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vinegarss · 9 months ago

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47news interview with Tamifull

Earlier this month Tamifull, the author of Tsukiatte agetemo ii kana? AKA How Do We Relationship?, did an interview with 47news. I've translated the full text below:

Out of the innumerable manga published every year, there are always a few titles that one simply can't afford to miss. Tamifull-sensei's How Do We Relationship? (Shogakukan) is one of these. It's a story of young love and heartbreak, centering on college students Inuzuka Miwa and Sawatari Saeko. Though fiction, it has a powerful sense of reality that leaves one feeling as if the real Miwa and Saeko might just be out there somewhere right now. If Agasawa Tea's Ramparts of Ice (Shueisha) is the pinnacle of high school romance, then How Do We Relationship? is the pinnacle of college romance. With the help of supervising editor Watanabe Saori-san, we were able to secure an interview with Tamifull-sensei to discuss the story--now on its 12th volume, and at the height of its climax.

The story so far:

Soon after starting college, mild-mannered beauty Inuzuka Miwa joins the light music club and finds herself the center of attention from the boys at the welcoming party. Miwa, who "only likes girls", is rescued from the situation by the energetic Saeko. Saeko, who "prefers women (to men)", buoyed by liquid courage, asks Miwa out on the spot and the two begin dating. But the two are clumsy and inexperienced with love, and fail to be fully honest with each other. By the end of the year, their romance has ended in disaster. After maintaining a sex-only relationship for some time they return to being friends and even move on to new partners... Finally, as their respective relationships have both ended, the two look at each other anew, not as lovers, but as exes, and as absolute allies.

47: How Do We Relationship? has a very unusual structure. Shoujo manga tend to portray a dramatic path to the start of the relationship, but Miwa and Saeko begin dating at the very start of volume 1 and break up in volume 4. As we're now on volume 12, they've actually been exes longer than they were together.

Tamifull: Well, it has stretched a little longer than I expected (laughs), but the story is proceeding as planned from the start. I think rather than starting decisively with some sort of "All right, I'm falling in love now!" moment, real love tends to build up out of small things over time. I didn't want the relationships in How Do We Relationship? to start in this exaggerated, romance story kind of way.

47: And that helps with its sense of reality.

Tamifull: I don't believe dating and breaking up are things that we need to think about in such dramatic terms. It's easy to feel like every relationship has to be perfect, or that you need to have some sort of fated encounter, or that breaking up is a bad thing, something hopeless. Why shouldn't there be manga that throws away those stereotypes? Life is so much longer than a single relationship. It keeps going after you start dating someone, or break up with them. I think that's a message that I've consistently tried to tell with this manga.

47: Can you tell us how it got to be serialized?

Tamifull: It started out as a oneshot I did for Comitia (a doujin festival and marketplace in Tokyo) in 2017. Up until then, I had mainly been drawing yuri--manga about relationships between girls. And I wanted to tell a little bit of a different story at that event. Doujinshi are generally about 20 pages, so usually you introduce the main couple, have them confess, and wrap it up right around there. So I thought, what if they're already in a relationship and we watch them break up? I was basically thinking, "why not draw what I want to read!?"

Watanabe: Ashima Yuki-san, one of the first freelance editors, reached out to Tamifull-san then.

47: At the time, yuri was considered a pretty small market. It felt like unless you got into one of the specialized publications you'd have a very hard time, right?

Tamifull: That's true. There are a lot more varied works coming out now. At the time most of these stories were actually aimed at men, so the relationships would stay platonic, or at most they might kiss. I knew stories like that were easier to market and less likely to ruffle feathers, but I found myself thinking, "If we all settle for that, we'll never get to see what happens next! If no one else is drawing it, why shouldn't I?"

47: What did Ashima-san say to you?

Tamifull: She told me, "I've been wanting to read a story where the characters and relationship feel free like this". I do remember thinking it might be more marketable without the eroticism when I was developing it for serialization (laughs). But I ended up just being like, well, let's see what happens!

47: "Realistic" LGBTQ romance stories tend to end up falling into a handful of patterns. Whether it's manga or movies, you see a lot of stories that feel like "the tragedy of same-sex love", or that seem intended to make you feel sorry for the characters. Like the audience is meant to walk away thinking, "How thought-provoking! I really learned something". But How Do We Relationship? is pretty different, isn't it?

Tamifull: Rather than being "yuri" or being viewed as an "LGBTQ story", I want people to get into the story just because they see it and go "Hey, there's girls dating in here!". Sexual minorities aren't here to be instructional materials for anyone. LGBTQ people live in the same world as everyone else. I want the characters to seem like people you might meet anywhere, and to have relationships you might see anywhere. I want the fact that the relationship isn't heterosexual to just be a detail. That's why Watanabe-san and I decided not to advertise How Do We Relationship? specifically as a yuri manga.

47: Achieving that sense of reality must take a lot of care. I imagine you have to be careful to avoid the set phrases and compositions that readers see all the time in romance manga.

Tamifull: That's true. For example, in the scene where Saeko opens up to Mikkun, their male friend, about her dating Miwa, she asks him if he finds the two of them dating "gross, or wrong, or unnatural", and Mikkun, while looking away, asks in return, "What? Do I have to feel that way about you?". The orthodox move would be to have the handsome guy character looking straight out of the page, smoothly delivering some cool line. But in real life we don't have convenient handsome guys just lying around, and you're not usually looking people straight in the eye. It's not that staged. I think the casual nature of the lines, and the casual nature of the situation, actually make it all the more resonant. I want to keep that natural feeling to the story, and I go out of my way to avoid making it feel "romantic". I think my ideal is for it to feel like a movie.

47: A movie?

Tamifull: That's right. I think one of the strengths of film is the ability to show the drama of everyday life. I always include backgrounds in my panels to try to get closer to that feeling. For instance, in a scene in volume 12, Saeko is on a boat at night looking out over the water with her girlfriend, Yuria. They're talking about breaking up. It's a very romantic setting, but the painful nature of their conversation blots out everything except for the blackness of the water. I want readers to feel like they're there experiencing it alongside the characters.

47: I see. The city you see at night while breaking up with someone certainly does feel different...

Watanabe: And Tamifull-sensei's art has really helped deliver that sense of reality to readers. There are no wasted panels: from the camera placement to how the viewer's eye is led, even the placement of the dialogue, everything serves to guide the reader to what she's showing. Due to my job I read a lot of manga, but there are very few manga artists as skilled as her.

47: Personally, as a reader, it's that sense of reality that has me praying for Saeko and Miwa to end up happy, so next I'd like to ask a little about about how you learned to imbue your writing with such reality, and what techniques you use.

Tamifull: I'll do my best (laughs).

47: First, the depth and internality of your characters. For instance, after breaking up with Saeko, Miwa dates the younger Tamaki. Tamaki is reserved and very low-energy. She's clearly at a loss with the more sexually-motivated Miwa, but nonetheless does her best to reciprocate in her own way. She's straightforward and can be a little childish, but has an intellectual side to her, as well. Accurately portraying such a complex, difficult character must necessitate having an incredibly keen eye for people. How did you learn to understand other people so well?

Tamifull: I think it was mostly my experience in school. In primary and middle school I was low on the pecking order, so I became very sensitive to other people's hostility.

47: Ah, the pecking order... That does happen, doesn't it.

Tamifull: Yes. I'd be in a group of maybe 5 or 6 friends in a class and then once every few months I'd get the silent treatment and end up being ostracized from the group, in this sort of rotation. I'd go through 2 or 3 groups and it would always happen. I think all the time I spent thinking about how to avoid being targeted like that played a big part.

47: Planning out the battle to make it out alive, so to speak.

Tamifull: I think that really helped cultivate my eye (laughs). Like, this girl's the ringleader, and these ones are joining in because they don't want to become the target themselves, but this other girl is actually nice so even when they're ganging up on me she won't join in.

47: I see. Even while you were being mistreated, you were trying to understand things from their perspective. Certainly How Do We Relationship? doesn't have any one character that you would really call a villain.

Tamifull: That's right. Take Kan, who tells Miwa "I hate you" in volume 2, or Tamaki's friend Nagi who calls her "gross" in volume 8. I think it would be too convenient if nobody was ever mean or unpleasant, so it's important to have such characters. But I also try to portray them as having their own reasons. It's not like everyone will be good to each other all the time, but for each person, there's a community out there somewhere that will accept them as themselves. I'm always including that idea, that wish, almost, as I write the various members of the music club.

47: The story has this warmth to it you can really feel, and I think that idea has a lot to do with it. That said, it sounds like you weren't always successful at avoiding bullying. That must have been difficult.

Tamifull: I spent a lot of time wrapped in my futon wondering, why do they treat me like that? As the days went by I'd end up sublimating my anger and frustration by telling myself, "They have their own problems so there's nothing I can do about it." Like, this girl might have a lot of stress at home, about her grades or other things, so she just feels too much pressure and gets pushed into bullying, or things like that. I really got in the habit of thinking about things from their perspective.

47: You are an incredibly kind person. I do think the eye you cultivated that way serves you well in writing characters. For example, in volume 3, we meet Miwa's first crush, Shiho. At home, we see Shiho being horribly mistreated by her parents, who only care for her more academically-minded younger sister, Maho. One day Maho snaps at her, saying "Don't talk back to me, moron! You know how much I have to carry thanks to your stupidity!?". But Shiho just accepts it, and keeps her unhappiness to herself. That's in volume 11, that we finally find out how Maho, who's caused Shiho so much pain, has been feeling.

Tamifull: Maho also feels a lot of pressure from their parents, and she's desperate not to fail. She's under a lot of stress from that. When they were younger, Shiho and Maho were actually very close--Maho loved her older sister--but as grades and examinations started to get involved that connection became twisted... I wasn't able to show all of this in the story, but I always think through these details before drawing.

47: That sort of thing does happen between siblings, doesn't it... Just remembering is a little painful.

Tamifull: But, as much as I analyze people like this, it's very difficult to put into words.

47: In what way?

Tamifull: If you say "Well, this person has this kind of background, so that's why they do these things" then everyone will be like, "And what do you know about them?". You'll end up hurting feelings. So I can't say it about real people, but with How Do We Relationship? I'm the author so I can draw whatever I want. When I hear readers talk about the "realism" I'm always like, "Really? You mean I actually did it?". I secretly get a little happy about it (laughs).

47: Did you always want to become a mangaka, growing up?

Tamifull: I did always like drawing. But when I was pretty young I read one of those "So you want to draw manga?" kind of books and I got very intimidated by all the different erasers and tones and things, and I sort of gave up (laughs). It wasn't until I'd completely retired from extracurriculars in college that I realized I didn't have enough to do and started drawing manga.

47: And then you became a mangaka as soon as you graduated?

Tamifull: Yes, that's right.

47: That's quite something. Not many people manage to do that, right?

Tamifull: The reason I started attending Comitia was because in college I finally learned that editors would be there. Up until then I was working with my childhood knowledge--I thought I had to submit my work to a company and then become an assistant before I could become an author myself. When I found out I was like, "Doujinshi will get me fans and even expose me to editors? What could be better!?". I had my heart set on it.

47: (laughs). What kinds of things were you inspired by when you were a child?

Tamifull: All the way through school I was into stuff that was a little different from whatever was in fashion. I liked watching slightly older anime on Kids' Station, for instance. Like, look at me! I'm not into the same stuff as everybody else! Aren't I cool? (laughs).

47: (laughs).

Tamifull: When everyone else was into Cardcaptor Sakura, I was watching Takahashi Rumiko-sensei's Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku. I remember when I read one of Ito Junji-sensei's works at a relative's house it left a big impression on me. When I was in college I bought the collector's edition of Tomie at Village Vanguard.

47: You grew up into a bit of an alt college student.

Tamifull: In college, going to Village Vanguard and fishing for manga nobody else had became something of a passion for me.

47: What about Takahashi Rumiko-sensei's work did you like in particular?

Tamifull: I especially liked the way she drew girls. In the early 2000s, when I was in primary school, it was very in fashion for girls to be drawn very slender and light, with delicate limbs.

47: Slenderness was certainly emphasized a lot back then, yes.

Tamifull: I preferred how Rumiko-sensei drew them--a little squishy. As far as the story goes, I loved the ending of Maison Ikkoku, how it portrays the characters moving forward in life. I read it over and over. I think that passion for people comes through a little in How Do We Relationship?.

47: In the afterword of volume 3, you mentioned that from middle school until about halfway through college you lost interest in manga, and were more into drama and music.

Tamifull: That's true. Sometimes I'd draw a buff Pikachu or something on the blackboard to try to get a laugh out of people, but that was about it.

47: A buff Pikachu? (laughs). I wish I could see it.

Tamifull: At co-ed schools I think girls mostly end up ranked by looks, but I went to an all-girls high school, so... It was really about who was the funniest.

47: So art was a way of giving yourself a gimmick.

Tamifull: That's right. That continued into college, so I always had the position of somebody who's just a little bit good at drawing. In college everyone was nice, though.

47: In that same afterword you mentioned that during the time you weren't drawing manga, you really enjoyed making things together with a group.

Tamifull: In high school I was in the school band, and we'd all put on plays together at school festivals. I joined the light music club in college. I did percussion in high school so I mostly played drums, or did vocals.

47: Oooh. What kinds of things did you play in the light music club?

Tamifull: Just normal rock. Popular stuff, like Go! Go! 7188.

47: I have an impression of you as being a little bit countercultural, so rock seems perfect for you (laughs).

Tamifull: In college I was also on the student festival committee, so I was doing double duty a little bit. And as much as I enjoyed making things with other people, I started to feel this hole open up, like inside I'd be thinking "I could do this so much better...". Then I started looking into manga again on a whim and realized everything had gone digital. You don't need to hire a bunch of assistants, and you can do tones with the press of a button. It was like this new environment where I could try my hand at manga by myself was prepared just in time as I came of age. I didn't have to hold myself back for anyone, and could do everything just how I wanted. That's why I've always worked alone.

47: What!? You don't have any assistants even now?

Tamifull: I don't.

47: Watanabe-san, is that normal?

Watanabe: It's extremely precious to us. She's really something, isn't she? I don't know how she puts out so much in just two weeks.

Tamifull: I want every angle and composition just so. I can't really express it well, so when I think about trying to explain it to someone else, I just feel like it would end up taking even more time... But then sometimes I'll be working from my storyboards and I'll be like, "Why did I make myself draw it like this!?" and end up suffering a little (laughs).

47: It's certainly a work that cuts no corners. The dialogue is always so well written and moving--do you start by writing the characters' lines?

Tamifull: Yes, I do. I'll write them all out at once, then adapt them to the storyboards as I go. I think all the time I spent agonizing in my futon when I was younger like "I should've said this..." or "And then they'd say that..." might also help here.

47: You always include afterword comics and omake in the tankoubon releases, so I get a sense that you're quite particular about manga books.

Tamifull: I love manga that includes a lot of little extras. And I want readers to enjoy How Do We Relationship? as much as possible, so I always go all out drawing them.

47: Your first announced works were around 2012, and in 2014 you made your commercial debut with Don't Call me a Goddess! in Bungeisha's 4-koma magazine Manga Time. The main character, Saotome-san, is a bit of a tryhard, and as much as that wins her respect from her peers, it also tends to alienate them. Into her life barrels the far less inhibited Ryou. After that, you had My Little Sister and the Sex Doll (Shueisha) serialized in Tonari no Young Jump, about an innocent and naive high school girl and a talking sex doll. Both manga were comedies.

Tamifull: How Do We Relationship? was a little bit of a break in genre, yes (laughs). My Little Sister and the Sex Doll also started as something I made as a change of pace for Comitia (laughs).

47: It's a very rhythmical work--the talking sex doll's lines are incredibly well crafted.

Tamifull: The editors at Young Jump really liked it. It was a little more crude than what I usually write, so I did have some doubts... but they were very kind in offering me the serialization. I had to exercise my vocabulary to the fullest.

47: As much as it made me laugh, I could also somehow feel your desire to break taboos coming through.

Tamifull: That's true. I was trying to make fun of dirty comics, while making a dirty comic (laughs). Even when there would be the setup for some sort of fanservice scene, with something sexual happening to the girl, I would always interrupt it with a joke and turn it into something decidedly not fanservice.

47: On the other hand, something about the relationship between Saotome-san and Ryou in Don't Call Me a Goddess! feels like it connects to Miwa and Saeko. Are you particularly fond of that sort of relationship?

Tamifull: Honestly, that was... completely unintentional. I think, when it comes to protagonists, I do like a character who is quiet, but unexpectedly stubborn... When I think about my time in school, I had a lot of experiences where there would be another girl, and she'd have this sense of separation, like a bit of a boundary around herself, but when I approached her she'd turn out to actually be really interesting. And I'd have this feeling of "Everyone else doesn't even know how cool she is!? I need to let everyone know!". I think that feeling, almost like wanting to become a producer for girls like that, has led me to write my protagonists that way.

47: You really love girls.

Tamifull: I may have spent long years in fierce battle with them at school, but when I translate it to manga they become strangely appealing. Even when they're a pain, their being a pain is good in of itself (laughs). It's true that characters who aren't straightforward can make a story more interesting, but I also think that's just how people are--you can't sum anyone up in a few words. Don't you agree?

47: Your manga, including How Do We Relationship?, really don't tend to have characters that you can sum up as "the cool one" or "the tsundere" or anything like that.

Tamifull: That's right. I don't want them to be symbols.

47: And that's exactly why, in each case--Saeko and Miwa, Miwa and Tamaki, Saeko and Yuria--when they break up, it's so emotionally impactful. You can't just point at one of them and say, "It's her fault."

Tamifull: Right. In reality, lots of people break up all the time without either one really being at fault. It makes me really happy to hear that people read the story as just being how things ended up for them. It's so easy to assume that when a relationship falls apart, it's because someone's in the wrong. I worked very hard to make sure that Tamaki and Yuria would be charming enough characters for readers to like them, and to accept it when I made them break up with Miwa and Saeko. I always look at readers' reactions and think carefully about how to proceed.

47: How Do We Relationship? really feels like you want to closely examine real, "normal" relationships.

Tamifull: I think it's a pity for the socially accepted image of love to be something so narrow. When two women date, and after breaking up return to being friends, I think people have a tendency to look a little askance at them. But why is that? I always find myself thinking, "Are you okay with living like that?". With How Do We Relationship?, I wanted to create a world where Miwa and Saeko and everyone else's desires wouldn't be crushed by those around them.

47: Especially during the first 3 volumes, you often shine the spotlight on the other characters around Miwa and Saeko. Is that also a part of fleshing out that view of the world?

Tamifull: Something like that. I don't want the idea of someone who likes the same sex to be something fantastical. I want to show that sexual minorities are all around--even around you. I want heterosexual readers to also get into the story, and I was very conscious of that early on in the serialization. I think whether you're gay or straight, you can still understand this story. These characters are just like you. That's the message I've tried to send.

47: It would be really wonderful if we could become a society where everyone views each other with respect. What would that take, I wonder?

Tamifull: Delusions, maybe.

47: Delusions? (laughs).

Tamifull: Yes (laughs). This is just my own experience, but when I meet someone and feel off-put by them, I always thoroughly imagine their background. By the time I'm finished whatever anger I felt has faded, and I feel ready to treat them better--maybe even to become close with them. And if you write stories you can come up with great material this way, so it's two birds with one stone (laughs).

#tsukiatte agetemo ii kana #how do we relationship

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taylor-titmouse · 2 months ago

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2024 Book Retrospective

i did this last year for all the books i released in 2023, and i've been looking forward to doing it again for this year because it was Such a wonky ride. i released 3 new novellas, collected 3 old ones in a new illustrated release, put out a new freebie, and dipped my toes into artbooks for the first time. that's not even including the multiple extra things i wrote this year but will release next year. it felt to me like i barely got anything out in 2024, but looking back i really did plenty.

anyway let's get into it! these will probably contain spoilers for the books because i want to talk about them openly. if you haven't read them yet... they're on sale for 40% off until the new year!

The Masson Circle Collection (1-3), released in January

so! we started out the year with this updated version of some of my earlier works. daffodils, carnations, and laurels were among my first forays into publishing novellas, and were the last of my romances before i transitioned more deliberately into erotica. the distinction is practically arbitrary since i do still write about people in love, but it's not the focus so much as the sexual titillation.

but anyway. because these were romances and not Porn (despite having explicit sex in them), and because they came out before i'd really hit my stride as an erotic author/illustrator in 2021/2022, they never got the attention i'd have liked for them! they were the last before i made the switch to properly illustrating my books; they had sketchbook sections at the back instead. i started the roger crenshaw series shortly afterward, which is when my work really took off. so it's like these stories just missed their window.

but i wanted people to read them! these stories and characters are dear to my heart and i felt like they deserved a fair shake, so i spent a month or so at the end of 2023 revising the text to be closer to my standards (though they were pretty good to start with!) and made 30 new illustrations for it. i kept myself Busy getting this ready. it would be a huge release to kick off the new year!

.... and then it didn't do very well anyway. lmao. maybe i priced it too high, maybe i didn't hype it enough, maybe it's because as much as i love all the characters, they're hard to draw and not as exciting as a monster of the day. who knows! but i'm glad i did it, if only for myself. as i've said, these stories were important to me and my growth as an author. if you like historical queer romance with a crime thriller edge, something like kj charles (because she was my biggest inspiration at the time) you should check these out! i promise they're really good despite being on the older side.

The Long Road, released in May

boy that's a big gap between january and may. so what happened there is i actually wrote the night guest first in january-february, and then the long road in march-april. but IMPORTANTLY, i learned my editor @petitemortality was going to become available for work again in april. it'd been probably a year since i'd had his hands on my work and i was Gasping for it. i've compared it to receiving the sponge treatment--just being put through the wringer and coming out So much better for it after a year of bad habits and complacency building up. so basically i put all publishing on hold until he could Fix Me.

and then i ended up rewriting both of those books practically from scratch based on his advice and godddd they really Were so much better for it. it's AGONY in the moment, but the work is worth it. anyway let's talk about the actual work huh.

the genesis of these characters is So funny, because i don't think a single one of them was created for the purpose of this story, rather they all existed as various mobs/nobodies to draw. the goblins and bandits beside vanesse were just designs i used a few times when i wanted to draw characters getting gangbanged. vanesse and angre were created Just for a patreon suggestion of "trans femme bandit queen fucking a trans masc knight". and tourmaline only exists because i wanted to draw a princess getting gangbanged and eveline didn't feel "right" for it anymore. and i ended up with this perfect mishmash of characters that slotted together into a story so naturally that i remember waking up in the middle of the night and banging out the outline in the notes app before falling back asleep and starting to write it the next day.

and it was received pretty well! it had a ton of buildup from me drawing the characters constantly for the duration of the writing and doing a ton of public worldbuilding for dwarves. god i love the worldbuilding for the dwarves. i'm desperate to get deeper into it, i just need to find the story for it. and the goblins. everybody loves the goblins and so do i. and vanesse. ahhhhh.... i'm just so fond of everybody in this book lol. just a big confluence of Toys.

oh yeah and since last year i picked favorite scenes, i think my favorite is angre's internal monologue at the start of his chapter. we get a lot of the worldbuilding there (so of course i like it) but also the Point of the book comes together. i'd struggled a lot with that whole bit in the first draft, but the final draft really just *chefs kiss* it works, for me.

The Night Guest, released in July

as i mentioned before i actually wrote this one much earlier into the year! and immediately had known it wasn't ready, and so backburnered it for months until my editor could essentially fix it. and he fixed the hell out of it. it was a directionless mess in the first draft because i hadn't figured out the characters' voices, what they actually wanted, why they behaved how they did, none of it. it was his idea to structure it more deliberately like an old folktale of a woman outwitting a best, and it snapped into place. of course it was a nearly total rewrite that added like 7000 words (and to this day i'm still not sure how) but it was completely worth it. i feel like i've said that multiple times in this post but it's always true. i cannot stress enough how much i was gasping for a good editing. it's like a cleanse.

this is another story that just sort of Happened out of nowhere. mrs. arakawa was a side character in the dragon double feature 2, and people liked her, and asked about her getting her own monster boyfriend, and so toru was born. partially to get practice drawing that bodytype, partially because i think onis are hot, and then the general shape of a story came to me and i started writing it. without a perfectly clear vision of what it would be. and that's how we got to where we were at the start of this. oops.

i have two favorite parts, the first being this illustration:

when toru is describing the oni woman he was supposed to marry. his entire narrative arc and personal struggle was constructed for the purpose of this joke. i agonized for DAYS, maybe weeks, trying to make his motivation of "i didn't want to get married" work with mrs. arakawa's own feelings about marriage and him having to leave at the end and come back and all of that. it was killing me. but it worked out in the end and i'm so happy it did because i still think the joke that he didn't want to marry a shoujo nadeshiko archetype because he thinks she's ugly is fucking hilarious.

my actual favorite scene is him and mrs. arakawa telling each other stories about themselves. i had a lot of fun trying to ape the rhythms of kabuki performance and rakugo with it.

Spring with the Unicorns, released in June

technically this ought to go before the night guest because it came out first but considering i wrote the first draft of the night guest in january *waves hands* it's all loosey goosey anyway

so this came about because i had the idea to do a book called Season's Breedings (so many of my books happen because i thought of a title and worked backwards from there) and it was literally just going to be the breeding habits of fantasy fuckworld creatures arranged by season. i wrote this one first because it seemed the easiest and then it was less than 4k words, and every other story i had in mind was going to be Much More than that and also didn't come together as easily. so on a very last minute whim i illustrated this and threw it out for free on the last day of pride.

it's me at my loftiest because i was going for a sort of third person omniscient fable type beat, because that's what unicorns deserve. i like it, and it's a good little treat to give out for free. especially because everybody loves the unicorns and loves asking me the same four lore questions and i can just say 'go read the free story' lmao.

it's too short to really have a favorite Scene but barberry is my favorite unicorn. just love everything about that guy. angry little bastard.

Poker Night with the Arizona Dogs, released September

it's not prose but it counts! this is the first artbook i've ever released, though technically not the first i ever made. the unicorn stockades series came before it but will be released sometime next year. it's a bit more spring-seasony. but anyway.

these are a lot of fun to make! i am, at my heart, a comic artist (my day job is graphic novels, buy my graphic novel it comes out in february) so telling a single story in multiple illustrations is kind of my bread and butter. and free use/gangbang stuff is like. perfect for it. everybody has to get a turn! and on top of that it lets me play in a space in a way prose doesn't. prose feels so much more official, more canon (which is how i think of the difference between my drawings and my books--books are canon, drawings are not). but with something like this it's easier to say it was just for fun. because it was! it was a lot of fun.

my favorite illustrations were the jackie-ralph licking ones (because i think i did a good job with the mouths and the folds and all) and the one with johnny with his hand over roger's face and hiding his own. jackie-ralph is probably my favorite of the dogs to draw because he's easiest but johnny is certainly my favorite of the Boys.

Objects of Affection, released in December

boy, this one huh! there is so much to say about this one. this one has like three separate catalysts that blasted together at the end of the summer and it just Happened all at once. there was a person requesting variations on "a mechanic taking advantage of an android they're repairing" for a few months on patreon that i kept meaning to do because it kept winning second place. there was another story i wrote that was too short to publish alone that i was like "okay what if i make a sci-fi anthology and one of the stories is robots..." and then i started rereading chobits for inspiration and it Pissed Me Off So Much how little it wants to engage with its own ideas.

and then the sci-fi anthology idea became only about the robots and i never published the original little short (which will come out next year as a freebie). and then my editor's computer Exploded for two months and he wasn't able to edit it ; ; the wait was Agony because this was one i really, Really did not want to release without proper feedback. something fucking Possessed me with this book and what it says about women and consent and masculinity and all the shit. like those are themes i've already touched in my other works, but in this one it was like turning the knob on a pressure cooker.

it's tough to think of what to say about it that i didn't say in the days after it was released. i've always been frustrated with robot stories that preoccupy themselves with the Theory of rights for artificial life and not the reality of rights for the people we already have. i'd watched astro boy 2003 and pluto shortly before starting (so i guess that's actually 4 things that came together) so Robot Rights!! stories were fresh in my mind and i'd found astro boy particularly frustrating with its insistence on pacifism from the oppressed robots as the government and populace kept abusing them. it is very hard to watch something that says "violence is never the answer! don't fight back, choose peace!" while your own country is aiding and abetting a genocide and obsessing over retribution for a single attack born of decades of settler violence as if they are in any way equivalent.

breathes out

so anyway that's why i chose to write about robots who undeniably do not have sapience, humanity, or rights. because we haven't come even close to solving the issue of rights for ourselves, particularly women (an admittedly easier topic to approach in an erotic work than the horrors of racially motivated war). and between chobits, which suggests a world obsessed with androids but doesn't deeply explore the social ramifications of a female-shaped servant class, and my research into real dolls, the closest thing we already have to fuckable brainless androids, there is a lot of material to draw inspiration from. how a person treats an unperson, particularly one shaped like a woman, will reflect upon how they treat a real person, a real woman.

to be less of a bummer and talk about the Stories, ratna's was the first i wrote, and went through the most revisions between drafts as i tried to figure out her whole deal. she was always going to be a stone butch dyke mechanic, so how would that sort of person feel in her line of work? would she be a stereotype of man-hating lesbian, and sympathetic to the android girls she has to send home with them? or would she be an unrepentant sleeze, just as bad as everyone she works for? i think i ended up somewhere in the middle. she doesn't like men, but doesn't think of herself as better for not being one. she thinks she's better because she isn't better, but at least acknowledges it. and figuring that out was important to figuring out the character. and also going in way harder on the beauty of the mechanism. that was mainly for You Guys, but it was crucial to her character working.

touma and shima's story came to me like a lightning bolt as i was leaving for a vacation. it was going to be, if you can believe it, Even More toxic yaoi. touma ws going to jerk shima off from behind as he fucked mari-ko, it was going to be way more explicit that he was mainly attracted to shima. but ultimately none of that served the actual purpose of the book, about treating people as objects and tools, so i dialed it back. but don't get it twisted touma is still insane and obsessed with shima and wants to touch his cock. but the story as it exists is a more realistic place for him to be at.

and samart and marinette's story was pretty much unchanged from first to final draft. the concept waffled a bit before i started writing, where my first idea had been that he makes her participate in taboo fantasies (calling him big brother, telling him no etc) and the narrative basically asking the question--is this wrong? is it better because she's not real, because he's doing it with her and not a real woman? does her 'no' matter if it's a 'no' she was ordered to say? is it worse because she can't meaningfully consent to the play either way? does any of it matter beyond the effect it has on him?

but as much as i'm interested in unpacking those concepts, i decided they would be too difficult for the audience and potentially open me up to scrutiny and abuse, because you can't even breathe the word "incest" without having your doors beaten down. the book as a whole is difficult, and i want it to be difficult, but i didn't want it to become about That. so instead i went with exploring the sort of loneliness and misanthropy of a person who lives the way he does, and i'm satisfied with it. i think it's the sharpest of the three stories.

wow i had nearly twice as much to say about that one than the rest. lol.

but that's it! that's everything i released! as i hinted throughout there were several other things i wrote this year that will see release next year. i have a free short, a $3 short, a novella awaiting editing, and at least two more artbooks to release. there'll be plenty for me to write about in next year's retrospective.

my writing goal for 2025 is to finish a novel. i did actually reach a finished draft with starbuster, the novel i've been pecking at for the past two years, but having done so and mapped out all the work it needs to be submission-ready, i've put it down semi-permanently. it simply needs too much and it's a bit too niche for traditional publishing, and it's in a genre (contemporary) i don't really want to write more of. so the best use of my time is on something else. it's a shame, but it's for the best! hopefully something will crack me upside the head with inspiration and it'll just Happen like all my best work seems to, lmao.

but if you've read all of this, or just read some of it, thank you!! thank you for supporting me for another year, or the first year if you just got here. if you haven't read everything i put out in 2024, it's on sale until jan 1st! go pick it up for cheap!!

#taylor titmouse #tt talks writing

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pluralthey · 2 months ago

Note

what steps do you go through to draw in your current style? do you have any pointers about it? its absolutely one of my favorites

i'm not sure if i think of my process in steps. in my head, i'm just straightforwardly drawing the shapes the characters are made of at angles that look right and building on that... luckily, i stream when i draw every day, so i have a ton of videos of myself drawing. example:

youtube

i haven't bothered to upload a lot of the modern streams to youtube because my video editor can't handle editing 4-8 hour files even if i'm speeding them up and technically making them shorter because of the way video editors interact with files, and the freeware i use isn't able to make proxy files. the act of downloading and editing and combing through all the footage is a ton of time and memory space and it's just not what people are usually looking for from me, so it's not where i wanna put my time.

but that's neither here nor there. what i mean to say is these vods are really long. so you don't want to rawdog those. but you can just download a video speed controller extension to your browser and it's extremely easy to cruise through the backlog of vods at ~15x speed.

i've gone ahead and highlighted some of the recent videos to separate the chaff from the wheat. i tend to take long breaks to eat or walk my dog so there are big periods of Nothing Happening. i'll try to skim some more and do the same. unfortunately, i don't have any good videos of me coloring, since twitch deletes vods after like a month, and i've just been focusing on sketching.

but yeah, in general, it really depends on how good i'm feeling on a given day -- sometimes i will sketch multiple times for just one panel and sometimes i won't sketch at all. i use paint tool sai 2 and a pixel brush usually 2 pixels wide with no pen pressure. for comics, i have 1 layer for the panel borders, 1 layer for the sketch, 1 layer for the lines, 1 layer for the colors, 1 layer for the text, and 1 layer speech bubbles. sometimes there are special effects that overlap borders and need their own special layers. when i start sketching a new panel, i will usually put it on its own new layer, and sometimes for multiple characters i will put them on another new layer at a different opacity. this is mostly to move them around without constant cleanup. once i've gotten a sketch pretty finished, i merge all of the layers into the sketch layer. the line layer is usually just the sketch layer cleaned up and paint bucket tooled black. but basically, the vast majority of my time working on art is spent trying to fix small things like tangents, fitting speech bubbles into panels, thinking about how to lay out a page, checking continuity interaction with other pages, that kind of stuff. the complex technical parts of the process are to save time on those in ways i can without compromising quality. the other portion of working on the art is like "step 1: draw head circle (or jessie head diamond). step 2: draw the rest of the owl." i don't know if this was helpful at all y_y if you want more pointers i might be able to offer clarity on more specific questions!

#ask #asks

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atleastpleasetelephone · 25 days ago

Text

Gentle on my mind - Chapter 12

Initially set in 1967 when Elvis is filming Clambake. Feeling miserable and trapped after the Colonel banishes Larry and the spiritual texts, Elvis invites Gloria to keep him company through the last five days of filming. Gloria is an aspiring movie editor and more importantly she's a lot of fun. Will she be what Elvis needs to get him out of the depressive funk he's in?

Catch up with the other parts here.

Many thanks to @sissylittlefeather being my beta reader on this one.

A/N: It's 1974 at the start of this chapter. I've slightly messed with the timeline of real life here with Linda.

Pairing: Elvis x OC - Gloria, a budding film editor.

Word count: 5.3K

TWs: Erratic behaviour from Elvis, angry!Elvis, oral, erectile dysfunction, size kink, the welcome return of Gloria's filthy mouth, mention of drug use, kind of voyeurism, p in v sex, discussion of somno.

That morning the mail arrives and Gloria breathes a sigh of relief. She can actually enjoy this Christmas without the divorce looming over her like it has been for the past two years - the paperwork has arrived and the divorce is finalised. She is free of Roger. Well, not entirely free, since she has a custody agreement to stick to, but at least she can finally move out into her own house again. Money from the settlement and some that she hadn’t been expecting (and certainly hadn’t asked for) from her dad mean that she’s able to put a downpayment on a little property not far away from where she’s living now. It will be good to be out from under her sister’s feet, but still having her close by. Christmas is low-key but joyful, and she’s starting to feel like things are really looking up now. She’s spoken to Elvis a handful of times over the past two years, but she didn’t want to see him again until the divorce was done. She also read the papers, and seeing that he was in a relationship with Linda Thompson had solidified her decision. She wanted to give him a chance at happiness without her interruption. Her love for him is as powerful as ever, but she still doesn’t think she can give him what he wants - Roger still wants to be in her kids’ lives, and the custody arrangement doesn’t stretch to her moving them to Memphis to live with a rock star.

She decides to call him on New Year’s Day. She’s heard that he and Linda are no longer together, and she knows it’s his fortieth birthday in a week’s time. It hadn’t taken much persuasion for her sister to agree to take the kids so that she can visit him. Some guy she doesn’t know picks up the phone, and then it feels like forever before he finally speaks.

“Glory.”

“Elvis! Happy new year! My divorce finally came through!”

“Hmmm.”

Gloria was expecting more of a response than that, and she finds herself frowning at the phone.

“Are you okay?”

“Hmmm.”

“Elvis?”

“What?”

“I’m calling you to tell you my divorce is finalised. I wanted to come visit you for your birthday.”

There’s a deep sigh on the other end of the line. “Didn’t wanna visit me before though.”

“I had to wait for the divorce to go through. I didn’t want Roger to end up with full custody. And anyway, you had Linda.”

Elvis snorts derisively. “Yeah. Had. Now she’s gone too. Everyone’s gone. Everyone leaves me.”

“I’m trying to come and see you.” Gloria is starting to get a little agitated. She’s calling with good news and Elvis is acting as though she just offered to kill his cat.

“Hmph.”

“Are you going to send a plane for me, or not?”

“Send a plane!” Elvis almost yells. “Send a plane! She wants me to send a plane for her! Who do you think you are, Gloria?”

Gloria opens her mouth to say something and then hears a click as the line goes dead. He’s put the phone down on her again. And right in the middle of an argument, this time. She shakes her head as she replaces the receiver. She’s just wondering how long it will take for him to call back when Corey comes bounding into the room.

“Mama!” He exclaims, before jumping into her lap. “Who were you talking to?”

She smiles and wraps her arms around him. “Elvis, honey.”

“No you weren’t.”

Giggling, she brushes his unruly hair back from his forehead. “Yes I was, honey. Your mama doesn’t lie.”

Corey folds his arms and pouts. “Don’t believe you. You don’t know Elvis.”

As if on cue, the phone starts to ring again. Her four year old looks at it, distrustfully, making her laugh all the more. She picks up and says her name.

“Glory.”

“Elvis. Can you talk to Corey please? He doesn’t believe I’ve really been talking to you.”

Without waiting for a reply she passes the receiver to her son, who uses both of his little hands to cradle it by his ear with some difficulty.

“Hello?”

Elvis had been about to gush an apology for his rude behaviour just a few minutes ago, and he has to quickly readjust now he’s speaking to a small child who is questioning his existence. But he doesn’t mind. It’s actually sort of refreshing.

“Hey there son. How’re ya doin’?”

“Hmmm. Mom says you’re Elvis, but I think you’re pretending.”

Elvis chuckles. “Well okay. How about I sing ya somethin’? Would that convince ya?”

Corey puts a hand over the mouthpiece. “He’s going to sing. What song should he sing?”

Gloria considers for a moment. “Hound Dog. You know that one.”

“Hound Dog.”

Elvis laughs. He’d been wondering if Gloria would pick something more obscure, but Hound Dog it is. He starts to sing in that deep baritone of his and she can hear him through the phone. She smiles. After a verse and a chorus he asks if Corey is convinced yet.

“Hmmm. I guess so. You wanna talk to mom?”

“Yes please, son.”

“Okay. Bye Elvis!”

Elvis is still chuckling when Gloria presses the phone back to her ear. Corey jumps from her lap and runs back off to whatever he’d been doing in the kitchen with his sister and she’s alone again.

“Thanks for doing that.”

“It’s the least I could do. Glory I’m sorry for earlier. I’m a grumpy old sonofabitch, but I do wanna see ya. If ya still wanna come.”

“I do,” she tells him, warmly. “Of course I want to see you. Especially on your birthday.”

“Even though I’m ancient now?”

“Oh yeah, ancient. Elvis, you’re not eighty three. You’re forty.”

He hums and then laughs. “Okay, okay. You’re right. I’ll send the plane for ya - are the kids coming?”

She shakes her head, and then realises that he can’t see her. “Um… no. I wanted to just spend some time with you alone. Although… I mean I guess you’re having a party?”

“No party.”

“No?”

“Nuh-uh. Nothin’ to celebrate.”

“Oh Elvis. C’mon.”

He’s silent for a while, trying to work out whether he’s happy she’s coming without the kids or not. He wants to see her on her own, but this makes it seem like she doesn’t want him spending time with them.

“I wanted to see ‘em. Corey and Jackie I mean.”

“Well um…”

“Can I?”

It’s Gloria’s time to be silent, trying to calculate the best thing to do. It’s too difficult to weigh up the pros and cons quickly enough, but her gut tells her she does want him to meet them. Otherwise why would she have put him on the phone to Corey.

“If you promise to have a party, I promise my sister and her husband will bring the kids for it. But I want to see you alone first.” She pauses, looking around the room before dropping her voice to a whisper. “I’ve missed you, big boy. I’ve missed the way you touch me.”

Elvis swallows, hard. “I’ve missed ya too, Glory.”

“So you promise to have a birthday party? With cake and ice cream? The kids won’t forgive me if there’s no sweet stuff.”

He laughs. “I promise. Can’t believe you’d think I’d throw a party without a cake…”

“I’m just making sure. And… you want to see me before?” She suddenly feels insecure after her little admission and wants reassurance.

“Of course I do, baby. I-I’ve missed ya too. Missed yer lovin’.”

Gloria’s mouth curls into a little smile. He’s still bashful, even after all this time. “I’ll come the day before then. Give you a special birthday treat.”

Elvis blushes to his ears thinking about what she might want to give him. He pushes away the thoughts of whether he’ll be able to give her what she wants and just tells her how excited he is to see her again. They talk for a while about the arrangements, and then Elvis describes the house to her in painstaking detail. She’s grinning when she finally gets off the phone. She has a feeling that 1975 is going to be a good year.

***

Gloria’s stomach is in knots when the plane finally lands in Memphis. She hadn’t been able to fully enjoy the luxury of the private jet as she’d spent the entire journey feeling incredibly nervous about seeing Elvis again. The photos she’s seen of him over the past couple of years have shown him gaining and losing weight, sometimes looking tired and other times full of life, and always having a beautiful woman on his arm. After she left Roger, she put herself on a diet. Nothing too radical, just whole foods and fewer biscuits, but the combination of that and her new-found happiness have brought her back down to almost pre-baby weight. She’s still squidgy around the middle and she’ll never lose her big ass and breasts, but she’s feeling a lot more confident than the last time she saw him. And she can’t wait to show him the gift she’s got for him. She thinks his eyes are probably going to pop out of his head.

Getting out of the plane, she spots one of his large Cadillac Limousines parked outside. Wondering who is going to be driving her, she walks down the steps and towards the door. She really hopes it isn’t some stranger. Before she has a chance to open the passenger door, the driver door opens and Jerry springs out.

“Gloria!”

“Jerry!”

He wraps her up in a big hug.

“Boy am I glad to see you!” She exclaims. “Some guy I’d never heard of answered the phone at Graceland the other day and I thought maybe El had cleared everyone out and some stranger would be driving me.”

Jerry laughs. “I’m still here. Well. I went and came back.”

“Well thank God.”

They get into the car together, Gloria sitting at the front to make it easier for them to gossip together. Jerry is married now, so he tries his best to put inappropriate thoughts of his best friend’s love interest to one side, but he can’t help thinking she’s looking well. And she seems happier too. He hopes this means Elvis will get himself out of the deep depression he’s been in since Linda left. The fact that he told the guys to plan a party, washed and shaved and appeared downstairs for lunch after Gloria had called on New Year’s Day was a step in the right direction. But Jerry still wonders if it is too little, too late.

He pulls up at the house and is happy to see Elvis standing in the doorway, waiting for her. She gets out and immediately drops her bag on the ground at the sight of him, running towards him and jumping gleefully into his open arms. Jerry smiles, picking up her bag and carrying it to the doorway, trying not to ogle as her and Elvis make out like teenagers.

“Thanks Jer,” Elvis tells him, still gazing into Gloria’s eyes. “Ya wanna come in for some food?”

Jerry shakes his head. “That’s alright, EP. I’ll let you two have some time on your own.”

They don’t really have any time on their own though. Minnie May and Vernon are both there during lunch, and various Mafia members stick their heads in every so often too, making Gloria feel as though she is almost constantly on display. When they eventually finish eating and talking, Elvis insists on taking her on a guided tour of the house. He keeps her busy, taking her from room to room and then outside to see the horses. Insisting that they go for a ride, by the time they get back it’s time for dinner and the whole process of people interrupting them starts all over again. Gloria feels like she’s on some kind of treadmill of interactions, even when she was alone with Elvis he was performing - telling her facts about the soft furnishings so quickly she couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Finally dinner is over and they move to the living room, but they’re still not alone. Vernon hangs about awkwardly as his son talks to him in an animated fashion, and then Red West comes wandering in.

Gloria can’t help it, she huffs loudly, putting her hand on Elvis’ leg. He’s right in the middle of telling some story to his daddy and he looks at her disapprovingly without stopping.

“Ah- uh- son…” Vernon begins, awkwardly interrupting him.

“Yes, Daddy,” Elvis replies, impatiently.

“I think maybe you two should have a little time alone, Gloria’s come a long way to see ya. Don’t ya think, Red?”

Vernon delivers this little speech staring at the carpet, shifting his weight about from foot to foot. It’s obvious he’s not used to delivering advice to his son, especially when it comes to women, and he looks up briefly at Elvis’ bodyguard for some cover.

The other man simply shrugs. “None a my business.”

“It would be nice,” Gloria adds, trying to catch Vernon’s eye. She can’t help but feel sorry for him, he’s cutting quite the pathetic figure as he continues to shuffle and seems to get smaller by the minute.

“Hmph.” Elvis is annoyed. He had been telling a story. How was it any business of his daddy’s how much time he spent with Gloria on her own? They’d already toured the whole house and been out on the horses. “None of either of ya’s business.”

“I’m gonna just… I’ll… I should…” Vernon stumbles over his words, trying to find a way to say he’s leaving without sounding like he’s contradicting his son.

“Oh, get out then. The pair a ya. Ya don’t wanna be here anyway.” He looks at them both, eyes flaming. When they don’t move immediately, he yells. “GET OUT!”

Red huffs and rolls his eyes but he moves quickly, having no desire to have objects thrown at him today. Vernon shuffles off after him, mumbling his goodbyes. Once they’ve gone, Gloria turns towards the man next to her on the sofa. He seems like someone she doesn’t even know anymore, but the old Elvis must be under there somewhere. She has to try and reach him.

“I thought you wanted to see me,” she says, quietly. Her heart is beating fast but she tries to come across as calm.

“I do!” He replies, far too loudly. “What d’ya think we’re doin’ here? I’ve taken ya round the house, on the horses, fed ya, introduced ya to my family…” his fist slams onto the sofa in frustration.

“And I’ve loved all that. But I just want a little alone time.”

Elvis sighs loudly. The worries he’d been trying to push down float to the surface again. He doesn’t know what will happen when he’s alone with her, and he isn’t sure he wants to find out. Gloria won’t be put off though. She scoots closer to him on the sofa and puts a hand on his thigh.

“Why don’t we carry on the tour in your bedroom?” She suggests, batting her eyelashes. “I want to give you your birthday gift before everyone else gets here tomorrow.”

Elvis can feel his anger subsiding, and in its wake all there seems to be is fear.

“Ah-I… uh…” he stumbles over the words and then gives up.

“Please, big boy,” she tries, sensing she’s getting somewhere. “You made me all excited when I got here… all those kisses…” as if to illustrate her point she starts to pepper his face with little kisses. “I need you.”

Elvis lets out a low moan at her words, closing his eyes as she carries on kissing behind his ear and down his neck. He has missed her so badly.

“Alright then.” His voice is hoarse, and he tries to clear his throat. “Ya can have the tour of upstairs.”

He stands up and pulls her with him, picking up her bag in his other hand and carrying it up the stairs. They get into his bedroom and he starts up a running commentary on the contents of the room, as if he was taking the guided tour thing literally. She pays no real attention to what he’s saying, instead taking it all in by looking around before picking her bag up from the floor.

“And the bathroom is that way?”

“Yes honey. But ya’ll have yer own powder room…” he begins, but she cuts him off.

“I want to get changed into something special. You sit down. I’ll be back.”

She heads for the bathroom without waiting for a response, just hearing him mumble something about not realising she was the boss of this house. He’s scared but he doesn’t try to stop her, instead sinking down onto the edge of the bed and waiting for her.

Gloria’s heart is beating out of her chest when she returns, dressed in a sheer black robe fastened with a huge pink bow. She hasn’t had sex since the time with Elvis on the sofa and she hopes she hasn’t somehow forgotten how to do it. She also hopes he still likes her body, which no-one has seen in a long time either. Aside from the mostly internal pep talk she’d given herself, she spent most of her time in the bathroom fluffing her hair up and applying lipstick, which she tries hard not to chew off now with nerves. She looks at him and sees that his head is hanging down between his shoulders, making him look like he’s studying the fistfuls of rings he’s currently wearing. She needs to get his attention.

“Hey, big boy,” she murmurs, walking towards him.

Elvis looks up and does a double-take when he sees her. He struggles to swallow, his eyes go almost cartoonishly wide and eventually he manages to sigh out a “goddamn.”

She smiles a little seeing the effect she’s having on him, coming to a stop between his spread thighs.

“You want to open your gift?”

“Damn, baby.”

He brings a trembling hand up to the end of the ribbon and pulls. The fabric falls apart, exposing her bare torso. He manages a few more “damn, baby”s as his hands slowly explore her breasts, belly and hips. After a while she captures one hand and slips it between her legs, watching for his reaction. His fingers explore gently until they come into contact with something that feels hard. He frowns, confused, then grabs her by the hips, picking her up and putting her down on the bed next to him. Spreading her legs he gets onto his belly to examine her pussy, his breath tickling her and making her squirm.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

There are two little spheres of metal at the top and bottom of her clit, and when he touches them gently he can see that there’s a bar between them, going through it. He’s never seen anyone pierced down there before and he’s fascinated.

“You can play with it,” Gloria tells him. “It feels good.”

He hums with curiosity, gently moving it back and forth with a finger. “Yer a dirty girl, ain’tcha?”

She giggles. “Yeah. You knew that, though. I was a dirty girl when you met me.”

Elvis’ mind drifts back to the time when she’d told him she wasn’t going to wear panties and he could have her whenever he wanted. She’s right. She’s always been dirty. He sticks his tongue out experimentally, running it over the metal and the sensitive bundle of nerves. She rewards him with a soft moan.

“Ya like that?”

“Mmm yes.”

Putting his lips around it now, he presses his tongue against the piercing as he sucks on her clit. Her hips buck up into his face and her moans get considerably louder. He smiles against her, sucking harder. She’d got the piercing a week ago, and she’s barely had an opportunity to try it out properly, although she had accidentally made herself come by crossing her legs too vigorously as she was watching TV the other day. It doesn’t take much more work from Elvis’ talented mouth to bring her to climax, her fingers tangling in his hair as his sideburns tickle her thighs.

“Oh fuck. Elvis.” She almost whines her orgasm out, fingernails digging into his scalp.

He licks her gently a few more times until she’s squirming and trying to push his head away.

“Goddamn.”

She looks down at him through her lashes, breathing heavily, her face flushed.

“What?”

He chuckles. “That was easy. Can ya do another?” He runs the very tip of his finger over her clit and she flinches away from him, oversensitive.

“Not right now!” She squeaks.

“Alright then,” he replies with a soft smile.

He moves to lie down next to her and she rolls over, putting her head on his chest. He smells reassuringly just like he did the last time she saw him.

“We need to get you out of these clothes,” she mumbles, running her palm over his torso.

He grumbles. “I like wearin’ ‘em.”

Without any preamble, her hand moves below his belt to squeeze his clothed length. Only it’s still soft, and he twists his body away from her in embarrassment.

“I-I-I-It’s not you, h-honey…”

Gloria just shrugs. “S’okay. These things happen.”

As she snuggles into him more, a feeling of contentment that she’s with him again at last spreads through her body. As she feels him start to relax, she slowly begins to unbutton his shirt.

“Mmm, honey.” He tries to bat her hand away.

“Please. I just want to feel your skin against mine again.”

He gives her a little sideways look. “I can’t do anythin’... I’m… I know I can’t satisfy ya…”

Propping herself up on an elbow, she looks down into his face. He’s still so beautiful she feels like she wants to cry.

“I just want to cuddle. Let’s get under the covers and cuddle. I’m getting cold out here.” She shrugs her robe off completely and moves to get underneath the comforter and the electric blanket. When he doesn’t move too, she continues. “You satisfied me just now. So stop this self-pitying nonsense, old man, and get in the bed.”

There’s a moment where he just stares at her in disbelief, and then he cracks up laughing. “Okay, okay. Yer not just dirty, yer crazy too.”

“Get in the bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gives her a mock salute, stripping off and getting under the covers with her.

“You think I’m crazy because I want to be with you?” She asks, once they’ve got comfortable, wrapped around one another.

He strokes her head, fingers running through her hair. “Ya said yerself I’m an old man. An’ I can’t live up to my nickname no more.”

Gloria giggles. She can’t help but think he’s made his Memphis accent stronger over the years to go with his curmudgeonly ways.

“It’s still huge, big boy. Even when it’s soft.”

“Not much use like that though, is it?”

“Mmm. I like a challenge. I bet you I can cheer him up again. Get him all swollen and hard.”

Elvis squeezes his eyes shut. “Woman. That filthy mouth a yours.”

“I can try that if you think it would help.”

He growls, rolling her onto her back and pinning her there. “Ya’ve gotta stop that.”

“What?”

“Answerin’ me back.”

“Why?”

He shakes his head as he nips at her neck. “Coz I said so. An’ I’m yer elder and better.”

Gloria bursts out laughing at that, and she hears him giggling too. She rakes her fingers through his hair.

“I’m not going to stop it,” she tells him. “I think you like it.”

“Hmmmm.”

They tease one another back and forth like this for a while, enjoying falling back into the easy way they used to be together. Elvis still stays up late so they end up spending hours with him reading to her, and then when his eyes get tired they watch the TV in the ceiling above them. Gloria nods off a few times and eventually falls asleep completely in his arms. He switches the TV off first and then the lights, and lies there listening to her breathe until he finally succumbs to sleep too. It’s only when he wakes up the next day that he realises he forgot to take his usual pills.

That isn’t the only thing he realises when he wakes up. For the first time in a while, there’s an ache between his legs. Gloria is still sleeping next to him when he cautiously moves the bedclothes to investigate. Even though he could feel it, he’s still kind of surprised to see his dick hard again. He wraps his hand around it and slowly moves his foreskin up and down. A sigh falls from his lips. It’s been a while since he’s been able to do this, and suddenly he’s tempted to just masturbate as Gloria sleeps. There’s no way he can let her down then. Just because it’s up now, doesn’t mean it won’t go down again at some inconvenient time, and he can just pretend he’s still having the same problem as last night. At least this way he can definitely come.

His hand moves a little faster and he increases the pressure a little more as his dick hardens in his hand. He starts to think about Gloria’s tight little pussy around him, and he has the urge to look at more of her body. All he can see right now is the back of her head and one arm. He moves the bedclothes a little so he can see the smooth skin of her back. His hand keeps pumping. It’s good, but he wants more. Moving the bedclothes again, now he can see her ass. His hand moves faster. Her ass is so perfect. Big and round with just the right amount of jiggle when she walks. He can see she’s lost weight since the last time they were together, but he’s grateful that none of it seems to have come off that lovely ass of hers.

He can feel himself getting closer and his horny brain decides to keep taking risks. He runs a finger over the curve of her ass, sighing loudly as he continues to fuck his fist. She twitches in her sleep and he pulls his hand away like he’s been burned. But the panic lasts for seconds, and he’s thinking about touching her again, and his hand seems like it’s moving of its own volition. If he could just squeeze that ass. Or maybe put his dick between her thick thighs…

“Elvis?” Gloria grumbles, movement in the bed and what felt like something tickling her skin rousing her from sleep.

He tries to pull the covers over himself and her, but even in her drowsy state she knows something is up. Just not exactly what, until she moves the bedding back to where it was.

“Elvis!” She exclaims.

He quickly puts both hands over his dick and balls, as if to shield them from her gaze, and goes bright red. “Uh… uh… I-I-I… honey I…”

“Why didn’t you wake me?” She demands.

“Oh uh… honey ya looked so peaceful an’...”

“And so you thought you’d just… what were you doing exactly?” She frowns, propping her head up on an elbow and looking at him perplexed.

“Uhhhh honey….” he groans, rolling towards her and burying his face against her chest.

She giggles. “Come on, big boy. What were you doing?”

“G-gettin’ myself off,” he mumbles, after what feels like hours of awkward silence.

“Looking at my ass?” She asks. When he grumbles and tries to hide his face more, she laughs. “Touching my ass?”

“Hmmm yeah.”

Still laughing, she gently dislodges him and then rolls onto her front, spreading her legs. “Well don’t let me being awake stop you.”

“What?”

“Well I’d prefer it if you fucked me, but if you just want to jerk off over my ass you can. It’s your birthday after all.”

He can’t believe what he’s hearing, but then he thinks back to the things she’d said and done on the set of Clambake again, and realises this is just how she used to be. Before the kids. Before Roger.

“I wanna fuck ya. C’mere, put this under yer hips.”

Handing her one of the many pillows on the bed, he watches as she does as he suggests. He’s groaning at the sight of her, ass propped up and ready for him. Then he starts to feel like he should be more gentlemanly than to fuck a girl who’s barely conscious. Ignoring the fact that he was touching himself and touching her bare ass when she was definitely unconscious a few minutes ago.

“Y’only jus’ woke up…” he mumbles.

She looks over her shoulder and smiles. “If you’re hard, you can fuck me. I don’t even have to be awake.”

If he wasn’t hard as a rock before he certainly is after hearing those words, and he doesn’t spend much time prepping her before he’s pushing inside.

The rush of adrenalin and the feeling of being impossibly stretched come back to Gloria immediately as she feels him start to enter her. He fucks her with the tip first, slowly getting her used to him again, until he feels her relax enough to let him in fully. Bottoming out with a groan, he wonders why on earth he thought using his hand was a better idea. Her eyes close tightly and her hands grab at the bedsheets as she tries to deal with the intensity of the feeling. He waits patiently, as he’s done every other time when she feels this tight. Waits for her to say it’s ok to move.

Finally she feels like she’s not going completely insane, opening her eyes and relaxing her hands. She can’t wait forever, it may as well be now.

“Fuck me with that big dick.”

He doesn’t need telling twice, pulling almost all the way out and then thrusting back inside, making her cry out. He pants, struggling to cope with the intensity of the feeling for a moment before he picks up a rhythm, his fingers digging into her ass cheeks. The rhythm makes her hips rock, and the rocking of her hips starts a delicious friction between her pierced clit and the pillow underneath her. She starts to moan, already knowing that her orgasm won’t be far away if yesterday’s sex was anything to go by. This piercing really is a gift. A rush of pleasure hits her, buzzing around her body and making her call his name. His eyes roll back in his head as she squeezes him. It had always been the end of their lovemaking in the past, and today is no exception. Her walls are so tight around him that he empties inside of her almost immediately, groaning with pleasure. It had been a while. A really long while, actually. And that made it all the sweeter. He pulls out of her as gently as he can, but she still moans loudly, feeling overstimulated and somehow puffy. Pressing kisses to her shoulder blades, he lies down next to her and she rolls off the pillow onto her side. Looking down, she sees it damp with the arousal that had spilled down her thighs as he fucked her.

“Well this is ruined,” she says, picking it up and lazily throwing it behind her, off the bed.

He laughs. “Oh Glory. That was so good.”

She grins back. “It really was. Happy birthday, big boy.”

They kiss, lazily. Then he thinks of something. “Did ya mean what ya said? About… whenever I’m hard… y’know.”

She nods. “Sure. We have to take advantage while he’s all big and hard, don’t we?”

He shakes his head at her again. “Ya haveta stop this.”

“I do not.”

“Do so.”

They tussle back and forth, giggling, until Gloria notices the time and realises they have an hour until her sister and the kids arrive. She presses her forehead against his and looks at him seriously.

“We have to shower.”

***

aglist:

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed:

@vintagepresley @arg-xoxo @from-memphis-with-love @msamarican @blursedblegh @returntopresley @eapep @everythingelvispresley @i-r-i-n-a-a @sissylittlefeather @arrolyn1114 @jhoneybees @cattcb @polksaladava @lookingforrainbows @jkdaddy01 @ccab @epthedream69 @lustnhim @elvisslut @pomtherine @that-hotdog @ladelinee @angschrof @fairybloodsucker @deltafalax @makethemorning @elviswhore69 @ilovequeen978 @wildhorseinkansas @pocketfulofpresley @dkayfixates @iloveelvisss @argangelbornxoxo @presleyhearted @lvrdollep

#elvis #elvis presley #elvis fanfiction #elvis fic #elvis presley fanfiction #elvis presley fic #elvis smut #elvis fanfic #elvis presely smut #elvis presley fanfic #elvis imagine #elvis x oc #elvis presley x oc

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ominous-faechild · 19 days ago

Note

Hey how do you do the color gradient thing for your dialog tags?

Assuming you mean these things, I've actually been meaning to make a guide of my own for a while lol.

For one, you can only do this on computer/the website of Tumblr! There's no option to select this stuff on the app.

STEP 1: CREATE A NEW DOC / GO TO SETTINGS

It opens a dropdown menu/whole screen full of options!

From there, select the "text editor" dropdown, which starts as displaying "rich text".

Select "HTML"

And it should change how the entire post looks!

STEP TWO: CHEAT

Yeeeeeaaaaah, so I use a website for this lol

I inserted my colors for faeries (#30853C) and Cloud (#6DC1B4) for my example of "these things" earlier. To make this easier, I most often have two windows open at a time while working on uploading my scripts to Tumblr.

To get colours to insert into the Text Colorizer website, you can use any kind of hex color picker or even this one website I've used to yoink "thematic" colors from photos!

Personally, I've developed a massive library of colors over time for this exact purpose lol. Using my old colors as a "base", I can change it accordingly to the kind of "new color" that I want for a specific character or thing!

(I'll use the website to also make gradients for "in-between" colors lol)

STEP 3: INSERT TEXT / DESIRED COLORS

To make Nova's gradient, I start with #A600D9, my color for Magic, and end with #F56745—their individual color. However, being as it's short, I'll use a quote from them instead lol.

Once you've inserted your text and colors, you will click in the text box I highlighted in red, ctrl+a and ctrl+c to copy it all, and go back over to your new tumblr post tab!

From there, you'll ctrl+v to paste the entirety into the HTML area, which pastes the code into your post!

AND VOILA!

You have gorgeous gradient text!

However, I want to give a fair warning and a bit of advice! If you didn't notice wayyyyyyy back when...

Tumblr warns that this all can break your formatting!

It doesn't do it too often, but take it from someone who does an obscene amount of formatting... it's 100% true.

STEP 4: CHEAT SOME MORE!

For this reason, I personally have a whole separate draft post full of my characters' colors (and names lol) that I use to copy-paste them in from rather than using the "html" text editor on every post!

I mentioned earlier I often have multiple windows open while editing? Here's what that looks like!

Additionally, I'll use a separate tab off on the left (my "current wip post" side) with the "html editor" enabled for me to copy-paste stuff!

(Also here's yet another example of how many colors I have)

Once again, you can ctrl+c these things to paste them into another tumblr post with the correct colors!

And it's ONLY possible to do on the website!!!

EXTRA INFO!

WARNING:

Tumblr will only allow each "paragraph's html to be so many characters long, so you can't have too big of anything in a gradient!

And by "anything"... I mean you really can't have that big of a gradient in general. RIP lol.

It straight-up won't save the post so long as you have that "overflow" in the character block! MAKE SURE YOU'VE FIXED IT, OR YOU CAN AND WILL LOSE ALL PROGRESS ON YOUR POST!

SINGLE-COLOR TIP:

You don't need the website for a single color! If you'd like, you can just change the "color code" within the html editor to change specific colors!

MAKE SURE COLORS CAN WORK ON DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS!

On desktop, you can use shift+p while not on any sort of textbox to change the color pallet! I always do tests to see which colors work best before settling on any!

(Tho, the blue background SPECIFICALLY is nightmarish to work around. So if that's the ONLY thing I can't make work, I often ignore it and let you guys who use it suffer lmao)

(Hopefully this'll give you guys some respect for me and how much I do to make my posts aesthetic af lol)

Also hopefully this all helps???

divider by @cafekitsune

#the faechild speaks #asks #guide #aesthetic #tumblr guide #art guide #tumblr tutorial #gradient text

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neopronouns · 8 months ago

Text

flag id: two images of the same flag with a dark silver background. in the center of the flag are 6 slightly wavy stripes, which dip down near their left edges and go up near their left edges, forming the shape of a waving flag within the flag itself. they are medium light purple, light turquoise, very light yellow-green, cream, soft golden yellow, and tan. in the center of the left flag is a simple, stylized, dark silver symbol of a pencil, which is angled to the right, writing on a piece of paper with its edges rolled like a scroll. end id.

banner id: a 1600x200 teal banner with the words ‘please read my dni before interacting. those on my / dni may still use my terms, so do not recoin them.’ in large white text in the center. the text takes up two lines, split at the slash. end id.

comuniterm: a neogender umbrella for terms conceptually related to participating in mogai/liom community

[pt: comuniterm: a neogender umbrella for terms conceptually related to participating in mogai/liom community. end pt]

concepts included under comuniterm:

coining terms

creating flags

archiving terms

requesting terms

collecting/hoarding terms

using neopronouns, identifying as neolabels, etc.

making edits of flags, masterlists of terms/pronouns, etc. (basically any other types of mogai/liom posts not listed above)

helping others find terms that fit them, either through locating existing terms or coining new ones

knowledge and preservation of liom/mogai history

neolabel, subtliden, and liom inclusionism

running mogai/liom blogs

feeling connection with other members of the community

the joy, community, and creativity found in mogai/liom spaces

and more!

derived terms:

niol: a comuniterm person. plural is niolae.

comut: a comuniterm gender. plural is comuts.

ctin: comuniterm-in-nature (ex: ctingender)

cotermine: having comuniterm qualities. noun form is coterminity.

transcotermine: transitioning towards coterminity/a comuniterm identity. can be shortened to transcoter.

termaic: gender alignment to comuniterm/coterminity.

comu, comut, muni, munit, iterm, term, coter: optional/potential prefixes and suffixes for comuniterm genders.

the term is 'comunité' (old french for 'community') + 'term'! most of the derived terms are just various permutations of 'comuniterm', but 'niol' comes from 'neolabel' and 'liom'!

i've been thinking recently about just how the liomogai community has affected my identity over the years and how those effects feel like aspects of my gender in themselves, so... here's a neogender umbrella!

i took inspiration from the coinergender, requestgender, archivigender, and flagmakergender flags, so i went with cool colors, warm light neutrals, and golden yellow. the flag is meant to look like a flag in an editing software, post editor (as a new post or reblog), or other site/software (ex: being put into a rentry or carrd)!

here's the template if anyone wants to coin comuts!

the symbol is a pencil and paper, inspired by both the flag creation and writing (definitions, tags, lists, etc.) aspects of the community! i made the pencil myself and the paper is edited from scroll (2) in this folder. here's the symbol by itself:

[image id: a simple, stylized, dark silver symbol of a pencil, which is angled to the right, writing on a piece of paper with its edges rolled like a scroll. a blank image is next to the image so that it doesn't take up the whole width of the post. end id.]

tags: @radiomogai, @liom-archive, @macchiane, @genderstarbucks, @sugar-and-vice-mogai

tags cont: @freezingnarc, @skrimbliest, @seraphtrix, @en8y, @spadescrewcoining

tags cont: @mogai-sunflowers

dni link

#comuniterm #neogender umbrella #niol #niolae #comut #ctin #ctingender #cotermine #coterminity #transcotermine #transcoter #termaic #my flags #my terms #new flag #new term #mogai flag #mogai term #mogai

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wolfes · 2 years ago

Text

NEW EDITOR 101: A GUIDE FOR GIFMAKERS by v @shangs

Hi friends! I know I said I would do this way back in April/May when this change was announced but I've been massively busy lately so thank you all for being patient with me :)

Based on the results of this poll, I will be trying my level best to help make a guide for gifmakers to best deal with any problems that have been present with the new editor. However, it's worth noting that I have personally not experienced any of these problems myself and I have no record of any problems from other people that I could send to staff and get guidance on, so for some of these issues I will unfortunately be a broken record.

That being said, I have been using the new editor for a few months now and it hasn't been too bad. So don't be discouraged by the new editor if you still love to make gifs and share them. You may need to adapt a bit, but it's doable!

This is meant to be comprehensive and will be explanation and image heavy. Full guide under the cut.

CONTENTS:

What is the new editor?

Steps to take before posting

Making a post

Troubleshooting

01. WHAT IS THE NEW EDITOR?

Some of you may be asking yourselves what the point of the new editor even is and why it's being implemented in the first place when we already had a (mostly) functional editor. My very limited understanding of it as a CS student is app compatibility and flexibility. I'm not totally clear on the details nor am I 100% certain this is the case, but NPF posts (basically, posts made with the "new editor") first started with the mobile app. I'm unsure if the different post types were simply too unwieldy to transfer to the app - having to make a whole bunch of post types when with the new editor you can now have posts with any elements you want without the rigidity of a set post type - or if it was simply not able to be implemented, but the apps have always used NPF. The majority of Tumblr users are coming from the mobile apps. Then it became a case of having the legacy editor for the web users (which were fewer in number) and the new NPF editor for everyone else. That takes resources to keep around and it's pretty inefficient. Naturally the older editor that was used by less people was going to get the axe, especially since you couldn't tell on mobile that there was even a difference between NPF or legacy posts.

So now here we are and the posts are NPF. This means they're in "Neue Post Format." Basically, every post you make is by default a text post, containing "blocks" of other media - as gifmakers we will primarily be dealing with photos.

I understand that it's frustrating to many to see "our gifs are now rendered as text posts" and ask WHY it's happening when photos should logically be rendered as photo posts - but the fact is, there's now no real delineation between a "text post" and a "photo post." The reason NPF posts are now "text posts" is because that's how they are rendered for desktop themes, not because everyone is going to see your post as text and your gifs are going to be compressed into the quality of a potato (though I know some have seen this issue - more on that later.)

02. STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE POSTING

The long and short of it is that you may have to update your theme. More detail here for those who are interested, but check that your theme supports "new editor posts" or "NPF posts" AND that this is true for original posts (you can read more about why in this ask and, although this may be a bit time-consuming, test it out on your blog). I can say with certainty that my second theme Cygnus supports original NPF posts. This is NOT true of my first theme, though.

You can try to add the NPF Fix by @glenthemes to your own theme (beware if you don't know HTML/CSS) or try this tip by @burningblake for original posts.

Feel free to add theme makers with fully NPF-compatible themes in the notes! I have been happily using my own theme so I can't say to what degree others' themes are NPF-friendly.

03. MAKING A POST

If you're sticking around to post on the new editor and you have trouble ordering your gifs around, here's a little guide on how to post.

If I click on "Photo" from web and open up the editor, here's how it looks:

I went ahead and added three full-width gifs and the editor put them in like so:

You'll most likely also have to order your gifs around in the way you want them. You can go ahead and hover over your gifs to see the button to orient them (the four dots in the top left corner) and the button for an image description (the three dots in the bottom right corner). I've attached images of all three below:

If you hold the orientation button, move your gif around until you see the blue line that shows where your gif will end up in the spot that you want it. For example, I wanted to move the second gif below the first one, so I oriented it so that the blue line would show the marker between the two gifs:

Now my gifs are oriented nicely! Of course, this is a simpler layout, but the principles still hold.

If you save your gifs as a draft and reopen them or you just notice a large gap like this in between your gifs when you're in the editor, don't worry.

This will not show up in dash view or on a desktop theme that supports original NPF posts. For example, this is how the gifs' gap (without modification) looked in my desktop theme:

With your gifs ordered, the final step is to add alt text. You can read more about alt text and why you should use it here. (Feel free to ignore the sections about the captions on the legacy editor since it is no longer relevant. It's also unnecessary to clearly mark descriptions if they're not in the caption of your post because they will clearly show up under "ALT" on Tumblr.)

If you click the three dots in the bottom right corner as seen above, and click "update image description:"

You can add the description you like and click "update." Your photos' alt text will show up under the "ALT" bubble on Tumblr. This is generally a good practice to get into to make your content more accessible, so I hope you guys will consider using alt text regularly :)

Also, I've noticed that in the editor, if you go back and edit something it will take some time to show up. You may have to refresh the page or load it again after some time, but your edits should be there. I would not go back and edit posts again if you see your posts haven't shown up. I also advise against editing your posts on mobile because it's easier to make a mistake.

And there you go, you've successfully made a post with the new editor!

04. TROUBLESHOOTING

I'm sure you've all been waiting for this. Unfortunately I am probably going to be extremely unhelpful if the editor hasn't been refined in the last few months for those experiencing issues. I'm going to go in the categories that I listed out in my original poll, but keep in mind that I haven't personally seen any of these issues on my end so I haven't been able to contact staff with any evidence that this happened other than my poll.

Dashboard view quality issues: I haven't noticed this issue. I'm not sure if this has been fixed since the original poll was posted. If you're experiencing this issue, this is not something I know how to fix so I would contact staff with screenshots of the issue.

Desktop theme side padding: As noted before, this is a theme issue. If you change themes to something that is NPF-compatible with original posts, there shouldn't be any more issues here.

Small gifs on mobile: In my experience this was happening regardless of what editor was used; it's a bug that seems to have been fixed since this poll was created. If you're still experiencing it, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would advise contacting staff.

New editor doesn't accept gifs of size 9.8MB < x < 10MB: I haven't experienced this issue so I would say the only workaround would be to either trim the size of your gif so that it is under 9.8MB or whatever threshold seems to be the cutoff or contact staff (I am so sorry for constantly having to suggest this 😭 unfortunately there's no trick I can offer because the new editor has been taking all my gifs just fine)

Logistical issues ordering gifsets: I hope this guide has been able to answer the majority of questions and shed some light on some of the more buggy behaviors of the new editor, but if you have any more specific questions you can feel free to shoot me an ask!

HTML issues / colored text: Unfortunately it seems colored text may be deprecated entirely? This could be for accessibility purposes because I believe screen readers would read out every single letter of gradient text in captions which I imagine can get quite frustrating for users of this technology. I recommend just using the normal rich text editor. If you want small text, you can highlight and click the <s> button!

Other: If it seems like something I may be able to answer, please feel free to ask me. Otherwise... hound staff 😭

Here's where you can hound staff, btw. If you're having major issues I would advise you guys to submit support tickets. That way if there are any widespread bugs, staff will hopefully be able to fix them.

I hope this guide was helpful to you guys in dealing with the new editor, and happy giffing <3

#gif tutorial #new editor tutorial #completeresources #userphotoshop #resourcemarket #userrobin #userbells #arthurpendragonns #ughmerlin #userbecca #usersameera #usermarsy #alielook #tuserlucie #tutorial

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bitbytebot · 3 months ago

Text

i think OFF is getting a new, official english translation alongside the fangamer merch releases in december.

my reasoning: i've been digging through the website given in the teaser. right now it's an email newsletter signup page; this makes sense, given that the URL needs to be live to build hype up to the event date.

on this website, there's a rotation of quotes from OFF that are in english. and apparently, along with the very rare and completely new quote that pops up on there sometimes, the quotes the website flashes are not a match to the v3 english fan translation... even though that's the only way to play the game in english. (yes i know about forgotten dreams)

i have OFF english translation v3 open in RPG maker 2003 right now on my laptop. and using some web dev magic, i also have the official text from all of these dialogues. come find out why i've slowly been going insane over the course of today. (it's thanksgiving 2024, if you were wondering. also this post is probably best viewed on desktop.)

here's a quote from purified.zone, the teaser website from fangamer.

Uh... will you find the leader of the specters? Well... it would be great if that were possible... Well... yes...

and here is that same quote, directly from the r3proj file used by the OFF v3 english translation.

Uh... Will you find the leader of the spectres? Well... It would be great if that was possible... Well... yes...

sentence-case capitalization and tense changes aside, the move from "spectre" (european english) to "specter" (american english) immediately jumps out at me. (i say european, but i don't know the translator's nationality. i just know that professor layton did that with one of their games, last specter in the USA and last spectre in europe.) the important part being, mortis ghost is belgian and speaks french. the original game had it as spectres, and either the fan translator was european or preferred that spelling and kept it. fangamer, however, is an american company -- and the spelling of "specters" on their site is specifically in american english. (only we would fuck up a perfectly good word. it looks way better with the re.)

how do I know it wasn't just a typo? because there's two lines with the word specter in them on the site! screenshots upon ye!

You've come to eliminate the specters? That's good news.

You've come to eliminate the spectres? That's good news.

not just someone getting carried away on copy, then -- this is an intentional change. specifically, i think this difference can be explained by these being two subsequent translations, first v3 and now the website/new english translation/steam release/v4, with differing guidelines for their finished products. they're entirely TOO similar to not be related, to me -- forgotten dreams (2023) is a good example of a vastly different english translation of the game, and proves that one can be done. but if you have a widely beloved english fan translation that already exists... why not just get the rights and spice it up a little with some fresh editing?

So, will the final verdict be handed down soon? The employees here are certainly in need of your muscular wrist...

So, will the final verdict soon be reached? Numerous employees are certainly in need of your muscular wrist...

these changes feel like they've been made by a copy editor; the meaning is the same, but the structure flows better. "soon be reached" fits a latin language (french) phrase structure where the verb goes at the end of the question, whereas "be handed down soon" is a more natural english phrasing, at least to this native english speaker.

some changes, however, are stylistic in nature. i quite like the change in dedan's line here, for example.

If all of you would just listen to me more often, you wouldn't keep stepping in it.

If only you listened to me more often, you wouldn't keep making fools of yourselves.

"stepping in it" feels WAY more natural and in character for dedan to say. he's the big man in charge, da boss! he isn't wasting his time on lengthy diatribes, saying shit like "if only." this is a localization change, giving dedan a gruff and tough vibe through the way he talks. good stuff!!!

but it's a lot of care and thought being put into these dialogue rewrites for, need I remind you again, an email newsletter website. (this thing is written in like, straight html/css/javascript, i doubt they even used a web builder.) the guy that made this didn't retranslate the lines for this; he got his copy from someone, who got it from somewhere else, which somewhere all the way down along the line got approved by mortis ghost. and fangamer, obviously.

this post is long, we've been here awhile. how about a refresher: I think OFF is getting a v4 official english translation coordinated around the release of this new fangamer merchandise wave.

because if i'm fangamer, should i release merchandise for a beloved cult classic game that can only be played in english by my target american audience when using an unofficial translation on a real computer? where you have to use the file system? i don't know if i would. wouldn't you rather release merch for something safe, something on steam or consoles? something like undertale?

oh. that's weird, that link goes to a physical release of undertale being sold on fangamer's website. that's not merch, that is a game that was originally released digital only on computers and wasn't released physically + on consoles until a few years after. not to mention that you can buy undertale physical edition in stores these days, as published by fangamer, due to its massive popularity.

hm.

let's see... what about FAITH the unholy trinity?

see, that was originally a little indie game released in three chapters on itch.io that blew up with the lofi/analog horror scene, and ended up getting a steam remaster + physical release + merch release from fangamer. given their shared themes of cleansing, unsettling imagery, and excellent character writing, you can see where i might draw some similarities -- they both have pixel art, for one thing.

i think the pattern is there. it's true, fangamer does sell just merch and not physical releases for some games -- oneshot comes to mind, but that game was officially ported to consoles, which is an entirely different undertaking given that it uses fourth wall break mechanics. the tradeoff makes sense to me for it to still be profitable. (most people probably don't own a physical copy of stardew valley and yet probably do have a piece of stardew merch from fangamer...)

no, there has not been an official announcement about this. this is purely speculative, with evidence gathered from one afternoon of poking around with postman and rpg maker 2003. but i think there's evidence for OFF getting, at the very least, an official steam/itch.io release with a new translation. the date announcement trailer even has game footage from an area that isn't in the original game data. so... there's that, too.

i probably could have just led with that and saved us both 1219 words. ah, well. c'est la vie.

#OFF game #OFF mortis ghost #rpg maker 2003 #miles' dev log #trying a post format. eek. thought i was cool w this tho #my take here is speculative take this with a grain of salt i just wanna have it on record if i'm right #this post is dedicated to foone. you'll see why. multiple influences #but mainly dedicated to my fiance. i love You. autism4autism #also i'm serious this is probably best viewed on desktop. i put in a lot of links bcuz i like to cite my sources directly.#goddamn it this is just a college essay

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forestlingincorporated · 2 months ago

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I’m pretty new to Megaman, so I haven’t gone through all of the canon media yet but I am enjoying your comics so… what’s NOVAS, what’s up with, and why is it bad?

Aaah, Novas Aventuras de Megaman....

Novas was a licensed Brazilian Mega Man comic book developed by Estúdio PPA and published by Editora Magnum in the 90s. It's well-known for being... bad. The kindest words I can use to describe Novas is "edgy" and "unprofessional."

I'm interpreting this quesion to be not just "what is Novas" but also "WHY is Novas" so I did a little bit of research to get you a full answer, and not just my horrified reaction to it.

The book was published not long after the Ruby Spears cartoon. Apparently the book's early writer and editor, José Roberto Pereira and Sérgio Peixoto had been in touch with Character Toy Trade, who licensed Capcom products to Brazil. Upon hearing of the Ruby Spears release, Pereira and Peixoto pitched a comic to Editora Magnum.

Apparently, they wanted to do this so badly that, to convince Magnum's execs to enter a publishing deal, they offered to work... for free, earning nothing for the first ten or twelve issues.

While it's not unusual for a comic run to use multiple artists and contain varying art styles throughout, most of THIS title was drawn using unpaid labor from fans solicited through the magazigne it was published in, Animax, and it shows. Readers were prompted to submit their art tests to the publishers, and out of those the best of the lot was selected. To participate, the candidate had to send 6 pages of comics, 2 in pencil, two finished art and two colored. Contributing artists were compensated with a copy of the published issue to use in their portfolio. Quite literally working on spec for exposure.

Most of it is, simply put, not the quality you expect from a publisher. Fair is fair, though, and I would be remiss not to aknowledge that some of these artists went on to be very well-respected comic artists, such as Daniel HDR (who did MM2 and 16, and has now worked for Marvel, DC, Dynamite Ent. and Image Comics, was the winner of DRAGON AWARDS 2020 - BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL for Battlestar Galactica: Counterstrike, and is the CEO of Dínamo Estúdio art School in Brazil) and Érica Awano (who got her start with MM4, and now known for her works related to the Tormenta universe and has recieved the Troféu HQ Mix).

The art... is the least of their issues, though. I've read plenty of webcomics where the art began, let's say, amaturish, but the story and writing more than made up for it. I can't say the same is true for Novas.

It's baffling that Pereira and Peixoto fought to have this book, given neither of them appeared to give a single shit about the source material. My understanding is manga and anime was very popular in Brazil at the time. I'd call it a cashgrab, but they weren't paid for most of it. Editor-in-chief Sérgio Peixoto admitted neither he nor Pereira had ever played a Mega Man game before and all they knew about the story was some information they got from someone who played the games. Further more, despite the first two issues including promotional art from Ruby Spears and official art from the games, including a large centerfold poster that remained for two additional issues, Pereira believed Ruby Spears was "very bad." He didn't think much of the games' plot either, what little he knew of it.

Pereira's distaste for American media and adaptations is painfully obvious within the text of Novas, which takes the time to address the audiance to soapbox about imported media. This is, in part, done in a self-depricating sort of way, but seems to be the driving force behind the decision to even make Novas. Peixoto admits Character offered them "the original Megaman manga" (the Shigeto Ikehara "Rockman" manga, I believe) but he turned it down to do a Brazilian-made book. They wanted Megaman to be drawn by Brazilians and in the manga style - very fixated on being a "manga" rather than a "comic." Despite apparently knowing the product is low-quality, Peixoto appears to be proud to have "made 16 editions of the first manga magazine created entirely in Brazil, using a world-famous character."

I suppose that's the tipping point - "a world-famous character." No care for Megaman, no, but care that he's famous. Pereira apparently had every intention to have his own OCs take over the book after Megaman got readers in the door - apparently intending to kill off the megaman characters in graphic ways - but he left the project after #5, citing that he couldn't actually write his "own" story and... well, lack of payment. Peixoto wrote number 6, and Orlando Tosetto Jr. was brought on to do 7-16.

The desire to provide opportunities for local writers and artists is admirable... in theory... but... hardly anyone got paid and it's not exactly a book I would be proud to have my name on.

But enough about Novas' unpaid labor, quesionable motivations, and poor research. The writing is just... bad.

The plot is all over the place. There are so many dropped plot threads, tone shifts, continuity issues, and retcons in only 16 issues, it'll make your head spin. It reads like a 15-year-old boy made a megaman comic because he thought there should be more swearing and naked girls.

The least of the writing's issues stem from the fact that they barely knew the plot, so character backstories, personalities, relationships, etc. are all over the place. Forte/Bass is named "Slasher" and he takes on a Protoman-type role as a Light bot and sibling, while Protoman is implied to be this mysterious mastermind-type character pulling strings behind the scene, Roll used to be human and is super special for some reason, Rock's an asshole, and X is a horny whiney pissbaby asshole...

It's crude.

It's bloody.

It's horny.

Sometimes downright disgusting.

And one can't ignore the incest.

There are... MUCH more egregious panels, I'm trying to keep it tame. There's a LOT of pointless nudity, including a scene near the end where they're kidnapped and tied up but only the women are stripped naked... for no discernable reason, I can't even say it's because their kidnappers are being disgusting, because they're not, even X is behaving himself for once.

I'd love to say the incest was an accident, but it's not, they actively call each other brother and sister.

Occationally the comic veers into dark topics, but the ever shifting tone and oversexualization makes it hard to tell how I - the reader - am supposed to feel about it. While I'm busy being horrified, I can't help worrying someone's getting off on child abuse and murder.

Maybe this kind of misogynistic gross-out shock-value was funny at the time. I've seen a few people remark on this comic's run fondly, saying they liked it when it came out. I can't imagine ever thinking it was good.

If anyone would like to know more about Novas without subjecting themselves to reading it, Mechanical Maniacs does their best to summarize.

#novas aventuras de megaman #megaman #tw: blood #tw: incest

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ckret2 · 5 months ago

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Hey. I’ve been looking at your posts about posting your fic on Ao3, and I just wanted to be sure— you do know that you can post your fic without having to use HTML mode, right? Like you can post it without having to type a “” and “” before and after every new paragraph, or use “” “” to make sure something in italics is recognized by the website as italics? Just look for a button on the left right above the box you’re going to be writing in that says “Rich Text” and press that. It should be right next to the button saying “HTML,” which is the default button selected, but you only have to press Rich Text to change that.

And none of your work is lost if you switch buttons. But Rich Text mode gives you a version of the posting box where you can write normally and just press the return key for a new paragraph like normal, and there’s a little menu on the top where you can choose if you want to write in bold or italics or change the spacing or whatever. I just felt like you ought to know in case you missed it and had to write the hard way.

I can't do that because the site I write on and store my fics on strips the formatting out of the document—italics, bold, etc—if I copy/paste it anywhere I've tried (all my other word processor apps, other websites, and yes, AO3's rich text editor) EXCEPT FOR tumblr, for some bizarre reason I don't know. Copy/pasting from the site I use into tumblr and copying tumblr's text to paste into AO3's editor is the only workaround I've found for this issue aside from reformatting every italicized/bolder word by hand. And I use a lot of italics.

I could copy/paste the rich text off tumblr and paste it into AO3's rich text editor, but since tumblr's stupid-as-hell post editor only allows you to select one paragraph at a time, my options are: copy/paste one paragraph at a time; manually force past tumblr's stupid-as-hell inability to select more than one paragraph by selecting the first paragraph and manually scrolling all the way down to the bottom to select the whole thing; selecting the whole chapter by going to the finished post and scrolling down to select the whole thing (which is finicky as hell if you're on a tablet, which I am); or, using select-all in tumblr's HTML format and then just quickly deleting the author's note when I paste.

As you can see, using select-all in HTML format is the fastest and least human-error-prone way to transfer text from tumblr to AO3

Every time I post a new chapter I paste the text to AO3's HTML editor and then switch to the rich text editor to insert that chapter's art.

#anonymous #ask #about my writing #(incidentally the format stripping issue also happens when I paste text INTO the site I use)#(for some reason if I manually add html tags to my text & paste it into the site... it removes the html & auto converts to italics??#(would kill to see what that website's backend looks like)

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5ummit · 2 years ago

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New Mandatory #NSFW Mature Label

I rarely post NSFW content so I'm not sure how long this has been a thing, but just a heads up, if you use the #NSFW tag, tumblr will now automatically apply the mature content label to your post.

A few important notes:

(1) You can't remove this label. Well that's not 100% true, on original posts you can manually change the label back to "everyone." However, if you save or publish the post with #NSFW still included, the mature label will automatically be reapplied. Aka it's now impossible (with the new editor) to publish a post tagged as #NSFW that's not flagged as "mature."

(2) The mature label is also applied to reblogs tagged with #NSFW. This is where we get into a bit of a problem. Community labels on reblogs are not normally editable. The option is grayed out (as you can see above), which means that once you add the #NSFW tag to a reblog, even if you decide to later remove it, that post will forever be labelled "mature" and locked away from any of your followers who filter those posts out (remember mature filters are turned ON for everyone by default). As far as I can tell tagging a reblog as #NSFW does NOT apply the label to the post globally though, it's just on your own blog, but it's still not ideal.

(3) This only works when using "#NSFW" on its own. If any other text is included in the tag the auto-applied community label is not triggered.

(4) No other tag (that I've been able to find) has a mandatory community label. What's interesting is I did find an official @changes post from about 6 months ago stating that tumblr "will add the pertinent label to the post automatically" when the label is used as a tag, with #violence even being explicitly provided as an example, but I tried it (along with as many other "mature" tags as I could think of) and it didn't work. #NSFW appears to be the only one, at least right now.

Not being allowed to use the #NSFW tag without a mature label is annoying, particularly for those who are overly cautious about tagging it even when it may not be necessary and particularly since it's uneditable when applied to reblogs. However, I'm not going to outright say this new "feature" is 100% a bad thing and that everyone should get up in arms about it. This post is just meant to make you aware of it.

Most posts tagged as NSFW probably should be labelled "mature" and I bet most people just forget to do it or may not even know about community labels in the first place. As much as I want to return to the old "go nuts, show nuts" tumblr, I'm aware that's never going to happen and this new community label system is our only way forward. If there's any hope of tumblr ever broadening the mature content guidelines and getting us closer to where we were before (yes, I know it's a longshot), this system has to work and it only works if people use it.

#tumblr #psa #my words #wendy's help desk

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araekniarchive · 1 year ago

Text

i'm moving!

hi all :)) it's been a little while since i've been very active on this blog, and whilst a good chunk of that is chronic illness/job related, another big part is that i've been really struggling with my own tagging systems, to the point it feels like work just to reblog something properly. this is primarily because the theme tagging system for this blog evolved as i did, and a lot of the tags i used to use on her became superfluous, or repeated, and despite how many i have i still struggled to find stuff!

in addition to that, because of the way the tumblr editor used to work, the way i added images to posts would randomly add blank image descriptions to the pictures that just said 'image' and i couldn't change them, which made the webs look very ugly on mobile and also inaccessible to people using screenreaders or with sight issues on any browser, which is the opposite of what i wanted. thankfully, this has now been fixed for new webs, but is unfixable on the older webs which is a real bummer :(

so, a couple of weeks ago i randomly decided to do something about it. and i did! a few of you have noticed that a new blog, @otheraraekni, has been reblogging some of my webs and adding image descriptions in the reblogs, but i've also been remaking some webs as well with the alt text finally working as intended. i've made a new navigation page for my blog organisation, full of some tags i've kept, some i've slightly changed, and a whole new kind of tags for those i use most often. currently all the links on there will lead to this blog (so some of them will lead nowhere, as they may be new tags) but my intention is to switch urls.

so -- moving? in a day or so (once i've got the last kinks worked out) i will be turning my otheraraekni blog into araekni, and this blog into an archive. because araekni is a sideblog, i don't really have the option to just attach it to an old email and set it adrift, and i'm hoping not to have to get notifications from it forever, so in a month or so it will be deleted.

why a month? hopefully that will give everyone time to save any webs they like from this blog that i haven't decided to move over to what will be the new araekni! obviously, a good portion of the followers on this blog are from a couple of years ago when i was posting webs much more regularly, and i am not at all expecting the new blog to reach the same level of popularity as this one did, but if anybody would like to follow the new blog this is your chance :) i'll queue this post a couple dozen times so as many people as possible see it, but if you don't wish to follow me over there, please know how much i have loved keeping this blog over the years and how wonderful of an experience it has been <3

#not a web #important #araekni #otheraraekni #housekeeping

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batsplat · 7 months ago

Note

do you have a favorite bit of motogp gossip that you either want to know is it’s true, or you just enjoy as a stand alone piece, no need for further investigation?

one of those where I initially stared at and like. lost all motogp knowledge in my brain. and then stuff did come back to me. this is all very much low hanging fruit and I'll add to it when I remember more interesting/quirky ones. BUT here are some things I want to know:

y'know how casey randomly suggests in his autobiography that valentino was sabotaged in the 2006 title decider? so, personally, I don't really buy this, because 'why' and also 'casey girl you are SO paranoid' - though, sure, if given the option I'd like to double check if valentino had a dud tyre (completely plausible) and also if somebody really deliberately gave him one (?? casey idk about this one). but what I'm REALLY curious about is... there's a change in his autobiography?? like I've seen this book excerpt float around online and the text is different from what's in my book!! mine's from the paperback version so I assume there may have been some edits for that, so that would make it the newer version... but like. this is a real editorial change. check this out:

version posted on the internet, from the hard cover edition???

version in my book, first paragraph is the same

But as soon as the lights went out Valentino was in trouble. I was one of six riders to pass him on the first lap and if you watch the footage you can see how much he is struggling to even keep up with us. His rear and front tyres were just not working together and on lap five the front inexplicably folded and he went down, right behind me. I couldn't help but wonder how he could be having such problems with his tyres. Could he really have been stitched up? It seemed so improbable, but I remember watching that race back in the motorhome that evening and thinking, Welcome to my world, mate.

this isn't 'gossip' because I haven't found anyone else who has spotted this, but like? that's a substantive change? if my one really is the newer one? ...?

let's set aside the fascinating insight you get into casey's knotty and at times bizarre valentino rossi complex with him adding the line "welcome to my world, mate" (oh my god. please just take him to dinner. I will crowd fund this I literally just need to be able to listen in. casey come on CALL him I NEED you to do the dinner thing, YOU suggested it not me). like we're not going to even touch that. but if my version really is the updated one, then he's kinda softened his stance, no?? "convinced he was stitched up" to "could he really have been stitched up"

what happened?? who wanted this change? casey? an editor? did dorna give casey a call? did some poor bloke from pr have to politely ask whether casey could please not state in his autobiography that the most popular rider ever had had a title stolen from him by the establishment?

(casey was talking about valentino's stolen tenth BEFORE it was popular. he did it even before valentino did, bless)

"there are a lot of commercial interests in the sport" also didn't make the jump to the 'new version', mind you. did Big America get to casey

come on you guys have to admit this is an odd change?? does nobody else thing this is weird??

okay fine moving on

Did Valentino Literally Curse Sete

(like. not literally as in did he curse curse sete, literally as in did he say it)

(though if he did literally literally curse curse sete, I suppose I'd also like to know that bit)

the commentators in 2003 brno say so and I'm inclined to believe them, but I need to double check whether sete and valentino really were partying on ibiza together right after that very painful valentino loss at the sachsenring. such a fascinating little detail, that's not something post-2004 valentino does I reckon

I mean, look, obviously a bunch of things from that time period I want to have fact checked. including valentino's friend hearing sete say in late 2003 that valentino wasn't going to be smiling so much after joining yamaha. classic bit of gossip, did it actually happen though

I've referenced this a few times before, but y'know how valentino said that marc's manager alzamora told him after sepang 2015 that marc had been angry at valentino for killing his title charge? I just want. to know. if this conversation actually happened. I don't think valentino would pluck a lie like that out of thin air, especially something so specific about somebody on marc's team, and he has known alzamora for decades but like. maybe almazora just said something valentino misinterpreted? I just find this such a bonkers thing from alzamora if it's true that I would like it confirmed for my own sanity, you know?

yeah look I would like to know if marc really did get casey kicked out of honda, obviously I've discussed this before and it's very he said she said but yeah it'd be fun to know the truth

this is literally peak gossip because I can't find a source for it but I swear a journalist did say it: the rumour is that marc blocked joan mir from joining honda in 2019. like, I'm only including this because I was explicitly asked for gossip as I just cannot find where it was said... but it is something that is. out there. and... again, just curious. like I buy it, but also it could be bullshit!

on a similar note, did he ever make clear to honda he didn't want either vinales or rinsy on his team circa 2016? was it just a vibe in the paddock or was this an actual demand from marc?

speaking of!! the whole thing about alzamora basically rigging the moto3 teammate situation between rinsy and alex marquez to ensure the latter won the title that year. what was that all about, how far did they go there

switching to valentino now. this doesn't quite fit the remit of the question because it IS something I've investigated. and my conclusion is basically a big *shrug*

did valentino block casey from joining yamaha in either 2005 or 2006, and did he attempt to block jorge?

there are completely contradictory sources on the timeline here that do make me feel like there's a chance yamaha was just fucking with casey at the very least in 2006 and valentino had fuck all to do with it, which a recent interview from casey did actually hint at too... he made it sound like maybe yamaha was just using him to try to drive down the price of another rider (which would then presumably be jorge)

I just want to know! and the thing is, it was a matter of open paddock discussion that valentino blocked casey (jorge explicitly references it in in 2007), but something doesn't quite add up between what jorge, casey, colin edwards, articles from the time and lin jarvis have said on the subject! my current pet theory is that valentino blocked casey in 2005 from joining the satellite yamaha team in 2006 (weirdly casey doesn't really imply valentino was responsible for this one in his autobiography, but whatever) but NOT in 2006 (casey does imply valentino was responsible here, you see my problem). and yamaha was fucking around with all four of valentino, casey, jorge and edwards in late 2006/2007. but. yeah. I have unanswered questions

the entire 'alex marquez blocked from yamaha' situation.... again. something is off there. you know the story from late last year about how he was blocked in 2019 from joining the petronas team in 2021? this completely threw me, because there was an entirely different story about this YEARS back in 2018!! I initially assumed the two stories were about the same event, but it can't have been! one's him being blocked in 2019 for 2021, one's him being blocked in 2018 for 2019

from the descriptions of both there's also no confusing them. the 2018 story has to be about the 2018 contract cycle because that's quite literally when it was published, and the 2023 story has to be about the 2019 contract cycle because it explicitly references the space fabio would create by moving to the factory team for 2021, which obviously wouldn't make sense before fabio's actual rookie season. like they have to be about different stories

and in that same 2018 story, marc said that back in 2016 lin jarvis told him no marquez would be joining yamaha:

again, this was in 2018!!

plus, he did say back in 2016 that he'd spoken to jarvis, which kinda backs up this is a conversation that did happen and marc isn't just misremembering the timeline/lying (the notion of marc joining yamaha in 2017 is fantastic, what an absolutely horrendous idea):

now what marc says in 2018 about his conversation with lin jarvis is very similar to petronas yamaha boss razali saying in 2023 that he'd been told by yamaha no marquez was allowed at yamaha. suggests that this is a thing that did happen!!

but again... razali was told that in 2019... after marc had already been told the same thing three years before that, and the exact same deal had already been blocked one year earlier... does nobody else think this is weird?? like, I'm not saying yamaha hq covered themselves in glory here, but is it not a little strange the satellite yamaha squad had basically almost signed a contract with the younger marquez again without checking in with yamaha, just ONE YEAR after this same contract had already been blocked???

again this isn't actually gossip because I'm apparently the only person going ?? about this but I'll say it: ??

kinda been annoying me since december last year, like I know it doesn't matter but I'm just curious about it! why's nobody else talking about the 2018 story!

idk my best guess here is that petronas yamaha was faffing about and playing weird games with the factory team, that the deal was never as likely to happen as they made it sound to the marquez camp. zero proof, that's me spreading rumours yeah... time to create some of my own unfounded gossip

(also of course I'm curious if valentino did have any actual involvement in this. like if lin jarvis was telling marc this in the year of our lord 2016, I'm assuming valentino didn't have to explicitly say to jarvis that 'inviting marc to the team for 2017' wasn't exactly high on his christmas wish list. it is interesting that marc frames it as jarvis making this about. like. all the marquez's way back in 2016, and again, would this really have been on valentino's radar at the time? that feels a bit...? alex marquez was thirteenth in that moto2 season? would certainly be very... thorough for valentino to already have had that particular talk with jarvis)

(mind u there's a fun moment in a 2019 presser where valentino is sitting between the two marquez brothers and the younger marquez is being asked about his contract situation, the implication being he'd had a motogp deal and no longer had a motogp deal. and he's answering and marc's doing his freak stare and valentino is Right There sitting between them... I <3 mess)

man did valentino actually ever fucking block anyone from joining his manufacturer #notmygoat. I still think he didn't know about jorge until the deal was basically done, had nothing to do with the younger marquez, at most blocked casey the one time but then yamaha wasn't actually seriously intending on signing casey in 2006 and was just using it as a play in their jorge negotiations, which.... idk. bit disappointing if true icl. I hope he blocked someone, I'll say it

(also. okay. I don't want to sound awful here because I do have a lot of sympathy for baby!casey but. ignoring the morality for a second, I do LOVE the idea that valentino blocked casey from getting a satellite yamaha seat fresh off his 250cc runner up season because it would conclusively prove valentino did ABSOLUTELY rate casey!! like he didn't even want casey to come close to being his teammate!! not even a sniff at his data!!) (genuinely this is the rumour I'm choosing to believe, I know there's a chance valentino didn't successfully block anyone and was just a complete flop but I want the 2005 one to be true. it really adds something to the rivalry idk... like ugh valentino saw how dangerous casey was proper early when much of the paddock wasn't yet convinced... cute)

moving on

there was a rumour in 2015 that valentino approached dani after aragon to complain about how sturdy his defence was, like moaning about denying him points and shit. now, there's exactly one article about this in marca that is the sole origin point for the rumour, and it says that valentino also interrupted a honda party after phillip island to complain to marc. this does not match up at all with anything either marc or valentino have said since then - and would mean you have to believe that marc wasn't actually blindsided by that presser... also feels a bit unlikely we would have heard NOTHING from any other source if vale was really gatecrashing a honda party

of course, neither dani nor valentino have spoken about this supposed post-aragon 2015 meeting either, not even when dani was kinda accusing valentino of hypocrisy during sepang 2015, but I suppose you could say maybe dani's just not the type of guy to bring it up again. however.... I do reckon occam's razor kinda applies here and if one of these stories is bullshit then they probably both are, plus it's not like marca is exactly a neutral source. still would love to be certain!! instinctively I don't really think that's valentino's style at all, but of course it'd be intriguing if the story were true because it'd be a sign of how 2015 kinda messed with him. but I still feel 2015 is more about him falling back on past tools he'd mostly discarded - rather than, like, acting wildly out of character, which again... well, this brings us back to how that kind of behaviour isn't really valentino's style. basically, I don't buy it, but that's kinda why I am so curious about it? because I feel like it would be really interesting and quirky if he had actually done that. does this make any sense

speaking of, again this doesn't really count because I did kinda investigate it last year.... but you know when valentino in that podcast referenced a conversation with marc around the time of sepang 2015, where marc stared blankly at him? I have a hunch about when that conversation happened, want to know if it's right. this also isn't really 'gossip' because this is a conversation I'm having with myself but

y'know when bez was injured on the ranch late-ish last year? a bunch of journalists pointed out how hush hush they were about what actually happened to bez - like they repeatedly drew attention to that because god knows THEY love some gossip lol. which probably means nothing, but I'm curious what the journalists' theory here is, like do they think it was an embarrassing injury?? OR. look. I suppose the conspiracy theory would be that pecco caused it (obviously accidentally!!) and everyone at the ranch knew it'd be a terrible look if they admitted that because of the whole title fight situation. call me casey stoner because those dots are not real and definitely have not been connected

okay, you know how there were rumours in the spanish tabloids bez said some real ugly stuff to marc at valencia last year, and bez didn't directly address it but freaked a little and did a sort of blanket denial that he'd said anything that bad? I don't actually think he did tbh, but again. would just like to check!

while we're already on bez, there was one report that the switch to aprilia was partly motivated by marc to factory ducati. again, not entirely sure I buy that this would factor into his thinking beyond the obvious 'this means the route to that factory ducati seat looks even more closed than it already did' angle'.... it's very much down my list of priorities but I'd quickly confirm/deny it if given the chance yeah

that's all for now lol

#these all feel INCREDIBLY boring but i'm stuck 2/3 of the way through a bunch of different asks and this was fast and fun so #anon i will return to this when i think of more interesting ones. my brain gave up on me. these are all so basic bleh #man i'm gonna miss lin i swear he was always up to some shit #i see u buddy. i know u were flat out lying to colin edwards for like. half a year. i see u #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #“welcome to my world mate” caseyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy #every day i wake up and think about Her (all the things casey wants to tell valentino but has never gotten the chance to)#like he canonically factually actually wants valentino to know what casey's pov on that rivalry was... doesn't that make you CRAZY #he doesn't want to interrogate valentino he wants to confess to him... he wants valentino to Understand... makes me ill #u know it's also like... because valentino literally has said Nothing substantive about that rivalry since mid 2013 #has casey like... noticed? I'm sure he doesn't WANT valentino to keep insulting him but idk it's kind of a bit. hm #like if you ARE looking for closure and YOU are still talking about it a lot but the other guy is just. Not. would that bother you?#idk!! maybe it really is completely a confessional impulse for him. casey constantly wanting to get his story out there #and not really caring what valentino contributes. that he's stopped contributing at all. orrrrr WOULD he like valentino to *respond*#does he want confirmation valentino is even seeing this stuff!! sending it out into the ether and waiting for the echo gahhhhh #what was this post about again #THE FUNDAMENTAL ALIENATION OF FEELING UNSEEN BY YOUR FOIL WHO SHOULD UNDERSTAND YOU BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE #//at

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