#i remember that shit from like. 2015 ish??

[codfanficedits]

Before the mask - Part 1

Pairing: Simon Riley x Fem!Reader

Summary: Because Simon wasn’t born as Ghost.

Wordcount: 2033 | Rating: E! (18+ only!)

Warnings: Author has daddy issues and not the sexy kind, listening to masturbation.

A/N: Simon would be around 22/23 in this fic, so it would be set around 2015 ish? Anyway, I didn't have loving parents and I am projecting here.

Being in the military had it’s perks, you were free from your parents, you had worked hard enough, long enough to be rewarded with your own little quarters, and it wasn’t much, but it was yours, enough to retreat after a long day, a hard mission, it was yours.

The downsides? The walls were paper thin, you could hear your neighbour shitting after taco night, but eventually you got used to it. You were just really lucky the neighbour of your right side was Simon. The two of you had been working together for a while now, and it was safe to say that you had become friends.

On the other side of the wall was indeed Simon. Simon who had promised himself to never get attached again. He had escaped his childhood home, and he wanted to keep himself from getting hurt again.

That was until you came along, you with your soft smile, with your sparkling eyes, your beautiful hair. And if you were just beautiful, he could’ve fucked you and ghosted you afterwards, but no, no you were not only pretty, you were kind, thoughtful, smart and sure as hell feisty.

Feisty enough to bite back when needed, to stand up for yourself or others, but sweet enough to remember his favourite sweets, or his birthday, and he could feel himself falling for you.

He realised it at breakfast, he had been wanting to see you, to talk to you, and you weren’t there, and for the first time, it felt as if something, someone was missing. A small piece of his soul being ripped away from him and he had to pretend all day that it didn’t bother him, while his mind was flooding with his worries. He didn’t recall there being any missions, and surely you would’ve told him if you were to be on leave? Or worse, leave the army?

He could feel the tension leave his shoulders when he finally saw you again, a scowl on your face when you left the toilets. Now that he thought of it, he hadn’t heard your alarm go off this morning, and the fact that you were the only cleaning toilets told him that you had overslept. With a silent chuckle he promised himself that he would wake you up every morning, to safe you from such horror.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to confess, he just simply didn’t know how to. Every time he wanted to, every time he wanted those words to leave his lips, you just had to look up at him with those sweet, sweet eyes and he couldn’t. His voice would leave him, and his courage was nowhere to be seen, so he just kept quiet, tried to keep you close by telling you stupid jokes, army humour as he called it.

To make matters worse, the walls were thin, too thin, he could hear you stir in your sleep, he could hear you on those lonely nights where your hand wandered underneath your blanket, and he would promise himself to not listen to it, to give you that privacy, but after the third time he couldn’t. He just had to listen to make sure that you weren’t calling out his name, because if you did, he would’ve come to the rescue.

But you didn’t, not once did his name leave your pretty lips, just soft moans and whiny whimpers. It was enough for him, enough to make his own fist twitch in a desperate need for you, his hips bucking up in an attempt to keep his bed from creaking too much, he couldn’t have you hear him listen to you.

And tonight would be no different, Simon had made himself comfortable in his bed, waiting for your little ritual to start, his eyebrow raising when he didn’t hear those sounds he was so familiar with. Instead your voice was a hushed whisper and he couldn’t make out what you were saying. It frustrated him, who were you talking to, and why?

His blood ran cold when he could hear the loud laughter of a man, he kicked off his blanket, putting on his grey sweatpants before he left his room. Fist knocking on your door while he tried to calm himself.

You weren’t his, and he had no right to be so possessive over you, but what were you thinking? Seeking out the solace of another man while he was right there?

He would, of course, pretend that it would be about safety, did you know how dangerous it was to bring a random stranger into the base? Did you even think about it.

He knocked again, more urgent. “Open the door.”

You opened the door, an apologetic smile on your face. Your eyes fixate on Simon and he can feel the anger fading away. You looked so sweet, so innocent.

You on the other hand, had no clue what he was thinking, you had been on a skype call with your family, and in all your joy you had forgotten to keep track of your volume level.

"Was I too loud?" You asked. "I'm sorry."

His look is stern, his fingers clenched into an almost white-knuckled grip. Yet there's something else lurking on the verge of those eyes, the beginnings of something...painful, an emptiness from the core of his identity.

"Don't apologize," he replies softly. His voice, too, is low and breathy. But there's a calmness there, the lack of which would've set you on edge. "Just...let me in."

"Yeah sure, sure." You said as a response to his request. You stepped to the side, to let him in. "I'm on a Skype call with my family. My dad laughs really hard. So you might have heard him"

 An idea pops up in your head, you knew a thing or two about his backstory, about his childhood. And it always made you really sad that he never experienced the true love a family could give.

"Want to say hi?"

"Mhm," is his only initial response, but as he steps inside your room, he's greeted by your smile, your soft, almost angelic eyes. Those, for a moment, have him mesmerized. He almost forgets what he's doing here. Then he remembers, when you offer him a chance to meet the people who bring you joy.

"Sure." He steps deeper inside your room, but he doesn't leave the door open, closing it behind him, so the two of you are tucked away in your own little world Your eyes light up. "Oh they're going to be delighted to meet you." You had told your parents about him plenty of times, maybe it was the little crush you had, maybe it was just because you were a nice person, who would know?

You grab his hand, dragging him along to your bed, urging him to sit down, before you placed your laptop on your lap, making sure the both of you are on screen.

"Mom, dad, this is Simon!"

He's never had a family like this of his own, and he's both nervous and curious about how they'll react. His expression, then, is one of curiosity. He's seated beside you, his hands clenched against his thighs, the only thing resembling a weapon, an automatic coping mechanism to keep him safe, just as you set the laptop up. His eyes are locked on the screen, the image of your parents on the other side.

You’re a mix of your parents, that much he can tell, and it is fun to see little pieces of them in you. Your father is a more social person, he smiles wide at Simon. Your mother is more reserved, but the smile of your father caused your mother to smile too.

"Good to meet you boy!"

For a moment, he doesn't respond. His eyes are glued to the screen, but they travel back and forth between your parents. The sight of them smiling genuinely, of them together...it fills him with an ache in his chest. And before he knows it, he's fighting back a few tears. God damn it, now is not the time to get all emotional.

He smiles. "It's nice to meet you too," he replies, his voice barely above a whisper.

You look at him as your gaze softens, it is the first time you have seen him so vulnerable, so you give him a little pat on his knee, a little encouragement.

"So." Your father continues. "You've been keeping my girl safe?"

He looks down at your hand for a few seconds, at your gentle touch. That, more than anything, is what makes him crack. He reaches out to grasp your hand, squeezing it a little harder than would be expected.

"I have," he replies in a strained voice, as if fighting with himself. "But, if you don't mind me saying so, she keeps me safe."

The comment gets rewarded with a laughter from your father.

"Ah yes. Our girl has always been a feisty one." You know the shimmer in your father’s eyes way too well and you groan. You have heard this story way too many times before.

"One time, when she was a little toddler, in kindergarten, one of the other kids, a boy, tried to kiss her, and she beat him with a plastic bucket."

The ghost of a small smile appears on Simon's face, although it's quickly replaced by another pang of that ache in his chest. The image...it's almost like seeing you as a kid again, although he never had the chance.

"How many stitches did the boy need?" He teases.

Your father chuckles, and you roll your eyes. You can tell he'll be bringing this up again in a few years, if not sooner.

"None." You grumbled. "But I did bust his lip before they pulled me off."

Your mother chuckled too. "She was such a cute little girl, but such a temperament."

After that your mother gets up, and gets out of your view for a second.

You lean towards Simon a little closer. "If she shows you my baby pictures, I'll lose it." You whispered softly, making sure your parents couldn’t hear.

And sure enough your mother returns, with a large picture book, holding it up for the camera.

It shows a picture of you, no older than four, hair in two pigtails and a big smile on your face, holding a blue bucket. "Can you imagine?"

Your parents aren't the only ones laughing at this memory, as Simon is chuckling softly at the sight of a younger version of you. His eyes are fixed on the picture, the two pigtails, how pure and innocent...

...until you remind him that he's sharing this moment with your family, and not the one he was born into. So he pushes it aside for a moment, and focuses on you. "It's a nice picture," he says softly.

You feel a little bad, knowing his upbringing wasn't the best one, and you give his a little squeeze, an apology and reassuring gesture in one.

Your mother is unaware of his internal struggle, as she holds up a new page. Five year old you in a pink tutu. "She refused to wear anything else for six days." Her mother and father laugh.

Your eyes are gentle, as you squeeze his hand back. And that, it softens the blow of what's happening. Your parents, the memories they share with you, it's something he has never experienced. But sharing it with you, that makes it real enough.

His expression softens as he see the new page. The pink tutu, that smile...He’s almost jealous again.

"She looks so beautiful," He whisper. And his voice, it's filled with that same longing for love.

The gaze of your father softens, a proud smile on his face. "She is."

"I know she can take care of herself but.." her father gets cuts off by the sound of the doorbell. "Excuse me for a second." He said, as he got up.

Your mother closes the picture album. "You know Simon, next time you two are allowed on leave you should come with her."

[shalvis]

List of online people I rlly miss and it’s bc I cut ties bc I was (and am) maladjusted

Katarina league of legends roleplayer circa 2015, I was lux. I remember him being Irish irl and rping lux and kat smuggling each other into noxus/Demacia and showing each other childhood spots (I remember one of lux’s tour spots was a favorite ice cream shop).

J4 roleplayer from around the same time, we were married and I don’t remember if it got creepy or smth (I was 17 and kinda repulsed by smut rp but I did it to try to look grown-) but I associate j4 with positive emotions bc of you

Someone with astora (?) in their url around 2016 when I was into mtg and went by jace. Loved dark souls and the sun, helped me through a lot of shit and felt drawn to a poem about being the sun, blog header was a line from that poem

Someone I met on msparp named aster/sterling that rped meulin and I was nepeta. This had to have been in 2014/15. Tried to be polyam with him and felt too weird to stay in touch when I got cold feet.

Hawkeye rper on gaiaonline who rped with me as Loki in 2013(?) who I feel may have killed herself but I was genuinely in love with her and she introduced me to Lana del Rey (dark paradise was the most memorable song you sent me)

Person I met at a con in South Carolina in 2013 whose email and tumblr account were the same, disappeared off the face of the earth after being grounded or smth, had abiogenesis in their url and I think was from out of town, I was nepeta with blonde hair

Lots of people from a league kin server in 2021 including a pyke, a mordekaiser, and a Leona

Guy on tinierme forums in 2011 named pink Alex who talked to me a lot , had a hetalia themed account bc of course I did it was 2011

Homestuck rpers on gaiaonline, 2012, one was a kanaya I felt like was an older sister to me, a gamzee ? Two gamzees? That called me neppy. I’ve been in touch recently but not very recently, i don’t know I had a huge bad habit of cutting contact a lot and I wish I had you guys in my life still

2012 gaia shit again but a furry snow leopard who interacted with me as nepeta who helped me through a nasty situation and I had fanart of our avatars in my old deviantart. Made a nightvale theme for me (?)

A mutual on an old account when my url was xiiiroxas or xiii-roxas I had the phone number of that I called riku. I remember the url but don’t want to list it but it had stopbreakingmy in it. I remember texting you on the way home from a concert on southern backroads about seeing so many deer!

Kik messenger friend who rped Axel and rlly liked joshneku, had nekomata in their name? Bought me an arpacaso when I was scared of my parents knowing I gave out my address so you shipped it to my (at the time) bfs house. It was pink and had lace on it iirc!

Edea person who crocheted and loved Etrian Odyssey and also had me on kik I was lowkey in love with you but didn’t know how to communicate that. You made me a crochet dragon scale dice bag to give to my (at the time) bf for Christmas? Anniversary? Birthday? Idr exactly. 2016-ish

Probably others

[palepinkgoat]

First Line Analysis game!

I love this! I remember doing it a long time ago but I think that was before my newest fic. Thanks for the tags @wehangout and @energievie

RULES: post the first lines of your last 10 fics/chapters posted on AO3 (if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics) and try to draw some conclusions.

1. "Hold the fuck still." - The Ink is a Witness to This

2. Ian stands in his tiny kitchen, carefully unfolding the paper from his coat pocket. - Paragraphs

3. Ian was the one who said it first, back in the hotel room. - White Buttons

4. It’s a shitty apartment building. - Restoration

5. He smells the same.  - Proof

6. It’s too early to be awake, but he is. - Life, or Something

7. Mickey’s watching Ian fumble with the window, hitting the corners a little with his fist, trying to loosen the stubborn places where it’s stuck. - Minutes

8. Ian’s feet pressed fast on the pavement, anxious to hit the hospital door. - Find the Frank (Tag, You're It) this was a group fic, I only wrote the last chapter, which is where this line is from.

9. When Mickey first saw it, that age he can’t remember, it was hanging up in the cupboard with all The Shit in it. - The Vise

10. People should know how to do rock paper scissors, but it’s pretty weird how many people hesitate and have to start over.  - Rock Paper Scissors no one reads this as it's a Debbie pov lol

Interesting! I like how I got more concise as I grew as a fic writer! I like short openers in general, but I guess it took me a bit to get there. I don't think I used Find the Frank as an example last time as that fic was kind of tricky. Each writer had 24 hours to write a chapter based on the chapter before (like all in a chain) and by the time it got to me there were all these cliffhangers to deal with and I had to tie it up. It was a fun challenge but people don't usually like my chapter. Oh well! Overall I was reminded how I cranked them out in 2015-ish but I've slowed so much as I've gone along. After restoration became more popular over the years it's been daunting to write because I have imposter syndrome and don't want to let anyone downnnn. Also I have to write more of my newer fic. I have some done though!

I'm going to tag @celestialmickey @crossmydna and you!

[justabigoldnerd]

A Guide to Works by JustABigOldNerd

I saw @hypnostheory do this and I have 38 (holy shit!) works in the TMFU Fandom on Ao3, so I wanted to as well!

"I wanna read somethings soft and sweet" Okay! I don't have a lot, but:

Kintsukuroi - Set in the Winged Spies universe, Solo catches up with an old friend

I'm Going to the Stars Tonight - Playful (and drunk) winged spies

In Summer We Can Taste The Rain - Solo catches a winged Illya preening in the rain

Ravens Love The Snow - A winged Solo can't resist the call of the snow

A Christmas Peril - A Christmas fic!

Surrender Yourself - a funny little pre-slash ficlet based on a writing prompt found here

I Want To Fade Away With You - Modern-ish AU company paintball tournament goes (hilariously) wrong

In The Moonlight, We Let It Go - Poolside confessions

"I'd like some light angst, nothing too serious, please" Gotcha covered:

One More or One Less (Nobody's Worried) - Winged Spies canon rewrite

The Toil of Expectations - Medieval AU with a happy ending and a couple of explicit smut scenes

"Q" Is For Kid - the trio accidentally acquire a child on their mission to stop a Nazi faction from developing a nerve gas

To Grow Old In Simplicity - this is mostly happy, the angst comes from the fear of outliving your partners and the struggles that come with being an aging (former) spy

The Moment I Knew I'd No Choice But To Love You - the agnst in this one is more memory related

Is That The Kinda Way To Face The Burning Heat? - porn with a little bit of angsty backstory

Nothin' But The Water And The Sunrise Now - light angsty backstory with some fun NOS-induced moments and a happy ending

All Eyes On Me (Your Eyes On Me) - this one's a bit heavier, but the angst is just internalized homophobia and Illya not wanting to be a honeypot but needing to. Has masturbation and explicit smut

I Am Scared Of Nothing - religious trauma

A Rather Frightening Thing - religious trauma

As Sharp And Serious As A Pistol In The Eye - canon rewrite (explicit smut)

It Takes Three To Tango - post-canon

"Alright, now I want the heavy stuff. Gimme the angst!" Coming right up, my friend!!

Emotional Angst:

You Had To Be A Big Shot, Didn't You (You Had To Open Up Your Mouth) - Winged Solo backstory

My Wings Have Been So Denied - Winged Illya as a child

She'll Tell You She's an Orphan After You Meet Her Family - Winged Gaby grieving (explicit smut)

You Take Me In Your Arms When Walls Are Closing In - Body Horror in (false)memory

Pretty Piece of Flesh - sexual trauma (explicit sexual content)

The Awful Things We Do To Make The Head Go Quiet - near suicide attempt

Lost On You - internalized homophobia and period typical homophobia

Physical Harm:

Quietly, It Slips Through Your Fingers, Love (Falling From You Drop By Drop) - Alternative ending where Illya shoots Solo (he lives)

Let Me Be Your Own Icarian Carrion - Winged Spies, Illya goes down in the water

One Deep Breath Out From The Sky - Missing scene fic after the motorcycle crash

Whumptober 2023 - "The Man From Uncle (2015)" - I mean. This is Whumptober. So.

Will You Remember All The Danger We Came From? - Vampire Illya prequel. Body Horror.

All My Love And Terror Balanced There - Illya wakes up as a Vampire. (Explicit smut)

I'd Block The Sun (If You Want It Done) - the trio's plane goes down in the middle of the ocean and they have to survive on a deserted island

Grounded And Giving And Darkening Scorn - Illya's past comes back to haunt him

The Injury of Finally Knowing You - 5+1 Times fic

Major Character Death (temporary):

The End Is All I Can See (And It Scares The Hell Out Of Me) - time loop

"I want that one restaurant critic AU that will be updates eventually but hasn't for a while!" Uh, oddly specific, and thank you for wanting to read this unfinished fic, and I WILL finish it eventually, but, uh, here ya go!:

Michelin Star Spy - Illya is a food critic swept up in spydom.

[isakyakihasmyheart]

Mind Dump 5 years on...

This is the first time I've logged into this account since 2019(ish) so I'm pretty sure there's going to be no one left here but if you are, Hi! I'm just going to dump this post here because I am a tumblr girl at heart and laying my most deepest thoughts to strangers on the internet is all I've ever known...

After the recent news of the death of Liam Payne 2 days ago I've been thinking about this website non-stop. Like many people, this news hit me so unexpectedly emotionally. Grieving someone I never knew, but also grieving a time in my life I can never ever experience again.

My life has changed so much since I last logged into this account, and yet so little at the same time. I started this account in early 2017 after I got into SKAM back in 2016, abandoning a previous Dan and Phil centred account I had from 2014. I was still in school, the last season of SKAM lining up with my own life of leaving school and starting university. I remember thinking that was so cool, watching these characters I grew to adore also experiencing their last year alongside me. I started university in late 2018, studying to become a nurse but yet never got over SKAM. Instead, I became obsessed DRUCK and connected to Matteo in a way I haven't ever experienced with another fictional character since (the only close match being Connell from Normal People in that one uni scene iykyk). However, I ultimately ended up abandoning this account in 2019.

I don't actually know why I stopped coming on this website. Because since I was 14 this website was all I could ever think about. Me and best friend in 2014 were absolutely obsessed with tubmlr. We would literally spend hours on this website reblogging the most random things, and things that at that point in our lives meant so much to us. And with this recent news, I've felt this strong tsunami of nostalgia for that period of my life.

I was never a 1D blog, but I loved 1D. Not very openly as I had older sisters who made fun of me for it. I squashed any outwardly expression of my love for them to avoid this at all costs. A major cost being turning down to go and see them in concert in 2014/2015 when my friend (mentioned above) had an extra ticket. I think about that often and regret it every time. When covid came around and we were in lockdown I was in the mid/end of my 2nd year of uni, 20 years of age. I know a lot of people talk of how they regressed back to their younger passions, and so did I. I had the full 1D experience I never let myself have, not caring about others' opinions on it (mainly my older sister). I listened to their music nonstop every single day, watching so many edits and even reading fan fics. I truly felt like I was 14 again. But there was always that voice in the back of my head saying, "you're too late, it's not the same, you've missed out on it all." I yearned with everything in me to be that teenage girl again. It was during this period in 2020 that my family relationships also became very volatile and dysfunctional, meaning 1D became an even bigger safe space for me.

I've always been a nostalgic person in the worst way possible. I can't help but let the regrets of things I never did consume me. The thoughts of how different my life could be, how different I could be, it always plagues me. I know this sounds dramatic because I'm talking about a 2010s boyband, believe me I know it does.

But I was 14 when my life started to go to shit, when my mental health first started to decline and truthfully it has never recovered. Maybe because in the back of my mind, I always felt like that 14 year old girl, scared and alone and hurting so bad with no one to help her. And the unbelievable shocking news of Liam Payne dying, it's just transporting me back to that period of my life. Even more so as I lost my dad very unexpectedly and traumaticly in March this year.

I just feel so full of grief for so many things all at once, all separate yet all so intertwined. I would truly give anything and everything I have to just relive being that teenage girl, even the unspeakable bad parts. And it makes me so angry to know I can't. And of course, I can't, because that's not how time works! Yet it feels like I can't breathe when I come to that realisation. In all its dramatic flare, it genuinely feels like it's killing me that I can't ever experience that life again.

All in all, I'll never truly forget this website. Especially not this account, I loved this account! Maybe this is just the part of growing up I'm currently struggling with. I'm 24 now, which in itself is scary because no matter what I am and always will be that 14 year old girl.

Girlhood is forever and always xx

[trenchcrows]

People have been shipping trudeau and macron since macron was elected back around 2015 ish (idk exact dates cuz I don't wanna look it up) it's like a THING they were from what I can remember like... the hot young progressive leaders at that time and they kept idk talking privately on flower covered balconies or some shit

Anyways trudeau recently got divorced for reasons I couldn't be fucked to look up BUT some people joked that it was because him and macron where fucking

Which like HONESTLY kinda would hope that was true just for macrons sake like you met your wife when she was your tenth grade school teacher??? OOF you need to get out of there my guy people don't dislike her for the age gap people dislike her because she maintained a relationship with a 15 year old and then married the man (soooo fucked up)

Anyways ya people have been into these two togeather for like a decade they're in the news togeather a lot they have similar politics if I remember correctly they are not queer as far as I know but that's never stopped the RPFs before

canada's politics baffles me

[ahiddenpath]

Otakon 2023

Lil ramblin' about the con beneath the cut! But above the cut, my spoils!

I haven't been to a con since NYC Comicon in 2015, so this was a ride!

Amazing Stuff:

-Meeting @citrus-cactus at the Digimon redubbed movies screening! It was so amazing to meet her after being in the same online community for... Like... God, who even knows, like ten years?!?!?! And she is so lovely!

-THE DIGIMON REDUBBED MOVIES SCREENING!!! More on that here!

-My haul above! A sweet lil Kou-chan figure and a Luna plush from the dealer's room and an artbook from Shouri and a Sonic keychain from the artist's alley!

Not my fave stuff and neutral observations:

For reference, I went to Otakon all three days from roughly age 14 straight through college?? Well, in college it would have been Sat/Sun only. After that, I guess I didn't go that often, but any comparisons I make are to that time period (roughly 2003-2011 ish).

The DC convention center as a venue:

-The convention center was easy to get to from the Metro!

-The building was much bigger and better able to handle the crowd than the Baltimore Convention Center.

-There was. NO SIGNAGE. WHATSOEVER. For ANYTHING. Absolutely horrendous. What there WERE were volunteers/employees who bellowed directly into your face to... Do the things you were already doing. Or to... Walk the other way around the pillar. Because the other side leads into the faerie realm or some shit, idek.

-The guide books used to have maps, schedules, opening and closure times, etc. There was a map in this guidebook, but the opening and closing times for different parts of the cons and the event schedule were not printed. Meaning I had to use my phone to know, for example, when and where the Digimon screening event was... And there was poor reception the dealer's room in the lowest level.

Although the event schedule site couldn't load, I was blessed that some of Citrus' discord messages were getting through. She alerted me that the screening room was filling up and told me the room number (bless!!!! Thank!!!).

The con compared to ones I remember:

-I was shocked that there was a digimon panel and two separate Digimon screenings in one day? And the Digimon movie redub screening event was full to capacity- I missed the first film because I was next in line at the shut door D: So, like, Digimon is alive, and I saw two Daisuke cosplays, a Ken cosplay, and someone with a Patamon plush attached to their baseball cap. Patahat! There wasn't much merch. Citrus spotted the main place offering digimerch and sent me there (I got the Kou figure there). She also saw the lone Digimon fanart in Artist's Alley, and we found someone who made baby stage plushes. Another dealer's room place had some vintage plushies of the digimon that looked... like they had been through... some stuff.

Basically, Digimon seems to still be very much alive in terms of audience interest, but not so much the merch and fan art. I don't know what to make of that.

-The con seemed a lot less lively than the ones I remember. I only saw a few interesting cosplays (like the kind where you go, how did they even do that?!). My husband pointed out that the hall is far larger, however, and that the cosplay folks have tons of photo studio rooms to go to. They were likely there.

-The extra space was deeply appreciated (compared to what I'm used to from the Baltimore days), but... Okay, so the Dealer's Room provided empty space. Every aisle had an end area to "pull over in," whether it's for a water or food break, a photo op, or to wait for your bud to make a purchase.

PEOPLE STILL STOPPED DEAD DIRECTLY IN THE MAIN THROUGHWAY. WHY. WOULD YOU DO THAT. PLEASE I AM BEGGING-

My husband says I'm dreaming if I think the provided empty space will stop people from doing that, lol!

-DEMON SLAYER. EVERYTHING IS DEMON SLAYER. THERE IS NOTHING BUT DEMON SLAYER. Look, I enjoy Demon Slayer too, but good gracious, it's clearly the Naruto of the 2020s in terms of popularity.

-I learned who Rem is. Good God there were a lot of Rem figures.

-Looking at my purchases, I bought for three "classic" IPs and supported an artist I've followed for a long time. No new stuff. And I'd say the merch overall was about half "vintage" stuff and half newer stuff. Lots of Sailor Moon, DBZ, Pokemon, etc.

General Con Hardships:

-So a friend suggested to me recently that I might have sensory issues. I balked, because jfc have you seen my list of issues, please don't suggest another, I beg, I am full up, can I have some less sir.

Uh basically she mentioned how much she used to love going to the movies and I said, "I don't go anymore, I can't understand the voice audio." And she was like- Okay so it's true that some movies don't mix sound properly and can't be understood well, but if it's all movies... Um, babe, I think that's an auditory processing issue.

She suggested I get ear plugs, and god DAMN I wish I had them at the con.

Riding in the metro in tunnels? The whoosing and clanking hurt. Volunteers absolutely bellowing in your face at the con? Look, I guess it's their job, but please I am going to cry if you scream in my face like that. People playing music at the loudest volume in the dealer's room and hallways? Why, why would you do that. Someone was walking around playing an ocarina on the way to the dealer's room, so I was stuck with her for about 10-15 min, and I genuinely wanted to lock the damn thing in her backpack on a timer somehow, lmao. Look, ocarinas are easy enough to get the correct note out of, but they are difficult to control tonally. That high-pitched, harsh PHWEEEE noise clawed at my ears.

Of course, you can't control other people. The best I can do is accommodate myself to suit the place I'm going, which means... The damned ear plugs.

Apparently sensory issues and anxiety go hand-in-hand, as of course people feel stressed if the signals around them aren't being processed in the "typical" way, causing strain.

So... The con was exhausting and just... Difficult. But! I'm really glad I went! And I'll just buy the gd earplugs, here's what was recommended to me.

Also, PS: I found a piece of rare digimon merch that was way out of my budget at a dealer's room stand. But when I came home and looked it up, I found it for 35% less (which, at this price point, was a lot). AND NOW I HAVE AN ABSOLUTE TREASURE ON THE WAY AND I CANNOT WAIT TO SHOW YOU! Also, honestly check the retail on stuff in the dealer's room before you buy, this must be why there's no reception down there-

I am ready to not attend a con until next year! But to also go next year! Maybe I'll meet more of my online pals!!!! :D

[ashmp3]

teo who have been your fashion it girls in terms of style etc. either past or present

omg i have been thinking about this ask the whole day and night i am so excited to dive in because well... we are gonna dive in. its teo ashmp3 reporting for duty hello its only right! ALSO THANKS FOR ASKING!!!! and that picture... i need him to sleep in my ribcage.

well okay we have to start from the Beginning which means -> my beautiful mommy. she was thee it girl the kind that takes a train from her tiny city in east serbia straight to Belgrade so she can go on a shopping spree... see i take it after her. but okay after my mom come bratz dolls. And rihanna. and fashion magazines... we are in the early 00s i am in primary school and i read OK! and Bravo religiously LMFAO i have a crush on rihanna and nicole scherzinger and lil wayne and im living my life. Oh did i mention i made moodboards bc i also wanted to see if there is any method to the madness and i think there is but u be the judge. anyway all of the bratz dolls i put i had LMFAO i also had a cameron doll and he had baggy cargo military-ish pants and u can bet i made my dad buy me the same ones so i really was Inspired. Also i just put early 00s baddies that were very popular vibe in serbia - bleached straight hair (or BLACK pitch black) with thick extensions, gem teeth, fur jackets, orange foundation. i wanted to be them so bad... but alas i was 9.

next we go into my teenage years which means two things -> fashion bloggers (peep tamara kalinić if u can because i followed her when she looked like that LMFAO. her and zorannah shaped me) meaning zoella and the ginger girl and many many more i cant find. The girl with wings and black dress is a croatian baddie i followed on ask.fm and i had a raging crush on her like a lunatic LMFAO i still remember her being pisces with libra rising. anyway i wanted to be like her saur bad she was so fine to me. Next, we are entering 2013/2014 territory so of course effy, ahs (s1 and coven), chloe sevigny, courtney love, models off duty fits (especially chanel iman, rosie, sasha etc etc), taylor momsen and alexa were my SHIT. and tbh i did dress like this 100% so i will say very accurate 15yo teo fit slash vibe🧘🏼‍♀️ a bit grungy very much a tumblr girl (i did have one even back then but i deleted it in 2015 hehehe)

And now i cant even tell except i have always been into fashion, and i used to be very experimental so i know what suits me and makes me feel the best. I am very tame now compared to before and much more classic and covered lol but i feel like i can style my clothes in a fun and interesting way even though it might not seem that at the first glance. I put some 90s models i get inspired by, olsen twins ofc and i always loved jane birkin a lot especially in the summer.

For the end i put some people that i didnt know where to squeeze in and they are kind of their own personal category. Even back in 2015 i used to love krystal and her fashion always spoke to me. Rosie is my girl and whatever she wears i 1. do to 2. she inspires me to try if i havent already. i remember the first time i saw sarah linh-tran and it changed my life i am not joking. i used to dress more like her when i was at uni. i always liked carolyn bassette and i always loved bella hadid and her fashion... i even put a picture (venice one) i had as a lockscreen for ages. i had like 3 in rotation of her in my lifetime like its serious LMFAO

[lookwhatilost]

to return to this thought and keep it relatively brief, tumblr 2011-2014 wasn't what most people outside tumblr thought it was. The popular perception outside here was that it was some sort of sjw hellhole, when in reality, it's better thought of at the time as a warzone, with no particular side really having total control of the site. i would say that until 2014, in general, the anti-sjw side was winning, and of course the "hipster side of tumblr" (read: normal people who use instagram now) was always the biggest, and the "fandom side" could go either way depending on which part of the fandom you walked into.

within the sjw side of tumblr, you had a lot of different factions, which more or less unified into one unruly chaotic blob sometime around 2017-ish. but in 2014, the anime communists were still a relatively small faction on the site, and the bigger names on the sjw side were people like medievalpoc, who was notoriously exposed as lying about their ethnicity and for getting a significant amount of the history wrong or oversimplified (the blog's theme in case you forgot, was to point out non-white people existing in european history). other things are a lot like how people might imagine – great focus placed on offensive jokes, on particular approaches to social issues, things like that. but what might surprise people who didn't use tumblr at the time, is that a lot of the people who were in that sjw side were very different to the outside perception of tumblr as being soft and sad about having ~le fee fees hurt~, but were actually extremely aggressive people, o, were just people who held a real life ideology that basically matched the people who say, comment on youtube and say that huey's ronald reagan speech in the boondocks represents them perfectly.

something changed around 2015-ish. whereas before, most people would respond to someone saying "cisheteropatriarchy sounds weird lol" or "these critical theory texts sound a little goofy" with defensive and earnest explanations of why you only think this because of a particular bias society has inspired in you, the freedom to actually be able to make fun of this stuff developed. I remember distinctly posts about bikini bottom written in the style of critical theory discourse at the time, and in fact, this is the year that gave us the actual term discourse as it's used on the internet now! it comes from here, of this era! it was a term that was used by tumblr leftists to make fun of what tumblr leftism was like, primarily arguments after argument after argument over the most inane shit (yes, even to us) with no resolution in sight, but also over things you were convinced had to be important, melded together with the inane shit in a way where nobody could cleanly separate the two. hence, why it just got reduced to the discourse chef meme image, to sort of sum up a general frustration with what existed at the time.

this transition from the earnest white feminist posting to aggressive irony leftism never actually stopped, it just kept going and going and going, until now on you can use homophobic slurs and tell people to kill themselves and it's generally socially acceptable. not to say current tumblr is good or a haven of epistemic perfection, but it's stupid in different ways than most people imagine because almost nobody has actually ever used tumblr, and so most people can't imagine what it was actually like.

it's quite bizarre that this is one of the most influential websites and subcultures of all time, but also is barely actually known and understood by nearly anyone, and almost all of this is because this website has like the worst fucking SEO ever, and whenever I want to find an old, famous post, no I can't lol, I feel very very lucky whenever I manage to locate a post from the old days that sums everything up for me (I have a particular favorite about discourse flip flopping). it's not documented well. there are popular tumblr posts out there – in fact, I can even think of ones that I wrote and are spread around in screenshots – that only make true sense in the context of what other posts were popular on different dashboards at the time, and that's knowledge that's almost completely lost to time and that you had to be there for. everything else important about tumblr is even more poorly documented. i think the internet would be a very different place if tumblr had had good SEO all along.

[max--phillips]

Pulling this out of the replies because my thoughts got too long lmao @ghoulettesinspace but yes exactly!!

I remember when my dad and my grandpa took me to the Indy 500 in… well it must’ve been 2008 (I thought maybe it was ‘07 but she actually finished that race), I remember being bummed as hell that she crashed and didn’t finish.

I grew up a stones throw from Indianapolis and my grandpa, who’s a hobbyist race photographer, used to get tickets to the 500 every single year (kinda like how you’d get, like, season football tickets?)—even though I didn’t follow racing, I knew the 500 was a big deal. Tbh if you grew up in Indiana at all, especially in central-ish Indiana, it was probably presented to you as this staple of Hoosier culture that brings people to Indianapolis from far and wide, not unlike something like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. And like, it is—it’s essentially the Super Bowl of racing (except it’s at the start of the season, not the end, but that’s neither here nor there) and the entire month of May is jam-packed with events throughout Indy and at IMS, and like, pretty major celebrities (actors, musicians, athletes, other drivers…) come out and it’s a whole thing. Like, Keanu Reeves was here this weekend. Tom Brady, Terry Crews, Creed (the whole band), David Letterman. All of these people were 2 miles away from me today. Point is: it’s not called “the greatest spectacle in racing” for no reason.

Anyway, when I went, I was (at the time) a 10 year old girl, and seeing these women (there were THREE that year—her, Sarah Fisher, and Milka Duno) do THEEEEEEEE RACE was like. Eye-opening to me (even though I was already being a belligerent little feminist with nonbinary proclivities before I even know what any of that was). *I* can totally do stuff that people say women can’t do. Because women CAN do that. (Can we please for the love of god go back to this brand of feminism? Please? Everything happening right now is rolling us back decades I can’t take it anymore)

And now she has a podcast with episodes titled things like “why I left the Democratic Party” and “why big pharma are hiding stem cell therapy” and “the truth about the border/demanding action on border crime” and “why they are hiding the truth about Egypt” (??????) and fucking. Starseed shit, which is like, known cult bullshit.

So how we went from “I’m just as capable as all the men here, just let me be a driver” to “right wing grifter activities” is astonishing to me, but unfortunately it’s not unique and tends to happen when successful, privileged white women don’t examine anything about how they got to where they are.

Okay so this went off the rails so if you want to see some information about women at the 500 (and some comparison to NASCAR and F1) and the races they participated in, it’s under the cut

Nine (9) women have raced in the Indy 500. (Though 10 have passed the driver’s test—Desiré Wilson passed the driver’s test in 1982 but failed to qualify for the race.) Today was the 109th 500. Of those, 31 have had at least one female driver. The only races with multiple female drivers have been 2000, 2007-2013, and 2015. The most recent race with at least one female driver was 2023.

28.4% of Indy 500s have had at least one female driver

There have only been 9 races with more than one female driver - 8.2%

6 races with 3 or more female drivers - 5.5%

3 races with four female drivers (which is the highest number of female drivers in the 500 to date) - 2.7%

Our 9 female drivers are (and I would like to point out here for any F1 enjoyers: I don’t think starts means the same thing here as it does in F1. Starts means they actually raced in the 500. F1 confuses me so don’t come at me okay?):

Janet Guthrie - 3 starts, 77-79

Lyn St. James - 7 starts, 92-97, 00

Sarah Fisher - 9 starts, 00-04, 07-10

Danica Patrick - 8 starts, 05-11, 18

Milka Duno - 3 starts, 07-09

Ana Beatriz - 4 starts, 10-13

Simona de Silvestro - 6 starts, 10-13, 15, 21

Pippa Mann - 7 starts, 11, 13-17, 19

Katherine Legge - 3 starts, 12-13, 23

So, our races with more than one woman:

2000 with 2: Lyn St. James and Sarah Fisher

2007-2009 all with the same 3: Sarah Fisher, Danica Patrick, and Milka Duno

2010 with 4: Sarah Fisher, Danica Patrick, Ana Beatriz, Simona de Silvestro

2011 with 4: Danica Patrick, Ana Beatriz, Simona de Silvestro, and Pippa Mann

2012 with 3: Ana Beatriz, Simona de Silvestro, and Katherine Legge

2013 with 4: Ana Beatriz, Simona de Silvestro, Pippa Mann, and Katherine Legge

2015 with 2: Simona de Silvestro, and Pippa Mann

So in the last 48 years, we’ve only managed to have at most 4 women in one race. That’s some bullshit. I know they’re out there. Where are they. Why aren’t they getting the same resources as the boys. Huh???

It looks like there have only been 11 Indycar drivers period, the only one I haven’t mentioned is Tatiana Calderón who raced Indycar in 2022 but it looks like she’s now with IMSA.

NASCAR’s doing much better with “at least 134” who have qualified for and started a race, and given that NASCAR started a little more loosey-goosey than other racing series, that doesn’t surprise me as much. First year of NASCAR’s formal inception was 1949 with the NASCAR Cup Series and THREE women raced that year!!! Sarah Christian was the first, racing in the very first official Strictly Stock Series race on June 19th, 1948, and ultimately would go on to race against Ethel Mobley and Louise Smith on July 10th, 1948, making that the first NASCAR race with 3 female drivers. (29 years before Janet Guthrie raced in the Indy 500.) Right now it looks like Katherine Legge is the only woman racing currently.

Horrifyingly F1 is way worse in this department and have only had 5 female drivers, only two have qualified and actually started a race (Maria Teresa de Filippis with 5 entries and 3 starts in 1958 and 59, and Lella Lombardi with 17 entries and 12 starts in 1974-76). Only one has won a race (Desiré Wilson, from earlier, in 1980), and only one has scored any points (……..a half point. Lella Lombardi, in 1975). (This is what I mean when I say F1 confuses me—how have there only been two women who started a race, but neither of them are the one who won a race?? Doesn’t that mean that Desiré Wilson would’ve had to start a race???? I don’t understand. Don’t explain it to me) There hasn’t been a female driver since 1992 at this point.

Okay I wish I could put another cut here but alas, I can’t, so you’re just gonna have to stick with me. I wanna talk about the 31 Indy 500s and where the women placed.

77 - Janet Guthrie (29)

78 - Janet Guthrie (9)

79 - Janet Guthrie (34, out at 3 laps, piston issue)

92 - Lyn St James (11)

93 - Lyn St James (25, stalled at 176 laps)

94 - Lyn St James (19)

95 - Lyn St James (32, accident at 0 laps)

96 - Lyn St James (14, accident at 153 laps)

97 - Lyn St James (13, accident at 186 laps)

00 - Lyn St James (32, accident at 69 laps), Sarah Fisher (31, accident at 71 laps)

01 - Sarah Fisher (31, accident at 7 laps)

02 - Sarah Fisher (24)

03 - Sarah Fisher (31, accident/engine issue at 14 laps)

04 - Sarah Fisher (21)

05 - Danica Patrick (4)

06 - Danica Patrick (8)

07 - Sarah Fisher (18), Danica Patrick (8), Milka Duno (31, accident at lap 65)

08 - Sarah Fisher (30, accident at lap 103), Danica Patrick (22, accident at lap 171), Milka Duno (19)

09 - Sarah Fisher (17), Danica Patrick (3), Milka Duno (20)

10 - Sarah Fisher (26, accident at lap 125), Danica Patrick (6), Ana Beatriz (21, accident at lap 196), Simona de Silvestro (14)

11 - Danica Patrick (10), Ana Beatriz (21), Simona de Silvestro (31, “handling” at lap 44? Idk what that means), Pippa Mann (20)

12 - Ana Beatriz (23), Simona de Silvestro (32, handling again at lap 10), Katherine Legge (22)

13 - Ana Beatriz (15), Simona de Silvestro (17), Pippa Mann (30, accident at lap 46), Katherine Legge (26)

14 - Pippa Mann (24)

15 - Simona de Silvestro (19), Pippa Mann (22)

16 - Pippa Mann (18)

17 - Pippa Mann (17)

18 - Danica Patrick (30, accident at lap 67)

19 - Pippa Mann (16)

21 - Simona de Silvestro (31, accident at lap 169)

23 - Katherine Legge (33, accident at lap 41)

So we’ve sort of run the gamut from 3rd place (Danica Patrick in 09) to last place (Katherine Legge in 23). It’s just wack to me that it’s 2025 and there are still so many gaps. I’m gonna call Chip Ganassi and ask him what’s wrong with him myself

This post brought to you by: ADHD hyperfocus, forgetting to eat, and procrastinating packing my apartment. Thank u

It’s such a shame Danica Patrick is a conservative conspiracy theorist nut job, I’ve always thought she was hot :/ also Tony Stewart bud your suit is so buttoned up it does not look flattering on you at all

[codfanficedits]

Before the mask - Part ten.

Pairing: Simon Riley x Fem!Reader

Summary: Because Simon wasn’t born as Ghost.

Wordcount: 2479 | Rating: E! (18+ only!)

Warnings: Angst.

A/N: Simon would be around 22/23 in this fic, so it would be set around 2015 ish?

Skipped my classes to write this <3, anyway this is what I think having a functional, loving family is like.

A feeling of dread washed over you as you watch Simon walk away. His movements are stiff, muscles tensed, as if he was seconds away from exploding.

And all you can do is feel guilt.

You’ve done this before, shutting people out whenever you felt overwhelmed, and he would be the first person you lost because of this. Your whole life you had tried to be strong, to be independent, and it had lead you to a path of being unable to ask for help, to accept help and to let people in.

You didn’t mean to push him away, you just couldn't really cope with the constant stream of information being thrown at you, but instead of communicating, you had shut him out.

Your throat starts to get dry and you really want to reach out, but Simon was gone before you could fully react. Your feet feel heavy as you open the door to your quarters.

It had started to be such a lovely day, and now it had all gone to shit, you could feel the tags on your clothes, the music was too loud, the lights too bright, and on top of that, you couldn’t really shake the awful feeling this whole interaction had given you.

Though you had this every now and then, you would be overwhelmed, to the point that you really couldn’t stand have anyone, or anything around you. In response you close your curtains, making your room a whole lot darker, next to go were your clothes, the feeling of the fabric on your skin just felt too much, and you needed to get rid of it. Sliding under the covers was the best solution right now.

Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to take a nap right now, but you knew that if you tried to talk to Simon at this moment, it would just be a whirlwind of emotions. Neither of you would benefit from it.

Not that you could sleep much, you could hear his door slam shut, and all you could do was toss around, switching from your left side, to your right side, trying to sleep on your back. Nothing seemed to work, every time you closed your eyes, you saw his face again. The initial disappointment, the anger, the insecurities, and it made you feel like shit.

After what felt like hours, you couldn’t take it anymore, and your kicked your blankets off yourself, putting your clothes on once again. Even though you hadn’t been able to sleep, just trying to rest, with little to no stimulation, had calmed you down immensely, your clothes didn’t feel suffocating, and when you opened the curtains again, you could actually stand it to look at the world again.

Now would be the right time to talk to Simon, so you went to his door, politely knocking once, twice, three times, four times.

Fuck.

That awful feeling you had, came right back to you, your heart pounding in your chest. Was he ignoring you, or was he really out and about? How could he be out and about while you felt so awful, did he really care so little?

Without making a fuss you return to your own room, slamming the door shut as you drop yourself to your bed again. There is only one person who could help you right now, and it’s your dad.

You know it is expensive to call overseas, but you really need to hear his voice today.

Holding in your breath you wait for the phone to connect, and just when you think he won’t pick up, you hear the familiar voice of your father.

“Sweetheart! Everything alright?” Of course he is worried, getting a random call from a soldier never meant good news.

“No.” You couldn’t remember the last time your voice sounded this soft, this insecure. “I need your advice dad.”

“Hmm,” He wondered what would make you this distraught. You were usually much more cheerful in nature. “About?” He enquired after a moment, wanting nothing more than to reach out to brush his thumb against the side of your cheek, if he would’ve been here, he could’ve comforted you through his touch, but your father couldn’t, and it was killing him.

You sat down on your bed. "I've been dating Simon for a little while now. You've seen him once, and you like him too." You began, hoping he would get the hint.  "But he wants to spend so much time together, and when I asked for some time apart, he got quite upset."

“I see,” He furrowed his brow, an all-too-familiar frown marring his features. You were growing up, becoming an adult. No doubt you’d find yourself in situations where you’d need guidance. He was ready.

“What did you say to him, if I might ask?” he enquired, his tone measured as he waited for you to answer.

"Okay, so." You began. "We had spent nearly the whole day together, and then he asked if I would sleep over at his quarters, or if he would sleep over at mine." You explained.

"So I told him I hoped we could sleep at our own quarters and that I needed some peace and quiet."

“And how did he react? Did he get angry?” Your father inquired, his brow furrowed even further. In his mind, there was very little cause for you to be upset. Your boyfriend had acted as he should; it was typical in relationships for couples to want to see one another, and your father knew about your tendencies to shut yourself off completely.

"Well, not angry. Just disappointed." You responded. "As if I was rejecting him."

You let some silence linger for a brief moment.  "And then I may or may not have called him dramatic." You admitted. "He just, turned around and said we needed some space, and now I’m worried I’ve shut him off completely."

“I see...” he replied, letting out a breath of disappointment as he pinched the bridge of his nose. So it was just a miscommunication. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Your father wanted to say more to you, to offer you some of his advice, some of his experience, but he was interrupted by the voice of a woman.

 “Let me talk to her!” The voice of your grandma was evident on the background. “She needs some advice from a woman!”

You didn’t have to be there to know what type of scene was unfolding. Your father holding up the phone a little too high for your grandma to reach, and her not giving up until she got what she wanted. It brought a smile to your face.

The amount of distortion on the background indicated that your grandma had won the battle. “That man doesn’t know what he is talking about.” She huffed, the moment she got her hands on the phone.

“Tell me what is wrong sweetheart.”

You straighten your back and you tell the story again. You needed some space, Simon reacted to that, and you called him dramatic.

“Hmm.” Your grandma stays quiet for a second. “I need some wine for this.”

You hear a faint protest on the background. “You can’t have alcohol with your blood pressure medicine!”

But by the Gods, your grandmother is a stubborn woman. “I’ll take a red, please and thank you.” And you know your father will fold for this.

“You know, sweetheart.” She speaks to you. “Your grandpa used to be the same. He would spent hours in his shed when he was overwhelmed. I hated it in the beginning.”

“You did?”

“Of course I did, I was madly in love, I finally had my soldier back with me, and then he went to spend his whole evening in his shed after we had done something together.” She explained, sipping on her wine. “It caused all of our arguments in the beginning.”

“How, how did that happen?” You bring out.

“Well, I didn’t manage to tell him what disappointed me, and your grandpa was horrible at managing his energy, mostly his social battery, so I would drag him along to something social, a party, a dinner, we could go out to dance, and he wasn’t able to tell me when he needed to unwind, so he shut me out and isolated himself. Drove me mad.”

It feels like a breathe of fresh air, of course you weren’t alone in the world, of course you weren’t the only one who experienced this, but it was nice to hear that someone from your direct family suffered from this and that very same person was loved all the way to after his dead.

“How did you two manage to deal with this?” You ask her.

“Well, first, I need to tell you, that just because it worked for us, might not mean that it works for you and your soldierboy.” Your grandma began. “But, I had to work a little on myself first.” She continued.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I reacted very strongly whenever he told me he needed his space, no matter if he said it very bluntly, or if he said it more, sophisticated, I would always feel this surge of anger, disappointment run through me.” Your grandma said.

“Why?”

“Well, that took me a little while to figure out. But, all my life I had been told I was too strong willed, too loud, too unlovable, and every time your grandpa told me he needed some peace and quiet, I took that personally. I took that as a personal rejection. I realized I was so afraid I was really unlovable, that the idea of him not wanting to spent his time with me, gave me the worst feelings of panic, and those feelings of insecurity, made me lash out horribly.” She explained.

And you stay quiet, not once had you thought your grandparents went through the same thing, they even managed to beat it!

“But.” She continued. “That didn’t mean that your grandpa was without blame. He could spend the whole day being with me, and all of the sudden he would drop a ‘I’m tired and I need some space’ bomb on me.”

“Oh.” You have to swallow the lump in your throat, that had been exactly what you had done. You had ignored every little thing that would indicate you were getting overwhelmed and you only put up your boundaries when it was already too late.

“You’re just like him, you know? You do the same things, being a stubborn little shit, who doesn’t want to accept any help, because you’ve been told that you need to be strong. So you ignore your own boundaries until you can’t take it anymore, and then you shut out the people who love you.” Grandma wasn’t holding back, instead she gave you the reality check you needed a while ago.

You swallow to get rid of your dry throat. You wanted some words of comfort, not your grandma ripping open the oozing wound, and forcing you to look at the issue, instead of ignoring it. “But.”  You protest. “It is not like I can prevent it.”

“You can.” Your grandma retorts. “And even if you couldn’t, it is an explanation for your behaviour, not a free pass. Try to let him in, ask him for help, and for gods sake, learn to regulate. Tell him when you’re starting to feel overstimulated, tell him when you feel like it will all be too much. Because if he truly loves you, the only thing he wants to do, is to help you.”

She was right, and you hated it, you had been shutting him out, regarding that subject that is, and why? Because you felt like you had to carry the whole world on your own shoulders? Where had that gotten you? Not that far it seemed.

“Right now I don’t appreciate your words.” You tell your grandma. “But I’m sure I’ll find some truth in to them when I’m calmed down.”

The little cackle on the end on the line almost sounds endearing. “I know you don’t like them. Your grandpa hated it when I held a mirror out in front of him in order to make him look at his actions, but just promise me you’ll let those words sink in, okay?”

You knew she was right, and you also knew those words would make sense once you had thought about it for a little while. “I promise.”

“Good. Now, I’ll have to go, I have to wrestle your father for the remote, Judge Judy is on and he won’t let me watch it.”

Before you can even say a thing, your grandmother ends the call, and you stare at your phone for a second. The moment you realize the call is ended, the tears begin to flow.

It was all too much. Your argument with Simon, the self-reflection you had to do. The realisation that your family was at the other side of the globe. It hurts.

Your pillow gets used as a plushie and as a tool to muffle the sobs that leave your lips. Worry clouding your mind, your grandparents had managed to survive their hardships, but could you and Simon?

That cry felt good though, everything that had bothered you, was set free, and after a couple of minutes, the tears started to stop, your breathing started to regulate, and you even stopped the soft sniffles.

As you got up from your bed, you pass a mirror. You’re a goddamn mess, eyes red and puffy from crying, the skin on your cheeks wet. But despite all that, you give yourself the peace sign before you clean yourself up a little bit. A few deep breaths before you splash some cold water against your face.

You needed to talk to Simon, you needed this to work out, even if that meant biting the bullet. You had heard his shower, which meant he was back into his room, all you needed to do, was go over to his door, knock, and apologize. Easy peasy. Just follow the script.

Go to his door. Knock. And apologize.

Door. Knock. Apologize.

As you swing open your door, he does the same, the both of you stepping out of your quarters at the same time.

Door. Knock. Apologize?

An awkward silence followed as the two of you made eye contact. What could you even say in a situation like this? Should you apologize already? Tell him about the conversation you had with your grandma? Just.. What could you do? Maybe it would be best to start casual. The whole script you had made up, was blown to smithereens and you had some trouble adjusting to it.

“Hi.” The word leaves your lips, as he begins to speak too.

“We need to talk.”

[deepdarkdelights]

Unrelated to your stories, but how did you become a BTS fan? And since when?

Oh jeez, it's been quite a while! Let me give you the rundown!

Back in 2012-ish, I was writing fanfic on Quotev...as an eleven-year-old 😂 Anyways I made a friend there a few years later who got me into anime and one of my favorite animes was Tokyo Ghoul. Well, about 2014 - 2015 (ish) there was this post trending that was saying "hey this guy looks like the real-life Ken Kaneki!" And it was actually Taehyung when he had white hair!

So being a young teen who was in love with anime characters I tried to figure out who he was and I discovered BTS at the time. Anyways I kind of forgot about them and moved on when my knowledge was satisfied. But then, back when Vine was around, I kept getting these edits of these guys dancing in an empty pool and I looked them up again and I was like "Ah ha! V! I know you!"

Anyways it was Fire and I added it to my playlist and I would actually work out to that song. At that time I was training to run a mile for Cheer because that was mandatory at my high school, so I would blast fire while I was dying at the track.

After that I started listening to them casually - I remember blasting Save Me, I Need U, and then Younger Forever which quickly became my favorites (especially Save ME).

But then Wings came out. My best friend told me about it and I listened to the entire thing and after that I wasn't a causal listener anymore 😂To this day, Wings is my favorite album and I don't even own a copy 😭

So! I became a pretty dedicated listener in 2016 - BTS was honestly the soundtrack of my high school years and they got me through so much shit. Set me on my fitness journey too which covid threw me off 😂

This was a really long explanation but I love looking at the domino effect of events that occurred o bring me to this point! I actually wanted to start writing in 2016-2017 but I stopped myself from doing it because I didn't think I knew enough about their personalities to do it and I am honestly glad I waited despite feeling like I lost time 😅

Ah, I'm so nostalgic now.

[aj-lenoire]

i know it’s 2023 but i have a lot of Thoughts™ on demon!dean and since this is my corner of the internet and i can talk about whatever i goddamn like we’re gonna talk about how they squandered the deanmon potential—yes i know this was back in 2015 what’s your point misha had to come out as straight last year this train is never stopping

cause like, i remember all the promo spots being off the shits like ‘THIS…IS THE YEAR…OF THE DEANMON!!!!’

and i was psyched, and then it turned out to be like, 3 episodes. and he just sang terrible karaoke. the worst thing he did was try to grope a woman—which, obviously, is a shitty thing to do, but isn’t on the same level as like, torturing her to death

it just—it could’ve been so damn cool. imagine, like, castiel trying to reason with him, and since angels see demons as they truly are, not who they’re wearing (also: was deanmon possessing his own corpse? could he have possessed another human? i haven’t rewatched since it aired but like… did they ever clarify that??) he can see like this mutilated thing that he knows is his friend, but it’s almost beyond recognition

and deanmon is basically a soulless human, functionally, because he doesn’t care about anything or anyone except himself and what he wants, and these two guys with their ‘i know you’re in there somewhere’ and ‘this isn’t the real you’ crap are really getting on his nerves, so he’s coming out with stuff like how, it was forty years in hell, therefore alistair knew him longer than sam or cas, alistair made him into what he is now, and he’s so grateful bc he’s no longer snivelling over every insignificant dead human they come across. humans are so pathetically fragile after all, why bother trying to save them?

just IMAGINE the potential—the futility of cas raising him from perdition! because this was always who he was meant to become, what he was going to be, and cas was just delaying the inevitable—because dean’s whole life has been authority figures forging him into their weapon. all cas was trying to do was swap out one blacksmith for another

and yeah i know they needed to wrap up the deanmon thing sharpish because of the 300th episode but like… they could’ve made 300 a flashback. like a fun-ish job the boys did years prior, and at the end of the episode sam suddenly wakes up because he was dreaming of that hunt and in remembering it he’s had a ~breakthrough~ on how to help dean—and THAT’S how he knows where to look and finds out about the blood injection nonsense

(i still cannot believe it was THAT SIMPLE to cure someone of being a demon. and that dean was also allegedly a knight of hell or some bullshit)

like we could’ve had a solid half-a-season of deanmon, we get to see the full range of what he was actually capable of. he still blows off crowley, obviously, because he doesn’t need to be babysat, he doesn’t need someone to line up a murder-y demon deal for him like he’s on an enrichment program at the zoo

sam hasn’t seen him in several episodes, he’s still trying to figure out how to get dean back, if he can get dean back, and he’s doing hunts in between because he feels morally obligated to, or he needs money, or he’s doing it for someone in return for info on the dean thing—whatever

dean rocks up to where sam’s working on a job, and at first you just think he’s there to piss sam off and generally fuck around, and sam just can’t look at him and can’t be near him cause it’s so obviously not his brother and he doesn’t want to risk dean realising he’s searching for a fix, because he genuinely, deeply fears that this thing with his brother’s face will try to kill him.

but dean’s going around telling everyone that sam’s his brother and forcing sam to play nice because they’re in front of people, and dean makes very clear what will happen if sam doesn’t play nice and doesn’t let dean do as he likes—and sam’s just disgusted and uneasy

and once sam finishes the job—having bonded slightly with whoever was being attacked—he tells dean to leave him the hell alone, and leaves the town. and dean stays behind, seemingly honouring his brother’s wishes—is there hope?

but that night‚ dean goes to the house of whoever sam helped on the hunt. maybe it’s a cute suburban family‚ maybe it’s a college girl whose friend was killed, but he knocks on the door and says he’s dean and he’s sam’s brother and they’re estranged and he doesn’t know where sam went—could she help him? so she invites him in‚ because sam is the kind guy who just saved her life, and his brother is just as charming and handsome and seems like a nice dude, and the last thing we see is dean (from behind) as he enters‚ and he’s holding the first blade behind his back and the door just slowly swings shut. cut to black.

and later—maybe not next episode‚ maybe the viewers are left to stew for a bit—dean calls sam and tells him what he did. that the people sam risked his life to save are dead. sam ended up not making a difference at all. and the most fucked up part is that he sounds exactly like regular dean as he says all this—using the same slang and chirpy tone like he’s talking about music. and in that same cheerful tone, he warns sam not to try ordering him around ever again.

dean enjoyed being a hunter, he enjoyed the heroism and simplicity of killing bad guys and saving good guys. now, with the first blade making him crave blood? without that pesky conscience? he doesn’t much care about good or bad anymore. he cares that this guy still sees him as his poor, tragic brother, and is still trying to save him, so killing the people that this guy just saved? it’s fun. it’s funny. this guy is annoying him with this ‘i know you’re in there’ talk but this is him, and he likes it, and he likes watching sam fret over fragile, insignificant humans because sam is just as pathetic

[electrificata]

having music critic thots abt the weeknd im so so sorry

i saw the weeknd in concert last summer, it was amazing. i really dont like stadium shows usually, but his was killer, he had a cool stage concept (gently mad max-ish cult leader and his dancer-disciples, giant inflatable moon) and he's got the presence to fill up all that space. and ive been listening to him for almost a decade, obviously the music's there. actually the show i was at was where he debuted the trailer for the idol. its out now and i havent watched yet. i thought it looked cool then, but after everything ive heard.....im just really ambivalent.

in the early days, when he was keeping mysterious, no press, no photos, you didnt even know if the weeknd was a band or a guy. just this chilly, atmospheric, sleazy/sexy horror-movie r&b. nothing supernatural. but cruel. the lyrics were all about the worst kind of fuckboy shit, and obviously drugs, and the music really seemed to give proper weight to it. the speaker in the songs was awful, the music was telling you that his actions were violent and terrifying for the women he's hurting and for toxic for himself. if youre a person attracted to men, you know what its like to see how awful a guy can be and still be into him, maybe even BECAUSE of how awful he is. thats a fucking horror movie. those first xo eps are crazy, i still listen to them.

then he goes pop star. i remember the collab w/ ariana grande in 2014 was surprising but it found a perfect, plausible midpoint between their two universes. then he goes full max martin in 2015 with "can't feel my face" and again, bizarre to see this plausible way for the prince of darkness to get to the top 40 via a neo-michael jackson jam with a veiled drug reference as opposed to multiple explicit ones. but it made sense! he danced onstage now! i remember hearing it on the radio when i was picking my cousins up from middle school, that felt surreal.

and he just kept on doing the popstar thing. i dont think the sleaze ever really left, it just receded into the background. killer atmosphere, more pop hooks, a general darkness that felt credible coming from him because of the early stuff, its just lit with neon now. he gets increasingly more conceptual, which i love. i love a concept album. its still about fucked up relationships and now death more generally instead of drugs specifically. cool, great. i've been with him the entire time. that brings us up more-or-less to the present.

im not gonna recap all the shit around the idol, if you want it im sure theres an article or youtube video thatll do a better job than i can. ill just summarize my own thoughts: it feels like the sleaze is back, maybe some of the horror, but also Glamour. johnny depp's supermodel daughter has cum on her face. we're seeing headlines about how gross the sex scenes are. look how Glamorous this is. classic showbiz trick of using a cautionary tale about gross men preying on women to just....create images and narratives about gross men preying on women. this might be the place i cant follow him. i cant rule out watching it, i am a habitual hater and i might be in the mood to hate soon. but its making me think about the way we use glamour and beauty in entertainment. it cant be a default, it has an effect on the story.

[formula-what]

Brocedes time line for a very patient anon

Lewis quotes in orange, Nico quotes in pink, everyone else is blue.

okay first some background knowledge:

Nico is rich as fuck. only child, born in Germany, brought up in Monaco. son of world champion Keke Rosberg

Lewis was born on a council estate in Stevenage and his dad had to work multiple jobs for him to start karting

Honestly I think the difference in their backgrounds is one of the things that pushed them together, they were both isolated from the rest of the kids, but I’m keeping this purely facts rather than speculation.

2000

They’re both 15 years old and are karting teammates for MBB (Mercedes Benz McLaren) in Formula A

Robert Kubica: “there was always competition. But they didn’t fight. It was friendly competition. There was always laughing afterwards.” // “they would even have races to eat pizza”

They often shared hotel rooms at the races which was a “scene of many wrestling matches between them”

Dino Chiesa (their karting boss) – “many times I was called by reception about some problem in the room. It might be noise, or they might have broken something. They would never sleep so they were always tired the next morning”

“they both liked ice cream so much, particularly vanilla. During the night they wanted to eat ice cream always, so I had to go out everywhere to find some and keep them happy”

Lewis would often persuade Nico to buy him sweets

They would have competitions over LITERALLY EVERYTHING

Lewis: “we always had great competition whether on the racetrack or computer games or playing football”

“probably the first bit of competition we had was when Nico used to ride a unicycle everywhere so I thought, ‘I’ve got to learn how to ride this unicycle. Ive got to be better than him.’ I spent all my time outside the go-kart learning to ride this unicycle”

Apparently it only took Lewis 2 hours to teach himself how to do it

In maybe 2013 ish (when they were still friends) Lewis reflected with– “I have never laughed so much than when we were racing together. Nico was kicking everyone’s butt at that time. We had so great races together and built a great relationship”

“we were just arriving and enjoying go-karts and eating pizzas every weekend, fighting all the time and just having fun, whereas now it’s all business.”

many times they would talk about what they would do when they got to f1, made plans hoping to be teammates and become world champions together.

“Nico would say ‘when I’m in formula one’ and for me it was always ‘if I ever get to formula one’. Because obviously Nico’s dad was a formula 1 driver- he knew he was going to make it.”

F1

Nico joined f1 in 2006 with williams, Lewis 2007 with McLaren. And man I WISH I knew what went down with this two when Lewis nearly one his rookie season (missing out by one point to mr fernando alonso) and then WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP in his SECOND SEASON (again by one point thank you mr alonso)

2008 Australia

Nicos gets his first podium, and ofc Lewis is there (he won it) and they are jumping around in the cool down room. Just, two kids who are literally living the one thing they have spent their whole lives dreaming about together. Lewis won the championship that year and oh wow I can only imagine their celebrations together.

2013

They’re teammates in Mercedes!!!

Nico: “every other day there are moments or things that pop up and I can smirk and thing, ‘that’s exactly the same as it was 15 years ago’”

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix gets an honourable mention. This is the race with red bulls good old multi 21 but merc also had their own team orders, stopping nico from fighting for his first merc podium, but Lewis disagreed with it so it didn’t really spark that much tension between them- more the team.

2014

the start of the turbo-hybrid era so y’all know this was good in terms of performance.

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

They were both fighting for the win and had a collision which prompted a “mock fight” in parc ferme after the race (which I really hope there’s a video of).

Turns out, Nico won because he had used engine modes banned by Mercedes to get a power advantage in the closing laps. which kinda pissed Lewis off

2014 Spanish Grand Prix

Lewis’ fourth win in a row and took lead in the championship. They were fighting till literally the last second and Lewis crossed the line 0.6 seconds ahead of Nico, who says he could have passed him with one more lap.

Lewis defended using the same banned engine modes that Nico had used in Bahrain. Yeah.

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

This is IT. This is peak petty bitch. This is the one people still cry about.

It’s the end of Q3, both of them are out on a lap, Nico ahead of lewis. Nico’s already on provisional pole but Lewis is pretty close.

And then,, Nico just,, parks his car?? He says he made a mistake but the guy doesn’t even crash he straight up just,, rolls to a stop into a slip road. So the yellow flags come out forcing Lewis to abort a lap that was in the makings of pole.

The stewards say it was a-okay but Lewis was convinced it was intentional (and let’s be honest, yeah it probably was) and he even claimed that merc’s data proved it. (low key surprised he didn’t just tweet out the telemetry but I guess he got a stern telling off from mclaren last time)

But *this* is when Lewis tells the world that they aren’t friends anymore. An iconic interview.

Nico then wins the race too, ending Lewis’s four win streak and putting Nico in the lead of the championship.

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis has an engine failure in quali meaning he starts from the pit lane, but he does good to make his way up the pack but THEN there’s a safety car which puts him ahead of Nico but on a different strategy.

Nico asks if Lewis can let him past as he needs to pit again before the end of the race, which will give him the place back anyways. Lewis straight up refuses, he’s on a role here. He started from last, and Nico started from pole, why should he slow down to let his title rival through.

Mercedes strongly suggest that his blocking fucked up Nicos race but Niki Lauda is on Lewis’ side so he doesn’t get punished (We stan a supportive father figure) even though he did blatantly refuse to be a team player.

And guys, this is the last race before the summer break so you know Nico was left seething for four weeks.

2014 Belgian Grand Prix

Second lap, Nico attempts a clumsy move and there’s contact, giving Hamilton a puncture and knocking him out of the race.

There’s a lot of controversy but basically it turns out he crashed with him intentionally, not backing out of the corner to “prove a point”. Nico ended up finishing second but was punished by the team, forced to apologise, and even booed on the podium.

2014 Abu Dhabi

For some reason it ran for double points?? The first time in History??? But idk???

Lewis had a perfect start and went on to win it and take the title, Nico had a problem and was told to retire the car but he kept going anyway and finished 14th. Nico went into the cool down room to congratulate Lewis on the championship win, which. cute.

Lewis claimed his second championship. Which not only was huge because of the inter team rivalry, but also because of the large gap between his first win. This guy had lost out on winning the championship in his ROOKIE season by ONE POINT, and then WON it in his SECOND season, and then there was like a FIVE YEAR gap before he won it again.

2015

Damnnn this car was fiiiinneeeeeee.

They do more laps in testing than any other car AND do it on a single power unit. And then. Australia. They take a one-two THIRTY FOUR seconds ahead of the third place Ferrari.

2015 Chinese Grand Prix

Nico is second in a one-two but claims that Lewis kept backing him up into Seb, trying to compromise his race (and help out his boyfriend).

Lewis gave zero shits: "It's not my job to look after Nico's race, it's my job to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible. That's what I did."

2015 U.S. Grand Prix

If Lewis wins here he could also claim the title with three races to spare (you have to remember back then the title fight often went up to the last race so this was pretty cool)

Lewis very aggressively forced Rosberg wide at Turn 1 to claim the lead, and then there was some sexy fighting between the Mercs and Redbull all race. Nico led in the closing stages but made a mistake, running deep into a corner and letting Lewis past with only a handful of laps to go.

Nico finished P2 and had not only lost the race but the championship title. Nico was fuming, saying Lewis’ move at the start was “one step too far”.

This is the infamous cap throw in the cool down room. Lewis throws Nico his P2 hat, Nico straight up yeets it back at him. I tear up just thinking about it. They grow up so fast.

2016

Nico had came so close to winning and I guess this was just, the last straw. All or nothing. This year he literally gave it everything he had. Lewis and him stopped speaking, Nico gave up literally the rest of his life and even stopped sleeping in the same bed as his wife and taking care of his kids, instead spending every moment trying to get into Lewis’ head. Honestly, I think he might be the only one that could beat Lewis. Just because he knew him *so well*. He literally threw away like 16 years of friendship. But also it’s like, he had to be world champion. He *had to*. His dad was champion and his whole life he’s been preparing to win it too. Tough luck that he raced in the same era as Mr. Best Driver The Sport Has Ever Seen.

Nico won the last few races of 2015, and the first four races of 2016. Lewis had a couple car problems and Nico had a good lead on him in the championship.

2016 Spanish Grand Prix

Gentlemen. A short view back to the past. Nico had made a switch error on the formation lap causing the car to go into the wrong engine mode. So he was running a lot slower than Lewis, who was fighting to claim back the lead.

Nico closed the door to keep him back, and Lewis lost control on the grass, and spins into Nico and taking them both out of the race in the first lap. This is probably one of the most iconic crashes. I’m pretty sure there’s a clip of this somewhere in black and white with the titanic music over the top.

Niki Lauda blamed this one on Lewis (I guess even a supportive dad has to be critical sometimes) "Lewis is too aggressive. It is stupid, we could've won this race".

2016 Austrian Grand Prix

Nico had been struggling with a brake issue all race but was still on the way to win it. But in the last lap Lewis had caught him up and gone in for the overtake.

Typical Nico not taking any shit, refusing to be the guy that backs out and they collide. Lewis took the win and a damaged Nico dropped to fourth. From first. In the last lap.

Both of them blamed each other and tired dad team boss Toto Wolff threatened team orders in future races.

The stewards blamed Nico for the incident, issuing him two penalty points for failing to allow "racing room" and causing a collision.

2016 Abu Dhabi

In the final laps of the race, Lewis ignored team-orders from his race engineer and the technical director.

He deliberately slowed and backed Nico into the pack hoping they overtake him, and there would be enough of a points difference to win the title.

Nico finished second and won the title by five points.

And then,,, Nico announced a surprise retirement during the FIA prize giving ceremony.

Lewis’ response:

"This is the first time he's won in 18 years, hence why it was not a surprise that he decided to stop.” (We stan a petty king)

“But he's also got a family to focus on and probably wants to have more children. Formula One takes up so much of your time."

“In terms of missing the rivalry, of course because we started karting when we were 13 and we would always talk about being champions. When I joined this team, Nico was there, which was something we spoke about when we were kids. So it's going to be very, very strange, and, for sure, it will be sad to not have him in the team next year."

And now they are kind of on speaking terms but not really, they are both pretty private but I think they are at the ‘awkward small talk when we run into each other at the supermarket’ stage of the break up.

[lepusrufus]

Do you have a picture of how your drawing improved over time?

Alrighty, first off, apologies for having had this in my inbox for so long. In my defense, my old art is usually buried into the deepest pits of hell as to not make me die of cringe, BUT I decided to clean yesterday and ended up going down the memory lane for about three hours trying to gather everything into a box for safekeeping and this ask popped into my mind. So what better time to answer it.

Now, I'm gonna preface this by saying two things. One, I don't have anything from before 2012-ish as a lot of my childhood art stayed in my hometown when I moved. Two, while a lot of this is... well not good per se, it's definitely not as bad as it got since I'm not particularly keen on putting my very bad art on blast. I'm not embarrassed by it, quite the opposite, since seeing the progress and remembering just how proud younger me used to be of these makes me actually fond of them. But still.

Also no cringy fanart for y'all . Which in hindsight may not be much better as you get cringy ocs. Enjoy (???)

Alright starting off with 2012/13- ish? God this is so bad. Definitely couldn't draw a person to save my life but like.... kudos to me for trying to learn fur??? Emphasis on trying

Around 2014 tho Frank I'm not even sure. Ugh why did young me not sign anything between 13 and 16 this gave me headaches.

Pretty sure this was 2015. Woo for teen me giving human faces another go. Still a long way to go but hey gotta start somewhere.

2016! Back to signing my shit thank you so much younger me. This oc isn't even that bad kinda wanna redraw it ngl but the fur is atrocious

2017. Wtf was wrong with how I drew eyes. Ok tbf I still place them wonky as fuck sometimes oh well

2018 with a badass shark mermaid. Can't draw hands for shit tho lol

2019. Looks like I got some lineart skills finally.

2020. Oh! Faces! Finally getting the hang of that are we!

And, as a final note, I also gathered all the binders, file holders, sketchbooks and everything in between, in a pile because frankly even I was baffled at the sheer amount of art I did since around 2013 up to today. And this doesn't even include the things I drew as a child, school projects or things that I've missed (because I'm certain I missed some) or even the ungodly amount of digital art.

That's to say, art like any other craft, is something that requires time and effort and blood and sweat and frankly a couple loose screws, because all of us who dedicate so much time to this are some kinda flavor of masochistic.

Anyway, I would've loved to show more but unfortunately there's a 10 image limit, though if anyone else is curious in the future I may add to my short gallery of past cringe