#A few people have guessed who it is already though!! And they've been mentioned on this blog a few times

[14dayswithyou]

💖 14DWY OFFICIAL PLAYLISTS! 💖

aka songs that make me think of these characters ^^ Ironically, it has nothing to do with the recent poll lol /srs

Ren | [REDACTED] Leon Violet Teo

BONUS! For the crackpot theorists & those who like overanalysing lyrics: here's a mystery playlist with 14 very specific songs: 9 songs based on the cast, 4 songs based on the game endings, and 1 bonus song based on Ren's introspection ^^ First person to correctly guess which song belongs to each character and ending can get a free art commission of their choice!!

[lgbtlunaverse]

Fandom is so nice to Jiang Cheng's inferiority complex because in reality every single thing he gets accused of is something Wei Wuxian is better at than him.

Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian? Nope. Didn't even get close. Wei Wuxian's own spirits tore him apart before jc could even get there. wwx:1 jc:0

Jiang Cheng tortures people? We get two and a half rumours and a mention from jin ling that jc has 'captured' demonic cultivators before, but who is also apparently confident that just letting wwx run off will kill the issue even though those earlier rumours said ~no one who sandu shengshou captured was ever seen again~

The word jiang cheng uses when he tries to talk big game about 'beating the truth' out of Wei Wuxian's is a word that carries the context of pestering someone to do their homework. Doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.

Wei Wuxian? Excellent at torture. A prodigy. Did you fucking see what he did to Wen Chao? Dude didn't have fingers anymore because wei wuxian made him eat them. He ripped out his hair, burned his skin off, and then stalked him for several days just to prolong the pain. He forced Wang Lingjiao to bite Wen Chao's dick off and then made her shove a stool leg down her own throat! 10/10, no notes. Absolutely horrifying.

Meanwhile Jiang Cheng's idea of torture is getting a dog to bark at Wei Wuxian for a few seconds. Weak, unoriginal, I bet fairy was literally wagging her tail the whole time. 2-0

Jiang Cheng made the entire cultivation world believe Wei Wuxian was up to no good on the burial mounds and ultimately orchestrated his downfall? lol. lmao, even

It's a big thing in certain corners of the fandom to really zoom in one one particular phrase at the end of chapter 73, where after wwx and jc have their staged duel to make the world believe they hate each other jiang cheng tells everyone wwx has defected and become "a public enemy'' or "an enemy to the cultivation world" or whatever the translation you're familiar with decided upon.

(As an aside, something I really like about this line is that the last half of it is almost exactly the same, like verbatim, as what wwx told him to say. like, the chapter is really hammering home just how much jc is speaking from a script here. wwx tells jc to say "今后魏无羡无论做出什么事，都与云梦江氏无关." and jc says "今后无论此人有何动作，一概与云梦江氏无关" the only meaningful difference is that he says 'this person' instead of wwx's name)

I've seen it said that this bit, the use of 'enemy' was said without wei wuxian's approval, that jc deviated from the script just to hurt his ex-shixiong for leaving him. And that this is what caused all the other clans to turn against wei wuxian. Regardless of if this is what jc and wwx discussed, or if jc had malicious motivations for it (considering my conclusions above, you can guess where i fall) it doesn't really matter, because the novel tells us when the clans completely freak out and become convinced wei wuxian is out to get them (though of course they've been wringing their hands about it since the literal day wwx ran off with the wen, months before jiang cheng visited) very neatly in chapter 75!

It's when they find out about Wen Ning.

And how do they find out about Wen Ning?

Because Wei Wuxian took him on nighthunts! And they kicked ass!

...Wei Wuxian, my man, why are you on nighthunts??? Why are you showing off your incredibly cool sentient fierce corpse buddy, who is way better and stronger than all the other fierce corpses, in front of the whole cultivation world??

Whatever his motivations (extra money, maybe?? they were strapped for crash) I can only draw the conclusion wwx had already given up on appearing calm or non-threatening and didn't care if the clans thought he was a threat, because they'd believe whatever they wanted anyway. Which he seems to clearly be aware of the whole time.

Regardless, we know that this is what created the myth of the Yiling patriarch. It's literally when the title first shows up!

Even if you really believe jc was secretly plotting against wwx in chapter 73, he's clearly doing a shit job of it because nothing he said made anywhere near as big an impact as this. Flopped!

The other point people use to argue Jiang Cheng caused wei wuxian's downfall is Jin Guangyao's speech in Guanyin temple about how jiang cheng could have saved wei wuxian if only he stood by him. Setting aside that jin guangyao is trying to get into jiang cheng's head here, and isn't necessarily saying what he really believes (though it very well might be! who knows with a character like jgy. assuming he's always lying is just as misleading as assuming he's always saying the truth) the fact is, if you read the speech closely, what he's talking about is not the 'public enemy' line, he's talking about the bond between them. The fact that people wanted wei wuxian out of yunmeng jiang, because the two were too powerful together.

He's talking about that one time Jiang Cheng very publically kicked wei wuxian out of the sect!

Which, unbeknownst to Jin Guangyao, was in fact Wei Wuxian's idea the whole time.

final score: 3 for you wei wuxian, you go wei wuxian! And nothing for Jiang Cheng bye.

[azaharinflames]

Sorry I need to rant for a tiny, little bit, because...

You know what I find particularly funny?

Their version of Buddie simply does not exist.

And I am not talking about how it is not canon, that is a given. But their version of it. The things they've claimed they do, or feel about each other, or think of each other.

(Disclaimer: I have my own opinion of their friendship and I do believe there are way better friendships within the show, including for Buck. But I do acknowledge they do love each other as friends and deeply care about one another. And that Chris is important for Buck. That is not up to discussion here. Okay, we can go on)

They have this whole "Buckley-Diaz is a family" that consists of Buck spending 99% of his free time at the Diaz house, of them having weekly movie nights, and of Buck taking Chris to school almost as much as Eddie does. And this is simply not true.

We do see Buck spending time at the Diaz house, of course. When he's hanging out with the Diazes (something that, might I point out, has not really happened since Season 4, as the few scenes we got of them hanging out since have been at Buck's loft - correct me if I'm wrong), helping Eddie out, in a group setting, and hiding from his sister and her helicopter babysitting. Movie nights- when is it even mentioned this is something they do weekly? Not once. And please correct me if I am wrong. Buck does not take Chris to school almost daily, not because he did after Eddie's breakdown does it mean this is a normal and usual occurrence. It doesn't mean it isn't, to be fair, but nothing in canon tells us otherwise. I will give them the zoo, however, because in canon we do have Eddie saying Buck takes Chris there all of the time.

What we got, however, was scenes showing how Buck has his own independent life. He has lots of scenes in his loft, as much as Buddies hate it, as we have never gotten an off-handed comment on how little he's spending there because he's at the Diazes all the time. We've gotten scenes of Buck reaching out to people who are not Eddie for help. And oh, of course - we have gotten scenes of his family (whether you like the Buckleys or not) having a family dinner. And guess who was not invited? Oh, right.

(We have, also, gotten enough scenes with Tommy that we know post-going official, they spend most of their free time with each other. Thank you to Bobby for also confirming this. We love you, king)

With the Diazes, we got scenes that showed how Eddie and Chris exist on their own, without needing Buck there to complete their family. We got a whole ep where Eddie was dealing with Chris's new crush, and instead of making that be a Buckley-Diaz 'family' storyline, Carla was the one accompanying Eddie and being the other adult in the situation. We can say whatever we want about the dating debacle at the end of Season 6 (I also think it was a mess, but for the way they rushed it), but Eddie did not say: oh, Chris and I are fine, we have Buck. And he did not say it because it simply would not have made sense.

And oh, I could go on and on on how the Eddie they have in Fanon is also not the one we have, but this is way too long already. Do let me know if anyone wants to hear it though. Although I will probably write it down whenever I am bored enough.

Short story very long: Buck and Eddie are good friends. They respect each other and clearly enjoy each other's company. And the show has definitely played with the concept of family for them (looking directly at the elf from season 2 here), but never too serious. Never in canon. Outside of the 118 being a family (which I am not denying), at least for me, it has always been obvious how Eddie and Chris were very valued by Buck, but his close-knit family (nuclear family, if you will) is and has always been Maddie (now extended to Jee-Yun and Chim as well), and Bobby (something he's admitted in canon, before someone comes at me for this).

Now, thankfully, we have Tommy to join in in there as well ☺️

[jamiebluewind]

Eclipse the kitten update

(please don't glitch tumblr it's the tenth time I've tried!!!)

Previous post

Welp! Winter's boy has a respiratory infection. It was causing him to wheeze so to the vet we went! Luckily it wasn't a diaphram issue (which had us worried because of his umbilical hernia). His hernia also came up normal on his x-rays.

(X-rays left out because might bother people, but I can send them on request)

He's on meds several times a day and taking them like a champ, but had to be put in a pen with limited free playtime (because nothing will stop Mr Indestructible from running around the house with all the grace of a car with no breaks). We DID get a reply after just a week from a really nice person who was going to give us one (shocked us let me tell ya because it was BIG dog sized). Unfortunately, they left it outside for us to pick up and someone else just... took it. Right out of their yard. And since all we had was a small cat carrier to keep him in (which was kinda cruel for more than a day or two tops), we ordered a cat playpen that we got for a decent price. We kept looking until it got here, but no luck. Still! It's a nice playpen and we have it set up so he doesn't have to jump if he doesn't want to (plus more vertical to enjoy later on). Sarah's mom also let us borrow her water fountain!

We went to a new vet as ours was booked up (and he had already been wheezing a day). Everyone basically fell in love with him instantly. He left with a little toy from the tech, they gave Winter a jar of honey (one of the people in the office has bees and they wanted to give her something for caring about a kitten that most wouldn't have despite him having a treatable condition), and they've been checking in on how he is recovering (very well since I first typed this actually). He's basically got an entire vet office wrapped around his little paw.

Also, the non-profit we're taking him to for his surgery had a cancelation and his got moved up to the 12th! Counting down the days yall.

Because I gotta kinda mention it, this hit us where it hurts. Between the vet visit and testing, the pen, and the estimated cost for the surgery and followup, it's gonna cost us more than $2k (as long as nothing ELSE goes wrong). We're lucky that we're all super careful with our money, but there's only so much we can save up with three people below the poverty line. Still worth it though. I mean, look at this doofus

He is so stubborn that we can't leave scratch posts upright because he keeps doing THIS! XD

I'm linking Winter's paypal, but I 1000% understand if you can't help out. Still, a reblog and a word or three mean a LOT to all of us so if you got a minute, I'd love some new post additions to show Winter.

(Truth be told, the only reason all the updates are posted on my tumblr is because I'm the longest winded out of the three of us and I take like 5 billion pictures. XD )

Speaking of, there WOULD be a bonus pic of him and his sister (Melanite, aka Miel) playing under my chair as my cat (Danny) looks on from a safe place, but tumblr kept glitching when I added it.

Edit: surgery update

[apomaro-mellow]

King&Prince 7

When Eddie returned to the castle, it was in the form of a raven. He perched himself on the outside of Steve's window. The prince was deep asleep and of course, looked completely harmless. Eddie knew not to be fooled by that though. Dustin looked downright cherubic when he slept but could still be an absolute menace. This was a prince, meaning he'd been taught in the ways of strategizing your next move and making every moment count.

It was very likely that he was just regaining energy for an escape attempt later on. Nancy's worries didn't fall on deaf ears. At the time, the reason Eddie didn't put a constant eye on him was because Dustin seemed attached to him already. Now that he was out of the cell, Dustin would probably seek him out at all hours. Which meant the prince wouldn't be able to get far before the young boy mentioned to someone that he couldn't find him.

He was dangerous. Eddie had to remind himself of that even as the prince was surrounded by softness and his face was smoothed of all tension.

The next morning, Steve was awakened by someone banging on the door. "Up and at 'em! Time for work!", Robin shouted through the door.

Steve got up, almost reaching for the doors of the wardrobe before remembering there wouldn't be anything there for him. All he had were the clothes on his back. Even the ones he'd come in with, dirty and wrecked, had been taken. Probably tossed, useless as they were.

He took a quick look at himself in the bathroom mirror. It wasn't too bad. His hair was lacking in its usual style, falling over his forehead, and there was still a bit of darkness under his eyes, but at least he didn't have that layer of filth anymore.

Steve let out a sigh when Robin pounded on the door again. He understood people's problem with him, that didn't mean he liked it.

"What, no breakfast?", Steve asked when she all but dragged him down the hall. They passed a few people who had sneers and glares to spare. At least back home people knew how to hide their disdain for him.

She put him to work in the music room again, arranging chairs with a prepared diagram. He heard someone call her name and she was out of the room, leaving him by himself. Steve wondered if they were just underestimating him or if they were that confident in their security. Steve continued to work for a few minutes before deciding to try and venture outside.

The moment he stuck a foot out the door though, a gaggle of kids were out in the hallway, waiting for him.

"See! I told you!", Dustin exclaimed.

Mike's jaw was on the floor. "They've got you doing chores?!"

"That's gotta be all he's good for", a red-headed girl he didn't recognize said.

The rest of them included Will, Lucas, and another girl he'd never seen before and they started arguing among themselves about Steve and his uses right there.

"Hey, hey!" Steve clapped his hands. "Has no one ever taught you brats any manners?"

"Do you really think so little of us?", Dustin asked.

"Forget it. I've got work to do." Anything to not be surrounded by a random group of children. But just as Steve went in to finish putting up the chairs and arranging the instruments, he was followed right away by the kids, discussing very loudly what was to become of this whole music lesson thing.

"What gives Eddie the right to tell us what to learn?", Lucas asked.

"He's literally in charge of everything else", the red haired girl, Max, said.

"And you guys had no complaints about him making sure you get educated in other things", Mike said.

"Because every young child should have a healthy dose of math, science and the arts", Dustin said.

"Guess what music counts as", Will grinned.

There was that Eddie guy again. Apparently in charge of what these kids learned. Maybe he was some sort of headmaster? Or some kind of higher up here. But Steve had never heard a title attached to their name. Not a lord, or duke, or even a mr. So just who was he to these kids. Steve's interest was almost piqued to ask but he had other things to worry about. Like filling his stomach.

His stomach growling was somehow heard over the cacophony of voices and it was heard by El. Steve had only known her for about fifteen minutes and yet she unnerved him. She laughed and smiled like any child and yet there was something lurking underneath the surface with her.

"He's hungry", she commented.

"Time for lunch then", Dustin decided.

Steve was somehow corralled by them all and he found himself taken to the castle kitchens. He was taken aback by the sights and smells. It was just like the kitchen back home, when he used to sneak down as a kid. The only difference was that instead of a numerous staff, there were much fewer people.

That and some of the pots were stirring themselves. Steve went up to one in awe.

"Magic?"

"Cooking magic", Will explained.

"Sit down, children", a voice said from deeper into the kitchen and Steve was pulled to a small table in the corner with chairs for all of them. The moment they did, a tray of warm bread floated to land in the middle and bowls of soup came flying towards them, landing without spilling a drop.

"Thanks mom!", Dustin called out.

Steve's mouth watered. He'd been eating scraps for days and none of it had been warm. He took his first bite and nearly cried. It was so good. some of the best he'd ever had. The kids were still talking, but Steve hardly paid whatever topic they were discussing any mind. He was too focused on the food. That and the fact that they didn't seem at all bothered by him.

The king's minions had attacked him and thrown him into a dungeon without any thought. The king himself hadn't shown his face until he was sure that Steve had no value as a bargaining chip. That Robin woman saw him as a pack mule and used him as such. The few adults in the kitchen would openly glare at him and Steve wondered if he should worry about poison in his food.

But Dustin and his friends...it was like they didn't care.

Robin appeared just as they finished eating to drag Steve to the library and have him move books around. Steve thought that at least he'd be free of the kids, but of course they weren't too far behind. The idea of library manners were lost to them as well, as they kept their normal volume around what must be thousands of books.

The next couple of days went very much the same, Steve being led around by Robin to reorganize the library. Sometimes it was blessedly quiet, the rest of the time, Dustin was there, asking questions about him or his kingdom which usually prompted some kind of argument amongst his friends.

Somehow, despite himself, Steve started to like them. They even got a laugh out of him once or twice. Dustin was bright, if a bit self righteous. Max was always instigating and it was clear she had fun doing it. Will had a sweet face but wasn't afraid to speak his mind. From what he gathered, they all lived here in the castle, and some of their parents were in the staff.

It was such a routine, that Steve was confused when Robin didn't come to get him one morning. He thought he should wait, but when it got close to noon, well he had to leave in search of food. He was still barefoot, but thankfully that wasn't much of a problem. What was a problem was how he was turned around and didn't know where he was going.

He heard some voices from around the corner and thought of asking for directions before remembering his place. If anyone other than the kids saw him walking around unescorted, they'd probably think he was up to something. Steve ran in the opposite direction, avoiding places he heard people talking and ended up in what looked like a sparring arena. The roof opened up to let the sun in and there was a wall of weapons. The area for sparring itself was a simple arena in the dirt and there was Lucas in the middle of it, struggling to lift a sword that was about as tall as he was.

"Uh, I can explain", Lucas said.

"No need", Steve said, mostly because he didn't want to have to explain what he was doing. "You're obviously in the middle of training." He looked to how big the sword was and how there was no teacher in sight. "A little advice, choose a weapon you can pick up."

Lucas frowned. "Why don't you show me, since you're so badass? Dustin told me you know all these techniques but so far I've just seen you carry stuff."

Steve raised a brow as he walked over and took the sword from Lucas. "Carrying stuffy counts as heavy lifting." He took a step away to get a safe distance and swung the sword with ease. "For now, you might be better with that", he used the sword to point to a rapier on the wall.

"That twig?"

"Think it's too much for you to handle?"

Lucas snorted and took it off the wall. He swung it around, not too confident in it. "Looks like it'll break if I went up against that", he gestured to the broadsword Steve had.

"It's not meant to go head to head like that", Steve said, sure that Lucas was imagining his sword slicing down right on top of Lucas' blade. "Real sword fighting is about using your skill to create an opening to land the right blow."

"Isn't most fighting like that?"

"Just shut up and show me your stance."

------------------------

Nancy was running through her to do list in her head. Spring would be coming soon and while the human inhabitants would be celebrating and holding festivals, the demo-creature population would be preparing for hibernation and there were things that needed to be arranged.

Her thoughts were interrupted by sounds coming from the sparring room. Neither she nor Jeff and called upon anyone but the room could be used by anyone trying to brush up their skills. Curious as to who was putting in extra work, she was surprised to see Lucas clashing swords with the prince. She didn't see anything else but red. She didn't see the smile on Lucas' face or how slowly Steve seemed to move.

She pulled out a dagger first, throwing it right in front of the prince's nose to get him to back off before unsheathing her own sword and getting between him and Lucas.

"Whoa! That was too close! You could've hurt him!", Steve said.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!", Nancy shouted back.

Lucas put a hand to her shoulder from behind. "Calm down, he was just-"

"Stay behind me. I knew something like this would happen." She advanced, raising her sword against Steve.

He was surprised at her ferocity when she was so small. That was when he remembered. "You were part of the ambush!"

"I should have killed you then", Nancy declared while actively trying to kill him. "Eddie was wrong, you're-"

Steve cried out when he tripped on a stray rock, cutting his foot in the process. It caused him to fall forward, which Nancy wasn't prepared for. A rush of black smoke was their saving grace, pushing Steve away and cushioning Nancy before turning into a man that held her close. Not just any man, of course. The king.

And just like most of the court, all he had for Steve was a hardened glower. Lucas had been stupefied into silence but spoke up when he saw the blood.

"Listen, it's not what it looks like! Steve was helping me train."

"And why would he do that?", Nancy demanded to know as she righted herself. "You know we're not taking on anyone new until training officially starts. You shouldn't even be in here."

"Yeah, well he was", Steve said, ignoring the pain in his foot for now as he sat up. "And he needed some pointers."

The king's eyes narrowed. "So you took it upon yourself to train him?" Then he looked to Lucas. "And that's the story you're going with?"

"It's not a story, it's the truth. We were just practicing", Lucas said.

The king stared down at the prince, thoughts running through his head. He approached and Steve held up his sword. His foot might be hurt, but he could still fight if this beast wanted a challenge. To his surprise though, the king paused, and held his hands up like he was trying to show he meant no harm.

He glanced down at Steve's foot. "Let's take care of that first. Everything else can wait."

"I don't need your help", Steve said, rising to his feet. He took a step and while he held back a hiss, he was able to move just fine. He knew he was dripping blood but his pride kept him from looking down. He let the sword drop to the floor. He'd find his way back to his room and tear a bandage from his sheet or something.

He let out a yelp when suddenly he was lifted up into the king's arms and when he blinked their faces were just a breath apart.

"I can appreciate being too proud to accept help, but I won't have you trailing blood around the castle."

Steve had no choice but to cling to him. Walking or being carried, his blood would still drain from his foot, so he could see how it mattered. The king carried him anyway sat Steve on his bed where a bandage cloth was already waiting, as well as a basin of water. He was set down on the bed and Steve expected to be left alone to dress the wound but the king surprised him yet again by kneeling and starting to wash his foot.

"You're...You're the king, aren't you?", Steve asked.

"That I am."

Steve didn't think he needed to elaborate. Kings didn't kneel. For anyone. And they especially didn't help enemy royalty with cuts and bruises. They didn't carry them to their rooms. It made no sense at all for King Edward to treat him like this, especially after what he had to endure in his cell.

"Why were you helping Lucas?", he asked.

Steve shrugged. "Kid needed help. He was trying to lift a sword as big as he was."

"Hmm. Well, considering the current state of affairs, it's been irresponsible of me to leave you unattended for so long. So you'll be getting a new guard detail, starting tomorrow."

That sounded more sensical than anything else that had happened so far, so Steve didn't even question it. Someone came by to drop of dinner, but besides that, Steve didn't see anyone until the next day when the king himself appeared at his door with a pair of well worn boots.

"Of course. You're my guard."

"No one better", the king grinned.

Part 9

Tag Team

@thesuninyaface @only-evanescent @snakeorsquid @ignoremyworld @theclichefortunecookie @goodolefashionedloverboi @just-a-tiny-void @0body0disphoria0 @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @samsoble @jamieweasley13 @y4r3luv @xtkxkrzrizir @un-knownperson @greekgeek24 @justdrugsformethanks @potato-of-the-lord @notaqueenakhaleesi @swimmingbirdrunningrock @queenie-ofthe-void @nebulainajar @lil-gremlin-things @nicememerino @robininblue

[everythingwasnormalhere]

actually I've been thinking about it and kenny is so disability-coded???

like, even without my chronic pain headcanon, if we only take the canon material, he's incredibly disability-coded and im not sure why nobody's mentioned it before

Ok so, first thing first, south park isn't exactly known out of its community for having the best rep of... anything, actually, but anyone who's watched the show knows it has some of the best disability representation of any piece of media. Jimmy and Timmy, neither of their characters revolve around being disabled - they don't even make much fun of it! (It's south park, they have to make fun of everything). Their characters are complex, not because they're disabled, but because the writers didn't want to make them revolve around that. And if you don't believe me, please just watch the fucking show or at least their episodes (this is however not about them so I won't say much more about them, there's some pretty cool posts on this site that talk about this in more detail if you wanna read more though)

Now, onto Kenny: Kenny is a pretty cool guy. Fandom favorite, well-known even by people who don't watch south park. And besides how he's incredibly cute (like, c'mon, you heard his little "woohoo!"?), the reason why he's so famous is simple: He dies in every episode.

(well, not every ep in the latest seasons, but at the beginning he did and that's enough for me)

You might be thinking, "hey Loki, that's cool, but I have no fucking idea where this is going". And I'll tell you: his constant deaths actively avoid him doing stuff. Dying makes him spend less time with his friends, he can't take part in their shenanigans, he's generally unable to do things due to dying 24/7. Like, hell, he spent a whole season not hanging out with the guys because he was too dead for that! His friends substituted him, and he's still less-there since that happened.

This means: the impairment 'has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities'

(because he can't carry out normal day-to-day activities when he's, you know, fucking deceased)

Also, as Kenny himself says, "'Pretty cool'? Do you know how it feels like to be stabbed, to be shot, decapitated, torn apart, burned, run over? It's not 'pretty cool' Kyle! It fucking hurts!". His deaths cause him actual, physical pain. And guess what's a disability criteria?

You guessed: they have a 'physical or mental impairment'

(it "fucking hurts", I think that's physically impairing enough)

Also, his deaths have slowed down for the last few seasons, sure, but they still happen. And this is important, because they'll probably keep happening for the rest of his life - and if not, they've already lasted long enough anyway:

A 'substantial adverse effect' means more than just a minor impact on someone's life or how they can do certain things. This may fluctuate or change and may not happen all the time.'Long-term' means either:it will affect them or is likely to affect them for at least 12 months it's likely to last for the rest of their life It can still be considered long-term if the effects come and go. For example, a fluctuating condition might affect someone for a few months at a time with other times when they're not affected.

So, yeah. Kenny, canonical Kenneth McCormick, legally qualifies as disabled. But what makes him such good rep? He's still a well-loved character, not only in spite of his disability (yes, I'm calling his deaths a disability, sue me), but also because of it. Kenny is a pretty cool guy, he's cute, he's silly, he's a goddamn perv but really respectful about it too, and he dies in every episode which is actually hilarious. And about the perv part - fuck yeah, disabled character who not only isn't asexual, but is canonically the first in his friend group to do (consensual) sexual things! He's also canonically pretty desirable, he's the 7th in the List after all (and he's not just there for the girls' benefit like Clyde, Kenny is poor asf which means they genuinely find him desirable, and probably could've ended in the top 5 had it not been rigged). He's such a cool guy, and he's also disabled, and we love him for it.

Not to talk about Mysterion & PK, whose literal powers are the things that disable Typical Kenny - which, yeah, it's a bit of inspiration porn, but it's also a huge "fuck you" to god on Kenny's side. And it's not like "hey, I rose over my disability!", the moment in which Kenny talks (complains) most about it is actually when he's playing Mysterion - or it is in the show, at least. He was given bullshit, and yet he used it on his own benefit, but that didn't make the struggle disappear in his usual life - he's still disabled, no matter how much he uses it in his own favor. And we all love him for that.

I think he's actually awesome disability rep, mostly because he's accidental representation, and yet can (and in my opinion should) be read that way. Kenny McCormick is a beloved character everywhere, and he's also canonically disabled, and I love him for it.

[bit-b]

AVOID USER "THATTECHNIQUE"

There's a VERY problematic artist that's been infamous in the Hat in Time sphere for a while. It is the user "ThatTechnique". They've been called out in the past for their suggestive/explicit drawings of the young characters in 'A Hat in Time'. They have long since been banned from the Hat Discord, and generally shunned by the community.

Recently, a document released detailing her attempts to groom a 14-year-old aHiT fan. The screenshot evidence shows clear attempts to manipulate this teen into being in a relationship with them. I encourage people to go read the document. I do warn that it's stomach-churning. And people sensitive to grooming and discussions of NSFW should proceed with caution. Though, any explicit material has been censored and cropped. Investigations were done by 'Impactor' and his team. The doc was signal boosted by 'Aster'. 'The Thatti Document'

Despite this evidence, Thatti is trying to play it off like the document is no big deal. Saying that the document didn't reveal anything that people couldn't already figure out. (complete lie, since the grooming evidence is brand-freakin'-new™) Also, she didn't reply on the tweet that had the Google doc. She instead replied to Impactor's comment saying "On stand by for questions as always". My guess is that she did this so that she wouldn't inadvertently make the callout show up in people's feeds. A user would need to add a couple extra clicks to reach it. Not a lot of extra distance, but distance nonetheless. This is clearly an attempt to de-legitimize the claims made by the document, and to manipulate her current followers into thinking that reading it is a waste of their time.

Even though she claims it's a "waste of y'all's energy", 2 hours later, she made a poll on her account letting people know that she's considering closing her main account and making an 18+ one in it's place. She also plans to focus on using her Tumblr account for her SFW art.

This tells us WAY more about how she actually feels about this. If this was about not liking Twitter, she'd just up and leave the platform. NOT create an 18+ account to replace the SFW one. And a few of her followers have even chimed in saying how odd it is for her to wipe out her whole account instead of leaving it up as an archive.

She knows she's been caught. And she's running.

I write this post to warn people on Tumblr about her actions. She's been here a while, but it seems like she's planning on making it her new art home. If that is the case, and if this isn't an isolated incident, she might attempt to groom people here.

I urge you, DO NOT engage with ThatTechnique. Don't comment or reply to her posts. Do not @ her. Do not DM her anything. A manipulator is VERY risky to interact with, and you could put yourself in danger by doing so.

Instead, spread the word about Thatti. Warn others about her past and current actions. To be extra cautious, block her on whatever socials you have in common with her.

If you are/were a victim of Thatti, Impactor is keeping their ear out and wants to hear from you. Please get in contact with him via DMs or mentions on Twitter. He plans to update the document with whatever new information he can find.

I wanna thank Impactor for organizing this document, and thank everyone who gathered and contributed information. More specifically, I wanna thank Apple for reaching out and giving all these details about their abuse. That was a brave thing, and I applaud you for it. I genuinely hope that things smooth out, and that these callouts give you a level of closure. Please stay safe, everyone. There are some great people in this community. But every community will always have some creeps on the underbelly.

[oliversrarebooks]

The Rare Bookseller Part 9: Oliver's Anticipation

Masterlist

September 1925

TW: Imprisonment, mind control, restraints

He was next.

He tried to talk to Emily, to get his mind off of things, but it wasn't working.

Medium course of conditioning.

This could be his last few hours with a mind that was his own.

Obedience and docility.

He had to resist it, but he didn't know how, didn't even know what they were going to do to him. He'd read about hypnotism and mesmerism in pulpy magazines before, but he didn't believe any of that truly worked. This was clearly different -- vampires, with supernatural means. He had no way of knowing what they were going to do to him. It could be anything from the most painful torture to something that was over in an instant. The waitress in the cell next to Emily's certainly wasn't forthcoming with details.

"So, um... when you get back to your bookshop, you were saying you need to fix the shelves in the history section..."

"Yes," said Oliver curtly. He wanted to comfort Emily, but his heart wasn't in playing along with this game right now.

"...I'm sorry," she said.

"I'm sorry, too. After all, you're in the same situation as me."

"I'm not going to let them have their way," she said, voice brimming with determination, determination that Oliver envied.

"I suppose not," he said. He left the rest of it unspoken, the fact that she was still going to be sold to a vampire. "They've been gone with Joe a while now."

"I wonder what they're doing to him. They said they were erasing him. Do you think he'll be like Betty here, unable to talk...?"

"Unfortunately, I think that's a possibility."

The possibility that they would also do the same thing to the two of them hung in the air, unspoken. Cecily had mentioned leaving his mind intact, but who could say what that meant to them?

"I mean it, though," she said. "I'm not going to let those vampires do whatever they please. And you shouldn't either. You're smart and deserve your own life -- we both do. There must be some way to stop them."

"Yeah, there must be," he said, not quite believing it.

"If it's pain they use -- I've been through a lot of pain, I've been beaten plenty before, and --"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm saying that I've been beaten plenty and still never gave in. And if it's fear they're going to use, well, I'm not afraid of them. And if it's magic...? I guess it's magic, then, but I'm still going to fight them as much as I can."

"Right," said Oliver. "We both should. Our minds are precious. They might be all we have left. I don't want to live forever as a mindless servant. If there's a way out, we have to find it."

The sound of the lunch cart startled them out of their conversation. Oliver was surprised by at the meal placed in front of him: a juicy steak already cut, whipped potatoes with butter, a large pile of leafy greens.

"You got a steak?" said Emily. "I got a ham sandwich."

"The vampires said they were changing my diet."

"Oh. Do you think..."

"Do I think this food is meant to make my blood richer and more delicious to them? Yes." He stared down at the meal, determined to enjoy it anyway. If this meal was his last, if he was turned into a vegetable after lunch, he may as well. The steak was perfectly seasoned and served medium rare, the kind of meat that Oliver rarely splurged on, and he savored each bite. 

The delicious food only provided the briefest of respites from Oliver's dark thoughts, as he became increasingly aware that his hour must be approaching. His mouth felt dry and his hands shook, and when he heard footsteps approaching, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

It was exactly as they had feared. Joe, who had been dragged from his cell screaming, was now following along behind Lily with an empty look on his face. He was trailed by a couple of scrawny looking vampires, people that would be no match for Joe if they didn't have superhuman strength.

"Joe!" Emily called out. "Joe, can you hear me?"

There was no reaction at all, not the slightest twinge of recognition on his face.

"Joe, talk to me. Give me a sign you're still in there," said Oliver, as Joe walked back into his cell. He was met with utter silence.

"Yes, this one," said Lily, pointing Oliver out to the other vampires. "Lot Seven."

It was time.

Oliver shrank back and flattened himself against the wall of his cell, looking for anything sturdier than the faucet to latch onto, as they unlocked his cell and entered it.

"Please don't be afraid." Lily smiled and held out her hand like she was coaxing a small child. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"The hell you aren't! You erased Joe's mind!"

"I'm not going to do that to you. You have nothing to fear."

There was nowhere to run, no chance of escape, but he had to do something, at least make an effort to save himself. He ran for the small opening between the two vampires, but he didn't even make it past Lily, who grabbed him firmly by the arm with an unshakeable grip.

"Take his legs, and I'll support his head," said Lily.

"No, no!" Oliver thrashed in the vampires' grasp, to no avail. They were carrying him away with ease, taking him to his fate. "Emily!" he called out as he passed her cell. 

"Stay strong! Remember what we said!" she said, clutching at the bars of her cell. 

The vampires moved quickly. People in the cells watched fearfully as he went past, and then he was out of the prison area, out into the halls, taken into a sterile looking room with low lighting and a soft leather chair. They made swift work restraining him in the chair with thick cloth straps around his wrists and torso, his fierce struggles barely posing an inconvenience to them. One wrapped a cloth gag around his mouth, ignoring Oliver's desperate attempt to bite him.

Finally, with Oliver helplessly secured, the two vampire helpers left the room, leaving him alone with Lily.

She pulled up a chair opposite him and smiled. "I know you're nervous, but you truly have nothing to worry about. I'm going to help you."

The curses he spat at her were muffled from behind the gag, but he thought she could probably understand them anyway.

Part Eight >> Masterlist >> Part Ten

Thank you for reading this story about a man who is doomed.

Tag list - please note if you'd like to be added

@d-cs @latenightcupsofcoffee @thecyrulik @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night

[vro0m]

Brocedes hasnt been brocedes all year. Its just a lot more ovi now. We got a certified nico lewis situation at merc. Toto picking the wrong guy once again. Whats new?

Okay first of all I wanna say this can't be a Nico - Lewis situation. There will never be a Nico - Lewis situation again. But I guess what you mean is there's an open, direct rivalry at Merc again. Which. Yeah sure. That's usually what happens. I'm not surprised it's happening, we mentioned it before.

(long post)

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Toto picking the wrong guy once again'. If you mean in the context of hiring George, I disagree because George is a very good driver. If you mean in the race, I highly doubt Toto is the one making the strategy calls in the middle of things. At the very most, the strategists tell him the options and he might green-light one of them.

They've been having strategy issues for a while now. That's also something we've talked about before. If anything, I'd say the issue lies with the strategy team rather than Toto or George. We've said the bad calls were hidden by the good car performance before but also I do think it's gotten worse. Back when it was announced that Vowles was leaving, I said not directly replacing him was bullshit. They claimed the rest of the department would just divide Vowles' workload between themselves. Toto said they'd been doing it already during the '22 season (when did the strategy issues ramp up? idk). What I said at the time was "someone is going to have to make the final decision on strategy" and "otherwise it's not gonna work". It might just not be working.

One thing I'll give credit to George for is that he's trying things. Hasn't there been a convo in the last few weeks with people (including me iirc) saying Merc is too conservative with the strategy? That they need to stop acting like they're at the front, defending rather than behind, chasing? Also isn't it kinda boring when the team doesn't give the car that's qualified behind a chance and only uses it to support the other? (Also with his quali performances lately, wouldn't that do more harm to Lewis than George?) I guess it's just the way being a fan goes, but I feel like every race weekend I see fans of either driver defending what or complaining about what they were complaining about or defending the previous race, depending on who they're rooting for the most. It's okay when it's their blorbo only (which again : just being a fan).

Anyway props to George for being a driver, and asking for more. That's his job. Sometimes it annoys me ngl. Sometimes I feel like he's acting too entitled during the races. But as I also said before, it's not particularly unexpected from a young driver. Lewis was really not that different in his days lol. They all have a chip on their shoulder and they are all essentially starving egotistical cunts. The older ones might just have learnt to hide it slightly better through the years. Slightly. Is Lewis being more of a team player? On track, probably so, props to him for that. Don't know how long it's gonna last in these conditions though, given that he's also a starving egotistical cunt. Off track, he's complaining very loudly and unsubtly about not being prioritised by the team in a not-so-great way imo. I'm repeating myself yet again but it's not as easy as just saying here's what needs fixing with the car, then claiming they're not listening to him when it doesn't suddenly work. Merc is truly fumbling with the development, and patience is not Lewis' greatest virtue lol. He's clearly getting frustrated with the performance, understandably so. I'm simultaneously pretty sure that's true for the whole team, not just him. So him saying they're not doing their best and voluntarily just not doing what he wants is probably not helping.

I do think that the team is gonna have to find a way to make it work between them two on track before they take each other out or straight up disobey team orders out of hunger or frustration. But well. Do I have to link the essay again? (Sorry for bringing it up 10 times a week.) It's not that easy managing intra-team rivalries and I see some people claiming they should pick a n°1 driver but how? Right now, Lewis and George are on par in quali (8-8). George has less points for sure but you also gotta take into account that he's had four terrible races in the year, not always by his fault (although sometimes yes). Outside of these four races, their results are very similar. This is not a Max-Perez type of gap by far. Lewis is most probably not gonna stay for 10 more years despite what he sometimes likes to pretend, George might. I'm still rooting for Lewis first and everybody else second but if you look at this realistically, it's not as simple as saying to George "look we're betting on you for the future, someday, but until Lewis retires you'll always be a second thought to us. But you know, still stay with us and take it lying down. Toodles!" He's completely right about it, but it's easier for Lewis to say "we're fighting for the team not for driver points" when he's the one ahead in the standings. Because what? You always always have to do better than your teammate. (Again, sorry for bringing it up constantly.)

In some way the issue with both of them is impatience. Lewis is impatient to have a good car again and he's starting to somewhat take it out on the team which isn't ideal. For all they looove saying we win and we lose together, that's not a supportive behavior claiming publicly they're just not listening to him. George is impatient to get track position and to beat his team-mate and he's rushing the racing too much, making rookie mistakes in the process (see Singapore) and demanding sometimes more than his due during races.

So yeah I think they need to rein them both in — one off track, one on track — but also without rejecting all new ideas and all questioning, both when it comes to the car and when it comes to the race strategy. It's not gonna be easy, but it's definitely gonna be very interesting.

[nomaxart]

Happy Birthday, Conway!

Happy 1st Birthday to Conway!

Yep! It is the 1 year anniversary of the release of version 0.01 (or whatever the versions were called back then) Let's have a talk, shall we? February 8th is when I uploaded and released it on itch. Why February 8th you may ask? Well, I had only planned January as an experimental month for myself, with the oil painting and the VN test. So I'd release it on february 1st... And then it, naturally, took longer. But I guess it works out so that we don't have the anniversary right on update release days.

The past 

And yeah, what a year it's been! Thank you to all of you first of all for making this possible. Quite simply it wouldn't be possible without the support of all you generous peeps here. As it turns out, developing a game is a fuckton of work, and if I would need to pay the bills through commission work or what have you there would be no way I'd find the time and energy to work on Conway on the side. And I've mentioned it before in a few places, but for a while around May, June-ish it did look really dicey. The first half of the year I was bleeding about 500-700 bucks a month of my savings. The game didn't really pick up and a good amount of my walks were spent contemplating just when I'd have to see a sign before pulling the plug. End of June? Maybe it's worth to stretch it to July? At the lowest point, we were about a month away from pulling the plug on Conway. But right around that time, the trend in people subbing here started to pick up. While it's only in the past month or two that I've reached the point where I'm not actively bleeding money each month, the trend was the bit I needed to see that maybe people are interested after all!

The present

I've attached the itch stats of the past year. So those of you who would like to have a peek can do so. As you can see, Update 10 was a massive success at least in terms of numbers for the game. Update 9 was already the first one to break the record for downloads that the release day set, but Update 10 got picked up by the algorithms and sat in the most popular furry games for a while. Soooo, yeah, quite chuffed with that spike! We'll see what the long-term effects are, but for now I just enjoy the aesthetic of -BIG SPIKE-. And yeah, the game as a whole is just sitting in a good spot. We've had about 12k downloads in total, around 80k page visits, and a rating of 4.8/5 with 127 ratings (which btw, easy way to help, is to leave a juicy 5* rating on itch. Does wonders for the placement of the game in the different categories on the site, plus it gives me a fuzzy feeling in my tum tum.) It's also been such a joy to see that all characters end up having their share of fans judging by comments and that nobody is left in the dry. Of course, some of them have a bit of an easier time, like Samuel and Julian being the more sociable lot they are, and just the screen time they've had so far. While others like Raj or Arthur are slower burns and even they get some mentions as the favorites of some people, and that just makes me chuffed. Naturally, they're designed to cover different interests and preferences, but I'm always nervous if the characters are good, resonate with people and hope that they can be fun to be around. So any time someone mentions a character it just makes me so goddamn giddy. Some of them will be difficult to handle with grace, and I'm not perfect, so I'm sure for at least one of the main cast what I've planned will fall flat, or I mess it up in some fashion. But fuck it, I'll try. Not everything has been peaches and roses recently though, so I have to admit Updates 10 and 11 have been/are a bit of a struggle. I just messed up planning for my support writers, and it's been more or less just me handling everything for both updates 10 and 11. That's why art has been a bit sparse... Because most of my time is just taken up doing writing duty, and I'm not the fastest writer, unfortunately. Like, at this point, with the game having all the branches and 125k in total word count, the story for the characters and how they've interacted on the two initial days. It makes it a bit more difficult to actually get people on board in a timely manner. I can't just go and say, "Hey, write me a scene where this character and that character are involved, and they do that." Since a new writer knows absolutely zero about all the stuff that's been there before, all the stuff that's planned for the characters and all that jazz. So if one support writer is busy or just has writing block or whatever, it may be, my solution so far has just been going, "Well, shit." :') Not the fault of my writing buddies, of course. They've been absolutely invaluable and I can't offer nearly enough to expect to be the highest priority for them. I'm just happy they want to help out AT ALL for what I can pay them in return. I should have planned contingencies but didn't. Simple as that. So, I've made the decision to bring on another writer in Televassi, and also want to hopefully integrate Robert Baird more again going forward. With more of them willing to help out I will be able to assign things to people as they're available. Which hopefully will avoid me having to do whole updates on my own and take the pressure off of wonderful peeps like Rubric. So yeah, I learned my lesson there, but since it just takes time for people to get familiar with the Conway world and characters, it ended up with me being a bit swamped with EVERYTHING for Updates 10 and 11.

The future

Speaking of what's planned, then? Update 10 closes out day 2, and Update 11 starts after our first time skip. I don't know if you've ever looked at how slow these ships were, but if we ever want to make it to Cape Town, then we'll need those time skips. Not only that, but it also allows for characters to just develop in the meantime, and also their relationship towards the player character. While Characters like Nomax and Julian ended up having some raunchy scenes right away, it wouldn't exactly fit to have others throw themselves at you on day 2. So skipping ahead just keeps things moving, keeps things interesting because we can focus on specific parts more, and just show the development of characters at a more natural pace.

So the next sections are this first post-time skip section that subbed patrons already get a taste of in the WIP update, and then next up on the itinerary will be Morocco. Both sections I'm really stoked about! And I hope you are too. :)

Stretch goals? Patreon did away with them a while back, but we'll just make our own stretch goals, with blackjack and hookers. Just instead of blackjack and hookers, how about we talk Animations?! Hell yeah! I'm no animator, and it's not really a discipline I particularly enjoy either from the times I tried. So, since Patreon is currently about break-even, we can start thinking ahead a little, and I think the first point I want to tackle is some simple animations. Stuff like moving tails, ears, and eyes. Stuff like that.

So how about that, we're currently floating at around 1250 USD a month, and if we're crossing the 1500 USD mark, I'll be holding out my feelers to get these small animations into the game. If you like to contribute to making animations possible, consider supporting the Patreon over here: https://www.patreon.com/Nomax

Possibly animations, an exciting new section of the story, some more v2 character art, some more maritime menagerie characters. Sounds good for a year 2 plan?

I certainly hope so and hope that you all will be along for the ride, as it's been an absolute blast, and I can't thank you enough for making it possible. I just want this thing to be the best it can be for all of you. :)

[ingravinoveritas]

MY GOODNESS THAT TV INSIDER SNIPPET WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM MOVE PHYSICALLY CLOSER TO EACH OTHER IN ABOUT 20 SECONDS. UGHHH. DAVID WAS LITERALLY HALF OFF HIS SEAT TO BE CLOSER TO MICHAEL

Hi, Anons! Oh, gosh, I love both of these so much. Putting them together because I think there's a definite connection worth discussing.

So first, Anon #2 I know you must be referring to the new interviews with Michael and David that have come out the past few days (on Screen Rant Plus, Movieweb, etc.). Anon #1 is referring to another clip that just came out today, so I'll put the video up here for anyone who hasn't seen it and then discuss it further down this post:

Anon #2, how beautifully you have phrased your observation, and I could not possibly agree with you more. I've noticed a lot of people saying that Michael and David look sad or miserable, but I don't think that is the case at all. Well, a couple of things: 1) We have no idea when these interviews were recorded, though if I had to guess I'd say within the last month or two, and if that is the case, Michael was still directing/working nonstop on The Way, so that would explain him looking tired (along with running around after two little kids all the time). 2) I'm fairly certain that a large part of them not looking at each other is because they are trying not to give anything away about the second season, and Michael and David both know they won't be able to keep quiet if they make even the tiniest bit of eye contact.

3) I fully agree with your assertion that the lack of staring shows how close Michael and David have become, because to me, it also means that they no longer feel a need to be "on" around each other. They've both spoken in the past about how much they hate doing interviews/photo shoots, and that it became far more bearable when they had each other. That was the case four years ago, and now we've all gone through a global pandemic and some of the darkest times in our lives. That naturally strips away any sense of pretense--seeing someone at their worst, or when they're sick or afraid. I get the feeling that Michael and David have been through all of that and where so many other relationships/marriages fell apart, their relationship is even stronger now as a result. They love and accept each other exactly as they are, and it shows.

Finally, 4) What you said about Michael not staring at David makes my heart ache and seems so true. On the season 1 press tour, he was already in love, but didn't know when they would see each other again. I'm reminded of that one interview where they both suddenly seem to realize the press tour is coming to an end, and they don't know when they'll see each other next:

"Can we just...see each other? For no reason?"

He doesn't even have to ask that question now. Michael doesn't have to keep his eyes on David every moment because he has already memorized his whole face, the stubble on his skin, the softness of his lips. And he knows with perfect certainty that he will never be without David in his life again.

And this all fits in beautifully with the video you've mentioned, Anon #1, because they absolutely do move closer to each other in that video, and not only does it look like they did it completely unconsciously, but David seems to actually mirror Michael:

Michael is the first one to move closer, as we see above, and then right after he does, David moves closer. And again, they're not staring at each other the whole time. nor do they seem to be playing up their "personas"--Michael and David are just being themselves, and their natural inclination is to be close to each other. (Also, Michael's fucking wiggle right after he moves is killing me, because I think he only does that when he's very, very happy...)

Absolutely beautiful. I so appreciate you both sharing your thoughts with me, Anons. Thanks for writing in! xx

[pompomqt]

Journey to the West Chapter 17

Tripitaka being waited on hand and foot by a bunch of monks who are forced to under threat of death:

In this chapter of Journey to the West with @journeythroughjourneytothewest we get to find out how Sun Wukong managed to get the Cassock back. So let's get into it shall we?

So Sun Wukong takes off with his cloud somersault, terrifying all the monks even further with this show of power. While Tripitaka makes it even worse by saying they better hope he finds that cassock otherwise he'll definitely kill them all out of frustration. Which I find both petty and hilarious of him.

So Sun Wukong arrives at Black Wind Mountain, and hears some voices nearby, so he hides himself nearby in order to eavesdrop on them. The people in question are three monsters and are discussing Daoism and such when one of them chimes in that it's his birthday the day after tomorrow and asks if his two buddies will pay him a visit then. One says 'Of course we'll come, we come every year' before finally getting into the topic of conversation Monkey wants to hear and mentioning the cassock. The Great King says that he came across a beautiful cassock yesterday and is going to use it to enhance his birthday by throwing a huge banquet and inviting all their Daoist friends to come celebrate what he plans to call 'the party the Festival of the Buddha Robe."

Upon hearing this Monkey leaps out from his hiding place and starts yelling at them that he stole his cassock and to give it back. And before they can even say anything Monkey kills one of them, while the other two escape. Monkey see's that the scholar he killed had turned into a a white spotted snake, so he breaks it into pieces before continuing to look for the ones who got away. So I guess I get to add desecrating corpses to Sun Wukong's crime list.

So Monkey finds his way to Black Wind Cave, which is sealed by two stone doors. So Sun Wukong starts banging on the door demanding that they open up until a little demon comes out and demands to know why he is beating at their immortal cave. Sun Wukong with his 5 levels of immortality takes offense to their use of the word immortal, and demands that the little demon tell The Great King to return his Cassock if he wants Sun Wukong to spare all of their lives.

The Great King having just got back from being chased by Monkey, gets dressed into his armor and then goes outside to meet him. So the two have a chat where they talk about how The Great King stole the cassock, and Monkey tells him his entire backstory. The Great King laughs at him and calls him BanHorsePlague, which Monkey takes offense to, so the two start to fight.

After fighting for a while the demon calls for a lunch break. Which Monkey thinks is very weak of him, since Monkey himself spent 500 years under a mountain eating nothing but iron pellets and molten copper. Nevertheless however, the monster seals himself back into his cave for to eat. Not having any luck breaking down the door to continue the fight, Monkey figures he may as well take this chance to check in on Tripitaka.

So Monkey returns to find that the monks have been taking good care of Tripitaka like he told them to, almost to good to be honest since they seem to be working themselves in a frenzy. Still, Monkey briefs Tripitaka on the current situation, and the monks are super relieved that they aren't at fault for the missing cassock. But Monkey tells them they aren't out of the woods yet, and that he may still kill them if they slack in Tripitaka's care at all until he manages to get the cassock back, and he asks them if they've been caring for Tripitaka well enough. Tripitaka says that he has already had two meals and been served tea three times even though Monkey has only been gone for a few hours. Which I think Tripitaka might be enjoying his scary dog privileges a little to much this chapter. Anyways while they are chatting they are served yet another meal, so Monkey eats some lunch before taking off again.

On his way Monkey see's a demon carrying a fancy box traveling on the main road. Curious about what's in the box, Monkey kills the demon, and throws their body to the side of the road before opening the box and finding an invitation inside. Monkey finds out that the Patriarch Monk that had killed himself last chapter was friends with his current demon problem, and that's how he learned to live for such a long time. And since the letter is inviting the monk to visit, Monkey disguises himself as that monk in order to steal back the cassock.

So Monkey disguises himself as the old monk, but the demon is suspicious on how the monk could have gotten here so fast, so he orders his minions to hide the cassock. So Sun Wukong and the Great King sit down and have some tea together, while discussing how the Great King came to possess the cassock when Sun Wukong's cover is blown by the body of that messenger Sun Wukong beat to death being discovered. So the two start fighting again, and are pretty evenly matched, before once again the Great King calls for a time out because it's past his bedtime and he wants to go to bed. So he flee's and locks himself into his cave again. So Sun Wukong decides he should take this opportunity to report in with his parole officer again.

So Sun Wukong once again briefs Tripitaka on the situation and admits that they are about evenly matched. Tripitaka reads the invitation slip and asks the monks if their master was also a monster, which the monks deny, and Sun Wukong also vouches for them saying the monks here aren't monsters. They also discuss that the Great King was a black bear who cultivated to become an immortal. Tripitaka asks how a beast could become a spirit, and Sun Wukong points out that he is also a beast who became the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Tripitaka then asks how he's going to get the cassock back when they are so evenly matched, and Monkey says to lay off it and that he has it under control.

So Sun Wukong has another meal at the monastery and spends the night, but when morning comes Tripitaka tells him to go get the cassock. So Sun Wukong goes to leave with one last reminder to all of the monks to continue taking care of Tripitaka. Tripitaka then asks Monkey where he's going to go, and Monkey says he'll go give Guanyin a little visit, since in a way this whole situation is her fault for letting a monster live around one of her temples.

So Sun Wukong arrives and Guanyin's home and has someone announce his presence. Anyways Monkey tells Guanyin that he's come tot ask her to get back the cassock for him since she's the one who let a monster live by one of her Chan halls. Guanyin points out that this whole situation is his fault for both showing off the cassock, and for using wind to intensify the fire. Monkey realizing that Guanyin is well aware of all his shenanigans becomes much more polite in asking for her help. Guanyin agrees to help for Tripitaka's sake, and the two head off.

On the way there they see a Daoist coming down the mountain holding a tray with two magic pills. So Sun Wukong does the logical thing and smashes his brains in right in front of Guanyin. Guanyin of course isn't to happy about this before Monkey tells her that he is one of the Black Bear Spirits friends. Luckily for Monkey, the body turned into a gray wolf. Also upon seeing the pills Monkey comes up with a plan.

So Monkey has Guanyin transform into the Daoist while Monkey transforms into one of the pills. So Guanyin offers the demon the monkey disguised pill- which he takes, and probably immediately regrets his life choices as Sun Wukong then transforms into his original form to beat him up from the inside. Guanyin then reveals her true from and finds the cassock while Sun Wukong exits the monster via their nose. Guanyin however decides to take this opportunity to get a new servant, so she throws a fillet onto his head. And when the Monster goes to lunge at monkey she recites a spell, that's different from Monkey's tight fillet spell, but still has the same result as the monster begins to roll around in agony while Sun Wukong points and laughs.

So Guanyin tells Sun Wukong not to kill the demon because she wants to have him guard the back entrance of her Mountain. So the two go their seperate ways, Sun Wukong with the cassock, and Guanyin with the Black Bear Spirit. And that ends this chapter of Journey to the West!

Current Sun Wukong Stats: Names/Titles: Monkey, The Stone Monkey, The Handsome Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to the void), Bimawen (Banhorseplague), The Great Sage Equal To Heaven and Pilgrim Sun. Immortality: 5 Weapon: The Compliant Golden Hooped Rod Abilities: 72 Transformations, Cloud-Somersault, Ability to transform his individual hairs, super strength, Ability to Summon Wind, Water restriction charm, and the ability to change into a huge war form, ability to duplicate his staff, ability to immobilize others, the ability to put others to sleep, and the Fiery eyes, Diamond Pupils, intimidating horses, churning large bodies of water and sleeplessness. Demon Kill Count: 4+ Unknown Number of Minions Human Kill Count: 6 God's Defeated: 19 + Unknown number Defeats: 2 Crime List: Robbery, Murder, Mass Murder, Arson, Theft, Coercion, Threatening a Government Official, Resisting Arrest, Assault, Forgery, Employee Theft, False Imprisonment, Impersonating a Government Official, Treason, attempted murder, failure to control or report a dangerous fire and desecrating a corpse. Cry Count: 3 Mountains Trapped Under: 1

Current Tang Sanzang stats: Names/Titles: River Float, Xuanzang, Tang Sanzang, Tripitaka Abilities: Curing Blindness, making branches point a certain direction (allegedly), reciting sutras, and pretty privilege. Cry Count: 11 Tight Fillet Spell Uses: 5 Paralyzed by fear: 4 Bandit Problems: 2 Kidnapped by demons: 1 Falling Off Horses: 4

Current Bai Long Ma Stats: Names/Titles: Bai Long Ma (White Dragon Horse), Prince of the Western Ocean, and third prince jade dragon of the dragon king Aorun Abilities: Transforming into a human, a water snake, and a horse, eating a horse in one bite, and flight. Crime List: Arson, and Grave Disobedience. Contributions to the plot: 1

[icedteaandoldlace]

Okay, just ran a few tests to confirm, and it's official—@silvergrayandmauve has been shadowbanned.

What that means, apparently?

none of my posts show up in any tags I put on them

you can't find my blog in search results, you can only view it by going directly to silvergrayandmauve.tumblr.com via address bar in a browser, or clicking my username in posts where I'm mentioned

if I interact with your post in any way, you don't get notified for it

if you look at the notes on posts I've interacted with, you can't see my name or how I've interacted with it, it just looks like a glitch saying there's more notes than there really are

if you send me an ask and I answer it privately, the message appears in your inbox and you do get a notification

if you send me an ask and I answer it publicly, you don't get notified, you can only see it by going directly to my blog

I can't send asks, period, though I'm honestly not sure if that was already a side blog thing before or if that is because of the shadowban

if I try to DM you over chat, I get an error message, you get nothing

I don't even have a chat box as far as anyone looking at my blog is concerned

people who follow me can see my posts on their dash like normal, but can't get any kind of notifications from me, barring private answers to asks

people can reblog my posts and they'll be visible to others

I can get notifications and see everything just fine, but I can't do anything to make anyone see me without getting boosted by another blog (like making this post on main instead of on SG&M)

the only way my fics are gonna get any kind of exposure on Tumblr is through posting them on main and/or through reblogs, so prepare yourselves, followers, I'm gonna be boosting them a lot

writers of fics I've said nice things about recently don't even know it, probably, and I'm not even sure how long that's been the case

This Sucks

I can only suspect that the reason my blog was shadowbanned was because almost every post on it includes an external link to AO3 and/or FFN (BECAUSE IT'S A FANFICTION SIDE BLOG), so staff just thinks I'm a bot, I guess. I tried contacting support about it last night, but my Internet connection was abysmal, so I'll have to try again later.

In the meantime, have any other writers on Tumblr encountered this problem? And do you know how to avoid having this happen again when 99.9% of your posts include external links?

EDIT: No longer shadowbanned!! Yay!! But I'm leaving this post up in case anyone needs it so they can tell if they've been shadowbanned or not (and because the link to the Reddit thread that got me in touch with the staff member who fixed it is in the replies).

Also, the not being able to send asks IS a side blog thing and not a shadowban thing.

[ambiguouspuzuma]

After-work drinks

He was last to arrive, as always. His friends rolled their eyes, but Antal gestured to a waiting pint of Jana: welcome relief after a long journey home. István preferred a darker beer, but the others had stronger opinions, and he was happy to go with the crowd when someone else was buying.

"Let me guess," László asked. "Airship late again?"

István nodded, savouring the first sip of his pint. They'd clearly ordered it for him, when they'd originally arrived; the head was almost completely gone. "Sorry to keep you waiting. You know how it is."

"I don't know how you stand them," Antal said, nursing his own drink. István saw empty glasses on the table. Three each. He'd really made them wait this time. "They're so unreliable."

"Not to mention a colossal waste of time." László was flopped back in his seat, his own head mostly gone. Perhaps more of the glasses had been his. "What was it, three hours in the air? Four?"

"I don't trust the teleporter," István said, already tired of being the sober one. His friends had been drinking a lot more lately, since switching to the lighter brands, but he supposed that a lot of that blame was his for making them wait. "I've told you that."

"Oh, you're such an old man!" László laughed. "You know that airship accidents are much more likely, right? You've got a one in three million chance of something going wrong."

"There's a one in eleven million chance of total passenger death," Antal added, nodding. "It happens on the news all the time."

"Right, exactly. You're risking your life, and for what? Less convenience?"

"You know that the teleporter kills you? Every time?" István needed to have drunk more for this. It had been a busy day, and a long commute, and their constant needling about it didn't help. "You're broken down to nothing. They just make you anew on the other side."

"Sure, if that's how you want to look at it." László smiled, as if bodily disincorporation and reconstruction were trivialities to him. "But I've got all the same memories, so where's the difference?"

"That's what they tell you," István told him, getting more rattled than he'd like. "But how would you know? Antal, you know where I'm coming from. We've talked about this before. You had your doubts too, at the beginning."

"Before I had to take it for work? Sure, if you say so." His other friend also seemed a little hazy from the beer. "But then I tried it, and it was fine, so there was no more need to worry. You'd probably be the same, if you were only willing to give it a go."

"Or they took away the part of you that doubted." István turned back to László. "One in three million? One in eleven? Since when do you two know those figures?

"You think they're brainwashing us?"

"It makes sense, right?" He was mostly winding them up, a little revenge for all the grief they gave him, but a part of him believed it was true. He'd never trusted them, his life in someone else's hands "They have a motive, and opportunity - sieving through the things that make you you, and making a few subtle adjustments on the other side. It's almost the perfect crime. How could you ever catch them?"

"It feels a bit pointless, though, doesn't it?" Antal asked. "If they're only doing it to make us take the teleporter, but can only touch the people who already do. It's the guys like you they need to win over."

"Who says they're only doing it for that? Why would they limit themselves, if they've worked out how to bias your decisions?"

"You mean, like political propaganda?"

"Maybe. Or just for simple marketing." István pointed to the empty glasses between them. "I mean, how long have you had that?"

"Jana?" László laughed at the suggestion. "Since we were growing up, right? Greatest beer in the world. I've always drunk it."

"No," István said, realising the truth of his convictions. It was an awful thing, for a conspiracy theory to be proven right. "You haven't."

[camelliagwerm]

Who is Arthur's closest friend (aside from Bull ofc) during Inquisition? Do they keep in touch after Trespasser? And anything else you'd like to ramble about that! :3

Halk I am so sorry for how long this is lol.

Vivienne and Josephine are up there — he loves them both dearly, and his youngest daughter is named for them both (Victoria Cherette), if that's any indication of his closeness to them.

In Josephine's case in particular, even though that romantic aspect of their relationship is gone, I still imagine them to be extremely close and Josephine is one of the few people he is regularly in contact with after Trespasser (there was an... incident where Yvette tried to run away with a Rivaini pirate while Arthur and Bull happened to be on their sabbatical/honeymoon in Rivain. They had to go bring her back to Josephine akdkskdj.) He trusts her and her advice a lot, especially since he does find diplomacy to be incredibly exhausting for him (he still prefers it over intrigue or military tactics though) and she's full of good stories and gossip. But they both have the same problem of being too much of a workaholic, so spending time together very rarely doesn't involve work. When there isn't work involved, there's wine, gossip, Arthur being terrible at Wicked Grace (he's shit at reading tells and hiding his) and both of them often come away from it feeling a little lighter. (She also does very much press for um. details regarding a certain encounter given how shamelessly she was staring lmaooo.)

Vivienne (again: hasn't changed from before his rework!) —they actually knew each other prior to the Inquisition being the only two First Enchanters who opposed the rebellion, and I think they would've even been in the Ostwick Circle at the same time. Vivienne would have been a bit behind him, since she's a few years younger than him (by my guess, she strikes me as mid 40s, Arthur is 49) and he came into his magic when he was very young. I doubt they would've known each other well at the time, mind you And when Arthur was finally forced to close the Ostwick Circle due to a lack of funding during the war, he made arrangements for the most vulnerable of his mages (children, Tranquil) to get transferred to Montsimmard. In short, they already had a good professional relationship by the time Vivienne is recruited, and the Inquisition gave them the opportunity to become good friends. With Vivienne becoming Divine and Arthur choosing to retire, they're not as in contact as they could be after the Exalted Council, but whenever Arthur travels to Orlais, he always comes to visit Vivienne at the Grand Cathedral, sometimes with Bull and the girls, once they've been adopted.

And honestly, it'd be a disservice to not mention Sera. They have a very rocky start, what with Arthur being both noble and a mage, but she's one of the only ones to see him as people and not a figurehead and is constantly reminding him of it to keep him grounded. He appreciates it. Even if she calls him Artie when she wants to annoy him. He can be a bit of a stick in the mud but like with Bull, she gets him to loosen up a bit over time. They have rooftop time, they often spend time in the Undercroft preparing the potions, tonics, grenades and Sera's Tempest flasks (and I imagine Arthur starts teaching her about botany and they work on improving those formulae together!), and he shows her a lot more patience etc than the game lets you. He practically considers Sera family by the end of Inquisition and while he doesn't become a Jenny (he knows he isn't cut out for the work, and he wants a proper retirement), he does back Jenny operations as like? a silent partner or patron. And she's one of the more regular visitors to his home in Ostwick, either by herself or with Dagna (since they got together in my game)

Honourable mentions:

he and Cassandra had a very rocky relationship during Inquisition on account of her forcing him to become Inquisitor, but Cass was with him, Bull and Sera for both JoH and the Descent this run, so I imagine that she and Arthur get closer after Corypheus' defeat.

He and Thom | Blackwall were good friends prior to Revelations but honestly. What shitty fucking timing for that to happen, because it was around the same time Arthur was having to handle the shitshow with his ex-lover, so Rainier's deception really hit him hard (Bull and Sera forgave him very quickly, but Arthur? Yeah, not so much. He was also incredibly upset on Josephine's behalf, as Josephine and Blackwall was a thing in the base game for me.) But they do repair their friendship over the years, Thom also swinging by Arthur's place in Ostwick whenever he's that way and even being called Uncle Thom by Arthur and Bull's daughters.

Varric and Harding as well, but I won't say much more on that for now in case it gets expanded on in Veilguard (<- delusional)

[magnolia-sunrise]

i was wondering like. at what specific point could wolfgang be sure that bastien likes them afterall. i think iirc you might have mentioned they propositioned him pretty early on and kept a sense of intrigue anyways, i guess this could be a really specific moment in time? what signal made them go 'wait a minute this guy is into me afterall'

second specific question u mentioned wolf would have been in other relationships during these many years they spent w bastien. i guess these are multiple questions, would wolfs other partners notice that theyre somewhere else with their mind? would bastien be jealous or sad or just resign hinself to it? would wolf want for bastien to be jealous or is it more like. happenstance. does this make sense asking like this??

ahh thank you so much for sending this! it is a rare treat to be able to talk about this backstory stuff a bit more <3

lets see, first question, to start off i wrote out a sort of timeline of their acquaintance over 8 years in this post . you remember right, Wolfgang propositions him when they actually get to meet for the second time and talk for a while. they can tell he is kind and selfless in a way that many humans aren't, and also, more importantly, he's hot (and he did save their life and they're very grateful). Bastien politely declines as he's in a comitted relationship with Matteo at that point already (and still very much in love with him), but its fair to say theres a lot of mutual physical attraction, and it's very fun for Wolfgang to flirt with him and tease him through the years as they grow closer.

Bastien falls in love first, but he's also become very good at hiding those feelings and putting them away into a drawer somewhere far away in his heart. iirc i haven't talked about what would've been *The* moment for Wolf - they have an affection for him, but i think it takes them a few months to catch up on the fact there's something more, that his touch is softer, more tender perhaps.

but there is this event that happens early on when the actual story would kick off, around year 7/8 of them knowing each other, when they witness something really gruesome and in their attempt to follow the perpetrators they get hurt, but its significantly worse on their mental state - they can't unsee the things they saw and they grieve the lives they could've saved if they were faster. in that state they drag themself to the clinic late in the night and only Bastien is there. he takes care of their wounds as usual, except nothing is really 'as usual' anymore, and they can't stop sobbing through it. it's probably the most vulnerable they've ever been with him at that point. Bastien doesn't come home that night, he stays with them and holds them without asking questions. he knows he shouldn't but he can't bear to send them away. from that time i think Wolf finally understood just how much Bastien loves them, even though he tries to hide it. (he is even so good at hiding it that Élise tries to talk some sense into Wolfgang and that they shouldn't pine after him because it's a lost cause)

second question -- this is a bit tricky because its my fault for being the unreliable narrator here who hyperfixates on the "main love interest" in Bastien, without showing much of other people in either of their lives. in the early years, Bastien is not necessarily the most important person in their life at all - he's intriguing, sure, and he's attractive and they become genuine friends but that takes years, and Wolfgang knows other interesting and hot people they fuck and date in the meantime. one of their previous partners they actually meet at the clinic (another android patient). they also maintain a kind of fun friends with paid benefits relationship with Élise. so i would say they very much pay their full attention to whoever they're with, and their primary intent is definitely not concerned with thinking about what Bastien might feel about it. at least initially.

does Bastien feel jealous? oh yes, even though i don't think he would be able to identify that emotion correctly. more than once he sees them making out with someone or other in the alley behind the clinic and he can't help but feel - well - he gets angry at himself mostly, full of jealousy and envy, and then pushes it all down. he probably thinks he deserves to feel miserable and guilty.

when they get to the point they're both aware of their mutual feelings, Wolfgang doesn't really even have time to pursue any relationships. at most they fuck their friends, but the emotional mess that's between them and Bastien just keeps getting messier and more desperate, and they don't want to seriously involve anyone else in it. it's bad enough that Bastien still lives and sleeps with Matteo. in a moment of spiteful weakness maybe they would try to make him feel jealous of them sleeping with someone else, but all it does is just make them both more miserable so there's not really a point to it - it wouldn't change Bastien's decision. their worst fear is losing him as a friend, they can't push too much and they can't leave either. so for months they're both trapped in this mutual misery of yearning and lingering touches and things left unsaid until it all boils over