#NOT very detailed nothing researched just vibes

[dragonbored]

hmmm. 4am azug hero forge figurine

[little-mouse-adventures]

A Timeline of Events in the Artemis Fowl Series

If anyone's interested, I did do an actual analysis for where I pulled some of these dates from. But because I cannot type succinctly to save my life, it's 5,000 words long, so that's below the cut. I also put the timeline there again, but in three separate images, so hopefully they load well enough to be fully legible if the above isn't.

A thousand thanks to @sadbitchapologist and @zahnie for their help and advice with this, despite neither of them having any more than the barest interest in the series and therefore having no clue what I was on about. Thanks also to @orangerosebush for fielding completely out-of-the-blue questions about the French school system, so I didn't have to attempt to navigate web search results to figure out what mandatory gym classes were like for the sole purpose of plotting Luc's birthday on here.

An Analysis of the Timelines in the Artemis Fowl Series

A Brief Introduction

The Artemis Fowl series is made up of eight books covering a range of years and events. I wanted to see how accurate the timelines present in the books were, as well as try and plot out some other details implied in the novels but not explicitly stated, to have a better understanding of the overall world-building. To that end, I went through the series and made the above timeline. I colour-coded it based on the relevance of the specific items to certain categories, namely Humans, Fairies, Villains, and the Series itself. This does mean that some things could have fit into multiple categories. For instance, you will see some items involving Opal categorized as Fairy-Specific (such as her college years, as those are fairly neutral to the main plot or her villainy), Villain-Specific (such as her setting up her emergency fund, as that is mostly related to her schemes as opposed to relevant to her existence as a fairy, or part of the main plot of the series), and Plot-Specific (such as her opening the Berserker Gate, the primary plot point for the final book).

Before we really delve into things though, we should establish the baseline assumptions I was working with. Firstly, I am only using the original series. I have not used anything written in The Fowl Twins trilogy, given that those books seem to ret-con a considerable amount of the original information, and that is far too many headaches to give myself. Any supplemental series information, such as the short stories found in The Artemis Fowl Files, or anything from interviews is also not included. The premise here is: using just the original books, what is the event timeline of the world? The second thing we need to establish is that I am using the North American releases of the novels. I did make notes on where each bit of information comes from, but there isn���t really a citation style for this kind of thing, so I’m not sure how relevant that is. The third assumption is that the first book takes place the year it was originally published. According to my copy, the original publication was 2001, with the first American paperback edition coming out in 2002, and the first mass market paperback being released in 2003. This means our starting point is in 2001.

For sake of clarity, this analysis will start with setting the dates of the books and continue on from there.

The Basics of The Books

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the first book, Artemis Fowl (AF). It is actually not until the very end of the book that we get a solid answer for when it takes place. It’s only in the last few pages of the novel that Angeline Fowl leaves her attic room after all the plot points are tied up and announces that it is Christmas Day. This might be cause for concern – Angeline had not previously been established as a particularly reliable narrator – but given that we are asked to believe that Holly’s ‘feel better’ mood booster worked, and that neither Butler nor Artemis balk at or question the pronouncement that is Christmas Day, we’ll accept that it’s true and move on. This means that, with Butler’s earlier announcement that he was stuck doing four months of stakeout, we can say with a fair amount of certainty that Artemis obtained and translated the Fairy Book in September 2001, and managed to capture a fairy in December of the same year.

Moving on to Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (TAI), we are given a decent chunk of information, albeit spread out a bit. The first is the announcement that the ransom drop for Artemis Fowl I is to be held on the fourteenth. The fourteenth of what, you might ask? Well, we are told that Artemis is currently thirteen years old. Clearly, things are past September 1, 2002 (we know Artemis’s birthday is September 1 based on information in both the fifth and seventh books). We are also told that Luc Carrere has been trading with the goblins for six months, starting in July. That puts us in either December or January, but we can narrow it down further since Artemis gives us another helpful clue. He mentions they are not expecting to see the dawn while attempting to rescue his father in the Arctic. There are only a few latitudes on Earth where polar night (of any type) occurs, and at Murmansk, polar twilight occurs between December 10 – January 2. Combining all of this, we learn that TAI takes place December 14, 2002, give or take a few days to either side.

This can be corroborated by information in Book 3, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (TEC). After Holly heals Artemis Senior, we are told that it takes over two months for him to wake up. Since we are specifically told two months, as opposed to two and a half or three, we can conclude that the events of TEC take place in March 2003. Mulch gives us some information that confirms this. He was living in LA “less than four months ago,” and since he was conscripted to help with the events of TAI in December, a March plotline fits the bill. We are given further confirmation as well: Spiro mentions that Artemis will be fourteen in six months. A specific date for Artemis & Co.’s attack on Spiro’s Needle can be pulled from the throw-away line that Pex and Chips are “burying” Mulch on the full moon. A quick web search tells us that the full moon in March of 2003 takes place on March 14, and the rest of the events in the novel take place roughly two days to either side of that.

In Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (TOD), the fourth book in the series, we are given several very clear indications of when the events take place. Firstly, Artemis is contemplating that at fourteen years and three months old, he is the youngest person to successfully obtain The Fairy Thief. Based on previously noted details that his birthday is in September, the events of TOD must take place in December of 2003. Additionally, we are told that things are the middle of winter and Opal has been in a coma for eleven months and counting as of the end of TAI, another December plot.

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (TLC) requires the most math and interpretation so far to figure out when it takes place. We know Artemis is still fourteen, so the main events clearly happen sometime between January 2004 and September 2004. Beyond that, we are using a fair amount of context clues. Artemis and Butler have evidently been traveling for four months looking for demons, so we are dealing with events in at least May. But that still leaves us several summertime months to work with, so to establish a timeline here, we will need to look forward a bit. In the sixth book, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (TTP), it’s noted that Artemis is not yet fifteen, and has, on multiple occasions, spent the full moon in the study. Ergo, he’s spent at least a few months back from Hybras. If he has been back for two months and not yet turned fifteen, he would have had to have returned by July at the latest, and since he returns almost three years later than he leaves, we are looking at him returning in either May or June. This would have him disappearing to Hybras – and by extension, dealing with the earlier events in the book – in June, July, or August. After his conversation with Minerva, he notes to Butler that they “are planning a June wedding,” which wouldn’t make sense to say if they were currently in the month of June. From all of this, we can extrapolate that the first three-quarters of TLC take place in late July or early August 2004, with the triumphant return of our intrepid heroes occurring in June 2007.

As previously stated, TTP mentions that Artemis is still not fifteen, but is nearly there. He has also been home again for at least two months. This would put the events of the sixth book in August 2007. At least, the events set in the current time period. TTP does bring back time travel, and with it some problems. We are told that Artemis and Holly jump back nearly eight years to Artemis being ten and trying to fund searches for his missing father. This would put the events of the past in early 2000. However, other details presented regarding Artemis Senior’s disappearance, which we will discuss later, make that impossible. Artemis also admits, in TEC, that he was eleven when his father disappeared, not ten. If we take a bit of creative license with our interpretations and base the time-jump to the past on other presented information as opposed to the dates given in TTP, we can say that Holly and Artemis instead return to early 2001. This lines up with further details, such as the sinking of the Fowl Star (as calculated a few paragraphs down in this analysis) occurring in December of 2000, and the textual confirmation in TTP that it’s barely two months past that sinking when Artemis brokers the deal(s) regarding the silky sifaka lemur. Since, at the end of the day, the time jump impacts very little in the grand scheme of things, and the year 2001 actually fits in better with other textual evidence and events, that’s what I’m going with for this timeline.

The seventh book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (TAC) gives us a very helpful base point! It takes place on Artemis’s fifteenth birthday, September 1. From our previous results on setting dates for book events, that would be September 1, 2007. The sections in which Butler and Juliet are fighting mesmerized wrestling fans and meeting up with Mulch are noted in the novel as happening “the day before,” which would fall on August 31, 2007.

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (TLG), the eighth and final book in the series, creates some problems. If we assume that Artemis starts receiving treatment for his Atlantis Complex immediately after diagnosis in TAC¸ that would put him receiving treatment in September 2007. We are told he is certified as cured after six months. Yet we are also told that the rest of the events of the book take place in the week or so leading up to the Christmas holidays. Everything so far has said that the Artemis Fowl series follows the current calendar, in which case there is no way that six months can fit between September 1, 2007 and December 25, 2007. However, the only reference to Christmas is in two lines noting that the Fowl parents were planning on holidaying with their children on a foreign beach. If we simply say that six months have passed, and they are instead planning on spending the Irish school system’s spring holidays in the French Riviera, everything else lines up much better. So that’s what I’ve done. This would also put the resurrection of Artemis, after the events of the book and a further six months have passed, at roughly September of 2008. There is a pleasing symmetry to Artemis being born and then re-born in September, though if you want to get really technical and say the events of TLG take place during the 2008 March full moon as Opal claims (as noted in another web search as March 28), a six-month wait time for the clone to grow would put the resurrection in October. Still, there is something to be said for having a boy’s ghost haunting a clone of himself close to All Hallows. Since it’s the last plot point of the series, you can choose which you’d like; it doesn’t have to lead to anything else after it.

Let’s Talk Timelines: The Beginning of the Line to The End of The 19th Century

Now that we have our baseline book time periods established, we can get into the math used to determine some of the events in the timeline above. Several events are easy; we are given specific dates for them. Turnball Root meets Leonor in 1938, Juliet wins the Miss Sugar Beet Fair beauty contest in 1999. Other things are based on some basic math, such as Artemis claiming his parents got married fourteen years prior to AF¸ putting that event in 1987.

The majority of the items on the above timeline, however, do take some mathematics, extrapolation, and interpretation to plot out. To try and keep everything organized, we’ll start at the far left of the timeline, and work our way forwards, looking at events oldest-to-newest to explain why they are where they are on the graph. I won’t be getting too in-depth on everything in the graph, since I’m not sure how relevant the notes on the very minor side characters such as Carla Frazetti are, but I’ll at least try to touch on some of the more relevant points.

To start with, the Battle of Taillte was noted in the 2000’s as being ten thousand years ago, putting that at 8000 BCE. Similarly, the last dome breach at Atlantis was apparently eight thousand years ago in the 2000’s, so that would be 6000 BCE. Troll sideshows were legal in the early middle ages, which implies they were not legal after that. A quick web search says the early middle ages ended around 1000. The first crusades were in 1096-1099, and as those crusades are the start point of the Butler-Fowl working relationship, a point for noting that comes next on the graph.

From there, we get into more modern – relatively speaking – events. Briar Cudgeon and Julius Root are noted as attending the LEP Academy together and being raised in the same tunnel, as well as having about 600 years of history together. If one assumes “being raised in the same tunnel” is similar to the human equivalent of “growing up in the same neighbourhood,” we can assume the two were born roughly 600 years ago, in the 1400’s. Vinyaya is portrayed as being of a similar age to Root, so her birth can also be put in the same general era. We are also told that Fowl Manor was originally a castle built in the fifteenth century, that in the early 2000’s the theories of timeline corruption were first introduced over five centuries ago, and that cloning has been banned for over five hundred years, so those three events are also tossed into the 1400’s.

Julius Root is noted as doing his LEP basic training 500 years ago in Ireland, so that would have to be in the 1500’s. He would have attended the Academy before then, putting that in the mid-to-late 1400’s. As previously stated, he was in the Academy with Cudgeon. Opal also met Cudgeon in college, and competed with Foaly for science prizes there, so they were all in school at the same time.

Mulch now enters the picture. We aren’t ever given a specific age range for him, but we are told about his career. He has, apparently, spent three centuries in and out of prison after a couple centuries of success as a thief. This would make him at least five hundred years old. There is a brief mention that he tried the athletic route at college before becoming a thief, so he would have to be an adult at that point, putting his age at roughly 550 years during the events of the series.

We then enter a period filled in from one-off lines throughout the series, presumably added to give some depth to the world. Things about the wine cellar at Fowl Manor being a seventeenth century addition, Captain Eusebius Fowl and his crew dying in the eighteenth century, and Mulch first faking his own death over two hundred years ago.

Time Marches On: The 20th Century

There is nothing of much relevance to linger on between the 1550’s and the 20th century, so we’ll jump ahead to the 1900’s, when we have Holly Short’s birthday. She is in her eighties during TLC, and her father died “over twenty years ago” when she was “barely sixty” as of TAI. Based on that, she would have been in her early eighties in 2002, putting her birthday sometime in the 1920’s. What a doll.

A few more birthdays now appear, and we’ll ignore, for the most part, some of the irrelevant ones. I don’t think we are at all concerned with Gaspard Paradizo’s birthday, or Mikhael Vassikin. We are, however, rather more interested in Jon Spiro, Domovoi Butler, and Artemis Fowl I.

Jon Spiro enters the series in TEC, as a middle-aged American. A quick search on the Internet says that middle age is generally noted as being between the ages of 40 to 60. We are told that Spiro has worked in three main industries over the past two and a half decades. Additionally, we are told that law enforcement has been “trying to put [him] away for thirty years.” If we assume he entered the working world at twenty, spent five years developing his professional self, and then started going down a path of questionable legality to get the police after him, that would put him at fifty-five in 2003, and born in the late 1940’s.

It was a bit easier to determine Domovoi Butler’s age, and we can get more specific with his actual birthday. We are told that he is forty at the start of TEC, and he is still forty during TOD. From that, we can assume his birthday is not between March – December, which means it has to be between January – March. Now, we can just leave things there, but contextually, Butler says in late March 2003 that “a lot of people know [him] as a forty-year old man.” Since I doubt he’s the kind of person who introduces himself by announcing that his birthday was last week, we can assume that his birthday is not in March. Since about half the books in the series take place in December, and there is never any mention of Butler’s birthday coming up soon, we can likely assume it isn’t in January. We can therefore conclude Butler was born in February, 40 years before 2003, which puts his birth year in 1963.

We then have Artemis Fowl I. This one took the most extrapolation to determine. We know he has run an ethical empire for a few years as of 2007, which coincides with his return to his family after being kidnapped by the Mafia. He apparently ran a successful criminal empire for two decades before that, though, so in 2007 he has been working for at least 25 years. Based on the interactions he had with his own son, I’ve assumed he was also taught to take over the family business from a young age. If he started working at his age of majority at 18 (as possible in the 1980’s in Ireland, based on a web search), we can assume he was born in roughly the mid 60’s.

Billy Kong, born Jonah Lee, is one to touch on. He plays a large role in TLC, during which we are given possibly the most backstory of any villain in the series. He was evidently born in the early 1970’s, and was eight years old in the early 1980’s. Mathematically, that can only lend itself to so many birth years, so it’s easy enough to put his birthdate somewhere in 1973, and his brother’s death date in 1981.

While we’re here, let’s talk about the 1980’s. A lot of things happen in the 80’s, so we’ll be here for a few paragraphs. Butler would have graduated Madam Ko’s Academy in the early ‘80s, Artemis I would have started working in his family’s business and stolen some warrior mummies (of note, the theft is only noted as being in Artemis Sr.’s “gangster days,” but if you are a young, rich criminal, you’d likely commit a wild theft in your early years as opposed to your thirties, which is why this is put in here). Additionally, in the mid 1980’s, Holly graduates the LEP Academy and her mother dies, as noted in TTP when she is contemplating missing three years of her friends lives.

Butler would have started his five-year stint in Russia with an espionage unit in the mid-to-late 80’s, and become a big brother in 1985. Juliet is noted at being four years older than Artemis in AF in 2001, and he is twelve then, making her sixteen at the time. We can extrapolate the month from TEC, wherein she is apparently eighteen when she is called regarding her brother’s apparent death. At the time, we are told what gifts she received for her birthday, implying it was fairly recent. Additionally, Artemis was only thirteen at that time, which would make Juliet five years older than Artemis. If, however, we trust that acolytes at Madam Ko’s start their training on their tenth birthday and get one chance to graduate per year, it would make sense for that one chance to be on their birthday, or within a day or two to allow for as much training time as possible. Since Juliet was in the midst of this one graduation evaluation when she gets the phone call and joins the crew for the March heist at Spiro’s Needle, she’d have to be born in March. (We can also corroborate this with some details from AF: if AF  takes place in mid-September, that would be just after Artemis’s birthday, which puts the 4-year age difference back into play.)

Spelltropy begins for the People in 1987, if it appeared 20 years ago from 2007. Artemis I and Angeline Fowl would get married in 1987. They would have their first child, Artemis Fowl II, in 1989, as calculated by Artemis being twelve during the initial siege of the Manor in December 2001. Artemis II’s grandfather was noted as having been dead for over ten years at that point, and it was mentioned in TEC that Angeline married her husband before he really took over the family business, so those events would likely happen when Artemis was but a baby in 1990.

The ‘90s are a period where a lot of things are happening, but few are particularly important. Spelltropy has a cure found, Minerva Paradizo is born, Juliet begins her bodyguard training and her brother refuses to let her shave her hair. These, and other events in the 90’s, are mostly calculated by math along the lines of “Event A happened X number of years ago,” but since the 90’s was mostly a time of worldbuilding events rather than plot events, we’ll just skim over the specific details.

‘You Are Here’: The 21st Century, and Where The Storytelling Begins

Welcome to the 2000’s! The kick-off point of not only the 2000’s, but also the entire series, is the sinking of the Fowl Star. We aren’t given a specific date for this, but we are given enough information to extrapolate the date. Specifically, in September 2001, in AF, we are told Fowl Sr. has been missing for almost a year. In TAI, in December, we are told he has been missing for almost two years. That does have the potential to have the ship go down in either December or January, so we need to use a bit more details from TAI to make a final determination. Mikhael Vassikin and Kamar were told to dump Fowl’s body in the Kola if he didn’t wake up in “another year,” so they’ve been looking after him for one at that point. Fowl Sr. wakes up two weeks before the deadline, and as noted earlier, the ransom drop for him takes place December 14, after he has been awake for perhaps a week. From that, we can tell that the deadline for “another year” was mid to late December, putting the initial sinking of the Fowl Star in late 2000.

The analysis gets a bit confusing at this point, because 2001 is when future Artemis and Holly join the party via time travel, as well as having their regular selves in the timestream. Essentially, we’ve established the timeline for the events of TTP above, so we know the whole lemur fiasco takes place in March 2001. Artemis wakes up at the end of that book thinking about fairies, which ties in rather neatly to him then dragging Butler across three continents for six false alarms (with an assumed approximate 3 weeks between each jaunt) before striking metaphorical gold in Ho Chi Minh City in September. During their time-traveling, Holly also gets a chance to talk to Root, who wonders why she isn’t in Hamburg, which was noted in AF as Holly’s first major failure as a Recon officer and was nearly preceding the events of AF. The time-traveling would also mean that Opal would have had to harvest her DNA for future diabolical plans before March 2001, when her younger self travels to the future. Since it takes up to two years to grow a clone to adulthood, and her clone has to be ready in September 2003, we are a few months off in the time requirements, but really, for a practice that’s been outlawed for 500 years, I can offer a bit of leeway.

We are now well and truly in the thick of the main events of the series. Most of this will be tied into the initial assessments we made way at the beginning of this essay, where we established when each book occurs. Because of this, we aren’t going to spend time on anything plot-related. However, a brief note on Turnball Root and Artemis’s Atlantis Complex is likely in order. Artemis was, as previously stated, dealing with his return from Hybras and the after-effects of stealing magic during July and August of 2007. His Atlantis Complex, and Turnball Root’s plan to escape the Deeps prison, are in full swing in September of that year. We have a brief note in TAC during the evacuation of Atlantis, that Turnball had, a month before, spied on Artemis and noted his Atlantis Complex developing. Therefore, Artemis’s Complex likely came into play in late July or early August 2007. This is close enough to Artemis’s magic theft to make sense for the deterioration of his mental health, and enough time for Butler to have started to notice something was wrong, as he did. We can therefore assume that Atlantis Complex, at least in the case of magic-stealing humans who have a propensity for time travel and getting involved in supremely complicated and improbable plots, develops relatively quickly.

This leaves just one major discussion point from the last few books: the age of Artemis’s twin brothers, Beckett and Myles. The twins are first introduced at the very end of TLC. They are written as being two during the events of TTP, three during the events of TAC, and four during the events of TLG. Regardless of the time-traveling shenanigans of their elder brother, it is impossible for the twins to age two years in the eight months between Artemis’s return from Hybras in June 2007 and the finale of the series in March of 2008, so we need to look at what makes sense.

Myles has already potty-trained himself, and done so at fourteen months, so they must be at least that old. Their other behaviours would make sense for them to be two in TTP. Diapers are still a part of their lives, and their language and vocabulary fit what a two-year-old would have, at least in Beckett’s case. Since Artemis was surprised by their existence, it doesn’t seem likely that  Angeline would have known she was pregnant, or at least not have told Artemis yet, when he went to Limbo. Ergo, they can’t be any older than two, since (one would hope) Artemis would have noticed his mother’s pregnancy if the twins were any older.

Additionally, in TLG, we know Artemis gave his brother a birthday present, so he had to have been around during the twin’s birthday at least once. With this fact, the twins cannot be born between March – June, which just leaves the question of when are the twins born?

 The most logical answer is February 2005. If Angeline was early on in her pregnancy, say six weeks (which is when most women start noticing symptoms), when Artemis disappeared in July 2004, she wouldn’t necessarily have told him yet. Then, if we assume that since most twin births occur around the 35-week mark, that would math out to having the twins be born in February of 2005. Fast forward, and they would turn one in February 2006, and two in February 2007, which puts them at the correct age for the events of TTP. [One could argue, of course, that a twin pregnancy in an older woman (unfortunately, there is nothing in the series to indicate Angeline’s age) and in a woman already dealing with significant stress could result in a very premature birth, thereby voiding any of this math and leaving the whole question of the twin’s birthday unanswered. However, since I’d rather not subject the Fowl parents to the strife and misery of having one son missing and presumed dead, and their younger children in the NICU with a low survival rate, I’m working with the assumption that the pregnancy was a healthy and normal one.]

The brief comment from Juliet in TAC about the twins being three can be passed off by them being a little over two-and-a-half and Juliet not being around as she is touring in Mexico. By the time TLG takes place, in March of 2008, the twins would have had their third birthday, allowing for Artemis to give Myles his chair as a birthday present, Beckett to be old enough to no longer need diapers, and the behaviours to act more like children than infants. While this doesn’t quite allow for the repeated textual confirmations in TLG that the twins are four, we’ll go with what mathematically makes sense.

That brings us to the end of the timeline! Not everything is touched on in the timeline, and not everything in the books is plotted (we are never given enough context to know Foaly’s or Opal’s birthdates, for instance). But the main events of the Artemis Fowl series are all analyzed, mathematically or logically or textually corroborated, and plotted out, for use or ignoring as personal preference dictates.

[merakiui]

i’m not sure if you’re into hentai / 18+ doujinshis, but Maid Education: Fallen Aristocrat Rurikawa Tsubaki is really good! i’ve been thinking about something similar with Azul because Lord Peumann just gives me those vibes, and Azul with a maid! reader is so so hot (￣∀￣)… if you ever decide to check it out (assuming you’re unaware of what it is already), i’d love to hear whatever your brilliant mind cooks up! ( *｀ω´)

👁️ 👁️ I read it at your recommendation and omg,,,,, Azul in that position!!!!!! The master of the house with an ex-aristocrat darling, whose house he destroyed, and has now purchased you as a maid!!!!!!! AAAAAAAA \(//∇//)\ being so proud of your aristocratic status, but now it’s been reduced to naught and you’re just a maid forced to follow the orders of the very man who brought ruin to your house……. omg it’s delicious!!! And the maid training. >:) training your body to respond to him and him only. Soon your pussy will be far more accommodating to his cock after he’s fucked you raw a few times.

You can hate Lord Ashengrotto all you want, but your body’s starting to fall for him. :) hehe Azul reminding you of your new place whenever you think to be just a little disobedient,, an absolute brat who needs to be fucked and fingered into submission. Don’t forget you’re nothing more than a maid now. You serve him. Perhaps you’re just not used to it after having been spoiled your whole life, but now you must learn your place and listen to him. It would be a shame to punish you over something you can easily understand, wouldn’t it? he’ll say all with a slimy smile. >:(

AAA HE IS SO SLEAZY!!!! Wouldn’t it be so humiliating if you once looked down on him and bullied him, but now that you’re no longer a part of the aristocracy and you belong to him the roles have reversed!!!! Azul who decides to get back at you for all those times you treated him like he was a fool, making you get on your knees or spread your legs at his command. Gross, perverted master who can have you anywhere in his home, in any way, and you have no choice but to obey. And eventually, after so much “training,” you’ll succumb to his touch so quickly, getting wet even when he’s just barely touched you.

Greedy, bully tako who only wishes to make your life miserable and humiliate you by teaching your body to submit to him,,, only to somehow fall in love over the course of so much lust. 🫣 fucking you without feelings one day and the next he’s slapped in the face by all of the feelings when he sees how perfectly the two of you fit together, how sweet you are when you call out in that soft, breathy voice of yours, the way your brow creases when you scowl at him… every little detail is just so wonderful.

Azul who only knows how to bully you and is kind of a loser when he’s trying to be genuinely, truthfully charming. T_T too smarmy for his own good. You can’t trust him when he invites you to a picnic amongst the flowers in the gazebo. He just wants to fuck you with a pretty view, right? Isn’t that his angle? And yet you’re presented with a table full of sweets and tea and he’s insistent that you indulge. Most of it’s his own preferences. Admittedly, he only knows your weaknesses from his own research, but he’s confident he’ll soon learn your favorites with enough time spent together outside of your maid training. <3

And once he’s determined to make you his in ways outside of servitude, you’ll graduate from maid training to wife training!!!!! OTL

[dontexpectmuch]

rúben dias x reader

summary; you always see him when you step out of your apartment in the early hours of the morning, the two of you greeting each other with your eyes before you move on with your day. there has never been a reason to talk to him; until you run out of sugar and are about to have a mental breakdown. the girly way.

part one! [part two]

**

sometimes you hated yourself for being so passionate about your work field. there was nothing wrong with being passionate about what you do with your life per se, however having to get up at 4:30 in the morning made something inside you die each day.

who in their right mind would ever do that to themselves?

your family and friends around you always [affectionately] called you a psychopath because of it, and sometimes you agree with them. starting your day so early til the late evening would take a toll on you at times, you couldn’t lie. though, what else are you supposed to do with your life?

living in manchester, close to university labs and other great laboratories was a privilege for someone in your field. your work required loads of attention and detailed research, taking up most of your time. it’s not like you had someone at home waiting for you anyway. forcing yourself out of your bed and getting ready was the norm, you quickly became used to your routine and did everything according to a certain standard. looking at yourself in the mirror as you brush your teeth, you are met with a pair of tired eyes.

just as you are about to spit out the rest of the toothpaste, you hear the alarm of the flat next to you go off, meaning it was 5:00 already.

your neighbor was also out of their mind, apparently.

he always gets up early in the morning, does his routine and leaves his home at the same time as you do. he however, compared to you, looked always fresh and dedicated, no trace of sleepiness on his masculine features.

finishing your morning routine, you quickly get dressed, take your ginger shots and eat some food before putting on your shoes. with one last look behind you to check yourself in the mirror, you open the door.

not even a second later, the door opposite to you also opened, your tall neighbor stepping out of his flat, bag on his shoulder and hair styled.

how did he manage to always wear such nice outfits? you find yourself asking as you greet him with a tired smile.

you close your door behind you and move your tired legs to the elevator, pressing the button as you readjust your bag on your shoulders. today would be a tiring day, you can just tell.

your neighbor stands a meter behind you, his intense perfume invading your senses. even though the two of you get up quite early, he seemed very energetic, almost as if he could run around a field all day long with no feeling of being tired.

the sound of the elevator arriving pulls you out of your thoughts, stepping inside as your eyes follow your neighbors hands. he always presses the button, never once letting you have the chance to do so yourself. not that you are complaining.

as soon as you arrive at the entrance, he quickly walks out the elevator, a small and breathy ‘bye’ leaving his lips as his long legs carry him to the garage.

“bye.” you say to no one particular, moving forward to get to the train station.

it definitely is too early.

——

“that’s a lot of sugar.” you mumble to yourself as you read the instructions on the paper.

the light in your kitchen is dimmed down, soft rnb music playing in the background and candles lit around your flat just created a certain vibe that you desperately need right now.

work has been harder than usual today, testing you and your mental capacity in very unique and challenging ways. thankfully, you have been able to come home a bit earlier, granting you enough time to bake yourself some delicious cookies as a treat. what you forgot, however, was that you still need to go grocery shopping, your fridge a clear evidence for that.

you search your cupboards for some sugar, eyes scanning each product with practiced ease. your shoulders sink in despair when you fail to detect it, your head pounding and feet getting cold.

“fuckin’…” you take a deep breath and try to calm yourself, but the pounding of your head and your rapid pulse hinder you from actually calming down.

looking at the clock above the door, you see that it is way too late to go out and buy some sugar, knowing that it would get too late to come home, bake the cookies, get enough sleep and what not. you try to think of what else you could do, when suddenly you hear some noise from your neighbors flat. it wasn’t loud, yet it came so unexpected that it pulled you out of your racing mind, making you calm down a bit better now.

so you do what anyone else would do, you decide to ask you neighbor for some sugar, not a big deal.

yeah, no biggie, at all.

now, standing in front of his door as you try to internally hype yourself up, you wish that you just went grocery shopping yesterday. because then, you wouldn’t have to stand here with your measuring cup in your hand, looking at the black door.

‘dias’ it says on the bell’s button.

taking one last deep breath, you move your cold hand towards the door, gently knocking against it. no going back now.

it didn’t take longer than ten seconds for the door to open, and you are immediately met with the sight if your neighbor in his evening clothes, messy hair and phone at hand.

his eyes are wide as he looks at you, somewhat surprised to see you standing there. you, too, are surprised by all of this, however you were here on a mission. no time for distractions.

you clean your throat, “hey, sorry for bothering you-“

“you don’t.” he immediately responds, voice deep laced with an accent.

you smile at him, which he returns. he steps closer to you, now resting his upper body against the doorframe.

“i was baking some cookies and didn’t realize that i ran out of sugar. could you perhaps lend me some?”

holding the measuring cup up to show him, dias immediately nods and gently takes the cup out of your hands, “give me a second.” is all he says before he disappears into his flat, front door still open for you to take a peak inside.

even though you can’t see a lot, even his doorway looked quite nice and clean, shoe rack full of different types of shoes. he even had a plant there, something that even you don’t own.

“here you go.” he appears again, smiling softly at you as he holds the cup for you to take.

returning his smile, you thank him, “thanks, eh..”

“rúben.”

“thanks, rúben! i’ll bring some cookies over as soon as they’re finished.” you tell him, smiling one last time before going back to your flat.

“see you.” is all you hear before he closes his door, and you immediately go back to your kitchen to finish what you started.

time passes by and an hour later you finish the cookies. your body finally relaxes, no trace of that stress you felt today at work present. the kitchen smells heavenly and your mouth waters as you take your first bite of the cookie.

looking at the time, you see that it is barley past nine, not too late to give rúben some of the cookies as a thank you. so, you put some of them in to a plate and once again leave your home to knock on his door.

you didn’t understand why, but suddenly your mind goes blank and your heart beats faster again, cold sweat spreading across your back. was it because you cared about what he thought of your baking? maybe you were getting sick due to all the stress you had throughout the day, and this was your final sign to take a break from work.

your worries wash away when rúben once again opens his door, looking the same as from an hour ago.

this time, his smile reaches his eyes when he sees you standing there, holding a plate with delicious looking cookies on it.

“delivery.” you say, smiling at him.

he didn’t look as mean and intimidating as he usually does in the morning. this whole ‘homebody’ look casts a whole new light on him, changing the previous thoughts you had about him.

rúben chuckles at your word, “well, well, would you look at that.”

his thick accent sends a shiver down your spine, his deep and honey like voice a nice change from what you were usually accustomed to when hearing a male voice.

“i hope you like them, rúben.” you hand him the plate, looking at his eyes, “thanks again for the sugar, really saved my evening.”

rúben laughs as he takes the plate, waving his hand at your statement, “it was nothing, really. thank you for the cookies, i look forward to eat them.”

nodding at his words, you look down as you smile to yourself, “well, have a-“

“do you want to eat them together?” he interrupted you, big brown eyes looking at you intensely.

oh, well.

“i don’t want to disturb your evening, though.” you tell him your thoughts.

or maybe it is because you don’t trust yourself to have the mental capacity right now. well, you tend to enjoy your alone time a lot, and spending your evening with your neighbor who practically is a stranger wasn’t exactly on your radar.

“no, really,” rúben begins, opening his door wide to welcome you in. as you step in, he continues, “as neighbors, we have to get to know each other. we both live alone, when something happens we are the closest to each other to help.” he reasons. and he was right, you think to yourself.

your parents live outside of manchester, your friends on the other side of town. if something were ever to happen, having rúben close would be the most important thing for you.

nodding, you take off your shoes and follow him to the big living room, “you’re right. i never thought about what might happen if no one could come in time.”

rúben brightly smiles at you as he places the plate onto his coffee table in front of the couch. as your eyes wander around the living room, you once again notice how clean and organized his home looks. not a single thing out of place, compared to this, your home looks like a battlefield. his flat was definitely bigger than yours as well, though his kitchen and living room were connected, whereas you had a separate room for your kitchen. his walls were decorated with some pictures, and you could even see a guitar leaning against the wall in a corner.

"here, ginger tea does wonders to one's body." rúben leans down to place a cup of tea in front of you, his perfume hitting your nose.

"thanks." you smike at him as you watch him take a seat on the couch next to you, respectable distance between you two.

he takes a sip from his tea before looking at you, his eyes shining under the dim lights, “how long have you been living here?”

“hm,” you begin as you try to think of a concrete date, not so sure yourself, “well, i moved here after i got my job at the university, even though it wasn’t the cheapest, it was still the closest to work and best offer i got considering how big the flat is.” you explain, grabbing a cookie as you shoot the same question back at him.

“i also work in manchester,” rúben begins, his voice deep. he leans back against the couch, his left arm now resting on top of the back, “but this is my second flat. my first one was too unsafe, considering that everyone could just enter the building.”

you nod, “yes, that was also quite important to me when i moved here.”

he smiled as he told you a bit more about his first flat and how different it was living in his old neighborhood compared to now. without noticing, you two fell into a comfortable conversation, jumping from topic to topic as the two of you had loads to tell. rúben talked a lot more than you, but that was only because you enjoyed listening to his stories, his accent also made it a lot more enjoyable.

time moved on quickly, and when your eyes catch a glimpse of the digital clock on his wall, they widen in disbelief.

“oh, fuck, i have to go.” you tell him, getting up take your cup and the empty plate to the kitchen.

rúben follows you, placing his own cup into the sink as you now move on to out on your shoes.

“thank you so much, rúben.” you say as he opens the door for you, watching you step out as he now leans against his doorframe, arms crossed in front of his chest, “it was genuinely nice to get to know you.”

he smiles at you words, “thank you, too. the cookies were amazing. i’ll bring the plate back as soon as it’s clean.” he lets you know.

you walk backwards to your door, pulling out your keys, “no rush, it’s not like you have a long way to deliver it anyway.”

“you’re right.”

“soo, i’ll see you in a few?” you ask him, opening your door and stepping inside.

he nods, “in a few.”

“okay, good night, rúben.”

“good night.”

—————————————————

tadaaaaa

just a drabble but i think we can work with this quite well. whatcha think? let me know!!!

bb

[doin-just-fine]

MAJOR UPDATE: Questioning systems or systems in a doubt spiral pls read.

I recently told my therapist about potentially being a system. This was a scary move because she has previously had some iffy takes about systemhood. But I told her because I trusted that she would meet me where I was at and help me navigate , at the least, the general idea of not understanding my own brain if nothing else which I was ok with. I told her and it went as expected. I explained why I thought I might be a system but also the doubts I had about it and how it was distressing me to not understand myself. She agreed to use the language I was using for it and was happy to help me through (as is her job) and also because whether it was systemhood or not it was something in me that was trying to be seen and we would work on figuring out what it was.

Fast forward a few session, and I was going through another bout of "what the fuck even is my brain". I was starting to realize that my "systemhood" is very different from the things I've been seeing online. In the ways that it's different to other systems is: - I'm always in the front, always in the captains chair - I have no amnesia because I never switch out - My hyper-vigilance never lets me dissociate fully though i definitely "check out" in my own way - Head mates just feel like vague ideas or emotions

But the ways that are similar are: - These vague ideas or emotions have opinions and feelings that are different from my own. - Though they are vague, I can definitely tell they are separate from what I have come to understand as "me" - I become "a different person" in the sense of my attitude, vibe, behavior, and opinions change from where they were 5 mins ago, but I am still me, just a different me.

Anyway, I was already trying to make sense of all of this and was not planning on talking about it with my therapist because nervous... However, my therapist ask me about it first. She asked some clarifying questions about my partners system vs my own and how they are different. When I explained what I just wrote above to my therapist she said "Thats what I thought and I owe you an apology."

Basically, my therapist, like any good therapist should when confronted by something they don't know a lot about, had been doing research on complex forms of trauma and coping. Things in the same vain as CPTSD and Plurality including those two topics. She had specifically been reading a book called "The Body Keeps The Score" (TW it is a book about trauma and studies of trauma so it has details of case studies that some people may find incredibly triggering). I did some research on what exactly the book was talking about in regards to "systemhood" and from what I've found, chapter 14 at the end of a section called "Writing to yourself" and the first parts of chapter 17 have interesting information regarding systemhood and how its not entirely limited to things that are diagnosable like DID or OSDD. It seems to talk about how we all have several selves and trauma can get in the way of those selves communicating effectively. My therapist told me about this book and what she learned from it and apologized to me because the book made her realize that she was wrong and that I was in fact a system....

The session ended and I just kind of sat there... not sure how to feel but definitely feeling relief and validation.

After doing research on the book to write this I have some words of wisdom. If you are a questioning system or are doubting your validity remember this: The human brain is so incredibly complex and no one actually understands how it does anything beyond its basic physical functionality... the conceptual abilities of our mind are a mystery. How we define self is just theory. If you don't fit into boxes, labels, identities, or diagnoses that does not mean your experiences aren't real. You are going to be ok. Understand YOUR mind and how it works for YOU, not through a label or diagnosis. If those things come later, great! Do not let them destroy you just because you don’t fit perfectly. I am a system. Simply. No types, labels, or diagnosis. I am a system. I have a unique experience because my brain is no one elses. I am a system. I may not have people in my head in the traditional sense but I'm also not alone up here either. I am a system. I am a system. I am a system. Nobody has the right to deny me this for they do not live behind my eyes.

As I understand myself: I am a system.

[yeoldenews]

hello! i was wondering if you (or any blogs you think might know?) had any resources for edwardian fashion, more precisely edwardian teen fashion? i'm writing a story centering on two edwardian ghosts and would like help on their style of speech as well if you can't help on the fashion aspects. thank you!

In my opinion, if you want to be able to portray the authentic feel of a time period, there is nothing better than diving head first into primary sources.

Whenever I start any large research/writing project that’s centered on a particular year, I usually spend at least a couple of days just immersing myself in the era.

We live in an extraordinary age when it comes to primary source research (especially for the early 20th century) - there are literally millions of period newspapers/books/magazines/films/recordings floating around online.

Find out what books were popular and check them out! Read the newspaper! Listen to popular music! Watch silent movies or newsreels!

For teenagers, school yearbooks are a particularly great source to get an idea of how young people spoke, their senses of humor, common slang, casual fashion, as well as the daily routines and general vibes of the time period. Most universities have their yearbooks digitized and available online and can be pretty easily found on google (try searching: [year] [location if desired] yearbook digital collections).

As for fashion - there are so many great fashion history tumblrs, that it’s pretty hard to go wrong if you just explore the “Edwardian” or “1900s” tag a bit. One thing to keep in mind though - most dresses that end up in museums were owned by very, very rich individuals. So, though a great place to start, scrolling through blogs full of museum pieces to learn about fashion history is roughly the equivalent of learning about modern fashion by only watching Chanel runway shows.

By the Edwardian era most young people were wearing pretty much the same thing as adults by the age of 14/15. You were, however, starting to see the very beginning of what would become the modern “juniors’ section” - usually termed “Misses’” for girls and “young men’s” or “collegiate” for boys. Here are a few examples of this can be seen in period catalogs from 1912, 1911 (starting on page 21) and 1908. 

It’s also important to keep in mind that fashion changed much, much more quickly than it does now. A woman in 1906 and a woman in 1911 would have noticeably different styles and silhouettes. I'd recommend scrolling through some fashion plates (going to shout out chic-a-gigot here who has a great collection of French fashion plates organized by decade and year) to get a basic handle on how the silhouette changed year by year.

In my past life I was fashion history specialist for high-end auctions, so I could go on in A LOT more detail about this subject, but I'm going to end it here before this gets too long.

[obsessive-valentine]

Rating my Yanderes beds, because I can ✨

Barbarian!yan - Literally layers upon layers of soft warm fur on top of their equivalent of a mattress on top of a massive travelling box or two that double as bed frames. Most furs and blankets recently personally hunted/stolen for his darlings comfort bc he could sleep on a slab of stone and feel great in the morning so it’s safe to say it probably wasn’t as comfortable before he met darling. A princess and the pea situation bc he will keep adding throws and furs until darlings happy. Sounds like a dream but probably gets to hot now and then and a bed on top of wooden boxes can’t be that comfortable but at least it’s not the floor. Also didn’t own pillows before darling so stole some from a raid (that’s a funny visual) 8/10 - some points for effort

Vampire!yan - The most luxurious bed known to mankind, well darlings is, his is a literal coffin... darling has massive beautifully hand carved bed frame with a canopy, sleeps in silks and plush pillows fit for royalty. If that doesn’t fit darlings fancy there’s a few bedrooms in the manor that he can clean up for them, he just picked the most extravagant and comfortable for darling. 100/10

His actual ‘bed’ on the other hand -being the coffin- looks super cool and expensive, made from dark rich wood and a silk interior. Also does it’s job in keeping him safe from the sun or whatever. But very uncomfortable for a normal human and claustrophobic. -1/10

Farmer!yan - Nothing particularly concerning or great about the bed, it’s a sturdy handmade frame by his grandfather with maybe a 10yr old mattress at most. He’s also a type that could sleep on a stone slab and feel good from the most part on the morning so he doesn’t care that the mattress is a bit worn but will give in a pick up a new one if darling complains. Good at keeping up with laundry so the sheets are clean and soft so that counts for something. 4/10

Classic!yan - Did his research to customise his bed to darlings preferences, so when darlings kidnapped everything is new and comfortable. Great attention to detail because he gets sheets with darlings favourite colour on and many options for blankets and comforts like stuffed toys. Would be a 10/10 if it weren’t for the chain on darlings ankle being a part of the bed.

Childhood Fae!yan - He settles for nothing less than perfect, he’s spoilt and expects luxury so of course darling gets the best too. No where near as fancy as vampire yans but as comfortable, with a extravagantly carved dark wood frame that fits the dark academia vibe of his house. Very picky about the materials and firmness of his bed so he spent a lot of time perfecting it to be just right. Darlings sleeping good and extra points for having the best ambiance out of all the yanderes, I can imagine the room being so calming with the fireplace crackling and reading by candle light. 11/10

[izanna]

Great huge theory post for elriel/gwyn 

I'm going to start this off by saying, these have been curated from many people, not just me, i will try to credit all of them at the end, a lot of this was sourced from tumblr's large elriel community. and lots of rereads from the reddit community.

first theory:

The potatoes

You remember that scene wher Elain is coming out with potatoes and azriel takes them form her?

Yes, what beautiful scene, we love it.

Well one of the tumblr communities nicest elriels (credit at bottom) made a post in the our very own elriel tumblr community (PM me if you wanna join~!) ! it goes as follows:

" Call me crazy, but 🥔🥔🥔

Ok. We know Elain reacted to Azriel taking the dish of potatoes out of her hands by kind of freezing and staring at the place where the dish used to be. Interesting that SJM focused on that in so much detail.

Now that could be coincidence, could mean totally nothing. But! What if…it’s foreshadowing something? Like Elain offering food (maybe potatoes or something in that dish?) to Azriel to seal their mating bond? Either the “real one” that the cauldron is covering up by giving her Lucien instead, or a symbolic one they make after she breaks her bond with Lucien and chooses Az?

Maybe she even reacted that way because she’s seen it? In a dream/vision?

Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but the potato scene will always have me in my feels, one way or the other. 💕"

(end of quote)

Now when i brought this to other friends in the community we started buzzing because we have been doing some amazing research and re-reads of the elriel moments, mentions and vibes.

one in particular has done a good amount of research of mor and her interactions with elriel moments, because yes we know it's weird how she acts.

but if this was the moment azriel and Elain did infact make their bond accepted, it would explain quite a few things. the steam from the potatoes being likened to azriels shadows in this moment as well as

mor only started reacting negatively after this scene.

before this scene she reacted worried once. over cassian because he was knocking back drinks. and the only other mention of elain and azriel is the truth teller moment with feyre, and all she does is hum while talking about it which gives the vibe of "hmmmm" or hemming and hawing at the scenario.

afterwards we start getting things like "her mouth agape green beans practically falling out."

or "she stiffened" when azriel walks to elain.

also azriel starts becoming more protective socially of elain after this immediately

another key thing to notice is after this moment elain starts wearing only amethyst colors. only purple which is as we know a mixture of blue and pink. az and Elain's colors.

now haters will say "that's impossible she already has a mate and it's Lucien, Elriels are reaching again blah blah blah." Okay okay,

i direct you all to the scene with nesta putting elain's rose under the mother in the shadows.

the rose is now one with the shadows under the mother.

when did elain's bond with lucien come into knowing? only after she was pulled from the cauldron.

now we know two things form this.

the cauldron, and the mother make bonds.

the acceptance of a bond is food.

elain has shown absolute discomfort around lucien and any mention of her bond, and no mention of her giving him food, infact she goes out of her way to glare at people for trying to get her to talk to him, and or avoiding him by watching water boil.

my best theory right now is there are two bonds, one mother made, one cauldron made.

elain might be the first person to ever have two mates. and it explains so much of the foreshading, the questions and azriel and her behavior toward eachother.

and i question you this, why would elain ever accept anything cauldron made after what the cauldron did to her, her family? and her life?

"well why can't they feel the bond if it's so obvious?"

well what if they did but didn't understand it?

elain stared at her hands after the potatoes were taken, making a undistiguishable face.

why? why would she do that?

AZRIEL HIMSELF QUESTIONS IF THE CAULDRON WAS WRONG.

(foreshadowing again.)

well the cauldron is magic, it is made of magic, magic can conceal things. the cauldron has also been tampered with as a great many of us know from other SJM books, which does carry into Acotar world.

and what if the mother created this bond against the cauldron? i can't imagne the mother and the cauldron get along very well,

seeing as one is to protect, create, give life

and the other is chaos mischief, mayhem and destruction/ death.

now this theory was also from Tumblr (credit below at the end)

Now, gwyreiels might ask "Well what about gwyn!, she had her moment with Azriel in the bonus chapter!! it's obvious foreshadowing."

oh yes it is, but not in the way you think

lets visit one of the gwyriels FAVORITE SCENES. shall we?

""your'e the new ribbon AZ"

gwy nodded her farewell, again facing the ribbon. A warrior sizing up and opponent, all traces of that charming irreverence gone."

A lot of gwyriels stake their houses on this one scene saying it's foreshadowing.

okay, but what? does it give off nay romance vibes to you?

no it's a challenge.

and what is Azriel to gwyn now? A ribbon.

here's the next quote

"Gwy stare the ribbon down like an enemy on a battlefield. IT rippled in the wind, dancing away, it's motions unpredictable as any foe."

oh yes. it did bring some foreshadowing indeed didn't it?

dancing sounds familiar? i wonder why...

Oh yes the bonus chapter. Azriels shadows DANCED, around gwyn.

that compared to the way dancing and ribbons were earlier mention, it doesn't sound like a good thing does it?

my guess is we are going to see gwyns powers as a light singer, and i don't think it's going to be good for azriel. they are going to be enemies in a way. and i know the gwynriels hate this, but it's literally foreshadowed right there babe.

"Whatever none of this is canon, it's jsut a deluded elriel theory yet again."

oh it's not canon yet babes, but it's a theory BASED off canon foreshadowing and quotes.

CREDITS:

potato theory origin!: @mck6888

a lot of the work through ont he theory and the connections with mor's behavior came form our very own RoadsidePoppy! thank you so much for theorizing with me!

and lastly the person responsible for the gwyriel theory and foreshadowing is!:

@Elainsgirl On Tumblr

she was responding to a GA anon quote, and came up with this foreshadowing and theory! thank you all so much i hope you can add to it and together we can have fun making theories and see what happens in the next book.

Any rude misbehavior will not be tolerated/blocked

[themakeupbrush]

In no particular order, my top looks from the 2023 Met Gala "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line in Beauty"

My thoughts are below, but I'll be honest, I didn't really do any background research this year because there wasn't much to be done. These are really just my opinions on whether or not I liked the look.

Ironically, I felt this was a very mediocre year, which led to me having a lot more favorites than usual because they were kind of all on the same level. In previous years I would have separated this into multiple posts, but I don't really see the point.

Doja Cat: I wanted someone to dress up as Choupette the cat and she delivered, and managed to do so in a way that was still fitting for the event

Keke Palmer: She looked amazing, and really captured the Chanel look with the bombshell hair and the extremely bedazzled tweed. I honestly don't want to think about how much that dress weighed

Anne Hathaway: Besides that fact that I love everything Anne Hathaway has ever done, this dress was the perfect combination of honoring Lagerfeld's style while also incorporating it into the style of the brand she was representing (Versace). It had tweed and pearls, but also sex appeal and safety pins

Cardi B: First, I just want to appreciate her ongoing commitment to high fashion and the fact that she had three (3) completely separate looks. This particular Miss Sohee look was my favorite because she's living out my glinda barbie mermaid fairy princess dreams

Harvey Guillen: This was one of the first looks I saw of the night, and still one of my favorites. It has all the Lagerfeld style essentials, but still manages to look unique. Plus, creative menswear always gets extra points because the bar is painfully low, though this year was a surprisingly pleasant exception.

Jennifer Lopez: It's not the most creative look, but it's right up my alley and honestly, do we expect anything groundbreaking from JLo? She's always going to show up in something pretty that's decently on theme enough for me to just focus on whether or not I like it. And this immediately makes me think of classic Chanel.

Penelope Cruz: She was a co-host, it's vintage Chanel couture from the 80's, and she's one of the people I most heavily associate with Lagerfeld and Chanel. A win all around.

Russell Westbrook: I really want to give Russell Westbrook credit for always showing up to the Met Gala and really going for it. I love all the details: the pearl necklace, the tweed blazer with floral clasps, the bows on the shoes

Chloe Fineman: Another first look that turned out to be a favorite. This again had all the necessary design elements without feeling like a cheap knockoff. Also major points for the bedazzled cat bag.

Anok Yai: I don't know and I don't care how this relates to theme, she looked like a goddess

Bad Bunny: Another man not only doing something interesting but incorporating the theme? Genuinely shocking. Obviously I loved the OTT floral cape, but I really loved the ode to c. 2005 Chanel with the backless suit and backwards necklace.

Gisele: She wore the same dress from an iconic 2007 editorial, proving not only that she still has it, but that she's always had it. A true supermodel.

Salma Hayek: She looked hot, I don't know what else you want me to say about it. Also it had color, which nothing else did. My eyes were starving for color.

Glenn Close: For starters, she needed an entire team to carry her train so props for that. She brought the drama, the glitz, and the "age is just a number so shut the hell up" glamor.

Lil Nas X: This was, for lack of a better phrase, a cheeks out, bedazzled, balls to the wall look. The Choupette inspiration is more obvious when he was inside with the fur (ish?) coat on, but I honestly didn't care. I needed a moment and he delivered. Though I do wonder (1) how long it took to bedazzle him and (2) will he every fully be de-glittered.

Brian Tyree Henry: I don't know if it's the pose or the cape, but it's giving me dramatic shakespeare vibes and I appreciate it.

Naomi Campbell: The only issue I have with this look is that they called 2010 Chanel Couture "vintage" and I can't accept that. Beyond that, I mean, it's Naomi Campbell in Chanel Couture. I was also dying for any semblance of color at this point and somehow this dress was among the most colorful

Jenna Ortega: The perfect combination of chanel tweed cropped blazer/mini skirt and the Wednesday Addams aesthetic. Which was interesting because I thought she was trying to move away from that but I don't care it was a successful look

Ava Max: Chanel was known for the haute couture bride, and this not only really captures that, it was one of the most and quite honestly only majorly dramatic looks of the night

Halle Bailey: She looked like a mermaid and I love that for her

Ashley Graham: I would have loved this look regardless, but after seeing the dress it was modeled after, I also think it was one of the best tributes of the night

Tems: Has she ever looked bad on a red carpet? Her headpieces are just getting bigger and more elaborate and I see nothing wrong with that.

Diddy: I love the drama + the floral cape, though I am left wondering how he didn't faint under all of that. Also, you can roast me all you want for captioning his post with Sean Combs but that's what was given to the AP so it's what I went with.

Shai Gilgeous Alexander: A final man who followed the theme and wore something interesting, arguably more interesting than some of the women. I actually think I like this look better without the coat over it.

[melkyt]

Spiderman AU - LawLu

Luffy is a perpetually broke college student who is constantly looking for jobs to do. He tends to help around the neighborhood or the several labs around the city. He's studying to be anything that lets him have some adventures. His classes are sporadic and all over the place, and he is going for several degrees. One of those classes is in the science building. So, he has a lot of random interactions with med and science students. He talks to everyone.

Law works at the college as a researcher, having graduated when he was still a kid. He is trying to find a cure to his illness as anything he found until then was just a treatment, not a cure.

He works for the Donquixote family corp that is known around the city for being shitty behind the scenes (oscorp vibes). Law is one of their kids, and most avoid him for that fact alone. So when he tries to find one of the trade kids to help with more physical experiments, they say no.

Luffy overhears this conversation and immediately says yes. He doesn't ask for details. Law doesn't think that anyone not in the trade he's looking for will be useful with the amount of engineering required, but Luffy says he has a friend who can come by, and they can both help.

Luffy and Usopp show up a few days later at a lab tucked away in a part of the city that is not considered great. Luffy grew around there with Ace and Sabo, so he doesn't care, but Usopp is terrified. He grew up just outside a gated community where nobody locked their doors.

Law had given them the code, and they let themselves in. The lab is a mess, there is tech and half-finished experiments all over the place. Tanks with green bubbling liquid it. Law is focused on a microscope.

Luffy notices the bugs being kept in their habitats and immediately beelines it for that area and starts chattering away, asking questions.

Law is surprised by how much Luffy just casually knows about bioengineering and many other topics. Luffy manages to tell what experiment he is doing just from one glance. They talk bugs for a bit until Usopp clears his throat and says that he can only be there for a short few hours and what does Law want him to do.

They work through most of the evening after that. Usopp eventually leaves, but Luffy decides to stick around and talk more bugs with Traffy.

They talk well into the early morning, Law running on energy drinks and willpower crashes around 4 am mid-conversation.

Luffy chuckles, picks the man up as though he weighs nothing and brings him to the office couch, and goes to search for a blanket.

While on his quest, he noticed that one of the bug cages was ajar. Did they bump it when they were working? "Hope the little guy is still there."

It was not. The spider habitat was very much empty. Luffy decides to find it before leaving. First, he gets a blanket for Law though, he grew up with a brother who tends to overwork himself and crash and then get colds, he doesn't want his new friend to get sick.

When he does find the spider by instinct alone. It's calm and crawls up his arm as though they have known each other for years.

Then Law wakes up, he comes out of the room all groggy and asks why Luffy is still there.

The spider gets spooked and bites Luffy, who moves quickly to drop it into its habitat. "Had a little escape." He smiles and pretends that he wasn't just bitten by a potentially poisonous spider.

"Oh, thanks." Law nods. "I'm gonna get some more sleep. You should go home. Classes start soon"

"Yeah, yeah" Luffy waves it off, he still has plenty of energy to go to class and stay up another day.

He leaves Law's lab, takes the subway home, and as soon as he is through the door, he crashes. Much to the alarm of Ace and Sabo, who he shares an apartment with.

When he wakes up again three days later, the doctors blame it on exhaustion. Nobody who knows Luffy buys it, there must be some other explanation. Ace, having lost both his parents to illness, insists that Luffy stays so the doctors run more tests. Luffy says no because it's boring and expensive even though the college job contract pays for his insurance.

So he is driven home, and as soon as Ace and Sabo leave for their obligations, he is out the door. He wants to see Law and say sorry for flaking. He promised and failed. The lab isn't far away, so he can walk. Something he probably shouldn't do right before dark in his neighborhood. Ace often tells him that's how you get shot.

On the way, he doesn't quite pay attention. He hears gunshots, but that's normal. They stop eventually, and he thinks nothing of it until a car comes roaring around the corner. It's too fast, but his body reacts, and he jumps into the air, landing on a nearby building and sticking to the wall.

He has powers from that point on. The first person he visits is Usopp, telling him everything! Then, everyone else in his group of friends, he doesn't keep secrets from them or anyone really. They are going to have a hell of a time trying to keep Luffy is Spiderman a secret xd. He'll tell Ace and Sabo later when they stop fussing over him, almost getting by a car, which is how he started the story.

So after that, he goes to Law's lab, only to find it dark. When Usopp manages to turn on the lights, everything is broken, and there is blood on the floor and walls. Something bad happened here. He knows the blood is Law's

Luffy decides to make this his first case as Spiderman. He and Usopp clean up the lab as best they can and make it their own, looking for clues.

They find out that Doflamingo Donquixote sold this lab to the city and marked it abandoned, and well, it is the city that moves slowly, especially in lower-end neighborhoods. It went into limbo. Nobody owns it now. That also means there is now news of Law or what happened, or where he is now.

Usopp as the constant voice of wisdom (self-proclaimed lol) says they should just leave it and not get involved with DQ Corp, that it is a bad idea.

Luffy just says meh and that he has to find Traffy. He was cool. They talked about bugs all night, and that might as well be a proposal.

So Luffy with Usopp providing the tech support starts going after DQ buildings around town, finding out a lot of crap that they pull and more about Law's situation, that he was practically bought out of college to do illegal experimentation for DQ. They were looking for immortality, and there was an accident. In the files, the law was just labeled a failure and a criminal for getting away with proprietary info.

With no leads, Luffy decides to say fck it and just go on instinct. He swings all around the city until he reaches the docks. There are large pipes leading into the harbor, and one of them has its grate broken.

Luffy goes in without a second thought that it will be dangerous.

Inside is a makeshift lab, stealing power from the dockyard above.

"TRAFFY! I found you." He pulls off his mask. Luffy is absolutely giddy at finding his friend. They may have only known each other for a week and a day, but Luffy knows who he wants even if he only saw them for a minute.

Law jumps and runs, pressing himself into the far corner of the room. 'Don't Look!'

Luffy, of course, ignores him and gets in his personal space. "Heh, you got scales and a tail! That's so cool"

Law relaxes a little bit then more and tells Luffy everything. How he had gotten a breakthrough in the immortality serum he was making for Doflamingo and he needed a test subject even though DQ would provide him with what they called 'disposable personnel'. Law wasn't about to let them do that, so he used it on himself, partially out of desperation as his treatments stopped working. It cured him, but the side effect was he was more lizard than human now and also wanted dead so Doffy could dissect him to see what made him tick. As Law destroyed any notes and had no intention of telling him, the side effects were too much to allow human testing, which is the next step to work out the problems.

Luffy only half listens, snapping awake when Law is done and telling him to leave that it is not his problem.

"Nuhuh, I like you, Traffy! Come on. My friends can help yah." He puts on his mask and lifts Law as though he still weighs nothing despite the tail adding more than a couple of pounds.

"Wait, don't just--" Law tries to complain, push away, that is until they are flying through the air. Then he clings, he is not good with heights.

Luffy brings them to the dorm, building his friends are at, going for the common room where they are all gathered, just relaxing.

He sets Law on the couch, "Hey guys, this is Traffy, he's gonna be my boyfriend!"

"What? No, I'm not!" Law snaps, bearing his new fangs, scales glisten in the light. He realizes they are all staring at him, he tries to hide his tail.

"Aw, why not" Luffy crouches with a pout "Dont you like me?"

"I went along with your bullshit because I need help with all this" He gestures all over himself.

"Yeah, we'll help, but I also like you, Traffy, that's how I found you!" Luffy says it with full confidence.

"Argue with Luffy later," Nami interjects. "He's not gonna drop it"

"Yeah, dinner is almost ready anyway." Zoro opens one eye to look over from the couch where he is chilling.

"Food!" Luffy throws off his mask and runs toward the kitchen.

"Dont you all care?" Law looks around, confused that they aren't freaking out.

"Luffy's a spider. You being a lizard might as well be normal." Nami shrugs, taking some chips out of a bowl on the coffee table.

And thats that, they let him into their makeshift family as though he has always been there.

They talk about their plan, Luffy's being just to break in and punch Doflamingo in his stupid bird face and tell him to leave his 'future boyfriend' alone. He always says it with such confidence that Law almost agrees every time, but he holds back.

When not talking about destroying the biggest corp in the city, they talk about science and biology as Law tries to revert his condition. Luffy adds new ideas that Law would have never even thought of. They are highly experimental and impractical but genius.

These discussions usually end in Law curled up in Luffy's arms, tail around his waist as they fall asleep. This arrangement made both Law and Luffy have something akin to a good sleeping schedule.

In time, they take down DQ, it's a dramatic fight with Luffy getting injured so much that he has to recover for a whole week even with his healing abilities.

When he wakes up again, Law is there at his bedside, wearing a fancy oversized coat to hide his tail.

Luffy grins. "Will you be my boyfriend now, Traffy?"

With the right of Doffy's control gone, he's free, and for the first time, he feels comfortable enough to say yes. Their fight is not over yet, but now they are together, for whatever comes next in making the city free.

[chinomiko]

hi! i know it must be kinga boring for you recive questions about castiel bc ppl are obsessed ober him for years but like the other person who asked you a few days ago, i follow you (and ply mcl) for like 10 years and ever since day one my fav boy has been tiel. till this day at the age of 22 he's my favorite and my comfort boy so i joke that he's not a fictional character anymore for me and that i know him personally at this point lol

with that being said, i bet you can imagine that over the years i've been elaborating his personality beyond what the game gives us but he's your boy, you created him therefore you know him and your word is canon, so i'd like to ask a few stuff!! nothing too big, dont worry but here we go.

tiel is an amazing songwriter and since he's very emotional not very good at express it (he does it a lot better now that he's an adult 🥹) i bet his lyricism is very deep and poetic so i have this headcanon that he at first wouldn't like taylor swift because obviously lol but then he payed attention to her lyrics and ends up basically being a swiftie since he likes her writing a lot. what you think about that?

and what kind of music crowstorm sings? like there are any bands that you listen and think "hey this would be in a crowstorm album!" (i have a playlist with this name btw lol). im probably wrong on this one but since this is my fav band i like to think that catfish and the bottlemen are the irl crowstorm, musically speaking

and the last one: another thing that gives me so much comfort is the lystiel friendship. not having present parents, being so closed off i know that lysander is such an important presence on tiel's life because he was basically the only close person he had (specially after the debrah fiasco); if lys didnt had taken the farm and went to college and bla bla bla do you think he would still be part of the band with castiel? im not sure if im mixing the canon with a fanfic i read a while ago (lol) but the band was more of a fun thing to lys, right? he liked writing most (i always imagined him getting into a literature degree or something like this). i also like to think that he helps tiel with lyrics at times, even if he's out of the band (in my head the canon is that they are best friends and pretty close till this day, i pretend lys never left our lives just like armin)

anyways sorry for this big ask 😭 i dont even know if you will read it all but if you do, thank you! and dont feel like you have to answer, i know its too much its just that mcl is my hyperfixation till this day like for real, i have a fanfic that i write still and i even plan on making it into a book sometime. except from the main characters (who is my oc) all the characters will be based on the game's ones :)

ilysm take care and stay hydrated!!

Hellow !

Aww thank you so much and for all your love for Castiel ^^

What a long ask, I'll try to answer in order.

Castiel being a swiftie. No sorry, I don't think he would be. If candy likes her, I'm pretty sure he would try to listen. Also he is an open minded person for sure, so I'm sure he would be curious to listen and study what all the hype is about, it could also help as some sort of far away inspiration, but I don't see him being a fan.

What kind of songs Crowstorm sings This is hard to answer because my musical knowledge is pretty limited and I'm sure I would miss on lot of potential groups or singers that would fit well. And it would require too much research time to have a real detailed and clear answer, but I still did check a bit and here is a little list of songs/groups that I think would have a fitting vibe for Crowstorm

City of the dead - Hollywood Undead The worst in me - bad omens Paranoid - I prevail Trauma Just pretend - Bad omens Ice Nine Kills - A grave mistake Catfish and the bottlemen sounds nice but I think its a bit too soft for what I imagine for Crowstorm.

What is his voice like I think something similar to this (not necessarily the song itself, just the voice. )

bonus, I think this song is so so fitting for Castiel's breakup song, I love it. Dial Tone - Catch your breath

Castiel and Lys friendship. It was'nt mentionned much in UL/LL because I didnt wish to bring too much drama by mentioning Lys when he was not there for the players, but of course Lys and Cast always kept in touch. It is very clearly mentionned in Lys' AL that they keep in touch, that Lys helps Castiel write songs and Cast also like to come to his farm to have a break and spend time together. You should play it if you havent, you'll have a good chunk of Cast and Lys friendship :) However yeah I can confirm that Lys would not like to do it serisouly and professionally, but he'll be all the way around to support and help Cast.

[tewwor]

sea creature affairs starter call — well, the folks have spoken. cracking this waterlogged bad boy back open for anyone that wants a bit of nautical horror. everyone listed below resides ( or at least calls ) harborview their home. totally a small coastal town that's 10000% normal and not inhabited by strange things from the nearby sea. creatures of which that were made or in the very least influenced by some lone god found beneath sea foam and abyssal depths.

More sea creature lore here & additional details here!

like and specify who you'd like from habrorview's very own! if you previously liked for a starter ( and/or i already made you one ) and you want another with a different character — please comment and let me know!!! i'm more than happy to have multiple threads with these silly strange creatures.

adal — werewolf / sea creature hybrid . carpenter that's just trying his best, so soft and guilt ridden he'll help thieves clear out his own home, designated scout for any trouble brewing on the horizon as he sails most often.

altan — basilisk . angry hermit trying desperately to live in solitude, keeper of a barely functioning lighthouse, usually the first point of contact for oram when he waddles his sea monster ass back to land, immediately beams super mean things into orams head to help him remember how to speak the human language before kicking him out.

amant taylor boudreaux — human . just a guy that's been obsessed with harborview's happenings, he's dedicated his life to accurately detail not only it's citizens but also the mysterious people that return from the sea, would 1000% try to get nasty with someone just to lowkey research them, brainrot on god ( oram, even if he doesn't know that weird soggy man is the sea god responsible for all sea creatures ).

dane — ??? sea creature . marine biology professor & totally not the son of the alleged sea god, oram, is known to throw the occasional hissy fit if a traveler starts to get too nosy, ignorance is the only thing keeping his father immortal.

danny — shark sea creature . pirate smoted humbled by another god's wrath, runs a pub and very uncanny valley if you look close enough, thinks sitting by him while he soaks in the tub counts as a romantic date, probably eats people.

hugh — seal sea creature . unofficial babysitter of newly turned sea creatures, just wants to run his restaurant in peace but is usually in pieces instead, don’t ask questions if you see him throwing things off the pier.

joel — human ( for now ) . ooooo the sea creatures want him so bad, retired saturation diver, plagued with trauma / #1 harborview conspiracy theorist, main character syndrome & literally at his wits end.

lior — siren / eel sea creature hybrid . prior criminal ties, current fashionista, embodiment of 'i told you so', weirdly misses needing souls as sustenance.

oram — sea god . hunters want him, joel fears him, he barely knows wtf is going on at any time of his unfortunately long life, often found as a wet and soggy man wandering the beach, eldritch vibes all around and does little to hide it.

tatsuro watanabe — figurehead come alive . the newest of harborview’s bestiary, still trying to grasp how humans act and why, will try anything once, underestimates his strength often, lowkey something intimidating about him.

vincent — imugi . founder & #1 fan of the oram hate club, town-locked against his will, would love nothing more than to never talk to anyone but they love to bug the hell out of him, only cares about joel because he's.. struggling pathetic.

barbara davies — crocodile sea creature . calling all milf enjoyers, she's tall, she's hot, she's so goddamn strong! fabulous radio talk show host that's part of the few that tries to keep peace between sea creatures and human civilians ( off the record, of course ).

ha aera — human (?) . just your everyday humble waffle house employee, no she won't confirm nor deny questions about why or how the building seems to move from area to area, no she won't dive into the parking lot fights but she will call security, she's just tired and wants to get her shift over with.

ini shaw — sea witch . sea witch that primarily sells knots and charms for sailors. most of the time they're filled with good luck. be nasty to her and you'll get a nasty surprise back amidst your stupid voyage. maybe a fanatic over oram, but who’s to say?

jinae 'jenny' cho — human . there's a new hot wife in town and she's married to the mayor ( that hasn't been eaten by the sea creatures finally )! does she know her high school sweetheart turned husband is a sea creature? no! so pretty and so scrappy. definitely has traits of a survivalist for reasons she'd rather leave in the dark.

natori kato — seagull shapeshifter . what's that in the sky? it's a bird — correct! and said bird is torpedoing in to snatch food right out of your grubby hands. she's a certified yapper and bubble of joy. just ignore how she's got that scrappy aura about her.

spencer aka suspenders — human (?) . local kelpie wrangler & sanctuary keeper. it is much and it is really fucking honest work. you try getting your teeth almost kicked in every month by these slippery, man-eating sea horses. but he wouldn't have it any other way.

[soaps-mohawk]

Okay, so first I wanna say I adore your writing, CRCB and Kyletober, you make me feel so many emotions while reading it’s amazing (and I’m so excited for the upcoming fluff 🥰)

And second (and I know this is like so irrelevant to the whole story but whatever), is CRCB’s cabin that they’re at now, at rocky waters, or like cute beachy waters. I don’t know if I missed something about the description or what, but I need to know bc I lowkey kinda wanna make what I imagine in the sims 4, but I need to know if it’s gonna be a Sulani build or if I’m gonna be making my own ocean

Ahh, anyway, thank you for your amazing writing contributions to the COD community 🙇‍♀️

Aww thank you lovely!!! Yes, there will be plenty of fluff on the way, but still some angst because we're not out of the woods with that yet by any means.

And as far as where the cottage is, which absolutely is relevant to the story, is definitely rocky beach. They're in like Northwest (or at least what I would call northwest) Cornwall near the Port Isaac area. So very rocky, cliffy beaches not more island paradise like Sulani. When they talk about going to the beach it's going to be like Lundy Bay kind of vibe. When they talk about going to town to shop it's going to be like Polzeath or even all the way to Padstow (since there's a Tesco there and they want bigger areas with bigger stores where they won't be as noticeable or recognizable if they're shopping there constantly).

I built the cottage build (in the Sims) in Brindleton Bay since it matched more the vibe of the rocky shores and Northern coast vibe versus the more warmer, open sand beach vibe. Of course you can build wherever you like and imagine it however you want, but that's more the area I was envisioning.

And yes, I did that much research. I spent like 30 minutes learning how UK license plates work so I could include a one sentence detail that was completely irrelevant to the entire story just for fun (no one even noticed that which makes me kind of sad because UK license plates are confusing af) but that's the lengths that I go to, to make this story as realistic as possible. So yeah, I literally scrolled a map of Cornwall for two hours to find an area that fit the vibe of where the cottage is. I just didn't include specifics in the story because ya know, it's scary including specific details of areas you're not familiar with because you might get called out by those who are familiar and then the hours you spent researching were for nothing.

Anyway that might just be me.

Way off topic but yes. Not irrelevant, rocky shores, build wherever you like, and thank you for the lovely comments 💚

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Who do you find the easiest & hardest to write as and/or what is the hardest topic for you to write about? Your page covers a wide variety of topics so I'm interested in what you enjoy writing most.

Easiest to write would probably be anything that doesn't take too much brain power. For example, if I'm just being excited about new upcoming Twst content, that's pretty easy for me to keyboard smash about. I don't like to do this often though, as I feel it can get too chaotic and difficult for readers to follow along with what I'm trying to convey. In terms of creative writing, I find fluff (especially character dialogue) very easy to write because you don't really need to focus on weaving intricate plots or complex feelings that may come with fics covering darker or more serious subject matter. However, I do really like writing emotionally challenging or angst fics or analyses that focus on inner turmoil and character growth; those just take significantly more time and energy to capture the vibes I'm looking for. (Just because something is easy to write doesn't necessarily mean that's what I most enjoy writing.)

Hardest for me would be action scenes (for creative writing). There's a certain rhythm to fights and it's hard to keep that pace. Go too fast, and the scene seems short/the fight is seen as not serious. Go too slow, and the scene seems dragged out/the fight is taking forever. Action scenes also require a lot of usage of verbs; it takes a particularly skilled hand to not constantly repeat "punch", "kick", etc. All the usual culprits. I admire anyone who can bang out an extended action scene like it's nothing, haha!

I also find writing my own theories hard, but it's for a very personal reason. I would consider myself very pragmatic, so little details that other people could easily blow into a crack theory, I perceive as "there was literally no meaning behind that and you're overthinking it". It also takes me a long time to gather the information I need, since I like to back up my theories with hard facts (like voice lines). It just takes so much effort to put together! It's easier for me if people come with popular fandom theories already prepared and ask me about those, since there would already be a pool of evidence for me to refer to. It cuts my research time in half, essentially.

Another thing that's challenging for me to write are replies to questions that involve real-world concerns. For example, I have been asked numerous times to weigh in on fandom discourse as well as to discuss potentially sensitive subject matter. The thing is, people often come to me already thinking one way about the topic. The challenge for me, then, is researching these topics and then conveying the information from as many sides and with as much nuance as possible. Sometimes I also offer my own opinion, but ultimately I would like to just provide the information and then allow others to come to a conclusion for themselves, or at least offer a counter to preexisting sentiments, to show there are other ways of thinking or seeing the same issue. I get anxious when others put such immense weight on what my take is, so I feel as though I have to be especially mindful about how I phrase things. I'm not an expert on everything and I often have to remind people of that 💦

Of course, there are also those few topics that make me uncomfortable so I choose to not respond to them altogether. I try to not completely discourage “dark” subjects entirely though; I feel it is important to discuss them from an analytical standpoint so we can better understand them, as well as ourselves.

[nevesmose]

I did some stories for the 40K Secret Sanguinala and Berserk Clangmas exchanges last year! Been occupied with my usual new year depressive breakdown so I'm only just now getting around to going into more detail about them here...

So the prompt I chose for this one was Konrad Curze/Shang including the requestor's various additional likes of smut, consensual relationship, female Konrad & pegging, fixed power dynamics between dominant primarch and submissive Astartes. And I think I met the brief pretty well, tbh.

Kassandra seemed like a good choice of name for a female Konrad. I've seen it done sometimes with Constance or Konnie or various other ways but this is Warhammer, the "Iron Hand, Primarch of the Iron Hands, who has metal hands and a spaceship called the Fist of Iron" setting. Nothing is too on the nose, and honestly for me that's a big part of the charm. So it felt entirely appropriate to name female Konrad after a seer of the future that nobody believes.

But we know what her real name is, don't we? Night Haunter. It probably sounds better in Nostraman but I always enjoy emphasing how that's his true name in his own perception. Sometimes people view him as having dual personalities of the """"good"""" Konrad versus the evil Night Haunter or something, but since he's Space Batman I tend to think of it more in the same way as some portrayals of the Dark Knight where Batman is who he is internally, all the time, and "Bruce Wayne" is just the palatable disguise worn for the benefit of others when it's necessary to do so.

I wasn't vastly familiar with Shang before writing this, but catching up on his appearances I found his dynamic pretty compelling, especially how he's shown to have genuine loyalty and love for Konrad, and it's mentioned that in return Shang is the only one of his legion that Konrad doesn't hate. Not that he loves Shang back or even likes him all that much, just that he doesn't actively loathe him.

That felt kind of interesting to me because of the wider dynamic that the Night Lords all seem to have of trying in various different ways to finally, finally win the affection and approval of a dysfunctional abusive father figure who hates them and himself and the entirety of existence, and the kind of futile hopes that this time for sure everything will be OK and Konrad will recover from his devastating untreated mental health issues and he'll finally like his army of space serial killers and violent criminals.

There's pegging too. Honestly it was fun to air out some of my favourite femdom elements since it's a good proportion of my fairly sizeable collection of romance novels, but you wouldn't know it from my very yaoi-centric fic output.

This was a treat for @chemos-factories who is a wonderful person and deserves good things, based on his request for Perturabo/Clonegrim with Perturabo wanting to acquire a perfect clone of Fulgrim for reasons that he may not be able to admit to himself. The suggested bodice ripper vibes somehow turned into fairy tale vibes as we explore Perty building a palace full of Saw traps to imprison and torture Fulgrim in, and then getting Clonegrim for entirely rational research purposes that have no twisted romantic elements whatsoever...

In the end Perty does not actually get the precious Clonussy but he does perhaps come close to actually learning something about the pain of bearing grudges and hatreds for millennia. Will he listen or actually change? Nah, of course not, this is Perturabo we're talking about. That's the tragedy of his character. But the opportunity was there at least.

And I wanted to give Clonegrim what felt like a proper happy ending for him as his own person. Like sometimes people say he should go and fight for the Imperium and lead the Sons of the Phoenix or redeem the Emperor's Children or something, and I just feel like even if that were possible that isn't, or wouldn't be, his personal goal or dream. So instead he gets to be his own person, living about as freely as anyone can, and have lots of fun Rogue Trader adventures as he explores the galaxy.

Genuinely one of the darker and more messed-up things I've written! The part of the request I focused on was King of Midland/The Torturer, Alternate Universe - The Torturer Is a Slightly Deformed Twink Erotically Obsessed with the King. That sounded interestingly grotesque to me, especially with the "nasty older men" aspect also mentioned in the prompt.

For all that I'm an alexithymic faceblind autist, I like to think I have a reasonable command of the kind of writing tricks that can be used to manipulate people into feeling things about a character and so I really pulled out all the stops for this one to get people to care about Twinkturer aka Frantz.

His name is taken from the main subject of The Faithful Executioner by Joel F Harrington which is a very, very good history book based on the diary of Frantz Schmidt, the city of Nuremberg's municipal torturer and executioner in the late 1500s/early 1600s.

The element of him being one of Gennon's victims felt like an effective starting point to achieve that, and also led to a fairly reasonable explanation for how his obsession with the King could occur in the first place.

The important aspect (as well as making him reasonably pretty as requested in the prompt) was to have it from his POV since everyone is the main character of their own story and (mostly) perceives their experiences and actions in ways that support or explain themselves and their worldview.

Of course, he's also deeply fucked up so his perceptions of things are not at all reliable, and that only gets worse as the distant effects of Griffith and the Hawks start to impact his life. I deliberately didn't have him ever meet any of the main characters in person because why would he? Everywhere except in his own head, he's an utter non-entity at the very bottom of the social hierarchy who spends his time doing horrible things in a dungeon.

He really could have had something with Alek though. They could have been happy despite everything. Sadly it's irrelevant of course, because of the King being jealous and vindictive. My original idea for the character was a bizarro funhouse mirror version of Griffith who has never had anything go right for him, but he ended up being a bizarro Charlotte instead which just added an entirely new layer of disturbing nasty old man exploitation to the story.

I had a lot of fun with this one, which started out as a quick little treat and ended up being almost 10k words of alternate universe Griffguts where Berserk is a TV show and they’re just actors. It's definitely one of those stories that took on a life of its own as it went on and overall I think it turned out well. I'm feeling particularly positive about the humour and the smut scenes here which, to me anyway, felt a lot more comfortable and natural than some of my other attempts at it. Actual improvement from practicing at doing something? Big if true.

I've always really enjoyed reading books/articles and watching videos about troubled and chaotic productions of movies and TV shows. It's fascinating and entertaining in a way I just can't describe to see these vast projects being changed and warped by all kinds of external and internal factors, and the ways in which this impacts the people who actually have to make the show or movie happen.

So in the AU, Guts has recently quit being a professional wrestler to start an acting career instead. He isn't based on any particular people as I don't actually know anything much about wrestling beyond that Rhea Ripley exists but he's aiming to have a kind of John Cena or Dwayne Johnson sort of trajectory.

AU Griffith is just That British Actor, you know the one, he's been in a few different movies and shows but you might struggle to remember exactly which ones. Sort of a blend of Tom Felton, Tom Hiddleston and a very small amount of Michael Sheen, and maybe Jacob McCarthy looks-wise? In any case he likes Berserk and he will achieve his dream of being Griffith no matter what it takes.

The Coriolanus bits, especially Guts finding the videos of it, were mainly inspired by the 2014 version starring Tom Hiddleston at the peak of his Loki popularity, during which he did in fact kiss Aufidius to the delight of the audience, as well as the 2011 movie version with Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler which also did a good job of portraying a more gruff middle-aged version of their enemies to lovers toxic yaoi.

I included a lot of fun little details in this one just to amuse myself with the AU / show within a show concept, but as it went on I was actually pretty entertained by working out how to adapt the Golden Age events into the story's low-budget cyberpunk version. Reassembled Cyberdemon Femto was pretty cool to imagine, and since I mentioned SOMA and Virus (1999) as inspirations for the production team in-story here's some pictures for vibes purposes.

It was really nice to take part and to get so much positive feedback from readers who took the time to comment! I have an inbox full of comments to reply to but just in general I really appreciated hearing people's thoughts on the stories. Thank you all! 🥰

[corbits-comet]

writing tools tips and tricks I personally use

I write historical fiction and am very detail oriented and also highly forgetful so this is the stuff I use to plan my story and so I don’t forget stuff

STUFF U NEED

-notebook or google doc (I use a combination of both) 

-internet access or a public library and the ability to read 

-your big beutiful brain you’ve got swirling around up there 

You really don’t need any fancy shit

  PRECURSORS. 

You’ll need to come up with a concept or a character dynamic you like. For me it came with: two detectives who have a bitter rivalry, and then the setting, extra characters and plot line fell into place. 

Day dreaming— this is a vital step, as soon as you get a concept, or even just a character dynamic in your head, put on some of your favorite music that you feel like might match the vibe and get imagining, just play around see what happens

Write that shit down. It seems stupid but trust me write down ever little idea you have, nothing has to go in order, you can write the ending and then the beginning and then the middle for all anyone cares. If you get ideas for scenes or side characters halfway through developing your main characters WRITE IT DOWN. Even if it’s shit and dosnt get used. 

Start stitching stuff together, start weaving in your favorite troupes, plot lines and ideas, for me it went from the rivalry to then the idea of a stalker, then the additional idea of adding political rivalry, murder, aristocracy and eventually a fully fleshed out story. Just keep adding stuff until it feels round, you can always add and subtract 

Now character work. For me at least I don’t need to know everything about the story before I start writing but I do need to know everything about the characters. I start with just doing a big infodump on each characters personality traits and their function in the story. And that’s it for now, that’s the first step. The second one is I go through the dynamics between the main characters, for example I have two main characters so I write about how they feel about eachother respectively, and then how each of them feel about the villan, the stalker, and a few other main characters etc. this will help you with scenes and character development. The third and final one I like to do is actually a character work excercises off tumblr (I found it on Pinterest here’s the link, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1038501995319442405/ no clue who wrote it so if anyone knows I’ll gladly credit them <3) and after that I usually have a pretty good grasp on what my main characters think and feel about most things in the story. You can go farther by I typically don’t

Alright by now you probably have at least an idea of what kind of setting you want to have your story in so now it’s time to start worldbuilding. Like I said I mostly write historical fiction so this step will look a little different if you’re making your own world and stuff but the basics are pretty much the same. RESEARCH. Find and read anything you can on anything relevant to your story, for me that’s geographical locations, town layouts, early zoning, social hiarchies, medicine, law and religion, as well as the functions of certian poisons used for the murders in my story. But this can look like anything. Writing FNAF fanfiction? Get prints on the layout, and if you’re making your own look up layouts of old 80’s pizzareas and accounts from people that worked there. Get the links and keep them all on a document, for later…

Lists. While all this is happening I have two lists going, one of things that I know I want to happen in the story. You don’t have to have a coherent plot line, just a general idea and then as you start working on it you’ll accrew some ideas, write these down. Even if they’re shit. You want forced proximity with the main rivals? Do it. You want a certian character to get hurt? Do it. They don’t have to have a sensical order, this is so you don’t lose track of all the cool stuff you think of. The second list is one of side characters. They don’t have to have names yet, a few of mine are ‘old richy rich mcmoneybags’ and ‘crazy old bag McGee’ and then a brief character description about what they do in the story. These characters can be even more important than the main ones, and ones your readers will remeber forever.  

And the last is one of the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten. Write your first draft like total shit. It’s a map for your story, for you to go back in and fill in later, if you think of something for the future midway, put it in and fix it later. And most importantly; you don’t have to write in order. Write what you know, what you’re excited for. Just tiny scene by tiny scene. And then start stringing them together and fill in the gaps

Now go my minions. Write your story’s. also! Tumblr writing advice can be worth its weight in gold.