#i need self confidence

[cuubism]

i feel like dream in human aus is usually characterized as being more stoic and stern while hob is more easygoing, but i think it would be funny to have a university au where hob is the professor who's like "no work is deserving of 100%. find 27 more sources and do it again" while dream is just like "they put their dreams into it, hob 🥺 A+! A+! A+! A+!"

[lazylittledragon]

not to be Anxious on main but i've got my performance review for my apprenticeship in a few weeks to see if they're going to keep me on permanently and i am gently shitting myself hnhhhhh

[eleu22]

Task Force 141’s go to Tesco Meal Deals

the tescos outside my uni is never fucking stocked i want the sandwich on ghosts so bad but that shit is always gone

John Price

- gets water as his drink (criminal)

- gets the mixed nuts as his snack (criminal)

- he’s smart tho he always gets the boujie water because the meal deal price is set

- the wrap is valid

- usually will also grab another snack bc this isn’t enough maybe like a bag of dried mango or some shit (old)

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

- my headcanon continues to live

- the healthy energy shit tastes like ass but he pretends its good

- does not usually shop at tesco, he’s a waitrose boy

- sometimes indulges in the odd crunchie bar but rarely

John “Soap” Mactavish

- horrifying (i love pepperami sm everyone disses me for it bc i pull that shit out in lesson and it stanks)

- protein to the max ig

- the whole meal fucking stinks

- uses gaz’s club card because he’s too lazy to get his own

Simon “Ghost” Riley

- absolutely classic

- everytime he gets it mentions how cost of living prices have made them more expensive

- grenade bars are disgusting but he loves them for some reason (masochism imo)

- the sandwich is the best one they have bc the bread is always so moist its so fucking good

- the monster bc yall saw the ghost monster can we all know

[lesbianfakir]

HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HER AFTER LEARNING SHE WAS JUST A BIRD

The whole show. The whole show. We have this long running character beat of Duck beloved she, as she truly is, is unloveable and once people see her to her very core they will abandon her. But simultaneously!!!!! We have this subtle plot building of fakir, fully aware the girl has feathers, falling in love with her! And it’s so slow it doesn’t come to the forefront until the very end and AAAAAAAAA the amount of times Duck laments how no one would care about her as a bird meanwhile fakir looks at her with the most adoring eyes shut up!! Shut up literally shut up!!!! People will love you for the things you hate about yourself and you’ll have no goddamn idea because you’re so wrapped up in how YOU see yourself!!!!! HE LOVED THAT LITTLE BIRD MORE THAN SHE HATED HERSELF

[emily-e-draws]

drinker 🩸

(cause sometimes you just get the irresistible urge to redraw your art from 9 years ago)

[mblue-art]

once again i was fueled with coffee (did not sleep the whole night) but this time i doodled college au to cope bc ofc i did (also did not feel like sleeping wooo)

[izzybluebell]

tunes

[idontmindifuforgetme]

when you accept that the unique things about you are the best things about you. when you fall in love w your uniqueness and become obsessed w it and reject conformity. when you think for yourself and draw your own conclusions and adore that you don’t perfectly fit into a mold. that’s when you’ll know true peace

[shannonsketches]

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

[wolfjackle-creates]

Answer My Call Chapter 2 Part 1

What's this? Two posts for WIP Wednesday??? I said I was gonna spoil you guys. Now, I originally planned to do Carry Your Heart. Figured the top and bottom choices from the WIP Wednesday poll would be fun. But both stories are at a point where Danny is taking Jason to Frostbite and I just didn't feel like writing the same scenario twice, even if the details and POV are totally different.

So I went to the third place option.

If you want a say in what I work on this week, check out the poll!

Story Summary: Jazz, Sam, and Tucker manage to help Danny escape the GIW, but they can't follow him and are under too much surveillance to communicate with each other. Sam snuck Danny a phone as he ran and Jazz sends him a text every day, hoping to hear he is all right. But he's not the one getting the texts.

Jason was away for several months on a mission with the Outlaws. When he finally returns home, he is surprised to find dozens of messages from an unknown number begging a Danny to tell her he's okay. Looks like there's not going to be a break between missions this time around.

Chapter 1: AO3 (user locked), Tumblr

Word Count: 1.5k

-----

Jazz tapped her finger on her phone as she waited for the Dunkin employee to call out her order. Red Hood was supposed to arrive any minute. She’d left her dorm a full two hours ago and led Agents K and O on a merry chase through Boston before finally losing them at Quincy Market. Then she’d doubled back and was now near Northeastern. She had no reason to be here, so hopefully it’d take a little longer to track her down.

And that’s when she felt it—a ghost or liminal was nearby.

Pushing his way in the building was a tall man with a red beanie covering dark hair. He had on an unbuttoned flannel jacket over a Dumpty Humpty T-shirt and jeans with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He glanced around before his eyes settled on her and he grinned.

“Hey, Jazz, right?” He held out his hand. “I’m Todd.”

Jazz couldn’t say anything and just stared in horror. Red Hood couldn’t be liminal. Had she just led another liminal to the guys in white? Did he even realize he was considered an ecto-entity under the anti-ecto acts she’d introduced him and Red Robin to?

“Jazz? Are you okay?” he asked, dropping his hand.

“Order for Jazz!” called out the barista.

Jazz shook herself and grabbed her drink with a smile for the employee. Then she grabbed Todd’s elbow and dragged him over to the tables.

“Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting—” she cut herself off. She had no idea what he knew and what he didn’t. And the agents could come get them at any moment. Instead she pulled out her phone started turning off every security setting. “Never mind. Do you want anything?” she asked with a gesture at her own drink.

“I’m all right. But, are you? What happened?”

Jazz let out a laugh; if the way Todd’s eyes widened was any indication, it was a tad more hysterical that she would’ve liked. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened.” She looked down at his shirt. “My brother loves Dumpty Humpty, you a music fan?”

He seemed nonplussed at the topic change but shrugged. “Sure. Music is good, but I stole this shirt from one of my brothers. I don’t know if I could name a single song by them. How about you?”

Jazz grinned and forced herself to relax as she logged out of her school email on her phone. “I’m a huge fan of any sort of self-expression, including music. Actually, my plans for tonight involve music, so I hope you like the indie scene. Might be a bit intense for a first date, but I’ve always figured, why not jump right in? Show ‘em the crazy from the start and see if they can keep up.” She leaned forward over the table and winked at him. “Think you’ll be able to keep up?”

Todd played the game perfectly and looked her up and down like they really were about to start a first date. “With you, sweetheart, I’ll follow anywhere you lead.”

Jazz laughed and stood. “Come on, then. We’re going on an adventure.”

Todd grinned and joined her. “Lead the way.”

Once out of the building, Jazz led them away from the university. This being Boston, it wasn’t long before they came across a homeless man begging on the side of the street.

Wincing internally, she gripped Todd’s arm and said loudly, “Honestly, I don’t know why the cops don’t do a better job of keeping away the beggars.”

Todd looked at her in surprise. “What are you talking about? They have a right to exist and we should help them.”

“They’re probably fine. Everyone knows they only use the money they’re given on drugs and alcohol.” She pretended to glance at her phone before reaching back to shove it in her back pocket. Only to miss so it fell to the ground. “Ew, he’s looking at us. Come on, let’s cross the street.”

She could feel the way Todd tensed at her words, but he let himself be led across the street.

As soon as they were out of hearing shot, he turned to her and hissed, “What the hell was that?”

Jazz glanced back and saw the man picking up her phone. She looked away before he could catch her looking. “Come on, I’ll explain.” She grabbed Todd’s hand and led him down an alley to a much busier street. “I had to ditch my phone. I logged out of everything and left it unlocked so he can use it or resell it. I needed to make sure he wouldn’t try to return it to me and, well, what better way than being the worst person you can imagine?”

And now he was staring, open mouthed.

“They’ve had remote access to my phone for months and I couldn’t let them track us!” she insisted. Habit had her looking around for any sign of a white suit.

“Who can’t find us?”

Jazz shook her head. “The guys in white. Look, this is too public. I can’t say much else here. But meeting you, everything had to change. You’re in danger just by being near me and I refuse to be the reason you get hurt.”

“Why am I in danger?”

“Later!” Jazz hissed before wincing and looking around. She forced a smile back on her face and asked, in as normal a tone as she could manage, “What time is it? Do you know?”

He looked down at his phone. “Uh, looks like it’s almost five.”

“Oh great! Plenty of time for us to get something to eat before I bring you to our surprise destination.”

And from there, Jazz led Todd on a convoluted tour of Boston. They grabbed food at the Pru, then she took him to the green line. Where they traveled four stops before she jumped up in feigned surprise that they were on the wrong branch. So then they got off and hopped on the train going in the opposite direction.

Which was where she wanted to be going all along.

For once, she was happy the orange line was still under construction, because the shuffle of passengers from trains to buses and back just made their journey that much more complicated and harder to follow.

By the time they finally got to their stop, the sun had mostly set. The station was mostly empty and Jazz looked around for any sign of white suits or vans, but even when she didn't see any, she couldn't relax.

“Where are we going?” Todd asked for probably the dozenth time.

Jazz rolled her eyes. “We’ll be there in five minutes and then you’ll find out.”

She led him to the street, the crosswalk had lights over it, but the rest of the road was shrouded in darkness. They ran across without waiting for the walk symbol.

Once they crossed what was basically a divided highway, Jazz led them along the poorly lit and cracked sidewalk. Ahead of them they were approaching a river.

“It’s before the river,” muttered Jazz to herself. “Is this it?” She hesitated at the top of a sloping, unpaved drive that led to an industrial building that sat on the waterfront. “I think so. Apparently this building used to be a coffin factory. Cool, huh?”

“I don’t care for coffins,” was Todd’s terse reply.

Jazz flinched slightly. She knew he was death-adjacent. Should’ve known better than to mention coffins. “Right, sorry. Well, they aren’t made here anymore.” She made her way down the steep drive, Todd a step behind her.

“What is it now?”

“Apartments, I believe.”

Once at the bottom, she looked around and saw the old loading dock. Entering, she looked for the door on the left.

Only to hesitate once more. Two doors were on the left. She hadn’t heard anything about there being two doors. Taking a chance, she opened the first one.

Inside was a table where two women sat in front of a metal box. On the wall were a set of pegs already mostly filled with coats. And inside milled probably thirty or forty people.

The women smiled at Jazz. “Hi, have you two been here before?”

Jazz shook her head and pulled two twenties out of her wallet. “No. But I had a classmate come here and tell me about it. When I realized you had something going on tonight when I had a date? Figured it was a great place to come with my partner!”

She laughed. “We’re definitely unique here at the Night Cap.” She stamped their hands. “Show starts in half an hour, but feel free to mingle until then. Bathroom’s through the kitchen.”

“Thanks! We’re looking forward to tonight.”

Todd nodded his own thanks and followed Jazz into the room.

“What are we doing here?” he whispered in her ear.

“Hiding,” she whispered back. “I’ve never been here before. Never even taken this stop on the T before. When we leave here, we’ll get a motel room or something and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Is this necessary?”

“Without a doubt.”

Jazz could tell Todd didn’t fully believe her, but he dropped it. Jazz found a few people who were discussing that evening’s performers and the two of them joined the conversation.

-----

Part 2

I no longer do tag lists, but please check out the Subscription Post if you want notifications when I update.

So, I had a lot of fun with this section. The place Jazz takes Jason to? Real place. Though Night Cap isn't what the residents call it. Honestly, the real name is also impossible to google. If you don't know it exists, you would never find it (why Jazz runs from the GIW there). Out of respect for the residents of the apartment, though, I changed the name. I went to a show there and it was super weird trying to find it. Like, the directions in my email seriously said "enter the loading dock of the former coffin factory, find the door on the left, and slip the person standing there $10-20 cash. Don't touch anyone's personal belongings, please."

As we waited for the bathroom during set break, two of the residents were cooking dinner at the stove and we were chatting about how Regan was the worst.

10/10 would go again.

Anyone who has spent any time in Boston knows what I mean about the T being under construction. Annoying as hell, but it worked out for Jazz this time.

(The T is the name of the Boston train/subway system.)

The Pru refers to the Prudential building. The bottom level(s) are full of restaurants and shops (basically a high end shopping mall) and upper levels are offices. The top level is an observation deck that's open to the public, though I've never been.

[brown-little-robin]

I think I'm in the "conscious incompetence" stage of being a social animal in the real world and it sucks so majorly. bro what do you do after you realize you're bad at socializing and then in-person interaction gets harder because you know you're failing at it now.

[mareastrorum]

I’ve been working off and on with a longer post about villains and their roles in a story, but in light of the latest episode, one part seems especially relevant:

Villains and antagonists are different roles in a narrative. Some characters overlap, but they aren’t the same thing. A villain represents the wrong conclusion of something; they are the narrative’s spotlight on a destructive, immoral, or self-defeating way of handling a perceived problem. They aren’t necessarily opponents. In comparison, an antagonist is an obstacle for protagonists, whether they are right or wrong. If the story doesn’t dig into those issues, then that character is likely just an antagonist and shouldn’t be expected to carry much narrative weight. In narratives like an improv D&D actual play show, there’s a Schrodinger’s villain aspect going on here because these roles depend on the choices of multiple participants, so we can’t really judge except in hindsight.

That said, Vox Machina wasn’t going to fight against villains in episodes 113 and 114 because their story within the C3 narrative didn’t need a villain. VM wasn’t here for some overarching narrative conclusion to occur during their appearance. They were here to save Vax, break the bridge, and help prevent the end of the world. C3 isn’t their story; this side story is like the EXU breakaways. Every VM antagonist was someone we hadn’t really seen before and didn’t know much of anything about because making them face villains wouldn’t have made sense. They’re not here to face the narrative questions of C3.

I’ve had the impression that the story purpose to include VM and the MN is that they will be contrasts for the motivations and decisions that Bell’s Hells are going to make for the finale. However, because that is my understanding of their purpose, I don’t expect either of those teams to face any villains. They’re going to face antagonists. Maybe there will be some minor comparisons between the Weave Mind and Cognouza or the Cerberus Assembly, but I don’t anticipate those will be more than passing statements. It likely won’t be the focus of the interaction and the players probably won’t dig deep on it. The parties simply don’t have a reason to care why their opponents are doing this, there isn’t any motivation for them to be invested in correcting any wrong conclusions, and the players probably have character stuff they’d rather focus on.

Then, at the end, we’re going to see Bell’s Hells deal with the story’s actual villains: Ludinus Da’leth, Liliana Temult, and the other exaltants of the Ruby Vanguard. From Matt’s perspective as the DM, the villains are on the wrong path. Does Bell’s Hells agree? What are they going to do about it? Are they going to be heroic like VM, sacrificing their own wants and desires for a greater good, even if they take small moments for themselves? Or are they more like MN, who are like, fuck, no one else is gonna do this, and we don’t want the world to end, and apparently we’re experts on psychic bullshit, so we’re here killing some jackass I guess? Or something else?

Not every conflict within a story needs a villain. Sometimes it’s just a bunch of mean assholes so that the drama can focus on the protagonists and their hangups.

[nouverx]

Encounters with transphobes have been so rare for me lately that I always forget there's people out there who are STILL at the "being non binary isn't real/is a mental disorder" stage lmao. Have they not move on from that??

I've been out and living as an openly trans non binary person for 8 YEARS.

8. YEARS.

8 years is a lot. I've had time to watch conferences on the topic and read so many articles that I can't possibly link it all. I've seen a psychiatrist and 3 different therapists. Literally NONE OF THEM ever saw my transness and non binarity as a mental disorder or as "not real". I've mostly been working on dysphoria with them this whole time, which was way more of an issue than transness ever was. I've been through a whole self discovery journey that I can't possibly describe in a single post, had so many deep conversations about it with so many different people, experts and non experts included, during those 8. Long. Years.

People who are dismissing non binarity are just ridiculous to me now. "Being non binary isn't real" buddy those last 8 years have been VERY FUCKING REAL. You are deeply uninformed, far behind the whole topic and I'm so over people like you. Stfu.

[stevetwisp]

i saw deadpool and wolverine yesterday and i have never felt more like walt disney; ie, him seeing to kill a mockingbird and lamenting he will never make a movie like that, because he had, by that point, already built an empire around children's entertainment

bc i have spent so much time learning to draw girls and horses, that i- a gay man, having seen content that so connects with a deeper part of myself (being a gay man, angry), am frustrated i can't draw a man to save my life LMAO

[bedtimegiraffe]

The Blades general release and the Wicked hype have combined in my mind.

And now every time Aerin enters into counterproductive negative self-talk again

I want Mal to teach him the value of 'fake it til you make it' via Popular.

Think of Celebrated heads of state Or specially great communicators Did they have brains or knowledge?

Don't make me laugh They were popular! Please It's all about popular

It's not about aptitude It's the way you're viewed So it's very shrewd to be Very very popular Like me

[celebrate-lesbianism]

Officially so fed up with mainstream lesbian books that I am writing my own ✌🏻