#someday we might have to realize that we make art because we like to make art.

[gideonisms]

idk with this ai art stuff we kinda have to face the fact that the bots can make art as good as ours, maybe one day could generate stories just as easily, but they probably aren't having as much fun doing it. Their job is basically marketing. Ours is living

[gyubaseone]

sung hanbin. photograph

❛ take a picture, it'll last longer. ❜

pairing — sung hanbin x f!reader

genre — fluff, slight angst, classmates to lovers (?)

synopsis — hanbin is willing to do anything to get a good grade in his art class ; even if it means he has to partner up with y/n.

warnings — mentions of family problems! y/n is kind of a jerk at the beginning.. third person pov, lowercase intended, not proofread thoroughly. lots of mistakes, i'm too lazy to change it's been like 2 weeks ..

word count — 2,582

notes — honestly not my best work once again.. i've just been really lazy to write with finals coming up + i have three projects due soon ㅠ but i hope you guys enjoy <3 might make a part 2 someday if people like it??

★ ( please fill out this form to be on my taglist ) ❕

sung hanbin was the most popular guy at his university ; being known for his smarts, kindness, and especially his good looks. everybody loved him. everyone but y/n.

she had made it evidently clear that she was never fazed by him, barely batting an eye towards him whenever he walked by or sat down besides her on the first day of their art class.

he never understood why she was the way she was, had he done something wrong? nonetheless, he just brushed it off. everyone else adored him, it's not like his life depended on y/n liking him.

that's until it kind of mattered. because one day, the art teacher had given out a photography assignment for a final grade ; and it was a two-person assignment. you can take a wild guess at who got paired up, right?

"in pairs, you will go to tourist attractions and take pictures to capture their essence," the teacher spoke, switching the slide of the powerpoint, "i already decided where you all will be going and the pairs you will be in, so don't bother asking me if you can work with your friends."

all the students scanned the screen, hoping to be partnered with their friends. as hanbin finally found his name, his mouth fell wide open realizing who he had been partnered with. looking over at y/n, only to see her looking his way aswell ; hanbin faced the front once again.

it was bad enough that hanbin had been partnered with the only person he hadn't been able to talk to, but it was a final grade. he couldn't miss it no matter what if he wanted to keep his grade. so he just had to attempt to befriend her.

hanbin took a deep breath before getting up and walking over to y/n as everyone was already talking with their partners, standing in front of her when he opened his mouth to talk before being cut off by y/n.

"if you want to take the pictures this weekend, i'll meet you at the train station so we can head to gyeongbokgung palace," y/n stood up, gathering all her books off her desk, "be there by 9 am on saturday, or i'm leaving without you."

and just like that, the bell rang meaning the end of the period ; y/n walked out, leaving hanbin there without him even being able to speak one word. this just might be the longest two weeks of his life.

if it wasn't bad enough that y/n had been adamant about the two meeting up early in the morning on a saturday for their project, but hanbin had woken up late. the only day it really mattered that he wakes up early.

and so, hanbin found himself running towards the train station ; gripping onto his messenger bag with his hair half done since he didn't have enough time to brush it all the way and was probably going to be messed up by the time he got to the station.

once he finally got to his terminal, barely on time, hanbin found y/n sitting on a bench ; seemingly on the phone with somebody.

"i told you— i have a school project to do, i won't be home until later," y/n attempted to mutter for nobody to hear her conversation, barely being able to contain annoyed tone, "why do i have to do everything for you? who's the parent here?"

from where hanbin was standing, it sounded like she was talking to her parents and that they were trying to make her do something. but then again, it was still early in the morning for him and he didn't really know what he heard.

"no, i'm not giving you attitude— y'know what, i can't deal with this nonsense right now," y/n stood up, looking around the station for hanbin before finding him standing right behind her.

once the realization hit that he probably heard her conversation, y/n immediately hung up the call and stuffed her phone into her pocket. "how long have you been standing there?" she asked, her facial expression changing from annoyed to now looking surprised and worried.

"about... 2 minutes, i think?" hanbin looked down at his watch, realizing he had zoned out for a moment while listening to y/n's conversation, "sorry.. your conversation sounded serious, i didn't want to interrupt."

"it's... it's fine, let's go," y/n seemed as if she was about to say something more but instead picked up her bag from the bench, turning around to walk towards their designated train.

the train ride was going to be at least one hour to gyeongbokgung palace, which meant y/n and hanbin had to sit together for an hour. usually, it was a breeze for hanbin to be on train rides ; he could talk with whoever he was with or just spend time on his phone. this ride felt particularly uncomfortable for him.

his shoulders were tense as he tried not to even touch the line that seperated y/n's seat from his. hanbin was constantly glancing over at the girl, seeing her on her phone everytime. he should go on his phone too right? there was no point in being so on edge when y/n seemed fine.

and so, hanbin went on his phone — but to his surprise, there was nothing much to do on his phone. it seemed like nothing was going on that early in the morning, so he just looked out the window and enjoyed the view of mountains that could be seen. he eventually felt more calm, complerelt forgetting about the girl besides him.

that was until hanbin heard y/n let out a loud sigh, closing her phone and putting it on the table infront of them. he should probably say something right? but it's not like they were friends ; y/n probably didn't want to hear his voice. oh, but it was aching him to not say anything. helping people was his specialty.

"are you alright?" hanbin finally spoke up after much consideration, seeing y/n lift her head up after hearing his words. he watched as her mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, but hesitantly closed it, "you don't have to say anything, you just seemed down."

just as he was about to go back to what he was doing, y/n started talking. "i... probably shouldn't be talking to you about this — i mean, it's none of your business but..." she let out a deep sigh before continuing her sentence, "okay, i'll talk."

"my parents, they have this idea of me that needs to happen or else i'll seem like a disappointment," y/n let out, fiddling with her fingers while she did so, "ever since i was born, i was just a pawn in their game. they just want me to be what they couldn't be in life."

"and you don't want that?" hanbin added on, attempting to understand where y/n was coming from. when she looked at him and nodded, there was this subtle hint of sadness in her eyes ; like she was tired of everything. "well, who says they can tell you what to do?"

"it's your life, y/n. you have the control," hanbin expressed, being absolutely seriously even moving his hands every word he spoke as if he was in a ted talk. "if you don't want to do what they want you to do — just be you."

y/n remained quiet for a minute, taking in probably the weirdest moment of her week. she was talking about her family problems, to sung hanbin. out of anyone she could've talked to, she talked to sung hanbin. but it felt nice?

"thanks for the talk, hanbin," y/n said after zoning back in, "i never really thought i would talk about this with anyone, especially not you..."

"well, you can talk to me anytime," hanbin gave her a warm smile, his shoulders feeling less tense now that y/n seemingly didn't dislike him anymore. maybe she never did? but why was he so fixated on it then?

the two got off the train not long after their talk, taking a bus to gyeongbokgung. as they stood in front of the entrance area, y/n's eyes landed on the hanbok shop nearby. seeing groups of girls taking pictures together in front of the shop in their hanboks made her slightly envious. she had been so caught up in what her parents wanted to do, she forgot to enjoy the small moments.

"do you wanna rent a hanbok?" hanbin questioned, looking at her after seeing how interested she looked at the hanbok shop. "i hear you get in for free if you rent one."

"what? no... that seems a bit extra," y/n denied, looking away from the hanbok shop, "and the free entry thing is dumb, i can literally buy 10 tickets for the price of renting a hanbok."

"alright... it's your call," hanbin let out a slight laugh, adjusting his camera settings before walking through the entrance of gyeongbokgung.

y/n took one last glance at the hanbok shop before following hanbin into the palace — there was this feeling in her gut when she walked away ; the hanboks just looked so pretty, they were stuck in her mind now.

the two picked the place which had the least people so nobody could be in the pictures that they took — it was also more quiet in general.

y/n stepped up on a board, bringing her camera lens to her eye in order to take a picture of the scenery in front of her. hanbin, on the other hand, was looking for spots to capture through his lens before landing on the sight of y/n taking her picture.

wow, was she always this pretty? it was because of the camera lens, right? it was probably just better quality, right? hanbin slowly lowered the camera away from his face, staring at y/n for a moment before she called him out.

"take a picture, it'll last longer," y/n spoke, turning around to the other side, taking another picture after speaking in a nonchalant tone.

"what— i wasn't— i was just looking for something to take a picture of!" hanbin stammered, attempting to defend himself before walking off to find another location to take pictures of.

after walking around some more, hanbin ended up sitting down on the steps of the palace ; his eyes wandering around to see where he could take more photos. yet, his eyes fell on y/n again.

there was just something about her that kept him looking at her ; so mesmerizing, so indelible. then came that familiar feeling he felt, his heart was beating once again. his thoughts were now scattered in his head, causing him to picking up his camera and snapping a photo of y/n.

maybe it wasn't the smartest idea, but all thoughts non-y/n related had fluttered out of hanbin's head the moment she was in his view. "what am i doing?" hanbin slowly realized how stupid his actions were, going to delete the photo before hearing his name be called.

"hanbin, i think i'm done with this area! do you want to head over to another palace?" y/n asked, walking up to hanbin after going through all her photos once more, "i think the one nearby has less people now."

"oh yeah, sure. let's go," hanbin nodded in response, getting up from the steps to follow y/n out of the palace area they were in.

"alright, i hope you all worked hard and finished the project over the weekend," the art teacher spoke up, looking up from her computer screen to pick on a pair, "let's see.. sung hanbin and l/n y/n, pass me your flash drives."

the two stood besides the teacher as she plugged in hanbin's flash drive first. the whole class was silent at first, waiting for the file to upload.

as the teacher pressed on the file, continuing to look through the photos while adding side comments on the scenery. until, they got to the last picture on the slide ; the photo hanbin had taken of y/n.

the whole class filled with whispers once the girl in the picture was recognized ; it really shouldn't have been that surprising, they were paired together.

but this was full on — the assignment was to capture the essence of the attraction ; what hanbin did was capture the essence of his sudden attraction towards y/n.

"what an interesting collage, hanbin," the teacher looked towards him, giving him an almost teasing smile before taking out his flash drive to replace it with y/n's flash drive.

hanbin felt like the whole world was spinning on its axis ; how could he have forgotten to delete that picture from his drive? how was he supposed to explain the reason behind him taking a picture of y/n now? "i...i can explain.." was all he could mutter out, slightly leaning toward y/n.

no he couldn't explain ; nothing even came to his mind other than the worst possible outcome that could happen after he talked to y/n. maybe she wouldn't even want to talk to him anymore — but they never even talked before this, why was there suddenly this aching feeling in his heart?

hanbin continued fiddling with his fingers, impatiently waiting for the teacher to finish looking through y/n's flash drive so he could just dash out of that room.

but was he in for a surprise? oh, he sure was. all of a sudden, his fear and anxiousness was replaced with confusion once he saw the last slide of y/n's photos ; a photo of him appeared.

hanbin's face fell almost instantly, his mouth falling open. what? when? how? so many new questions filled his head as he looked over at y/n, who had her face scrunched up out of embarrassment and was unwilling to look at hanbin's reaction.

she did the same thing he did. they both took pictures of eachother without the other one knowing. what did this mean now? did she feel the same feelings he did?

" i see both of you had similar ideas on the project, hm?" the teacher added, turning to look at the two once again with a wider and more obvious smirk, "good work. seems like i made a good choice aswell."

with that, the two sat back down in their seats, not even batting an eye towards each other. maybe a few glances once in a while, even meeting eyes once ; but they were too embarrased to say anything. what was there to even say now.

as the bell rang, signalling for them to change classes. they got up and faced each other, both opening their mouths to say something.

"you can go first," hanbin spoke up, prompting for y/n to say something only for her to shake her head, "okay so i'll speak.. uhm... i don't really know what to say actually. this is strange, right? i don't know why i took that photo but basically uh—"

"how about... lunch sometime?" y/n offered, cutting off hanbin before he could ramble anymore which would make them late for class.

"that sounds nice," hanbin agreed, smiling brightly with y/n reciprocating before they started walking out of art class.

© gyubaseone — please refrain from copying, translating, reposting or claiming my work as your own.

[comradekatara]

Hello! So this is not quite an ask but THANK YOU for doing god's work of injecting some actual nuance, defending bolin (among other things), critiquing the comics, and all the plot holes/things that just don't make sense which become glaringly obvious if one thinks about any aspect for more than two seconds (lol but you know this already duh) and am only annoyed I did not stumble upon this blog sooner, since I am so done with this show (but also I keeping at it like the scabs). Also, your art is delightful! If you still require an ask, do you perchance write fanfic? (it's possible you might have mentioned it but sometimes I can't read lol)

Have a good day!

hello, and thank you! also it’s funny that defending bolin is the first thing you list because I thought I made it pretty clear that I think his character is direly poorly-written and that I do not care for him. but… you’re welcome I guess? but yes obviously critiquing the comics and imbuing nuance and all of that I will definitely gladly take credit for. and thank you for liking my art! i do occasionally write fanfic, but i’ve only ever shown it to my friends and never actually posted it anywhere, so functionally, my answer would be no. i have debated posting it in the past, but idk, i don’t think that would be a good idea. maybe someday i’ll snap tho who knows.

as for your other ask…

Also because I clicked on the ask button before I had a brain fart (so if this would come off a bit deranged for posting an ask right after the first my apologies), I also want to mention the commentary that Iroh being 'everyone's favourite sexist' is gold because we just gloss over that and no one ever seems to mention that scene. Another thing about atla is that the reason given for Zuko's constant internal struggle and conflict is because he's descended from the previous avatar and the fire lord but hello, Azula?? Did Ursa have an affair now?? Isn't she just as worthy of redemption, or the fact she's just as abused anyhoo ok im done

I mean I’m assuming by “that scene” you mean the one with june, but tbh his misogyny isn’t relegated to simply one unpalatable scene. it’s reflected in how he treats azula (versus zuko) across the show. and I know that zuko is softer and more amenable than azula, and he has demonstrated a desire to do good that azula hasn’t, but it’s also quite troubling that iroh just writes off his fourteen year old niece as a lost cause when she is also the sibling who most resembles him. and he somehow just can’t seem to understand that she is worthy of the same empathy and compassion and understanding as zuko is, that playing favorites like this isn’t good or normal. and I actually think that azula has it way worse than iroh, both because she’s a girl and because azulon seemed to love iroh conditionally (despite clearly not feeling the same about ozai), whereas ozai’s love for azula is incredibly conditional and does not exempt her from his violence. but you know. her hysterical wandering womb is outta control she needs to go down she cant be trusted she’s a sickopath!!!! like. ok old man.

as for your next point, I do think that what iroh says about zuko’s ancestry reflecting the ideological battle within him is fully bullshit, but I do reconcile that by interpreting iroh’s claims not as what he truly believes, but as a rhetorical point he thinks might get through to zuko. because he’s really run the gamut of wisdom and guidance, some of it even being contradictory, just in an attempt to pierce through zuko’s thick, stubborn skull. and it does pay off, eventually, but it takes ages to get there. like how much do you wanna bet his first approach was to just straight up be like “your father is an abuser and you shouldn’t adhere to his dogmas.” and then when that didn’t work he started getting creative with it. and like, the reason it gets through to zuko isn’t even because roku was his great grandfather, but because he was ursa’s grandfather. and realizing that he too can be good and stand up for what he believes in, like her, his true role model, is his ultimate takeaway from that lesson. but I really do think by that point iroh’s rhetorical strategy was really to just throw vaguely pertinent metaphors at the wall to see what sticks.

[yujo-nishimura]

The Escape - Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This is the part I wanted to write so badly - rescuing little Buggy from the sea. This is a long read! :)

Later all the three of you are standing down by the beach, a little raft is laying ashore, probably crafted by these two small human-like creatures. Buggy, brimming with enthusiasm, has packed a small bag containing provisions to sustain him during the upcoming days. His trusty knives, gleaming in the sunlight, are carefully secured within the bag. 

As you stand beside Buggy, a spectator to his departure, a mix of emotions swirl within you. Your gaze sweeps across the island, taking in its beauty and the endless expanse of the sea that stretches out before you. Last night and this morning, you experienced a profound sense of freedom in this place, not solely because of the solitude, but because of the unexpected companionship of these two outsider pirates who embraced you as one of their own. As you reflect upon the kindness shown to you by the clown pirate over the past 24 hours, a flicker of curiosity and adventure ignites within you. You recognize the allure of following in his footsteps, of embarking on a journey alongside someone who has extended their hand in friendship.

The decision weighs heavy on your mind, torn between the desire to stay and the pull to venture into the unknown.  “Buggy, may I come with you?”

His eyes widened as you say these words, he seemed to misunderstand you for a moment, stuttering “Coming with me…? Joining my crew?” You shake your head. “No, I need to be independent for a while. But I want to move on and get to the next island. And I lack the skills and power to make my own boat to get away from here..”

Buggy shows you a sly grin - “Of course you can come with me for a while. I think this can be a win-win. Until I have my body parts back anybody taller than 1,20 is welcome on board.” 

You chuckle and show him an appreciating smile. Gaimon just nods in agreement. He seems to be used to people coming and leaving his island so he feels no remorse or sadness for the two of you leaving at the same time. “I wish you both the best of luck, hopefully we will meet again someday and have some more wine!”

He hands you a little bag with food as well and you realize that after the storm and the hardships faced, you have been left with nothing but your own determination. Gratefully, you accept the offered bag, knowing that these rations will sustain you until you reach the next town, where you can stock up your supplies and acquire the necessary weapons for your continued travel.

Buggy unties the raft and jumps on it, you follow him carefully, holding on to your little bag. As you both slowly leave the shore you wave goodbye to the friendly moss-headed creature at the beach. You can't help but feel a sense of reassurance, knowing that Gaimon will be in good hands until the day you all cross paths once more.

Buggy has made the raft quite sturdy and it even has a small sail. You both do not need to row, since the wind is going into the right direction, pushing you both slowly away from the island. You feel that Buggys eyes are resting on you, he probably is pleased that he does not need to do this journey alone. You might have guessed his thoughts right because he is asking now “How well can you fight?” “I can defend myself.”, you say and you remember your martial arts education as a child and the sword lessons you had as a teenager. You are not the strongest fighter, but when push comes to shove, you always know how to defend yourself. “I am also good at running away!” you add and laugh. "Good. Until I am my full self again I depend on your help, Y/n. But I will reward you handsomely if you stay by my side.” 

“Letting me join you on this raft is reward enough. As I said, it would have taken me ages to make my own. And I just need to get to the next town. I am sure we will find your crew and your body parts before that.”

Buggy nods, seemingly pleased with your answer. He feels like a captain again, after losing his crew he at least has one subordinate now. 

As you decide to catch up on some sleep from last night and make yourself more comfortable on the little raft you suddenly realize a motion in the water, a rumbling like an earthquake. Abruptly, you jolt awake, a surge of adrenaline coursing through your veins, and your gaze fixates upon the agitated expanse of water before you.

“What is that?”, the clown pirate next to you asks, but before you can answer a huge sea king in the form of a lobster is exploding out of the water, reaching towards you two. “Buggy, hand me one of your knives!”, you shout panically, knowing you feel a bit helpless without a weapon. Buggy reaches for his coat, handing you the knife in a second, you await the lobster to come towards you and as he tries to reach for you with its crusher claw, you jump from the raft, knowing that you would need to protect this little flatboat at all cost. In a moment of confusion, the sea king hesitates, unsure of its next target. Seizing the opportunity, you unleash a punishing blow upon its hard shell from the side, asserting your presence with a display of strength. The sea king, enraged by the assault, redirects its attention towards you.

You start an underwater fight where you are definitely inferior, but with the help of the knives you still manage to make some critical hits. The lobster is big, but not strong so you are lucky this time. As you swim up to get some air, followed by the monster you manage to hit him with what you think is a final blow. A strong kick into his shelled face and another brutal attack with the knife, stabbing him between his tiny legs; and the sea king is unconscious swimming on the surface.  Emerging from the depths, you forcefully expel water from your mouth, gasping for air as you break through the surface. With a deep breath, you orient yourself, swiftly scanning the surroundings to locate Buggy and the raft nearby. 

He waves at you, seemingly pleased with your hard battle. 

“Good job, Y/n. That thing had no chance against us!” 

“You mean me..” you mumble to yourself as you swim towards Buggy. As you try to pull yourself out of the water you suddenly hear the familiar splashing noises of the lobster behind you, he wasn't unconscious as you had thought. “Buggy, watch out!” you shout, but the monster has already reached for the raft and in an attempt to rescue the boat the clown pirate jumps into the water, making the sea king follow him this time. You remember that Buggy had the powers of the devil fruit and couldn't swim, so you knew you had to be quick. 

You gather all your strength and go after the two, underwater you can see that the sea king is trying to squish Buggy in his claws. Furious you start another knife attack, blood mixes with water and your sight is blurred, but you can see it is enough that the monster is letting go of the clown pirate to aim its attack towards you again. You give the beast another blow and kick and you ram the knife with all your might into his left eye, there it gets stuck but seems to be finally fatal - the limbs of the monster go numb and he is slowly drifting up, finally unable to go after your or Buggy. 

You can see how Buggy is slowly sinking, unable to move. You immediately go after him, seeing his face in distress, the devil fruit hindering his ability to swim. With a few quick swim moves you are close to him, you grab his whole tiny body and you press it to your chest as you quickly swim up to the water surface. 

You both come up taking a deep breath, coughing and spitting water. You are holding his face over water, giving him air to breathe. Buggy's clown makeup looks just like before as if his face has never touched water and you realize for a moment what a handful he will be until he gets his body parts back. You can see his sly grin as you still have him pressed close to your chest, his hands resting on your cleavage. “What a wonderful way to be rescued!”, he declares and you, exhausted and frustrated already with this perverted captain, take him by the neck and throw him on the raft which has been fortunately not damaged at all. Exhausted you heave yourself up on the raft, rolling on your back, gasping for air. 

“Do you need mouth-to-mouth?” Buggy asks and you cannot tell if he is joking or serious. 

“I need a break you clown. I was so worried the raft would be gone. And this was just a small sea king. Who knows what else will await us…” 

“Don't worry, Y/N. I will soon get my full body back and then I will be the one protecting you.” 

You sit up looking at him startled. There is a softness in his voice right now as he says “Thank you for rescuing me.” 

You feel a sudden warmth in your belly, a feeling of deep connection and affection for this little clown. “No worries. Ima need to protect my captain!” you mumble and smile before you lay down again, resting from this furious battle. 

Hours pass by and you are able to continue your journey without any further interruptions. The weather is perfect - sunny and a light wind, it feels like a reward for the fierce battle from earlier when you set sail. Buggy says he can feel that his body parts are nearby, you wonder how this is even possible, but you decide that he might know best. “We might reach the island where I suspect my body parts this evening. Rest a bit more, Y/n, because I do not know what dangers will await us next…” 

You nod, taking your little bag and placing it under your head to sleep a bit more. You are trying to imagine what Buggy looks like as a “normal” human being with all his body parts, being tall and maybe even taller than you. With this handsome face and his charming eyes and his sly grin and his tendency to get you into trouble… You smile over this thought, slowly drifting into an afternoon nap.

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FROM BARBIE AS RAPUNZEL *  assorted dialogue from the 2002 film, adjust as necessary

what am i supposed to paint?

what if i don't have any good ideas?

you can create anything you imagine.

what if i hate it?

the woods were whispered to be full of monsters and dragons.

do you hear that? it's my stomach grumbling. i feel weak.

we wouldn't want anyone fainting around here.

one day, i'm going to walk along a beach just like this one and see nothing but open sky for miles and miles.

i'll put your art stuff away.

how was your ride today?

i'll expect my tea in nine minutes.

don't repeat your errors of yesterday.

what about your duties?

did you make the beds? sweep the floors? weed the garden?

it's your job to know.

i wonder where it goes.

something great could be down here.

you don't think there are spiders down there? 'cause i'm not too fond of spiders... or beetles... or snakes. i don't like them either.

oh sure. let's go down anyway.

nobody's been down here in years.

constant as the stars above, always know that you are loved.

why would she lie to me about that?

hurry, get cleaning!

i'm sorry, i was distracted.

will there be anything else?

how are we gonna fix this?

this is my chance. maybe... my only chance.

next time, i'll sit on you.

don't tell me you've been playing here all day.

does he ever smile?

just hold on, i'll get you!

just let go with one hand and reach up!

have we met before?

the only way to end the feud is through force.

i'd better make sure they're okay. i'll be right back.

how did it get so late?

tell me again about the village... and don't leave out a single detail.

the best part was... i met somebody.

and you've seen... how many men before?

this could ruin everything.

did we have a nice little trip today?

after all i've done, after all i've given you, this is how you repay me!

i heard you met someone special.

when i ask a question, i expect an answer.

you can't keep me locked away from the world forever.

when do you think this feud will end?

you're even more beautiful than i remember.

i'm going to be free.

just sounds like something following us.

it was only because of our extraordinary cunning and bravery that we escaped it all.

i hope you're wrong.

they may destroy each other sooner than i thought.

it's better than being a prisoner.

i hoped you might come back here. i realized i don't even know your name.

you're full of surprises.

there's your answer.

i'm not giving up.

you must be pretty important if you are invited to the prince's ball.

watch it with that thing! somebody could get seriously hurt!

any specific plan, or just general pain and anguish?

don't hurt him! it's me you want!

i'd rather read a good book.

she doesn't even know i'm the prince.

i'm waiting for someone.

i'm the one who's going to teach you not to meddle with my plans!

you're gonna let a little thing like that stop you!

i understand it is i who must thank you.

what makes might? it is more than power. it is also courage and loyalty.

you have never swerved in your devotion to your friend, no matter the danger.

it's so beautiful up here!

so again, we meet at a ball.

i came to clean up some loose ends.

you loved me! i know you did!

you could have had so much! you should've loved me!

you don't know what love is!

i forgive you for all those years.

no more hatred, please.

i thought you were gone forever.

all those years i thought i was alone.

i wronged you all these years.

i hope someday you can find it it in your heart to forgive me.

[shuttershocky]

holy shit Hypergryph really straight up made it canon that Sarkaz have to deal with blood libel accusations

You know when i first read this ask I was kinda wondering what sort of metaphor for blood libel I'd be seeing but no, they just straight up have the Leithaniens accuse Hibiscus of stealing their blood huh.

It's crazy how fast Leithaniens go from polite to a mob.

Like we all know from Twilight of Wolumonde that Leithanien likes to go "oh look at us we don't discriminate against the infected we care about the arts and higher education we're so progressive!" only to turn on Mudrock's traveling group as soon as it became convenient and also hide that they had actually displaced and killed the original indigenous peoples there, but Lingering Echoes' take is more personal.

We see Hibiscus arrive in Vyseheim as a doctor for Rhodes Island and everyone's friendly and polite, she gets pulled into a village dance and invited to a concert, and everyone lets her do her job as a doctor, conducting blood tests to measure everyone's originium levels and the like.

Then we see Czerny's old relative say "What's a Sarkaz doing he-" before she realizes that isn't "polite" and tells hibiscus not to take it seriously and that didn't mean anything.

Then we see Hibiscus have a polite debate with a food stall owner over the healthiness of his food vs its taste and he acts really kindly towards her through their differences and even invites her to come back for his food someday, until Hibiscus walks off and he says

But then as soon as Rhodes Island's presence in the city becomes an inconvenience to the Countess Gertrude, she just makes a prophecy (read: spreads a rumor) that doesn't even mention a Sarkaz, and yet an incident goes from one drunk guy angrily accusing Hibiscus of her blood tests for Oripathy really being an excuse to steal their blood for Arts, into a whole angry mob out for her head in almost an instant.

They say using blood for Arts means she's in league with the Witch King, then get angry when she's unafraid of calling out the Witch King's prophecy as rumors and claims it's disrespect, then get doubly angry when she calls them out on the contradiction.

Personally, while I get that they're trying to say that even a society as supposedly progressive as Leithanien hides bigotry like all the other countries, and Hibiscus is one of the protagonists of the story so obviously they'd show the challenges she faces as a Sarkaz doctor, I don't know...

I kind of feel like depicting outright blood libel to show the discrimination the Sarkaz face becomes messy when some of the Sarkaz doctors like Warfarin are actually vampires? The scene even has to clumsily dance around that by having Hibiscus' first reaction be "Sir, you might have heard of vampires but I'm not a vampire Sarkaz".

I just think it's overreaching your bounds you know? Going for something that loaded with terrible history because you want the impact of referencing that history, but without thinking if you also made some of the oppressed group who are now acting as a Jewish analogue actual vampires because you thought vampires are cool.

I'm not Jewish though so I'm just speculating. I would defer to them for what their thoughts on this scene was.

[naamahdarling]

Getting old is fundamentally stupid and unfair. Dad's the same fucking guy he has always been! Unbroken continuity between the guy who used to prank people with powdered root beer in their swim trunks at the public pool in the 50s and the guy who would pick me up by the wrists and ankles and sling me onto the big bed every time he got home from work in the 80s and the guy who taught me to drive in the middle of the Tallgrass Prairie. and the guy who has supported me my entire life. Like, same dude. Literally same dude. Zero difference, none. And someday not far in the future probably, he's just gonna quit, and like, you never stop growing and learning, just the other day I thought man, I'm really getting the hang of closing the dryer door just right and I am over 40 and I have really mastered the art of shaking out two ibuprofen and stopping the gas pump on the dollar and like do you understand, do you understand that this process never ends, ever, and when we die there are still unplumbed levels of proficiency for literally everything we do because we are the exact same people who were children who didn't know how to spell our names? And that is my dad right now with endless potential and a finite life and jesus christ it's so strange and unfair and stupid. Like fine I realize things have to die or they would get awfully crowded but that's a hell of a long view to take when it's you or someone you love. So now I'm just really confused because it all makes absolutely perfect sense of course but it's also just antithetical to what makes us individual people so I can't tell whether or not I'm okay. So I'm mega-hyperfocusing on my stupid OCs and drawing a bit and in the meantime every single other thing is falling by the wayside. I can't mail these packages, I can't thank people who have sent money, I can't list things for sale, I can't fundraise so we can get through this really rough patch, I can't clean anything. All my bandwidth is going towards this thing that isn't going to resolve anytime soon. They keep moving his surgery date and the date he can go home, but they do it by two days, three days, so there's never a fucking break, you can't trust it, you can't relax and iron out a schedule. It's like...AGAIN, he might have surgery tomorrow so today could be the last time I get to see him, and we have done this like three times now. I know there's very good reasons but I'm really tired of it. And Dad is going absolutely nuts cooped up in there.

I want off this ride and I don't have a choice about being on it, and it may end with legal problems and a scrap with Social Security, so that's even worse.

I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

[yukidragon]

How far do you think Ian wanted to go in the relationship? Do you think Ian wanted to start a family or just be with M/C until the end? Do you think Ian would have been able to deal with childrens in all of them and stages (infants/infants/children and adolescents)?

Given Ian has an engagement ring in the Didn’t Cheat AU, as shown here by a picture Sauce drew, I think that marriage with MC was something he wanted.

As always whenever I share some of Sauce’s art, I need to remind everyone that this is only okay because I am giving them full credit for the art they publicly posted. Remember, don’t repost any of the privately posted pictures on the SnaccPop Studios patreon. Let’s support the team as best we can.

Unrelated, I just now noticed that Cheshire cat AU Shaun seems to have a tongue stud. I wonder if that means he might get one in the regular SDJ universe too...

Anyway, back to the Didn’t Cheat AU.

Judging by the afterlife moment with Ian in the demo, it seems that both MC and Ian were pretty serious about their relationship. The moment ends with the two of them happily thinking that they’ll be together forever, so it seems like marriage was a goal of theirs. They may have even discussed it.

Kind of makes it hurt all the worse because Ian cheated, doesn’t it?

It’s also, ironically, another reason why Ian might have cheated. For some people, it might be intimidating to have only ever been in one relationship. What if they’re missing out? What if they’re more desirable than they realize? What should they do now that they’re suddenly feeling attracted to someone new?

You hear a lot about people getting cold feet before marriage. Marriage is a huge commitment after all, and such a commitment can be intimidating.

Then there’s open relationships, poly relationships. There’s all sorts of possibilities, all sorts of people out there. Ian was stuck in a little bubble with a family member who controlled his life and shamed him. He was, according to teaser art of dubious canonicity, mocked for his looks.

In a way, it gives Ian the sense of a lack of options, and a lack of self-confidence.

I’m probably starting to retread my previous theory post about why Ian cheated, so I’ll get back on the main topic - the life he might have wanted to have with MC.

Given Ian’s issues with his mother, it’s hard to say how that relates to his views on children. Then there’s also the fact that he was bullied by his peers and only seemed to have MC as a friend until recently. That can make the idea of children a pretty intimidating prospect.

Personally, I do headcanon that Ian would be inclined to have a child if MC wanted that. It’d be less intimidating to have a partner supporting him there. Also, he might feel obligated to raise a child of his own, or even just dreamed of a healthier relationship with his child than he had with his mom.

When it comes to Ian and Alice, they did talk about what they wanted for their future, both before they were a couple and after. Alice made it no secret that she wanted to get married someday and have a lot of children. Although she wanted to give birth to her spouse’s children like her mom did with her dad, she would be fine with artificial insemination or adoption.

Ian spent a lot of time at Alice’s house, interacting with her family. Her family is big, warm, and welcoming. It was a huge contrast with his home. It seems unlikely that he has siblings, so my current headcanon has him as an only child and the sole target of his mother’s control and attention. Alice has this big happy family and is the oldest child with the most responsibilities as the oldest. She stands up for her younger siblings and her friends. It’s always something that he’s admired her for, and when she talked about having a big family one day, he couldn’t help but imagine being her husband and what it would be like to have a big family like hers.

It’s kind of scary, but also such a warm and appealing image. To be surrounded by such love like Alice was growing up. Her family loved Ian too. He got treated very well at her house and slept over as often as his mother permitted it. Sure, her younger siblings could be annoying at times, but there was so much love there. There were pets too, with a few dogs and cats

However, once they were adults and they were moving towards that future, Ian started having to really look at what it meant to create that sort of family. A big house, a high paying job, taking care of a bunch of children, maybe some pets... It’s a tall order. It’s like the fantasy he had suddenly became something that he was expected to just... make happen, and he had no idea how to relate to his own family. The King family was more of a family to him, Alice’s mom and dad more like his parents, and her younger siblings more like his siblings already.

It’s another thing Ian laments losing in the breakup. As Alice’s childhood friend, he was practically family, and the two of them getting together romantically made it practically official. They were teased about when he would propose to her, even when they were too young to consider such things.

Ian not only hurt Alice by cheating, he hurt her family too, who he had grown to love like his own family. Their reactions are mixed, but they’re all unhappy with him for what he did, some more than others. Alice’s younger sister Barbie is very vocal about her dislike towards Ian now, having said some pretty nasty things to him that really hurt since he did view her like his younger sister too.

Sorry, I’m getting off track again. Anyway, I don’t think there’s enough evidence to give a strong impression about how Ian would react to his children or treat them. In my own headcanons, he would be a very lenient parent in contrast to his mom, letting them get away with a lot and showing his affection through lots of gifts. I can imagine he would struggle to be firm with them when time comes to discipline them. It would no doubt lead to spoiled children if his spouse doesn’t reign him in and give him a wake up call and/or act as disciplinarian.

Given how Alice struggles to be firm with Ian due to how sad and apologetic he is, I can only imagine how rough it would be for them as parents together unless big changes were made. Really, the two of them would need more time before they were ready to be parents, whether together or with another partner.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore 

[throttlegainwell]

This is kinda late, but for the director’s cut ask, I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Dear Whoever You Are.” It always gets me.

Aw, thank you! And thank you for the ask. (And no worries--I wouldn't have been available to answer this until today anyway.)

So this is obscenely long and it spoils the end of Dear Whoever You Are. (Warning for discussions of pot, homophobic slurs, and references to Lonnie's shittiness.)

I have a lot to say about this story, even though it's short.

I went back and forth with the structure of this one a lot, trying to decide what kind of story I was going to tell. I wrote a lot of the letters in advance based on some of the issues that I thought Will might have or what I thought he might be able to slowly get off his chest, and I moved them around, letting the themes and emotional arc of the story emerge through that process. And what emerged was the story of a very lonely kid who missed his brother quite deeply. I actually didn't set out to make this about Will and Jonathan's relationship, but it revealed itself very naturally and I went with it.

For Will's voice, I didn't want it to read too adult, but I think he's probably a little sophisticated with his writing, you know? Not in every line, but there's a certain way with words and an artistry to some of the way he writes, even though sometimes he really does just sound like a kid--and sometimes he sounds a little younger than he is, since he's expressing a very broad range of emotions in these letters. The lyricism to his writing, though, does not obscure that he's a teenager with teenage concerns (and I think it just makes that trauma-instilled weariness even sadder, since it doesn't actually make him sound like an adult--it makes him sound like a kid aged beyond his years).

What should you know about me? I’m an artist. As in I like to draw and paint, but also that I’m pretty good at it. I want to be a professional artist someday. I’d like to go to school for it. My mom can’t draw. Jonathan is a little better—if he drew a shape, you’d basically recognize it, which is more than I can say for Mom—but not by much. I’m the artist in the family. I have no idea whether Dad can draw. If he’s ever tried. Wouldn’t it be an awful tragedy if he’s got an art prodigy somewhere deep inside him, suffocating under about fifty pounds of shithead and never to be realized because he thinks art is for fags and pussies?

[...]

The thing about dealing with Dad, though, is that it did sort of prepare me for the world. Mostly people are OK, but there are a lot of bullies out there who don’t want you to realize that they don’t actually matter. But Dad was my first bully, and he matters the least, so I know they’re all full of shit, too. I have much bigger problems now anyway. Problems you’re way too young to hear about. The nightmare kind.

This one kind of shows that line I was trying to walk with this piece. He sounds like a kid--he's excited to share his interests, he talks about himself kind of bluntly, and he's really honest in his appraisal. But then it hints at that baggage with Lonnie--like this dark cloud that kind of drifts over his narration. And he kind of appraises Lonnie here, too, and finds him wanting, but he also freely admits that this guy is basically a stranger to him. He's an abstract concept who made him feel bad on the occasions he actually had to deal with him in any kind of real way. But there's a tiny scrap of curiosity left there.

And Will has an edge here. He's not a mean guy, but he's seen a lot of shit by this point and he's really sad and lonely out in California. And as we see later, he does have some anger toward Lonnie, but it's very different from Jonathan's anger and comes from a different place. He's not great at controlling his emotional responses because he's just a kid (and a traumatized one at that), but he has a strong self-awareness, like Jonathan. It's not until near the end, though, that he really opens up about why he's so angry at Lonnie. And even though he's written Lonnie off and knows he's terrible, there's still a part of him that just can't quite accept being used that way.

But I don’t want to lose anyone, so I write it here and keep my lips shut, and I’ll destroy this just like all the letters that I haven’t sent. Not these letters to you, not the ones to Mike that are actually honest, not that one to Dad just so I could tell him properly to go fuck himself for trying to cash in on the worst thing to ever happen to me.

Also:

Do you have a lot of friends? I bet it's easier to make friends in the city. You don't have to be stuck with the same people who hate you from kindergarten on, year after year. I'm sure popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be—even if there was something desperately conciliatory about all of Jonathan's insistence that it's better to be a freak than to conform—but having a few close friends who'll play a ten hour campaign one weekend and save your life the next definitely takes the sting out of adolescence. So try to find those people. It's worth it, even if you do end up spiraling because none of them ever seem to call you anymore.

He tries throughout the whole piece to impart wisdom. It's not even necessarily always great advice, but it's very important to him. And he's very hopeful. Like, at times he's quite moody and sometimes very sad or angry, but there's a lot of hope and possibility and newness in many of his letters. Almost a sense of wonder.

Another things is that Will projects stuff all over this kid. Because he's not really talking to this kid, even though he does have real interest in him. He knows nothing about him and there's not really a strong possibility that he'll ever be more real at any point in the future. But Will is lonely, and he has a lot to get off his chest, and he needs to feel like he's talking to someone. So it's kind of sad, but also kind of astonishingly emotionally healthy. This kid has emotional resources to fall back on because he's been allowed that space to develop them, and he's using them.

My family’s grief destroyed them. I live with that knowledge inside of me, and I still don’t know what to do with it. I think pieces of that grief got tangled up in them along the way, like old netting with vegetation grown through it, and it’s there to stay forever in the landscape, even though I’m right here. Some kind of preemptive fear—like they’re holding their breath because they’ve been through it once so they already know what it will feel like and they’re terrified of ever feeling it again. I guess they don’t think they could survive it a second time. [...]

It’s all very frustrating. But how am I supposed to ask them not to feel that way? Jonathan cried himself to sleep when he thought I was dead. He cried alone, I think, but I don’t know why Mom wasn’t there. I don’t know what music he was listening to—all I heard was the click of the buttons, that familiar thunk of the headphone jack sliding home and the way his stereo whirred with a tape playing, so I knew he was listening to something—but I imagined it for myself. Something low and beautiful, maybe kind of weird—one of those sad, moody songs that I thought was a little boring compared to The Clash, too slow. (Jonathan really likes The Clash. He likes a lot of music no one has heard of. You probably don’t know them either. He never listens to them anymore, though.) Anyway, something slow, maybe—something I remembered just enough to hum for myself. Anything to drown out his despair and loneliness while I was freezing, starving, and hiding. Not because it was noisy, really—but because it was so quiet, like he wasn’t even allowed. I didn’t know that near-silence could hurt worse than a sob.

[...] I just knew that my brother was in pain and I couldn’t reach him. That I’d never really heard him cry like that before—like he couldn’t even breathe. If I could have seen through the veil, I know it would have been even worse. But there was something awful about only hearing the echoes of it, at the time. It made me feel almost as helpless as the monster did. Like hearing Mom falling apart even though I was so close, wanting to scream myself hoarse about how I was alive but keeping quiet so I wouldn’t die.

I wavered over whether to include this section because it's so dark and heavy, but ultimately I kept it because I really wanted to honor the horror that Will suffered and get his perspective on an aspect of it that I think gets overlooked very often. He had a front-row seat to his family's suffering. He knows exactly how much he means to them. And that must be a very heavy thing to live with, especially at that age, and especially on top of his own trauma and his own feelings. No matter how he feels or what he's experiencing, it must be there in the back of his mind. How will this affect my family? What will it do to them? Is it worth putting them through this or should I just be silent and spare them this pain? Which is exactly the opposite of what Joyce and Jonathan wanted to instill in him, but now he's a part of this terrible cycle that the two of them are trapped in, and he's hiding things from them because they have their own problems and he can't be the cause of any more. He just can't. Yet in some ways it's just part of this burgeoning independence that he's fighting for--he really wants to be allowed the room to figure things out for himself, even though it's somewhat painful and he feels lost once he gains that space.

You probably don’t like girls yet. Or maybe you’re like me. I hope you’re not like me. It’s a lot.

He also hints kind of a bunch of times that he's gay--so it's definitely a thing that he's firmly aware of, but he's not ready, until one of those last letters, to say it. But it's huge for him when he's able to commit it to paper and see it written out like that, even though he burns that letter, too. It's a big victory.

Besides, I hate the cold. I don’t remember a lot about Dad, but I remember thinking that he never seemed to feel the cold. He was always outside in December without a jacket, without sleeves—not that I knew him for many Decembers—and it would annoy my mom. She thought we would get ideas, I think. But he didn’t seem to notice the temperature or care when it started to snow. Like the world would just bend to his will and he didn’t have to acknowledge anything inconvenient about it. I bet he could freeze to death and still be thinking about cars and how his only real problem was that his kids were disappointments.

I like this bit because I think Will doesn't have a ton of memories of Lonnie, and this one isn't even Lonnie being abusive--it's just Lonnie being kind of a child and a bit of a prick. But it also explicitly draws a parallel between Lonnie and the Mind-Flayer in that he remembers them both as drawn to the cold, and he has that negative, traumatic association with the cold now. So it's very in-your-face, maybe too much so, but I think you can see Will kind of working this out for himself through the text and processing that uncomfortable truth. Like, IRL, we can analyze all of that and draw our own conclusions of the symbolism and implications presented in the series, but even in-universe, Will is kind of like yeah nope there's something off about this.

Did you know that when you cook chicken soup, you’re supposed to skim it? There’s some kind of layer of gross stuff that floats to the top. Mom is learning to cook more, and she didn’t know that. She kept wondering why it was coming out weird, but Jonathan didn’t say anything until the third batch, even though it turned out he knew the problem and the solution all along. (He knows how to cook more things than she does, and they tend to come out better when he does it.) I guess he was just planning to keep eating the weird soup. El didn’t even notice, of course. There’s basically nothing that she won’t eat. Jonathan is the same, really. I’m not even sure he tastes his food sometimes.

I just really like this bit. I think it says a lot about Jonathan, his role in the house, and the emotional and mental place he's in during the story. But I wanted to show that through 1) something kind of mundane and 2) Will's observations.

I stole a joint out of his room the other day. But I didn’t see what the big deal was. It smelled gross unlit, smelled disgusting while it was burning, and it made my whole chest hurt when I inhaled. I had to brush my teeth twice to get the taste out of my mouth, and my sinuses ached and burned for hours. I ended up flushing most of it down the toilet. It just made me jittery anyway, and then I got bummed out because he didn’t even notice. Didn’t notice that I was weird and didn’t notice that his pot was missing.

He didn’t used to be like this, I swear.

This is just really sad, I think. Like, on the one hand, I think it shows totally normal curiosity about drugs; he has access, he knows Jonathan is using them so they can't be that bad, and he does want to know. But there's also a part of him that's maybe hoping he'll get what Jonathan sees in it, or that maybe they can bond over it, or maybe even that it'll help him if Jonathan is so in love with it or whatever. But that's just not what he gets out of it, and he's left very frustrated and further alienated from his brother. But that He didn't used to be like this, I swear is just very, very heartbreaking, to me.

And on that note, I'm circling back to the beginning now to get more into Jonathan's side of things.

When my mom told us about you, Jonathan looked like he was going to puke. Then he looked empty. He’s mostly been high ever since, so I don’t really know how he feels about you.

This is spoilery to point out, but I hope it's one of those bits that hits different on reread. Because it's set up like Jonathan's response to this information is from a place of shock, since we're processing this reaction from Will's POV and this is news to Will. But Jonathan already knows here. So he's actually experiencing an entirely different set of emotions that Will has no context for and can't really perceive, let alone understand; he's feeling a lot of guilt from the tough choices he made, even though they weren't really choices at all because what the hell else could he have done? It's just bringing up a lot of bad stuff for him, and he's uncomfortable with the whole situation. Will has no way of knowing this, and Jonathan at no point sheds light on his feelings or perspective.

Another thing that I was trying to do was show Will's shifting mood via his salutations and closings. He almost always says Your big brother because he's trying really hard to put on this confident, loving big brother air--he really wants to lean into this role and he's very accepting of it. He's almost downright thirsting for this opportunity--especially because he has all this love to share and it feels like no one is receptive to it at the moment. He plays with these greetings and closings a few times when he's in high spirits (yours gayly, yours excitedly), but there are times when he's a little terse, too. Hey Kid, or just Yours, or Kid, or Sincerely, or no closing at all except Will.

And I really wanted to contrast that with the structure of Jonathan's letter. He greets David very simply, with an almost shy familiarity but without that ingratiation Will attempts. Right away, it's different because he knows this kid's name. So either some time has passed and they've learned new information or he had this information all along--and he quickly reveals that it's the latter. And while his closing is warm and kind, it is in no way familiar or open like Will's. It's really very distant and just short of almost formal. This is not a relationship he's trying to form or a door he's opening, but rather a chapter that he's trying to close in the least-shitty way possible. He signs it Jonathan and leaves it at that.

And that leads me into the thing about his letter that I really wanted to come through above all. He's trying very hard not to claim this kid as his family. He's not comfortable with this at all, but he'd do anything for Will, and this is what Will wants. This is a stranger to him, and he'd like to keep it that way, even as he offers up what he can--even as what he offers is somewhat painful in a very understated way, where you have to really read between the lines to see how he feels about it. He straight-up says, more or less, that their connection is through Will. Like, technically they're related, but he introduces himself as Will's brother first and foremost--right away, he's clearly not particularly open to the possibility of a relationship.

It seemed important to Will that I try this, so here goes nothing. Will is your brother. I’m Will’s brother. I guess I’m your brother, too.

Will felt an immediate kinship with and curiosity about this kid--maybe because of the mystery and distance, but maybe he would have felt the same if they'd met--but Jonathan has met him, and it's a memory from kind of a shitty period of his life, and more than that, it just represents a lot of baggage for him. David was never his responsibility--there is literally nothing he could have done for this kid and there was no possibility of a relationship at the time either--and there's an extent to which he's trying to tell himself this, but he can't quite internalize it as truth even as he's very honest about this, even kind of blunt. Shockingly blunt, almost. (Like, he's definitely not dumping his baggage on this stranger, but he says things that he would definitely not share with his family.) He feels like he abandoned this kid. He's always been someone's big brother, and he's always had responsibilities well beyond what he should have, so of course he feels this way. But he does take kind of a healthy, pragmatic view of it. He's like, well, what could I have done? And it's ambiguous whether he's stating a fact or trying to convince himself or maybe even trying to plead his case to David.

There's this real air of weariness and almost melancholy to it that he could kind of hide or distract from, maybe, in person, but it's hard to hide it in writing. He's also clearly not totally aware of the implications of some of what he's saying because... that's just his life. So parts of it read more disturbing than he probably intended--something that a kid wouldn't catch, that even an older teen might not catch, but that maybe Kim would notice.

You seemed healthy and happy, as best I could tell, though I don’t think there’s much I could have done if you hadn’t. But I decided not to worry about you because that was just one more thing than I could handle. Your mom seemed to have it covered. I had enough responsibilities already. I hope you understand. (Actually, I hope you don’t understand. I hope you have no idea what I mean.) You were clinging to her legs, but you weren’t hiding behind them. So I knew you felt safe with her, but you weren’t afraid. You looked like Will, only blond. A really young Will, just a little younger than the Will in the first photographs I took—the ones my mom still has. (If you want to know what Will looks like, go look in the mirror and imagine you have brown hair.) Your eyes were brighter, though. I knew (hoped) you’d be OK.

What's brutally sad about Jonathan's letter, I think, is how different his priorities are in comparison to Will's. Will is thinking about this kid's identity and his interests and even, to some extent, his future. He wants to know who this kid is and what they might have in common, and he's full of what-ifs. He does think about his emotional well-being and his safety (whether Lonnie is mean to him, whether he's bullied at school, whether he has friends), but not as much.

Whereas Jonathan, who couldn't have been older than fourteen or fifteen tops when they met, looked at this child and clearly did an immediate inventory of his physical well-being, and he very carefully tried to discern whether it seemed like he had much contact with Lonnie or whether he was safe with his own mom (whom Jonathan only knew, so far, as someone he was meeting through Lonnie, whose associates usually sucked ass and were generally dangerous). He needed to know whether this kid was walking out the door with someone who would neglect and/or abuse him because that's what Lonnie would do and what a lot of his friends would do. Jonathan cared about whether this kid seemed properly fed, had clean clothes, seemed generally well-cared for--whether his demeanor was fearful, whether he had any visible injuries or showed signs that he might have non-visible injuries, whether he was reactive toward Lonnie or seemed like he'd spent a lot of time in that house. It's sad for a host of reasons--from the fact that he feels the need to do this to the fact that he knows roughly what to look for and how to spot it.

He's very analytical about this--like, okay, this kid is clinging to her legs because she represents safety to him and Lonnie's place is scary and overwhelming, but he doesn't seem fearful generally so he'll probably be fine once he's away from Lonnie and he's not afraid of her. It's heartbreaking that he feels this is necessary and that he's not wrong to do it. Will, as compassionate and sensitive as he is, would simply not notice many of these things (or at least not think to look for them) because it's not how he's had to think, necessarily. Because he was, to some extent though certainly not as much as Joyce and Jonathan would have preferred, insulated from this and because he's never had to look out for someone else's needs (or not the same way). Meanwhile Jonathan is checking trunks for his brother's body. So there's a fundamental difference in perspective there that Jonathan can never really get away from. The world is not a safe place; don't ever take safety for granted.

And there's something really defeated about how he approaches this--he can't not evaluate this stuff, but he's keenly aware that he's pretty helpless in the face of it because he's just a kid himself. He has no power here, and even if he did, it's just too much for him emotionally on top of taking care of Will, helping out Joyce (who was presumably in a very bad place around this time), and raising himself. His concerns are extremely pragmatic--no more than that. He can't afford more than that. So he does care, but he really has no more to give. (And they're related, yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean some instant and unshakeable bond--that's just not what happens a lot of the time, and I think it's perfectly legitimate and fair to have that reaction instead of the more storybook one. Especially in circumstances like these. It also just doesn't resonate the same way for him because it doesn't represent any big paradigm shift for him--he's already someone's big brother, and there's no great wonder here like Will has. Whereas Will kind of sees an opportunity to reinvent himself, and it's also an opportunity to try on some more responsibility, which he's desperate to be given.)

But Kim seems nice. So he tells himself that it will be okay, and he has to believe this because he knows what Lonnie is like and what he's capable of. And this kid looks just like his little brother, whom he cares for more than anything in the world. He literally sees Will in him. So it's a small guilt that just kind of lodges in places and crystallizes. He's also like if you want to know what Will looks like, go look in the mirror, but he doesn't offer much about himself. Very intentionally.

Your eyes were brighter, though is just one of those lines that's actually really dark when you think about it. He's saying that he knows Will has suffered, despite his best efforts. Will doesn't have quite that same awareness that Jonathan does, but he's by no means naive or untouched; he's also an abused child and he comes from a deeply trouble home and he's bullied at school. He's sad and he carries a certain heaviness within him, even though he's got this bright and sweet disposition, and Jonathan can read it on his face. He sees his pain. But this kid, whom Jonathan knows nothing about except what he can observe in this brief window of time, looks brighter and happier than his little brother, whom he loves more than anything and anyone in the world. Whom he would do anything to protect and whom he wants desperately to shield from the ugliness that he's had to face. So it's a very painful comparison, but there's also something brutally pragmatic about it. He's saying, I can't help you, and you don't really need me the way Will does.

(Kim, if you’re reading this, I thought you were pretty cool. You gave me a stick of gum and said you liked my Clash t-shirt. You looked me in the eyes, instead of past me or anything else, and you talked to me like a person. I appreciate it more now than I did at the time; I was pretty angry back then. Thanks for not taking it personally.)

I really wanted it to be a nice, uneventful memory. Like, okay, he learned he has this little brother, he learned that Dad definitely cheated on Mom, but none of this is really a shock and it's not particularly emotional for anyone. It's just a thing that happened. She was decent to him. He was probably a little rude to her in a vague disgruntled teenage way, but not dramatic, and it's understandable, even though he's clearly a little embarrassed about it now. But you can see a lot about the kind of person she probably was and what that would have meant to Jonathan, who basically had no support in his life at this time, to be treated with respect by an adult--because it implies that he's not used to being treated with respect by adults, at least when he visits Lonnie. Which is in itself very sad. But I really wanted to show him something reassuring and to just have someone treat him decently. And that scrap of basic decency felt like a lot to him.

And from the way your mom looked at Lonnie, I know she didn’t let him into your life. I hope you know she did it to protect you and that you’re better off without him, but in case you didn’t, now you do. Dad sucks. Don’t worry about him. He’s not worth your energy.

He really says very little about this guy, but it's haunting the whole letter. There are undertones of this pain all throughout. Jonathan is keenly aware that this is their point of connection, and in some ways very open about what he thinks of Lonnie--certainly much more open here than he ever is with Will about it. So there's a way in which he's revealing more here than he feels like he can with his family, even though he's still not willing to open up to this kid and doesn't want a relationship. But he's not really softening things as much as he might with Will. And while it's not stated in the story, no, I don't feel like he let Will read this letter before he sent it and I don't think he shared any of this information with him. Nor did he tell Will that he already knew about David.

So he's leaving the door open, but ultimately he's hoping that it stays shut. At least at this point in his life--probably trying to tie up loose ends, before Vecna is defeated, and so with a lot of uncertainty hanging over him.

So. That was my interpretation of Lonnie potentially having another kid. Mostly as a lens through which I could explore Will's relationships with his family and with himself. And Jonathan was always going to know--that's kind of his role within the family, you know? He's burdened with all this terrible knowledge that he shouldn't have, and he just has to live with it and make the best of things. But I really wanted to show how differently they both responded to this information and why.

[mica-mice]

At this point I'm barely active in this app man I can't even answer texts.

Some point in this year I might just have a final decision, because this month is an eye opener for how the more I get older, the less time I am able to shower on my old hobbies, more time on school and other activities that has been a weekly living.

Sorry if this will be a little too jerkish??? But just the amount of negative things the internet has given on any media topic has been heavily affecting on my enjoyment and free time on posting and stuff. I might open this app just once a week now due to me basically wanting to focus on life matters, and the more I step away from social apps, the more I actually get a little free and happy.

I like the feeling of not needing to post, its nice. I just want to be in the sidelines looking, and stepping away on the internet social media, enjoying my real life experiences. The more I do so, I get to evaluate myself, and recently, I got a lot of flags of evaluation that made me realize that I can be so much more if I just, focus on what's around me right now.

I'll be completely honest with all of you, there will be a day that I will completely have a final goodbye in this app, this fandom and probably to all good people and friends I have made along the way. I'm sorry, but I know in my heart it is inevitable. Probably somewhere this year?

My reason is that my heart just screams for me to stop, and focus on my life as a whole, to focus on my studies, to focus on me serving in the church completely, to me just I don't know, what I have always been wanting to be since I was a child?

God, this will be such a post that I think will have so much mixed reactions, but today, I got a realization, and I have to tell it. I don't want things to end with me ghosting everyone, I want to end things with me saying a goodbye.

Who knows? Maybe that goodbye will be next month? Maybe May? Maybe December until I wait on New Year so that two of the friends I have known and love talking to since I started making RT fanarts. You know who you two are, and admittedly, I find it so difficult to just get away from this app anymore because of them, they are fun to talk to. But I hope you two understand this.

I guess I wanted to quit when you two celebrate your birthdays at last again, you know? But I don't know, I just, I cannot keep being in here.

I'm planning to delete quite all of my social accounts, but that will be hard, maybe some first? I will agree this is the last account I will delete because, this is sentimental.

Or I might not quit the app, just quit the posting at all.

Sorry guys, it may be a just, a sad post? But I want to feel my heart be lighter, I want to focus on my life completely.

Who knows? Maybe one day, someone will be new to the app and be the new one here, it will be great :).

But hahaha, let's savor the moments while the time is still here no?

I love this experience, one of the most memorable indeed, but I hope that when I come back in art social media, I'll be that different person completely.

I don't know anyone's religion per say? But for my belief of faith, I just got a gut to end this with: "May God bless you and keep you, may his faith shines upon you and be gracious to you, and this year and beyond, maybe we'll grow. Will there be a chance we will meet? Someday. Hopefully.".

[cursmudgeon]

This is so crazy to me because that is like the one place where you just objectively can't put ai. It wouldn't work. There's no way to make it work. Like fuck them for trying to put it anywhere in the pipeline at all but storyboards are the last place you would ever want it. I'm a firm believer that no matter where you put AI tech in art it's at best going to give you something mediocre and difficult to work with. It's just too much of a black box with too few direct controls. But there are some applications where I can at least see the argument. Background painting for animation is an amazing and complex art form but I can understand how you could use AI to get something mediocre but serviceable by generating a full render based on a sketch. Inbetweening is tedious and while I'm sure AI wouldn't hold a candle to a human for subtle acting I can see where someday you might be able to create a better version of auto-tweening that could handle more complex timing. Hell, clean up and coloring are both slow fiddly tedious processes that would make sense to cut corners on. Again I think cutting any of those jobs is a lazy and poorly thought out idea that you'd only pull if you're creatively bankrupt and only in it for the money but I can see how it would actually save money while still actually making something that resembles a show you could watch. But storyboarding is the one thing that this kind of statistical model will never be able to do. Statistical learning models cannot comprehend things, they don't know what a story is. They can't even tell a knock knock joke let alone a compelling story because they have no way of remembering the events that have happened in the story already or understanding that the pixels and words that they are assembling even relate to the concept of an event. They mash phrases and colors into something that vaguely resembles other stuff that they've been told contains keywords. That's it.

But you expect me to believe you're going to get one to understand enough film language to tell a compelling story over a thousand separate images while consistently keeping the characters believably in the same space and recognizable? And it's gonna do that faster than a person doing thirty second sketches? Nah. I don't buy it.

The amount of bullshit you have to do to convince the black box to put the correct character on the left side of the screen facing the right direction in one image would already be more work than doing rough thumbnails of the whole scene. There is so much specific problem solving that has to go into making a storyboard. We have a hundred years of highly specific cultural baggage that defines how we interpret films. No generative statistical training model will ever be able to do that because they are just not remotely capable of understanding what they're making. They aren't and can't be conscious entities with the ability to interpret meaning, no matter how many objects they can recognize or words they can predict would be likely to follow other words. At best you'll wind up with a jumble of blobs that vaguely resemble the compositions of other films thrown together in an order that makes no sense and some poor worker who you've demoted to a revisionist position will have to sort through them and try to turn them into something that makes any sense and it's going to be slower and worse than if you'd just paid someone to do it right the first time.

If this is true and there are executives who think this is going to happen, they're gonna have a bad wakeup call when they realize their expensive machines aren't capable of more than the visual equivalent of word salad.

[ghostennit]

September is National Recovery Month! 

I planned to do my first lineup of charity streams this month but ended up not doing so due to… a lot of reasons. But I still wanted to talk about it because awareness, education, and destigmatization of substance abuse disorders means a lot to me! This, along with mental health awareness (since both often go hand-in-hand), are things that I’d someday like to build my whole online presence around. 

These topics are often taken lightly and I think it’s something that should be handled with a lot more care because you never know who in your communities are fighting with what. Like me.

I’m a recovering drug addict and the day I made my first tweet as a vtuber was the day I decided to clean up. If it were not for Tree, Rue, and Aoka, I would not be here. If it weren’t for all of you, I would not be here. If I had not connected so hard with streaming, I would not be here. I know exactly where I would be… and it’s far, far, far from glamorous.

This is very scary to type out and admit. I’m scared of what you all will think. But I want to be honest with you. I feel like I owe it. And I’m excited for some of the plans I hope will come to fruition. I hope this works the way I hope. I hope you think differently about those who suffer from substance abuse. We don’t choose this. It finds us, digs into our souls, takes away our greatest fears, gives us exactly what we want… but all at a very high price. A price we don’t understand the first time we try it. 

We think we’re invincible. We think we’re in control. We think it will be okay. But it’s not. 

Substance Abuse Disorders (a way of thinking about it that I want you all to get comfortable with) is often a symptom of other mental health disorders. Despite struggling with the hard shit for years, I actually did not know this. And this is where I’ll lead into my second topic…

I am bipolar. I have been presenting symptoms of bipolar disorder since about 17 years old but I did not even consider that I had it until I was about 28 when I approached my PCP about potentially being ADHD. He gave me a very informal “well, actually…” after several assessments. I thought I was just depressed, anxious, and maybe a little distracted. I thought the rest of my symptoms were normal and I just sucked at managing them. This was during the peak of covid, where getting a psych appointment was impossible. After several months of trying, I gave up. As many of you might know, it was only recently that I finally got my appointment and was officially diagnosed. I’ve been on meds for the first time for a little over a month now and it’s been extremely difficult. The side effects have been horrible, and as some of you might have realized… I’ve been a little all over the place lately. 

I’ve beaten myself up to the stars and back about ever fucking with hard drugs. Finding out that addiction is a side effect of Bipolar was very comforting. Finding out that Substance Abuse Disorder was a real thing was eye-opening. Maybe I’m not a fuck up. 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what I go through. This is just a little part of why I feel like education and destigmatization is incredibly important. Until informally diagnosed, I had a lot of misconceptions of what exactly the disease entails. Most people assume it’s constant mood changing. One minute you’re happy, the next you’re sad. That’s partly true. Instead it’s minutes, It’s days. It’s weeks. It’s months. It’s months of not being able to get out of bed. It’s months not being able to brush your teeth. It’s months of performing so poorly at your job that you’re lucky you still have it. It’s months of feeling worthless.

Then all of a sudden (but sometimes slowly), you’re the best. You’re the greatest. Everyone likes you. You’re doing amazing at work. Your social life is booming. You’re making art. Everyone loves you. You don’t need to sleep. You’re special. You’re too good for it. You’re powerful. You’re clever and exceptional. You can read minds and you’re smarter than everyone else because you know nothing is real and nothing can hurt you. You’re on to them. You’re on to them.

And that’s only some of it.

Anyway, like some of you might have realized from reading this… or following me on twitter recently… I’m manic as fuck right now. I could monologue about this for hours. So I’ll wrap this up.

I’m about 9 months sober now. That’s painful to admit if you do the math and consider when I started streaming. I feel like that admission will let some people down. But relapse, while ugly, is a normal part of recovery. I’m proud of where I am. Prior to streaming, I hadn’t gone more than a month for a few years. I’m proud of me. No matter what, I’m proud as fuck. 

So anyway, yeah. Let me tie this up because it’s long as shit. I love you so much if you’ve read this entire thing. I love you so much if you’ve ever supported me. I’m picking up the pieces of who I used to be and I actually feel like I have help doing so.

The plans I have to implement all of this into my streams will be small at first. You probably won't even notice some of it.

I'm going to be very honest. I think it’s important that you see the ugly sides of all of this. I want you to know the signs, the symptoms, and understand. I want you to be able to help a friend or be able to help yourself. I want you to think twice when you haven’t heard from that one pal in months. I want you to think twice when you see someone walking down the street who is clearly out of sorts. I want you to change the way you think about both mental disorders and drug use.

Thank you. Big fucking thank you.

[27dragons]

Since I'm trying to get back into the second draft of the Safe Harbor sequel, I'm going to take you at your word and ask about the Sandbridge series. Do you have a favourite moment from the series? And are there anything you can tell us about that happened but we didn't see onscreen? ❤️❤️❤️

First, let me say that I am utterly delighted that you're continuing the Safe Harber story; I loved it so much!

Favorite moment? Oh, holy heck, that's a difficult one. I'll just stream-of-consciousness a handful of them, shall I? :D

Tony and Bucky's dance and first kiss in Safe and (the) Sound, the one that gets interrupted by the fire. I'm a little weird about sex scenes; they're really intense for me the first time I write (or read) them but they lose most of their punch on subsequent re-reads. But that kiss never fails to make my heart beat a little faster.

In Lord of the Swings, Bucky standing in line for beer and dealing with a bunch of homophobic asshats. Tisfan wrote that scene pretty much in its entirety (I only edited it) and it is for me a perfect encapsulation of how queer people experience that sort of aggression.

In Howard's End, the moment where Tony thinks Howard is actually going to apologize, but then realizes that Howard still doesn't get it, and his line there: "You regret driving me away because of what I might have become. It still doesn't occur to you to regret hurting me because I was a child." This is the heartbreak at the core of Tony and Howard - that Howard can never really see Tony as anything but his heir, even when they're on good terms.

The bachelor parties in Zen and the Art of Family Maintenance. Because they're so delightful and absolutely perfect for them both.

The scene in From the Ukraine with Love where Steve gets a call from Bucky and has to go collect his sad drunk ass. That's the beating heart of their friendship, right there. Also, Natasha fretting over her sundress when Steve introduces her to Winifred is utterly adorable, because we don't get many chances to see Natasha as anything but supremely self-confident.

Tony dealing with Billie's tantrums in High Noon in Sandbridge, because so many kidfics have the new parents struggling comically or barely struggling at all, and Tony starts out as, frankly, a really TERRIBLE parent. He has NO idea what he's doing, and it shows very clearly in those scenes.

In That Someone Special, I have 2 moments: When Scott first shows up and Steve is chasing him to try to punch him and Tony steps between them until he finds out exactly who Scott is, and then steps back and says "oh, carry on" -- that was, to me, a perfect moment of almost gallows humor. And then the turnaround scene, when Tony, Steve, and Sam show up at Luis' apartment to help Scott after he's been beaten up. That scene is a special kind of funny and touching.

In My Three Dads, the scene where Billie is in the hospital with a broken leg. Loki being jealous over Tony's rapport with Billie and then proud that she picks him to stay with her for the x-rays; and Bucky stepping in to make Tony leave when he can't handle seeing Billie in pain. Family dynamics at their best. <3

And finally, in Stem the Tide, which is not technically a Sandbridge 'verse story at all, but a "What If" side novel, I really like the scene where Bucky stands up to Alex and tells him to fuck off.

Stuff that happens that you didn't see onscreen... I have a couple of chapters that we cut out of My Three Dads, including Tony meeting with Grant Ward that we rejected because it steered the plot wrong, and one with Tony and Bucky going to Ty's apartment to pick up his stuff, which we allude to and consider as having actually happened, but didn't include because it screwed up our pacing for the story. I actually sometimes forget that we never posted the scene at Ty's apartment, because I really liked it. I might someday clean it up and throw it into the Jetsam and Flotsam bits-and-pieces collection.

But if there's something specific you were wondering about in the background, feel free to shoot me a DM and ask; I'm always happy to talk about my Sandbridge boys. <3

[thebeautifulfantastic]

girl who is this "My Guy" you speak of in your tags 👀👀👀👀👀

ohoho do i have a story to tell you, my friend :D

basically, i'm experiencing the "slow burn friends to lovers" trope, and it is both amazing and infuriatingly agonizing. fair warning, this is going to a looooong post, so jump to the end if you want the short version.

it all started back in the spring, after i got accepted to a performing arts college, and specifically to their first-year study abroad program in Spain. i was so pumped, and determined to make friends before college started, so i found one of those [college name] class of 27 instagram accounts and as people's intros were posted, made it a point to follow and dm anyone else who said they would also be doing their first year abroad. *sigh* yes, i was shamelessly sliding into people's dms. but strictly with the purpose of friendship! anyways, this Boy's picture and little intro paragraph gets posted to the account, and he says he's in the study abroad program, so i dm him, as had become my custom -- it's a very simple "hi nice to meet you" exchange -- and he follows me back.

a few weeks later, my photo and little intro paragraph get posted to the account, and he sends me a dm. he's like "IT'S YOU" and i'm like "IT IS!" and he's like "you have such a good voice!" (because there was a video of me singing in my post) and i'm like "thank you!" and he's like "you are MOST welcome." and then, because in my intro i had mentioned that i'm a total nerd, he also says "and don't worry, i'm a nerd too." this is word-for-word accurate, by the way -- i just checked. so we messaged for a good while, bonding over nerdy topics.

a couple days later he replied to my instagram story and we had another mini nerd-out moment, and then a couple days after that i mustered up the courage to message him and ask if he might be interested in working on some creative projects together once the school year started. that was the conversation that really broke the ice, because after that, we were messaging back and forth every single day, talking about anything and everything, getting to know each other and quickly realizing that we had a lot in common. actually, the second thing we bonded over after our shared nerdiness was that we were both liberal/progressive Christians who didn't love Christian media. and we fell in love right then and there... just kidding, there's much more to the story ;)

anyways! we became really close over the summer because we talked to each other so much. now so far i only saw him as a very good friend, because i had a massive crush on a girl (who i never confessed my feelings to, but i'm pretty sure she's straight anyway. canon bisexual experience, i guess) that he was very aware of because i told him about her. i wasn't really looking at any boy as someone i'd potentially be interested in, and i was just so thrilled to have found a new best friend that i connected with and who i'd get to see every day at college. i actually said, in conversation with a different friend of mine that "i've seen who i'll be going to college with, and i can assure you, i'm not going to have a crush on any of these people." yeah, right. famous last words.

but the plot thickens. as the summer drew to a close, it started looking like i wouldn't be able to study abroad or attend this college at all because of tuition costs, and i was really, really sad. but honestly, what i was most sad about was that i wouldn't get to meet him in person just yet and would have to wait a whole year until he was at this college's US campus, which happens to be about an hour from where i live (his home state is quite far away from mine, so our friendship had developed entirely through the internet). i told him the news, that i wouldn't be joining him at college, and he was also sad because he was also super excited to meet me, but we agreed that we'd stay in touch and meet up in person someday, somehow.

summer ended, we kept talking, he left for Spain, and we still kept talking. however, there was a subtle shift in the tone of our conversations sometime after he arrived there, which is to say we started flirting. not intentionally, mind you. it just happened, in between the "i miss you" and the "i wish you were here, we would've raised so much hell" the both of us started playfully flirting, and it was so natural i didn't even realize it was flirting until several weeks had passed (that may also be because i am an oblivious fool). just subtle little things, like i would say "hey :) i miss you" and he would say "you're making me blush," and then we would playfully tease each other and laugh about it. there was one occasion where i was having a really rough day and later on he sent me the sweetest text i have ever received in my life and told me i was one of his favorite people in the world :'))

around this time he also started screenshotting my selfies that i sent him over instagram chat, and i noticed. i started suspecting that maybe he was into me as more then a friend at that point (because when a guy screenshots your face, that means something, right?) but at this point i was still in the Denial Stage of my feelings so i decided to not read into it too much. i also hadn't been physically attracted to him at first sight, so i was like "he's Just A Guy!! there's no way i can have feelings for him, because i'm not into guys right now. i just love his personality and our dynamic. that's all." yeah, RIGHT. just keep telling yourself that, Belle.

we were in mid-september by this point, and we had called a few times since he's been in Spain, and during one jet-lagged conversation while mutually lamenting that we couldn't hang out in-person, he happened to mention that even if he wouldn't be in my area for another year, there was nothing stopping me from visiting him when he goes home to the states for Christmas and winter break. internally, i thought "HECK YEAH" but what i actually said was something like, "you know what, that's a good point," and after that the daydreams began in earnest, but because i'm an idiot i told myself these were still strictly platonic feelings. we treated the idea of me visiting him as a rather unserious thing at first ("oh i just said that because i was jet-lagged and delirious, don't worry about it haha" -- yeah right, buddy, you literally just told me you miss me), but i couldn't get the idea out of my head.

and then of course, as is the way of things, i'm lying awake at night, thinking about him, and all of a sudden it hits me and i realize the worst has happened: i had developed feelings. romantic ones. my first reaction was literally "well shit this is embarrassing. i am so screwed." it was a very strange realization too, because none of it was based on his looks. i had never looked at him and thought "damn he's hot," i simply... loved him. the whole person.

(i should probably clarify that this isn't me calling him ugly or anything. he is a very good-looking person, and i knew that, subconsciously, but it wasn't a thought that really took up space in my brain because i just hadn't been looking at him that way. and now i do think he's cute! but i had to come to terms with my crush first.)

after realizing this, my first thought was that i didn't want to say anything about my feelings to him and accidentally look like an idiot ("because what if there's a chance he doesn't like me?" girl be so fr) so we just kept talking and the flirting got more and more obvious. i also started screenshotting his photos to see what would happen. what happened was more playful teasing. we called again and got all flustered with each other because it was so hard not to spill the tea. the idea of me visiting him was brought up again, with a more... uh... suggestive undertone? it was amazing. it was also unbearable.

it all came to a light one day in late september. i had told myself i wouldn't say anything about my feelings until we met in-person, but by the way we were flirting, i should have known we wouldn't be able to wait that long.

in perhaps the most random fashion, it started because his BeReal caption was "i cried to this song last night. someday i'll reveal the story" and i got a little worried upon reading that. so i texted him "are you okay? i saw your BeReal and i thought i would check in." his reply was something like "OH MY GOSH i'm fine i cried because i was super high last night," which, like, a little mortifying that i momentarily forgot weed existed, but i'm glad you're okay.

but then a few minutes later, he says "why did you screenshot my BeReal?" and my brain froze. i couldn't think of a single way to deflect or change the subject this time, so i thought fuck it and told him exactly why: "because you looked cute."

he goes "aha! there it is" and i said, "for how long have you been trying to get me to say that?" and he said "a while. i've liked you for a while."

i won't relay the whole conversation that followed because it was very long and also quite personal, but after we'd calmed down a bit from the love confession, we talked seriously about whether it would be a good idea to be in a relationship, and what things were worrying us, pros and cons, etc etc, and what we came to was that he personally needed some time to think about it all, but we would still plan on me visiting him.

and here we are! we still haven't met in person, but we will eventually, and it's nothing official yet (it's honestly kind of a situationship except we actually do talk about our feelings) but there's a lot of love on both ends. and i'm just so happy to know him at all, because if i hadn't randomly decided to slide into his dms none of this would have happened, and that would be a shame. we may be overdue for another serious conversation about relationship stuff (the flirting and teasing has continued, in addition to our more normal conversations) but that's the story so far. now you know, if i mention "the boy" or my "kinda bf" or "my guy" who i'm referring to. i can't reveal his real name here because that feels like an invasion of privacy, but it starts with an A, and sometimes i refer to him that way too :)

tl;dr -- he is a guy that i met online through the college i had planned on attending but actually didn't, we became close friends and stayed in touch and eventually developed feelings, and admitted those feelings for each other, and now we are More Than Friends But Not Officially Together because we haven't met in-person yet, but hopefully soon.

[roselightfairy]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤️

Aww, I love this! Okay, thank you so much and thank you for the chance to do some navel gazing!

Also... my AO3 has 144 stories on it. When did that happen? For a question like this, I want to pick for quality of writing, but I'm finding myself going back mostly to the stories that either really stretched or defined me as a writer, or simply the ones that were a really memorable experience to write . . . which unfortunately means mostly my longer fics, as so many of the shorter ones were written in a single flurry that I barely remember after the fact! Even though there are some shorter fics that I think are better than the longer ones. So let's get started.

Finding a Voice - I mean, how can I not say this one? This fic, like a lot of my older work, has some passages and scenes that I think are so good I can't believe I wrote them, and some that make me cringe to look back on - but how can I not pick it, when it's the story that probably defines me most as a writer? It's the story that allowed me to stake out my own headcanons and gave rise to hundreds of thousands more in the same world. And, like all my LOTR stuff, I do want to return to it someday soon. <3

Ever Changing, Ever Climbing - still the longest thing I've ever written, and the thing I worked on for the longest time. I lived in the world of this story and these characters for almost a year, and probably came the closest I ever have to what non-fanfic authors experience when coming up with their own characters, because I got to make so much of it up! It similarly has bits that make me cringe, especially when I realize how much more deeply other people have thought about Mirkwood worldbuilding and how much lore I straight-up got wrong, but I think it also has some of my best prose and my best romance writing. And siblings. I got to write baby Legolas in this! And also I just love Laerwen so much and love that I got the chance to write her an origin story, so that it doesn't all exist only in the background of my head.

Only Through Surrender - come on, this is my current obsession; I was never not going to put it on the list! But in some ways, this is exactly the inverse of the previous story. I wrote this faster than I've ever written anything this long, and it's the most daring thing I've ever written in terms of plot. The romance is almost a subplot, which I don't know that I've ever done satisfactorily, and it's an AU, which is not something I'm great at sustaining, and even though I don't know that the writing style overall is my best work, I think that the structure and pacing of the story - and the things I did with characters - are pretty good, all things considered! The only non-LOTR fic on this list.

Velle - in terms of "fun to write," this story might be the very top of all of them. This was @deheerkonijn's and my early-covid project (we actually started it a couple months before, but I think working on it saved us in those early telework days of stress and angst); it's a form of storytelling neither of us had tried before, combining both of our skills, and it's probably the most rigorously edited and densely-packed thing I've ever written. We went over and over and over this story with a fine-toothed comb, making sure the writing and the art worked perfectly together, and we liked it so much we printed it as a physical book! *smooches my copy gently*

Having moved out of the most iconic ones, I wasn't sure what to pick for the last! This became a bit of a toss-up, but I wanted to have a shorter fic represented, so: the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth. This is my only fic with a Richard Siken title, so I figured it was fitting given that he's everywhere right now. ;) Inspired by the title, this is one of my more deliberately poetic fics, and I had a lot of fun with the writing. It's also some of my more daringly explicit work! (still does not include any words for certain aspects of anatomy)

Thanks so much again for sending me this ask! So sorry for how much I ramble when talking about myself! ;) Off to go pass it on!

[zhongrin]

yuan yang

— a submission for 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐉𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐘 collab hosted by @haithamuse!

◇ characters ◇ zhongli ft. al haitham

◇ tags ◇ selfship coded, be respectful; don’t like don’t read, lil blurb at the end written from zhongli’s pov (third person), zhongli x meirin (@/zhongrin), al haitham x esther (@/haithamuse), fluff, married couple shenanigans, academic rivals / enemies-to-lovers shenanigans, writing centered around the teahouse!au

◇ a/n ◇ so... a little background (or more like a mini story here lol)... i first discovered yuan yang (which is basically coffee mixed with tea + milk) when i first studied abroad. no idea if that was even the correct pinyin but that's what i saw on the menu so i'm going with it lol absolutely did not like it at first bc it tasted weird. but then i got a second cup… then a third… then a fourth…….. this is how addiction starts kids

while it’s not my absolute favorite and i don’t normally go for it unless i'm specifically craving for it, i thought it was a fitting title for these teahouse-related shenanigans and the 'implication' that coffee (me) and tea (zhongli) make a good drink when mixed somehow hahah

lastly, i had so much fun with this, esther!!! thank you for hosting this lovely collab therefore allowing me to have an excuse to write about my selfships more yay ALSO happy birthday!!! 🎂🎉 i hope you enjoyed reading this silly self-indulgent chonker of a writing and liked the little 🎁 i included at the very end <3

𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

❦ 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 ❦

zhongli learns to brew coffee from me and i learn to brew tea from him. it’s as much of a fruitful exchange as our regular bonding activity (read: him telling me stories and traditions of olden liyue and the art of tea making as i stare dreamily at the way his lips move and the soothing lilt of his voi- ok i'll stop now-).

i might have watched a little too intensively as zhongli tamps the coffee grounds because??? the veins on his hands???? they pop even more????? hskdjskdjlsdjldfhdkshd

oh that note, as he watched me try to measure the tea leaves to brew for the first time, he realized that i have a small mole at the base of my pinky. it has since then become one of his favorite spots to kiss.

zhongli mostly dresses in hanfu whenever tending to the teashop because i said i love seeing him in them it matches the aesthetic of the traditional-esque place. his hair is either down or braided with a few fresh flowers slipped in (courtesy of me hehe).

that being said, he still helps out in the funeral parlor from time to time! the parlor does need its best consultant and hu tao is practically one of our many granddaughters at this point…

if the patrons hear a loud “NAINAI YOUR FAVORITE GRANDDAUGHTER HAS ARRIVED!” they know the tea house is about the get rowdy lol

“director hu, kindly refrain from saying such things outloud, there has been a misunderstanding spreading in liyue saying about us being secretly adepti couple whose descendants are living all around the harbor-” “now now, yeye, is that how you talk to your loveliest, adorable-est granddaughter?” “……….. *sigh*”

xiao drops by every now and then because zhongli insists, and i know he obeyed because it’s the one and only rex lapis’ request, but i hope someday he does it of his own volition - that is, because he actually enjoys visiting us.

ever since we got married, he also adores selecting traditional dresses for me to wear (seems like menogias taught him a thing or two, bless him), adding them to my wardrobe collection wordlessly and only smiling when i confront him about it while wearing said new clothes. he knows my fashion sense is lacking that 80% of the time i’d rather spend my energy doing something else than clothes shopping so he takes that matter into his own hands!

lowkey also because people who know him would take one glance at the geometric patterns and color schemes of said clothes and immediately go ‘wait those patterns and accessories look familiar… oh, of course, that’s unmistakably zhongli xiansheng’s wife-’

scarves aren’t really a popular fashion choice in liyue but whenever the weather gets a little too cold, i would happily ‘bundle up’ with a self-heating, occasionally purring, golden-brown colored ‘scarf’ with a scale-like pattern around my neck.

(no, you most certainly did not see it move. move along now.)

vortex vanquisher is mounted behind the reception desk’s wall as a decoration. you know. just in case. :)

the teahouse has a few private rooms which were built over time as we were able to expand out/up. they all have different themes and we have names for (almost) all of them; ranging from liyue’s local specialties to subtle references of zhongli’s adepti friends. some popular ones include:

═ 𝑐𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑠 room

orange/gold themed. a geologist’s dream. has a massive display case of a collection of raw cor lapis rocks along with some pretty pebbles. the pieces of furniture inside the room are made of charred sandbearer wood, the darkened brown making it a perfect complement to the bright and shiny cor lapis decors and embellishments. i think this is probably our most expensive room from the patrons’ view… (actually it isn’t, since zhongli found and mined those ‘expensive’ gems himself...)

═ 𝑔𝑙𝑎𝑧𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑙𝑦 room

soft blue/grey themed. the cozy room couples as a homage to guizhong. the bell used to call a waiter/waitress is a close replica of the cleansing bell. we also have a guzheng on display. madam ping loves this room and would help to take care of the guzheng and even play the instrument for us sometimes.

═ 𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒 room

white/sky blue themed. there’s a huge crane art piece hung at the center of the back of the room’s walls. it's filled with a number of amusing contraptions and blueprints that to normal people's eyes, look like some kind of abstract painting. a room heavily inspired by cloud retainer’s aesthetics. most of the adepti who visit us would use this room (much to its original muse’s annoyance) because it’s located the furthest from the public seating area.

═ the 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 / first private room

aka the ‘confession room’. we have no idea how that label got there….... actually. no, we do. one time, a regular patron asked us to book the room so he can propose to his lover. since they’re a close friend of ours, we agreed to help him plan and decorate the whole thing…. and it made headlines in the local papers somehow. rumors then begin to spread that if you go to that specific room to propose you’ll definitely be accepted and your marriage will be blessed…

honestly, there’s nothing too special about the room. it was our very first private room that we intended to use for our private break room, so it was built smaller than the others. the decorations lean towards simple and sophisticated, and we had some of our favorite trinkets scattered all around the little area.

legend says that sometimes when the shop isn’t busy, lucky patrons would be able to hear a beautiful duet of a flute and an erhu coming from the room. though they’re not at a level of a professional musician, the melody brings peace and warmth to the wary hearts…

❦ 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 ❦

“mei, my beloved, i’m here!!!!”

zhongli looks up from his cup of tea, blinking slowly as he tries to register the foreign-sounding voice and the words in the loud greeting. while the endearment was a familiar title attached to his wife (her close friends tend to be rather forward and affectionate, from what he observed), it didn’t sit right with him when it came from a stranger. who on earth are this lady and her companion?

as if registering his alertness, a specific 'decoration' lightly vibrates from its spot on the wall. yet it stilled the moment he heard a familiar gasp and cry of happiness from his side.

“esther!!!”

hugs, pleasantries, and excited arrows of questions are swiftly exchanged. zhongli watches the two with a soft smile before glancing at the woman’s companion, who gave him a stiff nod. their two guests seemed to be about the same age... perhaps they were lovers? no, they seemed a little too distant for that. but there was something between them - that, he could at least tell.

mei seems to have just noticed the extra company too, for she was slightly taken aback and quietly relayed the question to the woman with a confused expression and a timid, “and this is…?”

“oh, he’s just, you know, some guy.”

“’some guy’?” his wife tilts her head in question, eyes observing the man’s attire (momentarily he feels like berating the young man for dressing up so provocatively - that is until he remembered his beloved’s remarks the other day about his choice in his archon-wear), “….. oh! is he the ‘al haitham’ you’ve been writing to me in our letters-”

“MEI.”

“hm?” the silvery green strand of hair on top of said male’s head twitches as if it was a whole being by itself, “what’s this? you write about me to your friend? i’m most flattered.”

with a pair of fiery eyes and both hands on her hips, this ‘esther’ girl turned towards her friend(?), “oh, you’re most welcome. i told her about how aggravating and insufferable you are, mr.i-have-perfect-scores-on-all-my-subjects.”

“truly? and if i am so aggravating and insufferable as you say, then pray tell, what stopped you from ditching me back in sumeru city?”

“because, unfortunately, the stupid archaic liyuean language’s professor paired me up with you of all people for this project!! and there’s no way in hell i’m letting you sit idle while i do most of the work! mind you, i can definitely achieve a perfect score by myself, but the entire rainforest section of sumeru will burn to the ground before i wilfully let you coattail my achievements!”

“based on the most recent test, i doubt you could. unless your definition of a ‘perfect score’ is a mere 99.8%, to which i would have to refute, seeing as i managed to achieve a 100%.”

“oh my god i’m about to pop a blood vessel- then what about the previous test before that, huh? did you forget who got a 100% AND an extra credit for that, you arrogant little-”

“ahem. dear, why don’t you escort your guests to the glaze lily room? i’ll bring you some tea shortly,” zhongli effortlessly moves to stand behind his wife, hand comfortingly placed on her back as he smiles politely at the two. there is nothing but warmth in his gestures, but they both had clammed up, suddenly feeling like misbehaving grandchildren who were being scolded by their grandfather.

his beloved, on the other hand, appears to have found this scene amusing, despite not being one to be comfortable with conflicts in general.

“yeah, good idea- by the way, this is my husband, zhongli,” had he was in his adeptus form, his tail would’ve thumped against the floor at the proud tone in her introduction. instead, he settled with a gentle nod in this mortal body, “’li, this is esther - the one from sumeru - if you remember me talking about her-”

“of course i do. i remember everything you tell me.”

“that you do,” she softened, hand coming up to caress his jaw lightly, and he resisted the urge to follow the warmth as it retreated, touch too fleeting and brief to his liking, “i’ll wait for you in the room, then?”

“take as long as you need to catch up with your friend. i can watch the store.”

“that’s alright, we can close the shop for a bit. i want you to get acquainted with her and this… friend of hers. besides, didn’t you two say you’re here for... what, some liyuean language project? i’m quite sure my very knowledgeable husband would have some valuable input on that.”

mirth fills her expression, and the playful nudge of her elbow onto his sides made him chuckle. way to take a jab at his age, he mused.

“i am in no way as knowledgeable as the esteemed students of the sumeru akademiya, but-”

“is that true? you know this language?”

the former archon raises his eyebrows as the two men exchanged glances. though people might mistake the sudden challenge as arrogance, he can clearly see the thirst for knowledge in the clear green-red tinted eyes.

a man defined by and attracted to competency.

… ah, so that’s how it is.

“i may be a little rusty, you must understand. they are rarely used nowadays, so i am quite out of practice.”

the fingers seeking out a smaller set beside him moves in an unconscious motion, but the way the daintier appendages curl around his almost reflexively made a genuine smile bloom on his expression, “if what little of my knowledge can help, then i will gladly extend my assistance, especially to my darling wife’s treasured friends.”

“oh you,” she snorts and rubbed his arm with her free hand, “he’s being humble. you’ll see.”

“you flatter me, dear.”

esther’s grin only widened at the interaction. she gives her friend a wink and an abstract motion with her fingers, “handsome, humble, and smart? you better keep a leash on this one.”

zhongli sneaked a glance at the geo choker on her wife’s neck before moving to her dark-colored eyes. redness colors the softness of her cheek as their gaze met, and the corner of his lips twitch threateningly. she bashfully runs from his gaze to roll her eyes at her friend, before grabbing her shoulders to steer them both towards the inner hallway of the private rooms.

“hush, you. come on now, off we go!”

as the two girls launched into an excited series of chatters, zhongli exchanged one last respectful nod with the other akademiya student and silently watched as he trailed behind the two. he doesn't miss the way al haitham's tense posture lessened, the edges of his sharp eyes softening as he specifically observed his friend. it’s a familiar look. one that he’s seen several times throughout the course of his long life.

zhongli chuckles as he starts preparing the osmanthus tea for their guests, all the while thinking about the matching clothes they would have to get tailored for in the future, when the invitation to attend the older version of those akademiya students’ matrimony event inevitably reaches their mailbox.

....

he’ll give it a few years. they seemed like a rather stubborn pair.

© zhongrin | 2023 ◆ no repost. reblogs much appreciated. feel free to reach out to submit suggestions, feedback, comments, or if you just want to talk!