#i’m gonna make a few concept drawings i’m going to experiment okay

[matryx7728]

i might give v0 a tail i’m considering giving v0 a tail

it would have practical uses !!! that are not just excuses for it to have a tail !!!

let a girl dream i might give v0

did i say i might give v0 a tail cause i’m considering giving v0 a tail

[buggbuzz]

Hii :). I know it’s a bit of a random question but I’m thinking of becoming a biology major and since you are one of those would you mind sharing a little (or a lot) about what it’s like?

YESSS OKAY!!

technically i'm a biotechnology major, so i'll have some more specific requirements, but right now i'm still in the general biology stage, so it's pretty much the same.

things to note:

if your college is anything like mine, you're gonna need to do biology AND chemistry for a little while. you'll also need to have your math classes covered; pre-calc was my last math requirement, and yours probably will be too

colleges! like! to! scam! you! for example, i'm working on my associate's right now, a "two year" degree. EXCEPT they set the curriculum up for FIVE semesters instead of four. pre-calc was required for bio 1 and chem 1, and i needed to do three bio classes and four chem classes in order. no matter what i did, i'd still have to do more than four semsters. my point? be prepared for stupid stuff like this. plan out all of your semesters to the best of your ability ahead of time so you can avoid being put in a tight spot. check your major's class requirements to make sure you know what you have to do. enroll in your classes the second they're available. and, you'd probably benefit from taking bio, chem, and math ap courses in high school.

biology is a LOT OF READING and it moves VERY QUICKLY!! so much reading. and if you're like me, and you don't really have an issue with reading a lot of dense biology material, don't get cocky. try to stay on the ball and study your textbooks at an even pace, not in huge last-minute bursts; your brain will get overwhelmed and fried REALLY fast.

i've found that one of the best ways to memorize biology is to understand each concept from multiple angles, and to understand how all the pieces go together. other good techniques are remembering interesting little tidbits, making analogies for everything, and connecting things you learn to other things you already know.

biology is also very visual and reminds me a lot of a rube-goldberg machine. think about how all the different moving pieces fit together. drawing out all the diagrams, looking up information about things mentioned offhand, and looking up extra diagrams and images can help a lot. of course, this is coming from an artist and a visual learner, so take that with a grain of salt. (on my instagram i have two different story highlights of my note-taking method! i have a lot of drawings and strategic methods there, so it might help to take a look)

as you can expect, the labs are really gross. i've got a stomach of steel and think parasitic worms are cute, so i'm a lot better off than most people, but even i hit my limits sometimes. you're gonna be shoving your fingers into organs and getting body fluids and fecal matter all over your fingers. also, the smell is unfathomably horrible. i'm serious about that. i've never smelled something so horrible in my entire life. also also im pretty sure the preservative fluid is toxic when consumed, so don't, like, put your mouth on anything dead.

make friends with your classmates, especially your lab partners! having eachother's backs and being able to comfortably collaborate will do your grades, stress levels, and lab performance all a huge favor. scientists are actually really easy to make friends with, too (at least biologists anyways). if you start chatting about different cool biology things you can make friends pretty quickly.

a lot of the practical things in lab are actually more complicated than they look. i went to an art high school and took ap bio after covid, so all of the few experiments we actually had ended up being dried up or cut from the curriculum. the only thing i had real experience with was microscopes because i actually have one at home. so, my first actual lab in college i had to trap a planarian in a slide with a dip in the center, and i shattered like four slide covers trying to set it up (SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING 💀💀💀). it also didn't help that everyone else had actually taken bio 1 in college and had experience with lab equipment already, yeesh. you pick it up fast, though.

you eventually start learning about organ systems. let me tell you something, it is such a goddamn mindfuck to learn about how your body works as its working. you feel like a sentient AI learning about circuitry and programming for the first time. it's pretty useful, though, as far as medical things as concerned, both physical and mental. you're kinda forced to be more aware of your own health.

still, im ecstatic that i'm majoring in bio. absolutely the best thing EVER. i learn something new every goddamn day, and this fall im taking a GENETICS CLASS, my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THING. i absolutely recommend majoring in biology.

[hyperfixationstation1]

Okay so, now that I have confirmation that Les Mis isn’t going anywhere, for the first time, in all my experience as a self-taught artist -

I’m gonna make a plan.

So, let's start by taking stock and taking a look at the recent sketches I've done:

For better or for worse, I’ve focused on a lot of portraits and faces, neglecting the details of the body and favoring plain-statuesque silhouettes.

Now, this is not bad. It’s just not how I want to proceed. I don’t really want to be a portraitist.

So, what do I want?

Well, let’s start with Line Art.

I, like many perfectionists, have a tendency to get wrapped up in the sketch. I spend a lot of time, erasing and sketching over, (often without a great grasp of the canvas itself cause this is traditional and I'm just drawing in my apartment with a lot of stuff cramped on itself.)

So, drawing in pen, with permanence and certainty in the outline is fairly new to me, but DEFINITELY something I want to get better at. This is a recent example and it’s fine, but still too jagged and hesitant in a lot of places. The rough silhouette is good. The flow of the details is lost though.

Though, it’s a good reminder that I need to do studies, not because I’m a bad artist, but because I am not a confident artist.

And I want to be. I want to be a confident artist. And to finish pieces.

So, where do we go from here?

First, I need to practice inking with minimal guiding sketches, trusting my instincts to fill in the gaps. If it looks bad the first few times, well, that, Eva, is why we practice.

Alternatively, if I am just using graphite or diluted ink (kinda jumping the gun there), I want to favor softer shading and only use darker lines when really necessary. Softer shading, more flowy, intentional placement of lines.

My biggest inspiration for both of these concepts is one of my favorite artists of all time, Elizabeth Shippen Green.

To be continued/ Still editing/Again, I'm not a full-time artist lol. I have notes that I organize when I can/it’s also five in the morning and I got a random burst of energy to start this and now I’m going back to sleep and getting those last 2 hours.

[theautisticbarbie]

A Bird of Praise

Act II

Chapter IV: Someone Familiar

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

Word Count: 3,420

Woof! I meant to post this sooner but woke up with a pounding migraine. But better late than never, right?

Chapter summary: Tara immediately presses charges against Jason for his crime, but begins to experience an otherworldly fallout due in no small part to his actions.

Warnings: mentions of rape, interrogation after being raped (Hopper doesn’t exactly understand the concept of being survivor-informed), traumatic medical settings (getting the rape kit was HELL for Tara, Billy being a cheating douche, smut (p in v, shower sex, dubcon) Russian ballet teachers (real ones understand why this is a warning), body shaming.

In the office, you could hear a pin drop.

“Can you describe the man who raped you?” Hopper asked.

“I know who it was. Jason Carver. He goes to my school,” Tara said.

Hopper let out an exasperated sigh.

“Why don’t you start off by telling me what happened?”

“I went to a Halloween party with my boyfriend.”

“Is he here with you?”

“No… he’s back at the party. He doesn’t even know what happened.”

“So, you left without him? You left him there at the party, correct?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay. Were you drinking at all?”

There was silence.

“Tara, I can only help you if you tell me the truth. If you were drinking, Jason’s defence attorney is absolutely going to use that against you. So it’s better to get out in front of it now. Were you drinking? Yes or no.”

Tears ran down Tara’s face as she took a shaky breath. “Yes. A lot, actually.”

“Okay. I appreciate your honesty. It really makes a difference.”

Tara started to hyperventilate as more tears flowed down her face.

“I know this is hard, but I just have a few more questions.”

By the time they were done, Tara was in full blown tears.

“I think that just about wraps this up. The deputy is gonna escort you to the hospital where they’ll do the rape kit. You’ll need a change of clothes. The costume is gonna have to be taken in as evidence of the assault.”

“Can I please make a quick phone call first?” Tara asked, wiping her tears away.

“Buckley Residence.”

“Robin, it’s Tara. Do you still have the key to my place?”

“Of course! Why do you need something?”

“Yeah. I need a change of clothes. I was just raped and they need to take the ones I have on as evidence. Can you stop by my place and bring them over to the County Hospital ER?”

“Of course!”

The exam was brutal. Despite the fact that the nurses were very kind and understanding, the highly invasive amount of evidence they had to collect took a massive toll. Several vaginal swabs, a blood draw to show evidence that she had been drugged, pictures and notes of the bruising and several other things. Thankfully, she had some privacy to change into a hospital gown and hand in her costume as evidence.

When Robin got there with her change of clothes, Tara just about collapsed into her arms in tears. Robin comforted her the best she could.

The deputy was kind enough to escort them back to Tara’s car in the school parking lot after the exam was done and all of the paperwork was completed. The deputy also told her that an officer would follow up with her tomorrow to sign off on the finalised police report, seeing as how the secretary had gone home for the night hours ago.

The drive home was completely silent until Robin spoke.

“I told your mom that you asked me to get you out of the party because it was a snooze fest.”

“You’re the best.”

Once Tara got inside, she immediately went up the the bathroom and started puking. Like Billy, Daniel was still at the party. Eleanor came up while she was cleaning herself off and knocked on the doorway, getting her attention.

“You know, Tara, if you ever need me to come get you, you can call me,” she said.

“Okay,” Tara said, simply acknowledging her mother.

“I have to go to work, but if there’s anything you ever need to talk about, I’m here.”

“Okay mom.”

The truth was that to Tara, Eleanor’s actions and her words didn’t match. She always berated her for small human errors and made her feel worse about herself.

Eleanor left for work, leaving Tara to take a shower. She stood under the running water and just sobbed, punching the bathroom wall in anger and frustration.

Once she got out and changed into her pyjamas, Robin was in her room waiting for her.

“Tara, if you want me to stay over and spend the night, I can.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, no problem!”

Robin did everything she could think of to take Tara’s mind off of the events that transpired tonight. Thankfully, she was already pretty tired so it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep.

In her dreams, she saw the burning New Belgium lab. This was a dream she was having quite regularly, but every time she tried to approach it, she felt an unshakable sense of dread. Still, the frustrating plateau that Tara found herself with in terms of controlling her powers drove her to move forward. Before she could enter the burning building, she heard the chime of a grandfather clock. When she turned around, there it was. For some reason or another, this particular clock had her frozen in sheer terror.

She woke up drenched in a cold sweat, gasping for air. She turned to her left to see that Robin was fast asleep.

After taking a deep sigh, she decided to have a snack to calm her nerves.

When she passed by Daniel’s room in the hallway, she heard the sound of his bed creaking and a girl moaning. “I guess Billy didn’t come back up to bed,” she said to herself.

When she went downstairs, she saw Billy splayed out on the couch, unconscious and clutching a nearly empty bottle of tequila.

“Go figure,” Tara said, exasperated.

She went in the kitchen and fixed herself a pizza bagel, her designated safe food.

While she was eating her snack, she heard a knock on the door and looked at the clock on the stove. 3:14 am.

Who on earth could that be at this hour? She decided to approach the door to see if she could gauge who it was without answering it.

“Billy,” the girl on the other side slurred. “I know you’re there. I followed your car home.”

Of course he drove drunk.

“You can’t just make me cum like that and disappear. Come on.”

That hurt. By now Tara was used to Billy having sex with other girls, but she didn’t expect those girls to literally show up at her door.

“You really get me, Billy. I need you. Now.”

Tara couldn’t take this anymore and decided to step outside.

“Who are you?” the girl slurred.

“I’m his girlfriend,” Tara replied flatly. “And I’m sorry, but he’s playing you.”

The two sat on the steps of the porch while they compared stories.

“I’m so sorry,” the girl said. “I swear I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”

“I believe you. He does that.”

Tara looked at the cigarette which she had taken a few puffs of and sighed. “He turned me into a monster.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You didn’t come bite my head off when I showed up.”

“I’m so sick of this. All he does is drink and cheat on me and I’m stuck with him.”

“Why is that? Why can’t you leave?”

“It’s complicated… I’m sorry, I never caught your name.”

“It’s Patti.”

“Patti,” Tara repeated.

“Guess he duped both of us,” Patti offered.

“Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

The drive back to Patti’s house was relatively quiet, apart from the occasional sounds of the nocturnal wildlife.

Once Tara dropped Patti back off and went back to her place, she completely crashed, leaving her half-eaten pizza bagel in the kitchen.

She woke up to the sound of her very hungover boyfriend vomiting in her bathroom.

She entered the bathroom and placed a gentle hand on his back with one hand and held his hair back with another.

“God, baby, you’re so good to me.” Billy said.

“I’ll get you some water. That and a shower should make you feel better.”

“Why don’t you join me?” Billy offered suggestively.

“Because I already showered last night.”

Well, it’s a good thing that the nurses got everything they needed for the rape kit because once again, Billy got his way.

The shower water ran over them both while his cock was buried to the hilt inside of her.

He was riding out his third orgasm, kissing Tara hungrily while obscene moans fell from his lips.

“God, baby! Your fucking pussy feels like heaven! I love being inside of you! I could goddamn live inside of you and I would never complain once!”

He thrusted harder, bringing on his fourth and final orgasm.

Speaking of orgasms, Tara didn’t have any. Maybe it was the roofie still in her system. Maybe it was because of everything that happened, but she didn’t cum.

Once Billy and her got dressed and walked out to the driveway, Tara stopped.

“What’s wrong, doll face?” Billy asked.

“Um… it’s just that I have an important errand to run after school, so I think it would be better if I drove myself.”

“Important errand?”

“Yeah. Something happened and the police want me to come down to the station and give a statement.”

“Ah. Cops. Gotta love ‘em.”

“I mean, it’s not really a suggestion, Billy.”

“Yeah, I got that. See you around,” Billy said, slamming his car door in an annoyed manner before riding off at standard Billy Hargrove driving speed.

Once Tara pulled up to school, things seemed okay for a bit. Nancy was absent during first period, which worried her.

She only remembered her trying to shoo her away from the party. Everything else was a blur until she was assaulted.

Did something happen, she wondered.

Things continued to go askew when the PA announcement chimed.

“Attention Hawkins High! If you are a member of the cheer squad, the gymnastics team or the ballet team, there has been a gas leak in the dance studio. Classes will be held in the gymnasium and on the blacktop until the problem is fixed. That’s all. Please continue to go about your business.”

Okay, that’s tedious, but at least class would still be held.

When she got to the gym, however, the students who got there seemed frazzled and nervous.

“What’s going on?” Tara almost didn’t dare to ask. “Why is everyone so upset?”

“It’s a conspiracy! The universe hates us!” a ginger freshman shouted.

“Summer, what’s wrong?” Tara repeated, trying to remain measured.

“Coach Yelling Bitch is subbing today!” Summer cried.

Maya Jelavich. The poster child for Russian Ballet teachers. She takes the motto of “no excuses” and ramps it up to eleven.

So much for being able to use today’s class to decompress.

The first half of class, the warm up, was held on the blacktop, with track fences being used as substitutes for ballet bars.

Once the dancers were warmed up, they did the second half of class in the gym, where the boy’s basketball team was playing shirts and skins. Billy was on team skins because of course he was.

Tara noticed Billy was giving Steve a particularly hard time. Perhaps she should have payed it less mind because she was immediately berated by Coach Jelavich for “ogling the basketball boys”.

There was always a running bet to see who would either be reduced to tears or leave class early first when she was subbing and how long it would be.

The fact that everyone made it through the first half of class was impressive, but this is where she gets real.

The first one came when the dancers were practising their fouetté turns.

“I can see your lunch, Miss Cunningham.”

Poor Chrissy literally ran out.

“That was mean! Chrissy works really hard!” Tara said.

Tara was not normally bold enough to stand up to her teachers, but between Nancy possibly being missing, getting sexually assaulted, seeing her boyfriend cheating on her with 2 girls at once and one of said girls coming back to HER HOUSE looking for him, Tara was fed up.

“Well, Miss Newman, perhaps you can go next.”

Tara was never the best at fouetté turns, but Coach Jelavich was grilling her hardcore. The criticism and badgering were overwhelming, and that combined with improper spotting made her fall over.

“Absolutely pitiful! Again!”

A reprieve thankfully came when Vice Principal Whitmore came into the gym and asked to speak to both Coach Jelavich and the basketball team coach in private.

The boys were told to keep playing and Tara was told to keep practising.

Billy wasn’t letting up at all. He was really giving Steve the business. It all came to a head when Billy literally threw the ball at Steve’s face, knocking him over.

“Eat shit, Harrington!” Billy whooped.

“Billy! Stop that! Leave him alone already! What are you trying to prove?” Tara finally said, losing her patience.

“It’s just harmless fun, babe. No need to get your panties in a twist.”

“Doesn’t look harmless to me.”

“What do you care if he gets bitched on, anyways? You’re MY girlfriend. You fucking him or something?”

“For the millionth time, Billy, no! I am not having sex with Steve Harrington! He has a girlfriend!”

“Look,” Steve interjected. “I think, for whatever reason, we’re all a little upset and frustrated. Why don’t we just take a breather and—“

“Except that’s not your call, is it, Harrington? That’s for coach to decide and he’s outside getting his shit wrecked by Bitchmore.”

“Come on, man. Don’t call her that. I know she’s a hard-ass but be cool.”

“Well, Harrington, it seems to me like you went from being the expert on being cool to the last guy who would know jack shit about it, so—“

“We get it, Billy!” Tara interrupted. “You’re the alpha! The be-all-end-all of ultimate manliness and every girl absolutely worships you! Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Billy scoffed and walked away to take a swig from his water.

“Um, thanks, I guess,” Steve said to Tara, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Where’s Nancy?” Tara asked, definitely more accusatory than she intended.

“You’re kidding, right? Why don’t you ask him?” Steve said, pointing at Billy. “He was the one egging you on to verbally massacre her.”

“Verbally massacre?”

“Yeah, you told her that you two weren’t actually friends and that you didn’t need her. Oh and apparently she was only pretending to be your friend to feel better about herself.”

“I would never say anything like that!”

Just then, the two coaches came back.

“Well, you did.”

Without another word, Tara returned to her fouettés.

Coach Jelavich ramped up her heckling, compounding her berating and insults with a phrase that stung.

“You are embarrassing, disappointing and amateur! I would have never cast you as principal! You will never be Odette!”

That hurt. Tara fell to the floor, losing her balance and tears fell from her eyes, prompting her boyfriend to finally intervene.

“Jesus Christ! Lay off her!”

“Mind your own business lunkhead basketball boy.”

“At least I’m not a former Commie.”

“You are simple. You toss around ball and think that entitles you to endless accolades. Ballet is a culture. It’s a way of life. And if you do not live that way of life, you do not deserve pointe shoes.”

Billy decided he was uninterested in what she was saying and ran over to Tara’s side.

“Are you okay, babe?”

He tried to help her up, but she snatched herself away. “Don’t touch me!”

Tara got up and grabbed her gym back before turning back to Billy. “We’re through!”

And with that, Tara stormed out, leaving Billy with an initial look of confusion that gradually became seething anger once he realised that he had been dumped.

Truthfully, Tara had never run out of class before, so she had no idea what to do or where she was going.

At least until she saw mullet man smoking in the designated smoking area.

“What are you doing out of class?” he asked, causing Tara to give a mortified expression.

“I’m just messing with you, princess.” he said with a chuckle.

Tara responded with a half hearted chuckle, still VERY uneasy about the situation.

“First time cutting?” he asked.

That question initially caught Tara off guard and she had an expression that looked like it could have been panic until she had a realisation.

“Oh you mean class?”

“What else could I have possibly meant? Yes, I meant class.”

“Oh… yeah…”

“Hey, sorry about last night. My girl, Brenda, if she sees me interacting with someone who has even one iota of cleavage, she assumes I’m trying to cheat.”

“Seriously? That’s awful!”

Mullet man shrugged. “She’s been cheated on a lot in the past. You know the old saying. Once bitten, twice shy and all.”

Tara thought to herself and came to to conclusion that as unfaithful as Billy was, he wouldn’t ever presume he was cheating unless she was given indisputable evidence like the many times she found the leftover undergarments in his car or the one time she literally caught him in the act. To accuse someone of cheating simply because the girl had cleavage seemed a bit extreme, even under her circumstances.

“I should go. This isn’t me. I’m not meant for truancy.”

“I can respect that. See you around, princess.”

On the way back to class, Tara was stopped by the school nurse.

“Tara what are you doing?”

Her blood ran cold and she froze like a deer in headlights. Getting caught cutting class was not something she wanted on her record and it definitely wasn’t something she wanted to explain to her mother.

“You walked right past me. Again,” she said shaking a pill bottle.

Right. Her heart medication. It was time to take that, anyway.

Once lunch rolled around, Tara saw Nancy eating with Jonathan. She was relieved that Nancy was okay, but boy oh boy did she have some splainin’ to do.

“Nancy!” Tara called. “Nancy! I’m so sorry!”

“For?” Nancy asked, shooting a look of confusion.

“For what I said at Tina’s party last night!”

“What?”

“Apparently I said some things at the party while I was drunk but I want you to know that I was way out of line and I didn’t mean any of them!”

“Okay. Good to know,” Nancy said, still very confused.

“Friends?”

“Of course,” Nancy said, still perplexed before Tara gave her a one-sided hug.

By the time school was out for the day, it occurred to Tara that Billy might decide to take the fact that she broke up with him out on Max and decided to stake out the parking lot to intercept her before she could get hurt.

She saw Billy out there with another girl. Guess he wasn’t all that upset about getting dumped. Then again, it’s entirely possible that he made plans with her the moment she said she was going back home without him.

The two of them were waiting out there for quite a while before Billy finally said “Screw it! The little shit can skate home!”

After he drove away, Tara emerged from the car she was hiding behind and decided to go find Max herself.

She trekked the grounds of the middle school looking for her.

“Max? Max?”

Where on earth could she possibly be?

After rigorously searching through the halls, she ran smack dab into what initially looked like another middle schooler.

“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” she instinctively asked before taking another look at this little girl. The first thing that immediately struck Tara was that this kid looked vaguely like she could be a younger version of her.

However, she could only get a glimpse before the very clearly agitated girl decided to fling her back at least 10 feet away.

Once Tara recovered from the shock, she looked up to see the girl had her arm extended outward and blood ran from her nose. As she got up, she put the pieces together and realised that this girl had the same abilities that she did.

But how was that even possible? She was the only survivor from the New Belgium facility.

Or was she? She needed answers. Just then, the girl started to walk away.

“Wait!” Tara called.

The girl decided to run. Tara followed but whoever this kid was, she knew how to run for it.

“Wait! Stop!” Tara pleaded. “I’m a friend!”

She extended her arm in an attempt to use her powers to stop her, but with the roofie still in her system, it was no dice.

She got away.

“Jason Carver, you dirtbag!” Tara shouted, kicking a locker in frustration.

[harethere-is-art]

So a few days ago I had posted my “I’m Gonna Win” spamton drawing illustrating my hc for the Transformation Theory. Since then I talked about the pros and cons in the Acid Theory in depth with mutuals and in discord servers. So when it came time to post it on instagram I created a clarification slide to add a detail I’ld typically leave in tags. Only to write an entire essay in the description anyways pffft.

But anyways here you go

So after chapter 2 came out I was enamored by the idea of Spamton going through a slow and progressive transformation at the hands of Gaster/the Knight to emphasize Spamton figuratively AND literally giving himself for "freedom" But when the Acid Theory gained traction I foolishly assumed it was somehow canon and I scrapped my original idea (which is my own fault I don't blame anyone that would be silly pffft). While there was a lot of cool imagery and concepts that came out of it I felt it was too quickly accepted and wide spread which inadvertently discouraged other interpretations. (I've talked to others about this and they had similar experiences) Alongside that another issue is that the Acid Theory characterized characters such as Queen to seem much more vindictive(?) than necessary. Sure she's a bit reckless with lives and what she did to Berdly and the Plugboys is not okay. But saying that she's okay with torturing and burning someone alive? That's a whole other level of cruel. (Which might tie in to fandom’s tendency to villainize female characters more than male characters which is a whole other but relevant can of worms.) The biggest problem being the misconception of Acid Theory being actual canon which leaked it's ways into debates about certain characters. What I personally enjoy about the Transformation Theory is Delatrune is already a more fantasy and metaphor heavy game and the idea of The Knight transforming his victims into more mechanical and easier to control vessels is much more connected to the themes of the game. (A jack-in-a-box having a crank that you have to rotate to make a clown jump out and a puppet which you manipulate to act out different scenarios) This theory as well keeps the concept of Spamton being shorter than the other Addisons pre-puppetification within the theory which helps to solidify the themes his goal of being a "big shot" and "bigger. Anyways this isn't my way of discouraging others from using the Spamton Acid Theory or judging others who DO utilize the Acid Theory. I'm just pointing out the flaws and inviting more diverse interpretations of how Spamton got to look the way he did ^ ^

Also this post by @unikhroma​ essentially debunks this whole theory in one line soooooo- uuuh- Rip lol

[lunarblazes]

[GRABS YOU] ELABORATE ON THE RED WATCHER CONCEPT NOW. I AM ACTIVELY CHARGING UP A LIGHTNING SPELL AT YOU. THIS IS A DEMAND AND A THREAT

i. i forgot to answer this until i was ALMOST ASLEEP but BETTER LATE THAN NEVER I GUESS??

this is probably going to get long SO. here is a lovely read more!

so uh! for those of you who don’t know, at the end of evolution smp (at least for grian, a lot of the members continued without him), grian was chosen to become part of a group known as the watchers. his text at the end, where he becomes a watcher, is in bright, vivid red, probably because that’s his signature color.

surprisingly, despite the name, the watchers themselves don’t really appear much in this… interpretation? headcanon? au? concept? what does matter is that they are universal beings of peace and balance, and they need their balances. they’re pretty omnipresent, yet distant. the consequences of their choices are really the biggest thing to deal with here. the root of the red watcher concept is basically just tying grian’s end text color to the idea of red lives, something something a watcher of violence, something something balance keeper, something something oops now i have an entire concept and brainrot on my hands!

now i’m gonna copy-paste the explanation i wrote out on discord and sprinkle in some elaboration as needed! here we go, mario:

“the red watcher is a title, passed down between mortals and given by the watchers. each red watcher is given the full scale of watcher abilities, appearance, and an extended lifespan. in exchange, the red watchers must maintain balance for the watchers, essentially acting as a hand for the watchers to control. a pawn, of sorts.

naturally, the watchers select grian to be the next crimson-seeing at the end of third life, hence why i drew that one piece of him and scar kneeling in the lake, where he’s almost blinking back the yellow eyes that are following him. the gifts continually fuck with him throughout the course of that series (some of you might know that he was completely human before the series started), changing his appearance and basically everything about him. this interference from the watchers, grian’s rejection of said gifts, appearance, and interference, and the mutilation of the world work together to create the perfect storm of last life. the curse is spreading among the players because grian refuses to accept anything he’s been given, so restlessly, the mantle skips among the participants, never quite settling completely because the one who’s meant to take the role just *will not.*

but i mean. he’s the first victim of his own curse. the red watcher is also called the angel of violence.”

and here is a description of what exactly his defiance does to him (plus a general description of his design and its progression, including how he lost an ear!):

“okay so what changes first are the wings, obviously, uhh those grow in pretty soon after he first joins the world. the most fucked up things about 3L!grian are is slight talons, his wings, and his right ear. his right ear was blasted off in the battle of the red desert, and the wing-like replacement that grew back isn’t an ear so much as a reminder about how fucked up things are getting lmao. so this man is very hoh; him and scar invent a sort of shorthand signing system for battles where grian can’t hear him, but since he can still sort of hear with his other ear usually they talk to each other in casual situations. the talons are a formation that happens on his red life (one change per life hahaaa, wings on green, ear just before yellow, and talons on red). they’re not bird talons cos he’s a dragonfly, they’re harder and more spike-like, with better articulation than dragonfly spikes, but they’re still sort of coated in an exoskeleton because that’s sick as hell. in last life, he wakes up the same, but once they’re assigned their lives shit starts going south again, probably because he’s immediately yellow and because the watchers are impatient after being evaded for so long. his talons get longer and more armored, and as you can see his feet are now funky lil bug spikes because i think that looks neat! sorta took an inspiration from hollow knight for this design, though that’s more based on beetles. his eyes are prismatic like a dragonfly’s and it gives him a massive headache sometimes. i didn’t draw this part but! scar tore out a chunk of his wings during the finale of third life, so they shouldn’t be that complete. those wounds stayed, though eventually they might heal over, maybe. maybe.”

concepts from this also bleed into my hcs for other members! for instance, the inhuman progression isn’t necessarily limited to grian, though it works a bit differently for him. nearly everyone on the server experiences the same progression at different rates as a side effect of being on a server run by such a physically volatile being. grian’s will be near constant changes, but for the rest of the crew, it’s usually limited to life loss and change occurring then. some players— notably scott and martyn— are not human to begin with but have their inhuman features deepened over time (martyn is a moon spirit with dragon features and scott is a wind spirit with nymph-like tendencies). i have a progression planned for nearly every member because i’m a huge dork, so. if anyone’s curious! this post is the most in-depth one, though, because i am a fucking fool. this universe isn’t really connected to hc/empires or other servers, it’s self-contained! not sure if evo is even canon yet, though it probably is.

so yes! if you see me mention the red watcher concept, that’s what it is. it’s been a few times; i should make a tag for it, honestly. i get massive brainrot over this shit and i KNOW it’s overdone but MAN.

[jaypsnax]

Alright then, to take it from the top... here’s some things I’ve done here or there for this dang game, from oldest to newest. With a big chunk of months starting with the margin Floofty there. Much is traditional and such, which is not my most practiced medium. Details on each below, just because I like over-explaining and it helps my nerves about posting.

1st: Fairly certain this Gramble is the first thing I did that was OK enough to show. Or, at least close to the first. He was one of my favorites and still is for his kindness(though he also can be really mean and paranoid, also a reason why I like him), so I wanted to get around to em. Also he’s very cute, I love my little malewife. I wanna scoop him up and hold him. Trouble is, Gramble has to have some of the most awkward proportions I’ve yet experienced while trying to draw a grumpus, I swear. That, and the more I looked at it, the more I grew to be unhappy with it. That generally applies to basically all of the drawings from last year, I find them to be “eh” at best. But it is what it is. 2nd: Second up is Flooftyyy, my most favorite. Intelligent, well-spoken, morally ambiguous, NB... and an asshole. But one with a cause they believe in that’s ultimately well intentioned, which they’ll go to self-destructive lengths to fulfill. And it’s clear they struggle to really get a grasp on how to treat people and have learned to cope with their frustration by shutting everyone out and believing them to be ignorant. While still obviously playing favorites between Eggabell and Triffany :p But by the end of the game, they’re learning that in order to really do what they want, they’ve got to really try and understand others. They’re the sort that I’d love to keep following to see their development. The awkwardness, the uncomfortable apologies and attempts at empathizing or opening up, the potential for blossoming relationships and a connection with others that, maybe, they’ve never quite experienced before. Their character is one that’s kind of close to my heart for being interesting and also quite similar to one I made and roleplayed for years. Add in the fact they’re NB and that just sealed the deal, that’s some fucking gender goddamn euphoria right there. So I had to draw them. 3rd: This one also mostly falls under the same explanation as above, except it was an effort as really figuring out grumpus bodies and proportions and stuff. Albeit in the form of solely Floofty, but my mental bandwidth for anything more than a drawing or two at a time is zilch. After that I’m spent. It was the first thing that I felt even marginally satisfied with, however.... I just feel like I’m in danger when looking at it. Like I’m gonna lose my way of things and habits I’ve built now from observing it too closely. Did keep the eyes, however. Kind of. 4th: To be real w you I just felt like drawing a Filbo after seeing a Filbo. He’s cute and I’d put a smooch on his dumb little head. Also more practice w grump stuff, but with some intentional attempts at stylization. I guess it didn’t stick, but who knows, maybe I could pick some of it back up?  5th: THE FIRST NEW DRAWING FROM A FEW DAYS AGO and it’s FLOOFTY, of course. It’s not really the first, there’s a few other things before it, but they suck so... yeah. I’d crawled out of the Bugsnax hole somewhat after a few months and failing to really do anything I actually wanted to do before, but a particular fic conked me right back 6 ft under. Piled the dirt over me and packed it in tight. So here I am again. And not only is it like that, but after binging a whole nearly 60,000 words in a night/morning, I was struck with the inspiration to actually write myself. Or try to, anyway. I have experience in RPing, but not a whole lot in actually... making a story myself. It’s not been going well, but I’ve talked plenty about that already... I’m sure it gets annoying for the whole maybe one person whose seen most of it to witness. And I’m still having fun. I’d mention the fic, but considering it’s NSFW and I’m officially tagging this... I don’t know if they’d want me advertising it as such. But surprise surprise, it’s Floofty related. And don’t get the wrong idea, while it covers explicit subject matter, that’s not entirely the point. Not a bad thing if it were, just that it’s more than that. I just like good character writing over all else, which is something liking this game to begin with heavily reinforced.... 6th: Heeeere’s Gramble, again. I’d been doing some little drawings for character profile stuff in my notebook, but I started to run into some difficulties when I got to him. This here is one of the results of the couple of little draws I did to try and understand. Again, his proportions are so *weird*. He’s just a little guy.... 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th: Here marks the first impulse draw after considering Buddy/Filbo/Beffica poly stuff. As well as the sudden Buddy drawing in general, which came as a big shock to me. These draws are suuuper rough, but I like the concepts. And goodness has this stuff been a whole ‘nother tangent... I did a fair amount of talking about it here. I’d do more, since there were TONS of details I still wanted to mentioned, but... my hands are starting to hurt. So maybe later. I realized that I kinda of messed up their design in my head bc I thought they had more similar teeth to Clumby. Whoops. That’s what I get for not using reference and same with FlooFTY’S TEETH AND THE WATCH NOOOOOOOOOO- .... *Ahem* I reckon the design is subject to change. Gotta make some little adjustment here or there, like maybe different eyes to distinct them from Floofty, but I actually rather... like the look. The hat, tie, and maybe a change to a bag on the side look nice... if totally not canon. But I will have just a little break from canon, as a treat. Otherwise it’s canon or bust. Personally, at least. I don’t really hold others to that standard unless they say they’re trying to follow canon or diverge so badly that a character is unrecognizable.

[wizkiddx]

ohmyword if your doing req can u pls do another fluffy, domestic one bcos honeymoon morning is some i read daily AHAH maybe like the reader gets ill and toms away or something???? pls just anything fluffy

awh thank you for being so sweet abt honeymoon morning - I do think that's one of my favourite concepts ive done!! and I hope this suits what you want, im not so sure myself but I tried :)))

summary: you try to hide being ill from Tom before he leaves but inevitably it doesn't all go to plan

warnings: mentions of being sick, I think that's all - basically just fluff 

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

The night hadn’t really gone typically at all. Instead of relishing the last night with Tom for a few months, your body seemed to have different plans. Hence why now you were curled up in a ball on the sofa, staring blankly at the TV, while the washing machine whirred next-door in the utility room and the chemical smell of cleaning products enveloped the downstairs. At least when you were sick, you were a clean sick. 

You were also a quiet sick. You had been pulled from your sleep by the uncomfortable heavy sensation from your stomach barely an hour after you’d both headed to bed. Why was beyond you - what had been important in that moment was to get away from Tom. He was flying back to set tomorrow (or given the early hours currently, lunchtime today was more appropriate) and only had a single day to settle before launching back into filming. So the poor boy was inevitably, given time zones, going to be running on poor quality plane sleep for the next couple of days - you wanted to five him a final night of peace, at least. 

As a result, you’d crept downstairs and since then spent a large chunk of the night making good friends with the downstairs toilet bowl. Once you were absolutely certain there was literally nothing else in your stomach, you chucked some bleach down the loo; then stripped your *stained* pyjamas and chucked them in the washing machine; changed into some freshly washed stuff in the utility (comprising of joggers and one of Tom’s hoodies); before you could curl up in the corner of the sofa. 

And that’s how you’d been for an hour or so. Still feeling grim, unable to fall asleep as much as you were trying to and generally just lying in a ball of self pity. And that was fine… until you heard the unmistakable slow padding of footsteps down the stairs. 

“Love?… -hy’re you up?” His voice was drenched in sleep, making it pull on your heart strings, even before he had rounded the sofa and come into view. Dressed only in his heather grey joggers only, Tom’s curls sat ontop of his head wildly - sticking up at all ridiculous angles. And then there was his puffy eyes, barely open as he slowly processed the sight of you curled up on the sofa. 

“Just couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to keep you up tossing and turning. Why are you up bub?”

“Don’t sleep good without you… you know kicking me and stealing the duvet and stuff.” Never one to maintain a level of seriousness and ‘soppiness’ - it was instantly turned back to the typical relationship of the two of you. While rolling your eyes, you still chuckled at him in the low light of the TV. Tom took the opportunity to perch on the edge of the sofa, sitting so he was grinning loopily down at you. “You fancied putting a wash on too?” 

“...I don’t know just trying to be productive?” He was catching on, he was suspicious. You could tell. His eyebrows furrowed together and he delicately hovered the back of his hand over your forehead, feeling the undeniable heat radiate into his skin. 

“And bleach?”

“Toilet needed doing anyway.” You mumbled, head turning to stare back at the TV- knowing his eyes were piercing into your soul. He sighed, in your peripheries you could see him shaking his head in slight frustration, as his hand reached for yours, giving it a squeeze. 

“You’re ill aren’t you?”

“I’m alright-“ he cut you off with a low warning of your name, making you cower slightly because he’d caught you in a lie. “I threw up a couple times but now I just feel a bit ‘eugh’”. That was, to be fair, a completely truthful description of your evening and current situation. Maybe not put most eloquently but Tom definitely got the messsage, somehow reading your mind by lightly massaging your abdomen with his hand that wasn’t clasped with yours. 

“Come on... let’s get you back to bed.” As much as you wanted to argue with him, it was clear any attempt would be futile. One of things you love so much about Tom is how fiercely protective he is of those dear to him. His circles progressively shrunk as he learnt who he could trust and who ... well he couldn’t. The culling had left a handful of people who were almost central to Tom’s life - somehow you’d managed to wangle your way into these select few too. 

So no, there was not point arguing or suggesting he puts his own welfare first. 

After putting you back int the double bed, Tom had disappeared for 10 minutes or so, when he reinterred the room it was clear he’d been busy. His tongue was stuck out in focus as he tried to balance different mugs and plates on a tray to you. Even if you felt shitty, for a moment by just seeing how far this guy had gone for you - you’d never felt better. 

“Okay there’s some lemsip with honey to settle your stomach, water and a slice of toast just because you should probably see if you can keep something down.”

“You really are the sweetest.”

“And you’re the illest so get drinking love.” He laughed softly in the yellow glow of the bedside lamps that illuminated the room. It highlighted his prominent jaw line and the way his eyes crinkled in the corners and given your slightly off state, you might’ve spent a bit too long ogling at the man cosied up next to you. Never would there be a time you weren’t grateful for him. 

Turns out you couldn’t keep the toast down but the experience was somewhat less horrific - this time you were spilling your guts out into your ensuite, while Tom held your hair and rubbed your back. Eventually things settled, allowing The two of you nestle back into bed, Tom wrapping his arms round your stomach to lightly trace random patterns on the skin underneath your hoodie - as you nestled back into his chest more. 

“I really love you Tom”

“Love you darling, now get some rest and shout if you need anything.” You hummed lightly, almost letting go to sleep now your felt a bit less like your intenpstines were wringing themselves together. But not quite. 

“I’m gonna miss you and your stupid face.”

“We can talk about that when your better” It was as if Tom thought whispering and drawing circles on your stomach was going to deafen you to his words. Yes your stomach wasn’t having a lot of fun and you were tired - but you were not deaf. It was oh so predictable too, he loved to be absolutely ridiculous. Indignantly you huffed, rolling over and eyeing him intently. 

“What’s there to talk about?” 

“Just…. Just if your sick you shouldn’t be on your own. I could always just-“

“No no you couldn’t. You and me both know for a fact you do have a choice and even if you did it be pissing off a hell of a lot of people.” He pouted, you could tell even in the darkness of the night. 

“I hate having to leave you though, especially like this.”

“Yes but you love your work too. I’ll be here when you get back… maybe just with a bit less intestines.” Laughing at that, Tom pulled you onto his chest, pressing his tips to the crown of your head as your burrowed into his side. 

It can’t have taken more than 5 seconds for you to fall asleep, exhausted from the illness, the stupid time in the morning and maybe slightly for dealing with Toms idiocy.  

You were awoken in the morning to Tom stroking your hair gently, all dressed and ready for his flight - but still finding the time to fuss over you and wanting to say a proper goodbye. After practically ordering his to leave… you best believe he dropped in the fact he’d got both Sam and Harry to come round as your babysitter. 

He was an idiot. But he was your kind, caring , beautiful and loving idiot. 

[matthewbeilschmidts]

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted but I’m so glad that I am :’)

This is for Day 1: of @prucanweek - Ordinary

Apologies for spelling errors, it’s a little short but I hope you enjoy 😭💞

-

Matthew doesn’t mind that he’s living an ordinary life. Really.

He grows up near the coast, two parents, a fraternal twin brother, and their gangly hairless cat, Tony (picked curtesy of Alfred). Their parents take them everywhere they can during their childhood, the beach, museums, sports game. They focus on their interests, figuring out what the two like and dislike, as they encourage them both to be themselves and do what they love no matter what. Alfred debates between whether he likes wrestling or football more, while Matthew settles into hockey. In between family get togethers, community festivals, and endless sports training, they somehow have time for homework. (The two share answers a lot.)

He and Alfred each have their own rooms when they enter their teen years, a space to decorate and fill with their own mementos and awards. The sports continue, but later their parents find themselves a little bit busier than before. They do though, give them as much time as they can during the school year, never wanting them to go without someone by their side.

Matthew fades into the background a little bit as they get older, while Alfred puts himself front and center. Matthew watches once with a hand over his eyes as Alfred auditions for the school musical, and surprisingly he read and sings the lines well. “It’s always the rowdy ones!” their theater teachers says after he’s finished performing, a mix of anticipation from planning on putting Alfred on stage and dread at the thought of having to manage him.

Matthew silently supports him, after all he has his own things to do.

He’s the co-caption of the hockey team, the coach giving him the position to give him a little more of a voice, and his teammates verbally agree, considering on the ice Matthew has a lot more to show than he does in person. He accepts, albeit hesitantly.

By the time graduation comes by, Matthew can barely believe how the time has passed. His team even wins a championship under his watch. Some of his fellow classmates look so ready to go out and experience the world, and it’s scary to him because weren’t they all going at the same pace?

His parents talk him through picking his college of choice, and he decides to go. He needs to do what everyone does and experience the world.

And if he decides he wants to come home, that’s okay because at least he tries.

-

He’s in his first art class during his third year at university. The time has been going well, he’s got pretty decent grades and has managed to join a few clubs. But he’s not done yet. Extra curriculars, can’t finish without them. He prioritizes his general education first, and even slips himself into a few major classes early on, but humanities is on record now and has to be completed no matter what one’s studying.

He can get through one semester, he hopes.

Next to him, a student is snickering and the professor doesn’t look amused.

“Gilbert.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“If you’re done, I can introduce myself now.”

The professor goes in with complete, in-depth introductory slides with her name and credentials, and a briefing of all they will overcome this semester.

He’s never been an artist, at least not one that picks up a pencil and creates a realistic masterpiece with nothing but that and a pad of paper. Maybe some poetry contests in high school, if that counts. The written word has its own impact, its own set of colors to breathe out for the world to see.

There’s another snicker, interrupting his internal monologue.

He doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know the student, and it’s not his place to control others. But, if it starts to hinder the class, maybe he’ll tell him something. He’s paying to be there, too.

The man catches him staring.

“Yes?” he asks Matthew without being spoken to in the first place.

“Oh,” Matthew flushes at being caught, not that he was trying to hide it anyway. “Well, she didn’t say anything funny?”

The guys waves a hand, making a “psssh” noise as he does.

“I’m just laughing because of how formal this all is. She won’t be this dignified later in the semester that’s for sure. She’ll be ripping her hair out.”

Matthew glances back, he doesn’t want to say anyone looks mean but, he would believe it if she was.

“You look scared,” the guy laughs, which is rude because isn’t he the one that just put the thought in Matthew’s mind? “She’s not too mean just a sticker to the rules. Will get real pissy if something doesn’t go right.”

“And you still set her off knowing that?”

The man laughs again, but this time around he’s actually trying to contain it behind the thin art easel. He’s not very hidden.

“She’s my cousin’s wife.”

Ah, that makes sense then? Messing with family is normal, but also he shouldn’t be bothering her at work.

“It’s no wonder you seemed casual.”

“She taught both of the lower division figure drawing classes, too. This is my third semester in her class. She’s the only one teaching this specific class I didn’t have too much of a choice.”

“Art major?”

“Yep! And you?”

“Psychology major. I have to get in some cultural classes.”

“Ever taken art?”

“Actually no, not even in high school. I got through that stuff by working backstage in the theater department.”

“Well not to worry my friend, because you picked the best one.”

“Is it easy to pass?”

“Nope. Well, maybe if she likes your work,” Matthew deflates at the blunt response, “but don’t worry because I’m here to be your guide.”

Matthew perks up, but it takes him a moment. This guy’s gonna help him?

“Are you any good?”

“Am I good?” He looks perplexed Matthew would even ask. Matthew has to cover his own amusement. “I may not look it but charcoal and I go way back. I’ll show you my work later as proof.”

“Deal.”

“Gilbert, since you’re adamant on talking, you can be the first to introduce yourself.”

Even if his name wasn’t said, Matthew feels just as guilty. Caught, for talking on the first day of all things.

“Gilbert Beilshcmidt. Fourth year. I’m an art major and my favorite breakfast food is pancakes.”

Matthew looks surprised that he was paying attention, even to the last addition of their introduction. Matthew’s not sure he would have known considering he was distracted.

-

And so their friendship starts.

-

Gilbert sits next to him again. And again.

Where ever Matthew sits in the art room, Gilbert follows not too long after.

Some days they take the sitting desks, some they stand and lean against the stools.

And despite not even talking much, Gilbert treats him like a friend.

-

“Do you have any plans this afternoon?”

“Nope, this was my last class.”

“Do you want to get some coffee and work on our sketch books.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

-

Matthew finds himself meeting Gilbert in his downtime. Every Thursday after drawing for three hours becomes the day they meet. At first, all they do is draw, little more.

Gilbert is animated in all moments, but he has short spurts where he focuses exceptionally on his work. Matthew is no art critic, but he thinks Gilbert expresses himself quite well on paper. Graphite, charcoal, and pastels, all the utensils glide easily without a single stroke missing its mark.

Watercolor though, could use some work, which actually happens to be Matthew’s favorite. Even if the intention is to guide the colors with a brush, it’s okay for them to take a life of their own spreading across the thick paper.

They share snacks, art supplies, and their time.

Gilbert proves himself very useful as he promised. Matthew though never planning to be the next Van Gogh, has to pass this class. And it would be nice to pass it with flying colors, but some concepts are harder to grasp than others.

It’s obvious to tell he’s a beginner, while Gilbert excels. Matthew finds out he only now needs the intro class since it’s the first semester it became a requirement.

Gilbert helps him find the shapes he’s comfortable with, explains the processing for hatching and how it relates to shading. And while he’s no expert, he sees a subtle improvement over the next few weeks that makes some pride swell within himself.

-

“Do you want to come with me and my friends to this cool bar for dinner on Friday?” Gilbert asks about a month into the semester.

It’s the first time Gilbert and him will have spent time off campus.

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

-

Gilbert’s friends are just as animated as he, it’s almost hard to keep up. Overwhelming as they are, they’re extremely welcoming. Matthew eases into the atmosphere, joining in when he can but mostly pleased to be out and doing something different.

He’s made friends during his time, but like him they’re a little more reserved and pick quieter places on the town.

It’s fun. And he wants to go out again.

Matthew invites Gilbert and his friends to watch his next hockey game.

After their shock in finding out he plays such a violent sport, they’re all agreeing and planning to find the best seats in the arena.

-

“Are you serious. Are you hiding muscles under that red sweater?”

Gilbert pokes at him, it tickles when he gets closer to his biceps, but he knows he’s only teasing.

“You think I’m playing but I’m serious! You should have been there, well you were there. On the stands, I mean. We all screamed after you sent that player flying against the wall.”

Gilbert recreates the motions, but only slams himself into the wall and whines after he bounces back. He then plays it off like it doesn’t hurt. Gilbert’s not a very good actor.

People tell him it’s so much different watching him on the ice, but it’s still him. He’s always wondered how much different, he feels like himself. He just knows he goes into the zone when he’s in his gear. He just wants to win. And he will.

“It’s like night day,” Gilbert continues. “You were ready to kill a man down there.”

“You’re not the first to say that. I guess maybe, I could be a little more out there in real life, huh?”

Gilbert stops walking.

“Nope.”

“Nope?”

“You’re perfectly fine the way you are. I like the way you are, so don’t go change. I don’t want to be at risk of dying during art class.”

And as silly as it sounds, he’s pleased. He likes Gilbert a whole lot, too. Just the way he is.

-

“Do you want to have dinner with me?” Matthew takes the initiative.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, just you and me. I want to take you out.”

“Like you did to that guy on the court,” Gilbert laughs nervously.

“On a date. Gilbert, would you like go out with me?”

He says yes.

Later that evening when he’s heading home, Gilbert starts running through the courtyard cheering that “I have a date with the cutest guy I’ve ever met!”

Matthew’s window is open, he’s face is bright red and he slams head first into his pillow. He needs to plan the best first date ever.

-

Three months into dating, he’s finally heading home again for a school break. He wants to take Gilbert with him, who is waiting for the next major holiday to go back home. But isn’t it too soon? They haven’t been dating that long, after all.

But Gilbert surprises him, and jokingly says he wants to go with him because he’ll miss him too much while he’s gone. And then, Matthew asks if he seriously wants to go.

“I do.”

So they ride the 3 hours train down to Matthew’s childhood home. He’s a little bit nervous, because he’s had dates to school dances, and brought friends over, but this is entirely different. This is someone he wants to take a serious step with, even if the time hasn’t been that long. They’ll never get anywhere if they don’t, so they’ll both take the leap and pray it works out.

“Mom, dad, Alfred, this is Gilbert.”

It’s the most timid Matthew’s ever seen him.

“Nice to meet ya, I’m Matthew’s boyfriend.”

After he shakes all their hands, he takes his hand back to link pinkies with Matthew.

There’s not an once of regret in his mind as the long weekend passes.

-

Gilbert graduates the next year, and the year after it’s his turn. They’re going to move in with each other. Gilbert really has no irresistible urge to go back to his home town, satisfied with just visiting a few times a year. And Matthew thinks he would like to go back closer, just to figure out his next move. So, they go together.

It’s only a one bedroom, but is more than enough space for them both. Gilbert finds work as a docent while Matthew works for a second degree in education.

He still plays hockey for a local league, Gilbert becoming their number one fan. They find their own rhythm, a pace that works for them both, where they can settle down or speed up when they agree with each other. Dewey mornings, warm summers, chilly evenings they spend them altogether.

They decide move up North closer to Gilbert’s hometown. Matthew’s more nervous meeting his grandparents than he was introducing Gilbert to his own family, but Gilbert assures him again and again they’re just a stuffy old family who actually really care about each other a lot more than they let off.

Gilbert’s grandfather towers over him, despite being a hair above 6 feet. He’s silent, eyes boring into Matthew as he introduces himself. And to end all of Matthew’s worries, the elder man pulls Matthew into a hug and tells him he’s glad him and Gilbert are home. Gilbert, just as perplexed as he, stares, but he melts into a pleased laugh.

Yeah, this is his and Gilbert’s home now.

-

They stay, for a long while, contemplate moving a few times, but they’re satisfied for now.

Gilbert and him always make time for each other, continue their own respective interests with complete support of the other. They’re never afraid to complain, because they always work through it rather then let it simmer.

Gilbert’s vivacious spirit keep them going, and Matthew’s heart keeps them grounded.

His life at first seem a little bit ordinary, but how can he complain when the pieces of the puzzle fit themselves in and stayed locked in tight.

[systemdump]

Ghost of Tshushima review

now i’ve got platinum on the base game i’m gonna share my thoughts. i know some of you have been following my commentary as i play so here’s a final thoughts kinda thing

i went into ghost of tsushima completely blind with a 5/5 IGN score in mind and a before you buy gameranx video. i hadn’t seen the trailer nor knew anything about the plot. i’ve never played a sword combat game before but the fact i love open world and story-driven games, i decided to give it a go. as someone who is naturally interested in history regardless, the concept of a badass samurai game intrigued me.

my initial thoughts when booting up the game was wow, okay. straight into battle because that opening sequence is nothing short of fantastic. you’re thrown onto the beach of komoda with a charging army of samurai, slashing invaders with your katana like a fucking badass. they give you what you came for straightaway — an awesome combat slasher game.

i don’t want this review to be too long so i’m going to talk about the open world aspect as a whole. as a natural fan of huge open world games (the horizon and tes franchises come to mind) as far as GOT goes, the world feels incredibly linear. there’s something so charming about all the characters you encounter and even jin himself, the protagonist. even without jin, the world seems to exist when he isn’t there. it’s common for open world games to fall into the trap of ‘everything evolves around the player’ and GOT does an excellent job of subverting this. an example that really cemented this was a specific quest when a peasant tells jin a group of bandits stole her food and she asks him to retrieve it. when jin does, she confesses that the food was never hers and that she is desperate and starving. i thought nothing more of this and moved on. later in the game i stumbled across her cabin again and found it infested with bandits, her dead body on the floor. it shocked me because very few games manage such subtle details as this that make the world breathe, even when you aren’t there.

i can’t talk about this game without mentioning the visuals. i mean, cmon. this game is beautiful. i’ve taken so many photos because wow, the photomode is probably the best i’ve seen, like, ever. you customise to the point that it’s ridiculous. there’s so much variation that i didn’t get to use it all.

regarding the story — it’s completely unassuming. there’s obviously an inclination of a winding tale because there’s three parts of the island that define the story’s three acts. but i did not for a moment expect it to take such a dark turn. there were moments where i feared that i, the player, was doing the wrong thing. a LOT of moments made me gasp and shout at my TV, some where i laughed or cheered. saying this, i am easily immersed in media so take this as a grain of salt… i’m not gonna talk about the ending cos i want this to be relatively spoiler free but man, what a somber conclusion.

combat in this game is satisfying. enemy ai is relatively stupid which you can exploit to your advantage. the skill trees and stances you learn along your journey are very useful. i usually don’t tend to indulge in combo moves when it comes to games because i’m boring like that but with GOT i found that i was actually using them. which is rare. i loved the ghost rampage mode but i always got SO pissed when an enemy drained it when you were so close to filling it. stealth in this game is also pretty cool. the bow is op as fuck. upgrade that shit and you can wipe out hoards of enemies like no problem. i lean towards the half bow generally because the draw speed is less of a pain in the ass, where as the long bow, whilst has explosive arrows, just doesn’t feel as accurate?

overall feelings — yeah, i loved this game. one of the best open world experiences i’ve had yet. if you’re having doubts about it, this is your sign. GO PLAY IT.

[allzelemonz]

Warning Shot: Crosshair X Gender Neutral Reader

The Bad Batch was on yet another mission, one that called for a particularly precise set of skills. Crosshair sat atop a hill as his brothers caused enough chaos below for no one to notice him. He had his sights on the target, a Seppie commander. As he brought his finger to the trigger a gleam of light caught his eye. Before he could see what it was a blaster bolt hit just a few inches from his arm. A warning shot.

Crosshair got up slowly, keeping his rifle’s barrel pointed down. He tried to get a look at the other sniper, but was only met with another shot, inches from his foot. It urged him off the peak. He spoke into his comm to inform Hunter of the situation and made his way down the hill.

The Sep got away.

Crosshair sat with his brothers at a campground, all of them trying to come up with a plan to get the commander. In the end Hunter came up with a standard plan, counting on Crosshair to be expecting another sniper this time.

It would have worked too, if you didn’t practically live in trees and on mountains and rooftops. The toothpick of a clone was in your sights once again. You’d picked a spot a long time ago, anticipating what the clones would do. You knew where your employer, the Separatist Commander, would be. It wasn’t hard to guess where the clone sniper would set up.

You made absolutely sure that the sun wouldn’t reflect off of you again, because this time your shot wasn’t going to be a warning. You had your finger on the trigger and began to squeeze.

“I take another look at your target.” A sly voice advised as you felt a gun pressed against your head.

You peered through the scope again and saw nothing out  of the ordinary. Until the clone fell over. It was a decoy, a fake drawing that was mistakable at a distance. They’d tricked you.

“Why don’t you put down the blaster and come with me.” He ordered.

You let the rifle fall from your grip and got to your feet, hands in the air.

“Turn around.”

You did as he said. You faced the clone, now wondering even more how that decoy had tricked you.

“Walk.” He gestured with the blaster.

You glared at him with a hatred only someone being deprived of their money would know. The clone directed you to the bottom of the hill where he radioed his colleagues. You waited patiently, watching him in the corner of your eye. His rifle just needed to be pointed away from you for a moment.

You jumped at the chance. He’d let his rifle pint downward and you tackled him to the ground. He grunted as he hit the snowy forest floor and couldn’t react in time as you lunged at the blaster he’d dropped. You turned to shoot, but he grabbed at the weapon and kept it pointed away.

He threw a punch and you felt the throbbing pain in your jaw for a moment before the adrenaline rushed and you were able to kick him off. His grip on the rifle was better than yours, so he took the rifle with him.

You rushed to the clone, helmet now knocked off, and wrestled the rifle away. You only managed to toss it aside. You focused on the clone, trying to get a hit on him. His training was worth it because he kept blocking you punches. Eventually he managed to flip your positions, pinning you to the ground with no hope of escape.

The clone gripped your wrists on either side of your head and held your bottom half down with his own weight.

“You can let me go and I won’t bother you again.” You bargained. “I was just looking to get paid.”

“You’ll be arrested as an enemy to the Republic.” He spat.

“I’ll do anything, jail isn’t in my plans.” You pleaded.

The clone stared down at you for a moment before releasing your wrists. He sat up, still holding you down given the position.

“My team may benefit from two sharpshooters on our next assignment.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can do that!” You agreed.

Anything to get out of jail time. Pretty boys in prison do not do well. The clone stood and retrieved his weapon. You stood timidly, hoping he wouldn’t change his mind and shoot you.

“This way.” He led you further into the trees.

You followed close behind and pondered if the other clones on his team were as abnormal as him. You’d met clones before, but this one was very different. He was a bit taller, a hell of a lot skinnier, and much more… snake like?

You approached a group of clones, or maybe not? They were all different, not exactly the definition of clones. One of them was a hulking behemoth of a guy, another was missing an arm. These couldn’t be clones.

They were, in fact, clones. Wrecker had super strength, Tech had enhanced intelligence, Hunter had above average senses, Crosshair had impeccable sharpshooting ability, and Echo acquired a number of cybernetic enhancements. But, still, clones. You found it odd, but a job was a job and jail was jail.

Hunter, the apparent leader, briefed you on the mission. An assault of a Republic refugee camp was being coordinated for next week. That left you a few standard rotations to  spend with the group that called themselves The Bad Batch.

Most of that time was spent trying to outshoot Crosshair. He had you beat on natural ability, but you had the experience. Sitting in front of the target resulted in a victory for Crosshair, but an unpredictable practice round gave you the one up. There was one thing Crosshair would never be able to beat you at, holding a position. Camping a spot.

You held your spot until it was physically impossible, Crosshair was more mobile. Which meant that he had to get used to a new spot, while you had the advantage of already knowing all the angles.

Needless to say, your victories frustrated him. He was not used to being outshot. This particular training session was not going well for him. As usual, there were makeshift targets set up in the trees and Tech had programmed droids to walk around. You had taken out over half of the droids and a fourth of the targets. Crosshair had already lost. He had gotten frustrated a long time ago, and frustration did not do well for aim. He heard the rustling of leaves and looked over to see the tall clone jumping down from his perch in a tree. You gathered your things together and followed after him.

“You alright?” You called out.

He was a few yards ahead of you, walking uphill. He stopped in his tracks, clearly annoyed. You took a step back in precaution.

“Go away.” He spoke in a hiss.

You were going to do just that, but something made you stay. You walked a bit closer and rested a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off and turned to face you. His eyebrows were knitted together in anger and he looked ready to rip you in half.

“Look, Crosshair, I get it.” You raised your hands in surrender. “You’re having a bad day is all. It happens.”

“Every training session with you is impossible.” He seethed.

“Okay, so it’s me.” You nodded. “What can I do to help?”

“Go away.”

“That’s not gonna solve anything.”

Crosshair growled and took steps towards you. You matched his pace and backed away. You were stopped by a tree, and before you could move around it, Crosshair had a fistfull of your collar. You were pinned to the tree with a very angry clone trooper looking down at you.

“I’m sure we can work together, it’ll just take more time.” You reasoned. “We can-”

Crosshair had pressed his lips against yours. His hands moved to cup each side of your face and you felt the tenseness in him dissaperate. You hesitated for a moment before pulling him closer by the waist and kissing back eagerly.

“You’re distracting.” Crosshair mumbled against your lips after a separation.

“Sorry?” You guessed at an appropriate response.

Crosshair smirked and kissed you again, pushing you back against the tree. His hands moved up to your hair, grasping at what he could. You kept him close, a hand pushing him into you on the back of his neck. Your other hand began to trail downward, but a snapping stick made you both separate. With blasters poised you faced the source of the noise only to find Wrecker.

“Hey, guys!” He greeted. “Uh, Hunter sent me to find you because, uh, you’ve been gone for a long time.” He added a smile to the end of the statement as if there was something to be happy about.

Crosshair sighed and put his weapon away. He pushed past Wrecker and walked towards the camp. You and Wrecker stood there for a moment. You wondered if he’d seen anything.

“Hey, uh, Wrecker, can you guess why our training took so long?”

“Probably because you keep wiping the floor with Crosshair!” He answered excitedly.

“Exactly!” You encouraged.

Wrecker seemed very proud of himself as he turned around and went back towards camp. You let out a sigh of relief, getting caught making out with a clone would not be good for you right now. Crosshair probably wouldn’t be in good graces with the concept either.

[theboyzuniverse]

Let's Dance

It has been the most wonderful experience working with The Boyz and their company. As soon as you graduated dance school you were lucky enough to land a job almost immediately. The pay isn't too much yet but it helps you get by, and you have the most amazing people to work with, everyone is friendly and respectful. The best part about your job, however, was the boys. Watching them work hard, slowly succeeding, and celebrating the little achievements. They were a big part of your life, and the reason you got to work everyday, you loved their humble and playful vibe. Most of all of course, you enjoyed dancing with them, and watching them dance.

Working on the choreography for 'Stealer' had been a fun time. It was by far the sexiest concept that the team had done, the group was becoming more well-known, and everyone enjoyed themselves. It amazed you how much they suited the concept because they had the softest personalities.

Every member is very attractive and talented, but you always had a soft spot for Sangyeon. You admired his leadership and how he sometimes acted as a secondary parent to them, but at times he would still goof around and be silly with them. He had a the brightest smile, was always polite and friendly to every one of the staff, it also helped that he was hella attractive. What didn't help was how fast your heart would beat every time his part would arrive for 'Stealer'.

"Are you drooling again? Why don't you just tell him straight out how much you're in love with him?"

You blushed red as your roommate and close friend Jun called you out. He was also a dancer and you both had been scouted by the company at the same time.

"Could you be a little more subtle? I don't wanna get in trouble." You hissed back.

"Well you couldn't be more obvious with your little heart eyes."

You rolled your eyes and playfully hit him.

"I just... Its complicated."

"What, because he's an idol?"

"Partly, but more so because I don't think the company would really like it, and I can't afford to lose this job."

"What? Not even for love?" Jun feigned shock and you rolled your eyes again, he always teased you but he also always made life a little more fun.

Jun and you, along with his girlfriend of two years shared a two-room apartment. Since the rent was split three ways, it made life financially more comfortable, so it was a win-win for everyone. If they ever broke-up it would be another story, but you were pretty sure they could get married soon. However, you wished it wouldn't be too soon, at least not until you could afford your own apartment.

"Do you think he could be interested though, even a little?" You asked.

"You know my answer," He sighed.

"Well, if we go by your logic, it would pretty much mean all of them are interested because they're all super sweet."

"Believe what you want, but Sangyeon doesn't give compliments and praises to the rest of us as much as he does you."

You always noticed it a little too, the sweet heartfelt compliments and encouragements he would send your way. Of course he always politely thanked all the staff but he somehow made you feel like you were a little more special, but you couldn't bring yourself to believe quite yet. It felt too unreal that he could actually like you back.

"Come on, they're having a final rehearsal before D-day."

You follow the rest of the staff to the bigger rehearsal room. All the boys were already at the center of the room, and obviously as you take a seat your eyes are immediately fixed on Sangyeon. The music starts and you watch closely, he has two main parts and you can't help thinking that both are just as seductive. The first part was when he stood with his back to the crowd, moved side to side with a smooth shoulder dance as he looked back seductively. The second part was when your heart almost jumped out of your chest because you were so sure he was looking straight into your eyes as he pulled himself forward. Luckily, no one else had noticed.

After they did the whole choreography two more times, everyone was free to do their own things as official work was done until D-day. You just sat there on the floor, debating whether to go home or not. If you go home, you would either just go to sleep or watch a movie and eat delivery food alone in your room. If you stay, you'd still be alone as everyone else would go home, but you'd be more productive. You somehow didn't feel like going home just then, Jun and his girlfriend would also appreciate having the apartment to themselves for a while even though they wouldn't admit it.

"You coming home?"

"No, I'll just stay for a while."

"Okay, don't be out too late though."

"Yup."

"See you at home."

Everyone left one by one and you waited for them to all be gone until you actually started to move. You loved having the practice room to yourself, being alone with your thoughts and being able to express the music with your body. Playing 'Heroine' by Sunmi, you started to dance according to a choreography that you made yourself. Having the freedom to express yourself while nobody's watching gave you a kind of thrill that kept you energetic. The song was ending when the door opened to a smiling Sangyeon, looking totally happy and amazed at what he just saw.

"Oppa!" You said startled.

"What the heck, that was amazing!"

You blushed shy and embarrassed, looking at the ground.

"Did you see the whole thing?"

"Yeah, I forgot my phone and I came back to get it, but I saw you started dancing and I was afraid to interrupt you."

"Ah, that's so embarrassing, you should've told me." You whined.

"That was nothing to be ashamed of." He told you as he held your shoulders with both hands. "Be more confident Y/N."

Sangyeon goes to the end of the room, puts down his bag and removes his sweatshirt and cap, and starts the music. 'Stealer' starts playing and your heart skips a beat as he walks towards you.

"Let's dance." He tells you, "Together."

At first you think of refusing but instead you just nod and follow him. You've been rehearsing with them so you already know the whole choreography. The two of you dance side by side, and he does little improv moves so it looks better since only the two of you are dancing instead of a group. You follow what he does. Your favorite Sangyeon part comes on and you get excited over it, the excitement turns to a mini heart attack when his second part comes on and he maintains eye contact with you through the mirror. Overwhelmed, you just stop in your tracks and sit on the floor with your back against the wall. He stops too and comes and sits next to you before the song is done.

"Its been a while since I've wanted to have some time alone with you," Sangyeon starts talking, and you hold in your breath. "You do know that I like you right?"

You breathe out the air you were holding in and slowly answer, "No... I didn't know."

He looks at you a surprised, "I always thought I made it pretty clear, and the members are always teasing me."

"I've thought about it, but I just never believed it would be possible." You reply.

"So that means you like me too."

You nodded once, too overwhelmed by what was happening. He takes your hand and holds it, drawing circles with the other hand.

"You always underestimate yourself, your talent and how beautiful you are." You felt like your chest was gonna explode with how fast your heart was beating. "I'm sorry Y/N, I should've just been clear and straightforward with my feelings."

"What? No, its not something to be apologetic about."

You bravely put your head on his shoulder, and you both stay that way for a while. Then he turns to you to go in for a kiss. You try your best to remain calm as he draws closer and you close your eyes. His lips touch yours as he softly cups your face, then deepens the kiss as he turns himself to face you. You don't know if its because you haven't had a kiss for so long but it gets you hot and turned on in no time. Sangyeon breaks the kiss as he connects both your foreheads, you both breathe heavily as the sexual tension gets undeniably high.

The whole place is quiet except for the sounds of your breathing. Sangyeon pulls you onto his lap, facing each other, bodies close, he pulls you in for another kiss. You reach out and run your hands through his hair, lightly grinding against him as he moans a little.

"Sh*t," He mutters softly as he breaks the kiss again, you could feel both of your heart beats racing.

You get off of his lap shy about the steamy make out session, then he stares at you with the same intensity as he did at the final rehearsal. Seeing it close up makes you breathless. He reaches for you and pulls you back on his lap, and starts nuzzling his face on your neck and giving you kisses. You could feel him hardening as you grind yourself against him, and you moaned as he left hickeys on your neck.

"Take it off," You tell him lightly tugging at his shirt.

"Getting impatient are we?" He smirks.

You blush and look down as he removes his shirt, softly running your fingers down his abs. Sangyeon inserts his thumbs in the waist of your pants, and slowly pulls them down to remove them. You dared not say anything, afraid that you would wake up and find out it was all just a dream.

"Are you sure you wanna do this?" He asked.

You nodded. It was what you've always wanted, no turning back.

Sangyeon pulls down his pants a little, taking it out his length and pumps it a few times. You position yourself as you slowly slide it in. It hurts more than you thought it would so your eyes get teary, he wipes away the single tear with his thumb and pulls you in for a kiss. You're thankful for how gentle he is with you. Once you get a little used to him you start riding him, and an immense pleasure fills you up. He groans a little and that turns you on more as you get bolder and rougher, moving your hips against his. He removes your shirt and unclasps your bra, sucking on one breast as he squeezes the other. To add to all the pleasure you were feeling at that moment he starts rubbing your clit with one hand, you whimper a little. If you could die from immense pleasure this was it, yet you never felt more alive.

"Look at me," He commands you as he stops sucking on your breasts.

You look at him shy, but not embarrassed. He pulls in for another kiss, this time his hands on your neck. He's not really choking you but he put a little pressure on it and you could tell he was almost coming, you could feel yourself getting nearer too. Soon after one last kiss you feel your orgasm wash over you, a type of euphoria engulfs you. Sangyeon could tell from your moans. He pulls you close connecting his lips with your neck, and you grind a few more times as he came soon after.

You both breathe heavily recollecting your senses, and you rest your foreheads against each other. You smile at how soft he looked right after what you both had done, and stay that way for a while, without him pulling out.

"We should get dressed," You tell him.

He nods, as you both get up. You somehow feel a little cold and empty as you disconnect from his body. He looks at you and sees your disappointed face, giving you a peck on your lips.

"Will you go on a date with me tomorrow?'

"Yes, of course." You smile instantly.

The two of you get dressed quickly and gather your things to head out. Right before you were about to turn off the lights a breathless Eric rushes inside.

"Wait wait wait, I forgot my phone." He says as you and Sangyeon stare at him. "What?"

You just keep staring at him, shocked that you and Sangyeon had done it without locking the door. You then turn to Sangyeon about to say something when he cuts you off.

"Let's go home Eric."

"Wait, why are you guys so awkward? Did you finally tell her? What happened between you guys?" He shouts over Sangyeon pushing him out the door.

You giggle at how silly he was being. Sangyeon turns around before going out the door.

"I'll see you tomorrow at 8?"

"Okay,"

He winks at you as he leaves, and your insides do a little dance. You couldn't feel any more happier and content at that moment.

[johannesviii]

This is a long post about Shaman King I started to write ages ago and I don’t have a good title for it

Let me tell you about Shaman King for a few minutes, okay. Because the new anime adaptation is coming in like 3 months and I’m still not ready for it. Also I started to write this post 5 years ago just because I re-read the whole thing at the time and it’s been in my drafts since then. Oops

But yeah Shaman King was the very first fandom I got into when I first had a real internet access, around 2003-2004. I was around fifteen. The manga was still going. And in retrospect, it was full of problems. Among other things:

Not enough female characters & questionable choices for most of the ones who actually have a part to play in the plot

A black character drawn with big lips (see above), and I REALLY HOPE this is gonna get fixed in the new anime ; I mean even the author stopped drawing him like that a few years ago when he did the “remix tracks” extra chapters so come on please

An imaginary native american tribe who, while pretty cool, is still imagined by a Japanese dude in 1999 soooo yeah there’s some rough corners here and there (edit: got some anon hate about that but I'm sorry, "ancient aliens" tropes always make me uncomfortable)

An art quality which gets worse and worse over time due to deadline pressures and an increasingly exhausted author

Was stopped before it could reach its natural conclusion (the author drew an actual ending years later and tbh it’s great so I’m putting this very low on the list)

So yeah. Manga from 1999. Problematic. Aged badly. It happens.

BUT.

In retrospect, most of it is such a kick in the metaphorical butt of shonen manga as a whole I can’t believe it was competing against Naruto and One Piece at some point?? Like

It’s a shonen so it plays the "dramatic and sudden power jump” game, but it uses it to reach a surprising conclusion (in the “new” ending I mean)

Most of the characters are “shamans” which means they can see ghosts and spirits, and they use them to fight, to work, or to help other people. This is a manga in which you’re gonna see a Russian shaman channeling a Vodyanoy spirit into a drum to create a torrential flood. You don’t see that in every manga

It’s stated right away that no shaman can be truely, irredeemably bad, because only good-natured people can see ghosts and spirits.

So, no matter how bad a villain may be, they must have had a good nature once even if they look like a complete bastard at the moment.

How far is the author willing to go with that concept? Pretty far

Even without talking about the main villain and how the story ends because, duh, spoilers... Like

My favorite character, who gets a full redemption arc later, cuts someone open in his first chapter

He’s one of the good guys 10 volumes later

Speaking of which the amount of gore in this manga has to be seen to be believed, Jump would never let this happen nowadays

If you’re wondering why this is in the “positive” (......?) list it’s because I was 14/15 and all kids that age crave blood and angst

The main character, Yoh, pictured above, is very laid-back, and I mean very. He listens to the in-world equivalent of Bob Marley and constantly wears big headphones. Also he wears sandals, and sometimes there’s a weed leaf drawn on his t-shirt

His parents arranged a mariage between him and a girl shaman even though they’re still teenagers, so this would have potential for High Drama - but surprisingly enough it turns out they like each other and after that he just goes around saying “this is my future wife” and she’s like “hello if you touch him I’m going to end you”

It sounds weird and it......... is, tbh, but it’s also refreshing among all the “ugh, girls, yuck” tropes that nearly all shonen mangas used to have at the time

Yoh’s main goal in life is to live with minimal effort

When his grandfather tells him he must train to participate in a shaman tournament which happens every 500 years, because the winner gets a wish granted by the Great Spirit, he decides his wish will be to make everybody’s life easy so that nobody will ever be forced to work or do shit they don’t want to do to survive anymore

Yoh Asakura is a Millenial icon don’t @ me

Speaking of which

Almost everyone in this series is broke as f█ck

Yoh owns a big house but that’s only because the price was ridiculously low since it’s the most haunted place in Tokyo and nobody else wants to live there. The house is constantly full of other characters (including enemies) who have literally nowhere else to go

The only important character who isn’t broke has money because his family is super rich but he hates all of them because they’re all bastards so it’s super awkward

Another character bought a really cool motorbike but he’s going to be in debt for the next 40 years

Also he’s a hobo

And also bi

What I’m trying to say is: relatable

Also the tournament is held by an imaginary Native American tribe. They’re also broke. All of them. The two judges who are in charge of the main characters live in a cramped appartment and often try to sell souvenirs in the street to pay the rent

I know that’s hashtag problematic but I still love them I can’t help it

Just like in most shonen mangas the hero seems to amass a big collection of Friends but since everyone is a weirdo in a way or another and comes from all over the world it looks even funnier

At some point during the tournament, the main characters have to form small groups of three in order to participate to the next part. Yoh’s team is one of the strongest teams among the ones we’ve met at this point, and is composed of 1) Yoh, a laid-back sleepy kid wearing toilet sandals 2) the aforementioned bi hobo who’s sad because his current crush is in a rival team, and 3) a thirty-something tatooed guy with no legs and an IV drip and who looks like he hasn’t slept since 1997

Oh and they all wear adds for a bath house

Because remember: everyone’s f█cking broke

Spoilers for the mid-point of the manga but I need to talk about it because it encapsulates everything I used to love in it

You’ve been warned

So

At some point the main character, Yoh, is asked to choose between staying in the tournament or resurrect his rival

This is framed as some kind of very heavy, very huge dilemma. Like oh no what will he do. Will he give up his dreams and hopes. Will You Push The Button(tm)

So the choice is presented to him

In a very dramatic way

And he immediately goes “there’s a way to save him?? YES PLEASE”

He doesn’t hesitate a single second and drops the tournament in a heartbeat to save the guy

This scene greatly contributed to make me a better person I’m not even joking at all

I love Yoh

So anyway I don’t have a proper conclusion for this

Shaman King is very flawed and its flaws need to be acknowledged to fully appreciate all the good things in it, and the “old” fandom from more than 15 years ago was a very good formative experience for me because the forum I was on (which was nuked from the face of the internet by a hacker “looking for training grounds” (his words not mine, he posted it on our frontpage a full week before he did it) in 2005, rip) was full of people who were really into criticising every little aspect of the manga but still loved it dearly

And I think that’s a healthy way to enjoy things and I think we should bring this back

Anyway

Shaman King extremely flawed but full of good things

I still can’t believe it’s back

Johannes out

[legionofpotatoes]

I love your art, it is very detailed in a neat way. Was wondering how you got started making it as a source of income? How did you get your first paid work, I'd love some advice on how to get started, if that's ok

Thank you. Of course it's okay, although I doubt I have enough work experience in art to really delve into this. I only went full freelance this year, and had been juggling art as a side hobby until then. If you're still interested in my somewhat narrow perspective, and are okay with my long-winded rambles, I'll give it a shot:

So to answer your question fully, I'll describe how I started and move into personal advice and learnings later on. As a disclaimer, I am a white cishet dude in my late twenties with a moderate cocktail of mental illnesses, but overall I can pass for a functioning adult so a lot I have to say may come laced with privilege I cannot fully identify.

So uhh I began drawing in around 2012? I think? Maybe halfway through 2011? And I mostly made fanart for things I enjoyed and tried to branch out in communities that felt nourishing to my style and interests (I caught a bug for alt posters and enjoyed mainstream movies so I spent a long time on posterspy early on). There were a handful of opportunities that came from there but I could only accept a couple because of primary workplace commitments. Still, it showed that networking in a focused community was definitely a good place to start; I myself have huge trouble committing to social networks and really staying socially active, but I knew it was an essential ingredient in succeeding so I tried to make myself be involved in challenges and art support trains etc. as much as I could.

In parallel to all that I also ran a few third party online stores (redbubble, teepublic) for disposable income and would sometimes, if rarely, hit around $100-150 a month from those sources combined. It is a sort of thing that requires helper accounts on other social media sites to promote it on, because the stores themselves have a huge volume of content that translates into low organic discoverability. Obviously it was never gonna be the way towards financial independence through art, and with community projects being few and far between, I opened private commissions in around uhhh 2017 I think, focusing on offering a few styles I knew I could do well, and sometimes operating in individual fandoms (it was mostly a bioware thing to be frank). But I had to close them back down after a year or so, again because of work-life conflict and how badly it was burning me out. The reason I kept trying to monetize this hobby is because I honestly hated what I did for my main job and wanted to see a way out in some shape or form in the future.

And then in 2020 I had to quit my main job altogether because of *gestures at pandemic* and deal with a mental breakdown from all the wonderful things it did to us and me specifically. I took a short break and decided to give art a shot full-time, and that was around May this year. I was planning on opening up commissions again (and I still am), but a few sudden opportunities that fell in my lap moved that timetable down and now I'm grateful to even be doing something I am getting adequately paid for.

So, with that somewhat limited perspective, here's what I've learned that I'd tell myself if I was just starting out:

1. Being a fan of something can be a shortcut towards effective networking kickoffs. Which are important evidently. If you love something and enjoy making content for it, join communities, settle into a combination of social media websites that feel right for those interests + your body of work + your inner rhythm, and try to play to content discovery as much as your mental health allows you to. Like I said, I know that I myself am incredibly bad at self-motivating to talk to people, so I found that synergizing common interests into fanart - which I enjoyed making anyway - could be a way to give myself a gentle nudge forward and build those bridges leading to community activities, which then net experience and coverage. Sometimes even freelance projects from official avenues. Again; picking the right spaces for what you're after is key. Companies roam twitter, concept art recruiters scour artstation or linkedin etc, instagram can land you private commissions and collab opportunities, so on and so forth. Find your niche and try to kick up dust. However...

2. I do not believe that any social profile can replace a good portfolio. The thing that made an immediate difference to me this year was building a coherent, simple website with my best work front and center and a contact form on top. Every single opportunity I got came from that form (maybe via twitter or instagram initially, but always sealing the decision after going through the website), so I firmly believe that showcasing your skills and portfolio in a visually arresting and user-friendly way is a big priority. I had some reservations about tackling that task but fortunately I had help from a savvy life partner and we slapped it together via wordpress in less than a day. Twitter/whatever social media is prevalent in your target groups is definitely important to get the right eyes on your shit, yes, but those eyes will then look for a second stop where your work and rates are more clear and concise. Simplicity is key imo, I cannot overstate this. So make a cute, simple portfolio!

3. Your skills and rates will grow and change as you do. Let them. Over the years I built several lasting professional relationships from my obsession over mass effect and kept getting opportunities both from bioware and their partner companies, some small and some a bit bigger. A one-off job earlier this year opened an unexpected door to another much larger commitment, and then the work I did there brought some attention from small businesses looking for commercial commissions. These were all incredibly different projects in terms of scope and budget, and I've been tackling them all on a case-by-case basis and slowly coming into my own irt my needs, rates, and SOW thresholds. It is still a work in progress (and a LOT of literal work as well), and very much a thing I struggle with in publicly marketing, which is why I felt a tad underqualified to answer your question in the first place (obviously I did not let that stop me). But what it means for me now is that I am rapidly developing into whatever my "version" of a functioning freelance artist is, and when the conditions for that guy are met, I need to be able to confidently plant myself and operate from that space despite past precedents. Do not let anyone bully you into downpricing what you yourself perceive as legitimate products of personal growth and development. Speaking of which...

4. The shitty challenge of turning envy into inspiration, and paddling outside your comfort zones in full riot gear. it is hard, but realizing that being a miserable, self-hating artist in my early days got me nothing but more misery back was the first real step I took and what truly blew the hinges off. I was just not pleasant to be around, I would badmouth my work all the time, and it all somehow made sense in my broken mind because the validation I sought was purely external and the way I sought it was through eliciting sympathy via self-victimization (even when I made something objectively nice). It all led fucking nowhere. Except perhaps to my own narcissism that I one day managed to identify and start managing. So I started looking at things that made me seethe with envy and calmly deconstruct and figure out their inner workings instead, do studies, and find nuggets of inspiration or discover new ways to approach rendering or building up specific elements. It was an application of analytical diligence to what I wanted to be a purely emotional, esoteric workflow, but that I deep down knew wasn't. Art is a discipline and a skill, and maybe it isn't a straight line, but you gotta find some line to thread nevertheless. Being self-hating was almost an identity I had to break out of, and despite it still being like, 4-5% there? I realize its cause and effect on me, my work, and those around me, so it is with a conscious choice that I gently set it aside when I work and especially when I learn. It won't always stay quiet, but the effort is the difference. Your doors towards accepting true growth and venturing into uncharted territories, art styles, and networking will really open from there. But there's a huge caveat...

5. Toolsets, accessibility, privilege, and all the good things that enable artistic expression and profitability are not given equal to all. you might do all the mental work I mentioned to be ready to rock and roll and learn and draw your way out of anything, but digital art is a fucking money pit that asks almost too much at times. I don't got a good case study here but identifying and ensuring accessibility to the tools you need to do your best work is, like, super important. The ergonomics can improve as you make money and settle into the job, but the basics have to be made available to you. And some of that might not even be under your direct control. That can be anything from pen tablets to software subscriptions to opportunities in hiring sullied by sexism or what have you. You gotta navigate all that through careful networking and money/time management. I don't do a good job of devoting specific slices of time to work/study, and my primary clutch is iPad software which went from a good deal to a nightmare scenario over the years. So all I can say here is do what I didn't; network, invest in a PC/tablet, and pick a software you'll learn that won't burn a hole in your pocket.

6. Be nice to work with? This one is hard to articulate and has landed my own ass in hot water in my early years because of how socially inept I am, but nothing is more worthwhile than being.. like. a good person to work with. That can be anything like meeting deadlines, or sometimes missing them but eloquently articulating why, being generous in early stages, being communicable and not too wordy in your emails, having a good grasp on abstract artistic concepts and how to describe them in simple terms, having a clear, laid out framework of your working rates in commercial and non-commercial projects and sticking to those guns with grace, understanding when you need to say no and saying it well, the works. Just being nice. Sometimes that might mean going headstrong with something you believe in, or simmering down and sucking up to the big man, all relative and adaptive. Part and parcel of the service provision dance that we all have to do in order to make bank. Know your lines here, obviously, and don't like. work for nazis. or uh.. *shudders* exposure. but be nice and empathetic and communicable and word will travel eventually. Skill may be in abundance these days, but good people are most certainly not, and capitalism has a way of bubbling up scarcity. Grim, but uh, them's the breaks.

I know I'm ultimately telling you to like. Have a body of work, make a portfolio, grow, and network. But that's really how I see it for now. And being nice can be a cherry on top that sets you apart, along with the inherent irreplaceable voice of your artwork. I think I rambled on enough, but if there is something specific you need my help with, even if you want to come off anon and talk in private, please feel free.

[novelconcepts]

fic: heading into the dark (and we’ve got to hang on to each other)

Life, as Dani Clayton sees it, is full of darkness. Little darknesses, like a mother who draws away even as she continues to draw breath, and big darknesses, like loss that comes out of absolutely nowhere, and all the variations in between. Life is unpredictable. It’s ugly. It’s cruel. 

Life also grants the laughter of small children, and wonderful dinners prepared by good friends, and Jamie’s hand in hers. 

There is, certainly, no shortage of lights in the dark. 

***

“Teach me,” she says one day, a month or two into the great experiment that is Moving to America with Jamie. “Come on.”

“Teach you,” Jamie repeats dryly. “To incur lung cancer?”

“You do it,” Dani points out, aware that she sounds rather petulant and not particularly caring. Jamie’s smiling the half-smile she gets whenever she’s about to let herself get talked over the edge of something. “Come on, I want to see what all the fuss is about.”

Jamie shakes her head, but she’s already lost this battle, and she knows it. Her foot braced behind her on the wall outside their apartment, she turns her head toward the setting sun and exhales a long stream of blue smoke. “Fine, sure. But when you love it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I hardly think I’m in danger of--”

“Shut up and c’mere.” She cups her hand around the half-smoked cigarette, holding it up for Dani’s assessment. It’s awkward, the pass-off between her hand and Dani’s more of a fumble than anything else, and Dani nearly drops the damn thing. Jamie laughs. “Easy, now, don’t go wasting it. Now. Put it--”

“I know where to put it,” Dani laughs. Jamie raises her brows teasingly. 

“I’ll just bet you do. Okay, right, here’s the thing. When you inhale, you’re gonna want to take it slow. Nice and easy, but make sure you’re pulling the smoke deep into your lungs, or it’ll defeat the whole--”

Dani’s already sucking in a breath, and she’s just realized Jamie’s eyes have gone wide when her body recoils from the invasive swirl sweeping into her lungs like a hurricane. 

“Easy, I said!” Jamie pries the cigarette from Dani’s suddenly-limp grasp as she doubles over on a gagging cough. Her lungs burn, her hand groping for Jamie’s sleeve, and even though it feels fucking awful, there’s something so wonderfully steadying about Jamie’s hand rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. 

“Now’s not the time for an old-fashioned I-told-you-so, is it?”

Eyes streaming, Dani tries to fix her with a glare, but Jamie’s outlined in the red-gold of a setting sun, her lips pursed around the cigarette once more, and she can’t find it within herself to do anything but laugh. 

***

“You really don’t know how?”

“Don’t laugh,” Jamie grumbles. “Never got around to it, is all.”

Dani’s leaning forward, practically falling off the beach chair in her excitement. Jamie, she has learned over these past few months together, is not the sort of person who doesn’t know things. She may not be good at everything she tries--she’s a rotten cook, for example, though a passable baker--but it sometimes feels like Jamie’s lived more in thirty years than Dani will if granted twice that time. Sometimes, when Jamie is sweeping a billiards table, or fixing a door hinge, or replacing a bit of questionable wiring in the bathroom without managing to electrocute either of them, Dani catches herself thinking there’s nothing Jamie doesn’t know. 

She can never decide if this is more overwhelming or reassuring, truthfully. 

But this. This is just too damn good. 

“You have to let me teach you,” Dani says. “You have to, come on.”

“I think you’ll find I don’t,” Jamie says, arms crossed over her chest. Dani slides from her chair, darting a glance around. It’s unseasonably chilly for June in California, the sky a mottled blue-gray that suggests a storm could strike at any moment. The beach is blessedly clear, and she takes the opportunity to slip into Jamie’s lap.

“Please? It’ll make me so happy, to get to teach you something, for once.”

She can see Jamie doing the calculations, brow furrowed over uncertain eyes. On the one hand, if learning how to swim had been on her radar, she likely would have picked it up ages ago; on the other, Dani’s arms are around her neck, nails tracing lightly under the tousle of her hair, and this is not the sort of conversation starter that often leads to Jamie saying the word “no.”

“Right,” she says grumpily at last. Dani isn’t quite sure whether it’s the batting of her eyelashes or the scrape of short nails across the nape of Jamie’s neck that gets the job done, but Jamie is hoisting them both out of the white plastic chair. “Fine, then, Poppins. Lead me to the slaughter.”

The rain holds off all afternoon, long enough for Jamie’s uneasy flapping in shallow waves to transition into clumsy-yet-useful buoyancy. When Dani places a hand lightly beneath her back and eases her into a calm float, her brow creases. 

“Hey,” Dani says quietly. Her free hand cups Jamie’s cheek, smoothing salty water into her skin. “Look at me. You trust me?”

“Always,” Jamie replies, the word coming almost before Dani’s question is complete. She opens her eyes, and Dani smiles. 

“I’d never let you drown, Jamie. Promise. And who knows? This might come in handy someday.”

***

“It’s...big,” Dani says, a bit nervously. Laughter explodes out of Jamie like a firecracker. 

“It’s not! It’s wee as all hell, Poppins.”

“Bigger than I thought,” Dani amends. “You sure we can keep a place like this afloat?”

The idea of running a business still seems like something out of an extended fever, if she’s honest with herself. At first, it had been a laugh--a conversation held over an empty pizza box and two spent bottles of wine, with her head in Jamie’s lap and her legs all twisted under a blanket. She’d told Jamie she felt weird about getting back into teaching, about the idea of subjecting any kids to whatever mad road her mind might lead her down. 

“They’ll need to be able to rely on me,” she’d said, a little too drunk to really feel the weight of the sentiment. Jamie’s fingers drifted through her hair, her thumb catching on the shell of her ear. “Can’t do that if your teacher’s in the middle of losing her marbles.”

“You’re not,” Jamie had said, with that soft resolution Dani loved so much in her. “But s’all right. You don’t have to go back just yet--ever, if you don’t want to. We can do something else for an honest buck.”

It was a conversation, a way to make herself feel better about the imminent future and all its secrets...and then, seemingly all at once, it was real. A real little shop, just down the block from their apartment, with a real counter and real shelves and a real back room for custom arrangements. Jamie could grow here, anything she liked. And Dani could bask in the peculiar sensation of having a purpose again, even if not the one she’d expected. 

It’s a lot those first few days--weeks--months, but a year in, Dani finds she’s taken to the shop like almost nothing else in her life. She loves talking to the people who bustle in looking for arrangements for mothers and wives and graduation events. She loves the way Jamie tends to the flowers with a gentle hand, always willing to pop off a fact or insight about any given type. She especially loves the way Jamie looks at closing time each night, the way she combs her shaggy hair back from her eyes and leans over each bud in turn to murmur reassurances. Back in the morning. You all get on, best behavior, until we meet again. 

She slips up behind Jamie, arms around her middle, and rests her chin on Jamie’s shoulder. “I like that you do that. Talk to them.”

Jamie favors her with a soft, tired smile. “Nothin’ ever blossomed without good communication, Poppins.”

***

Dani starts saying I love you so much faster than either of them is prepared for. The first time the words slip from her mouth, they’re standing in the devastation of what once qualified as their kitchen. Batter drips down the side of the refrigerator. There’s flour caked in Jamie’s hair, giving the effect of a grumpy old witch woman whose magic potion rebelled in the most cataclysmic sense. 

“Swear to Christ,” she says gruffly. “I had the damn mixer in the damn bowl.”

The way Dani sees it, there are two ways to respond to this: with scolding, or with hysterical laughter. She settles on the latter almost without conscious decision, scooping up a handful of flour and tossing it into the air like confetti. Jamie’s mouth opens and closes, words not quite enough for the moment. 

“You,” she says, “are irreverent.”

“And you,” Dani replies, skating across the slippery tile until she has Jamie backed up against the postcard-bedazzled front of the fridge. “You’re wonderful.”

Jamie looks like she wants to contradict this statement, perhaps thinking of the cake that now decorates the walls. “This was going to be for your birthday, you--”

Dani is kissing her, hands gripping Jamie’s collar. She hasn’t felt this relaxed in weeks, melting against Jamie when hands settle around her waist like Jamie’s been looking for a reason to give in all afternoon. 

“I--could still--” Jamie’s mouth moves down her neck, more than half distracted from her own words. “--fix it--”

“You’re right where you’re supposed to be,” Dani tells her, or thinks she does; it’s a bit hard to focus with Jamie’s hand sliding around and down that way, with Jamie’s hips bucking lightly against her. 

“It’s like you don’t even want a birthday cake,” Jamie murmurs, biting her shoulder gently through the thin fabric of a co-opted Blondie shirt. “Did I say you could borrow this?”

“Take it back, then,” Dani breathes. 

Later, tucked together against the cabinets, she turns her face against Jamie’s neck. Her hand is trapped between the tile and Jamie’s back, going steadily numb. Moving isn’t even a concept. 

“I love you,” she says. It comes out a little slurred, a little sleepy, but entirely true. Jamie raises her head, shifting to look her in the face. 

“It’s all to do with my grade-A baking talents, isn’t it?”

***

Jamie doesn’t say it back right away. Most of the time, Dani gets it. Doesn’t want to push. There was so much of that in her old life, in what she sometimes thinks of as the Era of Danielle--every step of the way with Edmund felt like someone was standing behind her, hands pressed into her back, shoving her along. Into a man, yes, but more than that: into a preconceived notion. Be somebody’s wife. Be somebody’s answer to the question of who they want to be in the world. Be small, be quiet, be the person who says yes and yes and yes, absolutely, even when you want to scream. 

The last thing she’d ever do is push Jamie, so she doesn’t make a big deal out of it. If Jamie loves her--and Dani’s fairly confident she does, at least on the days when the old ghosts aren’t cracking out of the walls to tell her otherwise--then Jamie will get around to it on her own merit. 

Still, when Jamie does, it takes her by surprise. 

“I’m pretty in love with you, it turns out,” she says, like she’s been steeling herself for this moment for weeks--and, Dani thinks, judging by the single moonflower on the counter, she probably has. Jamie, who pretends to play the game of life with such casual disinterest. Jamie, who pretends it’s all one-day-at-a-time. Jamie, who spent hours in secret cultivating this one tiny symbol that says so unbelievably much about her, just so she could tell Dani all this in the right way. 

There’s a couch in the back room, a wide squashy old beast that Dani had been adamantly opposed to when Jamie first pointed it out. “It’s ridiculous. What are we going to do with that?”

She has to admit, pulling Jamie along and latching the door behind them, that it seems like an excellent idea now. It’s only by the thinnest grace of self-preservation--she likes this shop, likes this life, would very much like not to be run out of Vermont by some old-fashioned jackass peering through their window and seeing too much--that they make it to the couch at all. 

“It’s okay, then,” Jamie says, falling backward onto overstuffed brown leather and pulling Dani with her. “This problem of ours?”

Dani kisses her, the giddiness and desire so powerful a combination, she almost feels drunk with it. Jamie laughs into her mouth, one hand already working the buttons of her blouse, that laugh turning into a low, liquid groan. Dani, fingers slipping between waistband and skin, has already beaten her to the punch. 

It’s in moments like these, she thinks. Moments like these where everything falls into place. Not just being with Jamie, but being with Jamie here, in a place they own, on their own terms. Not just being with Jamie, but being with a Jamie who has been clarifying her love for a year, doing so with hot tea and cool smiles and repairs around the house and gentle reassurances. She said it here, planned out like a proposal, and she’s saying it again and again--”love you, fuck, love you--” as Dani winds them closer together, but it wasn’t the first time. Not really. Jamie’s been saying it since the moment she took Dani by the hand and asked if she wanted company while she waited for the darkness to consume her. 

Jamie rocks under her, making a softly desperate little noise into her mouth, and Dani has never felt so understood. Never quite put it together like this before. That Jamie thought she had to say it a certain way, show it a certain way, is wonderful and absurd and silly. 

“I like this problem,” she says. “Best problem I’ve ever had.”

***

“You like it?”

Jamie’s voice is too-casual. The kind of casual that says, look, if you don’t like it, I’ll understand, but I’ll spend the next six months going slowly crazy coping with that knowledge. Jamie gets this kind of “casual” only so often, and usually, Dani likes to string it along before reassuring her. It’s a little mean, maybe, but the way Jamie always sags against the nearest bit of furniture with a hand over her eyes, groaning, “Jesus Christ, Poppins, you could just be gentle with me” does something exceptionally pleasant to her stomach. 

This time, she’s not even thinking about teasing Jamie. 

This time, she’s just staring. 

“If you don’t like it,” Jamie says, a bit more hurriedly now, “you can say so. I mean. Can’t do much about it, truth be told, but we can work through the issue. Get into some couple’s therapy, talk it out...”

“Stop talking,” Dani says through a shockingly dry mouth. “Please.”

Jamie’s mouth swings shut with a little click. Dani rises from the chair she’d been curled in, feet tucked under as she flipped through a Stephen King novel that hit just a little too close to home. She moves across the living room like a sleepwalker. 

Jamie, expression somewhere between warily anticipatory and genuinely frightened, is still holding the hem of her shirt aloft. Dani pauses, swaying slightly, a magnetism rising between them that she sometimes thinks should fade with time, should logically become less as the years become more. For a long beat, they just look at one another. 

She’s sinking to her knees before she realizes, hand sliding up Jamie’s stomach to grasp her fingers, the shirt hem, clutch both tight. Jamie drags in a breath. 

“Oh. S’like that.”

“Apparently,” Dani mutters, closing her free hand around Jamie’s hip and pressing her mouth to the line of flowers rising from the band of her jeans, coiling around the left side of Jamie’s stomach. Jamie sucks in a breath. 

“Okay, when I was sitting for the thing, I certainly wasn’t thinking, Poppins has a thing for tattoos, but can’t say I’m complaining...”

“How long?” Dani asks, the words muffled around slow, deliberate kisses. Jamie rocks back on her heels, one hand sliding down into Dani’s hair for balance. 

“I know you are not asking me detail-oriented questions while you do that.”

Dani pauses, grins, waits. Jamie groans. 

“How long did it take, or how long have I wanted a bloody tattoo?”

“The latter.” The flowers are blue and white, strung along a twisting vine. Dani is presently making it her personal life goal to kiss each and every one, licking gently upward as she goes. Jamie’s eyes flutter, grip tightening. 

“You are a truly--”

“Tread wisely,” Dani murmurs, biting at her hipbone. Jamie inhales. 

“’Bout a year. Or maybe six weeks. Or maybe my whole life, I dunno, sometimes these things just sneak up on you.”

“Tattoos sneak up on you?” Dani tilts her head back, grinning. Jamie peers down at her, hair falling messily across her forehead, expression soft. 

“Wouldn’t be the first thing.”

She gets more as the years go on--little yellow daffodils, chains of wildflowers, small, carefully rendered roses--almost always in places easily hidden. Each time, the sight of ink on pale skin, the patient way Jamie quietly explains each one in bed, letting Dani map them out beneath curious palms, sets her heart racing in a way she can’t explain.

It’s the permanence, she thinks the day Jamie comes home with a small moonflower on her inner forearm. It’s the promise of the thing. 

It’s the tomorrow of it all. 

***

“How hard can it be to put together a bedframe, Dani,” she mimics. Even to her own ears, her voice is shrill. She’s making too big a deal out of this, and she knows it. 

But for fuck’s sake, sometimes Jamie is hard-headed. 

“I’ll have it done in an hour, Dani,” she goes on, hands windmilling above her head. “I know you’ve got a busy day, so just leave it to me, Dani.”

“Okay,” Jamie says, “okay, I know you’re upset, but in what world have I ever used your name that many times in a sitting?”

Dani freezes, turning slowly on her heel. Jamie takes a step back. 

“Right, correct, this is not the moment for glib.”

“Jamie,” Dani sighs. “You promised.”

“I did,” Jamie agrees, “and I could say I tried, but we both know how I feel about lying...”

The apartment is a little bigger than their last, and everything fits all different. Dani knows it’s going to be good for them--they outgrew the last place far sooner than either had wanted to admit, and this one has a beautiful view of a park. Plenty of space for Jamie’s ever-growing plant collection. Plenty of space for stretching out and warming the cozy little world they’ve built together. 

Still, it’s different, and different has a way of setting Dani’s teeth on edge. There’s something about a new home that reminds her of moving into Bly a lifetime ago--the exhilaration mixing with trepidation mixing with shadows she doesn’t yet know the names of. They've been here a week, sleeping in a blanket fort in the living room, Dani waking most mornings with carpet marks dug deep into her skin. She wants their room situated. She wants to sleep in their bed. 

She wants Jamie to build the damn frame like she promised three days ago. 

“I sometimes have trouble telling,” Jamie says, her accent thicker as it always is when she’s reasonably sure she’s stepped in it. “Am I actually in trouble?”

Dani sighs. “Jamie...”

“Oh.” Jamie edges closer. She’s dressed for battle, Dani notes, in shorts that barely qualify as legal and her softest flannel shirt. The very shirt, if Dani looks closely enough, Dani herself slipped into after a shower about two weeks ago and sent Jamie gaping at her like she’d been hypnotized. 

“Don’t,” Dani warns, remembering all too well the way Jamie had behaved the last time this shirt saw daylight. “Don’t, Jamie. I’m trying to be mad at you.”

“I can see that,” Jamie agrees. “You might say that’s why I’m making this desperate bid for, ahh, not being in the doghouse.”

“Jamie.” Dani manages to turn the word into about eleven syllables, which usually has some effect, but Jamie’s already within the proverbial walls. Her hands are riding up Dani’s ribcage, dangerously high, her smile the kind of charming only a heart of stone could resist. 

It’s cheating, and Jamie knows it, and Dani wants to point this out, but Jamie’s got her backed up against the mattress. The mattress that should be on a nice, well-made, sturdy frame. The mattress they could both be on top of right now, if only Jamie had just--if Jamie had--

“This is incredibly unfair,” she groans. Jamie, busy kissing her throat with slow, open-mouthed abandon, says nothing. Dani grasps at her shoulders with both hands, squeezing flannel between her fists, and lets her weight fall backward. Jamie holds her up, one hand up the back of her skirt, the other testing the resistance of her sweater. 

“You,” she gasps, even as Jamie moves a leg between her thighs and rocks gently, “are still in trouble.”

“Mmhmm,” Jamie agrees, a million miles away. She’s nipping at Dani’s earlobe now, and Dani can feel her grinning. 

“You are still putting the goddamn bed together, Jamie.”

“Sure,” Jamie says, husky, and presses her harder against the mattress. “Later.”

“Honestly, how do you do this every time?”

***

“You sure about this?” 

“Yes.” The answer is kind of actually no, but curiosity is getting the best of her. Anyway, it won’t be like before, the first time she ever tried to bum a cigarette off of Jamie and wound up nearly throwing up into the street. A couple of years and an indeterminate amount of cigarettes later, she’s got the art of it down, though she’s not what she’d call a smoker, per se. 

(She’s not, but try telling Jamie that. Just because she sometimes slips the cigarette from between Jamie’s fingers in a restaurant, or when they’re lounging outside after a long day, or in bed after a particularly effective round of Jamie getting herself out of trouble. Dani finds the act soothing, but only if Jamie has already lit up and taken a puff. Then and only then does it feel like sharing part of Jamie.)

“It’s different,” Jamie warns. “Not saying you can’t handle it, mind, but--”

“Just show me how it’s done, Jamie.”

This challenge, she utters in her lowest voice, and Jamie raises an eyebrow. “I see what you’re doing, Poppins.”

“What am I doing?”

Fact of the matter is, she’s having a very specific kind of day. The kind where her mind keeps drifting. The kind where memory feels heavier than it has in years. It’s not the first time she’s had a day this heavy, nor will it be the last, but it still bothers her. 

She hasn’t told Jamie. Doesn’t feel like she needs to, not yet. This doesn’t quite feel like beast-in-the-jungle territory so much as that old twisting panic, the old sense that she’s missing a test everyone else has studied for. When her mind edges her down this path, all she ever wants--all she can ever do about quieting it--is to hold close to Jamie. 

Jamie, who is giving her a searching look now, even as nimble fingers roll a joint.  “Sure you’re sure? Only, if you’re not up for it, I’m not going to judge.”

“Jamie. Do you trust me?”

Jamie’s mouth turns up at the corners. “Always.”

“Then get it started and hand it over.” She’s laughing a little, a nervous burble laugh that makes her feel more tethered to her own body. Jamie reaches over, closing a hand over her wrist and squeezing. 

“Your wish and all that, Poppins. But do me a favor? Go easy this time.”

She takes the first hit, and then a second, leaning back against the green granite counter and exhaling slowly toward the ceiling. For a minute, it’s enough for Dani just to watch her: relaxed posture in a long-sleeved black shirt, rolled to the elbows to give her more room to make a mess of dinner an hour previously. Her hair is getting longer, shaggier, her makeup reckless in that half-attention way Jamie has of barely caring what she looks like for anyone who isn’t Dani. 

“Your turn.” 

Dani takes her at her word this time, careful to draw a small amount of smoke into her lungs and hold there. Even so, she coughs once, a slow, clean burn sliding outward through her chest. Jamie nods approvingly.

“Did you grow this yourself?” she asks after another careful hit. She hands the joint back, letting her hip press against the counter an inch from Jamie’s. There’s a comfortable heat between them this evening, slow-simmer ease that makes her think of early days. She likes the lingering way Jamie rests her hand against Dani’s on the countertop, pinky finger lightly caressing the edge of her skin, like the world’s most comfortable seduction. 

“Nah,” Jamie says, with the joint between her lips. There’s something about the way she closes her eyes on the inhale, about the way her free hand never leaves Dani’s skin. Warmth works its way through her belly, and she thinks, bad day, maybe, but a good night. 

“Would you grow it?” It’s just something to say. She’s already starting to feel the smoke coiling around her thoughts, her head growing soft, buzzing gently around the edges. She imagines she can feel Jamie’s hand all the way through her body. 

“Not in our shop, if we wanted to keep the place.” Jamie’s eyes twinkle, the joint outstretched. “More?”

Dani shakes her head. The world is very slightly fuzzy, the kitchen warm, and Jamie has never felt more real. She watches Jamie carefully put out the lit end, setting the joint in an ashtray, liking the authority with which Jamie moves. 

She’s always like this, always so focused on the little details that make up a day. On days where Dani feels like she’s coming up from the ground in one horrible jerk, Jamie is always there to root her again. It’s a good feeling, knowing Jamie is there. Knowing Jamie is only getting more there with time. 

Later, she’ll look back on this as the moment. The one where she first decided to do it. The actual question, the actual plan, the actual ring won’t be here for years yet, but this is the moment the spark takes hold. 

It would be different, she decides, as her fingers curl like vines around Jamie’s, bringing their joined hands against her chest. It would be so different than last time. No push. No expectation. Just a promise. Just us. 

She likes being high with Jamie, she decides very quickly. Likes how it makes Jamie’s already-firm confidence firmer. Likes how it makes her already-sensitive skin buzz with pleasure. Likes the way Jamie folds her against the counter, hands gentle on the back of her head, and kisses her like it’s the first time. 

She’s all exposed nerve and heavy limb and giggle as Jamie leads her to the bedroom, eases her down, cups her face between soft hands. For once, the shadows seem to work in her favor, curling around them as they move together, as cloth becomes skin, and she’s sighing, sighing, crying Jamie’s name into the darkness. 

Jamie said once, a lifetime ago, that sometimes you have to drop everything too heavy to carry in order to hang on to one another. Jamie said it with such intensity, it didn’t even cross Dani’s mind to think of it another way. That, if you’re going to march into the dark, having a hand to hold as you go can make all the difference in the world.

The lights are on, for now. The lights are on, and Jamie holds her so tight with hands so soft, and Dani knows it’s not forever. Can sense it, like you sense the return of a childhood bad dream. Can feel it, shifting below the surface. 

Maybe closer now. Maybe a little bit more awake than before. She can’t say for sure. 

What she can say is that a night like this--kissing her way down Jamie’s chest, kissing flowers and bellybutton and that spot just above her hip that makes her writhe with laughter--is a torch. A ward against the monsters. A little light to carry them through the dark. 

She’s got Jamie on her skin, in her mouth, imprinted on her soul, and she thinks it’s the best anyone can ask for. The only thing anyone can hope for. 

And when Jamie clutches her hand right back, flashes that I’m-out-of-trouble smile, drapes one of her worn flannel shirts around Dani’s bare shoulders, she thinks, as long as I can have this. As long as she’ll have me. The shadows can’t possibly swallow me whole. 

[roublardise]

my "Crowley isn't attracted to women" take

for @spnprideweek - day 2 - mlm

cw: dicussion of homophobia & transphobia all in all I wanted to highlight how canon gay Crowley is bc I love him 💕 thank u spn for Crowley even tho he deserved better

in the last weeks I've realized there's a huuge consensus in the fandom for pansexual Crowley. if you're pan or not and wanna hc Crowley as pan, power to you! but what's bothering me is the non-discussion of it all. the way it seems obvious for everyone. whereas, to me, Crowley has been canonically gay all this time.....

disclaimer: I'm aware Mark Sheppard alledgely said he saw Crowley as pansexual, however I can't even take these words for canon without context. Especially not when a year later he'd say Crowley's sexuality didn't matter. The way Mark Sheppard talks about characters' sexuality is more a "why are people making a big deal let them be" than "the character doesn't care." Moreover, actors pov can't be taken as canon imo. Jensen Ackles thought Dean straight for so long when Dean's been bi all this time as well. Sometimes actors are biased by their own experiences & stereotypes!

disclaimer #2: on god I don't wanna start discourse lmao. I just wanna share my silly thoughts about a tv show & question the way Crowley's sexuality is written in this silly homophobic tv show. don't @ me about what's making you think Crowley is indisputably pansexual bc I assure you I already know your points

That being said, here's why I think Crowley is a bear, a gay man, a trans gay man actually, a homosexual, who isn't attracted to women & some food for thoughts about why the unquestioned consensus towards pan Crowley could have roots in both homophobia & panphobia.

I don't think we can think of Crowley as your usual demon. We know too much about Crowley's life as a human, and the numerous ways in which he acts un-demony, almost humanly after. Considering him simply like a demon with no concept of gender preference who would be pan “by default” wouldn’t be right with his character. But we also can't question his sexuality in the exact same way we would a human's.

It also can't be thought in the same way as angels': as once-humans demons do have a concept of gender. Crowley especially cares a lot about his gender presentation and the way he's addressed. Not only does he literally sell his soul for a bigger d*ck as a human ; as a demon he uses the same vessel where other demons are shown to move once they had to leave one ; and for the few hours Crowley's possessing a woman, he clearly states he should still be referred to as king.

This will all be used for homophobic & transphobic jokes in the show, but I'll get back to that later on. Gender does matter to Crowley's identity, and I think it could be extended to his sexuality.

I've seen numerous descriptions of it all saying Crowley's sexuality was "ambiguous" and I guess it is, as he never explicitly used any label. However "ambiguous" doesn't mean bi or pan. It doesn't mean anything besides the fact we can't draw a clear-cut conclusion of his sexuality.

Imo we can actually draw a clear-cut conclusion of Crowley's sexuality but yeh, I'm getting there.

----------------

Let's take a look at canon events around Crowley & sexuality!

His character introduction is him enjoying making a homophobe man kiss him for a deal

It is rumoured that he was a demon's lover (Lilith's)

He heavily flirts with Bobby

He french kisses Bobby for a deal and takes a pic

He never kisses a woman on screen (tell me if I forgot anyone!)

He flirts with every single man he sees, and even more strongly when it's making the other uncomfortable

The other parent of Crowley's son is never mentioned nor even brought up

He has two orgies that we know of

He has sex with a demon who's possessing a woman (Lola) when he was addicted to human blood

He dates, has sex with, and asks Dean to rule Hell with him. He's in love with Dean

On late spn he drinks fruity drinks

He flirts with and implies he had sex with an angel (Naomi)

He flirts with Death (Billie)

He's into BDSM

I'm not gonna go into details with all the sexual stuff he says bc there's a lot.... But it's always about gay sex. (once again, if I'm forgetting smth pls tell me nicely)

Now, with all that I'd like to question specifically the elements people use to say Crowley is canonically attracted to women.

He has two orgies that we know of

There’s the one Crowley has while he’s himself possessing a woman ; iirc it’s a foursome with two other men and one woman. Crowley still counts as a King, as the show makes sure we know, admitedly this dialogue implies we should still think of him as a not-very-manly-man.

Honestly, if one is convinced Crowley is attracted to women based on this scene.. okay. Personally I don’t see it because the orgy is unplanned, it’s an opportunity Crowley takes. Is he even attracted to the two other men?? Who knows. We don’t even know if Crowley even touches the other woman, there’re so many ways to have group sex. Even if he did, having sex with one woman doesn’t make it impossible for him to be homosexual.

The second orgy is with Dean. Crowley describes it then: “We've done extraordinary things to triplets.” It’s interesting how before I went to check, I thought it was clear the triplets were women. But not at all! I’ve been tricked by heteronormativity myself. So this is up to interpretation. Even though the way the show doesn’t make sure we know the triplets were women is pretty telling (as I’ll talk about later).

It is rumoured that he was Lilith's lover

Well, this is a rumour. In this relationship Crowley would know Lilith as a demon possessing a woman, and Lilith would know Crowley as a demon possessing a man as well. Who's even to say they met in their vessels to sleep together. That's the kind of cases in which the ambiguity of Crowley human/demon situation makes it impossible to draw any kind of conclusion towards Crowley's attraction to women. Also if anything Lilith is clearly a lesbian lmao.

He has sex with Lola when he was addicted to human blood

Same thing here, the relationship is one of demon/demon. Though we do now they do meet in their vessels to sleep together. Besides that, the sex happens while Crowley is at a low point. She's the one bringing him human blood, which makes the sex more of a transaction than anything. It does fit a very grey area of consent which would be fair to question.

We can't know for sure whether the demon possessing the woman was a woman as well, but let's say she was: 1/ Crowley having sex once or twice with a woman doesn't prevent him from being homosexual. 2/ What is he seeing if not a demon's true form? 3/ Wasn't he in a self-destructive mental state?

It's a stretch, imo, to assume Crowley was attracted to her.

He flirts with and had sex with Naomi / flirts with Billie

This one is so ridiculous to me bc Naomi is an angel and as a demon, Crowley sees her true form. We don't even know who was her vessel when they had sex.

The flirt thing is interesting however, bc iirc Naomi and Billie are the only "women" we see Crowley actually flirt with. During the orgies or the demon sex there's no flirt involved. It's interesting bc, as Cas would say: "Naomi's vessel is a woman. Naomi is an angel."

Same case for Billie who's a reaper then Death. Spn is pretty unclear about how the whole thing works but we know reapers are kind of angels. In any case, I won't go as far as saying Billie has any connection to gender.

Moreover, the way Crowley flirts with them is pretty light next to everything else Crowley says to men. It's pretty personal, I'm aware, but I do relate a lot with the way Crowley flirts with them VS how I flirt with men just because (and I'm a lesbian).

Anyway! Both Naomi and Billie are supernatural creatures, which brings the count of women Crowley flirts with to... zero.

-> What I take from all that is that Crowley is attracted to men for sure ; to angels and demons ; and doesn't care about the genitalia involved in the sex he has. We have nothing about the kind of relationships he had as a human. His gender presentation matters a lot to him. The only long-term commitment he has is with Dean. I wouldn't even say he had a committed relationship with Gavin's other parent bc we don't know anything about them.

----------------

But what's my deal with homosexual Crowley? One can wonder, if Crowley doesn't care about bodies, doesn't that mean he can still be written as pan?

No! First because sexual attraction isn't about genitalia (even if transphobes would argue the contrary but they're transphobic so...). And second, well....

I would refer to this point as "how do I know Crowley isn't attracted to women? bc Dean is"

I'm convinced that if the show wanted to write Crowley as anything other than a gay man, it would have been way more obvious.

This is a show who wrote Dean catcalling a faceless woman on the street, for no other reason than to remind the viewers Dean was attracted to women & to balance it with the following homoerotic scene.

One could say spn doesn't have lots of women characters to begin with, but that's my point exactly: when spn wants to show attraction towards women, they do find women for people to be attracted to. Hell, they even give Gavin some girlfriend but never ever bring up the topic of Gavin's other parent. Even though an entire episode is dedicated to learning about Crowley's past.

What's important to understand Crowley's sexuality isn't the people he slept with ; it's the people he doesn't show interest in.

The absence of something is the presence of the thing, blablabla. It's a way to look at homosexuality that heteronormativity makes hard to see because, unconciously, we don't tend to question attraction towards the expected gender. One would ask for a 10 pages essay on why a character is gay, but one would need only a 2 sec kiss to assure a character's heterosexuality or attraction towards the expected gender.

----------------

In Crowley's case, his attraction to men is a huge part of his character right from the beginning (thanks god, at least no one's questioning that). Spn as a show that hears what the fans are saying and twists writing accordingly, is perfectly aware of that. Yet rather than pushing women at him along the course of the show to remind everyone how Not Gay Crowley is - the opposite happens.

Yeh, Lola, Naomi, Billie, they all happen in the later seasons. But even then, the show somehow can't write Crowley as attracted to a human woman.

What happens then is: not only does Crowley fall for Dean ; he engages in some BDSM play with Lucifer : and he switches from drinking only the finest Scotch to fruity cocktails.

The BDSM thing as well as the drink thing are choices rooted in stereotypes, that's how spn is! But it does canonize Crowley's homosexuality. They're depriving him of his "masculinity" as the show goes on, because they purposely write him as homosexual. I don't think spn would have ever written a bi or pan character that way.

We learned a few days ago that Crowley died in a gutter. He died in a gutter for a bigger d*ck. I'm just gonna refer to Oscar Wilde & Mika on this : "some of us in the gutter are looking up at the stars."

The "referred to as king" scene isn't about Crowley being a demon and so not caring about gender - it's the opposite. Other demons are the ones poiting out Crowley's vessel. This is a transphobic joke. It's the demon edition of the "gay boy in a dress" transmisogynistic trope.

Viewers aren't supposed to be on Crowley's side ; we're supposed to be giggling with the other demons while Crowley is being emasculated. Crowley gets a woman vessel because he's a not-very-manly-man, because he's a trans man, because he's homosexual.

And I know that bc Dean is written as bi, and all they're doing is reaffirming the way he does like women while being extra subtle with his love for men.

Meanwhile Crowley is losing influence and power, loses his authority as he loses his throne in Hell, gets humiliated by Lucifer, until all his character revolves around is his love for Dean. The way Crowley is then protrayed as some lovesick ex who can't move on is, imo, a straight man fantasy. Crowley's love is both used as predatory and as a tool to validate Dean's Peak Masculinity.

Spn has been burying their gays all along, and Crowley was right there being punished for not only being in love with Dean but for not being attracted to women. For never being able to be a "normal" guy. For never being able to be seen as a "normal" guy. For checking every homophobic stereotypes in the books. Crowley as a human dies because he's a trans man. Crowley as a demon dies because he's homosexual.

----------------

That's what leads me to be uncomfortable with the way the fandom seems to have a consensus towards pansexual Crowley. (Once again: idc about people's personal hc of Crowley as pan, I just want to think critically about the way no one thinks twice about it & accepts it as canon so easily. Hell, just bc I dared to ask what started the pan Crowley confirmation I got accused of erasing his pansexuality. All I did was ask a question.)

To me, it feels like erasing everything his character went through because he was gay. And it seems to be taken from a reasoning which is going to assume Crowley is attracted to women.

I mean: the reasoning would go "oh, Crowley clearly has a non-straight sexuality -> he's attracted to men -> he's pan" His attraction to women being accepted by default, without needing any backup. And when I look at the canon I see nothing implying he'd be attracted to women. Taking Crowley's attraction to women for granted is following an heteronormative thinking.

Being into people isn't all about who one sleeps with. It's about love. And when we look at what spn shows about Crowley's close relationships, the only meaningful one he got is with Dean. When Rowena wants payback for Crowley making her kill Oskar, she goes for his son.

And it's SO interesting to me because if angels can't be in love because they don't have a soul - can demons? as they're beings with a destroyed soul? And if so, how powerful of Crowley to still fall in love with Dean Winchester.... the power of gay love :) (Crowley 🤝 Cas)

----------------

To conclude all this with some more stuff to think about if, like me, you love questioning everything:

While it's not wrong per se to hc Crowley as pan, it can be worth questioning what's making us so sure we collectively just vibe with it? To me there's a few things: - As I was saying: heteronormative bias - Crowley being a non-fully-human character - Crowley being masculine (despite the show's attempts to erase that) - Crowley being into BDSM - Crowley flirting and making sexual remarks in every context

These, unconsciously, gives a vibe of a character who's "outside" of the gender norm, not making big deal of their sexuality, not even questioning it. This creates this idea of "ambiguity" around Crowley's sexuality. The way Crowley particularly seems to be really chill about sex, is a demon (so what does he know about gender?), and heavily flirty, ... is what most people will link to pansexuality. That doesn't mean thinking of Crowley as pan is being problematic™ ; this means in western medias that's what fills the "pansexual character" imagery (like basically: the Jack Harkness type).

However, when we look at it like that, none of these elements are defining of pansexuality. None of them are excluding him from homosexuality. If not stereotypes.

That's where it gets personal ; but it does make me feel like the huge consensus towards a pansexual Crowley (when there is no clear-cut evidence of it) is erasing the complexity of homosexual experiences. As I said at the begining: I'm happy if pansexual people can relate to Crowley ; everone's free to headcanon. But saying Crowley is canonically pansexual is a stretch - and a take rooted in homophobic stereotypes.

Imo Crowley may have been created with all these traits pushing towards a pan reading of his character. However, as the show went, he was clearly written as a homosexual man. The changes in his portrayal took a turn to be specifically homophobic. He gets imagery that only strictly homosexual characters got (such as drinking fruity cocktails like Aaron. Meanwhile Dean, on the same scene, is allowed beer & whiskey.)

We're used to taking spn's homophobic rep and jokes to make it our own. Yet it seems, when it comes to Crowley, the fandom doesn't see it.

Sometimes people aren't attracted to the gender heteronormativity expects them to be attracted to.......... sometimes people are gay and it's not an umbrella term.