#i've been pretty angry lately and making positivity post helps me be less angry

[cherubimcryptid]

nonsharers who are "too possessive" or "too much" for other selfshippers despite minding your own business and ranting to yourself. i love you.

nonsharers who get called delusional, whether that is true or not. i love you.

personality disordered nonsharers. i love you.

mentally ill nonsharers. i love you.

autistic nonsharers. i love you.

nonsharers who DO have to fight the urge to be mean. i love you.

nonsharers who are more self destructive than outwardly destructive. i love you.

nonsharers who have lost friends over it. i love you.

nonsharers who are really, really tired of seeing posts like "don't harass doubles!", because you know already... me too. and i love you.

nonsharers who are making those posts. you don't have to make yourself appealing to anyone, okay? i love you.

sharers who support us. i love you!

and more! wait, one more thing:

you see all those "i love you"s?

your f/o has 10x as many for you. <3

[bloggingboutburgers]

Saw the Vent art and I felt it in my soul.

I haven't seen anyone put it into words before and it hurt a bit but it was healing to see it visualized and to see evidence that I'm not the only one who struggles with this. Though this also makes me think that I could add tags to my works that tell whether or not a piece is Safe for Romance/Sex Repulsed people.

Thank you for being so open and honest about fandom experiences! 🩵

Thank YOU for listening to them open-mindedly and responding positively tbh!

Truth is, I've really really not been doing well lately because of stuff like that, so I needed to draw vent art to express stuff, but... Also in a way to kinda test my feelings out, because truth be told, when I posted this, I pretty much thought there was a high chance I was gonna be burned at the stake. Everyone's told me so much for so long that it's all in my head that I had no idea if I had any validity in feeling this way, or if I was gonna be told I was overreacting again.

But I'm glad I went for it anyway, because even though the people I wanted to see this (so maybe they could understand, because I'm pathetic like that) might not necessarily have, this seems to have open a way for a fair amount of people to be sad and angry together with me, and... Yeah like you said, it hurt but it was healing.

We don't know each other that much, me and you guys, and we can't exactly replace for each other those feelings of community we keep missing out on, but... Y'know, for what it's worth, thanks for being sad and pissed with me

Made me feel just a little bit less nuts, so yeah it helped

[your-gay-grandma]

Hey Grandma, I'm back, remember me?

Wanted to give you an update on how I'm doing. I've been at an art camp that I absolutely adore this week, but it has brought some probably repressed feelings to light.

I don't know if you remember my other ask, but one of the things I talked about was how I'm pretty chill with what pronouns people use for me. But well, two of the people at camp are nonbinary and/or use they/them pronouns. And whenever people would accidentally misgender them, they would correct them. They were never upset or angry, but they would repeat the sentence emphasizing the correct pronouns.

I have 2 other friends that I spend a lot of time with who use different pronouns than their AGAB (I knew all of these people since we were like 8 so I have spent a long time since they first changed their pronouns working on correctly gendering them), but neither of them will really enforce their pronouns. In fact one of them often doesn't register when they get misgendered in friend groups (probably a side affect of being closeted in a southern US town), and I've taken to being pronoun police. So this week has been the first time in a while that I've seen a queer person standing up for themselves and correcting misgendering.

As I mentioned, I've been using she/they pronouns for a while (also neos now maybe, I haven't had much chance to try them out but they sound fun). But bc I'm afab and fem presenting, most people I'm out to tend to stick to she/her (in public because the last thing I need is to get bullied and in private ig they just forget). I thought I was okay with it- and it's not like you can correct someone for misgendering you when they are using proper pronouns. Idk though, recently she/her feels almost like someone is gently sliding a knife across the surface of my skin, not strong enough to cut but enough to sting slightly. I don't know why, maybe just the presence of other people constantly correcting the use of she/her or he/him? I kind of want to ask my main friend group to stop using she/her for me or at least switch them up a lot more often, but idk how to start that conversation. Any advice?

I'd also appreciate maybe just like a pronoun validation sentence? They/them plus neopronouns (maybe a little bit of she/her but not much) with the name Luna, if you know how to do that.

Thank you so much, your posts always make me feel better 💞

Love, Raven

ahh i love receiving this update from Luna! their messages always brighten my day with their positivity and beautiful journey of acceptance. i am so proud of her!

so wonderful to hear from you, my dear! and so happy to hear you’ve been having such fantastic and validating experiences lately.

as far as asking your friends to use different pronouns for you, i think that’s a fantastic idea! you can just start the conversation (either in person or over text if you have a groupchat or something like that) and explain that you have found she/her pronouns to be less validating lately and you were wondering if they’d use they/them exclusively. i think they’d be overjoyed to help you out!

please keep me posted and remember i’m so proud of you and always here for you!

[m-aster-of-spinjitzu]

orange and gold

...I just need more Cole and Vania content, they seem like they'd be great friends.

Basically it's just 'Cole goes to visit her there, they almost burn down the kitchen, and make way too many puns', lol.

Set a few months after Master of the Mountain, but before Seabound or The Island.

Also yeah, I couldn't think of a better title, sue me- I just know that they wear one of the colours at some point, so... 🤦‍♀️😂

Trigger warnings: none I think? Huh-

Also, bingo!! I really need to learn better time management, dear freaking gosh- I hope I'm not too late though? I know it's like half a day late, eek- and I was supposed to post this earlier, but I ended up literally falling asleep while writing it😂

Thank you so much Fabro, for hosting such a cool event!:D Your comments on my fics literally never fail to make my day<3. And I'm so glad that I met so many awesome, really skilled people through this event too - it's been a lot of fun working alongside y'all:D, I wish I'd had more time to interact instead of posting stuff and vanishing lol, but exams be like:////

Prompt: cooking (does baking count as cooking? I realized too late lol-) from @ninjago-bingo 's warm board.

Word Count: 2497

---

Trying to escape from killer dire-bats hadn't been on Cole's to do list today - although the mountains were kind of beautiful.

It was a bit difficult to see them while he was being dragged to his death, but hey, didn't Jay always tell them to be more positive?

That was, until he made the mistake of looking down.

Miles of snowcapped mountains touched the pastel blue sky, but he was more focused on exactly how high he was from the ground.

Great.

Trying to swing back onto the Bounty, he didn't notice a golden-winged blur shoot past the bat, almost dropping their spear in haste.

"Let my friend go, or I'll-"

"Vania?"

She throws the spear at the bird, successfully knocking one of its wings.

Huh. She must've been practicing - throwing with accuracy while flying seemed kinda difficult.

"I'm so sorry!" she replies, grabbing his arm before he fell down too. She winces at the strain on her wings, almost dropping him onto the deck. "I was supposed to come earlier, but there was an issue with one of the mines, and it took forever to-"

"There ain't anything in this world that's managed to kill me yet," he replies jokingly, checking that the autopilot hadn't been damaged. "I doubt an angry bird is going to be the first."

"Didn't you mention that you became a ghost once? Pretty sure that means you were dead-"

"Shh, that's not an important detail," he jokes.

"If you say so," she replies with a grin. "Did I mention that Chompy's been tearing down the palace flower arrangements again?"

"Send my regards to the gardener-"

"Did you just make a pun?"

"Remind me why I decided to visit you again?"

"Because you love me?" she asks stepping onto the ground as the Bounty landed gently.

"I hereby crown you as my platonic soulmate," Cole deadpans, taking her hand. "Vania and Cole-"

"Destined to annoy each other for eternity," she giggles, swinging their hands up and down. "But seriously - thanks. I don't think I realized how much work being a queen was."

"What's it like?"

"I mean - I'm glad that people trust me, and they come to me if they have a problem, but the paperwork is a nightmare. I never get to go outside anymore, I swear."

"Paperwork? Also, you just invited me here for a week. I don't wanna disturb you?"

"Nah, I cleared my schedule, don't worry. And trust me, you don't want to know. Everything requires some sort of official written thing, and it's so boring-"

"Official? But you're the queen?"

"Well, yeah, but I don't really want to change something unless it benefits the people. Not after..."

Her smile dims, eyes straying to the palace walls.

Oh- oh.

"You're nothing like him," Cole says firmly, squeezing her hand. "I mean, if you need to take a break, or you can make your job a bit easier by cutting out something unnecessary, that's just gonna help you become a better queen. You've definitely got the interests of your people at heart, and that's the most important thing, you know? And well, uh, everything seems to be going great so far - you don't have to beat yourself up over someone else's mistakes."

"Thanks," she replies softly, her smile slowly returning. "Speaking of breaks, what do you think we should do this time?"

"You could show me around the city again?"

"You've already seen everything cool," Vania giggles, skipping ahead of him. "We don't renovate much - unlike you guys-"

"Hey, it's not our fault that our city gets destroyed every few months-"

"More like every few days," she teases, tying back her golden hair. "How about we find some dragons to adopt?"

"Tempting, but where would you keep them?"

"They could sleep in my room-"

She breaks off when she notices him laughing. "What?"

"N- nothing," Cole replies, in between laughs. "Jay and I just made a bet."

"On what?"

"How many dragons you've adopted. I bet at least six, he bet fifteen."

"Well, jokes on both of you - I'm pretty sure my advisor's going to throw a fit if I show up with another one," she starts, giggling. "We've got twenty living in the palace right now."

"Twenty dragons?"

"They're so cute! You just look into their adorable little eyes," Vania pauses for breath, continuing her animated gesturing, "and you can't help but wanna hug them!"

"Oh, Jay's going to be so mad."

"Aww, I'm sorry guys. They're just too adorable!"

"...Wanna hear a funny story?"

"Yeah, sure!"

"I actually used to be terrified of dragons-"

"No way!" Vania exclaims. "Y'all have been on a lot of adventures though, so-"

"Nah, we used to have our own dragons at first. They were pretty cool! I just- I'm a simple guy! Huge animals with wings are scary up close when you're barely a teenager."

"Or when you're really short-"

"We're the same height!" Cole exclaims, facepalming in a bit of a fondly exasperated way.

"I'm two years younger than you-"

---

"Ugh, whose idea was this?"

"Yours," Vania grins, sitting down on the kitchen counter.

"You were supposed to help me, not leave me high and dry!" Cole accuses jokingly, staring at all the appliances they'd found in the cupboards.

"'One must always be prepared for new adventures,'" she quotes seamlessly, waving one of- what was his name again? Mulch something? Oh! Clutch! Some explorer he was, leaving them to die in the pyramid - Clutch Powers' books in the air.

"Fine," he sighs, staring at the old recipe book she'd found in one of their back cupboards. "But you've gotta help me? I almost burned down-" "Woah, what? If you finish that sentence with 'kitchen'-" "In my defense, Kai was playing a prank on me-" "In my defense, I wouldn't like to explain how the queen of Shintaro burnt down the palace by teaching one of her friends to cook," she grins, flipping through the pages. "What do you wanna start with?" "Something simple?" "Have you ever tried baking bread before? It's a lot of fun!" "I haven't really had the time, but that sounds kinda interesting."

He skims the recipe, raising his eyebrows. "Wait, why does this take hours? I thought you said it was simple?"

"Trust me, it is," she laughs, adding, "besides, I still wanna hear about all your adventures!" "Uh... okay," Cole replies hesitantly, "but if this fails, I'm so sorry." "Give yourself some credit, you guys literally saved the world! Multiple times!" "Bold of y'all to assume we know how we did it," he laughs, only half-kidding. "Besides. I botched soup once."

"I've botched toast," she mock-sighs, smiling. "Pretty sure that makes us even."

"Lemme get this straight. You've messed up toasting bread, but you can bake it from scratch?"

"Trust me, I don't know either," she giggles, trying to open a brightly coloured packet of... something? Did flour come in packets that small?

"Uh, why are you opening something called 'feast'?" he asks, eyebrows creased in confusion.

"Feast," she echoes, trying to stifle her laughter. "Off to a... rocky start, aren't we?"

It took him a second.

"I already regret this," he jokes, facepalming. "But I'd say that your puns are, uh, gold."

"I've un- unleashed-" breaking off, she half-falls off the counter, laughing so hard her face starts to go red, "a monster."

---

"Uh, is it supposed to look like that?" Cole asks, frowning.

The mixture looked less like the dough he'd been expecting - more like one of Jay's inventions gone wrong.

Badly wrong, he thought, eyes widening at the goopy mess of foam that threatened to spill over the jug.

"The yeast?" Vania echoes, poking her head out of one of the cupboards. "Yeah, all good! It always looks a little gross, and you're gonna doubt ever eating bread again, but at least it doesn't taste like it's fermented-"

"It's what?"

"Yeah," she grimaces, exaggerating her disgust a bit. "If aliens ever fell from the sky, they'd think we were crazy for eating bread-"

"Aliens? I think we're a bit crazy!" Cole exclaims, trying not to laugh.

Vania smiles, then sighs, lugging a huge bag of flour onto the counter. "I can never open these bags properly," she starts, eyeing the the bag a bit warily, "and it always makes such a huge mess all over the kitchen. You'd think they'd make it easier for people to use, right? I swear-"

He jokingly puts his hands over his ears. "I can't hear you!" "But you know that I've sworn off swearing-" she replies, breaking off with a laugh. "Pun not intended - that actually made sense in my head. I swear!"

"No," Cole interjects with a grin, shaking his head. "You don't, remember?"

"See, this is why we're friends-"

"Friends? Is that all I am to you?"

"Oh, be quiet," she shoots back, exaggeratedly dragging a hand down her face. "I mean, sure, just because everyone thinks that we're dating doesn't mean that we-"

Wait. What?

"People think that we're dating?" he asks, clamping a hand over his mouth in a poor attempt to muffle his laughter. "I- I- really?"

"I know, right?"

"Even my friends thought so at first," he confesses, dragging a hand down his face. "I mean, as much as I love you-"

"I love you too," Vania replies, completely seriously. "Even if you'll always be more like an annoying-"

"Hey-"

"Sibling to me than anything else," she finishes, grabbing a pair of scissors. Cole watches, a little alarmed, as she stabs them into the flour bag over and over.

"Is it... supposed to be this difficult to just open the bag? Seems kinda stupid-"

"Well, er, they have this piece of paper with glue that you're supposed to pull away from the rest of the bag, but it never works properly and I-"

"Well, we could always make our own flour," Cole interjects, laughing. "I mean, I've got a scythe? Let's go!"

"Uh, but we don't have wheat growing here. I don't think it'd suit the climate very well?"

"Wheat a shame," Cole sighs jokingly, measuring out the flour (which had, finally, escaped the bag).

"Oh my gosh," Vania deadpans, "you did not just-"

"Yep, I did."

"You're horrible," she giggles, "then again, I was the one who started this whole debacle, so I think we'll share the blame."

"Debacle? Where'd you pick that one up from? Sounds kinda cool-"

"Oh, it's from a book someone wrote about you guys," Vania says casually, pouring a cup of water into the bowl.

"Hey, uh-" Cole starts hesitantly, twisting his fingers back and forth, then breaks off. "Why'd you read all that stuff about us, anyways? Adventure books don't really seem like something you read a lot, since we have similar favorite books. I mean..."

"Well, um..." Vania trails off, clearly uncomfortable. "Uh- I guess, well, it sounds kinda stupid, but I'd never really met anyone my age who wasn't a royal or something. I... er, I didn't want to be left out, you know?"

Cole thinks back to a scroll; a quest, a sacrifice. One that his friends never seemed to really notice, unless it was with horror or flinches. Not that he blamed them, but - joking about how he was much more useful to the team when he was freaking dead than he was before he'd stumbled and fell in the temple?

That had been a bit far, even for his best friend. Locks could always be picked or something, he didn't need to be a ghost to provide some sort of value-

Well, that's not completely true, is it? a small voice questions, and he can't keep his hands from shaking a little.

"Jay here thinks you're the least valuable ninja."

Not enough to be a performer. Now, not good enough to even be a ninja, apparently.

Well, he reminds himself firmly, you don't have to be the best - just stand up to those who are cruel and unjust.

Nothing but a scar that glowed warm orange occasionally left of the whole Cursed Realm ordeal, sometimes it was all too easy to forget - or pretend - that it had never even happened in the first place.

Other times, like when he'd dropped a glass of water on the floor and his hands hadn't stopped shaking for hours, or when he woke up screaming, expecting to fall through his bed again, it still felt like he was trapped as a ghost. Literally - and maybe a little figuratively as well.

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

"Thanks for trusting me with that," he replies softly. "And I'm sorry. That sounds... horrible, but, honestly, you're a pretty cool person, and I ain't just saying that because we're friends. People can be awful, and they can- they can leave, but you don't need to pretend to be someone you're not for people to accept you. I kinda know what it's like, and it's... just, uh, not great."

"No, thank you," Vania says, rubbing her eyes. "You're pretty cool, too. And I'm glad that we become friends, even if wasn't in the- the, er, greatest circumstances."

"Right back at ya. The fall was pretty terrifying, though," Cole says casually, as if memories of that nightmarish plunge into the depths of earth don't still send shivers down his spine.

"No, definitely! I was so sure we were gonna splat onto the ground or something, thank gosh we didn't."

"Yeah..." Cole trails off, reading the recipe they'd been following. "Oh- do we just leave the bowl somewhere for a few hours now?"

"Oh, yeah," Vania answers. "Other than clean up the kitchen, what else do you wanna do?"

"That's kind of you, but, ah, I don't mind. You can choose something."

"I don't mind either," she replies, covering the bowl with a dishcloth. "Seriously, I don't."

"Same here though."

"Really, I don't mind-" Vania breaks off with a laugh, adding, "Well, actually, there is something."

She doesn't elaborate, thoughtfully gazing out the window.

"Well, what is it? Don't keep me in the dark."

"Ugh, it's kinda stupid-"

"I'm sure that it's not- well, unless you want to try to jump off a flying ship with a homemade parachute to prove a bet to someone-"

"Do I even wanna know?"

"...uh, probably not. We're way too crazy sometimes, our Master has a hard time keeping us in check. Your thing, though?"

"Can I give you a hug?"

Cole blinks for a second, expecting some sort of punchline.

"That's your thing?"

"Well, yeah- I mean, I said it was kinda stupid-"

"No no, that's not what I meant. You're so sweet - that's all."

"Well, not more than you-"

"Nah, you're sweeter-"

"Let's just call it a tie," Vania says with a smile, reaching over to give her friend a hug. "Thank you so much, I swear- well, no, I don't, but you know, anyways-"

"Yeah," Cole replies, laughing softly. "I know."

[ask-blue-link]

Hey Dude, I'm feeling sentimental today so I wanna spill my guts to you. I've loved four swords since about 3rd or 4th grade, back in 2010 or something. And back then, I had bad bad anger issues. I hit friends and lashed out. It was bad. And I saw myself in Blue. I'm a catharsis kind of person, so seeing him be angry made me feel less like destroying everything in my path. I don't remember when I started watching you on deviantart, but it must have been around 2010-2011. (1/3)

“And you know, you might be going, "why is this actual baby child telling me his life story" and it's because I wanna say thank you. I was just getting on the internet and you were there drawing my favorite character, that was angry like me, and you made him less comedic, you gave him sympathy and help in the fics in your scraps. You were there and made me happy, made me feel safe. I watched your streams and I learned how to draw. (2/3)”“Because of you I learned I can wiggle my ears. And not entirely because of you, but because of the catharsis you and Blue gave me, I'm 17 now. Gonna be 18 later this year, and I rarely have an outburst. I don't follow you as closely as I did when I was a kid, but I want you to know that you're doing great work, and I'm really eternally grateful to you. Thank you so much. 💙(3/3)“

((Hello my name is Michaela and I’m a lil emotional right now

Wow, I hardly know what to say. I never really imagined my ask blog would do much other than provide some mild entertainment to people. I’m so, so glad my Blue gave you comfort as you learned- and you learned to draw! That’s awesome!! (Also high five to another rare ear-wiggler hell YEAH)

I never really figured I’d have much of an impact on anyone else’s life from this blog/my DA account- some entertainment, sure, but not much beyond that. I’m glad I did, though, and really glad it was such a positive one for you. I’m happy that I could be of help while you grew and learned c’: I’m proud of you, man. 

I don’t update this blog as often as I used to, but I am still lingering around invisibly even while I’m not making content. Thank you for sending me this message- post-grad life has been stressing me out a lot lately (another reason I sadly don’t get to this blog much ack) and just- thank you. One of my biggest creative goals in life is to touch other peoples lives the way that other creators/game series have done to mine. Hearing that I already have.. might’ve cried a lil this morning.

Thank you, man- I’m glad I could give you the support you needed when you needed it, and I’m proud that you made it through to a better point in your life. Keep drawing, whether or not art is gonna be your career path- it’s also pretty cathartic in a different way, as I’m sure you’ve found out by now.You had help doing it, but ultimately you were the one who had the biggest impact on controlling your emotional state for the better. That takes a ton of strength- Blue would be proud of you, too.))