#also i don't know what happened to the quality of the first image don't @ me

[pftones3482]

I want to be excited for the live action Little Mermaid so badly

The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney movie. Anyone who knows me knows I'm obsessed with mermaids as a whole and will watch any media that has them. Hell, I own my own tails and monofins. But every time I see a gif or a video for the new Little Mermaid, I cringe

(btw, this is NOT because of the casting. If you're against this movie because Ariel is black, you're a racist piece of shit and this post isn't for you)

My issue lies with the CGI. It just looks so FAKE. We've seen through the course of movies and TV shows that use it that CGI does not age well, and that's because technology is constantly improving. What was impressive in 2005 is not impressive in 2023 (Just look at Aquamarine, another movie about mermaids). And the CGI on Ariel and her sisters already looks fake and the movie isn't even out yet!

Compare this image from the trailer

To this screenshot from H20: Just Add Water (a TV show that came out in 2006):

You can see the details of the scales in the second image

The first image is flat. Sure, it's colorful, but it's flat. It's fake. Halle herself is the most beautiful and alive part of the image, because everything else is fake

The difference?

H20 had costume designers, ones specifically trained in mermaid tail making, HAND CRAFT every tail on the show. All of the scales were hand laid, all the tails molded to fit the actors/actresses perfectly, painted by hand

Let's even look at someone with no affiliation to TV or movies:

This is Mermaid Linden, a very well known (in the mermaid community) professional mermaid. You can tell her tail is not as high quality as the ones made for H20 (though it's still a VERY expensive tail) - but it still looks like it's a part of her. You can still see the details. Because professional mermaid tails are also all handmade and molded to fit each person. Even if they don't lay every individual scale, good professional mermaid tail makers are very meticulous about what they do.

This is what happens when Disney refuses to pay practical effects artists. We could have had beautiful, handmade tails that would look real on screen for decades to come and could be reused for promotional purposes - instead, they're underpaying and overworking their non-unionized employees to make CGI tails that don't even look real now.

(to be clear, I'm not shitting on the artists. As I said, they're being underpaid and overworked. This is not their fault)

And before anyone comes and says "But swimming in those is difficult!" Absolutely it is. You should never swim in a professional level tail (or even just fabric tails) without practice and training. Which Disney could have given the cast if they were willing to PAY people (the cast of H20 [a TV SHOW] literally learned how to be mermaids on set. It's been done before)

Disney's "Live Action" needs to be rebranded as "CGI with some real people tossed in" because that's all any of these remakes have been, and it's exhausting when I look at what we could have had.

[mithrandirl]

i always get questions when i do a split gifset, and it's a deceptively simple process so i thought i'd try to show how i do it! i don't know if these types of gifsets have a more universally recognized name, but that's what i call them so that's what i'm going with.

i'm going to write this assuming you have a solid familiarity with photoshop and making gifs, but please feel free to send me an ask if anything is unclear. i use video timeline/smart objects so will be showing that (here's a great general tutorial on giffing with timeline). i will also be talking A LOT about gif dimensions, so first let's briefly go over the limits and theory a little bit.

a 1 column gifset can accommodate gifs 540 pixels wide

2 columns = 268 pixels each with a 4 pixel gutter between

3 columns = 177, 178, 177 pixels with 4 pixel gutters

i'm mostly going to talk about 2 column split gifs here (what i will refer to as 2x1 from now on - 2 across and 1 high), but the process is the same for 3 column (3x1) and so on (1x2, 2x2, etc).

so, why would you even want to make a gifset like this? i mean, let’s face it, generally, bigger is better for gifs on tumblr, and there are obvious incentives to 540 width gifs over 268 or 177/8 width, especially since the upload limit went to 10MB. but even 10MB isn’t much when you’re talking about high quality footage. gif making is a constant balance between quality (whatever that means to you: frame dimensions, sharpening, coloring, etc) and file size. split gifs are a cheat to that limitation >:)

i personally believe an untapped frontier of tumblr gifmaking is playing with dimensions and time. that sentence makes me sound like an old-timey sci-fi villain, but you get the idea: gifmaking is an art and there are many fun and interesting ways of exploring the medium. you can do a lot with 268 pixels! longer frame loops to gif longer scenes unbroken, bolder coloring on a wide shot you don’t want to pare down. and, a shorter x axis means the y axis’s bang goes a lot further on a buck. also just if you have a 2 column set but only 5 gifs so you need to make one take up 2 slots. there's a lot of reasons but the most important one is it's fun :) here are some examples of other split gifs i've made: x, x, x

this isn't so much a limitation, more of a shift in how you think about gifs, but it's important to remember that each gif should ideally be doing something still. when making split gifs, it’s easy to pick a wide scene without thinking about how it’ll be split down the middle, and then you’re left with a lot of something on one side and a lot of incongruous nothing on the other - or you're left with a person cut in half awkwardly in the middle. so while a split gif can still be a whole scene, you shouldn’t ignore the break and what it means to the bigger picture. now this is personal preference, but i like to play with the break and make it a part of the gifset. mirrored movement, subjects trapped on either side but still talking to each other, a bird flying from one side to the other. fun with frames! it can be another way of drawing attention to specific images/moments/feelings happening within the same shot.

SIMPLE SPLIT GIFS

to more narrowly define what i’m calling “simple split gifs,” it’s one set of frames split down the middle into two separate gifs that are meant to play concurrently, side by side.

first thing's first, crop your gif and uncheck delete cropped pixels if it is not already (very important). i'm cropping it to the 1x1 size, in this case 268x350. if you need to see how the full size will look, you can try it out with 536 first. but this one is pretty easy, this is the exact center of the frame (the left boundary of this crop is the center line) and both their heads fit within their respective 1x1 crop.

then color as you normally would. if your scene is very different one side to the other, it might be easier for you to color on a wider crop and then either crop again or copy paste your coloring to the smaller crop version. i do that with the 2x6s, but it's usually not that big a deal to color the 2x1s with just the small crop on your canvas at the time. this scene is very symmetrical, both in movement and colors, so i'm good.

now the fun part! once you've got one side how you want it, save/export as you normally would. at this point i also like to make a mental note of how many frames there are.

so i have 49 frames and it's still only ~3MB! this is just an example that i picked from my rotk fancy set, otherwise i probably would have made this gif longer.

then onto the other side, so i ctrl + z my way back to my smart object video timeline. to get to theoden i just drag and drop the smart object 268 pixels over. since this one is in the exact center of the image, it even helpfully guides me (this can get annoying if you are NOT giffing the center of the image fyi, but you can always manually go pixel by pixel too if you need to with your <- -> keyboard buttons. just always remember where you started and count accurately). i can never move around my smart object without hiding the adjustment layers on top of it, so you'll see me do that in this screen recording.

see how it corrected me when i dragged it a few pixels down by accident, and with all those pink guidelines? sometimes photoshop is good 😌

then make sure you still like the coloring, adjust whatever needs to be adjusted, but watch out! don't make any major changes because it still has to match the other side. and export again.

what we perceive as 1 series of frames chopped down the middle is just 2 separate gifs with the same frame rate. when tumblr loads the images, it will run concurrently in the post (even though it never does in the draft post 🙄). and that's it!

COMPLEX SPLIT GIFS

again i'm making up terms, but i call anything with more than 2 components a complex split gifset. i've tweaked some things in the process as i went along, but this is generally how i did the lotr series. these sets are basically just many split gifs with transitions. and here's where endurance becomes a factor :) there's a lot of prep done blind. but if set up well, it will be fairly easy to pull together by the end.

first i decide on my dimensions, using my upper bounds to determine how big i'm going to go. since lotr has very nice large file sizes, i can go pretty big without sacrificing much in quality. i decided on 3 rows of 350 pixel height gifs and it's worked well for me. that means my biggest gif will have a total height of 1050 pixels - fun! you could also do 8 rows, with two 2x2s or just a series of 2x1s that transition to 1x1s. there really is no limit to this except your imagination and source material.

i cap everything i'm going to use before i even open photoshop, then do all of them at once. uncheck delete cropped pixels, then i make my gifs! this is where i spend 90% of the time on this set. every gif should be the size of the smallest 1x1 gif (268x350 for me). i make all 10 into a fully colored, separate psd. (and then i usually go back through all of them a few times to get the colors to match better 😅) for the bigger ones (2x1: 536x350 and 2x6: 536x1050), i just crop them as if they were 1x1 but always thinking about how they will look when big. this gets tricky when i do the big one :) my lazy workaround for that is to basically make it twice: one cropped as it will be and one full size for me to color. then i copy and paste all the coloring layers onto the small one and voila, i know that the coloring in the upper right slice will also look good on the bottom left slice 1050 pixels away because i saw it on the full size version.

coloring is probably the biggest thing i'm thinking about with this kind of set. the whole idea is that these gifs are using the same colors, more or less, throughout each phase. even with the 1x1s, they're still part of a larger color concept, and they should (🤞) work with each other.

in a pinch, i like to eyedrop a color from one gif and add it as an accent to another. one of my 1x1s had a much more muted color palette originally, but i wanted it to have deeper blues and yellows to complement the 1x1 that would go next to it, so i added some gradients on lower opacity over it, color picked from other gifs i already colored.

i keep my coloring and the smart object in separate folders to help me in the final step of combining everything, and then i trim everything down to my lowest common denominator of frames. you might think you need to keep frames pretty minimal if you're doing 3 phases with transitions like this, but there's more room to work with on a small gif, in terms of file size. i usually do 30-50 frames for each phase, with the assumption that i'll be adding a transition on each side of each gif that will eat up some frames (i usually do 4-6 frame fade transitions). for the rotk set my final frame count was 129 and i never went over 8MB on a gif, so there's plenty of space play around with things :)

and then, combine! whatever order you start with, you are stuck with (unless you're getting even more complicated, but we won't go into that lol). for these sets i go small 1x1 -> medium 2x1 -> big 2x6. i like to think of it in phases from this point on. small is the first phase, then medium, then big. then i put in the fade transitions, chopping up the first phase gif so the last one will fade into it, restarting the whole cycle seamlessly. i'm just doing a quick and dirty fade here, but here's a tutorial if you want more explanation on transitions.

at this point i save this psd as its position, "top left" or whatever (usually it's a psb by this point too 🥲), just in case i need to go back to it. then i export this first gif and move on to the rest.

it's the same concept as a simple split gif: drag and drop the smart object to the new position, but now there are multiple phases to keep track of. folder organization has been key for me to keep everything straight. i move through the gifs in a backwards S, starting with the top left. but you could go any direction, just gotta stick with it and remember your counts. in my case, i'm always thinking of 268 pixels over and, for the 2x6, 350 up/down. it's a tedious process, but it goes quick (apart from waiting for photoshop to load each time you export).

i did this series as a color concept aesthetic kind of thing, so my theory was by using the same-ish colors throughout, that would save me in the end when it came time to export. there's only 256 colors max to work with on a gif, and that's usually what gets me over the 10MB limit. but as i said, i have never even gotten close to the size limit on this series. it's pretty hard to reach the limit on 268 pixels, but not impossible. (i did run into that on the emma set i did, and that was hell. but also not an impossible fix in the end.)

and that's it! if you try any of this and have trouble, i'm happy to help if i can but mostly this is a "click around and see what works for you" kind of process. and feel free to tag me on your split gifsets :) i love seeing them <3

[nyerus]

🎧A Guide to the TGCF Audio Drama🎭

With the release of the new season of the fabulous TGCF audio drama, I wanted to make an updated guide on how to make an account, purchase, and listen (with English subs) to it! Hopefully, this will help more people enjoy it and join in on the fun!

As a quick reminder, the audio drama is based on the revised version of the novel! It's a very faithful adaptation, but if you're a new fan, that might throw you for a loop! If you need an overview of the different versions of TGCF, check out this post first!

Part One: Making an Account & Purchasing

The process is a lot easier than you may expect! The site where the audio drama is hosted is "missevan.com," also known as "MaoerFM." They are one and the same!

Check out these infographics to create an account and buy the audio drama. (Due to tumblr compression, they may be difficult to read. If this is the case, please view these images in full-screen and preferably on a web browser for best quality!)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

General Info:

It costs 319 diamonds for the first season, and 359 diamonds for the second season of the TGCF audio drama. This was less than $5 USD, for each season. Future seasons will likely be similarly priced.

Episodes typically release weekly. Mini-episodes/bonus content releases intermittently, and often continues after the main season "ends."

This guide will work for any other audio dramas you want to purchase and support (such as MDZS)! They obviously have different costs, but the process of buying is pretty much the same.

Account/Registration Info:

If you do not see your country/region code listed when making an account, it is unfortunately unavailable there. I do not know any workarounds at the moment, apart from asking a friend/relative in a different country to help you out! If anyone does know other options, please let me know!

Step One of the guide is technically optional, as logging in on the app for the first time will automatically create a new account, if there’s not already one associated with your mobile phone number. I recommend doing that step anyway, as it will ensure that you have a password linked to your account. Several people in the past have reported that they sometimes cannot receive the verification code to log in. (Especially from South America and SEA for some reason.) Having a password bypasses this, if it happens to you.

Unfortunately, it seems that you MUST register with a mobile number to begin with.

Otherwise, you can use an existing Bilibili/QQ/WeChat/Weibo account if you have it. They all require a number for registration too, as far as I know, so you may run into the same problem. They may still be worth trying if you have no other options! Once again, if anyone is aware of other workarounds, do let me know.

Additionally, it’s possible to link your account to an email AFTER you register with a mobile number. (There’s no escaping that, from what I can tell.) You can then use that to log in.

It seems useful to have your email and a password associated with your account, especially in case your country code gets nixed from availability -- which has been known to happen without warning in the past.

The mobile browser seems to prefer you log in with a number/email and a password, rather than a verification code.

LINKING AN E-MAIL TO YOUR ACCOUNT (Optional)

This must be done via web browser, or with your mobile browser set to desktop mode. It’s VERY easy if you use a browser with an auto-translate feature like Google Chrome:

(These images are the MTL translated versions!)

Unfortunately yes, you will need to receive a verification code via mobile number to enable this. The second verification code gets sent to your email, though! (Try not to lose your password, because I'm pretty sure you'll still have to use your phone to verify and change it.) Don't forget to check your spam folder if you don't see it. It will be from "猫耳FM."

Once again, this is optional! I just wanted to include it as an extra avenue for people who may struggle with the verification codes, as they can be finicky. And it happened to me while I was making this section, so I knew I had to....

Part Two: How to Enable English Subtitles

First things first: there are no official English subs for the TGCF Audio Drama. Though I'm fairly sure this applies to all dramas on MaoerFM.

However, there are Chinese (Simplified) subs for each episode.

OPTION ONE: MTL

The main method that non-Chinese speakers have been using to understand the Audio Drama is via MTL (machine translation) on those subs! Browsers like Google Chrome not only have auto-translate, but it works in real time as you watch/listen to the episode.

Make sure that it's turned on and that you've selected English -- or your preferred output language!

Be aware there are TWO types of subtitles on MaoerFM. There are the official subs, and the temporary subs.

At the bottom of the audio player, there is a button labelled "字幕," which is circled in purple in the image below. If it is there, it means that episode has official subs available, and you can toggle them on/off. Meanwhile, the "弹" that the green arrow is pointing to is known as the "barrage." That's the scrolling text that you will see filling the screen. It's other fans screaming and crying in chat. You can turn it off if it feels overwhelming!

New episodes may take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two to be officially subtitled. (The bonus episodes don't have official subs for whatever reason.) In the meantime, there will be subtitlers working on adding temporary subs! I'd advise waiting a little while before listening to a new episode so they have more time to work, and you'll have better coverage!

While official subs are entirely separate, the temporary subs are part of the barrage. So you will have to keep the barrage turned on. (Notice how there is no "字幕" button next to it yet!) Unlike the rest of the barrage, the subs will be stationary, color-coded, and at the very bottom of the window -- so they're easy to differentiate.

However, since the barrage can be a lot if you aren't used to it, there is a way around it.

Hit the settings menu (blue circle) and block the scrolling comments. You can also turn off the top ones, but just make sure not to turn off the bottom ones -- because those are the subs!

DO NOTE that this all works best on desktop! If everything's gone correctly, you should have something like these:

Right -- regular view, temporary subs Left -- full-screen, official subs

It's possible to get this to work on mobile if you enable desktop mode in your Chrome app. You will probably need to refresh a few times after that, or open the page in a new tab to have it work properly. Then it's the same steps as above!

You should have something like these:

Right -- landscape mode Left -- portrait mode

The scaling on mobile can be troublesome, and I have noticed that the auto-translate is slower than on desktop. It seems to take an extra second or two to work on each line -- whereas on desktop it's pretty instant -- and that can get annoying, especially in fast-paced scenes.

Additional Info:

This does not work for the mobile app! It is for the website ONLY!

If the translation stops working, refreshing usually fixes it.

There are potentially other options to using Chrome. Any browser that has an auto-translate will work, assuming it's as quick as Chrome's. If anyone has tried other browsers and seen success, please leave a reply!

OPTION TWO: FANSUBS

TreasureChestSubs here on tumblr have been doing high-quality fansubs for several audio dramas, including TGCF as of recently! However, at the time of making this guide, their TGCF translations currently only cover the first few episodes of season one. You will need to request an invite to their Discord server via the form in their posts. Please do check them out if you're interested.

I don't personally know of any other fansubbers who are actively working on the audio drama right now. But I do want to mention that Xyra_Rei on twitter has a Discord server where they share some translated snippets from various episodes. There are other great resources by fellow fans, too. Links and more info about the server can be found in the pinned post on their profile!

Part Three: Enjoy!!!

I hope this updated guide helps more people experience the wonder that is the TGCF audio drama (or really, any audio drama)! I cannot overstate how good it is in every aspect, and I think every TGCF fan deserves to be able to hear it for themselves! 💖

[pikahlua]

Can you expand a bit on why Hawks would want to keep the hero rankings rather than get rid of them? I'm having a hard time understanding why he would do that whatsoever. What "good points" are there that he would want to keep? It always felt like a major source of corruption imo, especially since one of Nagant's jobs with the HPSC was taking out corrupt heroes who found unsavory means to boost their rankings (convincing normal people to do crimes, then arresting them). Appreciate your insight as always <3

Hawks' major criticism of the hero rankings was not the rankings themselves but the popularity component of the rankings.

Saying the "popular" thing, saying the thing everyone wants to hear, isn't heroic; it's cowardly. It's conforming. Hawks is looking for a dependable hero to be a symbol, and such a symbol has to be strong in the face of criticism. They can't capitulate to what's easy and popular, especially when such sentiment stands in contrast to what's needed and righteous.

Hawks goes out of his way to pick Endeavor to mold into a leader because Endeavor has that leadership quality--he's not trying to look good in the public eye in every moment. He's consistent and dependable. He has the highest rate of incidents resolved--even more than All Might. Hawks thinks Endeavor is reassuring, that people will follow his lead.

Of course, the good part about the "popularity" component of the ranking is that it keeps people in check. To give an example, there's this concept in my old line of work called independence, which is divided into two things: actual independence and the appearance of independence. It's important for someone in my old position to be independent in fact BUT ALSO in appearance. If people can't TELL you're independent, how much does it help even if you actually ARE independent? The same thing can apply to heroes in terms of public approval. Yes, heroes need to take public approval ratings with a grain of salt, because sometimes doing the right thing is not the same thing as doing what's popular. However, consistently going against the grain without a thought for helping the public understand you, without regard for social mores or others' feelings, will eventually turn the public against you. It's the issue Katsuki had to deal with as he went through his character arc. If the public doesn't trust you, why would they take your hand when you reach out to save them?

Hawks never really goes into anything like what Nagant mentions, and I don't know if Nagant's commentary on heroes who colluded with villains for fame and glory even was a) directly referring to the hero ranking system or b) something that can be resolved by eliminating hero rankings in the first place. That issue seems like a product of fame chasing, not merely public approval, and people will continue to crave the limelight whether or not there's a ranking system. But if people aren't dependent on heroes being the only heroic ones, such as in this new list of everyday heroes Hawks is considering, the existence of fame-chasing heroes doesn't hurt society as much. People won't be depending on heroes to all be perfect and good, they'll support each other, and so the whole system won't be shaken up by the public image of heroes wavering.

As an aside, there's one other funny thing to me about this idea Hawks has.

Hawks is a young upstart, and the fact that he landed this influential political position is quite a shake-up of the status quo. Japan notoriously likes to have things happen in a certain social order, and young people jumping up the ladder ahead of their elders always makes for an awkward dynamic. I do kinda think Hawks is being considerate by not "doing things a little too fast" and completely destroying the old system, because something that radical is not always palatable to the majority opinion, especially when the person advocating for it is as young as Hawks. Just changing a system this much is already a pretty radical step based on my (limited) understanding of contemporary Japanese politics. And I direct you back to my commentary on how Hawks is building on what the older generations have given the next ones. He's always been a character that sat between the older and newer generations like a bridge, so this seems like a decent compromise.

[eternal-auditor]

😡 I saw the mention of the WHB wiki situation and wanted to grumble about that 😡

First of all, the person who was building and contributing to the wiki were doing that all on their own and that's a very big of a deal, because filling up a wiki takes time and effort and assets extraction seems like a pain in the ass for me and now all of it is gone? But also no one knows what happened for sure? And their blog is down too?? Like are they okay???

Idk if PB themselves have anything to do with it, but if that's the case then I don't see what's the problem even. I've never seen any fandom wiki being dismantled like that for no reason, it's not like posting this content breaks any law or smth

Also as an artist this made me very frustrated, because there are barely any references to use in the open

PB don't even post full body sprites in their announcements and some just stay in the game where you can see only half of the body. How am I suppose to draw the rest then? Play the guessing game it seems which I'm gonna do with one of my wips

For certain details you'll need to grind the likability comics anyway, and if you need the loading screen comics you're gonna constantly reload them to find the specific one, not to mention they were all in good quality and now we don't have it

Also if you don't play from the start you won't have some of the event CGs in the album

I hope the situation will resolve somehow, but right now I feel confused and angry, because I'm very meticulous person, so I always try to draw fanart as close to the original design as I can and now I'm gonna have hard time doing that

I don't blame the contributor though, they must have had reasons to take images down, I'm just letting my frustration out on how sometimes there is not enough easily accessible material to use from the devs, but If someone has info on the situation or will get an update can you guys inform me?

[withoutyouimsaskia]

Sometimes It's Fated (Sandman Short Story Part 2)

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

​GIF: Originally posted by @harleytudinous

Pairing: Morpheus/Dream of the Endless x AFAB reader

Summary: Reader Self-Insert. After restoring the Dreaming and locating the missing dreams and nightmares, Morpheus turns his attention to finding you, the human he believes fate has chosen for him. (Title inspired by Placebo's "This Picture".)

Warnings: Minors DNI. Dark!Morpheus. Soulmates. Angst. Obsessive and possessive behaviour. Tension. Threat. Dream manipulation. Masturbation. Voyeurism. Plot related cigarette use. Dubious consent.

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: So I know I initially billed this as a two shot but the story has run away with me in the most lovely way. Part 3 will be coming soon. Thank you for all your kind responses to part 1, it honestly means so much to me. Hope you enjoy this one too. All my love, Saskia xx

Sandman Masterlist

---------------------------------------------

The veil of sleep comes down upon your weary body with a feather-light touch, trying to coax your mind back into the world of dreams.

Dreamscapes have been a whole new experience for you in the past month of your life. Before, you would wake with no recollection of what had played out. Not even the slightest inkling. Now, you remember everything.

They are staggering; bursting with details and ideas beyond your most outlandish daytime imaginings. The emotions that are conjured by them, both when asleep and also awake are just as bold.

And even though it's been 23 nights since it started you are still finding them predominantly jarring and disorientating. You are baffled by how other people cope with the sheer vividness. The unpredictability. Maybe they have become desensitised. You can only hope that the same will happen for you in time.

One thing you tell yourself with each sunrise:

Thank goodness they weren't nightmares.

At least, you don't think they are. There's no resemblance between yours and what you have heard others describe over the years, nor to those outlined in a dream decoding book you had checked out of the library last week. There's no obvious threat or fear. No re-living of traumatic events. Just weird subtext.

The first dream found you standing barefoot on a beach. A mirage distorted the particulars of the scene making it impossible to see further than half a meter in front of you. The temperature of the sand under your soles was verging on painful and as such, it forced you to walk into the unknown before you.

A groaning wind started to brew and lifted the sand into sparkling flurries. You shielded your eyes from the abrasive particles.

The sun was at its apex when you heard the ear splitting bangs. Unmistakably gun shots; you didn't last much longer in the dream and woke with a start.

For the next week, your dreams had been like a series of video clips edited into a supercut.

Raven wings. Black cats. Hellfire. Ruby red glow. Sprawling library shelves. Landscapes hewn by earthquake fissures. Hotel corridors. A handsome, blond haired man wearing sunglasses, holding a blood covered knife.

If you didn't know any better, you would begin to suspect that your new box of tea bags had been laced with a psychedelic. Alas, no. Your hypothesis was unequivocally disproved when you friends had been completely unaffected after stopping by for a Sunday afternoon catch up.

This quick fire of snapshots eventually stopped, transforming into lucid long form dreams. You often think back to the first one where it happened.

Standing in the the empty room, and the appearance of the figure dressed in black. The colour that had flashed in their midnight eyes had the quality of liquid silver. Sometimes you wonder if you see the same image in other dreams, standing in amongst a crowd.

From that point on, regardless of what dream you are in, you cannot shake the intuitive prickle down your spine that tells you someone is watching you.

You reason that it is nothing to be concerned about. Humans dream, and you cannot deny that some of them - swimming in a sea of clouds, re-visiting childhood haunts, trying out superpowers - have been quite fun.

You roll over on to your left side and close your eyes.

You dream.

The room you see is expansive in breadth and depth. Impressive windows bring brilliant light into the space which bounces off the ivory stone of the floors and walls. There are statues positioned at equidistant intervals, implying that the chamber is a gallery of sorts.

One effigy, fashioned from bronze, and rich in colour draws your attention. The lines and curves of its form intrigue you, despite not knowing the creature it was portraying.

You are about to move on when the feeling of being watched sparks through your skeleton.

Everything changes.

Clarity gives way to haze. Sun is swapped for moon.

You see a man across the room. He stands with a perfect posture. Graceful, powerful. His elbows are bent, fingers interlaced, palms facing upwards. Sheer black fabric floats around his frame. It moves languidly, giving glimpses of his bare body beneath.

The man's face is imperceptible. The distance between you too great but somehow you know you are the focus of his attention.

His robes fall to the floor with a gossamer sigh. The pale, unmarked skin of his slight form glows beautifully in the moonlight. You look down in embarrassment as arousal flushes through you, and you see that you are suddenly as naked as he is.

You gasp, and snap your gaze back up.

The sight you see is rather unexpected. The man is intimately touching himself.

You feel compelled to mirror him. You immediately reach between your legs. The man groans as you make contact.

All it takes is a little bit of attention on your clit before you are ready to slide two fingers into your core. The noise you make at the feeling of the stretch is salacious. The man echoes you with a sound that is just as dirty.

It spurs you on and you burrow deeper.

You curl your fingers until your legs are weak and quivering. You long to sink to your knees so you can finish in a more comfortable position yet you can't. An invisible force is preventing you.

It keeps you on display.

Just like the statues to your left.

You wonder if it is for the man's benefit.

You try to focus on him but it is impossible to do so through the trembling glaze over your eyes. All you are able to sense from him now is the sound of the rhythmic pump of his palm around his cock and his panting breaths.

Desperate whines escape your lips. You are teetering on the edge of an orgasm but you can't seem to lose your balance and fall into the abyss. The unsteadiness in your legs is too much of a distraction. You rub at your clit again in the hope that it will bring the satisfaction you need.

It does nothing.

You are so frustrated by your body's disobedience that it is almost painful.

"Please. Please. Please," you mutter under your breath.

A voice suddenly speaks next to you ear. A velvet voice with the timbre of a thunder rumble. It pours like a soothing syrup into your brain and commands you to do exactly as it bids.

"Let go."

You climax intensely, crying out in relief, squirting all over your fingers and onto your hand as you legs finally give way.

The fall jolts you back into consciousness and you wake with a barely contained scream of pleasure in your throat and adrenaline lighting up your nervous system.

Daylight is peeking through a little gap in the curtains. You take a deep, grounding breath.

That was obscene.

The context, the actions, the sounds. That sultry voice at the end. From the throbbing in your vulva and the twitching of your legs it seems like you didn't just finish in the dream.

There is really no point in looking it up in the dream decoding book.

You were clearly horny on a subconscious level. Or craving attention, hence the exhibitionist behaviour. The latter is not usually in your nature to seek out but if it is the reason, you might not have to wait long before the desire is fulfilled. There is a work event happening this evening that may require you to accept an award and address the crowd.

You love this time of year where community projects get recognition; a nomination alone is a sure-fire way of garnering publicity which in turn helps the charity's outreach.

But first, a normal day at the office. You throw back the covers and go straight to the bathroom to rinse off the evidence of your wet dream.

---------------------------------------------

Your right hand connects with the metal push plate of the function space's front door. The heels of your boots click and clack as you cross the threshold, moving from floor board to paving slab.

It's fortuitous that you brought a long, thick coat with you this evening for the wind is wintery and unforgiving. You stay close to the wall of the building to try and shelter from it as much as possible.

The pavements are slick with recent precipitation, streetlamps bouncing off of the water with caustic white light.

Then you see him; a figure cut from shadow.

He's breathing in such a laboured way that you wonder if he is sick.

Your phone is still inside the venue, currently being guarded by a colleague along with your bag but it wouldn't take long to retrieve it and call for medical assistance.

"You okay?" Concern colours the simple question.

His reply comes quickly and assertively, "I am well, thank you."

You nod, not entirely convinced for the stranger's response was as stiff as his posture, and reach inside the pocket of your coat for the box of cigarettes and lighter stashed within.

You settle one of the sticks between your lips and use your thumb to bring forth a flame. The crackle of smouldering paper and tobacco perforates the damp air and you take a needy drag. The nicotine taints and tantalises in equal measure, filling you with guilt and relief. You've been trying to give up but the little voice inside your head had won this evening. You close your eyes and focus on the pleasure it brings before flicking some ash into the tray mounted to the wall.

Your attention now back on your surroundings, the stranger steps into the scope of the streetlight. The angles of his cheekbones, jaw and nose are accentuated to an incredible extent in the gleam. His dark hair is being buffeted about the wind, locks of it very close to falling in the blue eyes that are unwaveringly trained on you. He begins to talk again, showcasing his deep baritone.

"I'm afraid I wasn't entirely honest with you just now. It is not how I envisaged our first interaction transpiring. I hope that you can forgive me for my deception."

You laugh nervously and take another quick drag. "It makes no difference if you're honest with me or not. I don't know you."

"You are correct. You don't know me. Not yet -"

"Oh," you cut in quickly. "I'm not looking for a hook up."

While you cannot deny that he is arrestingly beautiful, you are technically working and have never been one for one-night stands.

"You mistake my meaning. I have been searching for you for so long. I oftentimes doubted your existence however I was wrong and I find myself humbled to be in your presence at last."

The grandiose declaration is one of the stranger things you have heard in your life and you used to deal with drunken patrons when you worked at a university bar. Maybe he was intoxicated; it would explain a lot.

"Look, this might work on other people but I just came out here to have a cigarette -"

It is his turn to interrupt you now. "You will have no need of those going forward. Your addiction to them will be replaced by me."

"Excuse me?"

You are trying to sound incredulous, however, inside you are rather frightened by the turn the conversation has taken. His gaze is not helping either.

The crystalline eyes are embodying every part of the descriptor; a hard, chill inducing blue. Ash drops from the smouldering cigarette as a tremble of fear rattles through you. The man sees this and the ice suddenly melts to a warmer hue.

His tone turns soft and gentle. "We are supposed to be together. Our union is fated."

He's staring at you expectantly even after your two attempts at rejection. You swiftly stub out the part-finished cigarette and take ownership in ending the interaction.

"I've had enough of this. I'm going back inside now. If you try and follow me, I will speak to the venue's management. If you are still here when I leave later, I will call the police."

You turn towards the door.

He calls your name. Your full name. Middle name too.

Despite your brain chanting at you to go inside, you can't stop yourself from looking back at him. "H-how do you know my full name?"

The profound rumble of his voice resonates deep in your ears. "I know everything about you, Y/N."

He's right in front of you now. His posture is bordering between desperate and predatory. Like he can't quite decide if he is seeking comfort from you, or if he wants to consume you.

You are fumbling behind you to find the door handle. "Please get away from me," you say hoarsely.

He reaches for your hand.

You jump back and struggle to get out of his grip but his strength is inhumanly strong. His skin of his palm is glacial against yours and yet somehow, the touch makes heat snake up your arm and settle in your chest.

You become aware of an internal feeling that you've always had, like that of chapped lips. Low level but something that constantly nags. Something that existed every minute of your life until the moment he touched you.

You grip his hand and look up at his face in astonishment.

"Good. That's it. Look into my eyes. See what you know is there."

You do as he says, totally stunned by the depths that seem to reside within them. It's as if there are universes suspended inside. Maybe there are. Perhaps you could float among the celestial bodies if you asked him to show you how.

You feel so alive and overstimulated that you welcome the delirious thoughts taking over your mind.

You welcome him.

It's like there is a cord connected between your heart and his that is shortening in length. The intensity scares you.

"Give into the pull," he urges darkly, sensing your anxiety.

You obey, feet moving of their own accord and then you are standing before him, just centimetres apart.

He smiles triumphantly and presses you flush against his body.

His free hand comes up to cup your jaw, fingers brushing the sensitive skin of your neck. More heat sears through you from the additional skin-on-skin contact.

Your peripheral vision closes tighter and tighter with every passing moment. The outside world is gone.

He leans in further and you wonder hazily if he is going to kiss you or break your neck. Both options are equally viable given the behaviour he has exhibited. You keep staring at him regardless.

His irises flash silver as he intones his next sentence. "Y/N, I claim you as my soulmate."

-------------------------------------

Taglist: @herfantasyworldd @kpopgirlbtssvt

"Am I your dream girl? You think of me in bed. But you could never hold me. You like me better in your head."

[m1ssunderstanding]

Understanding Lennon McCartney Rewatch Part 1.1

So disclaimer: I took screenshots instead of photographing my screen this time, but the quality of footage is a thousand times worse so the images are still mostly shit. But anyway, here we go :)

We're going to have to keep a tally on how many times they refer to their relationship in romantic terms. Less than a minute in, Paul has used the description, “great love affair.”

And John's right on his heels with “the sexual equivalent of . . . People in love.” So there's 2 already. Oh boy.

That opening montage of John and Paul just living for the light in each other's eyes should actually be the official music video for “I wanna hold your hand.”

Also I wonder how many songs they have about hiding. Someone's got to have a list somewhere right?

I adore the absolute lack of reaction to John manhandling Paul.

And then This Look. He's in love with him, ladies and gentlemen.

I remember seeing somewhere that this footage was literally right after they'd finished “she loves you.” Which was pretty recently after Bob Wooler, which was right after Barcelona. And if you're like me and you think that song is secretly about their relationship? If Paul's just been singing “she said you hurt her so, she almost lost her mind, but now she says she knows you're not the hurting kind. She said she loves you” at you, after all of that? Of course John's acting like a fucking puppy dog.

Poor George tally number 1

Excuse me??? John wants to live in the Beatle apartment instead of with his actual literal wife until Paul decides to move in with his girlfriend? What? He's so insane. Cynthia, you're lucky Paul's a fucking social climber.

I think it's indicative of two things that Paul said “screw secret girlfriends” while John happily went along with secret wives. One: different levels of security in masculinity (John doesn't have gay eyebrows etc) and two: different relationships. Jane and Paul's relationship was a smart career move for both of them and I think, being upper-class, and having her own career, and not being a mother, Jane was in more of a position to have a say.

Every time I watch that footage of Ken Dodd asking about their parents I physically cringe. Poor poor babies. Do your research you idiot! I don't think that ever happened again. I wonder if Brian made sure of that.

Paul literally talks like such a husband here. “We've thought about it, and probably the thing that John and I will do . . .”

Obsessed with Paul shouldering himself between George and John after George's little joke shove. It's so protective and yet so subtle. Exactly the same strong posture and easy smile as when he stepped between John and that interviewer during the Jesus scandal.

Poor George tally number 2 (you can't quite tell from the pic but John is shoving him out of the way because how dare he put his suitcase by Paul's?! That's John's suitcase's spot!!)

All the Beatles were cuddly with each other. It's one of the cutest bits about them, the puppies in a basket aspect. But I think we'll need a “noticable spacing difference” tally for this rewatch, too, and here's the first.

Paul wearing John's hat for attention and it fully and completely doing the job? They're so embarrassing!

I actually love that John's imitation of his upper-class Scottish family (which Paul can't do) is actually much more convincing than his broad Liverpudlian (which Paul nails in two variations, one based off his own family) I'm obsessed with the class dynamics between them.

Poor George tally three. He shares this one with Ringo. That moment when Paul's pretending to interview them about their purple hearts and cuts them both off with, “thank you. Mi-mister Lennon,” and John and Paul proceed to completely forget the other two exist for who knows how long – certainly longer than the videographer was willing to record.

I find John sliding into Paul's raspy “tiiight yeeeah” with his very turned on “mmmMM it's been a hard” extremely suggestive. I'm sorry but I do.

It's like he thinks if he looks away for too long he's going to disappear or something. Which. Now that I said that. Yeah. That is what it is. Poor separation-issues baby.

Ringo: Paul, you wrote a beautiful song and you sing it great. John: yeah and you're SEXY! Let's not forget that, everyone.

Am I crazy to obsess over every little musical similarity in their songs? Yes. Can I help it? No. The little “oh-oh ohoho” in the If I Fell demo is exactly the same as in Imagine and (frothing and writhing) it means something I can feel it! I just have no idea what.

I also find the lyric change from “i hope that she won't cry” to “i hope that she will cry” extremely interesting. There's always a heterosexual explanation. Trust me, the straights are the Simone Biles of mental gymnastics. But while the published lyric can be read as a man bitter toward his ex girlfriend hoping to hurt her by flaunting his new relationship, the demo version is trickier. Could it be that he doesn't want to hurt his wife's feelings by letting her know he's in love with someone else? But who else could John Lennon possibly have been in love with at the time?

“Too too much in love. Woah, too too much in love with you.” My heart

[soracities]

how do you know when you're getting good at poetry? everybody dunks on halsey and rupi kaur's poetry, and i never really got why and idk if that's what i sound like

Honestly, I don't think there's ever a point at which you "know" you're getting good at poetry--I think "good" and "bad" are kind of vague and amorphous (and distracting) categories that don't do much in helping us understand the feel and impact of certain writing, chiefly because they can also be deeply subjective. How a poet views a particular work and how a reader views it will be very, very different because their relationship to the work is different. I also think "good" is a sort of external category that does not (or should not) carry into the act of writing itself--when you make "is this good?" the chief consideration as you write, you're not actually present in the writing: you're focused on the finished product, not the process, but the process is the most important thing: that's where the poem actually meets you. I think growth, in writing, is less about knowing if you're "good" in this regard, and more about being able to have confidence, or simply just trust, in the writing as it happens.

There's a famous saying somewhere that a work of literature is never "finished"--it just stops. I think skill, when it comes to writing, lies in recognising where this point is, in learning and developing how you navigate what it is you want to say, and how you say it. Some poems, eventually, reach a point where you can take them no further and you know there is nothing more to be said in them or through them. Some poems reach a point where you can take them no further, but there is still something left to be said in them. Those poems get revisited, worked, and reworked again, until they (maybe) get close to the first category: this may mean you work on them for a few weeks, or for years--but either way you are prioritizing the process of making the poem, not how it will be received. "Is this a good poem?" in my view at least, is not really the relevant question--what's relevant is "is this true to what I wanted to say?" Leonard Cohen famously wrote over 100 drafts of "Hallelujah"--I don't know if the central question for him here was just a matter of his skills as a songwriter.

Regarding Halsey and Rupi Kaur, I've only been able to read Halsey's poems through previews on Google Books so I don't know what other people's critiques are--based on what I saw, though, I don't know if it makes sense to criticize their quality as "poems" when she is primarily a songwriter and a lot of those poems wound up as songs. I'm more familiar with Rupi Kaur's writing, though, and others like her (Atticus, Michael Faudet etc), and while I have a personal policy of not getting into Kaur online (there's an ask here which is about as much as I'm willing to say regarding my feelings on her writing)--I can get into this trend or poetry "style" as a whole. And to be honest I think the chief issue here with poetry like this is that poetry, by definition, involves a deep and intimate relationship with language: this holds true regardless of whether the poem is simple, or complex, whether it's 5 lines long or goes on for 50 pages. As I said in that previous ask, it's not something you can reduce to a formula, nor is it a matter of mere reportage or a collection of statements: what makes a poem has nothing to do with line breaks (prose poems exist), but everything to do with how the language moves, how the language of a poem engages with its own content, with itself, and, as a result, with the reader.

The kind of work that proliferates on Instagram does not have that kind of engagement with language--they are, to me, pieces of information more than anything else. They reduce language to a series of stock phrases that act, not as actual words, but as images (and I don't mean this in a visually evocative way). It tries to evoke something that requires a thoughtful and sustained examination in order to be expressed, by surpassing the reality of what that examination actually requires. It tries to ape the effect of a powerful poem without the work that goes into actually being able to make that kind of a poem in the first place: and that work is a sustained encounter and confrontation with the language used and its relationship to what it tries to convey, in understanding that words are not interchangeable blocks you move around willy-nilly but that they have weight and intention, that they interact with each other to build up an idea or a feeling or a landscape in the most accessible way (insofar as language can make anything accessible, at least). But this is rarely, if ever, felt in IG poetry because it refuses to recognize or respect the demands and requirements of the medium it uses.

And because it is lacking in this engagement and recognition, these poems are also, for the most part, lacking sincerity--and this, to me, is one of the most crucial things when it comes to writing. I recall one IG poet whose work was in the same class as someone like Atticus, but I also recall one of his poems which genuinely moved me--and it moved me because, unlike everything else on his account, that poem felt sincere: the structure and the language wasn't any different to anything else he wrote, but in reading it, it was not a question for me of whether it was "bad" or "good"--what made the impact was that it was honest: and the difference showed. You can't come into a poem with ulterior motives. You can't come into it without an understanding, or respect, for the language you use. I'm absolutely not policing what people should or shouldn't read, and I'm not saying people are wrong for liking these poems, either, or that Halsey, Kaur, Atticus et al., are wrong for writing them. Expression is expression, and what speaks to you speaks to you. And to be honest, it is a different kettle of fish when you are writing something purely for yourself (and I think allowing yourself to partake in any kind of artform, without worrying about needing to be good at it, is deeply important for the human spirit)--but because they are putting their work out publicly, if we are going to be evaluating what they write and how they write it, that evaluation has to be rooted in an understanding of the art form they intend their work to be a part of.

For me, these are the main issues I have with these writers and their work and why I just do not like them. But I also want to stress that, ultimately, what you sound like in your own poems, anon, does not matter as much as being sincere to yourself does. As I said, I don' like using terms like "good" and "bad" and I think that often they're fairly reductive (and sometimes outright pointless) categories to use when we talk about and assess poetry--more than anything else, the key to building a robust and informed discernment when it comes to poems is to simply just read--read a lot of it and read widely. The broader and richer your repository of poetry (and literature in general) is, the more informed you are when it comes to all the different ways language can move through a poem, and all the different impacts it can have as a result. It deepens and enriches your understanding of all the different ways of looking at something, questioning something, expressing something. Your vocabularly grows and deepens; your net of associations--visual, linguistic etc--strengthens. And when this understanding grows you are able to place the things you read into a much wider and far more informed context. And this in turn allows you to grow as a reader and a writer. I hope this helps you a little, anon 💕

[deesseshesca]

What truth must I accept to move on ?

What again ? No ! No ! No ! You swore it will be the last time…

Good night pretty souls, today we are checking on your situation. Why did it needed to happen ? How can you alchemise it ? 

Choose the image that’s speak to you and allow yourself to soak ONLY what’s reasoning with YOUR SITUATION 

Rules and Disclaimer 

I am the type of tarot reader to say as it is. Nothing is sugar coated but everything is sent with good intention. If you are not ready to face some truth, you should vagabond somewhere else. 

MINOR DON'T INTERACT WITH THIS POST 

MINOR DON’T READ THIS POST 

CHOOSE AN IMAGE 

PILE 1 

Ace pentacles, ace wands (reverse), page swords (reverse), chariot, 999

Good night to my type A people, welcome to your reading. So lately you have concocted the most perfect budgeting plan to attend to your goals in the most efficient and successful way. I am also getting that you brought cute little things to ensure to motivate you throughout this saving journey. You know you're going to need to make some sacrifice on the way. Which can be frustrating in summer, especially when you see everyone around you spending a bag. I want to congratulate you for the healthy mindset you have regarding your money. Most of you are saving for your first car or first apartment. Someother to fund a change of career, thinking of starting nursing school or just to survive college. While others are trying to start a side hustle like becoming a lash tech or a nail tech. While harboring this tunnel vision mindset, I'm getting that people around you are not very supportive. Going as far as mocking you. But the truth you must accept: the journey towards your goal will never go smoothly. Pile 2, you are the type to plan for hours down to the very second. Anticipating everything that can go right or wrong. And when it does not go your way, you say ‘’fuck it. It ain’t even  worth it anyway. If it was really meant to be it will be easy’’ BULLSHIT ! You are the problem. You are to focus by the end of the journey, that you forget that you have to walk through the journey. Not just fly to it. Sometimes on your path something might stings or feet might hurt. The real issue is that you are missing stamina and only want to feel good. Good job, you have your priorities straight. But girl, you ain't just saving for some Mcdonal meal or a new lip gloss. You want a car, a house, a new career. Since the goal is bigger it requires more sacrifice. Letting go now, wil be like taking a big ‘’L’’.Head up, discipline over motivation. Building muscle is hard and it takes time just like a habit. Plus you have to stop thinking that life is happening to you. Babygirl, everyone got issues, you are not the only. Imma touch your heart when I said this, you are not the strongest soldier, so pick it up and keep it pushing. Because this victim mentality is making you act sour with people around you. I’m afraid to announce it to you, but you are the bad energy, you are the negative vibes rn. Hold on, before you click off this reading after this beautiful drag (you must admit…) is you have too much potential. And is pissing me off that you are allowing it to slip away from your hands. You are capable of standing strong on your boundaries and to create an amazing plan. That’s some qualities one will take a lifetime to master and you are born with it. Don’t become forceful, be the amazing leader you are meant to be. Don’t give up ! You will be rewarded in your finances/career. Finish what you started. The worst is that you know all that already. What’s funny is that you keep saying you don’t care, but your mind screams for it, your soul keeps reminding you that it wants it and your pinterest ain’t giving up on the vision yet.  Do do everyone a favor and go get it.  Do a deep life clean so you can make room for some new energy. Reflect on your life choices.

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Super shy -Newjeans

PILE 2 

Death (reverse) , ace cups, magician (reverse), emperor

You were meant to read this. Now ! Right now is giving the biggest scam in history just like what’s happening in your life. I’m hearing the tiktok that goes ‘’ Ok now, where’s the camera now. I must be getting prank now’’. The reality…you don’t want to move on.  You yearn for a past that ain’t never coming back. You also don’t want to deal with anything that can trigger you. But you can’t claim you heal, if you have the same reaction when the universe sends you variation of the same problem. And isolating ain’t going to help your case. But the universe finally got the message. Lucky you, you are getting to send a friend. Someone that will bring the sun back into your life. That person will trigger you (in a good and necessary way ) and she will not allow you to sabotage the way of y’all friendship. I’m understanding : poor timing, don’t have resources, cocky, delulu, personality disorder, force = I think you are going to have a Karen moment in a shop close to your house. She is going to trigger a crisis in you. Instead of looking at you like you are crazy, like most people do. That person will play along. Y’all going to be 2 crazy bitches in the store. And instead of feeling cornered, you will weirdly feel valited because usually when you act out people call you crazy. You just found another crazy person. Everytime will go back into the store, she will always be there. You will try to avoid her , but nah she will jockly always go to you. That person will grow on you. I’m feeling the opposite aesthetic. I see her being a bimbo and loving it and you our little emo angel. Honestly, I fell in love with her energy while channeling her. I was trying so hard to stay serious but nah, I ended up having a dance break. How can u notlove her, she’s a sweetheart. Girl, you might THINK, that you ain’t doing enough. But your spirit guard, the universe, anyone that allows themself to see more than what you project and I can assure that you are on top of your game. Especially after everything you went through and put up with. Keep your focus and discipline. You got this babe ! I’m proud of you ! When you are ready, let go of the version of you that no longer serves you. You don’t need to pay the price of your mistakes. 

I’m hearing: ‘’ You deserve this friendship’’ 

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POP - NAYEON

PILE 3 

Knight swords, ace pentacles (reversed), seven cups, High priestess, 1313 

Everything was fine until it wasn’t. When did it all go so wrong? It happened so unexpectedly. The only thing left standing is your BFF/sister. You never thought life would take u off overnight. I’m hearing you failed some important exams or your parents are very good but they badly gambled the finances and you have to pay the price for it. The truth is … it is always in front of your face. It’s been a while that you have been seeing and feeling that your studying routine is not working for you. But prefer to pretend that is everything else but what’s ahead of you. You always had a feeling that your parents were awful with money but did not dare to try to know how badly. Is not too late…yet. For a while now you pretend to be happy. Thinking that the more you fake it, you will finally feel it. Now you are down bad emotionally. You never thought you would ever be there. Babe is the the time to give in into distraction. Now you need to pull the rag under your feet and face your fears. You want to know what happiness is really about. You know it is time to do some deep healing. To question your self belief. From the silliest question to the most disturbing. ‘’Is my fav color really red ? What do I actually think about the government ? ‘’ You need some shadow work. Is not the time to act, is the time pounder. Also is your life. Babe nobody is behind you. If you want to take 1 year or 1 month at the crossroad nobody is coming for you. As long as you are confident about your choice. Is time to start fresh ! Step out of your comfort zone. You will learn a new skill that will get you some abundance and recognition. Be confident and trust in your decision. 

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What is love - TWICE

[nieceeee]

"DATE NIGHT"

P/S: "So how was the date" babydaddy!eren x reader once she makes it home from her night out.

W/C: 1388

A/N: Okay this is so fluffy and emotional, Rennie is such a freaking sweetheart and reader is a roller-coaster of emotions, y'all asked or part two so here we go! if I do a part 3 it may be from Eren's point of view and what happens when he makes it home to his girlfriend after staying all night at his baby mama's house...

today will definitely be a double drop day for all the love because we love sweet Rennie but daddy Rennie is a whole different vibe!

also I usually write from first person POV so if you see and I or ME that's what that is, let me know if y'all care about that and if y'all want to read in that POV.

Previous Fic: Let Me Help

Part One: Its Better This Way

All throughout the night, you try your best to focus on the man sitting in front of you but you mind refuses to think about anything other than the father of your child. You hope that the nice man who invited you to dinner wouldn't notice the way your eyes shifted. The way you lose interest in the fact that his eyes weren’t that emerald green you loved so much. “So yes, what about you?” his voice cut in. Your eyes widened slightly as you registered the question. “Oh, I’m just testing the waters on life.” you responded smoothly. He smiled and continued talking, unaware of your lack of interest. 

“Thank you again for tonight. It was very nice.” you muster the strength to say to your date as he walks you to your car. “You’re welcome. Hopefully, we can get together again some time.” He questions hopefully. Not likely you think to yourself but you smile anyway. “One day.” You shrug slightly. He opens the driver side door for you and allows you to step inside. “Goodnight.” you say unable to bring yourself to give him a gentle peck on the cheek of appreciation or even a simple hug. Thankfully he doesn't press the matter, simply providing you a small nod  of gratitude as he steps out of your way. You  pull out of the parking lot and turn onto the road.

 “Hey Siri, call Rennie.” you say as you pull up to a red light. He picks up on the second ring. “Yeah?” His sleepy voice vibrates through the speaker of the phone sending an unnecessary chill down your spine. You clear your throat slightly, hoping to relieve the tension. “I’m headed home. You still there?” you ask. You try your best to mask the hopefulness in your voice as you ask the question. “Yeah, I’m here. Just got little man down and I guess I dozed off with him.” He answered quietly. A small smile tugged at your lips as the image popped into your head. “Okay be there soon.” A little cry sounded in the background. “I think he heard your voice.” Eren said, chuckling softly. You hear him shuffling to standing and the gentle hitch in his breath as he leans down to pick up your child. “It’s okay little man. Daddy’s got you. Mommy will be home soon.” He whispered to him. “I’ll be there in 10.” you say before disconnecting the call. You rush as fast as you can back to your apartment. 

Turning into the driveway, you cut the engine and locked your doors. Your mother’s car wasn’t here anymore. You quickly make your way to the front door, unlocking it and stepping inside. Quietly shutting it behind you and making sure it was locked, you clack your way up the steps to your bedroom. The nursery door is open when you get up there. You peek in to see Eren slowly rocking your son, smiling down at him. Your heart lurches slightly in your chest at the sight. You take a slow step back to collect yourself but he looks up and sees you, those eyes you had been dreaming about on your date meeting yours, before you could turn around and go to your room. “Hey.” He smiles. “Hi. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your quality time.” you say. “All good. I was just laying him back down. You need to go get changed and everything? I don't mind waiting on you to finish up.” He offers. He leans over and places your child gently back into his crib. “Yeah, I won't be long.” you say. He follows you into your room, closing the door gently behind him. 

“So how was the date?’ He asks leaning against the doorframe, arms crossing over his chest. Two pulses shoot down through your core but you shift your eyes away slowly. You plop down on the bed in a huff. “That good, huh?” He teases, walking over to kneel in front of you. The image of him on his knees before you bringing up long lost memories as you swallow hard. You take a slow breath to focus on the current moment. “You don’t have to do that.” you say softly. “Yeah, I know.” He responds. His warm hands wrap around your ankle as he carefully slips your heels off, placing them down by the foot of the bed. Then he gently holds your foot in his hand, massaging the swollen parts. You sigh quietly at the relief of his fingers working into the aches of your arches. He carefully rubbed the knots from both feet before releasing you. “Thank you.” you whisper. A gentle smile tugs at his lips. “Go, take a bath, get changed. I’ll be here when you get out.” He says standing back up and going back to the nursery.

You grab some clothes and make your way into the bathroom, trying not to think too much about what just happened, the warmth of his hands still lingering against your skin as you turn the water on and step inside. After you have cleaned yourself up and done your nighttime routine, you walk back towards your bedroom. He is sitting on the bed, your child in his arms waiting patiently. “He must be hungry.” you say walking to the bed. Eren stands as you toss the covers aside and scoot onto the mattress. You prop yourself up against the pillows and Eren hands you your nursing pillow. You press it into place and Eren reaches down and lays your child on top. He turns away towards the wall to allow you to unsnap your bra and let c/n latch. 

“All good.” You clear your throat, alerting him to turn back and face you. “So, the date?” He asks again, taking that same spot in front of you on the bed. “I don't know. I mean he seemed nice but…” you pause, not able to tell him that the real reason you couldn't enjoy your date was that he was on your mind the entire time. “I just don't think I’m ready. Not now anyway.” you say shifting your gaze down to the bundle you held in your arm. “Understandable.” he reaches over and gives your knee a gentle squeeze. “It will happen in time. Don’t rush yourself. But also, give yourself grace. It’s okay to get back out there.” He encourages you. Your chest tightens with emotions but you mask it with a soft smile. You both sit in each other's company, the soft fan and the suckling of a child the only noises being made.

After c/n is done feeding, you burp and change him and Eren lays him back down in the crib. He places a gentle kiss to his forehead before whispering something slightly to him.  You stand at the doorway, waiting to walk him out.  You both walk to the living room in silence but he pauses at the door. “Babydoll...” he calls softly. “Yeah?" Eren turns to you, a longing glossy look in his eyes. Your heartbeat speeds up and a lump forms in your throat. “Do you think?” he pauses, trying to figure out if he should ask but he chooses to push through the anxiousness. “Do you think one day this would have worked?” He asks. You are at a loss for words. You hadn’t really discussed how things ended with you since that day you left him standing in the mall with her. “E, I-..” You didn't know how to respond. He drops his head slowly and a sharp pain hits your chest. “I get it.” He responds, voice barely above a whisper. You open your mouth to speak again but he simply pulls you into a hug. You rest your head against his chest, finding solace in his warmth and steadiness in the rhythm of his heartbeat. After what felt like seconds, he reluctantly pulls back and plants a kiss on your forehead. “Ren…” you start. “Goodnight my sweet babydoll.” He whispers before turning and walking out the door. You lock the door behind him before leaning back against it. You don't realize the tears are falling until you feel your butt hitting the floor and drops sliding from your face down to your arms.

[kasssscali]

Hello, I hope you have a wonderful day! , I can request one that the reader accepts the feelings of the monkey king of netflix and to show me that he is serious, he kisses him. I don't care what stage you want to set I just want to see the monkey king be accepted and loved

thank you <3 my day is going pretty great as of right now

Yo why is the quality of this image complete shit? I’ll fix it later

You never knew Monkey had feelings for you, he’s pretty damn good at hiding it

you always thought he didn’t like you, his personality is a tease

but teasing is also his love language, he’ll poke you make unnecessary remarks

and he’s bold enough to insult you to your face

you never thought he liked you, and he always teased and insulted everybody so maybe he didn’t like anybody?

wrong. He always liked you, his way of showing it is very skewed

But don’t forget that Monkey and stick are best friends, Monkey tells Stick everything since he doesn’t want to communicate his feelings towards other people

Of course Monkey has told Stick lots of things about you, about how great you are, pretty you are. The list goes on

you are completely oblivious to this

it’s not until way later you do find out Monkey has romantical feelings towards you

you find out from accidentally eavesdropping another conversation Monkey was having with stick about you

it’s strange to you seeing this side of Monkey, you always thought he didn’t like you

it took some time, but later you discovered that you had feelings too

you wanted to confront him about this

You waited for Monkey to make the first move, but he never did anything

the least he could of done was make some flirty remarks but at this point you needed to make the first move

Monkey frequently goes on strolls along side stick, his other arm swinging with him as he walked

you run to him and grab his attention, you express how you like him romantically

Monkey is skeptical, he gives you a suspicious look “yeah right!” He rolls his eyes, another one of his teasings

“Shut up Monkey” you grab his face, you feel Monkey tense at your touch

he didn’t know what you were going to do, and he tensed even more feeling your lips press against his

it was a small peck, and you quickly pull away

its just awkward silence, Monkey’s eyes are wide and it looks like he’s just staring into the void

stick’s incoherent speaking breaks the tension

not gonna to lie, it’s a little bit awkward after that happened, but the two of you end up holding hands walking back home

so win win

[kaybreezy3000]

----------------------------------------------------

Sometimes your fanfic best friend gives you a shout out in an anon ask reply, and then you get excited and make your quickest Five fanart and first-time sort of animation based on a pairing she mentioned and that you wrote years ago. 😄

Link to Bad Kitty's ask

Link to my other art and stories on Tumblr

Link to my long read/3-part Five Centric TUA story with Five paired with a character similar to the one above (and yes-she has Harley Quinn vibes but don't worry if you don't like her-she is not her, I just borrowed some of her wild and fun and qualities. 😉)

------

Updated note added late 6/28/24 after a continuous thread of harassing comments from one user that now has been blocked. No this is not 'AI' made or traced like that person repeatedly said it was. I did not steal someone else's art like they accused me of with no back up other than ripping me apart with more mean comments about what looks so bad about this. They also said my other art posts are 'AI,' and that I have no drawing skill or understanding of how clothes fold.

The AI accusation is a very mean thing to say and it's happening to so many people on here and in the actual profession art world. I do agree that I am not great at art or writing but that doesn't mean I am using AI and claiming it's mine. It's very sad that people feel the need to attack art in this way when it's clearly not even good like mine.

This picture/animation was done with me doing a very bad, very fast sketch, and then hardly correcting my lines before I quickly color filled the drawing that I MADE based off the fact that I have drawn Five in a suit more times than I can count and I have basic drawing skills, not great skills but basic. The reason the hard lines are both gray and black in some spots is because I went in after to correct stuff like gaps that needed to be filled for color filling and I did that in a different layer with black rather than the gray I used the first time. It's an error but one I was aware of but didn't care about because this was supposed to be fast and messy.

So yeah... this is NOT TRACED, and from what it was supposedly traced or 'stollen' from, I have no idea what this user thought that was because they never backed that up with some image that they seem so sure I used. This was based on Five with one of my original characters, so that image they claim I stole didn't exist until I made it.

I'm just trying to have fun with my friends on here while learning to draw better digitally. I am not an artist, and I definitely don't get paid or try to make people support me.

To those like the user who did this, please just chill with the mean comments and be kind to art makers on here and writers and all content posters. If you don't like something ignore it or keep your negativity inside instead of spreading hateful intentions and saying things that are not true about people and their work or their ideas.

Sorry to go off about that on here when it was just supposed to be silly and fun, but this stuff isn't okay and needs to be shut down. I am not always going to post 'proof' pictures of my works in process. I have done that before, but it's not what this is about for me, so I don't even think to do it normally. I have other art posts on AO3 with hand drawn stuff so I figure I don't need to prove I can draw. If someone wants proof, it isn't hard to find it through my posts.

I know most people are only here just for the fun stuff and let's have more of that. ❤️ Peace and love to you all.

[casuallyawkardd]

Close Encounters of the Spiderkind Pt III

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Single Mother!Reader

Summary: Miguel and you get the chance to get to know one another better while on a mission

Warnings: fluff, mentions of drug use but nothing crazy, super evil villain watch out, not fluent in Spanish so lemme know if I mess up

A/N: Finally the long awaited next part of the series! Thank you all for being so patient with me and I hope it holds up to expectation 😊 Also I finally made a masterlist for this series!

MASTERLIST | TAGLIST

One thing you liked about Nueva York was that you could see the stars at night. In your universe's New York, the lights alone would drown out their natural light, something you missed seeing back in your hometown. But here, they were plain to see, sparkling down on you from the open sunroof. Maybe someone in this universe developed lights that didn't snuff out the natural light of the world, that or maybe the future was less smoggy.

This wasn't the Nueva York you were familiar with, not technically anyway. What had Miguel called it? Earth-928C? It was another version of Miguel's home, one where there were enough differences that they were their own separate universes, but not so much so that it was classified under a different number. Speaking of Miguel..

"Remind me why I was chosen for this mission?" you asked, breaking the silence between you two. The man in question gave you a sideways glance, not looking too happy with your tone.

"Because Jess is already on one with Peter B and she suggested I take you instead," he answered matter-of-factly, nostrils flaring as he let out a huff.

"And...why did Jess have to be the one to come?"

"You know, you ask a lot of questions."

"And you avoid a lot of them," you quipped back, shooting him a half-hearted glare before sighing heavily, arms crossing over your chest. "I get the whole 'mysterious leader' thing, but I don't think it's too much to ask for a little more detail-"

"I needed someone to pose as my date to this event," Miguel cut you off. You awaited further explanation, but the other spider seemed to think that answer would suffice. It certainly explained the given dress code for the mission. Miguel sporting a suit, appearing like a simple black, but was shown to be a deep red when the light hit it just right. His eyes gave you the up and down, as if just now seeing your ensemble for the first time. "You clean up nice."

"A simple 'I like your dress' would work, O'Hara," you huff.

"Fine, I like your dress, happy?" he retorts and you roll your eyes, the compliment not as sincere when you have to pull teeth to get it.

Yet another moment of silence followed as the car drove on, a divider keeping the driver oblivious to the conversation between you two. "What's the mission?" you asked finally, "I know you mentioned something with anomaly capture, but we were in a rush so..."

"Ay dios mío," Miguel pulled up an image on his gizmo. "A variant of Doctor Octavius was detected here," he pointed to the flashing dot on the map, "that building just so happens to be where Alchemax is hosting their annual charity event. Make sense?"

"Mmm," you hum, "and do you expect that they'll just let us walk right in?"

"Of course they will," he said, clicking the hologram away and leaning back against the seat, "the Miguel of this universe still works for Alchemax, he's expected to be there."

"And you plan to pose as yourself in this dimension?" Miguel nods to confirm your thought. "What if the Miguel from this universe comes too?"

"He won't."

"And you know that because..?"

Miguel didn't respond, looking out the window as the car came to a stop. "We're here, let's at least pretend we like each other."

Stepping out, Miguel offered you his arm for you to get out of the car with ease. The building before you was tall, much like the skyscrapers of your universe, only maintaining that futuristic quality most things seemed to possess in Nueva York. The lights you could see from the top floor told you of your destination, all that was left was to make your way inside.

"Why the cameras?" you asked, indicating with a nod of your head to the flashing lights and large crowd around the base of the staircase that led to the entrance.

The sight made Miguel grimace, "Paparazzi," he spat the word, "makes sense, these things usually attract that kind of crowd. Celebrities, billionaires, anyone Alchemax can sucker into funding their projects." His disdain for the company was evident, as to why he had such a deeply rooted hatred for it, you had yet to hear that story. "Come on, let's just go in. Try not to be obvious." Before you could respond, he was already leading the way; his arm linked with yours as the two of you managed to slip inside.

The way up was uneventful, one high tech elevator ride and you were on top of one of the tallest buildings in the city. According to Miguel at least. On the way up, Miguel had shared the plan: lie low and wait, plain and simple. It wasn't like his usual plans, Miguel seeming to prefer getting in and out as quickly as possible, anomaly captured and sent to HQ in the blink of an eye.

"There's too many people," he explained, "one wrong move and this building could come crashing down with everyone inside. Just act natural and let the target reveal itself to us." Just how dangerous was this variant?

You were reluctant, but chose not to argue with his plan, especially once you saw the venue. The event was being held in a ballroom of sorts, designed for events such as this one. The room was large, accented by a stunning silver chandelier. There were tables for guests to sit at on the borders of the room, many already occupied by elite figures chatting away about business and what have you. Horderves and cocktails were being distributed on metal trays that hovered about the room. The room, the people in it, all that you saw combined into a reminder of just how advanced Miguel's universe truly was.

"Miguel?" a man's voice called out, the owner coming through the crowd. He was an older man, tall like the man at your side and equally well dressed, if not more. "Well, isn't this a treat?" There was a teasing tone to his voice, offering a hand that Miguel stiffly shook.

"Mr. Stone," Miguel mused, forcing a smile to maintain the facade, "How are you this evening?"

"Well," Stone replied, looking in your direction, "And who might you be?"

"Oh, just Miguel's date," you tell him, throwing your name out there as well.

Mr. Stone smiled, taking your hand in his, "I doubt something as lovely as you is 'just Miguel's date,'" he said before planting a kiss on the back of your hand. A gesture that made you want to retract your hand immediately, but you kept with the pleasantries.

"Well...I'm-"

"My girlfriend," Miguel interjected, pulling the unwanted attention off of you.

"Girlfriend?" Stone seemed surprised by the bit of information. "Didn't know you had one. Thought you were becoming a sort of recluse."

Miguel just shrugged, despite the comment seeming backhanded, an insult hidden behind a pearly white smile. "Well I have to get out sometimes," was all he said and Mr. Stone nodded slowly in acknowledgment.

"You should spend some of that time coming into the lab. I'm sure your team's been missing you."

"I'll think about it." Before the older man could continue, Miguel placed a hand on the small of your back, gently pushing you forward and through the crowd, finding solace at an empty table.

"You know him?" you dared to ask, based on the sour expression marring Miguel's features.

"Tyler Stone," was all he said, huffing in annoyance, "He's in my universe as well, or I suppose was. This version doesn't seem to be as much of an entitled prick at least."

"Oh," was all you had to say, glancing around the party. Whoever this Stone person was, he seemed to have struck a nerve in Miguel, making him more irritable than usual. Something you didn't plan to tolerate all evening. "Miguel?"

"Mmm."

"Why the hell is everyone in every version of your universe so damn tall?"

Miguel paused, looking around confused before looking back at you, "I'm sorry?"

"I mean really, I've looked this room up and down and I'm pretty sure I'm the shortest one here. What's the average height, six foot three?"

He hummed in amusement, "Six foot one for women."

"Nuh uh."

"And six foot six for men."

"What the hell!?" you guffawed, your dramatics making a small smile appear on your partners lips. "What are they feeding you in the future?"

"Dunno, better food?" he shrugged, sitting back in his chair, posture more relaxed than it had been. "Anti-gravity tech is more normalized in my universe too. It's been proven to have an effect on the development of kids."

"And you know that because..?"

"Did a report on it in middle school."

"Of course you did."

"Keep the snide remarks to yourself," his tone hardened for a moment and you wondered if your attempt at lightening the mood had struck a nerve, but he continued on. "You know, I'm sure Vada could benefit from some anti-gravity therapy."

"Hey, my little lady is perfect at the size she is," you warned, the smile on your face keeping the conversation light hearted. "Plus, I want to savor her being small for as long as I can."

Miguel chuckled, "Ain't that the truth."

The air around you two seemed to shift with that little comment, your smile slowly fading in sync with his. You felt like you should say something, break the ice once more to relieve the somber air. "Miguel, I-"

"Es suficiente," he interjected, rising from his seat and adjusting his suit. "We need to stay focused. Start searching for the target, let's get a move on."

Complying, you rose to your feet as well, stopping after taking the first step to follow. "...No."

Miguel froze at the single syllable, turning to look at you over his shoulder, "What was that?"

"No," you repeated, his eyes now narrowing at you. "You were the one who said we needed to lay low, right?"

"...Yes, but-"

"Well," you interrupted and his jaw set in annoyance, "then we should take advantage of where we're at. Enjoy the party and all, yeah?"

"That's not-"

"If you need to get a hold of me, just call me on the gizmo."

"No, Y/N, we need to stick together," Miguel reached out to stop you, but you were already walking off, a platter of bruschetta catching your eye. Miguel let out a deep breath through his nose, "The anomaly could be anywhere, it's dangerous to be on your own."

"I'm not alone, I have you," you called back to him playfully, trying not to laugh at just how peeved he looked. "Let loose O'Hara, don't be such a stick in the mud. Is that whole wall an aquarium?"

You never knew rubbing elbows with the elite could be so...enjoyable. It seemed many found your conversation refreshing, a change of pace from the usual, high society vernacular. It helped that they had expensive taste as well. The food was immaculate and you regretted not bringing something to stash away extra. Something Vada could have tried when you got home.

Speaking of your little one, she had managed to get a hold of you through Lyla. You had been hesitant to let an AI watch over your daughter, but considering she looked to be in one piece, it looked like this little experiment worked out just fine. Vada was even ready for bed, hair washed and wearing fresh pajamas. The call was to simply say goodnight, you promising to tuck her in when you got home.

"Tell Miggy I said goodnight, too," your toddler demanded, making you laugh.

"I will. Goodnight, baby."

"Goodnight, Mama."

As soon as you hung up, the group you had found yourself in was bombarding you with questions. 'You have a daughter? How old is she? Sounds like she misses her mother, huh? Why didn't you bring her tonight? Who's her father, maybe we know him? Is it Miguel?'

"Oh no, nothing like that," you had to chime in, waving your hands defensively, "I had her with my ex, she's too young to come to something like this." When they pressed for more information, particularly about Vada's father, you provided some dodgy answers before making the executive decision to excuse yourself.

The balcony seemed to be the place most people were going to get a moment of peace. It was dimmer, the only light coming from the windows looking into the ballroom. Some were having a smoke break, while others used the fresh air to keep the alcohol in their stomachs. Miguel was among them, neither drunk or smoking, leaning against the balcony on his own.

"This doesn't seem like the place to find a Doc Ock anomaly," you teased, coming to stand beside him.

He acknowledged you with a sideways glance before looking back at the city below. "Didn't get the chance to investigate much. Too many people trying to talk to me."

"Oh no, whatever will you do?"

"You're hilarious," he matched your sarcastic tone with his own.

"It must be nice though, people seem to like you a lot here. Or.. I guess the Miguel of this universe, at least." You looked over at him, debating your next words. "Miguel, how did you know he wouldn't be coming tonight?" You could see his jaw set, eyes now purposely avoiding yours. It was frustrating to say the least. "Come on, Miguel. Why can't you just tell me?"

"It's none of your business, that's why."

"Oh, but it's yours? Cuz it's you in another dimension? Tell me, when do I get to know the 'business' of every other version of me?"

"You know what? I'm getting real sick of-" Miguel whipped to the side to face you, his shoulder bumping yours and you stumbled to catch yourself. That seemed to give him pause, Miguel going quiet once more as the two of you now stared at each other. You were trying to understand what was going through his head, but his expression was as hard to read as ever. Blinking slowly, he let out a heavy sigh, going back to leaning against the railing. "It's just personal, alright? The Miguel of this universe and I have... a lot in common."

You didn't say anything, not sure what you would say anyway. Leaning forward on the railing, your eyes focused on your fidgeting hands, looking up when Miguel continued. "He's addicted to Rapture, a disgusting drug that Alchemax developed, just like I was," reluctantly his eyes met yours, gaze softer than it had been before. "except I succeeded where he will inevitably fail. He'll perform an experiment to get rid of the addiction, but it'll backfire. He'll be dead by the end of the week."

"Oh, Miguel, I.. I'm sorry to hear that," you placed a sympathetic hand on his forearm. You bit your lip in thought, unsure what to say under these circumstances "That must be hard, knowing a version of yourself is going to... you know."

Miguel just shrugged off your touch, "It wouldn't be the first time," he replied, you frowning at how quickly he brushed it off.

"Still, I'm sorry," you repeated, Miguel only humming to show he heard you. The two of you didn't say much after that, but it wasn't awkward like the other periods of silence between you tonight. There was tension, but time seemed to help melt it away. It began to feel almost natural, the kind of quiet you were used to sharing with a select few people. The breeze came in, cool against your skin, save for the part of you that pressed against Miguel's side, welcoming the warmth he had to give. "Hey," you said, "this might be a bad time to bring it up, but Vada did want to tell you goodnight."

A puff of air escaped his lips, making a 'tch' sound, shoulders shifting in a mute laugh. "Did she now? Well that's awfully generous of her." Miguel savored the sights of the city a moment longer, letting your news sink in before pushing off the railing, standing to his full height. "Come on, we should head back in. We still have a mission to finish."

"Right," you agreed, following after him. You had forgotten how bright the ballroom was, squinting at the brightness invading your vision. After that, it was back to the mission. This time you stuck close to Miguel's side, there to diffuse the small talk as politely as possible while he continued to search the room.

"The anomaly is in this room, stay on the alert."

You nodded at his instruction, eyes peeled for any guests who might be glitching in and out of reality. However, your attention was limited, eyes drawn to the aquarium you had seen earlier. It truly was a sight to behold, Miguel had pulled you away before you got the chance to get a good look. Twenty feet in height and a blue that was equally unnatural and alluring. Decorated to perfection, because of course it was, with well placed rocks that had corals of various colors and shapes sprouting between them. The fish were just as diverse, shapes and colors that glided about the water. Some you had never seen before, while others were a familiar sight. A pair of clownfish nestling into some anemone, a whale shark swimming above the reef, an octopus with a monocle and- Wait a minute.

"Miguel," you patted his arm to get his attention, pointing at the discovery. Your eyes had not deceived you, there was indeed an octopus, sporting a monocle that was reminiscent of a cyberpunk style, the glowing green eye within darting around suspiciously. Upon second glance, you saw that this octopus also sported two mechanical tentacles, the style matching the device over its eye.

"You've got to be kidding me," Miguel groaned, "this was a high threat alert." As if to answer his question, the creature glitched, startling a school of fish that then scattered about the tank.

"Yeah, real threatening, he might take over the entire aquarium."

"Can it, let's just get the thing and- what are you doing?"

"Hold on, I want to take a picture. Vada's gonna get a kick out of this."

Tags: @l0sert0wn​ @deputy-videogamer​ @arctic4life​ @sasaleleselfships​ @autismsupermusicalassassin​ @snert-bees @qundadedingle11 @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal @fangirlreice7 @mouse-teagreat @andr3wgarfieldsupremacist @yellieeeee @thesrtuggleisveryreal @escherichiacolli @sweeteaacorner @marvelouslovely-barnes @meeom @candlewitch-cryptic​ @iwanttogohomeandtakeanap @melovetitties @ilovemycat6808 @vegas-writing-den @pippethealien @shibble @mommyhange1 @chiikasevennn @pokhouu @jenniferdixon05207 @m0sscr3ates @momos-peaches @insanelycrazyanddelusional @miggyoharaswife @justtnat @imliquidesmooth @thedevillovesflowers @mvc2019   @starrynightnight @risinglightmoon @charming4u @whitetearx @blueparadisecollection16s @idontknowwhatimgoinghere @ziyahshinez @migueloharaslxt @obi-mom-kenobi​ @allysunny​ @viriexo @futuristicpandakid ​ @louderfortheback @tomhollandisabae @itzsab @blue-pears-blog @geraskier-thots @saintskully @johnny-pie @keenzinemugstudent @rizahawkeye1380 @realalpacorn @prettylittlebrowngirl​ @leahnicole1219​ @i-feel-violated @fandom-ash @graysonshaven @qiaipia @3zae-zae3 @melovetitties @marcswife21 @the-silvercrow @erissco @stqrlightrs

[your-local-grubdog]

Pikmin 4: Heritage Theory

Warning for MAJOR Pikmin 4 spoilers, including: various end of day conversations, post-credit events, late game piklopedia and treasure hoard entries, and also the final boss.

As a sort of re-boot of the franchise, Pikmin 4 introduces a lot of new ideas to the series. Among them is the idea that the various alien species in the game are much more closely related than we first realized - and perhaps more connected to PNF-404 than we would have ever thought in the other three games. I wanted to go over the various texts in the game that touch on this idea and talk about them a little because, hoo boy, the IMPLICATIONS. I call it a theory in the title for a lack of better wording but it honestly just feels like a canon fact that's never directly stated. There's just that much evidence, much of which all but outright says what happened.

Apologies if the images are a little low quality, Tumblr crunched them up badly. I provide image descriptions so hopefully that makes up for it.

As this has many end game spoilers (which, final warning for those), I'm going to assume that anyone reading beyond this point knows the basics of the game's story, world, and characters. Thus I won't be explaining every last little thing.

Somewhat early on, Olimar makes the following observation in his Voyage Log:

[ALT ID: Olimar's Voyage Log, entry 60, "Lost Civilization": Some of the objects I call treasure seem to be more complex than they initially appear. It makes me wonder... who made these? And where are they? I don't sense their presence here at all, but I suppose they could be hiding in the shadows, secretly watching me. END ID]

This vaguely threatening entry does confirm that the characters, or at least Olimar, are aware that there was indeed a civilization on PNF-404 at some point. It should also be noted that the Japanese website includes notes from another character who is also aware of the ancient civilization, though the canonicity of it is debatable. I'll get back to that "they're in the shadows, watching" line in another post, as it presents its own can of worms. For now, what matters is that the characters are aware that this planet was once inhabited and Nintendo is drawing attention towards that.

Where this starts to get weird and interesting is with Olimar's Treasure Hoard entries on the Heroic Shield, Memory Fragment (Center Right), and Buddy Display. I can't show all of their text in just one screenshot and the pikipedia hasn't added every treasure note to the Pikmin 4 treasures as of writing, so I'll only be including the segments most related to this conversation.

[ALT ID 1: Treasure Hoard, Olimar's Notes, Heroic Shield (segment): That would mean these living beings must have looked something like us... I wonder who they were and what their faces looked like. Could they have been our ancestors who migrated through space to our planet long ago? (the treasure is a pin showing the helmet of a human-style spacesuit) END ID 1]

[ALT ID 2: Treasure Hoard, Olimar's Notes, Memory Fragment (Center Right) (segment): I'm amazed that such a similar species could exist in the far reaches of outer space. I've heard that organic components can travel through space on meteorites and comets. Could there be a connection between my planet and this one? (treasure is of a puzzle piece with part of a dog's face on it) END ID 2]

[ALT ID 3: Treasure Hoard, Olimar's Notes, Buddy Display (segment): I can't find any evidence of them in any of the existing creature databases. But there's something familiar about them. It's almost as if I've met them before... I guess I'll chalk it up to an ancient memory that's been imprinted on my genome. (treasure is a photograph of two earth dogs) END ID 3]

There is so much to unpack here alone. Olimar straight up theorizes that there may be a connection between PNF-404 and Hocotate, even going to far as to propose if maybe the people of PNF-404 (or at least the people who made the Heroic Shield) may be his ancient ancestors. He does also theorize that a meteorite may have carried "organic components", which is technically possible, but I'm not sure how that would occur in a way that carries said components from one non-destroyed planet to another and leading to creatures evolving in eerily similar ways. Honestly, I'll chalk that one up to an early theory of his, a red herring on Nintendo's part, and thus not something to think about too much. Especially sense, in the Buddy Display, he considers his ability to somewhat recognize Earth dogs as an "ancient memory... imprinted on my genome". While I'm not sure of the science behind such a claim, we also have to take this from a story telling perspective - which is that Nintendo is all but screaming "there is a connection here". Not just in relation to the aliens and the planets, but also in relation to the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs, Olimar's notes on the final boss of the game presents yet more evidence to a connection - this time focusing more on the connection between Earth dogs and space dogs.

[ALT ID 1: Piklopedia, Olimar's notes, Ancient Sirehound (segment): These results would indicate that 99.9 percent of the canine creature's DNA matches Oatchi's, and that the only difference between Oatchi and Moss may be the natural presence or absence of a leaf tail. END ID 1]

[ALT IDs 2 and 3, as one naturally leads into the other: Piklopedia, Olimar's notes, Ancient Sirehound (segment): If these two theories prove to be true, it would suggest the possibility that this ancient creature is a common ancestor to two canine species from vastly remote star systems. And that, perhaps, there are even more hidden secrets out there that could hint at a fascinating yet inconceivable truth the universe has yet to reveal... END IDs 2 AND 3]

I'm not sure what else to say here; the evidence speaks for itself. The Ancient Sirehound and Moss - both from PNF-404 - closely match the genetics of Oatchi, who is from an entirely different part of the universe. For the Sirehound to be genetically related to Oatchi, then members of the Sirehound's species would have had to leave PNF-404 and migrate to other planets. Their care takers - humans - would have had to go with them.

I also find it worth pointing out that the Sirehound's arena is filled with various human items, such as shoes and toys. It's honestly a little haunting to find them so deep in a dark cave, unused by humans for who knows how long. The ruined toys in particular really get to me. We don't know how old the Ancient Sirehound in particular is, but the idea that humans once hid in this cave from something or that their dog brought the items here for comfort is really depressing.

[ALT IDs: various hard-to-see images of the human items in question, including: pillows, pipes. gardening tools, a fork, adult sized shoes, baby sized shoes, various children's toys, and other objects I couldn't quite make out. All of them are either partly submerged in water or at the very edge of water, leaving them covered in mud. END IDs]

I think by now it's safe to say that, yes, humans left Earth with their dogs at some point in time. Yet there are still MORE pieces of evidence to suggest this idea, this time coming from Shepherd's family history. Because we really needed to be beat over the head with evidence, I suppose. All are presented in numerical order as shown in-game.

[ALT ID 1: Rescue Journal, Shepherd Family History, entry 1: Thanks to the technology that has come from space exploration, our lives have grown much easier and far safer, and on-planet rescue requests have decreased dramatically. But as migration into space continues to grow, our services continue to be needed. So I'm happy to announce we are extending our rescue services to the frontiers of space! Signed, Paniya Shepherd, 82nd Captain. END ID 1]

[ALT ID 2: Rescue Journal, Shepherd Family History, entry 2: We've done it at last! We have flown to space! Out in this great, limitless expanse, not a sound can be heard. And yet, I can still clearly hear the pounding of my own heartbeat. Space--how it overflows with possibilities! There can be no doubt. This is one giant leap forward for our kind. Signed, Ed Shepherd, 65th Captain. END ID 2]

[ALT ID 3: Rescue Journal, Shepherd Family History, entry 6: The Shepherd family has lived with dogs from the very beginning. We understand that if we love and respect these creatures as we do our own--if we pay attention and observe their behavior closely--then we can break down the walls between our species and truly understand one another. Signed, Kain Shepherd, 16th Captain. END ID 3]

[ALT ID 4: Rescue Journal, Shepherd Family History, entry 7: "Beyond the sky itself there lies a beautiful blue planet." Those words have been passed down from captain to captain, calling to each of us. I can't imagine what sort of place this blue planet might be, but it's said to be home to even more dogs and folks that we have here. One day, I hope to fly beyond the sky...and into space. Signed, Maris Shepherd, 7th Captain. END ID 4]

[ALT ID 5: Rescue Journal, Shepherd Family History, entry 8: Many years have passed since we first began to make this land our new home. Still, we need more time to complete our environmental adaptations. In the meantime, we must survive so that, one day, we can pass down this new history to our children, and pass down the ways we've learned to rescue and protect everyone. One day we will live here in peace. Signed, Mark Shepherd, 2nd Captain. END ID 5]

[ALT ID 6: Rescue Journal, Shepherd Family History, entry 9: The surface! We made it at last! Finally, we can begin making a fresh start here on this planet. Of course, it will take many long months and years before what we've built here will be anything like what we once had. But we won't be alone. Our beloved dogs will be by our side as we walk this long, difficult road. Signed, Aral Shepherd, 1st Captain. END ID 6]

There is so much here, all confirming that ancient Giyans (and Captain Shephard's direct ancestors) 1) migrated to this new planet in search of a "fresh start" and 2) proceeded to migrate to other parts of space many generations latter. It also hints that they know of a "blue planet" - a common nickname for Earth - which is home to more people and dogs. Most certainly, it is the planet they came from - making Giyans human, or at least an evolution of humanity, and perhaps all other alien races in Pikmin 4 (from Hocotations to Koppaites to Ohrians to Conohanins to anyone else from the twenty one named planets (excluding PNF-404) in the series) are also descendent from Giyans. It would explain why they all look so similar in game - though we can safely assume that Hocotations are at least descendent from Giyans based on Olimar's notes. Further more, the leafling cure requires cells from a non-leafified individual who is genetically similar to the individual in question. We're never told how Yonny gets these cells (and, given we're talking about Yonny, I'm too afraid to even ask) but the fact that the medicine works for anyone regardless of what their home planet is suggests that they are, in fact, more or less the same species.

How different the various aliens look from Humans is easily chalked up to evolution. We know minor changes in height could, theoretically, happen within just one or two generations spent on a planet with different gravity than Earth's. It would make sense that this would be exacerbated over many many more generations, especially if the gravity is much stronger. Which, to quote the Pikipedia, "According to Brittany, the gravity on Koppai is roughly ten times stronger than on PNF-404." Given their matching heights, it's probably safe to assume similar applies to the other planets, and thus over the generations the people shrunk. Again, the exact scientific validity of this is questionable, but given the semi-fantastical nature of Pikmin I believe we can suspend our disbelief enough to let this story work. We already have to do that for how the Pikmin as a species function, after all. As for oxygen becoming toxic in the 8th history entry Mark Shephard does state that "we need more time to complete our environmental adaptations". Be these natural or artificially induced (as he is only of the second generation), it is again safe to suspend our disbelief to say that humans just adapted to these new worlds. Besides, Koppaites at the very least retained (or possibly gained back?) the ability to tolerate at least low amounts of oxygen.

The real problems come in the time frame and the loss of history. It's never stated one way or the other if people are aware of their ultimate connections back to Giya, so I won't discuss that, but it is very obvious they have forgotten their connection to Earth/PNF-404. Furthermore, it's made clear that the Giyans lost the ability to travel through space by the 7th generation and only regained it by the 65th. If they had access to space flight, they would certainly have archives of their heritage - and they do indeed seem to have some idea of what it is, given how Earth has become a legend. Yet, the Shephard family history as far back as the migration to Giya was preserved - why not anything else? The inconsistencies and questions make this part of the tale hard for me to ignore, yet we have no answers. This is pure speculation, but if I had to provide an answer I think a solar flare hit Giya and destroyed their technology, making them start over. Perhaps these early Giyain-Humans were so reliant on technology at this point that there were no books or oral traditions to preserve this heritage lost when the tech was destroyed? Though, somehow, the Shephard family would have to be one of if not the exception to this. Again, the previous is pure speculation, but it's the best we can do for the time being.

There's also the question of when and how Earth dogs changed to look like the Sirehound, which would of had to happen before the migration to space given that Oatchi has the same body plan. And then why did Moss's species become so much smaller?

Still, even with all these plot holes, I think it's pretty damn clear that Nintendo intended for our favorite little aliens to be the evolutionary decedents of humans. How and if they'll use this plot point remains to be seen, but it does open up a whole bag of opportunities for the universe of Pikmin. One that, frankly, deserves to be explored.

[ominous-auburn-orbs]

Can you do a fanfic for Kinger and Caine's first kiss with mild NSFW

Here's some dialogue for help

Kinger: Wow.

Caine: Yeah.

Kinger: That was...intense.

Caine: Yeah.

This. This one was a struggle. But you were nice enough to give me dialogue. If you read my stuff for plot, there's not a lot of that to be found here lmao.

Also, same warnings as in the ask, slight NSFW, but it's basically just them semi-failing at making out like the sillies they are.

Kinger and Caine stood outside of the tent, watching the sunset. They held each other's hands, enjoying this moment of peace. Kinger eventually spoke up.

"Hey, Caine?" The ringmaster looked to him, immediately giving Kinger his undivided attention, although that was far from irregular. "This is our 7th date, right?"

"Indeed it is, my dear! It's sweet that you've been keeping count." It took a few moments, but the tone of Kinger's question started to sink in. "Wait, is something special meant to be happening? Is- does the 7th date hold a sort of significance? Was I meant to get you something specific? I-I'm so so sorry, my darling, I didn't-"

"No no no, you're fine!" Kinger chuckled, "There's nothing too important about the 7th date. At least, I don't remember there being. I was more referring to... our progress in our relationship."

"Why, whatever do you mean?"

"Well, we've been together for a little while now, and we, uh, haven't even kissed." His voice trailed off slightly. He knew he'd kissed people before, but all of those memories had a dream-like quality to them. He hadn't done much of anything romantic since he got stuck in the circus, so it felt like he was about to have his first kiss overall. It did make him feel rather self-conscious before it even began, worried that he'd do something wrong or embarrassing and ruin the moment.

"Oh. Yes, you're right, we haven't. I have done research on that, and kissing is allegedly a staple part of romantic relationships. But, I'm not quite sure how we'd go about it, considering our severe lack of lips." Caine chose not to admit that he had near to know idea on how to kiss someone, despite his extensive research. Very, very extensive.

Kinger brought Caine's hand to his cheek, requiring the ringmaster to fly in order to reach him. "How about we try anyway? Just use our collective knowledge, and... experiment, until we find something that feels right."

Caine felt heat spread across his gums. "A-alright, that sounds, uh, good. Very good."

Unsure, the two started to lean towards each other, Caine's teeth and eyes shut tight. Eventually, their faces touched, causing them to relax a bit more. Kinger moved the spot where his mouth would be against Caine's teeth. It did have a similar sensation to what kissing had felt like. Or perhaps he was remembering wrong. Either way, he loved it.

Caine opened his mouth partially, nibbling on Kinger's face, which was admittedly more pleasurable than he thought it would be, although the chess piece did have to hold in a laugh at the mental image of what their current situation would look like.

The ringmaster opened his mouth further. He remembered that he had read about how people would use their tongue to show more affection and passion, so he somewhat awkwardly ran his tongue across Kinger's 'mouth', which drew unexpected noises from both of them.

Since Caine didn't need to breathe and only God knew how Kinger's respiratory system worked, they continued this for a while. Saliva dripped down the front of Kinger's face, but he didn't care enough to stop. In an attempt to further chase the feeling of what he could only describe as his chest exploding from the inside, Caine bit Kinger's face, although harder than he intended.

"Ow-" Kinger pulled away, bringing a hand up to where he had been bit, but stopped before he touched it. There was no lasting mark on his wood, and the pain wasn't that bad. He started to think about how he wouldn't have minded Caine doing it again, but decided to leave that new feeling for another day.

"Oh my goodness, I am so sorry, my sweetness, are you okay?" Both of their faces were bright red and their collars were crumpled from where they had been grasping at each other to try and get closer.

The chess piece wiped at his face to clean off some of Caine's spit. "I-it's fine, I'm fine, I promise." Kinger put one of his hands on the ringmaster's shoulder and the other on his waist, while Caine encircle his 'neck' with his arms. "That was- it was a lot."

"Yes, a-a lot would be a good way of describing it." They continued to stand there in each other's embrace. Well, Kinger standing and Caine floating. "Did you like it, though?"

Kinger was silent for a moment before pressing his face to Caine's teeth. "Yes, I did. I'd love to do it again some time, sweetheart, if you don't mind."

Caine couldn't help but be flustered at the petname. Kinger knew how much of an effect it had on him. "O-oh! Ah, of- of course, yes, whatever you wish for, my dear."

[emily84]

elaborating on my earlier reblog because i didn't wanna derail that well-meaning post, but it bears repeating, especially since i've seen a bunch of younger trekkie fans now follow me and may be unaware of what's going on:

[tw: antisemitism, racism, Nazi mention]

kids, spock's blood is not green because it is copper-based. it's the other way around: it's copper based so they could make it green because spock was jewish-coded.

most jewish trekkies & trekkers actually do prefer spock's blood to be blue in fanart, because star trek being ahead of the times does not mean it wasn't steeped in racism and misogyny - most white fans don't know the malicious stereotypes associated with green blood, pointed ears and a 'sinister look' for such a jewish-coded character, but it takes 5 minutes to learn about it (and learn to look out for that shit and not perpetuate it). jewish fans have pointed this out forever and i wish we would just collectively listen

and i don't mean he was "jewish-headcanoned", i mean in actual canon - the way mccoy at one point calls him a "green-blooded hobgoblin" is very deliberate, underlines his 'otherness' (and jewishness), and is nearly equivalent to calling spock a slur. his appearance being compared to that of 'the devil' which happens a couple of times throughout the show is also antisemitic.

[image of an antisemitic 1940s Nazi propaganda film poster depicting a jewish man with greenish complexion, pointed ears, black hair and beard and prominent bushy eyebrows. this comes straight from middle ages depictions of the devil which you can see in the second picture.]

and it may be easy to dismiss all this by saying it's overkill, but remember that spock is especially jewish-coded because leonard nimoy was allowed to infuse a lot of his own jewishness into the character (the llap spock salute being a rabbinical gesture is just one of the many examples) and the fandom has embraced this as an inextricable component of the character, therefore as such it has to be respected.

the great thing about spock and star trek is that, even though nimoy embodied all the qualities that up until that point in tv and cinema would have made him a villain, he was a force for GOOD. (and also, women by that point were fed up with the blonde blue-eyed captain protagonist trope and flocked in droves toward the more original and frankly more interesting character of the conflicted, outcast, logical first officer). so let's respect the heritage that enabled spock to be such a novel and iconic character on the show.

tl;dr: it's better (for fellow artists) to just use blue to depict spock's blood instead of green, the same way we are not perpetuating some of the misogynistic tropes linked to nurse chapel's character or the racist undertones in uhura's character.

even his makeup on the show is blue, not green!

if you still want to draw his blood as green, by all means, do. but know you're advertising at best ignorance and at worst insensitivity to your fellow jewish (and non-jewish!) fans who have explained this over and over in fandom spaces.