#who is now harassing randomers on the tag

[gaylactic-fire]

If you or a loved one has been affected by The Insane Zelink Anon please call this number

[loosethreadsofyoursoul]

people being anti-someone else’s ship is kind of wild to me lmao. like what do you mean you’re against something that makes other people happy? what do you mean this thing that brings someone joy, isn’t hurting anyone, and doesn’t affect you bothers you to the point that you feel the need to actively put them down and belittle them because of it? what do you mean something you could easily ignore or filter out has become something you want to loudly spew hate about to make yourself feel better? what do you want, for someone to say you’re right? because yes, i’m sure there are people who agree with you, but there’s also a much better way for you to voice that opinion! it’s almost like you can talk about why you don’t like something without putting down the people who do. alternatively, you could not interact with that content if it makes you feel so negatively. you’re not going to make people who like it switch over to your “side”; at best they’re going to ignore you and at worst you’re going to make them feel bad about themselves for something that makes them happy. i simply will never understand.

[valewritessss]

Anyone who’s out of high school or in college, do teenage boys eventually get nicer? They make me not want to go to school.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Not A Joke, Not Unreality:

A company called Quantum Fiber (under Century Link) recently set up my home town for fiber optic internet. I got them a month ago and aside from a few outages it was decent.

Last week, it went out. They sent me a super specific time it would be back-

They failed to make it and sent another, minutes later.

And another when that failed.

And over the week, more and more.

I called and they just read me the same email out loud. They offered no escalation or resources. Every time, they fail. I have not had internet for my house in a week, and this morning I got this one-

I looked into other people having the same problem and found this-

Edit forgot link

That's not something called a "766" line, that's them fucking up my city 766 times. This company is fucking shit, and I'm sick of this. I've filed an FCC complaint but those take a month to even get a reply.

So I'm hoping my 173,365 followers can help make this show of their ineptitude and callousness go viral. Please.

They are in a time of massive expansion into many new states and cities. I am asking anyone so inclined with a few minutes to spare to find your town or state's government information technology office or liaison, or just a local government representative of any kind, and write them a quick note stating that this company destroys town utilities and offers absolute frustrating failures of service in return.

If you have Quantum Fiber and have been similarly failed by them, please file an FCC complaint. You might at least get a free month out of it.

If you work with a news source or popular blog, please boost this however you can.

If you are on any app on which they are present, please feel free to write or tag them and let them know they have failed their customers and cities they work with.

Please do not engage in threats or harassment of any form. Keep this legal, civil, and proper so that it can create a legal basis and record of good citizen interaction on the part of this company's victims. I am asking for help in a grassroots campaign, not a violent or prank-filled heap that just gets people in trouble. AND DO NOT FOR ANY REASON EVER PESTER THE WORKERS, PHONE REPS AND TECHNICIANS THEY HAVE OUT THERE. This is the corporation's fault, not the poor folks they employ who they likely try to make take the backlash.

If you have any other ideas on how to hold a mega-corp responsible for the shit they put their customers through, please comment and recommend. I am sick of this shit. I know there are worse things happening and even worse companies doing horrid things right now. But maybe this one is new/small enough that a viral campaign can kick them where it hurts and get them to act more responsibly to their customers and safely to the places they work.

Please help if you have time. Please spread this in the hopes they see it and get off their butts and fix their horrible shit. Any random reblog or post on any platform might be the one their investors hear of.

Thank you anyone for anything you can do.

-Ari

[killerlookz]

another think piece bc this is kind of getting ridiculous now and i feel so bad for the people on here who are constantly losing motivation or outright deleting their hard work bc of some dumbass kids on the internet

im genuinely curious now, bc i still keep seeing people post about their work being posted on joostwt... like it must be on purpose now right? look i can understand being naive and coming onto tumblr for the first time and just looking up a fandom you like and then being surprised when people are little freaks about it ... but i mean at this point you have to KNOW what is on tumblr we've been the talk of joostwt (and tikok honestly) for like over a month now... you're no longer "accidentally" stumbling upon nsfw works you're actively seeking it out. and specifically actively seeking it out to harass and degrade the people who made the work, to what? to prove your own "morality" in this fandom? do you really think joost feels better now that you've put some random person on blast? do you think he's going to get on his knees and thank you for fighting the evil disgusting tumblr fandom... omg get a GRIPPPP!

if the tumblr fandom bothers you so much... stop actively seeking out the tumblr fandom??? like if its so gross and weird to you WHY do you keep coming back. go block some tags, or delete tumblr off your phone and stop trying to live out your repressed high school mean-girl fantasies over the internet and go outside.

like personally i dont really enjoy the joost fandom on tiktok or twitter, so i just simply dont interact with them, that easy. sure if joost content happens to be on my feed ill probably like it, but other than that i dont go out of my way to search the joost tags, or seek out fan accounts, bc just not my vibe- i suggest the rest of you do the same for us on tumblr

and tbh like i probably assure you joost is not surfing the "joost klein x reader" tag on here 😭 he's not going to see this shit as long as YOUUUU stop reposting them other places. anyways if you want to complain about sexualization are you also going to complain about the women he sexualizes in his songs? or what about that short story he wrote where he talks about a woman going down on him in a club bathroom... are you going to complain that he sexualized that woman? or when he talks about how he stole his friend's mom's bra... are you going to whine about how he sexualized her? because that's him sexualizing a real-life person. i mean cmon if sexualizing real people is so bad, lets at least keep our morals consistent.

[carlsangel]

BACK OFF

carl grimes x fem!reader

(ron makes you uncomfortable, carl comes to your rescue.)

tags: i really don’t know o-o

masterlist here!

“Seriously I don’t get why we have to come to this, what’re we even gonna do here?” You complain, walking beside Rick and Carl on your way to Deanna’s house. Carl looks at you, unsure of what to say as he adjusts Judith in his arms. “Well, they’re tryna be nice…and welcoming I suppose. We’re gonna be polite and say thank you. We’re lucky to be here.” Rick responds.

All of this seriously confused you. I mean, a couple of days ago, you guys were all on the road and sleeping on the floor of a barn that smelt like horse shit. How were you meant to go from that, to going to a house party in a normal house, with normal people, in a normal community? It’s just simply not possible. Not in the world you live in.

You accept what Rick says and just leave it at that. You enter Deanna’s home to the intimidating sound of loud chatter. You were expecting people to harass you with tons of questions about your past and how you wound up here with the group. Things about your family you wished to forget.

Deanna walks over to greet you guys and she grabs Judith from Carl’s arms, freeing his hand to hold yours. He gives a gentle squeeze as Deanna makes pointless small talk that’ll later be forgotten. You notice that Maggie and Glenn are already there which makes you feel somewhat better. You’re pulled from your thoughts when Carl begins to walk further into the house, to the kitchen.

“C’mon I saw someone with lemonade.” He says with a smile. You smile too at how sweet he was, how excited he got over something as simple as lemonade. You follow him through the crowded home and stop at the island with pitchers of random beverages. He grabs you both a cup and pours the lemonade into them. You stare around the room, studying everything you see. Every exit, every person, everything.

“Here.” He hands you the glass and notices how intently you’re looking at everything. “Are you okay?” He asks, pushing the cup closer to you. You snap out of whatever trance you were in and grab the glass. “Yeah I’m fine.” You give him a small smile. He could tell you were spewing bullshit. He knew you well, I mean you’re best friends. You wished you were more than that; he did too.

“Look this place is real. I know it’s hard to accept…I barely have myself.” He explains. “But everything is finally gonna be okay.” You nod, taking in his advice when you hear someone arrive to the house. You and Carl walk into the hallway and look towards the end of it, noticing Jessie and her family had arrived. You’d met Ron earlier and he seemed relatively normal. Minus his odd remarks.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a girl show up at the gates. We’re glad you’re here.” He told you. Who says that? You saw him as he entered and your nose sort of wrinkles. Rick walks over to the both of you and instructs Carl to find Judith and to pry her from whatever strangers arms she was in. You watch as he walks away and your heart immediately sinks. You walk back into the kitchen to hide and you stand by the island sort of just looking around.

“There you are.” You turn to be met by Ron. Great.

“Oh…hi?” You respond as he walks over to grab a glass. “Is that lemonade?” He asks pointing at your cup. Your eyebrows knit together in annoyance; it’s the only yellow beverage on the counter. “Yes.” You respond shortly. He notices how short you’re being but doesn’t really take it as a hint to leave you the fuck alone, but rather a sign to keep going. “Sooo you didn’t talk much back at my house. I was hopin to get to know you more.” He explains. You turn to look at him and drink from your cup, not exactly sure what he wants to hear from you.

“Well what about your family?” He scoots a little closer to you. “M-my family?” You mutter. “Yeah your family. I assume they’re no longer with us…I mean that’s how it is now, right?” He states, you begin to slowly inch away from him. How is this any of his business? You begin to feel increasingly uncomfortable. “I’m just saying, I know how you feel. Before all this, I lost an uncle of mine. So if you need to chat at all, I’m here.” He places his hand on the small of your back, causing you to pull away from him completely. He puts his hand up in the air defensively. Before you know it, his shoulder is pushed back a little, and Carl now has his attention.

“C’mon man just back off her a little okay?” He says relatively politely. Ron laughs a little and shrugs. “I was just tryna help.” Carl scoffs. “I think she’s fine without your help.” He replies. Ron looks between the both of you for a moment and sort of laughs to himself. “You’re together aren’t you?” A smug grin forms on his face. Like he knows anything. “No, but that has nothing to do with the fact that you’re clearly weirding her out.” You place your cup down on the counter, getting ready to head out as soon as possible.

“How am I making her uncomfortable? All I’m doing is trying to help her. That’s all.” Carl rolls his eyes. You could sense that this wouldn’t end well. “Help her? That involves touching?” He remarks. He pushes past him and grabs your hand, leading you out of the kitchen and the situation. He leads out outside to the empty porch. You shiver a little at the sudden breeze of cold air that passed through. Carl noticed of course, he notices everything about you. He takes his flannel off and hands it to you.

“What about you?” You ask, taking it from his hands. He shrugs. “You matter more.” He gives you a small smile. You put the flannel on and you both lean against the railings of the house silently. He’s the first to speak up. “Sorry I wish there for you earlier.” You can see him overthink. You shake your head in response, “No don’t apologize. He didn’t get very far thanks to you.” You giggle. He smiles at that and nods.

You look off into the distance for a moment silently, your hands gently resting on the rails. After a moment you can feel his hand over yours. You’re glad to have someone like him. Someone who actually cares.

You can tell you’ll be more than friends very soon.

a/n: erm this was ass and i’m sorry about it :/ yall idk how to write endings and i know that’s prevalent IM SORRY rhrjrbtjfbfngn anyway i actually like ron and really think he’s a misunderstood character butttt THIS WAS FUN TO WRITE :>

[choccorin]

valentine ! ft. sakura

tags. fluff , sakura haruka x fem!reader , reader is a big eater, reader is described as small

cw. might be ooc , spelling errors, mentions of harassment

a/n. self indulgent. heavily inspired by the fragrant flower blooms with dignity !! the title is from laufey's song, 'valentine' i got carried away. (,,>﹏<,,)

you and sakura first met at café pothos. he was going to get his usual breakfast, kotoha's omurice, but he's surprised to see a girl happily eating a chocolate cake and with at least 5 other empty plates on the table. he's baffled on how much food your eating in one go, he understands that kotoha's cooking is delicious but can a small girl like you eat so much in one sitting, especially at 9 in the morning?!

he just watches you as you happily eat the last bite of your chocolate cake, then you noticed him. people staring at you while eating weren't unusual, you were used to it by now. what caught you off guard was the appearance of the person staring at you, it was a boy with split colored hair and different colored eyes, is his hair dyed? is it natural? is he wearing contacts? or was he born with them? these questions ran through your head but you paid them no mind, as you were captivated by how pretty he looked, you could even say he was beautiful.

when he moved, you suddenly jumped out your seat, taking your things and thanking kotoha for the food, then hurriedly walking to the door. sakura was surprised by your actions, did he do something wrong? or .. were you afraid of him because of his appearance? sakura gloomed at the thought.

the second time you both met, and officially became acquaintances, was when he saved you from some random thugs that were wandering around the town.

it was already dark outside, so there were fewer people around. you tried to quietly walk away but you still caught their attention, so now you're backed against a wall with 4 men surrounding you, they asked why was there such a tiny girl out here at night, the only thing you could do in this situation was hope that someone — anyone — would save you.

as one guy started touching your hair, you closed your eyes tight anticipating on what they were going to do to you, when suddenly he was kicked to the ground, causing the other guys to attack the kicker, but failed as they were also knocked out. you looked at the person who saved you and it was him. the boy at café pothos who had you so captivated, he stayed in your mind for days.

sakura dusted his jacket after knocking out the four thugs without any effort, he then looked at the person they were cornering. it was you again, the chocolate cake girl from café pothos, he thought to himself. you looked scared, really scared, your hands were trembling, and you're looking at him with a terrified expression, was it because of the thugs? or maybe him? before the thoughts clogged his mind even more, he started to walk away.

you ran to catch up to him, once you were caught up, you started to thank him for saving you, it made him blush, which had you confused. he was only doing his job as a bofurin member, he explained, then continued to walk away.

before he could get farther, you asked him for his name which surprised him. he thought that you were scared of him, that was obvious at your first meeting. when he asked you this question you were confused, scared of him? never. you explained that you weren't scared at him at all, it was just that the way he looked at you back then made your heart race, you got shy at how a pretty boy like him saw you eating so much, it made you embarrassed.

once you got your explanation across, he started to blush profusely. he's never made anyone's heart race like that before, and no one has ever called him 'pretty' too, were you playing with him or were you telling the truth. he was doubting you until he saw your eyes, they were sincere. and you were looking at him like he was painting, which made his heart race.

sakura still didn't know if you were actually serious about the things you said but he still gave you his name, which you thought was also pretty. you wanted to exchange contacts so that you can thank him properly for saving you, he was blushing again.

you explained that you didn't have money on you right now, but when you see him again, you'll buy him a cake as a proper 'thank you'. he agreed to your offer, and you both went on your separate ways.

you couldn't wait to see sakura again, you wanted to know more about him. he wouldn't admit this but also he wanted to know more about you, he had so many questions to ask you, but the answers will have to wait until you both meet again.

[myfandomrealitea]

Was your Safe Spaces post discord-(or any closed forum I guess) specific, or do you think the same should go for fandom-themed blogs on tumblr? Like, if I follow someone for Doctor Who content, I'd rather they didn't put real world issues on my dash, but otoh, it's their blog and they get to decide what they post on it (preferably tagged so I can curate). I've observed that people that run themed blogs that become popular often seem to feel an obligation to use their platform for activism (or, in the case of crypto-radfems, deliberately built their platform to recruit), and it stresses tf out of me for the reasons you mentioned, but it's not like the maintags are much safer because there will be spam relating to real-world issues, or antis trying to relate fiction to real world issues.

Realistically; the same outlook can and could be applied to any social setting. Be it online, private, public, face to face, ect.

Your point about obligation in terms of platform scale is something I've also noticed and have been dabbling about raising. Mostly because you see it a lot with celebrities or public content creators who receive a large following. Its often less that they feel obligated and more than they're usually bullied into it.

For example; I follow a trans (FTM) vlogger on Instagram. His entire online presence is based around being trans and helping to educate people and support people in regards to learning about being transgender, transgender health, his personal transitional journey, ect.

He's got a modest following, nothing ridiculous but I think right now he's sitting at around 75,000 followers.

And as of late, there are random people who don't follow him and aren't at all interested in what he has to say flooding his comment section with things like:

Why didn't you mention anything about Gaza?

All these followers and no shout outs for smaller creators?

What are you doing to raise awareness for X?

All these views could've been used to raise awareness for X.

And its fucking ridiculous. People are pressuring a middle class trans man with 75,000 followers to accept responsibility for counter-responding to a literal war when there are actual celebrities and billionaires with both the actual reach and money to make a difference who simply refuse to because they won't personally benefit from it.

I used to run a really popular fandom blog here on Tumblr. For an actual fandom, not just what I do here and now. It started off small, but I eventually grew it to the point where my follow count was creeping toward 10,000. Which for Tumblr and for a fandom-specific blog was not at all insignificant.

And the moment my notes count started going up, the demands started flooding in. People expecting me to reblog their donation links, demanding I share their friend's aid post, asking why I wasn't reblogging awareness posts or donation drives, ect.

Its largely because its easier to harass accessible people over it than it is to harass someone like Kim Kardashian, but its also because again: we have such a skewed understanding of what is actually effective in terms of activism and circulation of information.

Most of it comes down to shaming people and trying to assert that they're a bad person for having the privilege and benefits of a large following but not doing anything for other people or to 'deserve' that following. They're 'a bad person' for having 75,000 people's attention and not using it to force them to be aware of X.

A good example of proper audience targeting and activism is the page We Rate Dogs.

We Rate Dogs will share awareness posts and donation drives.

About dogs.

Because their followers are there for the dogs. Their followers like dogs. They want to enjoy dog content and help dogs.

If they started sharing posts about war and death and rape, the people who are following them to see cute dog videos will simply unfollow them.

They're using their targeted platform properly.

[babygirlbdubs]

Hello Technoblade voters!

So, your guy lost to the GoodTimes. Maybe you don’t know who to vote for now. I mean, if Technoblade isn’t immune to the good times… who is?

I propose to you: Ethoslab.

Now, if you don’t know who Etho is, lemme give you a rundown.

he’s one of THE og minecraft letsplayers. your favorite minecraft youtuber? yeah, etho is probably one of the reasons they got into mcyt. etho is your favorite mcyt’s favorite mcyt

he’s faceless, and has been for his entire 12+ year youtube career

he has only changed his skin once or twice in those 12 years, and the most recent one was to remove the extra face on his torso because he didn’t know how previously

that skin is literally just kakashi naruto

etho is a god at redstone. he basically invented half the redstone that’s used today. hopper clock? that’s etho’s. i mean… he’s invented a storage system that lets you search for a specific item. it’s called the googler because it’s basically a search engine.

he is an absolute NERD (/aff) and insanely smart

he is genuinely kind to his friends, and has a very sweet yet mischievous demeanor. though, even his friends will call him mysterious

he’s canadian so like… arctic/antarctic solidarity… right?

he has spent many many MANY years perfecting a PVP arena game called Battle Bane. look it up. it’s insane.

actually, all the minigames he’s made are pretty insane. and most of them involve death. i mean. he had one called Hurtin’ Hermits where the whole goal was to kill the other hermits as much as possible and enact chaos

I could go on and on about Etho and what he’s like. HOWEVER. I think it’s more interesting to tell you how he’s portrayed by the fandom.

etho tends to be portrayed as a quiet, broody, mysterious guy despite actually being a bit of a goofball

he’s drawn not as kakashi naruto, but more often, a hot twink that can range from sad puppy to sexy dude covered in blood in the span of a single post

some people headcanon him to be as old as the universe, and tied to the void

he has multiple popular animal traits, from catboy to bunny to most commonly arctic fox

there’s etho titty tuesday. there’s. i mean. there’s etho titty tuesday.

i mean really, just… go into the ethoslab tag and you can see all the ways he’s portrayed.

And if that’s not convincing enough, here are some things he’s done in canon to hopefully sway you.

in season 7 of hermitcraft, he had a shop called Shade-E-E’s, where people could sign other people up to basically get harassed (/lh) by Etho’s shenanigans. “Free Glass” meant panes of light grey glass hidden in all your chests so you couldn’t put things into the chest. “Gardening” meant beehives hidden throughout your base so you would hear buzzing at random. “Pest Relocation” meant spawning endermites in your home.

also in season 7, he had the shop Sneak-E-E’s, which was a secret popup shop where he undercut prices or sold rare item overstock. you could only buy while it existed, and only when you could find it. the first time it was built was up in the sky, all out of shulker boxes so it wouldn’t render in until you got close. the second time was in the unused floor of Mayor GoodTimesWithScar’s shop. scar had no idea for. a while.

in last life, he scammed scar out of a life to give to bdubs, and then promptly killed scar and stole the enchanter. oh yeah, he did it with a fishing rod, too.

in season 9, he moved into bdubs’ basement without telling bdubs

in season 9, he also started late. so, in order to catch up, he exiled himself to a place untouched by the other hermits and wouldn’t let himself come back until he was able to defeat a full raid on his own. it didn’t take him long.

in double life, he and joel were paired, and were the most chaotic duo on the server. they hunted people for sport (notably, grian and scar) and burned things down for fun. “the ship burns everything burns” chanted as they set the entire map on fire

in last life, he went around trying to intimidate people into giving him gifts and he would spare their life. pretty much everyone was instantly afraid of him.

actually, most of the hermits are pretty intimidated by etho. including goodtimeswithscar.

also, most of the hermits are ethogirls.

etho and scar end up on opposing sides in pretty much everything, especially the life series (which is a funky lil hardcore battle royale). they are traditionally enemies. they pick fights with each other for fun.

If you want vengeance for Technoblade— blood for the blood god— vote Ethoslab.

Sincerely, Ethogirls

[azzie-tangerine]

Being hosted by that random person who wrote Kirfluff fanfics a couple times, the first ever Kirfluff week is here! Or, it will be here in a little over a month. I've decided to share it early to give people (me) time to prepare!

More information including rules and details on the prompts below!

General Rules!

This is a week themed around the popular ship Kirfluff. As such, Kirfluff should be the focus! However, other characters and ships may be included.

Any type of art counts for the prompts! Traditional art, digital art, 3d modeling, even fanfics if you so desire! No limitations.

The dates aren't as important as it seems. You can work on/post these prompts early or late! This is not a school assignment, after all. The dates are more of a goal instead of a deadline. Do not feel discouraged if you want to participate, but feel like you cannot post it on the day of the prompt.

More of a recommendation than a rule, but using the tag #kirfluffweek and tagging me would be great! I would like to see if anyone participates!

Most importantly, please do not harass anyone over ships or this event. This is both ways. I do not want to see people hating on kirfluff in comments of prompts or kirfluff shippers taking the opportunity to bash other ships. I've already seen it when I brought up this idea. Let's be civil here, okay?

And of course, remember this is all for fun!

For those interested in participating (even if only for a single day), I've included a more detailed explanation for each prompt! While the prompts are simple, these detailed explanations are here to help inspire people who may not have any ideas based on the limited word prompt alone.

Day 1: Pining! Pining is defined as "a state of deep longing". It's a very popular topic when this ship is brought up in fandom! This can be focused on Prince Fluff's pining (which is usually the one more focused on), Kirby's, or even both of them!

Day 2: Headcanons! Focus on any Kirfluff-related headcanons you may have, like how their relationship looks or things they do together! If you yourself don't have any, you can gift this to another creator's headcanon instead! With proper credit.

Day 3: Cake! Inspired by the cake duel from Kirby's Epic Yarn, include the desert in some form! Maybe the two are baking together. Perhaps they're eating cake as a date! Or maybe instead, the cake is kirfluff themed!

Day 4: Alternate Universe, or Au! This one is like the Headcanon prompt, draw an au with Kirfluff that you may have! If you do not have any aus, you may draw and credit another creator's au! Gijinkas and the Mirror World/Clash/Parallel dimensions can be counted under this prompt if so desired.

Day 5: Surprise! Inspired by the Epic Yarn scene where Fluff spooks Kirby out of a tree. Any form of surprise counts! A gift, a sudden appearance, maybe someone else entirely surprised the two!

Day 6: Crown! Inspired by the fact Prince Fluff is royalty. Have a prompt focused on crowns! This can be Fluff's crown, a hypothetical Kirby crown, or maybe a crown not even for royalty, like flower crowns!

Day 7: Epic Yarn! This one is a free space basically. If you have any other ideas for Kirfluff content, it can go here! It can also be focused on the game Kirby's Epic Yarn! Or maybe you can draw another prompt again. Anything really! Have fun on this one.

And that's... about all I can think of right now! If you have any questions, do not be afraid to shoot me an ask or event comment below! I will try my best to answer them all.

[justanothersyscourse]

I think this blog is blocked by fewer people that have heard the rumors and lies going around. I hope you'll read this. There are three sides to every story-- yours, theirs, and the truth.

I deserve to get my side out there so people can make informed decisions about who to follow or block, or whatever it is you need to do. It's okay not to support me, but do it for the right reasons.

I also run sysmedsaresexist, and I'm currently being accused of harassing a minor and sending random ass asks left, right and center.

Listen, if you got an ask where the person didn't say, "this is SAS," it's not from me. I HATE asks. On the rare occasion that I send them, I always tell people who I am. I am well aware that I'm a controversial figure. I want people to know who they're interacting with when I talk to them. I am old. It's important that I'm honest with the people I interact with. A lot of people really stepped up to support me, but I would like people to stop. Unfortunately, it's doing more harm than good.

With every one of these messages people send in support of me, the rumors get worse.

I want to defend myself, but I don't know how.

Send a vent to a vent blog that just actively lied about me? They won't post it. (They didn't, I just checked)

So I'll post it myself. You can make your own decision. All posts I've made on the topic are linked here (it's 5, compared to the DOZENS AEV has posted)

This will be my last post on the topic, and I hope that the people spreading these rumors will leave me alone. You've done more damage and harm to me than you know, and without any remorse or apology.

Ask sent to @anti-endo-haven :

I'm SAS and I'm so hurt.

I have not sent ANY anons to AEV, at all, at any point. I have not ASKED anyone to help me in this,

I made 5 posts. They have made about 50 at this point, all cruel.

The first was to AEV on their first post, which was NOT as rude as people say. I said, look webmd and mayo clinic isn't going to hold up to some of the articles that endos are throwing at us. Try some of these. I said, look, you're going to get really tired of hearing the same endo arguments. Here's some points you can throw back at them.

NOT TO MENTION THE MISINFORMATION IN THE POST. Dissociation is only trauma based? Incorrect. Maybe you should reconsider whether you're ready to be in these conversations.

That response was hidden.

The second post, I was correcting an endo that DID wasn't a trauma disorder. I tagged AEV and said, "see, you can be nice about corrections, and these are the kind of sources you should use."

I was blocked.

THIS IS WHEN I CHANGED LABELS. I was so disappointed in the community that I said fuck that, that's not what I want to be, I don't support this behavior. That's another person that AEV turned pro endo. Good job.

Then I saw the anon saying I was an endo. I used my other blog to POLITELY say, "This isn't true, please stop posting about me like this." This post is still on JAS, I didn't delete it like people are claiming

The fourth post was me making my own public post saying, "this child is throwing a tantrum over corrections. Now l'm pissed and I have to make my own public post so people don't believe those lies." This was the first rude post. I called AEV a blemish, and here's why.

I just made a MASSIVE post about dissociation that is actively being spread within the endo community now. All because I changed my label. I don't care if you all want to block me, but don't pretend that you're all doing anything to help by making bad resources for an audience that already believes the same stuff (all these new antis). Now all the new ones are spreading the same bad sources that don't hold up, and we all (yes, you, me, them, the next CDD system in line) look bad for it.

AEV couldn't provide a single source that said DID WAS trauma based, only "usually" trauma based. AEV actually made antis TURN PRO ENDO, because they used so many sources that said "usually". I offered him sources that said it WAS trauma based.

I'm not kidding, you can find the people that changed sides on sophieinwonderland's blog. This is what happened. I don't need to be polite as pie to people inadvertently harming the CDD community, but I certainly wasn't rude about it

My final post, the fifth post, on the subject was the sad one. "My main was leaked." There are people that stalk my blogs. They send me threats and long asks about the things they'd do to me if they found me. When sophie first came to tumblr, I'd get asks about what people wanted ghost to do to me. In the past, every time a new doxxer comes out of their gross hole, I start getting doxxing threats. l've had people get close to my area.

My main being released means those people are one step closer to actually finding me. It means I'm now getting these kinds of messages in my only safe space.

And the anon who sent my main admitted it was done maliciously. We had a falling out like two years ago, because their asks were getting creepy. When I APOLOGIZED TO THEM for ever hurting them because of my own avoidance issues, and told them that on this post, their response was, "well I enjoyed sending them so fuck you." If I ever find that post deleted, I've got a screenshot. You were NOT a minor at the time, you're an adult.

... Nice, really mature. You're definitely safe for minors.

Hey, also, minors, if an adult you just met online calls you "my kiddo", don't respond with an ovo face. Run.

Adults, if you call a minor your kiddo and they're like, owo really, I'm your kiddo? Fucking run.

Anyways.

I haven't said anything since. What can say. My main is out and I'm getting threats on it. Currently. Not "in the future," like the person said. It's happening NOW.

What do all you people want from me? I AM trying to leave you all alone. Stop saying such terrible things about me, godDAMN. I am not harassing minors. I don't want to harass anyone.

WHAT DID I ACTUALLY DO WRONG? I don't understand.

You're not the good guys you think you all are.

Not anymore.

I don't know that you ever were.

[utilitycaster]

Wow your Orym tags really are an eye-opener. You are totally right and now I understand the bitterness about this character a little better. I've seen a lot of "...but C3 is supposed to be this and that" takes and I guess a lot of people think they are owed a certain storyline?

Yeah. People feeling as though they're owed a certain storyline is not new nor exclusive to Critical Role; it's been pretty common in fandom for years (see this excellent post that I still think about). But the particular blame being placed on Orym is a fun new twist on this theme.

I'm sure there's people who hate Orym for other reasons; shipping wank is another very common form of entitlement to a particular storyline. I must admit when it comes to Twitter I think some people just yell random lies out into the void to hear their own voice because there is no underlying logic to any of it. But I do think a large number of people who have been blaming Orym for everything for what is now the majority of the campaign are doing so because he has consistetly refused to entertain the idea that Ludinus makes any valid points from the start, and the narrative has pretty much only rewarded him for that.

A lot of people really thought that Campaign 3 "all bets are off" didn't mean like, messing with the narrative structure (they hate when that happens by the way. they acted like Downfall and the Solstice Split and the fact that this has been a very plot-driven campaign rather than one about character backstory are all fucking violations of the Geneva convention the way they carried on, and I say this as a person who can complain) but rather that Critical Role, a D&D-based fantasy, would shed those pesky two previous campaigns of canon (unless of course earlier canon helps them make a point. I truly cannot believe someone made like 5 alts and harassed me and all my mutuals for an entire evening over hypocrisy for...liking one ship more than another when these idiots exist) in order to become some kind of deeply pathetic "French Revolution Except Instead Of Kings It's Gods" historical re-enactment.

We're at the point where like, nothing has validated them and everything they've claimed the gods have done, Ludinus or the Weave Mind have done like, tenfold. As mentioned, the people who were like "oh my god STOP SAYING HUBRIS anyway obviously Bells Hells would NEVER see the gods as relatable" just watched Laudna and Imogen be like "wow, they're flawed and conflicted and a fucked up family just like us." I shit you not, I saw someone criticize FCG's relationship with the Changebringer because "he had to work for it" as if that's not like...how literally all relationships work if you're not an utter black hole of entitled self-absorption. The Kreviris Imperium wants to straight up colonize all of Exandria but they turn a blind eye. There's someone out there talking about putting Rashinna's head on a pike for being willing to endanger the poor Ruidusborn children that...Liliana (probably to some extent coerced by Ludinus to be fair) could have left alone to live out their lives on Exandria. People genuinely channel some anti-abortion "but What About The Disabled Children? Shouldn't Pregnant People Be Forced To Carry And Parent Them" style arguments at Alma's "hey, we have people delay birth for like half an hour so their children don't have The Psychic Migraine Disorder That Made Imogen Possibly Suicidal". The arguments have devolved into "well, canon isn't real" and "but the status quo" as if there aren't ALIENS FROM SPACE SPEAKING AT THE DRAGON VATICAN. How STUPID do you have to be to think that wouldn't change the entire world. Or, to get back to this ask, how desperate are you to maintain the illusion that you are going to get a wish-fulfillment campaign that never once existed? So yeah. They blame Orym because otherwise they have to blame literally the entire cast, and themselves.

[ghost-bxrd]

blog guidelines and tags

Hi! I’m GhostBird! This blog is dedicated to any and all things Batman and Robin related featuring copious amounts of fluff and feels 💚

First of all: be kind. Both to me and to each other. If there’s a prompt/opinion you don’t like please keep scrolling or simply block. Rude commentary or harassment of any kind will not be tolerated, and yes that also applies to ships you may find distasteful. If I have too many people going anon to be rude I will be turning that function off. This is a safe space, and I will enforce that with prejudice. 🐍

Second of all: Have Fun. Go wild. And if you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask 🦅

AU GUIDE

Shuck — Church Grimm Jason AU 🐺

what you’re longing for you claim to abhor — for the fic with Jason pretending to be a hallucination where the Bats think Hood was Jason’s boyfriend 🫀

The Antithesis of Magic — for the fic where Jason Todd adopts a young Bruce Wayne from an alternate universe and takes him back to his own and now has to navigate being a dad to a traumatized ten year old who’s hell bent on becoming a vigilante while simultaneously juggling his night job as a crime lord, all while keeping both their identities secret from the Bats 🦇

Fae Dick Grayson — the Fae au with multiple headcanons and little convos without an actual fic (yet) lol 🌲

Court Family — the batfam as part of the Court of Owls AU 🪙

Selkie Au — Selkie Jason 🦭

Owl Song — for the Talon!Dick fic series I’m writing featuring lots of feels 🦉

Mer Au — the batfam as merpeople! Featuring Leviathan Jason and Siren!Dick and researcher Calvin Rose and a lot of mysteries 🌊

Dragon Au — medieval Dragon Rider Au, with the canon vigilante personas as dragons 🐉

TAG GUIDE

prompts — plot bunnies that hit me over the head at random times of the day. If you get inspired, feel free to write something for it. 💚

Digital Art — my art (unless it’s reblogged) ranging from sketches and little comic doodles to full paintings. Usually of the angsty variety ⛈️

ghost talks — responses to asks and suggestions, some general musings, and random thoughts 👻

brainstorming — brainstorming for fic ideas or existing fics

Etsy — updates and stuff for my Etsy store, mostly Batboys related 🦅

Sneak Peek — Drabble previews of upcoming fics ✍️

Scrapbook — scrapbook project for Owl Song, with hidden infos and secret messages for this verse 🦉📖

Mer Au — look up the “blog guide” tag for a guide to mer au tags 🌊

Echoes Zine — a zine project I’m working on that will be featuring mostly Jason with Dick and Tim cameos :)

Some Links 🔗

AO3

And… that’s pretty much it for now. I’ll update this list when or if necessary ✨

[serendark]

Too Many Triangles

Summary:

Stanley Pines never knew what to make of that creepy cult room full of triangles that he found beneath his brother's house. Decades later, as the portal turns on, he thinks about what he's seen in all three of his brother's journals. He thinks about the note that Bill left behind for Mabel. This demon triangle has been harassing his family. There’s entirely way too many triangles in this house and in this family’s lives. Hours later after the worst reunion Stan's ever had, he steels himself and travels back downstairs, back to the portal basement. He needs to talk to Ford about Bill. He needs to protect his family. Even if that family apparently includes someone who hates him now.

Word count: 8,717

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Language: English

Characters: Stanley Pines (major), Stanford Pines (major), Bill Cipher (mentioned repeatedly), Dipper Pines (brief), Mabel Pines (brief)

Tags: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Self-Harm, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Bonding, Guilt, Minor Violence

Spoilers: Season 2 (canon divergent: s02e11 "Not What He Seems"), Journal 3 (lore reference), The Book of Bill (lore reference)

Read on AO3.

Glistening rainbow shimmers of long-abandoned pyramid prisms were indiscernible from the flutters of stale dust motes that fell around Stanley’s shoulders like a hideous ceremonial scarf as he tore pallid drapes down from the walls to the floor beneath his feet.

All too suddenly the room was all too small, walls caving in and seizing the man’s lungs while tumultuous needles pinned his frozen legs in place. He didn’t know where to look, but there was only one place he could, washing over him in waves of deep, dark, terror: Dozens upon dozens of eyes gazing back at him, staring right through him, every inch of his soul torn open and laid bare to see, to be chewed and drank by these confusing triangles… By the absurdly gaudy golden statue that might as well have winked back at him for all that it deigned.

Stan stumbled backwards, backside and hands meeting the floor as he struggled to process what he was beholding. This did not feel like something he should have seen, and he couldn’t shake the gross feeling bubbling under his skin that there was no taking it back, no undoing the fact that he is now privy to this awful, terrible room of goddamn cult secrets. He has become a part of this and he cannot scrub that away.

“What the hell, Sixer…?”

He never knew what to make of this room, and after scouring the piles, drawers, and corners for anything that might help with the portal he never once returned, preferring to forget about it entirely if he could. Unfortunately, forgetting was rather difficult since he passed the place every time he went down to the basement and he kept finding more of those damn prisms in random rooms in his brother’s home.

Sometimes he wondered if he should care more about this discovery, but it’s not like he had a lot of leads to work with. The journal in his possession didn’t mention anything about it and neither did any of the papers scattered around the room or lab, so other than the obvious similarity with the shape of the portal, Stan doubted if there even was more for him to learn, anyway. He just needed to fix the portal, get it running, and get his nerd brother back home. That’s all that mattered. No creepy geometry could alter the path which Stan has stitched into his very soul.

He will fix his greatest mistake or he will die trying. If this house does not see the two brothers reunited, then it will bear witness to the disappearance of both instead.

It’s the least Stan can do.

—

An extensive, wavering exhale rolled over Grunkle Stan’s nerves as he sat on the edge of his bed, head in hands and mind whirring over everything that had happened today. Finally, Stanford Pines was home. The real Stanford.

… Home? What was ‘home’ to Stanley Pines, now? Certainly not in his brother’s arms like he had hoped. Apparently not in the Mystery Shack, either. Not for much longer. A dark chuckle wheezed through his lips as he gingerly massaged the bruise on his temple.

No matter. His twin hates him now, but that won’t change what Stan needs to do. He’s almost tempted to hate himself for his own stubbornness, at this point, but that won’t change the facts. Ungrateful bastard or not, a sad 30 years of daring to hope only for it to leak down the drain… And Stan still knows what path he has bound himself to. He is going to protect his family. Even if that family now includes someone who, once again, is trying to send him away to never see his sorry mug ever again. Even if that family now includes someone who he himself disowned as family merely an hour or two ago.

…Shit, he really regretted that. He idly wondered if Ford might be regretting that whole conversation too, but Stan just shook his head before he got lost in that train of thought for too long.

Bill Cipher. It’s been a long time coming: Stan finally needs to confront the damn triangles with their damn eyes.

He still didn’t know what to make of the private study he found beneath this house all those years ago. But what he did know is that, whatever the geometric eyesore is, it’s dangerous. Stan has scoured every page of the second and third journals lately, blacklight included, and it was all… a lot to take in. Despite what Ford had said, Stan isn’t an idiot. He knows that triangle is bad news. He knows Ford was real chummy with the guy once and then fell out of line, with some rather disturbing pages in Dipper’s journal to prove it.

This demon triangle has been harassing his family. There’s entirely way too many triangles in this house, in his brother’s journals, in the kids’ dreams, in this family’s lives. And Stanley Pines is going to do something about it.

—

He swallowed down the static in his head and the cotton ball in his mouth as he waited for the elevator to carry him down to Hell. He was hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t a mistake.

Well, even if it was, he was doing it anyway. He’s pretty good at that. He’s sure Ford would be more than happy to remind him, even. Safest bet he’s ever gambled.

Once more partaking of their familiar 30-years-long song and dance, the elevator rattled and released Stan into the maw beneath this home for yet another time. Cautious feet stepped forward as he peered ahead, trying to locate his brother.

Stanford was in the portal cavern. Hands busy, head ducked down, sparks flying. The room was still a mess from the gravitational anomalies that had preceded the worst reunion in Stan’s life, though it looked like Ford had pushed some things into comparatively tidier piles. The portal was in even more pieces than it had been after the chaos earlier.

Alright. It’s showtime.

Stan wasn’t looking forward to it.

“We need to talk, Poindexter.”

The speed with which Ford whipped around, choking back a yelp, would have been impressive, perhaps funny, even, if Stan weren’t so anxious. Ford had damn near fallen over, peering towards the source of the sound with too-wide eyes as he dropped what he had been doing and reached beneath his coat towards his gun―

“Wh… Stanley–!”

Stan just shrugged. “Yeesh.” He felt as tired as Ford looked. It’s been a long day and now he’s come back down to this accursed old basement to make it even longer.

Before Ford could finish stringing together his thoughts or lacing his tongue with venom, Stan wagered to jump right into the train directly, disregarding the nausea settling in his stomach: “We gotta deal with that Bill Cipher guy, right? I don’t exactly understand what the sitch is but–”

He saw the ceiling rotate over him and felt his back collide with the floor before he could even blink, world spinning and stars infiltrating his vision as hard as his lungs hissed. He swallowed against the muzzle of Ford’s gun pressed to his neck, those angry owlish eyes boring mere inches away from his face, the man’s full body weight keeping Stan pinned flat; knees digging into thighs and wrists scrunched in a vice grip by an impossibly firm six-fingered hand. Ford growled. Oh sweet Moses, yeah this was going about as well as Stan figured it would.

Panic. Gotta say somethin’. “Oookay, uh, Ford… Stanford, care to explain why ya just came at me like a damn cheetah pouncin’ a bison?” A gruff cough betrayed the grin he tried to steady his heart rate with.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds–

Confusion crossed over Ford’s eyes like a delayed signal, eyebrows furrowing as the gears in his brain turned. Stan swore he could see smoke coming out of this nerd’s ears. He blinked, spluttering, leaning back slightly with his grip on Stan’s wrists slacking. “Cheetahs and bisons aren’t even on the same continent, Stanley!”

Stan simply offered him a million-dollar grin and the best shrug he could in response. Which was difficult, by the way, thank you Ford. “Get off me, dammit.” Ford leaned back, letting Stan sit up, but frowned at him the entire time with his gun still primed and waaaay too close to Stan’s face for comfort. Was that a snarl? Seriously?

He was seconds away from figuring out what he was going to say next when an offensively bright light beamed into his eyes and shocked his mind to blankness, Ford’s hands gripping Stan’s face as he forced each eye open in turn before the light disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Stan swore furiously, waving his arms in front of his face and trying to scoot away, only succeeding once Ford finally backed off and let him free.

When Stan finished rubbing his eyes and pulling himself back onto his feet, he saw that Ford had returned to his earlier position of crouching by the ruined portal. Okay, seriously? All that bullshit that just happened and you’re desperate to shove your nose back into some busywork like I’m not even here–

“...How do you know about Bill, Lee?” Ford was back on his feet, body facing Stanley though eyes downcast as though the floor could answer his questions instead. Stan hesitated, the bite of his anger gradually receding as his eyes took in his brother for what might truly be the first real time since he walked through that luminous, ephemeral, triangular frame of metal. His eyes drank in the deep, dark circles under Stanford’s cracked glasses, the pasty color of his skin, the patchy stubble on his face, the sweat sliding down his forehead from his mop of greasy mussed-up hair…

The way his closed fists were trembling as if taut with tension, just like his brow and his lip, presenting a portrait of a Poindexter who was teetering on the cusp of erupting into his own flaming supernova where he stood. Stan knew that feeling. Had partied with it multiple times. He was intimately familiar with the way it burrowed a hole in your chest in place of your heart: a fear that was all-consuming, an anxiety that buzzed beneath one’s skin; a frantic, off-kilter energy that kept a ragged man going on his feet when he had nothing else yet couldn’t bear to simply not care.

This was a man who was running on fumes, no fuel left in the tank, and ready to collapse into non-existence the moment the strings puppeting him forward decided to stop yanking him along.

A man with one reason to live, yet even that reason is barely enough. The worst buried secret in the world; a heavy weight plain as day upon his shoulders and carving out the marrow of his bones.

Stanley recognized pretty easily the poorly-hidden tells of devastated fear and utter exhaustion in his brother’s body language. Because he had lived like that, too. Because he still struggled to remind himself when it wasn’t one of those days.

Sixer had never looked so… small.

Stan heaved a deep breath, slow and rickety enough for him to feel it vibrate down his limbs.

“Read ‘bout him in your journals.” Ford’s head lifted slightly, eyes flashing to Stan’s face. “...‘Nd the kids had the misfortune of fightin’ him.” Stanley might as well have punched Ford directly through his core for all that the words, hanging in the air, impacted this man and hung despair on his face. “‘Course, they don’t know that I know that.”

“... What happened?” His brother’s voice was barely a whisper, almost a keening whine from his lungs as he ran his hands through his hair and down his face, fingers creeping under his glasses to push into his eyes as he massaged his temples. It was like his eyebrows hadn’t left his hairline in minutes, the creases in his forehead deep enough to age him by another few decades.

Stan hobbled over to the ruins of the portal, taking a moment to stretch his lower back before sitting on the cold stone and patting the ground next to him. Ford didn’t immediately follow, but kept his eyes trained on him the whole time. Stan just started talking anyway.

“Alright, without talkin’ to the kids about it I don’t got the whole picture, but I got enough. Some rascal kid that was freakin’ Mabel out tried to take the Shack. Same kid who found your second journal, wherever the hell that was.” Ford had carefully stepped closer, hovering over Stan before letting himself sink into place on the floor beside him. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands and was awkwardly twiddling all twelve of his fingers while he listened, muscles in his face twitching.

“Mabes and Soos saw this kid, Gideon is his name, summoning the guy. Bill, I mean. Made a deal with ‘im to go in my head ‘nd find the code to my safe, so he could steal the deed to the Shack.” Ford raised an eyebrow, making his posture straighter for a moment as he prepared to speak before Stan just continued and cut him off. “The kids used that spell in yer third book to go into m’ head, uh, my mindscape, and fight him out. Whatever they did, it worked, though that piece of geometry didn’t seem to amount to much compared ta what that Gideon did next anyways. Kid had a plan B that didn’t involve Bill.”

“You weren’t there for this.” Ford said it like a statement, but with an intonation to his voice that made it an inquiry. Stan shook his head. “I was out cold. Not sure I even dreamed that night.” Ford nodded.

Silence chilled the air between these old men as Stan cracked his neck and began popping every one of his knuckles in turn, only releasing his breath once he was finished. Ford wanted nothing more than to break this silence, to urge Stan to continue, but it felt… sacred, somehow. Once Stan was ready, he balled his hands into fists and snorted. “S’next part really pisses me off.” He didn’t notice Ford gulp and tentatively hover a hand in his direction before changing his mind.

“I dunno what was said, I dunno what it all looked like, but that bastard got in Dipper’s head, got in his body.”

He suddenly turned to look at Ford, eyes wide. “He hurt him. Gave him scars. Gave him nightmares. Gave Mabel nightmares, too.” Stan’s mouth opened and closed, hanging strangely for a moment while his eyebrows knit together. “...Bill left a note, Stanford. For Mabel to find.”

One shaky inhale later, he continued. “Was gonna… jump off the water tower. Invited Mabel to the same.” He turned away from Ford, leaning back against the portal again and flexing his fingers, shoulders tense while he cracked his neck again. Stan’s gaze was forward and distant, a hollow feeling taking over his face and posture.

A loud slam startled him back into awareness.

Ford had sat up and punched the piece of portal he had been leaning against, struggling with growled breaths of air and trembling shoulders. He grit his teeth and punched it again. And again. Then he tottered to his feet and slapped both open palms into the metal, dipping his head forward and colliding against it. He hissed, rearing his head back like he was preparing for a larger blow―

“Woah― hey, hey, Ford! Stanford!” Stan was on his feet in no time and shoved Ford away from the portal, digging his hands down into Ford’s shoulders to hopefully keep him immobile. Ford wobbled and refused to meet his eyes, but Stan managed to keep him rooted where his feet stood. “What the hell was that about? Ford, buddy, are–”

Ford growled again and yanked himself backwards out of Stan’s hands, but made no move towards the portal. Stan’s hands floated, the man hesitating while he tried to put together what to say while his brain was still buzzing from whatever the heck it was that just happened.

“...My fault…”

Stanley froze, unsure if he heard that right.

“It’s my fault! I’m the reason why the kids are hurt, I’m the reason why they can’t sleep in peace. This is my fault, damn it!” Stan couldn’t entirely understand the next few words Sixer spoke, like some kind of foreign language, but he didn’t need to. His brother slumped over to the portal, giving it a half-hearted kick before leaning one shoulder on it and crumpling down to the floor. He tucked his face into his knees and wrapped his arms around his bent legs in a gesture that Stan well and truly understood.

Seeing his brother like this gave him flashbacks of a different time, of back when two young boys had spent the sweltering afternoon venting about life on a beach with grains of sand and glass between their toes. The shade of a patched-up wooden boat enveloped them in comfort much like the warm, salty air did the same. Stan needed to punch what was making Sixer feel this way. Stan needed to hug his brother. Stan needed to protect him and take care of him and make sure he never felt like this ever again. Down here in a stuffy basement in Oregon, Stan could have swore he smelled the ocean for just a moment. He licked his lips and tasted salt.

But when he reached a hand out to Stanford’s shoulder this time, his brother slapped it away and glared daggers at him. “It’s your fault for interrupting me during my fight! You should not have turned the portal back on!” Stan gaped at him and reeled back from the outburst of rage and accusation, his head feeling like an out-of-control jackhammer of confusion and pain.

He saw a nerdy little boy shaking his head, shoving his twin’s chest, and running out of the shade, running out of the sand, his snot-nosed face poorly hidden in the crook of an elbow.

“This was an insanely risky move, restarting the portal! Didn't you read my warnings?!”

“Stanley! Stanley! Do something! STANLEY!!”

Memories and voices from hours to years past spun a cacophony in his brain, a terrible chokehold that rattled the old man and stole his tongue. The room felt as though it were trying to take the air from his chest, twisting and swaying and becoming smaller around him. The broken portal sneered at him, trying to scare him away with taunts of his mistakes, with visions of a brother who pushed him into a burning hot panel 30 years ago and would gladly shove him out of his life today. It felt boiling, perspiration rolling down these walls of stone while sweat poured down his face and his burnt shoulder throbbed, stung, and scarred just like yesterday.

There was a painful pressure between his ears that urged him to leave, to escape, to find safety in a dark corner out of sight and as far away from here as possible like he failed to do three decades ago. If he stayed here then this grisly room, no, this ghastly portal, were going to squeeze his guts out inch-by-inch and break his bones one-by-one, the lightest punishment they could sentence him with. The eye of the portal would be judge, jury, and executioner, even from the floor as it was. He thought the laughter coming from the elevator behind his back sounded like his brother’s… only, higher-pitched and strangely distorted. Something off-putting, much like how he is out of place and out of his league in this basement. He was the one who willingly came back down here, letting his feet bring him to Hell. He was the one who dared to talk to Stanford. He should flee Oregon, he should ditch his name again, he should take Ford’s journal and go back out through the blitzing snow and leave and―

Stan closed his eyes, eyebrows scrunched as hard as humanly possible while he thought about why he came down here in the first place.

Bill.

Bill Cipher.

Right, that’s right.

That triangular devil.

The ruckus in his head slowed down all at once as he pictured Ford’s intricate drawings and written warnings, his mind’s eye blocking everything else out as it tunneled in on what mattered the most. A glowing triangle seated amidst a blackness that blanketed the cavern around him in an act of grace which smothered his fevered thoughts. A white hot fury in Stan’s chest that radiated outwards in this dark, musty basement, encouraging him forward. The portal was nothing more than piles of scrap, tape, and screws. The elevator was silent with only rust and age to its name. His brother was home. Stanford was here. Ford and Bill. His brother punched him in the face.

Stan huffed and abruptly spun away from Stanford, stomping over to the control hub area of the lab. Upon returning to the portal chamber moments later carrying one of those clear pyramid prisms, he made eye contact with Ford and then roared as he chucked the pyramid into the stone floor with all the might he could. Unsurprisingly, unfortunately, it did not shatter or break. Stan knew it wouldn’t. He’s taken out his stress on it before.

Ford was startled by Stan’s sudden violence, jumping at the impact noise and cringing as the prism rolled an echoing clatter across the floor. He swallowed when Stan whipped around to face him, his brother’s eyes searing a fierce unforgiving flame into his retinas as he glowered.

“Let me make myself clear. I’ve READ yer nerd diaries, Stanford. I KNOW ya have that really damn creepy room down here with this triangle bastard all over the walls, ‘nd I also know the last things you wrote about him were ugly as all hell.” He crossed his arms, turning his head to look real hard at the shadows in the corner. “I get it, whatever, you think it’s a mistake that I saved ya, you think it’s just another worthless screw-up from Stanley Pines. I don’t need a reminder of how much ya hate me.”

“Stanley–”

The con man snarled, meeting Ford’s eyes again. “What’s important right now is this guy is messin’ with our family. I dunno how you know this guy or what all happened between ya, but if you care at all about protecting the kids then let’s just go find some unicorns or whatever the hell and take care of this weirdo already! Then I’ll be outta your hair just like you wanted ‘nd we can pretend this all never happened.”

He shoved a finger at Ford, stepping closer. “‘Nd I don’t wanna hear it outta your mouth that any of this is your fault. I won’t stand for you badmouthing yourself, and I don’t wanna see you hurtin’ yourself again.” His eyes flickered to the portal frame briefly. “I am gonna protect this family from that demon monster and that includes you no matter how much you make it clear you don’t wanna see my sorry face. So DEAL with it, Poindexter, and stuff it.”

With that, Stanley stomped his foot and went to lean against the portal a little farther away from Ford. Ford couldn’t seem to swallow the tension in the air down enough no matter how hard he tried, sheepishly keeping his head turned down towards his feet.

The only sound that hazarded being heard now was the ever-present hum of resting machinery in the nearby control room. Red, white, green, and blue lights slowly blinking in and out of existence. Dark screens and large windows reflecting blackness and the distant visage of two upset twin brothers. A glossy, framed photograph of Dipper and Mabel smiling at the camera; Dipper giving Mabel bunny ears while she stuck her fingers in her mouth and stretched her face into the silliest, widest smile she could.

Twin siblings sharing the moment together like nobody else could do it better.

A captured memory of two kids being kids.

Happy memories from the beginning of an Oregon summer that supervised the final stretch of Stan’s very long 30 years, now bookended at last by the portal finally turning on.

Happy memories from nostalgic summers on Glass Shard Beach that safeguarded Stan through his shivers in the sleepless night, jacket pulled tight around his shoulders while he waited out the bite of winter in his car.

A worn photo of two boys that burned a hole in Stanford’s chest where the pocket of his black coat rested.

Dust hung in the air for minutes, fluttering in a draft so small it might have been imagined. Silence that built itself into a fortress, brick by brick. Tension that polluted the very air, threading it into thick, inedible cotton and dry tongues.

Breaking the silence had never felt less appealing. It would have been preferred had a chasm opened up and swallowed him instead.

Ford wiped his hands down his face again and sighed. “Alright. I can accept that I need to tell you about Bill. You are the other adult here and the primary guardian of these children. You’re already involved, anyway.” In his peripheral he caught Stan looking at him in the corner of his eye, clearly listening.

“Bill is… a dream demon made of energy who possesses no physical form in our world. He must manifest through dreams–projecting into our mindscapes–to interact with our realm. Or… make a deal that gives him control of a human body. Like… Like a puppet.” It didn’t escape Stan’s notice how Ford cringed, shame and fear washing over his face instantaneously.

“The purpose of the portal is to enable Bill access to our world in the flesh with his own physical body. Then he can use his god-like powers to take over and wreak havoc upon human society as we know it, bringing the whole of planet Earth, nay, Dimension 46'\, to pure chaos and ruin.”

As Ford continued to speak, Stan carefully came back closer and sat down on the floor again, trying not to grimace at his back as he did so. He was careful not to touch Ford. For but a moment he felt dizzy as he lowered himself, swimming colors in his vision putting his knees in sand before he blinked and was back on the stone floor.

“I… There is a deal between Cipher and I that is still in effect, but I have a metal plate in my head now that nullifies his influence over me. So I am safe.” At Stan’s raised eyebrow, Ford knocked his knuckles against his forehead. Sure enough, Stan heard the metallic echo.

Stan licked his lips, trying to choose his next words carefully. “If ya got that while in sci-fi sideburns land, then… you didn’t have it when ya asked me to come here, back in the 80’s.”

Ford seemed surprised, but nodded, looking at him.

“Is this guy the reason why you looked so god-awful back then?”

“...Indeed. I had only recently found out about his true intentions and was trying to thwart his efforts with the portal. He… was not happy about that and tried everything to get back at me, to sabotage my efforts, to win, and to punish me for even trying to resist.” Ford swallowed, glancing away while his fingers tapped at each his knuckles, eyes somewhere else and filled with long-buried memories. Was each word he spoke making him seem smaller, or was that Stan’s imagination?

Stan knew he was receiving the sanitized version of the story. It was written all over Stanford’s face: he was trying to be detached, objective, clinical. Like he was relaying scientific information from a formal paper and not reluctantly spilling secrets about his traumatic personal life story. But Stanley couldn’t find it in himself to blame him, not really, not when he knew he’d do the same if he had to talk about… Rico. Ford had created what might be the most acceptable version of events to present to Stan, the extent of what Ford himself could swallow, the most he could face his own shame and torment. It chilled Stan’s heart as he felt the cold sorrow creep into his nerves. This was just one more miserable thing that Stan wished he couldn’t relate to his brother about. Ford should never have gone through this, no, Stan should be the only one, and yet…

“...Stanford, in the days after I lost ya, I cleaned up a buncha junk in this house. Nonsense scribbles ‘nd piles of paper, old dishes, shards of coffee mugs, sticky notes covered in eyes, weirdo science books.” This time Stanley didn’t hesitate to put a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “There was a lotta blood. Random messes of it on piles ‘nd notes. Bloody bandages in the bathrooms. Bloody handprints on wrecked walls ‘nd doors with broken locks. Bloody clothing under your bed, crammed into piles of laundry...”

Ford leaned his head back against the portal and took in a large, stuttering inhale. His motions were slow, hesitant, like the pins and needles in his limbs were pinning the cavity of his chest open and revealing himself to Stan; the flayed pages of a tattered open book against his will. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he had to talk about this eventually, but he always hoped he could just ignore it and handle it on his own. His brother didn’t deserve to be roped into this burden. This was Ford’s problem, Ford’s pain, and Ford’s mess, no one else’s.

Yet, hearing the truth that Bill had been winding his spindly claws into the kids, into Lee, during Ford’s absence… made the gut-wrenching scope of this plague undeniable. The plague Ford unleashed upon not only this world but his family. He swore he could feel the sticky wetness of his great-niblings’ blood on his hands.

Ford noticed a question in Stanley’s wide eyes and, while hesitant, nodded. This was all the answer he needed to give. His brother simply understood. But Ford forced it out of his throat anyway. "Yes… The blood was Bill's doing."

This time, Stan was the one who punched the portal, cursing and sneering at what remained of the triangular structure. “I was so far up my own ass that I couldn’t even protect my own twin brother after he reached out to me for help… All I did was yell, fight, ‘nd shove someone who was hurt, someone who was scared ‘nd needed me to do something and I didn’t…!”

Ford’s reaction was immediate: clumsy and unfamiliar yet harkening back to what Stanley had thought was long gone and left beaten and buried in the sand. “Stanley, no… No, no no, you didn’t have a clue. Because I didn’t tell you enough, you could not possibly have known. I escalated the argument with you and I fought back. I don’t… think it would be right to fault you on that.” His hands were held up, fingers curled and loose and unsure what to do but yearning to reassure Lee, hankering to clarify and correct about Ford’s mistakes and where the blame lay so someone else need not falsely feel that vice.

Stan stared at him, shoulders rising and falling as his breathing returned to an even and steady rhythm. He didn’t really know what expression he had on his face, and judging by the look on Ford’s, that genius had no idea, either. He exhaled something fierce, erratically rubbing his hands up and down his face. He settled back down after a while of de-stressing and slouched against the portal debris again, looking like he didn’t really care about how he landed or if he were sitting comfortably or not.

One inhale. One exhale.

He twisted his torso to face his twin.

“But you think it’s right to fault me on other things.” Ford averted his eyes. Stan clicked his tongue. “Whatever… So what do we need to do? Make that unicorn barrier crap, smash this ugly piece of work back into scraps,” –he rapped his knuckles on the metal over his shoulder– “and then what? Anything we gotta do to the kids? Ya better not suggest installing metal into their skulls, Sixer, or so help me god.”

His brother spluttered at that, staring at Stan incredulously. “No, of course not! Besides, I wouldn’t trust anyone in this dimension to successfully pull off such a surgery.”

“Oh yeah? Aliens got it that much better than us?”

“Eh…” Ford shrugged his shoulders and made a so-so gesture with his hand. “It depends on where you look. I cannot say that consistency is a term the multiverse is particularly familiar with…”

Stan leaned closer and clapped Ford’s back as he laughed. “Ha! Not so different from us, huh.”

His brother could only just muster up an awkward chuckle alongside him.

“That aside… Yes, I believe you have the correct idea about how to tackle the… Bill problem. I intend to review my journals again for the sake of verifying my old memories pertaining to some key details, and then I will take care of it. I will disassemble the portal and erect a unicorn hair barrier–”

Stan cleared his throat in the most obnoxious way he could. “Ahem. You ain’t doin’ this alone, Poindexter. We’ll destroy the portal, and we’ll put up the barrier.” He raised a hand when it looked like Ford was going to protest. “Uh-uh, I’ve read those diaries more than you have at this point, or one of ‘em anyway. Ya can’t keep me out of this ‘nd you are not gonna do this alone, do I make myself clear?” He wiggled his fingers and flashed a well-practiced salesman’s grin.

Ford’s face contorted through a few different emotions before he finally hung his head and sighed, crossing his arms. “Fine.” He straightened to his feet and gestured over his shoulder for Stan to follow him to the control hub room, not looking back once.

This was going better than Stanley had dared to let himself hope. It still felt like Ford was at risk of exploding if Stan said the wrong thing, but his brother apparently didn’t have as much fight in him as he had earlier that day. Or when Stan first came down here, for that matter. He rubbed his wrists and winced his left eye toward what surely must be a fully formed bruise on his face by now.

He wanted to say he was happy, but as he swallowed around the rough feeling in his throat he knew he couldn’t fool himself about that. This sucked balls. His earlier attempt at levity seemed promising at first, but it was like trying to hold back the might of the entire ocean when Ford slipped right back into trying to exclude Stan again. This dense pressure surrounding his brother was suffocating, impenetrable, and something in Stan’s chest that he tried not to think about hurt like a raw wound at the realization that he didn’t really know how to broach this wall of Ford’s like he once used to.

Something in his chest chafed even more when he thought about how he didn’t really know how to talk to Ford like he used to, either. In fact, Stan didn’t feel like he had managed to actually talk to Stanford straight for once during this entire confrontation. He was being tolerated and he knew his brother was probably silently pleading for him to go away and leave him to his misery so he could mope around until this awful day finally came to a close. Would they repeat this song and dance tomorrow? …Would it be worth it to?

But despite all the eggshells, they had managed to connect just a little bit about their shared concern for the kids. He tried not to think about their shared pains from the past decades, something which was undeterred despite both twins living such wildly different lives.

Maybe Stanley doesn’t need anything else. Just think about the kids.

This is fine. This is surely fine.

Don’t think about the end of summer.

Don’t think about a rickety old boat casting shadows on the beach.

He entered the control room just in time to be shaken out of his daze. He watched as Ford arranged all three journals on the desk… and suddenly collapsed, holding onto the desk’s edge for dear life before he hit the floor.

Ford raised a hand to keep Stan away, fingers wiggling something indecipherable, limbs visibly shaking as he forced himself into a seated position on the nearby desk chair. He immediately staggered forward, elbows hitting the hard surface and his face sinking to hide in his hands, glasses falling down to land haphazardly on Journal #2.

Stan felt like he was watching his brother crumble into pieces.

Pieces of glass smothered in sand.

After another moment, he cautiously approached his twin, unsure what exactly happened.

“My apologies,” Ford rubbed his eyes, swallowing and bouncing his legs on the balls of his feet while he sat. “I’ve wasted so many decades of my life on that accursed charlatan.”

His sunken eyes glanced over at Stanley through his fingers like that was all he had the energy to do.

“I was one trigger away from having finally wiped myself clean of him before I was unceremoniously forced back here.” He scrunched his eyes closed, teeth grinding as he grimaced. “I shouldn’t be here, my life should have been spent on taking him down, on redeeming myself for being so big a fool as to fall for his schemes!” His arms swung to hang limply down at his sides as he leaned back, face staring up at nothing on the ceiling.

Like a doll with no control of its limbs. A puppet left to rot somewhere without strings.

“And yet he and I both persist, continuing to unjustly live, and it simply isn’t enough that he has me wrapped around his fingers, but now I find out that fiend is harassing the kids as well!” Ford’s words tapered into a roar, the spike of energy pushing him to lean forward far too fast while his round eyes located Stanley in the room’s dull light. He ground his hands against his knees, needing some kind of anchor.

“That’s personal, Stanley, I can’t help but fear that it must harken back to his gleeful torment of me all those years ago where he knew I was trapped and was toying with my psyche. He’s happy to hurt my family because he’s happy to hurt me, because he knew I wasn’t here to stop him, and he can laud his power over my head and rub my own powerlessness and failures back in my face, and… a-and…”

Stan’s arms were wrapped around his brother before he even finished registering that Ford’s voice tripped into a broken choke.

Ford cried out, “And when… when I saw all three of my old journals laid out bare here, I felt heavier than ever the monumental weight of my mistakes and how wretched my life has been. How, just how, could I have gotten my niece and nephew caught up in my disaster?”

The raw wound in Stan’s chest throbbed as he took in those words, the weight of them carving a home where he was already torn asunder and bruised.

Stanford’s full body lurched as he sobbed in his brother’s arms and gasped throttled breaths of air, returning the hug and scrunching the material of Stan’s shirt beneath all twelve of his fingers. “I’m so tired, Lee, I’m tired of Cipher! I’m tired of forcing those around me to continually suffer from my mistakes! I’m tired of running, I’m tired of being a puppet, of.. of being his toy, his property that he can jostle around the board as he pleases…!”

Stan began to rub small, gentle circles into Ford’s back while he thought over what he’d just heard, the motion so natural to him and so ingrained in his muscles that he didn’t need to think about it twice. For his brother to expose his heart like this… It was truly serious. It set Stan’s face in a grave expression. Not that long ago a rekindled relationship between the two of them had seemed impossible, and yet Stan now held the delicate reins of responsibility, an instinct burning inside him that made him want to protect his twin. He didn’t want to mess this up. He wanted to be there for his twin the way he should have been three decades ago.

He kept rubbing his brother’s back as the two of them sat there on the sand with their eyes closed, sniffles being carried away by the ambience of the ocean and tears falling down to the beach beneath their feet. Wet droplets left dark marks in the sand as though they could become sea glass.

Soon the sky was awash in pink and orange, and the cold shadow of the Stan o’ War stretched longer and longer, reminiscent of young boys chasing after the last remnants of dimming sunlight.

Once Ford’s sobbing diminished to but a few sniffles, Stan made his decision.

He picked up his twin’s glasses and gently sat them back on his face.

“I know this isn’t what you wanna hear right now, but, let’s get ya in the shower, and I’ll cook up some warm food for ya before we get ya to bed.” Ford lifted his head off Stan’s chest just a little, quizzically raising an eyebrow. “You need rest, Sixer, or else you’re gonna keel over ‘nd die before ya can do anything about Bill. It’s been one hell of a day.”

“But… The kids. Bill is too dangerous to ignore.” Ford’s voice was small and pathetic, yet as determined as he could make it. The familiar scared face of an insecure little boy standing on the edge of help and hurt. On the edge of where the tides meet the sands.

“I know, I know. You said the metal plate makes ya safe, right? The portal’s non-functional ‘nd in pieces that woulda taken me months to fix, ‘nd the kids are in the attic, prolly pretendin’ to sleep, so…”

“So…?”

“So I think we can afford to spend a lil’ time on makin’ sure you don’t fall apart first, brainiac. We’ll need that bright brain of yours runnin’ on something more than ten cups of alien coffee, right?”

Ford was struck with a look of astonishment following that comment. “Coffee… I can have Dimension 46'\ coffee again! Oh how I have missed it terribly; nothing else ever compared.”

His eyes glittered like Stanley had just hung the stars in front of an aspiring child.

Ford leaned back from Stan, using the collar of his black turtleneck to wipe the wetness from his cheeks. “I… do not like it or feel entirely comfortable with it, but I will concede that you have a point that’s hard to argue. I’ll freshen up my hygiene if you include coffee with whatever food you make– I do not care what time it is right now.”

“You’re s'posed ta go to sleep, knucklehead, but sure, I’ll make ya a mean coffee,” Stan chuckled as he swapped his hands over to patting Ford’s shoulder a couple times before stepping back to give him some space. The soothing lull of cool waves echoed and receded from farther and farther away. “Ha! I am unsure even coffee could keep me going on my feet tonight, as much as I would prefer it to.”

They both turned towards the elevator and had managed to take a single step before Ford abruptly stopped. He turned back towards the portal room, glancing between it and Stanley, his brows set in a worry. “I need to check something…!”

Stan just shrugged. “S’long as it won’t be too much work.”

“Excellent! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” His coat billowed behind him as he rushed out into the cavern.

Stan didn’t follow him all the way, but did hover near the entrance, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. “So what’s got ya in a tizzy?”

“It is of crucial importance that I check for any possible rifts.” Ford looked over his shoulder to verify where Stan was before he continued. “During my travels between dimensions, I had to track where potential rifts might form in order to continue my journey. While some rifts were man-made, or should I say alien-made, others simply occurred as a natural consequence of the unnatural frayed fabric of reality. Like a hole in a piece of cloth whose threads weaken, loosen, and allow additional holes to form.”

“So in other words, yer lookin’ for smaller holes near the portal?” He couldn’t help but smile like an idiot just a little bit. It was nice to hear his nerd brother again.

“Precisely! Seeing as our shiny punched hole in reality here was designed to lead to the Nightmare Realm, also known as Bill’s domain, I fear that any rifts will follow in those footsteps and do the– Aha! Stanley, could you bring me a borosilicate jar?”

“Come again?”

“Laboratory glassware! I need a resealable container, such as a jar. I used to have some spares sitting around here somewhere…”

Stan disguised a chuckle with a cough as he watched Ford crouch near the far corner, legs and hands splayed far apart, before turning to go fetch what was needed. When he returned, Ford was several feet away from the corner and busy with his hands on the portal instead.

He jumped when Stan suddenly slapped his shoulder. “What did I just tell ya about takin’ a break? Anyway, here’s your jar.”

Ford sheepishly nodded and retrieved it from him. He inspected it for a few moments, removing and replacing the lid a few times, before going back to the corner. Stan tried to stand on his tippy toes to peer at what the heck a rift might look like without getting any closer to the corner. He observed as Ford swung his arm in wide arcs and seemed to be capturing… floating blobs of spacey stardust? He thought they’d make for a cool alien lava lamp. I bet I can sell that.

His brother turned back to face him, sealed jar clasped between his hands.

“There we have it! It is but a small thing for the time being, but we will need to seal it and monitor it in case of any changes. I believe I know just the thing and can have this taken care of…”

Stan gave him a look. He put a lot of work in making sure that unimpressed eyebrow was as judgmental as it could be.

“...We’ll take care of it tomorrow.” Ford looked a little dejected as he changed course, sighing wistfully.

Stan gave him a thumbs up. His brother just snorted, shaking his head and smiling as he walked past and back into the control room. He seemed ponderous, one hand on his chin while he considered whatever it was he was thinking about, and then he opened a cabinet on the wall and locked the jar away inside.

“Ready to head upstairs now?” Stan was back by the elevator.

“Yes, I believe so. Well, no, but I accept that I should.”

For a short while, the tension between the twins had disappeared. But the elevator felt suffocating again.

Ford kept fidgeting and looking everywhere except at Stan. When Stan caught his eye once, he cleared his throat. Ford took in a deep breath.

“Stanley… It is very difficult. I do not have the words for everything it is that I am feeling, and everything that I want to say to you. I am still unsure of a lot of things, not the least of which is myself. But… I am glad to be home.” The wrinkles on his face were the softest Stan had ever seen them.

It wasn’t a thank you, but it was close enough for now. Close enough for Stan’s face to beam into a great big toothy, giddy grin. “Glad to have ya here.”

When the elevator reached their destination at the top and Ford made a motion to leave, Stan held him back with a hand on his shoulder. Ford turned to him, eyebrows raised questioningly.

Stan averted his eyes and coughed into his free fist. “I, uh… Sorry. For earlier today. You’ll always be my family, ya nerd.”

Ford gave him a small smile. “Me too… I apologize for punching you earlier. I am not entirely sure why I did, honestly.”

Stan shrugged, then wrapped his arm around Ford’s shoulders in a hearty embrace. “Eh, stress ‘nd nerves probably. ‘Sides, you sound like ya could use somethin’ to punch!” He gesticulated dramatically with his free hand as though he were painting a picture for Ford to see. “Maybe we can pull out that boxing dummy from storage tomorrow ‘nd draw a triangle on it!”

“Oh that isn’t necessary, Stanley…” Stanford snorted, leaning into Stan as his laughter made him less steady on his feet. “Nah don’t worry about it Sixer, I wanna punch it too. And if that guy ever shows up here again, I’ll punch him for real!”

Stanley grabbed both of Ford’s shoulders as his laughter died down, turning his brother to face him. “I really mean it, ya know. Don’t gotta ask me twice. Easiest sell of m’ life, even. No one messes with my family like that ‘nd gets off scot-free, ya hear me?”

Ford visibly swallowed and gave a tiny nod.

“... Thank you. I appreciate it.”

They shook the sand off their shoes as they stepped out of the elevator.

They held each other for support as they trekked through the ocean, waves lapping at their calves as they climbed the stairs one step at a time.

When they stepped through the vending machine, the nostalgic laughter of two twin little boys wrapped around them like a scarf before evaporating into ocean mist.

The vending machine had only been closed for a second before Mabel bounded right up to her Grunkles and planted herself right into their legs, trying to wrap her short arms around them both in a hug. Stan gestured for Dipper to come over as he and Ford crouched down to Mabel’s height, apparently already knowing that the little dork was nearby. Ford watched as Dipper meekly came from around the corner and joined them, repeatedly glancing between Stan and Ford all the while.

Stan spread his arms wide and trapped all of his family in a big bear hug, laughing and feeling weightless and the most alive he has in years. “I knew ya little knuckleheads wouldn’t be asleep! Tell ya what, I was about to make some Stancakes ‘nd coffee for my nerd brother here. How ‘bout I make a few ‘nd some hot chocolate for the two of ya, ‘nd then you can head to bed this time?”

Dipper’s guilty smile fell sideways into laughter as Stan broke the hug to noogy him and his sister, but Mabel was undeterred by her hair getting ruffled. “You better give me extra marshmallows and heaps of glitter!”

“Yes Stanley, and I better have no less than four tablespoons of sugar in my coffee.”

“A-and I want four Stancakes, Grunkle Stan!”

Stan broke out in a belly laugh and clapped Ford’s back as he stood up straight. “Sheesh, no wonder none of ya can sleep!”

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this positively about the future. The spring in his step and the healing salve on his heart nearly made him feel like a new man. As he pulled out the flour and baking soda and opened the fridge to grab the milk and butter, he couldn’t help but feel like no matter what may happen, things would work out just fine.

[butch-reidentified]

Yet another time someone has sent me a screenshot from this random woman spreading 100% baseless, very obviously made-up ('i wonder if") bs about me due to who knows what deep unfulfilled need of hers, though she's never had the spine to come for me directly in any capacity. I so do not understand why I'm coming up again now, given I've not been on tumblr much for months, but 🤷

I'm not going to tag her like I usually would bc I have less than zero desire to invite that toxicity into my life so directly atp (I've @ ed her in the past when she started doing this ages ago), but I am gonna say something ab both the accusations she makes/spreads and ab the behavior itself.

She's been spreading unhinged rumors about me being into men for literal years, including accusing me of fucking my brother, and apparently doesn't find it at all fucked up to be harassing a lesbian trafficking survivor with literally COMPLETELY baseless accusations of sex with m*n (which I have never remotely desired and as I've literally made memes about, would sooner die) just bc I didn't think her treatment of macroclit was entirely fair, as the person who had actually known macroclit for years irl before even being on radblr. I don't necessarily think I would do/say all the exact same things now that I did at that time, for deeply personal reasons I don't owe anybody an explanation of, but that doesn't justify any of the toxicity on her part.

I don't think it's acceptable or even non-lesbophobic to act like lesbians need to be a complete monolith when it comes to their experiences with bi women and views. Nothing I ever said claimed lesbians can be into men or anything of the sort, nor supported polilez, and outside of shit like that, I don't think we need to all have the exact same takes on every single issue down to the smallest nuances.

I also don't think it's acceptable or feminist to completely invent and spread rumors about other women like some wannabe Regina George, as if women don't face enough of that stereotype already. Especially if these rumors undeniably play on themes of your target's trauma history. Especially when you yourself certainly know you're completely inventing said rumors, that they're purely weird parasocial (& blatantly dishonest) speculation.

yes, macroclit is my ex, and we were friends after dating but never "fwb." we did not "meet up and have 3sums," we met up and watched movies and went clubbing, and we have not even slept together since like a couple of years before she realized she was into guys. yes i had a "poly" experimental phase in/around my college years - and I'll admit I didn't formally & vocally end said phase until long after it had materially ended - but this was with exclusively other women, as should be fucking obvious, and frankly was mostly in name only; I just never had any meaningful urge to seek out more partners, and tbqh have never had a very high sex drive. I don't fuck anyone but my wife atp & very much don't want to (nor did I want to feel like I had to air my entire sexual history on tumblr to thousands of ppl).

idk what need is being fulfilled by doing shit like this, i rly cannot fathom it & have never in my life engaged in this behavior toward any other woman. in all honesty, I thought it was just a fully fictional misogynistic stereotype that women do this at all, bc I've never known anyone who does. I've seen rumors spread ofc but usually airing ppls real dirt or exaggerating it, not just lying outright. wild.

all that said, if you want to go toe to toe regarding actual irl feminist action, lmk. otherwise, fix your own shit and drop your obsession w imagining me liking d*ck, it's super creepy and weird.

[ladyluscinia]

I'm already so sick of how the fallout of ofmd season 2 has snowballed into people on here going "fandom these days just can't handle Bad Things happening in media-- newsflash, characters have to get hurt and die, grow up!" all condescending like. First of all, in the context of Izzy, most people I've seen discuss his death agree that they would've accepted and enjoyed his death if it had just been handled appropriately, and also. "You just can't handle bad things happening to your fave!" Bruh. We were all partying it up when Izzy lost his fucking leg and was suffering physically and mentally. It can be FUN to see your blorbo suffer!

And that is just one example of a larger trend on this site-- people are really gonna come onto the "we love putting our blorbos in the blender and watching them struggle and suffer" site and say "kids these days can't handle Bad Things happening to their blorbos." Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Fandom loves their fix-its, but they also love shattering their faves. The problem has never been Bad Things happening in general, but HOW those things are framed within the narrative and how that narrative is told. The problem is when something is out of place in its genre, or when it goes against a promise the show has made, or when suffering is used flippantly and uncaringly, or when a character suffers and suffers and then just when they've finally caught a break, they're kicked down again, just for a cheap tug at your heartstrings.

Both within the context of ofmd AND in a wider fandom context, fandoms LOVE when our blorbos are hurt, as long as our blorbos are hurt RIGHT.

... And I think it sure is Something that a fandom can have a rampant issue with fans of a character being harassed and sent death threats and that's just "normal fandom being fandom" but god forbid people feel Emotions. About a Character and a Show. And dare to react by... just Offering Criticism! No, death threats are "fandom culture that comes with the territory," but if you vent post or criticize a writing decision in media, THAT'S being "hysterical" and "overly emotional" and "truly frightening behavior!" I just LOVE (big sarcasm) how back when people were getting doxxed and threatened for liking a guy, the fandom was all *cricket noises,* but NOW suddenly everyone is "terrified and exhausted by fandom's volatility" and "concerned about the fragile mental health of fans" when you simply say "damn that episode sucked and I sure am sad about it."

The OFMD fandom was toxic as fuck for a year and a half and continued to be toxic as fuck for all the airing of S2, so hardly surprising that the aftermath of S2 appears to be... toxic as fuck.

Least surprising thing in the world is that the people who hated Izzy and passively or actively supported driving his fans out of the fandom for "ruining it for everyone else" now think his fans should leave the fandom if they are so upset and stop leveraging "baseless criticism" at the show that is "ruining it for everyone else." They have normal not-at-all-parasocial relationships leading them to directly @ David Jenkins and thank him for a season that somehow managed to be both flawless and have all its flaws blamed on MAX, but those wretched Izzy stans have horrible-evil-parasocial relationships making them harass the crew by *footage not found*

If Mr. Jenkins decides to go scroll the #ofmd s2 tag on tumblr and stumbles across me - a random blog and icon - outlining how I think he fucked his show up, that's pretty clearly on him? This is tumblr. I have no relationship with this man or obligation to tailor every word I say as if he's bound to see it and going to take it personally???

I'm actually a big proponent of "Don't @ the cast and crew about pretty much anything" because the same fandom mentality that makes you think you can randomly ask him about your headcanon like you're chatting is what all these people are melting down about if someone directly goes "hey you killed my favorite character and that makes me mad!" - same fucking people, same fucking parasocial relationship. The standard of "only @ them for good things" is the flimsiest fucking line, as any ao3 writer who has received unsolicited "constructive criticism" or "advice" can tell you.

If we want to snidely get into "what this is really about" well it's the same fucking thing it was before:

People substituting subjective opinion as objective fact with zero self-awareness of doing so. "I liked this so it's good." "I didn't like this so it's bad." "I got bad vibes from that character so he was clearly written to be horrendous and unlikable." "I sympathized with this character so anyone suggesting he has flaws is demonizing him."

Or the deepest circle of fandom hell: "I think [insert identity] rep is so important and this piece of media fits into however I personally define 'good rep', therefore it is flawless and/or morally significant enough to be above criticism."

...which, yeah, leads to temper tantrum levels of fandom infighting, especially since people online express, fairly frequently, "I didn't like it because it was bad" and then present evidence for their point. And also a lot of fandom likes bad TV. Or even just mediocre TV that's entertaining.

I personally was not going to be happy about any person beyond one-offs, blatant villains, and background randoms dying because "they had to" (for their own arc or someone else's) because I fundamentally think if you believe you've written yourself into that corner in a workplace comedy that's built around a main romance arc... you're kinda stupid. Yes, even if it's pirate themed. Enough injuries have been walked off and lampshaded to confirm that part is aesthetic.

The fandom wiki for The Office lists 11 deceased characters. Three of them are fictional characters who die in an action-movie episode. Two are one-offs that get named dropped seasons later as having died offscreen. One of them is an offscreen cat, who appears to have had a more significant death plotwise and emotionally than any of the humans, and another is a woman who literally exists as a picture someone makes up a personality for and then discovers the real woman died. The most significant character on the list is a temp boss that got a four episode story arc about being a useless idiot who died in the hospital after a basketball dunking accident.

That is a show that ran for 9 seasons and over 200 episodes. It's pretty universally regarded as good, and the cringe asshole boss getting genuinely moving emotional beats is a big part of that. I think we can maybe pretty confidently say that reflecting the random realities of death is not essential to every story.

If OFMD wants to be evaluated as a hard-hitting drama or a queer story about the struggle of piracy against the Evil Empire, I will compare it to Black Sails instead of The Office. I just don't think David Jenkins is going to enjoy that comparison.

I'm not going to lower my standards because [insert rep reason the show must absolutely be a wild success here].