on morality, ethics, philosophy and analysis of movies and TV, in comparison to the people I know I am just more perceptive and thoughtful and that alone makes me seem like a stranger to them (INTPs are weird in short form). My dad told me smart people have it hard to make friends because of this exact nature, I wouldn't call myself incredibly intelligent but I know I am far more capable in thinking than my classmates who watch reality TV shows and Tiktok dances. Sometimes I cannot even comprehend how people can even get satisfaction and happiness from something as simple as that and that's when I understand: it's okay to be different than that and it's okay that they are "normal".

I feel like I am Lain from "Serial Experiments Lain", as if my existence is given meaning by the internet and I was born from it. My lack of social interactions in person can be explained by that, but it's the thought of talking with other people that often scares me. I am used to being silent, so much so that even on the internet, I remain quiet, not interacting with people who might understand me. Being afraid of not being understood has stopped me from even trying to make connections when there's people ready to do that.

I don't even reply to comments on my posts, unless I have to and I don't talk with anyone on the internet itself. I just watch and be happy at other people's interactions and feel a sense of belonging.

For some days I decided to stop doing that, to stop the vow of silence. To let people approach me and approach others myself. I want to be friends and it's the only thing that I have ever considered as something I couldn't achieve.

Loneliness isn't as pretty as the movies and books tell you. It's more of a psychological thriller than a show like Euphoria and Skins where these stylised depictions make my depression and loneliness appear cool. It's cool to be alone, to have my own space and not cross boundaries but it's not cool to let the loneliness that shields me, devour me.

[ineffable-rohese]

Writing on writing

I write a lot for my job. Like so much. I write all day, sometimes, between emails and reports and policy and plans and website content. A lot of it is standard non-creative writing, but a chunk of my job is creating useable activities that will engage a huge range of audiences. (I'm being cagey here just because a lot of what I'm posting on this here Tumblr , and especially what's on AO3, could potentially cause me professional issues because people are awful and expect Certain People not to do Certain Things.)

So, I write a lot. And I'm good at it. Some parts of writing, the kind I do every day, I'm excellent at. I'm the one my colleagues ask to wordsmith their ideas, or to edit their reports, or to take a collection of random facts and turn it into a compelling argument.

And I'm writing for fun now. Fiction isn't something I've delved into much, and I'm not nearly as comfortable with it as I am with other writing. I feel like I have a good sense of setting and character (though I'm still learning how to communicate both of those things in the way I want to). I can paint you a picture (heck I can give a full sensory experience, sensualist that I am), build a mood, find a spark of humour. Plot is a challenge for me, always has been. My child- and youthhood daydreams were always rambling things, more concerned with what it felt like (physically and emotionally) to be in those imagined worlds than any sort of action, and certainly not something with a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. But I'm learning as I go, and I'm surprisingly OK with that.

When I was in high school, I was made to believe I was a bad writer. My school had extraordinarily high standards for its students, and strict guidelines for what constituted "correct" writing. I was so smart, and so creative, and so undiagnosed ADHD... I hated writing the way they insisted. The neat boxes they expected writing to fit into didn't make any sense to me. I struggled. I cried a lot. I back-created drafts and outlines to fit the final papers that I wrote through in one go because they expected a draft to be the whole thing but bad, and why would I not work and rework each paragraph as I went, like my brain wanted to? Why would I leave errors and bad sentence structure there, where I could see them, where they would drive me insane because I was supposed to just "get it all out on paper" and "fix it later."

And how was I supposed to make a thesis just from my notes? It was, and is, through the process of writing that my ideas come together, and how broken was I made to feel when the thesis I said I was writing (chose at random, based on their restrictive formula of "if A and B, then C" or some nonsense) turned out to be wrong by the time I was done. The number of times I found my thesis in my conclusion was extremely high, and eventually I stopped being surprised when I drastically revised my thesis halfway through writing a paper, but that was years later.

I had one saving grace of a teacher. He wasn't supposed to be our 11th grade English teacher at all - he was the drama teacher, but the normal teacher was out on leave that year and I got lucky. (The other teacher had a Reputation. I don't know if I would have even passed, or come out with any self-esteem intact.) Instead of a five-paragraph essay, I was able to offer creative writing responses. I was encouraged to follow my wild ideas and craft beautiful, dream-like descriptions. I could turn in a poem in lieu of an essay, or reach beyond the text I was studying to look at the wider context, which made my connections-skilled brain sing. It wasn't always great. In fact, a lot of it was shaky at best, but I wasn't punished for trying something new or unexpected, my process was allowed to be my own, and I didn't hate it. Much of it was still a struggle, but it was a struggle I wanted to succeed at, as opposed to merely survive.

With all that, I still managed to graduate thinking I was a shitty writer. Technically proficient - I could proofread and edit with the best of them - but I definitely could not claim "writer" as something I was or could hope to be.

I believed it for the entirety of undergrad, where my first year I spent an entire required writing course waiting for my prof to give me anything other than effusive praise and I ended the term in tears in her office because I didn't believe her when she encouraged me to write more, and where I got straight As in my academic course the last two years, nearly all of which were analysis or history-based and all graded based on term papers. I even believed it through most of grad school where, again, I was writing so much about so many things and getting near-perfect grades.

My final year of schooling, I finally started to believe what all my university professors had tried to tell me. It took so very long and hurt so much along the way.

And now, here we are, and I'm posting my fiction for all the world to see, giving total strangers (and one or two non-strangers) a glimpse into parts of my brain that I'm only now accepting are OK to have and enjoy. And the writing is nowhere near what I wish it was. It's OK. Good even. But I read other's works and I'm blown away by what they can do, and I only wish I could make my words dance that way. Sure, my words dance, but it's not what you'd call good dancing. So every story feels like holding my dripping, beating heart in my hands as an offering and just hoping I'm not embarassing myself.

But you know what? I'm going to keep doing it, for as long as it brings me joy. And it'll get better, and I'll get better, and maybe the 15 year old inside of me will heal just a little more every time. Maybe I'll feel like I can call myself a writer

[astorytotellyourfriends]

would you mind talking briefly about your outlining process? what do you include/exclude and how detailed do you get? (and how much - if at all - does the final draft differ from the outline?) i'm trying to start outlining my own writing and don't even know where to begin lol

also i adore your writing, it's absolutely beautiful and i get so excited every time you post about it

i would be happy to!!! 🥹 i'm so flattered that you asked!!

(the funny thing is, i didn't always use outlines. in high school when i was required to turn in an outline + an essay, i'd just write the essay first and then break it down into an outline and my teachers never said a thing. and when i first started writing fanfic i didn't plan anything out at all, i'd just write for a couple hours and then toss it up on quizilla - yes i'm OLD - and call it a new chapter lol!)

i usually use my outlines as a space to just word vomit my ideas! i treat it almost like i'm explaining my idea to a friend (which i do a lot, my friends are constantly getting the "so i have a new idea..." text), and it can either be a series of bullet points or just a stream of consciousness with bits of dialogue thrown in here and there as i think them up.

the nice thing about having an outline is it holds all of the ideas i have so i no longer have to worry about remembering them (because i have a TERRIBLE memory), and it also gives me something to go back and reread when i'm trying to get back into the headspace of an idea, especially if it's been a while since i last worked on it.

as for the final draft differing from the outline, it sort of varies from project to project. sometimes (a lot of times, actually) when i'm writing the characters sort of just take over and steer me in a completely different direction and then i have to try and figure out if i like this new direction or if i want to try and turn it back around to what i meant to have happen. or, sometimes i think "okay, this didn't work out the way i thought it would but i can take the original idea and tuck it in somewhere else later on and it'll be fine!"

(a great example would be the most recent chapter of onlyfans that i've finished, only it hasn't been posted yet so i'm not going to give away any spoilers and instead i'll use another example!)

so this is an excerpt from my outline for the onlyfans au, specifically for chapter three:

and this is how this scene played out in the actual fic:

for this part in particular, i stayed pretty close to the outline! (now i'm sure you can see why the outline for this fic is over 20k...)

but on the flip side, if you were to read the outline for chapter nine, you'd only read about chrissy and eddie's beach date. i didn't plan to write jeff into that chapter at all but somehow i ended up with an entire scene between him and eddie PLUS a full scene of chrissy and eddie making plans to go to the beach! neither of which were in my original outline!

long story short (sorry if i've gone a bit overboard on this, i just really like talking about my writing and i'm so touched that you wanted to know in the first place 🥹), my advice for outlining is don't be afraid to keep it simple. if you're struggling to outline because you feel like you should be fleshing out the story fully before you start writing and it's just not working, then just jot down whatever ideas you do have and go from there!

sometimes a story will just shape itself as you write it, and even the best outline in the world can't always hold itself up to what the story becomes. nobody's forcing you to stick to your outline! it could be as detailed as the excerpt i shared above, or it could simply be something like this:

what's most important is that your outline should help you. if you want to outline your ideas before you start writing, go for it! if not, don't feel like you have to just because other people do!

i hope this helped (and i didn't ramble too much...) and again thank you so much for asking!!! and thank you so so much for your wonderful compliment about my writing 😭 it really means so much to me that you and so many others enjoy what i've shared, especially because sometimes i let myself get bogged down with self-doubt and that makes writer's block all the more tough to handle.

thank you anon 💛 you're welcome in my inbox anytime!

[toomanybandstocare]

Is there another part after “love is a battlefield” eddie fanfic

this is the Heartbreaker series link & this is my Stranger Things masterlist

here is my feelings about the series with regards to writing an epilogue for closure

here is my current feelings about the whole situation:

i am so grateful and happy that this series, especially the first part, has touched and resonated with so many people

however, it does at times feel as if my blog is filled with ghosts just lingering in the hopes that i will post more from this series and it hurts to think about and i do recognize that could be my cynical thinking butting its head and that possibly my works just show up on people's dashes when they aren't online

i want to grow as a creative writer once more and it just seems as if i cannot escape this series and i don't want to be limited to one fandom or character

as much as i did enjoy this series and look back fondly on it (rarely though) it does feel like i was milked for my ideas and left alone when it was no longer popular

i want to engage and talk with people about fandoms i'm in but just doesnt seem to happen unless its with this series and im kind of bummed about it

im also a post college graduate who is just healing from burnout and looking for a full time job while also getting ready to apply to grad school, so i am very tired and writing takes a lot of time out of my day to get it where i am happy with it and to where i feel like i can share it with others since that in itself terrifies me

so i am glad that you either enjoyed the final part to the series or enjoyed the series as a whole, but Love is a Battelfield is the final part to the Heartbreaker Series. i will not promise to writing more in this series, because i wanted to end it with how in life you sometimes don't get closure. i also wanted the reader and steve to have one of those platonic friendships that are so close and loving that people can't tell if they're dating or not. so closure with either boys is not the focus of the series.

i am MORE that happy to talk to people about the series, either how i wrote it or headcanons about the series or about the character's relationships/characterizations, but i will not promise to write more of the series. if people request for another part, i will probably say no and direct them to the previous ask and this one as to why. i want to grow as a creative writer again and this series holds a lot of heavy and conflicting emotions for me that i do not want to revisit to write another part to the series.

i know you probably didn't expect this essay/ramble or amount of emotion, but this has been weighing heavily on my mind lately and i needed to let it out. i am not upset with you and i want to make that clear. again, i am so happy and grateful that you enjoyed my work. feel free to engage with the series with comments or reblogs as well as my other work! that would make my day :) i love chatting to people and seeing what they thought of my work- that's why i share it on here. feel free to send in requests if you want as i am always open to writing more. i hope you have a lovely day/evening/timezone <3

[xxmolls]

Time for a pinned post! Hi! I'm Molly (technically Mariel, but my nickname has been Molly since before I was born!). she/her, in my 30's, Missouri (US).

I am a singer/songwriter, though when I was 19 and hellbent on making that my career, I got sick with late stage neurological lyme disease. My health has been a dumpster fire since then, and I spent basically all of my 20's on-and-off bedridden (You can follow that SUPER fun journey under the tag health ramble -- I have had this tumblr since I was 19 so we have gone through a lot of shit together). When I turned 30, after getting treatment for MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), I finally started to get my life back. I have been diagnosed with Tourette's since I was 4. That has added an interesting dimension into my "medical mystery," which tends to fascinate (and befuddle) doctors AND ALSO keeps things somewhat entertaining day to day. I find a lot of humor in my tics (though sometimes they can be pretty debilitating!). I worked at a summer camp for kids with Tourette Syndrome for 4 years, so I love meeting and chatting with fellow ticcers and consider myself an advocate. I have recently begun writing kind of personal essays that explain inspirations for songs I wrote and connect them to what was going on in my life (and often my health shitshow) at the time. I've been tagging those with My Writing if you are interested in reading (or blacklisting). I recorded an album of original (mostly Americana) songs years ago. You can listen to that on Spotify at Molly Trull - "Nothing Is Enough" It's available on basically every streaming / music service you can think of (including youtube). Just search my name and the album title (Nothing Is Enough). My bandcamp is here if you want to buy and download the mp3s to own.

Some of the songs on the album are literally songs I wrote in high school, just to warn you. I feel like I have outgrown them a bit. I am still proud of my songs, though, and I think the album doesn’t sound too bad.

I have an old soundcloud account where I have uploaded some of the songs from my album as well as some home demos, and some covers I have done. You can find that here I post a lot of music that I love to listen to and that has inspired my own songwriting. You can find all that at my music tag.

I write about my family a lot because we have a lot of family lore and frequent shenanigans. You can find those posts under the tag my flamboyantly dysfunctional family

I watch a lot of tv. I am involved in several fandoms. I am a gigantic fucking nerd. Find my tv fandom-y posts under tv

I love my dogs and post pics of them a lot because I think they are super cute and ridiculous. Find those furry idiots (affectionate) under my dogs

Thank you for reading this monstrosity of a pinned post, and feel free to send me an ask anytime! I love making new friends.

xo

Molly

[fennthetalkingdog]

It's Gendering Time Baby (aka Fenn's weird thoughts about his gender in essay form)

Okay, so it's really late at night while I'm writing this (not the same time that I'll post probably) but my brain's going on a spiral tangent thing so I wanna go down it while I can. So I'm prolly gonna ramble, I apologize in advance.

So anyway, I feel like my relationship with my gender is... unique? I don't know, I see a lot of people talk about how they feel like a man or woman or nonbinary person, or how they feel like nothing or something neutral or "just themselves" but from what I've heard the latter usually call themselves agender or neutrois or something like that. If I had to pick one, I legitimately don't know what I'd say. I know your experience as a kid isn't the end-all-be-all for your identity, but I tend to look back at mine a lot to make sure I'm not adopting a label that doesn't represent me at all—but when I was a kid, I had no conceptualization of gender. It just wasn't something I noticed. Hell, I noticed differences in height more than I noticed differences in gender at the time. If you asked kid me, they'd probably just say, "Huh? What do you mean? How can you feel like a gender??" So that's not particularly helpful.

I didn't really start noticing gender until I learned that trans people existed (high school; had Christian parents and was overall pretty sheltered). And I only really learned about it in the context of "some people feel so strongly about gender that they wish to transition." So of course little me, who barely noticed gender at all, thought that they must be a demigirl because they were born a girl but didn't really feel anything. (I know now that's not what "demigirl" necessarily stands for lol but give lil me a break.) But their parents rejected them and of course, since they now had no other way to express this potential side of them, little me went exploring more. They found labels like "agender" and "neutrois" that seemed to fit their experience so much better, and so the demigirl label was dropped. But it still didn't feel like them, and they still don't feel like me.

You see, my gender is a pretty complicated thing that I like to ignore most of the time. But there was one time I tried to give a friend a metaphor to describe it, and that's the best thing I've got even now so here it is. I have a slightly interesting physical problem when whenever I strain my shoulders too much, the skin on my back becomes really sensitive and if I move in the slightest, it feels like my shoulder blades will break through my skin (consequence of carrying too heavy bookbags in grade school). But sometimes I can feel it starting to get bad because it feels like a hole is forming between my shoulder blades, like a cavern, where muscles that should be chill and calm feel almost like they're being sliced. (I promise this isn't a medical problem.) And my gender almost feels like that cave: a wide, open space lined with smooth, water-worn stone and closed to the open air, with a massive lake at the bottom and a single stalactite hanging from the ceiling. Water occasionally drips down from the stalactite and into the lake, and that's my gender, except the lake feels like nothing and my gender is diluted once it hits the surface of Me. I have a gender, maybe, but it's in parts per million instead of wholes.

So I'm basically agender, right? Or I'm some sublabel like libramasculine if my gender feels important to me still, but problem solved, right? Well, those labels technically fit from a technical perspective, but they still feel wrong. I may not have a gender, or at least a strong one, in the sense of having strong preferences about how I'm treated or seen, but at the same time I do? But it comes more in the form of likes and dislikes. I like being seen as a masculine (gender-wise) person over a feminine (gender-wise) person. I like being seen as a feminine as fuck (presentation-wise) dude instead of as a girl who doesn't care for themself. These feel like they come more from my personality than from a gender, so my gender is still technically nothing, but it still feels wrong to label myself as agender or something similar when I have such notable feelings about the matter.

So what do I do instead? Well, I play gender, like how a toddler "plays" as an animal or how a kid "plays" as a character from their favorite TV show. Everything I perform is still me—it's my desires, dislikes, and personality—but I get to be a boy thing instead of what people wanted me to be. If my birth gender is old and crusty and doesn't fit, then I get to choose something cooler, a new role I can play. The difference doesn't really matter on a day-to-day basis, does it? No one can tell if I knew since birth or if I'm faking it or if I'm somewhere in between, so what does it matter? What I know for sure is what I want to do with my body: I want to lop off my boobs and I maybe want to take testosterone. And I like being a boy in a dress. So, technically I don't really feel a gender? But I still don't identify with agender or any of the adjacent "lack at least some gender" labels because it feels weird trying to put a label on something that isn't there. I just call myself a transmasc nonbinary boy/man and move on with my life, because if I stop and think about it I'll confuse myself all over again.

[autimind]

I'm the anon who sent the "interesting message" and I just want to say thank you. To start, yes, I'm a cis-male living in the US (also securely aroace) When I wrote out that (admittedly messy) message I had just seen your post from 2-3 days ago and it was almost like a dam burst. Most of what I typed I hadn't really thought about before (not that I find it to be untrue; just that none of it became a conscious thought) and it put into perspective how much I could benefit from just talking about it. Your response helped, and I agree that I haven't given up yet, it just feels like I'm just flailing while most have learned to float. Ironically, one of the few things I am confident in is my determination, even if it seems like blind insistence at times (and its tendency to get me stuck on certain thoughts/ideas).

This got rambly so I'll state it again. Thank you. And, in case you're wondering, I do plan on pursuing help from a mental health professional and my rant (sorry about that by the way) helped me realize I needed it more than I thought I might.

You are quite welcome, anon. It was my pleasure.

I had to look up 'aroace' but never mind that. You apparently know your own internal config. Well done.

As a quick segue: I like to ask people what they are adding, what kind of positivity they are injecting into the future. I ask it of myself often enough. Well, my blog is one thing and one thing only: giving what I have learnt to people out there. You said it was almost lik a dam had burst. Good! At least my post reached one person that needed that message. That is why I do it. I am not a spiritual teacher by far but I do know some things. I try to think what things I would have wanted to hear, or read, at age 16 or age 20. I am very glad that my post as well as my response helped.

By all means keep flailing. It does keep you above the waterline. You will have noticed by now that flailing is excessively tiring, though. It sucks up any and all available energy. It would be wonderful if you managed to float or even swim. By the way, a message isn't 'rambly' just because it doesn't look like an A+ high school essay. You are allowed to write naturally.

You have determination in spades, apparently. So use it. Set yourself some goal and get at it. Never apologize for being in need. You may rant at me all you want. I am happy to learn that you will pursue professional help and I wish you best luck in that endaevour.

It is exceedingly hard to help someone whom you don't know. Still.. from my (volunteer) work with other autistic people, I have learnt that rebuilding self-confidence and trust is best done in tiny steps. If you keep failing then the steps are too big. Make them smaller. B.J. Fogg, in his wonderful book Tiny Habits, uses the example of someone who is convinced they need to run 10 kilometers, or some such distance. They can't. Everything is too hard. So he sets the task of at least dressing for running and putting on running shoes, then stepping outside for a minute. If that is all you can give and you give it… you have given 100%. And so on and so forth, you can safely build on your tiny successes and eventually run that distance.

Sometimes self-care is hard. I make a point of making my bed every single morning, immediately after getting up. At the very least, I have done one thing and done it well. I find it gets me in the mental mode of action, doing one thing after another. Perhaps you can decide to spend at least a couple of minutes on clean clothing and personal grooming? That is a very positive and self-caring act. It has the added benefit that it fits the expectations of society and if you do decide to go out of the house, you'll feel stronger.

Again, you are welcome. I hope you have had a chance to read my post on (probably) not being awesome.

Kind regards,

Ṭhitadhammo

[alltheshadesofamber]

Wait, okay can you please tell me what the canon characterization of Jason is? I’m a new comics fan and it’s so hard to separate canon and fanon traits from the batfam sometimes and I’d appreciate any and all insight 🙏 I really want to write a batfam fic w/ Jason in it but have been too scared of accidentally mischaracterizing him to start lol

Thank you for asking this! I hope you don’t regret it! 😂 I’ve never really written meta before, I struggle with formatting essays, and it’s been a while since I’ve written anything really at all, so sorry if it doesn’t flow well! I basically just periodically added something to it whenever I thought of it. Sooo this ended up longer than I thought it would be! 😅

This is all my personal interpretations of Jason’s character, disjointed as it may be! I’ll also admit that characterization can be tweaked depending on what you want out of the story, and I am not immune to this! And when it comes to pre-Crisis and post-Crisis Robin!Jason, I’ll admit I do get a little turned about regarding what may or may not be canon anymore, because in my opinion it’s not really clear! I do my best to weave some stuff together to make some stuff make sense, but this really isn’t something I’m used to putting down on paper into words, and I’m sure some other people have done or could do better. Furthermore, I prefer to take post-New 52 stuff with a massive grain of salt, because the New 52 was just. Yikes! Honestly most Jason stuff even pre-New 52 is just inconsistent. If you’re a Jason fan you prooooobably already know that though! His characterization is a tangled mess! Why do I even like him? Answer: He makes my brain go brrrrrr. I did my best to wrangle my thoughts here.

None of this is consistent either. My thoughts on Jason change like. All the time. This isn’t even all of them. And like, I tried to stick mostly to canon, but I will admit even I am willing to bend on this stuff a bit to make relations a little smoother in my head sometimes.

Also people are complicated and composed of contradictions, and every character can be said to be an unreliable narrator of their own story! I think that’s something important to keep in mind when it comes to my interpretations, and I tried to have that come across. Without further ado, my collected Jason Todd ramblings:

Let me start by saying, I just think Jason’s fascinating. And cool! I like his potential for depth and his leather jackets and his righteous fury and his refusal to be ignored or forgotten and his determination and his sense of humor and his intelligence and his attitude and I just think he’s great.

Jason was a good kid! He was the best kid, actually. He had a rough life, but he never gave up and he made do with what he had. He was scrappy. He was funny! I feel like an important part of Jason’s original post-Crisis origin to mention is the fact that he made Batman laugh. That’s always stuck out as important to me, and I’ve always felt it should be important for defining Jason and Bruce’s relationship and Jason as Robin and Jason in general, and I’m disappointed it’s been left out of later reimaginings as far as I’m aware. Jason Todd is the kid who made Batman laugh! Not only that, he made Bruce Wayne laugh, on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths, in the very spot where they died in Crime Alley! Jason was a light in Bruce’s life. Jason made him laugh. He did that. And little 11/12 year old Jason, when faced with a Batman he had just stolen tires from and having been caught in the act, was fearless. He wasn’t cowed at all! He denied taking the tires to his face, then he hit the goddamn Batman with a tire iron and ran away daring Batman to catch him! “Try and catch me, you big boob!” He had gumption and spirit to spare! And on top of that, he had an unflagging desire to do good. Batman sent him to a school to get Jason off the streets and somewhere safe, and when it turned out the school was actually a front for criminal enterprises, what did Jason do? He could’ve walked away. It would’ve been understandable, he was just a kid. But no. Jason decided that he had a duty, a responsibility. So he tried to stop a museum heist. And that’s when Bruce took him in, post-Crisis. So what have we established about Jason so far? He’s funny, he’s daring, he’s cheeky! He’s got an unrelenting desire to do good and a sense of responsibility to do so that most fully grown people don’t have. And Jason was a great Robin. He was smart, eager to learn, eager to help people and so very earnest about it all. He was a sweetheart. He was kind and considerate, sensitive and so so empathetic. He had a bleeding heart and he wore it on his sleeve. And I don’t know why I’m saying “was,” not really, because he still is most, if not all, of those things, even if they don’t present in exactly the same way anymore, or aren’t as obvious.

He excelled at school and he cared about it, it was important to him. He wouldn’t stand for injustice, and he wouldn’t keep quiet about it. He was exceptionally bright, gave everything his all, and he was recognized and praised for it by Bruce and Alfred. Dick liked him too. As Robin, Jason was never discouraged or led to believe he wasn’t good enough by any external forces. Bruce was actually very vocal and communicative about how great he thought Jason was.

I also have a particular fondness for Robin!Jason’s adventures with the Titans. His talk with Donna showed him to be responsible, level-headed, humble, intuitive, and very insightful! He’s able to get to the heart of what Donna’s dealing with and give her solid advice, while at the same time reminding her that he’s just a kid and he’s still got a lot to learn and he knows it. He’s also able to deduce that Roy is hiding something, as well as what that something may be.

Bruce suspecting him of killing Garzonas, Sheila betraying him to the Joker, dying brutally and bloodily, coming back, digging his way out of his own grave, regaining awareness only to find out that the Joker was still alive, Batman had a new Robin… that he had died, that he’d loved them so much, put his faith and trust in his new family, and he’d been forgotten? Replaced? As though he meant nothing to them? That his death hadn’t changed anything? It broke Jason. It shattered him to pieces. But as previously established, Jason is nothing if not resilient. Irrepressible. An unstoppable force. He put in the time, the effort, the sweat and tears (and there were tears when he first broke. Jason’s first reaction to the news about the Joker and a new Robin was heartbreak. He was devastated. The anger came later. And it was a righteous kind of anger) and he remade himself. Jason melted down the broken pieces of who he was, honed his skills to mastery levels with a frightening dedication and speed, and through trials by fire, forged himself into a weapon on par with Batman.

He’s resilient, in all ways. He can take a beating, he can take pain, he can take disappointment and betrayal and failure, and every time he will rally and come back swinging. He’s determined and dedicated. He’s got an insane work ethic, and learning comes ridiculously easy to him. He doesn’t get daunted or intimidated, not really. He’s a survivor. He looks the worst of the worst in the face and he doesn’t back down.

Jason has never been afraid or hesitant to make his feelings clear, and he intrinsically knows his own worth. He’s never been shy to say when he feels he’s been mistreated. He doesn’t expect the best of others, not anymore, not really (but maybe there is some flickering flame of hope he can’t quite smother—) but he has self-respect and no doubts about it (maybe some fleeting thoughts of “was it my fault? Did Bruce ever really love me? Was I a bad Robin? Etc” but we all have those kinds of intrusive thoughts, don’t we?)

He’s confident, because he has the skills to back it up. He’s self-aware, to an extent; he knows his limits, knows what he can and can’t do, and he knows when it’s time to call it a day and retreat. But also if he’s going down he will not go down without a fight, and he will drag you down with him. He likes to cause problems on purpose, and he escalates; you hit him, he’ll hit back harder.

It’s established that there’s a bomb in his helmet. I think that says a lot. I don’t think he ever intended to survive his showdown with Bruce, but I also don’t think he wanted to die, not really. I think he might have seen it as inevitable though. Or maybe he didn’t want to live in a world where his dad didn’t kill his murderer. I don’t know. I’m not sure Jason knows either.

He’s snarky and quick-witted, razor-sharp and acerbic and irreverent. His wields his words just as skillfully as he does all the other weapons at his disposal. But also sometimes he’s just having fun and being annoying for the sake of it. He’s frighteningly intelligent, despite what more recent writers would like you to believe. He’s a great detective, and he has a wide range of skills and he’s mastered all of them. He’s an overachiever to the core. He’s hypercompetent. He puts his all into everything he does. He’s good at reading people, better than anyone thinks he is, which is possibly linked to that strong empathy I mentioned earlier. He does have a flare for the dramatic, and he is very very good at it. He’s got theatricality, he’s a master showman. He’s resourceful and clever.

Jason is immensely skilled! He spent a year going around the world, learning all the same skills Bruce learned, but with the training wheels off, so to speak. And he mastered each one in record time! He didn’t just become proficient, he mastered them! He surpassed his teachers! And it only took him at most a few weeks each time! He learns incredibly quickly and picking up skills and techniques comes naturally to him. Jason’s more than a match for Bruce on a strictly physical level. (Sometimes post-Flashpoint does have its cool moments, like that time Jason took out a bunch of heroes pursuing him, a group including Bruce and Damian, all while falling off a building, if I’m remembering that right) And when it comes to the mental level? Jason’s a master tactician and strategist. He’s outmaneuvered Batman multiple times over the years, even on the fly. He was two steps ahead of Bruce all of UtRH.

I don’t see Jason as especially reckless or impulsive, at least no more so than any of the other Bats. I think he processes things very quickly and is very adaptive. So it might seem as though he’s taking a major risk or acting without thinking, but in reality he’s thought through his options and his risks and decisions are carefully calculated.

He’s not afraid of the Joker. This is made clear in UtRH.

He’s completely in control of his own actions and he always has been. “Lazarus Pit Madness” isn’t a prolonged or recurrent phenomena, and his feelings and homicidal actions are all his own, for better or worse. I personally just dislike that bit of fanon very much. I feel it takes away his agency and turns his very real issues and feelings and dismisses them in favor of excusing his actions and absolving him of the blame. I get why people like it and latch on to it and use it, because it makes writing happier Batfam dynamics easier, gives an excuse to speed up reconciliation, and gets rid of any consequences for his actions, except of course angst and guilt when needed. But I just don’t like it. I think it reduces him as a character.

I don’t think he loses sleep over killing. At least not when he’s first reintroduced. But later characterizations may vary.

I honestly don’t know what I feel about Jason’s relationship with Alfred is or should or would be after Jason’s return. There’s not much canon to extrapolate from, if I remember correctly. I know that’s led to a lot of popular fanon being about them reconnecting and having a fairly smooth and accepting relationship, and I’ll accept that when it comes up in fic, but. I don’t know. I don’t really feel it. And the lack of canon to draw on in the wake of UtRH sort of works against that interpretation for me, and in my opinion lends more credence to the opposite. I also think that relationship (really all of Jason’s relationships) deserves more depth than that. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of fluff for fluff’s sake, I don’t like the idea that Jason turns mushy and compliant where Alfred’s concerned, or suddenly turns into some kind of a sheepish chastened schoolboy from his very presence, and I like when characters feelings and relationships aren’t too straightforward. Complex relationships are something I adore.

I could conceivably see Jason getting along with Tim and Damian, but like. I don’t know how they’d get there. I guess I don’t have to ponder that, because DC canon has said they’re already there somehow, but still. I’m not super against it, I’d just like to understand more. I’m not against the idea of a more amiable (to a degree) Batfamily in principle, but in practice I think it’s just not really delivering what I want. Too many characters at once means everyone tends to get simplified in group scenes to a quip or a jab, and I’m tired of Jason being reduced to a joke or insult about him dying or having daddy issues or being some kind of meathead. It’s aggravating. (He’s also not the only one this happens to in this situation, and I absolutely am upset by how the others get reduced too, both in canon and fanon, Jason’s just the one I’m talking about right now)

Talia did not manipulate Jason. She didn’t brainwash him, she didn’t goad him into hating or trying to kill Bruce or the others, she didn’t treat him badly, or intend to use him as a weapon against Bruce, or anything like that. Her original plan was to nurse Jason back to health and return him to Bruce. When that didn’t work, she put him in the Lazarus Pit to heal him because she feared for his safety. Jason didn’t even show any signs of Lazarus Pit Madness afterwards, by the way. She informed him of the Joker’s continued existence and the new Robin, yes. So what? He needed to know. Returning Jason to Bruce was still the plan. But Jason’s the one who threw the wrench in that plan. Jason didn’t want to go home. Jason wanted revenge. He wanted to kill Bruce. Talia did not want Jason to kill Bruce. She set up all his training to stall him, in hopes that he would change his mind. She kept watch over him, and she cared about him and for him. She was worried that he might have lost his ability to feel emotions or become a psychopath as a result of everything he’d been through, and when he showed that he was still capable emotions and hadn’t completely lost his sense of morality or empathy, she was relieved.

Jason is very attached to Gotham, just like Bruce. It’s his city, too.

Jason is willing to work with others when it suits him, and when he commits to doing so longterm he’s actually a very good team player. He doesn’t seem to have delusions of grandeur or aspirations of usurpation when it comes to leadership, and he’s not opposed to listening to people who have his respect. And if you aren’t on his bad side then he can be surprisingly cordial and polite. Though perhaps that’s not too surprising; he was a sweet kid, after all.

I wholeheartedly believe that Jason is at his core a good person. The bones are good, the foundation is good; it’s everything else that’s not doing so great. I don’t know if I’d say he’s lost, because I think in a way he’s where he wanted to be; he’s chosen a bad path, and he did so deliberately. Jason has always tried to the right thing, the things that need doing; it’s just that his idea of what the right thing is and what needs to be done has changed.

Jason has also been shown to have a massive well of forgiveness, though I feel that’s mostly post-New 52 canon, where full reconciliation with the other Bats is a thing, so he’d have to be forgiving by necessity. I’m not even going to get in to post-New 52 stuff I think, I find most of it very disjointed and in large part emotionally unsatisfying. There is pre-New 52 pre-death precedent for Jason being astoundingly forgiving though, to an almost saint-like degree; he forgives Sheila for leading him to the Joker and tries to save her life by untying her, and he even tries to shield her from the bomb. Which means a case for the later stuff being in-character could be made. So there is that.

Before Jason died he was also a huge believer in second chances. Sometimes even a bigger proponent of them than Bruce. This is a little hard to reconcile with his later actions, but it’s the truth.

Jason Todd went to Heaven when he died, we learn that in Green Arrow: Quiver.

I’ve seen a lot of comics that have someone, usually Bruce or Jason I think, say something about how they believe (or know, as if it was obvious) that if Bruce hadn’t taken Jason in, Jason would’ve grown up to be a criminal. Let me make this clear: I do not believe that for a second. Jason’s sense of right and wrong was always strong, and his moral convictions were steadfast. He stole as a kid to survive, but when presented with the option of letting something bad happen to someone else when he had the power to stop it, even if it wasn’t much power, even as a kid Jason never took the easy way out. He did what he knew was right.

Jason wants to be seen, but he also wants to be understood. That’s how I interpret his encounters with Dick in the Blood Brothers arc (yuck) and Mia Dearden in Green Arrow. And while I’d prefer to ignore it as a whole, he does make sort of similar overtures to Dick again and Tim in Battle for the Cowl, though I highly doubt he sincerely thought there was any chance at all that they’d accept in that case.

He’s incredibly loyal and devoted to those he loves, and expects that same level of loyalty in return. He sees failing to live up to those standards as a personal betrayal of Bruce’s; and after his return he takes betrayal (pre-New 52) very seriously. If you don’t reciprocate, then in his mind obviously everything else was a lie. If Bruce didn’t kill the Joker for killing Jason, did Bruce ever really love him at all? But he also knows for a fact that Bruce did love him. It’s complicated!

He knows Bruce loves him; but Bruce doesn’t love him the way he wants to be loved, or in a way that he interprets as true or able to be trusted, at least not anymore. It isn’t enough. Jason loves Bruce as much as he hates him.

Jason characterization is tricky! His skills, his strengths, and his smarts are all immutable across continuities and interpretations in my opinion, but the more undefinable things, like his feelings? I will admit, there’s more leeway to be had there. Also I’ve contradicted myself a bit sometimes, I think. Sorry about that! Sorry about all of this, really. I probably repeated myself a lot. In fact I’ve probably already apologized for repeating myself a lot. I don’t have the patience to check or edit this extensively. I did my best! I hope this helps! And thank you for asking me in the first place! Even though this is a mess, I did enjoy doing it!

[circulars-reasoning]

You Can Make Mistakes

To break in the new blog, I’m going to go ahead and make my first big post. This is the style of posts I really want to make on here: a combination of rambling, thoughts, and experiences in one small essay. Similar to how I’ve seen a lot of syscourse posts be, but without as much anger fueling it.

This post, TL;DR: The drive to label yourself with something should never overtake your health or wellbeing. Sometimes, people are mistaken about their identities, and that should never, ever be shamed. It happens and that’s okay.

Now, onto the longer version.

In system spaces, I’ve noticed very strongly that there’s this drive to label oneself as accurately as possible. Genic labels, roles, diagnosis status - there’s always this drive to make sure you’re as accurate as possible about your own experiences. There’s this sense that you have to be perfectly right in everything you say, and one misstep with terminology spells death.

It’s something I also noticed when I was in LGBT+ spaces more in high school and college. There was a drive to know who you were. In order to join in conversations, you needed to use the right terminology (and the right terminology varied from space to space).

That’s the same ideal I’ve noticed in syscourse, and my response to it is the same here. Getting it “right” isn’t nearly as important as feeling like it fits you. Using terminology that helps you is the most important thing. At the end of the day, we are all human, and we should use terms that help us in being better (for ourselves and for others). Now, there are plenty of arguments that can be made about what helps us be better, but at the end of the day, we know ourselves.

For us, we have found labeling our experiences as a system has been helpful. Finding names for roles and displaying them has helped us grow more comfortable. That isn’t the case for everyone though. And that’s okay! It’s most crucial to take care of yourself, and only use labels if they help you.

Furthermore, it’s absolutely okay to learn more about yourself and grow. It’s okay for labels to change. Actually, I think that’s a vital part of being a person; growth. Changing your mind (and labels) after gaining new information is a sign of maturity.

I’m not sure why so many people get so upset when someone changes after learning more about themselves. Changing labels isn’t a “betrayal” - it’s someone realizing another label helps them more. And once you have a label, you should always be able to take it off if it no longer fits. I’ve seen people say “once a X, always a X” far too many times about individual labels. How is that right? If someone has said they no longer feel like X, calling them X is taking that person’s personhood and running it through the mud. You’re ignoring who they are. What they stand for. That’s rude, and you’re an asshole!

Discarding labels that no longer fit will always be okay. Using labels should be okay! If you don’t benefit from labels, then you don’t need to use them. And being aware of the dangers is also a good idea; how can over labeling your experiences affect you? Look at your experiences and determine what helps you the most.

[gummygowon]

cute relationship things with ateez!

genre: fluff (a lot)

warnings: none :)

established relationship!

a/n: i meant to post this like two weeks ago but i never finished it so consider this an early valentine’s day gift <3 ;) 

seonghwa:

for some reason, i feel like seonghwa likes to read books

with that being said, on lazy days where you guys didn’t want to get up and do anything

you guys would read books !!!

before you guys would read some were recommendations from each other on your own

and then maybe rant to each other over little details about the book like how the main character went back to their toxic ex or how the ending of a book was so bad

“seonghwa, how did you even read this?!? the stupid ass main character keeps going back to that one jerk! like does she not realize she deserves more than his ugly ass???!!!?”

“y/n, just keep reading.” 

“but hwa-”

turns out the main character got with the other woman yayyyyy!!! fuck shitty men

i don’t know how it happened but you guys started your own little book club with each other

so you guys could finally talk rant together at the same time about the book

so since you guys started to read the same book and if you guys found down time together you would read together

like, imagine it’s a peaceful friday night

seonghwa is back from work and so are you

you guys already showered and ate dinner

you’re just reading and then seonghwa just scoops you up and then puts you in between his legs with your back against his chest

and you’re like “wtf bro?”

and he’s just like, “what? i wanna read too???”

“didn’t you like read ahead tho??”

“yeah, but i wanna read it again.”

that was a fatass lie

he just wanted to be close to you 

hongjoong:

ok so, we all know that this man is hella busy all the time

mans is the leader, song writer, producer, dancer, rapper (which is why he is good at all positions)

but you were patient with him and whenever he goes days without seeing you due to his busy ass schedule he would make it up to you yk what i mean

but on the more chill days when you saw hongjoong or even the days where he was cooped in his studio (you would visit him there because sometimes you just had to see him)

you guys would just lay on the couch, just enjoying each other’s presence and not feel like you have to make up for lost time

you would be on the bottom on your phone or reading a magazine/book

then hongjoong would be at the top with his head on your stomach as he would be writing down lyrics that came to mind

killing two birds with one stone you feel me

sometimes you would show him a funny meme that you found or quote something that you just read to him 

“hongjoong, look at the way he fell!” you would be dying of laughter

and then he wouldn’t notice because he was really roped into making lyrics 

but you also didn’t see him focusing so much because you were of course laughing at the kid that accidentally got bitchslapped off the couch because of their sibling

“joongie look!!!”

“what is it?”

you would then show him what happened and then he would look at with that “you really interrupted me for this??” type of look

“i just lost my train of thought for this song because you wanted to show me this kid falling off of a couch???” 

“yes?” 

he would just bring a hand to his face and think what tf? why tf? and then slowly start laughing because of what just happened

“see, wasn’t it funny?”

“a child getting hurt isn’t funny, y/n” he would laugh while scolding you

yunho:

yunho powers im sorry for this one

alright so, it’s night time 

you guys are about to go to bed after a long day or work/school whatever

your eyes are fluttering closed because the day got you beat beat

but then yunho just kisses your face

and then you open your eyes slowly again to see yunho look like he just got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do

like imagine a kid that just got caught drawing on the walls

that’s what his face would look like

he’s just laying there like “i thought you were asleep...”

“i was just about to...”

yunho feels lowkey guilty now because you’re awake now and he knows you had a long day

he just couldn’t resist kissing you 

you just looked so pretty and peaceful sleeping 

mans was reminded by the universe themself about how lucky he was being able to date you

like, godamn what did he do in his past life to deserve you?

ok, back to this reaction idea thing-

yunho would apologize for waking you up with his cheeks a nice rosy color

you just look at him with tired eyes 

“i’ll forgive you, if you give me more kisses.”

and yunho’s smile just lights up the whole damn room and he’s like oh? say less

so he goes to kissing your face

like all over

your nose

your cheeks

forehead

basically anywhere ok?

and you end up laughing because it tickles 

but you just want him to kiss your lips which he does 

... eventually lmao

but when he does your still laughing which causes him to laugh

he tells you “i love you, did you know that?”

and you get all flustered and shit but you still keep that playful energy around 

“i love you too, but you aren’t forgiven just yet”

which leads to more kisses :))))

yeosang:

ok so you’re now the busy one

yeosang has so much respect for you because holy shit how do you balance that busy ass schedule of yours

your homework loads were no jokes 

then to add to that you have a job which was even more stressful

it was amazing how you can manage all that and still keep a smile on your face

you also had major respect for yeosang as an idol

the industry was not a place to fuck around 

you couldn’t be happier that your boyfriend was lucky enough to have a group who actually cared and supported each other

speaking of ateez, yeosang isn’t the most touchy person in the world

you didn’t mind of course, you’re the same way

however, when he did give you cuddles and kisses you would be a blushing mess

a sort of rare sight that yeosang loved to see

anyways, one night you were busy writing those argumentative essays that you were sure that your fingers would fall off by the time you were finished

you were working on it ever since you got home from school (with the occasional food and bathroom breaks )to the time when yeosang came back from practice

you moved to your shared bed by the time the sweaty boy came home and he was surprised that you were working on one subject for so long

the stupid piece was almost finished by the time yeosang was out of the shower

however, you didn’t even notice

you were too immersed in your writing to notice

yeosang took this as an opportunity to sit behind you and wrap his arms around your waist and watch over your shoulder as you worked

and of course, he would kiss your cheek occasionally

this was super sweet gesture but yeosang but you didn’t the notice that he wrapped his arms around you

“ai yah! what the hell?” you yelled and turned around to see your boyfriend clutching his chest

“oh it’s just you.”

yeosang would give you a deadpanned look and be like, “yeah, who else tf???”

you would apologize and kissing his cheek before returning to back to work 

which yeosang would return to hugging your waist and keep his head on your shoulder

and give you occasional kisses on your cheek or neck

after that night, it became a weekly occurrence

which you loved of course, who wouldn’t love their bf cuddling them while they chased their bag

san:

i am very excited for this one

ok so, san loves playing with your hair

it’s just so much fun 

running his fingers through it or just attempting to braid it or put it into a tiny ponytail

he loved it

he would probably always play with your while you were watching tv together, sitting together in the car, or even before you guys fall asleep

then one day after san came home early from work 

you guys were chilling on the bed watching the latest k-drama that came out since san made you wait so you guys could watch it together

san was in between your legs with his back leaning against your chest 

and that’s when you decided to run your fingers through his soft, fluffy hair

that’s also when san asked you to braid his hair

“sure, what type of braid though?”

“there’s different kinds????” 

“yes, san. now pick one.” you gave him your phone that was pulled up to different types braids.

“i want the french ones. they sound fancy.”

you roll your eyes and start sectioning his hair into two sections and start braiding his hair and lightly pull on the pink strands because you know san likes his hair pulled

so you doing his hair right 

and you begin rambling about your day/week

talking about whatever interesting happened to you because you know that san likes hearing you talk no matter what it’s about

however, you were knee deep into talking about the latest drama at work that you didn’t even realize that san stopped talking

“san?”

he didn’t answer and his head would be dipping down so low you were surprised you didn’t fall over

“baby?”

san still wouldn’t respond to you 

but this time he just flipped over so his head would be on your stomach as he wrapped your arms around your stomach

“mmmmmmm?”

“nevermind love, just sleep.” 

he would respond by burying his head further into your stomach and tightened his hold around you

you kissed his head and ran your fingers through his hair which lulled san to sleep even more

“goodnight sannie.”

mingi:

you have been best friends with song mingi ever since you moved into the tiny neighborhood that you call home

it all started when your parents brought you over to your next door neighbor’s house for breakfast on a cold saturday morning 

you were extremely shy when you were little so the only thing you could remember about your first experience with mingi was hiding behind your mother’s leg for the first hour of being there and watching the young boy play with his toy cars and planes before he finally offered a pirate ship to you

ever since that unforgettable saturday, you pretty much spent the rest of your childhood with mingi

you guys were practically joined at the hip 

even when you were getting endlessly teased by your classmates for the first month of school for having an accent whenever you spoke 

which resulted in you running to the bathroom crying

not even a minute later, you heard someone burst through the girls’ bathrrom

“y/n?”

you peaked your head out of the stall to see your tall neighbor looking out of breath

“mingi, you aren’t supposed to be here!” you said in between sobs

“it’s okay, i don’t care.” he said as he awkwardly wrapped his arms around you. “are you okay?”

you shook your head no looking at him with tears running down your face

the poor boy was internally freaking out since he has no clue on how to comfort people (especially if they’re a girl)

he was like eight at the time give him a little break

so of course, his first reaction was to make you laugh somehow

and he did this by randomly recreating the “boots and cats, boots and cats” rhythm after seeing siri do it in a youtube video and started to bop his head 

surprised by his sudden movements, you laughed out of pure confusion

as soon as mingi saw the corner of your lips flip upwards he began rapping faster to the point where he was gasping for breath leading him into a coughing fit 

“mingi you can breathe, y’know!” you giggled in between words

after the young boy had caught his breath from hacking away at his lungs, he smiled at you 

until- the teacher had came into the bathroom, scolding mingi for going into the girls’ restroom

even though mingi didn’t care at all that he got in trouble, the only thing he cared about was that you were feeling better

ever since then whenever you were sad or having a bad day mingi would whip out his phone and ask siri to rap while he free-styled over the monotone voice 

he literally still does it

even two years into your relationship-

“siri, can you rap for me?” mingi would ask his phone as he pointed his free arm at you

“boots and cats-”

“mingi, please no.” you laughed in between tears, your mood rising with every beat

wooyoung:

i wholeheartedly believe that wooyoung would kiss you face if you were sad

but the first time this happened, you guys were still fairly new into your relationship

which meant that you weren’t completely ready to be extremely vulnerable around wooyoung 

because in your mind, letting someone see you at your lowest lows of means that you really trust and love someone to let them see you like that

you always wanted to be known as the strong person in the friend group

you were that glue that held everyone together

always listening to others and taking care of others before yourself

which is why wooyoung fell in love with you in the first place

he had never been in a relationship where someone was so caring and thoughtful of others that he was scared that he wouldn’t be enough for you and that you deserved better

of course, he didn’t tell you that right away but he confessed to you about that wayyy later in your relationship which is another story to be told

but one day, life was coming at you so fucking fast

assignments were piling up left and right and deadlines were literally every other day

and then there seemed to be an increase in the amount of angry karens at your work

and your patience was thinning everyday with those people

then to top it all off, all the tests you’ve been studying for, you got mediocre grades, some even worse in other subjects

it just felt like no matter how much work you put into whatever you do, you got half ass results

it was just pushing your mental health further into the ground

you could handle a C every once in awhile but multiple? on back to back tests? no fucking way you just couldn’t

those stupid, dark thoughts would cloud your mind in an instant and on days like this, you would just let them consume you

you were too tired to pick yourself up again and fight back which led to you crying in wooyoung’s arms

usually, you would feel so embarrassed crying over things like this when you know other people have it worse but you couldn’t hold in it anymore 

you ranted about yourself in between your hiccups from crying which would hurt wooyoung’s heart a little bit

because he thought of you as such a strong and kind person- the complete opposite of what you were saying about yourself

so when you were done talking, wooyoung made you look at him and assured you that you were not any of those nasty things that you said about yourself

each insult turned into a thoughtful compliment accompanied by a kiss

“y/n, you are so intelligent-” 

kiss

“caring-”

kiss

“beautiful-”

kiss

“more than everything i ever wanted”

kiss

by the time wooyoung was done, you were a giggling mess

“and this is why i love you.”

he finally kissed you on your lips, smiling into it like the dork he is

it was the first ever time he told you that he loved you

jongho:

i am also a firm believer that jongho would sing his s/o to sleep

like with that heavenly voice of his, he better put them to sleep 

so on the first night you ever slept with jongho, you were too nervous to go to bed even though your body was screaming at you to close your eyes 

you kept tossing and turning every few minutes or your eyes would shoot open with your heart racing

at this point, you gave up on trying to sleep and got up (carefully to not wake up your sleeping boyfriend) to get a drink

while you were in the kitchen, clutching your chest in an effort to get yourself to calm down, jongho had stirred awake to an empty bed

a flash of panic surged through his body as he momentarily forgot where he was since he wasn’t at his dorm his room never looked this clean 

yawning, the vocalist would wander into the light with his eyes squinted, “y/n?”

“oh my god!” you jumped, water almost spilling out your glass

jongho covered his ears, “what are you doing up?”

“oh,” you felt your cheeks turn red since you felt bad for waking your boyfriend up. “i can’t sleep.”

“why?” he asked, walking towards the couch.

“i don’t know.” you answered as you followed close behind. 

you curled up next to jongho, clutching his shirt “i’m sorry for waking you up.”

jongho smiled tiredly at you before kissing your head, “don’t be. it’s okay. i don’t have work tomorrow anyways.”

you smiled in response before the two of you guys fell into a silence

“do you want me to sing you to sleep?”

“yes, please.” you murmured into his side as jongho placed his other arm around you, successfully trapping you in between his arms

he began singing softly into your ear as he stroked your hair

his warm voice coaxing your eyes to close 

at last, your mind was at peace with itself

your heart beat slowing down

and by the time the song was finished you were fast asleep in arms

jongho kissed your forehead once more 

“i love you.”

[cinyanmon]

No dw I love when people rant when answering asks lol. But yeah, the characters just never change and sometimes I feel it does such a disservice to the characters themselves! Like the point about Blossom being on her sister’s asses about studying, while I don’t think Bubbles and Buttercup would be as studious or care as much, they definitely are very smart and would actually work hard in school. Brick is the og little shit wdym this man wouldn’t fuel the chaos machines that are his brothers!! They’re ROWDYruff boys they’re messy and not ashamed of it. And yeah your point about BC is exactly right. It really wouldn’t matter how she chose to carry herself (feminine, masculine, both, neither, etc.) it’s more about the strong internal misogyny she’s laced with, which again doesn’t really make sense considering she did make friends with the girls in her class and isn’t disgusted with her sisters being girly in the show. And she doesn’t need girl friends, sure, but her friendships are always more “pick me” kind of rather than the type to genuinely be “one of the boys” yk? idk I have thoughts and you triggered them again lmao

For reallllll!!! And im tired of it haha

And there are so many other tropes that i dislike in ppg fics but i'd end up writing a whole essay again so i'll save that for a text post LOL

I will say that these characterizations do tend to show in highschool au fics mostly which makes sense but i guess im too old to understand teen drama and im basically over it haha!

I appreciate all asks that fuel my ramblings!!! And i encourage fellow fic readers to spam the box with more ppg rambles since that's all im about

[foolishquarry]

|| @eyeswiped​ cont. from here ||

 Last night’s ghosting left a little bruise.

Yea, yea, Max knew the fickle nature of online friend-making, but… After stumbling into each other through a mutual friend’s server, it’d been ages since he and Popcornkearnel first formed their steadfast gaming alliance over summer break. Months of daily banter about historical references flying over his head, creatively avoiding swears even in the heat of battle, venting about weather and parents and then school-- it didn’t seem to matter how wildly different their interests were, they’d pause their game and just ramble at each other while doing homework some nights. The friendship felt solid.

Kind of felt like flirting too, sometimes. Maybe. Maybe Kearnel just had a really charming voice.

His PC was an old hand-me-down thing, souped up to handle games but lacking a webcam. He didn’t care enough to buy one separate since his headphones had a decent mic and face streaming would just slow his frame rate, but when Kearnel finally started oh-so-casually asking about a face for her pal, that meant he had to go and hand pick something to send that didn’t look like trash or a dating profile. A grinning group photo with his teammates’ faces scribbled out seemed... safe? Kind of? Kearnel knew he did soccer. Sweaty-but-not-too-sweaty, casual, didn’t scream showing off, and a blurry enough school background that if she was secretly an ax-wielding cougar behind the screen she’d have to work for that body count.

She dipped immediately. Immediately. At seven-thirty. Barely into their usual rounds of post homework chatting, game not even started yet, and she didn’t log back in the rest of the night.

Ouch. It took til morning to do emergency patch work on the ol’ self esteem, but… at least it wasn’t Dodge-ball.

Being wordlessly rejected by an almost-maybe-interested online friend for having too many freckles or whatever? Sucked. Still better than winning a death match in gym by pelting your crush in the face. The guilty mortification of giving someone a serving of defeat and a bloody nose; someone who made the weirdest, cutest smug faces correcting teachers on the regular and was definitely allergic to losing; that one would haunt him always. The way she’d stared made his days feel numbered.

And hey, maybe Kearnel just had an awkwardly timed family emergency. For all he knew, she would be back online like nothing happened after school, wanting to know why he deleted the pic before she could see it. Better not to think on it for now.

Max was in the midst of a laborious two-thumbed text on his flip phone, brows furrowed as he discarded his own advice and dug for a second opinion from his friend Perry, when he became aware of Laura’s locker ambush. He looked up owlishly at her waving, then over his shoulder for another Max. Nada. Just Carl McDowd carrying way too many binders again and giving Max a nasty look for stopping suddenly.

“Crap.” This had to be about the essay extension he asked for in Mrs. Lamp’s. The lady was notoriously impatient and known to send her favorites on collection rounds. Max raised his hands in supplication, phone clicking shut in his palm, and approached with a sheepish smile. Trying to sidle in to use his locker without asking Laura to move outright, he unintentionally gifted her a light whiff of freshly showered boy as their shoulders brushed. “Heeey… Um. Listen. I’ll definitely have it ready after lunch. I know I’m not, like, your favorite guy, but if you pretend you didn’t see me-”

[autumnslance]

About Plagiarism

I left a long, planned essay on Twitter tonight. I will copy the meat of it here for y’all, as recently a friend was copied (a rarer ship in the fandom, so very noticeable by the writer and their regular beta reader) and it seems we need a Talk, kids. Links and screenshots and my rambling underway.

------

Apparently we need to discuss what is and isn’t plagiarism. Especially in FanFic where we're interacting with the same characters, settings, ideas. Let’s start with the dictionary and continue the thread from there (I like the word origin/history personally):

Definition of plagiarize

transitive verb  : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

intransitive verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

The Kidnapping Roots of Plagiarize

If schools wish to impress upon their students how serious an offense plagiarism is, they might start with an explanation of the word’s history. Plagiarize (and plagiarism) comes from the Latin plagiarius “kidnapper.” This word, derived from the Latin plaga (“a net used by hunters to catch game”), extended its meaning in Latin to include a person who stole the words, rather than the children, of another. When plagiarius first entered English in the form plagiary, it kept its original reference to kidnapping, a sense that is now quite obsolete.

“Ideas” is fuzzy in the Merriam-Webster definition. There are story archetypes that exist in many forms. Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth/Hero's Journey outlines many famous stories. And it's popular to say that “Avatar” is “Dances with Wolves” is “Pocahontas” is “The Last Samurai” etc.

But note how while those films have similar plotlines--”Military Guy falls for Native woman, learns to appreciate her Culture, stands up to Evil Bosses”--none of them execute those ideas in the same way. Sully’s story is different from Dunbar’s not just cuz one’s a Science Fiction epic and the other a Western. Disney's “Pocahontas” Very Loosely takes history and uses the same story beats. The Last Samurai uses the Meiji era Westernization. Same ideas, different executions, even beyond settings.

None of these are plagiarizing each other though the ideas are similar. They’re told in their own ways, own language; both in the genres they belong to (Western, Pseudo-History, SciFi, Animated) and how characters interact with each other and settings. Original dialogues (variable quality).

We also see this in books as similar novel plots get published in waves so we end up with bunches of post-apocalypse teen revolutionaries or various vampires or lots of young wizard stories all at once. Sometimes ideas just happen like this; multiple discovery, simultaneous invention, concurrent inspiration, cognitive emergence are all phrases I’ve seen for it. So it happens in original content as well, and legality gets fuzzy (Also why you don't send authors your fanfic ideas).

In existing properties, this gets trickier but even “Elementary”’s Holmes and Watson are nothing like the BBC’s “Sherlock” characters. Who are nothing like other versions of the Detective and his Doctor pal over the decades in various media properties.

FanFic's in a similar position where like Sherlock Holmes we play with the same characters, setting, and storyarcs but give our own spin to them. People can and will have similar ideas about plots. Trick is to use your own words. Take the characters and make the story your own.

I have a good example courtesy of @raelly-writing​. We both ship Wolcred. We both wrote soft post-Paglth’an scenes with Thancred and our WoLs. Both features the couples helping each other undress, examining injuries, bathing, bantering. My fic was written soon after 5.5 part 1 came out. Dara’s is much more recent. Yet at no point reading hers did I feel she was copying my words. The PoVs differ. Our characters focus on different things. Mine has a mini-arc concerning the Nutkin.

The links for comparison’s sake (and maybe leave kudos/comments if so inclined please and thanks). Note while the scenes are very similar no phrases are written in the same way. Mine: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417882/chapters/76059467 Dara’s: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067565/chapters/81832915

Dara and I both hang out in certain Discords and I know conversations about Thancred and WoL caring for each other post-battle has come up in those channels and we've both participated. It’s a stock FanFic scene to boot. Cuz it's soft and feels warm and snuggly.

I HAVE been copied before, back in WoW. My case is pretty clear cut so here are the images of my old RP Haven profile (1st, old RP website) and the plagiarist’s RSP (2nd, an in game mod to share descriptions and basic info). 

This was a decade ago on Shadow Council and I think the character deleted so any Availa’s in WoW now aren’t the same person. I left the names to point out what changed. Just the names and a word or 2 to make sense for the class changes as well. Otherwise lifted directly from my RP profile.

The funny part is how the person got caught. Literally walked into our weekly RP Guild meeting that I was running and asked to join. Folks noticed right away the similar backstory; after all there may have been more Outland-born Azerothians. My initial excitement at a character I could weave into our story turned to gut-twisting rage and grief as I recognized my own exact words though. Words I’d carefully crafted and constantly iterated on to improve over time (before and after this incident, until the site died).

When caught they tried to claim their significant other had leveled the character for them and made up the backstory based on Skyrim. If you know WoW’s Outland story and Skyrim’s plot you know how ridiculous that is. Also tried to lie about other drama I knew about thanks to roommate's characters but hey. I had to be blunt that I’d shared the info with Haven mods and other guild officers Alliance and Horde. That we would not “laugh about this” one day though lucky this was “just” RP not original or academic work. Cuz if it'd been monetized or academic I would've raked them through the coals.

I felt violated. Hurt. Had anxiety attacks. They took MY WORDS and tried to claim them as theirs. Have another character born in Outland trained by Draenei; Awesome! Our characters have an instant connect in similarities and differences of that experience. Don’t steal my characters wholesale!

Then the audacity of trying to come into my guild as if no one would notice. ShC wasn’t a large server by then, still active but not nearly Wyrmrest Accord or Moon Guard big. My character was well known due to my writing and RP. Speaking of how easy it is to get caught in specific spaces...A case of a self-published novelist getting noticed for plagiarizing fanfic was discovered recently (explicit erotica examples through the thread).

One way they got noticed was how much content they put out in only a year, lifted from fandom. The examples in Kokom’s threads show how the material was altered but still recognizable. In some cases, just the names are changed as in my experience. In other passages more has changed but you can still see the bones of the original fic poking through in the descriptions and character interactions, even with adjustments made.

Similar ideas happen. Similar plots exist. Same 'ships with friends are fun! In FanFic we’re working with the same material. It’s possible to write a similar scene differently. To make that scene and characters your own. All we’re asking is not to copy others' words. Others' characters. Others' specific phrases and descriptions used to bring those words, those characters, to life. Use your own. In the end you’ll be happier.

I get wanting to have what the perceived “popular people” have. I get seeing concepts others succeed with and wanting some of that too. We all get a bit jealous now and then for various reasons. Sometimes we don't even realize it, consciously. But do it in your own way. Maybe check to see if you’re getting a bit too close to the “inspiration” you admired, maybe reread often. Don’t hurt your fellow creatives. If you do and get caught don’t try to double down. Have the grace to be abashed at least and work to do better. Eventually you WILL get caught. All it takes is once to throw all else you've done into question. Ao3 doesn’t take kindly to plagiarists. Nor do a lot of fan communities focused on writing and RP. Getting back that trust is hard. The internet doesn’t forget easily, for good or ill.

[my-strange-attraction]

What being a loveless aro means to me

I didn’t really know if I was going to acknowledge Arospec Awareness Week on this blog just because I talked so much about the aspec communities during Asexual Awareness Week and college is kinda busy right now but I came across a few posts talking about loveless aros and figured I’d write my own story down because I’ve only really acknowledged my loveless aro identity in passing in the tags of posts on here before. God that was all one sentence. Ok, without further adieu, I’m just going to get into what will probably be yet another essay post. If you’re following me these are just a given by now haha.

If you told me even just a year ago that I would call myself not only aro but a loveless aro, I would’ve laughed in your face. I had to work myself up to using all of the terms that I use for myself now by convincing myself that if I didn’t feel love in one way surely I could still feel it in another. I called myself ace because there was still a shot at romance, and I called myself aro after hearing about qprs because I could still enter a loving partnership, and I’ve eventually worked myself up to using the labels of “non-partnering” and “loveless.”

Love is confusing. It’s definitely not to be confused with attraction or affection because as I’ve said on here many times before, I have very strong platonic inclinations, perhaps more so than most people. But love and strong emotional bonds have always been tricky for me, even though I read all about them in books and the relationships between characters is my favorite thing to explore in media and really by all means I should not be as confused by it as I am.

The only people I’ve never had trouble saying I love are my mom and my little sister. My dad and I have a complicated relationship and my older brother feels distant even though over the years we’ve grown closer. Even from a young age, I had trouble saying out loud that I love my dad, not because I don’t care about him but because that’s just how our relationship evolved--we’ve never been particularly affectionate with each other and we even had a running joke when I was younger that I “sorta kinda liked” him. My mom was always vocal with her love for us children and my sister was my best friend growing up. We had spats but we shared a bedroom and we loved playing together and we always made up by the morning because that’s just how we were. 

Yet sometimes now I feel like the word “love” is weird coming out of my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it fits the situation, but most of the time it feels too loaded, and I operate better in situations where it feels more casual like saying goodbye in the morning or ending a call or that time in freshman year of high school where I was best friends with a girl who gave out “I love you”s to all her friends all the time. It’s better, I guess, when it feels more like routine than actual sentiment. When I end the rare FaceTime call with my best friend from childhood and she says “love you” I pretend I didn’t hear or I say it really quick. This is not routine. I’m not used to it. And we only talk every once in a while anyways.

I always feel really weird at the beginning of friendships too. Usually I don’t notice a friendship forming until the person in question has been talking to me for a while or until they call me their friend and I realize oh that’s happening. I also have trouble really opening up to people and feeling like I truly connect with them and that they truly know me. I have a strange thing about me where every once in a while I’ll make a friend and they start calling me their best friend before I even think of them as a close friend. This happened more in elementary and middle school but it’s very strange to me. Maybe it’s just my consistency or that I’m a good listener. I don’t really know, it just happens.

That, and when I do have a close friendship, people always assume that a) we’re related (when I was young, mostly, people always though my friends were my sister or something) or b) that we’re lesbians in gay love with each other (because I usually only make friends with girls idek). The way I have friendships is really intense for other people but I don’t really know why because for me it just feels like a friendship. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s sharing interests and passing the time together so we’re not lonely. My friends are amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel that same level of emotional connection that allows me to say I love my mom and sister without cringing.

This has gotten very rambly so I’m going to wrap it up, but in conclusion, I’ve realized over the past few months that my relationship with love is and has always been fraught, even before I identified as aro, and even in a non-romantic context. Calling myself loveless is freeing in a way, because it gives me a community and tells me I’m not a weirdo for being squeamish about the word “love” the way I am. I love love, and I love romance, and I love found family and all that stuff--I just don’t love it for me and that’s ok. Here’s to the green heart emoji 💚