#because of the particularity of their cases

[doodlespaulas]

See, my issue personally with people going "asexual people can still have sex" about Jonathan Archivist Sims is that... sure. Asexual people can have sex. However, John is quite explicitly written in a way that practically states that he, as an individual, does Not engage in sex

This is the one instance when we hear about Johns asexuality outside of the qnas, and its explicitly stated that John doesn't have sex. At all.

I understand the wish to see yourself represented in media, particularly as an asexual person myself. And this is not intended as a callout for anyone in particular. However, it does create great frustations within me because it reads as just reinforcing this standard that centers sex in relationships in a wider societal context. A denial of individuals who simply wish to wholeheartedly not engage with it overall

Im not going to try and stop anyone from headcanoning what they want, drawing what they want or writing what they want. However, I do implore you to consider the canon information, the scarcity of ace rep, and how this errasure of his identity may be upsetting. I also invite you to explore asexuality in the cases of other tma characters who are left to much interpretation, like Tim, Martin, Georgie, Melsnie, Basira, Daisy, Sasha- hell, make them all ace in all flavours of ace, have your fun. I just implore you allow John to remain sexless, as he deserves

[mona-risms]

AHH SHIT IT DELETED MY ASK AT LEAST I HAD EVERYTHING COPY AND PASTED CAUSE I KNEW SOMETHING WOULD GO HORRIBLY WRONG-

HELLO. In regard to the shaking apartment building post (that was me) I had to add to my bullshit:

2.0 magnitude level earthquake just for shits and giggles. Imagine your immediate neighbors while you're strapping Rumi:

"..That's odd. Whenever Rumi and (Reader) are fucking like animals spending quality time together, the entire apartment also coincidentally starts quaking, accompanied by disturbingly lewd ghost porn SFX (Rumi's demon voice)."

Quick interruption: My humor is officially broken because I find this hilarious. I've never thought so much about sex before and been 0% horny.

I mean, picture being in that position as someone who lives adjacent to Rumi and (Reader).

Pornographic moans with what sounds to be a REVERB (???) filter echoing through your ceiling/ walls every now and again because SOMEONE'S OVULATING. To make matters worse: You're worried that one day the entire building's gonna collapse on you because (Reader) is attempting to: a) Get your ultra-famous popstar singer neighbor pregnant OR b) kill her via ascension to cloud 9. MAYBE BOTH? WHO KNOWS.

Subby Rumi took "I'll rock your (and the entire block's) world" a little too seriously.

DUDE SHUT THE FUCK UP 😭😭😭 THERE'S MORE it's okay man both of our humours are fucked beyond comprehension

This reminds me of like when TV shows do a filler episode where instead of focusing on the main chrs, it's acc giving the spotlight to the background chrs instead as it shows off their day in the universe with said main chrs. Idk if that's obscure or what but I've seen it in like one or two places I swear

It gets funnier when you realise that while they still do get them, earthquakes are VERY rare in South Korea. For them to get it constantly, even if it's a very tiny 2.0, is like "oh my god. THE COMPLEX IS FALLING APART" when no not really you're just fucking her six ways to Sunday. Every time Rumi has a particularly explosive orgasm, seisometers would be moving and the next thing you know there's a fucking news report about it and how people should be careful in case it gets worse bc this is an unnatural phenomena 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 so honestly it won't be just you worried but the entire neighbourhood and the FUCKING COUNTRY TOO congrats!!!!!

BUT THE LEWD GHOST PORN COMMENT IS SO CRAZY HELLO????? It must be so wild to hear all of that and it suddenly waking you up in the middle of the night. All demons banished but then you've got RUMI being the reason why people are making up URBAN FUCKING LEGENDS about your particular block 😭 mission failed fucking successfully 😭

At least!!! She's feeling good!!!!!!! And by god she's genuinely mortified but Cannot Help It when she needs to feel your seed inside her 🤷‍♀️ but also she might lock herself away or avoid you for like a day or two out of a different sort of shame before she comes back bc she's still ovulating 😭😭😭😭😭

[thirstkanaphan]

Jay Songzio on METAL Magazine Interview was asked about Seonghwa

Q: ...Recently the brand received significant attention when Seonghwa from Ateez attended your show. How do you choose which artists or public figures best embody Songzio’s identity? What qualities do they need to reflect your vision?

A: "...The most important thing is whether we have somebody that we really have a sincere relationship with, which is the case with this particular artist, who's been wearing our clothes for a while and who appreciates the collections and who appreciates the aesthetics of the brand. I think because of this very natural and very sincere relationship, that's why we invited him to the show... "

[thelawfulchaotic]

o mister lawyer of the internet do you have anything to teach us what do we say to a lawyer (or what do we do when we get one) how do you know if a lawyer is good or bad, and how much does it affect us what happens to the lawyer when you lose, or win -a very naive anon who wants more information

It is madam lawyer, I gotta slap my pronouns around here somewhere. (Ms./Mrs. feel bogus after you get called Madam Counselor enough times.)

Absolutely nothing happens to the lawyer. No matter how my clients cases go, I'm leaving the courthouse the same way I walked in, and I'm going to go sleep in a comfortable bed tonight in my safe home. Some people who try to be public defenders can't handle this, knowing that their clients are suffering while they aren't. Truth is, I need the sleep and the comfort and the safety to come through for the next client and the next and the next. I do my best not even to think about active work problems while at home (I think about them anyway).

If you get a lawyer, especially an appointed lawyer, CALL THEM. Do not wait for them to call you, because they have piles of cases and plenty to do. Don't be scared to be a little annoying, because they work for you. Leave a few messages, if they have administrative staff then make an appointment and show up for it. Best way to get a lawyer's attention is to be right in front of them when their schedule says to pay attention to you.

Whether a lawyer is good or bad will absolutely change everything. Lazy idiot attorneys just move their clients towards pleas. Energetic attorneys who litigate issues get a reputation for it, and they get better offers.

How you know a lawyer is good or bad is a pretty hard question to answer. There are a lot of things that make a lawyer good: they could be intensely well-researched, they could have an impeccable reputation that causes judges to listen to them when they make arguments, they could be from a locally-famous lawyer-judge-politician family which again causes judges to listen, they could be empathetic and good with client counseling. There are a ton of ways to be a good lawyer, and a ton of styles for being a good lawyer.

In general, a good lawyer will make you feel better after the interview than you did before. You'll have a good idea what the possible consequences could be and what the vague shape of some paths forward might be. You'll feel empowered in the sense that you'll know at least the important decisions are in your hands.

But those things are pretty easy to tell in the moment. Some more subtle red and.green flags that you might not know to look for are:

The lawyer pauses to look something up: GREEN FLAG. It's easy to mistake this for a red flag (lawyer doesn't know what they're doing!) but this is a sign of caution and thoroughness. Lawyers have to remember a lot, and the best know that they don't know everything.

The lawyer promises you results: RED FLAG. The lawyer is not in charge of the outcome and doesn't get to make the call. Weird shit happens in court all the time. No one making promises about the overall outcome can be trusted.

Lawyer won't give you a straight answer to your fucking question: completely neutral flag. Some questions don't have straight answers and lawyers love to say "maybe."

The lawyer makes some remark about the tendencies of the particular judge/prosecutor: most likely green flag. That lawyer is paying attention to their court and how it does things.

Lawyer is impatient and hard to connect with. Neutral flag. One of the most impatient attorneys with trouble with attorney/client relationships in the office is one of our best trial attorneys, and they get a lot fewer complaints after they win.

Shitty suit: Neutral flag. They should look put together, yes, but what a pain in the ass to put together a whole wardrobe of suits, much less GOOD suits.

Hitting on you: extremely red flag and possible ethical violation.

The rest is pretty easy to figure out on the fly.

As for what to tell them... confidentiality is absolutely real and very serious. The lawyer is not allowed to tell anyone else what you tell them. But some lawyers have different styles on what they ask. I'd say follow their cue, answer what they ask, but don't bury the lede, make sure to tell them the most crucial details. Bring documentation of stuff: text messages, screenshots, even diary entries. ER discharge notes. School transcripts. Whatever. Lawyers love documentation.

Honestly, I have so many great public defenders hanging around this blog, y'all can probably add some good stuff.

[yaoipologist]

i think it's a bit ridiculous how often i see people just blatantly wrong about grian in third life so i wanted to make a post saying my opinion:

it's so incredibly obvious to me that grian wants to be with scar. the initial deal - my life for your life - was made By Grian. it was offered and freely given. scar was wary talking to grian while the deal was being made because he thought grian was going to fucking kill him again. swearing fealty to him was not scar's idea, it was entirely grian's, made of his own free will.

immediately afterwards, grian does a full 180 and is very open about how much he dislikes being with scar and being tied to him. he tells everyone that scar is crazy, tries to disrupt his small plans that he disapproves of, even yells at him about what he wears ("put your clothes back on!"). it seems like it's a fight, like he disapproves of scar's every action and is being dragged along as an unwilling participant.

but grian doesn't leave. he doesn't go to other people for help leaving the situation, despite them offering. he warns people about scar knowing full well that scar knows what he's doing and is in full earshot (and laughs at scar's comments about it when they're alone). despite the deal allowing for his release, his loyalty to scar does not shake until the very end, no matter how much he complains.

and scar is not some cruel jailer. scar is absurdly nice and almost gentle with grian. "can we still be friends?" while handing him flowers, carrying him around on pizza's back, doing everything he can to make him laugh, always going along with his setups. scar never treats him like a vassal and instead treats him like a dear friend. it's clear that scar has genuine affection for grian, even as a red life. even if grian got in that situation unwillingly, scar doesn't use him like that.

if anything, there's an argument to be made that grian uses scar to get away with his own schemes. very often he not-so-subtly nudges scar to give him the go-ahead to kill. grian is very particular about rules and this season is no exception; he toes the line very carefully between what he's allowed to do and what he isn't, and crosses that line frequently for his own gain. he is the deadliest player that season by a mile, not in the least because scar lets him be.

but like i said, scar plays right along with it. he gladly becomes the partner in grian's explosive schemes and always backs him up, even when grian fails to always back HIM up. scar is more than willing to play the part of facilitator. he's not trapped either.

watching with all this in mind and the understanding that the characters aren't speaking exactly what they mean (because why would they? that's never been the case with fiction!), we understand that there is something more going on here. grian is not telling the truth when he says he does not like his partnership with scar, and looking at the way they actually act, it's pretty obvious he genuinely cares for and treasures him.

this is part of what makes video game roleplay so difficult to talk about - the medium allows unreliable narrators to lie directly to the audience's faces, where we tend to most believe them. subtleties in the storytelling can get lost if you take it all at face value and the real diamonds end up being seen as just shiny rocks.

i think it's very clear the swearing fealty thing was an excuse for grian to get close to scar. i don't doubt he actually felt bad about scar's first death, but i do doubt that it was the only motivation for teaming with him. if he was only there because he felt bad, he would not act the way he did. he wanted to be there, at least a little bit, from the very beginning.

(as always, this is an analysis of a piece of fiction that happened to be made in minecraft. none of this has any relevance to real world relationships. this is like dungeons and dragons to me and i will treat it as such)

[halogenwarrior]

Agreed with nuance. I love these types of arcs sometimes but I think whether the redemption or self-sacrificial hero dying is bad writing or not really depends a lot on the context of the particular character. While most people seem to hate "redemption deaths" no matter the context, I hate them when the clear narrative motivation behind them is that the character doesn't deserve to live or it would be more complicated if they lived and they don't want to deal with that narrative, especially of the character themselves thinks they don't deserve to live and the narrative agrees with them by presenting their death as heartwarming and a fitting end/the best end a character could have after what they did (and unfortunately this is most of them in fiction). And especially if the thing they are atoning for really has nothing to do with any kind of selfishness or cowardice and in fact they were the "loyal to a cause above their own lives" type even pre-redemption. However I think it can work when their arc is about being selfish or cowardly, not being willing to give up even a little happiness or power or money for other people (and importantly in no way thinks they deserve death even when they atone), in which case giving up their very life can be the most impactful thing they could narratively do to show how they've changed. Or when they very much want to live but it's not the redemption that kills them but a "tragic hero" arc where the consequences of their flaws and mistakes do them in in a way that's presented as cathartic but not fundamentally deserved and they are able to have some realization of their wrongdoing/attempt to do good on the inevitable way out. Or if they are suicidal and think they deserve death but the narrative doesn't agree with them and their death when it happens is framed as tragically unnecessary rather than agreeing that it's a fitting ending. But I feel like this nuance gets lost with the "redemption deaths are bad no matter what" takes you usually see on this website.

And likewise with the self-sacrificial hero version, I sometimes love the trope of them living I'm a sucker for a good story about a suicidal character finding through hard struggle a reason to live, but if it's done wrong it can come across as protagonist-centric morality; if the character doesn't come off as suicidal but just doing the rational utilitarian thing in valuing a few or many others over their own life, but the narrative keeps criticizing them for that because don't they know they are the main character, so their life is more important than all of those NPCs? Especially if lots of other characters die including self-sacrifices in the story without being saved and it's only the main character who gets spared like this. While finding some contrived way to let said "NPCs" live anyway so they don't have to actually deal with the moral implications in implying the protagonist's life is more important than everyone else's.

i love when characters don't get to die

[nellie-elizabeth]

There are a lot of fun things about older fandoms, and being a newcomer to them, but one underrated aspect I don’t hear talked about much is the way you find these… echoes of the fandom’s past. You’ll find the most prolific and popular authors on Ao3 or in old archives or whatever, and you’ll see the authors thanking one another for the beta reads in the comments, or gifting fics to each other, the podfics and fanart made based on stories, the old events that were organized, the zines that have been lovingly curated and digitized from even earlier parts of the fandom’s history.

And it’s not exactly like seeing a ghost of an old community, because you know that in a lot of cases those friendships, forged in the fire of loving these particular blorbos, are still going strong. It’s just that it all started, it all happened, long before you were aware of any of it, and now you get to wander through and see the signs of those friendships preserved in so many small ways.

This is about Starsky & Hutch and M*A*S*H mostly, but it happens any time I dive into a new-to-me fandom that has been around for a while, and it’s such a joy every time it happens.

[akechi-stole-my-heart]

Ooh "Akechi knew Joker was a PT at rank 3 and I have the evidence to back it up??" Would you be willing to prove your justice I mean assertion that Akechi knows who Joker is

yeah, so, before we get started i wanna make clear: nothing i have is a slam-dunk absolute proof that cannot be argued with. but i think there is a solid case to be made that akechi strongly suspected joker was a phantom thief before they even met at the tv station. and that, in fact, joker being called on during the show was an orchestrated attempt on goro's part to both get a reading on him as a potential phantom thief and establish a connection in order to get close to him as a prime suspect.

alright, so first of all, what does akechi know before june? well, we know he was in madarame's palace around the same time the phantom thieves were.

madarame mentions "the one with the black mask" almost as if he expects the black mask to be a part of the group. he's referred to as "the other one" and when madarame mentions him, he first looks across everyone in the group like he expects to find him among them. like i said, this isn't a slam-dunk case or anything, there are alternative explanations. but i don't think it's unreasonable to infer that madarame assumed the black mask was one of them--perhaps because he was trailing them throughout the palace.

we don't know why akechi might have paid a visit to madarame. maybe he was there for unrelated reasons to the phantom thieves--we know madarame had connections to shido. madarame also appears to believe in this same conversation that the thieves are here to kill him, so maybe he was here to make some threats and instill fear in madarame's subconscious. but regardless, we have good reason to think that akechi saw the phantom thieves inside madarame's palace. if he saw them, then that means he would have a general idea of their appearances, even if they are wearing those masks.

okay, so there's that. but i have some other evidence as well. in particular, a scene that was added to royal--and the extended version that was cut.

the scene that made it into royal cut off before sae and akechi could talk, but they still included the rest of it, meaning sae and akechi still walk past right after ryuji is loudly proclaiming their intentions to steal kamoshida's heart.

i would speculate that they ended up cutting this because it doesn't make much sense why this would mean anything to akechi. there's been no public change of heart yet, and there's no reason for a random conversation like this to catch his attention when akechi doesn't know what's going on at shujin and he isn't prescient, he doesn't have kamoshida's change of heart to give this conversation context. that said, the fact they wrote this scene at all shows they wanted to include something that hinted at the idea that akechi knows what's going on and has reasons to suspect them from very early on.

(personally, i don't think it's unreasonable for akechi to retroactively recall the loud blonde boy yelling on the street about taking kamoshida down after he's had his change of heart. and when he sees that same blonde boy in the metaverse and hanging around akira at the tv station later, well, the connections draw themselves...)

but okay, so far i've just been pointing at scenes that might loosely imply akechi has information that would lead him to suspect akira, but nothing concrete. but here is where we get concrete confirmation that akechi knows/suspects the phantom thieves, and it's this scene with the siu director that triggers after the phantom thieves change kaneshiro's heart.

right here the siu director is talking to the principal of shujin and pressing for information on suspects. in the conversation, he says that their other operative gave them a list of suspects "without delay." this other operative is akechi. his list of suspects, by this point, would almost certainly be akira kurusu and his friends. they're the most obvious suspects, which brings me to my other point--

suspecting joker as being a phantom thief is an extremely obvious inference. akechi is supposed to be intelligent, and there really isn't another suspect that would fit better than him. he transferred into shujin immediately before the first incident, has a criminal record, and is constantly seen with both kamoshida's and madarame's biggest victims. it would not be difficult to pin him down before the kaneshiro incident at all.

but back to the siu director--notice that he says "without delay." we know for a fact that akechi has given his suspect list by the time of kaneshiro's change of heart, but it's likely that his list predated this conversation by quite a bit. akechi could have given his suspect list any time before the end of june. personally, i think it's likely he submitted a suspect list shortly after madarame's change of heart, around the time of his and akira's first meeting.

but on the note of akechi's rank 3, even if you don't think akechi suspected who akira was before they met like i do, the scene with the siu director is proof he knows before rank 3. there is no hard date for either the siu director's scene (which is triggered on the date you change kaneshiro's heart) or akechi's rank 3 (which can be triggered at any time depending on how quickly you go through his ranks). but the earliest akechi's rank 3 can take place is around the end of june, the same rough time as the siu director scene--meaning that he's submitted his suspect list by then. so he absolutely suspects who akira is by rank 3.

okay, so there's my case. i'll end this by saying that the ultimate reason i think akechi already suspected who akira was when they met is because i think it makes narrative sense and is just extremely fun for their dynamic. both akechi and akira (because of the pancakes slip-up) thinking they have the other figured out, while also believing they have the other completely fooled, is extremely entertaining. i have to imagine that every single conversation these boys have is a game they're playing where they're trying to get the other to slip up while also not revealing who they really are.

so, yeah. i believe that when akechi met the phantom thieves on 6/9, he already suspected them as being as such. and so the next day he orchestrated it so the boy he suspected as being their leader would be called on, so he could sus out his reaction to the phantom thieves while being broadcasted on live tv, and so he could use that interaction to corner him afterwards and befriend him in order to pin down his already existing suspicions. i think it was a game for both of them from the very start.

(and if you're wondering why the shido conspiracy waited so long to do anything if they knew who the phantom thieves were from the start, it's because they're playing the long game. they need to let the phantom thieves rise to stardom before they could orchestrate their downfall. the phantom thieves are extremely lucky the shido conspiracy decided to play the long game, because otherwise they would have been so fucked so quickly. they are not doing a good job of laying low or keeping their identities secret. at all.)

[ofeliaxoxo]

https://www.tumblr.com/leclercskiesahead/787242633553707008/carlos-instagram-story-repost-240625?source=share

Aaaaaand another one for his collection. I mean I'd rather not but well.. if I can get more Jealous Charles content from this, at least this whole shit is good for something ig

In general no one should perceive that particular man as he is a rotten human being so I won’t link it. So instead we will be discussing Jealous Charles and the general trend of famous actors noticing/mentioning Carlos and also liking him in Paul’s case. The fact that this has happened multiple times is so crazy. And the fact that each time they do comment on his looks. Paul mescal “he’s a very pretty boy” and damson idris “women love him”. The Hollywood boys want Smooth Operator bad. wtf is Charles supposed to do….like imagine you’re Charles and daddy long dick just landed in Nice to snatch your man…it’s fucking dire. Unfortunately for Charles he doesn’t even notice that Carlos has no time for these movie stars he’s too stressed he’s trying to get them banned from the paddock he’s trying to see if he can get Paul fired forever. They’re coming through in the dms like heyyy Carlos do you want to come to my premiere this evening;););) and Charles is like GOD my life is RUINED meanwhile Carlos is declining any and all invitations to glamorous movie evenings because he wants to go for a cycle and then play a game of online chess together.

[blueteller]

Hello!:D Before I ask like—maybe one of the most persistent questions endlessly bugging my mind, I just wanna say I love your posts sm and I love you for it (>v<)♡

I have noticed that there are side characters that stand out the most compared to other side characters, even if they have limited screentime.

And one of those characters is none other than OgCale.

I can even go as far to say that he's one of the most popular characters ever in the fandom, his popularity can surpass some of the main cast's despite having very little screentime and it's actually pretty fascinating. In other transmigration/reincarnation stories, people don't usually care about the original owner of the body the MC currently possesses—and I get why. But Og!Cale? Heck, he's widely loved by many fans!

And so my question is—

Why is Og!Cale so popular and loved in the TCF fandom? There are other characters out there who may have far more intriguing backgrounds and personalities than him, and yet *gestures to the fandom* several fans absolutely adore him (myself included, hehe).

First of all, thank you for your kind words! I'm very happy you enjoy my posts 💖

As for the matter of OG Cale… Why is he so popular and beloved in particular, despite being one of many great side characters in the series? Excellent question! I actually had to sit down and think about it for a little while. I came to the conclusion that it boils down to three major factors.

Number one, the build-up.

OG Cale was a mystery since the beginning. When Cale transmigrated, the question of what kind of person he really was kept coming up. There were obvious contradictions, such as despite being a troublemaker he only went after gangsters and thugs. He allegedly had a bad relationship with his family, and yet they all cared about him very much. He was meant to be an alcoholic trash who threw and broke things when drunk, and yet his alcohol tolerance was incredible and he always missed when he threw bottles, never actually hurting people.

Basically, OG Cale was suspicious. He was hella sus since the start, and that built intrigue around his character. That isn't the only reason why people love him, of course. Many fans got spoiled about him straight away, before reading the whole story, so that can't be all there is to it. But that's definitely where the interest began.

Number two, the subverted expectations.

Don't forget, OG Cale isn't the only "Cale" who's beloved by the fandom. When we got first introduced to our MC, there was this unspoken first impression that he was a typical, what TV Tropes calls, "Audience Surrogate". You know, the type of protagonist who mostly has no personality, solely for the purpose of being a self-insert for the audience. Not to be confused with "Mary Sue " – that is a type of character who definitely has a defined personality. Although both protagonist types serve the same purpose, the latter has more to do with how the overall story is written, and how everybody acts like they're the center of the universe, and how things only happen around them, or directly because of them.

Cale, Kim Rok Soo, was in "danger" of becoming either type of MC at the beginning of the story. Because of how he was trying to sell us the idea of how totally normal of a guy he is, and how he just wants to be left alone in peace, that's all, he swears. I've seen both Audience Surrogate MCs and Mary Sues who claim the same thing at the start of the story yet become the focal point of the plot regardless, and yet fail to show any kind of character development or growth whatsoever – because of the author's bad writing.

In Cale's case, it was revealed as far from the truth as you can get. He quickly subverts those issues before they can become real concerns. Not only does he have a defined, flawed personality and showcases growth, but so do many other characters. And the writing behind Cale's character is so effective, that real people love him about as much as the fictional characters who keep him company in the story.

What does it have to do with OG Cale?

Well. Do you remember when you said, "people don't usually care about the original owner of the body the MC currently possesses, and I get why"? Let's explore that "why" for a little bit.

Where Cale could be expected to be an empty Audience Surrogate character, if TCF was poorly written that is… OG Cale could have ended up as a Blank Slate.

That is, a one-dimensional character whose only role in the story was not to be missed. Which is what happens to most "transmigration victims" in isekai. (The fact that OG Cale is the actual transmigrator in this case instead of our MC makes all of this more fascinating.) In some cases, the "original" was objectively a terrible person; be it a petty crook, or a serious villain, or someone with a rotten personality who used to abuse their privilege, letting the righteous protagonist take over and make things better for everyone. Sometimes they're completely innocent, a tragic victim who passed away prematurely, and the newcomer isn't stealing their life as much as simply slipping into a no-longer-occupied identity, while the original souls reaches a peaceful afterlife. Heck, sometimes the "original" expresses blatant consent before their passing, absolving the protagonist of all guilt regarding their transmigration.

You see, OG Cale could have easily been one of those characters. Written specifically to make create an empty spot for the MC to take over and become the starting point in their journey. And that's exactly the first impression we get! "A generic villain who gets beaten up by the protagonist". No friends, no loose ends, seemingly a worthless noble who does not contribute to society. Whose family only "puts up with him" because they're too nice to throw him out. Someone who kept such distance with everyone in his life, no one even noticed the "original" was gone.

…And yet. He is NOT a Blank Slate at all. Not in the slightest.

To quickly skip over all the reasons why OG Cale was so important to the plot: he was never a generic villain, nor an innocent, tragic victim. Instead, he is THE REASON for the plot. The how and the why of the current timeline. And he's not even dead! He is doing just fine in Kim Rok Soo's body, living a good life. Filling the empty spot left by Cale. I don't think I've seen this kind of plot twist in ANY other isekai! It's really amazing! This is exactly THE best subversion of this trope that I have ever seen. And I love it.

The third and final reason? OG Cale embodies another trope called "The Greatest Story Never Told".

Basically, the kind of life OG Cale lead when he was young – sacrificing his reputation for his step family without anyone knowing, and the deal that he made as he was at the brink of death… Those choices makes him someone who is not only a heroic figure in his own right; he's an unappreciated heroic figure. And that? That is EXTREMELY compelling to any audience.

People like heroes. People also like angst. Hero with angst has double the appeal (which is why so many broody heroes and anti-heroes exist). A heroic figure who has a tragic backstory and never gets the full credit for their sacrifice? People eat that up. I eat that up like candy myself! One of the many reasons why I enjoy time travel stories so much.

Moreover, OG Cale is in fact the only currently alive hero in TCF timeline who has never and will never get that heroic recognition – unless Cale reveals the truth to the Henituse family, which has long become extremely unlikely. Of course it makes OG Cale ripe for all sorts of fan scenarios, be it an AU where he and Cale are twins, where OG Cale goes back in time to save the world himself without Cale's transmigration, where he and Cale are the same person with combined angst… OG Cale has enough complexities to BE a protagonist in his own right. Fans recognize that, subconsciously or not. It makes him great character to write fanfics about.

I'm sure there are many more reasons why fans love to love OG Cale, naturally (his personality and his looks for example). But I think those 3 are the main ones:

Despite his shallow public persona and terrible reputation, he was built up properly as a mysterious character with great depth, and it stayed a mystery for a really long time in the story, which made the fanbase's interest in him grow exponentially.

Just like Cale, he was a clever and plot-relevant subversion of expectations, and an excellent take of what could potentially happen to the "original" that got swapped with a transmigrating protagonist.

He is a tragic heroic figure who's never got credit for his sacrifices, which makes him very compelling to explore in fanfictions.

I hope this helps! Let me hear other reasons why you guys personally love OG Cale 🙂

[andromedabooks]

Lab Partners

Summary: In which the team finds out about Spencer and Nora’s relationship in a slightly less than ideal manner.

CWs/Tags: Season5!Spencer. Fluff! Established but Secret relationship. Well-meaning teasing and banter. VERY slightly suggestive connects

A/N: This is the cute version of how Spencer and Nora's relationship comes out to the team. There’s an angsty, running into each other’s arms in the field while someone is bleeding version floating in my head as well...  

For someone healing from a bullet ripping through some crucial ligaments, Spencer was shockingly mobile. He’d figured out the scooter in record time, not without a good deal of bumping into furniture and frustrated swearing that made Nora laugh entirely too hard. She relieved herself of her guilt as she let him stay most nights at her picturesque first-floor apartment in a DC brownstone under the guise of easier handicap access. She knew he mostly wanted it because he wanted to be there, to see her the instant she got back from a case where he couldn’t yet go with. Of course, she knew, but that didn’t stop her from letting him stay. 

He was, therefore, elated when he learned she’d been assigned to stay at Quantico with him for this particular case due to the complex chemical anesthetics the unsub used while the rest of the team was scattered about DC. The pair, given their combined scientific expertise, had been sequestered in the lab. 

Spencer was zooming about the lab, ecstatic to be free of Penelope’s bat-cave. However, they’d still been forced to bring one of Pen’s clunky laptops to connect them to the rest of the team via video call. 

And so, both clad in lab coats and blue nitrile gloves, the pair set to work on puzzling out this particular cocktail of toxins with the occasional chatter of the rest of the team in the background.   

“Spence, can you bring me an Erlenmeyer flask and a micropipette set?” Nora asked, voice echoing from underneath the fume hood where she’d been forced to move her atomic emission mass spectrometer so she could begin to determine what the hell this compound was made of. 

“Sure!” And Spencer zoomed off to grab her desired equipment while she flipped on the spectrometer and met him in the middle on a lab bench to begin the next test. Spencer, meanwhile, parked by her side and simply stood enamored by her diluting a sample of a victim’s blood with reagent. “You’re so pretty when you’re processing potentially toxic blood samples,” he said almost dreamily, leaning in to tuck his chin against her shoulder as she worked. 

“You’re a weirdo, Spencer Reid,” she muttered under her breath, lips quirking upwards in a smile despite herself. 

“You signed up for it, love,” he sang-songed, grinning with a level of playfulness that was reserved only for her. 

Nora broke into a proper smile and laughed despite herself. “Shut up and get me the second reagent.” She lightly shoved Spencer’s head off her shoulder with a gloved hand. 

Spencer retaliated with a kind of confidence everyone—her included in the beginning—presumed he would not have. He turned her around by hands at her waist with impressive dexterity for a man standing on one and a half legs, and he kissed her soundly. A logical part of her brain said that this was their office, that they could be seen by anyone, and that this was most definitely not acceptable behavior in the workplace. That part of her brain went quiet a lot faster than she’d like to admit. 

She leaned into him, allowing him to manipulate the tilt of her head with a hand on her jaw. His other hand trailed from her waist to her hip to her ass—which was, once again, definitely not work appropriate—while she wound her hands up to grip behind his neck. 

If Nora had been thinking about things logically, she probably would’ve considered the fact that, while the rest of the time wouldn’t see or hear them unless they called, Penelope Garcia and her about twenty different monitors likely had their laptop’s video feed pulled up on one of her screens. If she’d continued that line of logic, she would’ve anticipated the gasp when Spencer called her love that turned into shrill shrieking that echoed through that bullpen of the BAU when they kissed. It was a shriek that brought Emily and Derek sprinting into Garcia’s office in enough time to catch the pair as their hands grew less PG and kissing began to turn into eating each other’s faces. The trio stood in stunned silence for a moment before Spencer moved from kissing her lips to her jaw and her neck, then Derek seized the keyboard and frantically unmuted their feed, all but shouting: “Hey, Geniuses! Maybe don’t commit public indecency on company time!” 

They sprang apart comically, faces flushed a guilty shade of pink. Spencer actually moved so quickly that he almost fell off his scooter, and Nora had to catch him by the shoulders and set him right. She knew the team was bound to find out at some point. When they’d passed the six-month secrecy mark last week, they’d joked they were living on borrowed time. Still, she hadn’t expected it would come out like that. Nora braced for the barrage of commentary through the tinny speakers of the laptop as if she were bracing for an earthquake. 

Spencer, no doubt sensing the tension across her shoulders, drew her in with an arm around her. He reached out casually to mute the laptop, cutting off the three stooges who were all yelling over each other from upstairs. He then pulled her in tighter with his other arm around her waist. “I guess we’re going to have to fill out that disclosure paperwork now, huh?” he joked softly. He was red—arguably redder than she was—with flush spread from his neck to the tips of his ears. But, there was also some giddiness in his eyes that indicated that it wasn’t just an embarrassment to be caught with her, but a point of pride. “And I get to call you mine in public now,” he whispered just low enough that the laptop wouldn’t pick it up. 

Nora, despite all good sense, pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. This time, she knew everyone could see them.

They had precious few minutes of silence where they kissed gently before the door to the lab burst open and their trio of nosy coworkers barged in as they’d grown tired of being ignored. 

“How long?” Penelope demanded, bustling up to poke Spencer in the chest as he tucked Nora into his side again. “How long has this been going on?” 

“Officially? Six months, ten days, and 22 hours.” Of course, he remembered down to the hour. Probably the minute, too, if Nora felt like asking. 

Three jaws fell in near unison. “It’s been half a year?” Emily demanded with indignation. 

They simply nodded and let them—mostly Penelope—squawk about not being told and being deprived of their adorable relationship. 

Derek eventually slid to Spencer’s side, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good job, man,” he said with a grin that could only be described as shit-eating. “I didn’t know you had that much game, but from what I saw on that monitor, you’ve got some somethin’ bold in you I didn’t expect. I mean, since when does the good doctor back his girl against a counter?” His humorous, honeyed gaze flicked to Nora. “You teach him that trick, Johansen?” 

Spencer flushed back to a near tomato red, spluttering a defense, and Nora laughed despite everything. “He came that way. Preset, my friend,” she said, leaning back to meet Derek’s eye. “I’ve taught him a few tricks, though.” And then, because she wanted to see him blush redder, she said, “Not any you’ll get to see, of course.” 

There was a chorus of gasps, shouts, and wolf whistles while Spencer buried his head in her shoulder. “How dare you?” he groaned into the skin of her neck, and Nora laughed harder than before.

[equestria-cross-mod]

Very long vent/rant below the break (yes, another one). Also, go read Twin Runes, it's really good. Also also, bully me into reading the entire thing, because for some reason I can't seem to sit down and do that on my own.

And to clarify, this whole thing is directed at the anon who asked the question, not the person who answered the ask.

I was just scrolling through this blog since I enjoy the comic (though I really need to read the whole thing) and came across this post. If you know me, you know that I really don't like letting injustice stand without me saying or doing something, so here we go. Prepare for heavily restrained anger.

Akanemnon have stated that how people see them doesn't matter as much as how they make others feel. And they want them to feel positively. I can tell they're incredibly kind because of that.

I also empathize with them about this in particular, considering that, while I'm not popular, I do still struggle immensely with being social just in general. Especially publicly.

Now, here's the thing. I have a different approach to this sort of harassment they're experiencing here, which I've stated above. While I'm not as aware of the unspoken social rules that neurotypicals have, primarily because I'm autistic (among other things), some of the rules I do know are ones I don't agree with.

Now, to my point.

Anon? I didn't see the post being referenced here, but I don't think I need to. You're being ten times worse, anyhow. What you're doing is known as "guilt-tripping", and it's something I take huge issue with. You're also assuming the worst here, which tends to make you look like (excuse my language but I can't think of a better word) an asshole.

I know you'll never see this, and you know what? Fine. That's not why I'm writing this.

I'm writing this because I'm sick of people trying to make genuinely innocent people look bad. One mistake doesn't make you a bad person. Not even many. That probably just means you're stubborn or something, but not necessarily bad. Intentional and repetitive bad decisions make you a bad person.

That's what you're doing here, Anon. They made a mistake, and you decided to make them feel bad about it because you felt offended over something they said because they were stressed out.

If you were stressed out and said something dumb, I'll admit, I'd probably be a little offended too. That's not the problem. The fact that you acted on it in this way is the problem.

Everyone gets angry sometimes. Everyone can occasionally be unprofessional. But what you did was worse, because not only were you also unprofessional, but you did it intentionally. And that is unacceptable.

So many people on the internet just like you need to watch what you say, for various reasons, and to be considerate of other people. It doesn't matter if you can't be traced, those words still affect not only the people you direct them to, but also everyone else that sees them. I know that because I was affected.

And if people figured out it was you, which I don't think is entirely unheard of, they will treat you the same way. 95% guarantee.

Treat people how you want to be treated.

In this case, I'm trying to be as nice as my rage allows me to be while calling you out for being rude. As such, I also want people to tell me when I say something wrong or bad so I can correct myself, preferably in a manner that doesn't trigger bad memories to return to my mind and make me feel awful.

If your purpose was simply to ask for an apology, or to let them know that you were uncomfortable, then you need to learn to not insult them or make unreasonable assumptions in the process. You were lucky this time, but many people would've just ignored you. Telling you this from experience.

And if you do see this, just know that I do genuinely hope you learn how to address problems in your life better than this. Both minor and major. Despite how much I hate bad people (which I only think you're slightly bad since this is only one bad decision), I do want everyone to improve and become better people, no matter who they are. I often don't expect it though, considering... well, a lot of things. But I'm hoping this is a one-time thing for you.

Be better. Always strive to be better. Improve continuously, little by little. And if you don't know where or how to start or continue improving, ask someone you trust how you could do so.

Please add a trigger warning next time you threaten in your posts. I already feel you don't like neurodivergent individuals with the way you react to asks but that really unprofessional.

As a neurodivergent person myself, I apologize if that is how I came across. That was FAR from how I want to make anyone feel. Because it is simply not the case.

The threat was something I thought to be a throwaway line that I unfortunately did not think too deeply about in the moment of writing it. It was too far, and I recognize and do apologize for that. It came from a place of legit frustration as it feels like whatever I am trying to state is not paid attention to.

It is overwhelming, and I can not claim in any way that I am actually good at being a public person. I have stated before that having so many eyes on me is terrifying, as it causes me severe anxiety at times.

This position was handed to me by a weird twist of fate. And more often than not I question if I really even want it.

What I do want is to tell a story. One that gives people hope and makes them feel better. No matter who they are and what they might struggle with. I do want to be a good and supportive person. To ANYONE.

Again. I sincerely apologize for my harsh words. I do not wish to make anyone feel like I hate them or hold a grudge against them.

My frustrations got the better of me, and I should have acted accordingly.

[alexanderwales]

When you finish writing a big story and you became very close the characters, was there a time after where you were like "i kind of want to revisit these characters again, but i should probably just let the story be, they deserve to rest" Im not talking about wanting to write a sequel, is more about still coming up with fun ideas for them, maybe a little scene or something, but choosing not to do anything with it because it'd feel disrespectful to the ending you gave them?

Hrm. I think for me, characters exist as a vehicle to tell a story, and when that story is done, I'm off to the next character and the next story. It's vanishingly rare that I want to revisit anything that's been "completed".

There are a few exceptions. Worth the Candle had some conceits that worked well for specific jokes and gimmicks and discourse, and sometimes I'll have an idea and then think "ah, but that only really works in the context of Worth the Candle, not the other things I'm working on". I keep having an itch to get back to Shadows of the Limelight because there's always stuff that interests me about fame, fandoms, parasocial relationships, and the act of creating for an audience. But in both these cases, it's about what the framework allows for.

I think that characters get slowly pinned down over time as you add in backstory and traits, and eventually you've pinned everything down. Or to use another metaphor, you've mined them out. Ideally they've gone through some kind of narrative arc in the process of all this, or maybe they haven't, but there's nothing "new" left to them, nothing to discover or explore or say. They're less interesting to me.

And in the course of writing webfic this is especially the case, because by the end you've done like three to five books, and what more could there be that you didn't already get at? Unless you're doing the sort of book with no interest in diving into their personality and psychology, I guess, where there's nothing you actually had to say about this person and how they operate.

That said, I do think that I'm drawn to particular archetypes, and those I'm much more inclined to return to, but part of the reason I'd prefer that to an old character is that there's new stuff to discover, even if I'm working within familiar ground. There's backstory that will provide a particular texture, there are variations, places that I couldn't explore the first time around because it didn't work for that other character. I'm sure that someone who's read all my stuff could draw a bunch of parallels between characters, but hopefully they would see the ways in which they're all importantly different from each other, and how it was worth doing "the same" character a second time.

And to answer part of the ask: I have no regard for endings, except that the ending usually means that I've said all that I wanted to say. If I had some hot new idea, I would write a short story in a heartbeat using some old characters, if I needed to use them. (But also, I would still probably not want to do that because of all the old stuff that I would have to load back into RAM, and all the continuity checking, which takes some time.)

[rocketbirdie]

I was thinking about final fantasy (as one does) and realized I definitely have a type. my two favorite final fantasy characters of all time are both fairly short, skinny blonde men who were experimented on by the government and absolutely mentally melted in the process. why is that of all things my type

(in case you were wondering, my best boys are (obviously) Cloud, and Kefka, in no particular order)

KEFKA IS BLOND???? NO YEAH WAIT YOU'RE RIGHT i just looked it up. wtf for some reason in my memories kefka has like. Seymour lookin ass blueish hair. i think it's because of the silly feathery nonsense he's wearing

[paramountinplace]

Thoughts on how they’d act at bedtime? Here are some of mine, I’d love to hear yours

Van would be the most hard to put down when she was feeling small I think because she’d hate being bored and have so much energy. She’d try to distract Tai for as long as possible and insist she needs some colder water in her sippy cup, some goldfish please (and pinch her fingers to show she needs a little bit). She’d also insist she needs to go to the bathroom at least 3 times even if she doesn’t actually have to. Van would sometimes ask for a pull up if she was worried about having an accident, or Tai would give her one so she’d stop getting up to try going. She wouldn’t be able to fall asleep without someone rubbing her back. Tai sometimes gives her a teether or a paci to calm her down.

Mel would be easy to get down usually, unless the “sweet spot” was missed and she got overtired. Sometimes this happens when she joins Van in acting up at night. When she is overtired then she gets super teary and fussy, refusing to brush her teeth and just sit on the floor because she doesn’t want to go to bed, getting mad when Tai picked out a pull up for her and didn’t let her do it herself, after Tai put her hair in two braids she’d cry because she just wanted one, etc. cg Shauna would be good at dealing with her when she got like this, picking her up and rubbing her back till she fell asleep.

Mari would be fine as long as everybody was being quiet and she was read at least 2 stories by Gen or Tai and she got enough snuggles. All her stuffed animals would have to be tucked in too, and her fairy lights on, etc. I can see her wearing pull ups at night too. As long as nobody made a big deal out of it she would be fine. She’d also like having a bottle as she falls asleep.

Jackie would be very particular about her sleeping conditions, kinda like Mari. She’d need her sippy cup and her stuffed animals in hand, her blankets to be “fluffed up” by Shauna, her calico critters all put away, and of course lots of cuddling.

-🐨

Getting Van to bed would definitely be a bit of a chore that Tai's best suited for. If she's not home, bedtime for Van is generally whenever she finally passes out from sheer exhaustion after multiple people have tried getting her down. She just needs something to do that's not just lying there, so having her back rubbed or getting a teether or a soother make perfect sense. Anytime Van does have an accident, she'll be a bit paranoid about having another one for a few days because it really bugs her when it happens. I think she'd actually sleep quite compact as opposed to sprawling out across half the bed. She picked up a habit of curling up on her good side and shielding her face with her arms to get to sleep after the wolf attack and never quite shook it off.

Akilah puts herself to bed half of the time, which sometimes means that she can get overlooked, so Tai really makes an effort to come sit at the edge of her bed and talk softly about the day tomorrow or tell her a story or something. If she can't make it in to say goodnight, whoever's putting Mari down will fill in for her. Akilah doesn't usually ask for someone specific unless she's had a rough day, in which case she'll beg for Tai or sometimes Lottie.

Your thoughts on Mel are great! Not sure I have much to tack on there besides her habit to ask right before bedtime if she can have a sleepover with Van or Shauna or Mari, which the answer to is almost always no. She doesn't usually put up a fuss about it, but sometimes she'll get real upset and has to be gently guided away from the idea of a sleepover.

Loud nights are a nightmare for Mari. If people are going up and down the hall for the restroom or she can hear the television going downstairs, she's simply not sleeping. She has ear defenders but they're kind of bulky to sleep in. It's not uncommon to find a cg dozing in Mari's bed during bedtime because they gave up on trying to talk her into sleeping and decided to just wait it out.

Jackie will sometimes insist on getting up so she can check in on everyone else to see that they're okay. After a couple times of this, they stop trying to talk her out of it and just let her make her rounds because she usually falls asleep way easier after.

Gen's not too fussed about bedtime. She'll pretend to sleep if Mari's really putting up a fight and Tai asks her to just play along, but a lot of the time, she's allowed to read under the covers with her penlight until she gets sleepy. She doesn't get quite so cranky when she's tired as some of the others and her internal clock is strong enough that she usually gets to bed at an alright time.

Laura Lee is an unsung bedtime hero. She's got some kind of magic touch. If someone's struggling badly to get to sleep, Laura Lee gets called in and most of the time, she'll get them on their way to sleep or at least calm enough not to pitch a fit without too much hassle. She's very good at having that extra bit of patience that some of the littles need when they're overtired or fighting sleep and haven't quite worked out why yet.

[plaidos]

first of all, if somebody is creating a throwaway blog to anonymously harass a trans woman, you can be 100% certain that they are a transphobe stirring up shit from the shadows. the particular example here is a screenshot of a reply i made to somebody's post that has been going around on the cryptoterf side of tumblr without the necessary context.

the ignored context in this case is that i was not just replying to some random person on my dashboard. i didn't just see somebody venting about how shitty it is to be non-white in the US and suddenly become overun with rabid rage. i was responding to somebody who had been haranguing me & lying about me (including calling be a fucking pedophile) for hours as part of a wider transmisogynistic harassment campaign. the screenshots going round don't show the cut off part where this person claims they do not have any privilege as a USAmerican, that nobody on earth is more marginalised than americans of color - something that isn't just blatantly false, it's an imperialist conspiracy theory to boot.

you are misrepresenting things that have been on the books for months, repeating them straight out of the mouths of people falsely accusing trans women of being fucking pedophiles. and you'll repeat anything they say, because you're the same goddamn terf who's been harassing me for weeks.

i genuinely don't know how somebody can over and over and over and over and over again justify creating literally dozens of new accounts with the sole purpose of spreading vicious lies about a trans woman . it won't work, of course, because the people repeating the lies are anonymous sockpuppets at the beck and call of racist, pedojacketing transmisogynists.

but when you repeat this particular lie, just know that anybody with sense or context is seeing a giant neon red flag above your head reading "i'm a transphobic imperialist who's full of shit & hangs out with terfs"

btw if you live in the imperial core and you think that that you’re not privileged above those who live in the global south then you’re fundamentally racist. no ifs ands or buts