#( I don't often post a lot of my studies because they end up looking pretty messy but this one really started to shine when the wrinkles

[captainskells]

people are helping me with inspiration for my drawing studies ✨

uma thurman requested by @mirandaputsherbestbuttforward / @idolbound I first drew the version on the right which is more faithful to the reference I was using, but the left one was heavily inspired by this post because it's some good Meredith content. Anyway, drawing wrinkles and scars will never not be fun :)

[copperbadge]

Lately, it's felt like every time I've started to work on writing, I'll just be getting into the rhythm of it when I get interrupted, either by work or the cats or because the time I'd booked in the library study room is up (you can only do two hours at a time, and only four hours a week total). It was getting to the point where I kept re-reading the same chapter or so of previous work but never managing to add to it.

So I tried an experiment this past weekend -- I found a really cheap rate on a local hotel room, and on Friday I took an overnight bag and a very old laptop with limited processing power and checked into a room about a mile from home for a quasi "staycation". I unpacked and had a quiet night on Friday, as prelude to working Saturday-Sunday. The idea was to write uninterrupted by other people, pets, the presence of all my Stuff around me at home, et cetera.

I had snacks but I also bought meals out, which was nice; I don't often order in or buy out when I'm at home. The way I set up was that I would do fifty minutes of writing with do-not-disturb engaged on my phone and then ten minutes of checking email, texts, etc. since often what pulls me out of writing is a text or an email that needs answering, or the anxiety that I'm missing one that would. If I set it so that every hour I check, well, nobody's going to die if something doesn't get answered in an hour, so the anxiety isn't there, and neither is the distraction. (I found a nice app for this, review later depending on how functional it continues to be for me, but it's a like $4 app called Forest.)

It worked pretty well -- writing for an uninterrupted hour, as long as I know what I'm working on, is very functional for me. I average about two thousand words, that way, though there is a limit to the number of hours I can put in. I ended up doing two hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon, then switched from fiction writing to clearing out my tumblr drafts and some correspondence for the fourth hour. So it went something like

Go out and get breakfast, bring back and eat in room

Change into lounging clothes and do two one-hour sessions

Go out and get lunch, eat lunch out

Bit of a rest break back in the room

Two one-hour sessions, one of writing; when tired, switch to something that requires less creativity

Go out and get dinner, bring back and eat in room

And then in the evening the plan was to watch movies or catch up on reading, but I ended up being mentally weary, so instead I did some simple tarot reading. It was less divination or even meditation than just messing around, keeping the creativity stimulated; I did a couple of Creative Writing spreads, some very brief divination spreads (I nicked a nice three-card spread here that I mentally call He To Hecuba, and just used it in general rather than for a specific question) and then invented a spread when I was starting to get irritated that the same like, five cards kept coming up, more on this in its own post.

Sunday I did one more writing session but it was less successful, I think partly because what I was writing required a lot of research and partly because the previous day I'd dumped eight thousand words into the file. (Research took longer because I brought the most garbage laptop known to man, and the browsers crash if you try to open Google Maps, but in other ways it was ideal since there wasn't much I could do on it other than write.) But I had a good breakfast, got some rest, packed up easily enough, and headed home just ahead of the rain storm.

I don't think it's something I'll be able to do in that format especially often, since the deal I got on the hotel was an anomaly and Chicago lodging, even just AirBNB stuff, is stupid expensive. But in addition to helping get some work done it was a nice break, so I'm going to look into ways I could swing it on a perhaps monthly basis, or some other way to cheaply spend an entire day alone with decent access to a bathroom/snacks and a way to come and go easily. I've looked into coworking spaces before but they tend to be prohibitively expensive and don't really have the setup I'd prefer; there's a hostel on the north side with private rooms that I might try out but it doesn't seem significantly cheaper than a hotel. I might just have to pick one weekend a month and watch last-minute hotel price cuts where they simply want to fill a room for a day or two.

Anyway, functionally I wrote almost a fifth of a novel this weekend, and one that I wasn't feeling super on fire about; I'm feeling much better about it now that I've got some established plot going and I feel like I "know" the newer characters a bit better. (Also I'm enjoying writing Simon as someone who is absolutely entranced by his love interest and clueless that what he's feeling isn't mild antipathy because they met while fighting over ricotta.) So it was a big help, although if I were to put a budget line item in the Extribulum Press ledger for "writing staycation" it would wipe out my royalties surplus very quickly.

[howtofightwrite]

Was reading through your torture tag and noticed a lot of stuff that was being said seemed to contradict things that were said on the scripttorture blog... do you have any suggestions on how to clear things up? Im not sure which things to trust

And you're asking us, because they've posted once in the last two years?

I'll admit, I have a fairly low opinion of them, and that's not directly their fault. For years, one of their fans, would regularly send some pretty incendiary asks our way. In fact, some of the less hostile ones were answered, and may be the posts you were looking at. Understandably, the ones simply accusing us of being torture apologists, demanding we redirect all our asks to their blog, or insisted that we should sit down and shut up, did not make the cut. With that in mind, please understand, I'm not going to go digging through their blog to refresh my memory, so some of this might be slightly skewed by the aforementioned deranged fan.

Look for the blog that does not constantly contradict or misrepresent their authoritative sources. Which is to say, if you actually pay attention to Shane O'Mara's work, it's basically what we've been saying all along.

If you're unfamiliar, O'Mara is a Neurologist who was (last I time I checked) working at Trinity College Dublin. He published a, frankly fascinating piece, called, Why Torture Doesn't Work, in which, he set about trying to answer why torture is an ineffective tool for intelligence gathering. O'Mara also had the misfortune of being the only expert who said anything close to the perspective Scripttorture wanted on torture.

An open secret about torture is that it is completely worthless for getting accurate information. This has been widely understood for centuries, if not millennia. O'Mara's question was, “why?”

It turns out, that the neurochemical trauma associated with torture, seriously interferes with your ability to accurately access information. For example: If you're being tortured, you can't tell your torturer where you planted the ticking bomb, because your brain literally can't access those memories.

Torture is evil. Yeah. No shit.

And, this is where ScriptTorture stops. “Torture is bad,” and Jack Bauer is an incredibly unrealistic fantasy, end of story.

Except, this is not the end of this.

Now, generally speaking, I don't blame anyone who wants to get off the ride here. Torture is an unpleasant subject, and wanting to stop at, “oh, it's evil,” is entirely reasonable... unless you want to write on the subject, or if you do political analysis and need to understand why people break out the torture implements.

More than that, this is where my academic background in political science actually comes into play. I'm not saying this as an Eagle Scout who had a couple overly enthusiastic hand to hand instructors when I was a kid. This is (part of) what I studied in college, and I have kept an eye on it since then.

If torture didn't work, you wouldn't see state-sponsored torture pop up repeatedly throughout history. It would not be one of the favorite tools of dictators and despots. However, because it does, and it is, simply saying, “it doesn't work,” isn't instructive or meaningful because it's clearly untrue. Someone is finding value in this, so it becomes important to understand what they are doing, and why they are doing it.

When you torture someone, the information they provide is basically madlibs of whatever leaked through their brain. They want the pain and stress to stop, and they'll say anything they can to make that happen. That often takes the form of what they think their torturer wants to hear. O'Mara's research does explain why they don't simply cough up the truth.

So, why do it?

Torture is a very labor intensive process. You (as an individual) can't, realistically, torture multiple victims at a time, and it is a very drawn out process. Some elements can be automated, your torturer doesn't need to be present at every moment, but they're going to spend hours, if not days, working on one victim. Worse, this is actually a technical profession. It's not like you can just pull in anyone off the street and get the results you want. (Though, technically, this doesn't seem to be as true, however, amateurs do have a shocking capacity to screw up torture. So, the point remains valid.)

The value of torture has almost nothing to do with the victim. It's about the message it sends to everyone else.

Torture is about mass coercion of the population. When you are the state (meaning, the government), and you torture someone, you are telling your citizens that you are willing to do the same to them, if they oppose you.

State-sponsored torture is specifically a tool to suppress political engagement. It is, quite literally, state-sponsored, domestic terrorism.

This even holds true in cases where the state employs torture to extract confessions from criminal suspects. The message sent into the general population is that dissent of any kind will not be tolerated, and that the state has the willingness and power to turn these tools on you if you draw their ire.

I get that this is outside of ScriptTorture's area of expertise, and in fairness, I probably would not have studied this with any intensity, if I hadn't taken multiple classes on revolutionary theory.

Torture from private organizations (which is to say, organized crime, and religious institutions, though cults and some other groups might fit this description as well), follows roughly similar patterns. These tend to do the same things, discouraging dissent, and establishing the organization as having power over the population (or community.) (The technical term would be to “establish capacity.” Which is to say, the organization's capacity to enforce its will. The same term applies to states, though in those cases, the state's capacity is often overestimated by its population. It's only when it starts to falter, for example through military defeats or serious civil unrest, that they really need the capacity boosting part of this equation.)

Zealotry or stupidity can create situations where you have a torturer (or, more likely, someone in a position of power ordering the torture) who believes that it is effectively compelling the truth from the victim. This (or amateurs) can easily lead into a distinct problem, which is that all of this has diminishing returns. Torture one person, and you send a loud, clear message. Torture ten, and all you've added to it is that you're willing to keep going. However, as you start stacking up the victims, you do start sending a new message to your enemies, that being, you're going to get to them sooner or later so it's in their best interest to respond now, mobilize and retaliate proactively, before you get to them. This means that a state which leans heavily on torture can easily instigate the civil unrest that exposes their limited capacity leading to a political death spiral. Alternately, if the state does have the capacity to put down the resulting unrest, it further reinforces their position (which does happen with depressing frequency in the real world.)

You're also going to create new enemies in the friends, family, and loved ones, of the people you tortured. This means that any organization that relies on extensive use of torture will, eventually, start tying a noose around its own neck. (Granted, there are a lot of social dynamics that I'm skimming over here, so it's not exactly as simple as “if the state tortures lots of people, it will result in increasing unrest.”)

If you want a partial citation for the above, you can (ironically) find it in a podcast interview with Shane O'Mara, when he explained why torture has been employed repeatedly through history. (Specifically I think it was episode 15 of Your Welcome, by Michael Malice. Though, I'm not 100% sure off hand.) Though that doesn't cover some of the more in depth elements I just discussed. Some of this is coming from a textbook on revolutionary theory I can't locate (it disappeared in a move a few years back.) Though that was more interested in the general structure of a state destabilizing into internecine conflict. Ironically, my preferred citation on torture, Fear up Harsh by Tony Lagouranis is mostly uninformative in this case, because his experiences were on the ground, rather than from a structural understanding of what his job was really doing. However, he does illustrate my comment about amateurs making even more of a mess, both through personal experiences with a few, and also through the eventual trajectory of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

But of course, torture is evil... again, no shit. Was that really a question? And, I'm apparently a torture apologist for having a structural understanding of why evil people do evil things. Cool. Evil people don't do evil things because they're evil, they do them because they gain some tangible benefit from those acts, and they do not care about the consequences to anyone else. If you ask someone, “why do people do this?” and their answer is, “it's simple; they're evil,” that person is lying. They may be lying to themselves, but they are lying to you.

Why do people use torture? It's a lot more complicated, and unpleasant, than you'd expect at a simple overview.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get access to new posts three days early, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’re already a Patron, thank you. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

[trungles]

Processing Process, and More Processing

I made this post free and publicly readable on Patreon, but I'm reposting the whole thing right here too because, well, it's a free post, and I don't want to make you click away from your dashboard if you don't need to. But also if you want to support my work, here's the link to the post.

It's a little bit about cartooning, a little bit about drawing, and then it turns into a eulogy for a chicken.

I wrote “process” more than once, and now the word looks funny and is beginning to lose its meaning to me.

This post is about a few things, and it’s a little bit on the sad end of things. Nothing dire! No worries. There’s just a little mention of death, just as a heads up.

Before we get to that, though, I’ve been doing some work and had some thoughts.

I’m often asked about how I draw the noodle hair on my characters, and the answer is typically that I draw each and every line with my hand. But there are considerations of movement and volume that go into it beyond its texturally decorative purposes. I love being able to convey shape and motion with it. It’s less evident, I think, in my illustration work, but I think it’s much more obvious when I do sequential work. In the above image, you can see me working out a sequence of Angelica having a series of thoughts. Her head sort of moves, and her eyes follow. You can see I’d planned out the general shape of the hair and how I’d like it to move.

I wound up moving the drawings a little bit so that the readers eyes will actually follow the character’s eyes as it moves gently rightward on the page. The hair is there to accentuate the movement, like so:

It’s a consideration I employ in all my drawings, but especially when I’m drawing hair and fabric. I don’t use a lot of action lines, so this becomes an important way to give the reader the information that someone is moving through a space. Resistance, gravity, and motion are all things I have to keep in the back of my head when I’m doing these little drawings. I think the planning actually takes more time than the inking, which can happen pretty quickly once I map it all out.

In other news, I’m starting to take my extracurricular artistic development a little more seriously in the silliest way possible.

You wouldn’t know it, but I studied painting college—a medium I switched to after the printmaking professor and head of the Art Department at the time told me I probably shouldn’t be an artist (he gave me a hard candy for my trouble). I recently bought a bunch of little dolls, dressed them up, and am returning to my painting roots. It feels really nice to work in big blobs of color instead of lines. It’s an exercise I came up with in response to a common lament from art students.

One of the more aggravating generational tensions described to me by art school students is when professors describe a student’s portfolio as “too anime” without much explanation. I know what the professor means. They’re trying to get at how referencing your favorite anime or cartoons means that your style becomes a simulacrum, an imperfect copy of a copy, and you never learn to develop your own sense of judgment about where a line or a shape needs to go. And we can tell. It’s a way of working that is perfectly fine for cartooning because cartooning is closer to hand-writing than it is to drawing. I always turn to Charles Schulz’s work for an example. Those figures aren’t literally depicting children—with their little chessboard-pawn proportions and bread-loaf feet—but we read them as endearing children because we’ve come to a consensus between us, the readers, and Charles Schulz, the author, that those shapes mean those things. There are no whiskers or paws in the shape of the word “CAT” but you look at those three letters together, and you know the thing to which it refers. That’s an aspect of cartooning, too. Of course, what elevates it from mere writing is, in part, due to the fact that those little figures do not lose their meaning the more you depict them.

To really draw well, though, you have to do those fundamentals. You have to draw from life. There’s no way around it. It helps you develop a stronger sense of where you like to lay down your lines and shapes, no matter how stylized you like to work. It grows your judgment, and every artist’s best tool is their own well-honed sense of artistic discernment about their own work.

But that doesn’t mean you have to surrender the stuff you like or the things that inspire you to make art! I tell students that if they want to hold fast to their anime style AND hone their fundamentals to develop their eye as an artist, they should buy little figurines and toys of their favorite characters, prop those up against a light source, and draw them as still life objects. Like, yes, do the vases and the figure drawings and all those, I still think those are important. But if this is what you need to keep you interested in drawing from life, having some toys around is a great way to do it! Also, bless those sculptors and toy designers. They’re the best.

I think there’s something to be said about remembering to imagine the physicality of the things we draw, in all its dimensions and in the way it catches the light or casts a shadow. It helps sentimentalize things, too. Makes them feel more real, even emotionally.

Edwina died on Tuesday night, after a few final snuggles, surrounded by her favorite treats. She was about five years old, which is old for a chicken, and she had a very comfortable life. We buried her this morning. She was a good hen, J’s personal favorite.

It really feels like the end of an era. She was the last surviving member of our very first flock. After the other hens died, she really seemed to prefer the company of people over other hens. She is survived by Snooki and Nelly, our two other young birds who get along quite well together, actually.

A baby chick costs between three and five American dollars, typically. An egg-laying hen could be between twenty and fifty bucks, depending on the breed. There are roughly 26 billion chickens living in the world today, about 518 million of them here in the United States. They come pretty cheap. And a part of me was moved to cynicism, entertaining the thought that it might be strange to feel sadly over a little animal that, at most, might be roughly equivalent to the price of a fancy lunch and a coffee.

I watched the 1974 musical version of The Little Prince recently, and I remember it mostly because Bob Fosse was in it and scared the crap out of me as a kid—he played the snake that would take the Little Prince back into the sky when his body gets too heavy to take with him. Gene Wilder plays the Fox whom the Little Prince befriends and tames among a garden of roses. The Fox explains that he is like any other fox in the world, but he is changed—made special and particular to the Little Prince—with time, effort, and patience. So, too, is the Prince’s little flower special to him. Out of all the flowers in the universe, she was the one he watered and protected under a little glass jar. And that’s enough.

I knew my little hen would not live that long. It could be very easy to take a broad view of the life expectancy of a hen and distance myself from it by virtue of its mortality and its commonness. People who raise livestock do it all the time. But I also think it’s wonderful that we should all be capable of loving very small, very brief little things. Edwina is not, to my mind, the rough equivalent of a fancy lunch and a coffee. She was our little hen. For her whole life, she was ours. And I’m so happy she was here.

[wordy-little-witch]

More silly transfem Buggy ideas, Oro Jackson Edition

• Buggy asked a lot of questions as a child, was the reigning CHAMPION of "why". Including being told "you're a boy".

"But why?"

"Because your body is a boy's body, baby blue."

"Why do bodies be different? Why can't I be a girl?"

Roger at that point goes hmmmm, and just shrugs. "Well, you could! The kind of body you have is most common with boys, but I bet some girls have bodies like that too."

• Buggy grew up surrounded by men and fellas and dudes. The interactions with women were sparse, limited, and always temporary. The closest to a recurring feminine presence was Rouge, a few gals on Whitebeard's crew, and eventually Toki.

• when Buggy is about 8, she tells Roger that she wants to be a girl. Roger just ruffles her hair, picks her up to plop on his knee, and says, "Then a girl you are, my little buglet. I don't care if you're a girl, a boy, neither or both - you'll always be mine, and so you'll always be loved. Okay?"

"Okay... thanks, Cap."

• Rayleigh treated it like smth of a flight of fancy. He thought she was doing it because of smth else, so he tried pulling the whole "come to me in a year. If you still wish you were a girl, we'll talk then." It's unintentionally a pretty damaging thing, especially because Rayleigh even refuses to let her grow her hair out. It's during Buggy hissing, screaming, crying to get out of the mandatory hair cuts that Roger learns about it. Shanks went running for him.

• speaking of Shanks, he's the poster child for Ride Or Die. Buggy's shy about shopping but wants a dress? He's coming up with disguises. Buggy wants to present femme on ship but is scared of being made fun of? Shanks is putting on the MOST outlandish outfit he can and has 16842084 plans to make a ruckus. Buggy wants to experiment with her makeup? He's got a PhD in Hype Man Studies, from the University Of Besties.

• Buggy exploring her gender leads to Shanks exploring his own. He's a guy, he's comfortable with that, but he's also among the many who swear by maxi skirts bc those are COMFY holy shit. He's just a dude who sometimes wears a skirt.

• someone once made a side remark about Buggy being on the crew during a fight, they call her an it and thing.

Their head hits the ground just seconds afterwards.

• Whitebeard and Roger have semi-regular fight dates, like playdates but worse, after which the crews hang out and party. The one after Buggy comes out and has gotte some more confidence, she is bouncing around the crews, all big grins and talking to the girls and getting fussed over, or she's playing with the younger crew members and Shanks. He take one look at Buggy, beaming with her tiny little pigtails, her leggings, the mini skirt, blouse, and boots. He opens his mouth.

"We can't steal her, pops."

"But we could...!"

• Toki and Oden half adopt Buggy and Toki is adamant on passing down the Wano Rites to Buggy as well. Momo and Hiyori may be Wano's by blood, but Buggy is Wano's by soul and Toki refuses to let this girl slip through the cracks.

• Roger once heard someone call Buggy weak for being a girl and was ready to step in to handle it when Buggy just... goes feral. She beats the ever loving snot outta the guy, ends it with a "how's THAT for weak, dickbag!!"

He has to wipe away a tear. He's so proud.

• both cabin kids had special nicknames, and the main ones used by Roger for them are:

Shanks as the Red Menace (Menace)

Buggy as Pirate Princess (often just Princess)

((Both of them have those tattooed in their adulthood))

• Rouge meets Buggy and Shanks pre-coming out, greets them post like "hey boys!" Buggy corrects her hesitantly. Rouge is silent for a moment, turns on her heel, leaves, and immediately pops back, going "hey brats!!" Buggy had a moment of terror which then became relief-annoyance-embarassment-gratitude. Shanks just went from 🙂 to 😡 to 😃.

• Teach had a puppy crush on Buggy, which made her ALL KINDS of uncomfortable. She hated him from the start.

• she would put up with it tho on occasion for Missions. Nothing big, but when Rayleigh or someone else annoyed her and the crews were close, she'd run away to Whitebeard's crew and he'd help her gaslight the FUCK out of the other's. Just. Her in his lap, Roger in the fetal position on the deck like "pleeeaaassseee gimme my babbyyyyyyyy-"

Buggy, fighting an evil lil grin, turns to whitebeard like, "pops, is the weird man, okay?"

"I don't know, my girl, but don't mind him - my old friend here is an odd one."

"Okay, papa."

Roger makes a sound like a dying whale.

• Shanks bought Buggy a fancy custom hair piece for her birthday with matching earrings. Buggy then grabbed him by the collar and manhandled him beneath her to put one in his ear. He still wears it to this day. She wears the other one.

• Buggy is quick to crush, slow to LOVE, which was AGONY because Roger, Rayleigh, Gaban, Oden and Bullet were all varying g levels of WILDLY OVER PROTECTIVE. On the one hand - she's growing up 🥰. On the other? She's growing up!!!! 😨

• Bullet was frankly one of the WORST. Buggy was, to him, Baby Sister. Shanks was Baby Brother. Nobody, repeat NOBODY, was good enough for his little siblings. He and Roger were on the same page there. It led to some frankly mortifying yet hilarious hijinks.

• Roger was the type of man to get drunk and become COMPLETELY over the top with the love and affection. Buggy and Shanks were equal opportunity snuggle buddies, against their wishes. Shanks would wriggle to get to the booze himself. Buggy would just go limp and whine.

• the first time Buggy met Iva, she was starry eyed and scared. Roger held her hand the whole time, even as he threatened Ivankov with every single thing he could imagine, all sweet faced and menacing. That was how they found out Buggy's Devil fruit made her immune to piercings as well. She'd have to transition the old fashioned way, and use seastone for injections or sutures.

• Buggy actually cried that day.

• Crocus then requested Iva let him have a sample of their feminizing hormone to try his hand at synthesizing for Buggy. It never worked.

• Buggy goes on to find ways of transitioning that she can actually safely do, and Iva even goes on to reach out to other medical professionals to find options. If one girl couldn't be helped with their Devil fruit, who else was there? Who else needed the extra assistance? It inadvertly starts a wave in the medical community.

It's late and I'm running on fumes so nini for now okay ily baiiii

[honeysuckleharringtons]

just steve harrington being so selfless and not taking time for himself melting into a puddle if the reader or you or y/n (idk which one to put 💀) just asked him if he was okay a lot (I do that 24/7, this is purely self indulgent) and the many times he said yeah and the one time he said no :(

i was originally gonna do a full fic style blurb on this but words have been very hard for me lately so i'm just gonna do a text post about this! hope you don't mind 🫶🏻

warnings: reader is sorta implied to be fem!reader, allusions to steve being treated not so well by his parents as a kid, part of this does mention some upside down violence, tiny mention of food, no use of Y/N, lmk if i missed anything!

send me steve thoughts | ask box

I imagine the first time it happens is probably in gym class when you're younger.

You accidentally hit him right in his pretty lil face with a dodgeball ☹️

And Steve being Steve insists he's okay because "I get hit all the time in basketball and football. I've broken bones and nearly busted my teeth out. A lil dodgeball never hurt anyone."

But you can tell he's hurt.

Whether it's him that's hurt or his bruised ego, you can't really tell.

But some part of him was clearly hurt.

more under the cut!

The second time it happens is when you get paired together for a study group during senior year.

Steve struggles with a lot of subjects, but math is probably his worst.

And it's not like he doesn't want to get better, his parents just never sat down at the table and helped him with anything growing up, and when his nannies told his dad about his report cards, it didn't end very well ☹️

But math is the one he's always had the hardest time with.

So when the two of you get paired to study for the calculus final, you can almost immediately tell he's struggling to understand the questions on the example sheet.

At one point, he just kinda places his head in his hands and groans into his palms.

And you're just kinda like, "Hey, you okay?"

And again, Steve is never one to admit defeat.

"I'll be fine. Can you just help me with question four?"

Surprisingly though, after just a few nights of studying together, you become sort of reluctant allies.

He surprisingly excelled in human biology, which you did not. So, the two of you helped each other where you could.

And then it happened a third time, during the summer after you'd graduated.

Steve had had a rather unsuccessful time trying to flirt with the ladies that often came into Scoops Ahoy.

This day had been no different.

He'd really tried his hardest to get the beautiful ginger in front of you to go with him to the movies on Friday.

But she and her friends just moved along, double-scoop ice cream cones in hand, back to their shopping.

"You good?" you asked, nearly on the verge of laughing, as you stepped up to the counter.

"Oh, yeah, sure," he answered sarcastically. "Just a little bruise to my ego. That was definitely the first time any lady has turned down this beautiful face."

Part of you, though, was hurting. Hurting that, even though you were right in front of him, he'd never bothered to look at you that way.

The fourth time it happened, you really started to question everything you thought you knew about Steve.

Somehow, despite being back in town for a total of two days, you'd gotten roped into something to do with some evil dude named Vecna.

And for once, after everything you'd learned since arriving back in Hawkins for spring break, Steve was the one asking if you were okay.

Also for once, one of you was answering the question truthfully.

However, in the week that followed after, even in the midst of alternate dimensions and weird mutations of bats, you'd learned that Steve might have been causing his previous lady problems on purpose.

And when you saw the painful expression he sported as Nancy Wheeler was reunited with her boyfriend, your own heart shattered all over again.

Still, if there was one thing you were, it was a good friend to Steve.

So, you pulled him aside and asked those three little words.

Steve simply ran a hand through his disheveled hair with a slow nod.

But you could tell he was nearly at the point of breaking.

And the time when he finally answered truthfully, he really did break.

You'd drove with him to the hospital to check up on Max Mayfield, who somehow he'd became friends with despite the age difference.

The room was dead silent, other than the annoying buzzing coming from the lights.

You finally gave him a good once-over as he sat at Max's bedside—his messy hair, his pale face with newly acquired purple spots under his eyes, a small cut under his lip.

And for the first time since you'd known Steve, you watched as tears formed in his eyes.

You were quick to rush over to the other side of the bed, your hand splaying across his back and rubbing soft, small circles against his frame.

"Steve, I know this is a silly question to ask, because we both know the real answer, but seriously, are you okay?"

He knew he couldn't hide. Not any longer. So, he simply let the walls come down, croaking out a small, "No," through his flood of tears.

After crying into your shoulder and allowing himself to finally let go of everything he'd been holding in for all those years, he just simply held you.

Finally, after explaining everything—from the reason why he never told you about the Upside Down, to why he'd used Nancy and all those girls as a distraction from the person he really wanted—he just grabbed your face and kissed you. A sweet and tender kiss, not a desperate or lustful kiss, but a longing one—one he'd waited much too long to give you.

And somehow, even in the midst of all the bad stuff, even in the midst of Steve finally breaking, the two of you could finally find a way to maybe, just maybe, be okay for once. ❤️‍🩹

-> taglist: @dungeons-are-too-cold @ducky-died-inside @awkotaco24 @liberhoe @princesseddie @aftermidnightwriting @manuosorioh @esoltis280

[the-elder-beato]

so I've been going through umineko again for a project i'm working on and it got me thinking about how masterfully the hints and foreshadowing regarding the true culprit and the overall mystery are sprinkled throughout almost every line of dialogue. and like duh it's a mystery story so of course there's gonna be foreshadowing, but it's also hard to strike a good balance with being too obvious that it no longer becomes subtle or being so vague that the reveals feel like they came out of nowhere

looking back on so much of the dialogue even in chapters 1 and 2, so much of it had me practically screaming at myself "how did you miss this the first time through?!" but at the same time, i can totally see how certain details flew over my head given the context the story being told is presented in.

gonna post some specific examples under the cut because one of my good friends is currently reading through it and i don't want to ruin it for him. SPOILERS FOR ALL OF UMINEKO BELOW

a pretty major one that a lot of people bring up is the constant mention of sickly sweet smells coming from kinzo's study as well as the oddly poisonous looking drinks that he partakes in that are bad for his health. this is probably referring both to the odor of kinzo's corpse itself and the preservatives genji and the others are using to prevent it from becoming obvious to the others in the mansion that don't know of his death

but the other things that stuck out to me are the fact that when krauss goes up to his door to do the whole song and dance of pretending that kinzo is in too much of a bad mood to leave his study and see the family during the conferences, he often ends these scenes with a sly smile on his face before handing kinzo off to genji or nanjo, two people who are also responsible for keeping up the charade

This is from one of the earliest scenes in chapter 1 like jesus christ. even ignoring how obvious the "my dad is already dead" line is in hindsight, those coy, knowing smiles he gives are practically screaming that this guy is putting on a show for the other siblings. but on a blind viewing, you could easily wave it off as krauss just having grown tired of trying to make the effort to get his rambling father to come out for like the 3rd family conference in a row and all he can do it laugh it off bitterly

a very similar version of this charade is shown in episode 2 as well, with yet another line with a double meaning that hints to kinzo's real fate. i honestly kind of find it amusing picturing these grown men pounding on the door to their dead father's study, yelling at a volume probably loud enough to reach the rest of the family downstairs to sell the bit even more

these lines also from episode 2 though. holy shit, ryukishi is pretty much giving the answer away here. granted, you can definitely interpret this on a first pass as natsuhi and krauss devising this plan to protect kinzo/their own interests with regards to the inheritance discussion, but the sinister and ominous undertones are there.

speaking of episode 2, it is basically a whole novel's worth of hints towards shannon and kanon's true identities, which makes sense given it's their focus episode alongside episode 6. episode 1 already plants some seeds here and there regarding kanon, what with him somehow always seeming to appear to shannon out of thin air or being described as creeping up on people silently like a cat

one of the biggest hints that most people discuss is how the detective, battler, who is supposed to have an objective view on the proceedings (at least before erika takes over in 5-6) never seems to see shannon and kanon together at the same time when he is present. what keeps up the illusion is the many other scenes sprinkled throughout that take place through other character's POVs where we are shown the two interacting together, particularly with genji and kumasawa. we aren't given any indication this early on that the narration absent of battler isn't to be trusted or is hiding details from us, i don't think until knox's rules are introduced in the answer arcs, so this is a pretty brilliant way of hiding the truth of their characters but without making it feel as if the viewer was completely lied to in hindsight

the fact that jessica is saying this to kanon of all people. oh my god. it's so painful. all of the flashback scenes of shannon and george and jessica and kanon are so sad to watch. sayo is not only struggling with the fact that she's fallen in love with another man while waiting for battler to come back, not only struggling with the realization that she's bisexual when she starts having feelings for jessica, not only struggling with the constant reminders from george that he wants to have many children and grandchildren after she finds out that she will never be able to conceive...

she's now come to a crossroads where (in this world at least) she has to decide whether or not she'll give up hope of battler ever returning and pledge herself to george, while breaking jessica's heart as kanon. and battler coming back after 6 years just throws all of that out the window

this one might just be me overthinking, but i'm curious if anyone else has a similar interpretation. these two batches of dialogue occur in the same scene, the second coming after "kanon" shows up to once again vent out "shannon's" feelings of frustration and anger towards the ushiromiyas. at first it would seem that her lamentation about wanting to be rescued continues directly from the previous string of thoughts, and that she's referring to george again. but the use of quotation marks around "him" the second time around really make me think that this must refer to battler.

the fact that she considers this a sin even moreso feels like it points to battler to me, her sin being the fact that she's still thinking of him in the first place while wanting a relationship with george. she wants to pursue these new feelings with george, but in her mind it would also be weakness on her part to give up on the promise she and battler made together by forgetting about him and moving on. she wants someone on a white horse to come save her, and the thought that this person has changed to being george is tearing her up inside. she doesn't deserve rescue from either of them, in her mind. it's so fucking sad

and the final one for now, since i've only gotten through the first two episodes for this rewatch. i remember thinking back to all the deaths from the previous chapters when faced with the challenge of figuring out who the true culprit was, and just my jaw dropping to the floor when i remembered this detail from turn of the golden witch. none of the other victims of the stakes had them fall out, they were gouged in deeply, but shannon's alone had fallen off to the side.

and of course rosa (the co-conspirator of the episode) conveniently blocks her body off before battler can examine it further and give an objective detective's view of the state of the body. if he was able to, he probably would have been able to see that the hole in shannon's forehead was made by a gunshot wound and not the stake.

not to mention kanon's body just disappearing entirely. episode 2 is where we really start to get introduced to the magic realm and its explanation of events, so it's easy to get sucked into that and go along with the whole "beatrice desecrated him after death by not even allowing him the closure of being a corpse for the rest to discover" but man, it is so crazy how well the pieces fit together once you know the truth. it was simply easier at this stage of the game for sayo to shed the kanon persona entirely so she could move more freely as shannon.

at this point, she had probably given up on battler solving the riddle in this fragment/bottle after his full on mental breakdown in the servant's room following rosa's cold accusations and lack of trust in everyone else. sayo would have planned to die by the end regardless, but this final locked room trick was probably her last ditch effort to give battler a clue as to what was happening, but again this was foiled by rosa barring him from looking closer at the crime scene

anyway that was a lot of rambling about stuff people have probably already discussed to death in the years since umineko's release. but damn i just really, really marvel at ryukishi's ability to write such an intricately written story that simultaneously had me at a loss for the solution for the majority of its runtime while also making me feel like a fucking idiot for missing all of these obvious clues the first time around, in the best kind of way. this sound novel is a masterpiece and i'm so glad i discovered it

rest in peace sayo, i have no doubt the foreshadowing during my replays of banquet and alliance of the golden witch are going to tear my heart asunder once again </3

[queerstake]

As a queer drawn to the faith and trying to deal with the messiness of entering into everything, I've been trying hard to read more of the Book of Mormon because I only have a very vague understanding of it's Whole Deal, but executive dysfunction, ADHD, and honestly, a million other excuses are making it very difficult. Are there any good resources for walking through the fundamentals? Childish but I feel like I'm disappointing the Lord if I'm not more on top of this.

Hi anon! I totally get it and yes, I can think of a few ideas!

If you're looking for ways to understand the BoM (or even just general doctrine) from more of a bird's eye view:

I hope you don't find this silly, but when I was a kid, the church published an illustrated children's version of the BoM that's obviously way quicker to flip through. It might be harder for you to find those exact editions I read as a kid if you don't have ready access to a church library, BUT I found this!! It's (almost) the ENTIRE BoM illustrated and summarized and it's online!

Looks like they put out videos too that summarize the BoM beginning to end. Here's a link to the video series. I haven't seen these, so I can't vouch for them, but they might be helpful! Similarly, there's a BoM in 60 seconds video you might find helpful.

If you'd benefit from a schedule, the church is currently studying the BoM in sunday school! The past few years, we've been using a study guide called Come Follow Me with weekly assigned reading chapters. I've actually been working on posts about CFM as they relate to queer mormon theology, but I haven't had much posted yet since I've been having a rocky start to 2024. As things improve, I'll be able to hopefully even establish a schedule on this blog!

I'm not sure if missionary lessons is something you're interested in at this point, and it's definitely not something you ever need to do, but the missionary lessons themselves are a pretty good doctrine intro if you're looking for just Mormonism 101 in a digestible way. The missionaries teach out a book called Preach My Gospel, which is available right here. You'll be interested in the lessons, which are found in Chapter 3. If you just scroll down, you'll see some of the links are labeled Lesson instead of Chapter--just click on those bad boys. And if you have any doctrinal questions, I'm always MORE than happy to talk about the church! You'll probably get a faster answer DMing me personally at @logans-mormon-blog, but I'll always answer asks here as soon as time permits.

If you're looking for easier ways to finish the BoM from beginning to end:

The BoM on tape. The church has an audiobook version available on the Gospel Library app and other audio apps like Spotify.

The Reader's Edition. If you can get your hand on a reader's edition, a lot of people find this is an easier way to plow through the BoM. What's special about this one is that it's formatted not like scripture but like prose, and it really does change the reading experience!

I don't know if this helps any, but I struggle with some of the same issues as you and I'm always bitterly disappointed when I'm not able to move mountains. If I had my way, I'd be the most well-read scriptorian of all time and this blog would be updated constantly. But life often doesn't shake out that way. I spend way more time than I want to with my brain entirely burned out of my head. So you're not alone, if that's any comfort. I think God gets it--he made our brains, after all, and knows how hard it is to wrestle with. It's easier said than done, but don't beat yourself up. God loves the both of us and he's the most perfectly patient person who's ever lived. He's not frustrated or disappointed with our efforts. Religion exists, in my opinion, to help improve and enrich our lives, not make them more challenging OR even to make them perfect if we only could just run fast enough. I too wish I could be more diligent and on it, but shit happens, right? And we're not on earth to be perfect, we're here to be happy and to learn. When Joseph Smith was translating the BoM, God told him "Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you to translate; but be diligent unto the end." D&C 10:4. We're doing our damndest, and that's all God even wants from us.

If anyone else has more resource ideas, please let us know!

-Logan

[dorkfruit]

i put this together using my computer's trackpad so the new year is already starting out . bad .

posts: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D

template

reflections on the year, my plans for the future, some studies i did, and wips for the next year all down below for those who are interested

tldr; we will be ianthing next year so watch out!!

oh dear lord it's been another year. 2024! can you believe it! i don't talk much on this blog because i have a tendency to talk too much, but it's my little new year's treat, so here we go.

RECAP

i started taking drawing "seriously" in December of 2020, starting to do studies and stuff, and each year since i've ramped it up more and more. this year, i did. a lot of studies. there's probably like at least 200 more in my folder now (not including the 300 days worth of gesture drawings i did), with things like painting, faces, feet, poses, etc. anything i was struggling with, i went right into studying it. my art has been mediocre for a pretty long time now, and it's only the past few months where i feel i'm starting to get the hang of it, which is exciting!

more importantly, i started posting a lot more on this blog. i really like documenting my progress, looking on where i was before and seeing how i've improved. everytime i draw some fanart, im like, oooghh i can't wait to show my (: followers (: !! lots of locked tomb art of course. i've been trying to nail the energy of the different characters, which is why i enjoy books so much, because you get a lot of creative control. drawing ianthe is my fav of course, cause she's my lil nasty, but also i enjoyed doing designs for characters i hadnt thought about before, like judith.

in addition to the locked tomb, we had some new fandoms that got brief moments in between iantheposting: Fear and Hunger, Postal, Faith The Unholy Trinity, and a couple of old ones too, like We Have Always Lived In The Castle and The Merciless.

i posted about 115 times this year, although most of those are shitposts LOL i love posting stuff on my blog and showing people my stuff <3

THE FUTURE

my plans? do more ianthe art, of course. ill be working on more studies, probably going to work on developing a style, and figuring out how to paint. i'd like to do more actually finished pieces, but let's be honest, it'll still be mostly shitpost doodles. i'd like to do more weird stuff. i've been messing around with some gore and NSFW near the end of the year, and it's fun to draw for me. i like idk art that evokes some type of emotion, especially discomfort, and so i find that type of art fun to do, so if you don't enjoy what i've done thus far in that direction, perhaps this isn't the blog for you. i really like horror media, and so i want to do some stuff like that too.

for specifics, i like western type art, a comic book-esque style i'd like to aim for. but i'd like it to be a little more. weird with it. i find comic books often draw all the characters the same, and make all the characters traditionally attractive, and that's boring to me so i'll have to work on finding a way to keep things weird, while also appealing in a graphic sense. the worst thing my art could be is bland and forgettable.

locked tomb wise... more tridentarii art. need to be really weird with it. i have lots of wips planned, like i have a whole page worth of just thumbnails, so i wanna get some of those done. also i had a few animatics i wanted to do. mostly stupid shit, once i learn how to do animatics, then we'll do actual serious ones. id also like to do more comics. i have some comics storyboarded out with my girlies, i like telling a story so, need practice on that. id also like to develop a way to consistently draw them, for convenience sakes, so i'm not fighting for my life every single time i draw these characters. oh and i wanna do some outfit stuff. i draw them in like. generic clothes everytime but i'd like to come up with a few actual outfit designs, that i can just reference back to. and, of course, more shitposts. lots of stupid shit in 2024 for sure. there was something else i wanted to say here but i can't remember.

ART

oki enough rambling, here's some IMAGES for yall to look at i know everyone loves to look at images.

began this year by warming up with gesture sketches (almost) every day. i started with 20 poses (30 seconds each), and then in november i was like. ugh my hands suck i need to get better at hands, so i switched to doing 10 hand sketches (60 seconds each). i want my art to be very energetic so it's important that i do these !!

anatomy studies of extremities because i'm flopping at those -_- ive gotten better with hands but they're still a struggle. i hate feet tho still

need to get my painting game up. i joined an art forum to get advice, and the biggest suggestion i got was working on my values, so i did various value studies. also lots of faces because my faces flop !!

random doodles to work on drawing from imagination. on my "sketchbook" pages, as i like to call them, i'm usually pretty loose and messy, since the point is just to be drawing so often these will suck, but that's fine. i don't think very much when i draw faces on here either so they end up being in my Instinctive Style i suppose you could say

ianthe wip. i was planning to do a few drawings based on the idea of her having Missing Arm nightmares, but the lineart was intimidating to me so i haven't worked on this one more yet /: also there was going to be a toontown gay homosexual toxic yuri comic that i was gonna put here with it but the page is way too long so umm guess that'll have to wait.

...

anyways. thank you for reading if you got to the bottom of this! i appreciate all the support that i've been getting lately (extra big kissies for the same like 5 people who always reblog my posts youre the best). and we will be ianthing soo hard in 2024 so watch out!!

[not-poignant]

@morbidlizard replied to your post “Can I ask, why do you love BL romance better than...”:

I mean it's unfortunate but asian BL is just hands down better than western for so many reasons <: / I've been reading asian BL for literal decades now (AHHH) and I can maybe count on one hand the western series I've enjoyed that had some sort of queer romance that had all I wanted or at least a part of the tropes I like...And even then, it's usually F/F relationships 9_9 (and when I say asian, I mean japanese, korean, chinese, some indonesian too! etc etc...)

​Actually yeah this is also really where it's at

I think a lot about how we're still getting extremely like... milquetoast wholesome queer narratives (most of the time) in western m/m romance media (I have nothing against Heartstopper, but it's extremely 'all queer people are pure wholesome need-to-be-protected jellybeans' and like, cool, but I want more than that as well - like give me 20 shows that are 'all queer people' in 20 different genres, thanks. BL will give me that - BL will pay people to give me that.

The only way I can get that from western media is fanfiction, and sometimes - kind of - from published m/m, when it's not paint-by-numbers rapid release that isn't about telling stories from the heart and it's about telling stories from the bank account instead (which is a valid reason to write, it's just not what I'm looking for as a reader - most readers who end up loving and writing fanfiction aren't looking for this imho)).

Thomas Baudinette is actually doing incredible work in this area of Media Studies, where it's literally a known thing that BL - particularly in countries like Korea, Thailand and Taiwan - is actually taking huge strides ahead in the genre, comparatively, especially when up against western BL.

It almost feels like we're on a giant lag, buffering behind them, and about the only place we aren't is in fanfiction, which makes sense, because the cross-pollination between fandom and south-east Asian BL is incredible (literally, they got omegaverse and guide-verse from western fanfiction and western fandom, and imho are doing a lot more with it for money than we are, see: Pit Babe).

I've been reading up pretty heavily into Baudinette's work, and also a lot of the recent and up-to-date work in BL Studies (a thing), and like, it's just kind of fascinating the different interrogations of BL we have going on in different cultures and subcultures, and how different senses of place and culture and ethnicity and minority and belonging can influence our tales, along with many different manifestations of capitalisation, economy, influence etc.

And that isn't to say there aren't huge problematic areas for BL in all countries, not just western, I can critique western BL so easily because I am western, and it's been really interesting reading critiques of BL from academics who live within other countries from their perspectives too. But I do think if I want really great BL romances, turning to fanfiction and then turning to other cultures and what they're doing is often the first thing I do. I just don't have to search as hard to find what I'm looking for. And like, I'm lazy, lol, I don't want to search through 100 published works to find like 1-5 stories I might reread but not over my favourite manhwa or like fanfiction or whatever.

This has been my area of like... personal study for a few months now (literally reading Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men, Media and Masculinity in Tokyo by Baudinette atm) and I have a lot of thoughts of which this is just a very generalised ramble and not actually anything of great meaning but like sadkljfas TL;DR yeah

[thebestofoneshots]

✩ Star also congrats!

personally: pretty open-minded but also stubborn and ngl hold grudges easily. lowkey a ppl pleaser but we don’t talk abt that. my friends say i’m a good friend but can also be distant when needed :) also infp personally type and libra moon and sun and sagittarius rising. i’m also like a extroverted introvert where i love being around friends and ppl who make me happy but also need alone time

appearance: 5’7 almost 5’8 with blondish brownish hair and hazel eyes- mid size? maybe smaller but i’m around 145-150 lbs and have body dysmorphia so lol

things abt me: love music (am a swiftie and love lana and phoebe bridgers), i love cats and harry potter(specifically marauders if u look at my account), i read a lot and hope to be a writer plus i love books. also love baking

my style is like downtown girl w slight indie/hippie vibes.

i def do have a preference (if u look at my account) but yeah i hope that was enough info and tysm <33

If you want to participate in "TBOS' 400 Followers Celebration" too, you can look at this post for all the options of prompts you can choose form <3

☆ Star: send a short description of yourself and I’ll tell you who I ship you with! Congrats Kat, you got 1/3 of the special drabbles.

Ink and Secrets

Prompt: A little of enemies to lovers, where you and Remus, two individuals with a history of conflicts, gradually build a mysterious bond through secret notes on books. Word count: 2.6 k Warnings: None, (a bit of enemies to lovers).

Hey love, I ship you with Moony!

The first thing Remus noticed when he met you was your hair; he thought it looked incredibly soft, and when you sat in front of him in Charms, he couldn't help but pull on it.

"Hey!" You complained, and he just gave you the most charming smile you'd ever seen in your life. So you frowned and turned back to pay attention to class.

Later, during your first week, you got paired with Peter in Potions, and you became close. He introduced you to James, Sirius, and, in the end, Remus. Peter wasn't very good at Potions, nor was James, and Sirius was great if he decided he wanted to pay attention to it, but most of the time he didn't. Therefore, the person Peter was always calling over to your table was Remus. It was always Remus. You were not particularly great at Potions either, but you studied extra hard so Peter would stop calling his damned friend. You did not like Remus butting into your business as much as he did. And you stared daggers at him whenever he came up to your table because of Peter's request. Peter was so oblivious to your quarrel with Remus that he even assumed you had a crush on his friend, so he called him over even more often.

"Stop calling him, will you?" You told him one day in the second year while you worked on a particularly complicated potion.

"But I thought you liked him?"

"Like him? Like hell I'd like Remus Lupin! He's an entitled little pushover, I don't wanna see him."

Peter was so impressed with your words that he was speechless; he genuinely thought you had a thing for each other. So eventually, he stopped calling him, and whenever either of you needed any help, you'd call Lily instead. Sooner or later, the famous Gryffindor group was created, and everyone was friends with each other, everyone except for you and Remus. You still kept your distance.

So much distance between the two, that in fourth year when you discovered there was a person who had borrowed the same books as you had at the library, you started to fall for them, completely oblivious to the fact that "Moony" was actually Remus. You started leaving little notes on the books you found, and he would answer them, always diverted to see your opinion. He decided not to tell you he was Moony because he was scared your little secret text exchanges would disappear. He'd even asked the boys to call him by his nickname when you were around.

When you finally discovered Moony was Remus, it was because of James.

"Hey Moons, you're coming to Kat's party, right?" You pulled your head from the book, wondering who James was talking to; Remus ignored James, trying to maintain his identity a secret, "Moons?" he insisted.

Remus finally threw a warning look at James. "Moons?" You asked, not having noticed, since your head was turned back to the boy in question.

"Yeah, short for Moony."

"You know Moony!?"

"Of course I know Moony, it's Remus!" He answered as a matter of fact. Remus banged his head over the table. You turned to him, feeling like you'd been played with, and stormed out of the common room with a frown.

"What's with her?" James asked, confused.

"You're an idiot mate," Remus responded, sighing and looking to the side.

You ran to the library and picked some of the books you and Moony Remus had exchanged notes in, and you cursed yourself for being so dumb. It was obvious it was him, his slightly sloppy handwriting, the way he drew his "a." Moony was Remus, and Remus was Moony, and you wanted to die for falling for his trick. You were too focused on your despair that you didn't realize when Remus entered the library. You only realized it was him when he pulled back a chair and sat down in front of you and all the books. "Hey!"

"You've come to gloat? You got me, I fell for your prank, congratulations!"

He sighed. "I wasn't trying to prank you."

"Yeah, and elephants fly."

"I'm serious, I... didn't tell you it was me because I thought you'd stop exchanging notes. You're not exactly my fan #1."

"Of course, I'm not Remus, but it's not like me either!"

"I do." He corrected.

"You don't! The first thing you did when you met me was pull on my hair!"

He looked at you in shock. "In... the first year?"

"Of course! You don't remember?" You asked, annoyance growing on you.

"I did it because I thought it was... pretty."

You stared directly into his eyes, trying to find an ounce of a joke; he seemed sincere, but then again, he also seemed sincere when he pretended he was someone else. "Don't ever toy with me again, Lupin!" You told him as you stood up and left the library. But once you were back in your room, you couldn't stop thinking about him. About his pretty hair and his broad back and how beautiful he actually was. You cursed yourself for thinking such a thing. He's the enemy, you tried to remind yourself. But what if Remus is more like your Moony than he is the Remus you had made up in your head?

You had to get your head off of him, so you decided to go to the kitchens and asked the elves to lend you some space to bake something. They did, a small elf named Jayis had even offered to help you, and between the two of you, you ended up baking a cake, cookies, and even a pie. When you were done, you were even more pissed because you had only managed to make yourself think even more of Remus Lupin. You packed the things you had baked in a box and walked out of the kitchens, quickly realizing it had gone dark. You'd lost track of time.

You tried to maintain yourself in the shadows and hid behind a statue when you heard some steps from behind, but Remus found you.

"Hey luv!" He said with a soft smile.

"Remus." you acknowledged.

"Can we talk?"

"No," you said before turning around and attempting to continue walking. He grabbed onto your arm. And you accidentally dropped the packet of food you carried. You quickly leaned down to pick up the stuff you'd dropped, he did the same, your hands brushing against the other as the two reached for a cookie. You turned to him, with a frown. "What are you playing at, Remus?"

"I'm not playing." He affirmed, tightening his hand around yours, "I like you." You stared at him, trying to decide if it was some sort of trap. "I'm still the same Moony you've been talking to through books. You just hadn't seen that side of me because you never gave me the chance. I had no clue you were still hung up about me pulling your hair."

"Well, that was a rude thing to do!"

He ignored your comment and continued "When I figured we were reading the same books, I just couldn't bring myself to talk to you directly; it was easier to talk to you through the books. And you were more than happy to respond to Moony, I…"

"Didn't want it to disappear," you finished, your own feelings perfectly resonating with his feelings. He nodded, and you chuckled lightly. You couldn't believe you'd fallen for Remus Lupin of all people. "At least Moony's handsome; I was scared you'd be someone like Severus."

Remus laughed, but once he caught up with the meaning of your words, he turned to you, asking, "Did you just call me handsome?"

"Please tell me you're not going to be insufferable about it."

He smiled cheekily. "If you kiss me, I'll forget about it." You gasped at his forwardness, and he leaned closer to you. "So?"

You laughed and shook your head, picking up some of the things you'd dropped and placing a quick kiss on his cheek before standing up and running towards the common room. His smile widened as he saw you run, and he stood up, running behind you, a bright smile plastered on his face.

A/N: I hope you liked this little Drabble (came out a lot longer than I had planned, clearly I don't have any sense of self restraint).

Much love, Lilly xx

MASTERLIST

[plaguethewaters]

hey lychee heeyyy if you ever wanna yk talk about the beeduo kids I will. I will Very gladly listen (<- avid listener)

my french hw is looking at me very badly.

ANYWAY i have been having very heavy brainrto about a second beeduo kid her name is Maple and she is absolutely perfect in every single way.

i have.l extensive enderman headcanons about pretty much all of their society and biology - because im sick and dumb in the head mostly, but also because i have a pretty detailed space au with endermen as a race where most of the wordbuilding came from. Then again, in my canon continuation au (wich started with the idea of making a better ending to the dsmp and then spiraled into like two more seasons and twenty to forty more years of story) ranboo is, in fact, a full blooded enderman and also a prince from the end so i kinda needed to get mysself some lore for that too.

Strictly maple specific biology fact include

endermen do not have any gender, but they also do not have any sexes. Unlike humans and other human based hybrids, endermen reproduce entirely asexually.

enderman reproduction is strictly based on the End, because endermen are technically made of End Dirt. There's a small, slightly related specie of enderman that is instead made of Nether Dirt. Ranboo is a little bit of an experiment, because they're made of both. (it was not an experiment on purpose. His older sister accidentally spilled the wrong dirt while he was being made)

This works basically like these: two or more people (more often more, as children are raised communally in hauntings. The only "single parent" household that really exists in the end is the royal family, and that's a whole other can of worms) decide they want a child. They gather around one of the Sacred Birth Places, which is any space that has a decently high density of dragon magic, and then they perform a ritual that i have yet to properly think about to make that baby. The baby is then made from the magic dirt and it'll proceed to grow pretty much like a human child.

The Dirt Baby is made 40% of dragon magic, 10% of Dirt, and 50% of their parent's shared souls.

(in my minecraft wordbuilding, a "soul" is the code a player runs on. For endermen player specifically, their sould is physically made into the enderpearl)

(the endermen that get farmed for the pearls aren't players, mostly. Kinda like the difference between and ape and a human irl)

Now enderian children. They are such fucked up little creatures and i love them very much.

First fact! They Do Not Have Mouths

just like. they don't. just skin down there.

It is mostly a defense mechanism: most predators in the end do not have the same kind of night vision enderman have, and hunt mostly by sound. Which means endermen children are uniquely silent and still most of the time.

The mouth does open with time - it fully opens around the time an enderman is fully matured. My ranboo, for example, still has his mouth kind of attatched by new lmanburg, and gets it fully open by the end of canon

children, not having mouths, cannot actually speak. They communicate mostly by vibrating (a purring kind of sound they produce with a secondary set of vocal cords that sits in their chest, just below their pearl. It can make a purring sound, a static kinda sound, and many many others), gesturing, and flapping of their secondary ears

their two sets of secondary ears are much smaller than the main set and will gradually disappear by the time they're like, 12 (which is also when the mouth is generally open Enough to start making sounds). Think of it like losing baby teeth.

And now, the star of the show (and the end of this post bc it is getting kind of long and i do actually need to study lmao)

BABY MAPLE!!!!

maple happens when Micheal is around thirteen (so think, 9 to 10 years after the end of the serie), and after a lot of things have happened in my regular canon

(For context, in that time period: The main villains (the egg and dream and dream xd) have all, separately, been defeated. Ranboo has been brought back to like, michael has lost his first two lives, the nukes have been launched, the apocalypse has happened for a few years, the dsmp as a political entity has been disbanded and every association to that has been made a bannable offense, our Main Cast beeduo family included has moved to a new, much normaler city, ranboo has discovered he's the long lost prince to the enderian empire and he has got a mother and a sister and he's actually even fucking richer than he was before, benchtrio has gotten a decent new life, michael has started elementary school and made a few friends, wilbur has gotten so much fucking therapy and is gradually trying to mend his relationship with his family. Not necessarily in that order).

At one point they just. decide to have a baby, just because, and michael is SUPER fucking on board with the idea. he loves the thought of a baby sibling, he adores the idea of having a partner iin crime, he's already decided the ways he will corrupt them to his side and use them to get more ice cream after dinner. he's happier about it than his parents tbh and they're really proud of that.

So they go to the end, and poof out baby maple with the usual enderian dark magic. Maple is a biological beeduo mix, and since my tubbo is a dragon hybrid, she's half enderman half dragon.

Given that she's made of end Dirt she's mostly enderman looking and deveopment wise, but she will grow wings at one point and her horns look a lot more like tubbo's than ranboo's.

Her name was given by tommy, because she has a cute little tail that looks like a maple leaf. He absolutely cried when they told him they're calling her maple, and he will deny this to his death.

They raised her pretty gender neutral because of the whole "endermen do not have gender thing" (and also bc in my minecraft world. people do not have gender at all mostly? Like sexes exist for human and human hybrids but there's a much much less strict gender spectrum) - but the second she was aware what gender identity was she fell in love with being a girl, and that was it. She was like, 6, but her opinion never changed much.

She becomes taller than michael by the time she's seven. He is adeguately horrified by that fact. She is still shorter than ranboo tho and it makes him gloat quite a bit.

She's very fem presenting, but she keeps her hair short by endermen tradition. (for enderman, the act of cutting one's hair is considered basic hygene. Not cutting it indicates grief, mourning, or a general tragedy big enough that you can't even take care of yourself. Ranboo, who still didn't remember this but did it by instincts, stopped cutting his hair after doomsday. Even decades post canon he keeps it super fucking long, out of the respect for the Goddess of Death that allowed his revival) (and also he thinks he looks relly fucking pretty with long hair) (he is right)

i have more thoughts but it Is 6 (six) pm so i am stopping. Good lick and very much thank you if you actually read my whole rambling lmao

[atrashcanraccoon]

this is a product of my inability to stop imagining and a lot of brain beating because college isn't going easy on me.

inspired by a prompt on instagram that had me feral with the possibilities.

also yes, i'm putting it up in parts bc it's more fun that way. this is a cleaned up, edited ver. of what i've posted on IG.

happy reading <3 (under the cut)

"I haven't seen him in a few days, but that's like, normal for him, it's not a big deal, he'll show up when he wants to," said the hero's love interest, as she tucked her hair behind her ears and looked at her lover in confusion. "He does this all the time, right?"

The hero hummed in agreement. "I should've known that he's gonna pull something like this. Let's hope the idiot resurfaces with his dumb jokes sooner than later."

The comic relief hasn't been meeting his friends for a week now. If you ask, the hero would tell you that comic was pretty unpredictable and he goes off grid for days on end. Hero's love interest would tell you that despite being best friends, Comic and Hero didn't exactly meet each other often (is it because Hero never really had time for his friend? Is it because Comic never really felt appreciated by Hero? We'd never know, but Hero's lover had her doubts).

The last time Hero and his lover had seen him was on their two year anniversary. Comic had helped Hero organise a little picnic and a pillow-fort-movie date after. That afternoon, Comic had bid goodbye to the couple and told them that he'd be busy the entire next week because apparently 'the education system is a conman and we're all being scammed'.

Hero hadn't thought much about Comic's inactivity, seemingly used to it, but as texts from his best friend were also far and few in between, he grew worried. His lover took great pains to assuage his fears but the only thing that really helped with the stress was fighting Villain.

Villain was an enigma. His motives were virtually unknown, considering the man always kept spewing bullshit about how he loves a little touch of public nuisance because it's fun. Hero's main vendetta against Villain was due to the latter's penchant for being an annoyance to society. Villain had once set fire to all the staff rooms of the city's schools at night, forcing the institutes to shut down for a week for a renovation. The media uproar was insane and Hero was hounded by journalists for weeks because of his late arrival to the scene of crime (not his fault- he had assignments to finish. Post-graduate studies aren't easy. Real life sucks).

Time went on and so did Villain's terror- and in a bid to protect the city from him, Hero devoted more time and resources to attempt capturing him. Somewhere, even Hero forgot that he hadn't heard from Comic in over a month.

That evening, after his latest stunt (minor bank robbery, because the manager had challenged every criminal in the city by bragging about his brand new security measures and Villain loves taking annoying people down a notch), he returned to his lair, feeling hopelessly empty, of sorts. Of course, the fight with Hero was everything he needed to scratch the itch that'd been taunting him for days, but something was missing.

He pulled up the news coverage of that day's mayhem. Something.... something is missing. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

His thoughts screeched to a halt when he noticed the lack of someone's presence. Almost in a frenzy, he began opening tabs of footage and media coverage of his fights with the hero of the past month. He's - Comic- what? Where's Comic? What?!

Villain would be the first to admit that apart from the occasional lawlessness and laying waste to the city (because property damage is infinitely more satisfying than bodily harm), his main source of childlike joy was seeing Hero gawp like a fool when his friend, the comic relief exchanged beautiful quips with Villain. He also wouldn't exactly tell you this, but the sheer glee of meeting someone who gives as good as he gets is unparalleled.

Like this one time, amidst a cute little Italian bistro that was then in ruins after the initial scuffle, Villain was delivering his prepared monologue because Hero actually gives him time to speak (which, personally, he thinks is fucking stupid). He'd just finished making a powerful statement about serving real justice when Comic had blinked, and giggled (the cute guy giggled) then said, "The only thing you're serving right now is spaghetti with a side of bloodied shoulder. I don't see how that's a good look on you."

Hero had then tried to shush his friend, a horrified look on his face, but Comic gave him a face that suggested that he's taking none of that and then proceeded to stare into Villain's soul, a goofy smirk gracing his face.

That was it. Villain was falling in love.

Not a day goes by where Villain hopes that he could ask the cute funny guy out on a cute little date without the whole 'i'm a bad guy and you're the good guy's best friend-slash-comic-relief' situation.

But fact remained that Comic hadn't been seen for over a month and as far as Villain was concerned, that's a month too long. He growled to one of his men, "Get me the city's surveillance footage of the past month."

The henchman was confounded. "But sir, I don't see why-"

"I don't pay you to question me, boy, do what I said. Now!" he barked, his displeasure and confusion shining through. The henchman (his name is Steve) slowly backed away and was leaving with a frown.

Maybe I was too harsh. With this thought in his head, Villain called out, "Steve, my good man, forgive me for snapping at you."

Steve bowed his head almost reverentially and smiled. "Don't ask for forgiveness sir, I respect you immensely. I will get you the footage you require."

"Thank you, Steve. If you could hurry."

Villain sighed, not knowing what to think or expect. He understands the impasse he's at - his rival's best friend is missing, but Hero seemingly doesn't give a shit, or he's unaware (debatable). The only one who was mildly concerned was Hero's girl and Villain's sure that even she'd given up. He doubts that Hero has any other friends, making it weirder that he's not turning the city upside down looking for his best friend.

It's almost like he's the only one who is trying to do something about all this, albeit late.

Steve came back with a tablet with the footage and handed it to Villain. "Do you need me to get you anything else, sir?"

"A cup of tea, no sugar, please."

"Yes sir, right away."

Villain settled down to examine the footage. It was gonna be a long night.

\\\

this was part one, lmk what you think (��⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

[drawsomething]

a Page of Sage

I have a confused relationship with posting art online. I don't have much in the way of finished art very often, as I have spent a few years trying to drag myself out of the burnout pit by my fingernails, but I do often have sketches or studies or rough things. Lots of things that aren't really pretty or aesthetic - much more rough than this, even. I find this page somewhat aesthetic to look at, but that might be because Its My Dog laughs. But things that I'm working on trying to understand better, or whatever the interest of the day is, my eternal attempts to draw people better, SO MANY random floating body parts because I am a Practicing Artist. I must Practice. So much practice.

I feel unsettled when it comes time to post things that aren't presentable, finished works. Generally a nice online gallery of art should be a nice online portfolio of things, right? And there's a degree of health in not sharing Everything. But on the other hand... I'm not really trying to sell myself as an artist. I'm not trying to make a gallery. It feels bad to not post anything at all, but also it feels like a weird imposition to post sketches and disjointed things. I don't really know what to do. I've thought about (and tried) doing sketchdumps, where I just post it in big groups, but I will forget about previous sketches within minutes of putting them down tbh. I've thought about grouping things by subject and just doing free mini zines of "look thats the subject matter if you want to search it out." I've thought about just making my bksy or instagram dedicated spaces for art nonsense. I've mostly just ended up not posting anything.

tl;dr I feel very confused about what to share and when and logically I should just do whatever I want, but I don't know what that really is. This is my space but I dont fully know how I fit into it. heck. im trying to figure it out but ... ???

[dangerously-human]

Bible study bestie asked me when I saw her on Friday for her husband's birthday dinner if I was feeling Some Type Of Way about this summer ending my time with the young adults group. And I said no, it feels a little strange but I know I'm ready to join a new group, and she expressed relief and added that some people had been saying things like "are you really going to kick Rachel out just because she's turning 31" and heavily implying that I was unhappy about it. To which I replied, "You are the person I am closest to; if I was upset about something, you'd be the person I'd come to about it anyway, but even more so if I was somehow upset with you for enforcing this rule - I think we're pretty good at addressing things directly." Which, like, I guess maybe, if I were a petty person, I could consider it being on her - before she and her husband took over, the group never really had a stop point, it was just assumed to be thirty-something, and I happen to be the first person officially aging out. But that's a completely reasonable expectation, and she and I have been talking about it all year, planning for the future, and we're going to join the next group together (while she keeps running this one), so it doesn't especially feel like a big deal. I think she feels a tiny bit guilty, because usually when people have moved on, it's because of getting married/having kids, but there are plenty of single women in the women's group, I'm not worried about that.

She was relieved, anyway, and it kicked off a good conversation for us; but I guarantee you the worry attributed to me was coming from the young whippersnapper, who's been kind of freaking out about losing me lately, I think. Well, I know, actually, because part of his confession letter was this whole thing about how he panics a little whenever I talk about moving after I graduate and starts thinking maybe he should just come with me. (Oof.) I know he's operating from a schema of friend abandonment, and I've been trying to reassure him he's solidly stuck with me - while also putting some temporary distance in place to give him space to move past his crush, so on review, maybe it kind of seems like I don't mean it. As always, I'm a little frustrated by the unearned possessiveness while sympathetic to where it's coming from. Oddly, though, BSB seemed to imply this was coming from more than one person, which seems strange to me, because the only other people I'm close with in the group don't really come anymore, so I'd be surprised if they voiced concern about me not being there. Sort of the opposite, even: I've thought for a while that my "graduation" might end up being the final kick for the adventurer to stop coming, not exactly because of me specifically, but it's kind of far since he moved, and we've been the older pair for quite some time now - teased fairly often as "Mom and Dad" - so without me there, he might feel less like he belongs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idk, the whole thing is weird - not bad, just strange. It's a transition, and I have to be intentional about making time to see these friends when we won't automatically cross paths every Wednesday, and I should make it clear to them that I do plan to do that so it doesn't look like I've outgrown them. And I don't really love that my only real Bible study options from here are sex-segregated, but that's not really a requirement, it's just that the only other combined ones are during the workday, so mostly for retirees. I do think that's a weird pattern in churches, though. This post is getting so long and I'm not even sure I'll actually post it after all, I'm just having lots of thoughts and August is the time to be thinking about endings and beginnings and the melancholy in between, isn't it?

[kafus]

for the artist ask game i picked two Q’s:

6. Favorite and least favorite angles/perspectives to draw?

20. What motivates/inspires you artistically? (topics, emotions, etc)

love your art especially of the funky little horizons lesbians, and i hope you had an awesome time at the con!

ouagh thank you the con was good 😭 i still need to make some posts about it...

6. Favorite and least favorite angles/perspectives to draw?

asks that remind me that i need to experiment more with perspective and actually putting my characters in tangible space again because i wanna branch into comics... but anyway

i still struggle with side view on my character art a lot asjfdosa doesn't stop me from doing it but i have to slow down and really think about it and often when i send my work to friends for critique, they point out something wrong with the jawline and i have to fix it LOL, i could definitely stand to do more side view studies at some point and get more comfortable with it (i also tend to struggle with things where the head is tilted up enough that you can see the underside of the chin, i don't have to draw anything like that often but that too...)

on the other hand i am 3/4 view's strongest soldier to the point that sometimes my front facing characters look lopsided on accident because of the 3/4 muscle memory and i have to go in and adjust them after the fact lmao. but i think that's a pretty common problem to have

20. What motivates/inspires you artistically? (topics, emotions, etc)

probably obvious considering the laser focus tunnel vision i've had on likodot with my art lately but. it's shipping art. but like seriously it's like exploring human connection and love through art for me, and being able to see how other people explore that same topic. it is probably more important and complex for me than it appears on the surface. like yeah likodot cute and i want to see their faces smashed together in a kiss on the lips but also as a very traumatized person i am so fascinated by the idea of a healthy and loving relationship, i am so fascinated by being able to safely explore romance as a young person, and i am so fascinated by the idea of safe physical affection - which is why affection gets such a strong focus in my art lately lol.

it also turns out that i enjoy fandom spaces and the community found through it and that's really motivating and inspiring too. i love coming together with other people over shared love of a thing and making art about it together. like hell yeah dude nothing more powerful than human connection at the end of the day