#people who hate tim are my number one enemies

[cloud-hymn]

i’ve talked about the bad parent bruce wayne tag and how it’s immediately a fic turn off for me but can I just talk about the real enemy that often goes untagged which is tim drake & damian wayne fics tagged as hurt/comfort but the author obviously hates one of them and makes them out to be an absolute irredeemable monster towards the other. like please tag that shit because it always makes me die inside to read. I love them both and I just want them to reconcile and be brothers and I did not sign up for character slander.

#people who hate tim are my number one enemies #people who hate damian are my number two enemies #i do play sliiiiiight favorites what can I say #still love them both though #anyways tag your character slander please #tim drake #tim drake robin #red robin #damian wayne #damian al ghul #damian wayne robin #dc robin #tim and damian #batkids #batfam #batfamily #dick grayson #jason todd #bruce wayne #batman #the batman #batman comics #dc comcis #dcu #dc #ivy.txt

[beenbaanbuun]

enemies w/ wooyoung

“i can’t believe i have to share a room with you,” wooyoung spits as he dumps his bag on the floor at the side of his bed. he wastes no time in throwing himself down onto the matress, keeping a stern aye on you as you make your way inside, “out of all the people on this trip, its you.”

you scoff as you follow him, slamming the door in your wake. trust you to draw the same colour marble as him. jung fucking wooyoung. number 1 on your hit list ever since the very first time he pulled your hair in junior school. hatred may have been a strong word, but it wasn’t nearly strong enough for the way you feel about him.

and now you have to spend the next week of your life in a combined space with him. perhaps you’ve done something wrong that the universe is punishing you for. maybe it’s a curse, or some evil spirit messing with you. you’re not entirely sure, but either way you’re certain something is out for your blood.

“the couch is available if you want it,” you snarl, barely able to keep a modicum of civility when it comes to wooyoung. there’s just something about him that makes you so inexplicably mad, “you know, if you have that much of a problem with me.”

“i’m fine here, actually,” he puts his hands behind his head in a display of arrogance. it’s difficult not to go over there and slap it out of him as you move to sit on your own bed, “but you can go and sleep there if you want; you won’t find me stopping you.”

you scoff, “what exactly is your problem with me?”

it’s hypocritical of you to ask that, you know. if anyone has the problem, its you. you’re the one who’s always fought against him; eye rolls and back handed comments the only things you give him whenever he’s around you. and you’re the one who’s always arguing with him over the tiniest of things, even if you know deep down that he’s actually right. some days you can’t even find a reason behind your incessant need to hate him, but that never stops you.

he’s just so annoying.

“you’re a stuck up little princess,” wooyoung supplies with that cocky grin still spread across his face. god, what you wouldn’t do to wipe that away and put him in his place; it’s almost a desperate need that you have to knock him down a few pegs.

“anything else, youngie,” you throw the nickname at him like it’s an insult. he catches it effortlessly, chuckling at your attempt to throw him off.

“yes,” he pushes himself from the mattress, sitting himself up straight so he can look at you; look down at where you lay on the bed beside him. so cute, with your arms crossed over your chest in a petulant attempt to act tough in front of him. it doesn’t work, your little act. not with the way your arms push your tits together, making your cleavage look so fuckable. wooyoung’s dick twitches in his sweatpants, “most of my problems are about you, actually.”

cliche, you think as you roll your eyes; of course he thinks you’re the cause of all his problems. just because he doesn’t like you, doesn’t mean he has to blame everything on you.

still, you’re curious.

when he starts talking again, you’re all ears.

“like how you think you’re so tough when you’re being a condescending little brat, when actually it just makes me want to pull you over my lap and make you scream,” the words take a second to sink in, but when they do, your jaw drops. he smirks, “or when you bite your lips when you’re mad; it just makes me think about how pretty they’d look wrapped around my cock.”

you can’t help the way your eyes flicker to the crotch of his sweats. he’s hard, or halfway there at least. fucking huge too, by the looks of it. you dart out your tongue to lap at your dry lips. holy fuck, what’s happening to you.

“and do you know that i see these pretty little things in my dreams?” a single finger brushes gently over your nipple, hard and visible through the thin material of your t-shirt. you suck in a sharp breath, barely catching a moan before it slips out, “wake up covered in my own cum every single time. dream you is just such a good little slut for me.”

the hand that sits gently on your tit begins to move, climbing gently up your chest until it lands on your neck. he squeezes down lightly, your head spinning under the barely there pressure.

“it’s a shame real life you takes a little more taming, hm?” wooyoung drawls as he bends down to your level. warmth spreads across your face as your lifelong enemy blows a stream of cold air over your face, chuckling to himself when you shiver.

how the fuck had you let this happen? one second you’re sure you had the high ground, and the next you have a hand around your throat and wetness leaking from your pussy. part of you wants to fight back. spit in his face and push him away. set a boundary and let him know that this, whatever the fuck this is, will never happen.

what scares you is that an even bigger part of you is begging you to give in.

and it’s a really shame that you’ve never been very good at saying no to yourself. it makes it borderline impossible for you to listen to that ever-shrinking part of your brain that’s telling you to run.

“wooyoung,” you whisper, although youre not even sure of your next words yourself. you haven’t decided whether this is going to happen or not. whether you’re going to let him tame you like he so clearly wants to. you open your mouth, hoping to all that is holy that you make a good choice.

“what do you want, baby?”

“fuck me,” you say.

oh…

“such a good girl.”

#ateez x reader #ateez fanfic #ateez oneshot #ateez scenarios #ateez fic #ateez smut #wooyoung smut #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung fanfic #wooyoung oneshot

[astraltrickster]

Since the wave of mass site migrations there is one REALLY worrisome trend I've been noticing: the number of radfem posts I've been seeing ending up on my dash, reblogged unknowingly by people who think they're just base-level feminist statements, has all but gone back to c.2014 levels. Everything seems good on a surface level, but I spot one dogwhistle, or something strikes me as being a little too absolutist, and I check into that...and sure enough, the road leads back to terf city.

So here's a quick PSA:

Please be careful with your Feminism 101 sources.

See, terfs and their close relatives KNOW we don't like them here, so they don't tend to lead with their well-known hatred of trans women. On top of that, there is a problem with a subset of radfems on this site who purport to be trans-inclusive - i.e., they openly support trans women...but DESPISE trans men (often more than they hate cis men, because of the whole "joining the enemy"/"gender traitor" myth pushed by terfs) or any nonbinary person who aligns partially with manhood or masculinity, especially if they're AMAB (they often think they can "save" - i.e., conversion-therapy - the AFAB ones).

Therefore, on a single-post level, it is very, VERY hard to tell the difference between a basic feminist statement that, yeah, patriarchy exists and that means there are lots of awful double-standards around gender where women broadly get the shorter end of the stick and these standards AFFECT every individual in a society and that's something we should work to change, and a statement that these things are absolute and inevitable, either because Biology or because those double-standards are too deeply ingrained to EVER overcome without giving up and starting over from scratch (whichever is convenient), and the only solution is hardline female wombyn-born-wombyn separatism or at LEAST excluding trans people from public life for, at best, making it too hard to tell who's ~safe~. In fact, sometimes on that single-post basis, they could potentially even be identical - though less frequently than many people thought in the heyday of "OP was a terf so I stole this post but anyway all men are walking rape threats and need to accept that any reasonable person will always hate and fear them on sight".

So what can you, random newbie, do to avoid unwittingly passing one of these messages on without turning into some kind of horrible "feminism is cancer" chud?

Well, one of the easiest ways is the Shinigami Eyes browser extension, but I personally don't like to rely on it because 1) you can't use it on every platform (sorry mobile app likers), 2) in my experience it's somewhat common for "trans-inclusive" radfems to be flagged as safe because someone saw their positivity for trans women but not their hatred for trans men, and 3) I just don't like to promote the use of browser extensions as a substitute for learning what radfem rhetoric is and why it is, in fact, anything but feminist; it is very beneficial to terfs if the ONLY thing you know of their rhetoric is "they hate trans women".

The hard but better way is to actually familiarize yourself with what to look out for. Here is an inexhaustive list:

Category 0: Tags to add to your blacklist

Your blacklist filters out posts with the blacklisted tags in the reblog you're seeing, OR in the root post. Therefore, if a radfem post that looks like it's just base-level feminism does breach containment somehow and end up on your dash through someone else, it will still get caught if it's tagged with any of these:

Terfsafe

Radblr

Radfem

Terfs/radfems do interact/do touch/please interact/please touch, etc

Category 1: Terf-ese and dogwhistles

Some of these, especially those near the top of the list, are immediate telltale signs. Others are less certain, but they should at least raise some eyebrows.

"Gender critical" - literally a synonym for terf just used to make the ideology sound more legitimate; they often claim that terf is a slur

"TIM/TIF" - "Trans-identified male/female", a way to delegitimize trans identities

"Febfem" - female-exclusive bisexual woman; a bisexual woman who rejects her attraction to men; essentially a modern term for "political lesbian" (a group which claimed that lesbianism is not a sexual orientation that some people just Have, but a political choice to reject men)

"Butch flight" - the claim that trans men are butch lesbians transitioning to escape lesbophobia and gain male privilege

"Adult human female" - this very simplified dictionary definition of "woman" is something of a rallying cry

"Let girls be tomboys/butch" - some people say this in response to old repressive gender roles in things like dress codes, or even people holding trans women to a higher standard of femininity than cis women, but if that is not explicitly the context it's very likely that this means "stop the evil plastic surgery racket from force-transing every little girl who even looks at a truck, which they're TOTALLY doing"

The inverse, while less common (terfs tend to be very open about not wanting men to be feminine in any way because of "deception" and "false security"), is also one to look out for - sometimes it's a statement against binarism and gender essentialism, sometimes it's basically an assertion of the Blanchard "feminine homosexual man vs. autogynephilic man" model of what a trans woman is

"Compulsory heterosexuality/comphet" - an aspect of heteronormativity whereby it's common, especially for younger people, to try to force themselves to experience heterosexual attraction when they don't. Useful as it may seem, the term was coined by radfems. Most people who are not terfs or other radfems who want to discuss it will discuss it under the umbrellas of heteronormativity and amatonormativity

Hogwarts houses - this is a sneaky one; far from everyone who read those books or even enjoyed them is a terf, but since JKR's full-tilt descent into fascism via the gateway of transphobia, terfs HAVE been using this as a way to seek out their own and mark themselves as safe; let this also serve as a reminder that if you are NOT a terf PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR BIO; it WILL both draw them to you AND cause you to be immediately distrusted by anyone else, saying "I DO NOT CONDONE THE VIEWS OF JKR" will not help because terfs can and do lie about that too in communities where they have to stay crypto, at best you're granting them plausible deniability

Referring to men and women as "males" and "females"

Usernames referencing "female" reproductive anatomy - may be a good sign if they're attached to trans-positive modifiers like "boy" or "they", but a username like "divine-vagina" or "ovariesofpower" (note these are theoretical usernames, not ones I've encountered in the wild; if someone does have one of those usernames and isn't a radfem I'm deeply sorry) is probably a terf

Hatred of makeup and plastic surgery - look, no one likes the beauty industry, no one is going to dispute that beauty standards are a nightmare, but this is frequently a smokescreen for hating gender confirmation or anything that helps with the "deception" inherent to transness; be ESPECIALLY wary of anyone talking about "TikTok plastic surgeons trying to sell their services to impressionable teenage girls", this usually translates to "gender confirmation surgeons telling young transmascs that there are options for them", and remember that you either believe in bodily autonomy or you don't, there is no third option

Category 2: Ideological concepts to look out for

This is some of the beginnings of crossing the line from feminism to radfem bullshit - if the rest of the post seems cool but starts heading in these directions, don't assume it's hyperbole; get it as far away from you as possible.

Patriarchy, men-oppressing-women, is THE root system of injustice from which all others spawn. Some will acknowledge that other factors may intersect, but will still claim that they are lesser. Bringing up the long history of white women getting men of color, especially Black men, killed via weaponized fragility and false claims of sexual violence, is just a series of flukes and pointing it out to refute this notion that men vs. women outranks all other inequalities is just whataboutism.

Because patriarchy is so far-reaching, it affects every individual, and because it trumps all other axes of oppression, this means that in every interaction between any man and any woman, the man will be the one with more power.

Men, due to socialization, biology, or both, are categorically incapable of recognizing women as full people. This is not only a broad pattern, but an inevitable fact, true of every individual man, no matter how hard anyone tries to change it.

There is a singular Universal Female Experience. According to terfs, this is an external force; trans women don't have this socialization experience, therefore they can never truly know what it's like to be a woman. According to tirfs, it is internal; trans men process their experiences internally as men from birth to death and therefore have no claim to truly understand any experience of misogyny directed at them.

The experience of being a woman is, first and foremost, suffering. It is therefore to be expected that a certain subset of people would transition to try to escape it - but it's the wrong answer, and this practice of either self-destruction or betrayal must be stopped at all costs. Anyone who wants in on the miserable experience that is womanhood, on the other hand, is at best insensitively looking at a burning building and going "wow, that looks so warm!", blissfully but cruelly unaware of the misery of the situation, and at worst is lying to satisfy a fetish.

Women are categorically incapable of abusing men, because patriarchy outranks all, down to the individual level. Some may also say that this is true because of biological differences in physical strength. (Very feminist, isn't it, to say "the strongest woman is still weaker than the weakest man and nothing can ever change that"?)

There is, fundamentally, no difference between a person with some subconscious misogyny problems and an incel mass shooter; both will abuse women, and therefore both must be treated as threats.

Because the power differential between men and women is so great, a woman cannot TRULY meaningfully consent to sex with a man; all sex between a man and a woman is rape.

Because rape is such a common trauma among women, the very existence of men - or penises, for that matter, even fully clothed ones - in a space where a woman doesn't expect them is traumatic and itself tantamount to rape.

Lesbians don't just have their own unique flavor of oppression experience like any other queer subgroup; they are in fact THE most uniquely oppressed and vulnerable of all, because being a lesbian is first and foremost not about attraction to women, but rejection of men (recall the ties to political lesbianism). Some radfems will embrace contradictory labels or slightly varied personal definitions for other queer subgroups - but if you're anything but a Kinsey 6 who would never even consider making an exception, and 100% a binary woman, you CAN'T identify as a lesbian. You cannot identify as a lesbian if you wouldn't dump your partner or try to conversion-therapy "her" if "she" came out as transmasc. To a tirf, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you're on the butch-transmasc cusp, if they're willing to admit such a cusp exists in the first place. To terfs, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you would ever date a trans woman, let alone if you ever have.

Again, this is far from being an exhaustive list, but it covers most of the most common things that set off my own alarm bells. Additions are more than welcome.

Remember, the danger of letting radfem posts slide because they seem okay on the surface is twofold: one, you're directing more people to their blogs and exposing them to more people they may then target, and two, when those concepts that cross the line bleed out into your gender theory, the result is bad for you and everyone around you.

#internet culture #internet safety #serious tag #internet bullshittery warning #tumblr culture

[sisterofficerlucychen]

Hi there again 👋🏼 just wanting to vent my feelings again.

This whole break up has me going trough all stages of grief all at once. First I was in complete denial and then just really sad. Now I'M ANGRY. Not to the show or cast, ANGRY AT TIM. As if he had broke up with me and not Lucy.

Been rewatching the show and I just saw the DOD episode and him being all worried about her and I was just screaming at my PC YOUUUU TIM BRADFORD PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1 DONT GET TO ACT WORRIED AND HER HERO AND THEN DUMP HER 4 SEASONS LATERRRR

I know i might sound crazy but just went from sad about them to being angry at him in a split of a second with NO REASON AND being COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE

Anyways just looking somewhere to pour my heart and feelings. And a reminder that we all can feel different about this but none of that makes it right to throw hate and say mean things to Eric Melissa or anyone. I m just mad at Tim a fictional man that doesn't exist and not for that im going to say something horrible to Eric (actually if they are making us feel this so much is because they are good ay their jobs)

not hate just peace

hello ♡ pls, go ahead! always here to listen!

no but for real, i feel that in my soul lol. i think this is a place a lot of us currently are — all at different stages and feeling multiple of them at once. but lakfjsdklf mood. i’m starting to wonder if the 3 week hiatus is actually a good thing bc i think we’re all gonna need that time to get to a better place because it really does feel so personal??? 

i commend you for being able to do that 😂 i’ve gotten as far as rewatching 6x06 but there’s something about comfort watching my favorite episodes that i can’t right now, the wound’s too fresh lol. alkfsjdlfa not public enemy number one 😭 i love that you were screaming at your computer though 😂

for what it’s worth, i definitely don’t think so, it sounds very reasonable. i think your reaction rn is so valid like you’re still processing. i know i had a moment where i’ve kind of reached acceptance (i guess?) and saw a really sweet chenford tiktok and fell right back down to denial because i’m still so shocked by it. i also think you’re going about it in a pretty healthy way? like you said you’re upset at the character not the actor which is how it should be, you know what that boundary is.

love the reminder, thanks! and 100%. cast and crew are actual human beings who do not deserve hate thrown their way for doing their jobs and telling a story. it’s okay to be upset, it’s okay to feel everything you need to feel, but taking all of it out on the actual people never will be. you can be critical without being disrespectful. yes on them being good at their jobs! SO GOOD!!!! this is me speaking from personal experience but one of the most gratifying things about performing is getting a response/emotion from your audience bc you’re making them feel something whether it's positive or negative like you know you did something right haha.

#answered #idreamwiththecitythatneversleeps #the rookie #chenford

[morning-softness]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks to @crit20lesbian for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

Eighteen

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

166,316 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Magnus Archives

4. What are your top five fics by kudos

Netflix and Chill- (TMA, JonTim, 3k, Precanon) Tim and Jon watch Netflix and chill. They do not have sex.

Love, Or Whatever You Call It - (TMA, JonMartin, 20.5k, No Age of the Beholding AU) After Jonah's ritual fails, severing Jon's connection to the Beholding, Jon and Martin try to put the pieces of their lives back together. Adjusting to normal life again after everything is hard, and exploring their new relationship is even harder, especially as Martin realizes he might be aro-spec.

Archive Shenanigans - (TMA, Gen fic, 1k, Season 1) All the assistants are the hot assistant, or Tim says Hot Martin Rights and Hot Sasha Rights and even Hot Jon Rights.

Are You Calling Me ‘Darling’? - (TMA, JonMartin, 2.5k, No Age of the Beholding AU) Jon likes it when people call Martin his boyfriend. Martin…doesn’t.

Here Might You Bless Me - (TMA, JonMartin, 4k, Safehouse Era fic) Martin’s changed after Jon pulls him out of The Lonely, and he’s sure that Jon won’t want to stick around once he figures that out. After all, it turns out Jon has a lot of love to give, and who would want to waste their love on someone who can’t return it? Jon convinces him he’s not going anywhere.

Note: Most of these fics are in my top 6 for hits as well as kudos, but I was really surprised to see Archive Shenanigans make the list. It was the first TMA fic I published, 1k of pure unpolished fluff and comedy, but for whatever reason it has a much higher kudos to hits ratio compared to my more-read fic.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do my best to respond to them, because I want people to know that I read and treasure all of their comments. Sometimes it takes a while though, because I want to give a thoughtful response.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Can’t Have You, Even As An Enemy. It’s a fic where Jon and Tim share a hotel room on the eve of the Unknowing, and talk about (or mostly talk around) their issues. The angst is that it’s written with the intention of being canon compliant, which means that Tim will still die in the explosion, and the best that can be hoped for is that this conversation will give Jon a bit more closure.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I write mainly hurt/comfort, so most of my fic has a happy—or at least hopeful—ending. The happiest might be Can’t We Just Wait Together? (Or Five Times Jon and Tim Didn’t Have a First Date, and One Time They Did), since it’s a 5+1 fic where the final chapter is entirely fluff of Jon and Tim going on a date together.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. I have comment moderation on just in case, though.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. Not yet, anyway. Funnily enough, my fic with the highest number of kudos is about Jon and Tim not having sex.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No. The closest might be Listen to the Voice that Told Me where I borrowed the obedience curse mechanics from the book Ella Enchanted, but it’s not really a crossover of the world or characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. I do have a few that were podficced, though.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I tried, but we only got one chapter in before life got in the way. Maybe someday…

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Jon and Martin, followed by Jon and Tim.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a Melanie-pov AU where she joins the Archives in Season 2 after she realizes something is wrong with Sasha. I wanted to write it as a choose-your-path style story, because I think it’s easy in hindsight to say decisions characters made were wrong, but a lot harder to decide what the right decision would have been, so I wanted to explore a lot of different ways the characters could have messed up with Melanie added to the mix (and maybe a few ways things could have worked out better). I don’t want to say it will never happen, but it’s a big and complicated project so it definitely won’t happen anytime soon.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve had several comments from readers attesting that I’m good at conveying emotion—particularly negative emotions—in a way that feels real and relatable. I’ve also been told that I do a good job portraying character dynamics.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My biggest problem is that since my writing is really emotions-based, once I’ve hit the emotional high points, it’s no longer interesting to me. Which means with longer fic it’s a struggle for me to actually continue through the falling action to the denouement instead of just stopping right after the climax. (I’ve had two getting-together fics now where I initially wanted to end right after the love-confession scene and had to be convinced by my Beta reader that readers would probably want to see at least a scene or two of the characters actually being together now.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I usually don’t. I definitely think it can add another layer to characterization, so I’d like to where it makes sense for the characters, but I think it needs to be done carefully so that 1. The dialogue sounds natural for native speakers of the language and 2. People who don’t speak the language can grasp the overall meaning of the exchange through context.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Magnus Archives

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Since I’d like to think my writing skill is consistently improving, my favorite fic is always whichever I’ve most recently completed. That said, I have a soft spot for Here Might You Bless Me, which made the Top 5 Kudos list above. It’s a JonMartin safehouse fic I wrote back in December 2020, where Jon reassures Martin that he is loved even if he can’t return the feeling in the same way. (And Jon uses one of my favorite Edna St. Vincent Millay poems to do so, because I wrote this before I got to Episode 165 and found out that Jon apparently disliked poetry in general, and not just Keats.)

Tagging @three-magpies-in-a-trenchcoat, @rookfeatherrambles, @chrisis-averted, @wordsintimeandspace, @suttttton, if you’d like!

#ask game #writing asks #writing ask game

[lananiscorner]

3H route lords and/or Tim Drake? 👀

Thanks for your ask, writtendown-woundup!

Edelgard critical beneath the cut. Don't like, don't read.

Claude:

If you look up "wasted potential" in the dictionary, you will not find Claude's picture there, because the creators seem to be allergic to putting him where he belongs. Claude has such an interesting premise! He's a biracial person who has experienced discrimination from both sides of his heritage. He's got trust issues, but he wants to build a world based on trust. He is always seeking knowledge about the world, but refuses to let the world gain knowledge about him. He's a schemer and honestly a bit of an ass sometimes, but at the end of the day, he can be the most dependable and caring person. There are so many fascinating avenues you could explore with this guy! You could wave the most intricate, 5 dimensional Xanathos gambit chess plot with this dude... and yet somehow the writing staff at KT/IS looked at this man and decided what he really needs is a copy-pasted Black Eagles route. Twice. What a tragic waste.

Dimitri:

Dimitri is my favorite character in FE3H, no contest. I love how his greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses. I love how they did not shy away from depicting him at his darkest, while not denying him a hopeful ending. I love how you can see his gradual descent into psychotic breakdown happen just as clearly as his gradual recovery. I love how much he loves his country and its people while acknowledging their flaws. Also, he's the best enemy phase unit in the game. I just love Dimitri. It doesn't matter which route I play--if I play 3 Houses, I think of Dimitri, and if it's not his route, I think of what's happening to him in Faerghus while I'm busy elsewhere. As for "they got done dirty by the fans"--Dimitri fans are a mostly chill and wholesome bunch, as far as I have seen, but my GODDESS have I seen some rancid takes about him from Edelstans (calling him a conservative status quo centrist, an epitome of toxic masculinity, someone who had to be put down for his own good... ughhhh).

Edelgard

Okay, so this may come as a shock to some, but I don't actually hate Edelgard. I think she is a perfectly fine example of a nuanced and flawed character. As a villain. I don't know what kind of mental gymnastics must be involved in considering her a hero, because imo she lost any hope of being that (and instead went into "what's wrong with them" territory) the moment she gave her absolutely bonkers war speech and declared war on two sovereign nations. She definitely got done dirty by the writing, what with both CF and her supports refusing to let her suffer any meaningful consequences for her actions, and her attraction to Byleth being uncomfortably shoved into routes where it makes no sense (particularly Verdant Wind). If I were to meet her, I would probably try to deck her in the face, only to get Mired into oblivion by Hubert.

Tim Drake:

This was a tough one, because... who even is Tim? Which of his many volumes of depictions are we talking about? This is why I don't have much to say about him, except Tim is a character who works best when he has someone else to play off of, ideally Bruce, Dick, Jason, or Damian. He has certainly had a number of hair-raising wtf moments in his appearances (e.g. treatment of Stephanie in certain issues, his treatment of Jason in Teen Titans Vol. 3 #47, and that one mini series in New 52/Rebirth, the name of which I can't recall, where he went full megalomaniac psychopath and turned out to be the villain orchestrating some multi-dimensional shenanigans). That said, he can also be a massive, extremely likeable nerd sometimes.

#asks #writtendown-woundup #character opinion bingo #fe3h #Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd #Edel von Hresvelg #Edelgard critical #Claude von Riegan #Tim Drake

[fxckn-sxck-fr]

hiiiiiiiiii i just wanted to let you know i really appreciate your writing!! its really hard to find yandere dick grayson content that isnt yandere batfam, your like a godsend fr!! cant wait for part 4 of your older brother series!!!!

First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH. Part 4 is cooking, and I’m really glad people are enjoying what I like to call the “slow burn yandere” type of story. Not gonna lie, I thought you guys would hate it cuz of how slow it is, but yeah!! I love each and every one of you that decide to give my little story a shot.

Second of all, RANT INCOMING, BECAUSE YOU SAID SOMETHING SO TRUE.

NOTICE!! What I’m about to say should never hinder your enjoyment of yandere Batfam content. Please keep reading/writing fics you enjoy, and never let anyone shame you for doing so!!

But anyways, you’re so right that it hurts. I don’t know if solo yandere Dick content is as scarce as it seems, or if it all really is hidden under the yandere Batfam fics. Either way, I’ve finally realized I should just block the yandere Batfam tag so I can filter it all out (cuz I’m a responsible Tumblr user who controls their own internet experience instead of demanding people to change their writing for me). It’s kinda sad that it’s come to that, cuz I feel like I’m missing out on some amazing work, but alas…

As someone who’s into platonic yandere content, the yandere Batfam just doesn’t do it for me, cuz A.) a lot of it depends on fanon, and I’m a number one fanon detester (you’re well within your right to enjoy fanon, just don’t make any “hot takes” about a character if you’re going purely on fanon interpretation, PLEASE—), and B.) it’s not fucked up enough, GRRRR!!! This point is honestly a problem with platonic yandere content in general. People have this weird notion that platonic yanderes are tamer than romantic yanderes and it’s SO SAD. A yandere can carve your initials into their skin or leave the dismembered bodies of your enemies on your front porch without any romantic undertones to it!!

Also, anytime I do give a yandere Batfam fic a chance, it sometimes becomes painfully obvious that the writer has a favorite (nothing wrong with that, I just ask that you tag/put a warning of that in the description), and it’s never Dick or Tim, SOBS. I sometimes wonder if it’s cuz they wanna write solo platonic yandere content of their fav, but feel like they gotta put themselves in the yandere Batfam box? I don’t know, that might be me going crazy.

Honestly, the only genuine critique I have for yandere Batfam writers is that a lot of them use each individual character tag. And I totally get it!! They have a chance of reaching a larger audience that way, and they definitely deserve each like and reblog they get cuz they’re writing what makes them happy!! But it would be really nice if some of them considered only using the yandere Batfam tag/tag variants, especially as someone who uses the yandere Dick Grayson x reader tag for legit yandere Dick Grayson x reader content (I want a shot at reaching a larger audience too, SOBS).

Anyways. I’m really sorry that was long winded. I don’t get to talk about my personal thoughts and feelings that often, so this just gave me an opportunity to shit it all out. Y’all will send me a simple ask and get word vomit in return, I’M SO SORRY, RAAAAAAA.

#❥ CALL INCOMING: DO YOU LIKE SCARY MOVIES?

[thekillingjoke-haha]

We’re Batshit Crazy

@spnquotebingo​ Word count:1,609

Summary: Love isn't all that perfect sometimes love is crazy especially when the Hero is in love with said crazy.

Gotham AU

Jason Todd(Jensen Ackles) x Villan!Reader

Enemies and Lovers (none of that "to" bs)

Gotham Recasting: Batman=John, Dick Grayson(second Robin not first) =Sam ,Tim Drake=Adam, Joker(ledger style)=Lucifer, Harley Quinn=Lilith,ect.

Warnings: Mention of death, blood, guns, and violence

⑇⑆⑉⑈⑇⑆⑉⑈⑇⑆⑉⑈⑇⑈⑉⑆⑇⑉⑈⑆⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑈⑇⑉⑆⑇⑉⑆⑇⑉⑆⑇

The mad laughter rung out into the night sky as the purple Lamborghini hit corners with violently sharp turns. "Oh puddin I just love family night!~" The pale platinum blonde giggled as the man with green dyed hair licked his smiling lips. A bubble of laughter came from the back seat he turned around to see his princess looking out the small back window. "Batsy batsy batsy" Her low/high pitched giggle caused a crazy chain reaction as the bat mobile hurried to catch up. "Always ruining our fun,huh,princess?" The clown king shifted his gray-ish blue order into the mirror grinning making the scars on his face raise into a sinister smile at the look of pure chaos in his daughter's e/c eyes. "Not tonight! Not on my birthday!!" She said as she smiled reaching under the seat to pull out a Tommy gun. Climbing to the front seat sitting on her mothers lap she leaned out the passenger window. "Go back to the Rat cave your not gonna put a downer on my weekend!" Y/n yelled shooting off round towards the tires,windshield,and headlights.

The mobile didn't seem to have a scratch as as a motorcycle pulled up beside it. Slipping back in the car the younger women pouted looking at get parents. "He called his little birdie no doubt the replacements in the car." Y/n huffed as she dug around for more fire power. "Puddin we have a visitor.~" The red mask gazed at us as he lifted a forearm pistol. Shots were fired and Joker took a hard right almost like tron the motorcycle quickly turned into a ally to avoid being hit. "Sorry Princess might have to cut tonight shot." He said licking his lips as a thump came from the roof making the youngest clown snarl her eye crazed as she shot above her as the purple car swerved wildly. "YOU'RE RUINING MY BIRTHDAY,BATS!!!" Y/n cackled madly a mixture of her parents laughed till the magazine ran out.

They got to one of their warehouses where Jokers men were armed to the teeth. The clown mask had black soulless eyes and immediately fired the moment the batmobile entered. Y/n skipped out of the purple Lamborghini she got on her tippy toes and kissed her dad on the cheek. "I got the hooded punk. Can you clip the bats wings for me...a little present?!" He laughed as he armed himself with a shotgun. "Anything for my princess." The f/c sf/c female clown skipped away knowing that the motorcycle riding vigilante was hot on her tail. That's how she found herself on the roof tops jumping the gaps as heavy footfalls followed. Her loud laugh echoed as she leaped to a smaller building hiding behind a vent the moment the brown leather jacket came into view she tackled the tall man. They were both panting as a grin pulled on the clowns lips.

Y/n POV

"Caught ya,Jay bird." I giggled pulling of the helmet his apple green eyes covered by a second mask stared at me he chuckled as his hand slipped above his head in mock surrender. "Yeah you caught me,beautiful." Leaning down I kiss him my hands pushed into his cheeks my thumb running over the scarred J. We've been dating for awhile now ever since dad kidnapped the second Robin at seventeen. I was fifteen at the time and dad had me at his side as he tortured him.I was always there to stitched him up and put burn cream after shock therapy I didn't know how we got attached maybe because he wanted to rebel a little by talking to me or someone around his age saw the same if not worse shit.

Six years ago(Y/n 15 Jason 17)

"Why are you helping me?" Looking up his head was strapped down along with his arms and legs. I shrugged my shoulders I knew who he was if I wiped off the make up and temp dyed my hair I was the honor student in the same class as him. Jason Todd anyone with eyes had a thing for him,but after removing his mask it wasn't hard to piece together who the bat fam is. "I know what my dad has planned for you Jay. This is just a band-aid on a gunshot wound and might I say that's very unhelpful." This was the first I spoke to him and it wasn't long before Dad beat him to death.

Two years later.

I sat in the back of the car as Frost drove. We just left the cemetery. "Why are we doing this,n/n." He asked looking in the rear view mirror at me. I'm seventeen now my thoughts screamed at me. Why was I trying to bring him back? "Because I crazy that why!" I giggled as we grew closer to the lazapit. He was dressed in a black suit with red tie his body sunk into the water as I waited. A loud gasp drew my attention as he shot up a white streak in his hair. "Heya sleeping beauty." Looking over in shock he lowly made his way looking like a baby deer. "I'm alive,but h-how?" His green eyes looked at me. "A Ghoul owed me a few favors I just asked to use his fountain of youth." Handing him a towel and some clothes. "Sorry about the outfit,but Arkham does have one size fits all." Jason chuckled as he started to dry off.I realized why I brought him back. I was crazy about him.

Two more years later(two years ago)

Jason wanted to stay dead he didn't go back to His dad and brother after he realized that neither of them tried and save him. It was sad to see,but it brought Jason closer to me and he started to trust me and I gave trust in return. Blood coated my hands while some was on my face. Looking at Jay some was speckled on his cheeks taking the pockets square out of the mobsters coat I wiped it off he looked down at me his arm slipped around my waist pulling me closer my breath hicked. "Will you be my girlfriend,my little jester?" A large smile grew on my face as my arms went around his neck pulling him down further. "Gladly,Jay bird." I kissed him not caring if my lipstick stained his lips and he didn't seem to care either as the kiss grew more intense. We shared our first kiss at nineteen surrounded by dead bodies as sirens and the unmistakable sound of the armed batmobile. At least he's as crazy about me as I am about him.

One year ago. (Jason POV for a sec)

I came to Bruce I hate to admit it but I needed advice about the one think he knew best. Women. It was just a couple of months ago he found out I was alive and shocker he managed to drive Dicky boy to Blüdhaven to get away from him to get his own image and not just Robin. Oh and surprise surprise when out of robins he had a spare like a tire and it's name was Tim. Nevermind that I stood across from Bruce in his home main office he had a frown on his face. "You're dating someone and its serious and I didn't know about it?" He asked trying to deduct everything. "I've been dating her ever since I came back. As strange as it might sound,but I want us to be something more." That's when the billionaire playboy stood up standing just a inch shorter then myself.

"Life is short Jason and you've experienced that first hand if you feel that both of you are perfect enough to be more then go for it." Perfect wasn't realistic nothing was ever perfect my life isn't perfect her life sure as hell isn't she's the clown princess I'm a bat son. Maybe that what makes us so good together the fact that it would have never really happened any other way life is just crazy like that.

Present

Staring into those vexing green eyes always brought me back. We're both twenty-one him being older only by a couple of months. "Happy birthday,gorgeous." His voice brought me back as my smile grew. We were standing up now he held a box wrapped in my two favorite colors. "Awe you shouldn't have." I grab it and opened it a gun was inside it was red and gold revolver it looked like my moms love/hate gun,but it said King/Queen. Looking at Jay I reached to hug him when suddenly he dropped to one knee pulling out a box with a beautiful f/c ring and ruby gem. "This feels over due. You took care of me when I was considered enemy number one. You brought me back from the grave when my own family didn't try. And this might sound stupid,but I had a crush on you in middle school you were one of the only people that didn't give me pity after Bruce adopted a street kid." He licked his lips as he gave of a small smile. "Together we are far from perfect, but we are good. You complete me...Y/n M/n Napier become my queen?" My eyes glossed over with tears my make up running down the pale foundation. "Oh my god of course!!!" I jumped into his arms hugging him tightly before letting him slip on the ring. "I love you." "I love you more crazy." I chuckle it sounded watery in my throat. "If I'm crazy then that makes two of us. You wanted to marry me." Yep we're both batshit crazy.

⑇⑈⑆⑉⑇⑈⑆⑉⑇⑆⑉⑈⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑈⑆⑉⑇⑈⑆⑉⑈⑇⑆⑉⑈⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈⑉⑇⑆⑈

A/n: Quote= We are far from perfect, but we are good. ~Supernatural

Is it just me or does Jensen look fucking hot as Red Hood?! I'm mean he's definitely a reason to move to Gotham

Well first crossover AU in my bingo card

#spnquotebingo #dean winchester #supernatural #supernatural au #gotham au #batman #red hood #jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd x y/n #enemies and lovers #marraige #alternative universe #super-unnatural #joker #harley quinn #villian!reader #daughter!reader #clown princess #crowned queen of crime #crowned king of chaos #hero x villain

[mysticprofessoralienhumanoid]

A Daminette Penpal AU - Continuation

Continuation  of this post

@ab-unreachablevoice @startouchedqueen1318 @lovemidnighteclipse12 you asked, I deliver.

Now, I want all of you to know this AU was made in a spur of moment. I’m totally winging it rn.

So obviously before the akuma class goes to Gotham, the months of texting have to have passed.

For Damian, those months are hell, because not only does he have to hear Jon’s gushing about his awesome penpal, but he has to endure Lila’s lies and her stories that keep only getting more ridiculous as the time passes too.

And it better be fucking worth it, because you have no idea how close he’s to flying to Paris and finally putting his assassin’s skills into use.

I mean, look at this!

Lila: HI Damian!!!! ❤💖💕💋💞

Damian, cringing at his phone: Yes?

Lila: How r u????

Damian, who absolutely hates when someone types like that: Have been better

Lila: Would u like to maybe video chat???? I could tell u about my trip to Achu !!!!!

Damian, a little shit™: Did “u” know that using more than three (3) exclamation (!) and question (?) marks means “u” may have a personality disorder? Maybe that’d explain the amount of lies “u” like to spew so much.

(Oof-)

[Message read. This user is offline.]

I’m convinced that if Damian knew how to use gifs, he would 100% use a lot, and I mean a lot, of cat gifs (honestly, animal gifs in general).

Lila: Hi Dami!!!! (She doesn’t learn, okay.)

Damian: I hope you can understand the message.

She can.

Lila: Hi dami. Can I call u Dami???

Damian: No.

Lila: I had so much fun this weekend Dami!!!! I went to Brazil Turns out Chris Pratt is filming a new movie there. Anyway, he recognized me and we started  talking. His so much fun!!!!!! 🥰🤩😍😍🎉🎉

Damian: Fascinating. Please do not  tell  me more.

Damian: And it’s “he’s”, not “his”.

Heh.

Lila: Hiii Damiii

Damian: I literally hate you so much-

[Message not sent]

Lila: Dami????

Lila: ....

Lila: Um, Damian? U there????

[Message not read]

You have no idea how, much fun making these is-

Oh, and imagine, just imagine, if Lila told him about situation in Paris.

Lila: Sorry for texting you so late, damiboo. Got caught up in an akuma attack.

Damian, who by now is replying just to humor her (plus his father forced him): A what?

And then Lila starts explaining the situation in Paris. Of course, she adds a few stories about how she was akumas’ target or how she helped Chat Noir (weirdly she doesn’t talk much about Ladybug). It’s that one of really rare times she’s not lying (well, not that much). And how Damian reacts to it?

Damian, Done with Lies™: Do you ever stop lying? Because this, all of this, is absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

Cue Lila wishing she didn’t bullshit as much as she did Damian was just a little more gullible

Anyway.

I don’t know if you remember, but in the first part I said Damian ditched Lila for Marinette (but let’s be honest, wouldn’t we all?).

To clear things up, I kinda wanted the GA students to accompany their penpals throughout their time at school. It’d be nice, right?

So the scene is:

The principal has just announced that GA students have to keep company their penpals while they’re at the GA establishment. Lila’s feeling victorious, this is her chance to get her claws in Damian and his money- I mean, to get to know her lovely penpal. Yeah...

Lila, walking up to Damian, while trying to appear sexy and shy at the same time, and failing at both: So, shall we?

Damian, ostentatiously glancing at her before going to Marinette: Bye

Now, to spice things up, I decided imma get them caught up in a rouge attack/attacked by a rouge.

So somewhere a week in their stay, akuma class is held hostage by one of the Gotham’s criminals.

Because this is Gotham, y’all. You can’t be in Gotham and NOT get attacked some way or another. It’s impossible.

[Choose your villain. I have badass Marinette though, so we all know the winner here]

The moment it starts, Damian slips away and changes into Robin.

Meanwhile:

The class is screaming and panicking.

Lila is probably in the middle of a panic attack.

Marinette’s assessing the situation before striking.

The moment Robin arrives, he gets to witness Marinette, the sweet cinnamon roll Marinette, kicking ass and taking names. Adorable. He thinks he’s in love (and he so is).

Bats come. And they’re met with the dude dealt with and trembling in fear of a petite girl with pigtails, who’s standing next to him and a lovestruck Robin staring at said girl.

A sight to behold, truly.

Also, what if Damian accidentally texts Lila instead of Marinette after the attack? And Lila is so happy, because she thinks her plan’s finally working. But ohoho, does Damian have surprise for her.

Damian: Are you sure you’re okay? The attack was really dangerous, You’re sure you’re fine?

Lila, thinking ‘yes, fucking finally. Almost thought you have no feelings’ : Oh, it was so scary !!!!!! 😱😰😨😨😨 [just hella lot of emojis. She seems like that kind to me] I was absolutely terrified!!!! I’m just glad that it’s all over. After the attack Robin came up to check up on me. He even flirted with me, i think he likes me... Too bad I already like someone else 😘😘😘😘😘😘

Lila: But don’t worry, dami!!!! I’m a little shaken up, but overall okay.  But if you want to we can facetime so you can make sure I’m not injured ;*

Damian, having to physically restrain himself fro throwing his phone against the wall: ...

Damian: Fuck.

Damian: Wrong number.

Lila: ಠ_ಠ

---------

And of course I’m involving Twitter. Who do you think I am?

At first it was one of of his siblings who posted a post about how he’s seething at his phone, probably his penpal texted him something again.

But do you seriously thing Damian would pass such an amazing opportunity?

Haha.

No.

He immediately posts his follow up and it goes downhill from here. He adds shit ton of tweets about her, making Lila famous (and she doesn’t even know she is).

People don’t know whom to pity more; Damian, for having a horrible and lying penpal, or said penpal, for having an enemy in the Ice Prince of Gotham?

The hashtags #IcePrince’sPenpal #PenpalNightmare #MenaceOfAPenpal are created and are trending every day.

Many say it’s the most active he’s ever been.

---------

Lila is not stupid in this, okay? A pathological liar and a manipulator, yes, but for that you need brain and she has one. Much to Damian’s surprise. And yeah, sometimes she lets her imagination get the best of her, but she’s cautious enough and has proof to often back her up. 

She knows she screwed up. Her penpal doesn’t believe her and isn’t scared to call her out.

Due to him bluntly uncovering her lies, some of the classmates see through the blinds she’d put on their eyes and get suspicious of her.

If you have mercy on them, make them come to Marinette and apologize.

...

Yeah, I’m not doing that.

The class sticks to Lila’s version of every story and they don’t believe Damian is THE Damian Wayne, even when a fricking limousine drives up to the school and a butler comes out of it.

---------

Random notes and ideas that don’t really have any sense or anything tbh, but I had them so there you go

About the attack, obviously the school has to inform the parents, right? But, if you're salty enough, you can, oh i don't know, make bustier and/or Damocles not inform them thus creating even more problems for them in the near future. (Yes, i hate bustier and damocles with passion, they’re enablers and Damocles is a gold digger tbh)

*

One day the french class is at a random restaurant (I’m honestly tempted to put them in Red Robin just for my own entertainment) when the Wayne brothers come in. They recognize them and Lila sees the opportunity, so she goes up to them.

Lila: Hiii Damiii!!!! [Yes, I know this is a real life conversation]

Damian, just done with her: Ugh, not you again.

Tim just kinda glances at her and decides she’s not worth his time.

Jason: What the fuck do you have on your head?

Dick: Oh, Damian, is this your crush or the penpal you despise so much?

Damian: The latter. And i do not have a crush

Lila, who totally stopped listening after she heard “crush”: That’s me!!!!

[Silence]

Damian: Marinette’s over there. Let’s go.

Lila:  ;_;

Yeah, it sucks to be Lila.

[I thought I posted this a month ago. I didn’t. What the hell]

#Daminette #damian x marinette #damian wayne #maridami #mlb class salt #lila salt #penpal AU #damian hates lila with burning passion #honestly same #badass marinette #Marinette deserves better #lila ross

[justcommander]

@https-pollimasss

Alright I got the request now. I’ll be writing a few headcanons I have for Tim and the dear Scared sniper. Also: don’t worry,  nobody’s going to blame you for strugling with a foreign language that you don’t fully know yet. We use English because it’s very common and relatively easier to learn compared to others, but it’s still not our native language. Not in our case anyway. So, don’t worry

Now having said that, my headcanons for Tim and Scared Sniper under cut

So, Tim

Eyyy, let’s start with Tim.

-First of all, I want it to be clear, that from my point of view, Tim is probably the gayest sentient being in the universe. He does have fun being surrounded by his fellow Henchmen, but he is obviously after his Bad Captain. He may look at other people, yes... but his leader’s the one he wants. No matter if he keeps being pushed away. Tim thinks he’s just palying hard to get. -Nobody likes to shower with him because he stares. Even through the visor, people notice him staring, most of the time he either gets pushed out fast or yelleld at, or his comrades just ask a favor to a couple of soldiers to keep him out of the shower. And he’s not exactly mad, just... disappointed. He also stares at night, when people are sleeping. He mostly stares at Bad Captain, but he may also gives a few heart attacks to people if they hear a noise and wake up only to see this idiot staring at them. It happens very often to other soldiers being awaken in the middle of the night by a distant “GO TO BED, TIM!” -Tim also likes to interrogate prisoners. A lot. Bad Captain is not happy about his methods because the intel he gets is damn usueless to them. Tim acts more like he’s flirting, rather than interrogating. He asks for personal information, he makes the captured Tankmen feel... kind of uncomfortable to the point they’d rather be interrogated for other kind of info at some point. You know, classic war intel, not if they’re into men or ever had experiences-- -He thinks Bad Captain considers him his first hand man, so he gets... very upset if someone else is called in his place. It usually never happens, and if it does happen, Tim goes to complain to his leader so much that Bad Captain just gives up and picks him insted, sometimes though he gets mad and goes alone. Tim feels very guilty in those situations though, because he realized he stressed him too much and is worried he’s going to get captured or hurt. At least if there was someone else in his place he still could have been safer. -It’s rare to see him angry or taking the war thing seriously, but if his Bad Captain is hurt, Tim gets protective and doesn’t even let medics stay alone with him. He becomes a dangerous soldier if someone captures his Bad Captain or nearly kills him. Once he’s out of danger Tim goes back being calm and flirty as always as if othing happened.

-He’s also very chill about the whole war thing going on and he unnerves his comrades who are probably taking the thing more seriously. Tim doesn’t even have so many problems with the Tankmen, there isn’t this... hate that one should feel for the opposing faction. Nah, he’s pretty calm about it. Actually, he thinks they do have some hot men in their ranks he’d feel sorry to see falling on the battlefiald just like that. So he rarely shoots to kill. Better just aiming at the legs and take the man prisoner, rather than killing. He just doess’t like killing these good looking soldiers.

-He is afraid of the main Tankman sniper though, because he knows that Ted HAS a problem with him. Ted has a HUGE problem with Henchmen in general, and even if he’s mostly focused on snipers, Tim happens to be a Henchman, so he’s in the group of his targets. He doesn’t even waste time trying to flirt with him or stay for too long in his field of view. To be honest he thinks he’s pretty hot but the survival instinct is stornger in this case. 

-He does like the Scared Sniper though, oh how he likes him! This cute, soft looking young man, his shy and scared behavior and how tense he gets when enemies are around. He absolutely would love to pet his back or his cheeks. Point is, survival isntincts are stronger even in this case. Tim knows laying a finger on Ted’s apprentice would lead him to a very very painful demise. __

Now it’s our Scared Sniper turn.

Our boy, our sweet, lovely boy. I already wrote some headcanons about him tha that I’m gonna put... here they’re just a few things I wrote also about Ted but so I won’t repeat myself.

-So, so. Is he gay? I don’t think he had time to carefully think about his sexuality before the Tankmen pulled him into their army. I doubt he had developed any attraction towards anyone at all before he was taken and given to Ted as his apprentice. He developed feelings for him and only for him, growing attracted to him so I personally see him as gay demisexual.

-Scared Sniper does have a name. But I think many Tankmen either forgot it and got it confused so often, they call him with many different names... and he doens’t correct anyone because he is very shy and unable to speak up to older soldiers. This became a pretty big problem, and now soldiers struggle to understand who someone is talking about. So “Scared Sniper” or even “Sniper number 2″ are easier names his comrades use to understand right away who they are talking about.

-He got recruited in the army because Captain and Steve felt guilty for scaring this poor man to death when they nearly ran him over with the tank when he was walking by himself in the middle of a completely empty road. How? They weren’t looking where they were going. He also proved to have very good eysight when he asked them if they were trying to make him calm down when they said it was an accident... only to then have their friends shoot him dead. Friends he saw hiding up on a roof. Which happened to be Henchmen. They pulled him in their tank and sudden recruitment.

-Scared Sniper was tried to be taught something about hand to hand combat. With very very little result. He’s also extremely afraid to use white weapons to the point that if he’s forced to use a knife he kees turning the head away and closing the eyes and blindly stabbing at the enemy. The idea of seeing blood, feeling a weapon sink into someone’s body... it’s too personal, he hates it.

-He’s not a bad sniper, but his arms are still very shaky he needs to take a couple of shots to get the targer, so he was given a G3SG1 sniper rifle, an automatic weapon that would allow him to not waste time before swiftly trying again. It can shoot bullets very fast one of ater the other. Which he should stop doing blindly when he panics. The first times he tended to close his eyes before shooting. He still does sometimes.

-He’s very protective towards Ted, even if he’s not exactly the most dangerous soldier around. Ted is strong and sometimes looks like he can’t feel pain at all. He gets stabbed and after amoment he acts like nothing happened. Scared Sniper, no. He feels pain and panicks badly when he’s hurt. He does panic when Ted gets hurt too, he feels alone and unable to do anything. However, there are moments he manages to snap and hold his ground protecting his mentor till help arrives. This happens when Ted’s unconscious or looks almost dead. If Ted’s still awake, he can’t fully snap... but in this case Ted manages to calm him down and instruct him on what to do.

-Scared Sniper is claustrophobic, but he feels calmer if Ted’s around him. for example if he was told to be alone in a building he’d indeed start to hear things and start shooting left and right. With Ted, this doesn’t happen. One day or another he’ll need to stay alone way more often, but for now he’s still and apprentice and he has no intention to leave Ted’s side. And Ted doesn’t mind anyway.

All I have for now, may write more in the future!

#the commander talks #newgrounds #tankmen #headcanons #Tim #Scared sniper

[outrunningthedark]

can I make a quick comment?

first of all, I love buddie. I love the chemistry, I love the implications of a love story such as this would represent, I love everything.

But! I also think that even if the writers haven't decided on it yet, I not only think this is the natural course because of how long they've let if grow, but also about where this characters are today and where they're heading.

And I'm not only talking about the big things (read the guardianship, the difference of their relationship to other friendships in the show) but also about how by not making them canon yet makes the entire story even better.

I love all the versions of this characters, but they're growing, they're maturing. And even if I loved them, says, in season two, I think that back then it wouldn't work. It would very likely crash and burn because neither of them were ready for it.

Do I hate to see what they're doing with ana and taylor here? Yes. Do I believe, in the thought of making a slow burn, that it's perfect? Also yes!

You said it before, and I totally agree that what this hetero ships are doing is show us why buddie is such a good match. But also, they're giving the opportunity for them to get to the point that the things that would tear them apart, in the beginning, no longer will. That the people they're becoming, are even more right together.

So yes, I'm impatient. But it's beautiful to see what is happening here. And when they finally cave in, nothing will tear these two apart.

And I all for it

Nonnie, you are officially my new favorite person because you get it. Our fandom is so busy bitching about a number of topics - Tim Minear's non-answers // "Buck is not really Christopher's dad!1!" // When will EddieA*a be over? What is the point? // Are we being q-worded? etc etc. - that (IMO!) we're not taking the time to appreciate how we ended up here. Did y'all forget Buddie was never set up to be a "will they/won't they" relationship? Did y'all forget that the original plan was (allegedly) to have Eddie and Maddie get together? Did y'all forget that JLH asked to play Chimney's girlfriend instead? Something happened in the early days of filming Ryan and Oliver as Eddie and Buck. Something different. Something good. That much is clear. We make jokes about them having the quickest enemies-to-friends-to lovers plot on television, but am I the only one who wonders if this was done on purpose? Maybe the chemistry between the two was so noticeable that the writers said "No one is gonna believe they hate each other. We might as well make them friends." People loooove arguing about the slow burn of Buddie (some love it, some hate it), but can we please acknowledge how quickly the writers established that these two characters are going to matter to each other for a long time? Eddie's FIRST EPISODE gave us this money quote: "You can have my back any day." "Or, you know, you could...you could have mine." followed by: - Eddie confiding in Buck about having a child ("He's seven." // "And super adorable. I, uh, I love kids.") - Buck telling Eddie when cell service was working because he knew Eddie wanted to talk to Christopher - Buck driving Eddie to pick up Christopher and watching them happily embrace - Eddie and Buck going to the hospital after Abuela got hurt + Pepa talking to Buck, this dude she literally just met, about her nephew's struggles as a single parent - Buck giving Bobby "a heads up" when they were bringing Christopher back to the station so he could clear it with the chief (without telling Eddie) - Buck asking Carla to help Eddie get Christopher what he needs - Eddie having Buck go with him to watch Christopher meet Santa Claus instead of, y'no, his wife... Everything I just mentioned? THE FIRST TEN EPISODES. If the writers *didn't* slow down the trajectory of Buddie's relationship they'd be married with a second kid on the way, but as we now know TM is trying to take advantage of the last two "single" members of 118 by keeping them apart because if/when Buddie is canon he thinks it'll get boring. (That's a YOU problem, Tim! Learn how to write better scripts!) What if the audience really did like Shannon? Where would we be? Does anyone ever think about that? Where would we be if the writers actually cared about making EddieA*a look like a legit couple? Buck sure as hell wouldn't be Christopher's emergency legal guardian right now, I can tell you that much. Don't get so caught up in the destination that you fail to appreciate what it took to get there - especially when we were never supposed to be on this damn road in the first place.

#anonymous #tv: 911 #tv: 9-1-1 #buddie

[hookingminor]

Halloween prompts. Number one “mortal enemies accidentally showing up in matching costumes every year” with Vince Dunn ??

mortal enemies accidentally showing up in matching costumes every fucking year

-

Un-fucking-believable.

God had some personal vendetta against you or thought this was the funniest running joke in the history of mankind, apparently, because you were about two seconds away from strangling someone.

“No, absolutely not,” you groaned when you saw Vince’s costume, “Go change right now.”

“Hello to you, too, babe,” Vince said cheerily, pulling you in for a side hug and pressed a kiss to your cheek.

“Don’t ‘hello, babe’ me, we did not come together,” you scoffed, pushing him away by the chest before people saw you and presumed you were a couple.

Vince was wearing the complementary Scoops Ahoy costume to your Robin set, and you couldn’t understand how this happened. For the fourth time, you’ve unknowingly showed up in matching costumes with Vince.

The first time was set up by your friends, thinking it would be hilarious because the two of you hated each other.

The second time was accidental. Actually, you had showed up in a different costume, but due to someone spilling their drink on you, you had to shed some layers and slipped on an old NBA jersey the homeowner had. Coincidentally, Vince had worn the same jersey, deciding on a lazy look that year, and once again you were matching.

The third time, it technically wasn’t matching as you two had intended for different looks, but it looked similar enough that everyone just assumed they were matching. You had done your makeup intricately and wore a tattered wedding dress, going as Corpse Bride from the classic Tim Burton movie, and Vince had gone as Abraham Lincoln, though he lost the beard and top hat within twenty minutes and looked like a standard groom.

This year, however, you were so careful. You had told none of your friends your plans. You wanted no possibility of information leaking to Vince somehow about your costume.

God, it seemed, had other plans because here you were again.

“I think the universe is trying to tell us something,” Vince chuckled, following you into the kitchen where you had escaped in an attempt to avoid him.

“That you’re an annoying asshole who will go to, literally, any length to piss me off?” You suggested, pouring yourself an extra strong drink.

“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘maybe we should get together,’” Vince shrugged, and you rolled your eyes.

“Over my dead body,” you snorted, taking a long chug. Vince waited for you to toss your drink back before he spoke again.

“Do you really hate me that much?” He asked, and you swore you saw his face fall just a little bit.

“As much as you hate me,” you replied with a forced smile. Vince gave you a dramatic eye roll to let you know you were being ridiculous.

“I never said I hated you,” he said, and now it was your turn to roll your eyes.

“Your actions say enough,” you muttered.

From the moment you’d met, you’d never gotten along. There wasn’t a definitive reason or instance that made you hate him, but you always clashed at every turn. Every time you suggested dinner, he was never in the mood for that type of food. Every time he wanted to go out and do something, you hated all his ideas. Little disagreements like those just continued to build up and over time, it just got to the point where the two of you refused the other’s suggestions out of spite. You were too proud to admit when he was right and he would never apologize to you so you both let it simmer and stew.

Not wanting to continue conversation with him anymore, you pushed your way past his body and into the party in hopes of disappearing into the crowd.

You’d managed to avoid him for a half hour or so, but even with him somewhere else, he was still with you.

“I saw your boyfriend earlier,” the guy that you thought you’d been flirting with said after a few minutes, “I love your guys’ costumes.”

“Oh, he’s not my boyfriend,” you chuckled awkwardly, “It was purely coincidental.”

“I just talked to him a little while ago, and he definitely insinuated that you were his girlfriend. He was asking people if they’ve seen you. It sounded like he was looking for you,” the stranger explained, but you were already seeing red by the end of his first sentence.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me,” you politely excused yourself with a strained smile.

Walking away with purpose, you roamed the house in an angry stomp until you found Vince tucked away near the pong table, clearly caught in the middle of a game.

You strode up to him with furrowed brows and a clenched jaw when you heard him laughing with his friends. You stopped next to him, reached up to grab him by the ear, and dragged him behind you as you searched for a quiet space to kill him in.

You walked all the way to an abandoned bedroom at the furthest corner of the house and, quite literally, threw him in the room before slamming the door behind you.

“What the fuck is your problem, Dunn?” You exclaimed as you turned on him with crossed arms, “Do you think it’s fun to cockblock me all night?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He asked instead, deciding to play dumb.

“Telling other people we’re together? Is this a joke to you?” As the seconds passed, you were getting progressively more upset.

“It’s kind of funny,” he muttered under his breath with a light laugh, and you swore you never wanted to strangle anyone more in your entire life.

“You’re unbelievable,” you scoffed, “You know what? Do me a favor and ignore me for the rest of the night.... Actually, no, for the rest of your life.” Turning on your heels to leave the room, you reached for the door with one hand, but Vince was leaping forward before you could exit.

“No, wait,” he rushed out quickly, pulling you back around to face him, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say?” His cheeks heated instantly, and he averted your gaze.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, okay? It was childish and stupid,” he confessed, but it only confused you more.

“Why?”

Vince took a few seconds to respond, but he still held onto your wrist. You raised your eyebrows as you waited for him to continue.

“Ikindofhaveacrushonyou,” he mumbled quickly.

“What?” You asked, not sure if you’d heard him correctly.

“I have a crush on you,” he admitted, “and I acted like an asshole because of it.”

“What?” You repeated, though this time it was more in disbelief and shock than misunderstanding.

“I know I deserve it, but you don’t have to be a dick about it,” he said timidly. In all your time knowing Vince Dunn, he never got shy. Until now.

“I’m not being a dick, I’m just genuinely confused,” you said softly. Probably the first time you’d ever spoken to Vince with a soft tone.

“I thought you were cute and that we had a good banter going, but at some point I probably took it too far which lead to all of this,” he gestured vaguely between the two of you, “and then the only relationship we had was when we were fighting, so I kept it up.”

“That’s the worst way to show a girl you like her,” you replied in a monotone voice. If it weren’t for the slight smile that quirked at the corners of your lips, Vince would’ve thought you were about to kick him.

“I know, it was dumb,” he chuckled, “but then some guys were talking about you, so I acted before I could think.”

“Did you plan all this? All these years?” You questioned.

Vince gave you a slight shrug, “The first two times, no. The third time, yeah a little bit.”

“And tonight?”

“I may have asked your roommate to find out. She only agreed because she knows I’ve been after you for a while now.”

“You know if you had just asked me out like a regular person, I probably would have said yes,” you replied, “I thought you were cute when I first saw you too.”

He lifted his eyes to meet yours.

“And then you opened your mouth.”

Vince laughed heartily at that, the tension in the room dissipating as you joined in with him. Taking a tentative step closer, you took the hand that was still holding your wrist to grip your waist as you felt your way up his shoulders. His eyes widened at your close proximity, and you could see him take a deep breath in.

“Ask me now,” you stated, curling your hand around his neck.

He released the breath he was holding in.

“Y/N, would you like to go on a date with me?” Vince asked.

You pretended to ponder your answer for a moment before you finally replied.

“Yeah, I guess. I have nothing better to do.”

“God, you’re insufferable,” Vince groaned, dropping his head against your shoulder in defeat. You let out a small chuckle, and you felt his lips smiling against your skin.

Pulling his head back up to eye level, you gave him a warm smile.

“I’d love to go on a date with you, Vince.”

#vince dunn #vince dunn imagine #hockey imagines #nhl imagine #my writing #requests #blurbs #blues29

[banana-with-a-bow-tie]

The purpose of this post is not to argue that Biden was, or was not, fraudulently elected in the 2020 president election, but to keep a biblical perspective.

Sources report that 47% of American voters believe that large-scale fraud handed the election to Biden/Harris. Nevertheless, 49% say that fraud was unlikely. A recent NPR/Ipsos poll reported that 67% of Republicans and 11% of Democrats surveyed believe that voter fraud gave Biden election. However, the same survey showed that 19% of Republicans and 85% of Democrats disagree. In either case, dozens of millions of voters believe that there was fraud, and dozens of millions believe that there was not. Numbers do not prove whether or not it happened. The point here is that a huge swath of the US population believes that voter fraud helped usher in the next president.

It’s likely that someone you sing next to in church believes that there is ample evidence of fraud, and is grieved about it. Disdaining them as crazy conspiracists is not the best approach (cf. 1 Cor. 13:4-7, Col. 3:12-17). After all, if you’re a Christian, you believe that a peasant Hebrew crucified as a vile criminal will one day appear in the sky standing on clouds.

So for those who do feel that there was fraud, what would Scripture suggest you do? Even if there was, here are a few considerations from God’s word on the issue.

God is sovereign over unrighteousness

“In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider— God has made the one as well as the other So that man will not discover anything that will be after him” (Eccles. 7:14).

Though he is not pleased with it, God is sovereign over all sin. If there was fraud, though it would grieve God, he is sovereign over it. God remains in control even in the most wretched times (Lam. 3:37-38). He was sovereign over the wretched rule of Egypt (Exod. 2:23-25), the wicked rule of Israel’s enemies in Judges (Judg. 2:14), the evil of the Assyrian deportation (2 Kings 17), the wickedness of the Babylonian exile (2 Kings 25), the unrighteousness of Herod and the Romans (Matt. 2:15), and he was even sovereign over the treacherous treatment of His own Son: “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23). Despite all of this evil—often committed by governing authorities—God was never de-sovereigned by it.

“His sovereignty rules over all” (Ps. 103:19).

2. The Lord is still on the throne

No evil agenda, large or small, has ever successfully removed God from his throne. And evil men and nations have tried. They’ve done everything in their power, with satanic and demonic reinforcements, to dethrone God. It hasn’t happened and it never will (Ps. 93:1-5). The permanence of the Lord’s position on the throne of the universe is laughably unthreatened by even the greatest evils of man.

“The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 3 ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’ 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them” (Ps. 2:2-4).

The sovereign, supreme rule of the God of the Bible is no more threatened by unrighteous doings and agendas of earthly rulers than his rule is threatened by a cockroach coughing in a Los Angeles sewer.

“The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble; He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake!” (Ps. 99:1).

3. God will use unrighteousness for good

One of the ways that God proves he is sovereign is by orchestrating evil for good. We have history to prove that: Joseph’s suffering and saving a nation (Gen. 50:20), Pharaoh housing the messianic nation and its growth, the cross of Jesus Christ, and countless examples since then. Throughout history, God has masterfully moved the evil of man and government to accomplish his purposes, the greatest of which was the cross. Jesus was the recipient of unprecedented civil corruption, and God did a pretty decent job at ensuring that worked out well. We might not see how God orchestrates evil for good this side of heaven, but he’ll take care of it (Rom. 8:28). God is trustworthy.

4. Jesus is still building his church

The church has survived the harshest storms wicked men have to offer. She was birthed into the Roman Empire, who actively opposed her existence. Despite three centuries therein of persecution, her growth continued. Satan and his world have always hated and resisted the church. Even so, she has spread from Israel, to the Roman Empire through the Apostles, and to places like Africa through the Ethiopian Euncuh, the New Hebrides through John Paton, Burma through Adoniram Judson, China through Hudson Taylor, the middle east through Samuel Zwemer, and the list goes on. It’s almost like unrighteous circumstances helps the church thrive. Whatever the case, the church will never die out because Christ builds it (Matt. 16:18).

5. We are still to be about the kingdom of God

Unregenerate enemies attempted several times to distract Nehemiah and God’s people from sticking to the essential task of rebuilding the wall (Neh. 6:4). What they did was wicked. But Nehemiah and crew stuck to the main thing (Neh. 6:3-9).

In these New Covenant days, there are no less enemies and distractions that seek to pull us down from the wall. But we must keep the main thing the main thing. The kingdom of God is that thing. Regardless of what happens, our sovereign God would have us give ourselves completely to involvement in our local churches, godliness, disciple-making, prayer, love, and the word. Let us not get down from the wall (1 Cor. 15:58).

6. God will uphold justice perfectly

God is a perfect, omniscient God. Nothing escapes his notice. He is perfectly good, too, which means evil will not prevail. Regardless what someone appears to get away with, they will stand before God in the judgment (Rom. 12:17-21, Rev. 20:11-15).

7. We are all liars and sinners

An election fraud allegation is to say that lying occurred; massive, consequential lying. Among the list of things God hates, lying is mentioned twice (Prov. 6:16-19). However, people are lying every day; politicians, employers, employees, nobodies, and neighbors. Everyone lies. Lying can no more be separated from humans than their shadow. “Let God be true and every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4). That means we, too, have lied. No one is exempt. God is the only One who has never lied nor will ever.

Our lies may not be as socially consequential as others, but God is the one we stand before. On top of being liars, we are all atrociously unholy before the holy God of the universe (Rom. 3:10-19). This God requires perfection (Matt. 5:48). So, we have nothing to offer God except wickedness and weakness in and of ourselves. Due to our nature and doings, we stand guilty and unacceptable before God. Since we have all sinned against a holy God, an individual who never orchestrated widespread voter fraud deserves to spend eternity in the same hell as someone who did (Rom. 2:1-5).  

8. Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave

However, God did not leave us to ourselves. Moved by his own compassion on sinners, and not because of anything good or righteous in us, God looked upon us with pity (Rom. 3:10-12, Eph. 1:3-6). Incredibly, our offenses against God in thought, word, nature, and deed did not move him to justly boot us all into hell. No, far from it. He radically humbled himself by joining human nature to himself and was born a baby (Phil. 2:5-7). Though he deserved unceasing worship from every human, Jesus received scorn, hate, and a humiliating and brutal crucifixion (Phil. 2:8). He received all of this on purpose in obedience to his Father’s plan to atone for the sin of his people (John 10:18). Though thoroughly sinful, Jesus so loved his people that he referred to them as, “My sheep” (John 10:26-27). Jesus then rose from the grave victorious, validating his saving work for his sheep. This is a great love, indeed. And it has everything to do with those struggling with the unrighteousness around them: we’ve all sinned, Jesus died and rose for us, and our greatest need has been met.

9. We are to pray

As every human nation and government will be filled with unrighteousness, God now calls his people to pray.

“First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

We are to pray for so many encouraging reasons: God hears (Ps. 65:2), God answers and works through prayer (1 Sam. 1:10-11, John 15:7), we are commanded to (1 Tim. 2:1-2), it shows that we are depending on our sovereign God (Luke 11:8), and it is an act of worship whereby God brings glory to himself (Rev. 8:3). If we find ourselves in the rut of angst at times, let us pray. We are to pray and pray and pray, and not lose heart (Luke 11:5-8, 18:1-8; Thess. 5:17).

10. Heaven will be great

Jesus often mentioned that we are to live for our permanent, future, unseen, and eternal home with him and all the redeemed (Matt. 16:24-27). While being present and prayerful, this world is passing, visible, dying, and temporal (1 John 2:17).

In heaven, there will be no voter fraud. They’ll be no voting, for that matter. Why should there be? The forever King will be the single most loving, wise, righteous, just, and perfect Individual in the universe, the blessed Lord Jesus Christ (Isa. 9:6-7, John 1:17, Phil. 2:8-11).

“And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one” (Zech. 14:9).

Of course, more could be said here. As God’s people, we are abundantly furnished with what we need to face these rocky times in a manner pleasing to him. Whatever happens, may the Lord’s church abound in faithfulness and fruitfulness.

#long post #but an important one

[bltngames]

The Balan Wonderworld demo came out yesterday. If you haven’t been keeping up with this, it’s a game by Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, two of the original creators of Sonic the Hedgehog. A lot of that original team has gone on to do solo work outside of Sega, but this is the first time two former members of Sonic Team have gotten back together to make a new game.

If the demo is anything to go by, Balan Wonderworld (which I keep trying to type as “Balan Wonderland,” because it has a much nicer rhythm to it) is a game that lives deep in the shadow of NiGHTS into Dreams and Sonic the Hedgehog. It is very clearly trying to be an “Old School Sonic Team” experience, which it... sort of succeeds at, for better and worse.

This feels like a game they ripped straight out of 1995, warts and all, and remastered it with modern-ish graphics. I say “modern-ish” because in broad strokes, I think Balan looks pretty good. The character designs are charming, the level themes are interesting, but if you really stop and look at the game, it’s honestly pretty ugly, with simple lighting, limited detail and blurry textures.

One gets the impression maybe that’s because Balan is on everything -- Playstation, Xbox, PC, and even Switch. The gross texture work could be to squeeze the game down for Nintendo’s handheld, but apparently it runs extremely poorly there. On the PS4 Pro, it sticks pretty closely to 60fps, though there are occasionally hiccups here and there. Nothing worth fretting over, honestly.

But how does it play?

This is where the shadow of Sonic the Hedgehog looms large. Balan is designed to be simplistic to a fault: You get one button to control your character. Or, more specifically, every button on your controller will do the same thing (for the most part). This is right out of the Sonic handbook, as that game was also designed to be operable with only one button, as well.

Now, what your one button does can change. Scattered around levels are different costumes for your character to put on, and each costume has its own unique ability. The full version of Balan promises 80 different costumes, and there’s probably half a dozen in the demo. Each one serves a unique purpose, and some of them don’t even have the ability to jump. Which is fine, mostly, because you can carry a stock of three costumes with you that you can swap between sort of like the team mechanics in Sonic Heroes. Once you finish a level, those costumes get added to your dressing room, allowing you to customize a loadout of costumes at any checkpoint.

On paper, that much sounds fine. But this is where things start getting weird.

Costumes are not freely available to pick up. The jewels that hold costumes are locked with a key. This creates an obvious gameplay loop: find key, unlock costume, use costume to solve puzzle, right? Right.

Except that, at least in the demo, most keys are only a few feet away from any given costume jewel. On top of that, keys respawn. Crack open a costume jewel, grab the costume, but hang out for a little while and eventually the key will reappear. In doing this, you can stock up on keys early on in a level, smoothing out the process of acquiring new costumes as you go. I’m not sure why Balan does this. The time between key respawns is a few seconds too many -- just enough that it starts to feel tedious. But, as far as I can tell, there is no penalty for farming up a bunch of keys from the first key spawn point, either. It’s the worst of both worlds. If it was trying to be convenient, keys would spawn more quickly, but if it was trying to plan puzzles around acquiring keys, you can completely side step that by just waiting it out and hoarding keys early on.

You’ll not only want to hoard keys, but hoard costumes, as well. If you’re unlucky enough to take damage or even die while wearing a costume, it’s gone. You can build up stocks of costumes so you’ll always have spares to pull out of the dressing room, but that requires you to specifically go out of your way to get duplicates and bank them. If you don’t, you might find yourself at a puzzle that requires a specific costume that you simply don’t have anymore. When that happens, your only recourse is to backtrack in the hopes of finding a crystal that contains the costume you need, and characters in Balan aren’t exactly fast moving.

The chances of you losing a costume seem pretty low, admittedly. Balan Wonderworld doesn’t really seem like it’s aiming for anything resembling difficulty. Enemies exist, but only in very small numbers, and they’re easily dispatched. Most of the game is more about exploring the dream-like environments and playing around with the various costume abilities in order to solve basic puzzles.

You aren’t working against a clock, there isn’t a scoring system, and you usually aren’t being graded on your performance. Talking it over with some others, the vibe is that this could be a good game for young children. It requires little in terms of controller dexterity and is generous in every sense of the word.

The primary complaint against that, I guess, is that Balan Wonderworld is a weird game. Like, “Elsa and Spider-man Finger Family Youtube Video” weird. Every level is packed full of gently dancing ghosts that phase out of existence once you get too close to them. They’re all the creatures your costumes are based on, but they don’t exist as NPCs in the world for you to touch and interact with. Like I said, they’re ghosts, and they disappear the moment you get within a few feet. Those same ghosts will suddenly materialize when you touch certain checkpoints, throwing you something of parade. They interrupt the level music and everything just to play their own special celebration song. Move more than a few feet and they will fade back out of existence again, taking their special parade song with them, never to be seen for the rest of the stage.

It lends a strangely “uncanny” feeling to the game. I think the dancing characters are meant to add a sense of carefree fun, but they look like people wearing mascot suits, doing the same basic scripted routine over, and over, and over, for eternity. They don’t look like they’re having fun, they don’t appear to be choreographed to the stage’s music, and yet there they are, eternally dancing the days away. It’s kind of eerie. They were performing before you got here, and they'll keep performing after you leave.

The demo pits you against a single boss, which is notable for being someone who has the same powers you do, but combined and amped up. Seeing the same costume motifs come up in the boss as they draw from the same abilities that you have is actually a really fun idea, and the game rewards you for getting creative and swapping between costumes when you deal damage.

Balan Wonderland is a very odd game, and I’m not sure what to make of it. It took me a while to start wrapping my head around its aesthetic and vibes. It contains shades of something like Super Mario Odyssey to be sure, but it feels like it’s trying to elevate itself above that. Again, it’s a game living deep in the shadow of NiGHTS and Sonic, and in particular, it feels like it borrows NiGHTS’ penchant for putting artistic expression at the top ladder rung. Balan often feels like a very inscrutable sort of game, but in a way that seems to be reaching for some kind of greater meaning beyond simply gameplay. Everything in Balan feels like it might be conveying a message of some sort, even if it’s not immediately apparent. Its ideas do not come from a vacuum.

But here’s the deal: even though a lot of people couldn’t grok NiGHTS into Dreams, I did. I love that game to death. But with Balan Wonderworld, even I’m often left scratching my head. Despite its dead-simple gameplay, it may be just a little too high concept for its own good.

But at the end of the day, it’s not a game I hate. It’s strange, and charming, and even if it feels sort of impenetrably "artistic," at least that makes it interesting. The simple gameplay works its magic, making it an easy game to drop in to even if you don’t necessarily understand what you’re looking at.

Like, what’s the deal with the “Isle o’ Tims” between levels? It kind of has the vibe of a chao garden from Sonic Adventure, but the individual “tims” creatures don’t seem to have statistics or anything like that. You feed them so they crank a wheel, which builds a tower that helps them crank the wheel better. It turns in to a bizarre sort of perpetual motion machine. To what end? I don’t know. And what exactly is Balan himself, anyway? Some of his visual cues call to mind character designs for NiGHTS, but he appears to be a different sort of creature altogether. There’s a rather lengthy intro FMV, as you can no doubt see from the Youtube embed, but it’s more about swirling colors and hyperactive animation than conveying what’s going on or who Balan is. How much of this is even really happening, and how much of it is purely metaphysical? It’s very unclear.

I’ll be interested in seeing how the full version of Balan Wonderworld fares. I get the distinct impression that this will be another NiGHTS -- a game beloved by a core audience of hardcore fans, but shunned for being “too weird” by the populace at large.

I’m not quite sure which group I belong to yet.

#balan wonderworld #square-enix #arzest #yuji naka #naoto ohshima #NiGHTS into Dreams #Sonic the Hedgehog #demo #Playstation #video #writing #preview

[slashingdisneypasta]

Hello! Can I have a scenario where Jafar catch a little girl who is a street rat and was trying to steel from the palace. He decides to let her go but she keep coming back wanting him to take her as his apprentice. "I want to learn from the best wizard" she said. Thank!

Hope this is cute! ^^ I needed / need to practise writing Jafar some more. 

~~~

“Oh… “A joyful smile and laugh rings out from the Sultan after his eyes roam off of Jafar and to the space behind him, in boredom from the conversation. He points with a stout little pointer finger at whatever’s amusing him. “Jafar, I believe you have a companion there, behind you!”

“What? My lord, I… “Sweeping his cape back with a curved hand, Jafar twists in around and looks around… then down… and scowls. “Oh, its you again.”

The little girl raises her hand and smiles at him, excited to be noticed after listening to such a loooong, boooring discussion about farming and grain. “Hi!”

Instead of patting her head or saying anything back to her, Jafar promptly turns back to the Sultan and pastes an apologetic smile on his face. “Sir, I found this urchin skulking around yesterday and sent her back to wherever she comes from… seems she doesn’t listen to directions, though, regrettably. Forgive me, I’ll handle it right away- “

“Oh, truly, don’t bother yourself about it, Jafar! She isn’t a trouble!- Just a little girl. Hello dear, what’s your name?” The Sultan, sweet and naïve man that he is, is completely taken with your little street rat charms already and passes Jafar to hold his hands excitedly behind his back and talk to you.

“I’m Y/N! And I’m five years old!” You hold up your hand again, cheesing at your five fingers, demonstrating how old you are. “Who are you?”

“This is the Sultan, you disrespectful little! - “

“Jafar! Please! She isn’t expected to know me, she’s just a child.” Propping his fists on his hips disappointedly and appalled his Vizier’s behaviour, causing Jafar to roll his eyes as soon as his boss’s head is turned, gripping his staff tightly between his spindly fingers. “Allah! Don’t listen to him Y/N, he’s just a silly grumpy man. I’m Sultan. Its lovely to meet you.”

“What I meant, sire, is that the thieves are concocting new ways to steal from you all the time! This little girl could be a deceitful plot, sir.”

With every word that comes out of Jafar’s mouth, the Sultan becomes more and more disappointed. What- does his vizier hate children?? How can that be! “Jafar, I want you to stop this nonsense at once. And I’m ordering you to go feed this child, she looks skinnier than the horns on an oryx- I dread to see what her concaved little stomach looks like under that cloth she wears. Now, go. I’m very busy!”

As the Sultan turns around and bids you a good day, and then totters off to another room to no doubt, play with some more toys or find his wayward daughter to bother, Jafar assess the beaming child looking up at him. Then, just as she’s about to open her mouth and say something, he starts for the door and sweeps out of the room. “Oh, sure, ‘nonsense’. It’s not as if you pay me for this kind of advice, or anything. ‘Grand Vizier’ my snake- hurry up, urchin!”

“Oh, coming!!” You exclaim, already having been trying to catch up with his ridiculously long strides- Now you’re running.

When you two finally arrive at the kitchen, which is on the first level when you began on the 3rd, you’re exhausted and basically flop onto the nearest stool. But you’re too short to actually get on it without climbing, which would be too strenuous for you in the moment, so you’re just holding it for dear life and hoping you don’t die from lack of air. As Jafar orders the kitchen staff to prepare you something quick, you just pant like a dog onto the seat of the stool.

He turns around to see this and rolls his eyes again. “Alla’s sake, you’d think a street rat would be more agile then you.” As if this is all a huge stress on his shoulders and you should be beyond grateful for his attentions, Jafar picks you up and sets you on the stool. Now you sigh and drop your cheek onto the kitchen bench. Jafar settles himself in the bench across from you, and sets his snake staff against the table next to him. “So, did you come to prosper where you failed yesterday? Because if I were a little thief like you, I wouldn’t seek my former capture out on the second attempt. I’d avoid him.”

“Ah… “You finally pull yourself together, and unstick your little cheek from the wooden, lacquered bench. “No! I came looking for you.”

Jafar raises a sceptical eyebrow. “Why?”

“Your magic! I wanna learn!”

… “My what? I’m sure I don’t know what you refer to.”

“The magic! It made the Sultan mans eyes go swirly and red, and you used that.” As you point at the snake staff, Jafar’s confusion and, now, frustration grows and his lips turn down in a scowl.

“But… that was up on the 3rd floor again… I found you at the entrance of the palace?”

You stretch your toes out under the table, as they sway in the air can’t touch the ground, shrugging under the mans hard gaze. “I followed you down there! I tried to think of a way to ask you, but then you saw me and sent me away! I want to learn the mag-”

Jafar pipe sup quick, stopping you from saying anything else incriminating around the kitchen staff. Hopefully, they were too busy to hear all that business about the Sultans eyes going ‘swirly’, as it is. This is a predicament- of all the issues Jafar foresaw in his plan to find his lamp, this little twit didn’t even make the list. Damnit. “First of all, little urchin, you need to stop saying the word magic around these… “He looks around suspiciously and lowers his voice. “Servants. For one, because its sorcery; Not ‘magic’. And for a second reason, because people can’t know about it. It’s a secret. Do you know what a secret i- Oh of course you know what that is. Anyway, for that reason, I cannot teach you. Now wait silently for your food, eat it, and begone.”

Pouting, you put your hands on the table in earnest. “But! -“

“What did you not understand?”

Before you can open your mouth again, a plate with delicious smelling, warm steam wafting off of it and into your face is set on the bench in front of you. The chef mutters something about that being leftovers from the Sultan and the Princesses’ lunch but your eyes widen at it. Just the portions are more then you’ve ever seen, never mind the smell! Quickly, you get to eating away.

You lick that plate clean before you’re done with it.

Its silent for a moment, as Jafar’s still stuck in his thoughts that he entertained himself with while you ate, before you speak up again, ripping him from his mind. “I’ll work really hard!”

Sighing and massaging his temple, he turns back to you. “It’s not about work ethic.”

You cross your arms, glaring stubbornly back at him.

You’ll be back.

___TIME SKIP: A Couple Weeks Later / CHANGE OF POV___

“Oh, Jafar!~”

Oh Jafar!~ = Jafar’s least favourite phrase as of late, because it always comes from the Sultan and it is always a precursor to something about Y/N. She has invaded his life and he can’t seem to remove her from it- she just keeps coming back! And, he tried to make her public enemy number 1 by telling the guards that if they see her, they should immediately expunge her from the premises… but she just made Razoul her friend and now she basically has free roam! She basically lives here!

Ugh, how Jafar would just like to drop kick her and her cute little smiles to Tim Buk Tu.

Nevertheless, Jafar has a job, a goal, and a reputation. So, he follows his Sultans voice to the throne room and, on seeing Y/N’s sleeping form curled up like a kitten on the floor by a wall, looks tiredly to the Sultan. “My apologies, sir, I’ll extract her.”

“Oh no, don’t be silly. I just called you to move her to my chair,” His throne?? “She’ll be far more comfortable there. I would do it myself, but its clear you’re the only one she trusts around here. You must have really bonded these past weeks with her, Jafar! I’m proud of you! Now, bye!~ I’m going to look for Jasmine. Be careful to not drop Y/N! Hoo hoo.” Giggling away like he does, making Jafar feel like the only adult in the room, the Sultan hops off the find his own terror as Jafar heaves a great sigh and strides over to the child in question.

Heaving her carefully up by the armpits, Jafar holds her up in front of him like a teddy bear- she’s that small, and light. And even with the feedings she’s been allowed here at the palace, she’s like this. Looking grim, Jafar mutters. “You’re the bane of my existence, you know.”

“I… I just want… “She’s only half awake, head still lolling forward and eyes still closed, holding onto dreamland. “To learn from the best… wizard… “

“Sorcerer.”

“Y… yeah… “

“Well, you’re certainly persistent.” He sighs, irritated, but giving her her dues as he brings her forward and rests her on his chest as he walks her to the throne. “And I am the best.”

He feels a little giggle and sticky hot breath against his collarbone before he puts her on the throne, watching her curl up again in the same feline inspired position as before when she was on the floor.

“Get sleep… Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night Jafar...”

She might be sorcerer material… but she has a long journey to go before she even touches my staff.

[wisdomfish]

Christians are Called to Harmonious Relationships

Live in harmony with one another (Rom. 12:16).

There could hardly be a simpler verse of Scripture. Harmony, as all the musicians know, is a pleasing arrangement of different parts. You get harmony when different notes are joined together in such a way that one note enriches and complements another.

Harmony is not unison. You don’t get harmony by everyone playing the same note. You get harmony when different notes are brought together. Harmony does not mean that everyone thinks the same, does the same, or is the same. Harmony is not discord either. Discord is when notes are brought together in such a way that one note diminishes and distorts another.

“Live in harmony with one another” means that believers should live in such a way that we enrich and complement each other. By joining together, we are more than any of us would be on our own. There is a display of beauty that comes from taking what is distinct and different and making it one.

This is at the heart of marriage: God makes the man and the woman. The two are different, but in marriage they become one. There is a beautiful complementarity in which, like two notes in a chord, they are more together than either of them could be on their own.

You see this in the nature of God Himself. There is one God, and He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is one in nature, one in purpose, and one in love. There is a unique beauty, glory, peace, joy, blessing, and harmony that we see in God and that flows from God.

God speaks about the same thing here to His church: “Live in harmony with one another.” Who is the “one another?” We are to live in harmony with our Christian brothers and sisters, redeemed by Christ, and brought together in the family of God. Harmonious living is the distinct calling that we have as Christians.

Is there anything that is more desperately needed in our world and in our country today than harmony? People everywhere are tired of polarization, of division, of conflict over race and religion and money and on and on. The world desperately needs to see something different, and God says, “This is your calling. Let harmony be seen in my church!”

Now here is the question: What stops us? The command of God is crystal clear, so what holds us back?  Why do we find it so hard to live in harmony?

There is one answer, and it is right here in the second half of Romans 12:16. PRIDE.

“Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight” (Rom. 12:16).

Self-focused Pride is the Enemy of Harmony

Thoughtful Christians find themselves wondering what God is doing in this troubling season of our national life. I don’t have the answer to that question.

But one thing is surely clear: we can learn to hate pride. Viewing others with haughty eyes and claiming to be wise in your own sight are being paraded before us day after day to the point where vast numbers of people are saying, “Switch off the TV. I can’t watch anymore.” Perhaps we are now at a moment when we can learn to hate one of our own worst sins.

Perhaps even today God will bring us to a place of saying, “Lord, deliver me from having haughty eyes. May I never look down on another person. Lord, may I never be wise in my own sight. Make me humble, so that I’m in a position to be taught by you and by others.”

Cross-centered Humility is the Friend of Harmony

The gospel cuts pride to shreds, because it casts all of us on the mercy of God. The truth of the gospel is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24). What do you have that you did not receive? Every good gift comes from above.

The gospel moved the apostle Paul from seeing himself as the cream of the crop to the chief of sinners. That’s a big change! He went from saying, “As to righteousness under the law, [I was] blameless” (Phil. 3:6), to saying “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15).  If Christ could transform Paul’s pride, then what becomes of our boasting? Do we have anything to brag about?

In the gospel, our proud claims are cancelled (Rom. 3:27) because God destroys all worldly pretentions. He abolishes all earthly distinctions. There is one way to peace with God for those who are far and for those who are near, one hope for those who are rich and poor, one sacrifice for the sins of Jews and Gentiles, and one Savior whose arms are open to all who will humble themselves in faith and repentance and come to Him. Thinking we can have peace with God by our own efforts is eliminated on the basis of faith.

Believer, do not be overtaken by the pride and arrogance around you. And learn to hate the pride within you, which is the enemy of your harmonious relationships with other Christians. Do not be haughty, and never be wise in your own eyes. May we “never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14), so that, in the light of God’s mercy, we may live in harmony with one another. May we sing better, together, of how Christ has changed us at the cross:

When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.1

~ Colin Smith

1. Isaac Watts, from the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” 1707.

#marriage #harmony #pride #christianity #gospel