#idk if this is a story anyone will be interested in

[sapsuckers-and-stardust]

I feel like discourse about soulmates really cheapens a lot of what I (and I think many other people) love about Kirk and Spock's relationship to each other.

The biggest thing for me is that soulmates are boring. Love isn’t fated (fate isn’t real); it’s hard work. Like to use Spirk as an example, the idea of them being destined to be together is boring. Especially because they weren’t. At the start of TOS, both men are neurotic, closed off, and incapable of being in a relationship with anyone. Their love story is so beautiful because they have to change and grow to be with each other, and despite their obvious affection for each other, them ending up together is NOT a forgone conclusion. They have to work and fight, not only external threats but internal obstacles to be together and love one another. That is the entire climax of their arc from “The Naked Time” in TOS to “this simple feeling” in TMP to their reunion and reconnection in The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home.

Idk to me the idea that “they’re one soul, destined to be together in every universe, forever intertwined blah blah blah” is so… uninteresting. So many depictions of love in media are boring (and unrealistic).

The interesting thing is that these two damaged, hurt men worked so hard to love each other. In a way they changed their entire lives and who they were to be BETTER for each other.

Like. We know Spock had to learn to accept his humanity and emotions and that is a beautifully told story. But! Kirk also has to radically change himself.

In the beginning of TOS he keeps going on about being married (and in many ways chained) to his ship because of his duty as a captain and we see him very actively sabotage and deny himself affection from Rand and (many) other women in the name of keeping himself apart and committed to the service. Then after the development of his relationship with Spock, cut to TSFS and he literally steals and then BLOWS UP the Enterprise, knowing he's not only destroying his entire career and life's work but very literally the ship he has loved and adoringly served on for decades. All for Spock!

Like to me the work, the grit, the determination to survive and keep the other alive is what makes them so enduring in fandom. These men don't even really know themselves or what they want from life when we meet them but by the end of it all it is obvious that their relationship to each other is one of the core pillars of their raison d'être.

[bunnakit]

{cross posting from bluesky} i feel so silly crying bc i'll no longer be writing fic but i feel like i'm grieving my fics i worked so hard on.

what really solidified it for me was i put a sex scene in my recent fic update, it made sense for the story and what was going on but it didn't NEED to be there, i had put it in just to see if that would get more people to read it.

and it worked. i got several replies on my posts saying people were interested now. why did it take sex for you to be interested? it's a story full of rich world building and a complex plot about what it means to be 'human' but you wouldn't read it unless there was some dick in ass? that's not what the story is about.

so that really just frustrated me and made me realize that what i'm trying to accomplish isn't something well suited for a fanfic space that is largely just meant to be self indulgent fluff and porn. (at least in kpop fanfic spaces)

but yeah. today's update will be the last fanfic update from me. i'm not doing it anymore. sorry for leaving these stories half finished. i'll probably just leave Buried Treasure and Afterimage on ao3 for now. Afterimage might get reworked into an original story and once it does i'll probably take it down but it'll be there for now.

i really appreciate anyone that supported my fics, even if it was quietly. i just don't think i fit into the fanfic space anymore or maybe i'm just too sensitive or not built for it idk.

thanks for having me. i'll still be around reading fanfics here and there but prob not to the same degree i used to.

all this being said, i'm not quitting WRITING. i'm just moving onto original works only, so you'll still see me being annoying about stuff and posting my writing, it'll just be 100% either from my own brain or an off shoot of a world my friend has built that i've been assisting with.

[boinday]

Any Interest in Beta Reading The Water Dog?

(Just the first 100 pages, approx 30k words)

I'm mostly wondering if there's any interest in reading and giving me initial opinions/criticisms/notes/reactions, so that when I re-draft I have a stronger idea of what a reader is seeing in the work.

Here's the basic plot overview:

A letter arrives from a woman Sybil doesn't know, asking her to travel to an island she's never heard of, to care for a grandfather she's never met. But there is something about Calda, that lost little island, that calls to Sybil, sinks its claws in and won't let go. What begins as an unwanted obligation transforms into a supernatural mystery with a dangerous secret at its heart, and a monstrous romance that has no intention of letting Sybil leave alive.

This story is set in 1930, and is predominantly horror-romance (although we haven't really gotten far into the romance by the first 100 pages, sowwy) so expect some tension and disturbing imagery. There is one chapter with specific trigger warnings related to allusions sexual trauma.

This is a novel so it has a different structure to my serialised fiction on here, which is more episodic and insularly focused on the romantic elements.

If you're interested in giving it a read and offering feedback, please DM me @literalnobody!

Or you can email me at boinsnoween@gmail(dot)com ^_^

[lazylittledragon]

detransition is something that should Absolutely be talked about but the idea of going into this tag terrifies me beyond belief

[turnaboutstar]

autistic people when there's collectable things with tv shows with multiple generations of them:

[royalarchivist]

Jaiden: Cucurucho, you have a lot of power, right?

Cucurucho: ...I don't know. Maybe.

Roier: Ah... Yes, you know, don't act like a dumbass, you have it. You have it, man. Eh?

Jaiden: Is there a way for us to protect all the Eggs? Do you know? I don't want anything to happen to the Eggs that happened to Bobby.

Cucurucho: Ha ha ha

Roier: WHAT? [Smacks Cucurucho]

Jaiden: [Bops him] Headpats.

Cucurucho: Maybe.

Jaiden: [Continues to bop him] Headpats. C'mon, I can get it out of you! Headpats! Chin scratches! Belly rubs!

Roier: [Joins Jaiden in bopping Cucurucho, chuckling and laughs]

Jaiden: Yeah? He's comin' around!

[Jaiden and Roier both laugh]

[frootbyethefoot]

caught up with drdt. everyone in this class is trained in the art of escalating minor arguments to life changing violence. not a single normal person in this group. it's awesome never change drdt cast.

[kithj]

some stories are written precisely to elicit strong emotions from the reader INCLUDING negative ones. some stories and characters are meant to be upsetting, they are meant to challenge you and make you uncomfortable!! when a story makes you feel Big Feelings sometimes you are meant to sit in those feelings and ask yourself why! fiction is a great space to explore these emotions in a safe environment. you, as the reader, are meant to think critically about the art you are enjoying and that includes asking yourself questions like why has the author presented their art in this way and what are they trying to tell me. and then you get to have fun picking it apart and figuring it out and deciding what, exactly, the art means to you.

[if-we-are-free-tell-me-why]

every time I hear someone say "oh you have to listen to Dear Evan Hansen it has such good mental health representation" I cry in Next to Normal

[saltynsassy31]

Ngl

It is a major whiplash to be looking through the hank and Connor tag (like, no implied relationship, just the two) and see one post about how cute of a father son relationship they have, all their cute familial moments

And then right underneath it, there is legit an animation of the two making out sloppy style XD

To be perfectly, and incredibly clear

This isn't an attack in any of the hank and Connor interpretation. I prefer father/son, that's my favourite interpretation and what I prefer in my own, personal taste

But I don't mind the ship, I'm not for or against it. You do you boo. I've had problems with some, but only those who treat Connor like a child and have a clear father son situation, but then make them kiss lmao

And even then, people, for the most part, don't do that disservice to connor XD (even father/son, i don't like people treating connor like a child, he's young, but also a full grown man lmao)

Edit: I just wanna clear up something. Yes, do tag properly, everyone! But my post was just talking about the general #hank and Connor tag, I was legit just scrolling through that tag cuz it was recommended to me and I was looking for a post I found interesting, but I just thought the large difference in posting on the general tag was funny 🥲

[gingermintpepper]

Little idle thought I've been having recently but I think Cyparissus' story is very important for characterising Apollo and Apollo's love. It's so easy to think of love and loss as two ends of a spectrum, likewise, so often, death is seen as an ultimate and tragic end in love stories - something final and inescapably tragic, the only force that halts love by separating the lovers.

Cyparissus' story is... not that. Yes, the deer dies and one can conclude then that death is once more at the heart of separating two lovers, but I think Cyparissus specifically requesting to die, specifically begging Apollo to let him grieve forever even after Apollo has done his best to help Cyparissus move on from the accident and Apollo letting him is a powerful thing.

Because Apollo not only puts Cyparissus' wishes over his own, he's also able to see past his own building grief to immortalise Cyparissus in such a way that both grants him his wish and allows other people to glorify Cyparissus as well! And I think such a beautiful thing is something criminally overlooked!

It's become something of a joke that 'all Apollo's lovers turn into plants' but from a functional perspective, flowers are the most brilliant way to keep the spirit of a beloved thing alive. Flowers are like stars - as long as there are humans, humans will always contemplate the nature of flowers and as the god of poetry and song, Apollo creating opportunities for his beloved mortals to be remembered eternally even if they never seized glory in the traditional way is such an intimate and beautiful thing. Even then, Cyparissus is elevated to a similar status as Daphne with Apollo's actions - not merely a plant or flower but one that specifically symbolises him, one that is extremely fragrant and beloved by him. Just as Daphne's laurels were synonymous with glory and victory, Cyparissus' cypress became a emblematic of grief and remembrance. Even today, thousands of years later, people still view cypress trees as mourning trees and plant them in cemeteries and use the ash in incense burnt in remembrance of others. How's that for Apollo keeping his word.

[ganondoodle]

some destiny (zelda comic) lore

i really have absolutely no problem with AUs, but in the case of my zelda comic i kinda dont like it being called that bc i made it specifically around the idea of offering an origin story to .. everything really that could be true and put the entire series in an entirely different light

like most things in the series around the creation of the world and the godesses etc are told to us, and i always ask questions when sth is just told to you especially in this black and white kind of way

idk if i ever talked about it, probably not bc its somewhat of a big reveal in the comic (though its at the very end) and given how slow i am thats years away so:

the three gods (gods as a neutral term here) exists outside the physical realm in a sort of void like darkness with an endless completely calm ocean they created the world we know as hyrules world, in fact they created two more, each of them filled with life, at some point choosing a mortal to kill and make into a deity as their right hand since the gods cant go into these worlds themselves

they want to enact the plan we see in skyward sword, they want a monster to invade the land, their chosen deity to seal it, die and be reincarnated and start the whole zelda cycle as we know it; why?maybe purely as entertainment, which is why each cycle is so widely different, they are gods and treating life and worlds like their little toys feels kinda right- and they really dont like when their toys act against them, thats not what toys are supposed to do after all

so, courage as i like to call them, was a deity they created using a mortal, but they failed to even make their mortals believe in them, instead they were seen as the monster, the gods lost their patience and drowned their world leaving only courage to survive, while they failed their orders and were hated, they still cared about their world, seeing it slowly drown and abandoned by the gods made them filled with despair, in an outburst they destroy the spring of the gods (an ancient spring that is the first to exist in a world when its created) and it opens up a gate into the realm of the gods, that dark calm ocean of nothing- they go into it and wander into the closest source of light and it brings them into demise's world

demise is the deity of his world, and when courage arrives there they start to attack it, filled with desperation and rage that their world was drowned while this one thrived- demise hasnt failed the gods yet, and he fights and seals away courage with easy, but it lets him doubt the gods words, courage was supposed to be some evil monster, yet they were similar to him and he defeated them so easily, why would he chose to die and be reincarnated as a mortal? he wanted to stay a deity and protect his world forever- he started to stall for time, halting the building of the temples for the hero in the future, and at some point courage broke out of its seal, nothing of it was like before it was a strange and now truly, a monster, and demise killed it to protect his lands, thus making the gods prophecy unable to be furfilled and so the gods abandon his world too, they let mortals turn against him as his world slowly dries out, until there is nothing left alive but him and ghirahim, trying to drive him to madness so he becomes the monster for the the next world in the row, but fail just barely- he too destroys the ancient spring and discovers the gate it creates

so demise travels to hylias world, and hylia, hesitates to seal him right away bc she notices he is not a mindless monster like she was told, despite the gods effort to raise her in isolation and make her into the perfect vassal, hylias curiousity is too much, so she lets demise live, over and over as they battle- which is the story of the comic, at the end they fall in love and uncover the gods plans, that demise was in the same position as hylia is, and he killed a deity jsut like them, that the reincarnation thing might be a lie to get rid of the biggest threat to the gods (the deities needed to be gotten rid of before they realized anything) and replace it with a more controllable mortal once the set up for the play was done, this too has been a cycle in the end the gods make sure this time it ends up how they want, more or less (im leaving out the details for now) and demise gets sealed and hylia dies, both of them taken by the gods but as both resisted them it is not perfect, demise still did not turn into the monster they needed so what you fight in skyward sword is an apparition of him, not him truly, and ghirahim knew he would never be himself again but his desperation and devotion made him try anyway only to end up playing right into the gods hands

and that is how the series started, a scheme of the gods to create their little play, inventing new little adversaries and eviil beings but short lived so easily to reinvent over and over, but its all based on lies, zelda isnt special, she was jsut a mortal that happened to be chosen by the gods to take the role she has now, shes no reincarnation of hylia, none of the things they tell you about hylia are true, its the gods lying to you, and the trio is stuck in this cycle not realizing they are merely being played with

(being sealed or dying as a deity send you to the realms of the gods, where they pin them down on a pillar like bugs (unconcious) and occasional borrow their magic for some tricks and schemes to play with in the world of hyrule, the deities are still there, and will be until the gods decide to kill them fully- and at the end of destiny as demise is take by them, in the last few moments before he is hung up like a trophy he not only sees that courage, who he thought he had fully killed, was already there, but in the darkness were countless remains of abandoned deities hanging dead on pillars, how many times have the gods done this before?)

(possibly not as interesting as i hope it is, but this is what im going for, and it only really works if the rest of the series exists just the same, otherwise the whole point of putting everything in this context would become kinda meaningless? at least thats how i feel about it so i dont like calling it an AU, but im not mad about it bc i guess if you take all the lore at face value it is completely different and doesnt work with canon at all? idk )

[eliashirsch]

i have something to admit that i'm not proud of...

i genuinely can't write hangster😭😭 like i've tried so many times. SO MANY TIMES!! i always get the a few thousand words in and then all my motivation just falls of. i'm seriously trying to finish a story about them, even a one shot! but i just can't do it!!

and i know i shouldn't force myself but it'd be nice to write LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE OTHER THAN ICEMAV

[spittyfishy]

A bunch of different slice-of-life-ish drawings I’ve done with my super hero characters! I thought doing more domestic scenes would be a good way to better flesh out the world and characters in my head lol

[kerizaret]

Met a friend today and she gave me the sekai card au challenge except the first time she chose cards she liked and second time it was totally randomly selected from a folder of cards by whichever she pointed at so here's the results bc why not share:

1)

Tsukasa is a ghost haunting a building where a circus of questionable morals used to perform at after dying while watching one of their performances that went awry. He's determined to put on a show that will clear the infamy this stage has and cause smiles there unlike the circus there did. He thinks this will be what finally frees him from the mortal realm and allow to pass on peacefully. Unfortunately for him, everyone steers clear from the haunted place so nobody ever watches his performances. Everyone is too scared of taking this place down as well, though, so he's trapped in there

That is until he stumbles upon Toya there, who ran away to here to avoid his father who forbids him from singing so thay he can focus on pursuing a career in classical music. He wanted to go to a place nobody was at to sing freely without worrying about what anyone says. Tsukasa and Toya end up bonding over love for performing and being unable to find an audience that would accept them, and end up doing shows together, with Toya's singing and Tsukasa performing. The stage ends up Toya's safe place where he can run away to to rest from the world around him, and Tsukasa finally has an audience – and a companion – for his shows

Rui is a travelling exorcist who's trying to gain more experience and help people out. He had to give up his love for shows in the name of duty after trying to put on performances with humans and ghosts alike that ended up with people getting hurt and him being scolded for associating himself with "evil". He ended up being trained to exorcise ghosts instead even when it felt wrong to him (and he always tries to resolve the conflict without exorcising if the ghost isnt too aggressive). He came across the town where Toya lived and heard the rumours about the old haunted circus and went to check it out

When he saw Tsukasa he at first misinterpreted his behaviour a lot and ended up taking his "invitation for a once-in-a-lifetime-show" as a threat and they ended up chasing each other (tsks trying not to be exorcised bc he found he does want to keep "living" and performing) until Rui was stopped by Toya coming and explaining the truth. Rui is met with the choice between duty as an exorcist – making tsukasa pass on – and the reignited dream he once longed for standing right in front of him. He ends up working on a show together with them in the end, and they manage to put it on a few times with other people from the town coming and seeing it and actually having fun and getting less scared of the place

They manage to clear the bad reputation this place has and actually get people to stop being scared of Tsukasa's ghost, and while Harumichi still doesn't exactly see Toya's choices for singing as the best he let him do what he wants. After finding out that realising Tsukasa's goal didn't make him disappear (to all of their relieves bc they ended up bonding and having fun) but instead simply freed him from being chained to the circus, they set off travelling and performing all over the country as a three for humans and ghosts alike WOOO

Bonus idea maybe they meet up with the tenmas to let tsks reconnect with his lost family and also put on a show for ruis exorcist trainers to show them his dream wasn't in vain or smth idk I won't do anything with this HAHAH

2) this was randomised AHDHSV I apologise for any character misinterpretation I do not know enaan as well yet hdhd

Ena is an artist with an ability to make her drawings come to life, inherited from her father — the thing is, it works only for works she is proud of and considers "worthy" of coming to life. Being a very critical person, as well as not being recognised as an artist by many people around her, she ends up with many failed works and very few moving pieces. It doesn't help that she sees her father's work always moving around the house and feeling discouraged by his constant criticism and comments on how to fix her art

She does, however, befriend and work with An, a local setective who found her skill very useful when they found out if she successfully draws a suspect of a crime or some missing person, the drawings are able to talk for the drawn person and reveal some key information allowing them to find them and solve the case. An admires Ena's art and ability a lot but secretly is jealous and feels useless because she thinks she's only successful in her solved cases thanks to Ena's help, and not her own skill

Meanwhile Nene is Ena's masterpiece who came to life — except Ena was so scared of showing the work to anyone because she was proud of it and considered it besutiful and didn't want anyone to criticise Nene and make her "die" that she hid her away, which in turn made Nene adopt her creator's mindset and became an extremely shy and unconfident person, constantly hiding away in her frame and never really coming out, feeling she's not worthy of being seen and even trying to become something more outside of the canvas

Until one day suddenly, Nene's painting disappears completely. Ena is absolutely devastated — and also in her doubts, feels completely unable to replicate such a masterpiece. With that she is unable to draw Nene again for An to get some pieces of information to help find the painting, making An have to rely only on herself. She takes the challenge and doesn't let herself fail and she DOES manage find Nene, who actually found the courage to come out of the frame and ran to try to find her creator too

It turned out Nene was stolen away by Ena's own Autoportrait that also came to life like Nene. Ena's Autoportrait was one she was deep down very proud of, but her father criticised it and other people as well when she put it on display, and ended up throwing it out as a "failure" despite still feeling like it was good. The portrait came to life because of ena's feelings but ended up jealous of Nene and the fact she was kept, and that the Autoportrait wasn't loved like that. So she stole Nene away too. In the end the Autoportrait just wanted Ena to love her just as Nene — in a way it was just Ena wanting to love herself and her art just because she likes it and not becsuse others do

Ena ends up taking the Autoportrait back to her studio and thanking An for finding both the portrait and Nene. In the end though Nene decides she wants to leave by herself as well and learn about other paintings' stories and maybe forge her own by travelling through art galleries, so Ena finds the courage to send the canvas out to the world to let Nene tour various museums and walk around there, while also earning Ena fame as a bonus. An ends up taking on more cases on her own to get better and not rely too much on Ena anymore and also let her have time to create for herself the enddd

[ahalliance]

qantoine’s coping mechanism to feeling left behind being both self-isolating and becoming possesive of those he cares for is so juicy as a concept . like yeah you go you funky creachure, manifest those complicated and sometimes contradictory emotions