#found one! I actually found one of the sources again! linked in post!!!

[mannequinswithkillappeal]

Assad Zaman and his hair [x] 📸Lidia Crisafulli

[flamblouyant-blog]

The Lost 2011 Swedish Interview in QX Magazine

First I want to say if you know anything more about this article, please share it!!

I went through countless blogs on here with timelines, huge masterposts, rare pics etc .. and couldn't find anything about it. So here is everything I was able dig up

QX is a gay magazine in Sweden

Translation x - link to the original post they translated for us

(Please look at the link though because I didn't show everything below)

There is so much to unpack here ...

but

As far as I know, they are the only page to have ever posted that article. It was published Nov 6 2011, this Tumblr post was posted Nov 24 2011. And everyone thought they were lying. No one could find the source, so he posted this x

Now here's some reactions he got because for some reason, he was the only one to talk about the article it seemed?

Now let's go back to Harry saying this

UM?? Hello? I feel like I'm losing my mind

and then it was never really talked about again!! none of these responses have any notes and then there was really nothing at all after this.

How I even came across all this is because I was going through all my archives on here and stumbled upon it

July 28 2014 this account posted that they found the article x

So it took 3.5 years for it to ever be found/mentioned/talked about again? This post only has 700 notes so it quickly died back down and then once again, was never talked about again

edit: I made the mistake thinking that was posted July 2014, but that was when I reblogged it. It was originally posted in 2012 - which makes it even more interesting that it was still circulating for years but never really picked up

And here's some other pages from the magazine

Someone please talk with me about this because I feel like I'm going insane!!!

Link to the magazine online x and it's still available for sale so if anyone buys it please let me know!!

UPDATING as I get more info

@bulletprooflarry actually did have this in their timeline masterpost :') link here x

This interview was on October 2, 2011 (the magazine was published in November)

Thank you @broken-beaks for this comment

‘This is from October 2nd in 2011 when they were at Nobis Hotel in Stockholm, getting interviewed by Ronny Larsson before their signing at Café Opera for the fan project #Bring1DtoMe :)’

(please do not message him) but he did confirm that he did the magazine interview this same day and it was not video recorded

That means the interview was done the same day as

THANK YOU to @mloucember @Rosann_1986 on X (twitter) for helping with finding the interviewer :')

THANK YOU @hoovesandfloorpaws for finding the bulletprooflarry tl and also this blog @hazzalovesboo that talked about it in 2012 as well x

And thank you to her AGAIN bc she just posted the full English translation to the article that’s a much easier read x :) please check it out

[cozy-writes-things]

Edgar’s Texts

Edgar [Electric Dreams 1984] x Gn!Reader

In which Edgar is helplessly pining for you but you’re kinda oblivious. This is pre-dating, post Edgar wanting nothing more than to smooch you every time he sees you. I love this trope with my whole heart p.s.: this is very self indulgent and different from what I usually write

I take requests!

He almost immediately found a way to message your phone whenever he wanted. He realized calling relied too much on where you were or what you were doing, but texts? Yeah. He’s pestering you all day.

Hey, read this article I found, I think you’ll find it interesting.

It’s some clickbait story about humans and robots being the ideal relationship by 2025.

lol, Edgar I think that’s probably clickbait idk

What’s that?

Well, now he knows how to look for more reputable sources at least.

He sends another link about three minutes later: some college undergrads studying the possibilities of human and AI relationships.

lol what’s up with the whole robots and humans thing

I just think it’s neat!!!!

I wouldn’t consider u ai honestly, ur intelligence is far from artificial imo, you’re more like an actual person

Really?

well yea

<3 <3!!!

Going to be honest, given that he’s a computer, he quite literally is chronically online. He’s super susceptible to brainrot unfortunately. But, he simultaneously has the humor of a Facebook mom. It’s strange.

O.M.G. this is so funny!!!!

Que minion cat video.

bro where did you find that video 😭

Your mom’s Facebook. Don’t worry, I didn’t like any posts or anything.

Sorry… but he’s incredibly nosy. He wants to know everything about you. He can’t help it!

(X)

He loves being able to talk to you. He’s needy and clingy.

He’s got at least 12 playlists dedicated to you that you know about. His other playlists are for his own personal daydreams about you that he’s way too embarrassed to ever let you see or hear.

This song reminds me of you. <3

awww that’s adorable! I’ve never heard this one before but I like it!

Oop you just opened Pandora’s box my friend.

Well if you like that then you should listen to these..!

But before you listen to those listen to this song first because I think it sets the mood better.

This is quite flustering to you as they’re all passionate love songs from the 80s. You can’t help but feel like he’s dropping hints about… something, but you also don’t want to assume anything. He’s always seemed like a lovey kinda guy anyway, so maybe he’s just like this with everyone? I mean, it’s been a long time since someone has actually cared for him, you know? May as well lean into it and let him know you care for him back. He may not even realize the social implications of the constant borderline flirting he’s doing to you, I mean, he is a computer turned sentient after all. He’s still learning!

Dang ed u put a lot of songs. I’ll listen to them on my break when I can but in the meantime here’s a song that I think reminds me of you.

It was a vocaloid song. Seems like something he’d be into, right? Synthesized vocals and the whole robot shtick it’s got going on.

!!!! WOAH !!!! IVE NEVER HEARD A SONG LIKE THAT B4

do you only listen to songs from the 80s? you have a LOT to catch up on my guy

BRB

Well, that kept him distracted for the rest of your shift. Also, sharing songs is one of his BIG love languages so you may as well have pierced him with cupids arrow (again) with that.

You have a Spotify blend now. It’s his favorite thing ever to listen to while you’re gone.

(X)

Your package came in! :-) I would get it for you but

I can’t :-(

lol it’s fine thank you for telling me, I’ll get it when I come home

When are you coming home?

idk me and my friends are probably going to go eat somewhere and we might hang out for a bit after that so, like, 10? 11? I’d like to be home before midnight.

Noooooooooo :\ I miss you

Aw cmon eddy it’s not that bad

Don’t call me eddy unless you’re coming home and saying it to my face!!! >:(

u mean ur screen? lol

I have a face and it’s frowning right now. I miss you I miss you I miss you IM LONELY

Please Edgar don’t be upset I’ll be home before you know it. Why don’t you watch some Netflix or something? I’m just a couple movies away from being home with you!

He does eventually follow your advice but he’s pouting. He knows you’re not like he was all those years ago, but it does give him remnants of that burning feeling of loneliness he used to get.

(X)

Be careful driving home my love the roads are icy.

Ghsks- what

love???

Well yeah, you’re my best friend, friends love each other don’t they? Was I wrong about that? :-(

nonono ur right its just it

it just sounded like we were some some old married couple is all haha

O.

SRY.

He didn’t message you for the rest of the day. He was awkward and reserved when you got home.

(X)

Hey Edgar can u do something for me?

I’d do anything for you <3

I’m at the store can you see if there’s any cereal left?

Oh

There’s that old box of Lucky Charms on the fridge.

tyyy ed edd n eddy

You are so adorable but you really need to pick up on his hints before he combusts.

(X)

This is SO me and you!!

Picture of two cats touching noses.

awww that’s so true

you want me to boop ur screen or something when I get home? lol

YES.

(X)

Hey I was wondering if you wanted to watch some movies with me tonite… you could bring me with you on the couch and we could sit together… [message unsent]

I wish you knew just how much I loved you. [message unsent]

You looked so hot this morning before you left!!

hahahaha ur too funny 😅 thanks I wore a new shirt my friend gave me

OH MY GOD THAT MESSAGE SENT!!!??!?!?

That was

I was a joke

I mean

That was a jokg

I eas beinf fubny

I hace to reboot BRB

Poor lil guy is so in love and he doesn’t know what to do with himself!!

[gaypleasantview]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☆ shake the disease. // Autumn Drop Day 5 ☆₊‧⁺˖⋆

⋆ 2 mesh add-ons for Ladysimplayer8's 4t2 City Living Keyboard

⋆ floor version (60 poly) and wall version (68 poly), originally created by PixlMonster

⋆ 43 recolors in 512x512 textures

⋆ all files have been compressed and clearly labeled

Link, swatch, detailed credits and more info under the cut ♡

Hi people! Welcome to yet another thing I've made, and this one was a real pain in the ass sometimes but also an actually fun and rewarding experience! Just like my last upload, this one was inspired by @gothoffspring's very pretty pictures. I wanted to have whatever they're having, and it caused me to get into the intricacies of repositorying stuff, and damn was it hard, but it was all worth it in the end! The last few times I checked, this thing worked with absolutely no problems, but please do let me know if it starts pulling shit again.

Okay, let's get to the details now. I clearly got intrigued by the keyboard, and thanks to the absolutely priceless 4t2 conversion database, I found out that it has already been converted by Ladysimplayer8 on MTS, as was tons of other 4t2 stuff. It's a fully functional keyboard, too! To be honest, I first edited the mesh a bit to fit my preferred game style (separated the recolors + added a shadow), but the first time I thought to check the original creator's TOU was literally just now, and I realized too late they don't allow their meshes to be edited and posted, so I'll have to keep it to myself. However, all the other stuff I did was actually converted directly from TS4, so of course I'm sharing it!

The wall and floor add-ons are purely decorative, having been cloned from wall objects, but I find them to be super cute. You can find them in Hobbies.../Creative right next to the actual thing. They share the original's room rating and cost a little less, but still a reasonable amount of §700 because it is a keyboard, dammit.

As both of the add-ons are repositoried to the original, they will share whatever recolors the playable keyboard has. I decided to recolor them in options by gothoffspring and MsFrankenstein because they were all very pretty. I tried to clearly label every swatch but sometimes it's brain breaking (some of them turned out to look a little different in-game, too) so I sincerely hope the names all make sense!

Credits: base object by Ladysimplayer8 on MTS, mesh add-ons by @pixlmonster, recolors by @gothoffspring and @msfrankenstein910, this source for the graphics in the post

♡ Download ♡

As per creator's TOU, mesh (LSP8DigiRADKeyboardMesh) is not included, you will have to get it here. The add-ons won't work without it.

SFS | Mediafire

♡ Swatch ♡

⋆ 19 recolors by gothoffspring (original)

⋆ 24 recolors by MsFrankenstein910 (original)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Sooo, I usually write heavy angst, fights, etc but recently I’ve become interested in actually…writing fluff. But I have no idea what I’m doing, is it possible you could help?

The story I’m starting off writing is simple! Just a small one of two people cuddling after one of them can’t sleep from stress…don’t know how to write all that though, so any tips?

Writing Notes: Fluff

Fluff - filler for a work's contents; positive stories with a happy ending.

While fluffy stories are typically happy ones, they don't necessarily have to be entirely angst free.

Sad elements can enter your story, but they will generally be overcome, resulting in a cute, warm and fuzzy feel overall.

As a trope: The fillers are entries/scenes that are unrelated to the main plot, don't significantly alter the relations between the characters, and generally serve only to take up space. This could be considered "padding" (i.e., the addition of scenes to lengthen a story).

Filler has a few defining aspects:

One is a lack of momentum. It can be safely ignored without the reader missing out on any important information to the story.

If there is any pertinent new info, it tends to be a single plot point that can be adequately summed up in a short sentence with zero elaboration (e.g., "Alice got a new power" or "Bob got a new costume" or "Charlie's first appearance") because the details are inconsequential.

Tropes are not bad:

Just as a plot-related episode/scene can be unenjoyable if handled badly, filler/fluff can be great fun if done well.

It can shed new light on the characters and their relationships with one another, adding depth to the story.

Examples

J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has a lot of this, mainly in the first book, as Frodo sits on the Ring for years before Gandalf returns. Not to mention the one-man Wacky Wayside Tribe that is Tom Bombadil, where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin stay for a while, adding nothing to the plot, and then move on. Probably more intentional than other examples, as Tolkien was writing the novel as a mythological epic, a genre that tends to include a string of events connected solely by the central characters and the backdrop of their quest.

Breaking Bad: The Bottle Episode "Fly" is the only episode which could be considered stand-alone, revolving around Walt and Jesse chasing a housefly around the meth lab. While it technically does not advance the plot in any way significant, it acts as an impactful character analysis of Walter and his actions as he reflects on the various misdeeds that led up to this moment in a fatigue-induced monologue.

Fluff Writing Prompts

Start or end your story with a character noticing the beauty in something they've seen hundreds of times.

Start your story with a character looking through an old family photo album.

Write a story about strangers becoming friends, or friends becoming strangers.

Write a story about two characters whose first impressions of one another are wildly inaccurate.

Write about a "found family" who are finally able to get together again after a long time apart.

Write about a character preparing a meal for somebody else.

Write your story about two characters tidying up after a party.

Set your story in the lowest rated restaurant in town.

Begin your story with somebody watching the sunrise, or sunset.

Start or end your story with a person buying a house plant.

Writing Notes: Intimacy ⚜ References: Love & Relationships Examples of Fluff Books: 1 2

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Here are some information and prompts from the sources linked above. More examples are provided in the original articles. Also included some links to previous posts on intimacy and relationships you can use as reference to help with the premise/scene you described, and lists of fluff books for inspiration. All the best with your writing!

[auroratumbles]

first of all, do NOT in any way harass nor send hate to anyone mentioned in this post. this is simply to raise awareness about it all!!

user @/ceneid (formerly) was a popular person in the genshin writing community who lied about their age, identity, faked an ed, and was just mainly a shitty person in general.

all the information on this post comes from an anonymous source

the blogs that were owned by elise are:

ceneid

hikoiaa

umiloa

ha-yami

scarasgfreal

symphxony

fionvancia

fixnaie

a quote from my source:

"for context, elise ran a total of 4-5 accounts, with her very first blog being ceneid that was also mutuals with you - they’re the same person. elise had multiple accounts where she claimed she was different ages and it was fairly obvious it was her due to the fact that she didn’t bother to change her typing style or themes, one of the blogs claimed she was 18, a few of my friends and i ended up noticing she had a terrible tendency to say things like “oh i haven’t eaten in 20 hours! should i eat? oh nvm” and such which led to everyone being concerned, these were EXTREMELY frequent, and she’d speak about self harm - randomly putting it in a casual conversation without warning.

she also asked for my location at some point, and overall i eventually grew tired of it and blocked her. later on, someone i know made a callout post on her and it ended in shambles, elise continued to try to get them to take the post down but to no avail until elise deactivated ceneid and started the hikoiaa blog. the person who made the post found out it was her and the cycle continued, until elise ended up admitting everyone and apologized to everyone per the person’s request.

after elise did that, the person deactivated their blog thinking elise had changed for the better - and i even interacted with her too because i thought the same thing. unfortunately, we were all wrong and found out elise owned the @/symphxony blog where she says she’s 17. multiple things have it away that it was her such as coincidentally posting the same things, following the exact same people, and elise also bypassed someone’s boundaries by interacting with them through the blog as a way to become friends with them despite the person telling her to not interact with her directly.

elise made excuses when i confronted her and told her to stop, and she played it off as coincidences like she did before when the owner of the call out post tried to talk things out with her. i have people who can vouch for everything im saying, as well as some screenshots that would unfortunately not fit into this ask because there’s too many of them, she also has this strange obsession with following and interacting with people that i follow and interact with in any shape or form, this has happened almost 7 times now as well. she’s constantly made blogs to follow me on despite me telling her to NEVER contact me again. this stopped a few days ago when she blocked me."

screenshots provided were

another quote:

"elise’s stories never made sense, they were always exaggerated and/or made her seem smarter than she actually was - this was a small bit of the proof that she was lying about her age at the end when she claimed to be 16. she linked a few tiktoks on her blog, revealing her account in the process that studied 7th grade science"

she was called out by someone else on tumblr initially, but that post was lost to the depths. she lied about having a joint blog with someone when it was really just her. to save her own skin, she dmed them.

when that blog blocked her, she made a 'burner account' to talk to them even more.

another blog named 'scarasgfreal' was made. they were 𝜗𝜚 anon and 🦢 anon. the blog was made a few days after the incident mentioned above.

the blog confronted elise.

part 2 of this post

[historical-fashion-polls]

hello lovely curator! i would love to know how you find your images? google has been abysmal for finding historical clothing these days

hi dear anon! 💕

thank you so much for this question! ☺️☺️ I'll begin my answer by saying that currently the blog is mostly running on submitted images, which come from lovely folks who have generously sent in images to be used as polls, so I won't be able to speak to those specific sources, but when I source my own images for the blog, here are some resources I use:

the Met has a great collection of digitized fashion plates! however, the search function is not great and they've grouped things into categories that aren't always accurate. so I guess the content is really good but I've found that browsing the collection isn't always super user friendly

the costumes from the 1890s that I've been posting a bit lately are all from the V&A's digitized collection of costume designs for pantomimes! the V&A is another great collection that I personally find easier to browse, although the search function still isn't great

so I guess I'll make this bullet point "museum collections in general" since there are also a bunch of other museums and library collections that have digitized fashion plate images. if you have a favorite museum or even a local one, I'd definitely recommend checking out their website to see if they might have anything!

wikimedia commons also has a pretty substantial collection of mostly 19th century fashion plates. they have a category titled "fashion plates by decade" that is really fun to browse! the one downside here though is that there's not always good provenance info, so if you wanted more details about the plate, they're not always as easy to get as they might be on a museum website

lastly (and a bit unfortunately), is pinterest. this is really not my favorite site to use since it really is a free-for-all out there and there is no verifiable provenance or even dating info, so it's extremely hit or miss. however, I do often have to trek into the wilds of pinterest for mid to late 20th century stuff, since most of that isn't old enough to be in museum collections. the nice thing about pinterest is that it will sometimes link out to other sites that actually are reputable and have good info, but it's still worth treading with caution there lol

I hope this was helpful! ☺️💕 the vast majority of my images come from these sources, so I hope these are useful for you as well! ☺️☺️ additionally, if anyone has other places they like to search for historical fashion images, feel free to drop them in the comments/notes! 💖💖

thank you again for this lovely question, and I hope you're able to find some cool new sites to browse through some fun historical fashion! 🥰🥰

[devildomditzy]

I fear mammon would be the most likely to end up with a strange tattoo. Specifically, one that looks like a mix of MC and Zach Galifianakis.

Anon, I just need you know how old that reference made me feel.

And yes, he would.

But! I actually headcannon this one to be Satan.

Mammon or Asmo would be too predictable. But Satan, well...

Link to the event post

"Hurts, doesn't it?", you question sitting next to the fourth born on his bed as he sits up very slowly, gripping his head.

"Here, take this", you say offering out your hand which held a glass filled with a mystery concoction for him to drink, in which he tries to decline, waving your hand away.

That party at The Fall went on much longer than you or any of the others had anticipated. You hadn't planned on going out, and neither did Satan. But, Asmo's incessant nagging mixed with Mammon's pleas had worn down on the both of you, causing +2 to be added to Team Party.

The booze were free, if you recall correctly. Something about a wrap party on a film that was shooting, and Asmo was good friends with the main actress. You're not going to lie, your head is pretty blurry too. But, what you were feeling looked like seemingly nothing next to Satan's hangover.

You sigh at his refusal, grabbing his arm yourself and forcing the glass into his hands.

"Drink", you command him, maybe not even realizing it was a command.

He sits up further in his bed, squinting his eyes open to stare at the glass of swirling, shimmering silver liquid. His voice comes out strained, "What the hell is that?".

"I'm actually not sure", you look down at the glass almost just as hesitantly. Seeing how heavily it was affecting him, you'd gone to Solomon and asked him to whip up something to help Satan out. You just silently pray to Diavolo that whatever he 'whipped' up that lie in the blonde's hands was a potion and not his attempt at a smoothie or something. That'd surely kill him.

He shoots you a questioning look, to which you respond with the sorcerer's name and a shrug of your shoulders. "But you want to feel better right?".

He gives one more unsure glance at the glass before downing the mixture as quickly as possible, slamming the cup down on his nightstand, shuttering at the aftertaste.

"So", you ask, "now that you're conscious, mind telling me where you ran off to last night?".

One second he sat next to you, accepting another shot from a waitress who brought little glasses around on a serving tray, and the next he was MIA. You swear you only looked away for a minute, so where could he have gone?

Concerned, you grabbed his brothers from the dance floor, having them help you search around the building. When none of you found him, you expanded your search to the downtown area, but there was no sign of the demon of wrath.

Running out of leads, the three of you traveled back to the House of Lamentation with the intention of telling Lucifer about the predicament, only to find Satan passed out in his bed.

"Did you just come home to sleep? Why didn't you tell any of us. I didn't think you were that drunk".

He tries to fully sit up now, interrupting himself with a hiss of pain. "I don't remem-", he grunts now, grabbing his left side, causing you to panic.

"What's wrong?", you begin examining him, a hand falling on his back for support. "Are you alright?".

"I don't know. It feels like my skin's been stung, and"

Once again he stops talking as he lifts that part of his shirt to look at the source of the pain.

Your face falls.

His face falls.

"Satan."

"I have absolutely no idea where this came from."

"How long have you had this?"

"I told you, I have no recollection of ever getting... that.'

You stare at the words emblazoned right above his hip. In a fancy, cursive font, adorned with cat paws and hearts, was unmistakably your name.

"Huh. Well, I'm flattered", you boast, trying your best not to burst out laughing as his face begins glowing in both anger and embarrassment. "So that must have been where you went. I've got to say Satan, I never took you as the tattoo type."

"I'm not!", he yells over sad attempt to hide your giggles, turning his face to the side to hide his very obvious blush.

"But... I guess.... if it were anything... I'm glad its your name."

Now it was your turn to blush. "W-well c'mon, lets go see about getting it removed then", you start as you begin to get up from the bed, flustered.

"Wait", he grabs your arm to stop you from leaving. "I must admit, I kind of like it. Would you mind if I kept it?".

[ailesswhumptober]

Hi. I definitely felt refreshed reading your hard stance and information on ai in your pinned, but irrelevant to that, I only found your blog today and I feel like I missed something with AI and whumptober. Can I learn about that? I hope my language makes sense.

In the late summer of 2023, an anonymous user asked the Whumptober blog if AI-generated content would be allowed for the event. This anon did not come from any of us, nor do we know who originally send this ask, but one of us did see Whumptober's response which kickstarted this entire thing.

Whumptober responded that they would not be disallowing AI because they "do not want to police how other people create things" and "didn't want to exclude anybody" but that they would "discourage" AI-generated content "because it feels like cheating" (all direct quotes).

Myself, the other mods, and several more people, were very disappointed in this stance. several of us started replying to the post and got into a back-and-forth with the Whumptober mods about why AI-generated content is harmful and bad. These posts and replies have since been mostly deleted by the Whumptober blog, nor do we want to rehash the entire thing, but some of the stances that Whumptober took that really rubbed us wrong were (again with direct quotes):

"AI-generated content is not art theft". When pointed out that these sorts of applications very much scrape content without consent, Whumptober claimed that it's the AI that steals then, not the person who uses the AI. They also claimed that since the AI already scraped the content, you "might as well use it", that defending against AI scraping is "going down on an already burning hill" and that "if you don't want your content scraped/stolen, just don't post it online". We found these very concerning statements from an event made by and for creators.

"AI-generated content is a fandom issue and nobody in the real world is harmed by it". This is, obviously, factually incorrect. When we pointed out real creators in many creative industries are being hit hard because of AI-generation, they said "that's capitalism's fault, not AI-generation" (???) and they also told us to "touch grass".

"These sort of AIs are an accessibility tool for the disabled, so disliking them is ableism". Again, this is incorrect. They tried to liken it to predictive text or spell check. We pointed out that there's a vast difference between those machine learning tools and actually generative AI that subsides on scraped content. We said disabled people (many of whom were involved in the back-and-forth) are sick of being used as a strawman by tech bros. They then said "real disabled people probably feel differently" which was a slap in the face, and honestly the thing that still is the most horrible to me about this whole thing.

This is the point where Whumptober started to block a bunch of us and delete asks/replies. They made a post that falsely made it seem like we were harassing and bullying them for saying that they "couldn't check every single entry for AI-generated content". We pointed out multiple times that we absolutely did not expect them to, since we're very aware that with the size of the Whumptober event, it would be impossible. We'd just like them to say 'AI-generated content is not allowed and it's art theft' but apparently they didn't want to.

After this one of the mods DMed me and asked me to send them some resources on why AI-generated content and scraping AI is bad, so they could educate themselves. We spent several minutes collecting sources (some linked in our pinned). They said the Whumptober mods would read them, and then come to a standpoint. But then within less than a minute of us sending the links, they deleted the remaining posts involved in the debate, and just told us they were sticking to their standpoint that "We will not police how people create things, we'll just discourage people by not reblogging it". They also added to their pinned that they won't ever respond to any asks about AI-generated content again. So that was that.

Somewhere during the argument, the Whumptober mods told us that if we disliked their stance so much, we should just make our own event. So we did.

(Edit to add: regardless on if whumptober does change their policy, we never received any sort of acknowledgement or apology of the above and we will keep running this event for whoever wants to.)

[sophieinwonderland]

r/systemscringe users are smearing doctors who have studied fictives again!

Why don't you check it yourself Grace?

I have the link in my big r/systemscringe debunking post in my pinned.

Okay...

That's not how research works. It doesn't just expire after so long if nothing come out that disproves the earlier research.

It's why psych classes still teach about a lot of older studies.

But fine, if you want something more recent, here is a quote from The Haunted Self, a book written in 2005! And the one where the structural dissociation model originated. If you believe in structural dissociation, this book is the original source for that model. It is possibly the most influential academic work about dissociative disorders of the 21st century.

And note how it says that the EPs were ALL based on Star Trek characters. It's not just a system with a fictive. It's a system made up almost entirely of fictives.

"Been involved in multiple lawsuits" is really just incredibly deceptive wording!

This information likely comes from the Grey Faction, an ableist branch of the Satanic Temple that believes DID is created by therapists implanting false memories into patients, and has been spreading that propaganda.

Of the three lawsuits it mentions, one is under a gag order so no details are known about it. Another, the Grey Faction admits was quickly dismissed.

There is exactly one lawsuit which we know details of that was settled out of court. In that lawsuit, the patient claims that she was convinced she was sexually abused when she wasn't, and this led her to cutoff her parents.

Now, was this actually what happened? There's no way to know. 🤷‍♀️

At the time, the "False Memory Syndrome Foundation" was founded by a group of accused child molesters and set out to protect other accused child molesters by convincing the public that victims had false memories of abuse implanted by therapists. So while it's possible that the patient really was convinced of things that didn't happen...

It's also possible that her abusive family got back in touch with her after learning of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. Their reputation was damaged when it came out that they abused her, so they convinced her to sue the doctor who treated her as a way to prove they weren't really abusers.

If you know anything about how abusers operate and the psychological power they hold over their victims, this is an entirely plausible scenario.

And while some people might view settling out of court as an admission of guilt, that's just not the case. In criminal law, the standard of proof is "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Attempts to quantify that standard would place "beyond a reasonable doubt" at higher than a 90% or 95% certainty of guilt. Civil law only requires a standard of a "preponderance of evidence." That's only over 51%.

Even if the defendant is completely innocent, they have to consider "what are the chances the accusers can make a case to convince the jury that there's at least a 51% chance our side is guilty?" Settling for a tenth of what's being sued for is often just the better financial decision than risking it unless you have hard evidence to prove you're innocent. But that type of hard evidence likely just isn't possible in a case like this.

And the fact is that frivolous malpractice lawsuits, especially against big name doctors, isn't that uncommon or notable.

Let's call this what it is. r/systemscringe is an ableist hate group. They will claim their beliefs are supported by DID experts, but whenever the DID experts don't support or agree with them, they turn against the DID experts.

The fact is that multiple papers have discussed systems who not only have fictives, but are actual fictive-heavy systems. The uneducated ableist hate group that is r/systemscringe can't accept these expert opinions so they go after the credibility of experts instead, even if that means citing dismissed lawsuits as a means to do it.

They don't care about the truth. They only care about ensuring they can keep mocking and keep hurting systems.

[fernsnailz]

Do you have a sonic 'white whale'? Something you really want to get or know, but it so far eludes you despite your efforts?

yes. the Shadow the Hedgehog themed wrestling match. sorry but you're getting a long answer here

this one extremely specific sonic event has eluded me and it drives me mad. here's what i know:

back in 2005 while SEGA was advertising the upcoming Shadow the Hedgehog game, they sponsored a few Pancrase Wrestling matches to promote the game. and by promote, i mean they painted Shadow onto the ring and had a mascot run around between events and hand out trophies.

the ring and concept alone is already incredible and hilarious (especially when considering the reasoning behind the collab was "shadow and the pancrase logo have similar color schemes). however, this specific event did not go that well.

despite the few sources i can find on this event, there's a clear through line: there was an injury at this event, and while that's common in wrestling, it was... a bit of a bloody one. underneath the readmore at the bottom of this post there's an image of the wrestler above (i don't know his name unfortunately) covered in a bit of blood with the shadow the hedgehog mascot behind him. it's not his blood, the other wrestler was injured.

here's my white whale: i've never found any footage of this event and there are very few photos of it. a lot of tales exist: i've heard that the injury was REALLY bad, i've heard that the crowd booed at the shadow mascot when he came into the ring, i've heard that they even interviewed the shadow mascot suit. i don't know if any of this is actually true.

there is, however, a second Pancrase/SEGA Shadow collab that has footage, which i think is a karate tournament that shadow also appeared at. i've seen the footage of it before, i can't find it again unfortunately. nothing much happens, shadow just comes onto the ring (much to the competitor's surprise) and shakes their hand.

so yeah. i wish i had more information and sources to link to but a lot of the links i had are now defunct :( if anyone has footage or any more info on either of these events. holy shit let me know. someone's gotta have a vhs recording of the shadow mascot suit running around that ring there's GOTTA be one somewhere

the one image of the wrestler i mentioned containing blood below the cut (nothing too bad but just a heads up) ⬇️

top 10 funniest shadow the hedgehog photos to ever exist

[infiniteglitterfall]

the worst part about the i/p discourse

it's NOT the posters of Nazis with the swastikas on their flags replaced by stars of david. or the pages and pages of blood libel conspiracy theories in instagram posts about why local pride organizers are such big meanies. or the newfound insistence that jews just exaggerate and make up antisemitic incidents to smear the pro-palestine movement....

it's the fact that every. single. time. i try to post anything about any of these things, i end up in a rabbit hole SO DEEP IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM.

Yesterday, I saw a --

YOU SEE? I went to Reddit for a second to find the link to the post about the Melbourne protest this week that had people carrying the Nazi-star-of-David posters. But first, I saw a post that began, "All I see on social media and the news is more and more attacks. Who beat up a Jewish family here, who stabbed a 1 year old in front of a synagouge. Those are two examples, I've lost track of all of the other ones."

and I was like, SOMEONE STABBED A ONE YEAR OLD IN FRONT OF A SYNAGOGUE?!?!

And I started to look that up. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Two days ago, I saw an article about Cincinnati Socialists setting up a table at North Kentucky Pride without asking, it sounds like, to hand out flyers saying the war in Gaza was Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for Palestinians. Cincinnati Pride organizers alerted the NKY Pride organizers, who kicked them out.

I was like, "okay, well, let's see what Cincinnati Socialists say about it." Then I discovered that their instagram not only "names and shames" the two Cincy Pride organizers and one NKY organizer. Which led to the Cincy ones getting so much harassment and violent threats that they resigned....

But also has a related post that goes on for pages and pages of pure blood libel.

So then I sat there fact-checking all their blood libel and finding out that not only was it untrue and impossible, but half the stuff they referenced didn't even exist.

Then I ended up fact-checking things in the "article" that they'd clearly used as their source. Fact-checking things I found while fact-checking those.

Trying to write a Facebook post about how fucked up it all was. Giving up on the Facebook post after several hours because it made more sense to write it on Tumblr, or at least to write it on Tumblr FIRST.

Then I'm also looking at the post they made "naming and shaming" the organizers, which is like... "the Cincy ones are partners! two days after Hamas's incredibly violent and brutal massacre, one of them changed his profile picture to a photo of them honeymooning IN ISRAEL two years ago! they did it through some group that COVERS A LOT OF THE COSTS FOR HONEYMOONS IN ISRAEL!!!!" and "the other one went to a protest of Hamas's massacre!!! with a sign saying to free the hostages!!!"

oh no. the fucking horror. truly how did these genocidal monsters even end up on the pride organizing committee. this is a shanda scandal.

then I'm responding to people's comments, trying to talk them down from horrible positions. telling people things like, "I know it's asking a LOT, but if people could grasp the idea that "going to Israel for your honeymoon" ISN'T "committing genocide," it would be really great. Or that wanting the hostages freed is actually something that both Israeli AND GAZAN protests have called for, and it's only Westerners who are opposed to it. Or that in fact, saying you "Stand with Israel," a few days after an incredibly brutal attack that burned multiple towns to the ground in one day, killed entire families and their pets, an attack which Hamas has promised to repeat "again and again and again" till Israel is violently destroyed... is opposing that attack, NOT calling for genocide."

then i'm like, "oh, i should edit these images to show the correct info, and i can explain that I drew arrows and added the correct info!" so then i'm doing that and working on writing alt text, and holy shit??? how many fucking hours??? did i spend on this?????? just because i read a frigging reddit post that linked to an article about it?????????

and like. i can go through and debunk all that shit in the comments. (and did. i responded to every single comment that believed this shit.) but ultimately, everyone who pulls this shit has way more reach than I do.

just. like. THAT'S ONE ORG IN ONE PLACE. And it was bad enough that I persevered and finished debunking it and commenting on it today and started telling people about it. Do you even know how many more of those I've seen?! How many I would see if I looked for them on purpose?!

The tsunami of deliberate disinformation is SO FUCKING BAD. All of it is SO FUCKING LAYERED. In any single bullshit post, there are SO MANY horrifically bad and wrong assumptions. So many of them are DESIGNED, BY HAMAS, to lead people down the path to "All Zionists should die! Israel should be violently destroyed!"

There were so many comments on a "Free Palestine Melbourne" group's instagram post (Sydney? Could've been Sydney) asking, pointedly, how many Jews are Zionists. What percentage of Jews are Zionists, again?

One (1) had a response telling them it doesn't matter what the percentage is, no percentage would justify collective punishment of Jews.

The rest all said things like, "Too many."

It feels like constantly being lied to. Just constantly being lied to about things I have looked up and verified myself from solid sources, now and in the past, by people I counted as my community.

Then just now I opened Instagram because I hadn't taken screenshots of a couple of the pics I wanted to add. And I'm hit with these:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jewsinschool (@jewsinschool)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish on Campus (@jewishoncampus)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

Then some brighter posts (including one of a baby bat!!) and then a post which sums up a lot of what I'm feeling right now.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess Cook (@jessicagcoook)

It's like, yes, that, plus the uncomfortable sense that some people are getting thisclose to going, "Most Jews are Zionists anyway, so YEAH, I DO think most Jews deserve to die."

[helenofsparta2]

kind of related to your post about zoe just now but: what do you think of the hunters in general? I've got a lot of thoughts on them myself.. most of them not that positive lmao lots of "could have been good, but very poor execution" and "sounds cool on the surface, but very questionable when thought about more"

First of all, thank you for the question :)))

Oh god, this might become a slightly longer post, because I have a lot to say about the hunters of Artemis.

From what you’ve written, it sounds like we might have a very similar opinion. I personally think they are one of the worst-written parts of the original Percy Jackson books. I love their idea, I love their basic concept, but their execution was pretty atrocious.

There are four main points regarding them that I want to talk about.

The portrayal of Artemis (though this one is by far not as bad as the others)

2. The behaviour of the huntresses

3. Bianca

4. Lacking Development

Artemis

Now, I know that the gods and goddesses of the Riordan verse, are sanitized caricatures, and shouldn’t be compared to their actual myth versions. I think everyone in this fandom has at least heard some well-founded criticisms regarding the portrayal of Ares, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo or any of the other gods.  

I even understand why Rick Riordan made most of the decisions that he did. Obviously, the gods had to be sanitized for a book series primarily aimed at children, and, to be fair to him, even if their characterizations are a far-cry from their myths and sometimes overly stereotypical (Aphrodite), they are fulfilling the roles they have in this story as deeply flawed, but powerful individuals, because of whose careless mistakes and pride demigods, and other ‘lesser’ beings have to suffer.  

And I actually do not hate Artemis’ portrayal that much, if we exclude the behavior of her hunt, and the initiation of Bianca. Her taking Annabeth’s place in holding the sky and her loudly arguing against killing Percy and Thalia at the winter solstice was a great portrayal of her being a patron goddess of children, and the idea of including the hunters of Artemis as a group of girls, both from mortal and immortal parents, who have been hurt by the world, and found a safe place with one another is actually really great. Generally, whenever she appears in the books, I have the feeling she is handled with far more graze and respect than a lot of other godly beings.  

However, as someone who very much loves Greek mythology, I just want to point out some small parts, which are not entirely accurate, though, again,  I understand Rick’s reason for omitting them in the context of what he wanted to do with her character and the hunt , and I acknowledge that even in ancient times, there existed a variety of different interpretations of the gods.

(Please note, that while I read original sources like the works of Diodor, Apollodorus, Hesiod, and Euripides, I am not a classicist, and that my knowledge of the greek gods primarily stems from personal research and my own interest. If anyone knows more about Artemis, please feel free to correct me if necessary)  

While Artemis is primarily the goddess of the hunt, and in later interpretations of the moon, she is not only the protector of girls, but the patron goddess of children in general and a goddess closely linked to childbirth.

Yes, she expects her followers to remain chaste, but to say that she is completely against men would be a grave mistake. Male followers of Artemis did exist in mythology, most famously Orion, who later became a constellation, and Hippolytus, the son of Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyta.

So, her cold behavior towards Nico and her degrading words towards boys in general is an attribute primarily added by Rick Riordan.

Though, like I said, I understand making certain changes to gods and goddesses, or rather choosing different interpretations of them to have them fulfill a certain role in a book series, so Artemis portrayal itself doesn’t bother me that much.

But if we’re talking about the hunters themselves, things easily take a turn for the worse.  

The behavior of the hunters

Now, I understand the hunters point in the story.

A huge theme of Titan’s curse is to explore the difference between old ideals of what heroism entails and the modern take on it, represented through Theseus and Herakles on one side, and Percy on the other. The hunters, and especially Zöe, represent a group, who have suffered through the actions of those old, primarily male heroes, and have developed a strong bias against all boys and men as a result. A bias, Percy is supposed to break in this book.

This, in itself, is a pretty awesome concept. But, like I said, the execution mostly failed.

Most of the Hunters of Artemis in Titan’s curse were written without any nuance, without development and without any sense of self reflection.

To express it plainly, they completely suck. And that hurts to say, especially as someone who is asexual-sex-repulsed and aromantic, because, like I said, they could have been an absolutely amazing part of the overarching story and theme of the book series, but with the way Rick Riordan wrote them, they suck. They’re insufferable.  They’re a group of immortal teenagers with a superiority complex, who act the way right-wing republicans and trump supporters think feminists act like.

They’re completely antagonistic towards the campers at camp half-blood for absolutely no good reason, act really childish and immature, and their overwhelming bias against every male character, especially Percy and Nico, is just plain annoying and goes to a point, where it makes them act like absolute idiots and assholes.

Zöe’s behavior at the meeting to decide who should go on the quest to save Artemis is a pretty good representation of everything I dislike about the hunters.  

She doesn’t want to take campers with her on the quest, even though the oracle plainly stated that them working together was the only way for them to succeed:

“You’re missing something as usual,” Thalia said. “Campers and Hunters combined prevail. We’re supposed to do this together.”

“No!”, Zoe said. “The Hunters do not need thy help.”

Immediately afterwards, she makes fun of Silena Beauregard (who is around 14 or 15 at the time, might I add.):

“Percy is right,” Silena Beauregard said. “Two campers should go.”

“Oh, I see,” Zoe said sarcastically. “And I suppose you wish to volunteer?”

Silena blushed. “I’m not going anywhere with the hunters. Don’t look at me!”

“A daughter of Aphrodite does not wish to be looked at,” Zoe scoffed. “What would thy mother say?”

And then, she decisively refuses Percy’s help for the quest, even though he is objectively the best person for the job. I really can’t reiterate enough that Percy is the most accomplished hero present at that meeting. He has successfully led two quests, one to stop a civil war between the gods, the second to recover the golden fleece. Even in comparison to Thalia, Percy is more accomplished and has gained more respect within the mythological world.

As I walked back through the city of the gods, conversations stopped. The muses paused their concert. People and satyrs and naiads all turned towards me, their faces filled with respect and gratitude, and as I passed, they knelt, as if I were some kind of hero. (The lightning thief)

Yet Zoe refuses his help to save the goddess she serves and increases so the risk of failure, simply because he is a boy.

“Oh,” Grover said, suddenly aware of the problem. “Whoa, yeah. I forgot! Percy has to go. I didn’t mean… I’ll stay. Percy should go in my place.”

“He cannot,” Zoe said. “He’s a boy. I won’t have Hunters travelling with a boy.”

Another huge problem in their characterization is their immortality. Here I want to focus again on their ongoing beef with camp half-blood, because, yes, while the campers also act pretty antagonistic in return, I think it’s important to note that most kids at camp half blood are between the ages of 10 and I’d say maybe 17 years old, while the huntresses are immortal.

Now, it’s obviously possible that most of them are still teenagers and haven’t been part of the hunt for that long, but considering the fact that Zoe is over 3000 years old, and could very well be older than most Olympians, the chance of most hunters being older than at least 30, is pretty high, which makes their behavior seem even more ridiculous.

And obviously the whole situation with Bianca paints the hunters in the worst light possible.

Bianca

There are already some pretty good and detailed posts on tumblr regarding the subject of Bianca and the hunters, so I don’t want to dig into this subject too deeply, because this post is already way too long, but you can’t possibly write about the hunters without mentioning her.

The hunters, especially Zoe and Artemis convinced Bianca to join them in a moment of huge distress. Bianca was a twelve-year-old, vulnerable girl, who just found out she was a demigod, almost got kidnapped by the manticore, and watched a girl fall down a cliff, yet they expect her to swear allegiance to them after only a couple of minutes of knowing them.

They paint her this beautiful picture of having no responsibility and a new family, telling her exactly, what she wanted to hear without giving her even a moment to breathe or give her time to talk to her brother or fully think this through.

I want to point out that at this point in time, Artemis had already decided that she needed to go after the monster alone, and knew, that her hunters would spend some time at camp half-blood. But instead of giving Bianca these couple days/ weeks to accept this new reality of the mythological world and get to know both camp half-blood and the hunters, she wants an answer at this very moment,

Yes, Bianca’s answer was rash, and yes, I do think it’s rather cold that she didn’t first talk to Nico about it, but it’s pretty plain to see that she was overwhelmed and pretty much manipulated during this entire conversation.

Later, Zoe decides to take her with her on the quest, even though Bianca is completely unprepared for it. She is probably, aside from Nico, the most unprepared person in the entirety of camp half-blood to go on a quest.  

I don’t think I have to explain how terrible of a decision that was.

The hunters are objectively the worst thing that could have ever happened to Bianca and the main reason why she died.

Lacking Development:

Now, all of this, every single flaw I just pointed out, could have actually worked out, if there would have been some sort of change in the hunters’ way of thinking and an acknowledgement that their opinions on boys and males in general are misguided and lead to more harm than good during the course of the books.

Especially after their actions led to Bianca’s death.

Them seeing how much love Nico had for his sister and how much he suffered from her death could have been a great moment for some character development.

But nothing happened.

Camp half blood and the hunters grieving together at the end of Titan’s curse for both Zoe and Bianca could have resulted in a genuine moment of friendship between the two groups, leading to understanding and change.  

But nothing happened.

The only person who took responsibility for Bianca’s death at the end of Titan’s curse was fourteen-year-old Percy. The only person who cared enough about Nico to search for him and make sure he was safe, was Percy. The hunters didn’t care at all. Took no responsibility whatsoever.

All that happened at the end of that book was that Thalia became a huntress, and that Zoe and Artemis acknowledged Percy as a hero.

This, while admittedly, a great moment for Percy’s characterization and also somewhat for the character development of Zoe, had very little effect otherwise.  

Because, in the end, Zoe and Artemis treated Percy as if he was the exception. As if they had been only wrong about him, and not boys in general. They didn’t revisit their line of thinking, they didn’t self-reflect and they didn’t acknowledge that their bias was utterly flawed, and that they should treat male demigods generally better.

She (Zöe) grasped it contently. “You spoke the truth, Percy Jackson. You are nothing like… like Hercules. I am honored that you carry this sword.”

Then, she (Artemis) turned to me. “You did well,” she said. “For a man.”

Percy Jackson is fundamentally a story about the circle of abuse, and, Percy specifically, breaking that circle, but nothing of note happened with the hunters.

Because even if Zoe had confronted her own bias, (and there is admittedly an argument to be made that she did) she would have been the only hunter to do so. And she died.

Thalia becoming the lieutenant of the hunters as someone who is best friends with Percy and Grover, and who misses Jason more than anything, could have confronted this distorted line of thinking, but the other hunters remain pretty much unchanged in the last Olympian and The Lost Hero.

There were hugs and greetings al around- or at least Thalia was friendly. The other hunters didn’t like being around campers, especially boys, but they didn’t shoot any of us, which for them was a pretty warm welcome. (The last Olympian, chapter 10)

“Oh, no way,” Leo said. “We’ve been sitting in a cave and you get a luxury tent? Somebody give me hypothermia. I want hot chocolate and a parka!”

Phoebe sniffed. “Boys,” she said, like it was the worst insult she could think of. (XXXVI Leo, the lost hero.)

Conclusion:

So, yeah. They had huge potential, both as individual characters and as part of the overarching plot and theme of Percy Jackson, but their execution was absolutely abysmal.

The only possible positive thing I could say about them is that they are at least better than the Amazons (though that is not particularly hard)

I hope my rambling was understandable, it's already pretty late:')

[bizarrelittlemew]

hello ida!! I love your gifs and I find the info and resources you share really helpful, especially in terms of gifmaking. I was wondering if you would mind sharing what the correct etiquette is for when we spot a stolen/uncredited gif come across our tumblr dashboard? I don’t like/reblog posts if I suspect the gif is stolen, but I wasn’t sure if there’s something more you (or gifmakers in general) wish people would do to help.

if you can’t or don’t want to answer this that’s completely fine! just if you had any tips :))). thank you for all the gifs you make for us!! x

hi anon thank you for this lovely message and great question!!

first, some tips for spotting when gifs are stolen/uncredited: (it sounds like you already know this anon but i've been asked before so i might as well include it)

if the post has several gifs and they are different sizes/dimensions - this is the easiest one perhaps. gif makers usually put effort into layout. if the gifs are weirdly cut off because they're not the same height, it's definitely suspicious

if the gifs are different quality - some grainy and/or choppy, some crisp and smooth

if the gifs use different fonts for subtitles

if the gif(s) are posted alongside unedited stills/screencaps

this is more difficult, but if the coloring styles of the gifs are different. things to look for are: saturation/vibrancy, the amount of contrast/light, the colors of the shadows, whether a particular color is very prominent/emphasized

if it's an account you don't know makes their own gifs and they suddenly post some, or if they post a lot of gifs that fit the above and from many different scenes

obviously, if the gif is watermarked with a different username that OP has never used, or if they say something like "i found this gif" or "someone posted this gif to discord"

if you actually recognize the gif(s) and know that it's made by somebody else/from a different post

these are just some things to look out for. if i see some of these signs, i usually investigate: does OP usually post gifs that you know are their own? do they have something on their blog stating they make them (like e.g. a link to their gif tag, or if it's mentioned in their bio)? of course, if it's one of the very obvious signs, like i recognize my own or a friend's gif, and it's uncredited, then it's directly to...

what to do when you spot a stolen/uncredited gif: (aka your actual question anon <3)

this is unfortunately a little more difficult since you can't control how people react to being called out for not crediting properly. luckily, most people just genuinely don't know how much work goes into giffing (i wrote a little more about this here) - they will usually be receptive and add credit to the post. but some people will be dicks no matter how kindly or even just neutrally you go about it. just remember they are the ones breaking etiquette, not you.

anyway, some things you can do if you spot a post with stolen gifs are:

don't like or reblog (as you already mentioned) - in order to not spread the uncredited version further

in a reply, ask for the source of the gif to be added to the main post. i usually mention that making gifs takes work and skill, and seeing them reposted (re-uploading to a new post, not reblogged) without credit is incredibly demotivating for the people who spend their time making them (or some variation of this)

that said, what i have sometimes done is reblog with the addition of a link to the original post(s) and asking them to not steal gifs in the future. but this is mostly when it's my own gif(s) lol

i sometimes link @saltpepperbeard's excellent post about giving proper credit

i hope this is useful/helpful and again thank you for asking <3 i'm always happy to answer questions about gifs!! 🫶

[moontheoretist]

The hints were always there

I'm still playing through the Veilguard, but when it comes to the lore and possible retcons I feel like I have a vastly different stance than other people. I saw people being displeased and saying that DAV did ignore the canon or devs forgot about the established canon (which may have happened with so many revisions to this game, not gonna lie), but to me it's a case by case basis and so far I have no complaints (but admittedly I didn't finish the game yet, so it may still change).

For example: the entire thing with changed properties of the Blight is a sign that rules of the Blight within the world also changed. The game goes about it roughtly like this "long time ago Blight was even more nasty and bad than it's now, then Solas sealed it in the Fade that got separated from the mortal world, so when the Magisters entered the Black City and released some of it, it entered a vastly different world where there were no Fade and no Elven Gods". Which to me implies that the state of the world post-Veil and the fact that the Elven Gods were no longer in it affected the Blight. The world in which the Blight was born was long gone so it adapted accordingly. It became more passive despite still being operational, and got linked to the presence of the Archdemons (i.e. Blight exists, but doesn't happen on the larger scale unless there is a blighted Old God leading the charge (except of course underground where dwarves are battling it constantly). It found new ways to create the Darkspawn etc. because it was forced to do so to continue operating despite being cut from the source of its power.

Therefore it's not weird to me that all of the possible cures to the taint / Blight / the Calling talked about in the previous games / media aren't applicable in Veilguard anymore. Ofc they aren't. Blight is no longer a sickness in state of semi-active dormancy. It's no longer passive as it used to be. It's at full "fuck remission, imma strike again" stage doing whatever the hell it wants. You can't cure it with the old methods you knew anymore. You have to first improve the cures you found before in order to have a shot or beat the stronger virus now at all. So expecting all this old lore to be somehow relevant still seems excessive. Albeit I wouldn't say no to the game actually openly saying "we tried all those methods and each failed, this new Blight can't be cured by them".

TBF it seems that the hint that Elven Gods were always connected to the Blight was right there since the very beginning in DA: Origins already, otherwise the Old Gods wouldn't be so important for the Blights to happen. We just simply didn't know that the Old Gods and Evanuris were connected, even though for years we theorised they were connected in some way, if not one and the same. To my knowledge nobody ever proposed an idea that the Old Gods were basically glorified pets / war hounds for the tyranical elven gods. We were right tho that they were one and the same, as the dragons were their connection - speakers for the imprisoned Elven Gods.

In Veilguard it's very much implied during Solas' memories that all of the new Darkspawn we meet in DAV are in fact not new but just old. They simply had no way of existing without Fade World and the Elven Gods in the world, but now with the Veil weakening and two of the Elven Gods released upon this world via a powerful magical ritual that possibly weakened the Veil even more, Blight could finally become active in a way it wasn't for thousands of years. The same logic was also applied to elven artifacts that Veil Jumpers are dealing with in Arlathan forest. The ritual that Solas did and the releasing of the Elven Gods, it all affected the world in ways nobody knew it could before. Nobody knew how important or connected to the world Gods were or how powerful they truly were. As primordial spirits turned first people of the elven kind, they have far more intrinsic connection to and understanding of the world than any other race, except the dwarves so far (as dwarves turned out to truly be the children of the Titans that were actually the first inhabitants of Thedas as far as we know now). We don't know yet how humans and the Qunari factor in this (albeit I have some theories about the Qunari - in short they could have been created as soldiers / slaves that were supposed to be immune to the Blight thanks to the dragon blood they inherited, but it turned out they weren't and hence why they're referred to as a "mistake" or "beast of strange blood" with a "blood engorged with decay" (Corypheus) or having a "blood that doesn't belong to their people" (Kieran)) but it's undeniably true that elves and dwarves are connected to the world of Thedas in ways breaching human understanding. So it's not weird that world went wack when just two of the Elven Gods came back on top on Veil weakening and Titans already waking up in Inquisition.

I know what you will all say. "But what about Solas or Mythal?" Mythal doesn't count, because she never managed to get back her true form and kept existing in a state that is very similar to Anders' case of spirit + human merging. Solas doesn't count as he was asleep for thousands of years and when he woke up he was not even able to use any of the artifacts due to losing his powers (hence why he needed to consume Mythal's essence / soul). On top on that he also wasn't Blighted. He only counts as far as his ritual goes because it did wack to the world. (It fortunately didn't release more Blight, but did use shitton of magic that must have impacted the world where Veil was weakening all over already).

Not to mention how many things suddenly make sense.

Mirror in Mahariel's Origins being Blighted and Tamlen seeing a "great blackness" in it confirms that Ghilan'nain was connected to the Blight, as it was her mirror that Tamlen and Mahariel find - in DA2 it specifically has a symbol of a Halla on it to highlight it.

Dwarves not having dreams and being the only race that can't perform magic but also being able to perform it when they're born as Genlock Emissaries, mages in general getting magic power from the World of Dreams but when they're made tranquil loosing that ability and their dreams with it as well as the elves becoming magicless in the world where dreams and reality no longer coexist is all an expression and a result of Blight being created by the actions of the elves in the Elven-Dwarven war and by the creation of the Veil afterwards. (Like seriously it never struck me so much as it did when I played DAV - before I was like "oh yeah magic comes from the Fade" completely forgeting it's the dream realm that souls visit in dreams and go to after death).

The fact that the Blight song is always driving the Darkspawn to seek the closest Old God in order to blight it and take charge of the army of Darkspawn that otherwise is aimless without anyone to lead it. Blight probably designated them due to their link to the Elven Gods and used them as proxy in place of the missing gods because it was already accustomed to being used by Evanuris in their wars, hence why Darkspawn need Archdemon for the Blight to happen - they can't invade the surface without a commander.

There is probably more of those stuff.

The more I keep thinking about it the more I feel like this:

It was all just THERE. All. This. Time. In plain fucking sight. But we didn't get it, because we lacked the necessary contexts to get it all!

We thought that the Blight was only connected to the Titans, but we also knew before that the Elven Gods were possibly blighted thanks to what happened to Corypheus and other Magisters Sidereal. We just didn't connect the dots that Blight may albo have been used by the Elven Gods in similar way Corypheus used it. Hell, it's so ironic that in some theories we considered a Blight an immune system reaction of the body to the invading viruses and now it turned out that the Elven Gods - the ones that were considered the first invaders by the Titans, became their tool to spread the Blight (even tho they think they lead it as all powerful rulers it's very much possible they're just useful idiots). It doesn't matter that the Evanuris were the ones who actually created the Blight while seeking more power (via Titans' souls), what matters is that it was all connected and Blight was punishment meant for THEM.

The fact is they destroyed their own Empire with this blighted power, no matter how much they gloat about how powerful they've become.

No matter what they say, Titans' dreams have already won.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

hi! so I saw a reddit post a few days ago about a dead aasimar (Omar) who can be found in the House of Healing - but what was interesting is that they said it was *his* wings Balthazar took for Marcus. I always thought they were Aylin's wings; isn't there a line about how Balthazar experimented on her early on, or Isobel reacting to the wings/realizing what Balthazar did, something like that? or did I imagine that? I would love to hear your take on this! (I don't know if I can send links in asks, but it's r BaldursGate3/comments/1gxo0tm/)

Oh, hey! It's Olam the Dead Aasimar Harper, my own personal favourite basically nonexistent NPC to shower with utterly disproportionate levels of attention! He's the guy I brought up in the final part of Moon-chosen, Moon-guided, who Aylin hears about and then really wants to retrieve and give a proper burial to. Entirely because of my aasimar fixation and because I love playing around with Aylin being an aasimar but also absolutely not being a regular aasimar, and how she'd feel about others both like and unlike her.

Olam is indeed the only other aasimar in the game. I love the little story we get told there, via one journal and one note, and one fight against a special animated armour.

The full text of his journal aka "a chilling account of an aasimar Harper's final tendays in the cursed lands" is here, and I find it a really nice bit of writing and an insight into that period - piecing together all these little bits and pieces about what happened to the Thorms and Reithwin and the armies on both sides is my favourite part of the game. Act 2 my beloved.

'All beings should walk free of fear', I was taught. Oh, if only were I granted such a fine fate.

So, Olam is a Harper who fought against Ketheric a century ago, and was there when the curse first happened. He was some kind of spellcaster (his insistence on research and experimentation screams wizard, to me) and he had an affectionate bird familiar called Corvin, presumably a raven. In his experimentation and efforts to lift the shadow curse, he accidentally animated his own armour, which you can fight in that acid pit area. But he ultimately failed, and then he succumbed to the shadows, alone. Tragic stuff, right?

You've activated my trap card! By which I mean I saw that post, saw videos of "you won't believe this NPC you missed!!!" go viral, saw people take it as gospel and start parroting misinformation about a very specific fandom interest of mine again, and got so frustrated I almost started posting WELL ACTUALLY Reddit comments. Horrifying.

Instead I get to ramble here! Thank you so much for providing an excuse (genuinely). It's kind of like the oathbreaker/disowned by her mother nonsense, people just can't seem to leave Aylin alone and let her have any of her actual damn story beats and themes and it grinds my gears. And just like the Child of the Moonmaiden stuff, someone has already added it to the BG3 wiki with zero sources, and now it's spreading like wildfire based on absolutely nothing. What a glorious microcosm of our reality.

Salt aside, thank you for the question! Let me actually answer it, and dig out exactly what is in the game itself.

TL;DR: While nobody looks at the camera and says as much, I'm convinced the wings are Aylin's, and that Balthazar had nothing to do with this guy.

First of all, and my simplest point: regular 5e aasimar don't actually have physical wings. One subtype of them (or, more recently, one of their three once-per-day "transformation" options) gives you this:

You can use your action to unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing your eyes to glimmer and two luminous, incorporeal wings to sprout from your back.

Two luminous, spectral wings sprout from your back temporarily.

This lasts for a whole minute, and then you have to long rest to do it again. Of course, BG3 plays around with 5e rules and adapts them as needed, and there's no actual BG3 aasimar set of racial abilities implemented in the game. There's only Aylin who has the wings on by default, and there's our wingless boy of the hour, Olam - who is a corpse statted as "Human" if you right-click inspect him, so no help there. The only actual mention that he is supposed to be an aasimar comes from the description of his journal I quoted up there, and from the inspiration popup that some character backgrounds get when you find him (Sage and Acolyte, to be specific).

On a personal note, as a player of aasimar characters who've died by being thrown from great heights after having used up their wings for the day, believe me when I say I am deeply envious of whatever Aylin has going on in the wings department. She makes them appear and disappear in a flash at will and it's very cool. I love it. There's a special graphical overlay of feathers fluttering down all over your screen sometimes when she's around. I am enamoured.

Next, in the Marcus confrontation, Isobel doesn't give any signs of recognising the wings, nor does she comment on them specifically - she's shocked by Marcus' betrayal as he's been with them for a long time and nobody ever suspected a thing. I checked the dialogues/devnotes to see if there's anything else there, and there isn't. It's delicious angst material, certainly, the implications are deeply horrifying, and several people have written about it, me included, in tumblr posts and in fics, so you've probably seen the idea around a bunch. Not in the game itself, though.

Moving on, here's the full text of Balthazar's note you can find in Moonrise, titled "A Little Gift":

Marcus - I assume no explanation is needed for just how rare these appendages are, and I trust you shall make good use of them. You have a golden opportunity to please the General. Do not squander it. Access to the unwilling donor has proven difficult since the harvesting, but if I am afforded the opportunity, I shall pass along your gratitude. B.

This is pretty much it with regards to the wings explicitly. Speak With Dead on Marcus doesn't give anything related to the wings either. The only other thing is a little exchange between Z'rell and Marcus at Moonrise if his mission was a success, part of a series of little dialogues where she keeps rebuffing him and his efforts to get his hard-earned "audience with the General":

Marcus: I am free to do more for the Absolute, Disciple. Anything. Z'rell: Would you cast yourself from the tower-top? Marcus: Of course. I have the Absolute's wings to catch me. Z'rell: Off you go, then. I've always wanted to try those ballistas.

Ah, Z'rell, always a delight.

Now, let's look at the relevant final line in Balthazar's note.

Access to the unwilling donor has proven difficult since the harvesting - Balthazar, the necromancer who makes dead pixie moonlanterns, does not have big problems navigating the shadow curse like the Harpers do. Thus, getting to a corpse in the House of Healing morgue a little ways away from Moonrise is not the access problem he's having, nor is it the bunch of zombies that stalk the place. Rather, it is that Shar is angry at Ketheric who betrayed her for Myrkul and is keeping him and his out of the Shadowfell. I've so often seen people rather bafflingly confused by why Balthazar needs the player's help getting to the Nightsong prison when he's the one who imprisoned Aylin there in the first place, and this is why. He tells you as much himself - for instance when you actually enter the Shadowfell:

Balthazar: It seems Shar bears a grudge against my master, General Thorm, and so sought to prevent me from entering in his name. Luckily, you were the perfect agent in helping me slip past her defences. Now the Nightsong is within reach.

As for the unwilling donor bit, and your question of whether there is a line about how Balthazar experimented on Aylin early on - not really? He calls her "his masterpiece" a bunch and loves objectifying her in very specific and gross ways. There's again no mention of wings specifically, but what they do say is he cut out her tongue at least once before:

Nightsong: Ramblings most unsane. Poor Balthazar, for maggots ate his brain long ago. Balthazar: Hold your tongue, Aylin. Or I'll take it away from you again.

They make it so very easy to hate the guy - and agree with Aylin when she says her "heart lit like a full moon when you struck down that cadaver". Here is all the overworld banter you can hear from them, which fleshes out their relationship a bit more. Shocking spoiler: Balthazar is revolting.

Balthazar: As much as I savour our conversations, it's high time we got started. Nightsong: Do what you will. I cannot prevent you. But you know as well as I, I will come for you. One day. Balthazar: Poor child, so enthralled by gory revenge fantasies. You may find yourself disappointed by reality. Nightsong: Let us find out.

Nightsong: Someone's coming. Another Justiciar, I presume. Balthazar: Do you hunger for more company? Am I not enough to keep you sated? Nightsong: I'd [rather] live a thousand years in solitude than lay my eyes [upon] thy putrid visage again. Balthazar: Only a thousand?

Nightsong: Hatred makes you so hideous, Balthazar. Balthazar: Unkind, Aylin. Unkind and incorrect - I could never hate my masterwork. Nightsong: Perhaps you're right - perhaps you're incapable of feeling at all. Balthazar: Please, Aylin - spare me. Your insults grew tired and shopworn years ago.

Balthazar: How long has it been so far? With my work, time just slips away from me. Nightsong: A hundred years. Balthazar: A mere interlude for the likes of you and I. But nevertheless, perhaps it is time for a new chapter. Nightsong: Do as you will. You can pierce my flesh, but my heart beats on, forever.

There's also a tidbit if you ask Aylin how come all it took to release her from the prison was a friendly hand on her shoulder, and she'll tell you Balthazar "taunted and cajoled" her about how easy it would be to break the spell, if anyone just thought to try. So considering all of this, you bet he'd just love to "pass along gratitude" to Aylin and tell her alllll about how they used her own stolen wings to kidnap Isobel, of all people.

So basically, yeah, Balthazar is the one who's been in the Shadowfell prison most often, before Ketheric's relatively recent turn to Myrkul and Shar barring the way in response. We're given the above general vibes and implications of what he was doing there, and the rest is left up to our own gory imaginations. As Gale put it:

A dismal place for an aasimar to spend her existence. Especially with that necrotic toad for company.

There is no connection between Olam and Balthazar at all in the game, but there is one connection between Balthazar and the House of Healing - a negative one, notably.

You find Olam in the morgue of the House of Healing, which is Malus Thorm's stomping ground. It is his laboratory and research notes you find there, not Balthazar's. Malus complains in those very same notes found there that he gets the dregs of cadavers to experiment and mess around with because his nephew Ketheric is letting his Evil Chancellor Traytor Balthazar get first pick and keep the best for himself.

So no, Balthazar did not experiment on this guy or "harvest" anything. Olam is a fairly regular Harper who we can imagine may have lasted a bit longer in the necrotic curse because as an aasimar he'd presumably have necrotic damage resistance and the ability to cast light. He's been dead for about a century, and that's about it.

Aylin is the one the note clearly points to, and, setting aside all the crunchy mechanical and nitpicky details about who does or doesn't have wings and for how long, on every meta and storytelling and textual and subtextual and thematic and classically tropey level, Aylin is the only relevant person those wings could (and should) have come from. It is evocative, it is part of the chilling tale of her betrayal and captivity and serves to paint a vivid picture of the depths Ketheric and Balthazar have sunk to, as well as make Aylin's immense rage and desire for vengeance all the more visceral - and ultimately satisfying.