#that is highly specific OP

[fkapple]

Emily and Shane on winter attire

[theposhperyton]

What the Hell !

[mystery-aberration]

Sometimes dating as alterhumans means that you are two different brands of eldritch horror, gay for each other and making little nice food things to share because this mortal existence is made better by sharing treats.

[rinbylin]

possibly my favourite lhl meta now is that extremely galaxy-brained half hour video essay on b站 exploring essentially one thing:

llh can be read as a "mother" and a symbol of femininity/maternity in its purest form

what if feminine and maternal qualities can be uncoupled from biology and patriarchy. what would it look like. it would look like lxy's rebirth as llh. it would look like llh's nurturing and guidance of fdb. it is essentially the spirit of freedom and life llh held. it transcends any notions of gender.

feeling more validated than ever. and this is also far more than i've ever asked for. my brain has been rewired. i'm kissing you on the mouth op

[floorpancakes]

me vs the powerful urge to constantly make every tweet i see about the looooosers

[hell-heron]

About to be obnoxious and unmatchable in the public haunt of men

[ceilidhtransing]

I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of “lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

[jinjeriffic]

Dan Phantom vs. the Justice League

Most DCxDP fanworks gloss over how Dark Danny/Phantom kills the JL, or argue that TUE wouldn't play out the same way in the DC universe, since there are tons of superheroes and some would have a way of beating Dan. So let us dig into this with a shovel!

I would like to point out that we have seen plenty of apocalyptic/dark futures in DC. Even without Dan, that superhero multiverse is constantly teetering on the knife's edge of catastrophe! It feels like every couple of months someone has to stop the end of the world. Dan is just one more possible future to avert.

Dan is not a mindless monster, he is capable of planning, subterfuge and working with/coercing others to work with him (i.e. Fright Knight). He has both Danny and Vlad's memories, so in a crossover setting there is no way he wouldn't know about the public superheroes and villains at least.

Speaking of, DC is obviously crawling with supervillains and world destroying entities. Nobody said Dan had to conquer the world alone! I can totally see him working with and manipulating other villains to achieve his goals, only to stab them in the back later (ho-ho).

Dan's powers of invisibility, intangibility, duplication, overshadowing etc. make him an ideal candidate for infiltration, espionage and sabotage. Unless a person or location is specifically shielded against ghosts with tech or magic, he can get in and out without anybody noticing. Sure, someone like Batman probably had his home proofed against supernatural attacks, but surely not most of them! I envision him taking down Earth's heroes by extensively spying on them first.

Consider: Dan causes a major disaster that requires superhero intervention (runaway train, high-rise fire, sinking oil tanker etc.) and waits for someone to show up. When they do, Dan uses his duplicates to follow the hero(es) home/to work etc. Learn their identity, their weaknesses, their loved ones etc.

Dan could strategically leak hero identities to villains with a grudge who have no problem going after their civilian lives. This could also act as a smoke screen so the heroes don't immediately realize someone is targeting all of them.

Overshadow a loved one and use them to kill the hero - "Oh, Hero X got in an argument with their SO and their SO shot them in a fit of passion? Their SO claims having blacked out just before they picked up the gun? Trauma will do that."

Use intangibility to plant bombs, nerve gas, radioactive materials, etc. in the homes of various heroes and set them off in a coordinated strike.

Probably the biggest threat to Dan would be magic based heroes or supernatural entities (Captain Marvel, Doctor Fate, the JLD, etc.). They would also be the most likely to have countermeasures in place against ghosts, or a way to detect him. But they're also mostly suited for fighting the supernatural. I admittedly don't know enough about a lot of these characters - would say, Zatanna think to have a shield in place against sudden sniper attacks? Dan could steal some money and hire Deathstroke/Deadshot etc to blow their head off when they're out in the open.

Have I mentioned what a nightmare Dan would be in terms of security? I can totally see him say, breaking into the CDC and unleashing smallpox, ebola and any number of virulent diseases on the world. Cause some nuclear meltdowns. Knock down a dam. Steal some highly radioactive isotopes! Would the magic heroes be protected against something that can give you a lethal dose of radiation within minutes?

What I'm saying is, a clever and ruthless villain like Dan could unleash enough chaos with his OP powerset to overwhelm the heroes and then pick a lot of them off. He's pretty much the definition of someone who just wants to see the world burn!

[shownusfool]

Lucy’s first album, childhood is soooooooo good. so beautiful. exactly my taste in music.

[mylittleredgirl]

how did you get your tv growing up? (if you had multiple houses or technologies, pick the one you most identify with your formative childhood tv experience)

op's formative tv experience was in a rural area with rabbit ears in the 90s, but before 18 i lived in a place with every one of these except satellite. rotary antenna is its own category because i will never forget the day when a friend's family put one in. the sheer power of turning that knob and seeing a wholeass giant roof antenna turning around and then you can pick up the x-files?? fucking religious experience.

[fluentisonus]

hrngmhgd nothing more frustrating than the specific genre of post you get on here where the op is writing essays about how (particularly old) media that you do really enjoy is Actually uniquely progressive or groundbreaking or something but they're so clearly working from a (genuine, probably unconscious) desire for it be Morally Good Actually that they're overlooking or wildly re(mis)interpreting all of these bits of it to fit a specific highly simplistic picture of things they have in their head where bias & mistakes & bigotry etc etc don't exist except for the author to criticise them. to the point that any actual bad or date aspects somehow get transmogrified into something where actually the author is proving a point against that thing! and then it gets like 35k notes and you (nuance enjoyer) (guy who is aware of & thinks a lot about the flaws in his interests) have to see this like. I love & post about this thing a lot but you're literally wrong. I am not affiliated with you guys

[gibbearish]

so this post has been made unrebloggable now (shocker) but ive been feeling the need to address it since i saw it on my dash multiple times, so let's explore how lying on the internet works. more specifically, how blending truth, lies, and omissions to whip uninvolved people into anger works, because i think this is an excellent example and that pointing out the misinformation and the tactics used to spread it here is important, both in correcting the specific falsities but also in helping recognize similar tactics in the future.

so here we have several things that are technically true: staff has been very openly shitty to trans women for a long time and them banning predstrogen is clearly part of that, there is currently a movement regarding discussing transmisandry/transandrophobia, transmisogyny and transphobes sending transphobic asks is by far nothing new, and baeddel is/was a slur. however, among all of this are half-truths, unprovable speculation, or outright lies made to make you believe these events are originating specifically from transmascs.

firstly, the transandrophobia movement has been drastically misrepresented here in the same way it has been for the whole argument, "they're just trans MRAs" has been repeated so many times now that i'm gonna be hearing it in my dreams when i'm 80. i can understand not being willing to address the nuance of that whole discourse in one post that isn't directly focused on that, i'm certainly not, but in this example it's not unwillingness to address a complicated topic, it's a deliberate misrepresentation to frame one side of the discussion as The Evil Bad Ones That Can't Be Trusted. additionally, this post IS about that discourse and is just pretending it isn't to mislead a wider audience, so refusing to address it at all beyond this brief mention is deliberately misleading people about the goals of the group because They're The Other Side Of The Discourse. "transmisogynists" is used as a buzzword here, it doesn't actually refer to Anyone Who Hates Transfemmes, it refers to Transmascs Who Discuss Transmasc-Specific Oppression Using A Word They Coined To Point Out That Queer Spaces Have A Big Problem With Masculinity and just. doesn't tell you that's what it means, relying on the structure and framing of the post to create the Transmisogynist = Transmasc association in the audience's head so op doesn't have to say it outright (and of course the implied Transmasc = Transmisogynist association that follows because creating THAT association is the Actual Point of this post). the mentions of transmascs in this post are designed to look like afterthoughts, op says "typically those who espouse transandrophobia" to make it look like they're saying there's other people they're referring to here too, but almost everything in this post draws from the transandrophobia discourse. some random cis transphobe in texas has never heard the term baeddel in their entire life much less used it in a debate about transphobia, this is an intercommunity argument through and through, but op is trying to mask the fact that they're just referring to "transmascs who disagree with me specifically" and make it look like it's part of a wider trend. and again, i'm not going to go into the nuances of transandrophobia here, but i highly recommend reading some of the theory on it by @nothorses (x) and @genderkoolaid (x) because the "theyre just trans MRAs" argument kinda just collapses under its own weight as soon as you look into it even a smidgen. i've linked a couple broad overviews there but they both discuss it frequently and in-depth, specifically nothorses has a pinned post linking to many different discussion threads that i would recommend checking out if you do want to learn more about what the actual conversation surrounding these words is.

so, after framing the movement this way, they go on to say that the reason predstrogen was banned wasn't /just/ because staff has a long and established hate boner for trans women, but because the transandrophobia movement was teaming up with TERFs to mass-report her and other transfemmes, and implies that this is part of a deliberate conspiracy between Transandrophobia Truthers™, TERFs, and staff. you'll notice that there are no, say, screenshots of transmascs saying theyre deliberately reporting her or of that they're working with TERFs, behind-the-scenes lists of people who reported a certain account, or any evidence for this beyond "she was a trans woman, they're trans men who hate trans women, she got banned, so these must be related". which i find especially funny now given that photomatt has continued melting down about this since it happened and made it pretty clear it yknow. was just part of staffs ongoing hate campaign against trans women that has been going on much longer than the transandrophobia debate? and that maybe the fact that The Literal CEO is having a personal meltdown about this might explain where that could be coming from or at least why it's been allowed to continue for so long, moreso than any individual users reporting someone could? but i digress.

who reported what account is completely unprovable as a casual user unless people directly admit they did it, so to bring it up like this begs the question of what actual reasoning they have for saying it beyond trying to tie a current display of bigotry into an unrelated discourse. that's not to say it's impossible people who discuss transandrophobia were wrongfully reporting her, because again, thats something we have no way of knowing, and the internet is a shit place so i wouldn't be surprised. but given the circumstances and the rest of the lies here, i have my doubts about this being an actual yknow. Thing That Happened rather than just another lie to make people mad at transmascs. now one could make the argument that op wasn't saying transmascs are /deliberately/ teaming up with TERFs/staff, that "teaming up" was just a poor choice of words to refer to multiple groups who happen to have the same goals in mind at the same time but aren't actually coordinating with one another, but given the deliberate misinformative slant of the rest of the post and the overall phrasing in this section, i have trouble extending that grace. regardless, however, that doesn't change that who is reporting who isn't something verifiable, so stating it here as a confirmed fact is disingenuous at the absolute best, and a lie chosen specifically because it's unprovable at worst. if op /does/ have proof that transmascs have been teaming up with TERFs to get trans women banned, not including that with this post is just uhhhhh dumb, and if op /doesn't/ have proof then Why Would You Go Around Telling People That's What Happened Unless You Were Lying To Them On Purpose With Ulterior Motives.

next, op goes on to discuss the rise of the term baeddel. now as i said before, the truth here is that it certainly was a slur and certainly can still be used as one, again the internet is a shit place so i would be a fool if i tried to say "no one is using this as a slur". however, this is once again a drastic misrepresentation of the situation. baeddel's rising use is due to certain trans women reclaiming it and aligning themselves with the original group's politics, namely that femininity is good and masculinity is bad (aka terfism 101), with the added caveat that by abandoning femininity for masculinity, transmascs are evil and betraying devine womanhood and their community by putting more Evil Manhood into the world. of course that in turn is a drastic oversimplification of their politics and i highly recommend checking out this post with an actual in-depth exploration of the history (and without my added flavor), but the important part to note here is that this is not a term transmascs just Started Using one day because they hate transfems so very much as is implied here, its use is directly tied to a group of people saying "hello, here is what i am, and here is what this word means about what i believe," so others went "ok, these specific beliefs are called this." bringing up the fact that it historically was a slur is misdirection here, when you look closer this is almost a 1 to 1 translation of TERFs crying that TERF and radfem are slurs because People Don't Like Their Politics And Therefore Them, so the name for their politics is used negatively, so therefore it's a slur. that argument just has a little more oomph behind it this time because It Was A Slur Originally. and again, that isnt to say no one is now using it as a slur, the rate of decay for online discourse is ridiculous so it being boiled down to and used as "evil transfemme" has certainly already happened, but to act like /every/ use of it is a slur is literally just a lie, when you self-identify with a term based on your shared politics with the original group then you do not get to claim everyone using that term to describe those politics is doing so exclusively to attack you. also this part is entirely speculation but given that op's url is basically just. baeddel switched around to dae bel, i would hazard a guess that they perhaps are indeed aware of the origins of its re-use? but again, that's entirely unprovable and based just on wordplay, but like. given the Everything here i wouldn't be surprised. now, there's definitely an argument to be made about calling users baeddels based just off of their politics when they don't personally self-identify with it, if that constitutes calling someone a slur and if TIRF should be used instead, but crucially, that is not the argument being made here. the argument being made is "ANY AND ALL use of this term is calling someone a slur," and that literally just Isn't The Case.

finally, to tie the whole post off, op reminds us 1) if you hear anything bad about any trans woman ever, it's probably a lie to make her look bad, and 2) if you hear anyone say anything about transandrophobia, disregard everything else they have to say because they hate trans women. not "be critical of the things you see or get sent" or "be on the lookout for things following a certain pattern," a unilateral "anything bad is probably fake and anyone who uses the bad words is probably evil." that is not something someone does if they are genuinely trying to raise awareness of an ongoing trend, that is what someone does when they want you to turn your brain off and be mad at a group no matter what they say.

so yeah, in summary, do be critical of the things you see and be on the lookout for certain patterns, because sometimes people will just Lie to you. or, sometimes people will tell you portions of the truth while leaving out crucial bits so that you'll come to the conclusion they want without anyone being able to say they lied to you without typing up a thirty paragraph long hell post. transmisogyny is absolutely a problem on this site and there are 100% valuable conversations to be had about it and its presence within the trans community, but this post is not that. this post uses real transmisogyny and the wrongful termination of a trans woman's account as set dressing to say that it was all because of evil transmascs who run the trans community behind the scenes conspiring to take out transfemmes, so you should ignore anything they have to say because All of it is secretly motivated by transmisogyny. they're never discussing transandrophobia because it's something that actually effects them, they're doing it to hurt trans women by saying they have it worse. they're never telling you about shitty things a trans woman did to spread awareness, they're lying to make her look bad, or even if it's true they're only talking about it as part of a hate campaign because she's trans, they wouldn't care otherwise. they're never using a specific term because People Use That Term For Themselves, they're calling someone a slur because they hate trans women. there's always an explanation you can think up that ties it back to transmisogyny, and op says that instead of assessing all of what someone says and the context behind it to determine if that's what's happening, you should assume transmisogyny is the answer and refuse to engage any further as soon as you see a word you've been told is bad.

this post is discourse recruitment masquerading as a public service announcement that doesn't offer you any routes to actually learn more about what's going on, it just tells you Here's What's Happening, Here's Who's Evil And Should Be Ignored, And If You Disagree You're Also Evil And Should Be Ignored. content of the actual post aside, i think anything framed that way should be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt and this would have raised my alarm bells even if i wasn't already pretty familiar with the arguments, people who genuinely want you to know something just because it's good to know will give you options to learn more or encourage you to actually use your critical thinking to assess things, not tell you to sit down and shut up and ignore anyone who disagrees with them.

anyways i guess tldr

[lesbianralzarek]

tumblr in reddit terms

blogs: personal subreddits where the theme/topic is 99% of the time just “me and whatever the hell i feel like at the moment”. for reference, the most common other theme rn is “wizard roleplay that never breaks character”

reblogs: crossposts. these are crucial to maintaining tumblr’s ecosystem. due to blogs generally having fewer followers than subreddits have subscribers, this is the way that posts get seen and passed around. the vast majority of posts on a person’s blog tend to be reblogs, so if the people you follow dont reblog a whole lot, your dashboard is gonna be a ghost town. post limit (combined total of reblogs and original posts per day) is 250, so feel free to go hog wild

tags: this one is complicated. theyre a combination of flairs and Comments But Low-key. you can use them for organization and to avoid seeing content you dont want to (go to your blog, settings, account settings, content you see, and then add tags you want tumblr to warn you about before seeing it). if op tags the post #reddit (in the tags, not the body of the post), itll show up in the #reddit tag when anyone searches that tag. tags are also used for comments that dont really add anything to the post. you know how a jpeg gets kinda gross when its been through a million screenshots and has ifunny watermarks and shit? thats what adding “lmao same” as a comment does to a post. comments stay on reblogs, while tags show up in 4 places: op’s notifications, the notifs of whoever you reblogged it from, when someone clicks on the “notes” button of a post and actively looks for the tags left on it, and when people view your specific reblog of the post (like a follower would on their dashboard)

likes: upvotes but weaker. almost everyone turns off all the algorithms (settings, account settings, dashboard preferences, toggle off the first 3 options. also, make sure your dashboard is on "following" and not "for you". this is highly recommended), so leaving a like doesnt boost the post in any way. they still matter to some people. you can also use them to bookmark a post and go back to your likes later

enthusiastic and/or hyperbolic tags: reddit gold. you wanna let op know you like their art? leave something like ”#printing this out and stapling it to my forehead #op you wanna get married?” in the tags

pornbots: both reddit and tumblr have an issue with them. we block and report them on sight. they usually have hot women as their icons, no posts or reblogs, and a description like “22, brazil, nurse <3″. try to not look like that if you dont wanna get blocked by everyone you follow

blocking: you have this as well, but it seems like a bigger deal on reddit. the reason we are not twitter is because we block bitches who annoy us and move on with our day. do not feed the trolls

things we dont have:

karma: clout-chasing is The Most embarrassing thing you can possibly do on this site. we are all in this circus together and the clown who gets the most laughs is still a clown. popular users will literally deactivate sometimes because clout is a burden. no one here makes money

[stoat-party]

Fallout 4: Where is the Lone Wanderer?*

*a vague conspiracy theory which doesn’t actually answer the question at hand. We all have our own ideas of how the lore should go, and I’m sure yours is very canon-compliant and valid, but this is mine and I have support for it. Looooongpost.

First off: What do we know about the canon Wanderer?

We know they activated Project Purity (or had a companion do it) without the FEV and were inducted into the Brotherhood. We know they’ve met with MacCready (you can’t finish the game if you don’t), and he has dialogue indicating they had further contact. They also took the Brotherhood’s side at Adams Air Force Base.

We don’t know what happened with The Replicated Man, but since the canon Wanderer appears to have good karma, and info from 4 implies Zimmer’s disappearance was more recent than ten years ago, it seems likely they took the boring ending, which secures their membership in the Railroad.

Why aren’t they in Fallout 4?

The Doylist answer is that they’re highly customizable, and so they have no canon appearance, personality, gender, etc. But in-universe? Something happened.

“Accepting outsiders like yourself has proven disastrous in the past.” - Kells

“I've seen other soldiers come and go. Some were brave, some were honest... hell, some were even downright heroic.” - Danse

“Every doctor I've talked to was worthless. [] I don't need them... I need someone like you.” - MacCready

When Duncan first got sick, “someone like you” would have meant the Wanderer. This suggests (to me) that they’re not in the Capital Wasteland anymore. But they’re certainly not in the Commonwealth either.

The weird thing is that the Lone Wanderer is all over this game - they’re the namesake for a male hairstyle, a perk, a DCR song, a motorcycle brand… and the codename of Deacon’s mission to save the Railroad from certain destruction by recruiting the Sole Survivor.

Someday We’ll Find It, the Deacon Connection

Oh yeah, I’m going here. Desdemona’s terminal entries confirm it was always Deacon’s plan to get you onboard and use you to destroy the Institute. There are Railroad lookout posts near 111/Sanctuary and Red Rocket, and of course he followed you in Goodneighbor, Diamond City, and Bunker Hill (at least). His court jester vibe hides it a bit, but he’s manipulating you more than he’s manipulating Desdemona in the intro scene. And do you notice he rarely gives you a firm verbal disapproval unless you’re hurting the Railroad?

What could have caused Deacon’s interest in you, unless he’s made the connection between you and the Lone Wanderer? He’ll vouch for you if you haven’t accomplished anything yet, or even if you’re a Brotherhood member. A Pip-Boyed stranger emerges from a vault in the middle of a crisis, gaining friends, skills, items, and special abilities at a suspicious rate? Probably with the same gender and playstyle as the previous one? Heck, when he first heard the rumors, he probably thought you WERE the Lone Wanderer.

There are other indications the Railroad has been in contact with them — Desdemona mentions the Capital Wasteland as their primary destination for synths, and Deacon references Harkness’s recall code. If you refuse to pick a codename, Desdemona even assigns you “Wanderer.”

So what happened, then?

I think the answer lies with the Brotherhood, specifically in Deacon’s hatred of them. Sure, ideology is enough to hate them for, but Deacon sure seems suspiciously happy if you nuke their base of operations. (Some of) his comments on that:

“The Brotherhood... well, I met them on an op in Capital Wasteland a few years back. But now with Elder Maxson... Let's just say, not a fan.”

“That bastard Maxson really screwed them up. The Brotherhood used to be the good guys. Well, goodish.”

[Who’s Elder Maxson?] “He’s a piece of work, is what he is.”

And on his time in the Capital:

“Did I ever tell you about the time I was in Capital Wasteland? Now there's a tale.”

“Capital Wasteland. Exports: purified water, some decent tech, oh, and an insane suicidal cult that worships radiation. Thanks, guys.”

“I miss Capital Wasteland. You can actually drink the water there.”

And a few lines I’ve decided (with no evidence) directly refer to LW:

“Last partner I had wound up going... well, a little insane. I think it was all my show tune medleys.”

[After Maxson orders you to hunt Danse down] “See? This is what the Brotherhood's really about.”

And my favorite: “I’ve been looking forward to kicking the Brotherhood’s teeth in. I owe them.” This line comes before Glory is killed, so he’s not referring to that. The Brotherhood only recently arrived in force in the Commonwealth. He’s talking about something that happened in the Capital Wasteland.

So Here’s What Might Have Happened:

In early 2286, Deacon moves to the Capitol Wasteland for awhile, probably to get a face change and lay low for a bit. He contacts the Lone Wanderer, who has barely heard from the Railroad in nine years. They begin to work together.

(In context, this journal entry looks like he’s somehow gathering intel to predict when Vault 111 will open, but I can’t think of a way for him to get that information or know why it’s important, so I’m not going to believe it just yet.)

The Wanderer is still a knight, maybe a paladin. Maxson has been elder for 2-3 years and is monitoring the Institute. Meanwhile, the Lone Wanderer and Deacon are setting up infrastructure to receive escaped synths.

And then the Brotherhood finds out about one of the safehouses. With their limited understanding, they believe that the Institute is holed up there and attack. The Wanderer intentionally throws the mission — maybe disobeys orders, maybe downs a vertibird or collapses a subway tunnel, or maybe even attacks their brothers to protect the synths.

And, well-

Either they were killed, or they escaped court martial and execution by a hair’s breadth and fled the Capital, leaving Deacon to believe Maxson had them killed.

There you have it. That’s why they aren’t in Brotherhood dialogue or records. Their accomplishments couldn’t be recognized because they’re a traitor. And that’s why it’s personal for Deacon.

[gam8ligant]

Isofic, a New Term for Fictionfolk

[PT: Isofic, a New Term for Fictionfolk /End PT]

I've been looking for a way to communicate my belief system for a while now, and I've landed on creating my own term.

[ID: A flag in muted colors. It has an orange stripe on top and a yellow stripe on bottom. The stripes are even and there is a blue rectangle overlayed over the center. The rectangle appears transparent. /End ID]

The contrast of the yellow and orange stripes represent the difference between fiction and reality, while the rectangle represents how fictionfolk fit inside that balance perfectly.

Derived from iso- (equal) and -fic (fiction) (basic I know), "isofic" (eye-so-fick) is a way to describe people and ideas that follow this line of thinking:

Fictionfolk* should be allowed to exist as themselves without being accused of being "anti-recovery," "promoting delusions," or "being unhealthy."

Fictionfolk should be allowed to choose for themselves how they want others to talk about them and how they talk about themselves. It should be considered a natural, or even expected occurrence for fictionfolk to dislike terms such as "kintype" and "kinning" and being reffered to in third person.

The proximity of fictionfolk to their fictionselves should be dictated only by the person. Fictional identities should be believed regardless of how "similar" they are to their fictional/past self, and the only scenario in which someone should be told they are not a character is when they themselves have said so.

This is more of a summary of the three beliefs above, but it covers a lot of bases I cannot: Fictionfolk ARE fictional characters in every sense of the word. Again, it's totally appropriate to view it differently on a personal level, but mostly we are all the people we say we are. We are ourselves the same way Mitsuki Miyawaki is Mitsuki Miyawaki.

All views of fiction by fictionfolk are valid. Examples include media being a biography of your life, jumping out of the media into the real world, ect.

This is where it gets controversial: Fictionfolk deserve to have the most important voice when it comes to discussion of ourselves. I deserve to be listened to when I say someone's headcanon about me is wrong. I am not advocating for all creativity of this manner to be stopped. For example, if someone headcanons that I don't like apples and I say "I actually do," it's totally okay to me if they go "oh cool. I'm still going to pretend you do." Where it becomes an issue is when they decide to say "that's not true because I said so."

Likewise, things like this need to be treated as potentially triggering content. I don't want the enforcement of "if you don't tag your headcanons you're EVIL" or some bullshit like that, I just believe it needs to be recognized that these things can hurt people! For example, if you already have a trigger tagging system, it should be normalized to add the "not fictionfolk safe" tag to that.

This is going to sound highly specific, but all of these principles apply to media as well. If a character is fictionfolk-coded, then they are the character they say they are within the media! Can you tell my fandom is super gross about me? Lol.

*Fictionfolk, for the purposes of this coining, refers to fictional characters regardless of origin. This is different from the actual definition of fictionfolk, which includes fictional species, places, plants, and concepts, and includes experiences such as relating to these things rather than just being them.

There are also some beliefs that are not explicitly related to fictionfolk, but still need to be touched on.

Species dysphoria is real and dangerous, and should be treated with the same level of gravity as gender dysphoria.

Referring to alterhumans improperly should be viewed similarly to how misgendering is viewed in that it needs to be acknowledged that it's deeply disrespectful and due to species dysphoria should not be taken lightly.

Alterhumans may not be systemically oppressed on the basis of being alterhuman by itself, but we are oppressed on an individual level. Additionally, some forms of alterhumanity are systemically oppressed, for example endels, clinical zoanthropes, systems, and more are often subjected to incarceration.

Following the model of queerness as a deviation from the norm rather than specifically meaning "LGBTQ+," alterhumanity is queer.

Alterhumanity should not be censored or gatekept from good faith actors. However, those considered KFF are absolutely not good faith actors.

Any attempt to water down alterhumanity is unwelcome, no matter if it's a TikTok user saying "Therians know they're human" or a Tumblr user "setting healthy limits for alterhumanity."

Everything should always be based on someone's own perception of themself as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

I know that's a lot, so feel free to comment if you have any questions!

[rallentando1011]

Can I request rottmnt boys x reader?

Reader is extremely unbelievably beautiful, but always comes out looking bad in photos. I'm not talking regular bad I'm talking a whole transformation you don't believe that's the same person kind of bad.

ROTTMNT Boys With A Highly Un-Photogenic Reader

Donnie

Donnie’s a photo enthusiast

Any sunset or equation or person he finds entrancing, you can bet he’s archiving that in his archives

So, when he notices you looking like an absolute spectacle, you know he’s all over that, camera in hand, ready for a shoot

But when he sees the results, he’s flabbergasted

Jaw agape, brows furrowed, completely puzzled

 “Ope. Uhhh, the lighting on that one was really bad. Just the lighting. Definitely not you. Anyway, let’s try that again.”

When it ends up the same - that is to say, foul - he’s absolutely perplexed

He tries a plethora of angles, multiple kinds of lenses, he makes new inventions to try and solve it, but it is all for naught

Despite his effort, every photo of you fails to capture the inane beauty you capture naturally

That doesn’t mean he’ll ever stop trying

Mikey

Mikey has the exact same situation

Somehow his rugged good looks don’t translate well into photographs

So, when every time he sets out to get a nice picture of the two of you, it never ceases to seem like some sort of eldritch horror

“Life is messy. So is art.”

He’s likely to say something along these lines while admiring a photo of you two looking like feral gremlins

Honestly, Mikey is a chillaxed kind of guy, so he’s never going to be upset about your pictures not turning out

Even if he has a specific vision for one, he won’t be perturbed if it doesn’t look how he wants it to

He’ll just do what he does best: improvise

Leo

When Leo first meets you, he actively tries to take terrible photos of you

Call it what you want - a bonding experience, blackmail material for down the road - it’s just something he does with every new person he meets

Fortunately for him, the task proves easy

Maybe even too easy

Once he gets a sufficiently vast album of downright horrific photos of you, Leo decides to let you off the hook and get some nice photos of you and him

Except he can’t

Every photo he gets with you in it is rancid, respectfully

At first he thinks you’re messing with him

“Okay, I get it. It was unfair to try to take bad pics of you, but you can stop now.”

When he sees your confusion, that’s when he realizes that it’s not you, that it’s actually just happening naturally

So that’s when his objective changes: take a genuine good photo of you

Raph

Just like when he saw a pigeon eating a slice of pizza and couldn’t stop pursuing it with a camera, Raph finds a good photo of you to be just as elusive

”Wait! Don’t move!”

Despite how it sounds like there’s something life threatening, he just thinks it’s a viable opportunity for a genuinely decent photo of you, the lighting just so, the atmosphere perfect

Yet he can never seem to get one that portrays just how he sees you, nothing that does you justice

It also doesn’t help that every photo he takes of you is unbelievably blurry and/or has one of his fingers partially covering the lens

To be honest, he never knows if it’s you or him throwing the photo off

So he just calls the blame 50/50