What’s Going To Make You Happy Right Now? Is It Some Cake? Is It A Nap? Is It Calling Your Mom? Is

Empiresblr is absolutely broken right now. thank you Scott

A thought I had in the shower.

Shipping is weird. And I’m not saying it in a bad way or that shipping is wrong I’m just saying it toes an odd line. See with most ships it runs along the lines of ‘we know it’s not gonna happen but it would be cute if it did’, or some ships that have some form of possibility to them. DNF for example, we pretty much know it’s not gonna happen because (I’m fairly sure) Dream and George are straight. It would also absolutely destroy the Internet if it did happen. Then you have Karlnap, a ship that we know is probably not going to happen but we honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it did. Then there’s Skephalo.

Skephalo is in a category of its own. On one hand it is shipping, we don’t think it’s gonna happen. But we don’t actually? There are some interactions that are kinda questionable, where I am not entirely sure if it’s purely platonic. I don’t want to push ships on anyone or put pressure on Skeppy and Bad but you have to admit at this point no one is 100% sure what their relationship is.

In the early 70s Sesame Street was created with an eye towards educating poor, inner-city children for free, and became a massive hit with all children. In 2016, faced with going off the air forever after facing conservative efforts to destroy public broadcasting since basically its beginning, new episodes became a timed exclusive for premium cable network HBO. In 2022 HBO Max, newly merged with and taken over by reality TV channel Discovery, removed Sesame Street episodes and spin-offs from streaming as a tax write-off and scheme to avoid paying residuals.

florist!simon and tattoo artist!johnny part 2

johnny’s so worked up when he pushes through the door of simon’s shop, he’s exclaiming some shit in scottish and holding up the rose simon left him in the air like it’s some sort of evidence.

simon’s in the middle of making a flower arrangement and simply blinks at the gibberish directed his way, but hides a sly smirk under his surgical mask.

johnny saunters towards the counter, puts on his best smile, and simon swears the flowers around him start swooning and singing and becoming more aromatic the second he opens his mouth and spews some charming words at him.

he crosses his arms, tilts his head as he stares down at johnny but the bastard doesn’t falter, just keeps talking and flirting and fuck his eyes are so blue and he can see the outline of his biceps through the material of his shirt and he can smell his fucking cologne and did simon hear him correctly?

a date? friday, 6pm? johnny will pick him up? with his bike? oh god. simon hasn’t been on a date in years months, let alone have someone plan it instead of him. he’s practically pulling on a veil and a massive white wedding bouquet from behind his back for this stranger he left a rose for as a little gift.

he behaves like a bastard though, tells johnny to buy something from him and maaaaybe he’ll consider the date.

johnny immediately pays 100 pounds for the biggest fucking bouquet simon can make, tells him to pick only the freshest and simon’s favorite flowers, makes simon explain the meaning of every flower and its color, and when simon ties the prettiest bow around the fat stems, johnny tells him it’s beautiful. now take it home and put it in a nice vase in your living room and wait until i get you another one on friday.

simon’s raising his eyebrows but is kicking his fucking feet like a teenage girl inwardly.

johnny leaves with simon’s number scribbled on a piece of paper, twirling the red rose between his fingers. simon watches him go, then looks back at the bouquet—massive, extravagant, borderline ridiculous, just like johnny requested. and in the middle of it, nestled among the other flowers, is another red rose.

‘so ye don’t forget about me,’ johnny had said, grinning as simon tucked it into place in the middle of the arrangement.

as if simon fucking could.

Well this aged well

Imagine for a second Empires Smp, but it’s a musical

Rarer D&D alignments

Bastard Good: You make the world better for people but in a really obnoxious way so everyone low-key hates you for it

Chaotic Dead: You set yourself on fire at the start of each session

Informed Evil: you're wearing a red cape and cackling so we kind of assume you've probably done some bad things off screen, right?

Lawful Pointless: You follow the rules of chess in every situation you find yourself in.

False Neutral: HAHA FOOLS! I WAS NO DRUID! I WAS A PALADIN ALL ALONG!

Lawful Anxious: You follow very strict laws but you don't know what those laws are or if you're breaking them.

Personal Evil: rather then making things worse for sapient life, you work to make things worse for Steve specifically. Everyone else is fine.

Centrist Neutral: "I don't support The Chained God Tharizdun breaking free and unmaking all reality but if we stop him through force we're just as bad as he is. Did you know there's actually zero difference between good and bad things?"

Sponsored Good: You provide justice, compassion and the great taste of subways sandwiches! Put in the code SMITETHESINNERS when ordering online for 20% off!

Sexy Lawful: You follow very strict rules but in such a way we kind of suspect you're getting off on it.

Chaotic Incidental: You act completely randomly but by sheer chance your actions turn out identical to if you followed very strict rules.

Theoretical Good: You want to do good things to help the world and once you stop binging Netflix you're absolutely going to.

Ugly Neutral: None of the other alignments want to hang out with you so you're neutral by default

Chaotic Meta: You pointedly refuse to follow the rules of the game you're playing.

Thirsty Evil: Look, orcs are hot, ok?

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

Shipping is such a multilayered thing too.

You can ship characters for happily ever afters, sure, you can ship them for tragically-then-happily, you can ship two or three or four or more, you can ship endless combinations of personality types and relationship dynamics

but you can also ship characters under very specific circumstances, or for a certain period of their life but not for all of it, or only in a certain universe. You might say “I ship these characters” and what you mean is you think they are fascinating together and could have a story together. That story could be any kind of story. 

Sometimes it means you want them together for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it means something different than that.

I don’t know about you, but for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.” 

HERE COMES THE CODFATHER!

(bottom pictures are a transparent version and a colourless version!)