#might reblog this with more explanation later

[generic-sonic-fan]

Most people who dislike Sonadow do so because they think it puts Shadow out of character, but that's never been my problem with it.

My main problem is that Sonadow shippers so often mess up which one is the emotionally-repressed hardass of the two, and pro gamer tip, it's not Shadow.

[gothwineaunts]

Wow, hello!

So, I was actually feeling pretty motivated to write this post yesterday. But things have gotten exponentially worse, and I admit the pressure is getting to me. There seem to be a ton of expectations surrounding what I should be saying here, in order to… I guess, absolve myself? As if there’s a checklist people want me to go through to perform the “perfect” creator apology. But, I don’t see the point. I care a lot about this community and I think you deserve something a lot more sincere than some hollow chat-gpt apology. I understand that that’s foolish, on my part. Things are done that way so often because they work. But what you’ll find throughout this post, is that I’m kind of an idiot about some things. I’m stubborn and hard-headed and a little bit pretentious. And so, what I’m planning to do here is to simply tell you the truth about what happened. No cherry picking. All my mistakes, but also the context that goes with them. And at the end, my formal apology. This is a long and winding tale with a lot of characters. I’m going to be sharing some usernames as we go, in the interest of clarity and transparency. You’ll understand why with the context. But please do not seek these people out. Don’t pick fights with them. It will only make everything worse, for all involved.

Cool? Cool. But first I need to address the elephant in the room. This will probably seem like irrelevant drama at first, but this is the nuance and background that I wasn’t adequately able to articulate the night before last. In more ways than one, this is a story told in twos. The first set of twos is you, the readers. Who you are, and what you’re hoping to find out in this post.

1.      The overwhelming majority of you, are earnestly wanting to understand what has happened in the Nevermore Discord. You are concerned that I am not who you hoped I was. You are disappointed, and I understand why. To you, I am so sorry. I want to say that things are not as bad as they seem, but that is not for me to decide. You will need to draw your own conclusions from the words I write. And I understand, whatever you choose to do next.

2.      And there is a small, but incredibly vocal minority of people who are absolutely living for this. They are spreading complete fabrications with no screenshots to speak of. Horrible, horrible accusations. People who are more excited about watching a dumpsterfire than they are about the series that brought them here in the first place. I’m not going to attempt to cater to those people in this post. Because nothing will ever be good enough. Everything that can be taken in bad faith will be taken in bad faith. It would be pointless. But you’ll see them in the comments and reblogs. This is a known group to not only myself, but many others. I will share some of their names in a later section so you know who to watch for. They will make a lot of noise around this post because they’ve been trying to make something like this happen for actual years. And now that I had a genuinely concerning response that good people reasonably want me to explain, they’re lunging at the chance to throw absolutely anything at the wall. It’s parasocial levels of hatred. This is some deep and horrible lore.

The next set of twos is how two things can be true at the same time. And that is exactly what is going on here, in this situation. Let me be really clear, because I don’t want either truth to be lost in my explanation as they are intrinsically linked to one another.

1.      I did a downright terrible job explaining myself in the Discord when people started asking about crimson. I can give you all kinds of contributing factors for this, and I might later. But none of them really matter. It was incredibly careless of me to use “egging them on” and “cried wolf”  to describe what I understood. At the time I was really laser-focused on expressing what happened as simply and quickly as possible because the channel replies were paused and I felt like everyone was just waiting for me to be finished with my message. But after stepping back, I immediately understood how badly I messed up, because of course these idioms are routinely weaponized against survivors of SA and CSA. That is not how I intended to use them. It was an unfortunate case of one thing looking and sounding like another thing. Incredibly ham-fisted and irresponsible on my part. To the survivors who read my words and felt that it echoed their past experiences, I’m heartbroken that I did that to you. That lapse of judgement was a betrayal to both you and me. I don’t know where my head went, and I’m just blown away by my own lack of awareness in that message. So for that I am and will continue to be sorry.

2.      The second thing that can be true is that, while you are all absolutely owed an explanation and an apology, there are also some people amongst you who are using this fuck-up on my part as a springboard to take me down.  These people have been trying to get a call out post to pop off about me for at least a year, and they have been very quick to jump into the reblogs and comments about this very serious topic with complete lies and slander. Just, anything that might stick to the wall. We’ll address this later on as well. But please understand that me discussing the harassment I’ve faced from these groups is not at the expense of me also owning up to my faults and taking the proper accountability.

And the last set of twos is one I’ve alluded to in the first sets, concerning a pair of toxic side-servers that ran adjacent to the main Nevermore Discord. Completely unofficial cliques. And invisible to myself and Flynn and our mod team. We were eventually made aware that both of them were breaking laws and Discord ToS in ways that leaked into our server and affected our members negatively. As such, both groups were mass-banned. And the cliques are the ones running a majority of the discourse you’ve been seeing here, because while they are formally banned from the discord, we have absolutely no say in their participation on Tumblr. Now, keep in mind. Both of these groups were uncovered after crimson was banned the first time. That’s important later.

Clique #1

My understanding of the first group is that it started as a gaming server for people who met one another through the Nevermore Discord. I don’t know when or why it started being used to talk shit about other readers, but I do know that it got really vicious. And it was sort of an open secret for long before I knew anything about it. I found out after that there were a lot of people passively in this server, just observing. It was that much of a spectacle.

Now, this clique had been pretty rude. Like they’d try to start fights with me in the discord fairly often, both in the Patreon and free spaces. But it wasn’t grounds for dismissal until we found out about the baiting and the alts.  These people had a lot of grievances, but one really united them: they were extremely upset about anyone who would ship Prospero.

Many of you know, that Prospero is an aromantic character, canonically. And you may notice that canonically, he has no apparent love interest. But this group wanted to make sure other readers were not thinking about Prospero in relationships, or creating ship content of him for any reason on the grounds that it would be considered a “proship.” I told them (and I stand on this) that it’s not up to them to police the thoughts of other readers, and that aromantic people have widely varying lifestyles and experiences and do not need to be infantilized that way.

This turned out to be a bad move on my part, because it brought with it an onslaught of alt accounts coming in and "innocently" kicking up what I now refer to as the “prosp-aro” debate every time they had the chance. But because of this and what a common occurrence it was, we started being able to pick out the alts. And we realized that this group of people had been using the same alt accounts with different names to antagonize certain readers they’d decided they hated, and it had gone on for a long time.

I did a lot of investigative work in dms trying to figure out who all was responsible for the harassment, and settled on a list that was vetted by three different people who knew about the clique. And all three of these people insisted that, while Laci was in the group and in a lot of the screencaps saying pretty dubious things, that she was good people. So I believe them, and let Laci stay. This group was banned on April 3, 2024, and contained the following users:

-          lilnatx (nat)

-          suitino (sushi)

-          jj_the_jet_plane (layden)

-          rivsticks (jasper)

-          atheimee (athena)

-          jinxs.com (lanx/jinx)

-          smartestginger (nico)

-          thereallandofbugs (bugs)

-          rosienemui (rosie)

These were the names they were known by on the Discord. I don’t have the Tumblr accounts tied to these identities. But some might be the same. I know a lot of them are here.  It should be noted that jinx was later unbanned due to pressure from Laci that they had been banned in error, after the fact. We allowed them back in after a few days as a favor to Laci since the situation seemed like it was very stressful for her. This would prove to be yet another a mistake since, as you have probably seen in the screenshots from the night before last, jinx rapidly escalated things to another level while I was trying to figure out how to handle crimson’s unbanning and subsequent rebanning an hour later.

Clique #2

Phew. Still with me? Great. The second group we needed to ban was one that actually started long before the first one, but was a lot smaller and comparatively more subtle. This group, to my knowledge, cropped up around the time that ep. 39 of Nevermore was released. (11/10/22) We knew about this group but not who all was involved in it or in what capacity for a very long time. They would consistently post things on Tumblr trying to start a scandal. I recall posts alleging that we were racists, or SA apologists, or that we were sending death threats to a random confessions account.

To be clear, these allegations are completely false. This clique will say anything. Like a recent post one of them put up during this discourse said that hiwi (our mod) is both a r*pe apologist and a childhood friend of mine and that’s the only reason she hasn’t been banned. Hiwi is absolutely nothing of the sort, and I have never met her in person. In fact, she lives on the other side of the continent.

Now, this clique is a little different than the first. The first, to my knowledge, was a group of friends that got toxic and felt morally superior about their opinions and it all kind of got away from them. The vibe was a little catty, I guess. Gossipy. But this clique has more of a stalker vibe. It’s dark.

They’ve had it out specifically for me for as long as I can remember. And some of them (at least one, at all times) would subscribe to our patreon, both to sow dissent in our stream chats and also to leak literally all the content back to the others, including me talking about random shit like what I ate for lunch. Just so they could like. Laugh about it, I guess. I’ll never understand why. [Editing note: because in the final moments of proofreading this post I see one of these people has made some master post about what a terrible person I am? A lot of those screenshots are from Patreon channels and the guy STILL has them laying around. I’m telling you, they stole everything that wasn’t nailed down.] 

The biggest grievance this clique had is that any ship with Montresor is an “SA fetish ship” because to them he is a r*pist because of how he made Ada bark (?) and since Montrada is canon, that means we are supporters of SA, and that Morella and Ada should be together instead. Listen, I’ll level with you, this one baffles me. I don’t even know how to begin to untangle it. But if you see a lot of vitriol about us being SA apologists from these users, it’s because Montresor exists. That’s pretty much it.

You can ask them for screencaps ‘til you’re blue in the face, but unless they build fake ones from the ground up, they’re never going to be able to back up their wild claims. Simply put, they’re provocateurs, and they use the scariest words they can to whip people up into a panic.

We became aware that they were leaking patreon content when one of them was caught publicly referring to things that were being said behind a paywall when we knew they weren’t a patron. It unraveled from there.  People who knew about their antics shared screenshots and information with us, and we finally realized the scope of the clique’s hatred and banned whoever was even left in the Nevermore Discord. But they continue to be active in the community on tumblr. You’ll have seen them around. They were banned on 5/11/2024 and the names involved are as follows (again, a mishmash of discord names, nicknames, and tumblr accounts):

- percy (gremlinguy145 on tumblr)

- queenmorningrose (annabel-lee-nevermore on tumblr)

- spoopycactus630 (spoopy-nevermore-dump on tumblr)

- grif/horrorshow (conscience-grim on tumblr)

- unreqiknizd

- duke aralt (westofthestyx)

- eden (sapphic-mad-scientist on tumblr)

- priemium

Again I’d like to reiterate. The point in sharing these names is not to incite any sort of response against these people. But they are folding themselves into the fray and doing what they can to whip everyone else up into a mob, and all as we’re talking about a discord server that they have been banned from for months now. The above context is also relevant for the next section, which is why you’re all here in the first place.

What the hell happened with Crimson?

I hope it’s not confusing, but now we’re going back to 3/14/2024, before anything I just outlined above had come to light. The cliques were quietly doing their harassment and baiting and raiding and whatever-the-hell behind the scenes, but Flynn and I and the mods were blissfully unaware of how bad it was getting. We get a dm from Laci. The same Laci who was part of Clique #1 and was rescued from being banned with the others by her friends outside the group. Jinx’s friend, who managed to get them unbanned as well. You have probably seen these screencaps already, but I will show them to you again, just in case.

Sufficed to say, we were immediately alarmed by the information Laci shared in her DM with us. Now, I want to be very clear about this because it’s been lost in the game of telephone. What Laci outlines in her dm to me, were the events that occurred between six users (including crimson) in a group chat with minors. Everyone in the evidence was censored (pfp and username), as was the image that crimson showed them. When I asked, Laci agreed to give me one name of one of the minors in the dm. I’ll call them Alice, but that is not their real name. I asked if I could talk to Alice about this, I was told by Laci, no. Alice doesn’t want to talk. I was like, ok I understand, that’s fine. 

I hope it makes sense when I say that it is not feasible for us to moderate the things that happen in peoples’ dms. As you’ve seen above, the mod team doesn’t usually get involved with drama unless whatever is happening is directly affecting the experience people are having in the Nevermore Discord because that is all we can see and the only place we have any real authority.  But this was obviously a special case. We banned crimson very quickly without asking any follow-up questions, because of course we did!? I’ve seen people say I’m harboring or defending crimson or that we’re buddies but we barely spoke, ever. They were a stranger to me then, and they still are now.

But something about the entire situation wasn’t adding up to me. And I want to be clear that none of this is in any way meant to discredit csa survivors, I’m really just trying to put you in my headspace and walk you through my thought process. But I found that the evidence was just, sort of strange. Laci started her dm explaining that she found this information out because she and a group of people were investigating crimson for ‘art tracing’ which felt, to me, like a bizarre non-sequitur and totally irrelevant next to the evidence of them showing nsfw content to minors. Petty, kind of. Like I wanted to ask – why were you doing that in the first place? People trace Flynn’s art all the time. As long as they’re not selling it, it’s not a big deal.

Most of the crops are from a PC but the windows are oddly small, and only contain a couple messages at a time. Some have American formatted time and some have European formatted time. So different users, I assume? The names were blotted out, which I would understand for a public call-out but not for a private report to the mod team. Laci was not in this gc at any point in time, despite being the one to report. 

One of the users was apparently 12, to which I ask – what is a 12-year-old doing on discord at all? If we knew who they were, we would have reported the account. Discord is not a safe place for a child that age, let alone a small group chat. Along with 18-year-old Crimson, there was also a 22- and 17-year-old in the chat, which left us wondering – why hadn’t anything been done?

I had no evidence that anyone ever told crimson they were minors, and I feel if it existed, it would have been in the screencap dump (I find that sometimes a noticeable lack of key evidence is evidence in itself). No one seems to have tried to kick crimson from the group chat or report their account for inappropriate behavior. Then there’s the fact that this is a group chat. Anyone in it can leave at any time. 

Then I came across the messages that started this whole gc, and it only got stranger when I realized Alice started it, called it “Women Lovers” and created it “so we can talk about Nevermore women without having to filter ourselves” after they all reacted to a sultry but sfw drawing of Lenore that crimson had made and posted in our hideout channel. And all that made me wonder why Alice didn’t just kick crimson, if she had admin power?  Do you see what I mean? It’s just all a bit head tilty. I noticed it at the time. But I said nothing. Because it didn’t matter. Crimson, no matter what happened, exposed minors to nsfw content. And that’s on them. And I’ve never in my life defended it. We banned them.

Crimson was beside herself. She came off humiliated and apologetic, and insisted she had no idea and begged to come back to a community she said she loved. But we told her no, there’s no coming back from doing what she did.

Time passes and we uncover Clique #1. And while we figured out who the main players were, I dmed with Laci. And it was Laci herself, who tells me that it was Alice who made most of Clique #1’s alt accounts, and that it was Alice who used those alt accounts to harass people and try to get them to start fights or say something that might get them in trouble. 

And I’ll be honest with you, the mod team still didn’t think much of it, outside of – we need to figure out which accounts were the alts. So we did. We had several confirmed to us.  And those accounts were zeroing in on certain users that the clique didn’t like. At the time we noticed two notable targets in addition to the mod team. I won’t name them, it’s their business if they want to weigh in about all that. But in screencaps, they’ll be labeled Target #1 and Target #2.

More time passes and Clique #2 comes to light. As you can imagine, by now we’re feeling disillusioned, and very tired of trying to moderate shit we cannot see for ourselves. And that’s when crimson comes back to very hesitantly ask if they might be able to appeal their ban. It wasn’t until then that it occurred to us that Laci (on behalf of Alice) was the only one who ever reported anything to us about Crimson. 

And I want to just say that again. Because it’s gotten lost too. Laci was the only person who ever reported Crimson. There was not one single other person who ever sent a modmail or a dm or even a ping to anybody on the mod team. I have since (only yesterday) seen some screencaps that are rather skin crawly, but even those happened in yet another side server. Thinking on this, the mods went back through the known alt accounts Alice had used. And they found that Alice harassed crimson both on her main account and on the same alt accounts that she used to harass the other targets.

By now, Alice is banned for completely unrelated reasons. Not because of what happened with Crimson. I’ve seen that one flying around and I’m sorry it’s just not true. It’s because she was relentlessly harassing and cyberbullying people in the discord we moderate. Laci is still there, but had lost my trust, for being involved with both the drama I’ve mentioned here and more that I don’t care to dip into. It’s ultimately irrelevant. But what am I going to say to Laci? “Hey, did you and Alice, by any chance, coordinate some kind of bizarre trap together to get crimson banned from the discord because you suspected them of tracing their art?” And once again. Because I want to keep this top of mind. Even if that were the case, it doesn’t make what Crimson did alright, and it never will. Sharing nsfw content in front of minors is a disgusting thing to do. And one that we frankly are really irritating about in the moderation of the discord. I’ve heard people say that we over-moderate when it comes to art. 

But all this stuff about a “known pedophile?” If it was known, then we were on the outs. And to even this minute right now, I don’t have any conclusive evidence that Crimson is a pedophile. The evidence I have is that Crimson shared nsfw with a group of people whose ages they did not know. Which is fucking gross. It’s an adult’s responsibility to make sure they’re speaking with other adults before posting things of that nature. 

But at the time, the way I read the situation is that Crimson had only just stopped being a minor and was egregiously negligent in how they were speaking and what they were posting, likely in part due to them not being aware enough of their adult responsibilities.  And hey. I know some of you are chomping at the bit. You can call me naïve for this! This is what I’m referring to when I say that I can be a real idiot. But I feel everyone has been very quick to call Crimson a pedophile. I know this is pedantic to say, but the prerequisite for being a pedophile is “being attracted to minors.” Based on the information I had at my fingertips, I did not think Crimson sought out these minors. Crimson was invited to the gc, they did not ask to join. 

I have seen discussions about all the things crimson did to their victims since we unbanned them but I have not seen screencaps to support that whole ‘marriage proposal’ thing, and again I think it sounds a bit odd coming as a pedophilia accusation from someone only one year younger than crimson.  

But you know what? I don’t know crimson. Maybe we were wrong. But even if we weren’t, I realize in hindsight that it was a stupid decision for the mod team to give them a second chance. We didn’t have anyone to consult about what happened because all the other people in the chat had been obscured from me and I didn’t feel like Laci would give me a straight answer. 

The mods and I felt at the time that crimson, like the other targets of Clique #1, had been singled out and that they deserved another very closely monitored chance in the discord, which they said they still missed dearly. I’m a bleeding heart, alright? A total sap. I know that. But being honest with you, I felt bad. It feels horrible to be singled out and targeted. And I was probably too close to that feeling at the time, seeing as we were on the tail end of finding out the Clique #2 had pursued me so relentlessly for so long. 

So for my part, I’m sorry. I made a rash decision that was influenced by some very personal circumstances. And we should have left it alone. Based on the evidence I've seen, I don’t know if I personally would call crimson a pedophile and certainly I wouldn't call them a known pedophile, but I am regretful that we risked it either way.

When I was trying to explain all of this in the west common room channel two nights back, things had boiled over and were already getting out of hand very quickly. A lot of brand new accounts were joining the discord with one word intros just to start conflicts in the public server with crimson. Alts. Either from banned users or burner accounts. And I got panicky. One of the mods paused the messages in west common room but no one besides me was available to handle the situation at that moment. Reacts about being silenced were pouring in and I felt pressured to quickly take over and try to explain. 

In my rush, I stupidly didn’t backread more than a quick skim. And I ate shit, y’all. You saw. One thing I want to state outright. I’m talking a lot about my thoughts and my feelings and it’s because I don’t wanna speak for Flynn or for the mods. But I didn’t make this decision alone. In fact, I was dragging my feet and being really lazy about okaying the whole thing. Just because I was busy, not because I was fretting over it or anything. But I had to be pinged and then literally tapped on the shoulder by Flynn, asking me to respond to mod chat when this was being discussed earlier that day. That doesn’t change the fact that I was part of the decision. I agreed to unban crimson. Foolishly. I understand that, now. 

I hope that now it makes some more sense though, how it came to happen. I never meant to hurt anyone. My own past and present feelings got in the way, and I own that. But in the moment, my personal intention was to give crimson a second chance because I felt that they’d been targeted by Clique #1. Not to ignore anyone’s concerns or make them feel unsafe, even if those were the ultimate outcome.  

So, completely underprepared and defensive, I jumped into west common room and I just. Blew it. Totally fucking blew it. I knew it instantly but it’s hard to stay logical when people are telling you you’re vile and evil and they’re sick that they ever thought you were a good person and that they’ll never see you the same way again. My mind went blank and I don’t really remember much of what happened next. But I said what I said, and I should have done better. 

I wish there was a word bigger than sorry. I’m beside myself. I know there was probably a way to make everyone happy. To make everything okay. But I wasn't clever enough to figure it out in the moment, and it eats at me. So it’s like I’m sorry for my poor judgment and my terrible choice of words, but there’s another layer where I’m also sorry for not matching how wonderful this community is with how wonderful (or well, unwonderful) I was two nights ago. I promise I am going to work harder to be better for you all.

Again, to every victim of SA and CSA, my heart is with you, more personally than you might realize. I don’t think I could have handled my explanation in a worse way. And I’m so so sorry.

Moving forward, I am also going to take an enormous step back from moderating and participating in the discord in general. I feel like a lot of this happened because I was still treating it like it belonged to a smaller fandom, like Shiloh’s. But realistically, I don’t have time to both moderate and make the series itself, and I really dragged my feet on being honest with myself about that. And for that too, I apologize. We’re going to get more mods, they’re going to have full control of the moderation, and Flynn and I are going to do what we love more than anything in the world and just make Nevermore.

I understand if you won’t be there for it. This is not a flattering picture I’ve painted for you. And you’d be well within your rights, to decide not to give us another chance. But it's been a pleasure to lurk here in this wildly talented corner of tumblr. And I’ll never forget it. <3 Yours truly, -Kit Trace

[ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral]

Hello again everyone! It's time for another Merlin au! This time featuring Uther's propaganda and a healthy dose of misunderstandings and pain! :D

This au was inspired by an idea that I pitched in a reblog of one of @tamaha's amazing posts! (Also, shoutout to my awesome mutual @achillesuwu, since you asked to be tagged when I wrote this! :) ) You can find that original reblog here!

EDIT: You can find part two of this au here!

In canon, we know that Uther had children drowned for using magic, and that most of those children were likely warlocks who were born with their magic. However, we also know that most people in Camelot believe that magic is a choice and that it's impossible for someone to be born with it, so how did Uther justify to his people both the existence of child warlocks and the killing of children for something that they had no control over?

Well, Uther utilized his propaganda to justify killing young warlocks. He found some ancient text that hypothesized that warlocks got their powers from being reborn demons, and he used those very shoddy sources to justify his actions.

He spun stories about how warlocks looked human, but weren't human at all. He told the people that while those warlock children might have looked like regular humans, they would grow into powerful demons that would hunt down regular humans and eat their souls to gain more power.

Uther's propaganda campaign was successful, and soon, warlocks were some of the most feared magical creatures in Camelot. The people were terrified at the thought of a beast that could consume souls and blend in among them, unable to detected until it was too late.

Warlocks were a regular element of the nightmares of all of the children in Camelot, who would jump at every shadow and wonder if it was a warlock, there to devour them. Arthur was among those children, lying awake late at night, trembling with fear at the thought of any person he passed on the street being a warlock who would eat his very soul, denying him any afterlife and instead turning his soul into more magical power for the warlock.

And fast forward to some point after Arthur's become king, Merlin has a pretty painless magic reveal. Arthur and the knights were out hunting, they all get ambushed by bandits, Arthur takes a bad hit that would probably be fatal, but Merlin rushes to his side and, without hesitation, uses magic to heal Arthur's wound.

Arthur was, of course, very upset to learn that his manservant and best friend has magic, and they have a big argument over it, but no one physically attacks anyone (despite Gwaine's threats to kill Arthur and the rest of the knights and run away with Merlin).

So, everyone endures a rather tense and awkward ride back to Camelot, where Merlin is the recipient of many irate glares from Arthur and reassuring looks from the knights. When they reach Camelot, Arthur bans Merlin from his presence until he calls for Merlin again. He says that he can't stand the sight of Merlin at the moment, but Merlin will owe him a full explanation later. Merlin tearfully agrees and holes himself up in Gaius's chambers for a few days, while Arthur makes an ass of himself with his foul mood, snapping at everyone in the castle.

The knights try to point out to Arthur that while, yes, Merlin had magic and had lied to Arthur, he had only revealed it to save Arthur's life. Most of the knights used that point as a tool to comfort Arthur and ease his temper, but Gwaine used that fact to rub it in Arthur's face how terrible of a person Arthur was being towards the man who had just saved his life.

Finally, after the whole castle had to suffer through five days of Arthur's prattish and unpleasant behavior, Arthur summoned Merlin to his chambers, feeling calm enough again to actually hear whatever nonsensical reasons Merlin would give for turning to magic.

You see, what Arthur, the knights, and pretty much everyone in the castle had assumed was that Merlin had probably just picked up on some small useful enchantments and healing spells for Gaius's old study of that material. Arthur was angry at Merlin for turning to magic, but he could understand where Merlin was coming from.

Everyone knew that Merlin cared about his friends to the point of idiocy, so it made logical sense that Merlin, since he had the resources available to him, would resort to learning healing magic in case of an emergency. Arthur understood that aspect of Merlin more than anyone else.

Knowing that Merlin's magic was probably just the result of him being a loving and caring idiot did help ease the blow for Arthur, and truthfully Arthur didn't plan on punishing Merlin at all. To Arthur, hopefully confining Merlin to his chambers for a few days would discourage any future stupidity along these lines, and they could put this entire situation behind them.

So, when Arthur summoned a distressingly pale Merlin to his chambers and demanded an explanation, he expected to receive some stuttered response about learning a few spells from some of Gaius's spare books and to extract a promise out of Merlin that he'd never turn to magic again, and then everything would be fine.

However, when a wrought looking Merlin opened his mouth to explain, Arthur's heart plummeted to the floor. At the very first words of Merlin's explanation, "I was born with it," Arthur's chest went cold, and he took a few staggering steps backwards until his back hit the cold wall behind him, his eyes seeking out his blade.

Merlin was born with magic. That made Merlin a... a...

"Warlock," Arthur whispered, his eyes teary and terrified all at once.

Merlin stopped his explanation and tilted his head at Arthur, a small grin pulling on his lips. Arthur flinched back slightly at the sight of it, unable to form a coherent thought beyond the all-encompassing terror, dread, and sorrow that swirled around his mind.

"Ah, so you do know the correct word for it then! Yes, I am technically a warlock, but the distinction doesn't really matter that much anyways."

Merlin made a dismissive gesture with his hand, as if his words hadn't just completely shattered Arthur's heart. Arthur couldn't even listen to the rest of Merlin's explanation through the rush of his heartbeat and breathing in his ears.

The terror gripping his heart shouted at him to fight or flee, don't just stand there waiting for him to decide that he's feeling peckish for souls!

Arthur suddenly registered the pallor of Merlin's skin and the hollowness of his cheeks and came to the awful conclusion that he doesn't have much time, Merlin's already hungry and Merlin was stepping closer there was no time to escape nonono!

Arthur closed his eyes, unable to look at what must have been Merlin unfurling whatever demonic jaws he kept hidden and preparing to eat Arthur's soul...

But the sensation of his soul being devoured, whatever that was supposed to feel like, never came. Instead, he just felt a hand on his forehead, and after a few seconds another one cupped the side of his face.

Arthur hesitantly opened his eyes, almost not wanting to look upon Merlin's happy, friendly face that had always brought nothing but comfort. He didn't want those caring eyes to be that last thing he saw before he died at Merlin's hand!

Slowly, Arthur steeled himself and blinked the tears from his eyes, willing to at least face his death like a true warrior, looking at it head-on.

But, as his vision cleared from the tears, Merlin didn't look like his death, or like any sort of soul-eating monster. He just looked like Merlin, and by god wasn't that the worst part of it?

Merlin slowly smiled at him as his tears dried, coaxing him away from the wall and towards his armchair by the fireplace. Merlin gently guided him over to chair and helped him into his seat, holding Arthur's hand the entire time.

Arthur, once he was sitting, looked over at Merlin, still holding onto his hand and whispering comforting words to him, and Arthur felt like a small, scared child again, freshly awoken from a nightmare and jumping at every shadow.

It took what must have been hours for Arthur to catch his breath, stop his tears, and cease his body's terrified trembling, and Merlin sat next to him the entire time, drying Arthur's tears and comforting him.

Eventually, Arthur looked Merlin in the eyes again, and he could find nothing in them but love and care.

Whatever Merlin was, however hungry he must have been after going five days without being able to hunt for souls to devour, he apparently didn't see Arthur as a target.

Arthur took a deep breath, maintaining eye contact with Merlin. Alright, Merlin might be a soul-eating demon straight out of Camelot's worst nightmares, but he saw Arthur as a friend, not a meal. Arthur... Arthur could work with that.

He just... he needed more information before doing anything else. Merlin was still looking at him with love and concern, and with each passing moment, Arthur became more and more convinced that Merlin was still Merlin, warlock or not. And damn it all, that still counted for something. It had to count for something.

Now that his fear was marginally under control, questions swirled around Arthur's head. How did Merlin even eat souls before this? How often did he need to eat? Did he need to also eat food, or did he sustain himself and his powers on souls alone?

Before he could ask Merlin any of the pressing questions that were on his mind, Merlin had already helped Arthur out of his chair and towards his bed, readying a limp Arthur for bed whilst the king was drowning in his own thoughts.

Before Arthur even knew it, Merlin was pulling blankets over him and snuffing out the candles in his room. Merlin promised to visit Arthur again in the morning to tell him more, and Arthur barely registered his words over the storm of his own thoughts.

When morning came, Arthur couldn't even tell if he had gotten any sleep throughout the night or not, but he woke up exhausted either way. Only a few minutes after the sun had risen, Merlin burst into the room, still looking paler than usual and helping himself to one of the sausages that was supposed to be a part of Arthur's breakfast.

Just the sight of Merlin eating anything made Arthur feel slightly queasy, imaging some terrified soul being devoured at Merlin's hands. Arthur took a deep, steadying breath before getting out of bed, allowing Merlin to dress him as he normally did.

Merlin, much to Arthur's relief, was still acting like nothing had changed, like he was still the same harmless Merlin that Arthur knew him as before yesterday.

If that was how Merlin wanted to act, then Arthur was fine with it. Truthfully, even with all of the questions that Arthur had surrounding Merlin's nature, he found that he didn't really want answers to any of them. Answers would make this new reality, one where Merlin was never harmless at all and where there was a demon hiding under his best friend's skin, real for Arthur. If Arthur didn't have any answers, then he could just... pretend that everything was still fine, like nothing was wrong.

To keep Merlin by his side, he would gladly accept ignorance and pretend like nothing had changed.

However, there was still one issue that Arthur needed an answer to, to confirm that Merlin was still the man who Arthur always thought him to be.

As Merlin was cleaning up Arthur's breakfast plate, Arthur cleared his throat, getting Merlin's attention. Merlin quickly turned around to meet Arthur's gaze, but Arthur didn't feel scared meeting his eyes this time.

"Merlin, I'm willing to let everything that was revealed yesterday be forgiven, and everything can go back to normal."

Merlin gave Arthur a beaming smile at his words, and Arthur continued with a solemn heart.

"However, there is one thing I need to know. You've never..."

Somehow, the words eaten the soul of an innocent person were so vile that they refused to pass Arthur's lips, so he chooses an alternative.

"... hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, right? And you never will in the future? If we are to have any sort of trust between us, you must answer me honestly"

Arthur figured that, if Merlin was indeed forced to eat souls to survive, Merlin was probably feeding on bandits or enemy soldiers that Arthur and the knights would've killed anyways. It was the only explanation, as innocent people didn't mysteriously turn up dead regularly enough in Camelot to indicate that Merlin was feeding on them, and Arthur knew, deep down, that no matter what he was, Merlin would never do such a thing.

Merlin froze at Arthur's words, his smile falling. He lowered his gaze briefly, before meeting Arthur's eyes once more, determination shining brightly in his eyes.

"Arthur, I swear to you, anyone whom I've hurt with my powers were enemies of Camelot. Whatever I've done, I did it to protect you and your subjects."

Arthur nodded, satisfied and relieved by Merlin's answer. Nothing had to change then, Merlin was still his friend and manservant, albeit with powerful magic and an appetite for the souls of his enemies. Arthur could... tolerate that.

As the weeks went on, Arthur found himself thinking about this new side to Merlin less and less. Merlin was still acting exactly as himself, so there was no reason for Arthur to worry, let alone dwell on any thoughts of warlocks.

(And if he had a familiar nightmare from his childhood featuring a warlock, then that was Arthur's business and Arthur's business alone.)

Everything was fine, and months passed without any incidents. That was, however, until Arthur noticed Merlin becoming paler, his cheeks hollowing out again, and his eyes sporting heavy bags. As he took in the changes in Merlin over the past few days, he came to the sickening conclusion: Merlin was getting hungry again, and would need a soul to eat soon.

But Camelot was at peace, there were noticeably less bandits roaming the streets in the past year, and no assassins had come to the castle in the past months. Arthur could see that Merlin's usual... hunting grounds... had been drying up, and he needed to find a solution immediately. Arthur shivered at the thought of what devastation Merlin would unintentionally bring down upon all of them if his hunger ever got out of control.

After several hours of brainstorming on Arthur's part, he finally had an idea. It sickened him to have to consider, but he would do what he had to for the sake of Camelot.

Arthur called for Merlin to follow him as he made his way into the dungeons, where only one prisoner was currently being held. The prisoner was a minor noble who had killed several of his own servants and then used his status as a member of the nobility to cover up his involvement in the murders.

However, the nobleman was sloppy, and there was evidence left behind that proved his guilt without a doubt. He was set to be hanged for his crimes in two days time, as per Arthur's own judgement at the noble's trial, but... if he was going to be executed anyways... perhaps his death may be of use.

(What Arthur didn't know was that the real reason why Merlin looked so exhausted was because Merlin had spent every night for the past week searching for and compiling evidence that the nobleman was behind the murders, as the bastard would've gotten away with it otherwise.)

To Arthur, the criminal's death could be used to ensure that Camelot's only source of magical protection (and Arthur's best and dearest friend) didn't starve to death or go into a hunger-induced rampage, whichever came first.

Slowly, Arthur made his way to the nobleman's cell with Merlin trailing after him, where the criminal was bound to a chair on Arthur's orders. Arthur solemnly opened the door to the cell, gesturing for Merlin to follow him inside.

As soon as Arthur set foot in the cell, the nobleman started begging him for mercy, pleading with him to lower his sentence, not knowing what punishment Arthur truly had in mind for him. Ignoring the soon-to-be dead man, Arthur turned towards Merlin, who was startled by Arthur's intense stare.

"Arthur? What's going on?"

"Merlin," Arthur choked out, his voice rough with guilt, sorrow, and fear alike. Merlin rushed to Arthur's side at the sound, trying to urge him out of the cell, away from whatever issue was causing Arthur such pain.

Standing firm, Arthur cleared his throat.

"Merlin, I need you to... to do something for me."

Concern marred Merlin features as he reached out to Arthur.

"Of course, I would do anything for you Arthur."

Arthur swallowed roughly, trying to force his next words out of his throat. He'd ordered executions before, hell, he'd even ordered this man's execution before, but this was much, much harder than any of the other orders he'd given.

"Merlin, I need you to... take care of this man, as you normally do for enemies of Camelot."

Merlin reeled back with shock, looking somewhere between confused and hurt.

"Arthur, you can't possibly mean for me to..."

"I'm sorry, but yes Merlin, it needs to be done."

Merlin stared at Arthur for a few more moments, before slowly nodding his head and turning towards the bound criminal.

As Merlin stepped closer to the doomed noble, Arthur closed his eyes and turned his head away. Perhaps it was cowardice, but if there were ever a time for Arthur to show such cowardly behavior, it was here. He didn't want to see this part of Merlin.

He did, however, hear everything. There was a scream from the criminal, which was sickeningly cut off by a loud wet crunch that echoes off of the cell's walls, and then there was no sound in the cell except a very loud silence.

Arthur slowly opened his eyes to the sight of Merlin standing in front of a corpse and tried to believe that everything was still normal.

And that's a wrap on this au! Man, that got darker than I expected it to be.

Be sure to let me know if you'd like a continuation of this au!

And, as always, thank you for reading through my ramblings! :D

[peekaboo6293]

Content Warning: Bright colours, mild fantasy violence, brief depictions of (fake) blood, and fictional use of weaponry.

sharing this animatic I made on here too lol

premise is basically: set in some version of s5 about Mike’s journey with insecurity and how he has to face it by gaining confidence to be his true self, which he gains once he’s reminded he’s the Heart.

more detailed explanation in the yt desc but I might reblog with it on here later for easier access

[tarre-was-right]

ROUND ONE: MATCH-UP EIGHT

Remember, this is NOT about who would win in a fight. This is about who makes the best leader for Mandalore as a whole.

Explanation post

Seeding

Propaganda below the cut! You can submit more on this post and I will reblog it back to here!

ALPHA-17

@ihuntmonsters: He’s uhhh super badass and sexy and kicks ass and is really awesome and I’m in love with him Perfect propaganda yes. He shall lead Mandalore

Anon: He's pretty good with training children! He is very good at inspiring loyalty! He is very willing to go after sith lords with just his teeth if he has to!

Anon: Vote for Alpha he’s got Cody’s thighs, Fox’s tits and Wolffe’s ass. He’s also a DILF, if you consider the shebse squad/command batch headcanons. And who wouldn’t want a Mand'alor like that?

Anon: Alpha-17 would be a great mandolorian leader I mean look at those Pecs! What else do u need in a leader?

Anon: HERES WHY ALPHA-17 FOR THE WIN: HE WILL ASSASSINATE ALL OF THE OTHER POLITICAL FIGURES WHICH MEANS DEAD SKEVY SHEEVY PALPATINE AND WHO DOESNT WANT THAT?

Anon: What a guy. I love him so much. He's such an asshole. Alpha-17 was part of the second test batch of clones of Jango Fett, one of a group of 100, and as such he was trained directly by Jango Fett in the art of war; these early batches who had more contact with their Mandalorian trainers are commonly considered to have a stronger claim to 'Mandalorian-ness' because of this exposure and learning experience than clones from the later, larger batches

Anon: Propaganda for Alpha 17: tall

Anon: Alpha-17 should rule Mandalore because a good king doesn’t want the power of the throne and he does not want that at all. also he’s the funniest choice. might have the skills to not get killed by maul

JANGO FETT

Anon: Jango became Mand'alor (according to Legends) at the tender age of 15 immediately after the death of his adopted father Jaster Mereel. While another of Mereel's men (Montross) made a grab for the position Jango brought up the betrayal Montross had done to Mereel causing the older man's death. The other Haat Mando'ade fell in behind Jango as he had become Jaster's Legacy. He led the Haat Mando'ade for 8 years and seemed prosperous. - And then Galidraan happened, between poisoned information and tensions being high between the Jedi and Mandalorians it only took a spark for it all to be blown to hell.

Anon: Jango was trained to be Jaster's successor to the title of Mand'alor from the time he was adopted at about 8 years of age, following the death of his blood family - when Jaster was killed, Jango was chosen by their people to step into the role despite being a young teenager at the time, suggesting that he was already known to be a good leader, and one who had earned their loyalty and trust over even Jaster's formerly-trusted second-in-command - while his time in the position was short, he did seem to command great loyalty and respect from his followers, although his focus seemed to have been more on their faction's mercenary work than on serving as a ruler or even cultural figurehead for the people of Mandalore at large - regardless, Tor Vizsla saw him as enough of a threat to his own claim to the throne to seek his swift removal from the political field - even after having disappeared from the field of politics for years following the incident at Galidraan, many Mandalorians still answered his call to come and serve as trainers for the GAR, suggesting that they took his claim seriously as well

Anon: Jango Fett, while a man of many mistakes, inherited the role of Mando'alor from Jaster and tried to do the same as he did: honour their past, move forward and provide for their people - He took care of Montross and tried his best to protect the people who followed him, to make sure they had a future and didn't fall apart and get scattered to the winds again.

@lightsaberwieldingdalek: I mean. Jango’s got the best brand recognition? Absolutely everyone for centuries with recognise the Jango Fett look, and that army that Jango was kinda sort of responsible for did conquer at least half the galaxy, just…. Not in the name of mandalore

[flufftober]

🍂 🍃 Hello and welcome to our third annual Flufftober 🍂 🍃

We’re so excited to be back and to once again have you here!

As always, let’s fill the month of October with as much fluff as possible 🥰 and for that to happen, we not only have 31 prompts for you, no; we also have something special this year...

Prompt Extras

Last year's Prompt Substitutes were very well-loved and a lot of you used them to replace some prompts from the original list. You're more than welcome to do this again if there's a prompt that doesn't work for you for whatever reason - no explanation needed.

Once again, we offer you last year's top five fan favorites (as voted in the end survey). In addition to that, we also offer five scenario prompts.

If you don't want to replace any prompt from the original list but still love the additional ones - or you simply want to challenge yourself - you can also mix them all together!

So in whichever way you use these Prompt Extras, have fun with them and go wild 💚

Below the cut you'll find all our rules, posting info, all the prompts in writing, as well as some explanation for prompts we feel might need clarification. If you have any more questions, please feel free to send us an ask 🥰

We hope you like these prompts, and now

Happy Creating 🥳

Standard Blog Rules & FAQ

No inc*st or p*dophilia - we can’t keep you from writing it or creating art for it but it won’t be reblogged. See further down for clarification.

No hate or ship bashing - we’re all different and we all love different things. As long as it doesn’t go against rule #1, it’s allowed.

Tag correctly! Trigger warnings (including cheating!), ships, ratings, (pure) smut, etc - it’s all fine as long as you tag it.

There’s absolutely no word count restriction, write as little or as much as you like.

In regards to art, anything goes: drawings, paintings, collages, mood boards, gifsets, videos, playlists… the sky’s the limit (though not really…)

While we can’t force you to write fluff or create fluffy art, please try to keep in mind that this is a fluff event 😉

You can start writing and/or arting as soon as you see this - but please refrain from posting before the respective day.

You can participate on as many days as you like, even if it’s just one; you can also create multiple entries for the same day.

You can replace prompts from the original list with either or all of our prompt extras; you can also mix them with the original prompts or create for them in addition to the 31 original prompts, that's completely up to you.

It’s okay to write one story/a series for all the prompts as long as it’s separated into chapters and the respective chapter/work is posted on the given day.

You do not have to stick to one ship or even one fandom - switch as often as you like to or even write for multiple ships for one day.

The ship does not have to be a romantic one! Friendship and family feels are more than welcome (but this is not a way to get around rule #1!)

This event can be combined with other events as long as the other event allows it.

Late entries are always welcome, even if it is months later.

All fandoms and ships are welcome - fanon and canon - as long as they’re of age (in case you want to add smut) and not related.

Since this has often been asked in previous years, please let us clarify the no inc*st or p*dophilia rule:

No inc*st: This rule does not apply to distant cousins and such, as you might find in the LotR fandom (or basically in all of European Monarchy). The line we draw is at direct blood relations (siblings, parents, kids) and/or legal guardianship.

No p*dophilia: This rule does not rule out fandoms that feature teenagers such as Harry Potter, Heartstoppers, Hunger Games, etc. It also doesn't mean you can't write about their time together as teenagers! It was mostly aimed at ships in which one is a minor and the other is not - but since even that got complicated over time, the rule is now this: if you keep it SFW, all is good and allowed, we don't care; if it turns NSFW, be mindful of the legalaties of the world/society/times your characters live in.

Posting

Posting to tumblr

Please use the tag #flufftober2023

Since tags are sometimes wonky, make sure to also add @flufftober in your post

We will try to catch them all, but please don't be mad if we miss a post or if it gets reblogged a bit late

If you're absolutely certain a post has slipped past us, feel free to send an ask with the link to your post

To make reblogging easier for us, make sure to add the following tags: #flufftober2023 #day [xy] #[fandom] #[ship and/or main character(s)]

If you're using a prompt extra tag it as #alt [number]

Posting to ao3

You can add your creation to the collection flufftober2023 or flufftober_2023 (yes, we've once again claimed both)

Late entries are always welcome, on tumblr as well as the ao3 collection! Neither will close - but like always, reblogs will become less regular the more months have passed...

Prompts (and explanations)

1. “I’ve got you”

2. Family, Friends, Loved Ones

3. “Wait you love me?” - “I always have”

4. Cinderella Moment (the "ugly duckling" gets their moment to shine)

5. x + 1 (can be a classic "5+1 things" [or any number you want] creation or literally a plus one for an event or really anything else you can think of)

6. Corn Maze

7. Porch Swing

8. Rainy Day

9. (...) at first sight (think "love at first sight", "enemies at first sight"...)

10. Love of my Life (even this does not have to be romantic 😉)

11. Sweet Tooth

12. Fire & Ice

13. Wrong (...) (think "wrong number", "wrong train", "wrong person"...)

14. “I hate it” - “No, you don't”

15. Emergency, Confession, Adventure

16. Singing one another to sleep

17. Encouraging someone to achieve a goal

18. “Did you plan for this to happen?”

19. Keeping someone safe

20. Pumpkin

21. Swoon

22. Picking (think "picking flowers", "picking up someone", "picking out a dress", "picking a song for the wedding"...)

23. Trinket

24. [melting emoji] (does anyone even know what this emoji stands for? No? We neither but we would love for you to get creative with it 😉 but also, think "melting in the heat", "melting from embarrassment"... also, I would've loved to add it here but tumblr doesn't have this emoji yet)

25. Nook

26. Fireplace

27. Outdoor Event (think "hiking tour", "concert", "picnic"...)

28. Soothing Touch

29. “Hey, wake up!”

30. Self-Worth / Self-Love

31. Dreams Do Come True

Prompt Extras

Last Year's Favorites

Alt 1: Hot Chocolate

Alt 2: “You’ve told your parents?”

Alt 3: Wearing Each Other’s Clothes

Alt 4: Candles, Lanterns, Fairy Lights

Alt 5: “Oh no, you’re a Morning Person!”

Scenarios

Alt 6: Reverse all the Roles

Alt 7: Create a Fairytale Retelling

Alt 8: Give your character a new occupation

Alt 9: Create a crossover of two or more fandoms

Alt 10: Have your characters share the last table at a café

[cherrycokedup]

Bro what happened in the nevercord?? I am not a part of it but still curious

EDIT: please look at @thelesbomancer ‘s post/reblog, and @gothwineaunts ‘s post about this situation!

please defer to your own judgment when it comes to this, and don’t use my post as the end all be all! Those two posts have much more information on all of this! This post was made as this all unfolded and might be out of date (also turning off reblogs because i’m not an authority on this )

i'm gonna be careful not to name any names here because I don't want to start a hate train and I'm looking at all of this as neutral as possible and also please please please don't think of this like a call-out post or anything, it's not! I still think you can be a fan of rnf and support their work, this is just why I'm chosing to take a break from doing so!

Content Warning below for mentions of explicit content being sent to minors ( by a server member, not RnF, THANK GOD )

i don't have all the details but basically, someone was banned for sending heavy nsfw/pornographic images to minors, and then was unbanned later on because of two reasons

one: the children the images were sent too were banned from nevercord for varying reasons ( closest explanation I remember is about these kids doing witchhunts, whatever that means )

two: the evidence was apparently "unreliable" and heavily censored.

Also, the minors themselves didn't report this information, an adult did with screenshots, censoring the users of the kids.

The offending person claimed that they never knew the ages of the people talking to them and thought they were all adults, even though at least two victims from my knowledge have come forward and said the person did, in fact know their ages. The only age I've heard for sure was 12 years old.

My problem with the situation arised was when Red, the writer of Nevermore, posted a lengthy explanation that was pretty poorly worded. She used phrases about the situation, such as "egged on" or "cried wolf" about being sent this sexual content, saying it was the job of minors to stay safe on the internet. I was raising my eyebrow at that point, because the whole thing sounded rather victim-blamey.

Red then said that the evidence was faulty and suspicious for being heavily censored ( i don't know the full extent of the censoring ), and because of the fact it came from one person, an adult who was friends with some of the people who had been banned, implied reporting that behavior was all some sort of tatic to get one person they didn't like banned.

When a ton of people were (understandably, in my opinion) very upset by this response, including the victims, and other neutral parties, Red got very upset and started lashing out. I understand It had to be a stressful situation, having tons of people talking at you at once, but she started saying rather guilt tripping things, such as "I'm a horrible person then" "everything I do is actually for evil purposes", stuff along those lines. Admittedly, the situation was pretty upsetting to me, so once Red started saying those things I left. I might return to Nevermore one day, if there's signs of change and the like. I still deeply enjoy the comic, and the community! I don't think RnF are horrible people, I just think they worded this very poorly, and then continued to lash out when it didn't go as excepted lmao I'll grab some of the screenshots I took, and ask if my friends have any to add! If anyone else has anything to add about the situation, please do so in the notes or reblogs! I'm just saying my perspective here, and why I chose to leave! There might have been things I missed! screenshots below!

anyways, those are all the screenshots i have on haha, again for the millionth time I dont want this to become a massive big drama

[eternalbuckley]

College Sweethearts. — evan buckley

SUMMARY: Buck and Reader used to be college sweethearts until he was kicked out of college. You didn’t stay in contact, nor did he give you an explanation of why he left completely. Years later your ways found back to each other again. And Buck certainly doesn’t want to miss this possible second chance with you.

word count: 3,287

genre: fluff | gn!reader, queer!reader, bipoc!reader and plus-size!reader friendly

warnings: use of y/n a few times, mention of buck dying a few times, nervous buck, mention of some other events from the show (s1-s3), heavy teasing, readers college degree is not specified, mention and description of alcohol use, mention of weed use, mentions of past hook-ups/making out, english is not my first language, hardly proofread — if i forgot something, please let me know!

a/n: I had this idea while watching a documentary about the planet Venus and immediately had to write it. It might be a bit cheesy but who cares? Everyone needs that sometimes, and Buck is currently the only thing that is in my mind (for weeks). Also: I’m currently working on multiple requests, which could slow me down from posting a bit at the moment! Enjoy reading 🫶 edit: i might make a second part to this once here but nothing’s decided yet!

disclaimer: please do not repost or try and take ownership of my work or post this anywhere without my consent. do not translate my work and post it anywhere — i give you no permission to do that. i only post my stories here, so if you find my work anywhere else please let me know! reblogs, likes and comments are appreciated and welcomed!

navigation | masterlist

Oh dear, love can be such a complicated little and big thing. Especially in your high school or college years. It’s supposed to be something beautiful, right? Well, for you it didn’t start quite easy, nor did it end in a rather beautiful way. In your early college years, you had a few dates with different people. At one point you gave up because no one matched your energy or gave you the vibes that you want to spend more, intimate time with them. You decided to focus more on studying and getting high with your friends a few times but you definitely didn’t plan on finding your (now ex-) fling at one of these stupid college parties.

But there you were, slightly drunk and making out with the infamous Evan Buckley. Maybe you had a small crush on him but did it matter at that point? The both of you started hooking up even after this party and you would lie if you would say it wasn’t amazing. He made you feel good and that’s all you cared about. It was fun while it lasted but at one point, he got kicked out of community college because he spent all his money on his motorcycle. And that was the last time you ever saw him as well. Sure, you were a bit mad because he didn’t say anything to you but you were not his partner. You had no right to say anything about it.

Even months after you last saw him you weren’t ready to hook up or meet other potential future partners. You realized at one point you might have fallen for him but you quickly needed to get rid of those feelings because you were completely sure you would never see him again. Sure, you could have taken a drive to his home but Buck told you a few times that his parents weren’t his favourite people in the world and he’d never want you to meet him. And again: In your opinion, you had no right to do that anyway.

Near the end of graduating your last college year, you decided it would be best for you to move away from your hometown. A fresh start was much needed. Especially after some fucked up friendships over some stupid boys that were in some of your college classes. You needed to get away from there immediately and that’s when you eventually decided to move to Los Angeles. It was always your tiny (big) dream to live there but never imagined you actually would someday. So, taking this opportunity made it even more perfect to start over. With the help of some friends and family members you successfully moved to the big city, it was hard work and saying your goodbyes was still tough for you. But you didn’t want to turn back and focus on the new part of your life even if that meant knowing no one and finding new people that lived in the same city as you.

After some months of living in Los Angeles, you decided to start working in a café until you found a good place to work at. You slowly felt more comfortable and started to feel more at home. You found one friend during this time – Maddie Buckley. You met her in the café you were working at. She came there often to get her a coffee and one day Maddie gave you her number. She told you that you could call her any time you need help or want to talk. Since she knew how it can be to live in a new city without knowing anyone. What you didn’t know was, that Maddie was Bucks sister and she never mentioned him as well, nor did you meet him when you were at her home the few times. Somehow you even missed the pictures that Maddie had of her and Buck in her home. Sure, she mentioned ‘her brother’ a few times and that he was working with Chimney but Bucks name was never mentioned for some reason. You even met Chimney a few times. There were a few times were you almost met Buck whenever he came over to Maddie and Chimney but every time you were already gone.

At one point Chimney invited you to come over to the 118 to meet his colleagues. He planned to set you up with Buck and Maddie helped him, little did they know that you guys already had a shared past. And that there were many details involved between you, including some untold parts. You agreed to visit him the next day since you had a few days off from work and that’s where the little chaos began for you and Buck. You picked out one of your favourite clothing pieces and were on your way to the 118.

Chimney already told the team that you were coming over and slightly begged them, especially Buck, to be nice to you and not make any moves. “Or else you will scare them away, alright?”

Buck was confused about what he meant but decided to ignore it. Once you were there Chimney immediately welcomed you with a hug and a big smile. He showed you the way up to where everyone else was, waiting for you. Buck was currently turned to the stairs with his back but once he heard your voice he quickly turned around since he remembered your voice. He just couldn’t believe that it was you. The moment your eyes met each other your smiles dropped for a moment out of shock.

After a few seconds of silence, you both pointed at each other with big eyes. “You?! Wha-”

“Wait. You both know each other?” Chimney questioned and looked at the both of you, very confused. You never mentioned that you already know Buck.

You slowly nodded your head and turned towards Chimney. You dropped your arm while doing that. “Uhm.. Yeah we know each other from-“

“College,” Buck interrupted you quickly. He was still shocked.

You only nodded your head to Buck’s words; you were shocked as well but not as much as he was.

“Wow. That’s interesting,” Hen mumbled to herself and got up to you. “Welcome to the 118. Chim already told me a lot of stuff about you,” she smiled at you and gave you a quick welcoming hug, which you returned. But your eyes were still glued on Buck.

The rest of the team, excluding Buck, welcomed you as well mostly with a handshake. Buck just nodded and slightly smiled at you. Things were slightly awkward now since there was a lot to explain and to be told between Buck and you. Especially because this had to be done in private, which was the reason why you didn’t really talk with each other. But Buck still made sure to listen to what you were telling and talking about with the others from the team. Even Bobby noticed Bucks staring after the first hour you were there and decided to invite you to stay as long as you want. You even stayed longer for his infamous lasagne, Chimney told you about it already. It tasted amazing but sitting right in front of Buck didn’t help you at all.

Especially because his eyes were still fixed on you. Even Eddie and Hen slightly nudged him to stop staring at you which only helped for like one second until he started staring again. You tried to ignore it but you did catch him a few times. He just couldn’t believe that you were sitting in front of him, here. His thoughts were pure chaos at this point. All he could think about was if you hated him for leaving you without explaining or saying anything. Were you mad at him? He certainly hoped you didn’t but he knew he’d deserve it. Buck wanted to talk to you in private but at work, there was no way it could happen. The one time you were almost alone together, a call for a fire came in. Which resulted in leaving you alone at the station. When the team got back from the fire, you were already back home. But left a little ‘thank you’ note for Chimney inviting you and Bobby for cooking such delicious food.

“You can tell them that they’re always welcome here,” Bobby told Chimney after Buck read out loud the note from you. Buck sighed, how could he talk to you without having to ask Chimney or Maddie for your number? If he wouldn’t find a way, he would do it but he didn’t want them to ask too many questions.

It was already enough to see Chimneys face filled with curiosity. He sure would talk with Maddie about the encounter between you and Buck once he was home. Buck knew he would have a talk with Maddie about you. He talked with her a few times about you already and how much he regretted his decision to leave without saying at least goodbye to you. And especially he needed to ask her how the hell she met you and why Maddie never considered mentioning you at least once.

So, to see a note falling out of his locker surprised Buck a lot. He bent down to pick it up and once he read the words his lips turned into a small and cheeky smile. It was a note from you with your telephone number and a small text added underneath.

“If you want to catch up, just text me whenever you want :) - Y/N/N”

Bucks smile grew even more after he read the nickname you added at the end. He basically gave it to you one evening while you watched your favourite movie and were too distracted with kicking each other out of fun and shared laughs. Despite having started your dynamic with the rule of only making out with each other, you two grew close but never talked about your actual feelings towards each other. Which made it even more sad that you lost contact with each other. But maybe that was what you both exactly needed to grow. Buck was curious to know how you’ve been and what you’re doing now. He would be lying if he would say he never found himself thinking about you over the past years, you never really left his thoughts at all. There were many times where he cursed himself for losing or especially leaving you without saying goodbye. He always imagined the moment where you both see each other again and that you would hate him but after seeing you today, he wasn’t sure if that was real. Now knowing that you gave him your number had to mean something. Buck definitely didn’t want to fuck up a possible second chance with you. He just hoped you would feel the same about him, which you certainly did.

Hen watched Buck go away with such a big smile she hasn’t seen on his face for a while now. She started smiling a bit in slight hopes it had something to do with you after all. Buck was on his way back home and the only thing that was on his mind was you. For the whole drive and even after he was at home for hours. His phone was laying on top of his bed and he walked his room up and down, he needed to decide if he is going to text you. Or well, how he should text you because he wanted to do it. He just didn’t want to embarrass himself. After a while he fell asleep with his phone in his hands, not noticing that he accidentally sent you a selfie while being half asleep. The moment you got his message you chuckled and opened the picture. You replied to him in a flirty but joking manner and closed the messages app afterwards. You fell asleep right after it and woke up to a reply from Buck. He apologized for sending such a picture to you but you admitted to him that you thought it was cute anyways.

And that’s how it ended for both of you. Talking and sending each other many messages. Most of them were filled with teasing and joking. You both were happier than usual and this came with teasing from your co-workers and the 118. Buck was on his phone more than usual and smiling from ear to ear. Obviously, the others noticed that and started teasing him with the worst possible things you can imagine.

“You know who he’s texting with?” Hen asked Chimney while they looked over to the lovebird looking at his phone.

Chimney smirked and nodded, “I guess it must be Y/N, they have been smiling more the last time they were over.”

Hen chuckled, “Of course, it would be them. Who else?”

Eddie joined them, “But don’t ask him about it, he’s quiet like a grave.” Chimney laughed at his comment and focused back on drinking his coffee.

But tonight, was the first time you’d hangout for the first time since you met each other at the station. It has been one week since then and you were nervous to meet him. Of course, it has been fun and nice talking with him over texts but seeing him in person was something else. It was night-time and you were getting ready for the ‘not-‘date with Buck. You were talking with Maddie on your phone, you needed her to help pick out an outfit. After what seemed like an eternity, you finally decided on your outfit, it was elegant but still comfortable for you to wear. It was good enough for staying outside even after the sunset. Maddie wished you good luck and said your goodbyes to each other. With the help of Eddie, Buck was able to choose a perfect outfit as well. He chose one of his white striped shirts, he remembered that you were really fond of one of his shirts that was similar to the one he’s wearing this time. He really hoped you’d like it. Right when you were about to leave Buck texted you, asking if you were on your way. You replied with a selfie, wearing your coat and a smile on your lips. You put your phone into your pockets and left your apartment.

Ten minutes later you got to the place where you were about to meet Buck. He was already standing there, nervously waiting for you. You tapped his shoulder and he immediately turned around.

His lips turned up in a smile. “H-hey,” Buck was immediately calmer.

“Hello there,” you smiled at him. It grew even more after he held a small flower to you. It was your favourite one. You took it and held it happily. “Wait I didn’t get you something.”

Buck shook his head. “It’s fine. You’re here, that’s..” he took a breath to think about his next words. “That’s all I need.”

You smiled at him again and took his arm after he held it out to you as well. You were walking through the park for a few minutes. They were filled with a comfortable silence but you took the turn to break it.

“How long have you been living here now?”

Buck looked at you but your eyes were focused on the flower he gave you. “For a few years now. Since.. You know I got kicked out of college I did many different things and well, ended up here.”

You chuckled and looked up to meet his eyes. “As long as you were happy.”

“Well.. Certainly.”

“Oh, is there something you want to tell me, Buckaroo?” You raised your eyebrows in a teasing manner.

He chuckled at the nickname. You used to call him that a few times back then. “Well.. I almost died. One or two times? My ex-girlfriend left me. Well, she left the whole country and didn’t really break up with me, only that I had to find out she was engaged. Everything while we had to clear out a train crash and I had to save her fiancé. Oh, and let’s not forget that I have a dead brother. Which I only found out a few months ago.”

You stopped walking and your mouth was open. When you asked him if he had to tell you something, you clearly didn’t expect anything of that.

“You.. It’s okay, I’m fine after all. I guess,” he mentioned.

“Damn. I didn’t expect things like that, Buck. I thought maybe you would say something like that you adopted a dog or a cat like you always wanted but… That?” You looked at him with soft eyes. “And you almost died? How can you say this so easily?!”

“I admit, they weren’t my best times but after all everything worked out. Even if I had to file a lawsuit against..” You were already shocked enough, which caused him to stop. “You know, that is something I could tell you later. What about you? Did you almost die once or twice?” He nudged you with his arm and continued to walk with you.

It took you a few moments to gather back your mind after all these news. A lawsuit? You definitely would find the time to ask him about that later.

“Well, I guess I finished college and just decided to move here. And no, I never got the opportunity to experience dying. I think I’ll leave that for you,” you smirked which caused him to chuckle again.

You spent two more hours talking about many different things. Up from Buck slowly finding his way into cooking and photography, that you’re looking for a job in your actual degree, and many more other themes you could spend hours talking about. It was a wonderful and comfortable time. Buck made sure that you felt safe and comfortable the whole time even when you were not looking all he focused on was just you. He missed hearing and seeing your smile and laugh. The way you sometimes moved your head backwards or subtly touched his arm because of his (bad) jokes. You talked about the fact that you knew Maddie and Chimney already but never found out that Maddie was his sister. You both found that hilarious. Overall, nothing had changed between you. Only you both individually, and in those few hours you felt happier than ever. And you got your answer, you truly had grown over the past few years and it was much needed. You felt safer in yourself, were stronger and well and the love you held deep down in your heart for Buck was still there. He walked you home this night and both of you were standing in front of your closed apartment door.

“It was nice, Buck. I haven’t had so much fun for a while now,” you smiled at him which he obviously returned.

“It was beautiful, Y/N. But I have to tell you something else and I.. I don’t know if that c-can wait any longer,” he stuttered. He was nervous you could tell.

You took his hand in a comforting way. “You can tell me anything if you feel the need for it, Buck. It’s okay.”

“You know... Maybe we could go out some time again. But m-maybe... You know as a-“ He stopped himself.

Your smile grew. “As a what? Hm?” You raised your eyebrow with a smirk now.

He looked into your eyes. You could see the hope he had in his own eyes. “As a date? Maybe?”

You stepped one step closer to him and kissed his cheek. “I’d love to.”

[losing-dog-art]

I just drafted all of this then lost it I'm going through a wall

Finished murderbot concept!!!

With bonus version with clothes 🎉

I have been making a lot of art lately (this is because I am procrastinating other things 😶)

Explanations below the cut (there was going to be a video but tumblr decided to fuck that)

So I have this old post about some head cannons for MBs appearance, but doing this full body design involved more thinking

I find it interesting that MB really only ever describes it's appearance when it's relevant to the plot/fight/scene, so anything that isn't relevant is left to our imagination. That being said:

MB says all it's inorganic parts are covered by a long sleeve shirt with a collar, pants and shoes. This means no inorganic parts on its face or hands

MB says it has no organic parts on its feet.

Slightly deeper cuts but MB mentions that it has inorganic and organic parts around its knees (I believe in exit strategy) and that it has an accessible company under its ribs (artificial condition)

People are often surprised when they see MB out of armor -- people who aren't familiar with secunits don't expect it to look as human as it does

MBs skin is canonically clear af (network effect I think)

Based on those handful of canon details, you can imagine Mb a lot of different ways -- this is great! And I've said before I think Martha Wells does this very much intentionally. So, that being said, here is some of my thoughts in this interpretation:

Based on that last point, MB looks surprisingly human. For me, this means soft facial features, eyelashes, and more organic parts than you might expect. Also, the inorganic parts are also round and nice looking -- this is partly just me thinking in a fun sci-fi way but also secunits are designed to be comforting

I've seen some people give it mechanical legs that are kind of bird-like or resemble running prosthetics. I think this is super cool and it makes a lot of sense-- those legs are basically a better form of bipedalism and let you run faster etc. BUT they would significantly change your gait. And thus be something MB considers when it is trying to pass as human. So I gave it more human feet, with the important toes and everything

I'm no expert on robotics or anatomy, but I really tried to think a little bit functionally. How would a secunit fold? How would it bend over, squat down, etc? I tried to give the look of some kind of shock system in the ankles, and conical-axis based joints. the hip area is probably the weak point in my design in this areas, idk, imagine ball bearings or something

For clothes, it's pretty straightforward. MB describes this more than a few times, but I tried to give some slightly fun sci-fi decoration bits

I tried to think about how androgyny might be generated in a silhouette in an unintentional way -- androgyny that is the result of functional design decisions and not aesthetic ones.

Idk. I had a lot of fun with this. This took about 4 hours (I've been trying not to overwork stuff lately and let the process show through) I might try and post the speed-draw video later? As a reblog perhaps. Idk Tumblr didn't like it the first time

Also a girl on bumble mentioned reading all systems red and I had to act so normal

[annab-nana]

Hi Anna!🥺 I have a request for your winter wonderland sleepover🥺

Scenario: told parents about SO and now you have to rope someone into it for the holiday with Eddie🥺🥺

please i love this request sooo much!!

warnings: not proofread

❀ masterlist ❀

why?

that was the only question you could ask yourself as you hung up the phone.

why?

why in the world did i do that?

why did i say that?

you had to talk this out with someone and there was only one person who could help you make sense of this. so, you got in your car and drove to the trailer park.

"hey- woah," eddie started to greet you when he opened the door, but you were on a mission, beelining it to his bedroom. he just shut the door and followed you there. when he passed through the doorway into his room, he saw you lying on your back on his bed with your hands covering your face.

being your best friend, he could normally sense if the issue at hand was a more serious one or a dramatized one. today, he was picking up the vibe that it was the latter, so he crawled into bed beside you and copied your actions.

"why are we laying here like this?" he asked out loud, his voice muffled by his own hands.

when you responded, he couldn't make out many of the words you'd said. "can you repeat that? i only got because, christmas, and parents."

you lifted your palms up off your mouth but kept your eyes hidden by your fingers. "because i'm an idiot. i didn't want my family nagging me again about not having a boyfriend yet, so i told them there is someone when there isn't so now, i have to find someone in the next two weeks or show up at my parents' house with no one and get interrogated even more so than i would've if i had just kept my mouth shut."

once done with your explanation, you let your palms drop back down over your mouth and groaned into them. your body rolled over onto your stomach and closer to eddie. he moved onto his side and brought his hand to your back.

"hey," he started softly while rubbing between your shoulder blades in a comforting manner. "i'm sure it'll work itself out. how many times have you gotten yourself into something and figured a way out? too many to count, so i don't doubt you'll do it again."

suddenly, you lifted your head out of your hands and looked at him, a mischievous glint in your eye.

"that's your not-very-good-idea face," eddie commented. "i'm a little worried."

"i don't know what you're talking about. i only come up with great ideas and i've got another right now. but, it'll take some convincing."

"just spit it out already."

"you love me, don't you, eddie?"

"okay, now you're scaring me."

"well, i was thinking you could step in and be my fake boyfriend for the holidays, just to get my family off my back, you know. you don't have to kiss me or anything. at most, you'll have to hold my hand or kiss my forehead or be close to me. but, it's perfect because you know me so well already. we'll just have to come up with a backstory. eddie, i'll do whatever to make it up to you whether that be do your laundry, help with d and d stuff, do your homework, whatever, but pleas-"

eddie cut you off. "i'll do it."

you weren't expecting it to be that easy. "really?"

"yeah, why not? wayne's working on christmas so i'm free anyway and based on the stories you tell, i've always wanted to meet your uncle charlie. i get something to do on christmas and get to hang with my best friend. i would've said yes before the whole speech, but now that i know i can get some stuff out of you, i might cash in some of those favors later."

you jumped to wrap your arms around him. "oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, eddie! you don't know how much a relief this is."

"yeah," eddie spoke, trying to ignore the way his heart was racing. that was the one thing he forgot about before agreeing to this whole thing. it was going to be hard to keep his crush on you hidden, but for you, he would risk it all. "no problem."

remember to support writers & reblog :)

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tag list: @fiction-is-life @jellyfishbeansontoast

[runabout-river]

Thoughts on JJK chapter 264 (spoilers)

You know sometimes you just want to strangle Gege for hype endings of the last chapter that are going to be nullified in the next. It gets frustrating so close to a (possible) end of the fight but this time you can excuse it somewhat because the explanation and character feats make sense 😬

Angel's current JL even though it is maximum output is weaker than before because with one arm less her CE can't be channeled 100% from her body to her cursed tool. In other words, Sukuna can brace himself against it scale up to kill Angel

Remarkably, Sukuna calls Angel by her name and we haven't even seen what she looked like. Heian flashback??

Just like against Mahito, Todo simply gets back up after his CT dies. What a champ. Sukuna gets a BF though that isn't immediately negated by Yuji's soul punch

Angel and Todo are seemingly out, Yuta is still lying on the ground somewhere until his CT burnout ends but we still have the weaker good guys standing around and Maki is also there

Sukuna is not beating the Cute™ allegations

It's interesting that JL is active for this long and Yuji, who's drenched in Sukuna's CE is also affected by it but that doesn't hinder him at all

Yuji does get a punch in but it doesn't disrupt Sukuna's recovery of his CE output. This could be because Yuji just left Angel's attack which hindered him in using dismantle.

Yuji isn't beating the Cute™ allegations either with the lines and scissors of his technique. I can already hear the sound effect the anime will add to it. Snip snip

So Sukuna gets his arms back and looks like he's about to overpower Yuji once more. But you know what I thought while reading the chapter? That Sukuna had an awful lot of inner thoughts.

Sukuna never get this much thought bubbles and he's confident of his success to boot? Something is going to go sideways for him, definitely.

And look, we get a flashback about the first time we saw a DE with blindfold Gojo. But it's not like Sukuna needs that flashback, he knows more than anyone how they're made. So... why did this particular image appear in his mind?

Because Yuji

I've seen explanations of Yuji's handsign. I'll link or reblog them later.

The biggest problem for Sukuna is now the Sure hit but he knows Hollow Wicker Basket and has all his arms back so the fight should continue as it started but....

It's so nostalgic seeing Itadori Sukuna 😤

This probably answers the question we had when Sukuna took over Megumi's body. How does his soul look like now? Like Megumi? Or still like Yuji?

Yuji it is.

The setup here is also reminiscent of Gojo's airport scene with Sukuna now in Gojo's place

But is this Yuji's domain or is it one of those fake memories like Todo and Choso had??

As a reminder, not only does Yuji induce strange dream sequences into others but so does Sukuna. We've seen it with Jogo and Kashimo. What we haven't seen is if Sukuna is actually aware of them happening. He might very well be like Yuji with no idea that sth happened.

The difference with Yuji's and Sukuna's induced dreams are that with Yuji they're uninvolved sequences that still speak to the receivers' (Todo/Choso) hearts. For Sukuna they're a last talk with the receiver being fully conscious and able to speak their minds however they wish.

This looks like Sukuna will be fully conscious... But Yuji won't?

It's not like Yuji isn't affected by these dreams though. After Todo's he said that he was in strange place during the Hanami fight where he also called Todo his brazaa. Those fake memories probably affected Yuji subconsciously as well.

So, my guess is that this last scene where Sukuna and Yuji are probably going to have some heavy talking happen to them, is a dream. The real fight might actually be happening simultaneously while they... don't really resolve their character conflict that has been build up since the beginning of the manga. But they might build on top of it.

My second guess for the end of the this arc with how this is set up now, is that Sukuna will get backstabbed by Kenjaku. He will most likely involuntarily become part of the merger which will mean that this fight (and the talk) won't have a proper winner. That part will become Megumi's arc then.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What do you think about opinions that Chloe’s development was ruined in season 3 finale because Thomas didn’t like that viewers like her more than Marinette? I Don’t think that it’s true, but it gave me idea that Thomas ruined Chloe’s already few character development because viewers liked her more than Gabriel.

I've heard this theory before and it seems like a massive stretch to me. It's always possible, but I don't feel comfortable making accusations like this without some hard evidence and I've yet to see any, though it's not like I follow this guy on Twitter or anything. My knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes is all based on random things that make their way to my Tumblr feed. So if someone has hard evidence, feel free to reblog and add it, but the most likely explanation is just bad writing. Why ascribe malice when incompetence makes just as much sense and requires a lot less motivation?

Think about what this accusation is actually saying. It's claiming that an adult man willfully ruined a major element of his passion project (or even just the show that he's known for, meaning that it will define his future career) because he was salty that people liked a character that he created. That seems like a conspiracy theory take to me.

It's also not like Thomas has full creative control of the show! Head writers have power, but they rarely have total power. They're still employees and a ton of things happen between an episode being written and the final version being aired. Producers, directors, censors, and many others usually okay a script prior to an episode being animated because that's the most expensive element. Plus it's not like he's the only one who wrote Chloe's story. Every season two and season three episode is credited to multiple writers. In other words, it seems like multiple people signed off on Chloe's story.

There's also the issue of the air dates. Queen Wasp and Miracle Queen first aired about twelve months apart (October 6 2018 vs October 15 2019). Production times for animated TV shows are about that long, which would mean that Miracle Queen was probably being written or was even already set in stone around the time that Queen Wasp aired. In other worlds, every element of Chloe's journey was probably at least sketched out before the audience ever saw it start. That would mean that nothing in that story was reactionary. It just doesn't fit the timeline.

While Chloe's season three ending was a total mess, it was hardly out of nowhere. It was glaringly obvious that Chloe couldn't stay Queen Bee from the moment that we met Queen Bee. You can't willfully out yourself to the world and expect to stay a hero (or, at least, that shouldn't be a thing Felix). I was honestly baffled when they gave her back the bee in Malediktator and relieved when Marinette finally acknowledged the problem in Miraculer:

Ladybug: I'm sorry, Chloé. I should've told you this a long time ago. I might never be able to let you be Queen Bee again.

Which was, of course, the setup for Miracle Queen, further complicating this theory because it looks like less than a year passed between the world premieres of Queen Wasp and Miraculer (October 6 2018 vs May 15 2019).

I don't know if this made it to your Tumblr feed, but the Miraculous writing team announced that the writing for season six was done back in late March. The show won't air until sometime this winter, well over half a year later, because that's just how animation works and they've supposedly done things to make the animation process faster this season. I just don't see how this Chloe theory works or why it needs to be a thing when her bad writing falls perfectly in line with things like the absolute disaster that was season five. She wasn't a fluke, she was a warning of things to come.

As best I can tell, the entire Queen Bee plot was just an incredibly awkward and forced way to show how dangerous identity reveals were. Which isn't a bad plot to have, but don't do that plot and then let a bunch of other temp heroes keep their miraculous post reveal! Writers, what are you even doing?

If you want my best guess answer to that, then I don't think that the writers planned to make their story feel massively hypocritical. I think that they just did a dumb writing mistake that I've seen multiple shows do: they wrote a really cool cliffhanger ending without planning how to make that ending work in the following season. And there was no way to really make the ending work, so they end up just kind of ignoring it.

The reason why this happens is pretty simple. Most shows try to end their seasons on cliffhangers so that fans will come back for the next season. It's extremely rare to have a solid happy ending that ties everything together. This can lead to writers making questionable calls because they're pressed for time and have to come up with something that will keep the fans wanting more even if that thing makes no sense. It can also lead to writers making questionable calls because they DO have a plan for how the cliffhanger will play out, but when it comes time to actually put that plan into action, it gets shut down and now they have to scramble to make the nonsense work.

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that, as much as I like the concept of a redeemed Chloe joining the team, it was pretty clearly never going to happen in canon. The writing only backed that read for a brief moment at the start of season two where we got a handful of episodes that made Chloe feel less like a cookie-cutter mean girl and more like a true character, but then the Chloe plot really got going and I was just waiting for the inevitable fiery end. I actually thought that Chloe was going to be treated as a tragic character and become a true villain in season four. Instead we got utter nonsense that tossed her character all over the place to the point where I have no idea what they're even trying to do with her.

[oshinohoshi]

What do Ai's words in ch 154 say about her?

I thought I said all I wanted to say about the Hikaru/Ai breakup in this post but I want to comment on something major I glossed over: Ai bringing up Taiki, and therefore Hikaru's sexual assault, before she left.

I've had to mull it over because (without some of the context provided below) it's just so out of character. Ai started her breakup speech with "being with you forever is too much for me," followed that up by stating that Hikaru's child born from molestation was too tough, and ended with "I can't love you." Talk about psychological damage. If I was him, I'd be curled up on the floor sobbing. I'm sure he was.

Just look at the below panel. Fifteen years later, he framed Taiki's birth as something he did. That's devastating.

BUT I'm coming back to critically alter this post (sorry to anyone who liked/reblogged it already) because the lovely @aihoshiino provided some important context about Ai's words being vaguer and less harsh in Japanese. I have pasted this as bullet points at the end of this post and it's far more important than anything I have to say, so if you want to stop here and just read that, I highly encourage it.

To summarize: In English, it sounds more like Ai blamed Hikaru for Taiki, whereas in Japanese it's vaguer and not as cruel. Which isn't to say Ai did nothing wrong when she glibly walked away, but it's far more in line with her character.

But there's still the question of why say this at all. Didn't Ai realize that "I can't love you" was enough? Why bring up the worst thing that ever happened to him, the very thing that broke him so badly she felt he couldn't raise their kids?

She may have wanted him to hate her, thereby setting him free of the supposed burden of herself and her pregnancy. It was also a convenient lie. Unfortunately, it was one Hikaru easily swallowed because that was already how he felt about himself.

She said in the DVD that she thought he'd be OK once she was gone. I do wonder if she really thought that or just hoped so. After all, she later felt that a whopping 15 years later he might still be struggling. Either way, it worked to chase him away.

Did Ai blithely say something hurtful and uncalled for that caused lasting damage? Yes. Was she a teenager who couldn't communicate her emotions, ran away from conflict to protect herself, and had a traumatic childhood that influenced her developmentally? Also yes. Not to mention, she was dealing with an emotionally dependent boy and an unplanned pregnancy. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation.

Even if we were to ignore the subtleties I mentioned and view this in the worst possible light, saying a horrible thing you don't mean doesn't make you a horrible person.

Hikaru gets Ai's characterization mostly right in the below panel but he's wrong if he thinks Ai's cruel words were an accurate representation of her.

Finally, I think getting hung up on what we, as people who don't have the lived experience of Ai, would do in her shoes is missing the point. The idea isn't to judge Ai as innocent or not innocent. Instead, we are invited to see that Ai was a loving person but she was also human and humans sometimes fuck up badly.

A good chunk of the manga focuses on the complex relationships between characters as well as their relationships with their inner selves. This chapter touches on both. Hikaru misunderstood Ai's intentions and Ai failed to understand her own feelings for him or what to do about it. The reader, meanwhile, if they were clinging to any misconceptions of Ai as some kind of saint, is forced to reconcile with who Ai really was.

The below is the context I mentioned from @aihoshiino. I'm just gonna paste this word for word from Claire:

Ai's words aren't quite as pointedly cruel in Japanese. Her line in Japanese that mangaplus translates as "I can't even, that's too tough, I can't bear it" is '無理無理、流石に それは キツいって、背負え ないよ!` Which is more like, "No way, no way, that's too hard, it's too much to carry"

Importantly, she does not specify who cannot carry this weight

The only time she specifically talks about herself is when she says `子供も･･･うーん 私じゃ難しいかな` which mangaplus tled as "about the baby, it's difficult for me too" and ig that's not WRONG but the tone is kind of off. In Japanese there's more of the sense that she's saying that she, herself, is not up to the task, that she's lacking, she wouldn't be able to do it VS the situation (and Kamiki with it) being in of itself the problem

Basically mangaplus's TL is not incorrect in strict text but does kind of mistranslate the spirit of the exchange imo

It makes Ai more pointedly cruel and self-centred whereas the Japanese text imo is more in line with the thoughtless, innocent cruelty she hurt Nino with

The wording of the Japanese text makes it clear that this was a misunderstanding and Kamiki took the worst possible interpretation of it because he hates himself

That's why Aqua frames Kamiki as being punished for "not understanding her"

Because if he really, truly understood Ai like he said, why would he be so comfortable assuming for nearly 20 years that she would have meant something that cruel?

Thanks Claire!! Saving the fandom one translation at a time.

[riddledeep]

FOP Sideblog Update - Sept. 2024

Hi! This lovely ol' sideblog's been tidied up in light of A New Wish! I have a new AU for New Wish works. Let's talk about it!

Main blog - @fountainpenguin

My FFN - My AO3

Sideblog masterpost

Housekeeping Updates

- New avatar - @zachbrightside and I updated our FOP sonas. Tossed the headcanon'd honorary pixie hat on mine! :) Shout-out to that one kid in "School of Crock" who wore this hat with no explanation. And squared my gal's wings! Experimented with pink and purple hair options, but I like the brown too much to change.

- Fixed all broken masterpost links - Checked 3 or 4 times, so let me know if you find something wrong.

- Added things to the masterpost that weren't there (Ex: Art section)

- Combed through every post and changed the bullet point system so they're easier to read, following format update from several years ago that condensed the spacing between bulleted items.

-> As part of this, I've used indents and dashes in place of bullets in many posts. I've also added periods on otherwise blank lines to force blank space, as the blank space is another thing we lost during that format update.

-> This is so posts will look better on the dashboard. The dots may seem odd when viewed directly on the blog, but it definitely makes it easier to not lose my place while editing long posts. Also, they should be more readable now than they would be if they're reblogged to others' dashboards without this change.

- I combed through the short bios and long profiles and divided paragraphs more. There were many bulky paragraphs that have now been divided in a way that should make posts - especially these big profiles - easier to read.

-> Cleaned the "Appearances" sections of the long profiles. They used to list each 'fic that character is in, but now they have a labeled AO3 link to works written by me that include that character. Sleek, clean, and automatically updates!

- Shout-out to me having Dale Dimmadome already down as one of H.P. and Sanderson's past godkids 5+ years ago. I knew that was my headcanon, but I did not remember that was on his profile and I'm glad it was, haha... oh no. I don't know what my plan is for that in light of New Wish, but I'll figure it out.

- Changed posts that called my canon Riddleverse Classic to say Cloudlands AU, since that's the new name for my series. Left the name Riddleverse for posts that encompass multiple AUs.

-> Updated my Icebreaker post with this and other new info

- Deleted any posts tagged as "Delete later"

- I have a lot of long profiles and other posts saved to my drafts from years ago. Once Tumblr shifted to the new format (including with the queue), it became so distressing and ever-changing that I struggled a lot to find my footing.

Ex: They took away line dividers, which I thought was frustrating since I used those on my long posts and found them helpful. I was holding out hope they'd return. - Some posts (like my wing refs and the giant 20k-word class overviews) kept getting flagged if I edited them, and I was worried I'd lose my stuff or have the account deleted - Back then, the queue would only tell me which day of the week something was posting, not which month or day. It was just overwhelming to create a schedule or keep track of my stuff, so I took a break from Tumblr in general.

These days, I'm much more comfortable with the editor and my queue is now more specific about deadlines. I look forward to posting here again!

I won't be on a schedule, and the big character profiles do take a lot out of me, but my plan back in the day was to release one a month. Might be able to get to there! If not, maybe the short bios.

Future of this FOP Sideblog

- More worldbuilding posts! I let this blog sit a long time because I felt like I'd said all my worldbuilding and the only thing to do now was profiles and bios (which I was reluctant to prioritize when I felt "behind" in my 'fics).

However, I found some things I'd never moved to this blog, such as my notes on aging. I'd like to post that and others I found.

- No longer hesitant about sharing stuff for "weird" characters or OCs. I had a post about celebrity kids (Poof's age and younger) that I never posted because I didn't think anyone would care about my headcanons for Simon Sparklefield (who only appears in one obscure episode I don't count as fully canon anyway) or Billy Crystal Ball (also obscure) but... Hey, that's why you're here, isn't it? So let's talk celebrities!

In other words, I'd like to bring this blog back as the unapologetic place to share my FOP things. We have references to canon characters and talk of OCs (like Hadley, Emery, Whistle, Soren, China, Anti-Saffron, Kalysta, Iris, Idona... List goes on.)

- This blog will have more polished fanart than the doodles from my main blog

- Polished 'fic cover images will be reblogged here. By this, I mean the posts I do on my main blog that outline what to expect from a 'fic. I won't reblog my general chapter announcements; I don't want to flood this blog with those.

- 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash's cover will be reblogged, but the posts for individual trains won't be. - Existing cover images will get new, polished posts for their 'fics before I reblog them here.

- I went through the blog and added the tag "Cloudlands AU" to many posts, apart from a few I'm still hesitant to edit (or where it didn't seem worth noting). Cloudlands AU refers to my lore for the 11 seasons of the main series (i.e. including the "Oh Yeah!" shorts), and this is what my sideblog was meant for.

- The reason for this new tag is to separate it from City Lights AU: my new AO3 series for works about New Wish. These works are not compliant with Cloudlands AU, which was designed years ago.

Ex: Peri and Irep will get a short bio on this blogged tagged as City Lights AU to explain what we're setting up for their characters over there, distinct from the existing short bio for Poof and Foop in Cloudlands AU (who are very well established in their arcs). In other words, I'm not rewriting Cloudlands AU canon to fit with A New Wish, but I still want to write works for New Wish. Expect bios and art for Hazel and Dev here someday (and others).

The next thing I post will be Hadley's full character profile (now with updates that are compliant with A New Wish).

After that, I'll reblog my Cloudlands AU and City Lights AU guides to this blog so they'll be under their tags and on the masterlist.

When that's all done, I'd like to knock out full character profiles for Dale, Dev, and Hazel when I can (in addition to finishing my drafts for Cosmo, Wanda, Poof, and Foop). Long, slow process, but it would be cool to have those things done by the end of 2024 or early 2025.

Feeling decent about my idea for Hazel's birthdate. I have nice options for Dev, but no commitment until Zach and I nail down where "Operation: Birthday Takeback" goes in our New Wish timeline. Enjoying the process so far! -> Dev's b-day is QUITE the toss-up between options like "National Day of Unplugging," "Plant a Lemon Tree Day," and the absolutely golden combo of "Pizza Party & Virtual Assistants Day." And perhaps others we've not investigated!

I think that's everything! Hopefully, this is the last "blog news" announcement we have for a while, and the blog can return to being a landing spot for fanart and story meta.

As always, the sideblog's Asks are closed as I want to maintain a consistent feel for this blog. You can reach out to my main blog (Askbox here) if you want to ask a worldbuilding question.

Additionally, I'm interested in following other people's worldbuilding / AUs so I can engage more with the community, especially those passionate about FOP worldbuilding. -> I'm open to self-advertisement if you want to shoot me an Ask on my main blog telling me where I can find your work! -> I'd prefer to follow a blog that is primarily for FOP worldbuilding / art / 'fics (or subscribe to an AO3 series for FOP works), but I'm open to consideration if your blog is multi-fandom! My preference: Thoughtful takes on characters and world that dig deeper than just ship art / ship 'fics- Nothing against shipping, but I'm more interested in character analyses and worldbuilding. Bonus points for a focus on miserable children, Dale lemonade trauma, Pixies, or Timmy growing up to lose his memories and live an average human life. If you don't fit this, you can still recommend your AU and I'll check it out, but that's my wishlist :) Also, if there's anyone who makes Timmy/Molly content, you are my hero and should totally link me your work.

It's such an honor to see so many followers of this sideblog despite its long absence! To those of you interested in staying with me as we enter this next phase, thank you very much - it means a lot to me - and I hope you enjoy browsing!

And to anyone who's lost interest, thank you for spending time while you were here <3

One last note - My goal has always been to reblog others' fanart for my 'fics here, but most of them are still sitting in my drafts, unreblogged. I'll queue those up. I'm always delighted to receive gift art! Feel free to tag @riddledeep and I'll reblog it here! Same goes for gift 'fics, so don't hesitate to share!

[ughgoaway]

Potential conflicts for the I love you blurb/fic

1. Annie gets injured at school. Proper injured and has to be taken to hospital. Matty loses it completely, snapping at everything and everyone, including reader. He snaps at her and reader starts to cry (she feels like absolute shit and Matty is clearly not helping) and goes to hide in the bathroom. Once Matty is told that Annie will be alright, he goes and tries to talk to reader, but she's still shaken and doesn't wanna talk to him. He tries to apologise, and in his apology, he says that he loves her.

2. Reader starts hanging out with an old friend of her, maybe a high-school friend or something like that. Matty gets jealous but doesn't say anything at first. Then Annie tells him how reader brought her friend to class and he thought them about whatever it is that he does (maybe he's a firefighter or something that kids think is cool). Matty, like the little shit that he is, instead of communicating his discomfort, he starts distancing himself from reader. When she, tired and confused by his antics, approaches him to ask for an explanation, things get heated, and they start going at each other. When Matty suggests that she's cheating on him, she says something like: Are you stupid? Why would I cheat on you if I love you?

both of these are very, very good. I love them!!! I wanna give my thoughts on both, but I only have the energy for one rn, so here that is! and when I come back and add more, I'll reblog this lol <3

(no proofreading, just vibes)

okay, I'm gonna alter the first one a lil' and maybe make it sadder... apologies, but I promise it ends nice <3

I can see Annie falling off a swing at school and breaking her arm. matty gets the phone call and drops EVERYTHING.

he gets to school and the nurses office and sees you sat with Annie and she's sniffling and holding her arm, her eyes red from crying.

matty runs in, and as soon as Annie sees him, she days, "Daddy?" and then bursts into tears, matty actually feels his heart splinter into 1000 pieces and comes rushing over and holding her, shushing her and stroking her head as it rests against his chest.

"What happened?" he says it kind of angrily, but you brush it off just assuming he's stressed.

"Oh, don't worry too much," you can see matty is annoyed at your words, but you still shake it off and contuine. "Annie was just swinging a little too high and fell off the swing. the nurse says her arm might be broken, so you need to take a little trip to a&e. you'll be okay though, won't you Annie?" As you ask you stretch your arm to stroke her head, but matty jerks her away from you, and you shoot your head up to look at him questioningly.

mattys jaw ticks before he sighs and starts angrily whispering, and if Annie wasn't there, you're sure he'd be shouting. "she'll be okay? where were you? aren't you meant to be watching her? " he hissed.

you're a little taken aback and say, "Well, I was on the playground, but I can't be everywhere all at once, you know that"

matty immediately jumps down your throat and says, "It's your job to keep her safe, and look what's happened? just- go away. I'm taking her to a&e now." he sighs angrily and scoffs at the tears brewing in your eyes and walks off.

as soon as the door clicks shut, you start sobbing, sitting down on the chair with your head in your hands. I'm talking like full snot bubbles aggressive crying.

hurting Annie is your worst fucking nightmare, and you felt guilty enough before matty came in here acting like a dick. you try to be mad at him but you can't help but just blame yourself.

it was your fault she fell. it was your fault she's hurt. you're to blame.

cut to hours later, Annie has a new cast and a lollypop in her mouth and quite honestly couldn't be happier. she got to choose the colour (stereotypical pink but she loves it) and all the staff signed it. she got a sticker and her favourite flavour of Lolly, as well as lots of fuss from everyone, so she's pretty chuffed.

she's looking forward to going to school tomorrow and getting everyone to sign her cast and ask lots of questions, "Did it hurt really bad???"No, but that's because my daddy says I'm really brave, so it would probably hurt you"

(she was crying for a good 45 mins from the pain, but he lets her live in delusion)

and once Annie is asleep in bed and matty is sat on the sofa left with only his own thoughts, he realises he was a fucking dick.

he says, "fuck" out loud and hangs his head down, he wants nothing more than to call you but he knows he should wait until he sees you in person. you haven't moved in yet, but you've been together a while so he could just go over to your place and beg for an apology but he can't bring himself to do it.

him and annie show up early to school. He leaves Annie in the library, showing all the librarians her cast and recounting her story. he sneaks off to your room to apologise.

he walks in, you look up and roll your eyes before going back to your work. overnight, you had gone from guilty to pissed off.

matty knew how much you love Annie, and yet he still treated you like you had personally thrown her off the swing.

"Look, I deserve that, I know. I was a dick yesterday, and I'm so sorry. " matty sighs as he walks over and leans on your desk beside you on your chair. you spin around with your arms cross and nod for him to contuine.

"Please forgive me, baby. I'm so sorry. seeing Annie hurt just broke my heart, and"

"And it didn't break mine? God matty you're such a fucking dick. you know I love her."

he waited for you to scream and shout more, just take it out on him, but you stay silent and stare.

matty was stressing out at your silence, so he did what he did best when stressed. He rambled.

"Please, you have to accept my apology. I've been killing myself the whole night. the way I spoke to you was just- awful. inexcusable. I know you love her, I love her too. and I love you so much. but the whole situation got on top of me and-" matty stopped when he felt your hand on his arm, and he finally had the guts to look you in your eyes and he once again saw them brimming with tears.

before he could stutter another apology, you stand up and hug him. Whilst he's confused, he just wraps his arms around you and hugs you.

he feels you mumble against him but can't quite make it out, "what was that, sweetheart?"

you pull back and give him a teary but happy smile and say, "I forgive you. and I love you too"

it's only then that matty realises what he said, and the look on his face has you giggling immediately. you bring your hands up and rest them on his cheeks.

"Love you," you say, making his eyes look at yours.

you see them soften before he says, "Love you too."

more blurbs from this au here :)

[mvrtaiswriting]

Patterns. x Portgas D. Ace ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :

hiii! it’s simping for ace hours and this might be the most tooth rotting piece I have written in a while. again, quite short - but god i adore it! and i hope you will too <3 do let me know in the comments!

gender neutral! no warnings. not proofread 

feel free to reblog, like, and leave a comment. i would very much appreciate it. if you enjoy my works, click here to read more or buy me a coffee.

“I wonder what happens if I connect all the dots.” you mumbled, running your fingers across Ace’s cheeks, touching every freckle and looking for a pattern. You always thought there was something special about Ace, something that went beyond the love you felt for him - it was like the universe let the two of you meet just at the right time. Your energies complemented each other in ways you never thought were possible - and during the most chaotic period of your life, Ace stumbled into your life. Weeks later you joined Whitebeard’s crew, mastering your newly acquired powers after eating a devil fruit gently offered to you by Pops himself, making love with your boyfriend away in your room when everyone was asleep.

Your life took a whole different turn since you were with Ace - it was like he saved you from something bigger than you; you didn't know what it was, certainly becoming a pirate was more dangerous than serving tables in your island but in all honesty, that could have really killed you. It was freedom you longed for, the wildness of piracy, sailing the sea not having any perception of geographical borders and discovering the world, one creature after the other. There was a whole universe outside the walls of your city, which now only was a faded memory. Ace took your hand and stole you from your motherland - and you never looked back, thanking him everyday for changing your life for the better. 

“Do you think they form something?” he asked giggling, crossing eyes as he tried to follow the movements of your fingers. You nodded in response, not even noticing the goofy expression on your boyfriend face. Laying on top of him, you laid your head on his pillowy chest, getting a perfect view of your lover’s cheeks. 

“I can’t believe it. There IS a pattern!” you screamed in excitement, getting up to take a better look at his face. Lightly squishing his face, you took a pen to connect the dots on his face. Ace remained silent, letting you draw over his face, admiring the little scrunch that formed on the bridge on your nose every time you focussed on something. 

“Pops taught me something about the constellation, and I never saw this one in the sky. I can’t believe it’s here.” you continued, visibly surprised.

“What? What is it?” he asked curiously. 

“The freckles on your cheeks somehow form the Pisces constellation!” you clapped your hands, proud of discovering this little gem hidden in Ace’s face. 

“It’s believed to be the hardest to spot in the night sky. According to the legend, it signifies the union between Aphrodite and Eros, the goddess of beauty and the god of love.” you added, circling the moles on his cheek that indicated the two gods. “I knew it. I knew it wasn’t just a coincidence.” 

Ace smiled happily, quickly wrapping his arms around you, wiggling both of your bodies side to side. “This is so cool!” he squeaked, peppering your face in kisses. “What. a. mind.” he added, emphasising every word he said. 

“This isn’t about me! You are the special one!” you laughed, his kisses slightly tickling you. 

“I would have never known if it wasn’t for you - is something really special if no one knows about it?” he flicked your forehead before you could even argue against it. 

You took a second to observe your boyfriend once again, the way the scribbles on his face exactly charted the rarest and most romantic constellation, out of them all. It was hard to believe in coincidences now; he truly was your soulmate, your twin flame, your other half. There was no other explanation. The connection between the two of you was instant - something clicked the first time his eyes locked with yours. And even if you destroyed everything when you decided to embark in this journey with him, something fell exactly into place as if it was always meant to be. Chaos became the only order things could have, and like the seemingly random freckles on his face, everything was now making sense. 

“I love you, fire fist.” you smiled, biting your bottom lip trying not to burst into tears. You couldn't explain it; you loved him before but somehow you loved him even more now. A new light shone upon everything as a new, intense wave of happiness overwhelming your heart.