What do you think of Suzanne Muldowney, and her Underdog fanfic "Interplanetary Olympic Horror"? I think Suzanne Muldowney is a great dancer, a great singer and her fanfic is pretty good (it has a lot of antifascist themes), and I mean that very genuinely and sincerely. Seriously!
Suzanne Muldowney is. an interesting person. She sort of.... fundamentally misunderstands Underdog to the point where i kinda wonder why she's so involved with him at all? She works entirely within her own AU, which like, me too, but hers just feels... i just dont believe she likes him!!
her dancing's fine, i don't... think i've ever heard her speak
Interplanetary Olympic Horror is uhhhh. also interesting. it's doing a lot. i kind of don't know how to process it. at its core it feels like an Underdog episode, but, then we toss in real-world nazism, the wish fulfillment of Muldowneydog winning all these competitions with the dancing, all the murders. some of the plot points and scenes are cool admittedly (i like "He was no god; just a mortal like everyone else.").
full respect for just absolutely GOING for it in terms of storytelling, but it does wind up with a lot of it just being telling not showing. and i have so many questions about just like, everything. but overall it's just. such a weird mismatch of Underdoggery and stuff that he just doesn't really jive with.
Underdog doesn't have Nazis, just allegorical dictators. Superman has Nazis. but of course, Muldowney wants Underdog to be a 1:1 furry Superman.
he doesn't even rhyme...
DON'T GET ME WRONG, nazis are awful and it's a good thing to say so!! i just don't know if Underdog is the right vessel.
umm.
i really liked her 60th Anniversary special cosplay! the silver cape works way better with all the patterning, both on the cape and the fit. and the silver cape/silver hair look is iconic
Well I really like Suzanne Muldowney, I genuinely think she did and still does a great job dancing as Underdog among other characters, plus I really feel bad for her, given she was exploited and humiliated by Howard Stern in his show in 1992 (Howard asked Suzanne vulgar and inappropriate questions that mischaracterize her and Underdog).
I respect your opinion on her, and it's really amazing that Suzanne is still dancing after all these years. Seriously!
hey everybody!! soooo, remember that person barfyhere? that person who was exposed for grooming a minor and harassing strongstar artists?? yeah, the person that many people shared anecdotes about them not respecting their boundaries either? the person who made it about them in their response instead of actually apologizing to the victim and taking accountability? the person that said they were going to get off the internet but yet was seen a week later talking to people on deviantart and discord?
yea.
they are still active on pinterest as recently as last week.
this is unacceptable, they need to be held accountable and they need to actually man up and gtfo the internet for good. for both the safety of others and themselves because they can’t seem to let this go to save their life when it’s only hurting them. they are still perpetuating similar behavior on that pinterest as they did on their tumblr.
it needs to be understood: if you were exposed for grooming a minor and you have to be told by someone else how to APOLOGIZE TO THE VICTIM, there is no coming back from that. you need to get help, get off the internet, and never come back.
please reblog, i don’t want people to forget about this person and i don’t want them to be allowed to run loose like this.
It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.
Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.
Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.
The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.
The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.
She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.
She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."
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.
Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana." Weird Everything, FB december 12, 2025
I'd be only too happy to do that. I was suspicious to start, too. It seemed a bit on the nose to have the weed brownie grandma named "Mary Jane," but also, that's a very common combination in a certain place and time, so I thought it was worth the extra effort.
What I did was find sources that made the claim (in this case, that a woman named Mary Jane was a medicinal marijuana activist in California, USA in the 1980s and 90s.) I checked the dates to get some certainty those sources aren't AI slop, then checked that the sources are generally reliable.
Then I followed useful details about the place and time, and other people involved, to explore it more fully.
The first thing I did was search for "Brownie Mary" and see if that turned anything up at all. It turned up a LOT of results. Predictably, some of them were recipes, but not all of them.
Next up, I checked sources and dates. Wikipedia can be dodgy for academic use, but their policy on LLM-generated input is very clear: they don't want slop. I started by reading that page and then went on to read others.
The Atlas Obscura article is from 2018. I found another one from SFWeekly from 2017.
Both of those are decent sources - Atlas Obscura gets a High factual reporting rate from MediaBiasFactCheck, and while MBFC doesn't have a rating for SFWeekly, the verbiage in that article is very close to what GastroObscura has. (Also to what the post itself has, right down to the choice of pull quote.)
Now, we can stop there and feel pretty confident that articles published before the wide availability of LLMs are not, in fact, LLM generated.
...or we can go deeper, and run this all the way back to source.
I spotted references to a Chicago Tribune imterview of Mary Jane Rathbun, published in 1993.
My search string of "Chicago Tribune 1993 Mary Jane Rathbun" hit it in the top 3 results. That article includes some fun new details: she wore a cannabis leaf shaped pendant to her trial!
She also objected to being portrayed as a cuddly grandma up against The Man, so I must retract my flippant tags, above.
The evidence now strongly points to Brownie Mary being a real woman who really went to court for giving AIDS patients weed brownies. But can we get closer? I've now seen several mentions of a 1980 attempt at convicting her too.
The articles have mentioned Sonoma County and a nonprofit called the Shanti Project, so let's hook onto that and see what we get.
Searching for "Mary Jane Rathbun Sonoma County 1980" gets me an article from a law firm; that mentions the prosecuting attorney by name, and points to a book: Lust for Justice: The Radical Life & Law of J. Tony Serra, by Paulette Frankl. It even has an excerpt!
We can run the book down too, just for fun (now we have a primary source.) My favorite used book site has a copy for $1. Amazon gives a view of the back cover, too:
...wow. I should see if my library has that!
The excerpt on the site has a mention of a candelight vigil held for her death in 1999. It took some hunting past things I'd already read and a bunch of shops giving written tributes, but I found a news report about that, too.
There's a lot of information out there, and it's worth digging into. Otherwise it's altogether too easy to think something real and worth knowing is just another bit of slop.
Need to pay for a surgery happening in July, financed over a year at $300 a month… Arwyn Chapman needs your support for Help Needed To Cover
I don't know what I'm supposed to say when doing something like this, I don't know how much I expect to get from it considering the amount of fundraisers I see strangers and friends alike put up on a regular basis to cover groceries and bills that I'm too broke to ever do anything for. But if there's anything you can offer, you have my heart.
As of July 10th, the surgery is no longer upcoming. I'll need to pay off the $3,600 expense in $300 increments monthly over the next year. Please donate what you can 🙏
I have enough money on standby to cover the first month's expense, but that's all. I've been looking at jobs to apply for once I've fully healed, but I don't know how long that'll take.
Please provide what you can to take some weight off my shoulders 🙏
Once I got the mobility in my upper body back around early August, I began applying for jobs in my area. My prospects were a bit limited considering I can't drive, I live in the suburbs that aren't particularly walkable, and I'm going back to school in January.
I've applied to over two dozen jobs over the last month and a half. 20 of them never got back to me. I got called back for two interviews, one of which came with four days of paid training.
I didn't get hired after either of those.
So I'm coming back to this fundraiser, I don't know if I'll be able to land a job and earn enough money to pay this off before I go back to school.
Nothing has changed. I'm starting school again in a month, I was unable to land a job, and even if I suddenly did I don't have any time left to earn much last minute.
Can I at least ask for donations as a birthday present (I turned 25 today)? I already intend to put any money I receive from family for my birthday + the holidays towards this medical expense.
Need to pay for a surgery happening in July, financed over a year at $300 a month… Arwyn Chapman needs your support for Help Needed To Cover
I don't know what I'm supposed to say when doing something like this, I don't know how much I expect to get from it considering the amount of fundraisers I see strangers and friends alike put up on a regular basis to cover groceries and bills that I'm too broke to ever do anything for. But if there's anything you can offer, you have my heart.
As of July 10th, the surgery is no longer upcoming. I'll need to pay off the $3,600 expense in $300 increments monthly over the next year. Please donate what you can 🙏
I have enough money on standby to cover the first month's expense, but that's all. I've been looking at jobs to apply for once I've fully healed, but I don't know how long that'll take.
Please provide what you can to take some weight off my shoulders 🙏
Once I got the mobility in my upper body back around early August, I began applying for jobs in my area. My prospects were a bit limited considering I can't drive, I live in the suburbs that aren't particularly walkable, and I'm going back to school in January.
I've applied to over two dozen jobs over the last month and a half. 20 of them never got back to me. I got called back for two interviews, one of which came with four days of paid training.
I didn't get hired after either of those.
So I'm coming back to this fundraiser, I don't know if I'll be able to land a job and earn enough money to pay this off before I go back to school.
Nothing has changed. I'm starting school again in a month, I was unable to land a job, and even if I suddenly did I don't have any time left to earn much last minute.
Can I at least ask for donations as a birthday present (I turned 25 today)? I already intend to put any money I receive from family for my birthday + the holidays towards this medical expense.
Need to pay for a surgery happening in July, financed over a year at $300 a month… Arwyn Chapman needs your support for Help Needed To Cover
I don't know what I'm supposed to say when doing something like this, I don't know how much I expect to get from it considering the amount of fundraisers I see strangers and friends alike put up on a regular basis to cover groceries and bills that I'm too broke to ever do anything for. But if there's anything you can offer, you have my heart.
As of July 10th, the surgery is no longer upcoming. I'll need to pay off the $3,600 expense in $300 increments monthly over the next year. Please donate what you can 🙏
I have enough money on standby to cover the first month's expense, but that's all. I've been looking at jobs to apply for once I've fully healed, but I don't know how long that'll take.
Please provide what you can to take some weight off my shoulders 🙏
Once I got the mobility in my upper body back around early August, I began applying for jobs in my area. My prospects were a bit limited considering I can't drive, I live in the suburbs that aren't particularly walkable, and I'm going back to school in January.
I've applied to over two dozen jobs over the last month and a half. 20 of them never got back to me. I got called back for two interviews, one of which came with four days of paid training.
I didn't get hired after either of those.
So I'm coming back to this fundraiser, I don't know if I'll be able to land a job and earn enough money to pay this off before I go back to school.
Nothing has changed. I'm starting school again in a month, I was unable to land a job, and even if I suddenly did I don't have any time left to earn much last minute.
Can I at least ask for donations as a birthday present (I turned 25 today)? I already intend to put any money I receive from family for my birthday + the holidays towards this medical expense.
A serious water leak is damaging our apartment building in Forlì — water is seeping from the parking deck into the garages below, threatening the structure and our belongings. The total repair cost is €118,000, and my personal share is €6,500.
This unexpected expense is a huge financial strain on my family. That’s why I’ve started a GoFundMe to ask for a little help from friends, neighbors, and anyone willing to lend a hand.
Every euro counts — your support will help restore our building’s safety, protect our homes, and bring peace of mind back to everyone affected. 🙏
https://gofund.me/50ac93eee
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness and generosity. ❤️
Because of the Tumblr CEO being very transphobic, I'm gonna be taking an indefinite break from this site until the site gets a new CEO.
Also, all humans are born equal and should be treated equally with equity, love, respect, decency, compassion, kindness, empathy, fairness, harmony, peace, openness, togetherness, understanding, humanity and positivity, and I still REALLY LOVE, RESPECT AND SUPPORT ALL COMMUNITIES OF COLOR.
Because of the Tumblr CEO being very transphobic, I'm gonna be taking an indefinite break from this site until the site gets a new CEO.
Also, all humans are born equal and should be treated equally with equity, love, respect, decency, compassion, kindness, empathy, fairness, harmony, peace, openness, togetherness, understanding, humanity and positivity, and I still REALLY LOVE, RESPECT AND SUPPORT ALL COMMUNITIES OF COLOR.
September MC & OCs of the Month - Special Edition:
Ava Flores
Help us in welcoming September's MCs and OCs of the month! That's right, plural! Most months, CFWC highlights one randomly selected MC or OC from our Meet My MC / OC List. (More info here.) But this month, we're doing something different.
In August, @lilyoffandoms hosted a Writers Appreciation Month, and we announced the September Writer of the Month would be selected from its participants. But all participants agreed - Lily deserved the honor! Still, we wanted to do something nice for the eleven writers who elected to participate to help uplift other writers in the fandom. So, this month, each of the eleven participants will have one of their MCs or OCs highlighted.
We will introduce each MC / OC individually, and once all eleven have been highlighted, a masterlist for the month will be created. We hope you enjoy getting to know all about them!
The first MC of the Month is @petiteboheme 's Ava Flores!
Learn more about Ava below!
In your own words, tell us what you like most about your MC.
Ava Flores is kind, free-spirited, loyal, adventurous, and down to earth. As an Afro-Latina, she is bilingual, with strong cultural roots and a large, close-knit family. The ‘Flores family love and support each other, and this has given Ava a strong sense of self. She knows her worth and won’t settle for less than what she knows she deserves. She is expressive of her feelings, both positive and negative, and had no issues calling Drake out on things during book 1
Following the scandal and being escorted to the airport, she refused to return when they tried to retrieve her. She’d felt unheard by a lot of the people around her and had had enough. Drake had to take drastic action and a lot of convincing to get to return in time for the first tour stop in Italy.
Do you feel your MC is like you at all? How are you alike or different?
I think, as a writer, it’s hard not to sprinkle a little bit of yourself into characters, even existing canon ones. But Ava is very different from me. Her family dynamic, upbringing, life experience background, and culture are different from my own. She has Caribbean timekeeping while I’m OCD, lol. She’s stronger, braver, louder, and more outgoing and determined than I am. I’m an introvert, and I don’t think I’d be able to deal with the Cordonian court at all lol
What is most important to your MC? What is their motivation in life?
Happiness, first and foremost. Everything she does is motivated by that. Her career choice (chef) is something she loves doing; she grew up with a mother who bakes for a living (her own business), so the fact that she wants to run her own simple little restaurant certainly influenced her mom. Writing slam poetry is her outlet and has helped her through many difficult situations. Her impromptu decision to go to Cordonia was less motivated by ‘winning a prince’ and more about adventure, making new friends, and doing things she’d never done before. The fact that she found love with Drake along the way was just the icing on the cake.
A relatively new motivation for her (since arriving in Cordonia) is making a difference in the lives of people she’s never met. Shortly after the sailing event, where Ava had worn braids, she met a young mother who told her that her daughter struggled with self-image, especially with her hair, and wouldn’t wear braids because she’d felt they were ‘ugly’. Seeing Ava wearing braids had a big impact on the little girl. Hearing this moved Ava, who never imagined herself as a role model.
What are their biggest pet peeves/dislikes?
She hates racism, xenophobia, and she has had to deal with it more times than she cares to remember. Dishonesty and insincerity, she has little tolerance or patience for those either. The things most valued at court (wealth, power etc.) are alien to her, which is why she’s happier away from it.
If your MC could change one thing - anything - what would it be?
Very little. She believes in growing and learning from her mistakes. But in my writing, her encounter with Tariq was more intense than in canon, and she hates that it happened. Drake begins teaching her self-defense before book two, but she wishes she’d had the skill sooner. She's still carrying a lot of anger over it and won’t be as forgiving to those involved as you had to be in canon.
What is your MC’s favorite quote or song?
She has many, from famous speeches to songs and poems that talk about injustice. Here are just a few
"You can only become accomplished at something you love. Don't make money your goal." –Maya Angelou
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind - Bob Marley
Before we find world peace, we gotta find peace and end the war in the streets. - Tupac
“If you don’t live your life, then who will?” - Rhianna
Is there anything else you’d like to share about your MC?
People say you should write for yourself, and that’s pretty much what I did with Ava. She is the MC/LI for Drake, and I wanted more than anything to see and read about her. I couldn't not write her. She’s developed over time, of course, but I knew from the beginning she would be big-hearted, lively and would come from a warm, loving family whom she was close to. She is everything Drake needs and more, Although I don’t have a lot in common with her, she’s made a big impact on me. She’s broadened my horizons, and I’ve learned from her. The response she’s created is amazing, and I am so grateful others have taken to her so well.
For the Lunar New Year I made the art for this month's illustration for the Homestuck Patreon!! I went a lil' crazy for it eheh.
Here's a lil' snippet of it, but if you don't feel like waiting the two months 'til it's available to the public-- you can see it in full right now on the Patreon!
But once again, HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! 🐉🧧🍊
I'm Marie (they/them) and I'm an artist, animator, and character designer! I love to draw my OCs and I often take commission work. Like me, a lot of my art is lgbt+, body positive, and neurodivergent!
i use #my art as my primary art tag, #commission for paid work, #ask for asks, and #oc for my characters. All of my OCs have their own individual tags too! See this post's tags for easy navigation!
Outside of art, I really love fashion dolls, minecraft, mlp, anime, manga, pokemon, dinosaurs, cryptids/paranormal, and fashion! I have a side account @plushiecryptid where i post about these a lot!
Where to find me
Twitter - most active platform
Ko-Fi - tip jar plus exclusive wips/early access art
romaincrisis
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
ellievsbear
kianamaiart
