#how did anyone even find that post. at least i'm ASSUMING this is about the Changeling Deltarune AU i rambled about in my tags LOL

[timey-fandom-stuff]

Have you ever heard of changeling the lost?

I could've sworn I recognized the name from somewhere but I couldn't place it, so I went ahead and looked it up! I'm not real familiar with it, but I think I've come across mentions of the game in passing once or twice. I did a little digging this time out of curiosity.

the concept sounds pretty neat, actually! I can always appreciate darker takes on classic fae stories. if I played DnD-style games I'd probably dig a campaign set there tbh.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Hi! I love your writing so much!! I'm currently loving your freelance inventor series! I don't see a lot of danny/bruce fics so it's always fun when you post one!! What danny thinks of the justice league, does he think they're just Bruce's extreme sports friends? Or his kids friends parents?

Danny first meets Bruce's extreme sports friends when Dick plans to introduce Wally-his first boyfriend- on a water skiing trip. It went a little hair-walled due to the misunderstanding.

He had been around the manor with some free time, so he asked Bruce if he could join once Dick brought up the trip and made a comment on how important things he needed to talk about.

Usually, Danny wouldn't have bothered, but because it was so long that thier friendship had started he felt like it was a good time to ask.

At first, both the Waynes appeared to be dancing around the subject that, for a second, Danny thought they didn't want him there. Not wanting to make them feel pressured—and a little embarrassed he had assumed he could tag along—he backtracked quickly, making up an excuse about flying out to see Dani.

There was an awkward dinner that evening, so Danny left immediately. He had planned on staying the night at Wayne Manor, but he felt he had overstayed his welcome from his silly request. Instead, he rented a hotel room in the more dangerous parts of the city.

Danny had been on the hotel's phone line all night, attempting to find a plan to take him somewhere close to Dani. He could fly with his powers the rest of the way, but he needed to create some kind of paper trail.

While he listened to the hold music of the airline representative, he felt a wave of shame. At that point, Danny had only known Bruce and Dick for a year- but with various breaks in between visits- and had thought that made them closer. Who did he think he was?

Bruce wanted their relationship to stay as business associates who occasionally hung out but nothing as important as a vacation trip. Danny had just been the idiot who thought himself more important.

Well, he would not be making the same mistake. He would only come back if it involved his work and would find his own lodging from now on. The Waynes had likely not know how to say no to him.

Idiot, Danny thought, pacing in his room and wiping away tears. Idiot. Stupid. Moron. Of course, Bruce Wayne doesn't think of you as a friend! Get a clue!

"Thank you for waiting, Mr. Fenton. A first-class plane ticket to Calais, France, has been booked for you on Monday, July 7th. Would you like to make this a round trip?" the cheerful woman asks him, and he sniffs.

"No. It's a one-way. I won't be coming back here for a while." The words feel like knives in his chest

She doesn't notice as she chirps "Alright then, that has been done for you. Thank you for using Wayne Airlines!"

Ugh, he even used Bruce's planes by accident. At least this will be the last thing he annoys the man with. The following morning, bright and early Danny is out the door with his suit case. He makes it all the way to the lobby where he bumps into a fretting Dick and some red head kid.

"Danny!" Dick cries. He flings himself onto his waist, squeezing with all his might. Danny is flabbergasted. "Danny, I only wanted Bruce to go on the water ski trip because I wanted to tell him about my boyfriend! I haven't told him I was bisexual yet, I wanted to tell him on the trip, but I made him swear not to mention it to anyone else, but then you asked to go, and Bruce couldn't figure out a way to tell you no without revealing that I wanted to talk about something important-but then you got sad, and then Bruce got sad and I-"

"Babe." The redhead cuts in. "Breath"

"Danny, please don't be mad at Bruce because of me!" Dick cries, rubbing his face against Danny's stomach. "I promise we didn't want to exclude you!"

Danny's heart melts, both by how cute Dick is and the knowledge that Bruce was just a good dad and not any of his insecure-inspired conclusions. "Oh, Dick. I'm sorry you felt that. I promise I'm not mad, and I'm so proud of you. Thank you for sharing that part of yourself with me."

He leans down to hug the boy, grinning as the ten year old sighs. Then he directs a glare at the redhead. He looks about twelve and frankly, Dick is far too young for a boyfriend. "Who's this?"

"I'm Wally West-"

"I asked Dick"

"Oh."

Dick leans back. "This is Wally. He's my best friend and boyfriend! Wally, this is Danny- he's like my second dad."

"It's nice to meet you, sir!" The redhead gulps as Danny's eyes narrow.

"Pleasure." He says in a voice that means anything but. "Dick, sweetie, how did you get here? Does Bruce know where you are?"

"Wally and I...ugh took a cap." Dick everts his eyes. "Bruce was talking to his friends trying to convince them to go on the trip too. He wanted to prove you were his special friend to his regular friends."

A thrill ran through Danny. He was Bruce Wayne's best friend!? "You know I think I can take you kids back home myself. Maybe we can still make a water ski trip!"

Both boys blink owlishly. "Yeah...maybe. Let me just call Uncle Barry to make sure he's going, too."

Wally sprinted to the front desk to borrow their landline while Dick stayed behind, babbling to Danny about how he knew he was bi and how he met Wally. Mentally, Danny was drafting a lecture to give Bruce for allowing his boy to date a co-worker and friend's nephew, especially at this young age! He didn't let his thoughts appear on his face, only nodding and smiling between Dick's word vomits.

Meanwhile, on Wally's side, he uses the Justice League hotline to speak to his Uncle. His call was transferred to the meeting with all the original founders as he used the emergency code accesses Barry had taught him.

His call was placed on speaker for everyone to hear.

"Code Teal for B! Code Teal for B!" he hissed into the phone. The rest of the members sat up straighter and sent Batman looks of alarm. Code Teal was a spouse or lover who thought a hero was cheating on them because of the mission's old hours. We needed to come together to cover for them.

Batman was hiding his face in his hands. ".....Confirm Code Teal."

"Oh and before I forget Code Artificial red for Dick and me" Wally shouts, ignoring the imploding shouts from Batman or Uncle Barry.He hung up not wanting to explain that the boys had chosen to use Fake-out-make-out in order to convince Danny to stay.

He wouldn't mind dating Dick, but maybe later when they were both older. Not that Danny needed to know that.

[pomefioredove]

boop

summary: booping them + their reactions type of post: headcanons characters: third years additional info: is short, platonic or romantic, reader is gender neutral author's note: this would've been good to post for the tumblr april fool's event but I missed out so you're getting it now instead!

𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐲 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

hmm... okay!

trey often navigates his interactions with other students based on his interactions with his siblings

there's an order to human behavior, after all

especially with the underclassmen shenanigans (he's really seen it all at this point; don't ask)

none of his siblings, however, have walked up to him unannounced and booped his nose

not yet, at least?

it seems to make you happy though, so he just smiles

half of his job as vice housewarden is "going along with it"

he's pretty used to nonsense

𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐝 ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

he's editing something on his phone the first time you try and doesn't even notice it

...and the second time, and the third

it becomes a sort of routine for you

tentatively trying to see how many times you can get away with it before he finally notices and says something

and it only spirals from there, of course

you'll up to him while he's talking to someone else, boop him, and walk away

(much to the other person's confusion)

does he notice? yeah, of course

do you need to know that he notices? ...maybe not

he likes the attention, just let him have this one

𝐋𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐚 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫 ⋆˚⸙˖°༄✩⊹

he gnaws your hand off

okay, not really. too messy for him

(and the consequences would be such a headache to deal with...)

but he is all grumpy because you woke him up for that

"What was that supposed to be? -_- Don't do that again,"

rolls over and goes back to sleep

you're lucky he reacted as nonchalantly as he did tbh, lions don't like being pet, and he could've kicked you out of his room in a heartbeat for that

(maybe you get a special pass to be annoying)

note to you: don't do that again

𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭 ˚⊹˚₊🕊 ˚✧ ₊

boops you back right away

does he necessarily know what that means? no, but he'll find out soon enough anyway

and based off your body language and expression it seems like a gesture of affection

...which he's all too happy to return

(he's so excited to be touching you affectionately he could explode)

now every time you see each other you end up going back and forth for hours

"boop!" "boop!" "boop!"

that's one sure way to give Vil a headache

(you may or may not end up temporarily banned from Pomefiore for disturbing the peace)

𝐕𝐢𝐥 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐭 ˚⊹˚₊🕊 ˚✧ ₊

you'd assume he gets annoyed, right?

well, he's a little surprised at first (people just don't go around touching him, after all)

then he just smiles

"Remember what we said about asking before touching, hm?"

you're lucky he thinks you're cute

(if not a little strange)

like, so lucky

congratulations on being the only human on earth who gets away with casually touching his face like that

𝐈𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐒𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝 ₊✩‧₊˚⊹༄˚₊모‧₊

well. what do you expect

his eyes widen and his face (and hair) go pink and he internally freaks out (but externally just stands there)

"Um... What was that for?"

Idia might be a little more familiar with the conventions of a boop than anyone else

it's what you do to adorable little animals, right? like kitties and puppies?

so... why are you doing it to him?

if you say you "just felt like it" he might believe you

if you say it's because you think he's cute he will be avoiding you for the rest of the month

good luck!

𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐮𝐬 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚 ✩⁺₊°⊹ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 ☽｡°⊹

blinks.

has zero clue what you meant by that

but you seem happy with yourself so it couldn't have been a bad thing, right?

"I'm unfamiliar with that gesture. Is that a greeting from your home?"

you explain that it's a sort of affection you show towards cute things

"Oh, well... you're quite brave. I'm honored,"

he's definitely all sunshine and rainbows for the rest of the week

he's all but giggling and kicking his feet back and forth

no one really questions him

and he doesn't really explain

(if Sebek finds out you booped the heir to the throne of Briar Valley as if he were a kitty cat he will gnaw your hand off)

𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐞 ✩⁺₊°⊹ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 ☽｡°⊹

pleasantly surprised, doesn't even question it

he is adorable, after all, he can't blame you for wanting to be affectionate with him

boops you back, of course

after all, aren't you just the cutest thing too?

if you try to walk away after booping him he will find you to return the favor

will somehow make it a competitive sport

waiting for you around corners, hiding in every nook and cranny so that he might catch you by surprise and boop you

(he is totally keeping count of who's ahead)

it makes the school a warzone for like a solid week before Silver's pleas to "please be normal about the prefect" finally work

(AKA Lilia gets bored of it and finds another way to be close to you)

[genderqueerdykes]

i love you so much i love the way u talk abt trans men and our struggles i makes me feel so seen especially bc youre older than me, i want to be understood , keep posting please

THANK YOU !!

i appreciate that. i feel like nobody (aside from some very cool bloggers on here) is advocating for trans men anymore. like unless its a trans man talking about these issues, it just doesn't happen. nobody advocates on our behalf for the most part. everyone just leaves us to the weeds. we have to help each other because most people just don't even understand what trans men and mascs want. like it's absolutely positively insanity inducing

when i was in college, at my pride group, there were just. no conversations about trans men. at all. in fact. at the time i was beginning to realize i was a trans man but i couldn't find support or acknowledgement of transmasculinity anywhere. whenever i would participate in the conferences, and large group meetings for LGBTQ communities in our part of the country... I was forced into queer women's groups. i did not identify as a woman or bigender at that time. i asked them where a female-to-male genderqueer person should go, and they put me in every queer women's group. i was not being considered trans. i was being viewed as a cis butch lesbian.

i was fucking pissed.

i learned the word transgender and what it meant and the example that was given was male to female, which was informative. i heard a lot of things about feminine transition, drag queens, cis gay male culture, bisexuality, pansexuality, and even asexuality. i want you to know that my college's pride group in 2011 - 2012 was more accepting of asexual people than trans men, which is insane for that time frame. i was actually allowed to help with a presentation on asexuality

i had to go online and research trans men, though. there were none to be found in the group that were at least out and able to talk to each other. we were all very stealth and nervous. my long term friends there ended up being gay men, lesbians, and a transfem agender person. i never met a single trans man there. it was heartbreaking.

i am tired of participating in transmasculine silence. i will not participate in self-erasure. trans men are trans. we're men. we're mascs. we NEED support, community, and care. we need to learn how to access transition resources, to comfort each other, to laugh with each other, to help each other find what clothes make us feel like ourselves, to say each other's names and pronouns, to see one's self in the other.

we need people who will protect us from misgendering. we need to be able to talk about our unique issues. we need to be able to talk about how yes, we experience misogyny, but also that transandrophobia is literally a thing. we need people who will stand up for femme trans men and gay trans men. we need people who understand that it's not okay to call every single trans man a confused butch lesbian and assume that they're a queer cis woman. trans men can be butch lesbians and that's okay. but you can't rip away a trans man's manhood for the sake of being a catty asshole. it's misgendering. it's transphobia. care about being transphobic. transphobia hurts all trans people no matter where it's directed. we all lose when you opt to deny trans men and mascs the right to community.

i am transmasculine. i am a trans man. i love being a trans man. i'm not ashamed. i'm not going back in the closet. i love my transmasculine brothers and siblings. i will not silence them. silencing them is a disservice to us all. i refuse to do that to us.

thank you for sending this ask. stay safe, take care of yourself, you're an important part of the LGBTQ community, don't let anyone take that from you.

[elronds-meleth-nin]

Ancient Script

This is for my dear friend @bigblissandlove1! Thank you so much for putting up with me screaming about this brainrot! I hope you enjoy this fic, my friend.

I'm not tagging anyone else in this, because the taglist I set up was for a whole other fic outside of RoP. If anyone wants to be tagged in future fics from The Hobbit, LotR, or RoP, please let me know! This is an AU fic in 2 regards: 1.) Soulmate AU 2.) it's set in the early Third Age - Adar is presumed dead by Sauron who has taken control of the Uruks, and he's biding his time in a small village while he concocts a plan.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

~*~

Adar (RoP) x Reader

[A/N: This is fluff with a couple of mentions of violence, but nothing graphic.]

Warnings: Soulmate AU, Uruk/Human romance, kissing, soulmarks are your soulmate's name in their handwriting, he falls first, he kills a man to protect her but it's not graphic.

~*~

The shop selling arms and armor had been around in our village longer than I'd been alive, and certainly longer than the seven years I'd lived there. The shop owner, a rather private Ellon, wasn't exactly outgoing, at least, not to most people in the village.

But me...he would actively ask how I was when I passed each morning on my delivery route from the baker's shop. Perhaps it was because the scent of freshly baked bread was irresistible. Or maybe his lack of conversation with the others had made him lonely and desperate enough to try and interact with the one person who had never been rude to him.

The others seemed to find it acceptable to be less courteous just because he was different. I never did, though. My parents had taught me to be kind to all, even before we'd picked up and moved from the next village over for an opportunity for my father's business to grow.

So, every morning as I made deliveries up and down the main road, I eagerly looked forward to the moment when he'd open the door to his shop and allow me a brief conversation - that was more than most people got when they weren't discussing the particulars of a transaction with him.

This morning was only slightly different. Usually, I delivered to his end of the road first, but today I needed to make sure I ended there, instead. So, in reverse order, I made my way steadily toward his shop, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw his door open as usual when I was only a few steps away.

"There you are," he rasped as a small smile stretched his lips. "I had begun to wonder if you had forgotten me this morning."

"Oh, no! Never, sir," I said as I pulled his usual weekly order out of my basket, neatly wrapped in baker's cloth and tied with a little string. His fingertips brushed mine as he took it, and I let out a huff of nervous laughter. "Actually, I had a reason to save you for last, today. Assuming that your shop is already open, of course. If not, I can always come back later."

"For you, my door is always open, my lady," he said taking a step back and gesturing for me to come inside. I'd never actually been in his shop before.

"Thank you, sir," I murmured slipping in and trying to stay out of his way.

The scent of leather and metal, polish and grit permeated the air within the store, giving the whole place the feeling of an army at rest. Gleaming plate armor, razor-sharp swords, knives of nearly-infinite variety, and bows that looked lethal even at a glance were all neatly arranged on shelves and wall hooks.

I should've come here sooner.

"Now, what was so important that you felt you must rearrange your entire morning?" The Ellon asked as he laid the wrapped loaf of bread on the desk where he changed coin and made trades.

"Ah, 'tis twofold," I said as I opened my bag and pulled out my small, sheathed dagger. The shimmering blue stone laid into the hilt glinted as brightly in the morning light as it did the day my grandfather had given it to me. "The lower priority of the two would be my dagger. I lent it to one of my neighbors, and, well..."

Carefully unsheathing it, I showed him the now-split blade.

"If it is beyond repair, I certainly understand, but..." I shrugged, and he lifted the blade, inspecting its surface with his experienced eye.

"Not at all. This is easily fixed. I can have it for you by tomorrow morning," he murmured, laying it gently - almost reverently - on his desk and looking at me curiously. "And the second of your needs, my lady?"

Subconsciously, I ran my thumb over the cloth that covered my illegible soulmark. I knew whoever it was likely couldn't be entirely certain that I truly existed or, like me, could not read my name where it was inked upon their skin, but touching it even indirectly was still a comfort.

"I need to find a gift for my father. His birthday is in a fortnight, and I was wondering if, perhaps, I could examine your bows?"

He smiled at that.

"Certainly. Come with me." The Ellon led me to one of the large displays at the side, adjusting the sleeve of his tunic as he did so. When we reached the long line of curved and carved wood, I felt an answering touch through my soulmark - something so delicate that I could never be certain if I was just imagining things or if it was real. "If you already have a particular style in mind, then pay me no attention, but I must admit I am familiar with your father's current - let us say 'well-loved' - weapon. This, perhaps, might suit his needs and accommodate his firing style."

Lifting an intricately-carved bow from the rack, he strung it in one much-too-smooth movement that made my breath hitch. Clearly Elvish in design, that bow was finer than any that either my father or I owned.

"I know that you are an archer yourself, my lady. Come, feel the flex," he said moving around me and coaxing the carved grip into my hand. His chest pressed lightly against my back as I gave the string a pull mimicking aiming an arrow. His breath fanned lightly over my scalp, and when he spoke again, I fought not to blush. "You have excellent form. Anyone who opposed you would be doomed from the beginning."

His voice was low and gentle...intimate, in a way. I tried not to think about how luxuriant it would be to hear that soft, raspy voice murmur my name on a cold winter's night when we were curled up in front of a crackling fire.

A familiar shard of guilt wound through me. What would my soulmate, whoever they were, think of me fantasizing about someone else?

Slowly releasing the bowstring, I tried to tamp down my thoughts.

"This will be perfect." Thankfully, my voice betrayed none of my internal conflict, and I was gifted a small, pleased smile as he led me back to his desk. I'd never seen him smile at anyone else. Solemn yet polite, the Ellon before me seemed rather detached from everything in the village save his work, as if he was waiting for something...as if we were a mere respite from a path he must sooner or later traverse.

Fifty years was a long time to wait, but to him, I supposed, it must be a mere blink. Lives like those around him in the village must be barely worthy of his attention.

I'd be forgotten as quickly as wind whispered through the trees.

What must it be like to be significant enough to warrant even half that recognition in the eyes of one as long-lived as he? I heard my father and one of his business associates discussing the topic over mugs of ale one night in the tavern. Each believed he was several hundreds of years old. My father with all his knowledge of Elves had mused aloud after his friend left that he would not be surprised to find that our resident Ellon merchant had accrued over a thousand years of life.

"Scars like that," he'd said, "are the kind one gets in great wars. The last of which was a very long time ago, indeed."

I was inclined to agree, but where others saw a fearsome, intimidating being not to be approached unless necessity demanded it, I'd found a kindred spirit. He might not be outgoing and overly cheerful, but he was kind. His strength was beyond that of a mortal's, yet he could hold freshly-baked bread so gently that his fingers left no impression.

Even as he wrapped my father's new bow, including a few extra neatly-coiled bowstrings, I couldn't help but wonder how many people had judged him so harshly over the years? How many had feared him so severely that nobody even knew his name? It was true that I knew it not, but that came rather from a sense of embarrassment than fear. After all, what is a tactful way of asking a person's name after years of trying to be respectful without prying into his business? Admitting that nobody in the village knew it would only emphasize how different he was...how lonesome and separate he appeared compared to everyone else.

Oh, damn my fears! I was going to ask him, even if it took all my courage. He deserved to be called by his name as was respectful. For the moment, though, I drew my attention back to the present.

"What do I owe you, sir?" I asked as I reached in my satchel for my little drawstring bag of coins. I'd saved up for long weeks. A quality bow like the one he'd shown me could easily cost fifteen gold pieces. Taking on extra work and small tasks outside of the bakery, I'd managed to save seventeen gold pieces and a few silvers - enough for the bow and repairs for my dagger.

As he tied the wrapping with thick twine, he glanced up at me and, with an entirely straight face, muttered "three gold pieces."

I froze. That couldn't be correct!

"Forgive me, sir, I...I believe I misheard you–" I stammered, but he cut me off.

"No, indeed, my lady. You heard correctly." He looked as serene as the morning dew, green eyes giving away nothing.

"B-But, sir, if I paid such a low price, that would be tantamount to theft! I could not possibly abuse you so!"

He lifted an eyebrow at my assertion.

"Have you, or have you not been instructing the baker to take half of the price of my regular order of bread out of your wages for the last seven years, my lady?"

I blinked, and words failed me for a long beat.

"How did you...?" He gave me a knowing look even as my tongue trailed uselessly off into silence.

"Did you think I would not notice that the price I'd been paying for years was cut in half after a mere week of your employment?"

As a matter of fact, I'd hoped he would assume it was a mere coincidence.

"I have been, but–"

"Then, my lady, please allow me this small liberty," he said walking around his desk to stand before me. "You surely have paid for this bow several times over by now."

My cheeks burned under the intensity of his gaze, but I persisted.

"I did not do so with the expectation of repayment–"

"Very well, then," he murmured, "two gold pieces."

My lips parted in surprise.

"Sir–" Silencing me with a raised hand, he smirked.

"The more you argue, the lower my price. I believe we are currently at one gold piece. Shall we descend into silvers?" Mischief danced in his eyes, but he was serious in his assertion.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked before I could think better of it.

"Because it pleases me," he said looking at me with a steady, constant expression. "Does one need a reason to be kind?"

I felt as though I'd been struck. I'd asked him the same question less than a month after beginning my job with the baker. He'd remembered! I'd thought it was a trivial sort of question at the time, but I suppose if he'd remembered it, I must've struck a chord within him.

"But I don't even know your name," I stammered in a last ditch effort to convince him I wasn't worth his losing so much money.

"Do you think I am unaware of that fact? I have not told it to anyone in decades. None here know it, yet you are the only one who cares that you do not know." He brushed an errant strand of hair behind my ear with the sort of delicacy that one would not expect a weapons merchant to possess. "You see me. That is why it pleases me to make this easier for you."

It took every ounce of self-control within me not to tilt my head and lean into his touch. His gaze dropped to my lips, and he licked his own - a barely-there flick of his tongue that I would've missed had I blinked but an instant earlier.

"If...you still wish to know my name when you retrieve your dagger in the morning, I shall tell it to you, my lady," he murmured even quieter than before.

"Surely you will allow me to pay the correct price for that, sir?" I asked, and a measure of mirth flickered across his expression as he lowered his hand.

"The correct price for you, my lady, would be absolutely nothing. In that regard, yes, I will be charging you the correct price," he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. "I look forward to seeing you come the morn. You may wish to take your father's gift home before he returns so that it might remain a secret."

Nodding silently, I laid three gold pieces on the desk and picked up the wrapped package. Thanking him, I made for the door, hoping that he would not notice the extra coins - surely he knew I couldn't allow him to undercharge me so severely? Before I'd made it more than two steps, however, one of his arms slid around my waist, stopping me in my tracks like a bar of steel.

"Not so fast, meleth," he breathed against the shell of my ear, and I heard the clinking of two coins as they dropped back into my bag. "A valiant attempt, I must admit. I shall see you on the morrow."

Throughout the long walk home, I could not rid myself of the sensation of his lips brushing against my ear nor his breath slightly stirring the hair upon my scalp. The ghostly memory of his arm catching my waist stayed with me until I fell asleep at nearly midnight.

--

Adar could remember the day her name appeared on his arm more clearly than almost any other - a feat for a being with many thousands of years under his belt. He'd been preparing to open his shop for the day when pain lanced across the inside of his forearm. His scars ached occasionally, but this pain was so sharp and different that he'd nearly dropped the newly-forged sword he was preparing to put on display.

Tugging his sleeve back, there it was: her name written in curling, shaky, yet careful font - the way her handwriting would look. He'd been so amazed that he had been given a soulmate after so long that he'd simply dropped onto a stool and stared at his arm for a time. Before her name appeared, he hadn't even been certain that his heavily scarred skin would allow him to see a name should one choose to appear, but now that he had his answer, he faced a new problem.

Should his soulmate have to face the burden of his existence when he was so twisted and broken? Morgoth's scars marred nearly every inch of his body, his face inspired fear in everyone he encountered, and he'd even failed his children. They'd fallen under Sauron's control again, and as they believed him dead, there was no chance they'd listen to him. They'd sooner believe he was a fraud than their father.

For several years, he'd covered the mark, barely daring to check if it was still there when he washed himself. Eventually though, as the years passed, he noticed that his soulmate would touch her own mark almost compulsively. Perhaps she was nervous and simply attempting to calm herself...

The first few times it happened, he ignored it, believing the gentle touch to be no more than a figment of his imagination, but after a while, he ached with the thought that she might believe that she was not wanted. He began following her caresses with a gentle one of his own. He hoped that it was enough that she would not give in to that fear.

Her existence was a miracle to him, even if she could not read his name. He knew she would be unable to, for the language to which he was accustomed had not been written in many thousands of years.

The day he first saw her, too, was vividly embedded in his mind.

A knock had sounded at the door to his shop. He'd ignored it the first time. The baker's delivery boy - unreliable as he was - typically knocked, leaving his wrapped bread upon the doorstep before scurrying away from his threshold as if it was diseased. Adar assumed that it was he who knocked that morning, so he went on as usual. After a few seconds, however, a second knock sounded, accompanied by a feminine voice.

"Delivery from the baker," came the call though the wooden door. Adar had been so surprised that he laid aside his work and opened the door without any further hesitation.

She was beautiful. The early morning sun illuminated her kind, smiling face in a manner befitting one of the Valar. Expecting her to flee upon her first glance at his face, the Uruk was stunned when her nervous smile widened a fraction.

"Good morning, sir," she chirped happily as she pulled his wrapped loaf of bread from her little basket. "I kept everything well-covered, so it should still be warm from the oven."

Accepting the bundle from her with a quiet, stunned rasp of 'thank you, my lady,' Adar couldn't help but watch as she gave a little curtsy and headed on toward the next shop. The cool, gentle breeze had teased her hair and skirt, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap her up in his softest blanket so that she would not feel the chill.

One as radiant and lovely as she did not deserve to live in anything less than the most luxurious sort of comfort. His heart had not stirred like that in...he could not remember the last time it had.

He'd heard someone call her name that afternoon - the same name that was etched indelibly on his forearm - and that had startled him more than anything ever had before. This warm ray of light was his soulmate? What had he done to deserve her? He, who was cracked and broken, scarred and burned...none could ever be worthy of her, most especially not him.

A servant of darkness, one marred and twisted by its shadows, should have nothing to do with such a being of light and joy.

Merely a week later, he'd placed his usual order with the baker, and he'd been asked for half of what he usually owed. At his own prodding confusion, the rotund little Man behind the counter had told him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that someone thought kindly of him. It was not difficult to guess who it was. With all of her smiles and kind words, her unfailingly cheerful greetings whenever she saw him, Adar knew at once that it was her.

She tried to keep it secret, never once bringing up the topic, but he tried to repay her kindness with conversation. He'd been rusty, at first - he still was - but he didn't know how else to show her his gratitude.

Then, one day, he was afforded an opportunity to do so. Traders came through periodically, both seeking and offering wares. Most were well-behaved, exhausted people who wanted no more than to earn a living, but occasionally, there was an outlier among them. A trouble-maker.

One such passed through barely a year hence, and Adar had not liked the way his gaze lingered upon his lady as she made her morning rounds. He watched her too intently and for too long a duration for one with innocent thoughts in mind. No, the Uruk had seen too many over the years with such a glint in their dark, soulless eyes.

When she reached Adar's shop that morning, he'd glared at her evil shadow before gently grasping her hand and suggesting in a low voice that she keep her dagger handy until that particular caravan had left. She'd given him a reassuring smile and pulled the edge of her shawl back just far enough to show him the hilt where it was already strapped at her waist.

He'd never been so proud in all his life, but that didn't stop him from keeping a close eye on her for the rest of the day. None had noticed that his shop was closed with freshly-scattered alfirin seeds before it that afternoon, nor had the filth watching her seen that he was being followed by death's ruined right hand. The trader had followed her halfway back to her home and had begun to catch up with her when a flash of black and silver tugged him silently behind a tree.

The only sound that heralded the scum's death was a snap. She'd turned to look for what had made the noise, believing it to be a branch, and when she found nothing, she made her way safely home.

Her Uruk protector had disposed of the body beside a field where wild horses grazed, laying an empty bottle of spirits beside him. The next morning when the corpse was found, it was obvious to all that he'd gotten drunk, tried to ride one of the beasts, and had been thrown to his death. Adar guarded her door each night until the caravan left. The alfirin seeds had sprouted within mere days, and if any in the village had known their true meaning, the white blooms would have screamed his deed to the world.

But none were the wiser, and his lady was safe. That was all that mattered to him.

Fixing her dagger now was nothing less than a privilege. He'd told her it was easily repaired. In truth, it needed to be reforged. He'd shut his shop for the day and rolled up his sleeves to begin the work.

In the morning, after sharpening the blade's edge, he unlocked his shop door and awaited her arrival. He'd told her that she'd have his name today if she was still interested, but...he was tempted to give her more than that...to show her his mark. His self-indulgent moments when he showed her the bow and when he'd returned her coins had carved themselves upon his heart, stirring within him the desire to hold her again and never let go.

He'd been alone for so long that he now felt like a drowning man each time her eyes met his. She was so close, yet just out of reach. Could she see how much she meant to him? Could she tell that he would save, burn, or change the world entirely at her behest?

The door creaked inward, drawing him out of his thoughts. She was back. He stood straighter as she approached.

"Good morning, my lady." The tentative smile she gave him showed him all that he needed to know. It was time that he told her everything. If she rejected him, well...he'd come to expect pain. It would not surprise him, though, it would be worse than anything he'd yet experienced.

--

"Good morning," I murmured in return. My heart raced in my chest, and I hoped that my voice didn't sound as nervous as I felt. Smoothing my dress a bit further, I approached his desk. "I hope I haven't put you to any trouble."

"Not at all," he answered with a small smile as he lifted my dagger from his desk. "Come, let me show you what I have done."

I did as he asked, moving closer and paying entirely too much attention to the way his large hands dwarfed my little blade. He pulled it carefully from the sheath, showing me his handiwork. He'd polished it, too. The scent floated through the air in a familiar curl.

"Oh, it looks as good as new!" I exclaimed as he handed it carefully to me. The leather grip on the hilt had been replaced and even the balance had improved! "I cannot thank you enough, sir, truly."

"It was my honor, my lady," he said as I passed the blade back. He slid it neatly into its sheath. "Do be cautious. I gave it a quick pass over the whetstone this morning. 'Tis sharper than before."

"Are you sure you won't accept at least some sort of payment?" I asked, and he gave me a mock-stern look. I raised my hands in surrender. "My apologies."

"Gladly accepted."

After a long pause, I finally asked what I'd wanted to.

"May I still ask your name, sir? If your mind has changed, or if you simply do not wish to reveal it, I swear I will not press you on the matter."

He was quiet for a long enough moment that I nearly began pouring forth apologies.

"You are the only one I have wished to tell," he admitted. "You may call me Adar."

Adar. I knew that word from somewhere, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Thank you, Adar. I shan't tell a soul without your permission," I promised, and with an appreciative nod, he held out my sheathed dagger.

"Tell me," he rasped, not relinquishing his hold on my weapon quite yet, "why do you keep your forearm covered?"

I gave a nervous laugh, unable to maintain eye contact with him.

"I...My soulmark is there. I can't read it. Never have I encountered a language quite like it...whatever it might be."

He gave a small smile.

"I can read it." Adar's assertion snapped my gaze up to meet his once more.

"Sir?"

"If you would prefer that I not, that is entirely your prerogative, but I can almost guarantee you that I will be able to read it." When I hesitated, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me help you, my lady."

Quickly stowing my blade in my bag, I began to unwrap the fabric I kept tied over my arm. As I did so, the need to explain myself pulled a flood of words from me.

"I'm not ashamed of my soulmate, whoever they might be, but after a while, the looks I got when people glimpsed the writing...the pity, the confusion...the explanations became a bit tiresome. Besides, it is nobody's business save me and my soulmate," I murmured as the last bit of the cloth came free and fell away revealing the stark, black marks on my arm. Adar moved just a bit closer, a small smile stretching his lips as he caught my arm gently in his grasp. "Can...? Do you recognize it?"

For a moment, he was silent, only nodding his head in response, but that was enough to send my heart racing in my chest. That was more than anyone had told me about my mark in all my years.

"I have not seen this language written in an Age," he breathed, and after a long moment, his eyes met mine. "I am certain that if you knew the answer, you would regret inquiring about your soulmate's identity."

I couldn't hide my confusion.

"What do you mean? No matter who they are, if the marks are any indication, I can handle it. I have never known them to be wrong," I said, and he looked back down at my arm. "Please. You are the only hope I have of ever being able to read it."

His grip on my arm loosened somewhat, as if he was expecting me to tear myself from his grasp.

"I...have not used this name in thousands of years," he whispered tracing the first half of the dark runes, "but it was still mine. I prefer Adar, now, but...your mark seems to have taken that into account."

My lips parted in surprise, but I was frozen as he traced his fingertips lightly, carefully over the rest of the marks near my wrist.

"Just after that slight separation is the name you would now recognize as mine," he murmured, then he lifted my wrist and placed a kiss onto my mark, reverent and affectionate. The ancient writing tingled and sparked over and beneath my skin, sending a wave of pleasure through me.

He released my arm and tugged back his own sleeve, showing me my scrawled name on his scarred forearm. Carefully, afraid that he'd disappear, that this would turn out to have just been a dream, I touched him just as he'd done.

"For whole Ages, my arm was blank. There were others whose marks were slow to appear, but those whom I knew waited mere centuries. I was convinced that I was not destined for that fate," Adar admitted as I touched the first letter of my name. "I wondered...if I would even be able to read a name should it appear on my skin, or if it would appear as twisted as my scars."

As a tear slipped down my cheek, I kissed his arm as he'd done to mine. The slight gasp that escaped him was like ambrosia for my soul.

"I'm so sorry. You waited for so long, and all you got for your trouble was a mortal with terrible penmanship..." I trailed off with a sniffle, but he tilted my chin up with his free hand and shook his head.

"It is beautiful, because it is yours. It tethered me to you. This mark meant that I was no longer alone." His soft, rasping voice was filled with emotion. "Do not apologize for giving me hope when I'd dared not cling to it for such a long time. I should be begging your forgiveness, my lady. You do not deserve one as unworthy as I."

I shook my head in protest.

"Only I decide what I deserve. If anything, it is I who does not deserve you," I murmured. "You who have lived so many lives...having seen and experienced things I could scarcely imagine..."

I reached up slowly so that he could stop me if he wished, but he made no move to do so. My fingertips brushed his cheeks as lightly as was physically possible.

"I could want no other but you. I have felt guilt for so long. I could not read my mark, but I felt when my soulmate touched his. And yet, I knew that I had lost my heart to you the day we met." My confession felt like the sweetest relief. "If that name had belonged to any other, I would have been distraught."

Adar leaned into my touch, closing his eyes and drawing a slow breath. Twin tears escaped, dripping down his face in an asynchronous race.

"Now that I have you, I cannot give you back, meleth," he warned as he stepped closer and rested his forehead against mine.

"Then, keep me," I whispered, and his lips finally, finally met mine.

~*~

Taglist:

@bigblissandlove1

[daman19942]

TSR CC Recommendations: TS2 Lot Builders

Nobody asked for this but I have a little time on my hands and I said I might do it, so here is a list of some TSR lot builders who I recommend checking out. A few notes under the cut before we get started (all details under the cut, as well, in case you aren't interested in my preamble):

This is not meant to be paid promotion for TSR. I believe TSR asking users to pay for their CC is ridiculous, especially for a 19 year old game they haven't supported in 7 years. But I spent many years uploading there during the peak-TS2 / pre-TS3 era and know there is great CC in their archives that newer players may not know about. And unlike TheSims2.com, which has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil, TSR's content is still available to freely download (assuming you can stomach the pop-ups and wait times)

This post will only be about lot builders because that was what I was primarily uploading and downloading in this era. I was friendly with some of the creators I am about to list, but none of them are still active members of the TS2 community.

The preview pics might be a little rough and the architecture styles will likely feel very dated compared to the most popular styles these days, which are more colorful, cluttered, and use 3t2 and 4t2 conversions. Re: the previews: too many of us were using free trials of PaintShopPro back then, and TSR limited us to 2 previews, so we did our best. Re: the styles: unlike pre-2010's CAS CC, which was full of hand painted and "realistic" textures (LOL), these are the same objects you can find in the game today, just being used in different ways! Sometimes for the first time! And, yes, while some of these creators used CC, it was mostly Homecrafter walls and floors, as you'll see below.

This was also the hey-day of CFE lot building, which has certainly fallen out of favor to more traditional builds (in part because graphics cards have improved and these types of builds don't look as good in 2024, and also because the great CFE experimenters, builders, and tutorial writers are no longer part of the community and their original discoveries are gone as well - I am happy to go down a massive rabbit hole on this piece of TS2 history if anyone else cares, but trust me, you don't have to care).

Alright that is enough caveating, here are some recs! (Links are in the creator's names and they take you to their Lots, though many of them have other creations, too).

Lord Tiko Speaking of great CFE builders! Lord Tiko built spaceships, boats, pagodas, domes, windmills and bridges, oh so many bridges before retiring mid-TS2 because of health issues. He was one of the first builders to take Daihtnaoz7's single and double bridge tutorials and apply them to really big lots. I'm still not sure how he built the Venice Rialto Bridge, or his other European water lots. Overall, a massive inspiration to me when I was prioritizing CFE builds.

Hatshepsut My favorite "traditional" home builder, and someone I considered a friend. She specialized in English and American builds, and I had many of Hat's houses in my old saves and was impressed by her range and decorating style which was (for the time) more varied than many of her peers. Knew how to take great preview pics of her houses, too.

Tigerblue Another builder I corresponded with, Tigerblue was probably the least prolific uploader on this list for sheer number of uploads, but she also crossed a range of styles. Her builds leaned way into specific styles (see the previews, these were all part of consistent sets of 3,4, or even 10 lots), but this was also what happened when a new EP dropped and everyone raced to uploaded builds using as many of the new objects and styles as possible. Tigerblue just happened to be better at it than most of us.

Cyclonesue Do current TS2 players know Cyclonesue? Because it's hard to think of someone who had a bigger impact on building and decorating of the era, first with her English and Tudor builds and later with her extremely distinct grunge creations. Seriously, check out her Urban Renewal series and the corresponding objects. Iconic stuff that surely now feels frozen in time. I probably only played 20% of her lots that I downloaded, but they still make for great hood decor. Like Tiko, someone who happily experimented with CFE.

Illiana The creator who inspired me to make this list is, ironically, the one on it who I know the least about (she is a Featured Artist but not in the Hall of Fame, whatever that means). I just started playing her Tri-Annyas fraternity house and have a few other lots floating around my game. She built in a range of styles, from classical to modern to Twikki Island to grunge. Revisiting some of them in-game, the TSR previews do not do them justice.

*EXHALES* If you made it to this point, kudos to you. I'm sure there are creators I've forgotten, and houses I haven't linked to, but this is a good starting point for digging into some of the eclectic builds the TSR(chives) have to offer (I just coined that, is it clever? It is not). Maybe I'll do a Part 2 if people like this.

If you have any favorites of your own, let me know what I missed! And as I do with my old Exchange re-uploads, I am tagging @sims2packrat and @oldasscustomcontent for general TS2 history awareness!

[decepti-thots]

spurred on by your Drift and Roddy post from earlier, i'm terribly curious about your take on Prowl and Rodimus' dynamic/relationship? i never read through LL so i may be missing context but my read on the Overlord thing was very much that he was forced onto Rodimus, much the same way Megatron was, but i never really see anyone talk about them in relation to each other

I am going to first answer this purely based on the text of the comic, which is all I consider to be definitively canon. Then after we establish what I feel about that, I'll bring up some word-of-god as additional optional context.

Based on what we see in the comic in early MTMTE, we establish very clearly that Prowl and Rodimus do not get on, and specifically that Rodimus openly detests Prowl. He mocks him to his face; it's neither subtle nor very surprising. And in the Costa run, we see in Prowl's burn book he has a low opinion of Rodimus, so. We can assume they are openly disdainful of each other as members of command and that this is long-running.

I think this negativity, the open disdain, is where the read that Rodimus was somehow 'made' to take Overlord comes in. Why the hell would Rodimus do a favour for someone he didn't like? One he does not stand to benefit from? It therefore tracks it was somehow coerced.

The big question though is... if that was the case, why did Rodimus not bring it up to Drift. There's a post-RiL scene where Rodimus bemoans that he agreed to do it because he realizes it was a stupid-ass decision now it's all gone to shit, one Drift opposed, in The Sound of Breaking Glass:

“This is my fault, not yours. We were standing in Prowl’s office, and he was trying to convince me that bringing Overlord onboard was ‘right and proper’, and you called me an idiot for even considering it.”

If Rodimus had been pressured, even blackmailed, he'd be taking this opportunity to cuss out that Prowl forced him to, or perhaps even to cuss himself out for bowing to whatever pressure Prowl subjected him to. He does not. He says Drift called him an idiot for considering Prowl's persuasion. And what that says to me is that Prowl indeed just persuaded Rodimus, seemingly by painting it as a contribution to the post-war Autobot cause that would reflect well on Rodimus.

Which makes sense, because while they respond to it very differently, Rodimus and Prowl have one thing in common; they are unhappy with how the war ended and how anti-climactic their defeat of the Decepticons has been. Prowl continues to spiral into treating the war as ongoing as he becomes conspiratorial, while Rodimus leaves the planet entirely in an attempt to restore it to a 'golden age' and elide the issue of making co-habitation with Decepticons and Neutrals work. But they're both in denial about this just... being how things are now. As much as Rodimus loathes Prowl personally, he's also presumably being buttered up as someone who understands the risk isn't gone, the Autobots need to still act like they're not done with things, and look, we need that phase sixer, Rodimus, you understand that...

Basically: I think he agreed out of a combination of ego and like... that sense that at least Prowl shared a dissatisfaction with the compromises everyone else was making and which Rodimus felt they shouldn't. And as an impulsive person inclined to trying to make big grand moves and act decisively, but whose judgement often winds up instead simply making him reckless, I find it completely plausible, and have always assumed this is how it went.

As for word of god... well, turns out that was apparently also how Roberts saw it, more or less. Which I found out after the fact. Hah. He's spoken about how he basically thinks that Prowl went 'oh well, if you're not able to step up for the cause, I'll find someone who can do what needs to be done' and Rodimus got defensive and talked himself into it while Drift, I assume, dropped the sycophant act for once and rightfully called him stupid as hell for it. LMAO.

[olderthannetfic]

I'm IWTV-wank-avoidance-asking Anon and it kinda missed me that it would be a wanky topic lol I was trying to see if the show is worth watching. A lot of my mutuals are posting IWTV gifs so I assume it's good, but I was curious if anyone who read the novel would think "Better read the novel". I don't realize an asking-for-rec ask would be wanky, but now that I think about who the writer is, it kinda makes sense. My bad lol

--

Ahahahaha.

Around here, I don't think anyone is precious enough about Anne Rice to start the genuine version of this wank, but Rice fandom can be... uh... very intense even on top of Rice herself having been the queen of drama.

You know about Red Beans Anne Rice, right?

Many years ago, Anne got all butthurt about a tacky-ass restaurant taking over an abandoned building that she'd had Lestat being emo in in one of the books. Instead of gothic atmosphere, it was now very PINK and LOUD. So she wasted money taking out ads in the local paper as Lestat trying to shame the restaurant owner... at which point a bunch of other restaurant owners also wasted money to respond in newspaper ads saying that they welcomed fellow businesspeople. It all ended in the restaurant's grand opening and people with plates of "Red beans Anne Rice" (i.e. red beans and rice).

--

Anyway, I read the first book back in the 90s when I was like 15. It's decent from what I remember. The thing that made it iconic when it came out in 1976 was that it was pretty heavily pushing the vampire=drug addict metaphor. This is everywhere in sexy goth sadboi vampire media now, but it wasn't as much of a thing at the time.

It was also very, very gay but in that way where (at least in the first book), nobody really says the word. That meant something in the 70s. Even by the 90s, it wasn't such a big deal, and it's a big nothingburger in the 2020s.

Book 1 is Rice dealing with the death of her child. It's all about suicidal feelings and Catholic weirdness. The main character is Louis, a.k.a. Rice's self-insert (which she confirmed herself).

Books 2 onward are about Lestat's dick.

He becomes a rockstar, vampire-bones the ur vampire, which causes him to mega level up, thus enabling him to thwart her plot to kill all men on earth aside form a few for breeding purposes, bodyswaps so he has a working penis again, fucks a nun, swaps back, gets Louis back by trying to commit suicide and accidentally getting a tan, etc... Much, much later books are about the other bonkers vampires, most of them more in the horny rockstar mold than the sad mommy of dead baby one.

In book 1, Louis is a depressed plantation owner who eats a bunch of his slaves among other fucked up shit. Claudia, their vampire daughter, is a small child who is upset about being stuck as a kid forever. One of the more disturbing parts is when Louis finds out she's fucking adult men. Lestat turns out to be a French nobleman with mommy issues despite Louis thinking he was only pretending to be upper class.

-- The TV series moved the entire plot much later in history, made Louis black, and gave him a spine. Some racists cried about this and some of tumblr cried about how it was offensive to take the plantation owner and make him black instead of doing that with the other one.

The show also made it more overt that Lestat is an abusive jackass boyfriend. This apparently came as a surprise to people with poor reading comprehension. Others have wanked about fans still liking Louis/Lestat instead of Louis/less terrible boyfriends. But... like... It's IWTV. What did they expect?

(So yes, some book fans will be immensely wanky about the show. Ignore them.)

Also, I hear they fuck on the show? Rice's vampires don't have working junk, which we know because Lestat stands in front of an entire wall of mirrors in the most bougie bathroom ever in Akasha's evil lair and discusses how his penis—I mean "The Organ"—no longer does anything.

Also, Armand in the books is the 14-year-old kept boy of a Renaissance painter with a harem of boys or something like that. (It's been a very long time since I read these.) Shit like this never makes it into the adaptations.

--

If you're curious about the history of vampire media or about a certain kind of Southern gothic shit, sure, read the books, particularly the first one with its radically different tone and much greater historical importance.

The old movie is a decent adaptation of book 1, though it makes it less gay (or at least removes Louis' weird boner for his dead brother) and messes with the ending in a way that would have made sequels veer off from the books. I haven't seen that other old movie with Aaliyah, but it looks like a campy time capsule of baaaad movies of that era.

Anyway, no, you don't need to read the book before watching the show. They changed a massive amount of stuff.

I'm in more of a Chinese media phase right now, but a bunch of friends have watched and said the show is genuinely good.

[iamnmbr3]

I think its… kinda of odd and a little uncomfortable how much JK… HATED Draco. idk if it was from the start or maybe as time went on but the more I hear and look into the writing of Draco, regardless of how interesting his struggles were and how well it slowly developed… JK kept writing the narrative and there fore manipulate the audience to hate him. even when he was redeeming himself or at least TRYING to it just... seems odd for a grown woman to hate her own character that much when they were literally written to be a brainwashed misguided child.

Idk if her excuse was that it was totally Harry's perspective and thats why or if it was her own personal opinions about her own character but it's just so.... weird.

I agree. What particularly bothers me is the condescending and sexist and heteronormative remarks she's made about fans of the character and about the actor who played him. She seems to really struggle to cope with anyone reacting to her work in a way different from what she intended. That post on the wizarding world website (originally pottermore) where she said (I'm paraphrasing here) that Draco's fans were just girls who thought Tom Felton was attractive was so disrespectful.

It should go without saying but it's an incredibly sexist comment to assume that women who like a character are just silly girls whose brains fell out because they saw an attractive man. It implies that all his fans are women (not true), that all women are attracted to men (not true) that all female fans attracted to men are attracted to the character or actor (not true) and that female fans who do find the actor or character attractive are somehow lesser or incapable of thinking and analyzing and acknowledging the things Draco did wrong (not true) and that the only reason people who watched the movies responded to the character was because of Tom Felton's looks not his acting ability (not true). All these things are both untrue and offensive to suggest. For someone who claims to fight against sexism she sure spends a lot of time repeating sexist narratives. Maybe instead of attacking trans people she could work on her own sexism...

And yeah I genuinely don't understand why she seems mystified that people would view Draco differently than they view an unrepentant Death Eater like Bellatrix Lestrange when SHE is the one who wrote him the way she did. She could've made him love being a Death Eater but she didn't. And then she got mad when people reacted to that distinction. I've got something in my drafts somewhere going through the post on Wizarding World (formerly Pottermore) that she wrote about him because she gives even more (actually pretty cool) details about how Draco changed postwar and abandoned his previous beliefs...and then goes on this bizarre self righteous rant about how he didn't get redeemed and fans who likes him are dumb. After literally a paragraph before talking about his redemption arc. It's so strange.

And I agree it's extremely frustrating because to me Draco is one of the most interesting characters in the story with one of the most compelling arcs. Precisely because of his flaws and how he gradually becomes a better person and makes better decisions while still remaining imperfect. He's a great character with a great story but she seems totally unaware of what she wrote and actively hostile to people who enjoyed the character and even towards the character himself which stops him getting to live up to his full potential. Lowkey wonder if after he became so popular post book 6 maybe she reduced his "screentime" in book 7 out of spite or something. I have no proof whatsoever of that but I do wonder.

[hamcakevaletguy]

My thoughts on the Damien situation, from the POV of someone who’s relatively uninvolved with posting on social media:

As a newer fan of Smosh myself (I watched some videos in 2012, but haven’t really kept up since, and only started regularly watching the last year or so), I went through the backlog of content that they have because I enjoyed their more recent videos. Zayna, a newer Palestinian fan, did the same and found this joke in an old TNTL disappointing and wanted him to address it firsthand and make his stance clear.

For anyone saying Damien has already made it clear that he is in support of Palestine: it’s not a given that the fan who brought up the clip would have already known about Damien’s stance on Palestine. Yes, he’s talked about it in a couple of his streams and posted Insta stories about it, but a newer fan of Smosh, not necessarily Damien himself, wouldn’t know about those unless they were looking for it because they are:

temporary (IG stories only have a lifespan of 24 hours unless you take screenshots) or

a few minutes hidden under several hours of game streams on a separate platform (he talked about Palestine several months ago and has streamed a lot since, unless you know the specific Twitch stream and the timestamp when he talked about it or had clips of it, most casual fans wouldn’t know either)

In his defense, Damien himself has recently said that more fandom stuff has reached his timeline than he would like, so maybe he thinks more people know about his activism because of that. However, even if Zayna did know, wanting a straightforward statement apologizing for the insensitive joke (because bringing up the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" [as it was called back in 2019, not accurate to what has been going on for 70+ years and counting, which is an ethnic cleansing] for shock value, as he himself said, is insensitive) is not an unreasonable request.

More under the cut

When all you have is 240 characters per reply, the things that you do choose to say matter even more. When you parse out everything in Damien's replies, he doesn't come out looking too good. Yes, he did apologize for the original joke. In his replies, he said:

using it as shock value was in poor taste and naive of him,

it was in poor taste back in 2019 and he wouldn't make it now

(in response to his first couple of replies) he is sorry for reacting in frustration and he'll learn from it,

and, in his final reply, his parting words were "With all my heart, I hope for safety for your loved ones. Be well."

However, he also says and does things that undermine his apology in the same replies:

questioning why the clip was brought up in the first place, as if bringing up old content wasn't something fans regularly do with things they're interested about and as if it's not still a public video fans can easily find,

bringing up that the fan in question had 19K followers, a fraction of the followers he has as a public figure,

saying that this conversation could have been done in private, as if an initial DM request wouldn't be buried in his other requests as a public figure, and as if he doesn't have the capability to start a DM himself to clarify things after the initial reply/post,

saying that the original tweets tagging him should have been deleted after his first response when he never asked for that, and just assumed it would happen for some reason,

deleting his replies a couple of hours later,

and blocking Zayna and several others who were only interacting with Damien through quote tweets (I'm not sure how quote tweets work, do they notify the OP?), some who don't even say anything remotely critical of him - in his defense, blocking is not inherently a bad thing, it just means that he doesn't want any further interactions from them for whatever reason. However, silencing any Palestinian voice isn't good, to say the least.

Damien has always been a proponent of “trying to understand and see from different perspectives” so his response here surprised me, personally. I get that he has a fear of being misunderstood, but jumping to the conclusion that the other party is purposefully trying to be incendiary is the opposite of that.

I'm not going to try to make excuses for him. He knows better. He's been a content creator for years. He knows he has more influence than any normal fan would. His autism is not a part of this conversation either. Mental illness is an explanation for behavior, it doesn't absolve you of the consequences of it. If you're citing Damien's autism as an excuse for his behavior, you have to also account for Zayna's autism.

People are also bringing up the possibility of Damien getting death threats as a result of this, which we have no proof of and won't have proof of unless Damien himself decides to disclose that. He has only stated that he is taking a social media break, which has been a long time coming, not necessarily only because of this, because he has been busy and tired in recent months. What we do know has happened is that Zayna has received death threats (weird of people to want the death of a Palestinian when the original argument they're defending Damien for is that he is in support of Palestinian liberation).

This isn’t an issue of cancel culture, it’s an issue of accountability and frankly, hero worship of Damien in the part of people attacking Zayna and other people on Twitter.

When the only people who had spoken about their support of Palestine in their own words, however briefly, are two or three cast members, some people are naturally going to put them on pedestals. This hero worship of Damien has been exacerbated by his image as the most politically correct member of Smosh, and Smosh’s (until recently) silence about the issue.

While we're at it, for people saying Smosh's sudden outward support for Palestine and joining Creators for Palestine is in response to backlash about Damien, or only in response to the block list going around:

It's only been a few days since the Damien's whole ordeal. Smosh is not that fast, and historically, their response to backlash would have been either complete radio silence or unlisting or privating the TNTL that the clip is from, combined with silence.

I’m sure Shayne, Ian and Courtney have been working on it for more than a few days, based on their liked posts, to get everything straightened out with the organization themselves and adding their names to the list of creators.

People have been asking for Smosh to be more public about their views on Palestine. Some of the cast members have said their piece on their personal social media, but their views could have changed. Those posts were made shortly after the events of October 7 brought even more media attention on Palestine and the Gaza Strip, which was not necessarily in favor of Palestine because of the effects of U.S. propaganda. It's been several months since then and people have a lot more information now, and more clarity.

Up until now, the only indication of Palestinian support not from social media is a brief statement from Ian who said something along the lines of "travel watermelon", while they were talking about their rejected roasts during Anthony's Funeral After Show in December, which are codewords that were used in TikTok for Free Palestine. However, this is heavily censored, behind a paywall, and temporary, because of the nature of their live shows. This support of CFP is the bare minimum of what Smosh could do, but the bare minimum is more than they were doing before.

They listed Smosh as the name under their $15,000 donation to CFP, not just Shayne, Courtney and Ian, which could be intentional, referring to Smosh as a whole company, or just referring to the three that have posted about it as a collective. Unless Smosh makes a full statement about it, themselves, it's still up in the air.

The timing of it is unfortunate. Damien has been silent about it so far, making his original posts about Palestine seem performative to some. However, it’s only been a few hours and he is on a social media break. The only thing he has briefly gone back online for is to promote something he's doing with Nintendo, which he could have been contractually obligated to do. He may or may not say something when he fully comes back from his social media break, but for now, that's everything we know. People can make their own conclusions based on all of this.

I am being very intentional with every single word I say on here, as to not be misconstrued in any way, however, if I missed anything or anyone else has anything to add (constructively, like images of either the actual conversation had by Damien and Zayna, or the cast and crew's support of Palestine prior to CFP, not outright anger and disagreement), please do. If anyone has any genuine questions about the situation, please feel free to message me directly and not bring it into this post, which is supposed to be a civil discussion surrounding more facts and events, less speculation. If I feel those questions have relevant points to add on here, I will add on in reblogs.

[sarshles-cheescake-li]

A metaphysical argument for why Lu Guang was the one who risked his intestines falling out to go save his little meow meow

Needless to say, spoilers ahead!

Part 1: Introduction to the bootstrap paradox

There's a lot I could say about the supposed time loop that occurs in episodes 7-8-9 of season 2. Most of them -- the kettle, the lack of a speedboat, Lu Guang's characterization -- have been said better by other theorists. But I'm here to explain the bootstrap/predestination paradox.

The bootstrap paradox is when something is sent back in time, which creates an infinite loop, making the thing seems like it has no origin. The example I learned it with was with time machines. Say you open your door one day to find a book, written by yourself, containing information on how to build a time machine. You take, I dunno, let's say ten years building the thing. Then you use your new time machine to send the book back in time, to your ten-years-ago self, to seal the loop. Works great, right? You've closed the loop, and now you have a time machine.

There's only one problem. Where the hell did that book come from in the first place?

I mean, yes, obviously, it's from the future. But someone had to have written that book, right? But you, the supposed writer of the book, only got it because it got sent back in time by a version of you that already had the book. We assume there was no way you could've figured out how to build a time machine yourself. But that means that the knowledge about the time machine essentially just, popped out of nowhere. Poof! Just like that.

The information about Cheng Xiaoshi and Li Tianchen/Li Tianxi's location is like that. The only reason any of the characters know it is because of Lu Guang. But if their narration is to be believed, then "Lu Guang" only knew it because he was being possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi, who already learned the information in the future. So… how did anyone get that information in the first place?

I generally consider there to be two solutions to the bootstrap paradox. One is an obfuscated origin -- one where the information was obtainable even without the loop, but its origin is hidden by the loop's existence. Say if, without the loop, Li Tianchen releases Cheng Xiaoshi from his control once they're on the boat, and Cheng Xiaoshi figures out where he is. He manages to survive the encounter with the antagonists, and eventually makes it home. But, in the process, Qiao Ling dies. So now Cheng Xiaoshi both has information available to him about where he was during the boat scene, and also a reason to start the loop -- Qiao Ling is dead, and might not be dead if he didn't get taken in the first place. So he takes Lu Guang's photo, and starts the loop.

This particular version of the obfuscated origin theory is… probably not the case. Largely because we don't know how changing the timeline so drastically interacts with Cheng Xiaoshi's ability, specifically, what would happen if he were to clap back into a "present" that technically no longer exists. However, my personal theory -- that I'll discuss in another post -- does fall under the obfuscated origin solution, just slightly to the left.

The second solution to bootstrap is just an allowance for these types of paradoxes to exist. Each story handles it differently. In my model of time -- which I'm pretty sure Link Click doesn't follow, because why would it -- these types of loops are a close relative of magic, because of their self-defining nature. Now, I'm going to say that this is not the case in Link Click, based on what we've seen of Cheng Xiaoshi's power so far.

Part 2: Cheng Xiaoshi's power is weird, man

For the second solution to be valid, we should ideally have at least one of three proofs.

This is the most convincing proof -- if we have another example of an exclusive, stable time loop (exclusive as in the events involved in the loop would not have happened without the loop's presence, stable as in the loop doesn't contradict itself the way it does in, for example, the grandfather paradox). This would just plainly prove the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi can create the loop we see in episodes 7-8-9.

Cheng Xiaoshi's dives should be able to have causality effects up to and including his decision to dive, at the very least. Essentially, Cheng Xiaoshi needs to be able to create an effect on the world that shows up before the dive concludes. This demonstrates the flexibility of the timeline -- that it allows Cheng Xiaoshi to make changes to events that precede his dive, instead of only events that succeed it. While this isn't as strong as the first proof, it would show that, at the minimum, Cheng Xiaoshi is able "cause" his own dive.

In cases where Cheng Xiaoshi observes a person who he has/will dive into, he should be viewing the "dived" version and not the "original" version. This demonstrates that the timeline "knows" about Cheng Xiaoshi's dives before he performs them. This way, it makes sense if the "Lu Guang" Cheng Xiaoshi saw was a "dived" version, instead of original-Lu-Guang. This is our bottom line, because without this, then… Well, there's really nothing showing that Cheng Xiaoshi was even possessing Lu Guang during that first run of events that we saw.

Let's go through them one by one. The first proof is pretty much a no-go. There is only one dive in the entire series where this type of causality is even discussed, and that's during the dive into Li Tianxi (referred to as Xixi from now on. By the way, fun fact -- although the English sub appears to subtitle her nickname as "Xixi," it's actually pronounced "Xiaoxi" in Mandarin. I was confused about this for a while because Xixi and Xiaoxi would both be valid and common nicknames for her, in terms of convention, haha. If anyone ever wants to hear me talk about some hard-to-translate linguistic details in Link Click, let me know!). In this dive, Lu Guang tells Cheng Xiaoshi to pick up the photo, saying that if the photo disappears, then "the future that we live in will cease to exist." You could make an argument here that Cheng Xiaoshi's act of picking up the photo allows for the dive to happen, fulfilling proof 1. However, this proves stability -- that the dive does not contradict, or nullify itself -- but it doesn't prove exclusivity. That is, we have no way of knowing what would've happened to the photo if Cheng Xiaoshi hadn't dived. It's plausible that Xixi or Li Tianchen would've picked up the photo in the end anyway, regardless of Cheng Xiaoshi's influence. Thus, this is much closer to just being their typical motto while diving -- leave the past untouched, or as close as they can get it to the original.

The second proof is harder to say. We can't say for sure whether or not we've ever seen the effect of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives occur before he makes the decision to dive, for two reasons. One is the butterfly effect -- many causes may have effects, but those effects may be extremely hard to trace back to their original causes. It's possible that maybe Cheng Xiaoshi as Xu Shan Shan asking Qiao Ling about what Lu Guang saw in him might've, I don't know, kept Qiao Ling occupied where otherwise she would've gone "Oh I forgot my phone in the studio" or something. And the fact that Qiao Ling never came back to the studio demonstrates that Cheng Xiaoshi created an effect prior to him diving. But there's no solid proof for this being the case. The second one is that it's just much harder to prove impossibility than simple absence. That is, even if we've never seen this happen, it doesn't mean it can't happen -- it just means we haven't seen it yet.

However, from a writing perspective, there's some solid evidence that, while Cheng Xiaoshi's power has the potential for "effects," those effects are only observable to Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves after the "cause" has already occurred. That is, any effects of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives only become evident after the dive has already happened. The strongest proof for this is Chen Xiao's camera in episode five, and Lu Guang's narration. As a result of Cheng Xiaoshi's actions while possessing Chen Xiao, the camera that presumably would've been destroyed in the original timeline is preserved. Chen Xiao's father then finds the camera and brings it to Chen Xiao, who then brings it to the studio to get developed. Lu Guang says here that this is why they don't ask about the future -- because the future is inevitably changed by their actions. While this was an emotionally touching scene in terms of storytelling, I believe it also serves a double purpose, showing us the limits of Cheng Xiaoshi's diving. It shows explicitly that his dives can change the timeline, but he himself will only experience the effects of that change after he's already dived. This makes quite a lot of sense, combined with part three, which is that:

I'm nearly 100% sure that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves always experience the "original" series of events when they go through things in real time, and never otherwise.

The best example of this is with the Xu Shanshan dive in episode 10. After combing through the episode and comparing it to episode 8, there are three major deviations in Cheng Xiaoshi's behaviour during the dive versus Xu Shanshan's during the first run through. First is a general difference in voice, mannerisms, and expressions. Especially near the beginning of the dive, Cheng Xiaoshi sounds different than Xu Shanshan. Even later, does small things like turn his head and make expressions at a different time. However, I'm not going to take this one as seriously, considering we're not sure if this is showing actual reality or is for the viewer's benefit, demonstrating the difference between the two. After all, we, the viewer sees that anyone possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi has their eyes turn gold, but no one in the story itself notices it. Me, personally, I think I would notice if my best friend took a photo and then came back with differently coloured eyes. I don't know though, I might just be built different like that.

Second is that Xu Shanshan says "I'm not like a certain someone, leeching off other people" (second half paraphrased) whereas Cheng Xiaoshi says "I don't [want to be like] a certain someone, leeching off other people." Again, this one is questionable, because the dialogue actually spoken is the exact same (in terms of words), and the English sub is the exact same, but the Chinese subtitles has a 像想 in place of 像 in the second run-through. Which is weird, because [want to be like] is actually 想像 and not 像想… confusing. Like, this is 100% a typo by the subtitles team, but what was the original intended version? No one knows. The last, and only actual deviation I found, was that Xu Shanshan goes "Hey, Qiao" when asking about how Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang get their information from photos, whereas Cheng Xiaoshi just says "Qiao."

This, combined with the fact that Lu Guang is able to "see" the original in the first place, all make a strong case that, in Link Click, the timeline doesn't "know" that Cheng Xiaoshi has dived until he actually does it, at which point it tries to catch up. This is consistent with everything else we've seen. It makes sense that the effect of his dives are only noticeable to him after the fact, because the timeline has to basically make live edits to itself to deal with his existence.

With this in mind, the Lu Guang we see in episode 7 simply couldn't've been Cheng Xiaoshi. This was a real time event, so it had to have been the undived version of Lu Guang doing… all that. Of course, the question here is how Lu Guang even got the information about Cheng Xiaoshi's whereabouts in the first place. I might make more posts theorizing about Lu Guang's powers and their limitations, the nature of his loop, etc… But for now, I've been grinding this post for about two hours. That's all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this!

[nocturnalnewsiestrash]

I'm in my feels about how the way ghosts interact with the world and each other affects Edwin and Charles as sensory seeking and sensory avoidant neurodivergents.

While it's already hard to understand the dynamics of ghostly interactions with their environment at play I'm pretty sure of these things. So we know that Edwin and Charles don't feel items and other alive people the same as they would alive. It's a different touch-based-sensory-less experience(?) at least that's what we know. And we know that they can feel other supernatural beings and each other, differently. I'm in the camp of its basically the same as normal human sensory touch but that could be argued a bit. However we're sticking with that both for the sake of this post and cause I want to.

This analysis got long as shit so readmore it is

Now we see Edwin being very touch avoidant with relatively everyone (besides Niko and Charles) and we see Charles being touch seeking with just about everyone. This makes sense to me under the fact that they as neurodivergent beings both have their more usual "resting state" on the touch-sensory-acceptance scale where Edwin generally rests at the sensory avoidant side and Charles rests at the sensory seeking side.

The implications though of how the fact that you can't really feel things through touch the same way as you would alive really gets to me though. Because you might think that without the sensory part of touch there wouldn't be anything to activate the neurodivergent avoidance right? Well obviously this is not the case for Edwin as we see him from the beginning tolerating touches from Charles and no one else. Then we gain Niko too as someone he appreciates the touch of. And if he can't really Feel the alive people, like Crystal, the same that means that the new ghost touch sensory experience also triggers the touch avoidance. And we see Charles practically touching anyone and (anything) who will let him which means the ghostly touch also triggers touch seeking. So does this mean that under DBDA dynamics neurodivergence finds a way to still be sensitive to sensory experiences under any circumstance? Both in avoiding and seeking it? Does this mean that it's more of a mental thing than the actual 5 senses of it? This is so interesting to me because I've often thought that having the ability to turn off and on sensory capabilities would be LOVELY for my mental health (I have ADHD) I'm not so sure that's true anymore because my brain would just adjust and find ways to avoid and seek THAT new feeling. The feeling of the absence of feeling.

Now the difference between ghost-alive touch/ghost-environmental object touch and ghost-fellow ghost or other supernatural being touch is also interesting to me in sensory seeking terms. Because we also see Edwin enjoying Charles touch specifically and at first we could assume that he only likes touch under ghostly sensory feelings. And us neurodivergent people often have our people that we have more spoons to handle the touch of than others. Which also has very adorablely soft implications of Charles being Edwin's Safe Person including sensorily. But then we see him enjoy Niko's touch too which means that he can also find his sensorily safe person in alive interaction sensories terms. And obviously we see Charles being sensory avoidant too when he's out of spoons for that, like when he bats Edwin's hand away when Edwin attempts to comfort him at the lighthouse. And we see Edwin also sensory seek in, as George put it, craving Charles' touch after their hug in episode 5.

Now I'm fairly certain that they feel things in Hell the same as they would between other supernatural beings and as they did when alive. Which after 70 fucking years of that, I don't even KNOW how I would feel about touch as an already sensory avoidant person if I was in Edwin's shoes. Genuinely an unfathomable part of the experience for me. But clearly Edwin still can handle touch just more specific about it. No different than a regular neurodivergence experience really. Which just gives me so many emotions because Edwin baby boy I knew you were so so strong but 🥺 how did you handle this so well too 🥺. I don't know how you did it. He has so much credit for how he's handled (well everything, but specifically this) so well under these circumstances. Someone pls tell him he deserves more credit than he gives himself.

Anyway my Edwin hell emotions aside, i saw someone mention awhile ago (I would credit them but I don't remember who) that Charles and Edwin wear their gloves so often specifically to avoid having to think about the fact that they don't have the normal human sense of touch anymore which is just so something. Because that in and of itself is its own sensory avoidant behavior. Avoiding the fact that they're not really experiencing a specific flavor of sensory anymore? Could this be true for their many layers of clothing they don to possible keep from feeling that they can't feel the environment the same? Like wind/the snow in ep1, the temperature, and other elements? Sensory avoidance too. A supernaturally charged type of sensory avoidance but still. Sensory avoidance. Plus how we see them lose their layers and gloves when they're in their office bubble alone? Their home? Their comfort space where they have the spoons to relax? And possibly have the spoons to handle the new (well new as a relative term) different type of touch sensory experience that is their ghostly existence? Cause in THESE terms Edwin's sensory seeking in the form of rolling up his sleeves and placing his legs propped up upon the couch arm to experience this new type of environmental feel more fully. And Charles is sensory seeking in the form of Touching Everyone of His Magic Bag Items (and doing classic neurodivergent rearranging and setting up just to take back down play but that's beside the point) and fidgeting by throwing (and consequently touching) the ball in ep1. Which IS in line with how when we're more emotionally comfortable we have the spoons for being more comfortable with other things like more touch and more audio and more visuals as neurodivergents. These are the environmental and worldly items based touch. But we also see them touching EACHOTHER more within their office comfort zone, which means they also feel more sensory seeking in the way we're familiar with in their home bubble. And having the spoons for being more emotionally vulnerable there too but that's not really the point of this post.

In conclusion, how Edwin and Charles still act as touch-sensory seeking and avoidant neurodivergent individuals after this long as ghosts really enamors me. I didn't really go into analyzing the other 4 senses have changed for them but we know they can see and hear the same so those sensory seeking levels wouldn't change, and smell and taste are too things they mentioned they don't have anymore as ghosts but they HAVEN'T touched on how smell and taste senses would work between them and other supernatural entities like. I can't really comment on how the minute differences between ghost on alive and and ghost on ghost feelings would differ without knowing more. Like perhaps this would be touched on more in season 2? Like the taste of eachother hmm? Much to think about. Anyway yeah this was my neurodivergent reading of their touch based sensory seeking, I probably didn't consider some things, so I would love to hear your input on this too!

[iceinwhb]

Me, and my opinion. Last post.

Ok, I am simply amazed that there are comments on whb. Ha. When they were complaining about Levi and his new card, I thought it was because of how childish and silly it had been. I didn't expect them to give him the real P solely because Mc was younger.

So, at some points, with some posts talking about it, I thought I was going to be really rude if I got into an argument, “over nothing”, but now that I'm justified...

1.- We are adults.

And as adults that we are, we don't get to invent, or assume. We resolve ourselves with facts, and with coldness. We do not launch stupid and unverifiable accusations. If we want to point out a fact, you must demonstrate that Leviathan, as a character, is a pedophile.

2.- Do I really have to explain it?

For the people who accuse Leviathan of being a pedophile, where the hell do they get that from? Are they guided only because they wear a uniform? Mc may very well be over the legal age of consent for sexual relations in any country, not only that, Mc's nationality is Korean. In South Korea, they enter college at between 18-19 and finish between 22-23. At no time was it specified that Mc went to high school, or anything like that. Another point, are they really going to discuss the age of Mc when Leviathan biblically exists since the beginning of creation? Really? I don't know if those people will feel better if Mc is at least five thousand years old.

If don't have enough…

Well, let's say Mc was 16-17. You, player, are between 19-30. Do you know what age the game is geared towards? +18 in case we forgot the LITTLE detail. What if they know that Mc is the player's representation? Idk what they want. Especially BECAUSE THEY ARE ADULTS who know how to tell the difference, separate fact from fiction, separate a game from real life. Leviathan is not out there on the loose, looking for 18-23 year old “babes”, my god. And no one who plays the game, is going after a minor just because Leviathan likes the Mc who is probably 20 YEARS OLD. And more, of course. The story is based ON A DREAM, MADE OF MAGIC. Where do they find sense for they to want to complain about it? At this point I am indeed laughing at how absurd it sounds, because that's what it is.

Last but not least.

Okay, let's ignore all of the above. If you don't like the game, because it has certain themes, stop playing, go to Play Store, and look for the thousands of Otome games you like so much. There are millions, even those that touch only a sexual plot. There are hundreds and hundreds of different games for all tastes, but don't ruin the experience for other players just because other people think Leviathan is a pedophile. The game is PB's, and they can do whatever they wants with it as they has always done.

Really is the last.

With this point, it is where we delve into the fact that PB never gently implies when they talk about abuse, nor do they leave it implicit. They never did, they never would, they know the topics they touch on, how they use them and they never romanticize them. We are all aware of when it happens, and we are consistent enough to know that it is wrong, and that we are not going to replicate it in our daily lives, nor idealize as if we were 13 years old.

So, person who thinks they saw the worst of the worst, and you expose it as if no one has three fingers in front to understand it, question it and know it's a game, you're not helping anyone. Those of us in fandom are not idiots to not know what we are consuming. We know what whb is, we are aware of the complicated issues, and no, we are not 14, much less 16, we can think for ourselves and know what is wrong. You don't have to stress what we already know, please. If you want to complain, don't make a pointless war out of the issue, show that you have reading comprehension and do it on a reasoned basis. (Although I don't promise that anyone is going to take any notice of you for it, because no matter what you say, I repeat, we know what we are consuming).

If someone has to send this to one of those who can't even research for a minute, do it. Because it is truly fucked up to be at the expense of a daily absurd complaint.

Clarification.

I am not implying that no one is complaining. In fact, we should understand, learn, and tolerate all opinions, but it's one thing to say that Leviathan is an unprecedented jerk, abuser, and manipulator (and I would totally agree with the point), and quite another to accuse him of seriousness, spread him thin, and have more people, who don't know about the subject, want to play along, to the point that they get to PB.

I knew that whb had the potential to grow

And reach the public, even the wrong audience. But for certain types of people to make such a big deal over a card, especially over something as trivial as the Leviathan card it's absurdly stupid.

My prediction of all this is that Pretty Busy is going to be criticized sooner or later. We accept it, but we know it's not going to come from fandom, because we're not teenagers with attention issues.

It looks like PB is going to have to post more warnings and cautions about its content and the kind of themes they can find in it even within the game itself. I, what I fear the most, is that they will end up censoring it. (Because it's not enough for X and Play to have it labeled as C content.)

[the-s1lly-corner]

How about digital circus x princess! Reader with their very own castle. Elegantly leaning out of their tower singing lullabies for anyone to hear. Ps Keep up the great work 👍

TADC cast x princess!reader

I know I usually stress that I answer stuff chronologically but I misread this as just jax (I'm sleepy!!) So I went to search for a princess reader post i did weeks ago, snagged the link then reread the request and saw it was the whole cast... but I've already committed to the bit by searching for the link sooooooooo

CAINE:

You and I both know hes goinv to use the fact ypure a princess for IHA... captured princess trope stuff, basically! So have fun with that! Absolutely loves your singing, so so much. Probably joins in with you, complimenting your part..or perhaps he hums.. other princesses have cute fairytale animals accompanying them, and you have..... bubble..... huh....

Really ups the whole... act when talking to you.. bows deeply, waves his arm around in a grand fashion when showing you to a room, ect ect ect

POMNI:

Has probably subconsciously/accidentally said you were pretty outloud. Gets absolutely lost in the sauce when you sing. Like just stands there, hands awkwardly clasped together in front of her as she listens. Probably sways side to side too. Gets very pink when talking to you, her face does the O^O thing... absolutely smitten

RAGATHA:

Ah my favorite, royal princess x common lady... well, at least aesthetically... whether or not you're royalty in the real world is debatable... anyways, that aside, I think this is probably one of my favorite ship dynamics... I love.. similar to pomni she is very bad at hiding her feelings around you. Tends to stare with a blushing face. Loves making you dresses; assuming you can swap out dresses considering the whole "their clothes are attatched to their bodies" thing

While I doubt your clothing can rip or tear thanks to the properties of the digital world, I think if she could, she would patch up any holes

KINGER:

Honestly I think out of this entire post, kinger is the only one who gets a platonic/found family take on this... just an old king and his princess kid. Again I'm not sure if he truly believes he royalty or if he was trying to appeal to the gloink queen by saying "as a royal myself.." but.. honestly I like the idea that he just likes playing the part. Like he knows hes not royalty but. You know? Let this man embellish himself

Pillow fort? No, pillow TOWER! No... pillow CASTLE! Pillow kingdom!!!

Nothing too hyped specific here he's just your dad here

ZOOBLE:

Oh? Cool. I mean your singing isnt really their cup of tea, they look like they're into alt/indie stuff tbh...maybe rock. Confession I'm terrible at identifying genres so I'm literally speaking out of my ass rn on what type of music zooble would listen to I'd have to list specific artists and songs

But this isnt about that

Depends on what kind of princess you are

If you're independent, resourceful, and badass I think you guys could build some chemistry

If you're like, damsel in distress, ,kind of stuck up, whiny, prissy, ect then it's a hard no

Not many ideas here tbh <\3

GANGLE:

Also thinks you're very pretty! Also loves your singing! I think she grew up on disney films, and even if she doesnt remember them it's still a core memory that like. is kind of instinctive atp. So she finds comfort around you, you know? LOVE that trope btw, where a character doesnt remember something but still finds comfort in it while not fully understanding why because as far as they know this is the first time with the thing

Absolutely melts if you compliment her. Sure, she would still melt if you weren't a princess.. but having someone so pretty and graceful saying it hits a certain way for her

JAX:

[zilabee]

As a fellow Beatles fan (I assume), how do you still love the boys despite some of the bad things they have done, allegedly done, and/or are tied to but we don’t know if they have actually done?

I love them and their antics, but this trips me up every now and then

oh anon.

you correctly assume my fellowship.

we perhaps need a master post to link people to all the answers every beatles blog has to this same anonymous worry.

but my thought pattern is:

a) everyone's terrible it's not just the beatles

and by 'everyone' I mean men. I do get where you're coming from, I have my days, but at the same time it almost surprises me what a big issue this is for people, because all men are awful*. Pretty much any man put in the beatles situation would have been at least as awful - and many worse - than the Beatles.

I'm not saying that to mean 'so they're not that bad!' I'm saying it to mean that every man around you is as bad as they are. Yes even the modern ones. So the thing you're actually dealing with is 'the awful nature of men'... so it's hardly even a question about liking the Beatles and coping with that. It's just about existing in a world where you know what men are like - and coping with that. So you cope with it however you generally make peace with the fact that men don't like women very much... and if you struggle with that you have to read the books where we keep actual feminism, not tumblr.

b) it doesn't matter that much

your enjoyment of the beatles isn't going to bring about world ruination, you don't need to be some pure moral absolute, you're not going to hurt anyone by finding joy in some dickhead from the sixties! you don't pick your favourite with your moral compass, y'know? turning away from them isn't going to change anything that happened, or make anyone feel better, or even make you a better person with more inner peace. you're fine.

it's just about not getting defensive or pretending things didn't happen, or somehow arguing like it doesn't even matter that they hurt people because they could have been worse, or pretending it's all blown up from nothing. that's when fandom becomes a bit shit and ridiculous. it's just very possible to be aware of the terrible things the beatles did and still feel the thrill of the universe flood through you when Paul screams.

* The bots will find me! The bots will "not all men!" me. You don't have to worry about it or do it yourself, the bots will do it. I will be suitably told off for generalising about the terrible menfolk who are statistically + anecdotally + factually definitely worse than the womenfolk, and I'll be reminded that just because it's true doesn't mean you can just say it, because we're meant to pretend. So you can just scroll by and not worry that I might not get told.

[saintarmand]

gonna post some screenshots from a particular user in the vampterview community and the users liking their garbage posts, just in case some of you haven't heard. should become obvious why i'm highly suspicious of anyone who interacts with any of these users.

please just read the posts. sorry i'm not providing image descriptions, please dm me if you need them and i'll add them when i can!

the first post is just one example one of many on this blog, the second one might seem innocuous if you see it on your own but in combination with the others, not so much. please pay attention to the people liking these.

then we have an anon complimenting the wisdom and maturity of this person, who then replied with several paragraphs:

and got likes from two of the same users and two others.

then they self reblogged one of the posts from earlier and continued:

obviously this last post is the most egregious, and not everyone is bold enough to press like knowing that likes are public and could affect their reputation in the fandom. but i am going to assume that the people liking the other posts, which weren't all in public tags, are this person's followers and have seen all the other posts and believe this kinda shit is acceptable. and that speaks volumes about them as people.

i'm personally not going to assume that everyone who's ever liked or reblogged from any of these users did it knowing what kind of people they are (i didn't always know that either, and have probably reblogged from at least one of them before i did) but i am highly suspicious of anyone reblogging from them or interacting with them in a friendly way, and if i see people i follow doing that, i am going to unfollow unless i have very good reason to believe they genuinely had no idea, in which case i will message first.

i hope none of my followers need me to actually explain why what they're saying is absolute garbage but if you genuinely don't get the problem, dm me and i can find you some links about racism 101 i guess

EDIT/UPDATE:

someone asks nalyra what's going on

she later adds this, linking to a post that links back to this very post you're reading right now

track you UNliking something? GIRL WHY DID YOU LIKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

i do love how if you read this and don't bother clicking the link she sounds kind of reasonable, and even like she's taking accountability (she's not denying anything! she's linking to a source so people can judge for themselves!) just not SO much accountability that she'll actually say what she did. gotta click those links to find out, and let's face it, the majority of the people who see her post are simply going to assume she's being unfairly targeted again. i mean, she posts about it all the time! why bother even checking, it's not like she would ever link to, say, screenshots of her liking a post that says affirmative action is the only system of oppression based on race and anti-white racism is real

EDIT #2:

another screenshot i forgot to include from the same day of nalyra liking another untagged post from cosmic