#but its a damn interesting start

[ninyard]

some hc about Aaron & Matt's friendship 🥹

i feel like when Aaron found out that Andrew drugged Matt for his sake he might've spoken to Matt, maybe to apologise, maybe not, but just to say something.

imagine feeling like your brother doesn't give a shit about you, thinking that you're not even on his radar of people worth caring about, and then you find out that he did that? that he did what he did to you, but so much worse, to someone you hardly even know? and not only that, but he did it for you?

picture Matt, in Abby's place, sick and pale, sleeping most of the time when he's not a crying, sweating mess. he apologises to Abby constantly, sorry for how he looks, how he smells, how violently ill he is because of Andrew. tensions are high everywhere, people are disappointed and angry, and nobody knows how to treat the situation. are we angry at Andrew? are we angry at Matt, for taking the drugs in the first place? are we disappointed that this even happened at all?

and Aaron knocks on the door, a shy and hesitant rap of his knuckles on wood, and when he steps in the room, it takes Matt a second to realise it's Aaron, not Andrew. he doesn't even know the twins well enough yet to tell the difference, but Aaron's wearing something that shows he's not wearing the arm bands. so he knows it's Aaron.

"you don't have to be here," Matt croaks, his voice hoarse from disuse, raw from the acid of his stomach that has stayed mostly empty over the last few days. "sign a get well soon card like the rest of them."

"you look rough." Aaron says, an observation that gets a weak laugh from Matt. "how do you feel?"

"about as good as you can imagine," Matt shuffles up in the bed, and covers his mouth to try and stop a wave of nausea that hits him as he moves. Aaron looks away, seeing himself in the bed, knowing how this feels. "let's skip this part, man. i'm too tired. what do you want?"

maybe Aaron can't say it, he doesn't know the right words, maybe he doesn't even know for certain that Andrew did it for him at all. but he knows, of course he does. why else would he? Aaron looks at him, he looks at the circles around his eyes, the sweat on his forehead, and the for-now empty puke bowl on the bedside table.

Aaron wasn't even sure why he came in the first place. Abby stopped him outside, just barely knowing his history with drugs, and told him that Matt was not a pretty sight - it was hard to see, hard to look at. she told him not to go in, to leave it another day or two, or even until Matt could bare to stand up to leave her apartment. does Matt know? was he told? is he going to hate Aaron now, more than he already does, if he tells him why he thinks Andrew has put him in this position? will Matt even believe him if he tells him that he gets it? is it even worth the breath it'd take to say i'm sorry?

maybe Aaron thinks about opting for something else - some support in the way of an i get it, or an it's going to be okay, while knowing that's the last thing he would've wanted to hear in Matt's position. Aaron knows he would've told anyone that offered their shitty, meaningless words of support to him in that position to fuck off and mind their own business, but instead Matt sits there, and he waits, and he listens.

"Andrew didn't do it to kill you," he says, not even the words that he meant to say at all. "he doesn't care about you enough to bother."

"i know." Matt says, and Aaron looks at him like he's not sure how he can be so certain. "but he didn't do it for himself, either, did he?"

does sorry even feel like enough? would Aaron's empathy and understanding be meaningful at all, as Matt lay there, his energy sapped and his brain not working as it should?

i think regardless of how that conversation goes, or where it happens, or how it happens, Matt and Aaron have some sort of understanding between them - Matt is angry that Andrew did this for Aaron, that it was Aaron's fault, in a way, that this happened to him, but he knows it wasn't Aaron's choice. he sees that guilty look in his eyes as he walks into that room, and knows that Aaron had nothing to do with what happened that night. Aaron knows that Matt doesn't blame him, and he gets it - maybe. maybe Matt sees how sick Aaron looks as he looks back at him, how his mouth is downturned in an uncomfortable frown that he poorly tries to hide. maybe if Aaron did apologise, on his own behalf, on Andrew's behalf, maybe Matt wouldn't even accept it anyway. because he knows what temptation can do, he knows what seeing an addict does to an addict. he knows why Andrew did it, if anything else, and he knows why Aaron needed him clean.

i don't know where this is going, really, but i just wonder if they ever spoke about it - if Aaron ever approached Matt in those early days, if they ever understood each other in such a way that knows why they both lay or stood in the positions that they did. just a thought.

[athlast]

there's something about butches reclaiming protectiveness and chivalry from an imposed "caring, nurturing" character associated and often forced upon women. something about how while straight men often try to present as careless as possible, masculinity and care are not only not conflicting in the butch identity, but inherent to it. there's something there.

[katabay]

WOW this has been ROUGH in the Life Events category of things, but. slowly crawling out of that. hopefully

this was the opening scene for a something I started writing after watching the Manben inverview with Nishi Keiko and thinking back to all the classic shoujo manga I stayed up reading back in the day, like damn that's so true Urasawa Naoki

it's partially a love letter to all the greats of the genre that I read, and also to the late night teleseryses that captivated me over the years lmao. it'd be nice to find the time to tackle it properly as a comic, but I'm having fun working on it recreationally :)

✨but since it's recreational, some character info✨

the first character seen is lawrence 'law' valenciano (late 30s), the one with the glasses is cris volante (mid-later 20s). law works at a karinderya, cris is an extremely broke university student.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / insta / tip jar!

[werewolfoffeverswamp]

hate this guy

[simptasia]

LOST: Season One

[stiffyck]

Artists on Instagram and tiktok and most other sites are the strongest people on earth because the comments are always fied with so many stupid people. I'd be murdering them if that was on my posts.

People have no idea what the fuck art is.

[sejanusarchive]

There’s so many layers to Sejanus being devastated by Marcus’s fate. He hates how the districts are treated by the Capitol, hates the cruelty of the Hunger Games, he feels the same emotional pain he would have felt being a tribute himself, if not even more, having to watch completely safe from afar, unable to do anything to put an end to the senseless slaughter, while guilt gnaws at him for not risking getting picked to participate himself, for having escaped. No innocent child deserves that, and it gets even worse when one of the children picked is someone he personally knows, someone he used to share a routine with, someone he used to spend hours alongside in a classroom.

And that child isn’t just someone, that child is Marcus, the kind boy who, while not even being his friend, went out of his way to help him when he got hurt, completely unprompted, just out of the goodness of his heart. That boy is a testament to what Sejanus already knows, that everyone seems to keep forgetting, which is that humanity at its core is and can be better than how it’s currently behaving. Not to mention how that was probably the last time Sejanus ever experienced an act of such pure, unconditional kindness. And that simple gesture was so impactful on him, it was enough to cement Marcus’s presence in his heart for all those years and then the rest of his life, and it no doubt helped shape Sejanus into the person he became. Someone as good as Marcus shouldn’t be going through all of that, and it drives Sejanus crazy. If the Hunger Games were too much for him to handle before, now that Marcus is involved, they're unbearable.

But there’s more to Marcus. He is also a safe memory to Sejanus, one who undoubtedly often comforted him when he was feeling at his worst. And he’s one of the main things Sejanus thinks about when he thinks of District 2, his home. Home, which despite the fact that he lived there during the war, despite all the suffering he witnessed, despite the reality of the current living conditions there, is still Sejanus’s happy, safe place; it’s the place he belongs to, the place that could fix almost everything for him. But he can never return there. It has to exist only as a memory, kept safely locked away and untouched in his mind and heart.

But when Marcus arrives in the Capitol, he brings his home with him too, he is the physical manifestation of it. Sejanus’s desperation doesn’t just stem from the fact that it’s Marcus, the innocent, kind-hearted boy, undeserving of such cruelty; but also from the fact that that’s his Marcus as well, the one whose existence is synonymous to his home, his sweet boy from his memories, his comfort. Marcus being there doesn’t only mean the pointless, unjust death of a good person, Marcus being there also means the death of Sejanus’s home, its image no longer far away, safe and untouched, kept only in his mind. Now it’s here and crumbling in front of his eyes. He already knew the reality of things, but it was just that: knowledge. Now he’s face to face with it, face to face with the fact that neither Marcus or his home are or will ever be safe. And, worst of all, he has no way to save them, or anyone else, he’s powerless and completely hopeless against the cruelty of the Capitol, against their fate; and now more than ever, since he’ll have to witness the death of the boy whose memory so often brought him hope before.

In the end all that’s left of both of them, for Sejanus, is a small chunk of marble, made from the same material as his District and carved into the shape of a heart, because that’s exactly where Sejanus’s own is: home with Marcus. We learn he has carried it to his new life in Twelve, immediately before we learn the only pictures he’s taken with him are of his family and his classmates in Two, of him, home for one the last times, standing with Marcus right behind him. That heart is the last physical object connected to Two and Marcus that he’ll have with him for the rest of his life, the last symbol of what he lost and will never get back, of what he couldn’t save or help. But it’s also the one object connected to them that he brought with him when he regained faith, when he felt like he could finally make a difference and actually help people in the districts; the last symbol that things could still get better and not all hope is lost.

For Sejanus Marcus is a kind and innocent kid; he’s the good in humanity; he’s a safe memory; he’s the marble heart because he is hope and comfort, and despair and helplessness, and home, and because he is deeply rooted in his own heart

[koetjingwarrd]

You're my baby, say it to me...

[milkbreadtoast]

I binged this webtoon today and yesterday and it's rly good i like it sm... "your wings and mine"

I didnt know what to expect going in(i keep my hopes low tbh) but I kept getting impressed w the writing... it's rly funny but also surprisingly emotional, it has me laughing out loud 1 moment and then crying the next and then laughing my ass off again... there's a lot of silliness but the serious moments don't feel out of place or cheesy at all bc they did such a good job of building the charas up to that point... and the genuine and heartfelt exchanges btwn the charas are simple but surprisingly feel fresh? like the writer was lowkey galaxy braining writing these kcdnfj And they actually did such a good job w the slow burn romance, it's so sweet and cute and fun to watch grow... 😭 i'm caught up now and im sad i need more

[bunnieswithknives]

sorry if idk this but what do you think about Wordgirl now in 2024 do you still like it do you still want to make art or talk about it or are you just done with all of it forever and plus i seen that you haven't made art of it since 2022 so you just done with all of it oh yeah and what about The Magnus Archives + Wordgirl ao3 fic too like is that just going to be and i know that your working on 2 au's now just wanting to know that's all

My interests tend to come in intense bursts and then fade. Unless something like, big happens like it gets a reboot its unlikely I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. As for the fic I don't have any current plans to finish it unfortunately.

[yoiku]

Love to see that everyone seems to be just as destroyed by the Babel event story in the most impressed yet heartbroken kind of way. The fandom is laying on the floor holding hands and sobbing in unison.

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[puhpandas]

Tony Becker is one of the only times that I've seen that a character has actually been doomed by the plot when people say he is

[front-facing-pokemon]

[ganondoodle]

me: coming to terms with my fanworks being really niche and not interesting to the majority of the fandom and maybe not the greatest in anything but decent enough to have a few people be interested and thats fine and good and i shouldnt feel bad about it and feel grateful for what i do have-

-sees other people getting into the same niche but with way cooler designs, ideas and writing, also way faster in making anything-

me: fuck fuck shit god damn fuck im gonna get bad grades at fanworks which is very real and possible to happen fucking hell oh gods no

[waywardsalt]

man just about every new little bit of that new totk book i see just makes me feel more and more rabid