#in a weirdly poetic kind of way

[eggs-can-draw]

I am Creation, both haunted and holy

[answer2jeff]

this you knew.

warnings : (workplace) established but private relationship. fluff. that's about it actually.

also, this mostly just weirdly poetic and emotional writing. not a lot of plot or substance. sorry!

a/n: carmen refers to reader as "pico," short for "piccola" (small), and reader refers to carmen as raga, short for "ragazzone," (big boy) sorry if these nicknames are cringe they're cute to me !!!!

Fuck, it was cold.

Why did winter have to stretch out for such an excruciating amount of time? It had been snowing since late November—which, at this rate, might continue until March, give or take.

The holidays had just passed, stores were back open, The Bear was back under maintenance, leisure was nonexistent. There was no need for slush on the sidewalks and frost on your car window. You'd already spent the holidays with your extended family, even after swearing up and down you had no intention on coming home this year. Anything remotely related to that mistake needed to be disposed of.

Tonight was calm. Almost too calm. Richie and Marcus were still laying out the general foundation of the dining hall, and Carmen finally beat his record timing for passing through each station of the kitchen marked by green tape. You were pretty much free to go home. Especially since Sydney was the first to leave and encouraged you to do the same.

But just as you walked out of the empty kitchen space through the back door, something urged you to walk back in.

Just act like you forgot something.

Quickly swinging the door open and turning the corner into Natalie's office, where you knew Carmen would be, you stopped. Just barely near the frame.

Altered by your presence, Carmen snapped out of the trance that was staring at the empty space of the wall in front of him. He spun around in the 5-wheeled chair to face you.

"Raga?" you called out, not wanting to intrude as you stepped into the box of the office. Despite the door being wide open like it always was.

Raga. Sure, he wasn't a huge fan of petnames—but it made him feel like he was yours.

And he was. And you were his. Possibly for months now. And you even started to feel it. The word "boyfriend," though it wasn't used religiously, didn't feel bitter in your mouth. The way your name rolled off of Carmen's tongue was addictive to him. He preferred it over a simple 'she' when he spoke of you. You were chaos, but grace all in one.

You told your closest friends about a week after he spoke the words

"I don't really know what I'm doing, but that's—that's okay. It's more than okay. I want this."

But you hadn't told your family, and not even your true, chosen one. Which was here, in this restaurant, and everyone who played a part in it. But perhaps they already knew. Neither you or Carmen were particularly good at keeping secretes.

Just because your mouth stopped, didn't mean your body language or your face did.

Smiles and glances, whispers in corners of the restaurant incoherent to anyone else, his kisses against your temples that weren't as discreet as he hoped, it made it obvious.

But it felt right. This was okay. More than okay.

"Pico?" he repeated, mirroring that same skeptical voice you used just seconds earlier.

Eyebrows knitted with concern, your teeth gnawing at the inside of your cheek, you stood with your weight on your hip and your arms crossed against your chest. Carmen realized you stood like this all the time. But right now, he almost felt like he was in some kind of trouble; the way you eyed him above his level. Like you'd been looking for him and he failed to come to your assistance.

His urge to cave and melt into you was overwhelming. Big, blue eyes peered up at you as he leaned forward, prepared to listen. You only smiled while shrugging your shoulders and leaning against the doorframe.

"Think everybody went home. I didn't really see y'leave. Just—" you swallowed, "—wondered if you'd left or not."

That seemed to finally be enough to soothe him. You just wanted to know if he was here; if he was okay and ready to go home like he should've been.

"Uh—yeah, yeah, I'm still here."

"Yeah, I see that now."

The room stilled. Silence bounced off the drywall. But it was comfortable. It wasn't forced or unwanted. Just simple. And simplicity was scarce at the moment.

"C'mere," Carmen mumbled as he motioned his hand to signal you to come in, his voice barely audible, "just for a 'sec."

Caving in, his cadence and the look in his eyes being enough to convince you, you stepped in. He blinked slowly so as to not miss a single bit of you. For once, you could appreciate the slow of time in this room.

"I'm feeling really good about this," you smiled down at him, "this whole thing, I mean. Mikey woulda' been so proud 'f you, Carmen."

The lump in his throat was harshly swallowed back down as he nodded his head, not quite smiling, but not frowning either. You knew that face all too well. It was the face of guilt. He always wondered if he'd been doing the right thing. Lately it'd been easier to convince himself that the renovation was right, and that he was completely and fully capable of making these "adult decisions," as you called them.

"Thank you."

It was mostly thanks to you, though.

A delicate hand reached for a curl that fell just past his eyebrow. You wrapped the blonde strands around your finger, glancing from his eyes and back to his hair, just to see if he'd been watching you as closely as you hoped. Almost as if it had been second nature, he tilted his head up for easier access as you pulled away from his hair and reached to cup his clean-shaven cheek.

"I mean it, bear," your thumb gently caressed his skin as you spoke. He looked up at you as if he'd just found God in your eyes.

"I know," he tried to protest, giving you a weak smile and threatening to pull his head away.

But he waited.

There'd never been anyone in the universe, on the planet, in the country, in the culinary industry, in this city, or in this restaurant who saw through you the way Carmen Berzatto did. He'd been your head chef even before what was then, The Beef. You followed him back to his home city even months after the two of you made a pact to quit your last job as his sous, and his as your head chef. There was nothing you wanted more than to see him chase his stardom.

You loved him. This you knew.

"You're better at what you do than you'll ever give yourself credit for."

This he knew. At least now he did.

You took him in again with one look. His little moles here and there, his blue eyes, the rose of his cheeks. And at a moments notice, you leaned down to kiss him like it was the last thing you'd ever do. Carmen rose without even letting your lips separate. His hand planted itself at your waist as the other held the back of your head and gently buried itself into your hair. He tasted like cigarettes and mint with a hint of that bitter and filmy residue left on pill capsules.

He loved you. This you knew.

"Maybe you should give yourself some credit, too."

This you knew.

[vidavalor]

"There will come a tempest" scene & possible S3 Crowley & Aziraphale foreshadowing...

When Gabriel is apparently possessed in the second half of Awning of a New Age, he and the woman who appears to be possessing him say something that is strangely repetitive:

"There will come a tempest and darkness and great storms, and the dead will leave their graves and walk the Earth once more and there will be great lamentations."

There is no actual difference in definition between a "tempest" and a "storm." A tempest *is* a storm-- both are wind and rain together. The usage of them is more of a matter of manner of speaking-- it's situational. "Storm" is the common usage while "tempest" is just the more literary, more poetic way of saying "storm." Your local news station reports on an impending "storm" but a poet might call that same storm a "tempest." As a result, the prophecy is weirdly repetitive at the start, right? It really reads like this:

"There will come a storm and darkness and great storms..."

Ok, why repeat it? Why use "tempest" and "storms" in the same phrase? Why separate them? To Crowley? Maybe because whoever this is is trying to warn Crowley specifically of events, not just warn of them in general. Because the word that triggers the whole thing is "tempest"-- and it's Crowley who said it. It's Crowley who called what he just did in Awning of a New Age "a tempest" and not a storm because he's poetic and dramatic like that.

So... what if the first part of the prophecy is actually already in motion? What would this potentially tell us about S3?

What if it's kind of like Agnes Nutter's first prophecy for Aziraphale was in S1-- "...thy cocoa doth grow cold" being about *that particular moment right then* with a difference of it being unclear right now if Crowley really understands that someone is trying to warn him through Gabriel? If this is the case? Then S3 isn't about *preventing* The Second Coming-- it's about somehow trying to *reverse or fix it*... because it's already happening. The tempest is Crowley's storm in Awning of a New Age... which Crowley thinks he failed at but didn't really entirely. It's his failure, in his estimation, to get Maggie and Nina to fully vavoom that causes him to tell Aziraphale that it's Aziraphale's turn to try-- setting up the meeting/ball to go the way it does, leading directly to the end of S2. What comes next?

Darkness and great storms. The end of the world. The dead rising from their graves and walking the Earth once more. The Second Coming. And there will be great lamentations...

Obviously, The Second Coming sounds horrible in GO. It's The Metatron's plan and he's the main antagonist. It sounds like they're going to destroy Earth and the known universe and only the the chosen few will survive it but what intrigues me about this is why whoever is delivering this prophecy is warning Crowley about great lamentations. Crowley is the one who prophesied in S1 that he thought the real war that was coming was "all of us versus all of them", and he meant he and Aziraphale and humanity versus the system of Heaven and Hell. So far, he seems to be correct on that and given that it was a set up line in the final moments of the season for future plot, it seems likely to be true. This would be how he survives it. Armageddon in its S1 round was supposed to trigger a war between Heaven and Hell that could have resulted in Crowley and Aziraphale being separated for eternity after it. They managed to push it off until the end of S2 and now Round 2 is a different flavor of Armageddon. The Second Coming is what Crowley seemed to predict in S1... but someone here is trying to get a message to Crowley and it sounds as if it might be meant for him directly as much as it is for the world. And what might that prophecy possibly be saying about S3's Crowley & Aziraphale plot, specifically?

That after Crowley's tempest comes darkness, comes great storms, comes the end of the world, comes The Second Coming... comes great lamentations-- great grief, great mourning. I'm not saying that Crowley wouldn't be broken by the end of the world but I am saying that someone warning Crowley that in an era of "the saved" being given eternal life, that will Crowley will be experiencing great lamentations feels very much like Aziraphale is not among them. (I am not saying that the show will end like this-- it will be fine.) It also would be the height of irony if Crowley and Aziraphale spent their time together always thinking that they had the about 6,000 years until Armageddon and that it was probably Crowley who wasn't going to make it beyond then and then it turns out that Aziraphale, who always thought that he was the one who was going to spend eternity alone without Crowley if they couldn't figure out a way out of Armageddon... it's Aziraphale who then doesn't make it.

It might also be worth considering that Crowley is the character who was given information along with us about The Book of Life from Beez-- someone who would know and whose memory isn't damaged. He doesn't need this information if he's the one getting Book of Life'd. He needs it if his plot in the future is to try to un-Book of Life someone.

There is also that while Michael was threatening to Book of Life Aziraphale in the bookshop, they didn't just *do* it-- and then The Metatron said that Michael wasn't qualified to do it. I'm not sure how true that is or if it was just him getting Michael to knock it off and stop giving everyone spoiler alerts for his game plan lol but The Metatron *would* be qualified and is the angel associated with The Book of Life in religious texts and S2 ends, as we all know, with Aziraphale getting in the elevator to Heaven with The Metatron.

You know those unused concept art images of the bookshop that didn't make it into S2 where it's the last thing standing in what looks like some kind of apocalyptic nightmare around it?

Crowley saves the bookshop during The Second Coming? Sends as many from Whickber Street as he can to Muriel in the shop and makes sure it survives because he can't see it destroyed again and, in doing so, he might have preserved evidence of Aziraphale's existence enough for a plot to bring him back when he finds out he's gone? (I'm aware that the idea with The Book of Life is that the person is erased from existence and so never existed at all. I'm a romantic and this show is too, really. Aziraphale can't be fully erased and Crowley can't fully forget him. Fight me on it if you want to lol but I also can't see how a plot to bring him back happens unless Crowley somehow remembers him.) S2 also gave us way too many things Aziraphale has made in a way that kind of foreshadow his disappearance in a way that makes their existences more relevant. His sketch of Gabriel. His diaries. The photo Furfur took of him and Crowley in 1941... Then, there's this line. This bloody line:

...and that one...

...and this bit from S1 when Aziraphale is in a state of semi-existence and what can help them is what Crowley saved from the bookshop...

[greenerteacups]

my heart aches for one Theodore Nott after reading the latest update 😭 GTC, could you tell us more about your thoughts on him, his characterizations, how you manage to write him so poetically and beautifully, and (a shot in the dark, but i'll bite) the role he'll play in books 5, 6 and 7? congrats on another chapter GTC, i love you tons 🩷

Thank you so much, friend. I love talking about Theodore Nott. I'll gladly bite on that question.

To start off, Theodore's middle name might as well be "THE FOIL," because everything about him is tailor-made specifically to Say Things About Draco Malfoy. He practically hands Draco a card saying "I AM YOUR JUNGIAN SHADOW SELF, PLEASE HANDLE WITH CARE" upon introduction. They meet when they're both fresh off the train. (Hermione beats Theo to Draco by a matter of hours; there's a ton of ways this story spins differently if minor details about the first chapters were changed, and that's definitely one of them.) Then Theo and Draco ride in on the boats together. (Admittedly, I was not aiming for subtlety points with this intro. They are literally "in the same boat.") Immediately, Theo is throwing out narrative parallels like he's getting paid for it: they both have a dead parent. Both parents died under weird circumstances. Their fathers were both Death Eaters. Both of them are the sole heirs and only sons of great wizarding houses. Then they go into the Great Hall together, standing in line, but — and @piedrafundamental left a really banger analysis of the Sorting Hat scene in the comments on that chapter, but I'm going to crib just one line — crucially, "M comes before N." Draco's sorted before Theodore is, and he goes into Gryffindor. Immediately after that, Theodore's shunted into Slytherin, and their paths diverge. Call this the prologue of their relationship. They're not actually gonna get to know each other until Book 2 and Book 3, but this is the part where the narrative is basically jumping up and down and waving its arms at you, going "HEY! THIS GUY! IMPORTANT TO THE STORY! GET WORRIED ABOUT WHAT HE'S DOING, OKAY?"

Then we meet him again in Book 2, and just like Draco, a year at Hogwarts has changed him. He's a little more confident, a little more cocky, a little more comfortable, and — hey, look! He's got a weirdly intense friendship with a girl around his age, too! (Surprise, surprise, Draco is with Hermione when he meets Theo again, and who makes her debut in that moment but Pansy Parkinson?) And there's Daphne, the third leg of the Slytherin Trio, the kind of girl Draco probably would end up with in Slytherin — pretty, sociable, cunning, knows his family history (literally cites it to him in their first introduction, like c'mon), is the sister of his canonical wife, etc. etc., we got layers to this shit like lasagna but this post ain't about Daphne so we gotta move on — point being, either way he flips, Draco's going to be the fourth of a quartet. Which is the entree into the Slytherin politics storyline of Book 2, a.k.a. "the temptation of Draco Malfoy," where Theo is — I mean, to be honest, for once he's really not doing anything that sinister; from his perspective, he's kind of just putting his fucking back out trying to make a friend? He's drawing Draco in a regression towards prejudice and comfort, naturally, but that's not how he sees it. But there's a counterpoint between what Theo's offering and what waits for him in Gryffindor.

So that's the starting block of his character. The rest of the work is building a real person out of that; obviously, you can't just go "this is Foil Man, does whatever a Foil Can" and expect people to be interested. Part of what makes Theo interesting, to me, is that the traits he shares with Draco include a lot of what we tend to like about him — he's driven, intelligent, cunning, and brutal in the defense of those he loves — it's just that the people he loves, the people he surrounds himself with, are deeply prejudiced people committed to doing profoundly bad things. He's been trained from birth in the art of making bad people happy, and he's gotten good at it. And he's just enough of a coward (again, pot and kettle) that he can't imagine a world where that's not the case.

And it drives him fucking crazy that Draco won't admit that. Because I think Theo thinks if he can get Draco to admit they're similar people, it'll validate the choices he's made — like, yeah, he's fucked up horribly, but anyone would do the same, if they had to face what he has. Even Saint Draco. And of course, Draco is absolutely unwilling to go there with him, because:

(a) he very much does not want to believe that his years of grueling internal growth and struggle for betterment are just the product of some good luck with a hat; i.e., a suggestion that is not just insulting but terrifying because it suggests how very close he could be to regression at any time; but also:

(b) it is a fundamental tenet of Theo and Draco's dynamic that Draco does not like Theo as much as Theo likes him. Because where Theo sees his mirror in the light, Draco sees his mirror in the dark. And it's an increasingly ugly picture.

[abiiors]

canvas 🎨 // matty healy x reader

a/n: matty painter au because i have gone slightly insane idk. i love the interview these photos are from <33 got weirdly poetic with this i'm so sorry

the author heard "paint me like one of your french girls" and took it too far :)

cw: paint play???? cum play if you squint (yeah ik paint is toxic but these people are Very Horny)

wc: 3.4k

there are streaks of paint on her hips. 

a smudge of yellow right under her navel, fingerprints of blue, touching, moving, caressing the apex of her thighs as they slowly morph into green and disappear somewhere between her legs. 

she lounges lazily on the chaise, a bunch of red grapes dangling in her hands. when matty takes a break, she quickly pops one in her mouth. it bursts with a pop, grape juice pooling at the corner of her lips and sliding down, down, down. it disappears somewhere on her skin. 

matty’s breath hitches and he digs his nails deeper into his palms. 

“could you fold your leg a little more, please?” his voice sounds husky to his own ears.  

“please?” she raises an eyebrow, “since when did you start being so polite?”

“since this is a professional relationship,” he grounds out through gritted teeth. instantaneous. he's not unfamiliar with this back and forth by now.

matty looks up at her once again and sees her eyes, alight with mirth, looking right at him. it’s a peculiar feeling, he realises, he wants her to never look away from him again but he is also about to spontaneously combust.

each stroke of the brush reveals more and more of her lithe body; the curve of her hips that dip into her waist, the soft velvet of the chaise bunched up under her shapely legs. 

“eyes at the window, please,” he chastises gently. the thought of her dark gaze on him as he paints is too much to bear. 

this is not the first time he has painted with a nude model alone, even a female nude model for that matter. in fact, matty prides himself on the fact that he’s a consummate professional, that he has never been sleazy with any of his nude models. but she seems intent on pushing all his buttons. 

they had met a few months ago at a fancy tribeca bar. he had been celebrating his newest exhibition at a modest art gallery and she, the extension of her visa. they took to each other like moths to the brightest of flames. he soon learned that she was, like him, a starving artist. except her medium of art was her body. she had modelled for all kinds of designers all over nyc but she had yet to ‘make it’. 

he still remembered the way the smoothness of the live jazz band had permeated through his bones. the old fashioneds he had been drinking had created a nice buzz when he had heard her order a dirty martini in a very distinct accent. 

“come work for me,” he had said before the alcohol and drugs had consumed all rational thoughts. all that remained from that night were vague memories of red lips, fingers that trailed down his stomach and flashes of ecstasy. but now those same fingers rest in front of her abdomen, just inches away from where he wishes his head was. so matty has to swallow roughly and go back to his canvas. 

the painting is nowhere near being finished. he has only just finished the outlining process a few days ago but the thought of being here in this cramped space with her is too much to bear. matty’s grip on his brush tightens involuntarily. 

he mixes the colours on his easel carefully. matching the perfect shade of her skin is damn near an impossible task. there are shades of golden and then there is the pale hollow of her throat that he so desperately wants to mark up. how pretty she would look with a necklace of marks left by him. how her lips would part, sounds of ecstasy escaping, echoing in his studio, inside his skull for days. 

the brush digs into his hands as his thoughts reach a crescendo. a loud cracking sound resonates through the room and her eyes snap to him once again; this time a startled expression on her face. but it doesn’t long before it morphs into one of amusement and slight smugness. 

matty’s face pales when realisation dawns. he gripped the brush so tightly that it snapped in half. splinters of the wood dig into his fingers and he takes it as a welcome opportunity to walk up to the bin in the corner of the room. 

anything to escape her dark and knowing gaze.

“everything okay with you?” she asks and he bristles at her tone, at the way she doesn’t even try to conceal her amusement. 

“yes,” he has to clear his throat before he can speak again, “yes, perfectly fine.”

matty wants to set fire to the canvas in front of him. 

or perhaps it’s the sweat that gathers at the back of his neck and runs down his back that’s making him feel so irate. it bothers him more than it should, her stare bothers him more than it should. 

“window,” he reminds her through pursed lips. it’s better to use as few words as possible. that way they can get this done quickly and go home and he won’t have to think about her again till their next appointment…

but who is he kidding? matty knows she will be there, present in his waking and sleeping thoughts, burrowing herself in his brain, in its crevices like a permanent splotch of paint on his carpets. 

“i told you to look at the window,’ he says. his voice is gruff and commanding. 

“and i told you that i liked it better this way.” it’s a challenge—open and daring. her gaze refuses to leave him as she slowly gets to her feet.

matty freezes in place—it’s stupid, he knows it. he’s been staring at her naked body for hours now, memorising its contours and immortalising them on his canvas. watching her stand like this in front of him shouldn’t bother him. shouldn’t make his mouth go dry. the traces of paint between her legs beckon and taunt him. how easy it would be to worship her—first with his mouth and then with his hands. 

how sweet would she taste, melting on his tongue?

“what are you…”

“let's take a break.” she stretches, fingers intertwining together as her arms lift high above her head. her eyes close in satisfaction, a soft sigh falling from her lips. the sun warms the room. the sight heats up his blood. 

“your robe is on the table,” matty points to a corner of the room, averts his gaze with great difficulty. as expected, she smirks because to her it’s a cat-and-mouse game. and he’s her prey.

“why? does it bother you?”

footsteps pad softly towards him, the carpet rustles but he doesn’t stop her from walking to him. a small part of him likes knowing that the sway in her hips is for him. likes knowing that he haunts her thoughts just like she haunts his. 

“no.”

lies. a rouge and traitorous thought slips through.

matty is sure she can feel his racing heartbeat when she stops right in front of him. their chests touch, separated only by his flimsy cotton t-shirt. the proximity makes him realise how he towers over her, how she has to tilt her head to look him in the eyes. it’s a rather pleasing angle on her. the red smudge on her lips drives him mad. 

“tell me, matty,” her accent snags on his name as she flicks her eyes to his lips, “is this how professional relationships work here?”

she’s throwing his words back at him; teasing, taunting. her big eyes bore into his. matty’s cock twitches in response. the golden sun floods the room, illuminates everything in its path and he is once again struck by how beautiful she is. how much he yearns to hold her by the waist, to capture her mouth, to hear her soft sounds and loud moans. how much he yearns for her. 

his thoughts are fuzzy. he’s not thinking straight, he hasn’t been ever since she’s walked into his life, in his studio. his brain short-circuited the moment she shed her soft silk dress, the moment he watched the straps fall down her shoulders and the fabric pool around her ankles. 

he’s not thinking straight when he pulls her closer by her waist. 

“no,” he breathes, eyes already fluttering shut as her scent hits his senses anew. “you’re just an exception.”

when their lips crash against each other, something comes alive in him. a missing piece of the puzzle, a colour he’s been trying to mix just right. his heart thumps in his chest to the beat of the song playing in the background. an old jazzy french tune that has been stuck in his head all day. something that reminds him of her, of the curve of her hips and the softness of her hair.

“matty,” she moans right in his mouth. his name on her tongue exploring the inside of his mouth. her skin feels slightly sticky with paint and sweat. 

it feels like an out-of-body experience at first. the fingers caressing her jaw move so confidently leaving streaks of red in their wake. in an instant, he forgets about the painting. 

the kisses are raw and hungry, bordering on feverish. matty’s table clutters when she pushes him against it, her naked body pressed flush against his. goosebumps litter all over his skin, electric tingles that shoot straight from her fingertips and zap through his bloodstream. 

“say you want me,” she all but moans. “i know you do. i see–fuck, i see how you look at me.”

matty smirks at the way she almost loses her train of thought as soon as he nips at her skin. it’s the hollow of her throat that’s been driving him crazy—unmarred and soft. his teeth graze her pulse point, leaving behind soft pink marks that he soothes with his tongue. 

“i want you,” he licks over another bruise. “so bad—can’t think straight sweetheart.”

and it’s true, it’s never taken him this long to finish a painting before. hours of staring at her and he still can’t seem to get enough of it.

“so fuck me then.” her head is thrown back at this point. her voice is distant to matty’s ears, still he hears the lust in it. the want. and it fuels his own. 

she is art, he thinks. she should be his masterpiece. an idea forms in his head, bright as a star, a vision he sees so clearly. or it’s just hallucinations of a horny brain. either way, he breaks away from the kiss, grasping at her jaw roughly. 

“get on the canvas,” he commands. and she obeys without hesitation.

“on your back. and lie still.” even with his dominant side, there is a softness to matty and so she does as she’s told. 

he has to stop and marvel at the sight—she’s a vision on his half-finished painting of her, hair fanning out in unruly waves, nipples hardened. she comes alive under his stare, smiling smugly at matty’s unabashedness, at the way his eyes linger—first on the swell of her breasts to the curve of her waist and between her legs where wetness gathers the more excited she gets. she wants him to touch her, whines for it even. and he wants to give her what she wants. but not so easily. not like the first time when both of them were too drunk to appreciate each other’s bodies. 

this time he wants to remember. more than that, he wants to make it memorable. 

he dips both his hands in a dish full of paint, pink on the right, grey on the left. matty settles on his knees, right between her legs, parting them further with his paint-stained hands. the colours mix with the preexisting streaks on her body, greys with greens and pinks with yellows. matty’s mind swims with possibilities. 

“what are you waiting for?” she tuts, hooking her legs around his waist. paint sticks to his trousers. colour blooms high on his cheeks. 

when matty bends to capture her breast in his mouth, she gasps sharply. he’s briefly aware of the coolness of the paint that’s now on his stomach, a new shade of pink that morphs into something else the more they move against each other. 

“i never knew you made such pretty sounds,” he praises, tongue moving between her breasts from one nipple to another. he smirks when her legs tighten around him. 

“keep doing more of that,” she pants, “and i’ll give you any sounds you want.”

matty chuckles, mouth moving lower. now that he’s started, it’s impossible to stop or slow down. his hands trace the length of her thigh, smudging the old colours on smooth skin, mixing them with new ones as he traces a finger up to the apex. she squirms under him, hips thrusting into his.

she’s soaking wet and panting; practically dripping onto the canvas. it’s mesmerising to him, how her cheek presses against the white surface, leaves behind hypnotic patterns. 

her fingers are on the column of his spine, nails scratching softly as she traces his skin. matty feels himself growing harder, head spinning as all his blood rushes south. he wants her, he needs to feel her, to be inside her. 

“such a good little pet,” he mumbles against her mouth, lips capturing hers in a searing kiss till she’s writhing under him and clenching around nothing. 

“please, matty,” she begs. her hands move faster, fumbling with his belt. she all but rips it off him as desperation and instinct take over. matty watches transfixed. 

the ruby red of her swollen lips, the silvery sheen on her face. the necklace of mottled mauves he’s left around her throat—it’s prettier than anything he could have come up with himself. 

“beautiful,” he whispers on the shell of her ear and feels her shiver under him.

the sound of his zipper tears through the room. matty hisses with pleasure, eyes fluttering shut as she palms him—first over his boxers, then playing with the waistband. 

“touch me,” he pleads, unable to help himself, and watches her pull his cock out.

matty loses himself in the feeling of her hands wrapped around him, the way she rakes her nails down his length, traces the vein pulsating along the side. his stomach tightens with pleasure. 

“please,” she whines again, “need you in me, please.”

and this time he obliges, lining himself against her entrance. he moves his hand between their bodies, finding her clit and rubbing the bundle of nerves in circles. their bodies are so close that matty only needs to bend down to kiss her again. but he stays where he is, tip teasing her entrance, fingers flicking her clit. he wants to watch her fall apart under him, around his cock, again and again. 

“like toying with me, do you?” she wraps a hand around his base, lining his dick against her entrance properly. matty knows she can take charge if she wants to but he’s not about to let that happen. not today. 

“someone’s needy,” he tuts. in truth, he loves her needy whines, her desperation and at last matty gives her what she wants. 

he thrusts into her slowly, fingers still rubbing her clit at a steady pace. his other hand is next to her face, leaving behind smudges of pink in the vague shape of his palm. her eyes are rolled back her head, mouth parted—the room echoes with soft sounds. 

“harder–shit,” she moans. “please…”

“begging is a good look for you,” he whispers cheekily. the primal, male part of him can’t help itself. 

matty rocks into her, bottoming out again and again. 

“so tight baby, so wet for me,” he gasps as his thrusts come faster. she trembles under his touch again, letting out a string of curses. matty can tell she’s close as she clenches around his cock again and again. 

her nails rake down his back, on his shoulders, leaving behind scratches and cuts but none of them particularly care about it. all matty cares about are her moans and cries, the way she says his name again and again. 

“gonna cum,” she pants, “go faster, please–please.”

so matty does; grabbing her hips, he thrusts into her over and over again, increases his pace to the point where it’s bruises. filthy sounds of flesh slapping on flesh fill the room, moans from them both. matty loses track of time, of his surrounding, until he feels her clench around his cock and let go with a cry. 

“so pretty,” he coos and can’t help but trace a finger down her nose, along her bottom lip. “such a good girl for me.”

“come on pretty girl, i know you can cum for me one more time.” her pretty little whimpers shoot straight to his cock as he goes faster still. “you're so good for me, so fucking good around me, fucking made for me.”

“made for you,” she repeats, “ye–yes. go faster. shit.”

matty groans when she wraps her legs around his waist. it’s sudden, between one thrust and the next he’s suddenly reaching deeper than he was before. they both cry out as intense pleasure swirls in matty’s belly. 

he’s close, he can feel it. he just wants to coax one more orgasm out of her, watch her fall apart one more time. he wants to bottle up the noises she makes, for his ears only. 

his pelvis grinds on her clit, rougher than before. the intensity of it is blinding. the fire runs right under his skin, ready to consume everything in its path and burn him in ecstasy. 

“you can cum for me again, yeah? let go, darling,” he coaxes, and lowers his mouth to hers again, swallowing away her moans and cries. matty runs his tongue on her bottom lip, nipping at the corner of her mouth. 

her face is wet with tears of pleasure. he knows she’s overstimulated, struggling to keep up with him but she cries out again. a sob rips out from her as matty feels her cumming around him again, legs twitching as he fucks her through her orgasm. 

their sweaty skin sticks together, rubbing against each other and mixing paints. but matty knows what he wants, knows how to finish the final piece of his art. 

“iie still now,” he commands, “gonna cum on your pretty tits. you want that?”

“please,” she nods vigorously, hissing when he pulls out of her in one go. her back arches off the canvas, fingers curling on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. he’s marked forever. 

matty fists himself, once, twice, head thrown back as he cries out her name. he feels his cock twitch one last time, balls tightening until he’s spurting out thick white ropes of cum all over her tits, her stomach. it pools in her navel and puts a sheen of milky white on the paint. matty watches, mesmerised. 

he’s never felt this perverse satisfaction before. this much primal possessiveness. 

“fuck–fuck, matty,” she breathes hard, eyes still closer and hands in her hair as she comes down from her high. 

matty can’t help himself as he places a finger in the mess he’s made. he traces it in arbitrary shapes, swirls and lines, mixing colours and spreading his sticky release on her until his fingers reach her jaw. 

cheekily, she opens her mouth. an invitation—the desire to taste him written all over her face. so matty obliges, moaning when she swirls her tongue around his fingers, sucking them cleaning. her cheeks hollow from the effort of it. for a moment he feels like putty in her hands until she lets go of his fingers with an exaggerated pop. 

“like seeing me like this?” her voice is hoarse but the tone is still smug. like a cat that got the cream. “covered in you, naked. do i look pretty?”

matty rolls his eyes, “got what you wanted, didn’t you?” and watches her flutter her eyelashes. and she does. look pretty that is. she looks like a masterpiece. his masterpiece. 

“i always do,” she grins, hooking her arms around his neck to sit up. matty watches the cum run down her chest. 

“clean me up?” she asks sweetly, “and then we can look at the art we made.”

[animeomegas]

I don't know why, but every time I listen to Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey, I always think about Itachi. Thinking about how much he loved his alpha and how they may have been the best person he's ever been with, that it brings him so much sadness, especially if they're not with him anymore. They could've broken up or something (because the odds are terribly against him when it comes to picking his own alpha as the future clan head). These thoughts can also apply to Neji because his situation is similar in a way.

There's a part she sings. "I think I'll miss you forever like the stars miss the sun in the morning skies," and it never fails to break my poor heart. Just instant K.O. It's past midnight, and my melancholy thoughts are plaguing me, and I just thought I'd share this with you. Summertime Sadness is good for angst fuel if you ever need it. Actually, just Lana Del Rey in general 😂

I'm not personally a fan of Lana Del Rey's music, but I can understand why you'd relate it to Itachi, I get those vibes.

Itachi is for sure the type to break out weirdly poetic statements when he's feeling melancholic, and they kind of sound like they should be deep, but Itachi didn't really go to school and he has no idea what normal socialisation is, so they just make everyone around him go 🤨😬

Genuinely, he could probably get his clan to agree to his marriage to his alpha of choice by just constantly speaking like that. It would drive everyone mad, and they'd give in as long as he stopped.

...

"Itachi, what are you doing? You've been staring at the pond for ten minutes."

Itachi: "Sometimes... I feel like a koi... trapped... in a pond... made for koi."

"..."

Itachi: "The only freedom... is not knowing that you're trapped... and thus koi are blessed... to never understand."

"Is this about that non-clan alpha again?"

Itachi: 😞

[council-of-beetroot]

Thoughts on soviet bloc hetalia (mostly interested in lithuania and prussia)?

Okay so I have some controversial opinions on Gil here

1. I don't think he's the rebellious suave spanner in the works people think he is. IRL DDR actually distrusted Poland because they thought the Poles were always up to something breaking the rules.

Here's an article about Polish East German relations

Gil is quite fine with having people having authority over him as long as it plays into his ego or suits him for the time being in some other way.

Gil is the type to mock someone else for not standing up to Ivan then go and do everything Ivan tells him to.

Sure he dislikes Ivan but given that he gets to be a nuisance to people like Tolys is always a plus. Unfortunately Tolys is in a rough place at the moment so he's not as fun to poke at. Gil will bring out that old fierce Lithuania he knew at Grunwald somehow. Until then he can mock lithuania and be an ass, along with the occasional act of kindness because he's the type.

And no, this doesn't mean he can't engage in the debauchery that he usually does in canon in fanon, it means he is simply like letting a dog run wild in a yard for a few hours before calling it back inside for the evening.

2. I don't think Gilbert deserves the amount of sympathy he gets for this period of his life.

He's Prussia, and I, like Tolys, know the history and call bullshit to his tale garnering sympathy.

If anything it's poetic irony that the person who betrayed and double-crossed in the name of power and divided the commonwealth putting Tolys at the mercy of Ivan, has ended up right in Ivan's hands, his country divided in half.

Moving on

Okay anyway I think if it weren't for Ivan's personality, Gilbert would be far more accepting of this situation. Ivan's just weird and canonically Gil is uncomfortable with him. Ivan also likes seeing Gilbert submit to him.

I think Gil mainly just is the type that tries to mold situations to his benefit rather than fighting against the situation.

This delights someone like Ivan though as Gilbert is like a new toy to him.

I've never seen this image before but I love it

Speaking of Ivan

Oooh Ivan is the one holding the red strings of fate that brought Tolys and Gilbert into this predicament and it's perfect for him, now between that an the purges surely ivan's delusions dreams of having a wonderful family will be realised.

So naturally it's fun to keep these two together and watch them interact, making sure they know that they need to get along as they are are all equals here beneath Ivan and family. I totally see him doing things to force Gilbert and Tolys to bond. In a way though this backfires because Tolys is reminded of who he used to be when he sees Gilbert and the urge to break free from the restraints his current situation holds him in, and just beat the shit out of Gilbert just because is almost greater than the hold Ivan has on him. Gil likes it more when Tolys is more of a challenge so I think he weirdly lifts Tolys up slowly, both emotionally and mentally. Gilbert is a reminder to Liet that the current Tolys doesn't have to be permanent.

I can see Ivan doing that thing they do in sitcoms where someone "accidentally" locks two people in a storage closet to get them to figure out together how to get out and bond in the process.

It's fun for Ivan to watch them bicker only to remind the two of them that they belong to him.

See image: The face of someone who will never forgive you for being the reason you had to become a Catholic

I'm going to get into lithuania's psyche around this time a bit more in the next ask

[13eyond13]

What headcannons do you have on B during his career (for a lack of a better word) as a serial killer? To me, he's like one of the funniest characters but also the most pathetic in the most poetic try-hard way. Why do you think he's such a try-hard? He's coping but what is he coping from?

OMG B!!! Haven't thought about my favourite stupid son B enough lately, so thank you for this ask....

So he's a try-hard because he is probably VERY INSECURE, to be blunt. He probably has very little sense of self-worth or a concrete sense of identity outside of trying to one-up L, and he takes that to the extreme in a highly comical way. He's also no doubt traumatized from his insane childhood as a shinigami hybrid who watched many people (including both his parents) die while knowing they were going to die / was also raised very weirdly and abusively/experimentally at Wammy's and made to feel like he was only worth something if he could be as smart and talented as the legendary L. In his mind he decided that creating his own destiny would be better and rebelled against that expectation by being like, "why be the next L when instead I could DEFEAT L by creating a brilliant crime that he can't possibly solve?"

ANYWAY there's a reason he is the most creepypasta villain / emo boi / dark academia darling of the fandom, and that highly melodramatic backstory is a huge part of it - which I DO love dearly in its own mid 2000s way, even though I also sometimes sigh at it because of the extra villainous cartoony edge it adds to L's backstory, and don't always want to take it very seriously as part of L's characterization in the manga plot...

So on my most recent re-read of the LABB novel, I feel I was a bit struck by just how... Not Good B's impression of L actually is? And this was kind of hilarious to me to think about. I feel like when I was younger and really into shipping LxB I read it just as "clearly B has a massive crush on L and is doing his best to imitate him perfectly because he hero worships him and sincerely wants to be him so bad!" HOWEVER this time around I remember thinking something along the lines of "wow, this feels almost like B just googled how to cosplay L and then lazily threw something together 5 minutes before crawling under the bed", hahaha. So he either just kinda sucks at imitating L (and maybe so, but he also managed to trick the families of the victims into letting him investigate the crime scenes, so he's probably not THAT bad at acting when he wants to be?) or maybe he's intentionally trying to make a mockery of L. It is ALSO FASCINATING from a psychological POV to imagine he's just being a troll about it all and trying to make fun of L with how he behaves! Like! Was he intentionally mocking L with his impression of him to somebody who would never even get the stupid joke in the first place? If that's the case, it's excruciatingly cringy to me that nobody even gets his joke the entire time, hahaha.... poor Naomi suffered more than Jesus at some points during that investigation, I swear...

B trying to do a scathing impression of L to somebody who has never even met him before:

ANYWAYS. I think that whatever the case, he PROBABLY hoped/expected L himself was going to show up to the crime scene to confront him, at any rate. And so therefore he probably initially dressed up as L not to genuinely pass to anybody as L, but maybe expecting to do some ominous dark mirror/ arch-nemesis big reveal shit to L?? Perhaps once he realized that Naomi was the only one coming / was working for L he just changed gears a bit and decided he'd just lead her through the clues as best he could while trying out this cosplay of the guy that he wants to offend most, but this is in my mind pretty much how it must have gone.

One of my fave headcanons about him is that he re-read that crossword puzzle he made / that the police threw out without solving SO MANY times while he was sweating off his makeup under the bed, as well... that's why he had to show it to Naomi as soon as he got out... he was like "I PUT A LOT OF WORK INTO THIS DAMMIT, and SOMEBODY is going to appreciate it" hahahaha. Ohhh, B....

[nicosraf]

(Cw: vague spoilers, suggestive content)

Sorry if this is weird or if I wildly misinterpreted this scene, but I actually kind of love how awkward and clunky the scene where Michael and Lucifer finally have a sexual encounter is lol. It seems kind of really fitting considering how awkward and contradictory Michael’s feelings are toward Lucifer after the fall, it would only make sense they would have a messy and almost sort of pathetic feeling encounter like that. Him leaving Lucifer hurt, him presumably leaving w a few wounds himself, and him “finishing” just kind of on Lucifer in an angry horny haze lol. It really just screams how obvious and deeply rooted Michael’s feelings are but how much he just refuses to allow himself to have them. Idk just all of the mixed and uncomfortable feelings of that scene, still peppered with tiny hints of a very deep and repressed love for each other just felt so weirdly poetic lol. Sorry again if I’m reaching with my interpretation here, my reading comprehension is under construction 🚧

A&M spoilers

I'm so glad! I was afraid it might be disappointing to readers, but the details of that scene are really important to me... Michael's hate and desire and his anger and the deep tenderness still in him... I wanted that scene to really encapsulate how Michael and Lucifer's relationship has become the bleeding open wound. Leaving each other hurt, both unsatisfied in different ways...

u interpreted it perfectly! thank you for the ask :)

[luckthebard]

Ok here's my actual hot take from episode 33 - I kind of don't get the complaints that Fearne or Orym's deaths were "all about Imogen."

Fearne is ruidusborn. Otohan even focused on her because of that, for all that it was dismissive and condescending. That's the kind of thing that will really stay with Fearne as a consequence here, if FCG manages a successful Revivify. It could really stay with her and potentially drive her story of self-discovery in really interesting ways.

As for Orym, this fight was major for him in terms of his personal quest to find the shadow assassins. He sure found them. It's tragic and weirdly poetic that Otohan killed him too when she's the one who killed Will, but Orym absolutely found what he was looking for. This wasn't about Imogen at all, for him - it was directly tied to his personal quest. It just didn't end the way he wanted. And, like Fearne, if there is a shot at a Revivify with Orym, this moment of failure but also discovery would be a huge drive forward for his story.

They were all on this job together, not for Imogen, and there are clear ways the fight itself had narrative meaning for other characters.

And also, I'm going to need someone to explain (really explain, in a way that makes sense) how there being a powerful villain closely tied to one character is GREAT and the BEST EVER in one case (Percy and the Briarwoods) and somehow unacceptable and bad here, besides gender.

[spanishskulduggery]

When did you first start learning Spanish? And any basic learning tips? I have a few Spanish speaking coworkers but I get so nervous trying to practice my Spanish with them.... and and, when you were first learning Spanish, did you have any little things you found especially fun/funny?

Oh gosh it's been decades now. To give some backstory and you can do your own math here, this blog started in 2013 when I was still in college getting my degree in Spanish

I started in what I think would be middle school when Spanish became a mandatory class, but I didn't start really studying and understanding things until high school. It wasn't until even after college that I REALLY felt like I understood Spanish because there were so many native speakers and people interacting with me.

One thing that totally changed my perception and how I perceive Spanish was there was a question on the preterite and imperfect, and I'm giving my answer and trying to explain some bits about how a lot of times both are potentially correct but it's how you mean it that matters

And someone mentioned that "imperfect" in its linguistic etymology means "not yet completed"; that "perfect" is "done thoroughly" where the -fect is probably related to hacer "to do"... and "imperfect" thus means "not yet done", and just a huge lightbulb moment

I remember thinking "I WISH one of my teachers had known that or said that to me because it makes so much more sense now"

And I still mess up but usually it's followers like "oh we say THIS here" or "that's not the word we use but it reminds me of this thing in my country"

-

A few funny things in Spanish based on mistakes that I've made or things that I learned:

You haven't truly begun your Spanish journey until someone tells you that embarazado/a means "pregnant" not "embarrassed" (avergonzado/a).... similarly no one mentions that embarazoso/a means "awkward" or "unwieldy" in a way

querer means "to want", but it can also mean "to love" or cherish; similarly querido/a means "dear", but la querida can also kind of mean "side-piece" like someone's affair partner woman so if you see someone talking about their querida without a name or a noun they might be talking about an affair

el pelo is "hair", el cabello typically means "hair on the top of the head" like a human... and el cabello is NOT el caballo "horse"

the word for "eye-catching" is llamativo/a and NOT miradizo/a which miradizo/a is one of those old words but it kind of means "awestruck" or "makes you stare in wonderment" in a weirdly poetic way

sartén as "frying pan" can be masculine or feminine depending on country

there are too many words for beans

there are three main words for "purple" - la púrpura usually means "red-violet" or Tyrian purple and also the mollusk you get purple from; morado/a is often "dark purple" related to la mora which can be "blackberry" or "mulberry"; lila is "light purple" meaning "lilac".... you can also say violeta that's fine too

people say naranja for "the color orange" more than anaranjado/a but not everyone has the patience to explain that naranja which comes from the fruit doesn't change for gender

same with rosa as "pink", where rosado/a "pink" is also valid and usually what's taught

regionalisms. regionalisms everywhere

If you're in a really immature class, someone is going to laugh at puse

the word for "jellyfish" in Spanish is la medusa and that makes me happy

similarly, a male "horseman" is often el jinete; a female "horsewoman" or "rider" is sometimes la amazona and that also makes me happy

la macedonia is sometimes "fruit salad", so one assumes that Macedonians were just throwing fruit together in a bowl or something

Except for two big exceptions, most words ending in al- in Spanish are from Arabic origins [the exceptions being anything related to el almuerzo "lunch", and la almendra "almond"]

la manzana can mean "city block" in some places - probably because in a feudal society people lived in "manses" and the biggest house was the "mansion" where the lord lived, and it has nothing to do with apples

la montaña rusa is "roller coaster" literally "Russian mountain" because Russian people used to make little roller coasters by shaping ice mountains and putting tracks on them

la paja rusa does NOT mean "Russian straw", it is extremely NSFW and do not google it on a school server...... in fact don't look up any kind of paja because it's just as NSFW and it means "straw" if you're not talking about sex so otherwise don't worry about it

someone told me that linguistically para is just por+a, so parais literally "for the purpose of" or "for/so that to" and I've never been the same

the word for "ladybug" in Spanish is la mariquita which is "little Mary" because red used to be associated with Virgin Mary and the spots were said to be 7 and represent the joyful/sorrowful mysteries - many languages have a religious connotation to "ladybug"... also English, because the "lady" refers to Mary, like "Our Lady"

The Spanish alphabet used to be different where CH and RR were their own separate letters... it made looking things up weird; I also don't know how I feel about L vs. LL as separate letters because it's a whole other sound but it IS technically two L's

The word for octopus is el pulpo... the word for "pulp" is la pulpa; don't be like me and mix up asking for orange juice with no octopus

I cannot stress this enough but el pollo is "chicken" or "poultry"; la polla is a NSFW word meaning "cock" and as soon as you say you want cock for dinner you will die some on the inside

I don't know what the deal is with ahorita or what it means without hearing the tone of voice and neither does anyone else, it could be anything

caber is the worst verb, but ir/andar are also up there

every so often luego/pues means "thus" or "therefore" and it's going to throw you off

every so often el hacha (technically feminine) means candle or torch, and in any other situation it means "hatchet" so imagine my confusion when I read about people carrying axes around to see

all my life everyone told me never to use gustar without an indirect object and a friend from Puerto Rico says gusta to mean "cool" all the time and it made me question everything

[fyjjong]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 김이나 (@eanakim)

lyricist and host of mbc fm4u's starry night radio, kim eana, focused a post on jonghyun on today (november 18th). kim eana is a well-known and respected lyricst who has worked with shinee on "hello" and "if you love her". a translation of her post can be read below. please make note that there are references to december 18th at the start and end of the post. (source)  

[note from translator: i did my best to have her poetic writing make sense in english, but there may be inaccuracies.]

i'm the type to talk about jonghyun easily on broadcasts without hesitation, but since a few weeks ago i've been getting choked up, making me think, "it's that time again."

that time when i miss jonghyun deeply all of a sudden. today, when i was listening to <breathe> at the radio (station), i got choked up and thought my voice would become distorted. let's try to enjoy this longing (for jonghyun) together with people who are experiencing these (same) symptoms, who make arrangements for times like these!

1. by my standards, the all-time legendary live video. as someone who officially become a fan through <y si fuera ella>, i don't know how many times i've watched this live video that was filmed at the peak of emotions. was he was so overcome with feelings that he strayed off-path, or did the camera shake because they lost jonghyun's movement? he must have been moving completely different from rehearsals. since he seemed like a person who poured his sincerity excessively (into things/performances), my heart aches, but that's why it's a video everyone needs to see more.

2.  i saw this stage through a livestream. it was a stage they did before their title song during their comeback, but possibly because there was something with his mic, you see him fumbling with his in-ear and putting it back on. since it's put on weirdly, he looks like piccolo [t/n: a character from dragon ball with large pointed ears.] so it's funny, but meanwhile he sang the intro perfectly; indeed, shinee's legendary stages are recorded whenever there's some small incident. the precious members are all so young and fresh.

3. an unforgettable stage that i saw in front of my nose. the stage for sugar man was unusually close to the gallery seats, plus the participants would sit in the first row, so most of the participating singers said it was quite burdensome. but of course, our lovable attention seeker jonghyun showed off his charms even more in these conditions. even now when <only the words "i love you"> is requested (on the radio), i often play jonghyun's version and remember this day. this video even captured me watching in awe, so it's personally very meaningful. hehe [t/n: "attention seeker" is "gwanjong," so she combines it with his name as "gwanjonghyun." she's using it in a positive way here lol]

there are emotions that you don't want to face so they float like a hot-air balloon. the emotions from the night jonghyun left are like that. those feelings are hard to sort out and have gone on for a long time [t/n: literally "have a long tail"].

however, i think it wouldn't be bad for these feelings to float a bit more. it's a kind of sadness mixed with annoyance anyways; i believe there will be people who know what this is. i'm the type to not really count which death anniversary it is. it's kind of a feeling of staying in a vacuum state of time related to jonghyun. #/shineejonghyun

[howelljenkins]

hi this is so random but i need to wax poetic. you have no obligation to reply to this. also i do not mean this in a parasocial way at ALL lmao i recognize that idk you trust. i first found ur blog in 2020 as a eighth grader in lockdown that was completely lost. i had lost my uncle to covid during that time and went from being a stellar student to receding into my shell and watching my grades tank. my shit home situation and undiagnosed depression led to me sinking into any form of escapism possible, mainly thru the form of books. i was super obsessed with perry johnson LMAO at the time and had all the time in the world to look into the fandom. this was around the time the unnamed author was just, like, violently and belligerently racist and scathing to any fans that questioned otherwise. being a tumblrina, i went to this site to see people comment on this, only to find you and ur mutuals were the only people openly discussing how he was just plain vile. i remember how sickened i felt seeing how you and other people of color were getting doxxed and threatened for pointing out what i thought was incredibly obvious. as a rlly sheltered person of color, this was the first time it struck me that the world was lying about how much they were actually willing to stick up for us, as before that i was just stupidly optimistic. anyways bc of that i started checking ur blog like EVERYDAY because of how much your words resonated with me. i was in complete awe of just how witty you were, and how you took no shit from people. granted this was a defense mechanism from crazy ass white fandom bitches but it was still weirdly inspiring. i still remember seeing u pull out the yale trap card so often and being like, oh shit this girl is something else lol thats hysterical. for the rest of high school i would keep up to date with u and specifically ur writing and poetry on promethes. kal i need you to realize your words actually rearranged my brain. the poems about your great grandfather, your mother, your pos friend, of being a horror, to love and to be loved is rest, everything EVERYTHING is etched into my memory. i really feel like i stumbled onto the modern fucking plato or something. anyways my critical thinking skills and love of poetry both are strongly influenced by you. i used to be the kind of person that hated everything and couldnt bear the thought of tolerating this world for another second. but your unyielding positivity and optimism, and insistence that kindness being the more difficult choice is inherently more radical really changed me. ik u didnt invent that or yadda yadda but u really made it seem real. im still learning to take each day slower, to breathe in a little deeper, but the beauty of so many things i previously dismissed is so obvious to me now. that post you made about you and ur mutuals educating a whole generation is so true lol. so just thank you. honestly thank u thank u thank you from the bottom of my heart. im a senior now who just submitted my yale application tonight and thought of you and im a little drunk right now so i think thats why i wrote this whole ass essay but just. like idk. u changed me and idek know you. i made my friend who got into princeton a trap card bc urs was so inspiring lol. anyways i truly hope you have a peaceful happy life and a good night. your soul is really such a beautiful thing and you deserve the world pls never settle for anything less

idc if it’s parasocial i love u and want the best for u and know u will go far and i almost doxxed myself by telling u the city i live in so u could look me up if you’re ever here lol. ik im a stranger or whatever but im proud of u idc ur like my adopted little sibling now. also @taumoeba yale card inspiring generations

[sayitaliano]

Ciao come stai oggi o notte, I have a question I’ve noticed that sometimes people when speaking Italian that they would put the mio/mia after a word like “piacere mio/mia” or something similar does mean the same thing or it is the formal way of saying something or someone is yours

I hope this isn’t worded weirdly

Ok ciao per ora

Ciao!

Piacere or piacere mio (never "mia": piacere is a masculine word and "mio" acts as an adjective of this noun -so it refers to nobody) are the same thing.

Sometimes we add "mio" as we shake hands to stress that it's our pleasure to meet someone. Basically as in English when you say things like "My pleasure *to meet you*" or like the reply "Pleasure is mine" to "What a pleasure to meet you" (you may in fact also occasionally hear us saying "Il piacere è tutto mio" which is a more literal and less implied translation of "Pleasure is *all* mine"). You can say "mio" or not, it doesn't change anything in formality. But if you wanna make it a "game" (or be extra kind) between you and the other about whose pleasure is bigger to meet the other, you can say it.

In other occasions though "mio/a/miei/mie" do act as adjective possessive (the position in which they are put though, in general is before the noun: mio fratello, il mio cane...; unless you want to say things like "amore mio" which is more a poetic version/latin vocative use of the adjective when you speak with your lover/someone you deeply care about; or in common expressions as eg. "è colpa tua!").

-

BTW Another tip for you: we don't say "Come stai oggi o notte" (it'd be like a shortened version of "come stai oggi o come stai notte" which doesn't make sense in Italian). We say "come stai oggi o stanotte" if you wanna mention it may be night, but "oggi" can work also if it's night, even more cause in all honesty I'm not going to be on this blog at night ;P

Feel free to check the grammar masterpost here in case you need! OR send another ask :)

Buona giornata/serata/notte!

[1yyyyyy1]

If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? I get the sense that you’re older based on your posts, but going by your most recent post, you seem to imply that you’re still a teenager. If that’s true, I am very impressed by how knowledgeable you are at such a young age.

How did you get so articulate? What did you read? Did you take classes in high school? Did you have a mentor? did you have a life-changing conversation with somebody? I would love to know more about your process of getting to where you are now.

Hey :) I'm kind of surprised that people choose to compliment me at all since I'm calling people names on here and such, I think I'm a nasty person overall... I'm in my early twenties currently, so I'm certainly not a teenager, but I'm still at an age where my opinions get dismissed and it has taken me significant effort to start taking my concerns seriously. In the post you are referring to, I was talking about people who equate polarizing opinions to those of an immature teenager, which hints at the fact that people grow out of their rebellious phase and expect others to become just as compliant with age… I don't consider my opinions (especially on pregnancy) to be rebellious in the first place, to me they are common sense and I'm genuinely disgusted by the fact that many adult women continue to perpetuate the same rhetoric that has harmed me as a teenager.

I've never received any higher education, and I barely ever attended high school, so if you find my writing skill compelling it can be the proof that all you need is yourself and a willingness to learn. I'm not sure if I what I have is innate talent because I did read a lot as a child, which probably explains my vocabulary, and I'm not exactly a prodigy since my early writing is still as primitive as it gets for someone who is just starting out. My writing process is not effortless either and I go through a lot of drafts or even variations of the same sentence until I'm satisfied with it. What I know to be innate to myself is my overall interest in reading and writing, it is something I spend a lot of time doing and my proficiency makes sense to me that way. I suppose, I'm still not at my fullest potential because I limit myself to mentally taxing topics... Much of the difficulty I encounter comes down to the fact that the things I talk about are extremely personal and often require more reflection from me than I'm ready for; this is the reason I'm yet to post some of the questions I promised to answer. When it comes to my writing skill, I would be lying if I said that public education did nothing for it because it did lay down the foundation, just that I draw my understanding from other subjects and cannot recommend a reading list because I was taught them in person. My approach to writing is based on my knowledge of cognitive reframing and I would have to write a book myself to explain how I apply it. Weirdly enough, I attribute my eloquence to fanfiction since it's what I used to read the most of, and some of it is genuinely high quality — for example, I think this story is very poetic, especially the last paragraph. The same can be said about fantasy games where I would pay attention to the flowery language in quest text and dialogue; my learning experience has been unconventional at best.

I thought it would be helpful if I recited what I do directly... My writing process is as follows:

Receive a question or get interested in an idea, draft the first thing that comes to mind. Write until I don't feel like it anymore. Usually this is no longer than one sentence.

Come back to the draft when I feel like it and let my imagination run its course while I look at the prompt. At this point, the draft is a mixture of coherent ideas and incoherent sentence stumps I then proceed to flesh out within the confines of the main topic. This is the stage where I figure out the structure and the general theme of whatever I'm writing. I narrow down the essence of what I'm being asked about, write until I figure out the closing paragraph, break down the draft into connected sub-topics and come up with a title for each paragraph as well as the entire piece. For this answer, I titled the first paragraph "Why I wrote what I did and my attitude towards it", the second & third paragraph "My education and writing process" and the fourth paragraph "My advice and why I haven't given up yet". I titled the answer as a whole "My age and my writing process" which is kind of odd, it probably means there's something I have to reflect on in regards to my age... While drawing up a plan like that is common writing advice I would give regardless, grounding myself with a simplified idea is even more important to me because I do not write sentences consecutively. The first draft of the previous sentence quite literally was "is important to me because I do not write sentences consecutively." with the dot, meaning that I knew it would be the last part of the sentence and that there was something I was supposed to trace it back to before I could finish it. This goes for the entirety of my writing process and I will often start a sentence from the middle, write different paragraphs one sentence at a time or even write an entire paragraph backwards. It can be hard to keep track of the structure when you write the way I do, so having a grounded idea I can always refer back to is the solution for me.

Continue to refine the draft along the guidelines I established until I'm satisfied with it — this doesn't mean that it's perfect even by my own standards, I often leave awkward wording as is because I know when to move on from a creative block. What matters to me is that it communicates the ideas of the sub-topics and fully conveys my point.

The most important thing I've learned ever since I committed to writing is that I am at my best when I write for myself. I would go as far as to say that I'm at my best when I write about myself, that way I absolve myself of the responsibility that accompanies external topics. I no longer burden myself with articles and statistics which may or may not be inaccurate, I talk about my own improvement and I know what it has been well enough to not be bothered by people disputing it. Even as I'm answering this question, my focus is on my personal enjoyment so that it remains the motivation I can look back at; I don't believe it to be remotely unfair, it is reliable. People move on and people get disinterested, my audience could leave due to personal circumstances and it would be no one's fault. By being my own standard of quality, I get to be consistent with my work and both me and the reader benefit that way. Other than that, my straightforward advice is to trust the process and to not be afraid to take risks with your writing. Stylistically, the list I made has to be limited to impersonal descriptions to be consistent, but I went on a personal tangent in the second point anyway — so what? Taking this liberty was what inspired me to finish the list at all, which I'm not going to complain about. I take a risk every time I choose not to dilute my complicated speech, like right now, because it does come off as pretentious, although no one has complained so far. Generally speaking, there are no real social risks to be taken with writing because intelligence is already hard to come by, the people who value it will appreciate the effort regardless and the people who don't could never be catered to in the first place. The only "risk" I can imagine anyone taking is the risk of being disappointed in one's abilities and the fear of never amounting to one's aspirations, but even that is temporary because creative skills always improve so long as you practice. I'm personally well past the point of doubt because people have seen me at my worst too many times by now, that ship has sailed for me... My aspirations rely on my ability to articulate myself, so I don't lack motivation when it comes to improvement. The enjoyment I get from completing a piece allows me to persevere through the many challenges the writing process entails.

[artofdiana]

goodbye 2023, welcome 2024

wow so I ended the year with my last drawing being the most popular post I've ever had here. thank you all for the likes and reblogs. And Hi all new followers! 👋 That the Gävle goat ended up being eaten by jackdaws seems a weirdly poetic way for this year to end. I've had some of the highest highs and lowest lows ever during this year. I'm going to see this year's devoured end of the goat as a sign that if something is meant to happen gods/fate will find a way, maybe in a surprising way.

2023 was the year I finally crashed due to continually pushing myself to breaking point trying to meet everyone's expectations. I finally looked inwards and asked myself, what am I doing? can I keep doing this? and what do I even want? I'm still sort of lingering on the "pause button", and I still don't have the answers I'm looking for but I think 2024 will be a year when I have to make some really difficult decisions and in general be brave about a lot of things.

My biggest wish for next year (other than finding my path) is for the world to get on a better trajectory, I'm worried sick about the ongoing genocides, environmental changes/catastrophes, rise of fascism as well as the upcoming election in the US. I also truly hope to be able to continue doing a lot of activism in 2024, it really helped me with feeling a sense of purpose and finding hope. And I do have hope that things will get better, I mean what are we without hope? I'm sorry for the sudden wall of text, I just felt like writing and it doesn't happen often.

I wish you all the best 2024 you can possibly get, one filled with safety, love, growth and kindness ✨💕