#To be fair to you this was submitted before I made the guideline post

[creation-help]

the first two are clementine pre n post wither storm n the third is an oc ive just been calling [DATA EXPUNGED]

theyre both pokemon ocs, w clem specifically being a mash up of being a minecraft storymode oc and a pokemon oc

[DATA EXPUNGED] is the Champion of Arceus n is v ? theatrical ? fancy ? either way he speaks like its the early 1800s, i also dont have much of a backstory for him since i created him like, 4 days ago n im VERY slow at giving ocs backstories

clementine on the other hand ive been making a backstory for several months so i have a lot to say but i wont so to sum up her backstory (in a way thats prolly shit ngl) its:

clem n her (still unnamed n undeveloped) friends go to a con, they win, they go to a post con festival, clem meets some guy, the same guy clem meets makes the wither storm, she defeats it but is v traumatized from it, she becomes a mayor of a town at some point but she ends up running away from kalos to kanto

[Is not familiar with the Pokémon storylines you're talking about and thus has nothing to comment on it, so apologies if that is relevant to the review]

I'm assuming [DATA EXPUNGED] isn't, at least in the current state of things, related to Clementines story at all?

I'll tackle [DATA EXPUNGED] first!

Very solid color scheme, I think the dark skin tone fits perfectly with black white and gold, especially since the shirt (top?) is white. The accessories and face patterns really give off a fancy, perhaps priest like aesthetic and it makes the whole collective come across as very distinguished. Supernatural too, considering the one white eye and again, face patterns, although it leaves some ambiguity since this could also just be a very fancy cultural getup. I have to say though, I'd probably have made the roses some other color: though the black is strong and very cool, you can't really see them from the black hair and thus it sorta muddies the effect and makes it look more like the character is wearing some headgarment rather than a rose crown. Unfortunately, since this is a picrew, i can't say much for more core aspects of the design like the shape of the face, eyes and nose, which I consider very essential aspects of designing human characters. This is no fault of yours, as I said, picrews can be limiting in this aspect.

Judging by the art style though I'm going to guess this character is meant to have a strong angular face and jawline with a straight, square nose. Strong but elegant brows, I assume? The beauty mark on his jaw though is a very nice touch! Gives some uniqueness and personality to the otherwise very conformed, untouched image the character has.

The character strikes me as a very learned, wise personality who knows things beyond this world, and I can definitely see that he'd speak more theatrically, like a preacher or professor (the book and quill help this).

If the character ever ends up drawn by free hand, here's things I'd suggest adjusting or adding to [DATA EXPUNGED]: Facial traits. I think a strong nose with a bit of a greek shape would do wonders for a theatrical, regal looking character like him, and if the angular jawline is intended, keep that!! Depending on age (or how dramatic you want him to look), I'd also suggest more visible cheekbones perhaps? Strong brows and serious eyes would contribute to this vibe but depending on of course where you take this character, you can change things to suit that! For what I'm suggesting here, the character feels like a sort of apocalypse preacher person who is more interested in studies and has a tendency to push people away. However you could also easily go a softer route with him as well but I think, if you do, I'd still keep the angular dramatic facial features. The rest of my suggestions would just be to add maybe the smallest bit more decoration or jewelry, maybe something with a more personal touch? Earrings, rings, ect. I feel like he'd be the type to carry around some very sentimental piece of jewelry or other item, something he holds in great value. He doesn't seem like he'd pretty up just for appearance sake. Also I feel like sideburns or some stray hair whispies would add a fun little touch that could divert from the more serious groomed image the character gives, just something to create uniqueness in general. Doesn't have to be those exact things I suggested.

Then Clementine!

Design is simple but functional. Personally I think she could also use a bit more to make her less generic ykno? To be fair this could also be a fault of whatever you used to make these images (not sure if that's a picrew or some other dollmaker thing). I like the amount of change you have between the before and after states, especially liking the touch of her expression changing, even though its not related to design here lol. The first one with the simple, a bit girlish and old timey dress works well with the half up hairstyle and simplistic outfit to establish a younger character who's out to see the world. The two things diverting from this image are the sword and maybe(?) her being barefoot. The sword evokes imagery of either someone who seems more innocent or naive but turns out to also have sharp, honed skills. OR a strapping enthusiast who is looking for adventure and her place in the world, with only the clothes on her back and this sword she found (lighthearted tone). The barefoot aspect also gives a bit of a rural vibe, of being more in touch with nature. Which is something the After™ version contrasts, with a more modern feeling outfit, and the loss of the sword.

I really like her having a longer hairstyle in the latter one, with the braids/dreads. Hairstyle changes are a great way to communicate something in a character so it fits! It feels more subdued mature while still keeping a bit of that openness and freedom, with the dreads hanging freely, and hey, still being in a half up style! Good one!

I'd suggest maybe adding more signs of experience or wear on the latter version, just to communicate her having gone through something major, even traumatic. Scars or something like more visible eyebags, or something to show a more scuffed up appearance ykno? You could also make her more stocky and built, or maybe a bit chubbier in the latter, bc to me it feels like a slightly older version of the character and so, getting more built feels appropriate for that.

Overall just add more simple, small touches to communicate personality more. I think the latter one is good at that but the first one feels more generic. If it's meant to be simple though, I understand! But still. Doesn't have to be anything major, could just be things like small accessories or things she's personalized for herself. Maybe In the first version she could have a little patched up clothing to show her outdoorsy lifestyle? If not, you could add something else, just a suggestion.

From a purely visual standpoint, [DATA EXPUNGED]'s design is lots more interesting and distinct looking, and I'd only really adjust the person under the clothing and accessories. For Clementine, I feel that she could use to stand out just a tad more. However I hugely appreciate them both being poc and also having natural hairstyles (both having dreads at some point) to it! Definitely helps make them more diverse, which is always a design plus!

[bylerjournal]

Official Submission Rules and Guidelines

Please be sure to look over all of the submission guidelines if you are planning on submitting work to the journal.

Type of work allowed

We are looking for well crafted fanart, fanfiction, fanscripts, web weavings, theories, analyses, or critiques of the show that showcase thought provoking and unique ideas within the fandom, promoting healthy conversation and debate and pushing the boundaries of fan creations. If you have a piece of work that you would like to submit but does not fit into any of the previously listed categories, please DM the fandom journal tumblr account, send an ask, or email us. 

Maximum of 3 entries per person

This helps create less work for our team, but also helps the journal feel balanced and fair, rather than being taken up by one creator. 

We will not accept work made before 2022

You will not need to make anything new for the journal, however we do ask that all work submitted be made during or after 2022. This is to ensure that the work within the journal is up to date on the show and is a commentary and reflection of relevant information. 

Collaborations are allowed, but this will count as an entry for each creator involved

For example, you cannot submit three solo works and then one collaboration, but you can post two solo works and one collaboration. Only one collaborator needs to submit this work, but must include bios for each person involved. We understand that sometimes with theory or analysis posts, other creators will occasionally be cited or linked. This does not count as a collaboration, and will not take up one of their submission spots.

Work must focus on Mike and/or Will and should be made through a Byler lens

Since this is a Byler fandom journal, I would like to keep the work Byler related in order to keep it cohesive. The work does not need to focus solely on their relationship, and can focus on just Mike or Will and include other characters, but should be at least through the lens of Byler. For example, you could submit an analysis that is solely about Mike, as long as it is made through the understanding that his story arc will lead him to be with Will in the end. Work will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for relevancy. 

Dark/sensitive work will receive a content warning label

Since our goal with the journal is to share work that promotes unique ideas and debate, we will not be barring work that includes discussion or depiction of content that is considered dark or sensitive. However, if these works are selected, they will be presented along with a content warning label. The journal team will decide which works receive this label and what warnings to include.

We will not accept work that targets another creator

With this journal, we aim to showcase a healthy conversation within the fandom, which oftentimes include different viewpoints and opinions. However, we will not condone any work/posts that intend to target another creator to harass or disparage them. We understand that with theory/analysis work, some posts are made that aim to argue against a general idea within the fandom. These posts are acceptable, so long as they do not single out any individuals. 

You may not submit on another creators behalf

The only work that is submitted should be your own, or a collaboration between you and another creator. You may not submit work that was created entirely by someone else. If you are submitting a collaboration, please be sure that you have consent from all other artists involved.

Moving image work is not allowed 

The final version of this journal will be published in the form of an online PDF. As such, moving images such as video edits and gifs are not allowed, as the format we are using cannot support this type of work.

No work is guaranteed to be selected

We aim to create a cohesive journal of work that is well crafted, thought provoking, and unique. If we feel that a work does not belong in our journal, we are entitled to reject it. Do not feel that a rejection is a reflection of your skill as a creator. Your work may just not be what we are looking for right now. 

Please be patient!

This is the first run of the journal, so we expect that there will be things we will be learning along the way. Since this is a small time working in their free time, the turnaround for the final product will take some time, and while we can give a loose framework for when we believe the final journal will be available, we will not have a definitive date until later in the process. We thank you for your patience. 

Submission Guidelines

Each work that is accepted will be formatted by our editors in a way we believe supports the integrity of the work. For written work, we will proofread for any spelling errors. Proofs will be sent to the original creator to be approved before going into the final journal. We will accept any edits the creator would like to make, within reason. Please include a title for each work, even if not originally titled.

Fanfiction: One-shots, single chapters or excerpts only, with a maximum of ~3,000 words. If you have a few short chapters of a fanfiction you would like to edit into a single chapter, this is acceptable so long as it stays within the word limit. The work submitted should be able to stand on its own. Please submit a link to the tumblr/ao3 respective work or upload a google doc. If this work is accompanied by any illustrations, please upload files for the images separately. 

Fanart: Link to your original post, as well as a high quality upload of your artwork in .jpg or .png format. Be sure to include a title for your piece.

Comics/multi-page art: You may submit comics or other multipage art pieces with a maximum of 5 pages, or be able to be formatted into 5 pages. If you have any questions about if your work would qualify, please reach out to us via email or in DMs. 

Fanscripts: Similar to comics, these should be a maximum of 5 pages. The text from the scripts will be transcribed onto the page. 

Web Weavings: Web weavings are in a unique category of fan creation, but we would still like to open our journal to these works. We are looking for web weavings that are able to format neatly onto one or two pages. We recommend transferring the images from the web weaving onto a google doc. 

Theories/Analyses/Critiques: These entries are limited to ~5,000 words. If the original is too long, or you would like to edit or change part of the original post, you may move it into a google document and upload it that way. If the post was made answering an ask, please be sure to include the original question and who asked it, as these will be included in the journal. 

Note about external links: We understand that theories, analyses, or any other post may include links to other posts or outside sources. Luckily, the online PDF format is able to support these types of links, so we will be able to include them within the journal.

Note about screenshots: We know that with analyses and theories, screenshots are often used. For the purpose of design and formatting, the original screenshots in your post may be replaced with higher quality screenshots, although we will try to keep the message and integrity of your original work intact. We also advise against work that relies too heavily on screenshots over words, as these will be difficult to format in the journal. All theories, critiques and analyses should be text based and use images to supplement the text.  

Submissions open November 1st and close January 17th

The limited submission window is to give our team enough time to sort through submissions and make selections before we begin the design process. A google form will be created and linked in our bio for submissions.

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

Do you guys know about creative commons? (if yes, ignore me :] )

I'm just asking, because (especially with that copyright restrictions apply) many museum, educational, and general open access sources use creative commons guidelines, which are a more permissive type of copyright restrictions that can be individualized per item. Many allow for reproduction as long as you aren't profiting from the work. I assume this tumblr isn't monetizing anything lol, but I wanted to make sure that you guys knew about that because I personally did not know about CC until a few years ago and copyright stuff can be difficult to navigate

To be extra clear: Mod Salix actually does have a degree in museum studies, and specifically checked both websites for information on reuse. Neither has anything about CC licensing, and the one has a specific page about copyright that not only specifies reuse, but states "You’re encouraged to use images as a way of remembering and sharing your experience of our exhibitions, but the reproduction of portraits as commercial items or the use of the images in a way that would cause offence is strictly prohibited.", and I personally am uncomfortable suggesting that pitting Maori art in a tumblr poll bracket is absolutely non offensive. Neither does it really fall under "remembering and sharing your experience of our exhibition," exactly.

At last check, we had 219 works submitted. We will already be cutting a fair number of works for much more petty reasons than "bothering an important cultural institution for an extremely ridiculous tumblr poll", but technically, yes we could bother them. We have no guarantee that they'll get back to us, much like the three (of six) tumblr artists have not gotten back to us yet, nor would I want to waste their time on it.

For the record: those two pieces I will be specifically linking after the first bracket is up because I do want to share these Maori artists that have been shared with us.

this feels a lot like you're going "ethically it's FINE because they didn't post it on tumblr yet" and that attitude got a lot of pixiv artists to delete their pixivs because people kept reposting even with credit. These two specific submissions both have specifically stated restrictions on reuse, and that made me check on both their restrictions and that made me go "hey wait, actually, ethically, this is entirely feelsbadman". Reposting is not just the nitty-gritty of removing attribution, because there are posts circulating on this site where someone has reposted it and left a "credit to artist" but no one ever goes and looks at that artist because they'd rather recirculate the repost and the repost has an order of magnitude more notes than any of the original artist/posts ever did.

Also, I live in a place that already does not respect indigenous rights enough, so I'm a little.... touchy about respecting other cultures' indigenous peoples, and if they say "ask permission before using for something that might be offensive", I'm going to actually stop to think about it a little bit.

[allvalleyskillschallenge]

All Valley Skills Challenge FAQ's

What is it? The All Valley Skills Challenge is a monthly event designed to encourage all forms of creativity within the TKK/CK fandom.

How does it work?

Each month, we will select a theme and post 3 correlating moodboards, which will serve as visual prompts. Choose the one that inspires you the most - or choose them all! - and get creating! Whether it's writing, art, or other forms of media, the goal is to inspire creativity and community participation, in all its many and varied forms. What's the time frame? The theme and moodboards will be shared on the first day of each month. You will then have the entire month to complete your creation(s). If you wish for us to share your work, please make sure you have submitted a post by noon, CST, on the second to last day of the month. This should give mods enough time to reblog any submissions before the start of the next prompt. We will schedule deadline reminder posts for each month and include the deadline in the moodboard posts. We reserve the right to make adjustments to the schedules depending on the amount of submissions, we will post updates whenever any changes have been made. Be sure tag us so we can reblog it here. How do I tag you?

@allvalleyskillschallenge and #allvalleyskillschallenge Sometimes, things slip through the cracks on this hellsite, and sometimes life just gets in the way. If we somehow missed your post, please feel free to shoot us a politely worded message and one of our mods will take care of it as soon as possible.

What kind of fan works are allowed?

This is a skills challenge, so it's time to step onto the mats and show us what you've got! Our goal is to showcase all forms of talent and creativity in our badass little fandom, including but not limited to:

Fanfiction

Fan Art (Digital or Traditional)

Comics

Meta

Edits

Playlists

Moodboards

Mixed Media/Arts and Crafts

If you have any questions about the eligibility of your submission, please feel free to message us and one of the mods will be happy to clear things up.

Does it have to be CK/TKK specific? 

Generally speaking, yes. We ask that all works be connected to TKK/CK in some way. Any TKK/CK character, whether major or minor, is fair game. AUs, crossovers, and actor RPF are also welcome.

What pairings are allowed?

All pairings either directly or tangentially related to the TKK/CK universe are accepted. This means that if you wish to include a character from a The Karate Kid or Cobra Kai actor's other projects (i.e. Shootfighter, Naked in New York, Blue Beetle), we'll accept those works as well.

To make things easier on our mods, please make sure to tag all pairings accordingly. Include the names of the characters, the actors and the shows/movies they originate from.

What ratings and types of content are allowed?

Works of all ratings are allowed for this challenge, as are works that contain sensitive content, provided they do not violate Tumblr’s Terms of Service. But please be courteous and tag your works appropriately.

Please note that the mods reserve the right not to share or promote works that ignore these guidelines.

What about NSFW Art?

We recommend that any uncensored NSFW Art be posted to ao3. Please be advised that if you are sharing explicit art directly to tumblr, it should cropped/censored to abide by the community guidelines. We have also created an ao3 collection for your submissions. If you would like to add your fanworks to this collection, you can find the link here.

How should I format my submission?

Along with your submission itself, please state which prompt(s) inspired your work, the rating, the main characters/pairings included, and any valid content warnings.

If you do not wish to use warnings, please place your content under a Read More link.

To keep things neat, we also ask that any writing longer than a few paragraphs be posted under a Read More, along with all NSFW content.

If your work is hosted on another site outside of Tumblr (such as ao3), please provide us with a working link, along with a brief summary. Is there a word count minimum for written submissions? Or a maximum?

The minimum for a written submission is 100 words (or haiku length for poetry). There is no maximum. From drabbles to epics to in-depth meta, feel free to write as much (or as little) as you want. Just keep in mind that your work must be submitted before the end of the month in order for us to reblog it. Can I submit more than one thing? 

Yes, absolutely! Our goal is to inspire you to create!

That being said, we will only reblog 6 posts per participant, per month. This is mainly to keep from spamming everyone's dashes.

So if, for example, you choose to write multiple drabbles or connected drabble sequences for a prompt, keep this limitation in mind. Consider either posting them to ao3 as a collection and sharing the link, or condensing them into one tumblr post.

Again, please only @ us in 6 posts per month. Posts that exceed this limit will be disregarded.

When will my post be reblogged?

Our current plan is to reblog your submissions in batches, twice a week. There will be one drop in the middle of the week, and another over the weekend. So if your post isn't reblogged right away - don't worry! We will do our best to make sure everyone gets their time to shine.

We are also currently working on creating a tagging system to keep things as organized as possible on our end. We ask for your patience while we sort things out.

One last thing!

Remember, this a challenge, not a competition! The goal is to further develop and showcase your skills - and most of all, to have fun!

We know it's a slow time for the fandom right now, but we hope this event will encourage participation and foster a greater sense of community. Reblogs and comments are encouraged! It is our dearest hope that you will support each other's efforts and cheer each other on!

That being said: While we will do our best to tag ships and any sensitive or potentially triggering content, please remember that this is a fandom-wide event. Any and all pairings and ratings are allowed.

This may include content that you are not personally comfortable with. But while you are free to explore themes of intolerance or bigotry within your work, hate speech and harassment directed toward your fellow participants or mods WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Under ANY circumstances.

Someone wrote or drew a ship you don't like? You disagree with someone else's opinion or are squicked by a particular kink? Be respectful or just keep scrolling. Unsolicited critical feedback and bashing are not allowed in this dojo.

To paraphrase Mr. Miyagi - our root karate might be the same, but we all choose our own way to grow. Everyone's form of expression is unique. So please be respectful when engaging with creators and their works. Anyone found to be harassing their fellow challengers (or the mods) will be banned and disqualified from participating in future rounds.

If you have any other questions, comments, or suggestions for future themes, please feel free to contact us and we will get back to you as soon as we can! Our asks are open. And if for some reason you need to contact a mod directly, your senseis mods with their inboxes open and ready to answer questions are: @desolateice and @wicked-jade.

[thelordofgifs]

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Frequently Asked Questions

Making a quick FAQ post for organisational purposes!

Why isn't [insert character] in the bracket?

Because nobody submitted them, or they were disqualified for receiving too many submissions and failed to make it through the lightning disqualification polls.

Why is [insert character] in the bracket? They aren't obscure!

Well, firstly, obscurity is subjective (although I attempted to quantify it). A lot of hardcore silm fans (at whom this tournament is aimed, of course!) find some of these characters very un-obscure indeed - but not everyone is coming to this tournament from a "lives breathes and sleeps HoME" position! That being said, in retrospect I'd probably have chosen more stringent rules for disqualification, based on my quantified obscurity score instead of simply on number of submissions. My mistake, please don't eat me, I promise I'm actually really nice :)

UPDATE: a lightning disqualification round ran to (somewhat) fix this issue! More here.

I feel the need to personally reiterate to you that these characters aren’t obscure.

Cool. Vote against them then.

Seriously these characters aren’t obscure at all.

Have you considered that I heard you the first fifteen times?

How did you calculate the quantified obscurity score, then?

I'm glad you asked! obscurity score = number of fics on AO3 tagging that characer * number of submissions the character received.

How did you seed the bracket?

Slightly unconventionally, since this is an obscure blorbo poll, I seeded the characters by obscurity score and then pitted the most popular characters against each other in the first round, to give the more obscure blorbos a greater chance of success. Was this entirely fair? Probably not, but I think it makes it more interesting than the "extremely popular character against unheard-of character" matchups we'd have otherwise seen.

This matchup seems really unfair though.

In early rounds the matchups are all quite even actually, since they're all between blorbos with adjacent obscurity scores!

Can I send you propaganda for my blorbos?

Absolutely! Some new rules for propaganda:

If you want propaganda to be included in the body of a poll itself, drop it in my ask box before the character poll opens! (You can find the dates for future polls in the Round 1 masterpost here.) If you want to make my life easy, keep your propaganda text-only - no pictures or links - and in a single paragraph so that I don't waste a minute having to delete all your line breaks.

If your propaganda contains pictures or links, or the poll is already open, or you just want to make your own post instead, feel free to do so and tag me in it! I'll reblog it under the tag #otb propaganda.

Help! I can't decide whom to vote for!

Well, ultimately that's your decision! But some rough guidelines, if you're struggling to make up your mind:

If Eldacar is in the poll, vote for Eldacar.

Polls are always in the order "more popular character vs less popular character", so if you're rooting for someone obscure to win the whole thing, voting for the second option is a safer bet.

Choose feminism and vote for women. Because of the nature of this tournament there's a lot of textual ghosts/very obscure female characters in here, which makes me happy - don't let them lose!!

What are the lightning disqualification rounds?

These are two special polls I ran to fix the error I made in disqualifying characters too early! Those who were unfairly disqualified went up against the ten most popular characters in the bracket; in each poll, the five characters who received the most votes remained in the tournament. More on my reasoning here.

In the end, only one disqualification occurred: Eärwen was replaced by Azaghâl.

Help! I accidentally voted for the wrong character!

Luckily, that’s easily fixed! Drop me an ask or dm with a screenshot proving that you voted for the wrong character, and I’ll take your vote into account if the margin is literally that close (unlikely but you never know); and I’ll change the numbers on my results spreadsheet to account for your mistaken vote too.

[salstapedeck]

***

Calling all producers, beatmakers, experimental musicians and music-makers of any kind!

I cordially invite you to participate in Tumblr’s very own weekly beat cypher, in the spirit of the weekly Kenny Beats/D.o.t.s. Beat Battle, Andrew Huang's 4 Producers 1 Sample series, and the unfortunately now-defunct Team Supreme Beat Cypher. First sample will be posted at 12 AM EST on Saturday, Feb. 19th!

Reblog, tell yer friends, get the word out!

For more information and guidelines, read on!

Format

User-submitted beat cypher sample is announced

Participants will have one week to make a beat incorporating the sample

The beats will be compiled into a tape and released on Bandcamp as soon as possible (everyone featured will be credited!)

It starts all over again the next week!

Guidelines

All genres are welcome! Honestly, you can submit something no one has ever even conceived of before. The tape will be all the better for it!

Beats should use the sample provided! (the sample will be available via a Dropbox link in the cypher announcement post; beats should incorporate it in a recognizable manner. Of course, please feel free to use the sample in any way that you want-- I just have to be able to hear that the sample is in the beat!)

No pre-made beats, please! (of course there's no way of verifying this, so we'll have to go by the honor system)

All beat submissions can be made through the Dropbox link in the weekly cypher announcement post. Please be sure to title the file in this format: BC [Cypher number] Entry [Artist name] [Beat name]. Also feel free to throw in your socials in the "submissions" section of the website if you want me to advertise them!

Each person gets only one entry a week! Again, honor system.

No material you don't have the rights to! I'm not rich enough to handle a copyright infringement lawsuit!

Other Info

For now, I'll do my best to organize this weekly, but that may be subject to change depending on holidays, extenuating circumstances, popular demand, etc

I may need extra help deciding which beats to put on the tape! There won't be any fixed rankings, but depending on how many entries I get, I might not have room for all of them. If you want to help, just PM me!

Should the tape be a free download, or have a pay-what-you-want option? I'll only implement this once I figure out a way to pay everyone equally (I'll look into the mechanics of compilations on Bandcamp and see if it's possible). I only want to build community by doing this, provide a platform for artists, and hear some fresh and amazing sounds, so I would feel horrible taking any money that I didn't earn; I want to find a way for a trusted third-party service to split the earnings so that it's out of my hands and all fair and square (it would be unfair to expect you to trust me, I'm just a random person on the internet, I wouldn't trust myself either!)

Peace,

Sal

[tea-and-spoons]

All About Accommodations 2: Working with (or without) disability services

While writing my first post about accommodations, I realized that I had enough information about actually working with the office of disability services to make an entire second post- so I did!  My original post about the basics of accommodations is over here: All About Accommodations

So hopefully your school’s office of disability services is fantastic and supportive and wonderful, and they happily meet all of your needs!  But in a lot of cases, it’s a little more complicated than that (I really don’t know why) so this post will be about things that can help.

I was super nervous and confused about disability support services when I first got sick, so one of my older friends took me to visit the office, just to meet the staff and learn about what they do.  It was nice to get to know the staff a little before I had to get into all the personal details of my health, and just get a feel for what goes on there.  Many places will have open office hours when you can just drop by and ask general questions too.

To start the process of registering for accommodation, there may be a form you fill out online, or you might just have to send an email.  Or go to the actual office to say, “Hi I want to register for accommodations, what’s my next step?”  Setting up accommodations is a process, so you’ll probably have at least one meeting with the people who work in this office to discuss possible accommodations.  At the meeting, they’ll ask you lots of questions about how your disability affects you, and talk about what accommodations are available.  They’ll also probably ask you about your classes to understand what you might need there.  I try to do something relaxing and confidence boosting (like listening to music!) before my meetings.  And not scheduling something directly after, so I have time to decompress.  For the meeting itself, I find it helps to write and bring a list of possible accommodations and things to discuss- it helps keep me from getting too upset and then either forgetting or backing down.  Remember, you have a legal right to reasonable accommodations, and you deserve to thrive in college!

You’ll also almost definitely need to submit some documentation (like a letter or test result) from a medical professional.  Which is really not fair for a variety of reasons, but that’s how it is right now:/  There might be specific guidelines for what your school needs for documentation, but generally if it says, “Lovely reader of this blog has xyz condition and requires these accommodations.  Signed, Medical Professional”, it should work.  

Unfortunately, not all accommodations offices are as wonderful and supportive as they should be, so you and/or the person providing your documentation may need to do some persuading.  This could mean having more detailed documentation, arranging a phone call between a supportive medical professional and the disability services office, or just being extremely persistent.  I did once get my mom to make an “angry parent phone call” as a last resort, and it worked, but I think your school will probably be grumpy if you go right to that.

So what happens if the official office of disability services totally fails you and denies your accommodations?  Don’t panic, you still have more options.

I haven’t personally done this, but I know you can file a formal grievance with your college and try to get the accommodations decision changed.  You can also meet with your dean, who is higher up in the chain of command than disability services and may be able to help you.

If all else fails, you may have better luck working out informal accommodations with individual professors.  But also, having official accommodations from the college means that even the worst of professors have to comply with them.  So fingers crossed that you don’t find yourself in either of those situations.  But I really did have a lot of success talking to professors individually.  Even when disability services is already semi-cooperative, good professors will sometimes go above and beyond to make sure you’re included, and that’s pretty cool.  I’m fairly certain your professors aren’t allowed to ask questions about your disability if you don’t want them to, but I would recommend disclosing a little, because having a better understanding helps professors help you.

You can also talk to your classmates and see if they might be willing to help out.  For example, even if you were denied a formal note taker, someone might still be willing to photocopy their notes for you.  Or like for me, I have food allergies and needed classmates to be careful, so when the college said no to formal rules, I emailed all my classmates myself and said, “Hey I want to be safe in class, can you avoid bringing peanut butter?” and they were happy to listen.  Of course you still shouldn’t have to share anything you don’t want to, but I did find that accommodations that relied on other people went better when they knew who I was.  I think they would see me and remember they needed to be careful, instead of it being an abstract rule, and it helps a lot.   

My favorite type of informal accommodations is what my friends and I call “guerilla accommodations”.  None of the adults were willing to help, so my friends made it happen in their own (not always quite within the rules) ways!  Some of my favorite examples of guerilla accommodations have been: friends providing impromptu ASL translations of instructions, going into classrooms and swapping out unsafe equipment, helping educate classmates, unlocking doors to create accessible paths, contacting event organizers themselves with accessibility requests, and arranging rides.  My sister even once carried me out the parking lot when there was a fire drill!  My point is, just because the college told you no doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  There are a lot of good people out there who are willing to help, even if they’re not the ones that work in disability services.

I wish you the best of luck on your quest for accommodations!

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2021 Megaman Valentine’s Day Contest - Rules Thread *CLOSED*

Welcome to year #14 of my mostly-annual Megaman Valentine’s Day Fanart Contest!

Two categories, in which you are allowed to submit one entry for each category, if you would like. If you place in one category, you will be automatically disqualified from the other, for reasons of fairness, and to give other people a chance to win a prize.

CATEGORY 1:  Kiss From a Rosered (Talent)

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a Rosered on Nebula Grey Ooh, the more I think of it, the stranger it feels, yeah And now here to give a rose to Split Mushroom A light hits the room on Jet Stingraaaaayyyyy~

Ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-da-da, ba-da-da

For this category, your goal is to create a scene between the Megaman characters of your choice involving roses being given to one's Valentine. Simple enough, right? But there is a little twist. For those who don't know, the color of the rose actually has some meaning behind it. We are all used to the standard red rose as a symbol of love more than anything. But just as there are different forms of love, there are different concepts these various colors can represent, when giving someone you love flowers.

The other part of the challenge for this talent category will be your use of color in your pic. Just as you choose a color to convey meaning with this rose, and theme your scene in a similar manner, I'd also like to see you utilize this color as the strongest within your piece. 

So, while I don't expect all of these submissions to be purely monochromatic, or a single hue when coloring, your goal will be to try to make your art have your rose color as the dominant color in your piece. Whether that means the characters you choose are predominantly that color too, or, they have a pallette change with their outfit/armor/etc. to echo or help contrast the color theme. 

Content Requirements: 

* Megaman characters of your choice giving roses to their special someone on Valentine's Day

* Utilizing the symbolism of specific rose colors within your artwork (see a list with examples here: https://www.proflowers.com/blog/rose-color-meanings) to help set the scene. 

       For example, if you are using purple roses, it often represents love at first sight. Your artwork should convey characters involved in a love at first sight scene.  

* When coloring your art, keeping the color of the rose you chose to also be the predominant color of the piece. (This does not mean you have to stick to a single hue when coloring. You are free to be as creative as you can with this in mind!)

* Judging will take all of these content requirements into consideration, and how well you are able to mesh all of them together in your piece. 

CATEGORY 2: Kawaai-rimi (Humor)

From lining store shelves this time of year, to carnival prizes, or even life-size 30th Anniversary editions, there's nothing that says love like a soft, cuddly plush character to snuggle. 

One of the more memorable Mega Man plushes comes from the Battle Network series, specifically the kawarimi/anti-damage doll of Megaman.EXE. So, using that as the basis for this category, your job will be to create a Valentine's Day-themed plush of a Megaman character. But again, with a little twist.

The Megaman character of your choice is in a scenario where they need to give a gift to their sweetheart, and they need one very quick. Who pops up to help? Why, it's Shadow Man (or any ninja character from any Megaman series of your choice)! To help this character in a bind, your ninja character instantaneously produces a specially-made Valentine's kawarimi plush. Your character can then give this plush doll to his or her Valentine. 

For example, a cute little Sir Crescent Grizzly bear, who just wants to hug-a-lot with his sharp claws, or a charming Toad prince, who wants to give kisses with a little tongue. Have fun thinking of funny, but cute plush concepts!

Content Requirements:

* A Megaman-related character created in Valentine's Day plush form. Draw the most clever, unique and hilarious design for this plush

* A ninja character in the scene, who can instantly produce this plush for your character who is in a bind to give a gift to his crush

* As this is the humor category, judging will be based primarily on how funny your piece is. Creativity, concept and execution may get you some points, but the focus of this category is how you make us laugh! 

PRIZES:

Due to Covid still causing havoc around the world, physical prizes are going to be a little tougher, with some regions still seeing postal restrictions. So the main prizes for winners will still likely be cash, sent via Paypal.

The winners for both the Talent and Humor categories will receive the following:

1st Place: $100 USD  2nd Place: $75 USD  3rd Place: $50 USD 

(...as long as I don't bankrupt myself helping with a certain auction before this...*ahem*)

PARTICIPATION PRIZE RAFFLE:

However, I am still going to try to give away 2 cels in another participation prize raffle this year. I don't want to limit this to US entrants only, although given the circumstances, it might be hard to send to certain countries. I will certainly try to send either of these worldwide. But just know it may depend on postal regulations, as the ripple effects of this awful virus continue into the following months.

In any case, when you submit, please mention which cel you would like to be entered into the raffle for.

If you draw a pic for both the Humor and the Talent Categories, you can double your chances to win! (Odds of course, depending on how many others enter and also draw two pics.) You will be able to add your name into the drawing a second time for the prize you are most interested in, or have a chance at both!

Raffle Prize #1 – Captain N Mega Man with genie lamp

Raffle Prize #2 – Captain N 'Cuts Man'

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: 

When you submit, I would prefer you to include the following information in this format, along with your entry:

• (Your name/preferred alias) – As much as I usually know who you are, there’s always someone new or somebody who has a different preference from what their email name says. 

• (Category this entry is for) – You can either say 1 or 2, or Talent/Humor

• (Participation Prize Eligibility) – Again, you can say either 1 or 2, or Mega Man/Cut Man

In the event you are submitting your second entry, please specify which cel you would like your bonus chance in the raffle to be put towards. 

Only submit your own work, as usual. Any character, major or minor, from any series is allowed. Pairing characters from different series is totally allowed. Same-gender pairings are completely fine. OCs are allowed, as long as your art contains at least one canon Megaman character.

As always, participants are allowed to submit from all over the world. 

Paypal is still the preferred method for cash prize payouts. Please have a valid account to receive your winnings. 

Youngin's, get your parents permission before entering.

Entries do not need to be fully colored, but it is preferred. The more effort put into things, as always, the better chance you have!

Entries can either be e-mailed to me at rock2125[at]hotmail[dot]com, or you can just PM/note me a link to your pic. 

DO NOT post your pics in this journal, your dA galleries, Twitter, tumblr blogs, other sites, etc. until the contest is over. This is the fairest way for competitive reasons. I prefer to keep them all secret until the deadline has passed. 

I'll edit a confirmed entry list in this thread when I receive them. So you won't be in the dark about whether or not I've received your entry. 

DEADLINE: 

The deadline for this contest will be Saturday, February 13th, 2021 by 11:59PM (global end of the day). This gives you a little more than 5 weeks to finish your entry! 

MISCELLANEOUS INFO: 

- As usual, If you don't plan to enter, but would like to help me judge, please let me know through DM or mention so here. Never hurts to have extra opinions on all the entries.

Bug me with questions if you have any. Please join in, and good luck to everyone who enters! 

Confirmed Entries:  

Cat. 1 - Forceway, @dragonmarquise, @digitallyfanged, donnie, abilityfield, @aw-colorcat, Mattasaurs, Dark-Dullahan, Sapphire Cat. 2 - Mattasaurs, ColeManX, @destinywillowleaf​

[tjswritingstuff]

Writing Records to Keep

I keep a lot of records and files related to my writing. To be honest I probably keep more records than I should be, but keeping consistent records gets me in the habit of hanging onto things in case I ever do need them.  

Media Kit – A list of media outlets to send book release information to. It also includes a list of book reviewers. My Media kit includes the local newspapers, radio station, and libraries.  

Monthly “Goal” Pages – Taken almost directly from my writing plan this lets me keep each individual month as a separate document. It also includes my personal goals that are not writing related.  

Project List – My project list is incomplete. I keep forgetting to add current projects to it. When I get it straightened out it’s another spreadsheet that includes the project title, type, status, save location, secondary save location, submission information, publication date, publication location.

Submission guidelines for places you want to submit to – if you submit to a publisher, what is their requirements for formatting? What is their average time to get back to a writer? What kind of rights do they want to the work? what kind of payment do they offer?

Time Log – I keep track of what I write daily. My time log is a spread sheet that has the title, status, start time, end time, total time spent writing, starting word count, ending word count, total words written, starting page edited, ending page edited, total pages edited.

Vendor Event List – List of places I plan on taking my books to sell. The document includes the Date, location, contact information, and cost.

Writing Plan – I create a new writing plan each year. For more information about writing plans see my posts: “My Writing Plan” or “How to create your writing plan.”

Yearly writing folders – I have been keeping my writing separated out by year since 2017. The main file has individual documents for stories, blog posts, poems, etc. I don’t keep that stuff separate because its all writing. The folder is broken down into smaller folders for

Ads – I stopped running ads when I figured out, they 1. Weren’t working, and 2. Were costing me much more than I was making from them. They weren’t cost effective, but I keep the information I found about them.

Book Cover Designs

Financial statements, Invoices, and receipts

Balance Sheets – A list of assets and debts. The balance sheet is how you see the net worth of your business.  

Income Statements – An income statement done with the end of month paperwork will give you an overview of what you’ve made compared to what you’ve spent.

Estimated breakeven point – how many books will you have to sell to make back the money you’ve spent on your writing?

Purchase Receipts – if your writing is a business any writing related expense can be written off as a business expense.

Royalties Payment receipts

Sales Receipts – To provide information on how much income you’ve made.

Images – I save all the images that I use in my posts to a single folder. I tend to reuse the same images when I can. I search for sites the provide images that are either public domain, have been donated for public usage, or have a creative common copy right release attached to them.

Inventories – The inventory gives a list of the books I have on hand, what their value is, and if I need to reorder more.  

Incoming inventory – I check the order vs. the shipment, make sure they match then add the new books to the existing inventory totals.

End of month inventory – at the end of the month, doing a large count to make sure that the numbers match. (starting inventory + incoming inventory – items sold = current inventory).

Event inventory – Before and After events I’ll do two inventories, one is a list of what I’m taking with me, the second is what I have left at the end of the day. Checking the remaining inventory against the sales insures nothing has gotten lost in transit.

Newsletters – I was going to try to put out a monthly newsletter on my blog, but there wasn’t enough interest in it, and I didn’t do a good job of pinpointing the target audience for it. Someday I might pick it back up, but for now it’s just a dead project.

Reference materials – information about writing.

Research – information for my projects.

Tax information - This file contains local, state, and federal tax information.

An Ein is an employer identification number. Having this number is necessary if you ever want to hire someone else in your writing business, it allows you to pay taxes on employees.  When I got my EIN, I didn’t realize that I was thinking of the wrong thing. I was thinking that I needed an EIN to pay taxes on my income from writing during the year instead of waiting for the end of the year. What I really needed was to register for the EFTPS.  For now, I don’t use it, I don’t have any need to, but it’s good to know if I ever need to hire anyone, I already have half the paperwork taken care of.

EFTPS – Electronic Federal Tax Payment Service, is a service that allows you to schedule payments toward your taxes.

State Business registration information. This was necessary for me because I started selling my books at craft fairs and vendor events. I was required to pay sales tax on the items that I sold.

Writing Assessments

Writing Warmups

[thessalian]

Thess vs Tactical Voting

Look, I get it. You don’t like Biden. You wanted Bernie. You don’t want to vote if you can’t vote Bernie. I understand. I do. Thing is, I also understand the other issues surrounding this whole thing - not because I’ve studied political science or anything, but because I am currently living them. Even though the electoral systems in the UK and the US are profoundly different, even though we don’t technically vote for our Prime Minister the way you do for your president, I am living the end result of a total failure in tactical voting.

Submitted for your approval: Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, the guy who, if Labour had won the most seats in the House of Commons in the last election, would have been Prime Minister. He was as progressive as all hell. He identifies politically as a democratic socialist. Man after my own heart. However, there were a few bits and pieces in there (being smeared as an anti-semite, and I’m not even sure how much truth there is to that; the issue where his proposed wealth tax was maybe a little overzealous and was decried by Conservatives as threatening to people’s 401k plans and IRAs, stuff like that) which ... made him less than appealing to others. But he hung on as Labour leader, barely.

People wouldn’t vote for him for ideological reasons. For financial reasons. For a lot of reasons. They were strong supporters of Brexit and didn’t like his wishy-washy stance. They were strong supporters of remaining in the UK and they didn’t like his wishy-washy stance. They felt they would be hurt by his tax policy. Whatever; however much they disliked Boris Johnson, however much they didn’t want a Tory government, they refused to vote for the only other major political party that stood a hope in hell of getting the Conservatives out of power. They refused to vote tactically.

And, because of our First Past the Post system, the Conservatives got a majority in Parliament. It’s basically exactly like what happened during Trump’s first term, when the House and the Senate were all Republican-controlled. There are no checkreins on Boris Johnson at this point.

Look what he is doing with that.

Even before the pandemic, it was insane. One question was about human rights, and whether they’d adopt a human rights act similar to the one they were following while in the EU once the transition period was over. That question got sidestepped; “Oh, we don’t imagine that we’ll change the way we deal with human rights at all but we don’t see why we’d need to put it down on paper...” They said the same with worker’s rights. They walked back every major promise they’d made beyond “Get Brexit Done”, and left themselves loopholes large enough to drive a fucking bus through - a bus with lies about how much money we’d give to the NHS once we left the EU painted on the side, at that. There’s a lot of talk about deals with American pharmaceutical companies that won’t be held to NICE guidelines about drug prices, and that’s going to drive up the charge the NHS puts on medication (currently about $10USD per prescription) to ... well, what Americans pay.

And then the pandemic. Much like Trump, Johnson played down the severity. “I’m not going to stop shaking hands”, he said. “We’ll try for herd immunity”, he finally said when he had to say something; “A lot of people will die before their time and that’s something we’ll have to make peace with”. Yes, he actually said that. And when he finally had to call for a lockdown, it was incomplete and, because of his laissez-faire attitude to it, ignored a little too often. We’re not as bad as the US for COVID-19 deaths, but we don’t have as many people. The government kept us out of the ventilator procurement scheme the EU was operating despite the fact that we still had every right to take advantage of that very helpful offer, because he wanted to offer his Brexit-supporting friend at Dyson (a vacuum cleaner company that had never made a medical-grade ventilator) a way to profit from this mess. And then the Dyson thing somehow got sold as “Plucky appliance company turns its attention to designing a ventilator to help us through this crisis!” overseas while over here, we were dealing with lies about, “We didn’t get the email about the procurement scheme”, only a couple of days after, “We’ve opted not to be part of that scheme; Dyson’s on it”.

We still haven’t got the ventilators from Dyson, by the way.

Also, on top of all this? We’re apparently still looking at ending the transition period that gives us access to the pre-Brexit markets at the end of the year. Never mind that no one can anticipate what the hell the economy is going to look like in December, never mind that we haven’t heard dick from the Home Secretary, never mind that the Prime Minister’s been in the fucking hospital; we’re still Getting Brexit Done, and probably with the No Deal that some of these disaster-capitalist dickwaffles were angling for all along. On top of the hit the economy is taking because of the pandemic, this is going to put a lot more nails in a lot more coffins. And we’ve got quite enough deaths as it is.

Which is where I go back to the situation in the US. This is what happens when a slightly (only slightly, I admit) more subtle version of a greedy-ass narcissist has no checkreins and a position of power. You’ve all seen Trump’s lies. You’ve seen the danger he’s put you in. I am living the result. I will continue living the result for quite some time. There’s a chance (thankfully a smaller one than there might be if my mother wasn’t well-to-do, but still a chance) that I won’t live the result; that this will actively kill me in ways slower and more stressful than COVID-19.

I know how disappointed people are at the news about Sanders. I understand. I do. But please - don’t be us. Vote tactically. I know you want the vote for the Good Man, and there are some serious questions about Biden right now - though given some of the bullshit at Trump’s impeachment, I’m really not sure how seriously to take some of that. Which is the problem. Right now there’s so much we don’t know, but we do know what Trump stands for. He wants voter suppression, media replaced by propaganda machines, total disinformation of the populace, silencing of dissent by any means necessary (come on; he has advocated violence more than once)... Johnson is bad, but Trump is worse. You have to get him out of office.

Don’t make the mistake the United Kingdom made. Vote tactically. Choose the lesser of two evils. Whatever you think, Biden is the lesser of two evils. At least he’s not likely to do everything in his power to ensure that this November is the last time you ever get to vote. And no, I would not put it past Trump.

[khrrarepairweek]

Frequently Asked Questions

I’m curious, what is this week all about?

KHR Rarepair Week is a fanweek dedicated to the many rare ships of our beloved manga/anime series, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Awesome! So what exactly do I have to do?

Anything you can think of! As long as it is your original work, it will be gladly accepted.

Do you like writing? Fanfiction is the air we breathe!

You’re savvy with editing? Gifs/graphics are a delight.

You’re an amazing artist? Fanart is our lifeblood!

Perhaps you have a lot of ideas, or maybe a list of songs that remind you of a certain rare pair? Headcanons and fanmixes or AMV’s are always welcome! So are songs, cosplay, moodboards and any kind of other fanworks!

Again, as long as it is original (not reposted… that’s a no-no, tsk tsk), then anything under the sun is possible.

However, if a certain post happened to inspire you, then we say go for it! Just remember to credit the original poster, and please do make sure that the inspired work is an original one as well.

Alright, let’s do this! *has completely no idea what to do/is overwhelmed with a lot of ideas* Uhmm, help?

Fear not, dear one! We try to provide a list of prompts that might help guide your creativity. .

Next to that, if you have no idea what pairing to write for, we have a list of suggestions right here: x  (Please note: this list was compiled in 2018, please cross-reference this with our list of the current top 10 AO3 pairings before starting to write. The top ten changes from time to time).

Remember: The prompts are just your guides, and doesn’t have to be followed to a T. If you’re inspired by something else, then go for it! Everything is also subject to your own interpretation, so have fun playing with them.

Aw, bummer. I don’t think I’ll be able to do all of them. Is it alright if I skip a day or just choose a particular day?

It is most certainly alright! Don’t worry, it’s a lot of days and a lot of prompts too! No need to feel pressured.

Just Keep Calm and Rarepair On!

(Alternately) I want to do all of them, but I won’t be able to post it on the day itself! Can I submit/post it beforehand?

As much as possible, we are encouraging creators to post on the day of the given prompt, in their most convenient time. Also, Tumblr has this nifty little thing called ‘queue’, which lets you schedule a post, so you might want to consider that option. But, if both are not feasible, then please tell us so, and we’ll make accommodations. However, please know that we will post it on the day the chosen prompt was scheduled.

But I love both of the prompts! Can I submit more than one work a day?

Of course! The more KHR rarepair content, the better! Just make sure to label/tag/link properly so we’re not reblogging duplicates. We suggest including the prompt used in the body of the post, so we can also identify where it’s supposed to go in the blog’s tagging system. Feel free to do multiple pieces for one day/prompt!

Are NSFW entries allowed?

We accept NSFW submissions, but as we want to make this blog and this week accessible to all parties, we won’t directly be reblogging these submissions. Instead, we’ll post a list of all NSFW submissions made to each prompt at the end of the day. You are, of course, strongly urged to post your work to the AO3 collection, regardless of whether or not your works are SFW.

Please make it a point to label/tag NSFW and trigger-warnings appropriately.

(This is to ensure that no one accesses NSFW content without knowing exactly what they’re walking into. Or accidentally reads any work with content that could potentially trigger/upset them.)

I have my own blog though. Can’t I just post it there?

It’s your work, so of course you can post it there, silly goose! Then we are going to reblog it from there.

The purpose of this blog is just to collate all the works, so fans would have a go-to place if they want to see/check out the works again.

Basically, this blog exists for archiving and posterity’s sake.

*squints eyes* Are you sure you’re going to reblog it?

We will, promise. Scout’s Honor! We have to ask you to follow the tagging guidelines properly though.

Our tracked tag is #khrrarepairweek2020 (or, in case of a mini-event, the appropriate mini-event tag mentioned on the prompt post), so please make sure that they are within the first five tags of your work.

You may also link the blog directly, in the body of your post.

But, should it happen that we missed your post for some reasons, then feel free to send us a message, and maybe a link so we can reblog it.

But what about me? I’m too shy to post it in my own blog (>_<) Can I submit directly here instead?

Sure! The submission box is open just for that. :)

This is all so interesting, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to fully participate, but I really do support your cause. What can I do to help?

Thank you for the interest! Reblogging the announcement post whenever you come across it would be very helpful in spreading the word and recruiting more people to join our cause. Please help us signal boost as much as you can!

What counts as a rarepair?

As we only accept rare pairings, it’s logical this would come up! Our definition of rare pairing is as follows: any pairing not in the top ten pairings on AO3. That means we do not accept entries with these pairings:

Gokudera Hayato/Yamamoto Takeshi

Reborn/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Superbi Squalo/Xanxus

Hibari Kyouya/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Gokudera Hayato/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Dino/Hibari Kyouya

Hibari Kyouya/Rokudou Mukuro

Sawada Tsunayoshi/Xanxus

Rokudou Mukuro/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Reborn & Sawada Tsunayoshi

Everything else, however, is fair game.

Do threesomes count or are you just accepting "pair" pairs?

Threesomes are fine and so is poly and/or harem!

I was just wondering for this rare pair does it have to be romantic ships or can it be like platonic ships as well?

We accept all kinds of ships for this event, including platonic and aromantic! The content we’re attempting to generate aims at fics that have interaction between characters who don’t always interact with each other, so all kinds of interaction are lovely. How explicit, inexplicit, ship-py or not you want to make this interaction is up to you.

If I already have a work in progress, can I add it to the collection regardless of how long I posted it on AO3? Or does it have to be a brand new work for the rarepair week?

This is a perfectly valid question, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to say no. Mostly because, while we’d love to have your work, this week was started because all of us wanted to generate more content for rare pairs in the fandom. Meaning linking works that have already been posted or are WIPs defeats the purpose.

However, we’re happy to have offshoots of a previously published work, or a WIP! Meaning, if you’d like to write and submit a separate one-shot set in the same ‘verse as your WIP for the week, we’d be glad to have it.

I’m writing fic for my entries, are there any word count restrictions? 

No, entries can be however long you want. You could have a multi-chaptered fic, or write one-shots, whatever you like! The goal of the KHR rarepair week is creating more content, so don’t feel the need to set the bar high if you don’t feel like it! A 100-word drabble? More than enough if that’s what you want to do!

On the Topic of OC Ships In the 2018 event, we allowed Canon Character/OC ships. At the time, there was no definite conclusion that us mods could come to so we decided to allow OC ships and would revisit it at a later time. We mods have finally come to answer.

We have chosen to define the following:

Rarepair – a pairing between canonical characters that is not popular.

Popular – in the top ten relationship tags on archiveofourown.org

Canonical Characters – a character we know at least the following 1) their name, 2) their appearance 3) the tiniest bits of personality and ideally 4) history. A loose rule of thumb: Can you google them and find canonical information? If yes, then you’re good.

Based on the definitions above, we regret to say that OC Ships are not allowed. And as always, crossover ships are allowed. (Crossover characters fit our canonical character definition, despite them not being from KHR)

We hope you’ve learned enough about the event! If you still have questions, just hit the ask box and we’ll get back to you as soon as the mods are able! :)

We would like to thank the lovely mods of @kurodai-week​ for allowing us to use their FAQ as a base!

[sledgefuweek]

the rule about not reblogging if submissions are late seems extremely unnecessary and really unfair on us who don't make the deadlines but who have worked really hard filling these prompts? it absolutely does not encourage further participation. this along with the only using one particular time zone instead of letting people just upload in their own time zones just adds complications and anxiety to what is supposed to be fun and without pressure, wtf?

tldr, i spent two months using all my free time to write and putting off my own personal projects to write within the prompts and now you're saying my work doesnt count if it isnt finished by a certain date? I am seriously not impressed by this.

-------

(since you’ve messaged me one on one about this, i feel like i don’t completely need to post this but i will for posterity and for other people who may be wondering. i haven’t edited my original message at all despite our conversation in my DMs)

hi!! thank you for sending us a message, and i’m sorry that some of the ways in which we chose to do this year’s ship week were frustrating -- this is how we’ve done things for the past couple years, and it’s worked so far, but sledgefu week continues to grow and it’s only the two of us, there’s really no way for us to know how to adjust for next year’s ship week until the current one is over! so thank you for your feedback. there’s always tweaks that need to be made for sure, and if it happens again next year the time zone thing is definitely something to look at. however, we did have a twenty-four hour window for everybody to submit stuff, which felt completely fair but maybe we need to have a better look at that for next year. it’s just lea and i running this week, and we’re both in a similar time zone so it’s really difficult to try and plan around every zone there is. that’s no excuse, just trying to be open about it!

in terms of the late submissions thing: i can completely see where you’re coming from. as i mentioned, sledgefu week grows each year and the guidelines we use have to change with it, so i see no harm in reblogging later submissions. i’m sorry that you’ve felt frustrated and that the way we’re doing things is unfair, i’d just really like to say that this is a small ship week for a small fandom, (or at least, it used to be very small, haha! this has been a really big sledgefu week this year) and we’re all still just muddling through trying to work out what’s best. we don’t do things to be cruel or unfair, there just have to be some rules to make it a special yearly event and to make it different to fanart or fic that’s posted for the rest of the year. part of the challenge and the fun of a ship week event is to see what you can do by the deadline! we never intended to make it feel like a stressful experience, it’s just simply the nature of a ship week. it also feels a little unfair to those who worked (just as you have! i know it’s not always feasible, of course, especially with everything going on in the world at the moment) to make the deadline if we’re reblogging things very very far down the line. we all worked hard, we all put off personal projects and used all our free time to write. there was a clear deadline from the very beginning, and one that even got pushed back by a month because lea and i were very aware of the pressures of both lockdown/quarantine and the protests that were happening at the time. i hope you can see where i’m coming from with this, just as i can see where you’re coming from too. 

thinking that an extra week for late submissions would be enough was my mistake, i didn’t think to take into account where others might be in their timeline -- i answered that ask last night before bed, and didn’t think it over, and i’m sorry for that! would the rest of august be a better stretch of time? 

again, we’re sorry that this may have been a frustrating experience for you, i know ship weeks are all about the time crunch, which can be quite stressful.

[inspired-by-the-music]

Kai

requests are encouraged! please read my guidelines before submitting your request

Genre: university!au, features Sehun and Chanyeol as the reader’s longtime friends & SHINee’s Taemin as Jongin’s best friend (bc i never stop being taemin trash lol). not really fluff or angst, but happy endings abound!

Word Count: 3,140

Note: this is an idea i’ve been developing for a while. it ended up being pretty long because it’s about one of my favorite themes: inaccurate reputations.this is an idea i explored in depth in my bts social media Any Other Name, which is referenced as a novel in this story. please enjoy!

As far as you could tell from your first month at your new university, there was only one rule: avoid the boy named Kai. Your roommate, a girl named Soo-ah, introduced you to an anonymous girls-only blog that meticulously detailed dramatic confrontations between other students. In short, it was a gossip website; however, instead of discussing the lives of celebrities, it was devoted entirely to exposing students. And the general consensus from the website and Soo-ah was that Kai was nothing short of a monster. 

“Apparently, he likes to befriend girls before breaking their hearts,” Soo-ah told you, her eyes burning with rage. 

“But broken hearts are kind of a part of dating,” you observed quietly. It seemed wrong to hate some guy you never met, regardless of how many anonymous people swore they were moved to tears by his behavior. 

“Didn’t you read any of that stuff I told you?” Soo-ah held her phone out to you once more. “He only likes for girls like us to stroke his ego, then he’ll drop up like we’re worthless.”

“But how do you know? We don’t even know who any of these people are—” You set her phone down on the end of your bed when she refused to accept it. “And they don’t include his last name or even a picture, so how would we even know if we saw him?”

“You would know Kai if you saw him,” she answered vaguely. Eyeing you suspiciously, she snatched her phone off of your blanket. “And why are you so determined to believe he’s such a good guy? Do you know him or something? Has he already gotten to you?”

A furious blush rose to your cheeks at her accusation, and you shied against the wall at your back. “No, I don’t know him, and I’m not determined to believe anything about anybody. Would you feel better if I was afraid of every boy in the school named Kai?”

“Honestly?” Soo-ah glared, “Yeah.” And when your stare clearly indicated that you were uncomfortable, she smiled and added, “You know— just so you’re safe.”

. . . 

When you recapped the conversation to Sehun the next day over lunch, he stared at you blankly. “You mean to tell me that the girls have a whole website where they post what they really think about guys?”

Rolling your eyes, you ripped a used page out of your notebook and threw it at him. “Focus, Sehun.”

“I am focused.” Sehun hurled the paper at your face, but you ducked. “We’ll talk about your weird roommate after you tell me if my name is anywhere on that blog.”

“I don’t know, I didn’t look for you.” You picked the balled paper off of the ground as you answered. “Besides, to be on there, I think you have to be some kind of affront to women.”

“Oh,” Sehun nodded. “Well, I’m a total gentleman.” Satisfied with your mocking laugh, Sehun said, “Anyway, are you sure that your roommate doesn’t have some kind of grudge against this Kai dude— or whatever his name is?”

You shrugged, “I have no idea— I literally just met her a week ago when I moved in.”

Sehun shook his head at you. “Seriously, Y/N, that girl could be a psychopath for all you know. I told you to just move in with me and Chanyeol—”

“Excuse me, I only finally escaped you two when you went off to college.” You teased, biting your cheek to avoid laughing. “You know, I didn’t even want to transfer here, but the scholarship—”

Sehun kicked you under the table. “Cut it out, punk. Chanyeol’s heart would break if he heard you.” He scolded as if he weren’t pouting himself. 

“Fine, fine. Anyway, I didn’t tell you everything so you could analyze Soo-ah or convince me to move in. Is any of that stuff about Kai true?”

As he shrugged, Sehun wrinkled his eyebrows. “How would I know? I don’t know anyone named Kai.” Then, more gently, he advised, “But Y/N, maybe don’t take a risk on someone with a bad reputation, ya know?”

Your tongue clicked in frustration. “No— I don’t know, actually. I mean, what if I listened to everyone in high who said you were a bully because of your resting bitch face—”

“Don’t play with me, Y/N, I know you had a crush on me and my mean eyebrows—”

Groaning, you complained, “Okay, first of all, literally nothing is sacred with Chanyeol.” Once Sehun finished laughing, you continued, “Second of all, that was back when I was a freshman and you actually seemed cool.”

“All these excuses.” Sehun smirked as he leaned across the table to ruffle your hair. Leaning back, he abandoned his jokes, and said, “Seriously, though, don’t be too naive. I know we think Soo-ah is a weirdo, but maybe she has some history with that guy, and she’s trying to protect you.”

Again, you refused to accept Sehun’s opinion that you should just be cautious. “But she didn’t even tell me who he is. And the blog calls him Kai— like some nickname.”

“Or a codename,” Sehun suggested. “Look, I’ve been to a lot of parties—”

“Is this really the time to brag about your social life?”

“ — Shut up! Anyway, I know almost everyone here, and nobody in my grade is named Kai. So maybe it’s just like a fake name everyone on the blog knows someone as?”

Your brow furrowed as you tried to rub the headache out of your temples. “But why warn me if nobody is going to tell me who to fear? The more I think about it, the more I think this is just some clever way for people to gossip.”

“Yeah? Well, welcome to college.” Realizing how troubled you were, Sehun recommended, “Don’t pry if you think it’s just girls being catty. What’s the point of going through the effort of finding out who the hell Kai is if they’re just venting?”

“Because it’s not fair for him to have a bad reputation if he didn’t do anything wrong.” You were about to begin your rant anew when your phone buzzed, signalling an incoming text. “Sorry, I gotta meet someone in the library. Group projects are so inconvenient. 

“Yeah, don’t lie to me about meeting other guys, Y/N, it confuses me about the true nature of your feelings.” It would have been impossible to know that Sehun was joking if you lacked the years of experience in noting the slight upward twitch of his lips. “You’re coming to the party tonight, right?”

You nodded, “Yeah, sure. I have nothing else to do.”

“Obviously.” Sehun laughed when you shoved his shoulder. “Go ahead and invite your boyfriend so Chanyeol and I can run him off.”

. . . 

Jongin was the only person who made a good impression that first month of classes— well, aside from his friend Taemin. As far as you could tell, the had to be the most popular guys on campus, judging by the whispers and stares that followed them everywhere. What were the odds, you wondered, that two seemingly perfect people would be inseparable best friends?

It was surprising to find him waiting for you alone in the library, since it was your first time seeing him without Taemin. 

“Hey.” Jongin greeted you with a warm smile, just as he had on the first day of class.

While people obviously initially admired him for his stunning appearance, Jongin’s personality was more worthy of appreciation. And you knew it was silly to be yet another girl whose heart raced for him, but you couldn’t help it. 

You returned his smile as you sat. “Hey.” 

“So,” he raised the assigned novel, “what did you think of the book?”

“Actually, that was, like, my thousandth time reading Any Other Name,” you admitted bashfully. “It was my favorite book in high school.”

Jongin’s jaw dropped. “No way! It’s my favorite book too!” His excited volume attracted several hisses from nearby students and the assistant librarian. While his cheeks turned scarlet, he flipped his book open and displayed the colorful annotations. “It’s a little embarrassing, but I did most of this before the book was even assigned for that contemporary literature class.”

Hours slipped away as you and Jongin discussed your favorite parts of the novel. By the time you finished the project, and took a few selfies, and made plans to watch Any Other Name’s film adaptation, the sun had set. A quick glance at your phone confirmed that you were running late for the party. 

 Sehun had only been joking about you inviting Jongin, but at this point you were confident that he enjoyed hanging out with you, and you weren’t ready for your heart to calm. “You know, I’m about to go to a party at my best friends’ place. You may know them— Sehun and Chanyeol?”

“Yeah,” Jongin nodded. “I know them.” He laughed as he rubbed at the back of his neck and admitted, “And I know their parties are a little wild.”

You dismissed his concerns by explaining, “They’ve been my best friends since high school, that’s the only reason I’m going.” You blushed as you realized that he was likely politely rejecting you. “Ah— actually, it’s okay if you don’t wanna go—”

“Wait, you’re inviting me to go with you?” 

Had it not been obvious? Jongin smiled when you nodded. “Okay, Y/N, I’ll go, and I’ll look out for you.” And he took your hand in his and allowed you to lead him out of the library. 

. . . 

The party was a chaotic blur. Evidently, Sehun decided to invite everyone he knew, resulting in little space to move and booming volumes. While the environment prevented a continuation of your earlier conversation, it didn’t discourage Jongin from remaining at your side throughout the evening, acting as your date and protector from the boisterous guests. 

Sehun nudged you as he passed you near the blaring stereo and teased, “I can’t believe you actually brought him.”

And Sehun wasn’t the only person suspended in disbelief. You would have to be blind to miss the stares, which you attributed to envy considering Jongin’s popularity. Until the following morning, after Jongin escorted you to your dorm, when Soo-ah shoved her phone into your hand again, you didn’t consider that Jongin’s reputation could be more sinister. 

“I told you to stay away from him.’ Soo-ah reminded— as if you could ever forget— while you examined the pictures displayed on her phone. They depicted you and Jongin dancing at the party. 

“This doesn’t make any sense— his name isn’t even Kai.”

Yet the caption clearly read: ‘Kai picks his newest prey. Don’t be naive!’ and linked to Jongin’s account, where he had posted the pictures of you from the library. So it was as Sehun suggested; Kai was an alias for Jongin. 

It wasn’t that you trusted Soo-ah or distrusted Jongin— so why was there a sudden sharp ache in your chest? Why was your stomach suddenly in knots? You didn’t know him well enough to suffer a broken heart, so your discomfort had to be caused by the embarrassment of having your pictures spread among anonymous strangers. 

All you knew for certain was that nothing could come from confiding your feelings in your roommate, so you returned her phone and resolved to remain silent. 

. . . 

You spent the weekend trying to interpret your feelings alone without much success. When Chanyeol collapsed into the desk next to you and stole a concerned glance, you finally realized how deeply confused and upset you were by the entire ordeal. 

“Hey Y/N, what’s the matter?” To comfort you, Chanyeol dug a cereal bar out of his bag and tossed it onto your desk. “Something happen with that guy you brought to the party?”

And you should have known better than to recount the situation to Chanyeol in that ten minutes before class; Taemin sat in the back corner of the classroom, and anything he heard would be repeated to Jongin. However, at Chanyeol’s compassionate provocation, you explained everything. 

Like Sehun, Chanyeol fixated on what you considered a minor detail. “You mean you’ve managed to find the only guy in the world who’s obsessed with your favorite book?”

“That’s what you picked up on?”

“It’s just— it sounds like you really like him. And it sounds like he really likes you. And you have the same interests. And it’s dumb that you’re letting some stupid gossip blog ruin everything.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like him anymore.” You glanced over your shoulder to make sure Taemin wasn’t listening; and when you were satisfied that he was listening to music, you continued, “I’m just not sure I’m okay with people taking my picture and talking about me just because I hang out with some guy.”

“Well, Y/N,” Chanyeol studied your expression as he leaned back in his chair, “If you really like him and you don’t believe what your creepy roommate says about him, maybe just avoid that website.”

Before you could respond, the professor began his lecture. 

Maybe Chanyeol was right. You could easily forget about the blog, since you only knew about it and read it when Soo-ah was forcing you to read it. But could you really ignore the real world scrutiny? Even as you took notes, you lost count of how many girls turned around to stare. 

If this was how they were acting after a weekend of ignoring all of Jongin’s texts, how could you believe everything would go back to normal if you swore off involvement with him? And, perhaps more importantly, why should you live to please a bunch of strangers? 

As an act of defiance when that girl in front of you glared at you once more, you yanked your phone out of your book bag to ask Jongin to meet you to lunch, and you didn’t try to hide your smile when he immediately replied. 

After class, Chanyeol rubbed your arm on the way out. “Everything will be okay. And if your roommate doesn’t back off, you can always stay with me and Sehun.”

You only nodded before heading to the campus cafeteria. A few steps later, a delicate voice called your name. 

“Y/N?” It was Taemin, approaching you with a gentle grin. “Um, no matter what anyone says, Jongin really likes you. Don’t tell him I told you, but he’s had a crush on you since the first day of school, and he had a lot of fun with you the other day. So maybe don’t believe everything you read online.”

“You mean—” Your voice dropped below a whisper as you were almost too nervous to ask, “You mean you know what everyone says about him?”

Taemin nodded before confessing, “Yeah, we know what everyone says about us. They’ve been talking forever. But please don’t believe it.”

As relieved as you were to learn that your instincts were right, you were more consumed by sympathy for Jongin and Taemin. Despite the growing guilt of ignoring Jongin because of unfair rumors, you smiled softly at Taemin. “Don’t worry. I don’t believe it.”

Bearing that in mind, an apology tumbled out of your mouth the moment you found Jongin waiting for you at a table by the window. He already bought both of your meals and set your food at the space opposite him. 

“For what?” He smiled at you, evidently determined to believe that you hadn’t deliberately avoided him all weekend.  

You sat down and began, “I’m sorry I heard rumors about you— I didn’t even know they were about you—”

Jongin took your hand in his to interrupt your rant. “Y/N, don’t worry about it. I know all about that Kai stuff. Honestly, when you were actually nice to me and invited me to that party, I guessed you just hadn’t heard anything.” A frown yanked at his lips as he concluded, “I knew it was just a matter of time before you heard that I’m apparently some kind of jerk and decided to distance yourself.”

You appeared to have forgotten how to speak until Jongin released your hand and stood to dismiss himself. “I didn’t believe them—” You blurted as you grabbed his hand and tugged him back toward the table. “I didn’t believe the rumors before I knew they were about you. Before I even liked you.”

He stilled and sank back into his seat. “Really?” He narrowed his eyes at you curiously. 

“Really,” you repeated. “It was just an instinct. But if you don’t mind me asking, why do they call you Kai? And why are people so determined to talk about you?”

“They’ve just always talked about me.” Jongin shrugged; it must be a part of life he accepted long ago, but that acceptance didn’t lessen his frown. “I don’t know why they call me a womanizer; I’ve never even dated a girl. I remember when Taemin had his first girlfriend, the other girls were so mean to her; I didn’t want anyone to go through that because of me. I really hoped things would change when I got to college, but— well, I’ve been here for a full four years, and people still whisper behind my back.”

Then, rather stupidly, you asked, “You still don’t date?” as if all you could think of was becoming Jongin’s first girlfriend. 

Thankfully, he chuckled and you could release the anxious breath you were holding. “Nope. Until quite recently, I didn’t attract anyone I really liked. Actually— until this week, I didn’t attract anyone who actually liked me for more than my face.”

In a feeble attempt to distract from your deepening blush and an earnest effort to console Jongin, you said, “Well— for everyone who chose to believe rumors rather than get to know you, it’s their loss. Your kindness is way more impressive than your face, and you’re beautiful so that’s really saying something.”

Jongin caught his bottom lip with his teeth to keep from smiling, but the corners of his lips curved upward anyway. “Thank you. And to answer your other question, I went by Kai in high school. The girl who runs the blog, Soo-ah, ran it in high school too, and I guess she hasn’t stopped thinking of me as Kai even though I’ve been running from that name because of her.”

“Damn.” Your jaw clenched in anger as Jongin placed the final piece of the puzzle in your mind. “I hate when Sehun is right. My roommate is a psychopath.”

And, on a less infuriating but still annoying note, Sehun also accurately predicted that you would have to move in with him and Chanyeol— at least if you wanted to date Jongin without enduring daily rants from your deranged roommate.

[the-wild-ego]

Last Updated 

March 30, 2023

-REGULATORY-

✎ copyrights

all rights reserved. (c) i-totally-dont-suck-at-writing, tenaciouslovechopshop, the-wild-ego 2023. editing, adding onto, reposting, or any translation of any kind on any platform are strictly prohibited. unless you are given explicit permission.

✎ disclaimers

this is a Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made under "fair use". I do not own any of the persons or the characters that I write for (with the exception of GearGamePlays, Apocolypse, Agonia, Lucius, Lucy, and Luc). 

✎ requests

requests are open! please read the guidelines before submitting. if your request does not comply with the guidelines, in all aspects, I will delete the ask.

♡ Fluff - ♢ Angst - ♧ Crack  - ♤ Smut

― Anyone

• Finally 

     ↳♥, ♦

• My Queen

     ↳♥

― Markiplier 

Mark:

• 4am 

    ↳♥, ♦, ♣

• Bad Day

    ↳♥, ♦

Darkiplier:

• Filthy Pride

     ↳♠

• I Love You

    ↳♥, ♠

• Nightmare ft. Gear and Apocolypse 

    ↳♦

• I Couldn’t Sleep Anyway

     ↳♥

• Please

     ↳♠

• Get Out

     ↳♦

• Hugs

     ↳♥, ♦

• Lord of The Riddles

     ↳♦, ♣

• Put on A Show

     ↳♠

Wilford: 

• Taste Test

     ↳♥, ♠

• The Fucking Wall

     ↳♦, ♠

Host:

• Hesitate

     ↳♥, ♦

Author: 

• Ms. Editor

    ↳♠

Lucius:

• Another Iplier

    ↳n/a

• Listening

     ↳♥

Fenrir: 

•  HeadCannons

    ↳n/a

― JackSepticEye

AntiSepticEye: 

• Teach Me to Fight

     ↳♦, ♣

• Silent Support

     ↳♥, ♦

• Kalopsia

     ↳♦

• Please Don’t

     ↳♥, ♦

• Breathtaking Kiss

     ↳♥

• Ruin Me

     ↳♣, ♠

• Kitten - 1 2 3 4 5 -On Going- 

     ↳♥, ♠

• Little Darling - 1 2 -3 Coming Soon-     

     ↳♥, ♠

• Insecure H/C ft. Chase, Henrik, and Angel.

      ↳♥, ♠

• A Voidless Cry - 1 -2 Coming Soon-

     ↳♥, ♠

Chase Brody: 

• Grass Stains

      ↳♥

― CrankGamePlays

Ethan: 

• Medieval AU

     ↳♥, ♦

• S/O Who Reads

     ↳♥

Gear:

• Back Story

      ↳♦

• Understand?

      ↳♦

• Mechanical Pleasure ft. Darkiplier

      ↳♠

• Breathtaking Kiss

      ↳♥

• In The Moment Kiss

       ↳♥

• Worth Your Time

       ↳♥, ♠

― Apocolypto_12

Apocalypse: 

• Back Story ft. Gear

      ↳♦

• Sick of It

      ↳♦

• You Don’t Own Me

     ↳♥, ♦

• Can I Kiss You?

      ↳♥, ♦

• Relationship HCs

      ↳♥, ♠

• The Virgin

      ↳♥, ♦

• In The Moment Kiss

      ↳♥, ♦

• I’m In Charge

      ↳♦, ♠

• Post Breakup Kiss

      ↳♦, ♠

― NateWantsToBattle

NateMare:

• My Best Friends (Not Mine)

      ↳♥, ♦

• Closing Time

      ↳♦

• Spider-Man Kiss

      ↳♥

• Sleepy Kiss

      ↳♥

• It Will Rain

      ↳♦

• Favorite Person

      ↳♣

• Excuse Me

      ↳♣

― ThomasSanders

Logan: 

•  D&D ft. Virgil, Roman, and Patton

     ↳♣

• Relationship H/C ft. Anti

     ↳♥, ♠

― MyEgos

Agonia:

• Back Story

      ↳♦

• W͇a͞i͞t F͎́or͖̼̻͇̭̬ I͉̘̱̪͍̟t̥͈̳̼͓

      ↳♦

[bcdrawsandwrites]

Next entry for @badthingshappenbingo​!

Reminder that I am still accepting prompts for this! Check out my initial post (linked in my blog desc) for the guidelines. Also note the current bingo card on this post–the things I mark with crossbones are completed prompts, and ones with a single bone are ones that have been requested, but not written yet.

(Fics are also posted to AO3 and FFN, but please just use the links in my blog desc to get to those ‘cuz I’m too tired to make links for them.)

Aaand here’s our next prompt, submitted by @melody-of-the-universe​! This one is very fluffy. I hope you like it!

Prompt: Common Cold Characters: Héctor and Imelda, post-movie

Even an hour after the musical had ended, the theater was still crowded. Héctor was talking animatedly to one of the musicians in the crowded theater when Imelda placed a hand on his shoulder. “Héctor, remember what I said?”

“Sí, mi amor, of course!” he replied, and then turned to quickly wrap up the conversation with a promise to meet again later. That settled, he faced Imelda again, offering her his arm. “I remember, before ten.”

She nodded at him, smiling as she looped her arm around his, and the two of them walked out of the theater. “I will not go to work on less than eight hours of sleep.”

He flashed her a grin. “So you’ll stay home with me, then?”

“Héctor!” She gave him a playful shove, and they both laughed as they made their way to the gondola station.

This had been an evening they’d been planning for about a month now, as they worked their schedule around their jobs, extra deliveries, and concerts. Their lives weren’t the same as they’d been eight years ago—they were busier than ever, but it was absolutely for the better. Imelda may have missed having a slightly more lenient schedule, but she was more than willing to sacrifice that to be with her husband once more.

Tonight had been the night to see a musical—one Héctor had been highly interested in, since it was the premiere of one with brand new songs from a songwriter he liked. Apparently the musical had been unfinished in the songwriter’s life, and he’d simply picked it up again to finish it in death.

“It’s great isn’t it? When they haven’t lost interest in their writing,” Héctor babbled to her, even as he repressed a yawn. “Death can really be a killer on your inspiration for some people, heh, so it’s nice to see when it doesn’t discourage them.”

Years ago the words would have left a twist in her gut, given the reason why he’d quit music all those ages ago, but it was something they’d long since worked out in the form of apologies, tears, and the music they sang and played together. Now, she was simply happy to see him happy, and that was all that mattered.

The musical had been wonderful, and they found themselves losing track of time as they discussed the story and songs on the gondola ride back, tired though they were. As they stepped out of the station, they tried to recall the lyrics of a particular song they’d enjoyed. “It was something to do with that storm,” Imelda said, lifting up the hem of her dress as she stepped down a few stairs. “The one in the second act.”

Héctor hummed, taking her hand in his and swinging their arms back and forth as he thought, while his other hand held his hat in place to keep it from being blown away by the wind. “Something like… ‘And then the rain will fall—’”

“No, no, she never said ‘rain.’ It was certainly ‘storm,’ I remember. Oh, and ‘storming.’ She used it to rhyme with ‘warm’ and ‘warning.’”

“Sí, you’re probably right. But then—” He paused, and Imelda glanced over when his arm stilled, finding him with a stunned expression on his face. “…Rain?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It was absolutely ‘storm.’”

“No, no no, I mean rain.”

“But—”

A large drop immediately splashed onto her head, and she stopped.

“…Rain.”

“Sí. It—I thought it wasn’t supposed to do that today—”

The raindrops were coming faster now, and they were still a fifteen minute walk from home. “Did you bring an umbrella?”

“No.”

They swore simultaneously and took off running, Héctor removing his hat and holding it over Imelda’s head, for all the good it would do. Immediately she regretted wearing heels; though she’d hand-made them herself, even the most skilled Rivera craftsmanship couldn’t prevent the eventual ache that came with running in heels.

As they turned a corner, the rain picked up even more, as did the wind, causing the rain to beat against them in great gusts. It might not have been quite so terrible had it not been January, but as it was, it was bitterly freezing. Imelda’s dress was getting wet, though not soaked through, and her bones that weren’t covered with clothing felt like ice. That was bad enough, but they were so focused on getting home that they weren’t looking where they ran, and Héctor let out a startled whoop as they splashed through a deep puddle, thoroughly soaking his nice pants and her dress.

“We should have taken Pepita!” Héctor called over the wind.

“In this rain with her wind speeds?”

“Aaaeeh… fair point!”

It felt like an age before they finally arrived at the hacienda, and Héctor was quick to open the gate for Imelda. When they reached the house, Imelda fumbled through her purse with numb, shaking hands as she searched for the key, while Héctor wrung out his scarf. Finally they stepped through the door, both of them heaving an exhausted sigh of relief.

“That… could have gone better,” Héctor remarked as he hung up his hat. He then pulled off his wig, twisting it to wring it out.

“Stop that, don’t dry it out over the floor like some animal,” Imelda said, shivering as she turned to close the door. Before she could, however, a winged, hairless alebrije squeezed through, stood between the two skeletons, and shook himself dry. Imelda cried out in disgust, while Héctor sighed heavily.

“Thank you for the demonstration, Dante,” he said, deadpan, as he replaced his wig with a wet thwap. Dante, meanwhile, trotted over to the living room and flopped down onto the rug, rolling around on it to further dry himself. Neither of them had the energy to scold him for it.

Imelda glanced at the wall clock, wincing when she noticed the time. “Ten minutes to ten,” she breathed, her shoulders sagging. “At least we made it home on time.” The rest of the house was deserted—everyone had already gone to their respective rooms for the night, and it was about time they get to theirs.

As she made her way up the stairs, Héctor let out a great yawn, attempting to speak through it: “—shower would’ve been nice.”

“Yes, and then I would have to put you back together and carry you out of the bathroom after you fall asleep in the tub again.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I say it because we both need to sleep in bed, mi amor.”

It was a pain to disrobe from their sopping wet clothes, but they managed, toweling dry and changing into freshly-washed night clothes. Sure enough, they slipped into bed just before the clock struck the hour. “Gracias for taking me to the play, Héctor,” she murmured as she settled next to him.

Wrapping his arms around her, he mumbled something barely comprehensible in response: “Mm… Sorry ‘bout… the rain…”

Imelda smiled. “I’m deeply offended you couldn’t control the weather.”

Héctor chuckled softly beside her, and it was the last sound she heard from him before he drifted off, and she soon followed.

Imelda didn’t know what time it was when she found herself slipping back into awareness; all she knew was that it was freezing, and the sound of her bones shivering against Héctor’s was rather obnoxious.

Blinking in the darkness, she tried to discern the time from the clock on her nightstand. The hands on it glowed faintly (it was a little more modern than she normally liked, but it was a gift from her brothers, and she had to admit the feature was useful), and it took her a moment to realize that it was a little after one in the morning. She really should go back to sleep, and tried to settle closer to Héctor, hoping he would provide more warmth.

To her surprise, the clattering sound of bone against bone grew even louder, and she realized Héctor was shivering as well. It wasn’t just her, then—it really was freezing in the room. Luckily she kept a few extra blankets in the trunk at the foot of their bed, but the problem was getting out of bed without waking Héctor up. She tried to slip out from his arms, but he only let out a faint whine, wrapping his arms around her more tightly. Fortunately she knew the workaround to this, and carefully tugged her pillow between herself and her husband. Héctor responded by wrapping himself around the pillow, leaving Imelda to slip away.

Crawling out from under the quilt and standing barefoot on the hardwood floor seemed to increase her chill tenfold. Imelda retrieved the blanket and spread it over their quilt as quickly as she could before returning to the warmth of the bed. However, the added weight and warmth of the blanket didn’t seem to completely chase out the cold—in fact, it felt almost simultaneously too hot and too cold—but it would have to do.

Imelda tugged the pillow out of her husband’s arms and settled next to him once more. Hopefully this would be the end of it, and the chill wouldn’t wake either of them up for the rest of the night.

Of course, the universe seemed keen on disregarding Imelda’s wishes. It didn’t feel like much later that Imelda found herself waking again (at five thirty-eight, the clock cheerfully informed her) to a terrible chill once again. This was absurd—had they left a window open? Or the balcony door? But why would they do that in the middle of winter?

Lifting herself up on her arm, Imelda glanced toward the windows. The curtains were pulled over them, but she could faintly hear the sound of wind and rain outside—if the windows were open, the curtains would be billowing in the wind, surely. She had to twist herself around, looking up over Héctor to see the curtains covering the balcony door, but they too were still.

Ridiculous.

Clearly there must be a draft somewhere in the house—possibly from her brothers conducting another experiment without her permission, or perhaps Pepita had scratched another hole in the side of the building. Either way, she would deal with it after she got ready for work.

Imelda tried to leave the bed again, only to find Héctor clinging to her once again, shivering. “Nooo… no, stay,” he mumbled, half-asleep, and Imelda blinked.

She knew what he’d said, but for some reason, he sounded like he was speaking through a stuffy nose. Which made little sense, given they didn’t have noses anymore. Regardless, she rolled her eyes, letting him cling to her for a few more moments. It wasn’t six yet, after all.

Héctor seemed pleased with this, sighing as he tucked his head against her shoulder.

The only thing keeping Imelda from enjoying the peacefulness of the moment was the chill in the air and—she now realized—the strange ache in her chest and in her joints. Remembering she’d been running around in her heels last night, however, she figured that was probably what was causing the soreness. That’s what it had to be, not… anything else. It was her fault for wearing impractical footwear that night—a rarity for a Rivera, but it did happen.

Eventually the minutes ticked on, and it was time to get up. Once more exchanging herself for a pillow, Imelda slipped away from her husband and prepared for a usual day of work at the zapatería. When she found herself sniffling, she blamed it on the new perfume she’d picked up at the store—she would have to try a different brand later.

In spite of how cold and sore Imelda felt, she finished getting ready (putting on a long-sleeved dress this time) and made her way down the first flight of stairs. She reached the landing, paused, then sneezed.

Her first instinct was to cover her face in surprise, but she forced herself to relax the second she heard footsteps scurrying closer. A door just by the stairs creaked open, and Oscar and Felipe poked their heads out into the hallway.

“Salud.”

“Buenas dias,” she said, giving her brothers an unimpressed look. “I thought you were supposed to clean and dust around here yesterday.”

“Oh, we did!” Felipe exclaimed, ducking back into the room for a moment.

“Sí,” Oscar confirmed. “We used our prototype dusting machine!”

Felipe stepped out into the hallway, carrying a contraption that consisted of two feather dusters tied to a device with a crank attached. He immediately began working it in demonstration, and the feather dusters spun in a circle. “We completed our task with only minor complications.”

“It only took half an hour longer than normal.”

“It seems you missed a spot or two, then,” Imelda said, turning away and fighting the urge to sniffle. (She didn’t have a nose, so there was nothing to sniff with, or even sneeze with, for that matter.) “You should do a more thorough cleaning after work today.” With that, she headed down the second set of stairs before they could protest.

The morning continued to go on as normal, mostly, as the others made their way downstairs and started their breakfast before work. It was all fine at first—a few of them asked how her date with Héctor had gone last night, and she’d been happy to tell them about it. But she could also tell they were glancing at her every so often, with the way she avoided eating and kept to short sips of coffee instead, but she ignored them as she tried to hide her shivers. She already knew what they wanted to say—that she must be sick, and should take it easy, but they all knew better than that.

At least, she thought they did.

“Mamá Imelda,” Rosita said, and Imelda snapped to attention, realizing she must have zoned out. “You should probably stay home and rest. You seem like you’re—”

“I am not sick,” Imelda said, resisting the urge to sniffle again. Her voice was taking on the same stuffy quality her husband’s had, much to her annoyance. “You know we can’t get sick. We don’t have anything to be sick with.”

The others exchanged glances, and Imelda rolled her eyes. “It’s all a trick of the mind. I’m not really sick, but because of a bit of rain…” She shook her head. “I’ll be heading in today. This is nothing to miss work over.”

Fortunately that seemed to shut everyone up, and she was grateful that they finally dropped it. Or perhaps they knew there was no point in arguing? In any case, she was glad to get that out of the way.

Until Coco brought up something else: “Has anyone seen Papá?”

“He’s usually up by now, isn’t he?” Victoria asked, glancing toward the stairs.

That was true; it wasn’t uncommon for Héctor to wake up late, and none of them really minded, but usually he tried to be up on time to go with Imelda in to work, at least. Recalling the way her husband had been shivering earlier, Imelda frowned. “I’ll go check on him,” she said, heading for the stairs. “Don’t wait for me. I’ll be in to work on time.”

She didn’t care whether or not any of them believed her, because she’d make sure of it herself. She would be in to work today. There was no reason not to be. Sure her feet hurt, but she wasn’t going to be on her feet all day. And maybe her chest hurt a bit, but she wasn’t going to be doing any running around, either. She would be fine.

Stepping into the bedroom, she found Héctor still asleep and shivering, his arms clutching the pillow. She approached the bed, reached out to brush his hair out of his face, and felt his forehead. Sure enough, it was warm—he was running a slight fever, though nothing serious. Sighing softly, she ran her hand through his hair, and he stirred.

“Stay here and rest, Héctor,” she said gently. “I’ll come back to check on you during my break.” Bending down, she planted a light kiss on his forehead before pulling away.

Just as she approached the bedroom door, however, she felt a soft tug on the back of her apron. Confused, she turned around, only to find nothing out of the ordinary—Héctor was still seemingly asleep in bed. When she turned to face the door again, she felt another tug, and this time reached back, startled to feel something long sticking out of her back. Quickly she yanked it off of her and held it in front, only to roll her eyes exaggeratedly at the sight of Héctor’s arm waving cheerfully at her.

Looking back again, she found Héctor propped up on his other elbow, eying her with a raised brow bone and a playful-but-tired smile on his face. “You’re not going to work,” he said, his voice still stuffy with cold, and Imelda clicked her non-existent tongue.

“I am. Stop messing around and get some rest.” Imelda tossed the arm back to the bed. While she noticed he’d failed to catch it, she didn’t think anything of it until she felt something tugging at her apron again. “Héctor!”

Héctor’s other hand was rather insistently tugging at her skirt, and when she pulled it to her front, it stood up on her hand on two of its fingers, looking almost like a little person. The sight amused Imelda until the hand managed to leap up on top of her head, then settled to her forehead, just long enough for Héctor to feel it.

“You have a fever,” he said, and the hand jumped away from Imelda as he recalled it, moving back to his wrist with a reconnecting pop. “And you’re not going to work.”

“How on earth do you manage that?” Imelda asked, hands on her hips.

“Telling that your temperature is higher than normal?”

“I mean that trick with your hand.”

“Oh.” Héctor sat up, rubbing his wrist sheepishly. “Well, when you’re dead for a hundred years, you get kinda bored sometimes…” He plucked off his left hand again, setting it on his right palm, and made it do a convincing imitation of a zapateado dance.

“Very impressive.” Imelda smiled, cocking a brow herself. “But I’m not going to stay home from work tod—” Her voice broke off into a series of coughs, and she held a hand to her chest.

“Imelda…” Héctor said, his voice softening as he scooched over to sit on the edge of the bed. “This isn’t like… how things were in the Land of the Living.”

“Exactly,” she said, wincing slightly at the roughness of her voice. “This is all just in our mind thinking that we’re sick. Nothing more.”

Héctor shook his head. “Not what I mean. It’s…” He scratched the back of his head, looking away. “I know, back then, you had to work hard, even if you weren’t feeling well… because you had to, if you wanted to feed everyone.”

Picking up on the hints of guilt tugging at his words, Imelda took a seat next to her husband, reaching out. “Héctor—”

He held up his hands in protest. “No, no. The point is… everything’s okay, now. We don’t have to worry about money, and the others can handle running the shop without you for a day.”

Imelda glanced away. “But I’m not—”

Héctor cut her off again, this time unintentionally with a sneeze, nearly knocking his wig off. Startled, he held a hand to his head to straighten his hair before giving a slight laugh. “Listen, you told me to take it easy, and I’m pretty sure you’re feeling the same as me. Right?”

Before she could answer him, she nearly sneezed, herself, and paused long enough to suppress it. “No.”

Héctor laughed, and Imelda chuckled as well.

“Very well,” she conceded. “I’ll stay home… on one condition.”

Héctor beamed, sitting up straight. “¿Sí?”

Imelda gave him a half-smile. “You have to make tea for the both of us.”

“Sí, Imelda!” He went to push himself up off the bed, only to pause, and laugh again.

“What’s so funny?”

“You told me last night that you wouldn’t stay home with me if you got eight hours of sleep. But I guess now you get the best of both worlds, eh?”

“Ugh.” She shoved him backwards onto the bed, but smiled. “I’ll make the tea myself.”

[ohprettyweeper-moved]

Music of the Heart Writing Challenge

Hello lovely people! 

I was going to wait till I hit 100 followers, but I was too excited to wait! Here’s the news (although you probably guessed from the post title): I’m holding a writing challenge! 

After discussing with my friend Ashley how few fics are out there that we want to read, I thought maybe this would be a fun way to get more fics out there for people to read. It’s open to fans of all different music genres, artists, and groups — and if you’ve never written fan fiction before, be my guest! 

Guidelines: 

Reader or “YouAU” pairing (that means you put yourself in the story). 

Pairings can be romantic, platonic, family, whatever. 

Fluff, angst, smut, flangst, smangst, smuff (flut?) … any fic genre is open. Please bear in mind that everything entered into the challenge will make the masterlist, but I generally don’t read heavy smut/kinks. To be fair to everyone, I’ve decided not to reblog fics for that reason — unless by the end of it I’m comfortable reading everything, then I’ll have a reblog day or something. Please list all warnings as necessary, and tag your trigger warnings! 

Not allowed: Rape, incest, dub-con, non-con, poly, minors involved in sexual situations. 

Sign-ups start today 31 January 19 and end at 11:59 PM on 15 February 19. 

To be included in the masterlist/potential reblog day, fic must be posted by 11:59 PM 31 May 2019. 

Choose from the prompt list below and send it to my ask box -- it’s easier to keep track that way. I will do my best to keep the list up to date when prompts 1-23 are chosen; 24 & 25 may be chosen as many times as requested. Please note the special instructions for prompts 24 & 25. 

Please tag me (@ohprettyweeper) in your fic entry along with #nic’s moh challenge in the first five tags. 

I think that’s about it! Except — please reblog and send this to your music-fan friends! Hope to see you in my inbox soon! Prompts and tags below the cut. 

“Everyone keeps telling me you’re the bad guy.”

“Why aren’t you dating him?” “Because I’d destroy him.” “He’d be into that.” @freddie-darlings

“Damn right I’m pretty.” “I said petty.”

“What have you been doing? Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. 

“Touch her again, I’ll kill you.” @razor-tothe-rosary

“I never want to look at you again.”

“Grab my hand.”

“What’s this between us?”

“I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.” @blurry-fics

“Can you two stop embarrassing me?”

“You’re a nightmare.”

“You ruined everything!”

“I’m not here actually. This is a project from … Mars … I moved there recently.” @the-future-erin

“Now that I made it weird, I’m going to make my exit.”

“And that’s how you ruin a life.” 

“I fell in love with him that day.

“I don’t like him, but he’s right.”

“Get out now. While you still can.”

“We can’t have a crisis — my schedule is already full.”

“You made your choice and I made mine. Just because you can’t live with yours doesn’t mean you should shame me for living with mine.”

“I had a flashback of something that never existed.” @adversaryproject

She didn’t realize she was becoming addicted until it was too late.”

“I never stood a chance, did I?” “That’s the sad part — you did once.” @dunjosephurieimagines

GIF/picture prompt for the musician of your choice. — If you choose this option, you must specify the musician in your ask, and have your submit box open for me to send you the GIF/picture. 

Lyrics. Send me your musician/group and I will find a lyric of theirs for your prompt. — Again, you must specify the musician/group in your ask, and have your ask open for me to return the lyric to you. 

Tagging for signal boost/potential interest: @adversaryproject @razor-tothe-rosary @blurry-fics @who-tf-stole-my-car-radio @dunjosephurieimagines @atc74