#i didn't format any of those photos

[sleepanonymous]

is there a solid way to tell apart ii, iii, and iv? i always mix them up : (

Hello Anon 🖤 Ty for the ask. I've actually answered this in this post for III and IV. I'd be happy to go over it again for you here and include II more. I'll be honest, the majority of the time they've been on stage, the three band members have worn literally the same sort of clothes, and it doesn't help that they all have blue eyes either lol. It gets easier eventually, I promise. This might sound odd, but you'll soon start to recognize cheekbones, hand veins, eye shape, and overall mannerisms that the Eepy guys have.

Some quick tells are: II - Drums, double scythe necklace, black painted nails, cola/redbull stains on his mask, short king III - Bass, checkered socks, man bun, stage right, long boi IV - Guitar, black paint stains on his mask (from Vessel's kisses and his own fingers), jewelry, stage left, also a short king

Something I didn't mention in the first post is that there is a single scythe necklace that's been passed around between Vessel, III, and IV. Most recently that necklace has been worn by IV but I wouldn't count it as a valid indicator unless you know who was in possession of the necklace at the time the photo was taken. Rings, on the other hand, could be a valid indicator. I've only ever seen Vessel and IV wearing rings on stage (if I am wrong about this, someone please correct me).

Something I did mention in the other post (and is quite honestly one of my favorite ways to tell the Eepies apart) is utilizing Vessel as a measuring stick.

If the Eepy guy is taller than Vessel, you have a III.

If the Eepy guy is shorter than Vessel, you have a II or IV.

[karenssupplystore]

Photo booth (Simon 'Ghost' Riley x GN! reader)

Warnings: none (let me know if there is any!)

Word count: 1079

There weren't many times when Simon had a day off, but when he did, you better know he'd be spending every moment with his partner. 

Back for a few days after a long mission? Reports are finished in record time and left on Price's desk.

A few hours between long meetings? He's calling you or sending a text, just wanting a moment of peace and to hear your voice before he'll inevitably have to deal with Soap's shenanigans.

Point being any time away from work he has, you're the first thing on his mind, and he will do anything to get that little bit of recharge time with the one person who he feels he can truly relax with.

So when the 141 gets back from a long, few-month mission on the other side of the globe, as soon as humanly possible, Simon's heading home to be with you. 

The first few days are just spent curled up together. Lazy mornings turning into lazy afternoons with lingering touches and tender kisses. Cooking together in the warmth of your shared kitchen, his big arms wrapped around your waist as his chin rests on the top of your head. Warm meals and lots of storytelling, more so coming from your end, but who wouldn't want to know about how the neighbours got into another fight and might be ending in divorce this time?

After those initial days just gently getting back into the calm civilian life, the two of you are more than happy to adventure out for the day. Treating yourselves to a nice cup of tea and a fresh pastry from a rather fancy cafe in the heart of town and a calm walk by river, hand in hand, the two of you find yourselves in a little corner store as the clouds roll over and little drops start to fall.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

"Bloody hell love, a little rain won't hurt ya," Simon chuckles as you pull him into a nearby corner store as the droplets of rain start to gain momentum, falling in a more rapid succession.

"Yes, but I did my hair today, and I don't want it to be ruined," you answer with a playful roll of your eyes. The store is much more pleasant than the rain, with a warm glow to the lights and, most importantly, nice and dry. 

Deciding to busy yourselves while the rain rolls over, the two of you go up and down the few isles, pointing out little snacks you want to try or ones you have tried and definitely didn't like. Coming to the end of one of the isles you spot an old photo booth pushed into the corner and excitedly pull on Simon's arm.

"Si, look! Do you think it works?" The whole thing looks like it hasn't been used in a long while, but, taking your chances, you pull the curtain open and the display lights up. 

"Suppose it does, come 'ere," a large hand moves to hold your waist as you're pulled onto Simon's lap, the two of you making a tight fit in the small booth.

With an excited squeal you press a few buttons, pulling a few pound coins from your pocket and inserting them into the machine, a quick preview of the photo format appearing on the screen. Before the two of you can plan what your poses will be, the first timer starts counting down.

""Right, just a smile then?" He says, guiding one of your arms over his shoulders as you lean your head closer, big smile pulling at your lips and a hint of a curl on the Brits. The flash clicks and the photo shows before another timer starts counting down.

"Now a silly one!" You say, holding up bunny ears behind his head as you stick your tongue out, Simon doing quite the similar pose. The timer stops and another flash goes off, both your eyes drawn to the preview of the photo. For a burly military man Simon sure does look a bit silly with the tip of his tongue poking out and your fingers as bunny ears behind him, contrasting his usual hard and gruff facade he put son for the average individual.

"Hey, you copied my idea," A playful shove is given to his shoulder as you look at the photo, chuckles leaving the both of you. "Can't help if it's a good idea," Simons voice grumbles though the smile on his scared lips tells you how happy you make him as he pokes a finger in your ribs, making you laugh.

"Simon!" You giggle, half heartedly pulling away from him, "That tickles!" The Brit doesn't stop his teasing and you try to pull away again that you almost fall off his lap, arms flailing slightly but a hand firmly on your waist ensures you don't go anywhere. In the struggle the timer for the third photo finishes and the flash goes off just as you feel like you're tipping.

As the two of you calm your giggles you see there's only one photo left and you turn to look at Simon, exaggerated disappointment on your face. "Look you ruined the photo," you tease as you point to the screen.

"Wouldn't have been ruined if ya were more original," He chuckles, fingers lightly pinching your thigh as he gazes at you with those big brown eyes. "I'm plenty original, thank you"

The timer counting down for the fourth and final picture snaps you both back as you stumble to figure out one last pose.

"What do you we do for this one?" You ask out loud as you try your hardest to think of a cute pose.

Without more than a little grumble of a 'Come 'ere' Simons free hand reaches up and gently wraps around your neck, pointer finger helping guide your face to his as your lips meet his. All thoughts are almost completely disregarded as you lean into his touch, eyes fluttering closed as his tongue traces the seam of your lips. Just as you begin to part your lips the flash goes off and the machine begins to print the series of photos.

""ere you go, love," Simon grumbles as his hand leaves your warm skin to grab the photos, handing them to you. Hand on your thigh giving you a gently pat before guiding you off his lap and out of the photo booth, grin on his lips the whole time.

[spockandawe]

It's time! for! 2ha!!!!!!! I've had 'the husky and his white cat shizun' on my radar as a bookbinding project basically from the very start, back when I thought it was impossible that any of these danmei novels would ever be licensed for english translations. But this book is so long, and besides, the translation wasn't complete, so it went onto the backest of back burners. Until now! So, the book has been licensed. It's started releasing! As usual, please support these authors, they have a passionate english-speaking fanbase, and I very much want them to enjoy that success in a practical sense and not just an abstract one. And I also want more of these novels translated, haha. But the nature of licensing means I've also gotten a lot more interested in preserving prior translations in formats that can't casually be yoinked from the internet.

Now, this is a big novel. This was 1.1 million words. The stack of pressed text quarto blocks was over 15 inches, and once I added covers (very thick, for reasons I'm about to cover) and boxes, this thing was 22 inches long. Oh my god. This sustained effort naturally overlapped with an international trip and two crucially Important work presentations. I almost died. I had to split it into multiple boxes because I wasn't sure I could laminate boards thick enough to support so much weight at so much length and still cut it with any precision, lmao

And those covers? I took inspiration from notebooks I've sent with cover flaps like these, and also decided to see if I could incorporate the strip magnets I bought for peller box experiments and barely used. The downside that didn't make itself apparent until late in the construction process was that laminating boards to match this depth made the covers REAL thick, and difficult to cover with a crisp finish. Duo bookcloth can get wrinkly and fragile when it's wet, so it didn't entirely take me by surprise, but it's something I'll be accounting for next time I try this construction!

I tried to stick to a black and blue and silver color scheme, because it matches the book, but I also accepted some gold highlights on the endpapers. The duo bookcloth tends to photograph with a bit more brown in the color shift than I see in person, but I think it plays out well in person or in photos! The endpapers make for a nice striking pop when the book opens and don't blend into the cover fabric, which was something I definitely wanted to avoid.

And, speaking of thematically appropriate, I found this image for chapter headers that was almost perfect, but the wrong kind of flowers. So I did change those to haitang blosoms, haha. That happened early in the typesetting process, but I did also have that on my mind as I worked out decorations for the boxes! Mostly, I just titled what book of the novel it was on the top and left it there, but the very last detail I added was a pair of foil flowers done in pink and silver, on the outside edges of the boxes for book 1 and the extras. I finished that last night and then went to bed SO excited to take pictures in the morning. I really had an incredible time with this book, and the whole adventure reminded me just how much I love 2ha. I'm so happy I did this, I really had just an incredible time!!!!!

[agi-ppangx]

HI MERIN OMG this is your resident merin fan (user dicespam) <3 and i want to be your helping hand by requesting skz’s (if it’s too much you can just do chan & any members you want!) reaction to you sleeping while hugging their skzoo ,, i think it’s such a cute concept omg ☹️ thank u sm !! i hope you’re taking enough rests and drink some water mwah

💭skz reacting to you sleeping with their skzoo

pairing: ot8 x gn!reader

an: HII, thank you so much for this idea !! i've never done something in this format, but i had lots of fun while writing this, so i hope you'll like this ^^ i tried my best to make it as diverse as i could, but tbh i think all of them would literally go feral if they saw their s/o cuddling their skzoo while sleeping >< anyway, i hope you enjoy !! take care, sending you lots of love<3

chan

chan had a terrible day. he felt as if he lost control over everything - his computer crashed at least three times, he almost lost a few weeks of work and he was asked to stay longer at the company. when he finally came back home, he felt so worn out that the only thing he wanted to do was cuddle you and relax in your arms. he called your name a few times, hoping that you'd be awake, but you didn't respond, already fast asleep in your bed. he sighed and carried on with his night routine. when he finally stepped out of the bathroom and went to your bedroom he stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw you. you were curled up on chan's pillow, your hair was all over your face and you were tightly hugging wolfchan. chan quietly tiptoed to the bed, admiring your sleeping figure and he felt like his heart was about to explode from all the love he had for you. it was such a simple, mundane thing for you to do to cuddle a plushie, but something about you doing it with his skzoo made him the happiest. he gently laid down next to you and hugged both you and wolfchan, kissing your forehead and feeling his stress instantly go away.

minho

the dance practice took longer than they thought it would and that's why minho texted you that he would be home late and you didn't have to wait for him. he came home around 1 am, completely exhausted and sore from the practice. he gently placed his bags and shoes in the hallway, trying not to make any noise, when he noticed that light in your living room was still on. he sighed loudly, knowing what it means and he made his way to the couch where he saw you, sleeping soundly under a thin blanket. he felt bad, he told you not to wait for him and he was ready to wake you up so you could go to bed. but he stopped when he noticed leebit squished between the couch and your cheek. he chuckled at that, the sight so adorable to him that he couldn't resist - he took the phone out of his pocket and started taking photos of you and his skzoo, smiling to himself. then he gently picked you up and carried you to your bedroom, letting you sleep. you hold leebit tightly pressed to your chest even in your sleep and when minho placed you on the bed, he had to take one more picture of you. needless to say one of those photos of you and leebit became his new wallpaper for another few weeks at least.

changbin

the boys were currently on tour, having concert after concert, so changbin's time for you was limited to the absolute minimum. to compensate you for this he came up with an idea that you would go with them for a few concerts so he would be able to spend a little bit more time with you. you complied, happy that you two would be together at least at nights. one day after a show, changbin came to your hotel room pumped with adrenaline and covered in sweat. he hoped you wouldn't be sleeping so he would talk to you and recall highlights of the night, so when he saw you already asleep with your back facing the door he let out a faint, disappointed sigh. then he proceeded to take a quick shower to join you, the adrenaline leaving his body and exhaustion taking the lead. he lazily made his way to bed and before going to sleep he leaned over to place a kiss on your cheek. that's when he saw something pink peeking out from under the sheets. he leaned a bit more and noticed that this whole time you were cuddling dwaekki. he smiled at the sight, suddenly feeling this huge, overwhelming wave of love towards you. he pressed his chest to your back and hugged you, placing a peck to your temple and falling asleep with the widest grin.

hyunjin

when you texted hyunjin you needed him with you, he quietly made his way out of the studio and called you to ask what's wrong. you explained to him that you just didn't feel good mentally and came home earlier to rest. you also mentioned that you missed him and wished he was with you. hyunjin apologised, his voice filled with guilt, but you were quick to reassure him that you would be fine and that you would see each other in the evening anyway. he nodded and promised to be home as soon as he could and ended the call with a hushed i love you. when he finally came back home, he called your name softly, but when he was met with a silence, he started searching you in your apartment. he finally found you in your bedroom, napping in hyunjin's hoodie and holding jiniret tightly in your arms. hyunjin swore that he melted right then and there at the sight of you cuddling his skzoo. when he approached you, he noticed some dried tears on your cheeks and it made him kind of upset, but then he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead and patted jiniret's head, whispering a faint "thank you for taking care of them buddy."

jisung

jisung was caught up with work, deadlines getting closer and closer and with that in mind he couldn't really leave the studio. one day he suggested you could go to the studio with him and keep him company. you agreed, always eager to watch your boyfriend at work. you were now sitting with him in front of the desk, dim led lights in the background setting a mood. jisung was humming a new song he was working on, trying to come up with some catchy lyrics. you started to feel a little tired, since it was getting pretty late. you whispered to him that you were going to lay down on a couch for a bit and he only nodded, too absorbed into work. after some time he finally snapped from his trance, looking around the room. “hey baby, where’s han quo-” he started but as soon as he turned around to face the couch he shut up and slapped his hand on his mouth in order not to scream, because you were lying there with han quokka, cuddling it and snoring softly. you must’ve taken the plushie from the desk when he was composing and he simply missed that moment. he quickly took off his hoodie and covered you with it so you wouldn’t be cold and went back to work, though he couldn’t really focus anymore, his mind occupied with thoughts of you instead.

felix

you called felix around noon, your voice hoarse, and told him you didn’t feel well. you asked him to buy you some medicine on his way back from the studio. of course, he agreed and even offered to come home early, already worried, but you knew chan wouldn’t like it so you just told him that you’ll be okay and you’re just gonna lay in bed and rest. felix made a list of stuff to get on his way home and went back to work. when he finally came back, he immediately went to your bedroom, his hands full of medicine and some food from the restaurant near your apartment. “hi sweetie, i got you some good stuff,” he whispered, opening the door and making his way to the bed, only then noticing you were fast asleep. he placed everything on the bedside table and approached you. he gently placed his hand on your forehead to check your temperature and then he finally noticed bbokari’s yellow head carefully tucked next to you. he cooed loudly at the sight, which made you stir in your sleep a bit, but felix quickly proceeded to stroke your head for you to calm down. when you stopped moving, he started grinning, feeling like the luckiest man alive by having you. 

seungmin

“minnie, c’mon, come to bed, it’s not the same without you,” you mumbled sleepily, coming out of the bedroom. seungmin was sitting in front of the tv, watching a baseball game, and he didn’t even look in your direction, too invested in the game. you huffed loudly and gave him a faint “fine, stay here all night if you want,” but you weren’t even sure if he caught that. it’s not like you were seriously mad at him, but you were kind of disappointed since it was one of the only evenings when seungmin was home and he decided to completely ignore you. it hurt, but you still wanted to be close to him somehow, so you decided to take puppym and go to sleep without seungmin. an hour later, when the game was done, he finally made his way to the bed and it confused him a bit when he saw you cuddling his skzoo in your sleep, but he would lie if he said it didn’t make his heart beat a little faster. something about you hugging puppym was making him weak on his knees, but it’s something he wouldn’t ever admit out loud. though he was happy seeing you like this he decided it’s not right and when he laid down next to you he took puppym from your arms and threw it away on the carpet. “i’m their boyfriend, not you, you little thief,” he muttered to the plushie and cuddled you tightly, falling asleep with a soft smile on his face.

jeongin

you decided to visit your boyfriend at his dorm, wanting to spend some time with him before he would go on tour with the boys. you sat with them, chatting and joking around, watching them play games in the living room. unfortunately, you started to feel a bit sleepy after some time. jeongin noticed you were yawning more and more often and soon he offered you that you could go and take a nap in his room. you complied and he went with you to give you one of his hoodies, because you always said that they’re just so comfy. you laid down and jeongin left the room to join the boys. you snuggled into his sheets and noticed that foxi.ny was sitting on the bedside table. without thinking about it you took him and soon fell asleep. some time later jeongin decided to check up on you since you were sleeping for quite a while now. when he entered the room he was met with the most adorable sight - you, curled up on his bed, in his hoodie, hugging his skzoo. he giggled to himself, somehow feeling so loved in that moment. he slightly opened the door and told the boys they can carry on with the game without him and then he joined you on the bed, admiring your sleeping figure and smiling widely to himself, feeling as if his heart was finally full.

feedback and reblogs highly appreciated🫶🏽

[cryptomiracle]

more creepypasta headcanons

(+ marble hornets)

WARNINGS:

Ooc? Idk

I started this at 2 am and you can tell

Cursing

I write on my phone so the format may be a little weird

Any brands, games, or characters mentioned in this do NOT belong to me, nor am I sponsored by them in any way.

This is very unserious, I've noticed that a lot of my other hcs usually take a "dark" turn and so I decided to make some that didn't.

You could even say they're a bit... silly.

You should totally check out my masterlist for more hcs (it's pinned)

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Characters: masky, hoodie, ticci toby, jeff the killer, and BEN DROWNED.

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Jeff:

he's extremely hard headed, he WILL argue/fight with someone over the dumbest things and he'll never stop arguing, even if he knows the other person is right.

He has an "emo accent"

He likes to start drama between people, and then leave the crime scene.

He is so ashy you could strike a match off of his elbow

He's been wearing the same beat up converse since 2012, them things are being held together by duct tape and a prayer.

His favorite animal is a raccoon, he says they're sneaky and nocturnal like him.

He refuses to get a new phone, he won't even steal one.

He curses all the time just cause he can, sometimes he'll even jumble random curse words together.

BEN:

He listens to vocaloid and he doesn't play about miku

He runs one of those "rage bait" accounts that are painfully obviously bait

Still quotes old memes and refuses to let them die

Example: yeet, t-posing, and "sanic the hedgehog"

He scams old people on Facebook and e-daters, he doesn't feel bad about it either.

He uses the money he gets from scamming to buy v-bucks and overwatch coins

He once doxxed someone for dissing miku

slender had to take away his mic privileges because he was keeping everyone up at night by yelling bloody murder at people on fortnite/overwatch

once showed up at someones house because they emoted on him after killing him in game

Toby:

He vapes, and thinks he's so cool cause he can do "vape tricks" and he makes people watch him while he does them

Someone once gave him apple cider, told him it was alcohol, and he pretended to be drunk.

His phone gallery is filled with random photos, like there'll be a low quality picture of a tree and then right beside it a picture of a ceiling. Just random stuff

Mint chocolate chip ice cream enjoyer

He's really flexible, although he has bad posture he can do back bends, the splits, etc

more on his terrible posture; when he sits he literally looks like this: ) )

When he first started working for slenderman, he REFUSED to live in the manor and lived outside. While he lived outside he became friends with a lot of the wildlife, slender eventually made him move into the manor because there was a rumor that toby was going to make a "possum army" and try to overthrow slender

He will fight anyone and anything he really doesn't care about his, or their well-being.

Had a "weeb" phase when he was in middle school and he still has nightmares about "naruto running" away from his bullies.

Hoodie:

He can make a killer sandwich (lol) he's not the best at cooking other things, but if you get him to make you a sandwich, he'll bless your taste buds.

He loves karaoke, he can't sing for shit but he still does it anyway

He acts like a millennial (I'm sorry) not to the point where it's completely unbearable, but he will send people "relatable memes" every now and then

He enjoys online arguments, he'll never participate but he will scroll through different threads of people arguing for hours on end

He likes for people to say stuff like "GO WHITE BOY GO" to him

He blushes when he lies, he's a scarily good liar but if you ever want to catch him in a lie, point out the fact that his cheeks are red.

Whenever he has a drink with a straw, he holds the straw in-between his tooth gap.

he sends streaks.

Masky:

He has a NASTYYY side eye, and sometimes he'll scrunch up his nose while side eyeing someone just to make it sting even more

Contemplated getting a mullet once, he never went through with it though.

He coughs like someone's grandfather who smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years

If someone says a word that reminds him lf a song he likes, it'll automatically get stuck in his head and he'll hum it all day after that.

he isn't weak when it comes to stinky smells, but if it's stinky enough to make him gag he's extremely overdramatic.

he learned how to sew because of how much he ripped his jeans, shirts, etc.

Sleeps so hard sometimes people think he's dead, he'll just be laying there looking casket ready but everyone is too scared to check on him cause he gets super grumpy when woken up.

he always keeps a little money hidden somewhere, even if it's just a 5 dollar bill.

he's superstitious, if he sees you attempt to walk under a ladder he will physically drag you back and make you walk around it.

he has a pair of brass knuckles which he only saves for "special occasions" they're his favorite things ever, he even named them.

he only uses his phone to call, text, or search something up, and that's it.

he doesn't even have YouTube installed.

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I will be reading over this to check for any errors, ty for reading - M

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwback Thursday: The Curious Case of Brontosaurus

Everyone has heard of Brontosaurus. It's one of the top five dinosaurs kids learn. However, do you know about the rocky past of this fan favorite? Brontosaurus was discovered in 1879 by Othniel Charles Marsh (or at the very least, his crew) during the height of the infamous Bone Wars. It was collected from Como Bluff, Wyoming and it was a nearly complete skeleton. All it was missing was its head (a typical, sauropod problem).

At this time, the Morrison Formation was at the center of the Bone Wars conflict so Marsh was feeling rushed and pressured to publish on this new find before his rival, Edward Drinker Cope, had the opportunity to publish something new first. Even though he hoped to recover a skull, Marsh opted to publish without.

Now, the Yale Peabody Museum couldn't display a headless skeleton so they decided to sculpt one. As I mentioned before, sauropod skulls are not easy to come by. The damn things are so small compared to the rest of the body and so fragile that the pop off and disarticulate. The only skulls that had been found with any substance was Camarasaurus and a few Brachiosaurus fragments. I mean, look at the size difference between Camarasaurus and Diplodocus skulls:

(The Diplodocus skull is significantly smaller. You can see it below and to the right of the Camarasaurus in the top photo).

So, all they had to really go off of was Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus so they made a composite of the two that ended up looking like this:

Horrifying, isn't it? I mean, those two sauropods aren't even closely related to Brontosaurus.

In 1903, Elmer Riggs argued that Brontosaurus was not different enough from Apatosaurus to warrant a different genus. A different species, sure, but not genus. Since Apatosaurus was named first, it had priority therefore Brontosaurus excelsus became Apatosaurus excelsus. However, the general public missed the memo so Brontosaurus stayed in common literature.

In 2015, an extensive study was done on the diplodocid branch (check out my Monday Musings post on sauropod phylogeny if unfamiliar with sauropod families) and they concluded that Brontosaurus was legit. Usually, names don't get revived to keep things from getting confusing but Brontosaurus survived nearly 100 years of existential crises so its popularity in the general populace allowed for a revival.

And that is the short history of how Brontosaurus existed then didn't exist and then existed again. Tune in tomorrow to learn about Brachiosaurus altithorax.

[smahell]

otaku fm sinful sounds - the disappointing reply to the fans' outcry.

this morning i wake up to a notification from the obey me! official channel - a new otaku fm episode? celebrations. fantastic. i'd been waiting ever since i saw a photo of kada and yamashita back in the iconic studio. we hadn't received a new otaku fm episode for roughly two years, and of course, when a new one is announced there's going to be expectations surrounding that. expectations that will originate from the previous seasons and episodes.

so after watching the one which came out today, i was just genuinely disappointed.

"that's it?? that's the episode?"

you might even notice that the episode doesn't stay loyal to its usual 35-45 minutes format. in fact, anime and chill had the longest episodes, and is what I'd call "peak obey me™". these episodes are half that length. and i'm expecting the newer ones to be even shorter.

sinful sounds (ss).. was never advertised to be as short as almost the otaku fm mini series with the side character's vas-

even worse? the twenty minute time frame was meant to be shorter. they went overtime.

i'd totally understand if it was labelled 'otaku fm mini - sinful sounds', but this was meant to be a return to formula. with the abundance of paid content coming from solmare recently, this was meant to be something that those without dispensable income could actually enjoy. yes, it was also stated that listening to the asmr would "make the episode that much better", but assuming that i'd enjoy it regardless is an overstatement. whether you listened to the audio drama or not, this was just a disappointing way of coercing people who don't use twitter to listen to it. and another disappointing reminder of what obey me has become.

be warned - i talk about the actual episode here. so maybe go listen to it first before reading on.

yes, hearing the voice actors come back.. of course i'd love that. that's one of the main reasons i wanted it to come back. they even acknowledge how long it's been since the last time they did, but then it goes straight into "what is ASMR??"

like.. the fanbase is full of deluded white women /j .. i think we all know what it is!!! i guess it's helpful nonetheless, but then they're like:

"let's listen to a clip!!!"

hey...what?!?

(and said clip takes up a good chunk of the episode..)

my point is.. it's not really them gisting about anything. the whole thing just feels scripted and stiff. i don't feel that liveliness that i feel from rewatching previous episodes. sure, yes, asmr is meant to be calming and relaxing.. but that's not what i think of otaku fm. they're spoonfeeding me a product like it's baby food.

it's just a 20 minute ad. really.

some could say "well duh, that was the point of otaku fm, to advertise obey me and give more fan content!!"

then tell me, genuinely. did this episode give you any fan content of the vas or character that you've either already heard before OR content that really satiated you.

let's use anime and chill as an example. the anime and chill series was made to advertise the anime, but they didn't spend all the time talking about it. and you didn't exactly need to have the money to watch the anime to enjoy the whole thing. the voice actors themselves are performers. they're used to taking the reins on a project and creating an entertaining experience, which is why even though a segment is based on asking one question, we learn so much about them on a personal level. if a radio episode can make me feel like i'm chatting with two friends, then its done its job. this episode felt like watching two unskippable ads in a row on youtube. end me.

for me it's bringing up the question - all this paid content might just turning more fans away rather than bringing more in. i'm suspecting they've ben losing money since the decline in popularity after lockdown.

it's just making me think, well, five years in the future, will obey me as a game even survive? because trust me, after this disappointing episode, i'm starting to turn to ex and bee as my lord and saviour.

this isn't a diss at the voice actors at all. they were told and paid to do this, and they've done it perfectly well. this is more at a poke at the higher up executives calling the shots for this. because it always is- /hj

think i'm the only one who hates it? read this other post from another person on youtube who's also another avid fan of the voice actors. i might be repeating one or two of their points, but i saw this before i ever listened to ss, and trust me, it was a red flag for what was to come.

again, i'm not making this post because "arghhh i hate solmare i hate the vas".. no. i'm doing this because i can see that in another universe, this new series could've been amazing. it just falls flat. and i feel like it will continue falling flat until the developers and higher-ups behind this game acknowledge the scraps and and shreds of a fanbase the game has left.. i'm disappointed.

before you even begin praise this episode, listen to every single episode featuring sumi shinya, miura ayme, and/or takuhei yamamoto, laugh your heart out, then come back to this post. and mourn what has been taken from you.

[black-arcana]

NIGHTWISH's TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN Finds The Traditional Pop Song Structure 'Tedious And Boring'

In a new interview with Benni of Thomann Music, NIGHTWISH keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen spoke about his knack for writing long songs that do not follow the traditional format for radio-friendly singles. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We've been doing things this way for almost 28 years now, so why the hell would we change anything at the moment? But, yeah, it's really tedious to me that you have to do a song like under four minutes all the time — it has to have a chorus, it has to talk about somebody's love life or broken relationships. It's just tedious and boring to me. There is a time and place for those songs as well, but if you have a story you want to tell, and it needs some time to be told in a proper way, you just take your time and the song lasts however [long] it needs to last. As simple as that."

NIGHTWISH's latest album, "Yesterwynde", arrived on September 20 via Nuclear Blast. It marks the band's tenth studio LP, following on from the release of "Human. :II: Nature." in 2020.

Five months ago, Tuomas told Kerrang! magazine about the new album's first single, "Perfume Of The Timeless": "When we had the first meeting with Nuclear Blast, talking about the new album and singles, I told them the first single will be a song called 'Perfume Of The Timeless' and it's eight and a half minutes long and the chorus comes in at 3:30. And they were, like, 'Perfect!' I think that has to do with the fact that we have a long legacy. You know, we can do whatever we want, and I do, but it says something that we can do that, when I heard that for Spotify it's good to have the vocals start after 15 seconds, or people skip it; they don't have the attention span anymore."

Holopainen previously said about the new NIGHTWISH LP: "'Yesterwynde' took more time to make than any previous NIGHTWISH album. The new album was intensively worked on for three and a half years. My ambition and piety really skyrocketed, and I just couldn't let go of the creative process — and didn't want to. Along the way, 'Yesterwynde' became both an exhilarating obsession and a comforting haven for me. All aspects of the making — compositions, lyrics, arrangements, cover art, videos, mixing and so on — were given more attention than ever before."

The lyrics of "Yesterwynde" deal with large-sized universal themes: memories, mortality, humanism, time and much more. "The new album is the conclusion of the trilogy — textually, it follows in the footsteps of its predecessors 'Endless Forms Most Beautiful' and 'Human. :II: Nature.'," Holopainen said. "At the same time, 'Yesterwynde' is the band's most lyrically driven album: our music has never been so 'married' to the lyrics. So here's a tip: if something in the composition puzzles you, the words might clear it up."

"For me, one of the key lines is 'we are because of a million loves' — taken from the song 'Perfume Of The Timeless'," he continued. "Each of us is part of an unbroken chain that stretches back billions of years. If even one of your ancestors had died too young — mauled by a cave bear, for example — during this incredibly long period of time, you would never have been born. In other words: our existence is such an unfathomable privilege."

What does the term "yesterwynde" mean? Tuomas said: "It describes a feeling that cannot be found in any human language. That's why we had to invent a whole new word. The album is supposed to open that feeling to the listener."Photo credit: Tim Tronckoe (courtesy of Nuclear Blast)

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Evan Ross Katz (2024)

Whether he’s carrying Kylie Minogue to the Hyde Park Festival stage with his pal Andrew Scott, making the Internet go collectively feral for merely running a half marathon, chasing dinosaurs (in the upcoming Jurassic World reboot), romancing Matt Bomer (in Fellow Travelers) or Simone Ashley (in Bridgerton) or Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo (in Wicked) or, with his most recent venture, launching an LGBTQ+-focused charity, it seems Jonathan Bailey is always up to something. And yet, he still makes time, from his hotel room in Thailand (where he’s shooting Jurassic World 4), to hop on a Zoom with me to catch up.

We discuss everything from chafed nipples to queer shame to who he’d like to see in the “Drink Your Milk” T-shirt to if we’ll see him on Broadway any time soon, which is to say it’s a brief but wide-ranging chat.

I haven't seen you since the Met Gala! When we last spoke, you were prepping for your first half marathon. I obviously saw the viral photos that went around of you at the finish line, but how did it go?

You know, I should have put those nipple stickers on. That's my main takeaway. 

[Laughs] Did you bleed?

I did a bit, yeah. Did you? I know you've done a couple of marathons. 

I did bleed, and I didn't know about the bleeding beforehand. It's not something you really hear about but it's painful and uncomfortable.

Totally! And not even just beforehand: It took ‘til 4 hours later when my best friend told me there was evidence [of the bleeding]. But anyways… it was euphoric!

At least there was no photo evidence of that element!

Exactly! So thankfully, it's done. But it's just the most amazing thing, isn't it? And the community as well. Hackney Moves is amazing and they raised loads of money. It was the Bridgerton [Season 3 release] week so I feel like you could sort of harness that.

I do have to ask you a pressing question: Days ago, it was announced that Wicked had moved up its release date and will now be released the same day as Ridley Scott's Gladiator 2. Many online were affectionately calling this Barbenheimer 2.0, which led many to try and speculate about a proper portmanteau. Jon Chu wrote on Instagram that the consensus seems to be “Glicked,” which you reposted on Instagram, signaling a cosign. But I have to ask you, Johnny: Are you not considering“Wickediator”?

I love it. Whatever Jon Chu has ever said to me, I’ve taken as gospel, so I actually hadn't explored all the other options. The one that I've now heard since then which is making me reconsider everything is “Gladicked.” [Laughs] It's quite good, isn’t it? 

Yes! To me, “Glicked” feels too Wicked-skewed and then “Wickediator” is just clunky AF, so I like where you're at. 

We want it to be equal footing for sure. Another thing that I love that went viral is someone going: “Oh, brilliant. A film for the ladies and a film for the ladies.” [Laughs] 

I am both ladies! 

Oh, yes. Me too! 

Let’s talk The Shameless Fund, the charity you founded to raise money for LGBTQ+ nonprofit organizations. Can you tell me about the formation of this project?

It's been a labor of love over the last three or four years. It's been quite an organic experience, mainly inspired by Fellow Travelers, hence why I started with a collaboration which references a very specific scene and a performance by Matt Bomer.

I think through Covid and Bridgerton coming out, I found that there’s a real sense in the queer community about awareness of people who came before you and other experiences. And then obviously in Fellow Travelers, which explicitly explores that, the character I played was sort of on the front all the way through a very complicated experience for gay men at that time.

He experienced real moments of blooming liberation and quite insane amounts of oppression as well, and he was always fighting. He ends up becoming an activist, essentially, and I think it was in playing that part — which was kind of spiritual for me and for everyone who's involved in it — that I was like: Right, okay. I know that I've got this idea in my head and having experienced how much love there is for things like Bridgerton and how much money there is in collaboration, I felt that there's so many things I had said “no” to because it didn't feel quite right for me but if there was a world in which I could marry all of it in a creative sort of cocktail, then why not? And to give back to the community that I so love, and also, I'm a massive beneficiary of the work that the people that came before us did, so that's where it came to fruition from. 

You collaborated with our dear friend Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of Loewe, on a T-shirt with a memorable quote from Fellow Travelers to promote the launch of The Shameless Fund. How did this collaboration come to be?

During the strikes during the filming of Wicked, I went on a run one day and this idea of a T-shirt came into my head in full form. Then I sat next to Jonathan [at a Studio Voltaire fundraiser], and he’s lovely and brilliant and naughty and has a foundation, so it was all kind of organic.

Then I went over to DC to present Matt Bomer with an award for the Human Rights Campaign and it was really galvanizing to experience the American fervor. It was a gala, and the energy in the room was absolutely wild and there were amazing stories on stage. I texted Jonathan and I said: “Look, I have an idea and it involves milk and a T-shirt. What do you think?” and he said: “Call me tomorrow,” and then he said yes within the same phone call. I just felt tentative because it’s the sort of thing where you ask and you don't know, but then it went from there. 

I do recall first seeing a photo of you in the shirt several months ago during a night out with the Loewe team in China…

I went to the Loewe exhibition in Shanghai, which was incredible, and that night, we had quite a big night out and I wore the T-shirt because I’d been given the first prototype.

I was having a little boogie and [Anderson] uploaded it whilst I had no access to the Western World — my phone was off the whole time. So by the time I came home, you could see that people were gonna go wild for the T-shirt. Now, it's sold out and we're gonna get some more and it'll be a first step for The Shameless Fund to raise some money. 

Jonathan Anderson did my and my husband's wedding looks and I had to send him that same initial text to be like: “Can one even ask this?”

That's what's so brilliant in life: People who have the ability to collaborate, and that's just what Jonathan does.

One thing that you said just now that struck me is: “Why not?” I interview a lot of people in your profession and they're not asking that question all the time. A lot of people say:

“Oh, there's lots of money I can make. I can have more money. I can have more things for myself.”

Why are you a “why not?” person rather than a “why”? Is that something that was imbued in you by your family and your upbringing or is it how you've always been?

I don't know. I just feel quite strongly emotionally. I sense injustice in certain places, and I think what comes with success — especially being a gay actor — is that you think: “Hang on a minute. Are there limitations? Are there glass ceilings?”

When you experience success that you never thought you would and you grew up thinking that you're limited because of your identity and who you are, I think about the people that have supported me and the people that were really pioneering, but also, the actual heroes who do the real work; the people who work for these nonprofits and these charities where the majority of their energy is spent trying to raise money. When Bridgerton came out, I was inundated with requests to help draw attention to [these organizations] or raise money or donate things that they could sell, so that's where the kernel of this idea came from. All my life, I’ve been thinking about how I can give back.

It's not for nothing that you call this The Shameless Fund. We grew up at a time when, and I don't know if this is the same for you, but I didn't know that gay people existed. I thought I was the only one because I didn't have access to the kind of media kids do today where you can go on Instagram and see that gay is not only acceptable; it's cool. There's this very significant paradigm shift. I feel like a lot of gay men of our generation felt this shame as young people and often spend a lot of our adult lives working to rid ourselves of it. What is it for you about this idea of shame? 

I totally agree in terms of generations. I think the queer experience changes every five years. Even with some of my friends who are 10 years older than me — it's just so specific to cultural moments and representation as well, as you're saying. But I think my understanding of shame, especially having experienced Fellow Travelers, is that it permeates. It's not just a community that experiences the shame; it's the people around them. It's the parents who don't understand it and kick their kids out of their house. It's the sisters, it’s the cousins, it's the nephews, it's the children that are in broken families because of it. It's actually so toxic, that sense of self-hatred. That’s why The Shameless Fund is actually something that I hope is going to benefit everyone, even beyond the community itself.

Also, the older we get and because of the world we live in now, you can read The Velvet Rage and you can read Matthew Todd’s Straight Jacket and you can explore and have conversations with your friends that are really enlightening and you can have therapy, if you're lucky enough that you can afford to do that. As a 36-year-old now, I look back and I just go: “My God, I had such a loving family and yet I was still so isolated and so crippled.”

Shame can stop people from having a proper education and from being able to structure proper emotional relationships, like fundamental relationships with their family, which is the one place you're supposed to feel safe. It's flawed if the family is not aware of what you're going through. 

How did you come up with the name?

I did have other names [in mind for The Shameless Fund], but we won't go into them. One was so aggressive! [Laughs] But “The Shameless Fund” felt punk enough and fundamental enough. To me, I think that to be without shame is to be able to be joyful and to be able to thrive and to be able to learn and have a bloody good time whilst doing all those things, so it just felt right that it should be targeting shame because then hopefully it benefits the whole community in every color on the pride flag and, in turn, will also help so many people around them. 

So what can people expect next?

There's going to be some really fun things coming with The Shameless Fund and there's different ways in which it can grow, but I have people who really know what they're doing who are helping lead it. By the end of the year, we'll hopefully have worked with three different charities, starting small and helping people understand the work they're doing because that's the most important thing. If you think about Instagram, other than chatting with Evan Ross Katz [laughs], that's the platform through which you can really draw attention to things. Literally anyone in our community who's thriving at the moment — in a community that's obviously under threat going forward — knows what it's like to receive support. We know what we missed growing up.

I, too, grew up with an accepting family, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t still feel ostracized. I appreciate you recognizing that nuance, one I think many of us experience in some form but don’t always discuss.

Now, on The Shameless Fund’s website, it does say that more collaborations are coming. As you said, there’s going to be a restock of the Loewe shirts, but are there other brands in the mix?

There are other brands, and it'll be really exciting because the scope is endless, but I definitely had a couple of other ideas. After Fellow Travelers, the next thing will be a Wicked garment, so you might have to keep your eyes out for that. Maybe jumpers and sexy boots?

That’s perfect for my fantasy! So we've seen Kylie Minogue wearing the shirt — who I was lucky enough to be introduced to by you on the dance floor at the Met Gala after-party, thanks again — and we've seen Kit Connor, Scarlett Johansson and your Bridgerton co-star Luke Newton sporting it as well. I'm wondering who else is on your wishlist of celebrities that you'd like to see in the Drink Your Milk T-shirt?

Oh, God. What a question! Great shout. I would love to see Jerrod Carmichael in it right now. Very specifically Jerrod Carmichael. 

I feel that.

I would also love to see Hanson in it. Their three-part harmonies are a knockout at the moment.

At the moment?

[Laughs] We were just talking about this today. I’ve literally just come away from a field where I was running towards or away from dinosaurs, and we were talking about Hanson for about four hours today and listening to their three-part harmonies. 

That is not what I was expecting.

Who else? I can only think of people who are going to be wearing it over the next few weeks, which is quite exciting. Is there anyone you want to see in it? 

I have quite a few people. First of all, Jamie Dornan. I would love to see him in it. Paul Mescal, for obvious reasons. And the fans are waiting for Matt Bomer!

Don’t you worry. They’ll be satiated! They’ll be quenched. And Andrew Scott had a good time at Glastonbury is what I’ll say. [Laughs]

I bet he did! Last but not least: Richard II is bringing you back to the stage. Wicked is giving us the musical theater moment we've been craving. Is there a musical theater moment that’ll be live on stage in Jonathan Bailey's future?

Potentially, actually. Maybe in 2026. 

On Broadway?

I would! I had the best time recently in New York and I watched as many things as I could. I saw Stereophonic, which, to me, was like a religious experience. That, and Oh, Mary! And Cole Escola.

That is what it's about. I would come back to watch that; I was so inspired by it. Obviously, I'd love to [be on Broadway] at some point and you just have to wait and see what pops up. 

Source

[whats-she-gonna-post-next]

So I just finished binding Trust Life by the absolutely amazing @chaiandsage (Hello, I am ready to be perceived now, I hope that I have done your story even the slightest bit of justice) and I just wanted to make a post both showing it off, and going through what I learned doing this bind because I did a few new things here and want to talk about it.

Also I'm not going to subject you all to this, so most everything but the final product here is going to be below the cut.

(Also so sorry that the photos aren't the best. I am... Very bad at photography, lmao)

Ok, so let's start off with some of the cool things I learned during this bind. Or, maybe not necessarily cool, but they are things I learned and I think that learning is cool!

First off, I learned how to download and add fonts to Microsoft Word, which while not interesting, does open up a whole world of fonts for future binds. Is it a little late in the game to have found this? Probably. But it is what it is. I actually downloaded a pretty good chunk of different ones, but the fonts I actually used were MF Love Dings for the heart motif dividers, which was a new download, and then a few standard fonts - Edwardian Script ITC for the title pages, Baskerville Old Face for the chapter headers, Book Antiqua for the chapter titles, and good old Garamond for the actual text of the novel.

Here is the divider and the title fonts. I just think they are neat.

Another thing I learned was how to make book cloth! I found these squares of white cotton fabric at a dollar tree and decided to give it a go. The way I did mine was by painting them first (a task in and of itself, and as you can see on the cover, did not turn out super even, but I love them nonetheless) and then I glued down a layer of tissue paper to give it a little stiffness and make it stick to the chipboard easier, it was a super cool process and I look forward to trying it again in the future now that I have done it once and have a better idea of how I can improve in the future

And now onto some of the other cooler parts of the process!

So I had a lot of fun doing the formatting, it's my favourite part of any binding process, I cannot tell you how many fics I have formated that I have yet to print out and actually bind because I enjoy the process so much (the answer is actually 5 that are completely formatted and ready to go, 3 that I am actively in the middle of formatting, 4 projects completed - including this one, which... may technically count as 3, granted 2 of them were gifts for other people - and 3 that I am planning on doing that I haven't gotten to start on yet. Oh, and a 5 part series that I have printed out but haven't actually bound yet. I have a problem, lmao.) As I mentioned, I downloaded a few fonts for this but it just ended up looking so good in the end. Here is what some of the inner formatting looks like (I did just take the screenshots from word, I thought it was easier than getting the pages in the book)

Something else! This was the first time I actually broke a single fic into multiple parts, and I do not regret it. Each section is fairly large on its own, so it would have been a monster all together. I gave them basically the same title pages and such, just used the main stories summary for all of them and copy pasted everything - work smarter, not harder - and kept the same format for the chapters and such. There were 2 obvious spots (at least imo) for breaking things up, those being at the end of chapter 24, and then again at the end of 57, if you know, you know. However, that made the divide be 24 chapter, 33 chapter, 9 chapters. I was a little worried about how that divide to affect the look of the books, but I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked out. Book 2 there is quite obviously the largest part (it's basically double the length of book 1) but book 3 was surprisingly long for being only 9 chapters and I think they look fairly cohesive together. I didn't realize how long the last nine chapters themselves were. The first and third ones are actually about the same size together as book two, which is pretty cool!

When it came time to put together the actual books, I stuck with my tried and true french link stitch, as I find it to be a sturdy stitch, and then used green, yellow, and red card stock for the end pages, I felt it thematic.

I'm super excited to have this as a physical book now, thank again to chaiandsage for allowing me to bind this amazing story and just for writing it in the first place! I read it like twice in the span of a month, and I swear I have read chapter 57 and 58 themselves way too many times to count. Not even going to mention the amount of times I read the last 6 chapters because I just love a good happy ending.

But yeah, I'm really happy how this bind turned out, I still have to put an actual cover in these - which I plan on doing, I have a friend who is going to help me with the cover design when they are free, so there will be an update at some point.

[catsharky]

I've just discovered your Rolan x Tav comic.

It's SO neat and accurate, in matter of deign and details!

In case you don't mind, of course, I have some questions you maybe have answered before:

What software do you work with? What kind of pencils do you use? How do you manage to set so neat and clean results? Do you need many references for that or is just a gift you have? How many years have you been drawing to achieve those results?

I don't mind at all! And I don't believe I've answered any of these questions before, at least not since I started doing my comics.

For software I mainly use Clip Studio, though I do also use PaintTool Sai (v2) for certain things that I feel it does better. All of my Mass Effect comics are lined in Sai, for example because things like armour have a lot more inorganic shapes and require long, sweeping, unbroken lines, and I like the pen stabilization in Sai far better than CSP's for that sort of thing.

For how long I've been doing art, I've been at it basically nonstop since I was 9 (so 20 years now, jeez). I was in an art program throughout highschool, went to college for art/animation for 4 years, and I'll have been working professionally as an animator for 8 years in May! So there's a lot of practice there for sure.

And yeah, I use a ton of references. Usually a good chunk of the time I'll spend on something is just collecting or making the reference material I need for it.

I'm putting the rest under a read more because it's pretty long:

(Tumblr keeps eating my formatting so sorry if this is a little scuffed)

Because I'm normally working full time and doing this stuff in my free time after hours and on weekends, if I know I'm going to be drawing something a *lot*, I'll usually put together some kind of reference for myself in 3D so I can take some of the brainwork out of it and get more out of my evenings even when I'm feeling fried. It also means I put as little extra strain on my wrist as possible because I injured it a number of years back and it gets angry at me if I go for too many hours in a day.

But to give you an example, for Ember I have a Sculpt of her head that I can use to reference any angle I want, or to draw directly over top of for tricky angles. How I draw her isn't quite 1:1 to the model, but it gives me a base structure and landmarks I can build on top of.

My basic workflow is to take the angle I want, draw over it using the model as a guide (while picking and choosing where to stay true to it and where to say fuck it and do what I want), then I get rid of the 3D and do another pass, tweaking and redrawing anything I'm not totally happy until I'm satisfied with how it looks. I draw Ember with a slightly softer, more rounded face than the model has, for instance. Just because something looks right in 3D doesn't always mean it looks right once translated to 2D and I don't care if something is technically "correct" if it doesn't feel right or isn't conveying what I want it to properly.

I'm also always checking reference screenshots to make sure I'm in the right ballpark of how something should look. I actually have a wall of photos next to my desk and while I didn't put them up for that purpose, it has come in surprisingly handy for quickly checking face or hair details when needed. I also just have a big folder of screenshots and other saved reference material.

I don't have a problem noooo~ 😅

Additionally, if my art has a background these days, there is a 100% chance that's a 3D set I built in Blender because I hate drawing backgrounds, but I do like building them in 3D.

Here's two examples: the area around Astarion's bed, which I built out of some of the in-game assets like a lego set (this was a pain in the ass, it probably would have been faster to just build it from scratch based on screenshots 😩) and a closet I modelled for something that's still a WIP.

I'll get the angle I want, have Blender generate some linework from it and then grab a basic render of it to slap into CSP so I can draw the characters over top of it.

And as for brushes: the main brush I use in CSP is just the default 'Real G-Pen', with opacity effects turned off and these pressure settings: (I like to keep it simple, and I have a bit of a heavy hand so the altered pen pressure just helps me get a smoother taper). I change up the stabilizer settings depending on what I'm doing. Lower for things that need short, quick lines like hair and higher for most other things.

For Sai, I use a 9B pencil I found a number of years ago on Deviantart (I think?) and I wish I could link you to the original post I got the settings from, but Deviantart's search is... bad and I'm unable to find it again.

I hope that answered all your questions! If not, feel free to ask more!

[unseededtoast]

Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Twenty Two

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross posted on my Wattpad and AO3, if you prefer those formats. Here is a link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted.

"But that night you got hurt, I enjoyed killing them. I liked hearing them die in front of me, their blood staining my hands."

Joel and I don't stay in the town for another night, we continue on. Our pace is slower than what I've become accustomed to, but Joel's wound isn't completely healed yet. The two of us have been silent after our discovery, Joel didn't have anything to say after I declared my death threat. No, instead of saying anything, he just handed me the photos and nodded solemnly.

With the two of us getting closer and closer to Omaha, I find myself feeling appreciative of Joel's slower pace. This gives us opportunities to find things we may have otherwise missed. And it also gives me more time with him. Since his near-death experience, I find myself trying to memorize the way his eyes shine golden in the sunlight, the way his voice sounds in the morning, how his shirt clings to the broadness of his shoulders, just small details. The small details are the ones I know will fade first, and I want to be able to hold onto them for as long as possible.

I know this to be fact because I can no longer quite remember what Ryan's voice really sounded like, and I can't quite remember just how soft Lucas' hair was. The simple things about them have slowly faded from my mind without me realizing it, until I thought about them one day and could never truly remember. I've never been able to forgive myself for forgetting, and I know I don't want to forget these things about Joel. After all, he's the man who has kept me alive all this time.

A part of me wishes I could be there when he's reunited with his pseudo-daughter. I wonder if he's going to tell her about this, or never mention it to her at all. She would have no idea I exist, or that Joel and I took this trip together. I know Joel is trying to protect her from the people of this world due to her immunity, so it makes sense if he never tells her about any of this. She's still a child at the end of the day, and no child should hear that there's a bunch of crazed men out there trying to find and kill them. Even if she never knows about me, or any of this, I know I'll still be able to rest peacefully at night with the knowledge that I helped protect her.

"This okay for tonight?" We stop walking as Joel points out a small, run-down gas station. It's likely the only building for miles, and so I agree to stop here for the night.

As we set up our makeshift camp, I continue to think about the girl waiting for him back in Wyoming. After hours of on-the-road thoughts, I can't help but to be fascinated with someone who is immune. It's glaringly obvious that she's one of a kind. Sure, I've known for a while that she's immune, but I think it just took some time to process it, to really understand what it means and the ramifications of it. But mostly, I just want to know how it happened. What caused her to be immune and why it's not being replicated anywhere else, that we know of.

My eyes follow Joel's form as he starts the fire for the night, my thoughts anywhere but the present. I watch how he situates the flammable material while wondering what his life is like in Wyoming and if he's excited to be back. Obviously, he's probably eager considering he's got family waiting for him. He lights the fire and the amber glow illuminates his features in soft light. His eyes look warm and inviting, the curve of his nose beautifully adorns his face with unique character, the plumpness of his lips reflect with the drink of water he just took. As if he feels my eyes lingering on him, he looks over and meets my gaze.

"What's on your mind?" He asks, shifting back from the fire a few feet as it takes flame. My eyes dance between him and the fire, debating if I should confess or not.

"I um, I've just been thinking about a lot of things." It's not a complete lie, I guess. Orange flames rise and dissipate, crackling in front of us.

"About what? You've been quiet since this morning." Instead of confiding in him my most recent thoughts, I decide to unload the other thing that's been bothering me for a while now, since he was stabbed. With a sigh and a quick lick of my lips, I tell him my moral dilemma.

"I've never been one to enjoy taking a life. Didn't like it when I was on FEDRA gate duty, and I didn't like it when we ran into the Fireflies. But that night you got hurt, I enjoyed killing them. I liked hearing them die in front of me, their blood staining my hands. And I've been having these thoughts of what it's going to feel like to kill these people. It's almost anticipatory." Our eyes stay locked on one another as I speak, my words quiet and somber. With a shaky breath, I continue,

"And I'm not sure what that makes me. Am I really any different from them if I look forward to killing?" My throat constricts, like my body doesn't want me to voice my fear. The silence between us is palpable and dread grows in me with each second Joel doesn't say something. Not being able to handle the criticism when he opens his mouth, I focus on the fire.

"Doesn't make you a bad person, if that's what you're worried about." He finally speaks, and his words catch me off guard, the total opposite of what I was expecting.

"Then what does it make me? Because it isn't good." My voice cracks. I know it's not fair to be asking him these questions, but, I can't stop from asking them. He shifts his weight to his other side and leans forward slightly, looking deeper into my eyes and I fear if he looks too hard he'll be able to see right into my soul.

"Makes you human. Means you have purpose, something worth protecting. Or, in your case, a ledger to balance." There is no trace of anything but authenticity as he speaks, his words settling into my mind. My eyebrows come close together as I mull over what he's said and I realize he may be right.

"You know I really thought you were going to die that night." I change the subject slightly, not wanting to admit to him that he's becoming my 'something to protect' and a part of my 'ledger to balance'.

"And if I did I suppose it was just my time." He relaxes his posture as if the thought of death is no more stressful than deciding what he's going to wear the next day.

"Don't say that." I shake my head, not wanting any more images of his dead body in my mind. The one from this morning, from the photos, still haven't left my mind. Each time they pop up behind my eyelids, it instills a new fear in me each time.

"You did a damn good stitch job." He tries to lighten the mood, pulling up the hem of his shirt to show the still intact sutures.

"It's a wonder you didn't bleed out. Do you even remember what happened?" I'm not entirely sure how much he saw, or what he remembers. To answer my question, he shakes his head.

"Not really, just remember you gettin' there and the rest is just kind of-" He motions with his hands that his memory of the night has become scrambled.

"One of them got you real good with their machete. I stuffed the wound with my shirt to try to stop the bleed and then I had to get you to another building. On the ground just outside of where we ended up there was one of their torches, barely still burning on the sidewalk. So I took it and heated the blade of my hunting knife, then I cauterized the cut. Found the sewing supplies when I was looking around and just did my best. Truthfully, you lost a lot of blood, like, way too much." I give him the brief recounting of the night. His fingers lightly trace the stitching before he meets my eyes again.

"Thank you." He tenderly says, dropping the hem of his shirt.

"It was the least I could do." I shrug one of my shoulders. The silence between us returns for a few more moments before Joel announces that he's going to get some sleep for the night. I tell him I'm going to as well, but end up staying awake.

After a while, the flames of the fire begin dying off but my eyes remain affixed to the back of Joel. The shirt across his shoulders is drawn tight, battling to stay intact. His dark curls are barely brushing the collar of the shirt, more prominent from the humidity of the day. As my eyes wander down his solid form, the chain around my neck seems to burn my skin. Disgust with myself boils up from within, and I force myself to look away from Joel.

My gaze turns up to the ceiling and I try to flood my mind with how Ryan sounded, how he felt, how he loved me. Bits and pieces come back, like how his hand felt on my cheek, how solid his chest felt when I hugged him, but I cannot remember his voice. I can feel the timbre of it, but can't place the true tone and inflection. Tears well in my lower lash line as I accept that I genuinely can't remember him fully anymore. I've known for a while that certain things have faded, but I never took the time to mourn that loss, I have not allowed myself to mourn Ryan the way I should have all those years ago.

My hands curl into frustrated fists, my nails digging crescent shapes into my palm as silent tears run down my face. Tears of guilt for forgetting, tears of sadness because I can no longer remember all of my husband. Tears of fear because I realize that I may be falling in love with another man; one whom I cannot be with. I grit my teeth together in lieu of screaming and a hollow feeling opens in my chest.

Moving faster than my mind can keep up, I go outside where the air hits the wetness of my face and sends a shiver down my spine. Once I'm sure that I'm far enough to where Joel can't hear me, I let myself cry. With each ragged breath I take my chest heaves up and down unevenly. Tears uncontrollably run down my face and I grip the chain around my neck tightly, wishing I could just have one more second with my family, wishing I could feel the warmth of their skin on mine, to tell them how much I love them one final time. Hoping and praying that my love for them and their absence is enough to stave off the feeling blooming inside of me for Joel.

All through the past ten years I've yearned to have my family back, there's been a hole in my heart, a void that has never been filled since outbreak day. A void that hasn't been hurting as much the past couple of weeks. I've always missed Ryan and Lucas, but lately their absence has been a dull ache as opposed to the sharp stabbing I'm used to. I'm not sure what this means, because I know I love and miss them vehemently. But I also know how I feel about Joel.

Unable to stay standing, I lower myself to my knees, burying my face in my hands. My eyes squeeze shut and the tears fall off the ends of my eyelashes. Guilt overtakes me as I remember how on outbreak night Ryan protected Lucas and I to the best of his ability. How he told me he loved me, and that we were going to be alright. If only I had turned that corner first. Why was I the one to survive, but they had to die?

Guilt burns into anger and I blame myself for what happened. If only I had been brave enough to go first, then maybe they would still be on this Earth. I know they could've forged a life for themselves somewhere. Meanwhile I was content being shipped everywhere and ended up being a lowly pill runner. Why couldn't that FEDRA guard have shot the infected two seconds earlier and spared them? It just isn't right.

Sobs strain my throat while I try to stay quiet and I use the sleeve of my button up to wipe my nose. The stars above me shine brightly and I stare at them, stray tears falling down my cheeks. If only they could reach out to me and let me know that wherever they are, that they're together and they're not suffering, that they're not angry at me for feeling this way about Joel.

Ryan and Lucas will never be able to be replaced, they will always occupy a special place in my heart. I know I can never have them back with me physically, yet I know that they are forever with me, tethered to the very fiber of my being. But I feel that my heart is opening up a new spot, and I'm not sure I'll be able to kill whatever is blooming. I'm not sure I want to.

With wide eyes I search the sky for some sort of sign, some indication that my feelings are right or wrong. But my search is cut short when I hear the door of the gas station open. Quickly, I use the sleeve of my shirt to wipe my face and hope that the darkness of night will conceal my puffy face. As my head turns to face Joel, I can almost swear I see a streak of light in the sky. But by the time I do a double take, whatever I thought I saw, is gone.

"Are you okay?" Joel's voice cautiously asks as he slowly approaches me. The stars are shining so bright tonight that I can see the familiar crease between his brows. His boots crunch softly on the loose pebbles on the pavement and I nod my head, trying to stabilize my breathing.

"I'm okay." My voice betrays me as I speak, it comes out hoarse. Joel comes to my side, and lowers himself next to me, crouching instead of resting on his knees.

"Why don't you come back inside? I'll get the fire started up again." I feel his eyes on me as I stare back at the sky, one last lone tear sliding down my cheek. Joel's words are smooth as honey, calming and soft. A gust of wind blows past us, sending another shiver up my body.

Joel must see the slight quiver as the breeze passes, and he puts an arm around my shoulders, the other under my elbow, and he helps me back to my feet. He keeps his arm gently wrapped around me as we go back to the gas station, and I lean into his touch out of instinct. Before we enter the building, I stop and take one last look at the sky, hopeful to see whatever it was that zoomed past when Joel stepped outside just to confirm what I think it was. But nothing happens.

I step back into the building in front of Joel, who works to get the fire reignited. My body begins to physically calm down from my crying, jagged breaths turn into hiccups. The first one shocks us both, but after the second I think I can almost see a tiny smile on Joel's face. However, when he turns to me after the fire is rebuilt all signs of a smile are gone and is instead replaced with a caring expression. Joel's dark brown eyes are wide and I see how his eyes look over my face, his shoulders aren't tight and rigid, he almost looks relaxed.

He walks over to me and leads me to what I've claimed as my spot for the night, marked by my backpack. Gingerly, he sits me down and crouches by my side once more, moving a rogue strand of hair out of my face that was plastered to my cheek from the tears. His fingers are warm against my face, and he lets them linger there for just a second longer than he needs to. My eyes slowly blink, appreciative of the contact. He licks his lips and his eyes look over my face once more, trying to piece together what's wrong.

"You don't have to tell me why, but I just need to know that you're alright, that you're not hurt." I look into his eyes that are inches from me and I nod with another hiccup jolting through me.

"I'm not hurt." My hoarse voice confirms to him and I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand to dry them fully. I feel that my eyes are puffy, my lips swollen from keeping quiet and I hope I don't look as disheveled as I feel inside.

"Okay." Joel nods and only then does he back away from me. Though I wish he would stay. However, I know that with my uncertain emotions, that it's probably better he that he doesn't. For his sake. He doesn't need to be roped into my personal shit show.

Every few minutes a hiccup interrupts the quiet, and each time I see Joel struggle to keep a smile at bay. I'll admit, they do sound a little ridiculous and if I weren't so upset I'd probably laugh at them too. But as my hiccups calm down, I find myself transfixed by the dancing flames.

Perhaps I needed to come to terms with my reality, accept my losses, and understand how Ryan and Lucas are still a part of me to be okay with something new. And perhaps this something new is for the better. Even if it doesn't work out, at least I know I'm still human enough, capable enough, to keep going.

Twenty Three

[eggdesign]

NPF based template

preview + code

This is an alternative to the more extensive base code I'm working on that uses the NPF variable that still uses the legacy theme blocks and variables. This is intended to keep your theme making process familiar and more comfortable for those who do not have a lot of JS experience but still want to utilize the NPF variable.

The JS is pretty minimal (especially compared to the full NPF theme), but it uses the NPF variable to keep formatting more consistent with the legacy post types. While you do not need to edit any JS to use this theme, if you want to, you can use more things from the NPF variable like getting checkmarks for users that have them!

This theme will also take into consideration if photos or other media should not move, like in the case of text separating photosets.

Here is a before and after of a post made with the beta editor:

This base code is very simple compared to my other ones (it is only the posts and pagination), so please edit it as much as you want! I didn't want this to be restricted to a specific style or layout. Given a lot of theme makers have felt limited with their post styles since switching to one post type, I'm hoping this can help bridge that gap.

Let me know if you have any questions or run into problems while using this!

[victorianpining]

The Game is Now

(Well The Game is over a year ago, if you want to be technical about it)

I finally took the time to write up my notes and reactions to the original BBC Sherlock Escape Room Experience! Sorry in advance if things are a little vague at points, we only played through the room once and am mostly running off of iphone notes I wrote 13 months ago. I hope to be able to go back to try out the new Mind of Moriarty room during its run, if this one was anything to go by, it should be a fun time!

My usual disclaimer that while this is a TJLC slanted writeup, I'm just playing The Game for fun at this point, I really am not expecting any of this to lead anywhere. Enjoy your television responsibly, don't idolize television writers, eat your veggies, etc. etc. etc. And spoilers for the room, obviously.

Oh, and huge thank you to @watermotif @betweendoctorsanddetectives and @647763 (and her girlfriend) for playing the room with me! I had a blast suffering with you all <3

The way I'm getting myself to finally actually write this up is by telling myself it's okay if my thoughts are a little informal, especially after this long, so this is going to be written the way I usually structure my outlines in the format of chaotic bullet points. Hopefully it's still readable!

I'm starting my recap of the experience outside of the escape room itself, which was located in what was, for all intents and purposes, a random, abandoned seeming mall in London (it wasn't actually abandoned malls are just like that now)

So imagine you are just walking through what looks exactly like your local, very dead, mall, when there's just this massive wall with dark damask wall paper and the most DFP Sherlock quotes you can conceive of plastered on it. Think "I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for a second I am one of them" "heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them" "I'm a high functioning sociopath" etc. It's already hilarious

You come around the corner from that and there's the gated off "Doyle's Optometrist" office, where you have to page in (I think we had to state our group name, I can't remember exactly how we got in)

Once you're inside the staff helping you are named Stamford. Yes like Mike Stamford. Yes all of them. If you didn't know you were in for psychological torment, you do now

[brief intermission here because some of us arrived early, so they actually let us through to the Mind Palace bar while we waited. It was pretty cool, apart from the guy working there being really pushy about ordering drinks. The bar is Victorian themed with framed pictures from TAB and the biggest one in the room, like by far, was a framed picture of Sherlock and Moriarty's little gun standoff, so you know, that was fun.]

[here we are trying to be normal about it]

[also I went to the bathroom at this point and there was a little sign in the stall which said that the Sherlock theme song was exactly the right length to wash you hands to which was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life]

Anyway back to the intended order of the experience, Stamford led us back to the optometrist waiting room where we sat calmly while John Watson's voice read out random advertisements. (The only one of these I wrote down was "the eyes are the legs of the face" because it was so random, but there was a set of them)

Also as you will see in the following picture, the posters in here were Bananas

(In case you can't see it since it's small in dash, the purple one behind Mia says "Doyle's Audiographs: for those who hear but don't listen" very evocative of the "I did tell you but did you listen" motif, 0/10 very infuriating)

Stamford came over at this point and brought us back and gave us the rules, which included no photography so photos end here unfortunately

So we were taken to a projector room where John Watson addressed the players, saying that while it says the office belongs to Doyle, this is actually a front for one of Mycroft's plans (ha ha ha (deadpan)) and that he's coopted John into helping. (hah. do you get it? the author and the narrator? hillarious)

It was so clear that Martin did not want to be there. Like yes John in character also doesn't want to be there but Martin literally looked like he was being held at gunpoint. His eyes were dead. Poor guy.

Stamford led us through another room into the 221B living room! Being in here was surreal. Because there are a few groups lumped together at this point, we had a bit of time to look around the room. Rachel found a book about fetishes on the mantle, which was something.

We took our group picture, they let you pick from a few props. I went for the white queen chess piece for Dracula reasons and got bullied into wearing the deerstalker, which was homophobic.

Also the skull was the Yorick version, and I took a moment to stare into ACD's eyes, out of respect, as one does.

At this point the game proper begins! Sherlock's voice comes on (Ben is not on camera other than one brief exception which we will be coming back to later) and starts prepping us for our mission.

I don't remember the context but I think while telling us to be careful in the flat he told us "don't scrape your knees, or do." which was funny considering "the state of her knees"

Mycroft then addresses the audience (hah) only to be interrupted by Moriarty (hah) hacking the TV (hah hah hah)

The mirror above the fireplace? Also turns into a TV that Moriarty hacks. Ha. Ha ha ha ha.

Moriarty informs us that he has kidnapped Mycroft so the point of the game is to save Mycroft from Moriarty (I was fighting the urge to bash my head against the walls of 221b at this point, like I was expecting M Theory but like Come On you're killing me here)

You may be wondering how exactly Moriarty has kidnapped Mycroft considering he is dead. Great question! You don't get an answer apart from Moriarty saying "remember I am definitely dead" in the most sarcastic voice I have ever heard come out of Andrew Scott's mouth. Full psychological warfare at this point. Having a great time. The usual.

Also at this point, while talking about Mycroft, Moriarty compares him to Sherlock, and he definitely listed off a bunch of things but the part that most stood out was he said verbatim "Mycroft is like Sherlock without the fangirls or sex appeal" so uh. Um. Yeah. M Theory Time!!! All Aboard!!! Choo Choo!!!!

We were taken to the first of our three puzzle rooms: the morgue at St. Bart's. Moriarty is introducing the room and jokingly refers to the brief time he spent dating Molly, lets us know that our goal is to break into the computer system (a development which had me thrilled, you know I love the Moriarty as a Virus angle)

Not one full minute after Moriarty joked about Molly being his cover, Molly voice over talks to John (who by the way has a beard at this point, that I had not mentioned) and goes "nice beard!" Hah. Hah.

To get into the computer we needed to put in a date, I don't remember the context for this puzzle but the answer was 2012, the year of Season 2.

The case in the middle of the room then lights up and you're able to see the corpse. On the computer, a database comes in, and in order to get into the server, we need to fill out a series of questions about the identity of the corpse.

One of the filters is the relationship status of the corpse with three options, single, married m/f, and married m/m. I let out the most exhausted sigh of my entire life and hit married m/m without even looking at the corpse. (we briefly removed it because the room was giving us clues out of order that made us think for a moment that this was wrong, it was not, the corpse is gay, you have to not assume he's straight. Do you get it?) (war and strife on the planet earth)

So the clue for that is that the corpse has the name Stephen tattooed on him (really? of all the names? Stephen????) and you're meant to figure out that he wouldn't get a tattoo of his own name. Or just be so mentally exhausted that you intrinsically know the corpse is going to be gay because of course he is.

If that wasn't enough, the corpse was also a member of the Royal Navy who was left handed. Hi John.

At this point my friends in the room with me pointed me up to the TV in the corner, which was showing random news feed but the ticker tap at the bottom was advertising BBC Dracula, which was fun.

When we were finally getting into the cage the server was in, Moriarty kept ominously chanting "let me in"

Again, don't remember the context, but one of the clues in this room was identifying the heart

We discovered the corpse died of a horrific virus (hah) just as Moriarty hacked into the server thanks to us (once again was genuinely enjoying the code stuff, this is a 10/10 from me, makes fadow better for everyone who has done this silly escape room sdhgakjdsg)

The second room was Mycroft's underground office and our task from Moriarty was to locate where his agents were stationed throughout the world and once again send off his virus. I was giggling.

Flipping around with switches on Mycroft's desk, we found that the mirrors on either side of the room were actually windows! Because of course they were!

Sherlock comes in with a clue at this point and lets us know something to the effect of "Mycroft likes to hide clues in photographs" which was uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... normal.

Those are my only notes for this room and I don't remember literally anything else about it so sorry about that on to....

The final room: The Victorian Operating Theater! Oh boy!!!

Moriarty has been using us to access the genetic code (hah) for a virus (hah) last scene in the Victorian Era (hahahahahahahaa). He literally phrases it as "an old treasure brought into the modern day." Hillarious.

Then the absolute highlight of the experience: there's this giant console thing in the middle of the room that comes to life with all these screens, and on them including Moriarty taunting us and, the absolute 12/10 winner, footage of Sherlock wandering around 221B. This is the only Ben footage you get and not only does it confirm the "Moriarty is always spying on Sherlock" part of M Theory, it's very similar to the wall of monitors I came up with for fadow. Fellow Moriarty fan Mia and I were dying at this as much as we were able to while still trying to solve the room.

Moriarty freed Mycroft but had infected us with the virus (this is why I joke that Moriarty gave me COVID, because I caught it this day and it might as well have been from him)

His plan was to unleash the virus on the world unless we could stop him

This room was more physical puzzles than mental, and we had to cure the brain, the heart, and the lungs respectively. The brain and the heart are obviously big Sherlock meta staples so since then I've been like "why the lungs tho?" My best guess is it has something to do with breathing new life into an old story, but that's just a guess

While we were solving it and making progress Moriarty came on to rant something like "the game was over! You should have known when to give up!" Flames, flames on the side of my face.

When we won, Sherlock insulted us, but Mycroft then came on to compliment our efforts and talents, which was a great way to leave off.

Apparently only 20% of people actually solve the room, and we were in the top 20% of that, all while trying to take in the meta of it all, go League of Furies!!!

Final thoughts: this really was like if watching the show was a thing you could live through in real time. If you've ever wanted to be tormented by Mofftiss in a more visceral way, this room is exactly what you're looking for. Also shoutout to Andrew, who acted his absolute heart out, 15/10 thanks for all the M Theory, it was delicious

Also once again to reiterate, I can't believe James Moriarty gave me COVID, after all I have done for him, rest in pieces except he isn't even dead all the way.

I guess 4 months of not being able to breathe fully was the real lungs meta all along.

Can't wait for the Mind of Moriarty game next though for real, that's gonna be Bonkers, if one of the scenes is a virtual version of the waterfall scene from TAB I think I would combust on the spot

Thanks for reading!!! Sorry this took me forever only to be such a casual writeup in the end, but hopefully this recreation of my mental breakdown in a mall was entertaining.

[discoduck492]

𝐹𝒶𝒸𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒯𝒾𝓂𝑜𝓉𝒽𝓎 𝐻𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝒾𝓉𝓊𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃. ⚖️💎

If you are coming across this post & you are not aware, in 2017 the former best friend of pop artist; 'Melanie Martinez' came out with her story, claiming that Melanie had assaulted her during a sleepover. This was big news at the time and left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It all eventually got swept under the carpet with the help of a plethora of false information to create a situation where the public simply didn't know who or what to believe.

Honestly, I'm not a huge 'Crybaby' (as Melanie's fans are often referred to) at all, although I enjoyed some of Melanie Martinez's earlier songs. In fact, I'm not even overly interested in pop culture- but this situation really struck a chord with me. I guess I see myself in Timothy a bit as a survivor of similar circumstances. I've seen a lot of misinformation floating around, and I thought I'd make a lil master-post to clear things up. It appears that a lot of the people who are recycling misinformation & rooting stubbornly for Melanie's innocence are very young and just want to protect the image they hold of their idol, which I empathise with.

To those young fans- if you truly believe Melanie is innocent, there is absolutely no need to create fake screenshots, attack Timothy or anything of that nature. She doesn't need fans to embellish the story to protect her. Her innocence would speak for itself, & honestly it would help Melanie more if her fans portrayed themselves as levelheaded rather than brutish bullies, taking sides like it is a sports game. This situation is delicate, and has everything to do with nuance and sensitivity.

Let's get into it..

1. 'Timothy admitted to lying in 2017 !!?'

This was one of the many rumours spread by die-hard fans. There was a photoshopped Instagram story screenshot spread around online where there is a- horribly written might I add- 'confession' from Timothy. As rumours do- especially when para-social, blindly passionate fans are involved- these false screenshots spread like wildfire.

Note the incorrect formatting of the time of posting in the false screenshot. Instagram has always formatted story post times as eg. '9m' or '9h'. Never 9min. Beyond that, the writing/grammar etc reads very childish, when Timothy typically demonstrates a more eloquent writing ability. Not sure how these kinds of things were believed at the time; but my best guess is because a lot of the fanbase was very young at the time (12-18 mostly).

2. 'didn't Timothy accuse multiple other celebrities of the same thing!?'

No. This was another persistent rumour circulating at the time that was, similarly to the former rumour, entirely fabricated. I doubt Timothy Heller even has connections to Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift or any of the other names that have been floating around. There is absolutely no evidence of Timothy ever making these claims, it's just young impressionable fans parroting one another.

This one is incredibly strange- there isn't even any kind of evidence of Timothy saying this, let alone false evidence. It seems that somehow, obsessive Melanie fans saw the following Timothy tweets and spun a completely ridiculous lie using the names she mentioned. Timothy never once claimed to be assaulted by anyone other than Melanie.

These tweets are actually quite protective and sweet in nature, she is speaking her mind noticing how Billie Eilish who was only 16 at the time was very unprotected in the industry; surrounding herself with grown men, etc. and it was incredibly overlooked due to her celebrity status.

3. 'Timothy messed up the date! Aha! Proof she lied!'

Timothy did indeed fumble the date back in 2017. She explains in her recent video that the reason for this was that she was going off of a photo she remembered taking the day after the event, and unfortunately the photo appeared twice in her camera roll thus confusing the date (it's possible she took a screenshot of the photo later on or something along that vein).

Fans noticed that on the date Timothy gave mistakenly; Melanie was on tour in a different state & fans naively ran with this as proof of a lie.

The truth is, Timothy messing up the date is completely irrelevant. It would be a point of suspicion if Melanie had entirely denied they were ever together, but this isn't the case. It was confirmed by Melanie that this sleepover & the night in question did happen. It was also confirmed by Melanie, that on this night they did have sexual interactions. The date is totally unimportant.

I find it very strange how in image 1- Melanie admits that the night in question happened ie. the infamous 'she never said no to what we chose to do together'. This line of course sounds... convoluted at best, fairly sinister at worst.

However in image 2, Melanie states she 'thanks her 'fans who took the time to research the timeline, analyze past instagram photos, and question the story being told, which reveal her false statements'. This is incredibly strange, as she is implying that fans pointing out the date mix up proves her innocence; yet simultaneously admits that the event happened. Very inconsistent.

4. 'Why doesn't she take it to court rather than TikTok? Clearly she is after fame.'

In the midst of the aftermath of Timothy Heller's recent TikTok video where she resurfaces and speaks on her story again; a lot of people are questioning why she has not taken this to court. For some this is a way of saying 'this is a personal, delicate issue that is bound to get messy and explosive online & not the public's issue' which is an understandable perspective; but for others what they mean is 'she didn't take it to court, that must mean she's not serious about this therefore it is a lie'.

Unfortunately, legal justice is incredibly unlikely with a case like this, and I'm sure Timothy is aware of that.

There is (thankfully for Timothy's sake) no video evidence, no audio recordings- even if some sort of physical test of touch, fluid, etc. was performed, this only proves sex- not assault; and Melanie doesn't deny that they had sex. It also happened years ago, and as time goes on these things become harder and harder to prove.

Timothy likely feels that the best she can do is attempt to speak out and attain some form of social justice. Not only is the legal system feeble and tricky- it's also that Melanie has a disproportionate amount of money to work with. For Timothy, taking this to court would likely be a financially poor & fruitless decision.

Timothy also has stated in the past in this livestream @ 4:11 'I don't want to go to the police because I don't want Melanie to go to jail.'

So, there is also this understandable element where she still cares for Melanie on some level. She has no desire to punish Melanie herself, her coming out had more to do with owning her OWN story and liberating herself with the truth.

5. 'Isn't it suspicious that Timothy only seems to come out with this when Melanie is at a high in her career?'

A common point fans bring up is that Timothy seems to come out with her story at 'peaks' in Melanie's career. I don't have much to flesh out about this one since honestly this point is more of a personal opinion type of thing. Yes, Melanie is on her worldwide 'Trilogies' tour, but her album; 'Portals' came out a year ago.

I honestly feel like people would be throwing out this stale argument no matter when Timothy resurfaced. Whether it was during the anticipation of Portals, when Portals released, in the months after release- hell, during the K-12 era even. I just think this point is very.. empty.

That being said, if you would consider right now a high in her career, this honestly makes a lot of sense. Timothy was driven off of the internet by pure malice the first time she came out with this information- it makes sense that now that Melanie is bigger, she wants to reinforce, 'hey, don't forget about me, don't forget about my story & what I went through'.

6. 'She remained friends with Melanie, dressed up as Melanie, agreed to play a fun sex game with Melanie'

None of these things point to her lying, and in fact are very plainly consistent with Timothy's story from the get go. Timothy always maintained the fact that for some time after the event occurred, it was hard to admit to herself that what happened was assault. Having that realisation took time, reflection & concerned reactions from friends when she would jokingly explain what happened. Therefore she stayed friends with Melanie & in her inner circle. As for the sex game... irrelevant. You can play a fun 'goofy' sex game with a friend but not intend to actually have sex with them.

7. 'Timothy Heller is Jealous & only wants Melanie's Fame & to Further Her own Music Career!'

This one is possibly the strangest of them all, yet seemingly the most prevalent take from hardcore fans.

First of all- being famous for being assaulted by a famous person, does not translate to personal fame in other endeavours outside of a minority of people who have eyes on the situation idly clicking on things out of sheer curiosity. 'Oh, this is 'the girl who was assaulted by Melanie Martinez's' music!'.

It is known that often, speaking up hinders people's careers which is why many in the industry & in life in general stay silent. This is exactly what happened to Timothy Heller- she was bullied, doxxed, threatened, stalked and harassed into hiding; not only doing wonders I'm sure for her mental health; but also putting her potential music career to a complete halt for some time.

Timothy has absolutely nothing to gain from coming out. Truly nothing. Not money, not fame in her personal endeavours, nothing but the possibility of justice on a social level; combined with the risk of further social ridicule & threat to her physical safety. She is putting herself on the line to double down on her story. After all she went through after coming forward the first time, she is completely willing to die on this hill so to speak. That shocked me...

In 2017, though even my younger self was appalled by the way fans were handling the situation and treating Timothy; it really did feel more like a 'he said, she said' situation. However, now after the fact of her making that video, the emotion in her voice, her never straying form the initial story; Melanie's inconsistencies...

I believe her.

& if you don't... touché; it's true that none of us were there. Though I feel that picture is quite clear when all of the misinformation is cleared away; which was the intention of this post.

8. Note that Melanie's tendency to be sexually coercive has been Reiterated by people other than Timothy

Melanie's former stylist, Madeleine Carina came out on Twitter not long after Timothy with the following statement:

“Something similar (not r*pe) happened w/ me and Mel. She begged me over and over again to sleep with her n I finally gave in. She wore me down. I said yes. But it was not the same with Timothy. I will support @timothyheller till the end.”

While Madeleine herself clarifies that she didn't consider her situation assault as she did eventually say yes; it does shed light on this kind of behaviour being a pattern for Melanie.

//

Some closing thoughts: reviewing all of this information, I think there's a strong chance that Melanie herself genuinely doesn't believe that she crossed a line & has a sort of cognitive dissonance about it. There is room for all sorts of shades of grey when it comes to understanding human emotions & intentions, but this wouldn't negate the way this occurrence affected Timothy either way. I read somewhere 'If Timothy wasn't a victim before, she definitely is now considering the way she's been treated all these years'.

Thankyou for reading, & I hope this shed some light on things ✌🏼🤍🤍

[kimpossibly]

𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐃 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐄 𝐒/𝐎

REQUEST: Hi! I really love your works, if its alright with you, can I please request Enid Sinclair with a human/normie s/o who she loves very much but her s/o is being stalked by their crazy ex-girlfriend who wants them back and also happens to be a werewolf. — anon

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hiiiiii!! Thank you so so much for the ask, this is adorable! I didn't know if you wanted a fic or headcanons, so I kind of mashed them up and did both!! I hope you enjoy this and let me know if you'd like it in a different format! NOTE: E/n = ex's name

PAIRING: enid sinclair x gn!reader WARNINGS: crazy ex-girlfriends, fighting, stalking

Needless to say, it's a pretty big deal when someone at Nevermore gets involved with a Normie.

Some might even say it's taboo, but everyone knows that the Normie gets the short end of the stick nine times out of ten.

So when another werewolf and you start dating, our lovely Queen of Gossip Enid knows from the very beginning

She's super into the relationship despite never having met you — she'll always ask for updates or to see photos of the two of you

But she can't deny the blushy, crushy feeling she gets whenever she sees you

Of course, she covers it up with things like "Oh my God, they're gorgeous!" or "You guys look so cute together!", but it doesn't do much to stave off the way her heart speeds up every time she sees you in photos

Enid figures out pretty quickly that she possibly maybe sort of has the sliiiiiightest crush on you. But you were dating her friend, and that meant you were off-limits.

So Enid did what she could to stave off all those giggly, fuzzy feelings she gets whenever she thinks about you

It didn't really work that well but whatever

Enid was so busy trying to stamp down her feelings that she completely missed your relationship turning sour

That's why it came as such a surprise to her when you broke up with her friend out of the blue

Enid put everything she had into being there for her friend — giving her tissues when she cried, planning fun movie nights to take her mind off of you

And all good feelings she had towards you dissolved the moment you made her friend cry

So when she saw you at the Weathervane one day while she was out in Jericho, she was ready to give you a piece of her mind

As she walked towards you, she wrote an entire monologue in her head, ready to spit fire, but then she heard a sob.

Enid's prepared speech melted away the moment she heard a stifled sniff. Even though she could only see the back of you head, she could tell that your body was wracked with sobs. She blanched. She couldn't yell at someone who was already crying! The vision of E/n crying tried to push its way to the forefront of her mind, screaming "Hey, I'm here! Remember me?" But you were right there. So close and so broken. In that moment she resolved to swallow any venom she was prepared to spit at you. After taking a deep breath, she stepped up until she was beside you in the booth.

"Y/n?" she said, trying to keep her voice calm and gentle.

You looked up, your face red and puffy, confusion taking the place of sadness for a moment. "Sorry, do I know you?" you asked. Enid was taken aback by how polite you sounded. From the way E/n had told it, she expected you to sound much more harsh.

"I'm Enid Sinclair. I'm friends with E/n." she introduced.

That only seemed to make you feel worse. "Oh," was all you said, eyes shifting away from her and into space.

Enid hurried to lighten things up. "Can I sit?"

You said nothing but nodded, prompting her to slide into the booth across from you. She tapped her nails on the table a couple times, trying to figure out just where to go from here. "I go to Nevermore, by the way." was all she came up with.

"I know," you replied. "You followed me on Instagram a few weeks ago."

"Oh, yeah! I saw your post from the bowling alley a couple weeks ago, I really liked how you did your hair—"

"I'm sorry, Enid, I'm just a little confused." you gently interrupted her. "Why are you sitting with me? I should think that you'd be angry with me for breaking up with your friend."

Enid paused. She chose her next words carefully, not wanting to scare you away with the truth. "I was. But then I heard you crying and I figured you didn't need a virtual stranger getting mad at you. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Now that you weren't expecting. More tears rushed to your eyes as she spoke. "You...just want to know if I'm okay?" you asked, relieved.

And Enid just nodded. So you told her everything.

For the first time, Enid gets the whole story of your relationship, start to finish. From the time you met at a party in Jericho to the night you broke up, she hears about every date, every fight, every detail you had to offer.

And it's way different than what she had heard from E/n.

While E/n claimed that you had broken up with them out of the blue, you told her that you had broken up because she had been showing up at your house, at your school, at your work out of the blue with no warning.

She even began to show up at places you hadn't told her you were going to be, like the time you decided to head to the Weathervane for a quick coffee and found that E/n had showed up just moments before you, hoping to catch up.

Eventually it started to creep you out a little too much and you decided to break things off

Things started to make sense for Enid, and the picture became a little clearer.

And after you told the whole story, Enid sensed that you needed a quick pick-me-up, so she invited you shopping with her

And shopping with Enid is...an experience

She turns into a personal stylist for you, pulling out thing after thing that she thinks you would look good in — and she always has a reason

"Ooooh, look at this! Emerald green would bring out your eyes."

"This shade of blue will compliment your skin tone so well, just trust me."

She gets you giggling and smiling and it makes her feel like she's on top of the world

You make plans that day to do this again, much to Enid's excitement

You exchange numbers and head your opposite ways

Enid goes back to Nevermore feeling like she's on Cloud 9...at least until she runs into your ex.

"Where have you been?"

Enid freezes when a voice speaks from behind her. Oh no. She turns slowly on her heel, giving E/n an overzealous smile. "Oh, hey, E/n! I was, um, just out at the Weathervane for a coffee. I would've brought you something back, but I didn't know what you liked."

E/n seems to take the lie as she shrugs. "Oh, fun. Hey, you still down for dinner in the courtyard?"

An invisible tension releases from Enid's shoulders. "Yeah, definitely." she says, giving E/n a smile.

She smiles back. "Cool. See ya later!"

E/n walks away as Enid mumbles a freaked-out "See ya," before turning and racing back to her dorm.

It's then that she decides to keep your meetings a secret.

She doesn't want to hurt E/n's feelings, and she definitely doesn't want to make things worse for you, so the only reasonable option was to lie, right?

RIGHT?????????

This is the kind of stuff that eats Enid up — the moral gray area of Is this right or is it wrong?

It's the kind of stuff that leaves her lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what to do next.

And every time she draws a blank

This whole thing haunts her right up until the day you agreed to meet up again.

You find her in a booth at the Weathervane that Saturday — she already ordered your drink, which she remember from looking at the cup you had the day you met (that's the kind of stuff that she remembers and never forgets)

This time you show her all your favorite things in Jericho — your favorite park, your house, your favorite landmarks

And when it's over and she needs to get back to Nevermore, you make plans to hang out again

Then that hang out comes and passes, and you decide to hang out again. And again. And again.

And suddenly Enid starts to wonder if this is more than just "hanging out."

"Hey, Y/n? Can I ask you a question?" she says out of the blue one day while you're walking around a park.

"Shoot."

"Say there are two friends, and they hang out all the time. I mean, all the time. And one of them kinda likes the other, but they don't know if the other likes them back, but they don't know how to ask...what should they do?" Enid says, her chest seizing with panic.

You pause, brows knit. "Hm." you say, frowning at nothing. "I dunno. Tell them, I guess. I think being straightforward is the best thing you can do in that situation."

Enid nods and you two continue to walk in silence. After a moment, you go to speak, "Hey, did I ever show you—"

"I like you!" Enid blurts out, cutting you off. You stop, but she keeps going. "I was talking about me when I asked that question. I really like you, Y/n, and sometimes I think you might like me too, but I never really know these things for sure, so I just sit and think about it a lot but then I wonder if I'm reading too much into things that that's never good, but then you said to be straightforward about it and—"

"Enid!" you shout, trying to make sure she can take a breath. She stops, looking back at you with terrified eyes. And, to her surprise, you smile. "I like you too."

She falters. "Y-You do?" she stutters in disbelief.

"I do," you confirm.

She doesn't know what to say. She didn't plan this far. "Okay!" she says. "Okay! So. Um. How do we—do you want to—or like, we don't have to, but—"

"Would you like to go on a date with me?" you ask.

And she just smiles. "Yes, I would. When?"

"Hm, how about..." you trail off, looking around. "Now?"

"Now?"

"Mhm."

Enid looks back at you in shock. "So this...this is a date now?"

"Only if you want it to be." you laugh.

She smiles even wider. "Yeah. Yes. I want it to be."

"Well then, come on," you say, beckoning her to keep walking with you. "I think there's a creek in the woods I forgot to show ya."

And, beaming like the sun, Enid follows.

Enid is just about the most thoughtful girlfriend ever

She remembers your birthday, your mom's birthday, your sibling's birthday, your pet's birthday, your anniversary, and any special date you mention. Ever.

She'll show up to a date with flowers and a little gift for some occasion you hadn't even known was happening.

"Happy two and a half week anniversary!" "Oh! I didn't know we were celebrating." "That's okay! I just like visiting the flower shop down the street."

She's also suuuuuper cuddly and will hold onto you wherever you go

She knits you gloves and sweaters and scarves and snoods and anything you request

And while she can't invite you to any dance seeing as you're keeping your relationship a secret from E/n, she'll host makeshift dances in which she'll force you out of your room for a couple minutes while she decorates it with streamers and a disco ball and hauls in a speaker

Then, she'll pull you onto the 'dance floor' (your bedroom floor) and dance with you until you're both on the verge of collapse

For a couple months, everything is perfect. You're perfect, and Enid spends almost every second in awe of you.

But, of course, the past always comes back to haunt us

Enid notices one day that you've been growing slightly distant. You would space out in conversation and never respond with more than a couple words. She would've been hurt if she hadn't been worried about you.

She never pried other than the occasional "You sure you're okay?", which you'd brush off anyway.

But everything comes to a head the night you have a panic attack while you're hanging out with Enid in your room and she pulls you into her arms as you sob. At that point, you couldn't hide what was going on.

"Enid, I...I don't feel safe anymore." you told her one night. E/n was showing up everywhere you went, even more now than she had before. She would ambush you on your way to school, begging you to take her back despite your intentions otherwise. She seemed to always be one step ahead, and you were beginning to panic.

And as Enid sat there, holding you tightly and running gentle fingers through your hair, she made up her mind: "I'm going to make this stop."

You looked up at her, eyes wide. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet, but I can promise you that E/n is never going to bother you again."

"Enid, stop." you say, pulling way and sitting up. "You don't have to get in the middle of this. I never wanted you to get involved and I don't want you to get hurt because of me." you say as more tears begin to stream down your face.

"Hey, look at me," Enid says, taking your face gently in her hands. "I just want you to feel safe. I'm not going to do anything bad, I'm just going to talk to her and try to figure things out, but I won't bring you into it. I promise. I'm going to fix this, okay?"

And, reluctantly, you nod. Enid smiles, kissing the top of your head and pulling you in for a long hug. As she held you, she used her finger to lightly trace something on your back: I LOVE YOU. She did that quite a lot, mostly because she was afraid to say it aloud. But it was true, she loved you. And she'd go to war for you if that was what it took.

You'll never forget the day Enid walked up to you at your usual booth at the Weathervane with a smile on her face as she sat opposite you

"E/n won't be bothering you any more." she said simply, taking a sip of the coffee you had ordered her.

You just frowned in confusion. "Enid, what did you do?"

"Don't worry about it." she said nonchalantly.

After a few more attempts to get her to spill what she had done, you realized she wasn't going to give up. So you settled on a smile as you watched Enid innocently sip her coffee.

"Hey, Enid?" you said, smiling at her. "I love you, too."

And right then, all Enid knew how to do was smile.