#this is definitely a shitpost of some sort

[nostalgia-tblr]

fuck, i've solved it.

when u read fic and two guys with maybe an inch or two height difference are suddenly "toll and smol" and one has to tilt his head upwards to look the other in the eyes

it's because of the relativistic warping of spacetime isnt it?

the one nearer the ground is experiencing more science happening to him and that's made him look shorter than he appears in the photographs, which are edited by NASA to make the two guys more like they'd look if they were standing on the Earth.

(the gravity of the earth is, according to Alfred Einstein, "normal" and "objectively the correct amount of gravity, as measured by the objective observer from this objective frame of reference known as the earth")

this may also explain how a 30 year old woman can be "the mom" to male characters who are the same age as or older than her

IT WAS PHYSICS ALL ALONG. WE SHOULD HAVE PAID MORE ATTENTION TO THE PHYSICS.

[blaithnne]

This is their dynamic during and post S3

[permanentbottombunk]

I just heard a sound that was suspiciously similar to a cat jumping onto the coffee table while simultaneously barreling through everything on said table. Then the voice of my mother from the completely dark living room, "Boy. What the fuck?"

It is safe to assume that one of our cats, presumably Baby Boy, has made a grave error in the judgement of a jump.

[gothamcityneedsme]

chris avellone really likes making the actions necessitated by gameplay an aspect OF the player character, and i love that

[voidsentprinces]

...you know it was really good timing on life's part for it handing me the feel of getting tired with dating or trying to "chase" I guess? And finding out I was some grade of asexual. Like life is like, "No need for attraction or thirst...you weren't all that into this anyway." and I am just sitting here near 10 years later like, "Too right."

[imimikyu]

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Did you break any bones? Any bones, perhaps? Just a couple bones? If they're broken you won't be using them, right?

[brettanomycroft]

Sam fumbled Gwen’s Bonzo reveal… but he’d been primed to do so

I suspect that there's going to be a LOT of conversation around Sam after this episode, and since this episode was so good that I couldn't think of a meme or shitpost, I decided I'd throw my hat into the ring and do some character analysis instead. CW: Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol episode 18, "Solo Work" under the cut.

Episode 18 finally gave us the Sam and Gwen interaction I (and I think a lot of others) have been so desperate to finally see, and boy oh boy do I have Thoughts… none of which are new per se, but Sam’s reaction to Gwen dropping the Bonzo Bomb seems to have reinforced  the way I’ve been reading (and projecting in fanfiction oops) Sam, his personality, and his motivations.

Out of everyone new we’ve been introduced to so far, Sam has by far gotten the most explicit development and conversation around his personality. Even before episode 1, folks who participated in the ARG got a preview of our favorite baby shrimp’s personality through access to the child database spreadsheet that was, presumably, used to document the results of the experiments run on children participating in The Magnus Institute’s “gifted and talented program.” From this spreadsheet, we can gather that Baby Sam is logical, empathetic, works towards the benefit of others (prosocial), and fair… but also a rule follower and highly willing to follow the lead of an authority figure, even if it is in conflict with his personal views. The picture this information paints is an interesting one, but when taken in a vacuum leaves us with an impression of Sam as someone who is kind but lacking in backbone.

This idea of Sam as “kind but lacking in backbone” is further reinforced in canon, as Alice of multiple occasions rags on him for being “noodly” and “ickle fawn” and a “baby shrimp,” all seeming to highlight that Sam has the sort of helplessness about him typically ascribed to sopping wet kittens and baby birds. And I think that if we view Sam’s outburst when Gwen brings up Bonzo through this lens alone, it’s going to seem WAY out of character for him and a downright cruel response.

Now while I do believe that Sam is empathetic and fair and, sometimes, a little helpless, I’ve been inclined to believe from early on that much of Sam’s affable self-deprecation is a way to cover or soften what can be, at times, a tendency to be hard-headed, temperamental, a little manipulative, and petty (and I’m totally not just saying that as a people-pleaser-and-gifted-kid-in-recovery who has been projecting hard on Sam since Day 1). And it’s this second batch of personality traits, the ones that make Sam so real and interesting to me, that I think set up the disaster of a conversation between Sam and Gwen.

We have definitely seen hints of Sam’s hard-headedness and manipulative leanings in previous episodes: it comes out most often around Alice, showing his stubbornness in the form of refusing to give up his lines of questioning and curiosity about what is happening in the cases and at the OIAR; and revealing his willingness to manipulate a situation the form of subtly redirecting Alice’s focus away from prying into his crush on Celia and during the mocha incident (I have, of course, already explored Sam’s manipulative tendencies in my totally comprehensive shitpost).

And we’ve even been shown at times before episode 18 where Sam can be petty, his buzzed insistence that Alice try and keep things “professional” at work after his date with Celia being at the top of the list. The case headers filed for “Putting Down Roots” and “Pet Project” also suggest to me Sam’s ability to be stubborn and petty: in both instances, Alice and Gwen suggest a different classification than the one that Sam ultimately files. In the case of Gwen in “Pet Project,” she’s dismissive of him when he tries to ask if she’s all right.

While there’s no way to know for sure, I interpret this interaction as part of the reason why Sam ultimately disregarded Gwen’s suggestion for how to file the case—she shut him down and shut him out, and the petty part of his heart couldn’t resist ignoring her recommendation out of spite. This scene also begins to lay the foundations for Sam and Gwen’s interactions in episode 18 and, I suspect, the rest of the season.

So with all of this in mind, let’s look at episode 18. When Gwen emerges from Lena’s office, Alice has just finished shutting Sam down, again. Throughout most of this season, Sam has been desperate for some validation that the cases they are listening to are real, that whatever happened to him at The Magnus Institute was real, and that him pursuing this line of questioning and wanting to find answers isn’t a waste of his time. Alice has, of course, been not-so-gently nudging him away from this line of thinking for most of the season, while Gwen has been icing him out about it up until this point. Just about the only one who has given his questioning any air has been Celia who is, conveniently, not there. Even after Alice has her very own supernatural experience that is reaffirmed in the case Sam receives, she strongly pushes back on his idea that they should investigate and pursue this further. He understands why she doesn’t want to learn more, but it’s clear that he’s still frustrated at the end of the conversation.

Enter Gwen. Here, for the first time, it seems like she’s opening up about what is going on at the OIAR, and Sam is immediately hooked, even dropping his softer and sympathetic side when Alice tries to redirect with one of her classic barbs.

After being shut down time and time again, Sam is so eager for confirmation that there is more to all of this than meets the eye. And then Gwen says the B-word, and Sam loses it.

Sam is laughing here, but honestly? I think he’s angry, and his reaction is one of complete disbelief that Gwen would set him up like this just to, in his mind, take the piss out of him. He thinks that, at best, Gwen is having a breakdown and he’s once again being shut out or, at worst, Gwen is making a joke at his expense. Now, he’s used to being the butt of a joke thanks to being friends with Alice, but despite that we’ve never heard him call her an asshole the way he does Gwen. Temperamental and petty, turning around his hurt and anger over being stonewalled again and again to lash out at Gwen with his joke.

And honestly, can you blame him? (I can’t.)

Of course this wasn’t the ideal reaction. I have been waiting for Sam and Gwen to have a serious heart-to-heart about what’s going on forever, and Sam pretty much blew that chance without even realizing it. And I would be surprised if we get an apology out of him anytime soon, not only because this interaction is likely to push Gwen away from wanting to even be around Sam, but also because he’s not going to believe that Gwen wasn’t making fun of him or that Gwen isn’t having a delusional breakdown until he sees Mr. Bonzo with his own two eyes.

I also think this conversation would have gone very differently had Celia been there instead of Alice. Sam’s slew of psychological testing suggests he’s willing to follow the leader, and in this case he doesn’t seem immune to Alice’s general dismissiveness of Gwen. He may have even been primed to lash out at Gwen in this moment because Alice is constantly ragging on her; chameleon-like, he’ll take on the shade of the strongest personality when he’s on uncertain or dangerous footing. It’s almost a guarantee that Celia would have taken Gwen seriously, not only because she’s likely from or connected to the TMA-verse of horrors, but also because it was Celia who received the first Mr. Bonzo case. And had Celia been there to temper the disbelief, Sam would have absolutely been ready to hear Gwen out in full. I honestly cannot wait for Celia to be back in office; she’s going to walk in to these new, rancid office vibes like Troy from Community walking into the whole room on fire while casually carrying the pizza.

So, what do I think this means for the rest of the season? Well, the title of this episode seems telling: Solo Work. Gwen and Sam’s respective desires for their experiences to be validated and their goals to be taken seriously paired with the seeming dismissiveness of those around them are going to push them along their separate paths, dangerously alone. And I suspect that it is only going to be Celia or, more likely, an encounter with Bonzo, that is going to put them back on the same path—if it happens at all. Good luck, babes!

[evilwizard]

I do want to say, my views on AI “art” have changed somewhat. It was wrong of me to claim that it’s not wrong to use it in shitposts… there definitely is some degree of something problematic there.

Personally I feel like it’s one of those problems that’s best solved via lawmaking—specifically, AI generations shouldn’t be copywrite-able, and AI companies should be fined for art theft and “plagiarism”… even though it’s not directly plagiarism in the current legal sense. We definitely need ethical philosophers and lawmakers to spend some time defining exactly what is going on here.

But for civilians, using AI art is bad in the same nebulous sense that buying clothes from H&M or ordering stuff on Amazon is bad… it’s a very spread out, far away kind of badness, which makes it hard to quantify. And there’s no denying that in certain contexts, when applied in certain ways (with actual editing and artistic skill), AI can be a really interesting tool for artists and writers. Which again runs into the copywrite-ability thing. How much distance must be placed between the artist and the AI-generated inspiration in order to allow the artist to say “this work is fully mine?”

I can’t claim to know the answers to these issues. But I will say two things:

Ignoring AI shit isn’t going to make it go away. Our tumblr philosophy is wildly unpopular in the real world and most other places on the internet, and those who do start using AI are unfortunately gonna have a big leg up on those who don’t, especially as it gets better and better at avoiding human detection.

Treating AI as a fundamental, ontological evil is going to prevent us from having these deep conversations which are necessary for us—as a part of society—to figure out the ways to censure AI that are actually helpful to artists. We need strong unions making permanent deals now, we need laws in place that regulate AI use and the replacement of humans, and we need to get this technology out of the hands of huge megacorporations who want nothing more than to profit off our suffering.

I’ve seen the research. I knew AI was going to big years ago, and right now I know that it’s just going to get bigger. Nearly every job is in danger. We need to interact with this issue—sooner rather than later—or we risk losing all of our futures. And unfortunately, just as with many other things under capitalism, for the time being I think we have to allow some concessions. The issue is not 100% black or white. Certainly a dark, stormy grey of some sort.

But please don’t attack middle-aged cat-owners playing around with AI filters. Start a dialogue about the spectrum of morality present in every use of AI—from the good (recognizing cancer cells years in advance, finding awesome new metamaterials) to the bad (megacorporations replacing workers and stealing from artists) to the kinda ambiguous (shitposts, app filter that makes your dog look like a 16th century British royal for some reason).

And if you disagree with me, please don’t be hateful about it. I fully recognize that my current views might be wrong. I’m not a paragon of moral philosophy or anything. I’m just doing my best to live my life in a way that improves the world instead of detracting from it. That’s all any of us can do, in my opinion.

[abiding-by-the-laws-of-color]

OK hear me (ghost) out I enjoy their RSE designs (especially Maxie) but I thought a bit more details to look at wouldn’t hurt…

Referenced the RSE grunt/admin sprites for both of them, just to be consistent. Magma admins had the back part of their jacket things look like capes so… Maxie with a cape. Added a sash to Archie to make him feel more pirate-y without going full ORAS

Some headshots I did because I wanted to!

Some alt versions / what I headcanon as post-emerald under the cut. These are definitely inspired by a lot of fan designs too :).

Post-emerald version + Japanese RS logos because it’d be fun to imagine these as promo images and the sort.

Bonus shitposts, as one does:

-ghost

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Hello!! I'm new to this blog (been stalking your posts for an hour now and your content is so goooood) and new to the entire asking and stuff but I saw you have like little snippets of commenting on stuff and all or answering little things people send you and I wanted to put my two cents in because the way you write Shanks Mihawk and Sanji has me weakkkk

I really love the idea of a silent language between them and their lovers. Like especially Mihawk because both Sanji and Shanks are loud and proud but like the kind of silent language where you can understand a 'take me out of here' or 'please don't react to this idiot' or a 'omg did you see that puppy it's so cute' kind of thing with just your eyes or some touches a certain way in the arm or smth I don't know I'm so weak for these men and I love your writing of them okay byeee

Ahem:

(been stalking your posts for an hour now and your content is so goooood)

First of all, may I just say the following:

Thank you so so so so so much!! I'm incredibly glad and grateful that you've enjoyed everything. This whole blog is really just a mess of simping and shitposting lately. And it has also been my personal venting space. And given my life as of the late has been some unholy conglomeration of a shitshow, a soap opera, and a dumpster fire (a ShitFire DumpsterOpera Show, if you will), I remain wholly astounded on a day to day basis that anyone at all has even remained with me for this long. I've only been on Tumblr for three months myself, since around the end of September.

Aaaaanywho.

I love the silent language idea. Definitely a thing with Mihawk. I can still see it working with Sanji. Definitely not with Shanks though, poor bb couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it.

But basically, as a scenario, Reader is sitting at the bar being hit on by some Random Weirdo and looking for a quick, preferably quiet way out of the situation and tries to silently signal one of them and.....

Reader: *catches eye of S/O* *curt nod toward Weirdo to signify her discomfort*

Sanji: *hurries over* Everything alright, love? *pulls you to his side, glaring pointedly at Weirdo*This prick bothering you?

May or may not dissolve into a fight

Mihawk: *lifts an eyebrow and nods toward his sword at his back* *you quickly shake your head, no need to slice anyone in half today* *he just rolls his eyes a bit, strolls over, and puts himself between you and Weirdo* *and casually leads you away, attracting no further attention*

No fight, you leave without causing any sort of scene at all

Shanks: *catches your eye* *catches Random Weirdo's eye* *literally shouting from the other side other tavern while you cringe and lay your head down on the bar* Hey, jackass! You lay one goddamned hand on her and so help me-"

Full-on barroom-brawl chaos ensues

[nostalgia-tblr]

There are two crap tumblr posts in my head and one is about square sausages and the other is about inaccurate movie rats and i can't decide which to inflict on the people who followed me so you're getting neither of them.

[everwistfully]

Batfam with tattoos…

Starting off strong! Dick definitely got drunk one night with Babs or maybe Wally where he completely blacked out by the end of the night but he wakes up on the morning with his lower back aching a bit and when he checks his reflection…there lies a beautifully stereotypical butterfly tramp stamp. No one he went drinking with can remember why or even where he got the tatt and it remains a mystery until one of them stumble upon a shitpost where the owner of a tattoo parlor comments on how they think they gave a drunk Dick Grayson a tramp stamp…

I can see Jason maybe getting a sleeve or something to potentially cover up some scars and shit that he’s been through or simply refusing to ever get a tattoo simply out of the principle of purposefully harming/further warping himself (Lazarus pit PTSD). But I would LOVE Jason with like angle wings all across his back for symbolic reasons???

Tim I’m sure technically had intentions to get tattoos and even seems like the type of person who had absolutely everything mapped out before hand but simply never gets around to any of it. That being said, he def has some sort of matching tattoo with YJ. Or maybe even just a little smth with just Kon or just the core four.

Steph probably, when going through a hard time, gets a piercing or tattoo or both so they’re kinda just scattered all over. She def has at least one matching tattoo with Cass tho and that’s the only tattoo(s) Cass has.

I can also see Duke with some pretty rad sleeve tattoos and, in general, he probably has no aversion to tattoos in general so he might not go ham with them but he still go get some.

Once Damian comes of age or maybe he already showed up with them…he prob has some symbolic cultural type of tattoos from the LoA.

And Bruce? Most probably nothing. Maybe another drunk mistake like his oldest son but with Clark and Diana but I can really see that being the only exception.

[weenwrites]

Cooking A Meal: Part 1

Summary - You ask one of the bots to cook you a meal, but honestly it goes about as well as you'd expect. Characters - Optimus, Ratchet, Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Cliffjumper, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Smokescreen, Wheeljack Content - Crack Category - Headcanons Trigger Warnings - None

✎ A/N: This is an un-revised shitpost, not something too serious.

[ Please do not repost, plagiarize, or use my writing for AI! Translating my work with proper credit is acceptable, but please ask first! ]

Optimus

He doesn't know anything about human cooking, but he tries for you. He's good at following a recipe, but he'll come to you every now and then to ask what something means or to have you try what he's made thus far and see if it's to your liking.

He tries making healthy meals that would cater to your tastes, and he's good at finding recipes for foods you definitely would like, it's just that when it comes to doing the actual cooking itself, it's executed rather poorly. He's not too bad, but honestly he might just under or overcook something and feed you some runny, rubbery scrambled eggs for example.

When it comes to presentation, he honestly doesn't do much in that area. He just puts the food on a plate or in a bowl and serves it to you with the appropriate eating utensil.

It may be a mediocre meal, but at the end of the day at least he cleans up after himself.

Ratchet

He's very precise with the measurements and he's an expert with a knife. Ratchet's real good at working with his hands, given his occupation as a doctor, and honestly he'd make a pretty good cook! That is, if he understood more about human cuisine...

He doesn't understand why some humans enjoy their eggs with runny yolks or some of their food to be under-cooked, and he doesn't want to give you salmonella or any other disease, so he'll end up overcooking the eggs. The same goes for any slab of meat you give him. Ask him to cook you a steak and he'll serve you what looks like a burnt block of leather that's so dry you can stand it up on it's side.

The presentation of the entire meal is plain and looks boring. He just serves everything to you separately in their own bowls or plates, and never on the same plate. But he says that the important thing is that you're eating something, not the way it's presented.

And at least he cleans up his own messes.

Ultra Magnus

He follows everything to a T. Each measurement he makes is precise, so he doesn't make too much or too little of anything. However, he'll make healthy meals for you to eat. A meal that has a bit of everything from the food triangle unless you're vegan or vegetarian. He'll refuse to make you anything unhealthy,

He even tries to present the food in a fancy-ish way! However, it's somewhat akin to being presented with a whole bunch of paperwork to fill out. The important stuff on the top (or in this case the healthiest stuff to eat) and the least important stuff on the bottom (the rest of the food). It may look a bit weird, and taste off, but... Eh, it's good enough.

Given his handicap and the fact he's still trying to regain full mobility with it, he may be a bit slow with things such as chopping up ingredients, seasoning meat, or any sort of thing that would be more efficient with 2 hands. Still, he's made a lot of progress, so much so that he appears to be doing things at a relatively normal pace.

And of course once he's done in the kitchen, he'll always dutifully clean up whatever dishes he used or messes he made without a single complaint.

Arcee

She sorta does better than everyone else here, but that's only because she insists that you tell her what to do and how to do it. She copies any examples you give her, and always looks to you for advice on how it should look, taste, smell, etc.. And she takes the entire "meal cooking" thing very seriously.

Though the meal may not be too delicious, the meal she makes you is very healthy and nutritious! She tries to include as many foods from the 5 different food groups as she can, and what she can't include she attempts to make up for by adding it as a side to the dish.

She's good at working with her hands, so she'd be quick at dicing vegetables with a knife. So preparing ingredients would be about a cinch. But along with being able to work quickly, she'd be good at handling things carefully. Like she'd be good at working with homemade pasta without ripping or tearing the dough, or pinching the edges of gyoza wrappers shut without puncturing holes in it.

The presentation itself is a bit lacking, but what matters is that most of the food on that plate is edible and very healthy for you! And she's the kind of person that insists that you finish everything on your plate, but not in any sort of forceful way. She'll just remind you to finish all your vegetables or something similar.

Cliffjumper

Similarly to literally everyone else on this list, he'd most likely overcook your food, but he still does a better job than most, but it depends on the meal. He's better at making soups than he would be at cooking meat. But he's a quick learner. He'd manage to closely copy whatever you'd show him about cooking.

He'd make quite a mess in the kitchen though. He'll accidentally knock the spatula off the cluttered counter as he reaches for something else, or he'll jokingly fling some flour at you in a playful manner. He even whole-heartedly thought that you could put the egg—shell and everything—in whatever it is you're making. He didn't think you needed to crack the shell because he once saw that humans could eat things with hard shells like snails or jawbreakers.

But when things start going awry, he'll come up with some unorthodox way to partly salvage the meal. Emphasis on partly salvage, because while it may be fixed, it now tastes off, or looks off, or smells off, but it's still edible. He knows nothing about presentation and honestly he just shovels whatever he's made you onto a plate and hands it over to you as is.

But even though the meal may be sub-par, it's hard to deny that it wasn't fun to make. That is unless you got upset at him for making a mess, in which that case he'll earnestly apologize and start scrubbing away at the mess.

Bulkhead

He lacks Ratchet's dexterity, so he's pretty sloppy with a knife. He might just end up accidentally grinding the ingredients to mush, or cutting them unevenly, but he's trying. The thing he's best at is kneading dough, but he thinks that all you need to do is punch it and move it around, so depending on the dough, he most likely ends up over-working it in seconds.

The food he'd make for you would lean more towards unhealthy and extremely delicious, unless you asked him to cook you a specific healthy food. Nonetheless, it would be a flavorful meal thanks to all the spices and seasonings he'd add to it.

The presentation's relatively nice! It might just make up for the fact the food looks a little mangled (unless you had him make you soup or something that's supposed to be mashed, then he's just about aced it). He'll ask you every now and then about the amount of pepper or salt he should add to the food, or to see if he added too much spice or too little... He might just end up burning a thing or two here or there, but for the most part, the food he makes for you is pretty good!

Bumblebee

He's good at making simple meals like sandwiches or mashed potatoes, but it's always a bit lacking in flavor. It's still good nonetheless, he just adds too little salt, pepper, or seasoning in general. Anything more complex than that and he'll be serving you a mess on a plate.

He's very considerate and tries to make a meal catered towards your personal tastes. If you're vegan or vegetarian, or have an allergic reaction to something, he'll try and find a recipe for something you can eat.

He tries to make the food look "cute". Like if you asked him to make you pancakes, he'd try to stack them up and make a face on them out of whipped cream, m&ms, and syrup. It may taste a bit weird, or sickeningly sweet, but the presentation's nice.

Smokescreen

He sucks at it. He cooks using the microwave instead of the stove. Once he's done with it, your microwave will smell like a dumpster fire, and you'll have to scrub away at all the splattered food that hardened into thick layers of burnt crust which is near impossible to get off. Even if you ignore it, the stench from the microwave might just seep into whatever you cook in there next, and absolutely ruin it's flavor. It's safe to say that your microwave is ruined.

The only knowledge he has of cooking is from watching Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, but then again those shows didn't really teach him anything about cooking, they just served as entertainment. I mean the most he learned is that you should keep track of when you got ingredients, and to keep your pantry, fridge, cabinets, and kitchen clean, but that doesn't help him boil an egg.

Speaking of eggs, he tried cooking an egg in the microwave once—under the impression that the egg would boil—and much to his surprise, it exploded.

He presents the food in an... Interesting way... Honestly he just arranges it in whatever way looks cool and serves it to you with a "bon appetit".

He promises he'll clean up your microwave once he's done, but there's this stench that will always remain in there no matter what you do.

Wheeljack

He's hopeless too. Not only does he burn like 80 percent of what he's supposed to be cooking for you, but he over-seasons it too. There will be so much pepper on your food that you'll be sneezing the moment you catch a whiff.

But with a little supervision in the kitchen, he could make you something remotely edible. It may not look the part or smell the part, but it still is edible to some degree. He's very handy with a knife, and if you knew a thing or two about food science, he'd be open to listening to you talk about the glucose bonds in dough and whatnot.

If he put in a little bit of his time to do some research about food, he'd actually get a solid grasp of the bare bones of cooking. Like how long to cook meat and how to know if it's done, how to work a ball of dough, how not to overcook vegetables... Et cetera. Because it's all science-y in a way.

The presentation of the meal itself is average. He doesn't quite know how to "decorate" your food, so he just slaps it on a plate, or pours it in a bowl, or serves it in whatever fashion it should be served in, and he gives it to you.

[copperbadge]

Sam, I must know what sort of things Gerald blogs about on his Tumblr. How old or active is his account? Is his identity a secret?

It's actually a reference to an older post where @dignitywhatdignity pointed out there was no way Ger wasn't on Tumblr. :D Reproduced my response below -- first, Photogram:

I can picture Jerry’s Photogram in my head very clearly because I’ve had to research the children of rich people and their fucking obnoxious instas, and Jerry’s is probably equal parts expensive cars, club glam, and scenic vistas, but mainly because that’s like…what you do. It’s just kind of the done thing, like wearing a shirt when you leave the house. 

Update: Gerald's photogram has shifted radically -- he still treats it as a Thing You Do but especially now that he's a dad it's a lot more Parenting Lifestyle stuff. Because a few of my friends have had babies in the last two years and I had to research the babies my fictional characters were having, the algo now thinks I have baby fever, so I get a lot of Parent Influencer content, and I bet Gerald does a lot of sly fun-poking at that stuff. Like, posting a photo of a bottle warmer and a bib-washing tabletop machine with commentary like "You cannot buy any of this in the shop I don't have, but if you're going to buy one stupid thing as a parent, buy the bib washer. Not a single shirt you own will be unstained but the bibs will be immaculate."

They don't post pictures of Serafina, though -- there are a couple of official portraits for PR reasons but day-to-day that shit is locked to friends and family only. (There are special websites for this, I have friends who use them, it's pretty neat.) The only time random candids of her are out there are usually when someone snaps Michaelis toting her around Fons-Askaz with her cousins -- the "King Emeritus and Royal Ducklings" are becoming a very familiar sight. At least once a week Michaelis takes Noah and Joan out for an afternoon in town with Sera in a snugli and the twins in a stroller. Don't ask him about his stepson and grandkids unless you really want to hear about them.

Meanwhile he also definitely has a secret super-weird tumblr and nobody can figure out if he’s roleplaying or shitposting or what when he posts stuff like “The family groupchat is all well and good until it starts heavily impacting local politics.” Are those horses really his or is he just visiting a barn? Is that…a photo of a plate full of appetizers at “My cousin’s latest house party” with Angela Merkel in the background? He certainly has some strong feelings about Princess Diana and equally strong feelings about Tsar Nicholas. Why is he one of only three people the official Eddie Rambler tumblr follows?

Gerald's tumblr has also slowed down since the diagnosis and becoming a dad, but the content is still random as hell and more authentically wild than his photogram. Again, no photos of Serafina, but it's very evident that whoever is running that particular tumblr has had a kid, or is pretending they have. He gets asks accusing him of faking shit for clout and every time he does, his response is simply to write the ask on a sheet of paper in longhand and photograph it in front of a famous European landmark and/or political figure.

Alanna tolerates this because it does keep him out of mischief and sometimes he takes Serafina with him to whatever landmark he's visiting, and she gets to have a quiet apartment to herself for a while.

(”Eddie Rambler’s on tumblr?” someone asks, and someone else replies “Name me one other TV chef brave AND stupid enough to be on tumblr” and then you realize it is in fact the official Eddie Rambler tumblr saying that.)

Eddie doesn't post to his official Tumblr anymore because he rarely has time and doesn't need to do the self-promotion, but Katie in Communications checks his inbox once a week and brings him the most entertaining asks to respond to. He's currently hovering somewhere around the level of Neil Gaiman in terms of "Famous people who are inexplicably on Tumblr."

Ultimately there develops a running joke that Jerry’s tumblr is run by either a) an upper-class vampire (rude) or b) the elected king of a micronation on the Mediterranean coast with a name nobody can spell (super rude!) 

One time Gerald accidentally pocket-posted a blurry selfie to his Tumblr but it was so poorly focused and clearly accidental that a bunch of people got mad at him for violating the privacy of the Duke of Shivadlakia. He had to pretend to have a week-long beef with himself to save face. He eventually got Noah to take a selfie with him, blanked out Noah's face, and then claimed the Duke had forgiven him and here was a selfie with him as proof.

It's a hard old life, being Duke of Shivadlakia, but someone's got to do it.

[altocat]

I'm gonna chime in that the VinDad concept is definitely not an East vs. West thing in any capacity, as I follow multiple artists out of Japan and Korea and China who portray Vincent as Sephiroth's dad pretty regularly. For anyone to assert that it's only Westerners who make the assumption is patently false; the issue is that it's a fringe theory regardless, so if you're not interested in that particular concept, you're going to avoid the circles where it's common and aren't likely to see it regularly. This leads to the perception that it's nonexistent outside the occasional stray orbital post here and there, which will be very limited.

As someone who adheres to the concept fairly religiously in personal fanworks, I see it all the time—because that's the fandom experience I've cultivated.

This is very helpful, thank you!

Also, just as a disclaimer below:

I feel like I should make something very, very clear with my posts. They are mostly written in jest and are not, in any way, to be taken seriously as set in stone concepts. They are playful. They are not designed to actively tell people how and what to think beyond a "hehe what if" sort of way. They are fluid and ever changing as my own opinions change. They are HEADCANONS. Or just tidbits to help people see things that they hadn't considered before. There are tons of takes in the fandom I disagree with. But just because we disagree doesn't mean that I think you're morally wrong or that you don't understand the material. Everyone has preferences.

Making more things clear:

-Not supporting the Vincent-Dad theory does NOT make you wrong/a bad person

-Not liking Lucrecia does NOT make you wrong/a bad person

-Not liking Genesis does NOT make you wrong/a bad person

And so on. When I'm addressing "haters", I'm poking fun at the the often irrational negativity that I find swirling around in the fandom (which existed LONG before I showed up) and trying to add a layer of speculation. Sometimes I'm just outright shitposting. Characters like Lucrecia and Genesis often attract needlessly unfair and graphic controversy/criticism that I personally find troubling and thus, I make posts to either challenge those assertions or to make fun of the fact that we're all just sitting here screaming about fictional characters. Sometimes I'm just joking. Sometimes I'm putting forward an actual debate. It varies.

But they are not designed to hurt people. Or to make things personal. One's opinions on a fictional character don't constitute who they are as a person. That's not the goal here. Rather, it's to speak out against perpetual negativity that certain characters or concepts unfairly accrue within the community. Or to just push forward fun theorycrafting. Sometimes I'm just being silly. But even when I'm not, there's a golden rule of engaging with topics that I think everyone should understand: Agree to disagree. It's okay if we don't see eye to eye. I'm sure we can find common ground in some areas. It's just fiction and these are just fictional characters.

I just wanted to put all this out there. Because you guys are important to me and I don't want innocent miscommunication actively upsetting people.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

reposting one i read on reddit that got removed but i just need to know what tumblr thinks:

AITA for finishing in my girlfriend during the full moon, thinking it was not possible for her to be fertile?

I know the title sounds weird, but I promise this isn't a shitpost, metaphor, or a joke. I (20M) was raised by a single dad, never knew my mom who left me as a baby, and growing up I didn't really have many female (or male, tbh) friends.

The reason I say this is that I don't know all that much about female anatomy; yes, I had sex ed in school, but seriously don't remember anything except "wear a condom", basically.

I met my girlfriend "Beth" (21F) in college and she's the best. It's my first relationship, her second. We've been together for a little more than a year now, and had sex for the first time about half a year ago. After the first couple times, Beth told me that she has a really regular and average period that she's been keeping track of with an app since she was literally 14, plus in the last few years she also started taking her temperature to get even more accurate results; I didn't understand exactly how this works, but she was so reassuring and confident I didn't question it.

Ok, now this is where I might start sounding like an idiot... So she told me her period is an extremely regular 28 days, and she has literally only strayed from this pattern once since she was 14. I also am aware that moon cycles are 28 days. (Correction here: since this incident, I Googled and it's actually about 29 days... but that's besides the point I guess.)

Women tend to be associated with the moon, like Artemis; I truly, deeply believed that the moon phases and all women's menstrual cycles were inherently connected, but just like, different women had their more fertile days with full moons whereas for some it corresponds to a different moon phase, like the new moon, and this is why women differed.

So the reason Beth told me about her period being super regular is that she was confident she knew when she was or was not fertile, and told me she wanted me to finish in her on safe days. We've been having sex like this for the last four months where she tells me the window of time she's safe, she's happy, I'm happy, it's working fine.

I started noticing that the moon tends to be really full and bright every time we have unprotected sex, maybe not necessarily always on a "true" full moon, but definitely around that time. I made a mental note that my girlfriend is a "fertile during a new moon (when you can't see the moon)" sort of girl. If you're wondering why I never just outright asked her about this, it just seemed really obvious to me and I didn't see the point in talking to her about something potentially a little embarrassing for no reason.

June 3rd was the most recent true full moon, and I decided to sort of surprise her by inviting her to my apartment and just pouncing on her wordlessly as soon as she came in. She was into it, we had sex, I finished inside her, she didn't complain or stop me at all.

While cooling off, she remarked that she didn't remember telling me about her safe days in a while, so I must be tracking her period, which she actually thought was sweet lol. I said, "well of course it's a safe day, the moon is so bright". She asked me what I meant, and I said something like "I know you can't possibly get pregnant during a full moon".

She seemed really confused and started getting a bit tense, questioning me more, and I, also confused, started explaining to her about the moon cycle thing I fully believed up until that moment.

This is where she freaked out completely, jumped up and asked me if I was a complete moron. She started yelling at me and freaking out about how insane and irresponsible I was for finishing in her. I was truly shocked I had no idea what to say, especially because it WAS still truly a safe day, but she actually just grabbed her stuff and stormed off before I could do anything.

Well, after she left I googled a bunch of stuff and yep, turns out I'm completely incorrect. That being said, it WAS still a safe day for Beth and she wasn't actually upset about me finishing in her or anything, just the reason I did, I guess. So, AITA?

So generally I don't want to rerun posts from reddit unless it's your own story, but we'll make an exception just this once

What are these acronyms?