#I HOPE THIS IS COMPREHENSIBLE I'm not sure it is but it's pretty hard 2 explain in a straightforward way Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[utopians]

Hey James! Feel free to not answer if you don't wanna, but I'm a non-American very confused by the concept of "majors" and "minors" in American university.

Over here, a university degree only offers classes directly related to the degree subject - there's no such thing as a major, because what you'd "major in" is just the subject your degree is on. EG you said Psychology and History; over here, if you were taking a Psychology degree, the only way you could also do History would be either by waiting for the Psychology one to be over and then returning to university to take a separate History degree, or by paying for non-university or online university courses during the Psychology degree. But these wouldn't count at all towards the Psychology degree if you did that - all your university course classes would purely be psychology-related.

I think it's why our degrees are shorter? An undergrad degree course is 2-3 years here, depending, coz they're only on the 1 subject.

How do majors and minors work? Do you need a minor in order to pass your major? What's up with that?

happy to answer! just to preface, there is a lot of variation within american schools, and a lot of places have specialized programs that are a lot closer to your experience -- I'm just going to be talking abt the more common model that's present most schools, including the one I attend. this got long as hell so it's all under the cut :-)

essentially, in american universities, you can take classes in any subject you want and a 'major' is just the topic you've chosen to specialize in. in order to graduate with a major in a specific topic, you need to take the specific courses the university considers essential to understanding it, and you need to take enough courses in that topic to fulfill the university's credit requirement (the amount of 'credits' a course is worth is based on its difficulty); for example, I'm a psych major, and these are my university's requirements for a major in psychology. some people also do a 'double major' where you graduate with a degree in two topics by fulfilling the major requirements for both.

the way that the american system generally diverges from others (and the reason that it generally takes 4 years for a degree here when it takes 3 in most places) is that there's a minimum credit requirement for graduating that's unrelated to your major -- for example, my university requires 120 total credits to graduate with a degree at all, even though earning the psychology degree itself only requires about ~40 credits worth of psych classes. the remaining 80 credits worth of classes are filled by classes you take Just For Fun as well as gen-ed requirements, which are subjects that all students are required to take regardless of major: foundational math, english, history, arts, and physical + biological sciences. these are required even for students who have no intention of pursuing these fields because they're thought to provide a more 'well-rounded' education. most students finish their gen-ed classes within the first two years of college.

a minor is essentially just a recognition of experience in a particular subject that also gets tacked on to your degree; it doesn't mean as much as a major to employers or grad schools, and it's generally a topic you have a personal passion for or think would help in your chosen field but don't want to devote your whole academic career to. not everyone does a minor, but it's definitely common. you pursue a minor the same way you do a major, but the requirements are a lot less intense -- for example, to get a psych minor at my university, you just need to take 15 credits worth of psych classes (which is just 4-5 classes).

when you fulfill the credit requirement to graduate university, you get a degree in whatever you majored in with the minor also listed. a lot of people don't like the system because it's less focused than a 3-year program, and I definitely get that (I think that gen-ed requirements can be pretty superfluous), but I think that the opportunity to branch out and take classes in any subject is a massive plus -- I've had the opportunity to take some extremely cool classes and learn a lot that I never would've been able to if I was restricted to just psychology :-)

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Can you talk about your thoughts on hinny? I have no problem with people shipping it but to me personally it just doesn't work. It feels like Rowling tried too hard or maybe just wasn't good at writing romance and messed it up. Maybe it was too rushed? The ship doesn't work for me but I'd love to hear your views.

Okay, sorry it took a while to answer this, I actually have a lot of thoughts and I have posts on some of them that I hope to get out soon-ish. I also wanted to go back to the books to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass. But I don't like Hinny, never did. And my reasons are kinda divided into three categories.

Disclaimer: I don't have anything against anyone who ships hinny, it's just really not my thing and I don't see it working with the way I see their characters.

And that's like the core of it. I just don't see Harry and Ginny as compatible on a character level. That and their relationship never really read as believable to me in the books.

The 3 categories I mentioned are:

Harry's character

Firstly, I think Harry is gay. Not bi, but gay. I think he was never actually attracted to a woman and I have a whole post to prove it. So, because that's how I read his character, I just can't really see him with any girl.

(Now, I don't think JKR intended for Harry to come off as gay, but he did)

Secondly, he never thought about Ginny, like, up until book 6, and even during large portions of book 6, he just isn't thinking about Ginny as a potential romantic interest. And when he does think about Ginny in the final two books it never reads like he really likes her. It reads like they decided they are dating, but I don't think Harry knows why he supposedly likes her. He just decided he does, but doesn't know why. It was kind of the same with Cho, where he said he had a crush on her and was nervous around her, but if you asked Harry what he likes about her, his answer would be: "Ehh...."

Like, Harry doesn't really seem to know why he's dating Ginny, and neither do I. It's just how it's written.

2. Ginny's character

So, this is again my opinion, but I don't like Ginny. I just don't like her character. I wish her off the page whenever she talks.

And, when it comes to shipping, for me, I need to find both the characters involved interesting and fun for me to explore to ship them together and care about the pairing. As I don't like Ginny and don't really care for her, I can't really ship her with anyone, not really. It's not even like I hate her (not the way I hate Dumbledore), I just find a lot of her actions and behavior iffy and she annoys me more often than not.

I'm not going to list everything I don't like about Ginny (some of it appears in the rest of this post). But her treatment of Fluer, for example, really soured her character to me. Like, sure, Ginny's young, but, she's 15, and by that point, I think she should take responsibility for being awful to Fluer who was nothing but nice to all of them. Envy is not a good look for Ginny.

3. How they are portrayed together

Like I mentioned in the Harry section, their romance just never really felt there to me. The descriptions were off and left me feeling annoyed at their scenes together more than anything else.

Again, I'm writing a more comprehensive post about it, but the gist of it is that Harry's thoughts about Ginny in books 6 and 7 are weirdly detached for a supposed crush at best or outright uncomfortable for me to read at worst.

Now, we know Harry can describe characters he finds attractive in greater detail. There is none of that detail with Ginny. He only mentioned her hair color and that her hair is long and smells nice. Like, he doesn't talk about her eye color, her facial structure, eye shape (like he does sometimes with characters he does find attractive) — nothing. He doesn't even call her pretty once! At least he referred to Cho Chang as pretty twice in the series.

In the books there is never a scene (not even one) that convinces me they should be together. Like, they have no chemistry. They kinda remind me of Ron and Lavender tbh. They make out and are present in the same space often, but they never talk. Not really. I don't think Ginny actually knows Harry all that well because he never honestly talks to her about anything real. They don't really have chemistry or a relationship, they're just together. At least, that's how I always saw them.

And yes, Harry has his jealousy moments (that are portrayed so weirdly I always narrow my eyes at them to make sure they were actually there, but that's a whole other post about Harry's chest monster of jealousy), but he still doesn't really explain what he finds in Ginny. He doesn't mention she's attractive or pretty at any point, nor does he mention anything he particularly likes about her personality (except that she doesn't weep like Cho and is good at Quidditch. Neither of which are particularly good basis for a relationship).

Like, Ginny mentions why she likes Harry and that she does multiple times. Harry by contrast, just feels so incredibly uninvolved in his own relationship, to me.

Also, personally, I just find the setup of their relationship iffy. Like Ginny outright says she never gave up on Hary and always knew they'd end up together. It means, that since she was 11 (or earlier), she was crushing on Harry, never gave up on her crush, and considered them ending up together fate. She dated other guys to make Harry jealous and pay attention to her, and that's just really gross. I don't like her long obsessive crush on Harry or her treatment of the other guys she dated on her way to get Harry.

Proof of that, for those wondering:

“I never really gave up on you,” she [Ginny] said. “Not really. I always hoped. . . . Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more — myself.”

(Half-Blood Prince, page 647)

She literally said she dated other guys so Harry would take notice of her. That just grosses me out.

So, no, I don't like Hinny (or Ginny).

[noneorother]

The art director & the Good Omens book cover tier list of doom, part 3

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3

I am your resident Art Director/Good Omens enthusiast, and welcome to my completely meta-free book cover tier list. Listen, making a book cover is HARD. I should know. But while we salute these artists for their hard work and time, I think we can all admit that once in a while, the vision is just not on. And on very rare occasions, publishers seemed to have managed to commission the cover art directly from hell... here's where we left off last time:

21. Labas zīmes, Latvian cover

Our boys are back! And they are so ready to join the Dead Boy Detective agency. I would say that Latvians don't wear much tartan, so Argyle might seem like a similar print, but it just seems so... not Good Omens. Much like Crowley's flying purple people eater tail and Aziraphale's Conan the Barbarian sword, we're straying into niche AU fan fiction territory here. I mean, it's not *wrong*, but it certainly ain't right, either.

Tier: Does the Job

22. Bons Augùrios, Portuguese

Let me start by saying this cover is so close to being in the blessed category. The layout and spacing are divine, the imagery is simple and whimsical, it reflects the humour inside the gravitas to give you an idea of the *feeling* of reading Good Omens. So few of these covers have gotten this aspect of good design right. Honestly, I would slow clap if it wasn't for that random FLAME JIZZ stuck to the bottom right hand corner of the book. Who's idea was that? Dagon's?

Tier: Great

23. Semne Bune, Romanian cover

I admire two things about this cover: 1) Their utter commitment to a clean 3-colour palette and comprehensible layout. 2) Symbolic demon giving a principality head joke RIGHT ON THE FRONT COVER. This designer had balls. cotillion-sized balls. Now, does Aziraphale's sword have a sentient rooster tassel that watches said head-giving in horror? I sure hope not, but I don't see how that could be allegorical so, I'm torn. I feel like this goes in two categories for completely different reasons. And seeing as I'm in charge around here...

Tier: Great & Not so Good (Omens)

23. Semne Bune, Romanian cover cont.

Compared to the last cover's gigantic double-entendre, this feels so tame and logical. The text is centred and balanced. There's breathing room, and we have wing symbolism! I've never seen a cover try to split Terry and Neil's names like that, which is a fun twist but BY GOD that center line is not straight near the right end of the feathers and it is sending this cover straight down to Does the Job. It's grounded there forever.

Tier: Does the Job

25. HYVIÄ ENTEITÄ, Finnish cover

In this list, having something actually *relevant* to the main plot of the book and not mangling and main characters really puts you in rarefied air. All the motorcycles are book accurate which means somebody read something! Would I have ever picked the empty parking lot of Famine's restaurant as a subject worth a cover? Absolutely not. But the sick 80s lightning tips it into "fine" territory. The text is yellow. It's pretty.

Tier: Does the Job

26. Head ended, Estonian cover.

My face after staring at this cover for ten minutes and finally realizing that this is Hastur and Ligur waiting around for Crowley to pull up:

The artist's face after watching me do that:

Do I even need to rate this? It's called HEAD ENDED. I don't know how to be funnier than that.

Tier: WTF

27. Dobry Omen, Polish cover

Some good points for trying to be original with the layout of the title by drawing a custom pitchfork "Y", but the heinous kerning and the fact the whole text block is not even centred kind of makes me take all the points back. I feel like we're pretty heavy on the demonic, extremely light on the angelic in this take. Maybe it's because on his death bed the lead guitarist of White Snake will finally admit to having designed this cover in his spare time.

Tier: Not so Good (Omens)

28. Good Omens, Hungarian cover

If I told you this designer did not read the book, and instead just watched the trailer of The Omen (the movie) and vibed this heinous brown carpet swatch into existence, you would one hundred percent believe me. I can't even talk about the faux belle-époque font right now. I am irrationally angry.

Tier: WTF

29. Good Omens, Bulgarian cover

WHO. IS. DADDY. WIZARD?? Is all I can think when I look at this cover. Aziraphale & Grommet are recognizable enough, and you could make the case for telescope monkey being Adam, but I need to find this cover designer and shake them until they tell me who this deranged Gargamel is supposed to be. I must know.

Tier: Bad

30. BELAS MALDIÇÕES, Portuguese cover

After all we've been through on this list so far, this truly sucks. It's not even weird. It's just puce text layered atop text to create a great yawn of a cover. Shout out to the designer of the Diablo PC game font, I hope you got paid.

Tier: Bad

Part 3 roundup:

[kattythingz]

Fanfic Writer Interview

Why, @hijinks-n-lowjinks, husband mine, thank you for the tag! Ask and ye shall receive!

◆ How many works do you have on ao3?

25 currently, if you're not counting my old hidden works and the even older shit I have on ff.net.

◆ Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

Hhhhh. I have a feeling I know which one is first... aaaaaand I'm right. HHHHHH.

1. Mother(ghost) of Mine - danny phantom, phantom family (HHH)

2. A Crown with Gems and Gold - fma, edling (MY PRIDE AND JOY)

3. The (Un)Subtle Art of Staring - fma, elric bros (this is from when I hc'ed Ed as GAY instead of aroace. GOD THIS SHIT IS OLD, WHY)

4. Apple of Your Eye - sk8 the infinity, roleswap au (:D!!!)

5. What Sort of Imminent Threat - epic the musical, astyanax lives au (:D!!!! pt. 2)

◆ Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

YES!! BECAUSE I LOVE GETTING LOVE AND THE VALIDATION OF PPL LOVING MY WORK!! For every comment I receive, I gain a life <3

◆ What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Errrr, this is a tough one. Even tho I largely write angst now, I've yet to write an unhappy ending (tho I've def fantasized of it lmao). My angstiest ending is an unpublished S.C.I. fic, but published... Apple of Your Eye, ig? Cuz I leave it kind of open if Adam is defeated or if he gets to traumatize Reki more haha.

◆ What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Okay this is even tougher. Damn. I guess... By No Auspicious Day? I mean, edling literally get engaged. They're dorks. Yeah, that's the happiest one for sure.

◆ Do you write crossovers?

Definitely!!! I've got a young justice x fma crossover going on rn, and literally 99% of my other fma aus are set in other fandom medias lmao (hades, monkie kid, epic, hamilton... to name a few). I've also been contemplating a batman crossover where Ed and Mei (edling established) end up in Gotham and they meet the batfam while trying to get home 👀

◆ Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Errr, not quite hate but def some back-handed and passive aggressive comments. It got me to delete a fic once haha, cuz ppl lacked the reading comprehension to realize I didn't ask for criticism :)))

◆ Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

... So, I can now say yes to this. No, I'm not telling what ship. No, I'm never posting it under my name. Though I might clean it up one day skjvjkwgnw

◆ Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so? I hope not, anyway.

◆ Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

◆ Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! I've listed a few fics as "co-written", but looking back on it, those weren't co-written at all. I did all the actual writing on those; I just overestimated in my head how much my friends at the time "helped" with my fics tho and wound up thinking "oh! i talked with them about the fic a lot, so they're co-writers!" No, babe, they're not. Recognize your own hard work and value plz.

◆ What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I honestly don't think I have one. Like yes I get intense hyperfixations and certain ships will be ALL I think about in the time, but that doesn't make them my favorite ever? My current fixation is edgreed tho lmao.

◆ What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Probably that one yunmeng prides fic i've got sitting at a pretty 16k in my drive LMAO. I just hit an awful wall with it and I KNOW I'll never have the energy to pick up from the point I left off. I'd have to rewrite the entire thing and... yeah, no.

◆ What are your writing strengths?

Emotional moments!!! I'd like to think I have a way with handling Big Emotions and the build-up that leads to them exploding! I've also been told a lot over the years that I'm pretty good at getting into my characters' heads, both the good and the bad 👀

◆ What are your writing weaknesses?

Action. Fucking ACTION, my god. Loathe that shit from the DEPTHS of my bones. Don't be fooled by my semi-decent results in fics, the actual process that's gone into any action scene ever has always been LITERAL HELL, SO MANY DRAFTS, TOO MANY FUCKING DRAFTS. If I could take action out back and shoot it, I would :)

◆ What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

For the love of fucking god, if you're gonna write ENTIRE dialogue and not just one line, do your goddamn research. DON'T JUST GOOGLE TRANSLATE THAT SHIT. IF YOU CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO SEE IF THE SENTENCE IS CORRECT THEN AT THAT POINT JUST WRITE IT IN ENGLISH AND SAY "HE SAID IN [LANGUAGE]". IT'S ESP ATROCIOUS WITH NON-LATIN-BASED LANGUAGES LIKE ARABIC (LOOKING AT YOU FUCKING ISHVALAN AUS).

(Edward Elric would NOT speak in perfect fancy-ass formal dialect, that nobody native actually fucking uses either??? He'd have the most EGYPTIAN ASS DIALECT. Hell, I'll take Jordanian too!)

9/10 times, we can TELL it's google translate, okay. It's stiff and formal and translates LITERALLY rather than contextually. And half the time it's also just fucking wrong. Languages aren't just your damn vehicles to make a fic ✨diverse✨, they're CULTURES. LANGUAGES ARE CULTURES, AND YOU ARE BUTCHERING THEM.

CUT THAT SHIT OUT, I AM BEGGING.

◆ What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

OOOOH, Magic Kaito!!! I'd LOVE to rewrite a kaishin version of it where Shinichi serves Aoko's role instead! I'd also love to dip my toes into writing sth for conqueror of shamballa, because by GOD do I want Ed to be happy in Germany with Alfons and Noah. Do I gotta do everything myself???

◆ What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Come on, you know it's Crown. You know. It's the canon rewrite of my DREAMS, exactly how I'd rewrite brotherhood if I was given the choice. I've got ANIMATICS in my head for this bitch, entire scenes, this is an ANIME in my head. I want AMVS FOR THIS MF. But that anime doesn't actually exist in a visual medium. And I cry.

POKING @sirchenchen @inthebluz @kaethefangirl @kiingleoturtles. Thanks again for the tag!!!

[zealfruity]

I gotta know more about Jedi Cutup

How does he handle his antics totally not getting under Quinlan's skin?

On a scale of 1-10, how hard does their shitposting break that scale?

Is he any good with his saber? What's his favorite form of the seven? Does Quinlan teach him any -non- Jedi forms?~

How resonant in the Force does he become/what are favored "powers"?

I’m so happy you asked me this. Mostly because i love Cutup but also because I didn’t really think beyond that? So here’s what I’ve cooked up for you:

1. He keeps upping the antics. If Quinlan is unphased or perfectly in tune with whatever's Cutup's cooking up (which is most of the time that guy gets up to so much bs)? Cutup gets more ambitious. At some point he does realise that it's not going to work, but it takes a lot of trying and failing. The only time he ever threw Quinlan off his stride was the first time Quinlan heard about him from Obi-Wan, and then maybe after Cutup catches onto a Force trick very quickly Vos didn’t expect it. Afterwards Cutup didn't have much luck, which is annoying when part of your whole Thing is that you imbalance and inconvenience authority 24/7.

2. I'm not really sure what you mean here, my reading comprehension can be iffy. The Vos and Cutup duo get into a lot of shenanigans, they're a good apprenticeship match. Shit gets done but the way it gets done always ends up being…. Out of the box. So I guess 9/10, knowing eachother def raised their individual Hijinks Magnets’ strenghts.

3. He's alright with it, just not used to close range stuff. He was trained as a grenadier, which involves a lot of aiming+throwing explosives far away and then shooting deadly blaster fire at ennemies. He's good at aiming blaster bolts when deflecting them, and he's not a very traditional fighter so that definetely helps him out. Form V is the one he's best at and likes the most, and when learning with the practice saber, it was definetely the one he had to use the most if ever he needed to (still being at war on the frontlines and all). he has the physical capabilities energy to use Form IV (he was always a little bit of a showoff, he's the kid who does sick flips on the trampoline and then probs hurts himself doing a backflip wrong). It saps him of his force strenght quickly though and he hasn't quite mastered the spatial awareness it needs, so he has to be careful.

4. Cutup's gotten good at some niche hand-to-hand techniques that Quinlan knows. He learns how to use a blaster/saber way of fighting where the saber is mostly used for defence and some close combat, and the blaster used for offence and long range. Quinlan helps him merge what he’s been taught his whole life being a trooper and the new things he’s learning from the Jedi in peacetime.

5. He's not the strongest Jedi in the room, he's pretty average and the years of uncontiously supressing something like that for self preservation reasons (kamino + war = bad mixture for an untrained force sensitive, also some story and lore stuff that I don't feel like getting into right now). He's good at the whole "something is about to happen" feeling and can manage to get decently specific with it. he's learned how to concentrate his usage of the Force in one big, short burst that can have pretty cool results (but tire him out emmediately afterwards, any further Force usage is difficult and can leave some damage to him). It's the longer lasting, consistent usage (used for say, deep meditation, holding smth up for longer than 30 seconds, and sensing larger amounts of people) that he has a lot of trouble with. Gets really good at timing when to enhance his strenght and speed with the Force in short moments, but again: keeping it consistent during a fight is not his strong suit.

Hope this helped :)) As always, my ask box is open ✨

I like how little guy he looks here.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Ok so.. Still no Legally Blonde professor unfortunately XD buuuut we both love dragons, I've been obsessing over the Dragon AU, and you are having impure thoughts about Dragon!Greasy... :)

(These could technically apply to all dragons, but I'm focusing on the Draon Patrol XD)

Ok, even if some of their equipment is smaller compared to their body, I imagine it's still probably gonna be a struggle to stick it in a human without hurting them. They have to be very careful and take precautions. That's why all the dragon boys will go down on you before the main event. Everytime. It's to stretch your hole out to make it easier on you. And they like it- especially Greasy. And they have long serpent tongues that can reach pretty deep~

Wings are probably gonna take play when you guys fuck. At least for Psycho, Greasy, and Wheezy. Wheezy can wrap his wings around you guys to bring you closer and give you a sense of privacy. Greasy and Psycho have their wing claws that they can use on you however necessary. Especially for Psycho; if he's got the long lithe lizard body, his wings can reach down there better and grip onto you while his other claws dig into the ground. Greasy meanwhile, knows how to put both sets of claws to good use on you ;)

I promise you that no matter who you get with, you will be manhandled. Even if you're with Wheezy or Stupid, the more gentle ones. The sheer size difference alone kinda makes it hard for you not to be XD I think with Wheezy in particular especially; if his huge wing size implicates his dick size, then there's no way it can all fit in. So he has to take extra control of you to make sure you don't get accidently split in half. Or with Greasy are Smartass, they like putting you in positions they want you in themselves.

Heats. It's my headcannon that dragons go into a heat 2-4 weeks annually, depending on the species. You thought Greasy was bad the rest of the year? Honey you ain't seen nothing yet. During this time, you might as well go nude the whole time and stay in the nest. You ain't going anywhere anytime soon, no matter which dragon or how many you're with.

Different positions they have. Cowgirl is gonna be one of the more common positions probably so you don't get accidentally crushed, but they do have their preferences; Wheezy likes this position, both for the veiw and so you're more comfortable. Stupid doesn't care, he's happy to get some. Smartass enjoys the fact that he's actually bigger than someone, so he likes positions that emphasize this. Psycho is a feral beast who probably goes for more animalistic positions, so you'll be beneath him (he'll bend his head down upside down so he can watch you and keep eye contact). Greasy likes positions like the seashell, or any others with your legs up- which I promise you, he's got a hold of in some way.

Ok these were written in a rush before I went into work, so I'm sorry there isn't too much and if they aren't comprehensible XD I hope you like these though!

- DarlingPassion

OKAY

MA'AM.

WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO SEND THESE SO I SEE THEM FIRST THING IN THE MORNING? XDD I have had these in these mind all day! 😂

They are a l l my favourite, I cant even !!! The size difference obstacle, wings being used for privacy <3<3 , the manhandling, FRIGGEN HEATS (2-4 weeks you say?? Greasy possibly wanting to keep his mate naked for free-use you say?????), and- just- the thought of Psycho doing that position like that is terrifying and perfect to me XDD

HERE IS SOMETHING IN RETALIATION.

Dragon!Greasy Weasel x Human!Reader || Smexcerpt

Plot: You wake up to your dragon mate getting a late night snack~ 👅👅👅

Warnings: Somnophilia and dubcon at the start, licking, Greasy's dragon tongue is thicker than the width of your actual butt he's that big, etc.

Its so early in the morning you think its still night when you crack your eyes open, feeling a boiling hot feeling bubbling in the pit of your stomach. A gentle, muffled moan slips out of you, your face smushed against a pillow. The wetness between your legs and your dragon mate's warm tongue grazing softly against your hypersensitive folds from behind lighting all your nerves on fire.

You don't know whether you're feeling so sensitive because you're half awake, or because you've already cum already- all you know is you don't want it to stop. Your fingers curl into fists against the stone ground underneath you arching your back and parting your knees in order to give better access; closing your eyes once again so you lose yourself to the rolling, aching pleasure of Greasy's long tongue thicker than the width of your ass sticking up in the air, peaking in between your thighs and massaging your delicate heat.

Hearing the monster's moans behind you at your delicious taste, the sound rumbling against your skin, makes you feel even higher. He's really enjoying himself ^^ You just wanna be good for him, you think in your half-asleep state; delirious with the throbbing orgasm building in you and the aftershock of lovely deep sleep, you wanna be so so good for him.

"Mmm... Greasy... " You sigh, arching your ass up higher still, like a cat in the sun, hoping for him to lick into you harder- deeper- just, wreck you.

His tongue licks you and slips away from you. No- "No pude evitarlo ~"

When your monster mate is completely worked up- he only speaks Spanish. You don't know what he says, he doesn't care, and neither do you honestly- its music to your ears. It goes straight to our head. Makes you dizzy. "... please... "

"... Todavía no puedo evitarlo~ "

Then his tongue, hot from the fire sizzling in his stomach slips between your sweet thighs again and starts rubbing your most sensitive entrance once more. Back and forth it goes, methodical; Greasy just languidly enjoying your flavour~ He builds you up quickly to a high on that tongue, making you gush wetness like a whore.

It takes several wonderful minutes of this, your pussy getting used and abused oh so amazingly, until you're waking up more and beginning to rock on his tongue; hopelessly, desperately looking for an orgasm from him. "More... more... more, please- Ah, Greasy~~... "

When you finally cum on the hot, slimy appendage Greasy slips the sharp, scary claws at the of his beautiful green wings around your waist and holds you still so he can be sure to clean it all up~

[iguessitsjustme]

Okay I just saw your “Top Non-BL Asian TV Shows” list bc I was looking through the Love O2O tag (as one does) and I need to know if you have one for top BL Asian shows bc I’m obsessed.

Hello my dear anon! Sorry it took a few days to get to this. My brain has not been braining BUT I have a list for you! Before I get started though, I did make a list of my top BL from 2022 and there is definitely going to be some overlap there.

Anyway. This is in no way a comprehensive list and it's just gonna be in alphabetical order. I also couldn't limit myself to ten this time, so you're going to get 15. This got really long so it's going under a cut:

A Tale of 1000 Stars - This show is one of my all time favorite BLs. The story was so well told and the acting was phenomenal. Genuinely, this show almost made me cry (in a good way). I got real close and if you know me, that's impressive. This show is pretty close to flawless for me and it is the show I used to introduce my mom to BL and now she's seen a whole lot and loves it like I do. So this show will always have a special place in my heart.

2. Bed Friend - I went into this show expecting to mostly enjoy it but I was fully expecting it to be a trash watch. What I didn't expect was a beautifully told story about trauma and how that can impact relationships and how patience and kindness and support, genuine support, is a fundamental piece of loving someone. Truly astonishing. Blew me out of the water.

3. Cherry Magic - This show is so incredibly wholesome and cute. I love the premise and I always appreciate when we get shows about adults. Adachi and Kurosawa are so precious and adorable and truly the only people deserving of each other. No one else could possibly deserve the love and light of those two. Plus I love our aroace girlie. She deserves the world. I know Thailand is doing a remake of this show and I'm skeptical but hopeful. We'll see.

4. DNA Says Love You - I'm not sure if I actually classify this as BL but it is very queer and the friendships are solid. One of the best friend groups and such a compelling story. It took me a minute to get into it cause the first few episodes aren't the best, but once the story starts taking off it's so, so good.

5. Ghost Host, Ghost House - This show came at the right time for me. It was so heartbreakingly beautiful. Our main couple gets a happy ending but the journey to get there is hard and honestly I was going through a lot when this was released and watching it was very cathartic for me. It helped give me an outlet to process grief I was going through.

6. Light on Me - The only good love triangle I have ever seen. Daon is my baby forever and always. I truly believe this show did so much for Korean BL and opened the doors for longer form BL out of Korea. The real selling point to this show for me is the characters. The story is cute, if basic, but the characters and their relationships and how the interact with each other is truly wonderful. The acting is phenomenal and everything about it is just so pretty.

7. Moonlight Chicken - This show has so much of what I look for in older, more serious shows. This show was perfect in its imperfectness. We got two generations of queer men in a family and we got to see how each reacted to the world and to their own queerness. We got deaf representation and a character learning sign language specifically to communicate. Heart's story with his parents was honestly beautiful and I think it was handled really well.

8. My School President - So cute. Just incredibly adorable. FourthGemini are honestly ridiculously talented for their age. I'm very excited to see what they do next. My only issue with this one was the sheer amount of singing, but at least it made sense with the plot and it was built in singing. Watching Tinn and Gun's story play out was a treat every week. There was not a single episode that was not enjoyable.

9. Old Fashion Cupcake - This is it for me. Absolute perfection. This is flawless episodes. I have no notes. I love this show. This is my top BL of all time. Everything about this is excellent. I don't even know how to properly discuss this because I love it so much.

10. Our Dating Sim - I'm not normally a fan of reunion stories but this one is fantastic. One of Korea's best. There's not a minute of wasted time.

11. Our Dining Table - This is the cutest, the most wholesome, the most darling, the most precious show ever created. I could not be mad watching this show. Even if certain people pissed me off, if I went home and turned on this show, my rage was calmed and I was happy again. I bought the first volume of the manga for this and I'm planning on buying the rest whenever I'm able.

12. Seven Days - This is probably the most underrated BL out there. It's cute, it's wholesome, the characters are amazing. Watching these two fall for each other is one of the best treats you can give yourself. I'm about to make my mom watch these two movies in the next few weeks and I cannot wait.

13. Sing My Crush - I loved this show oh so very much. I'm pretty sure I stayed up until like 2 one night binging it. It scratched a particular itch for me in the pining childhood friends to lovers. I just love them so much. The villain was a bit too...evil...for my taste but it worked. Plus, I genuinely didn't mind the singing here.

14. The Eighth Sense - This is just good. I'm not sure I classify it as BL but definitely queer. I tend to prefer shows that deal with trauma of some sort and this show does that and does it well. How many shows do we have where a character is actually seeing a therapist? Plus the patience and love that Ji Hyun had to Jae Won was just heartwarming. This show isn't just one of my favorite queer shows. It's one of my top 5 shows of all time.

15. Until We Meet Again - To me, this is THE BL. I cried multiple times. It's tough to get me to cry once let alone multiple times. I had already gotten into BL when I started watching this but I'd say this show was probably my full blow decent into madness. I think I watched all 17 episodes in the span of 3 days while working full-time. Overtime at that. I didn't sleep. One of the most beautiful stories ever written. I'm a sucker for reincarnation stories and this just..is so incredibly beautiful. It got me in my feels.

There ya have it. That's a list. Definitely not all, but I'd be listing forever and getting my executive to function enough to write this was hard enough. ps if you like Love O2O, the ML, Yang Yang is the main character in King's Avatar which was another show I put on my top non-BL shows but I rewatched it recently and I don't know what I was smoking when I wrote that list but that show is so incredibly gay. There's no canon romance but it's still very gay

[totally-correct-shenanigans]

musical ramblings #4

okay look i know i said i was doin' the brains but then shuffle put this on and i was like "oh." so !!

surface pressure ; jessica darrow (encanto)

i'll never shut up about the fact that these barely-20-somethings have what feels like the weight of the world on their shoulders-- or, in the case of clock-la, they might have genuinely had the weight of the world on their shoulders.

i will also never shut up about the cooper legacy and how much weight it puts on their shoulders independent of the whole fighting for their lives thing.

again, in-depth analysis/breakdown under the cut <3 this one's a little on the longer side, i think. and the choruses get typed out every time bc i didn't want to cut around them bc of the "give it to your sister" segments. so yeah.

this is also mostly murray & sly, but theres a fair amount of bentley in there too :3

i feel like this one is a lot of me taking canon and running with it but i am a very fast runner so i think it's okay. but um i hope it's okay if this one's a little more headcanon-y. i've tried to make clear what was My Brain and what was Actual Stuff thus far but i have many emotions about this song and i need to explain their complicated self-image ok. hopefully that's okay

also this might be LESS comprehensible than the last one but probably not less comprehensible than my little reason why. braincell is ping ponging around within me skull

update from midway through, this is very sly 2 focused i think. oops but like not really fdhsjkafhd

"I'm the strong one, I'm not nervous / I'm as tough as the crust of the Earth is"

yeah that's just murray in a nutshell. well post-sly 1 at least. just know that "i'm not nervous" is said in the absolute most nervous way possible, because murray absolutely is.

"I move mountains, I move churches / And I glow 'cause I know what my worth is"

the beginning of this song is very murray lol. he seems to be the one most confident in his strength & skills during 2 & 3, esp. during 2. but he is also the one to reassure bentley that they're equals during 3 which isn't entirely related but it does show that he does indeed know his worth. <3

"I don't ask how hard the work is / Got a rough, indestructible surface / Diamonds and platinum, I find 'em, I flatten 'em / I take what I'm handed, I break what's demanded, but"

more murraycore lol. i think this is pretty self-explanatory

(fun fact: murray has the most health of the cooper brothers, meaning comparatively to, say, bentley, he does in fact have a "rough, indestructible surface" <;3)

"Under the surface / I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus"

okay now we fall out of the surface level "yeah that makes sense". i gotta say using the word Berserk there ... has me thinking of the Murray Tries To Kill You section w/ the agitators. to be FAIR i'm pretty sure tightrope walkers Don't Do That. but i've also never been to the circus, so.

anyway ! i feel like he's also the like. the Silliest, y'know? the naive one that's usually getting made fun of, i think. and he presents the most, he's not built for subtlety; he's very visible. which is also part of why this line is He. he probably feels like he's a circus act to be watched and laughed at, y'know?

"Under the surface / Was Hercules ever like 'yo, I don't wanna fight Cerberus'?"

note the missing green bc i feel like bentley feels much less Forced into his role. he likes being the smart guy !

now, that's not to say that murray and sly don't like their roles, because of course they do! but being the strong one was, as we see, not murray's first choice. and being the strong one means you do all the heavy lifting, and while murray likes that most of the time... i'm sure there are times where he'd rather have stayed just the getaway driver.

and then there's sly, who loves the whole thief thing and loves his role and wouldn't trade it for the world, but... he got shoved into this whole thing too, y'know? he loves being a thief, but i'm sure he would love it more if it had been his choice, if anybody had asked him before it was suddenly his everything.

"Under the surface / I'm pretty sure I'm worthless, if I can't be of service"

yet another cotton candy line. look i can go SO in-depth about sly and his self-esteem issues esp. during sly 3. there's an interaction during a cold alliance that is pretty much the entire formation for this head of canon ("Sure you won't need my help on the inside?" "I'm afraid this is a problem only technology can solve." "...Right. Well, have fun with your, uh, technology." "Don't wait up- this could go all night!")

and then there's murray, who thinks he's not "of service" and leaves because he doesn't want to hinder the team any more than he thinks he already does (see the sly 2.5 comic.) he doesn't just think he's worthless if he's not doing something, he thinks he's worse than that; if he's not helping, he's a hinderance. hell i'm pretty sure he thinks he's a hinderance even when he IS helping sometimes. (see: him blaming himself for the clock-la incident.)

"A flaw or a crack / The straw in the stack / That breaks the camel's back / What breaks the camel's back? It's- / Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, woah / Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop, woah"

admittedly this is mostly just vibes. but also they need a nap and a hug. i'm pretty sure that by the end of sly 3 and all the fighting and the tensities and the bigger team that they're all about 3 seconds away from snapping.

"Give it to your sister, your sister's older / Give her all the heavy things we can't shoulder"

yet another gender swap but again for the sake of lyrical clarity i'm not changing the pronouns. just Know that pretty much every she is actually a he. that's a good life motto in general actually /j

this is mostly just bc i am an oldest bentley truther lol. but also i think he does wind up with a lot of "heavy things [they] can't shoulder" because as the planner i think that's just how that goes. he knows his brothers' skillsets! if something needs done that the two of them can't do, it's bentley's job. (see: demolitions, rc, etc.)

"Who am I, if I can't run with the ball / If I fall to... / Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won't let go, woah"

okay this was originally combined with the next one but i needed a place to talk about sly and the generational trauma. like sly's entire LIFE is built around being a thief (hence the "who am i if i can't run with the ball"- if sly cooper isn't a master thief, who even is he?) and living up to his family's legacy, hence the pressure. and no matter what he does, he can't escape it (it won't let go, wink wink.)

now because sly 4 simply isn't real this'll probably be the only time i mention it in this breakdown but even when he isn't a thief he still can't escape the Cooper burden, and his whole bloodline is once more put into peril because of something he had nothing to do with.

...i think. i'm only like 1/4 of the way into sly 4 but i'm pretty sure it's the classic steven universe style my parent(s) did something to you but now they're dead so you're determined to take it out on me bc i'm their kid thing.

"Pressure like a tick, tick, tick, 'til it's ready to blow, woah / Give it to your sister, your sister's stronger / See if she can hang on a little longer / Who am I, if I can't carry it all? / If I falter..."

murray honey your self-esteem issues are showing again. this is more of that "if i'm not helping i'm hurting" mentality that he seems to have. and also more Strong One shenanigans !

also the "tick tick tick 'til it's ready to blow" is very the murray very much so has Some Rage Within There. most notable example of this is Opera of Fear when octavio pisses him off by harassing bentley and he beats the shit out of the poor opera lion man.

i'm realizing the way him and sly view themselves are very similar lol. however i think murray finds some peace in training with the guru and is able to fall back from this mindset a bit. but that's not related.

again, more Strong One. he's big and tough and therefore he should be the one handling these things. he's the Strong One and therefore he is handling these things and he is handling them fine, he says, like a liar. he is Not Fine.

"Under the surface / I hide my nerves, and it worsens / I worry something is gonna hurt us / Under the surface / The ship doesn't swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is"

bentley is very Worried in General, as we know. "hide [his] nerves" probably comes into play bc he's their voice of reason, and if the voice of reason is panicking then everything is terrible and they're all gonna die. HOWEVER if he's not panicking then he might accidentally make sly and murray think they're in less danger than they are (leading to them being a little more careless and only worsening his nerves.)

OKAYOKAYOKAY "the ship doesn't swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is" gives me very much so vibes of the one Ro.tTM.NT episode with the poison pizza puffs and the younger three are constantly like "rap.h'll bail us out :]" and rap.h is like "NO."

i think sly and murray do that to bentley a lot, esp. post jailbreak. it doesn't matter what kind of trouble they get into because bentley can bust them out ! which is why the metaphorical ship isn't swerving. it's kind of sweet the amount of trust they have for bentley however bentley would like to humbly request they stop showing him they trust him by throwing themselves into danger!

"Under the surface / I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this? / Line up the dominoes, a light wind blows / You try to stop it toppling but on and on it goes"

and the return of the cotton candy self-esteem issues again and still pretty much for the same reason. though i admit this line is mostly murraycore, hence why it's so much more pink than blue <3

murray's 'purpose' is to be the strong one, sly's is to be a thief. again they both think that they're "worthless if [they] can't be of service" but sly is a little different in the fact that his purpose rlly isn't going anywhere.

meanwhile murray after the clock-la incident is pretty sure he has lost his purpose! he thinks he failed at being the Strong One ("can i somehow preserve this?") and that dominoes (wink) into him spiraling over every tiny mistake he makes (as we see during the aforementioned sly 2.5 comic where he blames himself for every little thing) but all that really does is make him clam up and mess up more which. "you try to stop it toppling but on and on it goes," y'know?

"But wait, if I could shake / The crushing weight of expectations / Would that free some room up for joy? / Or simple pleasures"

sly is atlas and the cooper name is his globe, y'know?

"Instead we measure, this growing pressure / Keeps growing, keep going / 'Cause all we know is / Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, woah / Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip 'til you just go pop, woah"

again with the very sly 2 vibe i think. the whole Growing Pressure just reads as them learning about the klaww gang and their spice schemes and neyla and suddenly this isn't just about destroying the clockwerk parts it's about saving paris and i doubt neyla would have stopped with just paris and i'm sure the cooper brothers know that too

these colors are out of order (usually it would be green -> pink -> blue) because i wanted sly to have the "all we know is" ... despite the fact that it really matches all of them. they've never lived any other way, sly especially.

"Give it to your sister, it doesn't hurt and / See if she can handle every family burden / Watch as she buckles and bends, but never breaks / No mistakes, just"

again w the family thing like i said i will never shut up about it. 'cause sly's been dealing with the consequences of his family's (specifically his father's) actions this whole time and he's been succeeding, he destroyed clockwerk, he destroyed clock-la, he defeated dr. m, but he's still floundering under the pressure of living under legends.

even when he's Literally About to Die bc his dad didn't believe in minimum wage he's worried about how he compares to the Coopers before him ("Would he be proud? Or ashamed?") like bb harbor some resentment in there for the hell you've been put through.

"Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won't let go, woah / Pressure like a tick, tick, tick 'til it's ready to blow, woah"

debated switching sly and murray's lines for this ending segment but i think this works the best. again with the Rage That Will Explode and also his inescapable hell of being The Strong One.

"Give it to your sister and never wonder / If the same pressure would have pulled you under"

this is both about bentley being the jack of all trades when he needs to be and about him keeping the other two out of trouble. he's certain the other two would be 'pulled under' by the stress of more things to do, and he's certain they would be 'pulled under' and kept under if he wasn't there to bail them out.

"Who am I, if I don't have what it takes?"

guess what .. it's the generational trauma again <3 more about sly and his need to live up to his family line because as the line says who is he if he doesn't have what it takes!

"No cracks, no breaks / No mistakes, no pressure"

bentley's determined to not crack under the pressure because of his brothers, both to keep them out of trouble and to bail them out of the troubles they get into anyway. murray's determined to not break because he's The Strong One, and if he's not, then he's certain he'll be some kind of hinderance. and sly's determined to not make any mistakes so he can earn his cooper name and make his father proud.

this will definitely not wind up causing at least 3 breakdowns. (sarcasm)

[dearestones]

hello! id like to submit an entry for the twisted wonderland match up! :-)

about me;

- im gay + trans masc

- interests and hobbies; haute couture + avant garde fashion shows, alternative fashion (vkei, scemo, goth..), drawing, painting, clothes-making, embroidery, reading, writing, politics, philosophy and ethics, jewelery-making, films, papercraft, sculpting, any artistic hobby under the sun you bet my ass would do

- personality;

- i'm shy and keep to myself in most situations, but i can be charismatic and funny around trusted friends. i like making new friends and getting to know people; i admire outgoing and passionate people the most.

- i'm emotionally self-aware (i pride myself the most with this)-- i understand myself very well, so i can communicate pretty clearly with others.

- i avoid judging people for trivial matters. we are all cringe and we are FREE!!

- i'm non-tolerant of bigoted beliefs and unafraid to confront them. my moral compass is pretty strong?

- i'm always striving to be the best version of myself, though i do have some very deep-rooted insecurities about myself at all times.

- i'm dedicated and hardworking when focused on something i care about, but i struggle with my attention span.

- i'm patient and hard to anger, but easily irritated.

- i like learning new things! so i like listening to people talk a bout obscure and niche things.

- i really. really like people. i like the sounds of people and the love people share and the fun they have and how different they are. they're very interesting and i like discussing deeper topics with them, but this makes me rather awkward in new friendships because i just get right down into the nitty gritty of it :[

appearance;

- im 5'7, pale, dark-haired (i have a mullet. a wolfcut?? with an undercut. biblically accurate haircut). im pretty neutral with my appearance but i like my pear figure!

- i have high cheekbones, a square jaw, double lid eyes, a high nosebridge, and my lips have no cupids bow. i take pretty good care of my lip skin tho so i have that going on for me lmfao

trivia;

- im horribly and horrendously picky with my food i would NAWT survive in the wild

- my natural sleep schedule consists of sleeping at 10 am and waking up at 6pm

- i like watching analysis videos/video essays, documentaries, studies, etc etc but my memory is worse than the most arthritis ridden goldfish so i dont retain it either way

thank you for your time!

ahahaha i missed a few things to add for my match up request! my bad! my og request states i am mlm trans masc; im the 5'6 guy. i would like a romantic match up, and i believe ive already some of my positive traits, but for a comprehensive list;

- positive traits

1. compassionate/considerate/understanding

2. patient

3. earnest

4. witty/humorous

5. honest/open with my emotions and thoughts

6. pragmatic romantic

7. curious

8. hardworking/competent

9. self-reflective

- negative traits

1. flighty? (i tend to disappear off the face of the earth and not tell anyone)

2. jealous

3. impulsive

4. insecure

5. disorganized

6. perfectionist

7. rigid (to change in structures-- i need it to function or ill become extremely stressed)

8. forgetful

(2/2)

~~~~

Hey, Devin here!

Unfortunately, I can't do this request because it went over my word limit. I checked your first message to my inbox and it's already over 400 words. If you want a request done, make sure you adhere to any limitations that I have specified in my rules.

If you're still interested, please rewrite or subtract things so that it will be within limit.

If you have any more questions, refer to my pinned post for more of my matchup rules.

Thank you and I hope that you have a wonderful day.

[luthiest]

hi!! i was wondering if u had any recommendations for schools to be a luthier??? ive gained an interest bc of you and now im actually considering pursuing it but im not sure how to go about that. sorry to bother and thank u in advance!!

omg such flattery 🥰🥰 so there are 3 accredited, full-time violin making schools in the states: one in salt lake city, chicago, and boston! (more info below the cut :p)

they're all trade schools, so not university affiliated, which means acceptance tends to rely more heavily on the space available and personal statements/interest expressed. there are part time programs too that are at colleges/universities that i've heard of, but i've forgotten the names.. you come out with a degree, but tbh degrees aren't really of much importance in this line of work, from what i understand.

its a pretty big leap to make considering the time and tuition commitment, (the tuition.... oh man the tuition) so i would definitely recommend finding a luthier near you and asking them about their background and experience. for a lot of people who just want to repair and work locally, starting with some background shop skills/woodworking and then finding an apprenticeship with a maker is all that's necessary--at the end of the day, your work speaks for itself. i do think going to a school will provide the most comprehensive education in both modern technique and historic making tho, and will open up a lot of possibilities in terms of breadth of skill and community ties. (for reference, out of my 3 coworkers this summer, 2 went to chicago and 1 went to boston... make of that what you will)

i'm not sure what your background is in music/instruments, but if possible, finding a rental shop near you and asking if you can help out would be a helpful step in seeing if its something you want to do! that's essentially what i'm doing this summer, instrument set-up and assisting with repairs.. a lot of it can just be taught on the job, and rental shops are usually super busy in the summers.

that being said !! i've heard my teacher say before that he prefers students to come in to the program with no history of violin making, since its easier to teach a blank slate than to unteach bad habits. as someone who started school with no background knowledge whatsoever an anything besides playing, i can say that he's probably right, but a background knowledge of woodworking and/or tools would've been a huge benefit just in terms of vocabulary and familiarity.

i feel like i should add that i literally only have knowledge of the us, so if you're looking for info of diff countries lmk; i can definitely crowdsource an answer lolol. but if ur interested in the school names/comparisons of the schools, feel free to dm me!! its not hard to google but i also like..... probably shouldn't put the name of my school on blast so readily for anyone to see aha

i hope this was helpful, sorry for the super lengthy response !! <333

[hamliet]

happy july kate 💖 hope you're doing well. as a long time lurker of your blog, you and your work has slowly highlighted my need to create and work on my creativity, especially when it comes to things i loved to do before such as drawing and writing. ngl it's been hard because ive been comparing myself to other artists and writers. for example i saw someone write this beautiful dragon-pheonix reincarnation fic for their ship. the plot, prose and the way everything intertwined was beautiful (1/?)

(2/?) but i look at myself and can barely muster up the courage to write vecause how could i when there's already people who write and draw that well. a lot of my perfectionism comes from past abuse but the way it's manifesting here is such a pain. therapy has helped in healing but god, im so scared to start. have you ever caught yourself in a similar dilemma?

(3/?) another thing i wanted to ask about is how do you approach incorporating other people's analysis and stuff into your own work? obviously give credit where it's due but im always wondering whether it's worth it to be reiterating the same stuff when someone has already done a comprehensive job of it. i guess an example could be lore related to some kind of show or game.

(4/?) last question but do you ever catch yourself justifying your ship? there's like 50 different reasons you can ship characters,,,, maybe I spend too much on twitter but I feel like I have to justify a lot or at least there's an expectation to do that. it makes it harder for me to enjoy other ships (even the ones i dont care for) because now im expecting others to justify for all the same reasons. perhaps i need a fandom break or need to set better boundaries

lmaosorry for the word vomit in your ask box. it's been bugging me a lot and i didn't know who else to ask this since my friends don't really participate in fandom spaces 😶😶 hope this isn't too much of a bother but thank you for even entertaining my chaotic rambling. have a great weekend 💝

Hi Lurker! Oh, I can relate for sure. I think most writers/artists can.

I'm not sure my advice will be anything you haven't already heard, but I can tell you that by living it I know it's true: write it/draw it anyways. Imperfect, sure. Nothing is perfect, and art is subjective. There are so many needs, and no artpiece can satisfy every soul on this planet.

Do it anyways. Even if it's not perfect. You'll get better and better without even realizing it. You'll have moments where you're like I'M REGRESSING *cries* and then someone will tell you this was their favorite thing ever. Art isn't a static thing you just create and leave alone; it's more like an interactive thing, a living thing even at the risk of sounding super fucking cheesy--because it impacts people in different ways, ways we can't predict when creating it. And the act of creating it will impact you, too.

As for the analysis part, give credit and write it on your own. You learn by writing--sometimes it's fun and you'll realize oh hey, I just uncovered something new as I was writing that I hadn't even thought of!

As for justifying, sometimes? And sometimes not. Less so the older I get, lol, and I don't think it's a great thing ever to feel like you have to morally justify everything from each and every potential dislike. Just accept that other people have different tastes, limits, and preferences--which of course is way easier said than done! Give yourself grace and allow yourself to rant from time to time (privately). Art does affect our emotions, and it's good to express those (just not good to be an asshat about it or judge people for it, but expressing "I don't like this opinion" privately to a friend isn't that).

Twitter is the worst for that, though. Everyone's jockeying to be the Most Moral and Change the World Through Yelling At Others You Don't Even Know on there, and I hate it so much. Even as I, y'know, go on pretty much every day and therefore have no right to complain. I do this to myself. Sue me. I'm human too and def a hypocrite for participating in the Bird Site Madness but oh well.

Wow, that's a tangent. Anyways. We're all just doing the best we can, Lurker. Even if you can't quite bring yourself to start art yet, or to stop comparing, give yourself some grace for that. It doesn't make you a loser and it doesn't mean you never will start. All of us have those moments--moments that seem way longer than they should, I'm afraid.

But you know you want to make something. That's good. You deserve to have your voice heard, to follow what you want. The abilities you want to cultivate deserve time and space to grow. You deserve to make imperfect art because you deserve to be here, because you're alive and life is growing and all people should have their voices heard. <3

[zabrak-show]

In the Absence of Light

Chapter 3: I Keep on Fallin’

Disaster Trio vs Zabrak Bros Ghost Hunter AU

Summary: Maul and Obi-Wan navigate their surroundings and their past. Darkness and small spaces spark chemistry. Ahsoka and Feral witness something truly terrifying.

Warnings/tags: bickering as usual, sensory deprivation, small spaces/claustrophobia, feeling of falling, there may or may not be a smooch and a pants tent or two (I know I know how very dare)

Words: 2.8k

Ch 1, Ch 2, art

AO3

A/N: sorry a bit late with posting this one even tho technically it’s still Thursday!! Ahh I can’t believe there’s only one more chapter to post after this! I hope you all enjoy and please do let me know your thoughts <3 xoxo

A wretched creaking noise echoed through the cavernous chamber. Maul muttered incoherent blather as he rifled through things looking for some sort of crowbar. As comforting as it was to be still able to hear Maul, the echoes opened the basement into a larger than comprehensible room to Obi-Wan's imagination. He felt his stomach churn with acid, and his chest tightened with anxiety. The blanket of darkness swallowed and penetrated him wholly.

A loud clatter of metal hitting the concrete gave him a startled jump.

"Found something!" Maul boasted.

Kenobi could hear the fast thwack of his shoes hitting the concrete running over to him.

"It's an actual crowbar! So I'm going to pry it into the edge of the door, and we can both pull it to open it up." Maul explained as he put the crowbar in place. Obi-Wan held his hands out, waiting for guidance. A most desperate hour to surrender control to this wild Zabrak.

Maul wrapped his arms around Kenobi's and guided him to the crowbar he'd wedged into the door, sliding his hands to where he needed to hold the bar. Their bodies had never been this close before. Obi-Wan's heart raced, and his pants became too tight. Maul’s hands were so warm and his skin was thick, but softer than he’d expected. Oh, gods, why was this happening?! He had no idea if his arousal was obvious or not. The flushing on his cheeks must be. Could Maul see colors in the dark, or was it like those night vision cameras?

Maul near whispered, "Hold it here and pull to your right when I say so," his hot, humid breath warmed the shell of his ear. Obi-Wan's palms dampened, and he worried about being able to hold the crowbar with any efficiency. No matter, he'd have to make do. There were more important things to focus on right now other than his apparent attraction to Maul in the dark.

"Ready? PULL!" Maul yelled, and both men pulled the door open in a few slow hard thrusts. The high pitch screeching of the metal was enough to wake the dead.

"What do you see? Is it an elevator?" Obi-Wan asked through gasps of catching his breath.

"I think...so…." Maul's voice trailed off, and sweat ran down Kenobi's back and stung his eyes as it slid down his brow.

"What's going on?" Kenobi shivered from the dampness of his sweat now covering much of his body.

What happened next, Kenobi couldn't be sure. He questioned his reality, thinking he must still be dreaming or dreaming again. Had he passed out when he fell? He did hit his head pretty hard. It was as though some tremendous and powerful being had pushed him into the small—what he was assuming—elevator. It couldn't have been Maul, who laid crumpled on the floor under him in this tiny cramped room. Obi-Wan howled as he tried to stand up, and immediately his knees buckled under him, and he fell back on top of Maul. Both of them groaned with hitched breaths.

"Careful," Maul croaked out, trying to push Kenobi away.

"What happened? Are we in an elevator? Did someone push us?" Kenobi felt around in a panic as he spoke, grazing more of Maul's body than he'd ever anticipated doing. He had to be sure not to put his knees or feet anywhere painful when he got up, of course.

"Huh?" Maul asked, his voice breathy and laced with confusion. "I... I'm not sure what happened. The last thing I remember is finding the crowbar and helping you put your arms around it… and…"

Kenobi's face grew red hot again, thinking about that moment with Maul and wondering if he saw or remembered everything.

"It felt like someone pushed me," Kenobi said, hoping to interrupt any memory of himself from Maul's mind.

"I don't remember that," Maul pondered as he grabbed Kenobi's arms and helped him to his feet. "And I do not see any buttons in here to get us out or up or down or anything."

"Great," Obi-Wan sighed, "and I don't suppose we still have that crowbar to pry the doors open again?"

"...no," Maul's voice was small. Obi-Wan had never heard him sound so meek before.

"Are you scared, Maul?" Obi-Wan couldn't help the smirk crinkling up along his face.

"Of course not! I'm irritated that I'm trapped in here and with you, of all people." His menacing tone oozed with wistful sadness.

"Likewise." Obi-Wan sighed. "Let's sit and think for a moment. My head is killing me." He rubbed his head where he'd hit it on the floor earlier, wincing in pain.

They both arranged themselves at opposite corners of the small boxed room. With still no light source for Kenobi, the transition to finding a spot away from the Zabrak was awkward at best. There was much unfortunate accidental groping on his part. In the end, there was no way around their feet having to intermingle, but that was better than other parts of their body, he supposed. The metal was cold against Obi-Wan's back and butt, where it made contact through his linen pants and shirt. He shivered, annoyed that he hadn't put on his jacket. He hadn't even meant to leave the bedroom.

He heard and felt Maul shuffling around in the opposite corner, wondering what on earth he could be doing. A bundle of warm fabric hit his face. After the initial shock, he grabbed the soft bundle and appreciated its warmth.

"My sweater. I run hotter than you, so I don't need it."

"Well, I don't need it either." Obi-Wan lied, not wanting to give it up but not wanting Maul to get satisfaction from him being cold.

"Just put it on and shut up while I think of what we can do." he snarled.

Obi-Wan acquiesced. He was awful cold, and the sweater felt like a warm cozy fall day. And the smell, gods, it smelled good. Remembering that Maul could see everything he did, he tried not to make it obvious he enjoyed the scent of his nemesis. Maul let out a small hrmph noise. A slight panic washed over Obi-Wan for enjoying the sweater a little too much. Maul broke the thick silence with a loud yawn.

"I know you're tired, but I would suggest not sleeping," Obi-Wan drawled.

"Why would you think I'm going to sleep in here? With you? Trapped in this elevator? I can't possibly think of a worse idea." Maul scoffed.

"Right, well earlier, I was in the bathroom, and I didn't even mean to fall asleep, it just… happened, and then I had this horrible vision-"

"Oh, for satan's sake, you had a nightmare, and you're trying to give me advice? Listen, I'm not going to fall asleep and have a scary dream and wake up crying like you, ok?" Maul cut him off, snapping his words with unwarranted aggression.

"Oh, and so you meant to fall into this dungeon or whatever this is? And trap me in the elevator with you? Neither of us is in complete control of this situation. I'm trying to work with you." Obi-Wan offered, trying to remain collected.

"Work with me?! Do you mean to abandon me here while you get famous for faking everything and leave me to be the crazy one no one takes seriously? I really can't-" Maul rose to his knees to get closer to Kenobi, his hot breath warming his face with the fiery words.

"OH, I'm the faker? Please! That is so rich coming from you. If no one takes you seriously, that is your fault and nothing to do with-"

Both men were now yelling over one another, trying to make their points heard, but it was useless. Neither was listening and certainly not to the elevator making creaking noises as they argued.

"You faked that entire setup! And that's why you left me because I threatened to reveal it all. I can't believe you are forgetting. You block things out of your mind if it doesn't suit you. Talk about the mental gymnastics on this one. Poor Kenobi can never do ANY wrong-" Maul mocked him, and Kenobi could feel the air moving from where he gesticulated.

"It was not a setup! that was the whole point, Maul! You won't see anything from anyone else's point of view. You are the absolute WORST!" Kenobi saw red as he bellowed out the last word to Maul.

There was a brief silence between the two men, and they could no longer ignore the elevator's creaking. It made a loud hiss and pop before hurtling down into a freefall. Kenobi felt his stomach rise to his chest and wondered if he'd be able to keep his lunch down. Light from the elevator corner flickered on and off, giving Kenobi a flashing view of the angry Zabrak directly in front of him. He glared back, thinking how he hated him, the spiteful demon hunter. Even now, in this moment of panic as they plummeted down in a haze of flashing dull yellow lights to depths unknown. How could they still be going down? Kenobi didn't want to know. He hoped it was all a mirage of feelings, and they would come out into their separate bedrooms and never speak of this again. He folded his arms tight against his chest. Feeling the warmth of the sweatshirt and still smelled his rich, warm scent. How awful this all was.

Maul rose from his crouched position, reaching a hand out to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan stared at his outstretched hand like it was a foreign object he'd never seen before. He'd never studied the tattoos on him up to now. They were exquisite, the ink-black against the deep crimson red of his complexion. Obi-Wan grasped onto Maul's hand and let him help lift him to a standing position.

The elevator rocked in violent thrusts as it shuddered down and down further and further. The lights flickered, illuminating the men and the dull, brassy metal of the walls. It moaned as though it might rip apart at any moment. With one major shake of the box, like someone hurled a boulder sideways at them, the gravity shifted. Obi-Wan found himself pinned against the wall of the elevator with Maul in his arms. He held the Zabrak up but not away. He wasn't thinking with a clear head. There was no way he was enjoying the feeling of Maul against him. Obi-Wan's arms wrapped him in a hug in an inexplicable instinct.

"What do you think you're doing?" Maul growled over the cacophony of the crashing elevator.

"I… I'm not sure," Obi-Wan stammered, still clutching to Maul as though if he gripped onto him strong enough, the fall from wherever they were wouldn't be so bad. Holding him like this was ridiculous, yet he remained glued to him. He couldn't let go of him if he wanted to. And boy did he want to. He didn't want to admit how good it felt. How it felt like a missing piece of his heart was at long last reunited with the whole. And how good he felt and smelled, and how the glow of his eyes when the lights flickered off was the most beautiful sight.

"You know, I never meant to leave you there," Obi-Wan said, his voice small, "I searched for you for days. I felt awful about what happened. I still do."

Maul growled and wrapped his hand around Obi-Wan's neck, not squeezing but holding him within his power. Maul scowled at him and looked at Kenobi's lips. Obi-Wan closed his eyes, a bit embarrassed at the way he was looking at Maul and at the arousal growing the longer he stared.

He felt Maul's breath against his skin, so near his lips, he was breathing him in. The roar of the small room hurtling to the center of the earth—it must be by now he'd determined—hid the whimper he let out as Maul pushed himself against Obi-Wan's groin. The hardness against his thigh suggested he wasn't the only one aroused in this tiny box.

Maul's lips brushed into his, and Obi-Wan opened his eyes, at last, to make sure he wasn't asleep again. He saw red again and black, and Maul's eyelashes dusting the tops of his crimson cheek. Obi-Wan kissed back in an instant. His investigated tongue slid across Maul's lips and into his mouth. He tasted like minty licorice. Obi-Wan couldn't get enough. They devoured each other as the world around them shuttled them off to the depths of hell.

Obi-Wan's hands massaged Maul's back as they pressed into each other. They very well may die, might as well enjoy the last few moments. He wondered if that's what prompted this from Maul.

The elevator, at last, came to a shuddering stop, which should have surprised the occupants. They were too busy tasting each other's mouths to notice, it seemed. Or to see all the lights come on and the elevator door ding open. Their bodies pressed too close together, feeling every heartbeat and shuddering breath from the other. It wasn't until Obi-Wan heard a familiar voice that he turned his head to the open door and saw a jaw-dropped Ahsoka and Feral staring at them both.

In an instant, both men pushed one another away and stumbled out of the elevator. The tent in Obi-Wan's pants was far from discrete at this point. Cripes, why did he have to wear such tight and thin pants today?

"What was… what WAS that?" Feral asked, his eyes as big as saucers.

"I'm certain I don't know what you're talking about," Obi-Wan said, staring down at his nails, wondering how he could rearrange himself to make his erection less noticeable. It was too late, though.

"Oh my, Oh my god, I wish I had not seen that," Ahsoka averted her eyes and looked down and away at the floor.

Feral's initial shock disappeared from his face as he seemed to enjoy this awkwardness a little too much.

"Oh shit, my big brother is in love with his nemesis. This is too good. I hope we got that all on camera." he slapped his knee in laughter while Ahsoka pretended to dry heave in the corner of the room.

"Ok enough, enough!" Obi-Wan yelled.

"I'm sorry, are we supposed to listen to you with that giant pants tent?" Feral hooted, laughing with his entire body. Obi-Wan turned away to adjust himself.

Maul elbowed his brother in the side to shut him up.

"Yes, that's quite enough, little brother," Maul drawled out, trying to sound distinguished. Feral gulped down the last of his laughter with a smirk still plastered on his face.

Now that most of the laughter had subsided, Obi-Wan could see where they were. It was a drab room with flickering candle lights sparsed throughout. It looked like any other room in the house. This whole thing must have been some hallucination that they had been falling for as long as they had. A most curious phenomenon. Unlike the other rooms of the house, this one had no furniture or wall hangings, save for the candle lights. There was, however, a peeling forest green wallpaper with burgundy trim. The floor was old hardwood, some rotting away in places. The ceiling held decorative plaster that once in its heyday held great beauty, but now it crumbled and gathered cobwebs. It appeared as though there was massive water damage as well.

"This house must have been used as some sort of demonic portal. We need only to-"

Obi-Wan cut Maul off, "Demonic? They are trying to use water as a vessel. This is obviously the work of ghosts. The water damage alone suggests the presence of spirits."

"Even if there were ghosts here, which there are not, the water damage is a demonic sign and always has been. Your refusal to study up on demons is showing, Kenobi." Maul crossed his arms and sneered at Obi-Wan.

"I know enough about demons to know you're wrong as usual."

"Aren't you two more concerned with where we are right now?" Ahsoka chimed in, placing herself between the bickering men.

"Well, back in the main part of the house, of course," Obi-Wan said and then glanced around the room again. Wait a second. There were no doors or windows in here. Only the elevator, which had slammed shut upon their embarrassing entrance. "I, wait, how did you two get in here?"

"Same as you, the elevator, only we can't pry it back open-" Feral started to explain.

"What? Well, then why didn't you say something when we…." Maul interrupted and then trailed off, remembering what happened in the elevator. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter anyway. We have no control of the elevator, and there's not enough space for all four of us in there anyway."

"Right, so can we break through one of the walls? The floor?" Obi-Wan pondered out loud, looking around at the room again, stroking his beard.

"We could try. There aren't any tools in here or anything, though." Feral said as they all looked in different directions of the bare closed in room.

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Tag list: @always-on-tatooine @dinsbeskar @maulpunk @hornystarwarsbisexual @dawdreygore @l1feisapigsty @maulieber @botherbother-blog @emissarydecksetter @wolfpack-arts-industries99 @mock-ing-bird

[langernameohnebedeutung]

what did you think of the finale? I thought this season was miles better than S2 and hoping so much for Jensen for the future if they make more

(spoilers, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet)

I mean, I'm still kind of sorting through it tbh, so this is just a random list of my thoughts and reactions. First thought: What a day for Starlight x Maeve! ...what a day for people who adopted Black Noir last week as their babey :(

In a way, I find it a bit hard to compare season 2 and season 3 because I think they are very different stories. Season 2 is a lot more about social commentary and symbolism and the media (though in a way it's always about the media, no The Media no The Boys), while season 3 is a lot more personal and emotional and about the characters. In fact, one thing I really liked about the finale is that it showed me how invested I had gotten in a wide range of storylines - even if I hadn't noticed how much certain characters had grown on me.

In season 2, Stormfront is basically this walking metaphor (which is also interesting to examine and especially during my rewatch, I found such interesting details like her earrings or stuff her followers say or do), so stuff like watching her getting a very undignified curb stomp from Kimiko, Maeve and Annie hits differently for a finale than what we got in this one where we actually see the emotional side of our characters. (Though I must say, the fight sequences, Annie's glow-up scene, the explosion and jump out of the window - again, what a day for Annie/Maeve - and all almost felt a little too MCU'ish in a not-parody way at times and kind of could have used a bit more of the The Boys vibe.) (Plus you get really weird scenes both in Herogasm and now in the finale where two characters are randomly fighting in the background while the others talk and stuff and on the one hand, that has that anti-climactic, deconstructing Boys vibe, but it's also a bit...weird tbh? I dunno, sometimes it felt a little like they weren't sure which way they wanted to go - whether they're being the funny superhero parody atm or whether they're taking themselves seriously. Though, I think for the stakes of this finale, it was the best decison to actually do take themselves seriously.)

What I definitely think this season did a lot better on was deliver an emotional punch and give us pay-offs on a lot of different characters' stories and background/backstories and it even has a great effect on the old scenes. For example, I rewatched the season 1 finale after the episode with Billy's childhood stories and it really changed the way I felt watching the scene where he and Homelander face-off with Stillwell and her child as their respective hostages.

I only rewatched season 2 very fleetingly, but there were several parts where I thought it had some really weird pacing and plot-priorities or felt kind of unbalanced or forced (for example, I wish we had spent a lot more time with Kimiko's brother, especially considering the ending he got). In this season, it felt a lot more organic, everyone had something to deal with - and I did enjoy how generational abuse/abuse getting passed-on was such a uniting theme for many characters.

Personally I'm pretty sure that they are going to bring back Soldier Boy - you don't put a character on ice for no reason - but I guess they're gonna have to find a new mission for him, with his team all gone.

Two things that have me a bit worried is:

How much sensitivity and skill they're going to have/not have about mixing streams with their very character related, very personal storylines and the social commentary. I feel like that might very easily go very, very wrong and stuff like this rivalry between Starlight-supporters and Homelander-supporters already had me a bit...on edge in that regard, though I think I'll need to do some more pondering to sort through this and to like...comprehensively put this problem into words. I just generally hope they're going to be smart and sensitive about this and not drink their own kool-aid too much.

Also I'm a bit worried about them turning Homelander's wire mother upbringing problem and the generational abuse thing in that family (or at least mishandling it in a way that kind of turns it) into some 'evil genes' thing. They really got to handle Ryan very cleverly as a character (a character that so far, has been very cookie-cutter) to really make this work. I think we have a good basis bc Homelander already kind of inflicted pretty much the same abuse on Ryan that Soldier Boy's father inflicted on him and that Homelander now (briefly) experienced from Soldier Boy, and I really hope they explore what that means for Ryan after everything he has been through - and the complicated feelings he has about Billy and Homelander. But I'm a bit worried that they'll fail to do this and make him some sort of Evil Child Supe who is More Powerful Even Than Homelander and becomes some...flying fascist Jamie Lannister. To me, the whole "Ryan and Homelander" storyline and the fall-out between Soldier Boy and Homelander already felt a little too rushed - like they wasted the the "disappointment"-punch a little by bringing it in after so few interactions between Homelander and Soldier Boy. It felt like they could have gone bigger.

I mean, that sounds really critical, but I also think that it packed a stronger punch than the last finale, I liked the note we ended on, it had some really great character moments (I really liked how Hughie's and Butcher's dynamic was handled especially in the last few episodes), we got some more word-building - and yeah, I had a good time! :)

[mypokepal]

Hello! I come requesting a partner or a team. I'm an INFJ and an Aquarius. I love listening to soft music, drawing, and writing. I have a very active imagination and I like playing DND. I have a hard time building connections with people sometimes, but other times, I can't help but want to be friends. I'm also very polite and loyal. I empathize with others pretty easily. I'm a huge fan of dragon types! Thanks again!

*** Please donate if you can, spread awareness, use your voice and/or platform, and look out for one another-it only takes a minute to reblog, retweet, post on your story or donate (again if you can donate).  ‘comprehensive thread of petitions and donation links’ ***

Don’t ever change who you are! Making friends is hard and really intimidating for everyone but I’m sure the people you are friends with are very, very lucky. 

And I have the perfect partner for you! Let me introduce you to...

Golett! I think Golett would be perfect for you because...

(1) Golett is a curious little creature and just wants to do everything with you. Anytime that Golett is doing something, it just wishes that you were beside it. Whenever you ask Golett to do a chore, it will finish and then go back to your side in the speed of light. You don’t even need to be doing anything and Golett will still be happy just sharing the silence with you. I hope you have a lot of space on your wall or fridge because whenever you are immersing yourself in art, Golett is too. You will have stacks of drawings from your friend just waiting to be proudly placed all over your home. Though it won’t know how to play, Golett enjoys watching you play DND as the boardgames reminds your pal of itself and a place it use to call home a thousands of years ago. To go the extra mile, I recommend incorporating aspects of your partner when playing DND! 

(2) Golett’s Pokedex states that: “This Pokémon was created from clay. It received orders from its master many thousands of years ago, and it still follows those orders to this day.” whether or not it’s still following those orders, it is clear that Golett’s loyalty is truly unrivalled. Once you two make a bond, Golett promises an eternal friendship and unconditional support. When someone is as empathetic as you are, days spent with people can be draining and tiring. With Golett in your life, you can freely speak your mind, rant and allow yourself to feel all the things that you are feeling without guilt as Golett is not much of a talker and just wants to hear you speak. This Pokemon will listen and channel everything you confided in it to be a better version of itself for you. Seeing how hard your pal tries for you and loves you will make you want to do better and be better in return. You two will constantly be transforming and growing together. 

(3) The best thing about having Golett in your life is the unlimited amount of laughing fits you will have. Your pal is clumsy and so out of touch with modern day despite being alive for thousands of years. A day in the life of being Golett’s trainer is never the same as you’re constantly teaching Golett something new every single minute. But fear not, it will never be a boring time training and teaching your pal because Golett is full of eagerness and enthusiasm! The best thing about Golett’s curiosity is that when you bring Golett somewhere you’ve seen a billion times before (the grocery store for example) it always finds something to exclaim and get excited over. Your active imagination and Golett’s thirst for life makes you two an unstoppable pair! I feel like you guys would be great in Pokemon Contests or come up with the most creative ways of battling to win badges. 

Other Pokemon considered: Cacnea, Mareep

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

thank you! i think you're genuinely the only person that has ever said they actually like the fact that my bathrobe is obnoxiously pink. and you're absolutely right, one of the things i like most about it is that it hurts people's eyes. i love it actually. if you ever celebrate halloween you should absolutely add your bathrobe to your costume. an amazing idea. since it has a mouse face on the hood it could be two costumes rolled into one - both a vampire and a mouse (if in the middle of the evening you get bored of one), which i think would be awesome. and you probably wouldn't get cold (is it cold in nz during halloween? because here it almost always is). we don't celebrate halloween in lithuania either though. which i'm a bit bummed about, because halloween sounds super fun. mostly because of the dressing up! but i did celebrate it once, when i was 11 or 12 maybe? me and a couple of friends decided it would be fun even if it's not really celebrated here. so we dressed up, even went trick ir treating (half the houses had no idea what was happening and also i pretty much froze to death because i was dressed as a dead bride and refused to put a coat on because then you couldn't see my dress) and also watched horror movies. 12 (or 11) year old me thought it was amazing.

oh yeah! i've broken a knife on 2 separate occasions i think. once i tried to get something out of between the blender's blades, used a knife and then accidentally turned the blender on (i'm so fucking glad it was a knife and not my fingers). so the tip of the knife broke off (the blender was ok tho). and the second time i have no idea how it happened. i was cutting up broccoli and the knife just fell apart??? i was so confused, because one second i'm holding a knife and the next it's just two pieces of a handle and the metal part, all separate. had fun explaining that to my dad. you sound pretty unlucky too! i mean, a cut every time you use a knife, but you don't even notice it at the time? i think it's just that knives are out to get us (it's my newest conspiracy theory). i actually get double vision too sometimes! mostly when i'm tired, but i just figured that it was because i have really bad eyesight

they definitely SHOULD teach about gender and sexuality in school. it's a really big problem that in a lot of places it's either not compulsory or not even in the curriculum. honestly, everything i know about sex ed or lgbtq+ i had to learn myself on the internet, because we only had one class when we were like 13 years old with a guest speaker and it was mostly biology and then a little bit about menstruation and pads for girls (i have no idea what they told boys because we were also separated). so sex ed definitely sucks a lot in my country and i bet it's the same in a lot of others, which makes me really mad

exactly!! it's so hard to tell whether i'm feeling romantic or platonic love sometimes! it's confusing. also i remember one time me and a couple of friends had a sleepover and the friend's, who was hosting, parents weren't home so we watched romance movies (scandalous i know). again we were maybe 12. and they kept going "oh he's so hot" and intensely watching the sex scenes. while i was looking away from the tv whenever sexy times were going on and commenting on how much i loved the house design and the garden. gee i wonder what that means. (still can't believe it took me this long to figure out i was ace)

the breakfast went very well though! it's so interesting how different traditions are everywhere. i hope your lunch and the rest of christmas day went well too! (also i forgot to ask last time, but what is boxing day? google says it's mostly a shopping holiday, is it that? we just call it the second day of christmas and it's pretty much the same as christmas day but there's no presents!) but yeah i hope you had fun with your extended family on boxing day!

having acid reflux sounds like it sucks. i love breakfast, it's my favourite meal of the day (when i don't have to rush that is) and i skip lunch a lot because i usually have no time for it (my schedule kinda sucks), so i usually try to have a bigger breakfast. but hey, peanut butter is good! so at least you can have something that tastes good for breakfast!

aaand i feel like this ask got away from me. sorry it's so long!

it’s because i have t a s t e. it may not be GOOD taste but it sure is...taste...and i am proud of it. and yes, i love the idea of adding my dressing gown to my costume specifically because it means i’m basically in my PJ’s. minimal effort. comfort to the max. living the dream. halfway through the night i’m tired of being the vampire no one invites in so i drop to my knees and start the mouse act. mice are good at getting in houses and getting to chocolate and such. the dream. also i absolutely would get bored of one costume within the space of a few hours knowing me, so that’s a plus. uhhhh halloween is october which is. mid-late spring so it really depends on the day. it might be a little cold, might be shorts weather. I rarely leave my house at night so I’m not an expert on nighttime temperatures sdflsdfjsd. 

I used to wish we did Halloween here but that was mostly because I wanted lollies. Although I also liked playing dress up as a young kid so maybe very young me would’ve vibed with the costume aspect. I know there’s a photo of me when I was like, 5 and my best friend of the time dressed up as witches at some point, maybe we had our own little halloween. I also possibly had a halloween themed birthday party once as a kid? I remember the little gift bags having spooky things in them and also possibly a bat cake but my memory is too bad to remember for sure. aha that’s the problem here too, no one locally would ever think to buy lollies to give out so it’d just be like um. you can have an apple I guess? at least you had fun though! i respect the commitment to the costume despite the cold. 

that is such a stressful story to read, i fear for your life. although i understand the knife breaking in that first scenario. that would be terrifying though. what if the blender launched it,,, nOPE. i’m very glad it wasn’t your fingers, that’s some horror movie shit. the second time is just,, it be like that sometimes. it was probably just waiting to happen. my parents have a cheese grater with a loose handle and it. falls off. every time. i dry it. with the dishes. and every time i fear for my life as the grating bit drops off towards my feet as i’m left holding the handle. i should expect it by now but i never do. I get scared every time it happens. knives are definitely out to get us, i fully support this conspiracy theory. oh yeah, tiredness doesn’t help with double vision. i kind of need bifocal glasses by now but I also don’t want bifocal glasses so i just suffer but I suspect having them would reduce the double vision. maybe. maybe not.

yup! i remember someone handing out tampons and pads at primary school, i assume after giving a talk about periods, idk. i do also remember a teacher pulling the girls aside and being like yo, this is what a period is, here’s a horror story about my daughter and a tampon, enjoy the trauma, go back to class. good times. we did actually get really comprehensive sex ed concerning most things at my high school but that is faaaarrr from the norm around here, clearly. although teenage boys are good at filling in gaps, in my experience. they’re like little sex encyclopedias that offer up information without you asking. i didn’t ACTUALLY want to know that but i do now, i guess, thanks michael. 

dude. the ‘oh he’s so hot’ comments are so confusing. ‘hot’ is like a category of attractiveness that I’ve never understood. ‘isn’t he hot?’ what does that MEAN rebecca. i think i asked once if it meant like, attractive or good looking. and the person i asked was like, you know, hot. you just look at them and, you know- no i don’t know. what is this. i don’t think i’ve ever watched a sex scene with people my age though, generally i just zone out for them sdkfhskdfh. i feel like there’s definitely all these indicators when you look back like oh yeah, should’ve realised i was ace then, but it’s just. such a hard sexuality to figure out. not that other sexualities aren’t but you’ve got to figure out an absence of something when you don’t even know what the something feels like- it’s a challenge.

I’m glad it did! It is interesting, for sure. I’ve always been interested in how winter Christmas’s work. As a young kid I didn’t understand hemispheres...obviously...i was like 5...and i’d go out on Christmas morning to see if there was snow. and sometimes it’d be a bit chilly in the morning and I’d be like damn. we almost had some this year. it’s a shame our climate tends to be too hot for snow on christmas :// like no you tiny dumbass it’s summer you little idiot there will be no snow no matter what. everything ended up going super well here :). boxing day is basically just a shopping holiday, i don’t know if it has any significance in any other way, i’m sure it did at one point, but i know there’s always boxing day sales everywhere. I think it’s also a public holiday (?) to give people another day off work and that, but I could be wrong there. I know I also used to regularly go to the races (horse races) nearby that were always held on boxing day, it was like a 150 year old tradition or something until people in attendance started dropping and I think they finally shut it down a couple years back. I didn’t care all that much about the horses but they also had food and carnival-type rides and such for the kids which is why I loved it. also we tended to meet extended family there for a picnic lunch.

acid reflux is like the least of my problems sdfkjshdkf. it’s annoying but it’s pretty managed with medication, I have to watch certain foods and drinks but I’m used to it by now. I think it’s also what causes me to not be able to eat large amounts normally so I survive a lot on snacks and a reasonable sized dinner. works for me. but peanut butter is good! i’m glad i can have that! I used to also have vegemite but that’s a bit more of a push, it’s easier to stick with peanut butter.

also it’s fine!! my responses are always very long too sdfjhskdf.

[duchessofostergotlands]

Maybe I'm just really negative, but I was super surprised to see that the collection is only for sale for two weeks... it just seems so short for it to actually make the impact they want? But what do I know? 🤷‍♀️ love your blog btw, hope things are going well! Also, not sure if it matters: Reitmans is a Canadian clothing store/company that has a few subsidiary stores, one used to be Smart Set (I think those are closed now?).

Waaaaaaait a second, TWO WEEKS? Did I read that right? What a bunch of miserly jerks these companies are. It’s basically free advertising for them and all they have to do is give 1:1 (at cost not retail) for ONE ITEM each and they’re only going to do it for TWO WEEKS???? I hope it didn’t come off as if I was blaming Meghan or her strategy there! I was just trying to point out how stingy these companies are being (in my opinion). I hope it didn’t come off as if I was blaming Meghan or her strategy there! I was just trying to point out how stingy these companies are being (in my opinion) /// While I do think the Smart Set could be a bit better it seems to be a wonderful start! One thing though that I adore about Meghan is that she seems to be so excited about everything that she does and that excitement is definitely infectious!!! /// Something I really dislike is the type of garments. The dress is very flattering, but the pants have a high waste that in overweight people like me gives us the “crotch chub” effect lmao. Most of the clothes only look good on a certain type of woman. Add that to the limited sizes and 😬😬 /// So it looks like that shift dress comes in hot pink (it looks red to me?) but only blue and black dress purchases get donated to Smart Works? Weird. The Jigsaw jacket and pants they’re linking to are part of Jigsaw’s pre-existing Paris line of work wear. While the shift comes in extended sizes, I’m not impressed the jacket and pants only go up to a UK 16. And I’m interested in how the 1x1 will work. Idk it’s all weird // I’m honestly disappointed with the line. It’s a great cause but all the pieces were existing in at least one of the retailers, just re-done for the line, it’s only 5 pieces, sizes go up to 16UK (14US), they’re made in polyester and the campaign for smart works will only last 2 weeks? Idk it just spiralled into a “let’s make it look like we’re good” kind of line // I don’t know why but I thought each brand was launching a “look” for smart works, is it just one place has the shirt, another the trousers, a third the purse etc? // I really want to love Meghan’s idea, I really do. But I can’t.

Ok so I decided to combine all the messages I got about this in to one kind of master post. My plan is to go through what I liked and what I’m not too fond of. I don’t know which one should go first so I’ll put headings and you can read them in your preferred order haha. I should hopefully hit most of the points:

The Good

I talked about this before but I think Meghan’s really underrated skill is being able to spot gaps and understand where she can add value. Having worked with public donations, I related to a lot of the issues she pointed out and I think it’s very astute of her to be able to quickly pick that up for each organisation 

Once again, women of colour were front and centre. The women modelling in the campaign were representative, they had different body types and attitudes too. I think that commitment is really impressive

Although some things are in more limited sizes- I think one of the items anyway- most things go up to a Size 24 which is more inclusive 

I think we’ve already seen that there’s going to be a huge uptake in the clothing line so I expected that they’ll report a really big result

Her behaviour around the collection so far has been pretty adorable. From the behind the scenes videos to today, she has seemed genuinely excited and passionate. She’s obviously worked hard on the project and when you watch videos I think you want to back her up!! 

She’s doing what I have complained about royals not doing in the past. She is doing something with a tangible end result. They will be able to say they gave x pieces to the charity whereas most royal projects have no clear outcomes or outputs. It still doesn’t tell us the impact but it’s better than we normally get from royals!!! More of that please. 

The Less Good

I don’t like 1 for 1 models and that’s just an unavoidable fact. I’ve talked about it before and my opinion hasn’t changed since: https://duchessofostergotlands.tumblr.com/post/186776510814/hi-jess-you-said-you-didnt-like-the-one-for-one

I don’t like the clothes. I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail because this is exclusively personal preference and nothing to do with the merits of the project but I know someone will ask so let’s get it out of the way. They’re too old for me personally. I do get why they went the basic route and re-used things though as it’s quicker and easier  

“It’s not a hand out, it’s a hand held.” I mean, it is still absolutely a hand out. I know what she was going for but the dictionary exists. And it’s still a project where vulnerable women are supported by the whims of the privileged. I am a bit concerned at some of the narrative emphasising the purchaser which plays in to what I talk about in point 1 

 The things she pointed out when she was at Smart Works were that donations “can be a potpourri of mismatched sizes and colours, not always the right stylistic choices or range of sizes.” Now I don’t know if her project actually addresses that issue. It provides high quality clothing but with a one for one model it means that whatever people are buying, that’s what the place gets. It isn’t saying “how many of each item of each size do you want and need to create a more cohesive wardrobe?” and then providing it to them. Something that’s interesting about relationships like this, as a Fundraiser who has managed similar relationships, is that a lot of times when they say “10p from every product will go towards x charity” that’s not true. We have a relationship like that with a corporate organisation and they tell us what they’re going to give us in advance based on projected sales. The money you pay doesn’t come anywhere near us. For smaller projects it might be different but that’s how we do it so we can budget and forecast. It’s possible that Meghan has actually done that but that leads me on to my last point….

The “Doesn’t Fit Into Either Category”

I have quite a few unanswered questions. I’m sure that some of these are answered and please do share links with me but I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going for the fine print, the terms and conditions. So:

I read in one article that proceeds would be going towards the charities rather than just products. Is this true? 

If it’s not true, where is the money from sales going?

Have they had an agreement like the one I mentioned above that guarantees a certain number and mix of items for the local branches and uses the 1 for 1 thing as more of a selling point?

If it is a 1 for 1 model, does that extend to colour choice and size?

Are each of the pieces being sold in a different store or is everything available in every outlet?

This isn’t Meghan’s fault, there’s no reason to think she knew about this, but it is so shady of M&S to put a pink version on that is exactly the same but doesn’t benefit the charity. After Meghan saying they put purpose before profits, that’s a dick move from them 

Overall

Meghan has clearly put a lot of heart and soul in this project and I think identified a real gap where she could have a meaningful contribution. I personally don’t think that a 1 for 1 model is the most effective way of meeting that gap and although there are plenty of positives I think the cook book was a more comprehensive project than this one