#don't ruin it for the rest of us

[arrolyn1114]

This is SO important! Please don't do this, don't charge for fanfic. It puts us all at risk. If you wanna make money off something you wrote you gotta divorce it from the source material! Let's all protect fanfic and all our talented writers across all fandoms so we can continue to be creative and enjoy the fandoms we love. ❤️

once again, to the people charging money for fanfiction: be more freaking careful before you get us all taken down?!?!?!?! you shouldn't be doing that at all because you don't have any right to make money off someone else's copyright, but making noise about it risks legal repercussions even for people who don't charge! STOP THAT.

and DEFINITELY don't be advertising it on AO3

[cosmichawk]

It's that time of year again so here are xmas harbingers edits by yours truly

bonus:

[queen-scribbles]

.

[actual-corpse]

Just got a rude reminder about how great it is to never have children/ be an only child.

There's too much drama involved with dying, apparently.

[txfeline720]

A little teensy weensy veeerrry friendly reminder to the people who have already seen the movie.

Do. Not. Share. Fragging. Spoilers!

😊

Thank you.

[reticent-fate]

part 5/26ish

hey who spilled this plot in my otherkin hrt comic?

spoilers: it was me

from the beginning

[layzeal]

idk how to explain it really well, but what makes me obsessed with teenji and generally what sets apart lan wangji from the usual cold, stoic and inexpressive hot character is the reveal, early on, that he is just a little guy

[lovinggreeniehours]

fault

↳ faruzan × arin × sethos (though this is more arin-centric than shippy)

↳ 600+ words

↳ trying to conceptualize arin's character more, and i ended up with this. now there's angst with no resolution🥳 (so far) i might rewrite this for something bigger but i wanted to get the idea out of my head first. im not sure how well people might understand this without context but. i hope there's an inkling at least?

Everything hurt. From the pounding in Arin's head to the soreness of his legs. He expected that, having only woken up several hours ago. But there he sat, late in the night, already dressed to leave. He just had one thing left to check.

Watching Faruzan wake up beside him, he imagined she was feeling somewhat similar.

"Hey, dummy."

Faruzan grimaced, cringing away from even the barest streaks of moonlight from her window. She turned left and right in confusion, hair mussing up around her head.

"Wh-What? Arin?"

Arin simply shook his head. He released a gentle wave of Cryo energy to his fingertips, ghosting his hands over her forehead and scalp to help her relax.

"We're fine, we're fine. I just wanted to see if you'd.." He paused, then shook his head. "Nevermind. Just go back to sleep."

When he was confident she had fallen back asleep, he spoke up once more, now more or less just playing with the uneven strands of hair framing her head. He retracted his hand, reaching to his side to pick up his sheathed sword.

"Sorry, Paruparo. I won't be here when you wake up, I don't think."

He caught a glimpse of the view outside the window. A city perched atop the gargantuan Divine Tree, and the rainforest that surrounded it. None of which was familiar anymore. As far as Arin could tell, everything he knew was inside this room. And he hoped she was sleeping well, despite his intrusion.

"I will return tomorrow. After they've.. told you everything." He secured his sheath to his belt, turning to leave.

—

"Hey." Someone said. Arin was too entrenched in sleep to care who, though they're only could be one person. The bitter remains of a forgotten dream clung to the recesses of his mind, ruining his mood before he could decide what it was even supposed to be. "You're burning up."

"Mmph."

Sethos's light eyeroll was audible in his tone. "Come on.."

Honestly, he was probably right. Arin did feel more exhausted than usual. Maybe warm. He wasn't sure. Wasn't it always warm in Sumeru?

"I think we need to camp out a bit longer."

That got Arin's eyes open. He shook his head as much as he was able (which was, very feebly).

"I'll be fine."

"No, no, no." Sethos held him down him by the shoulders just as he was about to get up. Sunbeams poured down over Sethos's head, resembling a halo with the soft lavender skylight of Vanarana. "No."

Arin had to squint at him to filter out the light. "I'm fine."

"No, you are most definitely not."

"We need to help Rana.." Arin groused.

"We do." Sethos nodded. "But, no offense, you're not going to be much of help to her or anyone trying to travel in your condition."

Arin could only muster a huff. To his own dismay, he already found himself too tired to continue his argument, and all too willing to slip back into slumber.

"We need to help Rana." He repeated, considerably weaker than before; more rueful than anything.

"This is just one obstacle." His companion reassured. "Just rest well. We'll be back on the road in no time."

Sethos's knuckles pressed against Arin's forehead to gauge the temperature. His skin held a soft sort of warmth.

Sethos began to mumble to himself as Arin drifted off. The words were lost on him. Something about Sumeru City being too far. Something about the sky. Something about vision.

"Sorry." Arin murmured in his drowsiness. Notably, Sethos went silent. "I did it again."

"Did what?" Sethos asked.

"Stepped.. I stepped on the pressure plate." Arin mumbled. "I hope we don't stay stuck here too long."

Sethos paused, eyebrows knitting together in thought.

"You know.. it's not your fault. For getting sick."

Arin only hummed, Sethos's voice echoing as he finally fell asleep.

[goldentigerfestival]

I love the vocal nuance in this exchange, but also posting this for my differences posts because this is one of the changes that infuriates me the most. Yuri didn't threaten Ioder, did not threaten him with a weapon, and just said he'd punch him in a lazy, half joking voice (half joking as in, he really doesn't want to hear that - that's just his way of saying so; but that's not the voice of someone who is super angry and threatening).

My other huge grievance is that this is a recurring issue between them in the dub. Yuri is pretty much always vocally rude to Ioder. Ioder has done nothing to wrong him or anyone and has only ever done good for the people where he's able to.

Yet despite Ioder being nothing but sincere, honest and polite with Yuri, in fact even happy to see him here and there, dub Yuri is outright tonally rude to him leading right up this scene where he threatens Ioder in this dark voice. Meanwhile he's actually just supposed to be… lazily telling Ioder he'll punch him in his Yuri Lowell way of saying "I don't want to hear that".

The dub really just wanted to turn Yuri into this dark edgelord and I hate that for my goofy, silly boy.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Another fun thing about this pairing is that the taller bigger guy canonically dislikes fighting, does not want to get into a fight please, and routinely gets his ass kicked when he is forced to fight.

The shorter one, on the other hand, once tried to fight an entire mob by himself, routinely flying tackles people, and probably should've gone into rugby instead of cricket.

[randomnameless]

More artbook stuff -

Devnotes about the rest of the Elheim gang (Ithilion, Railanor, Eltrinde, Galadmir and Alcina!)

Ithilion!

Who apparently emphasises the "dark elf" and how different it is from the traditional "green" stuff the light elves wear?

"a bit of fetishism" uhh... Are we talking about the belts? It's on par with Yugi/Atem's Battle City outfit lol, but fwiw, I like the yellow/brown thing he wears, is it a cape, or just something for flair, idk.

Elven Fencers are really an... odd class, they can support and stun enemies, but tbh, I feel like I never really knew how to use them properly, save for them being a magic unit and slap them a fire/ice/whatever tome to give X conferal to an unit.

I found the "wind barrier" skill they had sort of cool though, it looks rad and while they aren't supposed to be dodge tanks, the skill is always a pain to deal with when you face some elven fencers lol.

Character wise, Ithilion has a scripted romance with a human NPC (Elina?) girl he saves in Elheim - for all the "we are isolationists and think humans are trash" Eltrinde and Rosalinde - who only became "leaders" recently - welcomed some refugees from Cornia in Elheim, but then Elheim was invaded...

Ithilion is rescued by a bunch of human NPC who refuse to sell him to Zenoiran forces, he tries to solo them/escape on his own with some edgy "I can't be with you because we are at war and I might die" stuff, but Rosalinde and Railanor tease him about it in their supports, and culminates in him taking a "break" from his duties as Rosalinde's guard (rather her kicking him out) for the next 100 years, so he can live his romance with Elina and watch over their kids - epilogue confirms they got half elves and he watches happily over them.

Cucumber point though, that I'll have to check later if it was a localisation stuff or not : in his supports with both Rosalinde and Railanor, it's implied he is younger than them - and listening to Rosalinde's stories about the outside world made him want to become a guard (even if he tried to be edgy and pretend not to be interested, Rosalinde remembers how his ears would betray his excitation!) - but then with the character ages revealed, he is actually older than her...

FWIW, Ithilion's character is a nice one, but I wasn't really fond of his class so I never used him a lot, save for adding a 5th unit in a slot...

Eltrinde!

Rosalinde's younger twin sister, who basically has a support with Lex, out of anyone lol, explaining how dark and light elves aren't on bad terms with each - other unlike other settings where both races are used - and she and her sister are the result of an interspecies romance, her dad was a light elf, and her mom was a dark elf and the previous Priestress, aka the leader of Elheim (it periodically changes, sometimes the light elf leader is the the leader of the country, some other time it's the dark elf leader).

Now...

Dev notes wise.... ugh.

Shrine maidens wearing leotards being a rule? Yeah, I don't believe it - this doesn't feel like the Cornian royal family being inspired by the previous Unicorn Knight design, but more like the devs wanted to draw ladies in leotards, and tried to give some coherence by making twins wear more or less the same clothes, but with some differences.

Pure'n'innocent figure... well yes, Eltrinde's basically, for a good part of the game, the "damsel in distress" Alain'n'Rosalinde have to save... and whose body was/would ultimately be used as a souljar by Alcina to gain a long-lived body, or access to Eltrinde's Priestress' powers.

When she's freed, there's not a lot left to do in Elheim - granted, we see her being worried and horrified when Gary wants to burn Elheim's sacred tree, and it was a welcomed surprise to see her storm and lash out at Baltro (and Alcina? I forgot) for desacrating her brethrens by basically reviving them to use them as zombies - I really liked this scene because if she had been the "demure'n'innocent'n'pure" archetype before, this scene was basically "Eltrinde is fucking pissed".

Of course we learn more about her in her rapport convos, how she loves to spend time with her sister, has a petty side (rip Scarlett's floromancy) and unorthodox passion for mushrooms which is weird for an elf - that gag is even played in the cover art for this artbook, where she basically carries a small mushroom basket :)

Too bad the way the game is structured, we couldn't have her talk more to other characters or engage with plot events from the other routes - her Alain's rapport convo, while playing again with the "romance" trope because much like her sister, she's designed to be a love interest, at least suggested that she knows humans and elves express their feelings differently and tries to adopt human customs when talking/dealing with Alain...

It's a shame it's only in this rapport conversation, because it's pointed out that Eltrinde and Rosalinde are less "insular" than, in general, the rest of the elven NPCs, but I would have liked to see more of that in her various convos.

Gameplay wise, she's more geared towards healing than attacking than her sister, but can also be deadly and with the right combination, Eltrinde can basically make sure that a random team thrown out for memetic purposes can survive at least one or two rounds and kill stuff.

(that was totally not me making a Mordon centric team and not having anyone being able to tank lol)

Galadmir's outfit is the "traditional design of the female elf archer" lol, so we can compare how different, color wise at least, Lydielle is to hers!

GG to VW to have managed to animate all the "floppy" parts when she draws her string, shoots, dodges etc etc because it sounds like a nightmare, but yep, those animations are cool.

Cucumber points for that "defeated" sprite, I mean gratuitous ass and broken spine is just... sigh. Linharagos' sprite is him being on his back, but somehow, for the female archer, she must give a view of her rear :(

Design wise though, it feels like her ears are longer than the other elves we meet, and I found it nice how the devs gave her some accessories (earrings and headdress).

As for Galadmir in herself, she's basically a mentor figure - who teaches and mentors Lydielle in her own training! - who blames herself for not being in the castle when it was overtaken by Zenoira, and when Eltrinde became possessed, but ultimately joins us, not before making sure, though, that Alain's group is trustworthy (even if Rosalinde and Eltrinde are with them...).

So she cooks some "earl grey" backstory asking the gang to help her, they do - while fighting together and when the paralogue is over, it's revealed her "earl grey" backstory was something she cooked on spot, to judge Alain's character (and Lex's lol).

Not a lot to say about her character, save that I liked how her playful side was illustrated in the cover of that artbook, with her teasing Virginia with a worm.

Ah.

Noma-san apparently loves bazongas, so the female elven fencers ended up like this.

Compared to the "cool" design the male elven fencers have this is... Well, okay, I understand dark elves and light elves are supposed to have different cultures and outfits and all, but if you put Linharagos next to Galadmir, it'd make sense to think that they're in the same class : their outfit has enough similarities to draw that link.

For elven fencers though?

It's even more ridiculous because the devs added a rapport convo (tfw Lex is basically the plot exposition guy) where it's explained that her lack of clothes is a choice, because faeries (the source of elven powers) don't like armor/clothes that's why she hangs out not wearing a lot of tissue... but then, Ithilion also uses the same fairies, and he wears pants so... Yeah :/

Even the watsonian explanation doesn't work.

As for Railanor's character, she's basically Colm but for Rosalinde (who still outwardly, at least, cares more about her than Melisandre does for her retainer!) and always dead serious when she has to deal with her liege's ideas (lampshaded in the rapport convo she has with Colm lol) - story wise she became enthralled by Zenoiran forces after creating a diversion to buy time for Rosalinde to escape, and Rosalinde herself felt so upset/horrible for what happened to her, in the map when we have to defeat possessed!Railanor, Rosalinde's seiyuu really managed to convey the feelings of desperation but also anger at the Zenoiran random who was hijacking her friend's body.

She was also the one who trained and mentored Ithilion, so character wise she's alright, but it's really her design that puts me off, or rather, I can't take her seriously lol

And we finish Elheim with a blast : Alcina!

"Strong, scary woman" okay, but the pose where she takes damages is anything but screaming "strong and scary".

"Obsessive feminity", are they talking about her hand gestures when she talks (like in her portraits?) or her animations - maybe it's me, but they're fluid (lel water magic) and it feels like she's dancing or something, instead of being static when casting.

Well, it's everything I have to say about Alcina!

Rather, everything positive I have to say lol, I wouldn't pull the sexism card with her writing (burning the world to reunite with her lost love) because Elheim basically gives us UO's version of Carlyle (I'll cover Gary later!), but I wonder if the devs' mention about "obsessive feminity"... well, betrays that, yep, Alcina's ultimate goal is due to her being an obsessed "woman"...

So yeah... Sexist writing :/

(rip Gary)

Character wise, bar the forced sad uwus, Alcina is still a major thorn in the side of the Zenoirans because she pursues her own goals - hell Baltro would have killed Alain and Eltrinde if not for her meddling, and she was the one who "didn't report" that Alain was hiding on Parevia Island for years, waiting for him to grow old enough to be suitable vessel for his grandpa!

Lore wise at least, she's a stupidly powerful mage and force to be reckoned with, so her betrayal hurt Cornia a lot (Yahna especially) and is the reason why Elheim fell, Elves trusted her with the secret formula to pass through their magic forest, and she used that trust to invade the country. We also learn that she and Gary led the campaign in Drakengard/Drakenhold, but due to the way this game was written, we can't have any Drakengardian confront her about that (was she the one who killed King Hugo? Does Aramis remember her?).

I'll maybe write something about her being a parallel to Reimann later on - in the prologue, when she was a blue unit and on Ilenia's side, she called him out for joining the rebellion due to his personal interests, but it's basically what she does after Ilenia's death. There's a mention of her siding with Ilenia because she was Gerard's daughter, and she knows using Alain as a souljar would make Gerard upset (was she aware Virginia was hiding in Drakengard when she led her campaign there? Would it have changed a thing?) but the idea that Gerard could return is worth every sacrifice so here she goes.

I wouldn't be so sour about Alcina if the game didn't... force fed us the "sad uwus" at her death, without giving any voice to Rosalinde, or hell even Eltrinde herself during her final cutscene.

Oh well.

Next : furries Reimann's kingdom!

[thatonceandfutureprat]

Me in 2021:

Me now:

I've been on a closed loop system since 2022 and it's the first thing that's actually worked to get my blood glucose down permanently.

(I use the Dexcom/Tandem T:slim system)

I gifted myself an Apple Watch last year to track my health better, but it also allows me to show my blood glucose on the screen. Which is an oddly sentimental element, because when I was 6 and first diagnosed with Type 1 my grandmother said: "One day you'll be able to see your blood glucose on a watch, you mark my words!"

It might not be quite what either of us imagined, but hey gramma, I can see it on my watch now :')

[skywalker-swift]

so i have book of the month (it's a book subscription box that you get to pick from a certain amount of titles each month, blah blah) and since I started it's def changed a lot but i follow this subreddit for it and people are like soooo upset whenever BOTM doesn't purely listen to their wants and needs, like people are so mad that they don't have more hyper specific genres or book releases, etc. it's so crazy sometimes bc all these ppl do is complain (yes, it's reddit i know but it'd gotten so bad in the last year or so). they threaten to cancel their subscriptions every month if there aren't good picks for them, but never seem to actually cancel (because why would you if you could just complain about it) and they threaten to start using the other book subscription box that is similar to botm. lately, their big thing has been hating on this free prize you get if you complete BOTM's reading challenge, which is a hat that says 'reading is sexy' and they are all freaking out that this company would give them something that says sexy on it, because 'it would just let men try to hit on me bc it says sexy on it!!' or 'i work in the town i live in and if anyone saw me wearing this i would be in trouble or *insert something similar here!*, which i am not gonna sit here and pretend that men won't do that if they really want to or that bosses won't be weird to be weird, but it's just a stupid hat and they are FREAKING OUT about it. they downvote anyone who is like ' the hat isn't that bad, and if you don't like it, just don't opt to get it. sorry the prize isn't for you, but it's gonna be okay', or anything that's similar to that. just a hellscape, anyways if you use botm and actually enjoy the service, drop an ask :)

[keeps-ache]

ooooh this is such a scam [<- looking up references]

[actualaster]

NOTHING makes whiny gamers shit themselves faster than PvP that forces them to stop curbstomping new and inexperience players and instead to match with people at a similar skill level as them lmao.

It's really pathetic to see.

They go "bro, I just wanna have A CHILL match!" and their chill match is brutalizing casuals and it's like. idk maybe u aren't as skilled as u think if you can only feel like you're having fun beating up people who could never be a match for you

[indi-glo-archive]

i hate imogen with a passion