#think before you react

[joe20xx]

During elections and moments of political panic, those that dehumanize others will defend themselves with the reactionary shares and posts that don’t have them think: “hold on is that actually true, or is that just reinforcing my fears or likes?”.

And they will quick to defend their side, in their own collective cognitive dissonance. The algorithm is known to reinforce such, yet provocative material tend to incite pseudo intellectualism for clicks; then denial kicks in, as if one isn’t responsible for their behavior “because it’s so addictive”, despite not having a history of addiction prior.

“The propagandists’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that another set of people aren’t human.”- Huxley

No one controls elections truly; “they” may control the narrative, but only gullible-impulsive people believe everything a particular spin doctor says.

[claraoswalds]

#mrs flood who are you: time lord edition

[leveragehunters]

I suspect the source of what OP is referring to is this twitter thread by Rahaeli (amongst other things, the co-founder of Dreamwidth and an experienced trust and safety professional): https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1669350441971494914.

I don't know whether OP is referring to the thread itself or to posts they've seen which may have misunderstood the thread or taken it out of context.

I suggest reading it for yourself. It's clear, easy to understand, and cites evidence for the conclusions drawn. It's also available as a single post here: https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/797384.html.

Understanding what's actually being said is just as important as not falling victim to fearmongering. Emotional calls designed to invoke a gut reaction should always be viewed with suspicion. Think before you react.

Don't fall prey to anti-AO3 fearmongering!

I have been seeing more and more threads over the last few days that are either deliberately or unintentionally using the current AO3 drama to scaremonger and turn public opinion against the archive.

Words like

👉 ABUSE

👉 CHILD PORN

👉 CRIMINAL/ILLEGAL

These words are being used to short circuit your brain and force you into an emotional reaction before you have the information to come to a reasoned conclusion about the facts.

What is actually happening?

Archive volunteers (all AO3 labor is volunteered, there are no paid employees) were exposed to images of Child Sexual Abuse during a violent, terroristic attack by malicious actors against the archive. Additionally, malicious actors continue to attempt to upload links to AO3 containing images of CSAM hosted off site.

The allegations of abuse are that AO3 and its parent organization OTW did not sufficiently protect itself (its volunteers) from the images that were used to attack it.

⭐ AO3 is being accused of failing to sufficiently protect itself, and being called criminal for it. On an individual level rather than an organizational level we would call this 'victim blaming'.

⭐ There is a rumor that AO3 is somehow in criminal violation of the law and is coded in such a way that it cannot comply with the law.

⭐ This rumor is false.

AO3 has already clarified that they are confident they are not in violation of the law.

Yet rumors continue to spread and scare people away from using the archive.

This is potentially intentional!

This is potentially a campaign to fearmonger, sew discord, and shake support for the archive.

Please do not fall prey to fearmongering rumors, and investigate the situation for yourself.

[eir-trixa]

Okay, this was probably already said before and I might be slow in this uptake but don't you think that Annabeth's fear of Percy controlling poison in HoH is less because she fears him using that against Akhlys or against her or anyone, but more on that she was getting flashbacks of Luke as Kronos and how the same kind of anger and unlimited power lead him to betray his family and leave her behind?

I think to see that same thing that happened to Luke happen to someone she loved as much as Percy was what triggered her. Cause she's already seen Percy harness so much power before, probably had the front seat to most of his feats. But seeing the same anger as Luke's - which Percy already admitted to having understood in MoA - and having been presented power great enough to allow him to get revenge was probably the combination that threw her off like... that's not Percy. If he continues to that same path she's gonna lose him, like she did her older brother.

[thereweredragonshere]

I would so fucking love it if the cast of httyd could react to in universe moments on some massive magical stone or whatever. For example, imagine Berk’s reaction to their future chief standing in a pile of fish, pouting. Imagine said future chief’s reaction to their reaction. ‘Why are you stood in a pile of fish?’ ‘SHUT UP!!!’

[coquelicoq]

[ID: Panels from chapter 101 of the Natsume's Book of Friends manga. Natsume thanks Natori and Matoba for coming to rescue him and Nyanko-sensei. Natori's serious but unsurprised expression remains unchanged over three panels. Matoba's lips are slightly parted, and in the second panel he says, "Huh…?" /end ID]

the contrast in reactions between natori and matoba...matoba and his little taken aback "what the hell am i supposed to do with this bid for human connection" face that i hold so dear. idk what's going on with natori exactly but my guess is he's just. really scared for natsume. he must have been, to have gone to get matoba. natsume doesn't get natori's affectionately indulgent look until after the danger has passed. natori's gotta get his game face on.

[detectivebambam]

no way.... no fucking way...

"how come the foxes were fine with Alison grieving Seth but not with Kevin grieving Riko?"

.....what???? cuz there's no way i genuinely just saw this on my feed just now

[itslookingback]

message to all trans people please survive

[mellowdrawsthings]

you got what you wished for

[lunar-wandering]

do y'all think Macaque is falling back into the role that Azure and the others put on him by remaining on the outskirts of the group because he thinks his input/presence is unwanted (and yeah his presence isn't really wanted by MK and the others BUT. something about the fact Macaque is placing himself at the edge of the group, the edge that Azure and the others pushed him to, doesn't really sit well)

[dykedvonte]

I think it says something that Jimmy absolutely destroyed the crew and ship in half the time Curly was captain. Like he couldn’t even get them past 2 full months before breaking down.

Like he really couldn’t be half the man he thought Curly was.

[starberry-cupcake]

I overdid it with the amount of pages I read and now the next recap is looking like this

idk how long it's gonna be, I should have stopped at two chapters, but I saw gideon's skull and didn't know when to stop

bonus placeholder while I finish this recap: here's dana reading with me outside

[possamble]

Do you have any headcanons or thoughts about Falin having a crush on Marcille pre-canon? Especially during her later years at the school/the years she was with Laios.

Just full on "awkward and slightly gnc teenage lesbian has a massive crush on the touchy-feely girly girl straight best friend" tropes everywhere. Even better bc it's the "best friend is also the popular girl while lesbian is the slightly ostracized quiet one" dynamic in school. Falin gets so so so good at not having a heart attack every time Marcille gets in her personal space. But she's so resigned to never saying anything bc why would a girl as blinding as Marcille ever like her back. She also doesn't make an effort to get over it either, she's just content to be trapped in that stable dynamic of silently being in love with Marcille while getting to enjoy CLEARLY being Marcille's favourite person. She gets so used to it that it's almost just background noise most of the time-- it would have to be, unless she wanted to be freaking out 24/7 bc Marcille is so goddamn affectionate.

Her feelings also definitely change throughout the time that they're in school together-- at first it was this "whooaaah pretty older girl" puppy crush that you can clearly see developing in the flashbacks we get (I think she doesn't even like... realize her fixation on Marcille is romantic at all until years after it starts, when she's 12-14 ish and all the other girls around her are talking about crushes). But then they get closer, over the years Marcille starts getting really attached and letting down her guard, and Falin gets to see the ridiculous side of her. She gets to calm her down from her tantrums when experiments don't work out, or help her clean up when something explodes in her face. I feel like the progression of her feelings from "schoolgirl infatuation" to "unrequited love" probably almost exactly corresponds to how slowly Marcille goes from trying to keep Falin at a polite but friendly distance (like she does with everyone else) to her facade completely eroding as she becomes her cheerful and ridiculous self again for the first time since her father died.

That's probably the saddest part: Falin knows that she's clearly Marcille's favourite person on the surface level, but she doesn't quite fully grasp the enormity of what that means to Marcille. She doesn't get that she's the person who made the world colorful again for Marcille, that she is the first person outside of Marcille's family to really and truly make her laugh. She just thinks she's the beloved but dinky little short-lived sidekick, one of many that Marcille has had and will have.

Part of it is that, despite Marcille becoming such a clingy and affectionate best friend, I think her initial demeanour already did its damage. You see Falin being super adventurous and weird at first, bringing Marcille berries and other stuff, only to be rebuffed by Marcille exasperatedly saying she's working or looking kind of put off by it. And by the time you see her a little older, shes already quieter and better at masking -- and I'm not saying that that's entirely Marcille's fault (being the weird girl at an all girls academy for almost the entirety of her teenhood must have been brutal, my god) but she definitely learned that she's a potential nuisance to Marcille if she doesn't tone herself down. She learned that Marcille most likely sees her as a weird little kid following her around bc she has no other friends. And for the most part, she was never given any reason to unlearn any of that.

And that all very very smoothly transitions into Marcille being her "first love that was never meant to be anyway" when she leaves the academy. Chapter closed in her mind: she loved and pined from a distance and that was that. Every now and then she'll see another woman with Marcille's build or her shade of hair and be like ":( I miss her..." But then just kinda move on with her day. Same with when she's going through her own spellbook and finds a note that Marcille left her/correction that she made-- she'll smile fondly and reminisce about how much Marcille doted on her, and then move on.

Sometimes she thinks about contacting Marcille but convinces herself that it's too late (she spent too many months focusing on getting Laios healthy again and didn't mean to go no contact, but ah well). It's only when she has a practical reason to be reaching out that would also benefit Marcille ("Marcille is studying dungeons and we need a trustworthy mage to go with us to the dungeons") that she feels like she's allowed/that it wouldn't just be 100% a nuisance.

I almost think she didn't expect Marcille to reply at all, only to get a telegraph (or some in-universe equivalent of express mail, maybe magical pigeon carrier) that's like. EN ROUTE TO ISLAND. LETTER TO FOLLOW. and she freaks out like AAAA LAIOS SHE SAID YES WE HAVE TO CLEAN UP NOW.

I do think getting a response accidentally sparks a little hope in her, judging by the way she acts in the chp 57 flashback-- she's pouty that Marcille sees her as a kid, gets really worked up about being presentable, and then tries to play it cool when she actually meets Marcille (as if she didn't freak out and force Laios to shave while rambling a mile a minute about Marcille). She's an adult now, really and truly, and she's seen and survived things that her 18 yr old self would have never even imagined-- then all of a sudden, the person she was in love with since she was ten years old appears, and she's so desperate to be seen as mature and competent. She's trying soooo hard to impress Marcille with her newfound combat and dungeoneering experience...

Only to fall right back into their old dynamic. RIP. At least she gets the girl eventually, even if it takes dying twice and being the core catalyst behind an almost-apocalypse.

[tathrin]

I saw a mention of Celebrimbor in third age AU in your tags and I deeply wish to hear more about it 👉👈

Ohhhh my goodness, okay!!

So, it's a canon-divergence whose pivot-point is set on the idea of Celebrimbor returning to life from the Halls of Mandos shortly before the War of the Ring, and—somehow—begging a boon of the Valar that allows him to return to Middle-earth to help in the struggle against Sauron.

(Is this plausible at this point in time? Probably not, no, no matter how badly they feel for Celebrimbor's pain and how proud they are of his defiance of Sauron before he died. I don't see anyone being allowed to sail back post-Istari, but it's plausible enough that I can build a fic off it if I want to lol.)

So, we pick up in Rivendell with the Council, except this time Celebrimbor isn't just a name in the story of the Rings of Power, he's there. With all his history and skill and knowledge.

(And his trauma and guilt and grief, but shhhh.)

So all of a sudden, there are three options for the Ring: throw it into the sea, throw it in the fire...or entrust the elf who helped make the Rings of Power to take it to a forge, and unmake it.

Of course, with Ost-in-Edhil in ruins, there aren't a lot of forges that are equipped for that kind of work. In fact, the various members of the Council can only think of two: Sauron's forge in Mordor...or Sauron's old forge in Mirkwood.

So that's where the Fellowship heads for.

But since "attacking Dol Guldur" is a lot less stealthy of a mission than "sneak into Mordor," this time the Council decides they have to be more active in providing distractions for Sauron than in the books. They have to have enough attacks going on in other places that the one on Dol Guldur can get lost in the noise. It's one of Sauron's places of power, sure, but it's not really one that matters a lot to him (they hope, probably) so they figure if they have enough battles going on elsewhere, that one will rank low on his priority-scale.

It's a fortress of last resort, a fall-back position he flees to when things are bad elsewhere. If he has to choose between Mordor and Mirkwood, he'll pick Mordor. If he has to choose between attacking the elven realms where the Bearers of the Three Rings are (no longer) hiding, he'll pick Lórien and Rivendell. Who cares about Mirkwood, with its silly flower-crowned king who doesn't even have a Ring?

And if he has to choose between conquering the Dwarves of Erebor and fending-off an assault by Gondor on the Black Gates, or protecting his old half-abandoned home in Mirkwood, he'll surely choose the former two and forget the latter. At the least, if they can split his forces enough that he has to prioritize where he sends his armies, the one he sends to Dol Guldur is sure to be the smallest and least powerful, right?

That's their hope, anyway! So they instigate war everywhere else they can, and hope that while they're keeping Sauron busy there, the Fellowship and the little army sent to help them can both take Dol Guldur and hold its walls against whatever force Sauron sends to take it back long enough for Celebrimbor to do his work.

And if you'd like to read it, here's where it all begins.

[quadrantadvisor]

Alright new Jason Todd headcanons in a dpxdc setting:

Danny is a "liminal" ghost, rather than a "half" ghost. He's alive and dead at the same time. (He's like Jesus Christ (in the church denomination I grew up in), fully ghost and fully human.) Danny, in human form, can go through a ghost shield, because he IS a living human.

Jason, however, is a reanimated corpse. He isn't a ghost, wouldn't have a ghost core, etc, he has a normal human system that runs ON ectoplasm. Jason CANNOT go through a ghost shield, because he is always an ectoplasmic entity. Danny can go through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and be split into a ghost and a human; if Jason went through the ghost catcher, he would straight up die.

(For my purposes I'm gonna say that Jason became an ectoplasmic entity upon his resurrection, but wasn't very stable. Dunking in the Lazarus pit stabilized his system but also poisoned his ectoplasm.)

I do think that Jason could learn certain ghost abilities if he learned to harness his ectoplasm, especially if they detoxed him off the Lazarus waters. He's probably already enhancing his stealth and strength in ways he hasn't really noticed. I think he's held back by the amount of physical matter he's lugging around, so maybe he couldn't fly, but I'm imagining temporary invisibility, or intagibility of like, a limb at a time. Maybe he can't walk through walls, but in a fight he can dodge by instinctively making the targeted part of his body intangible.

[walkingstackofbooks]

Wish wish wishhhh we'd seen the reactions of Julian's friends to the enhancements reveal. Miles' was lovely, ofc, but we got like, a slice of Sisko and then crickets.

And obviously Garak's reaction would have been priceless, but also what about Jadzia? And Kira? And Odo? And and and... I just feel so robbed every time I remember we didn't see it :(