#because Technically i look 'Better' with it a little longer. but the main reason i like it short because the physical sensation of hair on

[rainingincale]

I wish i was a boy so i could get my ears pierced and piss off so many stupid people but be soso beautiful 😔😔😔

[jjtheresidentbaby]

hi hi <3 hope you're doing okay :) can u do a cg!rafe cameron x little!reader where reader gets minorly wounded, like after falling from their bike or something, and rafe patches them up? thank you <3

˚. ❝₊˚ sunburnt ❞ ˚₊·

» rafe cameron x reader

» a/n: I have an extremely bad sunburn rn so that’s what I went with hope you don’t mind

» warnings: rafe is rubbing product on reader’s back while they’re shirtless but it’s in no way nsfw, talk of the pogues watching over reader, little!sarah mentioned, cg!kie & cg!pope mentioned, cg!barry mentioned, post canon, pet names

You wince as Rafe helps pull your shirt over your head, revealing the worst sunburn Rafe has seen since Sarah got near second degree burns when they were kids, he winces right alongside you. Given for different reasons; you hate the feeling of the material sticking your your skin and causing even more pain to the tight skin, and Rafe because seeing just how bad things have gotten without him around pulls on his heart strings.

It was only a week. One week with the pogues, Sarah acting as your main caregiver but having to have Kie take over when Sarah slipped halfway through the trip you guys took to the mainland. It was- an eventful week, to say the least. Kie and Pope stepped up and were much better at applying sunblock regularly than Sarah in her own regressed state, but the damage was already done and both Kie and Pope looked more than worried when they handed you off to Rafe two days ago. You’re a little surprised he didn’t go off on them then and there.

“Hurts.” You mutter when Rafe runs his hands gently over your back, the way your skin is hot to the touch cause even more worry in Rafe’s mind. He really doesn’t want to have to take you to the hospital.

“I know baby, I’m sorry. I’m gonna apply some coconut oil and then we can go lay back down.” You’ve found the coconut oil works better than the aloe as it leaves your skin moisturized for longer.

“M’kay, can we watch a movie?” That’s all the two of you have been doing for the past two days.

By the time you were driving back to Rafe’s after being away from him for a week you were so homesick Jj had to keep his legs thrown atop yours so you wouldn’t try and climb to the front of the van to get John B to drive faster- it’d be an embarrassing moment to think of if it wasn’t all worth it when Rafe came into view as you rounded the corner to Tannyhill and saw Rafe sitting on the porch waiting for you. The house is technically his and Sarah’s but with Sarah spending almost all her time at the rebuilt chateau, it’s basically just Rafe’s place that acts as storage for some of Sarah’s stuff.

“Course, what do you wanna watch?” Rafe asks and rubs some more oil onto your bare back, making sure that he’s being as careful and soft with his touch as he can be.

“Moana?” A small smile creeps onto Rafe’s lips as he nods along.

“Didn’t we watch that yesterday?” You shrug.

“I like it. Can we ask Barry to come over and watch it with us?” Rafe is obviously your favorite person while you’re regressed but Barry is a close second, and the both of them together is perfect to you. They never fail to make you laugh just by the way they interact with each other and the sidebar jokes Barry shoots your way as Rafe tries to dismiss every word he says.

“Sure, sweet thing. Do you need him to pick up anything before he comes over?” You shake your head and lift your arms when Rafe comes to slip your shirt back on, it’s actually his own but it’s loose and cotton so it’s more comfortable on your skin.

“Not even some fries from The Wreck?” A quirked brow gets sent your way and you quickly scramble to climb into Rafe’s lap before he can pick up the phone to call Barry.

“Wait- wait, yeah fries, get fries.” You plead and Rafe hums along with an arm slipped around your waist to make sure you won’t fall off his lap.

“You sure? You just said you didn’t want anything… Barry will be here quicker if he doesn’t stop-.” You cut Rafe off with a serious look on your face that he finds undeniably cute.

“I lied, I want fries. I don’t care if Barry takes ten hours to get here, I want those fries.” It’ll really only add ten minutes to the route for Barry to go into The Wreck and order some food to-go.

“Okay, okay, I’ll make the call.” He soothes and grabs his phone as you lean back into his chest with a content sigh. Your back doesn’t hurt as bad as it did when you first came home and spending the day with your favorite people will help you forget just how much you missed Rafe in the first place.

[shadowy-suitcase-herring-neck]

EXTREMELY interested in The Cube AU- Very fun already! Do you have any other details you could share? Like- The Gang's relationship? Or even how the Stars' felt about being cubed? How did the council even manage to send them there? How do the Gang, Error, and the Stars feel about their... transformation? How did Nightmare get the mask and do any of the others have odd curiosities on them too?

grab your popcorn this got kinda long. i mean i could have made it longer but i kept some things too be included in separate posts.

The gang at first kinda hated each other. to Nightmare they where his henchmen. he says he only gathered them to aid in his spreading of negativity. though deep down he knows this isn't why but is constantly convincing himself of it. Too be honest Nightmare was lonely , but he is constantly self sabotaging his chances of ever actually forming any sort of relationship with... anyone tbh. he's afraid It takes awhile for him to realize he doesn't want too nor have too be the demon he was told he was. he was the only thing keeping himself from feeling happy. Horror only really stayed because of the food promised to horrortale. He didn't like Killer at all and Dust didn't really interact with the gang much outside of missions and fighting with killer. Horror did start to make friends with Cross though. Mainly because cross wasn't stab happy, and also didn't waste food, or skip meals like Dust and Nightmare after Horror had already made food for everyone. Dust like stated before would be constantly avoiding everyone when he could. he spent a lot of time in random places around castle that where hard to reach. and even harder to find. he mainly talked to "Paps" a lot. In this au paps is just a hallucination not an actual ghost. The main reason he is avoiding everyone could be that killer takes any chance to antagonize him. Killer is sort of stuck in the mental loop of always trying to gain more exp. Kind of ironic tbh. most of his emotions are dulled and Fighting gives a sort of rush that too him feel.. something. So he is constantly chasing it. Cross doesn't really know why he's there tbh. he's kind of lost. their relationship slowly shifts too found family but it is certainly a journey. -

The Stars felt betrayed more than anything. They had spent years defending and trying to make the multiverse a better place. Dream already has that small voice in his skull telling him it was because he had failed somehow. That he wasn't good enough. Blue is left wondering just why... WHY. Ink is... confused. he hadn't messed up THAT bad right? he wasn't a terrible person... right? In reality it was partially due too the fact The stars would have tried to shut down the Cube if they had Known more about it. As far as they where concerned it was just a high security prison. They didn't know about how it was designed to essentially be an elaborate form of torture. a world where everything was uncertain, your own body untrustworthy, and everything wants you dead. Dream was starting to get suspicious when he was denied seeing his brother. -

Nightmare's mask has something to do with another character I've made. A scientist who helped make the Cube named Jane. I don't think I'll explain all of that here but i will include it when i post her character. -

As for other oddities and transformations... I think it's time to talk about the mutations caused by the change from magic based to something more physical. The claws on the ends of Nightmare's tentacles are an example, as well as the much less goopy nature. Goop wouldn't stay together without magic after all. Though Nightmare's changes are a little less visually different than some of the other mutations. Mutations are for the most part very very random though.

for Killer: Killer had three fingered hands, and a venomous bite. The hatred that dripped from his sockets is technically just a poison now. His soul kinda got fused with his rib cage so it just looks like a sort of target shaped burn scar in a way. it do glow tho.

here's a doodle of what his hands look like tho.

Dust was one of the more drastically changed individuals. it's possible his blaster attacks had somehow influenced his mutations so now he has a face like this:

when his jaw is closed he can almost pass for completely unchanged. His voice has a strange chittering too it now. the buggyness was completely unconnected too the blaster jaw. but it is there. Dust wears a scarf a lot too hide it.

Cross os the only other one i have Mutations made for atm. He got floof. and ears. honestly this was just kind of for fun

biiiiigg yawn.

he can 100% percent bite someones head off if he wanted too. I wasn't going for any sort of similarity too any animal in particular. but yea... floof... he poofs up if startled. anyways this was certainly a long answer huh :D i hope you enjoyed <3 if you want me too go in even more depth on any of these just ask and i will gladly do so.

[wiktorianala]

My oc's + characters they were based of in one way or another

I got bored of sewing, maybe gonna continue on weekend, but anyway i decided that it's time to make smthng more with Bouney 'n Handy so there's a lil drawings and if someone is interested in me yapping about them, story, 'n other stuffs then click here \/

Oki, so I'll start with at which point they were based of well, Salad and Madotsuki. Starting from Handy because this will take me less time. She was created waaay later, at moment when I wanted to start working on comic, so I had to make second character just so Bouney wouldn't be only one, well i wanted to make her an object head of some kind to match with the fact that Bouney's head was created out of rotated eye. It is not anymore but that was honestly how I created this little freak. Fine but coming back to topic I wanted to give her some kind of object, and I'm honestly shit when it come to making any decisions myself, so with my friend we just looked throught my entire sketchbook and we found drawing of Madotsuki with hand palm effect (because I was pretty much fixated over this game and bigger part of sketchbook had Yume Nikki drawings), so we just picked hand. Now, with Bouney it's longer story, just like I said, I created him way earlier, so first thing he got after Salad were simple plain clothes 'cuz I'm layzy and absolutelly didn't wanted to bother with drawing anything complicated over and over again (and I picked Salad, because once again, yes it was my fixation at that time, and I want to remind that thos are two different times btw). So at the point when I wanted to start making thos comics and when I already had character designs I had to give them personalities and story, and the story... it was pretty different from what it is now. First vershion of it was too about a empty world and all thos stuffs, this didn't change, but main difference was the fact that in earlier ver Bouney was only living creature in this world. Handy was more of some kind of imaginary friend that appeared in his head due to loneliness there. (this a bit was based out of Salad too, because, ya know, empty weird world, clearly not very sane main creature character 'n thos stuffs) Plot mostly was just like in current vershion pretty goofy 'n just some "everyday stuffs", but at some points it was getting pretty heavy and sad. AND YES I KNOW THAT IT SOUNDED MUCH MORE INTERESTING, honestly at some point even I liked it more in this way, but there were two main reasons why I changed it. First one, fact that Handy wasn't really a physical person caused some technical writing issues that maybe been not that hard to fix, but as once already I said- I'm layzy, so I didn't wanted to be bothered by them. And now second and honestly more important reason (at least for me), it was time when I was making 2nd re-write of "Fragments of Sanity" plot (rn I'm working on 3rd, and I hope last one, because I want to finally make it into comic too) and I mean first version of it was pretty, well sad (I can't really find better word for it), but on second version? Oh boy, let me tell ya this shit is even worse (and main reason for this is probably because I dunno when but Mike ended up being at least in his personality and behavior (not by plot) a bit of self insert). So I didn't really wanted both of my projects to be like that, and I wantd at least one of them to be one with wich I could more goof around, so yeah, I've changed it. Well I guess that's all I wanted to say? I dunno. I know that in 95% no one is about to read this, but anyway I feel at least better when I can yap somewhere about some certain stuffs, and hey, ain't that for what blogs even exist? For people to yap, and do stuffs they like? Damn after writing for such a long time about them I guess I have a need rn to finish this god damned 3rd chapter. So yeah, now that's all.

[ceciliadreamson]

Also imma just refresh everyone on what each person is in the AU:

Cecilia: Paranormal researcher

Outis: Monster Hunter (well technically a mercenary since she’s hired for this)

Ryoshu: a new vampire in town who is the one responsible for the missing civilians recently

I’ll also explain their dynamics a little more below

(TW: Blood and toxic yuri cause this is a vampire AU haha)

Cecilia → Ryoshu: Finds Ryoshu absolutely fascinating and wants to know everything about her. She’ll go through great length just to gain the vampire’s attention (including using a civilian or herself as bait). Cecilia also thinks Ryoshu covered in blood is one of the most attractive things she’s ever seen + her smirk makes her have butterflies in her stomach. Does she want to kiss the vampire…maybe so.

Cecilia → Outis: Adores Outis a lot! She doesn’t really listen to Outis’s warnings about late night walks and pursuing the supernatural though. (She’s gonna get killed one day but that’s ok!) Cecilia knows Outis will always protect her anyways. Also, Outis becoming a monster hunter is the main reason Cecilia became a paranormal researcher! It gives her an excuse to explore her own interests while being able to hang out with Outis just a little more.

Ryoshu → Cecilia: Thinks that the morally ambiguous researcher is funny and decides to keep her alive a little longer. She was going to kill Cecilia during her first few attempts of capturing Ryoshu, but couldn’t figure out what’s that weird feeling bubbling up inside. It was a mix of intrigue, amusement, and perhaps a hint of attraction. So basically Ryoshu decides to watch Cecilia for a while, making Cecilia think her traps aren’t working when they kinda are

Ryoshu → Outis: Wants to splatter Outis’s blood on the walls but also make out while injured…? Ryoshu thinks that her own killings are a work of art and adding a monster hunter to that collection would be an excellent idea. The monster that overpowered the one that was sent to slay her, what a work of art. Ryoshu also enjoys getting under Outis’s skin while being chased is really fun. Also will blow her smoke right in Outis’s face just to rile her up even more (her angered face is oddly a sight she wants to see more of)

Outis → Cecilia: Desires to keep Cecilia safe at all costs, but it’s so hard to keep her in check. What happens if she gets captured by the vampire or Outis finds her dead in the middle of her mission? She doesn’t think she could live with herself if anything happens. Outis is also aware that Cecilia trails her whenever she has a new mission, but tries to play dumb. At this point, it’s better if Outis is aware of where she is and play stupid so Cecilia is in noticeable spots for her. Behind that cold strict exterior is a woman who just wants her beloved friend safe.

Outis → Ryoshu: Hired to kill the vampire but is starting to question her own feelings. Even if she has her kopis at Ryoshu’s neck, she doesn’t know what’s holding her back from cutting off the head immediately. Outis knows she has to get the job done so she can get paid as well as keep her loved ones safe. Ryoshu is the only thing standing between all of that, yet why does that sinister look in her eyes appear so mesmerizing? These two have the classic vampire hunter x vampire dynamic where they both wanna kill each other while having hints of romantic tension between them. I’m running out of writing juice someone help

Anyways ahaha,,,,CC x CC stuff is hard to think of. I think it’s because it’s not my OC, so I have the urge to stay true to canon even though it’s gonna diverge from it. OC x CC though that’s extremely easy to write HAHSHSJAJ

[errorwarblesrr]

do you like totk or botw better?

In short: Yes, I like botw better.

Here are my reasons, though!

I know a lot of people view it as the better experience, which is completely subjective and valid if you do and like it better, but I just view botw as being better in almost every way.

I will give it to totk. The dungeons have a lot better atmosphere. The game has some extremely high highs with the build-up to the wind temple, the whole great sky island segment, and the final boss is a much better fight (though dark beast ganon has a better theme song imo).

Other than that, I prefer botw. Totk has a much grander story, but it's completely mishandled. You can argue that totk has a great story but has poor execution, and to me, execution plays a big role in what makes a story good. You can have good ideas bit it all falls apart if they aren't executed well which ends up making the story bad. It's not that totk has a good story with poor execution, it has good ideas but the bad execution leads to a poorly told story. (I hope that makes sense). Botw has less of a story and is more like a set of events. Botw has history and backstory that is told more organically. Link has amnesia so he slowly regains some of his memories of the past with some people trying to help fill him in. It feels more real...in a weird fantasy way. I guess totk is similar with how we see Zelda's memories, but not really? It's weird to explain. Everything 100 years ago is felt in present day botw while in totk most of those things don't really matter as it happened so long ago. Things only start to resurge because Zelda wanted to investigate under the castle. Totk also has twists like a story. Idk if this is making sense but that's how I feel on their stories. There was just not much botw could mess up on story wise as the way it was presented.

Gameplay wise I can not lie totk is technical marvel with the zonai tech. That's the most impressive thing about it. Tbh building contraptions isn't my thing though, it takes too long to make and experiment with a machine when I can just do whatever that machine was gonna do much faster. I see why people have a lot of fun with it though, it just isn't my thing. One thing I HATE in totk though is the amount of menuing I have to do. Elemental arrows had a serious downgrade. Yeah it's cool to fuse stuff to arrows, but not when I have to do it to ever single individual arrow and if I want to try something new I have to scroll past 50 other items in a single line. It's just tedious. If I want to use a good weapon I have to go to the menu, drop an item, and menu again to fuse it to a weapon that will still break. Item breaking is still an issue but it's more annoying and the weapons no longer look cool. Totk has some cool abilities, but idk I'd trade them all for remote bombs lmao. I hate going through caves, especially early game, and having to deal with the rock walls where they want me to fuse a rock to a stick 10 times to get through one cave. There's just a lot of little things gameplay wise that bug me. They doubled down on botws gameplay issues and added some more annoying ones. I don't even have to mention the sages abilities, that's a whole mess.

On the topic of gameplay, botw just has the better world. Idc, exploring that world for the first time is an unforgettable experience. Totks main world is too similar so the magic is gone. The sky and depths are also unimpressive and repetitive. Botw also has the benefit on how the word felt so lonely yet alive. Everything had a purpose or a story. The world has a history. And totk just doesn't have that. Outside of the upheaval, totk doesn't really build on botws world that much. I was hoping to see if they would've added new towns or see how they'd rebuild hyrule, but they really didn't do that. We only got lookout landing, which doesn't really count as a town, and a bunch of building stuff lying around which is cool I guess. Hateno has a school and Terry Town expanded a little, but with the estimate of about 5 years since botw it makes you wonder...what have these people been doing? We can theoretically build Terry Town in one day. There could be new towns.

Totk is a sequel that doesn't really acknowledge it's predecessor which is so odd. Botw stands on its own and is an overall more cohesive experience. Everything in the world feels purposefully crafted for that world while totk just slaps things on top of it with not much thought. Botw has some amazing world building while for totk it's either "the Zonai did it" or has some contradictory world building. For example, the old sages lifted up the sky islands so that Link would be protected from Ganondorf shenanigans, but then other sky islands suggest how they've been around long before Rauru since young Zonai used to train in them or something. There is also how Zelda says Link never leaves her side, but people she interacts with on an almost daily basis do not recognize him and how even treat as if he doesn't know some facts about her. So either she is overexaggerating by a lot and/or lying in her own diary or that people in hyrule have the collective memory of a rock. There's also Zelda supposedly never giving Link the champions leathers yet as a gift, but we see him wearing it in the beginning. Idk there's more contradictories, but I haven't experienced this for botw??? Totk is so disconnected and disjointed in comparison.

I'm trying to be vague but there's a lot to say, I'm sorry. I really was enjoying this game at the beginning but the more I played the more I noticed or saw things that bugged me and just kept adding up and up on each other. Botw was never like this for me. It's just more cohesive and I like that. There are so many other things I haven't brought up like the repetitive cutscenes, or missing characters/characters that SHOULD know Link but don't (namely Bolson and Hestu). But this post is long. I can't keep complaining about this game. Botw really is that one of a kind experience, and totk tries to replicate it but worse. Botw had a vine that totk lacks. You feel so alone, but you meet knew people and make friends. You build connections as you learn about the past and help those around you. There is no story, you're just a person going through the motions and exploring the vast world around you. Totk can't replace that for me. I'm the main character playing a side role in a disjointed world where not much makes sense. Everything is similar in all the wrong ways.

And most important of all, they took away Link's fun dialogue and personality now he really is bland asf and used to defend that he wasn't.

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 8: Inflorescence 💐

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Inflorescence (n.)

the flowering part of a plant or arrangement of flowers on a stalk; the time and process of budding and unfolding flowers.

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So begins Week 2 of Inktober! 🖋️

I am pretty pleased with today’s art, but my posting time probably says it all: Not everything was coming up roses in the making-of process. 😅

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk about it! ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

---------- Whew boy Sparklers; If I seem a little "off" or this description comes out a bit short, that's because (to the surprise of absolutely no one) I got a bit of a later start on this mandala than I'd hoped and it also ended up taking longer than I wanted. 😅 Thus I am now very acutely aware that I have much less time to get this description type and everything cross-posted than I'm really comfortable with.

Granted, this isn't the Cinderella-esque race against Midnight that I've very "used to" from Inktobers' past, but in some small ways that almost makes it worse because I know I've technically been doing much better than usual this year and the further I push that "better" envelope, the more anxious I become. 🫠

So let me stop wasting time rambling about that and get to talking about the art!

I think the main reason this one ended up taking so long is because I hyped it up too much—The idea of getting to draw a mandala made of flowers àla Adult Coloring Book-Style was so enticing that I did that thing us artists tend to do sometimes; I got in my head about it being "good enough" and "right" and all that, as if this is somehow the only opportunity I'll ever have to make a flower mandala so it "needed" to be perfect. 🙄

And, in a strange kind of other sense I think I had a little too much confidence going in because I recently spent quite a bit of time drawing intricate flowers in a similar style for a project you Sparklers haven't seen yet but my Ko-fi Members have. [And hopefully you Sparklers will get to see it soon, too, I've just been too busy to squeeze it in yet!] Mostly, I underestimated my own standards for what translating those flower drawing skills into this mandala format would be like. 😅

I also kind of hurt myself in that I decided I really wanted to get roses in here somewhere on top of trying to make sure I got at least one flower that had more obvious stages of blooming (per today's deifnition), rather than all of them being full-bloom. Naturally, I picked the most difficult option of having the roses be said multi-stage flower. 🙃 I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you Sparklers that have attempted to draw them before that roses are among some of the trickier flowers to draw, particularly in a more doodle-y style like this. I have semi-successfully handled roses before, but I think it's been literal years since the last time I drew any. 🫣 [Maybe not, but I don't feel like I have the time to dig through my posts and check to be sure right now!]

You can see that I did manage some results I'm decently happy with in the end, of course, but I probably spent about half of the total time I worked on this mandala on the roses specifically. 😵‍💫

And then of what was left, probably about half of that was spent on the "final" swirling vines that have different little pink flowers on them. Which is to say I think that was the second most challenge part to draw, even though it's one of the more simple elements present.

I could have stopped before adding those final swirls and it probably would've been fine, but the outer corners just felt so empty compared to all the flower and leaf stuff going on elsewhere, particularly the center-most ring. (That's what I get for adding lines to look more like a vague suggestion of roots below the big leaves!) I wanted to fill just a little more space badly.

If I hadn't felt timing ticking down so strongly, I would've definitely bothered to figure out something a little more involved for those swirls, but it just wasn't meant to be today. I couldn't stop thinking about the time and it seemed like every other false start I has either wasn't right or tested my patience too much.

I very nearly put some more sunflower-esque flowers in the corners instead, but I didn't like the idea of looking myself into a more specific color palette in that way and I didn't like the idea of not being able to either "attach" them to the rest of the mandala or the fact that I couldn't think of a way to make them more vine-like on their own. Therefore, the sunflowers sat this one out. [And besides, they already had a small cameo last week!]

The leaves, fortunately, didn't give me much trouble. Those largest leaves that I put down first where probably the most difficult, but only because they were made using a criss-cross line method I observed in some mandala techniques on Pinterest, rather than other more typical ways I go about drawing leaves. They really weren't too bad, though. And I think they were the right choice because they kind of set up a shape foundation that directed a lot of the rest of the mandala.

Likewise, this may have been the easiest color scheme to decide apart from Day 1 because of the leaves. I set up with that green foundation, pushed it to be a little more teal/aqua, and then went with most pink flowers since that's complimentary, but then a soft blue for the...They're sort of lilies-of-the-valley but maybe not exactly. I think the blue I picked is a touch too dark for that, but since I was very sold on this off-white/cream background, I went with the deeper blue so the color would be more obvious.

I will admit I originally wanted to avoid pink or red roses, but I made the outermost flowers pink first, dared to touch the roses with a bit of a darker pink, and promptly threw that plan out the window. I did try to mix a little purple int here so they weren't a super-traditional rose pink, but I think I overblended it so that effect was mostly lost. 😅 But I did stand firmly behind no-red roses, though. Against many fibers in my Alice-in-Wonderland-loving being, but it felt too stereotypical and like a bad fit for the more aqua-green leaves, which I really didn't want to change at that point.

Yesterday and Day 2 are still gunning for my favorite, but this one isn't super far behind despite the choices I maybe would've handled a bit differently if I'd felt like I could afford more time to puzzle over them. If anything, I think this will be my favorite as a coloring page, if I do end up making coloring pages out of these. [Which yes, is an idea I've been toying with—I think I mentioned it on Day 1? Maybe?]

You Sparklers will have to tell me if that sounds like something worth bothering with. 😉

Let's see...I think that's everything I wanted to mention for today, so I should probably be getting on with that cross-posting now; I'll see you Sparklers tomorrow, hopefully at least a little earlier in the evening... 😅 🤞

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[kukuandkookie]

Might copy and paste the text here later from my Twitter thread where I expressed why I enjoyed it, but I recently read My Little Poplar and ended up liking Bai Xinyu and Yu Fengcheng quite a bit!

Yu Fengcheng’s eventual regret was honestly written really well, and the relationship between the two leads has good chemistry. 👌

Even better is that it features Jian Suiying, who I also have gotten weirdly attached to???

Like objectively the book Jian Suiying comes from, In Love With an Idiot, has its flaws. Or rather, it employs tropes that really aren’t for everyone, which includes the main couple fighting constantly (so it’s basically fighting and then fucking and then fighting and then fucking and you get the idea), and it gets kind of overdramatic at times, as some very angsty-type stories can be—whether they’re from China (known as “dog blood” stories) or not.

I even found it a little silly that so many were so obsessed with Jian Suiying, and yet…

Here I am now, sliiiightly obsessed with him. 🤡😂

It’s just that! As I mentioned on my Twitter, he’s so unique for a shou/bottom/uke character!! Before he met Li Yu, he was always the top, and he’s sexually confident and pretty intelligent and ruthless and…well, temperamental. He does admittedly have a charm to him that works and I find it pretty amazing the author managed to predict that, since so many characters in her novels adore him BDMGIHSKD.

Even his red flags give him charm, because while he is problematic, the red flags make him an intriguing character. The author does a pretty good job at balancing the different aspects of him that make him technically infuriating and yet also compelling.

His charm is further boosted by the fact there’s actually a clip of one of his VAs just trying to cheer you up if you’re sad?? Like hello??? 🥺

It is no longer a surprise to me that Li Yu ended up so obsessed with Jian Suiying. 😆

Also I’ll note now the last image is actually by the My Little Poplar manhua artist while the others are from the manhua adaptation of Jian Suiying’s own novel! I like how the manhua artist draws him quite a bit since it feels so him. I’ve seen fan art and they sometimes feature him smaller and thus not domineering enough, even though they usually show him with the same hairstyle—which makes for a fun tangent on its own since danmei designs can be a bit “basic,” so when one specific design becomes a recognizable look for a character, I find it pretty cool.

In fact, one of my favourite details in My Little Poplar was watching Yu Fengcheng be very frustrated with how much Bai Xinyu looked up to Jian Suiying. 🤭

Also just seeing him show up always made me go “yay!” because it’s so fun getting to see him again, especially as part of his story aligns with My Little Poplar (as in the plots of both novels happen somewhat concurrently).

Similarly, the manhua adaptation, My Beloved Fool, has a really nice art style and I really like that the artist always lets Jian Suiying shine by really dressing him up. He and Shi Qi from Trap a Vicious Dog (another series I want to ramble about on why I’m enjoying it so far) are two manhua protagonists I know of who are like…confident smart corporate bosses that get stylish fits almost every manhua chapter, which is a nice detail ahaha.

My Beloved Fool has recently hit the heavy angst section of the novel so it’ll be depressing to follow for a while since you’ll just watch Li Yu fall apart as Jian Suiying suffers absolute hell. 😔

Someone even uploaded the first season of the vomic version of the manhua on YouTube. 👀

Similarly, I’m really excited for the My Little Poplar manhua to get to all the good bits of the story there, since Bai Xinyu develops a lot as a character and I find Yu Fengcheng’s regret especially well done. But evidently it’ll take quite some time to get there; first we have to get past the military bullying alfndkfjjss.

Anyway the actual reason I started typing this out before I spiralled into another huge ramble asjakfl is that I found In Love With an Idiot and My Little Poplar audio dramas on YouTube!!

I’d heard some In Love With an Idiot audio clips from something that some fans had shared to YouTube before, but it sounds like those clips were from a completely different audio drama than the one I landed on. I’m especially excited about the My Little Poplar one. Even if it’s not extremely high quality (I think Bing Xing Xia Deng aka Inferior by Nature aka The Selfish Gene has admittedly spoiled me because it was so high quality 😆), it’s still fun hearing these characters come to life aurally.

Even more so since iirc I saw a Twitter post saying the My Little Poplar and In Love With an Idiot got taken down officially, so they may only be accessible via online reuploads right now. I can’t find the post to confirm, but if true, I’m glad someone preserved them. 🙏

Update: I did find the other version’s VAs of the In Love With an Idiot audio drama! Except it’s maybe a…sequel? Where a Li Yu of the past transmigrates 5 years into the future when Li Yu and Jian Suiying are a couple?? It’s on MaoEr FM…and it’s for free. 👁️

In fact, I could totally ramble about the Bing Xing Xia Deng audio drama—which I already have for a friend, so I can just copy and paste that long-ass (slightly more incoherent because it’s a lot of fangirling) wall of text here haha. I am currently very obsessed with that series too because it really is high quality and I like how it evolved the novel it’s adapting, but my friend is the expert on it so I feel a bit more shy about sharing my thoughts sometimes.

Welp that went on quite a number of tangents but yeah. I’ve enjoyed these novels and I’m very happy they got audio dramas and that they are still out there to be enjoyed after everything. 🥺💕

OH and final note but…the fun fact about the 188男团 aka 188 Group, which is the overall series Jian Suiying and Bai Xinyu belong to (so-called because it’s 10 novels that share a universe and all feature (scum) gongs of 188 cm) got sort of made into an “actual” 男团, aka a boy band/group! I found the couple (?) songs they released and some fan songs and it’s nice seeing them all “singing” together alfjskfjs.

An English translation can be found here!

An English translation can be found here!

Me when I spy Jian Suiying, Li Yu, Yu Fengcheng, and Bai Xinyu especially in the MVs: 🥺

[rosaren2498]

Bodyguard or Best Friend

Part 6 of my 'It's Not Abduction If You're Willing' series.

WARNINGS: Fem!Reader (no use of y/n), Excessive Use of Italics; I'm Not Sorry. Corinthian Tries Mocking The Reader, Because He Has As Much Trouble With Expressing Himself As Dream, Soft Corinthian At The End (I Think)

Might have a hint at a future pairing... maybe... ---

If anyone knew how dangerous the Waking world could be, it was you. Though Dream had been imprisoned for over a century, he lived in the Dreaming; that meant he only visited the Waking world, minimizing the chances of him being in any sort of danger by a lot. So, technically, not even he knew just how dangerous the Waking world truly was. You, on the other hand, had lived over a thousand years in the Waking world, as a woman no less. This meant that you were well aware of just how dangerous it was. This also meant that, at this point, you were quite adept at protecting yourself from just about anything.

However, when Dream loved, he loved intensely. This meant that he was very protective of what he considered his, and he cherished you most of all. You didn't tend to mind when he got overprotective because you were much the same way; both of you had lost too much over the years that it was impossible to not be overprotective.

Then he suggested a bodyguard, though perhaps 'suggested' wasn't quite the right word; insisted on was more accurate. He wanted you to have someone around who could protect you when he wasn't around. You thought maybe he'd meant just for the Waking world - though the only place you ever went in the Waking world was to see Hob - and had agreed easily enough.

You hadn't expected Dream to make a Nightmare with ocular teeth for eyes. Especially not one whom Dream had already unmade at least once before because he'd gone off the rails, left the Dreaming, and had been killing humans. Oh, and you couldn't let yourself forget that he was the main reason Dream had been imprisoned for so long. Without Corinthian informing Burgess how to prevent Dream's escape, he wouldn't have been held for longer than a few weeks. However, you did acknowledge that he had already been punished for it, and had now been remade for it. Dream hadn't explained what was different about him, exactly, but he had assured you that Corinthian was better now and you trusted Dream.

However, you'd quickly come to realize when else Dream wanted you to have a bodyguard; anytime you left the palace. You couldn't go anywhere alone and while this would've irritated anyone else, maybe even angered them, you couldn't help feeling warm any time you thought about how satisfied Dream looked whenever he saw you two together. You didn't want a bodyguard, but you did want to make Dream happy; so, a bodyguard you would have.

The Corinthian lightly flirted with you more often than he protected you, but that was mostly because he flirted with everyone, and also because you didn't need protecting. You'd even seen Corinthian flirt with Hob, much to Dream's disapproval, as Hob hadn't hesitated to flirt back; you may or may not have privately thought they'd be good together. To be fair to Corinthian, he was quite attractive, objectively speaking; that you could admit. He even had a rather nice voice - frankly, he was a silken menace - though why, exactly, he was American was beyond you; you weren't sure even Dream had an answer to that.

Upon originally meeting him, you had told him that there was something about him that itched at your brain, the same way Dream's or Teleute's presence did; something that told you, instinctively, that he was other, but that it didn't bother you. At first, he'd been more than a little insulted that you weren't afraid of him. However, the more time he spent around you, the more he thought he understood.

"I think I finally figured it out."

You blinked and grinned at your supposed bodyguard. "Figured what out?"

Corinthian shrugged his shoulders, affecting a casual attitude as you two walked; you were headed back to the palace after a walk around the Dreaming to visit various Dreams and Nightmares, including a brief visit with Cain and Abel. "Why none of this," he gestured around to the Dreaming, "bothers you."

You raised an eyebrow curiously. "Well don't keep me in suspense. What are your findings?"

He flashed you a mocking grin, just on the edge of being sharp. "You're crazy."

You stared at him silently for only a moment, and then - surprising him like you always seemed to do - you broke out into laughter. The affronted look on his face and the insulted noise he made only caused you to double over, your whole body shaking with the force of your laughter now.

"Think about it," he cried indignantly. "No one sane would just allow themselves to be kidnapped! No one sane just accepts all of this. And no one sane likes Dream... or me. You are not sane. In fact, you're completely insane."

By the time Corinthian had finished his little speech, you'd finally managed to get your laughter under control, though you still giggled a bit. "One, I'm an adult, and therefore, it is called abduction, not kidnapping. Two, it isn't abduction if you're willing." You couldn't resist wiggling your eyebrows at him, causing his body to shift in a way that you knew only meant he was rolling his eyes; only Corinthian could roll his eyes with his whole body.

"Three, I've always known about the more... supernatural side of things; I was already over a thousand years old when Dream and I met. I knew about the Endless and their respective realms before I even met Dream, and yes, that includes the Dreaming; all of this," you made the same gesture with your hand that he had, indicating the Dreaming as a whole, "really isn't that hard to comprehend. Four, you are an asshole, you're snarky, you're manipulative, and you're a literal nightmare, but I still like you because you don't hide from me."

Corinthian seemed startled and almost confused, so you continued.

"You only wear your glasses when we're in the Waking world. And, as I said, you're snarky; this may come as a surprise, but I think it's funny. You don't hide from me, so I get to see all of you, rather than just the barriers and walls you put up around other people. I've met plenty of people that were better than you, I won't deny it because that is true, but it's also true that I've met plenty of people that were far worse than you. Five, I like Dream for a variety of reasons and I am insulted on his behalf that you think no one can like him outside of me, when he has Teleute as a sister, a raven familiar that is almost as snarky and opinionate as you, and a best friend that you've met," despite your words, your smile hadn't shifted at all. "And finally, six, I'm not insane," you paused, your smile shifted to a near-frightening grin, "I prefer the term unhinged."

Corinthian stared at you for a long moment before finally shaking his head, clearly giving you up for a lost cause. You were happy to notice that he didn't try to hide the way his own grin softened till it became much more genuine.

"And even if I was insane, which I'm not, you're stuck with me at this point anyways. Not because you were a gift from Dream and meant to be my bodyguard, but because honestly, you're more like my best friend now.

When Corinthian's nose wrinkled in exaggerated distaste, you giggled again even as he spoke in a sing-songy voice. "In-sane."

You rolled your eyes playfully, a teasing grin on your face. "Eh, so what? Maybe I am. Maybe I'm mad, bonders, off my head." You leaned in close and dropped your voice to a whisper. "But I'll tell you a secret: all the best people are."

Corinthian instantly burst into laughter, calling out in between bouts of uncontrollable giggles, "did you just quote Alice in Wonderland to me?!"

You grinned brightly, triumph coursing through you at getting him to laugh, your own giggles joining him. "You're damn right I did!"

When his laughter finally began fading, he looked ahead, catching sight of the palace that was slowly getting bigger; the atmosphere shifted slightly. Though the smile leftover from his amusement hadn't faded, you didn't speak; like with Dream, you could tell when Corinthian wanted to ask something but wasn't sure if he should. Eventually, he must've decided to go for it, because he spoke.

"Does it really never bother you?"

You glanced at him, but he was still looking ahead, staring at the palace. "What do you mean, exactly? I mean, none of it bothers me, but if there is something specific you mean, I'd like to reassure you."

His teeth briefly bared in a silent snarl, likely at the thought that he needed assurance, but he sighed soon after. "Your bond with him. Doesn't it bother you that he hasn't even seemed to notice it? And your... friendship with me. You know what I've done."

"And you were remade for it. It has passed, Corinthian. You have suffered your punishment and been given another chance; I do not dwell on it and neither should you." Your tone briefly shifted to teasing. "Frankly, the only part of it that bothers me is all the queer people you killed; we are still actively being murdered just for existing, and I don't appreciate you contributing to it." You smiled when he gave a startled laugh.

"As for my bond with Dream..." You took a deep breath, turning serious. "One of the reasons I love him so much is that I've been told that I'm too intense, that I'm too much. I'm extremely unhinged Corinthian; I'd do absolutely anything to make him happy. I'd flood Hell with holy water, and make it rain hellfire in Heaven if it would please him. And if anyone were to try and take him from me..." You trailed off, a look crossing your face that was so dark that Corinthian actually shuddered; then you shook your head and it was gone.

"Dream will never tell me that I'm too intense. He'll never say I'm too much because he is exactly the same as me. When he loves, he gives everything that he is, everything that he has ever been, and everything that he could be. He and I are a match; we just... fit, like two puzzle pieces. I would not hesitate - regardless of how sappy you think it is - to say that I am absolutely certain that I was made for him So no. The bond doesn't bother me, nor does his seeming ignorance of it; he probably hasn't realized it's there because he's so busy feeling everything, all the time, given he's the collective unconscious. But anything I feel from him, I can return in equal measure, and vice versa. I will love him until every universe has died, and long after that as well."

You could feel Corinthian staring at you, but you didn't attempt to meet his gaze. You didn't want to see what you'd seen in everyone else's faces, everyone who wasn't Dream or Hob; no one ever understood, because they didn't feel the same way you three did.

"Well, at least I know that any fights you two have won't last."

You snapped your head to the side to look at him, eyes wide; you could see the understanding on his face and you were startled, but only for a moment; oh... oh. Suddenly, it was like all the things you'd noticed just... slotted into place for you, though you wouldn't point it out, lest you risk upsetting him; he and Dream really were more alike than either would likely ever admit.

You snorted, your shoulders relaxing. "Nah. While we both have bad tempers, they're different kinds of tempers. I have a relatively short fuse, and a vicious tongue when I'm angry, but my anger vanishes pretty quickly. If I get angry, I tend to isolate myself so I can calm down, then I feel really guilty about the whole situation, especially if I didn't isolate myself fast enough and I said something. I have a tendency to grovel for forgiveness and no, it does not matter to me how much was or was not my fault.

"Dream's got a lot of pride, and apologizing is very difficult for him, as is vulnerability; even admitting to himself that he might have been wrong can be hard for him. But I seem to - mostly - be an exception because another thing we have in common is our inability to stand when the other is upset with us. I will literally do anything so he's not angry with me; I'd slit my own throat if I thought it would please him. Last time I was mildly annoyed with Dream, he nearly cried - do not tell him I told you that - and honestly, same; the idea of him being angry with me just... hurts. It's not particularly healthy, but it means that our fights really don't last long because we're both fairly quick at apologizing to the other simply because we miss each other."

"I'm pretty sure you're both extremely codependent at this point."

You snorted again. "Yep. But neither of us actually has a problem with that." You flashed a sharp, feral grin. "And anyone that tries to change it will have to go through us."

Corinthian was quiet for a few seconds before he suddenly grinned back, equally as feral. "And me. As unhealthy as you may be, you're still good for each other and make each other unbearably happy." He paused for a moment, then added, "which is good for the rest of us."

Your grin relaxed, and you comfortably brushed your shoulder against his arm; it would've been his shoulder, but he was quite a bit taller than you. "You like seeing us happy, just admit it."

Corinthian's feral grin softened into a genuine, downright soft, smile just as you reached the palace steps. "Maybe I do."

[stupid-childproof-caps]

Who are other alters liu has?

╰┈➤ LIU'S SYSTEM ✎

I mentioned before that I headcanon the system Liu's in to have at least five other members! Here are a couple of them:

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

˗ˏˋ Kali ´ˎ˗

Kali is a memory holder

She's 14 years old and holds sentimental memories of Liu's parents

She's very creative and enjoys writing poetry with Liu sometimes

She has shaggy black hair with blonde streaks and brown eyes, she's around 5'0

Kali and Sully are very close to each other, but they argue over whose memories are correct even though technically both of them are correct

Kali looks at Sully as a younger brother

She highly discourages Sully's violence and gives Liu motivational speeches on how to resist violent urges

Liu appreciates her, but she thinks she deserves more credit than he gives her

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

˗ˏˋ Phoenix ´ˎ˗

Phoenix is a gatekeeper and a protector

He's 32 and is in charge of who comes in and out of the front room

Gatekeepers' jobs are typically to keep unstable people out of front, which can cause a lot of confusion about Sully.

While Sully lacks a lot of a moral compass, he is not decidedly seen as "unstable" in Phoenix's eyes. Killing people is not typically "stable" behavior, but because of the way the system has formed and developed throughout Liu's years of life, Sully's tendencies are perceived as necessary for survival. Phoenix keeps everyone out of trouble with the law, for example. If there is a situation in which someone is in danger, he makes sure to remove anyone not made to handle that situation are as far away as possible.

He's pretty laid back and easy to talk to, most of the others come to him if they need someone to confide in

He sucks at giving advice sometimes, though. Not because he doesn't have any, but because if you don't take his advice, he gets pissed

Most people just come to him to vent

He's around 6'6 and has brown hair about the same color as Liu's, he has blue eyes.

Kali finds comfort in him, Sully doesn't pay much attention to him

Liu doesn't talk to him very much unless he has to - they're not commonly in the front room at the same time

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

˗ˏˋ Extra: Sully & Liu (again) ´ˎ˗

Sully is an aggressive protector, but very much wavers on the line of aggressive protector and persecutor/prosecutor.

He's 7, like most people say he is. However, he has a much more complex mind than a 7 year old

He doesn't age, unlike the others, and the reason that he doesn't is unknown

Sully doubles as a trauma holder, he holds the memories from when Jeff attacked Liu

Liu has the same memories, but he has no emotional attachment to them like Sully does

Sully hates Jeff for what he did and while his main goal is to protect Liu from him, he's also protecting himself from that pain connecting him to that event

Sully is short, he's around 4'3 and Kali doesn't ever let him catch a break from the short jokes

Sully and Liu share similar physical features. Sully looks like a lot like Liu when he was younger, but his hair is a little darker and longer

Liu has a lot of difficulty accepting that he isn't the only one living in his body

He has some lingering hatred for everyone in the system just because of his denial, but he's been working on getting better

Liu panics often because of a lack of control that he has, he sometimes lashes out at everyone else and refuses to deliberately speak to them for weeks at a time

Sully is the only one with the balls to tell Liu that he isn't allowed to treat the others like shit just because "it was his body first"

[aranarumei]

you WILL read my visions of hanzawa to tashiro

hi. I’m kiri. nice to see you here. this entire post is inspired by this lovely poll conducted by @dirtbra1n, specifically regarding the outfits tashiro would wear for the beauty contest (this is what I’m calling the crossdressing competition, if that name seems unfamiliar) in his third year. I shall also be referencing some of their writings because they are like, creative director for the hanzawa to tashiro ‘verse. if you have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about, uh. ask me ig. the point is, basically I started thinking about the actual realities of hanzawa to tashiro as like, a manga or just as a like, semi-linear story, and I was thinking about how exactly the school festival in tashiro’s third year would flow into that. and so I reread the chapters surrounding the school festival in sasaki to miyano, and this post became almost 6k. so I’m leaving the rest under the cut. technically, all of this is just voter propaganda.

to outline my thoughts a little bit, I voted “sailor style uniform (black & red)” in the poll originally but I was. Intrigued by the option that was just “other (elaborate) (please)” because like… well, what if there was a better option, one that I hadn't considered? you can find my reasoning for picking that outfit in the tags of the poll, but I'll be going over it again, so there’s no need. anyways, I was dwelling on it. wondering how to figure out what outfit might work best. and I wanted to confirm that miyano’s outfit for the contest had indeed been a kimono bc like. god what if I was wrong. so I reread the festival chapters.

and let me tell you!! when you are no longer looking at sasaki and miyano during the festival chapters, there is So Much Stuff happening!! first off: to confirm, miyano’s outfit is referred to as a “kimono-style outfit” [ch 22, sasaki to miyano] in the translation I’m reading, which to me is one of the reasons I’d argue against that being tashiro’s competition outfit—it would be a repetition of the previous year. 

and then, to my absolute surprise, kuresawa as understudy is wearing what looks like… a sailor uniform [ch 23, sasaki to miyano], and from googling screencaps of the anime it looks like it is very specifically a black & red sailor uniform! (perhaps this is where the poll choice originated)

to go on a bit of a tangent, I remember the exact moment I realized that a large part of hirano to kagiura’s timeline was taking place in volume one of sasaki to miyano. like as I write this, the hirano of hirano to kagiura isn’t even a third year! thinking on that, for the timeline of hanzawa to tashiro, I think it would be interesting if it started sort of later in the sasaki to miyano timeline—miyano’s (and therefore tashiro’s) third year. with flashes back towards previous years as needs must (I personally would love to see a lot more of the ping pong club). (yeah I’m so normal about the fact that the anthology comic had short stories with sasamiya hirakagi and hanzashiro. so normal why do u ask.) with that in mind, placing the beginning of hanzawa to tashiro around tashiro’s third year gives me a better idea what exactly I want the festival to represent—a launchpad for the Main Ideas and Themes that will develop throughout a theoretical hanzawa to tashiro. this includes but is not limited to tashiro’s exploration of gender. this is in contrast to how I’d argue the festival functions in sasaki to miyano, where it is the like. Realization Point for the whole story? after chapters upon chapters of miyano dissecting his relationship with sasaki, he finally… overlaps with him, literally, in their inner thoughts. it’s an obvious requiting of feelings—what the series has been building up to since the start. on the other hand, I see this festival more like the “do you want to kiss him?” [ch 6, hirano to kagiura] question of hirano to kagiura—it’s what catapults the hanzawa to tashiro story into action. 

but before we get to that: what are hanzawa and tashiro up to in the previous year’s festival?  

when the beauty contest is first brought up, there’s a couple of outfit suggestions thrown forward: sailor outfit, blazer, temple priestess (I assume this is a miko, though I’m unsure of what’s said in the original japanese), and a teacher uniform. not much to say regarding this—it’s a pretty quick moment that illustrates what some common choices could be. (love hanzawa by the way for being like hm. maybe we need to question these guys to make sure they’re not developing a biased view of women [ch 19, sasaki to miyano])

as for how all this crossdressing is facilitated, hanzawa masato has a big sister who cosplays [ch 19, sasaki to miyano]. we know he also has two brothers who are gay and like that’s why it’s like. carry on the family line… this is something you’ll feel so normal about. no worries. that interests me. first off: masato middle child having crazy elder sibling vibes to everyone else makes him so interesting. he’s just like me for real. it does make me wonder like… huh, doesn’t he have a big sister to also possibly carry on the family line…? but I suppose she would likely change her last name if she ever got married. still that’s an interesting dimension to the entire situation. the idea of his big sister cosplaying is also so good because it means that every sibling masato has is kind of quirky. I mean I personally don’t imagine masato’s big sister as a secretive cosplayer if she’s lending her stuff out like this. so the image of hanzawa masato being his freakish (affectionate) dyed hair secret piercings normal self around his siblings who are like very out and about with their eccentricities (only eccentric as it compares to “normal” societal ideals, of course) compels me. 

next detail I want to harp on about: the scene where tashiro is stunned by kuresawa in a wig [ch 22, sasaki to miyano] like. Gets Me. because as far as I can tell there, kuresawa is not doing anything but wearing a wig and not wearing his glasses (which, to be fair, can make one nigh unrecognizable. I used to win staring contests by taking off my glasses bc ppl would be so surprised by my face they’d blink). and this beauty contest, along with earlier chapters, make the point that even though miyano looks quite cute, he is not exactly feminine to the point of being like a standard girl. when hanzawa’s helping him with the kimono, he’s like. ah this was a good choice. kuresawa was a given, but you’ve got pretty broad shoulders, too. [ch 22, sasaki to miyano] so we see affirmations of miyano’s masculinity here. the point of this is that tashiro sees what he assumes to be a cute girl improbably in an all-boys school, and immediately goes up to say hi, even though this cute girl is taller than him and also just kuresawa in a wig. what this says to me is that the Lines of Gender are much blurrier for tashiro than they are for miyano, which interests me.

(will not comment on the way miyano reacts to the situation like. please stop telling me abt this or I will have bl fantasies. and how imagining tashiro in one is a "little too easy" [ch 22, sasaki to miyano] like. I think this says what it says)

tashiro is actually so gender this festival. he’s has fun discussing what his “female name” would be and it’s literally just gon-chan, which is not a different reading or a replacing part of the name with “ko,” it is just a shortened version of his name + -chan. and miyano’s like you’re way too accepting of this. [ch 24.5, sasaki to miyano] once again, they contrast each other: tashiro is somewhat interested in this whole affair while miyano wants to be completely separate from it. part of that is due to miyano being hyper-aware of his lack of masculine features and therefore specifically against crossing any sort of gender boundaries—this is evident in how kuresawa is also much more chill about the experience, but while tashiro is also chill, unlike kuresawa he seems genuinely invested and even delighted? 

this is further compounded by the scene post-festival where shirahama wants to be not-single for christmas and then tashiro goes. want me to crossdress...? [ch 28, sasaki to miyano] like okay. tashiro’s offer is indicating that maybe he’s still thinking about the beauty contest in a way that others maybe didn’t. also how he assumes this is like. Functionally Equivalent or at least a Salve to shirahama lacking a girlfriend… do u see the #girl inherent here. the blurring of tashiro’s gender. in this same scene, miyano is then surprised by how unfazed tashiro is about the concept of sasaki and miyano dating. it’s a fun contrast to shirahama many chapters later who is unsure if they’re even supposed to discuss their relationship in public [ch 42, sasaki to miyano]. 

we learn a lot about hanzawa around this time, too. the festival and proceeding chapters are when we learn of hanzawa’s brothers, his joking-but-not-really pressure to carry on the family line, and specifically, a very illuminating conversation he has with his older brother—where he blurts out "i wish you'd stop bringing every conversation around to romance!" [ch 28, sasaki to miyano] 

I would say that this, by far, is the most outwardly emotional we ever see hanzawa masato get. and it’s such an interesting sentiment, because hanzawa clearly does have an interest in romance—“I sensed someone was having relationship troubles, so I came running” and “I do enjoy stories of other people, so long as I don’t get caught up in any displays of jealousy” [both from ch 38, sasaki to miyano] and really, his whole demeanor in hirano to kagiura where he’s carefully watching their relationship to the point that he recognizes the specific ringtone kagiura is coded to on hirano’s phone. [ch 39, sasaki to miyano] miyano literally points this out in his head in the actual chapter hanzawa has this outburst. hanzawa masato clearly likes romance—I think he just doesn’t like it when it’s applied to himself. [see: this post by @dirtbra1n for further reading]

tashiro also has an awkward relationship with romance. once sasaki and miyano get together for real, tashiro asks what their dates are like (“normal stuff”) and then asks what kuresawa and his gf’s dates are like (“normal stuff”) and gets frustrated because like, what does that even mean, right? [ch 33, sasaki to miyano] note the way tashiro draws no real line of differentiation between kuresawa and miyano’s relationships in this conversation, even though in his frustrated outburst, he bemoans the lack of a girlfriend in specific (at least in the translation I’m working off of)—I genuinely feel like the lines of gender and sexuality are fairly blurred for tashiro and he just hasn’t noticed it. we then hear that the one time he’d been to a group date he was so nervous he’d forgotten the entire ordeal. (man and he goes to one again and makes fun of shiarahama for being the only one who didn’t get a girlfriend out of it even though he also didn't get one. [ch 43, sasaki to miyano]) so like, with tashiro’s lack of experience and hanzawa’s general avoidance, I think they could be weird about romance… together. [see: this post by @dirtbra1n which encapsulates what makes the concept fun]

it’s telling to me that hanzawa’s outburst is about romantic pressure, while the clarification that comes after where he says not gay and is attracted to women is a much more minor conversation. I don’t think hanzawa is purposefully lying here—I think, for him, it’s easy enough to say he’s attracted to women, simply because he’s not yet attracted to anyone, and sticking to the “default” is easy enough. like he says here, he enjoys spending time with his friends. and I think it’s obvious, the way hanzawa loves his friends, the way he’s always looking after them and worrying about their relationships, and the way he gives advice. (imagine throwing “I don’t get involved with women I don’t intend to marry” [ch 21.5, sasaki to miyano] ogasawara at hanzawa tho. I think the results would be hysterical.)

a really fun detail in this conversation: his brother says he hangs out with a lot of girls but doesn’t date any of them, which is partially why he’d suspected hanzawa was gay. during the festival, while hirano and hanzawa are chatting, hanzawa mentions asking his female friends for information on their taste, and hirano is like oh… not your girlfriend? and refers to a girl named kaede, who hanzawa refers to as just a friend. [ch 27.5, sasaki to miyano] at the movies, hanzawa’s with someone when he spots sasaki and miyano on a movie date—and she calls him masato-kun! [ch 27, sasaki to miyano] I don’t think this is his big sister since she’d be more likely to call him maa-kun, and the color of this girl’s hair isn’t the same screentone as the rest of the hanzawa family. this isn’t like super relevant analysis-wise but like. I’m taking notes so I can work her into hanzawa to tashiro. the fact that there are these girls hanzawa is friends with that we basically never see (harusono show us the forbidden women) does remind me of that one time miyano and ogasawara discuss hanzawa’s number of clones [ch 27, sasaki to miyano] and it’s like… yeah, he’s leading so many separate lives. 

that’s about all I wanted to touch on regarding previous events, so now I can talk about the prospective hanzawa to tashiro festival and specifically, tashiro’s experience with the beauty contest that year. 

the options presented in the poll mentioned earlier were: a sailor style uniform, a kimono, and a maid uniform, with some variations on presentation for each outfit. I think maid uniforms are boring so no comments there. in hanzawa to tashiro it would be brought up as a suggestion once and then get shut down, probably. the kimono was done by miyano last year, and I doubt anyone is raring to compare themselves against him, because miyano was pretty good, competition-wise. tashiro brings up the idea of doing a sort of, idol-outfit, because I have made up the idea in my head that while he’s not wildly into them, tashiro probably appreciates the cute & bright idol aesthetic as well as their clear voices. 

“idol outfits are complicated,” someone will say. “how’s anyone even gonna pull that off?” 

and tashiro, unthinking, will reply, “ah… you’re right! last year hanzawa-senpai helped us out, but what are we gonna do this year?” the class has turned to stare at him. “...what?” 

“hey, tashiro… you’d make an okay girl, wouldn’t you?” 

shirahama had brought it up (half-joking, half-knowing because he’d been in the same middle school as tashiro and there were just ways you knew things when you had been around someone long enough) when they were trying to figure out who would participate earlier, and tashiro hadn’t—disagreed, necessarily. besides, miyano was firmly against participating again, and kuresawa was in a different class, and though they’d gotten sidetracked by the discussions of what outfits would look best, well—tashiro had been a pretty decent option in the end, hadn’t he? 

and it’s convenient, anyways. tashiro’s close with hanzawa and could totally ask him for a favor. if tashiro goes to message hanzawa, he’ll see that they texted just two days ago. hanzawa had been such a reliable force as a third year—even now, he’d probably be happy to help one of his dear kouhais, wouldn’t he? 

in the face of all of that, tashiro objects not to joining the beauty contest but rather the idea of bothering hanzawa when he shouldn’t. and technically tashiro is always bothering hanzawa over text when he thinks of something random and messages him about it, but there’s a difference between that and taking so much of hanzawa’s precious time. but at the insistence of his classmates he concedes that at the very least, he’ll ask, and when he does, hanzawa agrees. this would be a surprise if tashiro did not know that hanzawa was always that nice, even when he was being kind of mean. 

once the Reality of doing the beauty contest sets in, I think tashiro would agree: idol outfits are complicated. if he’s doing this, he’d like his outfit to be something that isn’t a pain to wear. (for anyone who believes in an alternate universe where he does go with an idol outfit, go wild with it. this is but one of many paths) they can’t quite settle on an outfit yet that day, and like he’s reading their minds, hanzawa suggests that tashiro simply. invite himself over and decide that way. the class leaves tashiro with strict instructions to text their festival groupchat for final approval, and that’s… that. tashiro’s a little worried about how much time he’s taking up in the precious hours of the day hanzawa has, but he’s not… complaining, really.

before he meets up with hanzawa, tashiro and kuresawa probably end up talking about the festival. kuresawa’s probably not doing it this time, as I think he did it last year to support miyano more than anything else. I mean, he was the entire reason an understudy existed the previous year. “there’s no tasuko for you to fall for, unfortunately,” kuresawa says in the driest voice possible, and tashiro contemplates strangling him but like, only in a slapstick sense. even in his imaginations he’s not capable of great violence. but he does hope that gon-chan will look better than tasuko, at the very least. 

so the day arrives and they try on a couple of outfits that either hanzawa or tashiro suggest, but none of them look quite right or some of them are hard to judge since tashiro can’t even fit into them, and even the ones that he does fit into would need to be adjusted. after he’s tried on a miko outfit they both remember miyano’s kimono, and so they dig that out and try it on, and obviously they can’t reuse to same outfit as last year, but it’s then that tashiro remembers. hey. isn’t the sailor uniform kuresawa wore here? because I imagine post-festival, hanzawa simply took the costumes back since they were his sister’s. (insert nozaki cursing the fact that he’s not a bishounen and can’t wear sailor uniforms here. actually very seriously if you want delightful poking fun at shoujo romance tropes and just the most bisexual cast ever u should read gekkan shoujo nozaki kun.) 

and tashiro tries it on and it like. fits pretty well! the shoulders are maybe a bit broader than they need to be, but it rests on his frame in a way that feels like he’s actually in the correct clothing. and it needs some minor adjustments, but it’s comfortable, just like he wanted. and hanzawa is laughing all of a sudden and tashiro is a little defensive, because hanzawa says, “tashiro-kun, that doesn’t suit you at all,” and tashiro says, “what is that supposed to mean?” even though he knows the answer is probably that he’s grown taller [ch 33.6, sasaki to miyano] (at this current moment, he has forgotten that hanzawa’s sister is hanzawa’s height [ch 22, sasaki to miyano]) and at that point, it means that he probably just looks silly… but hanzawa instead says, “ah. don’t you think you look kind of like a delinquent? that dyed hair and that black and red sailor uniform… it’s certainly not a pure image, is it?”

“do I seem pure usually?” tashiro asks, breathing a little easier already. 

“sometimes,” hanzawa says. “only when you’re an idiot.” and before tashiro can get too mad hanzawa inspects the outfit for a while longer and tells him, “a dramatic image change… that could be fun. you said it’s comfortable, so that’s a bonus—maybe keep wearing it while we look at some other outfits? so you’ll notice if anything is wrong with it while your classmates discuss.”

so tashiro snaps a quick selfie and is fake-aggrieved about hanzawa calling him a delinquent, and the class groupchat realizes that while miyano had flubbed his script lines a little the last time, tashiro was far less self-conscious and they could go all out on concept, which meant that he was just wearing a sailor uniform at this moment, but he could absolutely be like. a high school girl rockstar. it’s not like we’d win based on your face alone, someone would text, and tashiro would be a little annoyed about it but pleased at the way hanzawa had looked pleased, anyways. hanzawa was right about the colors not suiting him, too. maybe a brighter color…? that wouldn’t fit the concept they’d decided on, but he still knows he’d look better in a different color. but either way, it seems like the outfit’s good, so he can change back to his normal clothes.

so that’s my explanation as to how, exactly, a “sailor style uniform (black & red)” would work. I’ve provided the means and the method. but like… conceptually, why is a black & red sailor uniform (possibly) the best choice?

my argument starts with the joy of a sailor uniform in general. unlike a lot of other possibilities, it's an outfit that is casual and fun and comfortable, so tashiro would feel fairly natural in it. at this very moment, under this context, it's a Costume, but for a girl attending school, it could just be her everyday outfit. and that’s good in comparison to something like a maid outfit, which feels more obvious in its construction as a performance. but if you wear something that is kind of an everyday outfit, it blurs the lines between what's Real and what is being Performed, right? 

the reason I prefer (black & red) over (white & blue) is that black and red is a bit of an... unusual color scheme, as I had hanzawa point out for me. as I outlined above, it gives the class a Concept to latch onto, and a reason for tashiro to wear something that’s a bit simple yet have that be his entry for the beauty contest. shirahama 100% writes the script section. I believe in his gal game experience. so black and red pushes the outfit more into costuming territory and gives the believability of a Performance, but it also does so in a way that centers the Performance on like, tashiro having a kind of edge that he usually doesn’t, not on him actually crossdressing. 

so this gives a third year tashiro both the space to explore gender while being partially in denial about it if needed. and the fact that he can do both will actually force him into making More Realizations about his gender, I think, because if it’s meant to be easy to deny something but it’s hard for you, well… what does that say about yourself? tashiro here is also fulfilling one of harusono’s favorite character things, where there’s a "bad boy that absolutely is not a bad boy" with tashiro’s pudding hair and delinquent concept. I also think he’d pierce his ears later as a gender thing so he’d really fit with that, then. 

I touched on this a little above but I truly believe that at some point, tashiro looks at himself and thinks that the colors don’t really suit him, and thinks that if he was picking out a version of this outfit just for himself, he’d change the colors to what he liked, and then come to the realization that the skirt is actually not like, the reason he feels odd in this outfit. for the other poll options of kimono and maid I’ve already touched on why I’m not too interested in them (done by miyano before + feels a little too tropey)

also I want tashiro to be sharp and black and red because he is so often spring green. simply for the image of it and nothing else. I want to see this come alive alongside the image of hanzawa staring at his reflection in the river, bleeding out, water colored partially with strange-pink-red blood masking his face from himself. whatever. I just have a need to position tashiro on this swath of blues like a sharp shock.

much love to @sunnnfish for bringing up the fact that a sailor style uniform, is, well, a sailor style uniform—it has a built-in connection to the water! which is wonderful, because hanzawa is partially being drowned by a river [see: this post by @dirtbra1n which elaborates a little on the river metaphor] and tashiro is. well. in this concept, he’s a sailor, which makes the opposing ways they interact with the idea of the river so interesting. hanzawa is like an anchor without a ship. sinking to rest at the bottom, dead and forgotten. but tie an anchor to a ship and it transforms from just a dead weight into something brilliantly useful. hanzawa is transformed too, I think, when he’s able to be useful. when he can care for his friends. 

as you can see, I couldn’t think of an “other (elaborate) (please)” option that would win over that sailor style outfit, because the moment I saw kuresawa wearing it, I felt like it was fate. however I do have some different outfit suggestions and possible directions in terms of what to do with them… in my mind these are just various things hanzawa gets tashiro to try on before they settle on the sailor outfit. I like the idea of an idol outfit—that’s why it’s a suggestion that tashiro gives before rejecting it, and the concept tashiro’s playing in the beauty contest is a kind of idol-esque figure, just not one with with all the frills. and I mentioned both a miko outfit and a kimono outfit as stuff tashiro tried on, mostly just because: 

hanzawa masato doesn’t like sundays. the shrine won’t be performing any exorcisms today. to be more specific, the miko that greets him feels his forehead with a warm hand and decides that he’s in good health. he doesn’t want her to know how little he values her judgment, so he bows to offer a prayer instead. [i of iii: ghosts, by @dirtbra1n] 

and

it’s night now, and everything that was green is either dark orange or blood red. dim and damp alleyways run jaggedly between impersonal skyscrapers and crumbling, very old storefronts. gonzaburou’s scared as hell about it. it’s all really cool. he’s standing on damp cobblestone, staring down at his scattered reflection. his hair is loose, and his roots have grown out way more than he likes. a dark kimono hangs loose off his frame. he frowns. [ii of iii: blood in the water, by @dirtbra1n]

and 

masato turns his head, creaky like a wooden doll. “…tashiro-kun.” kimono-clad, he offers a hand. “you’re not face first in muck this time.” [iii of iii: funeral arrangements, by @dirtbra1n]

since these outfits / images appear in hanzawa’s dreamscape I would personally love to mess with him and have the lines of reality to blur sooo badly for him. if I used these posts as a springboard I think it could be very fun in terms of balancing the wild metaphors hanzawa is living between and tashiro’s very Present self. I do think there is a universe where one of these ends up being the main choice and there’s a wonderful dive into it imagery-wise.

moving past the beauty contest, I fully believe the actual activity their class is doing a haunted house. I have a need for hanzawa masato to be inflicted by metaphorical ghosts along with crude ghost costumes. like I want him to experience the horrors while besieged by the tame horrors of an earnestly-created haunted house. the thought consumes me. 

way earlier, I said that I thought this festival would be a great launchpad in terms of really starting to explore and develop the main themes in hanzawa to tashiro. I think I’ve illustrated a lot of that just with what I’ve touched on above but… I’ll elaborate some more, here.

to me this festival brings up pretty much all of the main points that I think I’d want to address in a prospective hanzawa to tashiro: front and center is obviously the roots of exploring tashiro’s gender—him being older now, I assume that his hair, though slow growing, is growing, and I think if he let it down it would be… not long, but longer than would be seen as “normal”? so I think they would just style his real hair for the festival, which again blurs the lines of what’s real and what’s just a performance. his hair would be mostly brown with those blond tips, still, and when teased about how long it had gotten he’d sheepishly explain to hanzawa-senpai that every time he thought about dyeing it again he could hear hanzawa scolding him. and he didn’t want to go and trim the blond parts because, well. that would be boring. and hanzawa would laugh again only it would be a little softer and he’d say, “well, that’s very you, tashiro-kun,” and maybe he’d twirl a strand of it around his fingers, the blond tips bleach-brittle. 

and I think that the eventual “I really need to cut it some time…” comment, the beauty contest, the casual way the outfit had settled on his shoulders, the way the only thing that had felt out-of-character was the color of the outfit and the script his classmates had written… I think it would get tashiro questioning, a little. maybe he’d ask, again, how many piercings hanzawa had gotten, and even with no proper answer, decide to get his own. and while the piercings healed he would notice, when stores sold earrings, and then pick a few pairs out for himself. wear them on a casual day out. 

but before that, tashiro would be hanging out with hanzawa during the festival, and they’d be interacting within the framework of that familiar school even though hanzawa was now in university, but they’d also be interacting within the bounds of a school festival, which is an interesting mix of public and private that would really force someone to consider the way that they’re seen. the beauty contest would do the same. and so hanzawa would be hyper-aware of the idea of masks, and so, too, would tashiro. in his third year, hanzawa played fortune teller without a bad boy outfit because it had unsettled the rest of his class. [ch 26, sasaki to miyano] he probably has the most piercings out of all of them… not that he would let anyone know the number [second year novel illustrations and extras, sasaki to miyano (I spent way too long looking for this. in this same category kuresawa says ‘tashiro bought a gun’ and offers no further context) ]. but you can’t put hanzawa masato into a bad boy outfit and have it work, because he’s already performing a role, and I don’t think he knows how to switch out of it. 

and this same person is in university now, which is a very interesting place to be, because you’re still in school, but expected to be an Adult, which means he’s definitely being crushed by both the expectation of what he’s meant to do as well as the expectation that he should be doing things with more freedom than ever before. my mother once told me a story about a boy who is the son of the ship’s captain. and when it’s sinking, he waits patiently until the captain tells him what to do, and the ship is saved. she was told this same story when she was about to graduate high school, and this time, the boy drowned because he couldn’t think for himself. how confusing, to be expected to change the way you think so suddenly, she told me, and I think the same applies to hanzawa. 

and hanzawa, after devoting time to a festival that he’s no longer part of, would see tashiro in his element—helping out other classes, chatting up strangers, interacting with everyone with ease and being likable, the way he is naturally, the way hanzawa masato wakes up feeling like he’s forcing himself to be, knowing that the real thing in front of him is like this, unmatched—  

see, tashiro gets in extra practice with ping pong because there’s a table at a bathhouse on the way home. he’s charmed the older folks there so he helps out with cleaning, plays ping pong with them, and gets snacks in return. [ch 33, sasaki to miyano] one time he’d dragged hanzawa there and they’d had a nice bit of extra practice, but hanzawa doesn’t remember the ping pong as much as he remembers the way tashiro had so easily fit into conversation with everyone there, the way he was so clearly and plainly adored— 

hanzawa sees all of that, and then tashiro turns towards him and worries if hanzawa’s doing too much work. if he’s stretching himself thin, being here. if there’s anything he can do to help. and hanzawa would tell him, “you’re right, this does make me busier… but I like this kind of work.” and tashiro would know, plainly and truly, that hanzawa masato liked being around people. that he desired it, even. how embarrassing. I do think it would push hanzawa somewhere—the change he’s witnessing in tashiro and the way their relationship functions, even as they talk like normal. all of this happening in a space where there are crowds milling about and people hanzawa doesn’t know—both those from outside the school and all of the first years he has never met.

hanzawa would be sweet and sour in the way tashiro describes him [ch 33, sasaki to miyano] and it would be the same but feel different. like even the sour parts had their own kind of saccharine edge. maybe after tashiro changed back into his regular clothes, it felt strange to just leave, so he gets hanzawa to take him around his university. and maybe he meets kaede or some of hanzawa’s university friends and is reminded of hanzawa’s seventeen dual lives or however many there are at this point, and—wants. strangely. to—not even to be in every one of those spheres. but to know him better. 

it’s not like hanzawa changed much after graduation, it’s just that… tashiro is looking at him more, now. 

his class would lose the beauty contest, and tashiro would look at his sailor outfit and say, “it’s really not my color, anyways,” and hanzawa would hum in agreement. “you’re much more suited to spring greens, tashiro,” he’d say, and tashiro would huff a small laugh and say, “of course you know my favorite color,” and see if hanzawa was in a good enough mood to tell him was his favorite color was, too.

(and maybe, in the midst of all of this, tashiro is thinking about that damn water bottle he still has—the one hanzawa had told him to keep, the year before. there was something else that was being bottled here, too. sometime later they’d learn how to unscrew the cap.)

[stllmnstr]

How do you write so well?? Your writing is so so beautiful!!! Any tips?

Oh this is so sweet 😭😭 First of all, thank you! I don’t feel like I have any particularly revolutionary advice to give, but these would be my main points:

1. Practice!!! Write. A lot. I posted my first fanfic in 2017 and had already been writing a lot before that, including original stories, poetry, and just about anything else I could think of. From what I’ve seen, I definitely skew on the older side of enha writers on tumblr, so please remember to be patient and gentle with yourself, especially if you’re young and/or newer to writing. The stuff I was writing at 16 certainly doesn’t read like the stuff I write now, but all of that practice helped me to get there. Writing is hard. I think it always will be. But give yourself grace and keep at it, and you’ll only keep getting better.

2. Read!!! There are so many great authors out there that do amazing, innovative, exciting things with words. I always feel inspired to write after I read a really great book, and reading will also strengthen your vocabulary, grammar, and sense of personal style/voice.

3. Let your writing be “bad” !!!! I very rarely reread stories after I post them, because every time I do, I find at least twenty things I want to change. 😭 Writing and words are a living thing, and there’s absolutely a certain amount of subjectivity to what makes writing “good.” There’s always going to be room from improvement, and you’re always going to be able to find something to nitpick or criticize if that’s the perspective you take. Fanfiction in particular is great, because if your story is something you’re excited about, there’s a 99.99% chance that other people will be excited about it too. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Take that pressure off of yourself, and enjoy the process. Use the experience and the feedback and the practice to write something even better the next time around.

4. Develop a strong editing routine. This is probably the most technical and specific point, but I think it gets overlooked. My first drafts look a LOT different from what I post, usually. I don’t remember where I found this tip, but my writing changed for the better when I started rewriting all/most of my story as part of the editing process. Literally, once I finish a draft, I’ll open a new document and will retype most/all of it, changing things as I go. This helps me to catch little errors and also to improve the overall flow and pacing of a story. I recommend trying it if you haven’t! Like I said before, a lot of “good” writing is subjective, but editing is where you improve the more objective aspects. Making sure that things like grammar, word choice, sentence variation, and general plot are solid will absolutely strengthen your writing.

5. This last tip is actually more for readers: INTERACT!!!!! Reblog, comment, send asks, scream in the tags!!!! Do all of the above!!!! Writing is a long, difficult process, and it takes a lot of effort to post a story. It’s especially hard when you’re new. Like I mentioned above, I posted my first fanfic almost seven years ago, and the only reason I kept posting more was because people interacted with my work and took the time to tell me that they enjoyed it. If you want to read better writing, if you want to read longer stories, if you want more stories to read in general, give writers the incentive to write! I love writing. I really do. But it takes a lot of time and effort, and it’s a labor of love. Posting a story feels a bit like shouting into the void. At the end of the day, your interactions are what make it worth it for myself and a lot of others that publish in the fanfic space. If you’re a writer that is struggling to get any kind of interaction/feedback, a good place to start can be connecting with other writers and building a little community! It will help tumblr (or wherever you write) to not feel so lonely. Plus, having writer friends is a wonderful way to share your woes and get inspiration.

At the end of the day, I think that genuinely enjoying writing is half the battle. If you’re already there, that means you like words. You like stories. You like putting puzzle pieces together and making characters come to life. Liking those things is where it all starts, so keep at it, trust the process, and the rest will follow. 🤍

[moonshine-nightlight]

2023 Writing/Stories Look-Forward

thanks to everyone who's read and liked and commented and tagged and sent in asks for my writing this year!

today i sat down to sketch out a vague--and definitely not set in stone plan for 2023--and I thought i'd share it with you guys, from a very high level and with the caveat that it will likely not be followed to the letter as i always inevitably bite off more than i can chew

but i lik to shoot high! lol so here's what i've got

Main goal: finishing the first draft of Nothing's Wrong with Dale and getting it all posted. this is the goal i'm most confident about and will lik, cannibalize other parts of my plan to achieve. i also have some like bonus offshoots for Dale, but those will likely get posted after the story is over and so are not part of the plan

Short Story goals: I plan to finish both Selfish (f!naga) and Free Piano: Haunted (m!spirit). I want to put out my Sci-Fi oneshot Snapped (m!alien) and the three part Seen (f!deity) - both of which i posted sneak peeks of a little while ago for that 'WIPs u didn't finish this year' ask meme.

Then it gets a little fuzzy - i'll either do two shorter 5 parts fics (both with winged monsters f&m) or one longer fic (probably Goddaughter or Quid Pro Quo - both m!demon fics), depending on what i'm feeling like for lik April-May ish. My summer fic will be about a runalong. In the fall/winter, I'll post the rest of Free Piano: Haunted and Feral (f!hellhound).

Choosing these from all my ideas was super hard, but I think i'm happy with what i picked (and all are technically subject to change).

At least, that's the plan.

As far as the short term, i plan to finish off some shorter things now (Selfish, Snapped, and Seen - idk y they all start with 'S' lol) in January. After that February and March are literally the busiest time of year for me at work and this will not be an easy busy season so I might literally post nothing (which is another reason that part of my plan is so up in the air). I will be working a minimum of 6 days a week, 55 hours a week - likely more than that so my brain will not be up for much writing during that time.

Hiatus: Last year I was able to keep posting Nothing's Wrong with Dale for some of January, but that's not going to be the case this year - putting up half of the next 4 part arc and then not finishing it until April would be unfair imo - both to you for the cliffhanger and to me because i will be able to write them far better if i write all oft he at once/in a row. So no more Dale until April, I'm afraid. The only reason I'll be able to post some of the other things at all in January is because most of them are already partially done where as next Dale is not started.

Feel free to send in any asks about upcoming/current stories! Happy New Year!

(please note that this is me, if anything, overestimating how much I'll be able to write and asking me to change my mind about say, Dale, to be more frequent etc will not work)

[bedofthistles]

The Little White Horse: Robin Minette

In continuation with my analysis of the novel, the Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge, I want to cover the characters and the main themes of both the book and the movie.

Here's my thoughts and opinions on Robin De Noir and Robin Minette, two wildly different characters

TL;DR

My enemy. 

My beloathed. 

The one I despise! 

This boy is insane, he is the definition of toxic masculinity, he’s only a child and already he sucks, and I know for a fact he will never get better because he is never punished for his actions. 

And what did he do wrong? 

Well first I would like to remind you all of my beautiful, wonderful, fantastic, baby-eyed Robin De Noir. I have no idea how we got Robin De Noir out of Robin Minette, but I am forever grateful. 

For starters, Robin De Noir takes the place of Mr. Cock in LWH. Where Mr. Cock has trapped the hare, Robin De Noir has, where Maria gets chased by Mr. Cock in the book, she gets chased by Robin De Noir in the movies (and yes, technically the Coeur De Noir and all of the De Noirs are chasing after her as well), where Maria and Mr. Cock run through the forest so she can show him the White Horse, she and Robin De Noir run through the forest in search of the pearls. Additionally, he is no longer Robin Minette, Loveday Minette’s son, but the son of the Coeur De Noir, and Loveday’s brother. 

One, this change is already ten times more dynamic. Throughout the book, we are only told that the De Noirs are wicked, and it isn’t until Maria’s last minute change of heart about them that suddenly they aren’t. Those poor people are demonized in the book, and are not given any sympathy. Now I hear you saying, the movie was the same! They were evil until Maria decided she needed Robin’s help! 

I need you to go back and give Augustus Prew his due, because that boy acted his ass off. I don’t think I’ll be able to go over all of his exemplary acting choices, and I may make a separate post for that, but that will require gifs and screengrabs. Anyway! There are several scenes that show us, the audience, that Robin De Noir is just a boy who is trying his damnedest to make his father proud of him. We see this when the Coeur De Noir calls him a ‘dolt’ after the rabbit trap, and you can see his face just fall, he is devastated, not that he lost the princess, but that he disappointed his father. 

We also see this when Robin quickly decides to help Maria. The very first time I watched this, I didn’t really understand his reasoning, but once I started thinking about it (probably about the time I started writing fic and needed to get inside of his head) I realized that he is fundamentally good, just born on the wrong side of the valley. Robin chooses the Valley over his father, he chooses to help Maria despite not even fully trusting her, he is beside her until the very end because he knows she is doing the right thing, because he loves the Valley and wants to save it. So, despite what we are told about the De Noirs (as by sir Benjamin, who calls them bandits, poachers, and plunderers) we know from visual cues, Robin De Noir’s desperation to be a good son, and his choices at the end, that the De Noirs are not purely wicked. 

Robin Minette on the other hand can die on a stick. Robin and Loveday Minette are actually a part of the Merryweather family (more on that later) and are not associated with the De Noirs at all. 

So what are all of Robin M’s sins? 

Well, if you’ve heard about the bird theory, it is the simple idea that when you call out “oh look, a bird!” the response of your partner/friend/companion should be “where!” Not because they are necessarily interested in the bird (though they should be) but because you are interested in the bird. The logic being that the person will listen to whatever random, boring, stupid thing you’re saying because they are interested in you, and are not looking at you as a source of entertainment. It’s a very simple, and beautiful concept, that shows a person who is interested in you, is interested in you! 

Robin Minette is not interested in Maria. 

I say this because in the book we are told multiple times that whenever Maria asks too many questions, Robin just walks away. He does not answer, or even asks her to stop, when he is astral projecting into Maria’s dreams, he just leaves the dream and wakes up. Again, this is in conjecture with one of Goudge’s morals: female curiosity is of the Devil. 

“All my life, Robin, I'll always tell you all about everything." “And I'll tell you," said Robin. “If I didn't you'd ask me so many questions that life would not be worth living."

This is not an okay lesson to teach to children, any boy or girl should not be learning that her voice does not matter, that her questions should be squashed, and that curiosity is a bad thing. I genuinely have no idea where Goudge got this idea from, other than it is just a very old and misogynist viewpoint. It’s not even Christian, as scripture encourages followers to study, and yes that includes women. 

I don’t think it is a harsh stance to take that a character who walks away from another while they are talking, is not interested, or in love with that character. Maybe possessive, but not in love, and it's certainly not the kind of love anyone should be idolizing. 

Furthermore, like most entitled men, Robin Minette has anger issues. I don’t want to quote the entire section, but I can post it somewhere because it is absolutely insane. 

After Robin and Maria defended Paradise Hill from the De Noirs, they go back to his house. Since it was raining, they had to change out of their wet clothes. For whatever reason, Loveday Minette decides to put her old wedding dress (that she never wore because she ran away) on Maria. 

Maria loves it, and asks if it can be her wedding dress, and Loveday M says yes. 

When Maria joins Robin in the kitchen so they can have tea, Robin asks what that is. 

“It's my wedding dress. I'm trying it on to see if it fits." "Are you going to be married?" asked Robin sharply, his munching jaws suddenly still. “Of course," said Maria, reaching for the cream. “You didn't expect me to be an old maid, did you?" “Are you being married today?" demanded Robin. “Of course she isn't being married today, Robin. She isn't old enough to be married yet. But when she is married she will wear that dress." [Loveday] “When you do marry, whom will you marry?" Robin asked Maria. Maria swallowed the last of her bread and cream and honey, put her head on one side and stirred her tea thoughtfully. “I have not quite decided yet," she said demurely, “but I think I shall marry a boy I knew in London." “What?" yelled Robin. “Marry some mincing nincompoop of a Londoner with silk stockings and pomade in his hair and a face like a Cheshire cheese?" The parkin stuck in his gullet and he choked so violently that Loveday had to pat him on the back and pour him out a fresh cup of tea. When he spoke again his face was absolutely scarlet, not only with the choke but with rage and jealousy and exasperation. “You dare do such a thing!" he exploded. "You--Maria --you-- if you marry a London man I'll wring his neck!"

Now, you’ll notice three things here: 

One, the fate of all Moon Princess’ is to get in a fight with her love, and if she doesn’t humble herself, she’ll be forced to leave Moonacre. This is something Maria knows at this point. 

Two, Robin is a thirteen, fourteen year old boy displaying this much anger, possessiveness, and audacity. This is not something he is punished for, and he gets away with this behavior. 

Three, his mother is right there???? And her chief concern is: 

“Robin," said his mother, “that's not at all the way to propose. You should go down on one knee and do it in a very gentle voice."  

Ma’am your son is a maniac and you’re giving him tips on how to propose properly? 

Now, I want to swing back to my first point. To state it very plainly, this is one of the reasons as to why people stay in abusive relationships for so long. Maria knows that if she and Robin hadn’t made up right then and there, she would have to leave Moonacre. This language and ideology puts the blame on the victim’s shoulders, making the victim feel as if they have to be the one to make amends, to fix what is broken, and appease the abuser. This is the cycle of abuse that is seen time and time again, and while Goudge does not frame this as an ideal relationship we can gather that based on all that Maria has learned, it is her job to keep the peace. 

Am I calling Robin Minette an abuser? Yes, yes I am. 

Maria immediately forgives his behavior, Loveday is obviously okay with it, because she does nothing to stop him or scold him, and Goudge obviously sees this as okay male behavior. 

It's preposterous and yet this book is only eighty years old, we can obviously see people who behave this way, and we all know people who are like this. However, I think we have finally pivoted to presenting this behavior as abusive in media and art. Too often we think of abuse as just physical, but so often it is emotional, financial, and sexual, and the consequence of that mentality is people suffering abuse thinking that they aren’t because they don’t get black eyes. 

Here, I would also like to mention the BBC miniseries, Moonacre. The Miniseries is boring, it’s praised for being a more direct adaptation of the book, however they do make some major changes, especially to the plot. They add this thing about the ‘Blackheart’s’ having their water supply being cut off, all their wells are saturated with saltwater, and they blame Sir Wrolf for cutting off a pipe that would lead freshwater back into the valley. In this, we do get Loveday and Robin (still mother and son) as De Noirs. Loveday is the direct descendant of Black William, and despite teaching her son to hate the Blackhearts, he is also a De Noir. Robin Minette in this movie is boring, he doesn’t get mad at Maria for asking questions, but all he really does is show up at convenient times to save her from the Blackhearts. He’s fine, he’s not as problematic as Robin in LWH, but his character is not as compelling as Robin De Noir in TSOM.

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Full wedding dress excerpt

[variousqueerthings]

so we're at the final double-episode of the rtd run *wipes brow*

look I'm biased. I'm sure we're all biased in terms of which era we started in, whether it was nu!who or classic!who pre-post rtd... but it's just such a good run. it just is:

obviously brought doctor who successfully back to life and returned it to its status of one of the most iconic pieces of television of all time

updated it to a 21st century storytelling format and audience, with a focus on the companion as the lens through which the show was introduced and the fact that the doctor needs them on a deep, fundamental level that echoes back and gives depth to some classic companions that maybe never got their proper dues within the show, and ripples forwards right into 13's run with bringing classic companions back!

emotional follow-through, with one long arc spanning from season 1 until the next regeneration. I've heard/seen some people think that ten near the end, and especially in the last episode, is self-indulgent and whiny, but I just... idk that is incorrect imo. this iteration of the doctor is a survivor of war and genocide, and clings desperately to people who eventually leave, and they tend to react very strongly to the continued death around them until they decide to literally test time to see if they can beat it and save someone who Shouldn't Be Saved, and then, just when they maybe have found a measure of peace with it all, they have to knowingly go and die. it's a lot for the character to emotionally compute, I think ten is allowed a little tantrum before going through with it, because so much of that regeneration is the universe using ten as a punching bag (after nine was so excited to see what came next too...)

like yeah, it's angsty writing, but that's kind of the point. emotional follow-through on concepts (immortality, transience, alienness, etc) that previously were a tad brushed over, with an added specific survivor's guilt + PTSD thrown in for good measure

speaking of all the people who leave for whatever reason -- companions with families and high stakes at home and individual personal reasons for travelling with the doctor, and for having to move on from that travelling. no longer mostly stumbling into the tardis and then sticking around until suddenly back home (or um... a couple of times dying), and reeeelatively comparably easy goodbyes (for the most part) -- being left over and over, or making the decision to go on alone, or seeing people die, hurts. and on the flipside of that, seeing all that splendor and then having to go on with life... what does that do to a person?

although chris eccleston unfortunately didn't have a great time and deserved better, the atmosphere once behind-the-scenes found its footing was clearly so supportive and friendly. people were coming back year after year (and so many of them have come back for rtd's new run, which I think says a lot too)

I know the music isn't technically underrated, but I think the music is kind of underrated actually, especially individual episode scores. the companion scores, the gallifrey score, the ood choir, the action score that was introduced in s3, and so many more, all perfection and show up wonderfully as various motifs in different places, but individual episodes had perfectly tailor-made scores (some personal favourites are dalek, father's day, impossible planet/the satan pit, gridlock, human nature/family of blood, midnight, and waters of mars)

similarly to the doctor being self-indulgent, I've also heard that dtennant is overrated, which, again, I get it. I don't agree, but I do think that some people don't engage enough with other iterations of the doctor, and so aren't really giving "the doctor as a whole character" their due shake, but sticking only with ten's narrative. that being said there's nothing about dtennant's performance that I think is anything less than amazing. and there's a reason that ten is so beloved, and it's that the main themes of the nu!who soft reboot rtd era stories that people weren't sure would last beyond a season or two, are carried on ten's slender slender shoulders and dtennant does it perfectly (see, I do think there could be less romance in ten's run, because it never works for me, and that's partly that the writers themselves seem to be shy about it/not quite sure what to do with it (because it shouldn't be there in the first place) but that's not the performance, that's unfortunately dtennant's jessica rabbit-ness). the point being, this was for a new generation that was coming from a different television background, and it was done pretty perfectly. and also dtennant loves doctor who, absolutely loves it to bits, and that shines through... the fucking nerd

rtd's main flaws (there are none I'm kidding!!) are that things can get unwieldy once they get too big, and there are times where one can see the cracks badly covered by duct tape in the format and pacing of some of the bigger adventures. that being said, every single rtd finale (from the flawless bad wolf/parting of the ways to the messy bitch that is the end of time pt1+2) is always at the end about something incredibly (for lack of better word) human. it's always about the relationships between the companions and the doctor (and also the doctor and the master, but that makes sense). the doctor and rose, the doctor and martha, the doctor and donna, the doctor and wilf (honorary companion). and the pretty big cast of characters that make them feel real -- rtd may at times be messy but he is hardly ever boring or emotionally vacant. the story itself might become untethered, but the emotions are firmly understandable

(that being said, fingers crossed that 13 years of post-doctor who have given him more sense of what to keep and what to scrap, so that the specials can be both silly and serious, without the seesaw completely ripping out of the ground -- I mean, mainly I hope it won't be wanky and self-congratulatory, but I have faith on that front! we'll see in one month)

this era of television did something that has barely ever (has it ever?) been done before. brought a story back and made it not only work, but near-perfectly balance respect for the classic, with leaps and bounds into the new. it created a brand new generation of fans, and brought along the older ones too

as a kid I didn't think any of these things, because I was just watching doctor who through the gaps of my fingers (I was a very frightened child overall). and like I said, bias ahoy, because nostalgia will do that to you, but you know what? it's still good. it's really really good. I'm so glad that it's part of my DNA

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I've pre-ordered Grace Petrie's album that's coming out on March 8, and I think everyone else should also do that (and I think everyone should do it on Bandcamp rather than those other things because that's what lets you actually download and own your music instead of paying monthly or yearly to rent access to it for as long as the platform keeps hosting it, also Bandcamp is the way to buy music and have the highest percentage of your money go to the artist, here ends the PSA), but mainly this post is to say one of the songs from it is streaming for free already and it's really really lovely:

Has her voice gotten even better? Probably not, it was always beautiful, but I listened to this song for the first time on break at work at yesterday, in an empty classroom in a brief break in the middle of a day of chaos when I opened the email from her mailing list about the new track out now/album out for pre-order, and was really really struck by the amazingly strong vocals. So nice. I might have gotten a touch emotional at hearing something so beautiful in said empty classroom.

It's fine, not the first time she's done that to me. I got to see her live when she came to Canada in September and was definitely trying to hide from my dad who was next to me the small tears just from being so overwhelmed from being in the same room as her. Also her stand-up show Butch Ado About Nothing was one of three stand-up shows to make me cry last year, but was the only one to make me, like, really properly cry instead of just tearing up a bit. Is that the goal of most stand-up specials? Also made me laugh a lot, to be clear. It did succeed in the goal of stand-up specials to make people laugh.

I was going to now post a picture of the thing I have that's signed by her, but then I started writing a longer story about how that happened and sorry, I'm going to use this as an excuse to write this whole story again even though I already wrote it a few months ago because it's so fucking cool guys, but look the main takeaway from this post is that I'm excited for her new album and people should definitely listen to that new song.

(Warning: rarely seen pictures of my face behind the cut. Technically even something where you if you look hard enough you could see the name of the city where I live. I used to worry more about avoiding that on this blog because I really like being anonymous but since then I've relaxed a little because the internet is large and like four people read this blog and probably none of you are trying to dox me.)

So, I'd gone to Montreal to see Josie Long live in July, saw her on the same night as Tom Ballard and I'd say that was one of the top ten best nights of my entire life, and after the show I was hoping to run into Josie Long and was sort of walking around the area hoping I might happen to see her but wasn't about to do any more than that due to shyness and/or a reasonable desire to not appear creepy, and just as I was considering where I should go I literally nearly walked into her on the sidewalk, and I said a few wildly incoherent things and then pulled out a plastic bag that contained a pen and something I hoped she'd sign so the fact that I'd held onto that all through her show and Tom Ballard's sort of got rid of any illusions that I hadn't planned to run into her and may have destroyed any efforts to not appear creepy, and those efforts may have been further destroyed by the look on her face when I opened the bag because whatever she expected to be in there was definitely not a cardstock printout of a poster of the cover art for the cassette tapes released over ten years ago of her 2010 and 2011 stand-up shows. But I got her to sign it anyway and she was so nice and so kind even though like I said I was an absolute mess, I definitely managed to tell her I loved her recently released book but besides that I just talked incoherently for about thirty seconds and then ran away, only to go back twenty seconds later to say so I'm so sorry I forgot to ask if I could get a picture with you, and she said yes she was surprised I hadn't asked before. And then she asked me if I minded if she put her arm around me for the picture, even though I had made it very clear with my behaviour that that would be the coolest thing that's ever happened to me, because explicit consent over implied consent is important and she's so cool!

Anyway. Then in September I saw Grace Petrie live in my own city, and during the intermission she came out to sign CDs and things, and I bought a CD of an album that I already owned from Bandcamp and then got her to sign it just as a ruse to make me seem like a normal person/if you're going to ask an artist to talk to you for a few minutes it's nice if you bribe them by buying their stuff, and then, if Josie Long wasn't expecting me to pull out a Josie Long poster from the early 2010s and ask her to sign it, Grace Petrie definitely wasn't expecting me to do that, she looked quite shocked. I hastily told her I'm very sorry and I hope she's not offended that I want her to sign someone else's thing because I really am I massive fan of her music and I have all her albums but it's just that I love the idea of having both her and Josie Long's signatures on one thing because they've done touring together and are kind of associated, but unfortunately the only thing I have Josie Long's signature on is a Josie Long poster so would she possibly mind signing this other person's thing? And Grace Petrie was so very kind about it and got really excited to see I had that and said no of course she doesn't mind and Josie Long is one of her best friends and after she signed it she took a picture of it with her own phone so she could send the picture to Josie Long. And then I awkwardly said here's my dad I brought him with me and can he take a picture of us? And he did.

And then as a Christmas gift for me at the end of the year, my parents took that poster and got it framed. When I moved into my new place the month I made sure it got a prominent place on the wall, right next to the printout of the Bugle quote poster that @nyomkitten designed and also my artwork from Nova Scotia/Cape Breton and Newfoundland, just all my favourite things in one place:

Coolest fucking thing ever, all of that. I actually hadn't put that whole story in one post before, having just made posts about each part as it happened. I like having it all in one place, some nice pictures to look at when I feel like great things don't happen in life. But the main point is that people should go listen to Grace Petrie's new song, it's really really lovely and reminder that Bandcamp is the place to go to buy music in ways that's best for consumers and also supports artists.

While we're at it, in case people don't know her, here's my favourite song by Grace Petrie, which she closed her set with when I saw her live, the set was so perfect and she played all her best ones and by the time she got to the end I had heard every song of hers that I'd most wanted to hear barring one, and she said this will be her last one so I thought the only thing that could make this night less than perfect is if she doesn't play that one but there's only one more and even if this isn't it it was still an amazing night and it's okay, and then she turned to the guy on stage with her Ben Moss and mouthed something to him to let him know what the last song would be and I tried to read it and could see she mouthed "The Losing Side" at him, and that was when I knew the night would in fact be perfect, and it was, the tears that I previously mentioned definitely occurred during that song because it was so special to hear it live with all these other people who appreciated it too, which is why I like that YouTube has both the album version for hearing it in its proper quality:

and nice live versions to capture a little of the atmosphere of hearing it in a room of other people:

You'd think that me trying to quit drinking would lead to fewer incoherently emotional/overly personal posts on Tumblr. Weirdly, it's kind of increased them. Because I'd mostly stopped posting on Tumblr while drunk, being more likely to write a post while drunk but save it and edit it while sober and then post it. But now that I'm not drinking, I'll just my overly emotional shit when I'm feeling it and there won't be a time when I sober up to try to edit it into something reasonable so I'll just post it as-is. (Also not drinking is just fucking with my emotional state in general and I appreciate having Tumblr as an outlet where I can write weirdly emotional things to reflect that. Also I appreciate the existence of Grace Petrie.)