#idk i just want this to hit more people than just my mutuals

[aph-estonia]

i've been a furry for 8+ years and i STILL don't have a fursona. representation for fursona-less furries matters!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for ditching a long-term friend?

I (35F) had a friend (S, 33F) for years. We bonded the first night we met. We had ups an downs, and went everywhere together. I helped her kick her bf out after he tried to hit her and helped her through two miscarriages. She helped me through a family member death and a career change. We would speak almost every day, for hours.

She was always slightly more conservative than me. When 2016 rolled around, she supported Trump. I didn't like that, but it wasn't my place to bitch about it to her, it was her decision.

By 2020, she'd changed. Idk how it happened but she went from slightly conservative Christian who loved school and being a nurse and had friends who were LGBT+ (myself included), to deadnaming trans patients, refusing to do a blood draw on a patient after she said it was a prerequisite for an abortion, forcing patients to pray with her, even when they and their families spoke out against it, and bugging her coworkers to pray with her. She got fired from the hospital and was completely unable to hold down a job after that, and went through about 6 jobs that year, getting fired from them all. She got with a guy (B, 32M) and he is a... Well, he is a damn nut. Flat earther, antivaxxer, anti- Department of Education, anti-cell phone, thought bluetooth was turning kids trans, and that covid is 100% a hoax. Absolutely bonkers. But she was smitten, so I supported her, barely.

It's important to note that I backed away from her a bit after she was fired from the hospital. We were only speaking once every few weeks at that point.

Shortly after she got with B, my nephew was born. My nephew is half Mexican, half white. She called him "cute for a half n*g" because she thought my SIL is black. This blew me away because she's half Mexican. I told her off and distanced myself even further.

In 2021, she was a huge supporter of Jan 6th. She LAUGHED when that one cop killed himself. I stopped talking to her completely after that. Deleted her contact info and forgot she existed for almost 2 years.

Cut to October of this year, and she calls me. I didn't recognize her #. She and B are getting married! And she wants me to be a bridesmaid!!! Yayy! (sarcasm). She told me a long-winded variation of "I know we haven't talked for a bit but I promise I'm not as bonkers as I was, I think I let Facebook suck me in, and I'm sorry."

So, I let her back in. Not emotionally, mind you. She's not the woman I once knew anymore. I don't tell her where our house is (my partner and I moved while S and I weren't speaking), and I didn't tell her what car I drove. I didn't tell her anything about our lives, and kept the conversation solely on her, to try and read her out a bit.

Sure enough, two conversations in she starts ranting about how black people are black because they received the mark of Cain (it's a Christian thing? I guess? Idk I'm not religious) and thus should be avoided because they are inherently "up to no good," and that systemic racism doesn't exist because the US has had a black president.

I roll my eyes, hang up the phone, block her number, and end it, permanently, right there. I received a few odd texts from a number I didn't recognize, probably B's phone, so I just blocked that number and deleted them without reading most of them.

Cue our mutual friends. 🙄

She misses you! People can have differing opinions and still be friends! Why are you being so closed minded? She told us you yelled at her! 😭😭😭

Lol. I didn't say a word, but whatever.

I'd rather adjust my life to her absence than adjust my morality to her ignorance.

My partner is on my side, they saw her change, too. But our mutual friends are still upset. I shared some the racist and sexist text convos between me and S, and it's like they hadn't even considered my side of the situation. One is on my side now, the other two are still questioning how I can throw away a 6 year friendship over "differing politics."

So, Tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[fandom-hoarder]

Ok, so I got an ask for mutual aid. Of course, it's human to want to help someone in need, even if all you can do is reblog their post. But you also don't want to be scammed, or help spread a scam. So you look for clues, or you only reblog your mutuals' aid posts because you at least know they're *real*, or you don't reblog aid posts at all.

So, what are the tells? (I'm not an expert, this is just what I've learned through osmosis.)

Do they follow/interact with you, outside of the mutual aid request?

Is their username weirdly generic?

Does the blog look like a real tumblr user, and not just someone who made a tumblr to ask for aid? How old is it? Is it involved in any fandoms? Does it seem staged?

Does their aid ask and needs description make sense? Is it overly vague, or bogged down with unneeded details?

If you quote-search the body of their aid ask, do you get any similar hits for scams on other sites or under other names?

Does the account for donations look legit?

What do you find when you reverse image search?

So, having received an ask that sounded very much like someone whose mutual aid I would want to support if they're real, but already having two red flags from the jump (not following me and not in my notifications, weird wording and grammar on ask), I endeavored to suss them out.

Screencaps of my adventure under the cut.

Like someone else has said, please don't go harrass this blog. Even if it's a scam, at some point there's a person behind that screen.

So here's the ask.

Red flags: they don't follow me, I don't know them, the ask is long, the grammar and punctuation are bad, word choices are odd or misspelled. These don't mean it's automatically fake, but it looks more like a weird AI than someone using google translate to communicate in English.

So I check their blog.

Their pinned post is this (click to read, it's a longass pic):

I don't take any links yet.

I take a block of their post and check it in google; all I get are snapshots of tumblr reblogs for their aid post. I click the "buy me a coffee" link, and it looks...idk, fine I guess. There's a tumblr logo, but clicking it seems to do nothing. (I'm on mobile)

A quick search of their name on tumblr gives me 2 posts mentioning them spamming this same message to people.

I read the one with the readmore linked here

After reading wannursyafiqah74's post about it, I got on my laptop and went back to casualdonutfire.

Mostly random reblogs; cats and other random reblogs of mostly pics, many with comments that could've/should've been tags, and no actual tags whatsoever. Like set dressing that says, "See? I'm a real person! I'm leaving comments about my reblogs that show I'm not a bot! I interact! I know what I'm I'm reblogging!"

It gives me a creepy vibe. I try google again to see if I can find their presence elsewhere on tumblr. The returns are still all snapshots of their mutual aid post. I open their archive. Ok, their tumblr has archive on...?

There are no fandom-esque posts until the very first reblog, a comment on One Piece fanart on October 18, 2023.

Their first post about needing aid was on November 7, 2023. Nearly the same wording as their pinned post, except they don't mention having a child. Zero specifics on what amount is needed for what or a timeline or anything. Not even anything about Christmas coming up. Tagged generously for trans surgery and other visibility words.

Oh. AND. The buymeacoffee is different. Adela, not Adella.

Then their next post for aid is fresh on January 11, 2024; nearly the same wording, except now there's a daughter and a birthday -- no date for the birthday, though, is there?!

[reblog linked here] If you go to their January 12th reblog and click on the "video proof," it's an audio-only black screen upload to imgur, with no identifying info for what's going on other than what they describe (and it doesn't really sound like what they describe; it sounds like a kid ready for christmas but not disappointed, like idk what more you're supposed to get out of it)

Then I clicked on their buymeacoffee link and noticed something. When I hovered my mouse over the tumblr symbol under their blurb, the link embedded there showed up at the bottom of my screen. And it was NOT casualdonutfire.

It was deepeagletimetravel. And, of course, it's a nuked tumblr. Hence doing NOTHING for me on mobile.

So I went to google again!

And lo, what do I find in those lurking reblogs?

ANOTHER MUTUAL AID POST IN EVERYONE'S REBLOGS. WITH A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSONA AND STORY. BUT THE SAME WALL OF TEXT + BAD PUNCTUATION STYLE

Using a stock photo for their initial "bio" that seems awfully misleading when you don't say it's a stock photo.

And with stolen/uncredited art by thetransformistress as a thank you.

And, of course, the buymeacoffee page it linked for Ameera (buymeacoffee.com/AmeeradelzC) is blank. 👀 Totallynormal, nothing to see here.

But this makes me think. I go back to that Nov 7 casualdonutfire post, with their first buymeacoffee link to "Adela" (buymeacoffee.com/adelladomil)--

and what do ya know, the tumblr that opens is casualdonutfire!

So did they forget they made an adela account, and change their ameera buymeacoffee account to adella for their new post, forgetting to change the deepeagletimetravel tumblr name?! 🤷‍♀️

[hyperfixationstati0n]

When You Know, You Know (Pt.2)

An: lmk how you feel about this :) Idk where else to go form here as I didn't plan on making multiple parts but if a part 3 is wanted I'll figure it out!!

Pairing: Spencer x bookstore!owner!reader

Content warnings: none really, swears a little, both spencer and reader are still hella awkward

Word count: 875

Part one

I waited and waited for Spencer to come in again. 3 weeks of waiting, actually. I was starting to think I’d scared him off, although I didn’t know how I managed to do that. I was sulking, standing in front of the register with Lennon on a particularly slow day. Rose, the angel that she was, was helping stock books while I attempted to focus my mind and work on packaging online orders.

“I’m just delusional. I scared him off and now he’s never coming back!” I exclaim, earning a sideways look from Rose across the store.

“You can’t scare someone off if you’ve never talked to them,” Lennon says with a laugh. For someone younger than me he was such a bully. (lovingly, of course)

“But I did talk to him. And he knows I hide from him whenever he comes in.” 

“Girl, I swear to god if you don’t let me help you find that man’s Instagram or something I will lose my mind. you need to get out of your comfort zone and make a fucking mo-“

The bell chimed. My eyes widened. Lennon shut his mouth as quick as he opened it. 

Spencer was standing in my store, standing there with an awkward yet charming smile and a wave. I wave back, feeling my cheeks flush. As soon as he walks down an aisle, talking to Rose, I hit Lennon on the shoulder.

“Go take inventory or something.” I say under my breath.

“Ohh, so you like the register now” He teases, his voice a little louder than I would’ve preferred. I playfully shove him away and try to collect myself. I was going to act natural, I wasn’t going to be weird. I was going to be myself. I told myself he was just another customer, however untrue to me that might be. 

Thankfully though, this time around I had more time to prepare what I was going to say, something I needed if I was going to get through a few sentences with him without fumbling my words. He came to the register with a stack of 4 books. Seriously, my curiosity was piqued. How did he read this fast? I noticed this time one of them was a poetry book; ‘Leaves of Grass’ by Walt Whitman. Interesting. I always took note of what people were buying, and obviously, he was at the front of my mind. This selection surprised me. 

“You’re not hiding!” He comments. I nod and smile, slightly embarrassed at the fact he had pointed it out. 

“It’s very out of character, I know” I was trying to come off as witty, but truthfully I could only pray that what he saw. “so, how are you?”

“I’m great actually. I finally have a day off and decided I could come pick up a few new reads.” 

I nodded slowly but the question was still on my mind. I had to know.

“I hope I don’t overstep with this, but do you actually go through books as fast as you’re buying them?”

A smile twitches as his lips, a slight pink tinge covering his cheeks.

“I-yeah, I do. I…read really fast.” His voice seemed a little nervous. I wouldn’t press the matter right now, but it definitely caught my attention.

“I can tell” I chuckle softly, hitting a few buttons on the cash register as I finish ringing up his things. “You definitely bring a lot of business here”

He laughed softly, a sound I could’ve relished in. But my own mind stopped me-I was supposed to be acting normal. 

Then the unexpected happened. After he paid for his things with actual small talk from my end-he lingered. For once I was glad we didn’t have much business today, I got to really talk to him. He was kind, and clearly very smart. I found out we actually had a lot of mutual interests. Talking to him was weirdly easy, even if I had this consistent feeling of butterflies in my stomach. But then I heard his phone go off with a text.

“Shoot…I hate to cut our conversation short but I have to go.” He says as he tucks his phone back in his pocket. I nod, albeit a little sadly. I had Lennon's voice in the back of my mind 

“Make a fucking move, make a fucking move, make a fucking move…”

It was now or never.

“I was wondering if…maybe, only if you want…do you want to go out for coffee sometime? When you’re not working.” 

His eyes widened and I had this temporary moment of fear before his eyes softened and he smiled.

“I would-I would really love that.” 

I gestured slightly to his phone.

“Can I give you my number?”

“Oh yeah, yeah! yes, please do” He fumbles to get his phone back out and unlock it, only having one hand to do so as the other was still holding his bag of books.

I put my number in, and we said goodbye, but just as he was about to leave I asked one last thing.

“Spencer?”

He turns and looks at me again, waiting.

“How fast do you really read?”

“20,000 words per minute.”

What have I gotten myself into?

[icanseethefuture333]

could you do a ranking of who in nct 127 is most to least likely to date a woc, similarly to how you did for stray kids 👀

Who in NCT 127 is MTL to date a foreigner?

1. Jaehyun

2. Jungwoo

3. Mark

4. Johnny

5. Taeyong

6. Taeil

7. Yuta

8. WinWin

9. Doyoung

10. Haechan

The ranking is from left to right.

Jaehyun's reason for being most likely to date a foreigner is because he loves them honestly 🤣? He likes the attention and praise he gets ("JAMALLLL" 💀). Jaehyun could also feel more compatible with them. I heard "Idk they just hit differently" help??? He finds them extremely attractive. So the love is mutual lol. Jaehyun is pretty delulu when it comes to his foreign fanbase so he feels more confident dating a foreigner who’s also a poc.

Jungwoo's energy feels more shy? He's the type to stare at someone he'd find attractive and wouldn't want to approach them given his job position and everything. So if Jungwoo had a crush he'd most likely gaze at their beauty or be very respectful with his approach. He could behave like a gentleman and pull out chairs for someone, open doors, etc. "No, no I insist!" Jungwoo would keep his feelings a secret but if he were to see someone he liked more frequently and were possibly friends with them, he'd ask them politely if they'd like to go for coffee or something.

Mark I feel is more accustomed to being with just about any type of girl so I don't feel he has a specific preference, but he does have a type. I think out of everyone he is the most confident to ask a foreigner out. Mark is "understanding" of how foreign women are (*nene leakes voice* whatever that means). He could have a belief that: "Don't bother approaching woc if you're broke". 😭 I feel like Mark likes taking on the provider role or being the one who pays for things in a relationship. (Channeled song: Wanna Be A Baller by Lil Troy & Pimpin' All Over by Ludacris). He's immature in some aspects romantically but he'd be a fun fuck buddy basically.

Johnny relates more to foreigners than he does than Korean citizens. So he could date like a foreign poc or other foreign Asians that are similar to him. For example, First generation citizens would peak his interest because it would be a similar background to his. He could date mostly the "Suburban" type of poc. Johnny's dating history isn't as diverse as the others in comparison but he is open to it!

Taeyong is leaning towards the idea but not entirely if it makes sense. The desire is there but he’s also aware that being in a relationship with someone who’s not from the same background as him would be a difficult path to pursue. He could know people who are mixed or in interracial relationships possibly? As in half Korean or friends his age who have a partner who’s not the same race, so hearing their experiences makes him very understanding of that and he would want to approach someone who’s not the same race as him without as much knowledge as possible. I find this response to be the best in my opinion. It seems that Taeyong would want to be educated about his partner and their culture. He isn’t a “I don’t see color” type of person, he acknowledges it and would want to make an effort by doing things right.

Taeil is more of the person who needs to be friends with someone first before entering a relationship. He could be very open with how he communicates and speaks his mind. I don’t feel he would have an issue complimenting someone or telling them he’s attracted to them. I don’t believe he has a preference honestly. It’s whoever he is attracted to at the moment that he’d date.

If the opportunity presented itself then yes, Yuta would date a foreigner. I feel it would be more of a fling though. He’s not interested in settling down at the moment. Yuta prefers to see how things unfold naturally and doesn’t date with the intention of a committed relationship. His mindset is like “If I fall in love, cool, if I don’t, that’s cool too “. He’s more free spirited when it comes to love.

WinWin could be in a relationship with someone already 😭? Or this just means he’s dated a foreigner before? He doesn’t think much of it. He’s romantic so any person who intrigues him, WinWin would be happy regardless. If there’s a connection he’d be willing to explore that dynamic.

Doyoung is too concerned with financial matters to date a foreigner. He believes his fanbase would react negatively to it? His image is more important to him and would feel dating a foreigner would damage that (yikes…). I believe he’d also be worried they’d only want to be with him for his money.

Haechan is more traditional. He’d want to date someone with similar values and from the same background as him. It’s not something that interests him or has ever crossed his mind. His intentions are to marry someone who’s also Korean and plans to pass down family customs.

[jazzthatonewriterchick]

Lovers & Friends (18+ Fic)

Pairing: Keigo Takami x Black!Fem!Reader (Friends to Lovers)

Synopsis: In which you and Keigo have begun to realize the strange new feelings you both have for each other after one drunken night at a close friend’s wedding that ends with you in his bed, but because of your longtime friendship and committed relationships with other people, you’re more than happy to forget that night even happened and keep your mutual feelings in the dark…for now, at least. 

Story Warnings: Smutty smut; 18+ (MINORS GET AWAY); Cheating/Infidelity; Mating; Light Degradation; Spanking; Exhibitionism; Multiple Positions; Creampie; Unprotected PIV Sex; Facial; Scent Play; Marking; Spitting; Deepthroating; Cunnilingus; Begging; Edgeplay; Power Play; Wing-Stroking; Daddy Kink; Some Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Mild Violence

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned in this fic. However, as this is my writing, I do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other sites that are not from my own accounts. Thank you!

Writer's Note: Got another smutty ass story for y'all! And it's with my baby daddy Hawks!! I had this idea in storage for a while. Idk how long it'll be, but I'll try to finish it before the holidays start coming since shit is gonna get BUSY. Thank you always for the love & views! -Jazz

Chapters: Soundtrack. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Bonus Chapter.

Read on AO3 here!

***********

Chapter One: The Dry Spell. 

“God, yes, Y/N!” Rei shouts from above you, his hips grinding against yours as he pistons in and out of you. 

The bedsprings to your bed creak in time with his movements which are relentless as he approaches his orgasm. “You feel so good!” he moans, eyes closed and a smile on his face. “Are you feelin’ it too?” 

You stare at him from underneath his body, barely making a peep. “Yeah,” you mumble. “I’m definitely feelin’ something.” Instead of looking at how much ecstasy your boyfriend is in above you from the completely dry and unsatisfying sex, you look off to the window where the warm summer night air blows in. 

You wonder briefly what other people are doing on a nice night such as this one. Hopefully something better than this: lying underneath a man and pretending to like how his fingers are rubbing your clit too hard.

Not that he notices. He doesn’t notice much when he’s close to nutting. You instantly feel horrible for thinking this way about your man, but shit, after a year of dating, you’d think the guy would know how to please his woman. You guess not since the sex hasn’t gotten any better since you two did had it the first time. 

All you can do is grasp his shoulders and let him do his thing. When he proceeds to rut into you like he’s trying to hit a home run, you know he’s close. He usually only uses about 10% of his quirk at this point into sex. At first, you were uncomfortable with the amount of speed he was using so he cut back, but now you’re used to it. 

“Fuck!” he shouts, his dark coils of hair bouncing around his head as his hips snap into yours again and again. He grips your hips roughly, meaning you’ll definitely have bruises on your hips tomorrow. He goes so fast that you hit your head against the headboard repeatedly, but you don’t say anything. You don’t want to ruin his fun. It’s bad enough you’re not enjoying yourself even the least bit. You don’t even have the urge to reach down and rub your clit to cum with him. 

But you do care about the guy and you don’t want to hurt his feelings, so this is usually the point where you fake your orgasm. Getting into character, you grip his shoulders and wrap your legs around him, pulling him in deeper. “Yeah, baby,” you gasp into his ear. “Cum with me, please! Make me cum! Yes, yes, just like that!” 

A string of fake moans and whines you remember hearing in your favorite porn videos leaves your lips as Rei fucks you until the point of no return. The moans that leave his lips are shrill and loud. You sigh, knowing you’ll have issues with your neighbors again over noise complaints. When he finally cums, it is just as uneventful and anti-climatic as a bad action movie. His muscles clench and his body seizes, his mouth open in a silent O of pure ecstasy. When Rei cums, he always sounds like he’s having the biggest yawn of his life. 

You just continue to play your part, acting like you’re cumming with him. However, your mind is somewhere else entirely. Though his handsome face and sweat-soaked body are nice to look at, you feel nothing even remotely close to arousal that urges you to cum. You feel nothing. And you hate that. 

Finally, after giving you some more sloppy thrusts of his hips, Rei looks down at you and smiles, bliss on his face. “That was amazing,” he sighs. “You’re amazing.” You manage to smile as he lovingly strokes your face. “You’re so pretty when you cum,” he coos before leaning down to kiss your lips. 

Now, Rei is a great kisser–he has these full, pink lips that he knows how to work against yours. You wish you could cum just by his makeout sessions. But this is about the only thing he’s really good at when it comes to physical intimacy, especially in the bedroom. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about your pleasure too, but he isn’t attentive. He doesn’t quite know or understand your body. 

Or maybe you just don’t know yours. That may be another reason why you’re not feeling sexy time with your boyfriend. 

You look away towards the window as your boyfriend rolls off of you, satisfied with the unfulfilling sex you two just had. You don’t tell him you didn’t cum. You just let him feel proud of himself, not wanting to argue or hurt him. But the simmering frustration inside of you doesn’t let up. 

Rei reaches for you for a snuggle like you usually do after sex, but you’re not in the mood to pretend tonight. “Um!” you squeak, suddenly sitting up straight. Rei stares at you, confused. “I-I’m gonna go pee,” you tell him, giving him a reassuring smile. “I’ll be right back.” 

Rei, in all of his beauty, with his tan skin, toned body, and that cute little mole on his chin, smiles at you. “Hurry back,” he coos, sitting up against the headboard of your bed. You smile and slip out of bed, quickly grabbing your robe from the floor that Rei ripped off of you beforehand. 

You slip into your private bedroom and close the door, locking it for good measure. Then you sit on the edge of your bathtub and put your head in your hands. Your body yearns for release and your pussy aches in desperation. You’d run the sink water and masturbate if you didn’t know you’d feel guilty for it later.

You groan, running your hands through your hair. “Why are you like this?” you ask yourself. 

You wish you had the answer. The unfulfilling sex is nothing new–it’s been happening for months now. You don’t know when you realized how much you despised having sex with Rei, but it never let up or resolved itself. 

For one, the sex is boring. While Rei loves his missionary and doggy style but he doesn’t mind switching things up when you ask. You want to 69? He does it. You want to be on top? He lets you with no problem. 

But kink has never been Rei’s thing in the bedroom. There was one time you and Rei tried handcuffs one night, but he had lost the key, so you never ventured down the road to kinkiness ever again. But with every new, adventurous thing you tried in the bedroom, nothing worked. While it’s totally fine for kinky sex to not be someone’s thing, there are times when you want more from Rei. You want some excitement! Some razzle dazzle! Something to have you coming back for more!

Secondly, Rei isn’t as attentive or in tune with your body as you want him to be. Though you’ve tried to teach him, he’s always pinching your nipples just a little too hard or wiggling his tongue a little too fast when he goes down. You often just let him do what he wants now without speaking up because of how hard he’s been going with work. 

And then there’s a third reason: you simply don’t feel that connection with Rei during sex, which is odd because he’s such an attractive and amazing guy! He’s a gentleman; kind and intelligent; sweet and funny. Not to mention he’s an amazing pro hero, ranked at no. 9. He goes by the name “Tempo” to match his speed quirk. He can control and utilize his quirk extremely well during missions. You’ve seen him in action many, many times since you’ve worked together over the years. 

You found yourself working alongside him at your first agency (which you’re still at now) shortly after graduating UA when you were just eighteen. Word around the office was that he was crushing on you, but you never had a chance to investigate because he was transferred to a new agency that paid him a lot more four years later.

Time passed and at the age of twenty-six, you found yourself crossing his path again a year ago during a mission that involved a bank robbery and a villain with a gas quirk. You knew Rei the moment you saw him once you got a look at his hero’s fit and those coils of black hair that reached his shoulders. After an arrest and a job well done, Rei had asked you out for coffee and that was all she wrote. 

Now here you are, about to rip your hair out over a possible future of doomed sex and no orgasms. This is truly a tragic tale for you both. After a few more minutes of moping and regretting your life choices, you splash some cold water on your face from the sink and walk back into your bedroom to find Rei getting dressed. “What’s up?” you ask as he pulls on his briefs and then his jeans. 

“Villain attack,” he sighs, his tall, broad frame silhouetted in the moonlight as he buttons his pants. “Fucker decided to terrorize downtown by setting fire to some buildings. Apparently, he has a Pyro quirk. It’s not nothin’ too bad, but my boss wants me posted with a couple of other heroes I’ve worked with before.” He turns to you, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, honey. I wanted to stay tonight, especially since Rumi isn’t here, so we could spend more time together.” 

You feel a twinge of guilt in your gut. Here you are, neglecting him and acting distant, and he’s so concerned about spending more time with you because of your work. You feel like the worst girlfriend and person in the world.

You go to him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “It’s fine. The work of a pro is never done, ya know.” You peck him on the lips, nuzzling your nose with his. “Go, and be careful. I don’t need to see you on the news tomorrow all bruised up.” 

Rei scoffs, rolling his pine-tree green eyes at you. “Please. Like that’d be possible with my speed.” You stand back and watch him put his shirt and shoes on before he presses another kiss to your lips, holding onto your waist. “I love you,” he whispers against your lips. 

“I love you too,” you reply, which is definitely something you say to someone who loves you. At least that’s what you tell yourself. But even as the words leave your lips, you don’t feel like you truly mean them–yet another reason you’re a horrible girlfriend and person. You’re lying right through your teeth. 

Rei smiles adoringly at you before he leaves your bedroom and minutes later, exits your apartment. As soon as he’s gone and you hear his car pull out of your driveway, you sit down on the edge of your bed and run your hands over your face, trying to fight back the tears threatening to push through and make your night even worse. 

“Fuck, I thought he’d never leave.” 

A very familiar (and sexy, according to some people) voice coming from your window makes you jump right out of your skin and nearly use your quirk to fend off the “threat” you believe they are. However, when a familiar mess of unruly blonde locks and goggles peers around the corner to look into your bedroom, you sigh in relief and irritation. “Keigo!” you scold him as he sneaks through your bedroom window, decked out in his hero’s gear too. 

He gives you his signature dazzling, white-toothed grin as he climbs through your window that even the burn scare that stretched from his jawline down to his neck can distract you from. “What’s poppin’, b?” he asks, using that greeting only he and Dabi use to make you and Rumi cringe. 

“You can’t just sneak up on me like that or come to my bedroom window, especially when Rei is here,” you criticize. “How many times do I have to tell you this shit?” 

Keigo huffs, now standing in your bedroom in the late hours of the night, which is a normal occurrence for the pro hero no. 2 aka Hawks. He’s been crawling through your bedroom window for late-night adventures since middle school when it was just you and him. Rumi aka Mirko, the Rabbit Hero, came later while you attended UA.

Not much has changed since then, except now, instead of your childhood home, Keigo crawls through the window of the condo across the city that you share with Rumi. 

“Oh, relaaax, baby bird,” he chides you. “After the last time I showed up and got a flash of your man’s dick, I learned my lesson. Plus, you act like I’ve never seen you naked before.” He raises an eyebrow at you. “Remember that time in middle school I snuck into the girls’ locker room?” 

You laugh at the memory, remembering the big ass knot he walked around with for days after that you gave him. “Yeah, and I believe that’s when we first met. Shit, that was a long time ago. Weren’t we in fifth grade?” 

“Sixth,” he corrects you, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “But we can reminisce more over our decades-long friendship over some wings, shots, and karaoke at Hoshi’s now that I’m off the clock.” 

You sigh, already exhausted from the idea of going out tonight. Especially with Keigo. The man is like a damn kid with candy once he’s got some alcohol in him. “As much as I’d love to hear your drunk ass attempt at singing,” you sarcastically say, “I’m not really in the mood for all that, Kei.” 

By the look Keigo gives you, with his head tilted to the side like a puppy, he can tell this has to do with Rei. He doesn’t even have to ask, which you also hate. The guy can read you like an open book, but you’d expect nothing less from someone you’ve been friends with for years now. 

Instead of saying anything, he just takes his wallet out of his back pocket and flashes it to you, an eyebrow raised: ‘I’m paying.’ You groan, not being able to turn down free wings, booze, and endless karaoke. “Alright, fine,” you sigh, defeated. “Get out so I can change and don’t wake Rumi.” 

Keigo flashes you a prideful grin at his success. “I never wake cottontail,” he scoffs before turning to the window and climbing back out, laughing into the night as he does. 

You sigh and walk to your bedroom closet, readying yourself for a night of total chaos. 

[pagodazz]

Patrick and Michael hcs

for @freezingmcxn

These two are WAYYYYY more different than Evan and wow it makes me sick.

If Patrick was possessing another body, he would be pulling Michael into the biggest hug he could.

They're dynamic is something that is so special to me, something that is so gentle yet violent, but they know how to work with each other and its just so nice to see.

Michael is more than a vessel to Patrick, Michael is a friend. Michael is everything.

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

Patrick wants to take care of Michael, he wants to keep him safe, he needs everyone to understand that he's only doing what's best for MICHAEL.

it's not about anyone else, they don't matter. they're disposable, they don't matter the way Michael does, they are important like Michael.

Patrick is in his head like a guardian angel, something there to protect and guide him, all while rotting him from the inside out.

And Michael loves Patrick, it took him awhile to separate himself from him, but once he did, he found things to be just so much easier.

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

I'm so taking this from my mutual but, Michael and Patrick definitely have conversations in public through typing on the computer or writing stuff down on a little notebook Michael keeps around with.

Patrick will talk in his head, or take control of his hand and they'll have conversations. it doesn't always have to be about how to defeat Slenderman or figure out the whole clock thing. It could just be casual stuff, Like about how Michael is doing mentally. Did he eat? Patrick knows Michael didn't eat.

Michael doesn't exactly make friends easy, and he's always got Patrick to rely on. Patrick is always going to be there and he's always going to understand everything that Michael has gone through. Sometimes Michael thinks about what it'd be like to sit down face to face with Patrick, to be able to actually be in his presence.

Michael wouldn't want human Patrick of course, he would the true form, which to me, is wolf like, like HABITS or it would atleast be some sort of humanoid animal thing.. (maybe like an owl. An owl dragon fly type situation idk. they're just so Patrick to me.)

But he would want the real Patrick and he would want to be able to thank him for everything face to face, he knows that Patrick did everything he could, that he isn't evil.

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

Patrick is not human, he's not Michael, he's not related to Michael, he's PART of him the same way HABIT is part of Evan. But Patrick learned to adapt with Michael, he learned to communicate with him, he learned to be kind and he learned pain and regret thanks to Michael.

And Michael learned that HE is not human. and he learned he doesn't exactly hate violence. He doesn't exactly mind the way Patrick causes destruction, because it gives him something to feel. something he can hold on to.

Some guy could say something rude to Michael at a bar and Patrick will take over in seconds, slamming his face into the bar and kicking him out of his stool.

and Michael will feel GREAT after. nothing gets his adrenaline pumping more than the way it feels when Patrick takes over him..the phantom feeling of his fist hitting someones face could last on his skin for hours and it would have Michael itching for something more. Which is probably a reason Michael likes to get high all the time, he doesn't wanna always feel the need to be violent.

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

(Tw. self harm mention. I bring it up bc it's canon)

If it's not other people he's hurting, Michael will be hurting himself, especially if Patrick isn't present in his head all. whenever Michael is all alone by himself, he can barely TOLERATE IT. Somehow Patrick would always show up in his head just in time and he'd help speed up the healing process and he'd get all concerned and try to suggest maybe Michael needs the ward again but Michael HATES the ward.

So instead Michael will just tell Patrick all his problems and Patrick will give the best advice he can, and if someone hurt Michael, Patrick will make SURE he takes care of them.

They have something so calm and domestic going on and I love that for them.

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

MY ASKS ARE OPEN!! FOR ANYONE SND ANY SLENDERVERSE CHARACTER.!!

I hope you guys enjoy these. comments are appreciated :3

[steffigraf]

warning for a clearly anxiety-ridden oversharing freakout below the cut. sorry. i’m too sensitive and i’m unfortunately acutely aware of it.

tldr; im being a drama queen. gonna take a tumblr break for a week or two. to my mutuals, feel free to dm for my insta. i’ll be active until i wake up tomorrow morning and then i’m gonna zip

gonna preface this by saying this is in no way directed to the people whom i actually talk to constantly on here like you lot were lovely and im just dealing with a lot of demons in my head :(

anyway. sometimes i feel more like a product manufacturer than a person on here. and idk. i know most of you guys are really just following me for gifs and content and whatever but. yeah. idk. i guess the things i say don’t matter to anyone unless it’s funny. or if people want to call me out. not that im mad abt that exactly btw i do appreciate when people respectfully call me out for my own mistakes but. sometimes. i feel like im in a fishbowl and you’re all just waiting for me to say something wrong and cancel me. or then again, maybe most of you already think im a shit person and you just stay for the gifs. or maybe you guys think i’m a loser who has nothing to do but spend all day on this goddamn website.

and i know, somewhere inside me, that that’s not true and that it’s clearly the anxiety talking. maybe it’s just me maybe i’m making this up in my head i dunno. but i’m just kinda tired right now. too tired to battle the anxiety like usual at least. and i don’t really feel wanted outside of the content i produce, beyond the notes of my gifs or my fun posts. which ik shouldn’t matter but. i’m a pathological people pleaser etc etc.

(god, seeing this all typed out, i can’t even fucking blame you guys if you actly don’t like me cause. i kinda wanna shake myself by the shoulders and tell myself get a grip girl the world doesn’t revolve around you shut up shut up shut your damn mouth—)

i’ve been trying to manage by unfollowing and blocking a few people (which btw, if i did that to you and we used to be mutuals, it’s probably nothing personal i mostly just kept people i’m a bit closer to). but i’m still not really settled. and considering how i’m posting like every other day about feeling like shit, you guys probably figured that out lmao.

and well. on a separate note. seeing that rat’s name alone is too much for me sometimes. i couldn’t watch his game with carlos. i spent hours in his match with daniil turned away from the television, wearing noise canceling headphones while trying (and failing) to talk myself down from a full blown anxiety attack. i’ve said this before but the way people talk about him, both the fucked up silence and the justified outrage, it reminds me way too much about a family problem i have right now. hits uncomfortably close to home. prior to this i kinda thought i’d made my peace with the whole family situation but no apparently not. had he won the semis, i wasn’t even sure if i would be able to stomach cheering for jannik if it meant having to watch that man play.

so. idk. between the way actual tennis has been making me feel and the way tennisblr in general has seemed for me lately, i figure i need some space.

long story short ive been spending way too much time on tumblr this ao. and its gotten really bad for my mental health i guess. so i think i need to take maybe a week or two, to clear my head. watch tennis without opening this app every other point. spend time with people i love. get back to therapy. try to be a functioning adult.

(this is so fucking dramatic for a goddamn week of no tumblr i know that and i want to smack myself upside the head because why am i like this why do i make things snowball why why why—)

anyway. yeah. that’s it. if you actually read through all of that then. thanks. if not it’s okay too.

to my mutuals, the ones whom i’ve had at least some form of friendly interaction with in replies or dms, you can ask for my insta account btw. not that i’m crazy active on there but like. if you guys wanna be friends beyond the anonymity of this yknow. no pressure though.

[professorspork]

Hey, a little while ago, you reblogged that post about AI learning when people insert fics into AI text generators, and I wanted to offer good news and bad news: the good news is that AI learning models mostly don’t work like this. The publicly accessible text generator isn’t the whole learning model, it’s a single machine that the learning model generated. It won’t get fed directly back into the AI.

The BAD news is that there’s not really anything stopping them from saving that information separately to use later, and (much worse) anything that’s publicly available has probably already been scraped and saved. The good-in-this-context-but-depressing-overall news is that these models operate on the scale of billions of words, so, like. Idk. Individual fics ending up in a database mostly isn’t going to matter. That’s part of why the data-scraping isn’t something devs think about, ethically. This info is a paraphrase of another post I’ve seen going around saying the same thing, but I can personally corroborate it; before AI was a “crypto people hate when artists can earn a living” thing, I took some college courses on it and followed blogs about AI stuff for years. The last year or two of AI news has been really shitty :P It’s been really cool to me for a long time, but it is now clear that it’s even-more-vulnerable-than-usual to “capitalism uses every tool for oppression first” Knowing how it works is exhausting because anti-AI people are sometimes not all that much more accurate about how it actually works than the fervently pro-AI “I think chat-gpt is a person and human-generated art is dead” people, and then both of them skip talking about the more concrete problems like the “chat-gpt is propped up by slave labor” stuff.

I really appreciated this series of asks and wanted to make it available for all!

I think what we run into here is where like. A rhetorical device to invoke a sense of stakes and a bit of a guilt trip ("this is plagiarism because it feeds the AI" and its many permutations) can run up against misinformation (it's not literally becoming part of the AI's knowledge base, though as you noted it certainly COULD.) Because like

Where that post was coming from was someone being like "but why shouldn't I do this?" and the answerer resorting to "because it takes my work away from me" and this is still true in like, the rules of community and creativity if not necessarily in the hard lines of code. it's harder to articulate "this makes me uncomfortable because it's violated my ineffable sense of mutual belonging with and ownership of my own work, which I already felt on shaky ground on because it's fanwork but still FEEL with my WHOLE HEART" than it is to say "this concretely makes my words fuel for the machine" which I think people grok as a more sort of understandable breach of that social contract.

Which is why I like this post a lot because it gets at the WHY of why this is so perturbing and violating and isolating

Fandom was never meant to be a solo endeavor! when I write fic and put it out into the world, it's like echolocation. the words I put out are only half of what gives it shape and meaning to me-- the other half is the sound of it reverberating back to me as it bounces off the people it hits by way of comments, tags in reblogs, and DMs and they tell me their reactions and interpretations. that's what makes it a complete picture and not just screaming into the void.

to be removed from that process at all is a heartbreak to me; to have my words taken without my consent is insulting and misses the point and just. ultimately makes all of us that much more alone. which is to say that it's factually correct to say individual fics ending up in a database won't matter because it's probably already been scraped anyway because that's true for the AI and for the data. but individual fics DO matter insofar as like, these are choices people are making about what this hobby is and means and why they like it and what they think it's for and how they enjoy it, on a communal and social level, and THAT matters to me a great deal, in the same way that like, people now might end up getting videoed for a tiktok without their consent or whatever. it's about the erosion of privacy and respect.

but also yeah ChatGPT also runs thanks to exploited and underpaid workers, consumes horrific amounts of water in a time of increasing drought crisis and emits tons of carbon to boot.

[myork]

9 Years Of BTS . (130613)

One word you associate with BTS or how they make you feel

As answered by my mutuals and followers ♡

Thank you so much to everybody who answered and shared your reasons with me <3 here are a few other explanations <3

"I'm a Christian and I was pretty scared of joining this fandom because I though I was going to be judged. But I wasn't–like, at all. This family is filled with the people I trust the most, because BTS and ARMY always got my back–And I'll always have theirs."

"if it was two words i would say big brothers because that's exactly what they are to me. a bit like the kuyas (a word in plural form in my native language used to refer to an older man with respect or for an older man in general like older brothers) i've never had. that's probably why i picked "family." i think it hits me hard because i don't have any siblings. also my mom is willing to adopt them and become their mom lol."

"they made me learn to love myself, and love life... <3"

"ive never seen such a tight-knit group honestly it’s like they’re all siblings. also each one of them are talented in their own way."

"I just feel like theyre rlly good role models for healthy communication and. idk they make me feel loveable/not alone with my mental health struggles."

"My sense of purpose. Life for me was eat, sleep, work until they inspire me to want to do and be more."

"Their music makes me so happy and almost always puts a smile on my face. Songs like Mikrokosmos and Anpanman and Butter especially just always make me grin. And then of course they release so much content that makes me smile. And interacting with other Army makes me smile too, its always nice to connect with someone over a shared love for BTS. Have you ever been so overcome/overwhelmed with happiness that you started laughing?? BTS makes me do that on a regular basis."

"for me bts is the representation of brotherhood/family. They have been together for more than 10 years, they have known each other so well, in other words, they are like brothers who support and love each other no matter what and i think that's sweet because in our society people tend to judge this kind of friendships by calling them "gay". However, you know what's the best thing? That they don't care about what people say about them, they still behave the same way with each other and that's what makes me love them even more."

"Basically like home. I know they're extremely chaotic but there's this sense of peace in my heart that I found them."

"Always make me swoon."

"There really is no better word for me to explain how those seven young men from South Korea make me feel. I don't feel any other band I followed/stan in the past years ever felt as comforting (and familiar, in a way) as BTS does. Whenever I feel like I'm about to fall into a bad mental state, or I'm bored/sad or I just want to distract myself from this real world, I listen to their music or watch a run bts episode or even a compilation of their best/funniest/most comforting moments and feel better. No matter what, they always manage to make me smile and bring me the same comfort I would feel as my closest friend hugged me for hours."

"they were there for me through some really hard times, i don't know what i would've done without them."

"i’m a baby army (got interested in them after grammys 2022) and i haven’t been this happy in a while, watching random yt videos of them, listening to their songs and their meaning. for me it’s like a ray of sunshine everytime. i don’t have army friends yet so i can’t have pretty much no one to talk abt this so i just make my friends/bf listen to my daily rants about them haha"

"because they make me happy."

"BTS encourages me to love myself. BTS loves me and other ARMY even without meeting most of us. They love us so much that they tell us to stop listening to their music, watching their videos, etc. and go do important things like homework, work, or spending time with family and friends. BTS loves us so much that they want to give all ARMYs a free concert. BTS loves us so much that they post little updates of their lives when they know we're missing them. BTS loves us so much that they use us to love themselves. BTS loves us so much that they call us their best friends, their butterflies, and their stars. BTS loves us so much that they've created a community of people who respect each other like brothers and sisters even if they don't know each other personally (ARMY). BTS' love has created social movements for change and has donated so much money for the greater good. This love is truly pure and genuine, and I have never felt such a love from someone so far away, never mind from an artist to a fan. It doesn't matter that we're hemispheres apart, because I feel like they are with me and I am with them. This love is why BTS makes me feel loved."

[iraprince]

Heyo! Any advice on struggling to get your art seen in the world? I feel like no matter how much I post, or what I post, people never see it or seem to like it. I love art and am pursuing it as a career (hence why Im getting a degree in it currently lmao) but its kind of disheartening to work really hard on something, post it, and no one sees it.

oh, man. i'm afraid for this one i don't feel like i have a lot of solid advice. having a large-ish following online feels like something that kind of just, like, Happened to me, mostly on accident/in ways outside of my control, and even if i had some ideas on how to potentially replicate those gains i don't think they'd work consistently. (also, a lot of my large jumps in follower count came from mental health related work going viral bc it's #relatable; this is something i have complicated feelings about and it's absolutely not a viable, like, "strategy" or something that i would recommend, in the way that ppl can say like, "fanart gets attention!" or stuff like that.)

so, i don't have advice for how to actually GET those eyes on your art; i can maybe help with making ppl more likely to STAY once they do find you, and how to build a following that will actually help you maintain a living from your work -- bc i have TONS of peers w a following a fraction of the size of mine who get more jobs than me, are doing cooler/more "professional" stuff than me, etc! (heads up that most of my experience is on twitter; i know less than nothing about places like instagram + tiktok, and while tumblr functions very differently from twitter i feel like i handle things mostly the same here, aside from doing less personal posting/being less talkative and not 'networking' or following many people).

SCROLLING BACK UP TO ADD A SPOILER ALERT: AS ALWAYS I HAVE SAID "HAHA IDK I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY ADVICE" AND THEN PROCEEDED TO TYPE A FULL ESSAY. IF YOU ARE ON DESKTOP YOU CAN HIT THE 'J' KEY TO SKIP THIS POST. IF YOU'RE ON MOBILE, I'M SORRY

a very important thing, especially professionally: it HAS to be easy to see what you do. (this is easier here on tumblr, where u can have a designated art tag etc, than on twitter, which is an awful website that sucks. <- guy who makes all his money on twitter) this means, like -- if i see something from you and get curious and click your profile, it should only take one more click to quickly see at least SOME of your art. on a professional account, it's probably best for your icon to be your own work, something snappy and memorable and eye-catching that reads well at a small size; people shouldn't have to dig for 20 minutes before they can start browsing your art. on twitter, this means TRY not to gunk up your media tab with a ton of reaction images/screencaps of your gacha pulls/etc; on here, it means make your art tag easy to find; on any website, a portfolio link, prominently displayed, is the best bet. (i am still working on that one myself lmao and i've been working professionally full time for a few years now so like, there are outliers and wiggle room on all of this).

next! it's great when your audience finds you, but you have to find them, too. find artists who do similar stuff to you and get into their stuff -- sincerely, not just as "networking." (like only do this with ppl whose stuff you actually think is cool, not just trying to get in mutuals with everyone you see in hopes of a bump, obviously.) get interested in other indie artists, find the people who are working/publishing in the spaces that are exciting and aspirational for you, and support them! i don't want it to sound cynical when i say there's a kind of give-and-take built into this; the point is not "well, if i reblog/retweet a bunch of YOUR stuff, maybe you'll feel obligated to boost mine in return," but that when you find other artists/creatives who are on the same wavelength as you, you will naturally stumble into pools of people who want to support art like yours, and you and your newfound peers will help each other when you hype each other's stuff up and direct followers to each other! (again re: things going differently on dif websites: this is twitter-specific for me, bc i use my tumblr as a gallery/portfolio. that doesn't mean it doesn't happen here tho! it can and does happen everywhere!)

it is really not a competition. i know that SOMETIMES it is in like, a really nitty-gritty numbers sense; people only have so much money to spare, they will make choices about whose patreon they can afford/what comic to buy/etc, that's true. but to me that's not competition. people who are sincerely into your stuff will hang on until they can afford it; maybe that means someone follows you for two whole years before the planets align and they have the budget/opportunity to commission you. by hanging out in similar circles you are not taking potential business or opportunities away from anyone else, nor are you risking leading your own audience to Someone They'll Like Better; you're just offering more options, and the internet is VAST and endless, and EVENTUALLY people will show up who are into YOUR STUFF, SPECIFICALLY. helping each other is never going to stifle or delay that!!

and my final chunk of advice is the one i give constantly that everyone is probably super sick of hearing but i just seriously seriously believe in it, even tho i know it's slow to pay off and hard to follow: keep doing exactly what you want to. keep doing it!!! you have to!!! yes, i mean the stuff that's getting like, 2 likes and 0 reblogs! the stuff that 'nobody likes!'

earlier i mentioned i have gotten big follower bumps from like adhd comics and stuff like that going viral. the thing is that, from a professional standpoint: my follower count has like, more than quintupled from where it was at a few years ago; my patreon income has absolutely NOT quintupled lmfao. it has less than doubled, over that same period of like... i wanna say over 4 years. that's still good, i'm grateful for it, and i owe a lot of it to the sheer numbers game (the more ppl see ur work, the more likely it is you'll reach someone who decides to support you), but there is absolutely not an actual direct correlation between numbers and career success/stability.

where there IS a direct correlation is between "people who give a shit about the art i really truly love making" and "people who like my art enough to support me professionally." HUGE chunks of the followers i get any time something goes viral slough off over time; there's nothing wrong with that, they just follow me bc something was funny/interesting and end up realizing my work's not actually their thing. but the ppl who follow me bc they're into all the stuff i post most consistently, the stuff i care about and am passionate about, stick around. and i would not have found them if i wasn't posting the shit i care about!

out there there are people who will be 100% crazy about the stuff that is 100% what you want to make. it's like actually statistically impossible for there not to be. the more niche your thing is, the longer it will take to find them, but they absolutely exist. but if you give up before you find them -- if you start saying, "well, i'll put in 50% of this idea that i love, but the other 50% is too weird and nobody's gonna like it and it'll flop" -- well, in that case, you can only ever find the ppl who are 50% into what you do. don't fuck yourself like that!! you cannot deny yourself the possibility (the INEVITABILITY!!! IMO!!!!!) of finding the people who will 100% get what you're doing.

so: on a pragmatic level, i'm sure there will be ppl who disagree with me on this, and who think it's absolutely mandatory to do fanart as a crowd draw or learn about algorithms and posting times and get on tiktok and do the visibility grind and everything and that it's stupid and irresponsible to tell people not to. i'm sure it's also easy to point out that i'm speaking from a place where i now have more eyes on my stuff than i know what to fucking do with so maybe i'm just totally out of touch and being naive or something. but for me the most important part of doing art now, ESPECIALLY as a career, is to keep loving it and to believe in what i'm doing and to build an audience that cares about the same things i do. and i think it is really really vital to make that your top priority. bc if you don't, then even if you DO crack the code to suddenly getting tons of notes on everything etc -- will you even keep wanting to do it?

this job is hard. it's lonely, in my experience; i spend so much time sitting in front of my computer alone. it's unstable, which is stressful and can be frightening. it's emotionally taxing, for me, because art is so important to me that it's hard to set boundaries and separate my identity from it and actually treat it like a job. it has taken me a long time to find success doing this; maybe i could have gotten there faster if i had tried to find ways to draw an audience specifically, but i think if i had somehow managed to get a big patreon following/tons of commissioners/etc by doing something formulaic or doing stuff that specifically gets tons of attention, but isn't what's natural for me -- i don't think i would have lasted very long that way. this is already hard and complicated enough; i don't think it's sustainable to give up any unnecessary ground on doing exactly what you're passionate about, bc at least in my case, that's mandatory for this even being a livable career for me. i would burn out and decide to do something else very quickly if the only way to succeed was to chase numbers/engagement.

doing it this way is very slow. if i hadn't been able to lean on family/my wife while starting up, i would have had to have a day job for much longer (like, years, probably) while saving up and preparing to go full time; for as long as you struggle to get traction, it may mean going full time has to be on the backburner. but the thing is that there's nothing wrong with that, it's the reality for the vast majority of us (from what i've seen) -- and you'll eventually build a career that can last way longer, i think.

okay oh my god i'm done. sorry about that. like i said this job is pretty lonely and i sit here all day and think about this stuff and then generally do not talk about it with anyone until somebody asks me about it and then i repeat myself at length again. like i did here. anyway have a good night sincerely and i hope some part of this was helpful!!!

[lollytea]

☕️ my best girl forever & ever luz noceda!!!

The protagonist ever!!! I love Luz so much!!! She's such a fun subversion of the "plucky girl heroine" thing that media really likes.

She's upbeat and silly and clumsy and hyper and cuddly and a sweetheart and everything you'd expect from that kind of character. But she's so much more than that. Luz is an insightful, curious and imaginative person who loves to create and learn. She's a brilliant artist!! She wants to be a writer when she grows up!!!

I've always adored the very realistic angle they took with her, being an adhd riddled teen who struggles in a typical school environment and how she uses fantasy books and fanfiction and anime as a form of escapism and how it gets to the somewhat unhealthy point where she has a hard time separating her coping mechanism from the world around her. It's just. It's so real. It hits.

And then!! And then!!! Luz actually does escape to a real living breathing fantasy world and she thinks this will be her opportunity to live out her YA protag dreams. But ironically, this fantasy world is the place that actually helps her to come to terms with the complexities of the real world. Like. She didn't exactly get what she wanted. But she got what she needed.

Her whole struggle with wishing she could be special. A "chosen one" but she's so consumed with fantasy tropes that she struggles to see things the way they are. But she learns!!! She learns to accept herself as nobody especially important and decides to make an impact on the world herself, rather than wait for somebody to give her a destiny. Idk I feel like it's a lovely lesson for kids.

And then once she accepts that she really starts to flourish!! Luz would not have made it this far in the series if she wasn't the person she was. She's so smart!! She figures out the mechanisms of glyphs and how they work. She experiments and tinkers until she masters all the tricks of the technique.

She wanted to be a witch so bad but she initially felt limited because she didn't have biological magic. But that's Luz!! She does stuff in her own way!!! She thinks outside the box!!!

She means a lot to me. A neurodivergent teen girl who's always felt so isolated in the world she was living in finally getting the chance to form real emotional bonds with people who care about her for the whacky messy flawed but genuine person that she is.

Just. Luz still having Camila and adoring her but there's still such a poignant emptiness left in her life after Manny's death. And Manny will never be replaced. But it must be so therapeutic for her to form those new familial bonds. Not only does Luz have Camila, but she now has Eda and King and Hooty and Lilith and Vee and Hunter AND AND AND!!!!

Luz being a social pariah at school at best and being bullied at worst, now having friends her own age like Willow and Gus who are also outcasts at school and welcome her with nothing but love. And they get to have all those fun teen experiences together that they've always been left out of!!!! The way Luz is so affectionate with them, calling them cuties and her babies and squishing their faces. Man it's awful thinking about her never having friends before this. There's so much love pent up in her and she's finally getting an outlet for it.

Luz, after being mocked relentlessly at school for being "cheesy" falling in love with a girl who is just as sappy and sentimental as she is who adores her antics and blushes from her smooches and flirting and its just!!! And getting to see Luz, this silly yet insecure and still deeply troubled girl navigate her very first romantic relationship and the mutual care and consideration they have towards each others' trauma....ohhh it's so sweet!! I love her!! I love them!!! The way they have the complete freedom to be their cringe sappy book nerd selves with each other because they found their cringe soulmate. Mwah. Lumity I'd go to war for you.

I LOVE LUZ NOCEDA!!!!!!!

[polyamorouspunk]

hii taking you up on your advice offer 😭 ur poly so maybe u have more experience with this than me, how would i break up with my longterm partner?

we’ve been dating for 2 years, it really has seemed perfect but lately idk its just felt wrong. we’ve kinda planned our lives around eachother and moving in together once we graduate, but i cant make myself want to kiss them or be romantic anymore, i dont want to respond to their texts, i get annoyed at them for no reason. they havent done anything wrong theyre wonderful its a “its not you its me” situation to a T.

all of our friends are mutual friends, but most of them were technically my friends first (all the people they used to hang out with sucked) so im scared if we break up they wont have anyone to talk to about it. i really dont want to hurt them.

i honestly might realize this is just me being dumb and all of this will pass and ill want to be with them still once it does, but since i have no clue how id break it off i feel so trapped. i want to know i have a way out if things dont get better, i want to stay with them because i truly changed my mind not because i didnt have a choice.

Not in a poly sense but just a “have had a few relationships” sense I guess I can offer advice.

So I’ve never actually broken up with anyone before, except for the last guy I was messing around with (Catboy) just because as much as I had sooo much feelings for him it was like the most unhealthy “relationship” for me. Like I finally realized like “oh I’m actually NOT better off seeing him, my mental health is ACTUALLY worse” because of his shenanigans.

However, I did have a long term partner who I dated for 6 years who we had plans to move in together and get married etc. same kind of deal, all their friends were my friends. And they dumped me, and yeah, it was really fucking hard even though I knew everyone was going to take my side. And the one person who didn’t I ended up not speaking to anymore because I was like if you’re not going to realize that I’m the only one whose going to keep talking to you because my ex doesn’t give a shit about keeping in contact with people, then that’s on you.

I was devestated. This was like 3 years ago at this point and pretty much right up until about this year I felt like I was somehow “living in the wrong timeline” and like my entire life’s trajectory had been pulled out from underneath me. Not from the breakup so much as them just deciding they never wanted to speak to me again, that I was bad for their mental health, etc. which I always told them if I’m ever bad for your mental health then break up with me, and I meant it and stand by that and their decision, but it still fucking hurt.

Like if that’s what they had to do that’s what they had to do. If that’s what you have to do then that’s what you have to do. While I am of course resentful to my ex, and I hope they get hit by a car or something sometimes, I do stand by their decision that if I wasn’t good for them then I’m happy they left me behind. I don’t know if other people are going to have that same view upon being dumped. I mean like I said I still hate them. But to say that they should have stayed with me for my sake is hypocritical.

Not only that, but an issue of intimacy was occurring between us during the lead-up to the breakup. And as soon as I wasn’t with them anymore and I was able to be with Catboy instead I got a taste of what I had been missing and GOD it felt so good. For the first time ever I felt like someone actually wanted to be intimate with me. It was an amazing feeling. My ex dumping me opened up the door for me to have things I was missing in that relationship. So it wasn’t all bad, for sure.

You have to do what you have to do for yourself. You come first. If you need to break up with your partner, or take space, or whatever, you just have to go for it if you really think it’s what’s best for you.

[sga-owns-my-soul]

✨💘💫🌈💌 for the writer asks!!!!

writer asks

thanks bestie 🥰🥰

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

The Calm After The Storm, it's a fic i wrote focusing on elizabeth and her reaction to the events of the storm/the eye and her being worried about rodney and honestly i think it's such an adorable elizabeth and rodney friendship fic (bc u know i love them as besties) and idk it's my least read fic and i feel like it deserves more love

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

not really? although i do sometimes think about reworking Not Dating, but More Than Friends to make it explicitly an aroace!john fic where him and rodney are in a qpr. that was the general idea of the fic when i wrote it but i think i could make it more specifically queer

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

i've said before that any time of comment makes me smile, but specifically comments or feedbacks from my friends. nothing makes me smile more than posting a fic i know a mutual was excited for and then getting excited texts from them while they read it 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

lmao all of them? basically anything that includes Actual Plot i will struggle with, i'm a lot better at coming up with emotionally charged one shots 😅

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

oh my god there's so many uhhhhhhhhh okay i'm gonna go with one i'm struggling to find motivation to finish so if you're interested feel free to tell me to finish it 😂 basically the concept is an au john comes to atlantis and immediately realizes that rodney is into him and just takes advantage of rodney and canon john has..... issues with it 😅

"You're not going to shoot. Not when you risk hitting your precious McKay," Sheppard sneered, a cocky grin on his face. John's eyes narrowed.

"I'm not aiming at him," John said calmly before pulling the trigger. The shot rang out, and John supposed he should have felt worse about killing himself; another version of himself at least. But all he could feel was relief as he grabbed Rodney and pulled him towards him.

"Are you okay? Did he- did he touch you? Hurt you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine John, I- you-" Rodney had blood splattered on his face and was just staring down at the other Sheppard; a perfect hole in the centre of his forehead. Rodney looked back at John. "You killed him."

"I had to."

"But he's, he's *you*."

"No," John said desperately, shaking his head and squeezing Rodney's arms. "I would never use you. I wouldn't ever hurt you. You do- you know that right? I wouldn't- not on purpose. *Never* on purpose."

[kdsburneraccount]

Matt/Julio for the ask game. Thy romantic tragedy of 28-3 shall live on forever.

(Ascends)

Yay i get to talk abt my parents!! Honestly it all started in… oh gosh… November of 2020. I mostly remember finding this Falcoholic article that described their partnership as a “bicycle built for two” and being like “hey that’s kinda gay.” Though now that I think about it I already kind of shipped them a little before that bc they were on the same team and around the same age, I just needed to find actual evidence they had a somewhat deeper than usual relationship outside of being teammates. But that was one of the seeds that kind of planted the ship in my head. I think learning more about their relationship and how it started and evolved made me go “wait this could theoretically work.” And ofc there is the added element of being part of something so tragic (28-3) and still sticking together for a few years despite that. I am unfortunately a sucker for relationships that are doomed by the narrative. Wouldn’t be hard to imagine they’d try to find respite with each other when the rest of the world is so cruel.

Anyways, I really love how chill they both are, like there’s really no drama in their relationship, just a lot of mutual respect from playing together for about a decade of their lives. Opposites attract is cool and all but sometimes two people in sync just hits. They play cards together in the back of the plane on road trips! (Idk how to play cards but good for them) Both are capable of being endearing and silly, outside of being serious vets for the team. It’s just a pleasant dynamic where you can trust the person next to you to help you through thick and thin. And I think that’s amazing.

Unpopular opinion… man I dunno, considering that it is literally me and a few other ppl shipping this 😭 but I saw this one omegaverse fic where Matt was an alpha and Julio was an omega and like… in my opinion Julio would be an alpha and Matt would be a beta. If you want me to elaborate I can 😭 but yeah. 🧍.

[xjoonchildx]

hello miss ana!

so idk if you remember me, but i was the anon who sent you that ask about her roommate. the one that told you about her roommate picking her up at the airport?

well… we’re getting married and i’m pregnant with our first baby ☺️🥰

a lot has happened since that night he picked me up! but to keep the story short: the next morning he knocked on my bedroom door and there was a lot of tears (on my part 😂) involved but we essentially just laid everything out on the table. turns out he’d been in love with me for a year and a half but i had just had a nasty breakup at the time he’d started falling for me so he just didn’t do anything about it, and plus he didn’t want to be a rebound. but it all worked out in the end because i started falling in love with him too. also, isn’t it funny that the mutual friend who introduced us to each other 3 and a half years ago told him offhandedly that he was going to ‘love me’ and look where we are now 😂

so… yeah. then you know what happens after that ☺️

i saw the Hug™ anon hashtag too and i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who was rooting for us! but i decided not to respond because things were still new between me and him a few months back so i apologize for that… but now that i’m engaged to him and i just found out i’m pregnant with our first baby (that we both might or might not have let happen), i decided to share this with you all ☺️ he proposed a week before we found out i was pregnant, so please don’t worry about him proposing to me out of obligation! we have been making plans for our future, and we’ve started looking at houses around the school district area because we plan to move out of our shared apartment when our baby is a bit older. we had a brief moment where we wondered if we were moving too fast (and it caused our first big couple fight and more tears on my part 😂), but our families and friends were like, “you guys are stupid” because apparently we were so obvious to everyone but ourselves before we even got together. it was a bit embarrassing tbh… but yeah. this feels right for us. we’ve been living together for more than 3 years now, i know what he’s like inside and out and vice versa.

i wish i could invite you all to our wedding (which will not be for another 3-4 years at least). maybe we will get married when bts come back as a group again after their enlistment, but for now my fiancé and i have agreed to not put me through unnecessary stress because the next few years will be tough on us with the baby and moving out. when we’re truly settled in our new house and our baby is a bit older, we can focus on planning a wedding!

again, thank you so much everyone for the support. i’m just a faceless stranger after all 🥹 you were all so kind 😭

am i ... am i crying? yes. yes, i am.

my GOD the Hug™ anon i cannot put into words how incredibly fucking satisfying this was to read. top to bottom, 5/5 stars, no notes. just the giddiest, happiest ride i've been on in a long time.

let's talk about all the romance tropes you've hit on the pinball board of life, shall we?

roommates to lovers

mutual pining

teary confession

hurt/comfort

happily ever after

and the BABY? swear to god the noise i just made at this starbucks made people look at me. i think it was a scream that mutated into a squeal?

live your absolute best life, the Hug™ anon. you are with the man of your dreams, moving towards your future, ready to be a mom, thinking about a new place, just -- so? many? exciting things?

and even though i can't come to your wedding, please allow me to do what i do and suggest two wedding day scents. one is exorbitant and the other more affordable.

for the regular budget: philosophy fresh cream warm cashmere

for the HOT DAMN budget: dama bianca by xerjoff

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