#the algorithm has always been bad on here but holy shit

[guerillatifosa]

my tumblr keeps pushing the most disgusting, rabid zionism to my for you and no matter how many people i block it won’t stop. really frustrated by this, not sure why tumblr thinks i’d be interested in anything tagged ‘palifakers’

[irrealisms]

that bright, clear line liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

the title comes from that one animorphs quote about ruthlessness. it's one of the things that immediately springs to mind for me whenever i think about s4 spoke. the fic is... not actually about that, really; it's about the aftermath of that. getting to point B and looking back at the wreckage and going oh, fuck. something that struck me in his newest video which provided a lot of the inspiration for this fic is how much-- in s4 he is so purely goal-directed; everything he's doing is always for this, and no matter what happens, his only thought is how do i spin this back in my favor, with no thought given to collateral damage or irl feelings. and then, afaict, as soon as s4 ended and he actually thought about the past year he went “holy shit that sucked so bad”

my backup title for it was let future historians wonder from, uh, burn from hamilton. yeah, i know. but this fic cares a lot about ... what you do and don't make a matter of public record. choosing to keep some relationships and conversations private. controlling the narrative. parrot ultimately taking himself out of the lifesteal narrative altogether. and on a different level, i joke about feeling like a historian in my approach to unstreamed events and relationships on lifesteal, trying my best to piece together guesses about what happened from a varyingly biased and patchwork record. and it's also fun bc, well--hamilton is also fiction about real people :P

this fic was very much sparked from conversations i had about the most recent spoke video; i mention this in the end notes but i'd like to give extra shoutouts to @void-chara , @myrmica , and @taiey for conversations they had with me about the newest spoke video. this fic might still exist without those but it'd probably be different.

something i've been thinking about a LOT is the way that spoke is deliberately sort of cutting a lot of himself off from the audience? and the way that neither spoke nor parrot streaming means that the NPPP, from dupe war to end of server, gets a lot more privacy (and deliberate, post-hoc control over the narrative and information flow, when they do end up making things public) in their fallout than, say, eclipse did. and spoke himself, from very early s4 until Like A Week Ago, just... does not mention the NPPP in his videos. in his dupe war and wormhole videos he has to edit around its existence, it's not just that he's making videos about other things, it's very much him making a deliberate choice to leave it out. there's a bunch of possible motives you could extrapolate there--i tried to suggest a few different ones in the fic--but it's interesting to me! this is also a big part of uhhhhh why this fic had to be rpf and not something in character on the lifesteal server.

i like the little character note where spoke is really judgy of eclipse in general and zam in specific for the amount that they are emotionally vulnerable on stream. and then is like "wait no shit i'm trying to be a better person". that was one of the first things that popped into my head when i got the idea for this fic

all video view counts are accurate. when possible i tried to check wayback machine for an approximation of how many views they had at the time, since the fic starts in 2023. in general i tried to be as accurate as possible but i'm much less knowledgable in general about anything they do off-server so it's totally possible i got some details wrong lol

it was fun to write spoke and parrot bc they are both so oriented towards content. in different ways admittedly but like. spoke is ALWAYS thinking about views. he cares sooooooo much about the algorithm. and content is the implicit motive for a lot of lifesteal but i don't usually make it as explicit as i do in this fic bc, well, i'm usually not writing rpf! but in this fic the viewpoint character is just. CONSTANTLY thinking about specific view counts, which videos do well, how well they do in comparison to each other, what affects that, and i get to really draw that out. my beta for this fic, @fitmc , wrote me a lifesteal drabble once, formatting, and the author's note of it lives in my mind forever. The posing of himself for the camera. The fact that Lifesteal players are as sweaty about YouTube growth as they are PVP.

parrot on the other hand is oriented towards content in a way where.. a huge part of their conversation where spoke apologizes is that parrot can't quite bring himself to be mad because. it was good content. parrot keeps repeating that, and it's... when you sign up for lifesteal you're signing up for people to fuck you over for good content. that's the job description. he trusted spoke, not only in the way where he trusts spoke's words, but in the way where he trusted spoke to make the apocalypse a good video for parrot. and it was. so in some ways it was only half a betrayal? the unforgivable line for parrot would be if spoke had done that and it wasn't even good content. (extremely normal way to relate to your friend hurting you.) but parrot's...still upset, because it is still a pretty major betrayal of his trust. and so he switches to making content where Doing Fucked Up Mind Games To Your Friends In Real Life is NOT part of the job description. (also a lot of other reasons, the obvious one of which is "pays better and more consistently without a corresponding increase in work". but, yknow, The Way Lifesteal Is is also part of it.)

also writing about the fact that spoke blew up when he was 14 is. well i already knew this but also. Oof. spoke in this fic is NOT thinking about this as horrifying at all, he thinks it's awesome, but i the author think it's kind of horrifying. fame in general scares me & i have a particularly ambivalent fascination towards the sort of fame where your entire life is a story you're telling. if you've read enough of my other stuff you probably already know this. fourteen!!! that's a kid!!! and while he's 18 now as of a few days ago, even this fic starts when he's 16, like....he's so YOUNG. it's fucked.

“of course” is kind of a motif here. at first parrot is the one to say it to spoke but then i had a vision and edited the fic a couple hours after posting so spoke now says it back at the end.

i think this is... kind of weird for rpf? like--don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to claim any sort of superiority over other rpf writers. but it's also very focused on the fiction they are creating and the process of it, and almost entirely disinterested in their general personae or in aspects of their life that...aren't that. what can i say, i have specific demons. but like...most people who have demons primarily about a fiction and don't care as much about the author's life, including me, don't usually write rpf! i'm not sure i would write rpf of anything that wasn't lifesteal, bc my demons are so tied to the fiction, but lifesteal is so weird with c/cc dynamic that ... idk. writing rpf of them felt like what i wanted to do to process my feelings around the story they created together on lifesteal, bc ... the story they created together on lifesteal is in many ways the same as the story of them becoming best friends irl. when spoke goes far enough hurting parrot in lifesteal, he hurts parrot in real life. they're not easily separable. arguably this changes when parrot leaves lifesteal altogether and removes "~ic, as part of the story being told on lifesteal" as an option on the table for their interactions but this only pushes it further towards rpf in terms of resolution for them & therefore also for the story they told on lifesteal. idk! interesting to think about

i wrote this fic in like. 6 hours. and then did a couple edits the next day. total time between "starting the fic" and "publishing the fic" is only barely over 24 hours. i was possessed by the spirit of rpf i think

i haven't actually watched any unstable. i'm sorry.

[apple-r-r-r]

EMPATHY DIMINISHMENT

(blackpill feminism community on Tumblr, op deleted)

─────────────

Typical het drama will be boosted by social media algorithms than a single woman making content about her own true beliefs or just about anything that doesn't involve hypersexualized pornified thirst traps and offensive ragebaiting. Mind you I didn't even actively search or look for this content, Tiktok's robot AI just thought it would be the perfect video to boost on to people's feeds and likely right in front of young kids browsing the platform to see a man who probably looks exactly like their fathers not being an oh-so lovable cuddly golden retriever nigel that they know and adore compared to their ""villainous"" mothers who cook their shit, practically wipe their asses and keep their ungrateful selves alive. I could only imagine the amount of videos or accounts just like this one where kids run up to their parents scared asking, "mommy/daddy what is this???"

Sigh.. it is really, really, really hard to support and empathize these types of women who likely saw the red flags, had the butterflies in her stomach, the power gut punch intuitive nods, the gnawing feeling at the back of her mind, the small little hints that her pet nigel was likely going to be trouble and didn't care. It's hard to empathize and have compassion for women like this who not only probably ignored the red flags, didn't care, and had a child with the scrote (not caring what vulnerable person you birthed and put through your own drama and mess is fucking despicable). It is hard to empathize with women who want to always be victims and are not willing to come to the harsh reality that yes, you are going to have to fight for your life and risk it for your freedom, and your sanity because human nature does not and will never unconditionally give these things for you and waiting for big daddy (their bfs, hubbies, male-dominant governments, bosses, etc.) to finally stop their subhuman violent acts and become more "decent' is harmful, masochistic, delusional thinking. It is hard to empathize when you make content like this to unfold some kind of story of forlorn misunderstood bambi against the terror of (one singular) man who is haha-of course not all men of course!!!! It just feels really off to me when women do this, I don't know why and can't explain it.

These types of women really get off to being the helpless fawn where society will then beckon their call and save them from the evil dragon (who yes of course is not like every man because "bad" men are anomalies or like cartoonish supervillains and not apart of real historical lived material reality lol) but god forbid you notice patterns, notice synchronocities, say "yes all men/not all men until your man does" and take action to refuse to be victimized. A lot of women think it's the inevitable to be a victim and this is what happens when you stay and dwell within that line of thinking and think certain nods and suggestions from others about claiming your own liberation and empowerment as offensive 'victim-blaming'. It's sad this happens of course but holy shit, can women get into a warrior mindset and cull these fuckers already? Throw a chair straight into his chest like he did with that fridge and stop recording ffs.

The blackpill here in this post is that they can't because most are not born like that and since we live in a world dictated by male law, they won't even try because they will be made as examples and thoroughly punished/ostracized and many women rather lay down and take it until someone comes and saves them or they surrender to survival of the fittest and the fittest are XYs who've been bred as literal human pitbulls. This society is depraved because it metaphorically breaks the kneecaps of women where they're unable to run and fight from their own oppression and then has the nerve to act like the healing aid to fix them and to be the hero, it's such a fucking crazy ass mind control slave world that actually loves and adores victimhood despite many holding anti-victimhood beliefs and larping as stoics who could nevarrrr be a victim, please, the heroic stoic and the fawning victim like the user-empath narcissist exist in carefully designed symbiosis. I think the problem here is that women not just feminists have made women think that you can have it all, you can have your freedom and co-exist with men, you don't really have to sacrifice, fight, defend, or risk anything, nature will fix and cure everything man-made because everything is tehee-socialization (just-world fallacy at work in these people's minds) and that is what we have today with women with severe cognitive dissonance, weakness and think any act is a feminist act. You have to give up your families, give up your financial security, give up your friends, give up your connection to normal society, be your own support system and your own strength and will to live to make an actual tangible change.

[commiicc]

Hi. I'd like to talk a little about my time on social media as an artist. I'm sure a lot of this has been said by a ton of artists before me, but I'm going to say it again anyways.

My online handle is @ commiicc. I've gone by the alias Comic for a few years now. I was extremely active of Twitter during the height of the DreamSMP fandom. My time in this community brought me many memories and experience. Both good and bad. Today, I just want to focus on the art.

In my opinion and experience the art community of the DSMP fandom was so incredibly toxic. Artists were the backbone of the community. It was said time and time again. But this held many artists to unfair expectations. The turn around on art was insane. If art was not posted directly after or the day after the stream/ event it would flop. Posts would circulate about the perfect posting times, which I would memorize, then be so sad when I'd post at those times and a price would still fail. I'd blame myself. I'd internalize it and think I just wasn't good enough. It was never my art. It was simply the shit algorithm that is any social media, but that didn't stop me of course.

And I watched so many young artists beg for followers, because validation meant everything. And we all wanted to be mutuals with the popular, big twitters because that meant we'd made it... right?

I watched followers drop and people ask if they'd done something wrong to deserve it because canceling was so common. It was usually just bots being deleted, but "what if I did something wrong" was always everyone's go to.

Going back to artists being the backbone of the community and pumping out content. I used to say how thankful I was for the community because it made me grow and find my style. But in reality, I only found my style once I stepped back and took time on a piece. I was just slapping shit together back then. I hated most of what I made during that time. It was all rushed. Because no one gave me time. I always felt so rushed to post something so it gets attention. Post something so my followers don't think Im leaving. Because if you took too long to post (more than a week) you'd start losing people. I was a small artist and craved that attention... So I forced myself to create, even if I had no ideas. It's pushed me into burn out.

I'd compare myself to other artists who somehow created masterpieces in like two hours when it took me ages to do anything. I compared myself to everyone and hated everything I did. It was incredibly unhealthy.

I've only just now started making things I enjoy again.

Even when I switched fandoms I was still in the mindset of pushing out art, so I hate it all.

Only after burning myself out can I now restart and find my style... Can I now actually create again.

And I know that's just the culture of social media. and people used to tell me "just don't care" "just don't look at the views". do you know how hard it is to be a 16, 17, even 18 years old and NOT look at that??? to be a new artist and NOT care how much attention your art gets??? when a content creator that you love can see your fanart and has actually seen it.. all humans want is validation. Social media prys on that toxic need. On that innate human need. Cause yeah, we all want to know that what we're doing looks good, but holy shit was that place bad.

And I KNOW I'm not the first person to say this. I'm just trying to share my experience and I'm putting all this disclaimer here in case... So please just check yourself and remember we're all human. Social media is kinda awful and this is literally just my blog to share long thoughts and archive who I am. My time on social media fucked me up a little and I'm just now realizing it. That's what all this is.

So yeah all this to say, I'm done posting my art on social media for now. I'm done pumping out art just for the sake of it. When I create something worth sharing, I'll post it. But for now, I'll be in my comfortable void. I'm around and always willing to chat about the art making process or just chat in general. I'm creating. I always have been. I'm just not sharing it. It's not for your eyes.

It will be when im ready.

And new artists, young artists, any artists; your worth is not determined by the views or likes a post gets. Your art is worth more than any amount of attention it gets on social media. Don't create for attention. Create because you enjoy it. Create for yourself. That's where the magic happens.

thanks for reading. sorry this is long. I'm very wordy. thanks for being here.

- Comic

[elaichoi]

gasp 🔴 live viewing of soulmates au unfolding irl

yes in fact i am (confirmed)

to be fair i haven't been on tumblr that long i joined somewhere btwn jan-mar of this year and so i don't think ive experienced many of your themes (blog profile wise), but i remember stalking the tags and it was easy to spot what works were yours based on the header edit, it stands out and is v eyecatching among other stuffs in the tags ^_^

mhm i think your style is very deviantart fs hehe,,, NAUR FR they r the ogs i used to want to be them so bad. for reference i started getting into kpop around 2/2.5 gen,, i was an admin on a facebook snsd fanpage and posted like png shadow/swirl edits 😭😭😭 simple times

hell i'd love to! i don't think i'm mentally there i fr lack the creative capacity, its in very rare circumstances do i see something that i kind of envision and edit in my head and ill usually screenshot it to keep the idea there but i even more rarely ever jump into starting the edit.

yes it is! i still have and use it, it was the 'it' app for photo editors back then me thinks, kind of like the ae of photo editing... at least from my viewpoint on the ig fanpage editing scene. it was the hotter sister to picsart lmaoo

see soulmates au!! we couldve crossed paths but we didn't!! until now!! 😾

omg wait stop it cus i used to love reading imagines n shit on ig but im pretty sure i stopped because i felt like it wasn't a popular content type esp since its a photography platform. i browsed the tags for imagines n stuff but it was meh,, i only followed ONE imagines account 🥲

wait so to clarify, u also edited on ig alongside writing?? imagine if we crossed paths on the algorithm dats crazy 😭 you're the cool one i wish i could be skilled in both literature and art ?? i simply do not have enough brain cells for that ^_^

canva on phone is my enemy‼️ at least the last time i used the mobile app,, bc i now use it only on desktop, sometimes on ipad... cus u alr cannot see the layers i cannot be doing anything complex bc i will def tap on the wrong layer and thats annoying -_- the patience u have ㅠㅠ well assuming the app is still like that idk maybe it changed

HAHAH i used to draw before like pencil paper shit so i thought i could do it digitally....and after years of not drawing on pencil paper too 💀💀

u are so much more articulate than me goodbye thats embarrassing 4 me T_T

soulmate does exist <3 look at us being prime example!!

actually i think ive active with my account within the time frame as well, probably feb-march i think, but before that i didn't care about the account that much but like slowly started make headers im a tryhard ( only after i stopped obsessing tumblr themes bc i couldn't figure it out) ARE you fr?? like u could tell my works in the tags of my header?! dude that's so,,, that's like such a huge compliment that I've got something that makes someone go ah yes it's that same. author like it feels so fulfilling, YOURE REALLY BUTTERING ME UP ILYSM!!! thousand consentual kisses!!!!

YOURE SO COOL WTH YOU'VE BEEN HERE SINCE 2/2.5 GEN PLS THATS SO awesome ive been into kpop since mid 2017 so most of my groups like og ones were third gen but I listened to 2nd gens too and SNSD my beloved!!! genie was my introduction of kpop tbh and replay by shinee is what made me stay so i can say im a child of 2nd gens too lmao but holy shit I want YOUR PLAYLIST!!!!!!!! GIVE ME SONG RECS!

tbh i get you i only edit for my headers or blog too tbh like usually if there is no purpose you don't really feel like editing bc it's like what are you even gonna do with it? and you've said that you've always posted them so maybe the fact you don't have anywhere to showcase your art has you feeling like that too?

"hotter sister of picsart" this is so real bc all the hot editorson Instagram ( the western artists collage style specially) all used superimpose and thr fact they used to pay for it too.

bro like imagine if we did cross paths i think i was more active on ig during 2019-2021? imagine if we had ever crossed paths since we both worked on kpop lmao, okay but if you like posted your work under #kpopgfx im pretty sure i have came across at least once!

did kpop have imagine accounts? i knew a lot of dating door accounts tho lmao but then again i was stuck in wattpad, and that's all the delulu you need lmao.

lmao yeah i always wrote with my works, most of my edits were based on stuff i wrote basically like love stories based on songs, certain ideas (was BIG on mythologies and all the other things.) but really fr tho i wonder if I actually ever saw your work tho because i never had the guts to interact with other editors.

lmao im the same with canva but on laptop i for the life of me cant do that plus i just use it get pngs and other stuff also when i want to do masking lmao. i usually collect shit on there and then manipulate those on my own app.

bro that is insane that you used to actually drawing like as someone who can't draw a single straight line this is so cool to me i really wish i could draw tbh

articulate and me? lmao im literally all over the place but it's so sooo fun to talk to you!!

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[rahleeyah]

So let's take a step back. Far right extremists latch on to "democrats are child sex traffickers/murderers" as a cause du jour (pizzagate was 2016 can you believe?) A very real problem - sex trafficking - becomes a dog whistle for neo nazis and q-anoners. It bleeds into the national conversation. Websites like Backpage get targeted in the name of protecting kids, which maybe it does, while also hammering sex workers. Sex workers start looking for other places to build businesses. Apple, with a chokehold on the mobile app market, goes on a puritanical spree to eliminate sexy content from its apps. To protect the kids, of course. Tumblr gets removed from the app store bc there was a thriving sex-interested community here, and scrambles to remove anything even vaguely sexy, including female presenting nipples and several pictures of my pet rabbit. Sex workers - and just! People who like sex in general! - go in search of somewhere else to make a living and create content. Again. They go to onlyfans, turn it from nothing into a billion dollar company, but onlyfans "can't attract investors" with all that sexy content, so they decide to kick the sex workers out. Again. You know what happened to Tumblr when they banned sexual images (or tried to, I promise you there are naked people on my dash at this very moment)? Usage of the site plummeted, along with its valuation, and left them desperately scrambling to find some way to make enough money to keep the lights on. What is gonna happen to onlyfans without sexual content? How many people use it for non sexual reasons?

Now. I do happen to believe it almost impossible to consume traditional porn ethically; it is almost impossible to know if the actors were plied with drugs or forced into situations they didn't initially consent to or were otherwise coerced or abused and the business is full of those stories. But onlyfans? By and large most of those creators are in business for themselves, and in charge of their creative directions. It provides them with agency. It provides them with a means to control their own income, on their terms.

But we can't have that, can we? We can strip a woman down and force her into uncomfortable, revealing clothes and positions for big budget movies, but we can't have her deciding to do that for herself, can we? We can make art out of her trauma but we hem and haw when she demands respect. Companies can make millions of dollars on their backs and then throw these women away like they're nothing. Corporations, CEOs in big cushy offices raking cash in hand over fist can shit all over the women who made them rich; it is inherently classist. And misogynist; no, not all sex workers are women, not by a mile, but that is the way our society understands this business to operate. The women do the work, the men pay - or get paid - and the women are punished.

The rise of this neo-puritanism (which has also infected the left, make no mistake about it) hurts women, hurts sex workers, and gives young people no option to turn to for exploring the concept of sex but the traditional porn industry or mainstream media, and god the damage that does is quantifiable. There is data on this, on the rising trend of sex related injuries that boil down to "well I saw it in a porno and they looked like they were having fun", bc the porno didn't show the prep work, or didn't care that the acts it was showing were violent and abusive.

We need a public discourse about sex. We need access to different presentations of what sex is, or can be. We need protections for sex workers, instead of continually forcing them into smaller and smaller corners, where the risk gets greater and greater. Sex is not evil! Sex is not bad! Sex can coexist on a platform with other kinds of content without eroding the moral purity or whatever the fuck of that platform. No one was forcing Tumblr users to look at porn (well except for whoever runs the porn bots, which are very much still here) and if a tumblr user doesn't wanna see it then they can take some fucking responsibility and use the tools that are available to shield themselves from it.

Same fucking thing with onlyfans. It's a subscription based website; no one is encountering "sexual nudity" by mistake. But paternal, puritanical, pearl clutching corporations wanna dictate the content we can and can't consume.

This is censorship, plain and simple, and it is and always has been a slippery slope. Every inch of ground given is a loss of freedom. Corporations are taking charge of what we see, using algorithms (make sure you have best stuff first turned off on your Tumblr) to curate our experiences, steering us in whatever direction will make them the most money. I am thinking now about that expose about how the reporter could track a right wingers descent into q anon madness through his Facebook likes. Each click dragged him deeper and deeper into that hole until there was no way out.

Do I use onlyfans? No! But this continuing tend of throttling sex based content is alarming to me, and I don't know how we turn back the clock but holy shit. Bodies are not shameful, and sex is not repugnant, and the more we act like it is the more damage we do to our national psyche.

[victorianraccoon]

hello, welcome to my Ted talk.

Today we will be discussing "Tales from the SMP". But before I blow your minds with my theory/realization we must first talk about the butterfly effect.

So, have you heard of the butterfly effect?

The butterfly effect, is used to say the smallest of actions can lead to catastrophic events. Like, for example, a butterfly flapping it's wings causing a hurricane.

Now the important part of the butterfly effect here, is where it was first brought up.

The term was coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in 1960. He studying how small changes within his computer algorithm would lead to massive changes to the final outcome.

As cool as that is, Edward Lorenz wasn't the first one to really instill the idea.

Have you ever heard of "A Sound of Thunder"?

It was a short story written by Ray Bradbury, and first published in a magazine during 1952. To pretty much summarize the plot of the story, it is about a man going back in time to kill a dinosaur and then dooming humanity.

To be more specific about it, There is a company that holds onto a time machine, going by the name of "Time Safaris Inc.". Unsurprisingly, They use it for "Time Safaris", in which they let people go back into the past and shoot a dinosaur of their choosing.

The main character of the story is "Eckels", who shows up to Time Safaris Inc. and ends up requesting to shoot a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Before Eckels is brought to the past, the tour guide takes a minute to explain how they plan out the process. The guide says that the Tyrannosaurus Rex they will be shooting is about to be killed by a falling tree. So that upon killing that T. Rex, they will only be effecting the way that the T. Rex dies and don't end up effecting anything else. They even remove the bullets from the bodies as to not leave anything behind.

Time Safaris have also ended up setting precautions. They have set up a metal floating pathway above the ground so they don't touch the ground and end up crushing the plants and/or insects.

The Time Safari guides heavily stress how important it is to Eckels about how he cannot walk off the pathway.

"Don't stray from the path."

What ends up happening for the rest of the story is, once Eckels sees the Tyrannosaurus Rex, he ends up panicking. He steps off the pathway, and crushing a butterfly by mistake. This causes a change within the timeline so major that it greatly effects the human language. There are probably more changes to the present of that world, but we never got to see them.

Now, we are going to take a step back for a moment.

"Don't stray from the path."

Sounds... awfully familiar... doesn't it?

CC!KARL JACOBS, IF I AM PICKING UP WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING DOWN, THEN YOUR CHARATER HAS SCREWED THE TIMELINE

I will rant as to how Time Travler Karl has probably doomed the future in a minute, but I gotta be serious about my theorizing.

We have only seen five episodes of tales of the smp, which is not a ton of sources of info to go off unfortunately. Episode two probably isn't even "cannon", but eh I can't really say.

But we have seen the future once.

Episode three.

The one where Ranboo apparently had a moment where he really liked the idea of bioshock, built a city underwater, then had kids who made false assumptions from screwed up historical documents of the events of the Dream Smp.

There is a problem with this though.

Episode one, he was in the past. Some peasant village that dealt with some murders, probably one of the beginning settlements of flordia.

The issue about this is because since we haven't seen a future without Karl meddling in someway, that means we do not have a untouched future to compare this touched future against. We cannot figure out the type of time traveling rules are in place. Time traveling rules differ from story to story, but they tend to be--

1) Time is set in stone. You change minor events but you cannot change major events.

2) Time is malleable to a point but crushing a bug won't kill the world.

3) Stomping a butterfly to death can somehow mess up the human languages. Sneezing will end the world you are fucked everything is fucked the sun is collapsing because you had to sneeze you bastard you

So, the events that are happening could either be completely time traveler Karl Jacob's fault, or they could always be happening no matter what Karl Jacob's does.

Also there is complete possibility that it's a time loop, which those are confusing as hell and im not even going to try to talk about that.

But if that's the case, that means he's losing his memories for nothing.

All three are quite bad.

Also? There is a complete other possibility on the fact that what is going on in the dream smp could be the "best" timeline. I am not saying Time Traveler Karl thinks that what has happened is the best timeline, but it might be the best it can get.

( The descendent into madness starts here)

Time travel is so fucking complicated in the way that technically speaking if it is happening now in the past, it has already happened here.

Time travel is a very genuinely interesting story telling method, I'm not going to lie about that. It allows for more interesting settings and characters, but holy shit. The part of my brain that enjoys understanding storylines and timelines starts having a conniption whenever its brought up.

But there are so many loopholes that are left behind. Like- Time travel in its self is a Paradox! If the problem has already been solved, then why go back to fix it? Then there is nothing to fix the problem in the first place!

I hope as CC!Karl keeps releasing more of the series it will fill in more holes and answer more questions, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just me looking too deep into things when I should just enjoy it face value.

Also? I know I am going somewhat on a tangent here, but I have started and I cannot stop. But there legit biological consequences of time traveling! Do you know how much disease Time Traveler Karl has probably been spreading around???

Because here is the thing about time, as it marches on, so does evolution. Evolution is always happening and occurring, some instances more noticeable then others.

If you were to go back in time, not only would you be exposed to very old diseases that your body might not even be able to recognize since how different they appear, you are also bringing newer, more specialized and better adapted diseases into the past.

Where people's bodies are not trained against those diseases.

AT ALL.

SO NOT ONLY HAS TIME TRAVELER KARL JACOBS FUCKED UP THE TIMELINE WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, HE HAS ALSO UNKNOWNINGLY BECOME A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON.

KARL JACOBS IF YOU INDEED ARE TRYING TO MAKE A CONNECTION TO THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT AND THE STORY "A SOUND OF THUNDER", I HOPE YOUR CHARACTER DOESN'T FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ECKELS.

LITERALLY DO NOT STEP ON THE BUTTERFLY AGAIN PLEASE.

TDLR:

I lose my fucking mind over the possibility of there being a connection of the butterfly effect between "A Sound of Thunder" and tales of the smp.

[shoezuki]

https://paindragon.tumblr.com/post/641928069558501376/the-final-sif-i-try-to-stay-away-from-a-lot-of

Sorry your ao3 post has been bugging me. There are definitely better posts specific to ao3 that I would like to show you, but here is one about the topic in fandom in general.

Yes I agree that there is shitty stuff on ao3, but saying that ao3 being gone isn't a loss?? The website so so many people have spent hours of their lives contributing too? If you woke up tomorrow and everything you and your friends have created is just gone? How would that not be a loss???

No it's not some holy grail, but its the internet, cutting everything "bad" off of it is impossible, especially considering what is "good" and "bad" are different for everyone. And setting up an algorithm or something would also delete the Fics and things that people use to cope with their trama.

The entire reason ao3 was created was to get fanfic author's a safe place from the "purity" purges, and while yes a fanfic site would probably come up from ao3's ashes, does not erase that ao3 was a huge step in the freedom of fandom spaces.

I hope you read this at least, though I know it's gotten pretty long. And your right, of you don't like ao3 you can just post your Fics here, post wherever makes you most comfortable, if that's tumblr for you? Hell yeah!! But please recognize that its ao3 for others.

TL;DR-

just because ao3 has a shitty things about it (it's the internet!!!) doesn't give you the right to claim it as "no loss" because it would be. Ao3 was created to help the people that were getting caught in the cross fire of purity culture. And you can use whatever platform makes you feel safe, respect that for others.

i was gon give some huge response w screenshots n shit but then i realized i dont give enough of a fuck so heres an abridged  version

of course fucked up shit is gon be Anywhere in Any online community n fanfiction as a whole has had a Huge history with controversies and lawsuits and all kinds of fuckery. ao3 has had a huge influence on fanfiction bein normalized and not straightup like. sued or shit by all kinds of things. 

BUT. ao3 still fucking sucks. 

to say that a platform can house problematic shit without actually endorsing it Is true but in ao3′s case like. theres so much fucked up shit and it will not get taken down. such racism, pedophila, incest, and abusive content is given a safe area on there to be Shared and to just. exist. reporting wont do anything obviously because the idea is that as long as its Tagged, no harm no foul. THAT is whats fucked up. saying ‘we shouldnt allow a safe space for things that glorify and romanticize/sexualize fuckedup and possibly illegal shit’ isnt the same as purity culture

if ao3 was tanked like. whatever. itd be a hit and obviously itd suck for the authors but whatever. fanfictions has always and will always find a way. if we gotta go back to literally printing it off and sharing it like that people Would. ao3 may be the biggest source of fics but its not It. theres not a monopoly on creation. people would move on

ao3 isnt some allholy saving grace for writers like its not the single Protector of fanfiction. its a site we use. and EVEN SO we can say its done good while also saying that its enabling some disgusting shit

[cottonloid]

Cotton Playlist: Unicorn

I wanted to write about Vocaloid songs I like, so I did. Here are my thoughts on Teniwoha and their latest song, “Unicorn.”

UNICORN, by Teniwoha

On February 7, 2020, Teniwoha uploaded “Villain” to their YouTube channel. Their previous song, “Bradbury,” had been uploaded in August 2019, and has at time of writing raked up a respectable 261,500 hits. Although Teniwoha had been uploading music to YouTube since 2014, only one song, “Meitantei Renzoku Satsujinjiken” had managed to break the million-view barrier. That song was uploaded in 2016. Teniwoha’s songs over the next four years received decent attention, with a few surpassing 100K and even 500K in views. But other songs languished with fewer than 50K views. Even “9,” a collaboration with emon(Tes.), has only managed to net 33,000 views.

I don’t know why Teniwoha received relatively little YouTube attention during this period. Maybe it was the state of the Vocaloid community during this time. Maybe they were not favored by the fickle gods of the YouTube algorithm. Maybe their songs missed the musical zeitgeist. Whatever the reason, the dry spell ended with “Villain,” which performed like no Teniwoha song before it. At time of writing, it sits at 4,850,000 views on YouTube. That’s not counting covers.

I’ve been a fan of Teniwoha since 2014, and I’m glad “Villain” was a big hit. I love “Villain,” even though it’s not my favorite Teniwoha song. But I’m not here to talk about “Villain” (even though I will actually be talking a lot more about “Villain”). I want to talk about “Unicorn,” which I like a little more.

How do we quantify the success of a song or an artist? I’ve been throwing out a lot of statistics, and sure, we can say that’s a measure of popularity. By that measure, “Unicorn” is the dark horse to “Villain.” Uploaded three months after Teniwoha’s biggest YouTube hit, it currently has 322K views. Not bad. But at this point, it’s not going to replicate the statistical success of “Villain,” despite the similarities between the songs. And there are quite a few similarities. Both videos feature illustrations by Nekoko. Both are about marginalized (pretty clearly queer) identities and create joy out of subversion and adversity. Both have an industrial-rock sound to them.

Comparing the two songs, I think it’s clear why “Villain” was the hit. It has a catchier, dynamic chorus and a badass keyboard riff. In comparison, the chorus in “Unicorn” kind of drifts downwards, then up, then down, then up again, before finally hitting that punchy, “Now! I’m a unicorn now!” “Villain” actually pulls a similar trick in its chorus—after the keyboard comes in, the vocals float back in to sing the title of the song. It’s neat. But it doesn’t blow me away quite like “Unicorn.” The chorus leading up to that part is less flashy, though the jeering/cheering sound at the beginning is a nice addition. But it builds up to a show-stealing synthesizer, and instead of the song’s title sounding like an afterthought, it bursts gleefully forth—“I’m a unicorn NOW!” This part sounds like a prancing horse (complete with clip-clop sounds in the background), and I love it.

It’s the bridge between the verse and chorus that really stands out. It shows up with force and confidence, taking what has until that point been a rhythmically measured song and propelling it forward. The tuning is great, and this is coming from someone who often does not like flower. The little squeak Teniwoha puts into their voice is extremely satisfying. Teniwoha deftly utilizes flower’s gruff low/mid-range, and there’s a tremoring quality to some of the vocals that feels appropriately horse-y (hoarse-y?).

But I don’t actually know shit about music. The real reason why “Unicorn” just barely edges out “Villain” for me is that it’s slightly more playful. And I think play is Teniwoha’s biggest strength. So in “Unicorn,” he gets to show off.

If I had to describe Teniwoha as an artist in two words, those words would be “playful” and “versatile.” Teniwoha primarily makes rock music, but if you listen to his backlog, you’ll hear a wide variety of styles. I’d name some, but again, I don’t know shit about music. And I don’t think all of Teniwoha’s songs fit neatly into genre conventions. For instance, they described their song “Onomatopetenshi” as “neo rakugo funk music.”

“Onomatopetenshi” is kind of the perfect Teniwoha song. It is basically a vessel for them to make a song entirely of puns. My Japanese language skills aren’t good enough to fully appreciate it, and to my knowledge, nobody has translated it. For obvious reasons. For instance, there are lyrics that translate roughly to “drunkenness, a good slave, old age, spirit fire.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But those lyrics (酔いどれ良い奴隷養老霊火) are pronounced, “yoidore yoidorei yourou rei hi.” Sure enough, the vocals yodel. (Skip to 0:33 in the song to hear it for yourself.)  

In another song, “Kyuubi goryoue mystery ~tenketsu~,” Teniwoha pens the infuriating line, “Look in fear upon the bon festival.” Which is fine in itself. But that line (恐れ見よ盆挿話) is pronounced “osore miyo bon souwa,” and is phonetically similar to “o sole mio, bonsoir.”

I think a witch cursed Teniwoha to make them write puns for the rest of their life.

Anyhow, my point is that Teniwoha can write a range of songs and have a great time doing it. My favorite Teniwoha songs are the ones that revel in their own deviousness. “Devious” feels like an appropriate word to describe someone who makes as many puns as Teniwoha. Ironically, “Villain” is a song that is textually about being devious. But it’s kind of heavy, thematically. The song finds its joy and soars in some places, but it’s a joy that is painfully earned. Embracing the role of the villain can feel empowering, but it’s a role other people have chosen for the song’s narrator.

As in “Villain,” the narrator in “Unicorn” declares themselves to be a unicorn. But it’s less clear that other people forced the narrator into this role, so this declaration reads to me as self-affirmation. There’s still a sense of bitterness in this song, but it a little more playful, a little more weaponized. (Like a unicorn horn???) The vibe is very, “Feeling abandoned by god? Cool. Let’s burn everything down.” It’s the difference between “hated life/蛇蝎ライフ” and “the joys and sorrows of life/苦楽ライフ.”

Teniwoha also gets to do a little more wordplay in “Unicorn,” rhyming English words like ark/mark/dark, melancholy/holy, and unicorn/you become/unison. Then there are some cross-language puns like “smile” and “数mile” (pronounced “suu mile”). The poetics of these lyrics are just generally great. There was some of that in “Villain,” of course, but the tone of the song is maybe a bit heavy for too many puns. I think that due to the slightly lighter tone in “Unicorn,” Teniwoha gets to flex their lyrical muscles a little. And write puns.

This wordplay also works thematically. Teniwoha bends linguistic meaning while his lyrics challenge a black/white binary. The unicorn’s very existence makes a mockery of this binary, just as puns throw linguistic sense into gleeful confusion. There’s a new meaning being made here.

Of course, this also happens in “Villain” to an extent. As always, my preference is simply a matter of taste. Both “Villain” and “Unicorn” are great queer anthems. But the spiteful jubilance of “Unicorn” matches my mood a little more right now. Or maybe I just like that the song sounds like a horse. And really, I’m just glad that more people are listening to Teniwoha now. After six years, they deserve it.

Now please go stream Teniwoha’s “Mononoke Mystery” album. It’s on Spotify, and it’s their best work.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “A.N.N.I.E.”

A.N.N.I.E. (Artificial Non-Neurological Intelligent Entity) is an outdated android model that emerged on the market two years ago. The Joker purchased her as a toy for his son not knowing she will become the recipient of desperate attempts to keep Y/N with him. After the woman’s unexpected death, experiments meant to transfer her conscience inside Annie failed yet The King of Gotham couldn’t part with the only thing that reminded him of someone he actually cared about.

“Can you fix her?” The Joker asks the two programmers that have been assessing the android for the past 15 minutes.

“Hard to tell sir, but we are trying to determine what triggered the malfunction,” Zariah points at the 4 laptop screens simultaneously running diagnostics. “Recently there’s been a spike in flaws regarding A.N.N.I.E. models; after all they were released 2 years ago. I would recommend acquiring the most current technology…”

“No need to!” J bitterly cuts him off. “Just fix her!”

“We will do our best, sir!” Mickel reassures The King of Gotham: his wretched temper might interfere with today’s agenda and the two hackers simply can’t afford it.  

“Your best is not enough,” The Joker growls. “She cornered my son last night and almost crushed him against the wall. I had to use manual override to shut her down. That’s not typical machine behavior, is it?!”

“No sir, although I’ve heard of similar incidents in the past months. If it continues, Annie prototype will be pulled off the market soon,” Zariah informs.

“Her name‘s not Annie,” The Clown Prince of Crime interrupts the unwanted advice. “Her name’s Y/N!”

Awkward silence and Kase’s voice resonates from upstairs.

“Daddy?... Daddy?...”

“My son’s awake; I’ll be back,” J abandons the two men in a hurry and stumbles on the numerous cables connecting the laptops to the cyborg on his way out.

“Goddammit!”, he huffs through his clenched teeth before vanishing around the corner.

“That was fucking weird,” Mickel whispers. “What does he means her name is not A.N.N.I.E.?! Am I crazy? Is this not Artificial Non-Neurological Intelligent Entity sitting in that chair?!”

“Of course it is,” Zariah confesses in low tone. “He gives me the creeps too how he thinks she’s in there.”

“What do you mean “she”?” the obvious question follows.

“Check those cords,” Zariah urges and continues: “You noticed he corrected me with the name for the pile of rubbish.”

“Yeah,” the other guy begins typing a bunch of configurations while listening to the scoop.

“Y/N used to take care of his kid. Nobody can say who she really was: some believe she might have even been the mother, that her and Mister Joker were together. Others swear the little boy called her auntie; maybe she actually was Mister J’s sibling. Who the hell knows? She was a strange woman and she looked… different also,” Zariah’s gaze circles the premises to make sure their employer is not eavesdropping.

“No shit!” Mickel frowns at the statistics popping up on the monitors.

“Yeah, I saw her a few times, gave me the creeps. Something was off with her, you just could tell. Mister J always had jerks working for him and I guess they clashed with Y/N quite often: it got so bad they dared planning a prank that ended horribly. Do you know the warehouse on 14th street? The 6 stories one?”

“No.”

“Well, supposedly it happened there: Mister J was out of town and had no clue about the scheme plotted without his consent. The crew took his son on the roof and threatened they will toss him off the building if she doesn’t jump instead.”

“And?!” Mickel halts his typing, intrigued.

“She jumped… … they didn’t think she would.”

“Holy crap! I had no idea!”

“Dude, it was a disaster!” Zariah shrugs depicting the facts. “Y/N splattered all over the concrete, broken to pieces… Despite the severe injuries, she didn’t die immediately: she was in a coma for almost a month before passing away. Mister J had Annie already, he probably bought her as a toy for Kase when it first emerged on the market. The rumor is that while Y/N was in a coma he kidnapped scientists and forced them to work on a senseless project: transferring her conscience inside Annie.”

“You’re shitting me!” Mickel exclaims at the insane disclosure.

“Nope.”

“Can’t be done; it’s impossible!”

“And who’d dare explain the obvious to him, huh? Not the researchers he killed the moment she stopped breathing if you get my drift.”

“That’s messed up!” Mickel forcefully exhales, infinitely more nervous about being at The Penthouse for the moment.

“Do you remember the serial murders that shook Gotham 3 months ago?” Zariah has more gossip for his partner. “It was Mister J hunting down every single person that was on the roof the day Y/N jumped.”

“We shouldn’t be here,” the anxious Mickel shrugs. “Maybe we should abandon our mission.”

“Bulshit! They’ll pay us double over anything he offers so don’t be a pussy! Speaking of, you should assemble the guns prior to his return!”

Mickel is reluctant to the whole scenario, yet he compiles the two guns out of items resembling computer parts scattered in their suitcases: that’s how they were able to deceive security.

“Done,” he stashes one finished weapon under his jacket, offering the other to Zariah.

“Remain calm and we’ll be ok,” the latest mumbles. “Let’s pretend we’re here to repair this junk.”

A couple more minutes pass by and The Joker’s presence alongside his offspring makes the two guys cringe.

The little boy hides behind his father’s legs, shyly glancing the android’s way.

“Don’t be scared,” J grumbles. “She’s in power saving mode, it’s fine.”

“Yes, it’s perfectly safe,” Zariah winks. “We are almost done extracting all the data,” he gestures at the laptop’s screens.

Kase giggles and rushes to climb on Annie’s knees, excited to see her after she wasn’t allowed to sleep in his room last night which is understandable since the robot went bonkers.

“Hi Y/N,” the child softly pulls on her long hair. “I want waffles pwease.”

The hackers exchange meaningful glares and The Joker replies:

“She can’t for now,” he mutters. “She’s defective. Frost will take you out for breakfast, alright?”

“Does it hurt?” the 5 year old pouts at his parent’s affirmation: he doesn’t comprehend all the words and it’s difficult for a kid to process the concept of transference.

After Y/N died, The Joker told Kase she moved inside Annie: he wasn’t delusional about his failed experiment but it was easier to make his son cope with the loss of the woman that raised him. J doesn’t literally believe there’s any trace of Y/N in the machine: how could it be? Several months passed and nothing proved what he tried to accomplish succeeded: a twisted concept originating from a distorted mind was doomed from the start.

“It doesn’t hurt,” The Clown Prince of Crime sighs. “She’s resting.”

“Sir, I think you should see this,” Mickel gets his attention.

“What am I looking at?”

“You used voice command to lock down the android?” Zariah pinpoints at the monitor to his left.

“I did.”

“That’s not what turned off the system: see the numbers flowing borderline with the  central matrix, the tiny squares? She wasn’t locked down by external command, she was terminated from within.”

“What do you mean?!” Mickel scoots over in his rolling chair, baffled.

“Somebody trespassed the firewall,” his accomplice utters the obvious.

J is less than happy with the random discovery still he requires confirmation of his suspicion.

“Meaning?”

“Annie, I mean Y/N is the recipient of a cyber-attack: she’s been hacked.”

“Hacked?” J scoffs. “What for? She’s just a companion android, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not sure, sir…” Zariah lifts his shoulders up, baffled.

“Can you find the source?” the green haired individual suggests.

“Analyzing the algorithm shows puzzling results: these numbers should be repeating themselves every so often, yet they don’t; never seen anything like it and I’ve been dealing with computers for a long time,” Mickel adds. “The most interesting detail is certainly challenging our expertise: tracking the root of the signal is pretty much unachievable. We should see input bouncing around from different servers because this is how hackers disguise their trail; but… this particular livestream happened simultaneously from various servers around the country.”

“There’s practically 0% chance for such abnormal hacking with today’s technology!” Zariah scrunches up his face at the baffling discovery. “How in the world was it done?!”

“You’re the experts!” The Joker barks. “I hired you based on strong recommendations from others that used your skills. Can you fix her or not?!”

“Of course, sir.”

“Yes!” the two associates ease The Clown’s doubt. “We’ll unplug the cables, we already removed all necessary info.”

Kase watches them detach the cords from Annie’s access ports, the child sulking at their action.

“Y/N, does it hurt?” he asks and hops off her lap. The empty shell doesn’t respond since the robot is in power saving mode.

“It doesn’t hurt,” The King of Gotham duplicates his earlier statement. “Frost!” he addresses the henchman entering the living room. “Take him to our restaurant on Madison Avenue for breakfast then he can play at the property on Foster Creek until we are done here. I want a 3 cars escort.”

“Yes, boss. I’ll call in advance and tell them not to open the place until we’re done.”

“Good,” J agrees with his henchman’s proposal. “Kase, go and eat!” he urges the offspring having a few more secrets to share with Annie. ��Come on, let’s go!” the impatient father encourages.

The 5 year old obeys and kisses Annie’s cheek, whispering:

“I’ll bwing you beck’fast auntie, ok?” and he rushes at Frost’s side screaming up a storm. “Byeeeee daaaaaddy!!!”

The programmers are so absorbed by the mystifying enigma they stumbled upon by accident they don’t pay attention to the little nugget’s promise: even if they would, Zariah and Mickel wouldn’t be able to untangle the convoluted riddle of Y/N’s true identity.

She wasn’t The Joker’s girlfriend nor Kase’s mother: Y/N was nothing less than The Clown’s younger sister.

The woman protected the only family she had like a hawk, thus she didn’t hesitate to give her life in exchange for her nephew’s.

Too bad she had no idea those jerks were mocking her when she ended up on that accursed roof.  

Too bad her brother didn’t guess their intentions and extremely regrettable he was left alone without the only person he ever trusted.

Too bad she died granted J’s desperate efforts to keep her with him.

And so sad he didn’t know how much Y/N meant to him until she was gone.

“Isn’t it weird someone breached my android in the same time it was malfunctioning and closed her down?…” J stares outdoors on the terrace. “Why would anyone go through the trouble?... What’s the purpose?”

The familiar click of safety being taken off a gun awakens The Joker from apathy and he turns around: it’s not easy to surprise J but he’s stunned to notice the two experts he recruited pointing guns at him.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Cashing in a huge payday, sir,” Zariah sneers. “It’s not often you become a legend for murdering…”

The Joker is not listening, his attention diverted by the strange phenomenon occurring behind the two hackers threatening his life: Annie is standing up from her chair and that’s clearly not possible; she is in power saving mode!

The android grabs Mickel’s arm and twists it to 90 degrees, using his own pistol to blow his brains out. Before Zariah can react he’s knocked to the ground with such violence J starts backing out, unsure on what to do when Annie steps on the man’s neck.

The sound of fractured bone plus the cyborg’s attention clearly directed towards him now makes him shout:

“Code 71345, emergency override!”

“Access denied!” the robot approaches still calibrating its joints and electronic synapses.

What the hell is wrong with this thing?!

“Code 71345, emergency override!”

”Access denied!”

J wants to make a run for it but he’s aware Annie is faster; why is she glitching like this?! 

“Code 71…”

“Why are you trying to shut me down when I tried so hard to come back to you?” the cold voice halts the rest of his sentence.

The Joker takes a strenuous breath, dumbfounded at the shocking revelation:

“Y/N?... … Is… is… that you?!... …”

The android tilts its head to the left while an eerie smile flourishes on the plastic lips:

“Missed me?”

 Also read: MASTERLIST 

You can also follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[boog-shitposting-edition]

So I been playing a ton of Kenshi and watched all of the Mandalorian in a single day shortly before and it’s got me thinking about what makes what I consider a good action hero, because there was definitely a time where I thought the phrase “good action hero” was an oxymoron.

I grew up around some angry, unstable dudes who had that bad habit of watching horror movies and opining that in the same situation they would simply shoot the monster with the gun the character was holding. I got some views on the model of masculinity that sees the male ideal as functionally a tool for performing violence, condescension and occasional reddit-approved banter with all other emotional responses pared away or suppressed. This seems like a good way to manufacture a product for performing labor rather than developing a whole functional human being. So I generally veer away from that sort of thing pretty hard.

So I’m resistant to the Mandalorian at first, right? All the ads are basically star wars apocryphica and a power armored fighty gun boy. The last star wars thing I’d seen was The Rise Of Skywalker and my faith in the franchise is low. But it’s been a hot minute, the hype dies down, and my girlfriend is a better and more patient fan than I’ll ever be so we give it a go. And the first thing that really nails it for me is what a DORK the mando is. I’m delighted, his life is violence interdispersed with being an absolute buttfumble disaster. He slips and falls over things he could never have predicted, he burns his life down for a baby he finds in the desert. Pedro Pascal references Boba Fetts stiff menace and plays it off as someone who has no social skills other than stiff menace and it’s FASCINATING. Him explaining to the village woman who is obviously into him that he hasn’t taken the armor off since he was thirteen isn’t a badass declaration of martial devotion, it is the single saddest and most awkward interaction I have ever seen filmed and it hits all the harder for the fact that this is a character I’ve mostly ever seen as an action figure with a spring loaded missile backpack. Instead of being a faceless emotionless action-cudgel, Pedro amps up the body language in his acting to really sell you this heavily psychologically damaged, desperate, viking-space-catholic mess with no life skills other than violence and a devotion to his people’s creed that borders on obsession. Rather than paring himself down making him a psychological fortress, the Mando is an incredibly obvious walking raw nerve (”I’m not sad-” “Yes you are.”) So, Kenshi.

I’ve heard about this game on and off a few years and finally got it a few days ago. It’s been in early access since 2012, appears to be mostly getting finished by its modding community, and glitches like absolute woah. There’s no core storyline, just a post-apocalyptic setting with some surprisingly detailed autogenerated NPC interactions with some options for starting conditions and the sole goal of surviving. It’s essentially a rapid sequence of story prompts hidden underneath a closely interlocked system of XP grinding, survival mechanics and dismemberment algorithms, and is appallingly my shit.

My first run at the game got pretty far, went from a lone confused desert wanderer to a 13 man village running a tidy copper-mining operation to trade with the ant people. In the early game, fight mechanics are basically a death sentence; my first character immediately got her leg torn off by a goat and I had to restart. All skills grow only by excersizing them; you have to fight to get better at fighting, you have to LOSE fights to gain toughness, and when you lose a fight the consequences can range from “these bandits are stealing all your food” to “this monster is eating your leg/heart/head” to “these slavers are taking your character away and your game experience is Different now.” And while I was proud of myself for finding a way to survive, grow and thrive with a low-combat squad, once I tried the basebuilding mechanics that basically just meant my town was a source of free food and money for local bandits while my squad starved to death, unable to abandon our locale. So I got fed up and restarted.

As mentioned the game gives you different start positions; wanderer gives you 1 character, some money and pants. Guy and his dog gives you a dog, which is fun. Exiled officer starts you with good skills and the hatred of your former commander, which complicates things. Cannibal Hunters starts you already in a fistfight with 30 cannibals. It’s exciting times. But I figure this time I’d like to start my squad a LITTLE more capable of defending themselves, so I look at the Holy Sword start; you’re a bandit who starts with a stolen holy weapon, minuses in most skills, no money and a 20,000 bounty on your head from both major factions.

So I proceed to character creation and notice I can pick whatever I want for player species/subspecies with this start. There’s robot people and warriors made of stone and baseline humans and all sorts of fun options, but you remember those ant people I mentioned before? In game they’re called the Hivers, you find ‘em in 3 recruitable varieties (prince, worker drone and soldier) and they have an interesting in-universe quirk; ones that grow up in the hive are pheramone-addicted, chemically wired into the needs and wants of all of their fellows, but if you’re away from your kin for over a fortnight this addiction dries out incredibly fast and cannot be reinstated. Hivers who ever spend any time away from the hive are declared “lost ones,” and are often taken advantage of in the outside world as they long for a new community.

In survival sims I dont often play dedicated fighters, I always feel like being a brutal fight-beast isn’t really in the spirit of finding a niche to exploit and growing from a fumbling plebian to a major power. But I was already starting this game with my ONLY advantage being a nice sword. And the soldier hivers gain a buff to experience gained for melee attack and toughness, and a debuff to literally all else.

Manual labor. Science. Engineering. Farming. Cooking. First aide. In a setting that heavily prioritized your ability to survive using multiple vital skill sets, my character would start with negatives in his skills for putting on band-aids and FEEDING himself. So I gave it a go.

Getting more wild here, it turns out the Holy Sword opening also takes place in a time in the setting with more recent warfare, so a bunch of the starting villages are destroyed and it appears that more of the nearby cities are controlled by the factions that have a bounty on me. So my character CAN’T rely on other people or meet anyone to recruit at first. He can run, he can scrounge and scavenge, and as mentioned above starting characters can take lethal damage from GOATS so he can’t even hunt for food; the only way I was getting a meal was if I robbed someone or ran into merchants on the road I could hawk my salvage to for a scrap of bread.

He eventually finds someone willing to join him on his travels in spite of being flat broke, a shek named Ruka running from a dishonerable loss on the battlefield, and comparing their skills he’s so useless for everything besides combat that I assign him to bodyguard her. And again, this game’s appeal is that the survival mechanics make good story prompts, so imagine that in character.

“Fine, I need a change. I’ll join you.” “Thank god. Lead the way boss.” “What?”

Things regarding my characters bounty are starting to heat up in town, so we head north into hiver territory. We get attacked by bandits and heavily injured, my soldier gets knocked out, so Ruka picks him up and carries him until we find a hive town. I saw these guys all the time in my last playthrough, I survived by selling to them, they’re super friendly, should be fine. Ruka walks into the local shop and before I can have her ask for directions and a medikit the shopkeeper is already shouting- “SKREEE! LOST ONE! GET OUT! LOST ONES BRING MADNESS”

Apparently, my protagonist being a hiveless hiver means there’s a THIRD faction that’s hostile to him; his own goddamn people. Ruka has to leave him under a tree not just outside but like 50 feet from the edge of town, and just has  to hope none of the local wild megafauna eats him while she rushes back in to buy things from the now abruptly friendlier shopkeep.

I’m finally sitting there, having Ruka watch my soldier hiver sleep while she cooks scavanged meat and waits for him to finish healing, that I realize what the story being generated here is and it’s a good one; a Hive soldier whose only skills are violence, frantically scavenging and stealing to survive until he can find the one circumstance where he’s comfortable, sacrificing himself to protect others. He steals a sword that’s obviously important to two major governments, just because he knows it’s powerful and thinks that power will justify his continued existence as a hiveless soldier drone, essentially buying his way back into his people’s good graces by performing his function. Literally wandering the world until he found a single person who was willing to boss him around again and devoting himself to their defense to a state of pathological damage just to feel like he has a hive again. It’s sad. It’s badass. It’s deeply, unsettlingly pathetic.

But I also think it’s what makes a really really good gruff action hero!

Hypercompetence in violence is really interesting when you acknowledge the damage it can do to your humanity in the storytelling! The Mandalorian is unsuccessful in repressing his empathy response so he just tries to tough through the pain it causes him as best he can, until he meets The Child and it snaps. The Hiver is essentially playing pretend at being still valued as a product for committing violence, even in the face of being openly rejected for his previously esteemed role. This stuff is INTERESTING.

TL;DR version, a lot of these “supersoldier raised by the military/fight wizards/karate” characters are super boring and obnoxious when they’re put forward as power fantasies, and really interesting when you realize that being raised by Fight Wizards is why they’ve never had a girlfriend and called their handgun “mom” once.

[likealightsw1tch]

BOM 10 Day Challenge - Day 1

Line Prompt: “I’m fine. Let me see your face.”

“We used to drive past this place every Sunday on our way to church,” Connor said as they approached the drab one-story building at the end of the block. The neon “OPEN” sign was flickering, and the “N” was nearly all the way burnt out so it more accurately read as  “OPE.” Which, Connor thought, seemed to fit, too. 

“My parents always considered it the wart on our town,” he continued, he and Kevin’s intertwined hands swinging happily between them, “They tried to get the city to shut it down several times. All part of their push to make Farmington a dry town.”

“So, there’s no chance of us running into them, then?” Kevin smiled at him. 

“Ha.” Connor snorted. “No, I don’t think there will be any grand reunions tonight.”

“Too bad.”

*******

Connor had spent years wondering what the inside of this place looked like.

It was… honestly, underwhelming. 

By the way his parents had talked about it with such contempt, he half expected it to be roach infested with hellfire bursting from the floorboards and people fornicating on the tables. Looking around now, he couldn’t be entirely sure about the roaches, but otherwise it proved his parents wrong. It was even charming, in a rustic, down-home kind of way that didn’t exactly mesh with Connor’s usual aesthetic. But there were fairy lights woven through the wooden beams on the ceiling and light music playing from the old fashioned jukebox in the corner, and he was here with the love of his life and really, everything looked a little prettier when teeming with a hint of sweet rebellion.  

“Well,” Kevin said, pulling out a barstool for each of them, “Is it everything you ever dreamed of?”

Connor grimaced when his hand touched something sticky on the underside of the counter. He wiped it on his jeans as he settled into his seat.

“I think I’ve found my Orlando, Kev. I really do.”

Kevin’s smirk erupted into a genuine laugh.

“Well, since you brought it up,” Kevin walked his fingers playfully up Connor’s thigh, “I was thinking our next trip should be Disney.”

“Oh, yeah? This is completely brand new information to me. You’ve never brought this up before.”

“Shut up,” Kevin smacked him lightly on the knee before retracting his hand, “We’ve earned a decent vacation after braving this trip to Utah.”

“What can I get you boys?” A grey-haired man with tattoos approached them from behind the bar. Kevin turned to Connor.

“The usual?”

Connor nodded. 

“One vodka cranberry with lime and a Jack and Coke, please.”

When Kevin turned back to Connor, he was grinning at him.

“What?”

“I like that you know my order,” Connor smiled. 

Kevin rolled his eyes, but Connor saw the hint of a blush creep into his cheeks as he looked away. 

“Of course I know your order,” he replied, fidgeting with a peanut shell from the bowl on the counter, “You drink like a freshman sorority girl.”

“You were being cute and you ruined it.” Connor picked up a peanut from the bowl and flicked it at his head. 

“I’ll find a way to make it up to you.” Kevin finally freed the peanut from its shell and held it up between his finger and his thumb. “Here, catch.”

Connor opened his mouth on command and Kevin tossed it in, grinning like a child when he made it on the first try. 

Connor didn’t doubt that he would, indeed, make it up to him. Kevin Price plus alcohol was the perfect algorithm for affection. He was only halfway through his second Jack and Coke when his hand had found its way to Connor’s thigh, rubbing absently along his jeans as they laughed at some stupid joke he had made. His barstool had mysteriously inched closer to Connor’s as the night went on until their legs were practically overlapping. 

It was nice to see Kevin smiling. It had been a tense weekend staying at his parents’ house. While the Price family hadn’t reacted quite as poorly to his coming out as Connor’s parents had, they certainly didn’t approve of it, and made little effort to hide the fact. Kevin put up a good front, but Connor could see through it. He knew how much Kevin missed his family, especially his siblings, since they moved to New York, and it was especially hurtful to feel the weight of their disapproval when he came home. Which was why Connor was glad he had agreed to come with him to this shitty little dive bar, so they could have one good memory of their trip before they went back. 

“One more before I call a car?” Kevin slurred happily as he leaned in for a kiss. Connor happily obliged, then placed his hands against his chest before it could escalate. 

“Yes,” he said, pushing away from his barstool and grabbing Kevin’s arm for support as he swayed slightly on his feet, “But first I gotta break the seal.”

He nearly tripped over his own foot as he tried to walk away, but he regained his balance and faked a hair flip at his achievement. Kevin snorted. 

“You good on your own, there, champ?”

Connor gave an ungraceful attempt at a curtsey in response before heading off to the bathroom. 

*******

K: Did you fall in?

Kevin sent the text as he chased his straw around with his tongue, finally managing to wrangle it back into his mouth. He pulled in a long sip, frowning when he slurped up mostly air and melted ice from the bottom. Had he finished another drink already? His eyes shifted to Connor’s full beverage on the bar. He probably wouldn’t even notice if there was a sip missing. He probably wouldn’t even mind. Peeking over his shoulder, he snuck a drink and immediately pulled back, his lips twisted in disgust. How Connor could stand the taste of vodka was beyond him. 

He flipped his phone over and saw that Connor hadn’t responded. He sighed. Suddenly he was having flashbacks to the time Arnold brought Naba to New York for her twenty-first birthday and Connor and Kevin had treated them to a night on the town. It had been a good time until Kevin had to scrape his boyfriend off the floor of the public bathroom in their favorite bar, profusely apologizing to the bartender for the mess he left behind. For all of Connor’s strengths, holding his liquor was not one of them. 

Sneaking one last swig of Connor’s drink -- after all, he was probably about to earn it -- he laid down some cash and headed for the bathroom to retrieve him. 

Kevin knew something was wrong before he even opened the door. His hand was frozen on the knob when he heard a muffled thud, followed by a soft whimper. He yanked open the door and his heart stopped cold in his chest.

Connor was pushed up against the opposite wall with his back to Kevin. One man held him by the neck, the other twisting an arm behind his back. Kevin could only see a sliver of Connor’s profile, but the panic was evident in his face. He was crying. 

“Hey!” Kevin’s voice was firmer than he expected for someone who was suddenly trembling from head to toe. He charged forward without thinking about it, his body propelled by pure rage and adrenaline. 

The man at Connor’s neck was the first to spin around, being promptly met with Kevin’s fist. He didn’t process the throbbing in his knuckles -- holy shit he had just punched someone in the face -- and he didn’t have time to, because the other man was advancing on him now and oh. Wow. The pain in his hand was nothing compared to pain in his face as a fist exploded against it. 

He stumbled back clutching his gushing nose and trying to see past the stars that danced in his vision. Somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears, he thought he heard a slur being thrown his direction. He steadied himself against the sink. He had to keep fighting. He had to make sure Connor was safe. He nearly swung again when a hand landed on his arm, but his eyes focused in time to see Connor inches from him, looking at him with wide eyes. Kevin blinked, once, twice, trying to clear his vision. When he looked around the bathroom, the men were gone. They were alone.

“Kevin? Can you hear me?”

“Connor.”

The sudden clarity of everything that just happened crashed into him and, ignoring the throbbing pain and the blood he felt dribbling down to his chin, Kevin pulled Connor against his chest, wrapping his arms protectively around his back. 

“Connor, oh, my god,” he closed his eyes tight, whispering into his hair, “Are you okay? What did they do to you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he said, though his voice wavered unsteadily, “Let me see your face.”

Kevin reluctantly obliged when he felt him squirming in his hold, pulling back and scanning over Connor for any sign of injury. Connor took a step back and lifted his hand to Kevin’s cheek, running his thumb lightly over the red skin that was starting to surface. Kevin winced at the contact. 

“That’s going to bruise,” Connor noted, moving his hand to the back of Kevin’s neck. Kevin closed his eyes at the soothing brush of his hand in his hair. 

“I don’t care,” Kevin said, “As long as you’re okay.”

Connor swallowed hard, attempting to mask the panic in his eyes, but Kevin didn’t miss the way his hands shook against his skin. They would need to talk about this. Somewhere far away from this bathroom, from this bar, from this fucking town that proved to them time and time again that they were not welcome here. Somewhere they were both safe. For now, Kevin pulled him into a protective hug once more, and took comfort in the small words whispered against his shoulder.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

[thevengeanceuniverse]

Music is Worthless (WinterIron)

Read the whole thing here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563422

                                                            ~~~

Barnes took a hell of a long time to find, leading Steve in a merry chase around the world as he thoroughly waged war on any Hydra bases he had ever been housed in or heard whispers of.

Steve was gone more often than not, coming back for a few days every few months when he lost the trail, back to Tony so he could aim him in the right direction.

Tony didn’t blink at Steve’s increasing favours. He provided all the funds, created new algorithms for the search, researched the background of Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier program, kept the team together and safe during battle. He did not think about the fact that Steve had dropped everything at the mere mention of Bucky Barnes.

~~

Sifting through 70 years of torture and brainwashing protocol brought back his own nightmares. They blended together, making him remember the waterboarding, the yelling in his ears, the shock that lit him with painful intensity as car battery met with water and became electrocution.

Electrocution would turn into Barnes’ electroshock therapy and the hands holding down his arms would be bound to a chair. He would scream and scream, but there would be no sound. Gagged with the mouth guard, there would only be heartacheing, back-breaking, soul-shattering pain and that black hole of silence.

Once again, sleeping wasn’t the most successful experiment so far, but at least when he pushed himself far enough his body took over and knocked him out. He would catch a precious few hours before the nightmares came to say hi and then he would wake up with the trapped screams in his throat and get back to work.

It was like an alarm clock.

Even as he adjusted to his new normal, life decided to be the everlasting gift that it was and exposed a buried video from December 16th, 1991.

He threw up the first time he saw it, the image of Bucky Barnes killing Howard playing in his head over and over against the soundtrack of his mother having the life choked out of her.

Then he watched it obsessively, disturbed by finally seeing his parents after so many years with none of the accompanying music that made it feel like them. If he didn’t recognize their faces and voices, he could almost fool himself that it was strangers, people he didn’t know that wouldn’t make him feel grief and anger and sadness and every other negative emotion under the sun.

The one bare comfort he got out of it was that the main thing that Howard thought of as he was dying was helping Maria. Maybe he wasn’t such a heartless bastard after all.

He was still dead though.

~~

He decided he wasn’t going to tell Steve, continuing to update him on the Winter Soldier’s movements and seeing him off to places unknown as scheduled.

He was so wrapped in the process of finding the man that he forgot what actually was supposed to happen when they found him. Until Steve landed the Quinjet on the Tower’s pad and out walked him and James Buchanan Barnes following like a dark, solemn shadow.

Tony locked down the lab immediately, bending over his knees as he struggled to breathe and remember what he’d been trying to convince himself of: Barnes was separate from the person responsible for the murder of his parents, that that sin lay at the Winter Soldier’s feet and the man had been tortured and had his memory and his very self wiped away like condensation on glass.

He didn’t come out of the lab for three days.

~~

Tony was being an absolute creep and watching James Barnes through the safety of JARVIS’ many, many eyes in the sky. Barnes was subdued most of the time, always scanning the room as if he expected to be attacked at any moment and stiffening any time anyone touched him, even Steve.

But even as Steve’s face fell every time Barnes pulled away, Barnes’ face was impassive, set in a blank mask that said nothing of how he was feeling. It was as if he had no emotion at all. He watched everyone, and from where he was sequestered away, Tony watched him.

He decided to attempt his escape in the middle of the night when no one would see him. His stomach had started to cannibalize itself and all he had left was a moldy piece of bread. Tony wasn’t desperate enough to sink to that yet.

Peeking down from the elevator and seeing the lights off in the kitchen, he crept forward as carefully as he could while listening for any sounds of music or movement. When he heard nothing, he gave up on his Mission Impossible moment and strode into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee pot.

The magic mix successfully brewing, he opened the fridge and started rummaging through the leftovers. Clint would be pissed that he’s taking the last of the Thai food, but Tony wasn’t worried. Thor was the only one you looked out for when stealing food, Tony didn’t even dare look in the direction of his PopTarts.

Popping the food in the microwave to reheat, he took the time when he was waiting to scrub some of the grease caked on his hands. He didn’t even remember how those got there.

“So you’re Tony Stark.”

Yelping, Tony whipped around to be confronted with one James Buchanan Barnes, shock and disbelief radiating through his core.

Holy shit, this motherfucker is Silent too.

~~

Tony and Barnes stared at each other a long moment. Tony because he was trying to wrap his mind around two impossibly Silent people and Barnes because he just didn’t care to end it.

Packaging up his shock to deal with later, Tony plastered a welcoming grin on his face. “Sergeant Barnes, well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

Barnes forehead creased at Tony’s flirtatious tone, not responding even as he watched him. Tony was unnerved by the intensity of his attention, but he covered that with babble.

“I hope you’ve been having a wonderful stay here at Chez Stark, has Steve given you the grand tour yet?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me here, seeing as you’ve been avoiding me.” Barnes folded his arms across his chest, gaze still pinned on Tony.

“No, you misunderstand,” Tony waved off the accusations. “I’ve just been busy with a few very important projects—of which I would tell you about but then I’d have to kill you.”

Barnes gave him a once over sceptically. “I am absolutely sure I can take you.”

“Is that a diss?” Tony responded, astonished. “Do you actually have a sense of humour buried under all those scowly eyebrows, Robocop?”

Barnes shrugged succinctly.

“Ah, I see, a man of few words. Okay, Snowflake I’ll have you know that if I had the suit on, your ass would be kicked three ways to Sunday.”

“Maybe I’m too old for generation, but when people said that when I came from, you actually needed the ability to back up those words, Shortstuff.”

Tony let out an insulted squawk. “I am not short.”

Barnes raised a brow and Tony could almost hear the “Really?” Reaching behind him for Tony’s coffee cup, he offered it for Tony to take, only to pull it back and hoist it above his head the moment Tony reached out. Lunging for it, Tony came up short and ended up banging his knee on the bottom counter door on the way down.

“What are you, five?” Tony retorted scathingly, glaring when he caught the sound of Barnes’ snort. In response, the man just handed Tony his coffee without fuss, before pushing him into a chair at the table. Grabbing the food from the microwave, he put it on a plate in front of Tony with a quiet order, “Eat.”

Suddenly remembering that he was ravenous, Tony arrowed in on his (stolen) food, groaning happily when spices exploded on his tongue. Yea, free food really was the best.

“You know, you aren’t half bad Barnes,” Tony complimented as he finished up, wiping his face and putting his dishes in the sink.

“Is that something you decided right now?” Barnes paused and Tony felt the air on the back of his neck prickle. “Or is that what you decided after watching me on your cameras for three days?”

Tony debated whether to deny it or not, raising an innocently curious eyebrow when he decided that a silent response was the best response.

“I could hear the whir of the cameras adjusting on me when I came into the room.”

“How the hell did you hear something as soft as that?”

Barnes just tapped his ear casually, as if being able to hear near soundless noises even in a room full of people was an everyday occurrence.

“I wondered why you would want to keep an eye on me even when going to such lengths to avoid me. The only reason I can come up with is that you know I killed Howard and Maria Stark.” At this confession, emotion flashed across Barnes’ face too fast for Tony to read, like the bare glimpse of silvery fish in water.

Tony flinched at the confirmation, at the reminder of what he had spent the last three days struggling to reconcile with. Taking a breath, he reminded himself of the other videos he had seen in his search for Barnes, the ones that revealed the extent that James Buchanan Barnes’ personality had been wiped away to become the Winter Soldier. He had felt connected to this man, and Tony pulled on those memories of connection, trying to let those emotions guide him.

“It wasn’t you, it was the Winter Soldier. You had no choice.” It sounded rehearsed, like Tony was just trying to convince himself of his own words and it wasn’t working, not on him and not on Barnes.

“Mr. Stark—”

“—was my father. And your friend.” Tony let out a sigh, giving up on trying to say the right thing and just going for the truth. “He was your friend, someone you knew and someone who knew you. I watched the video, listened to the way he greeted you a million times. He was happy to see you Sergeant Barnes, recognizing you even after all those years and relieved to see you alive and well. And that more than anything says that the man you were that day was not the man that my father had known, was not a man you chose to be. You were robbed of your choice that day, and many more days before and after that and I can’t blame you for things that were beyond your ability to control.”

Tony extended his hand. “But we both are in control of this situation right now, Sergeant Barnes and I choose to forgive you. But you also have to make the choice to forgive yourself.”

Barnes shook his head in a negative immediately and made no move to take Tony’s hand.

“It won’t be easy—trust me, you’re talking to the Merchant of Death here and I committed my sins fully in control of my decisions, but you have to at least be willing.”

Barnes scrutinized him for a long minute before slowly, hesitantly grasping Tony’s hand with his own and shaking firmly.

“Sergeant Barnes, it’s good to finally meet you. Welcome home.”

“Thank you, Tony. Call me Bucky.”

~~

With the dreaded confrontation out of the way, Bucky became a regular visitor to the lab, sometimes with Steve and sometimes not but when they did come together, they didn’t interact that much, all of their focus on being with Tony.

If Tony had been spoiled before with Steve’s attention, now he was downright rotten. He got used to Steve reclaiming his spot on the couch to draw or call out questions as Bucky and Tony ran around conducting fun (explosive and dangerous) experiments with the arm.

Sometimes Bucky came alone when Steve was out or when things turned bad. He never begrudged Tony for not always noticing him at first, playing with the robots until Tony was ready. Then they would sit next to each other and they would drink the expensive Turkish coffee Bucky would bring in a thermos and he would talk about all the things he didn’t feel ready to share with Steve.

Bucky would bring out the broken parts of him he only felt safe enough to entrust to Tony and Tony was listen and sometimes entrust his nightmares to Bucky.

Sitting with the shattered pieces of their selves around them, Tony realized that he had fallen in love with Bucky Barnes.

[nikatyler]

What’s this, a second replies post in less than a week? Well, yeah. I just wanted to talk. I always want to talk, actually. Which is why I’m always reblogging ask games and stuff. I’m also not opposed to talking in private messages, though I must warn you, I’m pretty anxious and...even though I want to talk, sometimes I just don’t reply, especially if you just drop in with hi and not much else. I do bad with these kind of messages. I know, that makes no sense and it’s terrible and I hate when people ignore me that way too. But it’s like there’s this barrier that doesn’t let me do a simple thing. Because I’m an anxious mess and don’t actually know how to talk. I’m also weird but we all know that already.

Wow, those might be the reasons why I can’t keep a conversation with anyone. 🤔

On another note...I tried to play NSB this week and came to conclusion that 1) my laptop hates TS4 and 2) I have too much CC. The entire system froze. I’ll have to clean out my Mods folder, I’ve always tried to keep it at 1 GB, now it’s almost 3 GB. I guess I’ll also lower the graphic settings, even though that kinda breaks my heart because I like when my game looks pretty. Oh well. I have to sacrifice something.

How I’ll end up throwing away 2 GB of CC is a mystery to me though.

Replies now.

alfalfalegacy replied to your photoset “Courtney: “Uhh…” Regan: “Wait. You…you guys? You’re like…” Felix: “Not...”

she took that surprisingly well i must say haha

Trust me, it’s just the shock.

alfalfalegacy replied to your photoset “Sammy: “I don’t want to sound like I love myself too much but I need...”

!!

alfalfalegacy replied to your photoset

*insert like a hundred heart eyes here*

Our babies are finally together ;---;

justkeeponsimming replied to your photo “Third dollhouse build and this time, it finally has inhabitants - none...”

This is so cute!

Thank you! I loved working on this one.

By the way, guys!! All my dollhouse builds are available on the gallery!

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Felix: “Mum, dad, everyone, you all know Courtney as Regan’s best...”

Wait, what? Well I want to hear the whole story��

whysimstho replied to your photoset “Felix: “Mum, dad, everyone, you all know Courtney as Regan’s best...”

Engaged?!

I knoooow. He could have warned them in advance that he’s started dating someone. But nah, he forgot, and he just had to drop it like this.

Wait a moment, how can you just casually forget to mention you have a girlfriend? I mean, it’s not like there’s any bad blood between him and his parents. Felix, buddy, you have explaining to do.

geezsims replied to your photoset “Lydia Rose || Absent-Minded | Brave | Night Owl | Artistic |...”

so pretty!!! aaaa

Thank youuuu! Honestly if she was real, I’d probably crush hard on her ahhh.

alfalfalegacy replied to your photoset “You all need makeovers.”

annabeth and lydia didn't end up that bad for randomly generated outfits all things considering haha

Oh yeah, definitely! Sammy’s shirt was also kinda ok. Will though...nope. That’s not a good look for him.

moonswirls replied to your post “I’ve mentioned this on twitter already but anyway, today I got an...”

pfft, the way the algorithm works; if it picks up too much flesh tone it flags it. it could literally be a picture of someones hand.

I know that, but I’m still surprised it picked up this post. I’m fairly sure there wasn’t that much “skintone colours”. Oh well, it’s the tumblr algorithm, I should just accept it.

alfalfalegacy replied to your photoset “Aaaand now they’re official! I thought the interaction would never...”

yay!

(I could have used the it’s been 84 years gif again but I didn’t want to)

twistedsim replied to your post “*points at all the ask memes* guys talk to me please”

Relatable.. Life is lonely most of the time. My best friends at the moment are my almost two year old daughter (who speaks gibberish), my kitty and something that most people call boyfriend but really looks more like part of the sofa.. I'm from Finland and we talk about the weather most of the time. So, how is the weather there?

The weather was surprisingly cold today! Mum said it even snowed in the morning, but I was asleep so I didn’t see that.

Yeah, life gets lonely sometimes...it got better for me irl though, so I’m not complaining that much about that part. I didn’t have any friends in middle school. I have one really close friend now. Still, from another point of view, my life is still pretty lonely. 😅

Feeling lonely on simblr...this feeling comes in waves for me, I’d say. Usually it gets worse when I’m waiting for someone to reply back to a long message (and boy, do I send long messages often - it’s like letters). I tend to overthink things, so all sorts of scenarios go through my head in that case - they don’t have time, but wait, I’ve seen them around, reblogging things and commenting on posts by other people, so does that mean they’re ignoring me? Do they not want to talk anymore? If so, why don’t they just tell me to stop bothering them? Have they ever actually liked me or did they just talk to me because they didn’t want me to feel bad? Wait, I said *that* to them, maybe they hate me now...and I could go on and on.

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Courtney: “Yes, you figured it out. I’m pregnant.” Regan: “Holy shit....”

Hm, I thought so. I hope they aren't doing a mistake!

I promise they’ll be fine. I promise. They were good friends before getting together, then they got even closer when they started dating...they’re going to be there for one another no matter what.

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your post “10-15 for Regan and Felix❤️❤️”

I asked the 10th question before I knew that Courtney was pregnant - such a coincidenceXD

Oh yeah, you’re right! Well then, I’m glad I waited with answering these asks. It’s better to talk about these things when I know it won’t be a spoiler haha

[camariba]

Not to bring everybody down, but I’m seriously worried/pessimistic about the future of Tumblr.

I see people reacting like “Oh they’re banning porn, that’s great, finally they’re gonna get rid of the porn bots and also my blog is super wholesome and sfw, so nothing will change for me.”

And look, I also find the bots annoying and also holy shit apparently this site has a serious problem with child porn (which I was thankfully pretty ignorant about until fairly recently), so great that they’re cracking down on that.

BUT

It’s not like they’re finally listening to users who report this stuff, and then use actual employees do delete content of that sort. I’m sure it would be possible to make the site safer and less of a haven for the worst kind of people, but that would probably take more time, money and effort than Tumblr is willing to invest. So nah, better get rid of any and all, uh, “explicit content” right along with the horrible harmful and illegal stuff, and use algorithms to do it.

Do you guys realize what the consequences are gonna be?

So, first thing that comes to mind, all the actual porn blogs are gonna disappear. That’s a pretty sizeable number of users gone all at once, so I’m worried that they’re gonna increase the number of ads to compensate for that, since, as far as I know, that’s where the money comes from.

Then, “explicit content”? “Female-presenting nipples”? Where do I even start with that? First of all, there’s that double standard again - male nipples are fine, female nipples are inherently sexual apparently. So that means not just porn, but any and all instances of artistic nudity, journalistic content, activist stuff, etc. that happens to show nipple will be gone. That’s gonna be a huge loss. Also, let’s not forget that LGBTQ+/Queer* content is already treated as somehow more “mature” and “explicit” than het content, I’ve read many a thinkpiece mentioning how this content is already hidden when you use safe mode. And in the last few days, a loooot of it has also been flagged in addition to that. And I’m not talking hardcore gay porn here, but people kissing, holding hands, that kind of thing. So tumblr as a (at least semi-) safe space for LGBTQ+/Queer people will cease to exist. As if that wasn’t horrible enough, I can totally see something like this opening the door to even stricter rules that crack down on any subject that can be considered even remotely controversial, to keep the site “safe” for advertisers, similar to what is happening on youtube (for those who don’t know, videos with “controversial” subjects get demonitized really fucking fast nowadays), which would probably spell the end for Tumblr as a tool for activism. Even if Tumblr won’t go quite that far, the way they treat LGBTQ+/Queer content even now is awful and I hate it.

And last but not least, don’t forget that all of this is being done with algorithms that are set to be super sensitive. I’m a real IT n00b, so I freely admit I don’t understand how it works, but it looks to me like they are programmed to respond to (read: flag) content that contains certain colours, shapes, or with gifs, certain movements, that you commonly find in porn (so for example, probably anything with fleshy colours is at risk now). The last few days have already shown that completely wholesome stuff is flagged en masse - pictures of bread, of flowers, 18th-century paintings of fully clothed people, etc, nothing is safe. That also means that Tumblr’s statements about art being exempt from the new rules are basically meaningless, because anything can get automatically flagged anyway.

The only thing that I bet is going to remain untouched is all the Nazi shit that I keep seeing, because Tumblr has never, not once, shown any interest in getting rid of any of that, because ~ free speech ~ I guess.

So this is the future I predict: no, Tumblr is not going to implode overnight and disappear on December 17th. But it is going to get a lot less fun/interesting to use, leading to people using it less. Less active users means less content, making it even less fun for the remaining users and so on and so forth, so more and more people will abandon the site until there is nothing going on here anymore and then Tumblr will just wither and die.

And it makes me really sad. I’ve been on this site since 2011, which seems like the saddest and most pathetic thing to even mention, but yeah, that means I’ve been here my entire adult life, actually. And oh, it has been a journey. Tumblr can be such a dumpster fire of bullying, terrible opinions, hate, actual illegal stuff, fandom wars and bad hot takes. But more than that, for me it has been at least a jumping off point to learn more about social justice and the ways in which people are marginalized, it has been a treasure trove of interesting and weird trivia, of hilarious and surreal humour (of both the intentional and unintentional kind), of book/film/series recommendations, of actual peaceful fandom discourse and always, always, of beautiful pictures. Seriously, people from out there in meatspace mostly don’t understand how much I just love looking at collections of beautiful pictures as an escape from everyday life and a way to calm myself when I’m stressed and anxious, and as inspiration. And I love how, despite it being theoretically a “social media site”, you don’t have to interact with anyone if you don’t want to. You can just keep to yourself and look at nice things. There is no other site quite like this one. Pinterest would probably come closest to replacing what I like about Tumblr, but it’s missing the “Gesamtkunstwerk”-feel that you get from your own Tumblr blog.

Yeah, to sum up, despite its many, many, many flaws, I always really liked Tumblr and I don’t want to say goodbye.

(* if you’re wondering why I write LGBTQ+/Queer instead of choosing one term or using them interchangeably, it’s because some people from the community consider Queer a slur, but some other people from the community are very very opposed to considering it a slur and don’t want to avoid it because they say it’s a perfect umbrella term for people who don’t want to fit themselves into any narrower box than “not hetero” and/or “not cis”. I’m just trying to cover my bases here)