#what do you mean i'm in the minority??

[knifegremliin]

wait people actually prefer using phones to do things? you find it more convenient?? i thought you guys were joking

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Queer bar down my street doing an introduction to shibari this month but it's for "women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary and trans people"

[chimera-dolls]

Cos I saw someone 'defending' their misuse of the dollblr tag after receiving an ask about it because 'other people do it' - this is why it's a fucking problem in the first place. It is against TOS. It is unrelated to your post, it is spam, and don't be surprised if everything you post gets reported.

Just because other people spam the tag too, doesn't magically excempt it from TOS or user guidelines. Like at this point I am straight up breaking this down to bare bones website operation here, what's so hard to understand? It's shit like this that literally degrades website quality because as you spread your crap over multiple tags that are accumulating like a goddamn snowball, people stop actually using those tags for the topic they were meant for. People stop posting. People leave. Welcome to dead internet.

It doesn't matter if you see other people doing it, rules are rules. There is a reason WHY tag spam is against the rules and that's to keep a website useable. Actual Dollbr-bloggers? Keep reporting guys.

[scourgeblooms]

commander ⇾ wayfinder

[fisheito]

hey. hey you. yeah, yoU!! the one who actually looks at clothing!!! i request help. i need images of wedding dresses that you think would fit the starter trio [yaku, ed, oli]. pls send images........ of any ideas you have🙏

[varpusvaras]

Seventeen has always hated waking up after something has happened.

It doesn't matter what it had been. Not if it had been Seventeen getting his bones reset or if he had been in bacta for weeks on end. It doesn't matter. Waking up from anything that has even remotely something to do with his body being unwell in any capacity has always been, and still is, one of the things he really, truly hates.

It always includes feeling heavy, tired and confused. Even if the injury had not been on his head, whatever medicine he had been pumped full would do the trick of making his memory spotty and his thoughts slow. Even if he had been asleep for hours, days or weeks, he would still always feel like he had not rested ever in his entire life. He would always feel weak, his body having seemingly forgotten how to move or how to regulate his temperature, as he would always be trembling and shivering.

He feels all of those now too. The way his eyelids feel too heavy to open in the first place. The way some stray draught makes his entire body feel like it's freezing. The way none of his limbs or even his fingers want to do what he wants them to do. The way his head feels like it has been stuffed full of something soft to insulate any and every cavity there is on the inside of his skull.

The way he has no idea what has even happened.

Still, he forces his eyes to open and to stay open. Seventeen stares at the ceiling and countes to ten. It's not the ceiling of any of the rooms in his house. He countes to twenty. No, it looks a lot like all the ceilings in every single medbay he has ever been in. Safe to assume that he's not home, then.

He counts to thirty, and then forces his head to turn.

Arell is sitting there, right beside the bed Seventeen is laying on. He is sleeping, with his arms crossed and a deep furrow on his face.

Flashes start to come back to Seventeen then, as he watches Arell sleep there on a hard medbay chair. Flashes of the floor. How he had ended up there in the first place. Of his legs just giving up from underneath him. Of how he had been unable to move, unable to get up, because his whole body had turned into one single point of scorching pain.

Flashes of him being peeled off from the floor, of the backseat of the speeder. Of- Seventeen pauses.

Flashes of him thinking why Arell is there, when he shouldn't have been home from work yet. Of his commlink ringing, ringing, ringin and ringing, somewhere that had been unreachable for Seventeen as he had laid on the floor, paralyzed by the pain.

Seventeen stares at Arell, sleeping on the uncomfortable medbay chair, right next to Seventeen's bed, and the thought that Arell had come home after Seventeen had not picked up, just to make sure that he is okay enters his brain like a searing wound.

Something slams against the inside of Seventeen's chest. He isn't sure if it was actually there or if he is just imagining it.

He doesn't have the time to think about it. He is too busy trying to make his sluggish mind to comprehend the thought Arell had come for him, and that for some reason, Seventeen likes that thought.

There's another slam. No, Seventeen is definitely feeling it.

His heart had not slammed itself against his insides even when there had been a lightsaber cutting through his body. Not like this.

Seventeen stares at Arell, sleeping on the uncomfortable medbay chair, right next to Seventeen's bed, and he wonders how the hell he has gotten here.

Seventeen sighs, too tired to put any of his frustrations to it yet.

Damn it.

[keeps-ache]

blood of the covenant

[random2908]

Frustrating when a VC-funded company gets credit for being the "first" and the "leader," when they had a sub-component demo the same week we had a full-system demo. Like, we are easily 5-10 years ahead of them, it's ridiculous; their approach isn't even yet proven to work. But they get science youtubers talking about them.

Because they're VC-funded, they have a marketing/press department.

And because we're an employee-owned company working off of government contracts, well, most government contracts get slapped with an ITAR label (an old Cold-War-era law saying basically sharing scientific information counts as illegally selling arms/munitions). So if you want to publicize your work, including your company's products, you have to appeal that label. (Universities have specifically negotiated a blanket exemption, so if you spend your whole life in academic science you might never even know about this.)

(My previous employer filed those appeals several times a year in order to do press releases and publish journal articles and apply for patents. I think every single information-release appeal they filed went through, because there's no reason any of this stuff should be labeled as arms--it's literally the same stuff universities are doing. My current employer is afraid to, which I think is wrong-headed; at worst they'll just say no, and anyway, our non-restricted competitors are giving fucking lab tours to youtubers.)

[lotusarchon]

"this person appears around you so much you're dating!!" "omg no need to be mad that someone asked if you're dating people are curious"

Yes this still bothers me and Jesus I hate that both anons so much because are you stupid on purpose and trying to make yourself seem like a victim here?

Like. I'm sorry, maybe I'm just too aroace, but I'm still genuinely baffled how you can see two friends speaking and bothering each other, and immediately think they're dating?? How can you even come up with that? The world doesn't revolve around romance, how can you just jump to that conclusion, then get upset that I'm mad at the insinuation?

Replacing Hongtao for another older friend of mine like Pome (hi Pome), I'd still be offended because why tf are you thinking two friends are dating?? I'm sorry, just........HUH?!

Idk how many times I had to say this on my account but 1) I'm aroace, the chances of me feeling any type of attraction to anyone is slim, 2) I am in love with someone already and we are never going to be together and she's the only person that owns my heart so fuck you and 3) I like older women.

I've said it so many timesss ☹️ it's weird asf dawg, that's like someone asking you if you're dating your little sibling when you're clearly just tryna kill him

Please I just don't understand where the hell have Hongtao and I ever acted like that??? LITERALLY EVERY CONVERSATION WE HAVE IS ME LOSING MY MIND TF

Also like again, you can't tell me you weren't aware they were a minor. Not if you've been around my account long enough

And, again, HOW DO YOU SEE TWO PEOPLE INTERACTING WITH EACH OTHER AND THINK THEY'RE DATING??? HOW??? WHAT THE FUCK KINDA LOGIC IS THAT

Bro I don't understand y'all sometimes 😭😭😭 anyways I stand by my statement anons who dared to ask that question you're stupid and a coward l + ratio suck my balls I don't care if you're upset about it that shit was weird and you're weird I can interact with whoever I want

[bittersweetbonbon]

i like to imagine the o5s fucking with people as some weird form of affection. like how cats will jump up on your bed and then scream at you until you look at them

[not-poignant]

Okay! Didn't want to have to say this but I'm going to say it!

Don't send me transphobic nonsense in your anon asks to me. Don't send your TERF thoughts to me and end your anon message with 'no hate' when you've just been hateful and invalidating. You might not be aware of this, but I'm a trans person, and this space on Tumblr and on my AO3 isn't a democracy and TERFs will not get their voices heard here. Good luck, keep trying, I love blocking bigots.

If you're transphobic and you read Underline the Black and I realise you're transphobic, I'm just going to start blocking you outright, deleting your comments. In this day and age, transphobic, hateful nonsense is everywhere, but it doesn't get to be here.

You don't have a right to have a voice here, you don't have a right to have your anonymous transphobic asks answered here, and you don't have a right to expect your comments to stay on my AO3 stories when they happen. And if, if by some chance, you have no idea you're a complete transphobe and you find your comment on Underline has been deleted? The only person you need to be angry at is yourself.

I'm trans, and I have too many trans followers to give any kind of airtime to transphobes.

Antis I will happily take on when I have something productive to add to the conversation.

There is nothing productive for me personally about giving space to transphobic views on my blog.

(And for everyone else, no this isn't currently a huge problem, but I've had about two borderline transphobic comments on Underline the Black and I've now gotten a transparently transphobic anonymous ask about it. I'm dealing with it now, and also making my stance clear. TERFs are banned in the Discord, you can expect that I maintain this view everywhere, including here and on my AO3.)

[prismatoxic]

perpetually torn between "'antis' is such a vague and useless term that means nothing to people outside of fandom discourse" and "people WITHIN fandom discourse know exactly what it means so it's the easiest way to get the idea across"

fancop, fanpol, fandom conservative, fandom puritan, etc--all great and descriptive terms that fit the bill perfectly and also are, like, a lot longer than "anti" and far less typical as a descriptor because everyone uses a different one and also since they're less established they're actually more likely to get people asking what they mean exactly

fancop remains my fave of the bunch but ough. fandom terminology

[agnesandhilda]

I miss my university soccer team

[riiye02]

the decisions that koffin observes... youtube videos under the cut...

Shayy - TS!Underswap - Full Playthrough (Pacifist)

Teach Tale - TS!UNDERSWAP Pacifist Gameplay (No commentary)

(blank name) - TS!UNDERSWAP DEMO V2.0 *PACIFIST* FULL PLAYTHROUGH (FAN-GAME) [ No Commentary | Secrets | Quests ]

Phisnom - TS!UNDERSWAP FOR CHARITY! | 🍉 Pacifism for Palestine 🍉

Merg - Showdown Against Blue Sans… TS!Underswap Ending

Andrew Cunningham - TS!Underswap blind playthrough [2] - The Part Where Sans Kills You?

TheStoryPainterLIVE - VOICE ACTORS Play TS!UNDERSWAP! (Part 4)

Cosbat VODS - the ts!underswap supercut (it's long)

Chiken - TS!Underswap Pacifist: The Movie

(the reason there's a question mark in the Crossbones column is because it was cut out of the video, both the action itself and it being referred to in koffin's fight)

OddityJimbo - TS!Underswap V2 Bosses (Pacifist)

TropicalPunch - TS!Underswap: Pacifist - Episode 3

CiblesGD - TS!Underswap Demo 2 - Full Pacifist Route

CiblesGD - TS!Underswap, but it's a Developer Commentary…

Drama Josh - PLAYING TS!UNDERSWAP DEMO 2 (With Friends!)

EeveeGaming - TS!UNDERSWAP - Pacifist Bosses No hit

AcethePixel - TS!Underswap: Demo V2! (Pacifist Run, No Commentary)

Vikt3211 - playing ts!underswap because everyone else are #7

Zemete - TS!UNDERSWAP Demo v2.0 Walkthrough Pacifist Route Full Game - No commentary

pixel - TS!UnderSwap Compassion Route | Full Playthrough (Pacifist)

[lovinnelily]

Y'all do know you can't make Jason be NOT white without changing his whole character, right?

For other characters, yes, because their physical appearance are not that influential in their story, on how they are viewed by people, on their personality formation — you can have a black/asian/indigenous/arab/brown/latino/etc Nico and yes, the hate he gets will have a undertone of racism but at the same time nothing significant on his story, motivation or personality will need to change. This is also true for other characters: Clarisse risks repeating the "aggressive WoC" stereotype but the character itself doesn't change.

This isn't true for Jason, whose main character trait is how he is perceived by others and how he showcases himself to others based on that perception. (specially with how little effort Riordan put on him besides making him perfect-er Percy who's somehow also weaker and less important than him).

Let's not pretend a black, Arab, indigenous, Asian, Latin man, etc, in the USA would ever be treated with the universal reverence Jason gets from New Roma, you can't have the illusion of perfection and most of all, of invincibility they have about him when you see him suffering racism or xenophobia in the middle of a mission. In theory, nothing in his life has ever gone wrong, that's his image, destined to be king, he is supposed to have no weakness on his peers eyes.

He is not trying to prove people wrong, he is trying to prove them right; he isn't worthy despite their prejudice, on the contrary, he only tried to make himself worthy to fulfill their expectations. He can't be a woman or an immigrant or have a visible disability or any other thing that strays him from a perfect ideal by western society standards, and be that same character.

[bonefall]

Briarlights death makes sense to me. As much as I love her character, the movement technology you’ve come up with wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive in a society where her nether regions are constantly exposed to the outdoors. She would get UTIs and kidney infections very quickly, which would be fatal when you can’t feel pain. My partner has to use catheters to avoid them (he is paralyzed in the same spot Briarlight would be.)

I think it’s disingenuous to have a character that’s paralyzed but have no other health problems or concerns regarding it, even if it’s uncomfortable to think about for some readers. It’s just as ableist to minimize the additional struggles she’d face as it is to kill her off unnecessarily.

Not accusing you of ableism, but expressing my concern. They’d need to find a way for her to poop and pee in a way that’s sanitary and a way to combat infections long term - even if the thought is “gross” to some people it’s the reality she’d have to live with. She should, at the very least, remain immunocompromised.

That is a valid concern. I will keep this in mind-- I'll make sure to note her immediately being cleared out of camp at the first sign of sniffles to avoid it. My cats can do some very minor building and there are now several cats on Jayfeather's Garden Patrol, it wouldn't be too much of a problem to make that area into a comfortable "satellite camp".

I do want to add though that my most important guiding principle is a stronger narrative which includes better portrayals of disabled characters, not perfect rugged woodsman realism. The medicine I add and the guides I write are in the hopes of better representing the lives of the real-life people who see themselves in the fantasy battle cats.

Realism does factor into that of course! But it goes out the door the minute it would smash up against a disabled character's inclusion. This is a series for human beings like your partner; as close to it as I can get by bending the setting when needed.

For example, Epilepsy

Epilepsy was deadly before modern medicine. Full stop. The herbs I created for that guide would not save someone like Shadowsight, whose convulsions are at extreme risk of turning into Status Epilepticus. It would help manage, but Shadowsight's life would have been very brief.

All the chamomile in the world wouldn't replace phenobarbital... or even the older medications, barbituates. Barbituates have been replaced and good riddance, but it's important to understand that even this drug known for causing EXTREME lethargy and horrible side effects was revolutionary. It saved countless lives.

But I'm not here to write a story for the real-life horror that is epilepsy in a pre-modern society. I'm here for the parent who personally thanked me for making their daughter feel less alone.

Evil spirits attacking the living! God knocking over trees! Attacking a bulldozer! That all happens; there's no reason they can't help Briarlight too!!

But I'll make sure to include her being immunocompromised. And I'll include ways they handle that. Just like I included a cat engineer who made a blanket sled.

So... suggestion accepted! I will keep this in mind.

Briarlight's Canon Death

...I will maintain though that the canonical death of Briarlight was one of the worst, most short-sighted, cruelest decisions that has ever been made in this series.

Because ultimately Briarlight is not a real person. She is a writing choice. She is a character based on Vicky's paralyzed cousin, "Dan," and Briarlight was directly modeled on Dan's personality and recovery.

What did the new writing team do, the minute they were writing a series without Vicky? Killed Briarlight to fucking greencough. For shock points. Narrative moves right on back to the MAIN conflict-- Alderheart having feelings for Velvet and Jayfeather enforcing the vow of chastity. ShadowClan officially falls apart in the background lol

It was never about realism, or realistic portrayal of disability.

This series doesn't care about realism when cats have bloody Freddy Kruger deaths in their sleep, or when shadow goo starts eating cat hell, or when lightning strikes Shadowsight. But they suddenly care about how realistic it is that the only paralyzed character survives greencough?? No! Of course not!

In the middle of the CONSTANT "Ohh she's finally in heaven where she can run and jump and not have a disabled life"? And the infamous Squirrelflight's Hope line, "You don't want to be alive again, Squirrelflight! You might become disabled like BRIARLIGHT"

(WHICH BTW THEY STILL HAVE NOT REMOVED DESPITE PROMISING IT YEARS AGO)

I absolutely do not believe for a second that they had a realistic portrayal of an immunocompromised cat in mind when they did it! Hell, screw it. I'll just say it outright;

I firmly believe that the new writing team killed Briarlight because they did not want to deal with her.

I flatly refuse to give them charity towards this choice. At NO POINT did they earn a speck of good faith. They continued every negative trend that was set up by the previous writers (including Vicky herself tbf), and went a step further by killing her to "we need to get rid of some randos" disease.

Not only that; but the Clan dynamics were NEVER the same after her death, because there was no character who could replace her personality. In this cast of cardboard cats, they plucked out one of the few optimists with a clear, unique perspective, not shared by ANYONE else.

My ire wouldn't JUST be because they happened to kill a disabled character in the way they did (though that is frustrating on its own imo). It's because it was Briarlight.

I hope every writer involved with the decision to kill Briarlight in the "Nothing is Happening! Quick! Kill Someone!" book of AVoS chokes on it. I will DIE on this hill and my blood will never wash out of the grass.