Sunny / Sin

She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.

But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.

To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.

San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.

Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.

Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.

Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.

Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.

When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.

He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.

It was a mistake that would change American history.

Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.

She saw "her kids."

She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.

Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.

She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.

So, she made a choice.

She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.

Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.

The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.

She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.

She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.

"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."

And it did.

Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.

Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."

For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.

She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.

She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."

By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.

In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.

This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.

One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."

They underestimated who they were dealing with.

They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.

When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.

It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.

Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.

She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.

Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.

"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."

The quote ran in newspapers across the country.

The court didn't stand a chance.

Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.

The charges were dropped.

Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.

She needed to change the law.

August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.

She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.

But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.

She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.

She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.

In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.

It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.

She never got rich.

She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.

She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.

Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.

Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.

Most of them have never heard of Mary.

They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.

They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.

They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.

Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."

She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.

She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.

She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.

Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.

It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.

It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.

Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.

Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.

1: The in group deserves everything and the outgroup deserves nothing. Everything the in group does is good and justified, everything the outgroup does is not. 

This is the bedrock of the gaslight, gatekeep, goldsmith social interaction special, and the governing principal behind what Scott is willing to justify and when. Basically, if he or someone he likes did it, then he will defend it and deny even the concept that it might have been wrongdoing. People that are not members of his coven generally have their actions weighed by how dangerous or inconvenient they are to himself or His People. 

The most obvious example of this is the interactions with v!Avid in episode 6 and 7. In episode 6, he complains about Avid burning down Shelby’s house, but in episode 7 he defends it by claiming that “it was ugly”. The same instance of the same action performed by the same person goes from something worth complaining about to something worth defending based entirely on where they stand in Scott’s regard.

Note also that this rule has no interest in fairness or reality. If Shelby says “the sky is green and the moon is made of cheese”, and Martyn says “no it's not”, then Scott will back up Shelby because Shelby is coven and Martyn is not. If Shelby kills Martyn, Scott will immediately decide that Martyn had it coming. If Shelby kills Martyn, burns down the town, and declares her desire to destroy the world and rule over the ashes with an iron fist, Scott will fully support her in that endeavor.

2: A lone vampire is a dead vampire. Your power is directly proportional to the number of people that answer to you

On one level, this is just mechanically true for vampires smp. Every person turned is another set of hands that can corrupt the beacons, and, just as importantly, one more person taken away from the effort to consecrate them. Even if that person never switches sides, the fact that they can’t consecrate any more or use the various human powers makes it a worthwhile effort, which is why there was a general OOC limit to turning only one human per episode. (and they had to take a break from turning people if they accidentally turned too many)

a more character driven level, Scott is very much a social threat, and acts the part. Turning people lets him acquire minions, who are easier to manage than outsiders, and generally aren’t going to cause him problems.

Vampirism is generally more then enough to force someone into his faction, because once someone is turned the humans will do the bulk of the work in driving the new vampire away from them and into Scott’s waiting arms. It’s a phenomena Scott is very confident about and takes shameless advantage of.

This is also why in episodes where Scott doesn’t turn anyone (due to the OOC limits), it’s styled as him stopping because the new vampires aren’t joining up- growing his power base is the main benefit of turning new vampires, and when that peters out he becomes more hesitant to do so.

3. Your actions should always advance your agenda

In other words, Scott mixes business and pleasure in the sense that his hobbies always contain some practical value. 

This is, honestly, the one Scott haters get wrong the most. While there’s nothing wrong with having a villain in your story, Scott isn’t the sort of person to torture someone in his basement for the sake of it when he could be torturing someone in his basement for information, or to break them down into something more psychologically dependent on him. 

Even if recreation is his main goal, he should ideally have a secondary goal as a matter of both practicality and preference- it’s just more fun for him if he’s being paid to be evil. (or buy some ice cream. Or pet a dog. Or help someone out)

4. Betrayal is a crime of the highest order. Loyalty is a virtue of the highest order. 

What, exactly, Scott considers betrayal varies over the course of the series, but this is generally the governing principal behind the various times he menaced Pyro, why he didn’t see v!Avid’s murder coming, and why he was both so pleased with v!Avid and so angered by his death. 

Scott Goldsmith values loyalty, and to a degree both expects it as his due and considers it an obligation to give loyalty in turn. This isn’t surprising- most Scott Smajor characters run along lines of loyalty and devotion. Scott Goldsmith is not an exception just because he is also a Dracula. 

5. Support your allies however you can

Scott is, in fact, an incredibly dedicated ally. He does things like give Pyro food while having low hunger himself as early as episode 2, and the tendency to act like that only goes up over time.

This makes a certain amount of sense- helping other members of your faction also helps you because you’re all working together for a single goal. In Scott’s case this is especially true, since as the leader he’s deciding a disproportionate amount of the group’s goals. A well fed minion is a productive minion. A productive minion is a lot more likely to succeed at your goals. 

This one is the part that can be the hardest to reconcile with Scott’s everything else. However, it’s important to remember that Scott is not immune to the desire for companionship, and also that he actually needs to keep people on side in order to not die. In some ways, this is very much an extension of rule 2.

6. (new) be a good friend

Over the course of the series, Scott gradually gets attached to the other vampires, and comes to see them as companions with needs he should consider outside of their mutual victory. He realizes that he likes the people around him, and he wants them to be happy. That he cares about them as people, and not just as tools.

The process of this takes the entire series, but by the end of it his friends are a big enough priority that he points out opportunities to escape to his own detriment.

In conclusion:

1. Scott’s core character concept is “guy that is trying to get a good grade in Minecraft Hunger Games, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve”

2. Scott Goldsmith does not so much have a moral compass as he has a set of rules designed to keep him alive. The bad parts of this are obvious, but there are good parts, too: when it mattered most, Scott was able to change and grow to suit the people around him. Owen and Ren, by contrast, violently self destructed and that hurt the people around them because they were too rigid in their personal convictions.

3. The support he offers to other people in the coven is real and sincerely meant. The expectation that those coven members will aid and abet his own misdeeds is also very real. Scott himself doesn’t recognize the difference until the end of the series, where he asks Abolish to stop him from doing bad things. 

4. The finale of vampires smp from Scott’s pov very much pivots around v!Avid’s death. It turns out that the rules that Scott shaped himself around weren’t as ironclad as he thought, because the people around him would literally rather die than put up with them. The mechanics that demand violence and bloodshed can be subverted in a way that causes unnecessary death and suffering.

And, to be clear, Owen and Pyro are dead to him as soon as they do this. In part because he’s planning on killing them himself, yes, but also because their actions are tactical suicide.

When he next talks to Pyro in what is basically his eulogy, Scott thanks him for the reminder that he should expect death and misery, because as far as he’s concerned death and misery are the normal course of events. Scott was winning so much he forgot that murder boxes suck, actually.

This is increasingly a problem because, by the laws of murderboxes, Shelby and Drift are almost certainly going to die- they both struggle with pvp, don’t have the aggression to cover for it, and with Pyro and Owen lost they don’t have enough front liners to cover their weaknesses. If things continue the way they’re “supposed” to, more people that Scott cares about are going to die.

So, Scott starts looking for another way out. After all, if the rules can be broken in ways that are bad, maybe they can be broken in ways that are good. Maybe they don’t have to kill everyone. Maybe murderboxes are bullshit, and all of this was entirely unnecessary.

So he starts looking, and, surprisingly enough, there is a path out. It’s not easy or bloodless, but it is a strict improvement over the status quo. It’s an option that keeps his friends alive.

Of course, just leaving this murderbox isn’t enough. Scott still has to deconstruct the murderbox in his own head, because otherwise his actions will simply create another murderbox around him.

That’s a bad outcome, so he enlists Abolish to kill him if he starts causing problems. Scott’s not great with morals, but he’s excellent with rules and practical consequences. So long as backsliding into the worst of his old behavior is guaranteed to go badly for him, he can be fairly sure that he won’t do that.

Whump Prompts

Week One

Burns Neglected Connection

Week Two

Tied to the Dead Dying of Heartbreak

Week Three

Forced to Watch Feeling the Other's Pain

Week Four

Platonic vs Romatnic Soulmate (Mismatched Bonds) Unrequited Bond

Alt Prompts

Severed Connection, Getting Sick After Each Other, Paired with an Abuser, Unrequited, Chronic Illness

Regular Prompts

Day 1) “It’s you?” “Always has been”

Day 2) Platonic Soulmate

Day 3) Overprotectiveness

Day 4) Gossip

Day 5) Chosen Soulmate

Day 6) "I knew I'd find you here."

Day 7) Highschool AU

Day 8) meet-ugly

Day 9) Vampire AU

Day 10) “Wait… YOU!?” “Why did it have to be you?”

Day 11) Reuniting / Reconnection

Day 12) Fantasy AU

Day 13) Multiple Soulmates / Polyamorus

Day 14) "Should have known it was you.'

Day 15) (Running a) Diner

Day 16) Ordering for the Other

Day 17) Mecha AU

Day 18) “Took you long enough”

Day 19) Glowing Connection

Day 20) Shared Pain

Day 21) Words On Skin

Day 22) "Every mile you've walked, I've been with you."

Day 23) "Oh” “Oh“

Day 24) Best friends to Soulmates

Day 25) Shared Memories

Day 26) Cuddling

Day 27) Sleepy Mornings

Day 28) Making Breakfast

Day 29) FIRST DATE

Day 30) First Kiss

Alt Prompts