#once i learn how to paint its literally over for you all

[mildcrow]

my golden boy

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[dcxdpdabbles]

Phantom's Number 1 Fan Part 3

John Constantine calls a joint Justice League and Justice League Dark meeting.

It's not something he wants to do. He barely works with the LJD, but at least that lot understands his work and knows what to do and where to go.

The JL members always ask questions and forget proper manners when working with the paranormal- John isn't the most well-mannered bloke around, but even he knows to permanently say goodbye to ghosts so that they don't follow him home- and it's like trying to teach an intern while dodging bullets.

He prefers to avoid the whole origination, especially since Bruce's death; everyone has been walking on eggshells, and there is a sense of disorganization drenched in grief that John breaks into hives just thinking about, but this is big.

Bigger than he can handle it on his own or with just the JLD. Even if the whole group gives the bats not-so-stable glances as they filter in.

John notices that one of Batman's brats is missing- the smart one- but he has heard that the kid suffered some kind of psychotic break from his father's death. It's sad, really, mainly because John used to believe that the third Robin was the one with the good head on his shoulders.

What's worse is that the Third Robin up and ran off, having gone off the grid when he refused to accept Batman's death. The boy hadn't said anything besides, "The portraits told me!" after having a miniature breakdown in his home.

It didn't help that around this time, the boy teammates had all dropped like flies except for one. So yes, John knows it wasn't a big surprise that he lost it, but it was still sad to see. Kid is only seventeen.

He hopes they find him soon to give him the help he needs. John would offer a spell to try and find him, but he needs to learn about the kid better, which means his spell can only point in a general direction.

Nightwing looked downright ragged, but losing a father on the battlefield and a younger brother to his grief did a number on anyone.

John hates himself just a little for dragging the grieving family here. He does, but again, this is bigger than all of them. This is a matter of life and death- literally.

"Listen up. We have a bloody level ten on its way to Earth if it's not already here." His words cut through the muttering crowd, shutting everyone up. A level ten makes even the big, lousy Superman sweat. He snaps his fingers, allowing his magic to shift into the image of a King Phantom sitting on his throne- painted in the early 1200s and the picture that can be used to identify him.

The art style would have been almost modern if it wasn't for the unease that the painting could cause due to the glowing green from his majesty's portrait. They say the green was ectoplasm from the king himself- and that alone should warn others to not mess with him.

Everyone Justice League Dark member hissed through their teeth, sitting up straighter and a few even pale. John is once again grateful that they understand just how deep in shit they genuinely are.

"This is the Ghost King. He is not to be confused with a god or king of gods. He's something else entirely because he makes gods nervous. He is on his way here to kill whoever is dumb enough to threaten his pregnant fiancee, and I fear the rest of Earth will be collateral if we don't prepare-"

"That's Danny Phantom," A young voice cuts John off. He is surprised someone would talk over him in a level ten briefing. All eyes turn to Robin- er, the new Robin.

The kid is frowning at the image, his signature scowl already deeper than usual. He's also heard the new Robin was a spoiled boy who was not a team player.

"You know King Phantom?" John asks.

Robin nods. "Placeholder is obsessed with him. Half his room is covered with King Phantom's heroics."

"Do not call him that.," Nightwing hisses a second later. He frowned when Robin ignored him but returned to the room without further comment on the boy's cheek. "Danny Phantom is a low-level search and rescue hero. He pops up around the world but only sometimes interacts with people. Robin- Young Justice Robin- was obsessed with him."

The room gains an awkward weight as no one is willing to bring up the mentally unsound MIA teenager.

It's too bad for them. John has never cared about making anyone comfortable. "You said his room is covered in images of King Phantom?"

From the corner of his eyes, John catches sight of Zatanna's face. She's pale white, with a horrified expression as if though she was standing before the grim itself. Every other member of the Justice League Dark is in a similar state.

"Yes, he has a whole wall of posters and stuff." Nightwing conforms, and shit John knows who Phantom's after now.

The thing is, one just doesn't have pictures of King Phantom. No one knows why, but the Ghost King can not be documented. Not without having some kind of connection to the King.

Throughout history, the only ones who have ever had even one solid picture of the king- John's magic doesn't count cause he can't well hold the thing up forever- usually meant that the King would appear before them at one point.

There is also a myth if one could beat a member of the royal ghost family, then one wish is granted to them. If one can kill a royal ghost member, death can be overturned.

It's not true, obviously, for death is not easily beaten like that, but John knows that as an expert, would a mentally unwell teenager know the same?

It was also known that if the King appeared before you, something terrible would happen. The sighting of King Phantom often came as an omen and usually right before a terrible disaster.

In the last disaster, they lost Batman, and if King Phantom had shown up, where the Third Robin have spotted him? Where the Third Robin have thought the King could return the dead?

Not to mention the rumors!

King Phantom was hunting down a group of humans known as "The Bats." John hadn't put that much stock in that rumor simply because it could have been anyone- hell, when he looked up the bats seven different groups appeared, varying from boy bands to zoologists.

But if he placed the name "The Bats" next to the Third Robin's psychotic break, his obsession with King Phantom, and his intertwined fates...well, shit.

There is a slight chance that the Third Robin's fate could be intertwined with the Ghost King in a positive light, but John has learned to not be optimistic in his line of work.

"I think the Third Robin is gunning after the Ghost King's fiancee and unborn child in a misguided attempt to bring Batman back to life. He may have kicked started a war that humanity can not win," He announces. He hates to say. hates to even suggest it, but the needs of the many outweigh those of the few. "We have to find the Third Robin and attempt to stop him. If we can't reason with him, we must put him down."

Wonder Girl gasps a sob, pressing her hand against her mouth.

John hates himself a little more as she sobs; a few rushes to confront her, but no one is unaffected by the news.

"I'm ordering a hunt for the Third Robin," Wonderwoman speaks up to her steady leadership, returning everyone from their despair. "Every available hero will help. Do not use lethal force unless there is no other choice. We may be able to find him before King Phantom's armies arrive."

John just hopes they are not too late.

Meanwhile, across the plane of existence, unaware of the manhunt for his head, Tim Drake is trying to stare down a Yeti, attempting to put him in silk clothes that are just fabrics held together by strings.

"No."

"But-But- but you have such a flattering figure! You must flaunt it! The Great One will barely be able to contain himself if he sees you in this!"

"No. It looks like something you wear on a honeymoon to seduce your spouse. I'm not walking around in that."

"Well, you don't need to bewitch his majesty. You already have a child on the way." The Yeit mutters, considering the fabric in his claws with a frown. He is Frostbite's royal tailor and has been attempting to dress Tim for over an hour. Everything he's suggested so far looks like it came from those romantic fantasy games.

It's like they want to make him a sexy consort or something.

Tim's teeth grind against each other. He hates how often his role is reminded, how casually the yetis mention that Ra's expects a child from Tim.

He doesn't even know how that child will come to be, and it makes him sick. He's been bidding his time, waiting for his wounds to heal and to find a weakness in the frozen fortress, but so far, he is unsure how he will escape.

And Bruce is still out there, waiting for Tim to get him. He can't waste any more time here.

"How about this cloak?" The Yeti offers, holding up a dark metallic fabric that reminds TIm of his Robin cape. "If we are going for a more conservative look, something that screams power is just the way to make the masses wild!"

Ugh, he really needs to think of a plan soon.

[katiexpunk]

The Invited | Pairing Lucien Flores X Fem!Reader

Summary: Lucien Flores is invited back into your life in a very unexpected way, at a very bad time – what are you going to do about it? 

Warnings: Borderline abusive, controlling relationship (not with Lucien). Like literally, we hate the reader’s fiancé. No, I’m serious, read this one with caution, there are heavy undertones of the reader’s fiancé being controlling and generally not a nice guy, no matter how much he tries to play the part. Implied infidelity. Heavy flirting, heavy tension. Religious undertones. Alcohol. References to Lucien being a playboy. References to wealth, art, and money. General Hollywood/California vibes. This one will have a happy ending. No use of daddy, no use of Y/N. This is gonna have some filthy fucking smut, hand to my heart. 

Part 1 W/C: ~3.5K 

A/N: Just, yeah…yep. I am as horny for him as you all are (like what the actual fuck). This story will continue as I learn more about Lucien and his character. P.S. Sorry if you got double-tagged, I accidentally deleted the whole fic so I had to repost.

Masterlist | Read on AO3 | Notifications

It started with one look, as many things do.

Initially, it was all just innocent glances across a crowded room, perfunctory nods, and polite whispered hellos in shared spaces. It didn’t take long for it to turn into more than that; that’s just who he is and the effect he has. You can’t say you didn’t hear the rumors, heed the warnings through the grapevines of the limitless supply of women who came before you, but listening never was your strongest skill.

The only girls you know who listen are strapped to a church pew, on their knees, and for what? Salvation? At least you know the pleasure of worshiping at the altar of a man who promises he’ll make you see god, a man who follows through on his word, no questions or fuck-all commandments required.

Or at least you did.

Maroon 5 said it best, even the sun sets in paradise.

++++

As you stand by your bedroom window, the last rays of sunlight paint the room in a warm, golden hue, casting elongated shadows across the minimalist decor. The gentle breeze from the Santa Ana winds whispers through the trees outside, carrying with it a sense of anticipation – dread – for the night ahead. You hate these things, but schmoozing is part of the role you have to play, just one of the many rules he’s slowly but surely made sure you follow. The good girl he’s made you become.

Focusing on fastening the back of your earrings, you watch the sun dip below the horizon, a silent witness to the transition from day to night – light to dark – although things don’t feel that light these days.

"There she is," comes a familiar voice from behind you, causing you to turn and find him leaning casually against the door frame. His presence brings a sense of unease, a reminder of the doubts that linger beneath the surface.

A forced smile plays on his lips as his eyes trail over you, his gaze filled with a familiarity that feels suffocating rather than comforting. "You look beautiful," he murmurs, you wonder if he believes it or if he’s just saying it to say it.

Most of the time, his admiration feels hollow, a facade that fails to mask the cracks in your relationship. In his eyes, you see reflections of expectations and obligations, a reminder of the compromises you've made at the expense of your happiness. It wasn’t always this way, especially in not while you were just dating, but things quickly shifted once you said yes.

You turn your attention back to the vanity in front of you and slip one final detail – your engagement ring.

“Thanks. Ready?” You ask, feigning excitement as you glide across the room, wrapping your arm around his. You can tell from the way he looks at you that he has something to say, something to critique, but he remains silent.

You descend the steps in the grand foyer as it welcomes guests with its opulent charm, bathed in the soft, flickering light of countless candles. The air carries the delicate fragrance of freshly cut flowers, mingling with the subtle scent of expensive perfumes and cigars. The walls boast exquisite paintings and sculptures, each hand-picked, and sourced from all corners of the globe – a deliberate show of wealth.

As you step into the room, conversations swirl around you, punctuated by the clinking of champagne glasses and bursts of laughter. You observe the guests, their designer attire and dazzling jewelry all but scream like me, I’m rich.  Among them, art connoisseurs and collectors engage in lively discussions about the latest exhibitions and acquisitions. Directors, models, and Hollywood elites mingle effortlessly, their conversations flowing freely.

You're well aware that in L.A., half of the business dealings often occur in the shadowy corners of closed-door meetings, or in the expanse of lavish parties like this. It’s a city where nepotism runs rampant and connections are king. It's a city where who you know can often be more important than what you know, and navigating the intricate web of relationships is a skill in itself.

Dressed in an elegant gown, silky and yellow, your neck frosted in diamonds that shimmer like the stars above, you glide through the crowd with a grace that contradicts your inner turmoil. You’re good at this part, faking it, blending in. You might have grown up with this, but you never really felt like you belonged. It’s sort of strange to be surrounded by a sea of people, all while feeling like you’re stranded alone on a remote island.

As you exchange polite pleasantries and forced smiles, a nagging doubt creeps into your mind. Are you even meant to fit in with this crowd? Lord knows you wouldn’t be if you had anything to say about it, but being the daughter of a politician is a special kind of hell. We all have to make sacrifices. And you have – a lifetime of them. Sometimes, you can't help but long for simpler pleasures – a quiet Saturday night with frozen pizza, a bottle of wine, and a comforting movie. Fuck, you can’t even remember the last time you went out with friends, drank too much tequila, and flirted in innocent fun, or the last time you dipped your hand below the waistband of your panties without the fear of being caught.

Sipping your champagne, you endure a rather tedious conversation between the CEO of a tech startup and a broker. It doesn’t take long for the sensation of boredom to settle in, mingling with a growing sense of disillusionment. A dull pain throbs in your feet from the pressure of your heels. Their voices start to fade into the distance as you zone out, feeling increasingly disconnected from the authenticity you crave.

You decide you need a break, some fresh air. They’re not even listening to you; you're not even sure if they notice you're here or not. But still, forever polite, you excuse yourself anyway and make your way across the room, weaving through the crowd of suits and couture. You’re not thinking about anything except getting the hell out of here until you hear your name called behind you.

It’s a voice you’d recognize anywhere, in any lifetime, in any place. You stop in your tracks and look over your shoulder.

“Hi,” he says.

What the fuck? You’re sure you must actually be drunk now, or so bored that you’re delusional brain is conjuring him up. You don’t say anything in return, you just stand there. The room slows around you, bodies pause mid-motion, and your world goes silent.

“Been a long time,” he casually says, lifting the glass to his lips, eyes intent on yours.

His words, the low rasp of them, snap you back to reality.

“Lucien – wha, what are you doing here?”

“I was invited.”

You barely hear his response. Fuck, he looks so good. Handsome as you remember him, all salt and pepper curls, dark facial hair, and broad shoulders. He’s clad in dark jeans, and a colorful silk shirt, the buttons at the top undone, giving just the slightest glimpse of his sun-kissed skin and the chains that rest there.

Arousal pools in your belly, thick and heavy, a feeling that you haven’t felt in years. Not since him.

"Invited, by who?" you ask, your voice laced with challenge. He takes a deliberate step closer, his presence enveloping you in a heady mix of desire and tension. The air around him is thick with the sticky-sweet smell of cigarettes and the woody notes of his cologne. He smells good.

He's close now, close enough to send a shiver down your spine. You tilt your head back to meet his gaze, feeling the heat of his breath against your skin. Shit, those brown eyes. Your pulse quickens as his large palm closes around the back of your left arm, the touch sending electric sparks through your body. It's a soft but firm grip, possessive and confident.

As he trails his palm down the length of your arm, you hold your breath. He stops once your hand is gently balanced in his, and you feel his fingers brush against the cool metal of your engagement ring. Glancing around the room for a brief moment to make sure nobody’s watching, he dunks his head, and whispers in your ear, his lips so close that you think he might kiss your neck.

“I think you already know the answer to that, sweetheart.”

What.

He places a soft, innocent kiss on your cheek as he retreats and takes a step back. You don’t miss the way his eyes trail over your body, lingering for a moment too long on your collarbones. The muscles in his jaw tighten, and he gives you a polite nod, before stepping away, slipping into the crowd, leaving you woozy and confused.

What the fuck does that even mean?

As you internally grapple with what the hell just happened, your fiancé finds you in the crowd, possessively trails his hand along your waistline, and plants a wet, rather drunk, kiss on your lips.

“What did he want?” he asks, harshly.

“Nothing, just saying thanks for the invite,” you respond, hoping he can’t sense your lie. Hoping he falls for your trap.

“If you’re lying to me sweet pea, that’s gonna be a real problem.”

“I’m not.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“So why do you look so flustered, huh?”

“You know how I get when I drink champagne,” you retort, playing up your innocence.

“Right, well you better pull it together, can’t have my girl sloppy,” he warns, his voice a little slurry himself, his balance unsteady as he takes another sip. He’s moved on from champagne to whiskey. A bad combination, a dangerous one.

“You know the only reason I invited him tonight was that I think it’s an important lesson for you –”

You interrupt, “YOU invited him?”, your voice clear and stark. The truth hits you like a freight train. You want to cry, throw up and scream all at the same time.

“Of course. Listen, baby, I know you went through your slutty phase, but look how far you’ve come.. look how much I’ve helped you grow,” he slurs, “men like that, don’t deserve women like you.”

And there it is – the truth.

Your blood hits a boiling point. You give him a death glare, but he doesn’t seem to notice before he’s quickly moving on.

“Come on, baby.” I’m not your baby, not anymore, haven’t been for a long time.

“I’d like to introduce you to some people,” he says, grabbing a fresh glass off of the passed tray, and handing it to you with a little too much thrust, enough for a few drops of it to spill over onto the silk of your dress. Your fingers grip around it and you follow his lead, despite the bitterness you feel. Ugh. Why is it so easy for you to fall into line now? Secretly, you hope the dull burn of the alcohol will distract you – calm you – make you forget.

You’re drunk, aroused, mad, and confused, and on top of it all, you’re fading in and out of the dull conversation your fiancé has you engaged in, or rather than listening to. Not like he lets you get a word in, anyway. You scan the room looking for him whenever you get the chance, trying not to be too obvious. You finally spot him in the corner and try to ignore the magnetic pull that lassos around you once you do. He’s talking to a model, because of course he is. Is he intentionally trying to make you jealous? Or is he just being his usual fuck boy self?

You chug what must be your sixth glass of champagne to forget the bitter memory of the last time you saw him – when he told you that you should just keep things casual, that he couldn’t handle the pressure of being with the daughter of a politician, that he would never measure up, and that this was just temporary, just sex.

It wasn’t, and you know it. You know he knows it.

But fuck it –

If he wants to play games, you can play games. You’re the one who’s engaged, this is your house, your space. You’ll show him what he’s missing.

With that in mind, your personality shifts a bit, part in courtesy of the alcohol, part because of your rage. You do your best to intentionally play up your happiness in a room full of strangers, show him that he doesn’t affect you. Show him that he doesn’t matter, that he never did. You cling tight to the arm of your fiancé, being sure to pull out your best doe eyes, your innocent fuck me eyes that you know men can hardly resist. The eyes you know that drive him wild.

But there’s no point, he sees right through it.

Shit.

He knows you too well, better than all the rest. You let your guard down with him, trusted him, and now he knows all the signs – all the tells – he knows where your heart and mind truly rest, probably before you even do.

Shove it down. Shove it down. He doesn’t matter. You are engaged. This is the life you want.

It’s not.

You watch through the corner of your eye as he excuses himself from the conversation with the model and walks through the crowd, intentionally finding your eyes as he does. He slips up the stairs, away from public view.

Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him.

You can’t. You know you can’t.

Before you can even register what’s happening, you’re stepping out of the conversation you were never really in, letting your instincts guide you. You lift the hem of your dress, your heels teetering slightly as you make your way through the bustling, suffocating room.

Each step up the stairs is a battle between your mind and your heart, your brain screaming warnings while your emotions, your arousal, tug you forward. It’s always been this way – a magnetic pull, an invisible force drawing you in to him like a moth to a flame.

This is a mistake.

Don't do this.

Do this.

You want this.

You're engaged.

Stop thinking.

Climbing the final stairs, your heart pounding in your chest, you surrender to the emotions swirling inside you. Your brain protests, but your heart has already made its decision.

"Luci—" you timidly call out, but before you can finish, he reaches out in the darkness and pulls you into his chest. You let out a little oof of surprise, but soon find yourself settling into the embrace, his warmth enveloping you as his hips press tightly against yours.

He doesn't utter a word, simply holding you close, his body a comforting anchor in the dimly lit hallway. His hand rests at your waist, the other gently cradling the swell of your cheek as he gazes down at you. Despite the darkness obscuring your features, you can sense him drinking in every detail, every curve, the small details you’re not sure anyone notices anymore. He’s looking at you like he always has, like you’re the main character in every story he’s ever cared to read.

With a tighter grip, he guides you further down the hallway, away from the prying eyes at the top of the staircase. Your back eventually meets the cool surface of the wall, and he pauses there, his presence dominating the space, sucking up the air around you. His grip on your waist remains firm, as if he knows exactly what he wants and how to get it.

Under his touch, you feel yourself melting, surrendering to the intensity that is the two of you. There's a confidence in his demeanor, a certainty that courses through you. A live wire of energy that you’ve never felt with anyone but him. He knows exactly how to read you, how to anticipate your every desire, and you find yourself powerless to resist.

You’re suddenly acutely aware of the ring on your finger, and before you can protest, he’s already speaking.

“He’s not the man you think he is, sweetheart.” His words pierce you like a knife.

You don’t respond. What can you even say? He can already see your truth, your reality, written plainly across your face. He searches your face for hesitation, any sign that he’s crossed a line.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, and you can only nod. Yes, please.

This isn’t normal, this isn’t a thing that people frequently experience – it’s wrong, you’re engaged. Even if your fiancé is a grade-A asshole, you can still maintain your morals.

But the thing is – there’s something so electric about the two of you together, an undeniable force, a promise written into stone long before you even realized it.

The combination of your bodies, two halves of a whole, is the only excuse you can muster for why you’ve found yourself in your current predicament – pressed up against a wall, his broad frame pinning you into place, the weight of his gaze like a flame threatening to swallow you whole, turn you into ashes.

Even though it’s been years since he’s pressed his lips against yours, the weight of the pretty little rock on your left finger fades into distant memory, and he pulls you back to a different reality.

A reality where nothing else exists, a reality where your timelines converge, a reality hand-sculpted just for the two of you. One where he didn’t fuck up, the one with the happily ever after.

With your lips connected, it’s easy to let your mind fall silent.

And when he breaks for a bit of breath, your eyes connect once more and you can’t help the thought that crosses your mind.

What a pleasure it is to burn.

His hand finds its way to your thigh, and his fingers make their way to where you so desperately need them to be. Nipping at your neck, he whispers sweet praises into your ear, each word sending sparks of arousal that dance along your skin. It's carnal, primal, an undeniable biological reaction that leaves you practically dripping for him.

"You know me, better than anybody," he rasps against your skin, his words a seductive promise of something more. Planting a soft kiss on your collarbone, he leaves you reeling with need.

But just as you're about to respond, the telltale sound of creaking wood and heavy footsteps echo up the stairs, accompanied by the call of your name. Panic floods your senses as you realize who it is.

Fuck, shit – no, god damn it.

Lucien quickly steps away from you, and sneaks off into the bedroom adjacent to the hall.

Your fiancé appears at the top of the steps, his gaze sharp and knowing, as if he can sense the tension in the air. In that moment, you know you can't keep hiding, can't keep pretending that everything is fine.

“What are you doing up here?”

Fuck it, be bold.

“We need to talk.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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[the-moon-files]

Linked Universe / GN!Reader - Random Headcanons abt the Chain! :)

Part 1 / Part 2 (ur here!) / Part 3

Sun: Reader (you/they/them)

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

Stars: Hyrule, Time, Fierce Deity, Twilight, Warriors

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: light cussing, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

☆

Hyrule (The Legend of Zelda - OG game, Zelda II: Adventures of Link):

Lost easily, obviously, you know this

What you didnt know was that its very easy to get lost with him

Bc he's so excited/curious for new sights he doesnt give any fucks abt where he is, so it devolves into that "wait, I thought YOU were leading us there?? Then where tf are we??!!" very quickly

Does feel bad he stressed u out smtimes but he somehow manages to get into such wild shit that Hyrule's kinda preoccupied being confused/amazed/finding his way out, or any combo of these situations (once again, usually with you unfortunately)

Is the luckiest when it comes to getting lost or anything to do with "natural" things

Like he heard u rlly like this one fruit? Accidentally gets lost all day and panics all the Links + You until he shows up at midnight with a shirtful of them

("I found a few fruit trees/plants in the woods while wandering! I tried to grab a few for you and before I knew it, it was dark, sorry...")

Likes learning little skills from other people, like learning how to do makeup from Legend, or how to spot collections of rupees the Minish have left somewhere from Four, or how walk on any terrain from Wind (good at walking on a ship, on land, climbing etc)

More of a "sunset" hiker than a "sunrise" one

Likes to do your hair! Whether that be braiding, putting accessories (he handmade shhh) thruout it, or helping with hair maintenance, likes how strangely intimate but domestic it feels together with you (u return the favor ofc)

(All the other heroes are looking at you both like kicked puppies jfcccc🙄)

Time (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask):

Gets anxious if he's late to things, likes being fashionably early (or ungodly, when u let him get away with it)

Has absolutely been that meme from Parks and Recreation where he's like "Alright. I'm not mad, I just wanna know. Who broke it?"

(Abt the coffee pot for the camp)

Knowing full and well-

"I broke it. It burnt my coffee for the 3rd morning in a row, so I punched it. I predict 10 minutes from now they'll be at each other's throats with war paint on their faces and a moblin head on a stick. ...good. It was getting a little chummy around here."

MF LOVES GOSSIP (wouldn't admit this even at swordpoint)

Wars has absolutely been the person in the meme of:

Wars: "...why would you tell me this??"

Time: "Bc no one will ever believe you."

Wars: ...😦

Has a resting bitch face and knows it, actively cultivates it, scary dog privileges for you,

Type to take ur side in whatever situation ur in, even when Time has no idea whats going on, always, without question <3

The same height as First, (Twi's a close 2nd), and feels most secure when the 3 of you are at the front of the group, but First/Time are slightly in front of you

Like ur literally the person walking their 2 huge scary doobermans/mastiffs one leash in each hand basically 💀

(Once again, Link is deeply comforted by ur voice just over his shoulder/just hearing u even without seeing you)

Very subtly sarcastic, u dont even know he made a dig at you until 3-5 business days later

Likes ur sarcasm more than anyone else's in the group, or even his own lol

Fierce Deity (Majora's Mask):

Likes music, any music (amused at drunk karaoke)

Casually cradles ur arms or back whenever ur falling asleep/tripping/being clumsy near him

Very warm and smoothed calloused hands

Thinks abt what he's about to say so hard/long, that the conversation's moved on by like, 3 rounds/subject changes by the time he's actually ready to talk

Scolds ppl (in like a sentence) who neglect their needs, like sleeping/eating/hygiene

Finds peace in nature, if hes ever upset, u can bet he's already taking a walk by a stream

Likes teaching u/other Links little skills he has, its nice to feel appreciated/needed for something other than fighting or big moments

He falls in love with small moments, like the first time u made them all a dessert recipe from ur world, or repaired First's scarf (for the millioneth time) and bc everyone had gotten their clothes scratched up, everyone needed repairs so most Links were sewing smth lol

Enjoys watching ppl experience smth for the first time, or even himself exp smth for first time

Fierce smiled fully for the first time when you got into the mountain hot springs in Wild's Hyrule for the first time and were super excited

Also the type to hold ur hand while stepping in to make sure u dont fall, or just subtly boost a Link that was abt to fall from climbing smth

Like for being the tallest, he's surprisingly sneaky, the energy of the biggest cat in the house yet somehow also the quietest

Does that thing where someone takes ur hand and like massages ur fingers, palm, wrist and shakes them out kinda for you <3

Twilight (Twilight Princess):

Trips UP the stairs.

Cold start LMAO

ok ill be nice to him,, sike

Easy to bully?? U mean that kindly, he's just such a golden retriever sometimes u cant help urself (tho u make sure to reign it in and not take advantage of it so as not to genuninely hurt him)

Lol likes to "herd" his favorite people, like those dogs livestock farmers have u kno that they say end up herding their owners/their family lol

Like making subtle circles around the Chain, wrapping an arm around Hyrule and teasing him to quietly bring him back into the group before he gets lost,

Tugs on Time's armor to slow him down, mf may be in armor head to toe but he'll outpace all of u 💀

Likes to put his hand on ur lower back to guide u back into the group from whatever scenic thing u got distracted by

(so sue you, ur literally in The Legend of Zelda's Hyrule, surrounded by pretty blondes, why tf wouldnt you be distracted all the time??)

The only time he doesnt herd actively is in Ordon, just subconciously lol <3

Terrible sleep schedule, but sleeps like the dead when he does, has collapsed with a limb on top of you and u couldnt escape

Hard time waking up in the morning despite being country boy, who usually have to do chores first thing in morning on a farm

hates/envious of Wild (up at 5am even on days off?? Foul.)

Runs warm, but complains abt a slight breeze?

Would sleep with no covers if it werent for morning dew

Wishes cats liked him more (its the wolf smell)

Twi has the constant energy of a tall person carefully maneuvering around cluttered/low doorways while someone a head shorter runs by him and bounces off of him

U get onto/scold the Links and he's immediately the first to just sit on the ground, or put down whatever he's holding no matter what he's doing LMAO 😭😭

Keeps his eyes on u too the whole time lol

Warriors (Hyrule Warriors):

Cries over romance novels/dramas

A virgo in all stereotypes of the word tbh

Invented the red-string conspiracy theory board before the red-string conspiracy board existed in Hyrule

Also likes to take care of your hair! (What?? He and 'Rulie don't fight over ur hair, that'd be childish, he's not a foolish boy- Hyrule, hand over the brush.👹)

Remembers the little things abt u type of person, like ur favorite drink, ur favorite stories like tv shows/books even if theyre from ur world, ur favorite clothing pieces like shorts vs. pants, etc.

The only Link who can single handedly claim he could take your closet and dress you in something you'd actually wear.

Honestly once he got the hang of it, would get better at dressing you, than you

(Another domestic thing he adores, picking outfits for u/finding that perfect piece of clothing you've been needing lately)

Born to night-owl, forced to morning-bird 😔

Wars wakes up stiff sometimes bc soldier training is sleeping on ur back, hands to ur sides, laying straight in ur bed, so as to fit into bunks/bedrolls close together

It got better as he was promoted to Captain, so he could have his own quarters but its still a hard habit to shake

One of the few Links who works up the courage to genuinely pitfully ask if you'd mind massaging his shoulders again? He slept badly last night, please?? 🥺👉👈

(Ur so weak for pathetic hurting pretty blonde twinks lol)

The most lowkey abt taking care of Chain, but u make sure to take care of him as a gift back, and you've definitely caught him tearing up abt it 💖

☆

Debated writing smth else first but figured this was easy and short and i started it first so youll have to wait like one more post before more Masc Reader stuff guys 😔

Dw its coming, i havent abandoned u my homies out there 🫂

Let me know what u think in the comments of my slight characterizations here!

Im struggling to conceptualize their personalities so thats acc part of why i started to write smaller stuff like this first! :)

Peace out,

🌙

[sugarbag]

✰﹣𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝗯𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗻𝘀 :)

abby anderson x fem!reader

𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗽𝘀𝗶𝘀. what i think being in a relationship with abby would be like! (i have brainrot)

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀. none i think, apart from poor writing because it's 2am 🤡 reader is referred to as girl a few times and it's implied that reader has long hair

FLUFF.

an. ummm so im officially obsessed with abby. theres a part at the end thats very specific for black women because self-insert 💅 but i'll put a little ✰ beforehand! english is still not my first language :) if you enjoy this pleeease let me know!

- ok so first of all, abby is baby. she is soooo serious about nicknames it's adorable!! once you start calling her by a nickname it better stick because she will literally pout all day if you call her abby. if you do her call something other than a cheesy nickname, she really likes abigail. the way it rolls off your tongue, the way it feels like she's owned by you when you call her that, it makes her giddy :)

for you, she goes for "sweet girl" or "angel" :))

-is a clean freak. like an actual freak. she WILL bully you into folding your socks neatly next to hers and god forbid you leave crumbs in bed

-i do not care what anybody says, abby is an ass girl. when you're cuddling, her hand always finds its way to your behind. and when you question her about it, she says it must be sorcery.

of course, she loves every part of you but dat ass... do not bend over near her, she absolutely will fake fuck you from the back and put her whole heart into it. im talking grunting and moaning and you're just standing there like🤰

- she's such a great cook! she learned how to cook with her dad and after his passing, it became a way to feel closer to him. so she cooks for you all the time and acts grumpy when you call her your little housewife but she loves it really :)

-FOREHEAD KISSES‼️especially if there's a height difference, shes such a sucker for those! receiving and giving of course

- please play with her hair :( if you don't know how to braid, she'll teach you :(( BRAID IT OMGGG she loves when you do anything with her hair, brush it, braid it or just pass your hand in it, she'll take anything :) she'll only let you touch her hair, especially if it's undone and her beautiful blonde strands are on display goshhhh

- she will 100% let you paint her nails whatever color you want. no questions asked.

- shares everything with you. sometimes not even on purpose. like her clothes are your clothes and vice versa, you two basically have one big closet. gives you her jacket (the WLF one:)) you want some fries from abby's plate? done. you like her pine scented bodywash a little too much? it's yours :)

- absolutely HATES horror movies. she cannot stand them, maybe a few classics not too gorey but either way she just doesnt watch them. truth is she's a scaredy cat when it comes to horror movies, so when you insist to watch one together, you see your 6ft tank of a girlfriend with her eyes half open and flinching at every noise. truly an hilarious sight. if you watch horror movies alone, she'll just stand like a dad and never sit down because it scares her less that way lol🧍‍♀️

- ok so she's not big on pda but god is she clingy. she never lets go of you (not that you're complaining), always wants to touch you in some way, wether its by holding you hand or having her hand in your back pocket :)

- takes you on surprise dates!! you randomly get texts like "are you busy rn? the museum is open👀" or "it's been a while since we've been at the park. put your shoes on" XJDJSBD

- acts like she hates sunscreen just so that you'll have to put it on for her and smirks the whole time

- takes all the space in bed and when you complain about it, she just puts you on top of her "there, you go angel, got enough space now?"

- SHE LOVES CUDDLING big spoon, little spoon or just being intertwined on your shared bed, she just loves physical touch, ESPECIALLY yours <3

- she's an early bird. i believee abby has the sleep schedule of a grandpa, so she goes to sleep at 9pm sharp and wakes up at 5am to go to the gym. once you tried to persuade her to stay up longer and you got to 10:30pm🙀

- if you go to the gym with her, she'll be like a little kid, all excited to show you around and stays with you the whole time to teach you some exercises. doesn't matter if you know them already, she WILL show you everything

- is a bigggg fan of deep conversations. very early in your relationship, the two of you would have hours long conversations about literally anything. but at some point, you realize you've been talking for a while and abby's just sitting there, gazing at you and admiring everything about you. the way you talk, your voice, the little mimics you make or the way you move your hands when you're animated.. yeah she's down bad.

- she lovesss when you do skincare together, pretended like she hated it at first but she just feels so comfortable with you, she feels at ease. she can relax more and having a sheet mask on with cucumber slices under her eyes is surprisingly relaxing

- her main love languages are physical touch (i know, shocker), gift giving and quality time!

- gifts you sooooo many plushies but pouts when you put them on your bed?? and you're like, "where else should i put them?" and when she points to the closet, you're so offended. they're your babies they are not going in the closet. when you're both laying on the bed, she gives them the stink eye >:

- loves being domestic. cooking together, cleaning together, going to the museum and talk about what you saw days after still, taking walks in the park like an old married couple :) she just can't wait to be your wife :))

✰ (a few thoughts about abby with a black gf!)

- STEALS YOUR SHAMPOO! and when you tell her about, she acts innocent as if her hair didn't smell like shea butter and coconut

- that woman is fascinated by your hair routine. every product you have, she tries it out on herself because she lovesss the smells. she could watch you do your hair for hours (she has)

- wants to help with wash day and she gives the best scalp massages. gets a bit messy if she helps you and definitely takes even more time but she's so precious when she does it :( "is the water too hot?" "is that okay?" "am i tugging too hard?"

- is a fucking beast when it come to braiding your hair once you teach her, she can do anything, box braids, cornrows, knotless, YOU NAME IT

- could watch you in the sun for hours (she does) in an every day context she already wants to stare at you all the time, but when your skin is glowing in the light? she looks at you like you hang the moon and stars

- she wears bonnets religiously and you have matching ones ughh thats too cheesy (but true)

LOOK AT HER‼️‼️

can you tell abby's my girlfriend??

tell me if you like it <3

✰﹣𝔰𝔲𝔤𝔞𝔯𝔟𝔞𝔤

[thedollhousediaries]

The Dollhouse Diaries

Real Life In Plastic Tip #6:

ෆTime Management for Neurodivergent Girly Girls and Boujie Hyperfemmesෆ

This is the pretty girl era of having time management under control. The key is to learn how to live in the moment while also being discipline enough to move on to the next task as needed. I know that sentence was as daunting to read as it was for me to write ૮꒰ྀི⊃⸝ ⸝ ⸝⊂꒱ྀིა I guarantee I gotcha *Chaeyoung voice*

First Things First: Go 1 Week At a Time!! (every 3 days if an entire 7 is too much or your schedule is unpredictable, like mine)

Build a simple list of all the things you have to do and that you would like to do. Its much easier to get it all out on the table so you can donate more of your brain power to sorting things, rather than holding things.

Put all of the things listed on a calendar: Most important first things first! This means things like health appointments,work schedule, birthdays, holidays that you celebrate, classes, or anything that involves not only your time but other’s as well. Then after that put the elective things second; Nail appointments, shopping trips, dates with friends, etc. Lastly, put the things you would like to incorporate into your daily routine; We talking skincare, any hobbies you may have like drawing/painting/sculpting/reading/blogging, any form of exercise, etc.

Once the week or however much time you have scheduled out is done on your overall calendar, then its time for marrying it to your life.

Marrying your schedule: Planner apps, Physical Planner, Dry Erase Boards and Bullet Journals

Choosing your medium at keeping up with your schedule is very important. You may have to try them all before you get comfortable with something. I have tried them all and I’ve found that the main one that truly stuck with me was the app/website Notion. I like it because its fully customizable and you can use it at your own pace. Every week or every day may not be super eventful and so it drops the guilt and shameful feeling of not filling up pages every single day.

Here is what all I use and the way I use them:

Notion <3 I use it as my overall journal. I use the apps on my ipad/phone to check if I’m not home and I can use the website on my PC when I’m home and relaxing. I like it because its very versatile. Think of it as a digital journal combined with similar mechanics of tumblr. I use it for literally everything. There are a lot of videos that can show off all of the cool things Notion can be used for but this is the video that personally helped me learn it quickly

Bullet Journals <3 I have about 3 journals and I love them because I get to customize things with cute stickers and it gives very fun scrapbooking vibes. Because I use Notion as a all over planner I can use my BUJO’s for more fun and creative things. I usually use these for all of my cute ideas and things thats in my mind and aesthetic wishlists and such. Its very therapeutic to take time out to be kawaii and glamorous and just put cute thoughts on to paper! I mainly use it for kpop inputs, my fav shows, wishlists, dates and etc.

Dry erase board <3 I use this as a overall daily top important to-do list! Sometimes I dont always open my notion if I dont have anything extremely important coming up but there may be some things I need to keep on my mind to do for that day. The way my neurodivergency is set up I need to keep the most important things always in my face or I could forget everything. So, I put things on there like get a new tire, pick up order from bath & bodyworks, put clothes in the dryer, wash dishes, and etc. Daily tasks like that usually goes on my dry erase board

Remember at the end of the day dont be too hard on yourself and your schedule! Move at your own pace and always set yourself up for success. Scheduling is ideally suppose to calm you and be a tool to improve your life; not stress you out. If at any point you begin to feel overwhelmed just stop and recenter yourself and your life. I felt overwhelmed at first myself and that was because I was trying to keep up with a hyper organized and productive version of myself that I needed to give more patience to develop. Let this come organically to you and not because you are trying to keep up with what u feel everyone else is doing, or to the future self you are going to inevitably become. Happy scheduling, Dollmate!

[in1-nutshell]

Being Swerve's older sibling and reuniting with Swerve

SFW, familial, platonic, Cybertronian/ Bot reader

MTMTE

Part 2 of 2

Part 1 here

Part 3 here

Now present time.

Buddy was very much alive.

They had been ambushed by a team of Decepticon. They managed to get off the ship using one of their escape pods while everyone was recharging. However, Buddy accidentally put themselves into stasis lock entering the escape pod. By the time they did manage to get out of stasis lock, the war was over. They didn’t know that yet. They try contacting anyone on their team, but no one answered.

Then Buddy tries their deep space channel. Come to find out there was an overwhelming number of messages from Swerve Buddy decides to listen to them one by one after realizing that they would be waiting for a while.

They are tearing up hearing their brothers’ struggles and hearing how much had happened over the war and its ending. They eventually reach to the most recent messages and nearly breaks into a violent sob hearing what had happened in the Swearth incident. Buddy just wanted to hug all the sadness from Swerve when they got to him.

Buddy sets to work on a destress beacon after the last message finished. They eventually get a beacon operational and wait.

Rodimus gets a distress pod signal not too far from where they were alert and immediately turns the ship. Once the ship reaches the pod the bridge is connected. In enters Buddy in all their huge glory. They are dented, scratched and in terrible need of a new paint job.

Rodinmus and Magnus are a bit in awe at Buddy’s size but welcome them.

“Welcome to the Lost Light stranger!”--Rodimus

“No thank you for helping me from that pod. I’ve just learned I’ve been there so long I missed a good chunk.”--Buddy

“Don’t worry we will help you get situated with current affairs. And its good to see you soldier.”--Magnus

“Thank you, Ultra Magnus, sir.”--Buddy

Magnus does his part in catching Buddy up with what is going on since they were inside the pod.

“So, Megatron is an Autobot now?”--Buddy

“Yes, he is and is also the Co-Captain of the Lost Light.”--Magnus

“…Sir, are you saying that Megatron is on the ship right now and is sharing Captain duties with Rodimus?... who thought that was a good idea?”--Buddy

“It is a question I ask too many times on this ship.”--Magnus

Buddy listens and silently compares notes with what Magnus was telling them and Swerve’s messages. Thanks to Drift and Ratchet, Buddy ended up with a clean bill of health and a new paint job. Rodimus offered to give them a tour around the ship which Buddy agreed. Buddy hears about Swerve’s from Rodimus.

“Wait! Did you say Swerve’s?”--Buddy

“Yeah it’s a pretty cool bar—”--Rodimus

“Show me the bar.”--Buddy

Rodimus doesn’t think too much of it. He thinks that Buddy is in desperate need of a drink and shows them the way. Buddy has some bots turn around admiring their sheer stature. Meanwhile Buddy was silently buzzing wanting to see Swerve.

Word eventually reaches the bar about some new bot joining the ship. Swerve doesn’t think too much of it as he is trying to cut Tailbreaker off from the drinks again.

Swerve has his back turned when Buddy enters in with Rodimus. Buddy nearly breaks out into a sprint ready to collect Swerve into their arms, but they end up getting blocked by Whirl. He sees Buddy’s size and doesn’t think that it’s his old friend, in his head, a new bot equals a new fight.

“C’mon you giant piece of scrap metal, fight me!”--Whirl

“Whirl!? Oh my Primus it’s you!”--Buddy

“Yeah… OH! Buddy! You made it out of there alive after all! I knew you’d make it!”--Whirl

He launches himself sloppily at his long-lost friend. Buddy gives him a hug in return when they hear a gasp and glass breaking. Buddy and Whirl turn to see Swerve standing behind the bar holding what used to be a glass cup full of engex. Swerve literally leaps over the bar and sprints over to Buddy only to stop in front of them. Whirl lets go of his friend, letting the two siblings have their moment.

Buddy falls on top their knees and scoops up Swerve in a fierce hug and lets a little sob come out.

“Please tell me this isn’t a dream! Cause if it is I don’t want to wake up!”--Swerve

“Its not Swerve. Its not!”--Buddy

“Buddy!”--Swerve

“Swerve!”-- Buddy

Swerve was full on sobbing and blubbering against Buddy’s chassis, Buddy’s arms hid him from the rest of the bar. They were simply enjoying the fact that their brother was back in their arms again. Everyone was staring at the two, which made Whirl angry.

“Hey quit staring! Stare one more time and the last thing you’ll be seeing this claw for a whole decacycle!”—Whirl

When the two eventually calm down, Buddy introduces themselves as Swerves’ Big Sibling. There was much confusion in the bar. The main question being how were they even related to each other? Buddy was a cool member of the Elite Guard and Swerve was just Swerve.

“How are you even related?!”—Bot 1

“We just are?”--Buddy

“I don’t believe your related to Swerve.”—Bot 1

“Why not?”--Buddy

“Because Swerve is just a –Woah!”—Bot 1

“Choose your next words wisely. What were going to say about my brother?”--Buddy

“Buddy! Buddy calm down! Put the sword down!”--Swerve

Swerve doesn’t leave Buddy’s side for the longest time. Buddy becomes Swerve’s giant shadow. Even after a while on board and Buddy gaining new friends, they are never too far from Swerve.

[dragon-kazansky]

Veil of the dreamless

Morpheus x Reader

A cursed Morpheus holds your father prisoner when he enters The Dreaming without permission. You, also able to enter the realm, take his place. Now a prionser to the Dream Lord, you do all you can to learn about the curse and hopefully break it.

{Masterlist}

{Previous Chapter} - {Next Chapter}

Chapter Five - Land of nightmares

☆☆☆

You had been in the Dreaming a few days now. You had settled in quite nicely. Matthew comes to your room every morning to fetch you for breakfast. Morpheus would already be waiting at the table for you. Now, he would stand upon your arrival.

He was becoming a very polite host. You were beginning to enjoy his company.

However, curiosity was eating away at you. Every time you went up those stairs, you just wanted to go the other way and see what was in the western wing. Everyone had told you to stay away from there, but no one would actually tell you why.

It was beginning to bother you. You needed to know.

Morpheus had told you at breakfast that he was working on something today. He told you to do as you wish for today. Lucienne had gone to help him, and you assumed Matthew had followed. There weren't very many people in the palace to spend tike with.

This was your chance to snoop. You told yourself you would be quick. No one would ever know you were in there. You just needed to see what they were hiding.

When you go to the top of the stairs, you turn into the western wing. You checked once more to make sure no one was around and then disappeared down the hall.

This hall wasn't even lit. Claw marks were scratched into the wood, probably from his sharp talon like nails. There was a single door at the end of the hall. You approached it quietly and reached out for the door knob. You turn it and push the door open.

The room is dark. There were no sources of light except for a red glow at the end of the room. You walk inside slowly and look around. More claw marks along the walls. A painting hung on the wall, but the face of the person on it was torn out. The window in here was shattered too.

Slowly, you walk toward the red glow. You gasp softly at what you see.

A ruby rose. Literally. A rose with petals made from rubies. It was encased in a glass covering. At the base were small ruby pieces. Right before your eyes, you watch one of the petals crack and crumble. The rose was losing its petals.

You frown as you look at it. What was it? Why was it breaking? Was this related to the curse?

You reach out to touch it, but an angry voice startles you and you turn around sharply.

"What are you doing in here?!"

Morpheus stands in the doorway, his form towering over you. His wings were open, and he looked furious. He sounded furious.

"I... I was..."

"You were told you weren't allowed in here! How dare you! I trusted you!" He growled sharply. You flinched from the sound.

"What is it?"

"Get away from it!" He stalks across the room, and you flee away toward the door. You keep your eyes on him.

As you reach the door, he slumps over the rose, checking it. He then turns back to you.

"Get out! Get away from here!" He demands.

You try to find your voice to stand up for yourself, but you can't. You flee from the room. You run down the hall and down the stairs. Matthew bumps into you.

"Oh hey... huh? What's the matter?"

You don't answer him. You keep on running. You run through the doors of the palace and out through the yard. Matthew tries to fly after you, but when he sees you running across the bridge, he panics and goes off to find Lucienne.

You don't even look where you're going. You just run.

It gets dark. It gets quiet. It gets scary.

You slow down and realise you can no longer see the palace anymore. You look around you. The trees look like they go on forever. They're twisted and dark. You hear whispers through the trees. Strange voices.

A shiver runs down your spine.

"Hello?" You called out.

"Hello."

You stop still at the voice. Someone replied to you. It was a voice you didn't recognise. It starts to dawn on you where you are. The nightmare forest. Morpheus warned you about this. You've strayed too far.

You start to back up, keeping your eyes on the dark. You bump into something and turn quickly, but not quick enough to get away entirely. Two hands reach out and grab you. You scream at the man in front of you. He would be otherwise unassuming of not for his lack of eyes. He smiles at you, looking at you with two sockets full of teeth.

"Hello." He says again.

"Who are you?" You ask.

"He calls me The Corianthian." He leans in close. "Who are you?"

"Get away from them!"

You turn to see Morpheus. He was glaring at The Corianthian. He was once again towering over you both, his wings open.

"The king has graced us with his presence. How nice." The Corianthian grins.

"Release them, now."

The man holding you laughs. "Why? I have a new play thing. A pretty one, too." He holds you against him with one arm and pulls out a knife with his other hand. You look at Morpheus for help. "What are you going to do? You don't have the power to fight me."

"No?"

Morpheus lifts his claw like hand and blows into it. Sand flutters from his palm into the face of The Corianthian. His grip on you falls, and you push him away to flee. You run and hide behind Morpheus.

The Corianthian turns back to Morpheus and lunges at him with his knife. You watch at the king of dreams lunges back at him. They strike at each other. Morpheus uses his claws to fight off the Corianthian, but the other man is faster and stronger. He slashes Morpheus across the arm and wings with his knife, drawing blood.

"No!" You yell as Morpheus slumps to the ground. You try to run over to help him, but you're suddenly held back by Lucienne, who has arrived with Matthew.

Matthew grabs the pouch of sand and spills some over The Corianthian, who in turn disappears back into the shadows.

"Go with Matthew back to the palace." Lucienen tells you.

You turn to look at Morpheus. He remains in a heap on the ground. You want to go to him, but Lucienne ushers you to follow Matthew.

You follow the raven with a heavy heart.

"He'll be okay," Matthew says.

You don't respond. It was your fault for running off like that. Now he was hurt.

He would never forgive you.

☆☆☆

@littleblackcatinwonderland - @kpopgirlbtssvt - @missdreamofendless - @intothesoul -

[dddomenstarstwst1]

can i request a fic with rook and a sadistic amab reader fulfilling his masochistic fantasies? literally just them going ROUGH

Hi, of course! Hope you like, I'm not sadistic dom myself, more of a soft one, but I tries my best!

Hunt a Prey (ft.rook)

Warnings: sub!rook, dom!amab!reader, slight s/m dynamics, spanking, degradation, blowjob, deep throat, face fucking, riding, kinda clothed sex, biting, mentions of blood play(?) nothing too serious

a/n: character is depicted as 18+ y/o

A sharp sound resonated across the dark room. Your palm hurt from how much it made contact with Rook's skin. His ass was a mess, littered with red shapes of what once resembled your hand.

"Have you learned your lesson now? Or should I spank your filthy ass another twenty times?" You were met with nothing more than a broken whine that turned into chokes as you brought your hand to Rook's butt. Massaging sensitive cheeks, you tilted his head to look at you.

His eyes were hazy, glossed with lust, a dumb smile played on his lips. He was enjoying himself too much, it seems, "Goodness, what a dumb bitch you are! Can't even answer a simple 'yes or no' question. I'm disappointed."

Rook drops his gaze, before he slowly places a hand over your clothed crotch. His silent question is met with your nod of approval. Freeing your dick of its restraints, Rook lets his tongue slide from your base to the tip. His eyes close at the taste of precum, as his lips wrap around the head, bobbing a bit.

"Is that all you can give me? Really pathetic, y'know?" You say, before grabbing a handful of Rook's messy blond locks. His eyes widen and practically roll to the back of his skull, as you use his mouth as a fleshlight. He gags, hands flying up to grab your thighs, but you continue abusing his throat like there's no tomorrow.

"Don't make that face, I know you love it rough. You're a stupid whore after all," Rook feels tears build in his eyes, wetting his cheeks. His jaws went slack, drool spilling from the corners of his mouth. "Shit, slut! Your throat is so tight."

You can almost feel your climax already, – the feeling of cumming in Rook's mouth, making him gag and choke on your load, then watching him struggle as he swallows it all, and finishing it by kissing him, tasting yourself on your own tongue. You have to stop yourself from cumming just from your fantasies.

You tug Rook off of your cock, earning a choked whine. He pants, dumb expression on his face. You pull him on your lap, not giving him anytime to prepare as your dick enters him halfway in one go. Rook swears in French, at least you think it's French with how slurred the words come out.

"Ride me," He nods, lifting his weight off your length, before slamming it down to the base. Sounds of skin-to-skin fill your room, as Rook struggles to keep his pace even. What's worse is how you left him to do all the work himself.

Oh, how cruel you were.

"Why so slow? Can't go any faster, hm? Too dumb and useless to do even that?" You scoff and slam your hips against his, your hands already around his waist, as you pick up the pace. Thanks to position you had him in, it was easier to hit deeper.

Nails drag across your spine, teeth dig in your shoulder, breaking skin and drawing blood. You hiss at sudden pain, pulling his hair to make him look at you. His lips are covered in a thin layer of your blood.

"Fucker," You kiss him, licking blood from his bottom lip, before darting your tongue in his open mouth. Metallic taste spreads on your taste buds, drawing a groan from you. Your hips snap at his, hand still in his hair, you grip Rook's hip till it's bruised. One more addition to his already bruise littered body, something he'll cherish until they disappear and he asks for more.

And you'll be glad to paint his skin purple, for as long as he begs for it.

[woodchipp]

A CRITIQUE OF OMORI, PART 3: MARI AND THE TRUTH

NOTE: Reader discretion is advised. By clicking on “Keep reading”, you willingly choose to continue reading the post.

OMORI spends a considerable amount of time trying to ingratiate you to Mari as a character. In Headspace, she plays a motherly role to Omori and the gang, providing endless positivity and advice to the party whenever they take a break at her picnic blanket; at one point, Kel even begs Hero not to tell Mari about him and Aubrey knocking Basil over the same way a child would beg someone else to not tell their mother after messing up. In the real world, everyone who knew her only ever speaks of her as being kind and gentle, and the official walkthrough guide even calls her “the glue that holds everyone together”.

As wholesome as all of that may seem at first glance, this is one of the main problems with Mari’s writing: the game tries to get you to love her so hard that it comes off as overly aggressive character shilling. For instance, during the second picnic Omori and his friends can have with Mari en route to Basil’s house, Basil wishes to be more like Mari and notes that she always seems to have everything under control, Hero compliments her on how she always makes everything look easy, and Aubrey describes her as "effortlessly graceful". As with Basil summing up each of the characters via flowers, the game spells out the character’s personality for you right at the start rather than allowing you to parse it for yourself over the course of the story.

[Pictured: complex and nuanced characterization.]

[How should I know? I literally just met her a few minutes ago.]

If the shilling had been limited to Headspace, it could’ve been a powerful narrative tool to show how much Sunny idolizes his big sister and foreshadow that his perception of her is unreliable. The problem is that what we learn about her in the real world reinforces said unreliable perception; as with the photo album and the main characters’ childhood, the narrative paints the real Mari as too impossibly perfect of a person to be remotely believable. Not only did she switch beds with her brother when the latter started to have difficulty falling asleep, she also let him sleep with her when he had nightmares, took the blame for him breaking one of their mother’s vases and even saved him from drowning once. She also bought Basil his signature photo album, bought Sunny a giant building block set as a gift for one of his birthdays, carried Sunny back home after he fell asleep on the bus, pitched in along with Sunny's other friends to buy him a violin for Christmas, was the perfect match for Hero and generally served as the group’s caring mother figure in the real world as well. C’mon, love her already!

Of course, such a flawless angel is too good for this sinful earth. That is why, after spending the entirety of its runtime building up to Mari having killed herself due to her own mental issues, the game pulls a last-minute plot twist and reveals that Sunny accidentally killed her by shoving her down the stairs during an argument they had over Sunny breaking his violin on the day of a recital they were to perform at. As evidenced by the datamined text from the “Truth” photo album, the game gives no consideration to Mari’s perspective on the matter and only focuses on Sunny’s feelings. It’s all about how he was overcome, how his fingers were shaking in pain and how he was sick of practicing over and over. How did Mari feel when she saw her brother destroy the fruit of her and his friends’ hard work in one fell swoop? How did she feel being perpetually dissatisfied with the waltz she obsessively practiced, trying to reach the unreachable standards she set for herself? These are questions the game doesn’t bother answering, because Sunny and his feelings are of central priority to the story at all times, even if it comes at the expense of other characters, their own feelings or even logic. 

(speaking of logic, the game never explains why Sunny and Mari were arguing at the top of the staircase in the first place. the piano room, which is most likely where the two practiced since Mari's piano is located there, is on the first floor of their house, while Photo of an Argument shows them them having said argument on the second one. peak writing)

Additionally, the story fails to properly establish just how strenuous violin practice was for Sunny. The only bit of set-up for the argument the game provides during the main story is Lost Library's “Saturday morning cartoons” book, which isn’t much and requires the player to make a giant leap from “Sunny doesn’t like violin practice because he misses out on watching cartoons with his friends” to “violin practice physically hurts Sunny and he resents Mari for her perfectionism”. Likewise, the narrative’s prior and consistent portrayal of Mari as flawless is incompatible with the plot twist’s insinuation that she overworked Sunny and was harsh on him when he made mistakes, which makes the twist feel even more inorganic than it already is.

If the game left the twist at Sunny shoving Mari down the stairs, that probably would’ve been enough. However, it subsequently inserts Basil into the scene, him having bore witness to the argument and Mari’s murder. This doesn’t make sense on a logistical level because the game never explains how Basil managed to get inside Sunny’s house and why he was there in the first place. Not only does Basil not try to call an ambulance/find the nearest adult to help, he comes up with a plan to cover up Mari’s murder by framing it as a suicide. Basil’s multi-step plan is not something one would come up with in a situation of high anxiety and stress: it feels nearly premeditated, and at no step of the way does Basil seem to have had second thoughts, like one would if they were acting irrationally. Furthermore, the sheer tonal dissonance created by the fact that Basil of all people came up with an idea this demented isn’t disturbing as much as it is absurd. It reeks of the writer assuming that a topic like murder instantly makes a story Deep and Complex without putting any thought into it, and it seems Basil was written into the twist solely to absolve Sunny of any responsibility for the cover-up. 

Finally, the game inadvertently implies that Mari's suicide wasn't investigated properly, if at all. The clues indicating that she didn't hang herself are obvious, such as the fact that she seemingly used a jumping rope and her stockings being clean as opposed to stained with grass and mud from the ground around the tree. Such a break from reality isn't much of a significant problem, but it does become rather conspicuous once you notice it. Fans tend to theorize that Sunny's parents somehow knew the truth and possibly bribed the police into dropping the case, but there isn't enough concrete evidence to support this theory.

The knowledge of the twist is imperative to understanding just how aggressive and transparent the shilling becomes. Some of the most notable moments that explicitly demonstrate what the player is meant to think about Mari include divine light shining down on her grave in the town’s cemetery, her farewell to Sunny at the end of the North Lake segment, where she is briefly shown walking on water, and her brief conversation with Sunny in his house's piano room on One Day Left, where she apologizes to Sunny for “pushing him too hard”, implying that her brother killing her was somehow her fault.

Mari isn’t a character in her own right - she is the quintessential fridged woman, existing purely as the object fueling the main characters’ grief and being important only when the game needs to assure the player that Sunny killing his sister wasn’t much of a big deal. After all, even the person he killed is shown to forgive him for what he did.

Speaking of Sunny, his actions in the aftermath of the incident paint him as rather reprehensible. Not only does he vandalize Basil’s most precious belonging and then leave him alone, but he also chooses to lie by omission to his friends and his parents, letting them believe that they failed her because of the assumed nature of her death as a suicide. On top of all that, the game seems to heavily imply that Sunny blacked out the photos due to Omori’s influence; considering that Omori is apparently meant to be the personification of Sunny’s depression, this reads as a convenient way to absolve Sunny of any responsibility for his horrible actions by making his Evil Mental Illness the culprit.

It’s time to talk about this game’s depiction of mental illness, then.

[purplephloxpress]

总有一天 a place to hide (can't find one near) - yiqie

That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Wei Ying feels nothing. He doesn’t feel anything, and this emptiness should scare him. He knows he should be scared. He wants to be scared. He isn’t. Fear itself is never scary; fear is just a response. It means that your body wants you alive. It’s the absence of terror that scares him.

I had SO MUCH FUN with this bind! This one had a lot of firsts for me, and is one that I really poured my heart into due to its particular emotional impact on me (tl;dr - I was a piano major in college, burned out, this fic helped me fall in love with music again). It's an Untamed WangXian Pianists AU (TW for anyone interested that it deals with attempted suicide and life following that) and I tried to tie that into the design details literally everywhere I could think of. Black and white cover paper, music note scene breaks, and my absolute favorite part to create: sheet music title pages. The particular song used for that is a recurring motif in the fic and one that means a lot to me personally, and I knew I wanted to include it somehow. Unfortunately I couldn't find an existing image of the sheet music that was high enough quality to use how I wanted, so I used a sheet music program to input it myself!

This book was my first time doing any sort of edge decoration, and I had fun figuring out how to splatter paint with a toothbrush (Spouse: is that supposed to be blood? Me: no but also... kind of?) and it was also my first time doing endbands! (Shout out to the friends who walked me through it over voice chat one evening, and then rolled their eyes when I announced that I'd torn them out and done them over again. Twice.) I went with red and black for both of those parts to match the main characters canonical color scheme, and also because I liked the dramatic pop of color against the black and white cover.

Spine titling was done once again with a foil quill, and I decided to paint the Chinese title of the fic on the cover. I couldn't find a paintbrush that let me get as fine tipped and detailed as I wanted so I may or may not have used a toothpick to paint it on.

I prevailed over: somehow deleted half of my page numbers and had to reprint the WHOLE THING! Forgot to measure the boards as part of my spine width and had to do surgery with 2mm strips of paper! (Thankfully had allowed plenty of hinge because I didn't realize until I'd finished ALL of the titling and I would have cried if I couldn't salvage it) Truly this is my child and I adore how it turned out. Is it perfect? No. Are there things I would change? Sure. But I learned and I did and I'm so goddamn proud of it!

(See below the cut if you want specific details on the binding)

What pieces went into making it:

Fandom: The Untamed

Pairing: Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji

Pairing: Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji

Bookcloth: black Brillianta

Cover paper: black and silver marbled lokta

Endpapers: red cardstock

Titling: foil quill, acrylic paint, acrylic paint pen

Endbands: leather cording for the core, DMC embroidery thread for the bands

Body font: Adobe Garamond Pro

Title fonts: Long Cang and Canva Holiday

Text message font: Nirmala UI

Scene breaks created in Canva

Title page sheet music created using MuseScore

[noah-liketheboat]

I’ve recently begun using a wheelchair. Here’s the scoop.

I also started using forearm crutches even more recently but we’ll get to that in a second post bc this one got too long

I got my chair for $325 on OfferUp. It’s a motion composites Helio A6, and it has some fancy cushions on it. All in all I got it like 88% off of original price and it’s in pristine condition. Well, it was, until I brought it home and within 24 hours my cat scratched the (pink!!) paint job and put holes in the cushions. Thanks Misty. It now lives in the back of the car for its protection.

I put a clip-on cup holder on it and purple/white spoke covers. It’s pretty sick.

I use my wheelchair instead of walking/standing probably 30-40% of the time.

Personally

Oh my god it’s helped so much. I have so much more energy. I don’t flinch when I stand or walk. I can wait in line for food. I’m not dizzy, embarrassingly sweaty, and spacey just from standing in line anymore.

Because the previous owner spent literally $1,000 on special cushions (seat and back), I have the comfiest seat in any room 96% of the time. 10/10 would recommend. It helps with the back pain too obvi but first and foremost it’s so comfy.

I can go to the zoo. I get into the zoo for free because college but I can’t ever go because I can’t tolerate walking and standing for so long. But now I can go to the zoo!

I have more energy at the end of the day to participate in household chores and life. Before this, all my time was spent either in school or trying to recover enough to go to school again. Even doing my homework was difficult because of the fatigue, let alone date nights, hobbies, cooking dinner, sweeping the floors… it caused a lot of tension between me and my partner as well as my general being miserable.

Very steep learning curve. Very steep strength curve.

The ramp to my math class isn’t a steep grade but it’s long. When I started using it, I had to wheel up backwards. I got out of breath very easily and my shoulders were always aching something awful after going between classes. Now that hill is quite manageable and I only have sore shoulders if I’m going really fast or really far.

Wheelies. An unexpected but important skill. One that I am not good at. It took me weeks to get my wheels off the ground at all, but once I did I had a huge improvement and quickly was able to get my wheels ~6 or 8 inches off the ground. I still can’t sustain it though. I use them to go over bumps and get started up awkward ramps sometimes.

It’s been an amazing improvement to my life. I’m more independent, in less pain, happier, and more energetic. I should’ve done it earlier.

Observations:

People are weird. They talk to me more. Like, strangers ask me how my day is going in the elevator, people make small talk when they hold the door. This isn’t necessarily negative, but it is weird.

Kids stare. Adults also stare but they try to hide it. I don’t mind when kids stare though. They’re just curious and unaware.

I’m always a little nervous to ever stand up or walk out in public in case someone either thinks it’s a miracle and starts praising the lord or like hate-crimes me for “faking.”

When I wheeled in to all my classes after spring break, my teachers and seat mates were all instantly “oh my god what happened are you ok???” It’s a little awkward to explain that it’s just nerve damage that’s been getting worse.

People usually say “I’m so sorry” or “I hope you get/feel better soon!” And it’s like. I know their intentions are good, of course, but I don’t want people to be sorry! This has been an amazing life change for me! Also I’m not getting better, certainly not any time soon, and conversation gets awkward after that.

I think when I tell people it’s not really a “get better” thing, I think they at least subconsciously think it’s terminal or something?? Like. I’m not dying of nerve damage. I had nerve damage before spring break too. It’s just I finally decided to do something besides suck it up and hope I can make it through the day.

My campus is not as accessible as I once thought. The main culprit? UNLEVEL SIDEWALKS. They are the bane of my existence. My right arm will be pumping like my life depends on it and my left will be almost doing nothing. And then later when I’m doing the other way it’ll be the opposite.

There’s no ramp on the other side of one of the buildings I walk through to get to class. That was awkward.

There’s also a lot of cobblestone-type walking areas. Not only are they hella bumpy to wheel on, but they’re old and not well maintained. The cracks between slabs and the potholes can and will eject me from my chair if I’m not careful.

Funny story #1:

I rolled into the disability center on campus to take a test, as per usual (extended time and testing environment accommodations) and they had me wait while they got everyone else seated, which was weird, and then the testing coordinator came over to me and sat down next to me and was like “heyy how are you?” And I was like “I’m good, I’m good! Ah, well—*gestures to chair* yknow.” And she goes “Yeahh of course… so is this… new?”

Is it new??? Ma’am you see me every three weeks on the dot for tests, and every time for the past two years I’ve walked in on my own two feet, and today I come rolling in as I’ve transgendered into a vehicle. Yeah it’s new!!

Don’t worry I didn’t say that. I said “yeah, well, kind of. The chair is new, but the reasons aren’t. It’s just helping me a lot and my life is easier with it.” or smthn like that and she was like “oh ok good cool great”

Anyways, she just needed to tell me essentially that she would have me take my test at a height-adjustable table. Same room, same everything. Just instead of sitting in a test cubby I’d be at what’s essentially one of those standing desks. I was all nervous just for her to sit me at a table I can crank up and down like an old car window.

Funny Story #2

I’m rolling across the courtyard(??) in front of the library where they were having one of those random college of business things with tents everywhere. You’re aware. Just trying to get to class.

I hear “Hey! Excuse me, hey!” from behind me and I turn my head to see a girl frantically waving me down running across the grass. Naturally I’m intrigued.

She gets to me, a little out of breath, and then goes “Would you be interested in playing tennis?”

I look down at my chair. I look back up at her. “Ah… no…”

She was talking about adaptive tennis. Which I could’ve guessed probably but I was caught so off-guard and I was real confused.

She invited me to join the adaptive sports program/club thing, which is headed by a disabled professor but run entirely by able-bodied students (who get a class credit for volunteering with the organization, essentially). I told her I was really new so probably not, but I was willing to look into it. She gave me the professor’s email and I sent him an email like “hey one of your students flagged me down to talk abt adaptive sports but I’m shit at wheelchairing so probably not but I’d love to meet up and chat and get to know more about the program and stuff.”

It’s been a month. I haven’t gotten a reply or acknowledgement or anything.

All the stuff I can find about the program is obviously directed towards able-bodied students wanting them to volunteer or take the class. The Instagram has a post with each student in the class getting a slide with their lil intro and stuff. The professor only appears in group shots. At any rate I’m not that invested.

Personal Relations

Abled ppl when I told them I’m getting a wheelchair: oh no!! I’m so sorry!! What’s wrong!! That’s awful!! :((((

Disabled ppl when I told them I’m getting a wheelchair: omg that’s amazing I’m so happy for u :)

One exception to the able bodied trope: my youth group Bible study, surprisingly. I was sharing that I was really feeling a lot of turmoil about my decision and all that jazz and they were like “just do it. you already know it’s the right choice, and ur strong enough to do it” and they all “oohed” and “ahhed” when I rolled up with it next week. 10/10 queens.

My wheelchair has caused so many personal relationship issues in my life. So many.

Suddenly everyone’s a medical expert in me specifically. Everyone besides me knows what’s best, and what’s best is not a wheelchair. People who used to ask me what was wrong with them when they had a tickle in their throat or fell on their foot funny have apparently become scholars on complex hashimotos, nerve damage, neuropathy, and any and all suspected other conditions I may have. I wonder when they had time to do that, since they still don’t know how to care for a simple kitchen injury.

When I point out that the alternative to the wheelchair is constant+worsening pain and ask them if that’s what they think is best, these overnight medical experts get all huffy and don’t have an answer.

I have done extensive research about all my diagnosed conditions and possible ones over the course of many years. I’ve been in and out (mostly out) of at least a dozen doctor’s offices and done several rounds of different types of PT. I also live in my body 24/7. One of my earliest memories is of waking up my aunt at night during a sleepover because my nerve pain wouldn’t let me sleep. I wasn’t any older than 4. Back then the only words I had were leg cramps and growing pains.

I didn’t know my pain was abnormal for a long time. I’m good at hiding it. I’m good at “pushing through.” I experienced severe medical neglect, to the point of it being life-threatening, for nearly 2 years in the TTI and I was punished any time I tried to advocate for myself and my needs or really even talked about how I wasn’t physically well.

Basically I gave up trying to truly tell people how bad my quality of life was when I was about 16 because I wasn’t believed and I was often punished and/or had it used against me.

Nevertheless, everyone (read: my partner, my parents, and my partner’s parents) in my life thinks that I’m terrible awful wrong bad lying etc. for using the chair.

I’ve been using it for ~2 months and this is the first week my partner hasn’t argued with me about it or made an unnecessary comment. #1 worst thing they’ve said is that I’m “neglecting half of my body” by not walking 24/7. Oooh that made me mad. I do my PT almost every day, I stretch every day, I know exactly what almost every ache and pain originates from, I check in with my body constantly throughout the day. But I’m “neglecting it.” Not to mention that after my second appointment my Doctor specifically said he wants me using the chair until at least June.

My partner was originally very supportive, but then they talked to their mom and suddenly everything changed and they are borderline vindictive about my chair. Their mother is a Doctor, true, but most of her career she was a PICU nurse and also knows exactly nothing about my medical history except that I’m allergic to pecans and walnuts. Oh, and their dad has a friend who cured hashimotos by going gluten free, so obviously I’m just not trying hard enough or smthn. ((I’ve been almost gluten free before. No change.))

I cried every week about their attitude towards/comments about my chair except for this one. Every time I felt confident about it I would remember everything they said and my shoulders would physically slump. But no matter how many times I brought up how hurt and uncared for I was feeling, it ended up with me crying and them being either the same or more solid in their beliefs.

My therapist is a saint.

On the brightish side, my family and partner have finally begun taking my health and chronic issues seriously. I went to the Doctor two weeks after I got the chair and got started on a new medicine (a loop diuretic if anyone’s curious).

My mom keeps asking if I’m “better yet” and it’s really hurtful for some reason? She wants to know all my improvements, but when I start to say how my chair has helped so much, she cuts me off and says “no I mean the medicine.”

I am on the lowest dose they make, and I only take it every other day. I haven’t lost any weight since starting it (loop diuretics work by flushing excess water out of your body via peeing every twelve seconds, and this leads to weight loss. It’s estimated I’m carrying ~30lbs in water weight). Again, it’s been nearly two months. I’m the pissmaster 9000 every other day.

My mom at some point said she just “can’t accept that I’m in a wheelchair at 20.” My brother in Christ, what does that even mean? I’m not even using it full-time, or even the majority of the time.

I’ve had a follow up with my Doctor since I started but he kept me on the same dose even though I told him I haven’t lost any weight. Cest la vie.

He did tell me he wants me using the chair until at least June, and if all goes well he’ll start me in (another round of) PT, and it sounded like he wanted me doing decently intensive PT because he asked if I was in school in June and said it was good I wasn’t. If I go to PT, the chair usage advice will be passed on to them.

This post got far too long. I’ll split my crutches experience into a separate post and link it here once it’s up.

The chair herself. Yeah it’s in a bathroom don’t worry about it.

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

I'm not really an MHA guy, most of my exposure to it is from fanfic, but would I be right in assuming its setting is one of those things where the status quo is genuinely fucked, but everyone who's against it or up for changing it is either painted as wrong or is conveniently over-the-top evil?

With MHA it’s weird. On one hand you have people constantly calling out the status quo and being portrayed as sympathetic/right. Izuku, Class 1-A, and the future heroes are constantly portrayed as learning how to be better than the past heroes. You got the LoV, who despite being mass murderers, are given sympathetic backstories that showcase the suffering caused by the status quo. You also got Endeavor, who understands that he’s shitty and plans on retiring once he’s no longer needed in the war against the LoV. You also have Stain, a guy whose message is that there are a lot of fake heroes, and his message is one that is framed as being correct and one that sticks around throughout the series, even when he’s defeated.

On the other hand, Hori will outright contradict his own messages. Katsuki, a direct benefactor of the status quo, is coddled by the narrative, never meaningfully called out, constantly praised, and gets everything handed to him on a silver platter. Endeavor’s abuse is brushed aside by everyone. Now someone might mention that it’s because Dabi’s murdering people and they need Endeavor to stop him and the LoV, so they’re just tolerating him for now. This would be true and perfectly valid, if not for the fact that Hori has actual characters not care about any of the revelations. You have Inasa admit to Dabi’s face that he doesn’t care about what Endeavor did and you have Endeavor’s sidekicks ignore the allegations just because he does his job well.

Then there’s the fact that anyone with valid criticisms about the status quo and how things are done are immediately demonized. When people were booing Katsuki for savagely wailing on Ochako rather than ending the fight quickly (something he could’ve easily done if not for the fact he thought Izuku gave her a strategy), Hori has Shota talk to them as if they were misogynistic pigs. When the journalists rightfully point out Katsuki’s horrible attitude and U.A’s incompetence, Hori frames them as being vultures and not really understanding Katsuki (Shota literally says that Katsuki deserves to be a hero cause he works hard). Endeavor’s critics are treated as nuisances rather than people who understandably don’t want an abuser to be the new #1 hero. The angry mob that forms as Izuku’s being brought back to U.A is framed as horrible people willing to let a kid die. While it’s true that they were willing to let Izuku die, they literally saw no other option as the heroes have failed them numerous times. The last war was a disaster even though they managed to drive the villains away and both Endeavor and the HPSC, two centerpieces of hero society, were exposed for their crimes. Finally, there’s the fact that the LoV, the biggest source of criticism about heroes, are mass murderers for absolutely no reason, which limits how effective their message is to the audience. Even Stain falls for this trap cause he kills heroes that aren’t All Might indiscriminately, even good heroes like Tensei, a hero who is framed by the narrative as a charitable and true hero.

Ultimately, I think Hori’s genuinely trying to criticize the status quo, but the problem is he doesn’t quite understand how to do so and he lacks the writing skills to do so. Hori does this thing where he creates all the moving pieces but is afraid to make them come together because of his inexperience and because he’s too afraid to criticize his favorite characters too harshly, characters who benefit from the status quo.

Lol that kinda turned into a rant but hopefully it answered your question 😂

[tau1tvec]

How do you stop worrying that your sims posts won't be perfect? Is it possible to escape the "this isn't instantly, effortlessly amazing and therefore it sucks and is horrible" mindset?

Well first of all you need to sit down and figure what it is that defines “perfect” to you. Now lower those expectations by about 25%, bc it’s likely you’re struggling with something I also struggle with, and it’s called “being your biggest critic”, and you’re actually being unnecessarily hard on yourself.

There isn’t anything wrong with this btw, it’s quite handy when you’re on the internet, bc if it passed your unreasonably high standards, well then everyone else liking it is just sugar on top.

However this mindset does have its downsides. Mostly bc you’re disconnecting yourself from the purpose of why you would be sharing it with others to begin with. The connection humans make over art and media is too precious not to want to care what others think, but how will you ever know what they think, if you don’t show them? I know, this is quite the hot take, but it’s the truth. Yes do things for yourself first, but in all honesty are you rlly just doing it for yourself and yourself only if you’re sharing it publicly online too? I’m only saying, Michelangelo didn’t paint the cieling of the Sistine Chapel so that everyone would ignore it.

My suggestion? Post whatever every once and a while to remember you’re supposed to be doing this for fun first. Being artistic, thought provoking, engaging, trendsetting are all things that rely on you to have fun first. You gotta enjoy it, you rlly have to, bc ppl can tell when you’re not enjoying it, you can tell when you’re not enjoying it, and that’s why you’re feeling the way you do.

So post CAS pics with the UI still visible, share gameplay without Reshade on, post your sim not fully rendered or looking like a complete cryptid, and lastly learn that perfection isn’t about quality, consistency, how crisp your graphics look, or heavily edited your screenshots are.

True perfection is being able to show someone something, literally anything, it could be a fucking stick figure, and somehow it still invoke a feeling so familiar, so nostalgic, or so funny, that liking it comes easy.

Plus, 9/10 times no one is looking at the shit only you notice. So yeah, 25% 🤏.

[averyroundpumpkin]

☆ROCK ZOMBIE! POPPY HEADCANONS

☆Noticed a serious lack of Rock!Poppy content

☆Warnings: slight cussing, mentions of vandalism and mentions of addiction

Personality Hcs

^ this image is basically her whole personality (atleast how I see her)

She's still friendly, just by Rock troll standards

Like, the other genres of trolls would think she's mean and rude, but Rock trolls would think she's normal and being nice

Tbh, she's a teensy bit meaner as a rock troll

GENERAL HCS

Barb's lieutenant

Rock!Poppy is regular Poppy on steroids

1000× more energetic

She's more reckless; she always manages to break or loose something somehow

She could find a way to break something in a protective case without even wanting to

Totally more vulgar

Barb: "Who's ready to rock!?"

Poppy, totally unprovoked: "ME! F*CK YES!"

Totally a show off. I mean, did you see the way she played that guitar

Speaking of guitars, don't hand her one

Seriously, blink and its smashed to pieces on the ground(branch and barb learned the hard way...several times)

Don't lend her things in general, you'll never get them back

Her room is full of things she "borrowed" from people

She doesn't even use most of the stuff she has, she just doesn't want to let them go

Her room is messy, not because of dirt, but because of the sea of valuables she has scattered in it

Branch had to fight her once to get her to arrange her stuff neatly

It went back to its normal state the very next day

She has a 1 hour hair routine that she will not pause for anyone

Makes fun of branch because of his mullet

"Hey Branch, the 80s called. They said they want their mullet ba-"

"Stfu"

Hard-core partier. Even worse than how she was before

Queen of moshing

Throwing up horns is her signature move, she always does it- even more than a rock troll usually does

Cringes everytime she hears pop music

Has flashbacks of her past, but doesn't think too deep into it. Thinks it's just her mind messing with her

Instead of scrapbooking, she spray-paints

She's vandalized several buildings without being caught

Steals Debby from Barb and decorates her. This makes Barb mad

Tries to suck up to Debby and win her over

Her feeling for Branch are complicated

She tries to deny her feeling for him, but literally no one is having it

All the other trolls are betting on when they're gonna kiss

"What? Me and Branch? Pfft- yeah right, we would never. We're best friends. Buds. Amigos. Pals.

"Mhhhhhmmmm"

Unaware of Branch's addiction (reference to trolls 3)

Sorry if I butchered her for you or this isn't what you thought about her!