#no content warnings

[giftoflife]

New gift of life update has been posted!

[phanficlovep5]

The Ideal Marriage (amie_des_elfes)

Author: amie_des_elfes

Ao3 rating: T

CW/TW: None

Rating: 13/10 Mwarriage

Words: 1,512

Two Sentence Summary. Both. Both Goros are good.

Review: My heart managed to race while reading, along with the internal screaming. I may or may make fanart depending on my mood.

• Submitted and approved by Rhyme

[shieldmonokuma]

Day 1.

I remember the sensation of falling as I slid the nerve gear over my head, as though my restless mind was trying but unable to fully escape. I could feel sparks run down my arms as I waited in anticipation for the black screen to turn to the game menu, and then finally, a new world. 

Finally I can have a piece of the life I’ve always wanted. To think that I might not have bought the prerelease if it wasn’t for her. In fact, I almost stopped myself from joining right there, due to the bitter feeling in the back of my throat, the lightheadedness that I felt as I looked at the package. Still, I took a deep breath and started.

It’s just my nerves. I’ve never had this chance before, and I can’t afford to hesitate now.

I looked at the menu as it booted up. It scanned me and told me to enter my personal information, everything that it couldn’t gather by itself anyway. It displayed my in-game avatar-an image that I couldn’t even distinguish from myself-and allowed me to edit it from there. I tentatively entered the settings, then finally joined the game.

As the screen loaded in, I saw her waiting for me at the spawn point.

“Ah, hi Izuru!” ChiakiX3, as I had known her online at least, called out.

“I’m glad to see you again too,” I laughed a little. Was it due to my amazement, or just the awkwardness of meeting an online mutual in well, almost real life? It really was surreal. She was a girl who looked to be about my age. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see her walking through the halls of my highschool. It was almost eerie, how closely she seemed to match up with her online persona. She had a calm face, framed by taupe bangs and roughly shoulder-length hair. She wore the same uniform that all players were given, but had chosen to make her tunic a shade of dusty pink that matched her eyes.

To be honest, I felt like a poser recalling the effortlessly cool persona that I could keep up online. Like my attitude, I had only slightly altered my avatar in game, giving it a slightly longer hairstyle. My classmates would definitely call me an e-boy if it was like that in reality.

I choked back the sub-par remarks and unnecessary compliments that came to mind. “Would you like to try fighting something?”

She pressed a finger to her chin, and looked towards the horizon “Well, I actually signed in early. I’ve already learned the base fighting mechanics…” She paused and looked back towards me, the prior excitement returning to her voice, “I’d gladly show you the ropes though.”

“If you’d like to, then of course I’d be up for that.”

“Good. We just need to head to the plains then.”

I watched the scenery go by. An old fashioned village you might expect to see in a tourist town, plains with grass just slightly too green to be real. Finally, we found ourselves in a meadow surrounded by giant rats and wild boar. This was clearly meant to function as the tutorial. I unsheathed the dual short-swords I had selected in the startup menu. She already had her long sword in hand and was gazing at our opponents, apparently lost in thought.

“Okay, so you should start out by getting an idea of how fast your opponent moves, and their movement patterns. These ones are slow enough that you should be able to build momentum and focus on offence, but later on, there will be enemies that pose more of a threat. To perform a power attack you need to hit the opponent as hard as you can. I’d recommend running towards them before attacking to accomplish that, like this.”

      She ran to a boar and sliced it across the side, so calmly she made it seem effortless. I tried to focus on copying those movements exactly. I ran forward, readied my swords and…

“Your technique is quite impressive,"

An unfamiliar voice caught me off guard. I missed, and the boar stayed up to charge me. Damn it! I took five damage (a quarter of my hit points) and slashed wildly, hitting the boar near its eye. 

I felt a dull kind of pain in my leg, where the boar had hit me, but I reasoned that it was probably nothing. I looked around myself In attempt to find the source of that interruption. Chiaki was standing next to him. Another teenager? Probably a highschool student, but possibly just starting college. He was tall, with white hair that took on a slightly reddish hue at the tips. His silver eyes were hidden in shadow and he seemed to look past me as he watched my approach.

Looking back at Chiaki, he asked in a tone that emanated reverence, "You're the one with that five minute speed run of Monokuma Pizzeria, right? The one that blew up online?"

"Who are you?" I asked, trying not to sound annoyed with the newcomer.

"I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? Not that it matters, but my name is Nagito. You just have to linger on my avatar if you happen to forget. As to why I'm here, I simply admire talent."

Nagito_the_ultimate_stepping_stone_for_hope… I think I've seen weirder… probably on Reddit, at least.

"I'm Chiaki Nanami, but it seems you already know that." 

"I'm Izuru."

"Since we've been introduced, would you mind teaching someone as worthless as me?" Said Nagito. Now I honestly couldn't tell if this dead-eyed stranger was messing with us or not.

“I was already training Izuru, so I don't mind."

"Sure," I agreed in the most polite tone I could muster, then sighed and resumed practice, killing several more enemies while Chiaki coached Nagito. By the time we decided to stop training, it was late evening, about an hour after I had first logged in.

“We could try searching the town," Chiaki suggested, "I mean, since we have some items we could sell now."

"I was actually thinking about heating up dinner, but I guess I could stay for a little longer."

"It would be an honour to continue playing together." Nagito insisted as he stared directly into my eyes with that strange, placid smile on his face, “I mean, not that I’d want you to put your evening on hold for us.”

I wasn't sure if I should laugh or not, "Well, when you put it that way!” I moved to a more comfortable distance and continued, “It’s really not like I have anything better to do."

Wordlessly, we walked back through the fields until we reached town. The main street was full of other players; talking, breathing, living. I was still a bit stunned by the sheer number of people here on release. We walked into the store following Chiaki, but unfortunately this excursion would come to an untimely end.

Suddenly, the sky changed to a bright crimson. The announcement blared "ALL PLAYERS MUST MEET AT SPAWN IN 5 MINUTES."

Is this some sort of entrance ceremony?

      "It's probably to thank the people here on launch." Nagito said, casually brushing his hair out of his eyes.

      "...Yeah, that sounds right." I agreed as we started walking towards the entrance. "Still, this seems a little excessive."

      He shrugged, and spread his arms as if to gesture at the world in general, “Couldn’t you say the same for all of this?”

      "4 MINUTES…"

      There were thousands of people gathered around the spawn point. Everyone looked uncertain. The incoherent buzz of their whispers only added to the tense atmosphere. My friends, or at least, my current company, had gone silent. We waited there like students about to hear their exam results, or kids about to open gifts. 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1, finally it appeared. A towering, cloaked figure whose face was hidden except for a single, glowing red eye.

It spoke in a grating, nasal tone, too much like machinery to assuredly be called a voice, "I hate to be this cliche about it, but this game is designed for a higher purpose than just your entertainment. In fact, it would be completely accurate to say that this game will become your life."

The ghoul paused to let those words sink in, or perhaps, to relish in the audience's disbelief at what was to come next.

"You may have noticed that the exit button is curiously absent. That is not a flaw but a feature of this experience. I want you to live out your action hero dreams, so that was a must. There have to be stakes afterall, so your health and your avatar's health are one and the same. If you want to escape, though, I was generous enough to provide an escape route: just complete all one hundred floors, or… there is always the easier way, …isn't there? To keep it short and sweet, I hope you’re grateful for the wonderful opportunity I’m granting you. Fare-well.”

I froze. Those words were now burned into my memory. They were a dream, a killer’s speech in some movie. Nothing like that could happen to someone like me, a completely average, boring nobody-

"Are you okay?" A familiar voice said to me. I blinked. Something about the world around me had changed. We no longer even appeared to be the perfect avatars of ourselves we had created, but flesh and blood, …and yet he seemed unchanged.

"N-Nagito?"

He smiled with relief, "Ah, you're conscious. That's good. You stood there for a while without moving."

"What I heard back there… did you hear it too?"

“Yes, it appears that we’re stuck here.” His eyes shifted downwards, but his voice remained level, “I already checked, the no exit part is accurate at least.”

It is true then. It wasn't just in my head. Then there's no denying it. Still, I tried my best to fight that deranged conclusion. "This could be a publicity stunt, right?"

My companions looked doubtful.

“Even if that is the case, wouldn't it be better to stay here for the time being, in case the safezone rules hold true?” Chiaki asked.

“...You know there's only one way to test that hypothesis, right?” Chiaki and I looked straight at him, he raised his hands defensively in response, “I mean, you can hit me if that gives you peace of mind.”

I sighed, “No, I don't think that'll be necessary. We’ll figure it out sooner or later anyway.”

“At least we still have each other.” Chiaki pointed out, eyes still fixed on the point where that thing had stood. “That must count for something.”

The silence that followed said everything. I wanted to muster a smile, to tell her that I believed we’d be okay… but this was the beginning of a deadly game, we didn’t even know what we were in for yet. That was just the beginning of our new lives, our new reality.

[writernopal]

A Lesson Learned 😅

I grabbed this little soundbite from the planning call @illjustpretend and I had over the weekend for AASOAF 3 and we ended up talking (reminiscing, commiserating? lol) about Mariel & Axtapor's Scrapbook. (no CW, transcript is below the cut!)

I want you all to understand what a feat this was. This scrapbook was NOT planned, discussed in any detail, or otherwise thought about until 3 WEEKS before AASOAF 2's release date. During this time the following was also happening:

I was still making final edits to AASOAF 2 itself.

I was also editing the second edition of AASOAF 1.

I wrote and edited synopses/blurbs for both books.

Pretend was working on the cover for AASOAF 2.

Pretend adjusted the cover for AASOAF 1 because the length had changed.

We were both learning to format book interiors.

We had to make title pages for the books.

We made logos for us to sign our work.

Planning coordinated release posts on our socials.

Holding our lives together 🤡

We were desperately trying to finish all of that AND the scrapbook so we could place orders for physical copies in time to do a mini photoshoot for release day. Said shoot was staged and done by me literally 3 days before release with props I had in my house.

I cannot put into words what a labor of love this was, as unplanned and unnecessarily complicated as it was, we put our whole hearts into it. I can't even begin to list the effort that went into the scrapbook itself, so many sleepless nights and hours-long discord calls to get us through it all. Another huge thanks to @illjustpretend, I could not have done it without her! 💙

Nopal: It wasn't like it was actually planned.

Pretend: No.

Nopal: Or like we put any effort into giving ourselves time because we didn't. *scoff*

Pretend: Well it was not just that, but it was also just because it was like, you were trying to get it out on a certain day or something? Or you were trying to release...

Nopal: Yeah. Well, it's cuz like, I didn't have like- Originally, I was just doing my own thing. I was like "Oh yeah, no problem!" And then I don't remember- like you pitched the idea to me that we should do some kind of companion material or-

Pretend: Yeah.

Nopal: Or you're the one who brought it up. And I was like "Oh that sounds awesome!" Like "Let's do that!" and I didn't fully under-

Pretend: Don't- Don't put the blame on me! Don't!

Nopal: *laughs* No, no, no! You're not letting me finish!

Pretend: *laughing*

Nopal: And me, la tonta (the idiot), like I agreed without really fully understanding what it was that we were doing. *laughs*

Pretend: Yeah. Yeah.

Nopal: So- And so that's on me because I didn't know how much work all of that was actually going to take.

Pretend: Yeah. Well-

Nopal: And uh-

Pretend: It would have been fine if we like, had said to do like, "Hey let's do half the amount of pages that we ended up with."

Nopal: Yeah.

Pretend: It was a lot.

Nopal: Well- Well we couldn't even take- That was out of our control too though because- And that's the other thing! Is that we didn't look at Lulu to like, see when we conceived the idea, like how many-

Pretend: Yeah.

Nopal: How many pages we could make it so that they could print it because that was the whole thing, right?

Pretend: Mhm.

Nopal: Is that we had to have a certain number of pages for them to even be able to print the damn thing. Um...

Pretend: Right.

Nopal: And so we added more content-

Pretend: To make sure-

Nopal: At that point. Yeah. To make sure that we had enough for them to actually print.

Pretend: Hey it all worked out in the end.

Nopal: It did! It all worked out and it was fine! But I would not do that again. *laughs*

Pretend: Not like that, no.

Nopal: No. Not like that, no.

Pretend: Not as such.

Nopal: Nope.

[largishcat]

I actually don’t mind that “dead dove” has become conversational shorthand for “fics with heavy themes where you REALLY need to pay attention to the warnings”. such is the nature of language. what i do mind is when people tag their actual fics with dead dove and then give no indication of what they’re actually warning about. that is useless. that helps no one. that is completely against the spirit of the meme. i will not be reading that

[kilgarraara]

"I'll make you say how proud you are of me"

I saw a very cool animatic for this game with Silli Billy song that I heard for the first time and this phrase with the scene that was in there is spiraling in my head for several days already

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[cookinguptales]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[dangeroustaintedflawed]

[intergalactic-garbage]

bruh ive never seen spn but every so often i get castiel's "i'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition" stuck in my head and i had no idea why? anyway i just realized it's because it's in an iambic meter (I'M the ONE who GRIPPED you TIGHT and RAISED you FROM perDItion). my mfs wrote literal poetry . did they know???

[mag200]

(me on a first date) and what do you think of the inherent intimacy of surgery? have you considered the love someone must have to put their hands under your skin and hold the most grotesque parts of you and put them back together nicely? is anyone really closer to you than that? we all get uh a little enamored on the surgery table don't we haha. wait come back

[phanficlovep5]

He is Thou

Author Name: mayathedaydreamer

Rating: G

Words: 941

CW/TW (Remember to Read the Tags Before Reading!): no archive warnings apply

Mod Rating: 11/10

Two Sentence Summary: was told this was off their main series. Akira and Akechi explore the new velvet room

Okay while this one is short, it is really sweet and really well written. I love that Akira was his lover's arcana. I also love this premise and would love to read more about it. <3

reviewed by Ace!

[socialistexan]

There is no more quiet part, they are just fully saying out loud that they think trans people even existing in public is a harm to children akin to sexual violence.

I'm so tired of liberals telling me over and over and over again that I need to just reach out and talk to these people. They see my very existence as a sex crime, they think I need to be exterminated out of public life and then exterminated for real. These are fucking fascists. I'm so tired of being a rhetorical chip used to shame others, I'm sure you'll feel smug satisfaction over your conservative uncle that you were right while he's carting us off.

I'm sorry, there is no bridge to bring us to a middle ground between "I think I have the right to exist" and "I think your very existence is a crime" that doesn't end poorly for me.

There is no hand I can reach out without getting pulled by that hand straight down 6 feet under to my grave.

[nataliedecorsair]

A warning about AI crap

@giannaaziz1998blog this user browses through art-related hashtags and steals your work, AI-fies it and posts with the same hashtags as in your original post. It could be a bot, it's getting hard to tell at this point. For example, that thing saw my post, stole my very old non-glazed sketch, slapped AI on it and posted with exactly the same hashtags, even though some of them aren't related to it. Also restricted replies, of course, and blocked me. Please, block and report them, I'm not the only artist who was "blessed" with this abomination.

P.S. - glaze your art if you can, people. That's the only way to protect your art at the moment.

[nightwussy]

in lieu of joost being disqualified for no reason im posting his semi final performance so u don’t have to give the ebu any views

[wiltkingart]

This is a ritual, a prayer, a plea.

This is a sacrifice, a bloodletting, a need.

This is a transformation of flesh, one stitch at a time. This is meat from a stone, warm and pulsating. From one mouth to another, this is the passing of a story with far too many limbs, slick and scaly. -

Mouth to Mouth to Mouth is a collection of transmasc horror erotica, made up of 7 short stories featuring insects, elves, fairies, and more -- all mired in the grotesque and profane. I cannot be happier with how this turned out, and I hope you find it sickening.

[out now]