#I am only saying this because I have the WORST time articulating it and I LIKE to talk about it

[incendiorum]

I wish I could put you all in my head for like 5 minutes so you can absorb all of my thoughts and feelings on iovita's gender and then I could pull you back out and we could both nod and shake hands

[nereidprinc3ss]

Hello, the one anon who said Spencer wasn’t an ass based on your preview….and….

I still don’t think he is! I am SO PROUD OF HIM!!!

Obviously Derek is the only actually correct one here (well and Randall who I loved. Imaging him as a slightly crusty war vet who means well but just is too gruff and rough to come across well. His wife bakes pies and has a rose garden in my mind) -

BUT, if you pretend to not know readers side, what Spencer says is perfect. Seriously I am so amazed at how well you articulate complicated emotions!!

Spencer had to grow up to take on adult responsibilities at age 10. He isn’t the best at communicating (v obvious right now), but he also is trying. He’s doing his best to do what’s right - and to him, reader is acting like a child lashing out - saying one thing, doing another. He can’t read her mind - all this is doing to him is proving he loves someone who doesn’t love him. (Again - which has to be the worst part. Like come on, dude admitted he loved the first girl he slept with and she didn’t love him. Now he’s in basically the same situation minus the actual intercourse and that has to hurt. It has to make him think something’s wrong with him) So he uses his words as a defense.

Could he have been nicer? Definitely. But his points, while ruder than normal for him, were accurate. (Seriously - cannot exclaim enough how amazed I am at your skill in writing conflicting emotions and view points).

ON THE FLIP SIDE —

Poor, poor reader. Trying to ignore what we know about Spencer - to only think how reader is thinking. That for the very first time, they’ve fallen in love - only to not be loved in return. The very feeling Spencer describes for himself - the feeling he wants her to avoid ever having.

Then she thinks that Spencer is angry at her for loving him, that something has to be wrong with her for him to not want her love. And she doesn’t have the experience or confidence to say what she thinks - so she pouts and ices him out, trying to leave so he can’t leave her first.

Two idiots in love. Absolute giant idiots.

Derek’s the only sane one right now - and that never happens. He’s right that Spencer can be, well… a cunt. But he’s also right that reader doesn’t understand how icy and sharp her claws are.

Ugh, I seriously read this when you released it and then had to step away before typing this message because I was worked up. Part of me really hopes it is reader who confesses first - and then they both grovel to each other. But I also know however you write it will be exactly right - and I’m looking forward to reading everything you post!!

Thank you, for starting and continuing this little series. Astounding! I need more words to describe how lovely this all is!

— 🌌

GUYSSS you all NEED TO READ THIS im serious!!! anon you get it!!! if you guys read part five as if you DONT know whats going inside readers head and try looking at it from spencer’s pov this is all very real. that’s not to say he was in the right for being unkind but he thought she was genuinely just being incredibly brutally unkind for no reason and he asked her to stop because he doesn’t want to breakup but he can’t handle being treated like that forever. thank you for verbalizing these things so i dont have to and thank you for reading🩷🩷 you are so sweet!! im glad the emotional components came through well for you!!

[vegaseatsass]

Alright so 23.5 aka Toxic Positivity: The Series aka Everyone Teaches The Loser Queer Girl The World Is Kinder Than She Thinks By Viciously Gaslighting Her About Homophobia: The Series aka Teacher4Teacher Yuri and Everything Else Is Getting Memoryholed: The Series!!! I'm certain that so many words have been written about this already, but I haven't been on tumblr since Monday so I need to just exorcise my own reactions before I read anyone else's. I am really intentional these days about giving space to art to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, that is, to portray people acting in ways I find annoying or aggravating or cruel or despicable and to not jump to "how DARE this narrative betray me by saying it's good, actually, to be annoying or aggravating or cruel or despicable" even if the people who do those things in the text are supported by the other characters or circumstances in the text. I am very against "character acted badly, therefore bad things should happen to them so we can KNOW the narrative understands they were bad". However!!! For this series to have ONGSA'S OWN PARENTS ACT AS SPOKESPEOPLE FOR SUN'S PERSPECTIVE. Like her parents, who Ongsa was visibly afraid were going to reject her for her queerness, not only not care she's queer (because homophobia is fake in this universe except for Ongsa's inexplicable internalized homophobia which is treated as a character flaw), but behave like automatons Sun programmed dialogue into, scolding Ongsa for 1. not coming out to them sooner 2. "thinking for" Sun, as if that's something they'd have any context for (even IF Aylin and Alpha filled them in). That took the sense of "this narrative is taking Sun's side in her forced outing of her partner, doubling down on it and making sure every single character agrees she was right" to the next fucking level. It had the vibes of being a supportive coming out scene too but they weren't embracing their daughter for who she was - they certainly weren't letting her have her own identity and voice and needs! - they were just drumming home how correct Sun was in her every teenaged interpretation of who Ongsa was and should be. So that moved me firmly away from being able to employ a "Sun is a teenager behaving like a teenager" read on a storyline I find noxious. That moved us firmly into the territory of "we are being strongarmed into agreeing Sun is a JUSTIFIED, morally righteous teenager, who fixed her relationship/girlfriend by outing her against her will." It's just truly flabbergasting to me because without the outing plotline (which I understand was in the novel so maybe that's why it was forced on us despite its dissonance with the rest of the story), there are the ingredients of something I really, truly could have loved:

Sun being scared by the intensity of her own attachment and behaving badly because of it. This is literally one of my number one tropes of all time. I am OBSESSED with people becoming their worst selves because they're so terrified of how in love they are, the depth of their need for their partner.

Sun feeling bitter about giving up her future for Ongsa and not believing Ongsa (ONGSA) would do a similar level gesture for her, when Ongsa doesn't want her to give up her future for her and really Sun's bitterness is an internal cue that she doesn't want to give up her future herself, even if she loves Ongsa desperately and passionately.

Ongsa being so focused on what everyone else thinks of her and Sun that she can't hear Sun tell her what Sun thinks, and wants.

Much more importantly to me, Ongsa being so trapped in articulating her own needs as "I was worried about how things would affect you, Sun!" that she cannot voice her own actual feelings about things: "I don't want to come out because I'm afraid my parents will reject me." "I don't want to come out because I'm not ready for the entire school's hyper-scrutiny on me and my relationships." There was a really narratively rich story there where Ongsa tells Sun everything she does is with Sun in mind, and it takes a little bit of untangling to admit that actually, she has her own needs SUN is not hearing and those fucking matter too.

There was a great, great episode 11 conflict in those dynamics. They could have fought about who sits in front on Sunny the motorbike drawing on those dynamics and given me a more compelling episode than what we actually fucking got. You know? And that's not even getting into the, I feel, missteps with Aylin's writing and that relationship the past two episodes, or the way they won't let MawinTon be great and I'm actually afraid Mawin is going to end the series single and we'll be expected to appreciate how pure his supportive onesided love for Tinh is. Honestly probably good there was no teacher4teacher yuri in ep11 because I'm sure they would have found a way to ruin the number one thing I will be describing as this series' strength going forward. Well, that and the acting. MilkLove are acting their ASSES off. but for what.

[sgiandubh]

Hello how are you? I follow several shippers' blogs and I noticed that every now and then some bloggers publish hateful messages they received. My question is about mental health: how do you deal with it? I understand that your presence here is relatively recent, but have you ever regretted something?

Dear Mental Health Anon,

This is the kind of submissions I welcome with all my heart, because they are benevolent and witty. Forgive me already for what I suspect will be a long answer. It is not the pleasure of hearing me talk that prompts them, but the sincere intention to answer deserving asks as clearly, fully and honestly as I can.

The short answer is : I am fine, Fall is slowly coming and nights are starting to be really chilly. There's some light rain tapping on the roof of my flat and I will spend my week-end wandering around some of my favorite places on Earth. And now, onwards to the consistent and interesting ask of yours...

The worst trolling message I have ever seen in this fandom is the one I am immediately going to post below, because I think it should serve us all as warning and reminder. It was posted on a blog I have been reading from the beginning of my long lurking days on Tumblr: @cb4tb is one of the most balanced and articulate people in this corner of the Internet. I remember being shocked by its cold and very coherent violence. The feat of a casebook sociopath, who thinks her asks in Spanish (I am 200% certain about it) and who has an appalling command of English grammar. Written on Christmas' Eve and on purpose:

Compared to the alarming slander @cb4tb got (whatever for is a mystery, she is non conflictual and posts very witty business insights) on a day that should be completely taboo for every civilized human being (you don't need to believe in God to respect one of Christianity's most important celebrations), whatever hate I could get in here is definitely subpar. Most of it did not make it on my page and went straight to the bin. But it's not always easy: I am as human as you, Anon, and sometimes I feel personally insulted and revolted by the smugness and pettiness of it all. However, I must immediately add their hate never made me give up an inch of my convictions. They are the result of a long interval of watching and pondering, coupled with my own observations I gladly share with like-minded women all around the world. That often hits a nerve or bruises overinflated egos on the Other Side. So be it: I am not here to be meek and obedient, if I never was meek and obedient in real life. I am here to bring clarity and build trust, which incidentally resonates very closely to what I do for a living. That probably rates me as a moderate on the shipper spectrum, in the sense that by complete design I put aside some divisive topics I firmly chose not to discuss. I am not interested to bring attention on me, in here, and the least thing I'd like is to be a vector of discord. So that would also rate me as a peacemaker of sorts - and yes, that sounds perhaps pretentious, but I believe it is needed, especially now.

I only felt a clear intention to threaten me twice, both in DM. The first time it curiously came from one extreme fringe of the shipper community and I brushed it off, because it was an empty, almost ridiculous threat. I politely denied and that was it - two persons blocked me and there were no other consequences to it. The second time, an anti came to confront me on an irrelevant point, with a very aggressive undertone. I blocked and almost forgot about it. If you have it clear enough in your mind that such things cannot be avoided and, at the same time, you know that your own moral compass is not compromised, these details will not affect you. At all. I confidently promise you that. Last but not least: if you are not great with compartmentalizing, don't step in the arena. It can seriously ruffle your self-esteem and it's not worth it.

So this is how I deal with it: I focus on what I have to say (does it bring something new? interesting? positive? thought-provoking?), on the way of saying it (above all, be kind and gracious to every other shipper) and on the right moment to say it (only when I am honestly sure I can do it with no unwanted consequences). But I will stand in solidarity with any shipper (any single one of them) who is humiliated, belittled or disparaged, with not a single shred of fear in the world. And I would also fend for myself if necessary, if I am getting over-the-top slander: all the other yapping, I ignore. Sometimes (often, even) it's more interesting to watch.

And if anything else fails, I go for a long drive and have a coffee at the seaside or simply open a book or listen to some Bach or call Someone. Or take this little big guy out for a lazy walk in the park:

You ask me if I regret anything. Absolutely not. I have received more than I could ever give, in here. I have met spectacular women and men, I have grown very fond of and feel very close to. I have had the immense satisfaction of sharing their secrets, their worries, their plans and this means trust, in my book, for which I will never tire saying how grateful I am. I also strived to respond in kind and I mean to honor this unwritten contract. Last but not least, I have watched this community slowly dusting off months of sadness and perhaps starting to open up again.

And all of this makes me damn proud of who we are, Anon. Thank you for dropping by! You are always welcome on my page.

[chuuyaandreaderkilldazai]

Ranking JJK Characters I Don't Like

Ranging from mild dislike (14) to LOATHE WITH EVERY INCH OF MY BEING (1).

14. Mai: I don't hate her. I sympathize with her. I just wish she wasn't the way she is.

13. Junpei: I do have compassion for him, but ... school shooter vibes. Not a fan.

12. Noritoshi: Bad vibes.

11. Toji: Bad dad. And he's so nosy, too. Why does he always insert himself into situations with his fists swinging? Actually, now that I think about it, that's kind of iconic behavior. But all it ever really did was create more problems. If he had never inserted himself into the plot, Geto would have probably never turned mass-murderer-cult-leader--WE COULD HAVE HAD EVERYTHING. So it's a pass for me. Also, his haircut is off-putting for reasons I cannot articulate. It's like one day in middle school he got a haircut and just never changed up the style ever again.

10. Jogo: Ugly.

9. Uraume: Character design: slay. Helping Sukuna: not slay.

8. Like every adult from the Zenin clan: BECAUSE THEY SUCK.

7. Tengen: Old and entitled.

6. Kenjaku: Old and entitled part two. What gives him the right?

5. Sukuna: Horrid, nasty man. I feel like I shouldn't have to elaborate.

4. Ui Ui: Annoying. Literally, why are you even here?

3. Mei Mei: First of all, how am I supposed to take you seriously with that stupid braid hanging in front of your face? From the very instant her character was introduced, I did not like her, but I thought maybe I was being a woman hater for no reason, so I really did try to tolerate her. But when we finally saw that scene in season two. PRISON!!! I was right. She's the worst. We are not gonna ignore that. Check her files.

2. That thing with the blond side ponytail: I hate him so much I don't even know his name. I don't care to know it. I would say why do you as a man look like that, but honestly why do you as a HUMAN BEING look like that? Why do you act like that? Why are you skipping around wearing a poorly made DIY toga? Whole nip is hanging out, and no one asked to see that. Why are you HOLDING HANDS with your blade? Freak. There is something so intrinsically, inherently, ONTOLOGICALLY wrong with him, you can't even blame it on childhood trauma or a personality disorder. The only time I ever supported Sukuna was when he bullied this emaciated Jo Jo Siwa lookin' thing in Shibuya.

Mahito: I hate him so much. I hate him more than I've ever hated any character. I actually lose the ability to speak coherently when I think about him because I hate him so much. I think it's so cringe when try-hard dudes say, "When I'm angry all I see is red." But when I think about Mahito it really is like blood and pure rage cloud my vision. He is literally the embodiment of if you gave an edge lord psychopathic eleven year old the power to kill people. "Wee, I'm so powerful and killing people is just SoooOoOoOoOOOo much fun!!" SHUT UP!!!!!!!! SHUT UPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!! YOU ARE NOT FUNNY. YOU ARE NOT CUTE. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL IN ANY WAY. He is genuinely the most irritating character I have ever come across. And as the story progresses, he just gets worse. What do you mean he can duplicate himself? Now we have to deal with TWO of this wretched creature? What do you mean he can be decapitated AND HIS HEAD WILL SPROUT LIMBS AND SPRINT AWAY? STOOOOOOOOOP. AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WHAT HAPPENED TO NANAMI--I DON'T WANNA TALK ABOUT IT. Mahito is such a nasty, slithy, bothersome, despicable, nauseating little cockroach. "Yuji, you and I are the same." Huh? You thought you did something there, didn't you? You thought you ate and came up with some kind of deep, revolutionary concept? It's giving pretentious philosophy dude who thinks he's superior for being a little contrarian, nihilistic Nietzsche butt licker. When Yuji finally humbled him, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed seeing the fear in his eyes. For one brief, fleeting moment, I could finally understand what sadists must feel like. Honestly, we deserved to watch him suffer, and I wish he would have suffered far more for far longer. Rot in anguish, Mahito. You will not be missed nor forgiven.

[skylarstarlight]

Okay okay, I got some more ideas.

And yes, they revolve around Jouno and his fighting style.

I personally believe because of his fighting style, in his mafia, Jouno was literally nicknamed as "The Black Widow" since physical enhancements did barely anything so he resorts to his old mafia fighting style — full, relentless body attacks.

And yes, Tecchou as been on the receiving end of Jouno doing the famous Black Widow spin move and as ended on the floor more times than not.

And you ever realize that in the Hunting Dogs, when they have gone off track or done something that affects the Hunting Dogs, weather that be betrayal or what not — their hats or caps or both are usually off?

And Jouno’s hat was off because he betrayed Fukuchi when he declined the offer but his cape stayed on since he still clings to the idea of the Hunting Dogs, or some sort of redemption.

Imagine the time that changes.

Imagine he’s well into the Hunting Dogs and all three of them but him get kidnapped on an account with some old bad blood from a rival group. Like it’s the moment when that switch happens, when he puts aside Jouno. His sadistic habits, his temper, his teasing, everything. And simply lets Black Widow take control.

Like he ditches his cape AND his hat and ends up clearing the entire building in seconds. There’s also a huge maybe that Jouno is probably dissociating and not really in his head. Like Jouno isn’t even there, it’s just Black Widow. A cold, unfeeling, cruel and brutal, apathetic, strong and mission oriented weapon that is willing to accomplish what he needs too by any means necessary.

And when he finds the captor, he literally takes this guy down with ease WITHOUT his ability and threatens to kill his if he doesn’t hand over the keys to the Hunting Dog’s restraints which also restrain their abilities.

And imagine how concerned Tecchou is. Like Jouno’s voice isn’t as cheery and cold like it usually is — it’s practically dead.

And then after they go back to base, Jouno just casually takes off auto pilot and goes back to normal and tries to avoid the conversation about what happened and says he just “got into a mood” and he’s fine now.

Like he avoids that topic like the plague but nobody is forgetting the amount of dead bodies they had to step over and how silent Jouno was the entire time.

OOMF right in the heart

YES. I am a FIRM believer in something similar to this. Idk the first thing about Black Widow, but I have always had the headcanon that Jouno has moments of dissociation where he's just downright cruel like back in his crime days

Have you noticed how Jouno in general isn't really physically violent towards other people? (Like he does threaten them with words a lot, ofc, "I wish you'd die" and all that, but in general it's the other Hunting Dogs that are the violent ones) The only time's he's actually shown doing physical harm is I think kicking Tecchou in the back of the head in the pushup scene, and then the entire unit is there watching (if I'm forgetting something lmk, not counting that kick in the face in the flashback with the old lady).

What if that's just him not wanting to get too far into the mindset of hurting people? Like when he's interrogating people he'd lock the door so others won't get caught in the crossfire but he's cruel and he hates himself for it sometimes

Because he's shown to have compassion too, this would really clash with him. He only really goes to the point of violence when there's people around that he knows could handle it (aka other Hunting Dogs) or people that actually would deserve the worst in his eyes

Idk just some thoughts I've never really articulated it so apologies if it's kinda hard to understand!!!

[utilitycaster]

I agree what the cast says does not hold as much weight as what happens on stream. I think this is why I get frustrated by the 'Orym is to blame for Laudna killing Bor'dor' debates, using things Liam and/or Marisha have said on 4-sided dive that contradict the actual scene, where Marisha states Laudna barely notices Orym and Ashton, and *nothing* will stop her from doing what she wants to do. At worst, it's inaction. Have interviews and things like that always held so much weight in fandom?

I am absolutely the wrong person to ask here; I was not super in fandom when I was younger. I am going to, as I am wont to do, make some educated guesses but please take with a grain of salt.

I think there's a few things going on. A lot of people have told me that Glee was the first fandom they personally recall where it became about winning more than like, having fun and sharing ideas, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is at least an influence. (The idea that two ships that do not conflict and indeed have incompatible sexualities are in some kind of deathly serious competition is truly so baffling to me that I have to chalk up that particular bit of, if I may use a yiddishism here, mishegos, to Glee for sure.)

I also think that there was a time and there are shows where interviews did (or do) carry more weight, namely, those with executive meddling, or loss of creative control, or, notably, queer ships until quite recently. I have a lot of friends in the Star Trek fandom even though I'm not knowledgeable at all and from what I am given to understand, there's been a few ships squashed or delayed by executive whim or homophobia that the actors would pretty openly and consistently confirm at conventions. (The ones I know are Riker and Troi; and Garak and Bashir; but I have only hazy recollections of TNG and know NOTHING of DS9 so this is second-hand). I've talked about this before, but Word of God used to carry more weight for me when you simply couldn't have same gender romances on network TV or most mainstream film without risking your career. Now? You're a coward and a panderer.

Anyway I think with actual play specifically, which is improvised (ie, intent can shift dramatically and unexpectedly) and which has a lot of talkback shows and also a disproportionately huge amount of content people get in the habit of cherrypicking, and in extreme cases this turns into cherrypicking themselves straight out of the actual narrative and into microexpressions and OOC interviews and side conversations from three years ago.

I also, and I am too tired and too many drinks in (two drinks in, to be clear) to articulate this tonight, find that actual play in particular has amassed a certain fandom that I think was attracted to things I like and support (queer characters, women/queer people/POC creating and driving their own characters, independent creator-owned productions, improvised and therefore at times really unique stories, not needing to have streaming services in some cases) but also doesn't actually like Actual Play as a medium (see: every single D20 fandom meltdown low-key boils down to "I have zero genre awareness of both whatever is going on narratively and also I high-key loathe D&D as a means of storytelling and particularly the existence of violence in narrative, yet I am watching the Violent Narrative D&D show, so dance or me, my puppets, wait why aren't you dancing.") So I think you get a lot of people who are just making dumb fucking arguments because they decide what they believe and then poorly reverse engineer the support instead of doing things in the proper order and I think the people claiming Orym is responsible for Bor'Dor's death are in that category and we should stop treating them as people who are adding anything of worth to the conversation.

[gamebunny-advance]

Kun3h0 Custom Doll Repaint

So, here's what I've been working on for the past month or so. I've wanted to do a custom doll project for a long time now, and I finally got the opportunity to actually do it. I don't think she's bad for a first doll, but there's a lot I feel I could do better and differently.

Once again, my pictures hardly do her any justice... mostly due to color balancing.

I tried to edit these pics to make them a little more accurate, but it also yellowed out everything else, so... yeah. A photographer/image editor I am not.

That said, aside from the poor quality of the images, I'd say that the pics capture both her good points and her jank.

(More about the process and other thoughts under the cut.)

So, she started with a Cave Club doll as the base (I believe her name was Fernessa).

I unfortunately didn't take any pics of this doll with her clothes on, but I'm sure you can search pics of the original base doll yourself.

Besides being very cheap, I really liked the proportions on this doll for Kun3h0. I like the short torso with the long legs and the huge feet. Even the face is kinda Kun3h0-esque (though, a little more on that later).

I've had the idea to customize a Kun3h0 doll for a while, and I always thought the best base would have been an LOL OMG doll since they also have the big head, small torso, and long legs. But, I was always on the fence about them because their hips are a lot wider than Kun3h0's, and I felt like that would always bother me. But once I found out about Cave Club and also found out they're bascially cheap as dirt for the amount of articulation you get, I knew that this was the best match for Kun3h0.

Sadly, the hands aren't as big, and I did consider resculpting them to be more accurate to Kun3h0, but I lack the materials to make that look good enough to be worth doing, so in the end I just repainted the original hands. So I guess this doll is gonna have the non-standard 5-fingers XP. (I forgot to take pics, but the back of the hands do have the heart detail on them. )

Because I have to tie this back to NSR somehow, I think this doll would be a great base for some NSR characters, or really any other stylized character like this. I could def see a cute Mayday coming out of one of these (but not from me~ If I made a Mayday, then I'd want to make a Zuke to go with her, and I just cannot imagine how to make a Zuke doll without him becoming way too top-heavy).

However, I did resculpt the legs to become her boots, so she stands a little taller than the base Cave Club. While I think doing this works for Kun3h0 since she's a robot, if I want to make some alternate outfits for her, they're gonna have to include these boots, or I'm gonna have to get another doll to make some alternate legs.

Unfortunately, my only material I have for body mods is air-dry paper clay, and it doesn't transition as well into the plastic the same way something like apoxie sculpt probably would have. It's not super noticeable at a distance when they're painted, but under scrutiny, you can see a clear transition. I also forgot to detail her heel, so the shoes are flat even though they shouldn't be~ They do help her to stand on her own though, so I guess it's not the worst thing in the world~

While I was doing the sculpting, I also made the wig.

Finding a yarn that would properly convey Kun3h0's hair color is nigh impossible, given the cartoony shading of them, so I settled for a median between the dark rasperry and hot pink and got this regular raspberry yarn. The unaltered pics make it look a little more purple than it actually is. It really is a warm raspberry color.

(I'd say that this is closer to the actual color, maybe a tad darker.)

Let me tell y'all, brushing out yarn wefts is not fun. I also felt like I wasn't doing it right since I lost a lot of material brushing it out. From the little research I did, this seems to be a common problem, but it doesn't sit right with me for so much of it to get wasted like that~

Another challenge I had is that there (of course) aren't very many resources for getting yarn wefts curly or how to make curly hairstyles using yarn wefts. I know that this is relatively easy to achieve with actual doll hair through boil washing, but that wasn't really a viable option for a yarn wig like this. Since I really wanted the hair to look naturally curly as opposed to looking like it was curled after the fact, I curled the hair before gluing it onto the wig cap, which was a mini-nightmare. I followed a video tutorial about how to make a pigtails wig, I just applied the methods to the curly hair.

I don't know if I just didn't make enough wefts to make the tails poofy enough, or if this method just wasn't suited for curly hair, but I just didn't get the volume I was looking for.

To achieve the fuller look that Kun3h0's puffs have, I glued some scrap yarn fluff in the center of the original puffs and just tried to manage the shape from there. It's not perfect, but I think I've more or less brought her original hair to life. It's hard to see since they get lost in the mess of hair, but I was even able to get those stray curls that she has to look nice~

However, for some reason, the wig really doesn't like to stay on. I dunno if it's the ears pushing it off, or if something else makes it loose, but it really doesn't like to stay on her head. I might try applying heat to the cap to see if I can get it to reshape around her head properly, but I don't have high hopes for that.

Overall, having made the wig and seen it in real life, I've confirmed something that I've kinda felt for a while: Kun3h0 really needs something on her head between her antenna. I feel like her antenna and the top of her head create a sort of "empty box" that is just asking to be filled with something. I recently did a drawing of Kun3h0 where I have her an ahoge, and I think it helps a lot.

It's a little too late to add this to the doll (and I don't even know how I'd go about it), but I think from now on, she's gonna have a curl that sticks up on the top of her head.

Moving on: the face.

I really wish I could get some clearer pictures here, because the eyes really aren't as bad as the pics make them look.

While I am trying to keep her right covered as much as possible, I did still paint both of them with acrylics. I don't have MSC or watercolor pencils like most of the pros do, so I made use of what I had. I'm certainly not getting that "crisp lineart" look that Kun3h0 is basically built on, but I don't think the results are horrible. They're sealed with a gloss varnish, so they don't photograph well, but I do like how the texture is very different from the skin, it almost sells that they're made of glass.

As for the other details, I did do the lining in dark purple, like I usually do for her lineart. I'm on the fence on if this works IRL or not. On the one hand, I feel like the purple lineart is a part of the character design, it helps balance out all the pinks, but when I only use the purple on the doll for the face (and her stomach paneling), I do wonder if it looks strange, and if I would have been better off lining her with dark brown instead.

In fact, I did the original sketch with brown for the paneling.

(Right eye not canon.)

But when I made the actual doll, I wound up doing purple anyway to match the eyelashes, so they wouldn't look as out of place.

Other details I wanted to mention are that the upper eyelashes/eyelid is actually a piece of painted foam that I glued on. I really wanted to achieve that cartoony look of how I usually draw the lashes over her hair, even if it doesn't make logical sense.

I wasn't able to do the same thing for the brows, but I still did something a little "special" with them.

Instead of making myself cry trying to get an accurate color-match with paint, her eyebrows are actually flocked using some of the leftover yarn. I've hardly seen anyone do this for a doll repaint, but I don't think this look would suit most brows anyway~

Overall, I'm only a *little* unsatisfied by the face-up, but my disappointment is mostly in the eye-shape. I didn't want to go against the face mold too much, but that meant that I couldn't really make the eye taller like Kun3h0's actually are. If the eye was any taller, the brows would have been right against the hairline, and that wouldn't be a great look IMO. I feel like 80% of Kun3h0's identity is in her face, so having it be even a little inaccurate does bring her down a little.

Lastly, I think all that's left to talk about is clothes and accessories.

I am personally really in love with the shorts and it's why I chose them to be the preview for this project. I added the beltloops after I took that pic, and I think they turned out so cute, even if you can see the stitching of the belt to the shorts.

I went through quite a few patterns trying to get them right. The Cave Club dolls don't seem to be super popular in customizer circles, so there aren't many if any patterns out there for them. At first I was just eyeballing a shorts pattern from this video and going through some trial and error trying to adapt them to the doll's body.

I made 3 or 4 pairs of shorts this way, but they all ended up too tight. In the end, I wound up using the "wrap-and-tape" method of pattern making, and made the shorts from there. I honestly wasn't too confident in the results, so I very haphazardly made the trial pair with this new pattern, but they fit so great that I wound up using the test shorts for the final product.

The top was not as successful. Unlike the shorts, I didn't start making test tops until I'd already done the wrap and tape. So the pattern making wasn't actually the hardest part: it was putting it together that was a nightmare.

While I was making the top, I would of course have Kun3h0 put it on to test the fit, which stretched out the fabric to a noticeable degree. This was one of the last things I worked on, so I was getting really fed up with working on this for so long, so I told myself that I would probably just hide it with paint later.

That was mistake number 1.

As I should have learned from painting Green's face, the paint hardened the fabric tremendously, giving it almost no stretch. Originally the plan was to use velcro to close the top in the back, but the pattern didn't account for the lack of stretch, so it's actually too small to close edge to edge. So, I had to cut velcro to extend beyond the actual clothes to close it up. So basically, there's a gaping hole in the back of her outfit and is the main reason why I refuse to post back pictures of this doll.

For the time being, I do consider this top to be a "prototype" and I'll probably remake it in the future with some improvements. But, painting the fabric after stitching it together is not the only mistake I made.

Since this top is a prototype, there's a lot of other things that I did in a bad order: I really should have done the hemming and put on the accents before putting the pieces together, but since I wasn't sure if the pattern would fit first, and thought I would have the energy to make a second better top, I didn't bother with it. This included the cuffs of the sleeve.

That was mistake number 2.

The way I made the sleeves is that the arms are really just a large trapazoid with the shoulder shape at the top. The idea was that I would just sew the large side to a piece of shorter elastic band which would serve as the cuffs. I figured this would cause the sleeve to look "ballooned" at the end. And it kinda worked. You can kinda see how it turned out on her right sleeve in the first picture, but actually sewing it together was kinda terrible because the only way I could think of to do this was to sew the cuff and sleeve separately first, then sew them together, and that just seems ass-backwards to me, but I couldn't think of any other way to do it, and it came out with the cuff being mostly obscured anyway. I tried a different method on the left sleeve, so the cuff is more visible, but the sleeve shape is worse.

So if/when I remake this top, I'm still gonna do this in my ass-backwards way, I've just got to figure out how to keep the sleeve from eating the cuff.

Otherwise, I think the top would actually be pretty cute. I was really getting tired of working on it at the end, so a lot of the details are actually hot-glued on instead of being sewn. The faux-zipper pull is a *little* large, but it's something I had that I thought would work, and I actually really like the oversized look. It works for the proportions of the doll and helps bring in the heart motif that's getting a little lost in the sloppiness of my painting~

The last thing I think worth talking about is the mini GAB.

I thought I'd taken a pic of it by itself, but I guess not. Anyway, the only thing I wanted to say about it is that there's a little "clip" on the back made from wire that allows it to hook onto Kun3h0's belt and be held in her hand. I dunno, I just really like the little accessories, and that little feature amuses me~

But that's it for now. I am actually working on two other accessories for her:

The doll came with a pet dinosuar that I'm currently turning into her GAB.

It's just about the right size to be in scale with Kun3h0, and the hair is basically already the same as GAB's. I've already modified the base with clay and cut off the bits I don't need. It's mostly a matter of sanding and painting right now. I have no idea how or if I'm going to get the collar onto it without it looking bad, but I'll give it a try. If all else fails, I'll just make a tiny bow-tie like GAB!classic~

I don't have a pic of this one, but the doll also came with some sort of flower pot thing that I'm turning into her drill using a metal piping tip for the drill head~ I'll post about them in an "accessories DLC" when they're both finished.

But wait... if you've made it this far, and you saw my preview post, then you might notice that there's one accessory missing.

Well, this mask doesn't actually fit Kun3h0...

But it does fit someone else.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

I really want to write fan fiction again but, I'm kind of bad at articulating and creating different scenes and I thought about using chatgpt and I know that's frowned upon but I need help writing lol. Need some advice.

Do not use AI. People look down upon it for a reason. People will always have more respect for genuine, clumsy first attempts at writing rather than someone who publishes what a machine spit out for them. AI is not your work, and you will not improve by having a computer do things for you. I am being stern here to strongly discourage you from Shit GPT. If you tell people in the author’s notes that it’s your first fic, or first fic in a long time, you may very well get supportive comments! If anyone finds out it’s AI, at best, you’ll get people clicking out of the fic because they don’t think it’s worth their time to read something a person didn’t even write, and at worst, you might get angry comments calling you a cheater, in a similar way AI “artists” do. Please don’t do it. You’ll only be hurting your writing and the progression of your skills.

So, what should you do? First of all, know where your strengths lie and lean into them, and know where your weaknesses lie. I’ll give an example. Readers of my fic can feel free to confirm or deny my self-assessment, but I actually don’t think scenery and that kind of descriptive writing is my strong point. I think about what the reader needs to know about the physical space in a scene, maybe little things that could add to the atmosphere, such as describing candlelight glowing upon someone’s face, and I move on. I make sure the reader knows what’s happening in the physical space so nothing is vague or confusing, but that’s about it. I instead focus my writing on the internal monologue/prose of the character’s emotional state and dialogue, because I think those are my strongest points. That’s what I can do well and what pulls people in.

How to create a scene to begin with? It depends on the kind of fic you’re writing, but most of my fics have started out with me thinking about the characters so much that different scenarios pop into my head, and eventually, one takes root; or I’ll watch a scene and think it would be interesting to explore if it had gone differently. My current WIP is at 65k words with 6 chapters, and it began with the simple change to one scene in canon: Aziraphale and Crowley not simply knowing each other in Heaven as angels, but having a romantic relationship. A starting point as simple as that can produce a lot. Think about what you actually want to say about these characters, what kinds of scenarios you want to see them in. You can even think of a type of fic you’d love to read, and instead write it yourself. You can start small! Instead of searching for a fluffy morning-after in bed, for example, write it!

Once you have a starting point, ask yourself what is the most realistic, in-character next step for these characters. Good fic relies on good character analysis. That’s how you make your fic in-character. I generally don’t plan out my fics a lot, and instead have a core idea and some future scenes I want to write, and I ask myself how these characters would naturally build up to those future scenes. Would it be natural for the character to say this? What would they do in this situation you put them in?

Lastly: the key to writing well is reading. This goes for all kinds of writing. Read widely, read often. It helps you expand your vocabulary and to see how descriptions, dialogue, and the structure of scenes and stories work in real time. I began writing as a young teen, and while I absolutely think my writing is better now than it was in my first fics published in 2014, I was able to write at all because I was such a voracious reader at the time. It’s also why I was a good writer in school, because reading helps you write multiple types of pieces.

I hope this was helpful. Also, at the end of the day, it is just fan fiction. It’s fine if it’s not perfect. Open up a document and start jotting down ideas or snippets of dialogue to get your brain started

[jamieedlund]

What's ur favorite hc for Aaravos?

This is a surprisingly hard question to unpack for a lot of reasons- but I'll do my best to articulate myself (ง •_•)ง

I think this spoke for itself but just in case, here is a short elaboration: if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be this.

He is someone who - despite all of the odds, despite how the world treated to him, despite being ridiculed, subjected to the worst torture known to man(yes solitary confinement is considered one of the most inhumane methods of torture) for over 300 years and had his name dragged through the mud for literal centuries-

-could still smile so brightly and sincerely like that, affirming that he does, with all of his heart, still very much love this world. However twisted that love might be, however difficult it was for him to learn how to use and express that love in a healthy way, it still speaks volume about who he is as a person.

Now if you have the time, allow me to explain bellow. If not, stop here, the question is basically answered 🙏💗 Thank you for reading!

Hello, if you're reading this that means you are willing to listen/read more about my thoughts and therefore I expect you to have a leveled head and a polite attitude to what I'm about to say.

If not then why are you here there was LITERALLY A STOP BUTTON. Please click off this post, what are you doing with your life wasting it hate watching me? 

With that being said, hello! fellow polite person who is reading this - - - Spoiler there is no illust down here because I'm running low on time on my thesis I'm so sorry ;;A;; Here is the elaboration to why this is my default favorite headcanon!

While I am aware of the amount of WILDLY different headcanons that exist out there for him, which are very popular within the fandom and even taken as gospel, I strongly feel that mine isn't really aligned with some, if not most of the hc out there at all.

Personally, I don't even agree with the canon version of in him ss4.

I'm assuming that you are asking me about my- personal favorite headcanon for him so for now, my answer will be: Ignoring the terrible characterization of him in season 4, my absolute favorite thing about him has to be: Despite everything, despite what everyone says about him, despite how the world perceives him

He is

without a doubt

Someone who loves this world very much.

Again this all ties in with what I'm going to present in my thesis, so I can't elaborate on it too much without giving any spoilers to the case I'm going to present for him. But for now, and especially right now at the time of writing this, they just released another vaguely worded and filled to the brim with plot holes short story regarding his past ... I-- hm I sincerely have no intention to keep up with the series... Therefore my hc will definitely contradict vastly with the horrendous plot holes ridden pre-established canon

-which then made the act of answering to this question exceedingly difficult due to the way I personally perceive him.

To wrap it up, all I want to say is, we could have had it all, a character who would make us cry, laugh and want to root for, had they written him with love and care, rather than trying to stuff him into the shoes a villain, which just felt forced and unnatural. Villains who are terrible only to be stopped have been overdone, and for tdp to be another generic show is a huge waste of potential

Wouldn't most of us have killed for, finally, an antagonist who isn't actually the antagonist but rather the very system that these people are experiencing is the actual villain ? ? ?

Best of all, they could have contrasted this with Callum, our protagonist. In Callum's case, despite being portrayed as one of "the good guys" or "heroes", he has all the reason to hate the world. This in turn create a complex narrative about the nature of people - Or in this case, the hero acting morally righteous despite hating the world vs the guy who was deemed evil and terrible by the world and yet still loves it with all of his heart. It could have been a heart-warming story about how two individuals find their way in this messed up world-- but nope~ non of this is canon :DDD

When in the history of television has any shows have a twist with the "hero" and "villain" ditching their role immediately to become a neutral party to reflect all the flaws in the world they live in? ? ? TDP had the perfect setup, but then proceeded to drop all of the balls spectacularly in ss4...

I always try my best to not touch ss4 but it feels almost impossible to talk about Aaravos w/out addressing the disservice that it did to his character. And that is all, I have to say for now~

Sincerely, thank you for reading.

[yellowocaballero]

i’ve typed and re-typed this paragraph in my head several times but. just. i am at a complete loss with how i should say anything. your writing is compelling and genuinely cried (when i thought i’d never relearn crying again). on a slightly more articulate note - i love your sylvain. so principled to the end. kudos in the truest sense of the word.

Thank you so much this is so extremely sweet!! ;-; The story really hit at some personal topics for me too...everything I write does, but in a few chapters it'll be most obvious.

Having feelings really is the worst thing in the world. I'm the type of person who's tried many times in in the past to carve out my heart. You have to be a little jealous of Byleth - of her own little world where nothing hurts, where sadness and pain and loneliness cannot penetrate. She can't love, but she can't feel the pain of a broken heart. There's far more pain than joy in the world, so it really seems like she has the better end of the deal. But I think the only way to survive is to be saved, and you have to save others before you can be saved yourself. And in order to save others you have to live in everybody else's world too, where pain and heartbreak is inevitable. It's like forcing yourself to place a hand on a hot stove, and to do it again and again no matter how often it hurts, but doing otherwise means you aren't living at all. You're not saving yourself or anybody else. We only have one life, and I'd rather live it.

Byleth's a fictional character. She can live 20 years without emotions, but we can't. Any attempt to carve out your heart will ultimately be unsuccessful, because we'll always reach back out to touch that stove again. So long as there's a billion assholes out there like me making very small and stupid little attempts to save people, I think we can't lose the ability to cry - I mean, you reached back, didn't you?

UM I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT SYLAIN BUT THIS POST IS ALREADY STUPID...I don't make it obvious but Sylvain is low-key my favorite character, up there with Felix. Like Felix, he does bad things for self-centered reasons. All I'll say right here is that Sylvain is the only one of the childhood friends who fully understands that Dimitri is a prince, and that as a big brother figure he is caught in a bad crossroads of protecting Dimitri and protecting others from Dimitri. Thanks for reading!!

[max1461]

gonna have to write a longpost soon containing what I've dubbed (very pretentiously) "the dismal thesis". it ties together so many of my ideas about the human condition and it IMO elucidates many of the subtler disagreements people express in the discourse on here. the gist is that ethics (under many common conceptions) is basically antithetical to beauty (under many common conceptions). more generally, reducing suffering often comes at the cost of those things that make life worth living in the first place—art, adventure, love, etc. in almost everything that the average person (myself included) considers to be worthwhile in life is the capacity for pain, and thereby in the widespread existence of worthwhile things is, inherently, the existence of widespread pain. furthermore, in all the little joys of life are resources not being spent on alleviating the massive suffering that exists in the world.

there is a very sensible conception of justice, which many people subscribed to (not necessarily wrongly), which says "making art is always immoral; that time and money could go to feeding the hungry instead" and furthermore "the very existence of complex human society, of human social relations, is unethical, because relatively free human social relations contain within them the capacity for suffering, which will certainly exist as a reality if such social relations are widely practiced". there are a million other things like this. many of us enjoy a nice walk through the forest or on the beach, in fact we count this kind of thing as one of life's deeper pleasures. but the existence of a beach or a forest requires the mass suffering of a billion insects and other animals eating one another, killing one another, suffering under the worst conditions imaginable.

and the point is that there is something inherent about this conflict between beauty and ethics. beauty requires both 1) a certain level of complexity, and 2) some tether to human aesthetic intuitions. and the fact of the matter is that anything complex enough and "close to home" enough to be beautiful to us is going to involve, or at least make room for, pain and suffering.

the above is merely an articulation of thesis, not a defense of it (that's for the longpost). but I really do think this is true. I really do think there is a sense in which

the state of the world is unacceptable; there are such vast amounts of pain and suffering that to truly comprehend it should totally overwhelm you.

humans want more than simply "to not suffer"; in particular, among the things we consider life to be worth living for are art, human relationships, discovery, adventure, and so on—sensu lato beauty. "the good things".

necessary in the existence of beauty is pain—pain for oneself and pain for others. maybe in the far future, when we can e.g. simulate the entire biosphere on a supercomputer, this won't be true anymore (of course, for a lot of reasons, maybe it still will). but that's not gonna be any time soon, if ever. in the present world, the trade-off between beauty and ethics is real and unavoidable.

and the utilitarians say "(1) is more important than (2); tile the universe with wireheaded brains-in-vats and don't worry about what gets lost on the way there", and fascists say "(2) is more important than (1); build a society of nietzschean übermenschen doing Great Deeds". and of course you don't have to take either of these positions, but it's hard to see how to make an intermediate position philosophically coherent.

I admit that, at least in the current world, I think (1) is more important the (2) in most cases. but I am decidedly not ok with the long- or even middle-term consequences of prioritizing (1) exclusively.

and thus, the dismal thesis. the only possible just world is a dismal world, a world devoid of those things which make life worth living to begin with.

I am very very open to being proven wrong.

[thermometerjuice]

Unnecessary barbie collector rant

I would like to preface this with I know that this is messy and long and slightly unhinged but I am bored and feel like complaining. I would also like to say that I know everyone is free to do what they want with their own possessions and I know this comes off as mean but I don't care this is me being irrational and upset because I can be.

For many Barbie collectors, the made-to-move body is the most incredible thing in the world. So much so, that every doll in their collections must be systematically decapitated and given a new head. This is, in my opinion, one of the most annoying and pervasive issues in the collector community. Many people claim "It's for Photography" or "I just like to pose my dolls". Literally, shut the fuck up I hate that so much. I can understand re-bodying a damaged doll or only doing it to a couple dolls, but not every single doll needs to be able to touch its face. Like most of you, bitches are super shitty at photography anyways and I know for a fact there are only so many poses that you can make the doll do. Is it just me? Like I get it they're mass produced play things and it's not that serious but like also it is.

Do you remember tree change dolls and how everyone was pissed at that lady? That's the same way I feel about the people who make every doll made to move. Like first off, the made-to-move bodies that exist are all modern body sculpts so it is so weird when people re-body vintage and older dolls because like the clothes made for that body won't fit properly or at all anymore. Like I'm not even a die-hard preservationist when it comes to restyling and playing with dolls, in fact, I'm usually all for it but the head-swapping is just so ridiculous. Like the current fashion selections for modern body sculpts are objectively the worst in all of Barbie's history and the vintage fashions that do fit look terrible on the modern body. (Not to say that dolls have to be limited to whatever era they originated in but like generally, stylistically they tend to look a little better? like a '60s doll can look pretty goofy in a '90s outfit and vice versa but whatever i digress) (I also am not a big fan of what is now considered the "original" proportioned body in general and much prefer the bellybutton body. (Not that I don't like the other new body types, I do It's just that the current iteration of the standard body type is not my favorite since it does not lend itself well to backward compatibility and is generally poorly engineered.))

Furthermore, we all know the second-hand market has been becoming more and more of a nightmare for a multitude of reasons, one being that half of it is being taken up by the heads of dolls that were made to move on the unarticulated bodies that they were swapped with. This is already a hobby that encourages overconsumption, why are we also acting like turning two nice dolls into one slightly (subjectively) nicer doll and one slightly less nice (again subjective) but still perfectly fine doll that will rot in a bin for years is an acceptable thing to do. A pretty doll who realistically will spend the majority of its time with you on a shelf does not need to be fully articulated. People waste time, money, and plastic buying twice the amount of dolls they actually display/use and create one entire collection's worth of (Subjectively) bad dolls.

For the better part of the 65 years that Barbie has existed, most dolls never had anything more articulation than a twist waist, elbows, knees, hips, and shoulders, and guess what! That was good enough for everyone! Articulation does not automatically make a doll better. There are plenty of static dolls that are arguably better that way. I'd also argue that each doll's specific body adds charm to it that is stripped away when you homogenize a collection in this way. A major appeal of 80's/90's Barbie is the extreme proportion that makes her look like a cartoon character, and so many dolls of the 2000s and early 2010s have really cool gimmicks and special body molds that make them unique to collect. That is without even mentioning how many contemporary dolls lose their body diversity because there just aren't that many skin tone matches for every body type.

Thank you and shut up I hate you

[tired-bisexual-brainrot]

love, mike

that sounds stupid, i know. you aren’t supposed to begin a letter with the end. it’s exactly the opposite of what they taught us to do when writing a letter in the 4th grade. but the thing is, our whole lives have been the opposite of normal. from being bullied, to meeting a girl with superpowers, to fighting monsters from a hell dimension, nothing in our lives have ever been in the norm. that’s exactly why we were ever bullied in the first place. because we aren’t normal, we don’t fit in. we never wanted to fit in.

ever since you moved, i’ve felt like a part of me is missing, like i lost you. i feel the same way i felt all those years ago when you went missing. that was the worst day of my life. it was also the day i met el. she’s the only reason that we were able to save you, she was the best thing that could’ve happened to me, or rather, us… at the time. i mean, el literally has super powers, but she was like us in the sense that she didn’t fit in either. she’s never going to fit in, we’re never going to fit in. but this letter isn’t about el, i guess in a way it sort of is, but it isn’t. i know that doesn’t make sense, but just bare with me here.

throughout this whole letter, i’ve kept circling back to not fitting in, to not being normal. hell, i started this letter with “love, mike,” which is entirely the point. i’m too scared to say it out loud, i’m too nervous to even acknowledge it most of the time but i just had to get it out, i had to write it down. i’m a writer, it’s what i do, and i feel like even if i did have the courage to tell you in person i wouldn’t even be able to get the right words out because i suck at articulating my feelings verbally and it would come out all wrong.

the point is that for the past 3 years, i’ve loved el, and i still do love el, that isn’t going to change.

i love her, but i’m not in love with her, not like i am… with you.

i love you, will. i love you so much that it hurts. it’s physically painful for me to not be near you, to not be able to talk to you everyday. you’re mom has that new telemarketing job, it’s why i haven’t been able to call. don’t get me wrong, i’ve tried, i’ve tried every single day for months, but the line is always busy. knowing you, you probably think that i’m ignoring you, that i don’t care about you anymore. which is not true at all, will, and i really hope you know that. i know i could’ve sent you letters, i send el letters all the time, but i knew that if i sat down and tried to write you a letter that i would start confessing everything i feel for you, pretty much like how i’m doing right now actually.

i think on some level i’ve always known. ever since that day we met on the swing sets, i wasn’t lying when i told you that that was the best thing i’ve ever done. you are the most important person in my life, i think you’re kind of the only thing that keeps me going most of the time. so yea, i’ll begin this letter with “love, mike” because it is exactly how i feel. it’s out of the norm, it isn’t what you are “supposed” to do, and i’ll begin every letter to you with “love, mike” until the day i die, because i’m in love with you. i love you, will. we are the exact opposite of what society wants us to be, and if i had to choose anyone that i wanted to be outcasts with for the rest of my life, i’d choose you. i would choose you a million times over. this all sounds crazy, but then again, we promised that we’d go crazy together.

it’s only fitting to end this letter with the way it should’ve began, so what you do now is totally up to you. god, i hope you love me too.

dear will

[xx0yeet-everything0xx]

OK SO :D

listen man. listen. jason and reyna have the potential for the most interesting dynamic in the entire rrverse and i stand by that ok. like imagine. two people who were best friends are suddenly torn apart and when they reunite through no fault of either of them one cares a lot more than the other now. losing jason was the worst thing reyna ever felt and then he came home and looked her dead in the eyes and treated her like a stranger. god i am so unwell about them anyway. im mad that this never gets explored in canon it has so much potential. the fucking tragedy of it all. they avoid each other now because one will inevitably end up saying something a little too familiar and its miserably awkward for just. everyone tbh. they cared so deeply for each other amd then it was just gone. she spent months searching for him overworked and unable to even grieve properly and he just didnt care anymore. its unclear how much memory he got back but its obviously not as clear as percy’s and thats so interestingg?? knowing you cared for this place, for this person, so much it was a part of you, and just. having no emotional attachment to it anymore. not knowing how to get back to that even if you want to. oughhhh. not knowing how to tell them the person they knew is dead or at least unrecognizable. if you take every moment and memory that makes up a person away and put newones in their place is it still the same person? she loved him more than anything. he doesnt know how to be the person she loved anymore. he doesnt know if he wants to. he avoids her, and she lets him, because really what is there to say? she still cares. he doesn’t. i dont even know how to articulate this okay just. they were best friends. and now everything has changed. and how do you cope with that. what do you do, when your best friend looks you in the eyes and treats you like a stranger? what do you do, looking a stranger in the eyes and knowing she was your best friend?

and nobody ever talks about their relationship??? like they either get ignored or treated like weird exes which is just so not what this is. anyway the implication that reyna had a crush on him was stupid thats called *amatonormativity* reyna is arocoded thank you goodnight. i am so utterly deranged about them <3

OMG ANON THANK YOU FOR THIS but literally ikr?? their entire relationship (not in a couple-y way) is just so complex and ends so tragically and it’s like. ughhhhh it literally drives me crazy to think about it and it’s so UNFAIR for both of them because reyna has to look at jason and see someone looking back with a strangers eyes and it’s like. hes there. but he’s NOT because he’s so different and then for jason he can see her but he can’t feel the emotional attachment that SHOULD be there he only knows that he once had it and instead it’s this empty feeling and. the worst part is that they never got to confront the situation with each other!! jason got back to new rome and when he left almost instantly they’d barely exchanged any words with each other so like. the most either can do is soo many presumptions and MAYBE time could’ve fixed it. maybe they could’ve one day talked it out; but god fucking damn it because they didn’t have time and the next time she got to properly see him he was in a coffin. it’s so tragic it really really HURTS and I can’t explain how it feels but u get it aishsjbsksmsksns

and no frrr reducing them to exes of any sort is just soo annoying because it’s completely taking away EVERYTHING abt their dynamic and just as you said all that’s very much linked to amatonormativity. WOW sorry for the rant here but yes im also very very deranged abt three <3

ty for this tho, anon! <333

[cascader]

hope needs a home somewhere

jily | rated g | 1.8k

for the @jilytoberfest day 10 prompt: "Quick, kiss me — my ex is looking!"

read below, or on AO3 with my other drabbles and jilytober ficlets

____

“There’s something on my lips, and I need you to help get it off… with your lips.”

Lily laughs. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Alright, rude. How about… I’m a frog and your kiss will turn me into a princess?”

“I’m not a frog.”

“Your kiss will make me even prettier a princess than I already am?”

“That’s moot, Mary,” Dorcas sighs, opening her bed curtains and slamming her Charms book — and pretenses of studying — shut. “He already looks at her like she’s the most gorgeous living thing to ever walk the planet, which circles us back to my original suggestion of just march up to him and kiss him, Lily. You don't need any lines.”

Lily gapes. “He does not look at me like that.”

“He does look at you like that,” Mary confirms. “Has for ages. Makes a girl wonder what his face even looks like when he’s not staring at you gobsmacked.”

“Now that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve said today,” Lily protests. She watches her reflection in the mirror — wand in hand, eye makeup done on only the right side of her face. “I’m not — he doesn’t. Trust me.”

“Lily…”

“No!” exclaims Lily, borderline frantic. She moves out of the bathroom doorway and turns around to face them properly now. They need to understand, because the hope they’re giving her is dangerous at best. Devastating at worst. “Don’t you think I know what he feels about me better than you do?”

To her credit, Mary isn’t swayed by Lily’s Head Girl voice. She sits fully up in bed, eyebrow cocked. “No, I don’t. You’ve — love, you have to admit you’ve never been that rational when it comes to him. Even in fifth, when you were always fighting, or… first, when you were always fighting, or last year, before you…”

Mary gestures helplessly.

“Before I started to fancy him, you mean,” Lily finishes hoarsely. She slumps against Mary’s bedpost and stares out the dormitory window. The sun is setting. “I fancy him so much. God, that’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Dorcas smiles. “We’ve come a long way from ‘I maybe don’t hate him’ and ‘I suppose his hair is… rather alright,’ haven’t we, Mare?”

Mary giggles. “That was a tough phase to keep a straight face through. Oh, I know! How about, ‘quick, kiss me — my ex is looking!’”

“No!” says Lily, and it’s abrupt enough that Mary startles. “I’m — I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not looking for help on ways to tell him because I’m not planning on telling him.”

Mary gapes. 

“And why in the ever-loving Merlin not?” Dorcas demands. 

“Because that’s not —” Lily struggles to articulate the feeling that’s settled in her gut the past few weeks — past few months, who’s she trying to convince anymore? — and that rises up, up, up to choke her into silence every time she looks at him too fondly. “It’s not fair to him. He — he liked me. I know he did. I’m not that oblivious. And I’m glad nothing happened back in fifth year, I really am, but last year… I missed my chance. And it’s not fair to him to make things so awkward now.”

“Lily—”

“Are you—”

Dorcas and Mary hesitate, waiting for the other to finish.

Dorcas snorts and continues: “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re not too late. You’ll never be too late for that boy, Lily. We’re not saying he used to look at you like you invented love and Quidditch and all things good in the world. We’re saying he looks at you like that now. Still. Always. At breakfast this morning, when you won that brewing contest last month, when you tripped coming down the girls’ stairs last week. All the time. They should study him, honestly.”

Lily scoffs, but she feels that feeling again, rising in her throat, sparkling and happy and in need of being squashed before it kills her. “You’re seeing what you want to see,” Lily says softly. “You’re not the one who — it’s not like I’m subtle. I’ve never been, even when the thing I was not subtle about was thinking he was a prize idiot. When we’re alone, he doesn’t look at me like anything. Just polite, cordial, doesn’t ask too many questions, doesn’t linger after meetings… nothing.”

They look skeptical. 

Lily sighs. “Asking him about Hogsmeade plans, listening too intently when the boys talk about girls — I can’t help it. And he’s just… perfectly friendly in return. A little distant, even, compared to last year. He’s switched our rounds around, keeps asking for rain checks when I ask to hang out alone. It’s normal behavior, but normal isn’t the way you are with someone you…”

“Fancy,” Mary finishes. 

“Exactly,” sighs Lily again. “It’s what I would do if… Benjy Fenwick was trying to make plans with me, even platonic ones. I’d do it if I had time, but I wouldn’t make time. I wouldn’t be trying.”

For the first time, Lily’s mates hesitate, and honestly, it kills her a little.

They’ve both been convinced of James’s undying love since third year, and as much as she likes to protest, the way they see things feels like the last chance she’s got for her and James to work. So if even they have some hesitations, if his behavior really is as damning of a lack of feelings as she’s been suspecting…

“I’m still certain…”

“Mary.”

“Fine. Fine. Maybe I’m not certain. But he — what he felt for you can’t just go away that quickly, that cleanly.”

Lily’s heart sinks. Felt, past tense, already. And all it took was them learning about things she already knew. 

She settles gently onto Mary’s bed and closes her eyes, willing tears away as Mary rests her head on Lily’s shoulder. She can’t cry about this. He did nothing wrong. He doesn’t owe her attention. He doesn’t owe her anything.

“I still wouldn’t be too sure he’s not interested, Lily,” Mary says hesitantly. “People are pretty good at hiding what they’re actually feeling.”

“I don’t think James Potter is one of those people, Mare.” 

“Still. Maybe he thinks you’re not interested and is trying to respect that.”

“Can... can we just please drop it? I don’t… I just don’t want to think about it,” says Lily.  

She exhales a shuddering breath as Mary starts to pet at her hair.

Every crush she’s ever had has passed. She knows this. She remembers her seemingly undying, world-spinning crush on Caradoc Dearborn in second and third years. She doesn’t think twice about him now. She knows this. This feeling will pass. There’s no reason for James Potter to be different from any other boy she’s liked and moved on from. 

He’s not special. 

(She’s a liar.)

The trance is broken when the door to their dormitory slams open. In the doorway is their fourth roommate, Izzy, breathless and smiling. She looks radiant — skin flushed prettily, dark hair messy and windswept but in that artful way Lily’s always wished for. 

“Guess what just happened,” she says breathlessly, and then, not pausing for a moment: “I have a date!”

“Oh?” asks Dorcas, emerging fully from her bed. Izzy has notoriously never been interested in anyone at Hogwarts, despite much of the male population’s interest in her. “Tell us more.”

Izzy settles onto the floor between Mary and Dorcas’s beds. Dizzy, Lily presses her palms against her cheeks and leans more heavily into Mary’s side, hoping nothing of their previous conversation shows. 

“I’ve liked him for a while, actually. Since last term,” Izzy says, suddenly shy. She picks at a loose string on the rug underneath her. “But I… you know, I don’t have much dating experience. And I wasn’t sure he’d be interested at all.”

“Bullshit,” Mary says, though not unkindly. “Never met a bloke not interested in you.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Izzy says matter-of-factly. “Anyway, we’ve been spending a little more time together this term. Not even on purpose at first, just coincidence… and then, later, more on purpose.”

Mary coos as Izzy starts to flush deeper. 

“I honestly still couldn’t tell. He’s a friendly person generally, so I couldn’t tell if it was just that, or something more… but he’s been really sweet. Attentive. So I thought, maybe…”

“Maybe?” Dorcas prompts after a moment of silence. It’s usually Lily’s role to coax Izzy out of her shell, but she doesn’t have it in her. She’s happy for her, truly, but she’s only human. She can take ten minutes to mope. Fifteen, tops. 

“I thought maybe I should give it a shot. Ask him out. You know, be brave for once,” she says in a rush. It’s always been an insecurity of Izzy’s, Lily knows — that she’s in Gryffindor but so shy. 

“I’m proud of you,” Lily says with a smile, and she means it. “That takes a lot of courage.”

“It did,” Izzy says earnestly. “But I suppose I needn’t have worried, because he said yes! That he’d love to! That he’s been enjoying us spending more time together this year. And now we’re going to Hogsmeade together next weekend.”

“Ooh, I’m so excited,” Mary says happily. “There are so many new Muggle hairstyles in fashion right now that the Wizarding world just hasn’t caught onto, and they’d be perfect for you.”

“We’re also just happy for you generally,” Dorcas corrects with a laugh. “First dates are fun.”

“That too,” Mary agrees. “So. I know you’ve been leaving us in suspense on purpose. Who’s the lucky bloke?”

Izzy scoots forward on the floor, closer to their beds, and as she does so, her gaze lingers for just a moment extra on Lily. 

Lily isn’t sure what she sees in the other girl’s expression. A flash of hesitation? Nervousness? It’s something different from the sheer joy she’d walked into the room with. And Lily suddenly knows.

It’s in a whisper that Izzy finally says it. A whisper, like that will make it less important. Less dizzying, less horrifying. Like that will knock Lily’s world sideways any less. 

“James Potter.”

Lily doesn’t cry. 

Everyone is looking at her, but she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t frown, or stare, or startle. 

That thing in her throat that she was so afraid of rising up, up, up — it drops clean out of her body. She feels cold, and suddenly empty. (He’s not special. She’ll be fine. He’s not special. This will blow by.) But vacuums want to be filled. So she opens her mouth, takes a breath, and smiles. 

“That’s great, Iz,” Lily says. 

“It is?” she asks, and Lily recognizes in her dormmate’s eyes what she now lacks — hope. 

“It is,” Lily repeats. 

Izzy smiles, relief sinking into her shoulders. 

Lily even smiles too. 

(Hope needs a home somewhere.)