#i guess im only posting art when it’s a significant day

[droppincofdrops]

happy 420 everypony

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

🧵 again I agree with basically everything needle said about the Dior FW 23 collection, especially with how it jumped between high fashion and an almost working class aesthetic. That's why I called it originally an extremely Balmoral show, not only did it have a ton of highlands influences, it also felt like the ultra-wealthy play-acting at working class.

I prefer my high fashion to know what it is and where it stands.

Needle's comment about how commercialized fashion is nowadays feels like my perfect segue.

The creation of the luxury conglomerates has destroyed the high houses. I said it. LVMH is the one that seems to be talked about most in BTS adjacent spaces, but I guess this is mostly because of the LV brand deal (AND LV IS NOT THE SAME AS LVMH GOD IF I SEE ONE MORE TAKE THATS LIKE OH ITS OK HES AT CELINE THATS STILL A LVMH BRAND IM GOING TO SCREAM- ahem.)

But LVMH is not the only conglomerate. Kering is another big one. But this drive to have the houses as corporations with stocks and returns and eternal growth mean a significant stagnation in their actual creative direction. They want to sell what /sells/. You (BMT) touched on this in one of the posts, but I think it should be made clear that brands like Dior, despite being an old House with extremely revered bones, makes the vast majority of its money on things like makeup and small accessories. The marketing that they do using Idols or literally anyone is to entice people to buy the small luxury products, instead of the big ones. A $3k bag is a big ask for most people, a $50 lipstick feels like an easier pill to swallow. I can't believe how many people I've seen buying Dior after Jimin's brand announcement, explicitly for him.

But do I think that means that fashion is stagnant? This is such an interesting question to me because fashion is literally just the things that people put on their backs. I can talk forever about the high French houses or whatever, but the reality is that the world has changed. Fashion as both an art and a means of self-expression has never, EVER, been so accessible.

What I think actually happened is that the big houses (mostly these are euro houses, especially French, some Italian, a handful of British and American) have become over-commercialized. The immediate drive towards streetwear in 2015-2020 also didn't help (see: especially the absolute horror that has become the Balenciaga name). I also see a lot of weird takes about Couture as a concept, as if clothing can't be art for the sake of being art if I see one more twitter post about "I would never wear that" over some person walking a runway in a guo pei dress that weighs a thousand pounds, I'm gonna lose it.

But I also think that today, in early 2023, there are so many people designing and making clothes and putting their art out into the world. PFW just isn't the place to see that, mostly. I think if any of your readers are interested in fashion beyond the traditional houses, it's always good to check out the other major city's fashion weeks. And if PFW is what interests them- look at the brands that are maybe unfamiliar. That is where the art still lives, sorta.

I had no idea about Dior and making money mostly from small luxury goods. That's new to me. Given how it's in the lower price range, I saw it more as an entry which then leads the consumer (one who is just starting to get accustomed) to buying other, more expensive stuff. There's definitely a focus on that on social media and now with Jimin's Dior deal, a day doesn't go by in which I don't see clips on tiktok with Dior hauls and Jimin photo cards.

I actually thought about the hyper focus on streetwear for the previous ask about commercialization. I remember the time when it wasn't that big or at least it was somehow separate. Now it's sort of like a blend and trully the only thing that reaches out to the big internet audience with their IG accounts and how easy it is for anyone to curate their own fashion self. I also have issues with the sort of comments about Couture because they are unnecessary if one would have the courtesy to actually understand what it means. No one expects it to be street style and yet, they use that as a filter.

I think that, especially in this fandom space in the last few weeks and days, the interest and curiosity spiked, for better or worse. So, in the context of that, your advice is most welcome for anyone who wants to explore more.

[cometmystic]

hey!! i dont think youve posted abt this yet so… tell me abt your fav characters!!! :D

im about to ramble and expose some weakpoints on the internet so heres a cut !!! im gonna talk about the three that are in the forefront of my mind at the moment !! maybe this will change if you ask me in a months time,,, maybe not !!! mwah thank you for sending me asks sweetie

lots of history with this girl; soo i found out about her during my first mugen phase ? so like 11-13ish,, there was a genre of character that was modeled to play like smash bros characters, and in looking those up, i found one of this weird woman... hong meiling was her name ? she was related to this weird frog girl whose hat was evil and maybe the mcdonalds song girl ? whatever the case i needed to download her. and i couldnt because the download was down. this sent me uo the wall for several years and implanted her name into my brain,, up until i got into touhou proper thanks to you actually !!

so now im learning about the lore and the characters, and turns out theres more to this meiling than being elusive and pretty !!! so this gloomy, scary place behind one of the touhou worlds most significant battles is guarded by this friendly, easygoing redhead ? and shes fiercely loyal and protective of the mansion as well as gensoukyou, despite being employed by people who almost ate the world right up ? thats so wonderful !! shes so cool !!! and she takes care of flowers, and canonically doesnt like dodging bullets and tries catching them instead, and no one has any idea of what she is...!!!! theres so much to her !!! but most of all, the absolute tragedy of some of her mansionmates getting boatloads of development and lore, while shes,, basically in the same place she started in ? even flan did ! but meiling still gets depicted as just lazying about, despite that trait of hers being in favour of working in the scarlet devil mansion, which people fear and dont visit ? or rather used to... so she should have evolved along with it,, so that sadness also makes me even more attached to her in a way !!

i know shes not the most mistreated character in touhou or anything, far from it since shes a th6 girl and those get Everything and everyone sick of them but... idk !! id love to see more of her shine someday ouo

heres some sprite art i made of her

this character is a whisper in the wind. this character is a shadow in the wall of a cave. this character is the tree that falls with no one to hear. this character isnt real. this character is one of my favourites

like shes drenched, positively oozing with lore and content, and its all so utterly relevant and unique that i cant possibly talk about any of it because i cant be bothered to spoiler tag this,, but like,, reading between the lines of the fiction and uncovering lil things about her and what shes like was the most fun ive had during my dngnrnpa phase, to the point that,, here she is still !! at the tippy top !! and because of things youre intimately familiar with russell, you probably know shes probably gonna stay !! im very sentimental like that

and it wasnt even just lore either, her design kind of instantly drew me to her back when i was part of the original animes speculation circle and,, wow suddenly my sonas attire seems a little um,, familiar doesnt it : ...i promise i had other inspiations for ir too óuo;

heres some pixel art i made of her

finally this girl !! much like is the theme here, some lore to my meeting this one !!! this one predates even meiling, since i think i was 9 or 10,, see there was a broadcast channel here called animax, and its responsible for a lot of my taste even nowadays,, from the name you can guess it broadcast all sorts of dubbed anime all day long, most of which i absolutely should not have been watching at that age, like hellsing and gantz oops... well there was this other one which until like 4 years ago i only had the faintest recollection of,, i think there were demons in it or something,, mostly i remember being infatuated by the blonde girl

well 2018 comes around and the memory of this lady shoots straight into my brain in the middle of a call with you russell, which you might remember ! i describe to you what it looks like and tell you that i think a guy kills her and she has him help kill bad guys or else hell kill him right back ? and you, through intense googling, eventually are able to tell me it was called lunar legend tsukihime. woag ! lore unlocked

i wiki crawl for a while out of curiosity and find out that she has a fighting game that kinda rules, and that everyone hates the anime and you should read the visual novel instead and,, hey were making a visual novel at some point huh russell ? maybe i should study up on this tsukihime thing,, apparently its pretty influential,, and

obviously arcueid is ridiculously charming and fun, and every second with her is a mildly exciting, mildly creepy (fun way) delight, and its hard not to absolutely love her for that alone !! but also like,, much like the love for meiling started like a new phase in my life, arcueid did the same thing, in a very wonderful way ? a phase where were both really into this thing and talking about it so often and making so many new ideas about it together,, were playing higurashi currently and it feels like an extension of this, of her, and like,, its so special

i love what meeting arcueid again after 10 years did for me

heres some pixel art i made of her

and if you stuck with me for this long, heres a lil gift !! a lil happy ending for 13 year old me i suppose !!!

i found her after all ouo

[unearthlycat]

jumping on this bandwagon i guess (part 2 here)

#rain world

2 notes

🌀 trans-scension 🔁 goldenjetfish

✨ yeekoftheweek Follow

[Image: Navigation directions for a road with a roundabout. An alternate route goes directly through the roundabout. It is labeled "if you;re not a coward ;)"]

got this from my drone nav today

is my iterator fucking okay

👤 herecomestherainagain-deactivated1529700 Go home No Significant Harassment, you're drunk.

🪈 pipe--yard okay im like 99% sure this is fake but i just gotta highlight the audacity of saying "go home" to the guy whose house youre literally driving on top of

🪈 pipe--yard edit: IT'S REAL??!?!

wild-flower-ride-deactivated1532056 void and saints below yall really live like this

📿 guardianknittingneedles-deactivated1534459 Happy one solar-cycle anniversary to the drunk No Significant Harassment post

🪱 cutest-lil-pipe-beast Follow i've only seen this post in screenshots and i still can't believe it's real

🟩 nsh-heritage-posts Certified No Significant Harassment Heritage Post

#rule of laughter #happy 7 sol-cycle anniversary to the drunk nsh post everyone #tumbling stones heritage posts

89,762 notes

☁️ fourteenblueclouds

[image description: Two painterly images of the sky, as viewed from a Metropolis balcony on Five Pebbles during a dry spell. The first shows the sky, uninterrupted save for the spires of distant communications towers. The other, a single figure leaned over the railing of a balcony, looking out over the cityscape.]

the summers up on pebbles were always the worst, but as the end approaches i'm coming to miss them

#original art #artists of tumbling stones #my artwork #painting

342 notes

🗡️ nine-sharp-stones it really feels like everyone is ascending these days. this place is a ghost town. i just wish i could join them but i know i'll never be enough. there's too much of me. if i go it'll twist me into something i don't want to be. and all i can do is be afraid.

i miss my parents. i miss everyone. my best friend ascended last cycle. we couldn't be friends anymore because i was "holding them back".

i just wish i could have gone with them.

#vent #do not reblog #delete later

0 notes

🌀 trans-scension 🔁 halo-of-seven-suns

⛆ raindeerstampede-deactivated1534012 It still gets me every time that even living up here with an abundance of water, we choose to maintain a system of pipes to ensure access to it.

I have to pay a water bill.

It rains so hard every night my balcony has a hands-breadth of standing water when the shields unroll in the morning.

Does nobody see the contradiction here?

🪻 metropolitanghost Follow op have you ever heard of a drainage system

do you like. realize how nasy that water gets

and you want to DRINK it?

🧃 five-pebbsi-official Follow Why drink rainwater when you could be drinking Five Pebbsi, the official drink of the Five Pebbles Metropolitan Zone?

[five-pebbsi-advertisement.jpg]

Quench your thirst and contract 0 intestinal parasites! None!

🪈 pipe--yard

#wow thanks five pebbsi official brand account that doesn't sound suspicious at all

#thank you five pebbles official you sound very trustworthy #i am sure your drink contains nothing else that would be of concern

#what an incredibly trustable source! i am sure if i perform a search query for five pebbsi i will definitely not find anything concerning on the ingredient list!

🖸 pleading-intellects-hot-robot-bod

#it has WHAT IN IT

i would like to wish everyone finding out about the ingredients of five pebbsi from this post my Deepest Condolences but also, Rest In Pieces

#rule of laughter

35,045 notes

🪨 one-cup-of-pebbles 🔁 memes-to-make-you-ascend

[screencap: a greyscale photo of a cup of gravel tea, with two twigs artfully arranged on a plate. Caption reads, "Working on denying the fourth urge this week! #fourthurge #gluttony #graveltea #dietarypurge #releasethe4"]

these guys have got to be stopped

#i am losing my mind over this

4,823 notes

💬 wondering-ottoman 🔁 leviafantastic

🌘 lingeringluna Follow

[Image: a shiny chitinous box containing unidentifiable bluish-white mush.]

living block just got the new ration shipment today. what the [2].

🌘 lingeringluna this is what they feed the iterator technicians i think

👤 beyondthewinds-deactivated1528045 Technical side of Tumbling Stones, can you confirm?

🧮 sixgrains-official Follow yes i am a real iterator technician and i eat this every day,, for my lunch and for dinner i eat neuron flies. hope this helps

👤 beyondthewinds-deactivated1528045 Thank you, definitely official account of famous iterator architect Six Grains of Gravel, Mountains Abound

#this is an old and humorously meant post i know but… #but no really what?! #i knew it was bad for the stragglers but i had no idea… #at least once we all ascend it'll be a bygone worry i suppose… #tw gluttony

29,761 notes

🌀 trans-scension 🔁 halo-of-seven-suns

⛓️ atopthespires becoming an iterator technician with high ambitions but i'm incredibly clumsy, introduced to them on the first day of the job and i am simply so charming they cannot help but fall in love with me for "research purposes" and i become their specialist little technician attending their every whim despite being the least qualified individual to do so <3

⛓️ atopthespires some of you are very confused what i mean by this, so let me make it clear: i want to [U.] the iterator

⛓️ atopthespires

#op do you understand that the puppet is just a simulacrum of a body? #they are much vaster than your reproduction-addled mind can concieve of i promise you that

the simulacrum being puppeted by a vast inconcievable machine is part of the appeal. whats not clicking

⛓️ atopthespires

#you realize the councils would literally throw you into the void fluid vats for that right #if you don't get excommunicated first

might i introduce you to this Wondrous New Skill called: lying

#rule of laughter #heresy tw #not safe for worshippers

1,672 notes

[its-short-for-jackalope]

the visual snow initiative (VSI) is a pretty cool thing to exist because they're creating awareness and education and everything and obviously that's a good thing, but like....

it honestly weirds me out that they're seemingly so laser-focused on finding a cure!

they mention it on almost every page of their site, and have y'all seen their merch???? I looked at their shop bc I was curious what the hell kinda products and designs they'd have, imagining some funky-cool static art n shit, but instead I see, uh.. this??

I mean, I get it. im reading about folks' experiences and how they just suddenly had this syndrome one day and their world changed and they didn't know what was happening, and obviously I can see why they would want to find a cure. like there's this one story from a woman who got visual snow when she was almost 40 years old! I can totally see how that would be unpleasant and scary as hell.

I know I was really scared when I started having visual snow. I think I was 5 or 6, and I was convinced I was seeing monsters coming at me in the dark, even when I closed my eyes. I couldn't sleep for a few nights, even after crawling in my parents' bed, until I somehow convinced myself to imagine friendlier creatures in the static instead. and then I just... got used to it. I even totally forgot about it for a good long while! i genuinely can't remember seeing the world "normally" because visual snow just is my normal now, and I like it that way.

obviously my experience is different from some of these folks', since I have the privilege of having milder visual snow symptoms (at least for now, maybe ill be Suffering in a decade, who knows lol) and I also have the privilege of just being so used to this ding dang glitch in my brain (affectionate). maybe if I didn't get it until I was in my 20s I'd just want it gone too. idk.

I guess the point of this post is to say that it's kinda disappointing to try and learn more about something you experience and find a community of people who understand what you're dealing with, only to realize that a significant portion of them dislike the strange, cool, unique thing you share and want to get rid of it. it's kind of a bummer. they might want to see a world without visual snow, but I don't.

[inkdemonapologist]

Crack-Up Comics Weird Timeline Nonsense With Alice Angel???

This is almost entirely the discovery of @threadedsafetypin and @inkyvendingmachine​ -- I don’t own Crack-Up Comics so my main contribution was that I was chatting with both of them at the time. Someone else may have pointed this out already, but I HAVENT RUN ACROSS IT YET and I like organising thoughts so, in case it hasn’t been posted anywhere and means??? something??? HERE IT IS

ThreadedSafetyPin was organising the Crack-Up Comics into a timeline and noticed that they’re not in order, which seemed like a bit of an odd choice, but when she went back to put them in order she discovered there are two comics that are scheduled for the same day: How Not To, and On Cloud 9, both scheduled for Jan 10th, 1933.

We both immediately looked at the timeline to see if something’s going on there, because IF ITS A NEWSPAPER STRIP IM P SURE YOU DONT JUST PRINT TWO IN ONE DAY, THATS NOT HOW THAT WORKS, and Thread realised that there’s a pretty significant chronological oddity here:

On Cloud 9 is a strip featuring Alice Angel.......... a character who didn’t appear in the cartoon until Sent From Above in September of 1933, eight months later. It’s conceivable that she could’ve existed in the comics before then, but the newspaper article announcing Susie as the VA for Alice also mentions “As the first female character for Joey Drew Studios, Alice Angel certainly has a lot to live up to. We asked Joey what kind of gal Alice Angel will be” -- which, I guess could be just, ignorance of the strip, but it sure doesn’t sound like a character that’s already been appearing in the comics for a few months. 

Around this point Boo (InkyVendingMachine) came online and I started excitedly telling him about this weird thing Thread had found and he cracked (ha) his own copy open to discover another weird note: the art for How Not To (the other Jan 10th strip) seems either sloppy or rushed, because pencil lines have been left in.

I’ve forgotten to erase a pencil line or two in my time as a cartoonist, but like, this feels potentially pretty deliberate to me on a meta level -- Boris’ whole arm was removed in the final inks, but is still easily visible in the pencils.

He also discovered that the dates more or less go in order up until October 8th, and then RESTART with On Cloud 9 (the doubled strip) and move in order with only Alice Angel comics.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

None of us are sure what to do with this! In a series where Time Loops are part of the plot, it seems SIGNIFICANT, but I’m not sure what it signifies. For the double Jan 10th strip, I had the thought that it could signify delays on the cartoons -- a lot of times newspaper strips are scheduled way in advance, so if Alice’s debut was intended to happen sooner but then got delayed in production, then they may have had to rush out a non-Alice strip at the last minute to replace this one. But that doesn’t explain the weird way they’re arranged, as if 1933 just starts over again but with Alice this time, or the fact that this isn’t the only pre-September strip with Alice Angel in it.

Thought I’d throw it out there, though, in case any of you can make something of it!!

[kuroo-shitsurou]

Auxilium (College!Xiao x College!Reader)

TW: mentions blood, depression, anxiety

note: it's my first time writing and posting something on tumblr so im sorry if it's bad!! reader is gn hehe.

Late February was never a good time for Xiao.

It was the second month of the year; People were starting to adjust and adapt to the ever-changing and progressing timeline. Although, he never really understood the concept of the "New year, new me!" shtick. Humans make decisions that eventually shape their personalities. What does a new year have anything to do with that? Does a change in the year automatically make you a good person? Does it make you less of an asshole than you might already be? He never really understood.

He found it rather silly, actually. Whenever a new year rolls around, Xiao would mutter silent curses to himself because he'd write the wrong year on his papers. Other than that, there wasn't any significant changes he made in his daily routine. He was still the same Xiao; The same anxious, mildly depressed, and coffee-high art major Xiao.

Now, Xiao was a respected figure in their college (or at least, that's what he was told). He was one of the most talented artists at Tokyo University, and professors have been eyeing him for a scholarship overseas (he, along with his brooding and mysterious senior, Diluc). His keen eye for details always produce great results as most of his portraits are featured in the university's gallery of students' greatest works. Not to mention, one of his larger canvas works were displayed at the Tokyo Museum, making him one of the youngest artists to have their art showcased there.

Admittedly, Xiao was aware of how people admired his talent. Unfortunately, due to a rough childhood where his parents barely showed him any love and affection, he had trouble reflecting his true emotions onto other people. That's why other art majors often labelled him as a self-absorbed, egotistical prick.

Xiao was the last person you'd want to compliment. It's not that he'd be a dick about it or that he'd scowl at you and act as if he was better than you in every way possible. It wasn't like that at all. It's simply because Xiao doesn't know how to handle compliments. He'll still keep his stoic face, lips pressed in a straight line, but deep inside, he'd be flustered to bits. He'd try to internalize his reply, stitching together the right words to express his gratitude, but it would always take him a few minutes. The person who complimented him would've already left after he finally constructed the sentence in his head. Not that he wasn't used to it

This led to Xiao earning his current reputation, as stated earlier. He was already expecting the rest of his college years to be spent alone in his studio, working on his artworks during the wee hours of the night, high on the fumes of his paint palette and his exhausted coffee machine.

Until you came.

Kaoru was... eccentric. You were loud, you were moody. He felt like you'd be the type of person he'd hate dealing with just because you was unpredictable. You were like the rain, and Xiao hated the rain.

He must have an Archon's cursed tongue, because he got paired up with you during the first semester of their second year in college. You were a familiar name to him, as you were in the same course since the first year, but he barely knew anything about you since you were in different classes.

"Hey, Xiao! I'm _____. I hope we can be good friends by the end of the semester!" His memory of your bright smile still remains vivid in his head. He wasn't really a brooding type like Diluc, but Xiao liked to believed that he presented himself as a silent person who had no intentions of interacting with other people. So, how were you so bubbly around him? Because she was forced to do so? You were to be his partner for the whole semester, after all. Maybe it was all formalities. Yeah, that's probably it.

"Hm." Xiao gave a nod in her direction, acknowledging your existence. you heard from your friends that the young artist didn't have a pleasing personality, but you weren't expecting to be shutdown from the get-go.

"Mind if I sit beside you?"

Again, a light nod.

You felt the awkward tension between you and Xiao, and you hated it. You were a person who hated it when people are uncomfortable in your presence. You didn't want to be a bother, and you did your best to make everyone like you. Not that you were a people pleaser, nor an attention hog, but you just wanted to get along with everyone.

The lecture was going to begin in twenty minutes, so the lecture hall was yet to be filled with people. You took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with the amber eyed man beside you, who was typing away on his laptop. Something about color theory and how it affects the perspective of people on different art types? You couldn't really see that well. He was a fast typer.

"So, Xiao, I heard that your painting was displayed in the Tokyo Museum last year. It must have been an honor. I was at the unveiling last year and I saw it up-close." You started off, testing the waters.

"And what did you think of it?" Xiao cringed internally. He meant to genuinely ask for your feedback regarding his art, but it sounded so harsh that he wanted to punch himself when he saw you wince (or maybe you shuddered because it was cold and you were wearing a sleeveless top? His nerves were getting the better of him at this point).

"Well, a lot of my friends told me that it wasn't anything special,"

Ouch.

"It was a large canvas. I can still remember how it looks. But, maybe that's because I'm at the museum every two weeks," You laughed. You noticed how Xiao's breathing noticeably changed after you started your sentence, and you have to admit that it sounded a bit too mean.

"You know, Xiao. My friends told me that your art was simple. Anyone could have done it. But honestly, they couldn't be more wrong. I love how your piece was painted. Auxilium. I'll never forget what you called it. That's... Help, right?"

At first, Xiao didn't want to listen to this person ramble about an art piece he made during one of the lowest points of his life.

His anti-depressants had run out during that one Christmas. It was 2:47 in the morning. He had morning classes the following day. He had a project to submit, but he was unable to continue working because of the unbearable pain in his chest. His head was throbbing. Voices were invading his mind. Flashbacks of his parents' negligence taunted him. He rushed to grab a glass of water, chugging it down in almost three chugs. He slammed the glass back onto the counter, smashing it into tiny little splinters and cutting himself in the process. His hand was bleeding, there were bits of glass on his counter and on his floor, but he couldn't care less. He was heaving, his breathing was unsteady, he wanted to die right then and there. His vision became blurry, but he rushed back to his studio.

With a bleeding hand, he picked up his brush and began to tear into his canvas. Not literally, but he started to create strokes onto the blank canvas. Different colors, different textures (he swore some of his blood got blended in with the area where he painted the sunrise, but it's fine. No one was going to notice, right?). He screamed and cried, wanting to throw the entire easel out his window.

It was Christmas. He was alone in his apartment. His anti-depressants ran out. He was having a panic attack.

That night led him to having one of the worst breakdowns he could remember, but he also ended up with a gorgeous painting that nabbed him a place in the Tokyo Museum.

"Help," Your voice echoed in his ears, snapping him out of his trance.

"People can tell me that it's nothing more than a simple painting, but the way that the sunrise was only showing in a segmented part of the canvas? The way that there were hints of red? It kind of reminded me how a new day can resemble hope but still contain hurt. Like, the promise of a fresh start isn't guaranteed a good one, right?"

Your words rang in his ears like a gong being hit continuously. He wanted to cry. People always complimented him and congratulated him about being recognized by art critics and national museums, but none of them ever really stopped to talk to him about his art. They were there for his recognition- not his work.

"I mean, you could begin with a fresh start, but wouldn't the remnants of yesterday still take a toll on your tomorrow?"

"Hm. Interesting take. To be honest, those specks could have been my blood." Xiao spoke up, to your surprise. A small smile formed on your face. Maybe this guy wasn't so bad after all.

"My hand was cut up when I was painting that," He added quietly, not mentioning why his hand was in that state. "I think I accidentally added too much concentrated red. I couldn't blend it out the way I originally planned."

"Oh? But that makes it all the more great, though!" You beamed, "Maybe it was an Archon guiding you? I don't really believe in that stuff, but acknowledging some divine intervention once in a while can't be all bad, no?" You laughed.

"I guess you're right." For the first time in a while, Xiao actually gave someone else a small smile. It wasn't really a smile per se, but his lips curved even the slightest bit upward, and you decided that it was a win for you.

-

Fast forward to the second semester of their third year.

Late February was never a good time for Xiao.

It was the second month of the year; People were starting to adjust and adapt to the ever-changing and progressing timeline. Although, he never really understood the concept of the "New year, new me!" shtick.

It had been years since he was clinically-diagnosed with mild depression. So, why was he still that way? Shouldn't new years help him be a better person? Or something like that. Why was he still like this?

Late February meant the end of one semester, and the start of another.

What else did that mean?

His semestral feedback report (he refused to call it a report card. What was he, high school?).

"Xiao? Are you here? I bought almond tofu from Xiangling's place. Sorry for barging in, you weren't answering my calls." He heard your voice from the kitchen and he glanced at the clock on his studio's wall.

1:37 AM.

You were at Xiangling's place because you were working on a report about the history of acrylic paints or whatever it was. You were supposed to go home, but you still dropped by his apartment. He checked his phone.

[ 14 missed calls. ]

Yikes.

"I'm here." He answered meekly, but loud enough for you to hear. He felt tired. Defeated, maybe. He was blankly staring at the canvas in front of him. He has sketched the base of your face and upper body. He was planning on painting a portrait of his beloved to decorate his room with, but he couldn't find the energy to continue.

He could hear the soft "thud"s of your feet walking from the kitchen towards the studio, but he tuned it out with an annoying static he could only hear in his head.

Fuck. Where are they?

He rushed to the drawer next to his easels and rummaged around in a panic.

Where the fuck are they?

He kept a few anti-depressants in his studio because he spends most of his time here and he didn't have time to rush to the kitchen to get them if he ever got a panic attack.

"Fuck!" He cursed loudly, throwing the contents of his desk onto the floor. Some of his paintbrushes scattered on the wooden floor of his studio, marking the wood various colors. Maybe they're going to stain, but he didn't really care.

Xiao heard the footsteps retreating until he couldn't hear anything else except the constant ringing in his ears. It was annoying. It was loud. It started to make him want to split his head open.

"_____," He whispered, feeling his chest hurt and his throat tighten. The passageways helping him breathe seemed to close themselves, giving him a hard time and mocking him. It was coming back again.

Tears started to flood his vision, and they rolled down his red cheeks. He took the ponytail out of his hair and used two hands to tug at his locks starting from the roots. His breathing patterns became more erratic, but he tried his best to stay calm.

His knees and legs felt like jelly. He had to lean against the desk to avoid from toppling over.

Why? Why again? Why now? Why when you were here?

He screamed. It was loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but his care for any external entities was out the window the moment his eyes became blurry with tears.

Even though he was leaning against the desk, his legs still couldn't hold the weight of his entire body. His knees dropped to the floor, and he swore he must've dented the wood below, but he paid no mind to it. His knees were also aching, but he could deal with that later. He bent down and pressed his forehead to the floor.

"_____," He whispered again, longing for his partner. "Auxilium."

"Xiao?" The voice was muffled. His eyes were glued to the floor in front of him, but he knew it was you.

"Xiao, stay with me, honey." There was a hint of panic evident in your voice, but he was glad that you didn't let that get the best of you. You was still somewhat calm.

You kneeled down beside him, helping him back to an upright position.

"Honey, you left these on the counter outside." You handed him two tablets of his anti-depressants, and he gladly placed them in his mouth. You also gave him a glass of water, and he downed it in two swift gulps. Afraid that he might underestimate his strength, he returned the glass back to you instead of setting it down himself, nodding at you in the process.

You got into a more comfortable position where you rested your back against the wall, and you guided Xiao to follow you. It was a difficult task; He was very sensitive during his panic attacks.

His semestral feedback reports always made him anxious. He didn't have to please his parents anymore since he moved out years ago, but Xiao had this nagging feeling inside of him to do better with his academics. Nobody was really pressuring him to be a straight-A student, but did he feel like he needed to be? Who was he trying to prove himself to anyway? You knew about his sever panic attacks and how they were more active if he had a big event coming up. The first time you had to deal with it, you were still stiff and trying to learn how you could help. Now, you takes pride in yourself for being able to handle him in the ways you know would help him the most.

"Here you go, I've got you." You cooed, assisting him with moving. You laid his head flat on her lap and she began stroking his beautiful, tousled forest green locks. The highlights he had under the first layer of his hair started to fade, and you made a mental note to take him to a salon so they could get their highlights redone.

"You know, I've been listening to a lot of Coldplay lately," You started speaking, as if Xiao wasn't about to have a full-on panic attack. "Yellow would have to be one of my favorite songs. I guess it's kinda cheesy, but can you blame me?"

You used your free hand to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you." You began singing, voice just above a whisper.

"And everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow."

Xiao was a reserved person who had a hard time dealing with other people because of his inferiority complex that sprouted when he was young.

"I came along, I wrote a song for you."

He didn't have love and affection growing up. He didn't know how to be the best person to talk to. He had poor communication skills. He was a mess, to be honest.

"And all the things you do. And it was called yellow."

You were the first person who looked past his rough and tough exterior. You were the person who showed interest not just in his name- but in him as a whole.

"So when I took my turn, what a thing to've done."

"Thank you," He murmured silently, noticing that the ringing in his ears vanished. His throat was beginning to open again, and he could finally feel the steady heartbeat he had in his chest.

"And it was all yellow."

Xiao curled himself into a ball, burying his face in your clothed stomach. You smelled a bit like smoke (maybe you ate yakiniku at Xiangling's?) and your faded cologne. It smelled like home. It washed a sense of relief over his entire being. He felt safe. He felt secure. He was being held like a child, but he didn't really mind. Maybe he needed this.

"Your skin. Oh yeah, your skin and bones,"

You craned your neck downwards to look at Xiao's figure. He finally looked peaceful. You knew about his rough past. You knew about the trauma he had to go through, but you chose to look past it because you knew that he was just afraid and... alone. He needed someone to be there for him, and you would rather the world die than leave him alone ever again.

"Turn into something beautiful."

You noticed how his chest started a rhythmic pattern of ups and downs. His breathing was finally steady. He looked at peace. He looked like he was right at home.

"Do you know? You know I love you so."

You couldn't help but chuckle as you watched him sleep in your lap. How could anyone think that this softie was an asshole?

"You know I love you so."

You barely whispered the last part of the song, but it was loud enough for his heart to hear it. Xiao hated when things were unpredictable; that's why he hated the rain. But now, maybe the idea of rain wasn't so bad. Especially since you were his rain.

"I love you, Xiao."

At that moment, you knew that the involuntary smile on Xiao's face was a response that contained more emotions than his words could ever bear.

"I love you too."

[familyagrestefanblog]

Miraculous Shanghai theories and analysis

All those leaks and informations we got for the Shanghai special caught my interest BIG TIME and I wanted to post my theories and thoughts before it airs.

Just as a warning, I wrote all of this yesterday before the new promo poster got released this morning but fortunately it's doesn't disprove anything I'm about to say.

So let's go!

Let's start with my tamest theory of this post to clear the track for the batshit craziness that gonna follow: The Peacock miraculous will be involved in the Shanghai special as well.

This doesn't necessarily mean that we will see Mayura but at the very least the Peacock miraculous will be brought up.

I'm certain of this because of two things:

1. The specials logo

It's nothing wild. The yin-yang is obviously Ladybug and Chat Noir and when we cross out the other rainbow colors of the Renling promo pic we are left with two colors: Hawkmoths purple and Mayuras blue.

And 2. In a trailer we saw Gabriel in an old ruin which definitely could be the Guardian temple before Ladybug restores it in "Feast" (the special takes place somewhere in between s2 and s3 so that checks out).

Maybe he goes back to where they found their two miraculous and the Grimoire and then checks out the ruins (cuz honestly why not?) or maybe he is on his way to the creepy underground place. We will see.

Okay but now, let's start with the good stuff! :D

I'm putting it under "continue reading" because it's quite alot and it gets... specific lol

Let's continue with the Renlings and the fact that this time around we are not going to get a new Miracle Box but they are all combined into ONE Miraculous.

That may sounds incredibly overpowered and out of nowhere without context but I think I might now what we are looking at.

The Renlings were called the Kwamis "cousins" so we have to go back to the Chinese Zodiac our Miracle box is based on, because it isn't only made of 12 animals. Cause our 12 animals are also segmented under 8 guardians of the zodiac. And how many Renlings to we get? 8.

Four of these Zodiac guardians are assigned to 2 animals and the other four guard one.

They are segmented as the following:

Thousand Hands Guan Yin - Rat

Akasagarbha Bodhisattva - Ox & Tiger

Manjusri Bodhisattva- Rabbit

Samantabhadra Bodhisattva- Dragon & Snake

Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva- Horse

Vairochana Buddha - Goat & Monkey

Acalanatha - Rooster

Amitabha Buddha - Dog & pig

But let me get back to this later.

Unfortunately I legitimately can not explain why these particular animals were chosen to represent the guardians. All I can say is that my initial thought still holds up and the monkey, bear, tiger, dragon, mantis, snake, horse and hawk (look im calling it a hawk in this post idk) are all martial art styles. But they neither belong to one group nor is one of the groups complete.

Maybe I just missed something here (which is definitely possible) but I just can't find the reason for these animals for the guardians. Beside the Dragon as most important one of course, but that's a given.

Anyway, let's continue. A detail that can support my zodiac guardian theory is that while we can only see two animal circles in the promo pic entirely, one of the two has ONE DOT in its picture and the other one has TWO.

Signifying for how many Kwamis the one guardian is assigned to? Possibly.

The dragon in the middle is shown with 8 dots all together, that means is it fair to say that the dragon functions as the main guardian that combines them all. That explains why our new girl for the special has a 8-in-1 Miraculous, why her eyes change for each Renling and why she is trained so professionally.

We don't know yet why the Renlings are all put into one Miraculous, since they work differently from the Kwamis, but I have this thought that the Renlings (in their ONE necklace) were created because of what happened to the guardian temple almost 200 years ago.

Countless Miracle Boxes were lost that day and Fu's Box with the Ladybug and Cat were thought so as well. Possibly the Renlings were an attempt to recreate the powers of at the very least the lost zodiac Kwamis. The Dragon was made into the main guardian and is supposed to step in place for the LB and Cat as we can see on its different color coding echoing the yin-yang, but It obviously didn't work and the Renlings neither possess the same powers or can they be put in separate Miraculous nor is the Dragon a healthy replacement for the yin-yang.

But is was a desperate attempt in a situation that was believed to be lost and I find that thought exciting!

(Btw i have a similar theory for the Superheros from the New York special but that's a theory for another day)

Where to continue, where to continue?

Alright let's stay with the 8 Dragon dots because THOSE caught my interest in more than one way.

As I already said, I think the 4 white dots and 4 block ones stand for the 2 types of zodiac guardians, but now let's take a look at the animal circles surrounding the dragon.

We can see the Bear, the Hawk and a bit of another one between the Bear and Chat Noir in addition to the Dragon. These four circles have animal pictures that are completely colored in (just like the dragon brighter dots)

And now look closely at the animal circles around Chats head. Those are not colored in! Just like the other four Dragon dots. So isn't in interesting that they had our two leads basically hide those four particular animal circles? Almost as if there is a reason for this, huh?

And you know, I looked further and maybe I found something here. And for this let's take another look at the Renlings, shall we?

Four of these Renlings have something in common with our two main characters, can you guess what?

I'll give a hint: The eyes.

I compared all the promo picks we got from the Renlings and noticed that:

1. The snake and the horse have blue eyes like Marinette

2. The monkey has green eyes like Adrien

And 3. The Mantis is the only Renling with special eyes like Chat

The other 4 Renlings have brown eyes in different shades.

But this on it own isn't too exciting. So what if some Renlings share the same eyes as our leads? Well, would you believe it? When I filled in the placements of the other animals circles, through a shot we got in the leaks, I noticed that those 4 Renlings that shear their eyes with Marinette and Adrien are ALSO the 4 animal circles our leads just so happen to hide from us.

How interesting

But that not all I got. Not even CLOSE, I'm just getting started here!

Because not only do Marinettes Snake & Horse and Adriens Monkey & Mantis stand out here, oh no, it gets BETTER!

Now let's take the two promo pics from the Renlings we got where they are finished and colorized.

Did you know that both times they are put in the same formation, just with slightly swapped placement among the Renlings?

And once again here one could say "So what? They were lazy while designing the pics, that's it" but NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH hear me out!

Not only are the Renlings put both times into the same formation, the way they switched their placements isn't random at all:

1. Marinettes Snake and Horse stay both times on exactly the same spot.

2. The tiger and the bear switch places

3. So do the dragon and monkey

4. And the mantis and hawk.

The way the Renlings are shown to us on the promo pics is anything BUT random and that is something that will always get me interested! :D

But you know what? I'm still not done yet. Let's continue with this creepy ass stone door we see Gabriel at

Because as I mentioned, while Marinettes Snake and Horse stay unchanged in their formations, Adriens Monkey and Mantis not only do change places but they aren't paired with another either. So does that mean that Adriens guardian Renlings are just inconsistent? No, not at all. They just have a different meaning and place then Marinettes.

First of all: the Renlings special hair is bright green, just like the color of the tiger (a CAT) on the rainbow scale we got and Adriens/Chats + Monkey & Mantis eyes. And second: in the other promo pic the Renlings have a pink background, just like the rainbow scale color or the Mantis!

Coincidence? I don't care anymore, next point! :D

Because not only THAT but when we take a closer look at the creepy stone door we can make out the placement of every guardian animal as well. And MY, is this fascinating:

As the colors make it clear when you compare these guardian animal door placements to the rainbow scale from the promo pic, here Adriens Monkey & Mantis are in the right places but Marinettes animals are a bit off.

In fact. Everything about the placements of the animals (besides Adriens) are just a bit off.

- Marinettes animals and the bear are almost in the right place just mirror-reversed.

- The Tiger and the Hawk are one place too left.

- And the Dragon shouldn't be in the middle, it should take the place between Adriens animals but it was forced out of position to replace the yin-yang.

But taking the dragon out broke the balance of the animal circle. Everything here is slightly off by one point and that is much more significant than you would initially think. Because when you now turn the whole circle one quarter to the left (there is a reason for it, trust me) and put the dragon back in place then you will get a good part of the picture I've been looking for a long while.

What I'm showing you here are the 4 Chinese creatures of the cardinal directions and they are basically what I would expect to be on the upper layer of a Chinese Miracle box (I'll get to this on another day). And as you can see here, we are basically almost there aren't we?

The tiger of the West and Dragon of the east are in place and while the creature of the North is normally the turtle it is always accompanied by a snake, which is now on the upper place.

"but what about the bear? And a snake is NOT a turtle!" I'm getting to it, my goodness :/

Regarding the bear one thing needs to be said: it is definitely true, the bear is in the wrong place. I don't even know why there is a bear in this formation in the first place and it stuck out to me since day one. The creature of the south is a bird, the HAWK should be here.

But there is a difference between "this thing is in the wrong place and completely random wtf??" and "This thing is in the wrong place but I can see a pattern continuing from other formations that are off as well".

The bear is not only here, it's also:

- alongside the tiger (who is btw suspicious af as well) covering the center points from the Renlings formation that should belong to Adriens animals.

- is with Marinettes animals the only other one that is basically on it right place on the creepy stone door, just mirror-reversed.

-is the new "peak" of the zodiac guardian animal circles because moving the dragon out to the middle left the other ones off-balance and now its kinda tilted to the left. But when we look at the creepy door with not corrected animal placements we see that this was indeed the hawks place. And remember as well, the bear and the hawk are the only two animal circles we see in the promo pic besides the dragon

Meaning in short: That damn bear stole the hawks place and I need it to stop.

Which brings me to the turtle and a whole new can of worms (miraculous should pay me for this omfg...).

Because what if I tell you that the snake, who is normally just accompanying the turtle, being the creature of the north here instead of the turtle is not only "okay enough" it is actually the needed puzzle piece to connect this zodiac Renlings circle with the Chinese Miracle box in the design master Fu had it?

Let me explain

Do you remember when I started talking about the Renlings I said I would come back to the way the rl zodiac guardians are paired with the zodiac animals "later"? Well, later is NOW, because there is one more way those 8 dots from that damn dragon caught my interest and it also explains why I just turned the guardian stone circle one quarter to the left.

Because believe and behold, this is not the only place where things are "slightly off".

A while I started taking closer looks and research on the original miracle box design and the Kwami spirit circle we saw in "Sandboy".

I will try to not go into unnecessary details with this now because all of that needs its own post. I'm already going off the hooks with this one. But just like here I noticed with these two things rather quickly that "things are slightly off, but in a suspiciously systematic way".

Going straight ahead to the example I'm talking about, the order the 12 zodiac animals follow on the side of the box is straight up upside-down. The first zodiac animal is the rat (or mouse) and the last one the pig and YET in the box the rat is right at the bottom and the pig on the top.

This upside down arrangement of the animals results in the wrong animals being the 4 who have a guardian assigned for themselves

The four single miraculous in between the 4 directions are obviously the ones I'm talking about. Here they are Tiger, Snake, Pig, Monkey (I hope you are making a connection here) but that's wrong, as are the other 4x2 ones.

BUT

When we now flip it upside down again, having the rat start on the pigs place and the pig end on the rats, then things suddenly are correct.

Here the rl guardian pairings again:

Thousand Hands Guan Yin - Rat

Akasagarbha Bodhisattva - Ox & Tiger

Manjusri Bodhisattva- Rabbit

Samantabhadra Bodhisattva- Dragon & Snake

Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva- Horse

Vairochana Buddha - Goat & Monkey

Acalanatha - Rooster

Amitabha Buddha - Dog & pig

As you can see, now it's correct.

You may wonder what this has to do with the Dragon dots, so lets look at the Kwami spirit circle next.

I've been analyzing and taking this thing apart now for MONTHS now. And while I'm certainly having a blast, the fact that I now officially have an entire FOLDER at home dedicated to this thing alone is quite...

Bruh...

But thankfully we will really only need the basics for this theory here.

Through zooming in and watching the "Sandboy" Kwami spirit World scenes over and over again I was able to figure out the placement of each Kwami.

When you now follow the moons in the middle towards the Kwamis you will notice that only the moon at the top alignes with one and that's DUUSU. The other 4 miss the Kwamis just by a bit.

But remember what I said the entire time. Everything is just slightly off by ONE little factor but when we "fixed" that factor for the stone wall there was still something left that didn't fit. That's because not only are the Shanghai zodiac guardians structures off, it was built on top of a structure that is ALREADY slightly off by another factor!

Something is fundamentally WRONG with Kwami balance in the current ml universe and what I think happened to throw everything off is NOOROO.

Keeping this point short for everybodys sanity, in the french version of "Sandboy" we find out that Nooroo is having his 3500 cycle birthday and him being the Kwami which gets its birthday pointed out is no coincidence. (Guys please just go with me here, I really dont have the strenght to elaborate on this now as well)

So when Nooroo is the factor that brought imbalance to the Kwami system then how does the spirit circle look like WITHOUT Nooroo?

Now THIS is more like it!

Without Nooroo the size of the circle changes slightly all around and now the other 4 moons align with the Dragon, rat, chicken and horse.

And believe it or not, but take a guess what it looks like when we now highlight these 4 Kwamis in the arrangement of the 12 zodiac Kwamis both upside down and correct?

It's the 2 types of Dragon dots.

And let's take this further. When the 12 Zodiac Kwamis are upside down then so is obviously the entire upper layer of the Miracle box as well, which explains why, although the 5 Miraculous places around the yin-yang are based on the 5 chinese elements, the way they are arranged here is once again upside down.

Meaning the yin-yang is upside down as well, but not only that. I always found it weird that the yin-yang here is placed SIDEWAYS when this is not exactly the normal way of showing it.

So when we now turn the yin-yang a quarter to the left and take the 5 Miraculous surrounding it along, we might be closer to the puzzles solution. Because when we now take Nooroo out (as he wouldn't be there when things had gone right) then Fu's miracle box should have looked like this:

Notice 2 things here in particular:

1. Now the Turtle is at the top, which completes the connection between the Renlings Snake and the Kwamis Turtle to create the only creature of the 4 directions that is portrayed with one accompanied: the Turtle of the North.

And while I'm already at it, this is also the reason why Fu's/Ninos Miraculous is the only one that doesn't fit the hero color scheme when activated.

The Turtle of the North is colored BLACK and sometimes with additional white, just like the activated Miraculous.

And 2. Now after being mirror reversed and turned one quarter to the left the Ladybugs and Cats yin-yang isn't sideways anymore and looks EXACTLY like the yin-yang used in the Shanghai promo pictures. Almost like this is the way it is supposed to be or something.

Alright. Ive told you ALOT now but this is precisely the reason why I wanted to post this before the special airs. I'm definitely not entirely right with all of this, there is alot I haven't figured out about these things yet or simply haven't seen yet. What I just showed to you is not anywhere close to done so some questions are still left open.

I wanted to make another point about how the zodiac monkey, mantis and horse are the only 3 Renlings that do not have any symbol on their bodies and how this could connect to the object Hawkmoth has in that one leak

But even i think this is going to far now and I should wait until I watched the special xD

But my point in all of this (and everything I haven't even touched upon here but will in the future) is that everything in s1-s3 was influenced by this fundamental off-balance of the Kwami system that I think was caused with Nooroos creation. Which is very fitting for the Kwami of our main villain I may say. And the fact that these 4 miraculous are also somehow linked to the peacock out of all miraculous gives us an explanation for its villainous usage as well.

I think the Shanghai special will start the exploration of what happened by at least laying down and introducing the most important aspects of this particular topic.

To say that I am TRILLED for this special is quite the understatement and I'm gonna have a BLAST analysing the hell out of its lore!

So I guess there is only one thing left for me to say:

Yo

Miraculous crew

[simpingforthisonedeer]

What's Aika's magic?

Damn this may be a long post im sorry anon but I'll just be explaining any magical traits that Aika has or uses so I can later use this post as reference for myself💞

Simply put, it's Time Magic, just like Julius. Though she also uses forbidden magic often too, more specifically necromancy. She tried to become the devil host of certain devil but it wasn't answering her calls so she gave up on that and turned to necromancy(which was going to be her focus anyway) so that she could communicate with her family even after they were dead. She never really passes the mourning stage in her life so yeah.

The time magic, well, Aika and Julius were born on the same day, same hour, and the same second. The timing of their birth has a big significance and also the reason why she has time magic. She also has a spiral grimoire, which used to be parchment colored but the pages are now black and the text is written in a different language. It turned black after she despaired when her family(her mom, two dads and younger brother) died.

As her mom died, she[Aika's mom] used a forbidden magic spell that basically passes on certain magical traits of the person who is dying. From her mother who used mirror magic, Aika gained the ability to use cameras(which I HC as a magical artifact only able to be used by people with phosphoromancy magic types), from her brother who used lightning magic, she gained resistance to lightning, from one of her fathers who used water magic, she gained the ability to breathe under water for long periods of time and a quick grasp on being able to use a magical stone that produces water. From her other father who had sword magic, well, he taught her swordsmanship but I guess his magic made it easier for her to make swords and other weapons out of creation magic. Anywho, she simply gained some passive skills from this inheritance spell. In the lore of my fic, this inheritance spell is used often by royalty so that heirs have an advantage over others.

Aika began to use mana zone more often after she went blind after a forbidden magic ritual called "Imago Dei." She traveled to the Heart Kingdom when the Priestess invited her and she began to grow the scope of her mana zone.

If I had to elaborate more on time magic, I would say that Aika can do the basics like speed up or slow down, take and give time. But she some times uses it in addition to necromancy. Like for example, by combining both, she can see the time a person was born and the time a person will die. She can see when she dies too yes. The time a person dies is never set in stone so it can be changed. The "time of death" that she sees is the estimated time a person will meet their demise if they keep going on the same course.

A strange thing about Julius and Aika's magic is that if they used magic against each other at the same time, they would cancel out. Kinda how Langris and Finral's spatial magic spells cancel out. But they can still use it in combination magic as detailed in one of the chapters.

Aika studied forbidden magic along with medicine in the Spade Nation War College for 4 ish years and that was where she had to sacrifice part of her humanity to be able to use forbidden magic properly. She gave up her ability to sleep. It's not that she can't sleep anymore or doesn't need to, but if she did close her eyes and go to sleep, it will be full of nightmarish visions of the past, present and future, both personal and unrelated to her and she can't wake up unless she endures them for 8 hours. So Aika hasn't slept properly in approximately 15 years. Emphasis on properly because she does sleep every few years in hopes that the torture would one day be gone.

Here's the picture of her weg but her full despaired weg form looks a lot more devilsh🤔 it’s rlly old art so ignore the ugliness💀💀

Edit: I also forgot about a little forbidden magic technique she uses often in battle😭 when long ranged spells are shot, mages often let go of their control over them and Aika takes advantage of this and takes control of the magic and either redirects it or stores. Ofc using magic that isn’t yours is forbidden so👀

I'll make a separate post about her spells later but a few of them were already introduced in my fic. But yeah! This is most of the info so far and thanks for the question anon!

[bbygilre]

Hello, I hope you are doing well! If you are taking requests, may I request headcanons for the DMC guys (or just V or Dante) and their reaction to their significant other giving them really good massages? It can be sfw or NSFW, thank you for taking the time to read this and have a good day/ night!

I WANNA BE YOURS

Omg hello hello, I was quite busy with real life stuff!! Im sorry if this is late. 🥺👉👈 Here is it!!

(Dante x F! Reader )

P. S NSFW CONTENT HERE!!

It was around 9:30 in the evening when the telephone rang at Dante's desk. It was odd, people usually call Dante during the day because they know Dante won't answer their vendetta's during the night. I let the phone ring twice before answering it.

"Good evening, this is assistant of Mr. Dante Sparda. I'm sorry to tell you that we won't be attending jobs or gig during the night." I responded in a formal way, just as what I was instructed.

If Dante's not around it is my duty to answer the calls. Strange, someone called tonight.

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is just to inform you will be receiving mails. This is from the post office,"

"Ah, very well. Strange that you guys called us this time of the day."

"We called during th afternoon yet it seems that no one answered."

Oh damn, there is no electricity during the afternoon cause Dante can't pay his bill right.

"Oh, we are sorry to inform you that we cannot answer calls during the afternoon because we have problems with the err— electricity." I sighed

"No problem ma'am, we'll be sending these mails to you, have a good Mrs. Sparda."

"I am not his wife—" before I could even protest, he hanged up.

WHAT? MRS? MRS SPARDA?

Mrs. Sparda...

It actually sound pretty nice. My name plus Dante's family name...

I like it.

"Y/N Sparda. Hm, not bad." I smiled before heaving a sigh, the smile still plastered over my lips. Goddamn it, this is not the perfect time to think about it.

For months, I have been working for Dante. He's quite different from the people I have worked with and one thing to describe him is that he is cocky. Sometimes he plays around yet when he's serious, I see a different version of himself. Dante himself isn't just an ordinary person. He is a half demon.

I grew up knowing that people described demons as entities that looked horrible and ugly, in Dante's case, he isn't one of those in fact, he looks like a living god. His family definitely has good genes, especially his mother.

I took the picture frame that was placed at his desk. It was like a prized possession of Dante, a fragment of his good memories with his dearest mother. She looked beautiful, piece of art work. I smiled as I adored her timeless beauty.

"What are you doing?" A raspy voice snickered behind me before he blew a thin air to the back of my neck.

I warm breath touched my neck and in a moment, I quickly placed the picture frame back to the desk and eagerly faced this man who just surprised me like that.

"Do you really have to do that?" My cheeks were flushed, I could feel my ears heat up.

He is so damn close, damn.close.

"Do what, Mrs. Sparda?" He let out a booming laugh, before he messed his long ivory white hair. "I heard that mail man called you Mrs. Sparda,"

"H-he did not!"

Stop.

"Hm, very well." He smiled before winking at me. He then turned around and went to his sofa, taking a comfy sit and closing his eyes.

This man, does he even know the word 'SPACE'?

I heaved a sigh, placing my palm over my chest. My heart was beating so fast that it wanted to leap put of my chest so bad. I took a glance at him and noticed he closed his eyes and sighed, his long ivory white hair was tied. His strong and well chiseled jaw clenched before he groaned.

"Y/N..."

"Y-yes?" Oh shit, I could feel my cheeks heating up again and my heart beating so fast.

"Can I ask for a favor? It won't be much."

"What is it then?"

He cleared this throat, his adams apple swallowing before he flew his eyes at me. When I said that Dante looked like I living god, I meant it.

"Can you massage my shoulder and my back too?"

I, an obedient kitten, shyly nodded at him.

I feel so nervous! Not that its not my first time doing a massage to someone but actually giving my boss a massage. I haven't touched Dante, I never had the chance to touch his skin or have any physical contact with him. Now once again my heart was beating so loud and beating so fast. My cheeks were flushed and so was my ears.

I positioned myself behind him and trying to get myself to calm down and collect my thoughts. My hands were shaking and my thoughts were scattered everywhere. Before I could even touch him, he quickly took off his shirt and revealed his skin.

It was holy. Everything about Dante looked so goddamn holy. I was too afraid to touch him yet there was this feeling of also wanting to touch this god.

"What's the matter Y/N?" He looked back and gazed at me.

"N-No nothing..." I shook my head and bit my lower lips.

Gosh, I have never been this crazy. Nobody made me feel this way except the son of Sparda.

"Well then,"

I bit my lower lips before pressing my fingers against his bare back. He was well built and that made him look tough. His shoulders were broad and his back was well chiseled, his muscles well evident. I guess exterminating demons is quite a workout for him. There wasn't any scar visible at his smooth skin nor any imperfections and it was a sign that he wasn't a normal being and it's not a bad thing at all.

I rubbed my palms together to create heat before gently pressing it as his broad shoulders. I started to massage his shoulder by extending my your while pulling my fingers together and curling them slightly, forming a loose letter "C".

I bit my lower lips and continued giving him a massage. I heard him growl and groan and it somewhat made me flustered. I didn't know if it was good or not.

My thoughts were scattered as he continued to growl and groan. I didn't know what to do next, It felt like he just swiped my feet like that. No matter how many times I tell myself to calm down, my curiosity gets the best of me. I slowly ran my fingers to his back and felt his skin.

My breath hitched.

"Y/N,"

He called my name and it almost seemed like a thunder. It was deep and raspy, almost like a Greek god calling a peasant like me.

"Y-yes?"I yelped.

"Curiosity kills." He looked back with a devilish smiled plastered at his lips. He reached for my left hand and pressed his lips against it.

Shit. I think I'm loosing my sanity.

"What the hell are you doing, Y/N."He snickered before he maneuvered me and lead me, now here I am standing in front of this god.

Please. Please. Not now. Dante...

"I-I was just..."

He stood up and leveled my gaze. He's tall. And when I said that he's tall, he fucking is.

"If you're going to touch me like that, your curiosity taking over you, at least let me look at you." He kissed my left knuckle before he guided my hands into his bare chest.

I hitched my breath once more, biting my lower lips.

Damn it.

He let go of my hand and let my itching hands roam his bare chest. It was well chiseled,well defined. My fingers slowly creeping to his abs.

Holy shit. Holy shit.

I circled my fingers around his abs once before covering my face with the both of my palms. I'm getting crazy. Dear Lord please help me.

I didn't know what to do next. I was just giving him a good massage awhile ago and here I am getting crazy over this man's body.

Fuck.

He looks so damn...damn holy that my body tells me that it's a big sin to touch him. To touch every detail of his.

"Baby..."

Dante, not now please...

"...baby please."

He took my palms away from my face and raised my chin using his fingers, now my gaze fixated at him.

The lights were dim at his office because it was only his neon lights were turned on at this time. It was the usual routine. Now I see that glow from the neon calligraphy hits different when you're getting sensual.

"Dante..."

I can't even recognize my voice anymore.

"You're driving me so damn crazy," he spoke in a rough and raspy tone.

As he moved closer to me, I was able to smell him. His musk lingered around, making me dizzy.

"Oh please,"

He didn't waste his time by just looking at me. His hunger took the best of him and it was quite evident. He harshly pressed his soft lips against mine, intruding my mouth. He was skilled, he know what he's doing.

I let out a muffled moan under our kisses, I wasn't able to catch up with his pace. His hands locked unto my waist, wrapping it around before he decided to carry me towards the wall.

My back was now against the hard wall. I couldn't think straight, all I know that this man is kissing me until Im crazy. Now that we positioned ourselves well, he roamed his warm calloused palm to my chest and broke our kisses.

He wasn't satisfied by just touching my mounds against my offending night satin gown. He rudely ripped it off and threw it way, revealing my skin. His warm palm cupped my right mound, gently kneeding it. I have never been aroused like this. Even his simple touch makes me crazy, what more his lust for desire and sex combined with his touch.

"Ahh!" A soft moan escaped my mouth, vulgarly leaping out each kneed he makes. "Oh Dante..."

My eyes widened when I saw him lower his head, his lips trailing a kiss from my jaw to my collar bone to my left mound. Now the loneliness from my other mound was swept away.

"Oh my goodness—" I yelped when I felt his tongue playfully lick and suck my erect peak. He swirled it and sucked it like a greedy baby. His eyes were fixated at me and it seemed that he was amused seeing me getting crazy about it. I tried to push his head away yet I felt so week and he kept going.

The skill.

He knows what he's doing.

He unfortunately stopped licking my erect peak and fixated his gaze at me. His palms were now on each sides of my thighs, spreading my legs open. Grinning, he harshly pinned me once again on the wall and this time, I can feel his arousal against the thin cloth against my crotch.

It's warm and hard. I bit my lower lips as he slowly rocked his hips, his hardness brushing my folds. I can't believe that he's rock hard by just kissing me and I can't believe that Im already soaking wet down there.

Fuck.

His gaze was now serious, ruthless even when he started to change his pace of brushing his rod against mine from slow to a fast one. It felt so good making me arch my back while I pull his hair. The pleasure felt too much and he was brushing a spot that whenever his rod brushes against it, I loose my sanity.

"Y/N..."

I looked up at him and noticed that he was panting and his jaw was clenched. A planted a small kiss at my forehead before once again stopped brushing.

"I need you..."

"H-huh?" I looked at him, flushed and my eyes were dreamy.

Did I just hear it right... He needs me...

"I need you, my hands won't hush me." He looked at me with desire and scorching lust. His voice was rough and deep making him look even ten times sexy.

In a moment the next thing I knew that he swiped my thin panties to the side and his finger slowly entering my sex. My eyes widened when I felt a foreign sensation as he started to finger my sex. I rested my forehead to his shoulder and moaned softly, letting the feeling sink over me. It was a slow and gentle rhythm, letting his finger brush inside me.

"I can't take it anymore." He said in a stern tone, frustrated and wanting.

I was actually clueless at first but when I heard him unzip his pants, I knew that we were going to do it. I didn't care anymore, I want him. I need him too. I want him so bad.

"I can't take it anymore but I just can't put it in—"

I cut him off by facing him, my cheeks were burning red and my heart was raising so fast.

"J-just d-do it..."

Wow, I actually can't believe I said that.

He smirked at me once again, this devil. This man literally know how to drive me crazy, even if he's just smirking or even smiling.

Am I considered lucky because I'm actually making out with the Son of Sparda? I guess I do, I'm sure girls would've said yes to this. He's Dante Sparda, he's just more than a devil hunter. In a moment, I sure felt lost but then, a tingling sensation when a hot rod slowly went inside me. I quickly hid my face when I realized he's burrowing his hard staff inside me even more. I feel so full inside, my mind is spinning, my body feels hot against him.

"Fuck..." I heard him growl in a deep and husky voice, frustrated yet aroused.

Dante started to move slowly, gentle. I felt him inside me, by detail. It was driving me crazy, I'm absolutely enticed by the pleasure I am feeling and this is no joke, I'm swayed by it. I kept my moans low by biting my lower lips and it awfully stings now knowing that I've been biting it.

"Y/N..." He groaned while he whispered my name.

Damn it.

He slowly changed his pace to much more rougher one. His tip continuously hitting a sweet and delicious spot and his length brushing inside.

He looked like he is still controlling his lust and desire for it, I can feel it. He took a tighter grip on my thighs and it felt like wanted to have a tighter grip on it even more. His pounding was rough, wanting. I could still hear him groan over it.

"Fucking hell..." He suddenly stopped and pulled out, leaving me empty and lonely. I quickly looked at him, my eyes wanting for an answer.

"I want to see you, you're just hiding your face," he gently kissed my right before planting a small kiss on my left cheek. He seem to have started to walk towards his huge ass wooden table with a smirk.

He gently put me down against the hard wood of table, letting my lie down afterwards. Now that he placed me at this table, I surely feel so embarrassed knowing that Im showing all of me, even the littlest imperfections I have, my flaws. I covered my face with my palms, flushed and shy.

"You are beautiful..."

He chuckled before taking my palms away. His eyes were intently looking at me but I can see his sincere and passion eyes at the same time.

"You are beautiful, even your flaws, they're beautiful. Your littlest detail, it's so beautiful."

No fair, this man truly knows how to drive me crazy. Even at this time.

"You are a piece of art, a masterpiece."

It was so intense, full of passion. Sex is usually for couples, full of love and scorching passion. But in my case, I really don't know what to say... All I know that I love this man. For months of working for him, I loved him. For once, I wanted to be selfish and asked the universe to grant me luck with what selfishness I ask for. Now, this is it. Even just for tonight, I'll claim Dante as my own. Even just for tonight.

"I wanna be yours..." I whispered so soft and gentle and it almost felt that I was fragile. He didn't probably hear it, and Im quite sad about it. I slowly parted my legs, once more inviting him to my secret garden. He never hesitated to enter it anyway.

The feeling of pleasure once more sunk in me, taking over my system. We made love all night, over and over again. The overwhelming feeling of pleasure and lust combined with passion kept us all night. Our bodies against each other, our thoughts flying away. Our voices calling out our names, begging and wanting for more.

Until we got tired.

Until we got satisfied.

Until we reach our limit.

Until we passed out with so much.

Until my selfish time that I asked runs out.

I feel so full, sore, and tired. A complete mess even.

Oh dear universe, does this man even know that I love him? That I adore him?

"You're beautiful." He caressed my cheeks, repeating the same line over and over again.

"Do you even realize that I..." I didn't have the strength to even open my mouth and talk.

"I do. I do wanna be yours..." His voice slowly fainted as I slowly fell into slumber.

[angeloncewas]

dont wanna make this ask long bc i am tired and dont have the energy to be a well spoken (?) person rn but it probably will be long anyways, so sorry!! but like. as somebody who has hyperfixated on both idubbbz and schlatt (along with a plethora of other problematic content creators, i really know how to fuckn pick em!!) they absolutely foster a dogshit community, at least outside of platforms like tumblr, where like. you cant really avoid fandom culture like you can on twitter or ig, if that makes sense. on here, if you wanna post about your favorite youtuber, whether you tag it or not, other fans will likely see and if you say some bad shit, you will likely get called on it, whereas on ig basically only your followers will see it even if you use a hashtag and on twitter its like if you arent in a subtwt/fandom then you basically dont interact with any subtwt at all unless its an accident, ya know?

so like. i think what im trying to say here is that while ive met a lot of fans of both these creators, especially schlatt, who are great people as far as i can tell, i am also specifically on the fandom side of things and as soon as i step out of that space i realize that a lot of people who watch them are not actually minorities like me and my mutuals who can catch on to satire or who watch their more behind the scenes stuff where you can see them act like a decent person or even call out people for the things they usually joke about which just. fucking sucks. it sucks that, as much as i do believe schlatt is actually a good person (and sort of idubbbz, although i dont really watch him much anymore for a plethora of reasons, mostly related to the fact that i cant stand his jokes anymore even if he is playing a character as he's said before), he also keeps doing terrible fucking things and im really glad his actual friends have been calling him on it recently, especially after that jackbox video (which is a whole other thing on its own bc it literally seemed like nobody wanted to be there basically the entire video?? like as somebody who watched all the jackbox videos before that one, it was really fucking off in that call and the jokes were next level fucking upsetting), but sometimes it's just kinda like. exhausting. bc his community is already fucking bad now, you cant undo accidentally fostering a community of fucking racist homophobes who dont get that you're playing a character, unless you kinda drop off and build a whole new community from that, which would be stupid to do at this point in his career. not really sure where i was going with this tbh, but i thought i would chime in on this discussion as a viewer of mainly schlatt, but also a past idubbbz viewer who is basically a seasoned fucking vet at dealing with shitty fanbases because of him and many other dumb youtube white boys

(also, note on that anisa thing: ian's main fanbase was definitely pissed just bc she does sex work and a lot of them are too fucking young or just too fucking dense i guess to clock the fact that he's putting on an act bc, like i said before, they either dont watch his behind the scenes content, or they do and they kinda just miss those moments between still trying to entertain where he gets genuine. that being said, a lot of people outside of his fanbase were also pissy bc anisa is a less than spectacular lady if you really do your research on her, kind of a bad person but it's not something a lot of people know about, especially since one of the few videos made on it was by fucking creepshow art)

sorry for the rant again, i feel like i do this every other week now and i apologize, you just seem to have the best discourse and i enjoy partaking <3 hope you have a good rest of your day/night/whatever time you're reading this!

—🦷

Thank you for the input (don't mind the rant !) and I hope you have a good rest of your day too <3 For post length, I'll answer under the cut :)

Yeah, I get what you mean (I think ahdsufsd). Fandom as a concept is pretty... I don't even know how to describe it, but it's the kind of thing that I feel like white male Redditors would think of as pussy shit, y'know? Like the Ricegum gang isn't a fucking "fandom" they're a... well, a fandom, but they're not gonna admit to that. So when you step outside of a community like Tumblr (the queerest place on the internet TM) you come into contact with the faces of the fandom you're dealing with and oftentimes they're a lot less like you than you might've thought from the similar interest. It's like going to a Weezer concert and realizing you're surrounded by incels (this is a JOKE).

Satire's a rough topic because some people don't think it should exist at all. Like any words that can be directly interpreted as bigoted or problematic should not be uttered. I disagree with that, I think it's one of the most interesting forms of both social commentary and comedy, but I do see the problem. There are people who watched Filthy Frank (to take an example from that other anon) and didn't know or care what the point of his actions were (I don't know what they were tbh - I never watched him, but it sounds like he's a pretty decent dude) and instead read his jokes as-is. There are thousands upon thousands of people who aren't gonna get satire and that's a problem because if they're already bigoted they're gonna see people like Schlatt and iDubbz and whoever else as truly validating.

(Largely unrelated but yo, is iDubbz still going? Are the views alright? Is the adsense popping? Has he just kept going with Content Cops? I haven't heard about him since the girlfriend thing dropped.)

"you cant undo accidentally fostering a community of fucking racist homophobes who dont get that you're playing a character, unless you kinda drop off and build a whole new community from that"

I think this is what's pertinent when it comes to discussing Schlatt. After the Jackbox video (for me at least, he might've been there before) he put himself at a crossroads. If he'd apologized, said "sorry, I took it too far, that was a mistake" - yeah, plenty of people wouldn't have forgiven him and plenty of bigoted fans of his would've said that the apology was just to placate the snowflakes on Twitter, but to the sort of in-between people it would've shown that he's able to recognize and reconcile his mistakes. He could've transitioned into content that's A) actually good (when I say that the video was bad I don't just mean in terms of racism, I mean it straight up was not entertaining) and B) less "edgy" for the sake of. I wouldn't expect him to go uwu squeaky clean, but he's already reeled in the bad people, so if he really wanted to foster a good, progressive audience, he has to do something significant to show that.

But he didn't.

Maybe for the sake of his career, maybe because he likes those bigoted fans, maybe because he just doesn't get it - I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know. I spoke earlier about doing what is right over what is easy and in the case of Schlatt it just feels like he really did take the easy way out. Whoever he is in his personal life doesn't change how he's perceived online and the kinds of people that are idolizing him for it.

(And yeah I saw the video on Anisa when I Googled her to check if they were still dating, but then I saw who it was made by and I was like oh well whatever avhfdfkj)

[angerissuesandrews]

Hello! Welcome to the Reddie Fic Rec!

 Please make sure you read all tags on fics before reading! 

 Have fun and enjoy :)))

Created by Evan (@iwannadie4000 on tiktok)

And special thanks to Charlie (@hippityhoppe on tiktok) for helping!

 *CLICK HERE FOR THE GOOGLE DOC REC LINK!*

  1. ON POINTE

by tossertozier (rednoseredhair); Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519724

“Eddie was a freshman at Boston University of the arts, majoring in dance with a concentration in ballet. He went to sleep early, woke up earlier & took nothing for granted. He fucking hated his dorm neighbors, loud, obnoxious idiots who got drunk all the time. They didn't even know where the library on campus was. He didn't have any idea how the three of them, especially the one with curly hair, even GOT into that school.

  2.  BRIGHT AS YELLOW

by speakslow; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12786678 

Highschool AU, Richie’s loud Eddie’s annoyed what do you expect

3. WONDER VIOLET

by belby; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179045

Eddie’s friends with Richie’s sister ,,, you know what happens

4. GO WEST

by ssstrychnine; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327069

“1996: Richie and Eddie finish school, drive to San Francisco, change their lives ft. hair braiding, a fake las vegas wedding, waterfalls, bumper cars, and approx. 3300 miles.”

5. I LEFT MY UMBRELLA AT HOME

by hippityhoppy; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775233

“By 1996, the Losers are well into college. As they often do, life and time have distanced them in more ways than one. Richie, in an attempt to cling to the normalcy of the past in what feels like a steep slope into a downward spiral, ends up on an unfamiliar doorstep of an all too familiar friend. As if Eddie didn't have to deal with enough on his own plate. The both of them, they quickly come to find out, are unprepared for the storms to come.”

6. LOVESONG (A SERIES)*

by WaxAgent; Mature-Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/852234

“They're all connected, sure, but nothing comes close to the iron bonds between Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak; they have their ups and their downs, but they always have each other. A look at their lives from leaving Derry to being dragged back by a promise than both of them had long forgotten.”

*(OKAY EVAN HERE!!! I LOVE THIS FIC/SERIES SO MUCH BUT IN PART 2 IT HAS A STRANGER THINGS CROSSOVER WITH MIKE AND EL BUT I SAY SKIP THAT AND GO ON YOU DON'T MISS MUCH AND WE ALL KNOW IM SO ANTI-CROSSOVER OKAY BYE)

7. WHENEVER I’M ALONE WITH YOU

by stellarbisexual; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182691

“Losers in college. Richie's in an alternative rock band, and Eddie has flung himself into the queer scene.”

8. SAY THAT YOU’LL STAY

by speakslow; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474044

“Richie works at a shitty amusement park for the summer and meets some new friends. Set in 1997”

9. STAY FOR THE STORM

by inoubliable; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442848

“Richie and Eddie had become friends almost on sight. Since they met, most of Eddie's time in Los Angeles has involved Richie in some way.

It's a little different, now that they're both famous.

It's a little different, now that they're sleeping together.

Well, to be fair, they've been sleeping together for a long time, but. No one knows, not even their friends. Eddie has been very careful about that. It's just not the sort of publicity he needs.

So when Beverly calls him that sunny Thursday morning, the last thing he expects her to say is, ‘You're fucking Richie?’”

10. COFFEE AND CARNIVAL BEARS

by StarshipDancer; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12325209

“‘Eddie Kaspbrak knew how many germs were in a person’s mouth, and he would only swap spit with his fucking soulmate.’

Finding your soulmate should be pretty straightforward, but not for Eddie. Not when there were two possible candidates, and he had no idea which one it fucking was.”

11. LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY(S)

by Kandakickas; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372279

“In which Richie and Eddie go to different colleges, and all of their friends are curious about their unnamed significant others - right up until those significant others come to visit and everyone is both shocked and confused.”

12. MEET ME HALFWAY

by ShowMeAHero; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20667038

“‘Richie,’ Mike says sharply. “Who are you with? Why are you in Derry?”

‘Tell him,’ Eddie whispers again.

‘Is that Eddie?’ Mike asks.

‘Tell him, Richie,’ Eddie says again, louder.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Mike says, and Richie snaps, throwing his phone hard at the kitchen wall opposite them. The back smashes and the battery falls into a bowl soaking in the sink. There’s a beat of silence where Eddie and Richie stare at the battery floating in the soapy water.

‘Good work, Kobe,’ Eddie says.”

13. DREAMBOAT

by weepies; Not Rated

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14073438

“‘What are you? A third grader? What the fuck is this?’ Eddie asks. He looks at Richie, confused.

‘A list of fun stuff to do, duh. Can’t you read? I thought you were studying creative writing.’ Eddie glares at Richie, who raises his hands in surrender as he chuckles. ‘Okay, okay. Hear me out. Your professor tells you to write what you know, and you said you don’t know anything. Well, sugar, here’s your opportunity to learn something about yourself.’

Dumbfounded, Eddie cannot tear his eyes away from Richie, his mouth agape. ‘You’re insane,’ Eddie says.

‘And proud,’ Richie replies.

...

In which Eddie Kaspbrak is a writer with no ideas, and Richie Tozier is a coffee shop employee bursting with creativity.”

14. TO THE GUY AT THE BUS STOP:

by Ragno; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809109

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, especially if the other side of the fence is Ireland and the grass is Eddie living his own life for the first time ever away from his mom. An International Students Exchange Program is what he needs to finally stand up for himself and doing what he really wants. Who cares if he won't know anybody there? Who cares if he'll be alone in a foreign country? Who cares if he won't have his car and will need to take the bus to go anywhere?? Okay, maybe Eddie does care about that last one…But, hey, at least the real grass is really greener there. Right?”

15. CLOSER THAN MOST

by tozierbraks; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14934062/chapters/34598660

“Richie was panting slightly when he reached out an arm and grasped the man’s shoulder a little too hard. He spun rapidly, stumbling backwards away from Richie, his deep brown eyes wide in shock.

‘Eds.’ Richie breathed, his stomach twisting.

Eddie’s wide eyes narrowed in confusion while his brows knitted downwards. He pulled his shoulder out of Richie’s grip

‘Sorry, do I know you?’

college au + forgetting!eddie fic”

16. SIGNED, SOMEONE

by roughentumble; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096380/chapters/50195051

“A secret admirer/love letter AU. Richie starts leaving anonymous love letters in Eddie's locker.”

17. CLUE(LESS) 

by endversed; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12468440

“Every person on this sorry planet wakes up on their seventeenth birthday with a soulmate mark somewhere on their body – but it’s not always easy to figure out. It’s not their name, or their first words to you, or even some kind of matching shape. It’s not anything clearly indicative; nothing concrete (at first).

No, all this mark gives you is a clue.”

18. FOR BLUE SKIES

by sunsetozier; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13978821

“Just as he’s beginning to shake himself out of his daze, his phone buzzes in his hand, a notification popping up at the top of his screen that makes his entire body freeze, reading and rereading it to make sure his eyes aren’t playing a trick on him. When the words don’t change, his jaw drops, an anxious excitement tingling just beneath his skin.

@trashmouthmusic followed you back!

[In which Richie posts anonymous covers on Twitter and Eddie is instantly infatuated with his voice.]”

19. OUR HOUSE, IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR HOUSE

by orphan_account; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458046

“Whatever song your soulmate has stuck in their head is resultantly stuck in yours. Eddie, long suffering through mattress commercial jingles and old rock hits, imagines he would kill his soulmate if he had the chance. Or, he would, if he didn't think revenge was a better answer.”

20. MAYBE, MAYBE

by lisscor; Not Rated

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12841593

“The light was on again. The one in room 307. Richie wondered, not for the first time, who was up there.

Maybe one day, he would find out.

*

In which two insomniacs who have never met find comfort in the last place they would think to look - each other.”

21. MOST BELOVED

by idaemilia; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160854/chapters/27598224

“‘But he had eyes like rain

and hair like waves

and a soul as vast and deep as the ocean

and I guess I didn't mind drowning in him’

-xvaniex on tumblr

Eddie keeps pining for Richie who is too blind to see it. But maybe he already knows.

*previously named Philtatos*”

22. TO WHAT WE MIGHT DO 

by MacksDramaticShenanigans; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709897

“He looks scared. More scared than Eddie’s ever seen him before. He looks nervous, too, and Eddie didn’t think it was even possible for Richie Tozier to get nervous.

But there he is. Looking like he's going to shit his pants or throw up all over himself. Eddie would be more worried about that if he still thought Richie was drunk.”

23. CROOKED HEARTS

by killerqueer; General Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13093371

The Monday before Christmas break, Eddie comes to school to find a yellow rose and a letter from a secret admirer taped to his locker. He's convinced it's a prank until the same thing happens the next day and then continues the rest of the week. He's determined to find out who is doing this, even though he's convinced himself that there's no way it could possibly be the one person he really wants it to be.

24. THE THIRD DATE RULE

by tinyarmedtrex; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13059960

“Bev drags Eddie along for her tattoo session, telling him that her artist is sex on a stick. She's right, Eddie likes him immediately- if only he wouldn't talk so much.

AU where Richie is a tattoo artist and Eddie pretty much just wants to work in HR and be left alone.”

25. PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION (PTA)

by reddiebitch; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13773060

“In which Eddie is Richie's kid's first grade teacher.”

26. FAKING IT 

by domino1234; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18023273

“The obnoxiously pretty boy with the filthy mouth across the hall manages to convince Eddie to spend spring break pretending to be his boyfriend at his family’s lake house. Can Eddie put his unrequited crush aside to play up the charade for a week or will his feelings inevitably get in the way?”

27. Nightmares

by MargotCelvin; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15515028

“Richie Tozier is trying to start over in New York. He left California behind and wants to leave his old life there as well. The only thing holding him to his old life are the nightmares that have plagued him for so long. But is there something in New York that can cure him of this disease?”

28. FREAKING OUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD

by bearkwans; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19342543

“Richie thinks that this is what being a father is like. He sure fucking feels like a father, dropping all of his plans to take care of his pet, making very specific google searches and running around his apartment like a madman, grabbing toys and a blanket and a few mice in a tupperware bowl. He knows logistically that everything he’s grabbing is useless and what he really needs is a chill pill and maybe some whiskey to soothe his shaking hands, but Richie can’t help the way his paternal side wakes up and takes control of his mind.

“[or: richie's pet snake is sick and he goes to see vet eddie ;) ;)]”

29. SUGAR, HONEY, HONEY 

by thefutureisbright; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376344

“Eddie works in a bakery. His life was finally simple. He loved his job, he loved his friends, he loved his shitty little apartment with its shitty little balcony. He loved the plants he kept on his balcony. He loved that he could see the New York skyline when it was an especially clear day. He loved that he lived nowhere near his mother. Eddie loved his quiet, simple life.

Until he met Richie fucking Tozier, and his life was never simple again.”

30. THE BLIND BOX

by tinyarmedtrex; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13728915

“Eddie works at Gamestop and a dark haired stranger comes in and starts flirting with him. Eddie doesn't think much of it until they keep meeting.

Another College AU! Because why the hell not”

[littlemeowyoons]

Bonded

A/N- It’s my first time posting my writing on Tumblr but I guess better late than never huh, so here you go. More is in work so please anticipate a lot.

~Fay

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Fluff(lots of them), a drop of angst, Single Dad! AU, College! AU, Introvert! Yoongi, Tutor! Y/n

Word Count:1.7k

Synopsis: Yoongi found a basket left in front of his dorm room one day, and turns out it was his daughter, left alone crying. Puzzled and scared was an understatement. When his 4 semesters roommate Jimin left for his hometown, he was left with the last straw of help, turning to his physics tutor a.k.a friend-that-I-only-know-name-but-have-no-interest-in-knowing-more ; you.

Series: Masterlist ll Part 2 lI Part 3

                                           Part 1: Distress

                                            °•. ✿ .•°

“Why own a fucking iPhone when you can’t even answer a fucking call?! Dammit!”, he breathed hard after his nth tempt to connect the line failed again, his own Samsung device was clutched tightly in hand, knuckles turning white from the pressure. Yoongi had reached that point where smashing the black covered device in hand to the wall was considered a bliss, but he was saint enough to convince himself otherwise. Not when his phone was his gateway out of this mess; the only way maybe. So he tried again; redialing the numbers, manually even.

 “I swear I’ll shred your trench coat to pieces, fucking im-“

The end of the line connected midway his constant ranting.

“Oh thank God above you finally answered! What took you so long?”

“Ever heard of Bio lecture Yoongi?”, the soft voice at the receiving end answers calmly, though Yoongi knew the person was beyond annoyed.

 Who wouldn’t? Multiple spam in all form of communication, texts, kakaotalk, Instagram dm; at this point, Yoongi wanted to settle down to those damn pigeons. Even Yoongi would be out of his head if it happen to him, not that it will happen in the near future or anything.

“Don’t outsmart me woman, I’m not in the mood.”

“What is it Yoongi? You know I have class at this time of the day”

“I need your help”, his breath came out breathless than ever.

“Fuck if you’re asking about the same kinetic and potential energy chapter, I’m gonna rip all my nonexistent and existent  hair out of my-“

“Please…”

                                        ☾ ⋆･ﾟ:⋆･ﾟ:⠀ ⋆.:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ☾

You swear it took you everything not to scream out of frustration watching your phone blow off during lecture period. Plus, the same ID that keeps popping up on the lock screen adds the bitter taste. Once your professor said the word ‘thank-‘, you were already making your way out of the hall, books not even properly shoved in bag and you were sure you left your favourite baby blue Sharpie highlighter behind.

Once in the hallway, you yanked your phone out of your sling bag and slide the screen harshly, already embracing yourself for the upcoming questions and constant groaning. What you did not expect is the person on the other side panting heavily, desperate. Yoongi sounds…distress.You were still processing his jumbled words but once the word ‘please’ escaped his mouth, you froze.

That word is so rare to even pass-through Yoongi’s head, what less say it. The last time you remembered the word ever exist in his sentence, was the day he consulted you at the cafeteria. Head down, full frown and shoulder slumped was some few giveaway you could collect which equals to one thing; failed test.

You were used to people asking you questions, since you were one of the few alphas in curriculum areas. But having Yoongi, the junior of Art and Music Department, Majoring in Music Production asking you to be a full-time physics tutor is…well, unexpected. You pity him, that poor boy seems like he couldn’t breathe for goodness sake, not until you lean back to your metal seats and smile softly, not forgetting to nod along while you utter the word that Yoongi seems dread to hear, ‘Sure, when?’

You swear his eyes shine like a good measure 60 watts light bulb. But that was long time ago, you lost track how long it was though you were sure it won’t be more than a year now, hearing that Yoongi is in serious problem was the main pushover to your muscle cells.

The thing is Yoongi never beg, ever. He never sounds that desperate even when he got 5 per cent on his last two physics quiz, he never sounds this discomfort.

“I’ll be there in five”.

                                          ☾ ⋆･ﾟ:⋆･ﾟ:⠀ ⋆.:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ☾

You almost lost a footing while climbing the stairs up the boys’ dormitory, but you didn’t stall behind. Once room 103 is in front of you, you proceed to reach out to knock, when you heard an infant’s cry. You froze, chest rising in rapid beat from all the runnings.

“Yoongi?”

The crying was still there, you glance to check the neighbouring room number on the door, confirming that the room in front of you indeed belongs to Yoongi. So you crossed your heart and decided to knock, after all, you go with the concept YOLO. The door opened to reveal a hopelessly in despair Yoongi and a small woven basket on his dinner table, the moving mauve blanket shows that he wasn’t alone in the room, physically anyway.

Though the facts were right in front of your eyes, your mouth was sealed from emitting any word, what less sounds. You just stand there, at his doorstep, mouth agape. The cried were getting louder and the small tiny hands rising from the woven basket was doing nothing other than deepening the frown on Yoongi’s forehead.

“Come on Y/n, say something…”

Once his words registered in yourself, you took a last glance to Yoongi, before backing away into the hallway and sprint off.

“I need to go.”

“Y/n wait!”

No no no, this is bad. He thought Y/n would be different, thought she’ll understand but turns out, she ran away.

“Just…just like Hyoju.”, Yoongi whispers.

The cries from behind him gets louder and he snapped to look at the one sole thing that currently gives him a headache.

“Can you fucking shut it?!”

Yoongi growled but then retracted away from the dining table, against the wall and sliding down on his back until he reaches the floor. A sudden seed of fear bloom in his chest,

“What am I doing, am I already out of my mind? He’s just a baby, what does he even know?”, Yoongi sigh while standing and dragged himself to the basket, brushing along his slender fingers through the baby’s thin hair; his baby. The living being right in front of him is his own making, an act done without even considering about the effect. In this case, Yoongi can admit that he’s one of the few to be blame, maybe THE ONE to be blamed, fuck he was so drunk that night he can barely remember her, the mother of his child, Han Hyoju

The baby’s crying subsided a little as soon as Yoongi’s fingers make contact with the head, as if the touch of a 10-minutes-ago-newly known-father is proof that it’s safe for the little one.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do”, he whispered because it was a fact.

Yoongi was never a fan of kids, he was never a person-type, a typical signs of an introvert. His only source of never-ending help support is none other than his roommate, Dance Major Park Jimin. He helps Yoongi realize that age is just numbers, Yoongi; as a hyung, two years older, seeks more advice than he wants to admit. This whole two years living with Jimin, the topic of conversation never goes off if it didn’t start with Jimin encouraging Yoongi to get some sunlight on him to which Jimin always said, as Yoongi quoted “We don’t need a walking paperwhite corpse walking around campus, hyung. Go out and get some air would you?”.

 It’s just that Jimin’s happy go lucky trait as well as his naturally warm smile is enough to blooms a friendship unlike Yoongi, who people would just point fingers at and said ‘cold, harsh and rock dead’ just by a mere look. Jimin don’t, however. That’s how Yoongi opened up a little to him. But now, that said roommate can’t help him, being on the other side of Korea, back in Busan his hometown for four days(though Yoongi doubt he won’t prolong it) limits Yoongi to ask for any favour to his friend. The kid in front of him will die of thirst first if he waits for Jimin. That’s what left him to his other only friend; Y/L/N Y/N.

But Yoongi could understand what you did, how you act. It’s because both Yoongi and you didn’t share more than three sentences, or on some lucky days short bickering outside of your tutoring hour. He only knows the basic things for someone to be an acquaintance; name, major and room number(because it slipped your mouth once when texting your roommate), but other than that, zero-knowledge. Jimin insisted that he asked more, to what Yoongi always dismiss, he’s too shy or scared, or maybe both.

Though Yoongi knew so much, he still labels you as a friend, which means a name listed in his life whereabouts, significant enough for him, not a nobody. He wanted to smile thinking that you’re indeed a friend to him, but it falters upon remembering you retreated away.

“I’m doomed…”

A sudden burst of the door jolted Yoongi, retracting his hand that once was playing with the baby hairs on his child’s head. You walk in, head high and face determined. You dropped off your school bag by the sofa, the usual place when you hang around Yoongi’s room after tutor session. Yoongi was overwhelmed, all his senses went numb, why did you return?

“Yoongi, does the baby comes with a bag, a pouch, anything other than the basket?”, you already made your way into the kitchen, but Yoongi still got a perfect view of your side profile from where he’s standing.

“Umm-“, Yoongi snapped out of his short trance and reached out for the mustard yellow beg that was originally in the same basket as his child when he first opens his door this morning, “Is this it?”

You glance over to him and nod, motioning him to hand it over. Once the bag is in your hand, you unzip it and pull out a baby bottle. Yoongi just watched in awe as you mixed baby formula, Yoongi assumed the grey paper bag you brought with you contained the powder formulae. He knows he shouldn’t be gawking like that, but he’s completely amazed, the fact that you came back had him racked his brain for a reason why, and now you’re going through all of this just to feed his kid. He felt small. Once the formula milk was done, you walked towards the living room and straight to the dining table, where the baby is. The red face of the baby shows just how long it had been crying.

‘Poor thing.’,  you thought. You put down the baby bottle on the table, hands reached out to swoop out the crying baby and puts the nuzzle near the mouth. After some effort, the baby takes in the nuzzle into his mouth and right away the rooms fell into a deep silence.

“Aww you poor thing, starving huh? It’s okay it’s okay. I got you.”,  you cooed.

Yoongi stood there dumbly, watching you feeding his own child, still confused but for sure, extremely grateful. Now if only explaining is easy enough.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

The opposite of your last post for the ask meme! Like 1, 5, 9..

thank you lol sorry it took me a minute to get to posting these answers......i also skipped a couple that got asked previously via answering all primes lol

1: What inspires you?

hm well just basic stuff like “being in a good mood” lol or “being hyped up by friends” or “having reason to be particularly excited about something” which is all like, factors that Contribute Energy......learning about stuff / trying something and discovering like oh i’m Into this thing, or that for whatever reason something turns out to be more within reach / doable than i might’ve thought, like, hey i wanna get on this maybe.......~creatively~ it’s great to like, see other ppl’s art, and while i’ve sure been Inspired by professional artists, overall i’m more like, influenced and motivated by seeing the styles / specific works of Online Randos like me.......i also Draw to create [self-indulgent (usually fairly) niche fanart which is also probably gay and is all the time of characters i like] so like, the Stuff I Wanna Make Fanart Of (which has Whatever characters i specifically would like to draw lol) is sure directly Inspiring in that way. i’d say i never had that experience of like, ppl being kids and seeing some [distributed work in a certain art medium] like oh i want to make my own [distributed work in a certain art medium] as in like, i wanna publish a book, i wanna make movies, etc, but i guess i Did b/c i was like elementary school age in the early-to-mid 00s and experienced some instances of online fanart like :o :o wow damn ppl can do that?? just be a rando drawing fanart and sharing it w/ other people online???? and today i am living that dream, so good for me lol. and also i’d like to shoutout marge simpson anime, which is a particular piece of Online Art (technically fanart even lol) which was like, unusually Motivating as a single work of art lol, i made a notes app fanart like immediately and then a way more “painterly” piece of fanart that was v directly inspired by it lol.......and i was sure Drawing It Up last last winter when bmc 3.0 was impending / happening, b/c i got into like Just in the dec before, so that was Fresh, and then bam the Content is happening concurrently and as soon as we even just learned that jeremy has glasses i immediately spent like honestly 25 consecutive hours making fanart for that exact Inspiration. we didn’t even know abt the hello kitty shoes yet!!! and naturally im not out here for stats or clout but it is Inspiring when ppl enjoy the stuff i make and let me know one way or another. [tag comments that express enthusiasm in any way.....Appreciated]

9: Do you trust people easily, or do people have to earn your trust?

i have to say i am wary! that’s in part just like, a default anxiety defensive mode lol. but it takes me a hot minute (aka weeks....or months.....) to realize when someone like, would like to be friends or something, so while i can be Friendly and Outgoing w/ people like, immediately, i’m not picking up relationships left and right that are close enough that i’d particularly talk about “trust” or whatever. i’m not necessarily Distrustful either lol, it’s more just like, again re: the constant wariness thing. it is not unlike a cat lmao i vibe with them lol i Get that [approach]....and there’s been times i’ve been like “hmm i sure do Not vibe with this person ever and am not comfortable around them / interacting with them to any extent beyond occasional casual interactions that i don’t super enjoy. that’s me being overly anxious and failing to be personable i guess!!” and then that person Does give that reason down the line like oh, actually, that eternal uneasiness was warranted :/ damb

21: How does someone become friends with you?

yknow i was like “didn’t i Also answer this one previously” but it turned out the question i was thinking of, which i Had answered, was “how does someone become important to you” lmao.....same diff

tbh it’s kind of an arduous process lmao like. first of all i am Bad about initiating shit, and a lot of times will like, be wary of Directly Interacting with people for a while b/c i am also Bad At not being too passive / unwilling to assert anything so like, if someone’s regularly interacting with me but i’m not into it / Eventually Realize i’m not into it, it’s that thing again where my main strat is [v gradually sidle away] lol and just find it difficult to extricate myself from interactions / relationships and so that plays into me really feeling like i have to have some real confidence that i’d get on with / vibe with someone Before i start significantly interacting with / getting involved with them which....is also difficult natch lol like. can’t rly get a great feel for what someone’s like w/o talking to them.......but then if i Distance myself at all at any point will that be taken as rejection or whatever.......and then anyways say i Am talking to someone, then it’s like, also i’m just not fantastic at casual conversation always and that stage where you don’t know someone too well and talking is mostly a Polite Ritual and it’s like oh god don’t mess up, respond Normally lmaoo......i am nervous. and i also have a tendency to just naturally try to make an interaction go smoothly than immediately prioritize / feel comfortable busting out My Personality lmao.....so then even if ppl are responding well enough it’s like ah jeez i know we’re all performing always but have i shown them What I’m Actually Like to any significant degree, am i just masking it up / mirroring the crap out of how they talk?? and also it then takes me quite a while to put together “if someone keeps talking to you / choosing to interact with you for like, weeks, it probably means they want to / are interested in doing so” lol.........and then i’ll take ages more of trying to consciously Be More Myself without *also* feeling like this is too much of an act lol, and gradually picking up like oh they’re still not like, annoyed or disinterested or something..............what i am trying to say is it sure takes a minute lol

also when i Am attempting sometimes to like [initiate interaction] with people my version of being Active is still not all that active lmao i will be like [occasional Like] or [even more occasional reply] or [tag comments or no comments coz it’s twitter and im rt-ing stuff] and it’s like oh wow if we’re not having more regular interaction i suppose i’ve failed or something?? does this mean anything further lol, did i do anything.....but welp gotta have that perspective that Not Necessarily lol and i’m not the only person in the world who might not make friends or even friendly acquaintances easily / at the drop of a hat and u can’t necessarily read way into shit that hasn’t Actually been communicated to you.......naturally though it is easier to have some ~perspective~ and Serenity about all this sort of thing when you do already have some Friends lmao........been feeling (and consciously nudging myself towards feeling) More Chill about say like, friendly acquaintances i have who aren’t raring to interact with me on the reg.......ppl i’ll go months or half a year or more between having a convo with and then we’ll be like trading dm’s for a couple days and then it’s back to not really talking, and that Is What It Is, not necessarily a tragedy, and really it feels “rude” to acknowledge to myself like oh i’m not sure that me and whomever even Vibe well enough that *i’d* be raring to talk all the time either, but hey, it’s also true, i don’t have to be Validated by ppl who know me having me in their friend circles in any significant way......i be out here on the peripheral / outer orbits and i can appreciate that for what it is, even if, again, easier to be more Cool with that when i’m not Only in ppl’s periphery...........i appreciate the pal i have who like, 99% of how we Communicate is occasionally sending each other pics of our cats, not very intimate but also back when i was offline for months on end they eventually went out of their way to find someone to get in touch with to verify i hadn’t like died or anything lol........i appreciate the Gestures of Caring that ppl have and do extend, even if we do not actually talk regularly. 

and like also i’m bad at like. idk the main way i talk is again, At Some Length and often about real specific shit lol so im like woop aware that many ppl are not into that, or they might be down for having an exchange like that for a day and then they’re done.........not at all like wholly Against more lol Conversational conversations but i gotta say that’s more of a struggle lmao..........so let’s say befriending me takes some Patience. i kinda operate on [cat] rules. jellicle

25: How do you stop yourself from going back to toxic people?

i absolutely am Refraining from launching off on a ted talk of a tangent that is also me being the [the guy about to throw down a card on the pile on the table and that card pile is like “any conversation” and the guy is labeled “me” and the One Card about to be played is labeled “it’s capitalism” or smthing like that and also it’s all in spanish].jpg.......

anyways idk just try to keep things in perspective, right......i generally am pretty Passive about gradually sidling away from relationships that are bad and so by the time i Have exited them it’s pretty overdue lmao and i get to be quite confident that it was The Right Thing........and just when looking back on stuff it’s like, well if you remember the Good or “Not That Bad(tm)” parts maybe consciously think about the whole of it And specifically the Bad parts / the reasons for peacing out.......also the other day i was mulling over some standard [conflicted / complicated feelings about having cut certain ppl out entirely] and it also occurred to me that a lot of the [conflicted] feeling part came from sympathy for them, whereas from the perspective of Entirely My Own Feelings On The Matter minus that “how do/would they feel about it” consideration, the thought of never interacting w/ these ppl is like. fine with me lol........stuff like this is always Complicated and Individual and there’s certainly no like, one-stop simple Guide To Navigating All This Kind Of Thing, Cmon It’s Easy........another consideration i saw the other day via a graphic on twitter, which is probably most relevant re: say, controlling / abusive Partners, was how like, to think about how someone is acting if they’re saying you should Take Them Back b/c they’ve Changed their behavior, but to pay attention to if they’re trying to guilt you into it / justifying or downplaying their previous behavior / shifting blame and otherwise manifesting the inherently harmful and controlling patterns that are supposed to be gone now........anyways yeah complicated stuff and also just p.s. (and what would’ve been the jumping off point for the It’s-Capitalism tangential essay lol) ppl shouldn’t be blamed if they do choose to let someone back in their life like oh now they’re responsible for bringing their mistreatment upon themself.....no better than blaming someone for, say, having a harmful / controlling romantic partner in the first place like oh well they should’ve known better than to have gotten involved with this person..........ppl are in control of their own abusive behavior and shouldn’t be considered Forces Of Nature no matter how intransigent they are

33: Do you have someone you know you can always rely on?

tbt question 9 lol there’s defo some people that i do trust! love it....

45: Do you consider yourself creative?

another #tbt to question 1 lol.......i mean Yes i am creative in ways but like, who Isn’t, really.......think sometimes “creativity” means “do you like, do Art things” which, yes i do, but then within that there’s art that’s deemed more ~creative~ or w/e......not to mention that i don’t think something has to be definitively labeled an Art to be creative. like, for example, Science and Art aren’t opposites / the antithesis of each other, and anytime defines ~science~ as like, people just memorizing and outputting Facts and Numbers and considers this a distinction from Being An Artist.....wild and i Will fight you lmao. i tell you i can v much remember times i have had to completely disengage to keep from losing my cool at people arguing about “why i respect science but could only be an artist :’|” or “why Art is actually harder than Science and also we’re the underdogs b/c society values science so much more :’|” like.....mf...........anyways scientific pursuits may certainly have a different Methodology (see: scientific method) than art but lbr it still requires creativity and science and art are friends you fucking fools................and then also just zooming in on the Art-Making business here, i also like, have never had any interest in coming up with Original stories / characters and the like, and i don’t enjoy trying and it just really is not my thing, and it’s Funny or something when people wanna say that creative fanworks have value b/c they let ppl cut their teeth for what really matters, inevitably making their own original content(tm)......that isn’t inevitable for me lol and certainly is nothing i aim to do ever, and when there’s the suggestion that if you’re Good enough at ur medium you gotta manifest some of that original the character do not steal shit.........anyways i’m not pressed to claim i am an Artist(tm) or Creative(tm) lol like i guess technically i am both but i have no professional aspirations and my brain does not Do [generate original content] so it’s all like, i’m just out here.........s/o to this time i was trying to do my fuckin thing drawing on a tablet in a cafe and some random annoying guy is trying to talk and i happen to mention like “lol i don’t exactly call myself an artist really” and Guy goes “OH REALLY??? WHAT’S WRONG WITH ARTISTS? WHAT’S YOUR ISSUE WITH ART” like please cool it lmao but god p sure it was a guy who was just. very Around and very annoying in general

49: Do you feel like you’re a good person?

yeah i think i’m alright but really what is the use in like considering there 2 be achievable Good or Bad Person Statuses for everyone........let’s say it’s an ongoing, active state to be in the process of consciously choosing to be Good and working towards Better. especially considering that We Live In A Society which tries to teach everyone and continuously imbues our existence with Bad Messages about how to perceive and engage with other people, and being A Good Person is a lifelong effort and it’s unhelpful to feel that if you’re already Good or well-intentioned enough you can just dust off your hands and be like “well my work here is done” and be unprepared to examine your beliefs/actions or deal with the might-as-well-assume-it’s-an-inevitability that even if u have some noble-ass beliefs you’ll fail to live up to them at some point/s.......so like yeah lol again i feel like i am a pretty good person but can always be better and ought to be aware of / willing to work on that at any point

[olderthannetfic]

hi! i've really been enjoying ur blog since i found it a day or so ago. i was wondering if you have any tips for getting started in dreamwidth fandom? it seems to be where a lot of interesting meta and fannish blogging happens, but i'm totally lost trying to figure out how to use it for anything besides closed RPs (the first context i used it in).

The key to DW is making a connection with people. Usually, people are interested in a poster who writes meaty meta posts in their own journal or who leaves really interesting comments on posts. Having that kind of presence where people have a sense of your personality and views is also how you get people to let you into their locked posts.

People also post resources/roundups/links, but it tends to be in a more organized, curated way than tumblr--more newsletter or wiki-style, less endless stream of gorgeous reblogged photos.

Here’s an example of a resource post.

Here’s an example of a meta post (also on tumblr, and the DW one only allows comments if the person follows you on DW)

Communities are a way to find more people. They can be about all kinds of topics:

due south newsletter

support com for people working on Guardian fanworks

Everything about HIStory 3: Trapped

The biggest difference I see from Tumblr is two things:

1. The balance of visuals to text

DW does allow visuals, and there are even whole coms that just post a pretty picture per day. But unless you run said com yourself, images probably aren’t the way to make friends and meet people on DW. Commentary is. Words are.

DW also tends to be more into either screencaps or art you did yourself and more sensitive than tumblr/pinterest/the rest of the internet about art theft.

2. Lurkers who?

On DW, there’s more of a sense that each account is a person who you might or might not decide to get to know. There’s less of a sense that it’s probably someone’s side blog where they just reblog pictures of trees.

How people typically meet each other on DW is that someone posts something interesting. Person 2 leaves a comment with their thoughts. A comment thread starts, and both return to it repeatedly to continue the conversation.

A meta post on DW is absolutely an invitation to interact.

If it ain’t locked, you’re supposed to comment. None of this tumblr thing where the “respectful” approach is to reblog with a tag like “#wow I never thought of that” and not actually say anything. Gah!

You can certainly make signal boost DW posts pointing to where discussion is going on, but it’s hard to get known just by curating unless you’re really formal about it. On tumblr, people can get really famous just for reblogging a good set of content. On DW and on LJ back in the day, you kind of could, but usually only if you were very single-topic and it was the thing everyone was obsessed with.

There’s very much a quality over quantity approach in journal fandom, and all the more so now when it has slowed way down and mostly contains the die-hards whom tumblr didn’t work for.

This is also, incidentally, why some oldschool LJ types now find DW too tiring: you have to be able to put in significant social energy to be a member of the community. That’s because you’re forming actual social connections, and those always take time, online or off. If your RL is in a state where you just need to look at some pretty pictures of MCU and some pretty pictures of nature and not backread your tumblr dashboard, DW can start feeling like an obligation.

So I guess my advice is to figure out if any fandoms you like are active on DW and join those coms/follow those people. If you have any Big Meta Thoughts, post those in your own journal and respond to comments if you get them.

IME, it’s fine to leave comments on hugely old posts. Just be aware that if it’s 10 years old, they may not agree with their own meta point anymore.

Most people do get notifications of comments, and those notifications actually work, unlike tumblr’s hot mess, so even if I’m on tumblr 90% of the time lately, I absolutely will see and eventually respond when someone finds my old DW posts.

Yo, friends, what do you think about cultural differences between journaling fandom and tumblr?

How would you get started on DW today?

[reymurray]

I’m gonna make this post bc I love the posts about useless gays pining forever

One night at work last week, a coworker, who’s a raging homosexual, comes over to me and she’s like

Hey Reyhan...............I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you have a... significant other? NOT FOR ME, JUST FOR REFERENCE.

And I was like.... uh no, why then she just left

Then a few minutes later she comes back and is like

Follow up question........... Are you interested in,,,,, females?

And I’m like.... I like everything man

and she says “that’s fair” and walks away, leaving me once again confused

Then a few minutes later she comes back a third time and asks if I’m interested in a relationship, and me, being confused and awkward, am like IDK MAYBE WHY ;-; 

And she is like... interesting.... and as she’s walking away, she says she won’t give any context because she wants me to suffer, and she says, and I quote “You can call me the falcon, because I’m being a WING MAN” and then i was just like wing man????????????? fOR WHO

And I’m just confused as hell because i dont know why anyone would like me because I’m awkward and not very attractive to most people and nobody really talks to me for the most part

this might be long oops

Anyways, she didn’t mention it at all for the rest of the night but this past Saturday night(last night,) I’d heard a semi new friend’s voice in my hallway and she doesn’t live here. We work together, and she got my instagram and we’ve been talking a bit and she jokes that I’m a stalker because I mentioned seeing her at my dorm even though it’s mY DORM and at work, she mentioned her love for art history, so I told her about my art history books I don’t really look at at all

So when I heard her voice in the hall last night, I pulled up instagram and messaged her like “hey if you wanna check out the books, just knock” and i honestly wasn’t expecting her to come but like five minutes later there was a knock and i was like AH SOCIALIZATION UNEXPECTED EVEN THO I INITIATED IT and my roommate was like YEAH? so she just came in and i showed her the books and she got really excited about Cezanne and she talked to us, mostly to my roommate because they have the same classes together

Then about half an hour later, she’s still talking to us so the Falcon Lady comes by(she’s in the room right next to mine) and is like yo where did you go

And Falcon lady just plops down and hangs out with us as well and I was happy about it bc i haven’t been doing great at making friends and we’re talking and Falcon lady and my roommate are both making obscure references that me and the other girl don’t understand so we just keep agreeing on everything

This might be confusing so The person who interrogated me about my romantic life is Falcon, my roommate is Roommate, and the other girl is just gonna be J okay

Anyways, we hang out and it’s nice and eventually I’m like

Yo, Falcon, you ever gonna tell me why you were being suspicious at work? and my roommate is like yeah tell us, and falcon is like Nooope and J is like why what happened

And my roommate and I are just asking questions trying to get any hint out of Falcon because I’m just CONFUSED but Falcon is being as vague as falconly possible like she wouldn’t even tell me if I’ve met the person who supposedly likes me

And I’m just like “It’s just confusing because i dont know why anyone would like me because I’m awkward, not very good looking, and NO ONE talks to me” and J is like “I talk to you c: “ and i’m like eh you have to you work with me

And finally my roommate asked a question that Falcon said yes to instead of “maybe” but of course my deaf ass couldn’t hear it so i was like WHATD YOU ASK AND MY ROOMMATE TURNED ON ME AND WAS LIKE DONT WORRY ABOUT IT AND I WAS LIKE WTFFFFFFFFF

then we went to get ice cream mmmmm and we came back and my roommate showed us tiktoks till her phone died and we just chatted

And J is the only one who doesn’t live in this dorm and her dorm is kinda far away and it was kinda rainy so I offered to walk back with her but she didn’t take the offer but she messaged me when she was safe in her dorm

Also she took the Cezanne book which I didn’t realize she was planning on borrowing but I was fine with it so I just let it happen and I was wondering if that could have been excuse to have to give it back or something

I don’t wanna assume bc i still dont get why anyone would like me but

Anyways, we kept talking last night while I played the KFC dating simulator and told her about it and we both fell asleep eventually and the next morning we continued talking 

Like today we talked consistently from 11 am till like 9 pm 

And around 5 I was talking about how i was being lazy and she was like “i’m getting food, come stalk me, that’s not lazy” and i was like 

man i really wanna be lazy rn but im also hungry and that sounds fun (to hang out, not stalk it was a JOKE)

So I got ready and went to dinner but she and Falcon were leaving dinner just as I got there but i caught them so we interacted and she liked my shirt

Then of course right as i come in the boy who always wants to eat with me that I don’t really wanna hang out with comes in as she leaves and im like >:C 

And we just messaged back and forth consistently for the rest of the day

We talked about colonel sanders, marriage(not ours), drag queens, clubs, animals among other things

I don’t know if she’s who Falcon was talking about but I don’t talk to many people, especially that Falcon also talks to and I know she’s queer idk

Also everytime we work together and clock out at the same time she tries to find my name in the book so she took the time to memorize my weirdly spelt name and I’m not sure why she does it, I guess to make my life easier even though it usually takes longer than it would have for me to find it on my own 

I don’t wanna assume it was her but idk man it feels weird thinking anyone likes me because I’m under the impression that everyone dislikes me and I’m not the kinda person people get crushes on i dont KNOW MAN

that’s all for now idk