#it also has some stuff that's more...dodgy?

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Fortnight of Books, Day 14

A book you didn’t read in 2024 that will be your #1 priority in 2025?

I wouldn't say it's my top priority, but I chased a reread of Little Women all over my TBR last year and never settled down to it. It's still waiting patiently on my shelf for me.

I also still have not got around to reading Emily B. Martin's Ashes to Fire (I read the first book, Woodwalker, back in 2023) so hopefully I can finally get to it this year.

New book you are most anticipating for 2025?

I'm assuming this means new releases, but I nearly always read new-ish releases by pure happenstance, so I'm going with new-to-me:

Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett. It's not actually in my Top Five anticipated reads for 2025, but it is the book I am most dreading. Because I was so stressed out at the end of the last book and where things were setting up for this installment that I broke my own rule and looked up spoilers (actually super difficult with this fandom) anddddddd it's not gonna be good. I'm gonna read it but I will suffer the entire time. (If anyone reading this has read Pawn in Frankincense, this is me holding out my hand begging for help. Please hold me.)

From my Top Five list, I'm excited to finally read Sorcery and Cecelia. I love Wrede's writing so I have no idea why it's taken so long to get to this series.

[tinystepsforward]

automattic vs wp engine mastterpost

adrienne's GitHub recap is probably the best place to see a comprehensive timeline of what's going down. it's been kept up to date. my (very out of date) previous writeup is here.

what's happened/other links

Matt has not logged off, just switched platforms, so there's lots on X/Twitter, Reddit, and Hacker News. it's really not worth wading through.

WP Engine actually filed suit.

the complaint includes some truly remarkable screenshots of Matt trying to blackmail the CEO of WP Engine.

which... personally i would not happily work for someone who just blackmailed me while not even my boss, but that's just me. he hasn't denied this at all, in fact confirming on Hacker News:

I haven't doxxed any private texts from other parties like they have. [source]

and, notably,

I even invited her to my 40th birthday on Jan 11, another text message she decided not to share. [source]

this gives me the creeps. in the context of the rest of the way he's talking to her, and the ways in which he's interacted with women in general, it's. not great.

also he slid into an ex-employee (also a woman)'s DMs asking why she was being mean to him bc he'd never been nothing but nice to her, while also making legal threats. so y'know, pattern of behaviour.

a good writeup of the social side of things

if you don't care so much about the open-source stuff, Steph Lundberg's writeup is, like her previous one on Matt's Tumblr meltdown, pretty solid and people-focused.

Mullenweg has already demonstrated egregious lapses in judgment and abuses of power, it’s just that up until now he’s wielded his power against vulnerable populations without access to high-powered lawyers and their own massive platforms.

a more technical writeup

this one is melodramatic in the same ways Matt was (uses war terminology), which i don't agree with, and which led to some... internal arguments at Automattic. that part's not my story to tell, but a little more on that later. it's a solid writeup of the actual WordPress side of things. there's some seriously dodgy trademark behaviour going on here.

of note: this blogger locked comments on his post:

and then Matt, uh, found a way around that:

wild!

10% of Automattic leaves

that's a link to Matt's blog post. here's an Internet Archive link.

in short, staff were offered a severance deal of the higher of $30k or six months' salary. while that's very generous, it's still very risky in today's tech market, especially (for the same reasons i mentioned when Matt was melting down on here) for people outside the US, people who need the health insurance, or people with young kids. despite that, 10% decided with very little notice (they had two days to decide) to leave.

However now, I feel much lighter. I’m grateful and thankful for all the people who took the offer, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126M to stay. As the kids say, LFG!

i'm thrilled to see some of my ex-colleagues make it out. i'm keeping the rest who have stayed on in my thoughts. i don't know anyone who's wholesale shilling for Matt.

Matt's been pressuring staff to post in support of him, @-ing the entire company to vote on Twitter polls in his favor, and so on. many of the people who stayed have written blog posts about it, all starting with "I stayed". people on social media have pointed out the very clear pattern of Automatticians jumping into discourse to defend Matt, and it doesn't look good.

i don't have a lot to say about those posts, except to highlight Jeffrey Zeldman, whose "I stayed" post is perhaps one of the more honest ones. (his Rodney King reference was in poor taste, and he... i don't like his role at automattic, tbc) but like. he's nearly 70. he helped shape the modern internet and develop its accessibility standards. he has often put his neck on the line for disabled staff who don't have as much clout as he does. given the financial troubles he talks about and the state of this market and how old he is, i personally have read between the lines of what he's saying in a particular way.

fuck, man. i'm sad. i'm sad for all my friends who are creaking under the strain and watching others leave but who can't do that. i'm sad that many of them are left in teams which are half-empty or divisions where significant senior leadership are just gone, with no time to document what they had in progress.

i'm sad for Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the former executive director of the WordPress Foundation, who was dealing with a personal emergency and ended up having to miss WordCamp US (where Matt started publicly starting shit with WPE). she came back from that to a gigantic fire in the community she's invested a decade of careful, Matt-negotiating, stewardship to, and decided to take the severance offer. she deserved better.

other things Matt's been up to

mostly linking to comments or posts which compile things here, bc it's too scattered otherwise.

blocking people from the official WordPress X account if they disapprove of his actions.

publicly talking about a vulnerability in ACF, a plugin WPE maintains, which could put thousands of sites at risk. this is not normal, and he met with so much horror even from current staff that he deleted his post.

saying he comes across badly because he's "a little ASD", which is driving me personally up the fucking wall. he's never once said it before and he really is turning into Temu Elon.

generally bragging that he still has more planned. jesus fucking christ

continually saying that WPE's suit is against WordPress.org and the community, which is not true. on which note, his pinned tweet is certainly something:

his choice of lawyer is uh. the kind of guy to defend nestle against literal child slaves.

as always, while i think WordPress crumbling will disproportionately affect websites in poorer parts of the world, there are certainly tyrants who are causing much more immediate and potent suffering. if you've read this far, please do send anything you have spare to gazafunds.com.

[pastadoughie]

Whats your opinion on the Shinigami Eyes stuff with people saying the owner is discriminating against transmen and intersex people? Ive seen weird posts circulating from people who are trying to refute it and seem to slip into dodgy things about transmen.

Asking you because youre the most notable transman blogger i follow and I know youve talked about similar things before.

im someone intersex who like grew up veryvery surrounded by radfems &terf ideology as primarily the target (dispite being "afab"), its why i hang out allot in transfem spases becauyse i share alot of expereienses w/ transfems in terms of transmysogeny- & have done a few deconstructions of some terff talking points in the past.

i think 1 ofthe main things abt radfem ideologyy is the urge 2 gatekeep oppression- the idea of oppresion (&more specifically msyogeny) beingg based on "biological sex" (& thereefore the assumption that biologicall sex is always clockable &that everybody posseses a chromcsome dectrector 3000). the ideaa that mysogeny is specific & exlcusive to only women, & that its impossible for a man 2 experience it- is very much a terf idea.

this is whyy terfs hate transwomen so much- because they few them as "biological males" trying 2 "co-opt & silence" the experiences of cis women & their talks aboutt oppresion. TME/TMA stuff is literally the exact same thing but with a different coat of paint.

the thing that peoplee use transmysogeny to describe- is the ideaa that maleness is fundimentally threatening- thatbeing seen as male in a womens space is inharently devientt & predatory. everything u do has to be wateredd down & made nonthreatening- (lest you fall into theirr idea of an evill ew gross disgusting man) so that way you can instead be treated like a stupid whiny bitch woman.- its the simoltanious assignmentt of only the worst traits of both men & women

when you are trans & you are seen as male you are a predator, and when you are seen as female you are stupid & ignorable. when youu are assigned one or both of these roles that is done BY THE BIGOT- for failingg to meet some kindof invisablee line of neatly fitting into one or theother. this is also what people tend to be describing when they sayy transandrophobia- thoughh many of those posts tend to be taken in very bad faith because peoplee (including in discussions of transmysogeny) aree very averse to the idea that being seen as male is not an inharently benifical assignment & also ignore the whole like, mysogeny part of the equasion- that simoltanious assignment.

when you veiww men as inharently powerful & women as powerless then spacess that are designed to be a safe space for people whoare beingg victimized are denied to anybody who meets some unseen standardd of male-ness. you see this alott in feminist & womens groups- but it also extends to things that shouldnt even be gendered in the fuirst place, like rape crisis lines & shelters.

alot ofthe wholee transmasc vs transfem discourse just comesdown to wantingg to gatekeep the experiense of transmysogeny- & as with all gender & bioessentialism this means thatt intersex people have to also deal with significantley more hostility even in the communities thatshould argueabley be the most accepting twards us-

shingami eyes is runn by a transwoman that has alottof these terfy beliefs and as alwaysthis means sliding into extremelyy blatent intersexism- posts thatare advocateing against nonconsentual medicall procedures againnst intersex people have gotten them marked as "anti trans". i shouldntt need to tell youhow thats fucked.

ive had to live in radfem spacess myself & i reallyreally hate seeing people radicallised like this because i know how it happens- there is an infinite pool to pull from of disgustingg instances of mysogenistic violence & so its extremely easyy to construct the narative that you as the woman aree always the innocent victim of oppression & all of the evill disgusting sexist males are yourr enemy- & that the only way to ever be safe is to isolate yourselff amongst only the women that agree with you!!

its a trick that usess all of the disgustingg acts of transphobia &mysogeny to isolate you- thesee spaces curatee an experiense where u only ever see the worst of what men (or people terfs veiw as men) have to offer- a trickk that ultimately makes your situation worse- because by not existing aroundd people who meet your standardd of "male-ness" whatever that is- you get a very very false perseption

this is also whyy radfem ideologyy is so prevelant on woman-on-woman violence & grooming- because it scaress a victim into thinking that THEY are the only safe person in the world, that there is no escape, that whatever is happening to you will get 298729x worse if you even TRY to leave. without eleaborating- this is how the majorrity of my experiense with CSA happened. because i believed that telling anybody would subjecct me to worse, and that my abusers fundimentally "had my best intrest" just by virtue of their gender-

anybody who tries to isolate you is a fuckin fed, we all aree stuckk in the transsexual tarr pit, puppies &kitties friends 4ever.

[skinnybritishdudes]

So, holy shit. I, a person who has not written fic in a good fifteen years, suddenly decided to take a crack at this prompt from my own post the other day. It's got a bit of flirty/confident Edwin, some catwin, jealous Charles, and smooching.

I don't have AO3 yet so I'm just going to (trepidatiously) post it here and hope for the best haha don't be alarmed by my extreme vulnerability

3500 words, teen rating, no warnings.

The Case of the Tempting Mirror

“Of course it isn’t dangerous,” says Edwin. He’s standing just in front of the mirror in the corner of the office, wearing the green sweater Charles associates with the day he saved him from Hell. He’s looking back at Charles with an infuriatingly relaxed smile, head tilted slightly to one side. “He wouldn’t hurt me.” 

“He’s not the only threat out there, is he?” Charles huffs. “We ran into loads of dodgy stuff in Port Townsend.”

“He’ll protect me,” Edwin says. “Honestly, you don’t have to worry. It’s only that I asked him to gather some plant samples for me and told him I’d be by to check on his progress. It’s for research, Charles, and won’t take a tick. Nothing to get so worked up about.” He takes a step backward toward the mirror.

“He’ll protect you,” repeats Charles, nodding sourly, his mouth a downturned line. “Alright. Go on, then.” 

“We’ve been over this before,” says Edwin, more softly. “I can handle myself, and–”

“Right, got it,” says Charles. “I said go, didn’t I?” He flops down on the couch, looking straight ahead into the room instead of at Edwin as he leaves.

Edwin nods with a small sigh. “I will not be long,” he says, and takes another backward step before turning in one swift pivot to walk forward through the mirror and out of the office. 

The moment he’s gone, Charles growls loudly, his hands becoming fists on his knees. 

The fucking Cat King. Again. Couldn’t they ever be rid of that wanker? The first time Edwin said he was thinking about popping back over to see him, Charles thought he must be joking. 

“He was kind to me about Niko’s death,” Edwin had said, looking down. “And I think he’s sad, you know. I find myself wondering if he’s alright.”

“If he needs a friend he’ll have to find someone other than you, mate,” Charles had said. “He’s trapped you before, and you said yourself he’s a trickster. You can’t trust him.”

Edwin had been completely sure he’d be safe, though, and he wouldn’t entertain the possibility of Charles coming with him. He’d been so stupidly stubborn about it, and they’d bickered until the argument was exhausted unless Charles was willing to escalate it into a fight. Though he was panicked and angry at the situation, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It felt desperate enough that he would be right to beg or threaten or shout if that’s what it took to keep Edwin safe, but he knew he couldn’t be Edwin’s best mate and also be the guy who tries to control what he does by threatening and shouting at him. If Edwin wouldn’t see reason, what could Charles do? He makes his own choices, in the end.

This was the fourth time. Each time with Edwin so irritatingly determined to go, so unmoved by Charles’ obvious visceral concern. Each time with the same tense mini-argument before Edwin swivels away from him so easily. 

Charles stands up, his hands still in fists hanging at his sides. He rolls his head around as if trying to ease tension in muscles that aren’t there, then begins pacing in long strides back and forth across the office. 

And Edwin says stuff like “just a tick,” and then comes back three hours later. Every minute of waiting is agony, with Charles never sure if he’ll be back in a moment or if this is just the beginning of a much longer nightmare. He never knows how long until it’s reasonable for him to be as afraid as he has been the entire time, at which agonizing moment his barely-contained panic might become appropriate. 

The most nauseating thing of all - if Charles could truly be nauseated - is the sort of lightness about Edwin when he gets back from his visits with the Cat King. He returns in a good mood, the subtle smile at the corner of his lips lingering for hours. It makes Charles want to hit something, and then he worries about himself over that urge. Not rational, is it? 

When Charles asks him what took so long, Edwin will say they got caught up talking. It isn’t that he was whisked away to some kind of time-warp space like the first time, he’s just hanging out with his friend the Cat King, on the other side of the world, and lost track of time because he wasn’t thinking about Charles at all. But he never gives much of an account of what they talked about that lasted hours, and Charles never feels like he actually understands what Edwin is doing over there. 

It’s like he can’t even bring himself to suspect the thing he suspects. It couldn’t be, could it? 

No. It couldn’t.

He growls in his chest again. Could it? 

Charles stops his pacing in the middle of the room, sighs again, and turns to look at the mirror. It could be hours more of this. Likely would, in fact. Part of him wishes Crystal were here to distract him and wonders if he should go find her, but a larger part feels like it’s appropriate for him to be here and agitated. He doesn’t want to be distracted from his worries about Edwin, he wants to address them. 

He takes two long steps toward the mirror, then sits on the edge of the desk facing it. As always, for a moment he wishes he could see his reflection, but even his memory of that image is foggy now. He hasn’t seen his own face in thirty-five years and can’t quite conjure the details. These days when he tries to imagine his own face, he sees Edwin’s, the only one with which he’s so intimately familiar. 

The mirror ripples, just subtly, sending waves through the reflection of the bookshelf behind him. He isn’t even touching it - not yet doing the thing he knows he shouldn’t do but is thinking about anyway - but the mirror can already feel him searching for Edwin and is responding to his anguish. 

Charles holds his hand up two inches from the glass surface, just suspended there for a moment like he’s stopping traffic. He can feel the energy of the mirror reaching out to him, and though he knows he really, really shouldn’t do this in the end he barely hesitates before letting his palm touch the turbulent surface. It clears almost immediately, showing Charles a dimly-lit bedroom he’s never seen before. The space is lit by lanterns and a tacky neon sign, shabby but with a large, round, satin-sheeted bed in the middle. Edwin is sitting at the head of the bed, cross-legged, his posture as sharp as ever but looking relaxed and at ease. The Cat King lays curled around him on the mattress, his head at Edwin’s left hand, his knees tucked up on the other side where Edwin’s right hand rests on his ankle. 

Charles watches as Edwin gazes down at the Cat King, his left hand moving to bury itself in the cat’s loose curls. They both smile, the Cat King slowly closes his eyes, and Charles feels like he’s choking. 

~*~*~

“You did very well,” Edwin murmurs, running his hand through the King’s hair slowly a few times before settling in to gently rub and scratch behind his ears. The cat’s purring vibrates the bed, the sound filling the room as he moves his head into Edwin’s touch, his body squirming against his legs. 

“Thank you,” sighs the Cat King. “Right now I can barely remember all the traipsing through the filthy woods I had to do to complete your little scavenger hunt so I guess it must have been worth it.” He rolls over just a little, enough to expose a wide strip of belly through the undone front of his velvet robe. 

“Your help is much appreciated,” says Edwin, his right hand moving up to rub the back of his knuckles lightly, gently across the Cat King’s presented belly. “And I’m happy to be able to give you something in return.” He turns his hand over to pet more firmly with his palm, adding some gentle scratches.

The Cat King sighs contentedly, arching his back a little against Edwin’s touch, then frowns. “You could just come and see me, you know,” he says. “Without making me do your little errands.” He flips over onto his side in one swift motion, propping his head up on his hand while Edwins’ fall away. The ghost quickly brings his hands back, clasping them in his lap. 

“I thought you liked making me happy,” Edwin says, teasing and earnest at the same time. “That is what you told me, is it not?”

It was rather lovely, actually, the first time Edwin had come back to see the Cat King. First, he was oddly touched to find the King had had mirrors installed all throughout his warehouse in hopes Edwin would come through one of them. But the way he smiled when he saw Edwin had radiated such genuine affection, it caught him off guard. There had always been games between them before, tension and fear and deceit. But when he stepped through the mirror this time, not even fully able to account for why he was doing it but feeling compelled, the strange cat-man smiled at him with the unguarded elation of a long lost friend. Edwin couldn't help but feel an unexpected tenderness toward him.

And then the cat had been so eager to please him. They had spent most of that first visit with Edwin perched on the pallet throne while the Cat King sat below him, rubbing against his leg while they talked. The purring was actually remarkably soothing and satisfying, and Edwin found he enjoyed it very much. Something else he found satisfying was the feeling of the Cat King being at his command; of having him bound the way he had once bound Edwin to this town. So he took advantage of it, to both their satisfaction. 

“Yes,” says the Cat King with another sigh. “I did say that. And I meant it, dumbass that I am.” He pouts. 

“The knowledge you gather for me is useful,” Edwin says. “And don’t I always give you the reward I promise?”

The Cat King makes a hmphing noise in his throat. “I do like the petting,” he says. “But it also sort of makes it seem like you wouldn’t come and see me if I weren’t useful.” He pushes himself up and in one graceful motion is sitting knees-to-knees with Edwin on the bed. 

“You could refuse the tasks, you know,” says Edwin. “I’m not forcing your will in any way, unlike what you did to me.” His words have an edge, but there’s still a smile at one corner of his mouth. 

“You’re manipulating me with your adorableness and it’s humiliating,” says the Cat King. “It is like a fucking magic trick.” His frown softens. “I mean, look at your eyes. How am I supposed to live?” He leans forward, gazing into them sadly.

Edwin quirks his head to one side. “My eyes?” he says. 

“They’re, like, unfairly gorgeous. You didn’t know that?” 

“Actually, I–” Edwin fumbles. “As a ghost, I can’t see my reflection or be photographed so I haven’t seen myself in a very long time. I barely remember my own features.” When he tries, he sees Charles’ instead. That rich, warm, inviting brown, so full of kindness and compassion.

“That’s tragic,” says the Cat King in a breath, laying one hand on either side of Edwin’s face. “They are deep, deep, magical green. And so soft and beautiful. You deserve to know.”

Edwin looks down, embarrassed. He feels fluttery, too, though. Light and jittery. He flicks his eyes back up to look at the Cat King. 

“Are you ever going to let me kiss you?” the cat asks softly, hovering close enough to Edwin’s face to deliver if given the go-ahead. 

Edwin grimaces, and the Cat King groans, pulling back. “Are you kidding? You are the worst!” He throws his hands up. “Aaand I love you. What a disgusting nightmare.” The Cat King grumbles, his hand moving to slash across Edwin’s lips before the ghost has a chance to react. A glittery gold mark appears on his mouth and Edwin recognizes this feeling, knows he will be forced to tell the truth to whatever the Cat King asks now. It felt like a violation before and does again, but it’s also a dizzyingly liberated feeling.

“What the fuck is going on with you?” asks the Cat King, too frustrated to formulate a more thoughtful question. 

“I love Charles,” says Edwin simply, as if that’s the entire story. He supposes it is. 

“I mean, duh,” says the Cat King. “Everybody knows that. But does he love you back?” 

“No,” says Edwin. He doesn’t feel compelled to explain further; the truth isn’t complicated. 

“Then what’s the difference if you let yourself loosen up with me?” 

“I don’t know,” Edwin says. “I want to, in a way. That is, I–I believe I could because Charles truly doesn’t love me that way and I am increasingly intrigued, you know, by all these new feelings. And you are certainly not Charles but I cannot deny that you appeal to me, and I find myself wondering what would happen if I did try to let myself go with you.”

“You should let go,” says the Cat King, moving close to Edwin again. “Eternity is a long time to fucking yearn, and I can help you with that.”

Edwin moves his head without thinking, just a little and just in the right direction to indicate receptivity, and the Cat King eagerly moves an inch closer, so ready but wanting to be sure. Then Edwin exhales in a way that sounds like surrender and lets his eyes close, and the King closes the gap between them. Edwin is surprised when pushes back and lets his mouth move, firm and curious. They kiss only for a moment, and Edwin feels it: a tingle, a warmth, something more visceral than the sweet, chaste kiss he shared with Monty. The Cat King purring into Edwin’s mouth causes his whole being to feel like it’s vibrating in a way that isn’t unpleasant in the slightest, and he finds that even without a body he can still shiver. 

Edwin’s eyes are half closed and dazed as they pull apart, the Cat King exultant but meaning to check that he’s still OK before going any further. As it turns out, he doesn’t have time to ask the question.

“That’s enough of that, then,” says Charles in a rough voice, twirling his cricket bat as he emerges from the mirror at the far end of the room. He advances in battle stance, feeling very sure something is going to get smashed to bits tonight and the Cat King will be lucky if it’s not his face. 

“Charles–” Edwin begins, shocked, with no idea what to say next. He would blush if he could, embarrassed to have been caught like this but also surprised by the surge of emotion he’s feeling at seeing Charles this way. 

Charles would not have been able to describe what he was feeling looking at Edwin in this moment, either–the sharp ache and the rage that had sent him hurtling through the mirror, the need that is swirling in his chest like fury. 

“Excuse me,” says the Cat King, turning to face Charles. “You are not invited to this rendez-vous and I will absolutely fuck you up.” 

“We’ll see who gets fucked up, mate,” says Charles. “Get away from him or I’ll–”

“Oh, are you under the impression he’s not enjoying my attention, Charles?” the Cat King purrs, eyes wide with mischief masquerading as innocence. “Look, he’s still got my mark on him, so he can’t lie. Edwin, didn’t you want me to kiss you?”

“Yes,” Edwin says, his voice emphatic but his face miserable. He sounds like he’s choking, and it reminds Charles painfully of that day on the stairs in Hell. “But only because I know that Charles won’t.” He gulps. “You were right, eternity is a long time and I’ve been longing more and more to experience–oh, do take this cursed thing off my mouth, please!”

The Cat King touches Edwin’s lips perfunctorily and the gold mark disappears. He then scoots away from him and stands, crossing his arms and turning away, stung. 

Edwin turns to look up at Charles, standing next to the bed beside him, and opens his mouth to speak.

“Edwin, do you want me to kiss you?” asks Charles, before he can decide what to say.

“Yes,” breathes Edwin without a beat’s hesitation. “But not if you–”

While Edwin is answering, Charles is climbing onto the bed, his long limbs surrounding him in an instant. He drops the cricket bat on the mattress beside them and takes Edwin’s face in both of his hands. 

“I think the fuck NOT,” says the Cat King, kicking the mattress hard with one foot and sending Charles and Edwin sprawling, almost falling off the other side of the bed. “You two will not be having your big romantic moment in my fucking bed, thank you very goddamn much. Are you fucking kidding me?” He points at Edwin. “Don’t you dare come back here, do you understand me? You take your scrawny ghosty boyfriend and your nasty teasing lying manipulating–”

Charles and Edwin scramble off the bed and move quickly toward the mirror, holding hands. 

“I truly did not mean–” begins Edwin as he passes the Cat King. 

“Fuck you,” the King interrupts. Edwin grimaces, his eyebrows knitting together in remorse. He gives the Cat King one last look, then follows Charles through the mirror.

“But let me know if you need anything,” says the Cat King pathetically, flopping back onto the mattress. “I love you,” he whines, and it turns into a meow as a plume of pink smoke envelopes him. He becomes a sleek black cat with green eyes, slinking slowly to the head of the bed to curl up in the warm spot where Edwin had been sitting. 

~*~*~

The moment they’re back in the office, Charles turns and advances on Edwin, arms outstretched to embrace him. 

Edwin takes a step back and then to the side, moving away. “Wait,” he says, one hand on his chest. “Let’s take a breath. What is happening here, Charles?”

“You said you wanted me to kiss you, didn’t you?” Charles feels a desperate kind of urgency but forces himself to slow down, and he gives Edwin a smile. 

“I did, yes,” says Edwin, straightening his posture and casting his eyes to the side, trying to compose himself, too. “But I know that your feelings are not the same as mine. You don’t have to pretend for me, you know, frankly the idea of that is–” he makes a sour face.

“That’s not it,” says Charles. He takes a step closer. “I’m sorry for spying on you. That wasn’t right, I know. But I wondered–I kept wondering what you were getting up to with the Cat King for all that time.”

“Oh? And that gave you license to invade my privacy, did it?” Edwin quirks an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching. 

“It didn’t,” says Charles, his smirk becoming a bashful smile. “But I’m not perfect, and it’s what I did.”

“And you didn’t like what you found me getting up to, is that it?”

“Sort of,” says Charles. “But more like, I felt like I wanted to tear the Cat King limb from limb for touching you like that.” 

“A bit extreme, perhaps,” says Edwin, his face fighting desperately to crack into a grin. His exhilaration in this moment is palpable and thrumming, even without a heart to race.  

“Just a feeling, innit,” says Charles. “I wouldn’t actually have done it, of course. But it made me realize some important things.” He takes another step forward and reaches out to take one of Edwin’s hands in his, pulling him closer still. “Like how much I wanted to touch you like that. And that I didn’t want anybody else to, either. And once I knew it, of course I had to tell you, didn’t I? Especially since the alternative was watching you snog that creepy prick.”

Edwin doesn’t wait any longer, moving his free hand to the back of Charles’ neck and pushing himself up to kiss him with his joyfully irrepressible smile. Charles drops Edwin’s hand and winds his arms around his waist, pulling him in tight while Edwin wraps both arms around his neck. There is no room to regret that they don’t have skin to feel with as the explosion of love and delight reverberates all throughout their beings, crackling like electricity and unfurling like endless blooming vines. Like reality itself was exhaling in relief, the world becoming the way it was always meant to be. 

[suzukiblu]

Further adventures in "kidnapping your soulmate for fun and profit" for @twird96.

"You did good with that guy who wrecked the street," Tim says, putting on Smiling Normal Civilian Face #2, which is a little more reserved than #4. Superboy turns red again.

"Technically I also wrecked the street," he says, looking embarrassed.

"It was already a wreck when you got there," Tim snorts. Property doesn't mean shit next to people. "And this way nobody died or got hurt too bad."

"You helped with that part," Superboy says, still red-faced. "Made it a lot easier to keep everybody safe with somebody who was thinking straight about getting them all out of the way, like I said. It's hard to, uh–concentrate on that many at once, you know?"

"Keeping track of where all the civilians are has to be a pain in a fight," Tim agrees, though he tries to make it sound more like he's following Superboy's logic than already fully aware of the vitality of situational awareness from his own vigilante gig. Superboy blinks, cocking his head.

"Oh–no, that part's easy," he says. "I can feel everybody. It's just, uh . . . actively spreading my TTK out that much? I gotta concentrate a lot harder. So it's just way easier when nobody's in the line of fire."

Tim . . . pauses. Tilts his head. He is, technically, aware of how Superboy's tactile telekinesis works, but that sounded like . . .

"Sorry," he says. "You had everybody there in your TTK field?"

"Mostly," Superboy says. "Like I said, it's hard to concentrate on that many people, especially if they're running around in a panic."

"Why would you split your focus like that?" Tim asks, a little mystified. Though he guesses this explains how Superboy noticed what he was doing without ever actually looking at him, come to think. "Doesn't it weaken your powers?"

"Well, yeah, but that dude was blowing up the whole street, man," Superboy says, making a face. "Somebody could've gotten shrapneled or something."

It occurs to Tim, slowly, that the amount of injured civilians really wasn't as high as it should've been, and in fact most of the injuries he did see had most likely been caused in the initial attack. So that means . . .

Oh.

. . . huh.

"Huh," he says. "I didn't realize that was something you could do."

"I try not to advertise it," Superboy says sheepishly. "So, uh, bad guys won't start going after civilians harder when I'm fighting 'em. Or pick crowded areas to pick fights in."

"I was under the impression that you advertised most of what your powers can do," Tim says wryly, though again, he did get that impression from stolen files and cheap magazines.

"Well, yeah," Superboy says with an awkward shrug. "Otherwise people don't think I'm doing anything. Like, that I'm just punching stuff or whatever. Uh, so–how long are you in town for, then?"

"Just for the day," Tim says while making further mental re-evaluations of his soulmate. And it's an admittedly terrible cover, but–"I'm flying back to Gotham on a redeye. I just dropped in to get some time to myself, but I've got school on Monday and a paper to write for it. You know how it is."

"Not so much, man, I don't do that," Superboy says, and Tim . . . pauses, again.

"You don't . . . what, go to school?" he asks.

"Naw," Superboy says. "On account of supervillains attack it when I do."

"So you're home-schooled?" Tim assumes, trying not to cringe at the idea of Rex Leech teaching Superboy math or economics or anything even vaguely in that wheelhouse. That cannot possibly end well.

"Naw," Superboy repeats with another shrug. "Got superhero shit to do. And also, like, brand deals to do. Not really my thing anyway."

. . . Tim is reminded, again, that Superboy is not in fact legally a person and is therefore not in any way protected by labor laws, and Rex Leech and every single dodgy opportunist he's been selling Superboy's likeness to probably knows that. Not even the laws intended for civilians or metahumans or minors or animals would apply, in fact.

Fuck.

The next six months of this kidnapping plot are going to be an agonizing wait, Tim's already realizing.

Fuuuuuck.

[ominus-potato]

Hi, just wanted some advice about fanfics on ao3, how do you write them? and how can I make my one shot fic impactful for the readers. I'm planning on making a fic but since it's my first time making I kinda don't know where to start.. It's fine if you don't know though! just thought of asking cause you're writing's really good imo.

Sneak peak of the next part of the Pining Mario series at the end!

Well when I write, I don’t do it on AO3. I draft my work on Wattpad and then cross-post it to AO3. This is because AO3 is a bit more complicated, can be dodgy with saving works and only work when I have Wi-Fi. With Wattpad, I can write offline which is very helpful. Some people also draft on google docs so there’s that as well.

In terms of ACTUAL writing, there are two ways to leave an impression on the reader. There’s the way liked with angst, pain and maybe a bit of comfort; and there’s the way of making a story so sickeningly sweet that the reader is gushing over every cute moment. The length of the story also plays a factor. If it’s under 4000 I’d recommend avoiding angst bc you don’t have much time to set it up and at it off effectively.

Personally, I pretty much never write angst unless I genuinely believe it’ll make a story better. I’ve read fics before where the author will just throw in a shit ton of angst for no reason other than to make the reader feel bad for the mc and it just feels really cheap. It’s hard to do angst right and it’s really tempting to just give everyone a super fucked up backstory and make them depressed or something but imo it’s just overdone to the point of exhaustion. It can make a story depressing and no longer a fun read.

Whenever I write angst, it’s a small part of a mostly fluff-filled story. Take the pining Mario series for example. 19,000 words of silly pining hyjinx with a few small drops of angst. Then have the angst bubble over a little in Shots and Cowboys, Mario has a small breakdown since we’ve been keeping up with the story from his perspective mostly. That then allows me to forward the story and give character a new motivation.

If youre going to use angst to get an emotional reaction, you MUST have good set up and pay off. Especially if it’s a longer story. Also, you don’t have to do this, but I’d recommend against adding angst unless it’s necessary. Don’t just throw it in there Willy nilly yk?

If you wanna know how I do my stories, I really enjoy making them sweet and adorable with a little bit of drama and comedy. Like “Love is not a foreign language” where it’s just Mario and Mr Puzzles being adorable as hell for 6000 words. Then the drama comes when Puzzles reveals he can understand Mario and that only leads to more cutesy love.

A lot of it comes down to the story you’re trying to tell and how you want your reader to react. When I write a story, I want my readers to be invested in the drama and rising tensions, enjoying the little spurts of comedy here and there and ultimately, finding the main ship really cute in the end. I try to make people happy with my work bc I write the kinda stuff I would love to read! Because if I would read it, someone else definitely would.

Also, I feel like I must add that I have only ever written ship stories. If you wanted advice on stories in general with no shipping then I wouldn’t really know how to advise you on that. I love relationships between characters. Whether it’s ships or friendships. It’s my favourite part of any fandom so it’s where I specialise in my work.

Sorry I don’t really have like a plan or anything. I just keep it all in my head, know a few plot points I want to hit, and write to them. I try to get around 3-5 plot points for my longer stories and then just 1 or maybe 2 for the shorter ones. I sometimes add them as I go if I think it’ll make the story better!

For example, my plot points in Shots and Cowboys were:

•Mario tries to buy Puzzles a drink

•Mario and Mr Puzzles are interrupted by Wren and Mario is jealous

•Mario and Wren do something to fight for Puzzles’ affection (IE, play pool)

•Mario looses Puzzles to Wren, sees them kiss and is devastated.

•Mr Puzzles thinks that Mario is heartbroken over SMG4 and promises to help him move on.

Then if I get any smaller points like certain ships, lines, dynamics or interactions I wanna add I just sprinkle them in where I can.

I don’t really have much advice outside of that. I tend to just think of a scene or an idea I’d love to write and then more ideas pop up around it. It’s just one major point that gets built around. IE, Mario being jealous was the premise of SAC purely just because there were a few jealous Puzzles stories and I wanted to see if I could switch the dynamic.

Sorry for the long wall of text. I just wanna make sure it’s detailed enough for you. Just make it up as you go along and write what you wanna read. I re-read my stuff all the time because I genuinely enjoy what I write and it gives me exactly what I want. Have fun with it!

And if you’re worried about it being terrible, I’d advise you to read my old Lego Ninjago fanfiction that I wrote when I was 13. My god it was awful. But it shows development!

First story:

Latest story:

Enjoy that sneak peak of the next part of the Pining Mario series :D

[itsbenedict]

Games I Played In 2024 And Whether Or Not I Thought They Were Good (Part 2/4)

[1] - 2 - [3] - [4]

This time we're gonna open up with like, three different Ace Attorney fancases, because it turns out there's a lot of really good ones out there.

A Turnabout to El Dorado

DWaM doesn't miss. Years after a failed expedition to find the lost city of gold, one of the participants is murdered in a remote cabin in the woods. The accused is absolutely determined not to give Phoenix a single useful piece of information, largely because what actually happened has so many different layers of twist going on you would not believe it.

Also, you can get a piggyback ride from Dick Gumshoe, and that's only like the fourth or fifth greatest thing that happens in it. Very polished, edge-of-your-seat stuff.

The Torrential Turnabout

The tone and framing device of this one is really bizarre at first- it opens with this Zero Escape-ass deathgame situation, then pivots to Mia Fey solving a seemingly unrelated murder at a hospice, and everyone's being weirdly meta and out of character...

[pictured: YOU DON'T SAY.]

...but then, you realize what's going on, and it all makes sense, and everything is hilarious in hindsight. The case itself is incredible, too- apart from a slightly dodgy timed segment in part 6, the case logic all fits together elegantly and I didn't need a walkthrough too often. A great cast and clever writing bring it together into something incredible.

Turnabout in the Lighthouse of Lunacy

This one's nutty. The hook is that you're defending yourself against charges for a murder you totally do see yourself commit, on-screen, and you have to apply the classic Ace Attorney bullshitting and contradiction-seeking to get yourself off the hook when you are in fact guilty.

But that's not where it stops. In the course of picking at the contradictions you find, you uncover a truly insane web of additional bullshit hiding beneath the surface of a seemingly simple case that you saw happen. There is so much going on at this weirdass lighthouse auction, and it really lives up to the title. Extremely impressive case construction.

(I'd say it's... a little more disjointed than the other two? It's an original cast, with some character dynamics that seem to be either setting up a sequel or pulling from some other canon, and don't really go anywhere vis-a-vis the case, like the magic time-stop stuff or the history with the detective club. It's also one I had to go to the walkthrough well for a little more often than usual, as might be expected from the premise.)

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore

Alright, getting away from AA fancases, here's my take on this one:

...Actually before the take: I'll tell you what it is. It is to the Zelda CD-i games what Bug Fables is to Paper Mario. A thorough style reproduction, featuring jankily-animated hand-drawn cutscenes, awkward voice acting, and uncomfortable comedy that stops just a hair shy of actually being funny (and that's what's funny about it.) They even got like, the original voice actors and stuff. It's a love letter to those games and seems designed from the ground up to be memed on. (In fact, there's a mod called Farcette that is a YTP'd version of the existing game, to complete the circle of life.)

Now the take: it's doing some weird stuff story-wise. It's really hard to tell when the awkwardness is on purpose, because that's like 90% of the art, but... it does feel like it kind of wants you to take Arzette seriously and think she's a cool heroine. And it does some things in service of that which are... strange choices?

The plot is that Arzette is the princess of a generic fantasy kingdom that gets menaced by an evil demon lord every [number with zeroes on the end] years and has to be sealed in a magic book using a magic jewel by the heir of the royal bloodline. Standard stuff. But then it... makes some weird, awkward stabs at subverting that standard stuff with clever plot twists? But they're... not. They kind of come out of nowhere and don't add anything.

First: Arzette's clever subversion of this cycle of demon lord stuff is "instead of sealing him in the magic book, just put the magic in a sword and kill the badguy!" And... like, it's really bending over backwards to frame "hero kills villain with a magic sword" as subversive. Like they made a fake Gordian Knot to make a show of cutting. The vibe is like, those "bad government? kill them" memes, just sort of espousing the idea that nonviolent solutions to problems are for naive libs who're just perpetuating the problem... but with a plot that's way too arch and goofy for that idea to stand up even if I agreed with it.

Second: Right at the very end, like in the last five seconds of the game, when Arzette is about to inherit the kingdom and become queen, she suddenly goes "actually no, we shouldn't have a monarchy. i declare we're a democracy now!" and everybody cheers and that's the end, fade to black. Which... would be perfectly fine, if that had been even slightly a theme beforehand. They didn't really depict the dinner king knockoff guy as bad in any way, and in fact tried to give him a genuinely emotional and bittersweet death scene. If it was trying to be anti-monarchist, it wasn't trying very hard!

That said, all of that is nitpicking. It's a perfectly fine game, doing what it set out to do with a ton of polish. It's fun, managed to get some big laughs out of me (the blacksmith quest is great), and it doesn't outstay its welcome, either- I 100%'d it in under four hours.

Slay the Princess

This one was fun! It's sort of... The Stanley Parable as a visual novel? You have a very simple quest: go into the basement and slay the princess chained up down there, or she'll destroy the world. But the variety of choices you have vis-a-vis the implementation of this straightforward quest gives rise to, like... I kind of don't want to spoil it, but it does some very spooky and effective meta stuff. Figuring out what the deal is with this princess and the narrator (played by the Magnus Archives guy) telling you to kill her is a good time.

I will say I was slightly disappointed by where it ended up? Just like, insofar as what the princess was thematically about seemed to be pushing in one direction, but then at the end it turned around and went in a different, slightly less interesting direction.

It's hard to say how much of that was an artifact of the choices I brought to the game, though- it's a thing that mutates and behaves very differently depending on how you play it. Worth a play!

Fire Emblem Engage

I did a whole big review of this one earlier this year, so here's that. The upshot is: it's mechanically probably the best FE I've played (besides the annoying monastery Somniel stuff), but the story is like, hilariously stupid. But it's stupid in a "wow, this isn't even trying, this is saturday morning cartoon shit" way, and not in an infuriating Fire Emblem Fates "please take us so so seriously as our idiot characters use tropes instead of brains to act out the dumbest tragedy we could think of" way. It's all impossible to take seriously, but it also doesn't care if you're taking it seriously, so it's not offensively bad.

Home Safety Hotline

This one I played primarily because the Game Grumps were so, so egregiously bad at it and I had to prove I could do better.

The premise is: you're a new hire for a help line, and take calls from homeowners having problems with minor pests. You listen to their issues, look up what the causes of those issues are in a database of common home safety risks, and send them dossiers of information. You win by accurately diagnosing their issues.

Also, it's a horror game and the "common home safety risks" include more and more SCP shit as you do well and unlock higher clearance.

It's... fine! It's fun. It works. What they should've done is spook the player with some weird stuff in their room or in the interface, and then later explain what kind of danger you've been in the whole time by unlocking an entry. That could've been scary and interesting! Instead it's only kind of scary and interesting. There's a few solidly fucked-up horrors in that database, and some chills when you identify a caller's problem and it becomes immediately apparently that it's too late for them, but largely you the player are insulated from all this.

(There's a metaplot about the safety corporation you're working for itself being a scary horror monster, but it doesn't really do anything interesting. It just goes "oooooh, your job is a spooky magic cult, aren't you scared of that??" and like. No not really.)

Murders on the Yangtze River

This is a very competently-executed murder mystery game! It has all the standard murder mystery game mechanics. But more interestingly, it's set in turn-of-the-century Qing Dynasty China, which isn't a setting I'd really read anything in before. It's very effective as a period piece, and I learned a lot! It's a little lacking in personality, but it manages to stay gripping regardless. I'd recommend it.

It is also... a weird piece of nationalist propaganda, though. Amusingly so. Explaining how would be spoilers, so here's a link to a separate post. Zero don't click on this until you've played it.

-

Like fifteen more of these to come. I played, uh, too many games this year.

[1] - 2 - [3] - [4]

[caffeinatedattorney]

I just finished watching someone's playthrough of Arkham Shadow.

BRB, gonna throw up from grief.

; _ ; AAAAAAAA. Welcome to Arkham Shadow Brain. You won't stop thinking about Batman and Two Face for a looong time.

The game is so not anything I expected, but there's so much going on! they put so much care into the dynamics between characters and the direction in the acting that it feels so unlike other games in the franchise. A vr game hardly anyone will play bc it's vr 😭😭

It's so up close and personal, by far one of my fav adaptations to date. It's funny after joker 2 and caped crusader where he was announced to be in and hyped up.

I have so many thoughts still I rewrote this several times. Ugh, it's so deliciously tragic! It means so much to see a character with a story like Harvey's receive like, the weight it deserves and be so idk multifaceted? Bruce and Harvey, are so flawed, there's so much going on with them. They're so arrogant, angry and hurt and they want to do something about the world so it never happens again.

-I had a Hc on what their relationship as traumatized and socially stunted kids would be and this is so... much of that.

-I love that Leslie shows up so much here. I know her from btas and seeing her here was so surprising but so fitting. I know she's in the comics and was one of the many supportive figures in Bruce's life so seeing her doing that with Harvey is soo ;_;

-Idk if you heard the tapes but you realize that there's more behind Harvey's accident and how he knew about it and you only find this tape with the conversation in the ship near the end of the game where you found him and have to follow him,,,, ough

-Harvey goes above and beyond believing he's doing you a favor by shooting Joe Chill (it's what he would've done to his dad). Then, you take the cowl off and he thinks you hate him for what he's done and the stuff he said about batman in the tapes among other things. He probably suspected you were batman,,, but couldn't confirm it and he wasn't going to ask.

-Harvey felt he was losing himself from way before the events of the game, but he didn't care that much about himself as a person. It was always about keeping up appearances and having everything under control. His job being more important.

-I think Harvey didn't trust Leslie about his mental health as an adult, much less Bruce. It's like, he's an adult now, hes married, he can fix this city he might as well act like it. Then, he does some dodgy shit, it blows up in his face and he now has to atone for it somehow and still doesn't go to the ppl he trusts. At least, that's how I'd explain Harvey, not Harv, bringing Joe chill into the ship that late and leaving Bruce a message.

-the rooftop scene when he drags you down is harvey saying: "I love you but I hate myself more"

-Also I sort of interpret the ending as Harvey having no hope for himself. I think he's trying to comfort Bruce by saying this isn't the end of him. Kinda like when Bruce hit him, he's hurt and freaking out but he still gives Bruce fighting words bc it's not about harveys well being but having everything under control.

There's likely many ways to see it but I lean towards the least hopeful considering how fucked up he must feel.

Anyways, I'm glad you got to see it! I'm still very much not over it lmao

[crusherthedoctor]

💛 💚

💛: What is a popular ship you just can’t get behind, and why?

Sonamy, predictably. Three decades worth of official material, fanfics, fanart, a month dedicated to it on this site, and I still feel nothing towards it, and in fact have been actively turned off by it for multiple reasons. Including: little consistency among fans over how it would function and thus making it hard to imagine the "true" dynamic, fans often neglecting Sonic's needs and seeing him as little more than a trophy that Amy has earned, official teasing in stuff like Boom and Prime requiring dodgy characterization in order to back it up...

Outside of Sonamy, as hinted at earlier, with me tending to be more interested in rarer Sonic ships, you could say that very few popular examples do it for me, with Sonaze being the only mainstream exception that comes to mind. Sonadow? Meh. Shadamy? Meh. Silvaze? Meh. Is it an oversaturation response? Is it because a lot of the time, they tend to use their pre-established popularity as a shortcut for not having to put effort into their actual chemistry together? Who knows.

Whispangle is particularly tragic, because in an alternate timeline, I think I could have enjoyed it. With what Tangle and Whisper were apparently set up to be as individuals, I think it could have been cute and perhaps even comforting in the right hands. But of course, like Starline's self-destructive simping for Eggman, the comic had other ideas, and so we're left with rampant flanderization and conjoined twins who ended up being more toxic together than the writers probably realised, not helped by them also having Lanolin the Sally alongside them.

Shame.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favourite character?

I've already explained why Eggman being less evil than other Sonic villains is James Somerton levels of delusional, but it goes beyond that.

"Eggman is a family man" Nope, robots he built don't count. Excluding temporary allies and certain simps, he is very much a lone wolf compared to someone like Bowser, with even his thoughts on the late Gerald largely stemming from a selfish lens of the latter's genius making himself look good by association. Given his ego, he also probably wouldn't be interested in having a heir to his throne, because it's HIS empire, and ONLY his: he would just find a means to immortality instead.

"Eggman can't plan" If that were true, 95% of the game plots would never have happened. Using this to handwave shitty writing in a comic whose premise leaped off of Forces, a game where Eggman is constantly planning, is Mr. Fantastic levels of reaching. The intro cutscene for Unleashed, a moment that I'm pretty sure fans fondly reminisce over to this day, had a setup that specifically relied on the idea that Eggman can plan. If you're going to claim he can't plan because he makes some mistakes and ultimately loses to his nemesis, then you might as well claim that all video game villains can't plan... including other villains in this very franchise.

"Eggman is cowardly" My man is so hands-on that he's the sole boss of half the games. He also made a beeline towards the Time Eater mere seconds after it appeared in front of him without warning.

"Eggman is physically inept" He punched a wall of ice.

[gummydummy19]

Month one (May): moving into 6B

Summary: You find an ad for your dream apartment and decide to give it a go. Apartment 6B is everything you've ever wanted: high ceilings, an open floorplan, and a 6ft4 grumpy army captain...

Warnings: none, grumpy Sy?

A/N: Im so super duper excited about this!!!! I hope you guys enjoy it and please feel free to leave feedback anytime :) Some of these chapters might be regular fic length while others are gonna be just drabbles. If anyone has a request for this AU please let me know and I'll see what I can do :)) <3

this is part one to my series called: A year in apartment 6B

The Sunday paper was sprawled across your coffee table. You had a deep wrinkle plastered on your forehead and a red marker between your teeth as you furiously browsed through the apartment listings. You had been at this all morning. And nothing. You were about to give up, but then another listing caught your eye.

'Looking for a roommate/ apartment 2 bed 1 bath.'

The pictures of the place looked cute. It was close to your job and the rent wasn't too bad, so you called the number.

"Hello?' A deep grumpy voice answered the phone

'H-hi!' you chirped, a little taken aback, 'I'm calling for the apartment, the one from the paper? Do you still need a roommate?...'

'I do.' He stated dryly.

'Great! Could I come over and take a look maybe? I'm free this afternoon, Maybe I could stop by at around 3 or something? I don't know if that works for you but maybe I c-'

'Three works.' He interrupted before hanging up the phone.

Jeez, what a dick.

If the apartment hadn't been so perfect you wouldn't even have gone, but as you looked at the pictures again you decided to risk it just for the kitchen island alone.

You knocked on the door a little uncertain. The realization that you were gonna have to share this beautiful place with that asshole from the phone suddenly settled in your gut and you were beginning to question if it was worth it.

When the door opened your mouth actually fell open a little. You were greeted with a tall, broadly-shouldered man. He looked very... masculine? As much as you hated that description, it seemed to be the only accurate one on your mind.

'Hi, come in.' he welcomed you dryly, taking a step aside to let you in.

He was wearing dark-washed jeans and a dusty old shirt. His beard was on the verge of needing a slight trim and he was sporting a buzzcut. He was very handsome actually. Shame that his attitude hadn't gone anywhere.

'Thanks...' you replied as you stepped passed him and immediately laid your eyes on that gorgeous kitchen.

'Wow, this place is even more perfect than the pictures...' you sighed

He gave you a little tour of the place, barely uttering a word at you. You couldn't tell what he was thinking and you didn't like that, but you were too distracted by the apartment.

You got to where your bedroom would be. The room was not too big, but big enough for you. You assumed he had the master bedroom. You also assumed that would not be part of the tour.

The bedroom you were looking at was empty, aside from some boxes filled with junk and an unmade bed with a dodgy-looking mattress. It was clear this room hadn't been occupied before.

'I moved in a couple months ago, just been using it as storage. You can do with it what you want of course,' he explained. 'You got your own stuff?' He looked down at you. You were both standing by the doorframe and since Sy took up most of the space, you were almost squished against him trying to peek in.

For some reason, you felt so intimidated by his stare. You slithered by him and walked around the room a little, not that there was a lot more to see, but you simply couldn't handle standing so close to him anymore.

'Yeah Yeah I do, my friend's dad works for a moving company, I can ask him if he can take the bed when he brings my stuff up?' You suggested, earning a slight nod and what you took as an agreeing grumble.

'So you'll take it then?' he questioned

'Uh yeah, yes, sir? If you let me?' Christ, why did he make you so damn nervous? And why did you just call him sir?!

You swear you saw something close to amusement flash through his eyes.

'Right.' He responded, 'There is something else I wanted to fill you in on.'

You walked back to the door and followed him as he made his way back to the kitchen.

'I'm leaving for a six-month tour soon, so I won't be home much.'

tour?

'You in a band or something?' you half joked

'I'm in the army.'

Idiot. Absolute fucking idiot.

'Right...sorry' You wished the floor would swallow you whole. 'So when do you leave?

'in 9 days.'

'Oh wow, that is soon.'

"Don't worry about the rent, I'll continue to pay half. I didn't wanna lose this place but It seemed kinda dumb to pay full rent on a place I won't be living in for six months", he explained

Sy turned around and rummaged through a kitchen drawer.

'Feel free to make yourself at home just water the plants and don't touch my stuff.' He said as he turned around and handed you your key.

'Yes, sir.'

Really? Again with this?

A couple days later, you moved in. Living with Sy wasn't much different from living alone. The two of you had dinner together a few times. Well 'together' meaning 'sitting on the same couch and not talking'.

Sy would have some sports game on as he took big bites from his mac and cheese while you took considerably smaller bites from yours and read a romance novel cheesier than your pasta.

You were mostly at work during the day and when you came home you'd go straight to your room to finish unboxing your stuff. Ironic actually, how you were busy unpacking while Sy was busy doing the opposite.

'Is that all?' you asked, staring at his bag. 'Are you sure you have everything? You're going for 6 months right?'

Sy gave you an unamused look.

'It's an army tour, not a girl scout camp.'

'I'll have you know I never took more than one pink trolly to girl scout camp.' You stated proudly, earning another barely amused look from the big grump.

'I guess I'll see you in six months then.' You said, not really knowing how to act. You stared at Sy in his army uniform. He looked good. Strong. Masculin.

Ugh, that word again.

You needed to stop drooling over him. You still hadn't even really figured out if you even liked him. Well, parts of you certainly liked him...

ENOUGH, BRAIN. STOP.

You felt the urge to hug him but opted against it.

'Please don't burn the place down.' He said as he opened the front door

'I'll try.' you grinned.

Sy gave you another one of his unamused looks, which you were starting to think were secretly very amused looks. He picked up his back and opened the door.

'Hey Sy?' you halted him 'Be uh...be careful and stuff.'

For the first time since you met him two weeks ago, you saw his lips curl up a tiny bit.

It was quite unsettling.

'I don't wanna get stuck here paying rent alone.' You added

''Alright, princess, sure thing.'

and with that, he left, leaving you there in your new apartment, silent, alone, and a little...aroused?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: EEEEPPP THATS IT YOU GUYS THE TONE IS SET. I HAVE SOOO MUCH PLANNED FOR THESE TWO YOU HAVE NO IDEA LMAO!! Please feel free to leave some feedback, likes and reblogs are always much appreciated <3

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@eclecticpatrolroadlawyer

@tfandtws

@vicmc624

@ahahafudge

@enchantedbarnes

@wickedravyn

@pono-pura-vida

@amayaraestyles

@matchat3a

@fictional-hooman

@sebastianexplicit

@peaches1958

@avengersfan25

@jamneuromain

@missgaygurl

[anarchic-miscellany]

Reading "One Piece" for the first time: Part 15

It's been a while so I was worried that my dodgy bootleg site keeping this thing going was going to be offline, but here we are.

I hope that the art gets better soon, it's a very... distinct style.

Anyway!

Our Idiot and Giga Chad are doing... something? The king/villain of this arc is kind of weak and kind of lame, but I enjoy the snow and the magical fun times Winter Wonderland Castle! The little old lady crone doctor (Deny. Defend. Depose) is revealing some depths, I guess? And the reindeer seems to be the next big character of this arc/crew: honestly guys, not too sold. I mean, I didn't see it coming, in the same way that I wouldn't have seen a sentient cube made of bees coming, but from what I gather this guy's a main character. So... first thoughts aren't great? I mean, he's more likable than the Idiot (massive fucking overpowered dullard with the IQ of a bucket that he is), but I was unmoved by his sad backstory about a doctor on a mountain? I don't know, I'm just a cynical bastard like that and the hype has never lived up to it. That's it? The Blue Nosed Reindeer ate a human fruit (fucking Axe Cop had better writing than this) and wants to cure disease, but then his mentor the crone sold him to (Deny. Defend. Depose) ate a mushroom and exploded? And now the Idiot heard that story and defends his flag because nobody forms immediate life or death attachments to inanimate objects and strangers he just met QUITE like Doofus Q. Dullard.

But then the villain turned into a fucking gingerbread house, and that was fucking amazing? Every time I think I build a tolerance to this author's bullshit, he pulls more out of the bag.

Whilst the crowd are gathering their torches and sharpening their forks (I gather that Blue Nose Reindeer is a popular character in the fandom. I prefer Chopper Reed or Barry the Chopper thus far, but we shall see) I will say I liked Cartographer With a Brain Cell being nice as she recovered in the castle, and appreciated very much that our companion of the week was Giga Chad: that guy is excellent, and I am happy to finally have them bench the Himbo and his Seventeen Fucking Swords, or whatever. I am forever grateful, also, that we don't cut back to the ship much, because we would probably see him arranging them in a circle for a tea party or something. Sad we didn't get more of Meme in Progress, but I liked his efforts to carry a dude (even if they were immediately shot down by The Himbo... Cut this guy a break, Shonen Edgelord Himbo Shitbag) and that the whole thing ended on a Christmas joke.

Mixed thoughts on the series so far: meh on the Blue Nosed Reindeer (I'll come up with a better nickname for him in time) and that whole shebang, but I liked the Christmas island, if not the mixed messages and perfunctory "guess we have to fight a house now" fight, but appreciate that it's par for the course in Shonen stuff, even if I was just counting the pages until The Idiot let off yet more super attacks. Seven Phases of Reindeer, however, sounds like a great L'Arc-en-Ciel album title, as well as something they should tell the Giga Chad about more: can you imagine the succulent, delicious phases of reindeer meat he could cook from 7 phases?!

Appreciate the shadowy "Baroque" villain head revealing the existance of 7 "Pirate Lords". Nice to have some actual villains hinted at, and talked about for the future, even if I am going to be underwhelmed if these are the fights on display and nothing will stop this bimbling fuckhead of a protagonist, who is starting to grate upon me. I hope that Giga Chad gets to eat a crocodile though, that would be amazing. As for who the next in the crew could be? I'm still holding out hope for a Merman or a Vampire. Also, can we have some women in the crew? It's a bit of a sausage fest. Honestly I was more interested in the grouchy old crone lady (Deny. Defend. Depose) and hoping she would join. But it's early days for Blue Nosed Reindeer, he could grow on me.

(Side note: I just spilt a cup of tea all over my desk, so maybe the universe is already damning me for not gnoshing on the Reindeer's Cock upon meeting him and his backstory)

[stupidlittlespirit]

hiii! do you have headcanons for Caryn?

Hey!

I think she was a grade A girlboss who never did anything wrong!

LMAO just kidding. She (in my mind) is a complicated character who had a lot of her own issues. Everything under here is my own interpretation of her because we don't get much information in canon but I kind of built a profile of her in my head based on personal experiences that line up with how Stan and Ford turn out.

I think she was probably quite a neglectful mother, but not always on purpose. I have no doubt she loved both Stan and Ford but I think she was probably emotionally distant in a lot of different ways. Maybe she 'had' to be; engaging emotionally when you're trapped in an abusive relationship is not something that some people feel they can do because it's painful to feel so helpless, so they detach.

In canon, they mention that she calls Stanley 'her free spirit' and it's clear she has quite a lot of affection for him. Although she held affection for him, she was also stated to be a liar and it's implied that Stan takes more after her than his father, so I imagine her to be quite hot/cold and to struggle with expressing that affection all the time.

I think she felt bad for Stan. She felt guilty for how Filbrick treated him but she was powerless to stop it. I imagine that she tried to protect him from Filbrick a lot but obviously, I don't doubt that she probably suffered her own abuse so couldn't shield him completely. So although she was more inclined to show Stanley affection where Ford was receiving recognition, she wouldn't have been able to stop Stan from getting kicked out or anything. Same as Ford.

She's 100% where Stan leaned his dodgy tricks from. I picture her stealing and cheating a lot both in business and just for fun, and as I mentioned, I think Stan picked up way more of her traits than he did his father's. (I do also think Ford learnt from her like that, and I think he used those skills to survive in the portal!) I can see her teaching Stan how to count cards and roll cigarettes at a young age. My mum had a wheeler dealer uncle who would sit her on his lap and have her roll him ciggies non stop while he showed her the best way to steal stuff from lorries LMAO and he later taught me how to steal stuff too. I can see Caryn being like that with Stan.

In the limited scenes we get of her, she comes across as quite hot tempered and manipulative. Again, that matches Stan and Ford. I don't thin she was mean to either of them, but I think she would have had a tendency to put what she wanted before them.

I think she was one of the rare figures who actually loved and cared about Ford beyond what he could 'offer'. She would have maybe come across to Ford as being more openly affectionate with Stan, but I think that's a compensation thing; she shows Stan more outright affection because Filbrick is meaner to him in more obvious ways than he is to Ford, so she tries to balance that out. But I think she loved both of them equally.

That being said, I always wondered why she never checked on Ford. He went stir crazy up in Gravity Falls on his own and it's never mentioned that he stays in contact with anyone. This could just be a plot hole for the show, which is fine, and Ford could have been pushing himself so hard that he just never felt that he could take the time off, but I think it's weird that he never mentions (iirc) talking to her on the phone or anything. So maybe that falls in line with the neglectful aspect of her personality, for me.

However, I do think she kept in contact with Stan on the sly. Obviously, he had no fixed abode and mobile phones weren't a thing, but I expect she stayed living in the same house until her death and so I like to think that Stan maybe sent her letters to make sure she was okay, and maybe he even risked calling the house at times he thought his dad might be out of earshot, at work or whatever. Even if she never wrote back because Stan had no way of knowing if he'd still be in the same location during that time, I still like to think they'd have communicated somehow.

[thehoodedsweater]

Due to popular demand, here are some of my personal Ghostbusters headcanons! Using the prompts that I had from my original posts lol. Most of these talk about Ray and Peter, but I’ll eventually talk about the other guys too :)

just a reminder that these are MY OWN personal headcanons, and if you don’t like them then you’re free to ignore them and move on. If you use my headcanons, please credit me! Also, if I get anything wrong about mental health here, please let me know so I can fix it! I’m still in progress of getting an official diagnosis for myself, so if I get the symptoms of depression and anxiety wrong, tell me! I do not want to accidentally stereotype, and/or misinterpret mental health.

Family-

Peter’s family is of confusing origin. His father, Jim Venkman (yes I’m using the canon name, but perhaps one of Peter’s relatives was named Charlie, and thats why Peter has the middle name Charles) was born in America by parents of mostly unknown origin, and his mother is Italian. (I gave her the name Beatrice, with her former last name being Lorenzo. If you use it please credit me) She moved to the Americas and eventually met Jim. The two inevitably fell in love and had a kid, Peter. Unfortunately Beatrice died when he was young, causing Jim to be distant, throwing himself into work. It is unknown whether or not Peter has any other relatives out there- in some of my writing it’s implied he has a sister, and maybe another relative..? But that’s for another time- but his family situation definitely influenced the way his personality is, being dodgy with personal questions and being a bit of a little shit to mask the loneliness that still lingers in his heart from being ignored so much. I’d imagine Ray not talking about his family or childhood memories too much, but when he does, it’s usually standard stuff. Roasting marshmallows at summer camp, learning to ride a bike, the typical happy childhood. This leads most to assume that he had a pretty good childhood. The truth is, the memories he share aren’t really painting the full picture. He was happy as a young kid, yes. But it’s mostly because he was simply blind to the truth when he was little. In my headcanon, his mother wasn’t the greatest person in the world. Perhaps even cheated on his father. The family was lower income, [I’d imagine the only reason Ray got into Columbia university was pure chance, a science fair or some other scholarship that got him off the ground and to a better school but idk yet.] and his mother just used it irresponsibly. Was it gambling? Was it alcohol? Nobody knows. But he had no clue. To his child self, he didn’t seem to understand why his mom constantly ignored him and his [possible] siblings. His father, like Peter’s, worked a lot to pick up the pieces and inevitably divorced his wife- and for good reason. Now as an adult, he’s trying to make up for the years of love lost, which is why he’s so close and affectionate with a lot of his friends. He wants to give them what he was missing, even if he constantly denies it.

Curse-

This is more of a metaphorical sense, but in a planned comic there IS an actual curse that sticks around in the Venkman family, which causes problems. (If you wanna know, please ask :D)

The Venkman family has an issue with keeping the ones they love around, whether that be romantic or platonic. Somehow people keep disappearing and/or leaving them, and it usually results in putting up walls and ignoring the ones who really do love them, out of fear of being hurt. The Stantz family usually has a pattern of mental health issues being passed down. Ray’s mother was most likely depressed, leading to her ignoring him a ton. (This isn’t saying that her depression is the thing that made her a horrible person. What made her a horrible person was the cheating, lying, and misuse of money that was meant to go into feeding her family. Her mental health isn’t what made her horrible. It was her actions. She used her depression as more of a shield to shift the blame.) Ray most likely has depression and/or anxiety too- implied in some of his dialogue in the starting cutscene of spirits unleashed. (The dialogue saying that some days he couldn’t find the motivation to get out of bed in the morning, wondering why it was worth it to try.) He most likely feared becoming a parent, worrying that his own mental health will be tanked and he’ll ignore the poor child, just like his mother did with him. He puts on a happy face for the public and his friends, always acting energetic and happy, but the scars still linger, which is possibly why he smoked a lot. Stress relief.

Parallels-

You probably caught on already, but both Peter and Ray have HEAVY parallels here. They were both Mama’s boys growing up. Both were quite young when their mother figures disappeared on them- figuratively or literally- and their fathers were distant. Their personalities came from defense mechanisms, trying to either make up for the years lost or protect themselves from further heartbreak and harm. They stick with their friends because they don’t know where else to go, because there’s always a lingering fear of judgement. The fear of commitment, the uncertainty of having a kid but being super protective of any child in danger, like Oscar.

The two bonded over this. It’s how they first met. They sought each other out. It’s also how they probably met Egon too. Another man damaged by his childhood, just attempting to be normal in this world.

And of course, when their mental health finally starts getting better- when things are looking brighter for all of them…

Egon leaves.

(Bro this is incredibly depressing wtffffff- please feel free to add on and/or analyze my yapping, and I hope y’all enjoyed my first official personal headcanon post!!)

[loonybun]

ok screw it oc introduction be upon ye

hi guys this is Rosé!!! I do have an in depth thing regarding his relationship with Adonis (another character of mine) and his whole transformation on my other blog so if you’d like to read that in more detail it’s right here.

CONTAINS: Cults/religion/sacrilege (evangelical nature), religious trauma and guilt, shunning, old timey homophobia and religion-based intersexphobia, historic stuff and some fun facts about the 1920’s, verbal abuse, manipulation, coercion, power dynamic (god and mortal), a really shitty partner and a shitter relationship, body horror, chronic illness, attempted suicide (multiple times multiple methods including overdose), rot and decay of the body, and love potions but for all the wrong reasons.

Rosé, formerly known as Roe Labat, was born in 1898 and raised in an evangelical cult. Ironically enough this has actually nothing to do with the wings and whatnot. That’ll come later. Being both intersex and albino, he was never truly accepted by the people around him. Some were kinder than others, sure, but it was all out of pity. In their eyes, he was already damned to an eternity in hell for the simple sin of existing.

He was a very docile and quiet child, rarely ever stepping out of line regardless of circumstances. He lived inside of the church, as his parents didn’t want responsibility of him. From an early age Roe understood that he was not something worthy of love, as even God had forsaken him. He was cared for out of obligation rather than actual genuine love, having religion almost constantly drilled into him.

When he was 18 (1916), he ran away from the cult’s village. He figured that he’d never make anything out of himself within it, and never be able to prove himself. Roe was also sick of being a burden. He had never been able to make friends due to the constant ostracism, and even though the people he was around changed to be a lot more open-minded, this remained a constant throughout his life. He started living in New Orleans and often frequented various parades and bars. Also he learned that he was queer and that messed him up for a bit. Despite being forsaken, he still tried his best to be a good follower given his circumstances, but the more he learned about the world around him, the looser his faith became.

Roe took an eventual interest in the “pansy performers” (drag queens in the 1920’s), though felt a lot of guilt and shame regarding considering the concept as a career. The more he thought about it though, he realized he didn’t have much else to lose.

He was a natural performer, able to say and do just the right things in just the right ways to provoke a positive reaction from the audience. Considering the more niche community at the time, he never really drew in big crowds, but what he had was enough for him to live off of in a nice 3 room apartment. He was able to afford relatively nice clothes for his performances when they weren’t provided, and quickly became skilled at makeup and wig styling. He also began dying his hair (yes hair dye was a thing in the 1920’s) and using mascara and heavier makeup in order to conceal his albinism, just because it drew some unwanted attention here and there. While he rarely encountered any trouble with the law, he had a few close calls given what he was doing was pretty illegal at the time. homophobia am i right…

Around when he was 24-25, he met “Don”, who claimed to be a cab driver, yet was almost always dressed to the nines in stylish and at times anachronistic clothing. They hit it off very quickly, relating over the strange feeling of being isolated from their peers. They started going out together soon after. It was Roe’s first real relationship, especially with another man, so to say he was a bit nervous would be putting it lightly. Regardless, Don was always very kind to him and patient with him. He was a bit suspicious of Don though since he was always very dodgy about his home life and really any personal details, however he just assumed they came from similar situations. Roe did theorize where his money was coming from and thought him to either be a bootlegger or a member of the mafia, though he never brought it up because in full honesty he didn’t care too much. He was already head over heels and a little illegal activity wouldn’t stop that.

The last thing he was expecting was Don— or rather, Adonis, to claim he was actually a god. And really really wasn’t supposed to be talking with Roe but just couldn’t help himself. Roe was shocked to say the least, and a little incredulous, but Adonis was very quickly able to prove he was telling the truth. Roe, despite having his entire worldview and years of his life shattered by this one man, decided to try and make things work between them. And it did, for a while. The gaps in Adonis’s visits made more sense now, since he couldn’t be away for too long without the other gods getting suspicious. And it was nice to not have secrets. Roe was able to open up to him about his childhood as well, and Adonis provided sympathy for him.

But good things can’t last forever. As time passed, their relationship grew progressively worse. Adonis got upset over increasingly small things, and while Roe understood his perspective and tried to accommodate him, it didn’t mean he was exactly pleased about it. Adonis began to grow concerned over the prospect of something happening to Roe. After all, he was mortal. Frail. Weak.

His solution to this? Well, get rid of the mortality. Roe wasn’t exactly on board with the idea, considering he quite enjoyed being able to perform and live in the city, and accepting Adonis’s offer would make that nearly impossible. Adonis was persistent though, bringing up the idea at any time despite how many times Roe tried to gently shoot it down. Roe eventually grew tired of this cycle and hesitantly accepted. Adonis claimed that this would make things easier— They could see each other more often, they wouldn’t have to hide, the chances of his whole relationship with a mortal being found out by the one person who could end his existence from breaking the rules moved close to 0, no real drawbacks! for him.

this is where the stuff in the post i mentioned earlier comes in. if you’ve already read it, yeah it gets bad. if you haven’t, here’s the brief explanation.

given the fact that mortal bodies aren’t exactly capable of handling literal godly essence, Roe’s body began to decay and break down. At first, it mimicked some sort of disease. His skin became dry and flaky, and his body felt oddly hot and uncomfortable. Painful sensations overtook his body and became almost constant. By the time things started melting and his organs began to fail, he already knew it was too late to reverse any of this. Any hope of continuing his career or life normally vanished completely. Adonis, however, was very happy about this new development! It had worked! yippee! so so much fun. Of course, he obviously remained as sympathetic towards Roe as possible, regardless of any underlying excitement.

Roe became agitated and frustrated because of the amount of pain he was in and how much he had lost. He wasn’t able to leave the house anymore. He began to snap and lash out at Adonis, picking a fight or making a snide remark whenever possible. Adonis hadn’t exactly seen this coming, but he still kept trying to de-escalate things, often in the form of telling Roe that he was acting unreasonable or hysterical (smart move!). Despite all of this, they stayed in their relationship. Roe was too terrified to be alone, knowing that whatever was happening to him would completely destroy any semblance of respect people had for him, and Don because he wanted to see it through.

Their fights got worse until Adonis finally snapped back, calling Roe an “ungrateful cunt” for not appreciating the love and support he’d oh so generously provided. He made it clear to Roe that nobody would recognize him as human anymore. Nobody would love or care about him. He’d be a freak to anyone other than him, so he’d better stop complaining or he’d lose him too.

This got through to Roe, and he stopped shouting. In fact, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. It hurt too much to speak, to move, to breathe. Every step was agony. His body had contorted beyond recognition. Was it even worth it to continue like this? Would this be what the rest of his existence was like? Did he really want to live if it meant being in constant, unbearable agony?

Even if the answer was no, he hardly had much of a choice. He tried more humane methods at first. Overdose, drowning in the bathtub, smashing his head against the wall— Nothing worked. He was still alive. He was still alive. Why was he still alive? Was he alive? Was this what it meant to live?

He got more desperate. Stabbing at his stomach, burning his flesh, only it would only leave little splotchy marks that quickly faded. Or so he thought.

The area around the wound he’d made on his stomach began to rot, eating away at any organs or skin or muscle in its path. Eventually, his entire torso from the bottom of his spine to the top of his pelvis was gone save for his spine and a few bits of spare viscera.

When Adonis returned, he wasn’t happy to see what Roe had tried to do. He became incredibly upset with him for trying to leave the relationship in the only way he possibly could. Still, as long as Roe promised to stop, he’d forgive him. Roe obliged.

The fact that Roe wouldn’t talk to him became a source of frustration for Adonis. It felt intentional, spiteful. And it hurt. Every single question was met with a dulled response, as if he barely heard him. As if he hardly cared. It became a bit like spending time with a rock when he stopped responding all together. No matter what Adonis tried, he couldn’t seem to get Roe to react. It was at that point he realized that both physically and mentally, the person he’d fallen for was gone. Far, far deep down, he knew it was his fault. But still, there was hardly any point in staying. Roe would probably rot there forever, and what good would it do to watch over that?

And so he left. Roe realized that it was permanent maybe only a week or so later. Initially, he blamed himself. If he had put in a little more effort, he could have tried to respond, but the pain was too much to bear… The pain— The pain that had begun to fade now. Maybe a month after Adonis left, Roe began to regain his mobility, his strength, and while he was still in pain, it was no longer unbearable. It seemed more like a dull nagging now. The fog that the loneliness and agony had inflicted upon him began to lift as well, and all of that guilt quickly shifted and simmered into pure hatred.

Hatred that the new immortal would begin to inflict upon the world and the ones surrounding it. That would continue to build for years with only the set goal of revenge against the man that had wronged him. And while it cooled over time into a tepid resentment, it never truly faded. He was able to continue with life, though hardly on the same plane, confining himself to a dimension that only certain desperate souls could access. Souls desperate to save their relationships, souls desperate to have their so-called beloveds fall for them, wretched, vile souls. And he’d help them regardless. After all, what’s a worse offense to a love god than bastardizing the craft? Who cares if a few… Hundred lives get ruined? It’s fun to watch. It’s not his turn to suffer anymore. And he won’t be made a victim again.

ANYWAYS more extra info i DONT think i put on the other post but dont rlly wanna check:

Adonis is the god of Lust, Beauty, and Vanity

Roe took on his stage name Rosé after his transformation to distance himself from his past

Rosé has been collecting magic. For what purpose? Let’s not worry about that.

Rosé has the abilities to siphon magic and the life force from people. He doesn’t do this often unless something catches his eye that he wants to harness. It does mean he’s incredibly powerful though.

Rosé’s main abilities he gained directly from Adonis’s essence or whatever include being able to alter the emotions of others (he can force people to think certain ways and even do certain things), pocket dimension stuff, and object conjuring.

Rosé has a lot of side hobbies but his favorite is cooking. He really likes savory dishes, but he also likes sweet things.

Rosé is able to travel between different dimensions and such, and only exists as a “god” in (this) one.

Rosé has built up a reputation among a lot of magical creatures. None of them are quite sure what he is or how he seems to defy certain laws of existence but most see him as a relatively trustworthy supplier for love potions.

Every so often Rosé gets bored and chooses to single people out to mess with. Maybe he should stop doing that.

Rosé is VERY prone to breakdowns, and while he’s mostly able to stay professional, if someone’s around him for a prolonged period of time and something causes him to spiral he regresses into an incredibly different and much more desperate person.

Rosé (name aside) considers himself a liquor connoisseur (RED FLA) and does collect rare alcohols. he does have a tendency to drink heavily but considering his body can’t really process food or drinks it sort of just magically disappears. he is a talkative and very mopey drunk though. like will start full on venting about his life story.

He’s friends with Aisling!!! Friends is a very strong word!!!! Maybe the wrong word!!! But they they hang out sometimes and Aisling seems to enjoy his company a lot even if he can’t really understand why he keeps coming back if not out of fear or trying to use him so he keeps his distance. Aisling is honestly just worried about him and has sort of been able to slowly break down that Rosé maybe isn’t as absolutely terrifying as he first thought and is indeed just very. very lonely and maybe even a bit pathetic

[blueikeproductions]

More CyberWorld/EarthSpark stuff that stuck out to me.

Another page in the planning document cropped up, & it gives a general overview of what Hasbro had in mind at the time.

Two new shows are planned to come out, but this page confusingly doesn’t mention CyberWorld, just an “animated kids series” & an “animated pre-K series”.

The other pages still reference CyberWorld, so mostly going by what we’ve seen, CyberWorld is meant to be the kids series, but it’s a big question mark on the pre-k show. Rescue Bots ran its course, I got the feeling lil’ kids weren’t interested in RBA since it didn’t last as long, stories were both too preschool but also trying to tack on IDW centric ideas by forcing Laserbeak to be forgiven and becoming an Autobot, for reasons. Stuff that’s not interesting to lil’ kids or their parents.

When RBA ended, a new toyline took over but I don’t think it sold super well, nor did it have any fiction.

As well as only including Optimus Primal & BW Megatron Gator…? It was a random line, and clearly just filler to eke out RB style toys longer. I don’t see the new Pre-K show being this, but CHT did sell Decepticons as enemy characters unlike RB/A, so the Pre-K show might be based on the Great War this time? Or at the very least, stuff like the Decepticons robbing banks and power plants, lol. Or some gag about Soundwave illegally downloading music, only to be put in his place, but with a contradictory gag about the human kids and Bumblebee doing the same from time to time.

It’s pry too late to ape it now, but a modern pre-K show I could see being Spidey & His Amazing Friends tonally with toys similar to Paw Patrol’s. Like say you have the standard Optimus toy partnered with Spike (Skybound or G1 doesn’t matter), and the trailer transforms into a big jet for Optimus and Spike to ride in. Something like that.

As for CyberWorld.

The current assumption based on the toys, is it might be a return to vehicles vs animals that both RiDs, Beast Machines, Beast Wars II and ROTB (kinda) did.

The Decepticons seemingly being animal themed supports this (plus if Meg Bull IS Megatron, Megs trying to push off road Optimus off a cliff in bull mode is hilarious), though Galvatron is the odd one. The only one with a beast form is the BWII version…

Hasbro might be more open to Beast Wars again but they’re still a bit dodgy about the Japanese cast despite Lio Convoy and Magmatron. I could sooner see a G1 Galvatron than BWII Galvatron, but the fun approach would be an Armada Galvatron inspired design that borrows from G1, Energon & BWII.

Toy speculation suggests the line might be a repaint line like the old TF Universe series made up of Cyberverse, RiD15 and EarthSpark molds.

A possibility. Cited speculative examples of Sky-Byte being his Cyberverse toy, Chomp & Stomp Grimlock being another go at the AoE toy of the same name, & Mirage being RiD15 Blurr make sense, but I dunno. Scorponok and Galvatron stick out, as I would think they’d have to be new molds, though an argument can be made for a G1 colored version of RiD15 Scorponok… Similarly, they might repaint TFP Predaking into Galvatron if he’s a repaint and they wanted to homage BWII, but I’m leaning towards new molds for now.

CyberWorld ISN’T a cartoon, but a toy only subline or size class meant to replace the abandoned Core/Legion class.

Inconclusive. The tiny toys don’t seem to sell well as it is, Legacy just stopped being restocked my way so no BM Cheetor or Energon Megatron for me. Also guys like Iguanus shelfwarmed HARD. Rungs were still clogging Ollies until recently. CyberWorld is also shown to be the successor to ES in most of the documents that we can tell.

The CyberWorld cartoon will have a half of a half shoe string budget like Cyberverse and possibly be similar to it.

Inconclusive but not out of the realm of possibility either. Hasbro has been having its own problems lately, while Paramount is practically on fire right now. A lot of people mostly just seem to be clinging to how similar World & Verse sound, with the logo also looking slightly similar but still different enough. A lot more people also seem resistant to the idea of more Cyberverse either way. CV didn’t perform well either, the toys clogged store shelves from start to finish, heck the first wave went on clearance immediately after Christmas, and the series JUST came out, the messy, lackadaisical approach to the show’s (lack of) story, the bad voice acting, etc. It’s not a fondly remembered show as much as some make it out to be. And even then, you’d sort of expect, if it was directly related, Hasbro would shove Bumblebee front & center, despite the CV cartoon wanting little to do with Bee as it went on. Like let’s be real, if it was a CV sequel, Bee, Windy & Shadow should be here right out the gate. They’re not. At all. Windy is practically benched in favor of Elita now.

Mirage is the focus (seemingly) instead, presumably due to the ROTB version’s popularity. He’s certainly more fun than the rich snob that may or may not be a traitor the G1 version tends to be. Not that you can’t make the G1 version interesting but boy has Hasbro not really had any interest in doing so beyond his invisibility gimmick.

So really until told otherwise we know very little. All we know for sure is EarthSpark is being slowly phased out in favor of CyberWorld & a potential Pre-K show. The Slag Podcast host has given a knowing wink, and has a show planned that will presumably lay these Snaketicons out straight, as people have been calling him a lying liar again for sticking to what he knows. Similarly some have pointed out Nick Roche may have also been lying, giving false hope EarthSpark is continuing on when it’s pretty clear it isn’t. S2 is it people, one way or the other, and the new CyberWorld order is coming whatever it ends up being.

[natequarter]

my assessment of the series of classic who i've just watched, because i'm bored:

season 7: probably my favourite, actually! favourite serial was inferno. i genuinely don't have a least favourite serial. my only serious complaints are that 1) all of the seven-parters could've done with being maybe one episode shorter, 2) liz doesn't have an exit, and 3) liz is a fairly strong-minded character, but when she does bring up feminism or otherwise try to go out and do stuff, every single man around her patronises her immensely. but those first two are relatively superficial. three, liz and the brigadier work together wonderfully as a team, and all of the storylines are engaging - malcolm hulke and his handling of non-human sapient species, notably the silurians, are always a delight. 9/10

season 8: ah, the master. how could you not enjoy season 8? favourite serial was the daemons. least favourite serial was the claws of axos. the horrendously racist subplot in terror of the autons is weirdly mismatched with the subplot concerning the chinese ambassadors in the mind of evil. the series has a handful of dodgy or outright racist plot elements - constructs of savagery and terra nullius, to name just a few - but it also introduces three very engaging characters (the master, jo, and yates), continues season 7's effective character work with the doctor and the brigadier, and features some very good villains. jo is simply an angel, and she shines no matter the serial. perhaps fittingly, 8/10

season 9: enjoyable, but nowhere near the peak of pertwee's era. favourite serial was the time monster. least favourite serial was the mutants. jo is an exceptional character by classic who standards in that i can't think of any serial which seriously mangles her characterisation. the mutants was still a waste of three hours of my life, though. as with the last two series, it's beautifully political - this is one of the highlights of the pertwee era, how overtly political (and depressingly relevant) it is. it rarely feels forced (forced, unsubtle, and blatant are three different things), and even the worst of its serials at least manages to get some sort of overt and unsubtle leftist message in there. it even managed the best dalek story of the pertwee era, not that that's saying much. 7/10

season 10: very solid all round. favourite serial was the green death. least favourite serial was planet of the daleks. it's hard to pick a favourite here! jo continues to shine, malcolm hulke continues his fascination with fascism, the cold war, and reptiles, the writing is still ridiculously blatant in its political messaging. even planet of the daleks manages some fun worldbuilding, though the actual plot is crap, and the three doctors is just plain fun, from benton just accepting the tardis and the doctor's science-defying weirdness to the brigadier being unable to conceive of anything more distant and strange than norfolk. we get a late appearance from patrick troughton, an early appearance from ian marter, and sadly the last appearance from roger delgado. the green death may be my favourite companion exit in all of classic who; certainly it's one of the highlights, even if jo's environmentalist passion does come out of nowhere. the very last scenes are well-known, but the opening of the green death beautifully establishes jo's exit long before the doctor's sulking arrives. 8/10

season 11: i liked this a lot more than i thought i would, given that it, like season 7, is a bit out of place amongst three's series. favourite serial was invasion of the dinosaurs. least favourite serial was death to the daleks. we see the return (well, the continuation, really) of classic who's uncomfortable unquestioned racism, as well as yates' odd sort of character arc. in this series we return to peladon; we return, regrettably, to the daleks; we even return to metebelis three to see off the third doctor. the time warrior is a great introduction to one of the most average companions the show has ever come up with, sarah jane smith. i'll be honest, i missed jo. if you ask me, of the pertwee era's three recurring women, sarah gets the short end of the stick - all three of them get their opportunity to scream and provide stage directions, but death to the daleks is less character assassination and more taking character out back and shooting it in the head. it's the embarrassing culmination of all of classic who's worst tendencies when it comes to female characters. it's a fucking terrible end to a trio of not especially good in the first place dalek serials. this and sarah's post-season 11 characterisation as a whole are just embarrassing, because the rest of season 11 does a great job of selling sarah as a distinct and interesting character. invasion of the dinosaurs is one of my all-time favourite serials, and planet of the spiders is a touching albeit racist and messy sendoff for the third doctor. i miss my velvety boyfriend already. 8/10

season 12: it's a great series, but it's just not me. favourite serial was robot. least favourite serial was the sontaran experiment. sorry, were you expecting me to pick genesis of the daleks as my favourite? i nearly did! it's a good serial! but robot is just so good as an opening story. season 12 is a fantastic debut for the fourth doctor, and i love the doctor, sarah, and harry as a team. most of the serials are engaging, the sontaran experiment notwithstanding, even if revenge of the cybermen did give me earthshock flashbacks (premonitions?). as a fourth doctor era companion (not to be confused with the third doctor era), sarah works best with someone to bounce off - in this case, harry. a complete clown of a character, but a great foil for sarah and the doctor and an amusing breakaway from three's generally intelligent albeit not genius soldiers. harry is clever, but he's tragically blinded by genre and not, in fact, a soldier - he's a doctor. the only real downside to this series is that sarah's character begins to go permanently off the rails. this isn't always bad, she's just written differently to how she starts off, less of a confident and extremely fucking nosy character and more likely to, er, get hypnotised. on the bright side: four!!!!! my husband has returned from the war. 7/10

season 13: widely regarded as one of the best classic who series, but again, not really for me. favourite serial was the seeds of doom. least favourite serial was planet of evil. none of the serials were bad, seeds of doom was just so much fun. sarah doesn't really click as a solo companion, but elisabeth sladen really comes into her own in the role here, even if harry's exit fucking sucks. most of the serials are very engaging and well-plotted, and you can see why pyramids of mars has lived on, even if you cannot see why on earth anyone would bring back sutekh. sarah really loses her original characterisation in favour of a very different personality - much more childish, in a good way, and often a lot more in sync with the doctor. (just to save time: HE IS NOT DEAD.) i still miss harry. i still think he should have stayed on for the entire series. but hey, what can you do? 7/10

season 14: just a really weird experience all round. favourite serial was the robots of death. least favourite serial was the talons of weng-chiang. i want to strangle robot holmes. i hate the talons of weng-chiang. it has practically no redeeming factors. it's racist. it's boring. it's six parts. who came up with this? thank god the rest of the series, then, is a bit better. both of chris boucher's serials are really engaging scifi, albeit riddled with the same racism that all of leela's serials are - you know, the classic unquestioned racist biases of classic who. leela is a good character, though, when written well, and the face of evil is a great introduction. the deadly assassin, for all its oddity, is a really fun serial, and tom baker manages to pull off an entire serial without a companion. sarah's serials are... um. the masque of mandragora is a lovely serial in its own right, very atmospheric and beautifully costumed. on the other hand, its handling of faith and superstition vs science and rationality... uh, sucks, in a way last seen in the time warrior. must we make our 'early modern' scientific character enlightened and virtuous and our 'medieval' character superstitious and backwards? i guess we must. okay then. can we not? the hand of fear is a stunningly mediocre exit for sarah, and simply doesn't set up her leaving anyway near as well as it should have been. i like this version of sarah, but i still much prefer her introduction in season 11. honestly, i think sarah might have been better served by having the masque of mandragora as her last serial, with the hand of fear before it. 6/10