#i've been shipping them since 2019 lol

[malama-art]

hau and gladion ^^

[kanmom51]

Firstly, I wanted to say I love your page and appreciate your honest perspective when it comes to BTS and jikook in particular. I am an “older” Army and can appreciate the viewpoint of someone who’s lived life a little and has seen many types of relationships. It’s very hard to not realize there’s something between JK and Jimin when you’ve seen examples of it time and time again in your own life or those around you. So thank you for making me feel less crazy!

I haven’t followed your page for very long and realize you may have touched on this in the past, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on this: Could V sometimes bringing up Jungkook/Jimin together or separately (usually Jungkook…let’s be real) and mentioning that they’ve hung out with him or seemingly being “encouraging” of a certain ship, possibly be his odd way of trying to distract from the real relationship he knows exists between jikook? Like in his own special Teahyung way be trying to help? For a long time, there has always been something that didn’t quite sit right with me when it came to V. I think it was his constant need for attention….don’t get me wrong, I love many things about him as well and know he can’t be very sweet and thoughtful and funny and endearing. I love them all very much. But am wondering what you think about V sounding like he sometimes encourages a taekook ship (ie, the last surprise live at JKs house or the live where he mentioned gaming with JK) because maybe in his own special way, he’s trying to protect? He does tend to do things in a very unique way. I don’t know! Let me know what you think!

Hey @sweetbslm108, welcome and thank you.

And hi @nut2019 😊

Now, I know both of these asks are kind of on the different sides of the spectrum, but I kind of felt like they can be answered together, because of the one communality, and that's, but of course, Tae THE MAN.

Also, before starting I need to say this is all my opinion. Take it or leave it.

I think I kinda talked about this here a bit too:

Let me just clarify what Tae shared in his IG story yesterday @nut 2019. It was a photo and a clip taken on the night after the movie premiere that JK and Tae went to, which was the 24-25 April 2023 - which as of today is 3 weeks ago. It's clearly that night and it's also clear it's not a date or an outing of the two alone, but a group outing with Tae and his friends (a couple from the Wooga squad and a couple I personally do not recognize). Yes, he posted it on Yellow day, but clearly has zero to do with that day.

I don't think Tae is encouraging the ship, but as an agent of chaos, he might be enjoying the aftermath of his handy work, maybe a little too much, lol.

Look, let's get serious here for a sec.

I love Tae to bits. I think it was even in one of the comments to the post I linked that someone mentioned thinking he's neuro divergent, and I was going "YES, FINALLY", because I've been saying this since forever. I'm no psychiatrist, so obviously I won't be handing out a diagnosis here, but, that said, his behavior, his quirkiness, his lack of understanding social queues and others emotions at times. The way he just says what pops to head, no matter if it has anything to do with the subject, and no matter what the consequences might be (take his 2015 radio interview fiasco literally outing JM on live air).

Tae is who he is. Always has been. And we all need to remember that the others all love him. All of them (including those we tend to champion). They might be frustrated with him at times. Angry with him. Might want to end him at times (from what JK spilled about the dumpling fight I kind of feel that was one of those times, lol), but you know, we all have those days with our loved ones too, so yeah.

In any case, whatever it may be, since the hiatus Tae has started to move in a certain recognized pattern that many Jikookers aren't happy with.

I understand the frustration that not only Jikookers have with him when it comes to that (and I'm saying that Tae stans are also feeling it). It feels like he lacks the energy to give to the fandom, interact with them, and maybe he feels that by dropping JK's name or posting a pic or clip with him he's making them happy (obviously aware of how much JK is loved), all while he obviously also is well aware of the chaos he's creating by doing so (claiming that he doesn't is a little naïve). It's kind of a minimum work maximum impact situation.

You are right @sweetbslm108 about Tae's mind being different to ours, it feels like his thought process is on a different parallel level. It's not by chance that JM called him his alien, lol. But saying that, I really don't think that this is his twisted way of going about protecting Jikook. I, personally, have no issues with him mentioning JK if it's part of the natural development of the conversation, kind of like he did during his live a few weeks back in the car. Doing so while talking about this and that, maybe also mentioning the others. They are good friends and clearly have gotten closer over the last few months (I'd say them being left for last and JM being MIA for JK did that), and it's natural they spend time together and it's great if he let's us know about it. But why only JK lately? That's what I keep asking myself, because he's not the only member he's in touch with or spent time with in the past few months. And coming live for a few minutes and dropping JK's name for what seems so purposeful, so much so that I've seen several Tae stans complaining about it. Because it doesn't feel natural. It doesn't feel like he's coming to talk to army or update them.

And I feel like it's ok to criticize him, criticize his behavior.

JK himself (there I go name dropping) said they are only human, which they are.

I keep saying it too, human beings with feelings and wants and needs, not 2 dimensional characters like many fans see them as.

And as such, they are not infallible. And they are definitely not beyond reproach.

And saying out loud, sounding said criticism, it doesn't make you a hater.

We criticize our loved ones, reprimand them when we feel they are doing wrong, and we do it out of love. So what's the difference here?

It should be part of the open discussion. Those who think it's wrong, those who don't, all respectful, no hate.

NO HATE!!

We don't do hate!!!

We love all 7 members.

We might feel more of an emotional connection with some rather than others, but we love them all, each in their own way.

And if I wasn't clear about it, then that includes Tae, even if sometimes he does things that might be infuriating.

My daughters can infuriate me at times, doesn't make me love them any less. Also doesn't stop me from letting them know I don't agree with their behavior.

I will end this by saying that we are all different people, we come from different backgrounds, different places in the world, different professions or schooling, different upbringings, different cultures, different life experiences, just different. All those are our baselines. The things that make us who we are, what we think, what we do.

And being different, all gathering here, voicing our opinions, talking to each other, hearing each other out, that will, at the end of the day make us better people. I do believe that. Being able to listen to one another and at times allow ourselves to be convinced one way or another, that makes us better.

Bottom line:

Tae is an agent of chaos. We love him, even when said chaos he is causing can be infuriating (and the thing is, all he's doing is mentioning his friend or posting a pic of them together, but it's what transpires from that due to mainly I-army that irks us so much).

We are also allowed to call him out on it.

No hate. Period.

Have a civil discussion.

You can voice your opinions here, as long as it's respectful and without hate. Not towards the members and not towards each other.

[fairytales-and-folklore]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the tag @marimbles! ♥️ No pressure tags: @litfeathers @lollytea @ashanimus @greyhavenisback @princecharmingwinks @tails89 @nutellarghh @ash-mcj @childlikegoblinqueen @daydreams-and-honeybees @avatarmerida @asarcasticwitch @sailahina @secretly-of-course @sapphic--kiwi @haystarlight @zyrafowe-sny @peachytea04 @slightecho

1. How many works do you have on AO3? just hit 100 last month!

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 479,814

3. What fandoms do you write for? I've dabbled in quite a few over the years, but the ones I've written the most fics for are doctor who (eleven/amy) teen wolf (sterek) and the owl house (huntlow)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Error 404: Brain Cell Not Found (teen wolf | sterek) You Always Want What You're Running From (sleepy hollow | ichabbie) What To Do When Your Emotionally Constipated Werewolf Boyfriend Gets Cursed By A Witch: A Guide (teen wolf | sterek) Gold Rush (the owl house | huntlow) Lovesick (the owl house | huntlow) 5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do! Every kind comment means so much to me, so I always take the time to respond to all of them (though I'm not always great at getting to them on time.)

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm probably The Courtesan and the Writer (doctor who | eleven/amy) I used to dabble in angst a bit more when I first started writing fic, but these days all my fics are pretty much guaranteed to have a happy ending, because real life is hard enough lol

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

Pretty much all my fics have happy endings, but one of the happiest I wrote would probably be my huntlow college AU Until You Meet Someone Who Makes The Fall Feel Like Flying

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I wouldn't call it outright hate, but I have gotten a handful of rude comments over the years (complaining that I don't post often enough, telling me my headcanons are wrong, telling me how they think my story should have ended — one time someone yelled at me in all caps because I said that a character chilled red wine lol that one was wild)

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

I do! Smut is fun. Mine is typically more focused on the emotional aspect than the physical, is usually the result of a long tension-fueled slow burn buildup, and is usually tooth-rottingly fluffy, soft, and sweet.

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

I have! Back in the days where superwholock plagued tumblr, I wrote one of the silliest cross-overs imaginable, combining doctor who, torchwood, bbc sherlock, supernatural, the avengers, and sleepy hollow: Lords, Gods, and Madmen

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup 🙃

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!

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

I have! But most of them never saw the light of day 😂 one that did is called An Eggcellent Morning For Cooking Lessons co-written with @ash-mcj @tails89 and @nutellarghh

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I think my top three ships are reflected in who I've written the most fic for: huntlow, sterek, and the eleventh doctor/amy pond

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

Luckily, everything that's posted to AO3 is finished, but at this point I'm thinking I'll probably never get around to writing the little nightmares, reylo, and captain swan WIPs I've had sitting in my drafts since 2019

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I capture the characters really well, which means a lot to me. I've also been told that my writing is cozy and comforting and fills people with warm fuzzy feelings, which is always nice to hear 🥰

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I will sit there and agonize over the same paragraph trying to make it sound perfect instead of just letting the writing flow, so sometimes a fic will be in the works for a very long time until it's finally ready to be posted (by which time I'm probably sick of it and never want to look at it again 😂)

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

I've dabbled in this a little bit, but it's usually been plot-relevant, like a character learning to speak the language (i.e. when Hunter tried to learn Spanish in Being Human.) When I do write in another language, I always do my best to research and try to get the translations as accurate as possible, and I always include the English translation either in the fic itself or as an author's note so readers don't have to break away from my fic to google anything. (And also so that they know what my intention was, on the off-chance I translated something wrong and accidentally wrote something offensive.) 19. First fandom you wrote for?

Does anyone remember that vampire show that came out back in like 2009? Moonlight? Yeah, that one lol

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? God, that's like asking me to pick my favorite child. Okay fine, it's Until You Meet Someone Who Makes The Fall Feel Like Flying

[chaos0pikachu]

Hi chaos,

I don't know if you've heard of the Ohm-Nanon fans going to Nanon's concert wearing Ohm masks but it happened? (I don't know how to end that sentence.) (Sorry, English isn't my first language.)

You have written about parasocial relationships so I wanted to ask why are people still involved in Ohm-Nanon? Bad Buddy ended so long ago and they are still doing all this. What makes Ohm-Nanon so special? We haven't see such huge bad behaviour from other pair brands.

Please never ever apologize for how you sound in English which is a dumb broken language anyway lol fr you're English is great

anyways um, what in the fucking purge?? lmao sorry the masks thing is just taking me out I'm imagining it and the image in my head is giving kdrama to the max with the discord music and everything lmaoooo

I had not heard of that b/c I don't follow actors like that at all this is very much Brand New Information.gif for me whew wow

Soft disclaimer here I am not an expert behavioral science or anything related so like, anything I say in regards to this is based only on what I've read, can link to from experts in the field, and speculation.

I don't think OhmNanon are necessarily "special" tbh like this behavior is extreme but I wouldn't call it "new".

In western fandom you had or still have fans behaving like this we just call them "tinhats".

Like, take Larries for instance, Louis just spoke about it in an interview that nothing he can say will deter the conspiracies theorists so he's kinda stuck. This article from VOX is old (2016) but it features a pretty clear cut timeline of the theories, and obsession tinhats have with Larry. Even before Larry there was J2 (Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki from Supernatural):

I want to note that One Direction stopped being an active band in 2016, almost 8 years ago. And neither Harry nor Louis have been spotted like, hanging out~~ in public for almost that entire time. Meanwhile Jared and Jensen have been been married to their wives since 2010, almost 15 years.

To play fair, Caitríona Mary Balfe (best known for Outlander) is also at the root of a tinhat conspiracy with her costar Sam Heughan. Caitriona has been married since 2019.

Western fandom likes to pretend this environment of fan entitlement, and obsessing over costars relationships is an East Asian entertainment only thing. I thoroughly disagree, and I'm sure the people involved in these various tinhat conspiracies, many who have been thoroughly and ruthlessly harassed along with their spouses, family, friends, and anyone else caught in the crossfire would also disagree.

For me the only arguable difference between like MewGulf and Larry is MewGulf played up skinship as a means of capital and for work, while Louis and Harry were just two dudes in a band.

[I even watched the old school MewGulf videos of them during Peak Fanservice Era and I gotta say it's all so obviously hilarious fake and played up I would have never taken them seriously as a true blue couple. They reminded me more of Adam Lambert making out with his bassist during his FYE tour (Tommy, who from what I remember is straight but idk 100%) for the fun and rock n roll of it all.]

I'm getting off track, I don't think OhmNanon are "special" by-the-by because I've seen this entitled and obsessive behavior with other tinhat ships. The length of time doesn't really matter, what matters is sunk cost fallacy:

"the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial."

Fans have invested time, love, and literal money into Ohm and Nanon, therefore giving them up - and thus giving up the "community" they've build with other Ohm and Nanon fans - is unthinkable and painful.

Combine that with general fan entitlement towards public figures, the para-sociality of believe you, individually, know what's "best" for this person - aka this STRANGER - and there's a belief that you can change or force an outcome that suits your needs and wants.

There's a lot of dehumanization involved in fan entitlement, ppl stop viewing public figures - especially actors and musicians - as products rather than people. And with a product if you leave a bad review, and enough bad reviews the company will fix and change the product.

But people aren't products, and you can't force them to do what you want or be who you want them to be just because it upsets YOU individually.

So at the end of the day, what's gonna happen with Ohm and Nanon? Well, they'll probably just keeping doing what they do. Filming their individual shows, maybe one of them will do another BL - I think Ohm already has one in the works? - and try to move on with their lives. They're coworkers and from what I've seen seem fine being coworkers. I'm not interested in speculating what their relationship is, or was, publicly, they've said they're fine with each other so I'm very es lo que es about it.

For fans, well they're probably slowly taper off eventually with only a core group of "true believers" or whatever like some MewGulf, BrightWin and others have. As fans I think the only thing we can do is discourage the behavior, and be empathetic towards the people being harassed.

Now I'm gonna leave you with my favorite debunk of a tinhat post:

[satans-helper]

Reaching for Stardust - Part I

Read Looking for Space here.

Listen to the LFS playlist / RFS playlist (all fic playlists get updated even to this day!!)

Word Count: ~3300

Warnings: none

A/N: Y'all...I'm so happy to be here, immersed in this new series. I began writing this back in April after I, seemingly out of thin air, came up with a foundation that seemed solid enough to even attempt writing a sequel to my beloved LFS. Ever since I finished that fic, I thought that one day, I might return for more. I have a very hard time letting any series go and LFS was truly a momentous project in my life--the fact that so many people have read it and continue to read it brings me so much joy, I can't even tell you.

Having been a fan of GVF for about five years now, I do feel a lot of sentimentality and nostalgia surrounding the band, the music and definitely my own fics, too, particularly all my series. I can still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I was mapping out certain pieces of them in my mind. I felt a huge rush of nostalgia recently when I revisited my city's planetarium for a star show, which was a huge source of inspiration for LFS, and I realized that it was literally this same month, August, in 2019 that I was just finishing up the first 8 chapters of LFS, not even planning on making it a 30-something part series (LOL!). You'll see, if you read, that some of these feelings find their way into RFS. This isn't because it's a self-insert fic, rather that's inspired by how much this fandom has seen, experienced and grown over the years. I imagine my friends and readers who were back there in the pre-pandemic GVF era can relate to some level of nostalgia. A big theme in RFS is change. I think we all can absolutely relate to that, too. One thing remains the same though--this is a love story, through and through.

This probably seems like major overkill to introduce fan fiction but this is how I feel. Many of my old GVF friends have moved on in some way or another and I've often felt alone the past few years with still being so tethered to this group of beautiful, silly, fascinating boys that spark so much joy and fantasy for all of us. So, as always, thank you so, so much for reading my fics. I really hope you enjoy

P.S. I am cross-posting to wattpad (comments bring me life!)

---

I was getting lost in the pictures of Alaska–deep, shiny blue water, towering, white-capped mountains, a vivid stream of neon green in the Aurora Borealis, lush green forests. Even enormous, graceful whales surfacing, their tails nearly popping out of my screen as I unconsciously leaned in closer, hovering over my desk. I blinked hard as I turned my attention to the next picture that had been emailed over to me–a huge white ship, lined with windows that seemed endless–and huffed, shifting in my squeaky second-hand office chair. I didn’t even have a true desire to go on a cruise or even go to Alaska, but the neverending research into foreign lands nagged at me, reminded me that it felt like a very a long time since I’d been anywhere new. At least not anywhere exciting, really. 

I grabbed my phone and opened the gallery to scroll through the last trip Josh and I had been on. It’d been a long weekend about nine months prior, which reminded me that it wasn’t all that long ago at all but it still felt like ages since returning to the normalcy of day to day life. It had been a gorgeous summer excursion where we’d had a comfortable, clean hotel room, a warm pool and three nights out all to ourselves, and I found myself yearning for that freedom and escapism again. Plus the sunshine and heat. Michigan winters persisted, long and brutal, and we hadn’t broken through into any real spring weather until just the past week, which had at least given Sam a nice birthday. Josh and Jakes’ birthday was coming up fast. I thought it’d be nice to do something for them, with all of us–go somewhere for real again, all four of us, run amok in a hotel or airbnb. Or just have a nice dinner together followed by bar-hopping. Whatever the twins wanted, really. 

The picture I’d secretly snapped of Josh in our hotel room wandering out of the bathroom completely naked save for a towel twirled around his head came up after a dual selfie of us at the pool and I laughed loudly to myself, throwing my hand to my mouth. I’d nearly forgotten about so many of the little moments. It was so easy to forget when time kept slipping by like the wind, each good moment gone in the blink of an eye and each bad moment suspended in the air until something else came along, and the minutes turned to days and the days turned to weeks and months and before I even knew it, years had gone by and it felt like nothing and everything had changed all at once. 

Next I scrolled to a picture of the best breakfast I’d ever had, this amazing brie-stuffed French toast with a warm berry compote and housemade whipped cream, then the picture of Josh’s breakfast, which had been a skillet full of chorizo, bell peppers, eggs and queso that he’d deemed to be “orgasmic.” My stomach clenched in response and I looked at my phone clock, suddenly eager for dinner once again. My hours were almost up with 5 p.m. creeping on me and my mind turned its attention to Josh and I’s relatively new Friday night ritual–binging on Chinese and watching the most obscure, nonsensical horror movie we could find. With that, I swiveled around to stretch my legs in the sun through the window and pulled up the menu on my phone, trading pictures of Alaskan mountains for pictures of fried dumplings and greasy lo mein; a few seconds later, a very appropriate text popped up:

Hey mama, I’m gonna be a little late tonight. Want me to pick up dinner on the way home?

Yes please. What’s your ETA?

8ish? What’s on the menu tonight?

I’m gonna do the orange chicken and an egg roll. Wanna share some crab rangoon?

yes I do. What about dumplings?

obviously! 

;) see you soon 

I’d need something to hold myself over until Josh got home, though I was glad to have this part of our routine to look forward to. Stability was important and even Josh had come to understand that more and more. I turned my attention back to Alaska, mulling over the images and cycling through words in my head that I could bring to the page and entice people with, as if cruises needed more promotional materials and marketing to bring in profit. They were relatively cheap, all-inclusive and easy for people to handle and reminding myself of this made me bitter all over again–why couldn’t my company make one of their perks a free trip for employees once a year? I didn’t know their exact state of finances but I bet it could be done. They just didn’t want to. And the irony was that they didn’t pay most of their employees enough to take extravagant trips of their own.

Whatever. There were other, more important things I told myself, getting up to stretch and find something from the fridge or snack cupboard. In 32 more minutes I could clock out and put these wild places out of my head for a bit–the weather called for a long walk somewhere.

It was the nicest day we’d had so far, which I fully realized once I was driving and headed out to a familiar, easy forest trail Josh and I often did together on the weekends. But we had a busy weekend coming up, actually. We desperately needed to stock up on groceries–my most recent find of an old packet of peanuts as my last snack was testament to that–and then the boys had a show at Waterstreet. Sunday wouldn’t be as fun–my sister was repainting the entire interior of her new house and had somehow roped Josh and I into helping, in part because we were just that nice, according to Josh anyway, and also because she let each of us pick one color for one room each. Josh had chosen a shade of dusky desert red for the den and I’d chosen something called “spring morning,” a pale lilac, for the powder room, which seemed pretty fitting for the time of year she was making these renovations. 

The trail was bustling, which I wasn’t surprised by, and much of my walk was spent nodding and smiling to other people passing by. The break in weather was infectious for all of us in the area–everyone seemed to be in better moods finally, myself included even despite the gripes I had with work and money and everything else. Sometimes it felt like just yesterday that Josh and I were lying on our backs in the deep black night, gazing up at infinite stars and trying to come up with material for that poetry class that had been the catalyst to bring us together. The warm sun above me while I continued down the dirt path also reminded me of days past, of the first hike Josh and I ever had together when we both stripped down to our feelings, laughed, kissed through sweat, and had decided that was it. We’d made a lot of decisions over the years, so many that I felt like I hadn’t even noticed some of them, but I’d never decided to let fog cloud my memories. I hated that it happened regardless. And sometimes I absolutely hated what changes all the decisions had led to. I wanted to go back in time every once in a while to relive those moments and those days and it made my heart ache to know I couldn’t. Josh would assure me that the future would be just as good–and sometimes even better–than what those memories had to offer. 

And he was often right. Life was good, and I reminded myself of that as I narrowly avoided tripping over an obtuse rock sticking out of the dirt, it was just more challenging now. There was no school to fall back on–I hadn’t realized how much of a safety net that had really been at the time–and less free time. There were more financial worries. More pressures in life. But if nothing else, I had the best people in my life possible; if nothing else, Josh and I were rock solid. He didn’t let a week go by without reminding me that we were soulmates and I agreed wholeheartedly–no matter what might happen, we’d have each other. 

After my walk, I thought about running our necessary errands on my own but ultimately decided that’d be a deviation in routine I didn’t want to make. Josh was the best person to go grocery shopping with, being surprisingly focused and deliberate in his choices. He also was the best at picking out produce, somehow always able to discern which fruit was just the right amount of ripe, and he was good at finding the best deals. He was the coupon cutter, which always made me laugh, and I was the one who followed instinct more than the list we mutually made the day before. I would get caught up in being frivolous, more often than not tossing special treats into the cart that I couldn’t excuse beyond something like, “Come on, you like them too” to which Josh would agree with his cheeky little grin. 

And that same grin was on his face later that night when he came home with the bag bursting with Chinese takeout. His voice and the smell of soy sauce and that syrupy orange stuff made me hop up from the couch, excited for all the things, but mostly him.

Josh gave a little groan as he headed into the kitchen, his backpack still over his shoulders while he carried the white plastic bag in his right hand and his keys in his left. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, shuffling and rustling all the way out of my sight. “Stephanie needed extra time–she’s having trouble with the new cameras. And to be fair, they do have a steep learning curve. You remember how much trouble I had with them last week?” 

I followed him in, taking the bag out of his hand so he could zip back out and discard his keys and backpack. “Which one is Stephanie again? The one who’s obsessed with ‘film noir?’” 

Josh chuckled from beyond the walls before appearing again, pink-cheeked and smiling. “Yeah, that’s her. And that’s another thing–I’m gonna have to review how these cameras even film in black and white because for the life of me I can’t remember right now.” 

“Does she have any movie recs?” I asked as I opened a cupboard to get plates. “We gotta figure out what we’re watching tonight.”

“What about Night of the Reaper? You haven’t seen that one yet.”

“Yeah, but you've seen it,” I replied, wagging a pair of chopsticks at him. “That’s like, cheating. We gotta watch something we both haven’t seen.”

“We’ll find something.” Josh moved in close and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek and my heart fluttered–it always did. “What about you? What’d you get up today in my absence?”

“I went to the Hemlock Trail. It was busy,” I told him while we both plated our respective dishes, my stomach growling. “It was nice though. Looks like we’re gonna have good weather for your birthday.”

“That would be ideal but I’m going to be cautiously optimistic. Last year we had snow, remember?”

“Yeah, like a dusting,” I said with a little laugh, purposefully knocking my hip into his. “I’m gonna be blatantly optimistic and say it’ll be good. And we still gotta figure out what you wanna do.”

“We'll figure it out, my love.” Josh led the way to the living room and sank into the couch which we could have probably done with replacing; he set his can of sparkling water on the end table then grabbed the remote. “I’m so excited for these dumplings. I don’t care if it’s cat food.”

“They do kind of taste like cat food, don’t they?” I concurred, settling down on the other side of the couch. I put my plate on the coffee table in front of us and pulled it closer. 

“They smell like cat food, too,” Josh said, picking a dumpling up between his pair of chopsticks. “I don’t mind. They’re fucking delicious.” 

“I really don’t get how you’ve always known how to use chopsticks,” I remarked, opting for a fork instead to pierce my own dumpling while Josh fished through the cushions for the remote as he chewed. “It’s not fair.”

“I’ve tried to teach you, doll.”

“And I haven’t learned, so either you’re a shit teacher or I’m a shit student.”

Josh laughed and swatted my arm with the remote. “Hush! I’ll have you know that my students love me.”

I nodded, chewing. “So I’m a shitty student after all.”

“You are not. There’s a learning curve to chopsticks too, ya know.” Josh took another bite of his dumpling then leaned forward, peering at the TV. “Okay, so–what’re we watching?”

I followed his scrolling through our shared list of choices while I tackled the orange chicken. “What about that one?” I asked when he paused on the title Devil’s Ground. “It looks pretty obscure. 1983, a director I’ve never heard of, looks grainy and weird.”

“It’s been on our list forever,” Josh said, clicking the play button. “Let’s give it a shot.”

The movie really did turn out to be obscure–the protagonist was a teenage girl who finds an old well in the middle of the woods and climbs down into it, for some reason believing that her missing brother would be down there. Josh and I chided about the already well-known fairytale parallels, except in this movie the girl encountered creatures in the world beyond the well even weirder than those in Alice in Wonderland or Labyrinth, and ended up having to get betrothed to some menacing demon, played by a giant puppet, to save her brother. Then she and her brother kill the demon and find their way out of the strange world and back in their world.

Josh laughed loudly as the movie came to an end. “That was ridiculous. One of the best ones we’ve seen so far.”

“Those puppets were something else,” I commented, watching the credits roll and hoping everyone on that production went on to do better things. “The little blue one with teeth was my favorite.”

“Why didn’t they just get a real actor for the demon?” Josh asked, shaking his head. “Good god. It was a travesty but also kind of brilliant. I could show this to my students to demonstrate the use of close-up shots.”

“The close-up on the puppet demon when he was being slaughtered seemed unnecessary.”

Josh got up and stretched, gathering all of our plates and silverware and his chopsticks. “It really was. You want me to do the dishes?”

I turned the TV off and followed him, carrying in our empty drinks. “I thought another part of our Friday night tradition was saving the dishes for the next day and we can argue about it then.” 

“No argument. You get to do them since I got the food,” Josh said as he set the plates into the sink with a clatter, then pinched my side. “Deal?”

I giggled, shrinking away from his ticklish touch. “Deal.”

“Anyway, my darling,” Josh began to say, twirling away from me and to another kitchen cabinet. I watched, amused at how he always struggled to reach far enough up to get the wine glasses. “There’s a full moon tonight. Let’s go see it.”

“What? There is?” I asked, trying to peek at wherever it may have been through the kitchen window, our third-story apartment giving us a halfway decent view of the sky most of the time. That was one of the few perks of this place–we’d moved in last year, sizing up so I could have my “office” and enough space in general for both of us to not be completely on top of one another–though Josh never complained about that–but the building was old and lacking a number of things, namely outdoor space. Our little balcony was all we had anymore. 

Josh trailed out, wine glasses tinkling in one hand while he held the mostly full bottle of red wine in the other, and I followed again, feeling a sense of eagerness for the night sky which I hadn’t felt in, well, about a month. Our life together was full of tradition, I had come to realize in time, and a viewing party of the full moon whenever possible was certainly one of them. I’d just been too wrapped up in Alaskan cruises to remember this one on the calendar. 

The night air was chilly–a tingle ran down my spine and Josh noticed this as I sat down next to him on the cushioned bench we’d garbage-picked right after moving in. He skillfully and quickly poured each of us wine, set the bottle down and wrapped his free arm around my shoulders, pulling me in close. 

“It’s gorgeous,” he declared, his voice as rich as ever but a softness brushed through those words. I always loved whenever he got so starstruck over something that he couldn’t help but be concise. 

“It really is,” I agreed, pulling my gaze away from Josh’s equally–if not more so–gorgeous face to take in the huge globe of bright cool white above us. “I can’t believe I forgot about it. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what planet I’m on.”

Josh laughed, light and affectionate. “You’re on planet earth. It’s disappointing sometimes, I know, but if we weren’t here, I’m not sure we’d be able to see the moon and the stars like this.”

I took a drink, already lulled by Josh’s voice and his warm, strong arm around me. He’d always been strong, considerable muscle secure beneath silky tan skin, but he’d gotten stronger still; the muscles had become even more obvious and I sometimes poked fun, and a little bit of envy, at him for being a “hard-body” because, well, he was. I’d learned to memorize the curves and lines of his body throughout the changes, tracing every plain and valley with my fingers whenever I had the chance.“Probably not, no. We’re really lucky after all, aren’t we?” I said, reaching up to stroke his hand over my shoulder. 

“I think we are. Especially if we can see the stars wherever we go.”

“Speaking of–earlier I was thinking about how it’s been a while since we took a trip anywhere.”

“Yeah? Well, where would you want to go?” Josh asked, bringing his wine to his lips. “Not Alaska, I assume.”

“No, not Alaska. But I don’t know, Josh, I feel like we should go somewhere soon.”

Josh took another drink, looking ahead through the darkness that was interrupted by various porch lights from the other apartments rather than up at the jeweled sky. I’d expected enthusiasm–he’d have more free time soon with the semester coming to an end and I still had a lot of vacation days left, making the whole thing easy in theory–but he was uncharacteristically quiet. 

“What?” I prodded, tugging at his wrist. 

“No, nothing,” he assured me, coming alive again with his body squirming beside me, his hand grabbing mine in reciprocity. “I was just thinking about it. We should both think about it some more.”

I returned my attention back to the moon and the stars and a memory overcame me so viscerally it actually hurt–the abandoned barn, the vast field, the endless sky hanging overhead the two of us. “Alright, let’s think about it,” I concluded, wishing that the place we could travel to was back in time. 

Josh sighed and curled around me. “I feel like a dumpling,” he said, lifting a hand to pat his stomach, and I laughed right into the night along with him.

---

Tagging no one because my list is so outdated that none of those people are even in the fandom or use tumblr anymore LOL please let me know if you'd like to be tagged in this series!

[danibfdiii]

☆ Intro ☆

Hi! I'm danibfdiii, you can call me dani. I am a neurodivergent artist and writer. My main interest currently is BFDI, and my favorite season was BFDIA. My favorite characters are Golfball and Metal Leafy, my favorite host is Four. I've been into BFDI since 2019, and jeepers has it flown by.

Please don't make any mental hospital jokes on my blog of any sort as I have trauma from one!

I might do some requests so here is stuff i won't draw

42 ship art ( sorry I see them as siblings )

Host x Contestants

NSFW content

Ship art that uses canonically child characters ( at all. I do not care if you are shipping them with someone else their age it's still very gross to me.)

Any over the top shock art

Lotsa gore

Stuff I can/will draw!

fluff , angst, stuff like that

rarepairs ( pls pls pls send me rarepairs if my inbox is open )

mild/not a lot of gore

AU ideas

Ships

Headcanons ( if I can pull them off )

Doodle pages ( my favorite!! )

Algebrailens ( might take a while to grasp the designs though lol just figured out how to draw four )

Fun ideas ( like yes i will draw lollipop and spongy watching mean girls )

OC's

Just some basic boundaries:

Being friends is totally fine with me! As long as you can respect me and I can respect you we can be cool.

No anti LGBTQ , No racism, and no ableism.

Please don't follow me if you have an NSFW account as your main, I don't give a shit about sideblogs just don't use k!nk or NSFW accounts to interact with my account.

Please don't steal my artwork, I've used a special technique of signing for this but still someone could probably find a way around it.

If you actively go out of your way to bully ANYONE not so kindly get off my page.

DNI.

Alfreds Playhouse enjoyers

Proshippers

MAPS

Blogs that promote deteriorating behaviors

Child lovers

Sexist

Basic DNI criteria

Inbox: closed as of now

[tinacentury]

Fic Writer Asks

Been a minute since I crawled out of my cave here, but an ask game remains the best way for me to do so. Thanks for the tag, @folklauerate!

How many works do you have on AO3?

21. Here they are so I don't have to link them all below.

What's your total AO3 word count?

107,797

What fandoms do you write for?

I was vehemently a one-fandom (Sailor Moon) person until Bridgerton season 2 came crashing into my life. I've accepted being a two-fandom writer now, but it's still weird.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

These are skewed because the Bridgerton fandom is bigger, so, by fandom:

Bridgerton: Follow the Sparks, An Involuntary Thing, Unframeable, Mine to Keep Warm, Canis caminan non est

Sailor Moon: Belonging, Familial Eyes, Win a Date with Tuxedo Mask!, Contrition, What Wasn't Said

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I definitely try to, but I fall behind. I like the fandom engagement piece of responding to comments and talking to friends and readers, but when it becomes an expectation at the expense of my sanity, I let myself off the hook. That's generally the approach that has worked best for me with all things fandom-related. This is supposed to be a hobby, not a chore.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Contrition.

Do you get hate on fics?

Haven't gotten anything I would really describe as hate yet, but I have gotten some "this is boring" comments, and just recently had someone decide my comment section was the ideal place to talk about current world events. I do think it's absurd that we live in a world where I had to turn comment moderation on because of this.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

It's not my main focus, but yes. I'm not sure what it says about me that smut writing comes more easily to me in Bridgerton writing than it ever did in Sailor Moon writing.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nope!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Hard nope!

What's your all-time favorite ship?

I think it has to be a tie between Kanthony and Usamamo. Usamamo has the stronger history, being that I've shipped it since I was 11, and while I'm not super active in that fandom right now (tbh is anyone?), I won't be at all surprised if/when I get inspired to dive back in. Kanthony pulled me in the same way Usamamo did, so I can't not include them here.

What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Given my update speed, I tend to lean towards "never say never", but things don't look good for that Contrition sequel I've been banging on about since 2019.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm pretty good with dialogue; it comes more easily to me than all the other moving pieces. Went through a phase during which my writing got compared to poetry a lot, but I don't think I've been able to pull that off in any of my Bridgerton work yet.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I can tell you they're all tied to perfectionism -- speed, anything that happens in between dialogue making things sound pretty instead of dry and academic (damn that too many years of schooling), over-explaining things, and writing the same damn kiss the same damn way multiple times.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for fic?

Lol tell me you came of age in the 2000s without telling me. I would sprinkle it into Sailor Moon stuff, but there's a fine line between "this is useful" and "this reads like a geocities fanfic site from 1999." I haven't done it with Bridgerton just because I don't know enough, but I'll definitely ask @folklauerate and @hydriotaphia if I ever do!

First fandom you wrote for?

Sailor Moon when I was very, very, very young (cool that an eighth-grader did this, but not cool enough to show to anyone ever).

Favorite fic you've ever written?

-The Benedict chapter of An Involuntary Thing

-Despite a whole host of issues, 5 Years

This was fun and took me back! Tagging @kasienda, @penny-loaf, and @daikon1

[wangmiao]

Shipper Tag Game

thanks so much to @godotismissingx for tagging me again!

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

i'll be honest LOL i was oblivious in stuff like this when i was a teenager. yes, i'd drool over celebrities and characters, but i never knew shipping was a thing.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

i got into the fandom culture very late, so my first ship was joseph chandler x emerson kent from whitechapel

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

i honestly don't remember. i got into fanfic pretty late too. maybe whitechapel as well?

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

nope

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

i don't really do discourse most of the time.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

i don't know how you define no-otp. like is it just something you don't ship, or you hate? there are ships that i don't like, and i just don't mention them at all on my blog. if you know that i've watched a show or film, but i never mention or reblog a popular ship from the show/film, that's probably my no-otp...

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

LOL i'm predictable, shi qiang x wang miao (shiwang) from three-body. i'm especially into reading fanfic recently. one of the first things i check every morning is if there's new shiwang fic.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

shiwang has been living in my mind rent free for an entire year now, and i haven't gotten tired of them yet...probably never will...

recently i'm into cheng bing x pan dahai from the lonely warrior and tang chuan x shi hong from the devotion of suspect x.

and just to name a few other otps: guang hongfeng x zhou xun in day and night, lee joongyeop x cha jaehwan from chimera, lee chang x youngshin in kingdom; cheng fengtai x shangxirui from winter begonia, agron x nasir from spartacus, jack x ianto from torchwood, and my first whitechapel ship is always very important to me.

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

i'm used to not having ships be 100% canon. what can you do? sigh!

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

can't really think of anything

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

can't think of anything either...

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

i don't really have one...xD...

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

definitely shiwang...i kinda stopped reading fanfic in early 2019 due to the original sin/原生之罪 drama and a family incident...i might have tried some fanfic occasionally, but i generally wasn't in a mood for fanfic until three-body aired in 2023.

another reason is back then, most chinese fanfic writers don't really use ao3, so lots of fanfic for day and night and original sin was on lofter and weibo instead of ao3. and it's a pain in the ass trying to track fic on those sites. but now, most of the shiwang fic would be on ao3. and because shiwang is very loved in cfandom, new fic never stops coming.

i do read western fandom fanfic too, but definitely not as much as the chinese ones ever since i got back into cdramas in 2017.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

give me all of the dilfslove or dld (dilf loves dilf) LOL.

enemies to lover is something i always like. though how you define "enemy" would be very different in different ships. i also tend to ship work partners (detective duos; cop & some kind of consultant; villain duos)

15. What you absolutely hate in a ship?

maybe the lack of chemistry? if i can't feel the chemistry between the actors, no matter how romantic or hot the plot is between them, i probably won't ship them.

tagging @bahoreal @xinxiaojie @yohankang @zhivchik @a-very-fond-farewell @randomingoftherandomness only if you haven't done this and want to do it; also tagging any followers who want to do this.

[tempenensis]

hello, i just wanted to say i discovered your blog recently and i love it so much. i’m studying Japanese (i’m at a very amateur lvl) bc i really want to be able to understand manga in its proper context and nuance. as well as be able to read all the extra contents. bc i noticed in JJK fandom there really isn’t a lot of translators around (there’s 2 or 3 i can think of). and i keep wondering why that is, and i wanted to know your opinion about it?

i’m asking bc after reading your blog i got the sense that your passion for JJK deteriorated over time… and i also noticed some other Japanese users who had JJK fan accounts abandon them. personally i think Akutami is a great writer and still delivering exciting chapters, so i don’t think it’s bc of the story.

is it bc of the fans? i know i have been really tired of them on the non-Japanese side. when i told someone how off-putting s/t/s/g shippers are to Japanese JJK fans she wouldn’t believe me and got really hostile. but my gut feeling is like what you’ve shared on your blog. that their (Japanese fans) general feeling is that the behavior from them is too wild. still, she told me she would go ask a Japanese person herself lol…

sorry to bring something negative to your inbox. it’s hard for me to find other JJK fans online who aren’t like that. so i wanted to msg someone who maybe has similar feelings to me.

anyways thank you again for your blog and translations, i hope you have a good day and i hope JJK can be a sincerely enjoyable thing for you again.

Hi, anon.

i noticed in JJK fandom there really isn’t a lot of translators around (there’s 2 or 3 i can think of)

Yeah. Firstly, we actually have official english release now, which is nice, but it means that there's less need for fan translation of each chapter weekly. Another might be because jjk is harder to translate compared to other manga, with its convoluted explanations. there's also an incident where a "neutral" translator getting harassed by the shipping fandom. I don't think anyone doing translation want that particular drama.

your passion for JJK deteriorated over time

For me, any manga is usually more of a fancy fleeting interest. But I somehow I got too attached to jjk lol. My actual interest is gacha games. But I've been following jjk since 2019, even before the announcement for the 1st season of the anime - which means it's been 4 years for me in this fandom. Honestly the fandom only got very bad that I can't stand it the last year. Burned out with added bad fandom makes me less motivated taking care this blog, but I promise I'll try to keep some effort for this blog until the last chapter of the manga. Keeping my distance from the fandom is my way to keep up my interest now, ironically

Like I said in a few posts before this, there's no help for that side of fandom. I'm really too tired to care about them. Best we can do is block and ignore it. At least fix the behavior regarding leaks

[leonardcohenofficial]

20 questions for fic writers

i was tagged by @majorbaby to answer these—thank you so much!!!!!!!

i'll tag @draftdodgerag / @radioprune/ @sightofsea and anyone else who'd like to do this! answers below:

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? a grand total of five :D

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 28,313 words!

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently have only published for mash, but i have fics for the man from uncle, star trek, star wars, doctor who, twin peaks, starsky and hutch, and black sails in drafts

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? i only have five fics on ao3 LOL

5. Do you respond to comments? i do my best to!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? i suppose it's (open your hands) given it takes place before "bottoms up" which is fairly angsty in the overall houlifield arc

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? between the two longform fics i've posted—someone is waiting and so this is the word—they both have happy endings! i suppose whatever is happier depends on if you're more of a fan of piercintyre or hunnihawk endgame

8. Do you get hate on fics? i've never received any direct hate, so none that i'm aware of.................... 

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? yes; not usually plain pwp because i like having somewhat of a story tied to the smut but every once in a while it's less plot-driven

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? i have not written any crossovers nor do i particularly feel any want to

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? nope/not to my knowledge, hope to keep it that way!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no but would be honored and open to granting permission to do so!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no, don't really have interest in doing so (LOL)

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? legitimately such a hard question lol; there are some ships that i don't even think about actively shipping because in my mind i nearly forget that they're not canon (see: spirk, skysolo, albert/dale, illya and napoleon, etc.) whereas there are certain relationship dynamics that continue to make me feel like the top of my head is being torn off and i think always will (twelveclara is absolutely insanity inducing, vanerackham also being a ship that really took over my brain and has not let go since, honorable mention to whatever barisi did to my psyche as a seventeen year old); not to mention all the relationships from non-fandom (for lack of a better term) media that i find extraordinarily emotionally impactful (tommy and axel in edge of the city, omar and johnny in my beautiful laundrette, whatever is happening between hamlet ophelia and horatio, same with karen joe and martha in these three, could name plenty of books and films and plays that this happens to me with)

all of this to say, it probably is piercintyre (still with a lot of love for hunnihawk) or spirk

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? i have a few mash fic drafts that have been sitting in my notes app since literally 2019 so we will see if those ever see the light of day lmfao

16. What are your writing strengths? i think i'm very good at third person limited POV, which is how i write all of my fics (i don't like first person POV fics, despise omniscient, and find second person hardest to write); i also think that i'm pretty strong with narrative structure (comes with being a dramaturg lol) and internal dramaturgy and detail when it comes to researching for my writing

17. What are your writing weaknesses? i don't write linearly (this applies to my academic writing as well as fics) which i think does often make it harder on myself when piecing together a bunch of vignettes and trying to make them flow; i think that my understanding of narrative structure helps me get around this but i do wish i didn't always throw in an obstacle to my own writing. i also think i can be a bit too succinct (this is more a challenge with my academic writing than my fics imho but is a note that i get consistently from my committee haha)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? if the writer actually knows how to speak it and isn't just throwing text into google translate on a wing and a prayer, i don't always HATE it hate it; i've read a few good the man from uncle fics where if illya is speaking in ukranian or russian it's either mentioned in a character's POV or the text is put in italics which i think is a more effective device in communicating that the characters are speaking another language rather than the one the fic is written in

19. First fandom you wrote for? i wrote very bad doctor who and sherlock fanfiction when i was in middle school which i published on deviantart LMFAOOOOOOO

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? i think the honor has to go to someone is waiting—it was just such a labor of love and weaving in all of the sondheim references that have been so important to me with a longform exploration of hawkeye's takes on love was (as cheesy as it is to say) really special to me as a writer and it means so much that it resonated with so many people! (plus it has a very good soundtrack)

[bitty-bits]

The First and the Last of the Year

And possibly last ever... on Tumblr at least.

Where did I go?

Nowhere in particular... if you've seen my socials all year, that is. This blog/newsletter however, took an extended vacation, not just from a lack of interest (and personal real life stuff getting in the way) but also from a technical standpoint - I really wanted the email newsletter aspect of this to work, but I still couldn't. I was considering using TinyLetter ...until they announced that was shutting down. If I had a nickel for every time a newsletter service shut down out of nowhere I'd have two... you know the rest. And with Tumblr getting worse as the year went by, maintaining this wasn't exactly motivating enough.

That said, it was a less than ideal year for my productivity, inconsistent pace, money issues, the lowest amount of notable dreams to write down on my dream journal to date... you get the idea.

So I can only hope for things to be better. For me to be less lazy... and work not only on stuff I make, but on myself. And I do have a bit of optimism, since a lot has, so let's see a couple of stuff, although everything else you should expect to see in a "rebooted" version of this blog...

Also, Free Palestine!

What I've Been Playing / Watching

So while I haven't fully completed a LOT of things this year, this will be going back to the beginning of the year, essentially, so strap yourselves. (Some of it I'll be grabbing from my media thread that I've made on Twitter as well)

Lucky Star (Finished)

I have posted about Lucky Star in another issue, but I was still in the middle of watching it. Now that I've actually finished watching it (in February) I can say more about it: When it comes to this anime, it was either pretty ahead of its time, or we just have Regressed as a species since then. Maybe the latter.

And sorry folkz, Lucky Star is pro-ship/pro-fic culture and there’s nothing you can do about it. I watched the entire series including the OVA, and while I’m definitely still not sure I’m exactly the "target demographic" what I saw was still very enjoyable. it really just is whatever the fuck and I'm all for it.

At first my kin™ was Konata pretty quickly because of course. That was until Minami showed up and like, she’s basically the weeb version of Ongo Jelly Jamm™!!! I actually can say I got attached to and care about most of the characters, even if just a little.

Like I said in a previous issue, in 2015 I had watched part of an episode of it english dubbed and it didn’t click with me at all. Turns out the dub just sucks as I should’ve expected lol (And I really wasn’t used to segmented "several short stories in one" type anime and stuff to be fair - that and I was dumber too of course so I couldnt properly appreciate the ART........)

My rating is Timotei/10 - and Nichijou is next!

Pizza Tower

Easily the biggest loss for gaming this year was this game not winning "Best Debut Indie" at the Game Awards. Oh well.

I was already highly anticipating this game - having first heard of it when it had a demo at SAGE 2019 I’m glad the game turned out great and is getting the recognition it deserves. I pretty much finished the game in early March. P/10

The Owl House (Finished)

Well... it’s over... for better or worse. I do think they managed to deliver a satisfactory ending all things considered. This was definitely a great cartoon to kick off the new decade.

And of course, fuck Disney as always.

This show got me to break out of, I guess an habit, you could say, or a superstition, or whatever the hell it is, when it came to media with too much ""occultism"" in them. You know the drill. I guess it opened up the little my mind had left that was still a bit closed. Even if it’s mostly involuntary.

But this isn’t even new. As a child I’d actually have an "imaginary friend" that i made (that kinda just Existed, didn’t really "interact" much with them whatsoever cuz i was Dumb™) that their backstory was literally that they were a demon in hell "gone rogue" so they were "not an evil one". Again, I was a kid. I never thought too much about the implications of me thinking about stuff like that already at that age. But it is interesting to think about now.

Anyways, been gay, did witchcraft. ⛥/5

Invader ZIM (Series + Enter The Florpus)

Well I did it. I finally watched the funny hot topic show™ (Finished in late May)

What can I even say about it that hasn’t been already said by everyone else? ...well maybe I have one thing: for some reason I didn’t find That One Episode that people always bring up the MOST disturbing one. I thought the one with a literal character flatlining and Zim being ":)" about it got to me a bit more.

Anyways yeah it’s Cool I liked the characters especially Gaz, and GIR obviously Why Wouldn’t He Be Here. The show can be stupid and end episodes in Whatever The Fuck ways that leave you like "That's it? That's the episode???" but I think that’s one of the unique aspects of it that I Enjoy - also the movie is cool. ☮️>🐔+🍚/10

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

So I watched it first when we only had shitty cinema bootleg recordings (that aren’t even that shitty anymore at this point in terms of quality, the Shit comes in the form of godawful intrusive illegal casino ads™ placed.) even though a bit later the raw movie would sometimes be uploaded in full to YouTube with no consequence for days. And at this point I’ve rewatched it plenty of times in proper HD (though only once in English cuz I’ll be honest, the Brazilian dub really is phenomenal really and blows the original "star talent cast" out of the water in my opinion, where it falls short is the voice for Luigi, as I know the dude’s voice too well and he’s just doing his normal voice with an accent, not to mention he’s the brazilian Sonic voice already!!!)

I think Charlie Day is the superior Loogy here but I’d still say the dub is better, not only for the fact there are "real voice actors" cuz you know, that’s Their Job, but also like, Charles Martinet is still in there cuz in case you didn't know, he voiced that jumpman dude’s only line in pretty much every language possible which is absurd/admirable.

It’s a fun movie if not mostly for looking at Mario Things happening that you know and recognize, because otherwise the story is pretty ridiculously basic, though even for "Mario game story" standards it’s definitely refreshing to see Luigi as the one to be rescued... though that Also sucks because Luigi deserved more screentime. The main Toad too. Oh well. Also disappointed that the "wise Toad" in the movie isn’t Toadsworth… or maybe he is but hasn’t aged yet and maybe in a sequel we’ll see him get older and then main Toad becomes Captain Toad. Who knows 🍄/10

Honorable Mentions - Stuff I've Watched That I've Yet To Write My Thoughts About, I Don't Have The Time Now

Spy × Family (Season 1) - Not the type of anime I'd see myself watching, but I was forced roped into it by one of my partners and found it to be VERY enjoyable.

Sparkle On, Raven: The Life of Drillgirl - Charming, shitpost-y, but genuine and fun

The Amazing Digital Circus - A very promising series with unexpected popularity, and equally unexpected high quality Brazilian dub with recognizable talent.

Murder Drones (Season 1 - 6/8) - A series I've been cautiously optimistic about since its pilot - it has endearing, enjoyable characters and settings, but flawed writing and pacing - more on that at a future date.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - An amazing take on a series that I'm not so familiar with (haven't seen the movie or read the comics, only really knew that the franchise "exists") and judging from what I've heard from others, it probably is the best take on the main storyline. Especially when it comes to the representation of who turned out to be my fave - Roxie. Watching the live action now is... probably gonna be very weird. Not sure if I want to.

Kunshikter (Күншіктер) - A new, yet very obscure cartoon from Kazakhstan. It's cute. It's for children but at this point I don't think y'all care. It's still ongoing and there are not many episodes so far. I recommend giving it a watch. Now!

Future YouTube Updates

As some of you saw in a xeet tweet from early October I was planning to do something significant on my main YouTube channel which has been stagnant for a while now, only for that to, surprise, not happen. I do have a set goal now: In very early January, a video to explain exactly what happened and what was the video I wanted to make, and... why it's hard for me to get a video like that out in the first place. The short answer (that doesn't actually account for Everything) is autism. The long answer is... stay tuned for it, lol

Song of the Issue

Although this section was supposed to be for sharing music that isn't mine, I thought I'd share snippets of music stuff I've been making since the beginning of 2023 until now, that you can look forward to!

Conclusion

I dunno. All I can say is... happy new year! It's been a tradition to make a stupid amateurish collage at the end of the year with the highlights, but this year there's been... less of them, that I took note of at least. But that won't stop me I think. Once I have that done, I may edit this to include it.

No comment on anything related to Twitter (which I'll never call "X") and the billionaire that happened this year as you all probably already know by now, and by the way you can now follow me on the social butterfly of bluesky. See you next year!

[i-write-sin-not-tragedy]

just need you to know that your version of the hazbincule means everything to me. coming from someone who saw The Vision (or at least my version of it lol) since 2019

please use this ask to yell about them more (anything you'd like really. i just wanna see them being that Found Family that little Romo Spice lmao)

JEJFKEK AHHH THANK YOU ANON ;;♡ God hi yeah I've been in love with this cast since 2017 and watched like every stream, i adore this silly polycule/found family SO much

Oooh some screaming i don't usually get to do is tough i have so many thoughts so ill just, drop some favorites;

- Alastor and Husk eventually meet an understanding. That understanding is Angel OWKFKWKFKEK

(I think after Al DOES let husk go, they get on good-ish term. Eventually. It takes a bit kwkfkwkd)

- Charlie is a cuddle bug she will snuggle up with anyone who askes but secretly, aside from her girlfriend ofc, her favorites are Angel and Husk bc *fuzzy*. Soft. Warm.

- Charlie and Pentious have the same taste in food/drinks and they love cooking for the group together!!

- Niffty has a shipping chart. She follows every single relationship in the 'cule SO closely

- Charlie and Vaggie both steal Angels sweaters all the fucking time (look hes like two foot taller than them thats PEAK hoodie stealing size!)

- Charlie is the only person that can get away with taking anything of Alastors. No one else dares to try

- okay angel does try but with varying degrees of success

- carrying Niffty around like a purse dog is something everyone has done at some point. But Angel and Alastor do it the most

[bipocselfship-archive]

MEET THE MOD

Mod Florist (💐)

Genderfluid (They/Them)

Demi/Ace

24

Filipino

Blog: @polyamarhousgarden

Tag: #mod florist 💐

Hello. Hi, Kamusta! It's great to be here! 🌷 My name is Marh/ Florist and I've been self-shipping since around 2004 (Naruto era lol) I began dipping my toe into the self- ship community at 2019 but kept dipping in and out cause I get shy.

It felt great to see a BIPOC friendly self-ship blog dedicated to uplifting BIPOC self-shippers on Tumblr! It felt kinda lonely in my corner of the community so now I'm hoping to make sure other BIPOC self-shippers don't feel as lonely or unseen. I hope I'll be able to provide the support you all deserve!

[29daffodils]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

Augghh I love these games! thank you for tagging me Mickey 🥺🌸(@thisautistic)

3 Ships You Like :

1. Yohan/Moogyeong from The Shape of Your Love (manhwa by Park Nodeok)

this is my ultimate OTP. i never had OTPs before them. they'll be my rise and fall. but yeah, anyway. they. my boys.

2. Vegas/Pete from KinnPorsche The Series

they had me by the throat even before i knew kpts existed and just, well. then i watched kpts and found them and they were everything i hoped for and more. a lot of it is also because vegas and i are very much alike without the mass murder aspect 😂

3. Alan/Gaipa from Moonlight Chicken

listen, MLC is like, the best thing i've watched in a while and alangaipa gave me what i had been craving since yohan/moogyeong c. 2019 : a small rare/ghost ship with barely any screentime but that hooked people in worldwide. firstkhao's acting was just bonus. alangaipa represent everything that i want from my own life. i couldn't not love them.

First Ship Ever :

Kanata/Miyu from Da!Da!Da!

oh, these two. i was head over heels in love with them. i shipped them even when i didn't know that shipping existed or what it meant, when we didn't even have anime on TV besides the broadcast on SONY at 5pm sometimes. i just wanted them in love and happy and raising a kid together. ugh i miss them.

Last Song You Heard :

The Moon Represents My Heart, by the Moonlight Chicken cast! God do I love this song so much! It fits all the ships so well! The lyrics are gold! (I also recently found that this is a cover of the OG by Teresa Teng and that's even more beautiful??)

(also, this has been helping me visualize and write a lot of sand/ray, surprisingly enough.)

Favorite Childhood Book :

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

ahhh, well, this is embarassing. i didn't have a favourite book until adulthood actually. and it's my only favourite (as in something i've read time and again). i don't think i'll ever find another book like this one. this is it for me. nothing can ever top this. (yes, I'm very picky about my favourites lmao)

Currently Reading :

i found out this fic exists because of twitter discourse lmao, and I'm not even a dramione fan, i'll probably never read another work, but goddamn, the writing was stellar. lived up to all that hype. good stuff. (I'm almost at the end so wish me luck!)

Currently Watching :

Our Dining Table

no offence to those who love this, i loved the manga when i read it years ago, but lord was i bored to death even on the second trial at watching this lol. I'm soldiering on though, i'll get through this!

Currently Consuming :

Thai BLs

uhh... not sure what answer this demands actually, so, uhhh... lots of thai BL i guess? that's really what i've been consuming lately. i had never watched thai BLs before KPTS in 2023 so it's eye opening, they've gotten better ( i tried once before , quite a while back when a friend recommended, and i found it ridiculous so i never thought i'd actually ever watch any again lol, mostly because i never was a fan of live action BL dramas in general)

Currently Craving :

💵💵💵💵

well, i'll be honest here, money is vital and that's what I'm craving lol, i gotta feed myself and my cats and pay a 50k laptop repair bill that my company thrust on me even though it's not my fault it's damaged. anyway, essentially I'm experiencing financial doom among other unfortunate events, so here's your chance to commission a fic or donate at my KOFI so...... haha.

alright, this was super fun! I'm tagging @skyfish7 @semantics-error @justfionn @boyslovecorner @peachym00 @lilitblaukatz @ae-azile

(please feel free to ignore if you're feeling up to it!)

[starsburned]

━━━━━━ㅤㅤGET TO KNOW THE MUN .

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ(ꜱ) ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ?

We're going to focus on Dazai because I have reasons for every single muse, but Dazai's had me in a death grip since November of last year. But it's because I understand his psychology and his struggles and deal with the same thing on a daily basis. So I looked at him and I was like why not? Might as well. and here I am. I've related to him since I first watched the anime back in 2016, it just took me 8 years to pick him up.

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ?

Shipping, believe it or not. There have been multiple occurrences in the past where I just become an accessory to another person and my muse becomes an accessory to that muse where we don't exist outside of those people. It's left a really sour taste in my mouth and it's made me extremely selective with who I ship with anymore. Literally someone can bring up shipping to me and I get legit fight or flight feelings. It was and still is that bad lol

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ?

Character development, whether it be positive or negative. Because not everything a character evolves into will be positive, and I like for my muses to be ever-changing. The moment they become static is kind of the moment where I'm like "what now?"

ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ?

I live off of headcanons. Even the ones I fail to write down. My brain is never quiet and my muses never shut the fuck up. I'm constantly plagued.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ɪɴ ꜱɪʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ?

Sometimes silence, sometimes music. It really just depends on how I'm feeling. Most of the time, I am listening to some kind of music, though.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇᴘʟɪᴇꜱ ᴏʀ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ?

I wing them most of the time because my muses? I don't control those fuckers. I'm merely a vessel for their whims.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘɪɴɢ?

No. Like stated above, it's literally turned me away from RP so many fucking times. But there are a select few people I trust.

ᴡʜᴀᴛ'ꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀʟɪᴀꜱ/ɴᴀᴍᴇ?

Corvin, Cor, Ferret. Any of them work.

ᴀɢᴇ?

24.

ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ?

May 14th.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ(ꜱ)?

Black and red. I'm that edgy bitch. But I also love pastel colors and like... the color of pink starburst candy. I'm great at describing things /sarcasm

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴏɴɢ(ꜱ)?

UHHHHHHHHHHHH too many. But if I had to choose a couple of songs to relate to the most, it'd be Neighborhood #2 (Laika) & Ordinaryish People.

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

FUCKIN. Cats. The 2019 version. I WON'T BE THE SAME PERSON EVER AGAIN-

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

Orphan Black.

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱᴏɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ?

Green Jewels.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜰᴏᴏᴅ?

Fettucine alfredo and chicken and dumplings. Big time comfort foods. I also like sweets from time to time, but very rarely anymore.

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ?

Autumn. It's special to me for many reasons, but I also just love the change from warm to cooler weather and the sky in October always seems so much more blue.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅ?

@frost-eyed-autumn. We've been through thick and thin with each other and idk where I'd be with him. I wouldn't trade anything in the world for our friendship. He's my rock, my inspiration, and the reason I keep trying to better myself as a person. I look forward to each and every day because of him.

Tagged by: I stole it.

Tagging: Steal it.

[protect-daniel-james]

honestly, i'd talk about fanfic with you all day and would totally ask you all of these, but how about: ❤️, 🥴 (however you define weird), 🌶️, 🏆, 🫣

haha thank you!

The fanfiction that holds a special place in your heart

Definitely the fics that were at the beginning of now "big" ships - I was the second person to post a Rakidrić fic on AO3, and the first person to post a Gavi/Pedri fic in there. I like being ahead of the curve, to be kind of "proven right" about certain chemistries being interesting and appealing. And I like the idea that someone thought of Gavi/Pedri fic, searched AO3, and mine was The One fic that was there in their time of need - before others eventually got the balls to write one as well (and now there's almost 350 fics with Gavi/Pedri, which is amazing, since it's a lovely ship). So these two will always be kind of special in this sense. I wrote a bunch of unpopular/rare ships, and I don't strive to write what's popular or what most people would read - I hope that someone might read my fic and think - this makes sense, why didn't I know/think about this pairing; rather than being one of the billions who write about Messi/Ron or Messi/Neymar etc.

I also wrote the first Harry Kane/Pochettino fic, and I'm sad and disappointed there's not more about them! (they deserved it)

Your weirdest fanfiction

In terms of pairing, definitely the Unai/Football one, but I am proud of it and once again - I think it is subtle and it makes sense. Like, it's written in a way that could convince someone to ship them, haha (I hope). I think the weirdest in the sense of story itself it's probably Italian Cuisine. I cringe at the stuff I wrote about Ronaldo/Dybala, because a lot of it was pure PWP with a bit of angst. It was really explicit compared with what I've been writing lately; and it's basically meaningless porn that's not really my style anymore. It feels weird to me now that I was like - oh sure, lets write about Ron fucking Dybala with a cucumber. There's no other meaning, or reason, or any sort of explanation.... It's literally just that. And I think I don't like writing stuff like that anymore.

I wrote a lot of "weird" things in terms of incest, omorashi, piss kink, priest!AU, priest kink, Basque separatism!AU, or even more in the past - Trudeau/Macron PWP lol ... But I think all of these were justified/served the story/served the exploration of the dynamic - but there is just no excuse for the cucumber story, period.

Your spiciest fanfiction

Uuufff, that's difficult to say since I find most of my PWPs from 2018-2019 cringy (and that's when I wrote most of the spicy stuff). Probably Rakidrić's Never knew anyone in love or Three is a charm (Two is not the same) about Kane/Poch/Southgate threesome. And of course, the priest kink with Dalić/Modrić (and it was my first risqué fic, or a fic that I felt like some people might have a problem with), I do like a priest kink hehehehe. Once again I would write it a bit differently and probably more...subtly today? I think I wrote a couple of nice spicy PWP things back in the day, but now I feel like I use smut scarcely, non-explicitly, or as a tool to depict someone's deep desperation and inability to connect/communicate in other way (Lampardverse, Frank/Mason, Scamacca/Paquetá...)

The fanfiction you are the most proud of

Right now, probably The Stands of Villa Park. Ngl, some parts made me emotional, because it made me think of the reasons why ppl love football so much, and how important it is, how it is part of life (I wrote my Master's thesis about something slightly covering this subject, so naturally I am passionate about it) - and it gave me an opportunity to explore all of this in a deeper, visceral manner of someone who would not survive without football, who needs it more than food and drink, and who needs all his senses filled with football, football, and only football.

I'm proud of the whole Lampardverse experience (but it's not my verse wink wink) and its stories because it just makes sense and explains a lot.

I think atmosphere wise, I really like Briefly and We'll Always Have London because of the heavy implications and what is left unsaid - the unrequited feeling in the former, and the relationship breaking up in the latter. I like having that in fics.

The fanfiction you were most hesitant to post

The Grizicest saga. I feel like it was sort of an appetizer before Lampardverse, and a lot of the themes first explored in Grizicest are now being rediscovered in Lampardverse. I actually got one anon hate for the Grizou, Grizou story on my previous blog loooool. Today, I would write it differently, definitely. But the main plot would probably stay mostly the same.

Also, today I wouldn't care at all about someone hating on that story. Look, (wo)man, I feel like writing a story about Unai fucking a football pitch. Or a trophy. Or Scamacca pissing on Paquetá, or Cousin Jamie breeding Franko. What are you going to do about it? As I said in the notes for my last fic, patrolling days are over.