#this is literally almost a year old I feel like I could improve this now

[dorian1903]

I've never finished this wip, and it's already super old. I'm debating whether I should redraw this to see what I would do better now.

[hairmetal666]

The worst thing that ever happened to Eddie Munson is a spinning studio opening in the building next to the neighborhood store he runs with his uncle.

"That's the third one today," Eddie whines as soon as the door snicks shut behind a woman with a glossy high ponytail and electric pink polka dot Lululemon sports bra and bicycle short set.

"You see her ponytail?" Nancy asks. She's flipping through a stack of flashcards. "Never seen a twenty-five year old look fresh off a facelift."

"I hate them so much. What kind of job is 'cycling instructor' anyway?"

"I'm concerned about the amount of makeup they wear to workout. That's gotta be bad for the pores."

"I'm concerned about the collective IQ holding that operation together. Like, do they know how to get out if there's a fire alarm?"

Nancy shoves him, but snickers too. It's not like he really has anything against the instructors. They're fine. Polite and usually harmless. It's the principle of it. It's not fair, that they get to continue into an adulthood that's still all about them being pretty and popular, without any substance.

"You've done college bio," he says. He notices a couple of cereal boxes have fallen over, hops off the counter to push them back in place. "What are the chances their muscles are so big it's cutting off the blood flow to their brains? Is that a thing that can happen?"

There's no response from the front of the store, which isn't unusual. Mostly, she lets him talk and chimes in when the mood strikes. Since she seems uninterested in offering her input, he straightens the cereal and keeps gabbing.

"The other day, one of the guys came in, and his shorts were so tight, I could see his balls. Not just the outline, but the wrinkles. I could almost make out individual pubes. Is that one of those things where they pretend they're limiting drag, or whatever, to improve their speed? Even though it's a stationary bike--"

He turns, the shelves straightened, and literally only three feet from him is one of the aforementioned cycling instructors. Unfortunately, he's the most beautiful man Eddie has ever seen. Even more unfortunately, he definitely heard Eddie making fun of them.

"Uhh," Eddie says.

The guy smiles. "Sorry, my giant muscles make it hard to get around sometimes."

And Eddie just. Like. What the fuck. "That must make it difficult to cycle." God, god but this guy is so fucking, devastatingly hot and all Eddie has done is antagonize him. And not even intentionally!

"I get by," he smiles and Eddie almost swoons. "Hey, when I bend down, can you let me know about the ball sitch? I have a wholesome image to maintain."

Is he flirting? It seems like he's flirting? But that's weird, right? He caught Eddie talking shit, why would he--

"It would be my pleasure to look at your balls," his mouth says before his brain can catch up.

The guy snorts, smile getting bigger. "I don't know, now I might be self-conscious. Might have a wayward pube."

"How will you know if someone doesn't take a look?"

The guy steps closer, cocks his head to the side. He's got this impressive sweep of hair that barely tumbles, his throat dotted with cute little moles and freckles. Eddie's mouth is watering, why is his mouth watering? "I usually get to know someone a little bit better before they get that privilege."

For once, he's speechless and now he's blushing, can feel it up to his ears and down to his nipples.

The guy leans even closer, breath ghosting against Eddie's skin. "Too bad you hate exercise instructors."

This social interaction has already been a disaster, but he makes it even worse by responding with an indignant squeak.

The guy winks, can't hide his genuine amusement at Eddie's expense. "You ever want to make it up to me, you can come to one of my classes."

With that, he walks up to Nancy at the counter, and Eddie gets his first look at the single most glorious ass he's ever seen. His mouth literally drops open as he watches how it jiggles, perfect and round, and he wonders if it would be too much to fall to his knees and worship it right then and there.

Eddie's dumbstruck for a little too long, almost misses as the cycling instructor heads for the door. "How can I take your class if I don't know your name?" He shouts.

The instructor half turns, the sexiest, smuggest smile on his pretty face. "It's Steve!" He yells back.

"I'm Eddie!"

"I know!"

The door closes and he turns to Nancy. "How--how did he know my name?"

Nancy rolls her eyes, goes back to her flashcards. "You're wearing a name tag, you absolute dork."

Eddie knows he's a man of weak will. Is not completely surprised when, after a month of meanly flirtatious interactions, Steve leans across the counter to taunt, "you do one cycling class with me and I'll take you out to dinner."

He's fresh from a workout, hair still damp and messy from the shower. Eddie thinks he's about to lose his mind, desire a clawing beast gnawing on his bones.

"Oh, so I might finally get the opportunity to check out your balls?"

Steve's cheeks go very pink, and something tight and hot tugs in Eddie's abdomen. "If you play your cards right."

[ttshihiro]

pspspps.. totally not golden groovy woops

ANYWAYS HII!! heard u were open for requests. may i request tammy + qiu with and an artist reader :00

requests of my favorite fandoms are my catnip good gof woa who could this be‽‽ my reqs and my ask box are like always open btw >◡<

extra note/s: I refer to step 1 Qiu as he/him. Uhhh take this as platonic or romantic, I'll add an indicator for romance (𐙚) ^^

more under the cut > o

✧ At 10 years old, QIU's fascinated. How he discovers your interest and skill in arts varies but his reaction doesn't. He's impressed! Whether digital or traditional, Qiu would love to participate especially if you asked him yourself.

For this reason, he carries an extra pen and even those colored ones just in case you get bored or if you're suddenly struck by creativity when you two are playing :3

✧ The first time you show him one of your doodles you made during class, he's compelled to do the same whether or not you actually give him it. And ever since, you two've been exchanging these sketches during class. It's the cutest scene to walk into.

✧ URGH AND THE THINGS HE DOES WHEN YOU TELL HIM ABOUT ART BLOCK DEPENDING ON HOW AND WHAT YOU DRAW

You're into drawing sceneries? Trust that he starts telling you and Tamarack about more "special things" in the forest and/or the town.

Like the sky? There's this clearing a lot further into the forest at your backyards. Stargaze, watch the clouds and the sunset together?

✧ It's also necessary for me to mention that unlike his notes, lazily pressed against eachother and constantly on the run, anything you give him goes to a safe space probably in between a books pages, under the the matress of his bed or inside a drawer/container.

"They broke into my backyard accidentally, 'cause they were on a crazy investigation about a paper airplane. Plus, they got here a day ago and they're already looking out for me. Normally, I'm the one doing that."

"Besides, they're pretty. And they make me pretty. Look! Look how they drew me!"

✧ As for 10-year-old TAMARACK, she's curious. The things you draw, are they based on actual places? Actual people? Oh, you draw based on your imagination? Elaborate.

✧ At some point in the prologue, she says "All the forests in the world are different, and some places don't even have forests. I can show you good spots to find things since you're newer to this forest than me."

And I can't not think of her running up to you to give you all of what she gathered for you to draw like omfg

With all those leaves and tiny branches sticking out of her hair and sweater, she smiles brightly with her hands filled with her treasures. AUGH SHE MAKES ME SO SICK I LOVE HER

✧ Like Qiu, she has her own safe spot designated for only your drawings if you've given her any.

She shows off all of them. Especially if you've drawn her?? It'll be the only thing she talks about during literally any time for the rest of the month and the few months after.

"Out of all the friends I have here, you're the best one. We came to the same exact neighborhood, almost at the same time, and are he same age. You have fun outside and I do too."

"I think you're pretty. How you draw me is pretty! I've never met a kid who was just like me. That's important. That's serious."

✧ Now, 14-year-old QIU's pretty much no different. They're even more impressed when they see just how much you've improved. Nonetheless, they treasure your old drawings just as much as they do they new.

They take the liberty of providing you with both a pen and paper to draw on when you're together, in case you don't bring your sketchbook (if you own one).

On those days where you two just sit in silence in their hideout, their gaze drifts to your side quietly a few times to watch your progress. After a while, they settle with sitting right next to you and watching the stroke of your pen against the paper as the scene forms with each hatch.

✧ As a teen, they've actually been a tad bit farther off the town when they feel like taking a ride on their bike. They've seen many sights and burn the route into their brain for them to tell you about. They'd even be happy as to bring you there themselves.

✧ If you ask them to be your muse, good god you'd need to tell them what to do.

It's almost a funny sight. Qiu, the kid who knew what to do their whole life asks you, "Should I pose? Where do I look? Ah- what's my good side?"

𐙚 They can feel their breath hitch under your scrutiny. Suddenly, they're concious of every single thing about them. Where do their eyes go? Should they move their hands? Is their hair in the way?

They avert their gaze flusteredly, their head ever so slightly moving to the side when they do so.

And good god do their hands clutch the fabric of their pants when you tell them to look at you properly.

✧ Same goes for TAMARACK at 14. She's as intrugued as ever to hear about your work. She admires (you)r style from then till now and has learned to appreciate the time gone into things as simple as this, whether or not you've made it with her in mind. BUT GOD IF YOU TELL HER IT IS, it's always sitting on her desk and she thinks constantly about what you've done for her.

✧ And while she doesn't exactly bring you a pen, she's more than glad to hand you hers when you need it.

✧ Unlike before, she'd now be at your side when you two hung out at her backyard. She'd be sitting across from you, practicing the cello. The hum of her instrument accompanied by the sound of nature and the scratch of your pen against paper gives her a sense of calmness.

This may also be when she realizes she's been your muse! Her fingers trace over where your pen has been and boy appreciate isn't even enough for her to describe how she felt. It was definitely happy, but that wasn't the word either.

𐙚 Her heart pounds alarmingly as she admires your work. It's almost concerning to you that she sits silently with a blank expression as she held your sketchbook in her hands.

But that concern washes off you as soon as a warm smile curls the corners of her lips, tender adoration displayed all over her face.

[logan-lieutenant]

i didn't win the wheel: episode 7 (pt. 1)

[they read the intro cards, it's quite cringe]

Logan: "You know what the honor is..." (tries to gesture)

Alex, interrupting: "Because nothing says Tour de France like mad stats."

Logan (after waiting): "...You get to spin that wheel."

Alex: 😊😊

i know, i know, i start every episode out with The Bit. and this could be a paragraph almost identical to the last intro because at first it looks same-old, same-old: logan is describing the activity like he's reading his own death sentence, alex still has not learned how to play to the audience, they both brighten up a little bit on the **iconic** line. but there are some differences. the body language. the way alex is once again posing so awkwardly so he can face logan. the way he looks right at logan immediately, and then the laugh just sort of tumbles out of him and he can't even keep his head up, and the way logan turns to him and his eyes track the movement of alex curling in down and towards him and then he uses the card to gesture and bring alex back in as it's time to start the game

i was rewatching this moment listening to their voices and their laughter when the thought came to me suddenly: "it's like they're taking care of each other." and i didn't even know how to elaborate on that more but it just felt so right that i had to keep examining it and now it've got it. the thing is, they're both struggling at this point. a lot. logan for obvious reasons, but alex too, very much so. silly season is hitting williams hard. there's rumors of antonelli, rumors of sainz, rumors of a mid-season replacement. on top of that, checo's contract is at this point being both ridiculed and questioned because of his failure to meet the goals, and what are people benchmarking him against? not max, his teammate, but logan. because logan can now outqualify him. and that's not "oh my god look at how well logan's doing!" it's "oh my god look at how absolutely dogshit checo's doing" (the general discourse, not my opinion). even when the williams upgrades make an actual improvement, nobody notices or cares because everybody else makes bigger improvements. and while williams doesn't have the worst pr situation on the grid, ever since australia they've needed some serious image management and that hasn't been attended to enough. jv is publicly and aggressively courting carlos, making outrageous claims about How Well They're Doing, and the longer the team goes while pretending the logan situation doesn't exist, the more aggravated the fans get. the team isn't doing anything to address the growing tension, and they don't have the on-track performance to do the work for them, so who's left carrying such a huge portion of the entire team's image? alex. he's walking on a wire to avoid falling into the absolute shitstorm of william's pr while still supporting and representing the team that's given him a second chance. he has to juggle being compared to logan and outperforming his car and people saying he deserves better and his team principal's fumbling and knowing he could have all this resentment and bitterness and jealousy from logan and that's not there. and because he's already created this image of sunshiney cutesy cuddly cat dad, he can't afford to have a single moment of visible anger or frustration, even though that's literally how racing drivers just are. so in many ways he's completely trapped in multiple situations and he doesn't know what logan's thinking or what anyone else is thinking and he's overwhelmed.

and logan doesn't have anything. no team support, no chance at another team, no certainty about literally any event in his future from the next few years to the next few weeks. his last few moments with alex are starting to feel like a consolation prize, starting to feel even more painful because of how aware he is of the time running out. and logan can see past the disoriented rambling and the hyperactivity and the media personality, he knows alex is overwhelmed. and it's not something they feel they can talk about with each other because they're scared of hurting each other, of driving a wedge between them when every goodbye feels like the last. but here's logan, unable to feign interest, unable to give the camera anything to work with because he's tired and he's bitter and he just wants to stop owing these people. but alex is there, kind of looking like he forgot they were filming today, and logan can't do much but he can do this. he can make alex laugh. he can remind alex that it's fun to be silly, you can make something silly out of this stupidity, that it's okay and the resentment at the whole thing doesn't need to be there and that they're going to get through this and they're actually going to have fun. he turns all the way into alex and watches his reaction, eyes him up and down, and his smile gets a little sadder and a little more mature as he lets alex half-fold towards him because "logan that isn't even funny how am i laughing every single time". and it's become this sort of ritual for them. it's literally just A Bit but it's their way of stepping all the way out of formula fuckup life and into just this little bubble of each other and a game. "okay, we're going to let this go now. we're going to forget that it's stupid and we don't want to be their social media guinea pigs and we're both being mistreated yet expected to deliver performances like we're not. we're just going to forget that and we're going to have fun with each other and it's going to be nice because we can do it together." and even with everything that's happening, logan is the one who initiates that. he flicks the switch for both of them. and alex's laugh is amusement, yeah, but it's also just relief– the beautiful dissociative relief of leaving everything behind for just a little bit. it's gotten to the point where alex visibly waits on that cue. he looks fidgety and frustrated and out of it and like a kid who got dragged to his mom's book club until logan starts even the beginning of the sentence and then he looks over and the smile starts to flit across his face and then the channel changes. logan's carrying them both over the threshold.

[the question is about average speed]

Logan (such a dumbass annoying smile): "Can I answer in miles per hour? I'm kidding ha ha HAA 😎😎😎" *smacks table* "Ah that's funny..."

Alex:

Alex:

Alex a million years later: 😂

ah, we haven't had one of these in a while. logan being a little shit just to annoy alex. alex being so annoyed and then so endeared he basically short-circuits. that was such a stupid joke and even the way he laughed was like "i just made the STUPIDEST joke >:)" it like has the tone of a dad joke but not even that it's just stupid... and he's the only one who laughs. even though it's obviously forced because that's pretty much part of the joke, it's supposed to be so not funny it actually is funny.

and then logan moves on from that and heads straight into thinking-too-hard-about-this mode and alex is processing on internet explorer speed. he laughs first when logan looks over at him with that stupid shit eating "did you hear that STUPID joke i just made" look and then he does the signature blush and look away (seriously we might have heart-eyes piastri and fuck me-eyes leclerc but what about cast-down eyes albon because he literally cannot hold eye contact when he's flustered which is 80% of the time in logan's presence) and then as logan starts musing about the question alex is like– i swear, he's playing logans expression over again in his head. he's tilted in logan's direction, not looking at anything, and i swear to god he's just remember logan's dumb shit-eating smile and thinking about the joke itself and then suddenly he's laughing. and he doesn't mean to and it even sounds unexpected like it's taking the breath out of him and then he literally has to interrupt himself like, "um! sorry!" because it takes him some time to regain his composure. logan crept out of the shadows just long enough to drop a shit joke and now he's huddled back but that moment is sticking way longer in alex's head than it should. bringing himself back to the game and out of his own head/imagination nearly pains him.

(will continue soon but jeez i had a LOT to say!)

[endmerit]

I've been thinking a lot recently about what the different narrative themes of Final Fantasy XIV's expansions are.

While the base-game of A Realm Reborn has a story where a lot of rebuilding is happening (which is also appropriate considering the game's out-of-universe situation back then), I still wouldn't say that it has a strong narrative theme of rebuilding... but at the same time, beyond just establishing the world and the story's antagonistic forces and putting all the wheels in motion, I guess the theme of rebuilding and "By striving to help people around us and to unite with our neighbors we can not only stand against bigger common foes, but also improve all of our own day-to-day lives." is the strongest thing it has going for it. Striving to improve society somewhat can improve society somewhat.

For Heavensward, while there is that on-point Tweet of "Church sucks because they won't let you fuck dragons!", and while someone with a cynical and dry sense of wit could go with "Christianity has always been and still is oppressive, destructive and outright evil to everyone both within its system and outside it, and we should kill the Pope.", I think the healthier themes to take are along the lines of "Cycle of revenge will at best lead to mutual destruction, but definitely to your own one at the least.", and "Power either corrupts leaders who cling to it, which leads to further destruction, or they manage to stay humble enough to allow younger generations to build bridges and settle old grudges." ...but to be fair, both sides of Heavensward's conflict have such outlandishly evil leaders that simply killing just both of them does most of the heavy lifting of ending a literal 1000-year conflict, so you know.

Stormblood, I think, has easier theme to pin: It's about generational trauma caused by war and its aftermath. Stormblood's story takes place in 2 different nations that have been conquered only about 20 years ago, which means that while the older generations still remember the days of freedom and have understandable reason to hate the oppressing foreign regime, there's already a full generation of children and young adults who have grown up knowing only this rule and trying to make the most of their lives under it. This then starts the spiral of old guard hating the youth for "betraying their nation and families" and young generation growing hateful towards the old guard because of it and further siding with the oppressing regime. This premise takes Realm Reborn's and Heavensward's constant background-theme of "United we stand" and writes itself as far to the other direction as the writers can take it with "When a nation turns against itself, and its generations against each other, it is doomed to fall to its enemies." It's a heavy expansion full of people who hate each other and their lot in life and even now, years down the line, it's still feel-bad to think about.

Shadowbringers, while mine and many others' favourite expansion, I had to think a lot what the main theme to take actually was. On a more surface-level the story dares to ask questions like "What if angels were actually zombies?", "Even if it seems hopeless from the get-go, you should always try to settle your differences with talking first." and "How many millions of people is it okay to murder if the reward is a return to 'The Good Old Days'?" ...but at the end of the day I think the key-word of the expansion is Legacy. Something along the lines of "You can't fully grasp how important and loved you are to the people you have touched in your life with your every seemingly small kindness, and how far they would go in a heartbeat to save you, just like you have already saved them." ...told from couple of very different directions.

Endwalker then has the unenviable challenges of not only holding a candle to the previous expansion, but altogether wrapping up the "Main" plot that's been built up for almost a decade, while still having its own thing to say... and it comes in swinging AND sticks the landing by first asking an all-too-relatable question of "Does anyone know where to find any happiness and reason to live? Every day I look for them but all I find is more despair and suffering everywhere." and then giving its own answer of "It's the little things that make life worth living. Find your strength and source of hope against world's daily despairs from the friends around you, because if you shut yourself off from everyone, you can't expect others to care about you either." Additionally, especially the theme of "Try to trust in others enough to both offer AND accept help when it's needed." plays a heavy part in the patch-story, but the main takeaway is that Endwalker's theme is a bit more complicated than simply "Get rid of Twitter, your life will improve."

Which brings us to where we are now, still close enough after Dawntrail's release that I'll do the compromised courtesy of trying to keep details vague instead of outright spoiling them. I don't think it's a controversial opinion that the first and second half of the 7.0 story felt quite separated from each other, and it took me a long time to think about this expansion's connecting theme, but ultimately I think the story has 3 different takes to the theme of "You have to let go." First take of that theme comes from Wuk Lamat's journey in the first half, and how in every new location she (and other groups involved) visit and people they meet, she is further taught that "In order to live in peace with all the communities and cultures around you, you cannot be unreasonably rigid in doing things exactly your way, ignoring the lives and opinions of people around you just because you think you know better. You have to have some flexibility." In the second half, then, the theme is expanded upon via 2 other authority-figures, first of whom does the exact opposite of what Wuk Lamat learned in the first half and DOES ignore everyone around him, "Fighting only for myself", failing to learn and acknowledge that "From the day you were born, no matter who your family is, you had no need to prove your right to exist. Only you can let go of that idea if you feel like you do, no-one can do it for you." ...and then, while the 3rd person also has the Shadowbringers' theme of "Try and reach a solution with talking, even if it seems hopeless at first" going on, they also carry the most straight-forward version of the main theme with them, that being "You have to accept that all living things will eventually die, you cannot keep paying higher and higher price of never accepting it."

...that said though, what with all the magic and magical technology and everything else already established in the game's setting, the last stretch of the main expansion's story does muddle that last theme a bit with reasonable questions like "Really, we decided to solve the problem like that!? Couldn't we really have been able to improve upon the old existing solution to keep paying that higher and higher price??" which... would then have no doubt started a very different, also very questionable for different reasons, moral path. Regardless, I think there's currently something of a divide with the themes and in-universe realities in the game's story which, I have to assume, will be expanded upon in the upcoming patch-stories.

[hellfirebride]

girl ur L headcanons r so good i love them sm !!!💕 i was wondering could u do some headcanons on L's first kiss with the reader? i have a feeling he hasn't kissed very many ppl sooo 💀

thank u bestie !!! thanks for requesting

L's kiss experience (excluding the time Misa kissed him on the cheek) is probably limited to him getting smooched on the forehead by his mom when he was like. under eight years old. He knows how kissing works from both a scientific and literal perspective, he's seen it billions of times between any kind of media and his case-related surveillance. It's like this aspect of nature he can't avoid seeing, but he's also never longed for it before.

Assuming you're someone he's in a relationship with, he figures it's probably something that's just inevitable. Personally, I think it could go down in one of two ways: 1. he outright asks you if he can kiss you or 2. you kiss him first.

He's not playing around here, okay. It's really just gonna be a "Can I kiss you?" or a "Would you like to kiss me?"

He's been reading your body language for a while by now and he can tell what you're planning on. Not only have you been facing towards him and leaning into your interactions, but your eyes have been flickering between making eye contact and glancing at his lips.

Either way, I think the first way I could describe it is. Awkward. It's either too long or too short, I mean, how is he supposed to know the time duration of a kiss? Would he average it out from comparing footage? I also feel like he would keep his eyes open the entire time. It's his first kiss, of course he's going to observe it and commit it to memory. Imagine kissing L and the first thing you see after you pull away a little is him and his huge ass owl eyes right in your face. smh.

I'd love to say he would improve a lot from that point, but like. Nahhhh. I think kissing would follow the 1 or 2 formula I mentioned earlier for quite a while. Another scenario I can see in the future is just him staring at you until you notice him and just saying "I would like a kiss." He is kinda spoiled.

L would taste so sweet that it's almost bitter.

[heretherebedork]

Curious to know your feels about the 1000 Years Old finale. You didn't post much about it. Maybe that's a commentary in and of itself LOL.

Part of the answer is that I struggle with watching things out of my usual schedule and had a very busy weekend so I'm just getting around to actually watching the finale episode after knowing all kinds of spoilers. I am actively writing this response as I watch the episode. So enjoy my live thoughts on your ask.

And, so far, my entire reaction is that they crammed way too much here in the end. They needed to spread this out more than they did and I get parts of it, I like having the soulmates reveal only at the very end...

But there's a lot of plot and seriousness that they just didn't touch on enough and that I think including in the rest of the show would have improved it greatly as well as helping with the pacing struggling most people had.

If more of the Janja plot had been genuinely spread through the show and more of these serious moments and the understanding of their agreement and relationship had started earlier I might care more about this. But I don't care about Janja at all! I just don't! I wasn't given reasons to care until the very end and that's not enough for me.

Also, having Yoh not fight for any of it really did disappoint me but the director of this show, as seen in multiple other shows they've done, seems to have a thing for one very passive character in the main relationship who will just Allow Things To Happen To Them without ever fighting back. And I never like that, frankly.

Yes, they dropped a few hints here and there but it just isn't enough to tie it all together in this show itself.

It's not a bad finale, it's not the worst, but the end of the show feels so rushed compared to the rest and us not getting all the fluffy times together only to be shown a single scene at the end of a long happy life instead of the time together that I want to see.

I like domesticity, not the end of domesticity.

I get why people liked this ending. I see how people who rewatch things, especially, will enjoy the recontextualization of the show.

But for me? It made everything feel rushed and the rest of the show feel almost empty and slightly worse in comparison. Either we needed more plot or less episodes for this to work.

(Every time I see Somchai I am sad we did not get Somchai and Shin. Every single time. Come on. You crammed this much into the final episode, you could have given me more of them somewhere else!)

Also, I love his random bodyguards, whoever they are. Love them.

Also, this year long time skip is stupid.

Seriously, I am deeply frustrated by Yoh literally finding out they're soulmates and then just... completely abandoning Pun and leaving entirely. It's not interesting to see him just give up and it makes him the most passive character ever. Which we also had in I Will Knock You and, frankly, in 2gether. That's just The Style.

JANJA LITERALLY TOLD YOH SHE WAS GIVING HIM PUN BECAUSE PUN WILL NEVER LOVE ANYONE ELSE. Whatever, at least the confession and whole thing is done and now they can be soulmates together.

9 minutes of happy ending is not enough. Absolutely not enough. Yes, it was cute. Yes, it was a happy ending. But it's just not enough and it leaves me wanting more and wishing that the show were paced differently.

(Still sad we couldn't get any more Somchai and Shin, we deserved more.)

Edit Okay, I didn't mention this originally but I actually hate that the soulmate/reincarnation line takes away the power of Yoh's gift to Pun being his first birthday present. It really bothers me because that moment was one of the my favorite moments and the finale just made it not matter at all and turned it into something much less important and takes away a lot of the importance away of Pun wearing the cross and it BOTHERS ME A LOT.

[demonsfate]

maybe somewhat controversial but saw somethin on a confessions blog saying this and i guess i do kinda miss when rping felt... sillier at times? like with both the existence of magic anons & dash commentaries. things just feel Stricter or More Serious now? not sure how to put it. dash commentaries do still happen, but not as frequently as i used to. like GOSH, i remember 5+ years ago, i'd have my character saying something bizarre and it would BLOW the entire dashboard up. like almost all my mutuals would be commenting on it, a lot of "silly drama" would happen because of it. some would agree with my muse, some would prosecute them. that doesn't really happen anymore. though, i also understand. i get that ppl have boundaries, but sometimes it really feels like you have to walk on eggshells lest you upset somebody.

i recalled one time this character was just being AWFUL to mine (mine who has done nothing wrong lol) just hurling insults, mistreating them, whateves. so y'know, there were dash commentaries about this and it eventually lead to the other mun getting very upset that their character was being "villainized". and it's like ... don't ... write an antagonistic muse if you don't want that? or the very least, don't write them BEING antagonistic toward innocent people? i mean, when ppl's muses & anons used to bully abaddon, i actually loved it. because indeed deserved it, he's a horrible horrible person who mistreats and kills the innocents. and plus it's just fun ok? i love conflict - regardless if it's angsty, serious, or silly conflict.

and magic anons... i get it can be a flawed concept. (ppl can send their Thinly Disguised Fetishes in it - not that i care but obvs other ppl would rightfully care) but i still thought it was very fun because it's like temporary or mini aus. it plunges characters into otherwise impossible scenarios and then give you new thread concepts based on those scenarios. i'd say even to this day, i still accept magic anons. but that feels pointless to say because they're virtually nonexistent anymore.

this was all i was gonna discuss in this post, but i can also understand why the rpc is often... less engaging anymore? why we have a problem with communication, why we have a problem with less anons being sent out. this isn't a generalization, of course - there are other reasons why this happens. but this is something i've personally experienced in the past, and it makes me think it could be the same for other people. it's just the fear of being blown up at, again - upsetting somebody.

i've seen people be legit hateful towards the anons they get A LOT. like an old rper i've stopped writing with would literally call the anons "assholes" and trying to "ruin fun" because the anons would just comment on the threads or ask questions regarding the threads? and it's like i thought that was supposed to be a common thing... anons like that just help add insight to how the muse is feeling regarding a thread or somethin. but the way they reacted was so unnecessary hostile? when they could've politely told anons to stop or just... fucking deleted the anons like lmao. and it's not just this too but i've seen other people just react bitterly to certain anons they get. or this one time where somebody REQUESTED for CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM and i sent an anon giving my criticism, can't remember quite what it was but obvs i said nothing mean or insulting - i just told them a problem i noticed and gave tips on how they could possibly improve (AGAIN, THEY ASKED FOR THIS) and they later went on their blog talking about how they got ANON HATE???? HELLO????? so yeah, i understand not liking certain anons you get or whatever. but ppl react to them with so much hostility, that it makes everyone else afraid to send anons anymore because they'd rather say nothing than upset the user, especially if they're gonna be potentially villainized for something that is virtually harmless.

then there is just talking to people ooc. hell, i've had somebody who followed one of my old blogs (this was like a few years ago iirc?) and their rules had that blood was one of their triggers. so i told them that i tag that so they don't have to worry and they literally said something like "I didn't ask you to :/" and that's it??? and then they were just rude to me the entire convo until we eventually unfollowed lol. not to mention all the skype & discord contacts i add over the years and then we just stop talking in no time...

anyway, i'm not saying everyone is like this at all! there are MANY super cool people in the rpc, many people i have a lotta fun writing with here. but when you look back at all the bad experiences, or even looking at the bad experiences at are currently unfolding, it makes more and more sense why a lotta the "silly" rp aspects that ceased to exist. why there are no more magic anons, and why dash commentary & anons in general are becoming more and more scarce.

it was this post that inspired me to talk about this. which i actually don't agree with everything op said. in fact, i wouldn't even say the primary issue of current threads is romance or smut. more so, i noticed that fluff / slice of life threads with no conflict is what makes up for most threads nowadays it seems lmao. which is also understandable, because again - it's a popular known issue within the rpc that it's hard to have conflict in threads, lest somebody legit gets their feelings hurt OOC!!! hell, this has happened to me a few times because i often play antagonistic muses. which again, is another issue that makes people feel like they're constantly walking on eggshells. but anyway, it just inspired me to think about and discuss this.

[shortpplfedup]

Of course I have fallen down an ITSAY/IPYTM rewatch rabbit hole the moment I have things to do. Instead of spamming @bengiyo lemme liveblog...

On Viki the new subs are chef's kiss. Grammar, tone, readability, idiom usage, much improved. I also FINALLY know what MoRaoYuLok means!

Man the fight they have at the temple after this middle school play is the EXACT same fight they have in the bathtub in IPYTM. Like the dialogue is almost word for word. I love that the same fight bookends the beginning and end of the acting dream for Oh Aew. HOW IS THIS SHOW STILL GIVING ME NEW TEAS YEARS LATER?

'I think someone like you will quit eventually' - cut to him quitting in IPYTM and them having this exact same fight. And people say Teh changed...HE NEVER DID.

If I could ask Boss one question I would ask him when Teh's dad died. Like...it haunts me. I feel like so much of Teh is explained by his dad's death. Like, does he die before or after the middle school play? Was it illness or incident? It's the last key to completely unlocking the character and I WANT IT.

I have so much more of an ear for Thai now than I did when I first watched this, and the difference in that plus the difference in the subs is making this a whole new experience.

I also now know what 'Saleng' means thanks to the subs. MLC's Leng's parents really named him after a sidecar motorcycle? Jail.

Man now that I know a smattering of Thai, Teh and Tarn were really basically dating. Like she had expectations, he'd made promises. He really just abandoned her to run after this boy he swore up and down he hated.

I always forget Oh Aew had 90 thousand Instagram followers. And he wasn't even showing feet. You know his DMs were wet. Oh Aew's influencer status needed to be explored more.

They actually translated some of these thirsty Instagram comments 🤣 'I want to be the red bean up there' referring to the red beans topping the oh aew dessert. HORNY JAIL FOR OH AEW'S INSTA FOLLOWERS.

Teh literally got under the covers and stared at this man's picture for WHO KNOWS HOW LONG.

WHY DID I START THIS?!

Hoon really treats Teh like an annoying little brother.

Teh and this pomade 🤣 THE RITUALS ARE INTRICATE AND ELABORATE.

This teacher really decided to roast Teh in front of everybody🤣

Teh really sitting here at this cafe dragging down the mood with his heavy vibes.

Man I forgot how petty Oh Aew could be 🤣 'Oh Bas you're so smart, so much smarter than dumbass Teh *bats eyelashes*

The friends really went through it with these two. You know how hard it is to maintain a friend group that includes two people who are in love/have beef? Yes I put those two things together. Kai n'em fighting for their lives this whole show.

Not Bas the New Friend putting his foot right in his mouth talking reckless about this Chinese play and the whole group bracing for impact. Nobody warned him these two are in love/have beef?

Oh Aew embarrassed as shit now, plan totally rumbled, not that Teh's dumbass even understood why he wanted to do a CHINESE PLAY WITH PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT SCHOOLS.

'Didn't anybody tell you?' WHY Y'ALL AIN'T TOLD HIM INSTEAD OF LETTING HIM GO POPPING OFF AT THE MOUTH?

Man I had forgotten how subtle yet totally clear the acting in this was from jump. Billkin and PP's eyes, their face journeys, the small microexpressions, the body English...you know exactly what they're thinking at all times.

Teh: 'Oh? A Chinese play?' Mod n'em's facial expressions: 'Oh shit here we fucking go.' Bas's face: 'What just happened? Why'd the temperature drop 20 degrees?'

Oh Aew said leap if you're feeling froggy and they were really about to scrap over a 3-year old petty beef. Who says men aren't emotional?

Teh was out of order making fun of Oh Aew's grades and he knew it immediately too. Forever popping off at the mouth and instantly regretting it, from the beginning.

Bas looks so distressed that he caused this whole altercation. I'd actually really love to know Bas's perspective on this story, because from where he's sitting the whole thing is WILD.

It's really striking me on this rewatch how protective the friends are of Oh Aew, not just Bas but Phillip n'em as well. He always engenders such loyalty, whereas Teh is harder to love hence why he doesn't have other friends except their mutuals.

Oh Aew called Teh an asshole with his whole chest, love that for him. Teh was absolutely being an asshole.

Kai really like 'how y'all still beefing off some middle school shit and we about to be in COLLEGE? Let it go!' And you really get the feeling Oh Aew really did want to try to squash it until Teh came at him all RAH.

I never really got a sense of the dynamic between Oh Aew and his parents. It's clearly loving and supportive, but it doesn't seem terribly affectionate and it's maybe a little distant? Idk how much of my reading of it is due to it not really being foregrounded as compared to Teh's familial dynamic. But Teh is main character and Oh Aew is the love interest so Teh does get a deeper dive.

You forget all the time that Teh is totally the spoiled baby brat of his family.

In this scene where they're waiting for the admission results, you can see Oh Aew's stress level shoot up in real time when he realises Teh has entered the room. Teh has put in his head that he's not gonna make it, and he doesn't want Teh to see him fail (and probably gloat about it he's thinking). And then Teh FOLLOWS him...no wonder he runs away like Teh's the devil. Teh's literally number 1 on the admissions list and Oh Aew didn't make it. And he thinks there's no way he can make it through the admissions system so the dream's dead. With the hindsight of realising that everything Oh Aew did since their fight was a combination of wanting to prove to Teh he was wrong about him plus hoping that they could repair their broken relationship and be close again...ARGH this show will forever put me in my feels.

Oh Aew always looks so small sitting on that beach alone in this scene. It's been said a million times, but the filmmaking in this show absolutely slaps. That tracking shot following Oh Aew getting his bags from Teh and then walking away as Teh follows? So good...

You really feel the weight of Teh's apology here, how he first apologises for the immediate offence and then realises no, that's not all he feels guilty about. The apology is such an unburdening for him and you can feel the weight lift off him when Oh Aew accepts it. Also, Oh Aew's surprise and immediate surge of emotion at each stage of Teh's apology...ugh these boys acted DOWN, so detailed, so effective!

This show is built around Teh and Oh's conversations, they're so important to me for how raw and vulnerable they always are. Part of the reason things fall apart for them in I Promised You the Moon is that they stop talking to each other like this, because they're trying to be brave, or to be grown up, or to be considerate, or to hide how not fine they are.

For Oh Aew to say 'I forgive you but bitch I DESPISED you, I don't know if we can ever come back from that' was such a moment. Teh being forced to sit with the possibility that what he broke with his pride and selfishness might not ever be fixable, and deciding to try ANYWAY...see this is why despite him being the worst he's also the best.

No but Teh really went from calling that sidecar 'hideous' and 'embarrassing' to taking it everywhere because it could carry Oh Aew, and all the things he wanted to give Oh Aew. But this fool really packed up every school book he owned in a suitcase he stole from his brother and left his house at the crack of dawn to give them to Oh Aew. Down HORRENDOUS.

Oh Aew's smile before he answers Teh's ke yi ma always gets me.

Guess I'm back on my ITSAY/IPYTM bullshit

[astridthevalkyrie]

to anyone following me who's waiting for the superior update: i am so sorry it's taking so long. it's not just hard to hyperfixate on levi, it's hard to hyperfixate on anything. even though i have ten million hawks wips i started and a couple l&ds ones too, not even mentioning all the old levi ones, i can't actually think about them enough to write. i have the docs open on my laptop and i just kinda stare at them. if i really force myself to write, it's not going to be good. my best writing always just comes out of me naturally.

superior's at 8k words right now and hasn't been updated in more than a year, and that kills me. it's not abandoned. that story is my baby. law school has honestly been a shitshow for me. my grades are fine, but my depression and anxiety have reached the lowest lows they've ever been even though things in my life have actually improved! i've set boundaries with my parents and my grades are good and i do have friends. but even though i'm trying, i'm in constant burnout. i can never tell whether it's my physical or mental health that's the problem. between the depression anxiety adhd and now autism (i still need further testing but i have passed the initial one so congratulations to me hoorah) i'm literally almost always in a bad mood and exhausted. and then i'm dehydrated, severely anemic, and my upper back has been in constant pain since i was 17. my wrists have hurt on and off since i was 16, which obviously makes typing all the more hard.

and if this sounds like i'm whining...it's because i am. i don't wanna be stuck in this state, depressive or autistic burnout or executive dysfunction or whatever it is. i have a vision of where i could be, what i could do if i could just do it and it just depresses me more. i'm in therapy, i'm trying to be nice to myself, but it's so hard. i hate everything and everyone but i am trying so hard to be kind and understanding and not to upset anyone.

i want to hyperfixate. i want to think about a character 24/7. sure it affects my productivity when it happens, but my productivity is already in the ground. at least that way i would be making myself happy. i can barely maladaptive daydream lately. i used to think of scenarios and stories 24/7 even if i didn't write them. and now it's like. i hate the music i listen to. i hate my room. i have no energy to like characters. i barely have energy to wake up. and the more i dwell on these thoughts, the worse it gets.

but still. i am not abandoning this story. i want to finish it so badly. i've just realized that the problem isn't necessarily "oh there isn't any new aot media." it's just. i'm not doing well. yesterday was a better day and i wrote 2k words of analysis. i still can do it. but it feels like the only way i could really heal is if everyone in my life left me alone for at least a week, maybe a month. and that's obviously not happening. so i'm trying to find tips for people with audhd and seeing what i can do to cope but they're all things that i just don't feel are achievable. and because my self worth is so closely tied to what i can do, the more nothing happens, the more depressed i become.

all this to say superior is not abandoned. i'm trying to get to a better place, and i really hope i can have time for my favorite characters and my little stories. i hope you guys can see it soon.

[zvmz]

Writing down my thoughts while watching monster high for the first time Pt. 2

alright y’all now we’re watching why do ghouls fall in love let’s go

oh oh new and improved intro

the one long shot as the intro is so cool

ohh shoot we 3D now

actually might like it better than the 2D

wait r they saying Valentine’s Day was literally made for Draculara?

im confused 😁

can I get a sugar daddy like clawd

CAN I GET DRACULARAS DAD?????

oh

um this is awkward

so guys it was all in our heads apparently 😊

clawdeen is kinda slaying this new animation style

oh this song goes so hard

the bats flying out of clawds wallet is so real

come again how old is draculara

why is she still in school

was she held back a few hundred years

and I thought my grades were bad

the cat people make me uncomfortable. stranger danger

damn these cats are menaces

arent they always

not the driving lessons book

just pass it the first time fr 🙄

GUYS

GUYS

GUYS

CUPID

SHES HERE

LOLL NOT THE STOOL CLAWD 😭😭

vampire daring charming???

“misunderstanding with the locals”?? 😭 what did girlie do??? 😭😭

is ghoulias back okay like fr

the collection of broken hearts is so extra

kinda metal idk I almost cant be mad

imagine eah characters trying to navigate the catacombs

girls would not last a minute

actually can someone make a fic I would totally read that

why am I just now realizing ghoulia can’t talk

like idk I just thought she was a bit quirky this whole time

WHY DOES DRACULARA HAVE KNIVES ON THE CEILING OF HER CAR

oh my god Draculara HIT HIM

FLOOR IT DRACULARA

she missed her chance :( vampire Elvis lives

The shot of them running towards each in slow motion just to maintain a 3 feet distance was so unnecessary

WAIT A MINUTE DRACULARA YOURE BETTER THAN THIS. YOU ALREADY HAVE A BOYFRIEND

why is dueces animation specifically so rough

he kind of reminds me of sparrow

i kinda like him

yes Draculara break it off

oh- um

THE ANIMATION ON THEIR PHONES OF DRACULARA DUMPING CLAWD?? WHO MADE THAT?? WHERE DID IT COME FROM?? 😭😭😭

wait a minute I recognize Frankie’s voice. Is that Barbie?

why does some random cow go to their school

CUPIDDDD

LOL NOT CLEO BREAKING THE CLASS

yeah Cupid shoot her

pow pow pow 💥🔫💥🔫💥🔫

okay now what the hell

get it together cupid

why does Cupid keep accidentally getting love enchanted? First clawd then Dexter lolll

the dog whistle?? 😭

clawds like. I guess you can say I got… W rizz...

”what u want” ABBY 😭😭 BEST CHARACTER ONG

this party looks kinda fire ngl

not sure how I feel about the food being served next to the body odor pit

okayyy frankieee kinda slaying her party look

cleo barely changing after being love enchanted to herself

Could this be considered a school shooting? like legally

um anyway Kitty Cheshire supremacy

rizz lord clawd

hell yea body odor pit for the win ✊🏻

why was the kiss sound so um squishy

abby is such an icon

okay it’s over

I liked this one a lot better than the last movie. I hope we see Cupid again or else I’ll rage

the pacing was like SO much better than the last movie.

my only complaints are that toralai and vampire Elvis's motivations either weren’t really explained or made no sense to me. Also the animation still isn’t great but what do you expect lol

oh wait one more complaint. where is Frankie’s personality. I do not see it

hopefully we get a good frankie episode to get to know her a bit more

also it keeps telling us clawdeen and draculara are best friends but not really showing it??

In conclusion clawd is the rizzard and Abby solos

[copperdaisy]

Did I ever ramble about my TRON OCs? I probably have in the past but heck, I am in a rambling mood so here we go again. Going with the most developed one because the references for the others are on my external HD and I don't feel like digging it out right now.

This is Drive, a soft spoken, Bit loving System Utility who drew the short end of several sticks in life but somehow managed to survive despite it. For a given value of 'survive'.

(It's okay, he gets better. He just gets roughed up first. A lot. Thanks for everything, Flynn.)

Drive is a System Utility written by Kevin Flynn somewhere towards the middle of the Golden Age of the Grid. He is part of the Database Management suite that specializes in defragging and organizing data sets. In the Good Times™ he was a jovial, upbeat program that was not terribly concerned about the political side of things. His friend circle was comprised of both Basics and ISOs (mostly Arjians; he rarely encountered Bostromites) and his opinions on Flynn could best be summed up with the '¯\_(ツ)_/¯' emoji. The End of Line was a regular haunt of his, where he befriended the mp3 DJs and had a reputation for being a terrible dancer. Life was good. But, you know what they say about good things...

Drive almost met his end when Arjia was destroyed. He had been working on a remote data terminal near the city and got swept up in the invasion. Cornered by a pair of Sentries who questioned what his business in the area was and where his loyalties lay, he was unable to answer to their satisfaction. They left him alive but horrifically scarred both physically and mentally. He was able to escape the destruction of the city, barely. Things would not improve much in the cycles that followed.

In time, rumors would being to circulate among certain circles that there was a weak link in the Database Management suite - what remained of it. You see, in Flynn's faltering attempts to balance the Grid and his responsibilities on the other side of the screen, he had rushed his coding. Drive had been written with a faulty directive re: information sharing permissions, and without self defense protocols. This meant that any information Drive processed in his work on the various databases was in danger of being shared if he was asked or told to do so, as there were no limits set in the permissions. His lack of fighting ability (or even the option to access his disc or light batons as weapons) made him a sitting duck. This vulnerability was taken advantage of by players on both sides throughout the cycles. The once gregarious program became an anxious wreck, plagued by the pain of new wounds and old.

Desperate to overcome a directive he had no hopes of defeating, he began to butcher his memory files. He couldn't give up the info if he didn't remember it, right? While this did stem some of the problem, this drastic action caused a multitude more. As time wore on his coding became more and more damaged. Drive began to suffer from glitches. Small ones at first, then more severe ones that left him dazed and confused, not unlike a program who was not properly synced to their disc. By the time Sam Flynn entered the Grid, Drive - who had somehow managed to survive to that point - was on the cusp of either turning into a Virus or literally falling apart from the mounting instability lurking in his code.

His fate at the end of Legacy, as well as that of the Grid in general, is up in the air. In the RP group I played him in years ago he overcame a lot of his trauma - and gained a few more. He learned how to trust others again. He had his chest crushed by Rinzler while trying to prevent him from breaking into the Archives. He made new friends and was reunited with old. He nearly derezzed when his code started to experience cascading failures due to the damages. He was found and rescued in time to save his life. He fell in love. He eventually let a User completely repair his coding and rewrite his faulty directive. He learned to live again and how to be happy.

Here are a few more miscellaneous facts about him.

Drive has three Bits: regular Bit Alpha, NAVI Bit Beta, and an adopted NAVI named Gamma that he found hiding in a data terminal.

Gamma was Anon's NAVI and took shelter in said terminal after its owner's demise. While Gamma never bonded to Drive's code like the other two it still obeyed him... more or less.

Drive once dated an ISO named Katina. Their split was amicable when they decided they made better friends than lovers. Katina was killed when Arjia was destroyed.

The program Drive found love with in the RP group was a rerezzed Anon. They were friends for a long while before their relationship turned romantic. It was Anon who found Drive suffering the near fatal glitch that gave away his until then hidden condition. Much earlier on in their relationship Drive had helped Anon, who was injured after a run-in with a Virus.

Parkour is one of Drive's hidden strengths. Following his recovery he sometimes helped train new Security programs by leading them in a 'wild Bit chase' race.

Speaking of wild Bits, Drive has a habit of setting out energy dishes for the wild Bit flocks on his balcony. As such, he has many Bit friends besides the two and a half that are his.

His theme song (one of them) is Iridescent by Linkin Park

Drive has several siblings who also suffer from various effects resulting from Flynn's distracted coding sessions. Might ramble about them later.

Every Siren he has ever interacted with has called him some variation of 'adorable'. He's still not sure what to think about that.

In the Good Times™ there was more than one instance of him winding up in a platonic sleepy puppy pile with the End of Line DJs after their shifts. He also spent some time hanging out with them in their booth on occasion. Watching them craft their music was fascinating to him.

[gontagokuhara]

teary rambling inbound

christ alive its not often i reckon with the fact that jump (the first fic of my “modern” writing era) is approaching seven (7!!!!!) years old. when i do think about it it’s often in a nostalgic way or a half-proud, half-self-deprecating way where i’m like “this was my peak when i was 17, god DAMN have i improved” because as much love as i hold for it and what it ended up as, it’s still nowhere near perfect! there’s so much i would do differently with my slightly more developed brain!!

but i get comments still on a more or less weekly basis almost 7 years after publishing, over 6 years since i last touched it. little ‘i just read this in one sitting!’ and ‘this brought me back into enjoying deh again’ and ‘i usually get bored during long fics but i wanted to finish this!’ that i have saved in their own special portion of my inbox specifically for jump comments because they all make my day every single time.

and then sometimes i get comments like these, all these years later, and i pump the breaks and just think.

unless i’m particularly out of touch this is like. the type of comments fic writers dream of. thoughtful, personal, crafted with a level of care that highlights how genuinely an author (even of just ‘silly’ musical fanfic) can move a person.

someone who never writes reviews was compelled to detail how deeply they’ve been impacted by *my* writing. something i crafted as a labor of love while i was still a teenager struggling through that same shit i was writing about had enough of a positive effect on someone that it spurred them to put as much into writing themselves, unsure if i’d ever even see it. this person walked away from something i created with the exact takeaways i hoped they would, and i very sincerely hope that whatever realizations this person had while reading, they take them and make their lives better because there’s nothing more i could possibly ask for.

jump, as much as a bit of an ugly duckling i think of it as sometimes, is like…a net good on the world. so many of my current best friends i met because i wrote jump. more than one person has embraced recovery and getting better and stepping into the sun (hah!), and that’s just people who have told me that — some of the mostly deeply influential fics in my life are ones i’ve never commented on myself. more people than i can ever hope to comprehend have had their day, week, month, life outlook altered in a positive way by something i created — by me.

in a period of life (not just my own, but more broadly speaking How Life Is in the present day, 2024) where things are pretty shitty and i’m agonizing more than ever over feeling useless and impactless and like i’ll never create anything of true value. sometimes i wake up to comments like these, and i slow my roll, and i can…genuinely appreciate that at the very least, despite everything else sucking pretty bad, people have made their own happiness through something i’ve created. i’ve made something of value, and even if i never know the impacts of that…those people are out there. if i could do it at 17 years, and still hear the positive influence of doing so 7 years later, i can do it again. i want to do it again. writing is making my happiness, and knowing that that could be true of other people makes it a happiness worth pursuing.

all of that to say: thank you, if you’ve ever read my silly stories before. if they’ve done something positive in your life, even for just a second, that means more to me than anything. and especially thank you to my more vocal readers because quite literally it’s people like the above comment, and people who i’m sure are reading this and know exactly who they are, who make me love writing as much as i do and make me want to do it forever, no matter the capacity.

i suppose i should wrap up now before my weepiness makes everyones tl all damp. thank you again, persephonescurse (even if you’ll never see this). your comment now also forever lives in the original jump discord server from 2017, so i won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. thank you.

[scarlettgauthor]

[to the tune of Tom Cardy's Big Breakfast]

I don't regret ordering the BIG BATH TUB I know I'll feel so good when I'm... INSIDE THE BIG BATH TUB

OKAY SO if you've read anything I've ever written you might be aware that I have a deep and abiding love of a Big Bathtub. Tragically, this was something I did not have access to in my personal life, as the house we bought had a baby tub for babies who don't like baths. Seriously, this thing was 15" tall on the outside and maybe had 12" of soaking depth if you were lucky. I still took baths, but I complained about it the whole time.

No more.

Now I have Big Bathtub!!!! Look at it! LOOK AT IT!!! I can get my boobs AND my knees underwater at the same time! I'm gonna be making cauldrons of lady soup in there! My 6'1" wife is gonna be able to take baths and be comfortable!

If you can't find me, look for me in the Big Bathtub.

(Don't look for me.)

"Scarlett!" I hear you (a rhetorical device) saying, "I love that for you, but I am also jealous! How do I get a Big Bathtub of my very own?"

Well, my friend, if there's one thing I love more than Big Bathtub, it is oversharing about home improvement projects.

SPECIFIC MONEY TALK TO FOLLOW

Given how absolutely fucking impossible it is to find any guidance online about how much this shit costs when you're just starting the research, I'll start here: This cost us $11,466.16 and took two days to install. We live in a very high COL area, and from what other research I did and estimates we got, $10-12k was about what we could expect to pay for a new bathtub and shower surround that wasn't The Same Fiberglass Shit We Already Had, AND we would have had to bring in multiple contractors.

Some necessary background: My wife and I bought our house about eleven years ago, when house prices in Seattle were at a historic low. My mom gifted us money for the down payment, which was a huge privilege, but if she gifted us the same amount of money now it would buy us precisely jack and shit. We have the stability we have due to a rare combination of privilege and luck, and I am grateful for it literally every day.

The incredibly low price we bought this house at also allowed us to manage to stay afloat through our last seven-ish years of chronic under-employment. I won't get deeply into the details, but we spent a lot of time in a place where buying myself a package of nice butter was a luxury I had to plan for. A little over a year ago my wife got a really good job (after a year of unemployment) and this summer I got a much-overdue promotion at my day job and a significant raise! Between those two things, we've finally been in a place where we can save money for house projects instead of going into debt for them, which still seems like a fucking miracle! It hasn't gotten old yet! I don't know if it ever will!

Flush on that success, earlier this this fall I got quotes for an addition on the house (something we've wanted almost since we moved in, since it's 800 square feet and has just the one tiny bathroom) and learned it would cost AT LEAST 150% MORE than we paid for this house in the first place!!! Like we could buy a whole-ass house in a cheaper area for the cost of adding on to this one! HAHAHAHA NO!! 😭😬

After a couple days of crushing disappointment I decided this meant we could pursue smaller improvements to make the house we have into a house we love, and first on the list was Big Bathtub!

Being generally handy people (ask about the shed my wife built sometime) we looked at buying a nice tub at a showroom and having a plumber install it, but plumbers don't install shower surrounds. Okay, so we figured we could probably install a shower surround? And my dad (a retired general contractor) could help? But this isn't a kitchen counter, this is a bathroom, and in this house we don't fuck with stuff that need waterproofing. We decided we wanted someone who could handle the whole thing, so I requested quotes from remodel contractors but they all told me my project was too small!

Enter Bath Planet. They're a one-stop shop that does custom full bath surround installs with a ton of options. The sales guy who did the estimate had color and material samples with him and dug through all the options to get me the deepest bathtub possible. This sucker's 22" tall! The cost included wrapping the entire window so the sill would be waterproof! If there was damage to the subfloor, they'd repair it before installing the tub at no additional cost! The warranty is really good!

(Oh man I've become such an adult.)

Not gonna lie, the quoted price was 😬😬😬 when he was done, but we couldn't argue with the quality or convenience and we were looking at a cost of close to $7k if we bought a big tub, had a plumber installed it, and then DIYed the surround (with no guarantees about how long that would make our only bathroom unusable!) so we bit the bullet and put down a deposit.

In related news, my wife and I are giving each other very few presents this Christmas, since the tub was our main gift 😂 Our savings are... Very depleted right now, so we're gonna have to hunker down for a few months to rebuild before we can think about any other house projects or expensive fun stuff, but what we lack in money, we make up for in bathtub!

As far as the timeline went, we got the initial quote on 9/20, put down our deposit that day, and then the install happened over 12/6 and 12/7. The installer was great, the work happened exactly as it was supposed to, and now we have BIG BATHTUB.

This was a wall of text, I know! If anyone has questions I didn't answer here, though, I'm happy to answer them. It's so rough trying to find home reno information out on the wide internet, and contractor websites are worse than useless for the purpose.

Meanwhile, I will be in the Big Bathtub.

[maraudersmary]

Some excerpts from the fic i’m writing:)

chapter one:

‘Thank fuck for you girls, honestly, this is just what I need.’ She exclaimed whilst flopping onto the sofa tightly between Mary and Lily, her best friends who had been there for her for everything.

‘Love you too Marls, bad day?’ Mary asked with a subtle undertone of worry. She knew it had only been six months and her friends had reason to be concerned, but Marlene didn’t need to be coddled. She pushed back the slight feelings of anger, knowing that her friends were being just that, her friends, and after everything she was the luckiest girl in the world to have people who still cared.

She dramatically sighed before saying, ‘Don’t worry, I'm okay, just casually met the love of my life and almost definitely made a very bad first impression.’

‘Spill!’ Lily exclaimed, always one for gossip despite being the kindest of them all.

chapter two:

Dinner at the Potter residence was a weekly event. The potter residence being James, Lily, and Sirius’s flat. They had been doing this for years, since they all came to uni, everyone would come together and chat and drink and cook and laugh. It was the highlight of all of their weeks, there were no expectations, no plans, just the chance to all be together and forget being adults for a night. Marlene used this night as an anchor, to remind herself of all that she still had and what she would lose if she fucked everything up again. Little had changed about these dinners in the six years since they started, they still joked and gossiped and made fun of each other, Peter and Mary still cooked the most delicious meals. Additions to the group had been made, Mary’s girlfriend Emmeline now came most weeks, Remus started coming as Marlene’s friend but now also as Sirius’s boyfriend. People had stopped coming, Gid and Fab had moved back to Spain, Benjy and Sirius had broken up and he was now firmly barred, yet for most the invite was always there should then want to attend. Just be at the Potter residence at 6:30 on Friday night.

chapter three:

tw for some depressive thoughts/metaphors

Marlene was under water, struggling desperately to resurface and not allow the tide she’d grown to know so well greet her like an old friend and carry her out of her depth. She had fought against the sea for so long at this point she had forgotten it’s power, forgotten how once she gave in, the comfort it provided. Sometimes being under water felt safest, like at least she knew she was overpowered and could surrender without guilt. Marlene knew that when she was underwater for long enough she could grow comfortable, because after all there was no happiness in death, and therefore no disappointment when joy was swept from under her and despair greeted her with a grin.

i have literally never written before and i’m aware this isn’t great but i’m hoping as i get further into it i improve:) no one ever told me that remembering the stuff you’ve written before is very difficult and therefore continuity is very difficult :’)

[lordisitmine]

about the author

I saw this going around and decided to do it even though literally no one asked lmao

1 . How did you get into writing fanfiction?

I've been writing short stories and developing characters since I was about eight years old, but when I was twelve or thirteen I was really into the Teen Titans animated series, and I wrote a story about an OC I had made (meant to be a self-insert) and Robin being in love. I had NO IDEA it was a thing other people did or that it was called fanfiction but looking back that's definitely what it was.

And then two or so years later, I was introduced to fanfiction through a friend and Tumblr and all of that. And you can bet as soon as I realised this was a thing I could do with any number of characters, and that I had a knack for it, I was INSTANTLY on it like white on rice.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

As far as my posted fics on AO3, eleven fandoms. But it's probably more like fifteen? Sixteen? There are stories I've taken down and ones I wrote for friends back in the day for fandoms I was never even in.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

If you count the infamous self-insertxRobin story (that I have since lost the file for, which is devastating), about sixteen years. If you don't count that, then about thirteen years. I'm almost thirty years old so... that's about half of my lifetime now.... *wheezes*

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I read WAY more than I write because writing takes effort and reading does not! Also, reading fanfiction is a great way for me to get in the head-space to write, so it's actually part of my process, in a roundabout way.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

Just one? Oh boy. Honestly, just proper sentence structure: e.g. "Using commas instead of periods at the end of quotations ->, <-" they said. And using fewer em dashes and italics, (thought not that many fewer oop). And shortening my sentences, not allowing them to go on and on forever. I feel that a lot of writing just comes naturally to me, and I do it so much that any improvement in voice and tone has just happened gradually, so it's hard to pin down. But I've improved in those ways too for sure, just by virtue of doing the thing repeatedly for many years.

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I cannot even think of one that is remotely weird. I'm sorry to say I don't write a lot of truly weird things- I write alternate canon/canon divergence fics, so I'm never in the wild AU territory. Stuff like undergarments in the Victorian era and how long certain wounds take to heal are about as weird as it gets for me. I did look up the shelf life of jarred pickles for a fic, once. But again, that isn't really weird at all by any stretch of the imagination.

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I love all my comments equally. I really do especially like it when people tell me their favourite specific scenes or lines, and kind of do commentary on what they were thinking/feeling while reading, as wel as guess/predict what's going to happen next. But again, even if a comment is simply "<3" or "AAAA", it brightens my day immensely. You should always send a comment if you can, authors need them to live.

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Again, literally nothing I write about is really that fringe to begin with, so it's hard to answer this question. I guess if you want to count the intricacies of Faustian bargains as I head-canon them to work, and like, made-up occult rituals and blood magic, then sure, that's probably the most fringe thing I write about, I guess.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

Anything that doesn't ultimately have a happy ending! Major character death! I cannot even conceive of how I would force myself to write those things!! I am a softy of the Highest Order who needs happy endings in my things! I do not enjoy tragedy, I do not fuck with main character death/permanent break-ups! If it happens in canon I will literally be the first one writing a fix-it. I've done it before, and I will do it again!

10. What is the easiest type?

Case-fic. Give me a character solving a mystery any day. I love committing fictional murder and then sending the blorbos off to find the fictional bad guys. It's the easiest thing in the world for me to come up with a conspiracy and a plot to take over the world and then have the protags come in and fuck shit up for the villains. I love it to death. It's my bread and butter.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I write anywhere and everywhere. At home (at my desk, on the couch, in bed), at the library, in the waiting room at the doctor's office. I use Microsoft word on my PC, my laptop, and my phone. I stopped using Google docs because of data scraping for AI and the fact they're beginning to censor explicit content, which is insane, it's people's private docs, fuck off! honestly, Microsoft probably isn't any better but it's what I'm used to so I'm kind of stuck with it, at least for the time being.

I do a lot of writing by hand! Like, a LOT. I always have, since I started writing as a kid when I didn't have access to my own private computer (the 2000s were a different time). I love it very dearly and have a whole bin of notebooks under my bed full of drafts and things. I get complemented on my penmanship a lot, and that's why, lmao.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

I've been in fandom a long time, and I was never into A/B/O. No judgment, I just didn't get the appeal. But that changed about six or seven months ago, and now I think I'd like to try my hand at writing it, having read a bunch of it now and have a better idea of how it works/what the rules and tropes are. I'm kind of obsessed with it, honestly.

13. What made you choose your username?

Way back in the distant, dark time of 2013, when I sat down to make an ff.net (remember fanfiction.net?) account, I was deep in my Supernatural phase. And reader, I was what we used to call a Sam Girl. And at the time, one of my favourite songs that reminded me of Sam Winchester was Lord Is It Mine by the band Supertramp. The rest is history.

I tag any writer who sees this and wants to do it!