#anyway ill get started on the brackets

[arsenicflame]

It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return. 

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug. 

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

[web-novel-polls]

Best Hater Lower Bracket

Yin Hanjiang from Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

“He seemed to be inescapable, using every method he could think of to harm Baili Qingmiao. After Baili Qingmiao was injured, he sprinkled bone powder on her wounds. After Baili Qingmiao passed out, he threw her into the Thousand Snake Pit. When Baili Qingmiao was alone, he hung up a cauldron and tried to refine her into lamp oil. With each of his appearances, he became more and more depraved.”

- Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know about the Ghost Mask from the original novel, Chapter 1

Submission: Second half of the novel YHJ in particular, hater energy unmatched! Righteous sects? fuck them up. His own sect? on eggshells. His best effort at not murdering someone is to start wiping his weapon with their clothes. General vibe of 'if anything happened to Venerable i'd kill everyone in this room and then myself AND SOMETHING JUST HAPPENED TO VENERABLE'. Anyway get their asses babe <3

Hua Cheng from Heaven Official’s Blessing (TGCF)

Submission: Treats nearly everyone that isn't Xie Lian with derision

Wiki Link

Additional Propaganda:

bro challenged 35 gods and killed 33 of them because they spoke ill of the guy he loves

he held onto a grudge against one dude for not letting him join the army for over 800 years

he ascended to heaven as a god, looked around at the other gods, went "ew" and JUMPED BACK DOWN

⚠️ Please vote for whoever’s best at being a hater, not who you like the most. ⚠️

[magic-is-something-we-create]

three chapters left to go now :)

it's canon in the ehlverse now that the maelands writes dates month/day/year and everywhere else scorns them for it. btw

[softness-and-shattering]

Started playing Hollow Knight recently. Been watching a Lets Play and enjoying it a lot, so ok Ill try it out. Im enjoying it a lot. The first few times I sat down to play, I couldnt go for too long because my skill was obviously as minimal as you can get and there wasnt much room to explore without beating bosses, getting a lamp etc.

Today I went from outside Greenpath to like 6 attempts at the first Hornet fight. I LOVE Hornet. And I kind of knew there would be/was looking out for a bench, because it was just too far from the previous bench, to go halfway through the whole area just to get back to the boss fight. Also I had like 800 geo to nervously side eye, and I was right, stag station right under Hornet room. Also I LOVE the stag. I do not love Zote, who I rescued. I liked that the big fly? boss spits out little ones so I could hide under the platform and heal. And Im getting better at the jump strike. Im just too impatient + tired after all that to beat Hornet. I keep getting the thought of, just keep hitting her she'll go down if Im fast enough, but she just has too many fast attacks and too much health, it doesnt work. But I kept panicking and just going whack whack whack oops Im dead again. I do appreciate that theres quite a lot of time to heal if you time it right. Im just so impatient today! (Im struggling w access to adhd meds. Impulse control. hard to play patiently which is tbh the least of my concerns, but idk. Theres something nice about having a struggle thats not so vital as other things im struggling to do. Yeah I keep whacking Hornet and dying but ultimately it doesnt matter, the game is so pretty, the music so beautiful, what do I have to complain about. Like the fights and stuff is tricky, but its not stressful tricky, theres a calmness to the whole thing. I am still in brackets here oop). Ive also been continuing my real-life stretches some of which have now upgraded after a few months to very basic exercises, and what do you know, im feeling better, and stronger, and Im able to move around a lot easier (not much stamina yet but still, being able to twist and move dynamically again is GREAT), and theres like, endorphins happening, like its NICE to exist in my body, not just weird and awkward and painful. Im having a good time here! Hopefully get more support work soon too! Things are looking up and its a long time coming and a LOT of hard work coming. Its still hard work but this is one of those moments you get to a rest point on the mountain and look down safely and marvel at just how far youve come. This feels like a pretty big landing. Im admiring the view. I feel safe, in my guts.

Healing is possible yall. Its really really possible. and its GOOD. Its been....5? 6? years since the worst of it, I think? Theres no correct timeline. The time will pass anyways. Its very non linear. Its like climbing a mountain (i know very little about climbing a mountain), you dont just start somewhere and walk straight ahead in a line until you get to the top. You gotta go up and down and around and backtrack and its not sliding backwards, its ALL progress no matter what direction its in. Youre still moving towards the peak when you go down a slope, when you rest, when you go back to pick up something you forgot (idk if thats a real thing in serious climbing/mountaineering). Sometimes you gotta hole up for a week because theres a snow storm. Thats still in service of your life and your goal. And gaming is part of it, for me. Partly distraction, partly as like, a signal to myself that its ok, theres energy to spare, we can learn new useless skills, and have fun, and experience art. Theres time. Theres safety. We're not running from tigers, we can stop and breathe and take it in.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Rant/propaganda for Gamzee Makara! Because he is just. Such a character. Vague but major spoilers ahead!

Also for the record I pretend the Homestuck epilogues and sequel don’t exist because they suck. Yes I am aware of what happens in there. No I am not factoring it into my opinions on Gamzee. It does not exist to me. It feels like the writers just trying to go “gotcha!!!!1!!1” to Gamzee fans. I hate it.

Anyway.

First things first, what people need to know is that Gamzee started out as just a silly joke character parodying juggalos. Then Andrew Hussie decided to make him Very Important! (The narrative pretty much states as much…although there’s some debate as to whether the statement of “Very Important” should be applied to Gamzee or another…sort-of character in the same picture.). Aaaaaand then shortly after, Hussie decided he hated Gamzee, ultimately very literally fridging him. Twice.

The thing is, because of the weird changes in focus on Gamzee, we get very, very little of what’s actually going through his head once he makes the switch from weird silly friend to the protagonists to Very Important scary murder clown. Things we do know are this: he’s 13 to 16 years old over the course of the main comic, he’s very religious, he was severely neglected by his parental figure to the point that he developed a drug addiction, he’s supposed to be a murder clown near the top of the caste system according to his religion and said caste system but instead he’s super chill up until another character accidentally destroys his faith in his religion (even after running out of his drug of choice he’s chill, to be clear, since some people like to say he was only chill because of the drug), and his turn to Actual Murder Clown is also around the time everything else is going to shit. It’s also when we almost entirely lose track of what’s going through his head. There’s also some very dubious manipulative characters, cult-y stuff, and mind control involved, either in the turn itself or in his narrative later on.

He definitely ends up doing some pretty terrible things: partner abuse, psychological manipulation, murdering some of his friends, helping to ruin an entire timeline, helping a god destined to destroy everything. He also ends up dying horribly…or possibly living in pieces, depending on how legitimate you think that one statement about him never dying in any timeline is.

Ultimately I interpret him as a messed up kid who gets caught up in religious/cult bullshit and severe untreated mental illness and is manipulated and convinced into doing terrible things in the name of his god, ultimately sacrificing everything—his friends, his autonomy, his very soul—to the god he worships and serves for the sake of having a purpose. I find him a very fascinating and tragic character, and love him dearly.

I understand why a lot of people hate him (see again the list of terrible things he’s done, and the bs going on in the epilogues/sequel), but also a lot of people seem to boil him down to “crazy drug-abusing murder clown who should be locked up/drugged so he doesn’t hurt anyone” which…one, is ableist as hell, and two, just ignores how much else is going on with him. Like yeah, you have to really pay attention to details to get a lot of what’s going on with him, but please. He’s so much more interesting when you do.

Anyway, I hope maybe this has helped some people see him a little differently, whether they love him or hate him or just don’t care. Thanks for the opportunity to rant, and for running this bracket!

[fnvminorcharacterpoll]

FNV Minor Character Poll - Round 4-B, Day 2

Left: Beatrix Russell, hired guard at the Old Mormon Fort and potential sex worker at the Atomic Wrangler. —"I'm available, sweetie - but you'll have to do as I say. Meet me upstairs. I'll try to leave you in one piece."

Beatrix Russell's designated cheerleader is @simply-jason! hi! i'm taking up the mantle of cheerleader for beatrix because i was genuinely surprised that of all the characters on this webbed site, she didn't have one?? anyway, how could you not love beatrix! she's a pre-war ghoul (automatic +10 points), a follower of the apocalypse (though technically a gun-for-hire, but still; she believes in the cause), she has the voice ever (and for all you nerds, her voice actress is rouge the bat as of 2010), and she's a dominatrix! need i say more? (^_<)〜☆ if this list doesn't convince you, check out some of her top class, tried-and-true advice to the courier: take a chance on a woman who'll show ya a good time and make sure you're sound after the fact (even though she doesn't technically give you advice once she switches careers, but shhh)! a vote for beatrix is a vote for freaky women (affectionate)!

Right: Siri, a slave of the Legion at Fortification Hill. —"I never finished my [medical] training - the Legion saw to that when they overran my town. I do know basic first aid, but I've had to rely on tribal remedies to treat illnesses and injuries - healing powders and all that."

Siri's designated cheerleader is @irlarcadegannon! I LOVE Siri so much. I know the developers were under an insane time crunch, but I would've loved to see more substance for her! Still, I think what they did give her is very telling. It's not much, but it evokes a lot of emotion in me. Her lines show that she too had and has her own life, an entire history that we as a player may never know. But there are hints, small details in her choice of words and the tone of voice that show there is so much to her. So much potential, and I would love to see her have more presence in fan works. I love the idea that someday she might actually be able to escape from the Legion. She grants the player such kindness even in a situation where she herself is shown none. She had an entire life that was suddenly ripped away from her, and few Legion slaves get their story told. I want so desperately for other people to care about this side character who I LOVE, dearly, and I think it would be fantastic to get other people in the fandom to start thinking about her too, and making fan works with her in it if they feel so inclined. Together we can make a side character the specialest woman in the Mojave. SIRI SWEEP PLEASE!!!

[Bracket | Info & FAQs | Become a Designated Cheerleader]

[sleepyhead-poll]

LOSER'S BRACKET! ROUND 1, MATCH 7 OUT OF 8!

Loser's Bracket Propaganda Under the Cut:

Aurora:

She's not just sleepy - she adores sleep and does everything she can think of to elevate the experience. Her relentless search for the perfect night's rest has turned her into an innovator, a connoisseur, and an unstoppable juggernaut. Hell, her love of sleep is the driving force of her whole damn series! But she's not particularly well-known in Tumblr circles, so - even despite placing third in the total number of submissions - she got knocked out in the very first round due to getting matched against Jade Harley (no shade toward Jade; it's just that - let's face it - Homestuck has a massive star power advantage on this site). Sure, the Princess would've eventually been knocked out by a more popular character anyway - but even so, she deserves the opportunity to show how strong a contender she could have been had it not been for that initial stroke of ill fortune.

Snorlax:

if snorlax doesn't win losers bracket i will go to my local park and start biting whatever crosses my path 😭😭😭

SNORLAX ACTUALLY SHOULD'VE WON THE WHOLE THING. He's a BIG sleepy cat SO CUTE... don't you wish you could sleep on Snorlax? He snoores and is lax. What more do you want?

[fictionaladoptionpolls]

Kevin E. Levin

Age: 11 (nominally)

Home: NYC (Ben 10)

Likes: The X-Files, dogs, magical girlfriends

Dislikes: The law, the Omnitrix, car damage

Abilities: Several nouns followed with “absorption,” which the wiki thinks should count as distinct superpowers.

The Levin family household was poor, precarious, and probed by aliens. (Kevin’s mom and some Plumbers had fake memories of a Devin Levin implanted in their minds as part of a plan to manipulate the Plumbers; disruption of the Levin family was a byproduct.) Apparently unrelated to this, Kevin developed energy absorption abilities, which some people thought was freaky, which is possibly why his…stepfather(?) abused him. Anyways, eventually Kevin ran away from home and started stealing stuff.

(I don’t remember any of Kevin’s backstory from when I watched this series as a kid, TV Tropes is vague, the wiki scatters details across a dozen pages, and a bunch of Kevin-related stuff was retconned at least once.)

Anyways, Kevin ends up a delinquent urchin. He runs into Ben Tennyson, who becomes his friend, collaborator, and enemy in short order. (Shouldn’t have jumped straight from victimless warehouse theft to mass murder theft.) Accidentally absorbing a bunch of Ben’s alien watch’s energy, Kevin turned into a shapeshifting alien thing, and…you know, I’ll just show you what the submitter said about his backstory.

(NOT THE REBOOT) They put Kevin through so much. It’s like everytime the writers got bored, the just decided to put him through more traumatic events.they sent the mentally ill homeless 11 year old who didn’t understand his powers to adult space jail, where he suffered but found a mentor/father figure in one of his fellow inmates, who taught him how to control his powers. Later his mentor sacrifices himself,being killed by a guard, so Kevin can live and escape. He literally feels like it was his fault. I watch the show and I often find myself saying ‘oh, Kevin..’ like you would about a dog who keeps eating bees but doesn’t understand why it hurts. I think Ben 10 is anime enough to count, based the clear inspiration in storytelling and art style.

For the record, if I had to divide all animated series into Anime or Not Anime, Ben 10 would be borderline. That said, I explicitly specified an inclusive definition of “anime” in the bracket description…and Kevin is arguably the most anime character in the series. Once he gets out of space jail, Kevin becomes teen Ben’s Vegeta. Sure, he has a checkered past and used to be willing to murder people, and he still has a dark streak that puts him in contrast with Ben and Gwen, he’s trying to do good, and focuses most of his negative emotions on people who deserve to be hurt.

One neurosis that Kevin never seems to shake off his his self-loathing about the weirder expressions of his power. He sometimes gets physically mutated (especially when he absorbs Omnitrix energy), and that always fills him with a volatile mixture of aggression and depression. Also, he’s not great at thinking ahead. But once he learns not to hate people who aren’t himself, he means well.

Aside from Mx. NOT THE REBOOT, what does Tumblr think of Kevin?

I always felt kinda bad for Kevin, he had a rough life, and it seemed like even after he turned good he was always getting the short end of the stick. Like when he turned evil the second time, it was because he was saving the world.

So like, Osmosians are aliens in the first few series of Ben 10, and the Omnitrix takes DNA from the alien at the time it is first exposed. And they missed a huge joke that could have come from Ben trying to go for an alien only to turn into ELVEN YEAR OLD KEVIN while he is with both Kevin and Gwen.

I just think Kevin should get a pet rat and name it Argit, then train it to pick pocket.

(I know this profile is longer and more detailed than most. I had two reasons for this. First, I wanted to make sure anime purists gave him a fair shake. Second, and more importantly, I wanted to include that whole block of text without it being a significant percentage of the profile. It's currently 20%, which is…acceptable.)

[driflew]

hi it is six sentence sunday and i have... HOW IS THIS 12 SENTENCES. @ MY PAST SELF PUT THE COMMA AWAY GET AWAY FROM THAT EM DASH START USING PERIODS 

While the lantern allows Martyn to bring his god into most places, there are a few establishes that simply won’t budge. A particularly stubborn inn, for one, with an innkeeper who didn’t like Martyn’s cavalier attitude about alleged arsonist abilities. A festival of some kind, Martyn never actually figured out what—they’d had bunch of tents up, and the man charging the entry fee had been convinced Martyn’s claims of holy flame were, at best, the makings of a madman. 

Most places that bar Martyn entry are too uptight and paranoid, at least for Martyn’s tastes, and not worth the fight to get inside. The library, Martyn must admit, has some merit, and he would abandon his quest inside entirely if not for the fact it were for his god’s benefit. 

On the bright side, the man at the desk up front had at least been relatively accommodating about being asked to babysit Martyn’s lantern, even if he’d looked at Martyn like he was insane for asking.

Unlike most of what he does these days, Martyn hasn’t actually explained his mission to his god. He just doesn’t want to get his god’s hopes up—Research isn’t Martyn’s forte, and Martyn isn’t sure what writings would even exist on an isolated city god who died two decades prior. He’s not even sure if they’ll know of Dogwarts, let alone have record of the name of its god. 

Because that is Martyn’s mission—if his god can’t tell him who he is, then Martyn will have to look somewhere else. When Martyn had stumbled into [**TOWN NAME**], the first thing he’d heard had been boasts of a bustling archive, with records stretching nearly two centuries. If anywhere he’s encountered so far can tell him about his god, it’ll be here. 

i will name the fake town later. it’s not important. all you need is brackets sometimes it keeps from breaking your writing Flow. anyway, lamplight time! im stuck on heliography so im writing smth a bit later that hits a few beats ive been meaning to include

dunno when this one will be finished or if ill finish this or heliography ch2 first, but hey, cool fic stuff!

[cryptosexologist]

absolutely fucking hilarious to me (aka i'm actually no joke mad whenever i think about it) that a "maligned" yuri bracket that as the creator admits started about lesser known or disliked femslash just about IMMEDIATELY derailed as soon as the creator allowed leniency for "oh well a lot of people seem under the impression that something is 'maligned' (synonyms: vilified, slandered, infamous) if its UNIVERSALLY FUCKING BELOVED by the fandom but the story itself gets in the way of it for reasons ranging from "author is a dipshit" (perhaps a valid reason to consider it maligned) to "its a fucking tragedy and the fact they can't just live happily is MEANT TO BE SEEN AS FUCKING SAD *YOU ARE THE DIPSHIT HERE*" so like, all these polls are just popularity anyway so who can say if "most popular out of a succession of lesser-known, shitty, not-shitty-but-people-act-like-it-is, etc" is any more meaningful than "literally just the most popular ship we put on the bracket. like you could've answered this without even doing the polls just go over the initial bracket and choose the most dedicated fanbase and extrapolate"" and now its just a succession of Farcille sweeping every single matchup despite the fact that i've never met a single fucking person worth caring about who actually dislikes it. like i assume the pervs who just write the usual isekai monster x innocent girl "fanart" (...did they even read it...?????? i kinda feel like they got maybe 2 volumes in lmao. fake fans) don't really care for it but who gives a shit about them they should die. its not unpopular in the slightest aside from *probably* i assume overexposure or the one sad little laios x marcille shipper sitting in the corner who doesn't simultaneously also ship farcille in that kinda wierd freudian-isn't-the-right-word way that makes my stomach churn. FUCK THESE SENTENCES BRO WHY DO I WRITE LIKETHIS ok i wrote ahead but didn't address a point bc i my skull turned off but- Farcille doesn't even get like, morality discoursed much??? Like theres always those ships out there which are popular but get picked apart for potential patterns of abuse or unhealthy behavior or if you *think* about it Adora and Catra were both raised by the same (nonconsentually adoptive) parental figure which can make it incest Which Is An Argument That I Struggle With Completely Disregarding Because Of The Subset Of Incest Shippers That Do In Fact Take It That Way (But As A Positive), y'know. that kinda shit. Not even getting into the cases where a ship is more unambiguously fucking bad on a morality standpoint fandom popular or not. I could use this opportunity to soapbox but I won't.

hell even some of the contestants that actually have some leg to stand on are still an ill fit - kyosaya is from Madoka, which means that while fans can feel whatever way they please there Is a certain malicious element to their existence which isn't just excusable as "part of the tragedy/conflict", but its STILL one of the two "heavy hitter" ships outta the original series's fanbase (i don't know dick all about magia record). HELL madohomu at least gets the "is there discourse about it being dysfunctional/abusive/one-or-the-other-involved-painted-as-a-predator" treatment, despite being like... THE relationship the series itself fucking circles around. idk maybe madohomu was in there and i didn't notice. still wouldn't really fit though (maybe back in 2014....)

anyways delia x jessie would belong on there more than like 90% of the bracket just for the "they're basically canon" sweep-kerfuffle (if they WERE in this bracket. lol lmao that'd be hilarious actually wonder who they lost to)

[magicalwarriorbattleroyale]

TY FOR TAKING PART :D

this was really fun for me, I know that the cast gets a good amount of votes on other polls but I also have seen quite a few people who voted solely based on things like "well Clover IS purple… AND has a hammer!" or "IDK who Val is but she's cute and black so" So I ddidn't know for sure how much ppl will participate lol. Plus I know the MWDH fanbase is still pretty small all things considered, and despite how arrogant I might act, inside my expectations are often a lot lower than I show on the outside lol. So seeing even more than like a hundred votes is always really cool.

Some of the battles were really surprising. I picked the round one match-ups on a mix of randomization and my better judgement on which characters I thought would be a fair match against. Although with less Crystal Warriors on the bracket, it did make it difficult to chose who Valerie would go up against LOL. I said a few times on my personal accounts that I wanted a final match up to be Clover up against Valerie or Zacharie. I felt that Zacharie is one of the more beloved characters and the possibility existed that they'd make it. I didn't think Zacharie actually would to be honest... I wasn't confident they could get past Val lol. But I really didn't expect her to sweep so HARD lmaooo. I also briefly forgot what kind of community I have been fostering, namely you people are GOOFY AS HELL!!! I did NAWT expect the frog to get as far as it did, And I thought Liam would at least die with dignity lmao. and I kind of feel bad for Ethan now. his second match was mean 😭... I 100% didn't think Liam would make it to the finals but since Liam vs Clover is the true rivals duo, i had to make sure the opportunity existed. They wouldn't want it any other way. If I had been 100% sure Alex was getting in, I'd have matched him with Liam instead at the start, but during the matching I had Alex's spot listed as "reserved" in case I ended up having Diana in his plac.

I feel like Val's mom against Clover in round 1 might seem silly to some but Val's mom is like, surprisingly popular lol. She had a fair shot imo, and honestly? She did pretty well. it's not like she was totally demolished. And I definitely made the correct choice to put Val opposite to Clover, I think if anyone would be a fair match it would be them for the finals. I think maybe the frog was the only other one who coulda done it, because you people are jokesters.

Anyways ill do more polls here since there are characters that didnt get in, and I'm sure the results will change as more episodes will release lmao. I'll also just use this as a general poll account so I can keep the main mwdh account clean, and I might post other magical girl polls here bc this is my account and I can do that :p

[championofravens]

So so so funny watching my relationship with Youtube change over the years. Don’t know how it was for other people in my age bracket but I was on Youtube the moment it hit. I was in 3rd or 4th grade going to my friend’s house for a play date to go on her dad’s computer to browse youtube. I watched people like Hannah Hart, Shane Dawson, Roosterteeth, Michael Buckley, Charlieissocoollike, Vlogbrothers, Lets Players like Pewdiepie and Markiplier when they were at 500k subs and still called Lets Players, on and on and on. Probably dozens I can’t even immediately recall all sectioned into little boxes based on the years I watched them. I went to the first Vidcon. And my career goals for a long time were Youtube based (not as a content creator but something back end- first an editor and then I wanted to be a PR agent if you can imagine).

Anyways, the years have been strange. I’ve felt the crushing disappointment time and time again of those I admired and respected and enjoyed the content of getting revealed to be disgusting bigots or to be sexual predators. Or they become these massive stars, huge companies, and I start to hate their content or just resent what they’ve become. And that’s already been a lot to grapple with, including my weird personal experience with the early days of Youtubers getting SnapChat and just... accepting a lot of pics from fans with no limitations or barriers and even encouraging ‘funny’ challenges of “haha its no pants friday, send me a SnapChat!!” That hasn’t exactly changed nowadays what with constant reveals of even major Hollywood/industry stars being stupid as fuck in Twitter DMs but it was still a really weird shift.

But now there’s another side of it which is the growing up part. I think everyone’s heard about Hank Green, part of Vlogbrothers and CrashCourse as well as author, getting cancer by now. The video has over 7 million views, which is kind of funny because I didn’t think that many people would give a shit. I hiccuped and cried through the whole video, feeling this strange dread even as Hank spoke of how high his chances of full recovery are and his relentless positivity shone through. Now I logged on this morning and saw Grace Helbig, a channel I watched in tandem with folk like Hannah Hart and Tyler Oakley over a decade ago, announcing she has breast cancer. And again, crying and feeling a hole open in my stomach even as she talks about her very high chances of recovery and there’s certainly no reason to begin feeling hopeless.

You just don’t get this with celebrities, not like this, at least not for me. We hear big news reports about stars being diagnosed with serious illnesses like cancer- or we don’t at all, like Chadwick Boseman. But on YouTube, you have the person wearing a face you’ve known for so long even if you haven’t touched their videos in years telling you personally what’s going on. And it feels so much more real. It also draws your attention much more sharply to time passing and aging. I’m very grateful to be currently stable in my handling of universal inevitabilities like that but y’know it doesn’t change the impact in the moment. As you watch these cool adults that held a position in your mind like a distant cousin suddenly announce these very serious concerns that crop up as you get older, it’s easy to get caught up in recognizing your own passage of time and really the unfairness of these things.

Immediately after watching Grace’s video I tabbed over to watch a more recent video from Hank about his journey going through cancer treatment, which has been... every video since his announcement, obviously. That is his life now. And I was surprised how much it soothed me, despite no major difference in Hank’s attitude and arguably with it being more obvious the effects of cancer are having on him like his chemo making him lose his hair. Hank talks in the video I’m watching about how the number one thing he and other cancer patients he polled on Twitter desired during their time of sickness was social interaction, hanging out, the presence of other people. And it hit me then that, for me at least, these videos were once that for me. And should I ever unfortunately become diagnosed with similar illnesses to Hank or Grace, these videos will be that for me tenfold. I haven’t consistently watched these two in forever but that switch in my brain that gave me that connection I once had to their channels flipped on again watching their videos after these announcements.

I’m growing up with so much mounting hatred for Youtube. As a platform, a company, but mostly nothing to do with that and everything to do with feeling like my youth was based on a really rotten core. More than TV, movies, Hollywood, anything, Youtube was my big media world until I was 18 and it felt like that was just all wasted time. Time spent giving my love and energy to creeps and money grubbers or to those I grew out of with a lingering bitter taste in my mouth. But in the wake of these tragic personal events being shared with me, I’m given a strange sense of comfort and hope that the ‘magic’ lives on in other ways. There is value in what I had growing up and the connections I made to these people online, and the value may have changed or waned over the years but I still reap the positive benefits in the most unlikely of ways. It feels selfish and strange to talk about my own personal security and joy in rediscovering these Youtube channels during their time of hardship but this is why they made these videos ostensibly.

Because the old cliche is true, the same line I heard in so so so so many videos growing up before a friendly face told a personal anecdote or bared their soul to an audience of millions: “Maybe someone out there needs to hear this.”

[colin-86sc2]

5/22/2023

hey mr. prospector, can i borrow your suv?? breakfast was forgotten in the fervor of taking a dog to the vet lunch was forgotten as i diagnosed the charger dinner was a chocolate chip waffle im probably going to get food later anyways thank goodness, i didnt have work today i woke up this morning and i was asked to take my dog to the vet to get a large growth of fat above her eye removed after that, i started doing some diag on the charger to figure out why im not seeing any sort of crank signal when i turn it over im pretty sure i need to move around the wires in the distributor, and hopefully ill get a signal so i can start actually working with that stuff i also got my subarus brake pedal separated from the bracket last night, so i can get that installed once the charger runs. which is seeming to be a ways a way right now i booted up enlisted for the first time in like, half a year, and have now gotten back into it man, i love the bolt action stuff i believe thats all for today, i have memory of golfdish and i dont know my age most of the time ehe golfdish

[handsome-girl-competition]

now that thats over i can finally share the competitors list! here's who made it into the competition:

Gideon Nav from The Locked Tomb Series

Rika from Whichever Pokemon Game That Was

Vi from Arcane (League design doesn't count, obviously)

Haruka Tenou/Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon

Rachel Lindt/Bitch from Worm

Yuu Kashima from Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Scorpia from She-Ra

Utena from Revolutionary Girl Utena

Undyne from Undertale

Susie from Deltarune

Noi from Dorohedoro

Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles

Haruhi Fujioka from Ourah High School Host Club

Beauregard Lionett from Critical Role (Campaign 2)

Han Sooyoung from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

Catra from She-Ra

Kaoru Seta from BanG Dream

Olivier Mira Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist

Quanxi from Chainsaw Man

Juri Arisugawa from Revolutionary Girl Utena

Kotoko Yuzuriha from MILGRAM

Eda Clawthorne from The Owl House

Mitsuki Koga (my specialest lil guy) from The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't A Guy At All

Bismuth from Steven Universe

Jolyne Cujoh from Jojo: Stone Ocean

Merrin from Fire Emblem Engage

Sevika from Arcane

Kira Nerys from One of Those Star Treks

Ermes Costello from I Think That Same Jojo?

Tao from Gokurakugai

Jasper from Steven Universe

Amanda O'Neil from Little Witch Academia

Maki Zenin from Jujutsu Kaisen (post-shibuya look... dreamy sigh)

Lady Maria from Bloodborne

Korra from The Legend of Korra

Pyrrha Dve from The Locked Tomb Series

Fu Hua from Honkai Impact 3rd (did you know i thought it was 3d until now for some reason? the more you know)

Reinhardt from Alchemy Stars

Rekka from Hi Fi Rush

Akira Kenjou from One of Those Pretty Cures

Lupe García from A League of Their Own

Ellen Ripley from Alien

Percival King from Epithet Erased

Adora from She-Ra

Shima Nishina from Kiss Him, Not Me!

Joan Watson from Elementary

Baiken from Guilty Gear

Anne Lister from Gentleman Jack

Cassandra Jones from Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Max Chapman from A League of Their Own

Gebura from Lobotomy Corporation/Project Moon

Sakura Oogami from Danganronpa

Zero from Final Fantasy XIV

Xena from Xena: Warrior Princess

Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road

Graham Eaton from But I'm A Cheerleader!

Tsubomi Kido from Kagerou Project

Lin Beifong from Legend of Korra

Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell

Villanelle from Killing Eve

Pearl from Steven Universe

Tain Hu from The Masquerade Series

Amaya from The Dragon Prince

Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4

[candlecovewiki]

good evening fellas and WELCOME TO THE CANDLE COVE SEXYMAN TOURNAMENT

i decided it would be funny as hell to see who would come out on top as the sexyman of candle cove so im doing a silly little tournament for it

right so because i Am currently taking classes i will not be able to run this like a normal bracket so what im gonna do is that ill do one poll each day basically, just so it’s less chaotic and also because tumblr hates it when i spam tags with posts 😔 round 1 has about….. 12 brackets and will most likely start tomorrow or wednesday probably somewhere around 12-1 pm EST. you’ll have a day to get your votes in :]

BUT ANYWAYS here’s our brackets for round one! the brackets will be randomly generated each round. round one’s brackets are as follows:

nicola vs thade

horace vs henric

boar vs dr mort

manbearpig vs poppy

sariah vs philip 

lilian vs milo

kurt vs red mary 

susan vs conea

earl vs percy

dr heartfelt vs calvery

skintaker vs schot

sunny vs hans 

[pastelwitchling]

I am having the shittiest week and I’ve been reading your fics because they’re comfort to me and I know you’re probably way busy but was wondering, if you get time and it’s not a bother, if you could write a rnm fic where the group realizes how important Alex is to them, each one, and the whole group starts acting different (getting him lunch, checking in, worrying about him, etc) and it confuses him so he finally ask what’s the deal and they tell him they wanted to be better at appreciating him?

***

               Alex first started to notice things were changed after his fever had cleared up.

               Usually he was good at hiding his illnesses, able to work through them on nothing but painkillers and a thermos filled with scalding tea, but this one had been bad. Bad enough for Ramos to notice, bad enough for Michael to rush home, bad enough that Alex couldn’t so much step out of bed let alone take care of himself. Michael hadn’t seemed to want to allow it anyway.

               Kyle had come by more than once to check on him, assure them that he didn’t need a hospital, which Alex was grateful for, and prescribed some strong medication to help ease his pain.

               “What’s doing this to him?” Michael had demanded at one point, and Kyle had shrugged, half-exasperated, half-exhausted.

               “What do you think? He’s taken on too much, especially for him. I know we all want to pretend Alex isn’t always in pain, but he is.” He’d sighed, shaking his head. “Sooner or later, being a hero catches up with you.”

               Alex had fallen asleep right afterwards at the time, the argument that he could handle it, that he wanted to do whatever he could to help Michael and his friends, already drifting away, forgotten just like the conversation.

               The next time he’d woken up to Michael lying in bed beside him, his fingers raking his hair back in that soothing way that made Alex want to curl up on his lap and go right back to sleep, it was to a clear head. The pain in his limbs had receded immensely, his breathing was coming out deep and steady, and his eyes didn’t feel like they were radiating heat anymore.

               Michael had checked his forehead and smiled so beautifully that Alex really did curl into him that time and let himself sleep for another few minutes. Then he got tired of lying in bed, absolutely sick of it actually, and managed to make it into the living room without any help. Michael draped a blanket over his shoulders that Alex insisted he didn’t need, and groaned when Michael started rushing around to turn on the TV for him, to make him food, to tuck him into another blanket.

               “Guerin, I’m fine,” he insisted, reaching out a hand for him. “All I need is you, will you please just sit here?”

               Michael blushed at the bluntness of his words, but Alex hadn’t been able to properly touch him in weeks, and even though he’d had him at his side the entire time, he still missed him like crazy. So when Michael sat down beside him, Alex wasted no time in throwing his blanket over Michael’s shoulders too, and resting his head on Michael’s shoulder, sneaking a hand under his shirt and hugging his waist and breathing him in, now that his sinuses weren’t clogged and he could actually smell again.

               Michael shifted a little underneath him so that he was all but bracketing Alex with his legs and Alex was resting on his chest.

               That was the last moment of peace Alex knew before things started to get weird. A knock came at the door not long into their movie, just when Alex was starting to feel really awake for the first time in forever, and Michael had yelled, “It’s open!”

               He had expected Kyle, maybe even one of his brothers or Isobel, but instead it was Liz, holding an honest-to-God gift basket.

               “Hey, handsome!” she grinned widely at the sight of Alex, setting the gift basket down before she bent down to squeeze him in a tight hug. “You’re awake! Feeling any better?”

               Alex just barely had time to look over at Michael, startled, before Liz had his face in her hands. “The color’s back in your cheeks, not your forehead, which is good. Hmm,” she pressed the back of her fingers to the side of his neck, “you’re still warm, but I think that’s just because of the blankets. No no, stay bundled up, the best thing for you right now is to sweat through the rest of it.”

               “Liz, would you please –” he trailed off, squirming away from her touch, embarrassed by her fussing. “What’re you doing? I’m fine!”

               “I know you are!” she scoffed. “You’re always fine, you’re so tough!”

Alex stared. “What?”

“Oh, look what I got you!” she unwrapped the gift basket and held up two large pomegranates. “Your favorite, right? I’ll just go chop them up for you, since it can get messy and all.”

“Wait, Liz –” he tried, but Liz had already disappeared into the kitchen and Alex was left talking to no one. He looked to Michael, confused. “What the hell was that?”

Another knock at the open door came, and then Maria walked in. “Hi! Oh, Alex, good, you’re up. You feeling any better?”

“Well, I –”

“Check it out, I came prepared.” She held up a Tupperware in one hand, a pizza in the other. “Margherita,” she smiled, pleased with herself, “your favorite! And I made you some of my famous roasted chicken with chili sauce! I’ll just go heat ‘em up for ya!”

“Maria –” he tried, but she, just like Liz, disappeared before he could stop her. He looked up at his boyfriend for some explanation. “Michael?”

“There he is!” Isobel suddenly walked in without knocking, her grin wide. Kyle was right behind her, his hands in his pockets as he shook his head at the ceiling. “There’s our hero!”

Alex pressed the base of his palm to his temple. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

“Are Ortecho and DeLuca cooking inside?” Isobel peered around to the kitchen door. “Good, I’ll go join them, I got you some Grade A Cajun shrimp which, trust me, is so spicy it’ll burn the fever right out of you! And then, you and I are gonna have some good old-fashioned boy talk, right? You and me, Manes, it’s a date!” And she pecked Kyle’s cheek and walked off too.

Michael looked completely unsurprised by anything that was going on. He brushed back Alex’s bangs, his smile soft. “You need anything? Water? More soup?”

Alex stared back, eyes widening. He caught Michael’s wrist and lowered his hand. “Did you not just see what I did?” He blinked, the possibility hitting him. His eyes flickered to Kyle. “I’m not hallucinating, am I? You’re really here?”

“Yeah, I am,” Kyle heaved a sigh as he sat down on Alex’s other side, swatting Michael’s leg away. He gave him an awkward smile. “And so’s the cavalry.”

“I don’t get it,” Alex said, straightening. “What’s wrong with everyone, why’re they acting so weird?”

“It’s weird for everyone to care about you?” Michael said quietly. He wasn’t looking at Alex.

“Caring is one thing,” Alex said bluntly, “doting on is another, I – I don’t like being fussed over, you know I don’t, and I’ve definitely never been fussed over by my friends.”

Michael met Alex’s eyes, and Alex was surprised to find actual anger. “But it’s okay for Kyle to fuss over you? We can’t but he can?”

“W-What?”

“For the hundredth time, Guerin,” Kyle said grimly, “I’m his doctor and his best friend, if I didn’t fuss over him when he was sick, I wouldn’t be doing my job as either.”

Alex watched them exchange glares, and he wondered what kind of conversations they’d been having while he was too sick to stay awake.

He gently touched Michael’s jaw, and Michael seemed to wake from whatever raging haze he was in. Alex took the chance to turn his head so that he could meet his eyes again. He shook his head, trying for a nervous smile, to show that he wasn’t angry or upset at all by what was happening, but confused and a little overwhelmed.

“What’d you do, pretty cowboy?”

All of Michael’s fury seemed to shatter away at the nickname, and he swallowed, one hand inching towards Alex’s waist.

“When you got sick . . .” he said hoarsely, “we realized it was because of us. Everything we put you through pushed you over the edge, Alex.”

“Whoa whoa,” Alex’s shoulders slumped. “Guerin, you didn’t make me sick.”

“I didn’t protect you from it either!”

“Okay, first of all,” Alex said, “I’m human, humans get fevers, it happens. And second, you’re the one that took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself, that sounds like protection to me.”

“Stop defending us,” Michael said through gritted teeth. “Stop pretending like we didn’t hurt you, like we didn’t keep forcing more than you could handle on you! We hurt you, Alex, don’t let us get away with it!”

“You could never hurt me!” Alex argued, taking Michael’s hands in his and not letting him go. “You give me something to fight for, Michael!”

“I don’t want you to fight anymore if it’ll kill you!”

Alex pursed his lips, studying him. Then, “You really think I’m that weak? That I can’t handle it?”

“I can’t handle it, Alex!” he snapped, his eyes glassy. “I can’t handle seeing you so sick that you can’t even pick your head up, I can’t handle knowing that it’s because of me! You’re not the weak one, Alex, I am!”

“Okay, okay, hey,” Alex tried, his voice soft as he pulled Michael in against him. He hugged his shoulders, reaching a hand through his curls. “Shh, it’s okay. Calm down, it’s okay.” He held Michael as he breathed shakily, and for the first time, he wondered how it must’ve been for Michael to see Alex lying in bed like the dead, unable to talk to him, unable to even open his eyes half the time. It was no wonder he freaked out.

He waited until Michael’s breaths steadied, running a hand up and down his back, then he whispered into his hair, “Listen to me, Michael. I’ve waited years to have you and I finally do. I’m not going to let anything take me away from you.”

“I don’t want you to keep saying yes,” Michael croaked, “because you’re worried that I won’t love you if you say no.” Alex hugged him tighter, the words hitting closer to home than he would’ve liked. “We didn’t even think about what might happen to you, Alex, we just wanted you to fix it.” His voice cracked. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shh,” Alex pressed a kiss to his crown and breathed deeply into his curls. “Listen . . . I . . .” He shut his eyes and relented, “Fine, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll run the big things by you. If you’re uncomfortable with me taking it on . . . I won’t.” Michael looked up, hopeful, and Alex reiterated, “The big things, Guerin, I can handle most things though.”

“Still,” Kyle scoffed behind him. “That’ll be something to see.”

Michael grabbed fistfuls of Alex’s shirt, looking up at him like he was some kind of treasure. “Y-You’ll really talk to me about it? You’ll say no?”

Alex’s eyes softened. “I’d do anything for you, Michael. Anything.”

Michael’s lower lip trembled and he tilted his chin up to kiss Alex, but Alex turned away at the last second. “You can’t, I’m sick!”

“I don’t care,” Michael breathed, turning Alex’s face and kissing his lips. At least it was quick, so Alex didn’t even have time to remind himself that Michael couldn’t get sick anyway.

As soon as they pulled away, Alex heard Liz and Maria talking about adding pomegranates to the chicken and he groaned. “Can you call off the guilt-cooking now?”

Michael grinned, nuzzling Alex’s neck. “Nah,” he murmured. “I think you’re owed a good meal, Private.”

Kyle sighed and stood. “I’ll go keep them from burning the kitchen down.”