#also for those who read the tags i put a meme in the background

[spoopy-nevermore-dump]

You were trying to cross the border right?

[shoot-of-corruption]

Blog Announcement

Hi there my lovelies! It is a rare guest, Ria here :D

I put on an Oblivion Let's Play to hold my blood pressure low while formulating this announcement, so you better settle down with me xD

I would like to announce here how I will deal with my main blog and all my side blogs on tumblr from now on.

As most of you know, I am working a full time job in retail, so my nervous costume tends to be a tiny bit thin after around 9,5hrs of shift. I am happy to announce to you all that my time as a worker in retail is finally a finite one. If everything works out right, I won't just be able to start a homeoffice job by next year, but also live at a completely different place and city. Sadly there is still a good while of wait ahead of me until then and a lot of things are unsure as of yet. But I will do my best to get to that destination, because right now everything is pretty much murdering me.

What does that mean for my blogs? I have been on Hiatus for a long while, on and off, over years. And yet I have always returned here, more or less satisfied or happy with my performance or the RPC.

From this day on I will treat myself better about being able to come here and also, I will not spread myself thin anymore. I will transform Mariku into an Ask- and Art-Blog. Interactions are always welcome, on and off Anon, as well as dash commentary or writing pieces and updates of myself. You can tag Mariku and me in everything, the followed tags will stay the same, I will just update a few things on my BIO in the next days etc. [maybe I'll finally force myself to make a card, should the mobile pages not work anymore].

Things that will for the close future not be done on my blogs:

RP-Threads: no matter if long, short, or anything. I am torturing myself, because I cannot say no to new thread ideas and the moment I really get invested into plots, threads, ideas or anything alike, my partners tend to just leave and let me drop like a hot potato and I honestly neither need nor want that hate in my life anymore.

Anon-Hate: Will NOT be displayed on this channel. I will keep my Inbox with anonymous messages on, but every piece of disgusting hate will be immediately plucked out of the screen and burned in a bonfire. You will not get a stage here and you can be assured, that I will piss and shit on your disgusting hatred and then laugh about it for the coming week, because you are the most pathetic thing that I had the displeasure of even having to lay a momentary glance on <3

RPC/personal Drama: I will ignore drama and strictly remove myself from it. I will not be part or target of any hatred, impulsive meanness and/or random bouts of radical opinions. If you don't feel seen/represented in my opinions, turn around and find a place you fit into, but leave me and my muses alone.

Things that will be done on this blog (and partly my side blogs):

Ask-Memes: Of any kind. Ask-Plots, random asks, symbol ask memes, color memes, background memes, AU-memes and YES, also art related asks.

Open Commissions: I will open art commissions again after I had a bit more training on my tablet, for everybody, who wants to commission art. They will likely be limited and they may also for training reasons only be for free for training, thus included in art memes, but I will open paid commissions eventually again, definitely this year. I cannot tell you details, yet, but keep your eyes peeled ;)

IMs and Mun related things: You are definitely allowed to write IMs and ask me questions!! I am here to have fun as all of us are, so if your fun includes coming into my IMs and leaving a cat meme each day or send me weird asks, I am all here for it!! All of this might sound very dickish of me, but I just feel like I get too emotionally hurt and immersed and I want to protect me from bad feelings and you from my wrath xDDD

Thank you for reading all of this and I hope all of us can stick to those ground rules (for now) - we will get on peachy! If the fact that I am not RPing (for now) on here is breaking you beyond compare, I do own a Discord and I am usually willing to share it. Please contact me on here before adding me, so I know who exactly is adding me on there, otherwise, I might not accept your request. Discord: sangnoire

I will warn you though, that I will be very selective with accepting RPs and partners on there still and that any unwillingness to accept that will be met with... a uno-reverse card reaction x'D

[eraserisms]

Someone has drawn to my attention that I do not have mobile rules So, here you go everyone!

BASICS

21+ Only

This a moderate to low activity blog and most things will run on a queue. I am an incredibly slow writer, so please have patience. I work full time and writing takes a lot out of me. At the end of the day; this is just a hobby.

This blog will most likely contain violence, drugs and other NSFW themes. I’ll tag it as 'usft' or '/ usft'

I don’t put up with excessive negative posting, vague posting, character bashing, call out posts and drama of the sorts. It’s roleplay, it’s supposed to be fun. This is going to be a hard and fast rule for this blog. If I even see anything even tagged as drama or could easily be identified as vauging, I will not hesitate to unfollow.

Your DNI is your responsibility not mine. I cannot keep up with who has beef with who on this website or the stipulations or exceptions around people's DNI lists. If you see me interacting with someone that you don't want to see on the dash, its your responsibility to unfollow me instead of me guessing what's going on. If you are someone new that I'm thinking about following, I will take your DNI at face value and won't follow back/initiate contact in the first place if I follow people on your DNI.

Do not attempt to 'warn' me about other people unless they are a true danger. It isn't my business & I am an adult and can make my own decisions about people that I interact with. 

FOLLOWING

Firstly, this is a highly selective & mutuals only blog, I tend to get overwhelmed if I roleplay with too many people.

This blog is AU and crossover friendly. I actually prefer to write with characters that are outside of the BNHA fandom or even characters that I am completely unfamiliar with. Lately, I have been trying to steer away from the BNHA fandom in general.

I’m OC friendly as long as I have some sort of background for your character or an about page I can read.

It might take time for me to follow your blog back. I like to be thorough when reading other’s bios and more importantly, rules.

If you no longer want to follow me/interact, I insist that you hard block me and save both of us time.

If I see that you have been inactive for some time, I will likely unfollow your blog however, I will not hard block you. If you ever come back to RP-ing, I'd love for you to write with me again.

INTERACTING 

Shota’s characterization is a blend between the anime and the manga.

We shouldn’t have to talk about this but here we are, godmodding & metagaming isn’t permitted. With this in mind that doesn’t mean that Eraser is granted immunity from his actions. For example; If he chooses to provoke your muse and your muse reacts negatively, Shota will have to deal with those consequences, violent or otherwise.

Considering the nature of Shota’s power is kind of OP, in general I’m going to allow whoever I play with to use their digression as to whether his quirk is effective or not. I also won’t mind discussing this with partners preemptively, in fact I think in some instances I may prefer it. His abilities do have their limits and you can find more about the nature of his quirk here.

I am big on story-building and while I do enjoy winging threads, I also would like to know a general direction that we are going in.

I primarily view asks as 'prompt' work. I’m typically okay with having memes being turned into threads. However, if I don't see it going anywhere as far as an over-arching plot goes/not being able to work it into some sort of storyline, or think that the thread has run it's course; I may drop the thread/not respond. If you want to continue something that I have dropped; just talk to me about it.

I am very big on communication and I think it can really make or break a roleplay experience. I’m far from perfect and if something doesn’t make sense to you in our thread, let me know. If you want to drop a thread? Shoot me a message. If I've accidentally broken one of your rules, please remind me. Hell, if you want to send me a headcanon/random thought at 3am on discord? Go for it.

Anything that I tag you in is free real estate for you to reblog. Do what you want with it. Frame it. Go for it.

SHIPPING

I do play Shota as a homosexual, however I’m a little flexible with this if Shota and your character have some sort of chemistry. (More about this can be found here.)

On the topic of relationships, I generally don’t roleplay smut and prefer to imply what happened or fade to black. I don’t mind writing ‘the-morning-after’ threads.  I may respond to some dash games with USFW content or drabbles/metas. I might even do them in ask memes/send some asks, but do not expect it to go anywhere.

I will not be shipping Aizawa with any minors, especially his students. This also applies to students who are ‘aged up’. If you even try to approach me about this you will be blocked.

Multi-shipping is fine with me 

With that note, some of the ships I like to write are; EraserMight, EraserCloud, EraserMic, EraserKing, EraserOC but I am fairly open-minded about this.

Depending on circumstances, I will write EraserCloud as a previous relationship that Shota has been in and sometimes I will not.

MUN STUFF 

I go by D.A. & I use he/him/his pronouns 

I don’t have many triggers so I don’t feel that anyone needs to tag anything in particular for me. I will however tag triggers for whoever I write with.

Duplicates are chill, I love duplicates and sharing ideas with other Eraserhead writers. I actually even have a verse specifically for duplicates. Just don’t take my stuff and by that I mostly mean the family that I have built around Shota

My discord is available upon request.

Let’s have fun :)

[springvaletales]

⋆ NAME?: Soli

⋆ PRONOUNS?: She/They (anything goes, really, so long as it's not meant insultingly).

⋆ MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: Michael, though I've been making an effort to put his four friends in the spotlight more, as they were originally meant to be. XD It's tough tho, because I also never turn down an opportunity to use some of my worldbuilding characters for some memes.

⋆ RP PET PEEVES?: Responses that disregard details or actions my muses have openly made/have/done. It makes me feel like my response wasn't actually read, but more skimmed just enough for the other person to continue writing the idea they already had down. If there's going to be an established plot or action sequence, I'd at least like a heads up so it doesn't feel like my muses are suddenly being benched for a Main Character cutscene.

Alternatively, responses that know things about my muse(s) that wouldn't be common knowledge (like who Michael's real patron is, knowing about Haaruma's scars, knowing how Bashur broke his horns, etc.). I'm cool with plotting for muses to know that kind of thing going in, but when it happens without any communication between writers it feels like metagaming, and makes the thread less of a collaboration.

⋆ EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: I've been writing/RPing in some form for about 15 years now. I started off trading giant empty notebooks with friends between classes to write painfully 2000's self-insert fics, and moved to Tumblr in 2009 when I realized there were social spaces beyond Facebook.

I've been here ever since. >:3c

⋆ FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?: Of the three I most prefer fluff. I am ace, so writing smut, for me, is an exercise in frustration (I don't want to bang, but my muses do, and what my fictional children want they get even if it kills me) and takes a looooong time, so it's not usually something I share with others.

I do like angst, but only if it's wrapped up with some comfort at the end. I went through a period of my life a few years ago where all I wanted to read was angst, and it burnt me out like a dry piece of hay. I had to step away from angst fics for a few years, and while I'm better at handling that kind of content now, I still prefer it to have some kind of happy or hopeful ending.

⋆ PLOTS OR MEMES?: Both!! I love plotting out longer threads with people (whether serious, silly, or other), but I think memes are a great way to just throw characters together and see how they click!

I also like using meme interactions in the backgrounds of longer threads, to either quietly establish how muses met or just as extra information we can pepper in to past interactions.

⋆ LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: As long as the response can move the thread forward and I have something to react to, I don't care how long it is. I tend to make mine a couple paragraphs, if ever possible, just because I like to give my writing partner's as much as I can to work with, but I never want to pressure anyone to match lengths.

I've lived that pressure, hated it, and don't wish it on anyone.

⋆ TIME TO WRITE?: Usually the evenings, 5pm-midnight. Sometimes inspiration strikes during the day, but I usually don't have time on a workday to fully write out responses, so I just have to sit on them until I get home.

⋆ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: Now that I've gotten into therapy, yes. There are many ways in which I am like my muses. A lot of those ways are kind of personal, and I'm still fully detangling them all in my head, but I have definitely been using these poor NPCs to work through some things through D&D.

Tagged by: @deaddoveadventures

Tagging: @cupcakesmuses, @wanderingarcherviola

[nerdierholler]

I was tagged by @baejax-the-great to do a combo tag meme. Thank you :) Here go all of the things!

Share your wallpaper:

I rarely remember to swap out backgrounds so my gaming PC is currently a screenshot from AC Valhalla from at least a year ago.

The last song you listened to: Tori Amos - Precious Things was on when I got out of the car yesterday

Currently Reading: Nothing at the moment but last week I finished If We Were Villains and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Haven't decided what to read next yet

Last Movie: Good question...honestly, no idea, it's been that long.

Craving: Fried rice

What are you wearing right now: Green shorts and my "Have You Thanked a Horseshoe Crab Today?" tshirt (I thanked one yesterday at work)

How tall are you: 5'2" on a good day but one of my sisters tells me that might be optimistic. Over 5' for sure though.

Piercings: Just one hole in each ear lobe. Very boring.

Tattoos: Nope

Glasses? Contacts?: Contacts, I'm blind as a bat and now the struggles with reading things up close have also started in the last 6 months. Yay being over 40.

Last drink: I grabbed some bottled coffee at the store earlier

Last show: I was watching old episodes of Kindred Spirits while sewing a few weeks ago. Other than that is been local news, sports or maybe an episode of MASH

Last thing you ate: Big Chewy Nerds Jellybeans. They're jellybeans coated in nerds. I'm an adult who makes good adult decisions.

Favourite colour: I gravitate towards blue things but also not too picky.

Current obsession: I just started a MELE run. Still on ME1, we'll see if I make it through all three games. Fun fact: I bought MELE right when it came out and because of my shoulder problem that started also immediately after, have yet to ever make it through even one of the games. I made a dude shep who doesn't look like a total potato, going for an mshenko run.

Unrelated Obsession: I've been on a reading kick. Most of it's nothing earth shattering but I've put more new words in front of my eyeballs since Christmas than I probably have in the last 5 years combined.

Any pets: Mr. Bubbles (black) and Miss Skeeter (tabby)

Do you have a crush on anyone: I mean, I guess the hubs but I don't really think of him in those terms at this point.

Favourite fictional character: You can't made me choose. You could slap a large number of DA or ME characters here, maybe some Austen characters, LOTR ones, any of my OCs...

The last place you traveled: Just got back from a Caribbean cruise a couple of weeks ago.

Tagging @ejunkiet @evilbunnyking @agentnatesewell and @bronzeagelove but only if you want of course.

[shortdalee]

Nine people I’d like to get to know better

(tagged by @insecateur who I almost accidentally didn’t tag back because I once again forgot and tried to tag samifer instead of insecateur)

Last song: … I do not remember. I usually put the songs I’ve liked, or whose music videos I’ve liked, in a playlist, shuffle + loop it, and just. Zone out with it in the background. Occasionally, I put a single song on loop for days on end. The last time that happened was either with Unbalance’s “Never” or PTTA’s “Persona.”

Favorite color: Purple, usually the darker shades, but I like pretty much all the colors of the rainbow. 🌈 But not their neon versions.

Last movie/TV show: SPY x FAMILY. I need to catch up >.>

Sweet/spicy/savory?: All of the above! I’m greedy/gluttonous that way, though I usually lean more into spicy even though I can’t handle spicy very well 😔. Spicy and sweet used to reign supreme, but I think my sweet tooth’s sobered up as I’ve gotten older.

Relationship status: 😳👉🏼👈🏼

Last thing I googled: … I think jobs? For my sister? NO WAIT. It was for the scene where Shuri meets Erik in the Ancestral Plane in Wakanda Forever, which I ended up having to watch on YouTube anyway so googling it was pointless. Okay movie but would not watch again. Debating if I want to write up and post a meta about it.

Current obsession: Does obsession with stories count?

In general, though, I don’t think I’m one to obsess? This could be one of those “you never see yourself clearly” type things but yeah. Idk how y’all do it—mad respect for you and your passion—but I am a magpie in both my media consumption and in my writing.

But in a non-obsessed way, I’m currently into Pokémon SoulSilver. I’ve defeated the Elite Four and am working my way to the Kanto region ✌🏼where I will catch no pokémon because my party’s already full and I am a soft-hearted fool who doesn’t want to leave any of her teammates behind ✌🏼😬✌🏼. I am tentatively hopeful that I won’t accidentally skip a gym again. Third time’s the charm.

And also hopeful that I’ll find a leaf stone and a shiny stone so my gloom and togetic won’t be the only ones who haven’t reached their final evolutions.

Tag Nine People: feel free to ignore if you don't want to do it i just think old-school tag memes are fun.

I will. :) Ignore it, I mean, partially because I am a coward and don’t tag people. :) And also because I don’t know nine people on here very well, and I’m too shy to tag people I don’t know on more than just an acquaintance-level basis.

But my guy (gender neutral) reading this, 🫵🏼 you’re welcome to give it a shot if you want.

[huntunderironskies]

moooooooom @gristlegrinder is trying to get me to explain the edgy battle idol boy microgenre to unsuspecting innocent people againnnnn

Anyway. Ask meme time! I always feel bad tagging people in these because I can never tell if someone finds it annoying or if someone would do them but doesn't get tagged most of the time and therefore feels left out, so if you're reading this consider it an invitation to participate. That is an @ everyone I guess. All that said, I'm going to pick randomly from both old friends (@braintapes @elderdragonapologist @darkprincecait) and some people who I see interacting with my posts a lot but who I've never really held conversations with (@brieflyinfatuated @parasitic--saint @6-piece-chicken-mcnobody) just to kick things off. Again, if I didn't tag you but this looks like fun, you can do it! But I like giving people notifications and I also like multiples of three so that's why I only actively tagged six people by name.

I went way off the rails talking about stuff so I made it harder than it should be to find the categories. For the record the categories we are talking about are: Last Song Listened To, Currently Watching, Currently Reading, and Current Obsessions should you decide to do this meme. Without further ado....

Last Song Listened To: If we're talking "listened to because I was actively seeking out music," it was apparently No Matter What by The Cat's Whiskers according to Spotify. If we're talking incidental background music, it's whatever that one BGM is in the Grammaphone Cafe in Cassette Beasts.

Currently Watching: Kingohger. Kind of. I'm way behind at the moment, I am really sorry, Cait. If drama tracks/radioplays count I've been picking through Magatsunote and just wrapped up the first season. It's slow going because I have to translate it from Japanese which I absolutely do not speak fluently, I'm trying to finish it before Executioner starts putting out theirs in earnest. I am probably not going to make it in time.

Currently Reading: I finished An Unauthorised Fan Treatise in like. A single sitting which is rare for me, my attention span and memory retention has shrunken to nothing over the past few weeks for various reasons. A mystery novella was apparently just what the doctor ordered. What I'm actively reading now is The Backwater Sermons by Jay Hulme since poems are so much easier for me to get through when I'm having those kinds of moments.

Currently Obssessed With:

So. I'll start with the answer you're fishing for...

...but it's under a cut because I got very wordy given that I'm kind of intense about the things I like.

I don't know how to describe this other than the fact that hit music project Hypnosis Mic, in which the matriarchal government that takes over Japan after World War III legally mandates psychic damage-based bloodsports as a form of conflict resolution, absolutely printed money.

To the best of my reckoning the reason why is that a lot of the women (and a not insubstantial amount of transmascs from what I've observed, me included) who'd grown up on male idol projects like Uta no Prince-Sama and fluffy otomuke were older now and were no longer able to relate to lighthearted high school antics. But being stuck in a miserable adulthood with a world that feels like it's getting worse and worse around you and you have to struggle against the crushing pressure of a system you never asked to be born into, sometimes pitting you against people and things you love? That's relatable. Meanwhile, you still get the fun of identifying and fighting for a musical group? And there are anime boys who are in their mid-twenties to early thirties and are therefore age-appropriate for you to be thirsting after? And and the music is really good? Total goldmine.

And so a bunch of other corporations with an interest in the joseimuke market decided to make their own music projects that (mostly) take place in the dystopian near future and feature a lot of suffering and bloodshed and homoeroticism and some kind of plot they can shoehorn idol units into.

I have nicknamed this microgenre the Edgy Idol Boy Battle Anime and appointed myself the foremost expert on this esteemed field. @missmadril (...who I guess I have now tagged so she can do this tag game also now, have at it bestie) will probably back me up on having claim to it since I have no standards and will immediately watch/listen to anything that falls under that genre, also I have very little competition for that role because I'm pretty sure the EN-side fandom for Magatsunote and Executioner is literally just me.

I got onboard very early with Hypnosis Mic pre-first season and immediately knew the second that I saw Jakurai that he was going to rewrite my brain chemistry. He's a white haired (....well, grey, close enough) angel-themed character who has committed terrible crimes in the past and is wracked with guilt over it, doing everything he can to make up for his misdeeds to the point of needless self-sacrifice. What was I supposed to do, not fall madly in love with him? Now, I am still very occupied with hpmi but we're currently between plot arcs waiting for the third round of...whatever is going on after all those plot twists so in lieu of content I have been fixated on different franchises. More specifically, certain characters. I accidentally wrote essays about them. Sorry.

The shitty pictures are because, once again, the EN-side fanbase of these is me and me alone. As such there are like, zero resources out there including art assets. I tried very hard to make these screenshots of the official webpages. Please clap.

Momiji Beniyashiki

Remember how I knew sight unseen that Jakurai was going to rewrite my brain chemistry? If you forgot, just scroll up, it's like just two paragraphs above. Then you will remember.

Alright, well, here's the second character who's going to do that. Executioner only has its story/character teasers and a single out right now but so did hpmi when I first got into it and I could just instinctively feel it in my otomuke/joseimuke old guard bones. It feels like a bad arthritis day, for the record.

Now, those of you who have been in my presence for some time may be thinking "Hey, he's not Raz's type at all, since when have they been into pink haired alt fashion anime boys?" Well, you have judged me wrongly. I am somewhat less superficial than that. You see, it's all in the personality and backstory.

Momiji is an orphan who was adopted by a phantom thief who stole from the rich to give to the poor, and after finding out his dad's secret decided he was going to become a phantom thief too, owing to his own strong sense of justice. He's a pacifist with a reckless streak who sells his soul to a demon to save the world and that's why he's part of a demon-possessed visual-kei tokusatsu unit, and the other members are his adoptive brothers who are also phantom thieves. I would say this makes sense in context, but it doesn't.

I am entranced by his tboy swag and dedication to doing the right thing in defiance of conventional moral codes. For approximately one second in the latest single teaser (the full single is happening on Friday) (sorry in advance to anyone who talks to me on Friday), he was animated parkouring about the screen and I was so excited I began to vibrate quickly enough that I started clipping through the furniture like a character in a badly programmed video game. If the Asta drama track doesn't get dropped soon I will simply chew my own arm off from frustrated anticipation. I barely speak any Japanese and I've been trying to translate every single line of dialogue and lyrics he's had in my spare time just so I can keep thinking about him during this content gap. I've bookmarked a kanji dictionary because I'm functionally illiterate and I can get through maybe one sentence a day. Why must it not be Friday. I need it to be Friday.

At any rate, stan Asta because one of your alternatives is stanning for the unit that consists mostly of cops, and I think it is a moral good to join the war on crime on the side of the criminals. There's like, a bunch of medical professionals or whatever as the other alternative I guess. But come on. Heroic phantom thief siblings. There's a clear correct choice here.

Now that we have established the objectively best character in any of these edgy idol projects ever, let's move onto the next person who has infested my brain like a culture of cordyceps.

Masamune

"Oh, there's the white-haired anime boy!" you may be saying. To which I respond, "Shut up, a gentleman is allowed to indulge in certain vices."

Now, I know he did conduct a semi-judicial summary execution of a man who had resorted to crime in order to feed his family due in part to the inherently horrific socially stratified dystopia everyone lives in, and that was within the first five minutes of his appearance. So, not a great first impression. Like, the guy was threatening to shoot a hostage, but it was kind of overkill to take his head off without a second of hesitation. At least his corpse got used for like, fertilizer or Soylent Green or something, it's not totally clear other than ominous implications as to what happens to dead people in this setting. Truly a win for all the utilitarians out there!

He has a sense of justice in the worst possible way where he's completely unforgiving, uncompromising, fanatically dedicated to the group that he thinks is helping save humanity, and is incapable of seeing nuance. However, when compared to all of the unrepentant war criminals and the habitual arson-murderer and the omnicidal cult leader and the guy heavily implied to be conducting immoral medical trials on his patients, he starts looking like the least bad option. He is in the unique position of being capable of feeling remorse and he was brainwashed (as in, the cyberpunk corporation running everything rewired his neurons and memories in addition to the mundane definition of the word) so that kind of accounts for some of the "being a terrible person" thing.

He, uh, gets better about the whole fanatical devotion issue? Character growth. Like I said, least awful person in Magatsunote is a low bar to clear but he did it. Good job buddy, I am feeling an emotion roughly adjacent to pride for you.

I very, very rarely get the "I want to treat this character as my personal chew toy" response that other people seem to have. Then l I started watching Magatsunote and suddenly my list of characters I would put into a blender if given half the chance has increased tenfold. You can set a clock by the fact that whenever you think someone is redeemable, they will immediately do something that lets you down a scene after at the latest, but they're at least doing it in an interesting way. I have the most affection for Masamune in the sense I would like to gently pick him up, pat him on the head, and then fling him off a cliff instead of immediately succumbing to my own homicidal impulses. I probably don't need to though because every single person in the series is trying to kill each other, up to and including inter-unit violence and backstabbing. Why get involved when other people are going to do my work for me?

Don't take this as a knock against the series, it has some of the best writing chops out of what's otherwise a guilty pleasure genre for me, but it is very hard to recommend to people due to the absolutely bizarre premise even by the microgenre's standards (I honestly don't know how to start explaining it) and all of the characters being kind of. Like that. You need a specific mindset, part of which is an extremely high tolerance for weird anime bullshit and thinking horrible people ruining each others' lives is good wholesome fun, to genuinely enjoy it.

Wait, I'm supposed to be trying to convince people to listen to music. Uh. Stan ARK Kansakyoku, the least of many evils. Also Libra is a good song so, you know, there's that. That's the best pitch I can give his unit.

On a more normal person note, I've been having a lot of fun with Octopath Traveler 2 and I refuse to say which character has been occupying most of my brainspace because some of you will never let me live it down even though I think it is very cruel of the writers to genetically engineer a man designed to appeal to me and me alone, specifically, and I have already said way too much about my taste in men within just this post alone. Don't worry, though! I'm bi! And my taste in women is even worse. It starts with Rodya from Limbus Company and then it's all downhill from there. Listen, she was at least a tiny bit justified in that murder, don't judge me.

Actually, now that I'm thinking on it, Temenos needs to grow his hair out a few inches longer to be truly perfect for my awful tastes. So maybe this isn't a conspiracy against me. Nevertheless, further research into this concerning trend of white-haired anime boys seemingly tailored to my very specific desires is needed.

The last real obsession I have as of late is monster collecting games. I've mostly been doing a SwSh speedrun (to get Rapid Strikes Urshifu, Regileki and Spectrier) (yes, this is for competitive reasons) (at literally every turn where I had a choice I made the wrong meta one my first go around) and playing through Cassette Beasts as a more casual option. Cassette Beasts is super fun! I think it's really more of a Persona-alike than a monster catching game despite how it's been advertised but it 100% nails the late eighties/early nineties nostalgia in the best possible way. I'm so happy I got it on sale but TBH I'd say it would have still been worth it at full price with the amount of fun I've had playing it. It's also really well-designed from a mechanical standpoint IMO and I like its unique take on how type matchups should work, the fact that it uses status effects instead of just a damage multiplier gives so much more tactical weight to combat.

[slutnali]

Ask game not from an ask game, but could you ramble a bit on Jaida? I just kinda love her a lot and need someone as equally insane to talk about her.

ooohhhh Jaidaaaa !!!! im gonna have to put this under a read more bc its longgg and I could just go on about my beloved !!! also i wanna preface this by saying this is al over the place

I didn't watch s12 as it was airing [I hadn't watched s11 either, i stopped watching DR for a while] but I was still following all the ru girls from seasons I had watched, dr official accounts + dr meme accounts.. but anyway, as soon as the DR official IG page posted the 'swipe to see the s12 winner' and I swiped bc I am nosey even if by that point I had only known about the drama in the s12 cast.. but as soon as I saw Jaida it was love at first sight fr

I went to her IG and looked through all of her photos, she was so beautiful I had to watch drag race solely because of her.. I binge-watched s11 to get to s12 [dont ask me why, thats just my brain.. if I was gonna watch i had to be all caught up lmao] but I fell in love even more with her watching the season and all of her IG lives that'd been uploaded to youtube.

So ofc as someone who has been on tumblr for years and participated in the dr stan tumblr community from s8-as4?, I had to come back to my roots and created this sideblog.. I thought I'd find other ppl as obsessed with Jaida as I was but honestly.. at that time it was just me and a handful of others I quickly became mutuals with.. her tumblr tag wasn't as up to date/active so I would constantly be one of the few always reposting her stuff onto the tags.. pictures, videos from her performances, clips from lives, anything and everything bc people had to see how beautiful and funny she was. almost like i was determined for people to see what i saw in her eorngerif which might sound insane but anywayyyy

Getting back into reading dr fics was a bummer that she was mostly a background character but I get it from a shipping standpoint too.. it was all about crygi & jankie as those were the ships with the most content and traction. I would read fics because she was listed as a background character or halldoll was a bg ship even if I wasn't interested in crygi which was 9 times out of 10 the main story..

I could also get into a halldoll ramble but to not let this get longer than what it is, the few people that would write that ship are top tier, honestly. I do have a list of halldoll fic recs somewhere on this blog but those are the few people that in my opinion, capture jaida well and do her justice.

She's so gorgeous it's intimidating but she's one of the most silliest and charismatic bitches out there.. she's a sagittarius (one of the only good ones 😪) there are just so many things to love about her, and I think her personality shined more in as7 than it did in s12.. I mean that in a 'other fans finally realized that' type of way

also thanks for sending in this ask!

[tornsurvivors]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍.

— BASICS! ♡

NAME: Christina, but you can call me Chris.

PRONOUNS: She/they

ZODIAC SIGN: Taurus

TAKEN OR SINGLE: Single and loving it. 

— THREE FACTS! ♡

I was born deaf, but my mother didn’t find out that my cochlea didn’t form properly till I was one and half years old when I didn’t react to her dropping a pot in the kitchen and took me to the doctor’s.

I have a love for photography and I am working on getting a wildlife photography job. 

I don’t remember the exact age, but around the age of 6 - 10, in elementary school I was one of the chosen five hearing impaired children to perform a song in sign language for Miss America. I’m pretty sure I was nervous, but the entire time I just focused on our teacher who was relaying the song for us to sign out. 

— EXPERIENCE! ♡

PLATFORMS USED: Started off in yahoo chats when I was 14 or 15 (cringe I know and it absolutely was now that I’m looking back at it....), AOL / AIM, then moved to myspace, forums, then rper.me and tumblr. 

PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES: Plotting is always great, but I’m also willing to wing it. Memes usually could be good icebreakers, too.

— MUSE PREFERENCE! ♡

GENDER: Usually females. 99% of my muses are women. I only have two male OCs, 1 male canon and I adore them. Just more used to writing females. 

MULTI OR SINGLE MUSE: I used to have single muse blogs (mainly Alice and Nadia, as I’ve been writing them on tumblr for 10+ years), till I had the urge to write more muses. So, here we are. It’s definitely been more easier, than having to blog hop all the time. 

LEAST FAVOURITE FACECLAIM(S): Am*ber He*ard (for obvious reasons), Jus*tin Bie*ber (that’s a hard no, I just really dislike him strongly and I cannot stand looking at his face) and it’s weird to me when people RP as youtube gaming streamers. Like... they’re not actors nor have they portrayed a fictional character. They’re real life people. It’s like someone RPing as you. 

— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡

FLUFF: Red knows how much I love the fluff with all of our ships, and so does Xtine. It’s a must have in between. 

ANGST: *Looks at the majority of my muses with traumatic backgrounds, struggling to survive and enduring hell... and my OCs who I’ve put through hell* I’m a slut for it. 

SMUT: It depends on the other person I write with. I mean, I do like smut. I enjoy it. But I don’t write it with just about ANYONE. Only those I’m comfortable with and have spoken with ooc, especially if we’ve talked about nsfw stuff. Writing smut fanfic is a whole another story for me though, I’ve written some and I have no regrets. 

tagged by: @ofspvrta​ (ty! :D) tagging: YOU, yes you reading this. do the thing. I know you want to.

[ottopilot-wrote-this]

The Elephant in the Room

There is no way to sugarcoat this, because a lot of people have a visceral reaction to it: I'm working on a mixed-media project, and it is going to involve AI.

There are many complaints people have about AI, and I'm going to address some of them. If you want to stop reading now, I won't hold it against you, but I'd a) appreciate if you hear me out, and more importantly, b) implore you to give the new stuff a try before deciding it's not for you:

I think complaints about models being trained, without consent, in violation of copyright law, on people's photos, art, and words by for-profit companies are valid. I don't know how much of that, over the course of billions of data points in a training set, means I am "stealing" when I make a photo of a curvy gender-swapped Ronald McDonald. Granted, I'm not a lawyer, but that to me is parody and fair use.

Regarding copyright and whether generative AI is theft, lots of things on the Internet play loose with intellectual property rights. Memes? Reaction GIFs? Fan fiction? Songs in the background of your video? All legal gray areas. (If the rightsholders for Supernatural filed enough DMCA charges, they could take Tumblr down overnight.) My point is not to derisively say you are a hypocrite; I like these things too. It's that I don't see generative AI as being markedly different.

Environmental impact is important to me in real life. There are some alarmist numbers about power consumption and carbon impacts. I read (ok, skimmed) one of the studies and they used an 80 GB VRAM A100 SXM4, which is a 400W card and a tremendous amount of overkill for Stable Diffusion. I can do 4 draft images in about 15 seconds and 1 "finished" image in 30 on an RTX 3060. But I'm also not cranking those out without stoppping like a robot. It's much more reasonable to compare it with other leisure activities like PC gaming (its the same hardware), a PS5, or watching an HDTV. 1000 images (which for me, is A LOT - 3 or 4 hours) might use 0.05 kWh which puts me in line with watching a TV sitcom on my 50" 4k LED TV (which uses 87W in normal conditions).

People are overwhelmed because there is so much AI "art", and a lot of it is shitty. And I get ya. Many people are only using what they know and what they can find, which are online generators, and a lot of them suck. I don't want to sound like an ass, but I did spend a lot of time learning Stable Diffusion prompting and training, so I think my stuff will look better than people expect. (Or at least consistent, which is what I was aiming for.) What I hate though is people who post generated AI images and don't label them. So you get from me a promise to at least try to label all my images in tags, in the description, and in the alt description as AI (soft promise here because ADHD). Then you can block those tags to your hearts content.

I was already thinking about trying to use an AI writing tool, then I saw today that people are losing their shit about NaNoWriMo. So I am putting my thoughts about that in another post.

There you have it. Thanks if you made it this far. The goal here is not to convince you am I not just some AI techbro (I'm not) and that AI is not NFTs 2.0, but to give this project that I have worked (and am working!) so hard on a puncher's chance.

[callmeredarrows]

for the ship meme Jason Todd and Isabel Ardila

now to be completely transparent, i haven’t read new52 rhato so i’ve only seen them together in rebirth. and i’m putting my jaytemis bias aside for a second when i say my opinion on it.

this is one of those ships that i honestly just don’t think about or forget ever happened. i’m not totally against it to the point where i physically recoil anytime i see it/have their tag muted (and honestly i’m shocked to see they have a tag because i genuinely didn’t think anybody shipped this outside of l*bdell himself) but i do have a little bit of a bone to pick with it.  

the biggest thing about isabel that isn’t really her fault is that she’s essentially just scott l*bdell’s dream girlfriend insert. her personality was built entirely to lift jason up and to be jason’s girlfriend. and don’t get me wrong i’m totally for giving underrated/underdeveloped characters a background! especially when the circumstances are a female character existing just to boost up a male characters storyline. but at the end of the day i just don’t see how isabel and jason would work longterm because of her being a civilian and i feel like jason wouldn’t put a civillian at risk with his line of work? (also that could’ve happened in new52 but i have no clue since i refuse to read it and disregard that whole run because it was stupid and character assassination to everyone involved) and honestly they felt forced to me especially considering the fact that l*bdell wrote her in again as soon as jason and artemis started getting together/moving foward in their relationship and i just know that was because of his personal vendetta against them being together. 

but then again this really is one of those ships that, at the end of the day, i don’t have any strong negative feelings towards because i don’t acknowledge it. and i don’t really care who ships it either! 

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[rookflower]

ok, so. i drew every warrior cat! here's a long rambling sentimental reflective-type post on the blog i guess.

I started this blog when I was 15, in 2018. I was bored at a summer job, scribbled Onestar on the back of a sticker sheet, and thought "huh, there sure is a lot of Warrior Cats characters! I've seen some design blogs around, I think there's a "draw 100 cats challenge" people do, wouldn't it be fun if I gave that a try?" I had nothing going on art-wise at the moment, I was losing steam on my Pokemon webcomic and had given up askblogs a while ago, so I quickly fell into it.

Starting out was weird- I'd only read up to about Power of Three at the time, and hadn't read TPB or TNP in quite a while. I vivdly remember someone sending me a request to draw Tawnypelt about 20 cats in or so, and I genuinely couldn't remember who she even was. I think I got a request to draw Jagged Peak before I even knew DOTC existed? I wasn't working off of a specific list, and would miss certain cats out entirely due to forgetting them which frustrated me. Drawing cats was fun, and once I got to 100 eventually I found myself going "well, now what? I haven't even drawn Sorreltail, Nightstar, Appledusk, Spiderleg..." so, i kept going!

Then 2020 rolled around and lockdown hit, and I was suddenly stuck in my house with no plans, seemingly unlimited time, and a desperate need for some kind of outlet that offered escapism from the world.

Drawing Warrior Cats was something mundane and rhythmic but creative and enjoyable, and I found the aspect of looking at it as a challenge alluring, the same way I had when the goal was "100 random warrior cats". How far could I get before having to stop? I couldn't do over 1000 cats, right?

uh.

I could!

sunk cost fallacy or whatever, I guess?

Lot has changed in my life over the course of this. I started the challenge just after leaving high school, and now I'm headed into my third year of uni. Some family's moved around, we have a cat now, I started playing video games again, my bedroom's been revamped, I met some internet friends IRL for the first time, I'm more or less publicly out as gay, all different kinds of stuff. It's fucking wild to consider that one of the biggest constants in my life these past few years has been drawing goddamn warrior cats. I've had the Warriors wiki list of characters open on my computer basically forever, and finally closing it feels like a goodbye.

So what's happening with this blog? Well, I'm not upkeeping a daily queue anymore, that's for sure. There are some cats here I KNOW I'm going to want to go back and redesign at some point though, so this isn't over! Even if I'm less active here, for now, I'm not going anywhere. I'll probably also use this for any general warriors art/posts I want to make, as well as those "send me asks" request meme thingies. those are fun.

I'm hoping to be maybe more active on my youtube now, as well as just generally experimenting with my art more. One of the biggest downsides of spending 3 years drawing fullbody flatcolours of warrior cats and not that much else is that my improvement on every ground except cat anatomy and character design has become pretty fuckin stagnant lmao. I need to make art with backgrounds and shading and non-cat characters again or i think ill explode. time to get out of this comfort zone!!

speaking of, very lucky this thing ended right at the start of Artfight. I'm @/RioBlitzle there and I try to revenge back attacks! Will probably put my energy into that for a wee while.

@daily-mario-characters might come back,, eventually but I'm not promising anything, and if I haven't learned anything from running this blog you might see me on a "drawing every pokemon" streak in a few months. it is how it is.

Anyways, thank you all so much for your support. Massive shoutout to everyone who's ever left nice comments in the tags of my posts, I don't really have a way to respond but I read every one of those and please know that they absolutely make my day.

Thanks for sticking through this challenge with me!

[kylie-writes-stuff]

“wife”

pairing: corpse husband x reader (female)

words: 1,714

requested?: no (send some in tho pls :) )

plot/summary: felix invites his friend, y/n, to play among us when they need an extra player. her and corpse get along well

authors note: so this isnt that good and i know a lot of corpse fics use a similar plot. i just wanted to try to write for corpse. hopefully things i write for him in the future are better. let me know what you think tho! also i really wanted reader to be best friends with karl bc i love him sm. uh every swiggly line is like a small time skip. this was written late at night btw and i didnt take much time to go over it

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

You sat up from laying down when you heard your phone ring. You looked at the caller ID.

Felix.

"What's up Felix?" You ask with a small yawn.

"Aww, how sweet," You hear in the background.

You giggle and ask, "Is that Sean? Hi Sean!"

"Yeah, we're playing Among Us and need an extra player. You down?" Felix explained.

"Sure, just give me a few minutes. See you soon, whore"

"Bitc-" You hang up before he can finish.

You got up and turned off your TV, going to get ready. 

⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒

You quickly tweet out that you're going live and say something on your insta story as well. You start your stream and slowly watch people flood in.

"Hey everyone! How are you guys doing?" You wave and smile, reading the chat.

"Everyone doing good, awesome! And i'm sorry to anyone having a bad day. I hope i can brighten it a bit!"

"Okay, sorry i didn't give you a further notice. I didn't even know i was gonna stream. Felix invited me to play Among Us so... here we are!"

You quickly join the discord and pull up the game, putting a cover over where the code goes.

"Hello?" You ask as you join the call. A chorus of greetings came your way.

"(Y/n)?"

"Karl!" You smile brightly.

Karl Jacobs was a good friend of yours. You would play on the Dream SMP sometimes. When you would, it would mostly be you being stupid with Karl and Alex, also known as Quackity. You were even a well know citizen of El Rapids.

"LET'S GOOOOO!" He yelled, making you laugh.

"Hey (Y/n), do you know everyone here?" Sean asks you.

"Um," You quickly scan through the names, "no, i don't think so."

You recognized names but you only personally knew Felix, Sean, Karl, and Ethan.

"Oh my god! Your voice is so cute!" Pokimane exclaims.

You giggle softly, "Thank you Poki!"

You're voice wasn't high pitched or anything like that, you just always spoke very softly and calmly. You were also a bit quiet.

Felix introduces you to those that you didn't know.

"There's one more person we're waiting for," He says.

While everyone waits, you and Karl run around each other's little characters and make jokes between yourselves. You mute yourself to read donations every once in a while.

You hear the discord chime, signaling that someone joined the call.

"WAIT CORPSE! DON'T SPEAK YET!" Felix yelled. "We have a new player. This is my friend (Y/n), say hi to her"

"Hello (Y/n)," Corpse said. You were taken aback by how deep his voice was but you didn't show it.

"Hi Corpse! Nice to meet you!" You said happily.

"Okay, how is she not freaking out?" Bretman said, making everyone laugh.

"Uh, (Y/n), do you mind letting me have black? It's cool if not.." Corpse asked gently.

"O-oh sure, no problem." You were usually black with the pink flamingo hat, but you ran over to the little computer and changed your color.

"Simp," Ethan mumbled, knowing you never switch from black.

"Thank you," He said, then the game started.

The word “Imposter” appeared on your screen in red, yours and Corpse's characters underneath.

As the game started, you thought no one could hear you so you spoke to your chat. "His voice was so deep, what the fuck? Holy shit that was hot, i'm gonna-"

"(Y/n)," Rae laughed, "You know we're playing proximity chat, right."

You blushed as you realized and said "Ha, anyways..." and ran to start faking tasks.

You ended up in electrical with Karl. "(Y/n)! My good friend, my buddy, you would never kill me right? Haha..." He said.

"Of course not, Karl! My good friend, my buddy. Why, I'm not even imposter," I said as i quickly dipped into the vent and back out, making him laugh.

I decided to show him because I knew Karl wouldn't say anything, and it's funny.

"Oh that's good then. Are you sure you're not imposter?"

"Mhm, pretty sure," You said, going back in. As you came out, Sykkuno walked in and froze.

"Uh, (Y/n)?"

"Fuck... Karl run! Go!" You said, Karl starting to leave. You walked closer and quickly killed Sykkuno then vented to security.

"That was close..." You told your chat.

You saw Corpse as you made your way around the map and walked into navigation.

"Hey, Corpse, how ya doing?"

"Ah you know, good. Just being crewmate and all."

You stifled a laugh, "Oh yeah I feel that, buddy."

"Yeah because there's no way that i'm imposter. No way i could be faking tasks and there's no possible way you could be the other imposter" He said quickly.

"For sure. Hypothetically speaking, though, if you were imposter, how many people would you have killed by now?"

"I would say probably around two."

"Interesting," You said right before a body was reported. It was Sykkuno's. Felix and Rae were also dead.

"WHAT!" Corpse yelled.

"Where was the body at?" Sean laughed.

"Uh I found it in electrical," Bretman said.

"I'm pretty sure Karl was in there earlier."

You calmly said, "It's not Karl, I was with him for most of the round."

"How do we know the two of you aren't imposters?" Sean asked.

"I was alone with him, he would have taken the chance to kill me."

"No, he's your best friend."

"He's also ruthless,"

"TRUE! SO TRUE!" Karl yelled.

"So skip?" Corpse asked.

Everyone agreed and the voting was skipped.

The next round, I spent with Ethan. He was pretending to be mad at me because Sean said Karl was my best friend.

"What happened to Blue Boi Buddies, huh?!" He exclaimed.

"Neither of our hair is even blue anymore!" You argued back.

You were in reactor with him when Corpse and Poki walked in. He hit the lights and you took it as a sign to double kill. He killed Poki, you killed Ethan, and the two of you made your way to electrical to help fix lights.

You and Corpse went the opposite direction of reactor after the lights were fixed, Karl going with you.

Poki's body was reported. That double kill only left you, Corpse, Sean, Karl and Bretman. You only needed two more kills.

"I still think it's Karl and (Y/n)," Sean said quickly.

"I was with (Y/n) the whole time," Corpse said, "In fact, I think it's you."

"That does make sense. Why so quick to accuse others, Sean?" You ask.

"It's not me!" He yelled.

"I actually agree with Corpse and (Y/n)," Bretman said.

"I was with you!"

We all voted for Sean, him voting for Karl. Sean was ejected.

When you load into spawn, you wait for the kill cool down and kill Bretman, saving Karl.

"Victory" appeared on your screen.

"God damn it!" Sean yelled.

"Good job, (Y/n)," Corpse said lowly.

You smiled, a slight blush on your cheeks, "You too Corpse."

"Their voices go together and they're a fuckin dream team? What have i done...," Felix sighed.

⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒

A few more games went by. Most of them you and Corpse spent together, whether you were both crewmates or if one of you was imposter.

You really enjoyed his company and you actually got along with him pretty well.

⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒

"(Y/n), before we get serious, I have one question to ask you." Corpse said as both of your characters stopped.

"What's that?" You giggled.

"Do you know Bingus?"

"Bingus? As in, our lord and savior, Bingus?"

You could hear the smile in his voice, "It's settled, you're my wife now."

This made both of you laugh and your chat go crazy.

⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒

Eventually, people had to start leaving. You said your goodbyes to everyone and left the discord call and the game.

You set stream to where it was just your face cam.

"Guys, what should we do now?"

You saw some people asking what time it was for you.

"It's 3 AM right now... I’m not tired though.” You had been streaming for a few hours; You never even noticed how late it got.

People in chat were yelling at you to go to sleep, making you chuckle.

“How about we do a quick QnA, then at 3:30 I go to bed. Deal?”

You watched as the chat filled with questions. They obviously seemed to like the idea.

“‘Who is your best friend? Karl or Ethan?’ Neither, Alex Quackity. Next question.” You answered quickly.

You laughed, “I’d like to clarify that that’s a joke, i love all my friends equally.”

You answered more questions. Some were from new viewers asking basic questions, some were about future streams and videos. 

“‘How do you feel about people shipping you and Corpse?’“ People are already shipping us?” You laughed, “I’ve said before that I’m okay with shipping, as long as the other person is too. I think it’s funny.”

You continued to read chat. “Wait, we’re trending?”

You checked Twitter and “#(your and corpse’s ship name)” was trending in the US.

You laughed as you scrolled through the tag, “Oh this is so funny.”

“Fanart already?! You guys are so talented!”

You read chat, looking for more questions. You saw people telling you that it’s 3:30.

“Okay fine, a deal’s a deal. I hope you all have, or had, a great day and I’ll see you guys later. Depending on what time it is for you, you should also get some sleep. Stay hydrated, love you!” You ended stream.

⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒⌒

You scrolled through Twitter as you laid in bed, liking fanart and dumb memes. Also replying to a few of your friends’ tweets.

karl :) @/KarlJacobs_

@/(your username) what the honk ?

*clip of you saying Quackity was your best friend*           

You liked the tweet and replied, “karl no,,, look away,,,”

You continued scrolling, feeling your eyes get droopy. Your eyes fell closed but quickly opened when your phone vibrated. It was a DM. 

From Corpse.

You two had followed each other earlier.

Corpse: hey (y/n), just wanted to say you’re really cool and i’d love to play again with you soon 

You smiled, a light blush spreading across your cheeks, and replied.

You: i’d love to, corpse

Corpse: ok, see you soon ‘wife’

You: back at ya, ‘husband”

Corpse: :)

You: :)

[isabellehemlock]

End Of The Year Creative Wrap-Up

Thank you to the lovely @nade2308 for tagging me for this fantastic wrap up 💕

I'll go ahead and tag some authors I've enjoyed this year - both in the joy of reading their content, as well as getting to know better as people: @tobebbanburg @boutiquetraveltravelboutique @82tweeder @ao3-arkada @bewires @beepbeepsan @mekana47 @katt5673

Though of course no pressure to do!

And because this got long, I'll put it under the cut

What is your favorite thing you created?  Which work are you proudest of?

I did a super fun end of the year fic ask round and covered these in a few posts I compiled here 😎

Is there anything you are proud of that you achieved this year? 

Gosh that word 'pride' makes me cringe . . . Let's call it, uh, something that made me smile?? So how about the amount of words I wrote this year:

Though that doesn't include one fic and a chapter update I'm working on right now. So this might go up an additional 10 to 20k before the end of the year 🙈

Did you explore anything new this year? (A new way to be creative, a trope you didn’t write before, or an idea you hadn’t thought of earlier, etc.)

I dived into digital art! Fanart, and manips ~ and for writing: crossovers and even omegaverse. Definitely did not expect to do any of those things! Was a wonderful way to stretch myself creatively 💕

Which work gave you the most difficulty?  What was your biggest creative challenge this year?

Honestly I'm not sure if anything comes to mind when I think 'difficult.' Like some chapters have brought me to tears, but the necessary, processing kind? So yeah, I got nothing for that first question haha -

For the second one, I'd probably say the digital art! I've never even used a stylus before, so it was a smidge of a learning curve but it's a very relaxing thing for me - I can have the Liturgy of Hours playing in the background, and color and it helps my fidgeting :) Though for the NSFW art I listen to random playlist shuffles lol

When it comes to writing, the biggest creative challenge was diving into a precanon fic that would include the First Crusade. I wrote about my hesitation in the introduction chapter, but the idea just wouldn't leave me alone - so I had to work the hardest past any posting anxiety when it came to that one.

Which work brought you the most joy?

Honestly, and I know this sounds like the easy answer, but all of them? In various ways, on various levels, but I don't post anything that didn't mean something to me in one way or the other - even the pwf, because of the feelings lol - so I'm not sure I could really pick one?

Which of your works do you think people should check out?

I think it depends on what they’re looking for? I've enjoyed writing across multiple genres, sometimes it's just self indulgent stuff, sometimes it's something I would have loved to have read when I was younger - sort of like making a gift to your inner child ❤ So, are we looking for escapism, or processing something? Something to dig into for a while, or a quick one shot?

If you're ever curious and would like to see my fics sorted by canon, alternative universe, crossovers, etc, you can check out this post here for an overview (including rating, length, status, and summaries)

And happy to talk to anyone who would like to know a bit more before diving into something - I 100% have reached out to authors for this, and even have had a friend who checked a tag for me, etc. I seriously am more than happy to chat anytime about a tag, or content, because I know how subjective those can be.

Do you have creative plans for next year?  Is there anything exciting you’re currently working on?

I am so hyped to be working on my precanon fic right now, like seriously, I've made memes of it lol. I also am diving deep for the most angstiest thing I've ever written - though I would like the majority of it written before I post it.

And both of those will go into next year - where I have no less then seven more projects I'm looking forward to (and potentially two more I'm adding to the list, a Stripper AU and an Outlander AU that I've made farrrr too many manips and moodboards for already).

Lastly, any words of wisdom or anything else you would like to share?

My words of wisdom from personal experience as a content creator in a fandom is . . . curate your online experience early on.  At the end of the day, people are still people - both good, bad and everything in between, and fandom is both a source of creativity and escapism from a flipping pandemic going on around us.  We are living in a historical event and though balance is key, it’s alright if you need to curate and set digital boundaries in your shared spaces online. 

Give the benefit of the doubt first - so much is lost in communication without body language and hearing verbal tone - and remember the person behind the screen, but also believe people when they show you who they are.  Consistent actions will reveal long term intentions over time, and lean on that as you filter things to protect your own mental health.

Be a good person, but don’t waste your time trying to prove it - and though not everyone deserves your kindness (much less vulnerability), civility is always a good option.  I 100% know how hard it is to sit in the discomfort of having set a boundary to protect yourself, and I promise it’s still a hundred times better than the alternatives of giving access to things and people that wound your psyche.

Make the content you want to see in a fandom - because though it’s a joy to create, and share - and it’s natural to wonder if anyone is also enjoying it, I can assure you there are!  You never know the impact of happiness we might be giving someone, or something we made brought a smile to someone’s face, helped them feel seen, processed something.  The great thing about having so many free online platforms for fandom, is that there’s room for everyone!  Someone out there will enjoy it!

[firelxdykatara]

gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.

atla fandom? we need to have a chat.

(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)

under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao

there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.

i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)

to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.

and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)

this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).

it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)

calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.

not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!

abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.

and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.

zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.

he says it himself:

Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.

ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.