#gonna be rereading that for a WHILE

[benevolenterrancy]

(Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett) I think Shang Qinghua and Ponder Stibbons should have tea and compare notes about somehow accumulating so much behind-the-scenes power by doing menial jobs no one else wants that they could basically run the show if they wanted...

meanwhile we have Shen "meh good enough" Qingqiu

[hwamphwamp]

random bf!ateez texts // seonghwa

a/n: finally made it through all the members, we love to see it 😁↕️ it’s crazy that seonghwa’s took me so long when his was the easiest to write considering that he reminds me the most of myself but that’s neither here nor there

warning(s): suggestive (MDNI), very little swearing, brief mention of the death penalty

hongjoong | yunho | yeosang | san | mingi | wooyoung | jongho

ateez masterlist | general masterlist

[someiicecube]

im normal about this IF game, i swear

[ceabu]

Isn't This Nice?

[the-owl-tree]

I'm rereading What Lurks Beneath and got to this panel-

-and at first I thought it was meant to be some sort of foreshadowing to the Tide perhaps having some actual abilities (mixed feeling on that), I ended up googling how long hermit crabs can live in the wild aand-

yeah! no wonder they think that thing is immortal lol feral cats have a lifespan of 2-3 years and it probably doesn't help the cats in WLB are starving and definitely dying earlier than that.

[emily-mooon]

To make up for the fact that I didn’t do anything for them for Christmas, here’s another fake shoujo magazine chapter cover :]

pose ref ↓

HAHA ITS FROM ITAKISS!!!! Naoki and kotoko are nothing like the blorbs but I thought this pose worked for that scene (it’s apart of a much large page split into two images, but I decided to crop it cause the rest of it doesn’t matter tbh)

[fluffypotatey]

To be honest I am a huge Nalu shipper. But the thing is I want to know the difference between the way Natsu cares about his guildmates and Lucy. Like what is the obvious difference since that boy sees every as Nakama so how can we say that the wag he cares about Lucy is different?

Like even when Erza passed away? (All the way back in first season there was a segment where the guild was gathered at her grave and all) Natsu was still very reactive. Plus he was also said to be depressed even when Lisanna passed.

What's the difference between all of them and Lucy?

the fact that he stayed. the fact that before he met Lucy, Natsu wasn't one to stay in a group or even want to work with anyone besides Happy at the start of the story. hell, he was ready to just file Lucy down as "New Guildmate" once they reached Fairy Tail

but then, Lucy doesn't leave. she follows him on his mission to save Macao despite her not needing to or even really understanding everything about it. she stays and then fights with him and saves him. it's no secret that Natsu is strong and can take care of himself really well. he's been going on solo missions for years now, and no one has really stopped him, but that means he's been in a lot of sticky situations where he and Happy are on their own and have no backup. and yet, without asking, Lucy offers it

and i think this is the moment when Natsu considers that maybe it's okay to have someone there to have his back (sans Happy)

"but Natsu only needed Lucy for the next quest because of the requirements," well, Natsu also wouldn't have taken or even considered that quest if it weren't for Lucy, yeah? he was not a team player (in the picking job's sense) or really wanted other people to help him on his quests sans Happy. and then he goes and picks a job that caters to their team whilst ensuring that Lucy can't say no

or maybe i'm reading too much into it 🤷🏻‍♀️

or maybe Natsu's got horrible abandonment issues that he will latch onto people so fast (Igneel & Lisanna) but also cause him to distance himself so far when left behind (his 1st time at the guild, Lisanna's death). Erza and Gray are Natsu's closet friends after Lisanna and yet they cannot reach him when he closes himself off. and then we have Lucy, who stuck by and had his back, so who is to say Natsu didn't make some contingencies to ensure whether or not she'd join him?

but maybe it's the rose, colored ship glasses i have on

because yeah, Natsu cares for all of his guildmates. the power of friendship is his biggest motivator. when we meet Natsu, our first introductions of him is defending his guild's reputation from Bora (who was using it as a guise for human trafficking) and saving Macao. and our 1st big arc (Galuna Island), where Natsu adamantly refuses to allow Gray to use Ice Shell and sacrifice himself despite how antagonistic they've been to each other. we get Natsu 100% at Erza's defense throughout the Tower of Heaven and he is even ready to defend Wendy though they only met hours ago

Natsu is a character with a bleeding heart and cannot help but wear it on his sleeve, but we don't really see him allow others to fight his battles or have his back until Lucy comes in. to be honest, i don't even think he had his heart on his sleeve until Lucy. he still has a bleeding heart (i don't think anything could stop that), but he was not ready to be open in receiving company because he was so used to it being ripped away from him

that being said: of all the characters he interacts with, he finds Lucy to be someone compatible enough for him to start going on team missions and inviting her on them (for example, his 1st S-class mission, which he stole, he went to her house to show it to her. the fact that part of the reward was a celestial key might be a coincidence, but i wouldn't doubt it as Natsu and Happy's trump card in case she refused)

but yeah, the difference is that he stayed and didn't push her away at the beginning, but instead continued to invite her along with him to the point that doing a mission without Lucy wasn't his regular anymore. compared to the rest of the guild, of whom he spent most of his childhood with, even if he spoke to no one, they would still be around and talk to him anyway. he might not invite them on job and only challenge them to fights, but the guild is his home and a constant in his life, a constant he needs (bc heavy abandonment issues).

"okay, but he still pushed her away after he watched Igneel die right in front of him. and he left the guild for a whole year, too. so what's the difference there?" you may ask.

so 1) Natsu never thought the guild would disband. he returns to Fiore after a year and is the last to know that they disbanded. he assumed, like all the other times before and while he and others were sealed for 7 years, that Fairy Tail would still be there when he returned. he assumed that his disappearance would not impact so hard because the guild would still be around and Lucy would have the others with her

which, did not happen :)

and like, so many guild members go off on jobs, quests, or even just leave for an indiscriminate amount of time (which i, personally, believe was his rationality for leaving), so him being gone for a year was nothing! right? no harm, eh? his plan was never to be gone forever :))))

2) he just watched his father die and lose any chance of having some semblance of a long term reunion with Igneel. he literally lost one of his main driving motivations for getting stronger and taking jobs. before Fairy Tail, before anyone, it was Igneel. and to learn that a) Igneel was always with him to begin with and b) he only got to see him for less than a day after 14 years of nothing......i would feel lost too ngl

man's needed space from everybody. and he also needed comfort, but Natsu has been shown not to really be the character who asks to receive comfort (and when he does receive it, it's usually when he's already emotionally compromised). he is in the habit of shutting people out after being abandoned or losing someone close to him, with his next rationale being to "get stronger" in order to prevent what happened in the past to ever happen in the future.

anyway

what makes this different? well for one, he sent the letter only to Lucy (or it's implied since no one else is shown getting one) because of how the two spend most of their time together. even the line that goes with the panel makes it sound like Natsu is unsure on how the note will be received (maybe even hesitant? but that could be my own hopes)

and one of the 1st people he reunites with after a year is Lucy and we get such a similar parallel to the first chapter of Fairy Tail between the two as if the narrative itself is slotting them together to say "ah yes, now everything is back to normal and new journeys can begin"

but yeah, this is just a long way of saying, that Natsu does love his friends and guildmates but even when he is close to them, he kept to himself (and Happy) and sort of stayed in their orbit but always with some emotional distance because of his fear of abandonment. and then you have Lucy where he will stay for and allow her to orbit around him and he will invite to new adventures no questions asked

that's the difference

[onehitngocout]

"Search as you might, you will never know the clarity of distance without me. Still, you can't say I didn't try," my shadow says, then pauses. "I loved you."

[riumeri]

thank you for the laughs, the thrills, the life lessons, and the journey!

[i-like-anything-water]

I kept thinking about Rae having someone similar in terms of level of simping and then I remembered - Malori Crowett. Istg these two are a different breed of MCs xD

[n0phis]

the art drought sorry . my hair is funny today tho

[rosenecklaces]

He's a workaholic he's a hopeless romantic he's a gentleman a noir based knight he hates touching sweaty people he loooves a suicidal mission so don't try him he silently fucking kills you and kills you and kills you with just a stare you better not annoy him he'll try to not roll his eyes but would call you a dumbass on your nagging face the official pussy licker 3000 he's a confirmed metalhead with a clubbing rave slut soul that doesn't need to resort to poetry his hypocrite ass actually knows poetry anyways he'll listen to ramblings until three am non-stop say anything bad about his mom and he'll get his emotional support ancient dagger ready for the slaughter so watch the fuck out Azriel last name Shadowsinger truly one of the man of all times

[i-am-creacheur]

Whatever. Go my wip

[dukeofthomas]

I'm so mad that so far the only good robin!jason content i've ever found is his original run. Everything i've seen since has just been making him out to be the Angry Bad Problem Child and victim blaming him for dying. How is it that the only fucking good characterization of him is 20 issues from the 1980s

[destinywillowleaf]

just realized i never actually posted these doodles lol. some scenarios directly inspired by @duckbang

[eater-of-hopes-and-dreams]

Wait I just finished No Gods For Drowning through @queerliblib and HOLY FUCK??? HOLY FUCK??????????

God... If you ever need a story that's dark but ends in HOPE (and is so unabashedly queer) definitely give it a read!!!!!