#if not for themselves definitely for the other

[coldabest]

No literally. Some people genuinely suck at communicating their feelings and tend to leave signs of distress instead, hoping someone, ANYONE will pick up on them.

In the words of my Creative Writing teacher, people with big brains, (or smart people), will look at the big picture instead of assuming the worst or best. Well, why do they not communicate? Perhaps they seek your validation, and whatever they want to communicate about may be met with your rejection instead. Why do they suck at communication? Maybe because their parents didn't bother teaching them or leading by example. Plus, again. If someone is seeking your validation, they will stop at nothing to prevent rejection. I would know, I've been there before.

My parents examples genuinely suck. They never ask for help even when they absolutely need it, they don't communicate their feelings and break down by themselves instead and brush it off if someone sees them, they pretend to be nice infront of people even if they don't like them, ect.

And guess who it transfers to? Me. The oldest of two who basically grew up with them. "why don't you ask for help?" maybe because you didn't and I'm following YOUR example. This applies to other people in your life. If you do something, they're more likely to do it too. Lead. By. Example. Do not lead by word.

Edit: complaining does count as leading by word. Telling someone they suck at something, or complaining that they don't communicate will not change anything. Plus, complaining instead of talking to them is also not communicating. Complaining about a lack of communication while actively not taking the action to talk to someone is textbook definition contradicting yourself.

(I love your post btw op)

"Why didn't they just communicate?? They're so stupid!" Have you considered that communicating with someone you love and value and don't want to hurt is scary and that vulnerability takes practice and that perfect characters with perfect words make the most boring stories of all

[fivestaralien]

caddy princess

-> minygu x gn!reader

warnings+”: fluff!!, suggestive, reader is depicted as smaller than mingyu, reader and mingyu can not keep their hands to themselves, many golf references that I could not care less to double check if they made sense or not, pls don't ask me the color of his shirt word count: 1787 notes ִֶָ ࣪˖ mingyu on my mind. lmk what you think of this one!!! reblogs and comments help the most!! I had fun writing for him and tbh I find people that play golf vv attractive but I also think its one of the most BORING sports to watch. its a love hate relationship. anywayyyy, stay safe and be gentle with yourselves<3

//

It’s too early in the morning and your brain is a little fuzzy. You agreed a few days ago to join Mingyu in a game of golf and you were seriously regretting it. You should've double checked the time you’d be going. Though you don’t want to miss the chance to ogle him while he plays. 

 Your eyes follow Mingyu's tall figure as he walks back and forth between the bathroom and bedroom closet. He is rambling about something that happened at work the other day but all you could focus on was the rippling muscles of his back and arms. The golf shirt he throws on hugs his body so well you have no clue how you were going to survive this outing. 

 “.. And then.. hey, are you even listening?” Mingyu pouts after seeing how out of it you look. 

 You hum in acknowledgement but you were still staring at his arms. He rolls his eyes with a smirk, continuing to put his belt on as he walks over to you. You are laying on your side with your head resting on your palm. Your eyes shift up to follow his movements and eventually meet his gaze. 

 “You with me?” Mingyu squats down so you wouldn't strain your neck and rests a hand on your waist. 

 “Yeah sorry, it’s just way too early for you to be looking this attractive.” You mumble shyly, tracing a finger along the contours of his arm muscle. 

 “You’re gonna be a problem today aren't you?” 

 You then squeeze his bicep, “ no idea what you’re talking about.” the corner of your mouth lifts up a little. 

 “We have to leave soon so get up and get dressed honey.” He tells you then kisses the crown of your head. 

 Mingyu has never seen you fawn this hard so obviously over him. Usually it’s the other way around so he was definitely going to be savoring this for a long time. You shove yourself into your pillow, groaning about how you just want to sleep. He laughs, kissing the back of your head before getting up. 

 You follow him into the kitchen after you finish getting dressed and watch from the countertop as he makes snacks for in between holes. He would occasionally bring a few pieces of food up to your mouth for you to eat, which you accept with a smile. When he finished packing it all up you hop off the counter and then help him bring stuff out to the car. He takes to heavier things, like his clubs and a mini cooler filled with ice and water, while you carry the bag of food. 

 Mingyu pulls out of the driveway not long after and the drive to the golf course is peaceful, causing you to go back into that sleepy state. You look over at him, his wrist casually resting on the gearshift, veins branching their way up his forearm from his hand and the hat he put on at the last second leading the focus to his crazy sharp jawline. You barely think as you reach over and run your fingers along the outline of it. 

 “Thank you for coming with me.” Mingyu's voice is still deep from waking up, snapping you from your trance. 

 “Of course,” you squeeze his wrist, “ I love spending time with you and watching you play golf is a huge bonus.” 

 You go back to tracing his veins as his laugh fills the car. Just as you arrive at the course parking lot, the sun peeks over the mountains, casting  various pinks and reds to fill the horizon. You lean on your knees to get a better look and take your phone out to take a picture. 

 “Okay I see why you do this so early. It’s so pretty.” 

 “Seeing you all pouty in the morning is way prettier.” Mingyu leans over the console and kisses your warm cheek. 

 You smile down at your phone to try and hide how much his words affect you but of course he couldn’t let you be shy in peace. He pinches your cheek lovingly while cooing affectionate words in that soft high pitched voice he knows gets you to crumble. 

 “Stop it.” You whine and push him away. 

 “What? Only you are allowed to openly obsess over your partner?” 

 “No.. but.. whatever, shut up.” 

 You turn your head away, face on fire and look back towards the sunrise. Mingyu kisses your cheek a few times then leaves to go into the main building to pay for a golf cart. He opens your door when he comes back and the both of you, after gathering all of your things, begin walking towards where they keep them. 

  Once again you are drooling over his arms. You watch the way his muscles ripple as he lifts his golf bag into the storage compartment attached to the back causing you to swallow hard. Next he lifts the cooler and bag of food into the back seats. The golden sunlight is hitting him perfectly, it takes everything in you not to pounce on him. 

 Mingyu clears his throat, your face flaming hot at getting caught, “don’t.” you warn. 

 He smiles wide and kisses you softly then pats your hip, signalling to get into the golf cart. The first few holes you just sit and watch with casual conversation in between. He is teeing up on the 4th hole when your stomach starts to grumble. You wait until he takes the shot before asking if he was ready for a snack or water. Mingyu nods and tells you which one to get out for him. 

 “Honey, why don’t you hit one?”

 “And completely embarrass myself in front of my hot, insanely talented boyfriend? No thanks.” 

 You bite into your snack. Mingyu grabs your calves after sitting back down, laying them across his thighs and takes his snack and water from your waiting hand. 

 “Would it be more enticing if I said I would help you.” He questions and you tap your chin as if you were contemplating hard.  

 Mingyu continues, “I mean think about it. You wouldn’t really need to do anything,” his fingers begin tracing along your soft skin, " I'd be right behind you, guiding you to hit it right.” 

 Just the thought of his giant arms around you, even if it’s just for a game, had you nodding frantically before he could get another word out. The triumphant smile on his face makes your heart flutter and you lean over a little and kiss him. 

 “Only one hit though.” You tell him after pulling away. 

 You never had an interest to play before so having you finally say yes meant the world to Mingyu. He agrees with the same smile still on his face. You both finish your snacks and then continue down the fairway to where his ball landed. 

 Your eyes fall back to Mingyu's biceps then trail down to the way his hands grip the club as he goes to hit the ball again. If your phone could track the hours you stare at Mingyu like it does screen time, it would malfunction and overheat. Not a second goes by where you aren’t gazing at him in some way. He finished the hole with a birdie and you were making your way to the next one. 

 “Alright baby, you’re up.” Mingyu pats your thigh. 

 He sets up your golf ball and motions for you to come and stand right in front of him. A golf club is placed in your hands as he encases your body with his own. He guides your hands into the right position and leans your upper body forward a bit. You can’t help but swallow hard when Mingyu rests his head on your shoulder, pushing himself closer against your back. 

 “Spread your legs a little bit and bend your elbows like this,” his hands come up just under your elbows to move your arms, “make sure to bend your knees too.” 

 You try your best to follow along with his touch and words but it is all too distracting. Whether he was doing it on purpose or not, you needed to sit down. Your knees nearly give out when his lips graze from your neck up to your ear. 

 “Straighten your back.” He whispers. 

 Your face is on fire as you do it and you don’t even process it when Mingyu raises the club and hits the ball for you, hands pressing yours firmly to stay in position. He leaves a few lingering kisses on your cheek, praising you for a good hit even though you didn’t do a single thing.  As you sit back in the passenger's seat, you do everything except look at Mingyu. 

 The smirk on his face is telling enough that he was enjoying this which only made your blush deepen. Luckily he doesn’t press you to do it again and you continue to watch him play. By the end of the hole you were so hot and bothered you couldn’t talk without choking on your words. 

 Mingyu happily places a hand on your thigh, kneading very sensually as he drives to the next hole. To his surprise you take his hand off and place it back on his lap. When he does it again and you repeat your previous action he can’t help the challenge right in front of him. Instead of trying a third time he rests his arm behind your shoulders on the seat. His fingers trace patterns along your shoulder and the back of your neck making goosebumps scatter across your skin. You lean forward but his hand comes to lightly grasp your shoulder. 

 “Come on honey. Are you scared you won’t be able to stop yourself if I keep touching you?” You almost scoff but he wasn’t wrong so you just turn your head away from him.

 “Can you at least look at me?” He pouts. 

 You let out a big sigh and reluctantly meet his eyes. The smile on his face makes you want to smack it off, knowing he is going to use this situation against you whenever he sees fit. He had stopped the cart a while ago so it didn’t scare you when he took your face in both his hands and kissed you deeply. 

  “Can you be good until we get home?” Mingyu asks, his voice deep.

 “I think I should be asking you that.” You quip back and he laughs against your lips. 

 Mingyu took his sweet time finishing his game and by the last hole you threatened to leave him here if he didn’t hurry up. You couldn’t even make it out of the parking lot.

// main masterlist , find more fics of seventeen here

[starsinthesky5]

is miss yail reader miss possessive????

(pls answer as a blurb of her being possessive)

───────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆───────

she doesn’t think she is. really, she doesn’t. she’s not the jealous type because she knows exactly who joe comes home to, she trusts him completely and knows without a doubt that joe only has eyes for her.

but that doesn’t mean she likes sharing.

and tonight? tonight was testing her patience.

they were attending a gala/fundraiser for one of the brand partners joe was working with this year, and she had been perfectly content hanging off his arm, sipping her rosé, making small talk with the right people, just being there to support her man while the spotlight was off of her for a bit.

until she showed up.

some woman--tall, gorgeous, clearly interested, wearing that little red dress that caught everyone's eyes--shuffled over to joe, placing a hand on his arm like she had any right to touch him, and started laughing like the joker at every single thing he said. she was practically undressing him with those icy eyes.

what a stupid move to make while his girlfriend was right next to him.

disgusting.

and joe, bless his oblivious heart, just gave her one of those polite little smiles, nodding along as she talked to him and the group you both were standing with.

her grip tightens around her glass when she notices how the woman is gripping his shoulder, digging her ruby nails into the shoulder that was meant for her to lean her cheek on as she laughed at something silly joe whispered to her.

she isn’t mad at him, not really. it’s not his fault he’s so fucking pretty--so stupidly, irresistibly attractive that women throw themselves at him even when she’s standing right there.

but she is so not in the mood for this tonight.

"look at the floor or ceiling...or anyone else you're feeling. i don't care, take home whoever walks in. just keep your eyes off him, bitch," she thought, feeling her cheeks burn from jealousy.

she sets her drink down, smooths out the skirt of her dress, and slides up next to joe, slipping an arm around his waist like it’s second nature. her other hand--her claiming hand--lands firmly on his chest.

joe doesn’t flinch, but she feels the way his muscles tense under her touch.

good.

his attention changes immediately, those baby blue eyes flicking down to hers, and she can see it--the realization. the amusement. the smirk that threatens to pull at his lips because he knows how she's feeling.

but he hasn’t said anything yet. instead, he lets her do what she does best.

she turns to the woman, finally acknowledging her, her smile faker than that knock-off chanel bag the woman had looped around her arm. "hi," she says smoothly, tilting her head just enough to be borderline condescending. "i don’t think we’ve met,".

the girl blinks, seemingly thrown off by the sudden shift in energy. she stammers out her name, something forgettable, before gesturing toward joe. "i was just telling joe how—,".

she doesn’t even let her finish.

"joeyyy," she purrs, drawing his name out like dripping honey, her fingers trailing gently over the fabric of his shirt. she tilts her head up, eyes locked onto his. "aren’t you so tired of talking?".

and joe just dares to grin. "you trying to get me out of here," he laughs before dipping his head down to her ear, his voice a whisper as his breath heats up her skin, "miss possessive?".

"pretty girl has to learn her lesson, baby," she winked, sliding her hand further up his chest to his face. her baby pink nails running across his stubbly chin as she looks back at the woman who looked like she'd just seen a ghost.

the woman awkwardly clears her throat. "well, um—,".

but she's already tugging joe away, her grip on him firm, definitive. and he lets her, of course, because that’s what he always does.

the second they’re just barely out of reach, he leans down, murmuring, "you know I wasn’t interested, right?".

she doesn’t answer him right away. instead, she keeps walking, leading him through the crowd with a confident posture that makes joe smirk. she only stops when they’re in a quieter corner of the venue, away from prying eyes and nosy ears. she turns to face him, her eyes flashing with something dangerous, something possessive. her finger latches onto the fabric of his shirt, gripping it tight as she looks up at him.

"i know," she finally says, voice sweet but laced with something else. "but that doesn’t mean i have to like it when some desperate woman throws herself at you like i’m not standing right there,".

joe lets out a small laugh, his hands settling on her hips, thumbs brushing over the silky material of her midnight-blue dress.

"you know you’re the only one for me, right?" he asks, voice dropping an octave, his forehead pressing against hers.

she lets out a content sigh, tension slowly bleeding out of her shoulders. "yeah," she breathes. "but that doesn’t mean i’m gonna let anyone think they even have a chance," her nails scrape lightly against his chest, her body pressing just a little bit closer to his.

joe grins. "mm. miss possessive, indeed,".

she narrows her eyes at him, but before she can say anything, his hands slide down to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him.

"i like it, though," he murmurs, his lips brushing against her ear. "i like when you get all clingy. when you remind everyone i’m yours...when you do more than just wear that necklace with my initial on it,".

her breath catches in her throat, fingers tightening on his shirt.

"damn right, you are," she whispers back, shifting her head up to capture his lips in a slow kiss.

it’s not rushed, not frantic. it’s a statement--a declaration that she doesn’t need words for. he is her's, and he loves every second of it.

when she finally pulls back, joe’s eyes are dark, filled with something heated, something that tells her they won’t be staying at this event for much longer.

"so," he says, thumb brushing over her cheek, "you ready to get out of here? or do you wanna go back and stake your claim some more?".

she smirks, reaching up to straighten his tie. "oh, i think she got the message," she hums. "but just in case…,".

she presses another kiss to his lips; hot, sloppy, pulling his bottom lip, and so intoxicating, before pulling away with a smug glint in her eyes.

joe just shakes his head as he laces his fingers through hers, already leading her toward the exit.

"yeah, definitely not staying much longer,".

[apatheticsunday]

Idk, but I literally can't stop thinking about this lol

Like imagine Danny thrown into Gotham because of something-something-portal-shenanigans and suddenly he's a kid on the streets of Crime Alley. And there's this dude who's definitely half-dead running around shooting bad guys' kneecaps and gesturing threateningly with his gun to a particularly bat-shaped shadow while shouting about something. Whatever, Danny's not one to judge.

None of the other Crime Alley residents seem to care, either, just muttering amongst themselves: "Hood's at it with the Bat again?" "Yeah." "That's like the third time this week." "Apparently Hood didn't go to family dinner again." "Yeah, that'll do it."

Anyway, Danny tries to stay under the radar because clearly he's in another Haunt but it's kind of difficult when there's rumors of a new homeless kid who floats when he walks and can fly through walls.

So, yeah, Red Hood hears about this ghost kid and thinks, what the hell. Might as well figure out if he can help Danny "move on" or whatever. Maybe because Crime Alley is his territory and maybe, just a little bit, because Jason understands how how terrifying it is to die young and alone.

Danny suddenly bumps into the half-dead helmet guy everywhere. At the library? Helmet Guy is there speaking with a redheaded woman in a wheelchair. Danny's (kind of) shoplifting some food from the gas-station? Helmet Guy is violently telling off a robber (ironic, considering Danny is also technically robbing, sans the gun and ski mask).

He's literally so done when he flies through the roof of an abandoned building he found and sees Helmet Guy! Sitting on the ledge of his abandoned building! It's his favorite because of the super old gargoyle statue, how could he not like it, c'mon! (It's also Jason's favorite, although he'd never admit it's because it reminds him of hiding beneath Batman's cape on a similar ledge so many years ago.)

The secret's out so Danny - who's had his fair share of being hunted and stalked, was thrown head-first into a reality where he doesn't even know if he exists - just snaps, "What do you want from me?? Are you a freakin' creep?? Why can't you just leave me alone??" Because he's literally a kid. He's tired, scared, alone, and hungry. He misses his parents, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker.

And Jason... kinda sucks at the whole "comforting a ghost kid" thing. He's an angry something-year-old with serious daddy issues, he's defensive and what he says comes out with biting sarcasm or spiteful rage half the time. He still makes disturbing comments ("Remember that time you left me to fucking die? I think I can have the last cookie, old man.") to Bruce just so that he can watch the twinge of grief-guilt-pain in his expression because the resentment never fully went away. How is he supposed to talk to this kid?

He does, though. Tries to talk about how he understands because he died, too, and it was terrible. It was painful, scary, lonely, he felt betrayed by the people he loved - the people who swore to protect him. And it works! Of course, Jason doesn't know that talking about a ghost's death is very, very personal and basically akin to drunk girls sobbing in a bar bathroom together. That's basically a lifetime bonding experience right there.

Danny is horrified because holy Hells, this guy's pre-ghost life sucked. What kind of sicko beats a kid to death with a crowbar? But also -

"You actually got a grave?"

"Why? You want one?"

Yes. Yes, he does. He never did get a proper burial; his family never knew he died, so nobody grieved him. Nobody decorated his headstone with flowers, nobody whispered about missing him, and his Ghost feels that - absence, I guess. Even if Danny is technically still in "his" body, the body he was born with died.

And Jason's like, this is it! This is what'll make the ghost kid move on! (Tbh, this feels like fairly reasonable request. Jason half expected needing to hunt down and kill a couple people.)

Cue Jason in Central Park or something because Danny's like, "You can kind of see the stars through the smog over here!" Just. Digging a kid's grave. It's a little disturbing, but it's actually crime-free (not a lot of gas-stations for Joker's cronies to rob). And, hey, if Jason squints, he really can kind of see the stars. As long as the kid's happy.

And Danny is!! Because he has his own grave, just for him, and his Ghost finally settles for the first time since being thrown into this smog-filled city where he can't see the stars (he lied earlier, he was pointing to satellites, but it made Jason smile so he didn't correct himself). And as Jason gently puts a couple of pretty rocks they stole from the vicious geese at the Park's pond at the head of his grave, Danny thinks maybe everything's not so terrible.

(Several moments later, Jason asks, "So is this it?"

Danny's like, "What?"

"Are you moving on?"

"What."

"I thought you'd, y'know, feel complete. Move on or whatever?"

"I mean maybe for a full ghost, but I'm a half-ghost so I'm technically still human. It's nice to have a grave, though."

"You're human??")

Commence my Jason-adopts-Danny HC!!

Something something Danny learns that Jason died and crawled out of his own grave.

Danny, to Jason: You actually got a grave?

Jason: Why? You want one?

He doesn’t notice how this could potentially sound like a threat from an outsider’s perspective.

[bubbleddisasters]

Ok so with the New Yuu being revealed to be alot like Kalim, basically Jamils opposite (while also being an actress, and as we know Jamil is acting during almost the entirety of Book 4 so this matches up well) this proves that the Yuus are the opposite or parallel their respective overblotter in some way.

Idias will probably be some very cheery/Maybe Anxious otaku +robots nerd whos lost alot of people in their life in gruesome or depressing ways but has learned to accept it and continue marching on.

Or to strike the gut, a younger kid who looks like (minus the fire) and acts exactly like Ortho.

Malleus’s might be someone who has a naturally spooky appearance/ was very lonely in their homeworld, and now (as we would’ve reached book7) has an absurd amount of friends, yet still is thinking about going home because their close with their parents./ Or their parents/guardian were close to passing when they left and they want to say goodbye.

So whats Vils gonna be? Because my first thoughts was a Yuu that Really Fucking Ugly, messy, silly and imperfect whilst very self actualized and confident in themselves + really beloved by everyone anyway, and because at this point in time they would have been seen as a hero for solving 4 overblots, Vil would probably be super annoyed at how much attention and praise they receive by just doing good deeds.

My other thought was a carbon copy of Neige, but that would be a bit basic. Unfortunately I can definitely see them going that route.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Aaaaa Yuuna is so cuuutee 💗😆 Her hair is so prettyyy. But with the addition of the new Yuu I’ve come up with a theory that with the pattern the mangas have taken so far, they’ll start switching back and fourth between male and female yuus for the rest of the dorms:

Heartslabyul - Yuuken (Male)

Savanaclaw - Yuuka (Female)

Octavinelle - Yuuta (Male)

Scarabia - Yuuna (Female)

Pomefiore - Male

Ignihyde - Female

Diasomnia - Male

Just something I came up with that i wanted to share with you ^^ Also who is the manga artist for Scarabia 🤔

[Referencing the Episode of Scarabia!]

Lots of Yuuna-related asks recently (and for good reason!) so I decided to lump them all into one post :DD

Yes, Yuuna is very cute~ The alternating genders of the manga!Yuus has actually been a pretty popular theory for a while now, actually! Some believe this is meant to be the Yuus having the opposite genders as the Great Seven member of their respective books/dorms. But yeah, the pattern seems likely at this point.

The mangaka for the Episode of Scarabia is Majiko-sensei! They have previously contributed a chapter to the manga anthology. You can read more about their past works here.

I'm not sure if "[taking] care of [one's] appearance" is the right phrase to use (as it unintentionally implies other Yuus are slobs/don't care about how they present themselves, when that's definitely not the case)? Maybe it would be more accurate to say, "Yuuna has stereotypically feminine aesthetic tastes", though it's more immature and preppy than Vil's is. I think Yuuna has a cuteness that's more characteristic of Cater than Vil--but all three of them definitely have overlap in their interests in makeup, fashion, social media, etc. I feel like Yuuna would get along with them both!! We do technically see her interacting with Cater (they take a selfie before he departs for winter break) and are assumed to have already known each other due to the events of books 1 and 2. Too bad we don't really get to see them interact in those books... and that we won't see Yuuna interact with Vil for the Episode of Pomefiore. We'll have a new Yuu by then (which gets into my disappointment with never being able to fully follow a single manga!Yuu and their character arc through to the end of the main story...)💦

Yeah, it's nice to have variety in the manga!Yuus' personalities, skillsets, and interests! ^^ It makes them a lot of fun to follow, even if we know they'll only be with us for the length of one book/dorm.

I've personally really been loving Yuuta and Yuuna a lot. Yuuken and Yuuka are also nice, but I find that their general characters are kind of similar (athletic and level-headed) and don't differ enough to result in interactions unique from game!Yuu (with perhaps the exception of them being able to physically contribute to battles). This is not true of Yuuta and Yuuna, whose abilities extend to other areas and therefore have a larger impact on the world and its characters. For example, Yuuta's love of food + cooking skill has him shouting at Grim sometimes for not appreciating food, but it also becomes excellent leverage for sleeping over at Savanaclaw later in book 3. You can also see how Yuuna's outgoing personality would draw people to her and allow her to make connections.

The manga!Yuus also speak to the diversity of Yuus we see in the fandom. I know a lot of us were waiting for a girl Yuu (which we got with Yuuka), a Yuu of different body type (which we got with Yuuta), and a very femme presenting Yuu (which we got with Yuuna). Yuuken is also great because he was the first Yuu we got that actually had the ability and the confidence in his fighting capabilities to charge head-on into an OB fight.

As I state in my pinned post, manga raws generally come from Monthy GFantasy, which publishes new chapters of the Twst manga online each month. You must PAY to access those raws.

In the case of the Episode of Scarabia, the full first volume was released in today. It is avaliable on Kindle through the Amazon JP store. This is still something you would need to PAY for if you're interested in seeing the full thing right away.

I cannot provide full chapters to the public, as this is paid content that I receive from my own friends who subscribe to GFantasy and/or who bought the first volume of Scarabia on Kindle. You can make your own decision whether or not you wish to purchase for yourself; however, there is most likely a scanlation team that will put out an English version sooner or later. Again though, this would surely take some time to get done, especially when there's 4 chapters of Scarabia to translate.

[coldsaturn]

hiii! i have a question i thought you might be able to answer: how did aftg originally get so popular? i know it was mostly word of mouth on tumblr (still is, i think) (who says this website is unmarketable!!) but what were the early days of the fandom like? personally i've "only" been here since 2016, and by then the series was already decently popular. i remember at that time that the fandom was really welcoming and kind in a way that felt really exceptional to me, and it definitely contributed to me picking up the books, which is the only explanation i can really think of for why it got a bigger following than some to other books which did receive a whole big-publisher marketing campaign aside from it just being well-written. do you have any theories for why it got so massive on here? and do you know how the first readers found it? i hope you don't mind me asking you this, but i remember your blog from wayyyy back when and thought that if anyone had the answer, it would probably be you :)

Hello! I always get so happy when I can talk about the early days of the fandom <3 Sit down here around the fire, let me tell you about this wondrous tale.

So, story time: it was spring 2013, I had just finished a thorough read of In The Company Of Shadows and I was starving for another black hole. It was automatic for me to look up the goodread lists ICoS was featured in, to see what other titles I could pick up, and ended up on the list called "Online M/M stories that deserve to be published". The Foxhole Court was right there (it's not anymore because it IS published <3), so I read it. That was the start of the end lmao

If I remember correctly I didn't wait too long before reading TRK, but TKM didn't come out until the end of the following year, so in the meantime I all but shelved it as something that had incredible potential but that was possibly doomed to never be completed. Fast forward I think the start of 2015 when I accidentally stumbled upon TKM and I couldn't believe I could finally know how the story ended. Nora had a blogspot where she talked about the books (including updates between TRK and TKM), and I remember trying to get as much info as I could on this series. And that was it. For a bit.

So, by the first half of 2015, the fandom was made by people commenting on her blogspot, on her livejournal, the book pages on goodreads, and Ao3 literally had 2 fics ( webarchive gives you what we saw - btw Don't Speak Against The Sun is FIRE and instantly became a new standard for f/f for me). You can still find all this content online. Tumblr had a handful of scattered posts about TFC, mostly Nora's mutuals/friends on tumblr, and a couple of readers screaming into the void with no one answering their call.

I was pretty active on here, especially in the bellarke fandom, and I engaged with mutuals and other blogs often enough that I knew if I talked about something, at least someone would reply. A mutual was reading The Raven Cycle and got me curious enough to liveblog it myself. Instant love, of course, and if you've read TRC you know how strong the found family vibe is. So at the end of my liveblog (we've reached July 2015) I threw out a comment where I recommended AFTG as another worthy title. With the first book being free while the other two were only a dollar each, it sounded a fairly easy commitment. One mutual decided to read it (if you're reading, hi!!!) and liveblog it, and that got the party started.

A party of 2, and I'm not kidding. While we chatted and made up headcanon after headcanon on the phone, the intention was to get others interested in this story. But they'd never do it if there wasn't enough content around to engage with and motivate them to blog themselves, so we started with quote posts, liveblog reactions, a few timid edits and poems. An important choice was figuring out which tag to use (at the time tumblr search only scrolled through tags, not post content): "all for the game" was an actual sports tag, "the raven king" was the title announced for the next TRC installment, "the king's men" was the last book of the trilogy and it wasn't even the free one, so we settled for "the foxhole court" which was an empty tag. Even now my blog content is organized around "tfc" because of it, even though we took over all the relevant tags. A couple other mutuals I had from bellarke fandom got curious as well, and now we could consider ourselves a proper group. We were so starved for fan content that whatever you put out would be automatically reblogged and enthusiastically engaged with. It was a happy little fandom bubble. Then Nora noticed us and started interacting with us, and you got the birth of what would become the extra content page as she replied to our questions.

I possibly had a little bit too much time on my hands because I appointed myself as fandom archivist and tour guide. I reblogged every single post I saw in the tags, and I started a welcome page where I could keep track of everyone announcing they were reading the series. It was meant as a way to find mutuals to interact with since tumblr hadn't yet "canonized" all the tags, and it was entirely possible to lose each other in dashboard chains. I used to reply to everyone reading the series by "officially" welcoming them into the fandom, linking them the page where they could find mutuals, Nora's blog, and the extra content present up to that point. Oh and there was a fictional exy team where you could choose your position and then put it in your blog for fun or roleplay it. I also used smashword's gift system to buy the series for whoever said they couldn't pay for it, just to try and avoid pirating the book (good for word of mouth, bad for sales). This was on my side, but this fandom had so many people pouring their entire heart out I still get emotional thinking about it.

Everyone (before January 2016) made as much content as they could, be it meta, fanart, fanfics, headcanons, edits, wikia pages etc. We had fandom challenges where we pronounced the names of the characters and aftg keywords with our native accent, others where we said our favorite scene. Every headcanon was the first headcanon ever seen in the fandom. The fun thing was that at the time there was a strong etiquette toward "if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything" so fan content really went in all directions with basically no limits. We tagged for triggers and that was it, we had free reign. For those who were around at the time, the sin squad was a group of us fans churning out the saddest/filthiest/fluffiest/most problematic content we could think of.

Then we reached January 2016. We were around 300 in the fandom at that point (I know because I counted them, literally), it had been slow but constant growth where each new fan brought at least other two people with them, and we had around 20 posts per day in the main tag. Then someone bridged the gap between us and the TRC fandom. If you ask me how the fandom got really popular, that's it. The TRC fandom was stuck in hiatus waiting for The Raven King, and now you had 300 rabid foxes spamming aftg content on tumblr, using trk as tag, too. Popular fanartists that were active in that fandom helped making aftg known, and semi viral posts did the rest. We went from 300 to 700 people in a couple of months, and shortly after I had to stop adding people to the welcome page because the post broke. I didn't even know that could happen. It wasn't long after that we were featured in the tumblr end of year recap for book ships. We were so many it was suddenly possible to meet in real life! Cosplays, tattoos, merch. You name it, someone in the fandom did it.

But how did it feel when we were only 20 people and a cardboard dog cutout? It felt like the most chaotic book club ever, and every new fan was automatically a friend. Nostalgia is a lying bitch, but I really don't think I'm making shit up here. We had fun and made great memories.

By the way, if you want to see how things were in 2015, you can! Just go through my archive starting from July 2015 (I think 17th) and onward. You can also search my blog for the tags "fandom history" and "started from nothing and now we're here", whereas here you can find a list of aftg fandom tags I used.

Tl;dr We were starving for good content, we wanted to have fun together, and we were lucky enough to half-hijack a bigger fandom in hiatus. That was all the marketing AFTG needed on tumblr.

[digitalsymbiote]

What makes a Mech a Mech?

Now you might think it's the shape: Humanoid, bipedal, articulated limbs. And once upon a time that might have been the case. These days those machines are a lot more diverse though, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; you got quadrupeds, winged mechs, hell sometimes ones that don't got any arms or legs at all.

No, what makes a Mech a Mech, is the Neural Link.

Mechs are unique in the way that their pilots get wired into them. They plug their brain into a machine and they become that machine.

Y'see that's why so many of the early models were so standardized, modeled after our own anatomy and musculature. Back when the tech was first being developed, the test pool was pretty limited. All military types, foot soldiers and the like. Those folks tend to have something of a limited imagination, creativity and individuality gets beaten out of 'em until they conform to the template of what the military wants 'em to be.

Which means they aren't all that great at imaginin' their body as anythin' other than what it is.

So all those early prototypes had to conform to that. If they wanted a pilot to have a decent enough Link Aptitude, they needed Mechs that the pilots could see themselves as. Folks were already used to havin' two arms and two legs, replacin' 'em with metal instead of flesh was a short enough leap that those folks could handle it.

But y'see then they started expandin' the applicant pool; researchers and developers moved outside the military in search of folks with higher Link Aptitude. And they found that humanity is a lot more diverse than that template the military beats into its soldiers. Turns out folks can be a lot more creative with their body map. Not everybody fits into that standardized definition of what humanity is.

They were lookin' in the completely wrong place with the military, turns out. Conformity is all well and good when you're trynna rush somethin' off the assembly line, but when you're trynna really push the limits of what's possible? Well you gotta get a bit more creative with it.

That's why you don't usually see the jugheads piloting mechs anymore. They ain't as good with all the fanciness companies are packin' into them these days. Now y'know who is good with all of that? Queer folks. Transgender folks especially. Turns out growin' up in the wrong body and learnin' to deal with that makes you real good at dissociatin' and messin' with your body map. Makes it a lot easier to trick your brain into thinkin' some weird part of this metal colossus is actually part of your body now.

Once they sorted that out, synchronicity rates skyrocketed. Led to a lot of other good things too. Y'see suddenly Queer and Trans folks were prime candidates for bein' pilots, corpos needed 'em. Which meant they had to make it safe enough for folks to be those things, or at least enough to admit it to the recruiters. Kinda funny thinkin' back, that that was what tipped the scales, but I suppose you can always trust corpos to do what corpos do.

But anyway, that's why so many Mechs are custom made to their pilots nowadays. That's why they craft the IMPs alongside the pilots through basic training. You gotta build a system that'll fit the pilot's body map, and ideally one that'll make the most of it.

If that pilot's more comfortable with a tail? Give that Mech a tail. Digitigrade legs? Quadrupedal? Fuck it, if it works for the pilot, throw that shit on there. Y'see ultimately, through the Neural Link, all you gotta be able to do is trick your brain into thinkin' that Mech is your body, and then it's off to the races.

And that moment, when your mind slips into that metal monstrosity and suddenly you feel more at home than you ever did in your own flesh and blood? That's what pilots live and die for. That's how you know the engineers did a good job.

And that's what makes a Mech a Mech.

[curiouspupsicle]

Good Omens Fan Fiction Friday (2/28/25) - Alt Season 3 Speculation

Following the ending of Good Omens season 2, desperate fans brought all their creativity to imagining what season 3 could look like. And they created some AMAZING and EPIC works.

Many of them began with a drunk and destructive Crowley left to make sense of Aziraphale returning to heaven. Eventually, the pair find themselves working together to avert the Second Coming (not always after reconciling). And then follows chapters of action-oriented, plot-driven, high-drama fan fiction. This list is not about those fics. (But someone else definitely needs to recommend a bunch of them in their own post.)

Instead, I'm recommending the quirky, alternative views of what might have happened after the final 15. These are fics where Crowley is less self-destructive. Where the action is generally toned down. Where feelings matter more than the plot.

In other words, these are the speculative season 3 fics that zig when everyone else zags.

Let's start with a silly one--Kidnapping a Supreme Archangel for Fun and Profit (T) by @waitingtobebroken. This four-part series has Crowley becoming Grand Duke of Hell. And befitting his high office, Crowley sets about tormenting the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale--by force-feeding him sushi, holding him by the hand to keep him from escaping, and leading him on a forced march through the park. How evil!

A longtime favorite of mine is But You Are An Ocean (T) by megzseattle/ @ineffably-good. Rather than fall apart, Crowley moves to the South Downs himself and becomes a "project" for the locals to befriend. Our ineffable pair are eventually reunited but without fireworks and flaming swords. And it's just a delight.

I'm breaking my own category by including the action-packed Down/Up (M) by @klikandtuna. I can't tell you more without spoiling the story. But you won't regret reading this story of BAMF!Crowley and BAMF!Aziraphale. It's a unique and fascinating take that still fits with this theme. Mind the content warnings.

In Among the Stacks (NR) by MeinirRhos/ @rhosmeinir, Crowley senses Aziraphale for a year after he returns to heaven. Until, one day, he doesn't. After moving on the best he can, Crowley finds Aziraphale is working in a library. Or is he?

And here's my exception to avoiding drunk Crowley--don't let this darkness fool you (M) by @mygalfriday. The Mayfair flat is a disaster zone when Shax shows up with a fallen Aziraphale. Everything about the Second Coming is extraneous when it comes to our demon caring for his angel.

Finally, Ginger_Cat/ @gingiekittycat wrote a long one-shot that hints at the epic speculative season 3 they would write in Prelude to an Epic (T). Crowley takes the role of Duke of Hell strictly to get the last word with Aziraphale. Instead, he finds himself in--well, a prelude to an epic story of heaven and hell. Can't give much away without spoiling the story. But this would be a good work to pair with Down/Up.

I'll be back next Friday with more recs on an entirely idiosyncratic theme. Follow and reblog to keep track.

And check out previously recommended fics on my pinned post of weekly Good Omens fan fiction recommendations

[uncle-fruity]

I really want to underline some truth:

I am a better activist and a more energetic and enthusiastic participant in the issues I care about now that I've stopped believing the guilt trippers and have involved myself in activism on my own terms.

I get to decide what I do and do not care deeply about. That's not another person's place to tell me what I think and feel -- especially if it's a complete stranger. I know myself better than they know me.

I get to decide what is too much for me. I set my own boundaries and priorities. Other people might not agree with me, but they can die mad. I'm not their soldier to recruit, and what I do with my time and energy is my business, not theirs.

I know my body and my limitations better than anyone else. The people who truly love me and support me trust me to manage my ups and downs and do not assign a moral status to me when I take care of my needs first. Especially over time, they know that I will be back and ready to help out as soon as I'm able to. When I'm less able to participate, the people who love and support me take care of me and make sure I know they're there for me.

I am no longer doing activism in any real way online. At most, I try to provide some education and some emotional/mental health support. If you look at my Tumblr, you won't see even half of what I deeply care about. Part of that is a growing sense of internet safety, and another part of that is that there is very little I can do online that's going to make a difference. Another part of that is when you post stuff as a reaction or out of a sense of obligation, you're more likely to spread misinformation, especially if you don't take time to verify the information (which can be genuinely difficult if you don't know how to do that). I fell into that trap a fair amount when I was so guilt ridden that I was terrified to be seen as a Bad Person.

Which brings me to this major point: there will always be people who are quick to judge you and quick to make you out as a Bad Person no matter what you do. In someone's mind, you are probably already a Bad Person. Does that actually make you a Bad Person? Does someone else's definition of good and bad line up with yours, and does it matter? Have you considered that the person calling you a bad person might be a bad person by your standards? Who has the right to strictly define morality in the first place? Regardless of the answers to those questions, you don't have to let other people define you. And the guilt trippers are doing substantially more harm to the cause than people who are trying to rest for their emotional and mental health. I don't think that makes them bad people, but it does make them bad at community building, which is a fundamental necessity for activism.

My advice, if you really want to be a good activist, is to kill the part of your brain that tells you you aren't good enough and don't deserve rest until you are. No one can do it all. No one is a perfect activist or a perfect person. You need to have a clear idea of what your priorities are and what your capabilities are. You need to seek community and, as OP originally stated, joy. It's not just you who needs something to fight for or who needs breaks, your community needs it too. If you overwork and constantly retraumatize yourself, you will eventually hit burnout and you will not be able to help at all for much much longer than if you had just taken a break or made time for the good things in life when you first needed to. You also run the risk of creating a culture where no one else feels like they deserve rest and eventually burn themselves out, too. Then where does the movement go when all its activists are too stressed and tired and having a crisis of morality to do the work? The movement goes to die, is where. Sure, being angry is valid and important, but if that's all that's keeping you here, you're going to find that anger is not sustainable and will eventually give way to extreme depression when you realize that anger alone does not fix the many problems of the world. Your anger and guilt will kill a movement so much harder than indulging in a little positivity and rest from time to time.

Oh, and me? Now that I've gotten out of guilt trippy and frankly abusive online activist spaces, I am so much better at doing activism that matters. I organize a queer art group. I attend meetings to discuss problems and try to find solutions. I have more energy to educate myself and others. I can do more direct action. All of this is stuff that I literally had no space for while I was suffering from the burnout those online spaces caused that I now have space for because I decentralized social media in my life and especially in my activism.

Please. For your own sake and for the sake of the causes you care about: take a break. Have a rest. Do something fun. This is me telling you directly that the people guilt tripping you are being inappropriate & rude at best and literally abusive at worst. It is okay to forget them and live your life in ways that serve both yourself and others. They have no power to send you to Hell, I promise.

Sorry about the rant I'm just SO sick of this "we have to be on all the time never look away if you aren't upset about politics and traumatizing yourself watching people die on Twitter you're wrong and complicit and evil" like I know things are fucked and we need to stay angry but we can do that while also taking a minute to crack open a cold one with the boys or have gay sex or get tipsy at the line dance, we HAVE to have joy to remember why the fuck we're refusing to give up in the first place. Fight like hell for your loved ones and then also go home with them to smoke weed and drink sweet tea and make biscuits covered in honey and butter please, please don't deprive yourself of joy, you're allowed to be happy BEFORE the work is done. You're allowed to be happy.

[3liza]

Wh... why are you making tiny salty gelatin cubes?

really valid question. i have a chronic condition called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which causes a lot of symptoms of various kinds but the big ones are feeling faint and weak and having low blood pressure from not having enough blood! so POTS patients are medically advised to eat 10 grams of salt or more every day, plus the other electrolytes, to make us hold onto water better and increase the volume of our blood.

it's pretty hard to eat enough salt. you can buy salt or electrolyte pills and drinks and drink powders, and all of them are pretty good. my favorite is strawberry pedialyte. but it's really expensive, and the individual minerals by themselves are cheap, so salt pills are the more economical option. the problem with salt pills, especially for people who have trouble eating anyway (which i do) is that dropping a salt tablet into an empty stomach, or sometimes even a full stomach, can make your stomach pissed off and give you nausea or vomiting. not everyone has this issue but i definitely do.

i started making my own salt pills with regular table salt, then started adding powdered gelatin into the capsules to help buffer the salt. i need more protein anyway because my collagen is fucked. the gelatin buffer worked really well, i could take my gelatin-salt pills on an empty stomach no problem and my hair and nails were growing better, BUT buying empty gelcaps all the time was also expensive.

so i decided to try melting the gelatin into jello or gummi blobs and turning it into a small shape i could swallow easily. and actually i just popped all the little hemispheres out of their silicon sheet just now and it worked PRETTY well, but i need to look up how to make hard gelatin because a lot of them started to melt as soon as they got up to room temp even though the water-gelatin ratio should have been stable, possibly from the salt content making the gelatin hydrophilic idk.

i would post a pic but the gelatin browned as it was melting so they look DISGUSTING. next time i'm going to add some grape jelly or something for color because this is awful. they're fine as "pills" though

[lukolastrong]

Sorry but the Anon with insider info was kinda right. I have sources as well and i don’t want to explain why i believe them but it is what it is. I’m a Lukola and I stay on the ship but I am worried. Luke did seek contact with N but she didn’t want it because she knows what happens now. Don’t believe it? Look at the Netflix post. Look at every media using their hug, him complimenting her, etc, and people’s reaction. N is sick of it. We saw how she was quick to show us that he is just her "buddy". I’m delulu but not that delulu….. Everything that happened was for a reason. What I know is that N and L are friends yes, but she didn’t seem to want to be seen with him too much. She only took one photo with him…. that’s it. I do believe she is with JD and she wants to protect that. Every time she is with Luke people claim they are in love and hiding it and lying etc. And i used to believe the same but let’s be serious here. And now she follows A…

I want them together but for now i think it’s not happening. and if she is happy then i am fine with that. I do not want her friendship with L to be ruined.

I can understand your pov anon; however, I don’t see what you’re seeing (as far as Nic supposedly being sick of it) and I definitely don’t believe this ‘insider info’ you and the other anon claim to have, unless you can provide receipts. Her story with the “buddy” comment can be viewed differently by everyone and I can see the reason why it’d be taken as a ‘we’re just friends’ post. The thing is, I’d be more inclined to believe it if they didn’t act the way they did at SAG. I know you’ve stated you didn’t see what the majority of lukolas saw and the GA witnessed, but it was right there. Plain as day. Just like the world tour. They can’t help themselves! They glow when they’re around each other. All I could see was nothing but love between them.

The reason she followed A is anyone’s guess really. None of us know why, we can only speculate and hope for the best based on past events. I myself am still unsure of what I think could be the reason 🤷🏼‍♀️

[pansexualkiba]

iturmom blocked me i think but here's my response in the notes because i already addressed this to them in a prior reblog but they still don't seem to get it.

you cannot claim to not make a value judgement on a person in a single conversation and then make a value judgement like "alpha male creep" based on vibes. that is, by definition, making a judgement on values. furthermore, being asked what he finds attractive on a date - not in a random person on the street, but on a date - and responding with what he finds attractive isn't "alpha male" nonsense. he says nothing that could possibly be construed as this.

yes, judging a woman for how she eats is misogynistic - however, he isn't just saying "all women need to do this". he's saying "in my experience, people [he does not actually state women] who care too much about social pressure to the point that they actively control other people are unpleasant people to be around". which, i don't know, in the context of a romantic date, may be an actual point to make. is it a truth that women are conditioned to be demure in all aspects? yes, and there's a conversation to be had here. however, it is also not the point being made in this statement. he was asked what he finds attractive on a date, and he answered "someone who do not care about other people when they eat the food they like".

no notes im not getting into this.

anthony bourdain is not jacking off at the fucking table because he sought out a woman to eat sloppily. he is on a date with someone, hypothetically, and he is paying attention to how they act in an intimate environment, and taking that as an indication as to how they would act in other aspects of life. the exact sentiment he says is that someone "who makes the experience uptight and restrictive" - that is to say, makes the act of eating at a romantic dinner highly uncomfortable - is not, to put it lightly, someone to spend the night with. furthermore, he discusses his wife's epicurean tastes, and how she eats without worrying about what's attractive. his exact sentiment is "i choose this meal, and this order, and i choose the person across from me", not because he is "making someone eat for him, but because he is comfortable in what he likes, and expects the other person to be (and after describing his wife, a woman who is VERY comfortable with what she likes, if his anecdotes about her are to go by).

he chooses meat because of the stigma (especially in the actual environment of a appearanced-obsessed romantic evening) surrounding ordering it - pay attention to the way he DESCRIBES these foods. "bloody hunk of steak" and "pungent french cheese" are not flattering images! he is not describing forcing a vegan to eat meat, he is describing when a person avoids food they otherwise like because "the pork belly makes you look fat". he literally states that eating with abandon "shows you're comfortable with yourself". he isn't saying anything about morality, personal integrity, or anything of the sort - he's talking about worrying about appearances halting you from indulging yourself in something you like. which, again, in the context of a romantic date, is not a good trait to see in a potential partner.

exaggerating your emotions for drama in the second half of the tags did not read well because the rest of the take was so thoroughly detached from what was in the text that it just felt like a logical conclusion towards your disdain towards a man saying that it is attractive when a person is comfortable with themselves enough that they'll order "unsavory" foods (like, say, something garlic-heavy) on what should be a romantic evening - because if someone puts so much stock in a hypothetical audience that they actively make the whole night uncomfortable, they will not be fun to have around in other contexts. you, admitting you did not know who he was, determined he was a creep and a sex fiend because he mentioned sex once and had the gall to discuss kissing after a date. i do not know anthony bourdain personally, but based on this context in the provided conversation we are both looking at, he has provided zero evidence that he is a misogynist or an "alpha" or anything of the sort. this is an imagined conflict you have created and then proceeded to "play up" lest someone think you sincere.

tl;dr: you are not making criticisms that are based in the actual text, and playing up the second half of your tags "for drama" in an attempt to feign indifference does nothing except to achieve the exact opposite.

(also, there totally is vegan food that's amazing to have and want. your problem there is that no one in your life is cooking it properly.)

[enby-spacerok]

this is just me again talking only to me on a blog no one looks at but it's 2am and I'm awake all sicky:

art, I find, is such an amorphous thing to define and I think I've landed on it being undefinable in a way that it can be defined and made true in a billion different ways by each individual.

I met artists that died for their art. struggled because they thought that was true art. to suffer for it was to really dedicate one's self fully.

I've met artists who sold out and produced to sell what was popular in the social circles who'd looked their way according to people who had the money to spend.

I've met total asshats who created a persona to perform to package their art and themselves and rip off and appropriate whatever or whoever to get what they want.

I've worked with production potters whose goal were to sell a ware and make enough to earn a living. To produce and market.

And I've seen all these people fight amongst each other as to who's work was truly "Art"

For me, I can talk about subject, form, intent, emotion, skill, technique, purpose, so on and so forth. But I can also talk about context, history, and production ethics.

The art world is predatory, in all it's forms. Galleries, music producers, film studios, even small businesses run out of third party websites. Anything you buy in the art world can raise a lot of ethical questions. And fuck if anyone knows what will catch the eyes and interests of the masses. Why is also something we can argue about but ugh let's not get too far in the weeds.

Ultimately though I take issue with putting down anything that has reached the masses. Conflating popularity with being a sellout is dangerous, incorrect, and makes me question what type of social construct is trying to be built with that statement.

Pop music is not a crime. I will die by that mantra.

Popularity does not mean sanitization

Kink, raunchyness, or "shocking" content does not equal "Art"

Judging what is Art with the benchmark of it 'being made true from the heart' is an outside individual's experience of the artist that cannot be perceived from outside the artist. It might be art that does not appeal to you - is that not true from the heart? An artist might tell you all about their process and inspiration - and they can lie to you.

That said...

Art has this curious thing of being inspired by what is in vogue. It is often a conversation and results in rebellion. It's also been seen over and over that artists pushing back against the popular become popular themselves in time. So when does art stop being true to the heart?

Oh boy are we asking an interesting question here :3

Nirvana described themselves as pop music, but they were born from the underground scene. We're they no longer Art then?

Vincent van Gogh was unwaveringly supported by his brother Theo to make Art but wasn't much recognized while he was alive. He only sold one painting before he committed suicide. Was his work Art because he struggled with mental health and worked tirelessly and died having believed he didn't truly achieve his dream of becoming a Great Artist? Did his work always come from the heart because of those things? Is his work worthless now that it's marketable to the masses? Now that it is popular?

Keith Harring was incredibly prolific and a man who chose to market himself in order to make art more accessible to the masses. He was a huge philanthropist, brought joy to his local community and worldwide, and deeply influenced mainstream art. His art surely came from his heart AND a collection of it was raunchy (less well-known). But he marketed himself purposefully. It was part of his art. He learned from street art and painted everywhere in public (illegally) until he was too recognizable. Is only some of his work "Art"? Are only the gay parts true Art? Is the baby not radiant?!

It is a great exercise to try and define art, and definitely a worthwhile pursuit. I can guarantee every time you do it though it will slip through your fingers. It will evade you. It will change each time you think about it. Each time you view or experience or create.

What I will not abide by is exclusionary verbage. That falls into the same trap as big time galleries who scrape 50% of the profits.

I find it much more worth while to discuss how to create a community that allows every artist to explore what brings them joy and give them the freedom to do wildly different things throughout their career. So there is place for the plein air painters, the graffiti artists, and straight up, gay ass kinky furry porn.

I'm against art being sanitized and mass marketed/marketable to masses. so when I see my mutuals draw their queer furry Sonas and characters being horny or indulging in their kinks or self expression it makes my heart full. I encourage every artist out there to draw from their heart and worry less about being appealing to others.

[rip-cod-brainrot]

Soap x Gaz meeting Price x Ghost later instead of all meeting each other or meeting Price one on one

Like… imagine Soap and Gaz are like… two criminals. Gaz moonlights as a lawyer, most likely. Price and Ghost are the cops that keep getting assigned to their case.

Or the other way around. Maybe Price and Ghost are the heads of the local organized crime, and Soap and Gaz are the rookie cops assigned to the case. You know, so the public can’t accuse the police department of ‘not doing anything’ about the group. In this one, the commissioner is definitely Mr. “I don’t really care if they get fucked over, who cares?” Shepherd

Or even just Price and Ghost are well-established, organized criminals and Gaz and Soap are. Decidedly less organized but are making a name for themselves in the local crime scene

[cripplecharacters]

I have this mage character who's disabled with limited mobility (I'm planning for her to have severe ataxia, but the exact disability I give her might still change). I have a couple questions/thoughts about how I should portray her. It's a medieval fantasy setting.

She's… not very morally good. She's currently with a group of bandits (AKA: she robs people). She hasn't got some "I want to kill people because the disability makes me miserable" thing going on though, and most of the other bandits are abled, so her being evil/morally grey is not unique to her. Also, if I ever end up actually writing the story, it would be from her perspective. Does this make it ok, or does it fall under the "disabled villain" trope?

Mobility aids? She would definitely need one, probably a wheelchair, since she can't walk unassisted at all. The thing is, her family is a bunch of ableists who kept her in her room all day because they found her disability "shameful", so she doesn't have a mobility aid (except maybe a clunky wheelchair that needs to be pushed around by someone else). And she definitely isn't going to have a mobility aid around when she gets semi-kidnapped by the bandits (as mentioned before, she ends up joining them). When they're actively robbing people, she'd ride a horse, but what about when they're in the bandit hideout? Making a wheelchair seems hard and time-consuming. I could make her magic powers be telekinesis or (short-distance) teleportation, but that might also be erasure and I don't want that. Any suggestions?

Hi asker,

For the first half of your ask, that sounds perfectly fine, because disabled people don't have to be morally perfect! Especially if the story is written from her perspective, it's actually pretty important that she's not just a 0 flaws character. It's perfectly fine that she's morally grey, an anti-hero, whatever, as long as she isn't the only one that is these things as a disabled person.

The "disabled villain" trope is more like, the disability is what makes them evil, or they're the only disabled character and they're evil, basically equating disability to moral failure and to villainy. Other bandits being of similar morality to her but abled is a huge deal in terms of sidestepping the disabled villain trope. As long as she's not the 'most evil' in her bandit group and the only or the most disabled one, this works just fine.

For the second half of your ask:

If the bandits let her join after kidnapping her, they presumably want her there. This means that they would probably willing to help her get or do things that she needs to do in order to continue to be there with them, and that can include them helping source a wheelchair or a walker or a rollator. Maybe they make it themselves, maybe they steal one, maybe they kidnap someone who can make it for her, maybe something else. But if they're something like her friends or found family, they'd probably want her to participate in things, and they could help her get what she needs to do so.

As to the powers, they could be erasure. They don't have to be erasure, but they could be. But to be honest you don't necessarily seem attached to those as her powers, so you could choose something else instead.

As to ataxia, since you mention not being fully decided on this yet, make sure you research how ataxia, particularly severe ataxia, would affect her. I don't say this to say she wouldn't be able to ride a horse — paralympic athlete Mari Durward-Akhurst has ataxia and participtes in paralympic — but I mean that you'd want to look at what she needs to do that and how it affects her daily.

As to mobility aids (sorry for saying as to so much), many people with ataxia use wheelchairs or walkers or rollators. Rollators are wheeled walkers, basically. If she'd be able to use one of these in the hideout definitely depends on the hideout's layout and access. But maybe they could have a hideout with ramps, or on a single level or something, as opposed to like... a treehouse hideout. But magic exists in your world, so maybe her aid could have some sort of enchantment. Like, maybe the aid itself can do very limited teleportation and this gets her into the door, for example? That could be a pretty cool and useful enchantment to put on a wheelchair. But mostly, since you have magic, you have more leeway than in real life as to what the limits of mobility aids are within a space. Or even within a space itself; maybe the entrance steps have a button that can turn them into a ramp. Things like that!

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow