#published 3/11/2024

[thevikingwoman]

Tansui is looking for some peace to think on the letters Meryta sends him from the First, but is interrupted by Rasho who offers friendly companionship and asks too many questions. Companion to Letters and Longing, but can be read alone

Fandom: FFXIV | Words: 1651 | Read on Ao3

Rasho & Tansui | mid-Shadowbringers | friendship Rating: Teen. Pining, unresolved feelings, friendship, alcohol, drunkenness

Sake and Truths

Tansui climbs his way up the stairs to the outpost, abandoned as it is, they do not post guards here at most times. But the view is nice, and the grass is soft and no one tends to come here unless sent by the Captain. It’s a good place to think.

He drops himself into the grass, round bottle beside him, and takes out the letters from where he’s tucked them in his hakama. He did not bother with a cup. He reads. Meryta is impossibly far away, facing horrors he cannot imagine. Something aches in his chest with it. A familiar feeling, along with others he’d rather not think about.

He drinks, the rich taste coating his tongue, a burn down his throat. Takes out pen and parchment, but he does not write, electing to pick up her letters again. Only a few, but the latest one is longer, the writing more fluid. Perhaps she has never written much before, but she does now.

The bottle of sake goes to his lips again, rich and too fine to be drunk like this, dripping down his chin to wipe off, but he does not know what to do with his latest realization, the feelings that only grow when he thinks of her. He drinks, wipes, closes his eyes, turning his face towards the setting sun.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Rasho. The roegadyn sits next to him, fabric shuffling against skin and grass. It’s quiet up here.

“Did it occur to you I came here to be alone?”

“Yes.”

Tansui opens his eyes and turns to his friend. Rasho has brought another bottle of sake and two cups. He’s pouring sake into one, the other left in grass. Tansui had not bothered with a cup himself after all, and Rasho is not one to insist.

“It’s a nice one,” Rasho says. “Export bound for Ishgard, by my understanding. Good thing the captain needed to lighten his ballast.”

“How fortunate indeed.”

Tansui lifts his own flask, and takes a deep drink. Rasho lifts his cup and drinks with him. They sit, and drink, in silence for some time, the sun slipping lower towards the ocean and their shadows growing long.

“So,” his friend says. “Writing letters?”

It’s a question, and fair enough. He has no family to correspond with, and any letters related to their newfound diplomatic relations with Doma must go through the Captain.

He nods, unwilling to break the silence just yet. It’s not like he’s started writing yet. He doesn’t have much to say, other than perhaps wax poetic about the quality of the sake, and implore her to stay safe. To come visit, again, but it feels like refrain. He knows she may not be able to, but – how many times can he ask?

“Meryta, is it?”

He nods again, squinting at Rasho. He wonders if he can let him carry the conversation all on his own. Rasho drinks for his cup, almost comically tiny in his large hands. Just for the taste of it, Tansui knows.

“It has been a while since she has visited.” Rasho looks at the folded papers still in his hands. “You care for her, do you not?”

“I do.”

What does his friend want him to say? That he misses her, and that every time the aetheryte hums with incoming travelers, his heart leaps in his chest like he is some kind of lovesick youngster?

“And yet you wait for her here, while she’s off doing what she does, without you.”

“What would you have me do? I –” He feels hot and angry, his voice raised, “she is – somewhere, outside this world, and I’m – I belong here Rasho, never mistake that.”

“Peace, friend. I know. That wasn’t my point.”

He’s ashamed, immediately. He knows Rasho does not doubt his loyalty, same as he doesn’t doubt Rasho. Doma freed and all, the Captain stays here. As does he.

“I’m sorry.”  Tansui takes another drink and flings himself backwards on the grass, his head a bit heavy from the sake now. “She’s out there, in danger, doing Kami knows what with her friends.”

Rasho waves his apology away.

“It bothers you.”

Trust Rasho to say the obvious, so he doesn’t deign a reply. There’s something else that bothers him besides the danger she’s in, an uncertainty in waiting which he barely wants to name.  

“Have you at least told her, how much you care?”

“No.”  He grabs his bottle and drinks the last of it, while still laying down, the rich liquid filling his mouth and burning its way down to his belly. The grass is soft and pleasant. He has written of his wish to see her again, and she likewise, but nothing certain. No promises, and it grates him more than it should.

“I don’t know if she feels the same,” he admits. It sounds sullen to his own ears.

“Have you asked?” Rasho pours himself another cup from his own bottle, only the third. “Mayhap you’d be less bothered if you did.”

“Or mayhap I should care less.”

“You should make up your mind. And talk to her.” Rasho lifts his cup and drinks. “What do you want, my friend?”

“I – I want… Well, it’s not like I need –”

Rasho doesn’t say anything when he falters.

I would be simpler if he didn’t care, but he’s not sure not caring is what he wants. It would be easier if it was. To let go of these feelings he can barely admit to anyway. To simply have her come or not come, no use for worrying. No use in trying to determine if she’s with someone else, if someone else is touching her.

Perhaps he should just find someone else to fuck, someone to have a good time with. He finds he has no taste for it, the idea wholly unappealing. And the idea of her being touched by someone else sets a fire burning inside of him. He wants to keep her for himself. Selfish and frustrating, she isn’t here, not even on this world, and he should be content to wait and not expect her to adhere to promises not made. And yet her letters make it seem like she – he wishes he didn’t care, that she didn’t occupy his thoughts like this.

But she does.

A silence settles over them, and Rasho says nothing when he sits up again and grabs Rasho’s bottle and drinks and drinks again.

He’ll write letters and see what happens. She’s – just trouble anyways, and he’s never been one to pursue a permanent relationship anyways. It’s fine to keep it casual. Fine.

“I shouldn’t – I should just – ’s fine really. It’s just casual, you know. I don’t need to – care that much.”

“If you say so.”

“It’s late,” he says, and stands slowly. He’ll write another day, it’s too dark and he’s not even sure where the pen went.

Rasho stands with him.

His head is fuzzy by now, swimming. The stars are out. Rasho picks up the letters gently, with a care he’s grateful for. He’s unsteady as he gets up, but it’s fine.

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.”

Rasho gently catches him, when he stumbles on something – who put that there – a stupid rock.

“You’ll break your neck on the stairs.”

“Will not.”

He may not be making his case well, as he’s still holding on to the other man. Rasho sighs, and turns his eyes towards the starry sky.

“Look, Tansui. Either I’ll pick you up and carry you like petulant child –”

“’m older than you –”

“You certainly are. Either I’ll pick you up, or you can ride on my back.”

Tansui lets go of Rasho and sways. The sake was rather strong, or there was a lot of it. He sighs, and lets himself be hoisted on his friends back.

Rasho walks carefully down the stairs, and continues across the sand towards Onokoro proper. Tansui’s head is swimming. He’s not been in such a state – he’s propelled back in time, to when they were both younger and foolisher, but Rasho never had a taste for excess. Rasho would carry him back from Isari, just like this, when Tansui had overin– had drunk too much. He’s too old for this, now, and all over a pretty girl with pretty purple eyes and green hair and so fierce and so soft and the world’s not fair to her –

The world swims when Rasho makes it up the stairs. He should protest, he should walk, in front of the men, but the Rasho doesn’t care, and he’s lost in thought again, the last time she was here, in his arms –

“— she’s just so nice.”

“So you’ve mentioned, friend.”

“But it’s not –”

The torches are awfully bright and he pauses and squints. Rasho says nothing.

His thoughts wander again, and he feels he needs to let Rasho know, he’s decided that he won’t need to care. Did he already say so? Her eyes would be luminous in the dark here, brilliant band of purple like nothing else. Right. Casual things, casual visits.

“Is not going to be…. I’ll just enjoy her visiting, you see. Enjoy a lot.”

“I see.”

He is quite certain from Rasho’s tone that he doesn’t. They’re by his door now, and the other man pushes it open, and carry him all the way to his bed. Undignified. He tries to stand, but fails, and puts his head on his pillow instead. It doesn’t smell like her.

“It’s nothing really. She’s just very – I think I love her.”

“Ah. There it is.”

“You knew,” he accuses.

“I’ve known you a long time.”

“You’re a good friend.”

Tansui awkwardly pats Rasho’s knee, the tall man looming over him.

“Sleep, and it’s good thing I am, or I’d not let you shirk your duties tomorrow.”

Tansui is asleep, snoring, before Rasho leaves.

[champ-wiggle]

'She is so old': One-eyed wolf in Yellowstone defies odds by having 10th litter of pups in 11 years

By Patrick Pester, published June 3, 2024

Wolf 907F recently gave birth to her 10th litter of pups, which researchers say is likely a Yellowstone National Park record.

Wolf 907F walking past a trail camera in Yellowstone National Park. (Image credit: Yellowstone Wolf and Cougar Project)

The alpha female of a Yellowstone gray-wolf pack has defied the odds by having a 10th litter of pups at the age of 11.

The one-eyed wolf elder, named Wolf 907F, gave birth to her latest litter last month, the Cowboy State Daily reported. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) have an average life span of three to four years, so it's rare for them to reach 11, let alone have pups at that age.

Wolf 907F has given birth to pups every year for a decade straight since she became sexually mature, which Kira Cassidy, a research associate at the Yellowstone Wolf Project, said is likely a record for the wolves of Yellowstone National Park.

At age 11, Yellowstone’s Wolf 907F has lived more than twice a wild wolf’s average life expectancy. In this photo from April, she was pregnant with a litter of pups that she’s since given birth to. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

"Every day, I expect that she might die just because she is so elderly, but I've been thinking that for the last few years, and she keeps going," Cassidy told Live Science.

Cassidy has calculated that only about 1 in 250 wolves in Yellowstone make it to their 11th birthday, with just six recorded examples since wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995. The oldest of all of these great elders lived to 12.5 years, according to the National Park Service.

Wolf 907F lies in the snow in Yellowstone in 2015. (Image credit: Kira Cassidy/NPS)

Wolf 907F is the oldest wolf to have lived her whole life in the park's Northern Range, where there is more prey but also more competition from other wolves. Wolves rarely die of old age in the wild, and in Yellowstone National Park, the biggest threat is other wolves.

"In a protected place like Yellowstone, their number-one cause of death is when two packs fight with each other," Cassidy said. "That accounts for about half of the mortality."

One of Yellowstone's oldest wolves, Wolf 907F is pictured here with her pack last year. She's the gray collared wolf on the lower left. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

Wolf 907F is the alpha female of the Junction Butte pack, which has between 10 and 35 members at any given time. Cassidy noted that this is a large pack — the average wolf pack size is about 12 individuals — and that reduces the risk of being killed in territorial fights. Wolf 907F's experience also gives her pack an edge.

"Packs that have elderly wolves are much more successful in those pack-versus-pack conflicts because of the accumulated knowledge and the experience that they bring to that really stressful situation," Cassidy said.

Wolf 907F has likely boosted her pack's survival chances outside of battle, too. Cassidy noted that the Junction Butte pack rarely leaves Yellowstone's border and that Wolf 907F is "savvy" when it comes to things like crossing roads and avoiding humans.

Wolf 907F, Yellowstone's aging matriarch at 11 years old, only has one eye. She's the fourth wolf to pass by this trail cam. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

What makes Wolf 907F even more impressive is that she does all of this with only one functioning eye. Researchers aren't sure what happened, but her left eye has been small and sunken since before she turned 4. "You would never know [when] watching her," Cassidy said.

Like other elders, Wolf 907F takes a back seat in hunts now that she's older, and she spends most of her day hanging around with the pack's pups. Cassidy and her colleagues have counted three pups in her current litter, which is smaller than the average litter size of four to five but not surprising. A 2012 study of Yellowstone wolves published in the Journal of Animal Ecology found that litter size declines with age.

"The fact that 907 is still having pups is amazing, and her litter being small is expected given that she is so old," Cassidy said.

A few of Wolf 907F's offspring now lead packs of their own, but most of her pups never reach adulthood due to the perilous nature of being a wolf. However, Wolf 907F and the others in the park don't seem to live like death is on their mind.

"They are happy to be with their family going from day to day," Cassidy said. "Even if they have injuries or are missing an eye or something really stressful is going on in their life, they move through that stress and go back to seemingly really enjoying their life."

At age 11, Yellowstone's Wolf 907F - the gray wolf in the center of this photo from 2020- has lived more than double the typical lifespan of wolves in the wild. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

[pertanianmadani]

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[pucksandpower]

The Kinktober 2024 Masterlist

→ Formula 1 after dark 💋

Day 1 → Cockwarming 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 2 → Chastity 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 3 → Oral Fixation 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 4 → Bruise Marking 💋 Lando Norris

Day 5 → Size Difference 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 6 → Daddy Kink 💋 Carlos Sainz

Day 7 → Virginity Loss 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 8 → Breeding Kink 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 9 → Overstimulation 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 10 → Exhibitionism 💋 Kimi Räikkönen

Day 11 → Sex Pollen 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 12 → Mirror Sex 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 13 → Temperature Play 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 14 → Innocence Play 💋 Lewis Hamilton

Day 15 → Thigh Riding 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 16 → Remote-Controlled Vibrator 💋 Jenson Button

Day 17 → Lactation Kink 💋 Lando Norris

Day 18 → Praise Kink 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 19 → Spreader Bar 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 20 → Menthol Cream 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 21 → Anal 💋 Lando Norris

Day 22 → Bedding Ceremony 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 23 → Consensual Non-Consent 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 24 → Piercing 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 25 → Monsterfucking 💋 Carlos Sainz

Day 26 → Cum Marking 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 27 → Hunter/Prey 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 28 → A/B/O 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 29 → BDSM 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 30 → Innocence Kink 💋 Lando Norris

Day 31 → Mind Break 💋 Charles Leclerc

Tumblr won’t let me link the final five fics for some reason but they have been published!

[breelandwalker]

2024 Witches' Calendar

For all my witches out there, here's a handy list of the 2024 dates for the solstices, quarter days, full and new moons, and special events. I've listed my sources at the bottom.

Dates and times for all events are calculated for Eastern Standard Time, USA, Northern Hemisphere. Adjust for your location as needed and check the DarkSky Placefinder to see what special events will be visible in your area. Enjoy!

Solstices, Harvests, and Quarter Days

February 1-2 - Imbolc / Candlemas

March 19 - Spring Equinox / Ostara

April 30-May 1 - Beltane / May Day

June 20 - Summer Solstice / Midsummer / Litha

August 1 - Lughnasadh / Lammas / Summer Harvest

September 22 - Autumn Equinox / Mabon / Fall Harvest

October 31 - Samhain / Halloween / Final Harvest

December 21 - Winter Solstice / Yule

Full Moons

January 25 - Wolf Moon ♌

February 24 - Snow Moon ♍

March 25 - Worm Moon ♎

April 23 - Pink Moon ♏

May 23 - Flower Moon ♐

June 21 - Strawberry Moon ♑

July 21 - Thunder Moon (aka Buck Moon) ♑

August 19 - Sturgeon Moon* ♒

September 17 - Harvest Moon* ♓

October 17 - Hunter's Moon (aka Blood Moon)* ♈

November 15 - Frost Moon (or Beaver Moon)* ♉

December 15 - Cold Moon ♊

*- Supermoon

Fun Fact: The title of Harvest Moon is given to either the September or October full moon, whichever falls closest to the autumn equinox. Once again this year, that month will be September.

New Moons

January 11 ♑

February 9 ♒

March 10 ♓

April 8 ♈

May 7 ♉

June 6 ♊

July 5 ♋

August 4 ♌

September 2 ♍

October 2 ♎

November 1 ♏

December 1 ♐

December 30 (black moon) ♑

Special Celestial Events

January 3-4 - Quadrantids meteor shower peak

March 25 - Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

April 8 - Total solar eclipse

April 22-23 - Lyrids meteor shower peak

May 6-7 - Eta Aquarids meteor shower peak

August 11-13 - Perseids meteor shower peak

August 19 - Sturgeon Supermoon / Seasonal Blue Moon

September 17 - Harvest Supermoon / Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

October 2 - "Ring of Fire" solar eclipse

October 17 - Hunter's Supermoon

October 21-22 - Orionids meteor shower peak

November 15 - Frost Supermoon

November 16-17 - Leonids meteor shower peak

December 13-14 - Geminids meteor shower peak

December 30 - Black Moon

(Check the DarkSky Placefinder to see what will be visible in your area!)

Mercury Retrogrades (in case you need them)

April 1 - April 24

August 4 - August 27

November 25 - December 15

Happy Witching!

SOURCES & FURTHER READING:

Bree's Lunar Calendar Series

Bree's Secular Celebrations Series

Moon Info - Full Moon Dates for 2024

Calendar-12 - 2024 Moon Phases

Full Moonology - 2024 Full Moon Calendar

AstroStyle - All the 2024 Full Moons

Your Zodiac Sign - Astrology Calendar 2024

Old Farmer's Almanac - Mercury Retrograde Dates 2023-2024

Lonely Planet - Best Star-gazing Events of 2024

Sea and Sky - Astronomy Calendar of Celestial Events 2024

DarkSky International - Dark Sky Placefinder for Stargazing

Pagan Grimoire - Wheel of the Year: The 8 Festivals in the Wiccan Calendar (2024 Edition)

=

If you're enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊

EDIT: Mercury is stationed direct on Jan 1st, 2024. The source I used which stated it was in retrograde until the 18th had a typo.

EDIT: Fixed the zodiac signs for the full moons using a new source.

[renthony]

Nimona: a Story of Trans Rights, Queer Solidarity, and the Battle Against Censorship

by Ren Basel renbasel.com

The 2023 film Nimona, released on Netflix after a tumultuous development, is a triumph of queer art. While the basic plot follows a mischievous shapeshifter befriending a knight framed for murder, at its heart Nimona is a tale of queer survival in the face of bigotry and censorship. Though the word “transgender” is never spoken, the film is a deeply political narrative of trans empowerment.

The film is based on a comic of the same name, created by Eisner-winning artist N.D. Stevenson. (1) Originally a webcomic, Nimona stars the disgraced ex-knight Ballister Blackheart and his titular sidekick, teaming up to topple an oppressive regime known as the Institution. The webcomic was compiled into a graphic novel published by Harper Collins on May 12, 2015. (2)

On June 11, 2015, the Hollywood Reporter broke the news Fox Animation had acquired rights to the story. (3) A film adaptation would be directed by Patrick Osborne, written by Marc Haimes, and produced by Adam Stone. Two years later, on February 9, 2017, Osborne confirmed the film was being produced with the Fox-owned studio Blue Sky Animation, and on June 30 of that same year, he claimed the film would be released Valentine’s Day 2020. (4)

Then the Walt Disney Company made a huge mess.

On December 14, 2017, Disney announced the acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (5) Industry publications began speculating the same day about Blue Sky’s fate, though nothing would be confirmed until after the deal’s completion on March 19, 2019. (6) At first it seemed the studio would continue producing films under Disney’s governance, similar to Disney-owned Pixar Animation. (7)

The fate of the studio—and Nimona’s film adaptation—remained in purgatory for two years. During that time, Patrick Osborne left over reported creative differences, and directorial duties were taken over by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane. (8) Bruno and Quane continued production on the film despite Blue Sky’s uncertain future.

The killing blow came on February 9, 2021. Disney shut down Blue Sky and canceled Nimona, the result of economic hardship caused by COVID-19. (9) Nimona was seventy-five percent completed at the time, set to star Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed. (10)

While COVID-19 caused undeniable financial upheaval for the working class, wealthy Americans fared better. (11) Disney itself scraped together enough to pay CEO Bob Iger twenty-one million dollars in 2020 alone. (12) Additionally, demand for animation spiked during the pandemic’s early waves, and Nimona could have been the perfect solution to the studio’s supposed financial woes. (13) Why waste the opportunity to profit from Blue Sky’s hard work?

It didn’t take long for the answer to surface. Speaking anonymously to the press, Blue Sky workers revealed the awful truth: Disney may have killed Nimona for being too queer. The titular character was gender-nonconforming, the leading men were supposed to kiss, and Disney didn’t like it. (14) While Disney may claim COVID-19 as the cause, it is noteworthy that Disney representatives saw footage of two men declaring their love, and not long after, the studio responsible was dead. (15) Further damning evidence came in February of 2024, when the Hollywood Reporter published an article quoting co-director Nick Bruno, who named names: Disney’s chief creative officer at the time, Alan Horn, was adamantly opposed to the film’s “gay stuff.” (16)

Disney didn’t think queer art was worthy of their brand, and it isn’t the first time. “Not fitting the Disney brand” was the justification for canceling Dana Terrace’s 2020 animated series The Owl House, which featured multiple queer characters. (17) Though Terrace was reluctant to assume queerphobia caused the cancellation, Disney’s anti-queer bias has been cited as a hurdle by multiple showrunners, including Terrace herself. (18) The company’s resistance to queer art is a documented phenomenon.

While Nimona’s film cancellation could never take N.D. Stevenson’s comic from the world, it was a sting to lose such a powerful queer narrative on the silver screen. American film has a long history of censoring queerness. The Motion Picture Production Code (commonly called the Hays Code) censored queer stories for decades, including them under the umbrella of “sex perversion.” (19) Though the Code was eventually repealed, systemic bigotry turns even modern queer representation milestones into battles. In 2018, when Rebecca Sugar, creator of the Cartoon Network series Steven Universe, succeeded in portraying the first-ever same-sex marriage proposal in American children’s animation, the network canceled the show in retaliation. (20)

When queer art has to fight so hard just to exist, each loss is a bitter heartbreak. N.D. Stevenson himself expressed sorrow that the world would never see what Nimona’s crew worked so hard to achieve. (21)

Nimona, however, is hard to kill.

While fans mourned, progress continued behind the scenes. Instead of disappearing into the void as a tax write-off, the film was quietly scooped up by Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures. (22) Ellison received a call days before Disney’s death blow to Blue Sky, and after looking over storyboard reels, she decided to champion the film. With Ellison’s support, former Blue Sky heads Robert Baird and Andrew Millstein did their damnedest to find Nimona a home. (23)

Good news arrived on April 11, 2022, when N.D. Stevenson made a formal announcement on Twitter (now X): Nimona was gloriously alive, and would release on Netflix in 2023. (24) Netflix confirmed the news in its own press release, where it also provided details about the film’s updated cast and crew, including Eugene Lee Yang as Ambrosius Goldenloin alongside Riz Ahmed’s Ballister Boldheart (changed from the name Blackheart in the comic) and Chloë Grace Moretz as Nimona. (25) The film was no longer in purgatory, and grief over its death became anticipation for its release.

Nimona made her film debut in France, premiering at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 14, 2023 to positive reviews. (26) Netflix released the film to streaming on June 30, finally completing the story’s arduous journey from page to screen. (27)

When the film begins, the audience is introduced to the world through a series of illustrated scrolls, evoking the storybook intros of Disney princess films such as 1959’s Sleeping Beauty. The storybook framing device has been used to parody Disney in the past, perhaps most famously in the 2001 Dreamworks film Shrek. Just as Shrek contains parodies of the Disney brand created by a Disney alumnus, so, too, does Nimona riff on the studio that snubbed it. (28)

Nimona’s storybook intro tells the story of Gloreth, a noble warrior woman clad in gold and white, who defended her people from a terrible monster. After slaying the beast, Gloreth established an order of knights called the Institute (changed from the Institution in the comic) to wall off the city and protect her people.

Right away, the film introduces a Christian dichotomy of good versus evil. Gloreth is presented as a Christlike figure, with the Institute’s knights standing in as her saints. (29) Her name is invoked like the Christian god, with characters uttering phrases such as “oh my Gloreth” and “Gloreth guide you.” The film’s design borrows heavily from Medieval Christian art and architecture, bolstering the metaphor.

Nimona takes place a thousand years after Gloreth’s victory. Following the opening narration, the audience is dropped into a setting combining Medieval aesthetics with futuristic science fiction, creating a sensory delight of neon splashed across knights in shining armor. It’s in this swords-and-cyborgs city that a new knight is set to join the illustrious ranks of Gloreth’s Institute, now under the control of a woman known only as the Director (voiced by Frances Conroy). That new knight is our protagonist, Ballister Boldheart.

The film changes several things from the original. The comic stars Lord Ballister Blackheart, notorious former knight, long after his fall from grace. He has battled the Institution for years, making a name for himself as a supervillain. The film introduces a younger Ballister Boldheart who is still loyal to the Institute, who believes in his dream of becoming a knight and overcomes great odds to prove himself worthy. In the comic, Blackheart’s greatest rival is Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, with whom he has a messy past. The film shows more of that past, when Goldenloin and Boldheart were young lovers eager to become knights by each other’s side.

There is another notable change: in the comic, Goldenloin is white, and Blackheart is light-skinned. In the film, both characters are men of color—specifically, Boldheart is of Pakistani descent, and Goldenloin is of Korean descent, matching the ethnicity of their respective voice actors. This change adds new themes of institutional racism, colorism, and the “model minority” stereotype. (30)

The lighter-skinned Goldenloin is, as his name suggests, the Institute’s golden boy. He descends from the noble lineage of Gloreth herself, and his face is emblazoned on posters and news screens across the city. He is referred to as “the most anticipated knight of a generation.” In contrast, the darker-skinned Boldheart experiences prejudice and hazing due to his lower-class background. His social status is openly discussed in the news. He is called a “street kid” and “controversial,” despite being the top student in his class. The newscasters make sure everyone knows he was only given the chance to prove himself in the Institute because the queen, a Black woman with established social influence, gave him her personal patronage. Despite this patronage, when the news interviews citizens on the street, public opinion is firmly against Boldheart.

To preserve the comic’s commentary on white privilege, some of Goldenloin’s traits were written into a new, white character created for the film, Sir Thoddeus Sureblade (voiced by Beck Bennett). Sureblade’s vitriol against both Boldheart and Goldenloin allowed Goldenloin to become a more sympathetic character, trapped in the system just as much as Boldheart. (31) This is emphasized at other points in the film when the audience sees Sureblade interact with Goldenloin without Boldheart present, berating the only person of color left in the absence of the darker-skinned man.

The day Boldheart is to be knighted, everything goes wrong. As Queen Valerin (voiced by Lorraine Toussaint) performs the much-anticipated knighting ceremony, a device embedded in Boldheart’s sword explodes, killing her instantly. Though Boldheart is not to blame, he is dubbed an assassin instead of a knight. In an instant, he becomes the most wanted man in the kingdom, and Queen Valerin’s hopes for progress and social equality seem dead with her. Boldheart is gravely injured in the explosion and forced to flee, unable to clear his name.

Enter Nimona.

The audience meets the titular character in the act of vandalizing a poster of Gloreth, only to get distracted by an urgent broadcast on a nearby screen. As she approaches, a bystander yells that she’s a “freak,” in a manner reminiscent of slurs screamed by passing bigots. Nimona has no time for bigots, spraying this one in the face with paint before tuning in to the news.

“Everyone is scared,” declare the newscasters, because queen-killer Ballister Boldheart is on the run. The media paints him as a monster, a filthy commoner who never deserved the chances he was given, and announce that, “never since Gloreth’s monster has anything been so hated.” This characterization pleases Nimona, and she declares him “perfect” before scampering off to find his hiding place.

It takes the span of a title screen for her to track him down, sequestered in a makeshift junkyard shelter. Just before Nimona bursts into the lair, the audience sees Boldheart’s injuries have resulted in the amputation of his arm, and he is building a homemade prosthetic. This is another way he’s been othered from his peers in an instant, forced to adapt to life-changing circumstances with no support. Where he was so recently an aspiring knight with a partner and a dream, he is now homeless, disabled, and isolated.

A wall in the hideout shows a collection of news clippings, suspects, and sticky notes where Boldheart is trying to solve the murder and clear his name. His own photo looks down from the wall, captioned with a damning headline: “He was never one of us—knights reveal shocking details of killer’s past.” It evokes real-world racial bias in crime reporting, where suspects of color are treated as more violent, unstable, and prone to crime than white suspects. A 2021 report by the Equal Justice Initiative and the Global Strategy Group compiled data on this phenomenon, focusing on the stark disparity between coverage of white and Black suspects. (32)

Nimona is not put off by Boldheart’s sinister media reputation. It’s why she tracked him down in the first place. She’s arrived to present her official application as Boldheart’s villain sidekick and help him take down the Institute. Boldheart brushes her off, insisting he isn’t a villain. He has faith in his innocence and in the system, and leaves Nimona behind to clear his name.

When he is immediately arrested, stripped of his prosthetic, and jailed, Nimona doesn’t abandon him. She springs a prison break, and conveys a piece of bitter wisdom to the fallen knight: “[O]nce everyone sees you as a villain, that’s what you are. They only see you one way, no matter how hard you try.”

Nimona and Boldheart are both outcasts, but they are at different stages of processing the pain. Boldheart is deep in the grief of someone who tried to adhere to the demands of a biased system but finally failed. He is the newly cast-out, who gave his entire life to the system but still couldn’t escape dehumanization. His pain is a fresh, raw wound, where Nimona has old scars. She embodies the deep anger of those who have existed on the margins for years. Where Boldheart wants to prove his innocence so he can be re-accepted into the fold, Nimona’s goal is to tear the entire system apart. She finds instant solidarity with Boldheart based solely on their mutual status as outsiders, but Boldheart resists that solidarity because he still craves the system’s familiar structure.

In the comic, Blackheart’s stance is not one of fresh grief, since, just like Nimona, he has been an outsider for some time. Instead, Blackheart’s position is one of slow reform. He believes the system can be changed and improved, while Nimona urges him to demolish it entirely. In both versions, Ballister thinks the system can be fixed by removing specific corrupt influences, where Nimona believes the government is rotten to its foundations and should be dismantled. Despite their ideological differences, Nimona and Ballister ally to survive the Institute’s hostility.

The allyship is an uneasy truce. During the prison break, Nimona reveals that she’s a shapeshifter, able to change into whatever form she pleases. Boldheart reflexively reaches for his sword, horrified that she isn’t human. She is the exact sort of monster he has been taught to fear by the Institute, and it’s only because he needs her help that he overcomes his reflex and sticks with her.

Nimona’s shapeshifting functions as a transgender allegory. The comic’s author, N.D. Stevenson, is transgender, and Nimona’s story developed alongside his own queer journey. (33) The trans themes from the comic are emphasized in the film, with various pride flags included in backgrounds and showcased in the art book. (34) Directors Bruno and Quane described the film as “a story about acceptance. A movie about being seen for who you truly are and a love letter to all those who’ve ever shared that universal feeling of being misunderstood or like an outsider trying to fit in.” (35)

When Boldheart asks Nimona what she is, she responds with only “Nimona.” When he calls her a girl, she retorts that she’s “a lot of things.” When she transforms into another species, she specifies in that moment that she’s “not a girl, I’m a shark.” Later, when she takes the form of a young boy and Boldheart comments on it, saying “now you’re a boy,” her response is, “I am today.” She defies easy categorization, and she likes it that way.

About her shapeshifting, Nimona says “it feels worse if I don’t do it” and “I shapeshift, then I’m free.” When asked what happens if she doesn’t shapeshift, she responds, “I wouldn’t die-die, I just sure wouldn’t be living.” Every time she discusses her transformations, it carries echoes of transgender experience—and, as it happens, Nimona is not N.D. Stevenson’s only shapeshifting transgender character. During his tenure as showrunner for She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix/Dreamworks, 2018-2020), Stevenson introduced the character Double Trouble. Double Trouble previously existed at the margins of She-Ra lore, but Stevenson’s version was a nonbinary shapeshifter using they/them pronouns. (36) While Nimona uses she/her pronouns throughout both comic and film, just like Double Trouble her gender presentation is as fluid as her physical form.

Boldheart, like many cisgender people reacting to transgender people, is uncomfortable with Nimona. He declares her way of doing things “too much,” and insists they try to be “inconspicuous” and “discreet.” He worries whether others saw her, and, when she is casually in a nonhuman form, he asks if she can “be normal for a second.” He claims to support her, but says it would be “easier if she was a girl” because “other people aren’t as accepting.” His discomfort evokes fumbled allyship by cisgender people, and Nimona emphasizes the allegory by calling Boldheart out for his “small-minded questions.” While the alliance is uneasy, Boldheart continues working with Nimona to clear his name. They are the only allies each other has, and their individual survival is dependent on them working together.

When the duo gain video proof of Boldheart’s innocence, they learn the bomb that killed Queen Valerin was planted by the Director. Threatened by a Black woman using her influence to elevate a poor, queer man of color, the white Director chose to preserve the status quo through violence.

Nimona is eager to get the video on every screen in the city, but Boldheart wants to deal with the issue internally, out of the public eye. He insists “the Institute isn’t the problem, the Director is.” This belief is what also leads the comic’s Blackheart to reject Nimona’s idea that he should crown himself king. He is focused on reforming the existing power structure, neither removing it entirely nor taking it over himself.

Inside the Institute, the Director has been doing her best to set Goldenloin against his former partner. Despite his internal misgivings and fear of betraying someone he loves, Goldenloin does his best to adhere to his prescribed role. As the Director reminds the knights, they are literally born to defend the kingdom, and it’s their sacred duty to do so—especially Goldenloin, who carries Gloreth’s holy blood. This blood connection is repeated throughout the film, and used by the Director to exploit Goldenloin. He’s the Institute’s token minority, put on a gilded pedestal and treated as a symbol instead of a human being.

Goldenloin is a pretty face for propaganda posters, and those posters can be seen throughout the film. They proclaim Gloreth’s majesty, the power of the knights, and remind civilians that the Institute is necessary to “protect our way of life.” A subway PSA urges citizens, “if you see something, slay something,” in a direct parody of the real-world “if you see something, say something” campaign by the United States Department of Homeland Security. (37)

The film is not subtle in its political messaging. When Boldheart attempts to prove his innocence to Goldenloin and the assembled knights, he reaches towards his pocket for a phone. The Director cries that Boldheart has a weapon, and Sureblade opens fire. Though the shot hits the phone and not Boldheart, it carries echoes of real-world police brutality against people of color. Specifically, the use of a phone evokes cases such as the 2018 murder of Stephon Clark, a young Black man who was shot and killed by California police claiming Clark’s cell phone was a firearm. (38) The film does not toy with vague, depoliticized themes of coexistence and tolerance; it is a direct and pointed allegory for contemporary oppression in the United States of America.

Forced to choose between love for Boldheart and loyalty to the Institute, Goldenloin chooses the Institute. He calls for Boldheart’s arrest, and this is the moment Boldheart finally agrees to fight back and raise hell alongside Nimona. When Goldenloin calls Nimona a monster during the ensuing battle, Boldheart doesn’t hesitate to refute it. He expresses his trust in her, and it’s clear he means it. He’s been betrayed by someone he cared about and thought he could depend on, and this puts him in true solidarity with Nimona for the first time.

During the fight, Nimona stops a car from crashing into a small child. She shapeshifts into a young girl to appear less threatening, but it doesn’t work. The child picks up a sword, pointing it at Nimona until an adult pulls them away to hide. When Nimona sees this hatred imprinted in the heart of a child, it horrifies her.

After fleeing to their hideout, Nimona makes a confession to Boldheart: she has suicidal ideations. So many people have directed so much hatred toward her that sometimes she wants to give in and let them kill her. In the real world, a month after the film’s release, a study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law compiled data about suicidality in American transgender adults. (39) Researchers found that eighty-one percent have thought about suicide, compared to just thirty-five percent of cisgender adults. Forty-two percent have attempted suicide, compared to eleven percent of cisgender adults. Fifty-six percent have engaged in self-harm, compared to twelve percent of cisgender adults.

When Boldheart offers to flee with her and find somewhere safe together, Nimona declares they shouldn’t have to run. She makes the decision every trans person living in a hostile place must make: do I leave and save myself, or do I stay to fight for my community? The year the film was released, the Trans Legislation Tracker reported a record-breaking amount of anti-trans legislation in the United States, with six hundred and two bills introduced throughout twenty-four states. (40) In February 2024, the National Center for Transgender Equality published data on their 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, revealing that forty-seven percent of respondents thought about moving to another area due to discrimination, with ten percent actually doing so. (41)

Despite the danger, Nimona and Boldheart work diligently against the Institute. When they gain fresh footage proving the Director’s guilt, they don’t hesitate to upload it online, where it garners rapid attention across social and news media. Newscasters begin asking who the real villain is, anti-Institute sentiment builds, and citizens protest in the streets, demanding answers. The power that social media adds to social justice activism is true in the real world as it is in the film, seen in campaigns such as the viral #MeToo hashtag and the Black Lives Matter movement. (42) In 2020, polls conducted by the Pew Research Center showed eight in ten Americans viewed social media platforms as either very or somewhat effective in raising awareness about political and social topics. In the same survey, seventy-seven percent of respondents believed social media is at least somewhat effective in organizing social movements. (43)

In reaction to the media firestorm, the Director issues a statement. She outs Nimona as a shapeshifter, and claims the evidence against the Institute is a hoax. Believing the Director, Goldenloin contacts Boldheart for a rendezvous, sans Nimona. From Goldenloin’s perspective, Boldheart is a good man who has been deceived by the real villain, Nimona. He tells Boldheart about a scroll the Director found, with evidence that Nimona is Gloreth’s original monster, still alive and terrorizing the city. Goldenloin wants to bring Boldheart back into the knighthood and resume their relationship, and though that’s what Boldheart wanted before, his solidarity with Nimona causes him to reject the offer.

Though he leaves Goldenloin behind, Boldheart’s suspicion of Nimona returns. Despite their solidarity, he doesn’t really know her, so he returns home to interrogate her. In the ensuing argument, he reverts to calling her a monster, but only through implication—he won’t say the word. Like a slur, he knows he shouldn’t say it anymore, but that doesn’t keep him from believing it.

Boldheart’s actions prove to Nimona that nowhere is safe. There is no haven. Her community will always turn on her. She flees, and in her ensuing breakdown, the audience learns her backstory. She was alone for an unspecified length of time, never able to fit in until meeting Gloreth as a little girl. Nimona presents herself to Gloreth as another little girl, and Gloreth becomes Nimona’s very first friend. Even when Nimona shapeshifts, Gloreth treats her with kindness and love.

Then the adults of Gloreth’s village see Nimona shapeshift, and the word “monster” is hurled. Torches and pitchforks come out. At the adults’ panic, Gloreth takes up a sword against Nimona, and the cycle of bigotry is transferred to the next generation. The friendship shatters, and Nimona must flee before she can be killed.

After losing Boldheart, seemingly Nimona’s only ally since Gloreth’s betrayal, Nimona’s grief becomes insurmountable. She knows in her heart that nothing will ever change. She’s been hurt too much, by too many, cutting too deeply. To Nimona, the world will only ever bring her pain, so she gives in. She transforms into the giant, ferocious monster everyone has always told her she is, and she begins moving through the city as the Institute opens fire.

When Ballister sees Nimona’s giant, shadowy form, he realizes the horrific pain he caused her. He intuits that Nimona isn’t causing destruction for fun, she’s on a suicide march. She’s given up, and her decision is the result of endless, systemic bigotry and betrayal of trust. Her rampage wouldn’t be happening if she’d been treated with love, support, and care.

Nimona’s previous admission of suicidal ideation repeats in voiceover as she prepares to impale herself on a sword pointed by a massive statue of Gloreth. Her suicide is only prevented because Ballister steps in, calling to her, apologizing, saying he sees her and she isn’t alone. She collapses into his arms, once again in human form, sobbing. Boldheart has finally accepted her truth, and she is safe with him.

But she isn’t safe from the Director.

In a genocidal bid she knows will take out countless civilian lives, the Director orders canons fired on Nimona. Goldenloin tries to stop her, finally standing up against the system, but it’s too late. The Director fires the canons, Nimona throws herself at the blast to protect the civilians, and Nimona falls.

When the dust settles, the Director is deposed and the city rebuilds. Boldheart and Goldenloin reconnect and resume their relationship. The walls around the city come down, reforms take hold in the Institute, and a memorial goes up to honor Nimona, the hero who sacrificed her life to reveal the Director’s corruption.

Nimona, however, is hard to kill.

Nimona originally had a tragic ending, born of N.D. Stevenson’s own depression, but that hopelessness didn’t last forever. (44) Though Nimona is defeated, she doesn’t stay dead. Through the outpouring of love and support N.D. Stevenson received while creating the original webcomic, he gained the community and support he needed to create a more hopeful ending for Nimona’s story—and himself.

The comic’s ending is bittersweet. Nimona can’t truly die, and eventually restores herself. She allows Blackheart to glimpse her, so he knows she survived, but she doesn’t stay. She still doesn’t feel safe, and is assumed to move on somewhere new. Blackheart never sees Nimona again.

The film’s ending is more hopeful. There is a shimmer of pink magic as Nimona announces her survival, and the film ends with Boldheart’s elated exclamation. Even death couldn’t keep her down. She survived Gloreth, and she survived the Director. Though this chapter of the story is over, there is hope on the horizon, and she has allies on her side.

In both incarnations, Nimona is a story of queer survival in a cruel world. The original ending was one of despair, that said there was little hope of true solidarity and allyship. The revised ending said there was hope, but still so far to go. The film’s ending says there is hope, there is solidarity, and there are people who will stand with transgender people until the bitter end—but, more importantly, there are people in the world who want trans people to live, to thrive, and to find joy.

In a world that’s so hostile to transgender people, it’s no wonder a radically trans-positive film had to fight so hard to exist. Unfortunately, the battle must continue. As of June 2024, Netflix hasn’t announced any intent to produce physical copies of the film, meaning it exists solely on streaming and is only accessible via a monthly paid subscription. Should Netflix ever take down its original animation, as HBO Max did in 2022 despite massive backlash, the film could easily become lost media. (45) Though it saved Nimona from Disney, Netflix has its own nasty history of under-marketing and canceling queer programs. (46)

The film’s art book is already gone. The multimedia tome was posted online on October 12, 2023, hosted at ArtofNimona.com. (47) Per the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the site became a Netflix redirect at some point between 10:26 PM on March 9, 2024 and 9:35 PM on March 20, 2024. (48) On the archived site, some multimedia elements are non-functional, potentially making them lost media. The art book is not available through any legal source, and though production designer Aidan Sugano desperately wants a physical copy made, there seem to be no such plans. (49)

Perhaps Netflix will eventually release physical copies of both film and art book. Perhaps not. Time will tell. In the meantime, Nimona stands as a triumph of queer media in a queerphobic world. That it exists at all is a miracle, and that its accessibility is so precarious a year after release is a travesty. Contemporary political commentary is woven into every aspect of the film, and it exists thanks to the passion, talent, and bravery of an incredible crew who endured despite blatant corporate queerphobia.

Long live Nimona, and long live the transgender community she represents.

_ This piece was commissioned using the prompt "the Nimona movie."

Updated 6/16/24 to revise an inaccurate statement regarding the original comic.

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Notes:

1. “Past Recipients 2010s.” n.d. Comic-Con International. Accessed June 10, 2024. https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipenties-2010s/.

2. Stevenson, ND. 2015. Nimona. New York, NY: Harperteen.

3. Kit, Borys. 2015. “Fox Animation Nabs ‘Nimona’ Adaptation with ‘Feast’ Director (Exclusive).” The Hollywood Reporter. June 11, 2015. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/fox-animation-nabs-nimona-adaptation-801920/.

4. Riley, Jenelle. 2017. “Oscar Winner Patrick Osborne Returns with First-Ever vr Nominee ‘Pearl.’” Variety. February 9, 2017. https://variety.com/2017/film/in-contention/patrick-osborne-returns-to-race-with-first-vr-nominee-pearl-1201983466/; Osborne, Patrick (@PatrickTOsborne). 2017. "Hey world, the NIMONA feature film has a release date! @Gingerhazing February 14th 2020 !!" Twitter/X, June 30, 2017, 3:16 PM. https://x.com/PatrickTOsborne/status/880867591094272000. ‌

5. “The Walt Disney Company to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., after Spinoff of Certain Businesses, for $52.4 Billion in Stock.” 2017. The Walt Disney Company. December 14, 2017. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/walt-disney-company-acquire-twenty-first-century-fox-inc-spinoff-certain-businesses-52-4-billion-stock-2/.

6. Amidi, Amid. 2017. “Disney Buys Fox for $52.4 Billion: Here Are the Key Points of the Deal.” Cartoon Brew. December 14, 2017. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/disney-buys-fox-key-points-deal-155390.html; Giardina, Carolyn. 2017. “Disney Deal Could Redraw Fox’s Animation Business.” The Hollywood Reporter. December 14, 2017. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/disney-deal-could-redraw-foxs-animation-business-1068040/; Szalai, Georg, and Paul Bond. 2019. “Disney Closes $71.3 Billion Fox Deal, Creating Global Content Powerhouse.” The Hollywood Reporter. March 19, 2019. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/disney-closes-fox-deal-creating-global-content-powerhouse-1174498/.

7. Hipes, Patrick. 2019. “After Trying Day, Disney Sets Film Leadership Lineup.” Deadline. March 22, 2019. https://deadline.com/2019/03/disney-film-executives-post-merger-team-set-1202580586/.

8. Jones, Rendy. 2023. “‘Nimona’: Netflix’s Remarkable Trans-Rights Animated Movie Is Here.” Rolling Stone. July 3, 2023. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/nimona-netflix-trans-rights-animated-movie-lgbtq-riz-ahmed-chloe-grace-moretz-1234782583/.

9. D’Alessandro, Anthony. 2021. “Disney Closing Blue Sky Studios, Fox’s Once-Dominant Animation House behind ‘Ice Age’ Franchise.” Deadline. February 9, 2021. https://deadline.com/2021/02/blue-sky-studios-closing-disney-ice-age-franchise-animation-1234690310/.

10. “Disney’s Blue Sky Shut down Leaves Nimona Film 75% Completed.” 2021. CBR. February 10, 2021. https://www.cbr.com/nimona-film-abandoned-disney-blue-sky-shut-down/; Sneider, Jeff. 2021. “Exclusive: Disney’s LGBTQ-Themed ‘Nimona’ Would’ve Featured the Voices of Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed.” Collider. March 4, 2021. https://collider.com/nimona-movie-cast-cancelled-disney-blue-sky/.

11. Horowitz, Juliana Menasce, Anna Brown, and Rachel Minkin. 2021. “The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Long-Term Financial Impact.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. March 5, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/03/05/a-year-into-the-pandemic-long-term-financial-impact-weighs-heavily-on-many-americans/.

12. Lang, Brent. 2022. “Disney CEO Bob Iger’s Rich Compensation Package Revealed, Company Says Bob Chapek Fired ‘without Cause.’” Variety. November 21, 2022. https://variety.com/2022/film/finance/bob-iger-compensation-package-salary-bob-chapek-fired-1235439151/.

13. Romano, Nick. 2020. “The Pandemic Animation Boom: How Cartoons Became King in the Time of COVID.” EW.com. November 2, 2020. https://ew.com/movies/animation-boom-coronavirus-pandemic/.

14. Strapagiel, Lauren. 2021. “The Future of Disney’s First Animated Feature Film with Queer Leads, ‘Nimona,’ Is in Doubt.” BuzzFeed News. February 24, 2021. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/disney-nimona-movie-lgbtq-characters.

15. Clark, Travis. 2022. “Disney Raised Concerns about a Same-Sex Kiss in the Unreleased Animated Movie ‘Nimona,’ Former Blue Sky Staffers Say.” Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-disapproved-same-sex-kiss-nimona-movie-former-staffers-say-2022-3.

16. Keegan, Rebecca. 2024. “Why Megan Ellison Saved ‘Nimona’: ‘I Needed This Movie.’” The Hollywood Reporter. February 22, 2024. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/megan-ellison-saved-nimona-1235832043/.

17. St. James, Emily. 2023. “Mourning the Loss of the Owl House, TV’s Best Queer Kids Show.” Vanity Fair. April 6, 2023. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/04/loss-of-the-owl-house-tvs-best-queer-kids-show.

18. AntagonistDana. 2021. “AMA (except by ‘Anything’ I Mean These Questions Only).” Reddit. October 5, 2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOwlHouse/comments/q1x1uh/ama_except_by_anything_i_mean_these_questions_only/; de Wit, Alex Dudok. 2020. “Disney Executive Tried to Block Queer Characters in ‘the Owl House,’ Says Creator.” 2020. Cartoon Brew. August 14, 2020. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/disney-executives-tried-to-block-queer-characters-in-the-owl-house-says-creator-195413.html.

19. Doherty, Thomas. 1999. Pre-Code Hollywood : Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press. 363.

20. Henderson, Taylor. 2018. “‘Steven Universe’s’ Latest Episode Just Made LGBTQ History.” Pride. July 5, 2018. https://www.pride.com/stevenuniverse/2018/7/05/steven-universes-latest-episode-just-made-lgbtq-history; McDonnell, Chris. 2020. Steven Universe: End of an Era. New York: Abrams. 102.

21. Stevenson, ND. (@Gingerhazing). 2021. "Sad day. Thanks for the well wishes, and sending so much love to everyone at Blue Sky. Forever grateful for all the care and joy you poured into Nimona." Twitter/X, February 9, 2021, 3:32 PM. https://x.com/Gingerhazing/status/1359238823935283200

22. Jones, Rendy. 2023. “‘Nimona’: Netflix’s Remarkable Trans-Rights Animated Movie Is Here.” Rolling Stone. July 3, 2023. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/nimona-netflix-trans-rights-animated-movie-lgbtq-riz-ahmed-chloe-grace-moretz-1234782583/.

23. Keegan, Rebecca. 2024. “Why Megan Ellison Saved ‘Nimona’: ‘I Needed This Movie.’” The Hollywood Reporter. February 22, 2024. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/megan-ellison-saved-nimona-1235832043/.

24. Stevenson, ND. (@Gingerhazing). 2022. "Nimona’s always been a spunky little story that just wouldn’t stop. She’s a fighter...but she’s also got some really awesome people fighting for her. I am excited out of my mind to announce that THE NIMONA MOVIE IS ALIVE...coming at you in 2023 from Annapurna and Netflix." Twitter/X, April 11, 2022, 10:00 AM. https://x.com/Gingerhazing/status/1513517319841935363.

25. “‘Nimona’ Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed & Eugene Lee Yang Coming to Netflix in 2023.” About Netflix. April 11, 2022. https://about.netflix.com/en/news/nimona-starring-chloe-grace-moretz-riz-ahmed-and-eugene-lee-yang-coming-to-netflix.

26. “’Nimona’ Rates 100% on Rotten Tomatoes after Annecy Premiere.” Animation Magazine. June 15, 2023. https://www.animationmagazine.net/2023/06/nimona-rates-100-on-rotten-tomatoes-after-annecy-premiere/

27. Dilillo, John. 2023. “’Nimona’: Everything You Need to Know About the New Animated Adventure.” Tudum by Netflix. June 30, 2023. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/nimona-release-date-news-photos

28. Reese, Lori. 2001. “Is ‘“Shrek”’ the Anti- Disney Fairy Tale?” Entertainment Weekly. May 29, 2001. https://ew.com/article/2001/05/29/shrek-anti-disney-fairy-tale/.

29. Sugano, Aidan. 2023. Nimona: the Digital Art Book. Netflix. 255. https://web.archive.org/web/20240309222607/https://artofnimona.com/.

30. White, Abbey. 2023. “How ‘Nimona’ Explores the Model Minority Stereotype through Its Queer API Love Story.” The Hollywood Reporter. July 1, 2023. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/nimona-eugene-lee-yang-directors-race-love-story-netflix-1235526714/.

31. White, Abbey. 2023. “How ‘Nimona’ Explores the Model Minority Stereotype through Its Queer API Love Story.” The Hollywood Reporter. July 1, 2023. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/nimona-eugene-lee-yang-directors-race-love-story-netflix-1235526714/.

32. Equal Justice Initiative. 2021. “Report Documents Racial Bias in Coverage of Crime by Media.” Equal Justice Initiative. December 16, 2021. https://eji.org/news/report-documents-racial-bias-in-coverage-of-crime-by-media/.

33. Stevenson, N. D. 2023. “Nimona (the Comic): A Deep Dive.” I’m Fine I’m Fine Just Understand. July 13, 2023. https://www.imfineimfine.com/p/nimona-the-comic-a-deep-dive.

34. Sugano, Aidan. 2023. Nimona: the Digital Art Book. Netflix. 259-260. https://web.archive.org/web/20240309222607/https://artofnimona.com/.

35. Sugano, Aidan. 2023. Nimona: the Digital Art Book. Netflix. 7. https://web.archive.org/web/20240309222607/https://artofnimona.com/.

36. Brown, Tracy. 2019. “In Netflix’s ‘She-Ra,’ Even Villains Respect Nonbinary Pronouns.” Los Angeles Times. November 6, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2019-11-05/netflix-she-ra-princesses-power-nonbinary-double-trouble.

37. Department of Homeland Security. 2019. “If You See Something, Say Something®.” Department of Homeland Security. May 10, 2019. https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something.

38. University of Stanford. n.d. “Stephon Clark.” Say Their Names - Spotlight at Stanford. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames/feature/stephon-clark.

39. Kidd, Jeremy D., Tettamanti, Nicky A., Kaczmarkiewicz, Roma, Corbeil, Thomas E., Dworkin, Jordan D., Jackman, Kasey B., Hughes, Tonda L., Bockting, Walter O., & Meyer, Ilan H. 2023. “Prevalence of Substance Use and Mental Health Problems among Transgender and Cisgender US Adults.” Williams Institute. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/transpop-substance-use/.

40. “2023 Anti-Trans Bills: Trans Legislation Tracker.” n.d. Trans Legislation Tracker. https://translegislation.com/bills/2023.

41. James, S.E., Herman, J.L., Durso, L.E., & Heng-Lehtinen, R. 2024. “Early Insights: A Report of the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey.” National Center for Transgender Equality, Washington, DC.

42. Myers, Catherine. 2023. “Protests in the Age of Social Media.” The Nonviolence Project. February 11, 2023. https://thenonviolenceproject.wisc.edu/2023/02/11/protests-in-the-age-of-social-media/.

43. Auxier, Brooke, and Colleen McClain. 2020. “Americans Think Social Media Can Help Build Movements, but Can Also Be a Distraction.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. September 9, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/09/09/americans-think-social-media-can-help-build-movements-but-can-also-be-a-distraction/.

44. Stevenson, N. D. 2023. “Nimona (the Comic): A Deep Dive.” I’m Fine I’m Fine Just Understand. July 13, 2023. https://www.imfineimfine.com/p/nimona-the-comic-a-deep-dive.

45. Chapman, Wilson. 2022. “HBO Max to Remove 36 Titles, Including 20 Originals, from Streaming.” Variety. August 18, 2022. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/hbo-max-originals-removed-1235344286/.

46. Iftikhar, Asyia. 2023. “Netflix CEO Slammed by LGBTQ+ Fans over Cancellation Comments: ‘They Are NOT Allies.’” PinkNews. January 24, 2023. https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/01/24/netflix-ceo-ted-sarandos-cancelled-shows-lgbtq-fans-reactions/.

47. Lang, Jamie. 2023. “Netflix Has Released a 358-Page Multimedia Art of Book for ‘Nimona’ - Exclusive.” Cartoon Brew. October 12, 2023. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/books/nimona-art-of-book-aidan-sugano-netflix-233636.html.

48. “Wayback Machine.” n.d. The Internet Archive. Accessed June 10, 2024. https://wayback-api.archive.org/web/20240000000000.

49. Lang, Jamie. 2023. “Netflix Has Released a 358-Page Multimedia Art of Book for ‘Nimona’ - Exclusive.” Cartoon Brew. October 12, 2023. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/books/nimona-art-of-book-aidan-sugano-netflix-233636.html.

[betterthanyalls]

hey betty wetty bo confetti

How’s about Ares x Reader in which she’s the daughter of Odysseus and and and she’s defending Telemachus & Penelope from the suitors and after getting into a fight with Antinous or however u spell his name, she meets Ares somehow?

BTW DONT FEEL PRESSURED OR FEEL THERES A TIME LIMIT - TAKE YOUR TIME 🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵

Okay love ya 🤩🤗

that nickname concerns me BUT HIIIII so ion know how good this is :sobs: , i made it in the span of like 2-3 hours from a burst of motivation. HERE YOU GO TAKE THIS AS A LATE BIRTHDAY PRESENT

Masterlist

Warrior's Blood

Ares x Reader

EPIC: The Musical ~ Oneshot ~ Action

Words: 1.4K

Published: 11-3-2024 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A loud belch sounded from the palace’s dining hall, followed by boisterous laughter and unorganized yells. The princess of Ithaca glared down the hallway while she stalked past the dining hall to her destination of the training grounds. “Men,” a loud voice called, the speaker standing up on a wooden bench, “we have been waiting for the throne for far too long. Can’t you see we are being played?”

Y/n slowed her pace, taking a peek into the crowded room to see the one suitor she hates the most speaking. Antinous. 

“I say, we take the throne. That boyish prince and his sister only stand in our way to the queen. Once we are rid of them, we shall have full access to the crown." Cheers and yells followed quickly. The onlooking royalty sneered in disgust. Normally, Y/n would only walk away and tell her mother about the new plan, but something inside her felt different—an urge to fight, a need for conflict. 

Taking a step into the light of the hall, Y/n cleared her throat.

“What would my mother think of this? Threatening to kill both of her children and then seizing her by force?" Y/n had to keep from gagging, not only at the idea of their threat but also the horrid stench of the room. 

Antinous turned to the princess with a look of pure murder and flame.

“Well, if it isn’t the weak girl. If you speak even a word of our plan, I will rip you limb from limb so you can meet your father in the underworld,” he stalked towards the younger girl with a vicious grin. “Now that I’ve thought about it, how about we begin that plan now? Starting with you.”

Y/n was wise enough to duck down, blocking an oncoming punch, only to be nailed in the gut with his knee. Falling to the ground with a sharp gasp, she was pulled to her feet by her hair. “Come on, girlie. You had the strength before to challenge me; where is it now? You’re as weak as your father.”

Staggering and getting out of his grasp, she pulled up a loose fighting position. The princess narrowed her eyes at Antinous’ insults while taking steps back to match his steps forward. Y/n tried to find some sort of strategy to take him down, like how Telemachus taught her. Her brother would always say to fight with wisdom, but there was no wisdom anywhere near this fight. Strategy only works if your opponent has strategy too. Antinous was anything but a planned fighter. 

So with her next best option, Y/n grabbed a nearby vase and chucked it at her rival's head. She missed, making Antinous even more angry. With a yell, a foot made contact with her stomach, throwing the princess to the floor and her head hitting a pillar. Pain shot through her entire body as she struggled to regain her breath. 

‘So, I did this easily. Thanks for the amazing lessons, Tele.’ Her mind wandered, forgetting about her approaching opponent as she took a glance at a nearby wall. There, up high, hung a tapestry by her mother. The twelve Olmpyians were displayed with divine glory. Glory that could help Y/n not die, if only they saw her. With nothing left to lose, the princess sent up a silent prayer before deciding to help herself.

With much pain and huffs, Y/n managed to stand on her feet once more with a sway.

Antinous offered a loud laugh, ricocheting off the stone walls.

“You just can’t stay down, can you? Do you not want to see Odysseus in Hades?”

“Don’t you dare speak my father's name,” she hissed through gritted teeth. She leaned onto the pillar with one hand while her other held her hurt stomach. Something other than pain burned inside her—a yearning to see him hurt, to see Antinous suffer. 

A new energy boosted her body; her muscles didn’t feel as sore, and the pain was dissipating. Deciding not to question this, Y/n dodged another punch aimed for her jaw. With fast footing, she grabbed a spear off the wall beside her and countered another punch.

Antinous grabbed the spear to rip it from Y/n’s grasp. Quickly, Y/n pulled the spear closer to her and kicked Antinous in the ribs. Instead of knocking him down, he only stumbled back. 

‘Left’ A voice spoke in her mind. Y/n was about to question the order until she noticed Antinous barreling towards her and instantly followed the demanded direction. 

Dodging a swipe of his sword, the princess swung her spear down at the man's knees, causing him to trip. Looking down to where he fell, a sudden push of rage flowed through her veins.

‘Blood’

She didn’t need to hear the voice again to know exactly what to do. With momentum, Y/n brought the weapons head down into Anitnous’ thigh, earning a scream from the male. She ripped the weapon from his flesh only to bring it down once more with another bloody cry. Her thoughts seemed barren except for a new order from the unknown voice. 

‘Stop’

That order only seemed to boost her adrenaline. Stop? She couldn’t. Not with all this pent-up anger and frustration she felt for Antinous. Y/n needed to make him learn where he stood as a guest in her kingdom. But as she raised her spear once more, the voice barked a command louder and all her pain and exhaustion rushed in.

‘STOP’

In an instant, her spear clattered to the floor as Y/n held her head with a groan. Antinous was being tended to by his fellow suitors, who had opted to stay on the sidelines. With labored breaths, Y/n managed to stumble away from the dining hall and towards the empty training grounds. 

Exhausted, she slumped to the sandy floor and leaned her back against a rack of swords. Her eyes shut against the glaring sun as the royal attempted to regain her breath. To her pleasure, the heat was blocked by a sudden shadow. The young adult cracked open her eyes to see a darkened figure wearing the full armor of a Spartan soldier. A mixture of emotions flooded into her soul as she recognized the nation's armor. Was this news of her father from serving beside the Spartans? But her hope was snuffed out as the familiar voice spoke.

“Stand up.”

She wanted to argue, but something in her felt compelled to follow the instructions. So, shakily, Y/n stood up in front of the warrior. From a new angle, she could see the stranger's identity. All breath escaped her lungs as she recognized the being from similar statues and paintings.

“Ares.”

The god, who towered over her with his divine form, smirked at the recognition.

“Indeed. I’ve seen your skill, princess of Ithaca. You fight well,” the god of war stalked around the girl in a circle, seeing her state after the fight. 

Finally, the two pieces connected in her mind as she turned to face him.

“It was you. The voice. The orders. That was all you.”

“You follow orders well, except for when you’re told to stop. I like that sort of fight.” Ares stood tall, power and bloodlust radiating off him as his armor seemed to brighten a bloody red in the sun’s light.

“Why’d you stop me anyway? You are the god of bloodlust, are you not? I could’ve killed him and solved the whole problem!” Y/n argued, upset at the missed opportunity.

“Have you forgotten the laws of hospitality? You would have been punished harshly by the gods had I let you continue. Not even I can defy those.” He glared down at her with warning. In response, she looked away with a defeated huff.

“Why’d you even help me then?” She grumbled, looking at the nearby swords; a few training weapons had begun to rust from limited use. 

"You have the ambition needed for the battlefield. Why would I let such skill go to waste with no proper mentor?” This caused Y/n to look at him instantly in shock, meeting the gaze of a grinning god beneath his helmet.

“Mentor?” 

“Y/n of Ithaca. You fight to protect. You fight to the last stand. That is a warrior’s blood. Like your father before you, you have the makings of a legend.” Ares held out his hand like he was shaking for a deal. “Become my champion, and I will help you become stronger than any opponent you shall face.” 

Y/n thought it over for less than a few seconds before grabbing the gods hand in her own and shaking them up and down. 

“Deal.”

[thaoworra]

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association recently released the poems that made it to the finalist stage for consideration for the 2024 Rhysling Awards for Short and Long Speculative Poems of the year. Congratulations to all of the nominees! This will be the 46th year these awards have been conferred!

Short Poems (50 finalists)

Attn: Prime Real Estate Opportunity!, Emily Ruth Verona, Under Her Eye: A Women in Horror Poetry Collection Volume II

The Beauty of Monsters, Angela Liu, Small Wonders 1

The Blight of Kezia, Patricia Gomes, HWA Poetry Showcase X

The Day We All Died, A Little, Lisa Timpf, Radon 5

Deadweight, Jack Cooper, Propel 7

Dear Mars, Susan L. Lin, The Sprawl Mag 1.2

Dispatches from the Dragon's Den, Mary Soon Lee, Star*Line 46.2

Dr. Jekyll, West Ambrose, Thin Veil Press December

First Eclipse: Chang-O and the Jade Hare, Emily Jiang, Uncanny 53

Five of Cups Considers Forgiveness, Ali Trotta, The Deadlands 31

Gods of the Garden, Steven Withrow, Spectral Realms 19

The Goth Girls' Gun Gang, Marisca Pichette, The Dread Machine 3.2

Guiding Star, Tim Jones, Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, ed. Lee Murray (Clan Destine Press)

Hallucinations Gifted to Me by Heatstroke, Morgan L. Ventura, Banshee 15

hemiplegic migraine as willing human sacrifice, Ennis Rook Bashe, Eternal Haunted Summer Winter Solstice

Hi! I am your Cortical Update!, Mahaila Smith, Star*Line 46.3

How to Make the Animal Perfect?, Linda D. Addison, Weird Tales 100

I Dreamt They Cast a Trans Girl to Give Birth to the Demon, Jennessa Hester, HAD October

Invasive, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Polar Starlight 9

kan-da-ka, Nadaa Hussein, Apparition Lit 23

Language as a Form of Breath, Angel Leal, Apparition Lit October

The Lantern of September, Scott Couturier, Spectral Realms 19

Let Us Dream, Myna Chang, Small Wonders 3

The Magician's Foundling, Angel Leal, Heartlines Spec 2

The Man with the Stone Flute, Joshua St. Claire, Abyss & Apex 87

Mass-Market Affair, Casey Aimer, Star*Line 46.4

Mom's Surprise, Francis W. Alexander, Tales from the Moonlit Path June

A Murder of Crows, Alicia Hilton, Ice Queen 11

No One Now Remembers, Geoffrey Landis, Fantasy and Science Fiction Nov./Dec.

orion conquers the sky, Maria Zoccula, On Spec 33.2

Pines in the Wind, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, The Beautiful Leaves (Bamboo Dart Press)

The Poet Responds to an Invitation from the AI on the Moon, T.D. Walker, Radon Journal 5

A Prayer for the Surviving, Marisca Pichette, Haven Speculative 9

Pre-Nuptial, F. J. Bergmann, The Vampiricon (Mind's Eye Publications)

The Problem of Pain, Anna Cates, Eye on the Telescope 49

The Return of the Sauceress, F. J. Bergmann, The Flying Saucer Poetry Review February

Sea Change, David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader, Scifaikuest May

Seed of Power, Linda D. Addison, The Book of Witches ed. Jonathan Strahan (Harper Collins)

Sleeping Beauties, Carina Bissett, HWA Poetry Showcase X

Solar Punks, J. D. Harlock, The Dread Machine 3.1

Song of the Last Hour, Samuel A. Betiku, The Deadlands 22

Sphinx, Mary Soon Lee, Asimov's September/October

Storm Watchers (a drabbun), Terrie Leigh Relf, Space & Time

Sunflower Astronaut, Charlie Espinosa, Strange Horizons July

Three Hearts as One, G. O. Clark, Asimov's May/June

Troy, Carolyn Clink, Polar Starlight 12

Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary, John Grey, Medusa's Kitchen September

Under World, Jacqueline West, Carmina Magazine September

Walking in the Starry World, John Philip Johnson, Orion's Belt May

Whispers in Ink, Angela Yuriko Smith, Whispers from Beyond (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Long Poems (25 finalists)

Archivist of a Lost World, Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 4

As the witch burns, Marisca Pichette, Fantasy 87

Brigid the Poet, Adele Gardner, Eternal Haunted Summer Summer Solstice

Coding a Demi-griot (An Olivian Measure), Armoni “Monihymn” Boone, Fiyah 26

Cradling Fish, Laura Ma, Strange Horizons May

Dream Visions, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Eccentric Orbits 4

Eight Dwarfs on Planet X, Avra Margariti, Radon Journal 3

The Giants of Kandahar, Anna Cates, Abyss & Apex 88

How to Haunt a Northern Lake, Lora Gray, Uncanny 55

Impostor Syndrome, Robert Borski, Dreams and Nightmares 124

The Incessant Rain, Rhiannon Owens, Evermore 3

Interrogation About A Monster During Sleep Paralysis, Angela Liu, Strange Horizons November

Little Brown Changeling, Lauren Scharhag, Aphelion 283

A Mere Million Miles from Earth, John C. Mannone, Altered Reality April

Pilot, Akua Lezli Hope, Black Joy Unbound eds. Stephanie Andrea Allen & Lauren Cherelle (BLF Press)

Protocol, Jamie Simpher, Small Wonders 5

Sleep Dragon, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

Slow Dreaming, Herb Kauderer, The Book of Sleep (Written Image Press)

St. Sebastian Goes To Confession, West Ambrose, Mouthfeel 1

Value Measure, Joseph Halden and Rhonda Parrish, Dreams and Nightmares 125

A Weather of My Own Making, Nnadi Samuel, Silver Blade 56

Welcoming the New Girl, Beth Cato, Penumbric October

What You Find at the Center, Elizabeth R McClellan, Haven Spec Magazine 12

The Witch Makes Her To-Do List, Theodora Goss, Uncanny 50

The Year It Changed, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Star*Line 46.4

Voting for the Rhysling Award begins July 1; a link to the ballot will be sent with the Rhysling Anthology, as well as with the July issue of Star*Line. More information on the Rhysling Award can be found here.

[carlos-in-glasses]

Rhythms

124k, 17 chapters, E, complete and on Ao3.

TK swoons when he discovers a sentimental scrapbook full of notes he and Carlos have left for each other – but he also unearths a book of poems that closeted teen-Carlos wrote about his struggles, including a few dedicated to his high school crush. An adorably mortified Carlos recalls the stir he caused when he was published anonymously in the high school paper, and everything he went through to write his wedding vows for TK years later. With TK as a hype-man, maybe Carlos can embrace his creative side again.

Read on Ao3

Chapter 1 - Love Heart: The day after TK and Carlos’ first wedding anniversary, TK is sent home from work sick. Back at the loft unexpectedly, he makes a surprising discovery about Carlos.

Chapter 2 - Club Can't Handle Me: In 2011, sixteen-year-old Carlos is both in the closet and in his high school’s wrestling team – and it’s all a bit too much. Perhaps against his better judgment, he turns to poetry and makes a decision that will change his life.

Chapter 3 - Crossroads: Daydreaming about his wedding vows mid-drive, Carlos gets pulled over for a traffic violation – and Gabriel isn’t happy. Reunited with TK, Carlos might be lost for words, but he finds another way to express his love and desire.

Chapter 4 - The Wrestler: Carlos’ poems are published – and he quickly learns there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle.

Chapter 5 - A Gay Fantasia: In the aftermath of being abducted by a serial killer, Carlos reflects on recent events and resumes work on his wedding vows.

Chapter 6 - La Tormenta: Carlos is devastated when Scott gets a girlfriend, and he finds himself in another snowballing situation.

Chapter 7 - Soulmates: When TK has a Huntington’s disease scare, Carlos finds he knows exactly what to say. But will it help him with his writer’s block when it comes to his wedding vows?

Chapter 8 - Man of Mystery: It’s the day of the Lake View High School Talent Show – and will the real Shadow Poet please stand up?

Chapter 9 - Crush: In 2011, it’s make or break for sixteen year old Carlos at the talent show. In 2024, TK becomes the hype man Carlos had needed over a decade ago.

Chapter 10 - From Behind: A couple of weeks before the wedding, Carlos is still working on his vows when a deeper rift develops between him and his dad. In 2012, seventeen year-old Carlos is spiraling after coming out to his parents.

Chapter 11 - The Other Wrestler: TK decides to lift Carlos’ spirits by learning how to wrestle.

Chapter 12 - Carlos Reyes Will Be Okay: At Gabriel’s funeral, Carlos regrets saying no to reading a poem in tribute – but during the wake, he finds himself under a whole new pressure. Later that night, he realizes the vows he’s worked so hard on for TK cannot be spoken yet.

Chapter 13 - The Closet: Despite some good news, Carlos ends up in the doghouse with his mom and with TK.

Chapter 14 - Once in a Blue Moon: Reeling from his confrontation with Andrea, Carlos seeks advice and admits a secret.

Chapter 15 - Raining on Prom Night: In May 2012, chaos erupts at Carlos’ senior prom.

Chapter 16 - Tyler Kennedy Strand: The wedding day arrives, and Carlos finally gets to recite his vows to TK.

Chapter 17 - Shadow Poet: Carlos attends his poetry reading with TK by his side and some important people in the audience – but will he actually perform this time?

“I was just remembering–” Carlos says, “The first time you stayed for a while after one of our hookups. It was, like, the third time we hooked up, I think. I asked if you wanted tea and cookies and you looked at me like I’d said the weirdest thing ever.”

TK’s exhausted, puffy face breaks into a dazzling grin. “You were being such a Boy Scout.”

“But then you said yes and you ate half the cookie jar.”

“You called me the Cookie Monster.”

“That was the first time I really made you laugh.”

“Tea came out my nose.”

“It was beautiful,” Carlos says, pausing then to qualify: “Your laugh.”

TK gazes up at him, his clear green eyes large and shining. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“The first time you made me laugh was when we were dancing at the honky-tonk.”

“Hey!” TK swats his arm. “I was trying my best!”

“You were so goofy,” Carlos chides. “I just loved it. I loved you.”

Read on Ao3

[reality-detective]

POSSIBLE TIMING:

· In 2016 it was confirmed that the Military would be in charge of a transition from the privately owned by private bankers US Inc. to the Republic for the United States of America through passage of the Military Justice Act of 2016, which states: 1. Military law surpasses civilian. 2. President and Commander-in-Chief are separate. 3. Military rules above federal government. The military leads this transition.

· In 2020 President Trump had 650 plane loads of US Taxpayer’s owned gold removed from the Vatican. The 1871 Corporation Act (of the privately owned by foreign bankers US Inc.) was dissolved in 2020. The gold was not placed in the privately owned by foreign bankers US Inc. Treasury at Fort Knox, but President Trump had it taken to it’s rightful owners – the new Republic for the United States of America Treasury located on an Indian Reservation near Reno Nevada.

· In 2020 when Trump took over that gold and the Federal Reserve, it ended the power of Israel, Ukraine, and the Khazarian Mafia. Putin was also helping to end that power. Ukraine was the Khazarian Mafia’s base for child trafficking. Putin’s moves crushed their operations and saved hundreds of children.

· In 2020 Trump ended the Illuminati power by taking over the Fed.

· 31 Oct. 2023 marks the expiration of the State of Israel. Dual-citizen politicians lose power. The Rothschild Empire begins to collapse.

· “On Sun. 16 Feb. the Iraqi budget was ratified and was expected to be published in the Gazette on Mon. 17 Feb, along with Kurdistan resuming oil exports through Somo and Kash Patel becoming the 17th confirmation on a drop dead Q Drop Feb. 17 that has to be a blunt ‘Game Over’ Q Drop (3872).”

· On 31 Oct. 2024 the Charter for the State of Israel, the Cabal’s last holdout, expired and now faces collapse. Dual-citizen politicians of the US and Israel has lost their power. The foreign banker Rothschild control over the US Taxpayer Dollar has been shattered.

· Mon. 17 Feb. 2025: The Trial for the Crimes Against Humanity has begun. The experimental spike protein jab rollout is in violation of all 10 Sections of the Nuremberg Code.

· The Global Military Alliance has confirmed that Mass Arrests were in progress and Trump has given the Green Light for the Emergency Broadcast System to be activated.

· On Thurs. 30 Jan. 2025 the privately owned Fed and IRS officially dropped dead – when the US Treasury withdrew from the Cabal’s Bankrupt Central Banks across the World. President Trump has said he will replace the IRS with the ERS (External Revenue Service) where taxation on goods will replace taxation on The People and their income.

· Since Friday 3 Feb. 2025 all Basel 4 Compliant banks have gone public with the new Gold / Commodity-backed currency International Rates as required by the GESARA Law. This is the Re-evaluation of all the global currencies (meaning the global currency reset).

· Tues. 11 Feb. 2025 Official Notification: Leaders in the Global Currency Reset received signal payments authorized by the Quantum Network

· This week the Quantum Financial System was said to be fully operational for completion of that Global Currency Reset.

· The use of the FIAT US Dollar will be used for up to 90 days Feb. / March / April parallel with the new United States Note (USN), they may cut it off by April 30th or soon thereafter. 🤔

- Julian Assange

[cityof2morrow]

CO2 Skills: Custom Skill Tokens

Published: 7-17-2024 | Updated: 2-1-2025

SUMMARY I use mods to make more diverse sims in terms of personality traits, body types, and lifetime wants. They’ve made my sims more complex and interesting to play overall. Still, the skill-building system feels limited alongside these mods. Being a decent pianist shouldn’t automatically make it easier to paint, spy, DJ, garden, become a career slacker, work as an architect, and play every other instrument in-game. Being clean certainly benefits barbers and pet owners, but shouldn’t they also be good at cutting hair and animal care?

By default, sims can develop at least 40 skills - 4 toddler skills, 7 basic skills, 4 hidden skills, 6 life skills (AL/FT), and 11 talent badges (OFB). This custom skills pack expands the existing skill-hobby system in Sims 2 in the following ways:

60+ new skills taken from other games in the simsverse (Sims 3, Sims 4, console titles, etc.)

100+ new skills related to university majors, career tracks, and popular mods from the simsverse

New skills are linked to certain objects, interactions, and career levels

All TS2 content creators are welcome to link these skills to your creations if they choose. These will be linked to some of my custom careers, majors, and objects in the future.

VERSION 2 UPDATES (REDOWNLOAD RECOMMENDED):

Revised the original post for clarity.

Sorted package files into subfolders based on primary skill group (body, logic, charisma, etc.).

Name Changes (same GUIDs): cosmic cuisine (0x000D324F, cooking) to gastromancy (supernatural/occult foods). country cooking (0x004EDA6E, cooking) to soul food (Afrodiaspora foods). selvadoradian culture (0x0084C734, logic) to memory. simology (0x0084C734, body) to psychology. traditional dance (0X00C87F1F, dance) to ritual dance. vampire lore (0x00680121, supernatural) to mythlore (supernatural history/folklore).

New skills added: animal care (0x00B7128A, cleaning), not to be confused with animal training (0x00002CEF, cleaning) or veterinarian (0x00891E5A, logic), choreography (0x00AD0E5B, dance), formal dance (0x0019579F, dance), and more!

DETAILS Basegame Compatible – but skill-related objects and mods may require expansions.

Skills are invisible tokens activated by certain interactions in-game.

Sims can’t develop the same skill twice and they can’t sell or gift them to others.

Skills do not appear in inventories or the UI.

Some repetitive and animal-specific skills were excluded.

These are TOKENS ONLY - custom objects, mods, majors and career tracks which use these skills will be published on this site under the #co2skills, #co2careers, and/or #co2edu  tags. Modders, feel free to implement these and if you do – please share! DOWNLOAD (choose one) from SFS | from MEGA SKILL GROUPS AT A GLANCE

BODY skill is already linked to tai chi and the restocking badge, but the skill is named differently across games (athleticism, fitness, health/sanity, etc.). Build physical and mental strengths for hunting, surfing, romance, street fighting, ballet, etc.

CHARISMA connects to the sales badge while a range of hobby-related interests fall under film and literature. Branch off and concentrate on related skill areas such as acting, deception, coaching, fame and more.

CLEANING skill is linked to three badges (cosmetology, gardening, and fishing) and enthusiasm for animals and the environment. Specialize in animal training, barbering, skin care, conservation and related skills.

COOKING skills open up new worlds of taste…time to make some magic in the kitchen! Skills include baking, soul food, gastromancy (occult foods!), mixology, alchemy and more.

CREATIVITY makes earning badges in flower arranging, pottery, and sewing easier. New artistic pursuits include advanced painting, jewelry making, storytelling, knitting, and street art.

DANCE skills such as dirty dancing, formal dancing, breakdancing, casual dancing, and more have been moved to their own folder.

LOGIC contributes to the register/cashiering badge and the hidden study/homework skill. Now, sims can master gemology, first aid, history, crypto-zoology and over a dozen other things. Sims will need to learn theory and technical skills to advance in certain majors/careers.

MECHANICAL sims can more easily earn a robotics badge and now, they can also unlock a host of new mechanical/tech-related pursuits – wood working, electrical, photography, fabrication, and so on.

SUPERNATURAL sims and those with supernatural abilities can enhance their craft by building a range of new skills. Try curse magic, reaping, earth bending, or flying! Other sims have limited access to these skill areas.

CREDITS Thanks: Echo, Ch4rmful, Gummi, ChocolateCitySim, Sufficeittisay, WHoward, JellyMeduza and the rest of the Sims 2 modding community. Sources: Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Magic Skill (Echo, 2006), Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik).

[wipbigbang]

2024 WIP Big Bang Schedule & FAQ!

Schedule

All times are by 11:59pm PST. Convert time zones.

Sign-ups Begin- April 15th Sign-ups Close- May 21st Check In #1- May 22nd Check In #2- June 15th Snippets Due- July 1st Art Claims Begin- July 17th Check In #3- July 22nd Check In #4- August 6th Rough Drafts Due- August 15th Posting Claims Begin- August 23rd Posting Claims Ends- September 1st Final Drafts/Art Due- September 7th Posting Starts- September 8th

FAQ

What is the WIP Big Bang? Good question! This is a Big Bang with one goal in mind: to clean out your fanfic drafts folder. These are stories that were unfinished for whatever reason, that authors returned to and completed, and the art that goes with them!

Do I need a Livejournal/Dreamwidth/AO3/etc. account to participate? No! You don’t have to have an account on anything to participate, though you will need to have somewhere to post your finished work. Having one or more accounts will help for you to follow what is going on with the bang (we crosspost to Dreamwidth and Tumblr and heavily use our Discord server at the moment), but they are not required to participate. You can always leave comments anonymously or with an opensource ID.

How many fics can we sign up for? We absolutely don’t mind multiple sign-ups. I know one year someone submitted 50 fics to finish, and got at least half of them done. We just ask that when you sign up with more than one fic you give each fic a unique user ID (please do not use the same ID for all your fics...it’s important to have different IDs for the check-ins).

Will I get emails about the bang? We do send out some emails, mostly for snippets and art claims and to ensure communication between authors and artists, but please do NOT rely on getting an email to remind you of due dates. We currently do not keep an updated email list of participants, so we only send individual emails as needed rather than mass emails.

However, email is the fastest way to communicate with the mods. If you have any questions or are having trouble communicating with your artist/author, please do email us! We will do our best to respond quickly.

What do you mean by minimum word count to enter? This is a WIP Big Bang, therefore we ask you to have at least 500 words of your story drafted when you enter.

Can an outline count towards those first 500 words that are needed at sign up? We have admitted work on an outline before so yes, if your outline is fleshed out enough to cover a 7,500 word+ fic, we’ll allow it.

Are multi-chapter fics allowed? Yes, multi-chapter fics are allowed and even more so encouraged if your fic is lengthy.

What about fics that are already posted on ao3 in part? Do those qualify for the bang? It's okay if you have posted a few chapters of your fic already (you never know when the muse deserts you, after all), we just require you to refrain from posting more until posting begins here. All we ask is that you not post any public updates to the fic until September 1st (or August 1st with the mod’s okay). We don’t want you to lose kudos and comments so don’t worry about pulling the fic down, just hold off on updates for now.

Is there a minimum word count? 7,500 words for each finished fic, but the sky's the limit, right?

I see that the fic minimum is 7500 words and that published WIPs are acceptable - but what if the WIP I’m considering is already more than 7500 words? Is the expectation to add an additional 7500 to it? No. You can add as much or as little as you need to finish the story, though we do expect at least 1,000 or so new words if your WIP already meets the word count.

What happens if an author finishes the fic they signed up with but it’s less than 7,500 words? The intent was to go over the minimum but once they got into it the story was shorter than they thought and stretching it out would make it less good. Do they have to drop out at that point? By all means, we want your stories to feel as natural as possible, and if it’s under 7,500 words you may have two options:

1 - Drop the fic for the main BB event, post it now, and wait to post it to our AO3 collection in February when we run our International Fanworks Day celebration of finishing fics that are less than 7,500 words when finished. There’s no art for the fic, but bragging rights are posted to the communities for a week.

2 - If there are enough fics that fit that category, we can do a special day of posting the fics, but you’ll have to forgo art for the fic. I, as a mod, would probably pick November 30th for the posting day, as it’s the last day of posting for the bang and I don’t think anyone will mind more than one fic that day. You can post bragging rights to the community and share the fic with everyone.

Is there anything not allowed? As long as you wrote it and you want to finish it, you're welcome to participate. RPS/RPF is fine. Incest pairings are fine. Things like that I know have been hinted at in questions asked and as long as you tag for them, we’ll allow it. Also, canon settings with mostly OCs is allowed. We just ask that it be tagged properly with any content warnings you would deem fit and be given the appropriate rating for the level of sex/violence there is in the fic. Just bear in mind that while original work is allowed you may not get art for it.

I have a fic I wrote a few years ago, but only the first couple chapters are posted on AO3 because I was never happy with the rest of it and knew it needed major revision. Is that something I could use for WIP Big Bang? The entire fic has been posted, but only on one platform, and it would be rewritten for AO3 and WIPBB. I think revising a fic for posting would work, as long as you have at least 500 words done, will have 7,500 words at a minimum when it’s done, and are planning to add more to the fic. Simply rewriting what you have would be a gray area, but if you’re going to take stuff out and add new scenes, either in the old scenes place or on its own, you should be fine.

What's the etiquette around OC-centric stories? Ones that are set in a well known fandom and use several characters, but still lean a lot on original characters? Are they discouraged, or fine? Based on my own personal experience making art for a story that had a heavy OC presence, it’s not something we discourage at all, but be forewarned when it comes to the art accompanying your fic your artist may not be able to incorporate the OCs into your art. Not everyone makes art of a hand-drawn or digitally drawn nature, so it helps if you have people for face claims ahead of art submissions, and you and your artist communicate regularly. You can also end up with art not featuring the OCs at all, just the canon characters, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Your other options are to bring in an artist you trust with your vision of your OC or to make your own art (we do allow that, we just need to be told during the check-in before art that you’re bringing in your own artist if you go that route, or that you’re doing your own art…there will not be a need to sign up in the artist’s sign up, however), or to opt-out of art entirely. So there’s plenty of options to call on when it comes time for art.

What are 'check-ins’? These are a way for us to see what you've been up to and for you to make sure you're still on track. It will give you a little nudge/reminder if you need it, but they are not compulsory. Basically a form is posted that you fill out with your user ID (unique for each fic) and a checkbox to let us know you’re still participating, plus a section for any notes for the mods.

How are the check in IDs used? They are solely for the mods organizational purposes. Each ID being for a separate story allows us to keep all the information you submit during check-ins and for snippets in one line on our spreadsheet. You don’t have to share your check in IDs with anyone else if you don’t want to.

How much progress should authors be making between each checkpoint? (Percentage-wise from our estimated total wc, I guess?) Ideally, with each check-in, you should be at least 25% closer to finishing. The end word count only really matters in that the fic needs to be at least 7,500 words when done, so it’s more your progress towards finishing that should be measured, not so much the word count.

What are the snippets requirements? In order to allow the artists to make art for the story they claimed, we require you to supply three snippets from your fic, between 500 – 1500 words each. The snippets will be sent to the artist after they have claimed your story. They're to help the artist match your story for artwork the best way he or she possibly can. It’s helpful to choose scenes or parts of scenes that you feel best represent your fic, but don’t feel like they have to be perfect to be submitted. Along with the snippets, we will send your artist the basic fic info and your email, so the two of you can collaborate more if you would both like.

What are the rough drafts requirements? For the rough drafts, stories should be at least 80% complete. You will not have to turn them in to us, just assure us that you are at that point. Anything less is at the discretion of the mods and those authors should speak to one of the mods asap.

What is, and do I need, a beta? A beta is basically a person who goes over your work to make sure that there are no spelling/grammatical errors and they can even be of assistance in helping you with story lines, etc. It is highly recommended that a beta looks over your work before posting. If you are having trouble finding a beta, try this post.

Where can I post my fic/art? Stories and art can be posted to your own personal journal, Tumblr, ff-net, AO3, or wherever you like. For those of you with AO3 accounts, we will set up a collection that will go live on the day of the posting. If you don’t currently have an AO3 account but would like one, you can contact the mods for an invitation code to see if they have any available. You can also add yourself to the AO3 Invites Request queue.

What does posting look like? Do we have to post the whole thing on the day, or can we stretch it out between when posting starts and our date? I’ve had a few longfics get killed by big bangs forcing posting to happen on a given day, and would prefer to avoid that if possible. For most fics, posting to AO3/FF.net/other places will be allowed to start in September and you can stretch it out as many posts as you want as long as the complete fic is up by your posting date (and posting dates go from September 8th to November 15th with two weeks for emergency posting). However, you can send us an ask/e-mail about posting as early as August if you have an extremely long fic/something with a long posting schedule. Mostly what we want is the fic to be completely up on the website of your choice by your posting date, and I know some people don’t want to overwhelm their readers. So we want to work with writers to give them ample time to post the story up to their posting date.

Now, as for posting to the communities, you get to choose which day your link to the story and bragging rights are posted, and as I said, we have a range of dates from September 8th to November 15th with two to three stories posting a day. If for some reason you miss your posting date, you have until November 30th to post to the community, during the two weeks of emergency posting, with a possible extension after that due to the amount of participants needing to post later. So hopefully there should be plenty of time to get a longfic up and posted to the website of your choice and our BB.

Will the three snippets per story we have to send in be the ones we want the artist to make art for? Or can it just be random snippets and then later the artist and I can check together to see which scenes would work best for art? So ideally, you and the artist will be communicating once you’re each sent each other’s contact information, and you’ll give your artist a chance to read all that you’ve written at that point. That’s what happens in most cases. If your fic gets picked by an artist and they don’t work with you, then the snippets you sent will be what the artwork will be based on. It’s a good idea to know that, while most of the time the artists work closely with the authors, there are a few exceptions to that.

How do I know when to post? Posting will be tiered; you'll each get your own posting date that you and your artist will decide on together. There will probably be four fics, plus art, posting per day between September 8th and November 30th. The post with date claims will go up on August 23rd and you'll have to choose your date by September 1st.

Posting of chapters on AO3 or your own blog (or wherever you usually post) generally starts September 1st, but you can post earlier (as early as August 1st) if you let us know you have a long story. However, posting has to be finished by your chosen posting date to the comm. One of the things we're hoping to do with the posted dates is to give everybody on the comm a little bragging time in the spotlight. You know, "this story was incomplete for this long, but I finished this sucker." If you don't have time to post your bragging rights to the communities on your chosen posting date, you can queue up a post ahead of time and we can post it on the date you picked or you can email us your bragging rights and we can post by proxy for you. Either way works for us. Art will be due on the chosen posting date to the comm.

What am I posting to the Livejournal/Dreamwidth/Tumblr community if I’m posting the fic elsewhere? You’ll be posting what we call bragging rights. It’s a small form you fill out and post to the community with a link to your fic (we’ll enable moderated posting to the Tumblr, Livejournal and Dreamwidth communities for members on August 8th). We will post a template for posting artwork and stories to the comm closer to the posting date.

Is there a minimum/maximum requirement for my art? There is no strict minimum, but we do ask artists to remember that the authors are writing a minimum of 7,500 words and your artwork should reflect that. You can do anything you like, including banners, wallpapers, icons, mixes, vids, gif sets, picspams, etc. Suggested guidelines for art are 500x500px (or equivalent of smaller pieces like banner + spacers, cover + icons, etc.) for traditional art, digital art, and manips; 2 minutes for vids; 10 songs + cover art for mixes; and 6 images for gif sets and picspams. We also ask that when you are in contact with the author, you work with them to see if there is anything specific they would like (i.e. a wallpaper, book cover, etc.). The art is your work, but having ideas doesn't hurt!

What are 'art claims'? The claims are when anonymous summaries of the story go up for artists to choose from. Artists sign-ups and art claims are the same thing; we use one form for both things, and that way the authors don’t have to sign up for an event they may not end up participating in. It is based on a 'first come, first served' basis and artists may choose up to three potential stories (in case their first choice is unavailable). If there are more stories than artists, there will be a second round of claims wherein artists may choose a second story to work with. And on until all stories are claimed for art.

If a fic up for claiming is rated explicit (R, NC-17, etc.), please only claim the story if you are over 18 years of age. Some authors may be uncomfortable working with underage artists on explicit works. We do not verify ages in any way for the bang, so this is solely on the honor system.

What do I do if I have problems or concerns about my author/artist? Sometimes authors and artists do not get along and this may cause problems with working together. If this happens to be the case with you, please email the mods and we will try to do what we can so that everyone has a chance to have fun at WIP Big Bang!

If you have not heard from your author/artist in some time after trying to contact them, you can reach out to us via email and we will try to get in touch with them for you.

Can I get an extension? Community extensions may be given in the event that the majority of the authors/artists need one. They may also be given individually under certain circumstances, but this must be discussed with the mods and will only be a short extension for posting. If you are certain that you won’t be able to finish your story in time, please let us know by July 13th.

Can I swap out a fic if my muse abandons it again? When you sign up, you give us the information on the potential fic(s) you want to write. If, say, one fic isn’t working but one you didn’t sign up for is, you can switch them out while letting the mods know if you need to change a user ID you used. It is absolutely okay to switch fics all the way up until snippets are due. By then, we hope you’ll have however many fics you plan on doing to at least 80% completion since rough drafts are due not much later. Just drop an email to the mods at wipbigbang@gmail.com with the new information (title, fandom, etc) and if you want a new sign in ID or plan to use the same one for the fic you’re replacing it with.

Can I drop out? We have high hopes that everybody who signs up can actually finish the round and share in the joy of the reveal with us, but real life can unfortunately get in the way and we completely understand! If you feel like you just cannot finish in time and no amount of assistance from us can help you, just let us know by August 13th (if at all possible).

Is it possible to be banned? We do have a banned users list. We hope to use this to encourage participants who are having issues to communicate with the mods. We want to help you! The way the ban works is that participants, either authors and artists, will be banned for dropping out without notifying a mod. This means that anyone who has not posted or talked to a mod by the time the posting period ends will be banned. Dropping out is not in and of itself a banning offense, so please do not panic if you have to drop out! We understand that there are many reasons you may need to drop, and we want to work with you.

Bans will last one round or until the issue is resolved, whichever comes first. To resolve a ban, authors will have to finish and post the story they signed up with and artists will have to finish and post the art for the story they claimed. Three bans will result in a permanent ban from the bang.

Are we allowed to participate without joining the Discord? Absolutely! The Discord server is optional, as just another way to interact with your fellow writers and get updates on important dates. It’s not mandatory you join, however.

I was just wondering if there’s any way to enter the bang anonymously? Like would it be okay to put our work in an anonymous collection on ao3 or something? Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way for that to work. The collection that we use is moderated but it’s not anonymous, and there are the bragging posts that you post on your posting day, which you would have your username on whichever platform you use.

I was just wondering whether I'm sworn to secrecy on which fics I'll be finishing up, or if I can shout it out to the world? No one is sworn to secrecy once they’ve signed up (aside from posting new parts to fic that’s already up somewhere…we ask that you refrain from doing that until at least July 1st)! We will be running Word Wars, where you can add more to a fic in a certain amount of time, and Whine Bars, where you can complain or ask for help or whatever else you feel like talking about when it comes to struggling with a fic, all after sign-ups end on a weekly basis, plus there’s the Discord server for chatting with your fellow authors and artists.

I have a question/concern that’s not mentioned here. If you need help, you can always contact a mod and we will do our best to make sure that you get your story/art finished. The best and fastest method of contact is through our email, wipbigbang@gmail.com.

[aethon-recs]

This Week in Tomarrymort (7 – 15 August 2024)

Testing out a new format for recs! Trying this out as I don’t always have time to put together detailed themed rec lists, and there’s always SO MUCH good fic getting published every day on AO3. So these are all either ongoing Tomarrymort fics that I’m subscribed to or new one shots that I found while browsing that were updated in the last week. 

My goal is to compile these lists on Fridays, so that everyone has lots of juicy fic to read going into the weekend 🤍 I find myself missing updates all the time, so I hope this will be a helpful compilation of updates of must-read ongoing fic that you may have missed! Happy reading. 

Also, I didn't even realize so much Tomarrymort fic gets updated every week until I sat down and started doing this. Like, this is why I don't have a life, because I spend all my time reading AO3 (and I'm sure many of you feel the same way 😅) The incredible range of talent and insane output in this ship is absolutely awe-inspiring and breathtaking.

*

Tomarrymort One Shots and Completed Fics

One Shot | Heartbeats by @cyandenial

One Shot | yours forever, harry by i_am_a_tree

One Shot | Quid Pro Quo by anonymous

One Shot | Expelliarmus Red by @poljupci

One Shot | Black Fire by sparrowshellcat

One Shot | Let's never wake up (Stay With Me) by @blackseatwenty

One Shot | And all the devils are here by @i-dream-of-libraries

Chapter 9 (complete) of Fourth: The Ritual's Consequence by @ramabear

Chapter 2 (complete) of Tom Riddle's DIY Disaster by @sri-verse

Chapter 9 (complete) of Still Into You by @moontearpensfic

*

Tomarrymort Ongoing Fics

Chapter 7 and 8 of Sits the wind in that quarter by @mosiva

Chapter 5 of Ills of Murder by @shadow-of-the-eclipse

Chapter 23 of would that i'd loved (long ago) by @sprst1tion

Chapter 21 of Paved With the Best Intentions by @perhaps-sunlight

Chapter 17 of A Simple Request by @shyinsunlight

Chapter 2 of Cane Sugar by @blogalinda @cindle-writes @reggieblk @telectronique

Chapter 9 of Catching up by lemonchase

Chapter 9 of Shattered by Flipdarkchill

Chapters 1 and 2 of Saint Harry by @alenablack @chaos-bear

Chapter 3 of Anytime, Anywhere, Always by @moontearpensfic 

Chapter 9 of a touch of fate by @virgil-anon 

Chapter 1 of Atonement [Tomarry Edition] by @just-a-whorecrux

Chapter 3 of the scar remains by @noctelier

Chapters 5 and 6 of we made universes out of bitten lips and broken hands by @boyneptunee

Chapter 14 of When time and reasons fail by citrumade

Chapter 7 of Every Trick in the Book by tomrddle

Chapter 17 of Occultation by TimaeusKosmou

Chapter 2 of the vault by @milkandmoon-ao3

Chapter 16 of Pledged by @moontearpensfic 

Chapter 7 of A Snake in the Grass by @teaandsweaters9

Chapter 11 of Outrunning the Villain in You by @zenyteehee

Chapter 3 of Moon Rite by @isalisewrites

Chapter 2 of These Fragments We've Shored by @rowena-rain

Chapter 110 of Liquida Tenebris (Remastered) by @dymis

Chapter 36 of Revolution of Configured Stars by @tollingreminiscentbells

Chapter 28 of Part One - The Solitude of Suffering by @iseliljathedreamer

Chapters 11 and 12 of Learning to love by @l-archiduchesse

Chapter 9 of sandpaper kisses, paper cut bliss by @xodahafez

Chapter 5 of Do It Over by @marrythemonstersao3

Chapter 1 of Dark Water by Dariahn

Chapter 17 of What In Me Is Dark, Illumine by @telelli-writes

*

[tnbsecretsanta]

Welcome to the Advent Calendar 2024!

Didn't make it to Secret Santa due to lack of time? Don't worry! This year, there will be a complementary event called "Advent Calendar" where you can spread your love for the series without sticking to a schedule!

What is an Advent Calendar? Traditionally, an advent calendar is a special type of calendar that counts down the days until Christmas Day, starting from 1st December.

How do I participate? Simply create a Tumblr or Twitter post with the activity indicated for the day and use the tag #TnBAdvent24, and we'll reblog/retweet it!

Do I have to participate every day? No! The point of this side event is for you to spread your love for the series without the pressure of a schedule like in the Secret Santa! You can participate any day you want: one, two, ten, all of them! Your choice!

Can I participate in the side event if I joined the Secret Santa? Yes! This event is entirely free, so that you can participate at your leisure.

If I missed an activity from a previous day, can I still post it? Yes! Just use the tag we'll reblog/retweet it! We just suggest that you don't use an activity scheduled for a later date and wait until the indicated day to publish it.

Happy creating!

See below the cut for the text version of the activities indicated

1st - Start reading a Fanfic (emphasis on start, no need to finish it the same day)

2nd - Create a NEXT power

3rd - Which Proverb would make for a good episode title?

4th - Share your favorite piece of official art

5th - Post a WIP (This can be any work-in-progress related to T&B, a merch collection, a shrine, a cosplay, art, MMD video, ita bag, progress of your read-through of the manga, that stuff!)

6th - Share your Favorite Tiger & Bunny-related song (This means any song made for Tiger & Bunny specifically, including character songs and music used in the episodes and credits)

7th - Re-watch any episode of Tiger & Bunny (and then feel free to post a review of it)

8th - What do you want Tiger & Bunny to collab with next? (Collaboration in this context is a collab with another property, such as a company like Sanrio, a store chain like 7-11, restaurant/fast food chains, games, and similar)

9th - Make a fancast for a hypothetical Live Action Adaptation of Tiger & Bunny

10th - Share a headcanon - new or old - that you have

11th - Share an instance of "Tiger & Bunny Spotting" you've seen IRL (T&B Spotting is seeing things like their colours or associated animals-theming in unexpected places. Pets can count for this; If it's not your pet, ask for permission before posting.)

12th - Come up with a food or drink themed around a character. Actually making it is entirely optional!

13th - Come up with an 'Alternate Universe' (AU) plot. You don't have to write anything beyond a plot synopsis or roles.

14th - Ramble about your favorite character or pairing!

15th - Share either a "hidden Gem" fic, or your favourite fanfic! Maybe it's both?

16th - Pitch a Season 3 or Third Movie plot

17th - Post a meme you really like, or make a meme from scratch

18th - Share your favorite OR your most wanted piece of Tiger & Bunny Merchandise

19th - Tell us about your favorite Villain

20th - Picture/Write about yourself as if you lived in Sternbild

21st - Assign a song you like to a character or a pairing

22nd - Share your favorite piece of fanart! Make sure to credit the artist, or repost the art directly through reblog or retweet or similar features.

23rd - Share your favorite piece of trivia about any Tiger & Bunny character

24th - Tell us what Tiger & Bunny means to you

25th - Free Day! Happy Holidays!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Global Emergency Compounded by the AIDS-like Features of SARS-CoV-2 Infection - Published Sept 1, 2024

Over a million people in the US are being infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) every day.

Originally named after the acute respiratory syndrome it can cause as a consequence of blood vessel damage in the lungs, SARS-CoV-2 is actually primarily a blood vessel virus that spreads through the airways. It causes a complex multisystem disease (1). It is airborne (2). It can persist in the body, and is detectable in body and brain tissue even at autopsy of “recovered” patients (3).

Each infection ages the body, causes damage to the blood vessels and the immune system, and affects organs including the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, bones, etc. (4, 5, 6)

Each infection ages the brain. Specifically, it reduces gray matter and cognitive ability (7), and potentially IQ score (8). It increases the risk of psychiatric disorders (9). SARS-CoV-2 has also been identified as contributing to accelerated dementia (10).

The potential post-acute phase impacts of SARS-CoV-2 include long COVID, some manifestations of which are chronic conditions that can last a lifetime, including heart disease, diabetes, myalgic encephalomyelitis and dysautonomia (11).

The Economist has estimated excess deaths from the beginning of the Pandemic through May 2024 at up to 35 million people worldwide. (12)

In Addition, Many Scientists Are Now Issuing Warnings… SARS-CoV-2 triggers a new airborne form of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (13, 14, 15) (some are proposing specific terms such as “CoV-AIDS”).

This is not AIDS as we know it from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, it is a new type of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome with different deleterious effects on immune function (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21), but both resulting in increased vulnerability to infections (22). Immune system deficiency and other COVID properties also suggest a potential link to greater risk of cancers (23, 24, 25, 26, 27).

The “original” AIDS caused by HIV takes up to around 10 to 15 years to make its presence felt, with the initial infection usually barely noticed and often resembling the common cold or a flu-like disease until its damage manifests itself leading to death in the absence of treatments (28, 29).

With SARS-CoV-2, immunodeficiency develops in the weeks and months following infection. It involves reduction and functional exhaustion of T Cells (30), enhanced inhibition of MHC-I expression (31), downregulating CD19 expression in B cells (32) and other evidence of immune dysregulation (33, 34). In one study, the dysregulation persisted for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection, the length of the study (35). There is no “cure” for any of the damage caused by SARS-CoV-2 including immune dysregulation.

Did You Know? Repeated infections are leading to prolonged immune dysregulation, and increase the risk of progressive disability and death.

Long COVID is a multisystem disease with debilitating symptoms, which has had a profound impact on society and the global economy. In the USA, economists have estimated that long COVID will incur cumulative future costs of more than US$4 trillion (36, 37).

The worldwide devastating economic consequences of this mass disabling event have been measured in terms of total work hours and GDP lost around the world (38).

It theoretically only takes a single viral particle to initiate an infection, and most infections are initiated by very few viral particles (39).

Despite current popular belief, the immune system is NOT a muscle, and does NOT benefit from being repeatedly challenged with disease-causing microbes. In fact, its finite resources are depleted with each new infection.

Herd immunity is unattainable for a rapidly mutating, immune-disrupting virus, and there is no basis to believe that a vascular infection will evolve into the common cold. Continuing to ignore SARS-CoV-2 will not make it go away. Depriving the virus of publicity does not deprive it of its continuing lethal effects.

SARS-CoV-2 is continuing to evolve and mutate – it is not running out of evolutionary space. It is not a cold or the flu, but primarily a blood vessel disease. It is damaging society as we know it.

How many repeated infections can we expect young people to endure and survive? Even if they get only 1 infection each year, that’s 10 infections in 10 school years. This is not compatible with health and a long life. Repeated infections can lead to long COVID and shortened lifespans.

How Do We Protect Ourselves, How Do We Protect Our Children, When Government Public Health Advice Has Failed?

By reducing transmission so that R0 remains less than one (meaning that each person infects less than one other), we can suppress and gradually eliminate the virus, targeting a safer return to pre-2020 normal.

Handwashing is helpful, but it is not the main way to stop the spread of this airborne virus.

Respirators can block 95% or more of virus particles through electrostatic action, and are therefore highly effective at reducing infection even if only one person in a conversation is wearing them. They are far more effective if all people are wearing them (40).

Transmission can be reduced with HEPA filtration and ventilation of indoor air.

The virus spreads more quickly in indoor settings, but also spreads outdoors.

For medical facilities, it is essential to clean the air with ventilation and filtration and require universal high-quality masking (with N-95/ FFP3 respirators or better) to protect medical staff and patients.

For workplaces, clean air will reduce transmission; and encouraging employees to test and stay home when infectious is essential. High-quality masking should be encouraged in the case of symptoms, a sick person at home, or any other suspicion that one could be carrying the virus. Remote work should be normalized and encouraged wherever possible.

For entertainment venues, events should be held outdoors when possible; and if indoors, clean air is key to protecting audiences. Audiences should also be encouraged to wear respirators to avoid getting infected and infecting others. Digital streaming options should always be offered.

For restaurants, an emphasis on outdoor dining will substantially reduce transmission. Patio service should be encouraged, and indoor dining areas should be well-ventilated with a high level of air-exchanges. Home or curbside delivery offers a safer alternative.

For schools, clean air will reduce transmission; encouraging students to test and stay home when infectious is essential to preserving their health. Masking or remote learning should be initiated whenever a case is detected or the incidence in the general population sharply increases. A permanent hybrid model / digital option can accommodate children with disabilities or those who simply do better learning from home.

Teachers and medical professionals may prefer to use transparent masks, or to wear HEPA-filtered headgear equipment that may be more universally tolerated/accepted.

To track our progress, we need sustained wastewater and population-level testing.

With just 60-70 percent of people taking mitigation measures such as masking, testing and isolating when infected, we can dramatically reduce forward transmission of the virus.

Even with very imperfect measures, as long as one infected person does not infect more than one person on average, the virus will eventually die out. The fewer people each person infects on average, the faster it will happen.

We still have a window of opportunity. Protecting ourselves and our families is in fact protecting the economy and the continued orderly functioning of our society.

[goodomensafterdark]

The GOAD Epic Goblins present - The Serpent and The Owl Volume 0 - The World I Created - Chapter 1

Thank you @quona for this gorgeous artwork!!

Chapter written by @kotias

As per the teaser video shared on Saturday on our subreddit...

We made it.

February 19th, 2024: launch date of the epic fic project.

January 19th, 2025: the publishing of the epic fic, named The Serpent and the Owl, starts.

11 months in the making. Wow.

Total amount of people who wrote or made art for this epic fic: 

69 writers and artists. 

Nice.

Total amount of people involved in the project: 

75 people, including:

35 writers

31 artists

4 creators who took on both writing and art

5 betas (+3 writers and 1 artist who took on the task)

1 podficcer

This is the first part of a series in 7 parts.

Expect a new chapter of this epic fic every Wednesday and Sunday for the next 6 months.

And I promise: there is a happy ending to this story. Just not quite yet.

When I launched this crazy idea, based on Soggy’s request on the GOAD Writers Guild subreddit, I would never have thought it would turn into this.

Hell, part of me didn’t believe the project would succeed. 

Did I wish very hard it would? Yes, of course.

Was I fully convinced it would? No. With such an endeavour, with so many people involved, and a full narration to develop with dozens of participants, I had no way of being certain of it.

And yet, look at this: it’s ready, after 11 months, to be shown to this subreddit and to the Good Omens fandom.

I cannot begin to find the right words to express how I'm feeling as well. This feels a little surreal; we managed to make something cohesive, might I even say a good story, with so many people involved.

Thank you all Epic Goblins so much for being such amazing people to work with ❤️

I have to say... seeing the first bits of conversations that we had on this project, and remembering how everyone was confused and scared at first, throwing ideas left and right and trying to even start to having something coherent and cohesive...

We're finally there, and it's beautiful and glorious and it's thanks to everyone and.... ❤️

Enormous thank you to @theravenmuse for your undying support during this entire endeavour. It took months, but hell, thank you for holding the fort when I wasn't able to, and for this gorgeous spreadsheet that helped us keep track of EVERYTHING.

My most sincere thanks to my dear lieutenants and Art General: @quona @eybefioro @whatareyou42 @gaiaseyes451 @theonewiththeshippinggoogles

You have all done amazingly to keep the teams together, to wrangle them, whether I was here or not, and working so hard to find a cohesion within each team and a narrative direction for each story that was created within the greater narration.

And of course, thank you to everybody involved.

Thank you for trusting me and for following me here. And ENORMOUS thank you to our betas, who have been phenomenal: ModernDayKlutz, DBacklot, WiblyWoblyTimeyWimey, GlitteringRock, ireallyneedmoretea, itsscottiesstark, TheGaroMask, Abaddon Sahar, cordsycords, without whom this fic would not have gotten to the quality it has reached today.

I love you all, thank you all so much for embarking in this crazy adventure with me. We’re done. And we did remarkably well. I am very honoured of having been given your trust, all of you.

I won’t lie, I've been crying from the emotion quite a bit in the last couple of months, and got very teary eyed writing this blurb. :')

Please enjoy the very first chapter to this epic fic project, starting with Volume 0: The World I Created, Ch.1: Bringing upon the Dawn

Word count: 3418 words

Tags (for the whole fic): Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Crowley is a Singularity, Aziraphale is an bird alien, Slow Burn, Porn With Worldbuilding, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Major character death, but… Reincarnation AU, Eventual Happy Ending, not in this part though, Inappropriate use of astronomy, Original People, Monsterfucker Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cloaca, Hemipenes, Crowley is a naga, Crowley is a Giant Snake, Star Snake, This is an epic, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Power Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Top Crowley (Good Omens), Oral Sex, Crowley's enemy is Life itself, War, Intercelestial War,Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Communicating (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Crowley is Down Bad (Good Omens)

TW/CW (for this chapter): blood, death, war

Summary:

~This story starts, as it will end, in the stars.~

Crawly is a singularity, born in the Empty and thriving in it, until the day Life settles into the universe. As that happens, she descends onto the planets in her vicinity.

Several centuries, maybe even millennia, pass; Crawly got integrated enough in the society of a planet that she (I'll go with she/her pronouns) is the long-standing Queen and main deity of that planet.

Aziraphale comes as a scientist from another planet that hers made an agreement with; thus begins their relationship. Crawly slowly comes to terms with her feelings with Aziraphale as their story evolves and their travels through the galaxy continue.

Excerpt:

Of all the places that Jala could have expected to find the Mother of All Suns, the cemetery of a remote village wasn’t her immediate thought; and yet, when she saw Her, there was no possible doubt.

A statue was standing on a pedestal, holding a sword in front of her legs. She had her eyes closed peacefully, her eternal beauty remained in her stone flesh, a lone ruby shining on her forehead like a diadem. Her hair fell like a veil from her head over her shoulders, arms and waist, circling her entirely.

Jala was certain of one thing; anybody who didn’t need her presence or believe in her would have passed this statue by without much thought, or might have just recognised the shape of the statue as an ancient former Queen of the planet. Jala however remained in awe before it for a very long time, pulled in by its magnitude.

She eventually closed the distance between them, climbing on the pedestal and rising to meet her gaze, raising a hand to stroke the stone cheek. “How long we have looked for you, my Queen,” she whispered, a tear breaking from her eye and trickling down her face. “How desperately we craved your presence.”

The statue remained lifeless between her fingers, but Jala smiled. The end was nigh.

Keep reading here!

~Kotias