#at least they also have the poptarts with them

[rainbow-arrow]

some news: i survived

some other news: people really don’t expect the salt to be with the other spices

[allyheart707]

WOW THIS TOOK SO LONG- But it was worth it! Also, anatomy was NOT my friend during this. XD

SO here is a stack of all of the Leos (from comics, at least) that inspired me to make my own comic. They are actually stacked in the order I found them! Thank you all for creating such unique and amazing comics and being amazing! I tried to get all the Leo's color pallets accurate to the ones used in their respective comics! Cass Apocalyptic series by @somerandomdudelmao For being the comic artist that got me into tmnt in the first place. Your AU is not only the base of my love of TMNT, but also one of the biggest supports for this entire fandom- so, naturally, he is the base of this stack!

2 Arms Left by @intotheelliwoods Sweet bean Poptart is next. An absolute gem of a comic! Also... beetle saga is one of the few comics that made me bust out laughing. I loved that SO much.

Gemini by @tangledinink Your art style. Oh my gosh, I cannot get enough! And the amount of amazing comics under your belt? You amaze me.

Separated Leo AU by @dianagj-art I started reading your comic shortly after I got REALLY into TMNT and your comic has been the BIGGEST inspiration on my comic. I love your murder gremlin so much. (also yes, One is bragging that he is above Gemini)

Tentative Devotee by @s0fti3w1tch Omg omg your artstyle? SO SQUSHY. I love your Leo's design and the idea is soooo cute!

Life Mission: Save My Brothers by @daedelweiss Wow. Just wow. This comic is so well put together and professional looking it still impresses me. I was there for the premier of the trailer and I couldn't stop gushing about it all night!

Empyrean Weeping by @cupcakeslushie Ohhhh I am a sucker for angst and you DELIVERED. Your Donnie design is still one of my absolute favorites. I found your comic VERY late, but I am SO glad I did!

Kid Leo AU by @angelpuns Loved your comic so much when I found it- you draw all the turtles so adorably! I also am having so much fun in the collab meeting everyone, and I cannot thank you enough for letting me join!

And, finally, Little Subjects AU by ME! :D

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[mikimakiboo]

Two for the price of one

Small drabble for @ancha-aus 's new au ! Double Noot ! Or as I like to call it, Noot² ! :D

( part 1 by ancha, read it before reading this one maybe- )

Very short but I just wanted to make a little something because I find the concept particularly funny :')

I didn't go too deep into the lore since the story didn't really start yet, I just did the "encounter" with the gang so that's why it is INCREDIBLY short like fr and also because I underestimated how tired I am

Quick summary: Corrupt gets separated from Nightmare (Passive Nightmare, who is still six years old), everyone is confused

Tw: slight mention of miscarriage and pregnancy denial (ik it's weird lmao but dw there is context)

How did this happen ? How did they end up here ? Like this ? How did they end up with a child on their couch when they went out to fight the Star Sanses ?

None of them was speaking, just looking at the little skeleton with lavender eyelights on their couch, the little skeleton looking terrified. They couldn't blame him, who wouldn't be after all ? He appeared.. no, came out of Corrupt, in the middle of a battle field, almost got shot with an arrow, was brought into a new place and was now surrounded by five skeletons: one with four massive tentacles, one with empty sockets and black tar leaking from them, one with a big glowing red eye and a hole in his skull, one you couldn't see his face apart from two piercing mismatched eyelights, and one with a knife almost as big as the child. He had every right to be terrified.

Killer was the one to break the silence first.

- Sooooo... Poptart ?

Corrupt looked up after a few seconds, realizing that Killer was talking to him when he saw everyone's gaze locking on him. His gang, or mates as they called each other, didn't like the name Corrupt, it had a bad connotation, one that meant that he was inherently bad, that there wasn't any good in him, which, to them, was completely false, so as they started dating they also started giving him nicknames, two that came back very often were Poptart and Sweetpie. Corrupt struggled to get used to it, being more accustomed to being insulted, just like the villagers always did. But did they insult him ? They insulted Nightmare, they insulted that little child sitting in front of him, but he wasn't Nightmare, so was he really insulted ? It didn't matter, Dream insulted him too after all, and he wasn't aiming these insults at Nightmare, but at him.

He looked at Killer, waiting for him to say whatever he had in mind.

- Why didn't you tell us you were pregnant ? Or at least tell Horror or Dust cause judging by the kid's eyelights it was one of them who got you pregnant, cause blue and red makes purple so...

Saying that Corrupt was taken aback would have been an understatement, and it didn't help that they were all staring at him, waiting for him to confirm what Killer said. The child, despite still being tensed, was visibly confused as well, but not for the same reason, because he was pretty sure he wasn't anybody's kid, and especially their kid. He would have remembered it.

- I wasn't pregnant.

Corrupt answered after a moment, making Killer frown, doubting the statement.

- Isn't that called a pregnancy denial ? I mean we didn't see you gain weight either so...

Cross asked, a little unsure of how to tackle the subject, he never had to deal with a pregnant monster before, and maybe denials were a sensitive subject, he didn't want to upset his mate by being too straight forward.

Corrupt looked at them, disconcerted.

- I wasn't pregnant, I have never been pregnant, Nightmare was.. I thought.. he was supposed to be dead !

He argued, but he only gained a compassionate look from his mates. Killer put a hand on his shoulder, looking way more serious than he was accustomed to, and he heard Cross mumble Nightmare's name.

- It's okay Poptart, you could have told us you thought you had a miscarriage, we would have supported you, you know..

Horror nodded from behind Killer, and Corrupt knew Dust thought the same even without looking at him.

- For God's sake Killer, I was not pregnant !

He claimed again, wanting to end this nonsense before it got uncontrollable. Killer was about to respond when they heard a sob. They all turned in sync, and saw the child, Nightmare, with tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn't like the yelling, it brought back too many bad memories, memories he would have preferred to forget. Corrupt shrugged to get Killer's hand off of his shoulder and went to the child, kneeling to be on the same level as him, and carefully wiped his tears with his thumb. Nightmare flinched, backing against the couch's case, but he didn't chase Corrupt's hand away.

- Hey I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled.. we're not gonna hurt you, you're safe here, you don't have to be scared..

Corrupt apologized, speaking with a soft tone to try and sooth the little one.

Nightmare looked at the goopy skeleton in front of him, still sniffling, but, somehow, he had a vague sense of déjà vu... something in him told him he had already heard those words, already felt this magic... the four white skeletons were new, that he was sure, but this black one, he was familiar...

- If you weren't pregnant... then where does he come from ?

Dust asked, sitting on the other couch, his legs still being sore from the fight. Horror had joined him, Killer and Cross were still standing.

Corrupt sighed, standing up too but staying next to the child who was now only staring at him, trying to remember where he saw him.

- That's Nightmare, the.. the true guardian of negativity, the one who allowed me to come to life by eating the apples. He started to explain as simply as he could. I.. thought he had died in the process, but turns out he was still there, just.. dormant, and invisible..

- But why show up now ?

Killer asked.

- I.. honestly, I don't know, but he's here now, and it's better he stays here.

Corrupt answered. Nightmare frowned, looking at the adult. He gave him life by eating the apples ? He did remember eating the apples from his tree, he remembered the villagers and the pitchforks, he remembered someone told him to let go when he took his first bite, they told him they would protect him, but he had to give up his mind and body. At that time, Nightmare didn't think much, he was already so scared, he would have done anything for someone to fight for him, to protect him, and when he heard this voice, he knew it was his only way out, and he gave up everything, his vision fading to black as he felt everything become numb. This skeleton had the same voice, and he was emanating negativity, a pure one, the same that emanated from his apples. Was he the voice ? He seemed so big... not as big as the other skeletons, but much bigger than him, especially with those tentacles coming from his back. Nightmare remembered his back hurting a lot more than the rest of his body, was it because of the tentacles ? They seemed to be heavy... he slowly reached out to the one that was the closest to him, putting his hand on the appendage, it was surprisingly soft and a little cold too... he felt the negativity swarm up around his hand, resonating with his own...

Corrupt looked down when he felt the child touch his tentacle. He didn't move it, letting him discover it as he pleased.

- So.. we're just gonna take care of a kid now ? Not that I want to abandon him, I sure don't, but.. are we qualified to do that ?

Cross hesitantly asked, tugging on his jacket. This castle was full of dangerous things for a child, and they weren't the most welcoming monsters either, even if he knew no one would hurt Nightmare, maybe he would be better with someone more qualified, like a Toriel or even an Asgore, monsters who had the parental instinct in their codes...

- We'll have to be..

Horror quietly said, looking at the little child on the couch, he had the same amazement in his eyes when looking at the tentacle that his brother always had before the famine took hold of everything...

Killer and Dust shared a look, not sure that they could raise a child. They raised their brother, but it ended up... pretty badly, they weren't sure they could raise someone properly after that. Cross was different, sure he killed his brother too, but he lived through so many different timelines, so many in which he was a good brother, in which he actually was caring until the end, he could manage to raise a child if he wanted to, if he trusted himself enough to do so, but them ? They would probably need to keep their distance, at least for a moment, at least until the kid started to learn how to fight back.

- I trust you all to look out for him, every one of you.

Corrupt assured, looking at his two mates from whom he had felt a peak of negativity. He knew what they were thinking about, but he also knew they wouldn't be a threat for the child, the simple fact that they felt apprehension from the thought of doing so alone was enough proof for him.

- For now he needs a bath, he said, Nightmare's bones and clothes being stained from the goop, I'll take care of it. Killer, you can go with Cross in Littletale and gather some clothes for him. Be careful not to be seen, we don't want the stars to know about that.

Killer nodded after a brief look to the child, and him and Cross disappeared in a portal, going to complete their mission.

- What about us ?

Dust asked.

- Horror can go cook dinner, with an extra dish, and you go to the infirmary and heal yourself, don't think I didn't notice you couldn't move your arm.

Dust didn't respond, only looking down in shame, he thought he hid it well...

Corrupt sighed, turning his attention to the little skeleton once they were alone. Nightmare had looked up when Cross opened the portal for him and Killer to leave, clenching on the tentacle, and was now staring at Corrupt, alert.

- Who... who are they... ?

The child hesitantly asked in a whisper, his voice quiet as he hadn't used it in five hundred years. He already knew who Corrupt was, he said it, but who were the others ? Were they the surviving villagers ? Would they try to finish the job ? What did they want from him ? Why bring him back with them ? Surely it couldn't be good, it has never been good when someone wanted him to stay somewhere...

- They are my... my partners, they have been working with me for many years, they won't harm you, I trust them. You can trust them, too, and if anything, I'll be here to protect you.

He tried to explain as simply as he could. He felt Nightmare relax a little, even if he could still feel his fear deep inside his soul, the child seemed to believe him, maybe because his feelings were clear and not tainted with mischief or bad intentions, or because Nightmare remembered who he was and knew he could at least rely on him a little.

Corrupt knew Nightmare wouldn't trust them straight from the beginning, but if he at least believed they wouldn't hurt him, then it was a good start, because now that he was here, Corrupt would never let him go out. He needed to protect him, he swore to him that he would protect him from the very moment he came to life, it was his whole purpose.

He wouldn't fail.

[goodboydummy]

I’m gonna try and verbalize this but so, there’s something so special about the characterization in Haikyuu

I have never seen a fandom so completely united in the characterizations of characters than in the Haikyuu fandom. I’m saying,

If I make a statement about a HQ character that is not explicitly stated in the series, but I’m basing this statement entirely on established characterization FROM the source material, I can GUARANTEE, no matter how vague or random or unrelated to anything from canon the statement is, there will be someone if not multiple people who look at the statement and nod their heads in complete agreement.

An example: I think Oikawa would LOVE lil Nas Xs album Montero. This is not something I feel like I’m pulling from my ass. I genuinely feel like I can look at canon Oikawa and make the logical leap to believing he would like Industry Baby

And in general, of alllll the fandoms I’ve been in, I can say that I’ve seen the LEAST mischaracterization in the HQ fandom. 9 times out of 10, when I read a fic or a headcanon about any Haikyuu character, I nod my head and I think “yep. That would definitely happen to Akaashi” or “that’s exactly what Kenma would do in this situation.”

It feels like such a testament to Furudate’s INCREDIBLE writing of these characters that, despite not actually knowing that much about each of them??? (WE LITERALLY BARELY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEIR LIVES OUTSIDE OF VOLLEYBALL CLUB) I still feel like I KNOW Fukunaga. Or Aone. Or Hoshiumi. Characters who genuinely don’t have much ‘screentime’

Not only do I feel like I know them, but that they are so easy to know and to understand that anyone who has read or watched Haikyuu can come up with the same or similar ideas about their characterizations

It’s the complete opposite of the “Thor likes poptarts” characterization from Marvel fandom.

Each Haikyuu character is so complete and feels so REAL that it’s so incredibly easy to extrapolate more information about them that also feels real. And that aspect is part of what makes Haikyuu so good, and so so so fun to explore in fandom space

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. I love Haikyuu.

[heartofwritiing]

Kiss me (beneath the milky twilight)

paring: musicanbur x fem!reader

summary: you're the backup singer for lovejoy, the fans don’t know you and wilbur are together, but one duet changes that.

authors note: trying to practice dialogue, so sorry if it is a little wired and doesn’t make sense idk how to write good conversation lmao, also i thought this idea was cute hope you guys like it :)

warnings: short, a make-out on stage, fluff, unedited!

“Okay, someone ate the last poptart this morning on the bus, fess up, who was it?”

Mark, who was twirling his drum stick a few times questioned amongst the group as you and the rest of lovejoy stood in a circle backstage minus Wilbur; who was still asleep in his dressing room. Pre-show naps were a ritual for him now.

Being on tour was an experience to say the least. You never thought you’d be sharing a small space with four grown men, but here you were living on a tour bus for the next four months with them. Most days it wasn’t complete chaos, you all had your respective bunks and areas but a lot of times you thought you’d somehow died and were sent to purgatory until whoever decided to send you to actual hell.

“I don’t know but I have a stash in the bus so I know it’s not me,” you raise your hands up in innocence.

“Why do you get your own secret stash?” Mark frowns.

Wilbur liked to spoil you with snacks to hide around the bus so the other boys wouldn’t find them just to tease them, All in good fun of course.

“Perks of being the lead singer’s girlfriend,” you smirk with your chin held high.

“Im convinced now that you’re the pop tart thief,” Joe added, thumb and pointer finger fiddling with the tuning pegs on his guitar while standing off to the side. “I know all the little hiding spots on the bus and I haven’t seen any secret stash of pop tarts anywhere,”

“That was completely sus of you to say, now i think it was you!” you pointed.

Stupid moments like this made up for all the times you got annoyed with them. Though you loved them all to death they drove you absolutely insane.

“So where’s your secret stash then?”

“Ill never tell, you thief.”

A pair of arms suddenly came to snake around your waist and pull you further back until a head rest on your shoulder. A very sleepy Wilbur yawned and pressed a tender kiss to your shoulder. You smiled sinking back into your lovers arms and reached your hand up to pet his soft curls. Almost instantly he hummed and it mimicked a cats pur.

“What are you guys arguing about now?” he mumbled against your shirt.

“I wouldn’t say we’re arguing, just pointing blame for whoever stole the last pop tart this morning,” you explain.

“It was probably Ash,” Joe quips. Ash looks offended with his arms raise in confusion.

“Oh no, that was me,” Wilbur states nonchalantly.

“WHAT?!” The group erupted into protests.

“I was hungry,” Wilbur shrugs. “we can afford more guys.”

“very true,” you piped.

“well i guess this solves the great pop tart thief mystery,” Mark shrugs.

“Case closed.” you remark.

Soon the argument dissolved, and everyone spoke amongst themselves. You rocked with Wilbur side to side as you hummed no tune in particular as you leaned against him.

“How was your nap honey?” you asked.

“lonely,” he states. “I missed you,”

Your heart jumps at his sentiment. It had only been a few hours since you both woke up tangled in each other’s limbs, maneuvering out of the small bunk trying not to roll out and fall. Still, you missed him when he wasn’t around too.

“I missed you too,” you brought his hand up to your lips and gave it a kiss before placing it back down against your waist.

“you still wanna go through with tonight?”

You knew what he was referring to. Wilbur had come to you with the idea of you both singing a duet on stage at one of the gigs. At first you weren’t so sure, it was his bands time to shine and you didn’t want to take away from that. You’re the back up singer for Wilbur, you felt out of place trying to share the spotlight. After some convincing; more like brain washing you with his puppy dog eyes, you eventually caved and agreed to do it.

Now that it was so close to the performance, the nerves in your body weren’t going away. You had never really been front and center on stage before. Always in the back round hidden in the stage lights. So the thought of being in-front of a crowd of a thousand people staring at you, probably waiting for you to possibly mess up, was fucking you up in the brain just a bit.

Wilbur could practically feel how tense you suddenly got and perked his head up and looked at your face with a slightly worried expression.

“We don’t have to if you’re not ready darling,”

“No, I’ll be fine,” you shook your head. “I wanna do this with you, It’ll be fun.”

Your smile didn’t seem to convince him. He didn’t want to push you into anything but, he could sense how anxious you had seemed the past couple of days. One word from you and he would cancel the whole show if you asked. which of course was very silly of him.

You were determined to get over this fear and just go with it. With one last final hug you both pulled apart and began getting prepared for the show in an hour.

The show was so explosive. The energy of the crowed was strong tonight, it made your adrenaline buzz with excitement. You had almost completely forgotten about your nerves when you stepped onto that stage.

The band had just finished One Day and cheers and screams rang out through the venue. You watched as Wilbur reached down to grab the towel sat beside his mic stand and whip his brow clean from sweat. He threw the towel back down and leaned into the microphone.

Wilbur had told you after One Day was the time slot you had to sing the duet with him.

“Alright, so we have something special planned,” Wilbur spoke. “I wanna welcome to the front of the stage Y/N, my incredible backing vocalist!”

Cheers rang out for you as you stepped center stage into the light clutching your microphone. You smiled and wave at the crowd shakily, you could practically feel your heartbeat out of your chest.

“Were gonna play a song for you, and I need you guys to sing the lyrics if you know them, and be nice to Y/N, shes super nervous,”

A chorus of ‘awes’ rang out from the crowd and you blushed bashfully as you heard a bunch of various shouts of support.

“Thanks Will,” you playfully roll your eyes at him revealing your secret.

The song you had chosen was Kiss Me by Sixpence Non the Richer, one of your favorites. The opening chords rang out as Joe began the melody. Soon, Mark kicked in the drums and you were bobbing your head to the beat.

You glanced over at Wilbur and saw a smile on his lips as he began playing as well. He looked over at you and saw the panic glossing over your eyes in the light. Somehow it made you forget everything once you connected eyes.

Look at me. he mouthed. just keep your eyes on me.

You took a deep breath and began to sing the lyrics, keeping your eyes locked with Wilbur. Somehow it made you forget everything around you and be in the moment with him.

Kiss me out of the bearded barley

Nightly, beside the green, green grass

Wilbur saw how stiff you were, barely moving your limbs. In an attempt to get you to be more comfortable he moved towards you while continuing to play.

Swing, swing, swing the spinning step

You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress, oh

He leaned forward until he was practically kissing your mic. Shocked at the close proximity you kept your composure as you both sang the chorus of the song in harmony.

Kiss me beneath the milky twilight

Lead me out on the moonlit floor

staring deeply into each others eyes nothing else seemed to matter. The pit in your stomach making your knees weak with the look in his eyes as they flickered down to your own lips as he sang.

You rested your left hand on his bicep, the fabric of his silky black button up grounding you before you got too light headed.

Lift your open hand, strike up the band

And make the fireflies dance, silver moon's sparkling

So kiss me

You broke apart and suddenly felt weightless. You danced around the stage as Wilbur watched you with awe and adoration. Your cheeks were hot feeling his eyes on you the entire time. You sang the next line;

Kiss me down by the broken tree house

Swing me upon its hanging tire

Bring, bring, bring your flowered hat

You moved towards Wilbur and he turned to wiggle his hips to the beat. Trying so hard to hold back a laugh, you copied his movements. You couldn’t wait to see all the videos on your timeline the next day.

leaned against his side and began singing together once more;

We'll take the trail marked on your father's map

Kiss me beneath the milky twilight

Lead me out on the moonlit floor

Lift your open hand, strike up the band

And make the fireflies dance, silver moon's sparkling

So kiss me

You dance around the stage again feeling yourself in the moment as the last notes rang out. You didn’t even process the cheers and screams as you felt a pair of hands cup your cheeks and press their lips against yours.

Your eye’s opened in shock to see Wilbur was the one who pulled you into a kiss. On stage. in front of a whole crowd of his fans. Fuck it, you thought, and melted into his touch. His lips moved against yours softly and you could feel your skin set aflame.

Your arms looped around his middle and pulled him closer to you. Hours could have passed and you could’ve kept kissing him, but eventually you pulled away for the lack of oxygen in your lungs. Chocolate eyes peered down at you with such love you had ever felt. Wide smiles broke the two of you into infectious giggles you could barely hear over the whole crowd of people screaming all around you.

Wilbur took your hand and walked back over to his mic. All your friends were cheering you on as well, Causing you to blush harder at all the attention on you but it didn’t matter anymore.

“Well, that was a heat of the moment sort of thing guys, sorry about that,” his giggle echoing through the venue speakers, everyone ‘wooed’ in response. “Had to take my moment, y’know?”

Wilbur gazed at you out of the corner of his eye to see your bashful state. Squeezing your hand he said one last thing to the crowd before he had to move onto the next song on their line up.

“Everyone please give it up for my beautiful, wonderful, talented, girlfriend!”

You were most certainly redder than a cherry at this point. The crowd was loving every second of it. Hiding your face in Wilbur's shoulder from his side, he kisses your forehead before having to send you back over to your place on stage. You very certain your twitter feed will be insane the next day.

It wasn’t long before the next song started up and you were dancing along with Leandra. Wilbur gave you one final glance behind him and you blew him a kiss to which he beamed at you before he turned forward to continue on with the show.

-

taglist: @trashcanduck @merakiwi @addxms @ax-y10 @scenefaez @joviepog

let me know if you wanna be added or removed! :)

[proudproship]

I always see the argument against lolisho that antis have of "well its illegal in other countries so you can get arrested for it there and it is wrong"

1. Not everyone lives where you do. Guess what, I'm from the USA! And Little Timmy from Europe™️ is from, guess where, Europe!

2. Homosexuality is illegal in other countries as well! Am I committing a crime for doing something legal and not "morally wrong" in my country?

"Well even if it's not illegal it's still wrong!!"

Opinions are just opinions. Keep it that way. What's right for me might be wrong for you, and what's wrong for me might be right for you.

Also, something can be morally okay but still illegal. Stealing isn't always morally wrong, but it is illegal (in my country, at least)

What if a poor parent stole bread for their starving kids? Last time I checked, it's not bad to want to feed your kids. Eat the rich, btw.

Even if I was a starving shop owner, I'd be completely fine if someone stole my products for the sake of a loved one's health. I'd rather lose $2 than two kids.

Also another thing that pisses me off is when antis say ANYTHING regarding the AOC.

Guess what antis, Scott Pilgrim isn't a "bad person," he lives in Canada and his relationship is legal.

Plus, I personally think the AOC should be RAISED. I think it should globally be 25, or at least 20.

But I'm not gonna try to tear apart relationships because they're doing something outside of what I think is wrong.

Because it may not be wrong for them.

And it's not okay to assume.

Please. Normalize minding your own business. I beg of you. Please.

Oh btw I thought of literally all of this at 3 am watching markiplier and eating a poptart while drawing fnaf yaoi 😇

The intelligence I gain via autism is astounding

[qwuilty]

Hiii ive been playing roblox games recently and ive seen some very nice unpleasant from regretevator designs & there's a more specific idea i had in mind for them so fuck it im throwing my hat in the ring, random headcanons below

I imagine Unpleasant as like not really actively malicious however she has a remarkable talent for pissing everyone off and due to the elevator's infinitely repeating nature everyone has eventually gotten sick of him. Rolls nat 1s on every single social interaction ever. Guy who is like not really completely awful but deeply uncomfortable to be around for reasons you can't quite explain besides just being kind of rude.

Mostly non-verbal and mute like in canon, in context of the gradient form i imagine it can speak through some way of projection but in human form it's mostly sign language unless they really feel comfortable talking. Stares a lot though.

Thinks Infected is her friend and messes with him 'as a joke' because he thinks he's in on it. Infected is not and hates it immensely.

Absorbs information about modern things from the elevator because Infected's apartment is permanently stuck in the past, mostly from people in it or things from other floors. Xer sense of humor is always just a bit dated and behind what's currently funny, though to Infected it's utter nonsense as it's a bunch of garbage memes that haven't really been invented yet.

Not a fan of like owning cats but does find them fairly cute enough and unfortunately is one of those people who tries to chase them down to hold them. Tried to play with Poptart and ended up absorbing them and was like

Has not and refuses to tell Infected what happened. Also refuses to admit he broke her skateboard because Unpleasant tried to use it and ate massive dirt and broke it clean in half. Master of the "if i just say nothing maybe he'll forget".

All pronouns like in canon and genderfluid, doesn't really change much presentation wise though. I do think it would be funny if the gradient shifted a little though and that was it.

Can and would cheat at games, maybe not through actual hacking (except some garbage cheat clients xe put on Infected's computer) but through absolute unsportsmanlike behavior.

Loves technology and can be mostly distracted by stuff like phones, tablets, or computers. Unfortunately does not use headphones and instead will listen to it on speaker if you don't tell him off about it.

Can kind of just appear in places people would least want to see them. Mostly uncontrolled but always returns back to Infected's apartment.

That's all i have thank you for reading

[intotheelliwoods]

@notjustdragonspages

---

Defo the robo hand fidgets! Sprout fidgeting with his own prosthetic hand whenever he is nervous, scared, or uncomfortable in any form! Usually includes squeezing his flesh hand with the robo one, picking underneath and around the finger joints especially, or just holding the hands together and rubbing them. Something something the arm in general is just a massive comfort for him and he enjoys feeling it there

Though this also extends to Poptart, at least in my brain since it was never shown directly in the comic before I took sprouts arm haha. Poptart would also enjoy taking sprouts robot hand and fidgeting with it in some way if the hand was not occupied. Something something wanted to get used to what the metal would feel like since he would soon get one

---

The mixed fruit one :)

@friendlyneighborhoodterrapin

---

Theres two kinds of Poptart keychain owners-

---

EEe I am happy you are excited baha, def is helping my confidence for this! :) Apologies I may have to cut the buttons though by the looks of that poll since I know you were looking forward to those- but I may come back to them in the future!

@luckylazylurker

---

Currently, 46! As voted on by this no context poll!

---

Yes the Casey in that timeline is also grown up! I have a tiny plotline about this in my head but I am unsure if it will make it to comic form, but to put it short he left the main base to explore what was left of its world

@tinydragon4001

---

ASHDJKNSDFJKN!!!!!! !!@! @!28*!*!*#!@*&@#*!!!!! @karmacomesaround please take care of keychain poptart <3 hes very sensitive and like 60% of other potential buyers want to be mean to him :(

[tehb3stsk4t3revr]

Got inspired by a post I saw this morning so here's literally 2 entire pages of headcanons comparing Infected and Kasper. Fair warning: It dips into talk of symptoms I imagine he'd have and the whole Poptart situation.

[A lot of which assume he'd have like. Actual biological needs instead of being Video Game-y, which seems to be sort of a grey area in-game anyway...]

Kasper was already kind of stupid so honestly not much is different on that front. Average 2010s gamer dudebro sort of deal. Although Infected has a bit more 'what kind of animal is the pink panther?' in him than Kasper.

Infected has next to no impulse control, leading to him doing things he shouldn't and speaking without thinking pretty much constantly.

Infected has balance issues that Kasper didn’t due to inner ear inflammation from the infection. He can’t really do anything on a skateboard anymore besides just stand there or go in a straight line. He can and will find a way to trip on flat ground.

He's convinced he still rules at it, though.

The inflammation has also made his hearing kind of shit. (The only person he can hear with perfect clarity is Folly, as she probably speaks directly into people’s minds or something lol.)

Infected loves soda and drinks basically only that. Boy who was born with kidney stones <3

The neurotoxin in his favorite soda was a deeply unreasonable amount of aspartame (and other chemicals. For fun! <3). Not being able to drink it anymore has somewhat improved his balance issues and memory, but he still misses how it tasted (it probably tasted like what you'd get if you boiled down an entire 2 liter of diet coke until it's barely a liquid then filled an 8 ounce soda can with that. Dude’s tastebuds and liver are Fucked).

Kasper had a fairly similar way of talking to Infected, minus the 1337. ("Sweet parteh trickz dud!11")

Infected is in constant pain. Headaches, body aches, sore throat, can't breathe well, burning skin, heavy eyes, nausea that won't go away, sniffles, random nerve pain, probably other shit. He barely notices it anymore unless someone asks how he's feeling. He doesn't have much energy to spare. He would come across as significantly more hyper/manic than how Kasper used to be if not for this.

He doesn't put any of the energy he has left towards cleaning. Kasper could deal with a little mess, but still picked stuff up when it got ugly. Lampert was also willing to help when he visited. Now Infected is too tired and unfocused to pick anything up most of the time, and Lampert refuses to set foot in the apartment complex until Kasper is better. Infected has started throwing garbage off the balcony when it gets in the way too much. It's kinda fun!

Infected occasionally dissociates. Finds later that he's already talked to someone about something and just repeated himself, bought something already and now he has two, spent hours on his computer without remembering a single thing he looked at, or already met someone he thought he hadn't seen before.

It has actually been explained to Infected before that Kasper is his name. This just started an argument and the topic was dropped forever from that point forward.

Infected is deeply stressed out by seeing his own face for reasons he can't communicate, so he avoids looking at it as much as possible. He used to have a mirror in his apartment but he threw it off the balcony in a fit of rage one night, then covered the blank space where it used to be with a poster. Same thing with ripping Kasper’s face off of the picture on his desk. Any photos of him that are on his PC have either been sent to the recycle bin or cropped so that his face isn’t in them. He's completely fine looking at drawings of himself though. That's definitely him.

When left to his own devices, Infected's diet is… Inconsistent. He will forget to eat for long periods of time then binge when the hunger pangs finally get so annoying that he can't ignore them anymore. He's at least sort of hydrated because there's usually a six pack of soda on his desk or by the couch, but unless someone on the elevator is feeling generous he doesn't remember on his own very often.

Kasper was very comfortable being physically affectionate with people and would be happy to cuddle or lay on a friend's lap if they were cool with that. Infected is even more touchy and would be clingy if he had chances to be, but due to his extremely obvious contagious disease nobody lets him get close. He is incredibly touch-starved and would probably get emotional if someone hugged him or even just sympathetically rubbed his back now.

 Kasper was alright at resisting the urge, but Infected has picked at every scab he's ever gotten, and he ends up with a Lot. He will pick at them until the damage is worse than the initial injury unless someone stops him/tells him to put a bandage over it.

Kasper would bite his nails to keep them short and pick his nose sometimes but Infected's nails are completely trashed. Some of them have scabbed over or still-bleeding cuticles and hangnails because he chews and picks at those too.

All of the contact with his spit has caused his fingernail textures to semi-permanently unload. You'd think they were painted if you didn't know why they looked like that.

Nosebleeds from his nasal cavity getting torn up from all the fussing are not unheard of and yet he's gonna keep doing it.

Constantly drooling when he's not talking. Some of it is post-nasal drip. Sometimes he remembers to wipe it off on his arm, but most of the time it just ends up on the floor/running down his face and soaking into the neckline of his shirt. Or sprayed all over the walls/someone's face when he sneezes.

Kasper used to keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in his pocket to help Lampert feel more comfortable. He stopped doing that forever ago after he got sick. (You know how rabies does a bunch of shit to animals to make them better disease vectors, including to their brains? Yeah, something like that).

On some level he knows he's sick. Would be more stressed out about it but the infection has repressed his ability to care (and the part of him that’s still aware of it is probably also heavily in denial). This has affected other aspects of his emotional range, causing it to come across as unusually flat, especially to those who knew Kasper.

Infected is scared that if he’s taken to a doctor’s office they’ll hurt him, so on top of genuinely not being able to recognize that he's sick he will deny all accusations regardless out of this fear. He’s technically not wrong, since trying to purge the disease to save Kasper would be extremely painful for him, but this thought mostly comes from his illness trying to preserve itself.

The last time someone tried to lead Infected to DrRETRO’s office for an intensive care stay he panicked upon realizing what was going on and fought back until they let him leave (fucked them up pretty badly), so now everyone keeps their distance and kinda uselessly tries to convince him to go voluntarily with their words.

Infected is incapable of maintaining strong negative emotions if pushed into being that upset. He'll be mad or sad for maybe a minute and then something else will get his attention or he’ll get too tired to think and he'll forget whatever was bugging him.

Every so often he will lose hope about finding Poptart and then abruptly ‘reset’ a minute or two into sobbing his eyes out, completely confident that any day now the little guy will come back safe and sound.

Despite this it is still really easy to get him Gamer Raging. Way easier than it ever was with Kasper, who was a pretty good sport in most cases.

Infected's particular brand of Gamer Rage is ‘Heckling people until they shut up/go away’, or until it's out of his system. This is the most typical way he processes anger. The impulse control is Seriously out the window when he gets like this.

Kasper knew a lot of stuff about the games he liked offhandedly (mostly competitive co-op FPS games like counterstrike, tf2, l4d2, etc) and could tell you so much esoteric bullshit about them, but if you tried to ask Infected he would get too excited trying to think of something he could share that would be really cool and then not actually be able to remember anything.

The only context in which Infected's reaction time isn't ass is video games. Something about muscle memory. In any other situations he is usually pretty slow to react. This does not mean he's slow to do things, though. When he's acting on a dumbass impulse thought he's probably halfway done doing it before anyone can stop him.

It is possible to get Infected to acknowledge that his situation is Fucked for a moment or two if you press him on the most obvious evidence that he's sick (his headaches, the fact his allergies haven't cleared up in years, the snot on his face, etc), and if you pressed hard enough you'd start to see him get scared. He knows you're right, but there's nothing he can do about it. And then the recognition would be gone again as soon as you stopped talking.

This doesn't work when you bring up his name (Who's Kasper? Never met the guy.) or objects in his surroundings, only symptoms of illness directly observable on/in his body.

[futurebird]

The Worst Ant Video on the Internet

I did it. I found the worst ant video on youTube. I'm not going to link to it because it's *so* bad that I can't rule out the very real possibility that someone made it this bad just to bait people into watching it. But, let me give you a little taste of the horror.  The calamity starts with the title:

"Most Dangerous Ant Spices"

Yes. "Spices."

Dangerous ant spices? Are we talking tarragon and cumin? Are these spices dangerous to ants? Or is this a warning about the dangers of ant cooking?

The spelling error is bad enough, but also the whole concept of such a list is a little... gauche? Why is there this idea that the only thing that makes insects interesting is thinking about how much they could kill you?

But-- even this I could excuse. After all there are a few ants with dangerous stings. But, what do you think is on the list? Do you want to know? Too bad I'm telling you anyways:  

10. Harvester ant (This ant has a sting as bad as a bee. So, not a terrible entry for the bottom of this list...But the photo they used)

That is NOT a harvester ant. That is a weaver ant, genus Oecophylla. Weaver ants are tropical and use silk to make their nests in trees. Harvester ants are from the families Pogonomyrmecini and Stenammini, these are desert-dwelling ants who collect seeds and live underground. They don't even look alike at all. They do both have a sting, that's about as bad as a bee sting.

Maybe the next ant on the list will be better...? (of course not)

9. Redwood ant (What did wood ants do to deserve this??)

I don't even know what ant they meant by this. They showed an image of Formica rufa, the wood ant, and rufa do have a reddish color ... so maybe they are also called "redwood ants" But, why are these ants on a list of "Dangerous Ants" ?? They are a protected species that lives in the pine forests of Europe! They don't sting and can't even effectively bite a person. Their colonies are huge. They build mound nests of pine needles a meter in height and live in groups of 100s of thousands. They are gentle custodians of the forest enriching the soil and keeping the arthropod populations under-control. Beneficial ants that are so well loved they are protected from poaching since without them the forests would not thrive as well.

8. Odorous house ant (lol what?)

A few years back there was a recurring argument online about if ants have a smell. People who grew up in areas with the odorous house ant know that some ants, when crushed smell like coconut... or rotten face cream. The smell isn't exactly overwhelming and it's only around when the ants are crushed or injured. But it's very distinctive nothing is exactly like it. Most ants have no real smell. So people argued about this online.

But other than the smell there isn't much to say about these little ants. They are tiny, can't sting, can't bite. They can be house pests. So they are dangerous to your poptarts. Might smell a little odd for a few moments if you step on one. If this is "Dangerous" I don't even know.

7. Leafcutter ant

These ants are remarkable but they can't sting, they do have a powerful bite so I guess that's a little "dangerous" ... the majors could draw blood biting you. And they can defoliate a tree overnight ... so that's kinda ... "dangerous" ... at least they used the correct image.

6. Argentine ant

(is this a list of ants... most dangerous to other ants?)

Another ant that can't sting or bite. Linepithema humile is an invasive species and a huge threat to ant diversity in some parts of the world. This makes it even more unfortunate that the video, like many "resources" online used the incorrect photo for this ant. If you search for this ant with the common name "Argentine Ant" you will probably find a photo of another species incorrectly identified as an Argentine ant-- and, since it's invasive, incorrectly identifying one of your local beneficial species of ant as Argentine could lead to killing off the wrong ants. So. I edited this photo as it's not just misinformation... it is destructive misinformation.

Neither the ant in the photo, nor Linepithema humile are in any way "dangerous" except for the danger posed to native ants.

5. Carpenter ant (YES every single one!)

They did at least use a photo of one of the thousands of carpenter ants (Genus Camponotus) for this one. But that doesn't make up for labeling a harmless Campontus as an invasive in the last list item.

None of the Carpenter ants can sting or be dangerous. Some have a significant bite, but not as bad as the leafcutter ants lower on this list.

4. African ant (You aren't even trying anymore.)

I've decided making up something called an "African ant" putting it on a list of "dangerous ants" then using a photo of a trapjaw ant (Odontomachus speceis) that isn't even from Africa is probably racist ... somehow.

I think they meant to show the most famous ants from Africa, the driver ants. (Genus Dorylus) This is a genus of army ant that roves through the forests in columns of thousands. Their majors look vaguely like trap jaw ants. And they are a little "dangerous" ... though they are also well-loved since they will clean your home and land of pests.

3. Red fire ant (Guess what the photo showed. GUESS.)

Oh. NOW they show a harvester ant. I think that people don't think that real fire ants look as formidable as their reputation. So they use photos of the larger more beefy looking harvester ant instead. The common name "fire ant" refers to Solenopsis invicta, and invasive species with the ability to sting.

The sting of one fire ant isn't much... but they sting in great numbers and can be a problem. But this photo is a harvester ant, which is a much larger ant and beneficial. Harvester ants also sting. This may be why these ants are so often confused.

They had correct images for the last two items in their list. And both of these ants have significant stings and bites. That said neither is hunting humans for food or planning to take over your school board and ban books or anything.

2. Bulldog ant 1. Bullet ant

List is hot mess.

[bugsbenefit]

Mike's state of mind and the basement in s4

Mike's basement has been one of the most important and reoccurring locations on the show. it's one of the few places that shows up in Every season, even the one Mike is out of town for. as it's a consistent location it also has very consistent set design throughout the seasons.

so it's interesting looking at it in s4 because for the first time in 4 whole seasons it looks different. and these changes raise some questions. (also a prime example of set design telling it's own story which hasn't been verbally highlighted to the viewer, which is super fun)

1.) the basement is a Mess

like, I'm serious it's BAD

games are lying everywhere, on the table, under the table (something must have changed about the "games are for kids and we're not kids anymore" mindset ig), toys and figures are also just next to the table on the floor. the desk Max is writing on is so cluttered she barely has room to write. there's also food wrappers everywhere. not "real food" as the show calls it but instead mostly sweets. there's even a full box of applejacks and poptarts laying about (poptarts which we also see Mike throw in the toaster in e1, got to love the consistency). on the drawer next to the couch is at least a hint to someone eating "real" food down here in the form of an empty plate with cutlery in it.

so. looks like someone's been spending a lot of time down here. but this isn't bad per se. Messy teenage boy behaviour. Max has been distant from the party, Lucas joined a new club, Hellfire replaced Mike's basement DND sessions, so the overall visiting rate must have decreased significantly over the 6 month time skip. if it's just Mike hanging out here on his own, is it really weird that it's messy?

well, the same season rightfully goes out of it's way to introduce the very real practice of comparing a person's behviour to their previous behavior to determine if it's unusual.

so let's do that. what IS normal for the basement?

here's the basement 6 months earlier in s3:

and, well. it looks perfect. no plates, no wrappers, all games are stored away. the same Simon game we see strewn on the table in s4 is neatly placed next to the drawer. the only remnants of food we see are the cocoa puffs Lucas is actively eating and the sodas on the table they're appearing to be drinking right now. and there's also no crumpled blankets lying everywhere and over every seat either.

the s3 basement looks how the basement has looked in all prior season. neat and cozy. in s4 that has now subtly changed. the basement is a mess now.

it's surface level, not too in your face, but it's there, constantly in the background. Max has to write around all the litter on the table. it's both in your face and completely in the background - and without comparing it to previous renditions of the basement we've seen we wouldn't question it. (very similar to Mike's room in s4. it's an absolute mess, closet open, bed messed up, clothes on the floor, he even ends up just grabbing a worn floor shirt when he leaves. which in itself isn't too weird. "teenage boy behaviour". unless you look at Mike's room in any of the previous seasons which is Very tidy and neat)

the mess is out of character for Mike judging by everything we've previously seen of him.

but if we're already comparing the basement of different seasons, there's also the next point

2.) Mike has also probably been sleeping down here at least a few times

the blanket we've seen folded up in previous seasons is now strewn over the couch and a bed-pillow is restricting Lucas' movement.

if we want to compare again. bellow are the normal couch pillows in previous seasons (screenshot from s1 where you can see all of them the neatest). there is no pillow used for beds in the basement until s4. and then there's also a picture of the comforter hanging over the couch in s3, a loosely knit blanket. which is replaced by the Actual blanket in s4 that was unused in all the previous seasons.

the fact that Lucas constantly bumps into the pillow also makes it clearly thought out set design because it's actively restricting the actors and wouldn't be placed there without reason.

but there is also something general to be noticed when comparing the basement of s4 to it's previous renditions:

3.) the basement lost it's comforting light. it's dark as shit down here now

this is something i haven't seen anyone talk about directly before but it's so jarring. the basement is always shot as a pretty cozy place. but season 4 gets a bit silly and goofy. we see the s4 basement during the day so lets compare that with s3 where we also get an equally long sequence in the day-basement:

this is what we're used to in s3. the basement is actually a very open area. multiple windows, a windowed door leading out to ground level, big enough to have an adjacent bathroom. the basement is a big open space. there's lights on everywhere you can see all corners of the room very well and the light brown colour of the walls makes the room feel warm. but light is also coming through the slightly open curtains and big door-window. you have warm artificial light but also natural sunlight. it's the main hub of the party and feels cozy.

now look at s4:

the basement is dark as shit. it's daytime during both these scenes but they have an entirely different feeling. if you didn't know it was daytime you could also just assume it's night. we never once even catch a glimpse of the door with the giant window, it's kept out of shot deliberately. we only have one angle with a window even in frame and in it the curtain is now completely closed, the plant previously on the window sill is also not visible anymore.

the bathroom and under-the-stairs area is so dark it's almost impossible to make anything out back there. the shadows in this scene are absurd when compared to s3. there are no warm shadows in corners and cozy walls anymore, there's just dark behind and between the characters and you can't even tell the colour the wall has near the bathroom door in s4. the white lamp in the background also becomes a primary light source for once this season, by being center frame constantly + the added lack of sunlight in the scenes, which makes it feel even more uncomfortable and cold.

and if the shadows and odd lighting choices aren't enough. the entire space feels much heavier now. the dark shadows shrink the room away, the hidden windows and door make the room feel closed off and Actually underground, and on top of that, clutter is Everywhere which closes the already tight space even more.

Max is sitting far back in the darkness (because she's cursed and emotionally distanced from the others) so the gloomy lighting of the basement is clearly intentional here and not just a fuck up from the lighting crew. the basement is supposed to feel dark here.

-> somehow the basement lost it's calming open nature between s3 and s4. it's still the hub of the party but it feels less cozy than it once did, it feels closer to suffocating now.

4.) and characters are giving dialogue nudges to that change too

the general change of the basement, both in appearance and vibes is so apparent, but what if it's just supposed to be a fun background detail that we shouldn't pay closer attention to? - well, first of all, you should be paying attention to the sets of ST 100% of the time after what we know they hid before. the set designers really love their job there apparently since they keep putting their whole setussies into these backgrounds (sorry). but also secondly, both Max and Nancy actively comment on it and suddenly it's not only the set design but even the dialogue that vaguely gesticulates in the direction of what the sets are already telling us:

Max, despite having no problem with Mike's basement prior, now calls it an armpit. and Nancy goes out of her way to jab at Mike's (now) messy room by telling everyone it's looked worse before than the absolutely wrecked cabin.

the basement is in an absolute state in s4. both from the way it looks all the way to how the camera work and lighting portrays it. and even later dialogue points out Mike's messy state of living (both his room And the basement are a mess).

Mike's basement has been the central heart of operations since the first seasons and a has been a place of comfort and consistency all throughout. in season 4 it still serves that purpose, however, it's starting to look worse for wear now. it's function is unchanged, but you're able to see that something is different now if you actually pay attention or compare it with what's normal for it. (as s4 kindly tells us to do)

the set design on this show is absolutely amazing but this is really such a cool case of telling a story in the background. even without getting direct dialogue in s4 we can infer that Mike has been spending a lot of time in the basement, presumably also at night, doesn't bother to tidy it up along with his room, and that the general atmosphere of the basement has lowered.

Mike's general off-ness and state of mind are left unaddressed by the end of s4 despite the many nudges in it's direction we get both verbally and non verbally. and the basement is just another part of massive character work done entirely through set design and camera angles/ lighting choices.

[allyheart707]

6, 22, 23, and 36 :)?

6. I do! This is all I have though. I wanna get more stuff from the community as well- Bummed that I didn't have the money to buy it when the poptart key chain was selling D:

22. Hmmm... honestly, you can't go wrong with cheese pizza. Since pizza is typically a food I eat only when hanging out with friends or at parties, I tend to like the least divisive option. However, if I was making a pizza just for myself.... maybe mushrooms and sausage? Maybe add green chilli if I am looking for something spicy at the time :D

23. OOOoooo I have to many to CHOOSE!! Probably I May Be Invisible But I Still Look Good... though I also like Every Night The Longest Day, and Neon Void!!!

36. Hmmm hardest time writing/drawing would probably be Raph. Since I don't really get angry (if I am angry I am more nervous/sad) It is really hard for me to write anger issues. Also he is so BIG and and muscles are hard to draw- that's why I cheat and draw them as kids XD

[kazoosandfannypacks]

summary: when an apollo camper falls for an aphrodite camper, heart-shaped cough drops and haikus written with glitter gel pens aren't too far behind. word count: 6815 words a/n: it started as a simple headcanon. apollo's kid falling for aphrodite's. i told a few friends on discord about it, and they ate the idea up so much, i knew i had to write something about them. this story is about two ocs, but you'll see a few familiar faces in here too, and if you're paying close enough attention to context clues, you can figure out where eva and kodi's story fits in within the pjo timeline. taglist: @poptart-cat-78 @fynn-arcana @babsbabbles @laughingphoenixleader {if you’d like to be added to my halfblood 5&1 taglist/pjo taglist, let me know!}

also on ao3!

five times it paid to know an apollo boy (and one time being an aphrodite girl paid off too)

~eva's first summer~

 Eva wasn't surprised that, in a camp with archery, flying pegasi, and lava in the dish pit as well as on the climbing wall, she'd gotten herself hurt within her first week at Camp Half-Blood. 

 But, although she hadn't sat down and considered all the possible injuries available to her at Camp, if she had, getting a papercut while opening a chocolate bar for s'mores wouldn't've exactly made the list.

 And yet, even in the dim lighting of the camp's bonfire, she could see very clearly the scratch on her thumb.

 "That kind of injury takes some serious skill," someone said.

 She couldn't see his face in the low lighting by the bonfire, but she saw him hold something out to her.

 "Need a band-aid?"

 "Thanks," Eva said. She took it from him and unwrapped it.

 By the time the bandage was around her thumb, the stranger had disappeared into the crowd, and she shoved the wrapping into her pocket.

 She'd almost forgotten that moment had happened by the time she got back to her cabin. But now that she looked at it in the light, she saw that the band-aid was a shade of hot pink— her favorite color, and the same color as the accessories she'd worn with her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that day.

~eva's first summer~

 When Eva was a little girl, she always looked forward to Valentine's Day. It made more sense now, looking back on it after her demigod diagnosis, why her decorated shoebox mailbox was always filled to the brim with heart-shaped lollipops, tiny treasures, and cards with cartoon character puns on them. Of course Aphrodite's daughter would attract a lot of attention from her classmates.

 Not long after she settled into camp, she realized Cabin 10 was one giant Valentine's shoebox.  Eva was used to coming back to the cabin each evening and seeing her sisters' bunks surrounded by flowers and chocolates and her brothers' bunks cluttered with assorted candies and letters that smelled like perfume. As long as there were Aphrodite kids who treasured cheap attempts to buy their affection, there would be kids from the other cabins more than willing to oblige them.

 But Eva didn't get gifts like that, at least, not as much as her siblings. She spent a lot of that first summer reminding herself that she was still the youngest in the cabin, and that her time to shine would come soon enough.

 In the meantime, though, she'd just have to get used to all the flowers. She had just the luck of having a bunk next to Silena— kind-hearted, beautiful Silena, who could scarcely glance in a boy's direction without him falling for her. Eva soon found out that where there were boys falling for you, there were flowers, and where there were flowers, there were allergies, and she figured the best way to dispel the issue quietly was to stop by Cabin 7.

 A normal camp would have a camp nurse, maybe a nurse's assistant on staff, and wouldn't be much more than a phone call away from the nearest hospital. Camp Half-Blood's medical treatments pretty much amounted to "tell someone at Cabin 7 what's wrong, and if they can't patch you up, well, there's not much a mortal doctor could do for you anyways."

~💘~

 As Eva approached the cabin, she noticed there were several chains by the door, each one with a different label underneath.

 "PULL FOR URGENT EMERGENCY"

 "PULL FOR IMPALEMENT"

 "PULL FOR PRANK-RELATED INJURY"

 "PULL FOR WALK-IN CONSULTATION"

 That last one sounded the most like what she needed, so she pulled that chain and heard a chime go off in the cabin.

 "I'll be out in a second," a voice said, and a moment later the door opened to a blonde boy, not much older than Eva, whose eyes widened when he saw her.

 "Oh my gosh, are you alright?" he asked, with so much concern on his face she might as well have been actively on fire.

 "Yeah," Eva wrinkled her nose, "just a slight problem I was hoping someone could help me with."

 "Oh, good," he said, "I, uh, what can I do for you?"

 She hesitated a moment, not sure what would happen if word got out that Aphrodite's new daughter was allergic to flowers.

 "Can you keep a secret?"

 "Anything for you," he said, then coughed so hard Eva thought that he might need a doctor, "I mean, uh, of course."

 "I found out I'm allergic to flowers," Eva whispered, "and Drew said that if I wake her up with my coughing one more time, I'm gonna be the one who needs beauty sleep."

 "That's perfect!" the boy said.

 "My allergy is perfect?" Eva asked.

 "No, no," he said, "I have just the thing. Don't go away!"

 He scurried back into the cabin, and about a minute later he came back with a bottle and a cloth pouch.

 "These will help the allergy," he handed her the bottle, "take one each night before bed, and you should be cough free. But, just in case!' 

 He handed her the pouch as well and she opened it to see several heart shaped lollipops.

 "What are these?"

 "Newest breakthrough in Cabin 7 medicine," he said, "making your own blend of cough drops is almost a rite of passage, but I've turned the science into an art form."

 Eva held one up and sniffed it. "You made cough drops into lollipops?"

 "Yeah," he said.

 "Why?"

 "Why not?"

 They stood in silence for an awkward moment.

 "I gotta go," Eva said, "but thanks for everything."

 "You're welcome," he said.

 She walked away, slightly confused and highly appreciative, though the whole of the moment was soon lost in the hubbub of demigod adventures.

~eva's second summer~

 The biggest problem with being a child of Aphrodite is that your skill set usually boils down to "distraction." Another unfortunate truth is that sometimes "distraction" boils down to "do the hard part and run through the woods so that someone else can get the glory for your actions."

 Unfortunately for Eva, this was one of those times.

 All of Red Team had been hopeful for their own chance to shine when Clarisse announced that she wouldn't be going directly for the flag this time. She claimed it was a solid strategy for her and a couple of her siblings to divert the enemy's attention, so she volunteered to take patrol up along the lake instead of in the woods as usual.

 However, this shuffling of the troops meant that Eva and a couple of the other Aphrodite campers were on a new mission: distract the enemy while the remaining Ares campers rush the Blue Team's flag.

 Things had gone pretty much according to plan there. A few of the Apollo kids had been guarding the flag, and more than half of them had abandoned their post to chase down the Red Team's distraction.

 But although the chase was part of the plan, Eva hoped the boy running after her would just give up already. She wasn't sure how much more of it she could take right now.

 As the forest passed by around her, she glanced over her shoulder— just long enough to see her pursuer's determined smile— then looked back ahead of her, in just enough time to notice the tree root in front of her, but without enough time to avoid tripping on it.

 She landed with her hands in front of her, the wind knocked out of her for a moment.

 "Oh my gosh, I am so sorry," his voice behind her said, "are you okay?"

 Eva pushed herself up a little and turned her head to see the boy who'd been chasing her, now with a concerned look on his face.

 She wanted to make a clever remark and then run past her enemy and make her escape, but as she tried to push herself up further, she realized the pain in her knees and chin, and especially her hands.

 "I'm alright," she huffed, sitting up and looking at her hands, both of them brushburned and dirt stained, and one having a decent sized cut.

 "No you're not," he said, and knelt down in front of her, "you're bleeding in five different places."

 "I'll be fine," Eva said.

 "At least let me take a look at it. Apollo's my father, I…."

 "I know," Eva said, "and you'll take me back to Blue Team's jail as a wounded prisoner."

 A drop of blood fell onto Eva's shirt, and it took her a few seconds to realize where it had come from. She touched a sticky spot on her chin, then looked at her fingers to see a streak of red and brown.

 "Capture the Flag isn't my concern right now," he said, taking off his helmet to reveal a familiar face, with a mop of fair blonde hair that would've looked even lighter if it wasn't so sweaty, paired the warmest brown eyes Eva'd ever seen— the boy who'd given her the cough drops and allergy pills last summer, "let me patch you up, and I'll give you a fifteen second head start."

 "I guess that sounds like a deal," Eva said. She was supposed to be the distraction anyways, and this camper wouldn't be after her teammates if he was occupied with her instead.

 "Good," he said. He'd already taken off his chestplate as well, and he pulled a knife out of a holster at his side.

 "What are you doing?" Eva asked.

 "Emergency bandages," he said, cutting a strip off the bottom of his shirt, "maybe this'll convince Annabeth to let us bring more first aid supplies next time. She says they only slow us down," he cut another chunk of the fabric off his shirt, "but this would go a lot faster if I didn't have to tear apart my wardrobe to do it."

 "You don't have to."

 "Nonsense," he said, pouring some water from his canteen onto one of the cloths, "you wouldn't've tripped if I hadn't been chasing you. May I?"

 She nodded as he took her right hand and dabbed her open palm with the wet cloth. She tried not to wince too much.

 "Sorry," he said, "I wish I had something better to clean this out with."

 "No need to apologize."

 Once her hand was clean, he wrapped a strip of the fabric around it, and tied it tightly.

 "Here," he said, handing her the wet cloth, "wipe up that cut on your chin, then apply pressure to stop the bleeding."

 She followed his instructions as best she could as he cut off another chunk of his shirt and wet it.

 "You know a lot about first aid," Eva said.

 He smiled a little as he took her other hand and dappled off the dirt.

 "I'm not the best of my siblings," he said, "but I do what I can."

 Eva knew all about struggling to be the best, having consigned herself at this point to the fact that she wouldn't even be third best among her siblings for a very long time.

 "I'm Eva," she said.

 "Evangeline Blythe," he nodded, "I know. This is your second summer, right?"

 "That's what it says on my necklace," Eva said, glancing at the single clay bead on the string around her neck.

 He held up his own necklace with two beads on it. "Then I guess this is my third. I'm Kodi Archer."

 "I remember you from last summer," Eva said.

 "You do?" Kodi asked.

 "You gave me something for my allergies," she said.

 "Glad to make an impression," he said, cleaning the spots of dirt off her scratched-but-not-actively-bleeding knees, "that's also not the first time we met."

 "It's not?"

 "I'm just sorry I didn't have any hot pink bandages on me this time."

 "That was you?" Eva asked, recalling the bonfire and the perfectly accessorized band-aid.

 "Yeah," he said.

 Kodi looked back up at her, a smile on his face as their eyes met for half a moment. His eyes then shifted, however, to the cloth she had pressed against her chin.

 "Let's see what I can do for that chin," he said, his hand brushing against hers as he took the cloth from her.

 She hardly noticed the sting of the wet cloth on her cut as he tilted her chin up with his other hand, giving her a better view of his face in the golden lighting of the sun, warming his eyes to an even richer hue. He hadn't been this nice to look at last summer, but he'd apparently grown into his nose, and his height, and some confidence had no-doubt come with it, all of which paid off nicely together.

 Her gaze was drawn away when she heard a sound in the distance: the blaring of a horn, signifying the end of the game. Kodi stopped a moment as well, looking up as though trying to see where it came from.

 "That's a relief," he smiled.

 "Who do you think won?" 

 "Doesn't matter," Kodi said, "I'm just glad I didn't have to explain to Luke and Annabeth why I was stopping to help you and would've given you a head start instead of taking you prisoner."

 "At least you don't have to report to Clarisse," Eva offered.

 "I don't envy you on that one," Kodi said, dabbing away the last of the blood on her chin, "now, keep applying pressure, and stop by Cabin 7 to get it looked at once you get back by the main camp, okay?"

 Eva rolled her eyes.

 "At least grab yourself a couple real bandages?"

 "Do they have hot pink ones?" Eva smiled

 "If you tell them I sent you," Kodi smiled back, resheathing his knife. "Now, do you think you can walk with your knees all scraped up?"

 "I think so," she said, trying to stand up off the ground.

 "Here," Kodi jumped to his feet, then held a hand out to Eva, who gladly took it and let him help stand her up.

 "Thanks for everything." Eva said, taking a couple steps with minimum difficulty.

 "All in a day's work," he said.

 In the distance, they heard quite a ruckus.

 "What's that?" Eva asked.

 "Sounds like some commotion over at canoe lake," Kodi said, "probably nothing important."

~eva's third summer~

 Eva had no idea where the haikus were coming from.

 It started one day at dinner, when she got up to make her offering to Aphrodite, and came back to find a three-by-five index card on her napkin. One one side was her name— Evangeline, not Eva— written with a smudged pink glitter gel pen. The other side had three lines written on it.

 She stayed at the table after most of the other campers had left, when it was a little quieter and easier to focus on the words scribbled on the notecard:

 "if the sun should rise

 and see the way your face shines

 it would be ashamed"

 That was it. The only other thing on the card was a heart, near her name, a classic Valentine's heart with an arrow through it, and a scribbled line near the top corner that looked like something you'd do to get the ink in a pen flowing.

 By now, Eva was used to this kind of stuff. Toward the end of last summer, a couple of the Demeter boys started competing to win her affection, and she found her bunk surrounded each day with fresh flowers (which, of course, led to frequent trips to Cabin 7 for allergy medication and a weekly supply of heart-shaped "cough-pops," as Kodi had branded them.) It wasn't uncommon for the Hermes kids to slip candy bars into her pockets and backpacks for her to find later. One of the Ares kids had dedicated an arm-wrestling victory to her, and one of Mr. D's boys had just about run out of elaborate pickup lines to use on her.

 Being well-acquainted with this kind of stuff by now, Eva slipped the poem into her backpack and went on with her evening.

~💘~

 That night before bed, she pulled the notecard out of her backpack, only to discover a second notecard with it. Her name was written on this one as well, with the same arrow-struck heart next to it, but there were two marks in the corner, and the glittering ink on the other side read:

 "your smile is like the

 dripping of nectar, like a

 lump of ambrosia"

 It was a pity that whoever wrote the poem wasn't there to see her read it, because they would've seen another one of her smiles as she read it.

 She stacked both notes together neatly, and was about to set them on her nightstand, when she realized there was a third notecard already there. The unlined side, once again, bore her name and and the same kind of heart, this time with three marks in the corner, and a haiku that read:

 "your laugh is a song

 that i've always known without

 knowing all the words"

 Eva couldn't help but laugh just a little as she read it, then stacked all three notes on her nightstand and went to bed.

~💘~

 As they tidied up the cabin the next morning, Eva smiled with a newfound confidence. There's always something special about having an admirer, but even more deliciously romantic about a secret admirer, one who writes you poems and tells you the sun doesn't hold a candle to you.

 "Is there an Evangeline in this cabin?"Aurora, one of the first-year campers, asked.

 "Yeah, that would be me." Eva sighed. Her dad had always said he gave her the name because it was a beautiful name, and she was his beautiful daughter, but she'd never been a fan of the impromptu Disney karaoke sessions she'd see whenever she introduced herself by it. "Eva" suited her much better.

 "Someone left you a note," Aurora said, holding up a three-by-five card.

 "Where?" Eva asked, walking over to her.

 "Tacked onto the door," the girl said, "I found it while I was sweeping."

 Before Eva could get to her, one of their older brothers, Mitchell, grabbed the note and read it out loud.

 "'You are a poem, and I am just the reader,'' he read, slowly, his tone slightly mocking, "'I've mem'rized your words.' What a piece of…."

 "None of your business," Eva snapped, taking the note from him and looking it over carefully, noting the lines in the corner and familiar handwriting. A favorite pastime of the Aphrodite kids was making fun of the horrible attempts at poetry the other kids would write for them, but for some reason the mockery of this one seemed out of place.

 "Relax, Eva," Drew said, "tell me, who's this new beau, Evangeline?"

 "I don't know," Eva said, calming down a little in spite of her anger.

 "Someone from Apollo's cabin," another guy said, looking over Eva's shoulder.

 "You don't know that," Eva shrugged. Several Apollo campers came to mind.

 "Well, it is a poorly written haiku," Mitchell said.

 "And there's that arrow through the heart," he said.

 "Who do you think it is?" Aurora asked.

 "I don't know," Eva shrugged, "but it's not the first one, either."

 Now that the whole cabin was invested in this story, she showed her siblings the other three notecards and told them where she found them, as they laughed at the words comparing her to ambrosia and singalongs.

 "Those are some hard-to-get-to places to sneak a poem into undetected," Mitchell said.

 "Could be a Hermes kid, then," Lacy suggested.

 That didn't seem right, but Eva couldn't say why.

 "Could be anyone," Silena said, "but for now, let's finish getting the cleaned up and head to breakfast. Just because those Posiedon boys are gonna lose at cabin clean up again doesn't mean we shouldn't try to win."

 And with that, the campers got back to work.

~💘~

 Within a week, Eva had found five more notes in various pockets of her backpack, one at her seat at almost every meal, one on her nightstand each night and her cabin door in the morning, and three in her shorts' pockets (and how they got there without her noticing, she didn't want to know.) Each of them came with her name and a heart pierced with an arrow, a series of strikes up in the corner (which she soon realized were tally marks, the highest one up to twenty-nine so far, though a few in between were missing,) and a haiku, likening her to arrows, celestial bodies, anything beautiful you could think of (except, strangely enough, flowers,) and an assortment of diseases and ailments. Any time she found one, her nearby brothers and sisters would gather around and giggle and gawk over the attempts at romance.

 Eva, however, treasured every one of these notes in her heart. With each note she found, her secret admirer became even more of a point of interest. At the end of that week, her curiosity got the better of her, and she hatched a plan involving a stakeout out front of her cabin. Whoever was hiding these notes came every night to leave them on the door, and tonight she'd catch the cupid culprit in the act.

~💘~

 It was nearly midnight, and her tiredness had almost caught up with her as she crouched behind a flowering shrub outside the cabin.

 Suddenly, she heard the sound of someone coming, and perked up to watch. This part required the most secrecy. If they heard her, no doubt they'd come up with some alibi that didn't involve haikus and thumb tacks. She'd have to catch them in the act. Quietly as she could, she watched as a figure approached the door, stuck something to it, and started to walk away.

 Quickly, Eva shone her flashlight at the note, just to check that it was indeed another three-by-five with her glittering name on it, then turned the light on the intruder.

 "Going somewhere?" she asked.

 He looked like he was gonna jump out of his skin, but instead turned back around to face her. She recognized him as one of the Stoll brothers from Hermes' cabin, but even in better lighting she wouldn't be able to tell you which one.

 "You've been writing me haikus?" Eva asked.

 "Oh no," he said, his hands over his head in a way that made Eva feel like she was some kind of cop. "I'm just the delivery boy."

 "You're running errands?" Eva asked.

 "Half-Blood's gotta make a living," he said, "and I'm just using the skills dad gave me."

 Hermes was a master of sneakery and delivery, and there was a reason the Stoll brothers were the heads of his children. Every demigod knew that if you want something done sneaky and you want it done right, you turn to the Stoll brothers.

 Every camper also knew that they could both be easily bought.

 "Who put you up to this?" Eva asked.

 "My 'client' paid a high price for my silence," he said.

 "Oh?" Eva asked, "and how high a price would I have to pay for the opposite?" 

 "I'm not a sellout," Stoll said, "even among thieves and pickpockets, there is honor."

 "Such a shame," Eva smiled, smugly, knowing she had a bargaining chip worth much more than money, "because that means I won't have to tell my lovely sisters that you were part of this 'secret admirer' plot."

 "Why should that matter?" he asked.

 "They haven't been able to stop talking about it," Eva said, "someone being so clever and sneaky in the name of love. They always go crazy for guys in touch with their romantic side."

 "Really?"

 "Oh, sure," Eva said, "If they found out you were involved with this, oh, they'd be all over you."

 "They would?" he asked, his voice weak.

 "And of course," Eva said, knowing exactly how to seal the deal, "the best thing about attracting my sisters' attention? Being a child of Aphrodite pretty much guarantees more candy than you'll ever be able to eat, more than enough to share with such a daring romantic soul as your own.."

 "Any peanut m&ms?" he asked.

 Though they were a favorite slip-into-your-pocket candy from the Hermes kids, the Aphrodite kids seldom appreciated them. However, there was no one at camp who loved them more than Connor Stoll, who'd burn a pack of them for his father on the regular, and that gave Eva a pretty good hunch who she was talking to.

 "Too many to eat," she said, "it's a shame, really."

 "What's a shame?"

 "Oh, you know," Eva said, "the fact that you'd rather keep your silence than attract the interests of a dozen beautiful girls with a lifetime supply of chocolate."

 Eva turned, with a smile on her face, knowing she'd made an offer he couldn't refuse.

 "Do you promise you won't tell him I told you?" Stoll asked.

 She turned back to him.

 "The only person who'll know about this conversation is my siblings, who will get to hear about how wonderfully romantic the great Connor Stoll is."

 He smiled, so Eva assumed she had guessed properly as to which brother it was.

 "I don't know," he said, with a wink, "Kodi paid a good price to tell me not to tell you."

 "Kodi?" Eva asked, "Kodi Archer?"

 Aside from her trips to Cabin 7 for allergy pills, cough-pops, and brightly colored band-aids, she hadn't spoken much to Kodi since the Capture the Flag game at the start of last summer. She'd attracted the attention of a lot of guys last year, and even more this year, so a lot of her attention-seekers fell through the cracks. She couldn't keep up with every boy who went out of his way to do something for her.

 "I don't want any trouble between myself and the guy who makes my medicine," Connor winked again, and nodded in confirmation, "but don't tell anyone besides your sisters."

 "You got it," Eva smiled, "now, you should get outta here before the harpies catch you."

 "That's not a concern when you know what you're doing," he laughed. He pulled something out of his pocket and threw it into the distance, and Eva watched something in the sky chase it into a far-off tree.

 "How did you…" Eva asked, but when she looked back at him, he was already gone.

 Since she didn't have any magical harpy-escape-plan, she decided it best to head back to the cabin.

 But she stopped a moment at the cabin door, running her fingers along the index card. Had she been paying attention, she could've figured it out without Connor's help. No one at camp called her "Evangeline," except Kodi. He'd written it in what he clearly knew was her favorite shade of pink. The arrow piercing the hearts doodled on the notes represented Cabin 7, and also the boy whose last name just-so-happened to be Archer. There were metaphors to sunshine and medicine and archery all throughout the poorly written poems, and while any other poet would've likened her to beautiful, fragrant flowers, only Kodi knew of her allergy. Not everyone on campus would trust the word of one of the Stoll brothers, but the facts lined up in this one.

 She sighed, and decided not to bring the notecard back to the cabin with her. It would be better to leave it there for her siblings to gawk over in the morning.

~💘~

 The next morning, Eva regaled the tale of her stakeout to her cabin mates, a captive audience, especially for her version of the story, in which Connor had taken the task of leaving the haikus solely "for the sake of romance" and "keeping the delicate flower of young love alive" and a few other poetic turns of phrase that made him into the kind of guy that at least a few of her siblings would fall for by the end of the story.

 The other big change in this version of the story was that when she recounted it, Connor was not so easily bought, and claimed to "honor the romanticism of mystery," meaning he disappeared into the night before telling Eva who her secret admirer was.

 In Cabin 10, names were thrown around often. Eva could list off the top of her head at least a dozen demigods who'd tried gestures like this to win her siblings' affections. Gossip was more juicy when you had names and faces to go with the story.

 But for some reason, Eva didn't want this to be juicy gossip, though, quite frankly, she couldn't quite put her finger on why. So, she kept Kodi's name out of the discussion, suggesting to her clamoring sisters that maybe the best way to get that information was from Connor, either through sweet-talk, or just sweets in general

~eva's third summer~

 It was Eva's turn to help Silena in the stables. It always fascinated Eva, how comfortably Silena got on with the pegasi, and vice versa, especially because Eva was terrified of them. It wasn't just pegasi; she was afraid of horses too, and though she'd never seen a unicorn, she was sure she wouldn't want to. No matter how much Silena would tell her it was safe, that the pegasi wouldn't hurt her— and even having a satyr and that Percy kid translate the pegasi's whinnies for her multiple times— this was something Eva couldn't shake.

 And yet, that afternoon she found herself in the stables with Silena.

 "I wish I could talk with them," Silena said, brushing a winged palomino.

 "Why?" Eva asked, polishing a saddle as far from the pegasi as she could be.

 "I think they know more than they let on," she smiled, "kind of like you."

 "What?" Eva's nose wrinkled.

 "I heard you talking to Connor outside the cabin last night," Silena said.

 "You what?"

 "I knew you were gonna stay up and get to the bottom of the secret poet mystery," Silena said, "so, I waited up to listen in. Kodi likes you?"

 "Not so loud!" Eva said.

 "The only ones around to hear us are the pegasi," Silena said.

 "And they know a lot more than they let on." Eva rolled her eyes, then looked back down at the saddle in front of her and buffed up a stain.

 If Silena had anything further to say, she didn't say it. Instead, she rubbed her wrist, anxiously, then bit her lip, with a far-off look in her eyes.

 "I'll be right back," she said, before Eva had time to question her or protest at being left alone with the flying death horses.

 "May as well get this over with," Eva muttered. She picked up the horse-brush Silena had been using and decided to try to face her fears head-on.

 Everyone had always told her these kinds of creatures were more afraid of her than she was of them, which seemed stupid because they weighed at least ten times more than her and had a mouth bigger than her entire face.

 But whoever had said it was apparently right, because the pegasus she approached seemed startled by her mere presence, and the last thing Eva remembered before hitting the floor was the pegasi standing in front of her, reared up to a terrifying height on his hind legs.

~💘~

 Eva knew stable floors to be notoriously hard and dirty, and yet when she came to, she felt like she was lying on fresh bedsheets on a mattress. Instead of being surrounded by hay and the smell of a stable, she saw tulle around her, and smelled something delightfully clean.

 "I know this room," she thought, "I'm in the Big House."

 Usually, campers only stayed in the Big House for medical emergencies. As her consciousness regained itself, a pain in her head did too, and she realized why she qualified.

 Trying not to move her head too much, she looked around the room. Out the window was total darkness, like the middle of the night. Flowers were gathered, not near her bed, but on the other side of the room. The only light in the room was a lamp, which sat next to a chair that was next to the bed, and in that chair sat someone Eva knew well: a dimly lit Kodi.

 He didn't look like he'd intended to fall asleep. Instead of a blanket, his lap was covered in notecards, and he hadn't returned the cap on the pink gel pen in his hand.

 She turned over, just a little, and felt something out of place on her pillow: a notecard, her name written in familiar handwriting, with an arrow-pierced heart, and more tally marks than she wanted to count. The other side contained three simple lines.

 "evangeline, please,

 you've got to wake up because

 i kind of love you."

 The rest of the kids in Cabin 10 would've laughed their heads off at the words "kind of," but she was focused on the word after them: love. It was one thing to say you like someone, or have a crush on someone, or you think someone's cute. But to say you love someone, even just "kind of?" In the last three summers at Camp Half-Blood, and all those years of grade-school Valentine's and getting hounded for her phone number, not one of those guys had ever said they love her. And now, Kodi had.

 But Kodi hadn't just said that he loved her, he'd shown it. Maybe the hot pink bandages weren't a coincidence. Maybe the heart-shaped cough pops were made with her in mind. Maybe there was a reason he'd helped his Capture the Flag enemy. Maybe he hadn't left her side since he heard about her pegasus incident, and wanted her to see a friendly face when she came to.

 Even if none of that was true, there was no denying he'd gone out of his way to pour his heart out for her. Given the lengths he went to to get his poems to her and the price he paid for Connor's silence, it was clear that he wasn't doing this to get something in return. He just wanted her to know that she was special, and she was loved. That was all he'd been telling her from the beginning, wasn't it?

~kodi's fourth summer~

 From the first time he met Evangeline Blythe, Kodi had known one thing: she was special, and she deserved to be loved like it.

 Of course, his friends and siblings tried to dissuade him. Demigods and mortals alike throughout history had grown a sudden belief in "love at first sight" after meeting Aphrodite kids, and it never worked out as planned.

 Kodi, however, was great at working out plans. He saw the way she accessorized each day, and sent for some colored bandages to meet that need. Every time he saw her felt like Valentine's Day, so when her coughing fits started, it'd only made sense to make heart shaped "cough-pops" to capture that essence. And when he realized that helping her with her injuries in capture the flag wasn't enough to compete with all the other boys who sought her attention, he started his most ambitious project yet, which took a long while (and several pink gel pens) to execute, but the payoff was well worth it.

 He was a worried mess when Silena called him to the stables, and even more of a wreck when he saw Evangaline's lifeless form, and the blood dripping from her forehead. He was thankful he always kept a bit of ambrosia on hand. Had his shirt been able to voice an opinion it would've been ungrateful, though, that Kodi had thought ahead to keep hot pink bandages and a knife on hand, but didn't keep any cloths on hand. A chunk of his shirt was cut off without a second thought as he wiped the blood off her forehead and prayed a million prayers to his father.

 He'd gotten her to a more stable condition— no pun intended— though still unconscious, and brought her back to the Big House as safely as he could on the back of a pegasus.

 Kodi had insisted on staying by her bedside until she woke up, and Chiron said that would be fine, as long as they weren't alone together. Silena volunteered to stay with them, feeling excessive guilt over not being in the stable to stop the problem before it happened.

 Around midnight, after an unexpected heart-to-heart with Silena about his feelings for Evangeline, he'd told her to get some sleep, and that he'd wake her up when Evangeline did.

 In the meantime, Kodi had plenty of time to write some more haikus, and had just slipped the best of them on her pillow when his exhaustion from the day's events finally kicked in.

~💘~

 Kodi woke with a start when he felt something touching him, and looked down to see a hand on top of his. The hand was slender, nails well-manicured in a shade of pink that perfectly complemented the bracelets around the wrist.

 His eyes followed the arm to Evangeline's face, her eyes open and her lips smiling at him as she lay on the bed next to his seat.

 "Good morning, sleepyhead," she whispered, despite the fact that the sun hadn't even risen yet.

 "You're awake," he whispered back in surprise, "and you're… holding my hand?"

 He wasn't sure how this had happened, but he tried to move his hand away from hers, just in case, but instead her hand chased after his, and caught it.

 "I am," she smiled.

 "Why?" he asked, and when she looked disappointed, he followed up, "not that I'm upset, just a little confused. Did I miss something? Maybe you're delirious? I should wake Silena, or maybe get Will…."

 "Not yet," Evangeline said, "I'm thinking clearly. I'm actually thinking a lot more clearly about a lot of things than I have been in a long time."

 "What kind of things?"

 "I never asked to be Aphrodite's kid," she said, "we don't get to come up with strategies or fight epic battles or tend to the wounded with great expertise," and she smiled and squeezed his hand, "but we do have it lucky."

 "How?" Kodi asked.

 "When your mom is the goddess of love," she smiled, that pure smile that somehow had a way of healing his soul every time he saw it, "the most confusing thing anyone can ever go through suddenly makes a lot more sense."

 "What's that?"

 "This," Evangeline said, holding up the note he'd left on her pillow, "'I kind of love you' too," she said.

 "You do?" He asked, and he hoped she liked his smiles as much as he liked hers, because there was no stopping the one that now spread across his face. All that planning and working at getting her attention had actually worked.

 Instead of responding, she squeezed his hand three times, and he'd listened to the modern poets enough to know it meant "I love you."

 He responded the same way, but after the third squeeze, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, the world stopping a moment as he looked up and saw the blush creeping along her cheeks, that perfect shade of pink she'd taught him to see everywhere.

 "You said you needed to wake Silena?" Evangeline asked.

 "Yeah," he said.

 "Can it wait ten seconds?"

 "Why ten seconds?" Kodi asked.

 "Because," Evangeline said, leaning closer toward him off the edge of the bed, "that gives me just enough time to do this."

  Then, she kissed him, and if it had lasted ten seconds or ten hours, he wouldn't've known the difference, and he wouldn't've cared. It still would've been overwhelming. He still would've thought it ended too soon. It still would've taken him a few hazy minutes to recover. Even after passing out in a stable and spending a day in a hospital room, her lips still tasted like chocolate and strawberries, and they pressed against his as gently as a feather, pulling away just as softly.

 "Wow," he whispered, between deep breaths, "I think I kind of love you more than I thought I did."

 She giggled a little, and said "me too," and it was the capstone of the greatest moment of his entire life.

 The sun was just beginning to rise out the infirmary window, and as perfect as it would be to say they held hands and watched the sunrise together while Apollo painted the skies in glorious hues, no one could honestly say that's what happened that morning— because Kodi was much more interested in watching Evangeline than in anything the sunrise had to offer.

[dervampireprince]

Mine and other ASMR creators work is being stolen and put on Spotify as 'podcasts' without our consent!

There is a 'podcast' (actually, 'podcasts' plural but we'll get there) on Spotify called "Boyfriend audios and more!! by a user called Imagine. They admit the content they are posting is not made by them, but that does not matter. Reposting is not okay, even if you credit the creator, unless you have creator's consent. It's still stealing even though they gave credit to the creators, we did not give permission for our work to be put on Spotify. But this person did not ask anyone for permission before doing this. And as it's on Spotify it's likely it is monetized (I'm not sure if it's possible to have un-monetized content on Spotify) meaning this person is possibly making money off reposting our work. Even if they are not making money this is still not okay and it's still stealing our work. There are so many creators who's work has been stolen from larger accounts with hundreds of thousands of subscribers to accounts that have a couple hundred subscribers. The 'podcast' started posting on April 7th 2023 and updated as recently as yesterday (October 24th 2023). Plenty of creators offer downloads of their work on Patreon, or you could get Youtube Premium if you want to listen to them offline, you don't need to go to unauthorised Spotify reposts. And plenty of audio creators upload their work to Spotify themselves anyway! I've seen people's work reposted on Spotify that already uploaded the work to Spotify themselves anyway. The 'podcast' currently has 378 ratings (people who have decided to rate it out of 5 stars) so people know it's there and are listening to it.

[ID: My uploads of my 'visiting king' royalty roleplay series of audios on Youtube that I created, improvised, voice acted, recorded, and posted to my own Youtube channel dervampireprince.]

[ID: Reposts of my audios on Spotify that I did not give permission to be put on Spotify.]

I want to credit and thank Vincent VNNZ Vogel for finding this playlist and making me aware of it. Please go and share his tweet, and any other creator's quote-retweets of this situation. Please tag or make other creators you know or follow aware of this situation so we can hopefully either all report this or at least make people aware that this isn't okay. I found a report form on Spotify but I'm scared to fill it out as it talks about consulting with an attorney.

This is a list (as of today's date) of all the creators who's work has been stolen and put on this 'podcast'. Please go and support them on their own Youtube channels and do not listen to them on Spotify (or any other platform) unless they have uploaded the work there themselves: Sundew Audios, Joemama ASMR, sleepingzzz, A Warm Coffee Mug, cubby wubby, SunnyAudios, untitled whispers, Ubel Loss Ch, Redacted Audio, Girl in Dungarees, Mystric Mommy, Styxasmr, Eggsmr, Yuurivoice, Moonlight Haven, Nora ASMR, Ice cold audios, Goodboyaudios, Prince Kairo, Seth VA, LineChu ASMR, Icey ASMR, Wolf Audios, ShayBay, TeaDrop_Writes, Isagani VA, CardlinAudio, Phasmid ASMR, AzeruOfficial, JustBLASMR, SuruASMR, Asmodeus Audios, Man of Culture ASMR, TheSHyOne VA, Dream Boyfriend, OLIV3R ASMR, Akolmfi, YourgirlfriendASMR, ZSakuVA, DÆva Celestial, Moonlight Audio, Mallum Audio, Afterglow ASMR, Miss Cherri VA, izumi audio, Lilac ASMR, Mykie's voice, Vincent VNNZ Vogel, Jae ASMR, Poptart, HyperHedgehog, Sooshy VA, Ramble King ASMR, WhispurrAudio, Lamian Audio, Garr's Enclave, Dark and Twisted Whisper, GigixHunter, Cloudy Girl ASMR, Nept Audios, dervampireprince, adingGENESIS, Pie Crust Audios, Reality Dreams Audio, Green Leaf Audios ASMR. I haven't tagged them all here because I don't want to come across as spamming them, especially if they've already been tagged on Twitter, and it probably sounds stupid but most of them are bigger creators than me and I don't want to bother them. I also think Youtube might not like it if I tag a block of loads of different accounts all at once, I think that'll make Youtube think I'm a spam bot. But please do go and check out their channels by searching for them!

I feel sick. I'm shaking. I've had my art, as in artwork I draw and sell on Etsy, stolen any times and this year has been the worst. For those not following me elsewhere my Baldur's Gate 3 fanart got stolen and is being resold on t-shirts on Etsy, AliExpress, RedBubble and maybe more platforms. I taken one down and four more pop up. And that's far from the first time my drawings have been stolen. But I never expected my audios to get stolen like this. I have notices everywhere that I do not allow reposting, reuploading, or editing of my content. Though someone shouldn't need to have those things written down, it's common sense and basic human decency to not steal and repost other people's creations without their consent, whether you are monetising it or not.

I don't know what steps to take here. I hope Spotify takes this stuff down if enough of us report it. But the only people who can report it are the creators themselves. I don't have many connections or reach within the ASMR/VA community, but I hope other creators see this post, or other's posts about this situation, and are able to report and take down this content off Spotify.

As I'm writing this I decided to open the playlist up on the mobile app for Spotify where there is a 'more like this' tab. And sure enough. This is not the only person doing this. There are multiple 'podcasts' that are just full of stolen content. I'm sure this isn't all of them but these are the ones I have found. I have no idea how to tackle this. None of this is okay. There's more than just the ones in the screenshots here. There's one's that give no credit and just say 'I didn't make any of this' 'credit to creator' without naming the creator, straight up N-SFW content which is against Spotify's rules. And some of them in their about sections are complaining about getting copyright reports against them, thinking it's funny, saying their last podcast got taken down but they're just made this new one. All the content they are reposting is already online for people to listen too, some of it already on Spotify.

There's no excuse for reposting and not crediting someone (unless maybe they're doing it so the creator can't find and report them), and even with credit it's not okay. Message the creator first, ask them if they are okay with reposting. "But what if they say no?" then you don't do it. The same applies to any content whether it's ASMR or whether it's someone's fanart drawing. It hurts, it feels uncomfortable, it's crossing boundaries to take people's content that doesn't belong to you and repost, especially if you are monetizing and making money off it. I don't know how anyone can call themself a fan of a creator, how anyone can be a fan of a creator's work, and then do this. I'm scared to report for copyright. Multiple owners of these 'podcasts' have made it clear when they're reposts can taken down, they just reupload them again, that when their accounts get taken down they just make new ones and go straight back to reposting content. So reporting might not do anything. Even if anything is taken down, it will probably get reuploaded again and I don't want to be checking and reporting every day of my life. So then all I can do is raise awareness, tell people not to listen to these podcasts, make the creators of these podcasts know we are not comfortable with this and maybe that will make some of them stop doing this, maybe even make Spotify aware.

If you really like us or the content we make then be respectful of us and our boundaries.

This is Vincent's initial tweet about the situation, please help spread it and make other creators and viewers aware.

Please do not send any hate towards anyone who is making these playlist. I will not link to them on purpose. I do not want them being harassed or sent messages, and I do not want people going and listening to them.

I haven't proof read this so sorry if there are any mistakes. I am not well physical health wise at the moment and have been very stressed out this week due to a number of things that have happened and this is really the last thing I needed. I don't have the mental capacity to read back through this before I post it. I hope it's understandable.

[denis-local]

been dying to ask this

do you have any headcanons for poptart (their appearance, lore, etc)

Sorry for sleeping on this ask, but I do have some hcs! This turned out a little longer than I thought it would haha!

Love to imagine Poptart as just a simple fully black cat with the big ol green eyes. Also I like to imagine them as like a pretty big cat, a little chunky before they disappeared.

No special lore, was probably just adopted by Kasper after he found them behind one of the dumpsters in the alleyway as a kitten (where you usually find gatos haha) and after that Kasper immediately fell in love of his new babyyy

And while Kasper had them, that cat was living its best life head scratchies all the times, probably knew how to do like 1 special trick but that was enough for Kasper to give them multiple treats. And Kasper bought them like a million toys and even gave them the coolest collars!! They were basically the center of attention at all times especially when Kasper had guests over and bro was just living life before Kasper got sick and Unpleasant rolled around.

I know there are a lot of theories that go towards Unpleasant having ate Poptart or even is Poptart, but if you ask me Unpleasant probably ate Poptart and immediately spit them out when Poptart cut up their insides. Of course this is extremely stressful for the feline so they just ran off, the front door was open so they ran out that way, they somehow end up in the elevator, and now they're somewhere out there not as happy as they once were and now very lost.

They interact with the other NPCs, but not much happens other than the usual head pats, treat giving, and other things. But if you were to ask me Wallter probably found them and brought them home because he so seems like a cat person and I hate the idea of a sad, lost kitty so now Poptart is at least in a home. Though it's not the one they want to be in, they miss Kasper. A lot.

Oh yeah and They/Them cat bc I said so.