#Then edited that pose out because it was too unrelated

[mintisse]

My partner for the Precure Secret Santa was @strawbunnydoesart ! And yeah I immediately fell in love with her Cure Vampira from her fan series Monster Gyaru Precure. What? She's red, that's cool

Definitely check out their designs, they are super fun!

Version w/o the text under the cut

[yurisorcerer]

If anime were appraised solely on their last episodes, Metallic Rouge would be pretty decent, but they aren't, so it isn't.

I'm not going to recap all the various little revelations and plot twists here because honestly who could possibly care? The gist is that the events of the preceding twelve episodes don't truly matter because everything was really just building up to this, a showdown between Rouge and her father figure Dr. Jung, a character who is barely in the show before this point (even in his hooded guise as The Puppetmaster), and who feels ancilliary to much of what the series was trying to do before now.

The actual events of this episode feel very random and I'd almost say fanficky? In isolation it's not a terrible finale but finales of course do not occur in isolation, when taken against the backdrop of everything Metallic Rouge could've been, and indeed *actively tried to be.* The Neans' plight doesn't matter because the entire thing was orchestrated by Doc Jung, which he demonstrates in a long monologue that comes off as trying way, way, wayyyy too hard to make this boring cutout of a Super Intelligent Chessmaster type character seem interesting. If the show had just focused on this from the start instead of interpolating like four unrelated plots along the way, it might've worked a lot better, but it's inherently hard to know.

It would certainly feel less distasteful. I cannot get over the fact that this series treated "serious examination of discrimination and a moral question over the ethics of armed struggle," regardless of its (deeply shitty and unbelievably milquetoast) conclusions, as just another hat it could put on and take off at will. None of it ends up mattering! At the last minute Rouge just decides to free the Neans, because *now* she thinks it's the right thing to do. If we were going to build Rouge up as some kind of liberator and savior it would've had to start many episodes ago, and despite occasional toothless gestures in that direction it, really didn't. I hope fellow tumblr user @naomiortman doesn't mind me digging up the comments they left in the tags of their reblog of my last writeup on this show, because honestly, they're completely correct and get to the heart of the problem of why *this specifically* was a pose that the show should never have attempted to strike if it wasn't going to commit.

The whole thing is just very offputting!

And as for everything *else* the show tries to do, the genre-hopping was occasionally fun when it remembered to not be stupid about it, but that was really only a handful of episodes in hindsight and if someone doesn't feel that that's enough to make up for the show's *many* writing mistakes, I find it very hard to disagree with them.

And then there's the last couple minutes of this episode which....reveal at the end that Clown Robot Girl was secretly a Usurper all along and installed a virus turning all Neans into murderbots, which just completely threatens to saw the legs off what happened mere seconds before, and then it turns out to completely not matter because Gene installed an antivirus beforehand because he knew this would happen somehow? (Gene is a nothing of a character and is another reason this show's writing sucks eggs.) And thus Neans have freedom now, because of a completely unforeshadowed, last-minute minor plot twist that occurred offscreen.

This show is hilarious, and deeply unserious. My friend Sredni (@ihfsttinuf) also pointed out that apparently a bunch of this a wholesale bite of the end of RahXephon? I haven't seen that show so I can't comment, but like, lol. (EDIT: That's apparently by the same guy, by the way! So if anything it's self-plagiarism.)

Just so this entire post doesn't come off like an angry rant, there are a few things that work. Mainly the buildup of real, mutual trust between Rouge and Naomi. (Or maybe I just want it to work because otherwise this show truly does have nothing going for it on the writing side.) At the very least, it's delightfully gay, I like the visual of the two of them together inside Rouge's mindspace. Although even this comes with an icky side effect in that Naomi is now like, functionally dead as her own physical person. IDK man, any time I try to give this show credit for something I find another way in which it could have so easily done better.

Hey, at least they brought the dedicated combat theme back, that's good. And Cyan is right, Rouge's new form does look really cool. (Why did they feel the need to kill Cyan, by the way? You can't both have a shitty central narrative AND kill all your best characters.)

I don't want to come off as though I just completely hate the thing top to bottom. It was entertaining on a week to week basis, but in trying to do so many different things it just kind of does nothing, and I find it really frustrating for that reason. The visual aspect of the show remains compelling (I love the Gladiator designs, seriously), but I could never in good conscience recommend this to someone even if I don't "regret watching it" per se.

What a mess! Glad it's over.

[yurissweettooth]

My Typical Art Process✨🌈

Was gonna reply to anon with this, but figured it was a bit too unrelated so I'll make a separate post! I do kinda wanna share my process anyway for anyone curious. I made something similar for twitter once but I no longer use twitter and my style has changed since then so here's a new one!

Tl;dr I draw for fun only and I have learned that textures and overlays and post-processing can do a LOT when it comes to making something look more "complete" while also not taking a lot of additional time. This is just my personal style spawned from my laziness and my love of harsh colors😆

I'll put it below the cut because it's long!

So to begin with, when I doodle (as opposed to a proper drawing that I take my time on) this is my typical "lineart":

I just draw the… what do you call it? The under parts… Like the circle and shapes, etc. to get the pose. Then lower the opacity and do another sketch on top of that. Then I lower the opacity of that and do ANOTHER sketch on top. 😆 I do that as many times as necessary until it looks like something. I don't worry a ton about anatomy or messiness or stray lines, it's just for fun to get an idea out of my head :)

Sometimes I also leave the under-sketches in or sometimes I turn the layer off. For this one I left them in.

Then I turn on all my textures, overlays, and H/S/L correction layer and crank the saturation up. The selected colorful layer was something I made once and saved it as an image material so I can just slap it on any time as an overlay. You will see it in almost all of my art, she's my beloved crutch and also I just like it lol. Other than that, I sometimes use paper textures that CPS came with and sometimes I make a perlin noise layer with the smallest grain size and set it to 'soft light'.

I also have recently been using a manga screentone overlay that comes with CSP.

Then I start coloring underneath!

This is how it looks without all of the blinding colors and textures I put there to distract you from the mess lol

Even in ones where I DO put in effort and try to use better anatomy and clean up a lot of the scribbles I pretty much never use clean lineart simply because I cannot be bothered 🤷🏾‍♂️ I don't really do anything different here, I just spend more time one it:

Also, even then the overlays and textures do a lot of the heavy lifting. Some of the overlays and effects I draw myself like the rainbow boarders around them and of course the doodle hearts. I don't draw backgrounds very often but I don't like an empty background so overlays or little doodles or text effects typically go there.

I should also mentions that I use the lightroom mobile app to further enhance all of my art, as shown above in the before and afters. I don't really have much to say on this point. I used to use lightroom mobile a lot when I did doll photography and I pretty much just wing it based on what I learned doing that. I like to mess with the texture settings and do masking edits to change the foreground and background independently to get better color balances. Like a bozo I pay for the subscription but I bet you could use any old editing app.

Oh, and I do pretty much everything with these brushes here. I got them a while back when they were free for 48 hours but unfortunately they are no longer free and cost 80 clippy now :( Should also warn you that they saturate any color and idk how to stop it from doing that so I just adjust the color accordingly before using or edit in post. Very nice though!!

Some other (free) things I like and use a lot:

Warm color set

Watercolor paper texture (free)

Cloud brushes

Watercolor auto action

Real paper textures

Prism brushes

Freckle brush

Aaaaand that's basically it!

[jdeowrites]

On being an author in a tumultuous Trad Pub landscape

This is very much a... me talking to myself post, not a news post. Skip if talking about publishing is not your interest. :)

If you’re in on publishing discourse, then you know some of the biggest news of the week has been layoffs in the industry. Perhaps the most shocking was the abrupt closure of HarperCollins’ Inkyard Press, which was communicated to authors and agents through a mass email (Inkyard, if you don't know, is a YA imprint, which used to be called Harlequin Teen.). Some of those authors had gotten their edit letters or had marketing meetings with their publishing teams just the day before. The especially terrible part being, of course, that all those Inkyard employees were also let go. And it was a surprise to them too (yikes).

(Here is a Goodreads list of a bunch of Inkyard authors you can help support!)

It sucks for so many reasons—for all those authors and employees—and while I’m just an observer to this, not having any titles with HC myself, a lot of people I know were affected. And for myself? It did make me reflect on my priorities as an author in this industry. We have truly no control over what could happen on the publishing side of things. There is stuff going on at a corporate level that is… way unrelated to the work I am doing. That has nothing to do with art and everything to do with capitalism and shareholders and higher-ups making their business decisions in NYC offices. 

For myself, over the past few years, one of my major struggles has been figuring out what books I am going to write, when I have felt the pressure to write certain things or to change my works in certain ways, to create things which are more “marketable”. I have nearly bent to these expectations many times, before realizing how unhappy I was and leaving it to go work on something I was actually passionate about. This has delayed my career but I knew it was the right decision for me. And yeah, this Inkyard news really just cemented that for me: there is no point in trying to please anybody except myself with my stories. Because the institutions I’m trying to please don’t actually care at the end of the day.

Even if you and your work do manage to get past acquisitions, that’s not the end of it. Anything could still happen. Your editor who was so enthusiastic about you might leave, and/or your imprint could close like Inkyard did. Or maybe other things happen that majorly affect you, like, your marketing/publicity budget might suck. Your book might tank. It might be received badly. The marketing trends could change and suddenly your book is Out of Fashion before it’s even printed. Or things could go bottoms up at your publisher—for whatever reason, things happen—and your book never even gets printed at all.

And here’s the thing: even if you write books that are easier sells, those risks still exist. There are no guarantees. Which is why, each time I feel the pressure to bend my stories into something else, I try to remember that. If I lost it all, would I regret not just writing the book the way I wanted to in the first place? 

I find posing that question offers a significant amount of clarity. 

And that’s the key, I think: figuring out where that line is for yourself, between the freedom you want for your art, and the realities of the industry we have entered. Trad pub is a business and you have to play the game to whatever extent you can stomach. You don't know whether that will pay off or not. Some people have to write to market since writing is their main job, so they're constantly playing this game, and that's totally okay too. But if you're more like me, that's not the case. If you're like me, you're thinking, okay, so publishing is fickle, trends are unpredictable, and I don’t control any of it. That is either horrifying or... incredibly freeing.

For me it means this: write the books you want to write. Don’t compromise on the stories of your heart. It’s you who has to go to sleep every night for the rest of your life knowing you wrote it. It’s your name on the cover. It’s your life’s work. Your legacy.

Make it matter. Publishing industry or not.

[communistcephalopod]

fuck it, ranking all of these

#12

The filter. The make up. The "Actually... one more time". The fact that it's inspired by that weird Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland remake, down to the stupid fucking "Underland" retcon. The turning of an unrelated joke into a fandom post. The fact that it's the 8th addition to a bit that has long worn out by now. This is the epitome of classic 2010s Tumblr cringe (affectionate).

#11

12th place was kinda a toss up between this and the last one, but I figured that that one hits harder while this one's just kind of low quality. Most of the others have a decent bit of editing done while this just has the saturation turned up which just makes it look crusty, some flame pngs could have saved this. What really kills this for me though is the the font choice. Really hard to read, it looks like it says "BORN TO BE WOLD", and it just doesn't feel like it fits.

#10

This is the first of the fandom hats, which were inevitable, but I'm still not a fan of them in the face of what the joke was supposed to be. It's also the 7th hat in the post, at this point the gimmick is really starting to grow tired. You could argue that it doesn't really represent the vibes of the character that well, but that's nitpicking, and it isn't totally off.

#9

Not bad, but as the 3rd reblog (I think? The early parts of this post have somehow been fucked up by time) and the first non fedora, this is where the floodgates open and you realise exactly the kind of post you're about to witness. Everything from here on out isn't riffing off of OP's joke, it's a continuation of a thread. This post is That's Amore Guy's fault. Whether that's a compliment or an insult is up to you I guess.

#8

Captures the style it's parodying pretty well, but it fails to stand out in a sea of reblogs. Well made, but not much to comment on.

#7

Same deal as the last hat, gets a place higher mostly because it was lucky enough to be relatively early in the chain.

#6

The same joke as the original, but the rose and the shitty poetry are a nice touch. Being the 2nd reblog also helps.

#5

I know I said I'm not into the fandom additions, but the camera angle on this one is too good to write off. It would have been so easy to just throw in some coins and goombas or whatever, but the use of the Bowser plushie and the dramatic pose and the fireballs make this one genuinely pretty funny.

#4

One of the less high effort ones, but as the original it doesn't feel like it's part of the one upping contest the others are in, it's a self contained joke, and as a self contained joke it works pretty well.

#3

A solid punchline and a necessary conclusion. Successfully manages to say "alright, wrap it up, we're done here" while still somehow managing to end this hellpost on a high point.

#2

Right as the post is about to grow stale it hits us with this. One of the best edited images on the post that really captures the 2015 douchiness so perfectly. And the caption. "Shave your arm hair" next to that face is so fucking funny to me, I don't know what else to say. I just really like this one.

#1

Many of the hats on this post suffer somewhat from being late additions that come after a long stream of 2010s Tumblr cringe, but this beats out "Shave your arm hair" because of where it is. After three of the worst hats (in my opinion) in a row, this honestly saves the post. Breaking up the barrage of lol wacky 2015 humour with a 'Nam flashback is such an effective gut punch. What really makes this one though is when he takes it off. Everyone else does the same cartoonish blurry jump back while making a stupid face, that's part of what makes the post feel the way it does. He just sits there. Horrified by what he's seen. 10/10, peak cinema.

Are fedoras really that bad?

YES YES THEY ARE

[tadashiluvr]

what aoba johsai would post with you

smau/headcanons

pairing: oikawa tooru x reader, matsukawa issei x reader, hanamaki takahiro x reader, iwaizumi hajime x reader, kyotani kentaro x reader

genre: fluff

warnings: the images mostly show women but no pronouns or gender of reader are mentioned, smoking (cigarettes), alcohol

a/n: i'm bad at moodboard type things, especially for relationships, so i apologize if they're ugly

karasuno version

nekoma version

shiratorizawa version

oikawa

he's one of those people that make all his friends be his photographers for his instagram (iwaizumi is TIRED)

everytime there's a sunset you have to take a picture with him, not that you're complaining

his captions are cute, short things like "mine <3", just a spam of heart emojis, or relationship poems and qoutes from 2014 he finds on tumblr and pintrest

yes, he's cringy. no, he doesn't care.

you two constantly get posted on pinterest

he doesn't like to post your face, because he doesn't want anyone to get jealous and harass you for dating him, but he still wants everyone to know that he has an s/o

matsukawa

hanamaki takes pictures of the two of you to make fun of mattsun but mattsun always ends up liking them and posting them

the captions are usually an inside joke or something stupid

he posts way too many pictures of you guys making out (makki always tells y'all to get a room as if he didn't take the pictures)

he sometimes posts pictures of just you, usually they're candids of you looking away, taken without your knowledge

if a post doesn't have you in it, it was definitely taken by you

hanamaki

he has one (1) good picture of you two posted

he acts like he's ~mysterious~ or whatever but his pics are just low quality and blurry because his friends couldn't take a good pictures if their lives depends on it

posts every picture he has on his phone, he doesn't care about a theme

his captions are always random words unrelated to the picture

one time he posted a picture of your matching shoes and made the caption "elbows"... sir, what are you even talking about

he always said he would never be in a "cringy relationship" but now all his posts are of you

iwaizumi

never thought he would be the type to make 90% of his social media his relationship until you two started dating

his friends call him a simp for having a theme related to you on his instagram

he probably has a tripod just so he can still take pictures of you when oikawa, his personal photographer, isn't around

he's so, unexpectedly, cheesy

he loves to pick you up in pictures (it's definitely not to show off his strength /s)

he makes all his captions "i love you" in different languages

kyotani

every picture of you two ends up on some alt person's pinterest

always has no caption and comments off unless you want to comment, then he'll turn them on just for you and delete every other comment

he acts like he doesn't care but he's definitely spent an hour trying to make a picture of you fit into his theme

let's you pick the poses, angles, lighting, etc. since he prefers editing the pictures over taking the pictures

doesn't like to post his face much but he will as long as you're in the pic

[miekasa]

AOT characters x their partner on social media is something I love thinking about omg. Eren is the number 1 menace, I swear, he likes keeping an aesthetic and he wants your face on his profile, and he wants to be in yours, and he will brainstorm for cool captions for you both 😭 Jean acts all shy, but that tall mf also lowkey feels the same way as Eren 😭. Mikasa is very relaxed and cute about it, she’s so effortless when it comes posting you on her feed, same with Sasha probably. Connie would post your funny faces 100% while Armin….blonde coconut I feel would be shy at first but is a fan of couple-y posts. Same with Erwin, and Erwin would add the cheesiest suburban dad captions like “my better half” or shit like “forever yours” 😭🥴😭 Hange is just all over, like they’ll be super unpredictable, from wildly funny to very touching stuff. Pick is just sweetness!! All around sweetness that can make you melt. Porco would be…actually I’m not sure, he seems like he’s in line with Eren and Jean 😭 Meanwhile, Levi would not care at all about social media announcements and “instagram official” and people outside his close circles find out about his partner on their tenth-year anniversary because they bumped into you both while you were out on a date 😭😭

No because you hit the nail on the head here anon!!

Eren and Connie are fiends and almost shameless in how much they want to be on your socials. If you do the thing where you record your food when you’re out to eat with Eren, he’ll interject into your video—“And me! She’s with me!! Show me!!” After some time—or if you tease him by purposefully leaving him out of the frame—he’ll just snatch your phone when you’re recording or taking pictures and makes sure to get himself with the front camera 😭😭 oh and you will be on his, it comes with the price of dating him, he loves posting videos that gradually zoom in on your face before you notice he’s recording.

Connie just photobombs everything. Even if just his eyebrows make in the frame, you better post it. He’s watching you. He loves taking funny selfies and posting them with absolutely no context, and videos too!! He reminds me of that TikTok of the guy who pans the camera to his gf laying in the grass is like, “We had a beach date, and, yeah I love her,” and pans the camera to his face, “I’m faster than her tho. We raced. But yeah, love her.”

Jean pretends like he doesn’t care if you don’t post him, but he cares 😭😭 he’s always willing to take a photo for you, but he wants to take them with you too!! He’ll not so subtly be like, “Hey, did you post those pics from the other day?” as a gentle “reminder,” and he’s honestly so cute you gotta give into him. He likes posting pics with you too, and claims he’s gotta keep it updated so he’s got something to show his mom—“She’ll think I’m making you up if I don’t have proof, babe.”

Armin gets nervous about posting you at first—the whole being publicly affectionate thing, plus the internet is forever, you know. But once he sees that he doesn’t necessarily have to post you guys holding hands or kissing all the time, he relaxes. Just a picture together, or a picture of you from one of your dates every once in a while is cool with him. He takes good candids and they’re his favorite to edit and make all pretty. He gets surprised whenever you post him, and he’s honestly not checking for it/on social media all that often, so he finds out through a friend like Sasha who’s bubbling, “Armin you guys are gonna make me jealous!! Your beach dates look so cute!!” And Armin’s a little confused, until she adds, “I saw the pictures on Insta!!” And now he’s slightly pink in the face.

Porco is… more likely than not recording you innocently vibing or minding your own business before he comes to bother you bye. He thinks your surprised face is so fucking funny and needs several video evidences of it. He gets grumpy when you get an off-guard of him, but just show it to him after and suddenly he’s like, “I look pretty good there, actually,” like yeah, dumbass, that was the point 🙄🙄 he posts his shit on Twitter tho, and is always acting like he doesn’t know you—“Girlfriend for sale, willing to trade for Breath of the Wild. At least $30 cash otherwise,” and thinks it’s funny when you threaten to block him. Or he’s subtweeting you when you CLEARLY follow him: “Anybody else know someone who falls asleep 30 mins into a drive?? No?? Just me??”

Erwin and his captions anon please I’m hollering. You know he uses the filters embedded into Instagram, too, and it makes some pics come out grainy/more dull. He comes questioning Hange with genuine curiosity, “How come your photos look so… bright? How do I do that?” Sir, open up VSCO and free yourself from the shackles of Sepia.

Levi could not care less about what and how much you post of him on social media, and his own is so scarcely updated; he really just has it so he’s not a complete ghost to the world, and to occasionally cure a fit of boredom. The pictures he posts are always nice tho, simple, cleanly edited and shot, and sometimes he’s not even in them. He doesn’t mind if you post him or not, but every once in a while he’ll stop by with a simple heart emoji in the comments. (To which Hange absolutely loses their shit every time and loves to joke about, “omgggggg are you and @leviackerman official???? 🤪🤪🤪)

Hange is the undisputed champion of photodumps and you cannot prove me wrong. Above all, they love posting a series of chaotic photos that tell a story—three slides dedicated to photos that caught you falling down; several photos back to back of you stuffing your face with food; frames of the both of you posing for a photo with the front timer but of course something made them topple over you. Their captions don’t help either, almost always unrelated from the disaster that just unfolded. Could have posted a photo dump of you two skipping (and falling) at the park and the caption is like “fun fact: a cockroach can survive up to five weeks with its head cut off!!” (The disconnect between the pics and captions always confuses Erwin. @e.smith: Very cool! But, what do roaches have to do with you guys looking like you broke your ankles? PS—is everybody okay?)

Mikasa is relaxed about posting you, and she lowkey really likes to be posted on your socials. She doesn’t say much about it, but she likes going back through your profile and looking and what you posted, and the comments from your guys’ friends being supportive. The pictures don’t necessarily spell out that you guys are Together, but that’s okay with her; she doesn’t need four pics of you guys kissing on her timeline to make her happy. She has lots of pictures she doesn’t post tho and you’d be shocked to find them, you gotta hype her up a bit to post them, “Mika you look hot here!!! The people need to see!!! Feed them!!!”

It comes naturally to Sasha, too. She likes documenting your dates with pictures and videos and has a blast editing them afterwards, too. Just AirDrop her the pictures you took and she’ll fix them up for both of you to post later. She’s a fan of silly matching captions and is always in your comments with a million emojis.

Pieck absolutely the sweetest girl. Her whole feed manages to naturally come out in soft filters and pastel colors. She always tells you she doesn’t have to edit a thing when you’re in the picture. Definitely posts photo dumps that include pics of food, sunrises, her cats, and a few off-guards of you thrown in there. Abuses the bugs and sparkly emojis in the captions.

Annie literally posts one pic a few months (by a few months, I mean like 11 months) into your relationship with the simple and upfront caption: “This is my girlfriend” and everyone is in the comments immediately bye. Berty is acting super surprised even tho he basically set you guys up, somehow Reiner genuinely didn’t know, and Sasha is clowning him for not catching on, and then he’s like “wait since when????? i thought they were just really good friends????” Mikasa comments a singular scissor emoji and it sends everyone into orbit, even Annie likes the comment.

[loki-zen]

The various comments on the many notes of this post suggest that it may be less universal than id been led to believe (and this goes double for calling it ghost reading, Vs doing something equivalent and calling it something else), but no, not a public libraries thing.

Very nearly all libraries exist within some broader organisation, such as a university, school, hospital, or whatever. In my country organisations which have a library are overwhelmingly at least partially publicly funded or else they are charities, YMMV - this is mostly relevant because those sorts of places tend to have a lot of scrutiny on their spending and tend to handle that bureaucratically, but there's no real reason this would be less likely to apply at a profit-driven org.

This parent organisation typically controls the library's budget to some extent, and creates pressure on the library to provide some sort of evidence that it's getting value for money out of the funding it gives the library. Even beyond the financial side of things, good collection management does mean that you endeavour not to buy a lot of stuff that sits there on the shelf not getting used.

But how do you know what's being used?

A very low-tech solution is to check the stamps in the front of the book. However, this is cumbersome (have to physically get and examine each book to get its usage data) and inexact - loads of places now have self-checkout systems that don't result in books getting stamped. So normally these days we'd go off data automatically generated by the library management software, which counts checkouts.

But if you're a reference library, a university library, anywhere with study space and at least some huge not very portable reference books, there's probably a good deal of usage of books that goes on that's entirely contained within the library space. So, you need some way of counting that too, in order to justify continuing to buy those big reference books (or in order to know which of them you ought to buy the new edition of).

TL;DR - if anything, it's more of a reference libraries thing

On an unrelated note for library marketing stuff I took a picture of the skeleton recently that was posed to make it look like she was taking a selfie; I'd totally post it if it wouldn't completely dox me

nearly all libraries have a ghost, but medical libraries frequently have a ghost and a skeleton

[maybankiara]

PHONE SWAP (DREW STARKEY)

18: MR. WHITE CLAW

summary: Addie Mallory is just your average economics student when she meets Drew Starkey at her local Target in Atlanta. This is where the story is supposed to end – a short meeting and a picture to go – except Drew accidentally leaves with the wrong phone, and the story begins, instead.

w/c: 4.4k

a/n: long one! sorry about it. i promise it won’t happen a lot. also, if i catch one of yous hating on holden you’re gonna catch these hands. <3

read on wattpad

previous part | series masterlist

Me | 6:42pm I swear it’s fate that you’re coming back today because you know what Me | 6:42pm MARIANNE IS MAKING GOULASH TOMORROW Me | 6:43pm surprisingly unrelated to you coming back but hey!!

Drew | 6:45pm no way! Drew | 6:45pm Does she make good goulash?

Me | 6:46pm I’d be able to tell if she ever made it before lmao Me | 6:46pm it’s her first time Me | 6:47pm but she’s a pretty good cook overall so!! I wouldn’t expect like a masterpiece or whatever but a decent meal??? Me | 6:47pm f yeah

Drew | 6:48pm I’m inviting myself over Drew | 6:50pm what time should I come by?

Me | 6:57pm if you think for one (1) second that this wasn’t an invitation Me | 6:57pm you are terribly wrong, mr. white claw man

Drew | 7:01pm ok but WHEN SHOULD I COME OVER

Me | 7:02pm oh right 

Drew | 7:05pm ???

Me | 7:05pm Marianne says goulash will be around 6 but you can come over at like 4 or 5 so we can catch up!! Me | 7:06pm I still need to show you the album!! I developed some photos I took since we hung out

Drew | 7:07pm 4 sounds great, can’t wait!! Drew | 7:07pm I’ll make sure to bring some White Claw Drew | 7:07pm What does Marianne drink?

Me | 7:08pm Vodka Me | 7:08pm Tequilla Me | 7:09pm jk you don’t have to bring anything, we have enough alcohol in the fridge

Drew | 7:10pm Still bringing beer

Me | 7:10pm And good vibes

Drew | 7:10pm And good vibes, of course

Me | 7:10pm Gonna be good 😄

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The bell rings shortly past four o’clock, and Addie buzzes their guest in with a smile on her face. Marianne peeks from the kitchen, leaning over the corner, strands of her hair falling from underneath the headband-bun combo she’s sporting for the cooking. 

  ‘Is it the celebrity judge?’

  ‘Sure is a judge,’ Addie says, unlocking the door. ‘Not so sure he’d like the celebrity title.’

  The door opens and reveals a smiling Drew, in his usual attire – a simple grey tee with a Queen logo on it, black jeans, and a baseball cap. Greetings are exchanged, and then Drew’s taking his shoes off as Addie warns him that maybe Marianne might be a bit much today. There’s a casual whiff of cologne that Addie catches – it’s similar to Holden’s minty one, but simpler.

  ‘You ready to munch on some British-French-American-Hungarian goulash?’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘Is anyone ever ready for that?’

  ‘Nope. But Marianne has just called you the celebrity judge of her nonexistent cooking show, so you’ve got no choice but to be ready.’

  ‘Fair,’ he says, just as Marianne shouts from the kitchen, ‘I’ll have my cooking show soon!’

  The self-proclaimed chef pops out of the kitchen, wielding a spatula covered in a dark red, thick liquid. Her red-and-white apron is tied haphazardly around her waist; both the apron and the sweatpants have already become victims to her cooking, and the bun seems to be getting looser by the minute. Marianne flashes the two a massive grin, one finger pointed at Drew.

  ‘Drew!’

  ‘Marianne!’

  Her grin widens so much Addie’s worried it’ll rip her cheeks. She wiggles her finger, then, in a come here motion. ‘I need your goulash expertise, stat.’

  ‘Give the man a moment to breathe,’ says Addie. Next to her, Drew chuckles. 

  ‘Do you want to enjoy the goulash?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Then let the ones who can make it good do it and stay out of it.’ Marianne crosses her arms over her chest, and a drop of liquid falls off the spatula. She doesn’t even notice. ‘Drew?’

  ‘Coming right up, boss.’ 

  With a pat on the back from Addie, Drew departs into the kitchen. Marianne is already listing off all the things that she’s put in the goulash, how she’s done it so far, and how the internet has told her needs to be done from now on. Addie tunes most of it out – while she thinks Marianne is one of the best cooks she’s ever met, after living with her for over a year, some things you can’t help but get used to and eventually, get a little bit tired of. She’s happy there’s Drew, though, because he’s either very interested in Marianne’s process and amused by her telling of it, or very good at pretending to be so.

  Addie grabs a rather small box with a pink bow on it out of the hallway drawer, right next to a grey envelope, then makes her way to the stack of French books lying underneath the TV. The newest copy of a first-edition of The Unbearable Lightness of Being in French is lying on top of a photo album, the same one that Addie told Drew stories from the last time he was over here. She tucks it under her arm and brings it to the kitchen, which has a prominent smell of Marianne’s cooking – a lot of spices, some of them even scattered around with powder spilling out at the edges, and wine that’s both a part of the dish and accompanying Marianne and whoever’s keeping her company. This time it’s Drew, so instead of wine, there’s a can of White Claw in his hands. Addie chuckles to herself.

  Marianne, huddled over the steaming pot, motions for Addie to come closer without looking. ‘How does this smell?’

‘I don’t know how a goulash is supposed to smell.’

  ‘Like that,’ Drew answers. ‘Stop worrying so much.’

  ‘If it can be better, I’ll make it better,’ replies Marianne, then asks him to contribute with some spices and then stir it. ‘If it goes badly, you made it. If it’s great, I made it.’

  Drew laughed. It was a big kind of laugh, the one that fills out the entire room. Taking a seat at their modest dining table, Addie realised it’s been a while since anyone other than the two of them laughed so freely in this place. (That just made her miserable; she needs to stop focusing so much on work and her studies if she wants to retain a semblance of a social life.) She puts the album down, and places the box right underneath it – just enough to be noticeable.

  ‘Addie, you didn’t tell me your roommate is basically the female equivalent to Gordon Ramsay.’ Drew’s leaning against one of the cupboards, sipping his drink with a smile. Marianne elbows him in the shoulder, frowning. 

  ‘The kids one, maybe. I don’t swear, that’s Addie’s job. She’s the sailor.’

  ‘Bitch,’ says Addie under her breath, feeling warmth creeping up into her cheeks as she smiles. ‘Calling me out like that.’

  Marianne doesn’t look at her, but Addie hears her quiet giggle. ‘That’s a quarter.’

  Addie sighs, and Drew lets out a chuckle that sounds a lot like oh. He probably figured out what the jar filled up with quarters is, and Addie thinks he’s finding it a little too amusing, so she says, ‘Don’t laugh.’ 

  Of course, it doesn’t work.

  ‘That’s kind of funny, you’ve got to admit.’

  ‘No.’

  He raises his eyebrows at her, not even trying to hide the smile. Addie calls him to look at the albums, after she places a quarter in the jar, because she can feel Marianne is about to side with him and go on a tirade where she makes fun of Addie’s bad habit – not that she minds, really, but she’d much rather see what Drew thinks of the photographs and his birthday present. 

  It ends up taking him a long time to notice it, which starts driving Addie nuts, but she wants him to be the one to notice it, because… Well. She doesn’t really have a reason. 

  They go through the photographs and Marianne is hovering over Drew’s shoulder, nearly dripping the goulash a few times onto the album, until Addie tells her that her goulash is burning (it isn’t) and she finally leaves the spatula where it belongs, before coming back to look. She likes the photos, and so does Drew – Addie had most of them developed, both from Waystone and the park they were in. Most of them were of the places, but there were a few of Drew. They weren’t the best quality, but his face was relaxed in them, and he was smiling with a playful glint in his eyes, and Addie liked them more than the ones where he looked like he was posing. (She developed those, too, but still hasn’t quite figured out where to put them. She’ll probably give them to him.) Good memories were made that day, and friendships cemented, too.

  When he finally notices the box, his eyebrows shoot up. ‘Is this the present?’

  Addie just nods and waits. She’s thankful that Marianne is humming along to the music while she stirs the pot, because it means that there’s no awkward silence while he carefully unwraps the bow, as if it would break if he tugged on it too hard. He opens it, finally, and laughs – Addie feels like he’s been laughing a lot more recently. 

  He holds the present in his hand, shaking his head. ‘A phone case. Really?’

  ‘Yep.’ Addie grins so hard she bites a little on the inside of her lip; what if he doesn’t like it? She pushes the thought away. ‘Can’t have us swapping our phones again.’

  ‘True. Although, it did end up in a pretty good thing.’

  ‘I guess it did, yeah.’

  There’s a moment where they’re just staring at the phone case, as if it is about to start talking. Addie kind of wishes it would, and once again feels thankful for Marianne’s music. She doesn’t want to start reminiscing, but that’s where her brain is going, and suddenly she finds herself thinking about that summer morning where she was hungover and half-asleep when she met him and it feels weird that it’s been nearly six months since that. It feels like it was yesterday, but it feels like Drew’s always been around. 

  ‘Mr. White Claw,’ he reads off the back of the matt case, amused. Addie’s pretty proud of herself for that one.

  ‘Nothing describes you better than that, basic white bitch.’ She smiles at him, and kicks him under the table so he’d look at her. ‘Happy birthday, dude.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He raises his can and waits until she raises hers, then says, ‘To swapping phones.’

  Addie clinks the can against his. ‘And making friends.’

  ‘And putting another quarter in the jar. Don’t think I didn’t hear that.’

  ‘Marianne.’

  ‘Nu-uh.’ Marianne snaps her fingers, pointing first at Addie as she speaks, then Drew. ‘You, quarter in the jar, and now that the ceremony’s over, I need you back at the cooking station. The goulash ain’t gonna cook itself, mec.’

  As Marianne says, the other two do. Addie is honestly just grateful she doesn’t have to be the one helping out in the kitchen, because as much as she enjoys cooking, Marianne’ demands get on her nerves sometimes. That, and Drew is actually enjoying helping her out. Addie gets to sit back and relax, listen to her friends make food and bond over the dishes they can make—turns out Drew is incredible at making his mum’s casserole recipe, and promises to bring it over someday—and she feels like she’s come a long way from being holed up in her room, studying and working. Even if sometimes it feels like nothing’s changed. 

  In between helping Marianne, Drew puts the phone case in its rightful place. It’s a bit cheesy, but Addie likes the thought that there’ll be a reminder of their friendship with him at all times, if he likes it as much as she thinks he does. It’s a bit silly, too. Addie likes giving and receiving presents that are more silly than useful, which is probably not the savvy and mature way to approach life. 

  Time wears on, and Addie includes herself every now and then, mostly just chilling on her phone as the two work towards what they claim is going to be a masterpiece. She highly doubts it, and it’s amusing whenever she voices her opinion and they try to argue otherwise. She likes to see them getting along – she’d never admit it, but as much as she knows and loves Marianne, a part of her was still scared he’d get the celebrity treatment. Now, she watches as Marianne threatens to throw goulash if he doesn’t cut the pepper faster, and she can only laugh. 

  Her phone chimes and there’s a text message displayed over Holden and Addie’s faces –  a picture taken barely a week ago. They look happy together, and seeing it brings a smile to her face. As Addie texts back, Marianne ushers Drew away from the pot, finally taking over. Drew joins her at the table with a can of White Claw and a can of Heineken. 

  She puts her phone down and takes the Heineken with thanks. ‘Cooking time over?’

  Drew nods. ‘The chef fired me. I think.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Addie laughs, ‘the chef tends to do that.’

  To prove a point, Marianne gives them the finger, and says a whole sentence in French out of which Addie can only understand ‘merde’, and that is mostly because she turns around for that word, glaring at the two. Drew nearly chokes on his drink, and Addie just shrugs, because it’s Marianne, and no one can really understand Marianne. A conversation starts about photography and how Drew did mean to bring the camera, but he left it with Chase and Madelyn when he was visiting, and he ends up telling them stories from all the sets he’s been on. 

  When the bell chimes again, he’s the first one to notice, as he’s sitting not even a foot from the entrance into the kitchen. ‘Someone ringing?’

  ‘Oh, god, I forgot— Thanks!’

  Addie makes a beeline for the hallway, giving her friends a quick ‘one moment!’ in lieu of an explanation. She’s at the front door within seconds and opens it with a smile, greeting her boyfriend with a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. 

  Holden chuckles, and then he’s giving her a brief kiss on the lips before they part. ‘Hello there. You had a bit to drink?’

  ‘A little,’ Addie says, feeling the heat in her cheeks. ‘I’m glad you stopped by.’

  ‘Me too.’ His hand falls from her waist and he takes a step back, looking around. ‘You’ve got the papers?’

  Addie reaches into the drawer and takes the grey folder out of it, but doesn’t give it to him just yet. ‘I know you’re in a hurry, but Marianne is making enough goulash for a whole village, and Drew’s here, and I want to introduce you.’

  ‘He’s here?’ he asks, just at the same time as Marianne shouts from the kitchen, ‘WHO IS IT?’

  In her defense, she thought it would’ve been a nice surprise for Holden to stop by and stick around for a little bit once he got what he came here for, and maybe chat to her friends for a few minutes. The idea might’ve been fine, but hearing Holden’s little sigh at the realisation and a guaranteed confusion from the two in the kitchen, it might’ve not been a fine surprise. This paired with Holden only meeting Marianne of her friends so far...

  ‘C’mon,’ she tells him, hoping to reassure herself just as much, and takes hold of his hand. ‘They don’t bite.’

  Back in the kitchen, Marianne and Drew are leaning on the cupboards, both of them silent and waiting. Addie walkins into the kitchen first, and she watches their eyes follow her hand – the one which drags Holden in behind her. Marianne shouts his name and nearly leaps to hug him, while Drew remains at his spot, gnacing between the two having a quick catch-up and Addie, who tries to tell him not to worry in the form of a smile. 

  His eyes keep dropping back to their hands, intertwined, and she can see barely-concealed confusion on his face. 

  ‘This is Holden,’ she says, now that Marianne isn’t hogging him anymore. ‘My boyfriend. Holden, this is Drew.’

  They shake hands and exchange the ‘nice to meet you’s without anyone feeling the need to prove themselves to be the Alpha male, so Addie counts it as a win. Not that she thought either of them would do that – she just hasn’t seen Drew interact with anyone who wasn’t her or Marianne, and Drew is, after Marianne, the first person from Addie’s life Holden has gotten to meet. 

  The more she thinks of it, the more she realises how risky it was. 

  ‘You’re the actor Drew, right?’

  For a moment, Addie just watches Drew – his hands are crossed on his chest and he looks a little menacing, now that she tries to see him from Holden’s perspective. Tall and pretty attractive, pretty relaxed in a place he’s barely been to, and with the reputation of a successful actor – and to top it all off, a resting bitch face. 

  Addie’s heart skips a beat. 

  Drew laughs and she feels relief wash over her, instead. ‘Is that how she presents me to people?’

  ‘Drew, it’s literally how we met,’ she says, rolling her eyes at him from across the room. ‘How else am I supposed to explain how I know you?’

  ‘Fair.’

  There’s a moment where the sizzling of the goulash is all that can be heard, but Addie doesn’t think it’s one of those heavy silences, where every person seems like they’re holding their breath. She takes it as a good sign. 

  Holden pats his thigh, then, and he has an apologetic face when he says, ‘I’ve got to go. Work won’t wait forever.’ He flashes Drew a smile. ‘Nice meeting you, Drew.’

  ‘You too.’

  Addie sighs. ‘You just got here.’

  He opens his mouth to say something, but Marianne is quicker: ‘You try this goulash, look me in the eye, and say you don’t want more of it.’ There’s no and then you can go, because Addie has a feeling Marianne knows pretty well just how good the goulash is. 

  She commands the room as she approaches Holden with the tiniest bit of goulash steaming from the spatula over her hand. Her eyes are determined and there’s a crook in the corner of her lips – the sly kind of smile when she knows she’s already won. Holden doesn’t get a chance to protest, because the spatula is headed for him, and he’s got nothing to do but take it. 

  The room holds a breath. Even Drew is looking at Holden in expectation, chin resting on the palm of his hand. 

  For a bit, Holden just coughs and complains about the hotness (Marianne argued he had to have been blind to not see that it was steaming). Once he’s finally back to normal breathing and side-eyeing Addie for giggling at him, he tells Marianne it’s one of the best things he’s ever tasted.

  Addie could swear she could see pride and self-satisfaction through Marianne’s eyes.

  ‘Now that Holden is staying,’ says Addie, ‘can the rest of us have some, too?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ replies Marianne, with a newfound spring in her step, grace in the way she moves. Drew laughs at her, quietly, and Addie finds herself laughing with him.

  Marianne brings out the goulash and Addie helps pour it into the bowls, handing each of them one. The chef ends up taking Addie’s chair, on Addie’s insistence, because what does she deserve after all these hours other than enjoying her efforts in peace? So Addie leans on the counter, ignoring Marianne’s protests that it’s dirty (‘These shorts need to go into the wash anyway’) and savours the food. It’s unbelievably good – Drew even comments at one point that it’s as good as the one his Hungarian neighbour made, if not better. Marianne glows after each compliment, so Addie doesn’t really stop giving them. Even as the conversation goes on, and Holden stays a little longer than planned, they keep sprinkling in nice comments about the goulash whenever they can. 

  Addie’s glad Holden and Drew are here for this, however unplanned it was.

  Holden slaps his thigh again, in the very same manner with the very same look on his face and this time, Addie catches herself right before she laughs. ‘I’ve really got to go now,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘Work calls.’

  He walks up to Addie and she smiles at him, elbowing him gently in the ribs. ‘That’s okay, Mr. Workaholic. We understand.’

  She thinks maybe she’s pushing it, but Holden smiles and reaches the other side of her waist, tickling just enough so that she groans for him to stop. ‘You’ve got it just as bad as I do,’ he tells her, and she can’t argue.

  ‘Wait, Holden.’ Marianne twirls her spoon in front of her space, brow furrowed, and a distant look on her face. ‘Can I ask you lot a personal question?’

  ‘Marianne—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Addie. I won’t bother them too much.’

  Marianne does give her a reassuring smile, or what’s meant to be one, because Addie doesn’t feel particularly reassured. The girl, for all the love Addie holds for her, really has a thing for pushing the limits and boundaries without meaning to. Addie sinks into herself, arms crossed on her chest with Holden’s hand still resting on her waist, and hopes Marianne picks her approach carefully. Addie might know her well enough, but Drew and Holden don’t.

  ‘Sure,’ says Drew, leaning back in his chair. ‘What is it?’

  Instead of responding, he looks at Holden until he agrees to it, too. She takes a deep breath, then, and gives them the shaky kind of confident smile as her fingers fix up her bun. ‘How important are romantic things in a relationship to guys?’

  Addie resists dropping her head in her hands. She just sighs. Glares a little. 

  Lets it all unfold. 

  The hand on Addie’s waist moves a little, with no purpose. She can hear Holden breathe more deeply, as he always does when he’s trying to crack a problem. Drew, on the other hand, frowns; his eyes stare out of the window, the distance noticeable in them. Part of Addie wishes the question was never asked – part of it is as glad that it wasn’t bad as it is honest that maybe, Addie is curious about the answers, too. 

  ‘Probably shouldn’t ask Holden that while Addie’s around,’ jokes Drew.

  ‘Ha-ha. Very funny.’

  Drew looks at her and shrugs, a smile peeking through. (Addie found it a little bit funny and he can see it.) He sighs a little and scratches the place above his eyebrow, glancing at Marianne. ‘What kind of romantic things are we talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Marianne waves her hand in a vague motion, then lets it go back to fiddling with the bun. ‘Um, dates, quality time together, gifts or flowers or whatever, that romantic sappy kind of shite.’

  ‘It depends, then,’ Holden says, voice deep and laced in thought, just as Drew speaks with confidence, ‘Very important.’

  Drew chuckles and Holden smiles, too, but Marianne doesn’t look very reassured, so Drew leans forward in the chair, placing his elbows on the table with his hands crossed. ‘Look, it depends on the guy, yeah, but most guys like the romantic stuff. Going on dates, getting flowers and chocolates, candlelit dinners and just spending quality time together is a big deal. Not having that is just kind of… I don’t know.’

  Marianne nods. She’s looking at Drew as if she were soaking his words like a sponge, and not one that likes them. 

  ‘I don’t really agree,’ says Holden, after letting out a little ‘hmmm’ sound. ‘I mean, it really depends on the guy, but also the partner. Look at Addie and I – we spend most of our time together at work, or doing work, and it’s something we love doing so the time we spend together doing that is what we’d consider quality time, right? And you don’t— We don’t need all that romantic stuff. If you know someone likes you, there’s no need to constantly show it. If it works already.’

  Addie just stares at the ground. All eyes are on her, now, even if not physically – she can just feel the attention on her. Does she agree? Yes, for the most part, and it’s not her Marianne is asking this time. They’ve already spoken about this. Marianne knows Addie enjoys the approach she and Holden have with the relationship.

  When she finally looks up, she catches Drew’s eyes for a moment, and then they’re gone before she can read them. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I guess it depends on your relationship and your boyfriend, then.’

  ‘My friend’s.’ Marianne nods with a smile that looks like it’s about to slip off. ‘I’m asking for a friend.’

  Drew leans back. ‘Sure, yeah. I hope your friend manages to sort it out.’

  Marianne thanks him, then makes a joke about the goulash being finger-licking, and within moments everything’s as if there wasn’t just a serious conversation. A little later, Addie walks Holden out, receiving a gentle kiss on the lips before he leaves. Drew sticks around for a little while longer and when Marianne invites Drew to their group’s annual Fourth of July party (very exclusive), Addie feels like it’s another unpredictable-Marianne moment she should’ve foreseen. 

  For better or worse, though, Drew shakes his head with a little sigh. ‘Thanks for the invitation, but I’ve already booked a flight home.’

  ‘Oh.’ Marianne nods, not even trying to hide her disappointment. ‘Shame. We throw the best parties around Atlanta.’

  Drew chuckles, tugging his jacket sleeves over his arms. ‘I don’t doubt that for a second. I’ll catch one of them, at some point.’

  ‘Yeah. You should.’

  Addie is leaning against the wall, watching them talk about their plans for the Fourth of July, and realises she’s happy that Holden’s met Drew. She’s happy he’s integrating into her friend group, at least bit by bit. It kind of makes everything more real; more permanent. Later, she finds out from Marianne that Drew messaged her, thanking her for the goulash experience. When she’s lying in bed, thinking about all the work she needs to do tomorrow because she slacked off today, a thought pops up: Marianne’s birthday is going to be soon, and that is bound to be a wholesome party.

  Addie falls asleep with a smile on her face.

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19: THANKFUL

tagging. (let me know if you want to be tagged!) @jjmaybanksbaby @ofpinkfizz @snkkat @drewswannabegirl @yeslifeofateen @rudypnkw @stfukie @x-lulu @drewstarkey @butgilinsky @solllaris @hyperactive2411 @chasefreakinstokes @surferkie @jroseron @k-k0129 @starlightstories @rafecameron​ 

[specialshinytrinkets]

I'm going to preface this post with this: I do not hate and do not wish for anybody to harass any of the new animation meme creators. They are, as far as I have seen, mostly minors, and I only want them to improve. This is a personal opinion that you can easily not share with me.

With that out of the way, what's the deal with this decade's animation memes?

I'm asking this as somebody who, you could say, grew up on late 2010s AniMemes. Yes, it's not exactly as valid in some eyes than somebody, say, watched AniMemes from earlier, but I digress

It's pretty much a fact that previous decades' animation memes could be split into two categories, and both are still equally popular: dancing ones (Posing, Fashion, Smile, Kasane Territory, etc.) and storytelling ones (recent Darkside, Crash). Now, I'm not saying that these didn't have any loops and/or tweening, as the first type is almost fully comprised of it. And, of course, they could be combined to showcase a character's story or main traits through loops in music (like some older AniMemes by sir fluff, or their Beach Episode meme) (other examples: Melody, There's Something Wrong, Something Has To Happen, I Hate You, etc.)

However! Now, I see... an... alarming(?) abundance of the same type of animation memes, that being an aesthetically pleasing furry character tweened to some daycore'd or nightcore'd loop, sometimes having shapes show up over their face and maybe a limb/tail dragging out paint over the wall. If something out of this seems familiar, that's because you've probably seen it, as YouTube pushes them in recommendations quite frequently

Now, do I have a problem with new AniMemes appearing? Of course not! But there are a couple of things that make me feel a bit concerned/weird:

1. As far as I've seen, most of these new memes are made by kids, possibly influenced by trends on other platforms. I don't have a problem with the kids on YT themselves (I am one, c'mon), but I do wonder if the sudden influx in audience and the overwhelming amount of support is stressful to some degree. And it is the internet, after all, not everybody is going to be overly positive about the work

• Note: I am glad that cringe culture is dying, and that the internet is becoming a more welcoming place ^_^ But too much of anything can be detrimental. Obv, hate brings a lot more wounds, but nobody has excluded paranoia from the idea of people faking positive responses out of pity or as a mean-spirited joke. Another thing is that it looks more like a trend than anything, that will fade away eventually. Along with animators' popularity. Yeesh

2. Speaking of work, while I don't want to insult beginning animators, but... it's a bit stagnant, don't you think? Yes, half if not most of 2010s AniMemes, as I've said before, consist of tweening for most of the video. But not to the degree where almost each and every new meme is a character standing in place and moving their arms up and down maybe lipsyncing. The old AniMemes were a big inspiration for me and still are, because we all can see the varying styles and effort put into them. The new ones... Only feel it for. like. three — I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, Punk Tactics (as a silly edit loop) and Pass The Dutchie.

3. Related to my previous point: lack of variety in general. Yes, AniMemes should be somewhat easy to create, but since the music in them [2020s ones] is a simple loop with little to no jumps in tone, and the ones I've describes get tons of views and comments, then why bother? You can't get very creative with a song that could be playing unnoticed in a speedpaint or in a grocery store.

Let's take Chime meme as an example of prev-gen AniMeme music: its start could be used for a simple title card, but could also be used to introduce a jokey conflict, a set-up. Next, we have a drop, low-voice "Do you wanna feel?", and two loops, which can be filled with anything

Unrelated, but I used to think said "Do your magazine", when thinking about an AniMeme with Ink Sans making a magazine for Error Sans... you know, as an artist.

Which makes me now realise that it's kind of a perfect example: one part of music makes you think not just of what the original meme did, but of different scenarios, branching and branching, conveying emotions and how you view your OCs. With the new memes, I see a bunch of pretty OCs created solely for the looks with not much story. Which is acceptable. If they have character. And, unfortunatly, I haven't seen much new-gen memes that convey what personalities these OCs have

You won't be perfect when starting out, but improvement is inevitable. You will either do it unconsiously or wish to do so. And sometimes, you need to see what others have done before you to get that push in the right direction

[letoscrawls]

Hiiiii

I hope you're doing well!

I would like to ask if u have and advise about starting and art account on insta. I have a small one here on tumblr but people say insta is better for art accs. So I just create an account and start posting? Or do I promote myself in some way, maybe taking dtiys and other challenges?

Thanks in advance:D

Hi! thank you so much for checking on me! :) 

okay, i get this question quite often and i wish i could give you solid advice, but the problem with instagram right now is its algorithm. when i started my account it wasn’t that fucked up, so i don’t really know how it is for new artists who have just started their accounts now! but i can tell you that it really affected every artist, even the bigger ones, so please keep that in mind. if you “fail” to reach your audience it’s not your fault, instagram is literally sabotaging artists and i don’t know for how long it’ll be “the best platform for art”. so just to warn all of you, i don’t want you to compromise your mental health for a social platform that makes money out of our stress and insecurities, i’ll try to share what i think could work because sharing art can be really rewarding and shouldn’t be an ordeal so i’d be happy to help somehow!!!!!

so this is the “algorithm tricks” part: 

when i first opened ig, i remember my stories were viewed by at least 100 people for the first two days even though i had less than 10 followers, so i think that’s instagram way to encourage you to keep posting, so my first advice would be to post your art in the stories too, at least for the first week or something?? now, i know the algorithm is currently promoting reels, so if you’re skilled with those go for it! make videos of your creating process and stuff like that. it’s important to inform your followers when you make a new post bc the chances of it being noticed are higher, you have to do the work bc ig won’t show that post to most of your audience (did i mention that i hate whoever made this algorithm?? yes??) i’m not really sure about this but i think ig prefers the reels you make with their set of editing tools instead of just uploading a pre saved video (i think it’s their way to sabotage those who post their tiktoks), i’ve never tried them so i don’t really know what they’re like, but i’m pretty sure tiktok is way better. i read somewhere that IGTV aren’t ig big thing anymore, so i don’t think you’d get much engagement from them. in general i’d say to always promote your posts in your stories and to wait at least an hour before editing a post bc i think you’ll lose engagement if you edit it right after posting (i know, it’s so stupid).

the use of hashtags is the only thing that i approve, because it’s an helpful tool made by social media before it got so bad and they really help you to reach more people (that’s like their purpose, i just wish there weren’t dozens of other stupid rules to follow in order to be noticed besides hashtags). so using tags like “art”, “artists on instagram” and “daily art” along with tags related to the pic you posted (like the name of the character or the fandom etc) is really helpful, just don’t use unrelated tags bc it’s annoying and idk how convenient it is :P the last thing is promoting your posts by using the sponsored feature; i never used that because i’d rather eat a slug than give money to instagram, but if you have the possibility and you are okay with that then you could try!

now for the “artsy” part

artists have found many ways to bypass the algorithm and keep the community alive over the years, challenges are probably the best way to do so! dtiys are awesome, not only they help you get more recognition, but they also make artists incredibly happy! i should host one very soon myself, i’m looking for a pose and an outfit to draw one of my ocs in, hopefully you’ll see it soon! i cannot explain how happy it makes me to see people draw a character of mine, and it’s great to see them in so many different styles, so i highly recommend dtiys! usually the artists who host them post the entries in their stories too, so yeah, you should definitely try those! there are other challenges like art vs artist, memes etc, it’s incredible how creative the community is despite all! and lastly, draw fan art! contributing to a fandom with your art is so cool, personally i prefer it over original content most of the time, i feel the need to share my point of view and to let out all the idiotic thoughts i have when i consume some kind of media so i’m really biased, but every artist is different, so don’t force yourself to do something if you don’t feel like doing it! drawing something you don’t particularly enjoy because you want to get recognition is gonna make you burnout REALLY BAD, trust me, i personally think that passion>effort, so never forget to put your enjoyment first!!!! 

okay this took me a while and i hope it was helpful! good luck!!! i definitely forgot something dskfjhis

[frenziedcrescendo]

@psychedeliaoverture this reblog contains my counterpoint to your arguements. Mainly because you have a lot of points and also because it's easier to link sources if needed.

I know. I said that in the post.

I apologize, but I cannot find any evidence. Though language barrier allows me no chance to actually know what its rep said in exact, if you can provide multiple translated source of this I cannot in good consciousness overlook this.

Both did such- maybe wikipedia is not the best source for this, but it's all I can do currently.

Below is citation 7 and 11 to 17 in order.

Beaumont, Peter (2023-10-30). "What is a human shield and how has Hamas been accused of using them?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-11-14."The Hamas compound Israeli troops expect to find under Gaza City's Shifa Hospital".

"Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate". AP News. 2023-11-13. Retrieved 2023-11-14.

יהושוע, יוסי (2023-11-13). "התמונות שהעולם צריך לראות: התדרוך הכי חשוב של דובר צה"ל, מביה"ח בעזה". Ynet (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2023-11-14.

"Israel Gaza: Hospitals caught on front line of war". BBC News. 2023-11-13. Retrieved 2023-11-14.

Robertson, Nic; Wright, Rebecca; Torigoe, John; Shortell, David (2023-11-14). "Israel shows alleged Hamas 'armory' under children's hospital in Gaza. Local health officials dismiss the claims". CNN. Retrieved 2023-11-14.

דובר צה"ל: חטופים ישראלים שהו בבית החולים רנתיסי בעזה, retrieved 2023-11-14

"Pentagon Official Says Deterrence in Middle East Is Working". U.S. Department of Defense. Retrieved 2023-11-15.

Note that Wikipedia is something literally anyone can edit, so it's really unreliable.

I did not find much evidence of israel using human shield other than two photos. Citations and sources are much appreciated.

These two are attacks on my ideology, so I could not make an effective rebuttal. I do realise what my post sound like to people who support one side and condemn the other, so I apologize if my effort to remain neutral can be so easily recognised as supporting the definitively wrong. That is a jab at you by the way, I don't think any side is inherently right or wrong, as I said.

Please don't put words in my mouth, I asked for civilized conversation, not being nicely treated. I encourage anyone to chew me out as long as it makes sense and is not unrelated to the conversation. Nor did I lie, as all of my point from both side are from what I've seen. It is still possible for me to be misinformed, in that case feel free to flip the arguement on me.

I honestly cannot pose a counterpoint to this, since the last two paragraphs make sense.

So there we go. I probably did not have to write something that long, sorry if it's too much hassle to read.

I think that, with all the post regarding the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine,l flying around, I would contribute some thoughts of my own, and see how it turns out.

So heres the guist: I don't think either side are inherently right. Now before you start chewing me out over not immediately siding with Palestine, hear me out.

Hamas made the first move by striking the music festival. But then again, tracing back in history, it is Israel who invaded their turf in the first place.

It is widely known that Israel has killed more civilians than necessary. But some intel suggest that it was Hamas who kept the civilians there, so Israel would not be able to attack without committing war crimes.

Hamas is a terrorist organisation. But a terrorist group initially designed to defend against Israel's attempt to push further and invade.

Many evidence of the terrorists existences from Israel have been proven fake. But they were taken out of context, with many similarly not citing source and only suggests it invalid by a simple caption.

Note how every sentence has two colors? Well, orange words are points that support the Israeli military, while the blue supports Palestine. Do you get it now? The side you unequivocally support still has its many wrongs. History in itself has never been such a clear cut thing with a definitive force of justice/evil. Coupled with the fact that none of us actually knows what's going on save certain sources that might not be unbiased, can we for sure put the blame on either side?

Please do note that none my claims have, at the time, been actually verified at all, and I currently wish to stay as neutral as one can be. This post is supposed to be a reminder that definitive just does not exist in the real world, and that to act the best option, one must be neutral without bias.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

"Hand me that loofah."

Keeping his face carefully averted, Pyro picked up the sponge, and tossed in Fabian’s general direction.

An angry “Watch it, you idiot!” indicated that the loofah had struck it’s intended target. Then there was a low chuckle.

“I get it. You’re a married man, after all. You can’t bear to look upon me, lest you completely lose your self-control. Don’t feel bad, you’re hardly the first.”

Pyro was, in fact, struggling not to lose his self-control, but was fighting the urge to vomit.

“You should have invited me to the wedding,” Fabian continued, accompanied by splashing sounds as he apparently flopped around in the tub. “Are we not friends?”

That sentence was technically true the way Fabian had phrased it.

“Yes,” Pyro responded simply.

“But I can understand that, too,” Fabian continued. “You didn’t want to be upstaged at your own nuptials, and my presence certainly would have captured all the attention.”

“Dominic and I thought you might be a bit too busy,” Pyro said, although the truth was less “thought” and more “hoped.” “We didn’t want to intrude on your valuable time.” He was absolutely going to relay this whole horrible conversation to Avalanche tonight over drinks, with a very exaggerated impression of Cortez.

“Well, I always make time for the little people!” Fabian exclaimed magnanimously. “Hand me that towel.” Water sloshed and Pyro was hit with a fine spray as Cortez stood up in the tub. At least it sounded like he was standing up, Pyro wasn’t going to look. He grabbed the nearest towel and thrust it blindly at the demanding voice.

A hand grabbed his wrist and yanked Pyro around, so that he was face to face with a dripping, naked Fabian Cortez, with soap suds sloughing off his glistening body. It was actually a very nice body, that was the worst part, with with a “package” that partially explained the man’s unearned confidence. But the smarmy, arrogant smile completely ruined the picture.

“Looking’s free, you know,” Fabian grinned.

Directing credit, Pyro thought fiercely to himself. Executive producer.

“Why don’t I give you some privacy to get dressed?” He said aloud, plastering a fake smile on his face. This would all be worth it when show’s profits started coming in, and then Pyro would get himself and Dominic matching His and His jet-skis.

He still wasn’t entirely sure how he wound up in this position. It had started with Shinobi pitching a reality show to the Council, which had somehow, inexiplicably, gotten a majority approval vote, possibly because Krakoa hadn’t been attacked in the last few weeks and the Council was bored. It was Survivor meets the Bachelor, in which groups of male and female mutants competed to win the hand of the handsome, debonair, and, most importantly, ridiculously wealthy Shinobi Shaw, through date nights and dinners and pointless jungle challenges of strength and skill.

Pyro had just made a few innocent comments, that was all. Just a couple of suggestions to Emma, who had wound up saddled with the bulk of the responsibility, about story arcs and pairings and how to arrange scenes for maximum drama and pathos. He understood that stuff, after all, as a romance novelist it was his bread and butter. (And he was a bit of a soap opera fanatic, but he wasn’t going to admit that freely.) Emma had listened with an eager, almost hungry glint in her eyes, and there had been a short conversation that had somehow ended with Pyro agreeing to serve as a writer, director and general creative supervisor, in exchange for a percentage of the profits and fairly massive salary. (Massive to Pyro, anyway, probably a drop in the bucket to Emma “Swimming in the money bin” Frost.)

And it actually had been kind of fun. “Reality” TV presented a unique challenge, in that he wasn’t allowed to directly tell the “performers” what to say, but he could do absolutely anything else to construct his creative vision. He could ask leading questions in the talking head interviews, edit scenes by splicing completely unrelated shots together, and put volatile contestants in a room with plenty of alcohol, then poke at them until they exploded.

Unfortunately, his duties had somehow gradually expanded to include talent-wrangling both on and off-set, which left him stuck making nice with Fabian Cortez, the most “colorful” (obnoxious) and, unfortunately, most popular, of all the contestants. Iceman would probably win the show as the nice, relatable, boy-next-door type, but Fabian was what kept viewers tuning in.

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Fabian purred. He contorted his body as he toweled himself off, appearing to pose for nonexistant cameras. “I’m a generous man, I can spare you a bit of eye candy, even if our relationship must remain professional.”

“Yes, that would be best. Listen, we need you to do another challenge with Sienna Blaze.”

Fabian’s “generosity” quickly withered away.

“I will NOT get in front of a camera with that maniac! Such an uptight, ill-mannered, man-hating – well, I’m too much of a gentleman to use the word that she so richly deserves! She nearly killed me last time! Over a simple compliment!”

Yes, Pyro remembered it well. Fabian’s near barbeque had garnered record-high ratings. And hopefully tossing them into a mud-pit together in bathing suits would produce similarly explosive results.

“Oh yes, I know, Fabian,” Pyro cooed, hating himself a little. “She’s very difficult, and you’ve been such a professional about it.” He pulled up comforting mental images as he spoke. Jet-skis. Wagyu steak. Insanely expensive whiskey. Him and Dominic having a long honeymoon in Bali, Sydney, Seoul and Tokyo. All those zeros at the end of the check that Emma had given him.

“Well, a professional shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of shabby treatment!” Fabian said haughtily. He was finally wrapping the towel around his waist, to Pyro’s great relief. “I asked for Norwegian strawberries in my dressing room, and that idiot assistant brought me French!”

“I’ll look into it,” Pyro assured him, fully intending to send Fabian the exact same strawberries (which were, in fact, grown on Krakoa) with his apologies and a fake Norweigian label.

He had a vague notion in the back of his head that Emma should be handling this, Emma was supposed to be in charge! And yet she’d gradually eased the responsibility into Pyro’s arms, only sashaying onto set once every few weeks for a “status report,” and spending the rest of the time off performing mysterious and supposedly very important duties for the Hellfire Trading Company and the Council. She never picked up her phone or responded to voice mails.

It was okay, though. Pyro could handle this. He was a damn writer, and he was good at it, and he would poke and prod his stars through the storyline he had planned, because he was absolutely brilliant. Even Emma had said so.

“Anyway, don’t worry about Blaze,” Pyro insisted, his voice dripping with sticky-sweet honey. “We’ve given her a talking to about her behavior.” He had done no such thing. “I’m sure she’ll be much nicer to work with. In fact, we think the audience will really enjoy you putting her in her place. Really demonstrate your masculine superiority.” Was that too much? They couldn’t have Fabian dying on camera, after all, even though it would be hilarious.

“Well, I should hope so!” Fabian said, rubbing lotion carefully across his pecs. “I’m obviously carrying this entire show, and I will be treated with the respect I deserve.”

“You know,” Pyro added slyly, “I think she’s actually got a bit of a crush on you. You know how some women are.” No, this was definitely too much. Oh well, they could edit around Fabian’s inevitable death and resurrection, and in the mean time they’d get some amazing footage.

“Oh, of course,” Fabian said, with a leering understanding creeping across his face. “I suspected from the very beginning. She couldn’t handle my raw sensuality.”

“Who can, really?” Pyro hated this, he really hated every second of having to pull on the polite mask of social niceties and insincere compliments. It always seemed almost obscene. May as well just flip the other fellow over and start tongueing his arsehole, right? Except that was actually fun in the right circumstances.

But he’d done it before, as a journalist dealing with self-important sources, as a novelist schmoozing with publishers and book sellers. He could do it now, for the astronomical salary that Emma was paying him, and for the Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Competition Program that was hovering in his sights. Emma had assured him that it was a strong possibility. Just imagine rubbing that in the faces of all the critics who had called him a talentless hack! They’d say…well, they’d probably say that an Emmy for trashy reality TV was the highest possible honor for a hack like him, but Pyro wouldn’t give a fuck, because he’d have an Emmy and they wouldn’t.

“C’mon, then, we’ll give you a quick touch-up with bronzer. We’re shooting the scene in fifteen minutes.” Pyro began to guide Fabian, still clad in only a towel, towards the bathroom door.

“We’ll shoot the scene when I’m ready, and not a second before!” Fabian insisted. It would probably be another hour of Fabian demanding and sending back expensive snacks before they could even get him to the set. Luckily, they were actually scheduled to shoot the scene in two hours.

“Yes, of course, whatever you want,” Pyro wheedled, imagining the satisfying explosion of flesh and blood that would very likely occur when Fabian and Sienna Blaze came into contact. And Fabian was going to do it, that much was clear now. “I know you’ll do a fantastic job. You’re brilliant you know, absolutely brilliant……”

For a moment, Pyro trailed off as a crack opened in his mental wall, and memories slipped out into the light. Emma pouring more wine into his glass during their monthly meetings, assuring him again and again that he was absolutely brilliant, a true artist, that the show would thrive in his capable hands.

“No, that’s completely different,” Pyro muttered to himself, shaking his head.

“What was that?” Fabian twisted around, the towel slipping dangerously low on his hips.

“Oh, nothing,” Pyro exclaimed brightly, slamming the mental wall shut again. “Now, let’s get you into make-up, ya big handsome star!”

[leqclerc]

I thought I was the only one that felt there was too much dunking on ferrari's issues in dts3. The episode felt very flat to me,

The other team principals and the journalists were talking has more screen time that the actual team. I even felt a little bad for binotto because it felt like everyone was making fun of them.

The Turkish gp should have been in, but also deb's song in his final gp should have been in also. I can't believe they didn't show this one. When I heard it, I cried so much! They brushed off seb's departure. We had an entire episode about Carlos going to ferrari but literally seb leaving ferrari feels like the end of an era and they only shows a clip in the final episode. I don't think they did justice to him

Yeah the whole thing was very...callous. All the journalists and other team principals were so gleeful too. It’s like this collective dunking on Ferrari was the only thing that could unite the paddock. They were all just having so much fun with it. And similarly the critics/reviewers seem to be reveling in DTS’s portrayal of Ferrari as this unanimously disliked team that is just terrible in every way. They even touched on Monza and Singapore 2019 again just to discredit their victories by tainting the narrative with this idea of “well were they even legitimate wins if they had an ‘illegal’ engine?” That was really unfair imo. 

Agree, I think the least they could’ve done was show Turkey to offset all the bad. It was hands down their best performance of the season. I think with most other teams there was a balance of highs and  lows shown, but with Ferrari they just shrugged and went “lol Ferrari bad, laugh now pls.” 

Yeah, it’s a pity they didn’t show any of the nicer moments between Seb and the team, but I get why. The whole point of the narrative was to hammer home the point that you’re not supposed to sympathise with them - they had Claire outwardly say it. They even keep dunking on them in unrelated episodes - “I think he [Carlos] is starting to regret the move now, even if he won’t admit it,” “Is it too late to back out of that Ferrari contract?” I’m paraphrasing but the point still stands: Ferrari were meant to be the butt of the joke. You’re right, they barely touched on Seb’s departure in the Abu Dhabi episode - there was like a 0.2 second shot of them all posing for photos outside the garage and then they move on to AM. I get that the focus of the episode was the fight for 3rd between Renault/RP/McLaren, but they really didn’t even try. 

Also, as a friend of mine pointed out, notice how they framed the whole Monza thing - they deliberately showed Charles surrounded by a group of fans chanting his name, but didn’t do the same for Seb. You’re supposed to feel like Seb was being shunned by not only the team, but also by the Italian fans. Which is bullshit, he still had and has a lot of support from fans, Italian and non-Italian alike. And then they had that awkward, nonsensical, probably scripted scene with Fred Vasseur and Charles, edited in a way that made it seem like they’re gossiping about Seb behind his back - they’re together, he’s alone. Again hammering home this idea that he’s being shunned and alienated, which just isn’t true. Seb’s openly fond of his mechanics, his race engineer - and yes, Charles as well. They celebrated his Ferrari career in Abu Dhabi: there was a farewell dinner, he was gifted a scrapbook signed by all the team members, Charles had a full tribute helmet dedicated to him, they all hugged him outside the garage. Hell, Seb himself - like you pointed out - took the time to write and sing his own rendition of that song; he passed around beers after the race and put together a commemorative photobook that he gifted to members of the team, just as he did every year prior to that. But they won’t show you any of that because they want to create a certain narrative.

[poisonedapples]

The Core Four

The beginning of the Core Four AU

Summary: There’s trouble going on at Quinn’s Jewelry Store in downtown Midbay. So clearly, the solution is to have a group of four superheroes come to the rescue.

Pairings: Familial LAMP

Trigger Warnings: Guns, shooting (but no one gets shot), injuries (especially burn and head injuries), a car almost crashing, robberies, death talk, unconsciousness, capslock, slight blood mentions

Notes: Remember that project I’ve been mentioning these last few months? With the superheroes? It begins >:P

Also, big thanks to @hanramz-the-fander for editing it but you really didn’t need to do it at midnight dsjkhjkfldskljkfls

Taglist: @romansleftshoulderpad @jynxlovesluck @aro-patton @dr-gloom

Josie Quinn knows the probability of having a store with expensive goods like hers being robbed, but usually when she feels anxious about going to work, the day proves her fears to just be meaningless anxiety. A calm day describing rings to men and women alike possibly looking to have a fiancé soon, people complaining about prices, it’s a routine at this point. Robbery isn’t something she’s experienced before, even on the days a suspecting pit was in her stomach.

But this day, Quinn really wished people in modern times could go back to robbing banks.

She was restocking in the back since the store was empty, doing meaningless tasks just to let the day go by. It took a few seconds after hearing a strange click from the store and a male voice yelling “GET OVER HERE NOW” for her to realize what was happening. Walking slowly out of the storage room with her hands up, Quinn was met with a large man dressed in all black pointing his gun directly at her. The alarms were already blaring loudly in the store from his other men busting the cases and putting anything shiny in the large sacks they were all holding. 

The man aimed his gun closer to her. “Gimme all the money you have in there, now.”

Quinn ignored her shaky hands as she placed everything she could offer right into the bag, the cash adding up to hardly anything considering most people pay with credit cards. When the man realized how little there was in the bag, he scowled and slammed his hand on the counter. Quinn jumped.

“Go in the back,” he growled, “If you bring me everything then you might get out of here alive.”

She wasn’t able to speak, only taking quick but careful steps into the back room again without saying a word. In a frantic haste on deciding how to take all the boxes to the man as quick as possible, Quinn ended up shakily grabbing as many of the padded boxes as she could carry, piling them on top of each other. With a few larger boxes and some small ones previously wrapped neatly for pickup, she walked back to the counter to set them in front of the man.

And when she did, her heart stopped.

The robber was confused and growing impatient at her sudden stop, but Quinn couldn’t help it. Her eyes were blown wide in disbelief when two men suddenly appeared behind the robber out of thin air, both of them wearing similar costumes besides for the different shades of blue, one was obviously more decorated than the other. They both had the same dark skin color only visible on the slight slip of skin where the bottom of their mask couldn’t reach, their faces covered entirely and eyes impossible to see. But even so, Quinn could still tell based on one of the man’s body posture that he was giddy.

And to be fair, so was she. Staring ahead in awe despite the circumstances, eyes blown wide. Because she’s never been this close to the Colored Spirits before.

Quinn knew exactly who they were. Two superheroes of a local group that were known for always being close together, always working in perfect synchronization. The giddy one in the lighter blues was Maya Spirit, his cooler companion known as Navy Spirit. She’d seen all the talk shows and online articles about their powers before; connecting so closely that one couldn’t use them without the other. People observing how they could only disappear if they were making physical contact with each other in some way, most commonly by holding hands. They would touch and disappear, then reappear when they separated once more.

And they were right here, in her shop!

All these thoughts and observations raced so quickly through Quinn’s head in just a second, but the robber wasn’t patient enough for even that. “I literally have a damn gun at your face, are you stupid!? Go to the fucking back, get me more shit!”

Her eyes finally snapped back at him, the robber’s gun getting closer to her face as he grew more impatient. For a second Quinn thought the last thing she was going to see was this very scene; a gun in her face with two superheroes right behind her killer.

But right before the trigger could be pulled, Navy grabbed the arm of the man and twisted it up, Quinn flinching back a bit at the loud noise of a gunshot going off right into her ceiling. The man frantically looked around the store for whatever grabbed his arm, but no one was there.

“What…?” He whispered to himself, turning back to Quinn with her hands on her ears and her heart pounding. He opened his mouth to speak, to let out his confusion with rage and impatience, but then a hand grabbed at his hair and smacked his head right into the counter.

Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my-

“Fuck!” The robber stumbled to the side and almost fell to the floor from the impact, gripping the counter before he could fall and pointing his gun at the Colored Spirits. The two of them disappeared again the moment the gun went off, reappearing behind him and punching him right in the back of the head. He groaned as he fell to the floor with his eyesight spinning, shooting his gun off frantically in an attempt to get just one hit. Just one. 

Quinn screamed and took a duck for cover with her hands shielding her head. Loud bangs continued to go off, but the robber didn’t even realize his targets were gone again.

But through the gunshots there was a loud, over-dramatic battle cry right before the bangs finally stopped, followed by the sound of someone getting smacked right into the brick wall. A groan was the only new noise in the silence after the gun was dropped, the alarm from the broken glass long forgotten in the background.

Quinn slowly took her stiff hands away from her head, staying on the ground but looking up at the superheroes on the other side of the store slowly and carefully. There were three of them now.

Oh my God, Quinn thought, Is the entire team here for one robbery!?

She recognized the third person immediately as well. His skin was dark but not as dark as the Colored Spirits, and he was much shorter than them too. His costume had a hood with a stitched on piece of cloth covering his eyes completely, but you could still tell they were shining bright with how wide the boy’s smile was, the bottom half of his face still showing. Red, gold and white was all over his suit, a red cape that only reached to his knees and was covered in yellow stars, and a cloth crown attached to his hood so it stayed on the top of his head. The Royal Guard.

“Did you see that!?” He yelled, bouncing up and down on his feet with unrelenting energy. “I smacked that dude right into the wall at the best time, and I think there’s an indent in the wall now but I’m sure it’s fine, that was just really great timing!”

Maya’s voice sounded light. Lighter than in the clips Quinn had seen before. “You did great, Kiddo.”

The Royal Guard’s smile only grew bigger at the praise, but Navy Spirit seemed to have noticed something suddenly. “I just realized,” he said, “The store’s empty. Where are his other friends now? They have the majority of the store’s goods on them.”

“Oh, remember how Nightmare and I were gonna wait outside to jump them? They took off down the road in some black cars before I came in here.”

Navy sighed. “...And you didn’t chase them.”

“No, cause Nightmare already was, and I heard like, a bajillion gunshots coming from inside. I had more pressing matters to attend to, thank you very much!”

Royal Guard’s smile beamed with pride, his hands on his hips in a superhero pose. Navy and Maya seemed to share a look before Navy caved in. “Alright then, understandable. However, I think your assistance will come a lot more in handy on the road now. You’re the one with super speed, so you can catch up to the cars easily, and if the people driving them are logical, chances are they’ve split in different directions by now. Maya and I can take care of things here, but how about you contact Nightmare and see if you can help him with the cars?”

“Sounds easy, hardly a task at all! Later, nerds!”

And just like that, Royal Guard had sped out the front doors leaving nothing but a blur of himself behind him.

Quinn slowly lifted her head from the back of the counter. “...Can I get a picture with you two?”

***

“There’s two black Ford Focus ST’s on the roads right now. I’ve got one that was down on 67, but if SLEEP’s radar is right, the second one is going down Lincoln Avenue and heading to the highway. That’s the one I want you to catch, got it?”

Roman nodded before realizing that Virgil couldn’t see him, his voice going through the phone call system Virgil had installed in each of their suits. “Got it, I’ll head over there now and give them a firsthand look at Artemis!”

“Just don’t chop off any faces, we don’t wanna kill the guys. Get them away from the wheel but don’t crash the car, you’ll cause a pretty damn deadly pileup. Pull it over safely-” Virgil paused for a moment as Roman jumped roof to roof trying to search for the car with the directions he was given. “...You do know how to drive, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’re barely fucking sixteen and poor as shit, that’s why!” Virgil suddenly seemed slightly panicked on the other side of the line. “God damnit, do you need me to drive over there? I can call Navy or Maya to come take this one to get back all the loot and shit and I can help you over there with the driving. I know you don’t have a license, so don’t even try that one!”

“Relax, Robert Downer, I’ll be just fine!” There it is, Roman thought, spotting the car matching Virgil’s description perfectly. Just before it got on the highway too. “Navy taught me how to drive his car plenty of times before, which isn’t exactly legal, but I know what I’m doing! I’ll call you if I need anything else, but I spotted the car, so it’s too late now!”

“...Fine, fine, but don’t cause a fucking massive crash in the busiest street in the entire city. I’ll find a way to kill you, don’t test me.”

“Bye, Nightmare!” With that, the call finally ended, Roman jumping across three more buildings before coming perfectly in line with the car. He sheathed his sword Artemis from its place around his waist and jumped from the roof, landing straight on the hood of the car so hard his feet dented into it enough to give Roman a balanced footing. He saw the driver of the car’s eyes widen before trying to jerk the car back and forth to shake him off, Roman burying his heel into the hood for balance.

“Get off, you fucking freak of nature!” The driver yelled, and for once in his life, Roman decided to listen. But not in the way the guy wanted.

He quickly jumped off the hood of the car and stabbed Artemis right through the roof, cutting open a slit that he could slip through to enter the car. Another robber in the back of the car punched Roman square in the jaw, smacking his head against the window with force the moment he jumped in. Well that wasn’t very nice.

Roman grabbed Artemis’ hilt and went for an aimless swing while his vision danced, but despite Roman’s powerful speed, his hand was stopped right in its tracks with a strong grip.

Suddenly, the robber was right in his face with a broken scowl, full of anger and hurt alike. “You really want those damn human’s approval so bad, don’t ya?” His grip on Roman’s hand tightened, grabbing his face as well. “Even after all they’ve done? You’re one of us, you know exactly what they’re fucking guilty for! But we want a little cash to get by and suddenly we’re the fucking bad guys!?”

All Roman could feel on his body was the unusual heat on his wrist. Scalding heat that felt like a burning iron plate was wrapped around his arm, leaving Roman’s only reaction to be to scream. Artemis hit the ground as he struggled to get away from the burning, his eyes slowly focusing in his haste. When he looked down at his wrist to see the problem, the first thing he saw was the robbers hand a lava red. Steam came from between his fingers.

Of course he has powers.

Roman’s head went into the back of the window once, twice, three more times as the robber slammed his head back continuously, saying his lament through gritted teeth. “Traitorous little bastard is all you are! It’s all your friends are! You’ve experienced the pain they cause first-hand and you’re still on their side! Boot-licking pieces of shit!”

The side of his face where the man was gripping started to burn too, a scalding, unbearable grip, and Roman’s body went limp from pain. His vision was dancing and his mind could only think of the heat, the unbearable burning like his hand and face were taped to a gas oven.

The robber smiled. “You’re about half as strong as they make you seem. What, you don’t like pain? Don’t like being left without your little buddies to come save you? Are you scared?”

“Dennis, just fucking kill him so I can drive straight!”

“Not yet, I wanna see the face behind the mask.”

That phrase brought adrenaline through his veins, sheer panic being able to give him strength. Oh no, Roman’s mind yelled, Do something focus just get him off of you!

Roman screamed louder when he bent his burning wrist to grab the burning robber’s hand in his, adrenaline rising as he bent his arm back in one swift motion. Before the robber could even processed what happened, Roman grabbed his face with his now one good hand and bashed his head into the window, shattering the glass entirely. The man fell to the floor when he let go, faint breathing the only sign he was actually alive.

Oops, too much strength.

“Denni-” The driver didn’t even finish his sentence before Roman grabbed him by the collar with his one good hand and threw him to the back of the car, grabbing Artemis and piercing the blade right in the side of the man’s pants, pinning him to the seat and switching places as the driver. The only conscious robber yelled from his place as he tried to get free, but hey, he should be grateful he wasn’t bleeding like the other guy.

“Alright, time to get us off the road!” Roman grabbed the wheel with his unburnt hand in the 2 position like Logan had told him before purposely ignoring the “two hands on the wheel” rule just this once. He pressed his right foot down to step on the gas and-

......And-

...Oh no.

Roman scooted down to where his head was at level with the bottom of the steering wheel, only then finally being able to step on the gas and stop a pileup, the car behind him honking its horn loudly. No matter how much Roman tried to maneuver himself, he couldn’t see through the window and press the pedal at the same time. He frantically tried to search for a lever to pull the seat up, but he couldn’t seem to locate it anywhere. In a sudden panic, Roman called into the air: “NIGHTMARE!”

The gadget in Roman’s mask started to ring, and the phone was picked up in a matter of seconds. “What’s up, Princey?”

“So, I might have a, uh...a slight dilemma?”

Virgil went quiet. “And what would that be?”

“You know how I said I could drive the car off the highway?”

“...Yeah?”

“...I can’t reach the pedals.”

The screeching of tires was heard in the background as well as the voice of another man yelling, Virgil yelling back, then the slamming of a car door. “You can’t what!?”

“I can’t reach the pedals! The driver’s tall and I’m short!”

“Oh my God, Jesus fucking Christ what the fuck are we gonna do—I’m coming over there, I’ll summon a couple signs and shit and direct traffic and I can come get you before you kill someone-”

“But won’t they figure out you’re lying about your powers that way? You’re supposed to make monsters, not stop signs!”

“I think my damn ‘my-creations-aren’t-real’ secret is less important than you killing twenty people!”

Roman’s heart was beating, turning sharply at a turn he didn’t see until it was too late and almost blowing out the tires. He was frantically looking around to have some kind of visual on where the road was, catching a glimpse of the right side mirror. Roman sighed in relief when he could see the street slightly, where a simple iron rail kept the cars from falling down ten feet into a little pit.

If this moment was in a cartoon, a lightbulb would have gone off above his head.

“Wait, I think I have a plan! You have me on a tracker right?”

“Duh, have you met me?”

Roman ignored him, “How much longer do I have that rail-thingy on the side of the road?”

A slight silence over the phone. “For about half a mile or so.”

“Perfect! See you in a bit, bye!”

“Princey don’t you fucking dare-” The call was ended before Virgil finished his sentence. Gotta make this quick then.

Roman pressed down the lock on the door and opening it up. Roman looked at the rearview for a moment and sped up to get away from the car behind him, hoping he wouldn’t slam into someone in front of him in the process. He counted to three. One...two...three!

He made the car do a sharp turn and drove right through the metal rail.

The conscious robber behind him yelled “You’re fucking nuts!” as the car went over the edge, Roman rising in his seat as they did a free fall. He stumbled over himself for a slight moment when he tried to push himself back up, slipping when his burnt hand touched the leather seat and set his nerves on fire. He pushed open the car door completely, tripping as he used his feet to leap out of the side, the conscious driver still screaming in the back. Metal thumped under his boots when Roman jumped back on the hood of the car, running off and scraping the car with the speed of his feet as he did so. He fell down to the ground and stumbled to get his footing as quick as possible, then, the car was falling straight toward him.

Roman grabbed the front of the car with both his hands, stopping 700 pounds of metal from crashing right into a ditch, gently setting it down.

And he did it all in seven seconds.

However, the adrenaline of the moment did eventually disappear, and the sharp pain in Roman’s hand returned just as bad as before from using it to stop a car. He jumped up and down while shaking his hand around to help with the pain. “Ow, ow ow ow, okay, that hurts.”

“What hurts!? What the fuck did you do, Princey!?”

Roman looked up and saw a taller man with a black, purple and steel suit on, his face covered with an iron mask full of gadgets, but he could still sense the franticness in his eyes. To anyone else, Nightmare would have been the most intimidating man to have swearing at you, but Roman knew better now. He just smiled widely at his mentor. “I stopped the car from crashing all on my own!”

“By crashing it!?”

“Hey, you’re the one that told me to get it off the road, not my fault you didn’t specify how.”

“I’m gonna kill you. I’m well and truly going to murder you.”

“I’d like to see you try, honestly.”

“I’m gonna slap the shit out of- Holy fuck what happened to your face.”

Roman’s right eye was throbbing as the skin under it looked very unnaturally white and charred all at the same time, peeling a little. “Well that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

Virgil stood there stunned for a moment before clicking on the phone button of his mask and letting it ring. “Navy, Maya, we caught all the robbers. Let’s head back to our place and let the cops handle the rest before I blow a fucking fuse.”

“On it, Nightmare! Just hold on a bit, we’re kinda...caught up with a fangirl.”

***

“...So then I caught the car when it fell and nobody got hurt! We’re not counting that one fire-dude that burned my precious face, though.”

“Another individual with superpowers fell to the corrupted end, I see…” Logan looked down at the ground for a moment, processing. He eventually shook his head when he sensed Patton’s worried glancing his way, instead handing Roman a large container of Gatorade. “Drink this.”

“Aren’t you supposed to give him water through the IV?” Patton asked.

“In a normal case of third degree burns, yes. However, Roman’s enhanced resistance abilities make it so he can drink it himself just fine. If he can speak, he can drink a bottle.”

“It’s really not all that bad!” Roman took a breath after drinking a third of the large bottle, “Sure, my hand wants to fall off and run away, but I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Virgil in the background made some vague hand gestures in Roman’s direction to symbolize his grumpiness as he didn’t have his mask on. Without one of the two masks Virgil always wore around the place, he didn’t have the technology in order to communicate. The masks he built from scratch were meant to analyze his mouth movements and put them into words, a few other complicated controls allowing him to also add the correct tone to his voice. But Virgil just sat in his suit with his helmet on the seat next to him, leaning his head in one hand and looking around the room. He wanted to seem tough, but they all knew Virgil was panicking a little from Roman’s recklessness.

Logan looked back at Virgil on the other side of the L-shaped couch. “He will be fine, however I think that’s enough patrol for one day. Right, Virgil?.”

Virgil nodded slightly and kept looking at the massive TV on the other wall, focusing on some commercials about washing products to keep himself from staring at Roman’s face and hand. Logan continued tending to the wounds as best he could with only a nursing degree under his belt, the burn already starting to slowly mend itself back together like Roman’s powers often did.

“SLEEP?” Logan called, “Could you maybe turn up the heat in the penthouse? Burns need warmer rooms in order to heal.”

Virgil’s handmade AI SLEEP peered out from the corner of the hallway, flicking down his sunglasses slightly as he processed what Logan asked. “Penthouse temperature’s going up to 89, babes.”

Virgil snapped to get SLEEP’s attention and started to sign at him. Get my other mask and a pair of shorts or something, then. It’s already hot as shit in this suit.

“I’m a security system, not a maid, but since you asked so kindly…” SLEEP stared right at Virgil. Virgil didn’t move. He moved closer to him. “Since you asked so KINDLY…”

...Please. He signed unenthusiastically.

“...Then I’ll be so happy to!”

Virgil didn’t even look back at SLEEP to flip him off as he walked away. The only reason Virgil didn’t do more than that was the disapproving dad glare Patton was giving him from the other side of the room.

“Alright, that’s all I can do.” Logan said, taking one last look at Roman’s burned hand and face. “You do not need surgery considering your face is already starting to heal on its own, and since your enhanced resistance makes you immune to sickness, antibiotics and a tetanus shot would be unnecessary. However, I highly recommend you stay here for the night so that no one wonders what happened to your skin before it recovers.”

“Staying a night at multi-millionaire and emo Virgil Raine’s penthouse for a night? My, the horror! How will I ever recover from such a difficult task?! Sleeping on a comfortable guest bed and eating all the food he has? Cruelty I tell you!”

“Ah yes,” Virgil spoke and everyone looked over at him, slowly slipping out of the remainder of his suit with his other black mask covering his mouth again, SLEEP leaning on the back of the couch behind him. “It’s totally not like you basically live here anyway.”

“Your penthouse is comfy and as long as I check into the shelter once a week I still live there. It’s not my fault I know how to get through the window.”

“Yes it is!”

“It’s SLEEP’s fault for not warning you I’m sneaking through your window.”

“I’m supposed to warn him of threats,” SLEEP smirked, “a baby with a star cape isn’t that threatening.”

“I’m not a baby!”

“Virgil, your baby is whining.”

“Oh wow, would you look at the time,” Virgil looked at an invisible watch on his wrist, grabbing the clothes he also told SLEEP to bring and standing up. “I’m gonna go change and let you all fight this ou-”

“Hey look!” Patton pointed to the expensive TV excitedly. “The news is talking about us!”

Everyone looked over to the previously ignored TV, showing a woman in front of the jewelry store they had just been at not even three hours ago. The news lady was with the same fangirl that had stopped Logan and Patton earlier, lending her the microphone. “It was definitely crazy I’ll admit, I’ve never seen any of them up so close, and they did manage to get all my stuff back! I’m definitely really grateful The Core Four showed up when they did.”

“...The Core Four?”

“Core Four?” The news lady repeated, tilting the microphone back to the woman. “Yeah! That’s what I’ve seen the four of them be called anyway, on website formats and stuff. It’s less of a mouthful than their full names, even with the Colored Spirits being shortened. Oh! I actually got to talk to both of them-”

The five of them tuned the woman out after that point, focusing on the apparent team name they never knew they had. Eventually, the banner at the bottom of the screen changed to Core Four Saves Quinn’s Jewelry.

“Huh,” Virgil said, “I guess we’re called The Core Four now.”

Logan pouted slightly. “I thought I was coming up with the group name?”

“The news beat you to it. Rip you.”

Logan glared at Virgil, and Virgil just shrugged. “Plus, it’s kinda catchy.”

“I like that it rhymes!”

“We are the center of this very city, keeping it safe and protecting all that inhabit it! The core! Core Four! I love it!”

Logan caved in. “I must admit, it is...an acceptable name for a team like us.”

“It took them a year to decide on that?” SLEEP said, “Step up your game, missies!”

“Nightmare, Royal Guard, and the Colored Spirits altogether.” Virgil looked at everyone else. “That official? Core Four?”

The other three nodded their heads, Roman smiling brightly. “Core Four!”

[yibuo]

love your hot takes! was wondering if you could give your two cents on shipping/rpf in relation to idol culture, how more often than not these pairings are subtly if not overtly used as a marketing tool etc. I’m all for freedom of expression / fandom consumption as long as the fourth wall is respected but given recent developments in c-ent I feel like we’re treading on thinner and thinner ice....

EDIT you asked for my two cents and i gave u my entire bank account. nice

ok i wasn’t sure how to answer this tbh without possibly getting attacked but i have a pretty strong opinion of rpf/shipping and how people take it to the extremes and i talked to oomf who validated me so here i go

tldr i mean people can take part in shipping/rpf if they want to and if they keep it lowkey but there’s a boundary as to how far shipping/rpf can go and there are too many instances of where people insert rpf/shipping in places that are unacceptable and this goes for all real ppl pairings 

i’m not meaning to offend anyone, and in no way are my opinions discriminatory, but also, if you’re someone who’s gonna make HUGE stretches regarding to celebrities and push your favorite ships in totally unrelated things, maybe you should step back and think about how your actions can affect your favorite people

and i’m totally stealing this from oomf, but here’s a thought:  if you ask yourself  'if i met this person irl, would i feel embarassed if they looked me in the eyes and i read this out loud to them' and if the answer is 'i would look like a pervert stalker' then like........maybe don't do what you’re doing?  

pls respect ur faves is all n don’t make them uncomfortable ! ! and also pls don’t fetishize same sex relationships !

anyway

ok so let me start by saying i’m a seventeen stan and when i was 15-16 y/o i shipped svt members, read rpf, etc, but never really was into overanalyzing every touch or gaze. i obviously enjoyed my favorite pairings interact and i read romantic fics about them. i wasn’t really into reading smut because for me, personally, fics using the members’ names and personalities even in au kinda made smut feel like visualizing the members in a sexual context and i felt like i was crossing a fan boundary, like, would my idol be comfortable with me seeing them in a sexual context with another member they tell us they consider as friends/brothers/sisters? or just in general, would they be comfortable with me thinking of them sexually? but hey, if it was a good fic i would just skip over the smut because good fics are good fics. now idk if it’s because i’m older, or other changes? i don’t really do romantic shipping or read rpf, i stick to reading fics about fictional characters because that’s what makes me comfortable (like if i ever rb two members’ interactions on my main, i stick to just tagging the members instead of their ship name, same goes on here for real people) and i still very much am uncomfortable w/ real people smut literature and art, but that’s just me

ok you see shipping a lot in idol culture because idols are in groups and members spend a good 90% of their time together, so whatever cute interactions you see  kinda lead to people shipping two (or more ig) members. i never really thought about idol shipping culture from a marketing perspective, so i asked some of my friends, and one of them made a really good point about how some ships are more popular than others, and these interactions on shows and stuff might be a strategic/marketing tactic to lure in new fans because of the “ships” being cute. i don’t know how true this actually is, but it kinda made sense. for example, in svt, mingyu x wonwoo is a super popular ship, compared to ships like the8 x vernon which no one ever talks about, even though we know that all the members love each other equally and wholeheartedly. so yeah, there probably is a subtle pushing of certain ships in order to gain momentum in attracting more fans to the group

also i’m gonna be using wonwoo and mingyu as examples but i’m not targetting anyone or anything, just hypothetical situations w/ an idol ship that i noticed to affect the members because how out-of-control SOME stans are

so as i said in my tldr, i don’t really mind romantic shipping, as long as it’s 1) lowkey 2) not pushed in places that it doesn’t belong and 3) not mentioned among the members

keeping it lowkey- pushing ships in everyone’s faces gets annoying. sometimes fans just want to enjoy idols’ content as they give it to us and frankly, it’s a little offputting when you’re trying to watch something or enjoy something and hoards of fans are fangirling over a gaze or a touch between 2 members. keep it on your private acct, or in a group chat, not in the youtube comment section of the video. but still, men and women are allowed to touch each other and show affection without it being romantic, and i feel like shipping culture kinda invalidates the platonic relationship. like unless a pairing is confirmed to be dating, why even bother with overanalyzing these gazes or touches. and no, it’s not homophobic for non-rpf fans to be annoyed, because sometimes fans just want to see the members as they portray themselves to be rather than finding a deeper (and unconfirmed) meaning behind every small thing. fans being like “bro it’s just the touch of two hands it’s not that deep” is not the same thing as fans going “ewww i’m’ not supporting them if they’re not straight” . and sometimes i feel like people try to twist non-rpfers words and call them homophobic if they’re not for shipping when sometimes people don’t wanna romantically visualize 2 people if they’re an unconfirmed couple. how can you use lgbt struggles, which is an issue in society, to fight against people who simply don’t do rpf?? how are you use that as a weapon and for what ??? (also a good amount of people who do this are lgbt fetishizers who aren’t lgbt themselves bye i said it) why can’t we all jus be friends dudes

ok but if you’re against your idols dating someone of the same gender, that’s homophobic and you needa get that checked

but that’s different from treating two members as friends rather than bfs

but this being lowkey concept applies to any pairing, straight or gay, just keep it lowkey dudes. (like for ex we see yibo and meng meiqi shippers, which also doesn’t make sense to me because it’s based off of literal crumbs but ok) it’s ok to be rpfer or non-rpfer as long as you’re respecting the idols and keeping their best interests in mind

respect ur faves pls

not pushed in places that it doesn’t belong- people need to stop bringing up ships and pairings in randomass places. for example, if wonwoo is doing a interview, with mingyu being nowhere in sight, and he’s talking about his hobbies and interests without ever mentioning mingyu, what’s the need to bring up mingyu?? people do it and it’s so... weird? like wonwoo can do things without being constantly associated mingyu? one of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when shippers make these ships such a HUGE part of a members’ identitiy, when the members are doing so much w/ their lives? like no, not every move wonwoo makes, and every breath he takes is related to mingyu, but people still wanna have the audacity to mention mingyu in something completely unrelated? what’s your point?

RESPECT UR FAVES

not mentioned among the members in an uncomfy manner- like if you’re interacting with a real person, why are you gonna bring up a ship they’re included in when you have so many other things to talk about?? like ok it’s one thing to ask someone on a livestream “hey this event you guys did on xxxx show was funny, what’s the tea behind that” but it’s not okay to just mention a ship with no relation and no context to the situation. again, this counts as rpf-ers and shippers attributing a single ship to an idol’s identity much more than what it actually counts as. no, wonwoo is not 70% made of mingyu lover and vice versa. we actually saw this between mingyu and wonwoo as people kept pushing meanie (the ship) to their faces, and we saw (and  still see) a much more decreased amount of interaction between them compared to them predebut, because shippers couldn’t stay in their lane. so yes, out-of-control shipping DOES affect idols and can be harmful to their relationships if you don’t control it

^ so y’all see why i feel so strongly about this, because it literally can affect these idols’ relationships on screen

JUST RESPECT UR FAVES

again, this applies for any pairing of any sexuality, i’m just using wonwoo x mingyu as an example because it’s something i saw when i was into rpf. i love both mingyu and wonwoo and they are wholesome together. i have friends who ship them and i’m completely ok with that because they do it without posing any harm to the members, but some people just need to take a chill pill and a seat and calm down ????

so i completely understand that shipping/rpf serves as a creative outlet for lgbt+ folks and that’s completely fine, inspiration, love, cool cool cool. just don’t be so pushy about small interactions especially directly to idols. and as for rpf-ers, don’t let rpf give you a reason to start fetishizing same-sex relationships, that shits weird and problematic...pls

again, if you ask yourself  'if i met this person irl, would i feel embarassed if they looked me in the eyes and i read this out loud to them' and if the answer is 'i would look like a pervert stalker' then like........maybe don't do what you’re doing?  

lol so this is why i’m much more comfortable w/ fictional shipping, because these people don’t exist in the real world and don’t have actual lives and relationships to protect 

just respect ur faves omg and we’ll be fine

“given recent developments in c-ent” and me being a yibo stan and you sending me this strongly leads me to believe you’re referring to out of control bjyx cpf (yizhan shippers)  LOL

i don’t follow much c-ent besides xnine, uniq, r1se, and sometimes unine and the nine percent members, and honestly im not too into the fan culture so i dont follow ships there? so i’ll focus on. this ship

to be completely honest, shipping for idol groups makes some sense to me because idol group members are with each other most of the time, that’s literally their job

shipping actors who haven’t confirmed that they’re dating/no proof doesn’t really make sense to me at all--they work on one project together, and they’re off to their next., with or without each other . we don’t know if they keep in contact every day, much less if they’re into each other, but each to their own! my opinions and takes aren’t perfect and as long as you’re respecting your faves, it is ok~

ok so i’ll start of with saying: obviously, i love yibo. i love xiao zhan. they’re cute nd wholesome and evidently had good times together and learned a lot from each other regarding acting and being in the industry and just developing as people together. good for them, we love character development. amazing

is pushing bjyx a marketing tactic? most definitely yeah by tencent thanks tencent. i think you can see this through the amount of bts videos there are with just bjyx in comparison to other bts videos/interviews, even though there are many more important characters apart from wwx and lwj in cql, we don’t see as much side cast interactions as bjyx, and if we do, there aren’t that many w/ other cast members and yibo and xiao zhan?? relatively speaking

so yeah i think pushing this yibo x xiao zhan thing definitely was a tactic to further the momentum that wangxian was already having to attract stans, and it worked. like i LOVE watching yibo and xiao zhan bts videos because they are two goofs. love them. love my boys. love their camaraderie. and if people wanna ship, then go ship. cool! just be casual pls

i think where this becomes a problem is when people start projecting wangxian’s relationship onto yibo and xiao zhan because...the latter are real people. yibo and xiao zhan =/= wangxian !!!!!! (ok first of all yibo is a gremlin how can he be the wang in wangxian in real life)  what wyb and xz show us in videos is nowhere near what wangxian is hJKNDJNWD and i see so many people just equate the two pairings...nooo... and combining everything mxtx writes about wangxian in the novel and projecting that onto wyb and xz...i don’t think that’s the move dudes they have their own lives they’re not wangxian

my BIGGEST pet peeve is when people wholly credit wyb’s development as an actor and as a person to xz and vice versa. i cannot tell you how many times i see posts saying “wyb brought xz out of his shell” and vice versa and things like “xz looks like he’s having much more fun than he is when he’s with xnine, they’re soulmates” and etc

both wyb and xz have had years of industry experience before getting to know each other. they’ve gone through some of the lowest points of their careers before even getting to know each other well, and they’ve both found Their People in the industry before finding each other. to say that wyb brought xz out of his shell in a summer’s worth of filming based on some bts videos is just so unfair to the bonds xz has made with his other colleagues and xnine  members and the accomplishments he’s had before cql. same with wyb and his career prior to cql. and his uniq members, his ttxs bros, and all his other colleagues. these 2 have gone through some shit with their idol groups and it’s just not fair for cpfs to erase the significance of their career prior to cql to support and find a leverage for their shipping. i’m not saying all cpfs do this, but there is  a Good Amount That Do and it pisses fans like me off

they are not each others saviours bye

also  “xz looks like he’s having much more fun than he is when he’s with xnine, they’re soulmates”, if you guys ever watch xnine videos, you’ll know that xnine is Loud. with members like wu jiacheng and peng chuyue being so loud and extroverted, it kinda makes xiao zhan relatively quieter. but he’s still a gremlin and troublemaker and it’s not like he isn’t having fun. he’s just louder w/ yibo because yibo is more introverted than xz. relationship dynamics are relative to the relationship cmon people !!!! this is basic knowledge !!!! anyway that was a side tangent but ya

but ya my point is, wyb and xz have their own careers and they’re doing their own things now, and it’s unnecessary to bring up xz in an unrelated wyb post/article and vice versa, and it’s just so so unnecessary to link them in everything??? like i heard that cpfs prevented xz from keeping his nomination for an award because yibo wasn’t nominated so xz lost the nomination ./rolls eyes

anyway my point being, if you wanna ship them then go ahead! just do it normally and don’t bring up the ship in unrelated places (like other dramas, tv shows, etc where they’re not together), don’t spam them with bjyx related things, don’t make weird stretches/connections?? the other day on twt i saw a twt about uniq wenhan’s drama, where he was being referred to as xiao zhan (little zhan) in the drama (different  “xiao” and “zhan” characters than actor xz’s name) and i saw cpfs go “omg theYRE CALLING HIM XIAO ZHAN??? IS THIS FATE OR” like no it isnt maam it’s just a name stop reaching

ANYWAY UNNECESSARY SIDE RANTS BUT MY MAIN POINT is that people are allowed to be shippers and take part in rpf, but don’t make their identities “____’s lover”, don’t look past their current and past achievements for the sake of your ship, don’t erase their relationships with other people for the sake of your ship, stop bringing your ship into things that are only related to one person/aren’t related to your ship, stop saying creepy things about your ship (if you think the ship people would be uncomfrotable with what you say about them you probably shouldn’t be saying it)

just. respect ur faves pls no matter who they’re with ...just respect them ty

stan yibo stan xiao zhan stan uniq stan xnine

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ok bye mic drop