#got all the multimedia things

[kindlythevoid]

May 9th: Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra

Pinterest // Same Old Things by Black Match // Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel // @stuffedgrapeleaves // The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot // Pinterest // Adventurers by Holley Maher // Ode byy Arthur O'Shaughnessy // Pinterest

Jonathan Harker's Insta Begins Here, Lucy's Interlude (Next)

[release-the-sheep]

Multimedia Talent™️.

Absolutely Prolific Fic Supporter™️.

🥹 this is a good ask game

[bmpmp3]

A COUPLE nights ago i had some dream about this very ._. girl who was an aspiring rockstar and in the dream she had hair that was like simultaneously pink and blonde BUT LIKE not like dyed or highlights it was like. you know. just pink and blonde at the same time. so i just layered pink over yellow paint LOL it made a sorta pinky orange....

[magentagalaxies]

on the note of kith season 6 (didn't want to derail the other post but have been thinking about this lately): one of the only things i disliked - or, rather, that felt off about the revival - was how crisp everything felt in terms of the aesthetic. like ik filmmaking technology has evolved since 1994 and they couldn't do the live studio audience even tho they wanted to bc of covid, but idk the original series despite clearly working with cbc and hbo always had this diy energy, vs the new season just very much felt like oh this is a corporate thing that was location scouted and filmed on a lot

but what's interesting about this fault is that you look into anything else the kids in the hall have made themselves in the past decades and it still has that exact diy aesthetic, sometimes unintentionally but that's the best part. like, i'm the most familiar with scott's works for obvious reasons, but you look at something like contemporary mouth congress music videos or any other video project scott's made just bc he wanted to make it and you can see obvious green screens, the fact that it was clearly filmed on an iPhone, using stuff around the house as props, etc. and if you look at bruce's youtube channel you get that sense as well, and it's so delightful to see bc yeah this comedy isn't a corporate entity, it's just something these guys have to make bc they are passionate about it

anyway i guess what i'm saying is if they ever decide to do another kith revival season they should have paul bellini direct it on his iphone 5 and film 99% of it at the toronto library's green screen room

idk maybe this post is too niche bc a lot of the stuff i'm citing (i.e. mouth congress music videos) hasn't actually been released yet and also i have literally been on these diy sets in the past year where someone just set up a pop-up greenscreen in their living room and my "job" is to make sure the pets don't wander into frame. but yeah idk i find it very funny that watching the revival my only complaint was the lack of that genuine diy spirit and then one year later i'm part of that type of production

[discoreptile]

Wee ha

[just-sum-stupid-account]

Fascinating energy coming from Murdoc in the Pac-Man MV. Giving off the same vibes as that cat at your cousin's place who's extremely skittish when strangers are in the house & will stay in a vacant room for hours until said strangers are gone so it can continue to eat its food and shit in the litterbox in peace.

[atalana]

if you want the genuine short answer, it's about a video game which serves as the reproductive cycle of universes - when a universe is dying copies of this game mysteriously find their way into the hands of young teenagers, who will find upon playing it that it can alter reality, but also by playing it they've doomed their home planet to be destroyed, and the only way to escape the game is to create a new universe in which to live

it's also about online friendships (we follow several different versions of the game being played and none of the teenagers in question had met the friends they played the game with until they meet in the game), about destiny and personhood, about coming of age, a fair bit of horror and a fair bit of comedy, alternate timelines, and general weirdness

if you want the long answer, see the above 😂

so, i'm thinking about homestuck, and it's reputation on the internet at large, and the popularity of the "every so often someone reinvents homestuck"/accidental homestuck reference/homestuck police meme

and to be clear for people who haven't read it, none of those memes are jokes, they're all genuine plot points. but some people fall into the pit of assuming everything is a homestuck reference just because homestuck is long. and it is, it's a 7000 page comic with several hours of flash footage and a couple mini games, and that's just the main comic not any of the derivatives or spin offs. but it's not just because it's long.

see, homestuck, at its core, is referential. homestuck is basically what happens when someone with a very good grasp of internet culture and character design sets out to make a piece of work that parodies every bit of internet culture there is. and honestly, in my opinion, succeeds! it parodies everything from action movie fans to tumblr subcultures to vine to the occult, it's impossible for me to list everything that goes into it. and its grasp of memes is unprecedented, like i have never seen any piece of work utilise motifs as well as homestuck, and i say that as someone who studies stuff like this. not to mention all the highly talented fans that got brought in to work on the art and music, most of which then went on to create their own webcomics and indie games. what we're looking at here is if someone built the pyramids using memes as bricks, filled them with genuinely emotional and compelling characters and story arcs, and then backed it up with gorgeous art and a musical catalogue literally in the four digits, both of which also make extremely good use of motifs

(people talk about toby fox's work on undertale as being the pinnacle of leitmotifs but i would like to point them to Descend which toby wrote in 2009 for homestuck, it's four and a half minutes long, and contains 25 distinct leitmotifs without any of them sounding out of place)

so it's a very good story, but also by nature, it's a little ridiculous, because of the nature of the source material feeding into it. which contributes to its reputation and why fans go so hard for it, but also why everyone who hasn't read it approaches it with apprehension - the fandom is large and intimidating and takes dumb jokes in stride. which i'm not here to make a moral judgement on, there's good and bad sides to that, as there is to the comic. but of course everything is a homestuck reference, because homestuck is an everything reference. for the most part, a lot of what people say are homestuck references aren't concepts invented by homestuck but rather popularised and contexualised by homestuck

but then someone makes a joke about betty crocker being an alien experimenting on human children and it really is hard to look anywhere else

[drakeanddice]

Some DM Somewhere: “Okay, just prepping for my D&D game. I’ve got my adventure prepped with all of the encounters. I’ve got all the battle maps and tokens that we’re going to need. I’ve got my musical ambience set up and the playlists sorted by the approximate time they’ll be needed. I think that’s…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Someone is to blame for this weird thing where tabletop games are expected to be multimedia experiences and I badly need to kick their ass.

Writing an article about how DM Burnout is a D&D problem. Stand by.

[thankskenpenders]

After a recent interview where Iizuka said it was possible for IDW characters to show up in the games, I've seen some discussion about how the characters need to be introduced "the right way" for people who don't read the comics. And, like, this is obviously true to some extent. You want to convey why people unfamiliar with them should care about these characters, instead of just assuming everyone already knows who they are and their whole backstories and everything. (Anyone who's watched Disney+ Star Wars already has some easy examples of times where they were like "you guys already know this character from the cartoons, right?" and casual fans were completely lost.) But I think people are overestimating how much work this would actually take, especially people who argue that the characters need full-blown reintroductions in the games that depict their backstories all over again and treat them as characters Sonic doesn't already know

I think it's easy to forget that not everyone who plays Sonic games has played every Sonic game. Kids especially. Every single major recurring character in the games debuted before today's generation of Sonic kids was born, and as such every new game is someone's introduction to those characters. The games with the introductions for the Chaotix, Blaze, Silver, Omega, Cream, the Babylon Rogues, Fang, Mighty, Ray, etc. are straight up not available at all on modern hardware without resorting to emulation. To many people picking up Team Sonic Racing or Mania or whatever, those characters are already some random characters Sonic apparently already knows from some previous story. These are not things that every single person who picks up a new Sonic game is intimately familiar with. And yet the games don't feel the need to stop and recount their entire backstories every time they appear.

Also, like, even if you have played every single game, Sonic already has a long history of introducing new characters with little to no fanfare, often treating them as characters Sonic has already met. Core characters like Tails, Amy, and Metal Sonic were really just dropped into Genesis era sequels with no explanation for people who didn't read the manual (i.e.: most players). Sonic has a kid sidekick and a girl who has a crush on him and a robot duplicate now, just roll with it. The modern era would continue to do this with characters like the reimagined Team Chaotix, or Orbot and Cubot, who just appeared in the games one day with no setup. We got along just fine.

(This is to say nothing of the nature of the creative medium the IDW characters originate from, where every new comic arc is treated as somebody's first and supporting characters are periodically given reintroductions to get newer readers up to speed. We've been over Whisper's backstory multiple times now.)

Again, obviously I do want characters like Tangle, Whisper, and Surge to show up in the games with compelling introductions that do the characters justice, but I think people are overthinking how much effort that actually takes. You do not need a whole elaborate adaptation of Whisper and Surge's backstories in the games just for them to have a cameo. You can have Sonic already know them, and if the details are even relevant you can convey that stuff in other ways - brief exposition in the dialogue, context clues, in-game character bios, new stories that showcase their important character traits without 1:1 recreating the stories that have already been told, out-of-game promotional videos and animated shorts like the ones they did to get people up to speed on who the hell Fang is, etc. This is pretty basic stuff when writing for a long-running multimedia franchise.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

So, considering what's going on with Riot right now, do you think Arcane Season 2 got caught up in all of this restructuring?

Yes and no. Arcane season 2 is part of the reason for the restructuring.

As I understand it, internally at Riot, after Arcane was a huge (and more importantly: prestigious!) success, the decision was made to basically hand the entirety of the game's lore and story over to the Entertainment division within Riot. These are the people in large part responsible for projects like Arcane, K/DA, Heartsteel, that animated series China got, all that sort of thing.

The writers at Riot were basically told to flat out stop producing new content and lore for the game - that's why there's BEEN no new story content for League for over a year - because everything was going to be consolidated under the Entertainment division from now on. This is why Riot started talking about "One Runeterra" and "Arcane is going to be canon" and so on.

The success of Arcane convinced executives that what League of Legends needs is a singular cohesive brand with its most successful public property leading the charge, Arcane is going to be the gateway drug, the hook on the end of the line that brings new players and new paying customers into the exciting world of the League of Legends multimedia IP universe!

Nevermind that Arcane's story and worldbuilding is fundamentally incompatible with >checks notes< the overwhelming majority of Runeterra as it exists and enormous compromises would have to be made to either the world of Runeterra or Arcane itself to make it work. Arcane is the big shiny prestigious mainstream Emmy-award winning project that every executive wants to put their name next to, and like companies Pivoting To Video in 2015 because Facebook showed them inflated viewership stats, Riot Games is Pivoting To Arcane. It's better than them pivoting to crypto and NFTs, at least, although I know for a fact that high ranking people at Riot tried to make that happen too.

Now, the primary cause for all of these games industry layoffs is that interest rates aren't zero anymore. Borrowing money isn't free, the curve of constant growth has ever so slightly slowed, taking on debt is becoming a little tiny bit more risky than it was previously, and corporations are responding to this with massive rounds of layoffs and constriction to show "financial responsibility" and prove to shareholders that they are prioritizing core growth strategies and blah blah blah etc. They're also trying to kneecap the growing labor movement in the games industry and exert downwards pressure on wages, but the interest rates seem to have been the main thing.

In Riot's particular case, a secondary reason is they want to pivot the focus of the company to support their One Runeterra pipe dream, so a lot of the people who got fired at Riot are writers, artists, creative leads and sometimes extremely senior and successful staff who are now surplus to requirements. This is also why Riot shut down Riot Forge in the same round of layoffs - can't have a bunch of talented indie devs going off making video games that don't adhere to the new One Runeterra policy. What if someone played Mageseeker and got confused how there can be mages all over Demacia but somehow there are no mages in Arcane's Piltover and Zaun. That's a plot hole! People write snarky articles about that sort of thing. It turns off new consumers! What if Cinema Sins makes a video making fun of it?!?

So yeah. A bunch of cocaine-addled fame hungry executive vultures at Riot are absolutely gagging on their own d*cks to put their name next to Arcane related projects, and since they were going to be screwing hundreds of people out of their careers, healthcare, and in some cases their fucking visa status anyway, it seems to have presented a nice opportunity to clear the board for their latest Visionary Scheme for the company IP.

That is as I understand the situation, anyway. I'm a bitter old man and most of what I hear is second hand and anonymous gossip through my social networks, take what I say with a grain of salt, but I've followed this company for (oh god) twelve years now and I have developed a tragically keen understanding of how its executive class operates.

[melodic-haze]

remote vibrator in public w sub robin?? 👀

☆ — DEMO TRACK: sub!Robin x dom!Reader

☆ — TYPE: NSFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: Exhibitionism, mentions of corruption, semi-public sex mentions at the end

☆ — NOTES: Wait I didn't even realise I had essentially already done this oh my god 😭😭😭😭😭😭 anyway is a cheeky Robin ooc I wonder if it is..........my bad gang I actually haven't finished Penacony yet 😭 ik like spoilers

Such a move spells TROUBLE for a universal celebrity like her.............good thing she likes the trouble you put her through ☺️

You've seen how she dedicates herself to her multimedia craft, putting her all into performing arts for the sake of inspiring people and making everyone happy. Now, you want to see how she does with.......performing for a different reason :3

"Such a risk would be much more trouble than it's worth, you know."

"If it's 'so much trouble', then why are you smiling like that?"

"Maybe I just find your request amusing. You know that the press are determined to spot anything that may give them a good scoop."

It's not as if Robin was wrong—a cosmically-famous figure like her would be risking the possibility of complete and utter ruination with such deviancy, along with.. well, having to face her brother. And The Family too, but mostly her brother. She had the right to be worried.

..But, well, she doesn't really seem to be worried right now, despite her words. If anything, the expression on her face as she leaned on the wall and the slight fluttering of her wings showed a different feeling.

As if she were the cat that got the cream.

"Uh huh," you leaned back on the chaise with a knowing look, eyes narrowed and arms crossed, "what I know is you're not saying no..."

She lets out a false sigh as she pushed herself off the wall to head to you, "Aw, I thought I led you off my trail."

"Like you do with the press? Oh, please." You rolled your eyes, "I know you much better than that."

"You seem so sure."

"Am I wrong?"

"Mm.. no, I guess you're not."

Then she sits down on your lap and wraps her arms around your neck, the wings on her hips wrapping themselves around the both of you like a barrier that separates you from the rest of the world, "And neither are you wrong about my lack of your refusal."

Your hands snake themselves over to your lover's waist.. before moving down further and lightly squeezing her ass, "So that's a yes?"

"Mhm," she hummed, her voice reduced to a raspy whisper, "I could never resist you, sweetheart."

"What a coincidence—I could never resist you either. Must be a Halovian thing, with that halo of yours."

"Haha, who knows."

And that leads on to your present situation: Robin, as an important member of The Family and a famous singer, was invited to a gala as a special guest. Naturally, she attended and was thankful that they allowed her to invite a plus-one. Considering that Sunday had his own invitation, you were practically the most obvious pick out of everyone she could've chosen, both because you were her most important person.......and because this was a perfect opportunity for the both of you

So here she was, clinging to your arm as you talked to some.. some random who was (unsurprisingly) one of Robin's fans, one that's REALLY obsessed with her too, apparently. And really, she wasn't sure whether to thank you for giving her a different thing to focus on or silently plead to you somehow to cut it out, but she essentially clamped her mouth shut for most of the time you were there, not actually trusting herself to let out a coherent sentence

Not just with that one guy too, you do this through the night—your hand mostly in your pocket as you manipulated the controls of the vibrator within her, usually during inconvenient moments to mess with her a bit

During times you're left alone with her as everyone else goes to do other things and talk to other people, you taunt her of how if she doesn't hide it good enough then people miiiight start suspecting something's wrong ☺️☺️ and she wouldn't wanna ruin her career like this, would she ☺️☺️☺️☺️ oh that'd be such a huge shame ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️

At first she does actually taunt you back, lightly boasting to you that it takes a lot more to faze her and that it's sweet of you to try...........but as the night progresses you find that she fires back at you less and less, your favourite songbird getting increasingly more quiet, just like how her panties are getting increasingly wetter. But she bares with it with a smile anyway, disregarding the rosy tint in her cheeks as simply applying too much blush HAHAHAHA

It's not just when you two are together either!!! You've both made sure that the toy has a big enough range that you can walk around without the connection being severed from the distance, so it was rather easy for you to manipulate it even while you were away from her. Oh, and how FUN it is, esp when you see her try to look around for you as her wings flutter restlessly

It's actually rather impressive to watch though—even when the night toiled away and it got increasingly harder for her to stop herself from cumming herself silly from sheer frustration, she keeps herself in check. It's almost as if she were completely unbothered, acting the perfect part as a beautiful socialite at a grand event as she sang with (very false) confidence. You would've been fooled......if it weren't for the fact that she had telepathised her need for you to just bend her over somewhere and fuck her dumb instead of letting her continue with this toy inside of her. You almost feel bad

Keyword: almost, especially when you decide to get braver and mess with her a liiiiittle bit more. And she would've been fine with it!!! At least, if it weren't for the fact that this was with HER FUCKING BROTHER LOL

Halovians, the musical and emotional creatures that they are, can probably communicate via special frequencies right?? At least, that's my personal hc, like you can't actually use a radio to intercept it and listen in bc it's like a Halovian-specific kinda thing that can only be read through their halos. Idk how they work lol don't sic me

Anyway through that logic, I feel like Sunday picked up signals of distress from his little sister. He's probably more sensitive to her frequencies too, with how yk. They're related. Like sharing genetic code except it's like if you look at a sound visualiser and see multiple lines at once and the Oak siblings have that one similar line or smth. So he can tell that SOMETHING is wrong with her, just not what specifically (esp when Robin's probably trying her best to block out signals of her lust from ever notifying her brother that smth more is happening)

"Are you certain you're feeling alright, Robin?" Sunday's voice held a sense of urgency and protectiveness, as expected of the one that had been there for her as the one constant before she had left Penacony, "I can tell that something is off.. and your feathers are a bit ruffled."

The worried emotions he had sent to Robin, along with a request to pry into her psychical wellbeing, didn't help the singer at all in terms of calming down—the possibility of her beloved brother becoming unwillingly privy to the fact that her inner workings are so utterly perverse and corrupted scares her. The fact that you had slowly switched the vibe's speed between an agonisingly slow pace and an upward climb as the exchange went on added to the torture.

Though compared to the rest of the night, this time actually felt like you were taking mercy on her, with the way you hadn't decided to suddenly ramp the intensity up out of nowhere.

(And there was that twisted feeling inside her that actually liked the thought of being an R-rated spectacle in front of all these people around them still threatening to take her focus away.)

To keep up the charade as she continued to block Sunday's attempts in peering into her enotions, she could only do what she did best; perform. So she nods her head with a smile, though the latter action didn't really need that much acting, "Yes, I'm feeling alright. I appreciate the concern, brother, but nothing's wrong. Perhaps it's just exhaustion—I don't know how you.. mm.. how you deal with it all the time."

"I could say the same to you," he reciprocates her smile, if a tad bit crooked from his worry, "I think it takes a lot of inner strength, to take on the attention of a universal crowd. Luckily, I know you can more than handle it."

The blue-haired sibling hummed, her smile widening from her brother's confidence, "It's because I know I have you to fall back-- on..!"

The grey-haired sibling furrowed her eyebrows in turn at the sudden yelp, "Are you quite sure you're okay..? You're worrying me, dear sister."

...

Yeah, no, she couldn't carry on such a conversation like this.

Another nod as she digs her nails into her palms in an effort to redirect her thoughts from the overflow of slick in the apex of her thighs, "Y-Yes, I'm fine... I think I just need to take a walk around to.. calm myself. I feel rather warm."

He doesn't reply immediately, leaving Robin in suspense. Could he have figured it out?

..Turns out no, as he lets out a small sigh, "Alright, just remember to tell me if something's wrong, yes? I don't want your comeback here to be an unpleasant one."

"I will, thank you."

She turns around in a hurry—though not that much of a hurry, lest he either gets more suspicious or she somehow makes the toy's effect worse—and leaves, making a beeline for you before grabbing onto your wrist and dragging you off before you could say a word (though the small smirk on your face said all you needed to say).

And Sunday clocks the two of you leaving the main hall together with a raised brow. His initial instinct is to go investigate himself—he knew better than to believe his sister's act, of course... But he thought better of it.

He had an inkling that perhaps this wasn't something he should involve himself in.

And his gut feeling was right, esp when Robin dragged you out and into the first private, empty room she found, pushed you down and started grinding onto your lap like a bitch in heat 🥰🥰🥰🥰

People are going to talk for a WHILE about your sudden disappearance, the both of you KNOW this very well, but right now? Robin doesn't gaf, not when her mind's been reduced to a horny mess as she begs you to finally get her off yourself. Whether you do or you DON'T??? Up to you LMAO

Either way, it's DEFINITELY something unforgettable........and dare I say, tellingly exposing of what your songbird likes 🫶

"Why do I deal with such risks again?"

"Because you love me?"

"..Mm. Yes, that's true."

"Wait, really? That's giving me too much power, birdie."

"And that's perfectly fine," her lips curl into a light grin, "There's nobody else I'd rather obey."

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA For telling my partner I'd like to bring my ex into our relationship?

I'm copying this over from r/relationship_advice, because the responses are giving me the impression they don't really get what polyamory is & I'm hoping tumblr does. For reference: there's me (29M), my ex (28, Trans Man), and my partner (30M).

My ex and I were best friends in high school, went to the same college, & dated through the tail end of undergrad, for about a year and change. We ended things on very good terms, the only reason we broke up was a difference in life paths: I stayed in the city to get my Master's, he traveled constantly for his work (he's a sculptor who makes these huge custom multimedia pieces, they're genuinely some of the most beautiful things I've seen). We fell out of touch for the most part, but I'd see him popping up on social media occasionally, or he'd text me when he was in town and we'd hang out, along with some other school friends.

The last time I saw him before our present situation was about 3 1/2 years ago today. We went out for drinks, he came back to my place after, and we ended up hooking up. He stayed in town for about a week, and we hooked up a few more times, and then he left again. He sort of dropped off the face of the earth after that, but he'd always been pretty sporadic, especially when he had a big project, so I didn't think much about it.

Not long after that, I met my current partner. He's truly one of my favorite people in the whole world; he's incredibly thoughtful, and earnest, and passionate about his morals & principles (he's an environmental lawyer), and more than anything, he's someone I never feel like I have to pretend with. He asked for my number, we had our first date a few days later, and ended up staying awake the entire night just talking about anything and everything, so we went ahead and got 5am pancakes and called it our second date. We've been together for a little over 3 years now, we've been moved in together for about 2, and while we've had the occasional fight or rough patch I can definitely say I love this man, and I plan to spend the rest of my life with him.

So, the big change.

About a year ago (~2 years since seeing my ex, my partner and I have lived together for about a year at this point), my partner and I are having a night in, and there's a knock at the door. It's my ex, looking absolutely ragged, holding a 15 month old baby. As in, a baby who was conceived 24 months before then. Yep, it's pretty much what you're guessing. I let them both in, we had a sit down in the kitchen, and he told me everything he'd been doing in the past 2 years in between me cussing him out for keeping it all from me in the first place. I really do want to keep this as short as possible, so to give you the super condensed version:

She's my daughter, he's completely sure about that, there's no one else he's been with the math is even close to correct for

The second he found out he was pregnant, he more or less panicked. He's got a whole Thing about feeling like he's irresponsible/not a "real" adult, and this really set him off, so telling me felt like "admitting to fucking both our lives up" at the time. His OB/GYN said some pretty awful shit to him about not being more careful as a trans man too, which just made it all even worse

Because of all that, he'd genuinely planned to just never tell me I have a daughter & raise her completely on his own, but a few things compounded to force his hand:

The birth was really rough on him, and his recovery was slow enough he was having trouble going back to work, to the point where money was getting tight

On top of that, our daughter has celiac disease, and between paying out of pocket for blood tests & spending more on baby food she's safe to eat, things got desperate enough he went and took out a really dodgy loan from a scummy payday company

He was at our door because all of this had finally spiraled to a point where he'd lost his apartment, they'd been sleeping in his car for about a week, and he couldn't think of anything else to do

I think I was probably feeling every human emotion in existence at the same time through all of this, but the thing I remember most from the whole conversation was the way my partner kept drifting right back to the baby, and the soft way he looked at her. We put my ex & daughter up in a hotel room for the night and told him we needed to talk, and we'd discuss our options in the morning, but I think even then I kind of knew what our answer was going to be.

Sure enough, for the last year and a half we've been co-parenting our little girl, all three of us. We didn't want to juggle who's got her, or force my ex to find a place to stay, so we've turned my partner's home office into our daughter's room, and redid most of the downstairs layout so my ex could move into an actual bedroom, rather than just sleep on our pullout couch in perpetuity. We finally succeeded in convincing him that rest and recovery was more important than trying to contribute to the house finances right away, and it's been magical watching all that stress and terror slowly fall off him. It's like he's a little more alive again every time I look.

Which is where my question comes in.

I'd like to restate, I love my partner 100%. None of this changes that whatsoever. If I ask, and he says no, that will be the end of the discussion for me completely. But I have eyes. My ex is, objectively, a very attractive man. I know we work well together, and I have to admit I'm very curious to see where that same chemistry could lead now that he's not on the other side of the country half the time. I've also been noticing these little moments between him and my partner. Nothing I'd consider crossing a line, but I've caught my partner checking my ex out several times, as well as vice versa, and they get along remarkably well. Sometimes I'll go to enter a room, and see them both sitting there laughing and chatting and playing with our baby, and I'll just hang back to watch because it makes me so happy.

Add to all that, we're pretty deeply ingrained in each other's lives now. My partner and I don't often go out on dates alone anymore, but the last few times we did it felt as if my ex was missing from the table. We watched a movie together last night, and my ex sat in the middle of us with his feet in my partner's lap and his head on my chest, and it felt just as natural as my arm on my partner's shoulder. It's not about just having sex with him, and it's not that I'd want to invite any old person into our relationship. I know we already all love each other, and I think there's potential for that to become romantic between the two of us and my ex.

It just feels as though we're all holding our breath, waiting for someone else to say it first. My ex certainly isn't going to bring it up when he's living rent free in "our" home (it's his home too, but he doesn't seem to see it like that yet). My partner grew up sheltered enough that I'm not sure he's ever heard of polyamory at all, so he's not going to bring it up. That just leaves me.

My problem is, if I'm wrong about what I think I'm seeing, or if I bring it up the wrong way, I can't take it back. I don't want my partner to feel insecure or betrayed, I don't want my ex to feel pressured or put on the spot, and I definitely don't want my daughter to lose any of us, which I know could happen if we aren't all on the same page. Or worse, if we do all date and it goes badly.

Should I just keep this whole thing secret? Is that even worse? Would I be the asshole for opening this can of worms on everyone else?

Help!

[finishwhatyoustarted-event]

Finish What You Started 2024 - Event Rules

[ID copied from alt: Event Rules on a blue background. ⬒ No new projects ◨ Any medium and any fandom welcome ⬓ NSFW inclusive, warnings must be tagged ◧ Tag #FinishWhatYouStarted2024; boosting/retweeting starts September 13th ◼ Event ends October 31st, 2024]

The goal of this event is to get things done that you’ve already started. We all have unfinished projects whose incomplete status haunts us. Those are what we want to tackle!

The structure is loose, as this is a multimedia event. While primarily aimed at writers, this event is open to any kind of creative fanwork. Fics, translations, podfics, fanart, animations, cosplay - if you started it and never got it done, it qualifies. There is no sign-up required. I will not assign beta readers for writers, but I can boost requests for those who want them! And I can boost messages of those who would like to beta read.

The mod is a danmei fan mainly, but your work can be any fandom. Maybe something you started before your current fandom excitement took over, or one you keep putting off in favor of compelling new ideas.

Feel free to pass this event info along! The more the merrier!

Further rules and clarifications:

Alt text is very encouraged, especially for boost posts or artwork!

If your work is NSFW, I will only boost it if it has appropriate content warnings. Spoilering images is recommended but not required as long as it’s tagged. Do not letter-swap or abbreviate content warnings. These are so people can mute them as needed. Example: "gore" not "g0re"

Remember Tumblr can mute phrases, but each warning should be its own tag as well as in the body.

Please use genderbend or genderswap for characters depicted not as canon genders. Example: "#NSFW #genderbend #gore”

Please use Omegaverse or A/O/B for that content. The original letter order is a slur against Aboriginal peoples and will not be tolerated here, even with the slashes. It, like other racial or identity-based slurs, fall under hate speech and are thus not permitted.

This account will post weekly morale-boosting messages and helpful resources. Every Friday, starting September 13th, will be Finished It Friday. All the completed works posted that week will be boosted together in a big thread, so we can celebrate your accomplishment!

Halfway-point check-in is October 1st. Final event deadline is October 31st. The last Finished It Friday is November 1st.

FAQ:

Q: Are original works acceptable?

A: This is primarily a fanwork-focused event. If original work is the only WIP you have to work on, it's certainly fine to work on it during the time frame of the event. If it is posted publicly when finished, you may tag it for boosting.

Q: Are there any restrictions on topics?

A: No, so long as your event # post is properly & fully tagged for content (see rules about tagging above). "Dead Dove" topics are allowed. Some submissions will be 18+. For me, this is less about the content and more about finishing it. 

The usual restrictions based on laws and Community Guidelines of course apply, so you may need to tailor how you post to which event space your interacting with. Twitter, Tumblr, and Discord all have their own rules. There are also some topics that are in poor taste to make fanworks around. The event organizer and mods reserve the right to not boost your work if they decide it is rage-baiting or trolling. They are not responsible for negative reactions to your works. Please be respectful of those you share a digital space with. 

Keep in mind that when I link to your finished work during a Finished It Friday, it may reach a wider audience than you may be used to.

Q: Are there any restrictions on media that can be submitted?

A: Machine Generated or "AI" images and writing are not permitted. If you are found in violation of this rule, you will be removed from the event. All images, writing, or other works must be your own.

This is a positive, shared space. Do not belittle other creators' medium of choice. Please no fandom/character/ship/creator bashing, and don't berate artists or authors for not being done with something, even if they don't finish by the end of the event. Also, please don't passive-aggressively send this event to the author of an unfinished fic you want to see done faster. 😥 Be cool, respect each other, and keep any interpersonal disagreements to your own tumblrsphere.

All posts and boosts will be crossposted to the event Twitter (finishwatustart) and Discord. Expanded rules, explanations, and Dead Dove guidelines can also be found on the Discord. (invite link in pinned post) 

Fics can be posted to the AO3 collection (archiveofourown(dot)org /collections /FinishWhatYouStarted2024_Fall)

Work-in-progress posts should be tagged #FinishWhatYouStarted2024 . If you complete a wip within the event, tag it #IFinishedWhatIStarted2024 for boosting so we can all celebrate!

Find more information and community on the Discord, if you want! Joining the Discord is not required for the event. As always, if you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out!

[infinityroom]

Seconding the thank you!! I hope everything goes well with your projects!

What was the plan for the second Grian?

Were there any characters you had planned to introduce that didn't appear yet?

Were the endermites ultimately good or bad or neither?

Is there an explanation of how the room worked or what it was or how it got there or was there anyone behind it intentionally etc?

Was there an ending planned and what was it?

I love this story, and the format is so cool, secrets hidden in transparent images and galactic to be translated, and I love your art style!! Even though it won't continue, I'm so glad I found this!!

I hope all goes well too! Thank you for following the story! I'm gonna try to make as much sense as possible, but i might end up rabling, I had many things planned. -Elytra Grian was the character you were influencing the most because he was alone with only you to interact with at the beginning. There was a pattern with the Grian's, since he always was the one to make the room there were always a few more of him running around (the reason why I compared him to fireflies in that post I once made comparing all the characters to mobs, there's many of him but you wouldn't see them in the bright light of the room). If he was alone his main goal would always be "find help and get out", if he was with someone his main goal would always be "I need to fix this, I need to get my friends out of here". You can see that way of thinking in our "main" Grian. But Elytra Grian, thanks to the interactions with the asks and then Tango, was gonna behave a lot more like a cornered animal at that point, he wouldn't trust help from anyone, he would only attempt to follow the endermite because it promised an exit.

In my endless attempt to make this a multimedia experience the next main interaction with Elytra Grian would have been a small game. (Let me take the chance to thank my beloved @redstone-sun for Grian's sprite, they are amazing and I love them dearly and I'm so sad you all weren't able to play with their beautiful sprite)

With the game format you would have been fully in Grian's pov instead of interacting with him, being able to fully understand the endermite. Grian would answer the asks questions and speak with the endermite, Cassiopea. (All the endermites are named btw, Tango named each one. The plot relevant ones are Missy, the ear one. Yellow, the one Mumbo has. and Cassiopea.) The game would have had a fixed ending because I was planning on recording gameplay of it for people who wouldn't be able to play it for any reason and I didn't want people to miss out on the main story, but there would have been extra hidden bits for people who could play. Stories Cassiopea could share about previous events in the room and interaction with another Grian, one that had been stuck in the room for so long he'd been left mostly invisible and not really remembering anything anymore (a firefly that you can't see in the light).

The game would have ended with Elytra Grian entering his "egg arc" I like to call it. But I got explain the endermites for that.

-The Endermites are not malicious, but they are creatures born inside the room and become parasites to it to survive. When someone got bit by the endermite they entered their "egg arc" They could either become a parasite to the room or the endermite's meal they would steal from the room. The main requirement I had for that was, whether or not they listened to what the endermite said. Mumbo didn't listen, he shoved his endermite into a chest and pretended it didn't exist. Cassiopea would refer to him as "an egg that refused to hatch" (The reason why one of the old drawings of him had a cracked circle around him, it's his busted egg) . Tango did more than listen, he clung to the endermites with such desperation he became endermite number one. The various sets of powers Tango has are a mix of effects from being an endermite and being in the room for so long, turning invisible is something the room does, and being an endermite lets him control it and not disappear completely. Otherwise, he would just disappear at some point.

-I was never planning on fully explaining the room, but there was no one behind it. It was just an empty, hungry, space somewhere. Creating it left an echo of you behind, It slowly made the echo disappear, starting from the items, that's why having more items was good, there was more before it got to you. There were various effects to being digested by the room, again the most noticeable one would have been Grian since there were many of him, his disappearance would always begin with him being less scared, one of the last things that remain to him is always positive feelings. (The invisible Grian that Elytra Grian could meet in the game would be announced by Grian's actual laughter, I had a clip of it for that reason) Impulse meanwhile, in this story he was part wither! So the room digesting him was slowly taking away the human parts of him, leaving more and more wither. The two heads you guys could see were his wither heads starting to show up. They were gonna be two characters on their own almost, one interested in impulses' own survival, the other interested in actually harming anyone in sight.

-You would have meet the Iskalls soon, aka the meeting fanatics.

There used to be more iskalls, 2 more actually, created by iskall filming his fake meeting in Sahara. I decided to explain that as him entering the room multiple times to record the various bits. Unfortunately they died by False's hands at some point. Along them a Grian and Mumbo also died, by Tango's hand instead, making the remaining Iskalls decide to hide away inside the "walls". The walls were just a separate room they created with all the resources they had, they were just about to build the main building of sahara so they entered the room with full inventories, lots shulkers of bone blocks and many other things among them a few maps of the room to disguise the exterior of it. The room ended up being a meeting room, because "as long as they don't leave the meeting they are safe". They obviously do not like neither False or Tango, but while False actively would hunt them down, Tango doesn't want to bother them. He's already hurt them enough.

There was supposed to be an event before meeting them when reaching the walls. Grian and Mumbo would find "the cemetery" they made left for the other iskalls, Grian and Mumbo. Said cemetery would simply be 2 pickaxes, a sword and a trident left in the ground. The trident being named "Fork of Friendship" would let Grian know that there was another Mumbo at some point. Mumbo wouldn't realize, because he ended up in the room before ever receiving the fork of friendship. The cemetery would then be part of the banner for the blog, just for the extra pain.

-You already kinda met False, but you were gonna see the full mess she is. Absolutely feral, traumatized creature she is.

She had the misfortune of meeting Tango at a really bad time. She ended up almost being completely eaten by the endermites on the spot. The effects of the room plus what happened convinced her that her only way out was to win the war, because that's what it is, is it not? just part of that war? everything will be fine just as long as she wins! Tango feels bad for what he did to her. They are complicated.

She was going to completely break down at the sight of impulse and cling to him for dear life. He would be the only one she recognized as an ally for the first time in years. - For the ending, I'm not sure. I needed to see where you guys would take them. But I would have done my best to get some peace for the characters. They all deserved somewhere soft to land.

[sinnamongirls]

patrick didn’t let most people know at stanford he had a sister.

and for the most part, people didn’t make the connection that 19-year-old adina rachel, the multimedia artist and fashion designer, was american tennis icon patrick zweig’s kid sister.

adina was the polar opposite of patrick. she embraced her new england-ness. she stayed in new york, lived in the city, attended NYU. she was quiet, analytical. she always looked like she was planning her next steps, the steps to take her enemies down. she was like if charlotte york was jewish and actually made art instead of dealing it.

but patrick loved adina. she was outspoken, had things she cared about. things that weren’t stupid, like tennis. adina’s greenwich village apartment was filled with posters and unfinished paintings, scraps of fabric littering the floor. anyone who knew adina’s background on a surface level would accuse her of cosplaying a broke, greenwich village artist. her parents were the fucking zweigs, they could pay for shit, right?

kind of. when adina said she wanted to go to NYU, her parents didn’t have a problem. when she said it was for art, they got worried. their daughter was talented, but she was very passionate. her mother thought that passion could work better somewhere else, as a politician, or teacher. something with a good paycheck. but george zweig remembered the woman he married: that woman was a gloria steinem reading, bra burning feminist who almost went to bryn mawr or wellesley. george knew the reason dina zweig didn’t like her daughters choice of career is because it mirrored her youth. she was afraid of her daughter getting her hopes up, following her passions, and getting hurt when they don’t work out the way she expects.

so they worked out a deal of sorts: her parents would pay for her apartment and basic necessities. school was her job to pay for. and luckily for adina, she got scholarships and grants to help pay for school, and she worked a part time job at a bookstore for extra pocket cash. sure, she was a rich kid. but she wasn’t spoiled. far from it.

and dina zweig, a high school english teacher, did secretly love telling her students who asked that the insane artwork in her classroom was made by her precious daughter.

george had some in his office, too.

patrick was the luckiest out of all though. when he got accepted to stanford (even though no one expected him to get denied), adina made him a one-of-a-kind piece. stanford’s most iconic buildings, hand drawn in pen and colored in with water color, with every single newspaper article mentioning patrick’s tennis achievements pasted in the sky above. it was incredibly detailed.

it made him cry when he opened it.

and it hangs above his desk now, a constant reminder of his talented as fuck kid sister and how much he misses her.

they facetime every week. and patrick invites her to fly out, to visit him. and she does, at one point, to watch him compete in the southern california collegiate speech and debate tournament. and it was worth the trip, because stanford won both the two-on-two and one-on-one debates.

there’s a picture frame on patrick’s desk. in it is a picture of him and adina at that competition. adina standing at a mere 5’3”, patrick at 6’1”. and despite their differences in wardrobe, and height, one look at their faces and you can tell.

they are, and always will be, zweig kids.

adina rachel (pronounced ra-shel) zweig

[biasbuck]

BiAsBuck’s ficrec Fridays

Happy Friday everyone! I'm back again with another round of the fic I've been reading this week (when I wasn't busy reading Chuck Tingle's excellent satirical Hollywood horror novel Bury Your Gays). ALSO I've just got to 7x04 in my complete series rewatch, let's go, lfg!!! You can find previous rec lists here.

23 August 2024

the parts we play by @calinaannehart ok I know I recced this last week but it's finished now and it stuck the landing SO beautifully and seriously if you've not yet read this Buck is a Hollywood actor shadowing the 118 much to Eddie's initial frustration au fic then what are you doing? It's beautifully characterised, has such fun multimedia elements, and all the perfect romcom beats whilst also just being a glorious celebration of the firefam and Buck and Eddie. Read it!

piece by piece, rubble to rubble by @sharpbutsoft 'Christopher Diaz doesn’t believe in hell, but if he did, he thinks it might resemble back-to-school shopping at Westfield Mall with his Dad and Buck.' in which Chris is frustrated by his own descent into teenagerdom and the pitfalls of clothes shopping, Eddie is a very patient loving Dad, Buck helps, and things go very wrong. A satisfying 'trapped hurt/comfort leads to will reveal' scenario, with Buck and Chris bonding and being brave in the face of danger and uncertainty.

from the ashes by @exhuastedpigeon sees Eddie post-season 7 finding inspiration amongst a burned out art studio, and picks up a creative skill he put away as a teen. I really loved seeing him reconnect with a part of himself he'd hidden and the emotions it brought out, as well as the descriptions of how he captures all the colours and landscape of his family and heart through his art. This feels like a lovely unintentional companion piece to be read alongside when i see stars, that's all they are by @ithilien-writes which I recommended last week in which Eddie takes poetry lessons and I just love how we're all in agreement that Eddie is in need of some art therapy, community and creative expression to unrepress those feelings.

you're almost home (i've been waiting for you to come in) by @sibylsleaves roommates fic! In which Buck moves in with Eddie after he and Taylor split, Eddie has a revelation at Hen & Karen's vow renewal and comes out, domestic bliss ensues, and then Buck gets extremely in his head about it. A delicious mix of uhauling and slow burn, with angst, fluff and yearning galore. (I also really liked James in this, how do we manifest him, he was such a great oc.)

of waterfalls by @standback ballet dancer Eddie!!! In which Buck goes to physical therapy at the gym and is infuriated by how hot and good Eddie is, of course. But soon they become best friends and support each other along the way. With twists and turns from Eddie not being part of the 118, and some really lovely world building into Eddie's dancer world. I LOVE this concept, and particularly how Shannon was incorporated into the backstory that got them there in a way that was so seamless. When the dream belongs to someone else, how do you know where to draw the line? When do you let yourself find a new dream?

PS - quick one this week as it's been a busy one, but insert usual call out for more henren fic here. Feel free to self rec! And please share and reblog :)