#also side note sorry for not posting much art recently

[pupcup-cafelatte]

sorry for posting art of the Cuphead rarepair I invented do you guys still think I'm cool 😔 for anyone wondering their ship name is Spill the Tea :3

This is a ship that's been brewing in my mind for a while but I kept getting too anxious to post it. But I do not care anymore! It's cute and it makes me happy! And isn't that the point of everything!

Plus I got sad that there was no content of them and desperate times call for desperate measures.

[starzzmissthesun]

i think you should totally drop whatever hc/ideas you have lying around honestly...i would love to see more into ur brain...pls <33

:DD

Hi!!!! Sorry this is a little late, I got so distracted with an animatic im working on(😈) and then a stupid essay😭😭 being honest rn... Almost all of what I've been thinking about is my fic.. 😔

But!! I can still go a little into that without spoilers. I've finally figured out The Perfect ending for this story that I feel fits with the overarching themes I wanted to tell. I've been making sure that every little detail fits with the themes I wanted to show, I wanted it to overlap Regulus and barty's characters and their overarching themes with PD. I also didn't want to just replicate PD cause I feel like that doesnt have the depth or commentary I want to out into it. Idk ive always thought it's super fun to put everything as some sort of symbol or metaphor or foreshadowing. I'm like literally so close to being done drafting and then I can actually talk about it a little more😭

Anyways! I've also been thinking about barty post regs death 😔(when am I not) But more specifically how every memory he had would almost be tainted, everything now would have an air of questioning and unsureness. Even memories where Regulus isn't there, just wondering where was he? What was he thinking? Am I remembering this right? What could've I changed? What was the domino that caused all of this to happen? Eventually finding it hard to accept the way it really was, having the "I guess it was" and feeling it, but overintellectualizing it. His logic and reasoning is his downfall in this situation, that's what makes him go crazy. (Side note I NEED to make a little post about his intersection between intelligence and madness) Hes doing a complicated version of when there's a task that seems so simple that you think it's a trick, but it's not, it's just that. What happened with Regulus was just that.

Also, I've recently self reflected and realized that a lot of my barty characterization is similar to how I think of Leonard Cohen's art(who I LOVE LOVE LOVE) Idk if you've listened to him or read any of his work, but I HIGHLY suggest it, it's perfect for fall. Anyways, a lot of his songs and poems carry themes of having a twisted self image, not completely self deprication though it may seem, but something else. It's closer to understanding and knowing that you are. Different. And unconventional. It's an uncomfortablility he has with himself. Being soemthig twisted from what you should've been. A lot of his stuff is also to do with tragically losing someone, out of their own choice, and still feeling very loyal yet bitter. Also of loving something so much that it turns dark, or it goes too quick, it spirals. Also his love songs are very barty's perspective on bartylus to me. And like, obvious war mentions. I could give some specific recs similar to barty or them if you'd like.

Another thing is of Regulus and his relationship with his dad. Though I see it completely reasonable if his dad was just kind of, not there and neglectful, it could give very interesting implications to his character, I like it the other way around. Orion seeing what a more carefree attempt at raising a child does and keeping Regulus even closer than he did before. I think Orion always liked Regulus more, despite him being the second, because he was a model son. I don't think he wanted this life or even to have kids, so Regulus being so complacent and in line with what he was supposed to be as a pure blood made him the decided favourite(as much as he could have one). He was always keeping a close eye on Regulus and he could feel it, but he didn't do anything out of place anyways. Orion could tell when he was even thinking something he wasn't supposed to. I believe that, no matter how much she tried, walpurga was too caught in her own head about her duty as a mother to see S+R as anything other than Her Kids, as property that she was supposed to care for and tend to, she obviously loved them, but couldn't see through them. But Orion was there around every corner looking through regulus' eyes into his soul to search for any thing out of his perfect kid.

Anyways.... That's all I can think of rn😭 but if you have questions about ANY of them lmk!!! I love yapping about my little thoughts 😁😁

[hydr0phius-art]

Painting Chiss Skin

Before I start this, I’m just going to say that I attempted to do an in depth version of this part and then stopped and did dot points because it was too overwhelming. 

A lot of what’s in here can be applied to different body parts. Some of it may also be applied to traditional art, but most of this is for digital art. This post focuses on faces. Eyes and scars will be another post that'll hopefully follow this one relatively quickly.

Picking colours (and some other tips)

> Experimenting is good!

> There’s blood beneath skin and it’s going to show through at different intensities based on what your lighting is doing. I’m assuming Chiss blood is red, so I usually make any blush on my Chiss purple. (Red + blue = purple. Basic colour mixing thingz, you know?)

> The fairer the Chiss’ skin is, the more vibrant you can be with that purple blush in my opinion.

> Temperature, colour, and intensity of light determines what the skin looks like. 

> Having black shadows on a coloured artwork is a good way to flatten the whole piece; when I paint shadows on a Chiss face, I go for a dark blue or purple and blend it with what’s already on the canvas. Playing with layers and their opacity function is also good.

> Laying down a base blue before starting with the rest of the colours is good. You can see that I did that in the speedpaint I’ve attached to the end of this post.

> This website about colour zones will help.

> This website about colour blocking will also help.

References

> I find a face reference of an actor I want to Chiss-ify. Then I have my blue skin reference, which is usually one of the Na’vi from Avatar.  

> I use the Na’vi because there’s a lot of images available with variation with temperature of light and quality of light to observe. 

> Make note of the colours that appear in their flesh as light interacts with it. 

> Warm light will have pink that transitions to purple, then to blue as shadow starts to come back in. I’ve put Ar’alani next to the reference I took inspiration from (link here) for comparison.

> You want to go and paint your reference as it is, except blue. When you get to adding highlights and shadows, look at the Na’vi image and see what colours appear in that light. 

I think that’s pretty much all I do when I paint Chiss. Here’s a speedpaint of Thrawn with Lee Pace as a face claim if that helps somewhat :3

(Ignore how I erased his uniform; I could NOT be bothered with that sorry).

Also, Here are some artworks that helped me when I was figuring this out. I’ve done a bit of analysis that might or might not be helpful. Take what you like from it.

Magali Villeneuve

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Magali Villeneuve (@magali_villeneuve)

In my opinion, Villeneuve’s Thrawn portraits are the best official artworks of him that we have right now. They’re my main go-to for inspiration. The lighting plays across the skin in a way that gives it a fleshy, warm, alive feel. Even the colour zones are present, which gives it that extra bit of depth. If you can’t see them, that’s fine; it takes a bit of time to get used to looking for them.

Rod Reis

The first of Reis’ Alliances cover is also up there with good official Thrawn art we’ve had fairly recently, imo. His style is different to Villeneuve’s, but he follows the same processes with the colour zones and how the skin interacts with the environment around it. The shadows aren’t flat or black; they have colour to them that adds more dimension to the portrait. There’s also that hint of purple-blue blush around his cheeks with more yellowy-blue tones on his forehead and more blue tones around his jaw and chin (again, colour zones are present :3). The light is cooler than Villeneuve’s in the Chaos Rising Portrait, which you can see in the lighter teal hue on the right side of his face. Cool light usually brings out the lighter blue tones in the skin (that’s just what I’ve noticed, though).

And that's it! If anyone has questions, feel free to ask them :3 I'll try and get this eye post out soon <3

[starrclown]

☆ Redesign Time/Have Tea With Me: The Black Characters of Hazbin Hotel, The Radio Demon ☆

Note: Okay I kinda feel like a cheat because it isn't a whole redesign, it's just two sketchy headshots. Sorry it's not a full design. Sorry also it isn't my Stolitz Rewrite... but I have 10 followers now!! I know that's not alot but hey, it means people actually WANT to read these blogs and see my art. I'll take it!!)

Ahoy Matey's!! So there has been two controversies going on withing the Hazbin Hotel fandom. 1 has been long term while the other is semi recent.

Have tea with me while we talk about it 🫖🍵:

1. The black/people of color don't have any features of their race.

2. Alastor's voodoo symbols.

I will not be talking about Alastor's voodoo. I am a white boy and I am not educated enough to talk about Voodoo. What I'm here to talk about is that none of the poc look like poc. Let's play another game. What is the race of these characters:

Have your guess? Their black. Sera is black, Velvette is black, and Alastor is Creole. All are black and or mixed and none of them have any ethnic features. All of them are gray. (I'm just saying it's sad when me, a white boy that has 2c/3a hair, has curlier hair then people with textured hair.)

(Also, Alastor, who is not a good guy but is the good guy team, is light gray. Velvette, who is on the villains side, is dark gray. I'm not accusing Viv of being racist but I find it weird.)

The problem is so easy to fix. GIVE THEM ETHNIC FEATURES!! ITS SO EASY!! No one's expecting you to draw every individual braid or dreadlock but oh my god!! Give them textured hair! Or I don't know, NOT ASHY GRAY SKIN!! BLACK PEOPLE ARE BEAUTIFUL VIV!! YOU CAN MAKE THEM BROWN ITS OKAY I SWEAR!! Sorry that got aggressive. Look, I just said that I am not a poc but there's no way they don't have black people on the SpindleHorse team. Hell, you can just ask people on Twitter or the black people you know!! Seriously, it's not hard to learn to draw ethnic features! It's really fun actually! I had so much fun drawing the second hairstyle!! Speaking if which!! (Drum noises)

Drawing these hairstyles were so fun yall. Andddddd, you get a sneak peak at what my Alastor redesign might look like! If you can tell what I'm going for then you get a cookie. Dude the second hairstyles was so fun. Like honestly. I do think I can do the first hairstyle, (I think I know the nameof this hairstyle but I don't want to be wrong.), better but thats for me to practice on my own time. Seriously I had so much fun drawing these. Hell I didn't even line them. Those are sketches with colors. These aren't final designs or anything, I still need to adjust colors and get his outfit planned out but I think I know where I'm going with this!!

The hairstyles I used:

It's just really sad seeing how SpindleHorse treats its poc characters. Textured hair can come in so many different types and hairstyles, you just wasting them making have straight hair with choppy waves. (Side note: Does anyone else like get excited when they draw new things? Like I was happy drawing Al's hair. I got excited learning how to draw my curls. I tried learning how to draw a hijab. It's really fun actually!! I highly suggest to challenge yourself drawing other types of hair types, races, religions, clothing. Seriously it helps your art and representation is important.)

There were other examples I couldn't list but I don't want this to be long. I want to get back to my Stolitz post but I HAD to draw Alastor with textured hair. Seriously Viv, he's Creole, at least make him look like it if your not even going to try and make him look like what he's described.

I have about 60% of the Stolitz post done! I encourage you to draw something new and to commit mass amounts of tax fraud!! Goodbye Matey's!!

- ⭐️StarClown⭐️

[badaziraphaletakes]

In which some poor innocent unsuspecting reader submitted an ask and I respond by throwing an entire textbook at them

Like seriously i won’t even be upset if no one reads this PhD dissertation, like actually what is wrong with me omg

The ask:

I want to start by saying I love this account and really appreciate the rebuttals I see here to some of the messed up stuff the fandom’s spit out over the past few years. That being said, the most recent post about “the creepiest take you’ve ever seen,” was one I disagreed with strongly. It’s entirely normal to enjoy watching media where characters have breakdowns. It is not a desire to see a person breakdown. It is a desire to watch a good story.

(Edit: Just realized I somehow omitted to include the full text of the ask here. I apologize for the error! Will fix it soon. -Mod X)

My response:

Hi and thank you for your kind words! (Also idk why there is this huge gap in the text here, sorry haha!) If it were a necessary part of the story, or a part of the story that made sense, I would agree. But it’s not necessary (esp not at this point in the story) and therefore wouldn’t be “good”, if we are defining good art as being emotional truthful, which I imagine is a pretty uncontroversial definition.

Side note: We already saw him have this exact shattering breakdown in Uz. So that renders most of what I am about to say (and arguably some of what you have said) somewhat moot. But I’m going to continue anyway because some of the points brought up here touch on issues that I think bear re-visiting often.

It’s cathartic, it’s engaging, and it helps people who’ve been through the same thing see themselves reflected. For example, I like watching someone on tv hit rock bottom with their addiction because I’ve been through that, and seeing them finally realize they have to work on recovery and actually do it is motivating and empowering.

I’m so sorry you’ve been through that. I haven’t (although I am estranged from an entire side of my family due to alcoholism and meth addiction, which is a whole fun thing), so I can’t comment on this too much.

But addiction is not the same as an ab*sive relationship. (I do have knowledge of those, both from life experience and from my previous job in ab*se research. I edited a newsletter about family violence research for several years.) Seeing a person suffering from addiction realize they want to work on recovery, and realize that the substance they are addicted to is messing up their life, can make sense. Especially if they're in a place where they're able to work on it and have the opportunity to try to change.

But seeing an ab*se survivor “realize they need to get away from their ab*ser because they’re evil and have a breakdown about it” doesn’t make sense, because being trapped in an absive situation is not about “motivation” or what they think about the abser or even, really, about "empowerment". (Side note that word is thrown a lot to delude women into thinking our capitalist system is working for us rather than oppressing us. But I digress.) It boils down to the fact that they are in danger if they leave. The situation is not within their control.

(This next part is not directed at you, but at the general readership, in case this is helpful discussion for anyone: A lot of addictions aren’t within people's control at all either. It depends very much on the drug we’re talking about, the health of the individual, the quantity and duration of the addiction, whether the person has access to the healthcare they need to be cured, and whether there’s a way for them to get free from the broader societal dysfunctions that led to them being trapped in this situation in the first place.)

Also, with addiction, people can absolutely get past that without losing their sense of self and their identity. If they go through that kind of crisis in the process of healing from addiction, I would argue that something is very wrong. (Not with them, but with the society around them). In a best-case scenario, a person suffering from addiction would have access to the kind of mental and physical healthcare and support system that lets you get free from that without a shattering breakdown or loss of sense of self.

Besides, not everyone who has an addiction has toxic beliefs about themselves or their own identity or other people, etc etc. (Babies who are born addicted come to mind, if we want to talk about the most extreme example.) So I find the idea that addiction is down to toxic beliefs about one's self very suspect. I would argue that 95% of the time, addiction happens because your life sucks. The mental health community is starting to have this conversation about depression and anxiety - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to work on one's "limiting beliefs" and "destructive thought patterns" can only do so much to help you feel better when your whole life is shit anyway. And it can actually make it WORSE if the victim is made to believe that their depression is the fault of their "Faulty thoughts" rather than a reasonable reaction to a shitty situation. Not necessarily saying we should throw CBT out the window altogether, but I am saying that mental healthcare will be a LOT more effective when it learns to truly take the broader societal context into account. I suspect, I hope, we'll soon be having a simialr conversation around addiction.)

And that’s doubly the case for ab*se survivors. They’re not stuck in that situation because there’s something wrong with them that they need to fix. They’re stuck in that situation because there’s something wrong with the ab*ser.

Regardless of the victim’s personal worth as an individual, regardless of whether they’re a good person or what-have-you, they don’t deserve to be ab*sed.

(I'm just waiting to hear about how some therapist tells a victim to work on their "limiting belief" that they need to stay with their ab*ser in order not to be killed, and/or tells them that fearing their ab*ser will kill them is a "cognitive distortion", and tells them to stand up to their ab*ser and/or leave, and then the ab*ser kills them. But I digress.)

And the loss of self when separating from a toxic system that’s defined your whole life is a real thing some people go through. It’s not bad consider that Aziraphale could also go through that, or to want to see that experience reflected.

I want to be very clear that I don’t have the smallest objection to people wanting to see that in a show. But a. that’s not what the person was saying, and b. they were also saying it’s necessary. IT’S NOT. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Loss of self is the worst-case scenario for how something like that goes. Nothing good comes from that. That is a side effect of ab*se (because the ab*ser’s the one who says that “Everything you are is bound up in me and you’re nothing with me"), not an integral part of the process of getting away.

Trauma is not necessary for character growth.

The way these things should go is that the person is able to gradually and mindfully work through the beliefs that are poisoning them with the help of a therapist, trusted friends, etc.

I know what I’m talking about. I worked in trauma research for over seven years. Please trust me on this one.

And again, Aziraphale can’t “separate” from them anyway. There’s nowhere he can go where they won’t find him. So his beliefs are irrelevant to his situation. And if the show implies that his beliefs “need to change” as part of the earth being set free from heaven-hell’s tyranny, or that he “needs to change” in order to be free, I will be writing a strongly-worded letter to the creators.

But more importantly, *they didn’t just say giddy.* They also said apprehensive. Perhaps they’re apprehensive because they know it could be painful to watch. Or because they don’t want to see it handled poorly.

“Giddily apprehensive” sounds an awful lot like “excited” to me. I admit it is ambiguous, though, so I’ll give you that one. I maintain that the OP expressed themselves with an exceptional lack of grace, however. And fwiw, they’d be FAR from the first person to want to see Aziraphale suffer because they are mad at him. I think I have good reason to believe that's what they're getting at here, given how many people in the poster's orbit say the same kinds of things and how many other things I've seen the OP say that are along those lines. I acknowledge I should have made that clearer in my original post.

They aren’t giving this advice (if one could call it that) to a human. They’re saying they’re excited to see a character breakdown. Character arcs like that are common and enticing for good reason.

I have yet to see a reason why I should believe that the things people say about Aziraphale are different than the things they say about people in real life.

I would point you to a couple lines down where you say yourself that we respond to characters the same way we respond to real people.

Personal growth ≠ character growth.

But what makes a good character is that they act like real people.

As an audience, character growth (even negative) is engaging.

Yes, absolutely. But we can absolutely do character growth in a way that does not spread harmful mindsets or misinformation about what ab*se and recovery from ab*se looks like. In fact, I would argue that character growth can’t happen if the writer doesn’t write the characters to behave in a way that is realistic to real life.

Characters follow the same rules, though. We respond to characters the same way we respond to real people. The same general rules of personal development and so forth apply.

The idea that “Aziraphale realizes his ab*sers are terrible” is something he needs to do for his “personal development” is highly objectionable. He doesn’t need to grow in this area. He just needs his ab*sers to leave him alone. Side note: We should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he already does think they’re terrible and only stays with them because he is terrified. Even if this hadn’t been strongly and frequently hinted at in every episode going all the way back to S1E1 - almost every scene, in fact - we should still give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also, even if we say, for the sake of argument, that Aziraphale was a terrible, awful, horrible person - I know you’re not saying that, to be clear - even then, he still wouldn’t “need to realize his ab*sers are terrible” or “have a complete breakdown” or “lose himself” in order to grow. That's not how growth works. The best growth happens when people are at peace and safe and loved. Not frightened and confused and alone. He never chose them in the first place, he never wanted to be on their side. If he were left alone, he would just spend the rest of eternity reading his books and eating Eccles cakes and snuggling with his former-demon. That’s who he really is. There’s nothing about him as a person that needs to change. I agree a story where a person loses their sense of self after escaping from an ab*sive system would be interesting to watch, but I maintain that it does not make sense for the context of this particular story. And, such a story would NEED to make clear that the person wasn’t bad or wrong for deriving some part of their sense of self from the ab*ser and that they shouldn’t have had to have a catastrophic breakdown in order to develop their own sense of self. No one should have to go through that.

It’s not the same thing as asking for personal growth from a real human being.

Good characters do not operate according to different emotional and psychological rules than we do, though. If they didn't, we wouldn’t have millions of people sobbing about how real Aziraphale and Crowley feel to them. We would be the biggest dodos in the world if we were reacting this way to paper dolls 😄

Comparing the desire to see a character go through a dramatic storyline like that (and to come out of it strong and shining) to fundamentalist rhetoric is… just total bullshit.

You said this blog has been a good place for you and I want it to continue to be that way for you. So I want to give you a chance to revisit this part and see if you can say something more constructive. Because I've gotta admit, this really made me upset and I can't let it go without saying something. It’s not cool to call someone’s commentary “bullsh*t” like this.

I heard the line “we must die to ourselves” many, many times from the high-control religion of my childhood. It is a classic cult line. Hence why so many cults have "burial and rebirth" rituals, make people change their names, etc.

I am not just making up a comparison. This is a real phenomenon. Controlling ab*sers are the ones who’ve given us this idea that “death of the self” is character growth. It’s not. Character growth happens in spite of those excruciating emotional crises, not because of them.

Growing as a person is supposed to feel good overall. Not always easy, but on the whole, it should be a positive experience.

Also - Again, they said he “needs” to do it.

And they didn’t say anything about Aziraphale “coming out strong and shining”. You added that in. I think it's wonderful that you want to see that for him (so do I) but that’s not what this person was saying

If they'd said that, I wouldn't object to it at all. But they didn't. That part was left out. Which I think may be very telling in itself.

There are a myriad of reasons someone could have that desire, including having gone through something similar themselves.

Having gone through something similar doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense for another character. It also doesn’t mean it’s necessary. And having been through something that went a certain way does NOT mean that it happening that way makes sense for someone else.

Deconstruction from a religious upbringing is different from leaving an ab*sive relationship

Aziraphale doesn’t have religious trauma. (I’m not going to talk much about religious trauma and deconstruction here, because it’s outside the scope of this blog, largely because - as attested by no less an authority than Neil Himself - Good Omens is not about religion. But I’ll say a little bit.)

Heaven and hell are not a “religion” in his world - they’re real. His fear of hell (and of heaven) is absolutely, one hundred percent, completely legitimate and appropriate, and NOT something he should be “reasoned” out of. Saying otherwise gives “your ab*ser isn’t actually that evil and scary”. But regardless, in either scenario, that kind of traumatic personal crisis is not a necessary part of the healing process. My heart aches for all the people whose deconstruction process was emotionally shattering. But what makes it ache even more is how for so many of them, the takeaway is somehow that that kind of crisis is necessary - rather than "dear god, i hope no one else ever has to go through that kind of hideous experience to get away from their shitty religion", which surely is what the takeaway should be (assuming there even is a lesson to be learned at all from an experience like that, which is doubtful) - and they go on to demand it of other survivors and gatekeep against people who haven't gone through the exact same thing they did in the process of getting away.

How, HOW did we get to a point where so many people’s deconstruction is a fucked-up, scarring experience that we think it’s inevitable for deconstruction to be that way????? I grieve.

I know the idea of killing one’s old self is inherently wrong to many people.

It’s not about whether it’s *wrong*. If that's valid for someone and they get where they need to be - you do you. It’s about the fact that it’s painful and it’s unnecessary to the process of growth.

Furthermore, it is the kind of thing ab*sers WANT to see happen to their victims when they leave. They want victims to think that they have to have that kind of crisis if they want to leave them. Because then they’re less likely to leave. When we encourage that kind of thinking, we are playing directly into their hands.

What should happen is that the victim should be given the opportunity to realize that all along there was much more to them than their ab*ser.

I don’t personally desire to watch Aziraphale do that, especially because there are so many wonderful aspects of the Angel he’s been since the beginning

Agreed.

But fwiw, this is giving a faint whiff of perfect victim syndrome. Even if he were an asshole, he still deserves to just have his ab*sers leave him alone, not to have some kind of shattering, soul-crushing emotional breakdown. They will always, always be worse than him.

but it’s not wrong to want to see that. People do go through it, and their stories are incredibly compelling.

I don’t disagree. For me it’s rather about the place this is coming from. OP was saying it’s necessary. There’s a difference between wanting to see a show address this issue overall because it’s interesting, and demanding that a specific character go through it because you think it’s necessary, or that their process of leaving and healing won't be legitimate (or whatever word we wanna use) if it doesn't happen.

And, as you said, it doesn’t make sense for Aziraphale. If the character is an asshole, I’d be able to see it a little more (although again, I still very much question the entire idea in the first place) But he's not an asshole. I find anyone’s thinking it “makes sense” for him to be highly questionable.

I know Aziraphale is much more than a character to many people

Speaking as a (very, very, very slightly, lol) professional writer and actor - every character should be “more than a character”, if they’re well-written. They should feel real if the writer and/or actor has done their job well. I like NG's line that "If you write someone who is utterly and completely themselves, you get people coming up to you and going 'Oh my God, you wrote my life!'

a desire to watch him go through a psychological breakdown is not some poorly concealed desire to watch real people go through that.

It may or may not be. I agree that it isn't always.

In this person’s case, though, I very much did get concerning vibes. Poorly concealed. (As an ab*se survivor, you start to know the vibe of victim-blamers after awhile.)

Regardless, though, the way we respond to characters is the way we respond to people in real life. Story is a primary vehicle through which people learn how to interact with one another and their environment. If it wasn’t, discussing media along these lines would be pointless, and I'd just spend all my time talking about how good David Tennant looks in those tight pants 😁 Or, probably, I would take up a different hobby altogether.

I wouldn’t have wasted my time starting this blog if the things people say about this story and especially about Aziraphale didn’t have real-world applications (not to mention making a lot of ab*se survivors feel very unsafe in the fandom - before we turned off anonymous asks, I got an average of two messages a day from ab*se survivors and other oppressed people telling them how this blog has made them feel so much safer in the fandom) - and if their views about the characters didn’t mirror the kinds of things they’d say about people in real life. (All the anti-Aziraphale autiphobic takes come to mind.) I flatter myself I have enough judgment that those takes wouldn't have troubled me so deeply if they weren't reflective of real-world societal problems and indicative of problematic attitudes in the people who write them.

In this case, the wording is identical to the kinds of problematic things people say about real-life victims/survivors. Yes, the person may not actually consciously want (or want at all) to see real-life ab*se victims/survivors suffer. But I absolutely, one hundred per cent guarantee you that anyone saying this has some major problematic biases/assumptions that are contributing to how ab*se survivors are maligned, degraded, and oppressed in our society. (I never want to see Disabled people suffer, but if I say ableist things, I’m contributing to it whether I mean to or not. I may not want to see women suffer, I am a woman, well more or less anyway lol, and I've identified as a feminist my entire adult life, but nevertheless there have certainly been times in the past when I've said sexist things. It's something all of us will always have to be vigilant against in ourselves. I suspect at this point I'm preaching to the choir, because you do not strike me at all as a bigoted or ignorant person, but I figured I'd re-iterate all that again anyway, because screaming it through a megaphone as often as possible is what this blog is for lol. :)

And what’s worse, they are spreading that rhetoric. I’ll be damned if I’ll let it go by without saying something.

Hope this makes sense and cleared some things up.

With love and respect,

Mod X.

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

Us-the-voices intro card!

this is a work in progress but currently it will house the tags we use, our DNI, and alter intros and a couple other fun things!

Link to resource page, filled with many resources. LINK

-------- DC text post series ----------------

superfam being confusing and half clones:

part 1 luthor and Conner reconciliation arc

batfamily stuff: (note this is not in order this is parts of a series each part contains more than 10 posts)

part 1 introducing the batfam along with funny stuff

Part 2 actual batfam serious stuff

part 3 red hood oneshots about various things and how he reacted

part 4 Thomas Wayne being himself, a collection of previous posts

part 5

firestorm being 3 guys:

part 1 the origin + the first couple episodes.

random head cannons important to the series:

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 3 part 4

——————⭐️🦀SIDE BLOGS🦀⭐️————

@us-the-voices-xenogender-blog

A blog for all things blinkies, xenogenders and pixel art

@the-bad-advice-blog-3

you want awful. awful advice? send it in here!

@us-the-batfam-blog

Finally a blog dedicated to just Batman stuff

——————🛑‼️WARNING‼️🛑—————

THIS BLOG CONTAINS BLINKING, FLASHING, EYESTRAIN AND OTHER PHOTOSENSITIVE THINGS! PLEASE BE SAFE, WE WILL TRY TO TAG AS MUCH AS WE CAN BUT IT WILL SLIP THROUGH. PLEASE ONLY LOOK AT TEXT POST FROM US, IF YOU HAVE EPILEPSY BECAUSE I CANNOT GUARANTEE THIS BLOG IS SAFE

this blog talks about mature topics! Such as Sexual abuse, death, trauma, child abuse, ableism, sexism, racism, police brutality, some really depressing environmental issues, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia, gore, capitalism, and MORE!

so please consider this your warning!

———————⚠️ DNI ⚠️—————————

Terfs/radfems, transphobes/queerphobes, (I have had enough of you. Why do you have to be so awful Jesus, it’s not like awful people don’t come in all shapes, sizes, races, and genders. I ain’t defending awful people. But trans people just exist and I believe in judging people on a person to person basis. I don’t think you are bad I just want you to shut up about it, I’ll always be loudly supportive of trans people and loudly a feminist too. So deal with it! Also I don’t hate men, why would i??? So shush)

ableists/sanists (like the people who discriminate against mentally ill people),

Tankies/marxist-lennists/maoists/north-korean socialist supporters (please fuck off I hate facists, and you are the types to argue that disabled people should all die for the glorious revolution but again fuck you we are 15% of the fucking world’s population and guess what I wanna live)

animal abusers/people who spread misinformation about animals and animal care, (I hope you stub your toes)

syscourse (yeah I don’t ever want to engage in it idc shut up this blog is about literally everything else BUT that.),

bad faith gender/other Identities (E.G BLM gender, transabled, ect.)

racists/xenophobes/antisemites, misogynists.

non-binary exclusionists.

pro-censorship people.

anti-therians/otherkin, (if you are it’s not a deal breaker lol, it’s just some of us are therian/otherkin due to plurality)

only NSFW blogs (like if you occasionally post NSFW your okay, if it’s less than 50% nsfw your fine on this blog lol),

MAP’s AND PEDO’s and people who like l*licon/sh**tacon (fuck off and stay off) (sorry I am actually anti censorship but following our most recent ban I’m being more “careful” when mentioning these topics so sorry)

Dream Stans (yeah I fucking hate that guy, I like MCYT but dream and co can stay off of here REAL) (I have always hated him and I will continue to, fuck off dream Stan’s),

anti-good faith xenogenders (yeah so what if the term xeno-identities is more the “right” term idgaf! I literally have no qualms nor problems with xenogenders, in my mind it makes sense because gender is a social construct and so why not have fun with it?)

And more to be added :)

WE ALSO BELIEVE PEOPLE CAN CHANGE AND GROW, AND HATE IS LEARNED SO IF YOU WERE ONE OF THESE THINGS IN THE PAST AND HAVE NOW REFORMED I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU!

——————————- ALTER INTROS —————————————

Now expanded in our tumblr page!

Pop (hi I’m pop, I’m usually the one on here when it’s not everyone else. If you see me more than usual it means LIFE happened. I’m technically host? But me, Lena, And poppie kinda share that role. They/them he/him)

poppie (cat girl, you see her a lot on here. She’s SUPER into the veganism scene and animal rights and is a cat-therian lol we all love her she’s the best. She/her any cat neopronouns actually.)

Lena (demon, yeah she’s a demon! She’s nonsense hardworking and in the demonkin/otherkin scene. She/her)

belle (psychology nerd, actually knows how to write ANYTHING is honestly the best. She/her)

————————————. Tags ————————————————-

#Anticapitalism stuff (a tag that argues against capitalism, and trashing multinational corporations and a bit of environmental stuff.)

#anarchism stuff (a tag for all things anarchism)

#art stuff (a tag for stuff related to the ethics, discussion, or making of art.)

#music stuff (for all things music and music theory!)

#tv and movie stuff (the tag for film and television, kinda fun kinda sad! It’s good tho)

#anti-censorship stuff (a tag for anti-censorship stuff, and why it’s important!)

#trans stuff (a tag for all things trans! Includes dark topics, mostly happy stuff tho.)

#queer stuff (a tag for all things LGBTQIA+, mostly happy but with triggering and dark topics.)

#mental health stuff (A tag for all things mental health, let it be help or just memes or darker topics.)

#mental illness stuff (a tag for specifically mental illnesses, like anxiety or depression or whatever usually REALLY dark but sometimes happy usually dark tho.)

#veganism stuff (a tag for all things vegan, not recipes just ethics and whatever. I [pop] don’t usually add to it but poppie does ALL THE TIME.)

#disability (for all things disability, let it be activism stuff, vents, information, or just funny stuff! It’s a tag I tend to use for myself because fun fact I [pop] am not okay! Health wise lol.)

#punk stuff (A tag for all things punk, let it be C-punk, madpunk, neuropunk or whatever! It’s a tag for all things punk! Including art, crafts, sewing and punk beliefs and politics I love punks I am not really one due to a whole lotta reasons but I love them so much <3 )

#environmentalism stuff (Climate change, mass extinctions, greedy corporations and politicians, animal rights, and more stuff. Mostly climate/animal related but intersects with disability stuff, anarchism stuff, activism stuff, and veganism and punk stuff. Fun fact these types of things are extremely intersectional but are never presented as such due to infighting!)

#healthcare stuff (The weird tag related to health and healthcare, not a disability tag, not a environmentalism tag literally health and healthcare which is weird. Mostly PSA’s)

#animal care stuff (For all things animal care, I disagree with veganism’s doctrine here. Keeping Some animals and keeping animals can be done well and awesomely and help petstore and wild animals, but people who do animal care just absolutely trash just don’t deserve anything or anyone. It’s a fine line, but I genuinely believe if you take good care of your animals and give them an amazing quality of life I genuinely don’t see a problem with keeping animals.)

#animal abuse stuff (Goes hand in hand with animal care stuff, it’s pretty bad at times, it is what it says on the tin. Mostly also animal care stuff.)

#child abuse stuff (For stories, children’s rights, or experiences. It’s pretty dark.)

#youth liberation (for youth liberation stuff, it’s important honestly.)

#children's rights (A tag for all things children’s rights it’s super cool!)

#homelessness stuff (a tag related to homelessness and just all the things that come with it, it’s a dark tag. Sometimes happy.)

#uhoused stuff (Same same but different, more related to cost of living crisis’s and capitalism then disenfranchisement and outright just the sad reality that is being mentally ill and homeless or a substance abuser and homeless or trans/queer and homeless or any other absolutely insane and awful reason people are homeless.)

#communism stuff (For all things communist, I don’t believe it will fix anything and it is kinda extremely hard to get rid of monetary currency. But communism, socialism, anarchism, and punk theory are all connected in ways and have some BASED ideas and principles. So yeah that’s why it’s tagged on here!

Edit: I do not agree with communism; well Marxist Leninist, or Stalinist, or any variation of fucking facist dictators like North Korean communism/socialism or soviet communism and Maoist communism. Why? Because do I really have to spell it out they were facist DICTATORS, I do not believe a cult of personality is good nor that people instead of being solely valued on their money they are solely valued by their ableness which I think is harmful as shit. A lot of communists are literally tankies and for the death penalty and many other things I’m against including “making prisons torture chambers” “state mandated murder of people against communism” “leaving disabled and mentally ill people to rot because they can’t contribute to the work force and such are useless to the communist state” “stealing shit from people because it now belongs to the state” “forcing people into mandatory labor jobs with no way out of it unless they become disabled or die” and many many more! Communism can be interesting and helpful but in a lot of ways people drunk the “facists aren’t bad they are communists they are for the people!” Drink. And like I don’t believe in that shit, go fucking deconstruct your biases please because otherwise I’m blocking you, talkies fuck off)

#socialism stuff (I actually do believe socialism can work, it’s definitely not the end all be all of ways to govern/live life but I think it’s a good stepping stone to all different wonderful things that can change the world for the better, usually the CIA/FBI/US government appears a lot in this tag due to reasons that will become apparent. But it’s a fun one!)

#fat stuff (A tag about fatphobia, diet culture, ableism and just annoying stuff about being fat lol. Mostly medical negligence and malpractice because holy shit fuck is it bad in this tag. Also Eating disorders are talked about in every post in one way or another, it’s a big problem. Dark tag.)

#religion stuff (A thing for all things religion, it’s basically every criticism and deep cut anyone and everyone has on every single religion, which yk obviously no one literally agrees with anything. It’s mostly everyone going “QUEER/TRANS/DISABLED/WOMEN/“SINNERS” DONT DESERVE THIS TREATMENT IT MAKES NO SENSE!” Other religions “NO THEY DO” and it’s actually very well written and argued for. Also atheism is talked about a lot too, it’s mostly like a deep philosophical and ethical debate that has spanned literally everything and everywhere where it’s all boiled down to “yeah some fuckers deserve prison, but the average normal guy kinda just exists we guess??? Religious or not???? And there’s kinda nothing wrong with it but we would rather them be religious in some way????” And that is still the shittyist summary ever too. But it’s the gist of this tag. Also memes!)

(and where I put all stuff related to religion it’s very much a mixed bag i’m not making fun of anyone actually it’s that there is genuinely too much variety in this tag to accurately tell you what’s in there. It’s everything related to religion all religions!)

#autism stuff (Specifically for autistic stuff, it’s used from time to time.)

#activism stuff (a tag for all things ally posting, and human/animal/land/just everything rights. It’s fun!)

#food stuff (A tag about all things food related, sometimes recipes sometimes diet culture and why it’s bad. Sometimes it’s just cultural things related to food. Food is a big topic LOL)

#comics and book stuff (a tag about all things comics, books, and written works.)

#tv and movie stuff or #film and tv (a tag about all things TV and film, let it be discussion, gifs, or videos or fun facts.)

#neurodivergent stuff (For all things neurodivergent! Fun stuff, kinda happy kinda dark. Intersects with mental health stuff and mental illness stuff and disability tags. Because like why wouldn’t it???)

#animals (yes just for animals, nice calm usually no triggering animal stuff. It’s just cuteness usually! Unless I put something dark in there then sorry.)

#too queue for school (A tag for all queued stuff I remember to tag! Usually wholesome most times not. But it’s just a fun “today’s thing queued!” Thing if I’m not online.)

—————————————- Our post tags —————————————

#us-the-voices Cooks (a tag for recipes, food we make, and random cooking tips???)

#us-the-voices reviews (a tag for all things reviews! Let it be movies, shows, games, art, books, fanfics, whatever!)

#us-the-voices talks (A tag for like personal affairs? Or just “haha update stuff went DOWN in our personal lives” or just general chatting with mutuals who knows I haven’t decided yet.)

#us-the-voices recommends (weird tag for all weird recommendations of shows/books/tv/fanfic/movies it’s there it’s weird and if your bored and want something to do maybe you’ll like it lol.)

#us-the-voices rants (a tag for rants, don’t take them seriously it’s usually momentarily sad/existential/angry/fed up/annoyed/trauma dump RANTS. suggest you just block the tag lol, I will probably make half of these while I’m unwell and sick or just stressed and under all sorts of stress. So honestly it’s just a tag so you guys don’t have to deal with it because I will eventually be stupid on the internet and I’d rather you understand these are nonsense rants that are just a release of information that’s been annoying us.)

#the voices talk (A tag for talking about alters or specific things some alters want to talk about but not all.)

#poppie weblogs (poppies tag for her stuff, it literally has everything in it.)

and more to come!

——— User boxes ———————————

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BLINKIESSSSS

below the cut because they strobe!!!!!

[tillthelandslide]

Same For You (7) Hate Missing You

Series Masterlist

(6) The Dinner

Series Warnings: slow burn romance, eventual smut, age gap, complicated relationship (low-key unhealthy dynamics), eventual love...

Taglist: @scooby-doodoo @thereisaplaceintheheart @theoriginalwhatsername @eaglestar31 @thefrontofmymind @fallingforel @partoftheairforce @procrastinatinglikeapro @poisonmedaddy13 @xthe1975 @all-things-fic @jstbeeingme @rossgirly @juliardk (add yourself using the link in my bio 😊)

A/n: hi everyone 👋 just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the support on this series so far, it means a lot to me. I hope you continue to enjoy it, let me know what you think, my inbox is always open so share your thoughts, predictions, what you'd like to see, who you're rooting for, whatever 💞 also once again, next part will be posted once this reaches 100 notes :) - love Lou

She had been avoiding both of them like the plague. She had seen Charli a few times, the girls going for drinks a few times, but neither of the men were mentioned once, a clear rule y/n set down the moment they were with each other. She was thankful Charli didn't mention it, she didn't press, didn't demand a reason as to why she didn't want to talk about either of the guys. She had even spoken to George a few times and seen him twice, the two of them chilling in his and Charli's house and sharing ideas for songs, Y/n sharing some demos that George took to work on.

The distance didn't stop either of them from constantly texting or calling her. They both started to get worried when she took a while to reply, or didn't pick up the phone. She would text back hours after their messages were sent, with an excuse, although most of the time they were in fact true, such as "sorry been writing with this artist" which was true, but she had only allowed said artists to book time in with her so she could distract herself.

She was currently sitting in the garage, working with an independent artist called Emma, she had written a song for her and they were currently recording it. She currently was sat alone at her computer, they were taking a quick break so Emma could smoke in her back garden, outside the shed. She's distracted by the buzzing of her phone, Matty's name lighting up her screen with a picture they had taken from the day they got coffee. She had since changed his name, seeing "bestie" every time he called was just confusing her further.

Emma walks back in as she stares at her phone.

"You can take that if you want" she says and y/n shakes her head.

"no it's okay" she says, turning her phone over so their picture isn't staring back at her.

"Nothing important" she tells herself this although she knows it's a lie. She missed hearing his excited voice on the other side of the phone, missed the late night phone calls when he'd ramble about music and art. They finish the song and Emma leaves, by that point it's pretty late at night.

When she eventually looks at her phone she sees 6 missed calls from Matty and 4 messages, 4 missed calls from Ross and 6 messages. She sighs deeply texting both of them the same message.

"Sorry was in the studio working with a girl called Emma" it only takes a minute to receive two texts back.

"Been working a lot recently, don't wear yourself out love... P.s miss you xx" - Ross

"No worries darling, look at you go aye! Miss you xx" - Matty

She ignores both messages, leaving her home studio and returning to her house.

The truth is she misses them both, so much. But she needed time to think, not that she had done much of that. She had been making herself busy so she was distracted and it didn't leave much time to think. She wasn't doing herself any favors and she knew that.

❀•°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀ •°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀

The band do their usual set in the usual bar in Soho, the same, usual people standing right at the front. Her eyes flick to the back table where they're usually sat, but she doesn't spot them. Charli is sat with George, and their overlapping friendship groups. Carly and Adam are even here. But they aren't there. Ross and Matty...

They hadn't come. She shouldn't really be surprised, not only had she been avoiding the two of them but they were an internationally famous band who clearly had better things to do than seeing a small band perform. She knew they were on a break from touring, hence why she had seen so much of them recently, but she still wouldn't be surprised if they had other things to do.

The cheers from the crowd don't feel as good, not when she knows they aren't there screaming along. She didn't know what she expected, she had brought this upon herself. When they get off the stage her band goes to greet their friends, but she exits the building, grabbing a cigarette from her pack hidden in her pocket. She shakes the thought that she was being rude away from her brain. She hadn't officially met Carly yet and felt bad that she hadn't immediately went over and introduced herself, but she needed a fag, right now.

The door opens behind her and a pair of arms wrap around her frame, a sweet scent following behind them. Charli.

"You smashed it as always" she says, pulling back from the hug.

"Thanks" she murmurs, taking a sharp inhale of her cigarette.

Charli doesn't mention either of the men and she doesn't know whether she's thankful or whether she wants to hear the reason they're not here. She stays quiet, silently smoking her cigarette. The dark haired girl's hands finds her shoulders, pulling Yn so she's facing her. She had hoped they'd be here, that she was forced to see them, she could tell herself it was out of her control, that she couldn't do anything about it. She could pretend she had no other choice, when in reality she just wanted to see them. Being without them both, was torture.

"Hey are you okay? What's going on with you?" She says and y/n sighs deeply. She wants to tell her, she wants to tell her everything. She knew she wouldn't judge and truly she was the only person she could see who wouldn't hate her for the whole situation. The band would say she's messing up their chances. George would probably feel entitled to tell his friends, for they were his best friends in the whole world. And she didn't have anyone else to tell. She couldn't tell either of the men in question because they wouldn't understand and she could (and probably would) lose both of them.

"I'm just tired Char... Promise" she drops her cigarette and allows Charli to pull her into a hug.

"If you need to tell me anything... I'm here" she says and y/n mumbles a thank you. One thing that the absence of Matty and Ross had caused was her close bond with Charli, she was thankful for that.

"Now come join us" so she does, she sits with Carly and Adam, introducing herself to the smiley girl. She compliments Y/n and her band, mentioning "the guys wouldn't shut about you... you put them to shame really" it makes her laugh and the three begin talking about all sorts. Matty and Ross slip from her mind a little bit, not fully disappearing but slightly less present. The group laughs and has fun and she's distracted again. Blissfully blocking both men out. Fairly successfully too.

❀•°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀ •°❀°•❀•°❀°•❀

A pile of scrunched up papers are scattered around her, the studio floor barely visible through the white sheets. She arrived early this morning, surprised to see George already at the sound board, editing bits and bobs. She has avoided both Ross and Matty for exactly 6 days now, but she knew today that would come to an end, she'd be forced to be near them and she knew that her unclouded mind would be foggy again and she'd be right back at square one, just as confused as ever.

One particular loud sigh (among other annoyed, restless and agitated noises) draws George from his work at the computer, spinning around in the chair and looking at her.

She looked tired, bags were under her eyes and he noticed how her thumb on her left hand was bleeding slightly. He leaves the room, going to the bathroom of the studio and grabbing a sterile wipe and a plaster. He approaches her slowly, leaning down and sitting with her and even that doesn't draw her attention away from her notebook. He gently takes hold of her left hand, bringing it towards him, and that's what makes her look at him.

"What are you doing?" She asks, eyes briefly drifting away from her writing and landing on George's hand. It's a funny sight, his huge hand, the most gentle she had ever seen it, holding hers as he cleaned her abuse. It was a sweet moment, between two friends and she was thankful for it.

"You're bleeding love" the "oh" that falls from her lips before her eyes are back on her book and she's withdrawing her hand from him, tells him everything he needed to know. This was a common occurrence for her, they hadn't spent enough time alone together for him to know what she was like when she was anxious or agitated, he didn't know the tell tell signs of such feelings. But he takes her hand back into his as he tears the packet with his teeth.

"Let me do this for you okay?" He asks and she nods, allowing him to clean the wound, the blood (although not very much) sleeps into the wet fabric and it stings slightly. She flinches and he murmurs a sorry.

"Talk to me... What's up?" He asks. Truth is he didn't know her all that well, but he wanted to, just like Ross and Matty... Well maybe not just like them. He wanted to be her friend. They had spent a fair amount of time with each other but it was mostly for work. Of course, she was easy to get along with and George saw just as Matty and Ross did, that she was kind and a good person to be around. He cared for her already, he supposes that was something obvious about her, she drew people in, even just as friends. They wanted to know her.

"Nothing what are you talking about?" He furrows his eyebrows at her and scoffs.

"The scrunched up and ripped paper around the room says otherwise love"

"I just can't get this song right okay?" She says and he nods as he wraps her thumb in a plaster, letting her take her hand back.

"thanks"

"No worries... Whats the song about?" She thinks it's the first time in the whole time they've been working together, that someone has asked what the meaning of the song was and it throws her off for a second.

"I want to write a song about... how I always go after the wrong guy... Always end up getting my heart broken" she explains and George nods. He pulls her notebook and reads the words out loud.

"My brain twists and turns Craving for a touch that burns Every time I try to put myself first I drown in this pain, my heart might burst I wish it didn't have to hurt so much I'm in a million pieces, my soul I can't touch I'm screaming inside, my emotions I can't clutch" his eyebrows furrow, thinking about he words, before he looks up at her.

"what's wrong with this? It's good"

"i don't feel like it captures how I feel" he nods along.

"how do you feel?" It's a simple question, but the answer is far from simple, she doesn't know how to explain it, which is why she thinks she's struggling to get it into the paper in front of her.

"Okay... We're doing this then?" She asks and George looks confused, furrowing his eyebrows at her.

"What do you mean?"

"If I tell you, you have to promise it doesn't leave this room"

"of course... Now explain" she's thankful that he's there for her, that he wants to know. She's aware this is the first person she would've even hinted at how she was feeling.

"So I always seem to go for guys who just break my heart... And now... Hypothetically there might be a guy who is so god damn good and pure... And what... What if I don't deserve that? What if the reason I loved so hard before but ultimately got my heart broken .. is actually because I just don't deserve it and what if... I'm pushing him away because it might actually be good for once" she asks and George frowns.

"that's what I want to write about"

"Well purely hypothetically... If said guy is perhaps one of my best mates... Hypothetically I'd say you do deserve that love" she shakes her head at his words. She briefly wonders which one he's referring to, but shakes the thought from her mind.

"listen y/n... If you loved the wrong person that deeply, imagine how deeply you'll love the right one... And if they're the right person... They'll love you just as much"

"you're quite wise George Daniel" she leans her head onto his shoulder as a silent thank you and he smiles. She thinks about mentioning Matty, explaining that she felt something (although what and how deeply was not clear yet) but before she gets the chance, the door opens revealing both Matty and Ross who both smile at the sight of the two of them. Suddenly they're both right there again, stabbing at her heart and mystifying her brain , she realises her attempt to avoid them, to ice them out was futile because they're there, clouding her every thought, painting her brain with beautiful hews of Ross and Matty.

"Are you bonding?" Matty's voice rings out and both of them groan as they stand up.

"Shut up" George says as he returns to the sound desk. Matty walks towards her and is quick to pull her into a hug.

"hi" he says smiling down at her.

"Hi" she smiles back. Matty leaves to look at what George has been working on and she takes the time to walk over to Ross, who is smiling widely down at her.

"Hello stranger" he says and she feels guilty immediately but allows him to pull her to him, hugging her tightly. His lips graze her cheek quickly, not able to help himself. He breathes in her hair as he mumbled a "miss you". She's half expecting him to say something about how she was clearly avoiding him but he doesn't and she's unbelievably thankful for that.

She doesn't tell him she misses him back, she just smiles into his chest, finally pulling away when she hears Matty and George talking.

"How was the show on Saturday? Sorry I couldn't make it, Jamie needed me for a dirty hit thing" Matty explains and she smiles.

"Yeah it was good... George and Char came... And Hann and Carly too" she says and Matty raises his eyebrows. Her voice is slightly withheld, withdrawn, distant. He frowns at her, it was like two strangers talking to each other, like this conversation was more of a duty rather than between two friends who were genuinely interested in catching up.

"Good...." He says turning back to George who frowns up at him. She goes back to the papers, collecting the crumpled up ones and discarding them, Ross joins her. And his presence is suddenly too close for her so she stands immediately.

"I'm going outside for a bit" she announces, leaving before anyone has a chance to say anything.

When she's gone, the three guys share a look, and it's a matter of time before one of them speaks up.

"what's going on with her?" Both Ross and Matty ask George at the same time. He feels like a deer caught in the headlights. He quite successfully feigns ignorance, shrugging his shoulders. But then he feels it's not fair on his best friends.

"Maybe you should talk to her instead of asking me" George says, turning back to his screen.

"Mate I've been trying all week..." Matty speaks up

"she's been busy mate" Ross says and Matty's eyes find his.

"You know that's bullshit... She doesn't need to work with other people, she's doing this for a reason" he then argues. Ross cant argue with his logic, he can't find a fault to his reasoning, because it was true. It was obvious she was avoiding both of them, but neither knew why.

"I don't know what you want me to say" George says. Matty is then leaving before Ross gets a chance to attend to her first. He wanted to be the one to console her if she needed it, but of course Matty beat him to it.

"Just leave them mate, trust me... You're good. She's fine" Ross doesn't know what George means, but he shrugs and sits down anyway, eyes trained on the door just waiting for the moment it opens and she's back again.

Matty finds her smoking, nearly at the end of her cigarette. His eyebrows raise at the sight, not knowing she smoked. He doesn't comment though. He stays silent for a second.

"You've been avoiding me... Why?" He asks abruptly making her turn to look at him before turning back away from him.

"I haven't Matty... I've been busy" again it feels like a stranger is talking to him, not someone who he was considering to be one of his closest friends now. Not someone who got him, who he cared deeply for.

"If you say so love..." He inhales a puff of his own cigarette and suddenly her eyes are on him, watching as he breathes it out deeply. She's missed him, that much was obvious.

"Enjoy the vinyl I sent you?" He asks and she nods, eyes trained on the cigarette lying limply in-between his teeth as he talks, his hands clasped around his phone as he types something out. He doesn't see her nod so his eyes snap up, awaiting an answer.

"Yeah... Been playing it a lot recently actually" she says, and it sounds like her again, not withdrawn or pulled back, just her. His friend, his y/n.

"What's your favorite?" He asks and she pauses to think. He shoves his phone back in his pocket, fingertips clasping the cigarette again, his other hand dropping to his side. She suddenly feels the urge to take his hand in hers but she doesn't.

"I love all of them... But Sad To Breathe or Boyhood are my favorites at the moment" she says and Matty smiles.

"I'll tell Amber... She'll love that" she smiles at that.

"Sunshine Baby is a great song too" his eyes sparkle, and they smile at each other. He steps forward and she lets him, he drops his cigarette and so does she as he wraps his arms around her.

"Missed you, y'know" he says, face burying into her hair.

"Missed you too Matty" she admits. He doesn't ask why she was avoiding her again, he doesn't bring it back up and she doesn't know how to feel about it.

"You can avoid me all you want... But don't do that to Ross, he doesn't deserve that" his words are like a ton of bricks falling on her and she doesn't know how to react. So she doesn't, she just nods and murmurs a silly little "sorry"

"Let's get back inside" he says and she agrees, walking back to the studio with his arm hooked over her shoulders as he asked questions about the girl she was working with.

"I actually ended up writing a song after working with her that I really like" Ross and George catch that part of their conversation, both smiling at her before George speaks up.

"Let's see then" he says, she retrieves her notebook from where she discarded it, flicking to the right page, she wonders whether she should show them this. Would this reveal too much? she thinks. She hands the book to George first, his eyes flick over the words as Matty and Ross watch. She stands next to him, bringing her thumb that is wrapped in the plaster to her mouth before realising she couldn't abuse it like usual.

Matty notices the plaster, so does Ross, both wondering what happened. The injury was minor, but the both of them were still worried.

George's eyes find hers and he raises his eyebrows, silently asking "you sure?" she nods at him and he nods back.

"I like it" he confirms, handing her back the book. She passes it to Matty, him and Ross read it together.

Hate Missing You: I'm drowning in sadness without you, can you hear me? Hold my breath and count to three, who am I without you? You're the part of me I cannot see, won't you just let it be? I miss the feeling of being home, I feel lost without you I miss you but the feeling of my heartbeat makes me nervous That way you smile and my heart skips a beat, it makes me dizzy Sorry for the distance, it's tearing me apart, it's hard And there's no way to return your message from my heart So I make myself busy, giving me an excuse as why I can't see you, I can't choose between two halves of myself

They're lost for words, both looking at her, not speaking. She feels unbelievably nervous, awaiting a response that doesn't come for a few moments.

"This is.... its good Y/n/n" Matty says, she senses that its not all he has to say. If she could creep into his mind she'd see all his thoughts and she'd notice there was so many of them. Who was this about? Is this really how she felt? Is she okay? How can he help?

"It's powerful, raw.... its good love" Ross then says, but again she senses that he wants to say more. He wanted to know who this was about. Who got to have these hauntingly beautiful words written about them? Who was the one she missed? And how could he take the pain away?

They begin working on the song, Ross records some bass lines in the absence of Clara, Matty and Y/n both record some guitar bits and Y/n also records some piano bits. George adds in some simple drum beats.

Things with Matty seemed okay, almost back to normal. But things with Ross were suddenly different and she wasn't sure whether she liked it or not. Sure, lingering touches that screamed "I want you" were still shared, and looks that shouted "my soul yearns for you" happened more often than not. But ever since having dinner at Charli and George's house, ever since she kissed his cheek and left him on her door step, ever since she woke up from that blissful dream, something had shifted. They seemed to be avoiding things more, he hesitated before making his usual comments, comments that were once flirty seemed a little bit apprehensive now.

She knows he's only doing what she said, she told him they couldn't, so he was trying to respect that. But sometimes, when that thought slipped from his mind, the normal things that were 'them" happened, like those touches and stares. But even through that, something felt off. Her mind was still reeling from him holding her thigh with such a grip that it was as if she was his anchor keeping him on the ground. She swears she can still feel the way his thumb grazed the skin, even 6 days later, 6 torturous days she spent avoiding him. And she'd be lying if she said she hadn't found herself staring at those hands of his one too many times when he played the bass.

She excuses herself from the studio and the three men, explaining that she just needed a moment alone. They had been working for what felt like hours now and she couldn't handle one more of those longing looks from Ross, or one more of those eyebrow raises from Matty when he caught her staring at Ross.

She finds her coat that she had hung up upon her arrival, slipping her arms through it and going outside. Her hand finds the inside pocket, finding the pack of cigarettes she reserved for special occasions like this. When she was well and truly confused and stressed. She lights the cigarette easily, she takes three long drags before the door opens.

She knew it was only a matter of time before one of them found an excuse to join her, despite her request to be alone. She rolls her eyes slightly as she looks at Ross, who has his eyebrows raised at her, eyes flicking towards the cigarette in-between her fingertips.

She chuckles and shrugs her shoulders. He hadn't seen her smoke before and it was clear it wasn't a common occurrence, and that fact alone makes him wonder why she needed one now.

"Are you okay love?" He asks and he truly knows something is up when she just nods and deters the conversation.

"How'd you manage to get away from them?" She asks and he laughs, pulling his own pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. She gives him the same look he gave her, sure she had seen pictures of him smoking, but she had thought he was more of a social smoker. This might have proved that, that was not the case.

He raises his eyebrows back and says a quick "sorry to disappoint you" which she just shakes her head at, for she was also smoking so she didn't care if he did too. It was actually kind of hot. Oh for God sake woman stop.

"Matty got a phone call so I slipped out and said I was going for a fag... George didn't care..." Ross explains and she nods.

His eyes wander over her features, taking in the way she's breathing deeply, in and out, smoke falling from her lips and nostrils. She smokes effortlessly and Ross can't help but like the sight. She looked good, as always, slightly tired but just as beautiful as the first time she took his breath away. But something was off, that much was clear.

"Are we okay?" He asks and she nods, but doesn't speak.

"Maybe try that again... But more convincing" he says and she can't help but laugh. She takes one last puff and drops the cigarette to the floor, stubbing it out with her booted foot.

She steps towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist, needing a hug from him more than anything. The door that was cracked open, is now swinging open, nearly snapping off it's hinges.

"I'm sorry I've been off and avoiding you... Just didn't know how to act around you" she admits into his chest. He forgets about the cigarette he was nursing, dropping it to the floor and letting it burn out as he allowed his arms to wrap around her. He rests his head on top of hers, breathing her in. The new mix of her with the addition of tobacco is even more addicting and he can't help but sigh.

"Don't be sorry... It's hard, I've felt it too... all day in fact" he admits and she feels slightly more at ease at that.

"I know you said we can't... And that's fine... But I can't keep acting like this, it feels wrong. If I wanna hug you I wanna hug you. If I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand.... Is that okay?" She knows she should shake her head, say no, it's not okay. But she couldn't help herself. She was addicted to him and he was even more addicted to her.

So she nods, she pulls back to look at him and nods, placing her head back against his lower chest and hugging him tightly.

"So what does that mean then?" He asks, his own way of saying what are we? They clearly weren't just friends, but she wasn't allowing them to be truly more than that. They were in some kind of limbo between both of those identifiers.

"We're just us... Is that okay?" And he nods, and smiles widely down at her. He could deal with that for now. It was better than the alternative which was not having her in any way, and he couldn't live like that.

"And Matty?" Ross asks, and she raises her eyebrows, unsure what he was getting at.

"I know you said nothing is going on... but I cant help but sense something there... if you say its nothing its nothing... Just be honest with me, I can take it" Ross says and she nods, sighing deeply.

"I'm still figuring that out..." its the first time she's been truthful about Matty, not just to Ross but to herself.

"Okay... I can deal with that" he says, smiling down at her.

They return to the studio finishing up the song. By the time they leave, its dark outside, George had bid them farewell maybe 20 minutes earlier, hugging her tightly and telling her he was there for her if she needed. The exchange didn't go unnoticed by the remaining men. London is cold but the lights sparkle and she gets that childish glow in her eyes as she walks down the steps from the studio. Ross and Matty can't take their eyes off her but for once she doesn't notice. Matty breaks first, eyes falling from her to Ross.

He notices the glint in his eyes and the way his dimples show deeply, the way his eyes crease. He's seen a similar look before, but nothing of that calibre. Matty's smile drops, he had to stop this. He had to.

That look. That look on his best friend's face, it told him everything he needed to know. That he liked her perhaps more than Matty did, maybe not, but he would always, always put his friends needs and desires before his own.

The problem was, Matty was unsure he'd be able to stop. He didn't know if it was possible. But he'd try... even if it destroyed him.

"Hey um" he hesitates, their eyes fall on him "you guys go ahead, I've left something upstairs" he says. Ross frowns at him.

"You sure mate? We can wait" yn nods too.

"No it's okay... go" he smiles at his friends and then he begins walking up the steps. They begin walking down the path, with Matty watching. Watching the way he made her laugh, watching the way one arm came to rest against her shoulders, watching the way, she, the one he so desperately wanted, seemed right in his arms... At home.

© all lyrics are written and owned by yours truly (let's ignore the fact they're not that good but yeah) no stealing hehe

Note: low-key don't really like this chapter... But oh well. The only bit I actually like is the george x yn bit :(

(8) Studio Sessions

[roxtron]

Pinned post/About me thing

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you can call me whatever, i usually go by some variation of my username but i don't mind nicknames and stuff

he/they

i'm autistic so my posts will probably vary by whatever/whenever certain special interests/hyperfixations are stronger at the time

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A bit of info about what I post/reblog

i make original art sometimes but art block has been really tough so unfortunately i don't have a lot to post lately :(

besides that I'll usually make either rambling or analysis posts on whatever subject I'm posting about, usually fandom related. occasionally theories but that depends on if what I'm posting about really leaves room for theorizing.

I reblog pretty casually on here so it can range from stuff i find funny to stuff i think could use awareness, fandom-wise this blog somehow became pretty fnaf centered lol, not quite sure how that happened but i still consider it my main.

if i reblog other people's art or analysis I usually try to leave my thoughts in the tags, but sometimes I have a hard time thinking of what to say so sorry if I reblog your work and don't say anything/don't seem enthusiastic about it, if I reblog something it's because I adore it lol, I just don't always know how to put thoughts into words. <3

and as a side note, while I do try to check blogs of people I reblog in case it's a terf or whatever, sometimes you never know, so if I do reblog something from someone who's done something shitty don't hesitate to let me know with an ask or something because chances are I probably don't know lol.

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Boundaries stuff I guess.

I know DNI lists are annoying and pointless but whatever, if there's a chance it'll get people to leave me alone it's worth it. I shouldn't need to list obvious ones like terfs, transphobes, homophobes, all those assholes. But also, if you don't like one of my posts, I'd rather you block me and move on than hate reblog it. It's immature and annoying, and I won't hesitate to block people that do it.

Obviously I don't just mean "if you criticize something I post you're bad," I'm alright with criticism as long as it's respectful, but if you're gonna reblog just to say "look at this idiot" then fuck off.

Sorry about how aggressive that may have been but I don't wanna deal with stuff like that. I've dealt with it in the past and it sucks, if you don't like me, that's perfectly fine, but just block me and move on. Onto a more positive topic.. If you wanna use my art for pfps or anything that's really cool actually!! Ofc I'd ask for credit but if anyone did want a pfp of something I've drawn you can always send me an ask and I'll post a zoomed in version or something or make whatever edit you wanted so you don't need to worry about it lol Besides all that you don't have to worry about interacting with me, if you've got any questions whether that's related to me or my blog you don't have to hesitate to send an ask if you want :)

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Sideblogs

I've recently made sideblogs for other fandoms people don't follow me for here. I figured it'd be easier to separate them but mostly for spoilers' sake. Sure I try to spoiler tag but people aren't gonna block spoiler tags for fandoms they're not in if they see it and I'd hate to spoil someone for a series they could've had the chance to go into blind. That being said, please don't follow my other blogs unless you already know the spoilers for whatever fandom the blog's centered around. As much as I appreciate support I'd hate for you to get spoiled and I'd much rather wait for you to play the game yourself <3 (since as of now they're both video game fandoms..) @roxtron-kh (Kingdom Hearts)

@roxtron-gt (Ghost Trick)

----------------------------------------------------------- Woo I think that's everything! Finally I can get to the tags section of this long-ass post.. I wanna try to tag things more properly in the future, even if I'm not really big enough to warrant it, I still wanna be able to find my own stuff easier at least through the sea of reblogs, so if you're curious about any of my posts, here's a list of tags you can look through! I'm currently trying to update some of my old posts with tags so they can be added to the list.

[oldiesstationlover11607]

🎶And I say hello🎶

Hello! Tis I! 💛. Your favorite anon. Oddly enough, right before I was going to send in this request, you posted about missing me. First of all, that made my night (like, honestly, I was having a bad night and it made me smile so big). Second of all, your most recent Blurryface fic was amazing (you’re making me into a Blurryface Tyler fan slowly but surely). Also, and I know you have absolutely no reason to care, but I’m going to the Clancy tour this week! I may drown you in your related requests…just a heads up.

Anyways, my request. I am currently in a master’s program (forensic psychology master’s students for the win!) and so I was wondering if you could possibly write a one shot where Josh tries to help the reader study for a test (doesn’t have to be forensic psychology related. Could be any class. Though I’d like it to be a college class), but ends up being more so a distraction/hinderance than a help.

As always, you can change this request up and bit if you like or you don’t have to do it. It’s up to you! Like I said, I’m but a humble freeloader and you are the artist. 😊

Study - Josh Dun x reader

Relationship: Josh Dun × Reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1632

A/N: Rahh I love this idea! I’ve been looking forward to going to college and am in study mode so it’s perfect! When you submitted the request I was having a bad day too so I'm glad we're able to cheer each other up :) Forensic psychology sounds cool, I have a friend who is interested in doing it but I have no idea what it’s about other than crime and psychology. I'm wanting to do a major in cinematic arts (basically film school) but I'm not sure what I want my minor to be. I'm interested in so much it's hard to choose but I'm looking at music production, classics, or journalism. Because I've been working on my media studies project at school I though I'd make the subject she's studying for related to that (I hope that's okay). ALSO I’m so excited that your Clancy Tour show is this week!! That’s so exciting 😁 I have to wait till November, my show is the first international show and I’m low key scared that they’re going to change the setlist. I’m bringing my non clique friend to the show and if they decide to add or take away songs from the setlist she’s going to think I’m having a mental breakdown (which I 100% will be lol. In a good way). Anyways, sorry for the long intro/rant thing, I don't have many friends at my school and I needed to rant 😭

The last place I expected to be with Josh was my college library, considering the fact that he didn’t go to college and never planned to. In fact, I was pretty sure the last time Josh had stepped foot in a library was all the way back in high school. I’d only found out a couple months after we’d started dating that we had gone to the same school. He had graduated two years before me so we didn’t know each other but as fate would show, we met at Guitar Centre after I’d decided to teach myself drums. Turns out teaching yourself drums is hard and you do in fact probably need a teacher, and that teacher will probably end up being that cute boy that sold you your first pair of sticks. Normally, Josh and I would hang out at home or with our friends but this week I was in full study mode with finals coming up. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to meet me later?” I asked, finding an empty table to sit down at. I placed my bag on the chair next to me while Josh sat down on the opposite side. He was wearing a black hoodie that he’d bought at the mall the other day and a beanie, perfect for the autumnal weather outside. It had been raining a lot recently, the light pitter patter of rain becoming a common occurrence as we fell asleep each night. 

“I’m sure,” he laughed, folding himself over the table and resting his head on his arms. 

“Okay,” I shrugged, pulling out my computer and opening it to my work. I had a couple pages of notes to read, and a practice essay to write. Yay. College. Josh pulled out his phone and started scrolling through social media, the speakers of his phone playing music–loud enough to hear but quiet enough to not bother anyone other than me. With each scroll of his finger the audio changed, progressively capturing my attention and pulling me away from my own screen. Josh clearly noticed I was getting distracted because he put his phone away and pointed to the blank notebook page in front of me. 

“What are you supposed to be learning about anyways?” he asked, tilting his head slightly and peering over my computer screen. I tilted it back so he could get a better look, the display showing two pages from my textbook for media studies. 

“Well, I’m reading this textbook section about the media and how people have different lenses that they view things. It’s kind of interesting,” I explained. Josh smiled, resting his head on his chin and listening attentively. “It’s like how you’ll view a musician character differently to how someone who doesn’t make music would.” Josh nodded as if he knew what I was talking about–he did in fact have no idea. 

“Let me help you, I’m sure it’s not that hard,” he suggested. He got up and moved around to the chair next to me, grabbing my bag and placing it on the ground so he could sit down. While I knew full well that Josh wasn’t going to be any help but I wanted nothing more than to spend time with him–he was always busy with band practice or work, making me cherish every moment we had together. He pulled my computer closer to him, reading the textbook page and taking notes with my pen. As he wrote each word on the page I could feel my body tingle with excited nerves. Josh had always been able to do that to me. If he was close, I had to fight off the butterflies to the point where I would lose focus on what I was supposed to be doing–which was exactly what was happening right now. “You get that?” 

“Huh?” I looked up at him as he let out a soft chuckle. 

“Do you understand the concept? The uh, natural bias of viewers impacts how they see the characters in movies, books, and tv,” he repeated. I listened, taking notes and bullet-pointing what he was saying. He sounded almost like he was in the class himself, which was surprising considering Josh was the least academic person I knew. 

“Mhm, yeah,” I nodded. As the lunch period ended more and more students piled into the library, filling up the tables and making the room louder. 

“It’s getting kinda hot in here,” Josh said, pulling off his hoodie to reveal one of his band’s merch shirts and his perfectly toned arms. Twenty one pilots was starting to get more and more popular with their latest music being played on college and city radio, meaning the likelihood of him being recognised was rising every day. Josh was looking around the room as more people poured in but I couldn’t look away from him. My boyfriend was hot and I couldn’t deny it–I was practically drooling and couldn’t wait for that night, when we’d be able to snuggle up in bed together. 

“What?” he questioned, snapping me out of my daydream. I could feel my face heat up slightly. 

“You’re distracting,” I smirked, causing him to laugh. 

“How am I distracting? I’m literally just sitting here,” he pointed out. I tapped my pen against his shoulder. A large smile crept onto his face along with a flush of warmth. 

“You like?” he teased, causing me to roll my eyes. 

“Yes. A lot,” I joked back. I leaned my chin against my hand and smiled widely at him. “Stop staring,” he laughed. I couldn't help it. What I really needed to be doing was studying but Josh was the most distracting boy on the planet and if we kept going the way we were, I wasn’t going to get any work done. 

“I was supposed to be studying,” I chuckled, rolling my eyes. He knew how important my finals were for my grade and he knew how much work I’d put into my courses, but somehow he couldn’t hold back his cheeky self, even when it mattered. 

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands in mock surrender, trying to appear apologetic. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me with a sly smile. I got back to my work, taking notes and trying to figure out what I was going to write my essay on. Once again, Josh pulled out his phone, this time texting Tyler about their next gig. As he typed, he occasionally glanced at me. Without warning, he suddenly reached out and tickled my side, trying to get a reaction out of me. I laughed loudly and covered my mouth, trying to muffle the noise. 

“Josh! Stop it!” I took a deep breath between laughs. Suddenly, a group of girls approached our table, their eyes wide with excitement as they clearly recognized Josh. One of them spoke up, a blonde woman wearing a white crop top and a bright pink skirt–clearly a sorority girl, my mortal enemies. 

“Excuse me, you're Josh Dun from Twenty One Pilots, right?” Josh looked up from his phone, clearly taken aback by her boldness. He flashed the celebrity smile he’d been working on in the mirror lately and nodded. I rolled my eyes, trying to hold my focus. Josh shot me a quick smirk when he saw my reaction, clearly amused by the situation. He then turned his attention back to the girls who were bombarding him with questions. I could tell they were starstruck, which was weird considering that it was just Josh. The Josh I’d met at Guitar Centre, drum teacher Josh, wearing a blonde wig and making stupid skits Josh–my boyfriend Josh. A short brunette clutched her phone tightly, moving in closer to him. 

“Oh my god, can I please get a picture with you?” she asked, her voice quivering with excitement. I moved closer to my computer, trying to regain my focus despite there clearly being no hope. Josh chuckled lightly at the girl's request and looked over at me, noticing how irritated I was. He could tell I was trying to focus on studying for my finals and the sudden intrusion by the girls was clearly not helping. As always, he tried to be polite. 

“Sure, but can we make it quick? My girlfriend really needs to focus on her studies,” he responded, emphasizing the word ‘focus’ when he looked at me. I couldn’t hide the smile on my face. The girls nodded and Josh took a couple of photos, moving into different poses so each girl could get enough photos on each of their phones. I wondered if this was going to become more common with time, whether Josh will get recognised more often. According to Jenna, Tyler was getting it a lot but she’d found a way to cope with the fuss. She was always better than me at the celebrity girlfriend thing. 

“Thank you so much!” the blonde flashed an award-winning smile at Josh.

“Good luck on your finals,” the brunette waved goodbye. I was surprised they cared enough to even address me. 

“Thanks,” I smiled. The girls walked away whispering to each other about the interaction, clearly excited. “They were nice,” I said, turning to Josh. 

“Most people who recognise us are. The people who like our music are different, they care. But… you need to get back to studying. It’s already 5,” he responded. I looked at the clock on my computer and sure enough it was 5pm, we’d been sitting there for an hour getting incredibly distracted with each and every interaction with each other. 

“Remind me to never allow you to ‘help’ me study ever again,” I chuckled, getting back to my work. 

Josh pressed his lips to my temple and ruffled my hair.

“Noted.”

//

REQUESTS ARE OPEN HUMANS! I've gotten a lot more followers recently so feel free to request anything! Can't wait to see what ideas you guys have!

[crackshipoftheweek]

Crack Ship of the Week back again with another post! (After nearly an entire month) Lately I've been working a lot of 10+ hour shifts at my current job, along with helping out at my family's restaurant, updating my résumé, and searching for other jobs to advance my culinary career, so I've been really busy, sorry for not posting in quite a while. On the plus side, I've managed to network with some industry professionals higher up the ladder, and I was recently contracted by a personal chef agency!

Without further ado, let's bring out

This Week's Crackship:

Party Poison (Danger Days) × Johnny Silverhand (Cyberpunk)

Ship Name(s):

Poison Hand, Dim Mak (see notes below for explanation), Rockerboys, Ronin (see notes below for explanation)

Why It's Crack:

No interactions (separate canons)

Why It's Cracked:

Canons share many similarities. Both are cyberpunk series set in an alternate universe California in the near future (now partially set in the near past, as well), following a war or series of wars that negatively impacted the United States' geopolitical power, costing it territory that would be filled in by an independent city-state (Battery City in Danger Days, and Night City in Cyberpunk) and the resultant power vacuum being filled in by megacorporations (Better Living Industries in Danger Days and Arasaka in Cyberpunk. Like Arasaka, Better Living also seems to be a multinational corporation with at least some notable amount of presence in Japan, hence Better Living having had a .jp domain during the Danger Days album's promotional period, as well as using both English and Japanese writing in much of its content). Crossover potential abounds

Both fill very similar niches in their respective stories (renegade rockers who rebel against corporate overreach with the power of punk rock, and occasionally this gun they found. They both became the exemplar of their respective series' spin on the "rebel with a cause" archetype [Killjoys in Danger Days, and Rockerboys in Cyberpunk])

Both lived and operated in similar timeframes, not taking into account Johnny's engram whom stars in Cyberpunk 2077. Party was active in the 2010s up until his death in 2019, and Johnny was active throughout the 2000s up until his death in 2023)

Both may also be war veterans (Johnny is a confirmed war veteran who deserted the US Military in protest of the government's corruption and purposeful destabilization of Central and South America. Party Poison may have been one of the many Killjoys to take part in the Analog Wars, though this isn't confirmed iirc)

Both died a similar death, to somewhat similar people, for similar reasons. Both raided the main HQ of their respective antagonistic megacorps in order to rescue an abducted loved one (surrogate little sister "The Girl" in Party's case, and former lover Alt Cunningham in Johnny's case), during which they were brutally gunned down by their corporate foes' bald and sociopathic enforcer (Korse and Adam Smasher, respectively)

Both dye their hair. Party Poison's hair is dyed red (natural color unknown afaik), and Johnny Silverhand dyes his hair black, with it being naturally blond.

Notes

"Dim Mak", also known as "Poison Hand" or "Touch of Death" is a purported system of acupressure-based martial arts said to have originated in ancient China and been culturally imported to Japan. Count Juan Raphael Dante, an eccentric martial arts practitioner who taught karate in the 60s and 70s, also claimed to be able to teach Dim Mak to prospective students, infamously advertising this alleged service in the back page ad spaces in Marvel comic books of the time. This likely was seen at times by Gerard Way, an avid comic fan, as he titled one of the songs in the wider Danger Days multimedia project as Black Dragon Fighting Society, which shares an identical name with the martial arts organization founded by Count Dante. "Dim Mak" is also the name of a record label founded by Steve Aoki, who made a remix of the famous My Chemical Romance song "Welcome to the Black Parade". This fact is also relevant to the ship as Dim Mak distributes punk rock music, with punk rock being the primary genre performed by both Party Poison and Johnny Silverhand.

"Ronin" was chosen a ship name due to their shared status as outlaw warriors, similar to (but generally less shitty towards bystanders than) the ronin of Sengoku and early Edo-period Japan. Party is an outlaw vigilante who fights against BLI, whereas Johnny is a former US soldier who deserted and fled prosecution by moving to Night City. In addition, this name was chosen in reference to Johnny's band, Samurai. Keanu Reeves, who portrays Johnny in Cyberpunk 2077, also starred in the 2013 American remake of The 47 Ronin (unfortunately)

[stepswordsen]

【KHR AU】 XanLena ❤️💜🔥🪷

Nguyễn Selena (Nguyễn Nguyệt Vân Liên) 💜🪷

Figured it's been a long time since I posted about my wife, Selena~

Nguyễn Selena is my KHR OC who is a Vietnamese non-binary assassin. Her Vietnamese name is Nguyễn Nguyệt Vân Liên.

Her name, Selena, means "moon" 🌙

Her Vietnamese name, Liên, means "lotus flower" in Sino Viet 🪷

In my KHR AU, she joins the Varia as one of their members and lives at their headquarters with the rest of the core Varia members. My wife has NB flag colours~

My wife and her NB swag~ 💜🖤🤍💛

I mainly ship Selena with Xanxus.

In KHR, Xanxus is the leader of the Varia, an independent assassination squad under the Vongola mafia family. He was initially one of KHR's major antagonists.

Selena 💜🖤🤍💛🌙☁️🪷

English name: Nguyễn Selena (グエン・セリナ)

Vietnamese name: Nguyễn Nguyệt Vân Liên (阮月雲蓮)

Japanese alias name: Gen Suzuha (阮月雲蓮)

I resketched Selena's hair recently 💜

I resketched these quickly so it's not as refined but I'm still experimenting/trying to decide how I want Selena's hair to be drawn, whether I want to keep the curls in the back or not.

I feel like her ponytail is pretty iconic to her design. So if Selena got a TYL (10 Years Later) design, then I'd just add a bun on top of the ponytail.

Didn't redraw everything yet but just updated this for now

I redrew the bow and it has better lines but I prefer how pointy the shape of the OG bow was so I'll just combine the two eventually. I just wanted to get the new Selena down

Though both are nice! I just like how the shapes/silhouette of the hair are clearer now.

The XanLena chibis are pretty old doodles, so I'd like to redraw it sometime, but I still think it's cute ^^

My friend Feuri told me he likes how the softer upturned eyes of the OG Selena has a softer expression, so I'll keep both expressions ^^

I love both eyes in the Selena doodles hehe

Art Rambles

XanLena Doodle WIPs ❤️💜

Some recent + old doodles I drew before. I'm planning to refine them eventually!

Xanxus is wearing áo dài ("Long dress"), a type of Vietnamese traditional clothing

Selena is in her usual outfit I designed for her ^^

I think my art style is improving nicely! The way I draw faces is getting more refined

I'll redraw the hair later. I just sketched this quickly for now. Cuz I was just thinking about how I wanted to draw XanLena together more

I have a XanLena art idea in my head... Just need to get started with actually drawing it

Did a quick colour test today. I'll draw the rest later.

I wanna do a big XanLena piece eventually... And also XanLena in traditional Vietnamese clothing~ Matching couple clothing! 🥰💞

I rambled more about XanLena and Selena below.

You can read more under the cut!

Context

I added context for my mutuals who don’t know much about KHR, but would still like to tune into my KHR AUs and KHR OC stuff. Feel free to read only if you want!

Vongola Family = The KHR protagonist, Tsuna, is currently training to become the 10th generation boss of the Vongola family. Tsuna and co. are the Vongola family’s 10th generation guardians.

Varia = The Vongola family’s elite independent assassination squad. Their leader is Xanxus.

Source: (X)

Nguyễn Selena: Relationship Chart 💜

Selena's Name Interpretation 🌙☁️🪷

Notes

Misc Rambles

Sorry but I don't want to retype all this again so I'm just copy pasting from my Notion doc and side blog. I also included my rambles with friends!

Selena's info sheet and character relationship chart was inspired by FGO Materials' character profile formats where it lists a chara's general info, usage of pronouns, quotes, relationships with other charas, etc.

I still need to revamp the quotes with Selena's relationships with the other Varia members so I just posted Xanxus' part for now

Selena is the type who's calm and gentle but likes to keep to herself regarding matters that don't concern her. She's more aloof when she doesn't know the person well, but eventually opens up to the other Varia members.

I imagine Selena speaks in a really polite and formal way to Xanxus out of respect for him.

Xanxus and Hibari are my no. 1 fave KHR characters (tied) 🥰

Also used Glaze on my art as protections against A/I fart.

Also I'm just thinking of the recent FGO: Summer 7 event with Douman growing cursed morning glories (vampiric shikigami), flowers that suck blood.

I NEED THIS FOR SELENA...

DOUMAN BASED!!!

Selena's man eating plants 🥰💞

Selena is very soft and gentle, but she can be a little unhinged, as a treat!

Selena is a gardener and florist (flower enjoyer and enthusiast)

[fourseasonsfigs]

Goodbye Jianghu

As you can tell from the title, these figs represent some of the last moments of filming for Word of Honor for Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

The inspiration for and the name of this set comes from Zhang Zhehan's Weibo post from March 23, 2021, marking the airing of the final episode of Word of Honor. His post is simply titled, Goodbye Jianghu:

It's such a beautiful picture of Zhehan - walking back in his white immortal A-Xu robes.

I had this picture in mind as the matching photo inspiration of Gong Jun, white haired and ethereal looking:

...but when I went to upload it, this clearly isn't it, after all. Did the fig maker just make a complementary fig to Zhehan's picture? I have no idea? I searched through every pic in my Behind the Scenes photo folder, and I could not come up with a pic that matched this fig. Let me know if you know!

On a side note, I recently bought a little lighted box to take pictures in, so I wouldn't be quite so dependent on the few daylight hours in my photography area. I tried it out with these figs, and we'll see how it goes.

Hmm, there's quite a bit of texture in the backdrop, isn't there? Well, we'll keep going!

Yes, those are some little tears welling up in Zhehan's eyes. Like Zhou Zishu, he is also tough on the outside but soft at heart!

I really, really love that Gong Jun's hand is tucked behind his back in his signature pose. Also, his big chunky white hair bangs are fantastically modeled here.

These figs stand up beautifully. So much so that I didn't put them on stands at all, which is extremely rare for my figs, if only because I like them to generally have a uniform look. But, in this case, I wanted to preserve Zhehan's pose just like this.

The robes help quite a bit in keeping them standing tall.

The slight motion modeled into these figs is great. Not overdone, just enough to make it interesting.

The little hands are adorable.

Aww, this is the clearest shot of the tears in Zhehan's eyes! Don't cry, little fig.

Here's a non-box background set of photos for contrast. In retrospect I probably should have picked a non-white clothed set of figs to try this out, since they're all slightly blending into (whichever) background. The LED light of the photo box is a little golden tinted, I see.

I really like how fig Gong Jun is very correctly wearing his black pants with this costume. I love this level of detail!

You can see them a little better here. Sorry for the reflection of the background underneath their hair, I have no idea how that happened! I see I definitely need to replace this little backdrop in the lightbox.

Zhehan's face is just so sweet in this set!

I love A-Xu's little married hair bun. Both of their hairstyles in the epilogue are A+ for sure.

The art on the boxes are very, very cute. We have the background with Zhehan's Weibo post and what I imagine is the background on the green-screen mountaintop from Gong Jun's pose for this fig. I'll keep looking around for it!

Material: PVC

Fig Count: 518

Scene Count: 36

Rating: 后会有期 - I'm sure we'll meet again someday

[link to the Master Post Index]

[ryuichirou]

Hello! I’ve asked about shroudcest before but the recent influx of you posting about it inspired me to bother you about them again

(side note I absolutely love your human Ortho/Idia art)

I was curious what you think the impact of Idia being unable to turn Ortho down especially when Ortho starts crying would have on their relationship (sexually or otherwise) and if/how that translates over to human Ortho

Hope you have an excellent day/night!

Anon! We’re always happy to get more asks about Ortho and Idia, so thank you for providing. I’m sorry it took me so long to reply… And I’m also very happy you like our human!Ortho/Idia <3 Every Ortho is great Ortho!

I think that this is something that both human Ortho and AI Ortho share. The original Ortho always knew that he is Idia’s precious little brother and that even if Idia disagrees with him, he wouldn’t refuse him if Ortho got upset. Because Ortho being upset and crying is something that Idia absolutely hates. And while Ortho tries not to overuse this, he really knows that he has this advantage.

And while this wasn’t something that Idia programmed AI Ortho to do, I like to think that AI Ortho figured it out himself at some point. It wouldn’t be too difficult for him to notice that Idia always reacts when he gets upset, and since Idia is usually pretty stubborn, this is something that Ortho noted and learnt how to use quite quickly. Very cunning of Ortho, but also this is the type of thing when Idia looks at him and thinks “wow, he’s just like him”.

So yes, Idia is perfectly aware that he is being manipulated a lot of times, but he just can’t help but feel heartbroken when Ortho is upset because of him, so he enables this behavior strongly lol He spoils Ortho too much, be it the real one or the AI one.

Just like you said, Anon, it does affect the romantic/intimate side of their relationship, if they have one in the said universe. For starters, it’s usually Ortho who initiates things, and while it’s usually even better for Idia this way, because he is too embarrassed to take the initiative, sometimes he also gets manipulated into doing things he isn’t ready to do. Ortho is mindful, of course, but he is also quite capricious (the human one is maybe even more so capricious than the AI one) and demanding at times.

In other words, YES, Ortho does look at Idia with sad puppy eyes and even tears up (he can easily cry on cue, especially after joining the movie research club lol), when his niisan doesn’t want to kiss him, to touch him or to have sex with him. Especially when Ortho is feeling lonely or clingy… or horny. When Ortho’s horny, whether or not they’re going to have sex or at least make out, is not a question. And while Idia is too shy to admit that, he actually likes it this way.

Or, for example, when Idia plays videogames for too long and refuses to go to sleep and keeps saying that he’s “almost done”, Ortho also uses his clinginess to distract him and take the game away from him. Sometimes it’s easier to fluster Idia, to touch him, to pout all cutely, and then fuck him until he falls asleep than to reason with him.

…actually both the real Ortho and AI Ortho are going to use this tactic in a lot of situations lol

[hollowsart]

I know what you mean by missing the notes boom after getting kind of popular in a fandom. I had a similar experience recently-ish where I switched from one fandom to another and saw a big drop in notes and realized I was kind of idk, bitter about it? And I had to kinda pause, cause it was kind of a wakeup call to how much I'd stopped focusing on making art for my own sake, if that makes sense. Cause like, for me, art was always something I tried to do for my own enjoyment, and I realized that perceived popularity or lack thereof was starting to negatively affect my own enjoyment of my art. I dunno where I'm going with this just I get what you mean. For me taking a step back and just wholesale focusing on stuff I drew for my own sake for a while, even if it wasn't something I posted, really helped! Also side note Acedia and her boyfriends rule, your Beck design is everything to me

thank you, anon.

This was really nice to see when I made that post days ago sdfkjsdhfdfs sorry it took me so long to get to this, but oouugghh.. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I'm not worrying about numbers and stuff tho, but I do still miss when people would reblog and especially when they'd leave comments or reblog with comments in the tags.. I miss those days on tumblr a lot.

even if the tags were incoherent "kjsdhfkjshd" keysmashing, it still meant a lot to get any reaction <3

times change tho, I suppose.

[maythearo]

Ahem ahem, If I may rant a bit about Little Nightmares 3 with my thoughts on the trailer announcement + my predictions on how the game will go... cause I'm still freaking out and I'm so excited for this

Kind of a deserted, post apocalyptic theme, possibly associated with dangers of radiation or toxic waste of some sorts? I assumed because of Alone's gas mask design especially + Low's design is very post apocalyptic-like, and also from some of the enemies in the trailer. (Specifically about the obviously unnaturally big doll monster, and the bunch of human hands that crawled out of the sewer kinda resembling a humanoid spider creature for all we can see, maybe some of the enemies have been affected by whatever bigger danger this story may try to convey. I mean, characters from previous games were also unnatural looking, but for what I remember their designs and stories were fit of that very dark supernatural theme, as for this one in contrast seems to be going on a different kind of territory IN the means of supernatural, mixing a bit of more ""realistic"" tones to it)

The official podcast "the sounds of nightmares" seem to be going on a scientific/psychological evaluation and or experiments route, which I think grounds the story a little more, but at the same time I have NO idea how its narrative is going to relate to the game's itself lol something about dreams... hmmm

There is mirror travelling ig, that's super cool, but so far, I got no idea what it means 👍

I thought it would be a risky decision to leave the primary claustrophobic environment of the previous games and chose to go for a brighter, more "open world"(?) look for the main characters to adventure on, but at the same time, this setting can still be well explored on a horror perspective, despite me not seeing much of this theme being executed at all in any media I've consumed so far lol. I imagine it could be a great opportunity to contrast jumps between the game's levels, as in one stage you're out on the open desert and the other you fall into a darker area to explore through

Although I have my criticisms on some of Supermassive games' stuff, I'm still very fond of their work and takes on horror videogames in general, so I trust little nightmares 3 is in very good hands 👍

The ost is going to be awesome, the song in the trailer gave me goosebumps ngl

I believe we're not going to/are barely going to see Mono or Six in this story. Their arc was pretty well constructed beggining to end, but the lack of appearances of the two, at least for me, is not a negative thing at all! I think Low and Alone's story is going to focus on the world building through different lenses rather than exploring further what we already knew before. Mono and Six may be vaguely mentioned but not crucial to the sequel ig

Just a side note I'm a terrible game theorist, so if I said stuff that clearly contradicts something in the trailer or franchise, I am very sorry, I can't help I'm very inattentive most of the time, this is embarrassingenfjenfjebrk😫

I watched a full gameplay of the first and second game like, years ago- and only now I got the opportunity to play LN by myself. I finished the first game, went half of the dlc (I'm taking a break from it bcs it's so difficult for me and the switch version takes almost a full minute to reload after I die..) and I'm currently mid way through the second, although I still remember most of the stuff that will happen in its story. I'm following the episodes of the recent podcast, and I'm going to seach for the webcomic for me to read, yahooooo!!!

NOBODY asked for this post but I DO NOT CARE, little nightmares fascinates me from story, to gameplay, to visuals. It's one of a kind on its storytelling and art. Just my thing and I care about it very much. But that's it thanks for listening to my insanity arc

[zahri-melitor]

New(ish) Comics (this is the best week of the month, no lie)

Batman – Santa Claus: Silent Knight #1: this is fun. I like the way Bruce and Damian are written together. I am annoyed Babs is out as Batgirl. I'm amused that Tim is very specifically excluded from the story that involves real Santa given he'd not be wondering 'ooh oooh is Santa real' like Dick is here.

Someone had better give Darkseid some coal, is all I can say.

Batman #139: …so we really are running Batman and Batman & Robin with contradictory plots right now. Cmon. There was even a way to finagle this so that Damian could be living with Bruce and have Zdarsky’s plot still work! Grump.

“I’m coming for you, Joker. I’m coming for all three of you. For the last time.” (actually there’s a printing error in this line and the letterer has ‘For the the last time’) I disbelieve this Zdarsky, sorry, though if you could figure out a way to get Joker out of the Bat books for a few years I think everyone would enjoy that.

Now that aside, I do want to note that apparently my decision to (re)read all of Henri Ducard’s appearances seems to have been prescient, given Zdarsky has just referred to ‘manhunting’, ‘training when I was young’ and ‘Paris’ all together. That’s Ducard. That trio is 100% Ducard. Sounds like I need to finish Henri Ducard’s post-2016 appearances, which I was delaying. So Batman: The Detective and Batman: The Knight are jumping up my reading list. (And a quick look at ‘Lucie Chesson’ says she’s from Batman: The Knight, so yep, gotta read)

Joker + dolls always makes me think of NML Endgame, personally.

Birds of Prey #3: Damn this continues to just be a solid read. Thompson keeps hitting yet another 'look I can be trusted' target every issue.

I could do with at least 30% less Harley commentary in this book, but I do acknowledge that at least half the team are unlikely to talk much in a combat situation. Future!Maps is cute and as I slowly approach Maps content I’m excited to meet her more. Also… SIN MY SWEETHEART. I have been waiting for this hug for SIXTEEN YEARS. (Literally. I was in DC fandom in 2007 when they were torn apart). Also loooooooooool Ollie got curbstomped by Diana, sucks to be you Ollie.

Blue Beetle #3: Oh I couldn’t help myself (in terms of how many panels I already posted), but Blue Beetle is doing such interesting things right now. Victoria’s finally being acknowledged on page as being super sus and villainous (rather than just slinking around being sus and concerning me deeply). I’m getting more and more worried about the identity of the Red Beetle. We got Traci back! Which from what I hear means that Trujillo is glossing over some of Traci’s recent characterisation, but we’ll see how this tracks (and in any case, re-establishing Jaime’s connections to the magic/dark side of DC via Traci is helpful if we’re about to do a Dan Garrett story).

Free my girl Dani Garrett if we’re doing a Dan Garrett storyline, she’s an autistic mildly amoral archaeologist and I desperately, DESPERATELY want to see her arguing with Victoria Kord over who ‘owns’ the scarab while Jaime’s standing in the middle going ‘excuse me nobody owns Khaji Da, it’s its own being! And my friend!’

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #3: hello Jimmy Olsen! Hello Turtle Jimmy lore! (I love how silly this book is. I do enjoy JLI stuff that doesn’t take itself seriously) I’m getting attached to a few of the new villains, particularly Linka Grodd.

Shazam! #5: MARY SIGHTING. Darla remains tiny and adorable and I love her too. This comic remains committed to ridiculous fun villains (and Waid and Mora have apparently been off raiding the ‘underused weird Silver Age villains’ list). Mr Dinosaur is an amazing addition to the canon. (And yes. Billy rebuilt the moon. Oh Shazam!) Also I see we are still back firmly in the ‘jealous Freddie’ plot that’s been hanging around for a while.

Warlord #25: this week we check back in with Tara, Mariah and Machiste. Grell’s done some fabulous art for the splash page that I really really like.

Travis is fighting *checks notes* snow giants as he's still too ashamed to come hang out with his friends and partner after the whole 'I killed Joshua' incident a few issues back. He's also cutting all sort of things with his Damascus Steel sword which I have to remind everyone and note is highly suspicious damascus steel, because it's made from a RIFLE and there is no way the type of steel used was able to be worked as damascene, given it likely was alloyed wrong.

I love Ashir here (the guy actually wearing clothes) as firstly, look! A rare appearance of someone with most of their skin covered! Secondly, Travis' burn of "I didn't know you had character".

Anyway, Travis is moping a bit here about being a lone warrior. You could go and hang out with your friends any time you want, Travis. You're the one who left, not them.