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Barbie starts dating and Gloria feels jealous, maybe even an eventual love confession
Hope you like it!
And let me know if I should write a follow up!
"Mom," Sasha's exasperated tone makes Gloria's hackles raise before she can even finish her sentence. "You *have* to put yourself out there again. It's been what, a year since you and dad divorced." The teen looked at Barbie for support, but doll-turned-human used her perfect poker face, staring straight ahead to avoid being pulled into the discussion. (One year in the real world had been enough time to learn some social cues.)
"Traitor," Sasha mock-whispered at Barbie.
"It's *only* been a year," Gloria corrected, busying herself with dinner. "I don't hear you nagging Barbie to start dating."
"That's because I am dating," Barbie supplied, hoping to be helpful. (Not *all* cues.)
Gloria almost dropped the pan she was holding in her haste to turn around. "You are?!"
The look of shock and... sadness? in Gloria's eyes confused Barbie. "Should I not be?"
"No, no..." Gloria shook her head and softened her features into a careful neutral face. "Of course you should. You should date as much or as little as you want, just-" a sad smile tugged on her lips, "don't let bad people harden your heart, okay?"
Sasha observed the exchange, looking from her mom to Barbie and then back again. *Okay...* She mouthed to herself, knowing it would go unnoticed by the two women who were staring lovingly at each other.
"Whatever. What's for dinner?"
------
It's not like Gloria hadn't tried to get back into the dating game. She had downloaded all the typical apps—Tinder, Bumble, Hinge—, she had even ventured on Plenty of Fish before she understood the error of her ways and deleted her account immediately. But the apps made her feel like she was shopping for people, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth, and so, she had deleted them.
What was left for her to do? She wondered, still thinking about Sasha's incessant request a week after the incident in the kitchen, getting cozy on the couch under a soft blanket to watch the latest cult documentary (a welcomed change from all the murder true crime shows she watched). She wasn't in her twenties anymore, she didn't want to go out partying every weekend, so where was she supposed to meet men her age? Did men her age even want to date women as old as them??
"You have that look on your face," Barbie commented, joining Gloria on the couch and shimming under the blanket to make herself warm.
"The look of a tired, working mother?"
Barbie grinned, having grown rather fond of Gloria's little sarcastic quips. "No, that look is beautiful," she said earnestly. "The look that something is bothering you."
Gloria shook her head, trying to ignore how Barbie's honest compliments always sank sharp teeth into her heart. She pressed play on the remote and she pretended to pay attention to it simply so she wouldn't have to look into those soul-searching eyes as she spoke. "How has dating been going for you?"
"Hm..." Barbie took a second to think. "I've been on seven dates since last week—"
"What?!?"
Barbie blinked. "One each night, basically."
"How can you afford that??"
She shrugged, "I never have to pay for anything. All the men and women I've seen insisted on paying for me."
Gloria was mid thought of 'Of course they are paying for you,' when it registered that Barbie had said she was going on dates with women too. It should have been obvious, really, that Barbie would see women as perfectly viable companions, but for some reason Gloria had never considered that for herself.
"And... which have you liked best, women or men?"
Barbie scrunched up her nose as she thought about it. "It's difficult to find any man here who is interested in more than my looks and many of them are terrible kissers—though I'm not sure I'm a good one myself-"
"Of course you are," Gloria interrupted without thinking about what she was saying.
"Can you tell just by looking at me?" Barbie asked, wondering if that was another human thing she still had to learn.
"Uh..." Gloria blinked a few times, trying to come up with a good explanation for that intrusive thought at the same time as she tried to comprehend why the thought of Barbie not being a good kisser felt like an affront to her.
"I-I just know that you're very intuitive and kind, and I'm sure someone like that would know how to kiss well," she explained, hoping it sounded like a well-thought-out reason.
Barbie beamed at that, taking Gloria's words at face value.
"So, yeah, I think I'm much more inclined to keep dating women than men. But no girl has invited me nor agreed to go on a second date."
Gloria frowned again. How was that possible?? "Have any of them told you why?"
"They said they couldn't get into another situationship with a woman who's living with her partner and her daughter." Barbie shrugged and continued, "I don't know why that's such a problem for them, but if they see it that way, then I'm better off."
"Barbie..." Gloria tilted her head, her heart melting. "They think you and I are dating, or that we are exes but still live together. That's why they don't want to get involved." She chuckled, but her chest ached a little. "We *are* partners, but not in the way they think."
"Oh! Well... that makes way more sense now," Barbie laughed and got more comfortable on the couch, unbothered by the fact that a misunderstanding might have cost her a few dates.
-----
Rollerblading had been something Gloria and Sasha had taken up as mother-daughter bonding activity and both truly cherished the moments they spent together (even though Sasha still put up a bit of front as it was expected of a teenager).
They were enjoying the breeze as they skated down their regular route when Gloria suddenly blurted out, "Would it be weird if I started seeing women?"
Sasha almost fell flat on her face—not due to the question, but the abruptedness of it. She eyed her mother with an unreadable expression for a few seconds before smirking and asking, "Women or Barbie?"
"What?!? No! I mean-"
"Mom," Sash laughed, grabbing her mother's hand. "Either is totally fine and not weird at all. I mean, it'd be *really* weird to have a real life Barbie as a step-mom, but-" she shrugged, "I've been waiting for you to realize you've been in love with her from the moment you laid eyes on her."
Gloria wanted to deny it, she wanted to say Sasha was mistaken, that she had still been in love with her ex husband when they met Barbie, but she knew she would be lying. All Gloria could do was thank the heavens for the fact that Sasha did not seem to be traumatized by the changes in their family.
"There's no step-mom just yet," Gloria said shyly, choosing to stay away from heavy topics for the time being. "Do you think she would go on a date with me?"
"Are you kidding me?" Sasha scoffed, rolling her eyes at her mom. "I've seen the way you too look at each other. I think it gave me literal cavities. It's disgusting, really."
Laughing at her daughter's dramatics, Gloria sighed and said, "I guess I'll ask her out then." Her heart soared with the possibilities the future held, and she could only hope Barbie would say yes.
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PART 1 of @pokefan-fa 's huuge feederism commission!
#thank you so much for commissioning meeeee!#this was so much fun to do#i love a male weight gain story ^/////^#also thanks for being the coolest commissioner#i tried to plan it as a little book#i hope yall still like the format even though it's not webtoon like#also IT'S NOT FINISHED!#i dunno when part 2 will be finished but it's coming#bigger and better!#heavyheavycream#comic#commission#male gaining#male wg#male feedism#commissions
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academic rivals part 2! viktor x fem!reader
(part 1)
author’s note: this is my humble, poorly proof-read new year’s present. banter, smutty smut and all that. what is this with me and semi-public vehicle (train) sex scenes. anyways. this was highly requested so i delivered. enjoy!
word count: 5,3k~
—
His mouth arcs into a sardonic smirk under your thumb, front teeth nipping ever so sternly—all fucked-out glimpses of insolence gnawing at your composure. So much for paying homage to the proper aftermath. It’s his penchant for prideful gestures that always gets in the way—a ticklish kiss that’s more self-pleased than it’ll ever be tender, lingering below your ear in a slick little trace and basking in the rigid sequence of breaths. Sinewy hands curl around your thighs and slide a ticklish trail home—a finishing touch to your undoing by his hands. A stunt he’s allowed to pull only when you sit astride him.
“Fuck.” It comes out in a rasp—a trembling, gulping thing that you spit above his clavicle, fingers tearing at his shirt in the very same fashion he’d disposed of yours mere minutes prior. Gaze down and stubborn, even in its bleariness. “Lose the grin. I can’t stand it.”
“Am I not allowed to indulge in some self... acclaim?” Viktor holds a breath and lurches forward with a sloppy bob of his head, catching hold of your wrist just in time to brush your knuckles with the corner of his smiling lips.
“You and your redundant swank. You might as well write it on your forehead. ‘Look, I made a woman cum for once!’”
That scores you an incredulous chuckle. And it’s a sweet taunt when he leans backward, watching you crawl out of his lap through weak-kneed splendor. Dizzy and struggling to find your shirt, but neither of you mind a little voyeurism—Viktor almost looks upset when you finally swing the thing on your shoulders, popping the buttons closed—so watchfully sluggish. Dragging it out until the side of your breast is finally out of his reach. The opposite of a striptease.
“For once?” He chides with a huff.
His lean on the desk is heavy when he gets up—has you frowning as he groans, straightening his back, and your shaky, helpful hands rush to put his cane back into his palm. You definitely ought to consider doing it on softer surfaces.
And there goes your taciturn gratitude. Intermittent tenderness at its best—wrapping around his shoulders and kissing him on the mouth, swirling inside your chest in that one terrifying, anything-but-casual tingle.
Too bad you’d rather drink his promised periodic table-flavored coffee than confirm your affection verbally, though.
“Maybe twice,” you concede, but that little mercy doesn’t please him. It’s a prickly antic when he trades the lovely squeeze of your hip for a warning pinch, and you have no choice but to sigh, clinging off his frame with a defeated, “Fine. Thrice at best.”
“Try quadrupling that,” Viktor bites back, earning himself a scoff. “Although, I’m sure the received sum will noticeably deviate from the accurate amount.”
“That’s not plausible. We’re not fucking nearly long enough for you to even dream of that.”
“Ah, but you do admit that ‘thrice at best’ doesn’t do my accomplishments enough justice.”
“God, you’re so flippant. Remind me why I’m sleeping with you again?”
Truly, though, why do you keep doing it? Your rivalry is not exactly a fugitive—it was still there, jagged and swollen inside your gut, piercing through your temples whenever he dared to challenge you. And his contempt never left, either—all tense veins threatening to snap out of his neck every time he towered above you with a new complaint. An ouroboros of aching vocal cords and heated profanities—mostly on your part. Mostly during those tedious hours of assembling the exoskeleton.
Oh, but what a twist it gained.
A titillating, filthy thing that both of you couldn’t get enough of. Shamefully lucrative, too—both for the Inventor’s Competition and for your sanities—biting, bruising, binding your limbs together in whatever hate-fucking fashion he did it to you the first time. And the second one. And the third. You couldn’t exactly make out when it got diluted into something palpably softer, though.
When the need to pound you senseless just to make the cooperation bearable was replaced with a mere ‘Would you like a distraction?’ When his name—once urging you to wash your mouth with soap for every shameful time you had to call out for him—became your favorite disyllabic moan, sultry and choked up beneath or atop him (and invariably followed by a sweetly sadistic tug on his tousled hair). When there isn't a single logical reason left for you to keep it up—because the prototype finally lies before you, complete and stunning, outstripping the deadline by two days, and the presentation is already approved by your mentors. Not without a plethora of mutual insults, but that part could never be avoided. And the job was done. Flawlessly so. That’s the only thing that matters.
Except it isn’t.
Your temporary partnership was over. Sure, there’s still the main event waiting to be dealt with, but that affair is of a strictly professional nature. No twisted, romantic business allowed. Maybe you could still arrange a few superfluous recitings—more so to come up with another excuse to undress him and gently pull the device over that prominent spine, then to hastily get him out of it when one of you inevitably starts questioning the other’s intelligence (or decency). A maniacal urge to find something—anything to claim one more chaotic evening before it’s over. Before you lose every preposterous explanation for lusting after him.
How very counterproductive of you.
Even tonight. Barely any science talk, yet so much redundant touching. Nonsensical anecdotes. Laughter. Insult-framed, jagged heart-to-hearts. Anything but a decent, last-adjustments-related workshop. And there was definitely no reason to finish as late as you did.
And yet, it’s quarter to midnight when you’re finally packing up. His hand keeps slipping off the handle when he holds the door for you. And he stands there so tellingly disheveled, with his hair a mess like a screaming proof of your entanglement: he could never fight the allegation if someone were to walk in on you one of these nights. Certainly not looking like that.
Knowing, astute eyes followed your languorous tease of a walk. He failed to swallow a scoff when you attempted to run out of the lab (the audacity of you to even consider leaving without kissing him goodbye!), and that stunt cost you a graceful penalty.
Viktor’s scrawny frame found support in a quick recline on the wall. Had you squealing when something hard tugged on your waist. His cane, you realized, turning to address the bastard. But he exceeded. Weaved his arm around you and pressed your chest flush with his, grinning down when your fingers reached for his corduroy vest. And that smile—gummy and ostentatious—almost tore his mouth when you gave him a nasty glare from beneath tired lids. An oblivious passer-by would definitely mistake this for a lovely embrace in the doorway—if not for the way you pulled his tie and clashed agape mouths in a harsh nip of a kiss.
“Asshole,” you grumble, going in for another toothy collision. His laugh bounces off your tongue and rolls down your throat in a vibrating little shake—and you giggle back, awkwardly waltzing him out of that dim room, face still clinging to his in a vile attempt to distract while he fumbles with the key.
“Mmm,” Viktor hums, watching your tangled legs trip over his cane. “You should amend this obsolete dirty talk. Your semantics have become tolerably pleasant.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you don’t have to endure them any more.”
He drops the keys with an awkward clang.
And it’s a first for you—to face the taciturn side of him, smug face unscathed with usual complacency as he watches you bend over to pick up the dangling bunch—sharp shoulders hunching when he reaches to take it from your hands, praying that you miss the subtle shake of his fingers.
“Any more?” He clarifies. His voice echoes through the hall, so oddly strained—and for a moment you simply stare, unsure of how to pussyfoot your way out of this calamity.
You shudder through it, sharply gnawing at your cuticle. Looking up at him with eyes full of puzzled radiance. Come what may.
How does one confess to holding a sentiment? To a semi-former rival, no less? Is he even fond of you? He has to be. His sweet, yearning-ridden eyes tell you that much—so glassy under those shabby chestnut strands. So astutely askance. Surely, you can soften them. You just have to word it right. I want to keep doing this. You can make my eyes roll. Both in bed and because you’re so awfully irritating. Well, not in bed. In… chair. On the desk. The floor, too. In fact, why don’t we move this to our bedrooms? You’ve been promoted. I’d like to date you. Are you available to discuss the details? Right this instant?
“Yes. We finished the prototype, did we not? There’s no need for us to keep working nor sleeping together.” What the fuck. No! Shove that concise shit back into your throat and choke on it. Kiss him senseless. Redeem yourself while you still can—
But Viktor nods. Swipes his tongue over his freshly wounded bottom lip (thank you very much), and averts his eyes to ponder his shoes. So that’s how it is.
“I thought…” He struggles to pronounce it. Stumbles over a digraph and hisses it in a most foreign way—and you’re sorry to have reduced him to shitty pronunciation, watching a hard gulp slowly bob down his throat. Why, just why did you have to blurt that out?
Viktor retaliates, though. Scratches his nape. Shuffles from foot to foot and coughs. A nervous tic you bear witness to for the first time, and, in a way, you gobble up his vulnerability—quiet and almost sacred, in the ambiance of this dark, long hall.
“I thought…” He tries again but trails off to sigh. “Well…We’d already established that we shouldn’t limit our arrangement to, eh… strictly professional benefits. We may not have a reason to proceed, but wouldn’t ending it altogether be a… sunk cost fallacy?”
Oh fuck. You do not take that well. In fact, it ignites a scoff—arms crossed over your chest and pressing hard enough to bruise your sternum. Heels clacking intimidation as you step closer, raising a brow.
“Ah, so that’s what you’re most concerned about? You simply regret investing time in me, is that it?”
“What?” He huffs. His words—so delectable, you just want to eat them right up, especially when they gain that slightly baffled edge, all his vowels so sweetly round and pushy. “What gave you the impression?” Oh yes. Yell at me some more. Let's fight one last time and maybe I won’t feel bad about prioritizing my pride over keeping you. Bravo. How mature.
“Sunk cost fallacy?” You deride. “Seriously?” So close—almost mouth to mouth again, and you’re sure some of your spit must’ve landed on his cheek with the way you seethed it through gritted teeth—not that he minds, of course. That much was determined a long time ago.
“Oh, since when are you so picky with your phrasings?” Viktor jeers. Pretty eyes already bleary with anger—there’s no turning back, and you know it’s a lost cause when his hand digs into his cane, twisting hard enough to strain a wrist.
Tremendous.
“I thought you wanted to keep doing this because you liked it!” You rant. Let him hover over your head (dejavu), hot breaths compounding. Scorching.
“You’re ridiculous. I never claimed not to like it!” He concedes, hitching an exhale.
“Why won’t you admit it, then?” You pry again—nose bumping against his. There goes your decorum—straight into canines and itching to bite—right at that insufferable tongue of his.
But he doesn’t retreat. Two can play that game.
“Why won’t you admit it? I haven’t heard a single verbal sign of appreciation from you, either.”
“Why would I spell it out for you?”
“Why wouldn’t you spell it out for me?”
“Because the implication is there. I don’t like stating the obvious!”
“So you don’t deem me worthy of your confessions? That’s a shame. Am I to believe I’m not as special as you paint me to be?”
“Oh, you’re special all right! A special prick, that’s what you are!”
You don’t bother with confining that insult. In fact, you hope it lands precisely where you aimed—always his ego, that enormous entity you seek to tame at all cost.
But alas. That strikes a different nerve. Viktor’s teeth gnash when he takes a step back, his nasal, disappointed exhale tickling your face at last. And you don’t get to bask in the triumph. Because seeing him scowl feels anything but good—more so when he turns around, his head wagging in disbelief, eyes rushing to avert like he’ll throw up if they linger on you any longer.
“I tried being patient with you,” he mumbles over his shoulder, “but if you prefer useless insults over admitting your feelings… I shall not waste any more time on your immature antics.”
And when he tops it off with a sad Goodnight, followed by a spiteful hiss of your last name, you don’t mutter anything back.
You let the silent hall consume you, chewing your lip off to the faint thumps of his cane. Foretasting a sleepless night full of awkward agony and an even more insufferable trip to the competition. With Viktor. Side by side. In one tiny compartment.
Come what may, huh? Well, how do you feel about that mindset now?
—
Walks of shame have enough flavours to conduct a small study. You’ve tried every single one in a span of one day—first dragging your feet as you trudged to your dorm with hunched shoulders, guilt dissolving remnants of your vigour. And then—a more potent one, crumbling you completely on your way to the lab as you mourned the sweet reminiscence in the morning—stumbling upon the things he did to you on those very surfaces, every corner marked lovely with your shared achievements. Reminding you of exactly what you’d fucked up the night before. A slap, but not on the ass.
There’s nothing left for you but to sigh, gently retrieve the prototype and see yourself out. Staying there even for a minute longer would have you tumbling head in hands. And you were already almost late for the train. Running to the station with ragged breath and bumbling over your own feet—always a hot mess no matter where you go. Nearly slipping down to the rails when you finally arrive, your skirt all hiked up. Pulling hair out of your face and mouth, hasty and inelegant. Gagging on a strand when someone (Viktor, of course) coughs behind your back and huma a reluctant greeting as you turn around, startled. Stern, ochre eyes meet spooked ones. They darken, when you ogle him—a guilty pleasure, really—and almost curse out loud, noticing his shirt (the shirt!): the thin linen thing he wore the very first night you spite-fucked him. Did he do it on purpose? Smooth enhancer. How dare he.
“You’re late,” Viktor states. Casts a quick eye on his wrist—he’s wearing a watch today, the professional bastard—and gets back to judgmental peeking, scolding you from beneath arched brows. The embodiment of a harsh peer review.
“I’m not late,” you argue, shaky arms wrapping around the exoskeleton almost possessively. “I’m just in time.”
He looks at his watch again. Clicks his tongue—a meticulous, petulant tsk—and shakes his head, hair fluffing all around him as the train approaches with a peevish screech, all windy streams hitting you in the face.
Just in time indeed.
You follow him into the cart. Trip over the last stair and all but leap inside, face bumping into his back with a harsh squeal. “Sorry,” you mutter, skittishly holding onto the prototype. Not as fierce today, are we?
“Watch your step,” Viktor warns. Not even a tactful glare. Hell, not even an over-the-shoulder one. He simply leads you to the compartment, so painfully casual. And you grudgingly tag along, staring at his nape with a choked up whine—so blatantly obvious in your pining.
Oh to brush your nose against those knotty little hairs. To taste the skin and smirk when he arches into the nip, whispering some indistinct Czech nothing. But you’re not allowed to. Not anymore. You did this to yourself, remember?
He opens the door for you, nodding to your seats. Waits for you to squeeze inside (the invention is a bit chunky, after all), leaning on his cane with a tranquil grunt. He must’ve gotten to the station by foot—you can tell by the way he’s stretching out his leg, sitting down.
You wonder if this morning would’ve turned out any different had you decided not to be a cunt last night—had you told him how you really feel, no filthy words involved (except for those he likes to drag out of you, if he felt like indulging in that to celebrate).
Would you go to his dorm or yours? Would you fight over what to have for breakfast? Would you catch a cab here together?
But the conductor helpfully ruins your bitter daydream. You awkwardly fumble inside your pocket, searching for the ticket, eyes still set on Viktor and his polite little exchanges. Good morning. Yes, of course. Here you go. Have a nice day.
But when you finally hand that lovely lady your crumpled ticket—she drops the smile and offers you a dry thank you. The hypocrisy.
The conductor retaliates, leaving you alone with Viktor’s ambiguous silence. So captivating when he sits in front of you, staring out the window, piney shadows running over his face in all kinds of prickly shapes. You join in on the pondering, but the remorse doesn’t let you admire the woods. The view simply blurs into vertigo-like heaps of green.
“Ahem.” Great. Resorting to fake coughs now. So much for getting him to talk to you. Watching the glide of his tongue behind a hollow cheek and resenting that cruel show-off. Sure, you do deserve a punishment, but the drollery is hardly necessary. Some heavy artillery is in order.
Your shoe invades his pants. Just the toe, but it’s a tight fit nonetheless—forcing its way inside the leg opening and pressing hard. Scratching him precisely above the sock and gobbling up the huff he draws out, angry pupils flaring at your audacity.
His fingers flinch down and wrap around your ankle. So belligerently erotic. More so when he forces your foot out of his pants and yanks it in its place. All gritted teeth and confused pouts. Seething intimidation and something you can’t quite make out. Has your heart dropping straight into your underwear. So the spark is still there, you note. Good to know.
“Don’t,” he alerts. “I don’t feel like indulging in another quarrel.”
“That’s not what I’m after.”
“I don’t care what you’re after. I’m fed up with your aggravating drivel.”
“It’s a good thing I’m offering you an apology, then.”
That grounds him. Tempts him treacherously enough to fail at hiding his commotion, curious mouth dropping open. But you interrupt that speechless. Leaning closer and prying his fist lax, hands twining firm through sweaty reluctance. Thumbs circling each other skittishly.
“I’m sorry.” You mean it. He knows you do—harsh decorum tumbling right that instant, no matter how convincingly he’s shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” you proceed, “for being so arrogant. I always expect vulnerability from you. But it goes both ways. Well, it should. At least I know that much. I should’ve never adhered to… whatever that was. It’s just that… I get so tongue-tied when feelings are on my agenda.”
Viktor smiles, albeit still curtly. “That outburst didn’t seem tongue-tied to me at all.”
“May I please finish before you start with all the nitpicking?” You frown, shooting him a tumultuous stare. He chortles. So insufferable. But you love him for it, don’t you?
“Back to my apology, though.” You solemnly clear your throat. “Where was I? Oh yes, vulnerability. Well, perhaps it’s already too late to address it, but I do respect you. And I do like you. In every capacity. I’m sorry for insulting you when you were clearly expecting sweetness. And if you want nothing… unprofessional to do with me after I treated you the way I did—I totally understand it. Just no more of this stonewalling bullshit, please. I want to win that damned competition and maintain a decent relationship with you afterwards. No… how did you put it? Aggravating…?”
“Drivel.”
“Right. Aggravating drivel.”
You both nod. So it’s settled, then? A flimsy truce? Just a quick, respectful split (too quick, even)—and you almost feel underwhelmed when he slowly slips away from your touch, bashfully averting his eyes at last. It’s over, you think. Or is it?
And then—a change of heart, so sudden and so demanding—crawling back into your palm and prying shaky fingers loose, pushing himself right back where he’d just left you empty. Ignoring your incredulous Oh? and staring at you from the altitude of his seat, thin mouth quivering into an arc. Still so insistent on running his tongue over the very wound your teeth sliced into his bottom lip. You allege to kiss him gently henceforth. If only he returns you this perk, that is.
“Do you truly seek a decent relationship with me? Nothing more, nothing less?” He asks carefully.
“It’s not about what I seek, Viktor. It’s about what you’re willing to give me. The decision is yours.”
“No.” He winces. “Quit it. You’re an atrocious liar. Where’s that volatile stubbornness I admire about you?”
You grin. Admire. What a revelation.
And you can show him stubborn if that’s what he wants—hands already swiftly sliding up his thighs and shackling them to the seat.
Tenacious it is, then. Hovering over his lap and tacitly asking permission to slide in. Savouring the best of answers when he pulls you towards him, long fingers curling low on your hips. Shaking just from having you on top of him again. It’s where you belong, after all.
“Is that stubborn enough for you?” You chide. He smiles up at you in the very way that always makes you weep for him. Well, not you, per se. Just the needy thing between your ribs. And between your legs. But you’re not sure if the ambiance is appropriate for those kinds of tears yet. You do have a relationship to establish, after all.
“You can do better than that,” Viktor whispers. Avid lips curl against your shoulder and fumble up, puckering a sparsely chaste kiss into your cheek. A tender overture ante-inevitable.
“Do you want me to do better?” You hitch, slurring the question. Fingers already lost in fistfuls of his hair and struggling not to pull—so unvirtuous when it comes to patience. But you’re willing to wait for him. Especially when he’s staring at you this closely, all clenched jaw and tense shoulders.
“I do,” Viktor concedes. “Of course I do. And I owe you an apology, too. I should’ve never accused you of childishness when I was hardly sophisticated myself. If anything, I should’ve told you how I feel first.”
“Mmm, are we competing in confessions now? What is this with you always trying to outstrip me?”
“Lose the prefix. I only want to strip you. But that’s beside the point. I regret my hesitation. I simply wish I’d told you sooner. All competition aside.”
Oh well.
If the man has spoken, all while looking at you so devotedly—surely you can give him what he wants? It’s not like you don’t want to hear it, either. It’s a dream come true, to have Viktor half a beat from spilling his heart out into your hands. Figuratively, literally and however else he prefers.
You finally indulge in a sneaky pull on his hair. Keeping his head thrown back when you drawl a raspy, “Lucky for you, I feel very charitable today.” But the cheekiness vanishes when you bashfully add, “You can tell me now. If the offer still stands.” Handing him the stubborn baton through a kiss so soft that he shudders beneath you, treacherous tachycardia tangible in his very temples. But it’s a necessary risk. Conversation is a relay sport, after all.
Viktor peers at the door. Suddenly, you’re reminded of your predicament, rocking sideways and adding to the delight of your giddiness—the compartment (which tininess you had to thank for pushing you back into his vicinity) was providing you barely any flimsy privacy.
Come to think of it, the lovely conductor may barge in to offer you tea any time soon. And god, the thought of her turning rouge to the sight of you gnawing at him shouldn’t excite you this much. It shouldn’t excite you, period.
And yet it does. Heartbeat rolling back into your underwear and all that. You can see Viktor's pulse follow suit. You could even cup it through his pants—if you felt like it. Both of you have half a mind to get into it right that perverse instant, but, thankfully, his share of decorum proves bigger. And so he reaches behind your back, sliding the lock shut. Sharp eyes return to your lips, seeking resumption.
You lick into him with the vigour of a farewell kiss. And a farewell it is—to whatever undefined mess you’d started in that lab two weeks ago. You’re changed people now. A tad clumsy with your gentle tongues colliding and tickling each-other’s palates unskillfully. But nothing is unmanageable to Viktor. He quickly gets the hang of it, figuring out a way around your mouth. Grinning against your tongue like a fool. And you humm, clinging to his hair with trembling fingers. Arching under his own when he crumples your shirt, finding a grabby hold of your waist. So greedy.
It’s hard to fight the force of habit. To put your teeth out of the way. His content moan only riles you up, more so when you suck at his bottom lip, tasting dried iron where he still wears your crimes of passion. You shower those little wounds in guilty kisses, smiling. He pulls away, panting through a wheezy chuckle. Tributing the next moment to an enthralled staring contest before forcing your mouth open again, one hand besetting your neck, mindful not to choke, another daring to slip under your shirt and follow a shivering path to the underside of your breast. Nimble fingers outlining an aureole while his tongue traces your lip. Beautiful contingency.
“I adore you,” he rasps. Licks up the thick saliva string connecting your mouths and marvels at you, contorted with horny desperation. Bedroom eyes glimmering under dark lashes. Bedroom. You really ought to take him there. Eventually. For now, he lovingly wrecks you on a train, bodies moulded together in a tiny seat. You laugh, pushing his tousled hair back.
“Do you?”
“I do.” He nods. Kisses your temple and presses his thumb into your nipple, fondling it hard. “You and your superfluous, unwavering pride. The nasty things you call me with such genuine fervour.”
“But you’re into that.”
“Oh yes. To a concerning extent, I might add.” And he places your hand on his crotch, knowing that you prefer physical evidence.
“Back to my adoration, though,” he proceeds. Gently nudges you off his lap, using your puzzled reverence to his advantage—legs bending as he slides to the floor, lurking between your thighs. Hunching over them to steal one more peck—it’s hard to resist, really—and pushing your knees apart, hardly even insistent.
His cunning, unmerciful fingers engulf bashful shivers when he reaches beneath your skirt and hooks his thumbs into your underwear, swiftly gliding the soaked thing down. You wish you’d chosen a fancier pair, but alas: one doesn’t exactly plan ahead to have make-up sex on a train.
“Viktor,” you whine a choked up warning. But he doesn’t just leave the lacey garment to dangle off your ankles. He folds it into his pocket with a grin so wide that it might just rip his mouth. Back to his bastard roots. No amount of gentleness could ever cure a perpetual asshole.
“What?” He huffs. Feigned innocence slumping when you push your legs further apart, arching into the seat. Filthily inviting him to have a taste. He settles on having a look for now, hitching a whistling breath as his eyes roam—every inch of you swollen and ready just for him. More so when his lips brush your skin, leaving a wet kiss above your knee. Moving up, up, up and faltering when you grab him by the nape, shoving his face where you need him most.
But he doesn’t oblige. Simply smiles at you and snakes a cruel finger between your folds, teasing the slit sloppy.
“You—ah, stole my underwear,” you moan, nails sharply stinging Viktor’s neck. His finger curls inside you, trembling when you clench at the contact, every nerve taut and ready to snap. Especially when the heel of his palm flattens your clit, dull pressure like a sweet tingle making your legs feel numb. His free hand grabs your calf and pushes it in the air, and the stretch stings so deliciously that you have to bite your fist to muffle a moan. Oh the detriments of fucking in public.
“I did,” Viktor concurs, bottoming out inside you. His thrusts are languid, as if intending to feel every crevice, that smart-mouth of his smiling wider with every dirty, sticky sound. You look away just in time to hide your embarrassment.
“Will you give it back to me?” You ask, teeth almost slicing your cheek when he bends to steal a careful taste of your clit, tongue poking you almost too gently.
“No,” he hums against you, staring up. Eyes hazy with awe at just how wet and pliant you are for him.
At how his fingers are always welcome inside you, no matter mouth or cunt. Perhaps other… orifices, too, but you’re yet to explore that. For now, he can only think of the needy task at hand.
“You expect me to attend the competition with no underwear?” You mumble, clenching your jaw, but it’s hard to be mad at him when his tongue feels so good. More so when he does that little thing you like, tending to your clit in a circling lick, all while pumping his finger deep to the knuckle. Has you tilting your head back with your hand thrown over your damp forehead, mouth stretching in an O that could’ve been so debauched if not for your reticent calamity. What a loss.
“Precisely,” he answers when you almost forget about the question, his voice a raspy vibration against your skin. “I’d like to see you deal with that inconvenience.”
“It’s rude to speak with your mouth full,” you hiss, grabbing him by the collar. And being womanhandled suits him well—he meets your eyes with playful compliance, chin proudly tilted up.
“I never claimed to be polite.” He shrugs. Smartass.
“Right. Is that why you’re putting me in that predicament or are you just a pervert?”
“Both, really. But if you want me to elaborate—“ he sighs, leaning back to admire your face, “I want to be the reason for your predicaments and undoings. I want to have you as my partner—in life, science, crime, bed or this very compartment. I want to make your eyes roll, both when you cum for me and when I say something you find ridiculous—which, I must admit, is objectively implausible because I’m hardly ever wrong, but we’ll have enough time to fight over that later.”
“Viktor—” You blush, letting go of his collar, heart stammering out of your ribs when he pulls away, promptly fixing his tie.
“For now, though,” he interrupts you, stealing a quick glance at his watch, “I’d simply like to go down on you before we have to get off this train. So if you’re still feeling scandalous,” he teases, letting you kiss your own sour taste off the corner of his mouth, “relaxing and letting me take the lead would be most helpful.”
#viktor arcane#viktor x reader#viktor fanfic#viktor x reader smut#viktor x f!reader#arcane season 2#arcane#viktor smut#no beta we die#thats it#happy new year#i hope i made yall happier with this piece even though i dont really like it
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isabella garcia shapiro has a wonderful dream (1/?)
#sami's art#phineas and ferb#dwampyverse#isabella in wonderland#< tag for ORGANIZATIONAL PURPOSES#this is going to be a HUGE project#i genuinely have like. a ginormous script and character designs ready and thumbnails#its so exciting though#i hope i manage to finish it#AND I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT#Ive become really confident in my writing and casting choices so Yall just gotta trust the vision#isabella garcia shapiro#baljeet tjinder#alice in wonderland#pnf AU
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Hi!! Your Cherik is so good and gorgeous 🤩🤩 If you don't mind wanna try to draw some Fall of X Cherik please?
thank you so much !!
i have a couple of ideas relating to the fall of x period specifically since theres. A Lot i wanna play with, so i hope this lil thing may be a satisfactory start :]]
and the obligatory bonus:
#xmen#xmen comics#fall of x#cherik#charles xavier#erik lehnsherr#erik magnus lehnsherr#max eisenhardt#professor x#magneto#snap sketches#for clarity on of this tag ramble im calling magneto max OK ok#sorry it took me a while to answer- ive been busy this week !#but yah like i said theres a lot of Fall Of X moments i wanna poke at#one i really wanted to doodle around was max's time with the shadow king from Resurrection of Magneto#the third issue is prob my fave in general if im so tbh .... but i wont prattle bout that ill go back to my previous prattle#i dont think i have a comic in mind prob just a doodle with shadow charles....#i mean if im devious enough i can def turn it into a comic but for now i just know i wanna do something with that#honestly even this moment i might revisit when i have more time to draw something. a lil better#i dont hate this its a sound start- but i THINK i wanna draw a smooch. a lil kiss. idk we'll see#cause im cheeky like that. 'will this be the last time i see you' 'girl idk we can kiss about it though' etc etc#god not to get off topic but im so curious what will happen with these two ... but thats for a diff post i guess#honestly if you guys have any runs i should read lemme know !! i just finished way of x and bar that ive just been reading the 60s issues#i have a couple on my list i wanna check out but im always excited to look into recs if yall think theyre worth it !!#but ya. thats all from me for now#my time is so finite this week i hope i can draw these sillies again soon .. i have a lot of ideas i fear#maybe i can sneak in one more doodle tonight ... <- doubtful
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Hello, could I have transfem Signora x fem!reader smut? Any scenario is fine, just need dom Signora railing me 😩
{☆} characters la signora {☆} notes drabble, fem reader, sub reader, dom la signora, transfem la signora {☆} warnings 18+ content, restraints, temperature play, face fucking, degradation, pet play
There's a moment of silence that lingers for far too long, the cold nipping at your exposed skin until you feel shivers wrack your body. You squirm instinctively, seeking out the fading warmth of the thick furs laid out beneath you, yet finding nothing but the cold that chills you to your bones. You can't even see, your eyes covered by black fabric, silk tying your arms together behind your back.
It's almost torturous waiting like this. Your knees sink further into the fur as you lean your weight forward slightly, exhaling a shaky breath. You begin to wonder if Signora left you there– maybe you'd annoyed her earlier and she was punishing you. You hoped not. She wasn't known for being lenient when it came to punishments.
But the brush of her fingers along your jawline squashed that fear, your breath hitching as her thumb glided over your throat, the heat of her skin making you shudder. The contrast of the cold room, of your freezing body, to the unnatural heat that simmers beneath her skin is immense– your knees would have definitely buckled if you hadn't been kneeling already.
"Did you think I'd left you here all alone? You're shaking like a dog." The soft, biting lilt was nothing more than a murmur, but for you it was impossible not to hear the pleased tone beneath the roughness of her voice. Your heart leaps into your throat when her fingers trace back up along your jawline, lifting your head and tilting it back just enough to be uncomfortable.
You open your mouth to speak, but your words are silenced by her thumb slipping past your lips instead– you don't fight back, even though the sudden intrusion catches you off guard enough you almost bite her finger instead. You almost consider doing it anyway, but she's so rarely in a good mood it feels rude to spoil it.
"Pets don't speak until they're told," She chides, pressing down on your tongue slightly and laughing at the way you almost choke in surprise. "And I don't remember giving you permission."
You can only manage a garbled whine in response, your face burning in embarrassment– but it's quickly silenced by the click of her tongue and the creak of the old chair you know sits by the fireplace, her thumb sliding out between your lips to drag you closer. Close enough to feel the rush of heat across your skin as your cheek is pressed against her thigh, her hands resting on the back of your head. You can't see it, but you sure can imagine the smug smile that must be tugging at her lips right about now.
"Let's see about fixing your little disobedient streak, darling." She murmurs, digging her nails into your scalp and tugging you even closer, the furs beneath you doing little to prevent the ache in your knees from kneeling. But you don't complain– you know what she wants, and you want it too. "Open."
Like the dog she seems so fond of treating you as, you listen– you're not as surprised this time when her fingers fill your mouth, forcing it open even further until you can feel the saliva collecting and dribbling down your chin. She doesn't seem to mind, even laughing at how pitiful you probably look, drooling all over her fingers.
But Signora is a hard woman to satisfy, and this will hardly do anything other then work her up enough to really break you in. You can just barely hear the rustle of fabric over your heartbeat, gloved hands tugging you closer and forcing you to press right up against the edge of the chair. It's almost uncomfortable, the way the chair presses against your chest, but she always has you teetering on that fine edge.
"Perhaps you can be trained after all." Signora's voice is like a balm, the heat of her body driving away the cold and urging you impossibly closer, until you feel her hand guide you down just as her fingers slip out of your mouth again– right up until you feel her cock against your cheek. "Show me that you can be obedient, mutt, and maybe I'll let you sit on my lap."
You know she's just dangling a treat just out of reach, but you can't help but reach for it anyway.
Your tongue drags across the underside of her cock, so slow you can hear the hiss that rattles in her chest halfway between pleasure and impatience. You take your time anyway, lingering until you reach the tip and press a kiss against it. You almost wish you could see her face, but she's never been fond of expressing anything outwardly when you can see it– just the idea of her brows furrowed, of her face flush and her lip caught between her teeth..it's enough.
It's not hard to imagine it anyway when the heat grows hotter, nearly turning the room into an oven before she catches herself. You aren't stupid enough to mention it, but your smile must be enough, because a low growl makes you shiver– so you drag your tongue from the base to the tip again, revel in the way it throbs beneath your tongue. For a moment you almost have something like control, your saliva dripping down her aching cock as you lap at it like a mutt.
But you're both growing impatient– the sharp click of her nails against the chairs arms makes you shudder, urging you to lift yourself up just enough to wrap your lips around the head with a muffled groan. You consider dragging it out just a moment longer, just to see if you can get her to whine, but she knows you better then you do– before you can even blink, her hand shoves you down. You, predictably, gag. Your throat burns from the stretch, but it's not unpleasant, eased by the pleasured hiss that tumbles from her lips. Signora at least has the mercy to let you get used to it for a moment before she drags you back up, the emptiness in your throat making you whine before she's shoving her cock back down your throat. Your eyes sting with unshed tears, your own sounds of pleasure muffled and garbled as she does it again– and again.
"Finally quiet, mutt?" She laughs, but it's strained– her voice quivers slightly as she fucks your throat like your nothing but a toy to her, drool dribbling down your chin and tears staining the blindfold. "If I knew it was this easy to shut you up, I'd have done it a long time ago."
You so badly want to do something, but with your hands tied behind your back and her fucking your face so rough, so fast, you can barely even think..there's not much you can do but let her, your cunt clenching around nothing. You really hope she wasn't lying about that reward, for once. You're practically dripping on her floor while she uses you, just barely able to squeeze your thighs together for a fraction of friction.
It only serves to make you more desperate, though.
"Fuck– or maybe you're too stupid to know better. You'd just let any pretty woman with a cock use you," Her breathing was getting heavier, more strained, but her grip on your hair didn't relent. Neither did the harsh thrust of her hips, her cock constantly hammering into your throat until you felt dizzy. "You're lucky I'm even willing to train a mutt like you."
Your mind starts to feel fuzzy, the words blending together until she digs her nails into your scalp and forces you down again– and keeps you there. You nearly gag again when you feel her shudder, her cock throbbing in your mouth as her cum spills down your throat, your hands straining against the silk binding them together. Your eyes roll into the back of your head, nostrils flaring and your body tensing– you don't even realize you'd briefly lost consciousness until your find yourself on her lap, rather then on your knees, her hands brushing the strands of hair stuck to your face with sweat out of your eyes.
It's the most gentle she's been all night– and likely as gently as she will be tonight. You lean into her touch anyway, groaning softly and shuddering at the taste of her on your tongue mixed with her cock throbbing against your thigh.
"I'm not done yet, darling. Did you think I'd let you get away with a little light training?" She laughs, cupping your jaw and pressing a kiss that's far too gentle to your cheek, the warmth of her body almost suffocating– but you welcome it, like you always do.
So you nod, smiling drowsily and spreading your legs like a good pet should.
#asks#anon#genshin impact smut#genshin smut#genshin x reader#genshin impact x reader#minors dni#writing tag#la signora x reader#signora x reader#la signora smut#signora smut#does it count as pet play if she just thinks shes Better Then You#signora has an ego and shes going to weaponize it#give her an inch and shes putting a collar on you (please)#but also some of yall clocking my favs too easily PLEASE.....#i am a simple lesbian i see pretty women w questionable morals i get on my knees and bark#somehow signora is softer then arle though lbr. signora is like 50/50 soft vs rough okay#other times shes going 2 fuck ur brains out hope u learn real quick how to tell her mood that day#signora being a gentle lover is so personal to me though likeeee okay.........#she can be sweet when she wants to you just gotta get thru the 500 layers of trauma and Anger first#smth smth not letting herself love ppl who burn too easily or smth idk im just here to get railed#anyway does she need another dog. i can bark. i can do tricks.#passes out
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With that price on your head, every bounty hunter in the East Blue will be gunning for you. Not just Luffy. They're gonna be gunning for all of us.
#nami#monkey d. luffy#usopp#roronoa zoro#sanji#opla#oplaedit#alexisedits#one piece#one piece live action#long time no edit :')#i love seeing them all together#something about group shots just makes me happy#i wanted this to be a bigger set but im still in an edit rut and dont have time#hope yall like this though!
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“I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Ekko x gn!reader [could be read as either romantic or platonic]
Summary ; In which you and Ekko help each other find your spark of creating again.
Requested? ; No. Self indulgent.
Warnings ; hurt / comfort, grief, a hint of survivors guilt but mostly just guilt in general, loss of a friend [unnamed uncanon character], not exactly a warning but hair is mentioned w / no specific hair type described.
Word count ; 2.3 k words
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You stare at the mural in front of you.
Tall and daunting. The tree grew around it like a shield, and the portraits were protected by the home built above in the branches.
Rain pattered on the ground. It had begun to soak through your clothes, dotted cold and unwelcoming on your cheeks. Slid off your head and yet caught into your hair at the same time. You were lucky it wasn’t pouring.
It smelled. A mix of petrichor and something putrid. No doubt from the smog that always left the sky over Zaun grey, and never clear enough for the sun to fully peak through. Such is the usual, for the undercity.
None of that mattered, though.
You were tasked - well, you took it upon yourself - to paint a portrait of another fallen Firelight. You were an artist like most of them were. You painted in your downtime for a while, up until recently.
The past year hadn’t been kind to you. Even with the Firelights being there, existing as a home. As a beacon of hope. For change. It wasn’t enough to fan the flames of the dimmed spark of creativity, that you longed to feel once again.
One failed mission after the next. An injury in your leg that had you benched for weeks. Chembarons were getting reckless, and enforcers were relentless - you feared when the other shoe would drop, when shit would hit the fan.
And then, the recent loss.
A close friend of yours.
The guilt was impudent. Almost impertinent. It seared into your bones like an angry flame that simmered and waited. Stars, you hated it so much. It never went away, no matter how much you tried to distract yourself by throwing yourself headfirst into work.
You took up more tasks despite the stinging twinge in your leg. You did more chores under the guise of letting fellow firelights take a break. Some meaningless and small, others bigger and more meaningful. Busying your mind so you didn’t have time to think too much.
And you took this task, especially, because you thought you could handle it.
You thought this would knock you out of your stupor, let you create again, out of respect for your fallen friend. Give yourself an outlet to let things be, let your mind be content, albeit in a melancholy way.
But the moment you stared into the blank space you were given to work with, all you could do was freeze.
One wrong move, and you’d fuck it up for good. One wrong stroke of a brush and a spray can would mess up the image of that friend.
And starting would ruin the blank space even more. It’d have marred the image you had in your mind, the one you needed to begin soon, lest you get sick from the rain. You didn’t want to mess it up.
You didn’t want to fuck it up.
You didn’t want to ruin the image of your friend.
The friend who you lost because the phantom pain in your leg grew too much to the point where it screwed up your footing on your hoverboard, made you swerve around an incoming bomb being thrown by a blue haired woman working for Silco, made you knock into your friend who lost their own balance and fell with a mind shattering scream, and then—
“Still haven’t started yet?”
Light thunder crackled in the distance, the rumbling amplified by your hyper vigilance.
Startled, you took in a sharp breath, and instantly turned to where you heard the voice from. You hadn’t even realized you were holding your breath in. Your lungs were grateful for the intake of air.
On the wooden balcony below you, you caught sight of the main firelight leader. Ekko.
Arms crossed, eyes tired, head tilted in the usual way he did while regarding something he needed to comprehend. The twisted locks of his hair moved with his head, vibrant against the greyed out colors surrounding you both. Usually, the grounds and the walls surrounding the firelight hideout were more colorful. Today, the rain made it more somber.
“I…”, you tried to form a viable excuse. Whatever your words were caught on the tip of your tongue, and refused to make themselves known. Your eyes flitted back to the blank part of the mural, and back to Ekko.
You wondered if he’d understand.
“I. Can’t.”
Your words were stilted. Hesitant. They cut through the rain like a knife. Unsettled in the air.
Ekko straightened up ever so slightly. He dipped his head the slightest bit lower, with a blink and a raise of his brows. His dark brown eyes urged you to continue.
“I-I can’t—“, you repeated, arms dropping to your sides in defeat. Your thoughts were buzzing in your mind and you couldn’t stop the words from flowing in time. They tumbled out in a jumble you swore on you could comprehend, and your arms gesticulated as you paced on the creaking wood below your feet.
“—every time I try, I just. Can’t. And I need to do this, I have to. I promised I would. And I can’t stop thinking about what happened but I need that to stop, I have to do this because they’re my friend and I can’t fuck this up, I can’t ruin the image of them. And I can’t fucking—“
You kicked a paint can at your feet. It soured over the ground below you, and felt to the grass well below the balconies.
“—bring myself to pick up a single one of these paint cans.”
Ekko’s eyes followed the paint can while it fell. It hit the dirt below, and the distant thump was drowned out by the rain. He clicked his tongue, and sighed with a shake of his head.
You were angry. You were grieving. It’s not like he could tell you to stop, nor would he ever. Any and every Firelight knew what it was like. Seeing you like this, though - abound with ideas, but with no spark, no drive anymore…
It reminded him too much of himself.
He was a leader. The leader of the Firelights. He focused his time on making their hideout a home. Bit by bit, he picked up the broken pieces of Zaun. Did his best to, at the very least. The chembarons, Silco and Shimmer proved difficult, along with Piltover.
With all that work, and all that responsibility, it left him restless. Left him exhausted. Even with the help of Scar, his second hand man, and many others within the community he created, it still weighed him down. Every time he opened that journal of his, without the need of making a blueprint for a new gadget to create, without the need for a map for a plan, the pages were blank.
When he tried, those pages were ripped. Those pages were full of jagged lines, or crinkled up and tossed to some corner of his messy room. He’d stare at those pages for hours, head in his hands, and wonder where the hell his spark went.
When did he lose it?
How?
Ekko took a few steps forward, and pulled himself up to the platform above. With a grunt, he heaved over the wooden railing as carefully as he could. The rain made everything they stood on wet, and prone to slip on. When he stood up, and dusted his hands off, he got a clear look at you.
You forced out a sound, a mix between a scoff and a wry laugh. Ran a hand over your head, and pushed water droplets flat onto your hair. Tore your eyes away from where the paint can used to be, and back to the mural. “Been stuck for months. And the one damn time I need to create, for them—“
You sharply gestured your arm out to the blank spot - an eerie crème colored sight compared to the rest of the wall, save for a few cracks - and your voice trembled. Water droplets fell from your hand as it flicked away from the top of your head.
“Hey—”, Ekko reached a hand out, and rested it against the opposite arm that stayed at your side. He grasped your elbow, and gave it a gentle tug. It tore your attention away from the wall, and back onto him. His voice was calm, almost somber. “— C’mon.”
He took in a breath, and his other hand made a breathe-in motion. You followed in suit, the smell of petrichor invading your nose, air filling your lungs. The tension in your shoulders went tighter.
After a few seconds, Ekko slowly breathed out. You followed him, and the tightness in your muscles faded ever so slightly.
Once Ekko was sure you were calm enough, he scoffed out a small breath, and the corners of his mouth twitched up in a wry sort of smile. It was small, but it was there.
“I… get what you mean”, he started. His voice was in a softer tone. One you didn’t hear as often, compared to his ‘Leader Voice’. It blended into the ambient noise of the rain, yet it was perfectly clear for you. Never broke the calm like the thunder did.
“When I got good enough, I started this—” Ekko looked at the wall behind you, an old ache settling into the small pinch between his brows. “—the mural. Thought that since i the skills, I could put this up. Thought that I could make something good, make something to remember them by, for...”
He sighed through his nose. You followed his gaze, and landed on the portraits you’ve known for years. Six portraits. The oldest ones. The same style, the same paint, the same process.
All were Ekko’s. The people he knew, before the Firelights had become The Firelights. Before he had to grow up as quick as he did.
“… your family?”, you asked tentatively, to complete the sentence for him. Ekko hummed in acknowledgment, and the smallest hint of a smile grew on his face.
“Yeah. My family.”, another sigh, and his shoulders dropped when he looked up at the rest of the mural. “Back then I created so much. Started this tradition, whenever we lost someone. Helped to create so many things for us. For the Firelights. A lot like you did, when you first started here, y’know? But now—”
Your eyes met again.
“—you can’t even look at a blank page anymore.”, you finished. He gently squeezed your elbow, and your hand had instinctively found its way to rest against his forearm.
“You get it”, he nods. “So…”
He let go of your arm to lean down and grab a paint can. Your hand lingered against the arm of his jacket, the outside of it already littered with dark spots from the rain. When Ekko stood up, he shook the spray can at his side. The mix bearing hit against tin of the can, and mixed the paint up enough to be properly used. After that, he took your hand off of his arm, and turned it so that your palm was facing up. He placed the paint can into your hand.
“—Let’s just… Take things slow. See how things go from there, alright?”
The cool metal of the can soaked into the skin of your hand. Your fingers curled over it, and tightened their grip.
“I don’t want to fuck this up.”, you whispered.
The very thought of starting the portrait you dreaded to creeped up from the back of your mind. The cold seeped back into your spine. You wouldn’t say it out loud but it terrified you to the very depths of your being.
“You won’t.” Ekko’s voice broke through the anxious haze that began to cloud your head again. His hand remained on the other side of the paint can in your hand. A promise that he wouldn’t leave you alone. “I got you. Besides—“
He gestured to your leg. A reference to the injury. “—standing up here alone for hours at a time won’t be good for that leg of yours. Figured you need someone to help when you need to rest it.”
You gave him a weak smile. A small thank you for the thought. He wasn’t wrong. Standing for that long would hurt. However…
“It’s gonna make it real, Ekko.”, the tremor in your voice returned. Warmth stung behind your eyes. Warm tears, against the cold air. “Losing them.”
The tremor in your voice this time had finally broken it into pieces.
“I know.”, Ekko murmured. He definitely knew. “It’s gonna hurt for a long time. But this—“
He waved his hand towards the mural. “—is the first step to healing. I’m gonna be right there with you.”
You nodded, and wiped a stray tear that fell from the corner of your eye.
“Alright.”
Ekko moved his hand away from the can, and you walked forward. You stepped on the creaking wood of the step stool in front of the mural. The intimidating blank stretch of the concrete felt way larger than it appeared. But when you took a deep breath, and caught the encouraging nod of Ekko when he went to your side a little ways away, the tension fell away.
The rain pattered calmly behind you.
The cold didn’t sting as deep. Neither did the guilt.
You shook the can at your side again, and raised it up to the wall. You sniffed once, and exhaled a shaky breath.
One spray after another.
One shape formed into an ear. Another, a nose. Soon the eyes.
And soon, a face. A little extra help from Ekko turned that face into a person. Your friend.
Nothing was marred, nothing was ruined.
And for once, the world seemed a little less cruel.
#ekko x reader#arcane ekko x reader#ekko arcane x reader#lol ekko x reader#arcane x reader#platonic x reader#romantic x reader#x reader#platonic!reader#romantic!reader#hurt / comfort my beloved#<33333#love it when artist!reader#just like me fr /j#kinda#anyways ekko- >>>>>#wish there was more content on this guy : (#and that I got more requests for him#also this is my first time writing for him outside of headcanons that I wrote way back in late 2023#aaAAA I hope I did ok#here’s hoping he isn’t too ooc or anything- < / 3#invested a lot of time into understanding him outside of writing bc he’s like#one of my favorite characters so-#aaAAA#Hope yall enjoy this though- :000
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takes agathario in my mouth and shakes them like a dog
#actually do not remember the last time i was this intensely and passionate hyperfixated on something#*passionately#anyway update on the needy bottom!agatha and gentle dominating top!rio fic… we’ve broken 5000+ words yall and.#it’s like. basically all pure filth tbh#it’ll def take me a sec to edit it after i finish it (which i’m hoping will be v soon)#but i think i might actually post it!!#if i do though im gonna need to make my blog 18+ minors dni#anyway! to be continued#i’ll prob update tmrw or soon after#silas speaks#agathario#agatha all along#kathryn hahn#aubrey plaza#agatha harkness#rio vidal#agathario smut#agatha harkness smut#rio vidal smut#agatha all along fanfic#agatha harkness fanfic#marvel mcu#marvel cinematic universe#agatha all along spoilers#agatha x rio
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drew @wolfertinger666 's OC salem (sorry for the shitty quality, I really need to clean my phone camera). Also, you said that he was kind of a bitch but also aloof so we tried to capture that.
#He was the one to inspire us to actually draw our fursonas even though we're shit at drawkng sooo#ty#hope yall like it :3#-Henry and Alex#Plural artist#furry art#soulless art#soulful art#love from the midnight/soulless system#soulless speaks#my art#undescribed#can someone please make an id for this#please
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a few of my favourite bags for the anon who requested to see ♡
#what they are/where i got them:#prada secondhand in a vintage shop#friday the 13th duffle secondhand on ebay - originally d*lls k*ll apparently ..#miffy bag from daisy street#vivienne westwood heart bag secondhand from a vintage shop#brown bag from my work (charity shop!)#snotgirl tote from big bud press#bunny backpack from a charity shop#have a nice day tote from eggsdoodz ♡#d&g bag secondhand from a vintage shop#i defo have more favourites btw i have too many bags .. but these are my current favourites !!! :3#a few have been a favourite for a long time though and i think they will be a favourite forever hehe but yeah !! hope yall like them ♡#a
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what do you mean by fandom infrastructure?
Oh goody I get to rant about this. Definitely gonna need a read more for this one. There's gonna be a lot of general fandom thoughts here so I'll put a big title for when I get to the actual list and pjo-specific stuff for if anybody wants to skip. Okay, my anthropological fandom thoughts:
"Fandom infrastructure" isn't official terminology by any means, but as someone who's been in a wide variety of fandoms for like 15+ years and in varying stages of participating within said fandoms, I generally use it to describe the sort of environment created by a fandom that supports and sustains the ecosystem within it (and may also extend to what kinds of attitudes are fostered within the community). This obviously looks different for every fandom (and different per platform), but I think it's really valuable to break down what systems exist in different fan spaces and how those impact the community that utilizes it, and take lessons from different spaces about what those systems do and how they're effective or not.
General forms of fandom infrastructures have shifted over time - a lot of more recent formats, at least in western fandom, tend to be very reliant on source material and you rarely see a lot of sort of classic archetypes of "old fandom" like concepts such as "big name fans" (I partially blame social media platform drifts for this - I'll touch back on that later*). A fandom with more consistent infrastructure over time (plus just a general favorite fandom case study of mine) and just a general good example of fandom infrastructure is the Furry fandom. It's a bit of an outlier to begin with as Furry fandom doesn't have an actual source material, which means it's an entirely self-perpetuating fandom, and as a result you get some really interesting community structure! (I highly recommend the documentary The Fandom for a dive into the history of the Furry fandom and even some adjacent fandoms!) One of the number one things I always like to note with the Furry fandom particularly compared to other fandoms is it's a very easy fandom to join/integrate yourself into and become a part of the community - it's one of the few fandoms that has generally agreed upon written etiquette/guidelines for behavior in the community that is very easy to find (early 2020s MCYT fandom had a little bit of this as well, but most guides were specific to individual MCYTs rather than the community as a whole and difficult to track down) and a ton of guides explaining what the community is and ways you can begin exploring it. Not to mention the absolute plethora of resources available in the community for just about anything you could think of, and tons of community-dedicated spaces where people can get involved in various ways. The furries are a very well-organized fandom in general! They're also an older and very well-established fandom, so there is much to learn from them.
I like to consider fandoms that have good infrastructure to be fandoms where the fandom is self-reliant or self-perpetuating (not fully dependent to a source material - so the fandom doesn't experience total dry spells when there's no new official media.) and one that's easy to join and integrate into.
Tangent: I have this whole personal concept about "entry-level fandoms" particularly when it comes to the cosplay community. A lot of those fandoms tend to be the ones labeled as "toxic" but when you break it down it's actually that the fandom is just very easily accessible and for a lot of folks that is their first fandom and they haven't learned general fandom etiquette yet. For cosplay, entry level fandoms tend to be relatively mainstream or otherwise easy to access the source material for and then also easy to cosplay while also offering ample room to grow (doubly easily accessible while also not limiting) - usually that the main cast of characters have very casual every-day outfits that can be easily made with a closet cosplay (cosplaying using clothes from your closet or otherwise "normal" clothes) (low barrier to entry) plus more elaborate and evolved outfits for when new fans get comfortable enough to begin exploring further (niches to grow into). Also bonus points if people are able to use their natural hair at all because that makes it even easier. Another aspect that tends to be helpful is how much one actually needs to get into the source material to begin interacting with the community - if you can get the general gist/premise of the franchise pretty quickly and not have to actually engage with the entirety of the source material, that's way more likely to be an entry-level fandom (like, One Piece for example is not likely to be an entry-level fandom, lol). Homestuck is (or more was) an easily accessible webcomic, and despite it's length for the majority of it's run it was actively updating so there was no expectation to be completely caught up, plus it was extremely common to just fully skip over entire segments. Cosplay progression: human characters in basic outfits > trolls > god tiers/etc. My Hero Academia is a mainstream readily accessible manga and anime, particularly to western audiences, and the general premise throughout the series remains relatively close to the pitch from the beginning, alongside not shifting core characters too much. Cosplay progression: civilian outfits > hero costumes and more complex characters. Percy Jackson actually very much fits the bill for this as well - its a VERY popular book franchise to the point where most people have probably had to read it for school at some point, but also it's generally not expected you'll read past Blood of Olympus or any of the side series, if you even read past the first series (and you won't be super lost if you even don't read far past the first book). Cosplay progression: camp t-shirts > adding armor, props, or maybe trying to make goat legs or etc. A more recent and very interesting newcomer to the entry-level fandoms scene is Genshin Impact because it somewhat breaks the format - it's still easily accessible (free to play game) but the character outfits are all incredibly complex. But as cosplay becomes more mainstream and just in general as manufacturing techniques improve, it's suddenly become very easy and affordable to just buy a decent looking cosplay, which is very appealing particularly for a fandom like Genshin. You can have a very nice and complex looking first cosplay with little effort, similar to the effectiveness of closet cosplays in the other examples. As varying techniques improve, the barrier to entry becomes lower in more communities, and there are more opportunities for a wider variety of entry-level fandoms. Okay tangent over -
There's a lot of ways fandoms can be self-perpetuating, but some of the most self-perpetuating fandoms I see are ones that either have a lot of room for original characters, concepts, and similar (see: TTRPG fandoms) and/or fandoms that are heavily divorced from the source material (often due to the source material being widely deemed "meh at best" but having compelling base concepts) (see: Miraculous Ladybug) which is where you often see a lot of AUs - Warrior Cats fandom is a good example of both! I have not kept up with Warrior Cats in ages, but I'm still in the fandom. I have no idea what book they're on. If Warriors stopped publishing books tomorrow I genuinely don't think the fandom would even notice. They've been doing their own thing for ages. There's a ton of room for creating your own characters, storylines, and etc within the worldbuilding of the franchise where it never stops being identifiable as Warrior Cats, which means the fandom can basically do their own thing eternally without ever cutting off newcomers to the community.
The majority of this stems just from being able to not rely on the source material to drive the fandom. If the community inspires itself, then it's able to continue to sustain itself without outside reliance. But to do so indefinitely it will eventually need new fans. And this brings me to the whole "easy to join/integrate into the community thing" -
*It's later - Tumblr used to be a huge fandom hub in general, but the content bans around 2018 led to a giant migration of communities to other platforms. That 2016-2018 era is when we see a shift in fandom in general, with fandom attitudes shifting from old-era concepts like ship-and-let-ship, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato, use of "squick," etc (in general a major loss of old fandom linguistics and terminology - nobody even says OTP anymore!). There's a couple of reasons for this sort of multi-fandom cultural drift, but in general it seemed to widely be the combo of a new generation of younger fans entering their first fandoms all at once while simultaneously being cut off from learning established pan-fandom culture. Newer fans never learn about the old community, how it functioned, or how to upkeep it, and now the fandom is fully reliant on the source material and fizzles out almost completely in the absence of new official media. (Also I think somewhat the lack of BNFs/Big Name Fans can also contribute to this, as they are often the people new fans will look up to and emulate the behavior of when learning how to interact with a fandom - this can be good or bad, depending on the BNF! - alongside being able to learn about the community's history through them, since they're almost always older and well-established members of the community. In the absence of BNFs, the community often turns more towards the source material/creators and it can get Bad™.)
Tumblr as a platform, due to being a blogging and sharing platform, is inherently structured for long-form discussion, long-form text, documentation, and sharing concepts and ideas in nuanced ways. Also preservation - there's no time limit for when posts disappear, and there's no algorithms restricting you to only the newest posts. Tumblr's features even make it really easy to go back and find old posts, even despite the semi-broken search features. Tumblr creates environments where these types of communities absolutely blossom. There's a reason why it was the go-to platform for fandom stuff. Instagram is image-focused, actively discourages text, has a mediocre search, and no proper means of sharing except awkward reposting most of the time. Tiktok is even worse, being short-form video-centric (so even more difficult to repost in absence of sharing features) but otherwise similar (and even less text-friendly and more difficult to search, especially for older posts). Twitter has strict text and image limitations, heavily limited sharing options, and any attempts at threads get messy extremely quickly, so nuance is dead there. Reddit has long form text capabilities but no real sharing features and next to zero longevity. Facebook and Discord are locked behind requiring an account to even view it (instagram as well, to a point). And Youtube is right out (generally it acts as supplementary to other social media). Theoretically you could try to use Ao3 for that, but it's an archive, not a discussion board or social media - at best you'd probably just be going back and forth like scientific journalists which will not be easy for most people to follow. As far as mainstream western social media goes, Tumblr is the best place for "classic fandom" so-to-speak. There's a reason a lot of very established fandoms have built their own dedicated spaces - forums, art sites, etc (usually in combination) - the more splintered your community is, the less of a community it is. It's very difficult to build a community when you never know where the majority of your community is going to be at any given point! In most cases you'll still have the source material, but how is a new fan supposed to know if everybody's on twitter or instagram or tiktok at any given time? That uncertainty immediately cuts off new fans. And you need new fans to perpetuate a fandom (or in general, new people to perpetuate a community). Not every community is capable of having dedicated hosted forum boards and such (though GOD i wish,,,, i miss forum boards,,,, forum boards are awesome,,). Maybe there's a Discord, but discords are difficult to find, easily overwhelming if large, and often intimidating for new folks to join. Not to mention difficult to moderate and if they're busy then it's basically guaranteed most people are just going to get drowned out.
ALL THIS TO SAY: For a true fandom community to exist, essentially, it needs to a.) not be entirely reliant on the source material (instead being driven by activity within the community), and b.) have a cycle of new fans that can come into the community and take up the mantle of upkeeping that infrastructure and continuing the activity within the community, usually with low barrier to entry. This is where that fandom infrastructure becomes important, because that's exactly what supports and encourages that activity in the first place.
To begin with, you must have a community acceptance for deviating from the canon/source material. This is normal and fine and okay. This is what fandom is known for. This is exactly why we have the terms "fanon" (concepts largely agreed upon by the fandom but not officially canon) and "headcanon" (the canon that exists in your head/is personal to you) and AU (alternate universe)! You have to help foster this - you don't have to actively engage with every canon deviation you see, but respect when it is other people's prerogative to deviate from canon and don't shut them down just inherently for "daring to disrespect the sacred canon" or whatever. Remember the ancient fandom proverbs: don't like-don't read, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato ("Your kink is not my kink and that's okay"), ship-and-let-ship, etc. Cringe culture is dead, engage in some whimsy, and remember that ultimately you always are the one to curate your own online experience. Etc etc.
The other major thing is you need to foster spaces where new fans can easily enter and begin engaging with the community. These spaces are extremely important in fandom communities because it's what allows fans who are completely new to fandom to comfortably begin partaking in fandom at a level appropriate for them and without pressure. It's in these spaces that those whose who wish to can begin fostering skills that then leads them to engage with the fandom in larger and more complex ways, growing into different niches within the community and thus allowing the fandom to continue. (I have a whole little essay about this topic [here] which is extremely relevant to my major points here.)
"Alright so where's the PJO-specific stuff and actual examples?"
I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. So, to answer the beginning question - what is some fandom infrastructure I've seen in other communities (and/or Riordanverse fandom, back when we had that kind of stuff)? These are generally types of blog or other niches that prompt activity, discussion, and other forms of interaction within the community. I have comprised many examples though forgive me if my organization is messy because these are somewhat difficult to categorize concisely: (Also if you do know of examples in the riordanverse fandom of any of my examples, like specific blogs or etc, feel free to comment them!)
- General community hubs and community spaces. I have these as two slightly different but adjacent categories since I think these things generally fall into one of two categories - spaces meant for general chatting and interacting with other fans (community spaces) and spaces more meant to find specific topics (hubs).
Things like forums, discord servers, group chats, etc - these exist in the PJO community but are far and few between and difficult to find. If you run one I highly recommend putting a link in your tumblr sidebar (enable custom theme > edit theme > new page [bottom of sidebar on the left] > there should be a little dropdown menu where it says "standard layout" - select "link" and plug in a discord invite set to never expire. there ya go). A couple I know of include my own (one for general riordanverse and one for my askblog), the Titan Army discord, these two, Riordanverse artists server, Nicercy (Percico) events, Jasico challenges, and Above The Clouds (also jasico). There used to be a big general PJO server but it's mostly inactive now (I affectionately refer to it as functionally a knitting circle these days, cause that's most of what's discussed there now, lol). There also used to be a well-known TOA-specific one and a general Riordanverse cosplay discord but both had problems and I'm not sure either still exist. I've heard there may also be a Percabeth server floating around somewhere? But I've never seen it.
"Hubs" is what I label things like blogs surrounding specific designated topics, usually consolidating stuff like general fanworks, specific fanfiction, fanworks of specific characters/groupings/ships, etc. I believe there might be one or two general riordanverse fanart blogs floating around. I'm not sure about blogs for specific fanfiction. A lot of ship-specific blogs went inactive by like 2017 but a couple are still alive like @solangelo. (I'll get into some other examples in a similar vein to this later*) We don't have a designated blog for keeping tabs on whenever there's a Riordanverse fanzine or similar project but some fandoms do (I would love this btw and i am almost tempted to do it myself) - an old pan-fandom one was fanzinewatch. I run a blog dedicated just to reblogging fanart (and occasionally other fanwork) of Hazel and Nico - @deathsibs. I don't know of any individual character-specific blogs off the top of my head unfortunately. Etc etc.
In general the purpose of these things is to help connect the community and make it easier to find and promote things or meet people. These are good places to ask questions, particularly directions or recommendations. That brings me to another one-
- Ask/Tag games and memes. Back in ye olde tumblr days there used to be TONS of fandom-specific inbox and tag games, or people would do milestone promos or etc and do these massive blog recommendations or literally just list everyone they follow or similar. This was a really useful way for people to find more blogs for specific topics and engage with each other in general. Here's an old one I found as an example. My friend has a nice tag with a bunch of old ask memes as well, and Hermitcraft-ask-games is a great example of a blog categorizing fandom-specific ones (Hermitcraft/adjacent MCYT in this case). Tag games can refer to both posts where you respond to the prompt in the tags while reblogging or a game where you tag other people - the latter has mostly fallen out of favor cause it can get very spammy and posts can get very long with it. Less spammy versions tend to be something more akin to an ask game or a follow forever, where you are responding to a specific question or prompt by tagging blogs that fit that, usually as a recommendation. It's a little nicer and more favored because then you're promo'ing other folks and usually it's not a long chain of reblogs, plus the posts tend to have dedicated formats so they aren't super messy.
- In another similar vein, Art games/memes. PJO fandom doesn't have a lot of these! These are your "Draw 6 Characters," "Character color wheel," etc prompts. The fandom I see this the most in is MCYT fandom, particularly Hermitcraft/Trafficblr! There's a ton of little variant prompts I see all the time there (not just for fanart! also fanfic and etc!) - Characters in your style, Fanon species swap, color palette swap, etc etc. (I am totally going to try and make one of these for riordanverse, give me a bit, lol)
- Prompt weeks/months. Also similar - prompt weeks/months/etc are pretty self-explanatory. They're events that give you a set of prompts to create/post fanwork themed to over that time period. PJO fandom used to have plenty of these, though I only see a couple floating around these days. I know Jasico Week/Jasico Challenges and Solangelo Week are still alive, and TA week happened recently. Fun fact, in some smaller/largely inactive fandoms I've actually seen prompt weeks DM active people in the community to tell them the prompt week is happening which I actually really like. In circumstances like that where a fandom is so small, scattered and inactive, it's a good means to get the word out.
- Headcanon/ship/"Imagines" blogs *It's later (again)! Headcanon blogs used to be EXTREMELY common back in ye olde days of fandom. Some of the most popular iterations tended to be ship-specific headcanon blogs. PJO fandom had A TON of these (and many are still up! They just haven't posted since like 2017 at the lastest. Quite the trip down memory lane though). They were generally formatted by people submitting their headcanons/"imagines" anonymously, which would then be formatted into an image to match the blog's general format (sometimes themed to specific characters or subjects, depending on the submission itself) and posted. A good example from PJO fandom I stumbled across the other day while looking at old askblogs is Percicoheadcanons. Absolute classic format right there. Also bonus time capsule points - the most recent post is from before Blood of Olympus was published. That's just particularly amusing to me given the ship in question here.
- Shortform Headcanons / Short Memes & Shitposts Helyeahmangocheese reminded me of this one in my previous post - shortform headcanons are essentially any headcanon thrown out into the world in a short format. So you're "headcanon that [x]" or whatever with no elaboration. Just quick little snappy things off the top of your head that people can pick up and run with. Sometimes there would be blogs dedicated to these, with people submitting them in blog formats like the above, and then shortform headcanons to be posted in that format. Short memes & shitposts are the exact same type of thing - just short little silly textposts and similar cracking jokes that the fandom can take and run with. Both of these are more important to the fandom than you'd think - a.) they have a very low barrier to entry, which means they're a great way for new fans to begin engaging with the larger community. b.) they circulate new ideas for other fans to build off of, creating collaborative concepts. These collaborations help build the community with giving opportunities for people to chat/inspire each other's work and can create iconic fandom moments or community references/in-jokes. And old one from PJO fandom that floated around was somebody threw out the concept of Will Solace's weapon being a lasso/whip (because cowboys/he's Texan/etc) made of light, which then got illustrated and elaborated on by many other fans such as Cherryandsisters and was very popular fanon for a time.
- Confessions Blogs These ones can be decisive in fandoms, depending on how they're run. Confession blogs in general are blogs where people anonymously submit fandom thoughts, opinions, etc (formatted similarly to HC/imagines blogs like above). There's also usually a decent amount of funny confessions like initial misunderstandings or confusion about things. Most well-run ones of these will have rules against negativity towards other fans and similar. When done properly these blogs can be a nice way for the community to have discussions about topics that they may be afraid to broach publicly, and easily can generate community in-jokes.
- Positivity blogs / Fandom voting Somewhat opposite to (at least, more negative) confession blogs, fandom positivity blogs are a very sweet way to spread compliments around the community. Sometimes they're anonymous, sometimes not. Generally though the format is people can submit compliments or kind notes to other people in the community and it'll get posted tagging the individual in question. Trafficblrpositivityproject is an MCYT example of this concept. Fandom Voting is a little bit more odd and varies a lot between communities. An old one PJO fandom used to do was PJO Prom, where people could nominate blogs for different categories, they would either accept or deny their nominations, and then folks would vote for their top favorite blogs of each category and winners would be announced (though the event also included more than just that - like blogs asking each other to prom and etc). In other fandoms I've also seen elections where various members of the community would jokingly campaign for election (including choosing other members of their campaign), people would vote for a winner, and then do it all over again. Fandom elections tend to be a lot more chaotic and silly, versus stuff like fandom prom voting is more geared towards just appreciation towards members of the community.
- Fandom Events / Community Projects Related to PJO Prom, (and prompt weeks/months) general fandom proms or valentine's events used to be pretty popular, especially amongst RP and askblogs. These weren't always strictly organized, but they generally involved asking other blogs to prom/to be valentines and then people would draw cute prom/holiday art or similar to celebrate. Some blogs would send out valentines to multiple blogs just as a nice cute lil treat in a similar vein to how some blogs still do trick-or-treating events. Trick-or-treating events have been a thing for awhile, generally following that same structure, but it's become significantly more popular in general now that tumblr has image embeds possible in asks rather than having to submit a post. Other fandom events can include fandom elections like mentioned before, or any number of things really, but the majority of regular ones will include gift/fanwork exchanges in some form. Secret Santa projects are very common (and PJO did have them! There isn't one singular PJO Secret Santa blog since it seems different folks did different years so I can't link it, but I participated in 2016 iirc. It looks like the most recent one was in 2021 - pjosecretsanta2021). I did find Rrversesummerbang as a recently active one as well. Zines and similarly collaborative projects are also common - PJO fandom does occasionally have zines but they aren't very frequent and generally don't get a ton of traction (which is very sad cause zines are very fun - most of it seems to be just the fandom doesn't have good ways of getting word out about events through the community). We've also had a couple of coloring book projects! I participated in the 2016 one and there was another in 2022. Some other fandom and pan-fandom examples of similar stuff is Mcytrecursive (Gift exchange for fic-of-fic, in this case MCYT-specific), Fic in a box, Mcytblraufest (AU fest), general holiday exchanges, etc. (A lot of my examples are MCYT cause man that fandom is active). There are a lot of pan-fandom ones of these, but usually involvement of specific fandoms is entirely dependent on sign-ups and it can be difficult to know or guarantee any specific communities participating. Fandom-specific ones are generally more well-known in their own communities for obvious reasons. In other projects, Riordanverse fandom even once had a Multi-Animator Project! These are more common in fandoms like Warrior Cats that are very artist and animator-centric, but the fact that we have at least one major one at all is pretty cool! Collaborate games in similar veins to big events/projects like this (see stuff like the art meme/games) can also be great ways to get the community active and engaged. Voting/poll stuff like character or ship brackets can be really interesting too and depending on how it goes down can become an EXTREMELY major event in the community (see: MCYT Tumblr Sexyman bracket). Very fun times.
- Incorrect Quotes / Text Post Memes / Chat Posts Rolling back to headcanon/imagines blogs, incorrect quotes for specific ships/character groupings used to be extremely common. And not even just dedicated blogs, but incorrect quotes/chat posts were pretty much the number one thing the average fan who didn't create fanart/fanfic/etc would post. I was actually quite surprised to see that Incorrectpercicoquotes is still alive. They post more than just incorrect quote/chat posts (not uncommon for blogs of those nature, especially back in the day), but still it feels like seeing a thought-to-be-extinct-species in the wild eating a bag of chips. Anyways, like shortform headcanons and memes/shitposts (of which these are somewhat a subcategory of), these are another low barrier to entry type of fandom engagement, which means they're great for new members of the community.
- Askblogs MY FAVORITE TOPIC. I have a list of PJO askblogs on my sidebar actually cause I'm very passionate about them and askblogs in general. For what an askblog is, my blog @askblog-index goes over that and also I answered some questions about askblogs recently, which you can find in my askblogs tag (also I'm always open to answering questions about askblogs please ask me about askblogs I love them so much). There's so many different varieties too - text, illustrated, cosplay, voice acting, combination, etc etc etc. Askblogs are a really fun means for collaborative storytelling in the community, especially with how much they tend to generate headcanons or put characters in silly little scenarios. Cherryandsister's Will Solace askblog is practically personally responsible for a solid 50% of all Will fanon. Photokinesis!Will was entirely popularized there. They're also a really great place for people in the community to build up their skills - yknow those jokes about "the best way to improve your art is to become obsessed with something and draw it one billion times?" yeah askblogs are that. My art improved so much by starting an askblog because it pushes you to draw things you might avoid normally or wouldn't expect to draw - or if it's not an art askblog, is just plain good practice for writing or voice acting or whatever. It's a regular outlet where you can build up your skills with not a lot of pressure but also outside encouragement and concepts to build off of. Character or fandom-specific daily art blogs and similar request art blogs are similarly also very useful to building up skills (and can be applied to other artforms like fic writing!) (Request blogs are not the same as askblogs though please dont send random art requests to askblogs just gotta put that disclaimer). I also personally consider them extremely vital to fandom ecosystems, though often overlooked - remember those old "ask the seven" posts that would be the terribly colored text in random fonts on a white or poorly-chosen-color background that'd just be random stuff and it'd get reposted absolutely everywhere? For a lot of people that's both some of the first stuff in a fandom that they might make, and also some of the first stuff people used to see in fandoms in general. With my whole silly theory of fandom ecological niches, those types of posts are your base of the pyramid, because it's where most fans are going to start out. It gives them a low-stakes place to begin engaging with the community and figure themselves out and begin exploring the characters and media on a deeper level. That's what fandom is all about! It's what separates fandom from just the general audience of any particular thing. Those types of posts were popular because they're just easy to make! All you need is mspaint, if even! They get across their concepts quickly and easily in an easily sharable format - that's exactly why they got reposted absolutely everywhere! The concept of those posts (and general character chat posts/incorrect quotes) still exist in other spaces in fandom communities, but in different formats - usually tiktoks, being spoken and acted out loud. The problem with that format though is it can't go anywhere - even in shortform video format there's no way to easily condense it down (and also they have a higher barrier to entry, as the format at it's simplest usually requires some aspect of showing your face/using your voice. This means you inherently have to sacrifice some amount of privacy to engage with the format, which isnt friendly to new/younger fans). Meanwhile these ask-the-seven posts are one jpeg that gets across the entire concept. And we've evolved! We have better technology! We can pick better colors and fonts and add image descriptions! We can bring the format back!
- Cosplay This one is pretty self-explanatory - just. Cosplays are a type of fanwork too! PJO cosplay used to be pretty common on tumblr actually! Particularly there used to be a decent number of cosplay askblogs (which are just askblogs where instead of responding to questions with text or a drawing, asks are answered with either a gif or image of the mun/mod in cosplay reacting in-character). Cosplay is cool! And in PJO fandom it's particularly easy!
- Roleplaying Spaces PJO fandom does have a pretty active tumblr RP scene as far as I've been able to tell, which is good! Also you can find people who want to RP pjo just about anywhere. It's just somewhat of a matter of giving them a space to do so. I talked about how to get into roleplaying recently on my blog as well. RP is also one of the forms of fandom infrastructure in this list that transfers well to other social media platforms, in large part due to social media RP making it a whole lot easier. The fandom is mostly just severely lacking in hubs to locate RPs and help people find ways to begin engaging with them.
- Public AUs / OCs Public AUs/OCs are a bit of a weird one to describe - they're basically any AU/OC that the creators (if there is a singular known creator of it) have given total free reign to people with. More often it's an AU that doesn't have a particular known creator but the fandom likes to run around with and do a lot with. In PJO fandom, the ye olde fandom OC was Peter Johnson, a son of Demeter. The AU generally was about how Peter Johnson was a new camper and Mr. D's favorite camper, and just generally a sweet lil guy while Mr. D proceeds to torment Percy because of the name jokes. A series of public AUs that's completely unique to PJO is Godswap aus - there's no one singular set godswap au, but the two most common swaps tended to be Demeter!Percy (in part due to Peter Johnson) and Aphrodite!Nico (admittedly this one was like 90% gay stereotypes/homophobic tropes and there's a reason why the fandom kind of dropped it. It was absolutely the most popular godswap for a time though, and some of the concepts from it have bled into general Nico fanon for better or worse). General pirate aus have also always been very popular in the fandom - there were some old ones back in the day, including local BNF (Big Name Fan) Saberghatz having at least one, maybe like two or three, including a cosplay. Pirate!Nico in particular was very popular. There was actually a slight resurgence of PJO pirate AUs on pjo cosplay tiktok in like 2020 or so I wanna say. Truly we came full-circle there. There's also just general popular AUs that fandoms like to run with. For awhile PJO fandom had a HTTYD au they really loved. The current fandom favorite AU seems to be Velinxi's Young Gods/Hades Game AU.
- Fangames This one might sound odd because Riordanverse fandom doesn't really have this, but fangames can be REALLY fun and cool. Fangames also often spark mini-fandoms in themselves and are just really awesome in general. There's a lot of different varieties of vastly varying complexities, but a lot of it is pretty much just "I made a game, it's about [fandom], here ya go." Some good examples from other communities off the top of my head are games like ClanGen or Untold Tales for Warrior Cats, or Featherbent from the Homestuck fandom which was a visual novel / AU fanfic. Btw, visual novels are actually not all that difficult to create. If you're interested in trying to make one I highly recommend checking out Ren'Py - it's basically a program to make visual novels with.
- Other project types / General Collaboration Related to community events, particularly Multi-Animator Projects (MAPs), AMVs/PMVs/Lyricstucks ("animated music videos" and "picture music videos" - lyricstucks are the same as the latter but usually in a scrolling tumblr post format with the song linked at the beginning rather than video format) are very cool and can be both individual or collaborative projects (in Riordanverse fandom most are probably very familiar with Viria's old lyricstucks - Nothing Left To Say and How Far We've Come). Some folks do dubs of fancomics (also used to be a thing in PJO fandom, particularly back when the PjoVoices group was active and the brief stint in the fandom when we had some Voice Acting askblogs) which can be a nice way to collaborate and engage with other fans in different mediums. "Aesthetics"/Moodboards (usually an arrangement of either 2x3 [former] or 3x3 [latter] grids of images) and the more recent "webweaves" also are a great low barrier to entry type of fanwork that has a lot of variety and versatility (just make sure to credit art/photos used) - especially if you make moodboards/webweaves inspired by people's AUs/fics/etc!
- Gifset Makers / Editors In Riordanverse fandom we don't see this often, because we're primarily a book fandom, but back in the days of the movies and more recently now with the show, editors and gifset makers are a very cool niche of fanwork creators. Gifset makers is pretty self-explanatory - they're people who make gifs. Editors can range from people who make edits of clips or put together clips of images or a whole bunch of very different things. Very wide range there. Edits (with credit to the original artists) can be a really fun alternative to AMVs/PMVs/etc if you don't draw but you have a concept (CREDIT THE ARTISTS - trust me, having your art used in an edit can feel super cool but ONLY IF IT'S CREDITED. IF IT'S NOT CREDITED IT'S NOT FUN. if you ask and credit people will probably be happy about it!). Edit blogs can also be very fun and are often a big hit in fandoms - "Where is [x]" and "[character] in places" are classics. Again just remember to credit artists appropriately and ask permission to use their work.
- Fanwork Promotion Blogs/Hubs PJO fandom does have a couple of these still floating around I think! I don't know them off the top of my head but I swear i've seen them recently. Regardless - these are any sorts of blogs that promote other fanworks. Maybe it's dedicated to just general fanart, general fanfic, stuff of a specific AU or concept. Going back to previous bullet points, character or ship-specific blogs are a form of these. They can range from elaborate and complex with how they promote or spotlight and recommend works, to just literally being random reblogs of stuff of a specific topic. These can actually also be a really nice if you're looking for a simple way to get more involved in the community, because chances are if you're on tumblr you know how to reblog things and that's about all it takes. These hubs can be really nice ways for more fans in the community to get spotlighted/recognition and become more well-known, and it also helps fans looking for specific types of fanwork. (The only caveat with these is if you are going to make a generalized hub blog, you have to actually make it generalized. You can't just exclude the things you personally don't like just because you don't like them - if you don't want to deal with that, make a more specialized hub blog for your more focused interests instead.) (Also personally I'd recommend if you're making one of these types of blogs that you're an adult, cause these blogs can require fandom tag-spelunking that may not be appropriate for all ages - ESPECIALLY if you run a fanfic hub.)
- General Resources This can look like a lot of things, particularly depending on what the fandom is about, but in general a lot of fandoms will have dedicated places to finding different types of information, and often important fandom terminology and sometimes fandom history. Fan Wikis may cover some of this, but not always (and depending on how the wiki(s) are run in a particular community, may not even have reliable information to begin with. I'm looking at you Riordanverse wiki). In furry fandom for example there's a ton of resources for how to get started in the community, commonly accepted community guidelines and general etiquette, fandom history and terminology, resources to find fursuit makers or other artists, various tutorials, etc etc etc. PJO fandom does not really have this! Like i mentioned in previous bullet points, while we have some hub/promotion or character/ship-specific blogs, they're relatively far and few between and commonly inactive, not to mention usually very specific in what niche they're focused on. The wiki only covers the source material (and is questionable quality at best most of the time) with there being next to no resources in the community in general for stuff like fandom history or terminology or etc. Did you know PJO fandom used to be part of the Superwholock of book fandoms (it was PJO, HP, Hunger Games, and Divergent. there was a whole symbol for it)? Did you know we used to have our own fandom lingo? Members of the fandom were usually called demigods or half-bloods, people would put their cabins in their bios (people would make little banners or other decorations to put on your blog themes to show your cabins or pjo stuff in general!), and we'd say stuff like "Spread this like greek fire" and "Amazhang" and etc. Those are actual things people said unironically very frequently. You're probably most likely to be familiar with "Persassy." We don't necessarily need to bring all of those things back, but point is we did use to have a community identity and sort of genuine subculture! And we lost that! There are so many community jokes and similar that most people have forgotten or at best kind of know of but don't remember the origins or contexts for. In other communities they have documentation for this kind of stuff - you should see some of the documentation that MCYT fandom does, particularly if the MCYT in question is a popular streamer or the SMP is primarily streamed content. Holy cow it's thorough. Resources and documentation are what help keep fandoms alive, because they give a means for new members of the community to learn the history of the community, learn established rules and etiquette, and just generally find their way around where they otherwise might be lost. It's really invaluable but often overlooked.
Okay, i think that's all the ones i can think of. This post has taken me over a full day of working on it, lol. Anyways i'm very passionate about fandom history and PJO fandom history/community in general so this was very fun for me to go on a deep-dive about. Also now i'm really tempted to put a lot of my old fandom knowledge and unnecessarily complicated lists/documentation to good use and try to help build up some of these bullet point concepts for riordanverse fandom myself because dammit somebody's gotta do it. But that's all i've got for now! As always feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything, or if you just wanna hear me babble on more about general fandom structures (i have another ramble about different types of fandoms relating to what fanworks they tend to exhibit the most!)/pjo fandom history/askblogs/RP community/whatever, I am always more than happy to talk!
#pjo#riordanverse#fandom#fandom history#ask#askblogs#< relevant enough i suppose - there's a section on it lol#stillwaitingformagic#overanalyzer#HOLY COW this is a long post#anyways here's the behemoth. i feel a little old now having gone through a bunch of old blogs lol.#feels weird seeing blogs you used to remember from when they were active and they havent posted in over 10 years and you're like. oh.#its been over 10 years. damn. ive been here awhile.#yall ever think about how the riordanverse is almost 20? wild.#i hope i am not just a riordanverse blog to you but also a crotchety old fandom grandparent telling you about The Olden Days#which feels a little weird cause im not that old. i do have a cane though.#anyways im gonna go overthink fandom resources and hubs for awhile#and probably make some more blogs by the end of the week tbh lol. we'll see.#fandom infrastructure
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CQL's crybaby Nie Mingjue appreciation post
I always see people talking about CQL's Nie Mingjue crying constantly, and they're right to do so, but I haven't seen those scenes compiled so I thought it would be a good idea to do it, since it's one of my favorite things about this version of NMJ.
*I'll consider the times he was tearing up too because I think they're important, but i'm only considering "full crying scenes" the ones where there are actual tears falling down his face.
*It's all in chronological order.
Episode 41 - defending Meng Yao
Why is NMJ crying? Crying is his response to everything, okay? NMJ is very emotionally invested in everything he does. He's very mad these men for saying terrible things about Meng Yao while benefiting from his labour. He's so emotionally invested in everything he does.
Is it a full crying scene? No, he tears up the entire time he's scolding the cultivators but those tears don't leave his eyes.
Episode 10 - being threatened by Wen Chao
Why is NMJ crying? Wen Chao is being very disrespectful, as he often is. And it's understandable, NMJ is hurt, his home was invaded, some of his soldiers are dead and it's overall a terrible time for everybody. To be honest, though, I think he's tearing up out of pure rage because Wen Chao just mentioned what Wen Xu did to the Cloud Recesses.
Is it a full crying scene? No. I almost didn't include this one because it's very subtle but his eyes look too shiny to be ignored.
Episode 10 - expelling Meng Yao from the Unclean Realm
Why is NMJ crying? It's a very emotional and conflicting moment on top of a terrible day, on top of a very stressful period of his life. He was betrayed by his friend who saved his life right afterwards; his home was invaded and they're at war! He has every right to cry as much as he did.
Is it a full crying scene? Hell yes, and it's glorious. They even end the episode with his miserable little crying face.
Episode 41 - Everything, really
Why is NMJ crying? Everything sucks, he's defeated and hurt in front of the man who killed his father. He didn't get his personal revenge and he didn't free the world from Wen Ruohan's tyranny either. Instead, he watched helplessly as his men were murdered and now he has to watch his former deputy mock his father's death and threaten to have Wen Ruohan damage Baxia like he did with his father's blade.
Is it a full crying scene? No, only because he's being very brave about it. I have no idea how those tears didn't fall.
Episode 41 - confrontation at Jinlintai
Why is NMJ crying? Very difficult topics being discussed here. People who are way better with words than I am have already written amazing meta on how having his worldview challenged like this affects NMJ emotionally, so I won't go there. But between the song of turmoil making him more emotionally unstable and the disdain with which JGY talks about the men he killed, evoking this very traumatic moment I just mentioned on the previous crying scene; I think it's very understandable.
Is it a full crying scene? Yes! Most of the time he's holding back tears, but you can see the one dramatic tear running down his nose (on the outside of it) on the second gif!
In conclusion: he has so much to cry about, it's surprising he didn't cry more, it must have taken so much strength (or he was just crying offscreen, which is plausible, because sadly this isn't The Nie Mingjue show and we don't see him all the time)
Anyway, I am not here to claim he's not a crybaby because he absolutely is, but on the actual show we only have 2 full crying scenes. They were so impactful it feels like much more crying happened. Fatal Journey is it's own thing so I made a separate post for those tearing up, crying and emotional breakdown lovely scenes <3
#nie mingjue#this isn't meta this is me discovering the joy of making decent gifs#cql#long post#kinda#despite often being at the crime scene i won't tag jgy or nieyao because i don't go there and i'm not a fan but yall do whatever you want#i just wanted to look at his pretty crying face and have more than just screenshots of it#like look at him!! how can you say mean things to him or in his general vicinity knowing it will make him cry?#monsters all of them#the zoom on the second to last gif makes it so funny though#anyway i hope my gifs aren't horrible to tumblr standards
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Comes in here with a longass post hello! Been meaning to get around to illustrating some Species Headcanons @humming-fly @alagaesia-overlord and I have been cooking up! Major props to them for helping me write the script hahaha it wouldn't have been possible without them!
This is a little segment I have been wanting to try for a bit, just a nice moment to dispense lore in a fun way! I can't promise that more will be out in a necessarily timely manner, but I can promise that more will be on its way. Someday!
Until then, I hope you all enjoy these fun lil thoughts! 🤗
#aseukiart#kirby oc#breakroom gossip#what are puffballs#kirby headcanons#phemus#strix#☀️#collapses on my desk#Raises my hands#DONE!!!#been hoping to finish this before the end of this month and I did!!#barely!!#Extremely fun to plot and write though I love illustrating I love drawing character interactions#tried doing a more pastel-y look for the illustrations which I think came out v fun!!#In case yalls were wondering why Stell isn't the one dispensing the lecture it's bc they'd rather choke and die#rather than share any kind of useful information 👍#Ty Cyriae for letting me borrow your OC like the sock puppet to dispense this information#Phemus is here bc I just wanted to include my OCs 🥺👉👈#stell#parhelion knight#fayre#(They're both sort of there just Very Small)
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drawing kudos managers as I beat them part 6
ok ngl I started this series expecting to do just normal sketch pages (like I did for brian) but then misty happened and threw everything out of wack so I'm just experimenting at this point anyways PACESETTER LETS GOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#toontown#toontown corporate clash#ttcc#pacesetter#graham ness payser#graham payser#i need to talk about his fight for a minute because holy shit#that fight is STRESSFUL#20 minutes of pure speed and focus and coordination does something to me#like I would be physically shaking after the fight if it made it to the second phase#not 100% sure why i hope yall get it#its a lot#super fun though!!!#anyways 2 more managers left YIPPEEEE#stupid made this
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yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.
to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!
i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.
also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.
they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.
they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.
i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.
#eve text#elmike#stranger things#byler#only tagging byler because i feel like yall will like this take lol#tagging tagging tagging WHAT ARE EVERYONE ELSE'S THOUGHTS#god i can't believe i'm making a post about stranger things. this feels like poking a bear#i'm not particularly anti m*leven but like... they'd have to do something pretty special at this point for me to feel like it's viable#i'm seeing the bts of s5 and it's got me Having Thoughts#elmike friendship is something i am so passionate about#even before i ever liked byler (didn't ship at all until s4 even though i knew it was a thing before) i've felt this way about elmike#i always believed they were close friends at heart and needed to break up#the romance part of them felt very distinctly young and very much “he was a boy she was a girl” to me#and it hasn't deepened into anything more mature and i don't see how it could based on the current state of the writing...#the fact that lumax exists — a young relationship that is actively maturing and is healthy — makes that clear to me#and the “love confession” in s4 and how disingenuous and miserable it felt was just the nail in the coffin#also the fact that will (who is IN LOVE with mike) was instrumental in making it happen? ... uh... okay... interesting choice…#fucked up and reductive if they make it another queer unrequited love sacrifice for the sake of pushing the heterosexual agenda YUCK#so i really hope the speculation about a m*leven breakup is real!! i think it just makes sense for their characters but who knows#i don't believe in the notion of love at first sight or one true love and i think the writers don't too???#love to me is an accumulation of experiences and we inevitably choose it at some point rather than fall into it... but idk#tv is so fixated on keeping couples together... sometimes it's just not reality guys especially with young people... LET IT GO...#like i said though i'm not 100% sold that they're going to give up their “golden couple” LMAO#stranger things hasn't historically subverted too many tropes if i'm being honest#anyway i seriously need this season to come out quickly... i'm so bored and getting my master's is crushing my soul#i need frivolity#ALSO btw i won't respond to hateful messages about this so please don't bother. it's not that serious. this is a netflix show
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