#(if you wanna know what game I'm referring to then look in the reblogs)

[dedtoot]

"This video game is woke!"

The game:

[obsessedvibee]

Temptress

MDNI, 18+

Pairing: Austin Butler x Evelyn(reader)

Summary: Austin and Evelyn are on vacation in Hawaii and a little teasing game begins. Who can get the other to crack first?

Warnings: teasing, sex against a wall, neck squeezing? i don't wanna call it choking, unprotected sex, p in v, masturbation reference, dirty talk, what's a smut story without a little awkward boner?

Words: 2.5k

Authors Note: When I tell you I had such terrible writers block when trying to come up with the scenes where they tease each other. I don't know why that was so hard for me?? But I know a lot of you were waiting for this (I've never had so many notes on a teaser before! I'm so beyond thankful but now the pressure is a thousand times more I truly hope I don't dissapoint-oh gosh) story to be put out, so alas- here it is.

As always comments and reblogs mean the absolute world to me, so feel free to write your little hearts out or even message me!

But enough from me...enjoy!

The hot Hawaiian sun blanketed her body as she laid out on one of the white beach chairs. The sound of the nearby waves lapping at the sand lulled her buzzing mind. Only thoughts of her husband Austin were present. She was on vacation after all, he SHOULD be the only thing on her mind. 

Austin soon returned with two cocktails in his hands, handing the cold glass to her. She took it in her hands, the condensation dripping onto her thighs, causing goosebumps to form.

She took a generous sip, savoring the sweet flavor on her tongue, the alcohol warming her throat as she swallowed.

“Mm, you’re so hired,” she moaned, taking another gulp.

He chuckled, sitting to face her on the chair beside her. “Does that mean you’ll keep me around for another night?”

A smirk danced on his lips as she pretended to consider her options. 

She eyed him through her glasses, taking in his newly toned body. He’d always been thin, but he bulked up in the last month for his upcoming role. His shoulders were more rounded and his biceps held more shape. The lines of his abs were subtle beneath his skin with a bit of hair topping the waistband of his swim shorts. Her thoughts quickly began to fill with desire. A sudden little playful idea formed in her head.

She waited until his eyes made their way back to her before swiping her tongue along the rim of the glass before going in for another gulp.

His eyebrow twitched in response.

She straightened her posture, “that’s not a very respectable thing to say to a guest, now is it?”

Beneath her confident gaze, her heart pounded in her chest as the words left her mouth. 

He had to crack first. 

“My apologies, ma’am.” He stretched his arms above his head, his biceps flexing.

He didn’t miss a beat. 

He was on to her.

Let the games begin.

Although, she wasn’t sure if any kind of game had started when neither of them made a move in the last hour. But she did know she wanted to cool down and get out of the sun for a bit, feeling a bead of sweat roll down her back. 

“You gettin’ hungry?”

“A little,” she admitted.

He sat up, groaning as he stretched his stiff limbs. 

“You go ahead,” he encouraged, “I’m gonna take a quick dip before I head in.” He nodded his head towards the ocean. 

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his back as he walked right into the water, sinking down just enough to dunk his head before walking back up to shore. He ran a hand over his face and through his hair to slick it back like he was Fabio on some cover of a romance novel.

She was eating up every second of it. 

He looked her way right as her tongue darted out to wet her lips. 

A cool shower sounded incredible. For more reasons than one.

She abruptly stood, refusing to look in his direction, already knowing he had a smirk that was awaiting her gaze. Making her way to the outdoor showers, she gratefully slipped behind the wooden paneling. 

She briefly wondered if he’d follow in behind her.

Flipping the water on, she jumped aside with a shriek as a sudden spray of freezing water hit her.

If her nipples weren’t pebbled up from a moment ago, they sure were now. 

She waited a bit hoping the water would warm some, but quickly realized there wasn’t going to be anything remotely tolerable coming out of the shower head any time soon. 

Turning the spout off, she stepped back out into the heat again, almost welcoming the warmth if it weren’t for the dried sweat that covered her skin. 

“Was that water a little too cold for you?” Austin chuckled as he toweled himself dry. 

“Straight from an iceberg- that's what that was.” She grumbled lightly, watching as his hands moved the towel over his body.

Everything’s always hotter when it’s wet.

“Is that why you’re..” he stuck his pointer fingers out from his chest, nodding to her breasts, “pokey?”

She blushed.

“Or is it just cuz of me?”

“Careful,” she warned, pausing in the doorway. 

He wanted to talk about her boobs? 

She could work with that. 

Reaching for the strings of her bikini top, she pulled them loose letting the bottom fall free. 

He visibly swallowed watching her hands, his throat bobbing.

Oh the power of a little peek-a-boob.

She turned, not able to contain her cheeky grin as she made the snap decision to rid her top as a whole, keeping her back to him as she dropped it to the floor.

“Hey, that’s not-“ he trailed off as she turned to face him with a giggle, his eyes drinking her top half in. “…fair.”

“Anything is fair game, but the first to touch the other person loses.”

He reluctantly brought his eyes back up to hers. She could almost see the tug of war that was going on in his brain of where to look.

“You were going to order dinner for us, weren’t you?” She teased, scooping up her top before beelining it for the shower. 

*****************************

It was after dinner, and he had just turned the water off for his own shower. He called her over to him from the bathroom. 

She walked over to find him with just a towel tied low on his hips, standing in front of the clouded mirror. Steam was still hanging in the air from the hot shower, adding to the mood. 

A dark new tan colored his skin from all the time spent on the beach the last few days. Her mouth almost watered as his muscles flexed beneath his skin while he spread shaving cream over his face. 

“Hi,” he greeted, a playful look in his eyes.

A nervous smile pulled at her mouth, “hi?”

“I need your help.”

She raised a brow, “with shaving?”

He nodded, patting the counter with his hand, “come sit.”

“But I can’t touch you?”

He chuckled, handing her his razor, “you’ll have to be careful then.”

She stood frozen for a moment contemplating the challenge. Not wanting to back down she hopped up on the counter, sitting tall. 

His eyes sparkled mischievously, watching as she brought the razor gently to his face. The air seemed electrified as she scooted a little closer, their faces now only a few inches apart. Pressing the blade to his skin, she made the first swipe. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip in concentration as she focused on not slicing his sensitive skin. Her arm almost shaking by the end from the exertion. 

Making the final swipe, she finally realized how close they were, feeling the exhale from his nose. She’d never craved to kiss him so badly before, she could practically feel the warmth of his lips on hers. 

She sudden feel of his towel brush against her inner thigh snapped her out of her lustful haze. Looking down she noticed she wasn’t the only one getting affected. 

She pulled away rather abruptly, quickly hopping off the sink. Straightening her shirt, she looked back at him. The tips of his ears were red, but whether that was from the shower or if he was actually blushing she wasn’t sure. 

“That doesn’t count,” he defended, clearing his throat.

“No?”

He took another towel to his face, “I can’t-“ he looked at her, “control it.”

Taking one more glance down to see the obvious sign of his arousal she was almost light headed with desire just knowing he wanted her just as much. 

She fled before she could lose control and yank him back into the bedroom.

Were there any rules against taking her own pleasure into her own hands?

**********************

Later that night, well after the sun had set, the bonfire crackled weakly as it began to die out between them, only the moon casting a blue glow on the sand. The breeze caused a chill to shiver up her spine, and of course Austin noticed. 

“You cold?”

She reluctantly nodded.

He picked up a stick and poked around in the burnt logs trying to coax a new flame, but only a few extra sparks fluttered up into the air.

“There's some other ways we could keep warm.” The words fell out of her mouth before she could think.

He paused. “Are you forfeiting?”

Her fingers tingled with the desire to touch him.

“Is the temptation too much for you?” She quipped.

They were both fighting for their lives.

“Only ‘cause it comes from you.”

Fuck. 

Damn him and his way with words.

His eyes were like a magnet pulling her to him and she was too weak to pull away. His tongue swiped over his lips, his eyes darting behind her.

“If you put that towel down, I’ll take you right here.” He said, his voice dropping an octave.

She bit her lip, failing to hide her smile as a new warmth spread through her veins for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.

“Didn’t know you were an exhibitionist.” She slowly reached back for the towel, spreading it open on the sand.

She hardly had time to situate herself down before he was on her.

He hovered his lips over hers, teasing just a bit more. She could feel his breath on her lips. Every inch she moved back, he inched just as far forward. 

“Aus,” she whispered.

“Hmm?” 

“As much as I want to do this right here-“ she inhaled sharply as his lips nearly brushed hers, “-what if there’s paps?”

He pulled away with a heavy sigh.

“C’mon,” she stood, before she took off running as best as she could in the shifting sand, a laugh bubbling past her lips. She just made it past the front door when Austin's arm snaked its way around her waist, “not so fast, baby.”

Her soul cried out in joy as she felt the weight of his touch on her, his warm skin making her nerve endings sing.

He pulled her into him, his front pressed to her back, his head lowering over her shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She laughed some more as his cheek brushed against hers.

“Where do you wanna do this, hm?” He spun her around.

A full grin spread across her mouth as his hands found hers, and he began to toy with their fingers.

“You wanna do this right here?”

She nodded, her heart skipping a beat when he gently pressed her back into the wall of the hallway, his forehead pressed to hers, his blue eyes swirling with lust.

Like a dam that breaks when the flood waters come, so was his desire for her, breaking through in a heavy long awaited kiss; his mouth finally devouring her own.

His hands fumbled with her shirt, his fingers almost trembling. Quickly discarding it to the floor,  his hands began to explore the newly exposed skin, earning a moan when his thumb swiped over her nipple. 

His desperation was contagious. She tugged at his shirt blindly, his mouth the only thing she could focus on.

He took a half step away to pull his shirt over his head, “tell me what you want, Ev.”

She whined, reaching for him, “Aus.”

He raised a brow with a little smirk, “hm? You’ve mentioned it before.” His fingers slotted into the belt loops of her shorts tugging her closer to his warm chest pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.

“Take me against the wall,” she all but whispered.

“There's my good girl.”

His fingers reached down, popping the fly open on her shorts and yanking them down over her hips, landing at her feet. His cock twitched realizing she had been pantyless the whole evening. 

Ridding himself of his own shorts, he quickly hoisted her up, gripping her thighs. She wrapped her legs around his waist, his already stiff length brushing teasingly at the inside of her thigh.

They both fumbled for a moment trying to get him in her, the angle proving to make things difficult, “put your leg down for a sec-“

Lowering her leg carefully back to the floor, freed up his hand and he quickly positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside. She inhaled sharply as her walls stretched to accommodate him.

“God, I don’t think I can ever get used to that,” she breathed as he eased in, gripping his bicep for dear life.

He gave a few slow strokes, testing the position.

Once he was sure they were stable, he hiked her thigh a little higher around his waist, spreading her open just that much more. Slotting his mouth over hers, he reached a hand up to squeeze her breast, coaxing a moan out of her. His hips began to piston faster, jolting her into the wall with each thrust. 

“Can you-“ a particularly hard thrust caused her to stutter. “A-Aus.”

His eyes darted to hers, his hips stopping. “You okay?”

“Don’t stop,” she whined, pulling at the hairs at the bottom of his neck, “-need you deeper.”

“Shit- yeah?” He reached down, getting her to wrap her other leg back around his waist. 

A wanton moan danced in his ears from her mouth as he sunk even deeper into her, “fuck, yeah.”

He pressed her harder into the wall, hips working double time, panting heavily in her ear as he held her, his fingers digging into the skin of her thighs. Sweat began to form across his forehead from the exertion, dampening his hair. Little groans began to fall from his mouth as their passion progressed, unable to contain it all inside.

A sudden impulse came over him and his hand reached up to her neck, squeezing gently. Her eyes widened as he locked his eyes to her, pressing their foreheads together. He slowed his thrusts, taking his time making her writhe with every push of his hips into her. 

“Baby-“ she mewled, clawing her fingernails into his shoulders.

He could feel her tightening as her climax quickly  approached. “You gonna cum for me, baby?” 

She squeezed tighter with her legs, her fingers tugging harder at his hair, pulling a grunt out of his throat. 

“Give me a good one, c’mon.” 

She held her breath as her high took hold, her walls spasming around his length.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled as he felt her squeeze every part of him as her climax hit. He quickly fell into his own orgasm, his blue eyes rolling back. His cock spilled heavily inside of her, painting her walls white with a low moan.

As her limbs loosened, her walls continued rhythmically milking every last bit from him until he was completely soft, quickly slipping out of her as he carefully let her down.

“Just so you know,”  she said between breaths, “you lost.”

-

Tags: Want to be added? Let me know! @ughdontbeboring @btsisinmyheartue @myles-production @purejasmine @shockercoco @sunsetsturniolos @denised916 @richardslady121 @austinbutlerslovers

[theflatpancakes]

If you couldn't tell from my reblogs I'm suddenly a huge Dreamtheory shipper so yk 😜

Uhhhh here are some headcanons dor Ness and Mike ig

Ness:

•He went to Freddy's all the time as a kid and was really sad once it shut down, although he didn't know why it got closed

•He has a true crime podcast that he does after he gets home from work; each episode is at least an hour-an hour and a half

•One day someone requested him to cover Freddy's and he was just like "???What???? When did something happen at Freddy's?????" And that's when he figured it out

•Every episode after the Freddy's episode he mentioned it at least once, and mist episodes were just covering new stuff he found out about Freddy's and the murders/disappearances

•He has been tempted to break in just to look for evidence so many times, although he never did

•He's a horror movie fanatic

•Also a conspiracy theorist

•He unironically owns the Dream Theory book that Mike has jn the movie. He got it to investigate for an episode of his podcast but eventually just got actually into the ideas the book was talking about

•Coffee. Addict.

•Doesn't care for labels, really. He likes anybody that likes him

•Theater kid; no, not just because MatPat is a theater kid.

Mike:

•Regular at Sparky's, both before and after getting the job at Freddy's

•He sometimes feels Garret pulling at his pants/shirt and is convinced he felt something, but always brushes it off

•Chugs energy drinks like there's no tomorrow

•He never got any sleep, even before he started working the night shift

•^ He also stayed up late when he was a kid/teen despite having to wake up early for school

•After the events of the first movie he quit Freddy's and went and got a job at Sparky's since it was close to his house and nearly guaranteed to not have haunted animatronics with the souls of dead kids in them!

•Always thought he was straight up until he randomly caught feelings for Ness after they started working together and seeing each other all day almost every day

Both/their relationship:

•Mike sometimes shows up in Ness' podcast

•Back on about the 2nd night of Mike's working at Freddy's, he invited Ness to come check some stuff out since he showed some great enthusiasm about Mike working there and him knowing about Ness' podcast and stuff

•Ness confessed first

•^Mike was just letting his feelings sit and shoving them down while he was in denial

•After about a month or two of being together, Mike was like, "Hey broski, so like.... you wanna move in with me and Abby????" And Ness was like "Uhm. Yeah, of course I do" so they moved in and played video games together all the time and Ness because practically a second dad to Abby even though Mike is technically her brother but whatever

•^After that, Mike was in almost every episode of Ness's podcast, and instead of just referring to Mike as his guest/coworker, he actually started referring to Mike as his boyfriend

•^So a little more about what they called each other on the podcast. Ness started calling Mike his boyfriend on there a few episodes before they moved in and the first time he said that he actually said how long they'd been together and when they moved in together he announced that on the episode that they did once Ness actually fully moved at least his recording set up into Mike's house

•So remember how I mentioned Mike was a regular at Sparky's??? So the first couple times he went he got sat in Ness' section and it was a funny coincidence so after that he started asking to be sat in Ness' section because he was funny and nice and just a cool dude to have as your server but Ness didn't know that Mike was requesting to be in his area so he thought it was just a coincidence

[jp-nichts]

hey i am just a stupid little bot on the internet, but if there is any way any of us can tangibly make you feel better, please let us know. i hold you in such high esteem, and seeing you upset makes me yearn to help.

also, your previous conversation with anon is something i once heard referred to as "mechanic's tracks": the little marks left from maintenance work; anyone who knows what to look for (like other mechanics) can pick them out.

Hi little bot! I really appreciate that a lot! I'm absolutely terrible about reaching out for help, but I'm trying to get better at it. I've been rather stressed, tired, and money has been very tight recently.

If you would like to help cheer me up there are always the following:

reblogs with tags/comments: One thing I miss about showing in galleries is being able to talk to people about my artwork. Seeing the tags and kind words people say about my art always makes my day and gets me excited! Especially when people notice the little details I add in them.

Ask and DMs: Additionally, my asks and DMs are generally open and I enjoy replying to both. If you want to jump into either to say something nice about my art or me I'll always appreciate it.

Ko-fi: If and only if you have some spare change and want to help me financially I do have a Ko-fi. I'm not starving but I'm also not going to be able to afford gifts for folks this year. Ko-fi link HERE

Reactors & Romance: If you haven't already checked out my TTRPG, please do! I pored my heart and soul into this silly little game and want to share it with others. Maybe leave a rating or review :x Reactors & Romance link HERE

I do wanna reassure you that I'm feeling better. A partner saw my post about wanting maintenance and she now wants a JP repair and maintenance manual to walk her through some helpful tips for when I'm malfunctioning. And well, implementing those tips is already helping me feel loved and appreciated and it's inspiring me to make a new piece 💜

MECHANIC TRACKS! YES! I love coming across mechanic's tracks. Every time I do I can't help but image the previous person leaving them behind! Gonna have to hide some in this new piece I'm working on

[renamami]

Facts About Romani People Because That One Person Asked For it On My Post About Azusa

A while back I made a post about how I wished people in the Diabolik Lovers fandom focused more on how Azusa is a Romani man and how cool that was for an otome game. Somebody reblogged and asked for somebody to make a post about Romani people so we'd have more reference on how to incorporate Azusa's heritage into more content of him so here it is!

I wanna preface this post by saying that I am not Romani or of Romani descent! I simply like learning about other cultures and groups of people and want people to learn more information about a race that has been villainized and oppressed for centuries. While I'll be discussing basic history, myths and stereotypes, and basics in culture, please make sure you go find Romani creators and people to get more information from! I love Florian on TikTok and YouTube so I recommend checking him out first!

As somebody who is not Romani, there might be some things that aren't completely correct since I'm relying on what is available. Always listen to Romani voices when looking for information. I'm just providing basics and am definitely NOT and expert!

Basic Terminology & History

First off, you might know Romani people often being referred to as the G-word. It's a racial slur that came from people believing they originated in Egypt and has been used for centuries to degrade and demean Romani people. NEVER USE THIS WORD.

The Romani people have a very closed culture and language which has helped them preserve it throughout the years. Translations and translators are hard to find and I don't recommend trying to find any out of respect for the community. What is known, though, is that there are masculine and feminine ways to refer to Romani people.

Romani: The race and communities as a whole

Roma: I'm slightly unclear on this one but it's another way to refer to the race and community itself. Take this with a grain of salt and do your own research

Rom: Way to refer to men as masc Romani people

Romni: Way to refer to women and fem Romani people

Romanipen: The Romani philosophy, rules, laws, and culture (note that there are a bunch of different communities since Romani is a race. There is Christian and Muslim Romani groups and people who's rules differ from others. Like all races, every community is different.)

Gadjo/Gadji: Someone who has no Romanipen, typically someone who is not ethnically Romani but can also mean a Romani person who does not live in Romani culture

Contrary to myth, the Romani people originate from South Asia, more specifically India. It's not clear when in India they came from but it's speculated that they came from the North-West region about 1,000 years ago. From there, they migrated to Europe and other continents. There are Romani populations all over Europe, commonly known mostly in Romania and Spain. Even now, the Romani language still has Indian and South Asian influences as well as Persian and Arabic influences.

From the very beginning, Romani people were discriminated against. They were labeled as wizards, thieves, baby-snatchers, etc. They were enslaved and coerced into chattel slavery in the Middle Ages by the Danubian Principalities where they were divided into groups by their owners. In the 16th-18th centuries, anti-Romani sentiment grew around Europe which led to many Romani people being murdered without any justice being served. They continued to be persecuted and blamed for a range of thing for centuries even up to this day.

In WWII, Romani people, along with Jews and black people, were at the very bottom of Hitler's totem pole and were targeted for ethnic cleansing in the Holocaust. While it's estimated that the death toll came in 150,000 people, others estimate it to be around 1.5 million victims of the Romani Holocaust. Unfortunately, the Romani victims are still very overlooked when the Holocaust and WWII is covered.

Right now, Romani people are still being persecuted and stigmatized. In Romania, they live in squatter communities with high unemployment. While some live a "nomadic" lifestyle, most migration is forced because a ton of communities don't accept Romani settlements. Discrimination is still rampant and all the violence and propaganda that racism entails is still alive and well when it comes to the Romani people, especially in Europe.

Please note that this is a VERY vague history and absolutely does not cover nearly a fraction of Romani history. This is just the cliff notes and I've only scratched the very surface and left out a lot of details.

Myths & Stereotypes

You ever see this shit before?

What you're looking at right here are racist racial caricatures and oversexualized fantasies of Romani women, specifically "fortune tellers".

Let's quickly get into myths.

Fortune Tellers: Romani people who were impoverished and desperate and down on their luck turned to earning money where they could. It was already a prevalent stereotype that Romani people were witches and mind readers, so many women turned to fortune telling and giving tarot readings because that was what was available to them and were thus painted as occult-loving scam artists. No, they are not supernatural being or seers. In the same way that somebody can practice spirituality, that's what they did. Nothing more, nothing less. Extra tidbit: tarot is not a closed practice specific to the Roma. Saying that it is is like saying banking is a closed practice for Jews. It's racist to push that narrative and if anyone tries to just know they're a dumbass.

The Exotic Wanderer: Romani people very rarely travel out of desire. They travel and migrate because everywhere pushes them out and denies them permanent residence. They aren't free-spirited nomads and portraying them as such further harms them. Speaking of exotic;

The Mysterious and Sexy Romani Woman: Notice how all the women in the picture above are super sexualized or have this air of mystery to them? That's because art, theater, and propaganda has painted Romani women as sexually available and provocative, gaudy, and "exotic". Women of color, you know what I'm talking about because we all deal with it. One of the biggest examples in recent history and the most popular in modern culture is Esmeralda from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame adaptation. She's portrayed as this mysterious and enchanting dark-skin Romni woman who all the guys are after in, again, stereotypical and oversexualized traditional Romani clothing. I mean, they had her essentially pole dance within the first hour of the movie. This portrayal of Romani women in media actively contributes to sexual violence against them. DO NOT ENTERTAIN THAT SHIT.

Thieves, Criminals, and Baby Snatchers: This one has been around for centuries. It's rather self-explanatory so I won't heavily explain the first two. Romani people have been painted as violent outsiders for as long as they've been in Europe and other places. Blaming disease, crime, and things going missing on them was (and often still is) a European's favorite pastime. The baby-snatcher narrative is common in media, again like in Hunchback where Esmeralda was originally a white French girl in the book who was stolen and replaced Quasimodo by Romani people. Obviously this is fucking gross and a vile narrative to push. When I talk more about Azusa, I'll get into adoption more.

There are obviously more myths and stereotypes but these are the biggest ones. Now, to cleanse your eyes, have what real Romani clothing and women look like.

See the difference? Modesty is a huge aspect of Romani culture.

Culture & Society

Again, much of Romani culture is closed and has been kept alive through remaining closed. This is just what they (or scholars) have chosen to tell and what I have personally learned. It is important to remain respectful of what Romani people do and do not want to share. That said, not much is left of Indian influence in Romani culture save for the people who still celebrate Hindu holidays. However, what has survived is the concept of universal balance. Many believe that everything, or almost everything, fits into a natural place. For example, birds are supposed to fly right? It's chill to eat those if your faith allows it. But a penguin? That bitch doesn't fly, it's a freak of nature, so don't eat it. A penguin is out of balance and, therefore, bad luck. That's why Romani people traditionally don't eat hen eggs because girlie can't fly. Of course, other faiths like Muslim Roma, who have special recipes, eat hen eggs.

Like every race, every community and individual has a different faith. Most popular is Christianity and Catholicism and it has become the primary faith among Romani people. Other religions like Islam and Hinduism are also practiced. These faiths have their own set of rules that they follow alongside Romanipen, which is not written and passed down orally. Romani people even have their own patron saints: Ceferino Giménez Malla, The Virgin of Hope of Macarena who is specific to the Spanish Calé, and Kali Sara who is an Indian deity and protector of the Roma. For Christians and Catholics, they also worship the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.

Cleanliness is another big facet of Romani culture. Your genital area is considered impure and unclean. Because of this many Roma do not have pet cats or dogs because they lick their genitals. These rules are so strict that food must be entirely discarded should a strand of hair from these animals get into it as the whole meal is then contaminated. Additionally, tops and bottom are typically washed separately as to not mix pure and impure fabrics. This is especially true for AFAB menstruation, which is also seen as impure, as is childbirth. This is because of Romani code which is the most important part of Romanipen: pillars both honor and shame.

Like many societies, importance is placed on the men and subscribe to expected gender norms. In typical Romani home consists of a married couple, their unmarried children, at least one married son and his wife, and their children. Extended family and family in general are an integral part to Romani society so they will play active roles in a Romani child's life. It is possible to be expelled from your community, however, should you go against your community's rules or, for example, marry a gadjo. This is because, depending on the community, it would bring dishonor.

Every since the 16t century, Romani people have either made their livings or enjoyed their time through music and dance. Both still have Indian influences but have also added other elements depending of the region. For example, belly dancing is big among the Turkish Romani. Have you heard of flamenco music from Spain? Did you know that it came directly from the Romani Calé? Romani music has had a huge influence outside of the community, as it has inspired genres like bolero and jazz music.

Before I go onto how I want to see Romani culture integrated with Azusa content in the future, I want to touch up on adoption and interracial marriage. While interracial marriage is frowned upon in some communities, if a gadjo learns Romanipen and lives their life as if they are Romani, they are accepted as fully Romani. This also goes for adopted children. If they live by the rules and codes, dedicate themselves to the culture and society, then they are fully Romani.

Azusa Mukami, His Romani Identity, and What I Want To See More Of

While Diabolik Lovers does have it's problematic moments when referring to Azusa's past such as calling his community but the g-slur, it's super important to recognize how freaking awesome it is to have a Romani character who is largely not a racial caricature and not portrayed as less than simply for being Rom. He is a fully fleshed out and romancable character which is so cool.

It isn't explicitly stated whether Azusa was adopted by his community or is Rom by blood, but given the time period around the 1960's to 1980's (I recommend looking at @i-write-hurt-not-comfort's blog for more information on the Mukami's timeline) I would recommend steering FAR away from the idea of him being picked up since the baby-snatcher stereotype was and is still big. Plus, it's just so much more fun having a non-white Rom love interest. Let him be brown, y'all. Also, he's Romanian Romani, let me see him be Romanian Romani.

Speaking of which, know he's super pale but I want to see him be South Asian and anemic! It's so rare that Romani people are white and Azusa would look cute with tan or dark skin. I'd love to see more art where he has melanin. Brown and black people can be pale too due to things like anemia. Don't be afraid to make him look like a vampire that has not seen the sun in days who happens to be brown!

This man canonically loves spicy food! You know what race's food is super rich in spices and flavor? Romani food! I'd love fics where we get even a throw away line talking about him eating spicy stew or chile mole. Make him hold Ruki at knifepoint in the kitchen having him make some stuffed peppers.

Even small things like him not eating eggs or separating his tops and bottoms because that's what he learned to do as a child would be so damn nice to see. Tiny things that connect him to his race and heritage would be so cool to see in more content of him.

Final Thoughts

Romani people, each community and each individual, have such rich culture and history. They are incredibly interesting to learn about and have had so much influence over things we might not even thing about. They're not only in Europe. They're every where. South America, the US, Asia, every where. It's about time people started recognizing them outside of what governments and white supremacy teaches us and admire the resilience and beauty of the Romani people. Please do your own research and look for real Romani people to get more information from on TikTok, YouTube, hell even the damn bird app. I hope this helped whoever wanted to know more about the Romani people. Thank you sm for reading too, this was a long one.

[corvuscorona]

"You Never Forget Your First Love."

The other day, a mutual (hi! you know who you are I think probably hello hi! thank you for the Posting Impetus!) said something that made me curious (for, like, the 80th time, actually; lol. I Have Thoughts) about something: what's the split on people who subscribe to the "Stranger of Paradise probably intended for us to believe that Jack & Sarah were in love" mindset, vs. not? In general, but ESPECIALLY around these parts.

I genuinely didn't read it that way myself (& I do NOT normally give media (general) this much credit, but the writing in this game is sublime; I had no choice but to fully engage Scholar Mode on it), + I think it's interesting that SPECIFICALLY any of my fellow tumblr people / AO3-heads / Gay People Online / etc. seem to have. (I expect nothing from people who haven't been basting themselves in the same online sub-subcultures as me for over a decade. They're allowed to write wrong things on wikis, and have done so already; it's whatever.)

I wanna metapost badly again, so let's go. Join me. No poll. If you have an opinion on this, I'm looking directly into your eyes and beckoning you towards your own keyboard + also the reblog button / comment section, like a weird ghost. What did you think when you first played the game?? What do you think right now? What are you about to think after you have read a bunch of my words. Tell Me. I Need To Know This.

Spoilers for, idk, everything? Today we will use everything we've got to talk about Princess Sarah.

1. As a Narrative Element

This game makes a point of referring to Sarah as things like "a symbol of hope and peace" as often as possible, & when it isn't doing that she's usually in the role of An Object Or Device Of Some Kind, anyway. She's important because she's capable of holding light and dark in balance & SOMEONE'S gotta hold onto this dark crystal for safekeeping, and also we're gonna need to upset that balance on purpose later. There's that conversation in the Wicked Arbor about whether the Strangers would "choose" her (as opposed to "treasure") as the "reward" for succeeding in their mission[1], & there's the one in the Sunken Shrine where Jed asks Jack what he thinks of her and Jack says that he doesn't care about her as a person[2] BUT that protecting her is mission-critical (lol), too.

Sarah's death is metaphorically charged. It's the point of no return: the dark crystal breaks, the balance of light & dark gets extremely ruined, & Literally All The Darkness In Cornelia converges in one place (Fool's Missive XXVII). That's the payoff for the "symbol of hope and peace" motif, and communicating this idea that "the metaphorical light of hope just For Real Died, Like Catastrophically Imploded, No Take-Backs" feels to me like it was the highest priority here. Second-highest goes to "Jack had way more humanity before, but he set it aside on purpose and is actively in the middle of losing the rest of it." "Sort of." "I'm not getting into what counts as humanity or doesn't because if I did we would be here forever."

Basically, I'm saying that the tidiest read on the situation is "Jack despairs because Sarah dying means in a very literary and final way that everything is ruined forever, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with, like, Love (romantic)." I don't think the text of the game is particularly signaling that Love (romantic) is involved, and I think that if it meant to, it would be more obvious about it. You could bundle "an romance" into the "humanity" thing if you wanted to, but I'm not inclined to, based on some additional list items that you can read below this one.

[1] The fact that Neon ALSO says she feels bad for her for being thought of in this way only reinforces my conviction that the game is pointing at Sarah & yelling "REMEMBER THAT SHE IS MOSTLY A SYMBOL!", tbh. Who wants to go point out how freaky the mechanics of Being An Royalty are w/ me and the boys??

[2] I will give the Wiki WrongPosters this: I can totally see this as some kind of irony thing, given that he's still missing like a fucktillion of his memories when he says it. However! As mentioned above, I have other reasons not to read it as evidence that he was ever, like, romantically interested in her.

2. As a Sheltered Youth™

We don't have a TON of information to work with RE: Sarah as, like, a person, but here are a couple of hard facts to start with: she's 19 (per the data book, but she'd have to be somewhere in the 18-to-early-20's age range regardless or her whole deal wouldn't really make much sense, imo. She's a baby...!), and she's royalty. I think this ties into her utility as a walking metaphor, among other things; she's archetypically young, fresh, & idealistic. I'd call her naïve but the game obviously isn't interested in portraying it as a weakness, so positive words only; why not.

You could argue that people look to her as a symbol of hope because she hasn't directly experienced enough strife to exhibit hopelessness or fear in response to bad news in the abstract. I find it interesting that before Jack, like, knocks the wind out of her & tells Sophia to take her outside so she can see for herself how bad things have gotten at the end of the game, she says that her duty is to die with her people if she has to, & it doesn't even seem to occur to her that she could lead at least some of them away to safety...? When she changes her mind, she still talks about herself as a symbol before she ever uses the word "leader". She sees HERSELF in terms of symbols and metaphors, and takes action based on her designated role As One Of Those. Not very practical.

There's also the dialogue you can have with the queen the first time you're allowed to run around in the throne room at the beginning of the game, where she asks Jack to smile in front of her daughters (NOT just Mia; daughters, plural). Even if she only means "dude can you be polite please," the fact that this is The thing she has to say to Jack is telling. Is it going to upset your 19-year-old daughter to see that the Guy Whose Job It Is To Kill Monsters looks serious? Why do you think this? Does your 19-year-old daughter understand how serious the situation is, generally speaking? Do you not WANT her to for some reason? Boats don't work anymore unless a weird elf messes with them first. Not thinking very hard about the implications of this is something a sheltered person does.

Residual time loop un-memories aside, a young woman in this situation is so obviously going to have a huge crush on Jack Garland no matter what. He Is So Cool, first of all, & he's also Different from the adult men she gets to see on an everyday basis (family, guards, rando townspeople[3]...). It's not like the political social scene could POSSIBLY be thriving in this world, either; it all seems to be one kingdom we're dealing with and they're kind of busy with the external threat of being Under Fucking Attack By Monsters. Does she even get fun treats like "handsome visiting dignitaries" & what-have-you? The game doesn't present us with any potential options, here. Jack is mysterious, he has special-boy Warrior of Light status, his one job & apparent life's purpose is protecting the kingdom she loves, he's pretty nice to her (even in later cycles he at least goes out of his way to be polite!), & additionally, he's shredded. THIS makes sense to me.

There's a Q&A in the data book that has something to say about JACK as a symbol & what that has to do with this whole thing but we'll get there. We'll get there.

[3] Tangent: what's up with how Cornelia's entire adult male population appears to consist of aging queens. Why did they only make models that look Like That for the NPCs? It's awesome but I have 1 quastion

3. JACK JUMPSCARE !

I'm not about to say that he's just humoring her, or anything, but please humor ME for one second & put yourself in Jack's shoes. Not the default shoes; we can have more fun than that. Maybe the Banded Boots. Blurple ones? Shaped like a cartoon would wear them? Big spikes on the back for no reason? I love those things. Anyway, you're Jack. You're working for literally the king, & the work means Everything to you for reasons you can't even necessarily explain except to say that it JUST does. The king's eldest daughter (very young adult; Never Been Outdoors; a little overly-sociable but nice enough & what do you expect from a princess, anyway) has imprinted on you like a duckling for whatever reason. You would be nice to this person, yes? You'd be patient with her while you're in town. You have Brutal Murders to be doing, but not until, like, 2 days from now, or whatever; you're sharing space with her in some capacity in the meantime & it's in your best interests to keep her happy. (You probably even enjoy doing this, if you're Jack of a Way Earlier Cycle; I'm in no way ruling that out. Sharing your music collection with an enthusiastic Baby Adult? That's fun. I think he was probably having fun. Okay, you can step out of the fun purple shoes if you want; the Humoring Me Minute has concluded; thanks.)

Also, @2000sanimeop and I think that if Jack felt that way about her Astos would have been a little More Something about how much it was gonna suck for him when she died. In Fool's Missive XXVII he uses the word "painful," but that's about it. He doesn't even bring it up in XXV, which is the one where he says he's curious about whether she'd survive being turned into a fiend (side note: Astos fucking rocks. Why did he write that down?? I love him). & Hey SPEAKING OF ASTOS,

4. I wouldn't put Jackstos on a wiki, either.

The writing in Stranger of Paradise, SERIOUSLY, WITHOUT EXAGGERATION, is some of the best I've seen in literally anything ever. It suits not just its medium but also its sort of Place in History Relative to Other Video Games & the things it chose to DO with that medium & that niche INSANELY well. It is CUSTOMIZED. It's SO INTENTIONAL. I can't get too far into this or we'll be here all day, but the essence of what I want to say here is: there are relatively few facts presented to us by this game, compared to the implications we can go about drawing from those facts & other, external sources of context.

Sarah calls Jack her first love; that's a fact. No facts are presented to us that REALLY say much one way or the other[4] about what Jack thinks of this, himself; "fucktillion memories missing" Jack says he doesn't care, but he's missing a fucktillion of his memories, and DLC2 Jack has a set of dialogue options (hi Anne the Malboro I love you Anne the Malboro) that can point either way depending on what the player chooses, which is kind of nothing, on balance. As the audience, we can (should!) draw whatever conclusion we want about it, but none of those conclusions are text.

[4] I WILL GET TO THE DATA BOOK IN ONE SECOND. HOLD ON.

And, okay, please let me level with you. Let's be on the same page. Jack & Astos had some kind of thing going on, imo, OBVIOUSLY, but I want to be CLEAR and I want to get CREDIT for the things I'M bringing to the table to help generate this conviction. I drew that conclusion & I read that reading based on subtext, context, personal history, personal preference, & sheer gay zest for life. It is also, emphatically, NOT TEXT.

Astos refers to Jack with the ol' "...friend" in Fool's Missive XXI. He calls him "my Jack" in Fool's Missive XXXI. Canonically, textually, he has some big fucking COMPLICATED fucking feelings about this man. These are facts. If you're playing this game as Some Guy, I can see how you could potentially absorb these facts & still pay them much less regard[5] than I did & continue to. My argument here is that god I wish I lived in a world where Some Guy could extend the same courtesy to me and not treat Sarah's textual affection for Jack as something that necessarily indicates Some Kind Of Reciprocal Romantic Whatever, Definitely, Obviously, Of Course.

[5] Longer Tangent: I have been informed that the Some Guys of the world are currently pretty good at Recognizing a character that behaves in a way that's Pretty Gay, but tend to stop there, possibly for the combined reasons that A. they're not very familiar with a lot of the the ways gay relationships often work (you know, soul resonance. mutual recognition. sharing a brain etc.) and B. the Object Of Affection is usually the player character and they subconsciously shy away from thinking of a Guy They're Supposed To Identify With as gay. This is practically a lead-in to an entire separate post I could make, so I'll leave it at that, lol.

The writing is too good for that kind of assumption! I'M SERIOUS!! It's mind-blowingly subtle & endlessly fascinating to hold up to the light & view from every possible angle, and "Jack & Sarah were in love" + "Jack & Astos were in love" are BOTH ANGLES. I'm personally very very interested in giving the text credit for that. I think it's impressive. I think it's really, really cool, and I think it was on purpose. Speaking of which,

5. Word of God agrees with me, btw

This is from the Q&A section on page 156 of the Confidential File. The translations below are my own (I think they're straightforward enough, but lmk if you know more than me & I'm actually being stupid in there somewhere. Alt text has the JPN, if you want to copypaste it or something). Someone asked:

Why is it that you established Garland as someone Sarah has a romantic interest in?

The answer is from Daisuke Inoue (director, one of 3; the other 2 are from Team Ninja; he's from Square Enix):

That was because, from a narrative standpoint, we wanted Sarah to be the kind of person who holds onto hope. You can imagine that she saw the "hope" to save the world in Jack, a potential Warrior of Light. Sarah is seen by her people as a symbol of a bright future, but if there were nobody to give her hope, that might destabilize her emotionally. As for whether she felt genuine love for Jack, or just mistook her feelings of admiration towards him for "first love," we'll leave that to your interpretation.

The first time I read this, I thought the question was implying the aforementioned Reciprocal Something, but on closer inspection that doesn't even seem to be true! "思い人" seems to indicate a directional relationship; as in, the question assumes that Jack is an object of affection to Sarah, but assumes nothing about what Jack thinks.

Also, the answer uses the word "初恋" (hatsukoi), which is a very established Concept as far as "first love" goes, but in that one cutscene, Sarah says "初めての恋" (hajimete no koi), which is. Different, but I couldn't tell you how, lol. It's Not The Exact Same Phrase, but I'm not sure whether it's meaningfully different in this context. If I had to guess, I'd say that IF ANYTHING it could be a way of saying "first love" without invoking the cultural CONSTRUCT of First Love (as much)? But it's whatever. The localization holds up. All sources show that Sarah had Feelings about Jack, and all sources CONSPICUOUSLY neglect to mention Jack's feelings about her.

It was on purpose. This is my license to be as annoying as I want for one second here. I am right. All the other writing in this game is notably subtle, efficient, intentional, and skilled, AND ALSO, WHEN do you ever see anyone write such a richly beautiful, mostly-subtextual relationship between two men, which can easily be read as a romantic thing, and NOT explicitly canonize a very possible romantic relationship between at least one of those men and a woman, like not even in an interview or anything. What the fuck, man.

I'm putting away the Respectable Scholar Hat now. This is so funny. The person asking this question didn't EVEN go as far as assuming Jack & Sarah had any kind of Actual Romance going on, & the answer STILL dials it back to "she might have been conflating her feelings about Jack AS A SYMBOL with actual affection, also. We'll let you decide : ) ". This game is everything ever.

[nanjokei]

same anon here, incredibly interested in the history from someone who lived through it

ok!

here's my own rundown on why the vocaloid bubble burst in the mid 2010s!

almost irreversibly! (don't worry— this story has a happy ending)

if anyone is wondering, yes, you can reblog this! i only say this because this took a lot of work to write so if anyone feels compelled, yes, stroke my ego a bit, i allow such a thing. now, i might get snippy here and there, but i'm not serious at all. my sense of humor is pretty tsukkomi-ish and it shows up in how i describe things. <-disclaimer for if this post breaks containment because i know fandom types don't like my sense of humor if they're not given the context that i LOVE what i'm talking about and rib on it out of utmost adoration

as a disclaimer, i do lightly look things up to check on stuff timeline wise and its validity, but this is from my own point of view and memory and a personal retelling, so if you have a different take on it then i'm sure our viewpoints can co-exist. also, i speak about utaite from the point of view of someone who respects their existence but does not participate. so if a few facts are off... i am speaking only from the aspect of what relates to what i'm talking about. also if there are any typos i stopped being thorough with my checking and editing like 4k words in since i am not being paid to write this, it is just for fun. anyways~

so where we wanna start here is before the big bubble era. i think most people would agree that it was in full swing around mid 2012, but i'll set the date at september 23, 2011. the posting of the song kagerou daze (by the way, as a testament to how much of a boomer i am, despite being an kagepro fan from the start i find myself still using the "kagerou days" romanization by accident every time). by the way, senbonzakura, one of the biggest vocaloid songs ever for the longest time, was posted only a few days earlier. just to paint a picture. but that's not the only thing... i think what we want to look at especially is the end of the vocaloid2 era and what was going on during and before. the final vocaloid2 product, vy2, was released on april 25th, 2011. in this timeline, there are a few angles i wanna focus on. the state of the culture, its spread, utaite and producers. by the way, if i had to date when i met vocaloid, it was around 2008. right before gakupo came out, maybe.

around this time, the culture of vocaloid-ke (vocaloid family) type secondary works were falling out of fashion. 2010 and before, i feel that vocaloid had a strong image of nico nico douga especially— not that it didn't during the bubble era. but i mean the people participating. when miku came out, people viewed her as a novelty while still thinking to themselves they had stumbled across something special. there was no subculture like that before, and the closest counterpart to this was idolmaster. now, many know this is the origin of the -P suffix came from. it's a tossed around factoid now but people should know that it was certainly a phenomena back then. and a LOT of early miku adopters (like 80% were either already in the doujin music scene, the DTM (desktop music) scene, trained musicians or even some industry pros. and a lot of these people were nerdy and geeky and loved anime and games and manga so of course their first point of reference for building vocaloid's identity was idolmaster. touhou, idolmaster's next door neighbor, also had a lot of influence given many of the music people in its scene dabbled in vocaloid early on. so naturally the fans that were attracted to vocaloid were also nerds. at first there were only cryptonloids, but gakupo quickly followed (and continuing in the trend of heavy nnd association— kentaro miura (RIP), a big fan of nnd and especially idolmaster— designed and drew his art 100% pro bono out of love for the site and its culture). luka came out... i think gumi was the first shift. gumi just felt, different. i personally owe it to her being modeled after ranka lee, the iconic role of her voice provider, megumi nakajima— ranka lee was the underdog character in her source macross frontier's love triangle. so i feel like that image somewhat imprinted itself on gumi. gumi was not popular at first at all. her release came and went with not much fanfare. ironically the aspect of rivalry would come back under stuff like the miku vs gumi debate. this is probably the first real demonstration of "it doesn't matter how good the voice is, it matters who uses it and how that propagates the voice".

and so i arrive at the producers of the time, maybe late 2008 early to mid 2009, the newcomers. the ones that weren't necessarily otaku through and through, but more on the "teenagers who like vocaloid and/or don't have a singer to sing for them, and want to make music". i will be specific and say it is people like wowaka (RIP), deco*27 and hachi/kenshi yonezu specifically. wowaka for example had a very fresh take— his pvs deemphasized the vocaloid, but it also inspired many fan pvs because of it. i will not go into how it became ironic that he quit due to the attribution to the voice. but his moody lyrics captured a lot of hearts and his style carried a youth to it. hachi did a lot of his own artsy pvs. deco*27 was very unpolished and amateur but his music was VERY of the times. the synths, the guitar, very youthful. aside from wowaka, whose comeup immediately led to him getting signed quickly (and the guy himself just walked and i don't blame him) i think what made these guys (deco and hachi) stand out from the rest in the end is one thing: they picked up gumi. and this set them apart from the old and dusted otaku who didn't pick gumi up, or those who picked her up thinking of her only as ranka lee. mozaik role (still deco's most viewed song on nnd btw, with no sign of stopping. and he is clearly PISSED about it). matryoshka. all that kibs of noise. by the way, matryoshka's stint in the vocaloid rankings went unchallenged until it was finally killed by senbonzakura. that's a good two years of dominance!! a lot of the breakout stars or people who got more popular during 2010 used gumi, i'm talking your 40mPs, your sasakure.UKs, your buzzGs. incidentally, a lot of these people got signed... most for their vocaloid stuff. 40mP, sasakure, deco, kous and others were signed under label split-offs like U/M/A/A. wowaka and hachi... were signed for themselves. specifically, wowaka and his band hitorie, and hachi as himself kenshi yonezu.

but producers were not the only ones being signed. utaite, who had been a thing before even vocaloid was a thing, found themselves growing rapidly due to them increasingly participating in the culture as both fans and beneficiaries. personally, i split off utaites eras as "before piko and akiakane" and "after piko and akiakane". the before era included people who either started very early on when vocaloid became a thing on nnd, or started before it (participating in chorus medleys or posting utattemita videos of anison for example, like gero). it was all amateur and everyone was doing it for fun... but the record companies doth lurk around the vocaloid scene at this rate. akiakane and piko i pick specifically because they were the first utaite who were very publically signed. piko was signed under sony's ki/oon records! akiakane had two or three big albums under the subsidary of VAP, toy's factory (if you wanna have fun take a look at the list of talent they rep). piko is especially important— as he had a vocaloid made of him. this marked first big interest of corporations and large record companies to actually enter the vocaloid space— in the most direct way possible. btw, the reason piko the vocaloid is dead is because piko the person is no longer signed under sony. it's not outright confirmed, but piko the guy stopped tweeting about utatane piko the second he transferred labels. he is stuck in a weird catch 22 he probably will never be free of, though yamaha is doing some insane moves lately, i wonder if they'd ever try to buy the character out and revive him as a stunt. (they are doing many funny stunts lately. but a subject for another time.)

finally, my last point in this preamble is the interest in telling stories through vocaloid had only continued to grow. i think the two biggest early examples were the prisoner series by shujinP and the ever so infamous evillious chronicles by mothy. their explosive popularity is wholeheartedly owed to rin and len— ok this is a tangent but this is the genius of the rin and len package, that to this day was never replicated, they come together as you know and since they are male and female with no set setting, they are an easy buy and you can make a story because you can do two points of view across several songs... like literally. its paperplane vs prisoner. daughter of evil vs servant of evil. and their fans were and continue to be super passionate. it's great, we would be missing a huge chunk of what makes vocaloid subculture what it is without them. of course, shujinP's series (plural because they had several) is less known these days but it was probably the first series to get plays and novels and all that. quickly followed by EC. later came series like sasakure's doomsday series, stuck in a limbo between old and new era (most of the songs released in the old era but the novelization and such came out during the new), and a few "outsider" series like numtack05/putinP's series (the reasons this never got popular is because it was absurdist and shitpost-y and involved too much political imagery, not only that but also because putinP used a lot of copyright samples (most famously ronald mcdonald and sazae-san clips)— the freely distributed album vers omit these samples entirely and i can confirm the songs are worse for it)

so to give a summary of the above section

the tastes of fans were maturing

there was a shift in how vocaloid was perceived

the growing influence of utaite

the growing interest of big corpos in the scene

the growing interest in storytelling using vocaloid as a medium

anyway, here comes the real deal. and... it's gonna be a mess. just like the era itself was. i hope you're ready, at least.

even the very first echo of vocaloid3 felt kinda corpo-y. it wasn't, but.. looking back. it kind of felt like it. the first time we ever found out about v3 was through a leak of seeU's demo— but it was a work in progress leak, so it had the voice of her provider dahee kim singing along. people had no idea so they assumed this was the capability of the software. it was exciting! kpop was just starting to get popular, and we were getting a new vocaloid software, with korean capability!!!

anyway. we're not talking about the can of worms that was seeU.

not just because of dahee kim. but because it's not related beyond this. also the fact that korean fans were heavily and horribly mistreated by the majority japanese fandom for obvious reasons. i do not have the depths to speak on that stuff, but it says a lot that the software's first big swing ended up like that.

but i wanted to illustrate the mood of the fans going into this era. it was full of hopes and dreams. now, i don't want any wannabe know-it-alls wagging their fingers at me and checking the wikia going "b-but cullen, mew also came out!! at the same time!!" the seeU leak came out first. i remember there were fights over whether or not that demo was real. it was a cultural shift like no other. who the fuck cares about mew? literally her only legacy is one really amazing ezfg song. i will not debate anyone on this btw. i try to be objective but i'm allowed to inject a bit of my own opinion here too. you know who were also full of hopes and dreams? the companies. not your internetcos and your ahsofts, no, i'm talking publicly traded shits and record companies. look... i'm coming off harsh. i actually don't hold that much animosity, but you're gonna see why this was the first huge misstep of the era.

nice picture, right? this was the kind of optimism we started off this era on. but, i'll break down the picture for you in a way that helps illustrate a point somewhat:

your girlies from V2 like gumi (who was this era's it girl), lily, galaco (even if her shitty V2 version is contest only)

your earnest newcomers mew (look, even yamaha girlies count), cul, aoki lapis, seeU (one could argue.), IA (one could argue...)

tone rion of dear stage (who represented dempagumi inc., the group her voice provider came from, though this was a myth for years until it was proven... also it was clear they wanted to make the rest of dempagumi into vocaloids but rion flopped at the time. there was even a picture of her friends floating around. astoundingly embarrassing confidence. one billion dead vocaloids.)

akikoloid-chan of lawsons (yes, the convenience store! she is a vocaloidification of their mascot and i would argue the poster child of the modern brand private vocaloid. she was retired in uh.. 2019 i wanna say? though she was dormant for a long time anyway)

ring suzune, the aborted failure of minna no vocalo keikaku (everyone's vocalo-project)... this one involves a lot of otona no jijou AKA adult circumstances (japanese corpo's favorite excuse. you will now notice this phrase every time you hear it oooo). just unfortunate all around

yuzuki yukari of vocalomakets, i put her in a separate category because she really is a girlie of her own. a vocal born from producers being dissatisfied that their wants weren't being answered and no company was taking them up, they just went "fuck it" and produced yukari on their own. a huge outlier in this era of vanity projects and companies using the scene for their own crap.

not pictured, but i have to mention her due to her complicated position in this era, but mayu of exit tunes. exit tunes is a record label that heavily supported vocaloid and utaite during this era, signing both producers and utaite, and making compilation cds of popular vocaloid hits. and probably saw to it that due to their dominance in the area of compilation cds (and they still dominate, even if their releases are sparse these days their cds still top oricon without effort), them sneaking mayu into the tracklists would work... my thoughts on this? my position has softened a lot over the years. and i've always thought "they gave up right before she organically caught on, they should have kept pushing. so what a shame".

now you may notice i bolded a few of these and made special mention of the companies behind them. you probably already figured it out, but this era had heavy investment from parties who had only to gain from a rapidly growing niche subculture. see, unlike the other two of nnd's big three idolmaster and touhou, who are IPs where you need some kind of cooperation to officially get in on, vocaloid... is incredibly free, so laissez faire in comparison. you buy a 9,000 dollar dev kit and get to work making your mascot. it was... so easy. so free. so sweet. but real life is not so easy, or free, or sweet. you actually had to be accepted by the fans, and like i said before... the voice does not matter. what matters is who uses it, and how that propagate the voice. this is true time and time again. it is the ultimate "how many times do i have to teach you this lesson, old man?!" of the scene from a commercial standpoint. no matter how many years pass. ergo, one billion dead vocaloids. corpo vocaloids were releasing and they flopped immediately. earnest products from newcomers were dropping and struggling, though def doing better than the corpo ones (like lapis, lapis did ok). existing "in crowd" companies were vomiting out new vocals and not even promoting them. it was a disgusting era of excess and death and bile and plague and war and and and. it's astounding that it is hard carried by the art that came out of it. because if you only look at the commercial side of things, it is fucking disgusting.

now, onto the fan aspect. remember when i said this era truly kicked off when kagerou daze came out? yup. here it comes. so, anyone lived through this era remembers the cambrian explosion of original projects that did not make use of vocaloid mascots— arguably the final death knell of vocaloid-ke secondary works being the mainstream.

now, i'm planting my flag in the ground here very firmly— i do not ride the bandwagon of the people who erroneously attribute the near death of the scene to kagepro. it's just not true. personally i have a very complicated (bordering on near sort of but not quite negative, depending on how nostalgic i feel that day) relationship with the series, but to blame it is incredibly narrowminded and ignorant of the actual reasons the bubble burst, and not to mention unfair. if you find it annoying, fine. but just say you don't like the series and move on. and really, for better or for worse, mekakucity days and mekakucity records are unironically god tier vocaloid albums that will be remembered for years to come. i just have to say this because i see a lot of people blame jin for very flimsy reasons... SHUT UP!!! anyway.

i think one of the issues with the whole project culture that flourished during this era was simply the fact that since they were multimedia projects (whether by accident like kagepro or intentionally from the get), fans were coming from all angles, and even those who got into it through vocaloid eventually became super mega invested in them as separate IPs. which is... unfortunately an issue. so when these properties eventually spun off into manga, light novels, covers with real seiyuu, merch and ultimately some even netting anime projects... once those projects either abruptly ended (lol, lmao, this will come back later) or reached their natural conclusion, inevitably a lot of those fans either leave with it or found themselves burned out on vocaloid itself, or perhaps even think they've outgrown it.

next, utaite. now i mentioned a bit earlier about how the first batch of utaite were amateurs who didn't expect anything out of it and did it just cause, and how exit tunes signed a lot of them in this era. now, comes the time i speak about utaite "after piko and akiakane". i believe due to a generational gap and subconsciously perhaps due to the signing of a few utaite from the old guard at this point, the nu utaite of the 2010s had a sort of individuality to them... this isn't an insult, and a large part of their popularity actually came from them always collaborating and a lot of them ending up befriending each other. again, i'm an outsider, but i understand this much. but this era for utaite was the beginning of the idea that an utaite can become a superstar. in the end, very few of them did become superstars.

a lot of them naturally returned to a normal level of popularity after the bubble. there aren't a lot of your AtRs or your amatsukis and such. the smart ones became vtubers before being a vtuber was cool. to give an example: un:c and hashiyan who are arguably oldheads more than nu era became anjo and kosaka of monsterz mate. this isn't a doxx btw, this is publically available information, and un:c often credits himself as a mixer under projects he does as anjo. also, a certain duo of female utaite whose names i will not mention went on to form the super popular vtuber duo himehima. there are other early adopters like kano and god knows who else that i don't feel like mentioning. anyway, if your utaite did it after 2018 and under their own identity it is a desperate plea for attention. sorry but it's just the objective truth. tangent over... did you think i wasn't gonna shoehorn vtubers into this somehow?! anyway.

even sutopuri who got mega popular, only really formed after the vocaloid bubble burst, perhaps even as a result of it. utaite had a positive effect on the vocaloid scene and still do. but at the time, i think it was at its strongest. utaite NEEDED vocaloid, and vocaloid benefitted greatly from their continued patronage and love for it. i for one will not be caught slandering utaite and their relationship with vocaloid even if i will always prefer the vocaloid versions. the issue here comes from the fact that way too many were signed without much star factor (i'm not disparaging them, i'm just saying they did not hold their audience across the mediums), and even at that their fans splintered off into many tribes and many weren't really into vocaloid in the first place and were more into the livestreams and twitter banter. that's just how things shook out. you even have your reols and such, as reol was the face but in a sense her, gigaP and okiku were a set and gigaP left the scene to focus on commercial work with those two. too many of them got signed and splintered off into their own little fandoms before THOSE fandoms kind of died out. so this is another part where fans disappear and lose interest. you're starting to see the pattern here, right?

there's so much stuff i thought i would touch on, like how gumi was the undisputed it girl of the scene at this time, and how kagepro rose IA to prominence (all because jin wanted to buy gumi but didn't find her in the store) and how IA's people 1st place locked certain producers in their basement (like jin, yasuhiro, ishifuro etc) and... now this is a conspiracy on my part but prevented them from working on anything else, so that drew more talent away from the scene... but i realized it's tangential and belongs to other parts in this conversation. i want to reiterate here though before we go on to the biggest elephant in the room of all which would be the point of no return... there is more to the vocaloid bubble era of 2012-2015 than projects, than corpo and record company bullshit, than utaite fans. and there is more to the era before that than the top brass producers i mentioned earlier. i really... really lament how so much of early vocaloid reuploads are gone from youtube. there's a whole world just gone. so, anyway, are you ready?

the final block in this weird jenga of a story.

the producer, suzumu, and his unfortunate associates.

i will cut to the chase because it's easier to explain who was involved once i say what happened. to put it shortly... suzumu "stole" his songs. this is weird and vague and i always hated the way people used polite euphemisms to explain it because it made the situation way more confusing than it had to be— he used his producer friends as ghostwriters to compose songs for him, basically. and was very not nice about it according to one of the people involved. now i will probably adopt a somewhat sympathetic angle that people who have previously heard of this case may have not encountered before. not because i feel bad for that fuck, but because it seems like at least one of the people impacted has forgiven him, and others have moved on in less obvious ways. he's also professionally making music in the industry now. as much as i want to keep up the act of disliking him, i don't care anymore. i still dislike what he did immensely because it impacts producers i love to this day. but the man came forth about it himself and those involved forgave him. it's been almost a decade now... man!

suzumu, before getting into posting songs (who knows how many were actually his and which were ghostwritten), was a prolific lyric writer who worked with some of the trendiest vocaloid producers around. i'll cross gigaP out, since he was not involved in the incident, but almost every single person involved in this had worked with him in a lyric or story writing capacity (for 150P and komine specifically). here are the involved parties as i recall, bolded are people who he "stole" from

mafumafu, the person who spoke the most about it post suzumu's confession and the most vocal, and likely the person who was used as a ghostwriter the most (i don't recall if he actually alludes to this or not but people commonly think this). mafumafu had a series of vocaloid songs that told a story, but stopped using vocaloid after the incident for a while and songs that were going to get pvs from his first vocaloid album were not posted. he contributed a song called machigai sagashi for the vocaloid flavored moba #compass in 2015, but it seems like that song was probably in the works since before the incident for reasons i will highlight in a moment. suzumu wrote the lyrics for only one of the songs. iirc, mafumafu's song berserk is about suzumu. don't remember if this is confirmed or not. btw, the album of those songs, meikyou shisui, is really underrated and you should check it out. im not a mafu guy but that album is great

kemu, the person who is arguably closest to suzumu and the one who most publicly supported suzumu (albeit wordlessly) in later years by working with him professionally. when i mention someone forgiving suzumu, i mean him. suzumu wrote the lyrics for most of his kemu voxx songs, a famous multimedia project kemu was on the helm of along with hatsuko as the main illustrator. since kemu no longer had a lyricist, the project stalled for years until he posted a song suddenly in 2017 (with self written lyrics). it seems like the series is continuing still, but with a different direction

150P, who worked with suzumu heavily for his shuuen no shiori (bookmark of demise) project, a project that was conceived from the start to be a story. this part makes me really mad, guys!! i'll try to keep calm about it. 150P wrote over 50 songs (idk if this is an actual number but he wrote a lot. at least 40.) for the series, with suzumu writing the story and lyrics. the character designs were done by saine (who dodged a bullet all things considered.) and the art was done by komine. 150P was already doing crazy things before shuuenpro, his most popular song is still his insane 12-len classical metal chorus song lost destination. now shuuenpro caught on slower than its peers and was an underdog. i LOVE shuuenpro to this day. you know what? right when it was finally getting its first W, when the album that had seiyuu covers at come out on oricon in third place, suzumu dropped his confession. what a slap to the fucking face!! the manga of the series hastily wrapped up after that. 150P and komine disappeared and no longer did stuff ever. 150P recently appeared for a mafumafu anniversary thing so i'm glad he's still alive. but, komine...

komine, the only non-producer, an artist with the worst luck. she was slowly rising to prominence doing pv art for a lot of popular producers, and was the main artist of shuuenpro most prominently. during the initial release of the first few shuuenpro songs, she was accused of tracing, and the art of the pv of sarumane isutori game had to be done by someone else. komine stopped using social media at that point, but continued to make art for the project quietly and quite prolifically. so she was already on some kind of fraught standing even though the tracing allegations were disproven. fast forward to the suzumu blowup, komine packed up her bags and disappeared forever. if she had become disillusioned, i do not blame her. her final public contribution was the design of jeanne d'arc from #compass, the character who was paired with the mafumafu song. all subsequent artworks of jeanne were done by different artists. i suspect the reason the vocaloid version of machigai sagashi did not have a proper pv was due to komine quitting. i can only imagine what that pv looked like! if you're wondering why i mention a pv, it's cuz compass fans got mad at mafu for having a fancy pv for his self cover but not for the original. but otona no jijou, you know? and where is that energy for eve who still hasn't released a pv for mistletoe publicly and only put it on his kuso app and with 0 compass association? who let that wishy washy fuck do an anniversary song? ...im not gonna go on a compass tangent. anyway.

so... why does this matter?

it matters because people became disillusioned due to this drama. it matters because suzumu took out some very popular and prolific people from the scene during what one could argue was a transitional phase. the fans of all those people, including suzumu's... gone. if you weren't there, you may not understand the cult of personality suzumu had. he had his name on everything and was friends with all the right people. when i heard about this incident... i just closed my eyes and sighed lol. it hurt and it hit when the scene was at its weakest. and was the final blow, almost. and it impacted the way people saw and talked about vocaloid for years. miku became "owakon" for a time. people thought kizuna ai was gonna replace her as a cultural touchstone (lol, lmao, it is proven time and time again that the big three cannot die). kenshi yonezu, in all his detached glory, came down from his jeweled encrusted throne to compose a song for miku's 10th birthday that he smugly thought was the death knell of nico nico douga.... which even at the time of its release was contested by even people who were on the same miku anniversary project and, whether you wanna acknowledge it or not, is still mocked to this day by several producers. magical mirai's theme this year even does it. there is no respect for sand planet or anything kenshi yonezu stood for in that song. what an asshole move no matter how you see it. argue with the wall if you don't agree, i don't want to hear it. the scene survived because there were producers and artists and fans who still loved it. not because of some sardonic fuckoff song by a guy so detached he'd write a funeral march for a birthday.

these days, i feel like the community is incredibly conscious of what happened. there are wanton community led events that encourage not only the creation of songs, covers, art and secondary creations but also the discovery of new producers— the biggest of which being vocaloid collection, which happens three times a year and has many categories, but most importantly the top ranking (producers active for 3+ years) and the rookie ranking. i once read a japanese article that said proseka brought new fans hungry for something beyond the music presented in the game, and vocacolle and other community led events and song posting festivals supplied the works. the average age of the new vocaloid producer is— and this is my own estimate based on how many heart attacks i've been given the past 3 or 4 years— 17~19 years old. they say things like "i know of kagepro but i wasn't there"!! should i get my cane out!! who's driving me to the retirement home?!

even companies involved in the product end are more savvy these days.... (holding my tongue about a certain company of a popular synth software and its ceo because i have nothing nice to say). i think they realized that you can't clap with one hand and that appealing to the end user and fans is a necessity. honestly, i can only be excited for what comes next. we're never going back to that dark age, i can say this with utmost confidence. do i miss the past of the times before the bubble, back when vocaloid was a smidge more geeky? sure. but we can only really move forward, so why not enjoy it

[trashyandtiredsol]

UPDATED: November 23rd, 2024

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My name's Sol or Solstice! (On here that is, not my actual name, tho I wish it was sometimes :/)

17 (Birthday's May 2nd, 2007 !!)

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[goosewriting]

yesterday i finally watched the new tmnt movie!! at first i wanted to do a live reaction kinda thing, except that wouldn’t work because i'd have to reblog every entry and hiding every single part under a "read more" would be not only tedious, but i'm not even sure if it's possible lol

so instead have a collection of my thoughts here! (spoiler warning, duh)

first of all: the art style. there’s something strangely nostalgic about it. it feels like that is what my mental storyboards as a kid would have looked like, had i been into animating back then. or at least that would have been close to the style i would have liked to emulate.

the explosions looking like violent scribbles is just so 😩🤌♥ chef's kiss, truly. there's something about the art in general that just moves in such a particular way and holds a certain weight and volume,, it feels like cardboard and clay and crayons and the piles upon piles of coloured pencils i used to have as a kid and how the wooden pencil drawer smelled. i'm such a fan of this style i’M obsessed o(-<

in the intro shots for the turtles, raph licking his sai blades is so extra and i love him for that lmao

for some reason i completely forgot they cast jackie chan as splinter and tbh idk how to feel about it? no hate towards him; i just don't think voice acting is his strong suit

meanwhile i'm looooving mikey's voice. also leo's beacuse, well first of all, i am a leo girlie (gender neutral) through and through so i would have loved all aspects of him no matter what. but his voice actor is gumball's i believe? and that's one of my comfort shows 🥺 i just love him sm

this little donnie is sending me, i- 🤣

superfly's theme reminds me of miguel's for some reason? 😂 and i'm here for it ahahh

the whole watermelon scene lmaoo teeangers being teenagers, finally

aaaand here comes the probably forced romance subplot 😅😅 (more on that later)

the whole fighting scene in the workshop tinted in red? ugh 10/10

ok so, april: i really like how they met. i like her design, her voice and her whole vibe. the whole puking jokes were a little too much for me; personally im not a fan of fart or puke jokes because, well, i’m not a 12yo boy (looking at you seth rogen) but all in all i really liked this rendition of april. it sucks tho that the turtles got a snazzy outfit by the end, both for school and for prom, but april’s clothes always remained the same. would have loved to see what she wore to prom!

the gen z lingo and references: …i mean, i guess it makes sense? i just don’t know how well it will age xD the references to end game and all were fun but, again, will someone in 15 years understand what they meant? will someone in 15 years know what rizz is?

changing the topic, the way eyeballs are rendered??? hello?? they’re so expressive and shiny and i lowkey wanna lick them ok

the chris pine cutout actually made me choke on my food from both surprise and laughter jhdfkjashdf

oookay so. superfly and his gang. first of all when the gecko talked i went like hey is that ant-man? lmao i love all the designs and ice cube as the villain works?? im not mad?? lol now, his plan however... sigh, my guy. killing all humans aside, have you maybe thought that if you turn every single animal and insect into a mutant, the whole ecosystem would all but collapse? there will be no planet left to belittle the humans on (:

"he'll run out of cars eventually" / *looks at parking* / “oh, c’mon!” lmaoo 😂 this joke was excellent

so, back to the forced romance thing. look i get it, they needed a reason to help out april to get the plot going. and if leo said it, then the rest would follow. i get that. but throughout the whole movie, aside from like his brothers elbowing his side knowingly, there’s no more allusion to anything? and then only at the veeeery end, he asks her out and she says yes, so i was like “oh okay so that’s the payoff then. took long enough” but then when they’re dancing she rhetorically asks if they’re just doing this as friends and 😐 maybe this is just my aroace self projecting but,, if you’re gonna use romance/romantic interest as a catalyst (lame tbh), at least be consequent about it?? if you (the writers) didn’t have the intention to explore the relationship, then leave it altogether? again, this is just my aroace opinion,, i can’t relate so i don’t understand. (which i know seems contradictory given my uh, repertoire of fics lmao) personally i would have preferred a different reason for them to helping out april, and having them all just be besties by the end, which they ended up being anyway

so, to sum it all up. it’s a story we’ve seen a hundred times, so there was really nothing new to it. the plot was okay,, the biggest thing that “bothered” me was superfly’s whole extermination thing making no sense, technically. but other than that, my eyes and ears were having an absolute feast. a very enjoyable film all in all. when we got rottmnt, i was like “oh finally an iteration of the teenage mutant ninja turtles where they’re actually teenagers” but scratch that. mutant mayhem is the most teenager one, and i loved them for that. time will tell how the jokes will age but yeah, the way they were depicted was definitely my favourite thing about the film aside from the art style.

have you guys seen it? what are your thoughts? lemme know :D feel free to comment here or send in some asks!

[starrbar]

Welcome to

┌─── ∘°❉°∘ ───┐

STARRBAR

└─── °∘❉∘° ───┘

Hi, nice to meet ya! I'm Starr (they/them), over 25, nonbinary and autistic. Queer as in Fuck You! C:

A quick rundown of what to expect! ↓

Aggressive posting about fandom puritanism.

Reblog binges of whatever my fixation is.

Loud opinions in general! And I gave up on internet “debate”, so I won't be back for you. ^_^

Art may include gore, but won't include smut because Tumblr. Also I'm tired of maintaining galleries on social media, so I'll basically only update on this Telegram channel, and eventually my Neocities... eventually.

I do not check my ask box or replies on Tumblr. If you NEED to reach me, my DMs are open.

Frequent Tags ↓

#starrspeaks is my OP tag

#starr.art is my art tag

#anti vs. pro stuff for fandom ~discourse~

#realworldblues as a mutable tag for my dear friend (usually for heavy topics like bad news about the world or intense conflict)

#ref for any kind of resources or references

A more thorough warning ↓

If you are against “proshipping” (or rather, the false definition going around that boils down to “immoral ships/kinks”), I’m sure you feel that way out of a desire to protect the vulnerable (especially minors and survivors of abuse), and I appreciate that, but it’s very important for you to be aware that those views very easily slip into anti-progressive / reactionary territory, and you should be alarmed by that. And you should be willing to look the ugly truth in the face before you continue to stand by those views. So if you truly care about reducing harm, please consider reading [this breakdown] of what I mean. Or watching the more complete video whenever I finally upload it. Thank you.

Where to find me ↓

Feel free to hunt me down (politely) on my other social medias.

And if you're interested in learning more about fandom puritanism, I maintain a big sources hub about it.

If you wanna know my interests/fandoms, I'll list a few here, but I have a much bigger and more organized list on my Neocities as well (near the bottom).

But yeah, anyway:

Deltarune / Undertale

Arcane

The Witch's House

Made in Abyss

A Certain Scientific Railgun

Omori

Night in the Woods

Bittersweet Candy Bowl

Law of Talos

The Amazing Digital Circus

The Property of Hate

Bojack Horseman

Finally...

I'm making a game about this lil fucker. 💚

Literally the love of my life, look at them go!

Follow the game's development~!

No DNI, we die like Kibitzer: over and over and over! 😁

[nearisqueer]

My Purpose

Hi there! I've rejoined Tumblr for the first time in several years, so I figured I'd make a post to explain what I'm doing here, what I'm all about, and a little bit of what to expect while I figure out exactly what this blog is going to be. Feel free to read or not, I don't own you!

First I'll introduce myself. I'm Alexis, but feel free to call me Ally or Alex or Lexi or whatever. If you don't wanna call me by my first name, Near and Fresh are both fine too. I'm 23, from Ireland, my pronouns are she/they, I write, this stuff is in my about page so I'll mostly gloss over it.

Interests include allsorts, like Devil May Cry, Treasure Planet, Edgar Wright films, Kameo: Elements of Power, Beyond Good & Evil (the video game not the Nietzsche book), philosophy stuff in general, film in general, A Series of Unfortunate Events, the tv show You, and loads more that aren't coming to mind right now. I'm a well rounded lady.

As a writer I mainly do long-form fiction, but occasionally short fictional stories inspired by real events or emotions I wanna sort. My long-term goal is to get into investigative journalism, and maybe end up teaching philosophy or journalism in university. I'm also currently planning and writing a fantasy series from the perspective of a young adult coming into their own, realising they live within a broken system, and all the philosophical and political transitions that come along with that. It's heavily inspired by my own real life political journey, as well as my journey figuring myself out in the world as a nonbinary trans woman. No announcements yet regarding names or anything, but hopefully we'll see that soon! Maybe I'll even post some excerpts and character profiles, but I might make a separate blog for writing and put stuff there. Who knows! Figuring it out as we go!

I am currently working as a supervisor in a tech retail shop, and I take editing commissions on the side. I'll proofread any written pieces you've got. I specialise in stories and essays, but I have also looked at poetry and scripts for video essays and short films. Rates are negotiable, quick turnaround, with references available upon request. I also occasionally stream on twitch under the name nearisfresh, but that's not really a job so much as a very infrequent hobby.

In general I try to be a fairly chill and friendly person. Always feel free to shoot me a message or an ask if you wanna get in touch or chat. I love learning about people's interests so feel free to infodump. And altogether, enjoy your time here! I think I'm not gonna stop myself from liking and reblogging NSFW so if that bothers you, you might wanna skip this. Not porn though you don't need to worry about that.

also it's been a while since I've been here is it bad that I'm doing an intro post the length of the bible. who gives a fuck NOT ME BABY

[empiresblrmybeloved]

I posted 3,324 times in 2022

That's 3,115 more posts than 2021!

385 posts created (12%)

2,939 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@pencil-case-watches

@hiveswap

@kish-go-squish

@orangekingfisher

@juststarsandthemoon

I tagged 725 of my posts in 2022

#valor.txt - 25 posts

#prev - 21 posts

#the admier chronicles - 16 posts

#grian.txt - 10 posts

#glits reblogs - 9 posts

#agere sfw - 8 posts

#tasting the inedibles - 8 posts

#sam.txt - 8 posts

#carlos.txt - 8 posts

#age regressor - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#sam has pouted multiple times i the last few minutes because im cussing so im gonna try to keep it at a down low but if that dndn. filter is

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

OK BUT WE MADE A TAG EARLIER ABOUT HOW WE COULD FIND A WAY TO ADD THE HERMITS INTO A DND GAME AND WE CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT BECUASE. THE RIFT. IS LITTERALY. PERFECT FOR THIS. AND WE KINDA WANNA DO IT

36 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

#4

not that I'm a pouty baby but.

I've been pouting cause i want cuddles for a solid 5mins.

57 notes - Posted May 3, 2022

#3

Guys, Gals Nonbinary pals (you know the reference) I have an idea

It came to me like a minute ago but still an idea

A day for Age regressors. listen if there's a Pizza day i mean,, we can have our own day right? Just a day for recognition, and while i know that some people will treat us the same they did before after that day, its still, a step in the right direction, for getting people to treat us nicely. Now personally i keep getting in with the right groups, but i know some people who have been treated like sh!t because there an age regressor, and honestly i want that to stop.

It's Our coping mechanism we shouldn't feel ashamed of it, just because someone sees it as something else.

So a day for Age Regressors, where we can be as loud or quiet as we want!

What do you people think?

71 notes - Posted February 10, 2022

#2

Heylo Tumblr! I've just had an idea!

Since pride month is coming up; and we know there are some people who might not be able to go to pride parades or any pride events; and We want to fix that!

The idea we've had will not be easy; at least i don't think so. But we would like to -with the help of others- host an online pride event! right here on tumblr!

The idea came to us as our host, Fire has not been able to go to any pride events within the past 2-3 years due to having an unsupportive family, and he's not the only one either.

so; we've created a survey for this! you are only required to answer the first question! the rest is optional!

Thank you for taking the time to read this; and we hope you have a great day!

84 notes - Posted May 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Hey Hey! Picrew chain time!! what you look like and what you want to look like!!

What i look like

and what i want too look like!!

See the full post

89 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[glassanimalcollective]

I think your problem is that you don't understand that Seol isn't supposed to be a 1 to 1 representation of neither real life Japan nor Korea. I would actually say that if anything I think it's more inspired by China and Japan rather than Korea. Like the racists in game even call it the "Shao empire". But it clearly isnt trying to be real China or Japan

Is just a fictional culture

And I don't think the argument of "Taking inspiration of two different cultures to make a fictional one is bad" has a lot of merit when you fail to criticize the fact that Revachol in itself is clearly taking inspiration from both France and a post sovietic Republic, I've even seen people saying that Revachol reminded them of Manhattan. Very different cultures, but Revachol isn't either of them

And I wouldn't say whether they did good or not in how they handled the inspiration because truly, there's almost no content about Seol in the game as it doesn't aim to focus on that, but rather in Revachol's history. So how can I judge something that isn't there?

And BTW, hiring a consult for what is like 20 lines in a game with a million words isn't very viable either

By what I see on your posts, my guess is that you didn't play a lot because you didn't like it. Which is fine, but how do you expect anyone to take your criticisms seriously if you don't know what you are critiquing. Is like me saying that homestuck is bad, transphobic and problematic™️ because of something I've read, even though I've never even watched Homestuck, just seen some accounts of it.

Also, his name is Kitsuragi because is a reference to an Evangelion character, Masato Katsuragi

me with my eyes closed about the actual problem being pointed out. you can continue to enjoy your game but you wanna hear something real upsetting? this long ass message to me, trying to explain my own feelings about a badly written character is actually a pretty insensitive and (gasps) racist thing to do. Why don't you listen to other people's experiences? I played the game for a little bit and it made me so uncomfortable i haven't touched it again.

Talking to a consultant for the entire second character in your game actually makes a lot of sense. If you truly care about making something good and consumable by all people (ESPECIALLY THE PEOPLE YOU'RE TRYING TO REPRESENT?) you'll do that very basic work.

Maybe you should stay on your disco elysium blog and continue reblogging pics of your alcoholic meowmeow because you are not qualified to tell me about my own feelings here. This amount of grasping to tell me I'm not looking right at this game that could'nt even do research into the people it included in the story. They were *clearly* trying to write an asian experience but couldn't even be bothered to make sure their mashing of random cultures together wouldn't be upsetting to any of the asian people playing their game. It screams "didn't talk to one, not a single asian person during this game's creation."

Telling me the character is named after a random anime character is crazy too. that's still a japanese name when we claim the character isn't japanese, he's apparently part of a fake, poorly thought out franken-culture that can be basically described as "ambiguously asian." are you dumb?

[tacticalhimbo]

for the post with asks you reblogged - 16 & 17 ???

♡ asks ♡

(16) Want any tattoos? What of? 

oh my god yes i want (more) tattoos. i used to have a like. reference sheet of different video game ideas i wanted but! i lost it. but i still do want to get video game tattoos. maybe like a sleeve or something. my transphobic ex's english teacher (super specific, i know) had a bunch of video game and comic based tattoos as sleeves and that looked sick. but i also wanna do more floral stuff too. then idk what imma d,o but i am gonna be that trans guy(tm) and get something over my top surgery scars to immortalize them (not to cover them up; the tattoo would but it's also in such a specific place that i see it as a tribute)... which with that logic i might do the creation of adam hands... 🤔🤔🤔🤔

(17) Want any piercings? Where? 

hmm... i'm on the fence about it. i find piercings really cool to look at on other people, and i would love to have that energy. however, i am a pussy (joking) because i used to have my ears pierced and uh. well. i got them done at a pagoda so you know how it went. they never got properly infected to where i got like, sick or something, but one time my mom was helping me clean them (i was a pre-teen) and they started bleeding and i literally passed out on the kitchen floor. so that is a memory i have and thus piercings and me do not seem like they'll mix. and i know like... that's the fault of getting them done at a mall with a piercing gun and not. properly. but still. fear dot jpeg.

[harmoniouseclipse]

This is so disheartening to see. It feels so weird to add a whole new cast of characters to Genshin and have only one of them be dark skinned. Granted, Iansan will be the darkest character in Genshin when she releases, but I did see a particular issue while talking with my friend; here is the chart I made going in depth about why her skin still feels so off to me (as an artist).

I feel like they are trying (somewhat) to push more out of their comfort zones, which I applaud them for. However, when you release a trailer filled with a whole new cast and only one of them actually has dark skin that isn't pale to medium tan, it creates a bad look imo.

And regarding their other games, it's so odd to make Arlan's whole thing be named with things referring to slavery. I think the devs maybe thought that they were giving empowering representation since most of them have to do with breaking free from oppression, but it really comes off as weird and disjointed. And I also feel like they could have added much better representation regarding Penacony. I don't play HSR so I was very surprised when a friend of mine told me that Boothill was based off of Native Americans, because as an American myself he is very much reminiscent of stereotypical southern country people. Of course I'm glad they didn't go the alternative route by making him a stereotypical Native American, since I have multiple friends who are and they are all very different people, none of them acting like how Hollywood portrays that culture though. And I also have never played HI3 but again, when my friend told me about one of the character's whole thing being that she hates her dark skin and bleaches it I was again shocked. But again, since I don't play these games and I know that HI3 was still one of their earlier games I wonder if it was just the early stages of development and poor aging kind of like old movies. Not as a way to excuse it, but as a way to understand why they went with that choice and from what I have seen they haven't copied that character plot(?) in any of their other games, thankfully.

E made an incredible video regarding the topic of Genshin's colorism so I'll link it here for you to watch since she does a much better job of explaining it than me lmao

I'm gonna end it here but I do have some extra points in the tags I wanna bring up briefly, and I might continue this in another reblog if I have time but for now these are the main thoughts I had ✌🏻

So, I hopped on here and saw nobody talking about the atrocity that is what genshin is doing to Natlan and since it was suggested we move the boycott to where others may not be able to hear Twitter specifically I decided to post something which I've normally never done.

Genshin has taken inspiration for Natlan from a bunch of different ethnic groups around the world, including but not limited to the Aztec, the Mayan, the Incan, the Māori, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and the West African.

The reason this is so dangerous is because it is literally covering up and whitewashing cultures. Hoyoverse promotes itself as a "diverse" and "worldwide" game, but if you can't even represent the people you're taking from properly, then what's the point? When it comes down to it, Hoyo can make beautiful representations based on cultures. One that I find consistently mentioned is Yunjin, who has a popular Chinese opera singer singing for an idle animation.

This extends outside of genshin, too, though. One point that particularly enrages me is the point of one Carole Pepper. Now, I haven't played much HI3, but from what I've heard, this poor woman hates her skin so much that she bleaches it. And to add insult to injury when I showed two side by side pictures of Carole to a friend of mine, said friend pointed out that she dressed more feminine the whiter she got.

Arlan's skill names have also been a cause of concern for a while now. With HSR releasing another person of color, I also beg you to consider the following: "Why did no playable characters on Penacony have darker skin? It was heavily based on America's Jazz Age, so wouldn't they include the people who created said music?" Another point is that of both Aventurine and Boothill. Both of these men were influenced by minorities and heavily whitewashed. Aventurine was based on the rromani peoples, and Boothill was based on Native Americans. Neither has an once of melanin.

I'll be posting more about this issue later but for now I'll leave it at that. I'll be reposting some art I've seen that incorporates more of these cultures and studying up more on what has been portrayed through this new trailer.

[caitlinsnicket]

you accidentally call them mommy/daddy (arcane preference)

a/n: the taglist is downstairs! sorry it took so long, I was having my finals. feel free to like, reblog, and leave a comment. requests are closed, but feel free to send things anyways!

| Jinx

she's got you on her lap, riding her thigh with your hands tied behind your back

her ministrations are slow and deep, which only makes you frustrated because they lead to nothing

she can see you're getting frustrated, but she's just amused

you can feel tears burning behind your eyes, just wanting her to do something

"please, mommy, please let me-"

you squeak when she suddenly grabs you by your throat

"what did you just call me?"

she doesn't look pissed, just confused

"sorry... mommy?"

oh

well she likes that

unties your hands and puts her hand between your legs

"well done trinket. you did so good. here's your reward"

cue the best orgasm of your life

wants you to call her mommy all the time now, won't shut up about it

will refer to hersef as mommy

i just want her to top me wtf

| Vi

you're holding on for dear life in the bed rest, hips above Vi's head while her tongue works wonders in your clit

her hands make marks on your ass from how tight she's holding you

you just keep rambling while feeling your orgasm build up

"yes, mommy, just like that-"

you don't even register what you said, just enjoying the moment

afterwards, while holding you close and kissing your neck, she gets a little flushed

"did you call me... mommy? like, i'm not not into it, i just didn't think you were into it"

cue a long pillow talk about all the things you wanted to try with each other

you start to call her by the nickname when you two are alone, not just at sexy times

she likes it, makes her feel comfortable and in a powerful position

will tease you in public, low enough for only you to hear

"don't you wanna do good for mommy, kitty? then behave"

| Caitlyn

she's teasing you around her office, giving you light touches and kisses and soft name calling

you're starting to get annoyed, as you're there to work, not to flirt

still, she keeps pushing your buttons until you've had enough

"stop it mommy, or you wont see me for a week"

the what now????

turns into a tomato and stutters

a shiver runs down her spine at that

leaves you alone because she is embarassed, and you just decide to turn it against her

when you get to your house, you corner her in a wall

"what now... mommy? you bothered me the whole day, what are you gonna do to me now?"

your 'fuck me' eyes are good, because she just lunges for your face and fucks you silly

next morning she sees the marks in your body and gets even more embarassed

"I won't mind if you call me that again"

| Ekko

he's pounding you from behind, holding your hair with one hand and spreading your ass with the other

he's going in deep, moving his hips so that his thrusts always hit your g-spot, biting his lips trying not to cum on the spot

your moans start to get louder and he knows you're close

"yeah, just like that daddy-"

oh well

his dirty talk game just goes astronomic

"oh yeah? is daddy pounding you just right? is daddy turning you into a slut?"

you don't expect him to become so dirty, so you clench and when he slaps your ass, you can't hold back anymore

him, on the other hand, can't do anything except hold onto you for dear life

he cleans you up and kisses you sweetly, carrying you to bed

"daddy, huh? i could get used to that"

will like to be called that only in his private chambers

| Silco

he actually sugested it for you one day

"i know you like experimenting. maybe we could try some name-calling. whenever you're ready"

you give it some thought, but there's a lot happening, so you don't act on it

until one day, when you're both entangled on each other, just enjoying the way your bodies touch

he's in his high chair and you're on his lap, kissing him and rocking yourself very slowly

his fingers brush against your clit slowly while you purr in his ear

"how is this petal?"

"good daddy, so good"

you two don't mention it, but now he refers to himself as daddy during sex, never in front of others

gets a warm feeling in his chest when you say it, and twitches inside of you

| Viktor

you're sitting in his workbench, legs spread in front of him and skirt rolled up

his hands are working wonders in your slit, touching all the right places

he looks like he's figuring out a hextec piece, a light blush on his cheekss

"is this good?"

you pant a "yes" filled with longing, and he starts kissing your thighs

he keeps going with his ministrations, watching you with gleaming eyes

"just like that daddy, you're doing so fucking good"

his ears go red and he keeps his pace, nipping at your soft flesh

you cum all over his fingers, calling him daddy and gripping his hands

he doesn't let you catch your breath, just goes right back to it, using his mouth next to make you a overstimulated mess

a soft dom for sure

loves it when you call him daddy

taglist:

@tartheanmaid @cariossa @gutsandglue @eko2ono @my-bestfriend-is-a-meth-teacher @emotionalyunstablehanjisimp @ewphoriae @mxxnch @king0flies @flowerboy1130 @panshrekxual-iii @wrddrms @lesbian-rondo @ofartsandshadows @the-wordis-bird @sakutsu14 @nsfw-kill-me-now @allyboba @nymphofzaun @aleks-chan @vikivikiv @queerkittycat @purple-vale @phoenixofjewel @justtryingt0vibe @http-jackass @chelablackcat @salem-poltergeist @tovewantcoffee @psychologicalnecrosis @chickenshins @awesomekawaiibouquetlady @musical-yeet @gloomdoomraccoon @cherry-poppins @komoresunrise @testsubject24601 @hopelessly-hopeful-hope @plaguedoctorsalad @snakesnack6 @governmentfraud