#sorry for taking a while to reply!

[minty-playhouse]

Do you have those pictures of john in a skirt, I think Kenny is also there? For the life of me I cant find them

I got you fam!

[turtle--soup]

🧫 Were your turtles mutated intentionally or on accident?

That's an interesting question!

My turtles don't know for sure where they came from or how they came to be. Donnie in particular has been trying to find out as much as possible.

As far as they can tell, they seem to have been mutated on purpose. Splinter found the turtles near the wreckage of a truck that had remnants of scientific equipment, chemicals, restraints and cages amongst the debris. From what he saw, Splinter thinks there's potential that there may be other mutants like them. (Splinter is not a mutant! He's from Usagi's reality and has always been a rat person.)

When Splinter found them hiding in an alleyway, infant Donnie was trying to protect baby Mikey and two eggs, which Leo and Raph, already mutated, hatched from. The fact that Leo and Raph hatched in this form suggests to them that either their eggs were laid by another mutant turtle or they were genetically altered whilst in the eggs. They've looked into the possibility that they're actually just Like That - either from another planet or another reality like Splinter (Splinter may have assumed this at first??) - but Donnie thinks mutation is more likely, and things that they find out through meeting April and Casey help to support this theory...

Thank you for the ask!

[lemon-zesttt]

your art is so pretty and the way you draw Harvey makes me wanna squish his cheeks like a grandma before shaking him wildly and interrogating him on how to get a mustache like his because I’m sorry it’s so good??????? I’d show him my model cars and model Miata and rave about it before running off and disappearing to never come back😭😭😭😭😭

Awwww thank you!!! I am glad you like the way I draw him 😭😭🫶 and that's so real, I want to squish and ball him in my hands as well but also!! Waittt stopp!!! Come back!! 😞😞 he would love to hear more about your model Miata!!! 😞😞😞

[meltedmush]

Hiii!! I heard you use procreate? What brushes do you use? I’ve been trying to find a pencil brush that I like. Ignore this if you’ve already answered it. Have a nice day!!

Hi, yes I use procreate! (Sorry I’m literally answering this a month late…) But here’s a link to my earlier post about this!

It’s literally my entire main brush set. Every single artwork I’ve posted on this tumblr has been dependent on this set, including my comics, and illustrations regardless of how different in style they look. I do have other brushes which are specific to creating more realistic backgrounds, but I typically just use the traditional brush and warp it for texture. 😂

If you guys want my entire asset of stamp, and texture brushes that I’ve stocked up like a hoarder, let me know! I also recently got a watercolor brush pack I really like, and I can share that too!

But other than that, the one brush I use most is my sketching brush, which I’ve just labeled “Sketch Rough”. I’m not that good at line art (people who can do line art are incredible), so this brush has been a life saver for me! I work with more of a painterly style, and I prefer not inking my sketches or tracing over them again. (Unless I want them cleaner… 😭) I tend to just draw my sketches then painting over or under it.

(It’s also slightly texturized! It’s still pretty clean to the point where you can still recognize what shapes you’ve drawn, but the texture adds a nice touch.)

[frayedattheendings]

[stupidlittlespirit]

im sorry to hear that you're actively losing your relationship due to being ace.. thats genuinely devastating

it's alright babe, at the end of the day I'll always have this smokin hot bod and this clean bill of mental heal-..... this smokin hot bod!

[remnantglow]

did you see did you see did you see did you see the murderbot trailer?? what are your thoughtss I know I have many

well. not to be a hater but my opinion can pretty much be summed up with: any positive impressions i might have are completely overshadowed by how awful and inadequate i find the murderbot casting. 😔😐

[basofy]

Do you have any character analysis on lisa armstrong? I think theyre neat

ahh i have plenty inside of my mind but i dont think a lot of that has made it to tumblr, a lot of it is my own feelings about her mixed with things ive seen other people say, it's a little hard to say what was lisa really like given the limited amount of scenes with her that we got in which we've seen her acting manipulative out of desperation (that one ending with bernard) but also bottling up her own sadness and clinging onto the few good things in her life (that conversation between her and brad in the definitive edition, lisa keeping her mother's necklace etc) plus all the stuff we can see in the first in which shows lisa's terrible and mixed feelings over the situation she was put through, i think she would have it hard to completely sort them out as that is stuff that most of the time you understand better only after youre out of those circumstances. i also feel that some bits of the first are there for people to resonate with in their own way, which i think is a good thing

personality wise i always saw her as being in similar terms to brad in the sense that they couldve been sweeter people had their surroundings not shaped them to a strong extent. i tend to see her as someone who is sweet and playful but also very erratic and not in control of her own emotions, also not in touch with whats considered normal by others around her, so i think she would accidentally cross boundaries or hurt other people's feelings, all the while being more vulnerable herself than she'd admit. she's a bit of a troublemaker to me and i think she would find it hilarious to make other people uncomfortable (like randomly bringing up traumatic experiences or even joking about them like that one "i'm hanging in there" dialogue of hers 😭) but would feel guilty about it immediately after, she has severe mood swings!! also i realized that in my mind she tends to appear as partially nonverbal?? being more of an observer that speaks mostly if she deems it necessary lol. i think that's a me thing

i think all the while she is someone that deeply desires some peace, this is what she looks up to the most and why some of her interests revolve around mundane and not too exciting stuff (gardening, tea parties) she wishes to feel at ease and not having to be on a state of alert all the time

a thought that i share with a friend is the possibility of lisa not really being suicidal, as a strong part of her character revolves around wanting to escape her torment, both physically and mentally, and that she took the decision to end her life at the sight that nothing was changing, after trying everything she could think of. we see her being able to make friends like bernard, being interested in learning karate like brad (an opportunity that was denied to her), holding onto the memory of her mother who she presumably found help in until she could barely remember her anymore, and even taking the decision to make berny mutilate her to force marty to leave her alone. she tried! she tried to live and really wanted to but ultimately nothing worked her way and she did not find purpose in continuing to endure the same torture everyday, that's how I see it at least

another important trait i find in her is abandonement, things like brad leaving the house without her, her mother dying/leaving (i'm still unsure of which it was? but to me it made sense that mama armstrong died when she was little), her grandfather not wanting to take her in because he didn't want to train a girl, and the whole dilemma around marty. (not to mention nobody in her neighborhood doing anything for her and brad but that's more of an extra complaint i think about sometimes lol many such cases) the feeling of being left to deal with abusive circumstances completely on your own, without even being able of understanding why is any of this even happening and if you could've done something to provoke it, which to the player it is very obvious none of this was lisa's fault but in her own mind it's really possible the thought could've crossed her mind that it was her fault somehow (the religious trauma implications in the first do not help). i should note here the very important fact that lisa has zero clue why was marty the way he was and that when she had the chance to do something to escape him, she decided it was her responsibility to be the one to get hurt in order for the abuse to stop. she's just a child left to process all this stuff on her own and she thinks it was her appearance that lured marty in somehow, because to her what else could it be? at that point she was considering anything.

i think this is why berny was such an important presence in her life, who she saw as a friend and romantic interest but also as an opportunity. someone to rely on in the way she couldn't trust anybody else. and there's a lot of criticism in regards to how her actions affected bernard or why would she tell him to harm a little animal as practice but i always assumed she was sort of desensitized/apathetic and didn't realize bernard would also become scarred by the experience, he was not the one getting cut! is what i think she thought. and the assumption that she harmed animals for fun is just a straight up lie lol

i have a lot to say that's more headcanon territory bc it's little things that i analyze from the first; for example what i interpret as her having complicated feelings about marty, as hinted by the song names, a detail i really like, or those nice marty npcs which i've seen people describe differently; as either, a time where marty used to be nicer (which brad would've been the only one to know of) lisa wishing that she had a normal, caring dad, or marty possibly playing it nice to lure lisa in and take advantage of her, terrifying but possible. this mixed with all those other horrifying deformed depictions of marty all around, which signal towards his image becoming ruined to her, and all the objects such as fridges or beds covered in filth showing that marty's abuse haunts her in every corner of the house, she cant even walk around her own house peacefully. the constant mention of religion is important too because to me that could be lisa noticing the hypocrisy in marty being devoted to a god while being a terrible person himself.

something i think about a lot is how brad and lisa reffer to marty differently; when encountering marty again in painful he reffers to marty as "dad" and we know he doesn't like to be called that by dustin or buddy, clearly tying the world to marty. in the first, there's a vhs tape simply named "marty" in contrast to mrs armstrong vhs being actually named "mom". i think brad sees it as, he doesn't try to take the role of father away from marty, he forces it onto him to signal that it was his job to take care of him and lisa yet he forever failed him as a dad, while lisa takes that title away from him, in a "you're not my dad, never were" type of way

there's another theme that shows up briefly but it's the topic of being grateful, saw someone interpret that royal world as marty manipulating lisa with "everything he does for her" "i put a roof on your head and food on your plate and this is how you treat me" etc etc an abusive parent classic, also the "You think my struggle is funny?" dialogue that comes off as guilt tripping, that and the religious symbolism makes me wonder if she has conflicted feelings over being thankful

things like tricky rick's origin as a personification of the abuse lisa endures feels to me like her reaction as a lonely child (i have the hc that she created him on purpose to help herself describe what was happening to her) and the fact that she only ever physically harms tricky rick but not marty, is rather always running away from him and complying to his demands, maybe hinting that she wishes she didn't have reasons to hurt him or that she doesn't feel capable of doing it in contrast to how much power marty has over her. (i keep wondering if the finger you find in lisa the first could be marty's or hers,,)

i think a lot of the first makes this emphasis on the fact that lisa is a kid forced to grow up too soon, so you see all these terrifying signs of abuse interpreted through her child lenses. i think so much of the white flowers and how they posses this symbolism of "purity" showing these little remaining bits of lisa's innocence, or her inner desire to be pure. i could talk about everything i find in lisa the first but it's a lot 😭 but i think these are the things that come to mind more

some of the stuff in the first can feel a little conflicting/contradictory but i think that makes sense for the type of torment lisa is enduring that makes her go through every thought and every emotion. though of course, this was made before lisa was turned into an actual character, but i still like to tie the stuff from the first to her. during the old versions of painful and joyful lisa appears as more of a haunting memory of a person that brad and buzzo failed, and then in the definitive edition there's these small bits where she is rather being missed for being herself and not just out of guilt, the DE has its flaws but i really liked the lisa stuff! (minus the ohh lisa is controlling my mind bit with buzzo but we don't talk abt that)

i think overall lisa is a character that every player interprets differently and that's part of her charm as a character that was made as a tribute to a real person, i like how helpful she is to victims and i wouldn't think of my interpretation to be the correct one but i'm happy with how i see her

MUCHO TEXTO

[pigeonstab]

I love having the choice between like five youtubers, like do I watch the new poppy playtime chapter from jacksepticeye? Markiplier maybe... Oh but Spiff has an unedited vod

[slushiepizza]

Guy has a squishy face

I wanna kith it with red lipstick on

he says ;)

[luimagines]

IT IS I! THE WIZARD!

I wanna write a story, but it would be weird to write so here it is:

(Warning: swearing)

A reader who can speak to the dead, can see spirits. They chat often with the villains because they hang around them often, and often ask the reader to tell the Links messages.

The reader collects cursed items, having the strange ability to quell the corrupting powers (for example, they can use Majora's Mask with no negative effect). So they have like cursed knives, Majora, a few shards of the mirror of twilight glued together (I know it's impossible but let me dreeeeaaam-), that kind of stuff.

So like, something like this would happen:

»»————-　★　————-««

Reader walks up to Four, listening to thr whispers of their spirit friend, Vaati. He had asked to give a message to Link, 'The short one that looks like a f*cked up kinstone', and Reader was too kind to say no. They always knew that spirits that lingered often suffered in pain. Maybe it would help Vaati pass on?

"Hey, Four." Reader said, and Four turned.

"Oh, hello, Reader. Do you need something?"

"I have a message for you." They said, eyes glowing a dim blue, like a luminous stone. "Vaati said 'You're a loser, no maidens?'"

Four passed, a mix of confusion and horror on his face. "I'm sorry, WHO told me WHAT?!"

»»————-　★　————-««

Reader held Majora in their hands, staring into the great yellow eyes, invested in its whispers. A cough pulled them out of their trance, and Time sat next to it, giving a caughtous glance at the mask. "You seem enamored with that thing."

"I do. . . don't i?" Reader said wistfully. They sighed. "Do you know what it's like. . . seeing the dead? Hearing their woes and being able to do. . . anything? It's painful, watching them suffer."

"Why do you keep it, of you know it's story?" Time asked, frowning. Reader sighed, running a hand on their head.

"You probably wouldn't understand." They explained. "Spirits are more complex than a dungeon clever could be. . . this one has taken a liking to me. . . or. . at least is trying to control me."

Time stiffened. "I've worn it, Majora. He always throws a fit when I do because he cannot invade my mind." Reader explained, turning back to Time and pointing at the marks under their eyes. "These marks are like the ones you have. Proof of my power over it."

Time huffed and Reader suddenly snapped their head back to the mask, eyes glowing blue. Time watched them nod to it, and slowly turn back to Time, eyes still glowing creepily as they slowly asked "He wants to know if you've become a mask salesman too. . ."

»»————-　★　————-««

"You've lost someone important to you. . . haven't you?" Reader asked Legend on night. He was on watch duty, and the others were asleep. He glared at Reader.

"What?" Legend asked, sounding offended.

"I don't mean to insult!" Reader said quickly. "It's just. . ." Their eyes turned blue, as they looked next to him. The familiar humming of a tune oh so forgien yet familiar to their ears clwas heard only by them, sung by the spirit next to Legend in the pretty blue dress and red hair. "I can see her. . . Was she close to you?"

Legend froze. "What the hell are you talking about? Is this some kind of sick joke?!"

Sensing and watching him grow angry, Reader gave a sympathetic smile. "She likes to hum a pretty tune, you know. as if she is trying tell you it's okay. She can't speak, sadly."

He continued to glare, about combust until they began to him the tune. That tune which he missed of so dearly. The tune he'd trade EVERYTHING he own To be around again.

Reader continued to hum the tune, closing their eyes and doing their best to match the woman's tune when she felt Legend shaking next to them. They stopped and opened their eyes to see him shaking, head in his hands.

"D-dont stop" He said, his voice breaking and shaking. Reader nodded and continued, and his shaking voice started to sing the lyrics softly, leaning into Reader. They wrapped their arms around them, providing some warmth, to comfort the tired, broken, hero, that the lady in blue could not anymore. . .

»»————-　★　————-««

Either blunt as a dull butter knife or extremely creepy, or comforting. No inbetween. They've got three looks. And That's IT.

Thats all. Thanks for comeing to my Ted talk

I mean.... this could be a pretty decent story if you chose to write it out.

Thank you for sending this in.

This would be like... every Link's worst nightmare. The idea that the people who taunted them and nearly destroyed everything they held dear is still dissing them from the beyond? Horrendous.

They will never be free.

[buckybuck-barnes]

She ran in as she had a basket of goodies. Her curls were in braids as she held a blanket in her hand. She wore a simple blouse and jeans, her boots tapping on the floor.

"Bucky" she calls out sweetly. She's been staying more, not really home honestly. She was calm as she gave Alpine a head scratch as she walked in.

"We still on for our picnic?" She asked softly

- @ancient-siren

Bucky smiles when he sees her, he dashes over with a grin.

"Of course we are!" He kisses her cheek. He's wearing all black except for a dark blue jacket. He tucks one of her curls back in place.

[turtle--soup]

what's your favorite character's favorite cold weather activity?

I'm very much a passenger on the '2003 Raph enjoys knitting' train, so I like to imagine him spending cold days knitting dozens of blankets and scarves and hats. Just holed up in a corner in his room, half-buried in yarn.

Also if it snows he is 100% going to stage an all-out snowball war with his brothers, obviously! I'm imagining the turtles all fighting against each other, perhaps pairing off 2-on-2, and then Casey shows up and gets completely buried in snow because they would just find it funny to gang up on him and they know Casey's not going to get upset about it (much, lol).

I feel like all the 2003 turtles would also spend more time on the streets looking out for homeless folks in the cold weather too. They know what it's like to be cold and hungry, so they try to help people when they can. Maybe that's what all Raph's knitted stuff is for!

Thank you for the ask! 🥰

[aizawashuichi]

the absolute fuckery of feeling guilty for not reciprocating the effort someone puts in for me, even only in conversations, but at the same time, being overwhelmed by too much social interaction or too many expectations, even imagined ones, that I just need to lurk/isolate myself for a while, which only makes me feel more stressed, guilty and overwhelmed

[cherrirui-official]

Idk if your still into trolls so apologies for this ask but question, who will be captured in beach bros au? Like what if it's JD?

John Dory told Bruce that he's going adventuring for a bit... Bruce was glad that JD won't be annoying him now but got increasingly worried as 2 months passed with no signs of his only older brother. He just finished reading his kids a story, thinking that JD is gonna pop up and ask for a bedtime story too, but he didn't. There was a door bell, a note taped on the door... His older brother got trollnapped...

Gosh he missed when he was getting annoyed by JD.

It'll be cute for him to step up for JD when they fought. Watching his older brother die... FOR THE 2ND TIME...

1st time, almost drowned.

2nd time, crystallized then reborned

JD is definitely gonna be scolded by Bruce for getting kidnapped and Bruce is definitely gonna be taking care of him, brushing his hair like how JD did😭😭💔

HIII first off UR GOOD, DONT WORRY! U dont have to apologize for asking, I genuinely love questions like these! Second: truth be told I'm not as into trolls as I was before BUUUUUT I absolutely NEED to yap abt this bc if not I'll die so I hope ur ready

Sooo right off the bat: u are completely right on the money abt it being JD

I KNOOOW everyone and their mother makes AUs where JD gets trapped in the diamond prison by the twins but PLLLS HEAR ME OUT ON THIS ONE

Out of the two, it makes more sense to me for JD to be the one kidnapped rather than Bruce. Like unless Bruce somehow fell off of his surfboard and got washed up on a beach in Mount Rageous (if they have any cuz I can't remember, I don't think so but I could be wrong) he doesn't exactly have a REASON to be there or at least none I can think of.

And even if Bruce did get kidnapped, JD has Rhonda, which would make it much easier and quicker to find Bruce. There's also the fact that JD and Bruce are close in the au so JD would immediately sense something is up when Bruce doesn't return home after a while and go looking for him unlike in the canon movie where the bros are split up so JD had no reason to go looking for Floyd until he got the note. In my au I wanted that canon two month time period where one bro is stuck in that diamond prison with Velvet and Veneer.

Sooo, how the au goes is JD and Bruce get into a small argument which leads to JD leaving the island with Rhonda to go for a short drive. (Their relationship is MUCH better than it was in the movie ofc but they're still brothers so they still fight sometimes lol)

After spending most of the day driving around with Rhonda and having some alone time away from Bruce and the island he decides that he should go back and apologize to Bruce and make amends. However, he wants to get his younger brother a small gift as a way to say sorry and make it up to him. JD knows Bruce a lot better than he did before and remembers Bruce had taken a huge liking to a specific radio station that would talk about a variety of true crime topics. So JD thinks "Hey, maybe I should go over to where that station is and get something for Bruce there. Maybe a signed poster from one of the members (members as in one of the ppl who talk on the show, Ik there's a name for them but I'm blanking on it rn sorry chat) there or something like that." And so he hustles his way over there.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Because that radio station is located in Mount Rageous.

So once JD arrives, he's obviously a bit lost. He knows the station is here but doesn't know it's exact location. So he decides to ask around for directions, these people seem friendly so it shouldn't be too much trouble. So he pulls Rhonda over, hops out, and asks the first rageon he runs into.

Unfortunately for JD, that rageon just so happened to be Velvet.

Now Velvet had NEVER seen a troll before, she'd only heard about them through stories. She's heard stories about their natural singing talents, and how it's possible to steal said talent from a troll and use it as your own. So of course Velvet, who has never sang a note on-key in her entire life, immediately sees a huge opportunity she simply cannot refuse!

She tells him she knows which station he's talking about, and she'd be happy to take him there. But tells him he looks worn out and offers to get him something to eat, it's on her, as he's a guest here after all. Jd, despite his better judgement, accepts her offer and goes along with her.

She interrogates him, learning more about his life, his family, and so on and so forth. And you can pretty much guess what happens after that.

Now what abt Rhonda? Well, Rhonda DOES end up being trapped with the twins along with JD, but after two months pass, JD starts getting weaker, as all his talent is being drained. The twins notice this and of course start to worry, if JD is drained of all his talent, how will their singing career carry on? After giving it some thought, Velvet gets an idea.

While Rhonda is asleep, Velvet opens the small cage the armadillo bus is being kept in and tapes a small note on Rhonda's door before quickly leaving. She's seen Jd's handwriting before in the small time they spent together before she imprisoned him since he had written down the name of the radio station he was looking for (and also because he gave her a signed poster of him and his old boy band. great) and had also learned that he had a brother. So, using this knowledge, she forges a note, telling said brother that he's trapped in a diamond prison and needs help asap!

When Rhonda wakes up and sees that her cage is open and none of the twins are around, she FLOORS it. Of course she tried saving JD before leaving, but he strongly urged her to leave him and go get help now before the twins came back. And so she does, leaving Mount Rageous and going straight to Vacay island.

Bruce, in the two months JD had been away, has NOT been doing so well. He's upset, worried sick, and even a bit angry all at the same time. Jd had been missing for a long while and Bruce is believing the worst had happened. Either JD had gotten badly injured or had straight up abandoned Bruce for the second time. He's tried to go out to search for the eldest plenty of times but he can only go so far on his own without a bus like Rhonda, and he also has a family to take care of AND a business to run on top of that. So he unfortunately never got too far from the island.

When Rhonda returns he's ecstatic, and pissed off. He's ready to walk in and embrace his brother while also giving him a huge earful about dropping off the face of the earth for two whole months. Instead he finds the fake note...

...and his heart SINKS.

After that it's the same stuff really, Bruce goes to Mount Rageous, finds JD, learns that he's stuck in a diamond prison, and is forced to leave JD behind before the twins find him.

I dont think I ever came up with a reason for Bruce to go to the troll tree specifically, cuz in this au he is under the belief that the other trolls are dead. HOWEVER, when he inevitably does go there he's understandably MORTIFIED due to the fact that every single bergen is surrounding him and Rhonda along with trolls he assumes are "ghosts" for a short while.

Rip Bruce, bro needs a break.

Anyways that's pretty much it! Hopefully the story makes sense and isn't too weird or confusing aaaa. Again, tysm for asking!!

[i-dont-talk-for-days-on-end]

Ok so I commented on Ao3 already but I had to tell you again here cause I’m genuinely crying a little bit. Hope this isn’t too personal but I felt like I should tell you (and hope you don’t mind that I sent it anon but you’ll know who I am by ao3 haha I just don’t need everyone who follows me to read this)

I just read your fic “The Heart’s Desire” and I just. Damn. I don’t really know how to explain this. I’m like (I think) pretty much exactly the kind of ace that you wrote Holmes to be and I’ve never read something that 1. hits so personally close to home and 2. gives me so much hope? I guess? Like I’d say anyone who knows me irl will say that I’m very out and proud and confident about all things queer and I consider myself very lucky that I never really had to deal with much shit about it so that being queer can be a really joyful and cool experience for me generally. But the asexual part is the one I’ve never really had those “hell yeah I’m lesbian/nonbinary/trans” kind of feelings about. I’ve kind of just relatively neutrally accepted it as a fact and, though I try not to worry cause obviously “if a person doesn’t respect your boundaries they’re not the right person anyways”, I do still worry about relationships and disappointed/unhappy partners and missing out and stuff like that. And just. Idk what I’m actually trying to say is reading this fic literally almost made me cry because it’s so fucking beautiful and loving and fun and everything and you’ve just shown me something that pretty much seems like an actual dream and at the same time kind of convinced me that it’s possible. So. Thank you. I know it’s “just a fanfic” but it’s made me really emotional now. Thank you so much for writing this <3<3<3

(Also all of your writing is just incredible so a thousand kudos for that in general :D)

It took me a while to find the right words to reply to this ask. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your thoughts and please know that I am deeply moved. <3

When I posted the fic in question last summer, I expressed some dissatisfaction with it in the notes. I felt like it was self-endulgent and presenting a type of asexuality that others might read as "not ace enough". I have since made the discovery that not only did nobody come at me for my interpretation of aceness (and perhaps I was needlessly defensive because I am insecure), but it might even be my most powerful piece of writing in a way. Some readers told me that they can recognise themselves or their partners in my description and that it touched them, or that it changed their idea of asexuality.

This is deeply humbling and moving to me. I only discovered the concept of asexuality in my mid-20s, and I am certain it would have saved me some trouble if I had known about it and recognised myself earlier in my life. I often think that it would improve society as a whole if asexuality with all its facets was to be known and accepted as a normal and natural part of human experience. If anything I wrote serves even as the smallest contribution to this, I am thrilled and awed.

To become - if that's possible - even a bit more personal in response to your ask: Since I considered myself straight (but not very good at it) for most of my life, I am in general very happy about being ace because I feel like I understand myself so much better now. But still, like many a-spec people, I sometimes get scared and worried about being alone, being a dispappointment to others, or to be destined to live a life in which I have to forgo many kinds of intimacy simply because I don't understand one of them. Coincidentally (?), my discovery of Sherlock Holmes and my discovery of my own sexual identity started at almost the same time. Thinking about him sometimes makes thinking about myself easier. I suppose that in much of my writing, there is the search for a kind of companionship and tenderness that defies societal expectations of both friendship and romance. It gives me hope that I am able to conceptualise such a relationship, and if you say that it gave you hope, too, that something like this might be possible, this is honestly so so so much more than I ever expected my writing to achieve. Because is not hope and courage and imagination (and communication!) what we a-specs need most to work on relationships that make us all happy.

So thank you, thank you so much for your kind words. It is definitely "just a fanfic" because it is not going to change the world, and if I called it my "most powerful piece of writing" I guess I overdid it a bit in my enthusiasm. XD It is not a manifesto and I am not a best-selling author. But I am thrilled to know it meant something to you. <3 Thank you so much for telling me. <3