#idk i just immediately thought this was a fandom reference

[bizarrelittlemew]

this has to be a shout-out to the fandom for speculating about the sleeping arrangements aboard the Revenge for over a year

[ri-afan]

Soulmate au - first words on skin

“Woah, hey, you probably shouldn’t be doing that.”

“…Are you my conscience?”

Person 1 is a vigilante helping someone with a probable concussion after an attack of some kind.

Person 2 is a person who’s had many a philosophical debate on whether or not the words on their skin made them reckless or if they were reckless all on their own.

[rhytmrocket]

hey all! so that post about po ship names got more support than expected, and i see at least two people would like to know the names i've come up with. so, here are some of my better works!

note that i don't ship really any of these that much, mainly cuz the only ship ive definitively decided so far that yes this is my yaoi is kaijoe, and also because a portion of these are crack-ish ships that i haven't seen anyone ship like at all (although i haven't checked out po ao3 yet so some of these might actually exist and i just have a blind spot). so if that fact degrades the quality of the names for you, sorry i guess

bulldozer, for bull/sandman. coming from bull, and to "doze" is to fall asleep, and also bulldozer is a word. kinda surprised i haven't seen this ship around, to me it feels like at least someone would ship it.

chocolate milk, for bull/doc. chocolate for doc, and bulls are male cows and female cows produce milk. this is a ship i'm pretty sure exists, but i haven't seen a name for it yet, so maybe this is already an accepted ship name for it like with the glass cannon situation. who knows

bullrush, for bull/hondo. it's a pretty obvious name, but it sounds really good so it's staying here.

redbull, for sodabull. redbull is a carbonated energy drink, which is basically soda. also bull in the name. i know this is one of the bigger ships in the tumblr po fandom, and i cannot believe no one calls it this. i can't have been the first person to come up with this! but everyone calls the ship sodabull so i just gotta live with it but now i'm breaking my silence!! sodabull should be called redbull. i mean maybe not in tags cuz that could get it mixed up with the energy drink but like you know!

popstar, for soda/macho. pop from soda pop(inski), and star because macho is a hollywood star. i feel the exact way about this one as i do with redbull-- it's a good fucking name but i haven't seen any macho/soda shippers use it and it drives me nuts

russian roulette, for soda/aran. soda's russian, and aran has a theme of luck, thus roulette. i haven't seen this ship much recently but scrolling back a while on the soda tag shows that this ship has existed. and i have not seen it be called russian roulette. what is it with soda ships and not reaching their name potential?

piña colada, for hippo/soda. piña colada is an often-alcoholic drink (soda has references to alcohol, and also his name used to be vodka) with pineapple in it (hippo has a lot of connexions to pineapples). ok, this ship i have not seen anyone ship (yet). this name i really just randomly came up with, but i like it and i think it fits and sounds good

dragon dance, for dragon/heike. this is mainly a reference to the move from pokémon of the same name. i am just about certain this ship exists, but i just! haven't! seen it yet!

pizzapie, for pizza/clown. pizzas are sometimes referred to as pies, or pizza-pies, and clowns are known for throwing pastry pies as physical comedy. ok guys hear me out! uh! uh. ok i got nothing, this ship just entered my mind one night and hasn't left since, like a prophet recieving a vision from a god except the god is dionysus wasted off his ass.

spaghetti and meatballs, for pizza/ref mario. i have no explanation for this one. i am so sorry. idk why so many pizza pasta ships come into my mind, that fucker has 0 canon personality

pineapple-shaped disco ball, for disco/hippo. i think the name's pretty obvious. i uh once heard the word cluster "pineapple-shaped disco ball" and immediately thought "lmao that sounds like a ship name for disco kid and king hippo" and promptly put it on my note of ship name ideas. i really like it for them because it's verbose and clunky, it sounds like something their collective braincell and a half would come up with.

oh and! if a name i have here already exists, please do tell! especially if it's redbull or popstar, those two drive me mad. clown.

[williamvapespeare]

🖊📊💭 for the fic asks!

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

Have some eventual David Bowie

“Are you quite sure you’re alright?” He says it like an after-thought and with a slight hint of annoyance that Charles is familiar enough with by now to place somewhere closer to nervousness. 

Charles takes a short unnecessary breath through his nose. Edwin is nervous. He’s worried about something beyond the immediate particulars of the case and he’s nervous to ask if Charles is alright. 

He follows Edwin’s invisible footsteps in the moth-eaten carpet and sits heavily on the top step of the stairs. He remembers the last time Edwin looked like that only vaguely, at the base of a lighthouse where the cold damp ground might have soaked the knees of Charles’ trousers if he’d been tangible enough for it to reach him. Where Charles had shrugged away the only thing that could still reach him like that: a tentative hand on his shoulder. Soft, even though he’d just watched Charles kill in cold blood. Always soft, despite everything. 

“I’m fine, really.” Charles rests his forearms on his knees, addressing the patch of stair between his loafers. “Nothing happened. They just talked about, well, them. Being together. They love each other a lot. It’s…nice.” 

📊 Current number of WIPs

In terms of fanfic I think it's 3 total: The Case of David Bowie's Made-up Sexuality, which I AM still working on I promise!! (I actually started to do some research for it and went down a hole about object theory and hauntology?? Yes I am a nerd and yes fanfic is a valid method of practice based research, shush. Also some of the content got maybe a little bit triggering? So it's nice to kind of base it in something more concrete idk) also a couple others based on some AMAZING art/fic in the fandom that I'm so keen to get to interact with creatively ahhh v excited to finish and post those!!

💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?

I actually don't really know what's a specific hc for MY work vs my hcs for the media I write fic for, if that makes sense? But just in terms of dbd and how i've been enjoying writing that: Edwin's pov works in a mode based in literary/scientific/classical reference points and I always aim for this really specific intersection of poetry and metaphor with straightforward, empirical fact. It's SUPER fun for me!!

Charles' pov is a lot more straightforward - when I write him I literally am constantly going back and deleting words like "he thinks" and "he feels like." Where Edwin is intentionally a step removed sometimes and might go "he thinks there is something stifled inside of him that might never have fully caught on," even in metaphor, Charles is such a do-er, a man of ACTION, he's not going to waste time going "I think the situation is like xyz" he's barely going to think through it, he's just going to be like *this is the situation* even if it's blatantly wrong. Like, "Edwin is still going strong on his no detective work while Charles is useless campaign. Well, he doesn’t phrase it like that, but Charles can read between the lines well enough." "problematic thought pattern," "cricket metaphor," et cetera

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Idk if it's alright to send this because i'm white but i just finished the fallout show and really like it right? i liked the story and ending and all that shit.

So i logged onto Tumblr to see cool posts and fanart and then, immediately notice that there was lack of Maximus posts. and i mean posts of him by himself, not just with the other characters. Like the guy wasn't my favourite or anything but he was one of the 3 main POV characters and was really enjoyable as a character. so i thought there would be more of him! but apparently not??? and then i learn apparently the main ship in the fandom is with Lucy (the main MC) and like, the ghoul???? despite her and maximus actually having a romantic relationship (or really fucking implied if you wanna be pretentious) in the show by the end. but there is so much of her being shipped with the guy that couldn't care less about romance at the moment than maximus. what. i'm not even a big shipper or anything but it stood out as a bit weird man. and the more i thought about maximus the more it's like, how tf is he not talked about more? his fucking final shot has so many questions and implications, whereas it's obvious where the other two mcs will end up what tf is going to happen with maximus huh. his whole character is so important to the story and environment as a whole too but nah got to see another ghoul x reader before that. i stopped really looking at the fandom after that, maybe it's change but ehhh

mb if this was the wrong blog to send this to but i like this dude and this feels kind of shitty. and like, racist. my guy deserves way better, sorry if this came off as really aggressive or something, i'm a bit annoyed rn

no worries Anon! you're absolutely at the right blog.

so its been a few months since I've seen fallout but Maximus is such a sweetheart?

(for those that haven't watched the show there are definitely problems with the show and I totally acknowledge that and will talk about it in a separate post soon specifically the problems I'm referring to are misogynoir)

but ok getting back to Fallout Lucy actually pursues maximus!!! she straight up propositions him first! and like he is super inexperienced and gets scared but like he totally does like her and has romantic feelings for Lucy.

Don't get me wrong I like the ghoul and I respect his journey but he absolutely shows no interest in Lucy like that. Like I got a very fatherly vibe towards Lucy from him?

I'll try going through the tags soon and calling out some of the maximus hate and erasure!!! ofc followers you can always submit posts about fallout!

mod ali

[voxmilia]

Tell me about Adaine :D

Send me a character and I'll ramble

Ily, thank you for indulging my hyperfixations! 🥰

Also tagging @ghostlyeris and @shackld bc they also sent in Adaine jhdalshd loving Adaine is my brand ig (it's an excellent brand)

Under the cut bc I rambled so goddamn much

My first impression: "oh...oh wait help her voice is so soft, oh she had a panic attack at her entrance exam? Oh baby 🥺"

My impression now: "that's my GIRL, that's my GIRL, she's got a gun and a magical punching spell and she's gonna kill everyone who hurts her or her friends"

Favorite thing about that character: She's so endlessly caring. She's been put through the absolutely wringer and yes, she's guarded about it. But she's so, so kind. She has downtime and she offers to clean her friend's closet or throw an ice cream party. She uses her jacket that can produce anything (under 10 gold) and 90% of the time uses it to get stuff for her friends. She's three for three on helping redeem wizard antagonists, she's amazing

Least favorite thing: It's more least favorite in that I love her so much, I want her to have nice things? But narratively, it makes sense. She's so guarded and independent because she's had to be. And so that means now she struggles to accept help and open herself up especially to parental affection. And it just breaks my heart, seeing how far she's come but how far she has to go to let herself be loved the way she deserves.

Favorite line/scene: Her and Aelwyn in sophomore year is imprinted on my brain forever. In Fallinel wizard jail, holding the broken shell of her big sister in Kei Lumenura, the confrontation in the nightmare forest. "I do not love our parents and though you have not earned it? I do love you." TEARS. EVERY TIME.

Runner up goes to any scene with her and Jawbone - the iconic "You're not a coward, Adaine, you're just sick, you need medicine!" and the equally iconic "You're easy to love. And anyone who couldn't figure that out is a real bozo."

Third place goes to the ping pong table scenes, both of them. The amount of times I quote "ONE GUY OFFERED ME DIAMONDS AND I RAN AWAY" in dms is so funny

Also obviously "MAGIC IS REAL AND SO IS MY FROG!!!!!!!"

Favorite interaction that character has with another: beyond the above examples with her and Aelwyn, her and Jawbone, and her and Oisin? It's so silly but I'll always have a soft spot for her and Zayn in the opening to sophomore year. "You may absolutely tread upon my sanctum santorum!"

Also ofc any interaction with her and Ayda so I'm SO glad we got that moment in junior year where they were shading each other. Their friendship means the fucking world to me. They made each other spells, I'm forever tender about that

A character that I wish that character would interact with more: After junior year, I have to say Sandra Lynn! Their scene was incredibly sweet!! She's her dad's girlfriend and the closest thing to a mother figure she has, they deserve to have a moment! Also in a similar vein, Tracker! Tracker is not only her adoptive cousin but also her former roommate - she lived with Tracker nearly as long as she's lived with Kristen and about as long as she's lived with Fig, I'm so curious about their dynamic.

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character: it's not at all a one to one but my immediate thought was Annette Dominic. Just? Idk something about incredibly studious girls who don't know how to relax and just be kids, who had to grow knowing they were abandoned or neglected by their parents and had to find the love they deserve in a group of school friends? Idk!! I think they'd be friends. Adaine would offer to kill Gilbert

A headcanon about that character: Though it's her legal name, Adaine doesn't really refer to herself as an O'Shaughnessy, mostly out of habit. At her college graduation ceremony, she insists on being announced as Adaine Abernant-O'Shaughnessy. Jawbone cries.

A song that reminds of that character: So I haven't started her playlist and didn't wanna just pull something from mine and Nick's ship playlist for her and Oisin, so I just looked on Spotify and 🥺 Someone gave her Waiting on a Miracle from Encanto and that breaks my heart, so I have to say that one.

An unpopular opinion about that character: I'm ambivalent on the glasses. I like her with or without them. I know most folks seem to think that's just canon but personally I'm way more team "Riz definitely has a tail" than "Adaine definitely has glasses"

Favorite picture: HOW DO I CHOOSE, let me highlight a few of my faves:

the absolutely iconic princess mononoke moment with oisin,

this heartbreaking art of adaine and aelwyn while aelwyn is still imprisoned in sophomore year

this gorgeous bad kids group shot that I use currently as my tupperbox icon for adaine

this stunning and tragic parallel with adaine and the previous elven oracle

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, am really really interested to read your thoughts on Seven!

*

Ask 2: Hey bpp, can i be honest?? Ive been checked out of the fandom but still keep track of any music releases. So i didnt know abt any rumors abt 7. Imagine me being kind of disappointed that it’s another english song from jk when i watched the mv😅 it feels like his most promoted songs since last year has been all eng song… idk i wanted & expted something diff… i didnt like l&r, dreamers and now 7… it’s back to back lol. Tbf i didnt like My You too and thats in korean. At least not enough to listen!again after the first listen.

Im happy that still with you is finally on spotify tho. I’ll still be waiting excited for his album whenever it comes out. Hopefully ill find something i like in it!!

**

[BPP Note: Both asks above were sent before my "I don't like it..." post. The asks posted below were sent afterwards.]

**

Ask 3:

Same here

All the hype didn't matched with the song

1. rest members songs had so much depth and substance to it while this was the cliche boy chasing a girl song. Like we always dont need deep songs but the quality could be so much better. This was like just another pop song.

I think I'll put this on same level as BAD DECISIONS. But for bad decisions, atleast the chorus was staying on my mind while for this nothing was catchy enough for us to humm. Just because it's JK it will get hype but otherwise it's so generic. I think I liked LEFT and RIGHT way better than Seven. Even the rap portion felt so unnecessary and boring.

2. MV was kinda nice because of the production but concept was too shallow, the stalking and chasing was so outdated. In my country we have like 9293928843837 MVs in this same concept that not many make the same theme songs again.

3. The choreography. We haven't seen the full version. But for tiktok they do the highlight portions if that's so mediocre idk how rest will be. It was again giving the same mediocre showing off choreography and for me backdancers ruined it with their awkward moves.

4. they wanted this song to be played everywhere around the world. But there was nothing catchy enough to attract gp or go viral on tiktok, even if we sped it up. The only way to make everyone listen is to shove it down their throat but doing payola. But idk if investing in payola is worthy for the song. I also doubt the longietivity, as for me it was boring after 2 listens. I'll rather listen Like Crazy or wildflower or closer 20 times than listening this once.

5. I HOPE he'll bring something fresh to the table for his album and don't involve this mediocre producers who uses the same formula and same superstar persona to make a song successful. He is so much talented to sing a song which is so rich in melody and lyrics. And he can produce way better songs by himself.

Prolly a 4/10 for me

*

Ask 4: troye sivan's rush (which also came out last night) is exactly what I wish Seven was. I don't mean that in a 'I expect the things JK to make to be gay' way just in the way it's a fun, very danceable, sexy summer song that doesn't pull its punches. Something about seven feels too run through a commercial sanitizer a few times, even with the explicit lyrics.

***

Hi Anon(s),

Jungkook likes to fuck.

Rather, Andrew Watt likes to fuck and thinks Jungkook can relate.

JK has been talking about wanting to show more mature and explicit sides of himself for a good long while now. So I’m glad he’s finally gotten to do that, confirming for us why he keeps getting noise complaints from his neighbours since the mattresses all over his apartment don't help.

BTS has made songs explicitly referring to sex before (though it's been mostly the rapline doing so). So it's nothing new but I guess it's cool JK gets to share with us that he too has sex.

The question I posed to my friends immediately after watching the MV is, “Do you know who's been doing A&R for BigHit since 2020? I really need to know who is doing A&R for BigHit in America because they’ve been doing an appalling job lately. I'm starting to wonder if it's an inside job cause this song is kinda ass.”

That was me ~11 hours ago.

I didn’t like the song.

I’ve streamed Seven about 20 times since then I think, took a break from the song for a few hours, watched his GMA performance, caught a few minutes of the Wlive, then listened to it again just before writing this post and…

I still don’t like it.

Jungkook did a good job on the song, Latto's verse wasn't terrible, and while the song itself isn’t bad… the song isn’t good either.

It’s painfully, and at this point it’s a pattern so I have to add, predictably, mediocre.

Reserving judgement for the album, but Anons, I agree with you for the most part. The suits at BigHit are trying but they are woefully out of touch with the reasons BTS blew up in the West in the first place. I don't even feel like spending any energy doing a review or even trying to explain what I mean. So I'll just ramble on for a bit but try to keep it brief.

---

I have to give BigHit some credit because I can see what they're going for here. Andrew Watt is a very celebrated producer in the US, he won the Grammy award for Producer of the Year in 2021, he's got A listers in his portfolio. So, he's not a cheap name to book and I can see why the suits at BigHit thought he's the genius to gift them a song clinically designed for American radio.

But that pandejo phoned it in. There isn't a lick of creativity to be found anywhere in all 3 minutes and five seconds.

It reminds me of VIBE by Jimin and Taeyang, as the closest analog to the vague dissatisfaction morphing into annoyance and then pragmatic rationalization I experienced in that same sequence when listening to it the first few times.

The song is disappointing because we've all heard it before. Too many times, and we're bored of it. We've heard JK sing this sort of song for years, as covers mostly. So on one hand, while I guess it's nice JK gets to have an American summer JB-reject pop tune of his own, it's not good enough to be the track that introduces him to the world as a solo artist.

It's fine for any white, blonde, blue-eyed heartthrob that can ride on a pretty face and implicit bias to rack up accolades, it's not good enough for Jungkook.

And BigHit needs to start using whatever leverage a US$10.6 billion market capitalization buys you in Hollywood, to insist for songs that are at least as good as the songs made by BTS members and produced by their in-house team. It's a waste of money and everybody's time to fly a battalion to LA just to record 2014's summer hit in 2023.

In my opinion.

Still With You > Stay Alive > My Time > Stay > Left & Right > My You > Dreamers > Seven

*

All that said, I can't ignore JK has a taste for songs like this, and it's not his fault the song is shit (he didn't write, compose or produce it), so technically he shouldn't be punished for it. And the song is made for radio, while it's not my personal taste a lot of people really like the song (one of my friends likes Seven the most out of all the BTS releases so far), and it will catch on with some support. So, ARMY will support it including me, just to a lesser degree than I've done so far. Fingers crossed JJK1 has something solid on it.

[lost-boys-chapter]

I am continuing with the sa reread!! hopefully it'll speed up now bc the bartending ✨️chaos season✨️ (aka the euros) is over, so I should have more time. also am on holiday this week and convinced I can get through the entirety of twok by saturday. I'm almost to part 3. my thoughts are as follows:

who are the three guys in the ishikk interlude? I say this, knowing 2/3 of the answer. one of them is galladon, right? and another is demoux? I know one if them is the nale lookalike mentioned in the sa5 interlude preview? do we have any more info on why they're looking for hoid yet? I vaguely remember these three always confusing me.

are the epigraphs for p2 the letter from hoid to frost? the 'old friend' threw me off bc that's how sazed refers to everyone in tlm, but I'm increasingly sure it makes sense that it's hoid.

also, GOD, dalinar and adolin's opening chapters are boring. ik they end up being two of my faves in the rest of the series so I've been slogging through them but they just seem to....not be doing a lot. obviously a lot of the point of their chapters is that the vengeance pact is becoming long and drawn out, and more about sport than anything else, so it kind of makes sense thematically. but still, doesn't feel like there's a lot to sink my teeth into.

relatedly, increasingly it does feel like kaladin is the Personality Hire of the original pov characters. like, he's got a lot less to say in terms of worldbuilding and setup for the general arc of the first half than shallan and dalinar, but he's the only real character who you care about enough to sink your teeth into the plot and properly root for on first read. I definitely felt that way to begin with and I still feel so on reread, so. you can also quite easily see him becoming marginally less relevant in later books so I wonder if part of it really is that he's just the first character you can really begin to love in this series. not saying I don't care for him in later books, obviously. but idk just a thought

rock my beloved !! I had completely forgotten he'd become a bridgeman by putting chull dung in sadeas' soup LMAO he's my favorite ever. also, when him and teft were asking each other's names and teft asked him what his real name was, I immediately said, out loud, 'numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor.' not sure what it says that I remembered this but forgot other characters' entire existence.

the other bridgemen make me 🥰🥰🥰 also. it surprises me on reread that sigzil was one of kaladin's biggest critics to begin with. it reads as kind of weird to me but I suppose the realities of bridgeman life would strip the fundamentals of anyone's character. still, I'm yet to read the sunlit man and we know how much I've forgotten regardless so maybe I've been shaped by fandom perception a little too much.

dunny :( I've not got to the bit where he dies yet but I remember his being the bridgeman death that hurt the most in twok so every time he shows up I get a fun burst of sadness. also for some reason I thought it was hobber who originally almost died, not leyten, but maybe I'm right and just haven't gotten to that part yet lol.

just remembered that lopen exists too. looking forward to him showing up.

and syl!! I love her so much, it's cool in retrospect to see what spren lose and how they slowly regain their sentience while moving into the physical realm to form a bond. seeing her confused about understanding abstract concepts is great. I was listening to the wind and truth predictions shardcast the other day and someone came up with a theory that the way windrunners are recruited might be turned on its head in era 2. in retrospect that would be super cool to see.

speaking of, that episode of shardcast also convinced me that syladin is a possibility, which ruined my day.

unrelatedly: navani is such a badass, that text post that's going around that's like 'navani really showed up at the shattered plains and immediately told dalinar that her son is a loser' is so so real lol. I don't think I originally liked her in twok bc I didn't understand her... purpose, I guess? this time around I'm like 😍😍 mine scientist lady beloved.

also, could the stormfather really not think of a better way to investigate a possible bond than random prophetic visions? though the one we see onscreen first with the weird midnight creatures is very cool in retrospective.

regarding flashbacks: I'm not super invested in kaladin's past, once you've read it once it's not difficult to remember what happens so I'm pretty much just skimming. but I think rereading it a few years older makes it a lot easier to understand that lirin is a far more complex character than I originally thought, esp regarding row. obviously he's got kaladin's best interests in mind, but I feel like his moral reasoning is a lot clearer on reread. I don't think hes a great person, but i dont think hes necessarily more flawed than a lot of other main characters. I don't exactly remember what happens in row but I remember he gets... worse. I'm interested to see how my opinion changes.

and finally on a meta note: I know the first arc is supposed to thematically parallel a ketek, which I remember being able to spot elements of between wor and row. I'm super curious to see if I can spot anything in twok which might be paralleled in wind and truth. I do think I thought of smth regarding syl earlier but I forgot what it was 🫠-- maybe something go do with the recreance questions we're hoping to get answered?

this has been a very long post for which I am sorry but I'm open to discussion points!! would love to hear people's thoughts on my thoughts lol. will inevitably be back with more lukewarm takes

[separatist-apologist]

so i was recently reading the end of ACOSF where Cassian is talking to Eris and like in my opinion characterizing Eris for the first time explicitly in cannon and I was just reminded of you. Specifically how well you have accurately characterized him. Not that you need to "accurately" characterize a character in fanfiction (in my opinion cannon is ACOTAR is hard to conceptualize "correctly" anyway but I digress) but either way you do it particularly well with Eris in a way that I haven't seen and I feel like a lot of the fandom is missing.

i struggle myself with trying to make the characterization like as accurate as possible and consistent so idk you inspire me. 💖🥰

also speaking of Eris could we get a little sneak peek of the Roman AU because that literally has been all I can think about for days. no pressure of course

I would do anything you asked from me first of all, but when you preface it with THAT???? Whatever you like!

“I’ll answer anything you ask of me,” Lucien agreed, offering her his bare arm rather selfishly. He just needed to know if her skin was as soft as it looked. She beamed up at him, the prettiest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life, and accepted. Her fingers were warm, gliding over his bare bicep without a care in the world. What would she look like adorned in gold, he wondered?

“How are you enjoying yourself?” he asked before she could get one of her own questions out. He didn’t need to answer anything if he did all the talking. 

She considered his question and only after her silence stretched did Lucien consider that she did not speak Latin as well as he thought. He gave her space, walking her over a careful, stone laid path around the olive grove.

“Your hospitality has been generous,” she began carefully, fingers fidgeting in the pleats of her dress. “I’m sure Arina and I would be fine living somewhere on our own—”

“Who will protect you?” Lucien demanded, getting close to the question he was most interested in. “Two unmarried women shouldn’t be alone in the city.” She nodded, not disputing his words.

Lucien pounced. “You’re not married?” She glanced up at him, eyes narrowing. “No, I’m not married.” “Why?”

She took a breath. “I have a fiance—”

“A what?”She murmured something under breath in a language he didn’t understand. I forgot french hasn’t been invented yet. He didn’t like that Britanic language—it was too harsh, too angry to be coming out of such lovely lips.

and for fun:

She was nearly at the door when he called out, “‘Che cazzo.’ What does it mean?”

His Italian wasn’t awful—certainly less offensive than when Graysen had bid her a good day in the choppiest drawl she’d ever heard in her life. Arina knew better than to tell him the truth, and yet…

“Capitium,” she said, using the Latin for little head as Eris’s expression darkened. Dick. She could call a man a dick in every language. 

Pleased with herself, Arina attempted to flounce from the room, satisfied she’d at least cut Eris down to size. It didn’t solve any of her problems but it did make her feel better.

She was nearly to the hall when strong fingers wrapped around her bare arm, pulling her back flush against his chest.

Lowering his mouth to her ear, Eris murmured, “The next time you reference my cock, I’ll assume you’re asking to see it.” “You disgust me,” she whispered without thinking.

He only chuckled, low and soft. He smelled nice, a mix of spices she didn’t immediately recognize. Shouldn’t all men reek of body odor?

This one, especially, ought to smell like sewage given how handsome his face was. “I’ll bet you’d say that on your knees.”

Arina elbowed him roughly in the ribs, certain he would do nothing but let her go.

[tartagliad]

Phases of Love

Summary: what are the phases and feelings that both of you went through together

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Character: Alhaitham

Genre: Romance + music reference

F reader! (Vahumana student)

Warnings: VERY LONG FROM WHAT I HAVE ANTICIPATED- HSHSHSHSVS, unedited.. I immediately post this-

(a/n: This song is so HEVEGEGWVVCA- this is my all-time favourite frrr! but after a while, I realised that.. it kinda sounds like what Alhaitham felt when he fell in love- idk but that's me- and the lyrics.. BRO- sgvbsvge.. so yeah- that came from this one SINGULAR song-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now playing: Something - The Beatles

First Meeting

"Something in the way she moves, Attracts me like no other lover"

You two met at the Akademiya, where you being younger than him

At the time, you two are still scholars. Him as a Haravatat student, and you as a Vahumana student

And how you two met? both of you were assigned as partners for a research project together

Truth to be told, Alhaitham wasn't a fan of working with others

Since he tends to be alone at times and the others don't even dare to come to him, you have no choice but to approach him

He will always be found at the library, burying himself in stacks of books

"Hey.." you greet him, slightly nervous.. putting down your books across him

"Hello." he answered simply, not peeling his eyes a bit from the book he read, you tried again, "so, about the project.. I was hoping you could help me with this.." you push the papers towards him and he glance at it

"well, it's fairly simple.." he starts to explain it to you, to your surprise.. Alhaitham helps you..

Guess that's a false statement about him not wanting to help

Mid way of him explaining, something runs inside your head.. was he always this charismatic..?

Finally snapping out, you then focused on him.. to your enjoyment, he was actually fun to talk with

Fun as in, interesting, he also felt the same, he never talked this much to other people

You two kept going and talked about the project, until it's almost sunset

"Ah.. I have to leave now, thanks for your help" you gave him a smile and he nodded

Alhaitham can't help but freeze a little, your smile.. his chest swells up, making him overwhelmed a bit

Confused, you snapped your fingers in front of him, "uh.. Alhaitham, are you okay..?" you asked, he then got pulled out from his head

He gave you a quick nod, "I'm fine.. and no problem, anytime." he looks at you

You gave him a little wave before walking away

He stayed for a bit before he went back home, his thoughts were racing.. especially his heart..

".. What is this..? I.. want to know about it.."

Hangouts and Realisation

"Something in the way she woos me"

As time passed, not only meeting each other for projects, you two also met casually, like for lunch or have a talk

To his surprised, every minute that he spent with you is like a dream

Talking to people usually wastes his time and energy, but you're an exception

You two are there for each other, even when the two of you are in your thesis defense

It felt like he was completed, his world felt brighter after meeting you

Something about you makes him feel alive..

Your presence is what he's living for :)

As time passes, Alhaitham can't help but.. realised that he had fallen in love with you

He now tries to find ways for the two of you to meet more and more often. Just so he could see you

Even if it's just a small encounter at the hallways of the Akademiya or have lunch together

"Are you free tomorrow? If you are, wanna go to the park in the afternoon?"

Confession

"I don't want to leave her now. You know I believe and how"

One day, he decided to confessed to you

The feeling that swells in his chest is started to feel overwhelmed now

He plans out what he's gonna do, where and what to bring to you

Since you were fine with anything and okay with anything simple, he decided to confess while you two are out on a picnic on the hill near Sumeru City

Since you're free for today, he decided to do it today

When the time comes, he makes sure the scenery is beautiful and the atmosphere is perfect

When you arrived, he was already there waiting for you. Alhaitham had a warm smile on his face ((something he rarely does when seeing people))

The food was already on the blanket with some flowers and books to read.

You smiled at him, and he pat the space beside him, gesturing you to sat beside him, and you did

After having a small chat, he then finally confessed to you. "uhm.. I have something to tell you.." he said and you looked at him, curiosity filled your eyes.

"what is it, Haitham..?" you asked. He took a deep breath and look into your eyes, "..I like you.. really.. even.. it's.. more than that.." he said and she freezed in shock.

Although Alhaitham is prepared if you refused him, but he was caught off guard by your answer, "..I.. I feel the same.." you trailed off

That made him extremely happy, he then take your hand and kissed your palm gently. It made your heart leaped

You're now his girlfriend, and he's your boyfriend. Both of you blushed and spent the rest of the night and the rest of the days together with him

"I'm happy that you also feel the same.. I love you.."

Relationship & Escalation

"You're asking me will my love grow. I don't know, I don't know"

You two are living together now. Having a comfy home for only the two of you

Spending the time together in the midst of the two of you working at the Akademiya

Alhaitham really values his time with you, although you two are aware that you're loving together now

He loves to just hold you. The feel of you in his arms made him happy, and he felt replenished

Always loved it when you gave him small kisses. It makes his heart go fuzzy

That's for when he's your boyfriend, how about when he's now you're husband?? ;)

Ohoho, he became so affectionate after the day you two got married

Nothing much changed, other than he's more touchy and caring for you (in private, of course)

The reality that you're now his forever makes him happy

Time passes, and his love just keeps growing for you

Just seeing you doing your normal things can make him fall in love all over again

He can get dazed just by looking at her. You then looked back at him and he didn't hide the fact that he's staring at you in a loving way

You would chuckle and ask him why is he staring at you

He can't help but kissed your face and peck your lips

You really are the person that he wants to spend until both of you are up in the sky <3

"Nothing.. you're just so beautiful.. my love.."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(I'm back- I'm sorry for being gone for so long.. college hits hard and I always got writers block. I'm trying to write if I have the time.. :) Have a great day!)

[fereldanwench]

a couple weeks ago, i saw a conversation asking if virtual photographers should be called "content creators," and it's a topic that's kind of been rolling around in my brain since i saw it. very raw brain dump under the cut:

the question was framed with the implication that "content creator" is a, idk, like some kind of aspirational, prestigious title, and since it was asked in a vp community, pretty much all the answers were yes. a lot of the reasons for why it should be considered content creation were like it's really hard work (with a fair amount of comments that it's harder work than streaming/making videos (which as someone who has done all of the above, idk if i'd agree with that, but ymmv)), it's an art form, it serves the same function for companies as other "content," etc.

there's a lot to unpack here, and this is just some cursory thoughts so im not gonna touch on all of it, but i just thought it was really interesting how so many people were so adamantly defending the honor of being called a "content creator" because I've long felt like it's a term that devalues creative work.

i'm especially not fond of it fandom spaces because i feel like it puts really weird and harmful expectations on people who make fanworks (either by the community or on themselves) to treat fandom like a side hustle or even a professional venture rather than a hobby. not that there can't be some overlap, especially nowadays, but i'm just very protective of my personal fandom experience being a reprieve from all that nonsense.

and tbh, i feel a little weird when people comment on my stuff and refer to it as "content." it's usually complimentary, which of course i really appreciate (and if you've ever referred to my stuff as "content," it's totally fine, please don't feel bad, especially if you're not a native English speaker--i know the term is ubiquitous in English-speaking social media spaces and these connotations aren't universal even to native English speakers), but i just don't think of anything i make as "content." even when i was a streamer and felt closer to the whole "content creation" mindset, i still always felt kind of disconnected from the term. and the stuff i do for cyberpunk (art, fic, vp, all of it), i would collectively refer to as "fan works," not "content." "fan works" just feels so much warmer and sincere and soulful.

i will say, though, that it's a battle of semantics that i've largely let go, tbh--even I've caught myself on a few occasions using it as a collective term for a creative body of work online--but i just thought it was kind of interesting that my immediate reaction upon seeing that question was "i don't want VPers to be called 'content creators' because i think that cheapens their work" only to see a slew of VPers proudly say YES WE ARE CONTENT CREATORS AND WE DESERVE THAT RECOGNITION.

my perspective, though, is from one as a fan who just wants to make and share stuff for fun and doesn't have any grand professional aspirations with what I'm making. i think the conversation i was reading through was between a lot of people who did have those sorts of aspirations with their virtual photography, which opens up a bunch of other shit that i don't feel like getting into right now bc it's getting late, lmao.

[sirwolficus]

is your venom based on the movies?

HONEST TO GOD, YEAH.... YEAH..........

now ive read a decent amount of the venom comics, before and after the movies came out, and honestly? some of the comics i really do enjoy, especially eddie and the symbiotes dynamic -- but i could never fully get behind it. like, i always felt a bit tense, if that makes sense? didnt ship them much at all, honestly, until the movies came out.

my venom isnt fleshed out enough yet, so im still bouncing around ideas (especially since its been awhile since ive thought about him OOPSIES) but i really like how they are in the movies -- i think i wanna tone down the asshole-ness of eddie (in reference to the movies) but still have him act similarly to people. idk i just feel like he's a bit mean to venom. but then again, i am not trying to house a man-eating alien constantly yelling at me and i do not know what that does to a man. then again i'd probably, like... let him eat people more often than movie!eddie does idk.

i think i'm gonna lean a bit into fanon as inspiration for him, not really for his arcs, though -- a lot of the venom fanfics ive seen have eddie as an incredibly morally grey anti-hero, targetting very vile people while being equally protective of venom as venom to eddie. i usually try to stay away from fanon interferring with my ideas for dynamics/characters (cough FUCK LEOCHI FANDOM cough cough) but in this one case, ive just always been a bit put-off by the meanspiritedness of some of the canon media, soooo..... yeah.

6260!venom is a guy who is scruffy, hungry, doesnt take shit, STARTS a lot of shit, and gets his life ruined by spiderman..... by accident. not like in canon marvel comics, where he was faking photos, i kind of want it to be peter trying to like, stick it to the bugle, or something like that, and eddie ends up suffering for it, theres a whole lesson for peter about the consequences of actions, etc etc... still figuring it out. but i like the idea of venom finding out peters a kid and just immediately backtracking, like, ohhhh shit... oh fuck.... ok so like. ok. still mad at you buddy but wayy less bloodthirsty. you should go home. you should be grounded, actually. im going to GROUND you now. dont care that i dont have the authority.

just a guy doing his best with his life partner alien

[ladytauria]

hey liv sorry in advance i am nosy

🍓🐇🧃🪐🍬🦷🦋🦴🪲

dont be sorry! i enjoy nosy uwu

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?

hmm

i was 12. my favorite tv show at the time was this old disney cartoon, "super robot monkey team hyper force go" (abbreviated as SRMTHFG or SRMTHG. i prefer the first but plenty of people use the second.) it was canceled after its 4th season and, uh. the ending was SO bad. like, major major cliffhanger.

anyway, i was looking up... i don't even remember at the time. and i discovered deviantart, and i discovered this person's OCs. read a lot about them, including some fanfic, and then eventually discovered fanfiction.net

i didn't realize what it was at first; i thought it was just a writing in general site? and i was like oh! i can share the book i'm working on! (i have been trying to write a novel since i was 10). and then as i was looking into where i would post it, i realized what it actually was. (no, the title didn't give it away. idk why.)

so then i was like oh!!! this is really cool actually!!! and i wrote my first fanfic xD

that was in 2011? so i was 12, almost 13.

and i've been reading & writing fic ever since~

🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?

okay so this is a tough question

bc like

i love love love love love second person.

like.

*adore* it.

second person, present tense is my absolute fave, but past tense is good too. (i have written an entire sapphic little mermaid retelling [12k words i think] in second person. uh, it needs revisions but it's a full draft. i opened it it the other day and im still so proud of it uwu)

howEVER. outside of writing second person w/o ever explicitly naming the pov character i have not actually written a reader-insert? so for that reason alone i will have to say 'prefer writing oc's'

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

uhh

hm

i'm a chronic oversharer (mostly in the tags) so that's kind of tough!

ah! since my grandmother's memory issues started, i've been doing about half of the cooking (it's been a bit of a battle, as she keeps trying to do everything xD) and i've cooked a lot of new things this year!! i've gotten very good at cooking pork chops. which 🤔 now that i bring that up, i might make friday! or tonight, but they're still in the freezer, so...

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

my grandmother's memory situation has improved a lot!! it's still not great, but like. strides ahead of where we were 7-8 months ago!

my anxiety has been much kinder to me this year <3 i've made some very lovely friends this year~

mmm, oH, my energy levels have been fantastic this year. i didn't realize just how bad they had gotten until i started these new meds, and now i'm just. <333 much better.

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

hm

idk if i have any unpopular opinions...? i mean. i'm sure i must, but... nothing immediately comes to mind ^^;

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

hmmm

recently been trying to get in the habit of summarizing what i want to do before i start writing. it makes the process much easier, if ik a bit about what i want to do before going in?

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

i am much better at being patient than i ever gave myself credit for in the past <3

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

i can't think of one piece in particular, as the places i find inspiration are. all over the board?

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

picked a wip from my open tabs at random! funnily enough this is also the one i ended up doing for the emoji ask xD

it's also almost triple what this asked for but once i started writing i couldn't stop <3

He swallows, staring up at Tim. Jason has had plenty of practice reading people through a domino, but. He has no reference for the look Tim is giving him now. Only that it— That the feeling it gives him is… is new and strange. He has no name for it, the way his stomach feels fluttery and tight, his scalp and fingers tingling. His mouth opens—but all that escapes is a stuttery puff of air. That’s okay. He doesn’t know what he was going to say anyway. Tim hooks a gloved finger under his chin; tipping his face up. He leans in, slowly—so slow that Jason— There’s nothing keeping him there. He could run. Turn away. But he feels caught, feet anchored in place. Tim’s mouth touches his, and all thought leaves him. Jason has never been kissed before.

[ writers truth or dare ask game ]

[lavender-phannie]

I SEE PEOPLE sharing how they got into the dip and pip phandom and I want to participate

I was first and foremost a pinterest girlie. The typical oh my parents won't let me have any form of social media except pinterest oh oh no boy little did they know all the internet shenanigans ends up there it's objectively the best place to "culture" yourself or "acclimatise" for the internet or something

Like, really, it's all content from all the apps compiled for YOU according to the humour YOU like it's amazing

Anyways going off topic .. I have intense FOMO so I obviously started to educate myself on all things internet

One day whilst idly browsing pinterest I happened on pictures of dnp from a tumblr post I don't remember what the post itself was but probably something phan but I didn't know that at the time and I immediately went and checked who they were because I must know and google said they're two British youtubers people ship together and I said okay cool and just left it at that

A month or two later they happened onto my pinterest again and my brain said hey you've had a pretty well curated for you page all things we like so maybe check em out see how it goes probably something we like so I said ok bet and I did and I watched a video of them I think pinof 4 and I was like okay these guys are super random they're funny but I don't get half the things they reference

But then the youtube gods saw my destiny and said this is your fate child and starting recommending it to me all the time

So I gave in and I watched them and they were amazing, healing and wonderful and they really really helped me

Especially like BIG and dans monologue about gender and sexuality really resonated with me cause I didn't really think about this before but I realised I actually agreed with him that gender is baseless but that rant is for another time

And phil, loveliest dearest funniest phil, whenever I was having a hard time he'd been there cheering me up

If you can't tell I joined the phandom in the cursed covid years I was here for the 2022 phivorce which was objectively hilarious

I know this is incredibly long. Longer than necessary but I've typed it all now and words must not be gone to waste so here you are and here we are

Sending best wishes during these trying times (2 weeks since last upload) (they deserve the break) (I'm clawing at the walls of my enclosure)

Anon i am also going insane and clawing at my walls idk how i survived a 5 year hiatus and the insanity of phannies seeing dan's foot in a video and calling it "joint content" (also don't worry about stuff being long i love reading it!!)

Kinda relate with the pinterst thing except for me it was instagram and i followed dnp accounts that posted stuff from other social media i wasnt allowed to have at the time... people underestimate the importance of instagram and pinterest when it comes to getting people into new fandoms hahah (although i was introduced to dnp through friends but you know what i mean right??)

anyway same same about phil being there to cheer me up when im having a rough time... in 2017 i had a huge dip in my mental health and i literally just watched phil's videos every night to get to sleep lol! I wonder if he knows how infectious his positive energy is?

WHERE WAS I GOING WITH THIS RAMBLE!? anyway yeah throwing my jumble of thoughts at u anon sorry

[yandere-monoma]

good evening it is 4am and i have writer's block so imma reread one of my fave recent fics and reminisce about having the ability to write lmfao

so WHOO, eat your young: director's commentary:

the fuckin song gets stuck in my head every time i read the title HJGKFGS originally i was stuck between this one or another title from aNOTHER song but i forgot what that song was so note to self: edit this post when i remember LOL

lines like these are ones that potentially make me dissociate to reread HAHAHA. i don't even know if it quite portrays the atmosphere i'm usually referencing with lines like these (there's something about the lighting that accompanies irl traumatic memories for me that i always end up focusing on and trying to allude to in writing even when i'm not necessarily trying to project... being drenched in darkness with only one point of light to focus on... @_@) but idk its tasty and i love how i opened this fic teehee

this opening scene is very much a love letter (and quick summary of) all the FUCKIN stridercest fics i've read throughout the years, like one of the many things i love about any darkfic niche part of fandom is that there tends to be these few locations that everyone settles on and obsesses over for their ships. for todocest it's the dojo, for goyuu its the basement, for a lot of stridercest fics it's bro's couch/futon. i wanted something that was quickly recognizable for anyone who also has been reading their way through the tag like i have HJSKFG

one of those teeny tiny lil motifs that i had fun sprinkling in ghsdjfkg very fun to play with homestuck's use of color motifs and what it could provide for dave in this new context. it's also a reference to the epilogues, which i'm more obvious about when i bring the motif back later:

in the epilogues, there's a few moments where john waxes poetic about the slightly unsettling environment of earth c

and the thought of that drove me crazy. earth c and the way it's supposed to represent this unfitting paradise that's just a little bit wrong and a little too perfect and the way that perfection grates at you when you start to notice it. i love the metaphor of paradise being uncomfortable because of all the trauma and grief and fighting that preceded it. rly reminds me of how hard it is irl to adjust to happiness and love and comfort after being abused and hurt for so long 😩😩😩

don't even ask me where the bro drinks hibiki hc came from but it's something i carried over from the brorose pornverse because ~consistency~

nothing to say besides being proud of this LOL

...

...

...

man i have such a love/hate relationship with writing dave dialogue and by that i mean i hate it cuz i never think it's enough LMFAO. i envy anyone who can adopt homestuckian humor and wit easily because i can Not. like i try my best but just know every second i gotta write this idiot talking i'm screaming in agony and bleeding out my ass about it internally JHKFGS

wonder if i'd feel differently if his dialogue was in the pesterchum fonts tho...

CRAZY how much i like that better HAHAHFGKSDFG

one day i'll do a fic where the dialogue is done like the epilogues but until then i suffer and die every time i have to use proper grammar for dave's speech, anyway,

ANYWAY john being a terrible parent is one of the sexiest things that has ever been done with his character i'm so thankful for it godjskfgsdfg and i love thinking about dave's misplaced guilt on the matter. "You want to be on your best friend's side for this, sure, bristling with the instinct to defend him, but you can't commit to it. The sad kid in front of you, put out and missing his father's love, that's who has all your sympathy right now." dave being unable to keep from projecting onto harry from the start, unable to keep from instantly empathizing with the child's point of view in this scenario (partially because he can't unsee himself as anything but an abused child even despite his growing age) and immediately feeling himself distancing emotionally from john at the thought that he could be anything like bro as a guardian.

it's actually a shame i didn't rly get a chance to elaborate on this further because i think there's a lot of fun to be had with thinking about dave's reactions to john's parenting from this point on, like... GOD. when john tried to kidnap tavvy as a kid???????????? feel like that's a fucking GOLD mine of possibly triggering ammo against dave's psyche goddamnit

if harry didn't change the subject here, he would have started bashing john for his drinking habits and canon tendency to traumadump on him while drunk HJSKFG he's made harry incredibly uncomfortable more than a few times doing this and i think it's definitely made an impression on him, but harry decides not to because he doesn't want to do the same thing to dave. he also doesn't want to remind dave that they're doing anything 'bad' here

writing shit like this into a story rly is just for the purpose of practicing interiority in characterization hehe. i feel like it's also a side effect from writing for theatre, trying to mimic as many naturalistic structures of dialogue as possible. fun to fit in tangents that just never really get answered or directly referred to

THE WAY THERE WAS NO ROOM TO TALK ABOUT DAVEJADE FAILED MARRIAGE BUT GOD I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT DAVEJADE FAILED MARRIAGE SO BAAAAAAAD tfw you spend all your free time hanging out with teenagers to avoid having sex with your loving wife

...

this part of the fic is fun because originally this idea came from a discord convo

and it is SO FUCKING FUN to write prose around someone else's dialogue and thoughts 10/10 will recommend

it's especially fun too because all of dave's thoughts and dialogue from around this point on is mostly outlined by my friend, so it was so fun getting to work their insights and characterization into my own interpretation of his character

...

the build-up where dave and harry start snuggling drives me fucking crazy every time like every time i reread this bit i'm always biting on my knuckles and screaming goddamnit goddamnit dirty wrong awful intimacy that suddenly overwhelms you and crushes you and you don't even notice the way you're dissociating from your every action but you aRE

originally this paragraph was also supposed to have a davejade mention but i just couldn't figure out how to make the thought flow well with everything else. originally there was supposed to be something about the way he always shrinks away from jade's touches, how they always make him feel worse and feel colder than he did before she'd tried, but yeah... didnt fit... and ultimately i think the fic is stronger as is. jade being an afterthought that only vaguely gets talked around feels very ic for candy dave anyway HJGFK and rly everything that he feels towards her is more just a side effect of everything he's suffered by bro's hands. no need to focus on his discomfort about jade when his discomfort about harry is more than enough

that being said every time i remember everything i had to omit i WAAAAAAIL

"Syrup clogs your throat. Your throat burns dully, your tongue feeling heavy with that leftover numbing weight of sugar and liquor." lines i cant reread without rly badly craving booze

literally the biggest challenge of this fic was the fact that its secretly a johndave/daveroxy/daverose fic HAHAHGFJG like trying to balance the fact that one of dave's biggest driving forces when it comes to his attraction to harry is that he's just been hosting a million and one ultimately unrequited crushes all his life that he's now projecting forward and trying to showcase that without drawing tOOOOOOOO much attention away from the other main driving force (brodirk and the incest fetish he'd instilled in him)... so sooo hard to balance but i like to think i did a decent job

'let him escape this feeling like he might still be a good person' is such a fucking good line/thought/sentiment that i'm so upset i had no room for cuz it's so good HJGKFSGS who knows maybe one day i'll be able to figure out a way to squeeeeeeze it into an edit cuz god knows i still tweak this and all my fics every now and then

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 i love this part... go off past ricky... do find it funny tho that i was ~vibing~ so hard with the prose that i forgot dave's canon ages just a tad HAHA shhhh

these are some of my favorite kisses i've ever written goddamnit

literally the funniest and most inspiring words my writing partner has ever said like LEGEND... it was this phrase specifically that made me drop everything and start writing this fic cuz i KNEW i needed to slap that onto the summary pls JGKLFSG

(Did you ever have a chance? Did he?)

i feel obligated to speak on this line because it's like. one of the huge major themes of the fic HJSKDFGSFG the inevitability of dave continuing a cycle that he's been trying to avoid. really, what can i say, though. this fic follows a timeline that's alluded to but still has yet to be written out (and who knows if i ever actually will write it out, i'm kinda just updating this fic series based on impulses) where dave moves on to project all his trauma with bro onto dirk after they win the game. i love the thought of them trying their best to keep up the brother routine before dave's need to retraumatize himself and dirk's own fucked up inclinations results in them becoming sexually involved. like, honestly, i could go on forever about dirkdave and the ways they make each other better and worse but yeah. the second dave gave into that self destructive urge, he was done. and it's something that bled into his marriage, that bled into his inability to rly engage with karkat, that fed on his ability to be his own person and work on his own recovery. dirk died and the universe went stagnant and with it, dave's ability to grow out of the mold he was forced into by bro

so yeah. he's already at this huge disadvantage. and while this fic focuses on dave's perspective, there's a lot to be said about harry's mindset as well. the way he's egging this on, the way he's encouraging it, the way he's trying to poke into any sort of vulnerability that dave may or may not have. the way he wouldnt quite have the words to pinpoint and identify shit like emotional incest or grooming but he can see that there's something wrong and exciting about what they're doing that he wants to take part in. being set up to failure because of john's neglect, already thinking he's more mature than he is because of it, perhaps knowing just a bit too much about romance and sex because of whatever weirdass confessions about his own relationships john had unwittingly given him. not to mention his feelings for dave and the way he makes him feel like they're equals and the way he gets attention and affection freely from him without really having to fuss and fight for it like he does with vrissy.

so yeah. these two were doomed from the start 😌💙

'That saccharine sear of shame that washes over you then only makes it worse. You can’t fucking believe you’re popping a boner ten seconds into a make-out session.'

so like, i wrote this before getting deep into the show succession and thank god cuz this def would have turned into a ramble about how dave probably was completely unable to get it up during sex with jade. that absolutely was the case because i like to think that dave really is just hardwired into having rly bad sexual hang-ups where his body is just so conditioned to react to a lack of consent and boundaries and an abundance of incest but now thanks to my intimate knowledge of roman roy i also know now that dave occasionally (frequently) has rly bad erectile dysfunction in the face of anything '''healthy'''. thanks a lot succ

this isn't where the wordplay starts but it's where a good amount of it is HJGKFG i feel like 'bro' is a silly word to use in big deep serious prose sometimes HAHAH so my reluctance to use it here is part of why this wordplay started but the other reason is because i have a BIG stylistic thing(tm) about playing with pronouns and names and what omitting them can do for the narrative. blurring bro and dirk by refusing to name them but letting their actions speak for which splinter is being referred to was a very fun experiment (though, perhaps less successful than other iterations of mine where i did this same sort of pronoun play... OH WELL they cant all be perfect)

mentally dave switches from aggressor to aggressor. this possessive need to destroy harry starts to bleed in, inspired by bro and what he'd done to dave and what he'd taught him of sexuality and domination. a part of him resists that, reminding him of the terrifying impact of it all, the horror of initiating and acting on a fucked up desire, and then he switches to dirk, projecting that forward instead. dirk, who he is currently choosing to see more as a victim, who was just trying to help dave as he pushed and pushed at him. it's simultaneously a moment where he can start to blame harry just a little bit about what's happening instead of himself (because harry keeps pushing, he keeps begging to do this, he thinks it's what he wants and dave is just helping him because he doesn't feel he has a choice) and it's a moment where he finally puts himself in dirk's shoes and realizes (fears) that maybe dirk didn't want this as much as he might have acted. that dirk had likely gone through a similar internal conflict that started to kill him inside.

'Jade tries, but something about her touch disgusted you.' IT WAS SUCH A STRUGGLE TO FINALLY MENTION HER LMFAOHSDJFKG such a relief... altho the line after this one rly kicked my ass i could not figure it out for the longest time hjskdfgsg jadey i love you im so sorry

this was an interesting divulgence from the original thought:

which i couldnt rly fit in especially with how balls deep we're into dave's thoughts at the moment but i love it

this line is so stupid HAHAJFGSFG its so funny to me. its a shoutout to me realizing halfway through the initial outline that they're actually half brothers instead of JUST uncle/nephew AND it's a reference to this specific incest joke in the epilogues

(the way harry is there to witness this moment and also say the word incest right after dave... a ship made for mE)

i love this sequence so much i'm so proud of it like FUCK

some of my friends have started to use this line as a copypasta now and it cracks me the FUCK up every time they do HJSKFDGSDF

generally, whenever i write stream of consciousness fics, i'm always building up and waiting for the moment where the stream suddenly goes off track. there's always gonna be a super fun part where i get to just ramble out a bunch of run-on sentences and hopefully even format them in a fun absolutely-inspired-by-poetry way. and i can't stress enough how fucking SATISFYING it is to get there and have it come out (almost) exactly how you thought it would whee

THOUGHTS THAT GOT LOST BUT GOD HARRY CRACKS ME UP... and i love that part of john's personality... and i love the way it unknowingly grates on dave hjsdfg he definitely has a very clear image of victimhood and the way harry doesn't fit into that mold drives him fucking crazy.

one of my favorite parts of dave's unreliable narration, him projecting onto dirk because of his own guilt. it's the only way he can really bring himself to admit that, in that moment, after everything he's done, he's immediately feeling suicidal and bereft with his guilt on the whole situation.

i mention this in a comment as well but i love to think about ult dirk and dirk's internal corruption of his own character. i think it's a fun chicken or the egg scenario, trying to decide if dirk was still himself when he allowed dave to seduce him into this, if dirk's guilt helped guide him into his eventual instability, or if that instability is what lead to him acting on his incestuous urges. did his actions lead to him being labeled a villain, or did he decide to prove his villainy by lashing out?

and it is VERY fun to have this be something dave had done, knowing that in the future, he will be guided into his own metaphorical and literal suicide, abandoning a life he's more than ready to run away from =u= and the cycle continues nyehehe

final thoughts that may or may not be used in a future fic (i'm the black):

what the hell is wrong with harry in d e e d... stares at john

[shreya11111]

Shows are not meant to be analyzed deeply and picked apart from every angle with every micro expression studied for some hidden meaning, that’s the tumblrification of media and ultimately bad media literacy. If the audience can’t figure out something just by following along and watching a show’s twist and turns, then it’s bad writing. So I’m sorry to say that Byler can’t happen because it would be fanservice for the very online and the toxic gay nerds who think they know better than the rest of us just because some (usually creepy) “media scholar” tells them the color of Mike’s pants actually means Byler will happen on the summer solstice if you look close. Mike and El are obviously endgame because that’s the story the show is plainly telling 🤷‍♀️

media literacy is…

according to https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/what-media-literacy-definitionand-more

what we bylers do when we analyze stranger things as a show isn’t something new. a lot of us have been part of fandoms where this has been done several times, or we just naturally do it as a part of our media consumption. it isn’t just restricted to tumblr, so idk where you’re getting that from. @naturallybrielle literally has a tiktok account where she makes analysis videos so…

there are also accounts like @causeineedu and @/girlskth that make analysis videos on tiktok on this topic.

how is it bad media literacy to a) do exactly what the definition of media literacy is and b) analyze a show that is clearly meant to be analyzed?

and before you come saying that “it’s not that deep” or that “the duffers wouldn’t put this much effort into the details” i would like to direct you to this tweet:

the duffers themselves have said many times before that they put care into the details of this show. so why are we so wrong to analyze? they clearly want us to.

the fact that noah schnapp confirmed that they’ve been building up will’s feelings for mike since SEASON 1 should tell you this much.

besides, a lot of the analyses and theories i’ve seen in the byler fandom make tons of sense. it’s literally the reason why the byler community has grown so much. and this is coming from someone who used to ship midleven immediately post season 3, but stopped early 2020 (i think?) due to the anti-midleven analyses i read which made so much sense. mike and el are simply not a good couple. they would be so much better off as platonic friends.

also going back to the part about the analyzing of facial expressions - i’m assuming you primarily mean mike’s facial expressions. you see, the thing is that we, as an audience, do not have direct access to mike wheeler’s thoughts. we don’t know what’s going on inside that very complex mind of his. the only thing we have left to rely on are his facial expressions, body language and general actions. we don’t have much other choice BUT to analyze those aspects of him. and when we realize that mike’s actions directly contradict with his facial expressions/tone of voice/just the subtext in general, then what conclusion are we supposed to draw other than him not being genuine?

you also oversimplify the analyses we do in this fandom. it goes deeper than just the color of mike’s pants or whatever. yes, we may bring up color coding when it comes to mike and will but it’s not just some random color is it? it’s typically blue and yellow in reference to the “blue and yellow meets in the west” theory. which, if you actually paid attention to the show, you’d see that it makes sense. there are MULTIPLE times throughout this show (and especially in season 4) where mike and will have been color coded blue and yellow respectively.

aside from color coding, we also look very very deep into the characters, into the overall narrative, into the parallels/foreshadowing/subtext. we spend a lot of time actually trying to unravel what the duffers are trying to say with this story - which btw is completely valid. just like any other form of art that tends to be analyzed, analyzing stranger things (a tv show which is another form of art) makes complete sense.

and come on now, if you think that midleven is endgame because that’s what “the story of the show is plainly telling” then i’d seriously like you to rewatch the show, but this time with no inherent biases and with an open-mind.

in conclusion, byler is endgame and byler nation will never stop analyzing and having fun.