#but its genuinely for artistic reference purpose

[xamaxenta]

I absolutely despise taking screencaps of thirstbait on IG but alas. Its good reference

[asmogorna]

Okay so there’s this ww artist on ig called like tooth lilys or something and he’s always causing drama in the ww fandom and he mouthed off about your art and now heaps of insta ww fans are like talking about you :| free publicity?

ahhhh so thats whats happening .. lmao thats crazy

i checked out their story, and i sure doooo love how they leave some things out when talking about both situations that they mentioned to make me look worse ..

ok so

warning, yap session incoming

the "will wood in a (miku) binder" thing happened back in fall 2023 when i was still semi new to the fandom and didnt know a lot of things. so tho i to this day i dont think it was that big of a deal, i wouldnt do it today

it was an artwork made for shits and giggles, the context of which i have explained here before. i never meant to imply that will wood is trans and i certainly dont "headcanon" him as that. my curse is that even when joking around i tend to try and make my art look good, so i get why people thought it was unironic. and i know that it sounds like a lame ass excuse, but it legit didnt cross my mind that people would think i drew will wood as a trans guy or smth. legit my only thought process was "funny haha internet thing" + "my favorite thing" = "good idea"

now the usage of his real name is something i am genuinely sorry for, but it was an accident and a genuine mistake on my part. i remember seeing someone mention it casually in some comment section, and assuming that it was ok, since i didnt know he was in any way against it. (i also thought that it was the same name that he used in "the real will wood" in that one section cus it sounded a bit similar).

when i was informed about the fact that he doesnt want it spread around i deleted the post right away and apologized, so bringing it up like something i did on purpose and out of malicious intent is a tad bit .. misfitting, if you can use that word

now the hot topic of the day: my waywood art

i have said this before and i will say this again, how i feel about rpf is solely based off how the people involved feel about it

to clarify: i never drew anything inappropriate or even suggestive with them, the "worst" thing is 2 simple sketches of them smoochin. or. this.

idk if this is what they were referring to when talking about me drawing will wood and gerard way "making out" (specifically. because i think "making out" implies to be more sexual stuff than small kisses). and if so, then it once again feels like blowing things out of proportion

and now the point i want you to get: will wood wouldnt give a flying fuck

like i said earlier, i never drew anything inappropriate, because that would actually cross will's existent and real boundaries. you know, the ones that he stated

im not making some conspiracy theories about him being gay, like some people seem to imply in their inbox messages to me

im not sending a whole ass smut fanfiction to litwtc gmail or something, i dont bother him in instagram dms asking if he wants to fuck gerard way, im not shipping him with people who he actually knows personally and has to look in the eyes of from time to time

im not doing anything that he would actually care about

him and chris have joked about him being attracted to gerard before, and though im not saying that you can joke about everything theyve ever joked about, i feel like in our case its clear that will clearly doesnt care about the implications ? (i generally believe that ww fans would get their panties twisted about less things if more of them listened to what these 2 talk about so calmly on litwtc but i digress)

if he saw that some random teenager on tumblr is drawing him and gerard way (gasp of horror) holding hands, he'd laugh at it max and then move on with his day

people are treating the whole situation like i posted pictures of him from when he was a kid or leaked patreon content or drew him fully naked or anything else that, you know, would actually affect him in one way or another

what im doing is innocent fun which isnt even likely to reach either of them. will wood very rarely checks tumblr and, once again, i genuinely dont believe he would care. and gerard way aint got no internet + he doesnt care x 2

it is weird but rn this is what brings me the most joy, even if its silly to say. both will wood and gerard way mean a lot to me and putting them in situations together makes me happy. i am but a child full of fun whimsy

i wont be posting any more explicitly romantic art to avoid more drama, and i also wont be responding to all the anon messages i received because there are like .. too many of them. an overwhelming amount i'd say. sorry about that

i really didnt mean to cause such a fuss, and i understand why some people might be uncomfortable with what i do

i fully understand why you would dislike my waywood hyperfixation shenanigans, and i dont have a problem w you over that, but treating me like pure evil because of a thing so insignificant is just.. overdoing it

once again, i will be toning it down, but it really isnt the end of the world if i dare to draw will wood and gerard way being a tad bit gay (which is, i apparently need to mention, not me actually saying that will wood the alternative musician is a homosexual gay who is in a genuine for real actual real gay homosexual relationship with gerard fucking way the lead singer of my chemical romance. i think speculating on other people's sexuality and gender identity is boooo tomato tomato tomato)

sorry for the rant and sorry to all who were disappointed by my lack of remorse. come back in a couple years when i turn 18 and stop having fun and artistic freedom

thank you for your attention and i hope i at least cleared some things up to those who werent w me throughout every event where i get involved in fandom drama

bye bye

[rip-headphones-users]

Lampert Headcannons I Have

: )))))) i liek thinkung ab out himme : )))))))

(Long post sorry)

Lampert is Swedish-American (due to type of tail plug + the lamp itself being Swiss in design)

He speaks in a fairly flat toned voice, in a Boston (Massachusetts/New England) accent

This is for the fact that I believe he could pull off a killer Scout TF2 impression, and it would be really funny.

He wont do it in front of anyone though, he’s too shy.

(Alternatively, I will accept a Southern US accent.)

Lampert loves to give compliments to people, but he is too judgy/critical to find anything worth complimenting, and by the time he does its usually at an awkward point where it would be weird to compliment them.

Lampert prefers residing in lamps because he’s scared of the dark, as well as utility.

Lampert will typically sleep standing up underneath a plastic furniture protector

If invited to a group sleepover, lampert will either transform into/shift his consciousness into a nightlight in order to light the room the others are sleeping in

He doesn’t play videogames often, but he prefers playing single player rpgs, his favorite games are OneShot, ChibiRobo, as well as the Mother series and anything from the Sonic franchise.

He once agreed to a days long infinite rokea-wide game of prop hunt with paintball guns and several friends where he was the “prop”. It’s probably his favorite memory but he has sworn off ever doing it again due to the mess it caused. (He has agreed to smaller games though)

Lampert genuinely enjoys cleaning things whenever it’s unrelated to himself/rokea, and will stop on random floors of the regretevator to clean them when he is in a bad mood in order to calm himself.

His goal one day is to become an interior designer, and he is currently studying to become one.

His tail behaves more like a cat’s rather than a dog’s, but will still occasionally wag when he’s happy.

Cannot get sick, but the concept of something being able to get sick is so mortifying to him that he is a germaphobe anyway

He can, however, catch a computer virus. He is not nearly as scared of this cause he knows how it works (like a regular virus)

Lampert “touches” things by sensing the vibration of them when he makes contact. He cannot feel texture, but will immediately be able to tell you the temperature of an object in Celsius, Kelvin, and Fahrenheit.

He makes a faint purring noise because his “heart” is a motor.

His favorite artists/bands are Mitski, Autoheart, and Roar.

Prefers dressing in nice clothes, but usually just wears sweatpants and sweaters/t-shirts for convenience (doesn’t want to get the nice clothes dirty)

Will never admit it, but he gets very happy when people say he looks good/cute/pretty/handsome because it means to him that he picked a good lamp to reside in. Lamp gender euphoria.

Has a glowing rubber duck water toy that he resides in whenever there is a situation where he needs to be in water. It is abstract enough for him to not know what it is/that its a bird

He would lose in a 1 v 1 with an ostrich.

Has a modified windex bottle in his fort that he smokes out of like a bong.

NThe other robots take his almost compulsive need to use cleaning chemicals hand sanitizer as lampert being a stoner, when he actually is just that worried about germs. (No wonder hes friends with that infected guy)

While he doesn’t try to be overtly mean, lampert finds himself accidentally insulting people he doesn’t like. He will insult his friends on purpose though.

Likes pulling spur of the moment pranks on friends

Found an insect crawling around inside of his body cavity while doing maintenance on himself. He still has not recovered mentally.

Creation/physical properties:

Lampert is sorta like a sapient star, just less “powerful”. Technically though he’d be a solar flare, (this is a slightly niche reference but sorta like how the solar bodies in Dogsbody by Diana Jones are sapient/anthropomorphic)

Actually I think you should just read the first chapter of dogsbody so you kinda get what i mean here. You wont understand whats going on at first but that’s ok you aren’t supposed to.

Outside of his body, he is an abstract glowing form of pure light. He is perfectly see through, and the only indication of his presence is the light cast on the world around him.

When viewed through an infrared camera, he is vaguely shaped like a humanoid entity standing at roughly 6 feet tall (at current day), but is incredibly blurry. No further details can be made out.

Images and live footage of Lampert in his “purest form” are known to cause mild nausea, as he is not meant to be viewed this way.

Passing through Lampert will warm the object slightly. Objects do not overheat, but passing through him is known to give a warm, comforting feeling, much like laying in a sunbeam.

Lampert’s possession of objects will slowly alter the shape and size over time to slowly become more humanoid. The time it takes from an objects initial possession to become full anthro is between six months to two years.

Because lampert has to “grow” into himself, He has had several models of lamp that he has possessed over the course of his lifetime. He just finds that he tends to keep going back to lamps (beyond his fear of the dark) his first forms are more childlike to reflect his age. One he looks back on fondly has a fish pattern on the lampshade.

Lampert cannot possess what is already “possessed” (aka: living.)

Lampert doesn’t technically have biological parents. Technically the “parent” he has is whatever star shot the flare his consciousness was spawned into. He doesn’t remember this event, just the fact that it happened (do you remember YOUR birth??? I hope not.)

He was found and adopted by Mannequin Mark (Pops) and Wallter (Dad).

[pinchinschlimbah]

On "Coming Out" and Noel Fielding

I mentioned forever ago that I had this post in mind and then never got around to it, but now with the new interview quote I was yelling about recently it feels like a particularly good time to get it out of my brain and onto the page! tl;dr: musings on the concept of "coming out" as it has evolved over time, whether it's something that should continue to be necessary or expected of queer people, and why Noel is particularly inspirational to me in that regard since this is, after all, my brainrot blog. This may be extremely long and a bit disjointed but I hope some of y'all will enjoy it!

So a while ago myself and several friends were discussing the concept of coming out. All of us are some flavor of queer both in gender and orientation, but each is in a different place along their self discovery and identity journey, with some being long since out and proud, and others just starting to dip their toes into exploration past the expected cishet.

This discussion actually was prompted by a different discussion about Noel, spurred by comments we'd come across slamming him as being homophobic/transphobic on Bakeoff for making comments suggesting he has romantic or sexual attraction towards Paul, referring to himself with female-centric terms, playing female characters in the skits, and a particular moment where he brings up Old Gregg while talking to KimJoy and says "he was a sea transsexual....quite a demanding role for me" while laughing to indicate that that last part was said in jest. Hey fellas, is it homophobic/transphobic to be a little bit gay and trans? This got us talking about how the current culture of queer identity has evolved to the point where "coming out" feels more like something the public feels they're owed in order for them to view one's expression as valid, rather than its original purpose as something one does for themself in order to live most authentically. I don't think I need to go into detail about how many artists have been harassed by their "fans" into coming out before they were ready because people wouldn't accept the validity of that person's work without knowing exactly how that person identified, there've been plenty of articles and video essays and better written tumblr posts about that, but it's definitely a concerning trend. It can be particularly dangerous when it comes to people who aren't feeling confident or safe enough to come out, who end up being criticized and shunned by the queer community as being somehow problematic for not being able to fully articulate to a group of strangers the ways in which they're experiencing their identity. In this situation, the people who are struggling the most end up with the least support. Forcing people to either declare an identity or get out just leads to more people staying closeted out of fear of doing it "wrong" and never getting the chance to explore the most authentic and joyful versions of themselves, or even worse, feeling the need to out themselves before they're in a safe place to do so and suffering the resulting consequences. Questioning or cautious people deserve space in the community to experiment even if they haven't yet or maybe never will come out! My high school's Gay Straight Alliance was comprised entirely of "straight allies" when I was there. There was not a single "out" person in the school at the time. Nearly all of us in the GSA ended up being some flavor of queer or trans years later after graduation. But whether it was intentional closeting or just feeling an innate affinity towards something we couldn't quite pinpoint at the time, we all knew we belonged there and made that space for ourselves and others like us. Back when "coming out" first became a concept in the public consciousness, it was during a time where cishet identity was not just considered the default, but the only option. By coming out, queer people were giving genuinely revolutionary representation for themselves and others like them by telling the world that, as the old saying goes, we're here, we're queer, get used to it! Nowadays, we're lucky to live in a culture that is much more cognizant of queer identities being a thing, so in many cases coming out has become less about having to explain to those around you the basic concept of queerness existing, and moreso about which specific identity you fall under, and that's where things get messy.

My friends and I shared our own thoughts and experiences. One is currently identifying as "unlabeled" because they haven't found a term that feels correct yet, and therefore hasn't come out because they wouldn't know what to say. One spoke about how when they first came out they were much more insistent on what terms or pronouns people used for them but as time has gone on they've grown to find joy in being inscrutable and letting others wonder what they're perceiving. One expressed that given the state of the world they've been retreating somewhat back into the closet for safety reasons rather than being super outward with their queerness like they used to and is working on learning to embrace those parts of themself again. One said they felt like they'd already been existing as queer and expressing that queerness "before I even had the terms to come out to myself" and is now working on catching up on the conscious end of figuring out what's what. I myself never really had an official "coming out", I just became increasingly visually/socially/vocally queer as I became more and more confident in who I was and what I wanted to be and who I had on some level always been, and decided if people didn't get the hint that's their own problem. I came into consciousness of my queerness during the early 2010s original tumblr MOGAI microlabel boom, where there was a ton of focus on figuring out the hyper specific identity labels that exactly described what you were experiencing. I did a lot of digging and soul searching and experienced a lot of unnecessary stress trying and failing to find my perfect labels and landed on clumsy terms like "full time drag queen" because it was the closest I could get to what I was feeling about my gender, only to be told it was problematic for me to call myself that as an AFAB person because drag "belongs to cis gay men" (don't get me started on that statement, that's a whole other essay lol) It was a real wake up call once I distanced from these aggressively labeled and segmented online spaces and made my way into real world queer communities where I was relieved to find that in fact no one there asks to check your membership card before letting you in, if you feel like you belong there you're welcome no questions asked.

I had other people in these communities referring to me as "queer" and "fag" and "gay" and "queen" before I felt comfortable doing so myself based on online Discourse I'd experienced over who is Allowed to use certain terms, and having these community leaders I respected recognizing those things in me and welcoming me in like that gave me the confidence to really find my own footing in ways that attempting to find my exact correct identity label so that I could officially proclaim it never did. Once I could answer the question of what I was with a shrug and "queer I guess!" things became so much easier. Microlabels can be incredibly helpful and liberating for some, don't get me wrong if it works for you that's great, but let's not pretend that everyone is going to have the same experiences.

So anyway, back to Noel. Noel has never, to my knowledge, ever had any sort of official “coming out” or explicitly referred to himself as queer. So I know there are people out there who will disagree with me considering him to be queer. But so much of what he’s said and done throughout his several decades long career has indicated to me that this is clearly someone of queer experience navigating the world as such, and just as the queers in my local community welcomed me as one of them before I knew to do it myself, I extend that welcome forward. 

Let’s take a look at some of the facts. In the public span of his career, Noel has.....(in no particular order, also if anyone wants to add additional instances of note in the reblogs or comments please feel free, this is by no means a fully comprehensive list) -repeatedly called himself "the woman of the Boosh" or Julian's/Howard's "wife" in ways that suggest that's how he actually felt about it rather than it just being a punchline that he was mistaken for female in the show [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] -referred to himself at the GQ "Man of the Year" awards as "never been a man" and "a sort of girl, he/she" -been referred to by Sandi Toksvig as being "on the cusp" in regards to gender, to which he reacts with amusement and acceptance -consistently expressed excitement and appreciation when others refer to him with feminine terms or say he looks like a girl [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] -said "I love being a man-woman, it's much more interesting than being one or the other" and expressed that the loved shooting the Boosh Electro episode for this reason -referred to Vince Noir (a character who he's been pretty open about being based on himself) as "wasn't seemingly one gender or the other" -expressed that he felt most free and happy when presenting femininely [2] -had Julian, one of the people closest to him, express that Noel and Sandi (an out lesbian) may have "real sexual chemistry" because Noel is "all over the shop, he's a different sex" -used the "Confuser" line of "Is it a boy? Is it a girl? I'm not sure I mind" to refer to himself rather than Vince, and express that he's had to work to find new ways to feel as androgynous as he'd like now that he's older -referred to himself as a lesbian [2] -said that he "sometimes looks in the mirror and sees a woman", in the same interview that Julian implies that Noel is in fact a girl -referred to himself as a "girl/boy" -consistently referred to himself with feminine terms on panel shows and bakeoff -made a joke on bakeoff about not being a testosterone-based person -responded positively when asked about the ways Boosh had influenced queer and nonbinary youth -has said he's "quite obsessed with the man/woman mixup thing" -has said if he was an animal he'd want to be a seahorse because the males get pregnant -Had Lee Mack, who Noel used to live with, refer to him as "the little transsexual one, yeah I think she's fantastic" in a Boosh documentary and "a young lady who came out here happy to be herself" in response to Noel's Wuthering Heights drag performance -had his own mother refer to him as "the daughter I always wanted" -described his own appearance as that of a "transsexual witch" and when an interviewer attempted to make fun of him for calling himself "a transgender witch" by showing Noel a drawing the interviewer clearly found repulsive, Noel responded that the interviewer was "holding up a mirror" and called the image his passport photo

And I'm not even going to bother citing sources on the countless times he's made comments suggesting romantic or sexual attraction towards men. Literally just watch any non-character appearance he's ever done, it's kind of his whole thing??? Not to mention his penchant for picking up explicitly queer and gnc character roles, and also just [gestures vaguely to everything Noel and Julian have said about each other suggesting romantic and sexual tension between them and how they used their characters as an excuse to explore those feelings in a less scary way, again that could be a whole other essay on its own but ooh boy] I also think there's something interesting to explore in the idea of Noel repeatedly referring to his appearance as transgender or transsexual rather than identifying himself as such- at what point does the appearance of something become reality?

It all begs the question- is it even a joke anymore if it's that consistent? Either it's not a joke and it's an authentic expression of his real feelings and experiences, or he for some reason really really wants everyone to believe that he's queer when he's not, with this behavior spanning back to a time before the concept of queerbaiting was on anyone's minds and when being publicly queer could mean the end of your career. Which scenario do you think is more likely? And, does someone who’s been conducting themself like this for their entire career really NEED to come out? Honestly, I find this level of simultaneous authenticity and inscrutability aspirational.

In this Velvet Onion interview from 2012, Noel compares his penchant for dresses to both Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard. This is interesting because those two people represent pretty opposite intentions behind their presentation- Grayson identifies solidly as cis male, and for him the shock value of crossdressing is the point, saying “I signed up for a gender and I want them to be very clearly delineated so I know I’m dressing up in the wrong clothes.” This doesn't seem particularly in line with where Noel is coming from given him famously referring to himself as "the Confuser" and stating in that same Velvet Onion interview that he "never even bothered giving it a label, I never went oh I'm a transvestite, I just went yeah if I fancy wearing a dress I do, never really thought about it really" Eddie on the other hand has famously said "They're not women's clothes. They're my clothes, I bought them." indicating that they were a genuine part of her authentic expression rather than a crossdressing costume, and has subsequently over the years identified more and more solidly as transfemme. I find Eddie's trajectory particularly fascinating because it's been so non-linear. In the 90s when the language for transness was much less public knowledge, she referred to herself consistently as a transvestite- a cishet man who enjoyed dressing as a woman, as well as using terms like "male tomboy" and "male lesbian" and "a full boy plus extra girl". Despite doing most of her standup shows in femme looks, most of her acting jobs were male-presenting, and there was a period of time in the 2010s where she dropped the femme presentation entirely in an attempt to be taken more seriously as the "crossdressing" was seen by many as a gimmick. Swinging back around more recently, Eddie has been explicitly identifying as genderfluid and transfemme, and in recent years has made the decision to "be based in girl mode from now on", and use primarily she/her pronouns. Since this announcement, in her trans advocacy work Eddie has described herself as being "out" as trans since the 1980s despite all of the above. She always knew who she was, it's just she's gotten access to more accurate terms over time to describe what she was experiencing, as well as feeling more safe to do so the more that transness became a known and accepted concept in the public eye.

The interview I mentioned at the very start of this post isn't really a coming out from Noel. And I don't think we'll ever really get one from him. In my opinion Noel has spent the past several decades conducting himself as someone who is in fact already out- it’s pretty clear Noel knows and is proud of who he is regardless of how he chooses to describe that identity. At this point, making some sort of official statement would just be for the benefit of others looking for clarification on their own perception of him and people who want to be able to put him in one box or another, and that’s not what coming out should be. The statement in the new interview is not "I am genderfluid", its "I've always been genderfluid", simply putting an accurate name to what's always been publicly visibly true now that he's got the terms to do so.

[genericpuff]

Im trying to write a Hymn of Demeter based story element in a story with many characters, but want to avoid possibly being offensive to Greek mythology. I know many comics bend the rules a bit and take inspiration instead of full on adapting the mythos. Any advice on good comics that meet in the middle with this, or ways to avoid this so I don't end up accidentally having similar problems to stories like Lore Olympic. (For reference I have read Plunderland and Theo mania, just if you have any tips I'd greatly appreciate them!

My presphone is already on the more serious dark humor side get shit done side so it's definitely not 100% accurate to the hymn

You'd be better off asking someone who's actually Greek when it comes to cultural respect, that said, Lore Olympus disrespecting Greek myth doesn't really have to do with it being a modern interpretation or taking creative liberties with the original story and its characters, it has more to do with how much it's morphed public opinion and knowledge of the myth both through how it doesn't regularly remind readers that it's fanfiction and its creator who claims to be "better read" on Greek myth on other people (which she very clearly isn't). Even Hercules is frankly more respectful towards its source material than LO in spite of all its inaccuracies (Hercules' name, Hades trying to overthrow the Underworld, Zeus being a loyal husband, etc. lol) because Disney makes it clear it's meant to be purely for entertainment purposes for general audiences (kids and parents!), and you can tell the animators and artists put a lot of work into stylizing a film that was uniquely Greek. Plus the writing and characterizations are genuinely well done, it doesn't feel like it's spitting in the face of Greek myth like LO does lmao Supergiant's Hades and Hadestown also attempt to tell either retold or completely new stories through the lens of Greek myth characters and settings. Even works that aren't retellings like Final Fantasy XIV manage to include Greek myth references and parallels without being disrespectful to Greek culture or myth as a whole.

The real beauty of Greek myth is that it's something that's been retold and re-interpreted into all kinds of works - the stories and its characters are timeless and can be adapted into just about anything! There's always more room for fun and unique Greek myth interpretations, retellings, fanfiction, etc. just be on top of your research and be clear in your goals and intentions with your audience (whether you're trying to do a serious and accurate retelling vs. using Greek myth as simply points of reference vs. writing cozy fanfic of Greek myth material etc.) !!!

So unless you go around calling yourself a "folklorist" or allowing whatever readers you gain to run around calling your work fact, you're likely not gonna cause the same kind or amount of damage to the Greek myth community and its stories that LO has (￣ω￣;)

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Haesorog

Welcome to this week's bestiaryposting results! This is an unusual one in that the entry is short, but we have plenty of physical details. We're also following up two obvious ones with a description I genuinely think nobody can identify unless they're familiar with the bestiary tradition itself, or the sources thereof.

If any of that was confusing to you, please consult past posts on this matter at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. You can also keep up with the current beast of the week -- and participate -- by checking out the tag "maniculum bestiaryposting". The entry that our artists are working from this week can be found here:

Anyway, art below the cut in roughly chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) took this in a rhinoceros kind of direction, drawing something that reminds me of paleoart depicting prehistoric rhino relatives that I have seen & enjoyed. I was going to say something like "I'm not sure if that was the vibe they were going for", but the linked post cites Brontotherium as an inspiration for the horn, so that's probably what I'm picking up on. The depiction of it defending its young makes this a really interesting image, I think; I like it a lot. Also, the design decisions explained in the linked post are genuinely pretty interesting, so I encourage you to check that out.

@moonygryffin (link to post here) ran with the "ibis feet, deer head" thing to produce something kind of like a flightless peryton, which I think is pretty cool. What's really clever here, I think, is how the body effectively blends elements of both animals so that it looks like a natural transition between the two. It's kind of bird-shaped, but you can see some deer-shaped elements at the top, and it's got this furry kiwi kind of vibe that's plausibly both "deer" and "bird".

Moonygryffin also suggests that the thing with the feet is the result of our favorite game, Manuscript Telephone, and it was originally the footprint of an ibex, which I think is probably correct. From some quick searching, it looks like Pliny just described this beast as having "cloven hooves". I think it's plausible that a later author changed it for purposes of parallelism -- "size of an ox, fur of a bear, head of a deer, feet of an ibex" -- and then someone else misread it and gave it bird feet. (Do ibexes/ibices* have cloven hooves? I'm going to assume they do, they're goats, right?)

*I checked the OED; both plural forms are attested, though the first is the more common. Which is probably why Tumblr is giving the second one the red underline.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) went for a similar concept as the above, but in a different medium and interpretation. Genuinely impressed by the realistic detail on the legs and head here -- CheapSweets has mentioned seeking out some reference material and art books recently, so I'm inclined to assume those are really paying off. Look at that thing. There's a lot of interesting material in the linked post, speaking to influences, research, and design decisions, which I think is definitely worth checking out. One thing I want to point out specifically because I missed it the first time I saw this drawing: take a look at the people & dog in the background at the top left. Now look at the trees next to them. One of them is a Haesorog cleverly disguising itself. Excellent.

(Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@pomrania (link to post here) has collaborated with @theforceisstronginthegirl on this one, which is a delight! Pleased to see you back, Theforceisstronginthegirl. Anyway, they've also clocked the error with the ibis thing: while they don't suggest it's an error for ibex, they do suggest that it refers to cloven hooves, which as previously mentioned is indeed what Pliny says about it. And then they also decided to give it bird feet anyway because that's more fun, which is very much in the spirit of the thing, excellent call. Anyway, the focus of this design is on the camouflage aspect. They've interpreted it as simply having stellar natural camouflage, which is why it's shown next to a tree here -- we can see that the pattern of its fur lets it blend in with the coloration of the trees around it, and that leaves tangled in its antlers along with its ability to stand on two legs enhances the effect.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) went with a similar quadrupedal design, shaggy deer-like thing with bird legs, but went the opposite direction with the camouflage. Her post indicates it's shown here "shedding some leaves from the last time it turned into a bush," which means this version of the Haesorog is suggested to have actively supernatural camouflage that allows it to shapeshift. (Which is definitely suggested by the text.) There's something very evocative about the eyes here, which I like. (Also, thank you for including alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) continues to deliver beautifully stylized art. I'm really delighted by the the pose the second Haesorog is taking in order to blend in with the very pretty Stylized Plants around it -- I think this is maybe not the environment where color-shifting is hugely useful, as I have no doubt the first Haesorog is fully aware of its presence. Something that makes this particular design interesting is that between the default coloration displayed on the left and the shape of the feet, you get a kind of "this thing is a step too human for a quadruped" feeling that makes it a little more unique-looking than it might be otherwise. (Also, thanks for including alt text.)

Over all of these entries, I'm noting that one effect of the clear physical description is that it does provide a more restricted space in which artists can play -- it's much more obvious than in other weeks that all of these are the same animal. Whether that's an upside or a downside is, I think, wholly subjective. Now let's look at the Aberdeen Bestiary.

...

Okay, we can't do that actually. The page with the illustration is missing from the Aberdeen Bestiary. So we're looking over to its sister manuscript, the Bodley Bestiary. (MS. Bodl. 764, also digitized online.)

So this beast is of course the Parander.

Yep, bet everyone feels foolish for not recognizing such a common and well-known animal as the parander.

Also, of course, known as the Tarand or Tarander, of course. Or parandrus / tarandrus in Latin.

Right, so the reason that I was so confident nobody without a thorough background in the bestiary tradition (or Pliny the Elder) would recognize this one is because it's not a real animal. And it's not even one of the mythical ones that managed to get a foothold in the modern consciousness.

I might be overstating the "not a real animal" line, actually; odds are good it's based on one. Let's talk about that.

There have been some guesses as to the parander's identity in scholarship. The Bostock translation of Pliny has a footnote that cites two competing theories: "reindeer" and "elk [aka 'moose']". The reindeer one gets an explanation -- differently-colored summer and winter coats -- but the elk one is just kind of tossed out there as a proposed alternative. My guess (based on it already being past 10:30pm here and not wanting to put in the time to track down a source that's cited only by a last name with no other identifying information) is that that one's about the parander's size being emphasized.

You may say, "excuse me Maniculum, neither of those animals lives anywhere near Ethiopia. What are you playing at? Are you going to try and convince me that the pre-modern definition of 'Ethiopia' was so broad it encompassed the Arctic Circle?" The solution is that the parander wasn't originally described as being from Ethiopia -- Pliny says it's from Scythia. Which... also seems a bit too far south. But it's entirely reasonable that the Scythians were reporting on something seen on a trip north or something they heard about from northern neighbors, which would put "reindeer" and "elk/moose" both back in as options. Scythia is close enough to the range of both of those animals that it's plausible they would be familiar with them.

Someone you may have heard of took a stance on this issue, interestingly. An 18th-century biologist named...

... Linnaeus. Yep, it's codified right into the scientific name for "reindeer" now, and has been for as long as binomial nomenclature has been a thing. Anyone who wants to make the "elk/moose" argument is going to have a bit of an uphill battle.

All that out of the way, now take a moment and scroll back up to that medieval illustration. Mentally compare it to the description and the art shared in this post. There's something different, right?

You may notice that the artist has given it cloven hooves rather than bird's feet, having not been confused at all by the "footprints of an ibis" thing. Now, often this is the result of the art not actually being directly based on the text, but copied from art in a previous manuscript, so a scribe can write down the wrong word and it won't affect the art at all because the artist may or may not even be reading the text as they work.

Often, but not always. In this case, I would like to float an alternate explanation.

On the left is the translation of the Bodley Bestiary I have on my shelf, to which I referred when filling in material from missing pages in the Aberdeen Bestiary. On the right is the Bodley Bestiary digitized manuscript.

Now. I am not trained in Latin paleography, so it's possible that I'm misinterpreting an abbreviation. But that word on the right... the penultimate letter certainly looks like a C, doesn't it? Not, e.g., an S? (It would be a long s here, but that doesn't actually help.)

Which means that the manuscript says ibex. The ibex -> ibis confusion is a case of Manuscript Telephone, but it was telephoned in the 1990s.

Again, like I said, I'm not an expert. I've never translated a single page of a Latin manuscript, much less had a book-length translation published in a handsome slipcover edition. So it's very possible I'm missing something. But right now I'm pretty sure that everyone's been drawing bird feet not because of an error made by a medieval scribe, but by the modern translator.

Anyway, that was exciting, right? I hope that makes up for me posting this a few hours later than usual.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Do you have a favorite and least favorite deck that you own? Or multiple in each category. Or any decks you disliked enough you regifted them?

Ohhh boy, do I ever. Firstly, I would like it to be known that I do, in fact, have spreadsheets for this. I have so many spreadsheets overall tbh. Therefore, I have spreadsheets for this! Regifted decks do not count towards my total of 60 decks, but the shame corner decks do.

Regifted Decks

Cosmic Tarot - I didn't really vibe with it, so I gave it to my mother.

Crystals: The Stones Deck - Not actually a tarot or oracle deck, but I gave it to my grandmother.

Dark Goddess Oracle Cards - There was just. So much wrong with the "lore" in this deck. The artwork also reminded me of those low-quality game ads you get on...adult content sites. I gave this one to my mother too.

Disney Villains Tarot Deck - I just didn't vibe with it, despite the pretty artwork. It really felt like they just made it a tarot deck because tarot decks are more popular than oracle decks. I gave it to a friend.

Kawaii Tarot - It was simple and clean...and I genuinely couldn't fucking read the deck. I gave this one to my mother as well.

Tarot of Sexual Magic - Most of this deck was cishet white folks and the only black man who appeared was about to get murdered on the Tower card because he was sleeping with a white woman and her boyfriend was swinging an axe to stop it. Did not enjoy. My mother actually took this one as well.

Shame Corner

Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot - I got this one on purpose and I think I gave it anxiety. I actually used its cards for bookmarks for a while but almost lost a good half of the deck.

Gems Oracles Cards - I knew that there was appropriation in this deck because I actually bought it off of a friend who was complaining about it, but it's part of something akin to a personal art project.

Decks I Actually Like - Tarot

The Antique Anatomy Tarot (Claire Goodchild) - This has the same overall vibe as those old-timey doctor's illustrations and it makes me feral in a good way. I want to eat this deck.

The Crow Tarot (MJ Cullinane) and the Guardian of the Night Tarot (MJ Cullinane) - Beautiful photoshopped collage-style decks. I even named my Crow Tarot "Uldren" (shoutout to the Destiny players and lore nerds who catch that reference).

The Dragon Tarot (Nigel Suckling, Roger Garland, Linda Garland) - My first ever tarot deck, lovingly named Abbot. This deck taught me a lot of hard lessons real quick about divination. Could use more dragons, but I love it. I've used it so much that it's falling apart.

Gay Tarot (Lee Bursten, Antonella Platano) - One of the first queer decks I bought, and it makes me happy because I'm masc-leaning when I must present as a gender.

In-Between Tarot (Janine Worthington, Franco Rivolli) - A really cool deck that explores the spaces between the cards rather than focusing solely on their classic depictions and interpretations. Cernunnos called dibs on this one.

Manga Tarot (Riccardo Minetti, Anna Dorzhieva) - A very fun little deck that genderbent every card and focuses on overall color to help carry the meanings. It is not, as far as I can tell, based on any particular existing manga.

Star Spinner Tarot (Trungles/Trung Le Nguyen) - This deck comes with four different Lovers cards, so I just keep them all in the deck. The author apparently has a graphic novel called The Magic Fish that I intend to read one of these days. I actually came across the novel through a YouTube video and didn't catch the author/artist's name at first, but I saw the artwork and immediately clocked it as Trungles.

Tarot of the Divine (Yoshi Yoshitani) - Alongside its companion book Beneath the Moon, this is an adorable little tarot deck whose art style makes me squee.

Tiny Universal Waite Tarot aka Tiny Tarot (no listed artist/author) - This is not a deck I use for divination, it's just so smol and cute that I wanted it.

Decks I Actually Like - Oracle

The Arcana of Astrology (Claire Goodchild) - Another Claire Goodchild deck, and I want to eat this one too. This deck doesn't just stop at zodiac signs and planets, there are also cards for the houses and the "comets", too.

The Seed & Sickle Oracle Deck (Fez Inkwright) - THIS DECK'S CARDS MAKE A GRADIENT. This is one of the most beautifully illustrated decks that I have ever seen in my life. It comes with two guidebooks - one for internal meanings, one for external meanings.

Spirit Allies (Jill Pyle, Cidney Bachert, Jay Kay) - I don't care much for the "goddess" portion of this deck, but Cannabis is a card in here and that made me cackle. Worth an honorary mention.

Woodland Wardens (Jessica Roux) - Another beautiful deck, this one features animals paired with plants. The composition of these are absolutely top-tier and I love them very much.

Thanks for sending this ask! I love to talk about decks I own and ramble about them and brag about my spreadsheets!

~Jasper

[bitchliteraria1906]

Very random headcanons for the dokis living together (take this as poly dokis or friendship, idc)

Tw for small references to depression, disordered eating, self harm and implied abuse.

•They have a chore board to keep track of everything and remember who's doing what. It was Monika's idea and it works pretty well.

•One of the things they learn to memorize rather quickly is each other's eating habits. Sayori comfort eats, Natsuki often stops eating when stressed due to old habits from when she still lived with her dad, Yuri is picky due to sensory issues with texture (autistic Yuri!) and Monika literally forgets to eat if she's working too hard on something. They have each other's needs memorized, keep each other's preferences in mind when buying snacks and coax each other into better habits.

•Speaking of food, Natsuki is the chef, Monika is the second best cook and Sayori and Yuri are... not good. They're trying to learn though!

•There's a significant amount of pride merch around the house.

•Each of them has their own room!

•Sayori's walls are pastel blue and she painted little clouds on it. She also has plushies pretty much everywhere, and tries to sleep with all of them in the bed. Her bedside table is full of origami, always has some water so that she doesn't need to get up if she gets thirsty at night (she has spilled said water on her origami creations and ruined them more than once) and there's 3 drawers for different purposes: the "Fun drawer" has things she needs for her hobbies and little trinkets, the "Emergency drawer" has bandages and painkillers (since she hurts herself all the time by being clumsy) and the "Feelings drawer" has poems, notes with silly jokes or positive affirmations and pretty much anything that could either lift her spirits or help her feel enough to cry and let things out.

•Natsuki's walls are pastel pink and filled with posters of characters and artists she likes. She has a lot of fandom merch, as well as a full gaming pc set up (yes, even cat ears headphones). She also owns a heart shaped mirror, a hello kitty night light and her door has these "Don't disturb", "My room, my rules" signs but with more agressive wording and in pastel colors because she thinks mixing agressiveness with a softer look is funny.

•Yuri probably has the most "atmospheric" room by far. I'm talking scented candles, poterry decorations and such. Her walls are black, which makes her the only one who didn't go with her favorite color (her favorite is purple). Her reasoning is that it makes her feel grounded and sleep better. She has transparent boxes for her knive collection, an altar with crystals and one of her walls is full of polaroids, including photos of the club as well as photos of nature, architeture she found pretty and much more (pushing the "Yuri is into photography" agenda). And of course, books everywhere.

•Monika had the most trouble with her room because she never had the time to think much of it? Like, she had an idea of how she would organize it but decoration was tricky. After a while, she decided to paint the walls an earthy shade of green and get a bed curtain. She also has plants (plant mom Monika, anyone?), her piano and a record player. The only thing on her walls for a while were post its with little reminders, but then she managed to get her hands in some cool images and paintings. Her desk has a mug full of different pens and she has a mat that is white and fluffy.

•Don't be fooled, having cool rooms doesn't stop them from falling asleep in each other's rooms or together in the couch pretty often.

•They have movie nights weekly and take turns picking movies.

•Yuri genuinely tries to stop self harming, and the others help endlessly. There's a silent rule of not leaving Yuri alone for too long in days when she seems too tense, and instead offer to take her to a calming walk or anything else that might help her gather her thoughts.

•In fact, there's a lot of unspoken rules in the house.

•Another big one is not letting Monika overwork, and reminding her to take breaks when she's studying or preparing projects for the club.

•There's also "Don't question Sayori's sudden mood swings or innability to get out of bed, just help". They often bring her water and snacks on bed and remind her that they're there if she needs to vent. She rarely ever does that, but it's still nice to see how much they care.

•And of course, "Don't mention Natsuki's dad and what she went through with him unless it's 100% necessary or she brings it up herself". Of course all of them notice how Natsuki often flinches at loud voices, or how she still feels the need to hide her manga collection and other stuff sometimes, but they don't point it out. Instead, they just silently remind her that she's safe by lowering their voices when they startle her, giving her space when she wants, not going through her stuff, etc.

•They often find themselves copying each other or getting into each other's interests. Some months of living together and suddenly Monika is watching kids cartoons because of Sayori, Natsuki is getting into horror, Sayori sometimes finds herself copying Yuri's stims (she feels super bad because she doesn't want Yuri to think she's mocking her but Yuri actually finds it kind of endearing).

•Sharing clothes. Natsuki specifically is a certified clothes thief.

•Holidays are always cool, especially christmas and halloween. Decorations, fitting music, food and movies, all that stuff.

•Halloween specifically was a bit difficult the first time around because Yuri and Monika wanted to stay home and watch horror movies while Sayori and Natsuki wanted to trick or treat (Sayori because fun and candy and Natsuki because she worked hard on the costume). Yuri was anxious about talking to random people and Monika was tempted but thought they were too old for trick or treating, but they do end up going and having a lot of fun (the four of them still watched the horror movies when they got home though).

•They're all planning on starting therapy.

•"How do they get their money?" What are you, a cop?/j. I don’t know either, I need to think of job headcanons or something.

[spearxwind]

Since you're on the topic I have genuine question about AI art designs from a non-artist.

In your opinion would using an AI tool to generate a reference for a commission (whether it be for character design or pose) be an appropriate use of said tools?

I thought about this as well and I gotta say, personally I don't think so.

Barring for the purpose of this ask the whole "AI art is stolen art" thing (which I stand by fiercely), AI generated images are really janky, especially reference sheets. There are details everywhere that make no fucking sense, anatomy is deformed, they have a lot of nonsensical parts to them so its just one big jumble of nothing.

And, it's pulling from designs created by existing artists and warping them to fit your prompt. It's work that another artist already made, used by an AI that's trained on a specific dataset. It also pulls from popular things that people enjoy: tried and true color combos, the most popular shapes that big artists use, theres a LOT of waifus, and a lot of the art genuinely comes in the same painterly style that's really hard to color pick from. some even come with color swatches that don't match the colors on the reference

In short, it's just a machine generating something that looks neat at first glance, and then is actual hot garbage when you just... look at it closely. Not to mention that an AI prompt can be iterated, and the AI pulls from everything it has, for every prompt, so what you end up getting is completely samey designs with small changes. Good for concept art assistance, but not if you want to create a Legit Character. The AI will give you something that it has already spit out a thousand times over and then some, with no regards to composition, design technique, color theory, because all it knows is what it has been fed and what the artists its ripping off of know (meaning if they have mistakes, the AI will as well. But in a far less human way)

Meanwhile, when you commission someone you are likely to go for someone whos art style will actually fit what you want to get, or someone whos art style you enjoy. Usually these artists will be people you've followed for a while and you at least know them enough to know what they can do. And they are also reactive, you can tell them to actually change and tweak details of what they're making for you. And not taking into account the bad actors out there (as there are always bad actors in every discipline) you will have something that has been made specifically FOR you, not just what a machine thinks you would perceive as eye candy.

As for poses... just draw it badly in ms paint. The AI will not give you the pose you want for the aforementioned reason: broken anatomy (and also because it will pull from its dataset of poses it can warp features onto. It's a lot more limited than you think.) If you want a pose prompt for a commission just draw it really badly in ms paint or on a napkin and write annotations for the artist (arm goes here, this guy is grabbing this thing, etc etc) Most of us if not all of us will GLADLY interpret your pose for you and draw whatever you want us to.

And like. Literally if you're going to get commissions anyway, why not commission a design first thing of all?? Or buy an adoptable from people who already make them by hand? It will genuinely be so much better than just hoping a machine does all the work for you. Please support artists

[archie-sunshine]

Genuine question for you, Archie, are you self-taught when it comes to art or did you go to school/take classes for it? I also really love your art style, could you share how you developed it? (if it's not too much to ask for that is)

Hi Raz!

Yeah, its a bit of both!! I was always into drawing as a kid, though it sort of ebbed and flowed a bit, until I was about 11 years old. It was tradition to spend a week during the summer in the city with my cousin, and during that time we did a week long comic arts workshop with a professional comicbook illustrator (whos name currently escapes me). I was hooked after that. we went to another workshop the next year, and then after that I'm pretty much entirely self taught aside from highschool arts class.

As for my art style, I pinged around through really liking anime, to really liking comic books, to really really liking fanart and artists i found on tumblr and instagram when i was young. I don't know if i would say i started doing art for the purpose of developing my style, I just drew what felt right. I would fill entire sketchbooks during my school days, drawing at every spare moment I could. drawing the same ocs and characters over and over. I have so many sketchbooks i honestly don't know what to do with them.

I think the most tangible thing i did to improve my artstyle and develop it further was drawing from references. I'd take time out of my day, usually during lectures, that i'd look stuff up on pinterest and draw it. and not just stuff i liked drawing either, I'd try to draw from a variety of things, bugs, animals, houses, plants, people. I'd do an exercise, one i highly recommend to people looking to make their lines more confident, where i'd only draw in highlighter and ink pen. the highlighter was to get the silhouette of the shape, the pen was to define the shapes. No erasing, no going back. Plant your fucking feet as it were. it helped me establish my current style of drawing a lot.

thanks for asking!

[edge-oftheworld]

okay, it is time we talk about atl

putting this video up here bc i love how she compiled things with a focus on what we know to be true, not just simply anonymous claims. because the 2000s and early 2010s were a really wild time and i hope that we all share in wanting to make the music industry better than it has been. because doing that requires thinking about how we talk and how we call people to account, in a targeted purposeful way that also affirms, where reasonable, their ability to do better and to choose it themselves as well. i hope you manage to watch it through and think about her criticisms of especially their statement at the end, and ponder the question of, how, realistically, would we call them to do better? (also, abigail??? what are you doing here?)

and also, because from there leads us to the question: do we think it's right to ask ashton to boycott their songs, and if so how hard is it appropriate to push him towards that--or are we channeling our energy in the wrong place, perhaps even causing harm, or 'punishing what we want to see'? because unlike some of their idols, 5sos do have a track record of being respectful to fans, and, if we want to make the music industry better, don't we want to see more of that? i draw some parallels and come up with some ideas under the cut.

I'll admit I don't know a heap about all time low; i enjoy some of their songs, appreciate a (maybe a little cringey) reference to microplastics and I know 5sos looked up to them a lot when they were younger and alex gaskarth helped write some songs off sgfg and showed up in the how did we end up here documentary. I've never been to one of their shows, had no idea about the bras, or that they formed in high school just like 5sos, with a lineup that parallels the instrumental roles of 5sos. in some ways it's like they're an american 5sos eight years ahead in their careers and about that much older than them too. rose to fame alongside bands like panic! at the disco, and like p!atd, made their shows run with energy of sexual liberation that meant saying some careless things, doing some morally ambiguous things that are highly problematic when taken out of context or thought hard about with a critical lens of how some sexual liberation when it has power attached to it, infringes on the rights of those with less power in the name of rebellion, and can even uphold abuse. so, problematic.

does this mean any of them are rapists? not necessarily. but have they taken less accountability than brendon urie? arguably.

and so clearly, the parallels with 5sos stopped a while ago. i've said it before but one thing i do notice about all the music 5 seconds of summer have put out, is that in an industry where it's normal to objectify women/sexual partners in general, in genres that often have a little of that sprinkled through songs i'll sometime overlook or sit through for the sake of the song as a whole--they don't have a trace of that. or if they do, it's playful, humble, not forceful by any stretch, and an invitation to a collaborative kind of sexuality (greenlight), a celebration of an existing relationship with its shared wants (slsp, valentine) or a kind of reflection on experience that went some kind of way (ela, talk fast, iwct, wayf, teeth, a lot of their discography). it's also all really genuine, it feels really safe to listen to--and that's unfortunately a really rare thing that they have.

so, in the event atl are actually looking to do better, not simply reactively to enraged fans and the general public (because for a lot of fans, the morally grey stuff is normalised. and people are loyal) there's a lot of artists they could learn from, where it could feel like a really authentic and autonomous learning process. and who are they likely to listen to?? maybe some guys who have looked up to them for decades, gone along a similar path, reached a similar level of fame, and kept this aura of respectfulness about them while also being cool people who aren't moral purists. 5sos have no obligation to do that, and maybe ashton simply didn't think before playing their song--but think about it. if we want to make any industry better, as much as supporting those who are doing it right (and imo this does include not forcing them into an inhuman standard of perfection) it includes facilitating accountable pathways for people who have done things badly to do better.

that doesn't change the fact that what is alleged is horrible. that as much as there isn't any proof of it, there's no proof it isn't true--how much more of a case they'd have if jack's partners from that time came forward and said they were with him at the time and there was no evidence of there being anyone else. if he came out and said that he's got some standard of how he treats underage fans (even if it is looser than we may like) and after whatever happened with abigail which was 10 years ago when he was still a young adult, he's learning more about who it's appropriate to date. and in the case if the allegations are false, if he's got nothing to be afraid of and they don't need to try strongarm it with the support of the law to make it go away, we actually do have another example (if very much unintentional) of how to transparently respond to false allegations sharing what you know and what you would and wouldn't do from our very own 5sos. (which again, parallels. sometimes reality offers the best irony).

because if it's not true and that can be shown in a transparent and respectful way, they have nothing to worry about. they can take this as a warning to think about their behaviour; we can hear the stories behind the allegations made, all can be put to rest. I hope the lawsuit uncovers the truth; I'm not too confident it will but the truth does have a way of coming out eventually. and the victims of the allegations deserve to have their voices heard, deserve to be respected and validated, even if we can't for the moment say for sure it was one way or another. we have to keep crying out for the truth to be found. for some of us it may mean stopping supporting them until we can do so ethically, but for some of us it may mean keeping them relevant, not stopping talking until we know the truth. some of us may decide this isn't the focus of our activism.

but is it up to us to decide that ashton specifically must choose the method of boycotting them? it's not up to me to decide that for you. but please at least think. is this the best use of my activism energy or is it better directed somewhere else--somewhere that might actually bring some sort of resolution to this?

[jesskasb]

Ok but which drv3 fic are you reading. And is it good so far

it's "amalgamate" by doctorhaifisch !! and it is good so far yeah! really elaborate answer under the cut, i went on about this for longer than i shouldve. sorry. ill take any opportunity to ramble about v3. :']

based on the hits and the amount of fanart ive seen of it, it seems everyone and their mother has read it... however ive been purposely living under a 2 bedroom rock for like 4 years so ive only gotten around to it now after seeing an artist i follow say it made them reconsider a few things about ouma and it made them like kaito and realize how intelligent he is and how fascinating his role in chapter 5 was— and i was like wow, that must be a based fucking fic! it took me years to see kaito more than just a loud guy with a savior complex, and now that im a huge fan of him, i wanted to see what kind of fic could open someone's eyes to his awesomeness.

i check it out *really* skeptically, mainly cause i dont trust most people's depiction of ouma. they either make him genuinely not give a shit about things and just be a terrible person for no reason, or they make him too emo in a way he simply isnt. the main reason i even gave it a shot despite never having read a v3 fic in the 6 yrs ive been a fan, is that it said that the tags say the whole fic could be interpreted platonically (#AROWIN) (god knows im not against oumota but i prefer them as friends by a really substantial amount) and the amount of research the author seemed to have poured into strike 9 poison and its real world pesticide counterpart. the art they attached to chapter 1 was really good, too, so that made me curious.

now im in chapter 10/20 and i can say with confidence ive been having a great time. its plenty obvious the author has a lot of love for all of the characters, and even though i thought i could gain no new opinions since i already love ouma and kaito's potential dynamic and everything to do with chapter 5, i ended up being very pleasantly suprised by himiko's depiction here! i cant say im too big of a fan of her, not due to any actual fault in her character but rather kodaka's failings to do anything actually interesting with her. in chapter 9, this author used her untapped potential in a really heartwarming way that i loved. similarly, i have enjoyed seeing their portrayal of kaito and ouma, and it seems there's going to be an arc for ouma to begin seeing his classmates not only as people whose lives are worth saving as much as any other, but to see them as friends and letting them become close with him. ive always been a firm believer that in a non-kg setting ouma could become super close friends with a small handful of people, but this fic is making me reconsider that— maybe its more! another thing im really enjoying are all the fascinating possibilities that the author is exploring for a world in which ouma lives to see chapter 6 and the consequences of his actions. him being there while people investigate his room? most amusing. its all stuff that happens in chapter 5 and 6 until a certain point— just enough to get these two chumps to live, and then... well, i guess ill see how chapter 6 turns out, but as of right now ive been super intrigued and entretained.

i do also have a couple of complaints, but theyre mostly pet peeves and no deal breakers so far: there have been a loooot of pop culture referenced but they all feel in line with stuff kodaka would write so whatever, the author uses italics way more than id like... in the chapters up until 9 there were constant descriptions of kaito seeing ouma as a Kid, and while that in an of itself is true (he is a 17 yr old) the context began feeling a little infantalizing and like kaito himself wasnt 17 as well. theres noticeably less of this in chapter 9 and what ive read of 10, or when theres references to them being kids it includes everyone and theres even a moment where kaito tells ouma theyre the same damn age lol. theres also been a bunch of moments that are clearly very indulgent of ship dynamics and inclinations im not too fond of (particularly between ouma and shuichi) but like i said, nothings been too much of a dealbreaker since the positives far outweigh the negatives!

im currently on a trip where i dont have signal most of the time so i got the epub of the fic to read on the downtime. im def gonna keep reading it, and im excited to see where its going despite some of the cheesy lines such as

(honestly i cant even complain. i dont care its a reference to the title of the game. he Would say that....)

i mean, really, it's such a good depiction of ouma. all his masks, his paranoia, his insecurities, his determination to stop the killing game, the way hes been helping the group while simultaneously remaining isolated, and the way his lies are an extension of his genius but also a constant tool to test his peers. i feel like i dont get to see all of these elements of him expanded upon so extensively like this fic does, and that alone makes me really respect what the author is doing! the word count may be scary but i think youd get something from the fic even if you only read like 5-6 chapters. so yeah in conclusion id recommend it if you give a shit about v3 and are interested in chapter 5 fix it fics LOL

[johnniesmoke]

Buy the Whole Town

"Buy the Whole Town" is a bold declaration of ambition and individuality. From the very first line, "I toast me some dro," the song captures a sense of confidence and celebration. The artist portrays a vivid journey through ambition, freedom, and resilience, blending moments of indulgence with the struggle to build a life of purpose. The title itself, "Buy the Whole Town," is a powerful metaphor for taking charge, not just in the material sense but also in the drive to leave a lasting impact on the world.

The song’s narrative unfolds with the idea of being "the one that they know," striving for recognition while being unapologetically oneself. There’s an emphasis on authenticity, with lines like "I be who I be and from a brother to a brother," highlighting the importance of staying true to one's identity, whether in times of joy or challenge. The artist weaves between carefree indulgence and the weight of aspirations, evoking a sense of freedom as they let the night take them, while recognizing that "there's only one life for yours truly, and it's meant to be."

Throughout the track, there’s a balance between the pleasures of life and the hustle required to sustain them. References to iconic experiences like "strip clubs, casinos, the seven wonders of the world, and the Great Wall of China" conjure images of exploration and opulence. These experiences reflect a desire to enjoy life to the fullest, embracing both the highs and lows that come with it. The artist, however, doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the work needed to achieve such experiences. Lines like "Hey, I've been working to get mine" and "Living on my last dollar" ground the song, portraying the grind behind the scenes, making the moments of triumph all the more meaningful.

The recurring line, "The sky could fall down, but the vision I've seen gives me all the hope that a kid could ever need," is an anthem of perseverance. It serves as a reminder of why the artist continues to strive despite the obstacles. This hopeful vision is central to the song, emphasizing the power of dreams to uplift and push through hardships. The artist embraces the uncertainty of life, suggesting that even if everything were to fall apart, the hope embedded in their vision remains unbroken.

Another key element of "Buy the Whole Town" is its intimate portrayal of simple pleasures, like cruising to the beach at 5 AM and feeling the cold sand underfoot as the sun rises. These serene moments contrast with the otherwise bustling imagery of ambition and nightlife. They bring a sense of grounding to the song, showcasing that beyond the desire for success and recognition, there is a need for peace and connection with nature and friends. The artist describes being "with my peeps in this life," emphasizing that, at the end of the day, these genuine connections are what make the journey worthwhile.

The song closes with a statement of independence and resilience, "I'm balling out not bothering anybody. They've got nothing." It underscores the theme of staying true to oneself and finding fulfillment in one's journey without needing validation from others. The artist moves through the ups and downs, remaining unbothered by detractors, and focusing on their vision and purpose.

"Buy the Whole Town" is a celebration of ambition, freedom, and authenticity. It captures the struggle, the grind, the fun, and the beauty of living a life that’s true to one’s vision, no matter what others may think. It’s about embracing both the hustle and the indulgence, enjoying every moment, and holding onto hope through it all. Buy the whole town: lyrics:

I toast me some dro/

I'm gonna buy the whole town be the one that they know/

The sky could fall down/

But the vision I've seen gives me all the hope that a kid could ever need/

I've got to be lit

I've gotta be waved/

Hey call uncle Smoke/ I be who I be and from a brother to a brother/

From a beau to all the honeys/ All the sights have gotta' be seen/

Strip club casinos the seven wonders of the world/

The great wall of china and I've got nowhere to be so I let the night take me/ There's only one life for yours truly and it's meant to be yeah yeah yeah/

Let's go baby let's go/

There is only one life for yours truly and it's meant to be/

I toast me some dro [trouble] I'm going to by the whole town/

Be the one that they know/ The sky could fall down/ But the vision I've seen gives me all the hope that a kid could ever need/

Put me on plane take me away/ Let me say hello to the good-ol-days'/

Hey I've been working to get mine/

Said you take me on ride while I've been waiting my whole damn life/

Living on my last dollar/ I'm living my life/ I don't want to live a lie/ Im going to go get mine because that's all mine/ all mine

I hope you don't mind/

I toast me some dro/ I'm going to buy the whole town/

Be the one that they know the sky could fall down/

But the vision I've seen gives me all the hope that a kid could ever need/

Clock just struck 5am and I Ain't' been to sleep/

I'ma' cruise to the beach/ When the sun comes up the sands going to be cold on my feet/

I'm gonna' stay all day/

I'm with my peeps' in this life this is all I need/

All I need all I need/

Biggie Smalls: You hang on thats police I'm balling out not bothering anybody/ They've got nothing me/ They've got nothing

[lubotomies]

If you were to rewrite the Pizza comic arc, how would you go about it?

its difficult to say because a lot of the beyond jokes genuinely just arent funny to begin with as a concept. if i were instructed to make a joke about the boys ordering a pizza i would opt out of making it a multi-parter because it just doesnt need to be. they ought to be focusing on making one joke land because quality > quantity. always.

my issue with the pizza arc is mostly with how its just a clean cut example of a LOT of my issues with beyond, one of them being how some employees are incredibly invasive of the series. theres less concern for helping keep the series alive in a respectful manner by people evidently inspired by goulds work and moreso using the giant platform to advertise their own projects and interests. for instance:

kasafraz admitting this younger character is a self-indulgent osomatsu san reference.. lol. like i dont know. it just feels in bad taste. this series is continuing in memory of a man who has passed away. it not only feels invasive but also disrespectful to use this platform to leverage your fandoms. if this were just a random background character it would be completely fine but kas has SAID that this character was designed like this ON PURPOSE to look like an osomatsu san character which is just an ill-mannered intention to have. when you are an artist for a project that is made IN MEMORIAM of someone you do not use that platform for your own interest :( idk it always made me uneasy.

i know it seems like im being extra harsh on the artist kas when i bring this issue up but thats just because some artists are more guilty of this than others ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ kas is definitely not the only one, but does do it the most. so.

to ACTUALLY answer your question: i would probably just have left it at the lame 'no tip?' joke and moved on to the next comic, because truthfully the pizza comic is just not funny enough to have as many parts as it does.

[marisoft-paint-adventures]

Pgs. 309 - 384

so there’s this guy.

he has an intro.

and

he’s pretty cool.

he’s so cool he has a shitty galaxy reflection in his shades.

his name is David and his room looks like this.

Dave’s room is the most kind of guy room ever, I can just feel his entire personality here, and I can also feel the “this dude has no parental guidance outside of an equally unorganized brother” energy.

Dave is just a hyperspecific Guy, a real type of Guy, he’s even described as liking obscure bands and shit, Hussie was airing something out when making him.

Anyway, these are your copies of the beta you received in the mail recently. You've labeled them with your name in BOLD RED PRINT to distinguish them from your BRO's copies, who labeled his in kind. Neither of you really gives a shit about this game or has any intention of playing it, but you'll be damned if you'll let that get in the way of your campaign of one-upmanship.

the Lalondes and Striders have a lot of parallels going on between each other with their dynamics and situations. 1 thing that sets them apart is that the perception of an insane mindgame rivalry seems to be more truthful on Dave’s end compared to Rose. Rose thinks that even a fucking fancy pillow is some kind of symbol of scorn and spite in the waterfall of irony and insincerity. while there’s not much seen out of Dave and Bro’s relationship on a normal day, the stupid ass stealth moves that Bro pulls out in order to get Dave’s goat really implies that there is a genuine absurd rivalry going.

also they’re just brothers. when there’s brothers in fiction, they either hate each other or like each other but still fuck with each other just for the sake of Being Brothers.

Dave: Bleat like a goat and piss on your turntable.

You would never consider allowing any fluid even remotely resembling urine to touch your beloved TURNTABLES. That would risk breaking them, and a world without the gift of your godly science just doesn't sound like a place you want any part of. While you're at it, you might as well wipe out human civilization with a meteor or something ridiculous like that which will probably never happen. That sort of thing only happens in stupid idiot movies for stupid idiots.

You will however contemplate bleating like a goat for IRONICALLY HUMOROUS purposes at a later date.

Dave is so lame.

FUCKING APPLE JUICE BABY. YEAH LOVE THAT SHIT. TOP 3 FRUIT JUICES ON THE TIERLIST WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

he’s gonna say it, he’s gonna say the thing.

yeah this is the OS design I’m attached to the most, I grew up with Windows 7 which basically did everything Vista did but a bit more glassy, so this is up my fucking ally. look at those GRADIENTS, look at all that GLOSS, it’s so fucking good.

HE SAID IT.

I love Hussie’s fake UI I love it.

I also love Dave Strider’s blog, he said the n-word on it

not joking you can check for yourself.

FUCKING SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF YEAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

SBAHJ is so damn interesting because it’s the Homestuck thing that has the furthest reach out of the entire comic but at the same time people don’t even know it’s Homestuck.

true story: my 1st ever exposure to Homestuck without even knowing it was when I was like 12 years old and watched a fucking VanossGaming GMod video in which they played that masterpiece SBAHJ map.

seeing a giant shittily compressed texture that just said AIDS which spun around in a circle and fucking instantly killed anything it touched was literally formative for my sense of humor.

the backstory is also absolutely beautiful, imagine dropping your armature Gamer Webcomic™ on the Penny Arcade forums only for Future Homestuck Artist Andrew Hussie to come in and completely shit on your comic by turning it into the worst form of art you have ever seen which would then turn into its own popular comic.

I really like the utility of SBAHJ as an in-universe source of memes and in-jokes for all the kids to reference rather than forcing relevance by shoving in memes that were popular at the time. it really helps make Homestuck feel... not exactly timeless per say, but more relatable in way that supersedes generations.

I say this because I fucking know for a fact real ass memes come in later on in the comic and they get really fuckin annoying.

I would kill someone for a Midnight Crew adventure, you would not believe how far I would go for this to be real.

TT: In some cultures the persistent refusal of a lady's invitation to play a game with her would be a sign wanton disrespect. TT: Either that, or flagrant homosexuality.

STOP JOKING ABOUT DAVE LIKING MEN YOU DO NOT KNOW OF THE FUTURE CONSEQUENCES IT HAS.

it is here where Dave and Rose immediately become the best fucking character dynamic ever.

TT: Sometimes I wonder how you are ever allowed to pay for meals in restaurants. TT: It must be hard to keep a low profile when you're always overhearing awed voices whisper, "It's that guy who has a blog." TG: seriously TG: dudes be worshipping me left and right TG: i cant hardly walk down the street without stepping over torsos of the prostrate TT: Navigating the urban landscape I'm sure is difficult enough without an obstacle course of deferential flesh and skyward asses. TT: Perhaps adapting the art of parkour to your unique environment would help? TG: yeah! TG: i mean damn TG: like theres this scruffy little shit at my feet TG: an orphan or something i dont know TG: face flush on the pavement TG: im like dude you listening for a stampede of buffalo or something? TG: he braves a look at me then gives my shoe a little kiss and scurries the fuck off TT: Heavy is the crown. TG: yeah TG: not kicking oliver twist in the fucking face every day is my gift to the world i guess

also the little "yeah!" he does in excitement of parkour before he corrects himself back to serious coolguy mode is fucking perfect.

aw what the fuck put that shit away.

Dave’s Phat Beat Machine may be a silly joke about shitty fucking DJ machines that have weird pre-made beats and sound effects but some of this shit slaps when you play them at the same time ngl. 11 and 12 together is really fuckin good.

also Captain Planet is in this flash.

maybe Dave is cool, no one else could catch and open that apple juice with such finesse.

this is a really great series of expressions, he is so mad. he can’t stop thinking about PISS.

HE’S SO MAD.

oh god.

oh god they’re here.

You glance at one of the many RADICAL PUPPETS in your BRO'S collection and nod in approval. Is there anything not awesome about your BRO? No, you think not.

this is not cool this is very not cool.

why is the little man in the SHOWER, bro does not BATHE, he is made of WOOD.

he is simply having a terrible, terrible day.

why did he do this.

HOLY SHIT IT’S DAVE’S IRONIC SELF PORTRAIT.

this is why Dave’s sylladex shit is the best sylladex shit, sheer frustrating mathematics leading to renaming items into weird synonyms and yelling out shit to fucking send out swords.

LOOK AT HIM.

he changed his tune so fast, he went from imposing and about throw down to just...

:o

now how will he play the funny Sburb??? what will he do to get out of this situation- WIZARD.

GIANT, STONE, WIZARD.

girl is not having it.

it is here we get the entire downlow of this maddening mother-daughter relationship through the totally not biased eyes of Rose. I mean look at this shit:

Your mother clearly has no real affinity for these damnable things. She only collects them to spite you. If anything, she finds them even more repellent than you do. She's just a committed woman.

A while ago you gave this as an ironic gift to your MOM for mother's day. You even customized it with a drink holder to support one of her ubiquitous ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. She "liked" the gift so much, she had it bronzed and put on this pedestal. She even left it plugged in so it can still be turned on now and then. But never to do any cleaning. It never leaves this display.

The PRETTY PRINCESS DOLL has been sitting there for months, ever since your mother got this abomination for your birthday as a totally PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE gesture. You decided to make it much less abominable by knitting Her Majesty a new head and new arms. Now it brings a mischievous smile to your face whenever you walk by. Your mother hasn't removed the doll yet, and probably never will. She would never be the one to blink first.

This was a drawing you did of your cat JASPERS when you were younger, along with a poem about him. Your mother bought this ostentatious $15,000 frame for it, and had it welded to the door.

Using the colorful MAGNET LETTERS, you recently left a succinct message, which may or may not have been directed toward anyone in particular. But you couldn't find the letter W, so you just stuck two V's together.

Your mother then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for your convenience. Appreciative of the thoughtful gesture, you left her a sincere THANK YOU NOTE, which you had legally notarized, and then marked with a drop of blood.

But part of it was touching the floor, so your mother was kind enough to lift the lower portion of the document with a VELVET PILLOW.

this entire cavalcade of fucking overly professional stupidity really just symbolizes the daily Lalonde struggle. again, way more of an actual thing compared to the baking menace in Washington, Rose does not feel loved enough, she projects contempt onto every action of her mother, even if they’re completely genuine, who’s also literally an alcoholic. but at the same time, this is ridiculous. I can bet that the mere thought of any of this coming off as mean-spirited to Rose is just flying over Mom’s head because she’s too busy cleaning shit or getting drunk. she’s so sincerely nice but also too damn ignorant, while at the same time going completely overboard in every sense just because she can. “oh look at this!! my daughter’s very own drawing!!! it’s so nice!!! let me put it in an expensive frame and then weld it straight onto the fridge!!! :)))))” and then Rose sees this and just goes “SHREW!!! DAMNED SHREW!!!” meanwhile Mom’s just taking this as “oh she’s spelling words on the fridge!!! :))))) but she has no Ws..... :((((( I’ll buy some for her!!! that will satisfy her needs!!! :)))))” and I guess Rose takes a break from the absolute scorn she’s building up in her system to make the most polite ass note all like “Dearest Mother Lalonde, I thank thee for this humble present.” and notarizing it with BLOOD. of course this has to end with Mom walking in, seeing this note and going “how thoughtful!!!” and then sliding a god damn pillow just for the presentation.

it is my firm belief that the Lalondes are just kind of off the fucking wall inherently, literally all of them just do wacky shit like this without question.

fandom mischaracterizations are so frequent that they’re not even a surprise, but this concept of Rose being this completely serious and levelheaded girl who’s always moody and brooding and never puts up with stupid shit is something I cannot understand how anyone picked up from her. she has a sense of humor, a really damn good one, a lot of the comedy can be attributed to her dialogue. she’s not dead serious, she literally knits Lovecraft monsters in purple for goofs and does something like the above while no one is around. and in no possible way is she running on full logic and reasoning because she plays weird mind games with her mom and later on just goes insane and destroys shit for the hell of it. there really is more to Rose than just “goth = serious smart.”

a lot of this extends to Kanaya as well because I guess people just write the 2 of them as the same person, as we all know, couples can’t be together unless they completely overlap on the Venn diagram of their personalities, hobbies, and interests, but that’s for later.

AND THEN SHE PAYS FOR THE FUCKIN MAGNET. WHO DOES THIS.

MOTHER JUMPSCARE.

And of all things to be doing during a power outage. She's up to her IRONIC HOUSEWIFE routine again. That mop bucket doesn't even have any water in it! What an absolute madwoman.

I like how Rose calls this some kind of weird irony chore that no sane individual would do without a hint of joking, she really expects too much out of Mom. a real core part of this relationship is how Rose assumes that her mother is operating on the same high level thinking as her, when in reality she’s just doing actual housewife stuff genuinely. the bucket being empty is even part of Rose overthinking all of this, Mom’s using a Swiffer, she doesn’t need water, she just brought the bucket because it completes the housewife look.

I don’t know if that latter part was intentional or if Hussie just didn’t know how Swiffers worked.

NYOOM.

SICK TRICKS.

ah fuck.

the Strider household is such a very specific home aesthetic of “complete fucking disaster, the likes of which you have never seen, owned by 2 dudebros who like Eminem.” this visual style is so poignant that the best way Dave fixes a window is with straight black tape, how classy.

big fan of how everyone talking to Jade starts to smile, she just has that energy. I mean look at Dave, you see that single raised pixel? that’s him smiling! he’s got joy! and he’s so much more genuine when he’s talking to her too, she’s literally the one person in the friend group where he can drop the whole image of “I am so fucking Cool and Real and Awesome and Swag.” they play off of each other really damn well, no wonder DaveJade is a really big ship.

TG: say hi to your grand dad for me too ok GG: ._. GG: yes i guess an encounter with him is almost certain GG: it is usually........ GG: intense!!! TG: well yeah isnt it always with family

this is the non-embarrassing parallel to John talking about Dad with Rose. Dave’s probably thinking to himself, “ah yes, she too knows of the struggle of high octane anime fights in the middle of the house.” meanwhile Jade’s talking about yelling at a corpse.

also JADE KNOWS THE FUTURE??? HUHHHH???? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???????????

[queenofdragons12]

Babydoll — J.JK, B.C, H.HJ

WARNINGS : slight seductive, flirting, soft fluff

PARINGS : idol! hyrbid! J.JK + B.C + H.HJ X fem! dragon! reader + stray kids and BTS

a/n: there's a new series I'll do hope you'll like it!

Prev Chap: Ch.1

Ch. 2

"I... hello, I am Y/N," you uttered, your voice trembling with a delicate blend of anticipation and trepidation. With a quivering hand, you extended it towards him, an act of reaching out not only physically but emotionally as well. The man blinked, slowly emerging from his daze, and graciously accepted your hand, engaging in a formal exchange.

"It is with utmost pleasure that I make your acquaintance, Y/N. I am Bang Chan, although I implore you to refer to me as Chan," he replied, his voice resonating with sincerity and a touch of noble grace. With an elegant gesture, he beckoned you to enter the room, where an ethereal ambiance awaited. The walls, adorned with brushstrokes of white paint, reminiscent of blossoms intertwining through an abyss of ebony, bestowed upon the space a surreal beauty.

The room, tastefully adorned and meticulously arranged, exuded an air of refined elegance, transforming the mundane interview setting into an enclave of artistic marvels. Yet, amidst the alluring environment, an inexplicable disquietude clung to your spirit, stubbornly lingering even in the presence of your intended companion.

Seated across from each other, Chan initiated the conversation, his hands gracefully clasping together, an embodiment of composed sophistication. "Pray tell, Y/N," he began, his voice a melodic serenade, laced with genuine curiosity, "what compelled you to seek this remarkable opportunity?" His question hung in the air, filled with a genuine thirst for understanding, awaiting your heartfelt response.

A soft sigh escaped your lips, laden with the weight of emotions you had meticulously gathered within. With eloquence and fervor, you poured your essence into each word, conveying your aspirations, dreams, and an unwavering determination to leave an indelible mark. The interview unfolded like a perfectly choreographed dance, a symphony of shared purpose and profound resonance, until an unexpected turn.

Just when you believed the conversation was nearing its conclusion, Chan interjected, his voice cutting through the air like a refined maestro. "I beg your pardon," he interposed, captivating your attention once more. You turned towards him, your eyes widening in anticipation, eager to receive his words. And then, a genuine smile graced Chan's countenance, brimming with sincerity and profound honor, as he gently embraced your hands with his own, an act drenched in reverence and admiration.

"To have the privilege of collaborating with you, my dearest," he murmured, his words reverberating with an undercurrent of profound affection. Your heart soared, an intoxicating mélange of emotions coursing through your veins, threatening to consume you entirely. A fleeting smile graced your lips, a mere glimpse of the euphoria and elation surging within. Without a moment's hesitation, you hastily departed the room, your footsteps echoing with the stately rhythm of a fervent heartbeat.

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱

"Ah, a tale woven with intrigue," your bosom companion Belle mused, her laughter chiming like silver bells as you playfully swatted her hand away.

"Belle, heed my plea!" you chided, your voice tinged with a blend of affection and exasperation. Yet, she continued to dance with mirth, her laughter rippling through the air like a playful zephyr. "For love, my dear, pays no heed to boundaries, nor does it bend to the shackles of societal expectations," she intoned, her eyes shimmering with an ancient wisdom. "Let your heart be the compass that guides you through this labyrinthine realm. Fate has intertwined your destinies, and Chan's heart, I suspect, has already surrendered to the tempestuous throes of ardor," she advised, her words dripping with honeyed eloquence.

A weary sigh escaped your lips, surrendering to the weight of her words, and you nodded, acknowledging the truth in her counsel. Tenderly bidding adieu to your faithful confidante, whose gaze mirrored the depths of a caramel sunset, you embarked on your journey, your footsteps tracing the path of uncertain love. The world outside, vibrant and resplendent, beckoned with the allure of a sonnet waiting to be written.

As you traversed the winding streets, your heart danced with anticipation, entwined in a rhapsody of emotions. Your pulse quickened, like a hummingbird's wings, as you neared the threshold of your humble abode, a sanctuary for passions yet untamed. The tendrils of your thoughts, like delicate ivy, embraced the visions of a shared future, while the whispers of affection tugged at the strings of your soul.

Stepping into the comforting embrace of your dwelling, you shed the confines of a sapphire-hued gown, revealing the soft lace of an ethereal blouse. The fabric, like the tenderest caress, graced your skin, unveiling the vulnerability within. Yearning for solace amidst the tumultuous storm of emotions, you ventured beyond the threshold, into a world that mirrored the sonnets of yore.

Atop the rolling hills, where the sun bathed the verdant canvas in its golden hues, you reclined upon nature's embrace. Each breath you drew mirrored a lover's sigh, mingling with the fragrant symphony of blossoms. The blades of grass, like delicate brushes, painted a tapestry beneath you, while the serenade of birdsong whispered secrets carried on the breeze.

Enveloped in this ethereal sanctuary, your eyelids grew heavy, the weight of passion and longing lulling you into a slumber so profound that it seemed to merge realms of dreams and reality. In this twilight realm, time became a mere illusion, and your soul surrendered to a realm where true love reigned supreme, where the boundaries of mortal existence faded into the ether.

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱

As the first rays of morning painted the sky in hues of rose and gold, you rose with a renewed vigor, ready to embrace the possibilities of a brand-new day. This time, you adorned yourself in a simple pink skirt that swirled delicately with every step, accompanied by a pristine white button-up shirt that exuded an air of elegance. A few golden jewels graced your neck and wrists, their radiant glow perfectly complementing the subtle shimmer of your azure-gilded scales, which had gently faded overnight, cautious not to reveal their true nature under the sun's watchful gaze.

With grace and purpose, you made your way to your place of work, offering nods of acknowledgment to familiar faces along the way. Finally, you arrived at your designated station, only to find the presence of an unfamiliar figure. His jet-black hair cascaded in luxurious waves, an emblem of refined allure that mirrored the wealthy elite you had encountered before. As your eyes met, a shared recognition flashed between you, a profound connection that transcended time and space.

Pupils dilated, hearts resounding like thunderous drums, you found yourself face-to-face with your third soulmate. The shock reverberated through your being, leaving you breathless and disoriented. How could this be? Your mind spun with bewilderment, yet the man before you mirrored your astonishment, his head shaking in disbelief. Rising from his seat, he extended his hand towards you, his voice filled with warmth. "You must be Y/N. My friends have spoken of you," he said, his words laden with a curious mix of familiarity and intrigue.

Nodding in awe, you accepted his outstretched hand, the touch serving as an electric current that coursed through your veins. "I am," you managed to utter, your voice a mere whisper.

A smile curved his lips as he bowed before you, a gesture of respect infused with a touch of undeniable magnetism. "I am Jeon Jungkook, though you may call me Jungkook," he introduced himself, the weight of destiny hanging in the air. With that, the day unfolded, the enchanting dance of camaraderie and laughter guiding your every step. Jungkook proved to be a captivating presence, his humor infectious and his desire to see you smile unwavering. In the blink of an eye, the two of you forged an unbreakable bond, a connection that defied logic and expectations.

It was an extraordinary occurrence, for Jungkook was known to be guarded and reserved, particularly around strangers, especially women. Yet, you, dear Y/N, were an exception. From the depths of his soul, his wolf beckoned, recognizing you as his mate, their incessant whispers echoing through his thoughts, day and night.

In this grand tapestry of existence, where the hands of fate intricately weave the threads of destiny, what choice does one truly have when confronted with the profound and unequivocal declaration of one's soulmate?