#thank you again!! idk if i said this in my original (actually quite recent) post but i enjoy crowdfunding knowledge

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Hello! It is me, the anxiety man. I can’t find the post so I don’t know how long ago you asked (thanks tumblr.) but for me Gastroparesis is mostly nausea and vomiting. Within an hour of eating I throw up most of my food a solid 80% of the time, prior to throwing up I am exceedingly nauseous; if I don’t throw up I am exceedingly nauseous (this is a lose/lose situation.) sometimes if I don’t throw up I throw up hours later (occasionally the next day ~13+hrs later) undigested food.

This is not everyone’s experience however, there are many with Gastroparesis who do not vomit at all. The best test is a Gastric Emptying Study (though be aware it can (rarely) give a false negative.)

I also have Dx’d hEDS, Orthostatic Hypotension (like PoTS but with a BP drop), and Autism (anecdotally comorbid w/ hEDS)

I hope you get answers (or depending on the age of your post, got answers :)

Hi, thank you so much for the response! Literally any info at all is helpful to me and being able to hear other people's experiences is incredibly useful.

Personal medical/health info under the cut ✌️

I definitely meet at least some of the criteria, but when it comes to the most common symptoms, like the nausea and vomiting you mention, I don't really find it effecting me so much? I also grew up with severe anxiety that made me nauseated, and I wonder if my aversion to actually vomiting for real might be a part of this. I DO get an acid-reflux type of feeling, with no pain or lead up, that consists solely of me throwing up in my mouth a little, and this had even happened on an empty stomach 😞

I technically haven't been medically tested for POTS, but I do exhibit all the symptoms + self tested with both a blood pressure cuff and heart monitor and easily met the criteria (63 bpm difference the first time I tried l m a o); my doc thinks hEDS is a strong possibility and so does my therapist, so I'm honing in on that and everything else associated with it. The anecdotal evidence of autism being comorbid is interesting! While I haven't had any official testing, it does fill in the gaps where my adhd doesn't and I've been genuinely considering that I may be autistic for at least a year or so now.

I've scheduled with my GP for early December and I'm gonna bring all my GI issues to the table; I know I struggle with feeling hungry and have struggled with meals, especially in the mornings, bc I just can't eat more than a few spoonfuls of whatever, with a lot of the issues going away if I'm solely eating liquids like soups or protein drinks U_U I also remember having periods of time where I have stomachaches after most meals, just like a dead weight in my abdomen U_U THOSE seem to coordinate with gastroparesis but it's like, my symptoms aren't violent enough to feel like they're under the diagnosis? Though that's also how I felt about POTS, until I read about people's experiences and then tested my own heart rate.

It's definitely a work in progress at the moment, but this is the most work I've ever been able to do in terms of finding answers for my health; here's hoping I actually do get some answers after all these years 🤞

[silksongeveryday]

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 365!

1 year! One whole year of daily doodles!!

Honestly?? Idk how to feel, so much has happened since I first started this blog.

I guess I’ll just write what I’m thinking right now??

(Everything under the cut, this thing is longer than I expected)

A lot of this text probably isn’t going to make sense. I’m writing this at 1 am. If there’s any mistakes or errors that’s why. I’ll fix them in the morning maybe.

So like. This whole thing kinda started as a joke, I wasn’t intending to actually draw for a year straight lmao. Like I even used a completely different art style from my regular one that was simple, quick and intentionally dumb. Not that I’m upset by it, I’m actually quite proud of myself that I managed to stick to something for an entire year. That’s pretty unusual for me believe it or not. My original intention was to stop at maybe 20 days because I really wasn’t expecting for this blog to get as much love as it did.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so so much to everyone who has followed and supported this silly little idea I had, you guys are the biggest reason my experience has been so positive and worth it. (Sure it’s not original but I hope it’s at least been interesting!)

I’ve said this a few times now but I’ve mentioned wanting to take a break. I’ll admit that even though it’s been fun it’s still pretty tiring to keep up with this blog sometimes since some recent life events have made it so hard. After some thought, I’ve decided that I’ll likely take a break sometime in the coming months. Maybe toward day 400 or so. As of right now, things are at a lull so I’ve been okay enough mentally and physically to keep up this daily streak I think. Though this could change in an instant for whatever reason.

Overall I think my burnout has kind of gone away I think?? Or at least I’ve been reinvigorated recently after replaying a few runs of hk randomizer and steel soul. No promises it’ll stay away but I silly expect it to come in waves.

Ok but call me crazy or delusional or whatever, but my hopes are up that Silksong will release this year. (which means slowing down/not doing daily doodles yay) I genuinely believe big news is coming since I’ve been getting a lot of dreams lately about something happening with Silksong in March. Idk, I could be wrong but after doing this for a year I’m literally clinging onto anything right now lol

I’d obviously still make the occasional doodle or two when HKSS releases but not daily. This stuff is tough to keep up sometimes, I would never do daily posts like this again once it’s over

Oh yeah also I have an actual big drawing I’m still working on, expect that in sometime in the next few weeks I think!

Anyway, I can’t think of anything else to say right now so I guess that’s it for now!

Thanks so much and here’s to more doodles!

[perexcri]

to hell and back again now exists as a physical object!

(cat for size comparison )

hello hello!! i’m here for an official post to brag about @chubsonthemoon, a dear and lovely friend/hamster/beautiful fic writer and binder/Sandman zine contributor(!!!) who recently bound To Hell and Back Again as a present 💜

chubs is a dear irl friend and is (as i said in my final a/n for thaba) quite literally the only reason i ever started reading or writing fic in the first place. we’ve become good friends over the past couple of years, and i’ve loved being able to embrace these aspects of fandom that i never allowed myself to when i was younger (for many reasons, but that’s another story), and it’s really all thanks to them.

so without further ado, here are some pics of their lovely work!! they’re going to be making their own post about it later, so i’ll be reblogging that here and linking to it in this post as well, because they’ll have far more cool details to explain about the actual binding process than i could never articulate (they literally sent me a full video explaining so many things and i responded with something to the effect of “and the way you did that binding thing - i think you said it was German??” and “wOAh tHE edgEs”, so).

so, first of all: the covers!! @byierficrecs​ was very kind to make such a lovely graphic for this fic, and he was especially kind to let chubs use it for the actual cover!! i know most people in the fandom seem to already know about Angel and the lovely work he does, but if you haven’t checked out his work, please go give it some love~ (the original thaba graphic can be found here!!)

the spine, with chubs’ lovely little maker’s mark :D

(and if i rearranged my bookshelf just so i could put it between all of my R. F. Kuang books then that is my business alone)

and tHE EDGES?? i kind of blacked out after i opened the package today so i didn’t notice until about 10 minutes afterwards that they had continued the vines from the graphic onto the edges?? chubs i know i already screamed at you in private but now i get to do it on a public platform so please know i am still freaking out about this

art!! look at the lovely art!! thanks again to @starsarefire824​ and @itssstarry​ for your lovely work!! i love getting to stare at these pieces regardless, but now i get to hold them in an actual physical form and stare at them heheheh. posts to show them support and/or links to find their work can be found here (for @starsarefire824​) and here (for @itssstarry​)!!

and finally, here’s it opened to my favorite chapter!! just if anybody wants to see the typsetting :D

thanks again to everybody who contributed to this!! like, yeah, i wrote it, but @chubsonthemoon​ bound it, and @byierficrecs​ designed the cover, and @starsarefire824​ and @itssstarry​ contributed art? idk my brain’s being broken tonight over the fact that people can live in completely different places and all contribute to this thing that now takes up physical space on my bookshelf. i can’t really use my words right now, so here’s a poorly-made meme to express my thoughts instead:

and especially thanks to you, chubs!! again, you are a wonderful friend, and i’m glad we got to meet each other 💜 bonding over Chris Fleming videos and our shared connections (i’m thinking of cats and giraffes, ofc) has led to some wonderful memories. Louie says hello, btw!! she was sniffing your handiwork very intently heheheh :] 💜💜💜

anyways, i hope you guys enjoy the pics!! please send your love to all the wonderful people who made this possible~

(also!! i would encourage you guys to read chubs’ fanbinding commissions statement, just in case you have any questions, or reach out to them if you want to scream about their amazing work or have questions~)

chubs’ post can be found here!!

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Hey IDK if you’ve seen Airspeed’s video about Azula in The Spirit Temple. What are your thoughts?

Here’s the link to the video: https://youtu.be/FFNGmbBw-1U

Hi, anon!

Thank you so much for sending me this video! I can't believe I might have missed such amazing insight as to what's to come. I have a ton of thoughts on the video, but ultimately, it put me at ease.

I think the comic will be great.

When I discovered the character Azula, I was thirteen and impatient. I still am impatient, but I've only become more fascinated with Azula with time. I want an Azula redemption story. Azula deserves more than a seventy-two page graphic novel to close out her character arc.

I am overjoyed to know that the comic will be character-driven, and not feature a ton of action. Azula confronting her past through projections means that Azula is doing inner workings already. The spirit in question honestly feels like a mouth-piece for the fandom, which I love. People love to make fun of it, especially Azula's corner, but I think the amount of quality critical thinking through feminist, cultural, and literary perspectives done for one character should be studied.

I'm especially anticipating the new flashback featuring Ursa, because I myself haven't quite been sure what to think of her relationship with Azula both as a writer and fan. I'm even more excited to see some of Azula's thoughts on Ozai as they have an even stronger correlation to her thoughts on her role as a princess, sibling, and the Hundred Year War. If I understand correctly, Azula will also be met with harsh truths, most likely at the hand of Mai (definitely Mai) and Ty Lee. To be honest, I have zero clue how things will go with Projection!Zuko. One think I like about Faith Erin Hicks is that she draws a lot from the show, which would do wonders to Azula's character, repairing some of the damage that Yang did to it.

There's one fact, however, that I'm getting from the video which already makes this comic miles ahead of Yang's. I put my trust in Faith Erin Hicks with this, as she's a liberal, feminist author. Azula won't be made out to be a monster, or treated like one in this comic. That counts for everything.

I'm more interested however, in what this comic means for her character arc. I've noticed that Azula has gone unrepresented in almost all recent Avatar content, and as I suspected, this seems to be a good thing. I'm actually delighted that this comic will do little to nothing to progress her character development, because as I said earlier, Azula deserves more than what the comics could offer her.

That being said, here are my final predictions and reasonings regarding Azula's character in the near future.

I believe that Azula is getting a redemption arc. I do not believe she was originally intended to, post-show at least. Regardless of Bryke's thoughts on Azula, she is one of their biggest cash cows. Most people who don't want to see an Azula redemption aren't terribly interested in Avatar as a whole. Bryan Konietzko has already stated the comics will be relevant, but they won't be looked back on. An Azula redemption movie, in theatres, is the most likely plot to restore the prestige of Avatar (as much as I love Korra, a ton of people feel as if it dropped the ball). If the first movie from Avatar Studios isn't well received, it may very well be the last. Oddly enough, this is a fandom where fans are listened to, if the creative team doesn't have bias of personal feelings on the matter (see the author responses to the Azula fanbase and Zutara).

Thanks again!

[pumpkinpaix]

hello there, hope you're having a nice day <3

so i've been reading a lot of fics lately, uk for sanity's sake, and i've noticed that in most of them, lwj doesn't use contractions (eg., says do not instead of don't)?? and i think he doesn't in the novel either but i don't remember lol so i can't be sure but anyway that made me curious - does chinese have contractions as well? does he not use it bc it's informal?

hello there! I’m doing all right, i started to answer this ask while waiting for a jingyeast loaf to come out of the oven 😊 many thanks to @bookofstars for helping me look over/edit/correct this post!! :D

anyways! the answer to your questions are complicated (of course it is when is anything simple with me), so let’s see if I can break it down--you’re asking a) whether chinese has contractions, b) if it does, how does they change the tone of the sentence--is it similar to english or no?, and c) how does this all end up with lan wangji pretty much never using contractions in english fic/translation?

I’m gonna start by talking about how formality is (generally) expressed in each language, and hopefully, by the end of this post, all the questions will have been answered in one way or another. so: chinese and english express variations in formality/register differently, oftentimes in ways that run contrary to one another. I am, as always, neither a linguist nor an expert in chinese and english uhhh sociological grammar? for lack of a better word. I’m speaking from my own experience and knowledge :D

so with a character like lan wangji, it makes perfect sense in english to write his dialogue without contractions, as contractions are considered informal or colloquial. I don’t know if this has changed in recent years, but I was always taught in school to never use contractions in my academic papers.

However! not using contractions necessarily extends the length of the sentence: “do not” takes longer to say than “don’t”, “cannot” is longer than “can’t” etc. in english, formality is often correlated with sentence length: the longest way you can say something ends up sounding the most formal. for a very simplified example, take this progression from least formal to absurdly formal:

whatcha doin’?

what’re you doing?

what are you doing? [standard colloquial]

may I ask what you are doing?

might I inquire as to what you are doing?

excuse me, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

pardon my intrusion, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

please pardon my intrusion, but might inquire as to the nature of your current actions?

this is obviously a somewhat overwrought example, but you get the point. oftentimes, the longer, more complex, more indirect sentence constructions indicate a greater formality, often because there is a simultaneous decreasing of certainty. downplaying the speaker’s certainty can show deference (or weakness) in english, while certainty tends to show authority/confidence (or aggression/rudeness).

different words also carry different implications of formality—in the example, I switched “excuse me” to “pardon me” during one of the step ups. pardon (to me at least) feels like a more formal word than “excuse”. Similarly, “inquire” is more formal than “ask” etc. I suspect that at least some of what makes one word seem more formal than one of its synonyms has to do with etymology. many of english’s most formal/academic words come from latin (which also tends to have longer words generally!), while our personal/colloquial words tend to have germanic origins (inquire [latin] vs ask [germanic]).

you’ll also notice that changing a more direct sentence structure (“may I ask what”) to a more indirect one (“might I inquire as to”) also jumps a register. a lot of english is like this — you can complicate simple direct sentences by switching the way you use the verbs/how many auxiliaries you use etc.

THE POINT IS: with regards to english, more formal sentence structures are often (not always) longer and more indirect than informal ones. this leads us to a problem with a character like lan wangji.

lan wangji is canonically very taciturn. if he can express his meaning in two words rather than three, then he will. and chinese allows for this—in extreme ways. if you haven’t already read @hunxi-guilai’s post on linguistic register (in CQL only, but it’s applicable across the board), I would start there because haha! I certainly do Not have a degree in Classical Chinese lit and she does a great job. :D

you can see from the examples that hunxi chose that often, longer sentences tend to be more informal in chinese (not always, which I’ll circle back to at the end lol). Colloquial chinese makes use of helping particles to indicate tone and meaning, as is shown in wei wuxian’s dialogue. and, as hunxi explained, those particles are largely absent from lan wangji’s speech pattern. chinese isn’t built of “words” in the way English is—each character is less a word and more a morpheme—and the language allows for a lot of information to be encoded in one character. a single character can often stand for a phrase within a sentence without sacrificing either meaning or formality. lan wangji makes ample use of this in order to express himself in the fewest syllables possible.

so this obviously leads to an incongruity when trying to translate his dialogue or capture his voice in English: shorter sentences are usually more direct by nature, and directness/certainty is often construed as rudeness -- but it might seem strange to see lan wangji’s dialogue full of longer sentences while the narration explicitly says that he uses very short sentences. so what happens is that many english fic writers extrapolated this into creating an english speech pattern for lan wangji that reads oddly. they’ll have lan wangji speak in grammatically incoherent fragments that distill his intended thought because they’re trying to recreate his succinctness. unfortunately, English doesn’t have as much freedom as Chinese does in this way, and it results in lan wangji sounding as if he has some kind of linguistic impediment and/or as if he’s being unspeakably rude in certain situations. In reality, lan wangji’s speech is perfectly polite for a young member of the gentry (though he’s still terribly rude in other ways lol). he speaks in full, and honestly, quite eloquent sentences.

hunxi’s post already has a lot of examples, but I figure I’ll do one as well focused on the specifics of this post.

I’m going to use this exchange from chapter 63 between the twin jades because I think it’s a pretty simple way to illustrate what I’m talking about:

蓝曦臣道：“你亲眼所见？”

蓝忘机道：“他亲眼所见。”

蓝曦臣道：“你相信他？”

蓝忘机道：“信。”

[...] 蓝曦臣道：“那么金光瑶呢？”

蓝忘机道：“不可信。”

my translation:

Lan Xichen said, “You saw it with your own eyes?”

Lan Wangji said, “He saw it with his own eyes.”

Lan Xichen said, “You believe him?”

Lan Wangji said, “I believe him.”

[...] Lan Xichen said, “Then what about Jin Guangyao?”

Lan Wangji said, “He cannot be believed.”

you can see how much longer the (pretty literal) english translations are! every single line of dialogue is expanded because things that can be omitted in chinese cannot be omitted in english without losing grammatical coherency. i‘ll break a few of them down:

Lan Xichen’s first line:

你 (you) 亲眼 (with one’s own eyes) 所 (literary auxiliary) 见 (met/saw)？

idk but i love this line a lot lmao. it just has such an elegant feel to me, probably because I am an uncultured rube. anyways, you see here that he expressed his full thought in five characters.

if I were to rewrite this sentence into something much less formal/much more modern, I might have it become something like this:

你是自己看见的吗？

你 (you) 是 (to be) 自己 (oneself) 看见 (see) 的 (auxiliary) 吗 (interrogative particle)？

i suspect that this construction might even be somewhat childish? I’ve replaced every single formal part of the sentence with a more colloquial one. instead of 亲眼 i’ve used 自己, instead of 所见 i’ve used 看见的 and then also added an interrogative particle at the end for good measure (吗). To translate this, I would probably go with “Did you see it yourself?”

contained in this is also an example of how one character can represent a whole concept that can also be represented with two characters: 见 vs 看见. in this example, both mean “to see”. we’ll see it again in the next example as well:

in response to lan xichen’s, “you believe him?” --> 你 (you) 相信 (believe) 他 (him)? lan wangji answers with, “信” (believe).

chinese does not do yes or no questions in the same way that english does. there is no catch-all for yes or no, though there are general affirmative (是／有) and negative (不／没) characters. there are other affirmative/negative characters, but these are the ones that I believe are the most common and also the ones that you may see in response to yes or no questions on their own. (don’t quote me on that lol)

regardless, the way you respond to a yes or no question is often by repeating the verb phrase either in affirmative or negative. so here, when lan xichen asks if lan wangji believes wei wuxian, lan wangji responds “believe”. once again, you can see that one character can stand in for a concept that may also be expressed in two characters: 信 takes the place of 相信. lan wangji could have responded with “相信” just as well, but, true to his character, he didn’t because he didn’t need to. this is still a complete sentence. lan wangji has discarded the subject (I), the object (him), and also half the verb (相), and lost no meaning whatsoever. you can’t do this in english!

and onto the last exchange:

lan xichen: 那么 (then) 金光瑶 (jin guangyao) 呢 (what about)？

lan wangji: 不可 (cannot) 信 (believe)

you can actually see the contrast between the two brothers’ speech patterns even in this. lan xichen’s question is not quite as pared down as it could be. if it were wangji’s line instead, I would expect it to read simply “金光瑶呢？” which would just be “what about jin guangyao?” 那么 isn’t necessary to convey the core thought -- it’s just as how “then what about” is different than “what about”, but “then” is not necessary to the central question. if we wanted to keep the “then” aspect, you could still cut out 么 and it would be the same meaning as well.

a FINAL example of how something can be cut down just because I think examples are helpful:

“I don’t know” is usually given as 我不知道. (this is what nie huaisang says lol) It contains subject (我) and full verb (知道). you can pare this straight down to just 不知 and it would mean the same thing in the correct context. i think most of the characters do this at least once? it sounds more literary -- i don’t know that i would ever use it in everyday speech, but the fact remains that it’s a possibility. both could be translated as “I do not know” and it would be accurate.

ANYWAYS, getting all the way back to one of your original questions: does chinese have contractions? and the answer is like... kind of...?? but not really. there’s certainly slang/dialect variants that can be used in ways that are reminiscent of english contractions. the example I’m thinking of is the character 啥 (sha2) which can be used as slang in place of 什么 (shen2 me). (which means “what”)

so for a standard sentence of, 你在做什么? (what are you doing), you could shorten down to just 做啥? and the second construction is less formal than the first, but they mean the same thing.

other slang i can think of off the top of my head: 干嘛 (gan4 ma2) is also informal slang for “what are you doing”. and i think this is a regional thing, but you can also use 搞 (gao3) and 整 (zheng3) to mean “do” as well.

so in the same way that you can replace 什么 with 啥, you can replace 做 as well to get constructions like 搞啥 (gao3 sha2) and 整啥 (zheng3 sha2).

these are all different ways to say “what are you doing” lmao, and in this case, shorter is not, in fact, more formal.

woo! we made it to the end! I hope it was informative and helpful to you anon. :D

this is where I would normally throw my ko-fi, but instead, I’m actually going to link you to this fundraising post for an old fandom friend of mine. her house burned down mid-september and they could still use help if anyone can spare it! if this post would have moved you to buy me a ko-fi, please send that money to her family instead. :) rbs are also appreciated on the post itself. (* ´▽` *)

anyways, here’s the loaf jingyeast made :3 it was very tasty.

[t0shii]

% comforting them when they're upset

.! oikawa, tsukishima, matsukawa (sep) x gn!r

.! angst + fluff/ breakdowns, crying, etc. lightly proofread bc im lazy so sorry for any mistakes.

.! im so sorry if this is absolute word vomit or horse shit 😭 i tried my best though 😌 uhhh sorry for not posting yesterday i got my daith pierced and i was in a lot of pain after that so i didnt feel like writing anywho enjoy this 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 p.s. i was originally gonna write for mad dog but i was struggling so i went with mattsun instead sorry. also idk why matsuns ended up being so short i didnt do him justice i apologize 😩

oikawa

— always gets discouraged when his knee bothers him. today was one of those days. his coach had made him sit out of practice because he had been limping a bit. he came home distraught and you noticed right away.

"what's the matter toru?" you asked opening your arms for a hug, which he accepted, wrapping his arms around your middle quite tightly. "my knee is bothering me again 'n coach made me sit out. it's just not fair." he mumbled into your shoulder. you could feel his tears soak through your shirt. you nodded and responded, "baby, he just doesn't want you to hurt yourself. i know it's not fair but-", "but i wanna play volleyball, i wanna get better and practice." he said, aggravated that you weren't exactly on his side, still he held you tighter.

"toru, baby, look at me." he does as told, and you bring your hands up to wipe his tear stained cheeks,"toru, you can't strain your knee anymore than you already do, you know this. i know you only want to play volleyball, baby i know, but you have to be patient." he nods in agreement and you do the same, then guiding his head back to your shoulder, "i know it's frustrating toru, but you can't force it, y'know? he wouldn't make you sit out if it wasn't for your best interest. you know that, deep down."

the two of you had been cuddling on the couch, his back against your chest when you heard him sniffling again, "toru, what's wrong?" you ask softly, sitting up slightly. "i'm so useless, my own knee can't even work right. the team deserves someone better and so d-do you" he hiccuped, hiding is face in his hands. you felt guilty for not comforting him more earlier. "toru, that's not true at all." you stated, forcing his hands into yours, "take it back right now." he looked at you confused. "toru oikawa i said take it back right this instant." you said a little sterner than before.

"no." he managed to get out through sobs, and you knew the stern method wasn't going to work this time around. "toru, please. you're not useless at all, not to anyone, not to the team, and especially not to me. you're the best teammate, friend and boyfriend anyone could ever ask for and your knee just needs a break sometimes, you just need a break sometimes and thats okay. needing a break doesn't make you useless or weak, toru." you say softly, guiding him to a sitting position, hugging him closely and tracing small, comforting shapes on his back.

"you're so so strong toru, and you're an amazing person, an amazing boyfriend, you're such an amazing volleyball player and i'm so proud of how far you've come since highschool." you say, kissing the crown of his head. "you mean it?" he asks leaning back to look at you, "i always do, toru. i love you more than anything, and i'm so so fucking proud of you, but you have to know, it's okay to need a break sometimes and it doesn't change who you are as a person and it definitely doesn't make you weak or useless. he nods in response, burrying his head into the crook of your neck. you both stay like that, you whispering words of affirmations, him listening fondly until he feels better a little while later.

tsukishima

— he usually didn't let the stress of professional volleyball get to him like this, but he couldn't help it he would be lying if he said he wasn't overwhelmed, from interviews, to extra practice to prepare for the overseas games he had coming up, he was exhausted, to add onto it all he had been neglecting you and he felt horrible for it.

you knew practice was going to be running late since your boyfriend had told you in advance, so you weren't initially worried as to why kei had been coming home late at night. this night in particular was the fourth night in a row kei been home late and you starting to grow concerned. you hadn't seen him hardly at all that week, which was unusual because he always made time for you no matter what. worried, you decided to stay awake and wait for him to get home.

when the time finally comes, your heart dropped at his appearance, he looked absolutely horrible, as if he hadn't slept right in weeks. "why are you up?" he mumbled, taking his shoes off rather sloppily, uncharacteristic of him. you made your way closer to yoir exhausted boyfriend, "kei, i'm worried about you. i know you don't like me meddling with your career, and please don't misunderstand my concern for that. i'm just worried you aren't getting enough rest and i've barely seen you at all this week." you said, crossing your arms over your chest.

you knew something was wrong when you saw the tear swell in his eyes, but he just stood there awkwardly, you walked closer toward him, "kei, what's wrong?" you ask, extending your arms toward him, which he basically fell into, he started sobbing immediately, shocking you initially. "i'm s-sorry for neglecting you this week, i didn't mean to i-i just-", "kei, i'm not worried about that, i'm worried that you aren't taking care of yourself properly." you mumble, patting his back comfortingly. to which he shakes his head no."work has been too much recently, i can't sleep and i barely have time to even think. its just practice, interviews, practice, interviews i-i can't handle it all anymore, y/n." he sobbed into your shoulder, you were speechless at his vulnerability.

"kei,-", "but i can't stop now because that'll make me a failure and i don't want to let you down and the team too, i just want to make everyone proud but i think i'm falling behind." he cried, fiddling with the hem of your shirt. "kei, you could never let me down. actually, i think i've been letting you down recently, i don't tell you this enough but, i'm so so proud of you kei, so proud you don't even understand, i'm sorry for not expressing that enough to you. i understand that you feel as if you're falling behind but overworking and stressing yourself out isn't going to help you improve, kei, and i know you also know that."

"you're working yourself sick, kei and i can't stand here and continue to let that happen so you're taking a day off whether you like it or not. tomorrow will be a me and you day, how does that sound? i'll call your coach in the morning." honestly, you wouldn't have let him say no anyways, and he knew that so he just nodded his head. "look at me kei, you have to tell me when you're feeling overwhelmed. it's not good to keep things in like this, it's just like you tell me." he nods his head, but avoids eye contact, "and i'm not disappointed or upset at you, you know. but i can't read your mind, so please just tell me when things start to feel like they're crashing down on you 'kay? i'll help you just like you help me." you smile, he looks at you and nods, hugs you closer and whispers an "i love you" into your ear, which you return.

matsuwaka

— you knew his work was stressful and emotionally and mentally exhausting, so there were always worries in the back of your mind that he would become too overwhelmed, well today your worries became reality.

"welcome home issei." you called from the kitchen as your boyfriend walked through the door, though he offered you no response, which made you frown. "issei?-" you gasped when you felt a pair of strong arms sneak their way around your waist, "jesus, issei, you scared me!" you giggle placing your hands atop of his own, but you realized he was not laughing with you. "issei, baby?" concern laced in your tone as you maneuvered your way around to face him, "what's wrong baby?" you ask, taking his face in your hands to wipe at escaping tears.

"work was rough today." was all he said as he melted at the feeling of your thumbs running back and forth on his cheeks. "oh issei, i'm sorry." you mumbled, kissing the tip of his nose lightly, "is there anything i can do to help?" he didn't know why but something inside of him snapped when you asked him that, and sobs escaped his lips, he could only hide his face in the space between your neck and shoulder because for some reason he felt... ashamed to be crying in front of you like this. "please just hold me." he cried, so you did just that, shushimg him when his sobs got violent, rubbing your hand up and down his back soothingly.

the both of you stood there for a good 15 minutes before you spoke up after he had calmed down a bit, "is there anything you need to get off your chest? you don't have to tell me now or even at all but i want you to know that whatever is bothering you, you can tell me, anything at all. i know your job is mentally exhausting and honestly i dont even know how you do it but i dont want you thinking you have to carry the burden of it alone, okay? i'm so proud of you, so so so proud of you issei, i just wanted you to know that."

you felt him nod in the crook of your neck, a soft, "thank you." sounding shortly after, "of course." you responded, kissing his shoulder a few time.he wasn't sure when he would feel completely ready to get things off his chest but he felt loved knowing that you would always be there to comfort him, and for that he was forever grateful.

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Wed 2 June ‘21

Louis sent a message to a fan looking for a hello after a major surgery-- “Get well soon mate. Sending you loads of love x”- and added that he hopes ALL of us are doing alright; I never doubted it Louis! Niall got a little more specific with his really lovely message today- “HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. It’s your life, LOVE who you want to LOVE,” he tweeted! THANKS GUYS.

Liam though, Liam was all over today! He checked in on his way to play golf, on his way back from playing golf (with videographer Conor!), posted comments on discord, joined a new chat platform (Telegram; 5 minutes into Telegram and chill Liam was like OKAY it looks like we may need some moderators for this app lol YOU THINK?), he did a whole 25 min live, AND checked in even later to say he’d just had a shower and was about to play a new video game! New news of the day-- he is going to host a Veeps show showcasing new artists in July!! NEAT! His post about how his team forgot to turn off notifications on the phone they set it all up on for him on is really funny, YIKES; “this used to be an iphone now it’s just a bell” he joked, with video of the phone frantically chiming nonstop (“the power of you guys still blows my mind to this day”.) Also he said that he was very busy getting ready for June 15. Why, you ask, what is on June 15? UH? IDK?? He has so many things coming up? But that’s the NFT I think, which I KNOW a lot of people are mostly not that excited about but I will say that while I don’t care about the technology, I am excited to see Liam’s artwork he’s working on for it (which hopefully the purchaser will share with us), and Liam is truly so excited about the platform, he’s really trying to talk us into it. More on that in a sec...

But let’s get to the other parts of Liam’s live first. He has that new song coming, about which he said “it’s one that I’ve written the most on so far actually, as a single, I’m excited to say my own stuff for once a little”, love that. He’s still coughing but says he’s tested repeatedly and it isn’t COVID, and that he’s gone vegetarian recently, and he says the chat channels were inspired by seeing people using the veeps chat rooms even after the show ended, not wanting to leave. And he talks about 1D- about the notifs mishap he said “back in the band we used to wait for people we didn’t like to leave their notifications on and then we would like- oh make sure you follow this person on twitter! And then their phone would break for days- if someone did something that annoyed you.” HAHAHA where’s my masterpost of people who annoyed them 1D told us to follow, PLEASE? And also “it’s hard sometimes you’re watching people stories from afar that you used to know so well and that can be difficult… we’ve all felt this at different times me and the boys… it’s almost like missing a very dear friend a lot of the time but everyone’s so busy… I’d love to get us all in a room somewhere sometime” aww. But also he said he talked to Harry recently, “really a lovely call, he has a sixth sense for if I'm struggling or if one of us is in trouble, I spoke to him and it was a really lovely catch up. I have a lot of love for the man, he's really, really great"; well I wish Liam wasn’t stuggling but that’s lovely. And Louis too! "I spoke to Louis, I wanna say yesterday. We speak a lot, there's just a lot of laughing about random crap," he said, plus some Louis memories- “I can just hear his laugh in the back of my mind. We once broke into one of the stadiums in America and got chased by a woman… on one of those cop type things, a mall cop thing, and that was quite crazy. He also left me on my own while I was being arrested nearly by a French policemen that I had to push over… which that still scares me to this day. [laughing] That’s what friends are for! I helped him over the fence to get in somewhere, he left me with the policeman, who didn’t have a clue who I was and tried to arrest me even though I was just trying to go into my hotel.” UMM sorry I can’t hear anything past LIAM PUSHED OVER A COP?? Go ahead, make a list of ‘1D members most likely to fight a cop’ and if Liam isn’t DEAD LAST you’re just wrong and yet HERE WE ARE!! WHAT A DAY.

But alas rather than fighting cops now Liam is partnering with an entrepreneur (which I have had to type so many times in the last two days thanks to Liam that I guess I know how to spell it now they just keep SAYING it SO MUCH). Steve Bartlett said “the secret” is out, he recorded a podcast with Liam yesterday-- I’d call secret a bit strong, we had actually got that mate, but okay; he called Liam an entrepreneur and said “yesterday I recorded one of the most powerful, honest, REAL conversations on my podcast to date” and “if you love Liam you’ll love this.” I can absolutely guarantee you that is not true, I love Liam and already hate everything about this collab, but his wording does make me think we’ll get a bit of Liam’s trademark emotional spillage which I suppose I might appreciate despite this self help CEO guy being there too. Liam does have one thing to say that could sway me in this guy’s favor though- “he has the cutest dog ever” apparently! Anyway I may as well get used to him he’s suddenly everywhere-- Liam also patched him into his live to try yet again to convince us that NFTs are good by awkwardly relating it to “fans of boybands” by saying you know this could eliminate like fake tickets and such… Sure Steve sure but anyway he also says of Liam, “the guy you see on camera is the exact same guy off camera”.

Harry and Olivia were seen together in London (well, a grainy ass video of their backs was seen anyway), walking, with some people who look to be her parents and Harry’s PA (so romantic! Not at all work related!) I was initially skeptical of the claim that it was her parents since this fandom is obsessed with saying everyone is so and so’s parents (we’ll NEVER top the time the fandom was sure Harry was seen having lunch with Eleanor’s father though) but it actually seems like maybe it was. More for Harry to add to his collection, that man truly loves an extended family! I mean the whole thing is sketchy as hell, from the assurance that that’s DEFINITELY actually Olivia in the grainy video, FOR SURE, to the confirmation that that’s her mom with them which came when a blank insta page produced a random old picture of her mom in the same skirt, but like is it them, sure I imagine so, and people making sure we get the story anytime they’re together isn’t exactly new. In other news, Dave Meyers, director of the Adore You music video, says he originally pitched the Eroda story idea (“I have this idea, of you love- liking a fish”) to Katy Perry and the Black Eyed Peas, ASJKJASKL CAN YOU IMAGINE?

[wizardouxie]

PANTONE 2046 C

Genre: Fluff, #ZoeAppreciationWeek

Pairing: Zouxie

Summary: The Pink Hair Origin Story (alternatively also the Blue Hair Origin Story)

Word Count: 2788

Author's Note: First day of Zoe Appreciation Week! Wanted to participate so have this not so little one shot to showcase our lovely pink haired witch <3

"Wow, the dye came out really nicely," Zoe murmurs as Douxie exits the bathroom, his hair freshly blown dry -- from its tips to the full bangs dipped in a deep yet striking blue. He smiles widely at the quiet compliment and waves over to Archie.

"How does it look Arch?" they ask, though the answer is pretty clear, if Archie's fond gaze is anything to go by. The familiar flies in to nuzzle his face.

"Dashing as ever, Douxie."

Zoe leans back into the couch with content, taking in the beautiful sight that is her best friend. She did really good. The faint buzz of adrenaline lingers on the pads of her fingers. Right, she forgot. That was her first time.

"Are. You. Crazy? I've never even dyed hair before!" the natural brown haired girl hissed. She begrudgingly wiped the bubblegum that had exploded over her lips -- a result from the initial shock when Douxie first made his request. Granted, she felt honored that they would come to her before anyone else, but still! She can't risk ruining his hair, she doesn't have experience, plus the hair salon could totally do it better and-

"I'd rather it be you than anyone else," the wizard confirmed firmly. Zoe turned to the familiar. Surely the cat who lived with this stubborn kid could knock some sense into them. Archie could only provide a shrug in response.

"They're pretty sure about this."

She groaned.

"Fine, fine! But give me a few days unless you want me to pick out the wrong dye and end up with neon green."

[ 1 Week Later ]

Zoe couldn't keep track of just how many hair channels and blogs she'd gone through. She mimicked their hand movements, using cheap wigs and mannequin heads to simulate the experience. Through it all, one voice echoed the same message: "You can't mess this up."

She bought all the necessary tools. Gloves, hair clips, bleach, foil, just to name a few. Oh, and of course the dye -- though you'll be surprised how one can forget the simplest things while getting caught up in trying to memorize everything. Blue, Douxie had asked for. But what kind of blue? Sky blue? Cobalt? Midnight? Which one? She pinched the bridge of her nose before angrily texting the wizard. It went a little something like this:

DOUX: go with whatever you think will look good! i'm fine with anything tbh :]

ZOE: i Hate you so much

DOUX: ??? WHY

ZOE: IDK SHIT ABOUT HAIR DYE HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT LOOKS GOOD

DOUX: let's talk about this in person before you electrocute your phone again

ZOE: you won't let me live that down will you

DOUX: you know me so well ;)

She shoved the phone back in her pocket. There's no way she was actually doing this for him.

She was.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" she asked for what would be around the 73rd time. Douxie pulled his face down with both hands.

"Ugh, the answer is still yes, love. I'm not asking you to dye the whole thing, just the front part, bangs and sides."

She rolls her eyes at the nickname and smacks the clean brush against his head. She smiles at the little 'ow' that Douxie lets out with a pout. Hm, cute.

"Alright, but don't start moping around if it doesn't come out the way you wanted it!"

"Nothing that a little magic can't fix if it gets to that point. Which I hardly believe it will."

And now here they are.

Douxie crashes on the couch with Zoe, slinging an arm over her shoulders. She raises an eyebrow at the sudden physical touch, but it's never unwelcome. Not when it comes to him.

"You know of all human creations, I gotta say, this one really takes the cake," they start and Zoe snorts.

"You say that about nearly everything."

"Can you blame me?"

She looks at them and no, she really can't. In fact, she finds herself agreeing with him. He looks... really nice. A faint blush spreads over her face; not that it is noticeable by any means -- the two of them happen to have done this dying process starting from the evening to night, so the dim lights in her home do little to highlight her features. This is still her Douxie, lovable guitarist and wizard nerd who cares about everyone. Yet there was something about the hair dye that changed things up a bit. Something good, naturally.

The two of them fall into a comfortable silence, doing whatever is usually available. Sometimes it's texting, scrolling through social media, or listening to music. Other times it's zoning off and reminiscing about the past.

Zoe decides to go for her phone, unconscious of the way her hand finds its way into Douxie's hair, carding through the locks and untangling them with nimble fingers. It's peaceful. Maybe even a little too peaceful, considering the two of them are adrenaline junkies.

"Douxie, I can hear you thinking..." she begins. It's a common way to start the conversation between them, and oftentimes she's right.

He turns around, her hand still in his hair, but enough to meet her eyes. Their own eyes look serious and her heart sinks. Were they not happy with their hair?

The answer is quite the opposite.

"You ever considered dying your hair too? Maybe we can match."

The untangling stops.

And then the tugging starts.

"Ow ow ow-"

"Hisirdoux Casperan you are a menace to society."

She does though. She considers it for weeks. Of course, Douxie doesn't push; it's her hair at the end of the day, she can do whatever she likes. But after seeing how well she did with the wizard, she kinda felt excited. She definitely can't forget the exhilaration she felt when she saw people compliment Douxie at Benoit's or at the GDT book store. Her heart started beating faster when he looked back at her with a proud smile on his face-- damn that wizard, they told the others that she did it for them, didn't they?

After a few days, a young girl in a cap comes up to her at the record store. Probably from Arcadia High, if her backpack stacked with books is any indication.

"Hi! I'm Claire. Claire Nuñez," the girl starts. Zoe raises an eyebrow in interest.

"Hey Claire. What can I get you?" she asks, raising a flask to her lips. There's no water. Damn.

"Um, it's not really a standard request, but um, I was wondering if you could dye my hair?"

Zoe chokes on her water. Dye her what?

"Kid, are you new here? This is a records store. I can give you the direction to the hair salon it's really not that far."

"No, no, no! It's just, this guy got their hair dyed and I asked if he did it himself and they said you did it for them so I came to you. It's nothing too big! Just a strand really," Claire rambles. She gestures to the invisible front of her hair, currently tucked away behind the cap, outlining it with her fingers. The hedge witch groans.

"That would be Douxie. Now, here's the thing I don't do this for just anyone. Douxie happens to be a close friend so what I did was a little gift for him. I don't even know you, so what do I get out of this?"

Claire pales.

"Uh, $20? I know a full head of hair costs way more but like I said, just a strand..."

Zoe's stomach rumbles in response. She had $5 currently in her wallet which could buy a snack at most. She pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Ugh, you're lucky I'm hungry. Catch me after my shift is done okay? And I only got one color on me, which is blue, you good with that? Otherwise bring your own."

"Yes of course, of course! Thank you so much."

"Yeah, yeah, now scram if you're not here to buy anything."

"Oh actually, I was wondering if you had anything Papa Skull released recently!"

Curse this girl and her good taste in music.

[ 45 minutes later; 2:00 PM ]

"Thank you for doing this by the way," Claire starts. Zoe waves it off. She doesn't really know why she agreed to this. Well kind of. She wanted to eat. But besides that, she also was curious to see if she could satisfy another "customer". Hair dying was never a profession she had properly considered and right now? It doesn't hurt to entertain a thought.

"Alright so I have the bleach, you'll need to let that set in and keep that before dying the strand you want. We can even add toner to neutralize the color post bleaching if necessary," she lists off. Claire shakes her head.

"That won't be necessary!"

The girl pulls off her cap and surely enough, there's a light blonde lock, similar to Douxie's, just a little lighter. Zoe's impressed.

"Well that definitely makes my job easier. Especially since this is my second time."

"Wait, second time?"

"You didn't know?"

"No?"

"Of course Douxie leaves that part out. You want out? I'll pay you back the $20 in four days."

"No, I trust you."

Zoe always believed that she had tough and cold demeanor. Clearly she's doing something wrong if people are finding her trustworthy just by looking at one dye job.

"Alright then, here we go! Don't say I didn't warn you," the witch replies. She wraps the cloth around Claire softly, and pulls up the bowl with the dye in it. With a gloved hand she separates the pale strands from the brown ones. The blue will definitely be more prominent here than it would be with Douxie's. Something tells her that Claire wouldn't mind.

From the looks of Claire's surprise, wonder, and delight, she definitely didn't mind.

"It. Looks. So cool! You're really good at this. Maybe you should start a hair dying salon or something," the girl rattles off. Zoe raises a hand.

"I'm already working two part time jobs so... no. But I'm glad you liked it. The blue looks really good. Stands out well."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Claire repeats, putting back her cap on. A feeling of confusion overcomes Zoe.

"Wait, why are you putting your cap back on? Don't you want to show people?"

"Duh, but um, my mom doesn't know about, uh, all this. You know, councilwoman things."

Zoe's mouth drops, the $20 bill crumpled in her hand. So that's why she didn't go to the hair salon. Nuñez is the councilwoman, so she'd know pretty much everyone in the town. And word spreads pretty fast. In summary: Claire would have gotten caught.

"See ya!"

These kids are going to land her in some serious trouble one day.

With a burger and soda in her tray, Zoe takes a seat and pulls out her phone. That Claire girl though, she's sort of inspiring. Adventurous. Not hesitant in taking chances. And you know Zoe, she absolutely loves the thrills of life. Whether it be hunting magical creatures or refining her usually unpredictable magic. The humans tend to have mellow definition of risk taking, in her opinion, but their examples are fun enough in their own way: crossing the speed limit, riding rollercoasters, anything along those lines. The brunette clicks on a familiar contact and begins typing.

ZOE: which color looks good on me

ZOE: don't ask it's for a stupid job thing

DOUX: which job?

ZOE: WHAT PART OF DON'T ASK

ZOE: hex tech, something for employee uniforms

DOUX: i was going to say pink since it brings out your eyes but if it's for uniforms i dunno, light blue?

ZOE: hm interesting

DOUX: you should just work here at the book store it's chill

ZOE: but then i'd have to deal with you

DOUX: now is that really a bad thing?

DOUX: zoe.

Light blue is definitely a no go, Zoe decides. Too much blue dye going around. But pink, hm she could work with that. It's a pretty bold color and it would compliment her eyes as well as her face in general. A win-win for her.

And as for how far she's willing to go? She decides to go all in. No tips, no ombre, just complete bubblegum hair. Of course this takes a few days to gather the guts.

'You can do it Zoe, just go for the bleach,' she thinks to herself. Her hands shake with nervousness and excitement. Frankly, hunting niffins didn't compare to the rush she's feeling right now. She closes her eyes and brings the brush to her hair.

Well, here goes nothing.

She winces as she feels the tingling sensation, but loads of videos have assured that such symptoms were normal. She continues to work at it, using the foil to make sure she doesn't bleach a part of her hair to death. It's long and strenuous, but she knows the results in the few coming weeks would be worth it.

She doesn't have to worry about Douxie finding out thankfully. Turns out these weeks are essential for Merlin's "To-Do" List. Apparently it was to find Camelot?

"The castle he means. Not the actual kingdom. That's been gone for centuries. Anyways, I'll be back once I actually find it. Dunno how I'll do it and it probably will take me and Arch a month or so, haha. Oh! And if my hirers ask you anything, it's a family emergency."

Hm, whatever. A brief thought of Merlin dying his hair neon green amuses her, before she goes back to watching more hair dye videos. They've become a little addicting nowadays. She's amazed at how often people do it. How do they keep their hair so healthy?

It's been four weeks now and Zoe's eyes stare at the pink concoction in her hand. PANTONE 2046 C. This was the shade that stole her heart in the middle of the hair dye aisle. No other color could compare in the slightest. Even the cashier who packaged her order hummed in approval.

"Nice color! Not many go for it, but it'll suit you for sure."

This time her movements are calculated, not clumsy or fear driven like it used to be. One could even say she's getting the hang of this. Her hair over time changes from platinum blonde to a dark matted pink. She lets it sit for a bit, meanwhile focusing on getting the dye out of her hands. This turns out to be harder than she thought and she sighs. Well, maybe another day.

After washing and blow drying her hair, she stands in front of the mirror. The witch staring back at her is almost unrecognizable. As if she were a new person completely. And she liked it.

The blank stare shifts into a grin and she tugs at her own locks. Goddamn. She looks really good.

And well, Douxie's reaction is priceless to say the least.

DOUX: you said to meet up at the museum where are you

DOUX: i swear if you slept in i'll send archie to knock down everything in your apartment

DOUX: ok no i won't but still it's been a month since we last saw each other come on

DOUX: wait a second

DOUX: you're joking

DOUX: IS THAT??? YOU????

DOUX: IN THE PINK

DOUX: oh fuzzbuckets you look stunning

DOUX: Hello this is Archie. You broke Douxie so could you please finish your conversation with whoever it is you're with and come pick him up? Your hair is absolutely lovely by the way.

ZOE: omfg

ZOE: can't take you guys anywhere

The witch smiles at the girls and nods over to a gaping Douxie and his cat before gracefully exiting the conversation. She approaches her friend and pushes his jaw up with her index finger.

"So I'm assuming you're digging the new look hm?" she teases.

"You have no idea," Douxie responds. A pink tint lighter than the shade of her hair blooms across Zoe's face at the expression of adoration in her best friend's eyes. The two of them have been through a lot together, seeing each other grow and change. And this time, it was a really fun and welcome one.

"I might try this again with a different color some time. You wanna join then?"

"Don't have to ask me twice."

It's crazy how all of this came from a chaotic, impulsive research project to help a friend. But honestly Zoe wouldn't have it any other way.

Maybe Douxie was right. Of all human creations, this one beats pretty much everything else.

[omegawolverine]

I know you posted it days ago but you said something about wanting to rant about either karl or his fanbase and its been itching at my brain. Ive no clue whats happening or what is happening at all cause no one seems to be making clear points?? Or explaining anything?

Obviously you do NOT have to talk about it im sure it might be a sore point to rant because people can get SO needlessly rude to others over it. But if you want to idk explain? Just rant? Im definetly curious what it was over or about.

The "you dont need to talk about this" is amplified by the fact i am DAYS late and you are probably over it by now.

okay hi yes im happy to talk about this but i think i should preface with two things:

1) even tho it may seem like im biased towards him or being very defensive of him im actually a super casual karl viewer and the only reason i am super defensive of him sometimes is bc we act a lot alike irl and that is mainly because of our neurodivegency. when i say a lot i mean we share traits like "annoying" stimming (jumping around, making loud noises, repeating the same phrases until everyone is sick of hearing them), the difficulty reading situations, the very obvious issues with volume control and not just bouncing from subject to subject to subject as we fucking please. basically anything you've seen karl do on stream that is Very Neurodivergent ive done the same in my own way which is why i get defensive when i see people calling him annoying or saying they dont like him, usually for these types of reasons. that being said, when i say im a very casual karl viewer, i fucking mean it. i usually only watch him when he's streaming with other ccs i like or when he's doing chill alt streams bc even with the annoying donos, he's pretty relaxing and comforting when he's just fucking around by himself and he isnt trying to get as hype as he would on a main channel stream. so yeah, it may seem like im biased and sure, i guess i am on some level, but it's not coming from a place of me hyperfixating on him or me even loving him as a cc, it's coming from me being a neurodivergent who likes him just enough to get upset when i see people basically being casually ableist towards him.

2) i dont have all the facts or even a great understanding on what the fuck has been happening recently with his "drama"...mostly bc he talked about it on his priv, which im not on, and people are gatekeeping the tweets, as they always do, and basically making you "dm to see them" (which is already a problem in and of itself bc apparently in these tweets he said he didnt want them being ss and shared, yet they are being shared thru dms over and over and over again like. at that point just stop withholding the information and post the fucking shit, you clearly dont care that he said "dont share"). additionally, most of the threads ive seen on this situation havent actually explained the initial issue, just talked about his apology (a lot of people have said "it's bad" but havent said why and with no screenshots ((i havent asked for someone to dm me them and i still havent seen them posted, which is mildly surprising, but incredibly frustrating at this point)), i only have a few basic details i can actually assess it on) or they talked about the initial issue in very vague details so um. excuse me trying to explain this now, but ill try and make it make sense with how little ive actually pieced together.

(oh, also, here's my first rant about the ableism in this fandom which is way more broad. this is a pretty different rant from that one, but they're both pretty big reasons why i hate this fandoms treatment of karl)

so basically the problems started with mr beast being apart of a charity stream that donated either to autism speaks or to a similar company, im unsure on that part. im also unsure on if the people participating in the stream actually knew of this or not bc, from what i remember, the money was being donated to a separate organization that was like. under the bad company or some shit like that, idk how stuff like that works and also i read about this shit months ago bc this originally happened months ago and just sorta came to a head recently.

anyways, i think karl was supposed to be apart of this stream but pulled out of it right before (that or these were two separate streams and karl was supposed to participate in the first but pulled out while mr beast did both?? idk. regardless karl did not actually participate, just mr beast). from there people started doing the guilt from association bullshit they always do, this was also doubled by the fact that the chris being racist stuff came out sometime around then and basically he got dragged all over twitter for "being ableist" and "supporting racists" and i cant remember if he actually apologized when this originally happened or not. i vaguely remember him apologizing about something back then but i genuinely dont know if it was this or something else.

basically that died down eventually, a good chunk of people unstanned him but him and honktwt didnt end up getting the lovely lil technotwt treatment and they still havent yet, surprisingly. good for them honestly ajsksk

but now we get to the past few weeks and apparently something happened with him "laughing at someone saying the r slur" (it was mizkif, i believe), specifically when it was directed at other people, which is a big yikes, obviously, but when karl was called out for this a lot of people kind of. made this into a situation that it wasnt bc um. basically karl didnt laugh at it, he gave a few nervous giggles, as people often do when in a situation like that (and karl specifically said he does this in the one part of his apology tweet which i did stumble upon, although it wasnt the important part of the apology thread bc why would it be) and people fucking crucified him for it. they quite literally dragged a neurodivergent man for supposedly "laughing at the r slur" when he can literally reclaim it and also he was just nervous laughing.

and this is where the situation just gets really bad because they. basically forced him to admit that he was autistic on his priv to apologize for this. i havent seen the screenshots of him saying this, but i saw people discussing it and i am frankly so fucking pissed about this because sure, it was a bad situation, and i understand people wanting an explanation, but an apology? for a neurodivergent man nervous laughing at a slur he can reclaim? and then forcing the man to admit something he literally said in that tweet he didnt want people to know which is why people were being so gatekeepy about it while also LOUDLY discussing the situation, as if that wouldnt drive MORE PEOPLE to look for screenshots and ways to get ahold of this information? and then people had the audacity to call it a "bad apology" when they had quite literally just violated his privacy by forcing him to admit something that he shouldnt have needed to share in the first place if he didnt want to, which he didnt.

and this is why im so pissed off. karl is already constantly picked at and made fun of and called annoying for his neurodivergent traits, things which he literally cant help, things which are generally harmless, and now he was forced into a situation where he can now be further picked at and made fun of and called annoying bc they forced him to admit something private instead of just understanding and accepting that he had been nervous laughing at someone using a slur he has definetly been called for his neurodivergency.

tldr of my thoughts: yes i think karl needed to address this situation, it definetly looked bad, but twitter stans have this sense of entitlement with their ccs and because of that, they consistently take it way too far and harm the people they claim to care about so dearly. we've seen it happen time and time again with dream, but this is the first time ive seen them basically force someone to out themselves to make their apology "valid" and most of them still seem to not want to accept it anyways, which just makes me feel bad for him bc now that info is out their and people are just disregarding it to continue "holding him accountable".

anyways, i think that's all i can really say on this topic rn tbh, if anyone else knows this situation better please feel free to lmk clarifications and ill add them in since, like i said, i know fuck all thanks to twitter being so goddamn hush hush about the important details while simultaneously being the loudest mfers about how much they hate karl now instead of just fucking unfollowing and moving on.

thanks for the ask and im sorry if this is confusing!! i just think this is one of those weird situations where like. i think karl deserved some criticism for what happened and how he handled it or at least he shouldve been asked to address it but that just. isnt what happened, at all. he was harrassed. karl got harrassed and because of that he handled this situation even more sloppily than he probably wouldve and exposed private info about himself that he didnt feel comfortable doing and it just. fucking sucks tbh.

[arkannis]

Hello,

I just recently got into the Old Republic Fandom, and the Eternal Empire is my favorite arc. I do wish there was more story content to give more development to the characters, particularly in Arcann's case. While I love his romance scenes, I wish there were more scenes about his redemption and relationship with the Outlander or a dark side ending where the Outlander or Arcann takes the throne with the other as a consort. I found your blog while trying to find content further developing his character. Thank you so much for posting all your headcanons and musings!

With that being said, what are your headcanons for Zakuul culture? And could you post a masterpost compilation of your Arcann headcanons? I am trying to find the post where the romance novels headcanon originated in the tags and not having much luck.

Hope you have a nice day!

Hi anon!! Sorry for a late reply. First I’ll answer the second part of your message. The romance holonovels headcanon originated from the this post ; the post doesn’t outright say it, but some people in the tags (when they reblogged it) mentioned that Arcann probably seemed like the type to read romance in his free time. As of what I can remember the tags were from this reblog and this other reblog and both say that Arcann reads romance holonovels. The continuation of this headcanon were in replies or tags, so it’s hard to track them all down! Secondly, my Arcann tag is a mess, and I probably threw in multiple headcanons in reblogs or tags so it would be hard to find them all... I’ll think about making a masterpost, but I don’t think I have time for something like that right now. Ok, now that’s over with... I 100% agree with you, anon! I HAVE so many things to say about the possibility about that dark side ending. I don’t think devs were planning to make Arcann a possible romance option in the beginning, so it wouldn’t have been possible to be his LI and rule as emperor/empress. I also agree with the development of the characters... however, Arcann’s redemption and relationship with the Outlander was definitely rushed, because the plans to make a third expansion was apparently cancelled due to the backlash from fans who wanted pub vs. imp back. I made a whole post complaining about that... Otherwise, I definitely think they would have had more time to flesh out his characters and the other Zakuulan characters as well (Vaylin, Senya, Koth, etc.). I’m like pretty much sure content was cut out from KOTFE/KOTET to make them shorter. Due to such lost content, I have to create my headcanons from extrapolation based on the Sacrifice trailer, available codex entries, existing dialogue, and implications of existing issues. As well as other people’s hcs and commentary!! WARNING: SUPER LONG BULLET POINTS for Zakuulan culture headcanons.

The reason why I don’t have that many Zakuulan culture headcanons is because.... I feel like it’s so weirdly explored in the expansions.

I think the arts is a big thing in Zakuul! The Dragon’s Maw chapter gave me that kind of vibe. I also discussed this mildly (not) with Arcann. Most specifically THEATRE, PERFORMANCE AND SINGING. 

Evidence: Senya sings and composes and there’s the famous Zakuulan holoperformer, Malita Tal. No, I don’t have evidence for theatre, but honestly? Zakuulans are so goddamn dramatic, they most definitely have reality TV series or drama series... 

arcann be like oh you listen to malita tal? name all of her albums in alphabetical order or you get exiled

Zakuulan culture most definitely has idol culture, based on Malita Tal (and reportedly her performances were watched by millions). And those fans apparently also protested against Arcann’s rule. personally i think if they had twitter the u.s. gov*rnment would be wiped out.

I just think singing is a big thing in Zakuulan culture. I mean, even Valkorion sings (if you decide to kill Senya, his force ghost appears. They both have an exchange and it’s actually sweet for like 0.1 second). 

I also think there would be typical Zakuulan fairytales embedded in the culture. Hear me out. Most specifically those type of royal fairytales with the princes and princesses. This can be heavily contributed to the fact that a royal family is essentially in power. 

You cannot expect me to believe not a single person in Zakuul has written a Prince Arcann x reader holofic. You just can’t. Or Prince Thexan. Actually, I think Thexan would be more common, I think he was perceived to be more compassionate and kind compared to Arcann by the common folk? Since I know there’s that NPC dialogue where one of them goes how different it would be if Thexan took the throne instead. 

The fairytales would probably involve a lot of references to the Old Gods. I kinda imagine that the enemy would be some sort of serpent, that is, Zildrog, because apparently he’s just a bedtime story to scare children away. 

I think these Zakuulan fairy tales would contribute to the theatre and performance, acting culture that Zakuul has. 

Furthermore, I just think the Tirall kids probably read these fairytales as well. francis dont talk about arcann reading again

I want to talk about the Old Gods and that religion, which is one of my favorite things ever... probably because the Gods are machines. Superweapon machines... ok ill shut up

Even if Valkorion basically got rid of the religion, it’s clear that the religion is still incorporated into heavy talk in Zakuulan culture (e.g. eyes of Esne, heart of Scyva). 

My headcanon is that there are sanctuaries or small secret churches (?) for those who want to worship the Old Gods. Obviously the Herald of Zildrogs who believe in the Old Way are a cult, so I think people would look for an alternative. 

I think there would be great effort to hide these places, as it can get you exiled. Thus these would probably be located in the Old World, rather than in a more obvious position like the Spire. 

The beliefs of the Old Ways isn’t exactly clear, they aren’t exactly touched upon, which is a shame. I think people would ask for help from each of these gods depending on what they want.

Those who ask for Izax’ guidance want to seek success, accomplishments, power, and glory.

Those who ask for Scyva’s guidance ask for her to guide souls peacefully to death (she is described as someone who weeps beside Zakuulans as they march towards Izax - basically death) , or ask for help/compassion from her. Maybe maternity as well? Or parental love?

Those who ask for Aivela (goddess of passion) want her to guide them with her passion (Aivela accompanies Tyth, who is kind of a god of war/warrior). I think there would also be romance related stuff as well. If someone asked for help regarding their love related issues, it would probably be from Aivela!

I’m not sure about Esne - but maybe in a similar sense, if someone is suffering with jealousy - in any situation, they would ask guidance from her. I don’t know where I read this but I think the “eyes of Esne” expression meant like having eyes of jealousy.

Nahut? I don’t think he was worshipped.  “Nahut was considered to be gray, formless and cold, and was denied worship by all except his mother Scyva.” But regardless, I think he still had a role to play. 

After the Outlander takes the throne, and Zakuul renounces their membership from the Eternal Alliance, I think people would be allowed to openly express their religious beliefs, that is, the Old Ways. Oh, personally I headcanon that they would build beautiful places of worship in the Spire with similar geometrical pyramid designs...!! 

Yeah...I think that’s all I got! I’ll need to see how I can somehow make this post easily found, lol. This is quite a long list, and I have to emphasize that these are my headcanons! They are based on what I see and I just kind of fill in the gaps to fit my own stories. This took a while to write because I KNEW I had these headcanons, but they just didn’t appear at the time I saw this anon ask. Anyways, I’ll probably create more headcanons in the future. Also:

a dark side ending where the Outlander or Arcann takes the throne with the other as a consort

I have so many things to say about this. I know the game won’t permit it, because if you think about it, both the light side choice (Eternal Alliance) and the dark side choice (Eternal Empire) are happy endings for your characters anyways. They can continue as the “hero” or the “protagonist”, so I don’t think this route could ever be implemented. However, I think it would be absolutely interesting if throughout the gameplay, players are given a choice to flirt with Arcann. The Outlander and Arcann agree to get rid of Valkorion, but thats if the Outlander decides to betray the Alliance and joins Arcann instead. And should they join him, they have the choice to romance him... and I guess it’s a happy ending for you both :P Obviously this won’t happen, but maybe it will. I wouldn’t mind being the prince consort of Arcann lol idk! me and vaylin are gonna be besties and we’ll paint each others nails or something Oh and have a nice day too anon...!!

[utilitycaster]

Hello I am here to encourage you, please talk about fanfic culture and practices and relationship to canon all day long.

Thank you for encouraging my procrastination and love of hearing my own voice on the internet (also people who asked about expertise...I got you, that one is very near and dear to both my bard-player and DM heart and so I am using “hey, you can write this” as motivation to get some work done earlier today. Anyway, on fanfic and meta and them being different things: something that is almost entirely a matter of opinion but also I am right.

So just as background: I am a grown-ass adult, and despite having internet access from childhood (and, iirc, cable internet by the time I was in high school yes I do remember dial-up vividly) I just never really spent much time in fandom spaces until now, and similarly I didn’t read that much fanfiction so this does come with that perspective.

Anyway, the emphasis I see on fanfiction’s validity in some circles, the whole “um actually The Inferno/Paradise Lost are fanfic” attitudes just...never made sense to me? Like, are you enjoying writing it and reading it? Then why the fuck do you care if it’s valid literature in the eyes of, idk, society or whatever. It’s sort of like that super old tumblr post that’s like Potterheads grab your wands; why do you care if other people don’t like the things you like? Why do you want them in your spaces? So the question of whether fanfiction is Valid and Good Art is just null at that point. And thank fuck because people still argue that genre fiction isn’t literature sometimes, and instead of wasting your energy on that argument you could just read more fantasy and sci-fi novels.

(If I were to answer it anyway, which I am, as a person who is not a writer by trade in any capacity...fanfiction is a fantastic place to hone certain skills. You can skip past the worldbuilding and characterization - all the groundwork-laying and exposition - and focus on plot and dialogue and your general voice. It’s sort of the opposite of DM-ing, in that way, which is primarily worldbuilding and exposition. Original fiction is harder because you have to make people care about your characters and world, whereas in fanfic they already do, and denying that fact is silly; good professional writers who credit fanfiction still have to have good original ideas too. But fanfiction does require its own skills, and denying that is equally silly.)

One argument I recently saw was that fanfiction was literary criticism, instead, and that doesn’t sit quite right. Meta is literary criticism: it is an analysis of the work, supported by textual evidence of the work, but ultimately one interpretation.  It is possible to use fanfiction to explore the ideas of literary criticism-you can write out, essentially, the simulation of your theory-but it’s not limited to that. Fanfiction in my opinion should be generally supported by the text up to some divergence point (again, do what you want if you’re enjoying it but I do not understand the point of OOC fanfiction; you’re just taking the names of characters and plastering them on OCs, which, just write original fiction at that point) but it’s explicitly a place where you can explore things that did not and often will not happen. I’m usually not hugely into the fix-it fic in that I’m more interested in understanding why the creators took an unpopular turn, I have no taste for pretending that everything is fine when it’s not, and also, like, the finale of Battlestar Galactica still made me cry very hard even if it didn’t make much sense...but this is perhaps the best example of fanfiction reaching the potential I think it was intended to. It’s a place where you can play out a scenario that could have happened had things been a little different, whether it’s what you want to see but ultimately didn’t, or just an interesting idea you had.

Fanfiction also has other wish-fulfillment properties, namely, the emotional one. There’s a reason there are words for things like “fluff” or “hurt/comfort” or “angst”; sometimes you want these things in your fiction, and you want a character to which you relate to experience them. Again, it’s my personal taste that this be consistent with the narrative up to some divergence point, but I definitely enjoy things from these categories. This is also a strong argument against fanfiction as literary criticism, at least exclusively as such. Sometimes you write fanfiction to answer the question “What if this well-supported by canon, but as of yet unconfirmed fandom theory is correct?” Sometimes you write fanfiction to answer the question “What if we kissed in the fictional setting I like. What if that kiss happened after one of us knocked on the door of the other in the middle of the night, hand over a profusely bleeding wound in the lower abdomen, and collapsed shortly after the other opened the door, and this was neither in conflict with nor explicitly in support of the current canon.” And you know what, for all that I said validity doesn’t matter...that’s valid.

And I don’t want to say meta isn’t capable of being tied to some degree to wish fulfillment, because it is. There is (usually) textual support for multiple potential outcomes in a story because otherwise it would be very, very boring and linear and for toddlers (not a knock on toddlers, who are just doing their best with the cognitive development they’ve got); an opinion, in meta, is often stating the meta-writer’s preference of how the story may go. However, I think there is a point where the meta stops being “of the many potential textually-supported paths out there this is one I think the story will follow and also I like this” and turns into “this is what I want and I will cherry-pick the evidence I need even if it requires ignoring more recent developments or an understanding of such fourth wall concepts as author’s intent, narrative structure, etc.”

This comes up both for scenarios that go differently from how people want them (eg: death of a character, relationship not happening) and for the emotional wish fulfillment side of things (eg: injection of angst where it does not, textually, exist). And when that happens my attitude is almost always “why are you trying to make this meta when it’s fanfiction, especially since it could be pretty good fanfiction!” A really terrible fan theory or piece of meta can often make a really good fanfic story, because a theory is based in the reality of where the (fictional) story might go, whereas fanfiction allows for that divergence point.

Anyway I think trying to make fanfiction more valid and equating it to literary criticism, or worse, treating it as truer indicator of the story’s intent, in turn makes meta worse because it takes away that need for consistent textual support. Particularly in the case where fanfic is held as being a better indicator of the creator’s intent, which also throws actual canon into the mix, everything all blurs into a bland, dumb soup of “what I want is going to happen because it’s what I want and if it doesn’t the creator is wrong, and moreover, a bad person.” I think keeping these concepts separate while acknowledging the connections they have is good and makes for better everything - better theories and better fanfic. The meta that tends to make me roll my eyes isn’t the stuff arguing for an outcome I don’t want; it’s the stuff arguing for an outcome that doesn’t make narrative sense, the stuff that makes me go “man, you could have written a really good fanfic about this.”

[franeridart]

Anon said: Opinions on Ochamina?

Cute soft and pink! Would be my main ship for those two if I didn’t ship seromina and ochadeku as hard as I do

Anon said: Hi there i was just wondering if its okay to ask you some questions about your art tools i work on paper a lot but i want to switch to digital art and want to know what to buy to get started you know?? if its not okay to ask thats fine, have a nice day!

I use Easy Pain Tool SAI and a wacom tablet so old I’m pretty sure they don’t even make them anymore haha if you’re just starting then anything is fine, really! The first thing you’ll need to do will be to get used to the feel of it, you won’t need anything fancy for that imho

Anon said: Yet again, I’m sleepy and feeling sappy so I luv youwu~

Awwww thank you so much!!! <3<3

Anon said: well guess who now has A LOT OF FEELINGS about Seromina after your reply? This anon. Holy, now I need like all the content about them. *goes of in search* Thank you for sharing your headcanon because it made me feel a lot of fluffy feelings!! Which yay!! I need more fluffly feelings in my life!! Also love love love your art. All of it original content and everything else (with a very soft sport for kiribaku and the bakusquad)

Ah heck thank you!!! And I’m very very glad to see I could make you see why I like them!!! :D

Anon said: how do you draw hair? i keep trying digitally, but it just seems so difficult! i tend to have so much trouble because i keep comparing myself to artists like you and the way you draw/shade/highlight hair is such a mystery to me!

Hmmmmm this is a hard question because I honestly mostly just go by gut feeling - I try to keep in mind gravity when it’s applicable (aka when it’s not gravity-defying hairstyles like kiri and baku’s)? But that’s the most conscious thought I put in it by this point. This might be an annoying advice to get but as always my only proper one is to look at real life people and study the way hair naturally falls on them, studying from real life is always the fastest way to learn how to draw something as far as my experience goes... and this one is gonna be hard but try not to compare yourself too much to others? Doing things your own way at your own pace will make the learning process a lot more fun!

Anon said: opinon on the lack of kiribaku interactions in the show recently? they have been interacting less and less since the provisional exam arc :( and even lesser in the manga. i miss my bois but bless you for the content omg😭💞

The truth is that they haven’t been the protagonists of an arc at the same time for so long that they’ve had little to no reason to interact with each other, and also that when Hori has characters interacting with them in the background it’s usually to have them reprimend them or tell them to shut up and at first they covered that role for each other but now they’re such good friends that all their interactions end up being them being nice to each other and Horikoshi needs his silly sketches thrown in the background at any possible moment so now Kaminari is the one you’ll see interacting with them the most, because he’s silly and doesn’t mind being a dick to either of them whenever given the chance. Or at least that’s the conclusion I came to after rereading the manga a couple months back. On the bright side they HAVE started interacting more again! We’ve been seeing them often just chilling together in the background, so cute, I love them best friends ;;;

Anon said: User kawaiiastar has reposted some of ur art just wanna let u know :)

Thank you for letting me know, I’ll look into it and see if I can get it removed orz

Anon said: ur drawings are so warm but like?? i just realized how much u talk in the tags and so ive been reading them and they actually add alot to ur art and its entertaining. idk just a little thing :) never stop doing krbk aus if you enjoy them!! would love to see stucky and soul eater if you can !! and i hear u about the reposters. they are all over instagram and its honestly quite upsetting. ive heard of artists that left the fandom because of it which is unfortunate. hope you are having a great day!

Hahaha I’m glad you like my talking too much in the tags since sometimes I just can’t avoid it lmao I have many things to say about my stuff most time than not..... anyway, I hope you’ll have a wonderful day too!

Anon said: i fight instagramers every day for you 💞

Thank you ;;;;;;;;

Anon said:  I love you so please stay safe!!

Thank you!!! I hope you’ll stay safe too, anon!!!

Anon said: During quarantine all I have to look forward to is your posts, it’s always great to check tumblr for the 14th time and see a new post by you.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; heck, I’m so glad I can make this tiring time a little more pleasant to you, anon!! <3

Anon said: I have class (online) at 8am and it’s currently 3:42am yet I couldn’t stop scrolling on your page!!! I’ve been going through the tags for like 30 minutes omg. I came to look at your seromina stuff and now I’m looking at EVERYTHING. I’ve been following you for so long and I love your art so much I’m screaming! I’m literally accidentally unliking then liking everything again cuz I’ve seen it all and keep forgetting I already liked it! Your account is like food for my soul ily!!!!! Thank you sm!!!

Ahhhhh anon thank you so so much!!!! You’re so kind I’m gonna tear up TTATT please do try to sleep next time you have to wake up early!!

Anon said: I read a headcanon saying Bakugo smoked. That would never happen because Kirishima would kill him.

To be fair that would never happen because he straight up said so in the first chapter of the manga lmao but I’m of the opinion that if people want to ignore canon in their headcanons to have fun they have all the power to do so!

Anon said: Idk if you’ve been asked this before, but how do you feel about Momo x Jirou? :D and I love your art!

One of my top Jirou ships! I’ve drawn stuff for them in the past actually, they’re in my momojirou tag!

Anon said: I love you way more than it’s healthy.

Thank you ;;;;;;;;; I love you a whole damn lot too, anon <3<3

[mandaloriandy]

Fic Writer Interview

I suppose I should... actually get around to doing this.

I was tagged by @maderilien, @stormwarnings, and @willowcrowned! (that’s what I get for putting off doing this, I get ganged up on.) (I’m just joking, I am very touched that you all thought of me)

How many works do you have on AO3?

49

What's your total AO3 word count?

339,898

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

oh fuck there's so many. uhhhh 32 apparently. big yikes. I'm just gonna copy-paste the list over, that'll be easiest. A lot of these are overlaps but alas such is life

1. Star Wars - All Media Types (24) 2. Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (18) 3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types (7) 4. TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms (4) 5. Homestuck (4) 6. Doctor Who & Related Fandoms (3) 7. Avatar: Legend of Korra (3) 8. Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (3) 9. Marvel Cinematic Universe (2) 10. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV) (2) 11. The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types (2) 12. Doctor Who (2) 13. Ender Series - Orson Scott Card (1) 14. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (1) 15. Iron Man (Movies) (1) 16. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (1) 17. Original Work (1) 18. Sherlock (TV) (1) 19. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) (1) 20. Big Hero 6 (2014) (1) 21. Emelan - Tamora Pierce (1) 22. The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien (1) 23. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga (1) 24. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien (1) 25. Captain America (Movies) (1) 26. Paranatural (Webcomic) (1) 27. Torchwood (1) 28. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica (1) 29. Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types (1) 30. Star Wars: Rebels (1) 31. Doctor Who (2005) (1) 32. The Hobbit - All Media Types (1)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

To nobody's surprise, my top 5 fics by kudos are (in order) the first 5 parts to the Jedi Shmi AU.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Oof. I used to. But I ended up spiralling pretty badly uhhhh a couple years ago and had to stop. I feel like I should reply to comments, especially those wonderful long ones, but even though I do this whole writing thing, I always have a really hard time, like, knowing what to say to them? Like "akjsdfk;jf thank you" always feels inadequate, but writing a well thought-out reply takes a stupidly large amount of brainpower, and I'll leave them marked as unread if I want to reply to them and then they just accumulate in my inbox and I end up spiralling again, since it just continues to exist as a mental load of something I have to do and the avoidance just gets bigger and bigger the longer I put it off and–

look, I just get into my own head too much about it. I respond to questions, usually. I love all the comments but I can't let myself overthink it, and the easiest way to do that is to not let myself reply.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I guess Obi-Wan’s Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Life doesn’t count because it... doesn’t have an ending yet? and I don’t know how angsty that ending is going to be. Even Composing Hallelujah doesn’t count because it ends happier than in canon, even though it’s... y’know, not exactly happy-ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?

Hahaha I don't do crossovers often, but I have done them, and the craziest one I've actually written is probably my Sailor Moon/Puella Magi Madoka Magica fic. It’s especially crazy because I’ve only seen a few episodes of sailor moon lol

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

lmao YEP

There's this one, like Ender's Game/Doctor Who fic I wrote and posted on FFN back in middle school. And it got a ton of hate, as far as I can tell mostly from the same person, talking about like, how bad and non-canonical and whatever it was. And when I migrated over to AO3, I reposted it there too. This was in like 2012. The migration, at least, the fic was written in... idk, 2010?

And then. In 20-fucking-19.

I got a comment saying "Terrible. Makes zero sense. It’s like the author threw canon out the window and took a shit on it." like lmao what??????

(for reference: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361723?show_comments=true#comments and https://www.fanfiction.net/r/7621672/)

(like what the actual fuck was this person on)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Not any that I've been brave enough to post. And… also… nothing that I've actually written more than a few paragraphs on… I keep chickening out. I did recently make a deal with a friend, though, so… we'll see. If I do, it’s probably going to be quite dark, because that’s the kind of smut I like to read.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I sincerely hope not.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! See how the blackbird walks into russian and just recently In all your wanderings into french!!!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've tried. It's never gone… especially well? I don't think any of them ever actually ended up complete, they all just petered out after a while.

What's your all time favorite ship?

I don't really have an "all-time favorite" anything, let alone a ship. I'm a horrible multishipper and I'm going to cause problems on purpose

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Sigh. Probably my intricate, 30-something-k unpublished Silmarillion Helcaraxë fic. It has so many moving pieces. I know where most of them end up but it's going to take so much effort to get there

What are your writing strengths?

writing

What are your writing weaknesses?

writing

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Hm. Given that I mostly write fic for SF/F, I don't run into the "real life languages" problem a lot. I end up working with conlangs of various complexity, for the most part, and for those… I'll sprinkle in a word or two if it makes sense, especially swear words and stuff. But for most of those conlangs, grammar is… less well-determined than vocabulary, so I almost never do phrases, let alone full sentences. I'll just put it in italics (if the POV character understands it) or say "and they said something unintelligible in [x language]" or the like.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I think………. let me check the dates on this. I think the actual first fanfiction I wrote was sometime in fifth or sixth grade, for this "Zenda" book series I read?? Either that or Harry Potter.

What's your favorite fic you've written?

A big shout-out goes to The Lichtenberg Figure, which I can’t believe is the only Tamora Pierce fanwork I’ve published, but for my favorite... it's gotta be Messenger. Like, looking back, there is a bunch about it that I am very not happy with, and a lot of things I think didn't come across the way I wanted, and things I would not write the same way now, years down the line, as I have very differently balanced understandings of… well, a lot of these same characters. But, fuck, I just can't let go of Mandalorian!Beru.

No pressure tags!! @apaladinagain @determamfidd @faeymouse @lumateranlibrarian (apologies if you’ve already done this one and I haven’t seen it!)

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

hello! just wanted to drop by and say THANK YOU for deciding to change some stuff for your WandaVision fic, especially regarding Wanda’s character and the racist stuff the writers have put in (not just towards Wanda’s character but that’s another conversation). it means a lot to see writers like you stick to what’s truly accurate to a character, especially when it comes to, you know, not whitewashing them lmao. idk where i was going with this haha but i hope the message came through. thank you again!! and i can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with for the rest of the story. it’s amazing, and you are quite literally the sole reason i’ve been inspired to write my own version of WandaVision!! thank you again, i hope you have a fantastic day ✨

This ask really means a lot to me!!

I’ve mentioned before that Wanda (and Pietro, by association) and Vision are the characters in the MCU that I was never as familiar with as I am about most of the color characters, so writing this series have given me a lot of opportunity to do so. I also don’t know a whole lot about Jewish or Romani culture and while I’ve learned some, I’m definitely not perfect. I didn’t get why a lot of people disliked the show until I read some posts in the anti tag and I learned quite a lot of valid reasons to do so, such as, aside from the general whitewashing, offensive stereotypes (Wanda’s Halloween costume being a Sokovian fortune teller; I changed it to an Aphrodite costume, which I don’t think is offensive but if it is, I’m happy to change it before posting) and the fact that Wanda’s actress, Elizabeth Olsen, has said many questionable things even recently (repetitive use of a slur to Romani people, many other things but this is a long ask to answer at 6am). :’D

I personally don’t hate the show myself (obviously); I’m happy to see previously minor characters, including one of my faves, get more screen time and development, and I’m a sucker for decade fashion, so the show sucked me in via vague concept alone. I was also one of those people who grew up on the cartoons and movies vs started out reading the comic books, so when I was introduced to Wanda, the first Wanda I met was MCU Wanda, which I now know is so drastically different from the original character. Obviously, I think it would have been better to see a better representation of comic Wanda Maximoff instead of rewriting her into an almost completely different character with the same name.

There were and are some things in the show that I’m not personally a fan of (I, like several people in the anti tags, was a little grossed out when That Scene in “We Interrupt This Program” happened and thought Wanda just had babies with a reanimated Vision corpse until I realized that was not in fact the case; I was also mildly confused about how Tommy and Billy came to actually be (hoonum + robo = babey?) until it got better explained in later episodes; I personally hate Wanda’s punishment for Agatha at the end of the show; again, offensive shit) so, yeah, I’m going to change stuff I don’t like and think should be fixed to the best of my ability. That’s why I write fanfiction, lol.

I,,, also don’t know where this is going. It’s super late and I accidentally kept forgetting to answer this ask, so I’m trying to do so now with the couple other asks I need to answer. But anyway, thanks again, I spend so much time on research for almost every little detail of this series and like I said before, I’m far from perfect, but hopefully I do a decent job, lol.

Also, hey, anon, drop that WandaVision fic link,,

[after-witch]

post replies & inbox messages

Got a bit long so I put them behind a read more!

@just-average-poet THIS IS SO GOOFAvatar just-average-poet GOOD I MEANT GOOD

Thank you!!

@natinolang-utak Bruh i thought for a moment he's threatening to kill her loved ones bc thatll stop me for sure. This is goood👌🏻

The original draft did involve family but I decided to go in a more direct direction ahh. Thank you!

Anonymous said: Hiiiii, I'm the one that requested a headcanon for wishing stairs and like I been MIA due to personal problems and I din't have the time to read/ check Tumblr, the one that I requested but thankfully my schedule is cooperating with me, and i finally read the headcanon, all I can say you're a amazing writer, and believe me I felt scared while reading the headcanon, THANK YOUUUU AGAIN, SO MUCH THANK YOU PO. have a jolly day to youu

Thank you for the kind message! :)

Anonymous said: WOW - Revelations gave me legit chills. honestly didn't expect the end at all. the sudden shift from defiance to fear? reader felt a shred of control and suddenly there is this looming sense of danger/threat. thank you so much for writing my request 🥰 it made me wonder. would he ever really overhaul his darling? 😳

IMO yandere!Overhaul would never overhaul his darling unless it was a "you HAVE TO DO THIS TO SAVE THEIR LIFE" legitimate life or death situation. (Regular Overhaul? Oh yeah. But IMO regular Overhaul is far outright nastier, so.)

Anonymous said: You mention in one of your yandere! Overhaul fics how reader gets scared when Overhaul thinks their sick and how they don’t want him “to go down that road again”. I was just wondering like how much more controlling or how overhaul acts when reader does get sick.

So the man is bossed with your personal health and hygiene even when you're healthy. Eat a well-rounded healthy diet. Brush your teeth--use plaque disclosing tablets if he thinks you don't brush well enough. That sort of thing. Imagine getting sick. Even a simple cold or infection, and you're signed up for: Temperature checks, fluid intake (and output, eck) monitoring, strict diet based on what's going on health-wise and you must eat it or he'll need to resort to IVs, no physical exertion, medications if necessary. He's just so far up your ass even for something relatively simple and it's not pleasant.

Anonymous said: girl I just wanted to say that I love your overhauls fics so much, like just the way you write everything is so *chefs kiss* ❤️

Thank you!! that's so sweet

Anonymous said: I love the juxtaposition between "doctor doctor" and "sweet escape" cuz you really capture the difference in how your yandere overhaul treats his darlings emotional vs physical problems. You have a phobia? He thinks youre being ridiculous and he'll belittle you but also hes ESTATIC to help you with this childish little problem as it means youll grow closer. But you have a physical disorder? one that causes self-harm? He thinks its far more serious and is more gentle, but hes not pleased one bit.

Great observation! He’s definitely a little more... excited when it means you can tackle something “together,” but when it’s something that has an immediate impact (like self-harm or bulimia) then there’s very little wiggle room in his mind.

Anonymous said: Sometimes I see you sharing genshin content, are you perhaps playing genshin impact? If so, are you planning to write for it? Sorry, i'm just curious since ive been following your blog for quite a while.

I’m not playing it but I’m into the story/concept & characters! I probably won’t be writing for it though

Anonymous said: I absolutely LOVED your last overhaul fic! I read it a couple of times now, gosh. The reader's despair is tangible and his behaviour is so horrible omg. Thank you for writing it!! I wonder - what would have happened if the reader stayed defiant? Refused overhauls orders, tried to run nonetheless, and so on? Would he have gotten really nasty?

He’s always willing to jab reader with some sedatives and keep them nice and drowsy until they can start behaving again. 

Anonymous said: Me: *Sees your part 2 of Its my part and I'll cry if I want to

Also me: *Slaps on Lesley Gore on the record player (carefully)*

If I ever use another Lesley Gore song as a title, just know that it’s for you

Anonymous said: Took me awhile to put my thoughts together but your recent Sephiroth fic was gold. I love how it also makes me a little confused about whether or not Sephiroth kidnapped his ‘darling’ or not. Did he kidnap her and over time convince her that was the case through brainwashing? Or did she really choose this out of her own violation? And the way you depict an abusive relationship is right on point. (1/2)'

The constant fear of saying the wrong thing is such a strong presence that I actually froze when Sephiroth got angry at reader looking up when she heard Cloud’s name. And it also made me wonder why Sephiroth kept her around. Sure, it could be that he’s just obsessed with her for whatever reason. But then I think that he keeps her around to piss off Cloud. There are just so many things! Anyway, great job. Your a really talented writer :) (2/2)

Oh gosh thank you for your thoughts! This comment is *chef’s kiss* dopamine. It’s meant to be ambiguous--abuse relationship, either way, but ambiguous as to the exact origins. 

Anonymous said: I adore your overhaul fics so much!! Idk why I love that nasty man - but you capture him perfectly and your writings make my heart go 💖💗💘💕💝💞😘 Thank you so much for sharing!!

Thank you for the nice comment!! :)

[panicatthediaz]

Tagged by @phonotactless (yes, I do, I'm just awful at getting to them at a proper time 😂), @on-maars and @a-beautiful-struggle-of-life to answer some questions about my fanfic writing... stuff.

And in turn I'm gonna tag @marvelouslytrekking @lamburrito @aishahiwatari and @sometimesimfandomtrash because I never really know who to tag.

Stuff is under the cut 'cause there are 20 questions here, it's a lot.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

30

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

138,249

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (13) Doom (2005) (9) 9-1-1 (TV) (6) Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux (6) Doom (Video Games) (2) Super Sentai Series (2) the first ones I posted on AO3, don't mind them Sidewinder Series - Abigail Roux (1) Almost Human (TV) (1)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

These are, hilariously, the same top 5 by hits, just in a different order

Bad Habits (9-1-1) - 625 which is nice, I didn't expect my first foray into an AU that is very dear to me to be my #1

Years In The Making (9-1-1) - 504

A Doctor Called Grimm (Doom/Star Trek AOS) - 361

Falling (next to you) (9-1-1) - 324

Waiting for the sun (9-1-1) - 311 the only other foray into said AU is also here huh

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I have a single piece of MCD writing, but it's still a wip, so I guess in the meantime it's Red as Autumn Leaf and Blood (Cut & Run)?

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Probably Years In The Making, that one is just all so damn sappy.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Doom/Almost Human/Star Trek, hands down. Yes, the one AH fic is a crossover one, chaptered, that I have barely reached the AH part of.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Honestly, I'd like to try my hand at it, but don't hold your breath.

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

As often as I know what to say to them aldjghjakdg

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Thank god I haven't. At least not that I recognized as such, which would also be quite on-brand for me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I'd hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yep. A few times, actually, but they do tend to die in my hands and I feel terrible about that hah Latest one is Lost in Simulations with @lamburrito :')

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Fuuuuck I don't think I have one. But I'm enjoying writing Buddie a whole damn lot. I wasn't much of a shipper at all until recently either hah

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Probably my bunch of Doom/Star Trek WIPs. I love the crossover with my whole heart, but they are both... Past fixations...

16. What are your writing strengths?

I want to say I do a decent enough job with like... Balancing dialogue and body language? And maybe pacing. Which is hilarious because it's sort of the thing giving me issues with a fic's fourth chapter (I mean, it's chapter 4, I'm allowed to just get on with the plot, yeah? Idk, man, I'm struggling.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Honestly, being patient. Writing everything out in a multi-chapter before I start posting. Making sure I don't write myself into a corner later in it. I struggle with validation 🤷‍♂️

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I've been lucky that all dialogue has been a variation of Spanish I can consult people on, honestly. Both in 9-1-1 and in Cut & Run. But like... I don't necessarily like doing it, but ... I don't know, sometimes it feels... Right? To have some??? I try to keep it simple because I can't expect that all readers will know what I'm writing in that other language. I don't think I've had more than one or two lines at a time in another language

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Something in the depths of an old deviantART account that is honestly never going to see the light of day again.

I was 13 or so, and it was digimon stuff.

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Everything in To Me (You're Beautiful) series (9-1-1) and The Scars Will Remain (Doom/Star Trek). Two (... three?) very personal pieces :)