#I don't know what i'm doing but whatever

[offbrand-mango]

mutha fuckin madness

I really need a social life.

[maeamian]

Part of the reason that Republicans are so desperately acting like they will never lose again is because they are deeply terrified that this is their last real chance to win. The big orange dipshit came in and gutted the party of everyone who wasn't a loyalist, which left it full of nasty little gremlins who have gaping voids where charisma and human decency is supposed to go.

They still hold a lot of power, but if we stop them this year the next presidential election may not be the Most Important One Of Your Life™, that's not a guarantee or anything, but if they don't win here and now their future looks grim, this dipshit is the only guy they have left and he's extremely diminished and has his brains leaking out of his ears at this point. We can beat him into the ground.

So that's what we're gonna fucking do. We're gonna break these fucking fash. They will crash upon us and we're gonna break their fucking necks. When they come for us they will lose because they're fucking losers and we have each other's backs which is something they fundamentally are incapable of comprehending.

[iamanartichoke]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -

I am fine with "the audience" -

downloading my fics

printing my fics

copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics

sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3

making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss

doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc

I am not fine with "the audience"

doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity

feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever

Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.

Enjoy the fandom things.

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[chalkrub]

thank you for a great art fight! here's some of my final attacks. had a blast, already missing it - see you next year!

[folklorespring]

not to be a debbie downer but it's kind of fucked up that Ukrainians go to sleep knowing that they might not wake up because of the russian missile and the world just doesn't care :)

[bumofthewild]

based on one of the aether current quests in labyrinthos, where a gleaner asks you to say a prayer for him before he goes on a long journey

[hyperfixiation-station]

Hi!!

I am totally obsessed with your fics!!! Your writing 🤌💕

I just wanted to request a fic where the reader is new to the task force but she's experienced and tough. Vibez similar to Ghost to elaborate she's more scary than Ghost cuz of her past maybe she was experimented on or trained brutally....

Reader is working hard to prove herself even if everyone knows she's the most lethal person. So one time she gets injured badly while protecting someone from the 141( probably Ghost 👉👈) and she wakes up has an emotional moment Ghost comes know about her Trauma . More like hurt/comfort....

Happy Writing 💝

Guilt-Tripped

CW: Mentions/references of kidnapping, torture, canon typical violenece Part 2, Part 3 Hiii Anon!! First off, thank you! Secondly, I am so, so, so sorry for how long this took😭 I did make this a two parter, the first part is kinda like backstoryish and the second part will be the actual story. I was gonna wait until I finished both to post but you have been waiting for way to long so I'll give you the first part now instead of waiting, again I am so sorry! I hope you like it :)) Summary: F!Reader was a part of a special program(LMK if you can guess what it is) and once she was released she joined the military.

WC: 1467 As always, I didn't proof read so lmk if there are any mistakes :3

Life had not been kind to you. Ripped from your family at a very young age, you had never known the type of love and safety a nurturing home could provide. Instead, you grew up in the confines of a Russian base, with cruel instructors and a dwindling group of girls as your only companions.

From the moment you could walk, you had been told you were a weapon. A lethal force to be honed and trained, nothing more than a tool for others to use to further their games. Brainwashed, tortured, and trained into submission, a perfect puppet. Both your brain and body were sculpted into absolute perfection, a rigorous process most people did not survive. By day, they trained to be a lethal force, an unstoppable, unnoticeable, killing machine. At night, you were handcuffed to your bed, listening to the screams of students who did not make the cut.(to this day you sleep handcuffed)

You watched, at first in horror, then with a sense of detachment, as your friendsrivals bit the dust, unable to keep up with what the program demanded of them. It got better as you got older, less girls died from their tasks. But in some ways it got worse. It was a competition now, a fight to see who would remain victorious, to see who would come out on top. It was not a place for friendship and comradery, and you learned that quickly.

You stopped trying to make friends with the other students when you were forced to shoot your best friend in the head after giving her some of your dinner when she was being punished. You were 8. And you stopped trying to even just be friendly with the other girls at 10 years old, when the instructor broke every bone in your hands after your bunkmate framed you for something you didn't do. To this day your hands are not the same, always hurting and forever scarred.

Your world was kill or be killed, and you'd be dammed if you didn't come out on top.

And come out on top you did. You graduated top of your class, a position you had fought and killed for, won through bloodshed and pain. If you had a conscience, it would have been screaming at you for the things you had done to get to the top(You laid awake every night consumed by guilt and grief)

The program was disbanded(re: destroyed) when you hit 18, just two weeks after your 'graduation'. You were given two options: Join the American military, or face a life sentence in prison. 

You had a lifetime of sins to atone for, and knew there was only one way to even begin to ease your guilt. Two days later your background was sealed up and you were shipped off to boot camp. 

And you excelled. This was nothing to you. What was a six mile run when you used to run until you passed out, then wake up and keep going? What was surviving on four hours of sleep when sleep deprivation had been the norm your whole life? What was any of this compared to what you had been forced to do everyday since you were five? 

You scared your instructors. And the other recruits. And everyone else you came into contact with. And you were fine with that. You didn't like when people got close to you anyhow.

Love got you nowhere in the world. It was a lesson you learned hard and fast. You did not care for others, they did not care for you. And you liked it that way. Until you met the 141.

A woman named General Laswell came to you one day with a job offer. Well, not a job offer exactly, but more of a…transfer of positions. A small, (mostly)four-man team that she oversaw.

You had gotten disciplined for beating the ever-loving shit out of a recruit the week before, and Laswell had watched it all unfold. She went back to her office, read your full file, and decided you would make a good fit for John's team.

You took a look at your bunk, at the trunk that held zero worldly possessions, realized there is nothing for you here, and said yes. 

Price had not wanted a new recruit, and told Laswell as much. She simply said he had a penchant for picking up strays and left your file on his desk. It took him a week to actually get curious enough to read it. A paper copy, the only one in existence that had your full, undisclosed background. He pretended he didn’t see her smug grin when he hit accept on your transfer application. 

You had been trained since youth to fight and to kill, yes, but your true purpose was espionage. You were trained to study those around you, to lie, to mold yourself to the expectations of those around you. You excelled at fitting into your surroundings, at assimilating perfectly with your peers. It was all you were good for, in your opinion. So you asked Laswell for files on your new teammates. And she gave them to you. They were full of gaping holes and redacted information, but there was enough there for you to profile them. 

Soap would be the most receptive to you. He most likely would also be the one to not give up in trying to get you to be open with them. Gaz would be receptive as well, but you know that your sealed background would put him on edge, Ghost, well…Ghost was a lot like you from what you could piece together. Yet another person who learned that the world was cruel and unforgiving, who had learned the lesson that love does nothing but hurt. And because he was like you, you knew he would trust you the least.

You felt a small pang in your chest when looking at this masked photo that you hadn’t felt in years. Not quite sadness, but…pity? No. It was different, it was sympathy. It weirded you out. 

It was hard at first, joining the 141. You had court-mandated therapy you had had to attend, and you had slowly come to realize that some trust was good, necessary even, for life. You knew you wouldn’t be able to open yourself up to them, that you would never be able to feel the sense of brotherhood you had seen amongst other soldiers, but you wanted to try. 

It was harder than you thought it would be. Hard joining men who already had comradery, who had a bond that had been forged with blood, sweat, and tears. men who weren't sure how to fit another person, much less a female, into their group. 

As you suspected, Soap was the most receptive. He was fun, you thought. His Scottish accent and affinity for filling the silence made him a very pleasant conversationalist. You didn’t have to do any of the talking.

Gaz was wary of you, but did a good job of not showing it. As you suspected, he stopped inviting you out after you said ‘no thanks’ for the third time. 

Ghost didn’t like you. You could see it in the slight tensing of his muscles when you walked in the room, the way his eyes pinched when you spoke. 

It was a rough, rocky start, full of distrust and misunderstandings. Everything about you set his senses on high alert. They way you could sneak up on him completely silent, the way you could hold your own when you sparred with him, even the way you moved had his hair standing on end. It wasn’t until a mission that would have ended with Soap's death if you hadn’t risked your life to shove him out of the way that Ghost began to trust you. 

And then he began to notice something else about you. And the more he noticed, the more concerned he grew. He noticed the way you threw yourself into battle, what little regard you held for your own life. He noticed how you never instigated conversation, never gave away the slightest bit of information that could be used against you. Noticed that you always wore gloves. In fact, he's never once seen your hands.

His constant observations of you had an unintended side effect. The longer he watched you, the more he realized you were a lot like him, the more he was drawn to you. And vice-versa. 

You found yourself willfully seeking Ghost out, willingly sharing information with him. Nothing about your past, no, you would never tell anyone the things you had done. But little things, how you liked the food served this week, how your mission went, that your new pants were really itchy. And he told you things too. Told you really bad jokes, told you Soaps stupid Scottish saying of the week. And slowly you branched out, agreeing to go to the bar the next time Soap asked you, telling Gaz that you liked his new sunglasses. 

It was nice, having people who looked at you like you meant something to them. Having people who didn’t know what you’d done, people who didn’t look at you with disgust and distrust. It was nice to have…friends. 

So of course everything had to go downhill from there.

End scene :3 let me know what you think!!6 and be on the look out for pt.2, I hope you're ready for a buttload of angst >:) Also requests are open <3

[anewp0tat0]

I tried but not very hard to see what the anniversary date was, and i decided to just prepare myself for the 16th or the 18th... it was the former. so, as always, but this time truly by accident... happy belated 17th birthday Black Butler!! I truly hope this year is amazing for us.

this year, I decided to use an idea I had wanted to try for a while but I never thought I would be able to pull off. and I still probably couldn't in the best way.... but regardless, here is a made up last chapter scenario.

you can also see this comic on webtoon here. whatever your fancy, if you please :>

[eyes-of-nine]

truly what a guy

[royalarchivist]

I say this in the kindest way possible, but I think this style of prose is more appropriate for a personal account rather than an update account. I have no idea who's being talked about half the time. 🥲

[ Tumblr meme via @mikaikaika ]

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[timeisjustasocialconstruct]

Got bored and wanted to draw something, so here have a quick sketch I did as a warm-up.

And yes, I think I'm funny.

[essektheylyss]

Honestly, I'm very excited to find out what happened to Caleb and Beau, but specifically because Ludinus's current status is WILD for Caleb's epilogue in particular. It means his boyfriend is basically free and clear of everyone who has explicit material knowledge of the deal he made. It means the goal he planned to dedicate his life to is basically complete within six years. It means that virtually no one left on the Assembly cares much what kinds of changes he makes to Soltryce from here on out.

Ludinus is on the moon and probably not coming back, given the general expectations of the heroic fantasy genre, and the rest of it is a whole lot of "not Caleb's problem".

What does this man even do with the rest of his life?

[braisedhoney]

g… get it, he’s… he’s a phantom drifter… heheh…. Ha…

[dxxtruction]

"Louis acting like a pimp to Armand" And what is a pimp exactly? Quickly. And, oh so sexual trauma survivors can't engage in kink now without it being all about that? Pet names? They can't be submissive anymore? Consensually? Sexually healthy? Be serious. I'd hardly say there's much power difference between them during all this anyway, except that Louis is freer than Armand and it's been putting a strain on their relationship. Louis wants more from Armand, and less of this 'being his past' for them both, and so helping Armand with this could fix that. It's healthy to want to help your partners get out of a rough patch?

I mean, the whole exchange was very clearly set up as a "I want to help you" after such a great moment of vulnerability Louis feels just how much Armand is desperate for it. Louis called Armand so they could work out a plan together.

And the bit with the umbrella was Louis' way of asking 'are you willing to listen to me?' and Armand said yes by unfolding it. Louis goes on and explains, Armand is allowed to argue against it, but Louis makes his point. And then he gives Armand a way to make his own choice in it too. Armand's already decided 'I want you, more than anything else in the world', but Louis still asks after if he's sure of his choice, and with a name, Arun, that is the one of his fullest agency, running the point home. Honoring the situation Armand calls Louis Maitre - as a way of being like 'I'll do as you've said then'. To make this work he's going to have to give Louis some of the control, yes. But it's the first time such a role is ever established, and it was his choice to do it. So so what if they do it in a very suggestive way? They can't like doing that? I think it's them having fun.

I struggle to find how Louis is being overly domineering here when really he's giving and offering Armand the most agency he's ever had. Same with finding it manipulative. The manipulation was more earlier in the episode I think, when he was stringing him along, giving mixed signals. He's no longer toying with him like that. Louis might be pushing Armand, leading him on to make a decision, but he doesn't mean bad by it.

But back to this pimp thing. I find it frankly offensive that this is where people are going with this. I get it, but to run with it being the case is, on many levels, wrong.

Louis told us episode 1 this was the only sustainable line of work to support his family and keep their standing, at the time. It was never his choice to be doing this either but his blackness allowed no other options. He did what he did so his family could stay in that house and maintain all their same comforts. It gave him privileges most black men didn't have at the time that he wanted to maintain and even have more of. Anyway, it doesn't and had never defined him the way 'being good at running things' had. And in that case he just likes having that kind of control where he can get it, which makes sense.

The world is what placed that kind of role onto him of what he was allowed to be able to run, not himself. And on that he actually treated the sex workers he employed well and respected them enough to give them more opportunity.** He recognizes they don't have much in the way of options either.

Louis employed sex workers, yes, but he didn't subject them to abuse, (like how Armand was)*. He didn't oversee things in a way that would go against their consent (see; episode 1 again)**. Sometimes a job is just a job. And Sex work is work.

Armand's particular past with sexual abuses may strike a particular cord with Louis, given all that, but the very last thing either is thinking is that Louis' pimping Armand out here. This is merely their decision as companions, and had nothing to do with adding another line in a laundry list of selling Armands body out to people at the command of someone else. Armand rescinds some of his control to Louis' wishes, because he wants him, and he trusts him, that's all.

If you aren't allowing Armand that choice, and are doubtful it's fully his, you're putting him right back in the box of being defined by his abuses. Putting him back into that space where he isn't given any agency over what he does. (Which is exactly opposite of what the intent of this scene is for)*.

*: (edit) added for clarity.

**: (strike through) numerous people are saying I'm misremembering these points so disregard it. (Thought he was siding with Bricks, it was the other way around). (Technically one aspect of those opportunities were for getting around the law). I don't have a perfect memory, it happens. Let's not get mad about it. Doesn't change much of the point which is that Louis, now, Louis then, was always considering more about the running things and for stated purposes. So I guess I'd say he may only have respected the SWers enough sometimes for what allowed him to do that, and there are moments he certainly expressed remorse over the fact, but he has a great deal higher respect for Armand that is genuine. It's incomparable. Please read my added notes in the tags, it should address most other concerns.