#its so important like do you know how much lost media becomes lost again because it was taken off youtube? just outrageous when that could

[noisetwister]

this is my current bsd collection with (almost) every piece of media from bsd LOL, a little bit of backstory:

i have a thing for data collecting (I'm a data hoarder hiding as a data preservationist basically 😭), and l frequently have like.. episodes? where i become convinced that [insert media here] will be erased forever and i have to have it physically to know it existed, usually at night and just with things I'm into. it struck bsd last night so i barely slept because i was collecting it all lmao. my hard drive #struggles everyday but i don't like to delete anything because yk, hoarding

almost all of this goes thanks to bsd-bibliophile's website, and i usually share anything I've collected amongst friends (but never the light novels where the translator asks you don't distribute, obviously).

While a lot of it attaches to me having to have media physically that is already widely distributed online, i also love collecting underground media on promotional DVDs, certain game editions and CDs etc (an example of this is my youtube @hatsuneuploads where i uploaded all of a special edition of the DTM magazine for the release of rin and len - a previously (presumably) not on the internet interview with some voice providers and a cubase official was uploaded by me which i was super happy to have done!! i also uploaded the DVD so anybody willing to find out what some of the songs are (over 50)/translate the interviews that would be very cool!)

irritatingly, a lot of the uploads for the light novels and most of the manga were in pdf format, when for light novels epub is the most widely accepted format (some were uploaded in epub which i am working on finding and downloading) and manga i much prefer cbz files (i might look into converting them).

I am also into book binding, so it is definitely on the table for me to book bind some of the light novels (but i kind of find issue with it personally when i can support the official English physical releases, so i might just book bind the way i like AFTER i have the money to purchase the official books)

also to note i would absolutely die for the manga set but i don't have the money rn 😭😭😭😭 its ok tho i will one day LOL

anyway its not much but i just like to talk about these things a lot cuz its interesting yk!!! and i'm such a bad fiend right now, I've been hooked on it since 2019 and it kind of comes and goes in waves lmao

[itsfairly]

Nanami x reader where the reader teaches Kento about Dia de los Muertos? And they make a small ofrenda and put their most beloved people on them (like Yū Haibara for Nanami).

P.S HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND DIA DE LOS MUERTOS Fairly!!! I hope you have a great holiday

Obon & Día de Muertos // Nanami Kento x gn! Latine!reader

word count: 1.7k

cw: gn!reader, latine!reader, fluff, established relationship, very little info on both celebrations (i was having flashbacks to my undergrad research papers lol), petnames (sweetheart, beautiful, love)

summary: Japan had Obon and Latino America has Día de Muertos, celebrations that are much more similar than what you two realize. So when Día de Muertos rolls around, Nanami decides to do a surprise for you just like you have one for him.

a/n: thank you for calling again, @erigaur! thank you and happy (late) halloween and dia de los muertos to you too! i had fun doing this request because i didn't know about obon before and it is so interesting how similar it is to día de muertos. Thinking about it has made me imagine how Nanami would instantly understand día de muertos and adopt some of the traditions if he had a latine partner. So here is the idea, hope you enjoy it!

liked this? show it with a like, reblog, and/or comment. each is greatly appreciated and celebrated!

It was around Obon week that Nanami first heard you mention Dia de los Muertos. He was explaining to you how he has gotten quite busy this week from having to balance between work and preparations for Obon, quick to explain to you how Obon is a festival in which people pay respect to their ancestors and those who have passed away for a couple of days. He knew not many cultures dealt with the topic of death, but as someone whose line of work often reminded him of it through the many losses he had to bear witness along with the possibility of his own, he found the festival to be quite important.

“Oh, like Dia de los Muertos.” You chimed in, which was met with a few blink from Nanami that asked for clarification. “Day of the Dead, we celebrate it around October-November but it's the same thing—we honor the dead as they come back to us. I didn’t know other cultures had something similar to it.”

“Not so different after all,” he hums, leaning back on his seat as he realizes the similarity between your cultures. Nanami begins to wonder about your version of the holiday. Sure, he has heard it becoming more prominent over at mainstream media in a way that Obon is not, and yet, those mentions were never in depth.

“So what do you guys do during Obon?” He heard you ask, looking up at you and seeing your curiosity in your eyes.

“We visit our ancestors and those who have passed away, take care of their graves and leave offerings and lanterns for them.” Nanami throws his head back, sighing as he thinks over the holiday. “It’s not a one-day holiday, each day has its own tradition and we hold a festival to celebrate it.”

“Huh, sounds similar to Day of the Dead. Although I would say that ours is known for holding up a shrine full of offerings for our loved ones. It’s a big part of my culture, celebrating both life and honoring death throughout a couple of days. Some places may hold festivals, colorful and quite breathtaking, but my family always made it a somewhat private celebration.”

“How so?”

“We focused more on the shrine than going to the cemetery. Getting the marigolds, cooking the meals, and everything else the shrine needed. My mom always made the altar—we call it ofrenda, by the way—looked so pretty with the candlelight and my family’s pictures that I guess it just became cozy.” You shrugged, taking your mug into your hands as silence set between you too.

Nanami let the silence take over as he thought about it. Obon was something he took seriously to no one’s surprise, he lost too many people in one lifetime that the least he could do for them was honor them during the holiday. Though it sounded quite somber, the celebration seemed quite far from it with the way the streets would light up the night sky—and it sounded like it was the same thing with your culture. It wasn’t shying away from death like other parts of the world did, it was recognizing it as an important part of life and loving those who are not with us anymore. The idea of having more than just a week of devoting his attention and time towards those gone felt right to say the least. After all, he would be a bad boyfriend if he didn’t take the chance to learn about your culture, right?

Thus, October rolled around and you started gathering things for your shrine, you realized how difficult it would be now that you were living in Japan and many of the things you needed weren’t as common as they are at home. Though things like incense and candles were easy to find and other things like dishes could be improvised, you struggled to find the sugar skulls and the papel picado that were significant for your tradition. Today seemed to be another fruitless day of searching as you headed home, maybe you would have to order them online and hope for the best. You didn’t want to make do without them.

When you arrived home, you were surprised to find Nanami outside of your place, which was a sight for sore eyes that have been searching far and wide to make your shrine justice. As you walked closer to him, you noticed he had a bag on his hands, a big one by the look of it.

“Hey you.” You greeted him with a quick peck on the lips before turning to your door and opening it. “Were you waiting for a long time? You could’ve left me a text and I could’ve headed home sooner.”

“No need, I wanted to surprise you.” Nanami smiled, holding the door open now that you unlocked it so you could head in first.

“Surprise me with whatever is on that bag?” You smirked, setting your own bags on the living room where your shrine was being set up.

You had a week before the first day of day of the dead started and though you were struggling to find some things, no one could tell you you weren’t putting in the effort. When Nanami followed you to the living room, his eyes immediately fell on the shrine. Even if he has seen pictures of how ofrendas look for day of the dead, yours looked amazing in his eyes. Many pictures were already up on top of the white mantelpiece, some were old as indicated by the lack of color in them while others were much more recent. You had pictures of your first pets and of your most dear relatives on display with their favorite dishes and objects placed before each picture frame. He may not know these people and you may not be looking at him as you took out your groceries of the day, but he couldn’t help but bow before the shrine out of respect.

“You’re setting quite the bar for all the other day of the dead shrines I’ll see.” Nanami commented, walking to your side now that you were done pulling out the contents of your bag.

You looked behind him, sighing. “I’m not in love with it, my mom’s shrine is much better than this. But I suppose it’s the best I can do.” You shrugged, turning to face him. “You didn’t answer my question though.” You smirked, looking down at the bag.

Nanami smiled at you and then looked down at what you bought for the day. “I wouldn’t call it a surprise, more so as a gift to my beautiful sweetheart.” He hummed, extending the bag for you to take.

You raise a brow at him as you take the bag, which was quite heavy. As soon as you opened it, your eyes widened as they shifted their focus back and forth between the bag and Nanami.

“How did you get these?” This bag was filled with the things you were struggling to find the most. Sugar skulls, papel picado, and what seemed like crafts modeled after pan de muerto. “How do you even know about these?” You were left stunned to say the least as you looked at your boyfriend with a dropped jaw.

“You accompanied me during Obon after our conversation that day even when I told you you didn’t have to.” He explained. “I wanted to help you celebrate your tradition like you helped me celebrate mine.”

Truth be told, he started researching about the day of the death since then and learned that many of the things you needed weren’t available in Japan. When he saw that you were starting to assemble your ofrenda, he ordered what knew would be difficult to find in Japan. An order that was delivered today, thus here he was today. You were always so respectful of his traditions and customs that he wanted to do this for you. Not only that, but if your traditions weren’t that different from one another, he had a feeling you would sulk over if your altar didn’t have every element that was needed.

“Honey, this is…I just don’t have words, my god. Thank you.” You said softly, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him into a tight embrace that he gladly returned, placing his arms around your waist and his face on your shoulder.

“No need to thank me, you deserve to make your ofrenda look just how you like it.” He replied, trying his best to pronounce ofrenda as best as he could. Though it wasn’t a perfect pronunciation, you didn’t care, finding his accent alone adorable.

“Now that you mention it, I do need your help to make it look how I want to.” That made Nanami pull his head off your shoulder, still keeping his arms around you, as he hummed for you to elaborate.

“If it is okay with you,” you said gently, cautiously as you bit your lip before continuing, “I would like to put Haibara in the shrine. I know how important he is to you and I want to honor him because of it.”

His heart stopped the moment you mentioned his name, taking a sharp inhale that made you loosen up your embrace around his neck. But he quickly pulled you closer to him with your head on his chest, caressing your hair softly.

“It is more than okay with me. I would be honored that you would want to do this.” He whispered against your head, pressing a kiss on the top of it.

“It’s the least I can do, love.” You whispered back, closing your eyes as you felt the contact of his lips on your head.

You had made sure to leave a space for Haibara in your altar in advance, hoping and grateful that he gave you his blessing to put his picture up. After all, you knew how much death impacted his life and work. You wanted to give him more than just Obon week to honor those that he had lost by sharing Día de Muertos with him as you celebrated the life you have spent by his side.

[writingintheshadowsforever]

Merry Christmas

I know guys.

Its been forever since I made an official post on here that wasn't a reblog. I made a post a some months ago promising to come back and post slow updates again. When I was in a My Hero Academia obsession era. By the way I'm still low key obsessed I'm on S7, but I slowed down on watching it on purpose. I like to binge and play catch-up with some shows. There's not to many shows out there that I watch weekly. And honestly its not that hard to avoid spoilers when you're not certain social media platforms. Now I'm rambling sorry.

I still thought about you guys and all the stories I started on here reminding myself to finish them. Before quitting this whole Tumblr thing, and no I won't be deleting my page on here. By quitting I mean this account would become a dead one. And the idea feels criminal to me because Tumblr has been such an important part of my life. Since I graduated high school and lost myself in the real world. This community help guide me and provided with happiness and understanding. When I could find very little from IRL people that I called friends and family.

It still does that sometimes which is why I still here and check back in. But I know deep down I don't really feel the same about Tumblr anymore, or maybe its not really Tumblr that's the problem. Honestly these days I use Tumblr and every other site on the internet as a distraction from my life and the challenges in it. Getting so sucked in hoping they might go away while I'm absorbed in my phone, laptop, or TV. That’s not how life works though. I'm starting to realize that and I feel like that's the main reason I pulled away from Tumblr so much this year. I try to live way too much on the internet so it wasn't just Tumblr I took a step back. Its been a lot of other apps and things too.

I know most of you won't read all of this or probably don't care. I just felt like I owed you guys an explanation after all. A lot of you have still continued to show my work love in my absence. I see it and I appreciate every single like and reblog I promise. Life is complicated right now. I have a lot to figure out and work on. I can't promise I'm coming back for good or that I will finish every series or fic I started. But I promise I will do my best and if I do decide to say goodbye forever. I'll let you guys know.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. I hope everyone had a great day and has an amazing new year. If you don't celebrate Christmas disregard that part.

[underprivilegedcactus]

It's totally fine if you don't think God!Gale and Ascended!Astarion endings are necessarily bad endings. I agree there's definitely some ambiguity when it comes to these outcomes, but there's something that people should consider: When writing a character, one of the things a writer can choose to focus on to build them out is to consider What They Want vs. What They Need.

Gale WANTS to become a god (eventually) to both show up Mystra and to help mortals the way he feels that gods should. What Gale NEEDS is to realise that he is enough as is, that he is more than just his power and any more strength he could aqcuire. Gale needs to have more confidence in his own self worth.

Astarion WANTS ultimate power so that no can ever hurt him or those he loves ever again. He wants to be so strong that no one would even try to harm him, and if they do he can effortlessly squash them. For him, it's only through power that he can ever be truly and forever free. What Astarion NEEDS is healing from centuries of cruelty through true friendship or even romantic love and to be seen as an equal, to take back control of his bodily autonomy and choices, and to become actually free from not only Cazador, but from becoming a slave to his darkest impulses that his rough life has exacerbated.

Sure, both Gale and Astarion are happy when they get what they want, but there's lots of hints that it's not what they really needed.

Gale becomes the god of ambition, which is never satisfied with its lot and will likely cause trouble for the pantheon down the line. It's also very clear that he lost a vital part of himself, and I don't think it's his connection with his mother or Tara, which are still important facets but are ultimately not the core of what he lost. It's the fact that he no longer cares about doing actual good for people, a key component of his former personality. One of the things I love about his character is that no matter how high he rose, mortal Gale still cared about helping people in positive ways. Ambition doesn't give a damn where its drive takes people, for better or for worse. Mortal Gale would be horrified if he knew that he influenced evil people to do worse things in the name of ambition. Mortal Gale would also be horrified that his god version openly admits to not offering ANYTHING to his followers, which is anathema to what Gale originally wanted godhood for. But hey, he got what he wants and he's happy, so that MUST be good, right?

Ascended Astarion has entirely lost any shred of his humanity, and is now a complete slave to his darkest desires. He no longer views his romantic partner as a person. They're just his most prized object, whether they want to be or not. He enslaves other people, inflicting on them the exact kind of bondage he had to deal with for two centuries, including the person he used to love. On top of all that, he loses his capacity to even recognize the wrongness of his actions. For all intents and purposes, Ascended Astarion becomes a megalomaniacal homicidal psychopath who's hunger knows no bounds. Worse, he has no way to ever recognise if this is a problem anymore or something he doesn't like. But again, he got what he wants and he's happy, so it MUST be a good thing, right?

There's nothing wrong if you still see these outcomes as good endings, or even just better endings than an outright "bad" ending. I see what you mean, and also, it's a video game and these are fictional characters, not people who can actually get hurt. Like so much media and art, it's really more of a thought experiment than any kind of moral indicator.

I do however implore you to consider why so many people, Larian included, don't see these outcomes as good, and in some ways perhaps even worse than other "bad" endings. A very common but very relevant trope in storytelling is "be careful what you wish for because you might just get it", and it's usually to remind us that getting what we want isn't always what's best for us in the long run.

[sadnightforus]

HARD TO LOVE  (KHJ)

ex!hongjoong x gn!ex reader

SYNOPSIS: It’s been months, exactly 7 at that. And every time that Hongjoong shows up vulnerable at your doorstep, drunk and vulnerable, you let him back in for another night. 

WORD COUNT: 3.2K

WARNINGS: beware of the substance usage like alcohol, cigarettes and all that, distant behavior from hongjoong, full on angst emotional angst (think about how exes feel), a little cuss word that is avoidable.

PART OF HEARTBREAK STATION

A/N: this is legitimately my favorite song. I will not shut up about it. I hope I do this song justice with this fic (even though I might not be satisfied)

SONG USED: HARD TO LOVE BY ONE.

reblogs, comments and likes are appreciated!

 It’s 2 in the morning and yet, you’re unable to sleep. 

 Your mind keeps racing, you don’t really know why. But you’re restless as you keep tossing and turning in the comfort of your own bed. You have an important day ahead but you feel uneasy and you can’t always count sheep or think of something that relaxes you to put you into a dreamland. Damn you and the seasonal insomnia. 

 You try your hardest to not touch your phone as you’ve been cutting contacts from social media and spend more time in real life, to remind yourself that life outside is beautiful too. 

 Who are you really kidding? You just can’t let yourself type his username into the search bar and stalk him again. 

 You know that your relationship with him was not an ideal love story at all. Even your friends tell you so, something they do when they sense that you’re thinking about him. 

 You first met him at the club, kissed and lost touch with one another and the only thing you both remembered each other by was the steamy kiss you both shared and the names that sounded like a mantra the more you said it. The unexpected reunion at your favorite coffee shop that eventually led to him asking you out and becoming lovers but soon enough, it’s damaging your own mental health more than anything. 

 It’s what you’ve been trying to tell yourself. 

 You hear a loud knock on the door and the rhythm is almost sloppy, not very steady and sober like. You were worried that the poor door might’ve been broken down until you realize that your place itself has thin walls and anything within 7 feet away can be heard loud and clear. 

 You’re sure that it might be Hongjoong, the man you thought about earlier but you didn’t want to be wrong. You quickly get out of bed, searching for something sharp enough to use as a weapon in case it’s an intruder. 

 Another knock makes a loud and invasive noise against the door, this time with a much faster rhythm. A slurred whine can be heard and this time you put down your weapon. 

“Can you open the door, please?” 

 It’s him, once again, drunk out of his mind and sound totally wrecked, unlike the guy you know who had his guards up and was tough. 

 You don’t want to, knowing that it’ll eventually fuel him to see you as his unofficial live-in guest who never goes home when he’s incredibly intoxicated. But you can’t help it as your legs already had a mind of its own and walked directly to the door, twisting the doorknob to let him in. 

 As you have expected, he is absolutely wasted. Totally hammered as he can barely stand up or walk straight without stumbling and almost tripping many times. You wonder how much he trip before making his way here because your place is on the 3rd floor. Someone might’ve dropped him here or he just significantly got even more drunk by the time he made it to your place.

“Sit down here, I’ll get some water for you.” You say, guiding him to your soft couch as you help him to seat himself down. 

 You take one look to fully observe him and tonight, he wears a long thin coat and only a black mask as an accessory. Way different from his usual style which consists of leather jacket and the black ripped skinny jeans pairing with some sharp earrings. He almost looks like a gentleman, the kind of man who you’ll introduce your family to after just 3 months of dating. 

 You open the fridge as you pour a glass of water, then grab the said glass and you tell him to drink up. Which he complies, gulping on the cold water that is relaxing in his throat. He puts the empty glass down as he fully lies on your couch, with you by his side, watching his every move like a hawk. 

“I miss you.” 

 God, there he goes with his drunk shenanigans. 

 You bite your lips, containing yourself from saying out the things you might regret letting him know. It’s unfortunate that he tells you he needs you and every sweet things only when he’s drunk. 

 The thing is, Hongjoong really does love you. Just that he doesn’t know if you’re also aware of that or understand that completely. 

 You don’t know if he does, or is it just in a wave of moment that is easier to admit when you’ll wake up in the morning and forget it. But you surely also still love him. Somewhere deep down, you know that the attraction was never about the superficial qualities, but it was something that only both of you can feel. Something much deeper and unknown. 

 He’s afraid of how deep his feelings run for you too, which is why he kept on the tough act and kept his distance from you most of the time. But god, is he addicted to making bad choices. And is he so addicted to you and the love you gave that he keeps running to your place when he’s just way too drunk, for the sole purpose of finding his home and to be honest with you. The alcohol was his courage drink because he’d rather act like a complete asshole than opening his heart fully like this. 

“It’s not hard to love you. But you’ll find it hard to love me. It’s also hard to love you when I can barely feel your love and I’m just like this… Gosh. I don’t know what I’m saying at all.” 

 It’s like a string of realization that has finally been broken inside of you. And for him, it’s like a scrabble of thoughts that has been scattered and repaired again as he begins speaking more. 

 He had never spoken this much at all, let alone with such sincerity that you were skeptical. Because the previous time, he would always tell you that he missed you and that he wanted to give it a try again but he’s scared of rejection and that he’s not stable enough for you. 

 It seems like tonight, he’ll be saying more than just few words or so. 

“But I mean it, it’s not hard to love you when I’m sober but when I’m… I can’t feel it. I can’t really tell it.”

 He’s slurring more words, like one of those new records that you bought with a shitty quality and half way into the playing time, it breaks down and starts scribbling into an indescribably odd sounding. 

“I wanna look at you, hear you say all those things again.” He sighs, head is tilting and the body is slightly moving due to trying to balance and his eyes keep occasionally close due to his non-sober state. 

“I don’t wanna be drunk like this anymore. I wanna keep looking at you but.. I can’t see anything clearly right now.” 

 There are tears, now forming in your eyes that are threatening to spill. 

 You know he’s being honest, even if his words don’t make sense in this state that he’s in right now. You can always tell that he really loves you, even if it was unconventional and almost in a non-traditional way. His love can be felt, not seen or heard. 

 That’s why you’ll always keep the doors open for him. 

“I’m sorry. I know you probably hate me now. I didn’t treat you like you deserved to be treated.” 

 He can feel himself almost break down into tears as he finishes off with this bang of a statement. 

 He’s so fucked up, completely fucked up. He knows that, he is aware of how unstable he is since you both broke up but he doesn’t want you to know that. 

 Every night that he doesn’t show up at your door, he can’t sleep at his own place. He struggles with insomnia since you decided to part ways with him for good due to many differences and you feel like you both can’t offer each other things you crave for anymore. He understood that but he always selfishly tried to keep you around for longer, knowing that his lack of improvement will continue to worsen the relationship and now he just went down the rabbit hole that is hard to get out of. 

 Sleeping pills were the only thing that kept his mind from bursting. Too many of his late night thoughts were always about you and the ‘what ifs’ that he never got the chance to act on. 

“I wanna change for you. I wanna try. But I have so many problems… but it’s not enough. So I’m sorry.” 

“Hongjoong.” You command his attention. “I never asked you to be the perfect man, you know that.” You tell him, tears are now slowly falling from your eyes. 

“But all I ever asked for is that we loved each other. I just wanted you to be yourself when we were together. I never wanted you to hold back on your feelings.” 

 Even if his side of story didn’t make sense to you at first, you really understand it as you remembered what he usually said when he’s this intoxicated and right now, you figured that he has a fear of real, deep intimacy because of his attachment. You observed him enough to know that he tends to get obsessive with certain things and hobbies and talking him out of it was no use, but you figured out it’s how he showed love. So you never understood why he never showed the same kind of behavior towards you too, up until now. 

“You know I always asked myself, why did you push me away? Why did you never want to explore the depth of our relationship? Was it something I did? What had I done for you to be so afraid of opening it up to me? You’ve always been hot and cold. You were sweet and the most loving man for a minute but the next, you suddenly turned your back and became the coldest man I’ve known. It’s complicated.” 

 You let your tears fall. You’re not fully crying but if this drags on any longer then you might be. 

“I’m sorry.” He mumbles, shaking his head while keeping it low. “I’m so fucked up, aren’t I?” He lifts his head a bit to look at it. Only then, did you notice that his eyes are a bit unfocused but all of this talk makes him more sober than before. 

“I get attached way too quickly. I pushed you away because I’m so scared that history will repeat itself. But what I had told you before, it’s the truth.” He then continues. 

“I told you before, I’ll die if I don’t have you in my life. You may brushed it off as a joke but it’s true. You’re the only person who I told most things in my mind to, even if it’s so little. I knew that you’re the only one I’d need to be in my life in that way from the first time I saw you. Not during the relationship, the breakup or now.” 

 You’re shocked by this statement. 

 You didn’t take your ex boyfriend to think of you like that. You didn’t think that you left a strong impression on him but apparently, he thinks of you otherwise as you’re left to let his words soak into your consciousness. 

“I’m afraid of how deep my feelings run for you. Because there were people who told me it’s suffocating that I’m like this. I’m afraid that you’ll be like that too when you no longer need me, that you’ll be burdened by how intense my emotions are.” 

 He looks at you like you’re the only thing in his life that matters the most to him. And you are. 

 He just needs another chance to make it right. 

“I know I’m being so fucking selfish by keeping you around but I just need you in my life.” 

 With that, he lets a few stray tears escape from his eyes. As he desperately tries to find something to hold onto to find the balance in the current emotional state he’s in, you mindlessly extend your arm for him. He does, gently caressing the soft skin of your palm with both of his hands. 

 If he had more mind and awareness, he’d never admit that and leave you to think to connect the dots on your own. You’re not stupid but sometimes, he’s just expressing his affection in the most puzzling way possible. 

 He misses his sobriety, he misses being with you. 

“Since we broke up, I’ve never been sober. Whenever I was, I’d need to take sleeping pills to get me to sleep because I can’t  stop thinking about you.” He confesses, not to seek your sympathy but he just wants to admit this and see how much the breakup has been hard on him too. 

“Why would you do that to yourself?” You ask, tears now dried but the hurt is evident in your voice. 

“Because you’re not around.”

 You can see how broken he is, from the wavering tone in his voice. 

 His eyes, now shimmering with the dried unshed tears, beg for you to say what he wanted to hear. His own self built persona breaks especially in times where he has no control over his emotions, thoughts and speech or physical movement. 

“Do you know why I always let you in whenever you’re drunk like this at my door? Because… I still love you.” You then sigh, take a look at his face as you had promised yourself nights and months before that it’ll be the last time you’ll ever let him in. 

“But you know that we can’t always have things our way. I care about you a lot. I can feel your love for me. But it’s tiring that I have to chase after every tiny bit of your attention.” 

 You pause your speech, feeling your throat turning dry as you spend the time admiring the beauty that is your ex boyfriend. 

 Even if he is a mess, he’s truly the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen. So beautiful that you don’t think any other man you’ve seen will come close to him. Many people would have agreed with you because he’s not only physically attractive but his demeanor is unique too. 

 He is unforgettable. Truly magnificent. 

“Don’t hurt yourself because of me anymore. I don’t think I’m worth that much of a person that you need me as a survival person.” 

 Hongjoong’s heart grows heavier with this phrase that left your lips. It’s really his confirmation that he’s not welcomed back into your life in the way that he longs for anymore. 

“No!” His outburst surprises you. “You’re worth everything!”

“You’re all I ever need.” 

 The last phrase was said with a whispery tone. 

“Overtime, you won’t. You’ll meet someone who can love you and need you as much as you do with me. But I can’t be that person.” 

 His body grows colder at this moment as the heat of the alcohol intoxication mow wears off and it slowly seeps into his system. He slowly regrets saying all of that but he knows he needs the proper talk. 

 You both need closure. 

 And you both also need to move on and forget about each other. 

You knew this for a long time but now, you make up your mind to really do it. 

 Everything from his speech, to his scent and actions really messes with your thoughts tonight. It’s ruining you because his desperation and needs for you runs deeper than just for sex, but for emotional and psychological fulfillment. 

 It’s why you kept letting the doors open. 

 You’re usually logical and you give chances too many times. You did that and now the confessions make you reconsider every move and thing you’ve said to him. You ask yourself if you still really meant what you said. 

 But you’re determined. Determined to not let yourself fall into this trap of his charms and neglect again. And no matter how much it hurts you because of the hidden love you have for him that will forever be buried deep there and would go unnoticed, you also have to let him go for your own good. You can’t handle this kind of love, if that’s the treatment you receive while being in a relationship. 

 You have too much pride and perhaps, self respect, to go back to him like that. You’re not gonna let history repeat itself. 

 Silence completely falls onto you both. He feels tired as the exhaustion from both the mental battle between his heart and his head and he lets go of your arm, silently stares at your now unattended palm. 

 It’ll be the last time he’ll see you. 

 He tries to savour the moment of your presence being so close to him a little bit more by fighting his sleepiness to look at you without saying a word. 

 He knows that deep down, he should’ve let you go a long time ago. He has been nothing but such a nuisance to you, yet you treat him with so much kindness and care that he took your actions for granted. Now that you draw the lines, he regrets for all of the time that he does this. 

 His intense gaze looks at you, drinking in you and your essence. It’ll really be the last time he gets to talk to you like this, or even have the privilege to say things to you if you both bump into each other on the streets. Or even have your house architects and rooms memorized by heart. 

 He’ll have to pretend that you never existed. 

 He can do that… he used to before knowing you. Now it’ll be a task for him to not have any thoughts involving you. 

 His eyelids become more droopy and he finally lets himself completely pass out on your couch. You don’t have a heart to tell him to go away; it’ll really be the last time that you’ll let him walk into his place freely as an uninvited guest. 

“You’ll forget all of this in the morning.” You whisper, careful not to be too loud while looking at him. “I’ll never stop loving you. I never hate you. I can’t hate you even if I tried. You’ll be staying at the back of my mind every day for the rest of my life.” And you finish it off with a phrase before you get up quietly to go to your own room to sleep. 

“I don’t hope that you know that, though. You’re hard to love when you’re like this, too.” 

COPYRIGHTED BY SADNIGHTFORUS, 2023

[dreadnotau]

Its been a decent couple of months of productive work, so it's sadly time for a schedule change. I'll be posting pages two weeks apart again. Details provided below if you're curious as to why.

In all honesty there's no big dramatic reason this time around. I've just slowly lost drive to work on Dread Not as often and as thoroughly as I used to be able to. As I said in one of my previous posts (that sounded suspiciously like this one), I want to focus on other projects as well. One of those is my personal art blog, which I've neglected even though I've had art on the backburner that I've been meaning to post for AGES. Kingdomrune is another one of those, where I have shit I could post that I just... never did. Dread Not takes a lot of time and I miss being able to dedicate that time to consuming media instead of just grinding and trying to produce my own. One of the most important things to do as an artist is to broaden your horizons and take in as much art as you can, to diversify and expand what you know and what you can make. But, when all day every day I'm just sitting and drawing my own thing, it's like I have tunnel vision and my creative resources run dry. It's starting to feel weirdly soulless on my end, because I don't feel nearly half the inspiration to make the pages as I did when the big hiatus ended. It's all dependent on time and exposure, and I can only crunch for so long before it starts to feel damaging to me instead of fun and creatively fulfilling.

So what does this mean, practically speaking? Well, for one, I'm spacing out the page upload for the rest of Act 1, as previously mentioned. I'm well aware this will kill the pacing and it'll drag out longer than it theoretically needs to, but I'd even rather that than trying to rush out a page in the Two Days I have free this week (yeah, ONLY two days free out of the ENTIRE week. Don't ask me why it's not even my fuckin' fault this time). If pages become even more scarce than 1 page per 2 weeks, blame it on college. I'm getting new subjects and I don't even know the class schedule yet. Concerning Act 2 though, I'll be changing the structure of the pages from their core. I'll be switching to a different drawing software (probably Krita, suck my dick Photoshop) so it'll take some getting used to. I can't even promise bonus content or anything during the necessary break between acts because of that shift in software happening, I've never done a massive technical move like this. However, it'll allow me to, not only work on Dread Not better, but expand my art overall, so it's definitely worth it. I've wanted to get into animation for YEARS and Krita seems like an okay place to start (the gif on this post WAS made with Photoshop, but shitty gifs are about all I can make as animations in Photoshop). Act 2's style will, predictably, differ heavily from Act 1 and (with how long writing the dialogue alone for it is taking), it might end up being Longer than Act 1, too. Visually, it'll probably be something like cleaned up and coloured sketches, with simpler colour palettes and simpler (big airquotes) visuals overall, and it'll speed up the process and possibly allow me to post more than one page at a time. Possibly. That's not a promise.

I'm sorry if that's disappointing to anyone, but I physically can't make myself continue the current artstyle across all acts. It's just not feasible.

For those curious about the FARTHER future of Dread Not, I have plans to turn Act 3 into a series of fics rather than full comic pages, and something maybe a bit more insane for Act 4. I don't have everything figured out yet, and I don't want to make any false promises or give any grand ideas I won't be able to commit to, since only time will tell how my creativity will flow years from now. If you all want more content from me specifically, again I'm planning on reviving my art tumblr like a half buried zombie, and you'll probably see more there than you bargained for once I actually get into the habit of posting things. If you're mayhaps interested in my original stuff, keep your eyes peeled for a guy called Duro, I might start posting about him some time soon.

As always, thank you for your patience, and apologies again if this news was disappointing to anyone. I'm just one guy and this comic is a titan of biblical proportions. I'll keep you all posted on any further developments and plans for the future! Stay tuned!

[ase-trollplays]

Be the weirdo limeblood

(temporary sprite)

(Abridged bio)

Your name is Brandy Voleon, and you take offense to being called a weirdo! You're not any weirder than anyone else on Baby Murder Hell Planet, thank you very much. If anything, you're more normal than the majority of the population. Anyways, you're eleven sweeps old, and you live in a place called The Villa. You think it's a fine place to live, but all of your online friends you've told about it have described it as "if red flags were a city." Yeah, it's got its eccentricities like the normalized cannibalism and the REALTORs and the fact that no one can find this place unless they're hatched there or led there, but it's fine. There's probably weirder, more dangerous places out there.

You've lived in The Villa for essentially your whole life, but you're technically an outsider. After being orphaned at only one sweep old, you were brought there by a jade named Japhyr, and he raised you all the way until you were nine sweeps old when he was killed in a freak accident. He was a little odd and occasionally would lose himself to horrorterror influence and become unhinged and violent (One such episode leading to that big scar on your face, but it's fine), but you loved him all the same. He only ever had your best interests at heart. You still miss him.

Anyways, this is supposed to be about you! You like to think of yourself as a pretty chill guy. It takes a lot to rattle you or even make you uneasy. Living where you do, you're pretty desensitized to horror. You're also pretty passive and the type to react to things happening rather than making things happen. You can also be a little bit of a people pleaser and really clingy when you get attached to someone since Japhyr kept you pretty isolated. Most of your friends are online, but when you manage to make one in real life you give it your all.

However, just because you're a passive people pleaser doesn't mean you'll tolerate abuse of any kind. You've killed more than a few trolls who took you for an easy mark or even so much as threatened harm on your friends, and you'd do it again and again and again with no regrets every single time. As they say, "Violence isn't the answer. Violence is the question, and the answer is yes."

As a limeblood, you have emotion-based psionics. However, instead of the pacifying abilities your caste is associated with, your powers are (in your opinion) significantly less useful. By focusing on a specific person, you can feel their emotions. Not in an empathetic way, but in a quite literal way. As in, their emotions are physically felt by you. Tangibly. Anger feels like being covered in hot needles. Fear feels like static electricity. Tiredness makes your body feel heavier. Happiness makes you feel warmer. Malice feels like you're being suffocated. You get the idea. It's real neat and all, but you feel like you lost the psionic lottery.

For work, you make a living doing data entry and inventory detail for a big company. It's dull and tedious, but it keeps the bills paid, and you like all of your coworkers. However, when you need extra money or a break from the monotony of office work, you take part in trade of the "organ harvesting and selling" variety. It's how Japhyr made his way, and naturally he taught you everything he knows. Your name and face is well-known in the organ trafficking circle, but you keep that little side hustle separate from your normal life. It's important to maintain a positive image, you know?

One of your primary hobbies is studying the occult and outer beings. You initially got into it in hopes of finding a way to help Japhyr, but now that he's dead you mostly keep at it for your own amusement and because it's genuinely fascinating to you. Maybe one night you'll work up the courage to contact one of the beings you've read about. But not now.

Your lesser hobbies include stargazing and watching youtubers, specifically those who review and analyze various media like movies, tv shows, and video games. You're also in like, thirteen different discord servers and mod a couple of them. How you have the time for that much activity? Who even knows, but damn if you don't make time. Those are your friends in there!

Speaking of your friends, you used to have a twin. The two of you spent the first sweep of your lives together before being separated by chance when Japhyr found you orphaned since said twin was away from the hive at the time. However, you were so young back then that you don't really remember much about him now. All you remember is that at one point you had a twin that you lived with before living with Japhyr.

You use knifeKind for your strife specibus. Your favorite knife is your trusty tanto knife, followed by your hunting knife, followed by your switchblade, followed by... Well, let's just say you have A Lot of knives. What can you say? You like sharp pointy things.

Your trollian is mundaneAnomolies "And you 2ort of hav3 a thing for th3 numb3r 23."

Important tags:

Brandy things

Brandy answers

Brandy muses

About Brandy

[britt-thats-it]

Being back on tumblr is so nice. It’s like I never left (except I can’t remember everyone I used to follow/they probs left too).

(feelsies under the cut)

I only left because this couple I almost dated (who took my not dating them very hard) sort of cyber stalked me here. I kept making new accounts and they kept finding them and showing them to everyone in the scene we were all part of and following all the people I was mutuals with and it was… not cool.

Anyway, I’ve been really struggling with grief since quarantine. I had a huge falling out with my sister who I had been living with for the last 4 years. Her lack of recovery was badly interfering with my recovery and I was so deeply triggered by her behavior that I was barely functioning. I was in a constant state of flared up, in so much pain every day, even laying down was uncomfortable. I wasn’t able to eat bc my reflux was going crazy, I was starting to drink too much (something I hadn’t struggled with in years), I wasn’t sleeping. The pressure of being home together all the time took its toll.

Coincidentally, divine timing being what it is, my partner and I were spending hours on the phone every day. Just falling so in love. We’d already been together for almost a year, but her two other relationships falling apart, career change, and my chronic illness and not remembering how to be in a relationship (lol— it had been a LONG time and I was fully down to spend the rest of my life alone) kept us at a bit of a distance. We had been very close friends for a couple years beforehand, so when we took things to a romantic level, the feelings progressed quickly but we just didn’t have much time for each other. Anyway, she invited me to come stay with her. I was only planning on 2 weeks, but I literally never left. Everything just felt so easy and sweet. We handle each other with such care. Over the last 3 years my life has become a kind of stable that I’ve never (I mean NEVER) experienced. I love it and I am so grateful for it.

But I remember from my trauma-filled childhood, the survival mode of the present puts off the feelings for later. It isn’t until you have a calm moment that the feelings about what you just went through hit you.

The last 7 years hit me like an 18 wheeler. Going no contact with my family, living on the road, losing my job and being homeless, moving to nyc on a wing and a prayer, living with my sister and reliving A lot of my childhood through her behaviors, struggling through the capitalist ass New York art scene as an autistic person while also being very poor, working my fucking ass off, *just* about to hit my stride and do this fuckin career thang and boom. Covid.

I made an album, collaborated on a friend’s album, started my podcast and wrote a book. I’m in the middle of making another album. All this while feeling myself really trust someone, really learn what partnership means, really feeling like an adult, but also feeling so so wounded. The grief has been the heaviest thing I’ve ever felt. I lost myself a little bit. Insert bloody goopy chrysalis metaphor here.

I did all this but not joyfully, not really. Something was missing.

I have been trying, in the last few months, to unironically find my bliss again. I lost my sparkle, I lost my drive. I really feel like I experienced my own metaphorical death. I was anxious and raw, I second-guessed every interaction because I felt like I didn’t know how to be a person. I was completely sober!! Just fucking raw dogging life!!! I was scared all the time. I forgot my passions, I forgot my purpose. I still worked on stuff, I still created (a lot that I’m proud of!!) but idk I just wasn’t the same free-spirited confident lil powerhouse I came to know myself to be.

I think I gave too much on other social media. I think I was too vulnerable and too available and it got me into trouble. I think I confused work for life and I soured my own creation process for me. It became too important. Every hobby, every passion became kindling for money making or making “it” or whatever. I forgot how to have fun. I burnt myself out.

I recently started remembering hobbies I had that I never shared with anyone irl. Exercise/weight lifting, which I picked back up again in February, slowly testing the waters to see if my disordered relationship to it would return, it didn’t. Feeling myself getting stronger being exactly what I needed (literally and metaphorically) and all the good stuff that does to my confidence. Playing music just for fun, just sitting down with an instrument and playing 😫 locking myself in a room and flitting around like a mad scientist creating something I love 😫 dancing 😫 meditation 😫 journaling 😫 pulling tarot cards just for me 😫 and finally, longing for connection of some sort; for actual vulnerability and not people just fucking marketing themselves all the time— I remembered how much tumblr helped me. How much it inspired me. How it helped me become the person who made all those scary changes, who learned who I am and learned how to walk away. So much good came from that decade I spent here, so I decided to come back.

It’s exactly what I needed.

[intrepidradish]

Media: Dragon Ball Z

Year/my age: 2002/12

What drew me to the media:

I came home from highschool everyday and had a small tv with a built in vhs in my closet. It was 4:30pm and toonami was on Cartoon Network. I watched the entire Cell Saga and Majin Boo like a fiend. It was a shitton of episodes! Ugh. It's almost impossible to watch all the way through now, but maybe because as an adult I want like...more plot motivated writing. One of the best fanfic foder aspects of DBZ is that so much is left open to interpretation. I didn't question the filler episodes as a kid. I just liked all the muscles and screaming. The animation/manga style remains super duper fun. But mostly I found DBZ memorable because of Vegeta. I got truly invested in him as a character, because for most of DBZ, he really lets you down. I think TV shows love to harp on tropes for children, ie the bad man becomes a good man and all his values change to match the good characters *sparkles*, because they think morally those are the stories that should be told to children. Which is sad, honestly. Vegeta doesn't fall into that arc. He remains...kind of a bitch... and his character arch is fantastic and long and hard and he fucks up a lot and he doesn't really apologize for any of it. This was amazing to see as a preteen. Teaching failure to a child is really hard, and I think that America's school system is really bad at even attempting to. But failure is super important. Because all of life that child cum adult is going to fail, and its going to suck.

What made me a fan:

In college, I did another pass of DBZ, and whoa, developing adult horny brain really went into spiral knots wondering...so what the fuck... Bulma and Vegeta... had sex? They made a child. They made Trunks. So they had sex, right? I think this is pretty common a reaction. And as soon as you think that, well... the next step is... 'wait wait wait, how did they have sex? why did they have sex? what did that even look like?' And that's what sends you scouring the internet at 1am in your underwear (covertly, because you're in a dormitory with three other roommates).

I wish I could put to language what is it about romance that sends people into fandom holes. Romance is really important to fandom. I think it has something to do with how regimented relationships are in mass media. They aren't diverse. Most main stream romance is very streamlined and never gets into the messy odd bits without being labeled as some kind of edgy cusp drama. I don't know. But relationships seem to be the spring board for fandom hijinks. I'm all about it. I'd rather have fake blorbo relationships in my brain to obsess over than the real world. That shit gets you into trouble.

Oh god, and what an indicator of future dispositions. If you get into the Vegebul fandom, a lot of them are rape stories (because god forbid, a woman could want a shitty asshole alien man to bone at night. Bulma has her own set of problems, specifically with vanity being high up there). But yeah they were hot and I was pretty ashamed about the whole thing.

I was such a baby then.

Have I written fanfiction for it?

YES. One winter vacation, I wrote a 40 page fanfiction. This was probably in 2010? It was UNFINISHED, but I was incredibly sweaty the entire time, trying to build up to a spanking scene. (Yes, 40 pages of build up for spanking. I'm embarrassed for myself.) My computer crashed and the entire document was corrupted. My first fanfic was lost. RIP

Opinion on the fandom:

Pretty chill. I didn't interact with it much besides reading secretly. Originally, I was reading on fanfiction.net. When I came back to it years later (once again after college, I got my husband into it) I was reading fanfic for it on Ao3. I run into other Vegebul's periodically. They are all in their late twenties, early-late thirties. I follow someone here on tumblr that wrote this fantastic long series (100+ chapters) called Pillow Talk which is on Ao3. It's fucking incredible about showing the ups and downs, ins and outs of their relationship, because they do wind up together in canon (which is wild).

The most recent interaction I had was in the kink community, which was like *sigh* 'god, we are so fucking predictable, aren't we?' We had a good laugh! But he was trans masc too, chilling in a femme body, so we clicked right away about it.

I also remember I had an annoying conversation with my stepbrother once about tattoos. I don't have any, so they were asking why I don't. I said "If I started to get tattoos it would be a slipper slop before I start making bad decisions like getting a full Vegeta arm sleeve." Their mouths twisted in that judging you face and said "yeah don't do that." Like...ahem. My point exactly.

I think people get pretty judgy in general about Vegebuls because its a 90s kid's show, and its not a very good one. But being a Vegebul is kind of like... realizing your parents have sex. It's part of 'coming of age'.

Would I participate again:

Hell yeah, I would. Once a Vegebul always a Vegebul. The biggest hurdle for me would be catching up on all the new material. I watched Dragon Ball Super and found it lackluster. GT was so bad, I cannot. Something that's commonly an issue for me is the amount of subject material required to understand a story in fanfiction. I'll get into it later with other fandoms, but if the lore gets too big, I suddenly don't know how to participate.

Master post

[lucy4ukyutie]

Why old fans sometimes don't like* reboots of childhood shows

*or we may like them, but less than the original. Also, it isn't like that for all reboots, all types of media, and, of course, all fans.

Popular opinion: it's because we are racist/homophobic/xenophobic or all of that and in that order.

Unpopular opinion:

More often than not, they mess up with our nostalgia and crush our dreams. A franchise you loved, which may have meant a lot to you, left you craving for more... of THAT. You still wanted to see more things being added to that world (and yeah, more inclusion and representation was often one of them), but not CHANGED. An expansion or a continuation is positive mostly, but changes are very hard to accept, because it means something you liked won't be like that anymore. And reboots sometimes make HUGE changes which even deny/eliminate important things of the original series.

The changes often come out of the blue. They aren't like "that's how it should have always been" but more like "how does that fit in the world/character we already know and love???"

We can see how they (well, most modern media) exploit the youth's yearn for identification/representation to make more money out of their reboots. They put a tag on themselves saying "we have the diversity you want" and insert all possible minorities' stereotypes in only 4 characters (which didn't have such identity before, btw, so it's a new change you'll have to accept). So they think they are giving you representation, when actually all they're giving you is a Harry Potter house for you to get into without going much further instead of actually adding worthy characters which might as well portray parts of someone's identity (sexual orientation, race, etc) that weren't portrayed before. This I actually find offensive and/or irritating, because it gets so unrealistic or evident that it becomes so obvious that they're doing it as a marketing strategy, to profit from people's desire to identify themselves with smth (*especially tweens/teens*) and not to dig into and appreciate a different perspectives and so.

On a similar note, the characters' personality tend to be more "plain" since they want everyone to be able to self-insert themselves into the characters. This is also common in a lot of modern audiovisual media directed to young people, because of the same point I made above (ejhm, dirty marketing). In a reboots' case, it can feel like the characters fall short.

The story loses its "magic" or "fantasy/fictional vibe" to make it more modern and thus appeal to younger audiences. Lots of things can cause that imo. Making stories in modern settings... Making the story darker... Addressing real life problems without adapting them to the fantasy world... Making clothes too normal... Even just adapting an animation into a live action can have this effect. When the original vibe is somewhat lost or the "meaning" becomes less universal and more specific to real problems of some communities, the fiction starts becoming less fictional (and again, less like you remember, making it harder to like). It isn't an escape anymore. Cartoons from our childhood are a way of escapism for us now, even if it's just an escape from modern media (bc you don't like it too much or prefer the one you grew up with). And reboots rarely give us that.

Tu sum up: (sometimes, some old fans) would rather see a kind of continuation with meaningful additions or straight up a new show rather than a reboot which rewrites the whole show to the point it doesn't feel like *og series name* anymore.

[finelinevogue]

Can you write something about when Harry and Y/N broke up but fans speculate that they got back together and they did get back together. They broke over something stupid, please. You don’t have to do this exactly it can be something like that.

let’s see how this turns out! hope it’s what you wished for?!

The last few months had been rough.

What had started as rumours of a breakup between everyones favourite couple, you and Harry, had turned into an actual breakup.

It had started by Harry spending more time with Olivia, due to press for Don’t Worry Darling. They were always hanging out with each other, even when there was no publicity stunt telling them to. You found it appropriate at first, wanting the movie to gain some form of reputation, but after a while you believed it turned South. It was becoming a definite friendship and not just because they had to. It was the way that Harry would bring Olivia over for dinner without checking with you first, or taking the dog for a walk with her not you, or even staying longer out on stunts than they needed to just because they wanted to.

So you challenged Harry on it. Hell, even the tabloids were challenging you both - claiming Harry had split from you for Olivia. You made him question whether he thought his actions were irresponsible and appropriate or not, to which he thought there was nothing wrong and thought you were being irrational. You didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day, only to find him later on the phone speaking to Olivia about how crazy you’d been acting about it all. So you showed him crazy and walked out.

Until today.

For over a half a year your sister had her wedding planned and Harry was supposed to be your guest. You were nervous about turning up without him, because your family were very judgy. Your sister couldnt help being the smarter and the prettier one, but she also didn’t have to parade it around so everyone knew of it. Your mum and dad thought you a disappointment for the longest time, but once you’d gotten a job and had moved out they were a bit more loving over you. Still didn’t hide the fact they desperately hoped for you to have a relationship. It wasn’t that you were bringing Harry along to prove that someone loved you, but more to prove that they would never fully be satisfied whether you had a boyfriend or not. There would always be a podium stand slightly lower for you to stand on.

However, they didn’t know about the breakup.

“Y/N, nice to see you. Where’s Harry?” Another guest asked you, relatives of your mum. It was the same question over and over again, no one really caring about how you are but instead whether you’re in a positive relationship.

“Oh um I think he’s just running a bit late.” Was your chosen answer to respond to said question. It was repetitive, but it kept people off your back.

The wedding was completely beautiful. It was in a beautiful church and was decorated to perfection. The theme was white and royal blue, something your sister had always dreamed of. Children played amongst the pews and family relatives mumbled to each other about gossip. There was still a heavy sadness to the event. Maybe it was because your sister hadn’t asked you to be a bridesmaid - instead, choosing her best friends instead - or maybe it was because you missed Harry so much.

He’d fucked up. He really had, but it didn’t take away that burning passion for him that spread like a wildfire in your belly. You missed him. You still loved him. Worst of all, you had to pretend everything was all alright in front of your family when actually you were breaking apart inside.

Harry hadn’t messaged saying that he was or wasn’t coming, but after everything that had happened you were confident he was going to be a no show, and you would be the embarrassment of the family once again. Your relationship had been very private and exclusive, but Harry’s fans were so investigative you wouldn’t be surprised if they knew that you’d broken up and were aware that you were at a wedding today without him. Neither of you had made a public statement about your breakup, but neither of your wanted to damage each other even more. Fans suspected though and rumours travel fast.

“Y/N how are you doing? How’s Harry?” Another aunt came and asked you, this time with your mother in tow.

“Oh he’s great, yes.” You smiled forcefully, not actually having a clue how your ex-boyfriend was doing. You didn’t keep up with his social media because you were afraid of what you might find.

“Where is he? Is he here?” Your aunt asked.

“He’s late, apparently.” Your mother answered for you, sneeringly. “You’ll be made a fool of if he’s a no show Y/N.”

“I know.”

“I hope everything goes well for you both.” Your aunt kindly said, before waiting for your mum to say something nice too. That was a mistake though.

“Well it’s unlikely she’ll find someone again!” Your mother laughed and pulled your aunt away from you. You furrowed your eyebrows and let your heart sink low.

What were you thinking, letting Harry go like that? Your mum was right, you were never going to find anyone else again. You were so lucky with Harry. He was so kind and so patient with you, but obviously he’d run out of steam towards the end. It doesn’t surprise you. You’ve always been told you’re a mighty handful and you need a lot of work put into looking after you, so you understand why you were probably too much for Harry. The showbiz life had never really been something you’d completely submerged yourself into, whereas you guess for Olivia it was rooted in her from birth. She understood Harry’s world the same way he did hers. They would match perfectly for each other, if that’s what they wanted.

You watched the room continue as usual, but you couldn’t keep yourself here. There was too much sadness welling deep within you that you wanted to just run and then keep running. So you did, only to get as far as the bench in the front courtyard. The outside felt calmer and more freeing than inside, you sat and absorbed it for a while, not realising that you were crying until your pretty multicoloured dress had grown darker with a pool of your tears.

“Shit.” You tried rubbing the tears out, but only made you cry a little harder. You thought about your makeup running and tried to compose yourself, fanning your face to calm it down from the heat now.

“And here I was thinking weddings were supposed to be happy.”

You stopped fanning your face to look at him. You couldn’t believe he was standing there, dressed in a beautiful white suit and salmon pink shirt underneath to compliment the colours of your dress - the outfit that you’d helped him pick out over a year ago. He’d remembered. He trusted that you’d still be wearing this dress. He was a sight alright. A vision of beauty and love.

“Harry?” You questioned, wiping your under eyes to clear away any running mascara, not quite believing he was standing there.

“So what was it? Bad music playing? No vodka? Or maybe there’s nowhere for you to escape to go read the book I know you have stuffed away in your clutch bag.” He stood at a distance from you, hands in his trouser pockets, to make sure you were comfortable.

“I brought vodka instead of the book.” You chuckled, reaching into your clutch to prove it to him.

“Lucky for you, i’ve come to save the day.” Harry reached to the inside of his blazer pocket and pulled out a Kindle. You’d always been debating whether or not to buy one, because the feeling of having a book to turn its’ physical pages is a feeling second to none. “Take it, it’s yours.”

Harry handed it out to you and you stood up to reach for it hesitantly. Harry assured you that it was okay and that you’d been reading too many books if you thought it was a trap of some sort.

“Thank you, Harry.” You spoke sincerely. You stroked your thumb over the cover and turned the case lid over to start up the screen. The screen lit up and it was set to a picture of your favourite quote, annotated just as you would have in your own book. You chuckled and let a few tears drop from the kindness of all of this.

“And then…” Harry unlocked the Kindle with your birthday as the password, before clicking on the library so you could discover what was waiting for you on your virtual shelves. Harry had downloaded all your most favourite books, whilst also downloading the ones he knew had been on your to-be-read list. He’d even added a few of his favourite books too, just because you liked reading his recommendations.

You smiled, but felt so lost.

“W-why are you here, H?” You asked, closing the lid and bravely looking up into his enchanting eyes. You had to control yourself not to comment on how wondrous they looked.

“To save the day.” He chuckled in repeat, until he knew you weren’t taking that for an answer. “Because I fucked up. Big league time.”

“Yeah.” You whispered, looking down at your shoes to see that they weren’t that far apart at all. He was so close to you, yet he wasn’t yours to catch.

“And i’ll never forgive myself for letting you walk out of that door. The promotion shit with Olivia? Done. I’ve finished. I explained that the movie isn’t as important to me as you. You,” Harry paused to breathe out, and took the risk of guiding your jaw up to meet your gaze with his soft hand, “you are real Y/N. You’re so important and key to my life and it bloody terrified me, still does actually, to think that you make me feel this way. I want everything with you. Marriage, kids, a home. A life. I was so worried I would screw it all up, though, to the point where I did screw it all up. I lost you and so I lost me. It’s selfish of me to ask whether any part of your heart still wants me, but—”

“Yes.” You quickly interjected before he could say something he’d later regret. “There is, yes.”

“R-really?” He stumbled over his response, not expecting you to react so soon but his words had got to you. His feelings were vulnerable and raw and it reminded you of how much you love him and feel safe with him.

“Why? Would you like me to say different.” You teased.

“No,” Harry rushed, stepping closer towards you, “God now. Stay, please. Forever, if you’ll have me?”

“I can deal with forever.” You leaned up to where his lips were, craving the taste of them against yours so badly. “Can I?” You looked between his lips and his eyes, watching his eyes coo in admiration of you. His arms snaked around your neck and cupped the back of your head, resting his ringed fingers against your skin delicately.

“You don’t have to ask, angel.” And with that you didn’t hesitate to reclaim your clips on his. He tasted as sweet and as soft as you could remember. The hint of mint sweets he kept in his car could be tasted all over his mouth, and he could no doubt taste the vodka on yours. He took no time in rushing to have his tongue exploring your mouth once mouth, biting on your lip when he got the chance to. He wanted you to remember this moment and how much love he has for you, and always will. Just as you do for him.

Hesitantly pulling away you smiled at him cheekily, feeling so much lighter and happier to have him here. With you in his arms so expertly.

“What?” He asked, leaving a quick kiss to your nose, inhaling his scent as he did.

“Just can’t believe you’re here.” You stroked his cheek with your thumb, and he leaned into your touch so comfortably. He had missed you so damn much, and it showed.

“Let you down once before and I wasn’t going to do it again.”

“So you’d have shown up even if I hadn’t?”

“Not happily, but yes.” He laughed thinking about it.

“Why?” You laughed with him.

“I’ve got to make my impression on your family somehow. Need to remind some of them how amazing and beautiful their special Y/N L/N is.”

“Some are going to need a lot more persuading than others.” You sighed, side-frowning over your words.

“No offence, but anyone who doesn’t treat you as a fucking diamond doesn’t deserve you and should watch out for kick up their backside from me.” You laughed over his empty threat and buried your head against his chest, listening to the heartbeat and rumble of laughter that came from within. This moment alone felt like home. Safe and warm.

“I love you, H.”

“Bloody love you too.”

Harry ended up returning to the wedding with you, much to your mothers surprise, and you both enjoyed the celebrations together. You shut yourselves out from everybody and just danced, talked and drank the night away.

You were so in love.

Later, photos got leaked of the wedding and it showed you and Harry dancing away in one of the backgrounds of the photos. It was supposed to be a shot of just the bride and groom, but you two have managed to get caught in it. You looked so caught up in each other that you still weren’t even aware the photo had been taken. You and Harry had determinedly avoided the camera all night, exactly for this reason, but a part of you was kind of happy that this one photo got leaked, because it showed the world that Harry was yours and you were his. It showed that you were together, or back-together as addressed by some FBI fans, and that you were stronger for it.

[redwyverndht]

Ghost Game, or how I stopped worrying and love the mystery box

Incoherent ramble incoming!

my brain is rotating gulusgammamon and what in the Kentucky Fried Fuck will happen next and/or why

gulus

hokuto

my man Hiro is taking the loss of his dad like a champ lol

blacktailmon uver

blackagumon

blackgargomon

what are all these black digimon doing

no one notices any digimon ever

how long is ghost game gonna be even because if they have only 52 episodes it's been one hell of a setup and the payoff is nowhere in sight

The thing is, despite these numerous loose threads and no answer in sight, I still can't help but love this dang show. Its characters, the horror ambiance, the animation, and the individual episodes are dripping with emotion and I love it

And my love of the episodic nature of it has made me keep watching it! And idk, if the expectations get in the way, it's better for me but to not expect anything like we've seen before

depicted: me going feral over digimon and the state of the entertainment industry for my poor, unfortunate mutuals

The mystery box and its problems

There's a concept that gets thrown around when talking about JJ Abrams and his work on Lost, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones: the Mystery Box.

It's a way to create engagement for your audience, setting up and building up expectations to get resolved later, making the audience wonder and ponder what the result will be

That, the horror, and the charming characters are Ghost Game's greatest strengths. But the thing with the Mystery Box is that it's really difficult to get resolved satisfyingly (re: game of thrones season 8)

This episode made me realize that I have absolutely no idea where all of this is going. And normally that would be a bad thing, but there's one small problem with the problem:

Ghost Game is actually competent,,,,,,,,

It's not that simple

There are lots of instances where I've been legitimately enjoying watching it way more than any previous digimon season. Ghost Game (imho) thrashes every single digimon series in individual episodes quality, especially lately (this is a contentious take and you don't have to agree with it don't worry) The horror buildup, the tension, even when they're not resolved 100% satisfyingly, are golden on their own

Considering the shoes Ghost Game has to fill:

A friggin digimon season

One after the weird success of Adventure:

Helping boost the VB

Being televised before the anime adaptation of the MOST IMPORTANT SHONEN OF THE DECADE THAT'S 1000+ EPISODES LONG

Most people watching it aren't 100% familiar with digimon; they probably just saw adventure (1999/2020) and stayed

The real reason of its episodic nature really comes through

I'm all for plot, but we in the streaming era have forgotten how catastrophic it is for a show's odds of survival it is to have your audience not know what's going on. TV is (surprisingly) still huge in Japan, so that's probably why the show is how it is.

You will never watch Adventure again, and why that's ok

It's not 1999 anymore, though. The era of big networks and monolithic media consumption is over here, where everything is more niche and fandom-ized. That's why western digimon fans have this reaction that might differ from the real target audience: the Japanese (for now) mainstream audience (I'm firm that there's a decent chance Ghost Game crosses the pond with a dub at some point, given the abundance of text in English in the actual anime)

Tumblr is really good at this, since there's not that much elitism here, but it sometimes seems like the fanbase is just desperate to see Adventure/Tamers again, and revive that spark they felt when they were young. But, despite sharing some similarities, Ghost Game isn't Tamers. It's not Adventure. It's also not Hunters nor Appmon. But, since episode 13, it's become increasingly clear that it's also not just Scooby-Doo digimon. Then, what is it?

Every digimon series has reinvented the wheel radically, and there's little to no consistency between them, but that just means that they can adapt, shift, and never stagnate. They're not perfect by any means, and you can complain about lots of things. But you can't complain about stagnation.

Despite how nearly every big media franchise had pivoted to nostalgia (See: Disney remakes) or settled to appeal to the majority, Digimon still experiments and reinvents itself.

Even with the relentless prioritization of Adventure since the start of Tri, they still made a wildly different, yet same in spirit, season. One that had probably the second most passionate and protective fanbase, second only to Adventure itself. In the middle of "the Adventure Nostalgia" era, they made Appmon. It wasn't 100% successful, and it has its flaws, but there is greatness under the surface, and I love it

I definitely don't want to say all complaints about Ghost Game, or Appmon for that matter, are only because everyone has too much nostalgia, but it does have an effect on the perception most people have.

Fast forward to today. Even when they literally remade Adventure with the same characters of the same age, after all of this, they still managed to make a great original digimon season that stands all on its own!

Conclusion

I have no idea of how Ghost Game will end. But I am certain that the staff at Toei have some degree of competence that gives me hope. Case in point: despite being completely unexpected, last episode kicked ass!!!!!!! *fangirl time*

Vamdemon was very imposing and disgusting (in the best way possible). And the final Canoweissmon reveal, unexpected as it was, was awesome (especially that little gulug teasing we got). Even though I wanted to see more of Dracmon and the other villains, it feels like it's not the last time we'll see them...

All the loose threads, as unresolved as they are, make my matpat-loving gremlin really happy to speculate, and it's still really fun to see the main 6's shenanigans every week!

There's a lot to be enjoyed in Ghost Game, and it really is starting to take shape. But where? I have no idea, and yet I love it for what it is.

anyways stan gammamon

[idy-ll-ique]

a manny and a pedi

pairing: steve rogers x f!reader

genre: fluff, mild angst

warnings: lil bit of violence

requested: by @maximeevansblog

Its almost mine birthday so, a one with Steve, it is the readers birtday and steve is taking the reader to the hair and nail salon, and that night he has a suprise party for the reader and he is nervous that she wont like his gift but she loves his gift

word count: ~1.3k

summary: it was supposed to be "y/n y/l/n, will you marry me?" it was supposed to be romantic. why, then, did it become "that's my fiancée, you fucking asshole!" "your... your what?"

author's note: hiya peeps! okay firstly, happy birthday @maximeevansblog ! hope you have a wonderful birthday! also, im sorry if i changed your prompt a tiny bit, i hope you still like it. enjoy!

masterlist

---

"Hey lover boy, what—"

"Oh Jesus Christ, Barnes!" Steve exclaimed, startled. Bucky laughed and clapped him on the back once. "What are you doing here, are you spying?" he teased his best friend, peeking past him to look into the room outside which he found Steve standing. Y/N was inside the room, talking to a guy while holding a bouquet of flowers in her hands.

"Y/N?! Your own girlfriend, Rogers?" Bucky admonished harshly in a whisper, pulling Steve away from the door. "It's not— I trust her completely, honest! It's the guy she's talking to, Manny. I swear to God he's trying to steal her from me—"

"Nobody is stealing me, Rogers, Manny's just a friend! No ulterior motives, he has already promised like a thousand times," Steve heard behind him and whirled around to see Y/N standing there with a smirk, an eyebrow raised. "You taking snooping lessons from Barnes now?" he muttered, "I know babe, I just—"

"Just nothing, Stevie, be happy! It's my birthday!" she laughed and gave him a tight hug, burrowing into his arms. To be honest, Y/N knew about Manny's intentions and Steve was right to worry; he flirted with her all the time, even when she insisted she was dating the ex-Captain America. But she knew better than to worry Steve.

He soothingly rubbed her back, swatting Bucky's hand away when he tried to run his fingers through her hair. "Stop it, that's my girlfriend," he pouted and both Bucky and Y/N burst out laughing. "She's like a sister; jeez, Rogers, tone it down a little bit," Bucky sighed and waved at the couple, walking away.

Steve and Y/N decided to go back to their room. They had been in a relationship for around 4 years now, and they weren't planning on stopping, ever. The only time Y/N would become Steve's ex-girlfriend was when she became his wife. Which he hoped she'd become soon, since he had a special birthday planned for her.

First, he was going to take her to a hair salon, then a manicure and pedicure, and finally, a picnic under the stars. There, he was finally going to pop the question: Y/N, will you marry me? After his retirement, that was all he wanted. A stable life; a wife, kids, maybe some pets. He was even ready to be a trophy husband, as Y/N was still in the Avengers Initiative.

"Steve? Steve!" He snapped out of his thoughts and gave Y/N a sheepish smile. "Sorry, pumpkin, lost in thoughts. So, uh, the flowers look nice," he stammered, looking everywhere but at the flowers which Y/N was putting in a vase. "Oh hush Rogers, you don't have to pretend to like them for me, I get it. I was just like that with you, you know?"

It was true, in the beginning of their relationship Y/N was what Steve was now. Jealous, overprotective, obsessed… somewhere along the line the roles were reversed. "I know, honey, I'm sorry… they're a birthday gift, I should be happy for you." He walked towards her and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing a kiss to her neck.

"It's fine. So, I've received everyone's gift but yours, where is it?" she grinned coyly, reaching up to cup his cheek. Steve smirked against her skin and spun her around, bringing them back chest to chest. "In my pants," he whispered seductively. A few seconds passed and both of them burst out laughing.

"I swear to God, Stevie, if that's your only gift I'm gonna be really disappointed." Steve pouted and leaned forward to give her a sweet kiss. "First of all, ouch," he began, "And second, no that's not the only gift. I have a really fun day planned for us, you up for it?" Y/N's eyes lit up and she nodded eagerly, jumping into his arms. "Aw, Steve, I love you so much!"

"I love you too, princess. Now for the first gift—"

"Ste— oh…"

---

"I. Look. Freaking. Amazing!"

Steve smiled softly as Y/N admired herself in the mirror. They had just returned from the mani-pedi session, and Y/N was feeling the most refreshed she had in years. She had also gotten a fantastic new hairstyle, complete with a different hair colour. Y/N was feeling like a new person, all thanks to Steve. She turned to him with a huge smile.

"Words cannot express how much I love you," she began, giving him a tight hug, "But numbers can. 1 million out of 10!" Steve laughed at her excitement, gently playing with her hair as he held her close. "But the best part awaits: the picnic! We still have a few hours to go, maybe I can go some for training?"

"Sure, and I'm going to take some pictures and post them to all my social media sites! Oh my God, this is fantastic—" Steve laughed at Y/N's squeals and left the room, feeling giddier and happier than he was in the morning. You see, Steve was kind of nervous the whole day. First, it was because of Manny, second, he was worried she wouldn't like his gifts and third, will she say yes?

Two out of the three concerns were gone. It was the pesky last one that ran through his mind the whole time he was in the gym. After an hour, Steve decided to go back to their room to relax for a while under the Air Conditioner; he didn't want to be a smelly, sweaty mess on the most important night of his life.

As he was walking towards their room, though, Steve happened to bump into Y/N. And… Manny. Manny took one step forward, Y/N took a step back. One step forward, one step back as Y/N held her hands out in front of her, protecting herself. Without even bothering to know the full story, Steve rushed over and punched Manny straight on the nose.

He fell back with a groan as Y/N gasped, covering her mouth. "That's my fiancée, you fucking asshole! Have some respect for other people's relationships, she said no, no means no!" he yelled, so loud that a few others came over to check on them. Bucky, Sam, Peter, Tony, Wanda, Vision, Bruce and Natasha, all stood a few feet away, watching with wide eyes.

Y/N's head snapped towards Steve when he called her his fiancée. "Your… your what?" she whispered, and Steve finally realized what he had blurted out. Shit. "I… I was going to ask you tonight at the picnic— it was supposed to be romantic, damn it Manny, you ruined—" His speech was cut short as Y/N immediately took him in her arms, kissing him deeply.

"Yes, Steve, I will marry you," she mumbled with a small, teary smile that Steve mimicked as he brought her in for another kiss. They only stopped when they heard the massive applause coming from the others. "Congratulations, you guys, this is brilliant news! Who's the best man?" Sam hollered.

Steve hugged Y/N closer, wiping his tears off with a chuckle. "Well, I was thinking—"

"I'll be honored," Sam grinned, scowling when Bucky smacked him across the head. "He was going to ask me," Bucky sneered and Steve rolled his eyes. "If you keep bickering like that, I'll ask Bruce," he snarked and Bruce laughed as both Bucky and Sam quieted instantly. "Where's the fucking ring, Rogers, there's no proposal without a ring!"

"The ring is in the bedroom, I was training and that's no place for a precious jewel," Steve answered and Y/N smiled into his arms, burrowing her face further into his chest.

"Yes, the hair salon was great. The mani and pedi— not that Manny, Steve— was also great. But this, by far, was the best birthday present I got today," she whispered to him. "What about the sex? Am I becoming an old man now—" Y/N pushed Steve with a disgusted look on her face as everyone else gagged and groaned. "Rogers, it was a sweet moment!"

"Sorry, sorry, couldn't help myself, it just came— there it is again!"

"Blergh, fuck you, man!"

"I deserved it."

---

a/n: thanks for reading, leave a like if you liked it!

[lady-literature]

Accidental Crime Boss Marinette

Okay so,, I have this AU in my head, right? (not surprised) and I’m lacking any real direction for it (still not surprised) but it basically goes like this:

Marinette moves to Gotham.

She’s drawn there for whatever reason and the kwami are saying something about balance and being a Guardian and her sacred duty and something but Marinette isn’t really listening. She’s too busy trying to find a shop front where she can open a bakery without having to worry about getting mugged every time she steps outside.

Chloé comes with her, obviously, because they’re friends and Chloé has a business degree she puts to good use actually running Mari’s bakery and online boutique while Mari gets to bake and fuck around basically. Adrien, Luka and Kagami are not there, but that’s mostly because they travel too much to settle down and keeping an empty apartment in Gotham is just asking for trouble.

Kagami is a world-renowned fencer and Luka travels the world for his music company. Not touring, but soaking up cultures and ways of life so he can make soundtracks to movies and tv shows. Providing the background and life to a film is more his style than touring the world ala his father, Jagged Stone.

Adrien is having the time of his life being Kagami’s trophy husband. He has no pressing responsibilities he doesn’t take on for himself and he gets to fuck with the world’s elite with little to no consequences. He spends most of his days donating far too much money to charities and orphanages and then causing minor scandals that land him on the cover of magazines.

He has much the same kind of ‘dumbass with a heart of gold’ persona to the media as Bruce Wayne does, only without the playboy bits.

(There is a wall in the back of the bakery, where Chloé and Mari carefully cut out and frame every headline and ridiculous picture Adrien has. He is very much delighted when he learns about his ‘wall of fame’.)

Anyway, Marinette finds herself with a bakery not overly far from crime alley, much to Chloé’s chagrin.

(“What do you mean it ‘just felt right’?! I swear to kwami, DC, you’re going to get us robbed and sold into slavery.”)

They do not get sold into salvery.

In fact, despite their less than stellar choice of locale, they do pretty well for themselves. The only problems they have (according to Chloé) is the army of children Marinette accidentally attracted.

When asked, Marinette tells everyone that it was an accident. Meanwhile, Chloé, standing behind her, will shake her head and insist there was literally never any other option for them the moment that first kid came in looking to nab some cash and a few pastries.

Mari lives by the phrases, ‘kindness breeds more kindness’ and ‘do unto others’ and all that other nice person shit. Chloé just lets Mari pseudo-adopt her strays and makes sure that they don’t steal anything too important in the time it takes her to gain their loyalty.

The kwami stay staunchly out of any arguments involving the kids (and eventually the homeless all along their street and every working girl in a five-block radius). They do so with a special brand of amusement that never means good things for either of them. (After all, the last time the kwami looked that amused, they moved to Gotham.)

The first kid is named Serrure, as Marinette comes to learn over the next month after he returns again and again, getting closer and closer like a feral cat. Other kids come during that time, all of them too small and too thin and too guarded for Mari's tastes. She wants to wrap them all up and tuck them into bed but she can’t. She has to be patient, has to be gentle. These kids are just as likely to bite her hand as they are to accept help.

Serrure becomes an almost permanent fixture at the bakery after that first month. Mari’s not quite sure what she did to get through to him, but she did, she supposes. He can’t be much older than eleven and looks nine, but after getting settled, she and Chloé discover this little slip of a boy is just as mischievous as Trixx and has all the dramatics of their favorite black cat.

The kwami, when talking about him, only refer to Serrure as Loki, even after Marinette scolds them for it. She eventually gives up trying to correct them, it’s not like Serrure talks to them anyway(yet)((that she knows of)).

There’s an apartment above the bakery, which is where Chloé and Mari and all her strays that grow to trust her enough live. It’s three bedrooms, and at first, Mari just buys as many bunk beds as she can fit into the spare room and calls it a day. The kids feel safe in her home, which isn’t too surprising. Everyone thinks the bakery feels safe, feels like home or comfort or whatever else eases their minds.

And Marinette should hopes so. She certainly put enough time and effort and magic and energy into the wards around this place for that to happen. To protect her and the children and all her strays that no one else will help.

But, she eventually amasses too many kids to fit into the one room. Chloé throws a fit about having to share with Mari again—“I had enough of that in university thank you very much”—but she relinquishes easily enough.

Mari buys more bunk beds, and Serrure has taken to sneaking into her room to curl up in her bed anyway, and sometimes the smaller kids who have nightmares will come in and pile on as well.

(There are only a few that Chloé will allow to do the same with her. It is considered a high honor and breeds a playful kind of jealousy that Chloé finds amusing. Mari scolds her for pitting the kids against each other.)

That only lasts them another two months.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Chloé tells her one day before the kids wake up. Mari is at the stove, cooking and baking for a small army while Chloé balances the books. “There’s not enough room for us all, DC, and the only reason someone hasn’t come barrelling down on us about the abundance of children is by the grace of your absurd amount of luck.”

“Well I can’t just kick them out, Queenie! What do you want from me?”

“Either we need to buy more real estate in this city—which I’d rather not do—or you open up the grimoire and start building pocket dimensions. I know you can. I’ve read the chapter.”

Marinette looks at her. “That is such a bad idea.”

They do the idea.

And then Mari adds about a thousand more wards to the bakery, carved into the wood and counter and anything that’s a permanent fixture. Doorways become particularly ward heavy, what with them being the entrances and exits to the hidden realms and children’s’ rooms.

The apartment above the bakery isn’t quite infinite but it gets pretty damn close some days.

This also means, of course, that all the kids definitely know about magic now. Some of them—Serrure—have known about it for a while she knows, but it’s different now. The kwami followed her around most of the time and she doesn’t keep them trapped in the Miracle Box like Fu did, but now that the kids know, they don’t bother staying hidden.

The children, at least, love them and the kwami adore them with all the ferocity a god can give. After Chloé gets over her ‘ew children’ phase, she throws herself into their education (on top of actually running the businesses Mari keeps, mind you). She has the help of the kwami, who act as personal tutors to the children, and it’s not long before the kids start to joke about her being the Principal.

(Some tried to call her Warden, but that joke didn’t last long.)

Marinette has also been telling the kids bedtime stories ever since this started. Old stories of the Guardian and Chosens who fought back the darkness, she shares all she knows of the Orders history with these kids and it’s not until Wayzz points it out to her does she realize what she’s doing.

“Ladybugs are known for renewal. It is no surprise that you are rebuilding what was lost.”

Rebuilding the Order using children was certainly not her intention but, well. She supposes there’s no place safer for her kids than what is shaping up to be the new Miracle Temple. It’s the only haven where they can learn to harness their Gifts and powers, it’s the only place where they can be surrounded by others like them without being thrust into superhero-dom.

Context: about a month into this whole circus, Marinette had realized there was a significant—almost all of them really—amount of metas and Gifted in her little hoard of strays. Which is… odd. Especially with how few metas there are in Gotham.

She had asked the kwami about it, and they have that amused look again. “You are their guardian.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re their guardian. True, you are the Guardian of us, of the ancient ways, but you are a guardian at your soul too. You protect what is yours, and they are yours whether you realise it or not. The children can sense that, so they flock to you.”

And, huh. She supposes that makes sense but that’s also really kind of strange and weird and she doesn't want to think about that anymore actually.

So things are… fine, Marinette supposes. The bakery is doing well, and she has about two dozen-plus helpers running around underfoot to help tend to the customers or run to the store or help in the back with the baking. And every kid of hers has new clothes, their street things thrown out for being too ragged and replaced with something fresh made by Marinette’s own hands.

She embroiders little fairy wings into the clothes normally, because that’s what her cloaked wards look like most times and the kids like it and its technically the logo for the bakery and there’s a million reasons she does it.

It is, perhaps, her first mistake.

(“It was certainly not your first,” Chloé will snark one dayin the future.)

Because now Marinette has an army of magical children learning to wield their powers and not fear them and they’re all wearing what can be considered her insignia and uh oh, it looks a lot like Mari is some sort of up and coming mob boss who uses kids and prostitutes and the homeless as runners. People on the street start calling her the Pixie, start referring to Chloé—her second in all things just as Chat had been her equal—as Wasp, as Yellowjacket, as the Unseelie.

(They cannot seem to pick a name for her, but Pixie is all but engraved in stone. Mari is not sure who coined it, and she doesn't think she wants to know.)

The first time the whole situation is brought to her attention, she punches the idiot who dared even imply such a thing so hard she knocks him out.

Because look. The kids are hers right? And she watches out for the people near her, makes sure the working girls are treated as well as they can be and offers the homeless extra food and a dry place to wait out the storm. She offers her hand and gives them all a place to rest, to eat, to exist without expectations or consequences.

She does that because she’s kind, because it hurts her to see people in need, to see them suffer, not because she’s hoping to gain something from it.

The fact that most of them repay her in gossip or information or bend her ear about the newest goings on in the corrupt elite or filthy underworld is strange, yes, but it’s nice to know what’s going on in the city, she supposes. And one time, Kathy, who works on the corner of Brookes and Gilmore, warned her of a drug raid that saved her an unnecessary trip to the police station so it’s not like it doesn't have it’s uses.

But mostly, Mari doesn't really think about all the information that’s unintentionally or otherwise passed onto her. She remembers it all, because it’s rude not to listen when people talk to her, but nothing comes of normally.

Not until Serrure—now twelve and well versed in the magic of illusions and glamors and knows almost as much about this city as her or the Bats—bursts into the bakery one day and grabs Mari away from the front counter right in the middle of a customer ordering. She should, perhaps, be a little angry at that but Tony, one of the older boys and just shy of sixteen, steps into her place almost immediately, so.

And then Serrure speaks and everything is pushed aside in favour of the next words to fall from his lips.

“Someone took Sophie,” he says and she nearly sees red.

After Serrure, Sophie has been here the longest. She is the youngest of them all, only seven, but oh so clever and kind and while she looks nothing like her, everyone calls her Mini-Mari. If Serrure is her beloved first son, Sophie is her treasured daughter.

She’s out the door in the next moment, storming her way to their base. She has Sophie and a handful of extra kids back by sunset, a little frightened, but no worse for wear. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it, besides making sure that the idiots who dared cross her never do so again, but word gets out.

Soon, her kids and teens and adults begin giving her more than just information, they begin giving her problems. Ones she’s meant to fix because she’s Pixie. She’s safety, she’s protection, she’s the one the people start to turn to for help.

And enter stage left, one Jason Todd who’s all snark and charm and smiles wrapped up in a nice leather bow and tall enough that Mari likely could climb him like a tree. If that was something she wanted, she guesses.

(She wants. She just won’t admit.)

He becomes a regular at the bakery and befriends most of her kids.

Mari’s wary when he first takes an interest in them. They’ve been hurt and a lot of them are still adjusting to being safe and it doesn't matter that this man is hot enough to burn, if he steps even a toe out of line with her kids she’ll make him wish he was never even born.

But, she stops worrying eventually. The kwami like him well enough, but seem to think something’s odd about him—but its Gotham, who isn’t strange?—and both Serrure and Sophie take to him like ducks to water and they’re both good judges of character.

There’s a certain intuition they both have that reminds Marinette just a bit too much about herself and pure magic. Not for the first time does she wonder if they got such strong magic from their parents or if it cropped up in them randomly, fostered by fortune and chance and the magic that’s so deeply seeped into the bones of her bakery it’ll be here long after she’s gone.

And, okay, so she was a little right to be wary because Jason was mostly there to investigate her. Far too many people respect her and are loyal to her and she has a veritable orphanage in her pocket and also Harley and Ivy like her and it just- it doesn’t look good right?

But Jason’s a good detective and it doesn't take him long at all to see that Mari is just as sweet and kind and loving as she appears to be. Not long after that, Red Hood declares Pixie and all of hers, under his protection. She, of course, is more than capable of taking care of her and hers, and the underworld knows this, has seen it, but he does it anyway.

The news, of course, gets back to Mari and she is… confused. Why would the Red Hood do something like that? She’s heard talk of him being sweet on kids, but to claim her? They’ve never even met.

Bonus points for Jason being there when she’s told about it. He kind of raises his eyebrow at her because, huh, that was fast, and then spends the next few minutes talking up the Red Hood to her much to her utter bafflement.

He actually keeps doing that too, talking up the Red Hood. Mari thinks he has a crush on the man for the longest time because of it. Until he reveals he is Red Hood, then she just wants to punch his stupidly handsome face for being such an idiot.

Shit happens from there and things go down and the two spend a couple of months dancing around each other and intentionally and unintentionally ruling the criminal underworld and at one point Marinette definitely punches Bruce and Batman in the face—separately, much to Jason’s unending joy—and she also definitely adopts Duke/Signal as well because that poor boy needs to know he’s not alone.

And it’s just them being domestic and badass and lowkey raising an army of children and falling in love while the kwami and the kids and Chloé are all in the background just yelling at them to get together already!

Which, they do. Eventually. After all the secrets come out and Jason knows about the magic and Order and meets Mari’s other friends, ie Kagami, Luka and Adrien who are all intimidating for wildly different reasons. And Mari finds out that Jason died and came back (which earns him the nickname firebird btw) and that he was a Robin once upon a time but is now Red Hood and oh my kwami it all makes sense now.

Jason confesses like three times via classic Victorian romance novel quotes because he’s a fucking literature nerd but it’s not until he basically spells it out for Mari does she really understand. it’s all very sweet and heartwarming and then the pair duck into one of the empty pocket dimensions they have lying around and aren’t seen for three days.

(No one really goes to look for them tbh)

Chloé definitely teases them about early honeymoons and things but besides the two being even more ridiculously lovey-dovey than usual, life goes back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for them. 

And they all live happily ever after the end.

[alecjmarsh]

Story Structure and Independent Media: Why the Juno Steel finale absolutely fucks (but you might have been disappointed)

The season finale of Juno Steel dropped Thursday (Spoilers ahead). Tl;dr, I loved it. The emotional payoff of Juno’s continued growth, his sense of family, and the entire crew’s faith in each other was satisfying both as a fan and as a writer. So often, a story may technically answer the questions raised at the beginning, but fails to emotionally satisfy.

Penumbra did the opposite of that.

We have SO MANY unresolved questions right now, some of which have been hanging around since the beginning of the season, and we got very few answers. We have several villains, none of whom have been defeated. If we were listening to this story as unemotional analysts, it would feel unfinished. It IS unfinished. But Juno has had a very important emotional epiphany, and that’s what Penumbra lives and dies by. Each season finale (and the season 2 midpoint, which really was a finale in its own right) have been about Juno’s emotional change as much or more than defeating the villain. It was less noticeable before, because we also had Miasma, Pilot, and Ramses to present as classic villains.

But here we are at the end of season 3, and Peter is missing, the crew is captured, and Juno is alone. We don’t know if we can trust Sasha, we know we can’t trust Dark Matters, and Peter’s creditors loom.

If I were to analyze this from a plot perspective, this isn’t a finale. It’s the dark night of the soul. It’s the moment when all is lost, 75% of the way through the story. We should have had 1-2 more episodes where Juno executes a daring rescue, pays Peter’s debts, and they kiss as the sun sets.

Here’s the thing: the Penumbra doesn’t have to do that! The Penumbra is not beholden to anyone except their patrons, and their seasons are organized by emotional arc. That’s why season 2, which was 2 seasons in length and complexity, was a single season: because it followed Juno’s emotional arc cohesively. He had a massive change in the middle (”fuck you blood chair, I want to live”) and spent the second half of the season learning to make good on that decision and how living is different from surviving. Like I mentioned above, that emotional arc matched up well with all the Ramses shit, which is how most stories are structured. The internal arc and the external arc are perfectly twined together, and one helps resolve the other. Because the Penumbra isn’t running on a network or constrained by a publishing house, they know they will have as much time as they need to resolve all the problems they have hinted at.

So to analyze season 3 from the perspective of the emotional arc, what we got is exactly what we’ve been building to. This season took a huge risk by adding rotating narrators. One the one hand, I loved it, because every Penumbra character is vibrant and interesting and the character voices are incredible. But it was a little harder to follow, because it wasn’t Juno’s story anymore, and it wasn’t about his depression. He was still depressed—a hot boyfriend and a loving family won’t cure that. But he was learning self care, and the depression wasn’t controlling his every decision anymore. Instead, the emotional arc was about the whole crew learning to trust each other. 

Each episode strengthened at least one interpersonal bond, and over and over we hear references to family movie nights and family meetings and Buddy’s enforced bonding. WLB was the culmination of that, as Juno trusted each family member to pick up his clues and plan an escape—and then when that failed, Jet put all his faith in Juno and sent him off to be a one-lady rescue team. They are separated, but they are still family.

We still have the problem of Nureyev, but his failure to bond has been an issue mentioned in every episode. He’s the puzzle piece that refuses to fit into the board. It hurts and I hate it, because I love and trust Nureyev and just want him to live a happy, debt free life watching streams with Rita and being dramatic about how strong and sexy Juno is.

It’s unsatisfying because we love Nureyev, and because it goes against the central thesis of the season.

But, I repeat, the Penumbra doesn’t have to wrap everything up at the same time! They’re playing a long game. Season 3 is over, because Juno has a family. I don’t know what Season 4 will bring (I know better than to make guesses about what Kevin and Sophie are planning), but I know it will be a new emotional arc, and I know it will involve Peter. I hope we get his POV. I’m certain he will finally become part of the family and learn to be vulnerable. Somehow, the whole family will be together again. Because that’s the second half of this arc from a plot perspective. Whatever happens in Season 4 could arguably be considered part of Season 3, but we’re getting some breathing room, and probably switching up the format and focus, and whatever happens, I’m looking forward to it.

PS: If you enjoyed this, I wrote an essay on my patreon about story structure from a broader perspective. It’s free for everyone, but if you find it interesting, please subscribe for more free essays! 

[cyndavilachase]

I’m Looking Forward Now 💖Thank you and good bye

So, it’s been a little over a week since Steven Universe Future ended… 

I’ve been hesitant to write this, honestly, but I’m tired of holding myself back from properly expressing myself in fear of appearing overly invested in the media I consume, even in private. Writing helps me organize my thoughts and feelings, and I feel like these thoughts in particular may resonate with many, so I want to share them. I want to talk about what Steven Universe has done for me personally, both as an artist, and as a person.

I’ve been around since the day the first episode of the original series aired. I actually remember when Steven Universe was just a logo on Wikipedia’s “List of Upcoming Cartoon Network Shows” list, back when I was a freshman in high school. It piqued my interest, but when commercials finally dropped for it, I thought it was going to be bad because of the way marketing handled introducing Steven as a likeable character. There was still something about it that made me want to give it a chance though, so I went online and watched the pilot before the first episode's release. I was hooked immediately. I knew I was going to love it, and I did. I fell so absolutely in love with Steven as a character, and the world that he and the gems lived in. I became obsessed. I was always so excited for new episodes to come out. Little did I know what else it would do for me as I went through my adolescence alongside it.

As the show progressed, it was evident that what I wanted out of a western animated childrens’ cartoon was finally coming into fruition: this show was becoming serialized. There was continuity, there was plot, there was character development-- it was getting deep. It was pushing the groundwork that Adventure Time laid out even further (thank you, Adventure Time).  

I will give credit where credit is due: earlier western childrens’ cartoons I grew up with like Hey Arnold, and Rugrats, among others, also touched on heavy topics, but Steven Universe was able to take similar ideas (and even more complex ones, concerning mental health and relationships) and expand on them outside of contained episodes and/or short arcs. These themes, which were a part of the show’s overarching story, spanned across its entirety. Continuity was rampant. 

What did this mean? It meant kids cartoons didn’t have to be silly and fun all the time and characters weren’t just actors playing a part in 11-minute skits. Steven and the gems would remember things that happened to them, and it affected them and how they would function and play a part in their story. This was a huge deal to me as a teenager. I always wanted the cartoons I grew up with featuring kid characters to feel more. In my own work, I often felt discouraged when combining a fun, cutesy western art style with themes as dark or layered as anime would cover. I always thought it had to be one or the other because an audience wouldn’t take a combination of the two seriously enough, based on discussions I had with classmates, friends, and online analysis I read at the time. Steven Universe proved to me otherwise. This show was opening the door for future cartoons exploring in-depth, adult concepts. I felt so seen as a kid, and was inspired to stick with what I love doing.

I was actually very worried about the show’s survival. It was in fact immensely underrated and the fandom was miniscule. Then in 2014, JailBreak dropped, and it’s popularity exploded. Part of it was because of the complex plot and the themes it was covering like I mentioned, but also because of its representation. 

I remember when fandom theorized that Garnet was a fusion due to grand, tragic reasons. Turns out, she’s simply a metaphor for a very loving w|w relationship. This was huge. I cannot stress how important it is that we continue to normalize healthy canon queer relationships in childens’ media, and Steven Universe finally was the first to do that proper. Introducing these themes offers the chance for a kid to sit there and ask themselves, “Why is this demonized by so many people?” I asked myself exactly that. Ruby and Sapphire were my cartoon LGBT rep. They were the first LGBT couple I ever ecstatically drew fanart of. I was dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia at the time, and they showed me that I was allowed to love women and feel normal about it. The process of overcoming this was a long one, but they played a part in my very first steps into becoming comfortable with my sexuality. I could go on and on about it’s representation in general-- how it breaks the mold when it comes to showcasing a diverse set of characters in design, in casting, and in breaking gender roles. It’s focus on love and empathy. Steven himself is a big boy, but he's the protagonist, and the show never once makes fun of his weight, or any other bigger characters for that matter. It wasn’t hard to see why the fandom had grown so large.

Fandom was always a joy for me. It was a hobby I picked up when I was in middle school, like many of us here did. I would always cater my experience to fun, and fun only. I only started getting more deeply involved in SU’s fandom when I had just turned into an adult. During the summer of 2016, between my first and second year of college, I drew for the show almost every day non-stop when the Summer of Steven event was going on and posted them online. This was a form of practice for me in order to become not just more comfortable with experimenting with my art, but also to meet new artists, make new friends, and learn to interact with strangers without fear. I dealt with a ton of anxiety when I was in high school. When I was a senior applying to art school for animation, I decided I was going to overcome that anxiety. I made plans to take baby steps to improve myself over the course of my 4 years of college. Joining the fandom, while unforeseen, was definitely a part of that process. I started feeling more confident in sharing my ideas, even if they were fan-made. I fell in love with storyboarding after that summer, when I took my first storyboarding class, and genuinely felt like I was actually getting somewhere with all of this. I remember finally coming to a point in my classes where I could pitch and not feel hopelessly insecure about it. I was opening up more to my friends and peers. 

But this process, unfortunately, came to a screeching halt. 

My life completely, utterly crumbled under me in the Fall of 2017 due to a series of blows in my personal life that happened in the span of just a couple weeks. My mental health and sense of identity were completely destroyed. All of that confidence I had worked for-- completely ruined. I was alone. I nearly died. My stay at college was extended to 4 and half years, instead of the 4 I had intended. I lost my love for animation-- making it, and watching it. I could no longer watch Steven Universe with the same love I had for it beforehand. It’s a terrible thing, trying to give your attention to something you don’t love anymore, and wanting so desperately to love again. I dropped so many things I loved in my life, including the fandom.

Healing was a long and complicated road. I continued to watch the show all the way up until Change Your Mind aired in the beginning of 2019, and while I still felt empty, that was definitely a turning point for me with it’s encapsulation of self-love. I was hoping James Baxter would get to work on Steven Universe since he guest-animated on Adventure Time, and it was incredible seeing that wish actually come true. The movie came out and while I enjoyed it and thought highly of it, I was still having issues letting myself genuinely love things again, old and new. It was especially difficult because cartoons were my solace as a kid, when things got rough at home. I remember feeling sad because the show ended, and not getting the chance to love it again like I used to while it was still going.

By the time Steven Universe Future was announced, I was finally coming around. I was genuinely starting to feel excitement for art and animation again. I wasn’t expecting there to be a whole new epilogue series, but happily ever after, there we were! Prickly Pear aired, and the implications it left in terms of where the story was going did it. I was finally ready to let myself take the dive back into fandom in January of this year. My art blew up, something I wasn’t expecting considering my 2-year hiatus. Following this, I was invited into a discord server containing some of the biggest writers, artists, editors, and analysts in the fandom. I had no idea there were so many talented people in the fandom, some already with degrees, some getting their degrees-- creating stuff for it on the side just for fun. The amount of passion and productivity level here is insane, and so is the amount of discussion that has come out of it.

I didn’t realize it at first, but it was actually helping me gain back the courage to share ideas. I lost my confidence in pitching while I was taking the time to heal, and graduating meant there would no longer be a classroom setting I could practice in. This group helped immensely. 

I have made so many friends through this wonderful series, and I have so many fond memories talking to like-minded creatives, getting feedback and a myriad of sources for inspiration, as well as all of the memes and jokes and weekly theorizations that came about as we all waited on the edges of our seats for episodes to air. I needed this so badly, I needed to get back in touch with my roots, when I would go absolutely hog-wild over a cartoon I loved with people who loved it as much I did. Future has been a blessing for me in this way. I graduated feeling like I was back at square-one, but now I feel like I’m on my way again.

It’s 2020 and while I’m doing great right now, I am honestly still recovering from the total exhaustion that followed after graduating a few months ago, and finally leaving the campus where my life fell apart behind. Needless to say, watching Future was like looking into a mirror. Watching one of my favorite characters of all time-- one that grew up with me-- go through so many of the same things I went through not too long ago was absolutely insane to watch unfold. It’s such an important thing too, to show a character go through the process of breaking down over trauma and all the nasty things that come with it, and to have them go on the road to healing. Steven got that therapy. He wasn’t blamed. The gems were called out. The finale was everything I could have ever hoped for. The catharsis I experienced watching it was out of this world.

As I continue my own healing journey, I will always look up to the storyboard artists, revisionists, and designers that I have been following over these past 7 years, as well as the new ones introduced in Future. It's been such a joy watching these artists release their promo art for episodes, talk about their experiences working on the show, and post the work they've done for it alongside episodes airing.

Thank you Rebecca Sugar, the Crewniverse, and the fans, for making this such a truly wonderful and unique experience. Thank you for reminding me that I am, and always will be, an artist, a cartoonist, and a fan. Thank you, my followers, for the overwhelmingly positive response to my artwork. I have had so much fun interacting and discussing the show with you all again over these past few months. Steven Universe and it’s fandom will always have a special place in my heart, and it will always be a classic that I will return to for comfort and inspiration for decades to come. I am sad that the cartoon renaissance is over, but so many doors have been opened thanks to this show. I am so, so excited to see what this show will inspire in the future, and I hope one day I get the opportunity to be a part of that. 

Goodbye Steven, thank you for everything. I wish you healing, and I wish Rebecca and the team a well-deserved rest. ♥️

-Cynthia D.