#READ THE STUFF UNDER THE CUT!!

[mj-thrush-gxn]

BEEN LISTENING TO DNDADS FOR A YEAR SO FAR, SO HERE IS MY PROJECT TO CELEBRATE!!!

this is a part 2!! here is part 1: [here], it shows how i’ve improved really well too, so that’s fun.

[fellow-fandom-fruitifier]

SHADOWPEAH!!!!

Flat colors & sketch!!!

[rwrbmovie]

BTS of #RWRBMovie: V&A

Via Amazon:

NG: I think their time together at the Victoria and Albert Museum really sticks out to me as a defining moment of their relationship. My character, Henry, really shares the last frontier of his vulnerabilities and really opens Pandora's box in a way saying plainly to Alex, ‘This is my life. I'm terrified, but I'm willing to take this risk.’

From EW:

For Galitzine, who grew up going to the museum, it was a surreal experience. "I was born and raised in London and the V&A is an iconic place to visit — the galleries, the displays, exhibitions that have been on there. To be able to witness it in such a quiet state was really bizarre. Night shoots are disorienting at the best of times. It's 5:00 in the morning, you're trying to act and be emotional, and you're in this truly beautiful, picturesque setting. It was really cool to be able to explore it. It felt a bit like Night in the Museum. It was a weird, surreal but extremely enjoyable experience."

Director Matthew López didn't know for much of the pre-production process whether the V&A would even allow them to film there. "They were very, very protective as you could imagine," he tells EW. " Especially when we told them where we wanted to shoot, which is a lot of things we could break, and I really didn't want to be the guy who ended up breaking a priceless piece of statuary. But we ended up getting permission, and that was amazing." In McQuiston's novel, this key scene takes place in the Renaissance Gallery, which López and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt visited while scouting in London. But while we still see Henry and Alex run through that gallery, they decided to choose another due to the V&A's filming parameters. "It's not the most photogenic gallery," explains López. "It's kind of dark and it's very, very big, so there's a lot of blank space between the statues. The chances that you're going to get just a white wall behind you are good. And it's very hard to shoot in there because the rule that the V&A had for us was that we couldn't bring in any exterior lighting. We could not bring it in our own lights." But Goldblatt had an idea to work around that limitation. "He led me to this area of the museum where we did end up filming it," the director continues. "That long, beautiful corridor with all those gorgeous statues filled with very homoerotic art, as well as that narrow alleyway of busts. We came back another night after closing, and he had them turn off everything, all the lights except for the spotlights that were there, illuminating the artwork. But turning off the floodlights that lit the gallery for people to walk around in. What you had in an instant was darkness everywhere and light shining on the art." Goldblatt manipulated the light further with a dimmer switch, creating an almost sacred environment in which Henry and Alex could express their love for each other. "We did not bring in any of our own lighting," emphasizes López. "That scene is shot with the lighting that's available to us at the V&A. We decided that the scene would be the boys for the most part in shadow and the statues illuminated. It was a beautiful use of a problem to create a better solution that you could not have come up with on your own if you had no problem."

From Glamour:

“My absolutely favorite scene to film was the night we shot inside the Victoria and Albert Museum,” says López of the scene depicted here. “We arrived at 10 p.m. and filmed until sunrise. To have access to that museum at night without any other people around made you feel what Henry and Alex must have been feeling the night they go there together. What made it so special is that, for one of the first times in the shoot, it was just me, Taylor, and Nick working. No other actors, no background players. It’s a magical scene in the book, and it was a magical night for all of us.” 

From HELLO:

In the film, as in the book, the pair dance together here as they vow to make their relationship work, come what may. This scene is also Matthew's favorite scene, "because it's the only scene in the film that is actually filmed at the location that it's set".  "That night was very beautiful and I think it's reflected in what you see on screen; there's a magic to that place at night and I like to think we captured it," he adds.

From NYT:

The two men under the dimmed lights were the actors Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, and they swayed until the director, Matthew López, called “Cut!” around 2 a.m. for a lunch break. “It was just the three of us and our crew,” said López, who’s also the film’s co-writer. “It made for an incredibly intimate, really special night.”

From W Magazine:

There’s a sweet moment in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Why did you shoot in that sculptural exhibition? That’s not the gallery from the book. I went there with Stephen Goldblatt, my director of photography, and it wasn’t very cinematic. Stephen took me to another part of the museum, where we shot, with lower ceilings a more contained space with beautiful statues: David and Goliath, three women, the corridor of busts and torsos—very cinematic.

[ghost-in-a-trenchcoat]

I made stickers and a bookmark of the lads for my friend's birthday :)

[liquidstar]

i think that on here we've kinda talked a lot about how the traditional "coming out" narrative presented in popculture is flawed in reality. because it always presents this idea that you have to tell everyone who you Really are, that youre Hiding parts of yourself, that you can never be You until you bare your Secrets to the world. and that actually this isnt because people feel entitled to your personal business but that its hurting YOU when they dont know your personal business so you should really just tell them. (but also dont be "too" proud because thats annoying :( act mostly cishet please but dont lie about it! hehe!) it will work out every time for sure :)

but ofc thats not how real life works. i mean, naturally i understand that there are OF COURSE people out there who want to be loud and proud about who they are, and that this is incredibly important to their identity which theyve suppressed for so long. but that "coming out" narrative is harmful because it ignores many of the reasons it had to be suppressed to begin with. its fucking dangerous! its dangerous to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. they can lose their support system, family, job, house, and their entire life. both in the sense that they'll be completely uprooted from it, and in the sense that they could be killed. so constantly presenting the notion of "coming out is good for you no matter what because its the Only way to be your Real Authentic Self and also you HAVE to do it eventually because thats how this narrative is just Meant to go. be a good little queer and please dont stray from this path."

and the problem is that plenty of young LGBT+ people completely internalize it too! ive had so many convos with young people worried about coming out to their conservative family because, well, theyre supposed to! and their minds are completely blown when i tell them that actually they dont have to do that. that theyre under no obligation to tell everyone their business and its okay to just keep being them w/o making an announcement about it. ESPECIALLY IF IT PUTS THEM IN DANGER!!!! and to be clear this issue doesnt stop at age 18 or at moving out or anything like that either, there continue to be many obstacles for many people that make coming out unsafe, or just a bad life decision to uproot everything Right Now. it's okay to just be in the closet and it isn't a moral failing like cishet media wants to convince us. we all agree, right?

good! but here's what my actual real point is:

when we talk about this, for some reason, we seem to only reaaaallly be talking about the gay side of it, right? like im sure lots of people imagined, like, teenage gay boy movies. maybe a couple lesbian and bi characters too perhaps. and that makes sense because thats like the most common narrative for this sort of trope, so ofc those are the first examples we imagine. and ofc theres the more complex addition of "passing" when it comes to trans versions of this story, the idea that you gotta look a certain way to be "valid" adds another layer.

so i think its time more people started to acknowledge this about trans people too, right? i think we can all agree with this on paper already; no trans person is obligated to come out or present a certain way if theyre not in a place where they currently are able to do so. physically, mentally, financially... or just because they dont wanna! whatever the circumstances are, there is no criteria they have to meet to be vindicated in this. it doesnt only apply to 14 year olds living with shitty parents who plan to move out soon and become "Really Trans" (as if they didnt count before conforming to The Narrative), the person could be 40 and never planning to be completely out, and its the same. they dont owe you this "showing the world who you Really are in order to [earn the right to] Be Yourself" crap. thats their choice only.

however, i also think that even if most ppl on here in lgbt circles on here agree with the general sentiment... sometimes it doesnt always get applied it practice. though the whole "truscum" thing kinda died down (thank god) i still think that rampant transmedicalism has left its scars on lots of people and the things they internalize, combined with similar cisheteronormative messages in popular media about how your narrative Should go and how you Should act and look to be respected, and its Morally Wrong not to fit that mold.

so when encountered with people who dont pass, who dont TRY to pass and instead actively choose to look like their agab due to the fact that they are literally in the closet irl (lest we forget people have whole entire complex lives outside of the net) this sort of short circuit happens in ppls heads, where that internalized idea of "but you're supposed to be THIS WAY! youre not doing it RIGHT!" pops back up and they end up labeling that person as fake or Not Trans Enough for this reason.

and i do also think part of this stems from people not having enough sympathy for those whose paths are different, because they were told not to. theres a Right way, and they did it the right way. and likely they struggled for it a lot, so isnt it unfair that people are doing it the Easy Way (as if its easy to be closeted to begin with) and claiming theyre like you? thats Wrong. they have to Earn it. you lgbts should all get mad at EACH OTHER actually! this will help your community be better [in the eyes of cishetero society that doesnt really want you to exist to begin with]

additionally the reason im emphasizing the internet side of this so much is because... well, in this day and age, thats the space lots of people go to to NOT be in the closet. to at least microdose on being "out" while in real life they very much arent. like i said before, being in the closet is rough and taxing, suppressing yourself hurts which is why so many people wanna be loud and out and proud! not everyone can though, so turning to a place with relative anonymity to get that is great, and i think its probably saved a lot of people. but also because of this, its pretty much the only way to get the scenario this is positing to begin with- where you know a stranger can know that youre trans even if youre otherwise closeted completely, just so they can tell you that youre Not. but how many people in the past do you think lived lives where they never let these feelings out at all? how many alive today do you think dont even express them online?

you know that sort trope (often stereotypes in media) of a trans person "crossdressing" only when alone, in order to get a short bit of relief or euphoria that they cant in their closed life? i think that today we have the internet to do that. i think its kind of the same thing. but its also very different, because its not as private. its still secret, because its anonymous, but its also something shared with plenty of strangers at the same time. they dont know you irl, so its safe, distant, and gives you that rush of being yourself, and being referred to correctly by others too. theres community, theres support, and theres friendship too, once you get to know those strangers. its not a "second life" or a "persona" is just a side of yourself you dont show elsewhere, an identity that needs to be let out one way or another.

who the fuck are we to deny others the right to this life-saving connection just because they arent out? because they dont pass or dress the Right way irl? because we decided they arent trying hard enough to "fit in"? because they dont plan to change their lives to fit the right narrative anytime soon?

should they not be allowed into the community then? that would be perfect wouldnt it? leave many who need support out to die, because they did it Wrong. fight within our community over who is doing it Right until we've broken it in half. the righteous ones [according to cishet standards] are surely going to be treated with respect once they get rid of the Bad ones, right?

yeah, i dont think so. thats horseshit. we're stronger together than we are apart, thats why infighting is so useful to those who dont want us to be strong to begin with. its important to help each other, boost each other up, even if some of us arent playing the "right" part irl. are we really just going to sit around and accept the cishet norms as rules to live by? fuck that. not everyones story will reflect it, and you have to accept them anyway if you want a strong community. it doesnt matter how much they might look/act like their agab irl, if theyre telling you otherwise take it at face value, respect them the way you would any other. again, many of us agree with this on paper, but i think we still have to put work into acting on that too.

the end <3

[wildflowercryptid]

messed around some new brushes so here's a bunch of dg doodles, (feat. two of the characters from one of the fancase ideas i've been muddling over.)

— credit to @whisperingrockers for harrow's fantastic design once again!

[sandzephyr]

;; hi there! Little update under the cut!

Short verion: I am incredibly eager on coming back as soon as possible! <3

But...despite all of that I'm really hodling up on my mental health work, really happy for that, if I was in a slightly worse state of mind these past weeks would've killed me. But God damn it I cook myself a warm meal every day and shower up to four times a week! Something I can be proud of :p

life things are so ridiculously much rn that I have decided to schedule hobby time...for my sanity! I live in an old house with 6 other 20-32yos and we've been having old-house-problems, and like all of them at once. rats (due to our home being right in between a public pool and a popular river bank), disgusting pipe...problems..., fleas (roommate works at a vet clinic and brought them home to her cats), a roommate moving out in the most chaotic way possible!!! and squirrels nesting right outside my windows... Also, two monogamous friends of mine decided to break up with each other which has been a challenge on all my social capacities... and my part time job went bankrupt very suddenly and I'm basically unemployed. Sooo I rearranged the garden, did plumbing for the first time and it worked (!?!?!?) and pulled fucking (partially molded) flooring out of our living room and renovated that, got a new fridge...etc. and idk life decided it all needed to happen within like 2 weeks lmao I hate being an adult so much y'all

...damn I didn't realize this would turn into a life rant, very sorry for that. :")

I have all of you drafted and I cannot wait! My next scheduled hobby time is coming up! Please don't forget meeee<3<3

[lucky-clover-gazette]

captive prince book 1 highlights & annotations

chapter 11

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

‘Why not?’ Nicaise said. He looked past Damen towards Laurent’s chamber. ‘What happened? Is he all right?’

context: nicaise was coming to warn laurent.

More silence. There was obviously something on Nicaise’s mind, and he wouldn’t leave until he said it. Eventually: ‘Don’t tell him I came.’

context: ow

‘You can tell the Prince that,’ said Damen, ‘after you tell him you let through the Regent’s pet.’ That got a flicker of reaction. Invoking Laurent’s bad mood was like a magical key, unlocking the most forbidding doors.

pretty sure that’s invoking the regent, not laurent

He had somehow expected to see the quilted covering, darkened by sweat or blood—some sign of what had happened—but there was nothing. He looked up at the place where Laurent had stood and watched him.There was no reason to have laced Laurent’s drink with that particular drug if the intent had been only to incapacitate. Rape, therefore, was to have preceded murder.

even in the place where laurent tortured him, damen has a moment of concern for him. but still he goes, which i think is the right call, given the information damen currently has. laurent hasn’t yet proven himself trustworthy to damen or a first-time reader. and independent from laurent, damen has his own character arc that requires an escape attempt for its development. 

In a court like this, Laurent could simply summon a pet to help relieve him of his difficulties.

damen you know he wouldn’t. stop lying to yourself and own the fact that you’re abandoning him while he’s vulnerable

He was thankful that the men on the palace rooves were gone, and the patrols were not yet out. The patrols were out. What rankled the most was that Laurent had been right.

more than being recaptured? yeah that tracks

‘Move and die,’ said the soldier in charge. Which was an apt summary.

Jord said, ‘The Prince is before the Council. Your orders are an hour old. Kill the slave, and you’ll be the next one with your head on the block.’

context: laurent knew that he (as in laurent) was right, and that damen would get caught. he has everything to gain from throwing damen under the bus, using this escape attempt as a means to recapture the court’s favor. but despite what damen thinks, laurent has a personal code of honor—and perhaps even more pressingly, a strong resistance to owing his brother’s killer any favors.

‘If he doesn’t lie with you, what was he doing in your private space so late at night?’

can’t two friends just vibe

‘Taken advantage of my innocence,’ said Laurent.

fuck, the context of this being implied by the regent…

‘Yesterday I brutalised him. Today I am swooning into his arms. I would prefer the charges against me to be consistent. Pick one.’ ‘I don’t need to pick one, nephew, you have a full range of vices, and inconsistency is the cap.’ ‘Yes, apparently I have fucked my enemy, conspired against my future interests, and colluded in my own murder. I can’t wait to see what feats I will perform next.’ It was only by looking at the councillors that you could see that this interview had been going on a long time. Older men, dragged out of their beds, they were all showing signs of weariness.

vere, land of yapping. and patriarchy! 

‘This defence of the slave bothers me. It isn’t like you. It speaks to an uncharacteristic attachment.’

context: regent does not want laurent to have allies. also, it will discredit laurent in the eyes of veritians if he is perceived as attached to their enemy

‘No one,’ said Laurent, ‘has more reason to oppose Akielos than I have. If Kastor’s gift slave had attacked me, it would be grounds for war. I would be overjoyed. I stand here for one reason only: the truth. You have heard it. I will not argue further. The slave is innocent or he is guilty. Decide.’

reverse card: laurent’s protection of damen proves damen’s innocence and laurent’s integrity, because laurent has every reason to hate him.

‘I,’ said Laurent.

genuinely blindsided. he knows the campaign is a death sentence

‘There. It is done. Come,’ said the Regent to Laurent, extending his right hand. On the smallest finger was his ring of office, gold, capped with a red stone: ruby, or garnet. Laurent came forward, and knelt before him gracefully, a single kneecap to the floor. ‘Kiss it,’ said the Regent, and Laurent lowered his head in obedience to kiss his uncle’s signet ring. His body language was calm and respectful; the fall of his golden hair hid his expression. His lips touched the hard red kernel of the gem without haste, then parted from it. He did not rise. The Regent gazed down at him. After a moment, Damen saw the Regent’s hand lift again to rest in Laurent’s hair and stroke it with slow, familiar affection. Laurent remained quite still, head bowed, as strands of fine gold were pushed back from his face by the Regent’s heavy, ringed fingers. ‘Laurent. Why must you always defy me? I hate it when we are at odds, yet you force me to chastise you. You seem determined to wreck everything in your path. Blessed with gifts, you squander them. Given opportunities, you waste them. I hate to see you grown up like this,’ said the Regent, ‘when you were such a lovely boy.’

horrific parallel to some of laurent and damen’s earliest interactions—“come here,” the kneeling, “kiss it.” they’re both captive princes.

also, that last line. fuck. chills. this is where i knew about the regent’s abuse, for sure, although i had suspected before. 

[front-facing-pokemon]

[corpsentry]

ao3 mirror

fandom: your name engraved herein rating: t starring: birdy, a-han

It's three am and you’re barreling down a deserted road at the speed of fast. He’s gripping the handles for dear life; you’ve let go. You’re not wearing anything under your suspenders and your voice is hoarse from shouting. His shoulders are shaking with laughter. “DO YOU LIKE THE COLOR OF MY NEW BIKE?” What color was it again? “IF YOU LIKE IT I DO TOO."

Birdy, on flying.

11.

You stare at him the whole way to the beach. What else are you gonna look at? Any time the two of you go somewhere the whole world narrows down to just him and whatever else happens to be there. It’s always been that way. Him and the old lady snoring in the seat across the aisle. Him and the street papered with calligraphy and movie posters the size of airplanes. Or tonight, him and the cramped sleeping quarters on the overnight ferry, the plasticky curtains and the three-centimeter mattress.

It’s like— here’s the thing, right. The world’s always been plenty interesting to you. You like how it’s full of contradictions. You like the sting of knowing you’ve gotten under someone’s skin, the way anger slides off you like cold water. All your life you’ve lived like that, running backwards and laughing at the moon.

He was the first thing you didn’t have to put on goggles to look at and still found beautiful. When he showed up that day in the pool you forgot you were in a movie for a moment and tried, like a big fucking idiot, to live. God, shit, you could die in that light. But the laws of the world dictated your graduation, your marriage, your first kid. You couldn’t hang out forever between bus rides and train rides, sleep curled up in KTV rooms until you got kicked out by the waitstaff.

Well. You probably could. But he couldn’t. Even now, after everything (and by everything you mean everything, you mean the hell you’ve unleashed on this miserable fuck of a boy for no good reason at all), he’s still— you’re still— You follow him across the country like a damn hoot, buy whatever tickets he buys, yell at him in that voice that you know makes him self-conscious because it attracts too much attention, and he doesn’t do a thing.

He could tell you to fuck off. He could walk away from you, take a sharp turn and start running, though he’d have to really put his heart into it to lose you because you’re better than him at sprinting and long distance and worse than him at everything else (you get distracted by pigeons when you’re playing basketball). He could kill you, for all you care. Might as well. You’re basically asking for it.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t have it in him to be cruel, even now, pushed to the edge of the water.

That’s why you left. That’s why you’re leaving.

10.

“You see, I was the one who stole the balloon and strung it up,” you tell his parents, sitting on the lumpy green chair in their lumpy green living room. “But he said it was him.”

His mom is wounded. His dad is mega pissed off. You’re just there.

They do that for a while— his dad getting more and more mega pissed off at the table, his mom fretting her sleeves to pieces against the wall.

“Fuck. Piece of shit son. Fuck.”

You do not lift your gaze from your hands, which you hold unnaturally still under the table.

“Dear, let’s wait for him to tell us his side of the story…”

“What side of what story? Fuck. He’s not gonna have a damn mouth to talk with when I’m done with him. Goddamnit.”

The floor is tiled with medium-sized white squares. The ceiling light is a single bulb covered with a frosted panel of concave glass. Out of the corner of your eye, leaning against a cabinet, you see a potted plant with big scalloped leaves, mostly dead.

“Which girl was it? What class?” A pause. “Hell, who are you? What class?”

“Dear, we know Po Te, remember?” Muted shuffling. His mom is scuffing her slippers on the floor. You imagine her wringing her hands together the way her son does, bringing them to the back of her neck and looking away. “They’re friends.”

An irreverent amount of time later, he shows up with a bloodied collar and eyes like marbles with bits of gold in them and you have to fight all twelve apostles of god to stay angry. You think you might be one of the biggest pieces of shit the universe has ever produced. You think that your shitbag dad was right about one thing, just one, his whole life.

“What,” he says slowly, like it hurts him to speak, “do you want me to do?”

You rip your gaze away from the floor. “What do you want from me?” He takes one step forward. You take two back.

“What?” What. “What do you want?”

You want, um, let’s see. You want to watch a really good movie, one of those western ones, with violins and guns and lots of crying. You want to eat roasted peanuts out of a shallow dish. You want to go skinny dipping, to tear down the street on a 3 am motorbike, to climb out a broken window and keep going up, up, up, until you punch through the atmosphere and into the stars.

You want to cry.

“I want—” you spit, and you’re all fucked up now but because your throat is closing up the words come out cold and mean, which is exactly what you want and terribly unfortunate.

“—I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

One time when you were little your sisters took you to the public pool. You were something like seven; they were eight and nine and eleven. There was this giant slide, three storeys tall, that all the kids were lining up to go on. Your sisters wanted to go too but you were too young to follow so they took turns watching you in the kiddy pool. The kiddy pool had a mini slide which you slid down over and over again, pretending you were on the giant slide with everyone else. Your eldest sister was doing handstands in the water when you went down the slide wrong. You hit your head on the edge of the pool, right where the slide should have dumped you into the water. You floated aimlessly for a while before walking over to your sister to tell her what had happened but she ran over before you got there and asked, all panicky: what happened? Where does it hurt? She touched the side of your face, right below where the blood was starting to dry. Only then did you start to cry.

A-han looks you dead in the eye and it’s a little like falling off a motorbike.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

There’s some shouting from both sides. His mom pleads to the air to stop fighting, you’re the best of friends and you think here is someone who could have done something and then keep throwing punches because she should’ve but she didn’t and now it’s too late. His dad is so pissed it’s actually moved him to inaction, although he’s shaking hard enough that the ceiling light is doing a little jig. Or maybe it’s you that’s shaking, you can’t really tell. Your vision’s a little shot through right now. You’re a little in over your head.

A-han inhales and all the air in the room leaves with him.

“Mom, dad—”

Oh no, he’s actually stupid.

“The person I like is—”

You’re so choked up his name comes out more like a scream than a shout. But he hears it, and stops.

“Okay,” he repeats, dry as an Arizona summer. Something in him is giving but not in the direction you want. It is possible that you are crying. You’re a little in over your head. You’re a little in over your head.

You stand in the Chang family’s living room for a moment, counting the number of leaves on the dead plant.

Then you follow him out. There’s nowhere left for you to go, after all.

9.

It made you angrier that he came, actually. You didn’t want him to see you like this. You didn’t want him to see you at all. If he saw you then you might see him and then it would all come flying out of you like week-old chickenshit, miles and miles and miles of want pouring out of your eyes, ears, teeth. You’d made an art out of hiding the shiny thing in you. Worked yourself to death to make it happen. It’s like— say this whole thing was a movie, right. Then Taichung would be the stage and A-han’s eyes would be the camera. This being one of those sprawling epics, you couldn’t break the fourth wall and let the audience know you were in on the big secret so to prevent that from happening you decided to stop looking at him altogether. Easy. Just don’t look. Don’t look at him, Birdy. Don’t look.

But God is cruel and mysterious in his ways. By the time A-han wheels into the staff room, wild-eyed and frantic, you’ve already lost. And then your shitbag dad clocks him over the head with a chair and your vision flares red and— then, well, it’s really over.

8.

We can’t talk about this.

We can’t talk about what happens in the shower. What would we say?

Before: He hadn’t wanted to give you his motorbike (he never wanted to give you his motorbike) but you asked anyway. It had become a litmus test of sorts; how much could you take from him before he punched you in the face? You’d set this rule for yourself when the new school year began where you were only allowed to talk to him if it’d make things worse. So you asked again. And again. And again, but this last time, you didn’t do it for Ban Ban. It was a Tuesday. You’d dreamed about him the night before, which was the first mistake. Your limbs were heavy and disconnected and your head felt like a watermelon full of bits of other fruit but you wheeled the bike out anyway. The meaningless gray sky followed you around like a dog no matter how fast you went and it was so frustrating, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop even when the road started to spin— the second mistake. You saw it happen through a wide-lens shot like it was someone else who totaled the bike. Then there was noise, chatter, bright spots in your vision. The guy from the stall up ahead insisted on calling an ambulance though you cussed him out hard enough to make your shitbag dad flinch. Eventually they left you alone. You were angry and hurt and bleeding. The fruit cup of your brain was getting put through a blender, as was most of your left arm. In a moment of bottom-of-the-barrel despair, left with nothing but your body, which was ruined, and your heart, which you had yourself broken, you— the third mistake— reached for your phone.

After: You couldn’t stop crying for hours. At some point, he left.

7.

You have this theory that the bigger the gesture is the longer the feeling will last. You are telling yourself this as you haul ass towards the massive balloon that will surely fix everything. You’re not sure how exactly it will fix everything. All you know is that you’re playing an important role and you need as many people as possible to believe it. In that regard, the balloon makes sense. Once you’ve got it up at assembly no one’ll be able to look away even if they want to, although you frankly do not care what anyone wants. You care what Ban Ban wants in a faint, geographical way. You care a little what Father Oliver wants because he gives just half a shit less than all the other adults, which is impressive in a world this boring and dumb. As for the rest of them— whatever. Tomorrow is your confessional. All they have to do is watch.

A-han is here because someone needs to make sure you don’t get caught. That’s all.

“Hey, uh— are you done yet?”

He sounds far away and annoyed.

“Almost,” you reply, look down, and regret it instantly.

You’re grateful A-han’s such a caring and conscientious friend. He wouldn’t let you get caught because one, he’s a nice kid and two, he’s got common sense. If you got in trouble then he would, thus implicated, also be in trouble, which would be bad for him, so…

He wouldn’t do that to himself. He’s stupid, but not that stupid.

“Hey, you know, the thing I wanted to tell you—”

“Yeah?” you say, working your way through the river of knots. Your brain catches up a few moments later. You remember, suddenly, how you tricked him into coming out here in the first place.

There is a brief, meaty silence in which he works up the courage to keep talking while you rip your fingers to shreds getting the rope loose.

“Actually, I—“

You have not done it but you start whooping anyway. The sudden rush of oxygen leaving your lungs makes you light-headed. Five meters down, A-han is trying to tell you the words that will undo you. But all you can hear is the cicadas.

Now you’re tearing down the street on a 3 am motorbike, the helium balloon rippling behind you like a deep-sea jellyfish. Now you’re gripping the edge of the seat and howling at the moon. Now you’re sneaking off during morning assembly, crouching in the grass, setting it afloat.

It’s just a murmur at first but it quickly grows into a storm. Six hundred eyes go wide with wonder.

A-han can barely look at you. You see the emotions flit across his face from your place in line, the rest of your body turned towards Ban Ban, who is blushing like the sweetest dusk. Surprise, curiosity, confusion. Then the click of realization, the shuttering of the eyes.

As the crowd goes wild with the ecstasy of young love, you feel a sick thing surge through you. This must be what people feel like when they take home 100% on a test and their parents give them extra pocket money.

God, you’ve never tried so hard for anything in your life. He’d be so grateful, if only he knew.

6.

Here is the part of the story where you change your mind.

It wouldn’t have taken much to stop you. You wanted to be saved. You wanted to stay on the dark, uneven path that led into the woods. You were just waiting for someone to tell you it was okay to keep going like this, anyone at all, and then it would— it really would be— okay.

But no one did, no matter where you went and how far you wandered.

So it wasn’t okay. You had to go.

5.

If asked, years later, you’d probably say this moment was the worst.

Not the fighting. You’d been beaten up before and you’d get your ass beat again no matter how you tried to avoid it. Not the name-calling, either, though that did reach a new and unprecedented level once they realized no one was going to make them stop. You were just schoolboys being schoolboys, punching each other in the face, screaming each other’s ears off. Standard coming-of-age stuff.

It’s not that everyone within a fifty meter radius was watching. You don’t mind attention. You always liked the sound of your own voice more than anything. It’s not the way the metal grill of the gate dug into your hands and left them red and stinging. It wasn't the moment of free fall, or the impact, or the way you walked funny on your right side for two weeks after. You didn’t make it this far in life on faith alone.

When you were thirteen you decided your name was Birdy. After that, the world became way more interesting. You couldn’t leave it alone— you were always prodding at it or shoving it around, trying to find the limits. You were a one-man circus trying to redefine what it meant to be young and alive in a country that had almost, almost made it out of the dark. Only the rest of them were coming into an age of power, while you were slowly growing aware of a deficit in yours.

The other boys were wrong about one thing: You never wanted to fly. All the living things with wings had already been doing it for thousands and thousands of years; there was no point in starting now when you’d never be able to catch up. You didn’t need to fly, but you couldn’t break. Birdy was a prayer that had to hold no matter what came.

You considered your options. You could try to really do one of the guys in— but you were fast, not strong, and you were terribly distracted by all the noise. You could ask for help, but that would be humiliating. You could try to run, but the hallway was so narrow and there were so many of them and there was so little of you. You’d already gone for the grill once and that seemed to have only made things worse. A-han was this close to socking one of his thug friends in the face. You couldn’t drag this out any longer.

So you climbed onto the railing.

No, this isn’t the worst part.

All their anger liquefied into fear the moment you stood up. One of them, you forget his name, was pleading with you. Look, we’re sorry, come down, come down, please, or whatever. It was so abrupt it was almost funny. You wondered if anyone had ever been this afraid for you before, and concluded that they hadn’t. It occurred to you that maybe your humanity really was this thin, that they’d never regret it unless you died in the saddest, most miserable way possible. You thought: This is fucked as all hell, and I am quite sad.

Then you forgot all about this stuff, because you saw him.

“Birdy?”

Oh, how you hated that he saw you. It would’ve been shitty if he weren’t there but you’d dealt with shitty before and you’d deal with it again. It didn’t matter what happened to you as long as you got to keep Birdy. Birdy was fun and loud and a little crazy. Birdy could outrun the police and out-laugh the gods and got distracted by pigeons in basketball games. Birdy was untouchable.

You flapped your arms, just in case they turned into wings. What do you know, it was a lie all along.

Then you jumped.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when they realize the limits of their own abilities and, simultaneously, the inherent cruelty of the universe.

It sucks that you found out so early. You should’ve stayed young for five, ten, a hundred more years. You deserved to grow up wild and carefree, ricocheting down empty streets and turning in absolutely none of your homework.

But you found out. Okay, now this is the worst part.

At no point did you betray each other. You loved that boy like nothing you had ever known. It lit you up from the inside like a goddamn firework.

You knew. You were aware of the beating of your own heart. It didn’t matter.

4.

Three times you pretend to be asleep.

One: The middle-aged women sitting both in front of and behind you on the bus to Taipei keep you awake for most of the ride. It’s not their fault, not really, and you don’t get mad; you’re just a light sleeper. Always have been. A-han is the opposite. He’s out like a rock the whole time, even when one of the women makes a particularly bad pun and her friend lets out a shriek of laughter just as the bus jolts to a stop at a red light and someone’s baby starts howling its toes off. Meanwhile you nod off a hundred times, tensing awake each time at the sudden warmth of his head, his shoulder, his neck. When the bus pulls into the station, he’s energetic and well-rested. You’re doing everything in your power to let go.

Two: The KTV is his suggestion. You were all like, let’s just get something from a street stall and squat on the stairs until dawn but he noticed you acting funny and correctly inferred your exhaustion. He pays for both of you at the counter. It agitates you a little, though you don’t know why. Later, halfway through your noodles you ask him what would you do if I died and he says don’t think about such dark shit and you think that’s a good answer. Then you lie down and close your eyes because you’re tired. You think maybe sleep will come for you this time but instead you just become deeply, frighteningly aware of his body in the room. He sits for a while in silence— probably thinking about french horns or something. You start to drift. The rustling of fabric jolts you awake. The sofa shudders where he presses his hand into it, centimeters from your neck. You feel him getting closer, a bright bloom of heat traveling through the dark. It dawns on you, suddenly, that he is going to kiss you. Then there’s a sharp knock on the door— just like that, he’s gone.

Three: You were cold, that's all.

You were cold even with your jacket and the half of his body pressed into your side and the jukebox at your back. He was like the first time you jumped into a pool and learned that you could float. The voice of a dead man was ringing in your ears like a hymn, saying our world isn’t as bad as you think, so why are you so sad, why are you so sad…

3.

“I glanced across the room,” Father Oliver is saying, his voice somber and low. Everyone in the room gawks at him without blinking like a bunch of damn ghosts, as if by watching him talk about love they will understand a little more of it themselves. Ha! If only it were that easy.

A-han’s fiddling with the mouthpiece of his trumpet, distracted. Your gaze travels from his hands to the sleeves of his uniform, his collar, his left ear.

“I was looking at him—”

His hands still. He lifts his gaze to the blackboard, eyes unfocused. Father Oliver’s voice fades into the static of the afternoon.

“—and he was, also, looking at—”

And there you are, and have been, all along.

2.

Your love language is gifts. You give him everything you have and then some. Steamed buns, peanuts, the physics exam sheet.

Your love language is acts of service. You feed him juice when he’s supposed to be standing to attention. Cut his hair on the basketball court.

Your love language is physical touch. You clap him on the shoulder, punch him in chest, flick him between the eyes, sling your arm around his neck, sidle up next to him at lunch, high five him for breathing, lie next to him on his tiny mattress eating snacks you stole from the superintendent’s office, clap him on the shoulder again, your hand lingering on his skin while you think about difficult questions like what happens when we die and where do we go after and it wouldn’t be that bad if this is all you ever had. You’d go like this willingly. A whole life pissing into the dorm head’s car while A-han cusses under his breath at silly, crazy Birdy, oh Birdy—

Is this the moment where it ends?

Or is it when the dorm head finds snack wrappers in your bag and he steps into the hallway while you’re down on your hands and feet, getting your ass whipped to pieces? Or is it the first time you show up in his room at night and you watch him give in to you in real time, his whole body deflating as he sigh-laughs and gestures for you to come up to his bunk?

1.

Or is it that day in the pool, when he tells you his name and his class and the whole world slides sideways to make way for him?

You’re seventeen and you know nothing. You know you hate your shitbag dad for raising you angry. You know you hate people who beat the shit out of others for no good reason. You have a lot of hate in you for someone so young, and very little else.

Well. You also have Birdy. And Birdy has A-han, but that’s later. Later you’ll run wild through the deserted streets of youth and laugh until you’re dead. Later you’ll grow up, and it’ll be the worst thing that’ll ever happen to you.

Nothing will hurt after that. Nothing will move you, either.

0.

One time when you were young you transferred schools. You were seventeen and full of anger and loneliness; he was seventeen and shimmered when he moved. There was this thing everyone was talking about back then, this feeling of being able to do anything you wanted. It was 1987 and the world was on its way out. The more the adults said they couldn’t have it the more all the young people obsessed over it. They hopped over gates and made out in cemeteries after midnight. They got in trouble like clockwork.

For what it’s worth, you didn’t give a shit. You were perfectly satisfied with your one-man circus, running around after dark and sneaking snacks out of the superintendent’s office when no one was looking. Sometimes someone was looking and you got caught and it was kind of shitty, but you’d dealt with shitty before and you’d deal with it again. You were the kind of reckless that invited trouble. You knew. You liked it.

One time when you were little your sisters took you to the public pool. It was the first day at your new school and your name was Birdy. When you saw him in the water it felt like you’d been swimming in the deep all your life and been dragged, abruptly, to the surface.

One time when you were little you hit your head. One time when you were young you broke your heart.

You floated aimlessly for a while before walking over to the phone. There were so many things you wanted to say to him but he started talking before you could find the words. He was always braver than you. He would have never jumped, but then and again, you would have never let him get there. Anyway, he said I— my senior wrote this song. I’m gonna play it for you, okay?

He touched your skin right below where you had fallen off the motorbike and cut yourself open, where the blood had begun to dry. He was so worried about you. The water in the shower was running, running, running.

What happened? Where does it hurt?

Only then did you start to cry.

999.

In which year do they fix the world?

In another universe someone sticks their neck out for you the way you did for that other kid. It’s messy, of course. He gets his ass beat for it right along with you but you guys get in a few more good hits too. It’s super worth it. Maybe he’s also— you know. Maybe he isn’t. Doesn’t matter.

Anyway, it’s in the small things. The small thing this random stranger does for you is enough to stop you from ruining the next three decades of your life. It’s absurd, looking back, how easy it was. All he did was say something.

This sets off a chain reaction of random strangers doing small and insignificant things for each other. Maybe five people’s lives are changed. It is revolutionary, though none of them know this. When the thing you are fighting against lives in people’s hearts and grows like a disease, anything you save is a triumph. If you can save anything at all, you celebrate.

In this other universe Zhang Jia Han dials W-A-N-A-N and you dial it back after a period of terrible, but necessary, contemplation. In this other universe you keep going to movie theaters and eating roasted peanuts out of shallow dishes. In this other universe you go back to Taipei.

You go to film school, both of you. You make movies, he writes the songs.

Someone has written this story, I’m sure. Someone fixed the damn motorbike. Maybe you did too, in your dreams, the only place where you could forgive yourself.

But we can’t.

We can write your story, but it has to stay the same.

—.

You’re barreling down a deserted road at the speed of fast. He’s gripping the handles for dear life; you’ve let go. You’re not wearing anything under your suspenders and your sling bag and your voice is hoarse from shouting. His shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“DO YOU LIKE THE COLOR OF MY NEW BIKE?” he shouts.

“IF YOU LIKE IT I DO TOO,” you shout back.

Remember this moment. Remember it when he calls you a year later and plays you the song that will undo you for the rest of your life. Remember it when you graduate, get married, file for divorce, get fired, move to a new city, lose everything.

Remember it when you see him for the first time in three decades and decide that this time you will do things right, because it’s not coming back and it’s not going anywhere: your wild, blemished youth. You were young once and you’ll never be young again. You can start living now, and god, you will But you died once when you were seventeen.

It wasn’t your fault. You searched under every fucking rock and paperweight; you looked for signs in the clouds. But the world failed you. At every juncture in the story, in every scene where someone other than you and A-han was standing there pointing and laughing, it failed you. They were always pointing and laughing at you.

It would have taken so little to change your mind. But even that small, pathetic amount of hope— they couldn’t give it up. You were young once, you were Birdy and A-han and A-han and Birdy, and they let you die.

You lived a subpar life until forty-seven, but at least you lived.

So remember this moment. Look for the laughter lines in his face, the crow’s feet. Notice his old habit of touching the back of his neck when he’s nervous and covering his mouth when he smiles. Remember the feeling of his warm breath on your face, the dim red lights of the KTV room. Remember how it felt when he pulled you out of the water and you emerged, spluttering and coughing into the back of your hand.

"Are you an idiot?" he said, incredulous.

"No," you grinned. "I'm Birdy."

It’s 1987, and you’re unstoppable.

[mbirnsings-71]

Happy Birthday Dick Grayson I don't have the energy today to draw a full drawing for you so take this doodle I did of a Pose I found on Pinterest (original image will be under the cut)

The Reference image I used for this just because I wanted to practice poses today-

[averlym]

HI I DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE INTO ADAMANDI HOLY SHIT. Can’t believe so few people know about this masterpiece of a musical

:OOOOO hai i agree it is criminally (haha yknow bc there are crimes..) underrated!! and really brilliant!!! discovered it literally midway through the week and akdfjgsjhdsjhjgdf

have a doodle of the saints :3

[youredreamingofroo]

OKAY!!! Thank you @slightly-ludic @kuroashims @groovetrys for the tag !!! Ya'll tagged me in this last week and unfortunately it was when I was lowkey depressed BUT NEVER FEAR!! I did see ya'lls posts and have finally gotten motivated enough to do this!

I'm kinda surprised I got Lawful Good, I honestly see myself as Chaotic Neutral or Lawful Evil 🤔🤔 But anywho! I did the picrew for me AND Roo (as always), I was REALLY cooking up ideas for what kind of adventurers we'd be so if you'd like to read all that, it's below the cut :)

I'm not tagging anyone cuz I'm 5 days late but- if you wanna do this, feel free to do it and tag me!

Quiz and Picrew

If I was an adventurer... I'd be some conglomerate of Arachnid/Reptile Alchemist, in the case of a game where you choose a character to start with (no character customization to start with), my character would have a frustratingly high Strength attribute only for me to not be able to do Melee damage (for example, if the average beginner Strength attribute was 5, my character would have a +8 Strength Attribute and a special passive along the lines of "Cannot do melee damage / Perform melee attacks." My main source of power/magic would be Water, who can also do Lingering Poison and Electric damage (While Poison and Electric are also an area of strength, I wouldn't do as much damage with either than I would if I were fighting with Water). If I had a familiar/companion, it'd be a black cat (reflecting my irl pet, a cat :))

My Adventurer name would probably be something like "Achar the Aracho-alchemist" (alliteration ftw)

If Roo was an adventurer... Roo would be an Elf/Goat (Satyr?) Archer, he's a lot more feeble and fragile, however does pretty reputable damage, although he's a master in normal flint/iron tipped arrows and a wooden bow, he can also deal damage via crossbow bolts and a crossbow, or variously tipped arrows (poison, fire, etc), but like me, the damage wouldn't be as comparable to what he's good at using. Along with being an archer, he's also a bard and has a once-per-battle spell where he can enchant the opposing party into being distracted for 3 turns / 2 turns ( smaller enemies / bigger enemies [ In the case of a time-based battle and not turn-based like bg3, it would be somewhere around 1 minute / 45 seconds for smaller / larger enemies respectively ]). He's also that one character that makes you wonder if he's dressed for the role and the answer to that would be no, no he is not, but somehow makes it work LMAO His familiar/companion would be a deer (I think it just fits his twink-ish vibes </3)

His Adventurer name would be something like "Roo the Rising-in-Fame Archer" (rising in fame would be a nod to his musical talent and the archer part is obv OASJHDNB)

[mossylane]

Hello :( I don't want to sound demanding, and if you did it on purpose, I understand. But did you take down most of your files? I wanted to download something (halima skirt, oversized hoodie, high-waisted shorts and a couple more) and all sfs links are dead :(

hehe, not at all. actually thanks for letting me know. I re-did my downloads page several nights ago at 1am on a work morning and I must've missed some (basically all) links. It's fixed now !!!

[im-not-a-l0ser]

New Headcannon for michie.

Max says that Richie should've joined the smoke club because it was once offered to him.

Not by Max, but he was around. Someone was talking with Richie about smoking, and Richie had said that he'd never smoked before. And the person (prolly Ziggs) said "I deal weed sometimes, I can get you some." And when Richie rejected it awkwardly, they said "No, I mean for free. You seem really stressed out."

Maybe Richie even did smoke once, but decided he didn't like the way it made his already asthmatic lungs feel. Maybe he and Max had a conversation too. Idk.

Uh, btw, this is partially based on a true story.

I was talking to a classmate during open-salon hours (neither of us had appointments, so we were doing homework in the classroom) and they offered to give me weed because I seemed really high strung and tense. Maybe because I've had numerous breakdowns in front of the class, but yknow. Neurodivergent and queer in a class that drives home how important social skills and political neutrality is.

(Not even joking. It's a rule in salons not to talk about politics, religion or sexual preferences. And even though sexuality and gender identity are neither of those things, we're not supposed to say anything even if it's relevant.)

(I've also had a lengthy conversation with my first year teacher about how I didn't understand an assignment because social ques mean nothing to me, and then later when I joked about being autistic she said "Oh, Conner! You're not autistic!" Like ma'am, I'm not diagnosed, but you have no standing to say shit like that jfc)

I never have smoked though. Even being around my mom's vape is straight up torture. Plus, my of-age sister can't do any substances bc of health problems so it feels rude.

[sysig]

It always seems like such a good idea in the moment (Patreon)

The first four are in reference to a great idea I had of - since I’ve finished my lower-limit page number testing for making books; shorter fics take up less page space, and just increasing the font size isn’t as handsome! - simply making a mini book! All it would take would be to halve the pages again, right? Just cut them right down the middle! Easy peasy!

As I’m sure you can tell by the second, no. Not easy peasy. Difficult painful un-fun >:(

Obviously I still did it tho! What do you take me for, someone who could have the idea of an even tinier book and then not do something about it?? No It’s also the only one so far to have a paper bookmark rather than a ribbon!

All told it’s a bit smaller than your average manga (I love the monochrome covers on these under their dust jackets haha <3) - you can see even with effectively doubling up the pages by halving their size, it was still very small-spined!

A quick shot while it was still being made hehe ♪ It’s Out! Paired here - and the earlier one, just without its dust jacket haha - with my Zarla SC2 collection (ft. Family, Negotiations are Going...Well, and With No Obligation) - I absolutely kicked myself after the fact for not including Out as the run-up to everything, I was really trying to make a full collection in probably-chronological order! Out would’ve been a perfect start! And it only would’ve taken like four pages!!

Ah well, it was still quite a learning experience - I probably wouldn’t make another standalone of under 4k-ish just for formatting reasons but I did get some good ideas of how to do so if I wanted to! Although, my next project is going to be even more of a formatting nightmare........I’ll get there when I get there! Lol