#some art from the main acct :)

[astrxealis]

saw someone say the new g’raha tia official art has him in “that eboy pose” and i can’t stop thinking abt it. hilarious

[khiita]

this is a warning to tumblr and twitter artists + people in the interactive fiction fandom about my experience with faeinthefog/ElouanVT. faeinthefog seems to be a polish person that goes by the names Anna/Andi/Anka. they are also associated with the acct names AnnabelleShep13, sapphovonchat, andi-the-cat, and their username in AO3 is Mephale.

if you are an artist and have been commissioned by FAEINTHEFOG / ELOUANVT / ANNA or ANKA W**** in the past year, please contact me. there is a 99.9% chance that you unknowingly drew an original character that they stole from me. the other 00.1% chance is that it was stolen from someone else. for the record, at least two of the artists i managed to contact are involved in the mo dao zu shi / the untamed fandom.

i didn’t know that this person existed, hadn’t ever–knowingly–interacted with them in my life until yesterday (august 22nd), when i found out that they had been stealing my art and every single detail about my ocs for months. but what they did to me goes way deeper than that, so here it goes:

this all started yesterday morning, when scrolling through tumblr i saw that a friend had reblogged a commission of a main character for The Nameless that looked startlingly like my oc, Euridi. Euridi is a character i first created in 2013 and, just like with all my ocs, everything about her is deeply personal to me–i’ve drawn vent art featuring her plenty of times, so i immediately felt sick seeing that she was stolen, and contacted the artist.

while i was trying not to freak out and waiting for them to reply (which they did, and they were very kind and understanding–took everything down, cleared up some things for me) my friends started digging into faeinthefog, and everything went to shit after they found their twitter account, ElouanVT. in it, this person seemed to have frankensteined a fake personality, using selfies of a small polish influencer called igarosa as their face, and they posted not only the Euridi commission, claiming she was their oc and not bothering to even change her name, but they also posted my own art, claiming it was theirs, as well as multiple other commissions they had gotten of my characters.

besides this artist, who had done three commissions for faeinthefog, my friends and i were able to find four more of them. i’ve heard back from two of them so far, and i want to clarify that none of the artists seem to have known that the characters were stolen, and they are not to blame for what faeinthefog had been doing. it seems that the way faeinthefog would commission the artists was sending them profiles and descriptions they had copy-pasted from my blog, as well as sending them picrews that i had previously posted. both of the artists i talked to confirmed this. i believe faeinthefog started stalking me and stealing my creations about 9 months ago, since that was when they created their (now deleted) account on notebook.ai where they had uploaded at least 15 of my characters, if not all (i felt too fucking nauseous about it all to scroll through everything).

the reason that this freak shit flew under the radar for so long despite the considerably small size of the IF fandom is that when faeinthefog posted the commissions on tumblr, they never once said the oc’s name and rarely credited the artist responsible. meanwhile, on twitter they not only name-dropped my characters, but also (in my opinion) seemed to claim that each interactive fiction that features the characters is a story of their own making, as seen in the way they talked about Parker's The Nameless in their tweet featuring Euridi. it should be noted that in their tumblr blog description they referred to themself as a “game dev”, i've yet to find anything they have actually made themselves besides my trauma, however. here are examples of commissions they’ve gotten of my characters and the way they talked about Attollo, Body Count, Swan Song and Andromeda 6 as if those stories were their own work.

not only did faeinthefog steal my designs, my art and any word i’d typed about my characters, they also stole my oc spotify playlists as well as my pinterest boards, pin by pin. before they deleted their pinterest account, i saw that the last time they’d pinned something was two weeks ago. truly fucking insane behavior.

i have noticed that they even copied who my ocs were in a relationship with in each game. furthermore, whenever this person posted my art on twitter, each and every single time they would also copy the exact caption i had written on tumblr. even if it made no sense at all out of context. when it came to posting my ocs as their own, they also used quotes that i had already used in my own profiles.

i want to add that i am either friends, in semi-regular contact, or alpha-reading for five out of the ten authors i mentioned, and from what i gathered none of them were truly aware of this person or what they were doing either. the authors who had reblogged commissions that faeinthefog posted were kind enough to delete them after they found out as well.

speaking of friends though!!! as if all of this creepy bullshit wasn’t enough, besides reposting my art, faeinthefog would repost gift art i’ve received from my friends, claiming it had been made for them by their friends–without changing any names. i also found at least one instance of them reposting art i’ve made for artfight, name-dropping the giftee even when i hadn’t, which meant they had to go digging through other people’s blogs to get them.

(the embed for this one broke and i couldn’t include the picture, but the repost was of this art i made last year during artfight for tumblr user @/whoreromancer, with my signature cut out.)

as you can see, this person had been blatantly stealing from me for months, claiming to have made the things i’ve created and claiming the people i love had any sort of relationship with them. i honestly can’t find any other explanation for this behavior + the fact that they commissioned my characters multiple times other that calling it an obsession with me (after some digging done by my friends, we haven’t seen them steal from anyone else, for better or worse) and honestly, fucking insanity. as i have stated before all of this hurt me deeply and freaked both me and my friends out a lot. anyone who knows me knows how much love and dedication i put into everything i make, including my pinterest boards and playlists, so thankfully i received a lot of love and support from my community.

it does make me wonder though, whether faeinthefog targeted me thinking i had a small blog and no one would notice/care? wherever this person is now that they’ve deleted the accounts i knew about, i have no doubt in my mind that their behavior won’t change, and if they don’t continue to rip me off, they might invent themself a new personality and pick someone else. my friends and i have reason to believe that (despite their clear lack of imagination) this person is willing to switch identities in order to have an online presence, and we have no reason to believe that they won’t come back. i hope the IF fandom continues to watch out for each other. i added watermarks to all my art, which i think might be a good idea for everyone to do? i never thought someone would steal my art/ocs and yet here we are.

thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone who helped me and supported me during this mess.

[spacegoathours]

✨hiya!✨

💜 i'm Mina (she/her) and i'm 33!

💜 you've stumbled upon my Invader ZIM sideblog! likes and some interactions will come from here (main acct)

💜 main OC is Callie, see more about her on toyhou.se! other OCs below the cut on this post

💜 check tags mina arts for my doodles, and mina talks for my rambles, plus specific OC tags such as oc: callie and oc: laksa for more stuff :3

current-ish OC references!

[bg-brainrot]

ok im wondering if you regret making this blog a side blog since ppl dont like know youre following them and stuff from your main blog so like making moots is like trickier. just asking cuz i was thinking of starting a little writing side blog myself and im like debating making a new acct for it! hope u have a good day :)

Hey anon, great question!

And YES. To be honest, my previous Tumblr days were many moons ago (10+ years), so I made a new blog to start fresh. I figured my main blog would be more general and I'd add sideblogs as I felt I needed them-- little did I know I needed something like Baldur's Gate to hit me like a freight train to actually begin using Tumblr again.

Initially I thought I would use it once in a while to look at nice fan art and see if there were any cool writing challenges, but once I realized I could actually like, talk to people, I was in too deep. 🥲

It definitely makes things like asks, likes, follows weird since it comes from my dead main blog-- I can't speak for how my moots feel, but I feel awkward when I'm like 'hey it's me again, promise I'm not a robot'. If I could, I would have just repurposed my main blog as an Astarion only blog, but, alas, Tumblr doesn't have any good way to transfer blogs from what I've Googled 😞

There are probably some good ways to handle this, like I've seen folks name their blogs similar things or use their main blog for something else, but I haven't honestly found a reason to use my main one yet-- maybe if I get obsessed with something new someday!

Thanks for the ask and hope you have a nice day too! ❤️

[lycan-mutt]

hi quick intro post so i have smth on here

gamey / lycan / wolf

he/it

19 (apr 21)

wolf man

this is gonna be a side acct for @lycanthian to store 18+ and nsfw shit because while i still want to engage with it i dont want it intertwined with my main for personal reasons

feel free to send me messages and asks and whatnot i love hearing from people and talking about whatever esp horny shit. i follow back from @lycanthian but im assuming you already know that if youve found this acct

might post some art here too but dont expect it to be super finished or anything for a long time

ALSO FOR THE RECORD: I AM IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH SOMEONE CURRENTLY AND NOT LOOKING FOR ANOTHER. friendly flirting and sex talk and anything else is all fine but know that im Not looking for one right now

talking can be found at #lycan rambles, art can be found at #lycanmutt art

[moonylilies]

2023 Art Summary!!

so here's a single piece from each month i did!! i really wish i did more art this year, so hopefully (and most likely) next year i will!!

below under the cut are links to the ones i managed to post along with my art goals and some thoughts for the next year

thank you so much for those who have been following me this year and i hope we can continue to grow doing what we desire in the next year :3

yall can skip reading this if you just wanna go see the links; most of you probably know i went back to college in january, which unfortunately caused me to gain major art block (ew) when my depression creeped up. i also had like no time this semester with the large ammt of courses i took (i took 6 classes and it killed me with the course load since most of them were online. never again i will be making that mistake). when i go back to classes in january, i hopefully will not be as dying as i was this semester since i am taking a majority art course load. im even taking a printmaking class which means yall will be gettin some goodies posted hopefully

my art goal for next year besides getting more commissions lol (which if you are interested can see about here) is to be able to draw full bodies - i still can't and ive been drawing humans as my main thing for at least 6 years now. i will def be practicing next year by doing many figure studies lol. i also hope i can manage to figure out how to do backgrounds besides the basic ones i tend to do i also hope that with my shop i can break some of my records like getting new states i haven't shipped to yet so that my state ammt goes up from 8 to maybe 10, having my total ammt going up to around 50 sales from 35, getting more fans for my art who love the stickers and prints i am making, ect ect i wasn't able to this year. while i am on winter break, i am trying to set up a shop update for before classes start again which i will be updating on here about when i remember to do so (honestly the hardest thing for me while having an art acct to promote my art and shop is making content besides just posting my art online and hoping people like it)

links for art + what the ones that don't have links are lol: january: lunar new year rabbits feburary: ft ferris bueller's day off au (this one is the one i am the most proud of) march: lucy redesign april: team shadowgear hehehe (this one's my favourite i did this year) may: yuki got hit by a car june: sketch of my oc alyss july: levy for part of my colour wheel challenge that is still a wip (tiktok one two ; reels one two) august: wally ice cream (aka a future sticker) september: art of my oc adora october: the sun tarot card feat sting eucliffe (wip portion is linked) november: bisca icon december: ramen sticker (a sticker soon to drop in my shop once i do a shop update soon)

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Did you see tkkrs fighting for that Taekook nsfw fanart acct? The one that draws explicit Taekook art, human something. Looks like some armys wanted that account suspended. Some tkkrs apparently pay patreon for more exclusive content. I thought Tkkrs were "supporting" Taekook cause they think the 2 men are together. Here they are basically asking for Taekook porn.

That account is problematic, but not because of the act of drawing nsfw content. I don't think that's the route to go in order to "cancel" someone. Because in that logic, what makes it different from all other nsfw accounts? All creators are then targeted which I don't think it's fair. Yes, they want to see taekook drawn porn. Just as they read porn in fanfics. And that's something people do, regardless of who they ship. NSFW content shouldn't be banned or judged, even if it's taekook. That's not the basis of the argument. It doesn't mean there are no legitimate concerns in regards to that humanlvr creator. They do fetishize the hell out of the characters they draw and they perpetuate some really weird narratives. Is this a cause for it to be taken down or that creator to be stopped? Maybe. This entire argument comes from a moral standpoint which is hard to legitimately use. Does it violate twitter guidelines? If it does, then fine. I can understand the fans wanting the account suspended, but I think this issue needs to be carefully considered because it can create a precedent and I know that the main reason to be used will be about the act of drawing nsfw.

[lamp-shading]

(userbox is by @/plural-this-user-is)

Hi this is Lampert from @eyes-0f-ender

I wanted to make my own blog so that our personal acct isnt just flooded w my bullshit lol. Most of my info is under the read more if you wanna see it 👍 also shoutout to @/cybrthrillz for making my icon art on tumblr youre so cool tysm for that man /gen

we're a polyfragmented DID system and I'm the host of our system but I'm also a fictive from regretevator so youre gonna see alot of rbs from my source lmao. In terms of my personal source memories wallter and mark are my parents and I get uncomfy abt ship art of me between those guys but I'll respect the fact if you don't headcanon me as their kid 👍 I'll still rb art of them anyways since theyre special to me :]

In sys I'm 20 years old, bodily we're 21 and I use she/he pronouns. I'm a soft butch gaybian, genderfluid & transfem. my partner is @xx1nf3ct3dxx (hi faggot) so pls no unsolicited flirts! I also reclaim the slurs faggot and dyke 👍

as a note we're mentally and chronically ill and I'm a symptom holder for our OCD, AvPD and hypersexuality so you'll see alot of rbs or vents abt it. Nothing graphic ofc. This bog may be 18+ for the hypsersexual posts so plz plz plz minors either be extremely careful or dont interact at all. This isn't a strictly nsfw blog otherwise

uhhhh. general dni time lol. don't be exclus or a bigot or involve yourself in syscourse, that shits tiring to deal with. don't follow if youre a terf or a radfem i consider myself to be mtf and I feel unsafe seeing yall interact on our main as is. DNI also if youre a pedo/map/zoo/proship/transx/transid yall are so harmful.

Also please dont be weird abt me being a fictive i'm just some dude online i'm my own person outside of my source lmao. I know it may be weird seeing me talk abt specific topics and I HAVE had people talk abt me/some of my other friends in sys abt their source and saying "why are you doing xyz youre out of character" I'm not my character. I'm not canon complicit cuz I am my own person.

ok thx for reading have a free transgender blåhaj

[roseband]

My VVVIP experience with The Rose (very long):

I did the triple VIP package in Stockholm, Sweden with the boys <3

For the green room tour, they all started with a hug, which was very nice... they're all very short hahaha, but so handsome.

When I first got into the room, Dojoon commented that my top looked like some of the jackets they wear on stage, so I was happy that he noticed that lol (done on purpose!!)

The first thing they asked all of us is if we wanted anything to drink, I asked for a diet coke knowing that Hajoon is a diet coke drinker too, which turned into a conversation with them about how diet coke isn't really sold in that area of Europe cause of the chemicals in it, and how we should probably all.... stop. (I drink like 3-4 a day I have a problem)

They asked why I came all the way from NYC, I mentioned that I had a buttload of unused PTO (which they didn't know what that was, which, honestly... artist problems same reason I didn't use mine, I told them that I finally got a staff graphic artist job (forgot to mention the brand and i wanna kermit cause sammy and their photographer both own a lot of stuff from the brand i work for, and like a ton of other idols lol.... like Eric's whole family is a fan of one of the things I do some art on lol (I should seriously send him one of the toddler outfits I did a bunch on for his nephew lol)), vs the freelance I had been doing for 3 yrs before), asked if I had come to multiple cities or had gone on vacation only, and I told them I was on vacation in Sweden/Denmark.

They don't usually get to tourist when on tour, so mainly just plane/train, hotel, concert venue, maybe one part of the city, which is kinda sad ;_; also it must be so tiring, like Dojoon looked super tired and not the healthiest, so I hope he's okay, he kinda kept his distance from us during parts of the tour and also "brain farted" during Q&A......

But they asked how I got there, mentioned plane ofc, but I made a joke that u could probably take a cruise...?? Hajoon said UBER which made the others all laugh

I kinda froze a bit, it was a loooottt, so Dojoon made a joke that I could just stare at them even and it'd be okay...

I asked them if they were going to ever release the old songs (like photographer, omg, greed, can't let you go) that they used to play on their tours in 2017-19, when I mentioned omg/photographer I told Jae I like his little slap bass solos in them <3 <3 <3 (Jae def still has the most idol'y mannerisms cause he did the classic idol compliment, head turn, heart eyes and hands to chest lol)...

They're planning on releasing them in a special way for broses, and Sammy was thinking some sort of like, scavenger hunt type thing on rosarium. (pls give them to meeeeee <3)

I told them I like those (omg and photographer) the most cause I play a bit of bass guitar, even though it's not my main instrument... and that the VIP package made me want to get out my guitars again,, Sammy asked what it was and if it was guitar, which I was like CLARINET!!!! and Bass Clarinet which is like a super big clarinet that goes up to /here/ *stands and gestures height*.

Sammy and Hajoon both came to the conclusion that it's a "clarinet cello" and "like a cello to a violin" which YES!!!

So when they got the ukulele out to sign, going with the violin joke, Jaehyeong mimed it being like a violin hahaha, and as they went to sign it Sammy kvetched about how sharpies smell lol.

So I was still talking to them about the old tracks, and mentioned I was a predebut fan.... and /used to/ (at least my noggin worked there) run a tumblr page of them, and sammy mentioned he used to be on tumblr and would follow/look into fan accounts, so HELP ME, (now i'm certain they've seen that awful video ;~;) but there's no way that he hasn't seen my acct then and that's big bad energy for my brain now lol.

but for the 4 selfies they first asked who your bias was, and when I said jaehyeong soooo quickly they all made fun of me for how fast it was, but OFC!! bass baby.

Jae and I took the two selfies, plus he almost dropped my phone in the middle, so I have a third really derpy one that wasn't supposed to be taken, and then we had the two with ot4...

Pics:

I wanna know what witchcraft they use to look taller in pics though...

And also... my precious (I have to build my display for it now)

___

So after that we went for the stage tour....

I had initially hung by Jae while going on stage (and he helped me up cause their circle part of the stage was a big step up and i was wearing heels and am a klutz)

But I ended up hanging with Sammy and playing Skylar which <3 <3 <3

So two of the girls who were in my group played piano and were hanging with dojoon, and were both super good at piano btw!! <3

When I first put Skylar on I played a little bit of blackbird by the beatles and Dojoon sang alongggg, and then I played the beginning/chorus of back to me like the melody part (IDK I may slip in the audio that I recorded on my watch later, but not sure, I think I may wanna keep those private for me)

But Sammy asked if I wanted to keep playing (so I didn't get a chance on Juicy w/ Jae but that's okay, next year hopefully) and he showed me the chords to b2m and a little bit of the chords for alive.

It's really hard to play on stage, I'm not a guitar family main, and mostly play by tab/ear, so the delay you get from when you pluck/strum the instrument to when you hear it without the IEMs is really confusing.... so now I totally get why when they had that issue with their sound team with their IEMs they kept having such extreme issues cause it's like off by a half second from you playing and hearing it. (I can really only handle that delay on my reeds lol)

Also, rather than having a pedal board where they can change effects during tracks, they actually have them preprogrammed for each song, so they can change distortion type effects based on which song is in the setlist vs what effects they want at the moment. Which is different than when I went on their stage in 2018, cause they had a typical pedal board setup then.

Also when I took off Skylar, I asked Sammy what's with the heavy relic customs (cause he has two now) and he said that he just likes them..... and I sorta joked that in nerd instrument world that's not ok (even though I know someone who played at carnegie with duct tape on her fucking contrabass clarinet) and he said "well guitar can be a nerd instrument too" and like dude u do not know how weird woodwind players are... u do not get it but ily so much

___

Q&A/Soundcheck/Concert was... normal, waiting for fancams to upload now

___

We had one final group photo with the 5 VVVIPs where they also gave us the signed ukuleles and the posters they were holding backstage for us.

We got to hug them all again and we thanked them for the show.

We technically weren't allowed to give them gifts, but that was the only time we weren't watched as much, so one girl slipped them some black rose pins she ordered thru Dojoon, and I gave the keychains that I drew and had printed/manufactured through Sammy.

Sammy was impressed that I had all them and that the sticker on the back of Brittany is on the back, but when I mentioned I drew them he was like "wait you DREW these" so i'm super happy lol

...and then now i have world's worst post concert depression hahaha

[across-violet-skies]

About me!!

Ao3 | main

hi!!! I'm River (you can call me Riv or Skies also), 18+ y/o and nonbinary (they/them).

if you get followed by @glittercat34, that's me! I can't follow people from this acct (it's an alt), so if I say we're mutuals, please believe me!! I know it can be confusing 😅

I love LoZ and LU, and I'm a writer!! I would love if you would check out my Ao3 sometime <3

here's some of my writer's highlights:

When it Rains, it Pours (Hyrule) & A House of Cards About to Fall (Wild)

Linked Company AU series (updates Fridays!)

Linked University AU series (masterpost)

Febuwhump 2024 (where everyone suffers) (masterlist)

A Terrible Fate (Hyrule timeline angst (feat. Legend and Wild))

and just the Hyrule-centric fics series as a whole

I'm a college student in a fairly rigorous program, so unfortunately I don't have as much time to write as I would like. BUT I'm studying video games programming and interactive storytelling so that's cool (at least I think so)!!

My tags:

#riv writes –> anything related to my writing

#skies sneak peek –> WIP previews :)

#riv responds –> responding to asks

#linked university or #linked university au –> my Linked Universe AU!

#linked company or #linked company au –> my Lethal Company AU!

#skies scribbles –> my art tag

my asks are open!

[toacollabevent]

Meg McCaffrey, Master Matchmaker

This is @falconfrost on my main acct since tumblr won’t let me submit from a sideblog. I was matched with @sofia-not-sophie and this piece was inspired by this fic of theirs: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38415544

—

Meg woke up from a really cool dream about running with a herd of unicorns in a beautiful biodiverse meadow to the sound of someone hissing her name repeatedly in a dramatic stage whisper. 

Which gave away who it was before she even opened her eyes. 

“Whaddaya want,” she mumbled, groping around under her pillow for her favorite hunting knife so she could throw it at Apollo’s face as payback for ruining the best dream she’d had in weeks. 

“I’m very sorry for stopping by so early,” he said, still whispering because he was really nice about not waking up the other Hunters in the tent, and obviously lying because if he was actually sorry he would have waited until the sun was fully above the horizon. “But I need your help, Meg. Please?”

Meg groaned deeply and hoped the message of “you’re the worst and I hate you” came across without her having to wake her mouth up enough to say it.

“I’ll take that as an ‘of course, Apollo, I do so enjoy helping you, my dearest friend, and thank you for asking so very nicely.’”

Meg’s hand finally closed around the hilt of her knife, and she twisted around in her sleeping bag to toss it in Apollo’s general direction. 

Because he was stupid and goddy, he caught it easily and raised a single disapproving eyebrow at her. Damn, and that had been a good throw too, especially considering the weird angle she was lying at. 

“I did apologize, didn’t I?” Apollo said, still clearly not that sorry. He flipped the knife around in some dumb trick that was not at all impressive and offered it back to her hilt-first. 

Meg groaned again and rolled out of her sleeping bag directly into Apollo’s shins. Which, ouch, felt like they were made out of steel. Stupid god bod. 

“Fiiiiine,” Meg said, grabbing the non-knife-holding hand Apollo stuck down toward her and letting him pull her to her feet. “Take this outside?”

“Excellent plan,” Apollo agreed as she snatched the knife back from him and put it in her back pocket. Not really how you were supposed to carry knives, but whatever. If anything went horribly wrong, she was literally hanging out with the god of healing. 

Meg shoved her boots on and together they picked their way around Meg’s tentmates, who amazingly hadn’t woken up. This was double impressive considering that most of the Hunters of Artemis were light sleepers, since the whole Hunter deal involved a lot of unexpected monster attacks and having to wake up and go tromping through the woods at a moment’s notice. It was possible Apollo was cheating and doing some kind of god magic to block the sound of his and Meg’s voices, but she wasn’t about to try to figure out if speaking voices technically fell under the domain of music or not. And she definitely wasn’t about to ask him and get a lecture on the intricacies of the “vocal arts” at whatever o’clock in the morning it was right now. 

Apollo ducked through the doorway of the tent, and Meg followed him out into the clearing the Hunters were camped in for the night. As she’d suspected, the sun was not above the horizon yet, and the ring of silver tents looked dull and gray in the dim pre-dawn light. Being up this early should have been illegal.

“This way,” Apollo said, still sort of whispering, and led Meg a couple dozen yards past the edge of the clearing, down what looked like a deer path if Meg was remembering her Hunter-mandated animal tracking lessons right. His shoes (those stupid black Vans with the white stripe that he’d been wearing constantly lately, along with skinny jeans and really terrible flannels because he was a skater boy now apparently) crunched quietly on the light covering of dried leaves as they walked. 

Finally, he stopped and turned to face her.

“Okay,” Meg said flatly. “What?” 

It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy to see him, or anything. Aside from the crimes his constantly changing yet consistently terrible fashion sense committed upon her eyes, Meg really did enjoy Apollo’s periodic visits. (Which he was actually allowed to make now, thanks to the recent lift of Artemis’s ban on him interacting with her Hunters. Apollo still thought it was because he had asked his sister so very nicely, and not because Meg had endured a fairly awkward but earnest conversation with Artemis about it and managed to convince her. He thought that mostly because Meg hadn’t told Apollo about the conversation and probably never would, on account of the fact that he would immediately start sobbing out of love and appreciation or something and it would become a whole thing.) So yeah, Meg liked spending time with him or whatever. The problem was just when he decided to drop in at insane hours like this. As much as Meg appreciated the way being a Hunter allowed her to exist close to nature and everything, spending every night on the ground was not great for quality sleep. And now she was out several prime hours of sleep time. This had better be godsdamn good.

“So,” Apollo said. “It’s a bit of a long story, which I can explain if absolutely necessary, but in essence, I am in need of some romantic advice.”

Meg stared at him, genuinely incredulous. “You came to the aromantic asexual person. For romantic advice.”

Apollo spread his hands helplessly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” The time having been, apparently, the middle of the night. “But really, doesn’t that make you sort of an objective party? Unbiased, as it were?”

Meg rolled her eyes at him, to make sure he understood that was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. 

Except, maybe he did kind of  have a point. Not feeling romantic attraction meant she could ignore that whole factor and focus completely on the quality of the actions or words or gifts or whatever Apollo was trying to use to make his dates successful. Honestly, Meg still wasn’t clear on what really made a date successful. The other person agreeing to a second date? Getting in their pants? Unclear. She had no experience with a “successful” date on those vague terms, and a grand total of one supremely horrible, definitely unsuccessful one with that one guy from freshman year. She had been repressing the events of that since it happened, because thinking about it for more than one second made her feel the emotion of cringe to the depths of her soul. Which was impressive, considering she was basically immune to cringe after having been exposed to regular doses of Apollo for the past four years. But anyway, the repression would probably continue for the rest of her life and/or eternity, depending on how permanent her stint with the Hunters ended up being. 

Upon further thought (and really, Meg was putting way more thought into this than she usually did for Apollo’s various problems, and definitely more than it deserved—Apollo had better appreciate that), none of that even mattered. Who cared about experience, or qualifications, or dumb stuff like that? Apollo had just served her up the perfect chance to bully him on a silver platter, and Meg would die before she turned down that kind of opportunity. 

“All right,” she said finally, having left Apollo dangling for at least fifteen seconds by now as she was thinking. “I’ll help.”

Apollo beamed. “Thank you, Meg. You’re a wonderful friend.”

Meg concentrated furiously on not blushing at how stupidly earnest he could be. She was not affected. She was not going to give up on her plan to bully him just because he was a kind and loving person who wore his heart on his sleeve. He had woken her up from a unicorn dream, for gods’ sakes! 

Reminding herself of the tragic loss of the unicorn dream worked. The blush retreated and she speared him with an unimpressed stare. 

“What kind of advice do you need?”

Apollo took a deep breath (never a good sign), and launched into a passionate explanation of his dating fails over the past three weeks. Meg tuned out about half of it on the grounds that it was boring and unnecessary exposition, and also that Apollo was going into way too much detail about the various swanky rooftop restaurants with live bands, outdoor concerts, indoor theaters, and Olympic archery ranges that had been the backdrops for these dating disasters. 

(She did manage to figure out what he considered an unsuccessful date, which was that they declined his offer of a personalized haiku and/or improvised ukulele song, and afterwards wormed their way awkwardly out of the possibility of a second date.)

Eventually, like a wide, lazy river, Apollo meandered his way in the general direction of an answer to her question. 

“I’m not sure what keeps going wrong,” he said. “Is it something I did, do you think? Something I said? Perhaps telling that nice young man from last week that he should schedule a doctor’s appointment to get his undiagnosed stage 1 prostate cancer checked out killed the mood.”

Meg decided to ignore that last part for the sake of her overall mental stability and health. Before she could ask Apollo if what he was trying to say, in his usual roundabout and pointlessly wordy way, was that he specifically wanted advice about how to act and what to say on dates, there was a rustling in the undergrowth to the side of the path. 

On instinct, Meg yanked the hunting knife from her back pocket and readied herself in a fierce fighting stance. And then felt really stupid as Artemis emerged from the trees, holding no weapons and wearing a deeply disapproving expression on her twelve-ish-year-old face, with both eyebrows raised and laser-pointed in the direction of her brother. 

“Ah, good morning, Sister,” Apollo said with a dumb little wave.

“What exactly is this about?” Artemis asked, definitely at least a little irritated, ignoring Apollo’s greeting entirely.

“Why, I’m simply having a chat with my dear friend Meg, like I do quite frequently.” He blinked innocently at Artemis, who was not having it.

“And why could this chat have not waited until daylight hours, Brother?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a private matter,” Apollo admitted, his eyes flicking over to Meg in a look that screamed please for the love of Olympus do not tell my sister what I’ve been talking to you about. 

“Apollo’s failing at dating and he wanted to ask me for advice,” Meg said.

Artemis digested this. Apollo shot daggers at Meg with his eyeballs. 

“I see,” Artemis said finally. If Meg didn’t know from her time with the Hunters that Artemis was totally composed and serious at all times, she would have sworn that the goddess was trying desperately not to laugh at Apollo. Though maybe the whole detached thing she had going on was just an act that Artemis put on in front of the people she led who needed to see her that way. Meg wasn’t exactly a people-reading expert, but it wouldn’t be that surprising. As she had learned over the course of her adventures with Apollo, gods had layers. Like onions, or Shrek, or whatever. 

“All right, yes, fine, perhaps I have been having a small amount of…bad luck in my recent dating endeavors,” Apollo said. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s come over me! It’s as if my natural charm has been all but obliterated!”

“What charm?” Meg asked.

“I believe your idea of your own ‘charm’ has always been somewhat overinflated,” said Artemis simultaneously.

She and Meg exchanged a brief nod of deep mutual respect while Apollo pouted in protest.

“Perhaps I’ve been cursed by some angry ex-lover,” Apollo continued, recovering quickly and tapping his chin contemplatively. “I like to believe I leave all of them on good terms, but I suppose you can never know for sure, and I do have a lot of exes…” He trailed off, presumably now mentally running through his mile-long list of exes and analyzing which ones of them would: a) seriously want to screw him over, and b) have the necessary magic powers or blackmail or piles of money to secretly sabotage his recent dates. Considering who Apollo was, it was probably magic powers. It was always the magic powers. 

“Perhaps it’s your attire,” Artemis said flatly, looking Apollo up and down with an expression like she was smelling a Rafflesia flower. (Meg never had been able to grow one at Aeithales, which sucked because they were huge and pink and bumpy and smelled like a corpse, which was basically perfect. But even with her greenhouses, Palm Springs was just a little too dry for such a tropical plant.)

“This coming from the goddess whose signature clothing palette is Shades of Concrete?” Apollo shot back. 

Artemis rolled her eyes. She really was different around Apollo. Well, Meg’s adopted brothers and sisters also made her roll her eyes a lot, so maybe that was just a universal sibling thing. 

“It’s silver, not gray. And regardless, if you’re wearing anything like that around your romantic prospects, I’m not surprised you are ‘failing at dating,’ as Meg put it.” 

Apollo frowned. “This outfit is totally trendy! The skater boy aesthetic is all over the fashion side of Pinterest! It’s not my fault you two refuse to use social media and spend all your time running around in the woods with no cell service.”

“Apollo, do you even know how to skateboard?” Meg asked, genuinely curious. The mental image of him doing tricks at a skate park was upsetting, but she had to know. 

He waved an impatient hand in her direction. “That’s beside the point. My fashion sense is not the problem here, I assure you. It has to be something else. I’m simply not sure what.”

“Maybe it’s the haikus?” Meg suggested. “Haikus aren’t cool anymore, I don’t think.”

“The plural is haiku, Meg, and haven’t you been listening? My haiku are strictly opt-in these days! I don’t thrust them upon anyone, anymore. And besides, the haiku is classic. There is no way it’s become ‘uncool,’” Apollo said, making big, sarcastic air quotes. “I’m the god of poetry—I would know,” he continued desperately. 

“What about the topic of conversation during these dates?” Artemis asked. “You can be quite long-winded, you know. Perhaps you’re boring them.”

Apollo stared at his sister in disbelief. “Me? Boring?”

“Sometimes,” Meg said sagely. Okay, that was mostly a lie. Aside from his date fail stories, which were inherently boring because they were about romance, Apollo usually had a way of making whatever he talked about interesting. If Meg was being honest, she never would have made it through so many years of piano lessons without quitting out of boredom with anyone else as a teacher. 

Apollo’s face did a weird twitchy thing and then quickly smoothed into his Mild Annoyance expression. 

Wait a sec… was he actually upset about this? It was kind of hard to tell when things actually upset Apollo, because he liked to act upset about things he didn’t care about and pretend like he was fine when something really got to him. Meg wasn’t great at…people things, but she’d figured that much out about him over the years. 

It seemed like maybe all the failed dates were making him feel bad about himself as a person. Which was impressive considering he usually had an ego the size of, well, the sun. That could be underthinking it, though. Again: gods = onions. Maybe Meg wasn’t peeling deep enough. 

Usually, at a time like this she would just ask him directly what was really bugging him, and after a little bit of dancing around the thing, Apollo would explain, and then they could figure out how to fix or get through whatever it was. But with Artemis here, would that work? A conversation with three people was way different from a one-on-one. Gods, it was too early for this much thinking. 

Okay, enough. Going with her gut hadn’t failed Meg so far. 

“Is getting rejected making you feel bad about yourself?”

Apollo’s eyes flicked towards her, then towards Artemis, and then back to Meg. He smiled unconvincingly. 

“Of course not,” he said, unconvincingly. 

Artemis, who was at least as used to Apollo’s BS as Meg was, if not more considering she’d known him for thousands of years, looked a little concerned. She might’ve said something, but Meg didn’t give her the chance.

“Well, good. ‘Cause it shouldn’t,” Meg said firmly. “The problem isn’t you—it’s the people you’re picking. Clearly they suck. They don’t know what they’re missing out on.” 

Meg gave Apollo a second to process that. A way more real smile flickered across his face, like sunlight filtering through tree branches. When she was sure he got what she was saying, she said, “Okay, give me your phone.” 

Even though he hadn’t been magically required to follow her orders for years now, he still dug his phone out of the pocket of his stupid skinny jeans and passed it over to her without protesting. 

“Wait, why am I giving you my phone?” he asked, his smile dropping. Except it was too late for takebacks, because Meg had already backed up a few steps and unlocked it. (His password was literally 7777. He was so bad at cybersecurity.)

Meg tapped on Tinder. Despite Apollo’s claims a few minutes ago about her and Artemis not having any cell service in the woods, his phone definitely did and the app loaded fine. The first profile that showed up was for Pine, 65 years old, 0.2 miles away, with a picture of a young woman Meg assumed was a dryad standing in front of a pine tree and making a peace sign. Apollo had that whole Thing about women who were trees, so that was a clear no.  

“Hey!” Apollo said as Meg swiped left. He lunged for the phone but Meg dodged easily under his outstretched arm. “Are you on Tinder? I have my algorithm very finely tuned, Meg! A single swipe in the wrong direction and it’ll start exclusively giving me guys who are really into baseball again. If I have to hear one more prediction about who’s going to make it to the World Series I might spontaneously combust, and trust me, as much as I enjoy practicing the arts of healing, emergency burn treatments are not conducive to a pleasant evening!”

Meg looked at the next profile. Greg, 32, 1489 miles away (so apparently Apollo had his distance range set to like, the entire US) wearing some kind of sports jersey that definitely could have been baseball (Meg knew nothing about sports and was proud of it). She decided the chance that he was a baseball fan was enough to justify this guy being a reject. 

Apollo grabbed for her again, and Meg ducked behind Artemis for cover. Artemis twisted her neck elegantly in Meg’s direction to give her a Look, and Meg gave her a Look back. Hopefully the meaning of the Look, that Meg was doing this for Apollo’s own good, got across.

It must have, because Artemis stopped Apollo in his tracks with a gentle hand on his chest and said, “Give her a chance, Brother. She may have a point. As much as I am loath to admit it, you are a…what do they call it…a ‘catch.’”

With Apollo’s brain apparently taken mostly out of commission by his sister calling him a catch, Meg had time to swipe left on several more lame Tinder people. Another sports fan, a woman making a kissy face at the camera, guy holding an aggressively medium-sized fish, group photo of like seven women at the beach. If you swiped right, did that mean you were agreeing to date all seven of them? Apollo was into the number seven but probably not like that. 

“Um. Thank you?” Apollo said finally to Artemis. “My Tinder algorithm, though…”

“I’m sure it will be fine, Apollo. Meg is a capable young woman.” 

Hell yeah, she was. Meg appreciated that show of faith, even if she’d yet to find anyone good. As soon as she thought that, almost like it was on cue, a new profile popped up that made Meg’s thumb pause mid-left-swipe. 

Jen, 35, 547 miles away in Los Angeles. Her first pic was a close-up of her playing the violin, with an intense look in her eyes that reminded Meg of how some of the Hunters got when they were hot on the tail of that week’s monster. Jen’s bio said that she was in the LA Philharmonic, which Meg knew from Apollo’s insistence on giving her a “proper music education” was a really good orchestra. He’d taken her and the rest of Aeithales to see one of their concerts at the Hollywood Bowl last summer (he’d teleported the whole group instead of driving, since the two of them knew firsthand how painful the Palm Springs to LA drive was). And…no way. Jen had a poem at the end of her bio. Meg didn’t recognize it, since she had convinced Apollo to not give her a “proper poetry education” because her brain would explode from too many dumb words, and also she had school and didn’t have the ability to split herself into multiple Megs to achieve unlimited free time like he did. 

But someone into poetry and music? Perfect. Jen might even opt in to one of Apollo’s personalized haikus and actually appreciate it. Sorry, one of his haiku. Whatever. 

Meg slid out from behind Artemis and shoved the phone in Apollo’s face. “Look.”

Apollo looked. His eyebrows gradually crawled up his forehead in interest like two blond caterpillars. 

“I will admit, she seems like a better fit than anyone I’ve been seeing in the last month or two,” he said slowly. 

“Just say she’s perfect and that I’m better at Tinder than you,” Meg told him.

“I will not be saying that.” Apollo carefully straightened his cuffs like he was wearing some kind of fancy suit and not a grungy flannel. “I will, however, admit that you’ve made what appears to be an auspicious discovery, which almost makes up for the untold damage you’ve wrought upon my Tinder algorithm.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘of course, Meg, you’re a genius and better at Tinder than me and thanks for fixing all my problems as usual,’” Meg said, and swiped right. 

—

“Well?” Meg asked, staring at Apollo expectantly across the empty tent. He’d shown up later in the morning this time, thank the (other) gods, so the rest of the Hunters were outside eating breakfast and they had the tent all to themselves.

Apollo grinned at her, which gave away what he was about to say before he said it. 

“Jen asked to see me again,” he said, radiating joy and also enough happy golden light that Meg was considering rummaging through her pack for her sunglasses. “We have a second date!”

“Told you I was better at Tinder,” Meg said with love. 

“That you did,” Apollo agreed. His one-man sun thing died down a little, so Meg could look at him without shielding her eyes. “I have one hundred percent certainty that Jen and I will work out, but on the off chance we don’t, and I venture back on Tinder to find it filled with baseball men? You and I will be having words.” 

Meg rolled her eyes at him as hard as she could. 

Apollo didn’t roll his eyes back. Instead, he softened. 

“But truly, Meg,” he said. “Thank you. Even if you’re not interested in it yourself, you really are a romantic expert. Perhaps you should get business cards.” He framed an imaginary card in the air with his fingers. “Meg McCaffrey, Master Matchmaker. The alliteration alone sells it.”

Back to his usual self, then. Meg smacked his hands down and went in for a hug, burying her face in another one of his stupid flannels as he patted her back affectionately.

At least she hadn’t missed out on a unicorn dream this time.

[arcticdust1]

First post and I just want to say thank you to everyone that has followed me here from my main! (Twt: @arcticdust1) It's been quite a long time since I've used Tumblr as my social media, but I'm sure I can adjust pretty quickly. I am not at all familiar with how Instagram functions and I've heard it's not much better so I'll migrate my things here for now. Hope to post my older art works over here soon as I go along.

I'll be making my personal art tag as #arcticartz for future reference. My rambles I'll tag as #arctictalkz and I even hope to post some of my writing on here if I get the courage to do it.

My carrd is located in my description for other important links to my store, other social media's and my Kofi acct. Thanks again. 💙

[flaniganssouvenircup]

hi! i'm lux (⁠✷⁠‿⁠✷⁠)

some basics:

27

she/her/ella

latine

eng/sp

anxious⁴

tumblr veteran™

this is my sideblog used for general shitposting ◉⁠‿⁠◉

currently rbing a lot of:

- death note

- mychem

- ??¿‽

check out my main acct where i post my art (sometimes) + other cool stuff that inspires me :-)

likes/follows from souvenircup

[sparkle-pvke]

will edit when I feel less lazy but yeah, making this account because my main art acct is supposed to be mostly Professional and I can’t just slap an absurdist gen-z humor meme in the middle of my feed there, it wouldn’t be very Aesthetic tm

I’ll reblog my art from that account just so I can promote it, but other than that I’ll be using this to post less refined doodles, talk about stuff I like/fandoms I’m in and reblog the aforementioned Gen-Z Humor Memes. Will probably reblog a lot actually so I’ll create some unique tags so you can blacklist em!! If that’s how that works that is, because it’s been a while since I’ve used Tumblr 💀

My tags:

sparkle’s textpvkes 📓 (original text posts)

reblogged text posts 🍓 (text posts from other accounts, also a catch-all for every rb I do currently cuz I’m lazy)

the art garden 🪴 (my original art from my art account)

[pipii]

I... really wasn't expecting the Tumblr Feature to get over like 100 notes at most hkdfjhkadfjhjdfn Hi new people!!! Thank you so much for enjoying my work, I hope to keep putting silly fun stuff out ! I'm currently taking Summer courses that are kind of writing intensive, so I am a little tiny bit busy for the next few weeks!

Please feel free to ask any questions if you have any!