#i definitely cannot pull up with that

[p-antalons]

oh my god 😭😭😭 i just got invited to a grad party (lowkey small affair) fifteen minutes ago. the party is saturday. what can i possibly get in less than 48 hours for someone i only vaguely know

[someobscurereference]

ive been rereading your ffxv fic "im trying hard to take it back" for literally four years now. please end my suffering and tell me how gladio feels. please. PLEASE. (but only if u want ofc)

(fic) Short answer: Gladio feels insane guilt and spends a lot of his life trying to make this up to Prompto. In the process, they deepen their connection as friends and do begin a relationship probably around the one-year mark of endless darkness. <3

Longer answer: (implications of abuse/violence tw but no worse than in the fic itself; just what others assume to be true even if it's not in the context of this specific fic)

Gladio is a secret romantic at heart who has always envisioned meeting his soulmate, but he's also duty-bound and duty comes first. So even though he reads romance books (amongst other types of books too) and indulges in his head a bit as many people do, he's often put his duty to the crown first and foremost in his mind. He also didn't imagine his soulmate was anyone on this trip and thought perhaps the person he may have been fated to meet died in the assault of Insomnia. Even if they were a refugee, they can't be a priority to him at this moment. His priority has to be Noctis.

Prompto has obviously grown on him over the course of their road trip, but there are aspects of them that don't 100% mesh (as is true with every realistic relationship). That said, Gladio never in a hundred years would want this moment of (understandable but out of line) frustration and anger in the wake of Luna and Altissa to be a permanent mark on Prompto's face. He's genuinely horrified and disgusted with himself for a long time after this and spends most of his life trying to make it up. He feels like a dirtbag about it.

That said, Prompto runs away from him in this moment and they need time to calm down, just as the fic shows. Noctis goes after Prompto, just like in canon. Prompto falls off the train and has his Despair Arc just like in the DLC, now with the added despair of "well, in addition to being a clone, my soulmate hates me. And in addition to the mark of inhumanity on my wrist (barcode), I have a giant hand print of him literally Shoving Me Away on my face. Forever."

Aranea: Well, do you want to die about it. Or do you want to live.

Prompto, eventually like in canon: Live, I guess. But it will be excruciating.

Aranea: That's what living is. We do it anyway. Your friends love you. Get off the floor.

He fights his way through his issues and gets rescued like in canon. Gladio probably tries to talk to him when they all catch up again, trying to apologize, and Prompto tells him to hold off on that for later.

Then, of course, Noctis is eaten by the crystal and "later" becomes much, much later as they evacuate and try to survive in eternal darkness. (Though they also can't Not think about it because it's a giant hand print. On Prompto's face. And every person they meet has Something To Say about it, for better or worse, whether they knew Prompto before or not. Prompto cannot escape it, and when Gladio is not doing Crown Duties he feels he must do in Noct's absence, he's with Prompto, so he also Cannot Escape It either. Even when the person speaking is unaware that Gladio left that mark. It's almost worse when they don't know, but when they see it's Gladio, who is such a big guy who seemingly hit Prompto and left that permanent mark there, some of them get nasty to him and some back off out of fear. Both are horrible. The guilt is eating him alive.)

Eventually, enough time passes as the dust settles that they do Talk About It. Gladio apologizes sincerely, for the 500th time. Prompto's like, "Well. It's not like you could have known that this would be The One Time it happened." And then cracks a joke about their soulmate mark being a Prompto's hand print on Gladio's ass from a butt slap in another life, which does help the tension somewhat. (The more Gladio tries to apologize, the more Prompto grows sick of hearing it, so they just have to move on and keep going, as he's learned to do.)

They grow closer over time, especially because there's not a lot of people who have survived to this point and even less later on. They do get together romantically, both because they do like the idea of soulmates (for different reasons) and also because they're living out of each others pockets for years, so there's an affection and dependency that develops there. Also, teenage Prompto always thought Gladio was really handsome and teen Gladio thought Prompto was cute and sincere for a pipsqueak.

When they are out together on dates in normal settings surrounded by strangers after the light returns, Gladio will receive dirty looks for the rest of his life from strangers who see the hand print on Prompto's face and immediately (correctly) assumes it was out of anger rather than a funny accident or something. (Edit: Some people will assume there is a funny story attached. Gladio will not know what to say to this. Prompto will play along.) He will learn to live with this. Prompto is really grateful Gladio is with him despite everything.

[homochihuahua]

Jason : I can't fix him.

Jason : But I can sure as hell marry him and pull him away from the influence of his demanding father. Maybe then that would finally calm him, and I'm sure as fuck It will do wonders for his frayed self worth.

[incarnadinedreams]

There are a couple common claims about things MXTX has said in author's notes which I just wanted to make a little note-to-self with the exact context/source of because they keep coming up again and again. I find that between general translation issues and then further filtered through summaries and offhand comments and then repurposed for... uh let's just say spirited debate, they tend to be presented as much stronger or more emphatic or more serious statements than the impression I got when reading them in context (the translated versions, of course!).

'Morally perfect' comes from the postscripts (published by Exiled Rebels as chapter 113.5):

Both WWX and LWJ are highly ideal characters, so there wouldn't be too much dispute on their moral standing. They're perfect as the protagonists. Of course, I do like WWX a lot, but if I'm looking for a boyfriend, sorry, I'll only have LWJ please.

This is the same postscript where she talks about the difficulties of publishing on the timeline she did and how she was worried the structure of the novel would do badly in serialized/webnovel format, how Xue Yang was like a has-been internet idol in the comments section compared to the Jiang Cheng haters (lol), how she threw everything she liked about an ancient setting in a pot and changed whatever she liked without any intention of historical accuracy at all, etc. So the focus of the postscript wasn't like a morality essay or anything, just offhand comments and notes and trivia.

'MXTX wants us to be like Wangxian' comes from the final author's note of the last extra (ExR ch. 126):

Without care for anything at all, I shall give the entirety of my soul to the pen and the paper.

I no longer like to tell my readers, 'I love you.' These words are too light, and yet these words are too heavy.

I hope each of you who enjoys this book can be like Lan WangJi in virtue and Wei WuXian in character.

P.S. I received the help of many in the publication process.

There's more before and after, from talking about how she decided the type of story she wanted it to be, outlining process, and then after she goes on to thank her editors, the webnovel platform, supportive friends, etc.

Whether any given person cares what her opinion is out-of-text or not is another matter of course! But since it gets brought up so much as if they're very serious Word Of God proclamations... well... it's probably pretty obvious my opinion/interpretation lands in the 'it's not supposed to be that serious, bruh' category.

Though even if it were meant to be super serious I'd personally still be like, 'well that's just like, your opinion, random author lady.' But at the same time, these quotes tend to be used in a way that gives a distorted impression of how serious and thorough they were intended to be and often add confusion.

Also I don't think MXTX is saying we should go feed a guy's fingers to a ghost child in front of him while he's forced to eat his own leg but that's really just wild speculation and assumption on my part, maybe she would appreciate that idk.

[compacflt]

What does Ice (or Mav) think about the Obama gay rumors? Will they be tuning in to hear the story of the man who allegedly fucked Obama? Are they bi Obama truthers? Is Rooster? Is Hangman? Any other Icebama interactions you're hiding from us? His cameo cracked me up and I need to know more...

the obama gay rumors

first im hearing about this

[nalivaa]

Hi, I'm sorry you're sad right now 🫂 Have you paused recently to consider that you are good and nice and 💓💓💓 friend?

For prompts, more Michael wings maybe? Can never have enough Michael wings. Or a Michael and Adam date on the moon?

i promise this was meant to be a doodle. i swear when i started to sketch it up i told myself it was gonna be a doodle to cheer myself up. it wasn't a doodle. but it did cheer me up!! so 50/50 ฅ⁠^⁠•⁠ﻌ⁠•⁠^⁠ฅ so we get more michael wings!! really hope you like it!! (and thank you so much for being so sweet you really did make me feel a lot better that day 💜💜)

[sorrowveined]

me trying to figure out whether or not vampires have free will by reading the wiki:

[the-physicality]

.

[nintendont2502]

do u reckon dave can at least float?

honestly i dont think he can - he tries! he definitely does! but its like when you try to get a little kid to float on their back and they just *cant* keep their legs up, so they just end up getting dragged underwater unless you're actively holding them up and then he gets all embarrassed and pretends hes doing it on purpose because who needs this lame ass baby skill anyway fuck all of you

[dirt-str1der]

I dont care about majima x sagawa btw but i care a lot about their relationship regardless because i want them to have the most toxic dealings and skewed power dynamics with each other as possible and i them both to have increasingly warped perceptions of each other (worlds most incorrect uncle-nephew relationship)

[bandy-andy]

YWoOUCH! <- silly guys when they get hurt

[mxddyhero]

every day we get closer to baizhu's release the more anxious i get. i only have enough to do about 50 pulls and im not trying to spend another 40 dollars on this game 😭😭.

WAAH,, you got this!!! Baizhu will be sooo kind and generous to us I know it 💚🐍🌿

But fr, if you can not spend money, I do recommend it. We'll get 300 primos from the next stream on th3 31st, plus the 200~ from each event (2x before 3.6 release). We have 40 from chara trials (this patch and next), and 600 for maintenance.

Plus he'll def get a rerun, so it's best to just get one and then save again for next time rather than just spending.

I know it's hard (I will def be tempted to swipe even tho I have 400+ wishes bcs it's not enough to guarantee his c2 and wep...), but hyv really doesn't deserve the amount of money it's getting, especially with their treatment of inazuman & sumeru characters ... I truly fear for natlan too but. I can't tell you not to spend tho, and I know how anticipated baizhu is so I'll say this instead:

Instead of buying a gc pack for maybe $40, instead get the battle pass (gives you a free 4* crit weapon, so many mats and 680 primos upon completion) and then top up with welkins. Each welkin gives 300 gcs instantly, so x5 is a pretty huge boost, and then you'll get a further 90 primos every day for the next 150 days. It does take waaay longer, but it's definitely a better investment for your money than just a pack. Even with the first time purchase bonus on the gcs, it's enough to guarantee you a 5*, and if you're on a 50/50 and you use em all, it'll feel worse. At least w/ dailies and events, that 90 daily plus 60 from coms, you'll get at least enough to guarantee one wish a day for the entirety of the banner.

ALL THAT TO SAY, you won't need to spend. He will come home 😌

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

I was trying to define how I'm feeling rn and I came up with 'horrible, but in a good way'

[elainemorisi]

today's trivial Star Trek inconsistency(?) fixation: what is the relationship between costumes + holosuite capabilities. by and large (all the time? with a single weird exception?) it seems like holosuites cannot provide costumes, right, because everyone enters in them. but. sometimes (Garak in OMB, but is that the only one?) they can??

[theequeerstrian]

Just wanna thank u for your tags on the dog post. So many dog breeds are not for average homes, and the dog parent trend has been a Whole Thing. People forget that animals are animals.

Man I am PASSIONATE about dogs, especially breeds that are better off in experienced homes. I absolutely adore my doverman, but man he is kind of a lot. I've caught myself thinking "oh he's so easy, what was the big deal about breeders wanting to be sure I knew what I was doing" but then I remembered I grew up always having dogs, and having a big variety of breeds including pits, a shar pei mix, shepherds, and one doberman so like... of course with my privilege of experience my dog who'd be considered soft *for a show line doberman* was pretty easy to raise and train... and even so, there were no lack of challenges! It's just that I consider a great number of challenges to be fully expected.

Every single dog deserves a good home.

Some folks just need to be honest with themselves and understand that they might not be that home for that breed.

Honestly, I've come to LIKE the doodle trend if for NOTHING ELSE than the simple fact that I have seen them outweighing pits in casual pet homes. And doodles are MUCH more suited for that. They're super easy to train ime, I've never seen one with dog aggression, and even if one did attack they don't have a jaw/head structure that could challenge a hyena for bite force.

Some people don't need certain dogs and that should not be a controversial statement!

It is not all in how you raise them. Good training is critical for any dog, but you cannot train away generations upon generations of artificially selected for traits. It's just not fair.

Lol woops I ranted again BUT I JUST REALLY CARE ABOUT DOGS, and no dog deserves to be pts because it had an owner who refused to acknowledge the dog's potential inherent nature, but once a dog becomes a killer, euth is typically the only real option left. As a pet professional (former dog groomer, very occasional dog training advisor, amateur horse trainer), I have seen it entirely too many times. The dogs deserve better, and MANY times it wouldn't have happened if the dog had had more responsible owners (not all- sometimes something is just Very Wrong with an animal. I've seen this a lot as well).

Here, have this bic of my dogs cuddling on the couch at our new place for tax.

[lilbirdblu]

that being said, stop putting Lone Star by TFB on ur character playlists!!! that song is about the dude's gf getting an abortion and the guilt the couple has afterwards!!! and its pretty explicit about it in the first verse!!!! stop adding songs based on the chorus alone!!!