#and the tumblr thing had an unknown source

[thebat-musicman]

Roy: Are you a cuddler?

Jason: I AM A MACHINE OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

Dick: Yeah he's a cuddler

[starseungs]

to love you like the snow melts. ksm.

kim seungmin x gn!reader — if seungmin wanted to be loved like a planet being discovered, he wanted to love you like the snow melted during the cusp of spring.

GENRE/S — fluff, maybe kinda emotional (or is that just me), slight college au mentioned in passing, he fell first trope • 1.1k words

WARNING/S — nothing really unless you're not into lovesick pining, story told in seungmin's pov, slightly unedited cz idk

( ✒️ ) happy seungmin day !! i think i dissociated while writing this fic cause man... i barely remember shit 😭 i originally had a plan going into writing this but it just got thrown out the window by my brain apparently (also this fic is inspired by one of the results in this quiz cause i loved the prompt i got so much) this fic is a bit short but i hope yall like it <3

2024 ⓒ starseungs on tumblr. do not steal, repost, or edit.

Seungmin’s eyes love to rest on you. 

That was an undoubtable fact in his life—one that he, himself, doesn’t even know how it started. Yet, the acknowledgement of this unknown didn’t bother him at all. If anything, it was a source of comfort for him; a way of reminding himself of the joy in living. To Seungmin, one thing was for certain: He was given the gift of sight to experience you in your entire beauty.

He first met you in a university lecture, where you simply happened to frequent the seat just a row behind and two chairs away from where he usually sat. Perhaps he was enamored from the very beginning. It was like his gaze would always find a way back to you whenever you were in his immediate vicinity, reminiscent of a magnet longing to cling to metal.

That was also the way he took in your presence as a whole. Seungmin was a man starved for knowledge, desperately clawing for anything he could get to broaden his desired expertise that was you. He particularly loved the way your eyes drooped whenever the lecture of the day bore you, as well as your tendency to make origami on available paper during the times you could care less to listen. The latter always ended up with you blinking endearingly after a successful craft, glancing around the people near you to figure out who to present it to.

Oh, how he wished he had been over there instead, happily receiving a paper star to keep. However, it was your friends that surrounded you on a daily, barely giving you time to be alone. And maybe you didn’t want to be alone—another thing about you that he’d like to discover the truth to. But he thought that until the day he somehow found himself stumbling into your life, he’d have to be grateful to your friends for making you shine the way you deserved every step of the way.

So, imagine his surprise when he finally got the chance to make a mark in the vast expanse of your world.

The opportunity came in the form of a group project with you; the catalyst in which his whole life began to change. Friendly introductions of obligation quickly turned into incessant strings of conversation, bringing the two of you closer. The sheer pace of the development was overwhelming. Seungmin never thought his presence bore enough weight for gravity to grab him by the neck and lock him in the system of the star that was you. 

It was a trip and a half, consisting of countless miles to lap around with seemingly no end. So much, that he feared falling out of your grace—to be like a passing asteroid who foolishly dreamt of becoming a planet. Seungmin was endlessly yearning to solidify his place in your world, just like he always wanted. And still, despite that all, he didn’t show it. He merely laughed when you laughed, stayed silent when you needed silence, and experienced anger on your behalf when you couldn’t show it for yourself. 

Because Kim Seungmin knew that you needed to be loved patiently.

Even throughout the tightrope of uncertainty he walked months on like his life depended on it, he never once made it seem like he was waiting on a move from you. If Seungmin wanted to be loved like a planet being discovered, he wanted to love you like the snow melted during the cusp of spring. 

Seungmin knew that even with the shows of your cheery demeanor, your heart still remained frosted over from your previous winters. That even when your fingers danced their way to intertwine with his, there was still that moment of hesitation. He was forever thankful that you caught him from falling when he did, refusing to let him disappear into the abyss. Yet, who was lighting up the skies of which you lay under to stare at each day?

He longed to give you a love that was true. One where he showed you how warmth creeped in with small trickles of heat, giving you enough time to decide whether you truly wanted it or not. Love that was considerate in the way that it willingly warned you of its presence, but in a way that cupped your cheeks and sang you lullabies. To love you gently as to not sully your shoes with messy, muddy soil of the ground peeking out from beneath the snow. 

To Seungmin, there was no greater gift than being able to be the sign of your spring.

“Baby?” You called out to him softly, a flash of concern twinkling behind your gaze. “Is anything wrong?”

Seungmin feels like he was just coaxed out of a trance, previously being too occupied studying the details of you at the moment, as if he hadn’t already spent the past hour doing just that. A string of golden celebration banners made its presence known in the corner of his eye, briefly acknowledging the once-a-year greeting printed on them. The slight smell of smoke fully brought him back to his senses, finally glancing down towards the cake with a small lit-up candle you were presenting him.

Right. It was his birthday today.

He chuckles, shaking his head. “No,” he replies truthfully. “Everything is perfect.” Your eyebrows scrunched in confusion, having trouble making sense of the situation. Seungmin has half a mind to think if you would forgive him if he tried to straighten it out with his thumbs as a tease.

“But, you’re not blowing out your candles,” you purse your lips in contemplation. He feels an unstoppable force creeping up to turn the corners of his mouth upwards. Did you even know just how much he loves you?

“I was just enjoying the view, that’s all.”

Your demeanor visibly brightens up. “Is the cake that pretty?” Was your smug question, clearly feeling proud of yourself. “I worked hard on that, you know?” 

Seungmin only smiles. Like he always does whenever it concerns you. That warm boyish grin he had paired with a certain fond look in his eyes that his friends never failed to point out just to fluster him into oblivion. But he lets them anyway. There was no way he could ever deny the truth of how strongly he felt for you.

“I know.” 

Because he always does. 

And as he leaned forward to feel the last heat of the flickering candle before it went out, he couldn’t help but think that the snow had finally melted. His wish had already come true.

“Happy birthday, Seungmin!”

Spring has come.

MASTERTAG ━ STATUS: OPEN — ASK OR COMMENT 🫶

@fairyki @hysgf @euncsace @comet-falls @starlostseungmin @ameliesaysshoo @hyunverse @wnbnny @xocandyy @minluvly @moon0fthenight @estellaluna @hanjsquokka @starlostastronaut @minsueng @l3visbby @myjisung @thecutiepieme @yaniiiiism

[torialefay]

🪐 Venus in Scorpio 🦂

(based on astrology) 🔞

✨bangchan x reader (f); this is literally just smut with a little bit of astrology lol

✨word count: ~3.5k

✨first part in a series!!! (The next ones won’t be so horny, i promise lol) Together, let’s take a look into chan’s natal chart to see what type of boyfriend he would be… this one just so happens to involve the smuttiest of the smut lol

✨i will give a brief synopsis of what each chart placement means throughout the series (for all my non-astrology friends out there <3) and how that would affect channie in a relationship :)

✨ author’s notes:

(1) i have seen some stays come to the general consensus that chan’s birth time is 8:54 pm, but i have never found a source where he states or confirms this. if you have the proof, let me know and i will re-do this post! otherwise, i do not want to speculate about birth time, as it can affect many aspects of his chart!

- *UPDATE*: some sweet stays confirmed this birth time! so we’re good to carry on :)

(2) since his birth time is unknown (to my knowledge), some aspects of his chart cannot be determined, such as house placements, ascending sign, etc. i will ONLY be writing about his definitive placements, which are his sun, moon, and planetary placements.

(3) the aspects in this reading are based solely on my opinions and interpretations! nothing about a person is set in stone simply because of astrology. please don’t use anything i say as canon :)

✨warnings: extreme smut. you have been warned; minors DNI!!!

Venus in Scorpio: Venus is the planet of beauty and love (it is the ruler of Libra, so of course!). This accounts for both platonic and romantic love.

-Scorpios are known for their moodiness, emotion, intellect, and captivating auras. They love and find beauty in the darkest of things… Think moody tumblr bf chan. This is literally his venus in scorpio

-Because Venus in Scorpio has a very dark energy, he will most likely be attracted to dark, feminine, alluring beauty. It also explains why he is attracted to the color black and wears it often.

As your boyfriend:

• chan is borderline obsessed with you. maybe actually obsessed with you. on a level that transcends superficial. he is obsessed with your soul. in a way, he feels like he can SEE it. he gets so frustrated with himself because he feels that he can never get close enough to you. he will never be close enough to you until he joins his soul with yours. he quite literally wants to consume your mind and spirit. to live with it- live inside of you- as if it was he himself.

• he is extremely possessive over you. he cannot even think about another man touching you. although he may not say anything at first, males giving you any sort of attention would deeply bother him, as he feels like your souls are tied to each other. and how dare someone try to take what is his.

• if he sees you with his members and thinks you are getting too close, he won’t bother mentioning it to you. he will take that member aside and establish some ground rules. it is fine to play around with you, but any emotional investment they make into you is not okay and will not be tolerated.

• he waits to have sex with you. for a couple of months even. the tension between you two is absolutely insane, but he waits. he wants to know you, body and soul, before he takes any part of you. because for chan, sex means something, he knows how amazing you are, that’s why he fell for you in the first place. and he wants to be perfect for you and fully know you before there’s no going back

• the first time you have sex is absolutely magical. Better than you could have dreamt. He wants to make it special for you, for his special girl. He waits until the right time and until he knows you are ready. He has planned a lavish date for the two of you, a beautiful private dinner tucked away in a forest, illuminated with what seemed like a million candles and dazzling lights. A private chef had cooked for you and left, leaving the two of you in each others’ company.

• Every night with him is special, but this night is different

• He is incredibly gentle with you all night, whispering how beautiful you look and taking your hand ever so gently into his.

• He makes sure to repeat to you how lucky he feels to be in this moment with you and how lucky he is to have you

• He looks so beautiful in the candle light, stars in his eyes that are focused on your own. Occasionally they peer down to your lips, but then slowly move back up to look into the deepest parts of you.

• After dinner, he swiftly peppers you with kisses and holds your waist with one hand, the other hand intertwining with your own. He leads you to the car and drives home, taking his time to make sure his girl makes it there safe.

• When inside, he continued the beautiful candle theme, now with flower petals and another new bouquet. He kisses along your neck until you sigh deeply and give in under the weight of his chest

• He gently sits you down on the bed while maintaining a deep kiss, cupping underneath your chin so gently that you thought he was scared to break you

• His tongue slipped into your parted lips, and something gutteral suddenly came out of him at the feeling of being inside of you in some capacity

• His grip on your chin started to become tighter, moving down to your neck. He couldn’t separate his lips from you for fear that you’d fall away from him entirely. He hung on to you for dear life. Hungrily tugging at your bottom lip, he tried to pull you as far into him as he could without physically devouring you.

• He started to get so worked up that he couldn’t bare it anymore. He needed more of you. He needed to feel you and to transcend you. His girl, and only his girl. He needed to make you HIS.

• His hands started moving down your body, grabbing firmly as if he wasn’t sure you were really there. Your shoulders, your collarbones, your chest. God, he couldn’t believe the way that you felt underneath him.

• “Can I?” He broke away from the kiss to ask you this much. He couldn’t bare the thought of you saying no, but he would never jeopardize this love he had for you. Love… Adoration… Wonder... Obsession…

• When you breathily panted out a “yes”, he made quick but gentle work to lift your dress from the bottom of your pelvis, all the way lifting it up over your head and off. So gently, so so gently so that he didn’t mess up a single hair on your beautiful little head.

• The way you looked under the candle light took his breath away. The curves of your body left him in awe. So unlike his hard, squared, and rigid frame. You were soft, you had shapes along the lines of you, and you were fucking beautiful, he thought. He could not believe you were really for him.

• He looked down to your breasts, then back up at you, again asking for permission with his eyes. With an approving nod, he reached out to hold one in each hand. Rubbing back and forth across your nipples over the protection of your thin bra. He just kept watching you, starved to know what reactions you would give him.

• He trailed one hand down until he was positioned right over your underwear.

• Looking into your eyes, searching for any kind of resistance in them, he slightly parted his lips and licked them, moaning ever so slightly while pressing his hand with a light pressure into the fabric of your underwear. You felt him almost pull back a bit, looking a bit dazed and slightly overwhelmed, so you pushed into him yourself.

• Staring at you from above, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His perfect girl, feeling perfect, because of him. He applied more pressure and watched as you started to grind against his hand. He let out a moan and felt his dick twitch just hearing your breathing start to quicken.

• He didn’t want to push his luck, but he also knew that he could do better. He could make you feel so so much better. Slowly, he put his other hand on your stomach to slow you from grinding down on him. His other hand made its way underneath your underwear and started to ever so slightly drag his fingers along the outside of you. Feeling how wet you were made him stop and want to fucking scream. To cry. He could barely understand the emotions he was feeling. He just knew that he couldn’t stop loving you if he tried. Now, he wanted to worship you.

• He inserted 1 finger slowly, letting you adjust. When your face started to relax and look like one of pleasure, his dick became rock hard. He needed more of you so badly.

• Once he knew you were comfortable, he added another finger and watched your face. He watched the way that it curled up and how your mouth dropped open. He noted the way that your eyes squeezed shut and how you sounded when you breathed out so close to his neck.

• He began to pump his fingers into you, slowly until he knew you felt good, and then picking up ever so slightly. He curled his fingers up slightly and waited for your reaction.

• Fuck, did he get a reaction. When he heard you whine his name, it echoed in his head over and over again. “Chan. Chan. Chan.” He has never loved hearing his own name more than in this moment. His perfect girl. He couldn’t control himself anymore.

• He started to slam his fingers into you and leaned down to take in the entirety of your mouth. He thrust his tongue inside, and sucked on every inch of your lips he could get ahold of. He didn’t care if it was too rough. He didn’t care about anything anymore other than marking you forever as his own. Marking you as a part of his soul, and him a part of yours. After tonight, you would be inexplicably joined forever, living as one. You wouldn’t have to be his obsession anymore if you lived in him. He would simply always have you.

• He pulled from the kiss abruptly and stared at your face. He memorized how beautiful you looked with your eyes rolling into the back of your head. Almost like you were possessed by him, he thought. And that is all that he wanted. He would possess every part of you. He began to stare at you, dauntingly. “Look at me,” he ordered sternly, until your head slowly came upward to hold his eye contact. There was something different in his eyes. Like he was hungry.

• “I’m going to count to 10, and I want you to come for me.” He didn’t ask for permission. He said it so matter-of-factly he could have been telling you his name. Something must have switched in him directly after though, following up with a low “Okay princess?”

• Surprised at his own switch, he couldn’t believe how you did that to him. How you activated so many different parts of his brain at the same time. How every inch of you controlled what little brain capacity he had left. His soul almost left his body when he heard you gather your small voice enough to say, “Yes, my love.”

• “10,” he said, almost sheepishly, as if waiting to see what your reaction would be. Pumping his fingers now even harder into you, you let out a small moan. It agged him on.

• “9,” he came in close to your ear, starting to lick and suck ever so slightly around the outside. Anything gentle about him had left his body.

• “8,” he dipped his tongue inside your ear, licking away in slow, tiny motions. He felt like he was savoring every second he could have with you. You felt too good underneath him to not tease you a little bit.

• “7,” he moved to the area between your ear and jaw. He bit and sucked at it. He sucked so hard you thought he would rip into you. Somehow he didn’t,

• “6,” he dipped down now to your neck, licking all the way as he went. Intermittent kisses and licks peppered down until he had found his target. The sweet spot right where your neck ended to meet your collar bone.

• “5” he bit down. The look on your face of pain with excruciating pleasure was all he needed to see.

• “4… almost there my sweet girl,” he breathed out against the new-forming bruise at the base of your neck. His fingers started to slam into you and angle in just the right spot. As he heard you mumble “fuck” under your breath, he pulled his face up to be right in front of yours. He wanted to see you when you came for him. He wanted to see you when you gave yourself fully to him.

• “3” he wandered his other hand down to rub small circles around your clit. Light enough to make you jump and writhe under his touch. He loved to watch you squirm like that. He loved the control he had over you. When he heard you mouth his name again, he started slamming into you relentlessly with his fingers. ‘Say it again, say it again, know whose you are,’ he thought to himself. “Hmmm?” He teased. “Fuuuuck Chris,” you cried out to him. This was it. He was going to fucking take you.

• “2… I want you to fucking take it baby... Take it for me. You can do it.” He continued to slam into you, fingers still making light circles on your clit. He had never seen a face in such ecstasy. He brought his face down until his forehead was touching your own. Nose to nose. He looked into your eyes like it was the first time he’d ever seen love. Real love. Real passion. He was sure that this was the first time had seen love. But even more, this was the first time he had ever known love. Love and y/n were synonymous to him now. He was never going to live without you again, not after this moment. He craved you and he needed you. He was going to make sure that he had you for the rest of eternity.

• “You’re mine,” he whispered against your mouth, and then bit down heavy onto your bottom lip, moaning into you. Heavy, like he was going to devour you until there was nothing left. Like you were the most delicious thing he had ever taken a bite of. And he planned to consume all of you, down to the soul. His bites were unrelenting, like he was starving for you this whole time. You couldn’t tell if there was blood. Shit, you couldn’t tell if there was anything even left, but you didn’t care. And he didn’t care. You were his. He suddenly pulled his head away and stared down into you. All of a sudden, you felt known. His fingers went faster on your clit until you couldn’t take it anymore.

• “1. Right fucking now. Let me see my perfect girl come for me.” He raised his voice. He watched you transcend. Jolts of lightning were rushing through your body. You felt all of your limbs twitch and then fall out, lifeless, like your soul really was gone. Chris took it. He took all of you and he was leaving nothing. He continued to pound his fingers into you until you had nothing left. You screamed, you cried, you cursed. You couldn’t stop. Wave after wave, it hit you until you were shaking uncontrollably. You tried to close your legs, to stop the overstimulation, but Chris held them open. He wasn’t leaving until there was nothing left of you. He felt too good and he was too good. You started to sob. You couldn’t hold it back. Tears streamed down as you held out for one last orgasm. “Chris please, Chris PLEASE,” you pleaded, tears coming out. “I- fuck-“ you felt another bolt of tingles shoot down your leg. “I’m almost done. Please… please, last time,” you could barely get your words out.

• It turned Chan on so badly. Seeing how gone you were for him. Seeing how much of yourself you had given to him. His baby. His girl. His immortal soul. Crying to him out of desperation and immeasurable pleasure. He was satisfied. And so with that, he bent down and kissed your forehead, then your tears. “Yes, my love, last time.” He pressed down hard onto your lower abdomen, just enough to give more pressure when he struck his fingers into you at just the right angle. It was absolute perfection, and pure bliss washed over you. One, two, three, four…. five pumps and you’re over.

• He leaned his head back and smiled ear to ear. You had started to convulse uncontrollably, squeezing hard around his fingers. ‘What a view’ he thought, eyes growing larger at the sight of your perfect body giving every last bit to him. You were exhausted. You were worn down. You weren’t even sure you were still in the world. But that was okay to Chan, he knew he now had you tied to his soul forever. It didn’t matter where you thought you were, because now, he would always be with you.

• Coming down from your high, you had tears still coming out of your eyes from the overwhelming emotion of it all. Your mouth was dry, heaving heavily to try and catch your breath. Your mind was trying to collect itself, slowly opening one eye at a time.

• Chan pulled his fingers out slowly, so as to make sure he didn’t hurt you. Once you came to, he gently grabbed behind you and sat you up. He laid your head forward onto his chest so that you could continue to collect yourself, wipe your tears, and get your breathing back to normal. He pulled your head close to his heart. You could hear it beating slow and steady. He then pulled you back ever so slightly and cupped your face. When he saw you with tears still in your eyes, he wiped them away with his thumbs.

• “Oh my sweet baby,” he whispered and brought his forehead to yours. You could see a tear starting to form in his eye. Then another. Then another. Chris was crying.

• “My sweet, sweet girl,” he repeated, whispering and trying to soothe you. He held onto your face even tighter. “You are so perfect for me, you know that? You did so perfect.”

• You nodded your head lightly, tiny tears still forming in your inner eye from looking at your tear-stained boyfriend. “I’m so in love with you, Channie,” you whispered, now cupping his face too. You planted a kiss on his nose. He grinned at your from underneath his eyelashes.

• “I’m so in love with you too.”

• “So, I’m yours now huh?” You laughed, wiping away your own tears.

• “You’re mine,” Chris said, leaning forward now and smiling into the side of your neck. He laid you back down onto your back as gently as he’s picked you up. “And I’m yours,” he said, now towering over top of you.

• He moved his body to rest between your legs. He planted gentle, soft kisses along your entire body. Any place he bit, bruised, or marked was now being pasted over by the whisper of his calm kiss. Starting from your neck, all the way down until he was face to face with the area he had just used to control you. He planted one last, gentle, sweet, loving kiss and raised back up.

• “You’re mine, and I’m yours,” he said, moving his body on top of you, trapping you in a cage of his limbs. He kissed your lips gently, so as not to hurt any bruises he may have given you. To him, you were the most delicate thing in the world. And you were his. He wanted to be fully yours too. He wanted to be etched into your soul, never to be removed. The thought of living this life eternally tied to you made his heart swell. It made his dick swell too. ‘Oh shit’ he thought. He had gotten so caught up in the moment that he wouldn’t dare ask you to do anything for him. But you felt the twitch. You knew better. You were exhausted, and he knew that. But in that moment, you didn’t care. You wanted to complete the perfect night.”

• “Baby?” You looked up at him.

• “Yes love?” He looked at you with all of the love in the world. He would bend over backwards just to hear you speak his name. Whatever question you had, the answer was undoubtedly, unequivocally yes.

• “I gave my all to you. It’s only fair that you give your all to me. I need you to show me how much you love me. Let’s commemorate the night.”

• He sat and stared at you for a long moment. ‘Let’s commemorate the night.’ You were right, he would give everything to you too. And then you would be one. Forever. His girl forever. Her man forever. He felt his soul latch on. You’re his. Venus in Scorpio.

Link: Venus in Scorpio: Part 2 - "The Night He Took You"

[impactedfates]

hola mijo 💓puedes hacer the tall males as dads? like for example welt, blade, jing yuan, luocha, dan heng i wish i could argenti to this list 🥰 but he not out yet so hottie okay gracias 🐾☝

★ A/N: Hola!! Yes I can :)) We all love a father figure right?

☆ Genre/Trope: Platonic + Familial

★ Format: HeadCannons (Separate)

☆ Warnings: None

★ Extra: Just HCs of the HSR men as dads, you can view yourself as their child or as their lover // I only did the characters that you've stated in the request excluding Argenti // Not proofread

Welt as a dad is a 10/10. He would be so supportive no matter what you'd want to be. He has his own child back in his actual universe after all and takes care of him so well.

He's the type to proudly show those messy drawings his kid makes to his friends and act like his kid is the next Pablo Pacasso even if all they drew was a stick figure.

He also wants you to try new things but he won't force you if you truly don't want too, all in all. Welts such a sweet and supportive dad <33

Blade as a father? Now I wouldn't say he's the worst but he's not the best either. Biological or not, if he was tasked to take care of a kid, he will. He may not understand much about how to be a good father he manages to keep them fed, clothes ect. And with the help of the other Stellaron Hunters they're taken care of well

.

.

.

Except when it comes to affection. He'll try his best but his job makes it hard for him to really be home and hang out with his kid, not to mention he still has that want to die. He's emotionally unavailable most of the time. He's trying his best but he won't be much good if someone were to want to vent to him (Sorry!)

He can also sound harsh in some of his words and the kid may not get the message he's trying to convey! He may say something he sees as positive but his tone and what not makes it seem harsh.

Overall? 7.5/10 as a father

Jing Yuan I think is also a great father! Though like Blade, his job does make him unavailable most of the time. Especially since he's a General.

BUT, we both know this man would drop anything if his kid were to message/call or anything of the source of they were in trouble. Even if it was to just make a complaint about the babysitter he hired to take care of his kid.

He does everything he should to ensure his kid is loved and taken care of, and sure he may not have as much time as he'd like to spend time with his kid, he tries his best.

As a father, I'd give him a 9.5/10.

I'm unsure what Luochas thoughts on about taking care of kids in all honesty. As a doctor himself, he is aware of the cycle of life but whether or not he wishes to be apart of helping the kid grow up is unknown.

I don't think he'd have any adopted kids or something like that, however if he were to get someone pregnant he wouldn't leave them. He was a factor in how the baby was made and if the other person wishes to give birth to said kid then he'll help.

He's not a distant father per say, maybe strict but he doesn't mean to come out as harsh. He does everything a father should do and encourages his kid to study and all. He's not the most amazing father to have, honestly his kids probably prefer their other parent over him (Unless they left him and he became a single father)

All in all, while he may not be the best father he's not the worst and probably is just your average dad. 8/10

I love Dan Heng so much if you didn't know (I say as if my tumblr theme isn't Dan Heng) and this isn't even a bias but I do think he'd be a good father.

He's so worried he won't be but he really is. He remembers everything his kid likes and dislikes and applies it when he's cooking or buying something in general. He won't force his kid to do anything they don't want and will help them study.

He'd be proud of his kids, even if their grades are bad. To him, as long as they tried that's all he cares about. He may struggle with showing his care towards them, however it's easy to see he's trying.

If I had to choose out of all the male cast who I think would be the best dad? Probably Welt. I mean from what I know he already has the experience with kids and now he's taking care of 3 more (4 if you wanna count Pom Pom)...but also it's funny to call him Grandpa instead-

[skrunklyskykid]

done with this fandom. probably going to delete my tumblr too. while i'm at it, the way you've treated arayla isnt right at ALL.

she is 12 for god's sake. give her the benefit of the fucking doubt man. she literally has autism??? she is getting shit on for her age (something she cannot control) and what, some bullshit allegations about transphobia? Give it a rest, guys. She ain't transphobic. I have known her for YEARS. this is turning into a psa so dont harass anyone yadayada

this is the 'transphobic comment' in question.

here's some actual context to the image:

one even agreed.

not to mention how byte/lyte literally made a 'joke' about FUCKING HER. Are you braindead??

THIS MF IS 17. GET OUT not to mention how shitty the mods were to her. she joined back to let people know she got hacked.

@/jayflys00 (also the one who has just sent the dm) had a lovely conversation with @/blveblvrr.

I want to make it clear however that Jay was only the middle man in THIS situation. He wasn't given full information on this either. This fandom sure loves to gatekeep shit! oh! and a lovely comment from byte/lyte on a deleted psa from @/shedemonandrea666

so heres some proof that arayla isnt lying about that. disgusting. the announcement on her went a little something like this:

@/unknown-role did not want to make this public whatsoever, but due to this individual spreading out to other members i want to make this for the sake of other's safety and boundaries if this may have made anyone uncomfortable. that is not the purpose of this server.

i apologize in behalf of anyone who may have received any message from the user **@ goofy_mcgee69420 / araylark69 **as she were kicked due to being underage of discord's TOS and transphobic comments screenshots i've received that i do not take likely whatsoever. **this is a safe space for trans and the queer community, any sort of discrimination or taken light of misgendering / deadnaming people is not acceptable. **

please for anyone who may have received a message to not harass or threaten her whatsoever. i do not tolerate that type of behavior despite how immature she may be from this unfortunate situation. please take care of yourself everyone and please if you are underage, leave and return when you are of age. if you do not like anything queer / LGBTQIA+ relations this is not the space for you. thank you. :tsb: 🍔 how on the fucking earth is she DANGEROUS???? brother what the fuck also lookie here:

he didnt even appear. shes not a liar. this guy is 21 fyi T-T and of course, to add to the shittiness of the fandom, he ofc had to send her this lovely message too

how delightful. and, obviously, they just HAD to have a convo with someone else behind the scenes about her.

so thanks very much @/bluesbox, she really LOVED reading this :D oh, and btw? this is the 'annc' that theyre on about.

https://www.tumblr.com/blveblvrr/757724130134097920/hey-yall-its-ur-favorite-yapper-jeremy-here?source=share and then here's her convo with jeremy.

so, can we please stop throwing this at her too? her and jeremy are really good friends now. character development is real. https://www.tumblr.com/blveblvrr/759827128268341248/update-on-the-arayla-thing?source=share plus this shit is nearly 3 months OLD MANNNN LET GOOOO ;-; yall are ridiculous. can people please, please PLEASE leave her alone. this is beyond a fucking joke now. this entire fandom is absolutely ridiculous, and needs to grow the fuck up. i am sick of seeing my friend being torn apart mentally by you morons. she has so much going on and none of you have ANY IDEA. leave her alone. leave ME alone. and last but not least sort out your cesspit of a fandom. there are literal minors with nsfw roles in las gayass as well as an anti british cult. disgusting shit. What's more ironic is that they have other 12 year olds in the server, like @/weeatcement and 'RAMEN AIRFRESHNER'. Hypocrites, am i right? get your asses in gear. this young, and very much talented girl is LITERALLY SHOWING HER INSTABILITY and you are CALLING HER OUT FOR IT???? ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND????? YOU FUCKERS COULD DRIVE HER TO SUICIDE. i'm not talking to everyone here. but a few of you really REALLY need to open your fucking eyes. to those who see how fucked up these people are, please reblog and spread the word. this is an absolute joke.

[magpiefngrl]

hey! curious new writer here. which fix of yours were the easiest to write and which were the hardest? in what way?

Hello anon! Thanks for an interesting ask.

OK I'll start with the disclaimer that every fic has its difficulties as well as moments when it flows, but there have definitely been some that poured out of me with great ease than others which were a constant struggle.

The Miseducation of Draco Malfoy, my first drarry, was written at the height of my obsession and it poured out of me. I wrote like a fiend all day and would go to bed at night and reread what I wrote. I breathed that fic day and night for the weeks it took me to write it. It was also the most fun I had writing, prob because I was a complete unknown and there were zero expectations from me. Similarly, The Full Monty, written just after TMODM, was an easy fic to write. I remember I read the prompt and was immediately assaulted by images and started laughing on my own and was like, OK I need to claim this, the fic is writing itself.

Similarly but in a more tortuous way, dirtynumbangelboy poured out of me too. More tortuous because it took me ages to find the right beginning, and by then I was behind with my deadlines and got stressed. Also, I wrote it in a sort of dread of the Erised fest, because it had some amazing writers that year and I was intimidated. I remember my goal was to "at least not embarrass myself" .

But, aside from the doubts and stress, dnab itself flowed like nothing else. There are passages that I really love, even now years later, and they are exactly as they came out the first time. I did very little editing (compared to other works).

With The Boy Who Died I made a fun post on tumblr about a mdzs AU of drarry and then the idea wouldn't let me go so I had to sit and write it. Luckily it was summer and I didn't work and I could spend my days writing it. There were moments I got stumped but it mostly came out easily.

Finally, a lot of my short fics poured out of me in one go and came out almost perfectly formed. The Dare, A Perfectly Normal Reaction, and my MCD The Death You Carry are good examples.

Fics that took ages at first:

so my thing is that I have to find the right opening to begin the story, otherwise I can't proceed. I don't plan; the first scene/chapter is my plan. And sometimes I get stuck for yonks. With The Unquiet Grave I began with a Draco POV, him being a politician and Harry his bodyguard, had an interesting first scene and then---nothing. It's like I hit a wall. Zero words come. When I have this feeling, I know I need to go back and revise. Long story short, it was when I changed the POV to Harry that somehow the whole gothic mood came about and I felt the auspicious click: I got it. That's what the story is. A gothic romance. After that, it was easier.

The same thing happened with Hush, darling. I rewrote a first scene fruitlessly several times until a random bit of inspiration fell into my hands: the visual of a card game. I began with it and I let it guide me and the whole plot/stakes/cast fell into place.

Fics that needed a LOT of work and had to be dragged into existence:

The Gift is the first that comes to mind. First couple of chapters were pretty easy and then I was stumped. Writing it felt like dragging myself up a slope, step by step and also not being happy with anything, so that was fun. :/

The other is 9 ½ Days, which took actual years to finish. In that case the middle part was the hard one. I wrote the beginning fairly easily and the last chapters, the plotty ones, also flowed. But the middle. Zeus almighty. It took me years and I thought and thought and thought about it a lot. Finishing this fic was an immense relief but also a source of pride, especially because I really liked the result, and judging by the comments I get, people seem to love it too.

Thanks for an unusual ask! It was good to ponder about my fics and my writing process. The same issues seem to crop up with my original works too, and it's helpful to remind myself that I got over those issues before and I can get over them again.

[blackoutdays13]

When it rains it pours intro

Ben Hargreeeves x reader mini series

Won’t be updated on a regular schedule (meaning it might not be complete)

Please be patient with me because I’ve never written on tumblr before, so I’m not sure how to make it look nice.

First person pov, and fem reader. Readers powers are electricity of some sort. Like a power source almost. But that doesn’t matter yet.

”When it rains, it pours” prologue

The distant sounds of cars honking fills my ears, and gentle drops of rain hit my face as I slowly enter a state of consciousness. I slowly open my eyes, and glance around to find myself in an unfamiliar alleyway. I bring myself to a sitting position, and think back to where I had been previously. 

It takes me a few moments to realize that it doesn’t look like I’m in Dallas anymore. Or at least not in the 60’s. I see in the corner of my eye a burned up briefcase, and I remember where I had been. 

Last thing I remember was being with Five, and Luther waits for the others. Klaus had shown up, and everyone else was missing in action. So Five had to get rid of the briefcase he had gotten. He must have hit me in the head, sending me through time cause my very last memory was of a black box flying into my face. 

 I wonder where the others are. Why am I here, and where even am I? I decide I might as well find out, so I walk out of the alley and glance around the area. It seems like the town us umbrellas grew up in… but something is off. I can feel it. 

It almost feels brighter out. The rain is more peaceful. Civilians seem much more relaxed, and comfortable walking the streets. They have their umbrella over their heads with a kind of unrecognizable confidence. If I weren’t apart of the small group of individuals who were “blessed” with special abilities I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking the streets. 

As more people pass me by I wonder more and more where I am. Or when I am. It’s clearly not Dallas, but something is too different for it to be home. I just can’t figure out what. That is until I see a big banner marked with the a big logo saying “Reginald Hargreeves Sparrow Academy”. 

“Shit” I mutter to myself. I look at this banner and see seven unfamiliar faces. Well six, and a cube? Why the fuck is a cube in this so called sparrow academy?

I look away from the banner, and pick up my pace. I don’t know where the hell I am, but I know this town. So I go the only place I can think of. I go to what was shortly know as home. 

After running through the streets I get stopped by an enormous crowd, staring at the sky and cheering. I get confused as my heart races in fear. only to see a small white towel fall from the sky. I look up to see a man, who I recognize as the front and center of the banner, standing on top of the mansion. 

I look at the building and see iron gates, with bird shapes crafted into the metal. No more umbrellas. 

I feel my palms start to sweat, and hear my heart pounding in my ears. I’m stranded. I mean there is no doomsday, but I’m alone. The Hargreeves must be lost in time, and stuck in the 60’s. Leaving me lost in an unknown world 

I’m sure maybe there is a chance they could come back, but I’ve learned not to trust time travel. I mean it got five stuck in an apocalypse, scattered us across the 60’s, and now has left me in a timeline similar to my own, but not quite right. 

As the rain starts to pour the crowd disperses. I’d rather not be seen by these sparrows, so I leave to. I don’t know where I’m headed, but sure I can figure it out.

Stop cause this was so cringe. My bad. Also anyone who wants to be tagged please let me know. @cherryinsalemverse @heymsperfectlyfine

[ivys-thick-juicy-thighs]

In The Low Light- Chapter 2

Photo credit and source unknown

Notes: tumblr is fucking testing my patience with this. This will be about the 6th time I’ve tried to make this post, so if the formatting is weird I am going to break something. Quality control by @365granitegirlx thank you Professor Wolfie, you’re a saint and a lifesaver. Anywhoozle, this one has me allllll up in my feels. Enjoy!

Masterlist

Tags/warnings/etc: Biker!IV x Fem!OC, disordered eating habits but you have to squint, smoking, aggressive words of affirmation, sweet sugary fluff that’ll make you diabetic

Word count: 2368

Summary: IV takes some time over the week to show Sadie that she can trust him, he drives her home from work, and he asks her on a date.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The following day I found myself replaying the interactions with Mr. Numerals. He was clearly no stranger to dangerous situations and was not to be toyed with. He was about to offer to walk me home or something. Why was he so concerned with my safety? And my biggest question: why was he being so kind to me? He was obviously wanting to get something out of this for himself, but I was lost as to what. He didn’t act like a starving animal drooling over a piece of meat. He said it himself, he may be a criminal, but he isn’t a monster. Maybe he’s just genuinely being nice for the sake of being nice… I’m pulled from my conflicted thoughts by the sound of a customer obnoxiously clearing their throat at the pharmacy counter. I spend entirely too much time explaining to the senior gentleman that he didn’t have any refills left. When he finally leaves with a dramatic huff of frustration and a few colourful metaphors, I tell the pharmacist that I’m going on a smoke break. I take my name tag off, grab my cigarettes and lighter, and head for the front doors.

As I walk along the side of the building, my gaze focuses on the sight of a familiar looking motorcycle, the rider leaning against the seat. He’s wearing the exact same thing as yesterday—helmet on, the visor pulled down. In his hands is a cheap flip phone, and his fingers move deftly across the buttons. I bring my cigarette to my mouth and light it, inhaling deeply before speaking. “I thought I told you not to follow me.” I blow the smoke from my lungs and shiver as a cold breeze blows across the parking lot.

His obstructed face turns towards me and he reaches up to pull off his helmet. Underneath is the same mask as yesterday. “I’m not following you. I swear I had no idea you worked here.” Surprise colours his voice, and his eyes reflect this. I almost believe him.

“Mmhmm…” I walk to the wall of the building and lean against it, taking another drag off my smoke. My eyes catch on his, and I hold his gaze for a few seconds. “I’d tell you I believe you, but I’d be lying.”

He chuckles slightly and breaks eye contact first. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me, however I am being honest. I’m here to make a business deal. I didn’t know you worked here.” He brings his eyes back up to mine, and I see no deception in them.

I struggle to find something to say, and before I can, my stomach growls loudly enough for him to hear it, even from several feet away. I wrap my arms around myself as another icy breeze hits my skin.

“Have you eaten anything yet?” Before I can answer, he turns to the back of his bike, opens a large compartment, and begins searching through it. He seems to find what he’s looking for and turns, walking closer until he’s in front of me. He holds his hand out, one of those high calorie protein bars in his palm, though it’s a brand I don’t recognize.

“I’ll be fine.” I shake my head no at him. My stomach growls again in protest.

“Please, I insist.” He pushes his hand even closer. “You need to eat.”

I sigh, reaching out and taking the bar from his grasp, a small smile playing at the edges of my mouth. “Thank you.” I rip open the wrapper and take a bite. It’s chocolate and some kind of dried fruit. It’s absolutely delicious. My eyes shut of their own accord as I enjoy the taste. “Oh my god…”

I hear a deep chuckle from him and feel a flush in my cheeks. I open my eyes and find him watching me, his eyes crinkled at the edges from the unseen smile on his face. I pull my eyes away and look at my feet, the warmth in my face burning even hotter now. I take another bite.

I hear a faint buzz, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Unfortunately, I need to cut this short. Enjoy the last few bites, princess.” He gives me a small nod, and turns back to his bike. He picks up his helmet, but turns to look at me before he puts it on. “I like it when you smile. Your whole face lights up. It’s a beautiful sight.” With that he pushes the helmet over his head, settles into the seat, and the engine roars to life. He backs out of the parking spot, and drives away leaving me reeling from his compliment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day happens much the same. Only this time when I walk outside, his helmet is off and in his hands are a to-go cup from the coffee shop across the lot and another protein bar. He hands me both when I get close enough, our fingers brushing for a second before he pulls away.

“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I got peppermint tea with a little bit of honey. And another one of those bars.” His voice is soft, with a touch of uncertainty. His eyes avoid mine, and his fingers twitch.

He’s so charming. This thought flies through my mind, catching me off guard. “Uhm- Thank you, you didn’t have to get me anything.” My voice is hushed. “It’s too kind of you.” I step away, moving to stand against the building. A harsh cold wind blows over the parking lot, and I hold the cup close to my chest to absorb the warmth. I shiver hard and my teeth chatter together.

“Actually,” he rummages through the compartment on the back of the bike again, this time pulling out a small throw blanket. “I think I did. I wanted to make sure you had something to eat, and a hot drink.” He shakes out the blanket and walks toward me. He stops directly in front of me, and holds the blanket out with an expectant look in his eyes. “May I?” I hesitate for a second before timidly nodding and pulling away from the cold wall behind me. He drapes the blanket around my shoulders, pulling the corners across my chest and I tuck them under my arms. His fingers land on my shoulders and trace down my arms lightly, and I glance up to find his eyes on me.

A few moments pass before the words tumble out of my mouth. “Why are you being so kind to me? You don’t owe me anything. And besides, you said it yourself: you don’t need to clean up someone else’s mess.” I pause as I flick my gaze between his eyes. “What do you want from me?”

His hands drop from my arms and he lets out a small exasperated laugh; he shakes his head slightly and looks up at the gray sky. “Princess, I don’t want anything from you…it’s what I want for you. And that’s your safety. As for why? Well, I feel obligated to take care of you. Lastly,” he turns his eyes on mine, and I’m captivated by the intensity there. “You are a person deserving of kindness. You are not a mess that needs to be cleaned up. Do not take what I say to a couple of idiots for what I think about you. You would be sorely mistaken.” There’s a stern tone to his voice that makes me feel like a child in trouble. “Am I understood?”

I swallow heavily and nod, my eyes glued to his.

“Words, please, princess.” His eyes are still drilling into mine, and his voice borders on frustration.

“Yes, I understand.” My voice is quiet, and I can breathe again when he finally releases my gaze from his. I study my shoes, and I hear him heave a sigh.

“I should go. Keep the blanket, you need it more than I do. I’ll see you soon.” He puts his helmet on, and starts the engine, quickly pulling out of his spot and driving away. Once again, I’m left standing playing his words over in my mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the rest of the week, the pattern repeats. He hands me a hot cup of tea and a protein bar, and I pull the blanket around my shoulders. We talk about nothing special for a few minutes. He never stays for long, five minutes at most. I don’t question his motives, and I accept his offerings without hesitation. He makes kind gestures to me, and we share a few touches here and there that linger for just long enough. He never pushes any further than that.

Until Friday that is. “If you’re comfortable with it, I’d like to drive you home today. I don’t like the thought of you walking alone in the cold on such a busy street.” He’s leaning against the wall beside me this time. Today he has his own cup, and when the breeze blows just right, I’m greeted by the aroma of decadent hot chocolate.

I’m halfway through my tea, and swallow the last bite of the bar before I answer. “Sure, on one condition.” He looks at me with an odd combination of disbelief and curiosity. I hold his gaze with my own. “Tell me your name.”

He drops his eyes to the ground and laughs softly. “For now,” He looks back at me, and reaches up to his left shoulder and taps his finger on the numerals. “You can call me four. And yours?”

A small smile washes over my face. “Sadie. It’s nice to meet you IV.”

After a few more minutes of easy banter, he finishes his drink and makes for his bike, pausing and turning back to face me. “What time are you off?”

“I finish at 5:30”

He nods, and gets on his bike. “I’ll see you then.” He puts his helmet on and pulls out of the lot.

When my shift ends, I find myself filled with a strange excitement. I put on my warmer layers, and head outside to the usual spot.

He’s there waiting, an extra helmet under his arm. When I stop in front of him, he stands and flicks his visor up. “Ok, first off, you’ll have to take your hat off. It won’t fit under the helmet.” I take the woolen hat off, and stuff it into my pocket. “Now, you’ll have to tie your hair back. Or it’ll all push into your face and you won’t be able to see anything.” I pull my hair back into a low ponytail and look at him expectantly. “Perfect. This is going to feel a little tight at first, but it’s supposed to fit a bit snug. We don’t want it to come off too easily.” He places the helmet on the top of my head and gently pushes it down. Once fully on, he leans his forehead against mine, his eyes holding mine. “How’s that feel?”

“Good. A bit snug, but good.” My eyes flick between his eyes. They’re so pretty. I could look into them for hours. They crinkle at the edges with a hidden smile.

“Good.” He drops a wink at me, and leans back. His deft hands reach for the chin strap, fastening it under my jaw. Lastly he reaches up and pulls my visor down, then his own. “And we are good to go. Ready?”

I nod, “ready.”

He gets on first, and I climb on behind him. He shows me where to rest my feet, and I hesitantly hold onto his sides, suddenly overtaken by shyness. He turns his head towards me. “You’ll want to hold on tight, love. Don’t worry, I don’t bite.” I can hear the smile in his voice. I slide my arms around his middle and lean further into him. I catch a little of his cologne, and the heady scent leaves me breathless. I feel one of his hands come to rest on my forearm for a moment.

He asks me my address, and I freeze for a moment. Anxious thoughts flit through my mind but I push them down before answering him. The engine roars to life and we pull out of the lot.

The ride is short, much shorter than it would be to walk. When we pull into the parking lot of my apartment building, I feel a little disappointed that it’s over so quickly. We climb off the bike, and he takes off my helmet for me. I can’t stop the wide grin that consumes my face, and my cheeks hurt. It’s been a long time since I’ve smiled this much.

He takes his own helmet off, and his eyes have those little crinkles at the edges again, and my fingers twitch with the desire to gently brush over them. He’s so beautiful. “I’d like to take you on a proper date sometime. I hope that’s not too fast.”

My cheeks flush, and my eyes drop to the ground for a second before flicking back to his. “No, that’s not too fast. And I’d love to.” My face still hurts from the smile plastered across it.

He places a hand over his heart, closes his eyes and tilts his head back, while releasing a relieved sigh. His knees bend slightly before straightening again. “You just made me the happiest man alive, princess. How does tomorrow night, 7 pm sound? I’ll pick you up here?” He looks down at me, and his eyes are sparkling.

“That sounds perfect, I’m counting down the seconds.” He nods at this, and I take it as my cue to head inside.

As I go to walk past him, he catches my hand in his. I look at him, surprised by the prolonged presence of his skin on mine. His eyes lock onto mine, and he pulls my hand up to the mouth of his mask, pressing the hard material into my knuckles. I can hear the soft kiss behind his mask. “Goodnight, Sadie.”

My breath shudders a little, and my response comes out as a whisper. “Goodnight, IV.”

[darkmagicmirror]

The Dark Magic Symbol and Alchemy

I've been wanting to make this post since before S5 and never got around to it, and I decided hey, might as well try to get it out before S6, at least. SO here it is. I know S6 came out today, but I haven't seen it yet, so shh, this still counts.

So in a Reddit AMA back in 2020, Aaron and Justin answered a question confirming that they drew inspiration for the dark magic symbol from the Rod of Asclepius and the Caduceus.

Just because of Tumblr image limits, I put the screenshot and symbols (linked in the comment) in the same picture, but you can follow the link to the AMA comment and look at the image there if you need a bigger version.

SO I got curious and started looking up some more info...

Here are just the first couple paragraphs of the Wikipedia pages for the Caduceus and Rod of Asclepius.

So at first glance, just like the comment in the original question says, the Caduceus is associated mostly with Hermes, and the Rod of Asclepius is associated with health care and medicine.

But a little further down the Wikipedia page, we get:

Although the Rod of Asclepius, which has only one snake and no wings, is the traditional and more widely used symbol of medicine, the Caduceus is sometimes used by healthcare organizations.

And it turns out that there's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the Caduceus as a symbol of medicine. So, already, upon finding this, I found it fascinating that the dark magic symbol is inspired by not just one, but two symbols seen as medical symbols.

Onto the article focusing on the Caduceus as a symbol of medicine, I go on to find this:

I have to come back to the Quicksilver thing, but first off, the being a symbol of alchemy is interesting to me. (Partially because I definitely think of Fullmetal Alchemist and the whole equivalent exchange concept there and the questions about whether people should be messing with life and death and how everything has a price -- all pretty relevant to TDP, but I digress.)

I looked at the article linked in footnote 16, which is titled The earliest medical use of the caduceus, and I found this fascinating image!

Most importantly, this has a single snake with two heads. Which sounds familiar!

I do think it's worth noting that the very first time an example of dark magic is discussed on screen, it's with the discussion of the two-headed snake, being held by Viren's staff. The spell isn't actually done, obviously, but it's the first impression we get of dark magic in the series!

Also I just find it interesting that the article mentions that:

Hermes had some medical roles in that he did assist in conducting the dead to the underworld and also received some credit for relieving plagues and epidemics in Asia Minor.

Another article linked on Wikipedia, called Snake and staff symbolism in healing, brings up the same point, saying:

The caduceus was indeed a magical wand, a gift from Apollo which protected Hermes and enabled him to guide departed souls along unknown pathways to the Underworld, and to awaken the sleeping. The latter aspect was sometimes associated with powers of resurrection — of awakening the dead, and also of curing the severely ill (Schouten 1967:119; Van Rooyen 1982:731-5).

So I just think it's interesting that it all ties into dark magic very well, especially considering that Claudia uses dark magic to resurrect Viren, and dark magic has been shown to be used for healing purposes (such as healing Soren -- both before and during show-canon).

The last mentioned article also goes on to mention the quicksilver thing, so I just wanted to say that I also find that particular point interesting considering that many people theorize that the different types of primal magic may have one underlying magical source that powers all of them, which to me reminds me of quicksilver being considered the basis of all matter.

But wait! There's more!

When I looked at the Wikipedia page for Alchemy, I found this interesting snippet:

An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed.

This especially reminds me of the primal sources. Also spheres? Really? Funny how the primal stones are shaped that way,

The beginning part of the Wikipedia article also mentions how one of alchemy's aims was to create panaceas to cure diseases, and also that it played a role in the development of chemistry and medicine, which is fascinating!

And then I did decide to look at the Rod of Asclepius page as well, and it talks about how the snake and rod/staff were originally separate symbols.

Both the Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine and The New Medicine and the Old Ethics (links are to Google Books) talk about the snake/serpent as symbols of renewal/restoration of health because of how snakes shed their skin. The latter also has this snippet, which I think makes snakes sound like a great dark magic symbol as well:

Back on the Wikipedia page, it also says:

The ambiguity of the serpent as a symbol, and the contradictions it is thought to represent, reflect the ambiguity of the use of drugs,[8] which can help or harm, as reflected in the meaning of the term pharmakon, which meant "drug", "medicine", and "poison" in ancient Greek.[11] However the word may become less ambiguous when "medicine" is understood as something that heals the one taking it because it poisons that which afflicts it, meaning medicine is designed to kill or drive away something and any healing happens as a result of that thing being gone, not as a direct effect of "medicine".

I looked at the source A History of Medicine as well, and this was where it talked about pharmakon:

So it literally talks about magic there, which is really interesting to me.

Anyway!

TL;DR: All that to say that while the dark magic symbol obviously has influence from the caduceus and Rod of Asclepius, I think that the concept of dark magic in general also draws some inspiration from the meaning/history behind both symbols, especially with regards to the connection to alchemy, two-headed snake, and also the connection to healing/medicine.

Which all just contributes to my opinion that I hope the canon universe in the series doesn't eliminate dark magic use in the end but instead puts limitations on dark magic use so it can still be used for the healing purposes as well. And if alchemy ended up contributing to medicine, then... who knows?

... also that's without even getting into how the series refers to Sir Sparklepuff as a homonculus, which:

And the page goes on to mention the "Arcanum of human blood" so... yeah.

Lots to think about!

[mask131]

I love digging into Tolkien lore because it feels EXACTLY like doing research on any other mythology, Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic...

You have all those big media adaptations you have to get out of your head to return to the actual sources.

You have all those epic tales and short stories and other main corpus forming the "certain" part of the text ; with then a flood of unfinished stories, fragments, drafts and other companion-pieces that either form the scholia or the apocrypha of the main texts.

You've got all the cultural parallels and mythological references begging for a mythology comparatist to come in.

You've got the complex theology and its evolution ; you've got entire maps of foreign lands you have to learn about ; you've got complicated family trees filled with characters that range from massively complex and multi-faceted to just one more name in the list.

You've got the dry scholars who enforce stern and biased beliefs ; you've got the weird fanatic groups that reinvent it all for vile purposes ; you've got your Youtube and Tumblr enthusiast who keep making their lore-headcanons ; you've got the intense debates about what is canon and what is not ; you've got people who try to share explanations about it but only massively simplify it all...

You have an entire world that had been built for decades and decades by a brilliant man, crossing all the genres from romance to tragedy passing by the epic and the fairytale ; to the point we have little bits of pieces about obscure corners of this world and some unknown character that never influenced anything in the big scope of things and yet they still have their own story...

You have heavily complex lore and background for entire cities, bloodlines, calendars, customs, laws, landscapes, and yet just as many mysteries and unanswered questions left for the imagination of those that would follow...

And as you keep digging, you find back all the elements from your favorite mythologies (Greek, Norse, Biblical, Arthurian, Finnish) but mixed together in a fresh, inventive, clever way, with tons of new inventions that became so iconic and so culturally people and so archetypally widespread... that it really does feel like you are looking at a mythology.

[bogkeep]

grousing about ai art stuff

every time i open twitter (my mistake) there's a new thread on how to spot ai art or ai photos by finding all the mistakes in it, and like obviously this is useful and it's good to watch out because they kEEP SHOWING UP EVERYWHERE AHHH HELL WORLD HELL WORLD, but it's also a little depressing that we're training ourselves to nitpick all kinds of details within a piece of art.

like even before the artifically generated image boom randos on twitter would reply to fully finished illustrations with the most asinine unsolicited advice possible. art's gonna be flawed sometimes! i'll draw someone in a weird pose because of vibes! i'll wing a hand! i don't fucking know what a house actually looks like!!! like yes of course the way a human artist creates flawed art is different from the way an algorithm doesn't actually know what anything looks like because it has no mind. it doesn't know shit. so it's not that it's UNRELIABLE but it's like. it's like... i've been telling myself and others every time i'm struggling to make something look Just Right that actually nobody i going to be staring as hard at my art as i am while making it. if i don't point it out people aren't likely to notice unless they are going through it with a fine toothed comb BUT NOW WE ARE DOING THAT APPARENTLY. WHICH IS ANYONE'S PEROGATIVE AND FAIR ENOUGH! PEOPLE CAN LOOK AT MY ART HOWEVER THEY WANT IT'S FINE

but it's ALSO so depressing to consider having to analyse every single piece of art you come across like that my goddddddd i just wanna enjoy it!! i wanna enjoy art!!!! i mean the main reason i finally stopped going on twitter regularly was during the NFT boom and i got so tired of having to vet every single artist i came across to make sure i wasnt retweeting nft stuff. like that really ruined my previously enjoyable experience of LOOKING AT NICE ART ON MY FEED WITHOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE.

god another thing that happened during the dark nft times was how certain art styles tended to be nfts. and i don't mean the ugly apes and stuff, like of course there's those, but there were a lot of artists who sold their souls to crypto and there was just a certain Vibe to a lot of those styles. like i got a sixth sense for it, i would see a piece of art by an unknown artists and when i checked - yep, that was a crypto guy now. and you know what!!!! i hated that!!!! i hate that it ruined entire art styles for me!! AND NOW ARTIFICIALLY GENERATED IMAGES ARE DOING THE SAME!!!!! like what tends to tip me off is less because i spotted some wonky hand or a weird flap but because the style is a popular one for the ai bros to imitate. you know what i mean right!!!!!! it's kind of how the ai photos look a bit too clean and crisp and smooth in an unsettling way. it just pings the brain a bit.

ULTIMATELY the absolute main method i have for filtering away ai images isn't so much looking for mistakes, but by checking sources. it's the same way i check that i'm not reblogging from reposting accounts Because That's A Thing I Care About Too - if there's no description or the description seems off and i don't recognise the OP, i check the original post/blog to see what's up. if the image gives me a weird vibe, i check where it comes from and who posted it. oftentimes the comments on posts with ai images will point it out - they're not always accurate and there's definitely been times where people are a little too trigger happy to accuse art of being AI... but it can be a good lead or confirm suspicions. on one hand, i don't want to do detective work while im having chill scrolling time, but on the other hand - i already had this habit for other reasons, so it's less disruptive to me than the alternative. it also helps that it's very rare for ai shit to turn up in my tumblr feed. i don't want to keep looking over my shoulder!!

(also for anyone who wants a little bit of optimism in the middle of all this, here's an episode of Better Offline podcast that outlines how it's very unlikely for generative ai to actually get much better. here's the part two also.)

[armands-cuck-chair]

"'Exceptional negro.' 'Thank you, sir.' It was the call and response of my entire life. I had let them talk to me like that so long I stopped hearing it. 'Yes sir', 'of course, sir', 'subject, verb, agreement, sir', smile, nod, 'yes, sir.' They all came from the same organ inside me, an organ unknown to science at the time, because what scientist would look for an organ found only in black men who use their weakness to rise? But I wasn't a man anymore. I was something else. I had powers now, and decades of rage to process, and it was both random and unfortunate the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery."

One of my favorite Louis quotes of all time. And it makes me so happy when I'm watching black reactors watch this scene because it's obviously so cathartic for them. I like watching black reaction content for this show in particular, because it helps me as a white person appreciate the show on a whole other level that I would be incapable of on my own. It was actually a black acter that made me interested in watching the show in the first place!

I had seen gifs on tumblr and I wanted to get a feel for the show before I bought it. I was a fan of the 1994 movie and had read some of the book, but it did always bother me that Louis in both of those versions of the story was a slave owner. And especially in the movie, which adds that whole gross slave master/enslaved black woman romance racist trope that always made me uncomfortable, even before I could articulate why. (At least the slaves get freed and then they burn down the plantation? Seriously, don't get me started on that aspect of the 1994 movie.) I was really intrigued by the fact that the show chose to make Louis a black creole man, instead of a white creole man, and also the switching of the time period. But because some aspects of the source material were...not great, I was worried that that change might not have been handled the best. Vampire media oftentimes don't treat their black characters very well. So when I decided to watch reaction content of it to get a feel for the show, I wanted to hear a black perspective on it.

So I watched ShalayaHomebody TV's reaction first (also her Sandman reactions are so good, she is so funny, you should absolutely subscribe), and I was pleasantly surprised because, you know, the bar is in Hell. I immediately bought the first season and I have been obsessed with the show and have had The Vampire Chronicles brainrot ever since.

A while ago, I watched Syntell's reactions with Mikel Claire on his channel and I was sort of blown away by him saying this about the scene when Sam takes Louis's tickets to the Theatre des Vampires show in the fake fangs and white vampire makeup: "I wonder if that's like blackface to them?" Like, as a white person, my mind just straight up didn't go there, but as soon as he said it I totally got it. It made me think of how Josephine Baker had performed in blackface as a black woman, because she could get more money performing to white audiences and that's the only way white audiences at the time would watch anything having to do with black people. It made me look at the whole Theatre des Vampires differently.

After Claudia proclaimed that the trial was a stoning, Alex of Jessa and Alex Watch said: "No, it's a lynching!" And...yeah! It basically was.

I could keep giving examples, but I'm stoned and rambling and this post is already going to be incredibly long as it is. I just have a lot to say!

The show might not handle every single thing exactly right 100% of the time in regards to race, nothing does, but I really appreciate the show taking pains to accurately cover the typical attitudes regarding race in the time periods it's set in, including the present. That's not to say that any scrutiny or criticism isn't warranted, there will always be blind spots. And like I said, the bar is in Hell, but I think it's really cool and good that they took the time to sit back and say, "okay, how does changing this character's race change their history and how they navigate the world?" Especially when there are white supremacists in the US government who think teaching about the history and the structural nature of racism not be taught because it will "make white kids grow up hating themselves". 🙄

I don't know, man. I just saw people criticizing some of the Devil's Minion fandom for their treatment of Louis when I was browsing the tag and like...I don't want to contribute to making black fans of the show feel shut out and like they don't have a space in the fandom. It's like that meme: "I got so caught up in the euphoria of shipping Devil's Minion that for a moment I forgot racism exists."

I don't say it enough, but I love this incarnation of Louis and Claudia. I love that there are so many black fans who feel seen and represented. I love that the show isn't just a sea of 99% white characters like the books are, but keeping everything that makes the books compelling and great and then elevating it by making it more inclusive.

Don't sideline the black fans in the IWTV community. Watch black reacters. Engage with them. Listen to them. You might not agree with every take they have, but I promise you that it will make you enjoy the show from a whole new perspective.

[whencyclopedia]

Edward England

Edward England was an Irish pirate who operated in the Caribbean, the Eastern Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean between 1717 and 1720 during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730). Captain England’s successful but brief pirate career came to an end when he was marooned by his crew on the island of Mauritius in 1720.

Early Career

Captain England has his own chapter in the celebrated pirate’s who’s who, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, compiled in the 1720s. The book was credited to a Captain Charles Johnson on its title page, but this is perhaps a pseudonym of Daniel Defoe (although scholars are still debating the issue, and Charles Johnson may have been a real, if entirely unknown pirate expert). As with many other pirates, the General History is an invaluable source on England’s career, even if there are fictional additions to the factual information laboriously garnered from such sources as court records, official documents, and letters of the period.

Edward England’s real name was possibly Jasper Seager (or Seegar). Like many pirates of the period, England was obliged to join a pirate crew after the ship on which he was serving was captured. England had been an officer on a Jamaican sloop when it was taken by Christopher Winter, who was based at the pirate haven of New Providence in the Bahamas. The General History gives the following not unfavourable assessment of England’s character:

England was one of those men, who seemed to have such a share of reason, as should have taught him better things. He had a great deal of good nature, and did not want for courage; he was not avaricious, and always averse to the ill usage prisoners received: he would have been contented with moderate plunder, and less mischievous pranks could his companions have been brought to the same temper, but he was generally over-ruled. (114)

Following the successful attacks on pirates in their haven at New Providence (now Nassau) by Woodes Rogers, Governor of the Bahamas from 1717, England sailed across the Atlantic to continue his piracy elsewhere. Several merchant ships were captured in the Azores, Cape Verde Islands, and off the coast of West Africa.

In 1718, England himself obliged an otherwise honest man to turn pirate when he captured the Welshman Howell Davis who had been chief mate on a slave ship, the Cadogan of Bristol. The captain of the Cadogan was murdered, and Davis was given command of the slaver despite refusing to formally sign England’s ship’s articles and become a part of his pirate crew. Impressed with Davis’ courage, England allowed him to sail off. Davis ended up in Barbados where he was captured. Davis managed to escape prison, and he continued a pirate career on both sides of the Atlantic, a spree that ended with his death on Principe Island in 1719.

England was, for a time, an associate of the most successful of all pirates in the so-called Golden Age, Bartholomew Roberts (aka 'Black Bart' Roberts, c. 1682-1722). In the relatively small world of pirates, Roberts had taken over the crew of Howell Davis after the latter’s death. Roberts and England operated off the coast of Guinea, West Africa. England operated two ships: his own sloop and another prize renamed Victory. Command of the latter was given to John Taylor and together they raided the western coast of India and took more prize ships. When required, provisions were taken on board at the pirate base on Madagascar.

Continue reading...

[useless-catalanfacts]

By the way, these days that (thanks to hbomberguy's new video) many people are talking about plagiarism and stealing material without sources or obfuscating the sources, I'd like to point out how blatantly that happens here on Tumblr with images.

I follow various tags related to the contents of this blog, mostly the names of places in our country, and you wouldn't believe how many posts I get on my dash with "because you follow #[name of place]" and it's a photo of some completely different place, with no link to source nor name of the photographer, misattributed to a different location, even to a completely different country, or very often that is simply using that tag for ~aesthetics~. And I've also seen it the other way around, photos of our country and it says it's Italy, and the same happening with other pairs of countries. These posts also tend to come from the same few blogs: blogs completely dedicated to stealing photographers' and/or other artists' work, where post after post it's all they never say where they got them from. And, like in the case of some tags, it seems to me that often they're using these place names just to add on to the "exotic factor".

In the last months, I've also seen this happen increasingly more with AI-generated images. By not including the source and saying it's X place, they pretend it's not an AI but a photo. Some of them are very realistic (until you zoom in into the details) but some of them it seems to me like they shouldn't be believed, for example this one I got on my dash because I follow #Mallorca:

First of all, that's obvious AI (look at the flowerpots, the supposed hieroglyphics, and there is another bathtub in the next room, so this person has 2 bathrooms but neither of them has a door?). I had seen this same image as part of an image set being shared some time ago titled something like "Ancient Egypt-inspired interior design", which makes much more sense and was in fact the prompt for the AI to create it. This AI created a bathroom (bath-courtyard?) inspired by the aesthetic of Ancient Egypt, but somewhere down the chain of people sharing the images someone decided to say this is in Mallorca, for some unknown reason.

The thing is, this aesthetic has nothing to do with Mallorca. Mallorcan architecture doesn't look anything like this, but many people are reblogging it and still tagging it #mallorca, which I assume means they believe this is a real place in Mallorca or at least has something to do with Mallorca.

Most people around the world won't know what Mallorca looks like, what its architecture looks like, they probably don't even know what language is spoken there or maybe even where it is on a map. And that's normal, because we can't know about every far-away place in the world! I don't mean to shame anyone who fell for this. But if they don't know anything about it, from now on, will this Ancient Egyptian style be what they associate with Mallorca? Is this the kind of image that they will associate with the island?

I don't have any point to make with this post, I only wanted to share this situation as a reminder not to believe everything you see on the internet, and especially when they're not telling you where it came from.

[problematic-faves-appreciation]

Sorry to bring up "Uglies" again, but this discourse has been so infuriating, and I promise it is relevant to the theme of your blog:

Not sure what it is about the movie, but it showed previously unknown lows of media literacy (which is impressive), and one that is particularly... interesting to me is how people have reacted to Laverne Cox, who for those not knowing her, is a black trans woman who is not just a quite famous actress, but also an outspoken advocate for queer people, playing the villain Dr. Cable.

Dr. Cable is the de-facto leader of the city the movie takes place in, and a cyborg super soldier. This dystopian regime, and that is where the issue lies, mostly relies on beauty culture to keep people under control, though that is far from the only thing. Specifically, people get plastic surgery at sixteen to eradicate discrimination based on looks - and the scary part is, they succeeded at least at the surface, making this world indeed almost feeling like an utopia. Almost.

I can see how this can be misinterpreted in a transphobic way if you really want to and disregard most of the canon and message, which is that forcing people into uniformity based on arbitrary standards is bad, which very much is a statement against cisheteronormativity. The series doesn't have any canon queerness because it was published in 2005, and for the movie presumably from a mix of wanting to stay true to the source material and desperately trying to make it more mainstream appealing, but it feels quite queer subtextual.

Now comes the really infuriating part: The people I saw being the most worried and the most aggressive about Laverne Cox playing Dr. Cable were not TERFs and other fascists. Now, I haven't combed through the entire twitter tag because I value my sanity, so there probably are some who indeed realized that they could misinterpret that for their advantage, but the transphobes I saw didn't got into the plastic surgery ankle. They just spewed the usual uncreative bullshit they always say ("thats a man" etc).

But left-leaning people in the tumblr tag... "Forced into plastic surgery by a trans woman for the woke agenda" - You wanted to miss the point so badly, buddy... "Hmm, a trans woman forcing children into plastic surgery and brainwashing them, is it just me or was that written as a piece of fascist propaganda" - It is just you, not just was it written in 2005, Scott Westerfeld (author) also is an outspoken queer ally since at least 2003, where he featured a sapphic couple in his space opera "The Risen Empire" and since then he has tried to use his platform to help queer people, including going on several fights with fucking J. K. Rowling over trans advocacy.

It just is this age old problem of "if you write a minority as anything than a perfect hero, you are a bigot or at least help bigots". Which feels so condescending.

Now, I know that actors are obliged to market their movies, but again, Laverne Cox is a very famous actress, and also she does queer advocacy since what, at least ten years? I don't even know her, but it feels so condescending and insulting to her insisting that she must be too dumb or brainwashed or something to notice that a role could harm her community. She doesn't need the money, and she would have had the power to just step out. On her instagram, she is quite enthusiastic about the role, even saying that she looked forward playing such a character for once.

Another layer of this is that most of the people complaining about her playing Dr. Cable aren't even trans. A small number are, but the majority are just cis people.

It just feels so icky.

Now, I know most marginalized people don't feel this way, but when I personally see a villain with my identities (who isn't a caricature of said identities, but just happens to share them) I feel empowered, not insulted. Being a horrible person, making bad choices and going on power trips is part of humanity too, and by insisting that all minorities are only ever allowed to be perfect, you do not just infantalize them, you strip them of their humanity, counter-intuitive as that sounds.

Dr. Cable is not a trans caricature. In the book we don't even know if she is cis or trans (and also not what her ethnicity is). Her main arc is that she thinks she needs to protect this utopia with all means necessary, stripping away parts of her humanity in the process and getting more and more brutal and paranoid until her hubris brings her downfall. That is not a trans-only story.

It is not even a woman-only story. In fact, this is a kind of villain arc women are hardly ever allowed to have. Yes, I am aware how this brutality can intersect with harmful trans and black stereotypes, but also she is such an interesting character, and it just doesn't feel right to say that black people or trans people should not allowed to have interesting villain characters.

.

[canyoufucksoniccharacters]

It's time.

Alright, this is gonna be a long one. Not only am I covering the canon, mainline game Sonic, but his offshoots as well. Specifically, I will be covering Sonic in the mainline games, the Paramount movie version, Sonic Prime, and a tiiiiiiny tiny little itty bit of Archie. IDW is, from what has been implied as of the past about year and a half, canon; and it will be treated as such (with some caution, of course.), so it's not going to be handled separately.

Let's do this.

Alright, let's start as early as absolutely possible. There have been several, several statements regarding Sonic's age; the earliest of which was courtesy of our good old friends over at...

There would be a certain (mildly loud) funny video here, but Tumblr's weird barely present copyright protection probably kicked in. Anyways...

In the Sonic The Hedgehog cartoon, also known as SatAM, we get 2 tidbits of information. In the 2-part special called Blast From The Past, we see that Sonic and Sally are about the same age, both being kids of just about equal maturity. Later, in episode 24, Sally states that her age is 16. So, far as we could tell, Sonic was 16, or around that range. Now, we know that these cartoons aren't canon, but they definitely did have an influence over the canon of the series. Fun fact for you, Sonic's love of chili dogs was made up by the cartoons, and later adopted during the modern era by the games. Ain't that neat?

Chili dog related tangent aside, this was the only source we had for Sonic's age at that point. I've seen some say that he was stated to be 15 in the manual for Sonic 2, but upon trying to verify that claim I came empty-handed. The manual does mention Tails being 8, but no mention of Sonic's age as far as I could tell; and the same goes for every other Classic Series game. Except for...

Sonic Jam, the Sonic game absolutely no one cares about! In part because it's not much more than a game compilation and tech demo that served as the stepping stone for Sonic Adventure 1. Sonic Jam includes profiles for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman. This is in both the Japanese and English version, and both contain ages for the characters! Tails is listed as 8, Knuckles as 15, and Eggman as "??" or Unknown, in the case of the English version.

This brings us to Sonic, who I will be using the Japanese profile for.

The part that says "年令" translates to "Age". So, here it says that Sonic ranges between 15 and 16... Whatever that means. In the English version, it just says 15. Either way, all these make sense for these games. Sonic's characterization back in the day was all in on the rebellious teenager angle, an effort to give him an air of edge and coolness that other platforming mascots didn't have, which did admittedly win people over during the heat of the console wars! Sonic was absolutely huge when the series was new, to a degree that other mascots just couldn't match up to. Of course, that dropped off over time, but that's a discussion for another day, and not on this blog. This blog is about gay sex, not the videogame industry.

So, Sonic is either 15 or 16, most likely 15. All is good here, everything lines up, other than maybe the fact that Amy was listed as 8 in the Sonic CD manual, but that's probably fine considering back then her crush on Sonic was treated as a one-sided admirer type thing, rather than an actual romantic interest (That was usually reserved for Sally in media that actually cared about that kinda thing, anyways.)

So, fast forward to the Dreamcast; Sonic gets a redesign! Longer limbs, green eyes, and overall less chibi-like and seemingly more mature appearance. So, you would assume he's older, right? After all, him an everyone else around him got the same treatment, except for Eggman who... Seemingly just became a smidge more realistic. A smidge, anyways. You can only be so realistic being shaped like Gru.

Well... Yeah! It would look like it, since no further statements about his age were made, and in the Archie comics, they actually aged him up a year to justify his change in design. Archie isn't canon, obviously, but it shows the direction that was taken; as the players aged, so did Sonic, no matter how much people got up in arms about the green eyes for some strange reason.

... And then Sonic Heroes came along.

Perfectly fine game, mind you! One of the more polarizing ones, sure, and some of the writing could have been a smidge better (specially on Amy's side of things), but overall not really anything egregious. But for our sake... This hellspawn was born.

Ah, the Sonic Heroes US manual. The root cause of incredibly stupid Sonic shipping discourse; as well as the really, really inaccurate Sonic Channel ages.

All vitriol aside, let's look at what it has to say about our blue blur.

... 15? Really? When our previous estimate was also 15-16? Are you actually telling me Sonic 1 to Heroes all happened within less than a year? Amy got aged up from 8 to 12, which... Either age would be a bit concerning considering they're still pushing the whole romantic interest thing, one-sided as it may still be. That aside, it makes no logistical sense for Sonic to still be 15 after he's literally physically shown to be older.

On top of that, this same manual ages Espio down from 17 (In the Chaotix manual) to 16, and Vector up from 16 to 20. Vector I can believe, but uh. Aging down isn't exactly a thing that most people do.

What's worse, this age was then listed in the official Sonic Channel website... Even after they made a game where the first thing you see is Sonic celebrating his birthday. Meaning he had to have been 14 before that game to stay 15, which is contradictory to say the least. Additionally, there's a potential time gap of 5 months between SA2 and Heroes, only ever referenced in the Playstation 3 PSN release of Sonic Heroes.

This age was never once modified, even after Sonic Forces' 6 month timeskip, meaning Sonic had a birthday party, was locked up for 6 months, and somehow didn't age a year during all that. Nor after the several infrastructure-demolishing incidents such as an entire city being flooded and wrecked, the planet being shattered into pieces, among others.

And you wanna know something funny? In Sonic Generations, Classic Sonic is explicitly stated to be Sonic from the past, which checks out considering how he behaves less maturely and is proportionally much smaller. And then in 2015, the Classic Sonic style guide comes out.

15.

15.

15.

Somehow. Some. Fucking. How. Classic Sonic is listed as 15... While Modern Sonic is listed as 15 too. Oh, Amy is also listed as 12, by the way. Despite that being her (ALLEGED) age in Sonic Heroes.

Unless they're from different universes or something, there's no way-

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE

Yeah, so, Sonic Forces released 2 years after that guide. And it tried, emphasis on tried, to retcon Classic Sonic into being an entirely separate character. This was, however, later undone by Sonic Origins both re-establishing the Classic games as taking place in the past, on top of a TailsTube episode saying as such; that Classic Sonic is, indeed, from the past. It's even stated that Modern Sonic is who Classic Sonic grew up to be!

IDW doesn't make our job any easier, either. This is information from when the Tangle & Whisper story was ongoing;

However... I'd take it with a grain of salt, as it's from before IDW was considered canon, and back when Sega was much more strict on the mandates and what they did and didn't allow in Sonic media. Plus, this was still the age listed on Sonic Channel, before they removed it.

Oh yeah, that. Why don't we talk about that?

On October of 2022, all the ages on Sonic Channel were removed.

This... Was a good move. SonAmy is still being pushed ever so very slightly, with Amy's crush still being present in a recent short even if she's much more mature about it now, which would make their age difference less than ideal. On top of that, the ages really just didn't line up chronologically speaking.

So, where does that leave us now?

In this interview, Takashi Iizuka is asked about Sonic's age; to which he responds that "He's a teenager."

"Teenager" is a bit of a loose definition, probably on purpose. Generally speaking, the range for teenager ranges from anywhere to 13-19, to 13-21 depending on who you ask. Some people make the cutoff at 18, though that's almost never done when it comes to scientific material.

So, let's recap. Sonic is still considered a teenager, but he's always been considered one, all the way back from the Classic series. So, we can safely assume Classic isn't 15; either that, or he was, and the modern series takes place during anywhere from 2-6 years, which I could believe. Either way, he's at minimum about 13-14, as he's a younger version of Sonic who hasn't hit a growth spurt yet.

Then, we have anywhere from 1 to 2 canon birthdays for Sonic, depending on whether you count Runners as canon or not (which I would admittedly not at all fault you for not considering it canon, considering it's a mobile game; and a discontinued one at that), as well as a 6-month timeskip during Forces, potential 5-month timeskip during Heroes (which isn't the most unbelievable proposition or anything, considering it would be a bit weird if Shadow was presumed dead only to show back up like a week later), and a bunch of events that have caused severe structural damage to key locations in the world, namely during Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Adventure 1 as the 2 biggest examples. Oh, and Sonic Forces throwing absolutely everything into disarray on a seemingly global scale, which would take quite a bit of time to be fixed, specially considering that's still an ongoing process in IDW.

On top of all this, it's outright shown that these things don't just happen every week or whatever, things happen off-screen, characters get time off to do their own stuff, and from the looks of it, Murder Of Sonic The Hedgehog is canon, as nothing there conflicts with canon and it's officially endorsed. Which means WE HAVE YET ANOTHER FUCKING BIRTHDAY PARTY, FOR AMY THIS TIME.

Further proving the point i just stated, let's look at the geographical Prison Island. This is what it looks like in Sonic Adventure 2.

A big, mechanical prison complex made out of nothing but cold hard metal. Filled with robots, not a single trace of nature in sight. Said nature however is not too far from these military bases, though! These forests are also on the island.

So, these are the two main parts of Prison Island. Abundant nature, and military facilities. There's very little difference once the story progresses further, though, as the island...

Fucking explodes. (Clip from Sonic Adventure 2 Real-Time Fandub. Credit to SnapCube.)

So, why is this relevant? Well, we revisit this location in Shadow The Hedgehog! The game, not the guy.

As we can see, there is no longer any difference between nature and construct. The base has been completely abandoned, and overtaken by the nearby forests, with greenery sprouting all over it. Now, it's not impossible that plant life in the Sonic series grows a bit faster than real plants, but methinks that an entire military base doesn't get overtaken by nature this hard within a month. There's entire new trees, grass and plants growing all over what was previously pavement, not even the walls are safe! Every single area is either covered in toxic waste, plant life, or both. Plant life that, again, needs time to grow. So there's likely a pretty big chunk of time between Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow The Hedgehog, even though they're only separated by 1 game, Sonic Heroes.

Add that to the many many reasons these things can't just happen on a week by week basis! On to my next point...

No, proportions don't really mean anything in terms of age. Sure, Vanilla is quite big, and so are the conductor and his wife, but Rouge is undoubtedly an adult and her proportions are more or less the same as everyone else. So all they help distinguish is between children (Tails, Cream) and non-children. In this exact screenshot we see that Vanilla is much taller than rouge, almost being at eye level with each other despite Rouge sitting on an elevated surface, while Vanilla is standing. This height difference is also present in the games, although we rarely get to see them next to each other.

So, all this taken into account, the fact Sonic has been a teenager since the Classic series, the fact there's been a few timeskips and at least 2 birthdays, several events that would need some time to recover from, specially with a still-ongoing recovery process after Forces, the fact Elise is allegedly 17 in 06 (which would make her whole romantic subplot with Sonic even more uncomfortable than it already is by default if he was any younger than say, idk about 16 years old at the least), among many other reasons that I may have forgotten to mention, the chances of Sonic being 15, hell, even 16 are very, very slim. At the very least, he's got to be about 17, and he could honestly be as old as 19 or 20 (depending on whether Iizuka meant he's of adolescent age or a teenager).

So, if you do still view Sonic as a minor, that's perfectly fine, and honestly believable; but with all these facts stacked up, as time goes on, it will be less and less likely that him being underage will be a real possibility. This isn't the Pokemon anime. There's actual structure, lore, and a proper sense of scale; and something like Sonic's age being frozen at 15-16 just wouldn't make any sense.

All this to say, Sonic is, most likely, no longer a minor. There's some wiggle room where he could be one, but 18-19 is the most likely option, specially considering how Frontiers was comfortable with pitching his voice down. Yes, it was for the sake of the game's tone, but Tails's voice for example didn't have that much of a difference to it, because he's a child and it would be weird for a character to sound so much older than they actually are- and this goes for Sonic too.

So, in conclusion, after extensive analysis and every source I could find for Sonic's age taken into account;

You can, most likely, fuck Sonic The Hedgehog.

...

BUT IT'S NOT OVER YET.

We need to take both his other iterations into consideration, as well as address characters whose fuckability status depends on him. First, the alternative versions.

Movie Sonic

This one's a kid. On top of acting much more immature and inexperienced, outright described as irresponsible- hell, Tom even says "Whether you wanna hear this or not, you're still just a kid. You've got some more growing up to do before you're ready to be the big hero". He acts like a kid, is referred to as a kid, and hell, it makes sense, the movies so far have adapted Sonic 1-3&K, the games where Sonic was still just starting out his adventures.

Prime Sonic

This one's... More uncertain. He's definitely quite immature and inexperienced; though he feels more... Reckless than anything else. More of an attitude problem than an age problem, really, considering how Amy and Shadow act, two characters who should be about the same age as him, but that act much more maturely for the most part.

This one's pretty up in the air, I'd say, considering how Prime seems to be comfortable having their own versions of the cast (going by how different Shadow seems to be and how he has seemingly no attachment to Rouge, who is one of the people he trusts the most in canon).

Oh yeah, I haven't watched season 3 yet, but I doubt it changes much of anything about this judgement.

THE SONIC-DEPENDENT ONES

THE ROBOT SONICS

While they're all likely able to consent (... Okay, Mecha MK. 1 is a bit more dubious on whether it's sapient), it would probably be unethical to fuck something that's made to look like someone who's a minor. While they were made when Sonic was definitely a minor, he isn't one anymore, and the resemblance is still there to pretty much the exact same degree, so there's really no ambiguity here.

You can fuck them. Go ham, robot-fuckers.

SCOURGE

Look, we're not covering the mess that Archie can be. But from what I gather, Sonic is, at most, 17 pre-SGW. And this is just an alternate version of that Sonic, who likely didn't go through all the uber weird shit that makes Archie Sonic's age a nightmare to deal with. So, no, unfortunately for a lot of you, you probably can't fuck Scourge. Fortunately, though...

SURGE

Surge's age is, according to this post by IDW artist and writer Evan Stanley, around Sonic's age. So, what goes for the hedgehog goes for the Tenrec, you can most likely fuck her. Go ham.

... Elise?

She was 17 during 06, and some time has passed since then, and it would be weird if she had any bigger of an age gap with Sonic, plus plenty of time has passed since 06, so... I guess you can? I don't see why you would, but power to you, I suppose. Can't judge.

MIGHTY AND RAY

These two have been here since SegaSonic The Hedgehog in the arcades, which happens even before Sonic 2 does! Ray is never once really implied to be young, no matter how much he may seem like Mighty's Tails equivalent (Which... He's not meant to be. He was made before Tails.), and he's most likely about even with Mighty, who is most likely the same age as Sonic, seeing how they're meant to be parallels (down to Sonic's sprites being rehashed for his sprites in Chaotix), and the Japanese manual for Knuckles' Chaotix listing him as 16.

They're here mostly because Mighty is a partial Sonic counterpart, and Ray tends to be anywhere that Mighty goes these days, so they might as well be treated as a package deal.

So, yes, you can most likely fuck them... Even if we have absolutely no idea what their modern versions look like. Seriously, where the hell have they been? At least we know they're fine, considering it's been stated that they're off on their own adventures these days.

Aaaand... That's it! That's all the Sonic-dependent characters I could think of, at least ones that I think don't really merit their own posts. TL;DR

Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic, etc: Fuckable Scourge: Unfuckable Surge: Fuckable Elise: Fuckable Mighty: Fuckable Ray: Fuckable

The "Fuckable" marks should go with an asterisk, as Sonic's status is "Most Likely Fuckable", but still.

Phew. Finally done. I've spent pretty much all goddamn day writing this. Hopefully this is useful for someone. Hopefully. God knows it'll make my job easier.

I'll just go write the alt text and go eat something, this took... Way longer than I'd like to admit. See you when the post goes up.

Go ham, you beautiful horny bastards.

Edit: Future OP here! I had to remake this post because the DIC bit earlier somehow triggered some weird copyright stuff on Tumblr, basically hiding the post from anyone who isn't directly looking at the blog. In the meantime, I added that bit about Prison Island to further add to his potential fuckability. So his margin for being a minor is even smaller now! How fun! Anyways, now I'll be seeing myself out for the time being. Thanks, and have fun.