#this is technically poetry even if its actual shit

[kageygreye-skies]

didn’t think chappell roan would impact me SO much after finding her and her artistry but she kind of literally made me fully accept that i was a lesbian and showed me there’s space for me in the community LMFAO.

allow me to take you on a fuckin journey lmfao. heres a lil story about a recent revelation about my identity that dominoed from listening to the rise and fall of a midwest princess. lol

i found chappell technically whenever she released pink pony club lol i just had never processed it was her. (i listened to midwest princess for the first time a long while who and when it got to ppc, i paused my phone, and yelled, “THAT WAS HER? THE WHOLE TIME??”), her pop sound and drag visuals were something i found refreshing and exciting. discography went triple platinum in my household fr.

watching a lesbian drag queen rise in the public has been so lovely to see, as a queer singer myself. watching that same woman be so open about her experience as a lesbian, pay homage to other gay individuals and icons, turn down the white house for a pride performance, perform at prides in states where lgbt rights are consistently under threat,,, its beyond inspiring to me! and reminds me to remember what i really want to do with my career as a performer and the people i want to lift up and pay my respects to.

this ultimately caused me to want to brush up on the queer history i knew and start learning about the history i didnt. at that time my focus veered to history about lesbians.. because i wanted to search for lesbians that shared my experience.. if there were any that did.

i have had a strange relationship with my gender and sexuality since i was 13, coming out first as bi at 15, and nonbinary at 17 (although i experienced gender dysphoria long before then). i have used the nonbinary label since, but my sexuality was something i was never sure i could settle on. i flipped between id’ing as bi and lesbian for months until i just stopped using labels so i didnt have to think abt that shit anymore😭

the term lesbian was what felt the most right to me, after years of periods of trying to convince myself that if i jump through strange loopholes and squint a little, that i could potentially like a man. i would worry and think things like, “what if im wrong and i just havent found one that i can maybe like? what if there actually is a boy who is exactly like the idealized anime-ass version of boys in my head who is also soft and girlie and would wear matching dresses with me?” i would have to use plenty of implausible what ifs just to entertain the idea. i did this even despite the fact that i cannot and do not picture a future with a man, i have only questioned my physical attraction to men when they “look like girls,” i am almost always slightly grossed out when men express sexual attraction to me, and have not had any kind of intimacy with guys where i didnt feel almost completely disconnected. i didnt find men fulfilling. it took me very long to realize that if i have to literally FORCE myself into liking them…i dont like them lol.

i have never had to question my attraction to women, butches + femmes,, ever. i could spend hours writing both prose, poetry, music, screenplays,, just fuckin dissertation after dissertation about women.. and sometimes it has taken me hours to list at least 5 reasons of “why i like this guy” that didnt involve him reminding me of a woman. guys, the comphet.. was rough. very grateful i have a therapist lol

once i accepted again that i was definitely solely sapphic, i still felt my more-than-partial disconnect from womanhood excluded me from being able to claim the lesbian label, despite how right it began to feel. i was also worried that the people around me would think i was completely detransitioning to cis,, which definitely was not the case. although i am fine with feminine gendered terms and pronouns, and while my expression and interests lean slightly more feminine, my relationship with “womanhood” has always been messy and complicated. i remember first-ish experiencing dysphoria around when i was 11, although i didnt know what that meant at the time. for as long as i can remember, the concept of “being a woman” was not something i felt was entirely me.

i knew there were lesbians that were gender non conforming, but i was not at all aware of the intertwining of lesbianism and gender identity until i began reading more about lesbian history. realizing there have always been lesbians outside of the binary (the popular sunset lesbian flag was designed by emily gwen, a nonbinary lesbian), people who used lesbian/butch as their gender identity, cis lesbians who use pronouns other than she/her, lesbians who use/have used hrt (like me i used hrt for 2 years👋🏾😀) lesbians who bind or pursue top surgery… they were always there. i am halfway through the stone butch blues now and it has actually changed my life. not only did it increase my already overflowing gratitude for my lesbian and queer elders and their experiences… but it made me really realize there has always been a space for me. when that sank in.. i felt immense relief. and then i cried for a fuckin LONG ass time lmao

since all of this i have felt a lot more sure of myself, and have embraced myself in a way i think i have always struggled to before.

so to recap… i am a lesbian. and its pretty rad. and i also love chappell roan. she reminds me of all the reasons why i love being queer and is someone i want to look up to as i continue in my finally-starting-to-go-somewhere career as a performer. one day we will collab and ill tell her all of this in person (watch out yall! it will happen i can sense it😤)

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

here’s to a year of trigun :] just a cute little (1k. oops.) essay reflecting back on how it’s changed my life.

(twitter crosspost LOL)

You know that strange, dissatisfying limbo between hyperfixations? That was me in January. A 2-year long obsession with Genshin Impact was dragging itself to its grave and I was struggling with life. I got diagnosed with a rare chronic pain disorder at around the same time I caught mono and strep simultaneously (that week SUCKED), classes were kicking my ass, and I was experiencing the existential loneliness of adulthood for the first time. 

University student things! 

And to make it all extra unbearable, my writing was empty. Soulless. I’d write something for a zine and go damn—this shit is awful. Not because it was technically flawed or anything, but there was just…nothing there. I would stare at my stats page on Ao3 waiting for comments and then bitterly complain at my friends when no one wanted to read my work. Hell, I don’t think I wanted to read my work. I’m sure you know the feeling. 

And because my writing is how I cope with Everything, being unable to write made the Everything so, so much worse.

Then—and I forget exactly how I heard about it—I learned that Trigun Stampede had just released its fourth episode. I knew of Trigun from a buddy of mine who had been excitement-posting about the reboot months before, but all I knew about the reboot was that Yoshitsugu Matsuoka was voicing the main character. I had a free afternoon—why not give it a try? 

I still have my liveblogging from January. Here was my initial reaction:

I was having a great fuckin’ time. 

February rolls around and I am immediately, irreversibly, hit with Plantcest brainrot so bad that I discard any pretense of being icked out by brocest ship and I write a 9k long KV thesis called “we’ve got to get back to that stinking garden,” named after a Natalie Diaz poem called “my brother named gethsemane,” which is, truly and genuinely, The Poem on Brothers (Complicated) of all time. That fic is where the visions and prophesies came back, where I started feeling like my writing was impactful again. Like it meant something. It was my first ever foray into in-narrative smut and the first of many, many attempts to capture a future where Vash and Knives love each other even after the end of everything. 

This is really where I found my footing on Twitter and as a short story writer, I think. Where I started really caring about making every word of a narrative pay rent, about conveying and evoking specific, tangible feelings, and exploring genres of media I’d never really been interested in before. Before February, I wrote mostly genfic and T-rated romance. Every so often, I’d dabble in some graphic violence. 

And hey! Now I write hardcore kink and graphic erotica. The gore I used to dabble in is now something I dive into feetfirst and with a rabid desire to make it as sexy as possible. I fetishize the crease of an elbow and the bristly sections of an undercut and I write about brothers having nasty, angry, dubiously consensual sex. I could not possibly tell you how I got here, but shit, man, I don’t regret a damn thing. 

It’s through Trigun that I met some of the most talented, sweetest, most encouraging folk. Plantcest creators, Vashwood creators, people who saw me writing ZazieVash and went hello motherfucker please feed me some more, Romeryl enthusiasts, Kniveswood and Plantwood enjoyers…shit, guys. You’re all so fucking cool.

I got invited to a zine for the first time, I started taking commissions (and holy shit, what the fuck, I still can’t wrap my head around that at all. The fuck you mean, you’ll pay me Real Actual Money for personalized fic? Insane to me. I’m so goddamn grateful.) for the first time, and hell, I published a poetry collection for the first time. Which people downloaded? And tipped me for? What the fuck? I’m still reeling from that. Thank you, by the way. Genuinely. 

What else this year…well. I commissioned art for the first time, I participated in more big bangs and exchanges than ever, I read voraciously and wrote with just as much fervor. I watched ‘98 and I cried and I read half of TriMax and cried some more. I wrote more erotica than I ever have, and I wrote more fic that I’m genuinely, painfully proud of this year than any other year. 

A lot of my writing is about grief and rage, and a lot of it is about trying to be funny in the face of that. A lot of is about learning to live, because that’s what I’m doing right now, despite everything. A lot of it is about trying to be kind. 

But in summary, because this is getting ridiculously long, here’s what I got out of Trigun:

Vash the Stampede refuses to die. I’m trying to emulate that. 

Meryl Stryfe cares about doing the right thing, even if it means she’ll get in the middle of a fight between aliens armed with two bullets in a tiny pistol. 

Wolfwood is carefully, disastrously kind. I want to be like that.

And Knives is nuttier than a Victorian lady in a room painted in arsenic green, but still. I love him anyway. 

And Milly :] no thoughts about Milly. I love Milly because she is also incredibly kind :] 

Trigun has changed my entire goddamn life this year. I think it’s made me a better person. It’s certainly made me a better writer, and it’s connected me to so many lovely and beautiful people. Thank you all for sticking around, and here’s to another year of love, peace, and unhinged porn. I love you all :]

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Highway Hypnosis

Chapter 5: Heimlich

I think there’s a reason people tend to gravitate toward Edgar Allan Poe when they’re about thirteen years old. They feel seen by him, and their feeling is correct; he was a grown man with the emotional maturity of a middle schooler. The entitlement, the shallowly wounded sense of self, the absolute certainty that one day the world would pay for its slights against his pride; sure, he gets you. The man spent his entire life wishing he was somewhere he wasn’t. It’s a sentiment that gets less relatable with every choice you make–every time you exert control over something in your life, you get further and further from Poe’s ideology. Damn, though. It’s awfully tempting to backslide.

I’m technically working, though I’m really just leaning against the counter at the cafe, flipping through an anthology of Poe’s short fiction and poetry that I found between the refrigerator and the kitchen sink. I haven’t read anything of his since I was nineteen and forced to read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket for a class I had no interest in. The novel itself made as good a case as any against Poe, flipping arbitrarily between long, drawn-out descriptions of boat mechanics and comparatively more exciting, though often wildly racist, battle sequences. The titular character was clearly a stand-in for Poe himself: a blatant masochist who hurls himself bodily into the jaws of danger for the chance to live out his fantasy of American masculinity. If the plot was even ten percent less contrived, I think Poe might have had a massive hit on his hands; as it stands though, Pym has become a veritable punching bag for bored and hypercritical undergrads. Not even the men of Evergreen, rugged and adventure-starved as they are, can be bothered to pick up a copy.

I can’t be quite as harsh on Poe’s short stories. The one I’m reading now, William Wilson, is actually scaring the shit out of me–I can never say so out loud, just in case Poe’s ghost is somewhere lurking in search of validation, but there’s just something about the whispering doppelganger that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It reminds me of the summers I spent here, when Len and I used to have “Fright Nights” once a week; he’d draw the curtains and douse the lamps, lighting candles and lanterns so that the shadows of his various oddities were cast high on the walls, and he’d let me pick an episode of the X-Files to watch from his VHS box set. Of all the episodes I saw (discounting the one about the family of inbreeders who kept their mother under the bed–that one he wouldn’t let me watch until I was in college with my own Netflix account), there was one that simultaneously thrilled and terrified me in almost exactly the same way as William Wilson. The agents are in Florida for some kind of conference and get waylaid tracking down an invisible forest creature that’s evolved past humanity–tall and thin, running at unbelievable speeds on the balls of its feet, blending in with the foliage. It’s uncanny and exciting, like looking in a mirror and seeing something not quite human looking back at you. Like William Wilson.

It occurs to me briefly, as I sift absently through the pages, that I have become the type of person one might read about in these stories, or watch on a Fright Night. Isolated, alone, hapless. The perfect victim, in a lot of ways. It’s getting harder to feel sorry for myself, though, and harder still when I compare my life to Edgar Allan Poe’s. Things just happened to him, or at least that’s what he thought. I’m making choices; I’m choosing to work, and when I’m not working I’m choosing to go out and explore, or decorate my home, or sit on my front porch just because. I am making the active decision to enjoy myself, a thought that would have done us out of a lot of classic horror if it had ever crossed Poe’s mind. I am trying, so goddamned hard.

“You in there?” is the familiar question that breaks me from my reverie, and I lower the book to look up into the face of Jasper Stevens, partially obscured by his tousled hair as he tilts his head down to meet my eyes. I’m somewhere in there, thanks for asking.

“What can I get you?” I ask, straightening with a smile as he shifts his weight from foot to foot.

“Something cold,” he replies, “dealer’s choice.”

“Arnold Palmer, coming up,” I say, accepting his payment before he chooses a seat at the bar. He watches me work with the same quiet, contemplative gaze he uses on me when I visit the general store. There’s not much actual work to be done; ice, lemonade, and tea. I fold my arms on the bar and lean forward after setting the drink down, and he mirrors my posture. “So,” I say, “what’s new?”

He cocks his head to the side. “You, still.”

“I guess that’s true,” I say. It’s been two days since the last time I saw Jasper, when he crushed my soul back into my body.

Jasper takes a thoughtful sip of his drink before speaking again. “Would I be correct in assuming,” he says, “that your shift ends in approximately three minutes?”

I check my watch. He’s right, of course. “You would,” I reply, “Janie should be back any minute now.”

“Good. Come to the river with me?”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, for the first time knowing that I’m saying yes to a whole person, knowing that I’m a whole person myself.

Jasper smiles–really, I mean it–and says: “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in here before.”

[jgyapologism]

i'll drive, i'll drive all night sandray fic 👀

hahaha yeahhh that one actually has one chapter up on ao3 here

basically, i was inspired after ep 6 of ofts to do a time loop fic where ray crashes his car and dies and sand ends up in the loop to fix things (kind of like triage, if you've ever watched. if not you should)

i don't have a lottttt more written beyond what i've posted. i've been waiting to rewatch ofts so that i can get a refresher for what canon sandray are like (since my version of sandray was altered via hagbdsa)

however, i can leave you with this tiny taste:

Ray’s self-destruction is like re-watching a tape he’s seen a thousand times — even if it was technically the one time. Sand has seen Ray implode before. Shit, he’s held Ray in his arms as a poor attempt to glue him back together again more times than he can count; and Ray can’t even remember half of them. But this time around, he watches Ray give his speech and realizes its somber poetry: an ode to the friends who left him behind and left nothing but cardboard cutout versions of themselves behind. It’s the final shovel of dirt on a coffin he’d been burying himself in for years, and it almost sounds like a farewell.  Sand’s stomach drops.  Ray’s car swerving sharply to the right enters his mind, looping on a never ending cycle. The screech of metal as it slammed into the cement barricade; the smell of gasoline and blood and the waves of heat as Sand tried and failed to get to him in time; the solemn notes of a song that crackled through the speakers as a reminder of Ray’s final thoughts. Maybe Ray had taken that turn on purpose. Maybe he had decided — either in the moment or long before — that living was not a worthwhile endeavor. Maybe Sand’s mistake had been the pin to a grenade that had been buried for years, just waiting for the right amount of pressure to set it off. He sees it when Ray stumbles backwards and trips when Mew throws the punch — the look in his eyes that speaks of giving up — and Sand’s heart aches. “Ray—” “Get off me!” Sand pulls away, surprised and wary and a little bit hurt, despite having no right to be.  He follows Ray into the parking lot, because what else can he do but watch the tape over again and see it through? Briefly, his hopes rise when Ray doesn’t push him to the ground, doesn’t call him a whore like he did last time, but they’re soon dashed when Ray screams in his face and begs him to answer a question that Sand has no answer to. (What are we?!) His silence is taken as an answer. The heartbreak on Ray’s face is real — but Sand has no way of knowing whether it’s due to him or Mew or a culmination of unknowns that he’s unaware of because he and Ray don’t talk about important things. Not really. And then Ray is clambering into the driver’s seat and Sand is screaming and he hears nothing over the roar of the engine and blood in his ears but Ray still peels away, tires squealing as Sand tries to get a handle on his keys but his palms are too sweaty and fuck he can’t watch this again.

Hopefully I can work more on this soon, because I love the concept and ep 6 always breaks my heart b/c ray's angst is so real and visceral but to see it from sand's perspective just makes it all the more interesting.

i have so many wips at the moment actually it's the most i've ever had i think. which is both good and bad news for me and my readers jfdjdk i keep getting distracted.

whoops

[tonyhentai]

The Inversion of Melisma

“This isn’t spoken word. It’s the reinvention of Sugar Hill.” - Sole

Originally posted at bluevelvetreview.com

You can’t discuss recitation in America without interfacing with Rap music. I mean. You can. But it would be disingenuous to do so. Not that I’m totally opposed to being disingenuous. There are times when being disingenuous is totally necessary. Just not in this particular case. When I’m discussing music theory and shit.

But what makes rap Rap exactly. No. Let’s. Just this one time. In the service of actually discussing the purely musical components of what deem quote-unquote “rap.” Let’s strip the subjectivity from the equation completely. Subjectivity is. Honestly? It’s so 20th Century to me. This notion of so-called personal experience. Ugh. It’s so sterile. This is perhaps post-subjectivity.

Anyway. What makes rap Rap? Musically? Well it’s obviously speed. It’s tempo. I mean. Okay. To some extent it’s rhyme. It’s the concept of the bar. These are true. But it’s mostly tempo. It’s speech. But contracted so that it operates at an accelerated pace. Obviously the speech needs to be stylistic. In one way or another. It needs to be good. But beyond that. What chiefly distinguishes rap from. For example. Spoken word poetry. Is that it has an increased tempo. And that tempo has a relationship with a piece of music. Even if it’s an electronic loop (most of the time). Now. Sure. You can make an argument that a slower paced delivery. With a temporal relationship to a beat. That that’s still rap. Sure. I don’t disagree. That’s a valid exception to the rule. People can and do rap and slower tempos.

But what about melisma? Isn’t melisma. From Byzantine chant to the Qurra of the Islamic world to the Gospel singers of America. Isn’t that what people generally view as an apex of sorts? An ecstasy of sorts? Where the signifier of the syllable within the grammatical structure of language gets stretched into pure sound? Becomes perhaps unintelligible. Or at least less intelligible. But. Isn’t the inverse of that process double. Triple. Quadruple time rap? Except rather than an expansion of the signifier into (relative) unintellibility we have the contraction of the signifier into (relative) unintelligibility? Doesn’t that. Make perfect sense conceptually?

I think it does. The most quote-unquote technical rappers are the ones who. Generally speaking. Are on the faster side. Big Daddy Kane and Myka 9 started this like over thirty years ago now. And the realm of rap is. Whether you like it or not. Where the most advanced recitative singing and/or vocalization is done in the English language. The English language. With its 44 phonemes. And. What? Eleven vowel sounds? Is preternaturally disposed to the contraction of itself. As opposed to the expansion that the Romance languages are. Consonants are everywhere in English.

Yet one place where Rap has. At least very rarely. Dared to go is outside of this concept of bar. The vast (vast!) majority of rap is constructed on this concept. That the relationship between the vocal and the music is one of syncopation on the bar level. This is in the vernacular. The line of the rapper is supposed to match up with the bar of music. Obviously you should rhyme too. But the rhyme should always. Ideally. Land on the same snare. Or kick. Of each line of music. This is essentially a spatial relationship. The lines extend the same length. Length resides in space.

But you could have a temporal relationship too. Right? My idea is that. I don’t know. Maybe you write unequal lines of text. But the vocal and the music exist in a temporal relationship. Now that relationship doesn’t necessarily need to be 1:1. In fact I think it’s better if it’s not. But if you have a 4/4 beat at 90 BPM then you could equate each syllable of text to. Say. A 16th note. Which at 90 BPM would impute 360 syllables per minute rapped. So if you’re rapping at or around that rate. Then you’re in a 4x temporal relationship with the beat.

It’s really that simple! You could increase the BPM of that 4/4 beat to 180 BPM. The vocals can stay static. You’d be at a 2x relationship. Or syllables would be essentially 8th notes. This is audible. Even as the signifier becomes less. Yet in this instance there’s another inversion. There’s an inverted melisma. But compositionally. Realistically. You’re probably setting the BPM based on the vocal. As opposed to selecting a beat and then constructed a verse to rap over it at that set tempo.

But to fit these many syllables into a verse? How uneven should they be? I’d personally say they should occupy the 8th interval of the Fibonacci sequence. Sitting somewhere between 34 and 55 syllables. Each line. That gives each line enough variability. But not too much variability. And it packs enough syllables into a single line that velocity can be reached. But there’s still room to. You know. Breathe?

Melisma is the. Extended technique? That brings the signifier of language into. As Charlie Looker notably said. Not into abstraction. But into raw material. Raw sound. There is no longer any representational reference. This is done by slowing. Expanding. By assigning many notes to a single syllables. The inversion of this is the opposite. But circuitously ends at a very similar results. By assigning many syllables to a single note. Quadruple time. The Ison and Byzantine cantor. The text. Of course it’s textual. But it’s. Via melisma. Or the inversion of melisma. It achieves a breaking with the signifier. A text as raw sound. As opposed to signifying representational items. It’s not a coincidence that the inversion of melisma has achieved popularity in America.

In the English language. Melisma never sounds as good in English as it does in. Literally any other language. But especially the Romance languages. The Latin languages. Or the Semitic languages. But rap. The inversion of melisma. It never sounds quite as good in those Romance languages. The vowel-based languages. With fewer phonemes. They can’t stylize the inversion of melisma the way English can. Just as English. With 87 vowel sounds surrounded by infinite consonants. Can never get melisma to quite the technical level or Italian. Or Greek. Or Arabic. Yet this inversion of melisma. I mean. Melisma isn’t a bar-based style. Rap as we understand it today? It’s incapable of truly reaching appropriately unhinged levels of inverted Melisma. Melisma is naturally uneven. So to truly invert melisma. It requires a method to make the lines uneven. But still somehow relate to the specific music as well. Which has been shown here.

[libunityfan69]

why auscap.. whys he australian… i need to know this lore.. it keeps me up at night

glad u asked because im so insane but everyone* i talk to just accepts auscap without question and it hnngngh

so for a little backstory it started in september last year** when i went away with a family friend who had also watched centricide and i asked "wouldnt it be funny if ancap centricide was australian" and there wasnt a single thought behind our eyes when we unaimoiusly agreed yes that would be funny and que the next 2 or so months of being the most annoying headcanoner ever but hey it was fun.

at the same time i was in 9th grade english class in australia and our topic was poetry analysis of silly bogans pre/during the gold rush and the more we analysed the more i was like "hey this shits kinda like ancap centricide" because idk if you have ever been in an australian english/history class but theres a lot of talk about the "[white] australian identity" mainly around when brits began moving here outside of sendign their convicts and during ww1. and the australian identity is mostly centred around being somewhat anti authoritarian and while not technically based in capitalism it was about rich british people getting a taste of the bush and not shutting up ever

because of [white] australias history being in the convicts sent over from england theres an intrinsic sense of anti authoritarianism that was albiet a lot more common in the 19th and 20th centuries but i digress its still relevant idc because it was used in these little bushmen shit where they would idolise this life living outside the government at the time

so the poem that we used for the exam at the end of year 9 english unit 4, while i dont rember the name of the poem nor the writer, i do remember what it was about and what it was about was this guy writing for 6 fucking pages about the bush and how it was so cool and literally made for him he loves it so much and at the back of the pages there was a little biography of the author and you find out that this fucking guy hadnt stepped foot in australia before turning thirty, hes some rich fucking english bloke who came over for the gold rush and left almost immediatly after. the poem we were analysing came from a guy who had never even seen the bush !!! and idk i think thats pretty ancap core

and for a last round of background info from september-november 2021 i actually dmed jreg back n forth about it and ended up getting jrem to confirm auscap as real, and it was real for a whole month before the gender tier list stream on twitch where i asked and jre said that ideologies cant have nationalities um !!! thats not what u told me in dms !!!! also i didnt have any socials at the time that interacted with the centricide fandom apart from my discord so if u were in the authunity server i am NOT sorry for being so annoying about it

tl:dr white australian history is anarcho capitalist also i thought it would be funny

*everyone excludes ps, the owner of the athunity server, who hated auscap so much he banned the use of the word "australia" in the server, fuck you ps-and nankeen and riley, my australian buddies who actually inquired on auscaps existence yall r real ones (i havent talked to nankeen in 8 months)

**i say september because TECHNICALLY the headcanon + first dm to jreg happened in late spetember but i celebrate the anniversary on the 8th of october because that was when my sister edited the image of ancap and made auscap into something tangeble

[thosesillylittlegayghosts]

Episode 8 thoughts

Omg I’m almost done

Honestly loving all these intros, although my favourites still the crow one

Ohhh wait no nikolais gonna get attacked in the chapel isn’t he

KAZ GAVE NIKOLAI HIS CANE THEY ARE IN FACT BEST FRIENDS

WYLANS HOLDING JESPERS HAT

my man! I mean we haven’t actually put a label on that have we? GOD I LOVE THEM JESPERS SUCH A DISASTER BI I CANT

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID I LOVE YOU

Ding dong mals dead

SLAY ALINA

Darkling shut up. No one cares and I mean that literally

SLAY SHE DID IT GUYS

NIKOLAI NOOO

INEJ GHAFA DOING A SPIN MIDAIR WAS SOMETHING I DID NOT KNOW I NEEDED

Lol look at him talking about how he’s gonna live while he’s dying

Slay Alina you will in fact save yourself

Inej save her life rn

OMG SHE THREW THE SWORD SLAY INEJ I LOVE HER SO MUCH

Are they seriously tryna push the darklina agenda rn?

OMG NO SLAY SHE JUST FUCKING STABBED HIM

AS SHE SHOULD

Why’s his blood black?

NIKOLAI MY BELOVED ITS GONNA BE OKAY NOT FOR A LONG TIME BUT EVENTUALLY IT WILL BE

Kick him zoya he deserves it

IS BURNING THE DARKLINGS BODY THE BONFIRE THE CAST WAS TALKING ABOUT?? DO THEY LITERALLY HAVE A BONFIRE AROUND HIS BODY?

Also there’s still 49 minutes left I’m not entirely sure I want to watch them

Who’s body?

KAZ KNOWS POETRY?!

God Nikolais best mates dead and he’s so heartbroken

Kaz go to Inej challenge

Does Alina not lose her powers?

Not Kaz watching Inej

Nikolai and zoya in the same sentence….that it. Is that all we’re getting?!

THEYRE JUST STARING AT EACH OTHER

JESPER I LOVE YOU BUT FUCK OFF

YES KAZ GET THAT MONEY

Tamar and Nadia holding hands!

JESPER BROKE THE FOURTH WALL

OH SHIT WHAT?? DOES MAL NOT LOVE ALINA ANYMORE?!

Nina and Kaz being besties

Nina talking about clawing her way to a happily ever after and KAZ LOOKING AT INEJ

NO MATTHIAS DO NOT TEAM UP WITH PEKKA

NO NO DAVID BETTER NOT BE DEAD ALREADY

NOT A RUBY AND THE DESIGN FOR A RING NO FUCKING WRITERS NEED TO CHILL THE HELL OUT WHAT THE FUCK

IT WAS BAD ENOUGH IT WAS THEIR WEDDING DAY BUT THEY DIDNT EVEN GET ENGAGED

WHY IS THE DARKLING GETTING MORE OF A FUNERAL THEN DAVID

Zoya and Nikolai finally in the same place and they’re not even gonna flirt

Ngl them having this conversation over the darkling burning corpse is a power play

AHHH THE BEE OMG THATS SO SMART THATS ACTUALLY SO SMART CAUSE ONLY SHOW WATCHERS ARENT GONNA NOTICE ANYTHING

OMG WHAT MALS GONNA BE A PRIVATEER?! WHAT

Yeah but if your paths are that you both decide not to see each other again that’s not really proving anything is it?

MAL DIDN’T GET THE TATOO THANK GOD

Bestie Alina don’t cry he’s really not worth it

INEJ PRAYING IN THE CHAPEL

Is that Kaz brekker? Yes it is!

AYYY MATTHIAS GOT HIS PARDON

AHHH HES SAYING GOODBYE BUT KAZ BREKKER DOESNT SAY GOODBYE

HES BEEN SENDING SPIES TO AUCTIONS TO TRY AND FIND THE GUY WHO KIDNAPPED HER

HE WAS LOOKING FOR HER FAMILY BECAUSE HE DIDNT WANT HER TO LOSE HER BROTHER

INEJ PRAYS FOR JORDIE

WHAT DO YOU WANT THEN?!?!! AHHHHH HE WAS GOING TO SAY YOU INEJ YOU AND THEN HE CHANGED HIS MIND AND SAID ABOUT THE GOLD

HIS MOUTH STARTED MOVING TO SAY YOU AND THEN HE STOPPED HIMSELF

HE ASKED HER TO STAY

FUCK OFF IM NOT OKAY RIGHT NOW

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

STAY IN KETTERDAM STAY WITH ME

I WANT YOU TO I WANT YOU

THEYRE TECHNICALLY HOLDING HANDS

AND HOW WILL YOU HAVE ME

I WILL HAVÉ YOU WITHOUT YOUR ARMOR KAZ BREKKER OR I WILL NOT HAVE YOU AT ALL

I CANNOT COPE WITH THIS LIKE AT ALL

Off topic but Inej looks so gorgeous

ITS THE WAY THE TWO MAIN KANEJ SCENES IN THIS SHOW BOTH TAKE PLACE IN PLACES OF WORSHIP?!

THE HOPE IN HIS EYES WHEN SHE SAID I WILL HAVE YOU

AHHHH NADIAS GOING WITH TAMAR

AHHH MALS STURMHOND NOW?!

OMG INEJ IS GOING WITH

FUCK OFF NO WHAT

I WAS CONCERNED A FEW EPISODES BACK THAT TOLYA WAS CRUSHING ON INEJ AND NOW IM SCARED AGAIN

ISNT HE ARO IM PRETTY SURE HES ARO

It’s giving pirates of the Caribbean theme song

YES INEJ IS HUNTING SLAVERS

BUT MAL IN NIKOLAIS COAT IS DODGY

NO MATTHIAS HAS TO FIGHT WOLVES

PEKKA ROLLINS GO KILL YOURSELF RIGHT NOW

MINOR SLAY FROM MATTHIAS?!

OOOOO NINAS PIIIISSED

Oh shit Nina the letter!!

HES BUYING OUT INDENTURES FOR INEJ

AND THAT GIRL KESH FROM THE FIRST EPISODE

Aaaaaa slay Nikolai

Nooooo Nikolai

HE LOOKS LIKE THAT FANART THE OUTFIT DOES WITH THE BREECHES

AHHHH HES TURNED INTO A DEMON

SLAY ALINA HONESTLY THAT CROWN IS A GOOD LOOK

NOT UNLESS YOUR THINKING OF ME INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FORGET HIM

AHHH NIKOLAI AND ZOYA IN THE SAME ROOM AGAIN

Zoya and genya are also looking gorgeous

YES ZOYA YOU COULD INDEED FIX HIM

Omg so is the triumvirate gonna be zoya genya and Alina rather than David?!

But I look amazing in blue YES YOU DO

OMG ZOYA CALLED THEM A TRIUMVIRATE (which is also not how I thought it was pronounced like at all)

AN OPPORTUNITY HAS PRESENTED ITSELF METHINKS ITS THE ICE COURT

WHICH MEANS THEY HAVE TO GET INEJ BACK NO?!

Ayyyy nikolais officially king

Are divorces a thing? If Nikolai and Alina get married then they just get divorced and Nikolai can end up with zoya right??

JURDA PAREM

SHES GONNA TRY KILL NIKOLAI

Oh god turn nikolais coronation into a bloodbath why don’t you

Slay Alina

[m-madeleine]

For the book questionnaire, 17 please?

17. Top five books of the year

In no particular order:

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Oof. A much-needed addition to the conversation as well as just a great novel. Absolutely turned me inside out. Also a great demonstration of how it’s possible to write ~diverse characters who are also extremely flawed people, take notes. 

Zwischen Koran und Kafka by Navid Kermani. It tapped into all my favourite nerdery subjects in the exact way I enjoy (well. I profoundly disagreed with the theatre chapter :P) -- as well as providing some much-needed healing regarding public discourse shit I found extremely upsetting at the time it was written. Very glad to have found another strong immigrant voice in Germany (the fact that he’s a great writer doesn’t hurt).

Girlhood by Julia Copus. Sometimes the best poet you’ve read in a while is someone you’ve randomly pulled off the library shelf? I mean just 

“Adolf Büker, it was not the soldier in you but the lover who shaped my life. I think of him now, the morning you left for war. Your new young wife beside you doesn't know yet how the story goes. Your final battle tucked in the future still, she is laying the breakfast unaware that already my sweetheart's grandmother is safely landed inside her - meaning I live not in some other world but here in this one in which your great grandson returns each evening at the end of both our working days, and the light bounces off my glass any ordinary morning [...].”

hello I’m sobbing 

Paper Towns by John Green. Look, I know, but to my own surprise, John Green doesn’t suck actually. He might be a little repetitive across his body of work, but I enjoyed this first take I’ve read on this kinda story. 

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up by Marie Kondo. I actually didn’t find the book on its own a perfect explanation of her method, the Netflix series and also reading about people’s experiences with it did a lot of work, but I’m letting it stand for my discovery of re-organizing my life. I didn’t become a strict disciple of anything, be it the konmari method or minimalism, but the idea of considering whether items have a place in the future with you and letting go of the guilt over unwanted and unused things honestly changed my life. 

(Honorary mention for The Secret History, which I read most of last year, but technically finished in January. I think what people liked back on 2013-ish tumblr were the ~dark academia vibes and the miniscule gay bits, but honestly it’s just deeply entertaining. Popcorning over horrible people only gets better when they’re also hilariously pretentious and don't have a shred of self-awareness.)

I also just realized I named an adult novel, a YA novel, a poetry collection and two very different kinds of non-fiction, which was certainly not on purpose, but hey :D

[insteadoflight]

snores

rise from the other bed as my 

tired runs beyond feeling and into a state of being. my mother asks me for help after dinner and i respond i

“am so tired. too tired to be around people”

and she looks at me across the table with sympathy in her eyes and wishes she can do something other than stare and whisper, “okay. another time, then” and i go upstairs to my room where i will lay on my bed until now, when i am falling awake at five am and wondering where all the tired has gone.

brother sleeps through the night in the way that i cannot. 

[atlabeth]

everything happens for a reason part one - zuko x fem!reader

I am not your concern 

masterlist | part 2 

summary: as a servant in the fire nation, you’ve learned that life is often unfair. but as you venture through a tumultuous relationship with a certain prince, you come to learn a very tricky lesson: everything happens for a reason.

a/n: im so excited about this guys you dont even know. i have so much planned and i hope you all love it as much as i do - just for reference, in this first chapter y/n is 9 and zuko is 10

wc: 2.3k

warning(s): mentions of a raid, reader and zuko both being little shits lmao

chapter title comes from not your concern by the hush sound! 

Y/N sprawled out on the grass and sighed contentedly as the sun shined down on her and her mother. Today was easier than most as they had been given the day off, an occasion that was rare in the royal palace. She closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh scent aerating their surroundings. Her senses were blessed with a mix of sea salt and fire lilies, an ever present reminder of the two worlds she walked in.

“Y/N,” her mother chided as she glanced down at her daughter from her sewing. “You shouldn’t lay in the grass like that. You know how hard those stains are to get out; I don’t need even more work on my plate.”

“Yes, mother,” she sighed as she sat up with mock exasperation. “I just feel like I should take advantage of this! We spend all day inside, and now that we’re out here you’re worried about things like stained clothes.” Y/N pushed herself to her feet and spread her arms out as she spun in a small circle. “Life is short, and I already spend all of it sewing and healing. Don’t you think I deserve some grass stains?”

“Did you find your way into the poetry books again?” she joked. “Of course I think you should have fun, but you know how things are here. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

She continued to twirl, the soft breeze a welcome sensation on her skin. “I know, I know, but you don’t need to worry! I can—”

“Dear, watch where you’re going!”

Her mother’s warning didn’t reach her in time, a fact that became known to Y/N as she collided into the boy in front of her. A small gasp escaped her as recognition filled her now wide eyes.

“Prince Zuko!” she exclaimed, nervous hands finding their positions as she bowed. “Please forgive me for the accident, I didn’t realize you were there.”

Y/N had never spoken to the young prince directly — she mainly shadowed her mother while she did her work around the palace or honed her healing abilities under the watchful eye of Rika, their most skilled healer — but she knew enough to understand that she was to never disrespect the royal family in any way.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a small smile, alleviating the tension that had built up in her shoulders. “I’m sorry too, I wasn’t paying attention either. I actually came here for some help.” As she straightened her back, she noticed the bundle of fabric he was holding. “Are you Kura?”

“Oh, no. That’s my mother.” She pointed behind her where her mother greeted the prince with a respectful nod and smile of her own. “Did you come to get something fixed? She’s the best seamstress in all of the Four Nations.”

“My daughter flatters me,” Kura chucked. “What is it that you require, Prince Zuko?”

“She’s right, actually.” He held up the bundle of cloth which Y/N now recognized as one of the many outfits he owned. She didn’t consider herself a jealous person, but the prince’s extensive wardrobe was an exception to that rule. She had one set uniform for her work supplied by the Fire Nation, and a threadbare set for everything else that her mother had bought for her after saving up what little copper they had to spare. Y/N didn’t mind it too much as she was able to practice her sewing whenever the seams broke, but she was sure that her handiwork made up more of the outfit than the original by now.

“I tore one of the sleeves while I was training with Azula,” Zuko expressed with a frown. “I showed it to my mother, and she said that Kura would be able to fix it. I had to go through every single servant to find you, so I really hope you can. ”

Kura set her current project down and took the cloth from the prince, examining it with the skillful eye of a seamstress before meeting his eyes with another smile. “Of course, dear. I should have it ready for you by tomorrow; my daughter will deliver it to your quarters around midday.”

“Do it well,” he demanded. “I can’t focus on my training if my clothes are falling apart.”

“Hey!” she spoke up, scowling as she crossed her arms. It was like every shred of sense Y/N had disappeared the moment he talked down to her mother. “This is our day off, so you should be thankful that my mother is taking time out of her day to do this for you. Be nicer to her.”

“Y/N!” her mother scolded, her tone frantically apologetic as she turned back to the prince. “Please, forgive my daughter. She speaks her mind far too often, she doesn’t mean any disrespect.”

“No, you’re right.” A thoughtful expression found its way onto the young boy’s features, his eyes trained on her own displeasure. “My father always talks that way to the servants and I guess it came off on me. I’m sorry. It’s not nice.”

“Apology accepted,” Y/N said reluctantly.

“Thank you for your help. I’ll make sure to tell all my friends about your work.” The young prince smiled and walked off, though not without a curious second glance at the girl who righted his wrong.

As soon as the prince was out of range, Kura began to berate her daughter. “Y/N, by now you have to understand that under no circumstances may you ever speak to a member of the royal family like that! Do you know what kind of punishment you could’ve gotten if anyone else was around to hear that?”

She sighed and settled back on the ground, plucking a blade of grass from the ground. “I know, mother, but he needs to learn manners, prince or not!”

“That’s not how it works here. Our job is to serve the royal family without question. Sometimes they say mean things, but we can’t do anything about it. Apologies are not yours to demand or accept.”

“That’s not fair,” she mumbled as she wrapped the strand of grass around her finger. “Back home I could say whatever I wanted.”

“I know, honey, I know. But we’re not at home anymore, so the rules there don’t apply. We have to follow the rules that are put in place here. Can you promise that you’ll do that for me?”

“Yes, mother.” It was a phrase that seemed to always be at the tip of her tongue now that constant apologies were littered throughout her days, usually accompanied by a sigh.

“I miss home,” The murmured sentiment was almost too soft for Kura to hear and her heart sank. Her daughter’s gaze was trained on the ground, idle fingers tapping against her legs, and she put a momentary pause to her sewing with a sigh.

“Dear, don’t you have a healing session today with Rika?”

“You know I don’t,” she grumbled. “It’s my day off, which no one seems to remember.”

“Y/N.” Kura’s voice was more firm and she now understood that it wasn’t so much a suggestion as a demand. “I think you should pay Rika a visit.”

She heaved an exasperated sigh and stood up in a far more exaggerated gesture than necessary. “Alright. I’ll see you later tonight, mother.” And as Y/N began her walk back to the palace, a sour feeling brewed in her chest.

Kura watched on, unable to prevent the fear that permeated her thoughts. They were fortunate that the young prince was generous, but along with his mother they might’ve been the only two who shared those views in the royal family. She hated having to constantly admonish her daughter — the girl was too young to constantly live in fear, especially having already been through so much — but in the Fire Nation they couldn’t afford to do anything less. A spitfire girl like her daughter was constantly treading on thin ice, and it was all she could do to keep her safe.

Kura feared the day when she wasn’t there to protect her.

-

After a short walk that consisted of muttering things to herself and taking her anger out on the pebbles unfortunate enough to be in her path, Y/N found herself back at the palace. She let herself into a side entrance meant only for servants and set on her way to the infirmary when she collided with someone else — an apology was already on the tip of her tongue when she recognized it was Prince Zuko once more. She truly had rotten luck.

Y/N shot quick glances around to ensure that they were alone, then lowered her voice just for extra security. “My mom says I’m not supposed to talk to you like this, but I don’t care. Just because you��re the prince doesn’t mean you can just go around bumping into people!” she whispered angrily.

“But— you were the one who bumped into me the first time!”

She could feel her face heat up from embarrassment and she crossed her arms. “Just— whatever! Do you want something or do you just like popping up in places you're not supposed to be?”

“I guess I just wanted to talk to you,” Zuko shrugged. “I’ve never really seen you around before, and you’re interesting.”

Y/N scrutinized him trying to find out if he was tricking her somehow, but after staring at him for a solid ten seconds she finally caved. “Fine,” she said, already beginning to walk. “But you’d better make it fast. I have to get to a healing session.”

He took a few quick steps to catch up to her and frowned. “I’m the prince. Technically I could order you to stop and you would have to listen.”

“Yeah, well when it’s just the two of us, you’re just another boy. I don’t have time to talk to boys for hours.”

His brows creased for a moment as he thought about it, then ultimately shrugged once more. “Okay. You said you were going to a healing session- does that mean you’re a waterbender?”

She nodded, and Zuko waited for her to explain further. He heaved a sigh, realizing that he was going to have to carry this conversation. “Well.. what’s a waterbender doing in the Fire Nation?”

She fixed him with a puzzled look. “I’m a servant. That’s why I’m here.”

“I know that,” he frowned. “But most of the servants here are from the Fire Nation, and there are hardly any around your age. I’m just trying to get to know you better.”

Y/N sighed heavily — she now knew that the child prince of the Fire Nation had zero sense of boundaries, and if she wanted to get him off her back she had to answer to his satisfaction. “My mother is a waterbender from the Northern Tribe. She left home when she was young to travel the world and help who she could with her healing, and eventually she fell in love with an earthbender. That was my father — they ended up marrying and settling down in his village where they had me a few years later. Last month, my village was raided by the Fire Nation, and my mother and I were captured after they discovered we were waterbenders. And now I’m here, being annoyed by a prince.”

Zuko frowned once more — it seemed if he continued hanging out with this girl the expression would be stuck permanently on his face — and he suddenly felt ashamed for pushing. “I’m really sorry,” he muttered. “I had no idea.”

She heaved another sigh and shook her head. “Yeah, well they probably keep a lot of the bad things they do from you. It’s easier to send raids to destroy families when your children don’t know.”

“What happened to your father?” he questioned.

Y/N’s body stiffened, and she had never been more thankful to see the infirmary door. “Save your questions for next time,” she grumbled.

Zuko’s eyes lit up, her earlier stumble going unnoticed, and a small smile found its way across his lips. “There’s gonna be a next time?”

She managed to cover up her own growing smile with an ambivalent shrug. “As long as you don’t bump into me again.” Y/N opened the door and gave him a polite parting nod before disappearing inside.

“Good afternoon, Master Rika,” she said with a small bow. “I know this is unexpected, but my mother insisted that I come here to—”

“Let me guess,” the older woman interrupted with a raised brow. “Kura got tired of you and sent you here to annoy me instead?”

Y/N chuckled and rolled her eyes good-naturedly as she pushed the sleeves of her tunic up to her elbows. “When have I ever annoyed you?”

“That’s a question you don’t want me to answer,” she joked as she rummaged through the closet to get supplies. “Besides, what was that smile for? Meet a boy on your day off? A girl?”

Her eyes widened momentarily and she felt the heat rush to her cheeks intensely. “I don’t ask you about your life while we heal, you shouldn’t ask about mine!”

Zuko, who had been eavesdropping by the door in an extremely un-covert fashion, felt an even bigger smile. The girl was prickly as a cactus, but he found himself strangely drawn to her — not in spite of it, but because of it. He was so used to anyone he talked to outside of his immediate family and friends bending at the knee to fulfill his every will, and it was exhausting at times. But this girl — Y/N, as he had learned — was the complete opposite.

He started to walk away, sure that he was late for some kind of session of his own. Zuko found himself thinking of the glimpse of a smile he got, already finding himself scheming up ways to make it return.

And despite her request, he was almost certain he would try to bump into her again.

[ilovehimbos]

wait guys stfu anderperry dancer au omg

//

omg so todd would so be a ballet dancer idc argue with the wall.

the andersons r a long line of successful and extremely talented ballet dancers. this means that todd was immediately pressured into becoming the best ballet dancer possible as soon as he could, as per tradition. however, this pressure turned into neglect aswell, after jeffrey proved to be a rlly gifted ballet dancer !!

todd anderson is a transfer student to welton academy, which is basically like a dance school or a theatre school, at the beginning of the fall semester, having transferred from balincrest academy, a famous ballet school.

he meets and befriends neil perry and the dead poets and they all become rlly close quite quickly and confident w them!!

//

neil would be more of a swing dancer, the charleston is his favourite dance, but he’s also rlly gifted in ballroom upon his father’s orders ! he’s also secretly studying musical theatre and practicing acting/singing

the perry family r like newly established wealth which is one of the reasons mr perry pressured neil into ballroom and classical music, in order to appear fancier then they r rlly. neil, subsequently, hates being forced to do ballroom dancing but doesn’t necessarily hate the actual type of dance or the waltz etc

neil is one of welton academy’s top students and he has a rlly bright future ahead of him, no matter what ave he goes down !!

//

it all begins when todd transfers from balincrest to welton. he meets neil perry and the boys and he and neil pretty much become inseparable from that point on !!

however, as much as todd gets along with the boys, he still remains in his shell, apprehensive and shy.

btw the dead poets meetings still happen except they discuss music and dance along with their poetry.

todd still remains shy while doing his ballet privately, feeling bad about it bc how he will never compare to his older brother or manage “to fill his big shoes” in his absence.

neil however feels he can't express himself properly and that he's trapped in a life sculpted for him that he will never shape. he wants to live and be free and dance how he wants.

mr keating, a new teacher who teaches poetry/music and kinda dance??? inspires the boys and bit by bit, they all start to bloom under his influence.

todd starts to believe in himself more and allows the other boys into his life properly after the gay scene with neil

and todd???? actually is rlly good at ballet???? which surprises the guys when he finally dances for them??? bc he was so shy about it????

they cried bc it was so pretty and then he cried bc they were crying

//

the poets, crying bc holy hsit that was so beautiful they didn't know dance could be that graceful:

todd immediatley tearing up: omg y'all hated it i'm sorry

//

but it was rlly bc his parents drilled it into him that it wasn't “up to their standards” and he didn't prove the long anderson bloodline proud.

neil starts being happier and freer in his dancing, and begins to swing dance and the like more often!! infact, he even auditions in school productions and gets the lead most often !!!

and todd starts doing lowkey things with his ballet but by next yr he would be much more ok with shows n shit

todd has personal beef with mr keating after he made him do a billion pirouettes

neil makes todd charleston with him and despite his poise and grace as a ballet dancer, that boy has two left feet omg

he left with sm bruises that day

charlie’s favourite dance is the charleston bc he thinks he's funny. he's not!!!! becuase i Said so

cameron can ballroom dance but actually prefers to play the music and he's literally like a scholar with the piano, its v pretty!!

knox does everything bro. he's just there??? any type of dance??? he's probably done it??? its honestly pretty intimidating

meeks again prefers to work behind the scenes as he's a bit better with more technical stuff but he and pitts r a more free ans modern dancing duo

i love them sm

[gogglor]

Cap-Ironman RecWeek: What-If Wednesday

Time for another installment of @cap-ironman rec week! Today’s theme: AU’s.

I know AU’s in different settings are half the reason most people read fanfics, but they’re not really my thing on the whole. AU’s where different choices are made, or different events transpire? Absolutely. Coffee shops? Not my cup of... you know.

So, here’s my AU recommendations for mostly “turn left” scenarios. This time with an under-the-cut break so I don’t take over everyone’s timelines (sorry about that last post). Also with some summaries truncated for length.

Alone Like This

Author: GotTheSilver

Word Count: 7,452

Summary: Steve, post waking up, runs away from SHIELD, and Tony's the one who tracks him down.

Why You Should Read It:

First off, GotTheSilver’s been consistently and regularly putting out solid Stony since 2012 and not only are they not stopping, they’re only getting better. This writer doesn’t get nearly the fanfare I’d expect in Stony circles for someone who puts out this much good stuff, and here’s hoping this post can be a part of changing that.

While I am always a sucker for enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, there’s something to be said for stories where Steve and Tony hit it off right away. And watching these two very different people look at each other and see the same sense of being lost, then finding each other again is... excuse me, there’s something in my eye, ignore me.

Second Chance Lives

Author: raeldaza

Word Count: 43,872

Summary: Tony's gonna die of palladium poisoning anyway, why not join a pointless expedition to recover Captain America’s body? And after, well, why not dedicate his last few months to making sure an American hero settles into his new life? What else is he going to do, get drunk at parties?

Why You Should Read It:

This writer doesn’t write a lot for the MCU but when they do, dang.

“Tony is the one helping Steve acclimate to the new century before Avengers 2012″ is a whole genre of Stony fanfics that scratch an itch I didn’t even know I had before I started reading fanfiction, and this is one of the best ones out there. It’s got it all - Steve poorly coping with his PTSD, Tony poorly coping with his immanent mortality, some breathtakingly poor communication between the two most emotionally stunted men in the MCU, and a cat named Roomba. What’s not to love?

Should You Choose to Accept It

Author: elwenyere (look, you’re gonna be seeing a lot of them this week, sorry-not-sorry)

Word Count: 27,106

Summary: After a terrorist attack and a field operation gone wrong, the Avengers realize that Nick Fury's secrets are just the start of a much bigger mystery. Steve and Tony try to keep some things from each other as well, but that can't possibly affect the mission — right? Mission Fic + Getting Together (or Mission: Getting Together) that mashes up elements from Iron Man 3, CA: Winter Soldier, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season one, and Mission Impossible 3.

Why You Should Read It:

You can see my post yesterday for singing El’s praises, but what I really liked about this fic was how how damn creative it is. The CAWS/IM3/AOS mashup is everything I wished the actual MCU gave us and more, with well-developed characters and an exciting story to put them in. And because it’s El, you know the banter’s gonna be on point, the way the characters care for each other is gonna be emotionally constipated but touching, and the pacing’s gonna be exciting enough to draw you in and keep you there. Also, this fic doesn’t have nearly enough kudos so please go read it and fix that or I’m gonna have to try to hack AO3 and that’ll just be embarrassing for all parties involved.

What Happens In Vegas

Author: sabremc

Word Count: 161,951

Summary: “What the hell, Tony?” Rhodey demanded brusquely.  Tony winced and drew the phone away from his ear.  “You’ve got cops and Feds all over the hotel.  I’m watching you perp walk out of the police station on repeat on CNN.  They’re saying you tried to bribe Stern?  Fox News has you selling weapons on the black market, and God that picture they’re using is the one from Bali in ’09.   You look like shit.  They wheeled Stern out and put him in an ambulance, by the way.  Got some paparazzi swearing you decked the guy.  Now they’ve got ‘copters following it like he’s OJ.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, Sourpatch, I’ve got it covered.   Uh, though, I should probably tell you that, purely in the interests of national security and the greater good, I kind of had to fake marry that stripper-gram  you sent.  Thanks for that, by the way,” Tony added quickly.

Why You Should Read It:

If you’re deep enough into Stony to see posts like this on Tumblr, you probably know sabre’s what we in the business call a “big name author.” They’re prolific, they’re popular, and most importantly, they write words good (technical term). Seriously, sabre just keeps cranking out high quality stuff over and over again, raising the bar for the rest of us like a jerk (not really. I’m not bitter they write stuff so good I wish I’d thought of it first. Not at all.)

I never read stripper!Steve or stripper!Tony as a rule, but this came so widely recommended that I broke that rule and boy am I glad that I did. This is also the only fic on this list that’s a true-AU, with Steve being a non-powered vet from Afghanistan who left his army career to help Bucky and is stripping in Vegas to raise money for a prosthetic arm. He’s booked to do a private show for Tony, shenanigans ensue, and now they’re fake-married. This fic’s got some top-of-the-line banter and character development, but I particularly love it for its rich setting. Sabre paints a Vegas not just with strip clubs and blackjack tables, but KISS-themed minigolf, romantic dinners on the Eiffel tower, gaudy hotel lobbies, and making out on giant ferris wheels. It’s such a richly developed playground for the characters to play on, and through it, Steve manages to find a life for himself he’d given up on, and Tony finds multiple ways to show his kindness and depth of feeling for Steve. I know the word count’s long for this one but trust me, you’ve gotta read this fic.

Wait & Sea

Author: Lenalena

Word Count: 53,244

Summary: In which Tony and Steve get sent on an undercover mission aboard a cruise ship to make contact with Hydra. In this AU the military has kept the discovery and defrosting of Captain America a secret, so Steve and Tony have never met before. Yet they are to pose as newlyweds....

Why You Should Read It:

This one’s old and popular enough to be considered one of the “classic” Stony fics, and for good reason. Lenalena doesn’t write too often and not as much as they used to, but the fics they have up there are an absolute delight.

This is another fic that I skipped a bunch of times for being outside my comfort zone, but when I finally read it I saw why everyone’s so wild about it. In this story, Steve’s defrosted a bit earlier and not revealed as Captain America. He and Tony are sent undercover to sniff out Hydra shenanigans on a cruise and, because it’s fanfiction, they’ve got to pretend to be a married couple while onboard. There’s tons to love about this fic, but the things that bring me back to reading it over and over is first, Tony’s kindness and the way he’s attuned to Steve’s feelings, which... God, just inject “kind, observant Tony” straight into my veins, please and thank you. This is also another really rich setting for a story, and Lena knows how to fold the the hokeyness of the cruise into the seriousness of the mission and the depth of feelings Steve and Tony are finding for each other in a really beautiful, layered way. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s steamy, it’s gripping... why are you still reading this here? Go check it out for yourself!

Ashes to Ashes

Author: dirigibleplumbing

Word Count: 51,582

Summary: After regrouping following some surprise time travel, the world's heroes and sorcerers come up with a plan to protect the Mind and Time Stones by taking them into space in opposite directions. The result involves a lot more time loops than Steve would like, but at least they're getting a second chance to stop Thanos. (As well as a third, and a fourth...) And if Steve takes the opportunity to try to reconcile with Tony, too—well, they have the time, and Steve's going to make the most of it.

Why You Should Read It:

Dirigibleplumbing’s another name in Stony fanfics that does not get nearly as much fanfare as they deserve. They’re consistently a really creative voice in Stony fanfics and I always look forward to their stories showing me something new. Go read all their fics, I need more people to geek out with me over them.

I tend to limit myself on Steve-and-Tony-mend-things-after-Civil-War fics not because they’re not good, but because they’re so heavy, and also the Sokovia Accords have five hundred layers of crap in them that no good fic could possibly hash out well. This one, though? When you add in the Infinity War/End Game fixit? Poetry. Art. Music to my ears. DP wrote a really engaging, twisty story where it’s hard to predict what’s coming next, in spite of it literally being a pseudo-Groundhog day scenario. The characterizations are great, the story is engaging, and the feelings are big and sad and eventually happy. Go read it, you’ll love it.

I have tons of other recs for this category but this seems like a good place to stop for today. Tomorrow’s Alternative Media Thursday, and I’ve got some real gems I’ve been saving for that day (aaaaand possibly a self-rec or two ;)

[hackedbyawriter]

fic writer interview

Tagged by: @yass-rani Name: Sargun/HackedByAWriter

fandoms: SMZS, Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion. Good Omens, Marvel, Padmaavat, Bajirao Mastani, Shadow and Bone + Six of Crows, Star Wars, Harry Potter (Marauders Era), Merlin, The Locked Tomb Trilogy, Night at the Museum, Narnia, Bollywood, Deltora Quest and more but I can't remember them rn. two-shot: these are technically one shots but who gives they are in two parts :) 'blues and purple pink skies' , 'life was a willow (and it bent right to your wind)' and 'starry eyes sparking up my darkest nights' most popular multi chapter fic: without a shadow of a doubt its 'The Glass Mosaic' like it has fan art, a fan page, fanfics, a place in the urban dictionary, it even has an article that mentions it and just has received more love than it deserves to be quite frank. there is also ain't it like thunder a post TROS finnpoe fic that I absolutely adore writing rn so I decided to mention it. Actual worst part of writing: Slogging through the less interesting parts of a story. and pacing. pacing fucking pacing please kill me. Also writing smut it’s very frustrating in the “fuck me how the hell am I supposed to write this without sounding stupid” How you choose your titles: I usually have a title around the same time I start the story if I dont have a title I use random title generators. sometimes I ask my friends. My pirate story is still literally still titled 'Pirate Story' tho so idk if it's a great method. do you outline: I outline as I go. like if im writing a chapter i'll write down the scenes i want in bullet points and expand on those. I sometimes outline 5 chapters at a time but I hardly ever outline a whole story. ideas you probably won't get around to, but wouldn't it be nice: for sure it would be my SMZS demon x demon hunter AU set in British Raj India. In which Aman is a demon hunter and Kartik is a demon. Aman is about to retire but wants to catch one last very old very powerful demon who has eluded him for many years and he's been researching for ages (this demon happens to be Kartik). Kartik joins him in his search for the shits a giggles but soon the two of them fall in love. Betrayals and Burdens and Death and Dark Magic. It sounds so fun to write. But I think I'll only write it if someone wants to write it with me bc Tgmm had taken over my life rn. callouts @ me: Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Star Wars, you are my home fandoms I need to write more for them. best writing traits: characterisation, dialogue and character inner monologues. I'm also good at poetry and poetic language. Not to be arrogant I don't think there's much that I'm bad at I just need to hone in on the skills I already have. spicy tangential option: I want to write more smut. Not because I like writing it but because sometimes a story might require it (ie slow burns) and I need to to be like “yeah okay I got this” instead of chickening out as I usually do. I’ve only ever written it once (and I traumatised everyone with curtains) but I want to get more comfortable writing it and I want to be able to write it for various couples (doing so respectfully of course and I would never write explicit explicit bc no). was that spicy enough? Tagging: @legendarilymessedup @your-villainous-neighbour @dhyanshiva @aziraphales-dirty-laundry @satrangee-ray @onmywayto-pigfarts @thisissab @fandom-food-fire

[grenade-maid]

☕️ poetry as like, a medium

I want to preface this with the fact that I really love poetry and I think it's genuinely one of the most incredibly potent mediums out there. There's this common refrain that "poetry gets such a bad rap, people don't give it enough of a chance!!!" but like, quite honestly I kinda understand where that bad rap comes from. Like, I go to the poetry section at most libraries, check out a handful of books, and almost without fail a lot of them seem to have been written by a bunch of people huffing their own farts out of a paper bag. A lot of the people I've met who make a big deal about liking poetry, the ones who tell everyone to give it a chance? Same farts, same bag. It's exhausting. I don't think this is a failure of the artform, though, or even the people who love it.

Rather, I think that poetry operates in its own distinct different way, just like any other medium. Because much of our cultural idea of poetry is centered on stuff written by bourgeois fucks two hundred years ago, it's easy to feel like there's nothing in it for you. For it to be powerful and engaging, you have to have a sense for how to engage with it, and, like any other medium, find the pieces within it that speak to something within you.

See, I think poetry is fundamentally really similar to short stories, short films, comics, of course, but also individual illustrations, because their limitations really magnify whatever the artist is doing. So if they're trying really hard to show off some virtuoso technical shit and don't actually know how to use it effectively to evoke something meaningful, it's going to look even sloppier than if they had more space to work with, just because it can't be hidden behind anything else. If they're trying to build a mood or evoke a feeling or just SAY something and can't figure out a way to deliver it to you in the space given, they probably haven't actually got it figured out very well.

See, like, when people look at art, they often mistake having a lot of details for having meaning. I mean how many times have you been looking at concept art or reading a comic and seeing like, for example, a fuckin' enormous sci-fi cityscape--every window is individually hand drawn, light reflects perfectly off the puddles on the ground, there's flying cars, there's ominous corporate infrastructure, there's a guy on a bike with a visor and a robot arm with every bolt and wire meticulously detailed and a leather jacket covered in patches and pins that you can even read the text of if you zoom in far enough--and you turn the page and have already forgotten about it because despite all that effort, nothing about that drawing really communicated anything. It doesn't tell you anything about this world, or this city, or the people in it, or the author, or what kind of stories this is meant to go with.

Like, let's make a comparison. Here's like a glossy jpeg of your standard cyberpunk city. If you've been on any art site you've seen a billion of these. Do you get anything out of this? Like it looks fine, but does it make you feel anything? Does it tell you anything? I don't wanna put words in your mouth but I'm guessing no.

And then let's compare it to resident favorite Tsukumizu, this page from Shimeji Simulation:

Despite being much much simpler, it's PACKED with compelling information. If you showed this single page to someone, they might not be able to guess what Shimeji Simulation is about necessarily, but they'd already have a pretty good idea of what kind of a story it is, what feelings it invokes, what ideas or concepts it's drawing from.

A lot of poetry is like the first image, where no matter how pretty it looks and how much effort went in, it's hard for a lot of people to find something in it to be gripped by. But the best stuff is like the second. And I think what poetry does best is capture intensely concentrated feelings and thoughts and experiences and inject it straight into your heart and skull cause it bypasses any kind of sensory judgement about how it looks.

Like, we've all seen this little gem:

And as funny as it is, I think it's a great example of what poetry can do as a medium!

The tiger - Full stop, line break, we don't need to spend time faffing around telling you what kind or what it looks like, this is just the platonic ideal of TIGER with all the feelings and associations you have with it.

He destroyed his cage - Full stop, line break, the action has begun, we don't need to tell you how he did it, that's up to your imagination, but already you can picture it, right? We've set the scene with everything you need to know. He was in a cage. Doesn't matter what kind, doesn't matter what context. He was in a cage. And he didn't just escape, he didn't wriggle through the bars, he destroyed his cage. How does a tiger do that? Doesn't matter. That statement fills the mind with ideas already.

Yes

YES - Triumph, exaltation, ecstasy, again, what more needs to be said? We aren't just happy, this isn't a sigh of relief, this is unrestrained excitement. That communicates a lot! A tiger breaking out of its cage can mean many things, after all. It might be exotic danger to be faced down if we're in a Rudyard Kipling poem, it might be terror if this were Edgar Allen Poe, and so on. But in two words we have established that no, in this case, the tiger getting out fucking owns.

The tiger is out - Full stop, conclusion. It's a sentence brimming with energy about what could possibly come next, and ending there leaves that mark on our brain. Because that's the thing--this poem is telling a story, definitely, but more than that it is evoking the feeling of this specific moment. If this moment took place in a full length book and a whole chapter were dedicated to it, we'd have a lot more detail, totally, we might get all kinds of themes and symbols and a rich characterization of the situation and the tiger and so on and so forth, but the raw impact of this moment would be lost in all of that. Here, in twelve bare words, we can encapsulate that feeling of that moment in a way that is more potent and memorable than if it were told any other way.

Another of my favorite poems, Little Viennese Waltz by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated and put to music by Leonard Cohen, opens like this:

Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women

There’s a shoulder where death comes to cry

There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows

There’s a tree

where the doves go to die

There’s a piece that was torn from the morning

And it hangs in the gallery of frost

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz

Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

I've been going really long so I'll keep this brief, but this is another great example of just pulling these incredible images to mind, that fill the mind with really potent emotional meaning that wouldn't translate to an image or a longer piece of text without having their effect drastically reduced. It creates this image of a dreamy, almost fantastical place, marked by incredible heartache and beauty. It's difficult to imagine in practical terms what it would mean to tear a piece from the morning, or what it would mean for a waltz to have a clamp on its jaws, but reading them, hearing them, you can feel what it means very clearly.

A lot of this comes through especially well when we start talking about translating poetry--because you are forced to contend with, well, what was the author DOING here? 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei is a great starting point on this, and it's pretty short, pdf can be found here and there's also a personal favorite of mine, which is In Praise of the Music of Language, which contains 88 translations of the same french poem done by everyone ranging from professionals to just regular people. Each of them end up evoking very different pictures and feelings despite all working from the exact same template. Really incredible stuff that speaks to what can be done with so few words!

[snackzimmerman]

Nursey leaves poetry all over their room.

This wouldn’t be A Big Deal (even though a year ago, there would have been a reckoning so great that not even pie could smooth it over) except for the fact that it’s.  Well.  The sappiest thing Will has ever read.  He hasn’t brought it up yet, but -

“It’s weird, right?” he asks, fidgeting with a pencil.

Chowder draws another shark doodle in the margins of Will’s notes.  It’s a small price to pay.  “We’re seniors, dude.  I’d write lovestruck poetry over Cait, if I thought it would turn out well.”

“Your poetry is terrible,” Will informs him, and is promptly hit in the face by a notebook.  “I’m saving your relationship!”

“I’m just saying, graduation makes people sentimental!”  Chowder retorts.

Will rolls his eyes.  “There’s plenty of time until graduation.”

“Dex,” Chowder says suspiciously, “you’ve started your senior thesis, right?”

“Yes,” Will replies, because he has.  Kind of.  He’s got a rough outline.  “I’m not Bitty, Cap.”

“No, you are not.”  Chowder sighs, both in relief and disappointment, and waves a hand at him.  “Now make me some pies, Bitty replacement.”

“Technically, the captain made pies last year.”  Will grumbles, but he climbs off Chowder’s bed and leaves him alone.

“Nobody wants me to make the desserts, Dex!”  Chowder calls after him.

Considering the poetry is Nursey’s, it’s pretty good.  As far as Will can tell at least - words have never been his strong suit.  He can’t even consistently string sentences together in his own head.  His roommate listens to classical music and musical theater and songs that have messages instead of easily repeatable choruses.

What is the point of listening to something that takes you hours to memorize.

Will thinks the issue is that Nursey and romance have rarely been linked together in his mind, because all he seems to do is date someone for a few months, avoid introducing them to anyone on the team, and then get dumped.  Then Will and Chowder have to throw him a pity party, which Nursey inevitably seems to enjoy more than the relationship.

Those are the facts.

However, the newest fact is that Nursey is writing sappy poetry, which he’s never done before, and there’s been absolutely zero mention of anyone new - secretive weirdo.  He’s always at least told them there’s someone, in the past.  Will knows for a fact that Nursey would be pissed if he pulled this kind of shit.  Probably because he has.  Last year.  Whoops.

“Seriously, Dex, I think six months is enough time to tell us!”  Chowder complains, crossing his arms in an attempt at anger.  The pout he’s sporting ruins the effect.

Nursey throws another eraser at him.  Will is fairly certain he bought a new pack just for this purpose, which is cheating, because now Will can’t steal one of those erasers every time he needs one.  “Chyeah.  Very unchill.”

“The word chill has lost its meaning,” Will says sagely, and the offended look Nursey gives him almost quells his urge to murder.  “But we broke up.  End of story.  I’m telling you about him now.”

“Why not before, though?”  Nursey sulks.  He’s not even throwing his eraser.

“Oh, like you can talk.”

So.  Interrogation it is.

“Nursey.”

“Dex.  Chowder.”

Muffled whispers.  “He didn’t leave me with anything to say.”

“Stick to the script, Chow.”

“I really don’t see why the cop light is necessary,”  Nursey speaks up, unimpressed.  Wordlessly, Will switches it off.

Chowder slams a stack of papers down on the desk.  “Derek Nurse, as your captain, I demand you tell us who you’re writing about.  There are papers everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” Nursey frowns.

Will pulls another few papers from his pockets, slapping them down one after the other.  “Dining table.  Blender.  Couch.  Shower.  Oven.”

“How did those even get in there?”  Nursey mumbles, and Chowder presses his index fingers to his lips.

As much as Will wishes he could take credit for stashing them in enough places to create a problem, Nursey’s done that all on his own.  Chowder being on his team just outweighs the distress at baking a pie that came out covered in flaming paper.

Possibly out of guilt, Nursey had fearfully eaten an entire piece as Will made aggressive, angry eye contact.

Will grabs Nursey’s face in his hands and shakes it.  “Please.  I have read so much more than I ever wanted.”

“You’ve read them?”  Nursey yelps, at the same time Chowder points out “Nobody’s making you read them.”

“Also,” Will says slowly, scanning the latest poem.  “If she has hair this short, and she wears flannel, and - is the red hair natural? - dude, she might be a lesbian.  Like, totally not judging, but that’s kind of a style.”

Nursey looks like he wants to die.  Chowder looks like he wants to kill him.  “... how many of these have you read?”

“Maybe…” Will thinks back to when the poems started, months ago.  “A hundred?”  

As Nursey slowly pulls his hoodie over his head, Chowder stares at him with deadened eyes.

Gradually, Will starts to realize that this may have been a serious breach of privacy, in which case he’s a dick.  “I don’t mean to, but they’re in our room, Nurse.  Our shared room.”

Nursey lets out a high keening sound.

“... I’m really sorry?” he tries, and Chowder pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You should be,” he says, and leaves.

Nursey shows no signs of reemerging from his sweatshirt cocoon, so Will hesitantly settles in the seat next to him.  “So.  Freckles?  That’s kind of a lame thing to write so much about.”

“I like them,” Nursey grumbles, and Will feels.  Hmm.  Warm.  His face is warm, that’s gross and he hates it, okay then.

Nursey’s hypothetical person probably has nice, controlled ones across the bridge of their nose.  That’s always cute, even if Will himself doesn’t look for it.  He likes… something else, that’s dangerous to think about.

He rolls his shoulders, as if he can roll the thought out of his mind.  Nursey groans, emerges from his hoodie, and blinks up at Will like he’s mad.  “You suck.”

“What have I done now,” Will deadpans, “beside invade your personal privacy and interrogate you about something I have no business knowing.”

Nursey always looks at him like he’s looking at his whole face, instead of just his eyes.  “Figure it out.”

“Very mature.”

“Chill,” Nursey drawls, corners of his mouth poking up, and Will watches the shift.

Uh.  Okay.  Maybe Nursey and romance are tied closer together in his mind than he thought.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” his mouth manages, and Nursey blinks at him.  Stupid betrayer of a mouth.  “Could I - guess who it is?”

“Oh my god.”

“Do they have glasses,” Will starts, and Nursey pushes him out of his seat.

“No,” Nursey says through gritted teeth, “because they are stupid and take care of their eyes and are you.”

Will blinks up at him.  “Actually, I might need glasses in a few years.”

Then he grabs Nursey’s arm, pulls himself up, and flicks the string of his hoodie.  “I’m ‘like a tiger lily’?  Had to look that one up, by the way.”

“Fuck off my similies,” Nursey moans, and Will links their arms together to prevent his escape.  “I had written a lot.”

“This creates unfair expectations,” Will informs him, “because now I have to code, like, two hundred programs that somehow express affection.”

“Or,” Nursey suggests, “you could just go out with me.”

“Very poetic,” Dex says, and runs out the door before Nursey can tell him that the correct word is ‘eloquent’.  “Meet you at Annies!”

[tiny-stack-of-knights]

AH SO I FINALLY FINISHED AN OFFICIAL REF FOR MY META KNIGHT GIJINKA AND? Not gonna lie I’m pretty happy with his design and stuff (:

I HAVE. SO MANY NOTES

So uh feel free to read them below the cut 😳

warning it’s a LOT

OKAY HERE WE GO

for starters, these are specific to my gijinka, buuuuut most of them also fit my general interpretation of him

- Meta Knight is not his actual name. It’s just the title he gave himself to sound cool.

- As such, he’s not technically a knight, just in spirit. A meta knight, if you will (:

- He takes his image very seriously. It used to be so bad that he would take literally everything seriously, and had a reputation for sucking all of the life and fun out of everything and anything. But, he’s softened up a lot since he came to dreamland. He’s actually a pretty fun guy nowadays (and maybe just a little chaotic, or, rather, enthusiastic when excited...)

- Because of his once dreadfully serious nature, his face is stone cold and “dead eyed”. Once he broke himself of his old habits and lightened up, he became humiliated by how stone faced he is, and it’s one of the many reasons he wears his mask.

- Speaking of his mask! He is sensitive to light, and his mask helps tone it down for him. He can go without it, but if he’s in a well lit area for awhile, he will start to get a migraine.

- As such, he has pretty good night vision.

- Yes...he is very bat like. That’s for a reason! My hc for my puffball gijinkas is that they have a lot of traits similar to their wing type. For instance, since Galacta has bird wings, they have some bird like features like sharp vision, soft feathers strewn about their hair, and squawking when startled.

- Yes, this implies that Meta makes cute bat-like trills and squeaks......(he also purrs. puffs purr, because they are basically just round cats)

- He is very kind and caring beneath his persona, which has become more and more evident. He is also incredibly protective of those close to him. He secretly worries he will lose them, and as such, he does everything to keep them around.

- Despite his agility, he can be quite clumsy at times. This has led to some...embarrassing injuries.

- He’s tiny! 5’0 with heels and 4’10 without them, but since he almost always wears them, he will tell people he is around 5’0 (but almost 5’1!)

- As a knight of sorts, he has a strong sense of chivalry (which is basically canon). It is hard for him to accept any sort of kindness, since he feels he owes something in return. He always makes sure to express his gratitude however he can.

- However, he is really bad at emotions and expressing himself. He suppressed most of them early on when he was painfully serious, and as he’s lightened up, he’s had to deal with actual emotions.

- He uses art and poetry to cope with this and express his emotions. He never lets anyone see it though.

- He also draws cute things. He loves cute things, but is still hesitant to let others know this, as he worries it will

- a) damage his reputation and

- b) confirm to him he is, very much, a rather cute little puffball

- There are many (often very specific) things he is fascinated by, and can talk on for hours on end. However, his more personal and less “serious” interests he rarely talks about to anyone he isn’t close with, and if they’re brought up in public, he often gets very flustered. (yes, he’s shy but he’ll never call it that)

- He loves sweets and has a passion for baking. He’s quite good at it, but not at cooking actual meals.

- Despite Kirby (and the meta-knights) thinking of him as their dad, he is absolutely horrid with children. Does not know how to deal with them. He gets very flustered (and often frustrated) if he ever has to watch them. Since he doesn’t really know how to deal with them, he kinda just treats them as he would anyone else. Because of his caring and protective nature, many still consider him dad-like.

- Oh yeah, Kirby is the exception to this since he is (usually) such a wonderful little dude. If left alone with the other puff, he can act like a semi-competent father. It is very rare that this actually happens though.

Okay, time for some darker headcanons, including a lot of post Mecha Knight stuff (‘:

Oh yeah I have a Mecha Knight gijinka too 😳

-He suffers from depression. This was one of the main reasons he used to be so dreadfully serious, and why he’s so used to suppressing his emotions. He used to use his knightly persona as a not-very-healthy way of coping.

-As a bit of a lighter note, after many years of care and support from his friends, he’s seriously lightened up.

-However, he still has days when it surfaces, and it often takes the whole day to get him back to a more functional state. Yes, even Meta Knight has to take mental health days sometimes (:

-He has a serious issue with abandonment. He worries nobody could actually care about him, and frets constantly that he will lose the people close to him. This stems back to when he got his wings, as many saw them as “demonic” and as a “bad omen”

-Because of this, he has a really low self esteem, which, again, is why he used to live through his knight persona primarily, and was so ashamed of his actual self.

-The Mecha Knight incident left him with serious mental scars, giving him minor ptsd through nightmares and panic attacks when strongly reminded of the incident.

-It also left him with a robotic eye and arm.

-During his fight with Haltmann Works, his non-gauntlet arm was severely injured. Instead of just trying to fix it, Susie gave him a shiny new robot arm. It was originally Haltmann red and black, but he repainted it and, with some help from his crew, slightly modified it to more of his style.

-He also had an eye replaced in order to be compatible with the “eye” that swerves around the mask. He’s been too scared to try rewiring or recoloring it.

-The Mecha Knight incident really set him back from all the progress he made.

-During the first few months post Mecha Knight, he hid himself, only showing up when needed. He became paranoid of him hurting his friends without knowing it, which furthered his isolation.

-Much like how he managed to learn to cope better with his depression, it took him a lot of time and help to get him back to where he used to be.

-And, to end this little segment on a happier note, as of the time of Kirby Fighters 2, he’s much happier than he’s ever been. He’s made a lot of progress, is much more open with others, and much more accepting of his soft side (:

I could honestly go on and on, I have SO MANY notes that haven’t made it into this post, including his backstory, his relationship with the other characters, and a few other miscellaneous details (I even gave him a more...normal name that he never uses cause its cute and why not). If anyone’s ever interested in more though, feel free to ask me, I do have anon ask on after all, and boy do I have a lot to say (:

God, maybe I put a little too much thought and psychoanalysis (and maybe just maybe a liittllleee too much projection) into my interpretations but? hey, I had fun with it

If you actually read all of this bullshit, holy shit thank you and I hope you had fun too (: