#wow this is getting long sorry lol

[royaltea000]

How (if at all) has Temp changed after the whole "being burned at the stake because the french were salty" deal

Well for one I think he has a big fear of fire now naturally and (I forget to draw this constantly but) burn scars over half of his body not just on his face. He’s kinda self conscious about em and has his bad confidence days but he’s learning how to love himself more these days and it’s getting better :)

I also wanna go the really angsty route and say that because of the smoke inhalation damage to his lungs - he can’t sing beautifully like he used to and even his speaking voice is raspier and a bit quiet now

He and France are very cold and barely civil to each other now - everyone knows not to leave those two in a room together alone. More often than not Gil ends up being the default mediator between em lol

[fuzzbuns]

Misc other stuff

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[starspilli]

hey hi hello sorry if this is an annoying ask and ofc no pressure to answer it but I'm getting into the dc fandom and want to read some of the comics but am completely lost as to how/in what order/which ones to avoid/which ones to read. any tips? (also your art is amazing and I love it :D)

hi don’t worry i love this question!! & ty for the lovely compliment :,)

it’s a little hard for me to answer, i’ve been a fan of dc since i was very young & just reading whatever random comics my library had in stock LOL so its hard for me to think what i would do if i was getting into it from scratch & all at once. so just take what i say w a grain of salt lol

a lot of people recommend picking one character and just reading through their whole publication history, but i personally think it’s good to have an understanding of the broader universe first to avoid coming away with a distorted view of characters & stories. (ie i wouldn’t suggest just reading jason todd stories without reading general batman stuff first.)

i think what i would suggest is looking up a few reading guides for essential stuff, seeing what kind of stories, characters, themes etc you vibe with out of those, and then maybe looking more into specific characters / stories from that. the internet & tumblr especially is so great for this because even the most random d-list characters (affectionate) have people who love them so much they will make rly detailed reading lists which are great jumping on points!!

dc can be complicated at first glance because there’s so many reboots, but i’d say there’s a lot of runs that represent the characters & universe so well, or they’re so engrained in the lore that they’re sort of immune to retcons and rewrites so if you stick with those at first it gets a bit easier.

it’s also unfortunate because ‘essential’ reading doesnt always equal quality, and there are writers who really aren’t great people whose work is, unfortunately, very significant to certain characters. so just again. take this stuff with a grain of salt

i think if you look on google the essential reading for dc is very unanimously agreed on so there’s no point in me rehashing that, BUT long halloween & dark victory, all star superman & perez & rucka’s runs on wonder woman are pretty essential basic choices imo and i enjoy them. some more random choices off of my list of personal favs r: batman: the cult, under the red hood (obviously), batgirl (2000), task force z, justice league international (1988), bruce wayne: fugitive, catwoman: zero year, poison ivy (2022), robin: son of batman & john ostrander’s suicide squad.

as for how to read them, i know there’s a lot online but id suggest having a look in your local library to see if they have anything. i also rly like dc universe, they have a £5/month subscription for access to most of their archive which is very good & it lets you download them for offline reading as well !

if there are any characters/runs/stories you specifically would like to know more about pls send me another ask!! i hope this was helpful and not too convoluted/rambling lol. i love comics & talking about them so i never mind anons asking questions or wanting to talk about them god bles

[cerealbishh]

"Maria and Rhett knew each other way back when, they went to high school together. (...)Yeah, I think the spark is immediate because I think they maybe, secretly, always wanted to be together."

"I think that it's one of those relationships that never happened and never was but it was almost. And, I think, spending so much time apart, one can tend to fantasize what could be. (...) All of that ease of them seeing each other again is right there and it's almost as if they never left each other's side." - Isa and Lew on Maria and Rhett in an interview with Down and Nerdy(x)

"I also love that I get to tell a story about love in this really crazy, scary world(...) and we really want to root for them!" - Isa in an interview with SciFi Vision(x)

[deus-ex-mona]

my five surviving braincells when something remotely good happens:

[todayisafridaynight]

Hey so Snap this is going to be so fucking weird, but honestly don’t care. So I was watching a clip of Drag Race Philippines and it was the make over episode and I think they were making over family members and this father was all about getting into drag. So, I just wanted to tell you never forget how much of a lovely loving kind and caring father you have, who loves you and protects you and makes you feel heard. That’s all.

i'd have to die before i forget how great my dad is thank you for the opportunity to brag about him again anon

[crybaby-bkg]

I think I might take a break from writing on here (quite possible a lie) </3

[beesorcery]

google how do i tell my dad that the reason i keep bringing up elon musk's transphobia isn't that i've got gen z political tunnel vision that makes me blind to his "innovation" in electric cars but because i am desperately crying out for you as the father of a trans child to feel just as outraged and angry as i am that that man has so much power

[saturn-sends-hugs]

You ever just get absolutely steam rolled by life cause BOY HOWDY I SURE DO, so anyway—

HI!! I’m back if u noticed I left, but if not, i’m back anyway lol :D

(longer explanation under the cut if u want it?)

I didn’t really plan to just disappear like that but uh life said “Wanna know what it feels like to get run through a paper shredder?” and somehow my very firm no was taken the COMPLETE opposite direction and now I’m here

Basically, as far as fandom stuff goes I’ve been doing my best to keep working. I know where the next chapter of the fic is going, I have the scenes in my head and I just need to get them on the page hhhgshshshsghshssh.

I’ve got a couple one shots that hopefully, HOPEFULLY, I can finish at some point cause I’m really excited about those!!! There’s just a few semi-fluffy things (semi because I’ve been having WAY too many Fives feelings recently) and a very chill batch scene I’ve had in my head since Echo left with Rex (but it actually is fluff!! I promise!! …mostly but Echo is a little shit and i love him so much). Although there’s one that’s definitely… um very, very heavy. Cause writing is a coping mechanism and so is the angst 🫠. (and no @gentle-hero-blog I am absolutely not writing the finale “fix-it” where i just make it woRSE. THEY WOULD HAVE MY HEAD HERO THE ANGST IS BAD ENOUGH ALREADY BSKSHJSHSKSJSK)

I’ve also got some little artworks and headcanon things lined up so basically I’m just trying to start existing on here again 😅

But yeah, I’m back! And I’d say I’m doing better but let’s just say this is a step in the right direction at least :)))

And well if anyone was wondering what was up, short answer is I don’t deal with stress well and that’s just great cause pretty much everything stresses me out

Long answer: School decided to give me, genuinely, ten projects to complete in the next 26 days all for different subjects but it’s FINE cause they’re grouping six of those together and calling them just one project :) Also it’s finals season and my teachers are assuming WAY too much of silly little people pleaser me and also— MATH. Literally just math GOD WHY and I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster hurtling like 300 feet deep in the ocean.

I am disintegrating.

Anyway how was y’all’s May the 4th 🫠🫠

[safyresky]

@mellomadness YOU TAGGED ME TO DO THIS LIL GUY AGES AGO AND I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO IT!!

WATERMELON! We're same hatting, Max! :D

ty for the tag! if anyone else is down for this PLEASE do it it was SO CUTE 🥹🥹🥹

[mauveberries]

one of the worst experiences of my life is reading 230k+ words of a 270k+ word fic just to realise i literally hate everything about it

[mar64ds]

i am no woman or man i'm just a cartoon rabbit, i promise

[star-scrambled]

hi !!! it’s my birthday today <:3c

[mechahero]

anonymous asked- There's someone carrying around a boombox and blasting romantic tunes outside of Lambda's home. A couple of the neighbors are going to beat his ass for noise pollution. But still he waits for the cyborg to notice him!... if that even happens. recommend romantic candidates for my muses and see their reaction! (accepting)

Brows furrow as sharp ears pick up the noise outside. It was kind of hard not to hear it even with the music he was already listening to. What was that racket?!

Lambda huffs, setting his magazine down and clambering out of bed. Pink curtains are parted to poke his head between them and see just who the hell is making that noise. He spots the one responsible and blankly stares down at him before dipping back behind the curtains. He's not gone for long as his arms slide in between the curtains and opens his window.

What follows next is a shoe being tossed towards the poor sap in question.

"Keep it down, would ya?!", Lambda shouts, leaning out of the window. He's waving a balled up fist at him. "You don't need to be playin' music that fuckin' loud!"

It seems he hasn't read the situation for what it is.

[bobmckenzie]

ok i don't know WHAT kind of brain fart I had but I've been thinking today marks 6 months since I started shipping with Bob... IT'S NOT SIX DLSKJFKSF IT'S EIGHT 😳😳😳 8 MONTHS!!!

so today i learned i don't know how to count but idec bc it's my 8 month bobiversarry lol ❤️