#I WILL BOTH BE LINKING TO THE ORIGINAL POST AND ADDING CREDIT WHEN I POST THE THING

[aparticularbandit]

That moment when I look at the DR/Haruhi crossover and am like.

Does this function better as one long fic. Or as a series of interconnecting fics.

And I think re: Haruhi as a whole, it might be better to interconnecting fics.

But.

Then the bit I want to use as the description...should really be the series description, huh

And then it would have something different as a description here on tumblr? Maybe?

idk.

[blaire-apricity]

Ransom and Chocolate Cakes

sʏʟᴜs x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

ᯓ❅ ┆ synopsis┆ : POV: You decided to kidnap a certain mechanical crow

ᯓ❅ ┆ tags┆ : short fiction, soft, fluff & possible OOC

ᯓ❅ ┆ credits & prompt┆ : original author & original post

──────────────── ˗ˏˋ ❅｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽ ˎˊ˗ ────────────────

It was just an ordinary day for Sylus—at least, for him. He sat propped against the headboard of his bed, one hand holding a book while the other adjusted his glasses. The manor was eerily quiet, with neither the twins nor his mechanical bird in sight, though he found the silence liberating. It was a rare break from the usual noise that filled the halls.

The soft buzz of his phone disrupted the stillness. Without much thought, he reached for it from the bedside table, glancing at the caller ID. A small smirk tugged at his lips when he saw who it was.

Before he could say anything, her voice broke through—pouty, with an unmistakable air of mischief but no real threat behind it. “I’ve kidnapped Mephisto,” she announced, sounding almost rehearsed.

A raspy chuckle escaped him, more of a scoff than a laugh. "Is there a reason you’ve kidnapped Mephisto, sweetie?" he asked, closing his book and placing it in his lap, now fully invested in the conversation.

“I demand a ransom,” she replied, her voice slightly muffled, as if she were cuddling something soft—a pillow or a plushie, he imagined. “Chocolate cake and snuggles. If you want him back unharmed, you’d better come over soon.”

Sylus shook his head, already piecing together the cause of her sudden demands. With a swipe on his phone, he checked the calendar before returning it to his ear. “Did your period start today?” he asked knowingly.

There was a pause. “… No,” she finally replied, but the delay and tone gave her away and it only made Sylus smile wider, totally unconvinced.

He chuckled again, entertained by her antics. “Alright, I’ll be right over. Just make sure Mephisto stays alive for me, sweetie.”

“Okay,” she answered, her voice followed by a quick shuffling sound as if she stood up to check on something. “Mephisto’s fine. He’s eating popcorn and watching Hallmark Christmas movies with me.”

Sylus hummed in amusement. There was another moment of quiet before she spoke up again, her voice carrying a hint of uncertainty. “Can mechanical crows even eat? Is he allowed to have popcorn?”

A smirk touched his lips. “Not exactly.”

“Oh… shoot,” she muttered under her breath, likely glancing worriedly at the bird now pecking at the popcorn she’d made.

“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt him. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, and I’ll bring every type of chocolate cake you can dream of,” Sylus reassured, standing up, preparing to leave and rescue his mechanical crow from the whims of his mischievous kitten.

“…Okay...” she trailed off, her voice softer, almost hesitant, and it made him pause. He waited, knowing she wasn’t done. After a few seconds, she added, “…Can you also rub my tummy? Your hands make a good heating pad.”

Her tone was almost sheepish, and Sylus couldn’t help but smile to himself. “Yes, sweetie. I’ll rub your stomach—and anything else you need. See you soon."

──────────────── ˗ˏˋ ❅｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽ ˎˊ˗ ────────────────

╰｡ Author's Note: Before anyone lunges at me, I've gotten permission from the author themselves, giving me a go signal to create an inspired piece of their original prompt. •`ヮ´• So I went ahead and did one! Credits are above, both their Tumblr link and the post they wonderfully created! Thank you once again, @missaengg! ( •̯́ ₃ •̯̀)

Yes, I know I've stated it a while ago, I had a sudden burst of motivation and I finished it within 3 hours and in one sitting- HAHA

[toomanytookas]

Original image credit: Tantor Films

Hi friends,

A few months ago, I noticed that I was having a hard time keeping track of all of the challenges and projects that folks were organising and making fanworks for.

It made me wish there were a central place where I could go to find them again and because I'm a bit of a nerd for metadata and information organisation, I decided to do something!

The PPCU Fandom Projects Database is now online.

There are listings for both current/upcoming projects as well as masterlists of past projects in the fandom. I’ve put together a little guide here.

More info below the cut. I'm also tagging project organisers so they know they're listed and can decide whether they want to be or not. 💕

What is it?

This is a Notion site where I’ve gathered project information and masterlist links. It also makes different bits of information (such as deadlines and submission types) more readily filterable and searchable than when in the tumblr post format.

What gets listed?

I'm defining a ‘project’ as any type of fandom activity in which someone (the ‘organiser’) issues a call out to the fandom to create, submit, or otherwise participate in something that they are putting together. This is separate from individual rec lists that people have created that are their personal reading activity — the key concept is that multiple people have been invited to contribute information and/or fanworks and/or are engaging in other activities that make the project possible.

I have a project!

If you have a past, current, or upcoming project that you would be interested in seeing listed, feel free to tag or DM me, or you can use the tag #PPCUfandomproject and I will add it as soon as I can. I will also endeavour to add projects as I see them.

It's not on tumblr?!

I recognise that taking this information out of tumblr might not be to everyone's comfort level, so please if your project is listed and you don't want it on there, let me know and I will remove it ASAP. Projects that have been included thus far have been tagged below and I will continue to tag folks when things are added so that there is never an instance where something will be on the website without the project creator being informed about it. If it helps to know, the site is not being search engine indexed.

The listing of my project isn’t accurate/I want to change some of the information.

Just let me know what you’d like me to change and I’ll be happy to do it. 💕

Inspiration.

This was inspired by a project that existed in one of my past fandoms as well as the amazing work in the PPCU space by folks such as @littlemisspascal, @fuckyeahdindjarin, @secretelephanttattoo, and @jolapeno to create lists and directories that enable us to elevate writers and their work in ways that tumblr doesn't necessarily allow for without help.

Project organisers that have been included thus far (Again please lmk if you do not want your project listed!!! 💕)

@almostfoxglove @alyssamariag @amanitacowboy @burntheedges @chaotic-mystery

@chronically-ghosted @dancingtotuyo @dieterbravobrainrotclub @fuckyeahdindjarin @guiltyasdave

@happypedrohours @hellishjoel @iamasaddie @i-own-loki @joelmillerisapunk

@jolapeno @littlemisspascal @magpiepills @mermaidgirl30 @millersflowermarket

@morallyinept @mothandpidgeon @moonlitbirdie @msjarvis @pedgito

@pedropeach @pedrostories @perotovar @pickled-pena @prolix-yuy

@punkshort @romanarose @saradika @schnarfer @secretelephanttattoo

@sp00kymulderr @studioghibelli @the-blind-assassin-12 @tightjeansjavi @tonysopranosrobe

@toxicanonymity @wannab-urs @whocaresstillthelouvre @yopossum @5oh5

@beefrobeefcal

[phantomcodes]

abelia | theme by sage

get the code: $6 - live preview / preview v1 / preview v2 a fansite theme with lots of options!

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only the (optional) faq & navigate popups need to be changed in the code, everything else can be changed in the customize panel! however there are other changes you can make in the code if you want - please see the customization guide

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reblog if using

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make sure you fill out the blog name field, this is what will show on the top of all your original posts. to clarify: your blog name is your blog’s url - for example: phantomcodes

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when the browser window gets too small the sidebar will disappear and become toggleable, the sidebar toggle button will appear on the right side of the headerbar next to the day/night button

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i’m still on a sort of semi-hiatus, i’ll be around for questions but please check my faq, answered asks, etc. before asking - i will not answer repeated questions!

[imnotjaesblog]

Hogwarts Dreams at Night

Intro:

Part 1: An Owl Appears

New Nct Dream Series Starring,

Huang Renjun- The Ravenclaw.

-Huang Renjun is one of the smartest students in all of Hogwarts. He's aced every exam and test. He's absolutely beloved by his teachers and students can't decide if their jealousy is from hate or desire to be as smart as him. However, Renjun had always been head-to-head with you. Both of you taking any chance to turn in even an optional extra credit assignment and an opportunity to compete. But one day on your way to your Defense Against the Dark Art class you both get stuck inside a classroom and are forced to work out your differences. Making Renjun realize he shouldn't have been competing with you but for you.

Here Now!!: Part Two: The Ravenclaw

Posted: 03/ 30/2024

Na Jaemin- Part three- The Slytherin

-Na Jaemin is a quidditch player but unlike Jeno, he could care less about the sport. He only played because his father forced him to. Jaemin would much rather spend his time in the library, but not curled up with a good book or studying for his Spells class. He'd rather fuck some pretty Hufflepuff behind the bookcases and maybe even get caught. However, when you are paired with him to work on a project in your spells class he sees the chase for you as a challenge and he'd do anything to piss Jeno off

Here Now!!!!!

Posted: 05/10/ 2024

Lee Jeno - Part four- The Gryffindor

Posted: 06/17/2024

Here Now!!!!

-Lee Jeno captain of the Quidditch Gryffindor team. Had always had everything in life handed to him. His father was a beloved Gryffindor and Jeno wishes to follow in his footsteps. He was loved for his bravery, honor, loyalty, and boldness like a true Gryffindor. However, everyone has a weakness. His recklessness, self-righteousness, short tempers, and desire to have you are what make him lose you. After countless arguments, your friendship falls apart and breaks his heart. But he'd never tell you. Until one day you rip it right out of him.

The final part is here now!

Here is the link!: Hogwarts Dreams at Night

Posted: 10/08/2024

AHHH okay. I'm so excited to write this series, you have no clue. I've always wanted to do something Harry Potter and it's finally happening.

This will be a 5 part series.

I played around with the idea a lot. Adding in members and taking some out. Changing the plot based on which members I wanted. But I knew one way or another Jaemin as a Slytherin had to be created. Then I thought I should write about a chase. Which one will Y/n choose?

Then I had to figure out who would be the other man. I knew I wanted him to be Gryffindor it was just deciding which one would be a Gryffindor. Originally it would be Jaehyun but then I changed it since I've written so much about him already. Then my mind went to Jeno and I knew I had to write about him.

Now Renjun came so quick. I just had to make him a Ravenclaw.

I wanted to write the entire 00 line but I physically could not make Haechan a Hufflepuff. So I promise he will be mentioned all of the Dreamies will be but the main 3 will be Jeno, Jaemin, and Renjun.

I hope you all enjoy this series.

See you soon:)

The series is now completed! Thank you for reading.

Happy Reading :)

[gaypleasantview]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☆ don't fear the reaper. // Halloween Drop Day 4 ☆₊‧⁺˖⋆

⋆ 4t2 conversion of grimmbats's Skeleton String Lights

⋆ shiftable wall decoration in two versions (V2 repositoried to V1)

⋆ polycount: 2398 (V1) / 1394 (V2)

⋆ two recolorable channels with 10 swatches each, all in 256x256 textures

⋆ files are compressed, clearly labeled and made with love

Link, swatch and more info under the cut ♡

Hey everyone!! And happy Halloween! Here comes the last thingie I'm gonna be uploading this spooky season. I really like @grimmbats's creations (truth be told, this isn't even the first thing of his I've converted, but I've never posted the other one... yet?), and this one in particular caught my eye as something to convert for Halloween, of course. It's a super adorable set of skeleton string lights! They are located under Decorations/Wall, right where the Maxis decorative string lights are, and for the humble amount of §30 you can put them up anywhere in your house. They are not super low-poly but I think it's still quite decent. There are two versions, V1 is the one presented in the preview and in the swatch down below, and V2 looks like this:

You will need V1 to use both because V2 is repositoried to it, meaning it will use all the same textures that V1 uses. I took the original colors and added a bunch of new ones, and the string itself is now also recolorable, which I never intended at first but it kinda just happened? Both channels share one texture, and you can mix and match the recolors however you want.

Fun feature: their bright colors stay bright even when it's completely dark! I think it's super appropriate for the theme, and while these aren't actual lights, they might create an illusion of glowing a bit. This is how they look with and without lighting in the room:

I hope you enjoy using them!! I know I will, they're super cute!

Credits: @grimmbats for the original mesh and base texture, HugeLunatic and PForestsims for the tutorials that I keep using for various stuff on a regular basis.

♡ Download ♡

SFS | Mediafire

♡ Swatch ♡

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm planning on publishing my written fiction online in both Portuguese (my native language) and in English (the other language I speak which might help to share the story with more people), but something is worrying me.

I watched a movie where the a main character (a writer) had a book that wasn't popular and another character "translated" into her language (what she actually did was rewrite it as an erotic novel) and the book was super loved there (the readers didn't know the book was supposed to be different)

Sometimes I see artists who allow fans to share translations of their comics, but I'm concerned on what could happen if someone asked for permission to translate. Do you think it's worth the risk of someone making my story popular with something that goes against my values, like supporting disregard to a human right or making it erotic when it was supposed to be family-friendly?

Worried About Fan Translations

I want to be clear that this advice is specific to fiction published online versus e-books or print books, which are a different matter entirely. First and foremost, if you post a story online, give permission to a fan to translate it, and then they rewrite it into something else, that is plagiarism and a copyright violation, and you have every right to ask them to take it down. If they refuse to cooperate, you can threaten them with a lawsuit, even if you don't really have the means to follow through. That could be enough to get them to take it down. If not you can report them to the platform for stealing your work. You can also let your fans know that this person has stolen your work and to please block them or refuse to engage with them.

If you post a story online and are approached by a fan who asks to translate it into their native language, there are some things you can do to potentially protect yourself:

1 - Do not give them permission to post the translation on their own account. Thank them for their offer and let them know you're happy to let them translate the story, but they will need to e-mail it to you so you can have it vetted and post it on your own account with credit. Be clear that you do not give them permission to post a translation on their own account. That way, not only does it dissuade people who are only interested in plagiarism or benefiting off your hard work, it also means you keep full control of your story and its translations.

2 - Do your best to vet the translation. You can try to find a beta reader who is fluent in that language who can read it and make sure it's a good translation, though you'll likely have to pay them, which is worth it to make sure the translation is accurate. Or you could copy chunks of the story into Google Translate, which isn't a great translation service, but at least you'll see right away if the person has added erotica or written anything that's drastically different.

3 - Do your best to vet the translator. Another thing you can do is try to vet the translator. Ask them if they've ever translated a story before, and if so, ask them for examples. Look at their account and see if they have posted other translations or have posted links to translations. Investigate the authors of the stories they translated and see if there are any complaints. Read through the comments of the original story and the translation (you may again have to use Google Translate if it's a language you're not familiar with... not perfect, but just fine for this application...) are similar. If a lot of comments on the translation mention elements that aren't mentioned in the source story comments, that's a potential red flag.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[sirfrogsworth]

So in one post you’re ranting about people on Twitter stealing jokes and in another you’re reposting other people’s art….

I think you have a deep misunderstanding of the problem.

There is content creation... Someone makes a thing.

There is content curation... Someone shares a thing someone else made.

There is attribution... Someone credits the creator of the content.

There is theft... Someone takes credit for content they did not make.

I love content creation. Artists are great.

I love content curation. There is way too much content on the internet and without people sorting through it and finding the best stuff, we would all go nuts looking at all the bad stuff just to find a few hidden gems. When I was doing this as a job and when I wasn't creating content, I used to go through about a thousand images per day just to find 5 to post on my blog. It's actually a lot of work.

I love attribution. One of the main ways I grew my following was by content curators sharing my work and crediting me.

People like the thing. They see who made it. They follow that creator.

I do not like theft. Sometimes you can't find a source for something. I understand that happens and I struggle with that sometimes myself. But people sharing something they did not create and taking credit for its creation is super scummy. Especially if they are erasing watermarks and adding their own. This will give people the impression they made the thing, so they won't even try to find the creator of that content. The original content creator will never get the benefit of more followers.

So, whenever I curate content, I always try to find the source. Especially if it is a creative work that took a lot of time and effort to make. I also try to give people multiple ways to consume that creator's content.

If you look at the art you mentioned, you can see links to several places to follow the artist.

And if I cannot find a source, what I will absolutely not do, is give people the impression I am responsible for creating the content. And oftentimes someone will recognize the creator and I am able to add attribution after the fact.

As both a content creator and a content curator, these are the best practices I have developed over years of doing this. Some people accuse curators of being just "reposters" and being lazy for not creating their own content, but they are an extremely valuable asset to artists. We need ethical curators to share our work and attribute it properly so we can build audiences.

What we don't want are content thieves and those assholes who say, "credit goes to the artist who made this."

Hopefully you have a better understanding of the issue now.

[detailtilted]

NEW Enhanced Edition - CHICON 2009 - J2 Breakfast

Direct link to video. Link to YouTube channel. (13 videos available.)

My latest video is up. 82% of the footage came from the video AgtSpooky sent me. Her video was already on YouTube, but not properly credited to her. I used a few other sources that are credited in my video description.

This video won't look as good as my others, for reasons I've already explained in typically wordy fashion in another post, but I do think it's still quite an improvement versus what's previously been available on YouTube. There are, as usual, some funny moments! I hope you'll find it to be worth watching.

My next video will be the main J2 panel. This is when they first started doing completely combined panels instead of having a combination of solo and joint panels. My turnaround time on the next video will be much slower than it has been up to this point. This is both because the next video will be twice as long as most of my other videos, and also because I have some personal chaos (buying a house/selling a house/moving) that will eat into a lot of my spare time over the next month and a half.

I'll be even less active on Tumblr than usual while this is going on. Whatever spare time I manage to find will probably be dedicated toward video editing rather than social media. If you don't hear much from me over the next month or two, it's definitely not because I've lost interest in my project or the fandom.

Before/after comparison photos...

In addition to these images, there's a 32-second comparison video in this post (the same post I linked to above). The original videos had very heavy flashes which I reduced in the enhanced version, and a screen shot can't demonstrate how big of a difference that makes.

A recap for anyone not familiar with this project…

In December 2023, I started this project to enhance old convention videos. I'm upscaling the videos and making other visual improvements, adding extra content to clarify various references, and adding good color-coded subtitles so you can better understand the sometimes-chaotic audio.

My goal is to publish the best, most complete, and most watchable versions of these older convention panels yet seen, but this is only possible thanks to the fans who captured the footage in the first place and were generous enough to share it with other fans. My video descriptions on YouTube will always credit my sources.

If you have any old convention videos you'd be willing to contribute to this project, please message me! I can also be reached at DetailTilted@gmail.com. Even if your videos are on YouTube, the original files, if you still have them, may upscale much better. If I can get them to upscale, I'd happily send the upscaled files back to you for your own collection whether I use them or not.

[oohbuggypie]

saw these tags by @ratts-reblogs on my post abt Soda's lip detail when he's fighting and i literally SQUEALED

because BOY DO I LOOOVE NOTICING CHARACTER QUIRKS !! so here's a small list of other little details that i gush over but have never talked abt ::

- in Exhibition mode, when you select Don you can see that he has a particularly unique stance;; both of his feet face the same direction despite his torso facing the camera - it looks pretty hilarious ! super bad visual guide i had to outline bcuz its hard to see from the regular, blurry image

- in Tiger's Title Defense intermission, his clones have a lot of cutesie animations ! the left clone scrunches his nose and eyes (moving his mustache along with it), and fidgets with his shoes quite some ! the clone furthest to the right nods his head in agreement with the middle clone and his mustache moves a lot with it as well !! additionally, after the real Tiger reminds them that it's time to gather up for the fight, the left clone makes a frustrated / disapproving face by furrowing his brows and squinting his eyes , and the right clone looks very confused as the other clones disappear !

(the video above is a clipped version of Gaming Evolution's video on YouTube ! full credit to their upload and content;; this does not belong to me !! video linked here ! 🩷)

- in Kaiser's TD select screen, he has an adorable little nose scrunch that wiggles his mustache along with it !

(GIF taken from this video !! all credit 2 Gaming Evolution 🩷)

- when you KO Bull, as he spins to fall down , you can hear an odd creaking noise ; i believe this is meant to resemble the sound a mechanical bull makes when it's particularly riled up !

- in Soda's idle animation, he has a very unique way of moving; Macho Man, who has a similar animation, shuffles his feet back and forth. Soda, on the other hand, shuffles his feet side to side ! it looks super silly 🥹 GIF added below so u can see !

(the video i GIFed this from is linked beneath the next listed detail!)

- when Don knocks you down, most of the time the "GET UP" / counting screen obscures his face ,, but when u CAN see, u may notice that as he laughs and shakes his glove, he raises his right eyebrow in unison ! this comically small and blurry GIF is probably no help but take what u can get

(SRRY ABT THE GIF i can't seem to find a good video that shows it,, however the video i GIFed this from is linked here !! full credit to the original uploader 🩷)

THERE'S PROBABLY A LOT OF OBVIOUS ONES IN HERE IM SRRYY but they're ones that i absolutely love regardless 🩷 if anybody has other little details they notice please please tell me i literally adore miniscule little quirks in their characters it adds so much i swear ✝️ also apologies for the poorly cut videos and hilariously crunchy GIFs, ive never done this before in my life but i wanted to give visuals so u will b forced 2 enjoy my terrible attempts at them 🫡

[aticklishpercivalwriter]

A Sleepy, Ticklish Aether

Links to Art (credits go to original artist(s) as always!): Xiao | Lyney | Aether

—

Summary: A sleepy Aether is a very needy, ticklish Aether and Xiao and Lyney take notice.

A/N: This takes place post-cooking for Lyney in the 4.4 cooking event. The animations for Aether and Lumine cooking are so cute! Xiao has softened up in this one and is quite a tease. Wonder where he learned it from 🤔. Anyway, hope you enjoy this one; happy reading!

Word Count: 1615 Also on AO3!

—

Aether yawned as the fatigue of nonstop cooking at Wangshu Inn started to catch up to him. Paimon had it worse as she was sleep talking, so Aether sent her to their room. Wanting to close his eyes and feel the cool breeze on his cheeks, he made his way up the stairs to the top balcony. 

“Yawn. I'm so tired. I wish Xiao was up here. I wonder where Lyney- oof!” 

Aether collided with someone making him rub his eyes and start to apologize before his eyes widened when he realized who he bumped into. 

“L-Lyney?”

“Oh! It's you, my golden ball of sunshine. Though…” Lyney took a double take at Aether’s facial expression. “You look exhausted.”

“Yeah. Yawn. I am. Yawn. Long day…” 

Aether suddenly stumbled forward as his eyes drooped. Lyney caught him with a concerned expression on his face. 

“Hey. Let’s get you to bed now, okay?” 

Lyney squished Aether’s cheek with his hand before he carried him bridal style. 

“Heyyy,” Aether pouted, weakly batting at Lyney’s arms. 

Lyney smiled fondly at him and gave him a peck on the forehead. 

“You are so cute, you know that?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Ahem.”

Both Lyney and Aether jolted at the sound of another voice as they tightened their grip around each other and looked towards the source of said voice.

“Oh. Sorry for scaring you both.”

Xiao stood before them with a red hue on his ears. 

“Xiao! You are here!” 

Aether sent Xiao a sleepy grin that made his heart melt and face heat up, the red tinge on his ears intensifying. 

“Oh? Is the Yaksha blushing,” Lyney teased. 

“Shut up. You can’t tell me that you aren’t affected by that. Even Wanderer isn’t immune to that.” 

“What are you guys talking about? I’m just being me,” Aether said, confused.

Xiao and Lyney looked at each other before looking back at him with soft looks in their eyes.

“And that’s why we love you,” they said at the same time.

“You are just so cute for all of us,” Lyney added. “Especially for him.”

Lyney wiggled his eyebrows at Xiao who just rolled his eyes and started lightly tickling Lyney’s sides.

“I believe you were the one that was down bad for Aether when you first laid eyes on him.”

“Xiahohoho!” Lyney giggled, wiggling side to side as Aether tightened his grip around him. “Nohohohot truhuhuhue! Wait! Wahahahait! I’m gohohoing to drop Aehehehether!” He squeaked when Xiao tickled a particularly sensitive spot. 

A proud smile crossed Xiao’s face. “That was for your teasing. Now come over here.”

Lyney hesitantly walked over to Xiao, giggling all the way as the tickle sensations lingered. Xiao wiggled his fingers teasingly as a small smirk appeared on his face.

“Hehehey! Whehehen dihihid yohuhu becohohome a tehehehease?!” 

“I learn from the best,” Xiao said, looking towards Aether then him.

As the two continued to talk, Aether stared at Xiao's hands, mesmerized by his fingers. Their voices faded away and he imagined being teased into oblivion by both his boyfriends. Fingertips that gently graze against his side as they keep him on edge and giggling as they pepper him with kisses.

“I wanna be tickled so bad now. Please wreck meheheheeeee.” 

Aether whined, burying his face into Lyney's chest before he realized that his chest feels more defined than before. He let go of who he was hugging and looked up to find a surprised looking Xiao whose expression was slowly morphing into a smirk. 

“X-Xiao!?”

“What got you so whiney, sunshine?~” a deep, teasy voice sounded right against his ear as arms wrapped around him, trapping him. 

He let out surprised giggles as the vibrations and breath of who he knows to be Lyney sent ticklish sensations throughout his body. 

Being squished in between his boyfriends, in which he knows to be Xiao's room and bed, Aether can't help but feel more ticklish.

Xiao whispered in his other ear. “What were you thinking to not notice me teleport to my room, hmm? Was it this?” he raised his hands again and wiggled them right in front of Aether’s eyes making him shiver and hold back his giggles as he shook his head defiantly and scoot backwards only to bump into Lyney's chest. 

“Are you surrree?” Lyney teased, his smirk audible. He tightened his grip around Aether as he made him look on at Xiao's wiggling digits as they slowly descended. 

“I-ihihihi hahahave no idehehea whahahat you arehehe tahahalking abohohout,” Aether giggled. 

He raised his hands up to prevent Xiao from touching him, but Lyney with surprising ease raised both his arms and hugged his middle tightly. 

“Nu uh uh~ Come on. Tell us what you were thinking.” 

“Ihihihi hahahave nothihihihng to- hehehehe sahahahay!” 

Aether felt vulnerable as his body was stretched taut, his nerves on edge. 

“Youhuhuhu wohohohn’t geheheht ihihihit out of mehehe! Eep!”

“Oh? So, you did have something on your mind.”

Xiao's fingers landed on Aether's belly, but never moved, much to his dismay. 

“We have all night, baby,” Xiao teased. 

In a different situation, Aether would be proud of him for being such a tease but being on the receiving end made him arch into his touch and whine. 

Xiao just raised his hands to avoid grazing his stomach, not giving him satisfaction.

“Plehehehease! Xiahohoho!” Aether begged. 

Xiao and Lyney hadn’t seen their lover be this needy before, but they had no complaints as they continued, loving this side of him.

“Please what?” 

To add to his predicament, Lyney began blowing puffs of air on his ears, making him squirm and scrunch up his shoulders. 

“Youhuhuhu guhuhuhuys! Hehehehehe! Thihihis ihihihisn’t fahahahair! Ahahahahaha!”

“All's fair in love and… tickling,” they said in unison. 

Aether giggled uncontrollably and whined as he tried to follow their touches, but they didn't bite.

“My lohohoves, plehehehease dohoho ihihihit! Hehehehehe!”

He was losing his mind and could only think about getting his lovers to tickle him. 

“Please please please plehehehease!”

Xiao experimentally slid his fingers along his belly causing him to buck up and laugh.

“AHHAHAHA! Yehehehes! Finahahally- Wh-why did you stop?” 

Xiao's fingers settled back on to his stomach, not moving.

“Did you think I would just give it to you like that? Tell us what you want,” he growled playfully, blowing a raspberry on Aether's neck. 

Lyney did the same, overwhelming him with ticklish sparks. 

“GAHAHAHA! WAHAHAHAIT! IT TIHIHICKLES TOO MUHUHUCH! AHAHAHA!

As quick as they started, they stopped. 

“But you loved it didn't you?” Lyney whispered into his ear.

Aether nodded, giggles filling the air as Xiao lightly drummed his fingers against his belly.

“Just say the words.”

Aether hesitated on whether he can hold out, but with Xiao tortuously drumming his fingers and Lyney now nuzzling against his neck, he couldn't hold back anymore and needed to get wrecked.

“Plehehease tickle me! I nehehehed it so bahahad! Wreheheck mehehehe!”

Giggles slipped in as Xiao and Lyney exchanged a look.

Did we actually break him? That was more than I thought he would say. Is he really that tickle starved?

Not one to make their lover suffer any longer, they went in. 

Lyney moved his hands down to Aether's hips, squeezing rapidly, while Xiao went to town on his tummy. 

A look of relief and excitement passed through his eyes before a bright smile appeared and laughter started pouring out of him. 

“GAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA! OH MY ARCHOHONS! IT TICKLEHEHEHES SOHOHOHO MUHUHUHUCH! HAHAHAHA!” He thrashed in Lyney's embrace, as he reflexively tried to curl in on himself. 

“Of course it does, silly,” Lyney grinned, planting ticklish kisses along his neck. 

Xiao just smiled as he switched to wiggling his fingers against Aether's neck and Lyney started drilling into his ribs. 

“AhhHAHAHhaha! Oh maHAHAhahan! Ihiht TIHIHICKLES! NAHAHAahahaHAHA!” Aether spasmed, the mix of light and intense tickling driving him crazy.

Xiao growled, knowing how much it affects Aether and started nibbling the shell of his ear making Aether shake his head. 

“Xiahahahao! Dohohon’t- heheheahaha- AHAHAHAHA! LYNEHEHEHEY!”

Lyney slid down and kneaded his thighs catching him off guard and laughing hysterically. 

Not to be outdone by the magician, Xiao blew raspberry after raspberry on Aether's navel, causing him to throw his head back in ticklish mirth and tears to run down his face. 

“OHOHOHO GOHOHOD! LOHOHOVES! HAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA! NEHEHEHAHAHA!”

They noticed his energy slowly slipping away and decided to drive him over the edge as a finale.

“Ready Lyney?” The adeptus called over Aether's laughter.

“Yup! Let's finish it.”

Taking their positions along the golden boy's death spots, Xiao at his armpits and Lyney at his hip bones, they went all in. 

Massaging, swiping, rubbing, any technique they know, they used, and Aether dissolved into laughter.

“AHHHAHAHHAHA, AHAHAHA! OHOHOHO- NAHAHAHA! GAHAHAHA! EHEHEHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA-” 

His laughter went silent, making them back off and watch as he recovered. With whatever remaining strength, he brought Lyney in front of him with Xiao and hugged them both, giggles filtering in as he relaxed. A blissful look made its way on his face as he cuddled with them. 

“Thank you, my babies,” he said softly, giving them each a deep and passionate kiss. “I needed that. I really love you both oh so much.”

“We love you too, sunshine,” they said, returning the kiss with equal fervor.

Aether closed his eyes and fell asleep peacefully, embraced by his lovers.

“Night, Aether.”

“Sweet dreams, sunshine.”

Xiao and Lyney waited to make sure his breathing evened out before going to sleep themselves.

“Love you, Lyney.”

“Love you too, Xiao.”

“Good night.”

“Night.”

They gave each other a night kiss before they snuggled up closer to Aether, his laughter playing in their dreams. 

[sunniedesi]

Sakae Esuno's Old Blogs (Author of Future Diary)

If there is one thing Sakae Esuno is known for, besides being the creator of Future Diary and three other manga series, is his privacy. He’s never had a very active presence online like other mangakas, given that he doesn’t post much on Twitter and he’s also not given many interviews. That being said, Esuno did have a few blogs back in the day with interesting content to look into. While not active anymore, the blogs can still be accessed through the Wayback Machine, albeit lacking some of its images.

Esuno’s official blog was originally hosted on the site Sakura. The page went through many changes throughout the years, to update the blog whenever a new project or volume of his current manga was on sale. 

This is what the page looked like during 2005 - 2006, dedicated to his first manga “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.” All the page shows are the history of changes to the site (top right of the page) and his schedule for publishing the volumes of the manga (bottom right).

Snapshot from April 2005

Snapshot from December 2005.

The top of the page says “As previously announced, a new series titled "Future Diary" will begin its publication in next month's issue of Monthly Shonen Ace. Since I'm busy with work, there won't be any major updates to the homepage. Please be patient and wait for next month's issue.” The other two changes in this snapshot were the addition of Amazon links for each volume of “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory” and changing the schedule to feature Future Diary’s release in January 2006.

When Future Diary came out in 2006, the page went through a major overhaul to center on this project.

Snapshot of June 2006

The text here features a synopsis of Future Diary

Snapshot from February 2007

The text here is announcing the sale of volume three, and at the bottom requesting for assistants.

The updated blog also featured three new subpages: 

The character vote, where people could vote for their favorite characters and leave their opinions in the comments.

The webstore for all of Esuno’s mangas.

And the official picture section, where Esuno displayed different pictures and banners free to use for people’s personal blogs, as long as Esuno was credited. While this page is saved on the Wayback Machine, none of the pictures load. It’s possible some of these were illustrations from the manga, but it’s also possible that a few of these were unique drawings from Esuno, meaning we might have some lost media here, unfortunately.

In 2009, Esuno moved his blog to a different domain, though still powered by Sakura. This new version of the blog brought about more personal posts from Esuno, such as updates on his work progress for both Future Diary and Big Order, sales announcements, his thoughts on the series and its many iterations, etc. This blog was active until June 2018.

Most of his blog entries are visible through the Wayback Machine, with the exception of 13 entries from 2009 and two from 2011. Many of the pictures are also inaccessible through the Wayback Machine. While I won’t translate every blog entry (since they’re mostly updates on sale dates), I decided to translate a few excerpts that I felt were interesting enough to look at in this post, particularly those about Redial and Esuno’s interviews.

Excerpt from entry of December 26th, 2012:

* About Future Diary: Redial It’s already been announced in the Big Order Obi (note: Obi is a strip of paper wrapped around manga that usually displays information about the product, special announcements or ads), but both the anime and manga of Future Diary will receive an OVA in July of next year. Both the comic and anime will feature new content (the book will not be sold as a standalone piece.) Both stories take place in the third world, and follow Yuno’s journey to meet Yukiteru again. They’re a sort of sequel to the manga and anime. I’m in charge of the plot, while Takayama-san (FD’s screenwriter) is in charge of the screenplay.  (I’m very thankful for the fun script he’s provided.) It wouldn’t be fun to write the exact same story for the manga, so I’m planning to go in a different direction.  Lots of characters will make an appearance in the anime (Akise included). Please look forward to it!

Now, onto an entry from March 12th, 2013:

* About Future Diary: Redial I sent the manuscript for Redial a few days ago. I’ve been taking a break from Big Order since last month to work on Redial’s manuscript. I apologize to the readers of Big order for this short wait, the series will resume publication on April’s issue of Ace. (Photo unavailable) (Here’s a drawing of Yuno trying her hardest to reach a candy that’s high up… lol) I asked my assistant to read the manuscript, and she pointed out that some of the pages were quite dense in content, so I should provide some explanations for the plot.   Hence, today I’d like to explain Redial’s plot a little. As I mentioned earlier, Redial is a story of how third-world Yuno regained her memories of Yukiteru. The anime will be sold in bookstores with the manga attached. Please preorder it through Kadokawa’s website or your local bookstore.  I wrote the plot for the anime, and participated in the script meetings. The manga is a little different from the anime, but they both share the storyline of “third-world Yuno recovering her memories of Yukiteru.” I’m sure that the anime will turn out well because Takayama-san’s script and Hosoda-san’s storyboards are very fun. It seems like it’s still in the works, though. Now, about the manga. You could say the Redial anime and manga are in competition with one another. The anime production team may not think so, but I do (lol). The anime and manga productions each took their own approach to the theme of “third-world Yuno regaining her memories.” Of course, I participated in the creation of the anime, so the basic premise for both is the same. (questions like “what happened to Yuno’s body after she died?” or “what happened to first-world MurMur?” will be answered in both.)   Both the anime and manga have their merits, I didn’t try to make any weird adjustments to the manga; I just had fun while making it. So, I think it will be interesting to watch and compare the differences between style and media. ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー A side note. I started considering them competing projects after “Next Project” was announced (we still hadn’t decided how to go about it). Kadokawa: “Let’s do another book store release.” Esuno: “Uh, there isn’t much to draw from the third world.” (in terms of story for the manga.) Production: “Please write us a premise, and we’ll decide what to do from it.” (hopefully, we’ll get material for the anime from there.) Esuno: (Huh? I was supposed to be making the manga, but now I got dragged into this…?) (Now I have to write a plot with the anime in mind.)  ~ After many meetings, the script was finished (a good one, of course). Esuno: “Well, I’ll take the more favorable aspects and write the manga on my own.” Esuno: (Ehehe, I’ll just do what I want, I’ll change the plot to suit the manga…) … That’s kind of how it went. ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー Well, the first part of the manga version will be published in this month’s issue of Ace. (It’s about 15 pages). I hope it will give you a feel for the rest. Though, please remember that for the reasons mentioned before, the content will differ from the anime.  Redial feels like killing two birds with one stone.

I’m adding these excerpts in because it explains a lot of things about Redial. If you’ve seen the anime and manga versions of Redial, you know that they’re substantially different. Finding out that not only were they purposely written to be different, but that the anime script was made before the manga, is also very interesting to me. I was always under the impression that the manga came first, and then they based the anime off that, but it’s the other way around. Though it’s very easy to tell they were written by different people; the anime went for a more fan-service/slice of life approach, while the manga centered more on Yuno’s mental dilemmas. Maybe I’m biased towards Esuno, but I always preferred the manga version of Redial for its more serious approach. 

Entry from March 21st, 2013:

I came across a lot of things while working out the manuscript.

This is Minene’s Mosaic cover. In the end, we only used the top part of the illustration, even though the bottom part was fully drawn. There’s more stuff, but I’ll only upload it if I find the patience…

Excerpt from June 25th, 2013: 

Incidentally, when I was interviewed in Italy, a reader asked me: “which is your favorite character?” (I often get asked this in interviews.) My answer was something like this: “If your kids asked you which of them is your favorite, you wouldn’t be able to rank them. So, in that sense, when I talk about my favorite characters, I’m referring to the ones I had the most fun drawing.” You might think my favorites are Akise, Minene or Reisuke (of course, I like them all), but there are no characters that I dislike. If that were the case, I wouldn't have drawn them in the first place. For example, my assistants really disliked Funatsu, but I still enjoyed drawing him… (lol) (As a side note, when I first heard Maruyama-san playing Funatsu in the anime, I was so impressed. I thought to myself: “he’s the real Funatsu!”)

I also remember reading that Esuno had a picture of a limited edition shirt in his blog. I’m not sure if this is true, but it might be on one of the 13 missing entries. I’m bringing this up because I’ve been meaning to obtain a better picture of the shirt’s graphic (I want to recreate it lol), or at least figure out what the circle surrounding Yuno is. I can make out what it says on the inside, which is Yukki (ユッキー) written over and over again, but I have no idea what the outer rings say since it's not Japanese. 

Before ending this post, I want to add that Esuno had at least two other side blogs before his official site, which are also accessible through the Wayback Machine. This is a personal blog that dates back to 2003 and a Bulletin Board Site, which is sort of like 4chan, where several people can comment on a forum dedicated to a specific topic. BBS sites were very popular back in the day, particularly in Japan, and Esuno seemed to be quite keen on them since it is a topic that’s often brought up in his first manga: Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.

These sites are more focused on the release schedule for Hanako, so they don’t contain anything Future Diary related (since they predate the manga), but I think it’s relevant enough to add for anyone interested. I assume Esuno must’ve been active on other board sites, but these are the two only ones linked on his official website, hence they’re the only ones I’m aware of.

Lastly, here are all the recoverable images from the Wayback Machine:

[psychicxhearts-blog1]

Adding more to the Rook being Robin Hood Theory/ Rare Beastmen Theory:

Hello folks. Me at it again with another theory, but this time about Rook. Now if you don't know there has been a theory about Rook being Robin Hood for years. Thing is I have my own take on the theory and I want to share it. Sad to say I can't find the original poster for the "Rook is Robin Hood theory" But if you can please tell me so I can credit the OP. But I do want to share this theory someone else did on twitter about Rook being a beastmen as well by in a different point of view. Here is the link: https://twitter.com/MoonlightEquin1/status/1625355871999098880 I also want to add the theory that me and my friend @dgttwisted had about a rare beastmen birth that could happen. I promise it's not gross. Just a theory that could connect to Rook, but first I am going to cover the Robin Hood Rook theory. As well as cover one thing that people forget about Robin Hood that could connect to Rook more. With that out the way let's go to the theory. Also Spoilers to the Robin Hood movie and Twisted wonderland so warning when reading.

For those who don't know there is a theory that Rook might be a twst version of Robin Hood. To recap I want to abridge what the theory points out, and even bring up what others over looks for how similar Rook and Robin are. Sadly I can't find the original post of the theory so if I forgot something or if I point out something that was addressed to it in things I noticed, then I apologize for that mistake. What has been said by others of the theory:

1.) Rook Hunt and Robin Hood have the same initials. (R.H) 2.) Both are good archers or known to be archers. 3.) Rook's unique magic is "I see you" Which is him being able to locate anyone in Twisted wonderland with a arrow. Which could connect to Robin Hood's skill to always lock onto a target. 4.) Rook has a great sense of smell, has good eyesight, and amazing hearing which are almost super human in a way. Which also translates to his archery and hunter theme. Because of these things people think Rook might be related to fox Beastmen in some way.

5.) Both Rook and Robin like to tease a lion who are not king. 6.)Rook has 5 siblings meaning his parents have 6 kids. Same number of kids Robin told Marian he wanted to have with her. 7.) Robin told Marian that he wanted to travel the world with her. Rook mentions that his family own villas all over the world. As well his family loved to travel. 8.) Both have feathers on there hats. Things that people over look with the both of them:

Finally! Time to flex about this. The reason I know of these things is because I found out from my mom, that this was the movie I watched a lot as a lil kid, and re watching it again I noticed more details about Rook and Robin. Which I do want to go into detail with. Now on with the facts 1.) Both Rook and Robin praises those to make things happen. With Rook he praised everyone's talents and even how to work on there weaknesses in chapter 5. Not only that but Rook convinced Vil to let Deuce and Ace into the group, cause if he didn't then Ace and Deuce would have not been in that battle with Vil's OB. As well as Rook helping Epel out with Vil in Epel's Ceremonial Robe SR card. Robin on the other hand has used his words to find out things or to let people drop there guard. In points of the movie you can see this with Robin praising sheriff of Nottingham and the sheriff smiling over his praises from the start of him disguising as a Romani woman (I am not saying the G slur!) to him disguising as a bird to shake the sheriff's hand, and when he was a guard to help him sleep to get the keys to make the jail brake happen. 2.) Speaking of them praising others did you know that Robin hood can go on and on with praises to get what he wants to the point of talking forever unless someone stops him? It could be due to the fact that foxes are very vocal animals. If you don't believe me on that then look it up for yourself. And we know that Rook is very vocal as a person as well. With us finding out in chapter 6 that him and Vil talked for hours in winter to the point that both got sick the next day.

3.) So as you know Robin likes to mess with the king in the movie or just seems to know where he is at in the movie? Did you also know he likes to mess with and know where sheriff of Nottingham as well? A man who is doing what he is told and even a debt collector collecting taxes from the town's folk. Hey guess what. You know who Rook likes to mess with or know where they are at all points? Both Leona and the leech twins. And you know what the leech twins do? They help collect debts for Azul as well as the sheriff of Nottingham having yellow eyes like the twins who have a yellow eye due to there heterochromia didn't escape me. 4.) Did you know that Maid Marian and Snow white have something in common? A well known fact is that in the making of Robin Hood they had to cut corners due to having low funds with making the movie. So in Robin Hood there is a scene where Maid Marian's dance is rotoscoped from the scene of Snow White dancing with Dopey as well as a earlier scene of when Maid Marian clapping mirroring before Snow white starts to dance with her clapping as well. Which means that Rook being a fan of Neige might have a double meaning form this. 5.) Rook and Robin's eyes go smaller when they are shocked. I know others in the game do this as well, but look at them! Same vibe. 6.) Both are sneaky or always plotting. Robin plotting to be with Maiden Mary, giving King John a hard time, and helping out the townsfolk. Rook wanting to be around Vil, helping others out, or wanting to find out others weaknesses, and only using his UM to track people when he can't do it in normal means. Rook is a rare beastmen birth theory:

Now that I am done with those facts I want to talk about the Rook is a beastmen theory. This theory was made thanks to the help of @dgttwisted who really opened my eyes to this what if and me adding to it with my knowledge of basic fox facts. So remembering me pointing out how Rook Hunt is Robin Hood with that recap and other things people over look? Well I think it's not that Rook is Robin Hood, but what if Rook's dad is Robin Hood based? I mean hear me out here. As much as kids don't want to admit it, but we get traits or pick up things form our parents. For me I get a lot of traits of my father. I move my leg to help me sleep, We have this small birth mole like thing on the side of our eye, and we both don't talk a lot and just enjoy vibes. So I was wondering if that same applied to Rook? What if Rook got to be so good at hunting and archery due to his dad? So that begs the question about his mother. Well I was thinking he got her passion? I am not saying Robin Hood wouldn't be passionate. I mean dear god they have six kids together. That's a lot to handle Especially if you know that Maiden Mary wanted a dozen kids, which is 12 kids at least when she was talking to Robin Hood about kids in the movie! Not only that but when Rook mentions that his family travels that means his parents traveled a lot with them. Which was something Robin and Mary wanted to do for there honey moon. So as you can see I am of the camp of this being the case with these facts in mind. Back on topic since they are fox beastmen or maybe one of them is a fox beastmen and the other is human (I have seen some people do fan art of it as of late). One of which I think the mother being a fox beastwoman while the dad is human, cause fun fact Maiden Mary design was reused to make Vixey from the Fox and the hound. But I can't deny that people believe that Robin Hood might have been reused to make Nick from Zootopia. (Sorry I couldn't find if Robin Hood was reused to make Nick, but did find the theory of Robin and Nick might being related.) Back to Rook. I think nearly all there kid's have fox physical characteristics. All but Rook. Think about it. Here is what the wiki says about this traits: Rook has very good eyesight, being able to tell what book Epel was reading from afar, He has a good sense of smell, and yet again he is good at hunting. So what if he has the inherent animal traits then the physical traits? Meaning he has things a fox beastmen has, but no tail or ears? Also know I need to address this as well, but what if that's why he was in Savanaclaw? I know others can go to Savanaclaw. It's not just full of beastmen, and other beastmen are in other dorms, but in early game that was the case until Yana (The creator/writer) pretty much changed it that anyone can join savanaclaw. Which I am thankful for. Which makes me wonder if Ruggie and Leona now that Rook is half beastmen or a 100 percent fox beastman, but kept that to themselves or maybe they don't know? If so if it's reviled that he is a beastmen with a rare birth, then I want it for when Rook just invites some of the cast to meet his family for a event, and his little siblings are running around him with fox ears and tail. And he is like, Rook: "Oh sorry. Guess the cat is out of the bag. But I am a fox beastmen. A rare one at that. If you don't believe me then ask my parents. Also look at my siblings! We are so alike that you can tell we came from the same parents." You have no idea how badly I want this! if me and my friend's theory is true.

UPDATE: 8/10/24 Another thing that is odd about him that could connect to Rook being a beastman is that well is least favorite food. If you go to his character bio you see that garlic is his least favorite food, and if you look up garlic and foxes you find out that foxes hate the smell of garlic, and so not like it what so ever. I found this out today so I thought I should share it before I forget. And that's it for the theory and facts about Rook. Did you like it? Hate it? Or was I just plan wrong about something or forgot another thing about Rook and Robin I over looked? Either way I would like to hear any and all options on this and I hope you are all having a lovely day. Edit: So more bonus stuff. For one of the merch they are selling we are shown stuff for each of the dorm students and will you look at that. Rook's is a GREEN ARROW! If that's not on the nose with him being connected to Robin Hood then I don't know what is, but nope there is one more.

Got this on twitter btw from a post replied to by YuuRei20 by a different person covering up the theory as well. This proves that Rook pretty much has a final smoking gun to being or is connected to Robin Hood in some way.

Done talking about it now until Yana says if he is a beastmen, half one, decented, a rare beastmen birth, is connected to Robin Hood or is just a normal human with Light Magic plot armor. Hope you enjoyed the post so far. Bye bye for now.

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals - Christmas Don't Be Late (The Chipmunk Song)

VoicePlay didn't actually release a full-length Christmas song in 2021 (just a couple of Christmas Minis instead), and so we're jumping ahead to the 3rd of December, 2022, when VoicePlay released what may in fact be my favourite Christmas song cover of theirs ever!

As a group, VoicePlay have had quite a lot of experience with performing this song over the years, as it was a regular part of their setlist when they used to perform at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at Walt Disney World. If you wanna learn more about that, check out these posts by @jules-has-notes linked HERE and HERE (and I hope Jules doesn't mind me tagging them but seriously their blog has *so much* stuff about old VoicePlay stuff, further back than I go that's for sure!)

Anyway, the original arrangement for this song, i.e. the one VP used for live performances, was done by a guy called Chris Diaz, who is (was?) in an acapella group himself, but Geoff made quite a few alterations to the song/arrangement himself, and so both him and Chris are credited with the arrangement! Geoff was also in charge of the video, he co-directed it with Tony, and yes, he added additional music bits and original lyrics of his own, because of course he did 😄

And of course the song features the amazing DeeJay Young, but enough talking, let's get into this!

First of all, love the way VoicePlay started the song with the kinda "old-timey" effect on the visuals (and the audio too!). They did something similar for the start of Sh-Boom and In The Air Tonight, and did it for a brief moment in We're Good as well.

Second of all, do you recognise the set? You should! It's the same one Geoff used for his Way Down video, just with a bit of added Christmas flair!

Not the most perfect screenshot but I just had to give a shoutout for how Geoff suddenly runs into the shot. Like seriously neither words nor individual screencaps do it justice but I find it very amusing 😝

(Also, Eli is again weaing black sneakers with thick white soles)

Cesar as Alvin is literally perfect casting honestly. Like nobody else could do it better.

(Also Cesar was in fact genuinely filming stuff on his phone during this bit, and that footage got included in the BTS video for this cover, and it's just as entertaining and hilarious as you'd expect)

I want that shirt

DeeJay is looking pretty stylish there too! (And yes Cesar also looks great in his blazer)

Alright so Layne is Dave (the human guy character), Cesar is Alvin, Deejay is Theodore, Eli is Simon, and Geoff is... Geoff? 😂😅

"ALVIIINNNN!!!!!"

(*pfft*)

*ding*

(Yeah this video definitely still makes me laugh 😂)

"Alvin! Stop riffing so much and stick to the music!"

Unfair! DeeJay and Eli do heaps of riffing all the time! (And we love them for it, lol)

Also I don't know what the sheet music "says" in terms of the music notes, but I love that it at least appears to be a legit page of sheet music for the song, complete with VoicePlay logo at the top!

"So listen for those nine reindeer!"

Also it's not a visual thing, but given that quite a few reactors didn't seem to notice/realize it, I gotta point out that the sleigh bell/jingle bell sound here is very much done by Layne! Probably with a little bit of post-production effect, but still, very impressive!

"A brand new bottle of hair gel!"

"A bright green dress like ✨Tinkerbell!✨"

*PFFT*

This line is specifically a reference to the fact that they used to perform this song at Disney World, as I mentioned at the start, but this line has also been used in some of their older performances of it too I believe?

Also whenever I sing this song to myself, I literally can NEVER, sing the "bright green dress like Tinkerbell" line, because I always start laughing every time!

"Dooon't be la-ate!"

(I think he really wants that dress you guys 😉😝)

*sigh* He's so pretty and handsome, I love him (look, about 90% of my Voiceplay Visuals posts involve at least one moment of me pointing out how good Geoff looks! I apologise for nothing!)

(Also it took a decent bit of restraint for me to not include even more Geoff screenshots in this just because)

"So put your sleigh in- (so put your sleigh in its top gear!)"

I don't think I've actually noticed this bit before but damn Cesar ain't messing around! He wants presents NOW! 😂

"A tweet from Musk would make me grin!" (heavy grimacing)

I actually checked the lyrics for this song cover on Spotify (back before Spotify made lyrics available only to Premium users, rip), and this line is actually changed for the audio-only version it seems, to "a gift from mom would make me grin", which is fair, because the very faked sincerity of this line wouldn't convey as easily without the visuals.

"Front row seats to Hamilton!"

VoicePlay are no stranger to including references to modern day media stuff in their Christmas Don't Be Late performances, but this is also a not-super-subtle shoutout to the fact that DeeJay was on tour as a cast member in Hamilton! (And still is performing in Hamilton I believe?) He's been playing the role of Aaron Burr I believe? Which is very very impressive, shoutout to DeeJay!

"We can hardly wait!"

(Also hey is that a little Eli Eyebrow Raise I see?)

And I have to give a shoutout to the bridge section of this cover - another Geoff Castellucci original, it's so good! Fits in perfectly, as all his lyrics do! (Original song WHEN?)

"I've been so wonderful!"

I love how the responses of reactors to this moment have been a mix of "aww yes you have Cesar!" and "hmmm I'm not so sure (light-hearted) but I still love you regardless" 😄😁

Get it Cesar! Love the dancing!

Only just noticed Eli has the Hamilton booklet thing shoved in the back pocket of his jeans, lol

Cesar what are you doing? 😆

"Great job, chipmunks! Even you, Alvin! Now let's try it with some helium!"

*pfft*, what a way to end the video honestly

Geoff looks confused, Eli looks uncertain/doubtful (another Eli Eyebrow Raise!), DeeJay looks like he's either down for it or hasn't fully processed it, and Cesar looks HORRIFIED XD

(Also what would Geoff even sound like on helium when singing bass? Normal? /j 😂)

So that's Christmas Don't Be Late! VoicePlay turned a song that's really quite short, slow, and overall fairly forgettable, into an absolute bop and banger, and the video is super fun as well. Like seriously, this is one song that no one else has done or will do in the same way that VoicePlay has, and that's a big part of what I love about it! Until next time!

[wen-kexing-apologist]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

tagged by @dribs-and-drabbles, thank you! this was a fun review and I was interested to see how many times my favorite post and the most popular post coincided (or didn't)

January

I wasn’t writing meta

February

Most popular: Heart’s Confrontation- the scene breakdown that started it all!

Favorite(s): Heart’s Confrontation, Moonlight Chicken Sign Language Index- I really had a lot of fun figuring out the similarities and differences in American Sign Language and Modern Thai Sign Language!

March

Most popular: Best Criers in Moonlight Chicken- it's funny, short, and sweet

Favorite(s): Moonlight Chicken is for the Queers, Isn’t it Difficult to be Born Poor?- I loved writing these so much!

April

Most popular: A plea for Akk to have unrestrained summer fun

Favorite(s): Bed Friend and Reflections Part 3; Songkran, Water, and KingUea- Not to sound egotistical or anything, but I was really proud of myself for the conclusions I came up with in both of these pieces

May

Most popular: Silence- I think this was one of the only things I wrote in May

Favorite(s): Silence- THE ACTING IS JUST SO GOOD OKAY?

June

Most popular: By/For/About Queers Part 1 and Part 2- these only have the most notes because this was originally a post from @absolutebl that I added thoughts to, so most of those notes are from them

Favorite(s): Phupa and internalized homophobia Part 1 and Part 2- it was really fun getting to unpack my past assumptions about Phupa and work through those until I came out the other side with a new blorbo.

July

Most popular:  Lack of Touch in BMF

Favorite(s): Rain, BL Boys, and Reciprocity; Trans Allegory in Cupid’s Last Wish; Body Language in La Pluie, Episode 12- I especially liked Rain and Reciprocity because I think it has really shaped how I watch shows since then because I want to see if my theory holds.

August

Most popular: Only Friends, Boston, and Queer Culture

Favorite(s): Only Friends, Boston, and Queer Culture, Pause for Reflection, Part 1: Respectable Promiscuity and Only Friends- listen, I was going to write boring, academic, cited work about sex/porn as a joke, okay? I didn't expect people to actually engage with them as excitedly as they did!

September

Most popular: A Must Read- I give all credit for the success of this post to the Teen Vogue author who wrote the article and to @waitmyturtles who sent this link to me

Favorite(s): Pause for Reflection, Part 2: Only Friends, Racism, and the Commodification of Queer Asians; Poor Boy; Who is Mew Anyway?- Honestly, I had a wonderful time writing all the essays for Only Friends

October

Most popular: Best Scene in Only Friends and Why it was Sand and Nick Kissing

Favorite(s): Let’s Talk About Sex!, Why I Like BL, Physicality of Characters- the sex essay for my 69th essay was fun, and hilariously appropriate because I had recently answered the physicality question and could use it as an example

November

Most popular: Physical Touch and Hands in Last Twilight- It made me feel so warm and fuzzy that people would notice I wasn't posting about this show and want to hear from me <3

Favorite(s): IS BROTHER ANURAK THE ONE ARMED MAN?- I will never reach a higher high than when my obsession with hands finally paid off and I figured this shit out a month in advance of Part 2, I'm a motherfucking genius

December 

Most popular: Hands Touching Hands- I love throwing in complete key smash type of analysis from time to time as a treat cause I keep forcing people to read literal long-form essays all the fucking time (sorry, not sorry)

Favorite(s): Top 5 Favorite Food Moments, Best of QL 2023: Favorite Lines, Best of QL pre-2023: Favorite Lines- I love when I can cause people emotional pain, and all of these not only stabbed me in the heart but took a couple of people down with me as far as I can tell from the tags.

__

It's wild to have done this, because I haven't really been keeping an eye on my stats until now. I've made almost 400 original posts this year, and increased my notes by 25,000 annually looking at 2023 compared to 2022. I have been a lonely little tumblr goblin since 2012. I came on here to read other people's smart thoughts about things I was watching and to reblog gifs, and I never really thought building community here was possible, but here I am 11 months after making my first BL analysis post with a bunch of friends I didn't know a year ago, and about 20 more lenses through which I watch my silly little gay shows.

tagging: @bengiyo, @ranchthoughts, and @rocketturtle4

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Flickr to copyleft trolls: drop dead

Today’s a big day for users of Creative Commons images: Flickr has declared zero tolerance for copyleft trolls, predators who exploit a bug in out-of-date versions of the CC licenses in order to threaten good-faith users of CC images who make minor errors in the way they credit the images.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija#pilkunnussija

First things first: Flickr’s new community guidelines prohibit copyleft trolling: “Failure to allow a good faith reuser the opportunity to correct errors is against the intent of the license and not in line with the values of our community, and can result in your account being removed.”

https://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines

If you are targeted by a copyleft troll who demands that you pay them because of minor errors in your Creative Commons attribution, here’s how to report them and get them kicked off Flickr forever:

https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404057906068-How-to-report-Community-Guidelines-violations

Now, some background. Early versions of the Creative Commons licenses have a bug, a clause that says that the permissions conferred by CC licenses “terminate automatically upon any breach” — that is, if you violate any term of the license, it ceases to be in effect:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299

Core to the CC licenses is the idea of attribution. When you use a Creative Commons image, you must name the creator and link to the original, and name the license and link to it. Many CC users don’t understand this; they use an image and add something like “Image: Cory Doctorow/Creative Commons” with no links or specific licenses.

Under the pre-4.0 versions of the license, this can be construed as a “breach” which “terminates” the CC license. That’s where the copyleft trolls come in.

Copyleft trolls post CC-licensed stock art and then wait for a naive person to make a minor attribution error, and then they pounce, sending a legal threat and a speculative invoice demanding hundreds or thousands of dollars, under the threat of a $150,000 statutory damages award.

This is deeply unethical conduct. As I wrote when I was targeted by one of these creeps:

If you put a CC license on your work, its explicit message is, “I want you to re-use this.” Not “I am a pedantic asshole with a fetish for well-formed attribution strings.” The point of CC is not to teach the world to write attribution strings: it is to facilitate sharing and re-use. If you are a good-faith user of CC licenses, then your response to an incorrect attribution string should be a request to correct it, not a threat to sue for $150,000 in statutory damages.

Unethical as this conduct is, it’s also big business. One company, Pixsy, is responsible for a long-running shakedown campaign, working with scammy photographers to send out demand letters to unsuspecting Creative Commons users.

And many of those photographers rely on Flickr to bait their traps.

There’s a reason for this. Flickr’s early years were a period of enormous innovation. Flickr was the first mobile photo-sharing site, and it invented numerous community features that turned it into a thriving hub for photographers, amateur and professional alike. Flickr was also an interoperability pioneer, offering an API that let any user move their photos to a rival service — a tacit pledge to keep your business by being better than the rest, not by locking you in.

I know all this because I was an early advisor to Flickr, and because, in a weird way, I am partially responsible for Flickr. You see, before Flickr, I was carrying on a long-distance relationship from San Francisco with a woman in London, and we were both alpha testers for a social game called GameNeverending.

One day over breakfast with GNE’s founder Stewart Butterfield, he asked me how things were going in my romantic life. I answered that things were great, but mentioned that my girlfriend and I were struggling to share the pictures we took in our daily lives with one another. Stewart said, “Well, there’s a photo-sharing feature for GNE on the roadmap — why don’t I bump it up and we’ll see if other people use it, too?”

They did. In fact, the feature was so popular that within a few months, GNE relaunched as Flickr, jettisoning the game entirely and focusing on just that one feature. I stayed on the advisory, and one of the things I encouraged was the plan to roll out Creative Commons licenses for Flickr images — and I made sure everyone knew about it when Flickr became the first CC-enabled image site.

(I also married the woman I was carrying on that long-distance relationship with and today we have a 15 year old daughter!)

But after Flickr was sold to Yahoo, it joined Yahoo’s haunted armada of Web 2.0 ghost-ships, tossed back and forth in the storms created by the dueling princelings of Yahoo’s bloated management layer, who spent more time sabotaging one another than they did making anything anyone else wanted to use. Yahoo eventually sold off all of those holdings at fire-sale prices to Verizon, who neglected them still further.

An abandoned ship is easy picking for the rats that live in its bilges. Pixsy and its photographers actually became official Flickr partners, pitching themselves as a way for photographers who didn’t want their images shared to hunt down infringers — even as they facilitated a revolting campaign of copyleft trolling that depended on Flickr as their base of operations.

The depravity of copyleft trolls is truly boundless. Take Marco Verch, a prolific copyleft troll who hosts nearly 47,000 photos on Flickr. Verch hires low-waged gig work photographers through platforms like Upwork to take photos, then harasses people who make minor attribution errors:

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252488167/Automated-image-recognition-How-using-free-photos-on-the-internet-can-lead-to-lawsuits-and-fines

Verch boasts that his predation lets him work for four hours a week, leaving him with ample time to focus on his hobby, running. Verch is a truly prolific predator, and his attacks have made untold numbers of victims miserable — including the small Dutch charity that was forced to shut down after paying his ransom demand. Pixsy has been Verch’s US counsel and filed dozens of suits on his behalf.

Back in 2021, I got hit by Pixsy on behalf of a photographer named Nenad Stojkovic, with a claim that I had failed to attribute his image correctly. The email threat was truly vicious, calculated to strike terror into the recipient’s heart and prompt swift payment of $600, for using a freely licensed image whose market value had been set by its creator at $0.00.

There was just one problem: I hadn’t flubbed the attribution string. I helped with the launch of Creative Commons. I was CC’s first European director. What’s more, I have decades of experience fighting bullies and trolls and I knew their threat was bullshit — no court would award them the damages they were seeking.

So I wrote about it, publishing the text of my correspondence with Pixsy’s staff and management, and calling on Flickr to make changes to prevent their tools from being abused to victimize innocent people, like forcing users with CC 2.0-licensed images to relicense them as CC 4.0, which guarantees users the right to 30 days to fix attribution strings.

The reason I thought Flickr might take this in hand is that it is finally under decent, responsive leadership — since 2018, Flickr has been owned by Smugmug, a family-owned business that really cares about photographers and the open internet.

Flickr hasn’t taken all of my suggestions yet — my understanding is that they are laboring under enormous technological debt thanks to years of neglect by Yahoo and Verizon, and even small changes require weeks of all-hands technological work.

But what they have done is modify their policies to create a de facto CC 4.0 environment for their users, by promising to terminate the accounts of any user who repeatedly threatens legal action over bad attribution strings without first offering a 30-day grace period.

Flickr’s done more than that, actually. For one thing, they ditched Pixsy, severing their relationship with the company (Pixsy still lists them on its “partner” page). They also created the Flickr Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to providing long-term, responsible stewardship for their CC and public domain image respositories:

https://www.flickr.org/

For its part, Creative Commons published an excellent “Statement of Enforcement Principles” for its licenses that unequivocally rejected the way that Pixsy and other copyleft trolls abuse the bug in its older licenses:

https://creativecommons.org/license-enforcement/enforcement-principles/

In the months since I published my article detailing Pixsy’s attempt to shake me down, two things happened. First, I got a legal threat from Kain Jones, Pixsy’s CEO, who demanded that I get on the phone with him, the the alternative being “escalating things legally”:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats-5dfc54558f2c

Jones also falsely claimed that naming the employees who’d threatened me violated the GDPR, which is extremely on-brand for this whole mess. While I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest expert on GDPR, I did lobby in Brussels for it, and I do have German specialist lawyers on tap who are happy to explain that Jones’s threat is absolute nonsense.

As I noted in my followup to Jones, he seems incapable of interacting with the public or his critics without making legal threats — and not just any legal threats, but legal threats that are grounded in an unhinged, and, in my opinion, deliberately deceptive theories of the law.

Pixsy continued to rattle its sabers for a while after this, tweeting that I’d made errors in my description of its business operations but declining to correct those records in response to my and others’ requests for further detail. It is my opinion that Pixsy failed to correct the record because my accusations were and are substantively correct.

But even after I stopped hearing from Pixsy, I continued to hear from its victims. I routinely receive distraught emails from everyday people who thought they were doing the right thing by using Creative Commons-licensed images in their work, and who now face a remorseless onslaught of threats from Pixsy’s team. Some of these people have been targeted on behalf of Nenad Stojkovic, just as I was.

These people beg me for advice — will Pixsy sue? Can they ignore Pixsy’s demands? I give them my condolences and tell them that I can’t promise them that a company as vindictive, greedy and morally bankrupt as Pixsy won’t bring a lawsuit. Every time, I wish I could offer them more.

Well, now I can: if you are targeted by a copyleft troll for using a Flickr-hosted image, narc them the fuck out. Tell Flickr about them. Flickr no longer tolerates copyleft trolling, and they will terminate repeat offenders’ accounts.

As I wrote this today, I went back and revisted Pixsy CEO Kain Jones’s letter to me and I was struck again by its absolute rank hypocrisy, the sheer sociopathic lack of self-awareness it displays. Jones presides over an empire of bulk legal threats, carefully drafted to frighten blameless people into sending him money they can’t afford and don’t owe. In this correspondence, his company tells its victims that they are liable “regardless of knowledge or intent.” Victims are told that correcting their error will not suffice, because it “does not resolve the period of unlicensed use.”

And yet, in this letter, Jones calls on me to show understanding because “people occasionally make mistakes.” He scolds me for my “vitriol” in my naming and shaming a senior executive who boasts on Pixsy’s website of having “overseen over 140,000 cases” — that is, who sent these outrageous letters to more than one hundred and forty thousand people and organizations.

Unlike Kain Jones, I am a working artist. I make my living from the sale of my creative works, not from tricking people who’ve made innocent, trivial legal errors into sending me hundreds or thousands of dollars. Unlike Marco Verch, I don’t pay anonymous randos small sums to create new works, slap my name on them, and then threaten blameless people in the name of defending artists’ rights.

And I sometimes have to police my copyrights. The world is full of quick-buck scammers who rip off my work, including my Creative Commons-licensed works, often with the assistance of some of the world’s largest corporations:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

These people are engaged in what Douglas Rushkoff calls “Going Meta.” They don’t do anything useful, but rather, they create a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:

https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e

This is the passive-income brainworm — a parasitic, end-stage capitalist hustle that cloaks itself in high-minded rhetoric even though it is the very lowest of bottom-feeders. Pixsy claims that it is primarily an artists’ defense tool, but the company conspicuously refused to tell me what share of its income comes from real copyright defense, and what share comes from copyleft trolling.

Whenever I think back on Kain Jones and his outrageous legal threats to me — first the one that falsely claimed I had violated a Creative Commons license, and then the one that insinuated that calling him out broke the law — the thing that outrages me most is his assertion that he is a defender of artists’ rights.

What an outrageous and grotesque claim that is. A man who presides over a powerful corporation that devotes its considerable energy to tormenting people who used Creative Commons licenses as they were intended to be used sends a legal threat to a working artist and he styles himself a champion of the arts? If I wrote that into one of my bestselling novels — which generate revenue by making people happy through artistic expression, and not by terrorizing people with deceptive and unethical legal threats — I’d be accused of absurd, overbroad parody.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[[Image ID: John Milton's 'Fall of Lucifer,' modified so that God's light emanating from heaven is coming out of the Flickr blue-and-red-balls logo.]]