#the edits have been so revealing: both of the best and the worst parts are so stark and i know there is a mountain of work still here for me

[defiledtomb]

Being tipsy on gin lemonade on a sunday literally just feels like this

[apollos-boyfriend]

Hey I've been observing from afar through your reaction blogging, I haven't been in mcyt as much since the dsmp ended but I still care about a lot of the people in the mcyt circle and I'm interested in what goes on - care to give a rundown of what happened at this twitch rivals thing everyone keeps talking about? (no pressure only if you want to) Aside from the fact I'm sure it was terribly run like most twitch rival events are, but it sounds like there was more to it than that

okay so. i am going to be missing quite a few details because i missed a day myself + my streamer could not care less, so i heavily encourage others to add on stuff i missed

this was a multi-day competition, running for 5 days with prize rewards from 1k to 100k. it started with i think 150 players, with select numbers of people getting eliminated each round. day 1-2 are fairly normal, at least for twitch rivals. of all the games that got played through the whole event, i'd say like 1 was actually good, and maybe 2 were decent, at best. most are bad, poorly-executed, poorly thought out, or just boring in terms of both player enjoy-ability and content creation.

DAY 3 EDIT:

now, sapnap's been sapnap for this entire event already. obnoxious, a bad sport, but most notably, playing DMCA'd songs. the event ran on proximity chat, so while he was unmuted, everyone around him would also be subject to said songs, which could mute vods at worst and terminate accounts at best. most people are fed up with him at this point. while everyone's trying to come up with solutions for the glitch, sapnap spams the discord with useless shit. couriway calls him out in the discord, calling him annoying and obnoxious, then later calling him a cunt in twitch chat. sapnap uses couriway and feinberg's name in his stream title for clickbait and talks shit about them + their friends (hbg/house builder gang). he also makes some weird comment asking if couri is homophobic because sap was talking about having skeppy's dick in his mouth?? or something?? i'm unsure exactly how day 3's issue of the glitch resolved.

day 4 is also your average experience with your usual range of average to horribly painful games. sapnap continues to be a bitch and not take responsibility for his stans attacking anyone in sight, but what else is new

day 5 is. bad. the game set for deciding the final competitors can be cheesed (if you let someone else do all the work, you can punch them in the last second and steal their win) and eliminates like 20 people at once. on top of that, a glitch happens that leaves the server on standby for at least 30 minutes while admins decide what to do. firebreathman sends a picture of a bare naked ass in the discord. someone else sends a photo of their debit card. streamers entertain themselves in various ways, including growing a cactus (fulham), playing osu (purpled), collecting other people's streams for their overlay (fruitberries), playing slime rancher (badboyhalo), and building real-life furniture (couriway). tubbo (who was already eliminated at this point) starts jumping between streams and asking in chat for the tea. the game is eventually replayed, deciding the final 4 players, but it's just as broken and at that point, no one wants to be there anymore. it's revealed through multiple streamers (purpled, i believe also feinberg) that twitch rivals games are not tested before being ran. the only testing done was a stress test to see if the server could handle all original 150-some players. this explains why the games are so bad and poorly organized (some games take over an hour, others barely 30 minutes).

the final four are sapnap, shadoune, sneegsnag, and i think feinberg. it's the most anticlimatic game of connect 4 you can imagine. sneeg eliminates sapnap, and shadoune eliminates fein. notably, fein's game glitches during a throw, which despite being obviously a glitch, the coordinators brush off as being "part of the game". fein and multiple other streamers spend time analyzing every pov frame by frame and all agree that yeah, that was a glitch. shadoune and sneeg are left for the finals. they come to an agreement that this is stupid and a horrible event. tired of this bullshit, they purposefully stall the games and run a podcast for approximately 2 hours, forcing the coordinators to bend to their commands hunger games-style. essentially since the first glitch of the day people were begging twitch to just split the money, something that wouldn't be easy according to tubbo, because everything is pre-signed and delegated before the event. sneeg and shadoune give no fucks, and force the coordinators to split the money anyway, winning the day through the power of friendship. i cannot stress enough how no one wanted to fucking be there by the end of all this.

[creamflix]

beta test, please vote after you finish reading <3 — comment to be on taglist sukuna x female reader; slight parasocial relationship, but not unhealthy. pathetic fanboy sukuna. implied nsfw. social media au. age gap (just a few years), micro celebrity!reader. sukuna and yuuji are siblings (this is not like the persephone au! , neither does it take place in that universe.) — masterlist here ☆

sukuna was a grown man.

he’d seen and done it all, yet here he was, shutting himself in his room each night with an anticipation that made him feel downright ridiculous.

the worst part? he couldn’t even convince himself that he was “just curious.”

no — he was full-on, unapologetically addicted to this catgirl v-tuber.

you were cute, sure, but there was something about your laugh, the way you teased the chat, and the coy “nya~” you’d slip in for your fans that made his chest tighten in ways he couldn’t explain.

it started with just the streams.

every night at 7 pm, he’d settle into his setup, headphones on, notifications silenced, watching with bated breath as your broadcast went live. soon, he found himself going back to watch old streams too, combing through your entire backlog, pausing and rewinding whenever you said something particularly funny or leaned a bit closer to the camera. one night, he even found himself tearing up from laughter after a stream. “just another dumb anime girl act,” he grumbled under his breath. but he knew he was lying.

from there, things escalated.

first, his phone wallpaper. it was innocent at first — just a cute fanart of you he’d saved from twitter, with your typical big eyes, little cat fangs, and a cute paw pose. but then he found another piece of fanart that depicted you a little more… suggestively, gazing up at him with a teasing expression. soon, his lock screen was updated too, and he’d spend a little too long staring at it whenever he unlocked his phone.

he’d downloaded tiktok just to keep up with you, scrolling through endless clips of you laughing, playing, doing ridiculous challenges, and interacting with fans. his feed became nothing but you: funny edits of you, mashups of your catchphrases, top-ten lists of your best moments, the works. the tiktoks got him hooked on the fan community too, leading him to join fan pages, where he found even more fanart and memes to add to his ever-growing collection.

then came the commissions.

he’d been reluctant at first, feeling a bit silly about spending his money this way, but the thought of having a one-of-a-kind piece of art with both him and his virtual “crush” had a strange allure. he’d commission artists with detailed instructions: some pieces were tame, just you and him looking like a couple, maybe holding hands or with your head on his shoulder. but soon, he wanted… more.

in no time, he had folders hidden on his pc stuffed with images of the two of you in every possible scenario he could imagine: from romantic dates to downright scandalous positions, each illustration making him fall harder. even worse, he’d catch himself going back to admire them during breaks at work, sometimes finding himself grinning stupidly at the screen before he remembered where he was.

he’d tell himself this was the last time he’d pay for custom art. but then he’d see another piece, something that captured you just right — your cat ears tilted just so, or your coy smile — and he’d open up another commission request, cursing himself while also feeling an absurd amount of excitement.

then came your announcement of the face reveal at the v-tuber convention. the convention, where all the biggest creators would be gathering. in that instant, he didn’t even think — he just whipped out his credit card and booked VIP tickets, securing his spot to see you in person, the girl who’d managed to crawl into his brain and camp out there. and it wasn’t just any pass. no, sukuna shelled out for the meet-and-greet package, even prepped some things he wanted to say to you when he finally met you face-to-face.

the day arrived, and he was among the first to get there, looking around at the crowds of fans in full cosplay, armed with merch. nerds, he thought, scoffing to himself, but inside, he felt a strange kinship with them. he’d even secretly bought a little catgirl keychain with your likeness the day before, hiding it in his pocket and glancing at it throughout the day as he waited.

finally, the moment came, and the venue darkened, the countdown flashing on the screen. sukuna’s heart raced as the seconds ticked down. this was it — he’d finally see the real you.

when you stepped out onto the stage, all smiles, looking around at the crowd, sukuna’s grin widened, until his eyes settled on your face and his stomach dropped.

“s-sukuna?” you stammered, locking eyes with him from across the room. you stared in shock, your face morphing from excitement to pure, unfiltered confusion.

this wasn’t just some random girl.

it was… yuuji’s girlfriend.

his mind whirled as realization sank in. oh god.

oh god, no.

his brain replayed every fanboyish thing he’d done, every lewd image, every custom art piece with his younger brother’s girlfriend. every obsessive habit hit him at once, and he could practically feel the waves of secondhand embarrassment smacking him in the face.

your eyes narrowed in disbelief, recognition settling in. “you’re my… biggest fanboy?” you exclaimed, barely managing to keep the shock out of your voice.

sukuna’s face burned with embarrassment as he let out a low, forced chuckle, desperately trying to keep his cool. “y-you’ve gotta be kidding me…” he muttered under his breath, feeling his dignity crumble. trying to salvage any shred of pride, he cleared his throat. “listen, kid, don’t get any ideas. this was just… research, yeah? figured i’d see what the hype was about.”

you stared at him, utterly unconvinced, before bursting into laughter. “you’re my biggest fanboy?”

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[prolix-yuy]

Writers' Iron Chef #13: Lovesick

[PROMPT] Patching up a wound

[ADDITIONAL PROMPT] “Why would you put yourself through something like that?”

[TIME LIMIT] Optional, 10 minutes prep. time 30 minutes writing time Optional, 10 minutes editing time

Pairing: Joel Miller x GN!Reader

Rating: M, descriptions of wound care and blood, allusions to dubcon due to drinking and drug use. While this story is not explicit, my blog and the content shared on it is 18+ so MINORS DNI.

Summary: You've been greedy for Joel for too long.

Notes: Written for Writers’ Iron Chef Prompt 13

I've had a Joel story idea bouncing around in my head for several months now, but it's not much more than disconnected scenes and a vibe, you know? I decided to try and exorcise a part with this prompt. This was imspired by a scene in the movie Foe with Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal (which was excellent, btw) that got the creative juices flowing.

Thanks to @writersironchef for always giving the best prompts!

The blood that runs into the sink isn’t yours, but it is Joel Miller’s and that’s hardly better.

Laying the needle and scissors beside the sink, you dry your hands on a towel that doesn’t make you feel much cleaner. There’s probably still blood under your nails, half moons of frenzied memories you can look back on when you’re in bed tonight.

“Joel, what the fuck?”

“I need…”

He didn’t have to say much more, and your stomach sours for it. Joel could say he needed you to balance on the edge of a razor and you’d do it just for the fact that he needed you. Pitiful, lovesick, desperate you.

He’d shredded his back coming back into the QZ scrambling away from patrol lights. Tess split off from him, trades to be made and deals best done without her loyal attack dog. So he’d stumbled back to his apartment, stopping just long enough to knock at yours across the hall.

“Jesus Christ, how did you fuck yourself up this badly?”

“FEDRA’s patrolling our usual spots, think they’re onto us…fuck!”

You salved his wounds with apologies as you cleaned grit from long scrapes and worried at the beads of blood that melted across your fingers. The worst was a gash you had to close, infection too present a worry. Hardening your gut, you tried to disassociate how much like sewing leather it felt. Joel bit down on his belt and stuffed his face in a pillow, but fists still slammed on walls around you at his ruckus. 

“I’m done, I’m done, it’s finished.”

“Jesus ‘n Mary, there ain’t much left for you to piece back together at this rate.”

Walking back to the bed, he’s disheveled but alive. He asks for booze, which you find in a high cabinet. He asks for pills, reluctantly revealed to live in a false drawer bottom. You don’t have to say he can trust you with these secrets. Vices were too expensive for you most days. Once he downs both he lays back, injury padded with the cleanest cloths you could find. His breathing hitches, pants in pain, then slows as the drugs and drink take effect. 

And then it’s just you, sitting next to your neighbor as his body releases. 

You should go. Tess would be back any time now and you didn’t want her to see your longing. There are whispers about if Joel is hers, and while you know they belong to each other in a way drenched in darkness, you’ve never been sure if the claim is on their hearts as well. It’s just vague enough of a partnership that when Joel has a good day and shares an extra ration card, your heart flutters. 

But it’s too dangerous. He’s too dangerous, the both of them. You can’t get mixed up in whatever they have going on. Why would you put yourself through something like that?

It’s not the first time he’s come home bloodied, and not the first time you’ve pulled him back together. There’s trust there, but also foolish hope that life could march on and a man could desire you again. Maybe even care for you enough to break teeth and bones. 

A brush against your arm turns you back to Joel, eyes half-lidded but trained hazily on you. One large hand skims over your shoulder, down your arm and lands heavily in your lap. 

“Joel?” you ask, looking down at his thick fingers splayed across your thighs. He hums, low and rumbly as his lips part. 

He’s surely too far gone to know you’re even here. It would be best to slip out unnoticed, talk to Tess tomorrow about checking his injury for infection. 

But you don’t. You’re frozen as the calloused skin of his thumb catches on the worn fibers of your jeans. It’s a caress you haven’t known for years. 

He doesn’t know it’s you.

“Joel,” you say again, and enough courage bolsters you to slide your hand into his palm, the other circling his wrist. He’s so warm, thick-skinned against your fingers. You start to lift from the bed, intending to place his hand where you sat, when it makes a drunken path to cup your chin. Pressure against your jaw turns your face to him spread out on the bed beside you. His chest is bare, light perspiration beading along the cut of his collarbone. He licks his lips slowly, the slip of tongue drawing an ache up from the deepest well. 

“Hey there,” he drawls, and god, you could shatter from it. Tears build in your eyes but you can’t move, his hands drawing you down to him. 

“Joel, it’s…I’m not…” you choke out. It’s a final defense. He’ll hate you tomorrow, but you’ll have said something. His lip quirks, not quite a smile. 

“I know,” he husks before leading your lips to meet his.

You’re not sure he does, but you’re too greedy to say more.

END

[asherlockstudy]

bit of a weird ask but connected to one you answered earlier about rhett's fear of link coming out.

your metas about wonderhole seem to revolve around the idea that wonderhole is a means of r&l testing the waters for coming out - or at least, trying to indicate to *some parts* of their audience that something's going on. how does this tie in with rhett not wanting link to come out? like is it that he (rhett) is trying to come out, but only in a really cautious and planned out way? which is why he came up with that side of wonderhole (i say 'he' because he's usually the more creative one but idk!!!).

thank you for all your metas btw they're so interesting and you notice so much!! 🫶

Okaaayyyy sorry for the late answer! This is probably 3+ weeks overdue! This is by the way the cynical post I promised a few days ago. These weeks have been horrible and it's still not much better but I finally had the opportunity to complete this. My answer unfortunately is not a pleasant one. This answer will be a little sensitive, even for my standards. Be warned and steer clear if this is not your cup of tea or idk pretend this is my headcanon and I believe none of what I am saying.

For these reasons I will keep my answer under a cut:

Toxicity & misalignment between Rhett and Link (Rhink edition)

First of all, I confirm that this is the general idea behind my metas. However, I have also said in various occasions that Rhett and Link do not seem to be on the same page at all. Based on everything I see, Rhett actually does not want to come out. He only “agrees” to it because he is cornered into an agreement since Link wants it very much. It wasn’t even hard at all to see it in the “who’s the worst husband” GMMore but I have been having thoughts about Link’s marriage… ever since I started watching GMM in 2016 basically. Moreover it seems both a divorce and a coming out are desired in his case. But the problem is that also little of this is half meaningful to him if he does not do it in order to be with Rhett.

Except Rhett does not want to do it. At the same time, Rhett can’t really stop another human being, let alone his best friend and business partner from doing something so pivotal for his wellbeing and his very life. The problem is that these two share a heavy private past and present. If Rhett completely rejects the idea and downright refuses the prospect to ever be part of this and openly be with Link, this can be received as betrayal, rejection and separation from Link and it can cause huge resentment that might ruin their relationship, their friendship and their business. As in, this can literally make them part ways both as friends and as business partners, which would not only be most likely costly to Rhett’s personal happiness but it would also be 100% the doom of their career and income. Additionally, the level of heartbreak and resentment a betrayal or separation between the two would risk producing could cause very unpredictable and volatile responses from Link, as we know he is capable of. Who can guarantee to Rhett that Link won’t out him alongside his own outing out of vengeance? And if this happens, then Rhett will lose everything he would fear he would lose if he came out on his own terms anyway: family, career, money plus in this case he will also lose Link because if they reach that point when Link outs him out of vengeance, I think their relationship is probably beyond a salvation point.

But even if Link breaks up and comes out on his own and somehow retains the level-headedness and magnanimity to not reveal Rhett’s contribution to his sexual awakening, it’s still not a good situation for Rhett or their partnership. First of all, even just Link coming out will be a risk for the stability of their viewership and the fan support. Second, do you think Link could come out on his own in his forties and 99% of their loved ones and fans would not be able to make a guess about what the trigger of this awakening was? Link would be like “oh I was walking down the street and suddenly after 40 years of life I saw this cool bloke and everything changed for me no it has nothing to do with the guy I have attached to my hip since I was six years old and I always act obsessed over I swear we only Plato besties” Yeah...no. Eventually fans will understand but more than anyone else friends and family will also understand. Once this happens, even if Rhett does not follow, he will be subjected to 10 times more scrutiny and suspicion than whatever he was getting so far. Family and friends will wonder how much he knew about his best friend, Link. People who suspected both and were eventually proven right for one half (Link) will become sure they were right about the other half too. For example, Rhett’s father who did not approve much of Rhett’s too tight friendship with Link, he suddenly finds out that indeed Link was in the closet all along, he will only feel vindicated and he will almost certainly be convinced that his own son just hides. They will all think like that because almost all of them were suspecting that for both of them, so when they get confirmation for one part, they will take it for granted that the other half confirmation is pending. Rhett will be scrutinised and monitored by everyone. In the end, it will be like he did come out too. Rhett and Link’s lives and choices are so intertwined that a single coming out will simply be no much difference. What one does also affects the other. Even if Link comes out on his own, Rhett is going to confront pretty much the same problems.

Rhett did not expect all this between them would go that far, he did not expect Link would find the guts to pursue such a huge identity change publicly. Rhett allowed himself to be swept away by the affair, because he rested in his miscalculation that their motives and goals would always align. He thought Link felt and saw things the way he did and that he would compromise for a secret affair forever, easily covered by their very close friendship and committed 24/7 business partnership. It was the perfect hideout, beard if you will, for an affair that nobody would be able to prove since they had always been extremely close anyway.

Except Link has an allergy to lies and he spent the largest part of his life tormenting himself by lying. I suspect the by far biggest reason he lived with lies (including religion and his romantic life) was his fear of losing Rhett as a friend. Furthermore, Rhett was Link’s point of reference for most things so besides lying to him, everyone else and to himself, Link genuinely tried to imitate Rhett - his role model - very hard. He did everything in his means to be a great business partner to him whether it was in religion or entertainment, he tried as best as he could to be “effective” as a straight husband and he struggled super hard to be a proper devout Christian - so to have all the package Rhett wanted. But when Rhett abandoned the faith and after they started the affair Link now had what he wanted the most all this time and he didn’t care nearly as much for anything else or going back to another lifetime of lies. You must have seen how he has developed a pretty fierce hatred for lies and for not being “true to oneself”. Link started wanting it all out, the truth, the ability to live their love.

Link was greatly disillusioned by Rhett’s hesitation to share his aspirations. Rhett probably initially did not want at all but the strain it caused made him comply for all the reasons I mentioned above; the more determined Link becomes, the less Rhett can do but follow.

The only thing Rhett could do to control this out of hand situation was to warn Link that he agrees to it but only if he takes care of how and when exactly it will happen, with the argument that he tries to prevent as much collateral damage as possible. Link agreed even though all this delay torments him because he too knows that acting way too impulsively and independently from what Rhett wants is risking to lose him forever. This is Rhett’s only weapon that Link fears: “You can come out on your own or out me without my will if you want, but just so you know, if this happens it’s over between us”. Link on the other hand is like “If I get convinced you are lying to me and don’t truly intend to do this with me, then it might as well mean we are essentially finished anyway, so I will come forth and do it myself and hell mend us because I have nothing to lose and just so you get the message I will show you again and again I can do it at any moment”. This is how they still keep each other at check. And if you think this is a toxic as hell situation, well you are right. Their relationship is toxic. Given its circumstances, it is statistically near impossible to not be toxic. The unique problem with them and their relationship is that if they stopped it and broke up, with everything that ensued, things would perhaps become even worse for them emotionally and even pragmatically. So they are literally trapped in every single way.

Whoever thinks things slip out of Link unconsciously like so many people believe needs to reconsider. All these small non-coming out coming out jokes and comments he makes are his intentional constant reminder and warning to Rhett, who is equally tormented by it just as Link is from the delays and Rhett’s hot and cold behaviour. If all this is real and if we are being realists, all these and several other aspects I can’t even bring up because this will become a monster post are causing very significant strains to their relationship which they both try to ignore, fight and reconcile over constantly but it is not always that easy. They have big fights. They did recently. They did in spring 2023. And in between, I am sure. And it is usually close to the making of their “coming out” scripted content.

I have said so much already. I will say this too. Link is not in a good place. Despite starting 2023 by saying he is living his best life again and again, this is not reflected anywhere. (Perhaps at the time he believed this because he expected the scripted videos to come would produce much more desirable results.) Link even makes some slightly concerning statements; including how he sleeps to avoid remembering his problems or that he makes plans of going away (that tend to NOT involve his loved ones, not even Rhett) and that waiting for the next plan is what he lives for. Link is heartbroken by Rhett’s hesitations and constant postponements. He can’t help but compare Rhett to himself, who’s ready to drop it all (ALL, even family and career) at a moment’s notice and lands again and again to the conclusion that Rhett does not love him as much as he does or even that he does not truly love him. This hurts him deeply and causes most of the resentment you see bursting out of him against Rhett or in general sometimes and it seems so out of place.

The fact that Link doubts Rhett’s true feelings can be observed several times throughout their content. Around 2017-2019 Link would implore Rhett publicly to open up about his feelings and thoughts, causing discomfort to Rhett. But the most important evidence came with the invaluable EB episodes of spring 2023 which were very charged. At some point in spring 2013, Rhett and Link took different weeks off for vacation and as a result they both did one single-hosted EB each. In Link’s episode, Jenna was asking him questions by the fans. One was “what virtues he values the most”. This is what Link replied:

I think sincerity... I’m sure that’s not the only one. There’s got to be at least three other ones that tie with that but that’s what I am going with today. You know. Don’t give me lip service. Mean it. Want it. Put your heart into it.

This is clearly Link talking about something way more specific than just general sincerity as a trait in people. He visibly has a particular situation in mind, he wants “someone” to mean what they have said to him, to “want it”, to “put their heart into it”. The implication is that Link expects them and wants them to want and put their heart into that certain something as much as he does. Don’t tell me it doesn’t fit… perfectly, right? Link therefore has great doubts about whether Rhett truly wants to set their plan in motion and blames him for doing too much empty lip service to keep him "sedated".

Another time, in a GMM Rhett read in a not so serious context that “For Link passion is the most important thing”. Link replied seriously; “It is. For you it is not” and he looked at Rhett with a complaint on his face. Rhett’s expression fell but he ignored his comment. Here's a link with screenshots.

Link really does not say things randomly anywhere near as much as people think. The following recent example must have been interpreted by most as a typical nonsensical Link segway for a podcast topic, except it was not nonsensical at all. It was the truth, at least in the way Link perceives it, and maybe the truth in general as well:

Link makes the segway to a fan's question personal by claiming Rhett would like to be the third person in Link's relationship with Christy (as in, remain the secret affair). Link himself changes the subject promptly in this case and Rhett does not comment at all, while normally he is amused and inquisitive about Link's nonsensical statements. Notice Rhett's standard by now approach to not react at all and let the situation diffuse... he was talking lately about how good of a diffuser he is.

However, the most significant moment for me, a moment that felt like great vindication, a moment that made me think “Damn how wrong can I be in what I think after this???”. What happened is that I predicted what Link would say in a personality / deeper thought question and then minutes later Link went ahead and said exactly that! They were talking about the power of being invisible in an EB in 2023 again and they were asked what they would use this power for. I immediately thought : “Link wants to be able to go to Rhett while Rhett is not aware of his presence and find out whether Rhett's feelings for him are true and how Rhett truly interacts with Jessie when they are all alone".

And here's what Link said a few moments later and made me lose my mind:

Link: Gain access to. Information. And, um, I decided to invest the limited time I have in - as an invisible - to learn what people think about me. Really. Like, I wanna put myself in positions where people - Rhett: Give me an example. Link: Like, every relationship that I have, I’m talking work relationships, friend relationships… I mean, it was a quick answer but- (…) Link (after some non-significant joke part initiated by Rhett ): I feel like I know what Christy thinks about me. I don’t feel like it would be fair to spy on my wife. Rhett: But I feel like maybe you can predict what all these people say about you without you being there… Link: Yeah… maybe there’s not much to learn and maybe it’s only… maybe I don’t want to learn it.

So Link said. exactly. that. He wants to know what people close to him truly think. He says "work relationships, friend relationships" (Rhett checks both boxes) and only excludes Christy (with a reasoning that is also intriguing). He does not exclude Rhett. Rhett acts clueless but his remark makes me suspect his cluelessness is not 100% genuine. Link ends this by reconsidering his choice, mostly because it made him vulnerable in Rhett's presence, and realises he probably does not want to know the truth after all, which again hints to a specific charged situation that bothers him instead of a generic tactic used on all his acquaintances. Read my original post for a detailed analysis of this moment. It's relevant to what is being discussed here.

Long story short: despite the reassurances he privately gives Link, Rhett is not quite ready to come out and it is obvious to Link, who is heartbroken, drenched in his doubts and fears and trapped indefinitely in a situation he wants to break free from, a situation that leads to the deterioration of his emotional and psychological well-being and to outbursts of aggression or anger that in return further strain his relationship with Rhett.

Rhett takes a lot of it stoically but he also reaches his limits often. He thinks Link wrongs him or misunderstands him more than his behaviour justifies. He is seriously worn out by Link's menacing playing with fire. Sometimes Link's outbursts hurt him and then he responds by also hitting Link to his weak points. He has severe anxiety too, which Link exacerbates.

A juvenile example of how this ongoing chronic toxicity makes them hurt each other is in the latest EB and it might seem insignificant because it's founded on silly banter; as Rhett recounts his experience as a novice archer Link says that maybe he is parts elf. Rhett plays along, saying his ears are pointy anyway. Link quickly reconsiders this odd compliment (elves are aethereal and natural archers), as he often loathes to stroke Rhett's ego (which he considers the big culprit of the problems in their relationship - Link spent much of his life deifying Rhett and Rhett took advantage of that and then took Link too much for granted) so he turned it to the unnecessarily cruel reconsideration that maybe he is parts orc actually. This remark hit Rhett under the belt; an insecurity, his appearance. While obviously Rhett ages like fine wine and Link visibly agrees, it doesn't change the fact that Rhett cares too much about the impression he makes to other people or that for a long time he didn't look his best or, also, that objectively he is the less beautiful half of the duo. It isn't very clear but Rhett is hurt by this and he always is hurt by it when Link makes fun of his appearance - it is honestly such a bad thing to make fun of when you are the public figure companion, let alone most likely the lover. You can tell Rhett is hurt by the way he retaliates in milliseconds: "Well I've told my wife to call me Legolas". So, immediately he snaps back by reminding Link that he is desirable to somebody else and that he has sex with that somebody, thus hitting Link on his own insecurity. They know each other's weaknesses and anxieties and unfortunately they make use of that a lot.

When I say Rhett does not want to come out, it's not that what he feels for Link is a lie, I don't think so. We have several examples of Rhett demonstrating jealousy or neediness for Link, even genuine moments that slip out of him. However, he mostly keeps himself at check and is not very expressive about his feelings to Link, hoping to restrict him a bit in this way. Maybe Rhett is just hyper aware and terrified of all the things that can go wrong. It's also true that apart from the wives, the rest of Rhett's family environment is going to be way less tolerant to such a revelation than Link's family. Rhett fears his parents might cut the communication with him, even disown him, and his brother is a pastor. You might say, who cares, he is an adult, he does not need their approval! Of course he doesn't but we can't just expect from people to not care what will become of their relationships in their family. Also, from all the kids, Locke seems to be the most conservative and has a close relationship with his grandfather. Maybe Locke's reaction is what Rhett fears the most, let alone their relationship was never very easy to begin with. I think Shepherd is going to be fine. Link's kids, I think Lily is bi herself so she will maybe understand and Lincoln and Lando are mild young people, unlikely to have way too strong reactions. Sue is a sweet understanding woman and Charles would definitely be a problem once but he has mellowed with age. So Rhett feels there's more at stake for him than for Link.

Then it's all the other risks, how the viewers will respond, how many viewers will turn their back to them. This is not just about being anti-LGBT. A lot of viewers - even allies - will feel they were taken in for years or will disapprove of the affair being a secret from everyone for years. Most people watch Rhett and Link to enjoy these two friends and family men do silly and inconsequential stuff, to lay off their everyday worries and burdens. Such a reveal will be a huge nasty shock for many, no matter how pro-LGBTQ+ they are. A fall in viewership or subscriptions will endanger their Mythical corporation. A hundred people are paid by them. It's truly not easy at all, which is why Rhett tortures himself by overcurating their strategy and Link by overbearingly monitoring him.

Link saying how Rhett will hit him in the legs under the desk often to control what he's saying is another Link joke that is totally the truth.

Then again another reason Rhett is hesitating so much more than Link is that - let's be honest - Rhett is sincere when he says he is really attracted to women. Rhett likes women and he enjoys being intimate with his wife. If they are pursuing a fully committed relationship, which I think they do as they both want to commit to the one they love, it is a lot harder for Rhett to make the move of no return because it means giving up on women probably forever. I think in theory Rhett considers himself ready to do it but in actuality it is harder for him because he probably ends up losing more than Link does. More conservative family at stake, sacrificing his love for women. It is just a lot and I don't blame Rhett for having so many thoughts about it. They are edging their 50s, that's the time a person wants safety and stability, not to embark on a huge odyssey of a journey. Plus, maybe Rhett suspects (and he won't be wrong if he does) that this will not prove all that easier for Link when shit hits the fan, it's just that Link is so impulsive and wants to escape his marriage badly enough that he does not consider much all the adversities and everything that might go wrong. Rhett is painfully aware of all the dangers, maybe even to the point of somatizing anxiety. He fears so much that he curates and curates and curates their scripted videos strategy and he finds obstacle to every negative hint to the point that Link thinks he is disingenuous. It's almost certain to me that Rhett wished they could keep being secretly in love forever because they had the ideal cover-up; best friends and business partners. They would remain lovers and friends and partners forever anyway, all while keeping fans and relatives happy as well. Rhett also seems to be worried that Link is getting more unpredictable and a little "difficult" as he ages ; it's cynical but maybe he is also concerned what he gets himself into in the future.

But again I don't think it is that Rhett doesn't love Link enough or that he doesn't wish deep inside he were more carefree and braver too... He's just very scared and stressed and his concerns are logical. And in the end, he still is trying to do it. It’s just that he has to fight and defeat himself in order to achieve it.

[player1064]

Hi! All such great carraville drabbles so far! If you’re still doing them, may I request them coming out publicly and the various reactions of news broadcasters, other ex/current footballers and of course, the internet. Thanks!

aaa thank you!!! and yessss I love fics where it's public reaction to stuff and i LOVE multi-media type fics so this was fun to write (even though i am much too lazy to come up with fake twitter usernames)

---

Group: MU mob

Phillip: forwarded an instagram post by gneville2 Phillip: ???

Gary: what Gary: do u think I was too nice to him in the caption Gary: I can edit it to add something about scousers maybe Gary: or how he never won the league

Phillip: you and Carragher???

Gary: ?

Paul: whyd u make me look at that rot first thing in the morning Paul: put me off my breakfast that did

Ryan: im not installing instagram for this whats he done now

Nicky: ^

Phillip: he’s dating Carragher?????

Ryan: where have u been for the last 2 years its literally all he talks about

Phillip: America! I have been! In! America! Phillip: Gaz I can’t believe you told them and not me?

Paul: I wish he hadnt told us to be fair Paul: they r so annoying

Gary: sorry phil I mustve forgot Gary: timezones etc Gary: gtg we’re having breakfast before he has to head to studio 🥞😍

David: nice post Gary 😊🏳️‍🌈 Happy for you x

Chat: Stevie G

Missed call from Stevie

Stevie: Carra

Missed call from Stevie

Stevie: Jamie Lee Duncan Carragher Stevie: pick up your damn phone Stevie: you are shit at this best friend thing yknow Stevie: also Gary Neville??? Stevie: you were moaning about him when I called you just last week Stevie: but if he makes you happy that’s alright then Stevie: tell him he’s buying me a pint next time I’m home Stevie: in liverpool mind Stevie: don’t care if you love him you won’t see me in pub in manchester

The Daily Mail

LIVERPOOL AND MAN UTD LEGENDS JAMIE CARRAGHER AND GARY NEVILLE REVEAL GAY RELATIONSHIP?

Former rivals turned co-pundits posted Valentine’s day messages on their Instagram accounts which appear to show an intimate relationship between the two men, who were both married to women for over ten years. Neither has responded for comment.

Comments:

> they’re the worst pundits on sky anyway they don’t even try to hide the bias for their teams

> gary neville’s always trying to bring politics into everything rishi was right he should stick to football!

> well I will be getting my commentary from MOTD moving forward. wish I could cancel sky sports but can’t afford to miss all the match coverage so they will be getting a strongly worded letter from me instead.

The Guardian

OPINION: IT’S 2024. WHY HAS THE FOOTBALL WORLD NOT CAUGHT UP?

There are still no openly gay players in the top tier of the men’s game. Now that two retired premier league footballers have come out, we have to ask: why is this headline news?

Both Liverpool and Manchester United football clubs have posted messages in support of Neville & Carragher, and so have many current and former players. But it begs the question why they thought that support might not be implicit, or why the two pundits had to publicly “come out” at all.

Comments:

> tbh I didn’t even know who they were until I saw Beckham’s ig story 💀

> surprised Gerrard’s not said anything, thought he and Carragher were mates >>> probably can’t if he wants to keep his manager contract $$$

> the guardian: why is the media making a fuss about two ex-footballers coming out? the guardian: is part of the media making a fuss about two ex-footballers coming out…

Twitter

Sports - Trending Gary Neville 264k tweets

Jamie Carragher 151k tweets

@.1111 they’ve been obsessed with each other for years is anyone really surprised

@.222 ngl I thought Gary Neville was already out as gay? You’re telling me people have believed he’s straight this whole time??

@.333 it’s giving slow burn enemies to lovers 150k words…

@.444 sky already wheels the two of them out together whenever they need to promote ANYTHING I bet it’s gonna get 10x worse now

Chat: J ❤️

G 👹👸: good luck on show tonight G 👹👸: no vday dinner :( G 👹👸: I shall have to waste away and pine instead G 👹👸: drown my sorrows etc

J ❤️: should be back to hotel by 1 at the latest J ❤️: I know that’s past ur bedtime old man so don’t wait up

G 👹👸: I will be up (😉😉) and ready to give you your dessert 😘 G 👹👸: might have a cheeky nap before though to be fair

[divineerdrick]

The Warhammer Preview Show: Warhammer Day 2024

I'm once again liveblogging my reaction to a Warhammer preview, and I couldn't be happier!

Why?

Because the Preview was live again!

If you've followed my Warhammer Liveblogs you know how much I hated that they moved to prerecorded live shows. And I wasn't the only one! But once again the studio has listened to the community and it looks like we've got live shows back.

This is one thing I will constantly press about Games Workshop. Being less than a billion-dollar global company, in a niche hobby, means they still have to respond to us. If we make our displeasure known for long enough, and it impacts their sales, they have to act. If even 1% of Warhammer fans don't buy the latest and greatest product that GW releases, it hurts.

It also helps that they're under UK corporate law instead of American corporate law.

And I have a feeling from some of the things I've seen on discount retailer sites, that certain big releases have been under-performing. So hopefully this is the first in some course corrections.

Give San Guard their wings back!

I'm still wondering about what's going on with how few releases have been announced for Christmas. They do seem to be pushing War of the Rohirrim more than I was expecting, so maybe they really are trying to just let releases breathe instead of smothering them. I'm wondering how Necromunda Secondus and Mechanicum performed given how they released along side Age of Sigmar 4.0.

Honestly I think that most Warhammer fans hold GW products as being the best in the market. When they start taking a downturn, we start asking why we're paying so much for them. I think GW really should go back to a slower release cadence of higher quality products. Releasing both of their major game systems back to back in essentially a beta state should not happen. There's no excuse for 10th Edition Eldar to release one summer only for 4.0 Nighthaunt to release the next. And the less said about 4.0's Regiment system the better.

All and all, I'm still really excited for this Preview. I'm not expecting too much right now, but I'm willing to be surprised. For now, just having a live Preview is enough.

Enough rambling! Onto the Preview!

Preshow

Our hosts today are veterans of the Preview shows, Alex and Nick. This was one of the first things that got me excited when I checked in on the stream after discovering WarCom was down. After some of their traditional introduction, including asking for location shout outs, Alex tells us what we've got in store. The reveals today are for Underworlds, AoS, 40K, Kill Team, and Legions. Legions in the past hasn't gotten a lot of love in these Preview shows, so I'm hoping for a little better presentation this time around.

But then Nick slyly cuts in that those are just what was announced, and we should keep our eyes pealed. I've heard some rumors already, but let's see what they actually tease for us.

Underworlds

We're starting with GW's original Skirmish game set in the Age of Sigmar. I'm still really hoping that Warcry gets some love again soon, but I'm betting Underworlds must be just slightly outperforming it.

Oh wow! So with the new edition of AoS out and the story advancing with the Vermindoom, the team has decided to release a new edition of Underworlds. And this edition looks like it will also start with a Stormcast verses Skaven box.

They're once again pushing that accessibility factor with this new edition. I will say this much, other than a few sticking points I have I don't really feel this push to accessibility has resulted in any "dumbing down" of these editions. Probably the worst offender was Kill Team 2nd, and they've undone some of that. Admittedly they pushed the worst part even more . . . Still I feel that 40K 10th and AoS 4.0 are still very tactically deep games. And that, at the end of the day, is what really matters.

And unfortunately we're probably never going to see this push to expand the audience through accessibility ever go away. Businesses in the current corporate world live and die through growth. There's only so much money GW can wring out of their current audience. There has to come a point where GW expands their audience, or investors will leave and the company will decline.

Unfortunately that's tricky to do when you also keep raising the prices of starter products.

But Underworlds has always been relatively inexpensive compared to GW's other products. It's a perfect example of creating a stepping stone into the larger hobby. Buying a board game style starter box with only a few push-fit miniatures to assemble and paint is much easier than buying and painting something like Skaventide. And GW looks to be leaning into that.

They're really throwing a lot of long looks into the miniatures and the board. Still, no matter how much time they spend here this is never as good as the bright, close-in pictures WarCom usually has later. One advantage of the Live previews is we often get to see some of those ahead of time. Hopefully Nick and Alex will focus in on some like they used to.

Here's our box reveal.

And you're making me nervous Nick. This is very similar to a lot of those prerecorded shows. Now that the reveal trailer is done I don't want to be here having someone presenting a prerecorded message on why I should want to pick this up. I want to be back in the studio, with chat, getting live impressions and active responses to questions and feedback from you and Alex. You got me excited for a live show, Nick. Don't turn this around on me.

Uh oh! It's a reset! Normally, this would have me excited. But there are two things that make me nervous here.

The first is that this game incorporates cards and deck building. If they're completely updating the rules, does that mean previous cards won't work anymore? Will we have to get new decks for any warbands we play?

The second is Kill Team. In case you didn't know, Kill Team just introduced a Standard style rotation that means that eventually your Kill Teams won't be legal in competitive play. Many classic Kill Teams already don't have rules in the new edition. Now many of those Kill Teams are still perfectly fine for casual games . . . for as long as GW writes compatible rules for them. But eventually you won't be able to play a given Kill Team without going back to a prior edition of a game. That's fine for collectors who have lots of friends going back to previous editions. But for most LGS communities, that creates a problem.

I'm guessing Underworlds will work in a similar way. I don't know if any previous Warbands will get retired, but they'll probably introduce a cut off point and then rotate out older Warbands eventually. You'll probably have to go buy a new deck for any of the older Warbands to use them in the new rules. This is all just speculation, but it's speculation based off how GW has been running their other games.

This may be a small point to some, but it's a legitimate up-sell to me. GW has gotten considerably better at creating and designing rule books. They've gotten much easier to read in recent editions of their games and much easier to use at the table. I'm hoping they continue to refine them. Also their apps have gotten better too for looking up the latest version of any given rule.

We're also going to single boards, war scrolls, and they're defining Warbands with stat systems to help you understand their play style. One thing I'm not sure of is the replacement of card art with miniature photos. I kind of liked the way the cards added some of that great GW art into the game. I'm not sure how well the various cards will depict the action if it's just still photos.

All and all the new edition looks good, but I've got questions that are going to need answered.

Back in the studio we've got some great shots of the miniatures - not sure I'm liking the sculpt around the eyes for this one - but we're not getting any community interaction yet. There's no point in these being live shows if we don't have any response to the community feedback and questions!

Hm . . . We've got them just talking over these repeating slideshows. I'd honestly prefer to just seem them sitting their and talking to each other to gauge their live reactions. And while I'll admit that this is a new edition, and there's a lot to talk about, they're kinda just going over what the presentation showed. Yes! I'm going to harp on this! I want community interaction, dammit!

Okay, here's one point answered. The starter set is going to come with four decks in it, one based on each of the now named play-styles, Strike, Take and Hold, Flex, and Mastery. These decks will be playable with any Warband. So any of the old Warbands that receives rule updates can use these decks to start with.

It looks like with other recent new editions, we'll get our first chance to see this played at a GW event. In this case it's the Tampa Open, which is next weekend! So we'll probably learn a lot about the game in the coming days.

. . .

And now we're moving into the next part of the show. No questions taken, no feedback, not even a glance at chat. I'm not happy.

Age of Sigmar

And it's just the Warhammer Day miniature. We've already seen this. It's a pretty cool looking miniature to be sure, but why are we covering it here?

My hype is draining away.

Same thing with the Darkoath. Though this looks like it might be a box set, and that means it might have some new miniatures.

Oh! While they didn't show it, this is the announcement for the Slaves to Darkness Battletome. I did miss that this box set is the Darkoath Spearhead. So this will be our first big release for AoS 4.0 following Skaventide.

We're getting a new release for a Sorcerer Lord outside of the Warhammer Day model. This one sounds like it will have a few options for it. Hopefully we'll see these on WarCom.

And here's our Battletome reveal! It sounds like they're doubling down on how little changed between the Skaven Index and Battletomes. This is potentially bad as some of the AoS armies need some real changes.

We are getting a new Army of Renown, Be'lakor's Legion of the First Prince. So hopefully that will bring something interesting for AoS players to experiment with. It's my understanding though that Regiments of Renown aren't seeing much play right now. But we can wait and see.

Speaking of! We've got a nice rules preview here of a new Regiment of Renown that can be included in any most of the god-aligned Chaos factions. The Daemon Prince gets to keep it's Gift of Chaos that it would have claimed in an S2D army and gets the relevant faction Keyword too. However, I can't imagine spending a drop on this the way AoS 4 currently plays, unless they change how drops work in the next rules update.

Battleforces

They didn't mention any universe transition, just that big boxes are on the way soon. My guess is this is our first look at the holiday boxes, which will probably included both 40K and AoS, maybe Old World if we're lucky.

These are all themed after detachments. The Tau box is obscured, but we saw it earlier in the preview, and is the Retaliation Cadre. This means that this is probably a sneaky reveal of one of the new Imperial Knight Detachments, the Valourstrike Lance. Though that sounds suspiciously like it might be a rename for the Noble Lance.

I'll note that none of these battleforces are Chaos themed. We've got three Imperial battleforces and two Xenos. But there looks like there's a lot of value in these kits. That Tau box has a Riptide in it, the Knights have a Paladin and four Armigers, the Sisters comes with two vehicles and a pair of Penitent Engines, the Necrons get the Void Dragon, and the Dark Angels get The Lion. I'm not gonna add everything up here, since I can't see exactly what everything is, but that's over $300 worth of Knights.

And just as I suspected, we immediately go into AoS boxes.

We're only getting four here, Maggotkin, Cities, Iron Jaws, and Flesh-Eaters. One for each Grand Alliance. These don't appear to be based on any Regiments or Armies. And I'm not seeing anything popping out at me for high value items.

These are indeed our holiday boxes. As with recent years, these are designed to go along with the intro boxes. So if you get a Combat Patrol or Spearhead alongside one of these, you'll have a pretty decent collection. Whether they match well with previous Battleforce launch boxes, I'd have to check. But at the very least, I know the Dark Angels one didn't have The Lion in it.

They're saying they're supposed to match Regiments in AoS. I only checked Iron Jaws, but looking through the others they also don't match any current Regiments. So these might be renames or new Regiments coming in the Battletomes.

Hah! They even just mentioned that the Cities of Sigmar force can represent different Regiments! So maybe there wasn't any actual consideration made there at all.

They also just brought up that there's duplication with the Morbheg Knights. So not so good there for the AoS portions either.

Warhammer Armoury

They tease that no one knows about this reveal yet. But it's an Officially Licensed product, so outside of games I'm not sure how much interest there will be.

Warhammer Armory! Okay, you have my attention.

Also, gee! I wonder what's about to be revealed?

There it is! Ghal Maraz! (Subject to GW's approval.)

i haven't gotten my hands on any of these, but I really want to see if I can. I just love stuff like this. If my father's business could get them to sell, we would in a heart beat.

I still have my Slayer of Kings. It's sitting right next to me. I'd honestly love to collect more stuff like this.

Legions

So we've already had Mechanicum for Legions revealed, so they're starting off by going into the lore. I guess that's one way to try to pay more respect to the specialist game. Still I'm hoping for more news for Legions.

"Now you're probably sat at home, thinking, "Games Workshop we've already seen these." It had crossed my mind, yes.

Dark Mechanicum! While they haven't shown any traitor specific models yet, the new rules will allow you to field these models in both Loyalist and Traitor forces.

But they're not keeping us waiting for long! This is the Serperos Heavy Stalker. Looks like it's a near Titanic scale model for the Dark Mechanicum. Like most of the new Mechanicum stuff, I'm totally here for this.

I'm also still hoping to see some even larger creations hitting Titanicus and Legions. Say a certain class of Titan that hasn't had an official model for a while . . .

And book reveal! This book will apparently have the rule for playing both factions. So hopefully we'll see more force specific miniatures in the future.

A Special Surprise

Something a bit more lighthearted. A feast in the field, huh? Blood Bowl? Don't they already have halflings?

40K! I know what this is! Apparently Death Korp isn't all the Guard is getting!

"Make a pie crust from compressed cardboard and fill it with a tin of Munitorum issued nutrient paste." Yummy.

I'm so here for this!

These ratlings look fantastic and have so much life and character to them! This is a fantastic addition to the Guard range!

Oh! It's a commemorative model! Boo! I want this to be a part of the main range!

Oh well. Looks like I'm picking up at least one thing for myself this year.

Kill Team

They teased more ratlings, but look at these Boyz! More proper Orky miniatures! Yes!

And there's our new ratlings! Look at the bulldog!

So I guess the next Kill Team box is Orks verse Ratlings. So much for the idea that the next team would be Storm Boyz. Specifically this is Ratling Snipers verses Tankbustas.

All of these miniatures look pretty bespoke. The ratling kit is definitely new, but that doesn't look like an upgrade sprue on the Orks either. I'm wondering if all the Kill Teams will be new kits from now on?

This Kill Team set will include a bunker terrain piece and missions for trying to defend the bunker or storm it. Sounds like a fun time.

The holiday miniature will also have a mission for trying to steal the food for their provisions. So there's another fun detail.

Hmm. New animation or game?

Bandai Namco? Guessing game.

Oh! I was wrong! It's an animated short! Looks like a free one too!

Our next preview will apparently be in November, for the Championships and Grand Narrative Campaign. I'm hoping they do a better job there.

But as the sign off, they hit us with one more teaser.

Final Thoughts

I've apparently hit my image limit, so I'm not gonna go into more details on the miniatures. But on the whole they were fantastic. Not the biggest fan of the Stormcast models for Underworlds but the Skaven models were cool. All the other new models, especially our new Kill Team set and commemorative mini look fantastic! While this Preview was light on new models, what was shown was great!

And that's all the good I have to say.

So this did definitely need to be a Preview because they were revealing the new Underworlds. But honestly, they could have made the whole show about that and I think it would have been better. The Kill Team reveals were good, but the rest was stuff that would normally just be a WarCom article. So they may as well have just dedicated it all to an Underworlds deep dive and left the Kill Team stuff for later.

And while I think this was better than the prerecorded stuff we got before, this might as well have been prerecorded. In fact I'm sure there are gonna be people who accuse this stream of being prerecorded. There was zero interaction with chat. Yeah, they asked chat to call out where they were from like they used to, but then didn't acknowledge any responses. Chat might as well have not been there, and that means this might as well not be live.

This isn't okay! And while I appreciate the nod to the old format, this was honestly something where I wanted to see designers talking about what they were doing. I don't want to hear Nick and Alex talking about the new mechanics and design ideas of Underworlds, I want to here it from the people who made the game! While I didn't like the mock interviews, there's no reason not to have the designers on there talking about what they're excited about.

Between lack of meaningful reveals and the misuse of the live format, this is still a fail. If the last review was a student handing in a print-off from Wikipedia with his name on it, this one was two guys who threw together their paper at the last minute. This will probably be my last liveblog for these. I'm certainly not gonna do another one until I see meaningful changes in the format.

[londonhalcyon]

Fic Writer Interview (20 Questions)

This tag game passed by twice, once in January (because apparently this post has been sitting in my drafts that long) and again several months later, so forgive me for not remembering who to tag! These questions seem fun, so if anyone wants to join, feel free to say I tagged you!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

20 at the moment, with plenty more WIPs.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

480,895 words and counting.

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Not counting TMW bonus content, the top 5 are:

The Mad Witch (758 kudos)

"The Scarlett Cauldron" (77 kudos)

"Fear Itself" (76 kudos)

"The Most Powerful Witch" (72 kudos)

"Piper's Best Worst Day" (57 kudos)

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! I love engaging with my readers and other members of the fandom. Every comment always makes my whole day. Life gets busy sometimes, so I don't always have the time to respond to every single one, but I definitely see and appreciate all of them!

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Usually my fics have fairly hopeful endings, but "3 Years Ago," a pre-canon Murdered: Soul Suspect fic might fit the bill. Sometime in the future, it has the potential to be topped by "Will of the People," a Fallout 4 WIP that revolves around the Diamond City anti-ghoul riots.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

My Secret Santa fics, "It's Not the Fall" and "Flawed Phials," definitely have the fluffiest endings!

7. Do you write crossovers?

Nope!

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I get rude or condescending comments on occasion from people who don't know how to hit the back button and/or are unfamiliar with fandom etiquette, though nothing actively malicious. The one time I received a transphobic/homophobic message in response to TMW it was private (if it was public, I would have deleted it; I don't give a platform to that kind of thing at all), and honestly I hope that person is in a better place now because they really didn't seem okay at the time. I'm fortunate that the vast majority of my readers and mutuals are such wonderfully amazing and kind people.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, BUT, before you get too excited, not in The Mad Witch. Smut is by definition graphic, and TMW has a Teen rating that shall remain unchanged.

The smut scenes I've drafted so far (F/F and F/M) are for my Rosemary Reaper series (post-canon Fallout 4 WIP). Those fics will all be rated Mature, so while not overly explicit, they'll definitely be spicier than TMW. Maybe I'll share a snippet sometime if there's any demand for it.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of?? I have long since deleted my Wattpad account, so my fics should only be on AO3. If anyone ever finds one of my fics elsewhere in the wild, please let me know.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not, which is probably for the best. I would like to make some heavy edits to the beginning of TMW when I'm done with it.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not a fic, though I have co-written a short fantasy story with a friend, with him writing for one POV character and me for another. We agreed on major actions and story beats, but we each kept a major secret that we didn't reveal until after we had written our individual parts. It was a lot of fun (though we were both painfully unskilled at the time).

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't know if I really have one. I have ships I enjoy and characters I like to pair with OCs, though nothing I feel properly obsessive over. This might be a consequence of primarily writing for video game fandoms. But I do have my default game romances: Merula in HPHM, Piper in Fallout 4, Marcurio in Skyrim, etc. I'm also a sucker for unrequited love interests, like Serana in Skyrim and Aveline in Dragon Age 2. The ANGST.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I never want to say never because I'm currently 83,435 words into the last fic I said I would never write. But there are two fics that I'm almost certain I will never finish, which I'm kind of sad about: my post-canon Murdered: Soul Suspect longfic, A Certain Darkness, and my RWBY OC team longfic, DSRT.

I made it just shy of 200,000 words into A Certain Darkness before I had to drop it. My writing skills ended up surpassing the progress I had made, and by the time I realized how many characters, relationships, and plot points were just straight up bad, I had written myself into a corner. I do love Joy and Angel so much, a medium/ghost duo with way more homoerotic tension than my closeted teenage self ever intended. Maybe one day I'll gut the story, drop the characters into a different setting, and make it something original. One day.

DSRT ran into a similar problem, though fortunately I only ever wrote the first few chapters. I could probably reattempt it if I really wanted, but with the overwhelming number of WIPs I already have, it's hard to imagine finding the time. I do miss my team of teenage idiots: Dustin, Saul, Rosemary, and Talos. It was supposed to have a really tragic ending too, which I don't often get to write.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I often receive compliments on how human I make my characters feel, which is the highest honor anyone could give. I've been told my dialogue frequently flows smoothly too.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Conciseness. Why is this post so long omg.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Do it carefully and with necessity. Maybe a character is bilingual and blends languages, so it's part of their characterization. Maybe a password or spell needs to be said in another language because it's old or pretentious. It can work, but it can also be easy to mess up. I personally avoid writing dialogue in languages I don't have a good grasp of, or I try to consult other people if I do (not Google Translate, which sucks).

There's also the matter of if the POV character even understands the language being spoken. If they don't, then I don't write the language out (unless it's a phrase the character is going to learn later on). In these instances, it makes more sense to write something like, "The man muttered a phrase in a language she didn't recognize," or "She fired off something in Spanish, the words too quick to catch."

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars the Clone Wars, baby! I was like ten or eleven. Never published, but my worldbuilding for that longfic (a saga, more like) was insanely elaborate. Alas, another story for the WIP graveyard.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Eventually, I want to get back to my Skyrim WIP, which includes a main Dragonborn/Marcurio ship. Maybe even with a little Dragonborn/Serana infidelity on the side (which Marcurio absolutely does not deserve, the poor guy).

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I mean, I have to say The Mad Witch, don't I? That fic is where my community is, where every time I post a chapter I have a ton of people who get excited about it with me. It is the story I think about constantly, that I have spent literal years writing and daydreaming about. No matter what I've written before or will write since, this will be the defining fic in my journey as a writer.

That, and I have a special fondness for "Case by Case." I just think it's neat.

[chuckle-lore]

Episode 5- February 27th, 2021- 10th Chuckle Lore 🎉

Lore(?)-

20:28 Charlie plays golf and Ted spies from afar. Every stroke Charlie goes over par, Ted breaks a finger/shoots a puppy (wether he does both of these or switches off from one to another is unclear)

36:29 Schlatt is stuck in the atomic cube. What exactly is the atomic cube? I’m not sure, all I know is that it also has atomic locks.

There used to be a fourth member that no one else remembers

37:47 Charlie mentioning money reboots Schlatt

49:32 Charlie is in the Void Dome and he can’t remember the face of his own mother

The reason I added (?) to the lore is because I’m not sure if I can consider it canon. Throughout the episode Charlie mentions that is isn’t a episode recording but instead a practice run to see what jokes they will include for the real episode and in the end Ted reveals that he was secretly recording the whole time which leaves me in a pickle. Schlatt and Charlie were playing along with all the bits/potential lore BUT that was when they thought this wasn’t an official episode, the validity of this episode’s lore is rocky at best but there is some lore that is much more definite…

With the reveal of Ted secretly recording episode five, we get more firm confirmation of Ted’s morally dubious and manipulative character.

Also Charlie making various remarks about how he was probably not going to be in the next “real recording” shows how much he did not want to be there and was most likely an attempt to leave the podcast all together. Not to go all Matpat mode over here but it seems fairly likely that Ted is making Charlie be in cs against his free will and possibly Schlatt too to an extent considering both men have discussed their distaste of Ted in previous episodes (mainly episode 2). I believed that Schlatt is under a contract and is being paid just enough to stay meanwhile Charlie is more peer pressured by Ted to keep going.

Thoughts:

Jumping back into an older episode after watching a streak of the newer episodes definitely threw me off. The editing in this at times almost felt like they were jangling keys in front of me so I can keep watching and the worst part is that it worked. There would be times that I would start to zone out and all of a sudden Ted has Hatsune Miku’s hair or a sound effect goes off and I am paying attention again.

Also this episode put in perspective how much current cs shoves in sex stuff. The whole I was just waiting for some kind of sex joke or ten minute long gag about how Schlatt wants to put his junk into something and to my surprise, there was nothing extremely explicit, I don’t even think anyone said the word fuck in the whole episode. The only explicit reference we get is when Schlatt moans after high-fiving Charlie too hard and it was the funniest part in the whole episode. This is probably a hot take from me but I think cs is becoming over saturated with sexual stuff and bits like the high-five moan would not of land half as hard if it were placed into current episodes. If anyone wants to have a discussion about this I am more than happy to talk to y’all.

Overall I think this episode was fine, it had its iconic moments but I don’t think I would actively search for it, 7/10, :)

Things I noted:

I miss the fanart in the beginning of the episodes. I want it back so bad.

Schlatt’s voice sounds higher(?) than his voice in newer episodes

Ted’s hallway kept changing colors

Older episodes were DEFINITELY caters to visual watchers

I’m so upset that I can’t tell if this episode is canon or not because there being a fourth member that was erased from existence would of been so cool for the lore.

(Original notes + favorite comment interaction? under the cut)

Funfact: I can’t draw Schlatt for the life of me

[funarisjournal]

Confession Talk! Manga Edition 2

It's been a bit, had work to deal with, but now I can sit down and write more about how Valentine's Day played out in Vol. 4. Again, if you haven't read it yet, I'll put my essay under a cut!

I talked about Kasuga's POV last time. Now it's time to look at it through Nomoto's!

As we know, Nomoto has realized her feelings and put it into words sooner than Kasuga. She has been falling head over heels for the woman every time they hang out but trying really hard not to show it out of fear of weirding Kasuga out and possibly lose their friendship. As we have learned in Vol. 2, friendships are REALLY important to Nomoto. She's basically lost all of hers over time and has been alone for a long time!

The fact that "But we're both girls!" is NOT a factor in her worries about confessing is an interesting one, but I get it. As a fellow demisexual, that never crossed into my mind when I had those crushes on my best friends growing up, or when I fell in love with my wife. My top worry was, if I were to say something about it, would I lose my friends? I already weirded out my bestie from high school by liking yuri, so I always kept it to myself. (I'm glad that Leigh confessed first, though, because by then I WAS too scared to reveal my intimate feelings)

Anyway, back to Nomoto. She was the one who initiated the Valentine's Day get-together back in Vol. 3, and she's both nervous but excited. She puts on a neat food idea with that hot plate fondue...

I like to point this tiny bit out. Nomoto loves her booze, but she knows if she were to have some today, something weird will happen, or she'll fall asleep, and she doesn't want that to happen. All that within that simple response, huh?

Anyway, the meal is amazing. They have a moment of coincidence, sparking a little heart fluttering...and a wish that maybe, just maybe, there really could be something more.

But oh. Something weird DOES happen. Kasuga announces she plans to move out of her apartment soon.

Nomoto's world starts crashing down. As she hears WHY Kasuga is moving, it makes sense to her, logically. And, out of her love for Kasuga, forget romance, forget attraction, out of her love for this woman, she wants to help her.

...well, maybe.

Nomoto is known to be a little selfish. She has a tendency to start enthusiastically taking over things or get chattery about her feelings. Things happened so suddenly, she was NOT expecting this outcome at all!

Kasuga moving away means she won't be nearby. She may not even be able to visit anymore. Just like that, she has lost her dearest friend, and it wasn't even due to her personal feelings. She's just...moving on, like all her previous friends did. Things are changing, for the worst, and she is scared.

Her emotions are running wild. Her logical side takes a backseat. It's there, but it no longer has control. Nomoto has one last hope here. If she doesn't get it out, she will regret everything in the future.

Nomoto is aware this was pretty much It. She was going to lose Kasuga with that move, anyway, but there was some hope that maybe, just maybe confessing may keep her here, close to her. If anything, her feelings are released, these feelings she had been bottling up for so long. If the worst-case scenario happened, she would be able to continue, maybe, but she'd be a much more somber woman afterward. At least she'd have Yako to talk to, right?

....Then we find out that Kasuga hadn't even finished her own comments from earlier. There was a part 2 to the whole thing! She wants Nomoto to room with her!

...OH! Nomoto, there you go yapping nervously and making mountains out of molehills! Hahaha, you can't even blame the alcohol on this one, this was all you! How their relationship will recover from this, she doesn't have a clue, but it SEEMS like it'll be okay, right??

But then...a double whammy?!

Kasuga says the feelings are mutual?! Can Nomoto's heart take all of this so fast?! She's been on an emotional roller coaster this whole time, I think she wants off now, to be honest!

What else is there to do, though?? Think, Nomoto, think!

Now, you would think, if this was a typical yuri, she would finally just get up and kiss Kasuga, huh? Well, this ISN'T your typical yuri. These ladies have grown up not really dealing with romantic relationships all their lives, not really caring about it, really. They are literal babies with 0 experience, so Nomoto does the one thing she can think of...

And it's reciprocated.

Congratulations, Nomoto. Your secret feelings no longer have to be secret. This journey you have gone through in the past few months has lead you to this. You not only have a girlfriend now, but the friendship is as strong as ever!

And omg, you actually held her HAND!! Pretty sure this was their first-ever moment of skinship!

[binahfaes]

a collection of Thoughts on haru's hidden complexities

(originally a bunch of threads from my priv twt where i ramble to myself, essentially— collated and edited. long post ahead.)

on haru, sayuri and what Exactly is his whole deal anyway?

i think it's safe to say that for me and many others, haru as a character felt enigmatic at best, and plain underwritten at worst and very divisive lol. but, i do think within the series we're given some interesting things to work with when inferring haru's reasonings for being with leviathan, his motives, and the nature of his obsession with jamie (before it, in my opinion, shifts to something "more simple," as claude observes).

to start with, a quote:

"it was haru's apathy that fascinated [Jamie] so much. but was it apathy, or something else something more dangerous?

it's interesting because lottie/sayuri believe partially that haru was brainwashed into joining leviathan....and as far as we know, that's not true. claude doesn't use the hamelin formulaon members! but in another way they're not Wrong.

it IS claude's manipulation + his ability to appeal to vulnerable teenagers base desires and wants—he promises to haru that of being a hero (is what he says anyway) and generates this obsession with jamie in haru that inadvertently becomes haru's sole motivation.

but what EXACTLY is going through haru's mind when he joins?

is it that sayuri is so capable that haru feels obsolete? pushed to the side as a partizan? and MAYBE he thinks jamie can fill that role as someone he can protect...?

in PEA, it says something along the lines of "the obsession Claude had encouraged in Haru had turned to something more simple...a boy who felt unwanted by his master [and] fancied himself a hero, so claude gave him a prince to save."

from this we can easily infer a big part of the reason really is that he felt like sayuri didn't need him, and in haru's mind this probably felt like a fairly righteous cause. i mean, haru can relate to jamie as a partizan—perhaps he sees parts of himself in jamie too. claude definitely spun it to him as a worthy endeavour. he might have said something like "oh you're so unsatisfied in your current life and sayuri doesn't need you, but if you joined leviathan you would most certainly be needed," and haru, probably feeling directionless and vulnerable, saw that offer and thought yeah actually that sounds Good.

and perhaps, sayuri was all haru really had. seeing as he's a partizan it's possible he doesn't have a relationship with his family/is an orphan, and I THINK her aunt dying (if it was as recent as i think it is) maybe led to her changing and becoming more distant, effectively shutting haru out (that and her parents divorcing; god poor sayuri).

in a sense, jamie—or the idea of him at first—was all haru had. this all, i think, gives us a bit more context as to how he acted during the Reveal in PAH despite manipulating jamie—the flash of genuine hurt when jamie found out Everything, because of the possibility he would lose him.

how all of this, informs haru's actions

in addition, reading with PEA in mind and the small incites we get from it does actually put a lot of haru's choices into context. whereas before i was thinking oh no poor jamie and his trust issues, I can see a little from haru's perspective too now.

for haru, his top priority was saving jamie. for him, the end goal justified the means. even tho his methods certainly were not pure or ethical. he has to deceive jamie for some time, yes, but he does also come to very earnestly like him. he says he was planning to tell jamie everything, and i do actually believe that to be a genuine remark because beforehand he'd been dropping clues.

there is, of course, also something so tragic about it, on both sides— jamie's never felt seen and understood the way haru sees him, and haru very desperately wants to be needed and in a way jamie is all he has (so there's a lot at stake for him).

not only that, but despite the illusion of free choice and liberation claude gives his subordinates, haru's just another one of claude's pawns. his "obsession" with jamie is apart of claude's plan, and of course claude has no regard for haru's emotional state—in fact he uses said emotions to his advantage.

i think parsing these details out ultimately renders haru more a sympathetic, and comprehensible character. of course, he's still flawed and antagonistic, but to me that makes him a more compelling character, not less! i like the idea of a character who does lie, and does manipulate, but underneath all that there is pure intent, no matter how dishonestly they started out. i also think that, in haru's case, it could've been executed better.

[jodilinbio]

Part 49

Written in late 2014, edited in 2024

The teens ended up being the worst years of my life, especially mid-2014 through 2016, and then beyond.

2014 was both great and horrifying. This time, the scary part had nothing to do with money but with my health. I came to realize that the number 4 was indeed unlucky, and then later learned that many Asian cultures believe the same. Once I realized it wasn’t my imagination after all, I was concerned when 2014 arrived. Since the year started off great and we got to the summer without any catastrophes, I was just about to relax and let my guard down until July 9th rolled around.

In late January, I found a new primary care doctor—a young and gorgeous 32-year-old I’ll call Dr. C. She was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, which is not my usual type, but her sexy smile and compassionate, personable nature won me over. I’ll admit, I developed a crush on her.

Dr. C diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s disease, which explained why my body wouldn’t respond to diet and exercise. I’d suspected either that or diabetes. Bloodwork also revealed I was low in vitamin D and had high cholesterol, the latter likely driven up by hypothyroidism and genetics. She started me on vitamin D supplements, 50 mcg of levothyroxine for my thyroid, and simvastatin for my cholesterol.

She referred me to an endocrinologist, Dr. D, who was my age and from Venezuela. Due to her packed schedule, my first appointment wasn’t until April and I can’t say I liked her very much.

Before seeing the endo, we had the trip of a lifetime! In late January, we spent a week in Ka’anapali, Hawaii, on the island of Maui. It was the BEST vacation ever. Flying first class was great.

We stayed in a $500-per-night room with an ocean view and loved watching the whales that had migrated from Canada.

We packed so much into that week: swimming, snorkeling, catamaran sailing, a luau, and even a submarine tour where we saw a sunken ship (deliberately placed for fish and sub-riders). The beaches were breathtaking, and swimming in the ocean was so much fun. The waves were huge, and timing was everything to avoid being knocked down. Tom wasn’t so lucky one time, and I laughed so hard, as did a woman nearby.

The luau wasn’t as fun as I hoped, but the catamaran ride was great, even if the food was bland. Snorkeling, though—that was magical. At first, I didn’t get the hype of looking at a sandbar, but once I ventured farther out—wow. The vibrant tropical fish and coral were like nothing I’d ever seen.

In April, I finally saw Dr. D. A normal TSH level is close to 0; mine was a staggering 32. After starting on 50 mcg of levothyroxine, it dropped to 12. Dr. D raised my dosage to 75 mcg, and I was okay at first, not realizing the stuff takes time to build up in the system.

Between the trip and the summer, we focused on home improvements. We painted, recarpeted, replaced old curtains with blinds, installed a new dishwasher, and swapped the dark brown carpet for a sandy beige shade called “Nomad.” We got new furniture as well.

Life was great—until one day shy of our one-year anniversary in the new house.

That morning, after Tom left for work, I found myself highly wound up. I had been for a couple of weeks, as well as short of breath, and figured it was simply me adjusting to having normal thyroid levels. I tried to calm myself but just minutes later, my heart began racing and pounding like crazy. Utterly terrified, I feared I’d accidentally overdosed. Though I wasn’t sure if it would kill me, the possibility crossed my mind as my head spun and fear consumed me.

I knew I needed to act. First, I had to call Tom to let him know in case something happened. Then, I opened the back door for the paramedics, just in case I passed out. My shaky hands somehow managed to work my new smartphone, and I called both Tom and 911. The dispatcher stayed on the line with me until help got to me. The paramedics arrived quickly, hooked me up to a cardiograph, and reassured me I hadn’t had a heart attack or taken a lethal dose. Relieved, I called Tom to tell him he didn’t need to rush home after all.

Months ago, I didn’t know nearly as much about Hashimoto’s, the medication used to treat it, or perimenopause/menopause. I knew in my gut that it wasn’t normal for me to feel that degree of epic anxiety, going into menopause or not, and that it was mostly connected to the medication. But what frustrated the shit out of me was that none of the doctors seemed to believe me. My primary care doctor was so sure that I had developed a severe case of anxiety out of the blue and prescribed a low dose of lorazepam to help. It helped to a degree but I also still knew my own body better and what was normal for it. If I hadn’t felt that way during the worst times of my life, why would I suddenly feel like that when things were at their best? Still, the anxiety was so overwhelming at times that I was grateful for the pills to take the edge off.

I continued to have the most god-awful feelings: my heart would race, I’d feel suffocated and dizzy, I had constant diarrhea, started losing weight rapidly, panicked, and felt like I was dying. It was the worst experience of my life. I’d rather gain 100 pounds than go through that again!

Eventually, I stopped taking all my medications, including my cholesterol pills. By then, I was terrified to take anything—vitamins, painkillers, nothing. While my primary care doctor was okay with me pausing the medication until I could see my endocrinologist for adjustments, she was adamant I needed to see both a psychiatrist and a counselor named Dana in Folsom.

Tom raised a valid point: I didn’t need a psychiatrist because I wasn’t crazy; I needed a lower dosage. Seeing a counselor was one thing, but being sent to a psychiatrist just to be given medication to tolerate another medication at the wrong dose was absurd. We realized we’d been too accommodating and had had enough of the incompetence, phone tag, and bureaucracy. That medical group, as a whole, was terrible. My endocrinologist was overbooked, her staff was incompetent, and while my primary care doctor was kind, I needed someone who would listen to me. After all, we found numerous complaints online from people taking the same medication. They certainly couldn’t all have suddenly been “just anxious.”

In November, we switched medical groups where I got a new primary care doctor, a new endo, and the same problem of not being believed and told that the medication can’t make you anxious because it’s the same stuff your body makes anyway. Don’t take my word for it though. When I say otherwise, look it up for yourself. Some people really are sensitive to this stuff, like it or not. I think a lot of doctors brush off side effects to make their jobs easier, which is a shame.

Dr. A, a young Ecuadorian physician, put me back on levothyroxine but at just 25 mcg for starters, since as she explained, the best way to deal with PTSD is to slowly expose someone to something they’re afraid of. Oh, I was definitely afraid of it all right, and had definitely acquired the case of PTSD!

Andy visited us in late November. It was wonderful to hug him for the first time in 15 years. While he talked too much about topics I didn’t care for—like celebrities, news, and God—it was still great to see him.

I’m no longer friends with Maliheh or Nane. Maliheh dumped me after feeling confident I’d keep her name out of my story. She befriended me under false pretenses, which shouldn’t surprise me considering her past behavior. I’m better off without phony people like that. As for Nane, I cut ties with her because of her hypocrisy and judgmental attitude.

I almost ended my friendship with Alison for a couple of reasons, but realized she has many more good qualities than bad, and the problems weren’t anything major.

I’ve been troll-free for over a year now, though I can’t say whether they still check in on me.

The park remains noisier than I’d like for a retirement community, especially during the weekdays. The constant landscaping and loud vehicles are a major annoyance. Another frustration is Bob turning his garage into a workshop. While I understand his need to stay active, the noise from his woodworking projects is still intrusive. Still, he and his wife are the best neighbors we’ve ever had.

Our rat, Romeo, passed away a few days ago. He was very old and, while not one of our favorites, he’ll be missed. We’re surprised Sugar, who had a stroke last May, is still with us.

[yestolerancepro]

Blog update future blog plans revealed

Hello there I thought I would reveal to you my plans for the next few months for the Tolerance project Tumblr and Facebook pages

 The Ranked series of Tolerance project blogs continues the following 5 mini blogs have been created with more to come

Blogs completed and coming soon

Every Terminator Movie, Ranked Worst To Best (Including Dark Fate)

 As you know if you have been reading the Tolerance blog you will know that the Tolerance film was original planned to have a Terminator spoof in it this mini blog looks at the franchise as a whole and includes a wealth of bonus content,

 The Best Jaws Knock-Offs, Ranked

 We didn’t see the famous Great white shark but we did hear him when we used the famous theme for a couple of sequences in the Tolerance film this mini blog lists the top ten spoofs of Jaws as a starting point again like the Terminator mini blog it looks at the franchise as a whole and includes a ton of bonus content

 The Final Countdown The Rocky Films, Ranked

Another Tolerance project mini blog that builds on a deleted scene from the Tolerance film I am fan of the Rocky series anyway so this was fun to write again this looks at the 6 Rocky films as with all the other blog in this series comes with lots of bonus content.

 Tolerance Project Extra The 8 Best Star Wars Rips off Ranked

 A one off blog looking at the best Star Wars Rip Offs

 Tolerance project extra The 8 Catchiest Orchestral Movie Scores of All Time, Ranked

 A one off blog looking at the 8 catchiest Orchestral movie scores of all time 4 on the list have links to the Tolerance film

Licence to Thrill

An extended edition of the 3 part blog a wrote earlier in the year looking at James Bonds musical tastes over the last 60 years now extended to 5 parts with a wealth of new material

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

A two part blog looking at the Star Wars saga covering both the prequel and original trilogies also covering my Childhood memories of the saga The Tolerance project links and the Star Wars Special edition trilogy from 1997

 Up Where we belong and He’s Bad Your Good and I’m ugly

 Two new blogs looking at the Good the Bad and the ugly and an Officer and a Gentleman

 When I’m feeling Blue and Breaking the Bank

 2 brand new blogs will be coming soon to the Tolerance project page. They are called Breaking the Bank and When I’m feeling Blue. Looking at 2 of themes of the Tolerance film

 Both of the blogs have been a long time in the making and both have completed with the help of Gemma Blagbourgh.

Breaking the Bank looks at the issues disabled people have accessing banking services and When I’am feeling Blue looks at Disabled Parking Badge Abuse

On the Drawing Board and being worked on :

 Halloween Special The Micheal Myers Saga  (Co written with Helen O Toole)

This is planned as a one off blog looking at the complete series beleave or not I have never actually seen a Halloween film

Here come the girls Co written with Gemma Blagbourgh)

A Special one off blog to celebrate international women’s day looking at the making of the Tolerance film from the female perceptive

 Planes Trains and Automobiles

A 2 part blog looking at the issues surrounding transport when you have a disability.

At the moment the blog shedule looks like this :

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (2 parts)

Licence to Thrill (5 parts)

Up Where we belong

He’s Bad Your Good and I’m ugly

Every Terminator Movie, Ranked Worst To Best (Including Dark Fate)

The Best Jaws Knock-Offs, Ranked

The Final Countdown The Rocky Films, Ranked

Breaking the Bank

When I’m feeling Blue (co written with Gemma Blagbourgh)

Tolerance Project Extra The 8 Best Star Wars Rips off Ranked

Tolerance project extra The 8 Catchiest Orchestral Movie Scores of All Time, Ranked

[1moreff-creator]

Immensely giddy right now, absolutely love the analysis! I'm impressed by a lot of your takes, and also some predictions completely blindsided me by either how good or how off they are lol (/positive). I love this a lot! It's a shame I can't talk about this as much as I'd like because Spoilers, but I still want to talk about some stuff! Basically rambling about the thought process behind creating this.

First, it is a really fun idea! Though it's not fully mine. The original idea actually came from this post by sunlit-haru. Like your comment in that one post where I messed up Hope's Peak for UA, that's what really primed me to think this up. So yeah!

One thing I learnt is that coming up with this many different morally ambiguous murders/"murders" is very difficult. I don't think a lot of them are exactly the pinnacle of ambiguity, but, oh well. I think most if not all are at least more ambiguous than Yuno "did she even do anything wrong" Kashiki, which is my way of saying "I'm not sure if this is very complicated but Milgram allowed the other thing so fuck it we ball." Admittedly Yuno might not be the best benchmark, so I also tried to make sure they weren't much more forgivable than Mahiru's thing, which in my eyes also isn't very bad. Worst case scenario I can just add complications to the votes via in-prison events a la Amane, you know, like an evil person >:)

The other thing is plausibility; it's surprisingly hard to come up with a lot of realistic murders, especially with some of these people's personalities. This isn't a problem you brought up but I feel might come up with one or two of these cases. My justification for some of the more out-there murders/'murders' is "well Shidou's there", as in, if Milgram gets away with having an organ stealing doctor who's killed dozens of people, I get away with having a few sillier cases. And, well, anything that flies with Milgram should fly with DRDT. Not a dig at DRDT, just that by the nature of murder mysteries it's always going to need a bit more suspension of disbelief on the "how possible is this" scale.

Anyways, a few words about the analysis!

>I saw in the notes you couldn't find the code for the runes, so here it is if you want to translate the thing on Es' band! It's not too important, it's just a DRDT thing I really like and I think fits Es (or maybe I'm lying? Who knows)

>Levi: :]

>Arturo: Uh... the description of the kill-shot does mention one of Es' shoes being off, doesn't it? :]

>David: Same with Arturo, his- wait.

Oh.

Oops.

Uh... yeah that was supposed to mention a shoe being off, which uh... I forgot to add. Yeah that's my bad. I edited it because trying to work around that would have been a pain. Sorry about that! And thanks for bringing it to my attention because that would have gotten awkward! I'll mention the edit when I get to his first trial. Anyways :]

>Whit: The "voice reveal" really did a number huh? That's very funny. :]

>Ace: :]

>Nico: :]

>J: :]

>Rose: I'm glad you like the puns on the song names! :]

>Hu: :]

>Veronika: :]

>Arei: :]

>Eden: You know I didn't fully intend the "looking away" reference but henceforth I will pretend I did because that's immensely funny. :]

>Min: Okay so I'm gonna take part of the blame for you getting the equation wrong and I'm also gonna blame you a bit for this one. See, the "2 . 13" is meant to be "2 times 13". If I had wanted to write a decimal, I would put the numbers together: "2.13" Not to mention I use commas for decimals (2,13), but that might be a cultural thing. And I couldn't really use an x for multiplication because there's already an x as the variable. I realize now I probably should have done something different, like division, where the notation wasn't so ambiguous. So "2 . 13" is actually meant to be 26.

Thankfully I don't have to feel too bad because you messed up the equation anyways lol. You did:

x³ - 2,13 = 1

x³ = 1 - 2,13

But, uh, you're supposed to add on both sides.

x³ - 2 . 13 = 1

x³ - 26 + 26 = 1 + 26

x³ = 27

Which when you use the cubic root on both sides you get "x = 3". I wonder if that number means anything.

Anyways I hope the math wasn't too painful, because Min's MV is probably going to be the nerdiest thing you'll see in your life hehehe. :]

>Xander: :]

>Charles: :]

>Teruko: :]

Anyways, thanks for the analysis! It made me very happy to see! Take care!

DRDT + Milgram AU: Undercover (Introduction)

Finally succumbed to the Urges and came up with ideas for a full Danganronpa Despair Time - Milgram AU, and now I feel like sharing. This means giving each character a MV + VD concept (not a full VD though I ain’t writing that much dialogue, and not a full MV because who do you think I am), plus this Undercover post! I’m not sure if I’ll commit to this for a full three trials, or I’ll just drop it after just one, but I can guarantee I’ll do this trial in full. Feel free to make analysis posts (no pressure obvs), but also obvs don't expect this to be that good, I'm doing this for fun.

And if you come from the Milgram side, uh... have fun? I am curious about what people with no prior conceptions of these characters would think, but I do recommend DRDT if you haven't watched it (the overlap between the fandoms is non-trivial, I imagine you'll like it). If not, you should probably look up the character designs at least, but be wary that there will be DRDT spoilers.

As an obvious disclaimer just in case, I am not affiliated with either DRDT or Milgram in any way, this is just a fanmade AU done entirely for fun.

Basic Concept

Pretty simple. What if the 16 students of DRDT were prisoners in Milgram? This means they're all "murderers" by some loose definition of the word, implying most of their backstories must be changed to acommodate for that. For the prisoner pairs, I just paired them based on the Chapter 1 recap. The rest is pretty self-explanatory provided you know how Milgram works; three trials, vote Forgiven/Unforgiven, etc. I won't repeat it all here. You can go to the official Milgram YT channel for more information if you're not familiar.

Meet Es

Although they are of unspecified adult age, this universe’s Es is very similar to canon Es from the main series, at least in appearance. The only differences are red highlights in their hair, as well as sharp yellow eyes and taller height. They also wear arm sleeves on both their arms, being particularly adverse to people touching the left one, and their voice is slightly higher pitch. As for their personality… well, you’ll have to wait for the VDs, right? But as a heads up, they’re quite a bit nicer than canon Es, though they can still get pretty strict with the prisoners. 

(Can you tell who they’re connected to yet?)

Their uniform is the same as canon, including the band thing which in Milgram runes reads “reciffO eciloP”. The only difference is that their other band thing is longer and has the following runes:

(As a heads up, since there's no rune for 'q' I just used the rune for 'c/k' in its place. You probably don't need to translate it all to know what this says if you're familiar with DRDT lore)

Jackalope is replaced by DRDT canon MonoTV, no big changes to its personality. It still breaks the fourth wall and talks to an audience,which is odd for the prisoners (and Es) seeing as there is no audience in-universe (at least, that's what it claims). 

*Es’ VD is mostly the same, besides changes in dialogue caused by the difference in personalities. The only real difference is that there is no ‘extra cell.’

*Cover is still Hibana. 

Alright, let's get to the fun stuff.

Undercover

(It is highly recommended you know what the canon Undercover looks like before reading this, since a lot of it is pretty similar)

The opening is still the same minus Es' different appearance and MonoTV replacing Jackalope, and only starts changing when the prisoners begin showing up.

(Don’t- Don’t expect this to actually work as a song btw. I’m not insane enough to make that work)

UNDER Split in between decisions, my conscious is made up of torn stitches

Levi (01) holds a mostly neutral expression as he holds up his prisoner card, which displays his face alongside an image of an alleyway. His pose keeps changing slightly in smash cuts. Levi’s face darkens right before there’s a switch to the next prisoner.

(Note: I won’t mention the pose switching and the face on the card all the time, since that’s part of canon Undercover. Just assume it always repeats)

UNDER The beauty in simplicity, wilting with rising complexities

Arturo (02) has his chin up arrogantly at first, showing a prisoner card with a picture of a bathroom. He scoffs and turns around before the switch. 

UNDER A liar? No, that’s wrong! My honesty shines like a star in the night

David (03) (speaker persona) smiles nervously, rubbing at his cheek with a finger. His card shows a bedroom. He covers his face with his free hand, sighing before the switch.

UNDER A sinner? No, you’re kidding! I’m innocent as can be, just don’t mind the gaps

Whit (04) throws a cheeky grin to the camera, doing a finger gun with his free hand. His card shows a park. He nervously rubs the back of his neck before the switch.

(Note: Yes I gave him 04 because of the tetraphobia thing sue me-)

UNDER With a fury and a passion, unstoppable, show them your fangs

Ace (05) snarls at the camera. His card shows a city street. He throws it to the floor angrily before the switch. 

(Note: Sometimes I wasn't quite able to tie their talent to their murder, so it's either tangential to their story or has been replaced with something similar. I am mentioning this with Ace for... no reason in particular, sure, you'll believe that)

UNDER Your fears and anxieties, Respond to the stress, show me fight or flight

Nico (06) hides under the part of their cloak which looks like a scarf, peeking out nervously. Their card shows a locker room. They take a step back as the scene switches.

INSERT CHORUS HERE

UNDER Each existence is like no other, Lucky, unlucky, showtime reaches all

J (07) holds up her card with an unsatisfied expression. It shows a bridge surrounded by camera equipment. She rolls her eyes as the scene switches.

UNDER And yet, it’s all the same In the end, this wretched still life goes on

Rose (08) yawns as she holds up her card lazily. It shows a large dining room. The card slips from her hand as she falls asleep.

UNDER It’s too much, too much, I’m high strung, please forgive my sins

Hu (09) looks nervous, glancing around as if to find a place to hide. Her card shows a zither in a non-descript room. She drops her card, and closes her eyes with a pained expression, a hand on her chest. 

UNDER Please do condemn me, Bloodletting, the horror inside us is what makes me feel.

Veronika (10) spins and gives the camera a bright smile as she pulls out her card. It shows a rooftop. She throws the card in the air dramatically, laughing as it spins around and falls beside her. Her eyes fall back on the camera, and she smirks menacingly. 

UNDER  Unopposable, incontestable Merry kings, life’s queens, for me they bow down.

Arei (11) is sticking out her tongue and looking to the side dismissively. Her card shows a bowling alley. She laughs into her hand before the scene switch.

UNDER My weakness haunts me, Alarm bells are ringing, there's no going back.

Eden (12) fidgets with her hands, shaking nervously. She hides her face behind her card as she shows it, but her teary eyes are still visible over it. The card shows a bedroom full of clocks. She cries into her hands before the switch. 

INSERT CHORUS HERE

[The music winds down, a bridge of sorts. As it plays, a few scenes are shown, where only the characters’ silhouettes are visible, white noise covering them]

[01: A steaming kettle covers most of the foreground. In the background, Levi is seen sitting at a table, head slumped forward. Most of the table is visible, but no one else is in the frame]

[02: Arturo is seen to the left, holding a white turtle neck shirt in his hands. Behind him, an open suitcase sits on a bed, clothes splayed haphazardly around it]

[03: David stands alone on an empty stage, arms wide out. The spotlights are all on him. The entire stage and some of the front row seats are visible, with David’s silhouette only covering a small part in the center of the frame]

[04: A computer monitor covers almost the entire frame. There are countless photos and words, but they’re all too blurry to see, with the exception of a small message on top which reads “Analyzing profiles…” Whit is reflected on the screen, resting his head on one of his fists]

[05: Ace sits on a motorcycle, looking up and admiring the night sky which takes up most of the frame]

[06: Nico is crouched beside a cat, holding out a pink mouse toy for it to play with. Only their legs are visible, but there is a puddle of water under Nico]

[07: J has her palm spread out all over the screen, as if blocking the camera. There are flashes of light behind her, but the source is impossible to see]

[08: Rose sits slumped in a chair, hands on her face. All around her, dozens of canvases can be seen, painted entirely in black. Small bits of color poke out at the bottom, but no full paintings are visible]

[09: The camera is entirely focused on the top of a zither. Hu’s hand is visible, touching the strings with her plectra]

[10: Only Veronika’s footwear is visible over a dark floor. The rest of the scene is filled entirely by blood]

[11: Arei stands in front of a bathroom mirror. She’s holding the right side of her hair, the only part that’s visible. It looks very unevenly cut]

[12: Eden is holding her head in her hands, slumped over a work desk full of small machinery. Behind her are a multitude of analog clocks of various designs, all showing the same time; 6:00]

[13: Min is sitting on a chair, slumped forward and apparently collapsed over a notebook. A pen sits just beside her right hand. A bit of the writing can be seen, showing this:]

[The brown part being Min's hair. Don't make fun of me I'm using Paint and have zero art skills]

[14: Xander, the focus of the shot, stands in front of a crowd, standing on a simple chair. His fist is in the air, and so are the fists of everyone in the crowd]

[15: Charles is kneeling over a grave, the name on it hidden behind the silhouette. Charles is pulling at his hair with his hands. Other graves are visible around him, but the edges of the screen are darkened and it’s impossible to see them well]

[16: Teruko’s hand is reaching out to a black figure, this one without white noise. The figure is completely non-descript, more a simple shadow than a proper silhouette. Blinding white light surrounds this figure] 

UNDER No mistakes, no corrections, 100% Perfection, results shall not vary. 

Min (13) wears a neutral expression, and she holds her card perfectly upright. Her pose changes only to match the exact angles actual mugshots use. Her card shows an untidy bedroom. Before the switch, she lowers her hand, and looks briefly to the side, before turning back to the camera. When she does, her left eye flashes magenta behind her hair. 

UNDER Fighting for true justice, Stand strong, a reflection of the will of the many

Xander (14) is glaring at the camera, moving his card around flippantly. Said card shows a window overlooking an entire city. Xander throws the card away before throwing a punch at the screen.

UNDER Leave no room to hide, No hesitation, a chain reaction of truth unfolds

Charles (15) looks serious, if a bit annoyed as he holds up his card. It shows a laboratory table with several test tubes. He turns his back to the camera, adjusting his goggles, but gives one last, softer look behind him as the scene switches. 

UNDER Or shall the secrets remain? What lies beyond the lies, armageddon untold

Teruko (16) looks at the camera with cold eyes, but a hint of a frown on her lips. Her pose never changes; unlike everyone else, her segment is one continuous shot. It starts with her holding her card at an angle such that only her face is visible on it. She closes her eyes solemnly, before finally flipping her card around so only the backside is shown. It has the Milgram logo combined with the DRDT logo. She never shows the rest of the front of the card, as the scene switches moments after. 

[Pre-chorus, as the prisoners hold their hands to their mouths before a scene of them smiling plays. At the end, for a few frames, a white camellia blooms, before there’s a sudden shift in scenery as we hit the final chorus. All the prisoners’ silhouettes have a still shot each with Es, with a blood splatter always under the latter. The scene starts to focus on each individually]

[Levi’s punching Es in the face, Es thrown to the floor from the impact. Brass knuckles are barely visible on his hand. Levi’s shouting, as are all the other prisoners]

[Arturo is kneeling, facing away from Es. The latter is laying on the floor behind him in what would be a pretty uncomfortable position. Arturo is holding his head in his hands, his mouth visible from the side and open in a shout. One of Es’ shoes is off]

[David is holding Es by the neck of their shirt, shouting at their face (from now on I’ll stop clarifying that they’re shouting). The following symbol appears over where his eyes would be, glowing yellow: 正]

[Whit is pointing what looks to be a gun at Es, who is recoiling as if they’ve been shot in the heart]

[Ace is seen running, Es’ body falling to the ground beside him and twisting as if they’d been bumped into]

[Nico sits on top of Es’ back. With one of their hands, they’re grabbing onto Es’ hair and apparently pushing it forward. With the other they’re holding two ends of a wire firmly planted on Es’ neck]

[J stands normally, pointing what seems to be a remote control at Es. The latter is face-up on the floor, their limbs contorted in unnatural angles]

[Rose is standing, facing away from Es, who is kneeling and grabbing at their throat. A small jar sits beside them, the cap taken off]

[While standing, Hu is grabbing Es by the throat with both hands, blood coming from the Warden’s throat]

[Veronika is kneeling besides Es’ face-up body. Her hands are on her chest, and there is blood under her as well as the Warden. Meanwhile, Es’ limbs are contorted in unnatural ways, and one of their shoes is off]

[Arei is violently swinging a bowling ball at Es’ head, causing their body to twist around as it falls]

[Eden is standing, covering her eyes. Her right hand has a Ⅵ symbol glowing bright yellow. Es is uncomfortably laying face-up on the floor]

[Min is standing with her back turned to Es, who is kneeling on the floor and grasping at their neck. Min is shouting into a landline phone. Along her arm, an equation glows bright yellow:

ln(x³ - 2 . 13) = 0]

[Xander is grabbing Es’ shoulder, plunging a knife into their stomach]

[Es is standing neutrally, but there is still blood on the floor. A glowing yellow question mark floats above them. Charles is nowhere to be seen]

[Teruko is kneeling calmly besides Es, who is lying face-up with their hands crossed over their chest as if in a coffin. A question mark glows on Teruko's left hand. Teruko is the only prisoner besides Charles who is not screaming]

[The song winds down while a sped up and translucent version of the video plays in the background. A shadow begins growing in the middle, and for just a moment, two sharp yellow eyes stare at the camera from the center of the screen. The finale simply has Es exiting to the left as they do in canon Undercover]

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

And there's Undercover! How we feeling? Hope you enjoyed! Take care!

[mimzy-writing-online]

You probably know this by now, I don't know if you keep up with Whumptober, but one of the prompts this year includes "blindness". I'm not blind but based on your posts about writing blind characters, and based on how I would feel if one of my disabilities were used as a whump prompt, I'm not super comfortable with it. I was wondering what your thoughts are on blindness being a Whumptober prompt.

(unironically and with feeling) thanks, I hate it.

Yes, I’m familiar with Whumptober, but I’ve never participated myself and I haven’t seen this year’s prompts.

Edit: I later did see the prompts and check out the blog. I think it's a good set of prompts and I look forward to all the promising content, especially since some of my favorite tropes are there. To be clear before you read this, I have no problem with Whumptober2021 or whump in general. This is not the first time blindness has been included for a list of whump prompts, and it won't be the last.

This post directed at the concept of "blindness" as a whump prompt and why I think it's a bad idea. The intended audience is individual writers thinking about future projects.

The timing of this is almost too perfect because I read a fanfic earlier this week that would meet that prompt exactly. Tags included whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. Now whump, hurt/comfort, and angst with a happy ending are tags I enjoy reading, but blindness as whump has a specific message to it.

To explain that message, I want to discuss what whump is. Many readers are already familiar with the genre, but I think taking the specific definitions and picking apart what it means and what expectations we carry when reading whump fanfiction

Urban Dictionary defines it as: taking a character and putting them through physical and/or mental torment and is typically followed by the same character being treated for their traumas. To indicate the characters place in the situation they’d typically be called a whumpee (the character being hurt/comforted), the whumper (the character that causes harm and trauma), and the caretaker (the character designated the helping/healing/comforting the whumpee).

Fanlore has a page for whump that explains it in depth, including where it started in fanfiction, examples of whump, and even a list of “popular targets” in different fandoms. (Warning: you might find yourself called out on the popular targets list)

“The term whump (or whumping) generally refers to a form of Hurt/Comfort that is heavy on the hurt and is often found in gen stories. The exact definition varies and has evolved over time. Essentially, whump involves taking a canon character, and placing them in physically painful or psychologically-damaging scenarios. Often this character is a fan favorite…”

To add to that, I think an important detail is the distinction Fanlore makes between hurt/comfort and whump:

“While some communities and fandoms may use whump as a synonym for hurt/comfort, there is still a recognition that whump refers to darker and more extreme scenarios. And there are still whump fics been written that have very little, or no comfort at the end of the story.”

The big appeal of hurt/comfort is getting to both explore the darker sides of pain and then experience the catharsis of being taken care of, of being supported by your loved ones as you recover from the trauma. The character is the proxy for experiencing those highs and lows while you yourself are safe at home.

I personally don’t read much/any whump without some h/c involved, but I’m happy there are stories out there for people who do enjoy it. I’m not here to judge what you like reading or what you do to your characters.

What I want is to express how blindness, my disability, used as a whump prompt personally makes me feel and what message it sends to me, to others, and how that message affects my daily life.

Whump undeniably involves watching a character suffer through something painful and traumatic.

My use of the word “suffer” is what I want you to focus on.

Vision loss can be painful and traumatic. I personally developed an anxiety disorder in response to vision loss. Others experience depression. For some it might result in relapsing into old, maladaptive coping mechanisms like drug use, self harm, or eating disorders.

A big part of my anxiety was how people reacted to my vision loss. It was a cause of their stress. They were worried because they genuinely believed I would never live a happy life without normal vision, and that my life would only be struggle and pain.

I recently saw an old friend who hadn’t heard about my vision loss. The conversation was awkward, but the worst part was how they reacted as though I had experienced an insurmountable tragedy. And even when I assured them I’m happy with my life, they clearly didn’t believe me. They acted like I was just lying or in denial.

I love that people want to empathize with my situation and ask themselves what they would do in my situation, but I hate when the conclusion they come to is something along the lines of “I could never do that, I’d be too miserable thinking about everything I lost, I’d never be able to do anything I enjoyed ever again.” But I did go blind. And I’m not miserable, I’m actually happy with the direction my life is going, and I still enjoy my hobbies, even if I engage with them differently.

I’m not suffering. My life didn’t end with vision loss. It’s not ruined, broken, or worthless.

I read a fanfic that was tagged with whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. A general synopsis of the plot: the whumpee had gone blind due to a curse. It was true love’s kiss that broke the curse. Even from the summary I knew it was going to end with whumpee being cured somehow and that I’d leave that fanfic vaguely dissatisfied no matter how good the rest of the fanfic was.

I can say this for the fanfic: the whumpee had already accepted that they would likely be blind for the rest of their life, but everyone around them was treating it as a tragedy that needed to be fixed, working tirelessly for a cure despite the whumpee’s protests that they didn’t have to.

It actually hit home to my personal experience.

I still left it dissatisfied with the ending. I might love curse fics in that fandom, and I love the “true love’s kiss” trope, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from the fact that: an actual person out in the world thought the best happy ending, maybe the only happy ending, would be if the character got their sight back.

(note: I clicked kudos and exited out of the story's page because no fanfic writer deserves unsolicited critique or hate, especially for content I consumed for free and at my own volition.)

Why read a story I knew would disappoint me?

Because blindness representation is so damn rare that I feel like I’m wandering in a desert, dying from thirst and desperate for that oasis. But sometimes that oasis is a mirage and the author is unintentionally telling you that your life is actually awful and you’ll never be fully happy like this. And that is a shit mentality to walk through life with.

I don’t appreciate blindness being a whump plot. I hate it. Hundreds (thousands?) of fanfictions featuring blind characters are about to enter the internet and the overall message is going to be “You poor thing! You must be in so much pain, you must be miserable! Who’s going to save you? Who’s going to comfort you? Wouldn’t it be terrible if there was no one in your life to take care of you? You poor helpless thing!”

And I feel objectified. I feel trivialized. The mirage in the desert is going to become a starch, empty room filled with dozens of water bottles, almost all of them poisoned. My representation is going to hurt me personally, and it’s going to reinforce that idea strangers have about how awful my life must be.

(I returned to school this past month, and every day I’m hesitant to tell someone I’m visually impaired because I don’t want to be treated differently. If I’ve managed to pass as sighted this whole time and then suddenly reveal “oh yeah, I’m visually impaired” I feel this instant silence, this pause of awkwardness as people suddenly question how they’re supposed to treat me. They treated me like a person, and now I’m something strange and unfamiliar.)

I’ve worked so hard to improve representation for blind people, to give internet strangers the exposure to a blind person they need to normalize blindness because I hope that if they’re ever so lucky as to meet a blind person, they’ll treat that person with respect. That hope that another person in the blind community will find a friend they feel comfortable and accepted with. I hope that I’ll meet people who accept my blindness as just another aspect of me (like being bisexual or gender fluid or a writer or a cat lover).

Please don’t turn me and my community into a caricature. Don’t erase everything I’ve worked for with this blog.

To be clear, this is not just me saying "I hate the cure trope" again. This is me saying "the purpose of whump is to painfully hurt your favorite character, and I hate that your idea of pain and suffering is my daily (wonderful) life."

[queen-pudi]

I Don't Say Meow

Iwaizumi Hajime x reader 18+ MINORS DNI

In which you both agree that you look absolutely divine in a cow costume...

TW: blowjob, eating pussy, very very very small degradation, like being called slut once type of small, fingering

Here is the sequel to Bitch I'm A Cow!! This isn't proofread but ill be back if I find things to edit! Thank you so much for the love I got on the first part and I hope this met your expectations!! Enjoy!💛

Masterlist Part 1

You've been pacing around the room for roughly 10 minutes trying to plan your next move. You had a feeling what he was coming for but you still had doubts. I mean for all you know he could be coming here to tell you that he was disgusted with what he saw and that he never wanted to talk to you again! It's a bit irrational but it could still happen! Honestly as crazy as all the scenarios you've constructed sound they couldn't distract you from the most realistic and scariest outcome of all: He doesn't feel the same way and you lose your friend. That was more than enough to have you on the verge of tears. Deciding to put some sweats over yourself so you can wait and see how it plays out you sit on the couch, anxiously waiting for his arrival. Truthfully you were preparing yourself for everything. Trying to get yourself together so you don't break down in front of him. Finally, you hear a knock at the door. You froze, unable to gather the courage to move from your spot. Knowing that the second you opened the door nothing would be the same theater it was for the better or for the worst. Another knock comes from the door. Now or Never Reluctantly, you make your way to the door, hand resting on the doorknob. You take a deep breath to collect yourself and open the door to reveal and disheveled Iwaizumi. Suit on, top 3 buttons undone on his dress shirt revealing a little bit of his chest threatening you to just finish the job and reveal the rest. He looks like he was rushing to get here and that sent a slight flutter to your heart. Fuck he looked gorgeous Drawing your eyes back up to his face as to not seem like you were just drooling you cleared your throat. "Hey Iwaizumi what brings you here so late?" you say, trying not to let your nervousness show through. Iwaizumi scoffed at the front you were so obviously putting up. You both knew why he was here but it was cute how innocent you were trying to act. "Well you know I was just having a nice dinner with my coworkers, enjoying myself when I got the quite possibly the best text in my life and decided to come to see what my little cow was doing," He said, confidence dripping through his voice as he stared you down making you falter under his intense gaze. "Well there is no cow here so maybe you should go look in a field far far away from here, ok? Ok, well nice seeing you! Bye Bye! Be safe!" you instantly went to shut the door but before you could he pushed the door open and let himself in. "No, no, no, I'm pretty sure I'm right where I need to be don't you agree?" "Well it depends on what you are here for..." you whispered, eyes not daring to meet his as you were too scared that you'd lose your resolve. Suddenly you hear footsteps coming your way before stopping just inches before you. Hand reaching your chin as he forced you to look at him. "I think we both know what I'm here for babe" and with that, he pulled you in for a searing kiss, the kind that had you weak at the knees and heart threatening to jump out. You almost melted into the kiss until you pulled back, stunned at what had just happened. This was most definitely not what you had expected. He looked at you confused, worry filling his eyes with the thought that he had misunderstood. Deciding to let your emotions guide you, you pulled him down and brought him in for a kiss. This time filling it with all the emotions you've had for the last few years, making sure he felt each and every one. He reciprocated with just as much passion if not more. No more words needed to be said to know just how much you loved each other. Slowly his lips started trailing down to your jaw, placing tender kisses all the way to your neck leaving lovebites and marks in his wake. "Mine" he whispered, lips making their way up to your ear. "All mine" he let out, lightly biting your ear in the process causing you to moan out slightly. You forced his lips back to yours as you went to pull him in again, hoping to once again feel the high you got from

his original kiss. Suddenly he pulled away, the corner of his lips tugging into a smirk as he looked at your outfit. "You know I came here with the promise of a cute little cow and yet I'm greeted with a beautiful woman in gray sweats?" Shit, you were hoping he'd forget about that Blushing profusely you muttered out a half-assed thanks before taking his hand and leading him onto your bed. Still blushing you told him to wait there as you went into the bathroom. Taking a deep breath you pulled off your sweats and fixed yourself, giving yourself one last once over before opening the door slightly. "Close your eyes please!" you exclaimed, even without the sweats and this skimpy lingerie you still felt warm all over as if you'd explode. "It's not like I haven't seen it before love!" laughter filled the air as you rolled your eyes. It may be true but that doesn't change the slight embarrassment you feel at the thought of him seeing it in person. "Please just do it!" You begged, you heard him chuckle before hearing a small ok. Hands covering his face to prove he isn't cheating. You made your way outside the bathroom, grabbing the ears from the dresser and placing them on to complete the look. You stood in between his legs, muttering out for him to keep them closed as you took his hands and nervously placed them on your hips. Finally, you gave him permission to look. He opened his eyes and was greeted with the most heavenly sight he'd ever seen. Truthfully he didn't know where to look, between the garters around your beautiful thighs. To the dainty top that is covering almost nothing on your breasts yet still covering too much for his taste. All the way up to your face dusted with the prettiest shade of pink he's ever seen. There was so much to look at yet luckily he had time. "So do you like it?" voice hushed as you shivered slightly at his touch. He started placing kisses from your thighs trailing all the way up to your breast before flipping you under him so he could start at the top. Lips ghosting over yours, centimeters away from where you really wanted them. "How about I show you" and with that he once again stole your lips in a fiery kiss. This time was filled with so much passion that it left your head reeling. His hands moved along your body, unsure of where to settle. Finally, he rested his hands on your breasts, kneading them through your top before diving them under. Warm hand enveloping your boob as you moaned out quietly against his lips. He once again trailed his lips down your body before settling on your other boob. Eyes staring into yours as he took your nipple into his mouth. Your back arched with pleasure as you were overwhelmed with the sensations his mouth and hand were giving you. His hand once again grazing down your body before finding purchase between your thighs. Your breath hitched as you felt his fingers press against your clothed folds. He could feel how wet you were through your panties causing him to groan out in satisfaction over being the one to cause this. In one swift movement he pulled your panties to the side and dove 2 fingers into you, your hips bucked at the sudden intrusion. He slowly drove his fingers in and out, letting you get accustomed to the feeling before picking up the pace. Thumb drawing circles on your clit to add to the intense pleasure he was giving you. Your voice got louder with each thrust, crying out for him, hoping to get the sweet release that you knew he'd be able to give you. Just as you were about to cum he pulled away. Your moans were replaced with whines, ready to cuss him out until suddenly you felt him rip your panties off and attach his lips where his fingers once were. "FUCK HAJIME" you screamed out, hips grinding into his face as he licked your cunt like it was his last meal. Hands gripping your thighs to the point where you knew it would leave marks but you didn't care. That's just another reminder that you belonged to him. His tongue darted in and out of you, feeling your walls squeeze around him with each thrust. His lips

settled onto your clit as his fingers once again drove into you at a maddening pace, curling inside of you with each thrust. "I'M GONNA CUM" this caused him to somehow go faster than he already was, wanting to bring you there on his fingers and tongue. With one last thrust, you bucked your hips up, hands tugging at his hair as you reached your high. White filling your vision as the tension in your stomach finally released. Iwaizumi never stopped his ministrations, riding your throughout your orgasm as he drank every last drop. Once you calmed down he brought his face up, your essence dripping down his chin as he looked just as blissed out as you did. He hastily removed his shirt and got rid of his pants. Your eyes trailing down to the bulge in his underwear, it was somehow more impressive than you thought it'd be, which was already very very impressive. He laughed at you, hand cupping his bulge as he leaned down to flip you back on top. Smirking, he looked up at you, dominance oozing out of him as you looked up at him waiting for instructions. "You know what to do baby" You needed no further instruction, happily pulling down his underwear to reveal his throbbing member, mouth-watering at the sight. You took him all in at once, gagging slightly as he hit the back of your throat. You looked up at him, his head thrown back in pleasure as his hand found its way to your hair.

Fuck does he even know how to not look so perfect? You bobbed your head up and down, hollowing out your cheeks in order to accommodate his size. With the way you were going he wasn't gonna last long. Not wanting to cum quite yet he pulled you back up, lips crashing onto yours as he flipped you onto your back. Lining up with your entrance he looked at you, looking for any sort of hesitation yet was only met with the delicious sight of your legs spread wide open, hands groping your chest as you looked at him, lust filling your face. That was enough to have Iwaizumi plunge into you, not even letting you get used to his size before thrusting up into you at a brutal pace. Your cunt dripping onto his cock as your walls wrapped around him so tightly You felt so good that he wondered how he went so long without experiencing this. Your breasts bounced as he ground into you, mouth wide open as the only sound you could manage was a few breathless moans. You looked up at him, his eyes were narrowed in concentration as sweat dripped down his face. Grunts left his throat as he focused everything on getting both of you to climax. You pulled him down and caught his lips. Tongues dancing with one another. He lifted your legs up to your chest, hitting deeper than he had before causing both of you to scream out in pleasure. You both were at your final point. "I'm gonn- SHIT- I'm gonna cum" You moaned out, barely able to get the words out. Iwaizumi already knew you were close just by the way you were tightening around him. "You wanna cum?" he asked, hips thrusting as hard as he can. You nodded excitedly, hoping he'd let you. His fingers suddenly circled around your clit, eliciting a scream from you "Then cum, slut" This had you screaming his name out. Nails scratched his back as you climaxed. He continued to pump into you before suddenly halting all movements, painting your walls white. He slowly pulled out of you, eyes drawn to how his seed spilled out of you, it wasn't intentional but fuck did the sight make him want to fill you as much as possible. He went to the bathroom and came back out with a rag, cleanly you up gentle. You shivered at the feeling of the rag touching your folds. Silence filled the air as he cleaned everything up, your eyes never leaving his body, afraid that if you blinked you'd wake up and it would have all been a dream. He settled back down onto the bed, pulling you close to him as his arms rubbed up and down on your arms. "I hope... I hope you know I don't want this to be a one-time thing. I love you y/n" He breathed out, while he seemed calm you could hear his heartbeat quicken, waiting for your response. You chuckled at his nervousness, leaning up to place a soft kiss onto his lips. "I love you too Hajime" You both relaxed, sleep overcoming you both adorned such goofy smiles. Hearts content at finally being able to let your feelings out.

Hope you enjoyed it and if you wish feel free to leave a like! Have a great day and I love you all!!!💛💛💛💛