#basically what it is is like… generally i think they’re harmless. as far as i know all their crimes are property crime

[fingertipsmp3]

Had a dream that this woman I vaguely know (I used to help her husband with spelling and reading and stuff before he turned to a life of crime) randomly had a vendetta against me and I told my mum and she was like “okay you need to either learn martial arts or leave the country”

[zoeykallus]

the last request with the domination/pegging headcanons kinda gave me this idea: the bad batch with a fem s/o who prefers to always be dominant in bed when they’re not doing vanilla stuff and who feels really uncomfy with being submissive?

Aloha!

Hmm, okay, interesting question. I'm gonna give you my honest opinion on this one. Hope that's alright. Let's see...

The Bad Batch x DominantFem!Reader HCs - Who's In Control?

Warnings: Suggestive/Mention Of Sexual Themes/Sub-Dom Topic/Dom Reader/18+

_________

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

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Hunter

He is not very accessible right from the start as far as that is concerned. Submitting so intimately frightens him a little at the very first moment. Hunter is passionate, but also a cautious personality. His first reaction is rather skeptical when you first try to take the reins into your hands all by yourself.

As cautious and skeptical as Hunter may be at first, he is not stuck. Communication is the key here. Tell him honestly what you want, why you want it, how you feel. Hunter will adapt to you as best he can.

He won't always be able to be submissive, doing so would make him feel as if his passionate side is being suppressed. Every now and then he will have to let his masculinity hang out a bit, but you will soon find a rhythm with which you both feel comfortable and satisfied. He would never even try to force dominance on you if he knows that you are uncomfortable with it.

Echo

He often seems strict and very straightforward. In a romantic relationship, however, he can be a total softie. In fact, he adapts to you the quickest and easiest of all. Echo doesn't feel smaller or less masculine, he's absorbed in the fact that you're giving him all this attention.

As stubborn and unbending as he can be as a soldier, he can be just as understanding and adaptable in a relationship. However, he will want to get to the bottom of it, so be prepared for some curious questions.

"Where is this coming from, anyway? Aren't you even interested in how it feels the other way around?"

Harmless curiosity with no evil ulterior motives, you'll have to forgive him for that. Be sure that if you feel the need, you can always communicate absolutely openly with Echo.

Wrecker

He is a switch. Generally, he's up for almost any fun, but he also wants variety. Wrecker likes to read your every wish from your lips, but it could happen that if you keep your intimacies too one-sided, he will lose the fun at some point.

But basically, you can do anything you want with him, he is always curious anyway. The more you try, the better.

"Sweetheart, you know I can easily get out of these shackles?"

You roll your eyes but grin.

"It's all about the illusion, just do me a favor and play along, okay?"

He smirks at you.

"Okay, pretty, you're the boss."

Tech

Theoretically he knows a lot, but practically he has a lot of inhibitions, especially at the beginning. No matter how much he is attracted to you, physical contact is difficult at first, takes some getting used to for him. Tech finds his, very passionate core with time and above all he is extremely curious.

He is not a dominant type, at least not in principle, but it is also very uncomfortable for him to give the control completely out of his hands. So dominating him is a very lengthy, bumpy endeavor in the beginning that he has to get into.

Be patient, Tech has to explore almost everything that has to do with physical contact and interpersonal relationships very thoroughly first and needs to feel his way towards being able to let himself fall. However, once you have overcome the initial obstacles, Tech can develop into a very willing sub with a loving hand. Patience and honest communication are the key here.

Crosshair

Here we have Captain Complicated. Crosshair is very dominant, at least he thinks he is. He generally doesn't like to adapt to others too much unless he absolutely has to. In a relationship, that can change over time and what may come to your rescue, despite his now and then toxic masculinity, is his curiosity and basically, if buried under layers of stubbornness, gentle disposition.

Grumpy, stubborn, always on top - Crosshair, is actually more the shell, inside sits a guy who doesn't really know what he wants, so possibly at least partially still a little shapable.

Don't expect too much though, the shell Crosshair has taken on makes up quite a bit of his personality by now. He will make it very difficult for you to subdue him, he will be bitchy and maybe a bit belligerent.

But as I said, there's a gentle soul in this grumpy guy somewhere, a good listener. Open directness will get you pretty far with him. Telling him everything you feel in this context may make you vulnerable, but he would never take advantage of that, you can be sure. It is definitely worth a try. No matter how stubborn he is sometimes, he certainly doesn't want you to feel uncomfortable exchanging intimacies with him, quite the opposite.

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

@sleepycreativewriter

@projectdreamwalker

@1vlouds

[doctorbarontsct]

Bzt

“Von Raum.”

“Good morning, Lyf, how are you- wait, why do you have a box of cookies?”

“Why do you care?”

“First if all, curious as to how you got them, second of all, would like to know who gave them to you. Unless this one of your… spooky rainbow power things?”

“Maybe they’ve always been there.”

“Wait, have they, actually? I think I’d have noticed, but…”

*sigh* “No, von Raum. They were not there yesterday. I’m not sure where they came from, myself. Just appeared there. I thought they may have been from you, even if it didn’t seem quite flashy and intrusive enough to be.”

“Well I didn’t leave them there. Any clues as to who did?”

“Your far more likely to know than I am,”

“… Are you really not questioning where the cookies came from? I’d consider magic cookies a bit… concerning?”

“I know. Thats why I didn’t eat any. Not risking poisoning. Not that it would do much, of course.

“Right, the whole immortality… thing.”

“Not just the immortality. Most of the things humans consider poisons are relatively harmless to me, even- even before I became immortal.”

“… Huh. Interesting. So you can just eat straight poison and be fine?

“Haven’t tested it. Unless you count venom coated arrows. That certainly wasn’t a nice experience… what?”

“Sorry, just really don’t like the idea of you dying.”

“Well get used to it. It happens a lot. I might just eat the cookies, even if they are poisoned. Dying and coming back does get rid of headaches.”

“Nope, no, nuh uh, no killing yourself to relieve basic ailments. That is a bad idea. Do not touch the poisoned cookies.”

“Well, we don’t know they’re poisoned. Unless you want to test that?”

“Not particularly, no. I prefer not to eat food that could kill me most of the time. Though sometimes I am tempted. Theres something alluring about dangerous things, huh, darling?”

“If you call me ‘Darling’ again I am reaching through the bars and strangling you.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,”

“Shut. Up.”

“Well, maybe because you asked so nicely.”

“Why are you incapable of being anything but a nuisance?”

“I’m not just a nuisance, I’m also a field medic! And the field medic says you’re not eating those cookies. I decree it as such! From this day forward, Lyfrassir Edda is not permitted to die. Especially not via malevolent magic cookie.”

“Well, you don’t particularly have to worry about that.”

“No dying temporarily, either. Just no getting hurt in general. Death is not an acceptable headache reliever.”

“It is an effective one, though. And I seem to gave had a persistent headache for the last week or so.”

“Oh, wait, are you okay? Need an icepack, or i could probably sneak in some spibuprofen-“

“Thats- nevermind. Well, why are you here today? Come to bribe me, for the third time this week, or-“

Bzt

- ETTS

no cookies for either of them, huh :( they weren't malevolent or anything, either. and. . . well.

maybe my lyf had one?

well, at least no lyfrassir eddas are allowed to die, by doctor's orders. or anything. and spibuprofen sounds like a good idea!

[icommitedcrimesasatoaster]

Incorrect quotes , MY FAVORITE! (kill me.)

(From a generator)

Techno: Hey, do you know anyone who can teach me to play the trumpet? Kanade: Why? Techno: I want to wander around playing it to annoy Cody. Kanade: Technically, you don’t actually need to know how to play the trumpet well for that. Techno: Kanade, you have opened my eyes.

Techno: Katara, you need to calm down. Katara, slamming their fists on the table: BUT HOW CAN IT BE "BIRTHDAY CAKE" FLAVOR IF A BIRTHDAY CAKE CAN BE ANY FLAVOR?!

Cody: I’m going to hell. Techno: Probably. Cody: I'll pick you up? Techno: nodding Carpool.

Tommy: Can I have some? Cody, mouth full of cheesecake: It's really spicy, you wouldn't like it.

Cody, dashing into the room: WHY AREN’T THE DISHES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER?! Katara: …What does that even mean?!

Techno: Katara, what do you value about Tommy? Katara: They’re thoughtful. They pick flowers and bring them to me. Often they’re ones I’ve just planted, but… Tommy: That’s how I know they’re fresh!

Kanade: Is the plural of milf/dilf milfs/dilfs or milves/dilves? Tommy: Milfs. Cody: Milf/dilf is an acronym, you can't change the spelling to milves/dilves. Kanade: Wait, they're acronyms? What do they stand for??? Katara: Mom in late forties, dad in late fourties. Katara: I learned that from the movie called M.I.L.F that I saw the trailer of in theaters probably 5 to 7 years ago. Cody: Mom/dad I'd Love to Fuck. Kanade: WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK— Kanade: I NEVER REALIZED IT WAS ACTUALLY HORNY! Katara: Oh, is it not mom in late fouries? Tommy: What? No! It isn't! Katara: THE MOVIE TRAILER LIED TO ME! Cody: Katara… Katara: THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T THINK CALLING PEOPLE MILFS WAS ALL THAT BAD BECAUSE IT STOOD FOR SOMETHING HARMLESS IT JUST HAD A SLIGHTLY SEXUAL CONNOTATION! Cody: I am entirely unsurprised that this is coming from you. Katara: KANADE, DOES IT MAKE SENSE WHY I CALLED THE DIARY OF A WIMPY KID MOM A MILF NOW BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS LITERALLY JUST A DESCRIPTOR WITH FUNNY CONNOTATION! Kanade: The word milf has been ruined for me. Tommy: THAT'S ITS DEFINITION, IT CAN'T BE RUINED THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS! Cody: Y'all are dumbasses.

Techno: Theater kids are just choir kids who joined forces with the band and strings kids.

Tommy: It’s not gonna work, I’m not a snitch. Cop: Fine, let's try something else. Tag a friend you recently committed a crime with. Tommy: Lmao, @Katara.

Katara: Plants are basically the ideal friends. They are quiet, friendly, and easy to please. All they need is a little water and fresh earth, and they are perfectly happy to lie there all day in the sun. And they don’t make increasingly awful life choices, or hide their relationships. They have never, as far as I know, fucked a bee.

Kanade: Shouldn't get stressed out, it's not good for the baby. Katara: What baby? Kanade, crying a bit: Me.

Tommy: Wake me up- Kanade: Before you go go Katara: When September ends Techno: WAKE ME UP INSIDE

Katara, to Tommy: Well, one of us has to be wrong and it’s not going to be me.

Katara: Techno, keep an eye on Tommy today. They're going to say something to the wrong person and get punched. Techno: Sure, I'd love to see Tommy getting punched. Cody: Try again. Techno, sighing: I will try to stop Tommy from getting punched.

Cody: If karma doesn't hit you, I fucking will.

Everyone is playing a board game together Techno: I will put 'A' down to make 'A'. Kanade: I will add onto your 'A' to make 'AT'. Katara: I will add onto your 'AT' to make 'RAT'. Cody: I will add onto your 'RAT' to make 'BIOSTRATAGRAPHIC'. Katara: flips the board

Techno: Katara, get that hidious thing out of the living room, would you? Katara: Tommy, Techno wants you to get out of the house.

Tommy: Cody isn’t answering my messages. Kanade: Allow me. Tommy: I tried 6 times, what makes you thi- Cody: replying to message Hello.

Cody: I’m terrible at expressing myself. Katara: Don’t worry, actions speak louder than words! Cody: Yes, but my actions are also bad.

Katara: You know you can die from that, right? Techno: smoking a cigarette That’s the point. Cody: drinking alcohol We’re trying to speed this up. Kanade: Eating raw cookie dough and nodding

Cody with a gun to Techno's head: What happens if I pull this trigger? Heaven? Techno: Bold of you to assume I'll go to Heaven.

Techno: If you don't stop talking, I'm going to jump out of that window. Cody: …We're on the ground floor. Techno: I know but I want a dramatic exit.

Katara: The results are in, I’m afraid you have updog… Kanade: What’s updog? Katara: Tommy! Get in here, I told you I could do it!

Tommy: HEY HEY HEY! DON’T TOUCH THOSE! Kanade, touching a figurine: Why? What’s wrong with touching a doll? Tommy: THAT IS NOT A DOLL! This is a figurine, thank you very much. Katara, from afar: IT’S JUST A STIFF DOLL! Kanade: FIGURINE MY ASS! IT’S JUST A STIFF DOLL— as Katara said! Tommy: I hate all of you. That is a limited edition figurine I got from a conventio— Kanade: Drops figurine on the ground Tommy: —n. It was $100; all my money just went down the fucking drain.

Tommy: Let's all agree that going up the stairs on all fours is actually the best experience on earth. Katara: Conversely, going down the stairs on all fours is actually the most terrifying experience on earth.

Kanade: How do you do that? Techno: I'm fearless. Tommy: I saw you run from bees yesterday. You flailed around and tripped over a chair. It was both hysterical and sad. Techno: I'm mostly fearless.

Police: You’re under arrest for trying to carry three people on a single motorcycle. Techno, with Cody and Tommy behind them: Wait, what do you mean THREE?! Police: Yes…three. Techno: Oh, my God— What the fuck!? Police: Wha- Techno: Kanade FUCKING FELL OFF!

Cody: When I met you I thought you were a real bitch. Techno: What changed your mind? Cody: Oh, I still think you’re a bitch, I’ve just grown to like that about you.

Techno: Are we really going to let Tommy keep Kanade? Cody: We kept Katara.

Kanade: You really put aside everything and came all this way for me? How did you even get here so fast? Katara: Several traffic violations. Tommy: Three counts of resisting arrest. Cody: Roughly thirteen cans of energy drinks. Techno: Also, that’s not our car.

Kanade: What do rainbows mean to you? Tommy: Gay rights. Katara: There's money. Techno: The sign of God's promise to never destroy the whole Earth with a flood. Cody: It is an optical phenomenon that separates sunlight into its continuous spectrum when the sun shines on raindrops.

In a group chat Kanade: A pegan just flew into my window. Katara: Pegan? Cody: A what? Tommy: Ah yes, my favourite bird, Pegan. Techno: I thought you said penguin for a second, LMAO! Tommy: Just a normal day with flying penguins crashing into my window. Techno: You have pigeons flying into your window? Can't relate, I have penguins flying into my window. Kanade: I literally just made a typo-

Kanade: Did you bring Techno? Tommy, gesturing to Katara: No, but I brought the next best thing. Kanade: Katara? The next best thing would be Cody. Katara: I would be offended, but Cody is freakishly strong.

Cody: You three, explain right now! Techno: It was Tommy. Katara: It was Tommy. Kanade: It was Tommy. Tommy: ** Tommy:** …fuck.

Katara: Anyone d- Cody: Depressed? Tommy: Drained? Kanade: Dumb? Techno: Disliked? Katara: -done with their work… what is wrong with you people…

Cody: Does everyone know their job for today? Kanade: Water the flowers. Katara: Vacuum the carpet. Techno: Wash the dishes. Tommy: Pretend to be a wolverine. Cody: Close enough.

Kanade: Why cant trees give off something important like wifi?? Techno: So fuck oxygen, I guess.

Kanade: Do you feel any better? Tommy: I feel much better now that you here with me. Katara walks in Tommy: I feel half better.

Katara: Are you good? Techno: In what sense? Katara: Generally. Techno: Oh, definitely not.

Cody: We’ll find another route, it’s not safe for amateur adventurers. Tommy: That sounds like a challenge. Cody: I have to stress, that is not a challenge. Tommy: …Is exactly what you say to dissuade the weak of heart from accepting the challenge. Well, challenge accepted! Cody: There is no challenge!

Cody: I love murder mysteries! Techno, trying to impress them: I've been a suspect in four murder cases.

Cody: The saying “it is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission” no longer applies to Techno.

Tommy: Here is my wall of inspirational people. Cody: Is that a picture of you? Tommy: Yes, I am big enough to admit that I am often inspired by myself.

Tommy: Say no to drugs. Tommy: Say yes to drugs. Tommy: It doesn't matter if you say yes or no to drugs, cause if you're talking to drugs… then you're on drugs.

Cody: You really believe in Tommy? Kanade: Luckily, they believe in themself enough for the both of us.

Tommy: I wouldn’t wish that upon my worse enemy! Tommy: Unless of course. . We’re talking about my enemy, Katara. Fuck you Katara, you know what you did!

Cody: trying to get five seconds of sleep Tommy, poking Cody’s arm: Cody Cody. Cody. Cody. Cody: WHAT? Tommy: …We’re out of Capri Suns—

Cody, about to leave the house: Don’t spend all day watching YouTube, okay? Tommy: I FORGE MY OWN PATH!!

Kanade: Last week, Techno tried to flush a live lobster down the toilet "because it worked for Nemo".

Cody: I’m telling you, my team is competent. Tommy, rushing in: Cody! Kanade tried to make pasta in the coffee pot and now it's broken!

Katara: You guys worried about Cody? Tommy: Totally! Kanade: Yeah, they called me in the middle of the night and just yelled, "what do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?" Katara: And what'd you say? Kanade: "I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno." Tommy: Katara: They're lucky to have you as a friend.

Cody: talking about Tommy’s funeral You do know we’re burying a great person today! Techno, shocked: Did someone else die?

Techno: About to do something incredibly stupid Cody: I know I can't stop you, but I won't let you go by yourself.

after discussing a plan Techno: Does anyone have any questions? Cody: Is this legal? Techno: Does anyone have any relevant questions?

Tommy: Strawberry milk doesn’t taste like strawberry OR milk. Techno: Go the fuck to sleep Tommy.

Tommy: What if I lied this whole time and I'm actually 18? Katara: Tommy, stop trying to get drugs. Tommy: Don't suppress my interests.

Cody: When life gives you lemons, what do you do? Katara: Make lemonade! Cody: No, throw them back up in the sky and make life deal with it’s own shit.

Tommy: If I were a drink, I'd be Cherry Vanilla Coke. If you were a drink, what would you be? Techno: Bleach. Cody: Sewage. Tommy: …Please calm down, edgelords.

Techno: That’s a crazy idea. Insane. It doesn’t make sense. Tommy: You’ll do it? Techno: Of course.

Techno: Heh, Cody sneezes like a girl. Cody: How about I pound you like boy? Cody: That didn’t come out right.

Tommy: pulls back the curtain while Cody is showering Tommy: Hey did we - stop screaming it’s me - did we run out of Cheerios?

Tommy: I’m a reverse necromancer! Techno: Isn’t that just- Katara: No. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. You are literally so fucking unfunny that it hurts. It physically hurts my body knowing that people still think murder is funny. I cant believe im saying this but do you guys know how chronically online you all are, thinking that saying “oOh iM a rEVeRsE nECrOmANcER i LOvE tO kiLL pEOpLe” is genuinely funny and will get everyone in the room shitting themselves from laughter?? cause its not. It’s fucking not. In fact, its the unfunniest fucking joke ever. Not just any joke about killing people. This one specifically. Its so unfunny and stupid. Nobody is fucking laughing at that, Tommy. It makes you look like a greasy emo kid who has never been outside once in their life and uses tumblr religiously. Like not even the funny side of tumblr. the fucking unfunny side filled with overused jokes about murder and illegal acts. Honestly, youre so unfunny, Tommy. Fuck you.

Katara: Oh, fiddlesticks! That really ruffles my feathers! Techno: Please, just say fuck.

Kanade: Today, Tommy said a swear word, so Cody said that they were going to wash Tommy's mouth out with soap. Tommy replied, “It’s okay, I like the taste of soap”. Turns out, they’ve been putting soap on their lips to blow bubbles.

Cody: Is it just me or is instant ramen even better uncooked? Kanade: It’s just you.

Cody: What happened to Tommy? Kanade: They died. Cody: They what? Kanade: They died, but they’re okay. Cody: …Can you please clarify? Tommy: Clarification is for the weak.

Cody: What is the most illegal thing you can do with one gold? Techno: Exchange it for a hundred copper, put them all in a sock, and then beat someone to death with it.

Tommy: Coca Cola can remove rust from metal, imagine what it’s doing to your body. Kanade: Pfff, getting rid of the rust, idiot. Tommy: THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS! Cody: Hmm… I've been drinking soda and my body's rust free… not sure where you're getting your facts from…

Cody: Tell them to eat shit, Kanade. Kanade: Tell them yourself. Cody: Eat shit, asshole. Fall of your horse.

Cody: This is a bad idea. Techno: Then why are you coming along? Cody: Someone has to get your injured ass home.

Cody: And have you learnt anything this Christmas, Kanade? Kanade: …Not really. Cody: Nothing? Kanade: Tell you one thing I have learnt—Christmas; ultimately, commercial holiday. Who's the real winner at Christmas? Amazon. they have drones now! Tiny little dystopian slaves delivering iPads and headphones. I ordered a toaster; It was on the doorstep five hours later! Do we need that? It was 4.99! For a toaster! I mean, someone's being exploited there.

Techno: Play to your strengths. Kanade: I haven’t got any!

Techno: What’s your biggest fear? Katara: I am incredibly arachnophobic. Techno, under their breath: You don’t want spiders to get married?

Tommy: What can therapy do for me that screaming in my car for 30 minutes can’t?

Kanade: You believe me? Techno: Kanade, you’re the last good person on this planet. I‘d believe cartoon birds braided your hair this morning.

Cody, texting Tommy: Text me when you’re home safely. Tommy: I’m home dangerously. Cody: Stop it. Tommy: I’m home lethally.

Tommy: You’re insane! Katara: Sure I am, what’s your point?

Cody: What do you call disobeying the law? The Squad: A hobby. Cody: crosses their arms The Squad: That we do not engage in.

Tommy: You have your weirdly sincere humility. Kanade: I prefer the term "self-loathing", actually.

Techno: I truly hate it here <3 Katara: Now replace “it” with “women”. Not so funny now, is it? Tommy: Now replace “it” with “women”. Not so funny now, is women? Kanade: Now replace “funny” with “women”. Not so women now, is funny? Cody: I’m having a fucking stroke. Tommy: Now replace “stroke” with “baby”. Congratulations! Tommy: I’d like to live through a week that’s not a whole new verse of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Techno: Editor's note: What the fuck?

Katara: You’re charged with…..breaking into a pet store? Techno: I thought the animals might be lonely.

Cody: So what are your political beliefs? Kanade, awkwardly trying to impress them: Well, I think Pikachu would be a lot more powerful if he had a gun.

Kanade: Remember everyone, violence is never the answer. Techno: You're right, Kanade.. Violence can't be the answer. Kanade: Correct, Techno. Now, on to the next lesso- Techno: Violence is the question. Techno: And the answer is yes! Kanade: Techno, no!!

Techno: How do ethical philosophers feel about murder? Cody: Well, it’s frowned upon. Techno: Okay, but what if the reason you want to murder someone is to make your life easier? Techno: That’s okay, right?

Katara: Good morning. Cody: Good morning. Tommy: Good morning. Techno: You all sound like robots, try spicing it up a bit. Kanade: MORNING MOTHERFUCKERS!

Katara: I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff. Kanade: I witnessed the dumb stuff. Techno: I recorded the dumb stuff. Tommy: I joined you in the dumb stuff. Cody: I TRIED TO STOP YOU FROM DOING THE DUMB STUFF!

Kanade: I think I did fairly well on my anatomy quiz! 🙂 Techno: I forgot I was doing a test. Kanade: Techno. Techno: I said the vertebrae was the back stick because I thought it was funny…. Cody: Techno.

Kanade: I’ve been here in jail so long I think I’ve lost my mind. Kanade: The days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months. Kanade: How long have I been in here now? Almost a year? Tommy: This is Monopoly. (Ref to kanade always being in jail)

Tommy: Hey Katara, check out this funny .GIF I found! Katara: It’s pronounced “jif”. Tommy: Huh? Katara: “Dot jif”, like the peanut butter. The creator said so. Tommy: That’s dumb, it’s Graphics Interchange Format. Katara: The P in .JPEG stands for “photographic”, but I bet you don’t say “J-pheg”. Tommy: “P” on its own isn’t pronounced like “F”, that’s totally different! Katara: It’s exactly the same! Tommy: Name one word that starts with “G” pronounced like “J”. Katara: Gentrification. Tommy: Shoot, should have thought of that. I was just in San Francisco. Katara: For your logic to be consistent, you’d have to say “skuh-bah” (scuba) or “lah-seer” (laser)! Tommy: Yeah? Well, you’d have to say “J-pej”! Tommy: …Wait, “laser” is an acronym? Katara: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Tommy: Huh. Didn’t know that. Tommy: You’re still wrong, though. Katara: You just hate me because I’m right. Tommy: I just hate you in general. Katara: You mean in “geh-neral”? Tommy: Ugh, I’m “joing” to kill you!

Tommy: I have locked Cody in a cage designed by their own art. Oh, they have been well and truly hoist by their own petard. Techno: Could you put it another way? I didn’t understand a word of that. Tommy: I’m blackmailing them. Techno: Oh, happy days.

Techno: Guys! I found a 100 dollar bill! Techno: looks around ….Should I keep it? Katara: Techno, just do the right thing. Tommy: And put in your bag. Katara: No—

Cody: Question, how difficult would it be to bowl in a bee suit? Kanade: Not that hard, I don't think, as long as you can move. Techno: I'd assume as hard as it is to bowl in a maid outfit. Techno: Wouldn't be any harder, but you'd get some WEIRD looks. Tommy: Are. Are you speaking from experience. Techno: No! Techno: Techno: ….Maybe.

Cody: Remember! Curiosity killed the cat! Techno: Yes, but you forget that satisfaction brought it back. So yes, Tommy, go find out if that thing can catch fire! Cody: You're a bad influence. Techno: And you don't know your sayings.

The Squad: walking at the mall Techno: Hey, have any of you guys seen Kanade? They’ve been gone for a while.. Cody: Eh, nope. Tommy: No, I haven’t… Katara: Probably ran off to McDonald’s or something. Kanade: Hey. Techno: Ooh, there you are- Cody: What the fu- Katara: I- where were you?! Kanade: Walking right behind you guys. (Kanade just walks quietly)

Tommy: I will send my army to attack! Tommy: releases a dumpster of raccoons

Tommy: Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.

Katara: Why is there blood everywhere? Techno: I may have aggressively poked someone with a knife. Katara: You stabbed someone?! Techno: No, no. I aggressively poked someone with a knife.

Cody: I bet you’re wondering why I gathered you here today. It’s because we need to have a discussion about how some people in this room aren’t getting along with other people in this room. Katara: Why did you say that so vaguely? Tommy and I are literally the only people you called in here.

(NOW MINE MWHAHHAHAHAHAHA)

Techno:PHIL , YOU CAN FINALLY HAVE A YOUNGEST THAT ISNT ANNOYING! Tommy:HEY SHUT UP BASTARD Kanade:hi:)

Cody: Where is your like. mom? Katara: ..Dead Kanade: Same. Katara: Tommy: My mum is death so like idk

“I may have accepted and almost killed a guy , but Tommy i think yoy deserve to murder him. No matter what aang says.”

-Katara

Clones:He’s so mysterious and cool i wonder what he’s thinking about Techno:

Techno: So.. this is the guy you are devoted to with all your life? Cody: Internally dying ..yes Techno , starring at Obi-wan Kenobi as he goes into battle with no armor , is British and is stupid: Cody , your better then this. please. This genuinely makes me feel bad.

Cody: Somebody is going to die- Techno , pulling out a sword: -Of death! 😄

Cody:no- techno- no you cannot kill the chancellor-

Techno:ANARCHY DOESN'T CALL FOR QUITTERS CODY

cut to 10 minutes later , the five are just stending over the exploded body of plapatine , who turned out to be an evil space wizard

Techno: I was correct- Cody , about to murder him: Shut. the. fuck. up. I'm processing this. Tommy , drinking a milkshake: This was fun. Kanade , also with a milkshake: Who knew it was fun to kill political leaders who are corrupt? Katara , sipping out of her own milkshake: Don't know , this will be great threat material.

after Cody has to explain to the jedi council why they murdered the chancellor

Cody: I- Techno , not caring in the slightest: I was in a silly mood

Cody: What do you mean you have been treated like a human being? Everyone else at the table: Techno: No he has a point

Phil walks into the room , with the gang laying in a circle , in the middle a speaker playing Nobody By Mitski Phil:.. you guys good? Cody: We can't get therapy so this is the best next thing. Katara: Sad white girl music. Tommy , absolutely sobbing: SHUT UP

Tommy in tears: So yeah- I guess that's all, my whole life story. Cody: Tommy I- Hey Dhar Mann fam, I hope you enjoyed that message about how you should never judge a book by it’s cover. And remember, we’re not just telling stories, we’re changing lives!

Tommy: God I never liked cigarrets , they taste bad. Cody: You aren't supposed to eat that- Tommy: Thats what i said!

Techno: A strategy you should always use against your enemies is telling bullshit. Straight up lies or truths exaggerated so high that they can’t even be considered truth. So when you slip up they think its just another lie. Tommy: That’s how they didn’t take you seriously?? Techno: Yeah basically

Kanade: I am not short , i am fun sized. Tommy: Wheres the fun then? Kanade: In your mother. Cody: Spits drink

.....theres a lot of em-

[ragequitezekielrants]

Roblox is a fucking cesspool.

Alright, buckle up, folks, because today I’m going after something that’s long overdue for a bitter reckoning: Roblox. Oh, yes. That seemingly innocent, blocky, colorful “game” that’s managed to worm its way into millions of homes and has convinced parents everywhere that it’s just a harmless playground for kids. Well, newsflash: it’s a playground, alright—but more like a lawless, broken-down playground where the rusty equipment is swarming with child predators, scammers, and every form of exploitation you can imagine.

Let’s not beat around the bush here. At this point, Roblox has become notorious for its lack of safety and general incompetence when it comes to protecting its most vulnerable users—children. The whole platform is basically a predator’s dream come true. It’s filled with kids who think they’re just there to play games, make friends, and maybe create something cool, but what they’re really stepping into is a cesspool of shady characters, sketchy interactions, and outright dangerous situations.

You’ve got these creepy adults posing as kids, hanging around in chat rooms, private servers, and who knows where else, trying to manipulate and exploit young players. The amount of stories that have come out about predators luring kids into inappropriate conversations, or worse, is absolutely horrifying—and yet, Roblox seems to barely lift a finger to stop it. They’ll tell you they’re cracking down on inappropriate behavior, that they have moderation systems in place, but let’s be real: those systems are about as effective as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. The truth is, Roblox moderation is a joke, and it’s the kids who end up paying the price.

And don’t even get me started on chat filters. They’re supposed to stop harmful or inappropriate language, right? Well, they’re just as broken as everything else on this platform. Sure, they’ll block some random innocent word or phrase that makes zero sense, but somehow, explicit language and dangerous conversations slip through the cracks constantly. I’ve seen entire servers where the chat devolves into a cesspool of disgusting content, and guess what? Nothing happens. Roblox is either asleep at the wheel, or they just don’t care as long as the cash keeps rolling in.

And speaking of cash, let’s talk about the microtransactions and the insane way this platform preys on kids’ wallets. Roblox is filled to the brim with virtual items, cosmetic nonsense, and “limited-time offers” designed to get kids to spend real money—either their own or, more likely, their parents’ without permission. It’s a glorified scam economy designed to manipulate children into buying “Robux” for overpriced garbage that provides zero real value. I mean, come on, Roblox, your entire economy is basically built on exploiting kids’ impulse control issues. It’s honestly disgusting.

But it gets worse. You’ve got scammers lurking everywhere, creating shady games or offering “free Robux” in exchange for personal information or other tricks. You’d think after all these years of this nonsense happening, Roblox would have implemented better protection for their users. But nah—just let the predators and scammers roam free, right? What’s a few ruined childhoods compared to that sweet, sweet revenue stream?

Oh, and let’s not forget the exploitative developer environment. On the surface, Roblox loves to brag about how it’s a place for kids and teens to learn coding, make games, and express their creativity. That’s a nice story, sure, but the reality is far more sinister. A lot of these young developers are basically being lured into creating content that Roblox profits off of while paying them peanuts in return. The platform takes a huge cut of any revenue earned, leaving these kids with a fraction of what their hard work is actually worth. It’s like digital child labor disguised as “game development opportunities.”

The worst part? The exploitation of these kids doesn’t stop there. When they do manage to make something popular, they’re often thrust into the harsh reality of dealing with toxic communities, knock-off versions of their games, and harassment from other users. All while Roblox just sits back and counts the money, doing little to protect its young creators from the harsh realities of the internet.

And what does Roblox do about all this? Almost nothing. They issue vague statements about improving moderation, adding safety features, and protecting their user base. But guess what? The platform remains an absolute dumpster fire when it comes to protecting kids from predators, scammers, and exploitation. Their priority isn’t safety—it’s profits. They rake in billions while turning a blind eye to the fact that their platform has become a breeding ground for dangerous behavior.

So here’s the bottom line: Roblox might look like a fun, innocent game on the surface, but dig a little deeper, and it’s a digital wasteland full of predators, scammers, and greedy corporate tactics designed to take advantage of kids. It’s not just an unsafe environment; it’s an outright predatory one. If you’re a parent letting your kid run wild on Roblox without supervision, I hate to break it to you, but you’re basically letting them play in a minefield. And Roblox? Well, they’ll just keep cashing in, pretending everything’s fine, while the real dangers go unaddressed.

Until next time, keep your kids away from this nightmare of a platform.

– Ezekiel

[anxiousnerdwritings]

troublemaker/villain!Reader getting too distracted with school that they don’t really have enough time to pull up any prank ideas or play any tricks

Yan batfam being left wandering where is their trickster after awhile, maybe even starting to worry a lot by the four weeks mark. They know that sometimes setting up the pranks would take awhile but never that long

What started off as an inconvenient nuisance turned into something the Batfamily all eagerly looked forward to. It weirdly made their day being the ‘victim’ of one of Reader’s harmless pranks. Maybe it was the way Reader lit up at seeing them get pranked? Or maybe it was the fact that Reader put so much time and effort into their pranks to begin with? Maybe it was how Reader went out of there way to think out pranks that best suited each respective Batfamily member? Or maybe it was the overall wholesomeness of Reader in general that got the family attached? They never aimed to hurt or cause any harm, they just looked for some fun. Fun that everyone could take a part in.

When Reader starts focusing on the things that really matter in their life and put their ‘villainy’ days on the back burner though, the family feels put aside and forgotten. Like, they know school is important, they know work is important but they miss their little trickster. They’d gotten so use to Reader and their antics that it just doesn’t feel right when they’re not around.

The first time this happens would really get the Batfamily anxious. What if Reader pranked the wrong person? What if the family’s reactions to their pranks weren’t enough for Reader anymore and they moved on to other ‘victims’? Or what if Reader left altogether? There would be a family meeting and everyone is comparing notes as to not miss a single thing when it comes to finding their missing trickster. It doesn’t take them long but when they do find Reader they’re relieved.

The Batfamily would go as far as helping Reader with their homework or projects as long as they got to spend sometime with them. Like, you’ll have Robin sneaking in your window to go over math formulas. Or having Batman sit next to you going over history lessons, ect. (Also, I could totally see Jason, Dick, Tim, Damian, Stephanie, Cass, and Duke all fighting over how to properly go about decorating a diorama for one of your subjects.) Basically Reader will have their own heroic tutors. The sooner Reader gets finished with school/work, the sooner they’ll be pranking/spending time with the family.

Don’t get me started on how the family would react if Reader put them on the sidelines to prank other heroes or villains. Especially if they were using the same pranks they’ve used on the Batfamily members.

[thefanficmonster]

Dodging Hints

Valkyrae x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Harmless, Non-Suggestive Flirting (idk if that counts), Swearing

Genre: FLUFF, Humor, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: One can easily overthink, overlook or misunderstand signals sent to them by the person they’re interested in. But, then there’s Rae who, according to basically everyone who knows her and Y/N, is actively dodging any and all hints thrown at her.

Requested by Anon. Hi darling! Thank you so much for request a fic with Rae, I don’t have many of those and it’s safe to say you made me super happy with your ask! So sorry you’ve had to wait so long for the fic to be written and posted but here it is now and I hope you come across it, give it a read and enjoy it! Love, Vy ❤

“Hey Corpse, is Y/N gonna be running late or what?“ Rae should’ve automatically known better than to ask that question while in the call with three of the biggest shippers of her and said missing player Y/N.

She should’ve known better than to literally paint a target on her back like this and be the recipient of Lord knows how many teases to come in the following four hours they have been planning to spend playing different multiplayer games. She doesn’t even have the stream shield today, the whole event happening off-camera has her defenseless against her friends who are not known for hesitating before being honest.

“Don’t you know?“ Corpse kicks off today’s ‘annoying Rae‘ session in his signature suggestive tone of voice when he answers her question with one of his own.

“How am I supposed to know, Corpse?“ Being down this road many times, Rae has grown tired of dealing with it and now tends to reply to their snarky remarks with a monotone, exhausted tone to let them in on how ridiculous she sees them as.

Her method hasn’t proven to be successful so far but she can always keep trying, right?

“Oh please, how could you not? You two are constantly in each other’s orbit there’s no way there’s something you don’t know about each other.“ He replies, semi-annoyed.

Well, there’s at least one thing Y/N doesn’t know about me, Rae thinks to herself, shaking her head to push the thought away.

Little does she know, there’s at least one thing she doesn’t know about Y/N as well.

She sighs, “This is clearly not going anywhere. Does anyone else know where she is?“

Poki cuts her friend’s losses, surprisingly withholding the urge to tease her even a little bit as she answers her question, “She won’t be joining us. Last minute event to attend or something, I don’t know, she was talking eleven miles an hour over the phone but that’s what I managed to comprehend...Sorry she can’t be here.“ Although the comment slipped her on accident, she said it genuinely and in no way with the intentions of getting on Rae’s nerves which she gladly appreciates.

“It’s ok.“ She says, faking a smile in her voice, However, if Rae’s being honest, it’s ok only partly. It’s not so much that Y/N can’t be here - that too, but not as much as it has to do with the second reason: she didn’t tell her. She told Poki instead. Normally, she’d be the first to know if her friend wouldn’t be attending a stream or join the call but today she was completely left in the dark.

She doesn’t say anything regarding those concerns, though, and allows the cheery and joyful atmosphere her friends have created take her over as well. As much as she can allow herself to get distracted, at least.

However, she doesn’t need to say anything for Corpse to catch onto that fake happiness in her voice. But he doesn’t say anything either, knowing better than to talk to her about it in front of an ‘audience’.

And so the round begins with so many things unsaid.

Rae’s rather uninterested in the tasks she’s completing or the game in general.

So much for taking my mind off of it, she scoffs inwardly, afraid someone might hear her if she says it out loud considering they’re playing with proximity chat.

And boy is she glad she didn’t say it because only seconds later, as she’s doing the wiring task in Electrical, Corpse waltzes in.

“Sup Corpse?“ She asks as she finishes said task, glad she’s taking suspicion off herself as the bar fills up a bit more as evidence that she’s in the clear.

“Ok, enough of that, either tell me what’s going on or I’m killing you.“ He threatens weakly, clearly repressing a grin as he says it.

Rae rolls her eyes, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Corpsy...”, she trails off, thinking of a way she can get out of the situation. Truth be told, she doesn’t mind getting killed in the game. It’s just a game and she could really use a break to do something that totally has nothing to do with checking up on Y/N. Definitely nothing to do with that. No way.

“Don’t undermine my intelligence, Rae, I see right through you.“ Corpse replies, causing Rae to press her lips together in a line, finding herself backed up in a corner. “And if you don’t believe the threat...“ He jumps in the vent on his left real quick as to prove a point, not that he really needed to, anyway.

“Ok, ok, I get it! Come back.“ It’s only now that she realizes just how much she’s needed to talk to someone about it. But she’d be damned if she admitted it. “Since you’re so adamant on jabbing your nose where it doesn’t belong, I guess I’ll fill you in on....everything?“

Jumping out of the vent, Corpse doesn’t try to hide his enthusiasm, “I’m all ears.“

"Ok, ok, you're being too much right now. It's not like there's anything to tell really." Rae says, rolling er eyes, "I like Y/N, she doesn't like me back, that's that."

She can hear the sound of Corpse face palming and sighing like a parent would when their child disappoints them.

"It's getting real hard to believe you're not doing this on purpose." He says, exasperated.

She furrows her brows in confusion, "Doing what on purpose?"

"Ignoring Y/N's hints, damn it! You're practically dodging them and making it seem as though you couldn't care less about them and her altogether!"

She retaliates, "I'm not ignoring anything, you're just reading too much into it! You know better than anyone that she's like that with everyone! She's naturally sweet, kind, caring and flirty with just about every single person she ever meets." Her voice falls to a whisper when she finishes her statement, the words stinging, "I'm not special to her."

"Okay, fuck this, I'm done with this." Without a second to spare, Corpse kills Rae in an instant, earning him a surprised and downright offended scream from her.

"HEY! What the hell, Corpse?!"

"There, now you can give Y/N a call." He replies, sounding satisfied and smug as ever before walking off, leaving her and her dead body behind.

Still infuriated, Rae leans back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling as if that’s what’s gonna pick a solution for her and present it before her eyes so she can make her next move. Truth is, she doesn’t even know if she wants to make one. It’s confusing and risky and so overwhelming to think that with a single sentence she can ruin a friendship or make it awkward forever from this point onward.

She runs a hand through her hair, feeling stranded on a tightrope with a bottomless abyss below. On one hand, she cannot hold it in and keep herself in the dark like this anymore; on the other, however, the risk is too big. Either way, it doesn’t look like she’ll be able to make it across. Either way, she’ll fall, but ‘how?’ is the question that’s troubling her.

Oh, what the hell? A friendly phone call is the least I can resort to right now, she decides with a sigh, hoping she’ll be able to improvise in the moment and figure out what she’s gonna say or do. And as a person who tends to plan everything in advance, she’s terrified.

She sits in loud silence as the dialing tone pierces her ear, half hoping Y/N won’t pick up the call and then hating herself because of her because of it. The wait is what’s driving her crazy the most - it doesn’t sit right with her that a dial tone is standing between her and the potentially biggest confession of her life.

“Hey hun!“ The cheery and upbeat as always voice of Y/N’s surprises the streamer, freeing her from her thoughts. There’s some background noise suggesting she’s still out and about in the city.

“Hi Y/N. Um, is everything alright? Are you ok?“ She cringes - as mentioned, improvisation is not her typical choice of handling situations.

Y/N is quick to reply though, “Oh, didn’t Poki tell you? My friend’s baby shower is tomorrow and I need to get a gift. You know me and my procrastination.” She laughs, “Suggestions are welcome, by the way. That is if you’ve got the time, of course. Oh, and say hi to the others.“

Just as Rae is about to respond with a semi-dismissive and slightly indecisive response, she gets an idea and swerves in a different lane, “Where are you? I can come help you out in person.”

The bafflement is clear in Y/N’s voice when she speaks again, “Wait, what about the gathering?”

“Technical difficulties, my computer’s a piece of crap.“ Finally a proper improvisation, “So...where are you?“

“Aww, someone’s eager to spend time with me.“ She gushes teasingly, reddening Rae’s cheeks.

She rolls her eyes, “As if you’re not eager to hang out with me too.“

Scoffing playfully, the girl dodges a direct answer and instead tells the other girl her whereabouts.

                                                          *  *  *

“You’re a life saver, I gotta admit, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.“ Y/N says, taking a sip of her soda.

The two are sitting in the food court of the mall, a giant, thankfully folded, baby carriage sitting by Y/N’s chair as the two have lunch, chit chatting after the long day they - especially Y/N - have had.

“I indeed am, among other things.“ Rae shrugs smugly, “And also thank you for lunch, you really didn’t have to.”

The other girl shakes her head, “It’s the least of a thanks I can express. And plus, I’m chivalrous.” She winks, earning herself an eye-roll from her friend.

“Not you’re not! Corpse would die laughing if he heard that claim.“ She says, shaking her head with a smile on her face.

“He can knock himself out - I’m only chivalrous for you.“ She leans back, making eye contact with Rae, making her heart skip a beat.

Little does she know, Rae’s does the same.

That eye contact, that is enough to get the words out of Rae, “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t joining the gathering?”

Y/N is not at all taken aback by the question and is instead quick to shrug, “I didn’t want to bother you. I can take the hint that you’re avoiding me.” She fakes a small curve at the corner of her lips to upkeep her ‘it is what it is’ appearance, “Didn’t think you’d even notice my absence, if I’m being honest.”

The streamer’s eyebrows furrow as her posture automatically shifts to slightly leaning over the table, eyes lingering on the hand Y/N’s rested on the table, barely managing to prevent her own from taking hold of it. “That was the first thing I noticed - and I don’t care how fake or cheesy it sounds to you, but it’s the truth. You’re the first person that came to mind when I accepted Sykkuno’s invitation to the event. I was so excited to talk to you and was hoping we’d get impostors together cuz....well, I don’t know, we just work well together.”

Y/N exhales defeatedly, but there’s also some relief in the mix, “You know I thought of the same thing but mirrored - I didn’t want to take part in the gathering in the first place, the gift was just a convenient excuse.” She rests her forehead in the palm of her hand, “I mean, it’s one thing to like somebody and give them subtle signs, and another to make them uncomfortable with said signs. Seems to me I crossed that line.”

Looking down, she fails to notice the shock and astonishment on Rae’s face as a result of her words, unable to believe what she heard.

“Wait...you like me? Like, like like me?“ She fidgets with her hands when Y/N’s eyes meet hers once again.

She shakes her head, “Thought I was obvious enough to have you start avoiding me. When your hints are that clear, it would only make sense for the other person to not ‘notice’ them if they’re purposely dodging them. Mostly cause they aren’t interested.” She sighs, fixating her gaze on the soda cup just so she doesn’t have to look at Rae, “Wish you’d just told me you weren’t interested. Would’ve made it a lot easier on me.”

“What do you mean I’m not interested in you?“ Now that manages to catch Y/N off guard finally, “I-I gave you space cause I felt like my feelings were making me suffocate you. I felt like I was pushing you away! I wish....I wish I didn’t let my mind talk me out of what my heart was telling me was the right thing.”

Raising an eyebrow, the other girl smirks, “So it did manage to talk you out of it?”

Rae returns her the smirk, “Not completely and definitely not anymore.”

Oh how Corpse would’ve been proud to see this take place. How he’d be overjoyed and/or yell ‘FUCKING FINALLY!’. How he’d make sure they know they owe him big time. Well, until he gets further disclosure, he’ll be in the dark about the kiss the two girls shared over a table in the food court of a mall.

@nyctophiliiiiaaa  @squirreljoe

[alltheselights]

Am I remembering correctly that Louis expressed discomfort at being referred to as daddy during bty promo? I thought I remembered that but I can’t find the video or anything so maybe I am remembering wrong. Or was it instead about being referred to as a father? God, I wish I could find the video…do you remember at all?

This would probably make me prudish to a lot of people but I am not a fan of calling celebrities daddy or getting really sexual about a person. Especially not to their face. This includes Harry by the way. It can be harmless, sure, and that I don’t mind but then so many take it way too far and they add it to everything that person does, in a way which to me seems creepy. If you want to tweet it or message it to your friends, I would not care. It’s all more annoying with larries because they will criticise the ones who treat Harry like that but then double down and do it to Louis. And I hate to say it, but Harry’s recent actions have encouraged it. He read the signs before he said them out loud. He knew what he was interacting with. Do I think that person should have called it out at the movie promo event? Not at all. Larries were mad about it and I understand but it does make me sad because I just don’t trust they would have the same energy for Louis if something similar happened at a promo event. They very well could but the way some larries talk about Louis…they treat him exactly like the treatment they complain about from non-Larries towards Harry

Yeah, he was weirded out by it in an interview (it might’ve been a Buzzfeed thing), but I can’t remember if that was 2017 or 2019. Regardless, I totally agree with everything you mentioned. Harry’s chosen to acknowledge “daddy” signs on multiple occasions now and has liked a happy father’s day tweet, though that of course doesn’t give people the right to call it out to him at other events. It’s just basic human decency and respect. In contrast, Louis has never shown any desire to be a sex symbol so the fact that fans treat him that way is uncomfortable to watch. Even more so because it often is certain Larries who do it even though they’re furious when anybody treats Harry that way. They were even angry with HARRY for choosing to acknowledge daddy signs because they felt it was encouraging those fans who sexualize him - even though that was Harry’s own choice, but then they turn around and call Louis “daddy” every time he breathes. And they’ll defend their behavior endlessly.

There’s also just a general obsession with sexualizing Louis in this corner of the fandom that I find very disturbing, and even more so when you compare it to peoples’ treatment of Harry. Harry writes songs about sex and dominating someone and has acknowledged multiple albums as having songs about sex, and people ignore it or come up with excuses for what the lyrics mean. Louis hasn’t written a sex song (that we’ve heard, at least) since he was in One Direction over seven years ago, but you constantly see people talking about how they want sex songs from him. Most recently, there was even a viral tweet about how the true lyrics in WAOYF must have been “can we please get back to fucking” even though that doesn’t make sense in the context of the song. Harry enjoys showing off his body (as he should, considering how hard he works to be in incredible shape) and often wears shirtless outfits that show off his abs and pecs, but if you point that out, people act like you’re a het Harrie and get angry about it. Louis covers himself up as much as possible most of the time, yet you see people wanting him to go shirtless on stage and sexualizing the hell out of him when he’s just trying to go swimming, like we saw when he was in a bathing suit in Spain and Iceland earlier this year.

It’s a double standard that really bothers me and always has. Despite how much some Larries pretend to have a moral high ground, there is a group, and it’s often the most popular Larries (I could name names, but I’m sure you know who I’m referring to) who treat Louis the way that het Harries treat Harry. They treat Louis more as some kind of sex object and one half of their fantasies for Louis and Harry’s sexual relationship than a person who, in my opinion, has shown that he is not interested in being a sex object to his fans. He’s interested in making music and he seems to want a friend or sibling relationship with us, and he deserves for that to be respected by people  who are his fans.

[janumun]

The Pirate's Symbol(s): NSFW Alphabet [IkeSen Motonari]

Game: Ikemen Sengoku Pairing: Motonari/Female Reader

Rated: NSFW/18+ Words: 2.5k

Warnings: stockings fetish, spoilers for Motonari’s ‘condition’, sexual intercourse, mentions of exhibitionism/semi-public sex, (non-sexual) bondage, innuendoes and dirty-talk, masturbation

Author’s Notes: Motonari’s entire self is a joy, his route gave me some much needed, invigorating enemies-to-lovers, and I officially love him! [Totally swiped my heart right up without warning!]

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Motonari is quick — you’d almost say adept — at sweeping off a cloth, or container, placed by your bedside. Although, your touch and whatever fire you generate in between the two of you does not bother him, he does prefer you both cleaner of the mess and fluids when holding you close in his arms, afterwards.

Wiping up the remnants of your passionate and, often vigorous, activities off of quivering thighs he presses apart, in gentle strokes of damp fibers. Movements of the cloth soft enough it doesn’t shock you into over-sensitivity but not soft enough you relax entirely beneath him, because that scarlet gaze is always fixated on you — your body language. And if you give away even an inch, he’s ready and up for round two (or four). [Bless yer stamina, matey!]

If not, he’s still up and happy to listen to his favorite flower-brained woman’s amusing, outrageous tales she narrates in animated conversation. While he whisks up a quick, invigorating meal for her at the kitchen counter, just as she rests her happy self at the table. Garnet gaze seemingly fixated upon the task at hand — spices being tossed, ladle being stirred, eggs whipped to perfection — but his answers are prompt and alert, although still carrying that insouciant edge. Indicating his attention; equal division in between feeding you and hearing you speak.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Motonari is fond of his mouth, and before you, he didn’t think of it as much of an achievement as he believes it now, when your jittery gaze seeks immediate relief (and lust) as soon as it lands upon that obvious smirk.

A single kiss and your thoughts are all but handed over to him on an elaborate platter. Your cheeks color dark and wide; restless eyes tracing across his mouth. Your own parting; pink tongue darting quick in a swipe across plush lips: all of you demanding more of him.

Yes, he is surprisingly (or not), in touch with a far more emotional side: Motonari adores your eyes, although you’re never hearing it from him. Your entire body speaks of honesty but the way he reads your thoughts so easy, in your gaze, there’s quite nothing as exhilarating or confounding as the love he captures in them. That quick, tight knot of your brow, your anger flaring in your eyes or the equally prompt melting, when he appeases you in gentle teases. He’s been so long used to not trusting that a person he sees this clearly through, and sees how she trusts; it’s not an entirely terrible thing to feel.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

As mentioned above, the man doesn’t particularly care to leave you a mess post-coitus unless you ask it of him; there is little he’s able to refuse you. So when it does come (…heh) to cumming outside of your pussy, your mouth is a pretty (very pretty too) good substitute for him to ejaculate, without having to think of leaving external stains on you. Your throat clamping, then swallowing, around his orgasm, so he feels that slick slide of saliva and semen around him, as you moan.

Yer pretty darn hot, m’lady.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

There are times he descends — quick and furious — into an almost juvenile state of petty jealousy [he realizes the immaturity of it, he just cannot! help! it!] and ends up turning that lust on you, instead.

He’d never actually do it but visualizing — in almost exact, murderous details — how he’d like to drag you into an empty room whenever Kicho gets all up in your face, and fuck you so hard your throat tears through screams lough enough Kicho hears each and every single sound and moan.

Or, clasp your chin in his fingers, whenever Hideyoshi’s a little too close for comfort at an Oda banquet, and kiss you senseless and noisy [pirates crave a flashy exhibition!].

He despises making a show of you to anybody, so that idea only stays in thoughts but also it’s mind-boggling, since it does get him hard on the spot.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Before you, it was only ever through terrible necessity (extremely dire straits) that he — if ever and very sparing — sought casual sex. The occasions hadn’t been plenty and he’d be frighteningly specific about how he wanted to take a woman to bed.

Bathed, no make-up, no perfume, no scented products or jewelry — anything extra that he could accidentally touch and trigger a reaction. A clean, unscented futon he’d provide in a bare room. Any bonds or cloths he could get his hands on (buying his own and discarding immediately after), to tie their limbs, keep their movements limited; Motonari used.

Of course, there’d be the rare prostitute who’d drop immediately after visiting a client, or one who’d perceive his conditions extreme and over-the-top and think they could ‘change his mind’. The moment they’d try and cross the line, he’d fling them off, almost violently, heart racing, sweat marking each inch of exposed skin. Nauseous and barely tapped, before he’d stride out of the room.

He’s also witnessed open and perverse brothels — and corrupt seething dens — where men and women fuck, for all to see, in his line of work, so he’s no stranger to how sex works for others either.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

He’s learning to let go and touch (just you) without the added barrier of gloves and since you so seem fond of his hands on you, Motonari likes any positions that allow his hands to move your body upon his; he isn’t picky.

Palms curved upon your hips so that your ass slaps against his pelvis each time he pulls back, the movements of his cock into and out of your pussy — a place you are both connected and he likes that. Or even when he can spread your thighs wide, press them apart before hooking his hands over your abdomen and just focusing on moving.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He’s a pirate he’s a vortex of a man and slips all over the spectrum. Motonari’s goading is far softened with minimum barbs, when he’s in(side you) in bed with you. More velvet — than leathery — questions, soft smirk-y and probing,: “Ya like that, flower girl?” —as his mouth hovers just close to your ear, nose barely touching and tucking sweat soaked strands away from your temple. Definitely lands firm and midway between too serious and entirely silly. But he’s all focus on you, make no mistake.

He’s still got a filthy mouth on him, but dirty romantic liners are more his style, in bed (he wants you warmed as well as turned on!), in contrast to the complete indecent filth he threatens you with (a good time!) when the two of you are out and about.

“Pipe down, m’lady. The way yer moaning, they’re gonna think I’m fucking ya, right on deck.” Those eyes are burnished rubies; smile wide, crooked and unashamed, as he ducks close. “But maybe ya feel like putting on a show.”

H = Hair (how well-groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He’s clean down below (and silver-haired, yes) — he doesn’t go the ‘complete waxed up, no-hair in sight’ route, but rather prefers keeping his hair short-trimmed and well-groomed.

He’s also kept his pubic hair short and neat, for the rare occasions he does have sex, and an unkempt mass down there would leave him more likely and exposed to his partner’s fluids staying on him. He despises that.

Motonari doesn’t mind blood, dirt and grime on the field, nor the brine of the harsh sea sticking to his skin, but as soon as he’s done with — or in between — jobs, he takes the time to wash and clean himself up thoroughly.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

[Also see G=Goofy] Motonari isn’t short with words of love. He isn’t reciting romantic poems but he is quick to let you know, in exact words, how much he loves you — and is loving being inside you — in the moment. Barriers definitely lower themselves — not all down, not completely back up — with this man, in bed.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

(As also mentioned in E=Experience) the man, previously, has sought intimacy only and only out of desperate necessity and when his hand is just not enough for him to relieve himself of his lust. Motonari, before you, jacked off, multiple times within a week, sometimes thrice (or more) in a single day. His desires, usually amped, following a particularly unsatisfying battle or raid.

After you, he still does take time off for some self-lovin’ (remember: stamina for daaays, and you’re mostly unable to match him so he makes do), just not as much as he used to, in the past.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

You and Motonari share a love for (clothing) imports from the seas beyond. He’s always up for sharing and discussing trade secrets, doling out clothing advice and helping you work out modern clothing from whatever fabrics are available to you.

Stockings might be one of his favorite products.

The fabric feeling absolutely exquisite against his palms when he rounds you close into his grasp, stood in between his spread thighs as he observes and hums beneath you, seated. A harmless joke you make, about a stocking fetish and the ensuing explanation soon after, has him grinning and dragging you down to test the material against his teeth.

“Yer sayin’ I got a thing for yer fancy underclothes? Heh, don’t think so. Seeing you in it just makes me wanna tear it all off, meu docinho de côco.”

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Anywhere you’re afforded privacy; although a little flirting with danger is good and being pinned in between the door and his body. Watching you try and smother your moans into your sleeves, skews that grin wider, that cock harder.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

You. He’s got a dirty mind, it’ll do the rest of the work when its got its catalyst: you.

Nothing gets you results faster than being honest with Motonari, or expressing your affections (even chaste) for him.

Tell him he looked especially handsome, earlier on a job out: with his hair slicked back and how hard it was for you to have held back from kissing him, on the spot. That you love him—

He’s on you so fast.

“That brain’s just gotta keep sprouting its flowers, huh.” He murmurs, tugging at your chin to swipe his tongue into you.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Despite his treatment of you very early on in his route (the collar, the slavery deal), Motonari’s not into putting a collar on a person, romantic or otherwise. Collaring and hearing you call him your Master wouldn’t do much for him, playful or not.

He’s had to live a great chunk of his life as the Beggar Prince; experienced the devastating dregs of human society, including and not limited to being treated as one inferior, and having to watch people around at the very mercy of corrupt lords.

In retrospect, it isn’t something he might take pleasure in, in the bedroom.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Giving or receiving, both take some getting used to within the bedroom. He finds the taste of you pleasant, when he withdraws wet digits from inside you and takes a careful swipe of the clear fluid across his skin. And has expressed interest in, and gone down on you several times.

Receiving gets a bit more gentle coax-y and requires reassurances, with Motonari. He doesn’t particularly like seeing his release all over you. Having to work through those barriers of his mind, but once he allows you, he does enjoy the slow kisses, and the soft slide of your mouth against him.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

His default setting is rough and furious. The two of you are usually frustrated passion by the time you actually get to his bedroom (he likes to prod and poke much too often in public, get you riled) so there’s only one way to go and it’s up. He’s spreading your thighs apart with none too gentle hands as he pushes through and into you, your own hold on him, white knuckled and almost delirious with the way his hips rock into you and his cockhead scraps across your front wall with his onslaught.

At times, however, especially after a high-risk mission; when he’s been close enough to stare Death in the face and survive, he likes to take his time being inside you, just being able to feel you. Once, twice, several times, he’s keeping you beneath, or mounted on top of him, coaxing your hips and your moans.

“Don’t look at me like that, flower girl. I’m alive, ain’t I? Com’ere. I’ll take those tears of yers.”

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Definitely! Any time he can have you, or get you close enough in private, you’re going to be fucking each other. He loves those little breathy, moan-laughters you make in half-panic/all arousal, each time he drives up to grind your hips close together, stuffed into a hallway closet.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Semi-public quickies are a thing and the closest to risky as he gets. As mentioned previously, he’s demanding enough over you, he doesn’t like men Kicho touching you, let alone hearing you when you sound like that.

Other kinks, most kinks, he’s down to try with his favorite dirty, flower-brained woman. He does however, draw the line at any kinks that might involve him using harsh, ugly words to degrade you or your body and/or being soiled.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

All I gotta say is: Pirate’s got stamina enough to power his ships through horn alone, over an entire week!

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Toys translate to external objects. Which are always subject to germs, and need to be (excessively) cleaned by his standards, to keep them useful and usable. That’s far much more work than he’s usually willing to commit himself to.

And he has no need of them. Not when you respond plenty to his touch alone.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

A lot! Motonari’s brand of filthy talk is polished to leave you damp in between the legs. He’s pulling the nastiest most wonderful innuendoes out of the most mundane of tasks.

“Ya like that old weapon?” He might ask of you, as you admire the carvings upon the handle of one of his clan’s katana. “Didn’t know ya liked the feel of handlin’ a sword between yer hands that much, m’lady.”

Leaving your mind reeling and cheeks flushing before withdrawing with a, “What’re ya cooking in that flower brain of yers? Heh... you’ve got a dirty mind.”

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Heavy, sensual pants against your ears. His groans and grunts enough to fan the fires of your own arousal, to have you ready to come, from just the sounds that can leave his throat. Motonari doesn’t care to be heard outside your boundaries, but he also doesn’t care to withhold his own sounds of pleasure from you.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

He almost swears (but will never tell you, in very direct words): the space in between your bare breasts smells almost sweet like flowers. He likes finding his way up and nosing in between your breasts — just skin-to-skin contact at a place he finds you’re at your most fragrant. Suckling and tugging at a nipple draws those moans and your scent more intense, so he nips and teeths around the place often.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

That beautiful cock — with the evidence of just enough silver at the base — is long enough it fits and curves snug into you, without entering into any discomforting places, deep. But he is thick enough, it takes you time (and many times) to not just hold your breath and tighten up around him on reflex, upon entry.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

(Read: S)

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

You’re almost always the one falling asleep first. Pirates are used to night raids and this one’s no different. He does prefer watching you sleep, late into the night, once you fall exhausted into slumber.

End Notes: Thank you for reading!

♧° Link to Master List °♡

[txbbo]

I've been debating making this because this is definitely not what my blog is known for and I was worried that people wouldn't want to see it, but with the amount of shit im seeing on twitter it's compelled me to make this because I'm so frustrated.

I feel like I could make 100 posts about 'Cancel Culture' and it wouldn't be enough, so I'm just going to focus on what caused me to write this tonight - the Tommy situation. *Warning for a VERY long post below*

To be clear, Tommy has been in 'hot water' on twitter for the past couple weeks, roughly starting with the KSI collaboration where he made a joke about dream stans.

Last week, when the SBI 'exposing account' got made and twitter hyped it up, someone made a Tommy account and made a thread of things he needed to be '''educated''' on: https://twitter.com/idktommyinnit/status/1379158964148002821?s=20

I'll let you read it for yourself (and come to your own conclusion) but to me.... half of this stuff does not require a twitter thread? Breaking it down accusation by accusation:

1) 'The Mexican accent' - the clips show he is clearly only doing it when copying big Q (who famously exaggerates his own accent) and there is zero malicious intent (Big Q is also IN the 3 clips mentioned in the thread, and obviously didn't tell Tommy it was offensive). There's debates in the comments from people who think it is offensive and people who don't, so I'm not trying to pick a side. To avoid accidentally offending anyone, maybe it is best for him to stop, but the way twitter acts as if he was purposefully doing this to offend people is just not true.

2- 'Making a slave joke' - Even saying that feels wrong, because it suggests Tommy is doing something awful. Instead, they are referring to the 'bit' that Tommy, Techno, Tubbo and Ant were involved in, when Tommy and Techno took Tubbo and Ant as their slave. People are taking this vod and using it to accuse Tommy of being insensitive to Black people, but I think people are just assuming the worst. Slavery existed long before the transatlantic slave trade and still exists today. This is a role-play server - Tommy 'forced' Ant to work for him and used the word slave, which to me is exactly what was happening? People 'murder' others on the SMP, people 'kidnap' on the SMP, people are 'terrorists' on the SMP, and all happen without issue. To add, Ant is a WHITE man. Tommy taking a WHITE man as a slave is not something uber problematic.

3- 'His reply to Techno's 'murder is bad' tweet'. - I get people saying that Techno's initial tweet was insensitive, but saying Tommy's agreement to this from almost over a year ago is something notable and worth addressing is just super nitpicky and is clearly only in there to pad out the thread. It also makes me wonder what other CC's interacted with it and if THEY should be cancelled too (according to twitter).

4 - 'The saying slurs' tweet / jokes about 'whats the worst word you know' - This one I can kinda see how people might not like it. However, it's clearly a 'poke' at his friends, making them seem like bad people. To me, its in the same vein as 'Tubbo is a Tory' or when Tubbo shoots back that 'Tommy is a Nigel Farage fan'. They're obviously not, but its making fun of your friends by saying they are, and mockingly making them out out to be bad people.

5- 'Covid jokes' - People are taking jokes he made about him 'having covid' and saying he shouldn't joke about this, even going as far to linking it to asian hate crimes. I don't even know how to explain that that this is just? not a 'cancellable offence'? I'm sorry but if I hear anyone in my family coughing I make a little joke that 'they better not have covid' and I know other people do. I have someone in my family who is extremely vulnerable to Covid and if they caught it, would quite literally die, but I can understand that jokes like these are harmless. The whole internet had a running joke that we were in a 'panoramic' or 'Panera' or 'insert any word that sounds like pandemic.

This thread got a lot of attention and anything he tweeted afterwards was spammed with the link and there were so many people upset that he hadn't addressed it. I saw so many people say how 'upset' and 'disappointed' they were in him.

Going on to today, this happened: https://twitter.com/khasiid/status/1380611890104139776?s=20

I get it, it looks bad. But for context (which the tweet doesn't give), the reply was only up for less than a minute. It was obvious to me, even BEFORE Tommy addressed it in his stream (clip here: https://twitter.com/cowrpse/status/1380640046202593283?s=20 ) that it was a mistake. In the clip, he clearly acknowledges his mistake and seems embarrassed. To me, this situation should just be laid to rest because a mistake does not need this much attention, but twitter disagrees.

In case it wasn't obvious by now, the tide is turning against Tommy and people are less willing to ignore genuine mistakes and assume the worst.

Today, during his birthday stream people were clearly already waiting for him to mess up. Around half way through, he started saying 'finna' out of context and Tubbo joined in. This led to tons of tweets telling him he was misusing AAVE, and while there were plenty of people willing to be patient and educate, there were also people seeing this as an example of him being a 'bad person' and someone who should be 'without a platform'. I think people forget that not everyone has the same internet upbringing as they do. In general, I think its noted that the misuse of AAVE is something that has just recently been brought to attention. I learned about it through tiktok and stan twitter, and I don't think it's unimaginable that a British 17 year old boy (who is not active on either) has never heard of 'African American Vernacular English'.

Just for a fuller picture, today has also brought about another 'criticism' that I just had to address.

1) 'Tommy made a KKK joke' - Like the 'slavery' point, saying this is extremely misleading. It makes people think the worst. Here's the clip: https://twitter.com/ghostburz/status/1380673589612011522?s=20

Here, Tommy and Tubbo are both joking about Tubbo's 'bit' of naming his alt streams 'aaaaaaaaaa', 'bbbbbbb', 'cccccc', etc and how it would've been bad if it was 'kkkkkkkk' (for obvious reasons). That is literally it. It is a less than 20 second clip. Acknowledging that people woulda thought about the 'KKK' is not him 'not understanding Black issues', its a throwaway joke about the obvious.

Lastly, someone on twitter has made a tommyinnit (address asap) doc - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZEZtBzikS-EYYkssfFtwVOoFqOwCK0zhStLe6H1wCc/edit

I've basically already covered everything in this document, but I wanted to mention how extremely 'guilt trippy' the whole thing is. I struggled to come up with the perfect word for the situation, and I am open to hearing other peoples opinion, but as I have mentioned none of these things Tommy has been accused of were done with malicious intent, and some I believe don't even need addressed at all.

'slavery is a source of astronomical trauma for black people, and isn’t something to be taken lightly if you’re to look into the horrors of the slave trade."

and "Oftentimes they are the last words we hear before we die and it really is not Tommy’s place to joke about words that affect us so negatively."

Are extremely emotional words for a 17-year-old boy to hear on his birthday, for stuff that I believe has been taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

I really feel bad for him, because such a large proportion of twitter (which ofc is the loudest side of the fanbase) is angry at him and is demanding (as the document says) ''either a stream or twitter thread/twitlonger to addressing this' and 'a long and serious apology instead of a short statement pre-stream'.

We all know how twitter works, and unless his apology is perfect (which to me means apologising for stuff that he should't have to, as explained in the thread), twitter will continue with this weird hyper focus on everything he does, and it's not going to end well.

Twitter's mentality of 'putting everything this person has done that could ever be considered problematic' into one neat little thread is so unhelpful and counter intuitive. I got overwhelmed reading some of the stuff people were saying about him, I can't imagine how he feels.

I feel like I have more to say but at risk of writing an essay longer than my actual work I have to do, I'm going to end here.

[felassan]

Article: ‘Mass Effect 3 Could Have Had A Completely Different Ending’

The Mass Effect 3 ending has been a controversial subject for nine years. As it turns out, it could have been completely different.

This article is part of TheGamer’s Mass Effect week. 

Highlights:

This [the RGB endings] wasn’t always the case. According to Mass Effect 3 writer Chris Hepler, the end of Shepard’s story could have been radically different. 

Hepler started working on Mass Effect right at the beginning. Although he wasn’t formally part of the team yet, he did additional design, chipped in for playtesting, and offered a fair amount of writing feedback during development of the first game. He had a much more active role on Mass Effect 2, writing the Codex entries, the Galaxy Map, and spearheading the Cerberus Daily News initiative. By the time Mass Effect 3 rolled around, Hepler was writing EDI, Thane, Citadel missions, and was generally considered to be the project’s “loremaster.”

“The ending relies on space magic, and the lead writer, lead gameplay designer, and executive producer all just embraced that and owned it from the get-go,” Hepler tells me. “‘Any sufficiently advanced technology’ and all that. They wanted and got a really big decision that affects the whole galaxy. If you give it a moment's thought, none of the three options are perfectly moral or the ‘right’ answer for everyone. Destroy may not solve the problem of AI and organics; Control rewards the Reapers; even Synthesis, which is harder to get than the other two and sounds like it'd be permanent peace, basically violates the entire galaxy's bodily autonomy without consent. So that part, I think, works.

“Did it satisfy the fans? Hell, no, not at first, and I found a lot of the criticism to be legitimate. The Extended Cut gave us a second chance to make an ending that acknowledged many more of the players' choices, and was about as good as we could reasonably make given the decisions we'd already made. I felt a lot better about myself and us as a team after the EC came out.”

Hepler explains that fans had observed several hints throughout the trilogy that pointed in completely different directions. For example, there are aspects of the lore that actually lean towards the Citadel species allying with the Reapers in order to collectively tackle a dark energy anomaly, as opposed to the Reapers remaining as the Big Bad right up until credits roll. Hepler confirms that there are explicit lore details that lean into this idea, but that he never personally heard about capitalizing on them. Remember, this is coming from the Mass Effect loremaster - if he says there is lore to back up a dark energy anomaly that only the Reapers can save us from, it certainly exists.

“Now, what would I have done?” Hepler asks. “I wouldn't have done space magic at all. I planned to write three Codex entries on the Crucible rather than one, reflecting on what scientists think it is at first, what it appears to be once construction has really made progress, and a third detailing how it will kill the Reapers, readable right before you return to Earth.”

Hepler explains that he wanted to take inspiration from Nancy Kress’ novel, Probability Moon, in order to have the Crucible use a strong nuclear force as a weapon. Kress’ superweapon is designed to create a massive burst of energy that is completely harmless for objects that have a low atomic weight, like organic flesh made of carbon chains. This means that the vast majority of Citadel species would be virtually unaffected by a blast from this weapon.

Objects with a much higher atomic number, however, would be annihilated by the beam. This weapon is constructed in such a way that it emits life-killing radiation for anything made up of heavy metals. “So cybernetic creatures like the Reapers and husks would have their organic parts fried because they're right next to the heavy metals, but the organic creatures a safe distance away, like a civilian population, would be just fine,” Hepler says.

“The rebuilt Shepard, who had a fair bit of cybernetics, would die heroically, but that was always likely to be on the cards. In talking with Ann Lemay, another writer on the project, we theorized that the metal most likely to be the atomic weight cut-off-point was niobium, which today is used in piercings and surgical implants because it doesn't rust and you can embed it in flesh without ill effects. It's even blue when exposed to oxygen, like the glowing blue husks we've been fighting since [the first] Mass Effect. So it would make sense as a building block for the Reapers and their ultimate weakness.”

So, what happened? Unfortunately, Hepler never got to pitch his ending. The design leads moved lightning quick with their Destroy/Control/Synthesis trifecta, to the point that the whole premise had been approved before Hepler even got around to finishing his second Codex entry. As a result, he hadn’t got a full description of how this pertained to the entire galaxy yet - although looking at it now, it could have borrowed from the best bits of each ending. The Reapers would be neutralized, but the tech would be there. Given that Mass Effect is largely about the coexistence of humans and cybernetic creatures, it would also have had an impact on other aspects of the universe - what would happen to EDI?

“I [also] had some concern that Nancy Kress might notice and sue us if I didn't do my homework,” Hepler says. “And there was no time to do that homework, which would be me telling all the leads to hold off for a week while I exchanged a crap-ton of emails with my subject matter experts. ‘Sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic’ was far easier and had much more project momentum. “I recycled some of the strong-force-as-a-weapon tech into the Reaper infantry weapon, the Blackstar. In retrospect, I wish I'd spoken up more, or thought it all out faster, but them's the breaks.”

As well as Hepler’s own ending - which obviously never made it into the final game, despite sounding as if it had a lot more hard science behind it - Hepler is a big fan of the popular Indoctrination Theory. However, he was pretty open about the fact that this wasn’t something BioWare consciously designed.

“The Indoctrination Theory is a really interesting theory, but it's entirely created by the fans,” Hepler says. “While we made some of the ending a little trippy because Shepard is a breath away from dying and it's entirely possible there's some subconscious power to the kid's words, we never had the sort of meetings you'd need to have to properly seed it through the game.

“We weren't that smart. By all means, make mods and write fanfic about it, and enjoy whatever floats your boat, because it's a cool way to interpret the game. But it wasn't our intention. We didn't write that.”

[source]

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

On Boschlow, Skarlow and imaginary moral superiority

Alright, before anyone wants to yell at me for putting this in the ship tags, this is less an “anti ship”-post and more of an “I want to have this conversation with shippers because I think it’s important to talk about this”-post.

So, Boschlow has always been a fairly popular ship in the fandom, which doesn’t really surprise me, because the whole bully/victim dynamic is just incredibly popular, no matter which fandom you enter.

As a person that got bullied throughout the majority of my high school years, I have thoughts about this dynamic being so popular in general, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss today.

Recently, there has been an increasing number of Skarlow shippers making art and writing fics.

What makes this so different from Boschlow?

Essentially... nothing, and that’s exactly why I felt the need to make a post about this.

I’ve seen a bunch of Skarlow shippers say they do not ship Boschlow because Boscha is an awful person, putting themselves above the Boschlow shippers and making Skarlow a “superior” dynamic, based on... what, exactly?

From my perspective, there’s exactly two things Skara has on Boscha when it comes to shipping her with Willow. One being, she hasn’t thrown trash on her—which is an incredibly low bar to set.

The other thing? Skara acknowledged Willow’s Grudgby skills at the end of WILW.

And that’s a scene that gets misinterpreted a lot. See, people take Skara being nice to Willow here as a sign that she’s a way better person than Boscha, that she’s changed, and so on and so forth.

But this is untrue.

What exactly is it that changes between the beginning of WILW and the ending of the episode, between Willow and Skara specifically? It’s that Skara has seen Willow is good at Grudgby. Grudgby is something of value to Skara, thus, Willow’s skills impressing her makes Willow someone worthy of being treated well.

The ending of the Grudgby episode isn’t everyone except Boscha suddenly magically being better people. They’re all still very much bullies. They’re just now seeing Willow as someone who is better than other people because of her skills—and should therefore be treated better.

Boscha isn’t as willing to share her imaginary pedestal with Willow. But that’s the only difference. All the Grudgby girls are currently still on that pedestal. They’re just seeing Willow as someone worth sharing it with now. If they saw someone being “weak” the way they thought Willow to be previously to the match, they’d bully that person the same way they did Willow.

This isn’t any of them being better. This is all of them behaving the same way they always have. Willow is just moving up in their social hierarchy.

It shouldn’t take being good at some magical sport, or being a talented witch, or whatever the heck, to decide not to bully someone. NOBODY deserves to be bullied. Even the weakest, least sporty witch of the Boiling Isles should be treated with the same amount of respect as any of their classmates. Your value as a person shouldn’t be defined by how good you are at something. You have value no matter what you are and aren’t good at. And that’s something Skara and the others still fail to acknowledge.

Also I think it’s worth noting that even when they were treating Willow better at the end of the episode, they didn’t go out of their way to apologize for how they’d treated her before. They acknowledged her skills and don’t at all comment on how they treated her previously to the match.

If it takes some huge effort from Willow and her friends for the Grudgby girls to treat her with even an ounce of respect, that’s not character development. Character development would be them changing their general behavior. Acknowledging the way they’ve treated others was shitty, apologizing for that and actually working on being better. Is there a possibility this might happen? Sure. But you guys basically pretend WILW is their redemption arc already fully done. You’re giving Skara and the others credit for something that currently haven’t even happened.

And the option of them ditching Boscha (which also currently hasn’t happened) wouldn’t be a redemption arc either, even if it could be part of one.

Cutting toxic people out of your life can help, but Amity’s redemption arc was that, plus her explaining herself to Willow and giving Willow time, and actually acting on her word of not letting her friends pick on her again. Amity making it up to Willow wasn’t that she cut out Boscha and Skara. It was that she not only promised to be better but acted accordingly, standing at Willow’s side when she needed her.

(And Skara not constantly being a dipshit when she’s in the background is not a valid argument for why she’s a better person than Boscha. Boscha is also a harmless character when the episode isn’t focused on her, e.g. in Covention & Sense and Insensitivity. That Skara isn’t actively bullying her friends—which, uh, most people like their friends? This shouldn’t be that surprising?—is not a thing that should earn her any points in being “nicer” than Boscha.)

Do I think it might be a bit easier to get through to Skara than Boscha when it comes to letting go of current behaviors? Possibly.

From the way their characters are written and with how Boscha refuses to acknowledge Willow as equal even after the Grudgby match, it’s fairly obvious that it would need some pretty major event to get through to her. There’s an extra step here with Boscha (needing to learn to acknowledge others as having equal value to herself) that Skara doesn’t need to take.

BUT that one step in what should be a fairly long journey for either of them is far from enough to justify one ship being better than the other.

From the way I’ve seen it written (and unfortunately also experienced it in the comment section of my own fic), a bunch of skarlow shippers like to excuse Skara’s behavior by entirely pinning it on Boscha, pretending she’s actually a great person and that it’s only her friendship with Boscha that makes her toxic—and also that Boscha is the only one that should be held accountable for everyone’s behavior.

I am not exaggerating, I got a comment that essentially said “this shows wonderfully that Amelia and Skara are actually good people that unfortunately met a horrible person that had too much control over them.”

This strips Skara and Amelia of any accountability for their actions. And the idea of Boscha being an evil mastermind that forced all her friends into doing things they never wanted is... quite frankly, stupid, and also untrue. Skara actively encourages Boscha making fun of Willow at the beginning of Understanding Willow:

In the same episode it’s also stated that Amity “let her new friends bully [Willow] for years”, which definitely includes Skara and isn’t just about Boscha.

Skara looks really pleased when Boscha takes Willow’s hair clip at the beginning of WILW, just appears bored and not at all sympathetic when she throws gum at Willow, and grins gleefully when Boscha suggests using the others as target practice later in the episode:

Also, in Once Upon A Swap, Boscha’s entire squad is messing with people all over Bonesborough. Skara is throwing monster balloons at the city when Boscha isn’t even present:

Not only that, but a very large portion of the episode has Skara and the others literally ditch Boscha in favor of an even meaner person (King in Luz’s body).

King states, and I quote, “Hey, impressionable youths! Under my command, you could learn how to do some real damage.” after unleashing a monster on the city. And the entire group cheers him on and decides to follow him.

If Skara was actually so much better than Boscha, why the heck would she run after someone that is worse than her when given the opportunity?

And here comes the thing that a lot of the Skarlow shippers refuse to acknowledge because they for some reason feel the need to have moral superiority over Boschlow shippers: Skara isn’t a nice girl. Skara is a bully. And Skara should be held accountable for her actions in the same way as Boscha. Saying everything she did was just Boscha forcing her is entirely untrue to canon and just a lame excuse to make your ship look better.

Boscha and Skara have both bullied Willow for several years. If you want to ship either of them with her, even if you just want one of them to be friends with her, that needs to be acknowledged and definitely not excused. Even if you treat Skara’s bullying of Willow as something she did only due to Boscha (which, again, is canonically complete nonsense), she’s still hurt Willow to pretty much the same extent as Boscha has.

That a person isn’t as into the bullying as someone else doesn’t make it hurt any less for the victim of the bullying.

No matter if you ship Skarlow or Boschlow, commit to the reality that Skara and Boscha are both Willow’s bullies. Quit pretending Skara is so much better than Boscha, or that she isn’t responsible for her actions.

She is just as responsible for bullying Willow for years as Boscha is.

I’m so sick of hearing how Skara’s bullying is far more redeemable than Boscha’s. It’s not. Stop declaring bullying that doesn’t get physical harmless. As someone who was “only” ever verbally bullied, let me tell you that after four years of not seeing that person I’m still scarred by it. Stop getting your head so stuck in high school movies. Just because not every kind of bullying involves someone getting shoved into a locker doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.

Even worse: the take that people are shipping Skarlow “because they realized shipping Willow with Boscha is inherently toxic”. Tell me again why this “revolutionary” movement deciding that Willow deserves better then turns around and ships her with another one of her bullies?

This isn’t about treating Willow better. You’re just making Boscha seem unreasonably evil for no reason, and treating Skara as her not at all responsible victim, so you can ship Willow with her and don’t have to acknowledge that Willow is a victim of both of their bullying.

This needs to stop. Skara needs to be held just as accountable as Boscha.

If a Skarlow shipper exclusively comes from a perspective of “I think their personalities would mix better”? Sure, whatever, they may or may not, but that’s a valid opinion to have. But don’t start shipping Skarlow because you think you’re being better to Willow than the Boschlow shippers.

This whole thing isn’t a movement to get Willow a better girlfriend, lol

Both of them bullied her. Both ships are bully/victim dynamics. Skarlow does not actually have any moral superiority over Boschlow. As much as you refuse to acknowledge this, these two ships share the same basic dynamic.

Stop pretending shipping Willow with one of her bullies is leagues better than shipping her with another.

[big-ditch-energy]

Controversial(?) Opinion: Neurodivergent Folks are Great at Socializing, Actually

So I've been thinking a lot about relationships, boundaries and communication today and one of the themes that keeps coming up when I examine my own life is that, with a few exceptions, it is only ever my neurodivergent friends who are consistently and proactively transparent with me about boundaries, where they're at mental health wise and what effect that may have on our relationship, and other things of that nature. Even my most communicative neurotypical friends tend to only engage in such discussions after something has gone majorly wrong.

And that's just got me thinking that honestly? Past a certain age, I think, in general, neurodivergent folks have better social skills than neurotypicals.

Like sure, we often still suck at picking up on subtext, and yes, we're probably always going to behave differently from neurotypicals and in ways that might come off as awkward or weird, but y'know what both of those generally translate to in mature people???

Spectacular communication. Tolerance for harmless oddities. Willingness to accommodate other communication styles and find something that makes communicating easy for both parties--and plenty of experience doing so, having spent basically our whole lives trying to figure out how to communicate with a society that is on a slightly different wavelength from us.

Like... bro. We have been accommodating and figuring out how to deal with neurotypicals our entire lives, facing huge amounts of criticism and even complete ostracization for failure. We learned social skills on hard mode. We basically had to face the final boss of social skills while woefully under-leveled and now we're walking back to the beginning areas with the best gear in the game and insanely sharp skills, looking around MINDBOGGLED that people are out here struggling with things that could be solved by literally making the most half-assed effort to communicate instead of never addressing the issue.

It is not accurate nor fair to stereotype us as socially hopeless based on the way we struggled as children, especially given how rarely we were actually accommodated or taught what to do in ways that made sense to us.

And frankly, I think part of the reasons things like ADHD and autism are seen as things that only affect children is because most of us have to get SO GOOD at appearing neurotypical to avoid criticism that it makes it appear that there are far fewer neurodivergent adults than there really are. And I mean, I could get really in-depth on why that's a problem and the effects masking all the time can have on us, but that's besides the point.

Also I'm sorry, but if you refuse to adjust the way you're communicating something when the person you're talking with clearly does not understand, or if you're getting mad at them for not picking up on something you refuse to convey clearly and directly? That is on you. YOU are the one who is bad at communication in this situation. YOU are the one who is too inflexible or lacks the social skills to adjust. YOU are the one who cannot make yourself understood.

The exact age where we git gud at socializing does vary from person to person, especially depending on the intensity of their neurodivergence and whether they have access to the tools they need to communicate successfully, but like... dude, once we're in our final form, however long and with however much help that takes each of us, we kick ass at socializing. And yeah, sometimes it's only through unconventional avenues that we can socialize really well because some of us need certain accommodations, but we almost all find at least one way where we're really good at communicating and connecting with people, and we tend to have a lifetime worth of experience communicating in ways that aren't natural to us and can hold our own just fine in such situations.

[pokemoncreepypasta]

Bound To Cheat

[STORY SOURCE]

Author: @sammisafetypin​

Maybe it’s just me, but it’s hard to actually spend time on a regular Pokémon game.  No, no — hear me out here. I’ve been playing the games since, I dunno, Ruby and Sapphire version? I own pretty much every Pokémon game there is to own, or if I don’t have the console I’ve had it on emulator. 

They’re fun, I wouldn’t own so many if they weren’t fun. But the older I got, the more I just tended to get bored with them. It’s hard to complete a file when you know you can expect the same things in all the same places. I’d always reset my games before getting very far, and then reset again, and then just get bored. I dunno. I like the games, but sometimes it’s just hard to drum up that motivation. I mean, that’s why people do challenges and randomizers, right? It adds some spice to the whole situation. Sometimes I can’t even get through those, but I’d blame that on me having a flighty personality. 

Besides that, just glitching up the game to see how far out of bounds you can wander, or destroying half the game with a level 100 Mewtwo ... I mean, it’s a cheap laugh, but I never wanted Pokémon to get boring for me. It was upsetting to realize it was. I think that’s why it was like the holy grail when my aunt bought me a GameShark for Christmas. I had been bemoaning not having enough fun with my games, and I guess she went looking. 

Not really sure if I should thank her now, but that’s beside the point.

I was like a kid in a candy store with that thing, it was almost embarrassing. I went right to my White copy and gave myself all of the version exclusives and legendaries and shinies I so desired. You could argue that cheating just makes a game more boring, since you can just look up codes to strong-arm past any challenge, but it was still really fun. Come on, you give a Magikarp the ability to use Judgment and tell me that that’s not funny.

But, anyways. I screwed around with using my GameShark on my White copy for a while, before I ended up getting sidetracked in my usual fashion. I decided to dig around my room for other games to try out my new toy on, and it wasn’t long before I found a game I hadn’t touched in at least a year: Pokémon Pearl.

Honestly? I sorta forgot I had it at all. It had somehow gotten buried in my dresser drawer, stuck in the sleeve of an old cat sweater. I dug it out and decided, hey, what the hell — I’d see what I even had on this, because I quite frankly didn’t remember.

As it turned out, I had left off around Canalave City. My team consisted of Empoleon, Staraptor, Luxio, Graveler, Bibarel, and Glameow. 

Basic, apparently. Honestly, I didn’t even like most of these Pokemon anymore, and I guess I must have gotten stuck because their levels were all over the place. 

I couldn’t really say I had a lot of emotional attachment to this file -- looking back at my nickname choices like ‘Emo’ the Staraptor was funny, but I could have built a better team than this. 

I liked Torterra a lot better than Empoleon, too, but I didn’t feel like going through all of the early-game again with how slow Diamond and Pearl can be … and then, the genius idea hit me. 

If this save file was already over halfway done, I could fuck with it all I pleased, make some crazy ideal team, have fun blasting through things, and then reset or glitch my way to Darkrai or something like that. Harmless fun.

I grabbed my GameShark off my disaster of a desk, as well as my phone to look up codes. The first thing that I wanted to do was get a Turtwig, and then some Rare Candies. I had put in codes like these before, but never in Generation 4 games, and like hell did I remember any code note-for-note anyways. 

In my search for the Turtwig code, I was quick to find a massive list of codes that would spawn any Pokemon in the tall grass. Sick. Just what the doctor ordered. I was starting to regain my interest in this file. Something else caught my eye at the top of the list, though -- “code to make all wild encounters shiny”.

Well, hey. If there’s one piece of candy stuck to another, I’ll take it. Okay, that’s a weird way to word it, but I always liked Torterra’s shiny palette. If I could make the Turtwig shiny just as easily as I could encounter it, well, why not? 

I carefully put the codes in, and then had Staraptor fly me somewhere with lower levels. Within a few moments, I had my darling on the screen.

A girl, too! That was just the icing on the cake. 

Looking back at this picture, I can see now that the sprite looked off, but I was too enamored by the sight of shiny Turtwig to notice or care at the time. 

I caught her quickly, and nicknamed her.

Harriet the Turtwig, replacing Pingu the Empoleon on my team. Of course, not a Turtwig for very long. 

Some very tedious repetitive pressing later, I had given her more than enough Rare Candies to make her the best giant tree turtle the world had ever seen. I was giddy, what can I say?

With Harriet in tow, I decided it was high time I made some progress. I didn’t know what other Pokemon I wanted yet, so I figured I could just breeze through things with a Level 100 Torterra and figure it out as I went along. Call me a filthy casual, but it was great fun. 

I quickly tore through Iron Island, as well as Byron’s gym. Harriet was pretty slow even for a Torterra, getting regularly outsped by steel-types much lower-leveled than her even though her speed stat seemed to indicate she would be faster. That said, the level difference made it so that it was hardly a big deal. It was on to the lakes, as well as the seventh badge.

Unfortunately, Lake Acuity and Snowpoint City is when things got sorta … weird? I want to say weird. I really don’t know what word I’d use. 

But I trudged through the snow, I just want to know who ever thought that terrain in a Pokemon game was an acceptable idea, and worked on conquering the cold section of the region. It was during Candice’s gym that things got any more off than a low speed stat.

I had struggled through the puzzle after an embarrassing amount of time, and was facing off with Candice herself. Her Snover was first, and I decided I’d use Earthquake. But when I clicked it, instead of using Earthquake, I got a message I hadn’t seen before.

“Harriet took too long to attack!” 

What? Before I could figure out what that was even supposed to mean, Snover took an extra turn, chipping a small bit of HP off of Harriet. The damage hardly mattered to me, but I was caught up on Harriet just deciding to skip her turn. This hadn’t happened before, she had just been slow. And that Snover had outsped me, so what business did it have using another move in the same turn? Did it somehow think it was the next turn because Harriet didn’t do anything?

I realized I was thinking about it like the Snover could think, and tried to focus more on the message itself. ‘Harriet took too long to attack’. 

Was that some sort of status condition? I had healed before the last gym trainer or two, so that didn’t make a lot of sense, and I’d never heard of that message in response to a status condition before. I thought maybe it could be a disobedience message, though that hardly made sense either, since Harriet had listened just fine before, and nothing had changed.

Maybe she’s just cold, I thought to myself, and got a little chuckle out of it. 

Well, it wasn’t the end of the world, so I decided to stop hanging up on it. Harriet used Earthquake just fine the next turn, taking Snover out without a problem. Sneasel was the next Pokemon on the field. 

This time, I went for Crunch, and Harriet’s first attack went off without issue. The Sneasel managed to just barely survive, so I went for another Crunch that went just the same. Or, so I thought.

“Harriet is hit with recoil!” 

I stared blankly at the scree, wondering if I had somehow accidentally hit a recoil move instead. When the game asked me if I wanted to switch for Candice’s next Pokemon, I opened my moves to see if I could have somehow made that mistake, but there was no way. I didn’t even have any recoil moves on Harriet.

This was stupid. I mean, I couldn’t deny I was curious to figure out what was going on, but it was still pretty stupid. There was no reason for Harriet to be taking recoil and skipping turns. 

I sorta felt bad for her, too. She looked like she was sad about her moves acting strange. Confused, I decided to consult some of my friends about if they had ever had behavior like this in their games.

I mean, Harriet’s sprite looking a bit weird could be explained by that, but I didn’t really believe that fully coherent messages could be generated by my cheat codes screwing up. Maybe the recoil, but not Harriet ‘taking too long to attack’. 

I went back to the game and, luckily, with only a few more weird recoil and skipping incidents, I was able to muscle through Candice’s gym and get the badge.

Well, okay. No matter what was happening with Harriet, it was pretty obvious I couldn’t use just her. Her messed-up attacking would get in the way too much, and I didn’t wanna put all that strain on her. It was time that I replaced some more members on my team. 

My first idea was Rotom. It’s one of my favorites, but in Pearl, it’s locked off until you get the National Dex. Well, not anymore. I set up everything I had to, and made my way into the tall grass around Lake Acuity. 

This one was a bit harder to miss than Harriet’s expression. 

Rotom’s giant grin is probably one of my favorite parts of it, and it was a little depressing to see it look so sad. 

A Rotom was a Rotom, though, and maybe it would cheer up once I caught it and leveled it up.

...No such luck, apparently. 

Either way, I named it Alix, after a friend of mine who really loves Rotom. 

I also decided to get myself a Mismagius, who I wanted to test out impossible moves on, and a Crobat that I wanted to try and get past Level 100. 

It seemed I had screwed this file already, so why not have fun with seeing what I could pull off? Then I could have some fun beating what was left of the story. 

They both had similar, changed expressions on their faces compared to their original sprites. I didn’t really get the point of it — I’d have been willing to chalk them up to graphical errors if it weren’t for Harriet’s weird behavior. 

I decided to look at the rest of my team to see if they had changed either. The only ones remaining from my original team were Dopey the Bibarel, who I was keeping around for HMs, and Missy the Glameow, who I hadn’t really decided a replacement for yet. I did like Purugly — maybe I’d just level her up. But that's besides the point. 

Dopey just stared back at me as, well, dopily as ever. Missy’s sprite, however, I was almost certain had changed. Glameow didn’t usually look that angry, to my knowledge, but then again, Rotom never looked that exhausted either. I guess it was the fact that I had caught the rest of the Pokemon with those looks on their faces -- I was pretty sure Missy looked fine when I started up the game.

Well, I was going to try and not make a big deal out of it. I did the Lake Acuity cutscenes, and then made my way back to Veilstone to handle the next Team Galactic events. Of course, though, I wasn’t very far into their Warehouse and HQ when the game decided it was going to act up again. This time, though, it wasn’t Harriet.

“ALIX is too weak to attack!” was the very first message I got upon trying to fight a trainer with my Rotom. Great, so that meant that whatever was plaguing Harriet was affecting my other Pokemon as well. 

Was this some twisted variation of Pokerus, contagious and spreading through my team? Did somebody fuck with my game and somehow manage to slip it back into my room without a trace? 

That seemed like a really stupid theory, but I had never seen a game act like this. 

I tried again.

“ALIX is too tired for Uproar!” 

How could you be too tired with almost full HP? 

It wasn’t like I didn’t feel bad for my Rotom, but I couldn’t figure out what could be making it so exhausted. Looking things up on the internet wasn’t getting me any answers, so I tried quickly switching out for Missy and then switching back.

Then, I just kept clicking Discharge until eventually Alix used it, which was thankfully only within a turn or two. Maybe switching helped. I felt sorta bad, but I had the sneaking suspicion that my other team members were going to behave the same way. It was a blessing and a curse that I was level 100, I guessed.

It really shouldn’t have taken so long to get through a single Team Galactic grunt, but on the bright side, it was his only Pokemon. I figured that I would give Alix a break -- say what you want, but it sort of made me feel bad to make these Pokemon do successive battles when they didn’t feel well. My morbid curiosity pushed me onward, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t sympathetic towards my new friends. I may not have hand-trained them, but they were still the Pokemon I wanted on my team.

Jet was the next one I wanted to test out. I had managed to get him above level 100, and I was simultaneously curious and concerned about how he was going to act in battle. But, my mind was taken off of that when I opened the party screen. 

Alix was missing. Just, an empty slot in my party, even though I knew full well that I had a full team. Harriet now sat at the front rather than it, with no indication of where in the world it had gone. 

This was getting stupid. Pokemon didn’t just disappear, especially since Alix’s health was near-full when the battle ended. It made no sense that they would just warp out of existence like that. I mean, I suppose since I brought them in with cheat codes, there was the potential that there had been some sort of error, but that didn’t soothe my concerns. 

I marched right out of the warehouse and down to the Pokemon Center to check my PC Box.

No dice. I checked each and every box, but Alix was nowhere to be found. It was like they had never been a part of the game in the first place. Something about that made me feel very, very wrong -- I wanted my Rotom back. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something horrible had happened to them, or that they were trapped in some digital void. 

Confused, I continued to search for answers, but I was turning up nothing. My bag didn’t have any hints, nor did any of the NPCs I talked to. I made an attempt to interrogate the Galactic grunt that Alix had disappeared after fighting, but he didn’t have anything special to say. Helplessly, I scrolled through my team, wondering if maybe Alix had just gone invisible or if something else had changed.

Well, I didn’t make any progress with finding out where Alix was, but I did notice another change in my party composition.

Missy again. She was smiling at me now, eyes wide. Frankly, I think it looked more like Glameow’s standard sprite than before, but something still unnerved me. She also held a Grip Claw, which I was certain I hadn’t given to her. I stared at the Glameow, and she stared right back. It felt like I was being made fun of, but I supposed that was only in-character for the ‘Catty Pokemon’, according to Pokedex category.

I scrolled through my team a few more times, squinting for changes, but Missy’s new face and hold item were the only things that were different. Well, besides Alix going AWOL. 

Frustrated, I figured that I’d do my best to clear out the Galactic HQ, and then I’d figure out what to do with my team. Assuming nobody else would decide to flicker out of existence, I could wrangle my way to the next plot point and move on. At the least, most things fainted in one or two hits, when I actually managed to land those hits.

But that would just bring me to noticing the issues with the rest of my team.

Jet would actually attack pretty consistently, surprisingly enough. The main issue was the fact that he always, no matter what move I selected, took recoil damage. Air Slash, Cross Poison, it didn’t matter -- recoil. 

His high HP made it so that he could attack for a while before I had to heal him, though, so he was probably my best bet for a main battler. I tried to heal him whenever he went into the yellow, though. I didn’t want to risk things, somehow, getting worse.

As for Sabrina, she had just decided to not listen at all.

She didn’t move often, and when she did, it was almost always something like this. I knew of disobedient Pokemon using the wrong moves, but that was only for trades. 

And besides, there was a much more glaring issue: Sabrina didn’t know Growl. I had deleted it already. Future Sight, Nasty Plot, Shadow Ball, Cosmic Power -- that was her moveset. That was all. She had known Growl before, but there was no way she should’ve been using it. 

I wasn’t going to kid myself at this point. There was obviously something really wrong with my team, and I was determined to figure out exactly what that was. I decided to go test things out in wild battles, which I could easily run from if my Pokemon decided to completely freak out. The more I tested, though, the worse they seemed to get. Harriet had to be the worst example.

With each Pokemon I sent her out against, Harriet attacked less and less. It would take her more and more turns to finally use a move against anything, and when she did, she wasn’t even knocking them out. 

I felt my heart sink -- what had happened to my poor Torterra? Sure, I hadn’t had her with me long, but I still cared for her. It felt like she had some sort of sickness, and there was just nothing I could do about it. 

Regrettably, I decided that I wasn’t going to use Harriet anymore. It felt like no matter how many times I spammed Earthquake or Giga Drain, nothing was going to happen, and I felt bad trying to force her. 

Maybe if I got another Turtwig, that one would feel better? I didn’t want to replace Harriet or anything, but I really did want a Torterra. Though, more than anything, I just wanted to figure out what was wrong with my game. I know I said that I had a hard time sticking with Pokemon games, but this definitely had my attention in spades. 

Apologizing to my screen, I put Harriet in the PC, and turned back to my codes to get myself a new Turtwig. 

I figured I’d switch Missy up to the front of the party -- it had occurred to me that she knew Hypnosis, and with the relatively painful catch rates of starter Pokemon, I figured that would help me a lot. 

Codes in hand, I went back to the tall grass and encountered my Turtwig.

I really should’ve expected something to go wrong at that point.

The first thing I noticed were the eyes: Identical to Harriet’s back when she was a Turtwig. Then, the fact that I had managed to encounter another female one -- and then, the name clicked with me. The wild Turtwig was named Harriet.

That was the first point where I just wanted to put the game down. Turn it off, throw the cartridge back in my drawer, pretend nothing had happened. Something about the wild Turtwig having the same name as my Torterra made me feel … I don’t know, wrong. 

Even so, I felt like this was my chance to do something better for Harriet this time. What that was, I wasn’t sure, but … just, something, y’know? I know I’m not that good with words, but in the end, I decided to try and continue the battle.

I put “Harriet” to sleep with Hypnosis, and then selected Faint Attack.

The game didn’t even bother to alert me that Missy was disobeying -- it acted like I had told her to use Bind, and she had followed through. I was baffled. 

I was plenty used to my Pokemon not doing what they were told at this point, but it wasn’t like Sabrina -- as far as I knew, Missy had never known Bind. Her moves were Faint Attack, Fury Swipes, Slash, and Hypnosis. I wasn’t even sure that Glameow could learn Bind.

Anxious, I decided that I needed to catch this Turtwig before things got any more odd. Besides, I didn’t want Missy to knock it out on accident. Luckily, I had an absurd surplus of Poke Balls, so I could just throw as many balls as I wanted until I had the new addition to my team. Or, so I thought.

“Missy blocked the Poke Ball!” The game oh-so-helpfully reported to me, as if I had thrown a ball at a trainer’s Pokemon. 

This was wrong. Harriet, Alix, Jet, and Sabrina had all had their issues with attacking -- but for the most part, it seemed like they were trying to obey. If they didn’t attack, it was because they were ‘too tired’, or in Sabrina’s case, ‘misheard’ me. They looked miserable. 

Missy only stared wide-eyed at her opponent, continuing the turn without my permission. Was she doing this on purpose?

Missy used Bind again, not bothering to answer my questions of how she was using it, or why she was doing this. 

“Harriet”’s sprite flashed in response to the attack, and I noticed black lines spread across her shell. Were those cracks? Missy’s actions had been stressing me out, but it was only then that I realized she was potentially doing serious damage.

I had to get out of the battle. Forget the Turtwig, I could catch another one, or find another Pokemon to use entirely. I felt horrible for the little thing, and it was probably for the best if I separated her and Missy as quickly as I could. Clicking my Pokemon menu acted as if I hadn’t selected anything at all. 

Starting to feel absurdly sweaty for just sitting on my bed and playing Pokemon Pearl, I selected ‘Run’ and prayed.

I barely had time to register my emotions towards the ‘Can’t escape!’ message before the turn went on. I winced and hoped it wouldn’t be too ugly. 

Before Missy could attack, though, “Harriet” woke up and fought back. 

As the screen flashed, three red lines appeared across Missy’s tail -- apparently where “Harriet” bit her. I wondered if her tail was how Bind made sense in the first place. 

That said though, it was a feeble resistance: Missy’s health bar only barely dropped. I could only watch as she finished the fight without any input from me.

The cracks continued to spread across the Turtwig’s shell as its HP fell down to 0. It looked utterly miserable as its sprite dropped off the screen. 

Ugh. What had I just witnessed, and why did it feel more brutal than any Pokemon battle I’d done in the past?

As the game told me that Harriet had fainted, I noticed something flicker in the corner of the screen. 

Oh. Now she was staring at me. That was just what I needed after all of this. 

I hoped that the Harriet that was in the PC box didn’t know about what had just happened to her … whatever this other Harriet’s relation was to her.

The game faded back to the overworld as if any other normal battle had just ended. I felt like things had just gone from … well, not a zero to a one-hundred. More like a twenty to a one-hundred. But that didn’t make it any better. 

I opened my party to look at Missy -- her sprite had changed before. Maybe it had changed again. 

It had. And I was absolutely, positively, not a fan of what I was looking at. 

There was no way that I was just going to sit here and let this Glameow, whatever it was that she wanted, rip apart any more Pokemon. I wanted to know why she was doing it, but I wasn’t about to just let her go crazy on whatever she pleased. I was curious, but not that curious. Once a kids’ game starts bleeding at you, you shouldn’t keep screwing with it.

I went back to Veilstone, wondering how many times I’d have to struggle with the PC box in this city. I opened it up to move Pokemon around, and selected Missy. The original Harriet wasn’t in the box either, and that only steeled my courage to get rid of Missy before anything else went awry. As I hovered over the ‘release’ option, I mumbled to the screen, thankful that no one was around to see me talking to my game like this.

“I don’t know who you are -- what you are -- or what you want with me. I don’t know why you hurt that Turtwig. But I’m begging you to please either tell me what you want, or leave me alone. Please?”

Hoping that my prayer was heard, I selected release and confirmed that yes, I did want Missy gone. I think that Missy did, somehow, hear what I said to her.

But I don’t think she cared.

“Learn? Learn what? That I somehow put demon data in my game and screwed up my Glameow?” I snapped, shaking the DS slightly as if that would give me answers. 

I needed to calm down. It was a game. A screwed-up game, but a game. Missy couldn’t actually hurt me. I wasn't about to play with fire by keeping her on my team, but I was pretty confident in the fact that she couldn't cause me any physical harm. That was the sense of safety I held on to.

I decided that if Missy wasn’t going to leave on her own, I was just going to quarantine her. I stuck her in a random PC box, far away from all the other Pokemon.

Hopefully, she’d stay there. 

I was starting to wonder if beating the game was worth it at this rate, but I felt like I deserved a little bit of payoff for seeing my Glameow flip out in front of me. And who knew, maybe there’d be some answers at the end of the game. That was my hope, anyways.

For the rest of the Galactic HQ, I mainly used Jet. I was a little anxious to grab any more new Pokemon, and Jet was the best attacker that I had out of him and Sabrina. Alix was still gone, and I didn’t really expect Harriet to be doing any better than before, so I was just going to deal with a two-Pokemon team (well, and Dopey) until I figured out what my game plan was.

Thankfully, with Jet’s remarkably high level, I was making quick work of pretty much everything that stood in my way. None of the Galactic grunts were any match for Jet’s power, and I was starting to feel comfortable again. Cyrus hardly posed a challenge either, and after healing the building recoil damage off of Jet, I went to face Saturn.

I figured it would be fine at first -- Saturn was probably even less of a challenge than Cyrus. He sent out his Kadabra first, and I was quick to go for Air Slash. Unfortunately, it moved first, and I started to get flashbacks to Harriet’s decreasing speed stat.

Jet held on with a little under half of his health, and met Kadabra with a devastating Air Slash. 

I cheered for a moment, until I saw how much recoil damage I was taking.

On one hand, I wanted to be angry that there was no possible way I had done enough damage for recoil to take out Jet. On the other hand, I figured I shouldn’t have been surprised at that point. 

The recoil had seemed pretty serious in the battle against Cyrus -- it occurred to me that it was probably getting more severe, the same way that Harriet had attacked less and less. I mentally scolded myself for not noticing.

Using Sabrina against Saturn wasn’t any fun, but after many random instances of Growl and Magical Leaf, I got just enough proper uses of Shadow Ball and Future Sight to end the battle. Saturn admitted his defeat, and I went to heal before I made any more progress in the game.

I very much would do what I liked — and what I liked was the idea of getting to the end of the game. 

It was really only Mt. Coronet, the last badge, and the Elite 4 now, so I felt pretty confident that I could wrangle my way through. I was mumbling to myself about what other Pokemon I’d pick up — I always liked Giratina, and Drapion … maybe Gliscor, or Porygon-Z? 

I was caught up enough in my own thoughts that I hardly noticed Nurse Joy’s dialogue was different until it was almost too late to catch it.

I wasn’t given a chance to protest, as the text box promptly closed afterwards. I tried to talk to Nurse Joy again, but she just offered to heal my Pokemon like normal. 

I checked my party and, to my non-surprise, Jet wasn’t in the party. Only Sabrina and Dopey stared back at me. Something about that felt very anxiety-inducing.

Well, if Jet didn’t want to fight, I wasn’t going to make him. But I at least wanted to check on him, if he was bad enough that Nurse Joy felt the need to do something about it. I opened the PC, but Jet was absent from Box 1. I started to feel like this was going to be another Alix incident. 

I was getting sweaty at this point, rapidly clicking through the boxes in search of Jet. Right before my anxiety was going to boil over, I saw a flash of purple. I went to click on it instantly, but found that my game wasn’t responding to my inputs.

Oh no.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I mashed on the D-Pad, trying to get some response — any response. 

I might’ve only seen one incident from her, but I didn’t trust Missy for a second. Not near Jet. 

I was pressing every button I could think of, desperate, when a text box popped up. And then, without any further input from me, a battle started. 

My heart sank as I saw Jet on the other side of the screen, and Missy on my end, without any indication of my character sending her out. 

The game gave me the control to select an option, but the buttons refused to work. ‘Run’, ‘Bag’, and ‘Pokemon’ all acted as if I was pressing absolutely nothing. It wouldn’t let me move over them with the D-Pad, and they offered no reaction when I tried to click them with my stylus. 

I thought to just sit there and try to wait it out, but the longer I watched Missy stare into Jet, whose eyes were finally open with what I imagined was fear, the sicker I felt. Hands shaking, I pressed ‘Fight’. 

I winced as I saw a large chunk of Missy’s tail disappear after Jet used Air Slash, as well as a deep nick cement itself in Jet’s wing. Recoil damage began to tick down. 

The game didn’t prompt me anymore. Missy took her turn, using Hypnosis, and I prayed and prayed for Jet to wake up soon. He could take her down easily. He just had to wake up.

Turn one.  He didn’t wake up. Missy trapped him in Bind, and his sprite flashed and changed — now his wings were held to his sides, like he was being forced into that position. The extra Bind damage was luckily minuscule.

Turn two. He kept sleeping. Missy continued her attack, and Jet’s health reached the red. There were now deep indents across his body, and I was starting to understand what ‘Bind’ really meant. 

This was it. Jet had to wake up this turn. He didn’t have a choice -- he’d die if he didn’t. I began to murmur to my DS, giving soft prayers that he would wake up and take Missy down.

“Please Jet, please, please, just wake up … you can do this, you’re strong … you won’t even have to fight anymore after, please…” 

The battle stalled for a moment, as if it had paused to hear my plea. A bit of hope swelled in my chest. 

A hope that was immediately crushed. The text scrolled out slower than ever as Missy stared me in the face, knowingly. I began to helplessly mash at buttons, hoping that the game would somehow allow me to intervene again -- but it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t do a thing. I pressed every button combination my frantic brain could think of, but they all amounted to nothing. 

The next text began to scroll across the screen, and I already knew what it would say. I didn’t bother to read it. I just kept button-mashing, despite how useless it was. The game hadn’t a care in the world as it continued to show me the brutal display.

Jet just dropped off the screen, without a message announcing he had fainted.

The game stuttered for a moment, probably trying to handle his HP bar in relation to his level or … something. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

Eventually, text scrolled across the screen again.

Missy’s victory was practically thrown in my face by the cheery sound effect of a level-up. 

I was pretty sure I had started to cry, if only the littlest bit -- I felt scared of this stupid Glameow. I didn’t know what she wanted with me, why she was brutalizing my Pokemon. It was obvious she wanted to teach me something, and maybe I was just stupid and oblivious, but I didn’t grasp what.

“It’s enough! It’s enough, Missy! Please, just stop and leave me alone…”

I knew in my heart I could just put the game down. Rip the cartridge out of the DS and never touch it again. But my body felt like it was frozen with fear, and my better judgment was not the part of me making the decisions. 

Say what you will, but the game was targeting me, and that was enough to make me more scared than I had felt in a long, long time. Missy’s cold glare and Jet’s empty HP bar blankly stared back at me until, eventually, the battle faded, and I was back in the PC Box.

Box 13 was empty now. I felt sick. I didn’t know where Missy had dragged Jet off to, but I figured he probably just ceased to exist after she brutalized him. It wasn’t fair -- what had he done besides exist? 

It seemed like Missy was more angry with me than the Pokemon, and that only felt worse. I was playing with something that was way past what I ever expected it to be. I only stared down at the DS for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts and fully grasp what had just happened. I really couldn’t. There was something deeply disturbing about seeing a Pokemon go on a bloody rampage just for a grudge against me. God, would I have a story to talk to my therapist about. 

It occurred to me that I wasn’t sure if anyone would actually believe this had happened, but at that point, I was too exhausted to care. 

I wanted to get to the end of all of this. I kept thinking that, every time something horrible happened, but now I was determined. I didn’t care about finishing the game at this point, though. I didn’t care about Palkia, or Team Galactic, or Volkner or Cynthia or any of that. There was just a part of my soul that felt like I owed it to what Pokemon I had left. 

Sabrina. Poor Sabrina. I hadn’t used her much, but I knew she was trying for me. I wanted to, somehow, defeat Missy, so that Sabrina could be safe, and so that I wouldn’t feel the creeping paranoia that Missy was going to somehow kill me in my sleep.

I opened my party to check on Sabrina, and mentally cursed myself for speaking of the Devil.

I don’t know when Dopey disappeared from my party, or when Missy hit level 39. I had the sneaking feeling those events were correlated. Dopey hadn’t even done anything. But I guess he blocked Missy’s way to her next victim.

Her next victim. I felt sick. No. She couldn’t hurt Sabrina. I had other Pokemon in the PC, sure, but something was sickening about imagining Missy destroying the last Pokemon in my party, the last one I had made for this adventure-- 

There was a vague realization then, but I was too panicked to think about it. Instead, I fumbled for my phone, typing as quickly as I could. 

Missy needed to go away. She needed to be stopped. I felt like I might break down sobbing if I had to watch another thing be killed. She was closing in on Sabrina, and if the battle started, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop it. I doubted she would go back in the PC. This was my best chance. 

I had seen codes for implementing Pokemon directly into the team. Slot 2. This had to happen. It had to. I was certain just shutting the game off wouldn’t get rid of Missy, not that that would be the end of the world, so I switched around what I had to without worrying about it, fumbling to the code input screen with sweaty, shaking hands. My only fear was that this wouldn’t work, or that I would enter the code wrong and make everything worse.

The first one I found was for an Arceus. Fine. Sure. Whatever. I didn’t really care about a legendary or a mythical or whatever, it could’ve been a Feebas for all I cared, I just couldn’t stand having Missy in my game anymore. I must’ve caused this problem somehow, and I was going to solve it. 

I finished inputting the code, and booted the game back up. The intro scene was frozen, making some sort of horrible one-note noise that sounded like a dying animal, but that barely registered in my mind. 

I was still in the Pokemon Center. I opened up my party, holding my breath. I only hoped I hadn’t done anything wrong. 

… Well, obviously I had. Whatever I had just created in my party was absolutely not an Arceus -- but it wasn’t Missy, either. That was what mattered. It looked like some kind of horrible Bad Egg, but it wasn’t Missy. The game absolutely refused to let me hover over or select the Egg, but I hardly cared. 

As the adrenaline finally started to fade a little bit, I realized I wasn’t sure what my next goal was. Finish the game for Sabrina’s sake? Maybe. That was what I had sworn to do before I worked myself into another panic over Missy -- but I was also fairly sure that Missy was gone now. There was another Pokemon, or at least something resembling a Pokemon, in her spot in the party. I decided to at least step out of the Pokemon Center to get some virtual fresh air. 

Apparently, nothing was going to be easy. 

I opened and shut my party a few times, but Veilstone City’s graphics didn’t bother to come back. It remained a huge white slate, and none of the NPCs I tried to speak to registered my inputs. I had probably destroyed the game beyond repair at this point, huh? 

I’d catch Palkia, I decided. I’d catch Palkia, and that would mark the end of the adventure. That would make me feel confident that everything was fine, if not … glitchy. 

Maybe I was just a person who desired an end point, or maybe I wanted it for Sabrina. Who knew. 

My path up Mt. Coronet, though, had no intentions of being simplistic. Not that I expected it to be.

My wall collision was completely gone, and believe it or not, that really destroys your sense of direction. Random patches of tiles were completely gone, and NPCs refused to acknowledge I existed. 

It felt … isolated, I guess? I wish I knew how to describe it. It felt like something was going to jump out at me any moment, but it just never did. At the least, the lack of collision let me skip over any necessary HMs, even with Dopey gone.

At some points, the screen would just … blank out or corrupt completely, and I had to wander around helplessly until I eventually went through a doorway that reset it. Opening my Pokemon or Bag didn’t seem to do anything to remedy the situation, so that was all I could hope for. 

Team Galactic grunts rarely ever appeared, let alone fought me. I supposed it made things at least slightly easier. 

I still got wild encounters, though. Most of them looked … unsettling, to say the least.

Glitched, layered-over sprites and corrupted HP bars made up most of what I was running into. Sabrina was doing her best to fight them off, but she usually ended up using Growl or Lucky Chant a couple of times before actually getting a damaging move. 

It hurt, to imagine how tired she must be if she could never understand what I was telling her to use. I thought of the Harriets, Alix, and Jet. They all seemed so tired. I felt terrible.Could this really be my fault? 

If it was, I owed it to Sabrina to make it up to her. We’d finish this together.

It took her a while to complete fights, but I had a practically endless supply of healing items. I tried to not pay attention to the fact that I could see her attacks doing less and less damage, and her speed stat lowering. 

“You can do it, Sabrina. You can do it. Almost all done.” I whispered to the game.

I was saying it to convince myself just as much. I needed this in order to get myself to put this horrible game down. It was self-assurance, and I knew it. 

We continued our ascent, and I had to constantly be careful to not walk directly into the void. Not that it really did much if I did, but I was terrified of getting stuck or walking so far that I wouldn’t know how to get back. I was lost enough, considering I really, really didn’t have the map of Mt. Coronet memorized, and I still don’t. I’d hear some sort of pixelated howling noise from time to time, and it managed to startle me each time. Occasionally, the game would pop up with a message to alert me that I should heal Sabrina.

Her HP was usually full whenever it did that, but I had stopped being shocked by the game’s odd behavior at this point. I would give her a Hyper Potion, and the game would let me know that she felt a little better. Whatever helped, really. 

I had finally managed to access the last few rocky, corrupted corridors before Spear Pillar. The distorted, glitched yowling grew louder as I got closer and closer. The deep pit that was already in my stomach grew even deeper. 

Spear Pillar itself was a disaster.  Half of the map was completely replaced by some sort of gradient void that I imagined was usually meant to be the area’s backdrop, and the game was incredibly wishy-washy about if it wanted the sprites of the Team Galactic members to appear or not. They’d appear and disappear as I walked around, and none of them bothered to challenge me. 

No cutscenes were initiated, no battle side-by-side with my rival, no Professor Rowan and Lucas running up to let me know that Palkia wanted me to catch it, no Lake Trio destroying the Red Chain. I just walked right past everything. It felt wrong.

I walked up to where Palkia was meant to stand, waiting for my challenge. I should’ve guessed at that point, though, that I couldn’t fix my problems as easily as I thought I could. There was no ruler of space waiting to challenge me. 

Instead, perched in the center of all the corruption like some kind of twisted queen, she was there. She had been waiting for me.

The music started to pause and skip wildly, and I waited to see what was going to happen next. I felt sick. I didn’t want to see this stupid Glameow again. 

But she didn’t care. She began to speak, and miserably, I followed along.

I really, really wasn’t.

After a moment’s pause, the game offered me a YES/NO box. I selected ‘No’. I had my ideas, but I really, really wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to infuriate Missy further.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I told you before to just tell me what’s going on!” I begged to a screen that wasn’t going to respond to me. 

Before I had time to brace myself, the DS speakers emitted a distorted screech that caused me to reach up to clutch my ears. As if I wasn’t overwhelmed enough. It was probably some mesh of Pokemon cries, but I didn't have it in me to discern what. 

I could feel tears pricking the corners of my eyes, stress and fear and simply too much happening all culminating in a tight feeling in my chest. My head was swimming as I squinted at the text, trying to ignore the pain in my head.

The screeching startled all over again, and I felt the tears start to pour over. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry--” I blubbered, apologizing to a game for no coherent reason. Maybe I did want this all along. I wasn’t even sure anymore.

Through my tears, I could see a battle start. 

A horrible, glitched mess of a Pokemon scrolled onto the empty screen, emitting a horrible, warped yowling sound at earsplitting volumes. At the sight and sound of the awful thing in front of me, I only began to sob harder. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! I felt like a tantruming child, the only thoughts racing through my mind being how much this shouldn’t have been happening to me. 

The yowl continued as the game stuttered out text boxes. I was in Hell. This was some sort of screwed-up punishment. 

As Missy screeched at me, the game prompted me to take my turn, and I selected Fight and then Shadow Ball. I thought I clicked Shadow Ball, anyways, I don’t remember anymore.

Psywave. Psywave did damage, that was fine. But it only scraped off the smallest bit of Missy’s HP. And the second her HP stopped ticking down, she started to mew and yowl again. I felt like I was going deaf, or I at least wanted to.

I was given a moment’s respite from the noise, and the game once again gave me brief control. Similar to the battle between Missy and Jet, I couldn’t choose to run, use my bag, or switch Pokemon -- not that any of those would’ve done anything. I could only pick ‘Fight’ -- or, as it had changed to, ‘Check’. I didn’t have any choice, so I selected it.

I felt my heart drop as it hit me.  I already had the suspicion, but it finally all came crashing on me. Harriet, Alix, Jet, Sabrina. It was my fault they were in pain. It was my fault that they were too tired to use their turns, or to use the right moves, my fault that they took recoil. I had done this to them, and enraged Missy. Guilt gripped me, and I could barely read the words on the screen anymore.

“But what … what about Dopey? They didn’t … they didn’t-- didn’t do anything wrong… they weren’t … in pain … they … you didn’t need to kill anyone to punish me!” I wailed. “Please! Please, I’ll stop playing, just … stop hurting them! Why them? Why the overworld? Why…”

The game began to make sounds again, and I realized that Missy had more to say to me.

No. 

No, no, no. Her HP was draining at a brutally fast pace as the game repeated over and over and over that Sabrina was being hurt by Bind.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Without even thinking, I shut my entire DS off, threw the GameShark as far away from me as I possibly could and, after taking a few minutes to hyperventilate and think about my own crushing guilt and the sight of Sabrina, turned the DS back on. 

The game would still be overwritten with all the codes, of course. And that meant Missy would still be there to hurt all my Pokemon. It was my fault. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I had learned my stupid, awful lesson, I just needed her gone.

I wasted no time in pressing ‘Yes’, but I wasn’t quite fast enough for someone’s liking.

My chest tightened up.

“Yes you will! I got it! I learned! I’m done!” I insistently selected ‘Yes’ over and over until the game accepted it. I was upset, and guilty, and crushed, but I was also determined. I think it was the adrenaline.

Obviously!

As I pressed down on ‘Yes’, a telltale screech assaulted my ears as the game forced itself down to the ‘No’ option.

I resisted right back. It was practically a wrestling match between me and what I could only assume was Missy still trying to grip onto punishing me. It almost felt silly, if I wasn’t so terrified of what might happen if I couldn’t delete the file.

After maybe 10 or 15 seconds that felt like hours, I managed to press the corrupted ‘Yes’ before Missy could move it again. The game howled one more time, pixelated rage and pain and fury that caused me to drop my DS -- before it cut off into dull silence.

I stared at the DS, wide-eyed, too scared to touch it. The little clock icon ticked away in a rhythmic circle, alerting me that it was deleting data. I half-expected another interruption.

But no interruption came. The game returned to the title screen, and when I nervously reached out and tapped the A button, I was brought to Rowan’s introduction.

It was over. The file was gone. Everyone was gone. They probably would’ve been killed anyways, but I didn’t want to imagine myself as a mercy killer. That made me think too much of Missy. 

I left the DS on the floor, and crawled into my bed, allowing myself to just break down. I was already crying heavily, but for a while I just let myself wheeze and sob and whimper into one of my pillows, getting all of my feelings about. I felt so horribly guilty and so, so scared. I had hurt those Pokemon, but I couldn’t help but feel like Missy was evil too. I didn’t know. It was too much to process all at once. I was tired, and I needed to sleep.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, and I didn’t remember dreaming either. But at some point I woke up, face still sticky from tears drying all over it. My DS was still on the floor. I was a bit anxious to touch it, but I felt like I had to. I just wanted to ensure things were safe.

I dug around my room until I found where I had pitched the GameShark to, bringing it back to my DS. I didn’t feel good about putting it back in there, but I wanted to delete all of the codes. I knew I couldn’t permanently undo the changes I had made to the game, but I figured I’d do the best I could. I didn’t feel like I was going to faint at any moment now, at least. I had turned off the lights and closed the blinds in my room so the light didn’t hurt my eyes so much. 

Carefully and methodically, I deleted each code. Thinking about the game made me start to feel panicky again, but there was something calming to lists, taking out the codes one at a time. I tried to take deep breaths, ensuring that everything was gone before I properly started up the game again.

Pearl. Just normal, regular Pearl. I didn’t have many intentions of playing very far in, but my brain was foggy and I was just sort of pressing buttons. Making sure I didn’t completely destroy my cartridge, y’know?

I went through the beginning game motions, vaguely annoyed by how slow the whole thing was. Diamond and Pearl were always slow, I guessed. It wasn’t exactly the primary thing in my mind, you get me? 

I picked Turtwig when I got to the starter selection screen. I was still a Turtwig person. I was going to try and not let that change. Or maybe I’d just have to become a Chimchar person.

When I saw the sparkles spin off of the Turtwig, I audibly gasped. I knew for a fact that I had gotten rid of all the shiny codes, which meant that this was a honest-to-god, full-odds, completely legit shiny Turtwig. 

I nearly broke down again right there, though this time it was with laughter. Was this a gift? Or was it making fun of me? I liked to think the former. All that pain, and I finally got a dumb shiny Turtwig. I didn’t even know if I’d play this file all the way through, and I got a shiny Turtwig on my first try. There weren’t even words. 

I liked to think that this was something in the universe making things up to me, even if I wasn’t sure I deserved that. I decided to roll with it. I wasn’t going to say no to a lucky shiny. I fought off the beginning Starly with ease, dropped off by my in-game home to talk to my mom, and then set off on my way with Turtwig. I wondered what I’d name her. I didn’t really wanna name her Harriet again. That seemed like it would be asking for things to go sour. Shelly, maybe? Or was that too simple? I’d have to get something figured out by the time I got my character to Sandgem Town. Not that it was an especially long walk, but I had to go through a few encounters in the tall grass.

As if on cue with my thoughts, my character stopped, and the battle music started to play. Guess I would have more time to figure out my Turtwig’s nickname. I didn’t think about it, though, because my mind completely blanked out. Like somebody had just wiped all of my current thoughts away in an instant. 

A cry came through the speakers.

[backhurtyy]

so what would it take to convince you to share your thoughts on the atla star wars au 👀👀

OMG.... very little is the answer.... i have so many thoughts, so i’m just happy someone wants to read them! anyways, this got really long- like REALLY LONG- so i’m putting it down below the cut. prepare yourself for some nonsensical rambling, far too much thought into lightsaber forms, and a lot of thought about Zuko and the Force 💖

Set post Great Jedi Purge- the Empire has taken over, with Sith Lord Ozai as the Emperor and having orchestrated the entire war as Supreme Chancellor

Azula is Ozai's apprentice; Zuko was supposed to be his apprentice, however he was never as strong or as good at using the Force as Azula was. He’s still powerful, but more in how he uses the Force to help him in a fight and to find things, rather than Azula, who can use Force lightning, excels at mind tricks, etc.

So instead of taking him as his apprentice, Ozai assigns Zuko to the position of Grand Inquisitor and tasks him with leading the Inquisitiorious Program to track down the Jedi that managed to escape the purge.

He uses Jar’Kai, with dual blood red blades…. This ended up becoming the form he used because when he was young, he could never get the hang of fighting with just one lightsaber and always used a reverse grip that left him far too open and vulnerable. Piandao, who was a darksider rather than a full Sith Lord, decided to teach him Jar'Kai to see if it would work better for him, and it did. Anyways, we’re gonna come back to his lightsabers later cause I’m very into them lmao

Aang was the Padawan of Grand Master Gyatso, raised at the Jedi Temple, and uses a Saberstaff with Soresu as his primary form (I think the defensive style and analytical approach to combat translates really well to Aang’s personality and airbending as a whole... also it's Obi-Wan's primary form, and I think they'd be friends)

Anyways, Aang and Master Gyatso were on a mission when Order 66 went out. Gyatso knew Aang was the galaxy’s only chance, always believing him to be the Chosen One who was destined to bring balance to the Force, and so he told him to run. Aang didn’t want to leave him, but Gyatso used the Force to send Aang to their ship and ordered their BD unit, MO-2, to get them out of there

Aang didn’t see Gyatso fall to the troopers, but he felt it in the Force, and swore that he would do what he could to defeat the Empire

He scoured the galaxy for other Jedi and rebels for a long time, trying to hide his identity and the beginnings of the arrow tattoos that marked him as a Jedi Padawan learner all the while he’s running from the Inquisition (I imagine him as a near humanoid species, who have tattoos rather than Padawan braids or silica beads. As they become Padawans, Knights, and Masters, the level of detail on the tattoo is increased)

One day, the Grand Inquisitor catches up to Aang and shoots his ship down over an ice planet in the Outer Rim

Okay now to Sokka and Katara-

Katara and her family has known that she was gifted with the Force since she was a baby making her toys fly throughout their home on Carlac, but being able to use the Force in the Outer Rim is dangerous. They're not often found by the Jedi Order since it’s too far out, but bounty hunters, pirates, and the criminal rings in the Outer Rim have no such limitations, and Jedi are valuable

Following ATLA, someone heard about a Force user on their planet and sent pirates/bounty hunters after her when she was little, and Kya sacrificed herself to save her daughter

Basically, Katara has had to hide her abilities her entire life even though all she wanted to be was a Jedi, and it’s only gotten more dangerous since news of the purge reached them. Sokka and Hakoda would do anything to protect her, but they knew it was only a matter of time before the Inquisition found her, especially since she has very little training in terms of shielding and what not. So, they pack up and leave to join the rebellion, where they hope to find a Jedi who can train her, and end up on Hoth

They quickly settle into the rebellion, with Hakoda becoming one of its leaders and Sokka and Katara two of its best strategists, pilots, and fighters

Sokka also gets Mandalorian armor and a vibroblade because I say so

They’re out on patrol when they see Aang’s ship go down in the tundra, and Katara feels something in the Force. She knows whoever is in that ship can help her become a Jedi, and before Sokka can stop her, she’s already running towards it

Basically they bring Aang back to base and he promises to teach Katara how to use the Force- just one thing, one of his kyber crystals is broken, so he needs to go to Ilum and get a new one. Katara asks to go with him, and he agrees

Back to Zuko- he didn’t trust that shooting Aang down was enough, so he flies down to the surface to catch him, and there’s a fight between the rebels and the forces Zuko brought with him. Aang and Zuko have a Maul/Qui-Gon esque fight, and eventually Aang manages to get away

He, Sokka, and Katara all leave together, and basically they fly across the galaxy in their transport, APPA, and make it to Ilum to get both Aang and Katara kyber crystals

Katara gets a blue crystal, and Aang teaches her Shien as her lightsaber form (it’s quick, fluid, and alternates between defense and all out attacks, just like her waterbending). They spend a lot of time meditating and going through saber forms and lifting stuff around the ship with the Force and generally being a pain in Sokka's ass because when things fall to the ground, they always manage to land on his foot

(Sokka's proud of his sister and thinks it's cool she's got magic powers, but do things always have to land on his foot??? He wasn't even on the same side of the room as them!!!!)

Basically along the way they meet Suki, another rebel who’s deadly with a blaster, and the Kyoshi Warriors. I also think it would be super cool if the Kyoshi Warriors were from Naboo and were the Queen’s Handmaidens- they look harmless, but these girls are warriors and can FIGHT

Zuko’s chasing them the entire time too

They find Toph along the way too, a super powerful Force user who uses it to “see” and is also a very talented psychometric. I think she’d use Ataru as her lightsaber form since it uses the Force to enhance movements (also the psychometry is for no specific reason other than I think it would be neat and also she and Vos have similar personalities lmao)

Anyways the plot of the show continues until at some point, Azula is sent after Zuko since he’s taking too long to capture the Gaang, and they team up to stop them. Azula uses Force lightning on Aang, but Katara manages to get them out of there before the siblings can capture them. She’s a very powerful Force healer, so she manages to save Aang

Okay this is the part that I think about nonstop, which is that Zuko goes back to the Empire after that fight, but he just feels wrong. The Force doesn’t feel the same anymore, he's cold all the time, his crystals scream at him and burn his hands when he tries to use them, his eyes are aching, everything his father says makes his head pound and the Force curl around him unpleasantly, and he has no clue why (he does, he's just too scared to admit that there's always been a little more light in him than his father wants there to be)

Basically he finds out something about how his great grandfather Sozin used to be a Jedi, until Sozin Fell and killed his best friend Roku, another Jedi and also Zuko’s mother’s grandfather, and he realizes there really always has been light in him. He finally admits to himself that he doesn’t actually want to be a part of the Empire, or a darksider

While he’s on the run, he spends a lot of time meditating and finding himself in the light side of the Force and stuff, and one day he opens up his sabers and purifies his crystals

I like to think that Zuko exists as sort of a Grey Jedi, who isn’t a darksider, but will never follow the Jedi Code or use the Force the way Aang does. So when he purifies his crystals, they turn a blinding white, to show how his destiny is in his own hands now. Also, I think one of his eyes stays Sith gold, while the other is dark brown, a color he hadn’t seen since before his mother died and his father began his training

Anyways, the Gaang saves the day; Aang fulfills the prophecy of the Chosen One and brings balance to the Force by defeating Ozai. Zuko and Katara fight Azula, and in typical Star Wars/ATLA fashion, Zuko gets Force Lightning’d. And up in the skies, Sokka, Toph, and Suki wreak havoc on the Empire’s Star Destroyers, and Sokka ends up breaking his leg because someone shoots the jetpack on his armor while he's trying to escape with Toph

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 09 first part

(Masterpost) (More Canary Funsies)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

This episode features so many eternal minutes of zombie shambling that I thought I could fit everything into a single post. HA HA HA HA nope. 

Zombie Temple

The trio do their best to fend off the not-zombies in the temple. Lan Wangji tells Wei Wuxian that he can’t go carving them up because they’re not actually dead, and drops a callback to their very first meeting at the gate of Cloud Recesses, when Wei Wuxian caught his attention with his pillowy lips comment on the not-dead cultivator. 

Lan Wangji: You said it in that golden moment that will be seared into my memory for eternity, where I heard your voice and laid eyes on your angelic face and lost my heart forever, remember? Come on, babe, it was our very first zombie! How baked were you?

Wei Wuxian: I jerk off to the sword-fighting memory, not the zombie memory, you weirdo.

Nie Huaisang’s fear of the definitely not undead has apparently gotten him the rest of the way over his fear of Lan Wangji, because he’s now yelling “Lan-Xiong!” right along with “Wei-Xiong!” as he struggles. Note that although he later mentions that his fan is made of some fancy metal, we don’t see any evidence that he wants to fight with a fan any more than he does with a blade. I don’t hate anyone’s fan-fighting NHS headcanon, but my take is that he just isn’t a physical fighter, and that’s ok. 

This is a good time to remember that our entire experience of the Nie clan so far in this story is 1. Clever but hopelessly combat-unready tiny artiste Nie Huaisang 2. Quietly helpful, absurdly pretty sidekick Meng Yao. 

We don’t know yet that Nie Huasang’s gege and Meng Yao’s sugar daddy is literally the toughest motherfucker in the entire cultivation world. But his friends do! Which makes me love these dynamics even more, because not one of them criticizes Nie Huaisang for being the person he is. 

(more after the cut!)

Never Let Me Go

This scene is where Wei Wuxian gives his tacit consent to being used as the eventual agent of Nie Huaisang’s vengeance....ok not really.

But he does make it clear what Nie Huaisang should do when he’s in a pickle. And NHS doesn’t forget things.

Priorities 

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji isn’t nearly as patient as Wei Wuxian, and he drops a silence spell on Nie Huaisang basically out of annoyance. It’s not like they’re trying to be sneaky. 

Lan Wangji: How about you have an exquisitely crafted ceramic cup of shut the fuck up?

Flute Girl

Wen Qing comes to the rescue by summoning all of the not-zombies, who happen to be her extended family, to come toast some marshmallows. 

She’s another person who unwisely demonstrates, where Wei Wuxian can hear her, the power of flutes over zombies. 

This move doesn’t seem to do anything important but it looks cool. 

Brother Dynamic: Bad. Really Bad. 

Jiang Cheng shows up in the temple and trolls everyone, because this is a great time for childish antics. Wei Wuxian is super happy to see him and runs over to hug him, which earns him a shoulder slam. 

This is a regular part of their body language with each other. Wei Wuxian covers his hurt reaction very, very quickly, with a smile that doesn’t involve very much of his face. 

Ow

Wei Wuxian is so good at pretending his feelings aren’t hurt, he probably convinces himself. 

Then he gives a too-honest answer when Jiang Cheng accuses him of...daring to enjoy himself, basically.

That’s more truth than Jiang Cheng was looking for, and he raises a hand to Wei Wuxian, who hides behind Nie Huaisang. This move is interesting because on one level it’s just clowning; obviously Nie Huaisang can’t protect WWX from anything, and WWX doesn’t need protection from Jiang Cheng. 

WWX can easily beat JC in a fight, as he’s let us know before. On another level, this retreat signals WWX’s harmlessness, his childlike-ness, in a semiotic dance that has been playing out for over a decade between the brothers.  NHS is taking on Jiang Yanli’s role in the choreography, this time.   

All of this troubling hostility doesn’t make Jiang Cheng a bad person. He’s young and he’s still under his parents’ control and subject to their abuse at home. It takes time to develop mindfulness about this stuff and learn to treat people beneath you differently than the way you are treated. 

Jiang Cheng isn’t ready for that yet, any more than he is ready to say out loud that he cares about his brother. 

Leave My Boyfriend Out of It

This interaction is noteworthy for Wei Wuxian defending Lan Wangji to his brother, before Jiang Cheng even has a chance to blame Lan Wangji. 

Wei Wuxian says that following Lan Wangji was his own idea, and then gives LWJ the sweetest, warmest smile.

Lan Wangji also gets a pair of totally unearned, delighted smiles of thanks from his two besties when he lifts the silence spell on Nie Huaisang. 

Being mildly dickish all the time works out fine, I guess, if you only make friends with people whose brothers are legendary grouches.

Grilling Wen Qing

Wei Wuxian finally decides he’s had enough of Wen Qing’s crap, and gets slightly aggressive in questioning her.

He’s not actually roughing her up but he is approaching her as a near-enemy for the first time, rather than as someone who wants to be her friend. Once Wen Qing tells him what’s up and agrees to a sort of temporary alliance, he goes back to being his normal slightly awkward self with her. 

I don’t romance-ship WQ and WWX, except maybe as corpse-mountain era FWB, but I do like their chemistry. And their friendship is really refreshing and interesting, based on sharing goals and working together, not on emotional intimacy. It’s nice to see people with a lot of barriers around their hearts, building a strong, trusting bond without having to actually open up very much.

The idea of perfect sharing between people is a nice one, but it’s pretty alien to many of us who are recovering from trauma, or people who just aren’t wired that way, and it’s good to see other models of friendship and love. 

Wei Wuxian, at Lan Wangji’s direction, parts the Red Sea drops a cage on the other 3 cultivators before going to hunt the dire birdy.  

Jiang Chang is, predictably, pissed off about it, in spite of Wei Wuxian’s “you’re good at this” parting words, and says, according to the subtitles, “you bastard!”

“Bastard” is a pretty specific epithet, in English. In the current century, it’s generally used to mean “asshole,” more or less. But it still does carry the meaning “of illegitimate birth,” and since The Untamed is often concerned with legitimacy it seems pretty strong for JC to use with someone who is rumored to be his own Dad’s by-blow. 

Let’s have a look and see what he really is calling him... 你混蛋 =  Nǐ húndàn = “you bastard” per Google translate. Wow, Jiang Cheng, you really went there, huh. 

Wen Granny

Wen Qing and the others in the golden cage watch as the not-zombies try half-heartedly to get to them. Wen Qing is super sad about it, as opposed to the two guys who are just annoyed (Jiang Cheng) or scared (Nie Huaisang).

The first time I saw this, it was just - oh, Wen Qing sympathizes with this poor random woman, she feels bad about what's happening, this is to show us she has a heart.

Now though --  that's HER granny. Maybe not her bio-grandma but clearly a granny of her clan, who she knows well, who later cares for A-Yuan when he's a child, so may very well have cared for A-Qing and A-Ning when they were small, too. Owie.

Dire Bird Hunting

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run off to hunt the smoke bird together. They are quickly trapped in cool-looking fog. Kudos to the Director of Photography.

They spend some time being confused and also being peak Wangxian 1.0 as they help each other out. 

Lost in the fog and unable to summon talismans, Wei Wuxian is mainly about checking on Lan Wangji, making sure he’s ok, making sure he’s near.  He doesn’t spare any worry for himself.

(We get a rare instance of seeing an actually glowing sword here, instead of just having a character say “I saw the beams of swords!” to save money on VFX.)

Lan Wangji, meanwhile, understands the mental attack they are under, explains it to Wei Wuxian with only a little snark about Wei Wuxian’s overly busy mind, and teaches him how to handle it.

Lan Wangji is super disciplined in mind, body, and sword - his fight moves don’t change, really, throughout his life, but he gets better and better at execution. Wei Wuxian isn’t exactly undisciplined, but he’s super creative and busts out a new skill in nearly every encounter. Lan Wangji sees this and is learning to make use of it.

After Lan Wangji helps Wei Wuxian overcome the confusion that is blocking his talisman use, he tells him which talisman to use. 

This isn’t a talisman that LWJ uses himself, it’s just that he’s paying very close attention to WWX’s battle moves, and has a great memory, so he knows which ones will work. In a pretty short timespan he’s moved from thinking like a solo swordsman to thinking as part of a team with a broad range of battle skills. Very soon, he’ll be starting to use Wei Wuxian’s talismans himself. 

WWX takes a hit from the flying death chain, but uses it to his advantage, as in so many encounters. He’s not just self-sacrificing--he is definitely that--but he’s also a chess player, knowing how to use a sacrifice or an injury to his advantage. Cue Lan Wangji being worried for the entire rest of his life.

Part Two is here!