#<- tagging for my own blog not so that people will find this in the actual tags?? 🫣

[highvern]

Dessert First (TEASER)

Pairing: Kim Mingyu x f!reader

Genre: baker! mingyu, wedding planner!YN, fluff, smut, angst, exes to lovers

warnings: lots of mentions of food

Teaser Length: ~1k | Full Fic Length: ~15k

Note: bringing back my boo mingyu for @camandemstudios Lonely Hearts Cafe Collab. check out all the amazing fic (26 in total) on the master list. everyone has worked so hard and im so excited to read them thank u pookie @gyuswhore for beta reading

summary: You've got a great life. Your wedding planning business is booming, your clients are great, and you're finally over your ex-boyfriend after years of pining. Or you are, until the universe decides to test if those three things are actually true.

collab m.list || m.list

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked.

Comment to be tagged in the full fic coming February 17th!

It started with the coffee maker.

By all accounts you could buy a completely new one that actually worked but some sentimental part of you liked the baby blue machine with scratched enamel and an inability to brew a full pot in less than twenty minutes. If your coffee maker worked the way it was supposed to then you wouldn’t have left your apartment ten minutes late. And if you hadn’t left your apartment ten minutes late then you wouldn’t have arrived on the subway platform just as the train doors closed, forcing you to wait another ten minutes for the next train and by then the mist of rain outside devolved into a biblical downpour leaving you soaked to the bone despite a rain jacket and an umbrella. 

At least the binder containing every last detail of your life for the next two months is safe.

Sprinting down the street, your shoes squish through filthy puddles. No point in taking the extra time to dodge them, you’re already twenty minutes behind schedule with a ruined pair of brand new loafers. The only saving grace is Will and Sarah’s, your clients, habit of running at least thirty minutes behind. Which is why you told them the meeting started at 10AM and not 10:30. 

So technically you aren’t late. Yet. But you planned a thirty minute buffer to meet with the pastry chef and discuss color scheme, flavors, and logistics before Will and Sarah arrived to ensure everything went smoothly. As smooth as it can with clients that believe more is more and have no budget. 

The cafe bustles to the brim with people trying to escape the tsunami outside and enjoy something sweet. Damp businessmen sip cups of coffee while thumbing through damp newspapers, college students cram over notebooks with cookies by their side. A group of moms cluster on the couches, baby toys and lattes strung across the table while they share the latest playground drama. You can see yourself bunkered down at the table by the wide bay window, typing away emails and finalizing calendars with a hot cup of coffee and one of the massive croissants displayed on the counter.

Will and Sarah insisted on using Dessert First for their cake. They had their first date here and you can see why they love it so much. The display case sits packed with cakes and pastries; tarts with jewel like fruit, iced treats that make your mouth water. The heavenly scent of almond, vanilla, and coffee clouded the air. Plants hung from the ceiling, a shelf in the far corner stacked with pre-packaged goods to go.

You can almost forget the chill seeping into your veins from the cozy aroma of vanilla and espresso. A perfect oasis in the middle of the overcrowded city.

You’re still ten minutes early according to your watch. Plenty of time to devise a battle strategy with whatever unfortunate baker owns this place. You couldn’t find anything about them online, no pictures or reviews that mentioned them by name; only one article in the city newspaper announcing the grand opening last year which obviously resented a bakery replacing the former pizza shop that was shut down due to a myriad of legal issues. Who knew money laundering was so prevalent?

Even when you called to schedule this meeting you couldn’t get a name, just one of the cashiers promising to put you on the calendar before hanging up without asking for any of your information.

Stepping towards the cash register, a lone employee taps a quiet beat on the counter with his fingers, lost in his own world. Vernon, his name tag reads. You're almost certain this is the same man you spoke to one the phone.

“Hi.” You plaster on your most convincing smile, hoping it distracts from the wet mess of your…everything. “I’m supposed to be meeting with the pastry chef. I’m—”

He cuts you off with a snap. “You’re the wedding planner lady, right?” 

“Yep, that’s me.”

“I’ll let him know you’re here. You want a coffee?”

“A coffee would be great,” you sigh in relief. 

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Nope, just black,” you nod. “Thanks.”

Vernon fills a mug almost to the top before sliding it across the counter and disappearing into the back with a swish of the kitchen doors. While he grabs the mysterious baker, you head towards the table in the window. It’s perfect. You can see the entire cafe and the street, with plenty of space for everyone to gather around. Plus, it’s far away from the A/C blowing steadily on the opposite side of the cafe.

At best, you hope your new colleague will take the stress of this wedding for the premium pay. Sarah and Will want a lot but they’re willing to put their money where their mouths are. And unfortunately, they’re nice. Pleasant to the point you can’t fathom telling them no.

There was a point where you felt the butterflies they felt, and you wanted the same dream wedding they wanted. Maybe that’s why you’re willing to do whatever it takes to give them the perfect day they envisioned. That, and the promise of high end clients if everything goes well.

You’re too busy organizing everything to perfection on the table to notice a new presence over your shoulder until he clears his throat. This isn’t how you planned to introduce yourself but you steel against the embarrassment of the morning and turn around. “Hi, I’m—”

Mingyu.

Any hope of this working shatters into a million pieces before your eyes.

Fuck.

taglist: @tomodachiii @cvpidyunho @miniseokminnies @ddaengpotate @arycutie

@gaebestie @primoppang @gyuguys @mine-gyu @doremifasire

@missminhoe @toplinehyunjin @crvs4vldtn @prettygyuuu @sliceofwoozi

@writingbarnes @dokyeomkyeom @christinewithluv @minwonfairy @wobblewobble822

@futuristicenemychaos @seungkw1 @horanghaezone @jespecially @scoupsjin

@isabellah29 @luvseungcheol @crisle19 @iamawkwardandshy @lukeys-giggle

@aaa-sia @tinkerbell460 @gyuhao365 @ourkivee  @bokk-minnie

@cookiearmy  @moonlightwonu @kyeomofhearts

@melonacco @lllucere @wwjagabeee @syluslittlecrows @yourbimbohope

@whrryuu @wonrangwoo @xchaenx @champagnenoona

[verecunda]

...okay. Right. I find villain woobification annoying as hell too, and pointless. (Especially with Sauron, because holy hell was there ever a villain who was having so much fun being a complete and utter fuckwad, why would you ever want to take that away from him??) And I'll fight for my right and everyone's right to bitch and grouse in our own spaces till the cows come home about the takes we find annoying.

But this: The serious woobification (not the semi-joking kind) needs to stop and frankly it’s lowkey insulting.

No. It doesn't need to stop. It's not doing any actual harm. It's twee and annoying, and it sets my teeth on edge, but we don't get to tell people what they can or can't do in fandom. We're also responsible for curating our fandom spaces. We can blacklist tags and block certain blogs, ignore bait posts - there are lots of things we can do to filter out the stuff we don't want to see. But we absolutely do not have a right to tell other people, "No, you're not allowed to do this."

Starting to see something more and more in other fandoms but it’s also brewing within Sauron fandom which is I don’t get villianfuckers who are deluded or in denial about the fact their fav is a villain.

Then woobify them to the gods until they resemble very closely of the “good” ML they hate lowkey which is funny.

Your fav did some pretty heinous fucking shit and should be either dead or punished severely for it and that’s what I advocate for in my villain favs cause I ain’t a PUSSY

Sauron is a villain. The reason we like him is because he’s a villain. He chooses villainy when he’s given many chances not to. I genuinely don’t get the urge of wanting to redeem him. Yes he’s complex with a lot of feelings and nuance but he doesn’t want to be redeemed. He’s not an ambiguous anti villain by the time we are in Second Age/Third Age. He’s not Adar

The serious woobification (not the semi-joking kind) needs to stop and frankly it’s lowkey insulting.

[messenger-of-babel]

Hello, I was hoping you take requests. If you do, can I please request one with Nightwing where the reader is his best friend and she gets kidnapped by the Joker and is badly hurt and how he deals with it? Thank you very much!

I Told You So

Summary: Dick remembers the risks of befriending civilians when you disappear one day.

Word Count: 2.7K

Notes: Dear anon, I hope that you still hang around my blog, and I'm so sorry this took so long to get to you after angstober. I had so many other ways to take the themes, but I opted for a more subtle approach. I hope it is close to what you were looking for. 💙

I'm working through my requests! I love getting these in my inbox so for everyone that has sent one, please know that I LOVE seeing these prompts and I plan to do all of them. Warnings for graphic descriptions of injuries and violence and a slightly shaky fic. Getting back into the swing of things! (Also want to say I went back through my blog and re-read every comment and reblog tags that people have left and I love that people love my work so much.)

Reblogging will summon Nightwing to be your Valentines this year! 💙💙💙

Love RiRi <3

━━━━━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Dick had told himself not to be friends with civilians way back when he had started being a vigilante. It had been a quiet sentence that he had uttered to himself in the depths of his mind, and one that was overshadowed by his personality at every moment from then. It was almost like a defunct rule that just sat there for the sake of playing on his conscious.

 By nature, he was too outgoing, too eager to involve himself in the community and connect with the people that he fought for. He wanted to help the kids at the orphanage when he made trips with Bruce, he wanted to talk to those gathered around food trucks getting cheap meals because their apartments had been destroyed in last week’s bad clash with Scarecrow. He wanted that connection, which let him keep Dick Grayson away from the suit. The suit that called to him like a siren. If he wasn't careful, he'd end up just like Bruce, a shattered reflection unable to distinguish who was looking back at him at the end of the day. Another martyr who had sacrificed his soul and let the kevlar devour him wholly.

So, when he hung out with you, he was Dick. You reminded him that he was Dick Grayson, and the pressure that sat in his chest always eased. You had met when he took Haley in for her shots, a dimly lit vet clinic with underpaid staff and underfunded equipment.

"Sorry about that." you chuckle, head dipping down to nod at your own dog, who was pulling at the lead to get to Haley. Dick waved it off, laughing as he relaxed the lead in his hand. Haley ran circles around your golden labrador, tail wagging in excitement. Your hands brushed and fumbled with each other as you tried to awkwardly untangle the leads, pulling your dog’s apart when you could.

"Don't worry, Haley gets excited too." he smiles, crouching down to pet your own pup. He stares at Dick with black glossy eyes, tail waving back and forth as he tries to lick Dick's face, making him laugh. "What's the name?"

"Darty." you smile back, your companion turning his head back to look at you as he hears his name. "He's a good boy." you coo, rubbing his head. Dick scratches behind his ears before Haley gets jealous, nipping at the sleeves of his navy jacket with a whine.

"Ah, ah, gentle. I love you too." he laughs, a hand on each dog to keep them happy.

From then on you two had bonded over walks int he dog park and afternoon coffee while your canine friends played tug of war in front of your bench. It was hard to find people he considered friends, much less his best one. He was best friends with Wally still, and he was the person Dick went to when he was having troubles in his vigilante life. When he couldn’t take the stress of watching Bruce have another episode, something that was beginning to frequent more and more. He went to Wally when he needed favours called in, and he was stuck in bed with bruising so bad he looked like he’d picked a fight with a semi-truck (although Bane really felt like that at times).  But with you, he could talk about things that annoyed him. He could complain about little things, like how the coffee shop on the corner near his apartment didn't taste the same now that they changed management, or the fact that the rain had brought even more potholes to the Gotham streets, making driving a nightmare. Sometimes Dick fell so deep into those conversations with you, wrapped up in the way that you laughed or nodded along, that some days he thought he himself was an ordinary civilian.

But there were times like these that the little sentence came back from the corner of his mind that he pushed it into.

Where it came taunting him in that sing song voice, saying 'I told you so'.

Where he was reminded why he had tried to make the rule against befriending citizens.

He had noticed when you didn't make the puppy play date on Thursday like usual, Haley sitting sadly like her owner as they both waited for their friends. He had sent a quick text, 'Are you ok??' but wrote it off that there was just a good chance that you were sick, considering the flu that had swept your workplace the week before.

So, the civilian in Dick gave it the benefit of the doubt.

The next day you still hadn't responded, despite Dick knowing that you didn't work the Fridays. He rolled over, checking his phone with blurry eyes to see no new messages on his notification centre. He had had a rough patrol the night before and his muscles ached from misjudging a rooftop and landing harshly, so he let himself sleep in. You would surely respond later when you had time, and if you really were sick then he knew you wouldn't be awake till past noon.

So, the civilian in Dick rolled back over and caught up on sleep from the night shift.

However, when Saturday hit, he got the notice from Bruce that he was needed. Dick had spent the day in increased worry, knocking at your door around lunchtime only to receive no answer. The road was bumpy as he drove the bike back to the manor, wheels hitting potholes too wide to avoid properly. His frown deepened when he finally made it back to the manor, spotting Jason's bike out the front too. He dismounted, shaking the light rain from his hair. The dusk was being quickly swallowed by Gotham's signature rain clouds, so he shoved his hands in his pockets and hurried inside, greeting Alfred on his way down to the cave.

The sentence popped up in the forefront of his mind as he took sight of everyone in the cave.

 Bruce turned from the Bat computer, already in suit and cowl. Stephanie sat to his left; hip propped up against a table. Tim was suited up, still focused on the strings of numbers and texts flashing across the bat computer screen.

"Glad to see you could make it." Jason says gruffly, brushing past him. He was still in his riding gear, hair tousled from the helmet. Dick nods back, a flash of understanding passing through the two brothers.

"What's the situation?" he asks, coming to stand behind Tim's chair, next to Bruce.

"Mass kidnapping." Bruce says, eyes hard and trained on the computer screen.

"Culprit?"

"Joker." Jason fills in, voice distant as he changes on the other side of the room.

"It's pretty bad. Batman and I were investigating a disappearance, but it turns out there was a whole string prior. and now…" he says, tapping the space bar and the screen fills with faces.

"Now we've got twenty gone." Steph fills in, glancing sadly at the screen. "He's been playing a game, and we're losing."

Red crosses begin to flicker across some of the portraits floating in front of him, making him cringe. There were students, professors, and blue-collar workers. Some who seemed to work in an office, some who clearly worked outside. He scanned each face with an X, feeling the pain behind the implications. That's when he froze, and that's when that sentence came back stronger than ever.

I told you so.

He felt a slight tremor in his hand before he clenched it into a fist. His mouth was dry, guilt coursing through him. Maybe it was a rage, maybe it was a sadness. Dick honestly didn’t know how to untangle his emotions in this moment. He just knew that one of those faces up there was you, thankfully free from an X but there, nonetheless.

And the vigilante in Dick died a little inside.

"It’s not his MO." he says tensely. "Doesn't he want the attention of the Batman? It's not like him to do things in the background without announcing himself." he has to croak out, making Tim give him a curious side glance. His younger brother was always smarter than anyone ever gave him credit for.

"I think he's learnt how to self-entertain." Jason hums, appearing at his side with a sour expression. "He's gearing up for something big. Something to lord over the Bat."

"And we aren't going to let that happen." Bruce spoke up, voice stern. "Everyone here is to locate missing civilians while Red Robin and I track down Joker. We need to clear the field of potential casualties. Understood?"

Everyone nodded, but no one understood as painfully as Dick.

When the group broke up to get started, he called you again. It hurt twice as much knowing that the reason you weren't picking up is because that sick bastard had you somewhere. Because he had gotten too comfortable as a civilian that he failed you as a vigilante. If he hadn't given the benefit of the doubt, maybe you'd be here and safe. Maybe if he hadn't rolled over and gone back to sleep, he could have used that time trying to find you instead. If he had done his job, then none of this would have happened.

And maybe that would have been worth being consumed by the suit.

When he does find your signal, his heart nearly leaps from his chest. Everyone else had already entered the field, scouring buildings and known hideouts to just find anyone from the GPD missing persons list. Not Dick. Dick needed to get you back specifically. If there was any benefit to having a vigilante as a best friend, is that he would tear the city apart trying to find you. The downsides being that because of him you were lost in the first place. He sent the location to his phone and races from the manor, adrenaline making his head spin. He takes a car, not trusting himself to slow down on the corners enough to take the bike.

The GPS takes him to a building by the docks, normally active during the day but abandoned in the night. He parks a half block away as to not draw attention and slings his escrima sticks on his back, tugging them once to make sure that they were secure. He scales the shipping containers nearby and slinks out of sight of the security cameras, each muscle in his body primed to flex and twist on command. He balances on a high beam inside the main warehouse, pulling up his wrist where the red flashing dot of your phone blinked at him. He would probably have to buy you a new phone, considering the backdoor program he ran through your signal to track it made it virtually unusable.

He scanned the area, hairs on the back of his neck tingling at the lack of goons or suspiciously scarred individuals. With light feet he padded across the roofs of rusted shipping containers, feet as swift as his parents had taught and in the shadows like he had been trained. When he stood atop the rusted blue container in the left wing of the warehouse, his blue dot overlapped with the red.

He spun down, still glancing over his shoulder in case he was walking into a trap. The lock was newly purchased, indicating that you were indeed here. It popped open easily enough with the lock picks in his sleeve, the make and model a standard in many hardware stores. This could be easy, he could grab you, get you out of here and back into the apartment on the corner of fifth where you belonged-

it was you.

That's what he had to tell himself when the container door creaked open, and his flashlight sent a beam into the dark pit. He had seen bodies in the past, dead or dismembered or otherwise. Yet that didn't compare to the way that his stomach turned to stone in his abdomen just seeing you unconscious. HisHIHis feet thudded loudly as he raced towards you, gloved hands sliding down your bound arms to press against your wrist, his breathing as shallow as your pulse. He takes a deep breath and calms himself, cutting you from the chair you were tied to so he could cradle you in his arms and get a better look.

"I've got one at the docks, Wareson's shipping containers in Lower Gotham. They’re unconscious but alive." He speaks into his wrist, marking his channel as 'open' once more. It crackled to life soon after, Bruce's voice filtered through his earpiece.

"We've got a trace on a few others. Check for a calling card, Spoiler and Red Hood have found other hostages with codes attached, we might be able to get ahead of this." spoke the Bat, and Dick lowered you down gently to take a look.

His hands ghosted across your skin gently, so he didn't disturb any injuries, flashlight gripped in his teeth as he skimmed your clothes. Pulling a small square of cardboard from your blouse, he flipped the playing card over to reveal a bloodied joker and a string of numbers printed underneath.

"Sending an image now." He relayed, using his watch to take a photo and send it back to the cave. He shut his comm line off after that, his head reeling too much to focus in on the chatter from the rest of the team.

An injury to the right side of your head, against your temple. blunt force, left a cut on your hairline.

Your hair was normally a shade lighter than what it was right now.

Bruising around the throat, dark smears and indents in your skin. Evidence of friction marks.

Your necklaces never hurt you that way.

As he looked at you, your breath shallow, he felt that stone in his stomach grow hot. The way your eyelids were sealed shut with red crust, hair plastered to your head with the viscous liquid. Swelling around the lips that curved at him to smile or tell a joke. An arm that was folded the wrong way, the same arm that would tug his arm to hurry him up or reach out to his during sad parts in movies.

Right now, the vigilante Nightwing had failed you, but the one wearing the pain was the bent over form of civilian Dick Grayson.

His eyes tingled and burned, chest heaving before he knew it with scattered sobs. He calmed them down soon enough, the Bruce that lived in the back of his voice yelling at him to get it together, all while chanting over that same old sentence in tandem. 'I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.' The sadness didn't last long however, quickly being replaced with an anger that flushed the skin of his neck bright red. He lifted you up in his arms, beginning the slow walk back to the car so he didn't irritate your injuries. His steps echoed out in the silent warehouse, competing with the racing sound of his heartbeat. As he walked, he was so focused on counting the unsteady breaths you took that he didn’t notice the suit melding to his skin, consuming him with invisible teeth until the civilian part of Dick dissolved completely.

'I told you so.'

'I told you so.'

'I told you so.'

Dick wasn't made to be a civilian, despite how he wore their clothes and played the part of a happy townsperson. He concluded that you were bright enough to live the life of a civilian for both of you, revelling in the little moments of peace that his nighttime job had fought to preserve.

Dick was made to be a vigilante, Bruce turning his rage and anger at the world into a weapon, a tool to shape Gotham and carve out the parts that threatened the lives of innocent people.

Dick was about to show them just how well he had learned to wield that weapon.

[sombra-conlangs]

Conlang year 2025 · Day 1 - 4

I decided to try out @quothalinguist's conlang year, it is basically a series of daily prompts that guide you through the process of creating a new language, by the end of the year you will end up with a conlang that is developed enough to participate in relays and lexember, you can find it on quothalinguist.com

It looks like conlang year is mostly geared towards creating languages that are naturalistic and evolved from a proto-language, and the concept I have for this is not going to really fit into that, you'll see why once I start describing it, but I don't imagine that'll be too much of an issue, it's still useful to have a guide for the different aspects of the language I should focus on. I'll try to adapt the prompts to work with my idea and I guess I'll skip the ones that I can't figure out how to adapt.

I'll be combining many prompts together into single posts for convenience, I'll tag these posts as both #Conlang year and #Conlang year 2025 so you can search those in my blog to see them all if you want (once I name the language I will also add it to the tags, but the language doesn't have a name yet).

If you want to see all of the information from these posts compiled into one place I will be adding all of the information about the conlang I create on my website: tekseni.bearblog.dev

Day 1: Set an intention for your language

(warning: this gets a bit heavy, but I try not to make it too dour)

I haven't been feeling great lately, I won't go into details, I'll just say that it can be difficult to manage your emotions when the world seems to be in such a terrible state, living through historical events is not easy.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I know there's some people who say you have to be constantly staying informed on every bit of news because if you don't you're a bad person, but that's not a sustainable way to live. It's important for us to keep ourselves sane, if you're going to help others through turbulent times you have to make sure you have your own feet on firm ground. I won't be of much help if I'm having a crisis, so taking care of my own mental health is important, and for many of us that can include a bit of escapism and using art as an outlet, using art as motivation to keep going and enjoy life despite the circumstances. This conlang is my escapism.

With all of that being said, here's my 2 main goals for this conlang:

1: I want this language to make me smile

I want to create something that helps me to find some beauty and hope in the world, I want the choices I make with the language to make me smile, and I want to be able to have fun while working on it, without having to worry too much about how naturalistic it is or anything like that, so ideally I'd also avoid comparing this to other conlangs.

If we compare this to visual art, I'd say this is less like trying to create an awesome painting with perfect perspective, colors and composition, and it's more like me doodling in a sketchbook that is meant primarily for me, but I also want to share it with others in case they find it to be at least mildly interesting or it helps inspire them in some way.

It's not like my other conlangs don't bring me joy, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this time I will try to design the language without worrying about things like naturalism or trying too hard to make my worldbuilding interesting or deep, it's just a canvas where I can throw paint and let myself go wild, trying out things I normally wouldn't, and making choices based on my personal preferences instead of what I think I "should" do, so I guess that makes this is a personal language.

2: This is going to be a surrealistic conlang

I have already decided who the speakers of my language will be, I'll elaborate more in the following prompts but I currently call them "dream angels" because they're basically benevolent beings that exist in the world of dreams, and because of this I want to try my hand at making a surrealistic conlang, @dedalvs wrote an essay on fiat lingua about what such a language might look like, and I keep coming back to it every now and then because I love the concept.

Even before that essay was posted I remember thinking of what conlangs might look like if they were inspired by different art movements, and a surrealistic one fits particularly well into the dream world idea, it will also allow me to fulfill my first goal fairly easily; making something that makes me smile without having to worry about naturalism and letting myself experiment. I've always been drawn to surrealism for one reason or another, not entirely sure why but I know this is something I'm excited to work on.

I'm not expecting this to be the best surrealistic conlang out there, but it doesn't have to be, it just has to be fun for me, and it will work as a learning experience regardless, so if I want to try again at some point I will have a better idea of how to approach it. I'm sure someone out there will make an amazing surrealistic conlang one day and I'll be excited to see it when it happens.

Day 2: Set an intention for sharing your language

Basically the main audience is me, I hope that future me will be able to look at all the different translations, grammar choices and vocabulary I made and feel like it's a fun language that still brings me some joy in some way or another, even if I don't keep working on it for much longer after the conlang year has ended at least I hope it was a positive experience.

I also want to share the language online (on this blog and on my conlang website) mostly because I'm hoping that at least one person is going to look at my conlang and feel inspired, or maybe it will make them smile too, so I'm going to try to describe all the features in a way that is understandable for other conlangers.

Day 3: Determine your speakers and conworld

The basic idea is that there is another plane of existence, one we can't see when we're awake, and the world where dreams exist is connected to this other realm, so when we dream we sometimes come into contact with the ethereal beings that speak this language, and they are kind and loving.

The dream angels usually don't interfere with human affairs too much, but they sometimes help us by making nightmares go away and soothing the people they see, at least while the people are asleep (since they can't interact with us outside of dreams).

They also shift the way they speak to be a bit more familiar to the person they're encountering, so I imagine the phonology of their language might shift a bit from its default form depending on what your native language is, the language would still be unintelligible to you but it would sound a bit like someone speaking your L1 in a weird way (which also means that it will be easier for you to pronounce the language if you are able to speak back at them because you will at least get to use sounds you already know how to pronounce, though you're welcome to pronounce it in its original form).

These beings are very surreal in their appearance, there's probably different types of dream angels but the ones I'll be working with are kind of like a mix of various sea creatures, drifting through space peacefully, building all sorts of things and admiring the nature that exists in their world.

I imagine their settlements are built on floating islands full of all sorts of critters and nature, and their world as a whole is probably a bit weird and doesn't always seem to follow logical rules, in keeping with the kind of things you see in dreams, so they might look a bit like something you'd see in an M.C. Escher artwork, where you're not exactly sure what you're looking at, but it has a certain beauty to it.

Day 4: Describe (or design) your speakers

And finally here's a picture I drew of a prototypical dream angel:

They might look a bit intimidating or scary to you, but I chose to take inspiration mostly from various sea creatures because they help to convey this kind of ethereal and weirdly beautiful aesthetic, when I look at jellyfish I often wonder how those are living beings that exist in our world, they look more like they're inanimate objects drifting in the water and yet they're alive, and they're so mesmerizing and fascinating, like a living nebula.

I imagine different dream angels would have different characteristics, but in general they're basically like some sort of jellyfish with 3 main tentacle-like appendages, many thin tendrils, 6 insect-like arms, 6 little wings (because it makes them look a bit more angelic lol) and they have one eye, but no human has ever seen their eyes because it is always covered by something, in this case it's a butterfly, but whatever is covering their eye it does not prevent them from seeing, this is the dream world after all.

I think there might be other types of dream angels, and they're all able to speak a human-like language because they don't need a mouth to speak, they just telepathically send sounds to other beings, so the speakers of my language will be characterized by being similar to sea creatures, perhaps there's other dream angels that are more similar to other types of animals, or inanimate objects, maybe some are just completely out there and don't even look like anything we're familiar with as humans. By the way if you feel inspired to design your own dream angels go ahead! I think it'd be nice if I was able to inspire creativity in others with my work.

I'm also choosing to use a human-pronounceable phonology because I enjoy pronouncing the words and sentences of my conlangs, but perhaps at some other point I will make a different register of the language that uses different noises as phonemes, maybe sounds of water and nature, or maybe something like one of those really peaceful synths, after all their phonology is not limited by their physiology or even things like logic.

But anyway that's it for now, I feel a bit vulnerable putting myself out there so much, this feels a bit more personal than my other conlangs I've shared, it's not like a regular fantasy worldbuilding project or a fanlang or an a posteriori language, this one is very out there and weird, but again I want to share it in case other people find it interesting, and hey, we need more examples of surrealistic conlangs, so I'm more than happy to contribute to that.

[limewashedup]

sketches from the early retirement au ;)

[neuship-zone]

[Can I respond to this?]

RPF is its own grey area so I'm going to talk about it later, but I need to know about how 'fictional CSA' is causing the same issues. Especially since 'fictional CSA' would cover more than just the lolisho stuff I'd like to assume you're talking about.

I hate to say this, but it WOULD be censorship to take someone's work down. It doesn't matter why. Personally, I don't see why writing about fictional characters in harmful situations is more harmful than any other fiction (That includes murder btw, since some of you become radio silent when other taboos like violence get brought up). Yes, it can be uncomfortable to read and I'm not personally a fan but....that's what the tagging system is for? You don't even have to SEE it if you don't want to, because you can filter it. And if your main complaint is that children can find it, then what, should we get rid of all smut too? After all, children shouldn't be reading that either. Or do you only care about what children read if it's stuff you personally don't like?

Now, I don't think banning this content will lead to all queer content being banned, but I must say, some of this content IS queer. Some of these stories are queer people writing about their own experiences. And those stories need to exist because not every queer relationship is sunshine and rainbows. Some queer people are CSA survivors. Should they not be allowed to talk about their trauma, because you don't want the shotacon (who may or may not also be a CSA survivor) to post their shota rape fic?

And if your response is then "just ban the fetishy stuff", where do you draw the line? Because I could write about a hypersexual CSA rape victim and someone could accuse me of "fetishising" rape and CSA because the child is """"enjoying it"""" (nevermind the fact that it's written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, apparently I need to yell "THIS IS BAD" at the top of my lungs in order for the story to be acceptable. I mean, I would put a disclaimer because I'm nice, but I shouldn't need to tell people what's morally wrong about a child being groomed and abused.)

As for RPF....I mean if it's like Donald Trump x Joe Biden, hell yeah! Also if the CC has given explicit consent. And also crackfics in general.

But obviously things get more complicated when REAL children are now being written about, or if it's an actual ship between two real people. This is not something that even the proship community is unified on. But personally I think writing CSA about real people is abhorrent. There's no "it's a fictional character" because it's not really a fictional character if it represents a single person. A03 doesn't have to take work down, but they could at least...idk...disable people's accounts? I don't think stuff like that should be written without consequences honestly.

And no, I'm not a proshipper. I'm neutralship. I lurk in both proship and antiship spaces in order to find new perspectives and come to a more nuanced opinion. You would think people would guess from my blog name but apparently not I'm not a fan of how (some) proshippers act morally superior over liking problematic stuff, but I will always be anti-censorship and anti-harassment before anything else. We should be promoting media literacy and critical analysis of what we read, not trying to take it all down (or glossing over any issues because "it's fiction")

hey just wanted to say.

if you worship A03, unfollow me.

its a website.

it is a website that has been in beta for 14 years.

its a website that willingly hosts RPF and CSA and allows racism to go unchecked.

it is a website that has donation drives 4(?) times a year and regularly exceeds their goal by hundreds of fucking dollars, but can't even protect their unpaid volunteers from being spammed with CSA

do not fucking defend A03's refusal to moderate their content.

Removing RPF and CSA and racism is not a slippery slope to removing queer content, unless you think the only queer content to exist is inherently CSA or racist??

then again considering how many mlm ships i've seen in fandoms pair up the child protagonist with the 40-60 year old villain "in the name of gay shipping", I'm honestly not surprised so many of these people are up in arms about CSA being removed.

If your queer content is indistinguishable from CSA and RPF maybe you should think about why you're sexualizing children and violating real human being's by using their names and images for your own personal pleasure?

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

I've been seeing this a lot lately, but a little while ago I mentioned something to do with disability in a discord and someone asked me if I was a "spoonie". Not if I was disabled, but a spoonie. I need y’all to fucking get it into ur heads that disabled is not a dirty word. You can use the term spoonie for yourself all you want, but the second you start imposing it on other people and generally using it in place of the word "disabled", its just another woo-woo euphemism that seeks to soften and make comfortable the vocabulary and concept of disability.

Like at a certain point it becomes clear that a lot of people now are using “spoonie” in the same damn way as “differently abled” or "handicapable". The origin and intent of the term become moot within that usage because what it serves to do is invoke disability euphemistically, obfuscating and softening it in service of compulsory normative able-bodymindedness.

If you want to use that term for yourself, fine. Have fun. It doesn't have these same connotations when its used as a self identifier rather than as a replacement for the word "disabled". But stop applying it to others in place of "disabled" I’m so fucking serious.

[corviiids]

hi rook sorrgy I'm back but I've been thinking about your akeshu as girls genderfuckery tweet for 20 million years. idk if you can share anything in good faith here on the Tumblr corner of the internet (if not then by all means ignore this) but if you did I'd owe you perhaps my entire soul!! thank you very much either way :3

i would LOVE to talk about this thank you so much for asking

[under the cut in case anyone would not like to see genderfuckery stuff]

okay so first of all.

on the topic of boobs

this is important to lead with do you understand. most of the akeshu as girls stuff ive seen around has akc as flat-chested and ren as boobed. and that's valid i support that. but personally. personally to me. i think it's the opposite. tbe reason (well one reason) i think it's the opposite is because i think girlren is a little rat of a creature and akechi who is prim and feminine and perfect is so FUCKING angry about her crush on ren like she's barely surviving it and then this is the nail in the coffin. she's like why can't i stop thinking about that messy unassuming thing. she doesn't even have boobs

my other reasons for tihs are that i think joker is more androgynous charm while akechi is more feminine/masculine duality i think this makes sense to nobody else. i think ren regardless of agab is riding the rail of the gender spectrum 🛹 while akc is collecting extremes of gender presentation like they're pokemon do you understand. are we on the same page here. ren being into drag is important to me for this reason (again regardless of agab). meanwhile akechi having very clear feminine secondary sex characteristics but presenting gradually more and more masculine in terms of clothing/hair/personal style etc. is also extremely important to me. and that includes being biog of tity while her style veers more and more into masc as time goes on

ok

the detective prince

i think girl akechi (at 17-18) presents very femininely because it's what's effective for her. i would call her style................... kawaii corporate chic. does that make sense for everyone. it's like schoolgirl girlboss. she has a bow instead of a tie but it's a very classy one not a kitschy one. smart blazer, uniform pleated skirt, patent leather shoes, u know the drill BUT. people still call her the detective prince. this is VERY IMPORTANT to me. no detective princess. only detective prince. do you understand the importance of the genderfuckery of a super feminine girl being called by masculine terms. to me. we're continuing the legacy set by my hero naoto shirogane bigender queeng. bigender kin. bigender genderneutral non-monarchical ruler

i think by third sem girl akechi is starting to dress more androgynously/masculinely. more pants. i think her third sem outfit is unchanged from canon. just a smart coat, sweater, buttondown, slacks. postcanon she gets a haircut.

just trying to live an honest student life

ren is like so fundamentallyuncomfortable with the fact of his existence at the beginning of canon so to me girlren is like... she dresses like she's trying to hide in her clothes. messy hair. i have no strong feelings about whetehr her hair should be long or short, or whether it's loose or pulled into a tail, but i know it's messsy. untamed curls. and she uses it to hide her face. none of her clothes fit. she's in oversized everything. i have a very clear image in my head of a ren idle animation where she leans down to pull up her leggings because they keep falling down. she also has terrible posture. she's androgynous at this stage not on purpose but because she's too self conscious to like... exist... and present... in any notable way at all

i think as she gets more confident and as the year progresses she starts to dress more distinctively. i like the idea of her getting more comfortable prettying up. maybe working at crossroads helps her with this 🤔 i dont know how to explain this but i think she's still feminine in a gentlemanly chivalrous way rather than a girly cute way. girlren has that same steady calming vibe that guy ren does

joker & crow

crow has a magical girl skirt. i have a drawing of this but im too self conscious about my own lack of drawing skill to show it off so i cropped out the key part and put it into an ms paint void in the distance as my visual aid

there. i hope this is illustrative

i think given girl akechi's use of her feminine charms to gain popularity, her hero complex would be similarly gendered given we have confirmation that robin hood represents not (only) heroics for altruistic reasons but also the theatre of being seen doing good. there's a real drama element to the idea of a magical girl transformation that i honestly wish we got for male crow too. i always am depressed that we don't get to see much theatre for akechi's initial appearance as crow and summoning of robin hood, anyway, girlcrow has ribbons and a capelet that flap in non-existent wind.

black mask's outfit is unchanged from canon. i'd like it to look a little less stupid but that has nothing to do with gender i just want it to look a little less stupid.

joker's outfit is also unchanged from canon. listen. im back on my bullshit. in the metaverse her behaviour gets more feminine and more sly and confident than in reality. she's got that femme fatale shit going on. however, she is still a gentleman thief. she has the long coat. she has the poofy trousers. she has the waistcoat. she's still smirking and fixing her gloves and flipping her knife and doing that thing that canon ren does where he lifts his chin and does the little "come on" thing with her fingers. do you understand? do you understand me

[le-songproj]

Live Emotion Song Spreadsheet Project

I've started putting together a simple spreadsheet of song information for the game in hopes it'll be useful for the various events we get!

Includes: Singer(s), Song Titles, Length, and Note Count for all the difficulties!

It's also color coded by Singer color(s) and the difficulty, PLUS it's set up so the songs involved in the current event will be highlighted for easy comparisons too~

Currently we have: - All current event songs, Easy+Normal+Hard (4/6 have Expert) - All Group/Duo/Trio songs, Easy+Normal (1 has Hard)

I would love to ask for your help filling out things much faster! If you happen to know any note totals for any of the songs (or just have a screenshot of ur score page) please let me know!!!

Hard+Expert notes are most appreciated as I personally only just started doing those higher difficulties after the last event so those will take me the longest for me to get through. But anything and everything you guys can provide regardless of what difficulty is appreciated and will save me so much time!!

Just shoot dm/ask/submission or even reply to this post please and thank you <3

[lucktv]

OMS HIII!!!! Thank you @star-lights-up For tagging me!! I had honestly seen this before and thought "Oms Id love to participate in this" AND HERE I AM. I will mention that Im very new to tumblr so Im sorry if I'm doing stuff wrong and please tell cuz I will never learn if I never know (;

Now Get to know your mutuals!!

What's the origin of your blog title? Well... Long story but basically my real name is pronounced differently than whats written down (Because native language just pronounce the letters differently) And so I was quickly like; 'hmmm I need to find something thats still pretty close to my own name, but also everyone knows how to pronounce' And quickly I came up with the name 'Luka' Which is only once letter removed from my own. And then I just kinda wanted to have a cool username for it, so I had thought of many different things until I came up with "Luckalot" And that just kinda stuck. However, people I met online started calling me "Luck" Because of it, and honestly I have grown very fond of that name!!! SO anyways I might change my name to 'luckalot' on here because its 'lucktv' rn cuz I just kinda quickly made this account not knowing I'd be X-Men obsessed 2 months later. But its lucktv becuase (Taylor's Version) for those wondering!! :D

OTP(s) + Shipname: Honestlyyyy I dont really get obsessed over more ships than one at the same time soooo right now it's really just Charles/Erik - Cherik :3

But I also have been obessed with Sylvie/Loki - Sylki for a while (Some people get so mad about that But I just love em)

But that's about it when it comes to marvel, there's not many marvel ships I have actually been obsessed with for some reason...

Big Remus Lupin/Sirius Black - Wolfstar Shipper too tho!! My marauders phase was long ago but Id love to go back to it any moment :D

Favourite colour: Yellowww!!! Mostly just like the yellow yellow yk, like the chrome logo yellow, basically the yellow used whenever yellow needs to be used :3

Favourite game: I play lots of Minecraft!!! aaannnd Im one of those roblox players :3 I play little word games to improve my english on there and also Royale High because I LOVE Fashion and I played DTI for a bit but after all the updates I kinda stopped idk

Song stuck in your head:

The entire soundtrack of Wicked

Weirdest habit/trait? Good question! I do a lot of weird stuff that Im just kinda not aware of actually. But one I can think of right now is that I always lipsync to my music and its not only my lips but Im very expressive with my eyebrows so I kinda weirdly move my eyebrows with my singing... and yes this happens in public too, I can't help it (,:

Hobbies: Drawing, quite literally any type of art; writing, painting, graphic design, fashion and the list goes on

Im also OBSESSED with reading, but most specifically Fanfics and RN Cherik fanfics (Like literally I just finished a 180k fanfic in 2 weeks AND IM DYSLEXIC) I sometimes get a little too obsessed and just sit in my room ALL DAY reading fanfics in the weekend (If I even have time) And Im a big music listener! Music is very important to me and I love to listen to my playlists every moment of the day C:

If you work, what's your profession? Im a full time Media Design Student :3 But I have done a painters study for one year so I do lots of little painting side quests for family and friends (And they pay me (sometimes))

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Realistically? I would LOVE to be just an overall illustrator, for like Book covers but also comics and storyboards, I would love to do something like that and just switch it up from time to time!

Something you're good at: Painting and drawing!! I enjoy it A LOT and I think I'm pretty good at it!! I'm also getting into shirt designs and so far I am quite proud of my creations :D

Something you're bad at: staying calm, I stress about quite literally EVERYTHING, Im a very anxious person from nature and am almost chronically stressed (,: I also have social anxiety which is big reason for my awkwardness most of the time... Idk Im just low-key a loser but Im a somewhat happy loser :p

Something you love:

X-MENNNNN< Specifically CHERIKKK!!!

And also very much Taylor Swift!! Her music is everything to me and Im a Proud swiftie

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: ANY and I say ANY of my hyperfixations; Cherik, Taylor swift, Arcane And also about deep life stuff, idk if it's with the right person I could talk HOURS about life and everything around it C:

Something you hate: People who hate and judge others for being excited about things they like???? Like huh??

Something you collect: rocks, rings, necklaces, earrings, more rocks, shells, literal trash, stickers, erasers??, just lots of useless stuff really...

Something you forget: everything... no but like; art ideas, writing ideas, where I left my shoes, where I left my phone (Its in my hand), what class I have first, What my teacher is called, when I promised my friend to hang out, texting people back, homework.... Everything BUT that one time I accidentally said "you too" To a person working at a cinema telling me "Enjoy the movie"

What's your love language? Quality Time and Physical touch both recieving and giving :D People always associate physical touch with weird stuff for some reason?? but I just REALLY like hugs and shoulder pats and pokes and tickles and elbow bumps and high fives and CUDDLLESSS :D

Favourite movie/show: X-Men First Class, Beauty and the Beast, Miss Americana, Arcane and The Amazing Spider-Man

Favourite food: I really enjoy Watermelon and tuna! But I like lots of foods!!

Favourite animal: Tigers, theyre absolutely adorable cute little big cats and they have STRIPES!

What were you like as a child? Overall very energetic (With my friend and family)! I was very shy and anxious as a child too, thats kinda always been like that XD I was also very good at being very very dramatic :3

Favourite subject at school? I have this little extra class I chose to do because I like painting so much, and it's basically just 2 hours of painting :D So that's deff my favourite

Least favourite subject: Maths.

What's your best character trait? I am very empathetic! I often understand others better than I understand myself

What's your worst character trait? Im a 24/7 stressed overthinker :p

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? anything that would gain me more time for the stuff I actually like doing, making cherik art, writing cherik fanfics... you know it

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? Idk if this is weird but Im just gonna pull a Charles Xavier and I'd say my past self? I just have so much I wish I could say to her <:

Tagging some of my mutuals! You don't have to respond if you dont want to :D (Or if u already did) @swiftie-as-a-coursing-river @faerlycertain @veevil @vvividlyy

Get to know your mutuals! Thank you to @joyful-soul-collector for tagging.

What's the origin of your blog title? I have a bunch of sideblogs dedicated to my most active fandoms and I am an insomniac. My first ever fandom sideblog started the trend as a joke and I just carried on the tradition!

OTP(s) + Shipname: Jayce and Viktor is the main one right now. I also love Ed and Stede from Our Flag Means Death.

Favourite colour: Iridescent white

Favourite game: Dungeons and Dragons for sure! I also like playing Jackbox games with friends.

Song stuck in your head: To Be Seen - Searows

Weirdest habit/trait? Sitting and doing things in the dark. I just prefer existing in dim light because lights can be overwhelming and the darkness keeps my mind calm. Doesn't help I'm stuck in fluorescent lighting all day haha!

Hobbies: Writing, Singing, Crafting, and Baking

If you work, what's your profession? I'm a medical laboratory technician in blood sciences!

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Realistically? Since it specifies realistic, I'd like to be a biomedical scientist in immunology. It would mean getting another degree but I don't mind that too much.

Something you're good at: I'm good at writing! I recently wrote my first children's book and intend to write more when the inspiration comes back. A poetic style of writing is my favourite to do.

Something you're bad at: Socialising. I'm quite awkward but I still like chatting to people.

Something you love: Snails! I adore snails, I used to have pet giant African land snails for a few years.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: The immune system, pathogenic disease, my fifty million apocalypse stories, etc.

Something you hate: Willful ignorance and anti vaxxers. Both suck very much.

Something you collect: Pins! I have so many. They're on my lanyard, my dunagrees, my pinboard, and my ita bag.

Something you forget: The thing I was meant to be doing.

What's your love language? Gift giving and quality time. Also words of affirmation.

Favourite movie/show: Arcane for sure at the moment. I also love The Walking Dead, Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, and a bunch of apocalypse/zombie shows.

Favourite food: Pizza

Favourite animal: Snails! 🐌

What were you like as a child? Strange is the best way to describe it honestly.

Favourite subject at school? Science! All the science.

Least favourite subject: Religious Education. No thanks.

What's your best character trait? I'm very passionate about the things and people I love.

What's your worst character trait? I tend to keep things bottled up inside until they come out all at once, I'm still working on not doing that.

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? Being able to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow! That would be amazing.

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? I'm not sure, I'm not particularly enamoured by anyone in the past. Maybe Oscar Wilde.

Tagging anyone who wants to!

[gjsxj0]

mindless rambling in tags don't mind me

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A digital drawing of Minos Prime from Ultrakill, who's wearing a strapless slit dress and sandals of the same deep purple. He faces towards and slightly to the right of the camera, his head is tilted further right. With one hand he gestures in a vague pointing motion, his arm folded and held close to his body. There is nothing in the background, but bracing himself on one arm, Minos is implied to be leaning against something about the height of a countertop. The background is a blank purplish black, save for three diagonal stripes in the colors of the bisexual flag. End ID]

Shading study that quite literally came to me in a dream two weeks ago, after this post apparently beamed itself into my mind

(also a few edits below the cut! they're very slight but whatever :])

[Start ID. Three different versions of the previous drawing. The first changes the tone of the lighting from blue to pink, and similarly the shading from pink to blue. The second replaces the faint black border with pink, purple and blue, syncing with the stripes in the background. The third combines both these changes. End ID]

[carlyraejepsans]

I’ve started watching Utena because of you. What. Is going on

HI. WELCOME TO THE CLUB, watch the trigger warnings. but yeah, revolutionary girl utena veers more and more towards surrealism the further you get into the series. it often and voluntarily forfeits narrative/logical consistency in favor of visual storytelling, metaphors and symbolism. i was just talking about it with nic the other day, and if the story weren't so harrowing, i would recommend it to everyone who wants to get into literary analysis, because it is SO packed with symbolism EVERYWHERE that it actually encourages you to try to decode it.

whatever you think utena is about, it is NOT. you can't go in and treat it like your 49293th classical shoujo. utena is a firework show of visual symbolism and it very rarely, if ever, explains itself to the viewer. it refuses to handhold you, but it never berates you for trying and getting it wrong either. there is SO much handholding in modern day media, but utena trusts its viewer to take away something meaningful from itself and to piece its message together on their own. it's one of my favourite pieces of media of all time just for that

[enruint]

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐍, pt. 1:    a study in hostile architecture, expansion and reduction,  the unseen and assimilation into the strange

what makes venxian so scary    is not the supernatural creatures    that live there and are part of the society.    people are aware they exist,  humans and supernatural creatures co-exist in so far that it's possible or keep to their own sectors in the vast city.   nothing scary about that.    what's so unsettling and quite frankly eerie and puts the people within venxian ( including the supernatural creatures ) on edge is what they all can't see.    what moves beneath the city,   the force that keeps the inhabitants all trapped within the city - state.    whatever is in the air that whispers in their ears,   that presence in    the dark waters   that creeps closer and closer,   and rises higher   &.   higher,    intent on drowning venxian.    it's the city itself that seems to shift,   to move,   breathe and groan.    the streets that move upwards and further in upon themselves,   stairways that go down into the deep where it feels like you're actually going upwards into the nightsky instead of downwards. it's quite   impossible to navigate the city   because everything about it feels so wrong.    nothing looks right.    not the many bridges that connect the various levels of the city with one another,    the ones that creak and bend in impossible angles,    not bringing you any closer to where you want to go.    not the tramcars that stop at stops that don't exist and their eerie rumble shaking the shoddy buildings of the lowe-city to their core.   the signs,    if there even are any, refer to places the inhabitants don't even know exist but the city claims it does and it's best you just go along with whatever the city demands lest you become part of the scenery yourself. and lastly:   the inhabitants themselves are quite simply odd as well.   they are and unsettled by the place they call home and    are unsettling themselves in return.   to outsiders the inhabitants don't make sense whatsoever,    the things they accept are ridiculous:    why is the sound of a child crying seen as normal in that particular alleyway ?   why does the crying becoming softer the closer you get to it and louder when you run away ?    why is there is no sun and is the city covered in perpetual darkness ?    what do you mean the lanterns on the street protect you from the dark waters but only in so far the city thinks is fine ?   the inhabitants just live their lives in a place that is uncanny at best and horrifying at it's worse and they are part of it   ( whether they want to or not,   whether they're aware of it or not ).    they play as much of a role in the unseen horror that keeps this city in a choke hold.   most exhibit strange behavior and accept the strangeness of the city as well.    the museum with no doors,   the town square that seems to call to something no one can hear,    the annual festival near the piers where it's custom for families to sacrifice a living thing to the water because of course !   don't want to make the sea angry and have it swallow up another piece of their already shrinking land right  ?   best ignore    the squelching mass in the thirteenth alleyway   because it's regurgitating whatever the walls have eaten before or   better yet feed it your neighbors for good fortune. the people are off,    the city is off and the true horror is that no one knows what's going on,   what has   settled in this place and the sea   and what it wants, the rot that spreads across the streets    &.    eats at the walls.    the rot that infects people:   killing some and completely changing others.   the   unknown and the unseen   is what makes venxian such a horrifying place.   the way it seems to expand yet shrink is terrifying. and not the creatures that inhabit it,   they're just as much of a pawn as the humans are.   the horror is the city itself.   and the horror is what the city has made the inhabitants become.   you can't escape it when you live in it,   you're part of it's odd game when you visit it.   the city has a mind of it's own:   and it's just gotten started.

[secondpersonpoetry]

hi! oh my goodness. i am SO sorry i didn’t say anything earlier. i did read everything a couple days ago, and i Have been chewing on it, rotating it in my mind, etc etc…..and the graphic has been my phone lockscreen since i first read it!!!!!

frankly i am obsessed and have also been a little frazzled this month lol. saw your post late because of the general whirlwind that is december and then couldn’t quite get my thoughts into sufficient words n got worried “oh no would it be weird to say something now…..” which is incredibly silly in retrospect, so sorry for that. 

i’m relatively new to hockey fandom and the Narratives don’t always quite click for me (yet, at least :)) because i don’t know all of the lore for a lot of the popular pairings haha, so it means a lot that you’ve taken time out of your day to break things down for me and share your own thoughts <3 tysm. again, super sorry for the delayed response. i’m very sorry if you felt as though you’d wasted your time or something along those lines :’) just wanted to let you know that i really appreciate you and the time it took you to get everything down and make the graphic!!!! and like i can’t overstate how much your tags both over here and on your other blog have helped me to Get It since the start of this season, so thank you.

but now the house is quiet, the in-laws are gone, and no new work stuff until january :) so i can finally get some stuff down. every point you brought up hits in it own way but gosh you are very incredibly right the mcstrome of it all…..that’s sort of the lens i’ve been listening to the song through since you mentioned it.

the golden boy and the “draft bust” and the ever present notion of “isn’t it all about old friends? like everything? all of it?”.  like idk looking back on a bestfriendship from when you were a teenager that was Super intense and the lines were blurred and maybe realizing (if you hadn’t had the words or the “guts” or awareness or wtv to put a name to it at that point in your life) that y’all were a smidge more than just friends. 

best friends forever until you just aren’t! growing up and growing apart. it’s just the way things go but it can and will ache for a damn long time! you think you’re over it until their birthday or the holidays roll around and you wonder in a distant sort of way who they’re spending it with. what you would’ve hypothetically gotten them as a present if you still spoke. what do they even like nowadays, anyway?

maybe having the friendship end subtly. going from playing and traveling together and living in one another’s pockets to 2,080 miles of distance? (i may have my timeline/details confused here so sorry in advance) texting as much as you can at first but he’s a phenom he’s mcjesus he’s the next in line he’s expected to win the cup with his new team and end the drought for Canada. and they have him now but he was yours first, wasn’t he? but it’s fine. because you’re busy too. you’re captaining the team now. you’re gonna get the memorial cup that he couldn’t. it’s fine. you’re fine. you don’t even have time to worry about it anyway. 

one conversation a week turns to one a month turns to once in a blue moon turns to stale words until it goes cold. these days you can’t quite seem to remember who ended things, but does it really matter all that much now?

or maybe it doesn’t end like that at all. maybe it ends in a flurry of angry words and digs in some or other of the endless hotel rooms you’ve shared together over the years. who knows!

and that’s not even getting into the rest of the 2015 draft class. or the ld19 of it all! ooh hoo hoo. you grew up with him but he’s not your waiting room. he grew up with you but he’ll grow “old” (end his career) with someone else. and isn’t that just something! 

i don’t think it’s totally them, but sort of the sentiment of “I hope you get everything you ever wanted and I hope I never hear a word about it.” I want one ticket off of your carousel!!!! merry christmas, please don’t call!!!!!!!

dylan being sent up and down and traded around until finally landing in washington, a place where he is clearly at home and LOVED for the guy and player he is!!!!!!!! watching a game and seeing all the strome jerseys in the crowd……..wagh.

all that said. some other songs that are mcstrome to me in various ways: hot & heavy by lucy dacus (lol kinda the whole song). before the world was big by girlpool (“i just miss how it felt standing next to you wearing matching [jerseys? sweaters?] before the world was big”). happiness by Taylor swift (“i guess it’s the price i pay for seven years in heaven”), cut your bangs by radiator hospital (maybe? possibly? unsure. i like the whole dog thing there). i’m so glad i feel this way about you by insignificant other (!!!!!). there are so many THEM lyrics in there……..waough.

anyway. other things off the top of my head: 2015 connor specifically saying something like “hey let’s wait a minute so we can see this” to stand by the stage when dylan was getting drafted after him. MAN. you reminded me of the fact that they couldn’t even make eye contact at the handshake line!!!!!!!!! they didn’t go to each other’s weddings!!!!!!!!!! (do you think once upon a time they ever thought they’d being each other’s best man?). just a couple months ago dylan liking the tweet of connor getting that goal during the playoffs!!!!!!!! makes you wonder if he texted him………..

lol this was all over the place and i was probably wrong on some things and there’s SO much more that someone else could say way more eloquently, but i digress. i dunno everything about them is so nuts to me!!!!! needless to say i will be incredibly sat for the game january 21 🙂‍↕️

thank you again for your time :) hope you have a good one and a happy rest of the holiday season! <3333333

what a lovely message to receive 🥰😭🥹 i had to break it up into chunks because i couldn't sit down to read all of it at once without just. bouncing right back up and shrieking. i am also at heart terribly shy so i understand the struggle but it is never too late to say something <3 you are always welcome here

first!!! i love sharing!! i think most of hockey tumblr loves to see people finding out the Lore for the first time and the wonderful thing about hockey is that. it keeps going on. so there's years and years and generations and generations and always something new to learn about. i've learned to just not be afraid to ask!!! between different teams and players i'm always discovering new narratives (learning about the sharks old man yaoi rn... cbj rarepairs...)

no... to my heart's despair... you have the timeline right. i think in the best most tragic sense there's a mcstrome narrative where it is truly that nothing went wrong. the love was there. we couldn't do enough to save it because we didn't see it slipping away. i didn't notice when you didn't call until you never did. i don't know you now but i still remember when i did, do you?

HE'S NOT YOUR WAITING ROOM?? passing out. i do see "i hope you get everything you ever wanted and i hope i never hear a word about it" as them because!! they didn't go to each other's weddings!!! i don't wish you harm but i'm not going to put myself through that!! i hope you're happy and i'm never going to look on purpose.

i love dylan strome so much and the best part is that they all love him so much too. he wore a cool vintage ovechkin jacket!! and got slapped in the face with a tortilla!! he loves to gently rag on the rookies!! it just takes some time, everything'll be just fine. you're only on the middle of the ride.

OKAY WHEN I READ THIS PART I SCREAMED BECAUSE I DO HAVE A MCSTROME PLAYLIST AND!!!! HOT & HEAVY BY LUCY DACUS IS IN FACT ON IT!!! SO IS CUT YOUR BANGS (BUT BY GIRLPOOL SO DOUBLE JINX)!!!! i have dorothea by taylor swift on there but i don't know happiness so i'll have to give all the other songs a listen. mostly i just shrieked because i was like NO YOU GOT THE VIBES EXACTLY

🧠〰️🧠 truly the mind meld happening here. the handshake line. the mutual wedding non-invitations. i won't block your number or your name on twitter i just hope i don't see it come up on screen!! i do think that we got confirmation the last time they played each other that dylan did text him to say congrats on a milestone but i would have to check the archives

p.s. i think you said it perfectly eloquently :) what matters is that you said it at all and i was delighted to read it 💕

[sportsthoughts]

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