#and he actually replied

[hozaloza]

GUYS RED'S BOYFRIEND (Austin) LOOKED AT MY IG STORY.

AGAIN.

HELPP

ofc the one story he liked, it's the one he understood the backstory behind it because I live in the same state as him 🤠 (there was a flash flood warning, and I made this story below in humor of it)

he even saw the rosepunch </3

THE ROSEPUNCH YAPPING

HELPPP

[chloesimaginationthings]

Mike’s got that sopping wet cat boyfail rizz.

Mike either makes people love him or hate him instantly, there’s no in between

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

[mrmrsman]

The bats have so many folks around, even if they aren't always working together. Enough that folks like to joke/write about Danny just kinda showing up acting like he already lives there. He just kinda blends in.

I'd love to see more magic motivated versions of this. Some kind of spell that affects the bat's perceptions of the past and present, making them actually miss that this boy wasn't with their family too long ago. Maybe it changes their understanding like it's a time line shift, maybe it fogs their mind just a tad and makes them glaze past something like it wasn't even there. I like the second if only because I feel like that would make it more likely for the bats to realize a spell was a foot.

Imagining this from Danny's side, hes terrified this whole time of getting found out. He knows how and when he showed up here and maybe even how flimsy whatever magic is in place is. Imagining a Desiree wish that was either very carefully worded or Not so carefully worded. Maybe he placed himself with the Wayne family with the expectation that he would quietly mooch of some rich idiot until he was ready to be on his own. Or maybe he wished himself to be a part of the batclan, taking up a mask and patroling with them as a bird that Doesn't Exist.

Ofc eventually the spell has to be broken, leaving the bats confused worried scared angry probably even amused, and a billion other things. WHY did this teenager decide to adopt himself into the Wayne/bat family? Who the hell is he and where did he come from. Someone call Zatanna, there is some magic Fuckery going on.

[egophiliac]

Serious question.

Do you think we’ll see the parents/family of each of the guys???

Like, We’ve been TEASED with Ace’s brother, that I’m starting to think it’s just a reference to that Alice in Wonderland park character in Japan and nothing else….

Jack’s family, Ruggie’s grandma, Falena, Maleficia, Ms.Rosehearts, Just now Vil’s dad is in the picture which I am really happy but now I’m wondering about his mom, and so Deuce’s mom.

I mean, some HAVE a silhouette!! It could mean they do have a design in the making/ready to show. They could’ve shown us Falena in the Tamashina (hope I said that correctly) event, but didn’t (prolly to make Leona not so σ(▼□▼メ) and it’s understandable)

Anyhow, any idea/headcannon about this? Who do you want to see first?

I'm wondering if everyone might eventually get a travel event? like they've now introduced with Vil's that it doesn't have to be specifically hometowns, so that opens things up a lot! (especially if they have to figure out how to do three separate Coral Sea visits) (how would that even work otherwise)

but yeah, I hope everyone gets a chance! there's a lot of backstory characters I would LOVE to meet. :D :D :D though I do think some of them don't really suit the more light-hearted tone of the events (pretty sure you're right about that being why Falena wasn't in Tamashina-Mina, that would've just been. too much for Leona.) so like...we're probably not ever going to meet the Rosehearts. or Maleficia (although I maintain that this would be THE funniest possible way to introduce her outside of the main story, and actually I would love this a lot, can we please Twst) (I need to see her to put Malleus in a froofy little outfit and tell him what a handsome boy he is). but they've sprung surprises like Kifaji on us, and honestly anyone who shows up and tells embarrassing stories about characters' childhoods is good in my book!

characters off the top of my head who I most want to meet: literally any of the Zigvolts, Azul's mom, Ace's brother, Che'nya's grandfather (<- I think he would be a good one for Riddle) (please just any non-terrible adult in his life), any member of Rook's family because I need to see how they managed to produce him, and...really just whoever they can come up with for Silver.

[wispscribbles]

I want to eat your art and writing thank you so much

Haha well I'm always happy to keep you all fed. Here, have some old sketches <33

[hisui555]

Cooking commentary

Or, as my grandma would say : "That's a dish traditionally enjoyable by two people : one to distract the cook, the other to throw it out the nearest window."

Bonus :

(Had the idea to have Hero try to comfort him with kind words, only to accidentally finish him - "Don't worry I mess up vivariums too sometimes and then I can't house the beetles I catch" - with Assok laughing their fabric ass off but... meh, long enough already.)

[sysig]

How far did you get? (Patreon)

[kami-kun1003]

im just gonna come right out and say it:

pretty much everyone in this fandom portrays Silver as this perfect, flawless, polite, beautiful, princely, romantic gentleman who can do absolutely no wrong in his life ever. which is… not really accurate at all.

he’s odd. he struggles with showing emotions and doesn’t understand social cues very well. his dorm uniform vignette is literally about how people find him strange and unapproachable due to his lack of expressiveness. in his lab coat vignette, Jamil straight up calls him weird to his face and he fully agrees without hesitation.

and in one of his voice lines, he calls Yuu strange just for wanting to hang out with him. stop and think about that for a second. he considers himself boring and doesn’t expect anyone would want to spend time with him. maybe he used to try and make friends, but people kept avoiding him, saying that he wasn’t fun to be around.

he’s not the handsome guy that everybody in the school falls for, he’s the quiet kid who doesn’t say much or has any friends outside of his own personal circle. and i think that has a lot of potential for angst.

[orallech]

Halsin 1/?

[huggywuggysuppy]

Has Pearl Really Betrayed Gem?

Inspired by (this) recent transcript of Pearl talking about siding with Scar in SL and not believing she betrayed Gem at all.

It's interesting how Pearl always saw Murder Camel as a fun but temporary thing -- it was never a real alliance to her -- while EVERYONE ELSE clearly thought it meant something more. We're talking the Mounders discussing moving in with Gem & the Scotts level serious. Gem /definitely/ thought it was something more. Even in WL Scott was like "and you were like three steps away from betraying us and being your own thing with Pearl" (also him stressing that "no matter your other alliances, THIS is the top one" in SL). There's definitely something unequal here. And why is that?

Gem murdered Pearl. Like, twice. The second time while Pearl was actively BEGGING her to stop. For that red task to hit until she blocked with a shield.

So of course Pearl didn't see it as a real alliance. Both times she joined Gem were after Gem killed her! And to the other players who are veterans and used to self-sacrifice and murder, it's not that big a deal. But Pearl very rarely sacrifices herself -- off the top of my head she's only given lives to BigB back in Limited, which was much lower-stakes -- and definitely not by force. Pearl never really chose to ally with her. Working with Gem in the final session was almost entirely tactical: it was just a bonus that they got along.

And Gem? Gem doesn't notice. As far as she knows, sacrifice is not only normal but expected of a strong alliance. Thanks to Scott's immense self-sacrifice issues and Impulse's "yes and" tactical mind, she's literally responsible for two deaths apiece on her allies. Why wouldn't she lump Pearl in with that, who she's also taken two lives from? (Whew, does Gem murder a lot of people. love her). When she'd turned Pearl red, Pearl was angry and hurt, but Gem apologized. "I can't believe you still wanna be friends with me after this." Gem had said, and Pearl replied, "I can't believe it either. But I guess here we are."

That's why it's such a betrayal at the end. Gem thought they were okay. Scar's been public enemy #1 for so long, Pearl literally chose him as her target when she turned zombie. Meanwhile, Gem and Pearl have been working together for the past 2-3 sessions (plus or minus a couple times Gem murdered her). Pearl should've turned on Scar.

And that leads us to now. Gem, who was betrayed because she thought she was safe and Pearl was cool with it and was her ally. When the server thought they were so close they would team up together. When really, Pearl had never thought the same, because why should she? Gem had only ever hurt her and her allies. No, Pearl's only crime was not communicating clearly enough and denouncing Gem entirely. But against the whole server, the fandom's gaze too, all insisting Gem and her were in Life, for Life?

5 AM Pearl has a lot to work with.

Thank you so much for reading! I, too, fell into the trap and accused them both of betrayal. But I was blinded by wanting Shinyduo to stay together! I should never doubt you, Pearlescentmoon. Never let us sway you from your path.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Love when Game Michael does this!

Which Michael sprite reaction is everyone feeling today?

[imaprettygirl]

A drop of ink, a blot spread across time

(Vintage au)

Plot summary: It was 1950s when pen pals were popular and almost everyone had one! You used to have a handful of them but the camaraderie between you and them faded as you got older. One day, you found a newspaper on your late great-grandpa's shelves in his bedroom. Excitedly, you flipped the papers to get to a specific page and bingo! There was a section for the addresses of people who are looking for a pen-friend much like yourself. After randomly choosing, you sent out your first letter and he replied back! However, you noticed something weird in the photo he sent...

Crds to @drinkthesky for the divider!

Men I deem fit: Alhaitham, Albedo, Imbibitor Lunae/Dan Heng, Dr Ratio, Diluc, Zhongli, Venti, Neuvillette, Scaramouche, Sunday.

(Fck alphabetical order, I can't do that sh*t)

The amber glow of the afternoon sun bathed the room as the open windows situated at the opposite of the door allowed sunlight streams to enter the room as its panes quivered in hushed symphony due to the beckoning of the hot air. If you moved closer to the windows, you could see dust particles illuminated by the natural light. Even after the passing of your great-grandfather, the bookish scent of his cologne still lingers in his bedroom along with his possessions which were either coated with a thin layer of dust or covered with a big white cloth.

The wooden floor creaked beneath you as you walked towards his bookshelves in hopes of finding pieces of classical literature and maybe learn a thing or two from it. You delicately traced your index finger through the long vertical rows of books, leaving a trail of dust on the pads of your digit. As you peruse through countless novels only to be unsatisfied until you saw a newspaper at the edge of the shelf, untouched by the dust that plagues the rest.

'How strange...' you thought to yourself as you rubbed your thumb and index finger against the surface of the paper to determine its texture: it was sandy and rough, definitely ancient but the format was similar to the ones your dad reads in the morning so it must be a freshly produced newspaper, albeit printed in a different quality of paper.

Or so you thought...

The newspapers in your hands gave you a glimmer of hope; it was an opportunity to find a pen friend! You used to have a few ones but stopped writing to them either because they used too much colloquial words or they had at least twenty spelling mistakes in each sentence which gave you a migraine whilst trying to make out if your correspondent was writing in a foreign language or not. But this time, maybe you could hit the jackpot and find an actually nice pen-pal. Excitedly, you flipped through the papers and stopped at the specific page which had a list of names along with their addresses under the bold heading:

'Pen-friends! Make new friends around the world!'

Your eyes scanned across the list of names, allowing your intuition to guess the personality of that stranger based on their names alone. But then, a specific name caught your eye- it was uncommon which was the main reason it stood out from the rest of the names which probably were taken from 'Top 10 best names for children of this year'. You took a closer look of the address below that person's name and turned out, both of you lived in the same area! A surge of enthusiasm rippled throughout your body and immediately tucked the newspaper into the inside pocket of your coat.

~~~~~♡~~~~~♡~~~~~♡~~~~~

The curtains of your living room slowly opened as you peeked your head out and pressed your face against the glass. A day had passed after you had sent your very first letter and heck, you even went a mile far by sending a photograph of your two cats to make a memorable first impression. Then- just like you had anticipated- the postman on his bike suddenly came into view and halted his vehicle by your mail-box and placed a letter inside. You clutched the folds of the curtains unable to contain the happiness blossoming inside you. As soon as the postman disappeared out of your eyesight, you rushed outside to take the letter out of the mailbox. The first thing that greeted your eyes was the immaculate handwriting and the scent emitted from the paper.

'How sweet of him...' you thought as you continued reading the letter in your mind. The paragraphs were neatly organized and made of outdated vocabulary that you wouldn't understand had you not taken an interest in classic literature. You could tell this man practiced utmost eloquence just by his letter alone. Overall, he wrote a few things about himself and asked you about your hobbies, what you like and blablabla.

But then, something struck within you concerning with the photograph he sent and notes written behind it:

"The construction of the mall is making my ears bleed. I cannot stand the constant sounds of the drills and other sounds coming from it. I daresay, you must be experiencing the same disturbance as we are only one street apart from each other. Perhaps we should plan to meet up after the mall opens. What do you think of it?"

The more you stared at the photograph and the note, the more confused you became. The picture showed the mall with the same as the one down the street but it was still in construction according to the photo. 'Huh?' A frown stretched across your face. That specific mall had been going on more nearly a century now to the point that the community had been urging the government to shut it down in order to build a more innovative one. Didn't it finish construction like a hundred years ago? But his photo told a whole new different story.

Suspicions rose inside of you as a spiral of questions revolved around your head- you found it difficult to process it. Not missing a beat, you hurried to your room to find that newspaper you took from your late great-grandfather's shelf. You mumbled in frustration when you couldn't find it; you swore you left it either on the desk or on the bed. Finally, you found it under the bed and oh my...

The letter was published a century back in time which meant that...

"T-The man I just sent a letter...was from the past...." The newspaper dropped from your hands. Your letter had ripped its way out of the fabric of time and went into the mailbox of a man who lived in the same area as you but different time period. He was in the past, you were in the future.

Still, a part of you felt curious about the interaction between two people of different dimensions. So you decided to reply back to his letter. What could go wrong...right?

To people who are more knowledgeable in time travel or parallel universes, pls don't attack me, I know what I wrote may or may not make sense for some of you but pls don't mind me 😭😭😭

And also, not proofread because I wrote this around midnight and I'm literally on the verge of dozing off- (Ik I have such healthy sleep cycles and I have to wake up at 6 am yayyy!! Sleep-deprived-students-core😘🙆🤗)

[thecmaly]

...I just had to do it. This is for Sakura Kitty. c/ Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur~ Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr~ c/

the softest lullaby!!! now he's eepy....

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.