#i should make a new tag for this kind of post

[sundew199]

Birthday present

a/n: just smth cute to celebrate Zoro's birthday ♡

tags: Roronoa Zoro x f!reader, fluff, dad!zoro, family dynamics, post-canon

His hands shook as he wiped them from on the sides of his pants, clammy and moist from the nervous sweat he had broken out into as he waited.

It'd been a couple of hours since he received word that you'd gone into labor, caught up in a class and doing his best to rush back to the compound where the two of you lived. The whole day had been a mess, Zoro not anticipating you'd be close to delivering when he agreed to teach a class halfway across the island almost a year ago. Oh well, he can't go back and change the past, all he could do now was apologize and make up for it somehow.

"Everything went smoothly."

Not even hearing the door to the bedroom open, let alone spot the doctor slipping out of the room, snapping Zoro's restless thoughts back to the present. The man looked kind and forgiving, features creasing soft in a reassuring smile as he patted Zoro's arm.

"I'll give you all the time you need, congratulations."

Zoro barely smiled at the doctor as he turned down the hall away from the bedroom Zoro stood outside of. There shouldn't be any reason why he was nervous, right? I mean this wasn't a surprise, sort of planned and wanted so he should just go in and forget about everything swirling in his head. But his stomach flipped and churned and he wished he knew why.

Well. He can't stand out here for the rest of his life.

Slowly pulling back the shoji, slipping inside, Zoro just about melted seeing you cradle a small bundle in your arms, paired with the brightest and yet most tired smile he's seen on you.

"Hey." Falling to his knees beside the futon, grasping the back of your head and placing a kiss on your cheek. "I'm so sorry, I tried to get here as fast as I could."

A soft hand came to silence whatever else might've come out of his mouth next, gently laughing and kissing his cheek back, making the unease in his veins simmer into nothing.

"It's okay, this was kind of unexpected, for everyone."

Zoro cumbersomely laughed, pressing his forehead to yours and then following it with a kiss, reassured to know you weren't upset with him for missing the birth of his first child. You began to scoot over to make room for him, adjusting the baby in your arms and giving Zoro a brief glance. Shit he felt so emotional, a lump rising in his throat and finding no way to make it go away.

Slowly your hand moved the loose blanket swaddled around the baby out of the way so Zoro could see them properly. They were sleeping soundly in the comfort of your arms, it almost didn't look or feel real that he was a father now. He'd hope the realization would've set in sooner, but at the same time the overwhelming sensation coursing through him felt other worldly.

"Can I?" Asking nervously, watching you break out into a small laugh at his question to hold his own child, but Zoro was nervous and it couldn't be helped.

"Of course."

The exchange felt like it was in slow motion, Zoro something of a giant to this new life and instantly on pins and needles when the baby was placed in his arms. Moving as carefully as he could while sitting on the edge of the futon, Zoro looked at you with misty eyes, not quiet crying but overflowing with joy.

"It's a boy by the way."

Hearing you whisper the sweet words and smiling even harder, looking back down again at the baby and adjusting his hold to where he could move the blanket further away from their face. His son made little faces at the adjustments, worrying Zoro for a moment but calming when he continued to sleep.

"I meant to get you a proper gift, but I hope this is okay for now."

Quicker than he could process, Zoro was twisting to look at you fully, uncertainty taking over in his expression.

"Gift? What are you talking about?"

Your sweet laugh confused him further, wondering what you were talking about. Subtly, you scooted closer, hooking your chin over his shoulder and throwing an arm around the other, pressing your cheek to his as you both admired the sleeping baby in his arms.

"It's your birthday today."

Oh.

Oh-

Zoro slightly turned his head with wide eyes, the reminder dawning on him in that moment and suddenly he felt emotions he couldn't find proper words for. His birthday wasn't anything he cared much for, just another year getting older, but he did like the excuse of getting to drink as a form of celebration. He'd been so focused on you and the dojo that his birthday didn't even cross his mind once.

"Shit it is isn't it?"

Lips vibrated on his cheek as you kissed him with another laugh, running your fingertips along his shoulder and humming peacefully.

"Mhm. You don't mind sharing a birthday do you?" Asking with a bit of humor in your tone, pulling the corner of Zoro's mouth into a firmer smile.

"No," Moving to fully turn and face you now, getting himself properly adjusted on the futon next to you, checking in on his son still fast asleep. "Probably just made my birthdays more memorable from here on out."

With his free hand, Zoro cupped one side of your face, locking you into a deep kiss, stroking his thumb over your cheek bone when he pulled away.

"It's not going to bother me, but we never know how he'll feel about it when he's older." Motioning down towards the newborn baby with his chin, breathily chuckling at his own comment.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see." Leaning over to kiss the top of your son's head, proceeding to give Zoro a quick kiss as well before curling up into his side carefully, running your hand across the soft newborn hair with your fingers.

[tmnt-ocxcanon-comp]

TMNT OCxCanon Comp Round 4

Learn more under the cut!

Hiii 👋🏼 my OCs name is Salem Días,

@pomeroni

he's crushing on/dating rottmnt Leo (depending on pre or post movie). He's a former member of the Foot Clan, he's a mountain goat yokai, and him and Leo have had a very frenemies/rival banter kind of relationship. While the relationship starts with them as enemies (and Salem genuinely despising Leo for getting in the way...) he starts to appreciate his company over time, and stops kind of wanting to kill him... After the movie, Salem realizes that he cares about Leo more than he thought (and ever has for anybody else, lol, nerd) and they start dating after some gross mushy emotions and trauma unpacking/coping stuff. They're still very bantery and playfully mean, but if there's anybody Salem is going to be nice to, it's Leo.

Here's the link to my OC playlist on TikTok, which has not only all my of Salem content, but my other ROTTMNT OCs, whomst I also adore. (I hope the link works, because I don't really know how tumblr works, I'm new here, for all intents and purposes)

TikTok - Make Your Day

tiktok.com

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Niyah! :]

@sweaterrat

Shipped romantically with Donnie (mutual crush to dating💛💜)

Lemlav is your average fluffy not-so-slow- slowburn between Niyah and Donnie! Despite all odds, the two are a happy couple with a love that exceeds realities (seriously, she came from another universe)! 💛💜

I would link Portals but it’s so old.. 💀 honestly just a stroll through the #lemlav tag should be enough

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[twistcmyk]

Several months ago I was watching old YouTube videos that I'm nostalgic for. One of these was Lindsey Stirling's "Lindsey Stirling - Crystallize (Dubstep Violin Original Song)" released in 2012. In it, Lindsey Stirling's dubstep violin original song plays as she navigates a frozen landscape, equipped with only her violin and her funky little dance moves. As she traverses, she performs sweeping, exaggerated (and to me, fucking hilarious) gestures of awe and wonder at the world.

While watching, I gave her a silly phrase in a silly voice to match her expressions.

"Beautiful Strange World...!"

I said it with a really specific inflection. It carries the same cadence as when Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood goes "Full, Metal, Alchemist." but with a lot more whimsy, wonder, and curiosity. Either way, sounding like a corny anime dub is important.

"Full, Metal, Alchemist...!"

This was (and still is) some of the funniest shit in the world to me. But as I kept repeating it, the phrase accumulated power.

Full, Metal, Alchemist.

Beautiful Strange World.

Let's break this down:

Her world of snow and ice is beautiful and strange, but so is our world. Everything about it. Everything is so weird!

Giraffes? Why do they look like that? There's generally evolutionary explanations for stuff like this, but evolution is bizarre.

Spiders? They know how to make webs. They just do that.

Grocery stores? There's a bunch of food in a big box with unimaginably complex supply chains, and people depend on this big box to provide them with ingredients for meals.

Those little sponge capsules that soak up water to become little dinosaur sponges? What the fuck?

Beautiful Strange World.

I've gotten into the habit of saying it whenever something amazes me, whenever I take a step back and take the time to appreciate something that we take for granted, or if I'm interacting with a piece of media that does, in fact, take place in a world that is strange, and beautiful because of it.

It makes me feel like the move she does about three minutes and sixteen seconds into the video.

Beautiful Strange World has legitimately affected the way I perceive the world, due to Lindsey Stirling's "Lindsey Stirling - Crystallize (Dubstep Violin Original Song)".

[divorcedfiddleford]

and you may say to yourself: "my god! what have i done?" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful wife!" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful house!" and you may ask yourself: "well, how did i get here?"

time isn't holding up, time isn't after us, time is a pony ride! (images described in alt text)

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

So, I broke down and made a meme version of this post.

(Alt/cleaner ver under the cut)

[ijustwannamakeemojis]

[ID: A single pixel heart of the Palestinian flag. End ID]

>Link to a guide on how to help<

[natsmagi]

sorry for making yet another textpost but i came across that post saying they dislike transfem natsume because he "canonically hates being perceived as a girl and tries to erase all sorts of memories related to that" and also went on to shame genderbends of him aswell. So, as someone who not only draws genderbends of natsume but is myself someone who is nonbinary and hates being perceived as a woman, i thought id offer my two cents

first of all; i think its important to note that natsume does NOT hate his childhood. in fact, hes quite happy that he had such an unusual upbringing!

what natsume hates is being perceived as weak. thats why he was raised as a girl after all, it was his mother trying to protect him from evil spirits. he doesnt hate the whole "-chan" or "wearing dresses" thing because he has a hatred for womanhood, its because due to his upbringing hes now come to associate those things as being weak. he begs tsumugi to forget about it because that means tsumugi remembers natsume being weak, and natsume thinks tsumugi still referring to him as "natsume-chan" means he still sees natsume as weak. (iirc natsume did however once say that he is a little sad that he doesnt really know how to relate to young boys due to this in poltergeist, but i couldnt find the exact quote. either way that just adds to the complexity of natsumes relationship with his childhood, because while he is happy to be "abnormal" in that sense, it has left him lacking in some areas)

i have to ask though, should this conflict of his not be something we hope he overcomes? should we not want him to develop a healthy relationship with various gender expressions? should we not want natsume to overcome his belief that feminine things = weakness? i want natsume to reach a point where he can wear feminine clothing and not feel like some damsel in distress because of it. i want natsumes character to grow. i want him to develop a positive relationship with his gender because natsume DOES enjoy some more typically feminine things, like baking! he used to bake with his mom when he was little! and i want him to feel like he can indulge in that side of him without feeling insecure.....

i LOVE transmasc natsume, my primary hc for him is transmasc nonbinary after all, but with all these things considered, shouldnt people be allowed to headcanon him however they want? if they hear his story and negative relationship with femininity and how that resonates with them and they themselves are transfem, should they not be allowed to hc him as such too?

which brings me to my next point; my own personal relationship with gender and femininity. i was raised as a girl and i fucking DESPISED womanhood. i hated everything about it. i hated how i felt forced into a box i didnt want to be stuck in, and i hated how it felt like my whole life had already been planned out for me due to societal expectations, aswell as me needing to present a certain way. i was peak "tomboy" growing up, constantly wearing super baggy clothes and wouldnt even brush my hair alot of the time. but despite that i remained miserable. i frankly hated how i looked and would constantly dye my hair vibrant colors in an attempt to make me like myself a little more. it wasnt until i realized "wow, im actually not a girl at all" that i finally let go of believing i needed to look a certain way (and thus, defying it) and started to dress for myself. i started to dress in clothes that made me happy and feel pretty! alot of which leans feminine, but clothes doesnt have a gender, and how you dress doesnt define your gender either, but it can still be a bit scary yknow? especially since i dont want people to think of me as a girl, and drawing a bunch of femstars has really made me learn to love myself more in a funny way. i can put these characters in clothes i think are beautiful, i can explore the more feminine parts of me that i adore but dont want to express in public due to how i want others to perceive me, but it has also warmed me up to femininity even more. because femstars to me feels detached from the expectations of society because its not a real thing!! there are no canon femstars designs!!! i can do literally whatever the hell i want with it and its been so liberating to me!!

all this to say; i think it really sucks seeing the way this fandom treats transfem hcs and explicit genderbends, because like ive said before; they can truly be something so personal. you dont know why that person is drawing what theyre drawing, so its a little unwise to make assumptions based on ........ Well, whatever it may be. i know very well that women dressing the way society expects them to SUCKS, esp if you have personal ties to it, but you have to realize the issue isnt femininity, but misogyny.

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

9 Lines, *looks at smudged writing on hand* some People Tag

I was tagged by @sarandipitywrites <3

Obligatory enby rep just dropped for All of our Lives:

Just when he wanted to knock a third time, the door was ripped open with so much vigor, it slammed against the wall and a few fibers of dried moss fluttered down from the roof. Ross flinched, clutching the crutch to keep himself upright as his left leg spasmed. A figure filled the doorway, a head and a half taller than him, with thin, pale green hair and wrinkly, sun-tanned skin. They wore a robe of indeterminable shape and color, like dirt and grass and rotting leaves made clothing. A strand of ivy wrapped around their neck and dangled down their front, and they waved a fossilized toad on a stick around as they called out in a booming voice. “Toad eyes and wasp wings and worm— Ross? Is that you?” The toad-on-a-stick was lowered. “Hello, Lichen.”

I barely know a single person to tag anymore, let alone 9, so I'm just gonna tag a third of that :p If you feel like doing it @the-inkwell-variable @winterandwords and @starlit-hopes-and-dreams

[adriles]

im sorry to say, that by ignoring the plague of apollo, you have doomed the danaans to further misery. Farewell my bitch

[passthroughtime]

sorry @kamuro-junrenka i just giggled from the realisation

then his next words

are SO hypocritical it's unreal

sorry i just love the idea of yagami trying to talk sense to kuwana when it is KUWANA who sees things more clearly. (no kuwana apologism here, he was stupid with revenge killing and he knows that this is who he had to become though he doesn't like it. but HOW and WHO are you teaching this lesson to if your victims just disappear without any reason/explanation/message to the world... lmao.) gonna munch on this thought a little more, i think that is a good point of view and i can elaborate a little later (i have one post that i've been cooking in march, but at that time i decided to finish the game first and write it... and after finishing LJ i've been grieving my loss of judgment... haha see what i did there.)

actually the boat scene is insane in the way that we see live how yagami's convictions tear at the seams, and i WILL be insane about it, yet again, later. ok, whatever, not the point though right now. for me, LJ is about telling yagami (and, consequently, us) that good/bad is not the only possible options and they are even not mutually exclusive.

yagami needed that lesson (hehe) after JE because that was as clear cut case as it might've been. there were bad people and there were good, he's mistaken okubo putting him under the "bad" category but he did nothing wrong and is good in the end, but there is nothing deeper than that. (and that is why i believe that LJ is more thematically rich... while not being that much of a murder mystery that is JE. i love them both for what they have and what they lack though, it's interesting to compare them with each other.)

tbh i think that yagami's past and upbringing is a little downplayed, meaning the only thing that is questionable is the mention that yagami does help the matsugane family with uhhh the crime chores let's say (i don't remember if as a lawyer or as a detective, but i do remember that this was the case). but it mentioned only in passing, and helping to defend hamura in court is not that big of a deal if we see that yagami isn't happy with the outcome though the ruling was justified, yeah?

and though his ties to yakuza are left rather unexplored (considering half of his friends are criminals of some kind LMAO yeah sugiura this includes you too) and doubtly this will be the theme that will ever be brought up again, it is important to remember that yagami as a person is a product of two different worlds. the "bad" and the "good".

the beef i have with the "good yagami" take is not whether he is a good person, but more like, with the notion of him not seeing the nuances of the situation like ever? which makes him so good and right about everything, that he does everything according to law and etc... while i picture him as "let's do it baby i know the law" kind of person.

there IS a moment where he's a little bit stubborn about his convictions, but that's because *gestures* kuwana (AND I WILL WRITE ABOUT IT MORE... SOMEDAY... SURELY...), but not to the extent some people believe him to be (i remember a meme where "kuwana explains his pov (an explanation so long it's unreadable)" vs "yagami explains his pov (which only says "murder bad"). yeah it pissed me off pretty bad.)

so... yeah. i firmly believe that LJ is not about a good/bad dichotomy, though this type of story is expected with the starting factors we get. in the end, even the protagonist left kind of saddled with unnecessary feelings troubled about his convictions that in theory are simple, yet in practice contradict each other.

[13eyond13]

Remember that movie Saltburn. Wtf was that all about lol

[icewindandboringhorror]

Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...

[eliks-edge]

the spirit trio (click for better quality)

[strawberryrhubarbs]

articles i've read recently

mike faist pulls back the curtain

mike faist will try to fool you

where does chappell roan go from here?

why so many people are going "no contact" with their parents

does a.i. really encourage cheating in schools?

the death of school 10: how declining enrollment is threatening the future of american public education

'mommy can we go to paris?': wealth gap between parent families in new york

[iceeericeee]

I wonder how many tags i can add on to this

[burritowitch]

there's a black label blue beetle book in my head that will not ever ever leave now i don't think