#i had an ask which i was gonna answer asking me about my lore but i lost it :(

[littledemo0n]

Part 2 of loonatics fanart of which i have a bunch but its just red and green cause the brainrot is specifically on them

[kakusu-shipping]

Just dropped my ask box from 59 to 36 unanswered asks because I can't. I can't keep sitting on asks like this. (Is still very much sitting on asks)

[candycryptids]

UNO REVERSE! How do YOUR blorbos sleep, huh? 😤

HECK!!!!!

Chuu sleeps anywhere any which way. Tuesday’s learned to not try to move her to any kind of bed or horizontal position, she’s sleeping fine where she is and when she wakes up if she’s been moved it throws off her groove, especially if she was in the middle of something lmao. If she CHOOSES to go to bed, she wears a big ol shirt and gets all cozied up under a weighted blanket with an eye mask and sleeps for 16 hours. [If her wife is home, she’s laying on-top of her like a blanket because she’s warm, lmao. Chuu is become Weighted Blanket]

Tuesday doesn’t need to sleep in the classical sense, but he does use ‘sleep time’ in the way human brains do; to sort and compartmentalize/toss out things from the last time he’s ‘slept’. (He tends to find a quiet place to do this, the FC house has a custom built ‘nap room’ with alcove beds he’ll use if he’s around home base. Otherwise he’ll even just find a chair in the corner and ‘doze’ for an hour. (Keathan likes to curl up on him from what I remember, because he’s warm, and relatively comfortable. And sometimes the sleepies just Getcha when you’re running all over creation.)

[cut cos there’s quite a few silly little guys ANDNFNEKD]

Ishi’li enjoys the fact that they can curl up into a little ball of Miqo’te if they’re having to sleep alone, but at a certain point she starts sharing a bed with Kizuna, who tends to hold her with his tail. And arms. They become a tangled octopus of limbs. LMAO. Purrs sometimes in his sleep. Really needs someplace soft/a bedroll to sleep, isn’t so good at just sleeping wherever on the ground.

Mochiie sleeps sprawled out flat on his back like a starfish in bed, but he’ll also sleep sitting up in armchairs or propped up against a dozen pillows. Or. Leaned up against Mindy with her big Chocobo head in his lap, lmao. He doesn’t tend to want/need a blanket but he does like sleeping in silken pants. 🥰 (he’ll bully Urianger away from staying up late studying to come lay with him in bed…. Only for Mochi to fall asleep and Urianger to just sit up reading with Au’ra deadweight leaned on him. Lmao)

Levraut wants to wear full pajamas to bed (nightcap, long shirt, pants… yknow, the Pajama Set. LMAO. His has Chocobo’s on it.) he snores, but claims he doesn’t. He’s a stomach sleeper, keeping his journal or whatever book he was reading shoved under his pillow (or AS his pillow, if he’s sleeping on a bedroll, hdjdjdjs) he sleeps best in a hammock on board a ship, but he lays on his back or side in those (the side sleeping makes his back complain a little bit he’s young, within the hour he’s stretched whatever cramps or aches out)

Colette! Sleeps best when Setsuna is curled up under her arm, pokey horns be damned. If she’s curled at her side then there’s no chance she’s in any danger. She sleeps naked, because every big comfy shirt for sleeping ends up mysteriously on Setsuna or in her possession, lmfao. She just gave up at some point. (I don’t talk much about Colette or her charge, they’re kinda background brain radiation, but Colette’s fun uvu!)

Tangy sleeps best when other people are around (either also sleeping or just doing stuff in the same room, background noise helps her best) she sprawls out on top of a soft surface (usually her bed) and falls asleep like someone tossed her already unconscious body there. As a Miqo’te she snores somethin’ fierce and awful, but her change into a Hrothgar seems to have fixed whatever was causing it more or less, and she’s now relatively quiet. (Sometimes she growls in her sleep though like dogs do when they’re dreaming!) she would very gladly cozy up in bed with a bunch of people for a big sleepover situation! Push all the beds together pile up all the blankets and pillows…

As a final little bonus; Jojoha sleeps sitting up with a dagger in hand, wary and ready, even when the chance of danger is very small. Solkmyna struggles to sleep on even good days, struggling with nightmares, and sleeps flat on his back like the dead when he does manage to fall asleep. Swydghem sleeps worryingly deep, a side effect of being under the effects of Sleep related spells and medicines. She also sleeps like a corpse, with her arms folded over her chest. Viking funeral style. Both Solk and Ghem sleep better when they’re in the same bed together following her recovery. Jojoha tries to never sleep at the same time as them when they’re staying together, so she can keep watch for. Anything. They’ve had enough misfortune in their lives; she’d rather at least warn them before it strikes again.

[doggirlbuck]

i as a trans man have somehow managed to be repressed about my attraction to men. gender win?

[supernovafics]

𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄

"i'll be there for you" universe masterlist

pairing: bestfriend!roommate!steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 4.9k words

warnings: explicit language, a bit of angst (bc of some family drama), lots of fluff, smut (18+), unprotected piv sex, tiny hint of praise kink

summary: in which a family wedding makes you think about the future

author's note: i love when i randomly get hit with inspiration for this universe<33

general note: everything in this universe/series can be read as standalone oneshots but to understand the full “lore” it would prob be best to read the other stuff too<333

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Summer 1986

You had been trying to stay on your parents’ good side. They hadn’t been pestering you a lot about your future— specifically college and transferring to the University of Chicago, where they had wanted you to go since you were a kid— and you wanted to keep it that way. And if that meant going to a family wedding in Illinois, then so be it. 

The only bearable part about it was that Steve was coming too, and it had taken absolutely no bribing to get him to say yes. 

“Is this my girlfriend privilege coming into play?” You asked him as you two sat on the couch in your apartment’s living room. “Because I swear if we were still just friends you would at least force me to do all of the driving or something.”

Steve gave you an amused smile. “Do you want me to make you do all of the driving?”

“Nope, not at all,” You shook your head. “So, actually, I’m gonna stop talking now.” 

Steve laughed a little and you focused your attention back on the random sitcom playing on the TV, a small smile on your face. 

“Do you think Dustin will wanna babysit Harold again?” Steve asked as he mindlessly reached out to grab your hand that was buried under the blanket draped over your laps and intertwined it with his. 

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” You answered with a nod, taking a look over at the brown and white hamster’s cage that was sitting on the low shelf you two had next to the TV. “Honestly, I think he’s starting to like Harold more than us.” 

“I’m pretty sure that happened right when we got him.”

“Shit, you’re right,” You said as you shifted a bit and wrapped Steve’s arm around you so that you were nuzzled more comfortably in his side and then intertwined your hands once again. “I actually feel kinda offended about that. Just so you know, I love you and Harold equally.”

“Equally?” Steve said, sounding playfully shocked. “I’ve known you for basically ten years.”

“Yeah, but Harold’s our son, so…” You shrugged, trying to contain your growing smile. 

“Okay, I guess I’ll share the number one spot, then,” He responded as he pressed a kiss to the side of your head.  

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The four-hour drive to the town just out of Chicago where the majority of your family lived wasn’t terrible. You and Steve evenly split the driving time and spent most of it playing silly games; mainly the license plate game because it was a car ride staple, and also a game where you two had to try and think of the same word and say it at the same time, and you two were eerily good at it. 

By the time you made it to the hotel that all of the out-of-town family members were staying at because of how close it was to the wedding venue, it was the middle of the night. Even though Steve didn’t have to work today— he took off the entire weekend, actually— you two still decided to leave later in the day because you wanted to avoid as much unnecessary time with your parents as possible.

Unsurprisingly, you and Steve were the only people checking in at ten o’clock at night. 

“So, it looks like there are two rooms in the reservation,” The lady at the front desk told you; her name tag said Joan. “One under your name, and one under Steve Harrington.”

“Oh,” You said and then nodded after a second. “Um, okay.”

Joan seemed to take note of your slightly confused tone. “Did you not book two rooms?”

“My parents handled all of this, so I guess they did the two rooms.”

She nodded at your words. “I’m gonna go grab the room keys and I’ll be right back.”

She headed off to what you assumed was the back room and you turned to look at Steve who was standing right next to you. 

He let out a quiet laugh as his arm slipped around your waist. “Did your parents forget that we live together and that we've been dating for the last five months?”

“They probably think we still sleep in our own bedrooms,” You said, leaning into his touch and realizing just how tired you were. 

You truly couldn’t remember the last time you slept alone in the past few months since you and Steve got together, and even before that, you both had spent a lot of time in each other’s beds. It probably would’ve made sense for you two to downsize to a one-bedroom place, but you both loved the apartment so much that you couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. 

“Should I pretend that I’m actually staying in the other room?” Steve asked and you quickly nodded. 

“Yeah, just in case.”

“Bad idea that we decided to share a suitcase then, huh?”

When you came up with it, it seemed like the perfect idea for the quick weekend trip. Why bring two separate suitcases that would probably be half empty, instead of just sharing one? 

You sighed now as you took a look at the black suitcase that Steve was holding the handle of. “Very bad idea.”

Joan returned a moment later. “So, good news, the rooms are right next to each other, and they’re actually connecting, so you two won’t have to be too far from each other.”

“That’s great,” You said, grabbing one of the keys from her outstretched hand, and Steve grabbed the other. “Thank you so much.”

She smiled at you both. “I hope you two enjoy your stay.”

You and Steve said another quick “Thanks” before heading toward the elevators. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“Your room is so much nicer than mine,” You said as you slumped back onto Steve’s bed, head quickly finding the pillow that was actually so soft. 

“Do you wanna switch?” He asked from where he stood by the suitcase, pulling on a fresh t-shirt for the night.

The door that connected your rooms was wide open and it would probably stay that way for the entire night. 

“No, it’s fine, I’ll deal with my shitty shower pressure and lumpy bed.”

“You can stay in here with me tonight, y’know,” He told you, moving closer and maneuvering so that he was settled on top of you. It was a comfortable position, even though it probably shouldn’t have been. The way your bodies molded so easily for each other always felt like two pieces of a puzzle coming together. 

You smiled under his gaze. “Thank you for the formal invitation.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, no problem. I wanna be a gentleman.”

You couldn’t help but laugh a little at his words that were said very seriously, but you knew they were anything but. 

You could’ve easily fallen asleep just like that if you wanted to, with his warm body pressed so comfortably against yours, pretty much equivalent to a weighted blanket. And it would’ve made sense to fall asleep after the long drive you two had to endure, but you really didn’t want to.  

His head dipped down and yours tilted upward, allowing you two to meet halfway in the softest kiss. 

There was something about kissing Steve that always felt so nostalgic, and also the complete opposite. Even five months into everything, there was still a newness to being with Steve in this way that you’d probably never get fully used to. Every time felt like the first one, but there was also so much comfort that had been there from the beginning and it only continued to grow.  

After a moment that you considered way too short, he pulled away from your lips and his mouth started immediately trailing along the underside of your jaw and then down to your neck.  

You let out the softest hum as you shifted underneath him, searching for any sort of extra friction. Steve’s low groan was the first thing you heard when you brushed against his hardness and you wished that you could pull off the few layers that separated the two of you in one quick movement. 

“You still tired?” He mumbled against your neck.  

“Yes, but I also really want you right now,” You whispered back as you threaded your fingers through his hair, which was slightly damp from the shower he just took. The only pro about not sharing a room was that you both got your own bathroom, even if the water pressure in yours sucked.  

“Yeah?” He asked as he pulled back a bit to look at you. His voice was teasing, playful, but you also knew how much he loved the reassurance too. 

“Yeah,” You nodded immediately. “Please.”

There was the sweetest smile on his face as his fingers found the bottom of your t-shirt and proceeded to pull the fabric up and off of you. 

You had opted against putting on a bra after your shower, so your chest was left bare for him once your t-shirt was off and he was groaning at the sight. 

“You’re so fucking pretty,” He whispered as the pad of his thumb brushed against your already hard nipple.

For the briefest moment, your eyes slipped shut and you bit your lip to hold back your moan, and then you were meeting his gaze again. 

“You’re really pretty too, Stevie,” You said, smiling up at him as you reached up to softly poke his cheek. 

He laughed a little and turned his head a little so that he was kissing your poking finger. “Thank you. You’re so nice.” 

Your shoulders upturned in the most nonchalant shrug, but the same smile was on your face; you were always the one to bring a bit of silliness into moments like these. “I try.”

Steve was smiling back at you as he gave your nipple a quick squeeze and then his hands moved down your sides and settled at the waistband of your pajama bottoms. He pulled your shorts and underwear off in one motion and tossed them to the floor somewhere along with your shirt. 

He kissed from your collarbone down to your belly button, stopping and teasing different spots along the way which made you squirm beneath him and you could feel yourself dripping onto the blanket below you with every teasing press of his mouth. He moved lower and lower, and then deliberately skipped past where you needed him to be. Instead, he started kissing your inner thighs.

Your fingers carded through his hair as you looked down at him. “You’re being very evil right now.”

“I’m sorry,” He told you, but you knew that he really wasn’t. He spread your legs further and pressed the most featherlight kiss against your clit before looking up at you again. “What do you want?”

There were a lot of things you could’ve said in answer— in that moment, you were craving his fingers and his mouth too— but after the exhaustingly long drive, you simply just wanted to be as close to him as possible as quickly as possible. 

“Honestly, I really need you inside me,” You told him softly, hand moving from his hair to his cheek. “I need your cock. Please. Is that okay?”

He let out a contented groan at your honesty, head falling against the side of your thigh. “Fuck, yeah, of course that’s okay.” 

Steve moved away from you then, his warmth leaving your body as he pulled back to look at you. The juxtaposition of you being naked right then and him still being completely clothed, made you pout at him.  

“Well, this is very unfair,” You said, reaching out to grab at his shirt. 

Steve was smiling as he leaned in to press a quick kiss against your lips. “I knew you were going to say that.”

Before you could playfully complain any further, he pulled his shirt off and your fingers quickly moved to the waistband of his sweatpants. He let you pull them down along with his boxers, revealing his hard cock that you bit your lip at the sight of, and then Steve did the rest of the work of pulling them off his legs and tossing them somewhere to the side. 

When his body was once again on top of yours, his warmth enveloping you completely, he didn’t hesitate to push inside of you, your wetness making it easy for him to fill you to the hilt. 

Steve’s thrusts were languid and slow, both of you simply craved the feeling of each other rather than anything else. His lips found yours in the most searing kiss that was so different from his unhurried movements above you. It was a messy clash of tongues and teeth and one of your hands came up to tangle itself in his hair. 

You broke the kiss when a particularly rough stir of his hips made him push deeper inside of you and you gasped. “Shit, yes, Steve, right there.”

He hit that specific spot again and again and you were moaning louder each time, not worried about how thin the walls maybe were in this hotel. “You sound so pretty screaming for me, honey. You’re so fucking good.”

You nodded profusely, trying to keep your eyes on his, but it was too hard not to let them slip shut with every perfect snap of his hips. “Only for you.”

It didn’t take long for both of you to reach your ends— it was his thumb on your clit that triggered your orgasm, and it was the feeling of your walls clenching around him as you came that sent Steve over the edge too, pressing his face into your neck. 

A quiet stillness took over as your racing hearts returned to normal and a deeper tiredness took over and made your eyelids feel heavy. 

After you weren’t sure how long, Steve started to shift so that he could move off of you, but you stopped him with a hand on his back before his softening cock could slip out of you and told him that you wanted to stay like this for a bit longer. He didn’t protest your words and instead buried his face back in your neck, pressing the sweetest kiss against your pulse point. You two slowly fell asleep just like that for the time being, too spent and exhausted to make any other movements. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

If it weren’t for the incessant sound of someone knocking on the door, you were certain that you would’ve slept for a few more hours. 

The sound woke you up slowly and then all at once. Your eyes opened and you got the urge to pull the blanket over your head. You weren’t even sure when exactly that had happened, but at some point, you and Steve finally made it under the covers and you had also grabbed his t-shirt and slipped it on too. 

You ultimately didn’t pull the blanket over your head to muffle the noise. Instead, you pulled it off of you when you realized that the knocking was coming from your room. 

“Shit.” 

The door that connected your and Steve’s rooms was still open and you were suddenly so certain that the knocks you were hearing were being rapped against your room door. 

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked when he felt you get out of bed. He tiredly rubbed his eyes; you, on the other hand, were suddenly the complete opposite of tired. 

“I’m pretty sure my mom’s right outside my door. Or my dad. Or both,” You answered him as you quickly searched for your underwear and pajama shorts and found them in different random spots on the floor. “It’s probably both of them, actually, and I’ve had no time to mentally prepare for whatever this conversation is about to be.”

“I can go answer it, if you want,” You heard Steve suggest as you hastily pulled on your bottoms. 

“I think it would be better if we kept the illusion up that we don’t sleep together,” You told him. “I’m gonna go see what they want and I’ll be back in a sec.”

You rushed over to where he was now sitting up in the bed and pressed the quickest kiss against his lips before heading over to your room and pulling the door that connected your room to Steve’s shut.  

You ruffled up the untouched bed so it looked like you actually slept in it last night and then went to open the door before another series of knocks were rapped against it. 

“Hi, good morning, sorry,” You rushed out. It was only your mom standing in front of you, and right then it was hard to tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “The bed’s so comfortable, it was hard to wake up.”

She nodded at your words. “The bed in your dad and I’s room is terrible, we’re gonna try to switch to a different room tonight. Anyway, what time did you and Steve make it here last night?” 

“It was a little after ten.”

“And how was the drive?”

“Good,” You answered simply. “Me and Steve split the time so that made it easier.”

“That’s good,” She smiled. “Do you know if he’s still sleeping?”

“Um, yeah, he probably is,” You shrugged through your lie. “He’s right next door, but I haven’t seen him since last night.”

“Okay, well, your dad and I are going to have breakfast downstairs in an hour with your Aunt Tracy and Uncle Sean, you and Steve should come too.”

Her words sounded like a suggestion, but you knew that they were actually the opposite. 

You forced a smile. “Oh, okay, we’ll definitely meet you guys down there. I’ll go wake him up now.”

“Okay, great,” Your mom smiled back at you. “See you two then.”

You closed the door when she started walking away and headed back to Steve’s room. 

“So, what happened?” He asked as you climbed back into bed. 

You settled next to him and rested your head against his bare shoulder. “We’re having breakfast downstairs with my parents, and my aunt and uncle in an hour.”

Steve nodded at your statement. “Honestly, that sounds good. The last time we ate was right before we got here last night and it was shitty McDonald’s.”

“Yeah, those were the saddest burgers ever,” You said with a sigh. 

“Wait, which aunt is gonna be there?” Steve abruptly asked. “The nice one or the one that hates me?”

You laughed a little. “The nice one. But, I feel like I should remind you again that Cheryl does not hate you.”

“You don’t remember that party the way I do,” He said and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes at his seriousness. 

It had been a birthday party for your mom a few years back. Of course, Steve and his parents were there, and you and him spent most of the night camping out in your room, away from your mom’s friends and your overbearing family members. It had been your idea to sneak a bottle of wine from the kitchen and bring it to your room, but Steve was the one who actually went and did it. Or at least attempted to before he got caught by your aunt and, according to him, was harshly scolded by her. 

“I’ve seen her a bunch of times since that party and I promise you she doesn’t think you’re a bad influence on me or whatever,” You told Steve, lifting your head from his shoulder to press a kiss against his cheek. “And she definitely doesn’t hate you.”

“We’ll see what happens at the wedding later.”

You leaned in to whisper into his ear. “Don’t worry, if she does hate you, I’ll defend you from any and all shitty comments.”

He gave you an amused smile when you pulled back to look at him. “Thank you, that’s all I ask. You’re the best girlfriend ever.”

You smiled at him as you leaned your head back on his shoulder and closed your eyes, attempting to get a little more sleep before you’d have to force yourself out of bed again. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Steve was right and he didn’t hesitate to whisper an “I told you” in your ear seconds after your Aunt Cheryl gave a warm greeting to you and the coldest hello to him. 

You didn’t have time to respond to Steve’s whispered words because you two were being told by one of the ushers to find seats since the wedding was minutes away from starting. The weather was pretty much perfect; warm but not so much so that it made sitting outside entirely unbearable, which was a little surprising for the middle of August but you weren’t complaining. 

Steve was on one side of you and your parents were on the other, and you smiled in thanks when your mom complimented the dress you were wearing; the long pale pink floral dress that you bought only because you knew she would like it, and you had wanted to avoid her saying anything bad about your clothing choices like she usually did. 

About halfway through the ceremony, Steve’s hand found yours, and the simple action made you suddenly feel warm all over. You shouldn’t have felt so fazed by it— that was something that had happened practically a million times before— but the current circumstances made it feel a little different. 

Samantha was one of your cousins that you weren’t that close with— you remembered going to the sleepover for her fifth birthday party and that was one of the last times you two hung out before you and your family moved to Indiana, and then you only saw her during random family occasions— but she looked beautiful and seemed so genuinely happy that it was hard not to feel a little emotional; it was what weddings did to people. 

You tried to listen to the vows and everything else being said right then, but it was hard to fully focus when all you could think about was a future that would someday involve this with Steve, and how nice that sounded. 

Maybe Steve could suddenly read your mind or the subtle smile on your face, but either way, he was giving your hand a light squeeze, as if telling you that he agreed with everything you were thinking about. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

To probably no one’s surprise, you and Steve stayed attached at the hip throughout the majority of the night. Your hand was always laced in his or his was placed at the small of your back. 

You were grateful for that closeness and you were especially grateful for him because he made it a thousand times easier to deal with family members that you hadn’t seen in forever and the forced small talk that came along with that estrangement. 

It quickly became a revolving door of the same topics and questions— how was graduating last year, how is college going now, what are your future plans, etc, etc— and you thought you’d be able to put up with it for the entire night. However, there were only so many times you could say, “Fine,” “Good,” and “I’m still figuring it out” before it became too annoying. 

Therefore, the second the brief conversation with one of your uncles came to an end, your hand found Steve’s and you led him out of the big ballroom where the reception was happening. He didn’t question your current antics and you two ended up outside moments later— it was much cooler out now, but still comfortable— and you headed toward a little garden area with a bench that you had noticed earlier. 

 “Let’s just sit here for a bit,” You said to Steve, not explaining the why behind you wanting to do this right now, but you didn’t have to. 

He nodded, understanding just how exhausting this entire day had been for you, and sat down with you. Things fell into a comfortable quiet, the first silence all night, and you reveled in it. You shifted around after a few moments so your head was in his lap and your legs dangled off the side of the bench.

“Do you wanna leave? I think we’ve been here for a reasonable amount of time,” Steve said, breaking the quiet after a few minutes of you simply holding his hand and looking at all of the flowers in the garden. “We can go to that Dairy Queen we saw when we were driving here last night, if you want. I think it’s only like ten minutes away.”

You knew what he was trying to do— make things light in any way that he could, and in this case, it meant offering up ice cream— and once again you were reminded of just how fucking grateful you were to have him here with you in this moment.  

“I love you,” You said instead of answering his question. “Like, a lot, a lot, a lot.”

You immediately noticed the smile spread across his face as he looked down at you. “Hm, you’re not drunk right now, so where is this sappiness coming from?” 

“Shh, don’t question it. Just let me get disgustingly cheesy with you right now, Harrington.”

“Okay, sorry, continue,” He told you, but then he abruptly kept going before you could start talking. “And I love you too, by the way.”

You smiled up at him. “Aside from all of the family stuff I had to deal with today, this wedding was actually really nice and it made me think about you and us a lot.”

“In a good way or a bad way?” He was so obviously teasing you because you were certain that he knew the answer to his own question.  

You shook your head at him. “I don’t even want to dignify that insane question with a response.”

He laughed a bit as he pulled your intertwined hands up and pressed a soft kiss to the back of yours, and it was hard not to smile at the action.  

“This entire day made me realize that when we eventually, one day down the road, do this, I don’t want it to be anything like this,” You told him. 

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want all of this huge fanfare and I don’t want a bunch of people that I don’t ever talk to, to be there either. If we just have the kids, and Robin and Eddie, and Nancy and Jonathan too. Oh, and Harold, of course. That’s more than enough for me. Is that okay? Does that even make sense?” You looked up at him to see if he understood what you meant, and of course he did. He always did. 

Steve nodded immediately. “That sounds perfect, honestly.” 

“I know that probably won’t be able to happen because of how involved our moms are gonna want to be with everything, but I just think the thought is nice,” You said with a halfhearted shrug. 

“We can do a small thing with just everyone that we want to be there and then let our moms take the reins on the huge fancy thing that they’ll force us to do.”

“God, you’re so smart,” You said and you wanted to sit up so that you could kiss him— you’d been craving it all night, actually— but you felt too comfortable to move right then. “So, is this a proposal, Steven?”

You were the one doing the teasing now, a smile playing on your lips as you looked up at him and he looked down and met your eyes again. 

He shook his head as he smiled at you. “Give me some time to plan the most elaborate one ever.”

“Take all the time you need,” You told him, and you genuinely meant that. In your eyes, there wasn’t any rush to get to that place. Even though you loved talking about the future with him, you didn't feel the need to make it happen before it was meant to. You two were already happy and in love and you felt so certain that that would never change, so you felt content being in this place with him. “Thank you again for coming with me to this, by the way.”

He lightly poked your side, making you let out the quietest breath of a laugh, before speaking. “You know I’d never say no to you.”

“Aw, I love it when you also get sappy with me,” You sat up then and finally leaned in to slot your lips against his. You hummed in contentment the second he eagerly reciprocated the kiss and your hand instinctually moved to the nape of his neck as you pushed yourself closer to him. 

You savored the moment for as long as you could before you had to pull away to take a breath. “Okay, now let’s get out of here and get ice cream.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know ur thoughts<333

(requests are open for stuff you wanna see in the universe/series!🫶🏾)

[wonderjanga]

Billy and Bars

Now, as you probably know, most of the time Billy is ages 8 to maybe 15 (that’s what I’ve seen anyways) and of course, his Captain Marvel form looks like an adult. So, it wouldn’t be strange for an adult to ask another adult to go to a bar with them. Which is why Billy is caught in a dilemma. On one hand, he could just say no, but after a long mission where they’d all spent like two days on an alien planet under constant heavy fire from a cute and cuddly, yet surprisingly bloodthirsty race? It’d be weird not to accept. They might suspect him for being a kid! And boy, Billy does not want that. But on the other hand, he’s not of legal drinking age.

He ends up going with them anyways. Now, all the heroes are sat at a dingy bar in Central City, out of costume, of course. Though, some of them cough Bruce cough Diana cough Arthur cough and you can’t forget Billy, still in Marvel form. (He took a page out of Supe’s book and wore glasses. He’s also for some reason wearing Hawaiian print. (He didn’t have actual adult clothes and needed to borrow from a bargain bin))

Billy thankfully found a loophole for this whole mess. That’s right, this guys gonna be sipping virgin margaritas for the rest of the night. And, he try as many flavors as he wants because you wanna know the best part? Bruce is paying for everything! If Billy could jump in joy, he would. It didn’t matter that Hal was a little obnoxious when drunk off his mind. He’s dealt with worse and it’s not like it’s all that bad. He’s kinda funnier than usual this way. He gets the spend the rest of the day with people he considers friends, that’s all that really matters.

GL: “Dude, why do you keep ordering virgins?”

Crap. What does Billy say to that? Right off the bat, Billy ignores Solomon’s first, and quite frankly, wild lie to tell.

Marvel: “Hmm? Oh uh… I… like the way they taste…?”

He’s a bad liar.

Aquaman: *drinking beer* “Try again, bud.”

Okay… It looks like he might have to listen to Solomon after all. Gosh dang it.

Marvel: “Uhm… I kinda used to maybe sort of might’ve had an addiction and had to go to AA a long time ago.” *Sips drink*

He was always better at lying when the lie was already prepared.

*Whole table goes silent*

Marvel: “Uh… I’ve been sober for a while. Like…” ‘Twelve years, Billy,’ Solomon supplied in his head. “…Twelve years.”

*Table is still silent.*

Flash: *Interrupts silence by slamming hands on table* “Dude! You cannot keep dropping Marvel Lore Bombs™️ on us like this!” (Btw this is the same universe as the Marvel Compilations post. I didn’t mean to write it like it was the same universe but I might as well connect them cause why not)

Marvel: “Whaddya mean?”

Superman: “Well, Marvel…” *scratches back of head* “You kinda have this tendency to… Gosh, how do I put this?”

Martian Manhunter: “You drop obscure information about yourself at random times.”

Wonder Woman: “Then you just go about your day like you didn’t say it in the first place. For example Cap, you can’t just tell me that at some point you were an Amazonian, you were there for my birth, and then just walk off.”

GL: “Marvel, how old are you?”

Marvel: “Uuuuuuhhhhhhh….”

Batman: “You date back to having existed before Mesopotamia. I want to know the answer to that question Marvel.” *Bat-glares Billy while sipping from his drink.*

Bruce was definitely going to add the AA thing to his quite small folder on Marvel.

The night continues on with the other members of the JL grilling Billy for more information about himself, which Solomon helps with by either supplying him with lies, or with things previous champions did. By the time the night was over, Billy never wanted to go to a bar again. He unshazamed in an alley and went home to his little place. He bee-lined to his sleeping bag and just when he was about to fall asleep, something popped into his mind:

‘Why didn’t I just say I didn’t like the way it tastes?’ That thought kept him up for a couple more hours.

[l-in-the-light]

"I'm sure he's got nothing to do with me!" says Luffy and I was waiting for him to say it. For him to hear all of this Nika lore and declare that, nope, I don't care, I'm not Nika, I'm not a liberator. It's just such a Luffy thing to do. But I know many fans actually will be shocked with Luffy's answer here or will just dismiss it. I have seen many opinions before that Luffy was always a liberator by choice, so becoming Nika is just natural course of events for him and he will have no problem embracing his role in the bigger scheme of things. Some even complained they hate that Luffy is Nika because they don't want Luffy to be the "fated hero" but instead a "from nobody to the king of the world" trope. But nope! Luffy just noped all of this himself.

Luffy is not a liberator and he's not an altruistic hero, he doesn't go from island to island aiming to save people, and if you think he wanted to, then please remember Fishmen Island and how unhappy he was with the idea of being a hero:

And now if you think Luffy changed since then because Dressrosa happened, then please remember what he asked of Momonosuke in Wano:

Yep, that's right. Luffy still *doesn't have any interest* in becoming a hero. If you think he's alright with that and changed his mind, then you're just not paying attention to him, sorry to say that. Luffy has been pretty consistent about this too and now he declared it yet again in Elbaf. It's the third time already.

You just think it's not a big deal because he so easily changed his mind in Fishmen Island, but it happened only because he had an actual reason to do that. Jimbei promised Luffy all the meat he wants. He gave him a *personal reason* to act like a hero, which is why Luffy agreed. And he did the same in Dressrosa. He wouldn't liberate that country if he didn't get attached first to Law and Rebecca (yes, in this order), and his crew to tontattas. They always do it for someone particular, for their friends. It's the same in Wano too, Luffy's constant motivation is Tama, Momo and Kinemon. He wants them to be happy, most of all, and he even says as much when he defeats Kaido: "I want a world where all of my friends can eat as much as they like".

There, he doesn't do it altruistically because he hates oppresion and villains who thrive on pain of common people and he can't stand seeing it. Yes, he probably thinks it's unfair, but he also grew up in Goa Kingdom, the very definition of unfair regime. He saves oppressed people only when they are his friends or has some other personal interest involved. He defeats the Marine base in Shells Town for Koby (and Zoro, later). He defeats Don Krieg so he can repay his food debt to Baratie. He defeats Arlong for Nami. He fights Wapol for Chopper (who saved Nami) and who he already considers his friend because of that. He fights for the Giants (Little Garden) and Vivi (Alabasta), Conis (Skypiea), Robin (Water 7 and Enies Lobby), Brook (Thriller Bark), Hachi (Sabaody) etc. Though, he does make friends rather easily, so usually it's not that big of a deal. But he isn't going out of his way to places he reads about in the newspapers that need to be liberated, he instead cares more for his own dream. He doesn't enter a certain island with the idea in mind that goes like "if I see some injustice here, I'm gonna bring this shit down". It's the other way around. He makes friends and realizes they're unhappy.

He wants them to be happy again and to live without regrets, and that's why he brings the shit down, whatever it is that makes people he cares about feel so unhappy. Because he thinks this is at least something he can do for his friends. Luffy doesn't think he can do a lot of things, he can't do much at all, but he can do one thing: beat up a guy when needed.

He knows how regret feels like ever since he believed Sabo died, he's not gonna sit there and do nothing next time something like this happens. That's why it's so important for him, to make sure his friends are happy. And that's why he beats up people and liberates countries. It's not for justice, he simply wants his friends to be happy.

But wait a moment, Luffy also wants freedom. Yes, he does. He wants to be the King of the Pirates, because for him it means to be free. And that's how he actually speaks about Nika as well:

He wants the freedom for himself. Isn't it funny that he thinks he already achieved it though?

And before you're disgusted by how selfish Luffy actually is, hear me out: Luffy is simply not a martyr. He won't die or sacrfice himself for the world to liberate it. He will instead die for the world if he thinks that will make his friends happy. Preferably though, he would want to survive and eat that meat with them, and be happy together.

Still, if you want him to be a liberator of a whole world it is actually possible, you just need to make it personal for Luffy, like I suggested. For example, put a person or multpile people who want to save/destroy the world (whichever option you fancy) on Luffy's crew. Luffy always cares for dreams of his crewmates and will always support them (because fullfilling their dreams will make them happy), so he would become a liberator if that helps them. But he would do it for them, not for the world.

Luffy is not a hero because he has a golden heart and a strong sense of justice. He's a hero when his friends are in danger instead, because instead of a golden heart, he simply has a big heart and makes friends wherever he goes. A martyr-like hero who sacrfices himself for people without caring for his own wellbeing is noble, but it's also not a healthy mentality, believe it or not. For starters, if you never care enough for yourself and are ready to throw your life away for a concept, what will happen with people who love you and care for you? Is it fair towards them to throw your life away without caring who you're leaving behind and how they will feel about it? Do you even care then for their feelings if your pursuit of greater good is more important to you? You can save the world and make people you love sad and unhappy, and like they don't even care anymore to live, because you were the one who made them happy and now you're gone. Did you save the world for them or destroyed it for them instead, as the result?

Luffy has his own interest in saving his friends too: so he's not alone again. Humans aren't selfless beings, but it doesn't automatically make us bad people either. And sometimes, while pursuing selfish things, we do something that appear to be extremely selfless. But at the bottom of it: we also do it for themselves, even if it kills us.

Tokyo Babylon taught me that every act is selfish, even if it appears like we do it for someone else: we simply want to feel better about ourselves then. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we don't lose the sight of other people's feelings on our way. We can always share, after all, and that sharing is the bridge between the lone islands that people are.

Luffy, if he dies, will also say, just like Seishiro: "I didn't do it for you. I did everything by my own choice". For myself. Despite the fact it is also true he does it to make his friends happy. Being selfish and being selfless is like two sides of the same coin and both choices can end up actually hurting people. In the first case, because you care too much about yourself and too little about feelings of others, and in second case because you care too little about yourself and still too little about feelings of people that love and care for you. Can you spot the thing in common here?

[messrsrarchives]

You’re starting to act just like your fascist Reggie—censoring others and trying to dictate what can and cannot be discussed in fandom. Telling people they can’t talk about politics because you, living in a first-world country, can’t handle it? You’re the one using real-world politics to justify a fictional ship with a fascist. Have you thought about how people who are genuinely anti-fascist might also dislike it in fiction? You can’t control fandom. If you want to like fascist characters, then just own it. While fiction might not feel like reality to you, for many, it is reality. Have you considered that the characters and headcanons you enjoy might reflect deeply personal experiences for others? Not everyone has the privilege to separate fiction from reality like you do.

hi feed, this message was brought to you by someone who has clearly never interacted with me ever !

WDYMMM "telling people they can't talk about politics" 😭😭 i fear that's my ENTIRE niche across two social media platforms. i fear my entire thing is politics in a fandom space + the real world. i fear that's literally what i'm known for. what 😖

i was gonna ignore this but i have so many receipts that i thought okay ! finna answer ! why not, let's entertain this <3 (below the cut because it's long)

assuming that this is a response to this post where, after watching elon perform two nazi salutes on stage, i said "hey! maybe you should stop calling people in fandom nazis for reading about a fictional character!"

what i alsooo said on that post is that it's important to discuss politics in literature (see here: doing a masters degree in english literature + politics <3). because absolutely! the DEs are crafted in a way that reflects historic events and absolutely, that's something we can discuss!

what we should also discuss is that whilst art imitiates life and life imitates art, the two do not directly reflect one another - if i read about wizards, i am not a wizard. if i read a crime book, i am not a detective. and if i read fanfic about regulus black? i am not a facist.

in regards to the censorship comment: this here is an entireeee video i made about censorship and puritanical views in fandom spaces and why this is a Bad Thing To Do (though i fear you will disagree with it because i am saying that people can read and write whatever but alas, no censorship here x)

using real world politics to justify a ship? no, not at all. i do not think ships in fandom need to be "justified" because, again, they are fiction. can they be discussed? absolutely! my tiktok is @/messrsrobyn and you will find countless videos where i dissect fandom, characters and ships. again, this is kind of my whole thing <33 nice to meet you <33 but rather for me? that post was made as a building up of (1) the mass of people in fandom during the tiktok ban saying that words have meaning when american writers say british words "wrong", but throw buzzwords around like it's nothing and (2) this is a place for escapism and safety, which is needed now more than ever and whilst discussions about politics are important, this? this ask? this is not a discussion. this is hostility, much like people just commenting "nazi" with nothing else on a jegulus post.

discussions can be had! absolutely! my entire thing is discussions in fandom. but right now i'm trying to discuss this when you have given me nothing to work with but false claims and hostility - see how this doesn't work? but alas, i'll try :)

do people read jegulus and think "wow i love voldemort and the death eaters!!! i agree with what the did here :D" or do they read jegulus and enjoy the complexity that comes with a character like him? do they enjoy how, with a character with such little canon lore, people explore things? or yk what, do they sometimes read him as a muggle where none of this matter because there's do DEs? yeah, because it's fiction. and liking a fictional character does not have repercussions on the real world.

calling someone a facist/nazi only for teading about fictional characters does - it is so incredibly important that we read immoral literature. i'm rambling now but i'm not even talking just about fandom. we NEED books that discuss these topics and we need to explore the characters within them. we NEED politics and immorality and everything like that in books because that is how we learn, understand, and prevent. reading them does make you immoral - see here: queer books being banned in the us for containing "immoral themes" and main characters doing things they deem had and awful alongside INCREDIBLYYYY important books like the handmaids tale, to kill a mockingbird, 1984, fahrenheit 451 etc etc.

we need to read these. we need to engage with them.

but in a fandom space, we also need to acknowledge that these are not real people. these are fictional characters and there's a big difference between engaging with a character because you are justifying their actions, and engaging with a character because you enjoy Exploring their character and Understanding them in as many ways as possible 🙂↕️

but we agree!! whilst fiction may not feel like reality to some people, to many it is! so have we considered that when people come to escape from the real world for a bit, or people have family members lost to past regimes; are about to enter 4 years of another regime or are holding their breath waiting for european elections to see if another far-right populist party gets in, it might sucklk to have this thrown around?

imagine dealing with alllll of that in reality, not knowing what on earth is going to happen tomorrow or what the future holds for you and the people you love, and then being called a facist online because you read about Fictional Character Regulus Black. whilst your life literally crumbles apart because of it. you are now being called the same thing that the man oppressing you and everyone you love is, because you read FanFiction.

and then finally ahem:

"not everyone has the privilege to separate fiction from reality like you do"

if you click here, you will find a tumblr post i made about this exact thing :D about how we can't separate fiction from reality

see here also: a post about the books jkr publishes under the robert galbraith pseudonym and about how we, again, cannot separate fiction from reality.

if you click here you will find my jkr playlist on tiktok which has videos in about how, again, we cannot separate fiction from reality.

what we also can't do, mind you is call someone a facist for reading a fictional character.

there is big difference between "hey! this character has facist undertones if applied irl, we could discuss this!" and "You Are A Facist For Reading It"

instead of coming and ranting to someone who has spoken extensivelyyyy about politics in this fandom space - both with fandom material and with elections, gaza, the uk riots etc etc - and is a huge advocate of dicussions and debates, put this energy into something productive.

like actual facists. real world politics and what you could be doing at a local level to help reduce the harm of Actual Facists that are in power right now. not people taking a break from Actual Facism to read fanfiction.

ta x

(p.s i'm a homeless, chronically-ill, gay, trans man. what privilege do i have in THISSS fandom space of JK ROWLINGSSSSS worlds, to separate reality from fiction? 😭)

[ahalliance]

antoine + étoiles insane moments, p.2. aka the ass saga. p1 here

transcript + context for some of the clips below

[Video Transcript:

[First clip plays.]

Rivenzi: You want to see Etoiles’ ass, of course…

Antoine: Yeah, I’m gonna stare at your ass, Etoiles…

Etoiles: Fuck, what dread, during Popcorn [a talkshow Etoiles had been invited on the previous week], when I went up to the map and you said that, and I thought ‘whoa—‘

Antoine: Sorry

[Second clip plays: the moment during Popcorn]

PA/Domingo: Antoine Daniel has posted a tweet for us: ‘I wanted to look at this map of Africa, but Etoiles’ ass in the shape of a standing bell is driving me crazy. Smiley face with eyes in the shape of hearts.’

[Third clip plays: a continuation of the first clip.]

Antoine: Sorry, bro…

Ponce: Oh but that tweet, besides

Rivenzi: A standing bell…

Antoine: What’s more is that I never tweet and when I do it’s to tweet this sort of shit

Ponce: That’s exactly what I told myself. When PA read the tweet, I thought to myself, ‘but he never tweets!’ And he tweets to talk about Etoiles’ ass

Antoine: There needs to be a good reason, you see

[Fourth clip plays: a clip from the Team du Lundi’s minecraft server.]

JDG: Someone (in chat) said, ‘I can’t tell whether the atmosphere is good tonight or—‘

Antoine: It sucks, it sucks

Florence: You don’t need to ask every time, it always sucks

Baghera: Always sucks. Especially when Etoiles talks about ass [which had been a previous topic of discussion for him that night]

Antoine: Stooop, I enjoy it

Mynthos: You enjoy it?

JDG: It’s true tonight that it’s more weird than bad

Antoine: I like it when Etoiles talks about ass….

[Fifth clip plays: a second and different clip from Popcorn.]

Etoiles: —you’re not allowed to tell me that [Xari claimed to not know much about cinema]. I know you, I studied, because you’re my rival [in pop culture]. I really enjoy what you do in life, Xari, and you’re really knowledgeable about cinema

Antoine: What do you mean he’s your rival? And I’m just shit?

Etoiles: You, you’re my lover

Antoine: Oh yeah, sorry, my bad

PA/Domingo: One of the three is gonna die soon. There’s a whole situation, there’s a whole lore

[Sixth clip plays: a clip from the QSMP.]

Antoine: Don’t you want to get married, dude?

Etoiles: Well, I don’t have the time to fuck

Antoine: What the fuck?!

Etoiles: I don’t have time to fuck, dude. I just need to kill everyone

Antoine: No but just a marriage, you see. You’ve watched Game of Thrones— you haven’t watched Game of Thrones, you can’t know how marriages work in that series

Etoiles: I’ve watched it, but I’m married to the street, dude. I can’t give out my heart that quickly

Antoine: Yeah but you can give out your ass quickly, no?

Etoiles: No, frankly, my ass—

Antoine: What the fuck?!

Etoiles: Giving out your ass takes time, dude

Antoine: What the fuck…

Etoiles: Then again, I need to think about it. I’ll give you my answer. I need to discuss, and everything

Antoine: I’m tired of getting betrayed. You get married with someone else—

Etoiles: Never in a million years!

Antoine: —it’s like yesterday. Apparently Maximus got the mic from his ass removed while I wasn’t there. I was supposed to be the one to do it

Etoiles: Oh okay, so I’m your second choice?

[Overlapping]

Antoine: No! It was just to help him—

Etoiles: No, but, okay

Antoine: He got— listen—

Etoiles: There’s no problem!

Antoine: Fuck, nevermind

Etoiles: There’s no issue! Oh, so you’re opening my chest and stealing?

Antoine: I was just looking! Out of curiosity

Etoiles: Yeah, that’s it

Antoine: I don’t even understand what’s in it

Etoiles: Yeah, out of curiosity. Dude, your opinion on my cave?

Antoine: Well frankly it’s big

end Video Transcript.]

[galesdevoteewife]

Gale may not be so typical squishy wizard/scholar?

-My Galeology study note-

Looking at his character sheet in the Deluxe pack gets me thinking, maybe our wizard is not exactly designed to be the typical squishy one...?

[Act2 spoiler warning]

2 things caught my eyes:

1) Great physical fitness, and good reflexes. (For your reference, Gale & Wyll are the two companions who have the highest Con: 15. I put everyone's sheets at the bottom of the post.)

His Con and Dex are... very high?? I mean, higher than Karlach and Lae'zel...????

Note 1: I suspect it could have something to do with his background as Mystra's chosen, as they are somewhat "transformed" when they agree to become the goddess's chosen. A topic for another day since I haven't quite figured it out yet, for anyone who is interested there's a chapter about it in The Seven Sisters. Also, I have little clues on how much chosen lore credit Larian was taking into account while designing him, or how Mystra's "taking back the given ability" works. Note 2: Again, Mystra's chosen are often sent on missions that involve a lot of traveling according to Elminster's series. Mystra also mentioned that Gale and she used to have adventures together, which leads to an assumption: despite his preference he might be traveling quite a lot until he was cast aside and quarantined himself in his tower. Might be the type of scholar who is very keen on field studies?

Note 3: Can someone undress Elminster to exam my theory please??xD Neh won't work I think all human might share same body model in game

Come to think of it, there was a party banter between Karlach & Gale that went like :

Karlach: Whoa! Almost slipped there. Gale: You wouldn't be the first, I'd wager. It's been some time since these walkways felt the carpenter's hammer. Karlach: You gonna catch me if I eat a brick? Gale: With my reflexes? I'd catch you before you so much as stubbed a toe.

At first I thought that was a sarcastic joke but, seems like it wasn't? Also this:

Karlach: Ready to enter the belly of the beast? Gale: It's the stairs I'm dreading. I shall close my eyes, and pretend I'm climbing my own, far superior tower in Waterdeep. Karlach: In that case, welcome home.

...So it seems when I pictured him as a homebody, I should reimagine the concept of home... His has...lots of stairs? Just walking around in the tower could be counted as a workout, sort of thing? Note: I don't think the place he shows in the Act 2 cutscene is his tower. Otherwise, aren't these neighbors pretty much doomed?

2) Not THAT smart. Well, I love him, so I will speak in his defence: [1] He has a warm(s) digging holes in his brain. [2] Poisonous magical bile running in his blood. Maybe he's just not at his best, makes sense, eh? Wyll mentioned he is nerfed after tadpole too. After all, this man obviously memorized a DICTIONARY:

Gale: You promised to stay in Waterdeep. 'Promise,' verb, meaning to swear something will or will not be done. Tara the Tressym: And I decided 'will not'. And a good thing, too. You look like you haven't had a good meal in days

Player: When I said we could be more than friends, you answered 'perhaps'. What does that really mean? Gale: If I recall correctly, the Waterdhavian Dictionary of the Common Tongue of Faerûn defines it as an adverb that conveys the meaning of 'it may be that', or 'possibly'. Gale: Sorry, sometimes I just can't help being quite insufferable. In seriousness, I'm glad you asked that question.

Along with a bunch of you-may-never-need information:

Everything about ceremorphosis? Myconid? Why in the world have him read about Cazador??? And how can he not know the distance between Waterdeep & Baldur's Gate, even Karlach ―who spent a decade, which is likely half of her life in hell― knows better geography than him. Gale either totally ignored the subject or portaled everywhere; distance meant nothing to him?? Uh, but you can't take party banters too seriously; it's buggy. How could a bug bit Karlach in the swamp? It should've been burned into ashes before it even reached her, no?

Anyway, just rambling some thoughts <3 I would have gone to Harvard if there was a major in Gale...

-DISCLAIMER- Brought to you by a brainrot wife, Galerian missionary. Be warned the article might has (strong) bias because the writer is braindead and she thinks Gale is the most awesome character in the world.

[aiscapades]

thinking out loud abt recent discussions in the touchstarved/obscura fandoms :) literally just my own personal opinion !!!!!

i can't stop thinking abt cirrus bc he's honestly what i want so badly for the touchstarved LIs. it's what i wanted for count lucio.

i was reading y'all's opinions abt the touchstarved marketing and your concerns abt how the game is gonna turn out, and while i was understanding, i also was so confused abt .. where this sudden concern was coming from. and then i played obscura and i was like oh! i didn't know a game could be like this! i didn't know a demo could be like this! i had entirely different reactions to the obscura demo than i did the touchstarved demo

—and yeah that's comparing two totally different games, different studios, different projects. the touchstarved demo served to introduce the characters and the world and it did that wonderfully. it's satisfactory. it's not that they did anything wrong?? but i cannot deny they gave me two insanely different reactions. i was YELLING when cirrus was doing his shit. it was like what i imagine watching trashy reality tv is like. or like watching one of those poorly-made TV movies and just enjoying the ride. i was hollering and jumping out of my chair and GAWKING at the screen. like cirrus was real and he was really saying this insane shit and i was SO ON BOARD and selecting every insane option the game gave me. it was just so wild. and it was so, so fun.

so i thought abt it more and i was like yeah. i actually see where this concern is coming from. rss keeps their stuff so close to their chest that it's hard to tell what routes they're taking, how they're dealing with certain issues, how deep the character arcs go, etc. i have no idea how fucked up their version of monstrosity gets, and for a game that is ENTIRELY about monsters and monstrosity, that definitely gives me pause. we don't know anything. they drop hints and we guess and theorize, but we don't know anything. we know leander is fucked up. we know they're all fucked up. in what way? who knows. does mhin murder people as a giant crow beast every night? we don't definitively know. we kinda assume that based on lore drops, but we don't know. but then other studios are doing semi-regular q&as and dropping information into the laps of their fans on a daily basis (lost in limbo??? hello? every day i get a notif that they've told us something new, either abt ALL the characters or about the world). idk how early obscura devs have been answering questions but they're also doing something similar. but for rss you can send in questions and you're probably never gonna hear back. you can't just ask them what song the m5 LIs would sing on karaoke night and get a response 🧍🏼 they don't do that. which isn't to say it's WRONG of them—i'm not saying they're being bad game devs by any means—but it's definitely a different way to handle game development compared to these other studios we follow.

that lack of fan involvement and information sharing is where the concern comes from, i think. at least on my part!

i mentioned count lucio earlier and i want to elaborate why. firstly, he's my favorite character of all time. i've been writing a fanfic for him for 2 years, and it's nearly 200k words (i'm taking a break from it rn). like i love lucio as a character so, so deeply. is it because of the arcana game? no, actually. it's because of the POTENTIAL his character has. it's because of what the FANS have pulled from him and shaped him into.

the arcana was on the app store. it had such strict rules about what it could and couldn't be. and yeah i can rant about how dumb nix hydra is for taking the mico-transaction phone app route, but my point in all of it is that the devs failed lucio. i think they fumbled a lot, with the other characters as well, but lucio was their watch mojo top 10 biggest anime fails of all time #1 spot.

his bad ending shows him as the new DEVIL and dictator of the world??? and we got to see none of that. his whole route woobified him to pieces. he's just a lil meow meow. he's Baby. he didn't know better. he just made some Oopsies 👉🏻👈🏻 uh oh!!

like he was the main VILLAIN of the story and they turned him into a manchild. the wasted potential of this guy is insane. and i guess i saw that and thought "i can make this motherfucker so much worse" and i did that and will continue to do that. so have his other fans. people have rewritten his route altogether because it was so unsatisfactory.

there's overlap from the arcana in the rss dev team. do i think touchstarved will be the new arcana? nope!!!! but am i also worried they'll play it safe because they think the fanbase wants conventionally loveable love interests? yeah. i absolutely see the concern. it's very real and very there. does red spring studio KNOW we want truly monstrous characters? do they? we're just hoping they do.

leander doesn't have to be just like cirrus. none of them have to be anything. but i do want them to be monstrous. i want to FEEL something the same way i feel something when cirrus orders me onto my knees. like not even in a kinky sexual way. i want to be shocked. i want to hesitate and think "what is this character doing right now? what will i do right now?" i want to be confused and shocked and pleasantly surprised and also horrified. i want the adrenaline high i got while playing cirrus's first chapter. it was like my cptsd was triggered in the best possible way (lmao).

and it's not even about that.

lost in limbo is more fantasy romance than it is horror (save for the goddamn voidbound holy fuck!) but i know that i'll enjoy the game anyhow because i love all the characters. why do i love all the characters? because the devs tell us about them. they don't even have to spoil the game. i know amon smells like chocolate and has a fake southern accent (HELLO?) and that ara can't sing. lost in limbo could be the corniest fucking game and i would still love it because i'm already so attached to the characters.

the reason i turned to lost in limbo and obscura is because my excitement for touchstarved waned. because there's just a once in a blue moon post and it's likely it'll just be a "backers have new updates!" post. which isn't said to shame rss or backers !!!! that's normal and fine and valid!!!! do that!!!! i just mean rss is BARELY giving us what we want. we're stranded in the desert dying and rss is trickling water droplets one by one to each of us. lost in limbo devs are pissing fresh spring water into our mouths at firehose speed. is rss bad for this? no. they're not doing anything wrong. but a natural consequence of their marketing strategy is that fans will move on. i still love touchstarved. i'm going to play it. i'm reblogging fanart and fanfics. i'm posing the mormon leander theory. like i'm still here and still very much active but touchstarved isn't on my mind the way lost in limbo & obscura are.

ravenstar games tells me gael would fail the trial in the tale of orpheus and eurydice and i'm like holy fuck??? holy fuck!!!!!!

would ais? would mhin? i don't fucking know.

and what about elyon and sen? i know they're DLC bonus LIs and they don't need to be fleshed-out as soon as the main LIs. they can be on the back burner until touchstarved comes out. this is fair. but what about them? we know nothing other than 1. elyon is rich because of brothel money and 2. sen is an undead warden? (like a prison guard? like the ppl who watch over vere? i don't even know that for sure) (we also know their flowers but that's barely anything). meanwhile lost in limbo is sharing info about cécile and lázaro as often as their main love interests. they're not forgotten about. i can't even make a mc for sen's route because i know nothing about her!!!!!! which hurts my heart because i love sen. i love the idea of sen. it's the first time a female love interest in one of these games is 1. my type but also 2. not exactly like me (ara i love you but we are twins).

they're impersonal. they are 2D concepts we try to fill out.

maybe rss will tell us the LIs go-to karaoke song after the game releases. or maybe they won't. but there are just so many benefits to sharing that kinda thing and bonding with your fans in that way. that's my whole point. it's not "i need a steady stream of touchstarved content pumped directly into my veins 24/7 or i lose all interest" it's not that!!!!! obviously not because rss doesn't do that and i'm still here. this is my most active blog! i'm having a blast here because the fandom is sick as hell. we're vibing, doing our own thing, and it's great. but rss feels very distant. they are the senobium and we are residents of lowtown wondering when or if things will ever be different. if we're going to have a good day (lore drop or new art) or if things will just continue on as expected.

to reiterate: this post isn't about how rss is doing something wrong or bad or that ravenstar games/rotten raccoons are sososososo much better than rss. rss doesn't have to do everything other studios are doing. that's not what i'm saying. this is just the reality of what rss is doing vs other devs and how i PERSONALLY feel about it. i love them i would literally strap a bomb to my chest and demand my loved ones' credit card info to disarm it for any of these studios/games. i am a fan and i'm hopeful and i want to trust in rss so so so so badly. i want the very best for them. i want them to create a great game and be successful. i want them to be creatively fulfilled and proud of their game. on their own time, their own way. really and truly!

[velnna]

hello!!:D i’ve finally finished stray souls yesterday after reading it for three years and first of all thank you so much for it. and honestly for all that u create!!! you’ve been (and still are) a big inspiration for me!!

as for my question. it’s gonna be so random and don’t treat it to seriously but i’m curious. how did jo manage to get his top surgery?? 😔😔 cause i can imagine it if he was a normal human that he could just visit some sort of a medic and get it done (painful but possible). but in his case i think it must have been a bit trickier than just that.

again, it’s just pure curiosity, i understand if you’ve never thought about it lol. wanted to ask anyway xx

have a wonderful day/night!!

Oh that's okay! It's a fun little tidbit of lore, though I'm sure Jo disagrees lmao

So the way Reaper anatomy works is a bit odd, since they're a mix between physical and "ethereal" sort of creatures. They each have a blueprint for how their bodies are designed that follows vaguely human rules. When they heal, which they can do seamlessly unless they run out of energy, their flesh is reconstructed based on said blueprint (so if you, for instance, cut off a limb, said limb gets reconstructed according to the code for what it looked like before).

In addition, the healing process isn't an involuntary thing like for a human. Reapers need to consciously "command" their bodies to heal and choose the pace and amount of energy they want to spend on it. It's a little involuntary in the sense that there's a default sort of setting they all have, but with the right type of training and control they can become very good at selectively healing, or even at pushing the boundaries of what their bodies heal as.

Lastly, surgery on a Reaper is Hard. They don't respond to material anaesthetics and their flesh doesn't exactly open like a normal living creature. Any bit that you separate from the main core will disappear, including blood once it pours away.

All this to say Jo had to get too surgery with all this in mind and it was a mix of finding someone who knew how to or was willing to test it out and training himself to keep his body healed in a way that goes against that blueprint it has. Trial and error and horrifying cutting and opening with no painkillers if you will 🫥 I never said I was a benevolent god

Anyhoo sorry if that was way too long an answer, I have in fact thought about it extensively LMAO

Happy you like| stray souls! 🖤

[leog4u]

Game Design and Porn Pt. 1

or, How To Fuck Up The Best Intrinsic Reward Ever

Hi, I'm Leo G, veteran pervert. One time while chatting in a server exclusively made of porn artists, I brought up the game design of a porn game I enjoyed. One of them laughed, saying "Who cares, it's just a porn game?" Being unwell, I never let this go. Since then, I have played many adult games and took each one as serious products made by professionals. Fast forward to today, and the demo for my porn game, Joker's Trip, is nearing completion. I also have some sci-fi erotica you should check out.

So you wanna make a porn game. You heard they make money, and hey what’s more fun than making a video game AND porn? But you don’t know where to begin! Well don’t worry, Leo’s got you covered. We’re gonna walk through the line of thinking you should have when designing your porn game. There's gonna be at least three parts to this, with part 1 focusing on how to reward your player.

Define "porn game" for me, Leo.

There are porn games, and then games with porn in them. A porn game is a game where you won’t last 5 minutes, where everything exists solely to meet and, subsequently, fuck. A game with porn in it is a game where everything exists for the purpose of the game, and also, you fuck. Fate Stay Night, for example, is a VN with a story that just so happens to have some CGs where the protagonist rails Saber, but is mainly about Shirou and the Holy Grail War. Much like how I would call Castlevania a game with horror in it, but not a horror game.

Porn games are a lot like horror games. They both get a bad rap for being cheap to make, appealing to base instincts, and generally being low quality. They're also both not actual genres of games, but genres of content. Think about it, if I asked you what a horror game is, you'd say a game that's scary. But what's the actual game part? The unfortunate answer would most likely be "walking sim," but there are a lot of examples that are FPSes, puzzles, driving sims, platformers, deck builders, the list goes on.

The most common genres of game I see for porn games these days are by far RPG Maker RPGs and VNs. I won’t be talking about VNs because they’re closer to writing than game design, which isn’t a flaw but a feature. What used to be everywhere, in days of old, were breakout games, where the more bricks and levels were cleared, the more of the sexy image would be revealed in the background. Other arcadey type deals like shoot ‘em ups and mahjong were also around, and had a similar “strip ‘em down until you have sex” gameplay loop.

Okay, so what’s an intrinsic reward?

There’s intrinsic rewards, and there're extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards, generally, are the number go up rewards. Things that make your character stronger, or give you more resources to buy new gear or whatever. Intrinsic rewards in games can cover a large swathe of things. It can be the feeling of satisfaction of completing a puzzle, a piece of lore or world building, or a new dialogue option with a character you want to fuck.

I like fucking characters, are we talking about porn now?

Yes! I’m of the opinion that you literally can’t make a better intrinsic reward than pornography. On top of setting the tone for the entirety of the game., at its best it can add to a story, add to someone’s character development, or be a beautiful piece of art to look at. AND you can jack off to it! Unfortunately, that’s at its best. Let’s talk about how porn is delivered in a theoretical RPG porn game. (As a head’s up, there will be talk of “bad end” scenes, but this is under the assumption that the player is the one consenting.)

So you’re playing an RPG and get into a fight. Maybe you were underleveled or too cumbrained to remember to buy healing potions. Then your HP goes to zero, and instead of going back to the title screen, you’re getting fucked by orcs. That’s right, let’s talk about Game Over CGs.

You get to watch porn when you lose?

To someone making a porn game with a battle system, this delivery method makes sense. The characters in this world are driven primarily by lust, this is just the obvious conclusion. And it doesn’t even have to be non-consensual! Games like Future Fragments show that it can be presented as a sexy inconvenience rather than anything uncomfortable for the player or our hero. Game Over CGs even have the benefit of softening the blow of defeat, by giving the player a chance to reflect on their defeat and jerk off. Even better if losing a fight isn’t lost progress, but rather a bump in the road. However, there’s a problem here. The player is a dog, and we’re rewarding bad behavior.

The porn is an intrinsic reward, so why are we giving it to the player for losing? Incentivizing losing on purpose isn’t just bad game design, but a waste of time. And to that end, a lot of porn games try to give solutions to this. One being a kill button on the keyboard or a skill that instantly KOs our hero to get to the lose screen faster. What might seem like a convenience is really just expediting failure.

What it says is that the gameplay doesn’t actually matter. You’re just here for the porn, right? In that case there’s plenty of places I can go to see a chick with huge knockers get railed by an orc, with the added bonus of not having to play forgettable and mid turn based combat!

Another solution I’ve seen is the game outright telling you, “hey don’t bother killing yourself to see the porn. Once you beat the game all of the scenes you missed will be unlocked!” At first this seems like a reasonable way to go about it, but it comes with another problem: your game better be fucking good to make me play through the entire thing before getting to see cock. Like I said earlier, porn at its best can reveal things about the world and drive character development. I uh. Just beat the game. I don’t care anymore. Showing me a scene that’s taken out of context by a factor of 5 hours or more isn’t what I’d call great game design or story telling. It’s also too little, too late.

What if we made the porn actual rewards?

Now we’re getting somewhere! Let’s make the reward…a reward! What if, every time the player beats a level, we get some porn? If we tie the CG to beating the boss, we’ll be tying the reward to game progression. That’s good right? So now, on top of the extrinsic rewards you’d normally get for beating a boss (a lot of EXP, better gear, opened areas) we also get that sweet dopamine rush of pornography! So we’re good, right?

There’s 1142 words left in this post, so I’m assuming no.

Well. It’s a start. It has the problem of predictability. If not handled properly, it comes off as lazy. As a game designer, one of your goals is to not constantly remind your player that they’re playing a video game. Get through the level, get porn. It feels a little too “mouse in a maze looking for cheese” for my taste. And much like the game over method, if the actual game itself is mid, the player will start to question if the reward is worth it, and might be afflicted with the worst condition a player could receive: boredom.

Of course there are exceptions. In puzzle or arcade type games where you don’t get extrinsic rewards, giving the player porn as another form of reward per level or whatever is perfectly reasonable (though it does have the issue of being predictable.) This is a perfectly good way of doing it if your game is short, or if the game is, y’know, good and fun to play. Bad Color’s game, Heroine Conquest, is a level based puzzle game with porn as the reward, but only when you do good. Combining the actual challenge of mastering the game, with a genuinely unique game loop makes for a feeling of accomplishment when beating a level. Pair that up with a sex cutscene, and the dopamine rush will hit.

So! Let’s combine giving the player a power trip, with a less rigid structure for giving the player porn. Instead of tying the porn to purely progression gates, let’s tie it to the progression.

Plot milestones

In Third Crisis, sex scenes are peppered throughout the regular game’s plot, starting with some lesbian bondage before introducing the protagonist, who goes through a tutorial before having their own horny encounters. It’s not just given when you win or lose, but is a natural part of the game. Beating bosses, losing to enemies, and exploring dialogue options in sidequests all lead to unlocking new CGs.

Now what’s nice about that, is that the sex isn’t placed somewhere extremely predictable. It isn’t just a reward for beating The Boss Of Forest Zone, Now Go To Ice Zone And Beat The Ice Boss For More Cock. Because that’s the biggest issue of predictable rewards, you know you’re not getting anything until that checkpoint, which will make the player weigh whether or not it’s even worth continuing. This is fine, again, for an arcade type game, not an RPG or adventure game. By sprinkling sex throughout the plot itself, the player will not only want to progress, but their curiosity will have them wondering ���what else is out there?”

Rewarding exploration

By putting sex scenes behind optional side quests or encounters, the dog that is the player will scour every single corner of the map, and leave no pixel unturned. Personally, that’s more exciting to me than what you’ll get in the main progression route. In Future Fragments the player can find their rival Faye in sexual situations if they explore the map enough. These are completely optional, and don’t give any direct rewards like more HP or an item, but they’re by far what motivates me to explore the maps as thoroughly as possible, more so than the plot macguffins the game is named after!

So now the player is excited. Sex can happen anywhere. Maybe that daunting off road path with stronger monsters isn’t just hiding a secret, but a sexy secret! They’ll be more likely to venture down those optional paths you painstakingly made.

If we’re using sex in game overs, boss fights, and just randos, why not put it everywhere?

So now I want to talk about the concept of a “sex stat”. It’s not a bad idea! Say, the higher the player’s sex stat is, the more opportunities you unlock for fucking. It could even be tied to the player character’s personality, and affect the story! Instead of using a sword and shield, they’ll end any conflict with sass and sex. They open their eyes to the horny world around them and stop being a hero, and instead become a succubus, and the ending is a massive cum filled orgy.

That sounds excessive

Yeah, it does, doesn’t it.

I’m not a fan of “corruption” systems in porn games. Corruption as a kink is totally fine, and having it be a part of the story lets you incorporate more sexuality into the plot. But as I alluded to, it snowballs pretty fast (and I’m not talking about spitting in someone’s mouth). It ends up being like a cheat code, where you’re bypassing parts of the game for no cost. It stops being a reward, it stops being unexpected, and it stops it from being sexy.

Wait, what? Stops being sexy? What’s not sexy about a succubus orgy?

Alright, listen, we gotta rein it in for a minute. This isn’t so much about game design as it is about writing erotica, but if you have a world where everyone’s fucking and sucking 24/7, there’s no contrast to make what would normally be a hot taboo a hot taboo. If everybody’s naked, nobody’s naked. The aforementioned snowball effect of a corruption system can be seen if you play literally any game that has one. It won’t take long to not have to engage with any combat or adventuring system if you can just press the “Submit to the big dick warlock” button and watch porn to progress.

Which, now that I said that, is exactly the problem. Imagine any other rpg you’ve ever played. Now imagine if every encounter and dialogue option had an option to just watch a short cutscene to skip the encounter. That would suck ass, right? Literally no difference here.

It would. Hey, I’m sort of lost now.

Don’t worry, we’re wrapping this up.

So what did we learn? We learned game over CGs have a critical design flaw that shouldn’t be relied on. We learned that predictable rewards can lead to boredom. We learned to keep sex as a reward and not devalue it.

To summarize, here’s a neat trick to know where to put your porn scenes.

”Would I put an Xbox Live achievement here?”

It’s that easy. “Lose to Goblins for the first time,” that’s an achievement. “Beat orc commander,” that’s an achievement. “Find Hubert the Magical Dickhead,” that’s an achievement. Using that as a guideline is foolproof. Almost.

This sounds like it’d take a lot of resources

It sure does! But don’t worry. I’ll cover that in the next post talking all about how to deal with the resource management of a porn game.

(Shoutout to Taylor, my guy for editing!)

[burningcheese-merchant]

If the Beasts/Ancients had signature pokémon (or were pokémon themselves) what do you think they would be? I just know White Lily needs to be a fairy type

Do you have the slightest idea how happy I am to have gotten this ask

Time to flex my encyclopedic knowledge + almost 20 years of playing Pokémon

(Note: gonna stick to just assigning types to them, if that's ok)

A N C I E N T S

Pure Vanilla as a Pokemon: Normal/Psychic (thought of Normal/Fairy, but I thought Psychic may suit him better bc of his magic + the Light of Truth + the association with intelligence/knowledge the Psychic type has always had)

Pure Vanilla as a trainer: The very first Pokemon that came to my mind was Audino. Something about Vanilla says he'd be an Audino guy. I'm not even sure what it is, Blissey would probably be slightly more fitting, but I keep imagining him being besties with an Audino and it's adorable to me

Hollyberry as a Pokemon: Normal/Fighting, I think (or perhaps Fairy/Fighting, because of Fairy's power over and invulnerability towards Dragon)

Hollyberry as a trainer: Hmm... Bastiodon kind of feels like the easy way out tbh. Tinkaton would be funny (but suits Princess a lot better imo). Chesnaught reflects her fighting style and personality pretty well... Chesnaught it is

Dark Cacao as a Pokemon: Dark/Fighting for sure (I considered Dark/Ice as well, but I just can't ignore the Fighting type for him. I feel like I'd be committing a crime if I did. Also, I don't think he's actually from the Great Icing Ridge? It's not super clear, but Might of the Ancients made it seem like he was a traveler from somewhere else. That could perhaps be used as justification for shelving the Ice type for him. (Also also you don't NEED to be Ice-type to live in cold places, plenty of other types seen in snowy biomes in Pokemon)

Dark Cacao as a trainer: Man would be rocking a Kingambit, change my mind

Golden Cheese as a Pokemon: Ground/Flying, duh. (Or maybe Rock/Flying? Ground seems better idk)

Golden Cheese as a trainer: It's hard. There are so many Pokemon that would suit her imo. Sableye. Diancie. Persian (Kantonian or Alolan, doesn't matter). Unfezant (female, the Pokedex repeatedly lists them as superior fliers). But... keeping with the lore of both CRK and Pokemon... I think, after she wakes up and reenters the world, all Golden should have is the one Sigilyph left in the entire desert, who chose to be loyal to her and the kingdom to the very end and beyond

Just want to note that Golden Cheese would be besties with Olivia and you cannot change my mind on that

White Lily as a Pokemon: Grass/Fairy with some Dark-type moves available in her movepool as a nod to her being Dark Enchantress, change my mind

White Lily as a trainer: FLORGES! WHITE FLOWER FORM! RAAAAHHHHHHH

B E A S T S

Shadow Milk as a Pokemon: Dark/Psychic, duh

Shadow Milk as a trainer: this one is tough tbh. Malamar? Banette? Zoroark (Unovan)? Probably Malamar due to its natural malevolence and hypnotism powers tbh (but the other two are so compelling... why did I limit myself to an ace for each of them...). Also, I think he would've had a Slowking as a hero

Eternal Sugar as a Pokemon: leaning towards Fairy/Poison, latter because I've already been imagining her as a succubus of some sort and Poison suits that better (yes I know she has wings, Flying is a basic bitch answer and not all winged Pokemon are classified as Flying-types)

Eternal Sugar as a trainer: Komala is right there... but so is Musharna :/ (lots of "dream eater" Pokemon would suit her probably. Which is funny bc most of those are Ghost-types lol)

Mystic Flour as a Pokemon: Psychic at the very least. Not sure about a second type though... (or just make her Mewtwo from the anime/movies, they've got the same genocidal emo attitude lol)

Mystic Flour as a trainer: Girlie gets an Espeon, the end. (Maybe she knew Jirachi once upon a time)

Burning Spice as a Pokemon: Fire/Fighting (thought of Fire/Dark too, but... same deal as with Cacao, if I didn't add Fighting I'd probably go to jail)

Burning Spice as a trainer: Incineroar Incineroar Incineroar Incineroar Incineroar Incineroar Incineroar- (he'd suck ass as a trainer though, just because I know he'd treat his Pokemon terribly, the same way he mistreats the Wild Spices...)

Silent Salt as a Pokemon: Dark/Steel. Like. Come on lol

Silent Salt as a trainer: Something else that would land me in prison is not giving Salt an Aegislash lol. Or maybe a Bisharp. And a Corviknight. (Perhaps he would have met Cobalion while he was still a hero)

I'M STARTING TO IMAGINE A POKEMON AU NOW. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME. I'VE GOT, LIKE, EIGHT OTHER AUs I'M JUGGLING IN MY HEAD ALREADY. NOW I WANT TO MAKE UP ANGST FOR GOLDIE AND THAT SIGILYPH. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

(you can atone for your sins by asking me for full teams for each of these good-for-nothing short stacks)

[menlove]

[image id: an ask from @harbingerofskulls that reads: "im gonna b real i only knew the jerking off i would love to hear you elaborate more if you want to go on the whole situation" /end id]

answering here so i can save as a draft without risking the ask disappearing bc tumblr's been doing that lately but

oh god </3 for everyone else- it's talking about this post. sooo i'm gonna go through each one bc i've been feeling insane for several weeks. i'll do my best to cite my sources lmao

i don't know (johnny johnny)

this is referring to this unreleased VERY early beatles track from 1960. the audio quality is absolute shit & as such unfortunately people love to put words to it that don't make much sense in either direction (i.e a lot of mclennon fans want to hear "you're in love with me" and a lot of people that hate mclennon will just make up the weirdest lyrics that make 0 sense so it's Not Gay). some of the lyrics that ARE clear make it obvious this song is about the two of them running away together- at one point i'm fairly certain paul says "how am i gonna tell my father that we're leaving town?" probably referring to them leaving to hamburg. which would be fine but some of the other lyrics areeeee..... very..... Hm. like multiple times paul refers to john as "my boy" and there's bits of them talking about not knowing what to tell their friends & wanting to just run off together alone. if i were the other members of the band having to record this i would have killed them with hammers <3 also the entire end is just paul going "oh johnny" like 1 million times. okay. sure. also since the lyrics ARE so garbled i mean i guess people could be right about it saying "how am i gonna tell my father you're in love with me" but i just don't hear it. still, a very gay song about running off together and getting away from everything and everyone, complete with moaning the other's name </3

2. paris

this one is a huge part of McLennon Fandom Lore lmao but for good reason. not citing sources on all this bc it's one of those that's just Fact & can be found in like any beatles biography or thebeatlesbible.com (my savior) but. for john's 21st birthday, he got 100 pounds from a rich relative. instead of taking his girlfriend or any of his other friends, he decided to use the money to take paul to spain. but they stopped in paris on the way and just decided to stay there. which i mean like. taking your best friend over your girlfriend to the city of love is a little weird but it's not THAT weird. it's everything else that makes people want to chew glass about it. including some of the other things on this list. like this audio of john just goofing around singing about paris and paul, with such hits as "my cheri, my pau pau my pau paul." which is :| okay best friend. and paul has this picture hung up in his house that he took of john sleeping in paris. okay. sure. why not. (although ig there's some doubt about if the photo is from paris? either way it's a picture paul took and has framed in his house which is incriminating enough my man). also NOT in the original post but may pang, a woman john had a brief affair with in the 70s, wrote a book called loving john. in it, there's this quote:

After a late lunch, Linda launched into a long paean to the joys of living in England. When she was finished, she turned to John and said, “Don’t you miss England?”

“Frankly,” John replied, “I miss Paris.”

okay! also in an interview once he said:

The thing was all the kissing and the holding that was going on in Paris. And it was so romantic, just to be there and see them, even though I was twenty-one and sort of not romantic. But I really loved it, the way the people would just stand under a tree kissing; and they weren’t mauling at each other, they were just kissing.

(interview with david scheff for playboy in september 1980)

3. if i fell

this one i already made an insane post on that started my spiral into posting about the beatles publicly </3 but, essentially, the song "if i fell" by john is..... well it's most likely about paul. he said it wasn't about his wife but that it was auto-biographical and he never really had any public affairs that weren't flings, certainly not a lover. but most damning is he wrote the complete lyrics for the first time on a valentine's day card addressed "to paul with love" with some hearts and arrows pointing to where the lyrics were written. absolutely insane. made me insane.

4. oh! darling

rawest paul song of all time if i do say so myself lmao. but it's just.... Highly Suspicious, that's what it is. a Lot of beatles fans/historians will admit this song is most likely about john but they won't admit that it's fucking romantic if it is. like.

like that is so blatantly romantic idk what to say other than that. also, in the official recording on abbey road, there's Several points where paul says "darling" that sound more like he's saying "johnny" which is what he called him. people brush it off by saying it's his accent, but there's a very clear difference between when he's saying "darling" and when he's saying "johnny". i mean the Lore behind this is that it was written right when things were splitting up between them (& the rest of the band) so it makes sense and it's why most people are willing to accept it's about john. it's just insane to me that they'll accept it's about john without considering the implications of that.

5. the real life demo

this one made me want to light myself on fire i won't lie to you. but here it is! john had a song called "real love" and this is a very early demo of it. but instead of the lyrics that came to actually be in the song (which are thought to be about yoko but let's not get into the fact that it was on a tape labeled "for paul" but whatever), it includes john fucking crying as he sings saying:

"was i just dreaming or was it only yesterday? i used to hold you in my arms. and now a baby and another on the way... la la la la farm..."

which can quite literally be about no one else but paul, as this demo was recorded when he'd just had two children with his wife linda and linda was pregnant with their third child. they'd moved to a farm in scotland. hearing this audio clip did genuinely make me want to lie down in the dirt for a week. also "i used to hold you in my arms" just... yeah. god. when people think it was unrequited idk what to say, really.

6. If Paul Were A Woman-

shoving these two together but. in april of 85, paul said in an interview about john and yoko's relationship:

"I mean, I couldn’t stand in the way of someone who’d fallen in love. You can’t say, 'Who’s this?' You can’t really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out and…"

okay bestie <3 and what would make your relationship different if you were a woman? interesting! and yoko had something similar to say. in this audio, she says:

"I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat – because there’s something definitely very strong between John and Paul."

just reminds me of being a kid and telling my best friends "if i were a boy i'd date you" lol. incredible. does anyone here know about bisexuality.

7. stuart!

not much to say here except that john had a best friend, stu sutcliffe, who died young & before that had been the bassist in the band. paul fucking hated him sooo much oh he SEETHED. a lot has been written on that relationship but it was.... very interesting to say the least. it could have just been about the band, or just jealousy over john's friendship, but take that with a lot of john biographers suspecting john had feelings/even a sexual relationship with stuart and it paints a very Interesting picture to say the least

8. john's bisexuality

here's a compilation of quotes about it, but john was more than likely bisexual. which has nothing to do w paul, really, but more to do against people that like to claim they were both Heterosexual Men. although an interesting quote in this compilation is him saying he's "had paul" lmfao

9. paul's post-beatles work

there's just.... there is so so so much here i don't even know where to begin. @ringompreg has a good compilation of paul songs here. a lot of them do take a bit of Lore but like..... it comes down to the fact that both him and john have/had admitted many times to using their lyrics during The Breakup Years to talk to/reference each other and sooooo many of these lyrics are insanely blatant. the two i mentioned were tug of war and let me roll it, both of which are acknowledged to be about john by most people WITH NO ONE BOTHERING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT which..... tug of war has this:

we could stand on top of the mountain with our flag unfurled? dancing to a beat played on a different drum? this is what gaylors think gaylor conspiracy is but paul mccartney is really out here saying this shit.

and let me roll it is so fucking blatantly romantic but every reviewer is like haha! what a cool song that's "making fun" of john and clearly in his style! like are straight people stupid genuinely. anyway:

bonus to that but about JOHN'S solo work :)))))) he wrote a song called "watching the wheels" and when you consider he very much responded to MANY of paul's solo stuff it's :)

which as a response to let me roll it would just be... so devestating but it may be a stretch idk if i'm onto anything there it's just worth Mentioning

and there's a lot of others, a lot of them in that post up there. like far too many where paul mentions falling in love with a friend like Alright.

10. paul's first lsd trip with john/"i know" "i know"

this one is less blatantly romantic but it is just insane. here's an article. and a quote from george martin about it. the first time paul tripped on acid w john was bc john accidentally took some and he took him home & then took acid w him bc he didn't want john to be alone on the trip :( but, notably:

"And we looked into each other’s eyes, the eye contact thing we used to do, which is fairly mind-boggling. You dissolve into each other. But that’s what we did, round about that time, that’s what we did a lot," the singer recalled, "And it was amazing. You’re looking into each other’s eyes and you would want to look away, but you wouldn’t, and you could see yourself in the other person. It was a very freaky experience and I was totally blown away."

he also apparently saw john as the, and i quote, "emperor of eternity" during this trip??????? okay

SOMEWHERE i can't find it rn and i'm getting lazy but somewhere they (i think paul?) talk about the fact that they used to just stare into each other's eyes and then say "i know" "i know" which. considering john's song "i know (i know)" makes me crazy

11. in my life/i will

these are really just some devastating songs with lyrics that make you really raise your eyebrows. for in my life, written by john, it's just an incredibly romantic & sweet song that is again, not about his wife. given that the lennon estate is still out here posting pictures of paul to those lyrics i have to say it's a liiiiittle suspicious. and i will is...... it's one that paul insists is not about his girlfriend at the time, jane asher. and when you look at the lyrics vs how him and john met.... like. the song goes:

and the story of how they met was that paul saw john repeatedly before they ever met, when he didn't know who john was other than that he thought he looked cool & admired his sideburns (lmfao). and when they did finally meet, it was when john was singing at a garden fete (party) and paul was in the crowd just Mesmerized. so. well. you can see.... you can see how fitting that is. makes me crazy makes me want to chew glass actually

12. "we were each other's intimates" and other insane quotes

"we were each other's intimates" is a paul quote about john which is just insane but that's not even the tip of the iceberg. here's a ton of quote compilations.

13. "literally everything else"/honorable mentions

some honorable mentions go out to: john going on stage w elton john & playing i saw her standing there and introducing it as "a song by an estranged fiance of mine" okay! the "just like starting over" demos. okay! which isn't even to MENTION the fact that paul locked himself away in the studio listening to "just like starting over" on repeat for DAYS after john died like???? john saying repeatedly that he considered paul & yoko to be his two major partners in life including in an interview the literal day he died. a whole ass rpf movie where they kiss & talk like they're ex-lovers and dance in central park (two of us) made by the same dude that made the let it be movie like. he knew them personally? he worked with them closely? and the only thing paul had to say about it was just essentially that it was what he wished would've happened like???????? i can't find a super reliable source for this so take it w a grain of salt, but apparently paul referred to mclennon fanfiction as "beautiful stories" and doesn't mind them being written. paul also had a cat that had kittens & he named two of the kittens pyramus and thisbe after fictional lovers he and john played and he gave pyramus (the character paul played) to john :|

and literally so much else like all of this and it's not even all of it. it's not even close to all of it. i didn't even get to talk about the way in "get back" the documentary, paul started talking about john leaving the band for yoko and how john would choose her over them and then he got teary eyed, started choke laughing, and then started singing "build me up buttercup" before looking at the cameras and stopping. what the FUCK was that about! IT'S NOT EVEN GETTING INTO THE SONG "TWO OF US" THAT'S SO OBVIOUSLY ABOUT JOHN THAT IT HURTS. it's. it's not even scratching the surface. they were just genuinely insane about each other.

[meirimerens]

MEIRI!!!! i am taking a class in art history and i wanted to ask about your favorite paleolithic cave paintings, cause i know you're very passionate about that!

OOOHHAHHGRGHH MY GODDDD

YOU'VE AWAKEN MY EVIL POWER......

okay so this is gonna be real hard for me to choose. like reallll hard. but i think i can narrow it down. i don't know how much #info you need or how much Lore you care for me to add, but you've activated my trap card, so now you're stuck in the cave with me, i have the torch, and if you try to leave you won't find your way back. okay. let us start.

GENERAL LORE:

at least in the Franco-Cantabrian geographical and paleo-cultural area [this thing], which contains some of the most famous painted caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, Pech-Merle, Altamira, etc, one main currently reigning hypothesis, because it allows to explain the most amount of [gesture] Stuff Going On, is that cave art exist within a magico-spiritual system of belief of the animist persuasion likely with shamanic elements. The places where walls were painted in the caves, were very, very rarely Living quarters. paleolithic tribes prefered to make camps outside, or just at the very entrance of caves: the depths were Hard to navigate, dangerous, possibly inhabited by predator animals. you didn't got to these places to fuck around; you went because you had a drive, you believed in something about them.

Jean Clottes (one of our main prehistorians in France, who wrote Pourquoi l'Art Préhistorique ?, or "Why Prehistoric Art", translated into english as "What is Paleolithic Art" which is fucking stupid, the "why" is the whole question he's trying to answer in the book, is this guy fucking stupid) identifies 4 main concepts that exist within indigenous, nomadic or semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherer, animist & shamanist societies and peoples, that are widely distributed (as such having "universal" elements) and could, likely, have been found within paleolithic societies, and possibly give us clues to their belief system, which are:

the INTERCONNECTEDNESS: of animal species between one another (explaining the numerous accounts of paloelithic art depiction species together, or separated), and of human and animal: including through mythologies in which humans were created from animal(s), or animal(s) later changed into human(s).

the FLUIDITY of the living world: animal species are recognized as kin, for they can become it; animal species are given, or projected-onto attributes that make a tribe, a clan, recognize themselves in it

the acceptation of the COMPLEXITY of the world: paleolithic people likely had deep, complex mythologies and cosmogonies, which we might Never, Ever, know anything about (this drives me insane.) their language, and their rites, might (have) reflect(ed) an understanding of the complixity of nature, or animals, that sedentary, then later capitalist societies might have lost the nuances of.

the PERMEABILITY of the living world(s). this again is seen in beliefs in the permeablity between human & animal, human a animal, animal as human: this is also where Shamanism might come into play. shamanism(s) rest(s) upon the conceptualization of the world as divided-but-permeable between a physical, living world, and an unseen, spirit world: the Shaman is the mediator, the person who can freely go between these two worlds, to communiate, to heal, to direct, to plead, etc. AND, and this is where it gets real interesting for The Caves: potentially, the belief in the permeablity of the cave rock itself: multiple painted sites might contain hints of a belief in the cave being the place where spirits dwell; and painting them is less "calling" or "invoking", even if there might be some of it, but rather "revealing". the cave itself, maybe, could (have) be(en) considered the place where spirits dwell, and come forth/from. more about that later.

WITH ALL OF THAT IN MIND. at least in the franco-cantabrian area, the placement of cave art is, very Very likely, extremely deliberate. it is not just the art that counts, but where it was made. we can ask ourselves, why it was made here, and not elsewhere. i am picking my answer on this axis. some caves might be so beautifully painted, but are The Vibes here? if the expression of this potential magico-spiritual complex and tens-of-thousands-of-years-spanning(!!!!!!!!!! this is nother thing that's fucking insane btw. did you know we are as close to Lascaux as Lascaux is to Chauvet, another very ornate painted cave. MULTIPLE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS) is visible, or #feelable, let's mention it. now onto the good part

CAVE ART THAT DRIVES ME CUCKOO CRAZY:

THE NIAUX (pronounced "Nyo") CAVE

reason: i've been there. twice. sobbed both times. came out changed like genuinely. made me go back to uni. the Niaux Cave is located in the Ariège (a-ryeh-juh) département [think smaller than a state bigger than a county] of southern france, in the Pyrénées (pee-reh-neh) mountains making the border with spain.

the almost entirety of the art is concentrated in the "Salon Noir" of the cave.

now. come close and listen to me. the Salon Noir is some 700 meters from both the modern entrance and the prehistoric one. today, like back then, you have to navigate rough, slippery terrain, crouchspaces, and generally accident-inducing (source: my dad slipped & fell just like our guide warned us about) walking space. for most of the way, the ceiling is 5 to 10 meters above, and the walls relatively close together (but not claustrophobic). the Salon Noir seems to be "indicated" by, on both of its sides, red symbol markings. now listen to me. the Salon Noir's ceiling is twice as high. even with modern lamps, you struggle to see it. now imagine. having walked all the way there, in the Wet, the fire of your torch or your grease hand-lamp to guide you, and suddenly not only can you not see the ceiling anymore, but the rock seems to speak back to you. the echo is intense, in the Salon Noir, way more than anywhere in the lower-ceiling'ed cave. your voice carries on for 5 full seconds, if you sing the rock continues singing after you. did you know? in france and spain, studies have shown that most parietal (=cave wall) art corresponds to particular acoustic features. did they sing? did they play the flute, the drums? did they use lithophones: the stalagtites & stalagmites, hit of small sticks, to make them ring? in the Salon Noir, most of the animals are bisons, as is very common in the franco-cantabrian area. now this is just something fun that our guide told us, possibly nothing more than an interesting coincidence, for its truth would rest on an unproven-hypothesis-within-an-unproven-hypothesis, but did you now that the female bison has the same gestational period as the human? 9 months.

the bison to the right, with the red markings and the "eyebrows", is my dad's favorite: he says its profile looks like him, with his beard and his big nose, which to be fair, truly it does. in a previous-previous-previous-previous life my dad as an upper paleolithic era bison. this is my dad's paleolithic fursona.

my favorite is this horsie. see? she smiles.

so does this one on the left, a protome (= name for the depiction of only the front of an animal, of a human)

PERGOUSET (pronounced per-goo*-zeh) CAVE

(* but the "oo" sound is short)

i'm cheating a little. because this is not painting, it's carving. but i consider sculpture an art, and parietal carving to be as important and interesting as parietal paintings, so. take it or don't!

yeah the whole cave. you'll see why. basically if i think about Pergouset for too long my skin starts melting i foam at the mouth etc. anyways. since the cave is closed to the public, and basically only available to researchers' viewings, it is quite hard to find images of it, so we'll just ball on this one.

Pergouset is located in the département of the Lot, in southwest-central france. this region is Plentiful with caves, including Pech-Merle that is basically next door, and Lascaux 1.5h away. why this one & not any of those two? well. come closer.

okay. the pussies & this guy with his penis out cave. what's her deal. Well, first piece of lore is to know that, in the grand scheme of franco-cantabrian paleolithic cave art, human representations are minimal. animals make up the majority of depictions, however, "archetyped" or "stereotyped" human figures that insist on sex characteristics are Plentiful. and within representations of that, "female" archetypes outnumber "male" ones by a lot. basically you cannot cough on a paleolithic "human" depiction without landing on a vulva frankly. many such cases in life as well. one of the hypotheses, which Michel Lorblanchet brings forth in his book La Naissance de la Vie: Une Lecture de l'Art Parietal (from which the picture above is from) is that it could be part of a belief system in which the cave, the whole cave, itself could be a "female" principle or archetype: the whole of the cave a matrix, a uterus. basically its giving, it's giving birth. one of the biggest data point he has for that hypothesis is the Pergouset cave. in the Pergouset cave, carvings of vulvae rhythm a long narrow passage following an underground river. the 3 vulvae could represent that of pre-birth, that of currently-pregnant (with the line in the middle, like the pigmentation line on pregnant belly + carved over a convex part of the stone), and that of currently-actively-giving birth: "vulva 3" is just two streaks in the rock, surrounding a naturally-occuring hole in the rock: as if that feature of the cave itself had been recognized as It's Giving Birth / hereditary voice I Am Your Mother. as you can see on the picture, vulva 1 is all the way back in the #depths, in the #dark, and vulva 3 the closest to the exit, indeed to the light ( -> it's giving birth). now. and this is the insane thing. foaming at the mouth like unwell arms shaking rn. i've had to go pace 4 times since i started typing. in the depths of the cave, the animals that are carved are less (see the numbers on the picture). but also, they're... more fantastic. stranger, more unusual. lacking the realism that is typically associated with parietal art. they're... as if from a dream, an undetermined land of weirdness, of amorphousness. as they get closer to the light, they get more numerous, they proliferate, life crawls the walls: they become also more and more realistic. as we reach the last carved vulva, as it is giving, what is it: giving BIRTH, animals are numerous, abundant, fully formed, their visible selves in the world outside: it is as if the cave itself, the depths of cave itself, gave birth to these animals, formed them inside of itself, let them out from this unknown, amorphous, strange land beyond the stone, where human cannot reach. humans went in, and meticulously, sometimes using a natural relief in the stone for an eye, a feature, "released" the animals from the stone, "revealed" them from their state of hidden-inside-of-the-depths-ness. the whole cave this Mother from which all the animals drawn on the walls emerged.

tldr