#based on that one meme i couldn't find a source for

[ontheseconddayitrains]

Be sure to incorporate them into your vocabulary

[clover-system]

The longest list of anti-endo sources I've ever seen

While trying to find something else using Tumblr's infamous search engine, I came across this absolute gem:

NINE SOURCES!!! That's a record!! This is incredible!

@radpocalypse, listen. I am about to tear these to shreds, but before I do, I want you to know that you have my respect for not only compiling the longest list of sources I have ever seen an anti-endo provide, and not only doing so seemingly not directly prompted, but typing out every single link by hand, on mobile, without making a single mistake. Incredible work.

And also, to be completely honest, if I had nine sources supporting a belief, I almost certainly wouldn't look into them this closely. But, hey, that's what strangers on the internet with opposing views are for.

One more thing before the debunk: Endogenic systems do not claim to have DID etc. without trauma. They just don't. Whether it could be possible is often debated as an edge case, usually just to win an argument against someone of the opposing side, but really, it's irrelevant for 99% of the community. A good chunk are questioning OSDD based on later trauma, but as far as I am aware, no one on this website is claiming a completely endogenic plural disorder.

However, I don't want to dismiss entire pages based on this alone without further commentary, and it's a fun intellectual exercise regardless. So, whenever I use green text, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate under the premise of "If I was claiming to have DID without trauma (which neither I nor anyone else afaik is), would this source actually debunk that claim?" My syster will also occasionally pop in with purple, since she was cocon while I was writing this.

My dad just walked into my room and literally said "hey how it's going". You know, like. Like that one post. Amazing.

Anyway, civility established. Now come along with me on this long long journey of ten minutes of reading. Maybe put some music on in the background, if that will help you get through it. I had Near's Theme on while writing.

Here we go.

Link 1: McLean Hospital

Ok, main thing that caught my eye was

According to a 2010 Psychiatric Times article, only 5% of people with DID exhibit obvious switching between identity “states.”

Very interesting! Even with all of the "idk who's fronting" memes, 5% is really not that high. Though maybe online spaces like these help train the ability to identify it? The reference trail leads back to a book by Kluft but I don't really feel like going through dozens of pages for this. Definitely making a note of this though; I wonder if there have been any follow-up studies on this.

Not much to say here other than that. No mention of plurality outside DID.

DID is associated with long-term exposure to trauma, often chronic traumatic experiences during early childhood.

Dissociation—or disconnection from one’s sense of self or environment—can be a response to trauma.

Dissociative identity disorder—a type of dissociative disorder—most often develops during early childhood in kids who are experiencing long-term trauma. This typically involves emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse; neglect; and highly unpredictable interactions with caregivers.

Why "associated", not "is caused by"? Why "can", not "is"? Why "most often", etc.?

Why such weak language?

Not that it couldn't be weaker.

I vaguely remember McLean getting into some hot water regarding a video they posted about DID, but didn't find anything concrete. Half-remembered anecdote aside, the author seems well-qualified.

C-tier debunk of this position. It's not nothing but it could be a lot better.

Link 2: Psych Central

It occurs in women 9 times more often than in men.

Very interesting statistic, but no citation provided.

Alters can show striking differences. For instance, one alter may speak with a different accent or have a softer way of speaking. They might have different opinions or a different gender identity, and even physical differences — like left- or right-handedness, or the need for a glasses prescription.

That's quite a stark difference here compared to the McLean article. What happened to "alters aren't that noticeable"?

But whatever, these are just interesting tidbits. None of this has anything to do with endogenic plurality. Nothing like "this is the only way to be multiple", no comment whatsoever.

DID is usually associated with adverse experiences in someone’s past and traumatic memories.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a mental health condition with strong links to trauma, especially trauma in childhood.

Bruh. This again?

In fact, the American Psychiatric Association reports that 90% of people with DID have a history of childhood abuse and neglect, based on research from the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Bruh. Seriously? 90%? You know what that leaves, right?

According to your own source, 10% of DID systems are endogenic.

But let's break this down. There's a big difference between the system being endogenic, and the DID being endogenic. This statistic is specifically referring to childhood trauma.

The wording's plenty vague though. This can absolutely be read as completely endogenic DID.

One review article from 2017 about the causes of DID noted that there was relatively little research on the condition to date.

The authors said researchers hadn’t yet investigated potential genetic and epigenetic factors. With epigenetic factors, the experiences and behaviors of your parents and ancestors can influence the function of the genes they pass down to you.

The authors of the review said scientists needed to do more research to investigate whether a person with DID might carry genes that can influence if they develop the condition or not.

This is particularly promising because studies have already shown that genes can influence dissociative disorders in general.

So you're telling me DID might be able to be passed down one or two generations? Wow. Again, this still has nothing to do with endogenic plurality, but I'm really glad I decided to play with this second angle, because it's so much more fun. We're certainly not at intentional self-inflicted DID here, but we are at this point a long way from certainly needing childhood trauma in all cases.

And also the reviewer is a military psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD. So uh. Not bringing our best here.

Link 3: Mayo Clinic

Gotta love an article that's nice and short. This is just a brief summary of a bunch of dissociative disorders. Again, nothing about endogenic plurality.

Starting to run out of things to say about this. This whole post could probably be a fifth the length if I didn't feel like playing on hard mode.

Formerly known as multiple personality disorder, this disorder involves "switching" to other identities. You may feel as if you have two or more people talking or living inside your head. You may feel like you're possessed by other identities.

Each identity may have a unique name, personal history and features. These identities sometimes include differences in voice, gender, mannerisms and even such physical qualities as the need for eyeglasses.

Hey, that reminds me of someone.

There also are differences in how familiar each identity is with the others. Dissociative identity disorder usually also includes bouts of amnesia and often includes times of confused wandering.

Again, McLean looking really odd with its declaration of DID's covertness against great detail like this. However, its author is so far the best qualified. This one just says "Mayo Clinic Staff". Can't even know which of them worked on this. Some of them are psychs, but if any of them specialize in dissociative disorders, it doesn't say so.

Dissociative disorders usually arise as a reaction to shocking, distressing or painful events and help push away difficult memories.

I won't bother quoting even more wishy-washy language because this post is already at an ungodly length (about 1300 words so far) and we're barely a third done. But yeah, suffice to say, no nail-in-the-coffin 100% link to trauma.

Link 4: Rethink

We are a trusted information creator and accredited by the Patient Information Forum (PIF).

Their bold, for once. That's an alarm-ringing corporate phrase if I've ever seen one. Also, first thing on the PIF's website is "balancing the risks and benefits of AI in the production of health information". So this article might've been written by GPT. Awesome. And yeah, a lot of this whole website looks to me like a bunch of interconnected pages with stupidly long articles written by stitching together LLM generations. Does pass GPT0's test though.

This one is so long. I'll take the ten minutes to read through every word, which I don't think @radpocalypse did, just to make sure there's nothing here, but one thing that does catch my eye scrolling down to near the bottom is that they misspelled their first citation.

A quick look at this Carolyn Spring shows a lot being sold and credentials nowhere in sight. Awesome.

So already I don't need to read this. The information here is not at a high level of trustworthiness. It's maybe better than nothing, but seriously, one can and should do better. But I'll read it anyway, just for bonus points. Thanks to AccelaReader for making this bearable.

Many people will experience dissociation at some point in their lives. Lots of different things can cause you to dissociate. For example, you might dissociate when you are very stressed, or after something traumatic has happened to you.

Some of the symptoms of dissociation include the following:

You may have clear multiple identities.

It‘s important to remember that you could have the symptoms of dissociation without a dissociative disorder.

So according to this, multiple identities can be caused by intense but non-traumatic stress, and might not necessarily be a disorder. So, while I admit this is a little bit of a stretch, we're four links in and this is the first mention of plurality in general, so I'll take it. One point for endogenic plurality. (And again, none of this really matters anyway because this is the worst source so far.)

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is sometimes called ‘Multiple Personality Disorder.

If you have DID you might seem to have 2 or more different identities, called ‘alternate identities.

Two missing closing quotes. Really not a good sign.

They suggest that DID is caused by experiencing severe trauma over a long time in childhood.

Aha! Finally, something concrete against endogenic DID! Too bad it's buried in the worst source yet. If we believed we had DID, we would absolutely not reconsider that based on a sketchy webpage with suboptimal syntax and no credentials.

Ugh, finally done with that one. What a slog.

Link 5: DID Research

Aha! The infamous psych student's blog! That's what Sophie said, anyway. Not taking her word for it though. Let's see what we can find here, independently.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is the result of repeated or long-term childhood trauma

Why wasn't this first? First sentence, so crystal clear. No two ways about this, transDID destroyed right out of the gate.

DID cannot form after ages 6-9 because individuals older than these ages have an integrated self identity and history.

Why wasn't this first? It's so plain, so refreshing after four pages of strategic ambiguity. Nothing left here for green. But still no mention of non-disordered plurality.

The author is impressively credentialed but doesn't seem to specialize quite near this area. She's certainly better than most, high above any random Tumblr user talking out of their ass, but the good stuff would be to get a DID specialist to explicitly spell out that endogenic systems are not possible.

Also should make note of this big fat legal disclaimer:

While the author strives to make information on this website as complete, reliable, and accurate as possible, the author makes no claims, promises, guarantees, or warranties about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of this site and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in the contents of this site.

If we did claim to have DID, this would rattle us a little but could ultimately be brushed aside.

Link 6: SANE

As usual, literally nothing about endogenic plurality. I'll just greenmode this.

The majority of people with DID have been through severe trauma in early childhood

And now back to our regularly scheduled nondefinitive language.

Fun fact: highlighting text on this website turns it invisible. Awesome.

A person needs to meet the following criteria to be diagnosed with DID:

- Two or more distinct identities or personality states, each with its own way of thinking and relating. - Amnesia and gaps in the recall of everyday events, personal information or traumatic events. - The experiences are not part of normal cultural or religious practice, or part of childhood imaginary play. For example, a child having an imaginary friend does not mean they have DID. - The symptoms are not because of substance abuse or other medical conditions.

Ah finally, a direct quote from the good ol' DSM. Notice the lack of a trauma requirement.

Funny enough, using only these criteria in isolation, we actually would count as having DID due to our grayout memory gaps when switching. DID is also listed in the dissociative disorders section of the DSM, not the trauma disorders section, so there is no implied criterion there either. However, there still remains the universal criterion of distress, which we do not fulfill. We are quite happy with ourselves.

DID is caused by severe childhood trauma, such as physical, verbal or sexual abuse.

Well, which is it?? Is it a majority association or a direct cause? Why the contradiction? Or is the emphasis on early childhood trauma?

Eh, whatever. Point is, green is once again shut down. But there is still no mention of endogenic plurality anywhere here!!

And no indication of who wrote this article, though the citation for direct cause is a dissociative disorder specialist. Does he actually say that in the cited paper, though?

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is multifactorial in its etiology. Whereas psychosocial etiologies of DID include developmental traumatization and sociocognitive sequelae, biological factors include trauma-generated neurobiological responses. Biologically derived traits and epigenetic mechanisms are also likely to be at play. At this point, no direct examination of genetics has occurred in DID. However, it is likely to exist, given the genetic link to dissociation in general and in relation to childhood adversity in particular.

I hope you have a dictionary on hand. That sure is a lot of big words that aren't in Firefox's built-in spellchecker. Still, after making sure I got everything, it's clearly not so cut and dry here. And we're back on the "it could be genetic" point.

Tangentially related: I do like the dismissal of the iatrogenic model on the basis of the brain scans.

Neurobiological differences have been demonstrated between dissociative identities within patients with DID and between patients with DID and controls. Given the current evidence, DID as a diagnostic entity cannot be explained as a phenomenon created by iatrogenic influences, suggestibility, malingering, or social role-taking. On the contrary, DID is an empirically robust chronic psychiatric disorder based on neurobiological, cognitive, and interpersonal non-integration as a response to unbearable stress.

Anyway, we're not even on the original page anymore, so I'll call it here. No mention of endogenic plurality, and the citation that claims to dismiss endogenic DID doesn't.

Link 7: NAMI Michigan

While the causes [of DID] are unknown

I'm tired. Aren't you tired?

Treatment for DID consists primarily of psychotherapy with hypnosis.

Yeah I'm calling BS on this one

And no citations on this entire page, nor even the author's name.

Statistics show that DID occurs in 0.01 to 1 percent of the general population.

Research has shown that the average age for the initial development of alters is 5.9 years old.

No sources listed. This is definitely the worst link. Literally on the same level as a rambling Tumblr user in terms of credibility.

Doesn't matter that it says

This disorder is believed to be triggered by physical or sexual abuse in childhood

Couldn't even get this dogshit source to be firm.

This one gets an F.

Link 8: The Psychology Practice

Got scared for a moment there that it said ai. No, that's AL, a name. Also this was written in 2022, so we're definitely safe. Can't actually find any other info on this AL character, but at least we can look up the co-author.

Hm, can't find anything on her, either. Well, at least this is a step up from the previous link. Let's see what it has to say.

According to the Dissociative Identity Research Organisation (2018), DID is formed in childhood due to repeated trauma in early childhood (before age 10) before the personality is fully integrated.

I do like that these later links are direct with this. They don't seem to have a citation for that DIRO, though. Unless...

No. Oh no.

Ok, so this one was written by a couple of clowns who definitely didn't do their homework. Cool. I'm getting tired of humoring awful sources like this, so moving on to the grand finale.

Link 9: NAMI

Wait, this is the same group behind the zero-citation article from Michigan! But that was just Michigan. Maybe the main site can do better.

Ugh, it's just another list of dissociative disorders instead of DID specifically.

The symptoms of a dissociative disorder usually first develop as a response to a traumatic event,

Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired?

Often these identities may have unique names, characteristics, mannerisms and voices.

Often? Wow. Sure is a far cry from 5%.

Dissociative disorders are managed through various therapies including: - Psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) - Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) - Medications such as antidepressants can treat symptoms of related conditions

No mention of hypnosis, allegedly the primary method of treatment?? (/sarc)

and there was no mention of plurality being exclusive to dissociative disorders

Oh, and no listed authors either.

So, after three thousand words of analysis, all we've come up with are nothing burgers, dogshit, and dogshit nothing burgers. Out of nine links, only one briefly and indirectly touched on endogenic plurality, and it was in favor. Even the argument against the traumaless DID strawman is weak at best. These sources are bad, to put it lightly.

@radpocalypse, if you're reading this, firstly, thank you for powering through your ADHD and dyslexia to read thousands of words dunking on your masterpiece. Secondly, if you have any more sources that you think are backing you, feel free to send them my way. Just uh, maybe read them more closely next time?

And that goes for everyone here. If you think you have a better source, or if I made a mistake or missed something here, I am open to correction. I am open to the idea that I'm wrong and I have some unknown trauma to work through, but I certainly won't go digging unless I have good reason to believe it's there, and I haven't seen any good reason. And if you haven't either, maybe it's time to reconsider your position.

One last thing before I go.

Have you ever actually seen a pro-endo carrd, let alone one cited in standalone? I haven't.

Here's a much longer list of much better sources than yours supporting endogenic plurality compiled by the traumagenic Guardians System. I don't expect you to read anywhere near the whole thing; just pick a few links at random. And yes, while many of them are peer-reviewed papers, some of them are Tumblr posts, but those Tumblr posts cite peer-reviewed papers, so it's all good.

Thanks for reading.

[languajix]

4+1: Teach Me

Inspired by an ask from @themulitipurposechannel!

Based on the thoughts 'what if Don's connection ability (threads) included being able to transfer energy, and what if that meant he could use the kids' powers?' and '...what if he had to practice at using them first, and since he didn't have an innate talent for them, he wasn't good at it?'

Presenting: 4 times Don kind of sucked at using the Rise kids' powers (+1 time he did not) (A non-canon Hold Every Memory 4+1 shortfic)

(1)

Angelo swung his legs absentmindedly, seated on top of the nearest large pipe, phone in his hands, trained carefully on his unfortunate subject.

"No, listen, it's like-" El slammed his fists together and the familiar red glow burned itself into existence around them.

Don sighed. He shuffled his feet until his weight felt centered, again, and balled his hands into fists. "Can you explain what you're thinking, or what you're feeling, maybe? Please?"

El smirked. He knew he was being unhelpful. "I'm thinking 'punch stuff,' obviously."

Obviously. Don sighed once more. Punch stuff, punch stuff, punch stuff. Stuff. What stuff did he want to punch? Nothing at the moment, really. He slammed his fists together and winced at the crack of bone on bone as his knuckles met. Something flickered to life, but it was gone in the next second after sparking painfully against his fingers in such a way that he had to shake them out a little.

"Wow," Lee muttered to Dee, "I think that's the worst anyone's ever done it."

When Don looked at him sharply, because who had taught Lee to be that rude? Lee threw up his hands. "It's a meme! A meme."

"Not an excuse," Don said flatly, and all the other kids immediately ooooohed. Leo hunched his shoulders, appearing chastised, but Don knew he'd be back at his antics given five minutes.

That was five minutes he could use to figure this out, though.

El hadn't described the flow of mystic energy through the body, how to pull from the source and direct it. It was likely that El manifested his large projections by sheer force of will, and his powers obliged. Maybe instead of brute forcing it, Don could... okay, that was worth a try.

He breathed, feeling the pull of mystic powers from El towards himself, cycling it in his chest and through to his hands, pooling in his fingers. One sharp, measured breath, one slam of fist against fist-

There was an incredible crackling boom right in front of his face, loud enough to set his ears to ringing, as all the kids yelled at once. Disoriented, Don stumbled back a few steps, hissing at the burning feeling along the skin of his hands. Across the room, El grimaced, stepping forward in guilty concern.

"I'm okay," Don bit out, shaking out his stinging arms. He heard Dee whisper, "Okay, I do think that's the worst anyone's ever done it, actually."

---

(2)

Don and Angelo sat facing each other, surrounded by a ring of candles. Not because they were supposed to be helpful in any way, but because Lee had decided it would look cool. Don allowed it because they were on concrete.

"I just reach deeeeeeeep within myself, find the center of my soul that is eternally burning with fiery passion as bright as a thousand suns, and picture myself pulling it out, link by link, until: aha! Easy as pie." Angelo performed an artful dragging motion in the air, and out from his clenched fist fell a length of glowing chains. He shook them demonstratively towards Don with an angelic smile.

...Don couldn't remember the last time he'd felt fiery passion.

He closed his eyes and sunk deep within himself, spiritually speaking. Normally he'd go up, towards the level of reality in which his astral plane meeting space waited, but this time he went down, down deep. How deep did Angelo have to go before he'd found his own fiery passion?

He sifted through his love for his family, his homesickness, the endless well of joy that he felt around his loved ones. All of it was soft and aching and endlessly deep. None of that was passion, though, not the way Angelo made it sound.

He loved building things. He loved dinosaurs. That was interest, excitement, pride. It didn't burn him, it electrified him.

He kept going. Deeper, deeper.

"...is he still awake?" Dee whispered from somewhere outside.

He felt something poke his forehead, but he was far too deep to drag himself back up and respond. He gave his connection to Angelo a lazy, distant little tug, finding himself somehow unable to muster anything more.

Angelo sounded incredibly fond, almost sickly-sweet with the amusement creeping into his voice. "Yeah, I think Tad meditated himself to sleep again."

In a moment or two, someone had put a blanket over his shoulders and patted the top of his head. All of his kids were snickering, and if it wasn't for the seemingly insurmountable distance between them, Don would be dragging them close to give them gentle noogies for the disrespect, but-

"Night, Tad," El murmured.

Everything dissolved.

(He woke up later covered in flower garlands for some reason, and none of the kids would explain why, or where they had gotten or made them in the first place. At least they were having fun.)

--

(3)

Don tried to focus on the phantom sensations, the ghostly memory of energy circling through his meridians and then pooling out through his fingers. Lee, clever kid that he was, had utilized their open telepathic connection to do half of the explaining for him while he spoke the other half out loud. "...thinking about where I want to be as I do, and... ¡eso!" Lee spun one of his katana in the air, drawing a glowing circle which he reached through immediately. Out of the corner of his eye, Don watched a hand appear out of midair to tap Angelo on the shoulder from behind. Angelo shivered in surprise and alarm, jerking and almost dropping the phone in his hands as he spun around to see who was behind him.

Where did he want to be? Dee was a handful of feet away, typing away at something on his phone with that drawn-on eyebrow cocked. Portaling next to him would be a good first step, perhaps. Don swallowed down the trepidation that was twisting his gut into knots and started cycling the mystic energy within himself.

He gripped the borrowed katana with a barely trembling, increasingly sweaty grip, and he considered everything he knew about portals, which was an awful lot. The energy it took to rip apart reality, the importance of stabilizing the wormhole at the other end, the calculations involved to account for the warp in the spacetime continuum-

He drew a circle in the air, more clumsy and lopsided than he'd quite intended, and Lee whooped in victory as it glowed that familiar sparkling blue. Don watched the tear within start to grow, the first sign of purple as the edge of Dee's mask swam into view, the outline of Dee's goggles, and soon he'd have to reach through, or step through-

-The portal beside him dragging him in, the last blurry glimpse he'd ever have of home, gone with a gasp-

He dropped his arm, numb, and the portal fizzled out with a sad little shower of sparks. Shouldn't his pulse be pounding in his ears, shouldn't he be finding it hard to breathe? He just felt- he didn't feel. Anything.

"Woah there," El said in his ear, and he realized his knees had buckled, and he had somehow ended up pressed against his eldest child's shoulder for support. "Easy. You're okay, Tad. I gotcha."

Lee appeared at his other side, hands fluttering nervously, talking a mile a minute in a tone that was climbing to increasingly higher pitches. The words all floated right past Don's head at the moment. He didn't need to know what Lee was saying to know what he meant, though, which was often more important in Lee's case, and he reached up to place a hand on Lee's shell between his shoulders, pulling downwards and towards himself until Lee got the message and wrapped his own arms around Don in a hug, words slowly petering out to anxious silence.

"You're a good teacher," Don's brain told his mouth to say, and Lee squeezed him tighter.

---

(4)

Dee paced in front of the whiteboard, whipping around to point at something on it with his laser pointer every so often as he lectured. It had been an hour and twenty-two minutes and counting, and all the other kids had long ago gotten bored enough to wander off.

"--I'm still working on figuring out what exactly this 'mystic energy' is comprised of, of course, but I'm hoping the spectrometer I'm planning on. On obtaining. Yes that is. A way to put it. I'm hoping that will help, because--"

This was the power that Don had been most intrigued by, honestly, and he barely noticed his fingers happily tapping at the underside of the desk-and-chair-set someone had clearly scavenged from a local high school and modified to accommodate his rounded turtle shell, he was so completely absorbed. Dee's perspective on his own powers, and the science behind them, was incredibly thorough, though riddled with assumptions and wandering tangents and missing a lot of wider context Don had learned over time from exposure to the Hidden City and its resources. Don wished he could have made more time for them to bounce some of these thoughts around earlier.

"...and with that," Dee grabbed the end of the whiteboard and spun it dramatically, turning away to face front, "I think it's time for a practical demonstration! Class, observe."

He reached for his bō and pointed it at the table in front of him. Don watched as something sprang out of nothing, purple light forming the interior components and then an exterior shell of a-

"--is that a rocket launcher?" He asked, more than a little alarmed at the thought of his teenagers casually playing with rocket launchers, though he really shouldn't have been surprised.

Dee immediately banished the thing. "Nnnnnnno. Hey, why don't you try to make something, he said in a very subtly distracting way."

...they were absolutely coming back around to that later. This wouldn't be the first time he had to set down or reinforce rules about safe toys, with the way Dee's mind always went for the flashiest, loudest, most spectacular sort of inventions with little regard for the safety of himself or others. Don understood, very, very well, but there had to be limits.

He cupped his hands and focused. The schematic that came to mind was a little toy RC car that they had built back when Dee was five. The little motor, the wheels, the chassis. Slowly, but surely, he could sense the tug of power through Dee into himself as it constructed itself into existence.

"Ha... hahaha!" Dee chuckled rather evilly. "Success! Wait until everyone hears how my professional approach--"

Don's momentary slip of attention caused some sort of spark at the motor of the small car he was building with his mind, and it immediately leapt forward with incredible speed and whacked Dee right between the eyes. They both yelped. Without thinking, Don immediately went to jump to his feet and check on him, but only managed to crack the desk and slam himself back into the chair with a groan.

Holding his hand to the spot the little car had made impact, Dee stumbled backwards a few steps. He hit the whiteboard, which shot across the room, and Don couldn't see where it rolled to but it definitely hit something important because all the lights in the room momentarily flickered and went dark.

Dee hissed. "...still considering this a victory, for the record. Go Team Purple. Hooray."

---

(+1)

The thing- the Krang - hurtled towards him at blinding speed, but the kids were faster.

"Tad!" Lee called, and Don turned his head a fraction of an inch to see a katana glinting golden in the torchlight as it spun through the air. He snatched it by the hilt, swinging it into position and squaring his shoulders.

Despite the adrenaline-rush terror of the situation, he couldn't possibly have felt alone or afraid in that moment; he could sense all of his kids around him, invisible threads pulled taut as they stretched from his soul outwards. They all had their connections wide open, emotions and thoughts and their energy, their ninpō, pulsing down the line.

"You're not going to hurt my kids. Not again," he growled. He could feel the determination to protect burning in his chest, and he clenched his fist, feeling something igniting to life between his fingers, link by link. Chains. The other end wrapped itself tightly around the Krang, and with one incredible heave he redirected the velocity of his attacker straight into the nearest concrete wall. With a sharp crack and deep, discomfiting grinding noise, the wall began to crumple around the Krang in giant chunks as it shrieked in outrage.

He tossed the katana upwards with all of his strength, still drawing on that orange inferno that was Angelo, and in a blinding flash of blue light he appeared hundreds of yards above the battleground, grabbing the katana in his off hand. His stomach immediately dropped as his body tried to reorient itself to the sudden change in the gravity acting upon it, but he paid it no mind.

He had one solid chance to take out the threat to his kids, and he had to make it count.

He pulled on every schematic he knew, and with the connection as blown wide open as it was, he could feel the way Dee's thoughts raced, rifling through his own mental filing cabinet for even more powerful and creative options to offer up. Cannons. Rifles. Rocket launchers. They sprang into existence around Don and immediately began to fire, purple plasma and rockets peppering the quickly-shrinking distance between himself and the Krang.

He watched the crumpled alien - struggling with the chains it was still wrapped in - flinch at everything that hit its mark, though very few actually seemed to pierce through and make it bleed.

If there was one thing in the world Don wanted to punch, it was this guy. He curled his fingers into a fist. He drew back his arm. It burned a brilliant red.

[mrghostrat]

hi! sorry if this ends up as a ramble

in the first chapter of atws you meant hoping others will write streamer aus and if that isnt true anymore or you'd prefer i dont i will stop instantly cause this entire idea has been inspired by you

i am currently working on outlining and planning an ineffable streamers fic (its a mess rn) and aH im having a lot of fun with this. so i was wondering how you came up with the title, if your comfortable sharing. cause i have ended up on winged snakes as a wip title and i dislike it and i cant figure out a good one (potentially cause its almost 1am as i type this but eh)

also h i ! i've commented on your fics alot in the past few days lol, sorry for the notif spam, i don't think it will stop lmao

YESYES i'm still so eager to see everyone else's streamer works! don't forget i've made a public collection you're all invited to add your work to, so it lists all the streamer aus together!

as for the title, that was the genius of my roommate @thewolveswolf, based on the "and they were roommates / oh my god they were roommates" vine.

memes are a great source of title inspiration if you want something fun and silly. i'm otherwise pretty dreadful at naming things, though i am pretty proud of some of the double-meaning chapter titles we've had so far! 😁

i'm also a sucker for song lyrics and quotes from the actual fic, and i like trying to keep my titles directly related to the story so it's easy to remember and find them again. there's so many fics i adore but couldn't tell you what they actually were if you presented me with the title, which makes it hard to rec and share them easily thsksksk

[lotusflowerbreakingthesurface]

Let's Talk About PingXie: Part 3

PingXie Fanfiction Vocabulary

Or "Some Words in PingXie Fanfiction That Can't Be Translated Properly by MTL" XD

Here is a list of words that I found interesting and occasionally appeared in PingXie fanworks. I couldn't find the exact equivalents for most of them in English, so please excuse me for the long explanation. My friend helped me out, but my knowledge is still limited (⁠^_^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ

It's not a complete list (and kinda random). Please note that they are mostly used in PingXie/DMBJ fandom, I don't know about other fandoms. I may add some more, if I find it again.

🆕Update: the follow-up is here, it's a compilation of tags

©Divider by @saradika-graphics, @anitalenia

窗户纸 (mtl: window paper) : it's like a trope where they're being so ambiguous and the status of their relationship may not be revealed, but everyone also knows that they are lovers. It's a special connotation of symbolic objects in Chinese culture, refers to two people who have a very deep love but did not confess to each other, their feelings are hidden in the heart. Other people also know that their relationship is similar to lovers but they did not say it. It's like a layer of window paper has not been pierced.

捅窗户纸 (mtl: pierce the window paper) : it's almost the same as the previous one, but they come to the realization of their feelings and confess to each other. They end up together, become lovers.

论坛体/直播体 (mtl: forum body/live broadcast body) : something like Social Media AU, but it's often on the forum instead or written in forum style.

竹马 (mtl: bamboo horse) : a male childhood friend

校草 (mtl: school grass/school bully) : the most handsome boy in the school

沙雕 (mtl: sand sculpture) : funny and silly

骨科 (mtl: orthopedics) : incest

伪骨科 (mtl: pseudo-orthopedics) : they are brothers but not real siblings

清水 (mtl: clear water) : no description of s*xual activities

破镜重圆 (reunited after a broken mirror) : they meet again after separation which is usually not in a good way/unreconciled

本传 (mtl: biography) : refers to the main story of DMBJ

杭州名木/杭州著名木头 or 吴邪，杭州一块有名的木头 (mtl: Wu Xie, a famous piece of wood in Hangzhou) : it's like comparing Wu Xie to the wood, because he is being oblivious and insensitive, he doesn't notice that Zhang Qiling loves him haha. There is a meme based on this lol.

Meme source: I forgot where I found it, but there should be a watermark on it. I translated the picture on the right side using mtl with a few corrections. Sorry for my poor translation (⁠๑⁠•⁠﹏⁠•⁠)

铁木真/铁・木・真 (tiě mù zhēn/temujin) : it's not Genghis Khan here, it's a pun or a joke about Wu Xie. It's like the previous one, but added one more element.

"���" (mtl: steel/iron) for "钢铁直男" means he is a straight man of steel

"木" (mtl: wood) for "杭州著名木头" means he is the famous wood in Hangzhou

"真" for "天真" Wu Xie's "Tiānzhēn"

白月光 "bái yuèguāng" (mtl: white moonlight) : the first love that can't be forgotten

吴山四美 "wúshān sì měi" : four beauties of Wushan(ju)—Wu Xie, Zhang Qiling, Xie Yuchen, Hei Xiazi

嫩牛五方 "nèn niú wǔ fāng" : a group of five people—Wu Xie, Zhang Qiling, Pangzi, Xie Yuchen, Hei Xiazi

挨千刀 (mtl: suffer a thousand cuts) : it is used to scold someone, but it is not insulting them. Its tone is more into worried rather than being angry. For example, Wu Xie complains "挨千刀的闷油瓶" in his heart, it sounds like he uses a spoiled tone to show his annoyance.

醋[瓶] (mtl: vinegar) : jealous [Zhang Qiling]

墨水[瓶] (mtl: ink) : a slight dark [Zhang Qiling]

排雷 (mtl: demining) : a setting that you should pay attention before reading, usually it is unacceptable for most people.

黑金古刀 (mtl: black gold ancient sword/black gold ancient knife) : Xiaoge's sword

大白狗腿 (mtl: big white dog legs) : Wu Xie's dagger

发丘指 (mtl: hair mound finger/Faqiu finger) : Zhang Qiling's two long fingers

哥嫂 : brother and sister-in-law, refers to Zhang Qiling (哥) and Wu Xie (嫂)

吃软饭 "chī ruǎn fàn" (mtl: eat soft rice) : a slang that means men rely on women to survive

吃豆腐 (mtl: eating tofu) : something like taking advantage of others, teasing or flirting, etc.

PA : parody

脐橙 (mtl: navel orange) : a wordplay of "骑乘" which means r*ding aka c*wgirl position

水煎 (mtl: boiled water/water decoction) : a word play for "睡奸" which means somn*philia

Doi : same as ML (from English "do" and "i" from Chinese "Love" (爱 "ài")

双龙 (mtl: double dragon) : double p*netration

爆炒/炒 (mtl: stir-fry/fried) : to b*ng someone, "炒" is a wordplay of "f*ck"

XP : s*xual fetish

SP : sp*nking

QJ : r*pe

Some of them courtesy of PinkSnake. Thank you for all the help!🌹

◀ Previous | Next ▶

[saucerfulofsins]

https://www.tumblr.com/saucerfulofsins/755751308382945280/lou-has-publicly-stated-multiple-times-that-he-is

before like where put private on twt we where able to found that he liked pro trump and pro life tweet

also one of his stans was followed by him and she was very very happy and decided since he was following her to make a video presenting him a go fund me for a family in gaza that needed help she said that since it’s something very important to her it would be wonderful if he could’ve made a donation

he then unfollowed and blocked her

also on his ig profile there was ableist, sexist, racist, xenophobic and fatphobic meme posted by a 30 yo man and also he took pics of women at the gym and posted on his ig

he deleted the photo just now after being dragged about this thing

and let’s not forget how he told how tommy behavior towards chim and hen was just silly corny and teasing

Yeah I didn't wanna say anything I couldn't back up with sources, but I don't think any amount of sources about LFJ's personal issues could make me like this guy. Big ick.

And like. These are choices he is making! This is the way he chooses to present himself! And I know I keep coming back to this, but it's his focus on his own masculinity that I find most fascinating. It reminds me of a text I read for my BA thesis (which I did on representations of masculinity in 3 Middle English romances):

Experience indicates that the masculine gender is fragile and tentative, with weaker biological underpinnings than the feminine. It requires strong social support to maintain fictions of superiority based solely on a measure of physical strength. (Jo Ann McNamara in Medieval Masculinities, p.3 (1994)).

And it really feels like he feels superior because of his physicality/masculinity, when personally I find that quite threatening? I don't think there's anything inherently cool about it either, and most of all, I don't think that is the message 9-1-1 as a show is telling. It's completely out of tune with the show's message of talking, opening up, being vulnerable, letting people in. His "edgy humour" is also doing the opposite, it feels very late 2000s youtube, completely lacking any sort of moral compass or empathy. (I hate it enough that I've ended friendships over that kind of bullshit).

I think the reason I keep circling back to masculinity is because I think everything he does is filtered through it. It's the first thing he says about Tommy, and he clearly sees Tommy as more important than Buck, which I suspect is because he considers Tommy more masculine. And I hate it! I fucking hate it! Because if masculine masculinity is the epitome of cool, and that's admired by him, then everything else is automatically the OPPOSITE of that and therefore weak/not good.

[princesscolumbia]

Author Thoughts

I'm approaching the end of my third full novel I've written in my life.

One was supposed to be a licensed work but then that license holder got bought by another company that cancelled the IP that book was based on, so now sits on my hard drive. I go back and read it every few years or so, mostly to see how far I've progressed as an author since my early twenties.

The second was pure catharsis, a fanfic about trauma and homelessness and found family and dealing with pain and loss. You can find it on FiMFiction.net and AO3 if you're interested.

My most recent will not be appearing here due to the Dead Dove content (Explanation for those who needed this defined like I did: "Dead Dove" fics are those that have clear tagging, especially on AO3, that there's "problematic" content in the work but people who are triggered by the clearly tagged problematic stuff read it anyway and get upset. Based on the "Dead Dove" meme where the guy looks in the bag clearly marked, "Dead Dove, do not eat" and looks inside and finds, sure enough, a dead dove), but has been some of the most interesting, challenging writing I've ever done where I'm allowing my creative brain to intentionally think, "What's the bad ending and how do I make it interesting?"

When I was writing my first novel, I got to a point about 3/4's through and my writing slowed down significantly. It took two years for me to write it, nine months of that was just on the last 1/4 of the book. It wasn't any more lengthy or challenging than the rest, just I suddenly felt like I was running out of steam and couldn't keep going, even though I'd plotted out pretty much ever plot point and story beat down to specific timing for the climax chapter.

When I was working on my second (completed, I've started a few dozen since my first) work, I got to about 3/4's through...and slowed down. It took over a year to write and, just like my first book, the last 1/4 took the lion's share of that time.

My current book I've been hammering on since early December 2023 (if you're reading this later than the posting date, the first chapter is currently only about a month old by this point), and I actually wrote a full outline complete with copious notes so I wouldn't forget anything I wanted to do with the fic. I'm on Chapter 9 of 11 chapters and an epilogia (Epilogia - n. - collection of epliogues. See also, "Prologia" and "Blame Brandon Sanderson") and sure enough, as I put some paragraph marks between "Chapter 9" and my notes, suddenly I started slowing down. I took an entire day off, thinking I was just burning out, but no, I only didn't want to write as I sat down to actually do the writing.

I've been pondering this for the last week-ish, and I believe it has to do with the project being just about done. This has taken pretty much my entire free time since I started and is a tremendous source of dopamine, and now that I'm getting closer to the end, my idiot monkey brain is seeing the end of the dopamine and is trying to delay the end, hoping that'll keep the dopamine rolling in.

Something that I've been working on may be a solution. I've been dropping little Easter Eggs into my fics so fans of one body of work can be pleasantly surprised when they see something from that work turn up in an apparently unrelated project. A character from My Empire of Dirt might appear in Deviation, an epilog on another project will be a big reveal about a character based on the sudden and unexpected intersection with Lost in the Dark. Sunset Shimmer from Redhead/Redhead winds up meeting with Ranma "Sailor Moon" Saotome from Fission. That sort of thing.

Basically, I'm going to convince my monkey brain that it's ALL just one, massive, ongoing "novel" and the dopamine will flow forever so long as the writing does, too.

Will it work? We'll see if it did based on how quickly I can get Ch. 9 out. 😋

[zuckarr]

1 year as a vegan 🌱 an honest overview

I'm a 30 year old woman, and I decided to go vegan in April 2022. I was never a vegetarian. I switched from an omnivorous diet to a plant-based diet overnight, and I have strictly adhered to the latter, with the only few exceptions being accidents.

I would like to write down how my journey as a vegan has been so far, what pros and cons I encountered and how my overall health was impacted. I intend to talk with my heart on my sleeve about everything and I am totally open to questions or clarifications. This post is nothing more than my own subjective, unique experience as a relatively new vegan person. However I won't be talking about the morality of veganism, nor the reasons why I decided to go vegan. I want to give voice to the bodily and mental changes I am going through instead, plus a few personal final thoughts.

I'd like to begin by stating that:

I have been taking several blood tests during the last year in order to keep track of the changes.

I have been taking vitamin B12 supplements as strongly recommended by every single doctor and veganism related website/source.

I have no prior sickness of any kind.

HEADACHES.

Headaches used to permeate my days before going vegan - so much that I had stopped noticing them (when bearable). During my first week as a vegan, the sudden disappearance of my headaches felt like a miracle. I would've never anticipated how life-changing that was. I was so used to my head pounding that the absence of the pain couldn't have gone unnoticed. I figured out I am intolerant to dairy, as countless others are, and yet I used to munch on cheese as my go-to comfort food... as countless others do.

BLOATING.

Bloating was probably also caused by my daily ingestion of dairy products, and was one of my body's cries for help. I did not feel bloated anymore once I started eating plant-based. The skin on my belly was softer at the touch and not as tense as before. People around me began asking if I had lost weight. I hadn't. It was just me deflating, lol.

SLEEP.

This is one of the most unexpected changes: I noticed I've been sleeping less, but better. I started waking up an hour or two earlier than usual, feeling well rested. Thanks to that, my days got longer, my mind got clearer, and my mood improved almost instantly.

ENERGY.

During the first weeks, I felt very energised. Must've been all of the vitamins suddenly filling my body! Who needs to get high when you can get the iron rush from a bunch of spinach, like good old Popeye taught us? Nevertheless, the energy sort of dissipated over time and I've been feeling pretty normal ever since.

POOP.

Oh no, it's poop talk! Fend yourselves, because I am not scared of being descriptive here. Long story short, I used to have frequent diarrhea before going vegan. Once again, my dairy intolerance most likely contributed to creating funny looking brown stuff. If I asked you how's your poop looking, what would you answer (assuming you wouldn't slap me)? And would you know what a healthy poop is supposed to look like? Welp, let's just say I've been proud of my toilet appointments since going vegan, because all I see are Pacha meme worthy sausages. Going to the loo is a happy time now, in comparison to the long minutes of agony spent with stomachache and funky smells.

FLATULENCE.

Can't have booty talk without mentioning the #1 cause of laughter among kids since the beginning of time! Farting is funny, but it is first and foremost the sign of a healthy gut. It takes a quick Google search to find out what farts truly are and why our bodies need to produce them. I confirm one of the most innocent prejudices against vegans - yes, we fart more than usual! But if you read into it, you'll only wish to do the same. Still, it is a largely acceptable change, and has not caused me any discomfort or unfortunate situations whatsoever.

CHOLESTEROL, IRON, PROTEIN, ETC.

Before going vegan, I had high cholesterol, high fibrinogen, low hemoglobin, low albumin, and a few other things that weren't importantly unbalanced. As aforementioned, I've taken several blood tests during the last year which showed ALL of the highs & lows quickly going back to normal. When I saw my cholesterol lower for the first time, I cried. I haven't had normal cholesterol for years, so, seeing that was nothing less than a miracle for me. As for my iron and protein, they increased! My fibrinogen was REALLY high, which could've resulted in a heart attack due to a vascular occlusion, but I don't risk that anymore. I cannot express how ecstatic I am to be considered medically healthy now. I wish somebody had told me earlier about the health benefits of a plant-based diet.

COOKING AND GROCERY SHOPPING.

I was never a big fan of cooking, because I was mostly just hungry all the time and I couldn't be bothered to prep meals or to even chop up vegetables. As a vegan though, I was kind of forced to look at recipes in the beginning - I was pretty lost and didn't know what to cook! Well, vegan cooking turned out to be much easier than I thought. I remember my first vegan grocery shopping experience: a whole new world opened up in the mall. I had never looked at the veggies and fruits and legumes and seeds and cereals section properly before! It was ENORMOUS! Boxes and bags and baskets of wonderfully colored food, most of it really cheap (especially legumes); with half of the money that I used to spend on cheese and meat, I had double the amount of food in my shopping cart and I was so ready to start cooking. The more I cooked, the quicker my cooking skills drastically improved and I have so much fucking fun in the kitchen now! I made countless vegan meals and cakes, loved by everybody (non-vegans asked for recipes more than once!), even by my mother! She used to slaughter chickens and had never baked a cake without eggs before, and yet, she admitted that this way of eating is fantastic and convenient. After a few months, she praised my hair and skin because it looks brighter and healthier. As a matter of fact, I feel nourished and full most of the time. Most importantly, I began to feel grateful and to think of food as a way of loving myself and nurturing my body, rather than a mere matter of taste.

SOCIETY.

The problem with being a vegan in a human society is... other people. It is always, undoubtedly other people who will come @ me with their weird, uncalled for, and rude anti-vegan claims as soon as somebody ELSE reveals that I am a vegan. I swear to god. I have no idea where we picked up the scenario of the 'annoying vegan' because the truth is actually the opposite... it is others who annoy ME... whenever they asked questions, I was happy to answer and explain stuff, because I genuinely thought that they were interested and would have liked learning something new, just like I would've felt if they had talked to me about something that they are passionate about. But nope, the real reason why most people asked me questions was to 'debunk' what I would say and feel like they won the argument. Even though it wasn't an argument at all. It wasn't long before I started noticing the patterns, the same old questions asked, the same rebuttals, over and over, in an endless cycle of going nowhere. So I simply learned how to differentiate the 'gotchas' from the rare, decent people who truly want to know more about veganism. As for going out and eating out, it wasn't as hard nor as expensive as I anticipated. We now live in a very vegan friendly time, there are vegan alternatives to basically everything. I feel extremely lucky to be a vegan now, because I can't even begin to imagine how hard it would've been years before.

PEACE OF MIND.

There is a duck pond nearby and I often take walks through it. Sometimes I sit on a bench, look at the beautiful birds and their dreamy plumage, and I... appreciate them. Not for their meat, like I used to. I can't even fathom seeing those creatures as food now. I appreciate them as individuals, who dream, love, dance, think, sleep, bond with their kin... I feel at peace with animals and nature on a whole other level. I realized how wrong it felt to eat a steak and then pet my dog. I learned so much about animal agriculture, nutrition, human rights, environmentalism… and I have so much more to learn yet. It takes one heartfelt glance into an animal's eyes, to be reminded that we are all the same. I am honored to get to choose not to be cruel to them.

[nientedal]

for the fic writers ask meme, i’m rather curious about 9 & 10; which of your fics did you find the easiest and hardest to write?

From this ask meme!

Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Each fic has its own challenges, but right now, it's probably a tie between Swansong and the Cold Fusion series. And for similar reasons! Both have complex plots - Swansong's is primarily emotional, with Megamind processing complex grief and a broken (and then new) mental link, and Roxanne processing having a roommate going through emotional turmoil, plus some mental stuff of her own...and then Metro Man's whole thing, and holy shit maybe there's still a chance, and mixing hope into the grief mix is just a fucking nightmare for everyone involved, and djf;aldjfa;ldjadflj;afjdj it's a mess. And because it's written in third person limited, rather than omniscient, there's only so much that I can tell readers directly. Which, in a story with so much happening internally, was...extremely frustrating, at times!

Cold Fusion's complexity is more events-based, but in that one I am having to balance the fact that there ARE external plotlines happening against the fact that...the primary focus of those fics is on the characters and their development. Also, for a LONG LONG TIME, I did not actually KNOW what the plot was, I was just sort of winging it, and now I DO know, and it's a lot bigger than I expected it to be? Which I think some people may not like. And on one hand, fuck 'em, I'm writing for me, but on the other hand, I do write fanfiction with my end goal being to share it with people, so my readers' enjoyment is absolutely a thing I have in mind, I'm not JUST writing for me. So, aaaaaaaaaaaa.

I am now also having to grapple with the fact that when I started writing Cold Fusion, many of my headcanons were different from what they are now. I was originally very set on it being canon-compliant, on ONLY working with things we knew from the source material and not doing my own worldbuilding more than was absolutely necessary. And then I fell into a depression hole for like 3 or 4 years and could barely force myself to write at all, and when I finally came blasting out of that hole on the Wellbutrin-fueled jet pack I titled Dive, the amount I cared about "canon compliant" had plummeted to pretty much zero. Writing Swansong helped with that, I think -- I had basically been writing nothing but Cold Fusion for AGES, and then Ramendobe slapped me in the face with that prompt, and I discovered that writing universe alterations was a lot of fun! And then Dive punted my desire to stay canon-compliant into the sun. So now, rewriting Cold Fusion as I post it to AO3, I am working with characters who are different from the way I now write them in other fics. I'm bringing some of my newer headcanons into that universe for shits and giggles, but still. It's an odd feeling.

Which fic has been the easiest to write?

Another tie! Because I cannot make decision.

By Chance, which I wrote because my buddy ElfKid dropped a prompt into my askbox when I was like, "holy shit the ADHD is BAD tonight and I wanna see if I can write a one-shot in one evening," I think...? aahahaha actually no I just went and looked it up, and I had tagged my 'weh ADHD sucks' post with #hey if anyone is reading this send me a writing prompt and let's see wtf happens when i can't motherfuckin think lmaoooo and...I basically sat down, put the best of black sabbath on loop, and waited to see what fell out of my hands. And it was that. (Here's the original tumblr edition.)

and everything emptying into white was originally just some tags I had put on an ask from another friend of mine about Megamind purring, and I couldn't stop thinking about them and that day at work just SUCKED ASS and so I copied and pasted them into an AO3 draft on my phone at work and churned that out over the course of my lunch break. And then added a bunch to it during the next couple days.

(and I gotta give an honorable mention to Dive. I basically churned that thing out in less than a week of HOLY SHIT I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING IN YEARS AND MY BRAIN JUST WOKE UP AND REMEMBERED HOW TO ENJOY THINGS adrenaline, it was great. It wasn't as easy to write as the other two, simply because it wasn't as short & sweet, but it was easy and I owe that fic a lot. So.)

[dertaglichedan]

Zillow's price estimates are screwing up homebuying

When Zillow debuted in 2006, the fledgling site bore little resemblance to the real-estate behemoth it is now. There were no options to find an agent, get a mortgage, or request a tour — the search portal couldn't even tell you which homes were actually for sale. There was, however, the Zestimate: a "free, unbiased valuation" for 40 million houses around the US, based on a proprietary algorithm. Half the single-family homes in America suddenly had a dollar figure attached to them, and anyone could take a peek. Zillow's site crashed within hours as a million people raced to ogle at the results.

The initial rush was a sign of things to come. Nowadays, the Zestimate is arguably the most popular — and polarizing — number in real estate. An entire generation of homeowners doesn't know life without the algorithm; some obsessively track its output as they would a stock portfolio or the price of bitcoin. By the time a seller hires a real-estate agent, there's a good chance they've already consulted the digital oracle. For anyone with even a passing interest in the housing market, the Zestimate is a breezy way to take the temperature. Keep tabs on mortgage rates all you want, but they can't tell you that your house has appreciated 20% over the past year, or that your annoying coworker's property is worth more than yours.

Many industry insiders, however, regard the number as a starting point at best and dangerously misguided at worst. Real-estate agents recount arguments with sellers who reject their pricing advice, choosing instead to take the Zestimate as the word of God. One meme likens its disciples to adults who still believe in Santa. Zillow itself lost hundreds of millions of dollars during the pandemic when it relied on its algorithm to buy homes at what turned out to be inflated prices, part of an ill-fated attempt to flip homes at scale.

...

The Zestimate is both everywhere and an enigma. About 104 million homes, or 71% of the US housing stock, have a little dollar figure hovering above them on Zillow's website. One of them is the house in Austin where I was raised until the age of 10. It's not for sale, but right underneath the address, in bold, is the Zestimate. Next to it is a "Rent Zestimate," or the amount the owner could probably charge a tenant each month. You can click to see a graph of its Zestimate over the past decade — the Zillow-fied value of my childhood home rose a staggering 72% from May 2020 to its peak in May 2022 but has since dropped 24% from that top tick thanks to the chill running through the Austin market. In just the past 30 days, the Zestimate has dropped by $4,455. Ouch.

Just how accurate are those numbers, though? Until the house actually trades hands, it's impossible to say. Zillow's own explanation of the methodology, and its outcomes, can be misleading. The model, the company says, is based on thousands of data points from public sources like county records, tax documents, and multiple listing services — local databases used by real-estate agents where most homes are advertised for sale. Zillow's formula also incorporates user-submitted info: If you get a fancy new kitchen, for example, your Zestimate might see a nice bump if you let the company know. Zillow makes sure to note that the Zestimate can't replace an actual appraisal, but articles on its website also hail the tool as a "powerful starting point in determining a home's value" and "generally quite accurate." The median error rate for on-market homes is just 2.4%, per the company's website, while the median error rate for off-market homes is 7.49%. Not bad, you might think.

When you think of the Zestimate, for many, it gives a false anchor for what the value actually is.

[lcvb1tesmoved]

indie & private dash only mutuals only multi muse blog for ocs based on my own lore & other original content. nsfw / triggering. mun is 34+. written by skippy

no godmodding or drama please.

any hate or drama will result in being blocked.

please do not use me as a meme source.

do not steal any of my edits

i have adhd / anxiety & asthma which can make it hard to rp sometimes. i also work which takes it out of me, so please be patient with me.

disco is available upon request.

i am private & will lean towards rping with mutuals. please respect this.

​if you don’t love my female muses, you don’t deserve my male muses. please give both attention as i work hard on all my bios & developing all my characters.​

heavily affiliated with @ambarincs @unwaivering @dutyled @legeandary @waehles @isleprince @decemberslost

muses under the cut

jackson fuller || fellow travelers headcanon based || 15 || homoromantic

anna || age unknown / turned at 12 || aceromantic || the feral vampire || anna is the undead daughter of stefan who was thought to be dead for hundreds of years after she was believed to have met her untimely demise at the age of fourteen. in reality she was found by a vampire after her parents seemed to abandon her and they took pity on her, turning her into a vampire despite her young age. it soon became evident just how feral she was and how she couldn't be tamed.

eventually she killed her sire and took on the facade of a helpless child until she was adopted by a nice family with whom she lived until their death which left anna completely alone again. this made her unwilling to form any bonds with humans that she would only outlive, but her need for family keeps her looking for someone that can give her the family she always wanted. || fc: alisha weir

aiden campbell || 300+ years old || closeted homosexual || the mind reading vampire || aiden is a mysterious vampire whose human life has never been disclosed aside from him being a father to young rosalind with his wife, elizabeth for several years. their quiet life being broken when rosalind was stolen away in the night and aiden's wife suffered with tuberculosis which ended her life and almost took his as well. while she succumbed to the illness, aiden was saved by a man named stefan who lured the younger man in with the promise of love and a happier life than the one he lost.

believing his lies led aiden to being turned and becoming the fledgling to stefan whose love was only a way to get aiden on his good side. centuries of staying by his sire's side finally came to an end when aiden was able to escape the pain he endured at the hands of the older vampire. finding a better life for himself that kept him in the darkness of nighttime while drawing as little attention to himself as possible. not wanting to relive the trauma of his past that is forever etched on his skin with scars. || fc: assad zaman

stefan || age unknown / physically 35 || panesxual || the ancient vampire || while his origin is unknown and lost to the world, stefan once lived in france during the 1800s where he met a young woman with whom he had a daughter, making the child half vampire and it seemed like the charming man had everything going for him as he was considered wealthy and his natural talent for any job he had made it easy for stefan to be successful while hiding the fact that he was a vampire. though when his daughter and wife died, causing stefan to lose any bit of humanity left within him and he became less of a vampire and more of a monster that no longer cared who he killed as he had nothing left to live for.

that was until he met aiden whom he soon fell for and together they started a relationship that seemed to be going well for years, ultimately leading to stefan turning aiden with the promise that they'd have a new life together as lovers. unfortunately this was all manipulation and soon his treatment of his fledgling turned abusive until aiden finally managed to break free. with the old stefan now completely gone, he was free to continue to cause bloodshed wherever he went, reining hell on a world that he long since stopped caring about. || fc: sam reid

bowie || 25 || genderfluid / they them || homosexual || the bartender || bowie is a young bartender living in washington where they reside in the city while working at a local bar to try and make some kind of living for themself while hoping to someday get away from the place they've known for so long and find a way to become something bigger elsewhere. while society hates their choice to dress feminine, bowie continues to be themself despite the homophobia and hate they receive as a result. knowing that if no one accepts them for who they are, then they will accept who they are. though they do hope to find someone who won't be like the others who want them to live up to society's standards. || fc: noah j ricketts

leonardo 'lee' turner || 35 || closeted homosexual || the state official || lee is a charming man working in washington as a state official during the 1950's, making a name for himself while being the man that all the women want to be with. what they don't know is the secret that lee keeps from the world after an incident during his younger years forced the once confident lee to bury himself into the closet.

fearing that he'd once again be rejected or worse for his interest in men. preferring to just hook up with men that he'd meet whom he knew wouldn't talk about sleeping with him, lee did his best to keep from getting attached to someone until he met the senator's assistant and writer, james richardson. what started as an affair in the midst of a changing world turned into something that would end up changing him over the course of several decades where he learns to move on from his trauma and become a better man. || fc: matt bomer

ian thompson || 35 || closeted homosexual || the wayward ceo || thought to be the eldest son of richard thompson, a powerful ceo, ian had a responsibility from a young age to take care of his younger siblings, sky and wilbur. it was while growing up that he endured abuse from his father with no help from his absent mother who let it all take place. resulting in ian developing ptsd, trust issues and some scarring on his face from past incidents. along with a drug issue that he still has today despite being the successful ceo of a business company. it was after richard died that he discovered the existence of siblings he didn't realize he had when part of the inheritance he, sky and issac were supposed to get. thus causing ian's life to change as he started to look for the rest of his family and try to move on from what happened to him as a kid. || fc: jeremy strong

scott thatcher || 45 || bisexual || the artist || for as long as he could remember, scott had a great interest in art of all kinds. from drawing to painting. he loved it all and spent a great deal of his free time just trying to perfect his hobby until it became his career that resulted in him being known around the city of la for his work that has been featured in galleries and art shows. even with people knowing who he is and praising his work, he lives a quiet life that's spent just doing what he loves and making friends / finding love along the way. || fc: matt bomer

emanuel 'manny' kingsley || 33 - 60 || homosexual || the political assistant || coming from a humble childhood with his adopted parents who gave manny a family when his parents died before he had a chance to fully remember them, the young boy learned life lessons that made him the perfect candidate for the assistant of senator antown thompson. someone whom the closeted manny fell for without being able to admit such a thing until the two began a secretive affair that began a life of complicated love, breakups, reunions and heartaches.

it was as he started working for antown that he grew curious about the world of politics which only made him want to pursue something greater. this only led to him being involved in a scandal that ended up tarnishing his reputation and he had no choice but to leave something he knew so well, thus living a quieter life that took him from washington to london. somewhere he felt more at peace while finding a new path for himself.

something that only worked for so long before he was diagnosed with stage three leukemia. taking away any dreams he had for the future, manny put his life on hold while focusing on his treatments that eventually led to him being cancer free. though even with his time spent going back to life again, he was once again sick years later and it was this new illness that told him he couldn't just put life on hold since there was no guarantee that he'd get better or have another chance to beat something that was only slowly killing him a little each day. || fc: jonathan bailey ( verses: x )

collin barlowe || 46 || homosexual || the deceiving professor || collin is a charming, if no mysterious professor working at oxford where he's quickly become a favorite among his students for his easygoing ways and how personable he is with them. what no one knows is how the seemingly innocent man has done some bad things in his life to get to where he is now, some of them involving murder and other crimes that he's managed to keep under wraps from those who could take him down for his years of wrongdoing that he's not done committing to always stay on top. || matt bomer

wyclef || 1000 + / physically 35 || homosexual ( closeted ) || the traveling elder || being among the top ranked elders in the fae realm due to his knowledge of more magic than others have been able to master, wyclef found himself tasked with great responsibilities shortly after finishing his training. starting as a mentor until he was twenty, he soon aspired to be an elder who'd put his ability to travel through time to good use which eventually would lead him to go from the realm he calls home to other realms & time periods to right what has been wronged & help any fae he may come across along the way. || fc: jonathan bailey

aslan, prince of the fae || age unknown, physically 25 || pansexual || the runaway fae || born the eldest son to the royal family of the fae world that he knows to be home, aslan was given responsibilities at a young age when all he wanted to do was explore the other realms & put his powers to good use. all of which contain the use of magic to manipulative the world around him in different ways, he found himself tempted to experience all that he could of his abilities by leaving the world that he knew so well. finding himself in the unfamiliar world of mortals where it soon became clear that aslan was not like those around him. hiding the fact that he is immortal & possesses more powers than he can easily control on his own, he makes sure to make the most of the freedom he always craved so much. || fc: nicholas galitzine

nicolas shaffrer || 25 || bisexual || the politic's son || being the adopted son of olivia shaffer whose leak of the thompsons' personal information, nicolas found himself in the mess of a scandal that he had no part in. always preferring to avoid the world of politics that he was brought into when adopted as a child, he preferred just to live his own life while going to school & finding ways to pretend he's not someone that seems to always be watched because of his mother being so well known. his outgoing nature becoming more introverted over time as he wanted to keep his own scandal from occurring, a feeling that only intensified during the events of the scandal that made him distance himself from his mother even more as he resented her decision to do what she did to people whom nicolas had long since started to respect. || fc: taylor zakhar perez

draco || age unknown / turned at 25 || pansexual || the vampire with a heart || having always been one to charm those he felt an attraction to before being turned when on the brink of death, draco would become notorious with other vampires he'd meet for believing that a vampire could ever love when they are are meant to be bloodthirsty killers. it was something he soon learned to use as a way to lure unsuspecting men & women to use them as a way to feed or turn into vampires when the urges grew too strong to ignore. with half of his memory gone from the early years of his life as a vampire, he's been unable to recall times spent with others he met after being turned. one of whom being another vampire named tobias whom he'd reunite with to learn about his broken past & relearn the bond they once had. || fc: timothee chalamet

[dscrvedbcttermovedbcfuckme]

indie & private dash only mutuals only multi muse blog for ocs based on my own lore & other original content. nsfw / triggering. mun is 34+. written by skippy

no godmodding or drama please.

any hate or drama will result in being blocked.

please do not use me as a meme source.

do not steal any of my edits

i have adhd / anxiety & asthma which can make it hard to rp sometimes. i also work which takes it out of me, so please be patient with me.

disco is available upon request.

i am private & will lean towards rping with mutuals. please respect this.

​if you don’t love my female muses, you don’t deserve my male muses. please give both attention as i work hard on all my bios & developing all my characters.​

heavily affiliated with @miiseriia @unwaivering @dutyled @legeandary @waehles @alexahndar @faerytle

muses under the cut!

jackson fuller || hc based portrayal from showitme's fellow travelers

scott thatcher || 45 || bisexual || the artist || for as long as he could remember, scott had a great interest in art of all kinds. from drawing to painting. he loved it all and spent a great deal of his free time just trying to perfect his hobby until it became his career that resulted in him being known around the city of la for his work that has been featured in galleries and art shows. even with people knowing who he is and praising his work, he lives a quiet life that's spent just doing what he loves and making friends / finding love along the way. || fc: matt bomer

emanuel 'manny' kingsley || 33 - 60 || homosexual || the political assistant || coming from a humble childhood with his adopted parents who gave manny a family when his parents died before he had a chance to fully remember them, the young boy learned life lessons that made him the perfect candidate for the assistant of senator antown thompson. someone whom the closeted manny fell for without being able to admit such a thing until the two began a secretive affair that began a life of complicated love, breakups, reunions and heartaches.

it was as he started working for antown that he grew curious about the world of politics which only made him want to pursue something greater. this only led to him being involved in a scandal that ended up tarnishing his reputation and he had no choice but to leave something he knew so well, thus living a quieter life that took him from washington to london. somewhere he felt more at peace while finding a new path for himself.

something that only worked for so long before he was diagnosed with stage three leukemia. taking away any dreams he had for the future, manny put his life on hold while focusing on his treatments that eventually led to him being cancer free. though even with his time spent going back to life again, he was once again sick years later and it was this new illness that told him he couldn't just put life on hold since there was no guarantee that he'd get better or have another chance to beat something that was only slowly killing him a little each day. || fc: jonathan bailey ( verses: x )

collin barlowe || 46 || homosexual || the deceiving professor || collin is a charming, if no mysterious professor working at oxford where he's quickly become a favorite among his students for his easygoing ways and how personable he is with them. what no one knows is how the seemingly innocent man has done some bad things in his life to get to where he is now, some of them involving murder and other crimes that he's managed to keep under wraps from those who could take him down for his years of wrongdoing that he's not done committing to always stay on top. || matt bomer

elias witlock || 23 || bisexual || the president's son || elias was born into a life of wealth and corruption that controlled the way a colony on the outskirts of the capitol should live. while they had to work to make it through life while being subjected to hybrid creatures known as nomads and guards who control every step they make, elias had a much easier lifestyle that the colonists resented people like him for. being the son of the president meant elias had little freedom to do as he pleased and he often would fight with his father about the state of the colony in which he'd reside just to escape the isolation of the capitol. hoping that by doing so, he might be able to show that he's not as terrible as his father and just wants to help those who are suffering. || fc: tom blyth

wyclef || 1000 + / physically 35 || homosexual ( closeted ) || the traveling elder || being among the top ranked elders in the fae realm due to his knowledge of more magic than others have been able to master, wyclef found himself tasked with great responsibilities shortly after finishing his training. starting as a mentor until he was twenty, he soon aspired to be an elder who'd put his ability to travel through time to good use which eventually would lead him to go from the realm he calls home to other realms & time periods to right what has been wronged & help any fae he may come across along the way. || fc: jonathan bailey

ethan davis || 22 || bisexual || the broken killer || coming from an abusive family that he escaped at the age of thirteen after murdering his parents, ethan left his home & went on the run to keep from being caught. finding a new life in london where he lived on the streets. keeping to himself with a newfound blood lust, he is usually ignored by those he comes across while those he does interact with find his monotone voice & emotionless demeanor to be unsettling, leading to him being mostly on his own while not being aware of just how dangerous he can actually be. || fc: barry keoghan

anwir || 35 || bisexual || the wayward fae || born with the promise of being among the best fae who could excel to be a mentor or part of the elders, anwir did well in his training as he wanted to do the best he could in life. that is until he began to crave more power than he was capable of & began seeking out what no fae ever should. it was as he fell in love with a mortal named charlie that he began to get involved in dark magic which soon got out of control before he could properly handle it. it was as he tried to hide his new magic from charlie that the man died & anwir only got deeper into dark magic where it fully consumed him, making it hard to recognize the man anwir used to be before he spiraled into darkness. || hale appleman

aslan, prince of the fae || age unknown, physically 25 || pansexual || the runaway fae || born the eldest son to the royal family of the fae world that he knows to be home, aslan was given responsibilities at a young age when all he wanted to do was explore the other realms & put his powers to good use. all of which contain the use of magic to manipulative the world around him in different ways, he found himself tempted to experience all that he could of his abilities by leaving the world that he knew so well. finding himself in the unfamiliar world of mortals where it soon became clear that aslan was not like those around him. hiding the fact that he is immortal & possesses more powers than he can easily control on his own, he makes sure to make the most of the freedom he always craved so much. || fc: toby regbo

harry parker || 35 || bisexual || the lost fae || despite thinking he was nothing more than a young man living in the city of new york who happened to be a college professor, harry was in fact a successful fae who was once a part of a completely different realm where he lived until he was sent to live among the mortals where his memories of his past were wiped over time. with his interest in magic & fantasy that he recalled having fading away, he allowed himself to believe that such things were not real & would remain in his solitude where he felt most comfortable until discovering the truth about his existence. || fc: jason ralph

micah langston || 40 || bisexual || the colony bartender || micah is among the others who live a dystopian colony that is filled with corruption & danger at every turn. while most would just go about their duties & keep their heads down in fear of alerting the guards, micah takes on a different approach & tries to keep as optimistic as possible. some people find his outgoing personality weird in such a negative place, but for someone who's been through his own hardships, micah chooses just to focus on the few good things he has left than the bad that could send him spiraling into a bad place.

among the good things is a tavern he owns within the colony that is perhaps the only real uplifting thing about such a gloomy place. located where the guards don't usually frequent, he's able to put aside his worries while he works & make friends with those who find his charm to be endearing. what no one knows about the man is his dark past that included the supposed demise of his girlfriend & their son which left him on his own.

while he'd only disclose such information to those he trusts, he bears both mental & physical scars of the darker parts of his life. regardless of what might have happened to him, micah helps out where he's needed & does his best to keep those around him from getting into trouble that he knows all too well is not something he'd wish on anyone given the scar on his neck that came from an attack from the guards whom he found out the hard way are not there to protect the colonists as many would claim. || fc: sacha baron cohen

nicolas shaffrer || 25 || bisexual || the politic's son || being the adopted son of olivia shaffer whose leak of the thompsons' personal information, nicolas found himself in the mess of a scandal that he had no part in. always preferring to avoid the world of politics that he was brought into when adopted as a child, he preferred just to live his own life while going to school & finding ways to pretend he's not someone that seems to always be watched because of his mother being so well known. his outgoing nature becoming more introverted over time as he wanted to keep his own scandal from occurring, a feeling that only intensified during the events of the scandal that made him distance himself from his mother even more as he resented her decision to do what she did to people whom nicolas had long since started to respect. || fc: taylor zakhar perez

draco || age unknown / turned at 35 || pansexual || the vampire with a heart || having always been one to charm those he felt an attraction to before being turned when on the brink of death, draco would become notorious with other vampires he'd meet for believing that a vampire could ever love when they are are meant to be bloodthirsty killers. it was something he soon learned to use as a way to lure unsuspecting men & women to use them as a way to feed or turn into vampires when the urges grew too strong to ignore. with half of his memory gone from the early years of his life as a vampire, he's been unable to recall times spent with others he met after being turned. one of whom being another vampire named tobias whom he'd reunite with to learn about his broken past & relearn the bond they once had. || fc: jonathan bailey

[books-typo-and-so-on]

@ogniemimieczem reminded me of a meme, which I couldn't find, and I had another one, so now I have two to share with y'all (source: fb)

[The Sienkiewiczposting, continued]

Watching 'The Deluge' With Family On Christmas

*my sister who hates Sienkiewicz and would rather do literally anything else*

*me, describing every character, which actual historical character they're based on, what they did in 'With Fire And Sword' and what will they do in 'Colonel Wołodyjowski'*

[Me tomorrow at nine, watching 'With Fire And Sword' on TVP History]

OMG that was so good!

The *a Polish officer falls in love with a noblewoman and demonstrates his love by defeating his homeland's traitor who kidnapped her* for the 1843rd time!

[please don't forget the Kasztelan beer]

...actually, this one refers to the whole Trilogy. Well.

[spinningbuster98]

Honest opinion on every Sonic adaptation you know :)

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:Admittedly I've never flully watched (same goes for the other 90's shows). Not too interesting, has jack shit to do with the games, but I guess it's fairly entertaining

Sonic Satam: Again, never watched it but like a lot of people have said it's basically your typical 90's environmental cartoon with a dash of Sonic kinda sorta. I don't even want to critisize it too much for not being very Sonic-y since....honestly have you seen the kinds of cartoon video game adaptations that were coming out at those times? Captain N? Ruby Spears Megaman? Faithfulness to the source material just wasn't a thing back then so I don't wanna be too harsh on Satam for this. I also refuse to critisize it for the effects it's had on the fandom in the long run (y'know Archie, people wanting the Freedom Fighters in the games etc) mainly because I personally believe it's unfair to judge a product by the effect it's had years later, especially if it's due to the actions of later developers and or fans. By this logic then SA1 should be demonized as an absolute travesty, because without it many of the issues that would plague the games in the 2000's would not have existed and 06 especially would not have been a thing.

Sonic Underground: I know next to nothing about it except the premise is so stupid I kinda love it and the theme song....I actually kinda like it!

Sonic OVA: I understand why people love it, especially in comparison to the american adaptations...but personally it's almost as guilty as them for their lack of faithfulness (Knuckles being "Sonic's best friend"? Sonic being a bit of a dick to Tails? Whatever the fuck Eggman has for Sarah?), in fact I kinda hold it against the OVA a bit more, since it was made by Japanese developers, so the usual excuse of the american manuals being extremely simplified therefore not giving american writers enough material to work with (which I never even bought fully, because look at the differences between game and satam Eggman even at a glance c'mon) couldn't apply here. It does have my favourite version of Metal though, and the animation is great from what I remember.

Sonic X: I have some fond memories as it technically was my introduction to the series, but looking back it sorta introduced a good chunk of characterization issues that would plague the 2000's, mainly Amy. I don't even have much to say about Chris honestly.

Archie Sonic: Never read it fully but man was it a hilarious mess from all that I've seen. Though I gotta admit I really liked the character of Nicole and how the series evolved her past her Satam origins. If there's one character I kinda miss after Archie's cancellation that's her.

IDW: I don't read it since it's never grabbed my attention. I guess I agree with most of the criticisms thrown at it, though I don't necessarily have an issue with it basically being Archie 2.0 since it's pretty obvious that a big chunk of its reader base used to be from Archie. I mean think about it: if Sega were to can Sonic as a game series but then someone were to make a spiritual successor that is 100% identical to it (more so than the likes of Freedom Planet) except for names and characters we'd all jump ship and see it's being almost identical to its predecessor as a positive. IDW is basically aimed at former Archie fans and that's okay, though that doesn't exempt it from criticism. Other than that I don't have a whole lot to say, I find it to be pretty small potatoes when it comes to bad game adaptations.

Sonic Boom: Very random and unnecessary adaptation, never been too big on the redesigns and even the show's whole comedy shtick never gelled. Honestly from what little I remember Amy was kind of insufferable and Sticks wasn't much better. I do like some of the memes that have spawned from it (mainly the Knuckles approves meme).

Sonic Movie: Ehh... I wasn't big on the whole "Sonic gets isekaie'd" into our world premise since day 1 and that hasn't changed for me. My main issue is that Sonic....is not really Sonic to me. To me what makes Sonic as a character stand out is his carefree, adventurous attitude, his purity mixed with a bit of cockiness and occasional aggressiveness, and his independence. Movie Sonic has very little of these qualities, especially the last, as the whole "Snic is a little kid who wants a family" shtick just isn't Sonic to me. To me that's your typical kid character dressed in a Sonic suit. Even Pontaff Sonic, for as jokey as he was, still held those key qualities for me. And I just don't like Knuckles' whole "super honorable warrior" thing he's got going, can't even explain why, it just rubs me the wrong way I guess.

The humans are boring. Yeah yeah Tom and Maddie are this and that and they're better than other human char-listen: wanna know what's my problem with some human characters in the series? Human characters are inherently "normal", and "normal" is not what you wanna be in a series that's about anthropomorphic animals going on fun adventures. Eggman works because he's a character who was created to fit into this series. Guys like the president in SA2 or the Gun Commander were not. Unless they're background characters, or secondary, you wanna give your human characters some form of whimsy or quirky personality, or hell make them more action/adventure oriented, like an Indiana Jones type of character, otherwise all the screentime they have is gonna feel like a huge waste of space to me as I'll just want to go back to the fun animal characters.

Speaking of Eggman, while Carrey turns out a great performance since....he's Jim Carrey, I can't help but feel even his Eggman's a bit lacking. Yeah he' goofy and funny and all that, but a good part of what I like about game Eggman is how much of a manchild he is, and not just with his design and overall attitude: when things stop going his way he loses his shit, throws tantrums, stomps his feet. It's both a source of entertainment...but it's also what makes him dangerous because due to his childish personality he may just decide to launch a nuke at a city...with HIMSELF still in it just because he's that much of a sore loser! I don't get these vibes from jimbotnik, to me he seems a bit too calm and collected, and that, in turn, makes him less entertaining than he could be.

Maybe I should give the movies proper watches? Because i admit I haven't watched them fully, just tons of clips on YT, enough to cover the most important bits, so maybe I'm being unfair...but honestly even the humor of some of those scenes is just not up my alley, yeah Colors' humor is also very hit and miss and in many ways not appropriate to the series, but at least in that case I still have a game to enjoy that's separated from the humor.

Call my cynical but I'm convinced that, in a few years, people will start looking at these movies in a not so positive light, because once the hype about it being "the best game movie adaptations ever" dies down people will start analyzing them further....and I have this feeling they won't hold up.

[thycutterofmuchcookiez]

No one asked for this, but I made it anyways. Tumblr/my phone ate my description so I'm reposting this >:0

Glitchtale belongs to @camilaart who I want to thank for giving us such an amazing story! :3

And the bases belong to those below.

Note: As I couldn't find all the original artists, a couple poses are unknown. I apologize if I missed anyone! Also if you see your work up here or I discredited anyone, please let me know! I really want to thank everyone who creates draw the squad/otp memes. They're a great source of inspiration for art block. ( ; 3 ; )

Bases by:

@croxovergoddess

@riddlemd

@starco-cat

@lordlongneck

@grannypix (Sam on twitter)

@huabie

@jolynndiaz

Please support the artists above as they work hard to bring us this content (most times for free). Anyways, let's get hyped for the next episode!

[ronmanmob]

🌹 - If asked to define love what would your muse say?

Romance Headcanons Meme

'--Define love.'

That was Mrs B's quiet-toned answer when Ron, fresh off his 12-weeker and feeling rather peaky, mustered up the first English-based syllables he'd managed in the last 36 or so hours. Wassat? he'd asked her, reaching round her body - they were sat beside each other on her settee, Ron's head burrowed against her shoulder as she flicked through a glossy magazine her brother back in Romania had sent over - to point at the phrase that'd foxed him. Truth to God, the lot of it did. He had about two words to his name in Romanian did Ronnie, and he couldn't read the stuff for dust.

Define love

Wanda didn't press Ron to keep up a conversation once she'd answered him. She knew him and how his doctors trips played him up, so fell back into companionable quiet as her quite-often-round-our-place-now guest relaxed into her shoulder and pondered what words she'd given him. Day-to-day that sort of topic wasn't Ron's cuppa - not when it came out a glossy mag. But today, hungry for distraction from the mud in his brain and the prickles of-

..scales under your skin, Ronnie..

-THAT going through his psyche like lightning through storm clouds, it was something to latch onto; something that drew his focus outside himself and onto something real.

Love, to Ron, came in many shapes, forms and sizes. It came familial, like between he and his brothers, their mother, aunts and, though she was a memory to the twins and a passing I love you to Wise Charlie, little-big-sister Violet - lost but never forgot.

It came from friends too -- look at Wanda, bless her heart. She wasn't blood to Ron, but she'd welcomed him into her home at his most scatty and treated him like he was a card carrying Barton as far as tlc was concerned. She'd fed and settled him, sat with him quietly as she read or partook in one of the crossword books he'd stashed away on a previous visit and dissuaded him, when the urge took hold, from ripping at the site of his latest anti-psychotic jab with blunt nails. Beyond these times of extremis too, she'd never been anything but accepting and friendly to him, and it wasn't just Wanda - though hers was a special kind of care. Pat, Bastian-

..Bastian..

..Bastian..

-Darcy, Cian, Ox; they were all close-circle to Ron, and the love (for all he threatened Pat with mortal harm on the regular) was strong among the lot of them. And beyond that-

..Bastian..

-there was romantic love and all its component parts and that, in Ron's life at present, found its source and conclusion in the man whose slip of a room he found himself in on the same evening Wanda had read Define love to him from her glossy magazine. It was easily getting on for 3am when the door creaked open and shut again and Bastian, run ragged from a full day's work, shed clothes down to what was comfy and laid down beside Ron with a low groan. Blue eyes met near-black across inches in the dim light cast by the phone Ron had propped up at the head of the bed - his clock and tab-alarm keeper in one, for he had antiemetics this 12-week. But they and the nausea they helped fight away weren't important now; not with Basha here smiling that exhausted but so, so fond smile as he blink-kissed at Ron like he'd started to once Ron had explained the gesture's meaning and significance to him in difficult-head-times.

And that -- that just about defined love as a whole for Ron.

No matter its flavour or shape, it was the acceptance of the core of another, even if that core had spiky bits or confusing bits or bits that didn't make logical sense to the normal-headed. It was looking at Ron from inches away, finding his eyes looked like they'd been blackened in a beating for lack of sleep and stress, finding him dizzy, disorientated, scatty as a sack of cats, irritable and sick to his guts and still seeing in him something worth that smile, and that blink-kiss with its hidden wealth of meaning. It was--

Knowing clocked Ron in the space between heartbeats.

His expression barely shifted for it, but everything in him rang with its frequency and he tried so hard, so hard to convey that to Basha with his mind; to broadcast it somehow. But in case he missed that...in case Ron's doctors were truth tellers and he couldn't thought-share on a whim...he reached out towards Bastian; touched questing fingers to his shoulder and stroked an-

'--eight'

-onto his skin. There was no further explanation proffered, no context spoken - Ron had sent it all already, through mind, through touch. He knew already, Bastian did, that eight was upright infinity, therefore enduring eternally, therefore I'll love you 'til time dies, therefore...you...define...love.