Women wanted to be lawyers and engineers and chemists. They wanted to use their brains in challenging and interesting ways. They wanted to get the satisfaction from solving problems and inventing new shit and getting attention for it.

An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids' whole childhoods in jail for "resisting arrest" when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! 🙄)

And it still took like two hours of delibration after we'd heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues'.

Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won't lie. I can be patient, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?

That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.

Scott, thinking about Abolish: I want him.

Shelby: as like…. a pet?

Pyro: or… in a sex way?

Owen: I hope you mean you want him *dead*

Scott: …

Scott, wistfully: yeah

@lazylittleartist

The townsfolk: what are we going to do about Scott?

Abolish: I’m gonna take him out.

Cleo: with a gun?

Drift, squinting nervously: …on a date?

I am not normally the kind of person to separate the creation from the creator, I will admit this about myself, however with my main example of this being JK Rowling and Harry Potter (also Harry Potter is just a poorly written story tbh) I think the Vampires SMP situation is pretty different.

For one, I’m not actively separating myself from the fandom and VSMP content, that makes V!Avid quite different than the example stated previously. Am I writing Avid-centric fics? No, but there is a higher likelihood of TOH!Vampires AU having a toh!Avid centric chapter.

It’s also incredibly clear the AvidMC did not care about V!Avid and I think that makes a difference too, plus, supporting POW Creations (which yes, writing fics and shit supports them a wee bit, but not financially, not in any sort of way that matters, because most creators don’t read fanfics) is a great thing to do and also the biggest fuck you to AvidMC ever

That’s the difference I’m finding, toh!Avid is my OC, rau!Avid is your OC, and I’m going to fucking bite anyone who comes at us for writing a fictional character and calling it just

but ye, I just wanted that out on words :)

PERFECTLY SAID

a person liking a fictional character does not make that person an abuse supporter. a person choosing to claim a terrible person's character as their own (and arguably showing more love for that character than their creator ever did) does not make that person an abuse supporter.

writing fanfiction and making fanart and just plain talking about a character does not financially support avidmc. it is so fucking different for HP, because JKR actively uses any interest shown in her admittedly mediocre book series as a weapon.

avidmc and marma1ade are gone from the creatorspace. loving vsmp, the flight, misadventures, sbk, haunted winter and any other smp or project that they touched does not mean that you support them.

toh!avid is your oc, rau!avid is my oc. in loving the characters that we write and create, we are treating the characters with more respect than avidmc ever did and we are -- VERY NOTABLY -- not using the characters as weapons to demean or tear down anyone else.

write fanfiction. make art. watch powcreations and sbk and the flight and all the other projects you love. i have become very fond of the phrase "create with spite and love in your heart" and i'm standing by it. two horrible people should not destroy your enjoyment of wonderful fandoms.

but beyond that, apo has clearly chosen to portray their experience with vampirism as a dysphoric one. she's "bad with blood," she doesn't want to drink it, she's deeply uncomfortable in her own skin. when she's low on food, she'll typically ignore it until the last possible second and try to prolong herself by eating human food that she knows will make her sick, while completely internalizing all signs of distress.

she doesn't tell anyone she's a vampire, even when it's made clear that she is in a position where it'd be safe to do so. when they're forcibly outed to legundo by the situation (being unable to consecrate a beacon), she never says explicitly that she's a vampire. she shuts down, and when he indirectly asks for confirmation, she tells him not to talk to her about it.

and this fear and avoidance isn't baseless, either. sure, apo is afraid of outright rejection, but she's also likely afraid of people treating her differently because of her vampirism, holding her at arm's length, overanalyzing her every move. we can only speculate about the details of apo's lived experience before coming to oakhurst, but it's clear that she has experience with ostracisation.

this is what peak romance looks like ok