#just finished playing the game last week and love them so much. probably my fave zelink which is. saying something.

[louwhose]

For @zelinktines24 day 4: Blush!!

[thezolblade]

rl and fandom update

Fatigue's been getting better in the last year or so, with at least one cause identified. Since I've gone from a few years of barely managing much, to gradually starting to get a bit more energy to walk around for a few hours per day, I keep trying to do things and tiring myself out, and then napping and zoning out rather than getting other things done too.

Switched my laptop and the old family computer over to linux, to avoid forced copilot on one, and make the other usable again after windows 8 end of life. I may have lost some files despite my best efforts. Backing things up and following the process took a lot of time despite the process being as straightforward as it could be, and I love linux but I'm still picking it up. I wish I'd had that time for other things when there was so much else going on. Hate windows so much for forcing all that bullshit, but at least I've gotten rid of it now.

Goal next year is to retain more energy until the evenings so I can really get back to fun things that require focus. Fandom's been partly on the backburner; on good weeks I've managed to focus on short projects, but I haven't been able to maintain a focus on long projects. The list of games/books/shows/writing that I want to get back to feels motivating, like I'm reminding myself that whenever I have any time, there are still lots of things where I can feel some enthusiasm, even if I can't get through them all quickly like a to-do list. Gathering thoughts on the main ones:

Disco Elysium

When I played it in 2019, it was really good, but parts of it were slightly too much in a grim way, like the death notice; I remember thinking that I wanted to replay, but I needed a gap first.

Heard about the Sacred and Terrible Air fantranslation this year and took that as a cue to replay, and this time it's been fantastic. Knowing what's coming takes some of the bite out of the rough parts, along with getting invested enough to want to explore all the dialogue options to see the characters from all angles. Kim gets so sassy and creative when Harry fucks up. The playthroughs are going slowly but I've seen almost everything that I kept getting spoiled on when I slipped into reading fic earlier in the year. I've made it through a few chapters of the book pdf, it's heavy going though. To be continued.

FFVII

Picked up the reboot, it feels odd to be so late to the party with my fave game. To play when I have the energy for sitting up with the steam deck, rather than resting with something turn-based open on a laptop.

TMA

So so many wips that I want to finish, but I'm still reeling from getting put off from season 4 onwards. That got pretty tangled with pandemic stress, at the same time it was getting unfun and I couldn't get another interest to catch alight the same way to take my mind off things. The wip files are long enough I need a bit of focus back to tackle them.

Now the TMP sequel's out too, and I lost all interest when I found out that Jonah Magnus is still a character, despite the show sounding at first like a universe where he was killed off for real and other characters actually, finally, get to drive the plot with their own character arcs in a cathartic way, instead of everyone just rattling around where they're trapped the whole time. I'll probably read a summary at some point, as it does stuff with characters from TMA, and falling out of date with the canon really shows in fanworks. Don't feel like it yet.

Golden Sun

Every few years I've gone back the to longfic WIP that's still on fanfic.net and spent a few weeks trying to reread/edit/get past the block point, before getting tired out and taking a break from it again.

Lately I'm thinking, I always had point A at the start and point C at the end planned out, but getting there with the long detour through point B, well, that's the part where I'm stuck, and where a lot of the old writing that makes me wince is, which I keep changing without quite being happy with it, and which I can't cut for the way the plot hangs together. So maybe I should just cut out the side plot that takes up most of point B, even though what's posted is all setup so far and it was going to be the payoff next, and there are parts I really like. It'd make the fic much shorter, to go straight from points A to C; chapter 4 or 5 would move on to one or two chapters of wrapping things up, in a relatively quick and easy way for the characters. No big parts for Sheba and Ivan, no flashbasks to the heroes' history from Sheba's pov. I probably won't manage to finish it otherwise, so it's worth a try. Need to wait until I have some time off work to take a run at it.

PMMM

I still need to watch magia record, and read some of the comics... It's been too long since I've rewatched my fave show.

Harvest Moon / Rune Factory / Stardew Valley / Pokemon / indie relaxing games

Relaxation. Gotta pick them up again before I forget where I was up to.

Slay the Pricess

Play the Pristine Cut, and try the Disco Elysium crossover mod.

Fallen London

Nice to have a browser game on my phone. I keep putting off progress with the stories that'll shed some light on the lore, for a better day. Intriguing world anyway.

Omori, Deltarune, Dredge

Play more when my sister visits, and when she's not tired out from work too. Good to have some shared activities.

Fire Emblem 3 Houses

Finish the last route... I don't have to replay the shared chapters again at this point, just finish the blue route...

Saiyuki

See how many more of the comics are out in English than, uh, more than 10 years ago.

Avatar last airbender & korra

Catch up with the comics.

Arcane

Almost through season 2, TV evenings with my parents. Pretty effects. Kinda makes me want to know more, but I don't think I'll ever play league of legends. Maybe something to expore via youtube someday.

Star Trek

I watched ToS with my parents last year. Next, time to watch all the next gen episodes that I somehow never caught when it was on TV growing up, even though watching whatever was on meant I saw some episodes 2 or 3 times. And there's that new short film going around.

[meercacchi]

Tag game! What are you top 10 fandoms of all time? Name them and then tag ten more people. Feel free to write as much or as little about why you like them!

Tagged by @supreme-sauteer~ These are in no particular order and I ended rambling a lil too long LOL.

1. Kuroko no Basuke

Jk, ofc knb has to be first! It's been almost 10 years since I got into it and it's just the gift that keeps on giving. It's one of my comfort shows and it's gotten me through a lot tbh. Special shoutout to Kise, my baby who will forever be one of my favorite characters in media, and Kasamatsu, who I love with my entire being. Kaijou deserves better!!

2. Pokemon

My original hyperfixation before I even knew what that was, LOL. Pokemon has been there for me for as long as I can remember, and I don't think anything will ever quite replicate the feeling of home I get from this franchise, whether it's the games or merch or the show. I will def be there when gen 5028373 comes out, still playing the newest Pokemon game on the newest console no matter how old I am.

3. Xenoblade Chronicles

A newer fandom but one I fell into HARD. XC3 actually altered my brain chemistry and is probably my favorite game ever. My journey through the Xenoblade trilogy was magical and I can't get over how well the characters and stories are written, on top of having pretty fun gameplay. I'm super excited to finally check out XCX in March too!

4. TMNT 2003

Another childhood fave and another comfort show. These boys genuinely feel like family to me, they're just so cozy. I'm honestly shocked how well the show holds up even today; the writing is too good! It's criminal how slept on this version of the turtles is compared to others and I will die on this hill.

5. Akatsuki no Yona

The other day I realized I've been reading this manga for ten years which really made me have a belated quarter life crisis LOL. I migrated over from the anime, but man, it's SO SAD that they haven't animated the arcs after bc I love Yona (and everyone else's) growth through the series. I'm really anticipating how the series ends! Last chapter ripped out my heart thx.

6. Love Live!

I haven't kept up with Love Live and I was introduced to it through LLSIF (RIP) but I still listen to so many of the Muse/Aqours songs to this day! Kotori is incredibly special to me in particular bc I relate to her and I'll always smile when I see her pop up. Also I sometimes use the cards for fashion inspo bc their fits are too cute!

7. Rurouni Kenshin

I haven't felt comfortable following new RuroKen stuff considering everything, and tbh I don't think I'll ever be able to even reread/rewatch it bc it's forever tainted in my mind. But I can't deny how big of an impact it (esp Sano) had on me in my early teens, so here it is!

8. Sengoku BASARA

Tbh I'm not really in the fandom anymore, but I met SO MANY of my mutuals who I'm still friends with today through it, so it'll always hold a special place in my heart <3 Those were some wild and fun times LMAO.

9. Ys

Still making my way through all the older Ys games, but Ys 8 will forever be a legendary game imo and it has one of my fave OSTs of all time. Ys 9 and esp Ys 10 were also awesome! I finished Ys 10 a couple weeks ago and I'm still having withdrawals lol.

10. EXO

Alright this one is kinda eh bc I never got super into fandom stuff, but it's been such a crazy ride watching them from debut to now! Jongin esp is one of my favorite humans on the planet and as cheesy as it is, his words helped me tackle some of my insecurities growing up. I'll always be an erigom and an EXO-L <3

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Fun facts about me

Thanks for tagging me @at-thezenith !!

A Scent You Love:

I recently got ahold of Billie Eilish’s third perfume & omgggg……… I love the first one so much (it smells like a toasted marshmallow lol), & my sister and I split this second one as a blind buy & it’s so good I’m sad it’s limited edition! It smells the way I imagine Lonan would smell LOL, so kind of peppery & warm. It’s my favourite scent rn.

What's Something You're Looking Forward To This Week?

I don’t really know tbh this is kind of an uneventful week!!! I took some self portraits yesterday so I’m looking forward to seeing how they turned out bc I didn’t look at them last night!

What's A Book You're Currently Reading?

Not really in the middle of anything right now but I’ve had a hold on 100 Queer Poems a collection edited by Andrew McMillan and Mary Jean Chan that I read a teeny bit of before I lost it the last time! So I need to finish it bc it’s very popular at the library lol.

What's A Game You're Currently Playing?

Always playing Mario Party these days with my brother and sister pretty much every day of the week LOL. Trying to manage Mario Party and writing every day in November has been so chaotic HAHAHA. But I’m getting quite good at it.

What's The Most Recent Movie You Watched?

I watched Nowhere (1997 dir. Gregg Araki) last night!!!! It was actually soooo good!!! Plot wise my fave from the teen apocalypse trilogy and also just visually stunning. James Duval my beloved…….

Are You Watching Anything On TV Or Listening To Any Shows?

Not at the moment!

Favourite season?

Summer. I hate the extreme heat and the bugs and the sweating but I love the long daylight hours. It used to be fall but I just don’t like the cold lol. Late August-mid September is probably my favourite time of year (or May-June in Toronto if it’s not freezing cold like it can be).

What's Something You've Learned Recently?

I’ve learned a couple songs on the loop pedal lately which has been fun. That thing takes a lot of dexterity to master so I think I’m finally getting it!!!

Have You Had Any Water Lately?

I will now lol!!

Open tag if you see this & want to do it!! :))))

[hopeymchope]

I've been struggling with what to say about "Process of Elimination" since I completed it last week.

It's a hard one to tackle because it's enjoyable, it's good... but it's still got issues, too. Most things do, I guess. But I can overlook them more easily if you can get me really invested/excited about what's happening or the characters it's happening to. This story, on the other hand, never made me drop it completely but also never got me all that excited. There's enough to love to make it worthwhile without it ever being great. In game review parlance, this is probably a low 7/10. (For anyone who isn't aware: For SOME goddamn reason, game reviews typically dub anything from 6/10 and lower as all being various degrees of "bad." Kind of like the U.S. school grading system, I guess?)

Both the Switch and PS4 physical releases are all "Deluxe Editions," as far as I know. So all copies currently include a digital soundtrack and a mini-art book that you'd better avoid opening until you complete the game.

Did I enjoy the game/visual novel and its story? Overall, yes. But I mean... it's very much targeted at my personal interest area. It's got a fun gameplay setup for investigating mysteries, and it's a very Dangan-like mystery full of odd/entertaining characters at its core. If you like things like Danganronpa and/or the Ace Attorney series, then of course this is going to be up your alley. It's in that kind of wheelhouse: Loads of dialogue peppered with occasional gameplay periods, etc. I can naturally recommend it to those people, even if it isn't going to hit the same heights that they do.

Did I like the characters' personalities/talents and their unique writing? Eh... well enough I guess. I certainly have some faves; a couple of them even survived the story, although one fave was ruined by a reveal that erased their previous likability. I suppose that always happens in these kinds of titles.

Would I play a sequel? Again: Definitely yes, for much the same reasons as I cited two paragraphs up. It's just right in my target area of interest. (And the game definitely ends with a big, wide opening left for a follow-up.)

Did I get invested enough that I was thinking about the game when I wasn't playing, anxiously waiting to hear the next bit of dialogue or witness the next reveal? No. It never gets that "can't wait to see what's next" feeling that the Danganronpa, Zero Escape, or A.I.: The Somnium Files series — and even the recent Yurukill: The Calumniation Games — all instilled in me. THOSE games/Visual Novels are what voracious readers would dub "page-turners." Process of Elimination is, by comparison, not much of a page-turner for most of its duration; I wasn't terribly excited/driven to see what was coming next for most of the runtime. I only reached that level of interest in seeing what was ahead during the final chapter. The plot never gets as exciting as those games, nor do the characters ever get as endearing and engaging to follow as a Danganronpa game (which I consider my current gold standard for character writing in these things).

You'll do this in every chapter — sometimes even more than once. But you'll never do it for very long.

Now, I've already talked about the basics of how the gameplay segments work in an earlier post. And in that post, I "guesstimated" that it'd be close to DR in terms of gameplay/dialogue balance. However, now that I've completed it, I confess I was wrong. The balance wasn't like Danganronpa or Ace Attorney. This one leans even MORE heavily into the "Visual Novel" side than any of those do. Gameplay segments are relatively brief by comparison, taking up slightly less than 10% of your game time overall. But hey — the game as a whole is also shorter than any of those games are, too, so that helps make things even out a little bit.

Warnings for any new/potential players

1) If you buy this game, absolutely do not open the Mini Art Book it comes with until after you finish the game. But also: Absolutely DO open it after you finish it, because some of the character art and information therein is REALLY worth seeing. There's some great reveals and details in there that just aren't shared in the actual text of the story. First off, I just want to say that although I enjoyed this game and its story.

2) Another warning: After you finish the game, you'll likely notice that there are still "events" in the Residual Thought gallery that you haven't unlocked. You need to go back through the investigations (don't worry; you can just select the chapter from the chapter list, and then choose to jump RIGHT to the investigations) and complete them again, using Discount Shuichi Incompetent Detective to grab any new Residual Thoughts that appear on the map along the way. Getting them all not only reveals some key new backstory, it also eventually unlocks a new epilogue scene that I feel is worth the effort.

Faves and Anti-Faves

For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I'll just say that a few of my faves remained that way all the way up to the end. And a couple of said faves even survived, which was nice to see. But of course, I did lose at least one fave as well — someone I found wholly lovable turned out to have a dark reveal that effectively erased their previous warmth. And much like most of the Danganronpa games, I even had an "anti-fave"; a character who acts like an overt asshole the entire time despite the life-or-death stakes. That'd be Renegade Detective. He sucks from the moment he's introduced in the very first chapter, so it's not like I'm spoiling anything to say that he's flashing the biggest "DO NOT TRUST" warning of the cast from the jump.

"I am here to cause problems on purpose."

As for our Shuichi-lookin' protagonist?

Did he escape out from under his "Discount Shuichi" label eventually? YES, I felt he earned a decent enough level of distinction.

Did I like the way he got there? NO, honestly. There was basically a quick-and-easy shift from one extreme to another that I can't adequately explain herein...

Did I like him by the end of the game? KIND OF. Well enough that I wouldn't mind following him again if I had to, at any rate.

Gripes/Complaints

1) Okay, so I'm not going to spoil anything if I can help it, but I want to speak very vaguely about the mastermind/villain reveal. I'm someone who finds it impossible to NOT try to predict how twists/reveals will eventually go down in mysteries. I've watched SO MANY mystery TV shows and movies and played so many mystery-centric games over the years, and it's always fun for me to try and guess the culprit when you can. I'm infinitely delighted if a mystery can surprise me or take turns I never saw coming. But in the case of PoE, if you're looking at all for the mastermind and you've got adequate experience in mystery stories or "twist ending" stories... IMO, it's not hard to figure out the culprit. It follows a very specific trope that I've seen plenty of times, so I saw it coming pretty early on. By the end of Chapter 2, I already had my eye on them. And by the time you get to the final chapter, you're almost definitely going to realize who it is WELL before the reveal drops, because they start waving a gigantic flag pointing at themselves that nobody else in the group seems to notice.

My "predictive" habit also means that I managed to imagine something that I thought would be extremely unlikely, wild as fuck, and incredibly impactful to our characters on a personal/emotional level. I can't help wishing that I'd been close to the truth with my imagined mastermind. (Even though it would've ruined one of my fave characters in here, lol.)

2) I wish the second investigation wasn't the hardest in the game. If you wanna collect everything (and let's be real: YES YOU DO), it's the toughest to manage in the time allotted. There's a mini-investigation in Chapter 4 that presents some challenge due to the wandering enemies, but once you figure out where they tend to land, that's about it. I never struggled anywhere else. I think the difficulty balance is a bit off, is what I'm saying. Like, maybe Chapter 5 or Chapter 6 should've contained mild difficulty in the investigation segments? Considering they're the last two? But Chapter 5 is roughly the easiest one outside of Chapter 1, which is... interesting.

3) I can't spell this out either, but: There's a key component of two important characters' backstory that is eventually revealed late in the game that... really requires more explanation than it's given. Like. HOW could that be possible? Given how much the game teases this eventual reveal right from the start, I sorta thought they'd eventually fully explain those past events but... nah they didn't bother. I guess it's being held back for a sequel, if they get to make one?

I'll get more specific in just a moment.

Okay, let's go into a couple of FULL SPOILERS under the cut.

(Please don't click unless/until you've played the thing to the very end.)

So here's the backstory issue: If Incompetent was actually Ideal and was gored by one of the robots as a kid, someone please explain to me how he was saved but MORE IMPORTANTLY, how his innate talents and knowledge and abilities were just transferred to another kid who volunteered to take them. That's not a thing that people can do? In fact, that kinda sounds like fucking magic. I assume that if they pursue a sequel, they'll eventually have to lay out some wild explanation involving experimental technology or something.

Furthermore, there's an ending issue: Despite Doleful's constant claims that there's no evidence that they're the Duke and that these people were all suicidal anyway and shit, THEIR OWN WORDS pretty much betray them. You can't SERIOUSLY expect me to believe that you arrested them solely for indirectly causing ONE death, because their words and actions during the climax provide MORE than enough evidence to nail them to the wall. Even if Techie DIDN'T record Doleful's rant (which seems unlikely), then multiple respected, high-ranking detectives heard him outline details that only the Duke could possibly know, including the claim that these people were all part of "mutual murder/suicides." And the Duke's involvement in setting up the circumstances for those things is also blatantly criminal in damn near every country on Earth, so uh... yeah. He's fucked. But I'm confident that they were trying to set it up so that he could easily get off the hook (somehow) for a sequel rampage? Which is really... pretty dumb.

One last thing is that a fundamental part of the game's story is how our hero believes he must never, ever take a life in his work as a detective/cop, no matter what situation he's in... which strikes me as just incredibly naïve. But the writing celebrates this perspective — despite the fact that he ends up causing additional deaths due to this attitude! No one ever calls him on that. He never feels guilty about it. He just is like "Nope. It doesn't matter whose life is at stake. It doesn't matter if they have a gun on a hostage. It doesn't matter if they'll clearly escape to kill again in mere moments if I don't stop them forcibly right here, right now. I'll never, ever risk taking a life." And while that's noble and respectable in theory (especially in light of our modern reality where we see so many trigger-happy cops).... it's mega-cringe in practice here, in this particular story. But that's an "individual mileage may vary" bit, I suppose.

[elite-kawaii]

An interesting fact . . .

. . . about some gamers is: If they have to spend days doing a single thing on a game in order to finish it, eventually they will loose all interest in the game completely, basically it becomes boring and they wont want to play or bother with it any.

Im never going to get passed the stupid King Koco Trial in Sonic Frontiers! Was playing it almost everyday. Then I got to that freaking trial! Over and over and over just battling the same three bosses! Over and over and over looking up tips to beat them! Over and over and over hours and hours and hours a day just running out of rings and failing the trail! No matter what I tried, what tricks I used, my only reward getting told that I was a failure over and over and over! Yeah thats real fun Sega, I love getting told I still suck at playing my fave game franchise! Thanks for that!

Heck I even tried looking up ways to cheat at the stupid game! Which is something I never do! I got nothing! It got boring after a while and slowly I just stopped trying! Im just "not allowed" to see what the fuss was about that blue eyed Super Form or that one weird still shot I kept seeing of Sonic seemingly covered in digital corruption with his eyes looking weird and actually showing his fangs!

"Oh just look it up on YouTube then!" Google took control of my laptop and made it so I cant, so I cant even look the stupid game up there a watch it! I don't know why every single game has to be super Dark Souls hard nowadays and I have had it set to easy for most weeks now! I cant even get the island map fully opened in the last update. Maybe opening it up fully before starting the update would have helped with that, but knowing games now probably not.

Oh and I just love how they reset Sonic so he all the way back to level 1 again for this trail! Yeah because that really helps! I just love how they made all the leveling I did just a waste of time from my point of view! You know other games level the baddies with the player char, why couldn't that have been a thing here?! Oh wait the people who wanted a hard game wouldn't have liked that? Then they can either set it on hard mode or go find another freaking game then! You don't need to make a perfectly fine game super hard just because some players found it to easy or just add harder modes to it! There you go difficulty curve problem solved!

If theres any easy to do glitches that would help lay them on me I dont really care about playing the game fairly anymore, just finding out what happens would be nice, but if none come oh well. Though I know I just ranted about it, I don't much care about the game anymore, just saying I wouldn't mind finding out what happened though.

[wolfjackle]

I got tagged by @betasuppe, @greensword101, AND @insanely-creative-things for this game. Love all of you!

3 fave ships: Aziraphale/Crowley, duh. But for my current DPxDC fandom(s)? This is hard! I'm such a multishipper for DP, DC, and DPxDC. I don't think I can pick just two. So I'm gonna go with an old staple. Pride and Prejudice gives me Elizabeth/Fitzwilliam Darcy (look, when I say old staple, I mean it!). And... hmmm. Screw it, Emma/Knightley from Emma. I squee every time I read Knightley's proposal scene. Call me a basic white girl, I'll concede.

First EVER ship: Damn, I don't know. I got into shipping in high school, but not online fandom. It was either Naruto or Fruits basket, I got into both around the same time thanks to some friends. Fruits Basket gave me Kyo/Tohru (I loved them even when the manga was still teasing the Tohru/Kyo vs Tohru/Yuki love triangle). And for Naruto, I shipped Shikamaru with... I can't remember. I have no idea how I don't remember, but I don't. Used to look up videos and fanart with a friend all the time, but I went back 16 years in my youtube likes history and I can find no record of it. @betasuppe you were one of the ones who got me into Naruto back in high school. Do you remember who my huge ship with Shikamaru was? After those two came ATLA and then it was Zutara all the way. That was probably my first real exposure to online shipping discourse, so if that's what you mean, then there's your answer.

Last song played: Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot

Currently reading: I actually just finished a four-part book series last night. The series is called A Mage's Influence by Melanie Cellier and it was so good. My next book will probably be A Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee (sequel to A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue). But before that, I have some fanfic updates to catch up on. Next on that list is the latest chapter in If You Give a Bat a Burger which is fantastic and I'm so sad it's been a week and a half and I haven't read it yet.

Currently watching: Nothing, really. I binged a bunch of old disney movies with my friends over New Years, but I don't really plan to continue the trend.

Currently consuming: Again, nothing. I have a glass of water next to me, does that count? And I had a mint chocolate donut earlier that was amazing.

Currently craving: Honestly? A day away from people mostly. Haven't had that since before Christmas. For food? Uh... again. Nothing specific. Idk, I've had a lot of my favorite foods recently with the holidays and stuff. Not sugar. We had so many candies and desserts we had to eat from the holidays that I can't handle much more. (There's still a bunch left, hence the donut. I want to finish them before they go bad, but it's been so much sugar!)

Tagging: @gremlin-bot, @britcision, @thederpclub

[fragileswift1313]

Fortnite characters!

Kia ora, folks.

I posted a note on Substack the other day and I have no idea if anyone saw it because I don’t understand how Substack notes work. So I thought I better reiterate what I said in my note here in case you all (maybe? probably?) didn’t see it. As is often the case, I have had some mental health stuff going on this week, and it has kind of prevented me from finishing my thoughts on The Marvellout Mrs Maisel final season, and that’s basically all I have that’s close to ready right now, so I thought I would do something a bit different this week that doesn’t take a lot of concentration or other brain energies.

I played a bunch of Fortnite this week and last week, and this Sunday just gone (the day I am writing this), I wrapped up some of the season stuff there so I didn’t miss the couple battle pass things I wanted to get before they’re gone - it ends in a few days, and I’m excited to see that apparently Optimus Prime is coming next season, and whatever else Transformers-y they put in!

With all that in mind, I thought an easy thing I could do this week that some of y’all might be interested in is share some of my favourite characters I have collected over the years playing this game. Sound good? Sounds good. Here we go!

Spider-Gwen is one of my ultimate favourite characters in the game. Some friends and I played almost every day toward the end of this season to unlock all of the different customisations you could get for her. Admittedly, this version of her is just the standard colours because, even though I unlocked all the fancy holographic ones, I still think this one looks best.

This li’l guy, who I have decided in my headcanon is non-binary, was a surprise drop during the christmas event last year. I love them and they look very silly doing all the different dances and other emotes you can do in Fortnite.

Ariana Grande, Aloy and Padmé Amidala are three of my absolute favourites among the ones I had to individually spend money on to acquire. Padmé was available during some special Star Wars content that happened earlier in the season, while Aloy I picked up earlier this year I think. Ariana I fell in love with a couple years or so ago, and even though I really only like a handful of her real-life counterpart’s songs, as soon as I saw her I knew I had to have her - she has a normal mode, but this one is my favourite. Ariana also came with a glider that matches her dress which is also one of the coolest looking gliders in Fortnite, in my opinion.

And then lastly, we have Lynx. Lynx is a character I picked up in I want to say 2019, when I was having an even rougher time with my mental health than I am now, completely untreated, and playing Fortnite at that time was one of the few things I could do to turn my brain off and just have fun. As such, she’s one of my very top favourites not necessarily aesthetically, I mean she does look great, but she helped me through some stuff and that earns her a place both in my regular rotation, and in my heart.

For more of my faves, check out the Substack version (for free) here!

Apologies again folks for the smaller, image-heavy post! Come hell or high water, I will have that Mrs Maisel post for you next week!! You can count on it. In the mean time, if you haven’t already, and you want to read more stuff written by me, you can check out my Letterboxd. I recently reviewed The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023), Hellraiser (1987), Scream VI (2023), and The Final Destination (2009). And a reminder too, that you can read my first ever short story for FREE on itchio.

Thanks so much for reading everyone, I hope you have a great week, and I’ll talk to you again soon. Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚

- Rebecca

Links | Twitter | Mastodon | Cohost | Substack | itch.io | Letterboxd | Instagram | Carrd | Email

[vampiricpancake]

thanks for including me!!

What was your first impression of the game? Is this the first Cybird game you've ever played? When I first discovered this game me and a former friend were cracking up about the idea of dating these historical men and we played it as a joke. It is in fact the first and only Cybird game I've ever played.

Who was the character you liked most in the beginning, and is he still your fave? My favorite was Mozart since he was one of the three available routes at the time, although he is still one of my most liked characters, he is no longer my #1 fav sorry Mozart but Theo stole my heart

How you picked your first route, and whose route was it? Was your favorite suitor available when you first started playing? My friends had picked Leonardo and Napoleon's route so picked Mozart. Theo's route wasn't available until about over a year later but he had always been a character I was curious to learn more about.

An unavailable route you're looking forward to: Charles since he's the only option besides the new characters we know nothing about

A character you thought would be different than how he is: not sure, probably Sebastian since his route took me by surprise

Is there a suitor who you used to dislike, but eventually changed your opinion about? I use to not like Isaac that much but after reading his route, he's actually so cute! I personally think his route is my favorite despite him not even being in my top 5.

Do you remember your first story event? I don't really remember bc it was really hard to understand how to play them but it might have been Discipline Between the Sheets however I don't remember what the event was about.

Have you ever spent money on the game? Have you tried the free diamonds offers? Unfortunately yes and yes.

Do you have a favorite avatar item? Is it a plushie or maybe a unique hairstyle? I don't really care about the avatars so no to both.

Have you ever bought merch of your favorite ikevamp character? Yes, at Anime Expo last year I bought an acrylic stand of Theo as well as a mystery button with Arthur on it!

Have you ever mistakingly spent your stamina not in the story event? All the time

What's the luckiest you've ever been when it comes to the gacha? What about your most unlucky memory? Probably the time I got the card of Theo and King since I've wanted it for a while. My most unlucky......once I traded for the guaranteed 4 star token only to pull the same exact card I previously pulled that got me the trading tickets in the first place-

The slowliest you've ever completed a route vs the quickest: Slowest: probably like a month, quickest: like 2 weeks since I am bad to saving my story tickets.

Do you use your 5 free chapter tickets daily? I try my best to so that I can finish routes as soon as possible for those end of route rewards

A moment in a route that made you cry and a moment in a route that made you laugh: I don't think I've cried but reading Arthur's trauma in his side of the story makes me pretty emotional. As for funniest, probably just any interactions between suitors such as the History's Greatest Errand Boys kiss event or Theo and Arthur's "bromance"

Who is your favorite pureblood vampire? I'm a Leonardo girlie 100% I feel like he would give me constant anxiety with his spontaneous energy but I would love to learn more about him.

Do you have a favorite CG? What about a favorite card? My favorite CG is Theo's 4th birthday when he and MC are......... "cuddling" and also Theo with his shirt half off- wait a minute....... starting to sense a pattern here-

Any famous historical figures you wished were in ikevamp? Probably someone from WW2 or after I would be so interested to see how the boys react to how much the world changed and how they impacted it. I'd probably say someone like Alan Turing, I could imagine him being friends with Isaac and discussing math / science theories and being friendly academic rivals. Although I think it was also be interesting to have female characters like Amelia Earhart or Marilyn Monroe.

What card is currently on your home screen in the game? It's Leonardo dressed in modern clothing in a fancy restaurant.

What do you think about the suitors' pets? Which one is your favorite? I love how the all have their own silly little backstory and how they compliment their owners. I especially like Vic since his story is so silly and I always adore how much personality they give the little guy.

𝟒 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐈𝐤𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐦𝐩 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞!

Ikevamp EN launched on the 1st of July 2019 - maybe you were there since day one, or maybe you've only started playing recently: here's a little game to celebrate! You simply answer the questions and (optionally) tag the people whose answers you'd love to see next! Happy 4th anniversary to all ikevamp players! 🎉🎉🎉

*~if you feel like sharing, you can find the days in the mansion counter in your profile in the game and add it to your questions ~* Also, while reading other people's answers, mind that there might be spoilers!

What was your first impression of the game? Is this the first Cybird game you've ever played?

Who was the character you liked most in the beginning, and is he still your fave?

How you picked your first route, and whose route was it? Was your favorite suitor available when you first started playing?

An unavailable route you're looking forward to:

A character you thought would be different than how he is:

Is there a suitor who you used to dislike, but eventually changed your opinion about?

Do you remember your first story event?

Have you ever spent money on the game? Have you tried the free diamonds offers?

Do you have a favorite avatar item? Is it a plushie or maybe a unique hairstyle?

Have you ever bought merch of your favorite ikevamp character?

Have you ever mistakingly spent your stamina not in the story event?

What's the luckiest you've ever been when it comes to the gacha? What about your most unlucky memory?

The slowliest you've ever completed a route vs the quickest:

Do you use your 5 free chapter tickets daily?

A moment in a route that made you cry and a moment in a route that made you laugh:

Who is your favorite pureblood vampire?

Do you have a favorite CG? What about a favorite card?

Any famous historical figures you wished were in ikevamp?

What card is currently on your home screen in the game?

What do you think about the suitors' pets? Which one is your favorite?

Have fun answering! 💕

[caramelcal]

Fool for you

a/n: eye- y’all wanting a part 2? cause i have it planned lol x

it gets much more interesting i promise oml...the enemies arc really do be one of my faves tho

word count: 3.15k

warning: swearing

She couldn’t believe how much shit that stupid kiss had landed her in. Her head was clouded, arms crossed over her chest as she stared down at her lap, trying not to grumble. Not only her own manager was sat in the room, but 5 seconds of summer’s too, along with their bassist, one of the people she hated most, Calum Hood.

“We have seen how everyone reacted to the speculation,” The woman in front of her started, legs pressed together with a large binder sitting on her lap, hands folded gently on top. Normally Y/N got on quite well with her manager, Caroline, but right now she wanted to scream due to the words coming out of the woman’s mouth, “You’ve been gaining popularity from it, Y/N. This could be a great way for you to gain more of a following.”

Y/N had dreamed of the day she started to trend on Twitter, but this was not what she wanted to be trending for. She wasn’t trending for her music, not even her newest single. No, she was trending because everyone thought she was Calum Hood’s girlfriend.

Speaking of the boy, he sat beside her, keeping quietly to himself. This had to have been the first time that he had ever been in her presence where he hadn’t been annoying the shit out of her. Must be because his manager is in here. He had already been approached about it and seemed sold on the idea.

An idea of them being in a fake relationship.

Her, with Calum Hood. She wanted to scoff at the thought. He was unbearable at best, constantly annoying her to the point where she wanted to rip her hair out. When she had first been asked to be the opening act for 5 Seconds of Summer’s tour she had been ecstatic. The boys were nice, welcoming her onto their tour with open arms. Honestly, Y/N got on with all of them, apart from Calum. From the moment he set eyes on her he seemed determined to do anything and everything in his power to piss her off, slowly waiting until she finally lost her cool and lashed out. It was frustrating, especially considering Y/N knew she couldn’t do much about it.

Now, not only did she have to put up with Calum normally, but they wanted her to get close with him. To be in a fake relationship, which, obviously, meant spending more time with him.

“So, of course, you guys will have to be seen out in public with one another every so often so we were thinking you guys get ‘caught’ kissing my paps again, then we’re thinking dropping hints,” Ink began to get scribbled across a piece of paper, writing out a messy and brief plan which Y/N didn’t even want to look at, “Possibly y/n being caught wearing Calum’s shirt...We aren’t entirely sure yet but we will make sure to keep you updated. Do either of you have any questions?”

Despite the question seeming like it was for both of them, it was directed at Y/N, and she knew that. PR stunts and fake dating amongst celebrities were never unheard of, but she never thought she would be getting into one herself, not now and definitely not with Calum, “I do, actually. What’s in it for him exactly?”

The question was asked towards the two managers, y/n honestly didn’t want to even look at Calum right now. He probably wanted to do this simply to annoy her because he knew that he was the bane of her existence, but y/n just hoped that he wouldn’t get even more annoying, despite knowing he definitely would take advantage of the situation.

“Publicity,” His manager stated simply, nodding his head slightly in her direction. Y/n didn’t know what else to say, and they all were enveloped in a very uncomfortable silence before Caroline let out a sigh, snapping her folder shut.

“Well if that’s all,” She stood up, making y/n’s eyes travel up to her as she began to walk away, “We will leave you two be.”

With that, the two managers left without another word, shutting the door behind them. Y/n and Calum sat in awkward silence for a few moments, y/n’s eyes set firmly in the door before she stood up, going towards the door before Calum caught onto her hand.

“Where are you going?”

“Away,” Y/n huffed, tugging her hand away from the boy’s grip as she glared down at his hand. He awkwardly pulled his hand back, putting his hands down in his lap, “Going to get my last few hours of peace before we have to start this PR stunt.”

“Aw y/n/n, not wanna spend time with me, huh?” Calum teased, making her roll her eyes. He was already annoying her and he had barely spoken three sentences to her; something he had a special gift for.

“No, not really,” He gave her a fake pout before a smirk rose to his lips, making her roll her eyes.

Calum was acting as if she would actually enjoy his company. The same Calum Hood that woke her up by pouring a bucket of water on her that morning. Freezing cold water. Dickhead.

“Why are you doing this? Like why are you actually doing this?” She asked suddenly, making Calum meet her gaze with those brown eyes of his.

He shrugged, averting his gaze for a moment before speaking, “Publicity. It might not get us any more listeners but it’ll get people talkin’.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence before y/n nodded her head, “Fair enough. I’m gonna get going. Bye.”

And with that, y/n left the room.

  Both y/n and Calum were walking together, hand in hand after a lovely ‘date’ together. It, honestly, was nothing short of awkward. Honestly, they didn’t know what to talk about with one another when they weren’t fighting; something that they became painfully aware of on their trip out that evening.

Calum, despite normally being reserved and quiet in public, actually took the lead in the conversation. Mostly because y/n didn’t know what to say and they knew that they couldn’t sit in silence, especially if someone noticed them and noticed that they didn’t even talk to one another.

It was the first PR date that had been set up, only three days after their meeting discussing the start of their fake relationship. Y/n couldn’t lie, she was incredibly nervous and uncomfortable, her white dress doing nothing to protect her from the cold air nipping at her skin.

As instructed, she was holding onto Calum’s arm, one wrapped around and intertwined with his bicep and the other one clasping their hands together. It’s a strange and awkward movement to uphold, especially when walking but they do it nonetheless.

“Calum, stop going so fast, I can’t keep up properly,” Y/n muttered to him quietly, almost tripping over her own feet when she felt herself getting tugged yet again due to her hold on Calum.

His eyes briefly flicked back to her, “I can’t really help it, y/n. I’m already going as slow as I can.”

“Well sorry I don’t have legs like the BFG like you, I’m trying not to fall ‘cause you keep tugging at me. This dress was not a good move for this,” She grumbled quietly again and Calum doesn’t even reply. Instead, he started walking even faster, “Calum! Slow down!”

She was pulled into a lane by Calum by the time she had finished that sentence, his hands on either side of her arms holding her in place. His broad shoulders are obstructing her from being able to see out of the small alleyway but before she could ask why he did that, he’s shushing her quietly and whispering, “Saw the paps. They saw me, too. It’s time.”

God, he made it sound so dramatic. It wasn’t like they were fighting off any evil spirit or villain, all they had to do was get caught kissing by the paps. It didn’t seem like it was going to be a particularly difficult job, just one they had to execute properly, and right now everything was going pretty smoothly. They just had to make sure that it looked authentic and like they actually wanted to do it.  

He let out a breath he was holding as he looked down at her, asking her silently for permission to start as his fingers went around the back of her neck, thumb resting on her cheek. She nodded her head and he began to lean in, y/n standing on her tip-toes with her arms splayed over Calum’s shoulders woth him bending down and pressing his lips on hers.

They kissed for several moments, taking little breaks in between. No tongue was a rule they had decided on so instead they stuck to closed mouth. On the last peck shared between the two of them, Calum gently pulled away, y/n’s bottom lip trapped between his lips before her feet hit the ground, their lips now completely disconnected.

She, discretely, tried to peek around Calum to see the paps, but couldn’t, so instead, they stayed in that position for a little while longer. Her eyes glanced up at Calum, seeing him still staring down at her, she whispered, “What?”

“Nothing,” He dismissed, shaking his head hesitantly before he took a small step back before putting his hand out for y/n to grab onto. She shot him a smile as she laced their fingers together, tugging him along and out of the alley.

The games had begun.

  It’s only about a week later when y/n was doing her washing as normal in some hotel’s launderette. She had been off of social media for the past few days, paying no mind to the several thousand people talking about her and Calum's 'relationship’. It surely had blown up, and some might say more than they had expected it to. Y/n had accumulated thousands of more followers after the whole fiasco and although she wouldn’t admit it, she enjoyed seeing the fan theories.

Calum had actually been a lot nicer to her recently, something she hadn’t expected, but enjoyed very much. A smile is on her face as she thought about the lack of pranks that he had been playing on her, and sure, he was still irritating her but it was simply with his words. He walked her down to the launderette, before turning to get his own load of dark clothes.

Surprisingly, despite having rather heavy music, y/n owned quite a lot of white clothes. Sure, she mostly wore black, but right now she was washing her white clothes. Well, what were her white clothes...

Now? They’re pink.

She took the wet fabric out of the washer, noticing one of her favorite white dresses is now dyed an ugly pink, one that she knows she won’t pull off. Her eyebrows are furrowed, a frown settling on her face as she tried to pull the clothes out, trying to find the root cause of the problem.

That’s when she found it. A red sock; Calum’s red sock.

Suddenly everything seemed to make sense as to why he was being so nice to her; so he could pull another prank on her when she least expected it. That’s why he had waited behind once she left the launderette, that’s why he seemed so interested in her white, now pink, clothes that she apparently ‘hadn’t washed in a while and should definitely wash’. 

“Calum!” She screamed out in anger, glad for the lack of other people in the small room, clenching her fists around the wet, pink clothes in her hand. They’re all ruined, inconsistent blotches of different shades of pinks coating the fabrics.

It was only seconds later when Calum popped his head up in confusion, “Yeah?”

Except, Y/n didn’t reply, and instead trained her e/c eyes onto his brown ones with a firm glare, one filled with frustration and anger. He, however, hadn’t seen her glare just yet as he surveyed the room before he catches onto her crouched-down figure. She watched as they trailed down to the pink clothes in her hand and he struggles to fight a grin off of his face.

“Thought you were doin’ a white load, y/n/n?” His voice had snide amusement in it and it only made y/n even madder.

However, before she replied, she grabbed onto the red sock of his and threw it at his head, letting out a complaint that sounds more like a whine, “You’ve ruined my favorite dress, asshole!”

“Woah calm down sweetheart, don’t be rude to your boyfriend,” Calum teased, walking around to where y/n was sat, reaching down to ruffle her hair. She quickly swatted his hand away with a grumble.

“Fake. Fake boyfriend, Hood.”

Calum simply rolled his eyes in reply, waving her off, “Yeah, yeah whatever. Enjoy your pink clothes.”

     It was only a week later when management is rushing them to take nice pictures together and becoming Instagram official. Theories are still burning in the air, especially after they were ‘caught’ by paps, kissing, for a second time. Everyone knew something was going on, that much was obvious, but they wanted to hear it from them.

They snapped pictures off stage, the last one being of Calum’s arm over y/n’s shoulder, holding her close to his body with her lips placed on his cheek. Her eyes are closed upon instruction, and he has a bright smile on his face, looking straight at the camera. The photos they snapped were quickly looked over before they’re approved to post on Instagram.

Y/n doesn’t know what to say, and in fact, she’s finding it hard to breathe. It was only fifteen minutes before she had to go on stage for their next concert, and this was the most nervous she had felt in ages. What if she gets hate? What if the whole fandom hated her? She knew that most likely some fangirls would be jealous, that was perfectly understandable, she just hoped no one went far enough to send her tons of hate; especially considering it was fake.

Y/n didn’t like this situation any more than they did but there was nothing she could do about it. Watching over Calum’s shoulder, she saw him press post, and she felt like she couldn’t even breathe. She felt like the air was being restricted from her lungs, and she can’t even bring herself to opening her phone to see people freaking out over the announcement of their ‘relationship’.

“Well, that’s that.” Calum looked at her over his shoulder, letting out a soft sigh as his brown eyes wrack over her face. She’s pale, and she didn’t even seem to hear his as he talked, making his eyebrows furrow in confusion, “Y/n? You good there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” She dismissed quickly, taking a step away from him, wringing her hands awkwardly. She’s nodding her head, but her eyes are firmly set on the ground now and Calum knows that she’s nervous. Sure, the two weren’t close and Calum took enjoyment in annoying her, but he was surprisingly good at telling how she was feeling simply from her body movements.

He hesitated, lips parting as he thought of what to say as he stared at the smaller girl who looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole, but after a few moments, his lips snapped shut. He wasn’t good at consoling, especially not her. And even if he did want to try, what could he possibly say?

This situation wasn’t ideal for her. Sure, it got her publicity, but he knew it wasn’t the type that she wanted. She hadn’t been fully introduced to the famous lifestyle yet, articles written about her, fan accounts, everything so he knew this was going to be hard for her. It took him a while to adjust to the lifestyle, and sure things like paps were still uncomfortable but they weren’t scary anymore.

As he stared at her, a frown prominent on his lips, he studied her. He noticed how awkward and uncomfortable she had become from the moment that he had posted the photo, almost as if she was awaiting an attack. He knew it was scary, the paps, the fangirls, and he also knew that this abrupt change in lifestyle from this moment on was going to be difficult for her; so he would make it easier.

He would answer the questions, take the heat about the relationship. He would protect her from all of the nasty comments as best as he could because no one deserved to be flung into the lifestyle like she was being right now, despite wanting publicity. This was a whole new life starting for her from the moment he posted the picture and as he nodded his head discretely, it was like a deal had been sealed with himself.

He was going to help her through this, even if she still hated him.

      It was three hours after the show had taken place and she still hadn’t turned her phone back on yet. She felt sick to her stomach, staring at her phone almost as if it was taunting her; itching for her to open Instagram but at the same time, wanting her to stay far, far away from the app.

Yet, soon enough she found herself booting up her phone and going onto Instagram, almost immediately finding Calum’s photo. She clicked on the comments and was pleasantly surprised. People were actually being supportive.

“omg look at them!!!”

“THEY LOOK SO GOOD TOGETHER WTF”

“I want someone to look at me the way Cal looks at Y/n”

That last one made her smile. She knew exactly what picture they were referencing. The one where y/n has her back to the camera in Calum’s embrace, and he’s staring down at her with a smile, arms wrapped around her, pulling her flush against his chest. She remembered her face buried deep into Calum’s shirt, surprised that the makeup she was wearing didn’t rub off on the material.

She was subconsciously shaking her head as she pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top of them. She flicked back up to the pictures, almost analyzing the way Calum stared down at her. The fan was right, Calum looked at her with so much “love” in his eyes, a look that y/n had never seen on Calum before.

It was crazy. If y/n didn’t know any better she would think that Calum actually was in love with her but the only thing he loved about her, was how annoyed he could get her. Calum was certainly a good actor, looking at her like she was the sun and he was the revolving planets; like the only girl in the entire universe. Well, at least if Calum got bored of music he could go into acting.

They already had everyone fooled, and they were just getting started...

[why-its-kai]

tag game ! tagged by @gilshaelos thank u!!

fave color: PURPLE i love purble all varieties of it. excellent color 💜💜💜💜💜💜

currently reading: nothing at the moment (besides various fanfics lol) BUT i just finished Q-Squared by Peter David, which was a very good Star Trek novel !! very wild ride tho it took me a while to finish it since i’ve been struggling with my book reading focus for a while now :(

last song: “Maine” by John Linnell (State Songs was today’s grocery shopping soundtrack haha)

last series: finished watching Legend (1995) a few weeks ago…wonderfully fun series but sadly only ever got one season and has probably the cheapest, lowest video quality dvd release i’ve ever seen and it’s not streaming anywhere so unfortunately had no choice but to watch it in that awful quality. but sci-fi/western/steampunk is like my fav genre combo so i loved it !! also John de Lancie playing a main character 🥰

currently watching more Star Trek, recently watched a bit more of the original series and i checked out Lower Decks yesterday and really liked that! still need to finish Deep Space Nine but i keep putting it off bc i don’t want it to end 😭😭😭😭😭

last movie: hmmmmm good question. i’m not sure i remember when i last watched a movie. maybe it was the Aristocats? rewatched that recently it’s one of my fav childhood movies! full of nostalgia i love it so much. and i love the animation in it, so expressive and fun aaahhh hand drawn animation my beloved

currently working on: oh man i have so many art and writing projects in wip hell bc i don’t mcfreaking have the energy to work on them OTL

also i’ve got my extremely specific special interest related project lol, i’ve been working on going thru the Trigun anime next episode preview clips and finding where they are in the actual episodes and documenting any changes made since a lot of the previews actually use incomplete or altered footage like different backgrounds, missing animations/effects, and redrawn cels !!! i even found what looks to be parts of a deleted scene in one of them !!!!!!! it’s super interesting (to me at least haha) and i’m about halfway thru the episodes now. once i have that completed and organized, i plan on sharing all my findings !!

too tired to do any tag but feel free to do this and say i tagged u if u want to do it uwu

[yichens]

for the ask game: 4, 8, 12, 21

aliii ♥ thank you so much for this ^^

4. What do you enjoy about making graphics?

tbh i enjoy the whole process - after am done with screenshotting and choosing the images i will use. that part is a pain. but otherwise? i am having so much fun. it is insane how much of a kick i get from something so simple :'D but if i had to choose an exact favorite part out of everything, i think it's either coloring (for edits where colors play a big part, like i.e. the bb seasons one) or the details (for edits where i end up adding stuff that isn't just the pictures, i.e. my danyok edit where i actually liked writing down their dialogue for the ripped paper parts). i also love research which has translated into a lot of symbolism edits lately ^^ (also i have at least three more ideas for things like this bc apparently i love reading about random things online)

8. Your favorite graphic created by yourself

oh boy hmm. i love my latest one bc it was very different from the edits i've been making for bb. my personal fave out of the pics is the one for kryptonite! it was a struggle but looks so nice now. then i also gotta mention this seanwhite edit bc i just grow all soft every time i look at it. it was fun working on the overlays and i think they came out nicely ^^

my absolute favorite edits i've made so far are the sets (1 & 2) i made for dew the movie. i love that movie so, so much, and bc of the emotional connection, these edits are very important to me. i also like how they capture the vibes of the whole movie :')

12. Font(s) you like using

i have a ton! and i try using new fonts all the time. tho i of course have some i always return to. current favorites are:

basic fonts: Quicksand / Josefin Sans / Lemon Milk which all are kind of similar, just simple and clean fonts for basic text

curvy fonts: Adriatne / Crehme Honstlan / Dancing Love / Modena Script / Roses Please / The Scientist which are all big and have long lines that seem to curve nicely around the edits, so to speak. especially Modena Script is one of my go to -fonts if i want the highlighted words to Take Space

brush fonts: Beardies / Castedral / Chasing Embers / Garland / Halcyon / Julya / Mind Rush which i don't use that often anymore but at some point, i was actually obsessed with all these bold brush fonts. now they feel like a bit too much but they still find their way to me sometimes

bold fonts: Al Veshion / Athene / Black Gold / Glimmer of Light / Grozery / NT Josefine which i use A Lot. i have found a new love for this type of bold fonts. they look cool and clean and i can always add effects to them myself (if am not fond of the ligatures)

21. How much time do you spend on a single graphic?

does "single" mean like one image or one sets? i'll take that as one set bc i usually finish the set at once after i start working on it.

but hmm, if i count in the time it takes for me to take screenshots, i'd say maybe 6-8 hours? it depends of course on how long the edit is/how many images the set has, how many details i need to work on, and if my plan for the edit is very detailed or not. for example, my bb sun & moon edit took only a couple of hours bc it's only two images and i had quite clear plans for it (i also had the screenshots ready in my folders haha). then again, the not me seven deadly sins edit actually took 2 days and maybe 10-ish hours (i have not counted really, might be more) plus all the research i did for it during the week. i had plans for it but they kept changing and there were so many details, oh boy. also i failed the white edit once bc i used the wrong colors for him :'D i saved the other version bc i liked how it looked and was kind of sad i had to abandon it, so take it here:

(wrong color bc i somehow got the sloth and gluttony colors mixed up in my head hhh probably bc my initial plan for white was sloth)

thank you once more ^^ this was fun! also a great way to avoid writing my last essay of the semester lol. hopefully this was fun to read too!

ask me graphic maker questions!

[cosmiclatte28]

hi. can i request a scenario where you have a crush on jeno and you're jaemin's brother? thank you. <3 i love your works.

Hello anon! Thanks for requesting... so I'm not sure if you meant Jaemin's brother or Jaemin is your brother.. so I made the gender neutral here. You can either be his sister or his brother!

I hope this is good enough and if you want me to fix anything.. tell me I can change or make a new one for you like what you want. This is angst so let me know if you want me to change this into another genre

A/n : gender neutral reader x jeno. Jaemin is your brother! Plus this is angst 🙏

Enjoy!

Like the moon longing for the Earth, you also long for a caring subtle boyfriend.

Lee Jeno and you, like December and January a moment away yet a lifetime apart.

“(Y/n)! Change to a proper clothes, Jeno is coming for movies tonight.” Your brother screams at you first thing first on a Friday morning.

You're about to groan but upon hearing that special name you scramble up from your bed and quickly check your phone

“Lunch or dinner?” You yell back at your brother, Jaemin

“Duhh it’s the regular Friday movie night. You have the whole day to do your homework still.” Jaemin says before leaving your room to play his game.

You got up from your bed, tidy it up who knows Jeno will be sleeping on your bed tonight? Better be prepared right?

To make Jaemin and Jeno proud, you hurriedly finish your homework and prepare for your Monday classes. You're super excited! Why? Well Jeno has a certain charm that always makes you jumpy but at the same time calm. You find peace in him and you're super comfortable whenever he is around

After a refreshing shower you dress yourself up in a comfortable sweat and jogger. Your smile is already on your face and you jog down the stair only to find Jaemin's annoying face popping up on your nose.

“What?” you roll your eyes knowing he'll ask you a favor with that look.

He wraps his arm around your shoulder “My fave baby can you please be very kind and order us pizza?”

“I am not in the mood for pizza,” you groan come on you've had one last week

Jaemin sighs and attempts his dramatic aegyo “But you know Jeno loves it so much.”

You sigh and hand out your palm. Did Jaemin just use your weakness? He seems to know you're always weak for the man with sweet eye smile. The freakin Lee Jeno who is your brother's best friend. Who sees you since you’re in diaper. Who taught you how to climb a tree, ride a bike, throw a ball to Jaemin, and crazy stuff like how to fix a tire.

It was crazy fun whenever Jeno is around. Your brother, Jaemin is super boring. He is not so active. Jaemin prefers to stay in his dark room rather than talking or playing with you. He'd rather play with his computer and edit pics from his camera. And because no one else come to the house as frequent as Jeno, Jeno’s presence and attention are always your runaway place.

What was first a simple sense of belonging and being accepted in their friendship bond slowly turns into admiration and finally love?

Is this love? Is this okay? Am I allowed to fall in love with my brother's bestfriend? Will things end their tight bonds when bad things happen?

You don’t know and you don’t really want to know or find out why. You believe if fate wants you to be together with Jeno, you will be with him.

After finishing your train of thoughts, your pizza is done and you walk back home with butterflies in your stomach. What should you greet him with?

Afternoon Jeno! No. Too cheerful

Hey what's up? Umm could work

Jeno!!! Oh not this

You couldn’t decide and want to think of something else but your steps already bring you to the back door and you quietly creep into the room.

Before you can open your mouth, you overheard Jeno and Jaemin talking in the kitchen

“How is your blind date?” Jaemin asks Jeno

You freeze in track and though you know to never eavesdrop, you always do it.

“Oh it’s quite interesting. We are planning to watch a movie together next week!” Jeno sounds happy as he stirs his cup of cold tea

“Nice! I'm glad you're starting to find someone to take care of.” Jaemin chuckles

“How is (y/n)?” Jeno asks your brother and you perk your ears up feeling happy Jeno remembers you.

“(Y/n) should probably hang out with their squad more.” Jaemin sighs “I kinda feel they need to interact more with their friends. I am okay they hang out with us, but sometimes I am afraid they're excluded from their friends.” Jaemin sits down on one of the chair.

You frown. You've never hung out with your friends because you don’t click with their jokes. You don’t like their band and they don’t like yours. You don’t like their judging stares and comments, but with Jeno and Jaemin you just feel like you belong there. What is wrong with that?

“I mean I really tried to make her hang out less with us. “ Jaemin whispers “But I don’t know how.”

Jeno pats his back “Give them time, I mean I like hanging out with your little baby.” Jeno teases Jaemin with that, well Jaemin always calls you his annoying little baby mostly because he used to babysit you.

Jaemin laughs “Okay okay cut this off, if they heard this I'm sure they'll cry. (Y/n) likes you so much after all. If they can choose, I am sure they'll pick you.”

You stay still and hide behind the walls. So does your brother doesn’t like you hanging out with them? Also all of those attentions Jeno gave to you was solely a platonic friendship thing?

The world around you feels like falling down and you can’t feel your legs. You want to burst and ask to Jeno's face if all the cute little things and doting attention he gave to you was solely because you are Jaemin's little baby and he doesn’t do that because he likes you too?

“hey where's (y/n) by the way?” Jeno suddenly questions your where being

Quickly you walk to the door and wipe a single tear that fell. It hurts but reality sucks right? You're always Jaemin's little baby and Jeno keeps on looking at you like you are also his little baby to take care of.

“They're supposed to be here, try to call them”

Your phone rings and you quickly pick it up

“Hello there Jaemin's little baby and my fave dongsaeng! Where are you?” Jeno's sweet cheerful greeting burns into your heart and memories. You painfully hide your sadness and fake a smile “On the front door! Help me please.”

He opens the door for you and takes your pizza from your hand. “How's your day?” he greets you without a hug without a touchy touchy contact like what he used to do when you were younger.

Maybe he respected you as being a grown up now or maybe he really is trying to make a commitment to someone.

You mentally make a note that maybe you really stand no chance to be his lover.

“Great! What about yours?” you ask him back with your big smile.

He bought your lie “I am also happy and excited to see you and your bro tonight! Come on you got to choose the film.”

You grin “Yay! Let's watch something scary!”

Jeno chuckles “Okay just don’t cry if you got too scared!”

end

Fixed some pronoun slipped sorry!

[honesthammie]

From my prompt list:

4) After reaching your 16th birthday you gain the ability to see everyone's red strings of fate and on your 18th you finally get to see yours, except yours dissappears into the ground/sky.

Fandom:Doctor who

Pairing: 13 x gender neutral reader

This is my first fic on tumblr. I know its hella long and not all of my fics will be like this. This came to me from a dream I had recently. I love Jodie and I decided to write the spider episode from a different perspective. I may have change the episode slightly to fit the reader. I am thinking of doing a part 2 but it may be a while before I do as I have deadlines and stuff to keep up with. The next part may be more fluff between 13 and yourself. I know this didn't have much but it's something. I'm also sorry to any Americans reading this, I love yas but its just the personality I put to go with the readers personality. I'm also sorry for any spelling mistakes as I'm doing this on my phone.

Summary: spider episode with a small change I'm plot to accommodate your beautiful self in this fic

Warnings: slight description of a couple of panic/anxiety attacks, swearing and a bit of angst. Long intro for small fluff. And it's a part 1 do I guess a small cliffhanger is a warning?

Beep beep beep. Your alarm starts blaring in your ears, waking you up with a start. You glare at the interrupting machine before turning it off. After such a crazy night, you did not want your sleep so rudely interrupted. Why did you have a crazy night? It's your 18th birthday today and your friends decided to visit your place for a little house party, last night, to celebrate and now you have a pounding headache.

You groaned as you realised, you would need to take some pain meds before you even think about going back to sleep. Slipping out of your bed, you walk to the bathroom and find the cupboard with all sorts of medicinal and bathroom bits and bobs. You then grab the glass that you placed there in preparation for the definite hangover. The glass was a little cold to the touch but you filled it with some cool water from the sinks tap.

You took two, just so you could have a longer sleep. You waddle back into your bedroom and just as you get comfy, you widen your eyes at the memory. You needed to see your mother today, she said she had a gift for you but she would only be at home until 11. You looked at the machine that you hated for the time. It was currently 10:05. You jumped to your feet and rush to get ready.

As you walked outside, you saw the regular red strings that you saw everyday. Why do you see strings? You honestly didn't know, but you knew their purpose, it helped match 2 soulmates together. But something seemed a little off, there was no one on the street anymore, so why could you still see one line of destiny? You decided to follow the string south, down to your own (s/c) hand which was now slightly shaking at the sight.

"Fuck. Fuck,fucky fucking fuck. Why now? Why me? What the shit is going on with me?" You curse to yourself. You could feel your breath getting rapid and your head started spinning slightly. You quickly unlocked your car and sat down to help calm you down. You took a few deep breaths and focused on your senses.

When you eventually calmed down, you decided to look at where the string led. Oh, how you shouldn't have looked. It didn't go in any way of a compass, it went straight up and past the clouds. How? You had so many questions but you had to focus on the day ahead.

You had been to your mothers house and collected your new (fave game series) and your card. You were incredibly thankful as you have been saving up to buy it for yourself one day. You had played the previous games and loved every one of them and to say you were excited was an understatement. You almost ran back into your place if it wasn't for needing the key to access the gates.

Living in a gated community helped you feel a lot safer but it did also make you a big target for thieves to practise picking locks. No one had figured out where the hidden camera that kept alerting the authorities was though. Even you have tried put of plain curiosity but you got stumped after the 10th day of searching. You were sure you looked in every possible hiding spot, yet the camera always seemed to evade you in the pointless game of hide and seek.

As you unlocked the gate, you felt a twitch on your finger. The string was moving down and at a very fast pace, almost falling speed. You looked up and saw a small black dot heading towards the ground, if thats your soulmate, they would certainly be dead the second they meet their fate. When you could no longer see the dot, you kept your eyes glued to the string, waiting for it to disappear like everyone else's did when a soulmate died.

After five minutes, the string was still there and was still as red as ever, like no harm had come to them. But thats not possible. No creature could survive that especially from that great a height! You were beyond curious and quickly went into your living room and searched on all your social media for anyone else that may have spotted the dot in the sky, yet no one had but you knew (b/f) had another massive fight with their roommate, Stella, over whose turn it was to do the dishes again.

If you didn't know that Stella was in a relationship with another, you would have sworn those two were in a relationship. You giggled at the silly thought, "if Stella ever goes through a break up with her, I'm totally gonna set those two up."

You give up on finding anything out today, maybe it'll be on the news tomorrow and you set off to go on an online shopping spree, you had a few codes and now, thanks to your wonderful mother, had a little cash to spare and you did see that gorgeous top on sale. Once you had spent the day either shopping or gaming you decided to head to bed but you couldn't stop thinking about that dot and what the red string meant for you.

When your alarm had went off, you hit it and got dressed for your new job at some hot shot posh hotel run by an aspiring American with High expectations and little experience with Sheffield. You had been told you wouldn't get to meet him much and you were beyond fine with that, you hated Americans, simply because you hated violence and guns were the big no on your weaponry list of avoidance. You didn't mind weapons in video games, those were harmless to the outside world. You didn't mind verbal violence though, it was all you had to defend yourself with and in Sheffield, that was better than nothing. You were very short tempered when it came to your anger but you found that it was either verbal or physical, you chose to be verbal.

You looked at your phone for any messages from (b/f) and had a good luck message. You replied with a smiley face and a "ill need all the luck I can get. I've heard from a few employees that he can be a real asshole for no reason and fires people just because they made eye contact for too long. It's like he suspects someone is out for his blood."

After 2 minutes you received a reply from from them. "You better be on your best behaviour then, young lady!"

"That's the problem. I wonder what the record is for the quickest a person has got fired? Because I may break that, you know me! I don't exactly do as I'm told, that's why finding a job has been so hard. Anyway, I best get ready, gotta look the part! First impressions and all!" You replied with a nervous face. What you failed to notice was the red string no longer pointing towards the sky and you were making it shorter with every step you took. You did give up on finding out about the strange dot and came to the assumption that it fell in a lake, there were plenty of them around.

You walked into the swanky looking hotel and noticed the cobwebs that definitely were not there two days ago when you had your interview, yet they looked like they had been there for weeks. You would have put it down to Halloween decorations if it wasn't for the fact that it was June. You decided to not ask in case this was some sort of strange new American trend that your boss was following to help bring in the youth. It does help make it fit into Sheffield a lot more with the run down and abandoned look. It would need some rust, water damage, mold and cracks to finish the look but it was a start. If you had to be honest, the spider webs helped bring the place together. It was way too posh for Sheffield but you had to lie and say you love it in order to get hired. Just from that lie alone you knew exactly the personality of your boss, arrogant, vain and ignorant.

"Hello, you must be my new helper! I'm Najia, your second in command here. As you can see, there are loads of spider webs so they should be priority. If you could start cleaning in the south west second floor and continue that floor, that would be amazing. Now here's your cleaning trolley and if you happen to finish the floor early, send me a little message through the walkie talkie and I'll give you another room or floor. Do you have any questions?" Najia spoke softly. She seemed lovely and it was shame that she had to be in a place that would get more damage than its worth.

"Just one question: why so many spider webs?"

"I don't know, they just seemed to have appeared, I thought it was silly string from some teenagers that managed to break in somehow but it is actual spider web. It wasn't here when I left last night. I guess I'll have to ask someone about that."

And with that you separated and got to your floor when you finally noticed a slight burning sensation on your finger, it wasn't hurtful. It was like putting the finger in a really hot bath. You looked down and noticed it now pointed downhill and seemed to be glowing a shade of gold ever so gently that you would miss it if the weird sensation didn't make you look.

You left your trolley outside a toilet to make it seem like you were in there when really you had wondered off to follow the string. You would probably lose yourself in the maze of hallways that all looked the same as the last if the string didn't help lead you to a ballroom. You opened the door and instantly screamed. A giant spider was walking towards you, however you couldn't get out, you had used a staff door which needed a key card to use from this side as the other side still needed to be fitted and you left yours in the trolley, near the toilets. And the massive spider seemed to be blocking the other way out so you were trapped.

You weren't scared of spiders but seeing them at the size of a van did intimidate you. You started shaking from fear of what it would do to you. Out of pure instinct, you put your hand out to protect yourself and the sound of 8 legs against wooden flooring had ceased. The only sound was your laboured breathing. It stayed like this for what seemed like hours but in actuality was only 5 minutes. You opened your eyes slowly to see 8 more stare right back. 8 eyes that showed fear but no intention of harm. Instead the spider gave you space to breathe by walking back a few feet. Then it seemed to be watching you, studying your next move to see if you were a threat and whether or not it should kill you.

You stayed still for a moment, wrapping your head around what had just happened before gently walking towards the creature with both hands forward to show them clean of weapons. You decided to try and speak to the spider to see if it can understand you.

"Hello. I'm new around here, I'm sorry if I'm trespassing on your area, I wasn't aware of you being here to be honest. I mean you no harm, if anything, I want to help you but unfortunately, I'm stuck in here aswell." You spoke carefully as if it was a child that was afraid. You gently put your hand in its head and it seemed to understand your good intentions and your situation as it let you pet it. Now you were close, you started to admire it and realised it wasn't poisonous or venomous, it was just a regular house spider. But you couldn't figure out how or why it got this big but it did explain the cobwebs everywhere.

You had been with the spider for hours and it seemed like Najia either didn't care or has gotten fired as she hasn't asked about you. You had spent the time talking or singing to the spider. She, as you found out after looking it up, seemed to put her body around you to protect you. You had even met a couple of her children as they gave you food from the cafeteria to nibble on when your stomach growled.

Eventually the burning on your fingers turned up massively and was causing you pain. The spider seemed to sense this and wrapped her web around your finger to help cool it down a little. It didn't help but you showed gratitude anyway as she was only trying to help in anyway she could. You gave her a small smile and her eyes seemed to show sympathy in return.

Then the doors opened again and the sound of several feet walked in. "Oh thank god. I thought I was never going to be found in here." You thought to yourself as you heard the voices mumble to each other and probably about Betty and what's the best way to get rid of her. You would have paid more attention if your finger didn't feel like it had caught fire and was tight as if your soulmate was amongst those that had walked in.

Now you were nervous. How would you introduce yourself? What did they look like? Were they male or female, not that you really cared? So many questions made you feel lightheaded so you grabbed onto Betty to keep yourself planted.

Then the door opened again and a familiar voice echoed in the hall and you knew exactly how he'd want to deal with Betty and after your bond today, you would rather die than her. She was obviously innocent here and maybe the others could see it. Then you heard the familiar click of a gun safety being taken off and your body reacted before your mind did and you jumped in front of her to stop him, although you had a feeling it wouldn't, but it was worth a shot for the others to stop him.

"Don't you fucking dare shoot that gun Dickhead! Not without going through me!" You spoke with fire in your eyes and maybe a slight mix if fear aswell. That's when you looked over at the new group of people. They all seemed trustworthy enough.

There was Najia, who welcomed you here earlier and she looked sad, so she had definitely been fired. Then there was another woman who looked a lot like her, you guessed she was a daughter or something and she was pretty and definitely somone with authority with the way she stood and held herself, maybe she is a police officer? A man who looked as though he was in his 50s and definitely did not belong in this weird group. A young man who looked of a similar age to the police woman, maybe they are friends.

Then you laid your eyes on one of the most beautiful woman, no, human, you had ever seen and would probably never see again. She had short blonde hair in a bob. They seemed to be brunette at the root. She had beautiful chocolate honey eyes that glimmers with so much emotion and age well beyond her years, like she had experienced thousands of years before this moment. You also noticed her odd sense of style but you admired her boldness and it did look amazing on her. You decided she could only be described as sunshine and rainbows.

Then you noticed her hand And a familiar red string that was also glowing a beautiful subtle gold. Like millions of tiny golden stars circled around the string in a beautiful dance of love. Your eyes started to follow the string down and back to your own. She was your soulmate. That goddess that stood before you, was to be yours forever some day.

Then you looked into her hypnotic eyes before you remembered where you were and what situation you were in. And you realised everyone was staring at you for your previous action towards a spider.

"If you want to keep your job, I'd suggest you move out of the way silly girl!" Your boss grumbled in a threatening tone.

"Nope. You are about to hurt an innocent creature that is stuck and terrified. You built on top of landfill and didn't bother to check and thought of no consequences. This is your fault. Is this how you would treat a child that was a mistake after a one night stand or something? Would you shoot a child that had no choice?" You spoke with confidence yet more nerves now she was there listening to every word. When he didn't answer you shouted "Answer me! Would you shoot your mistake of a child?"

He glared at you. "This is different. This is an animal. A pest. It needs to be killed so more can't be born! I made my mistake and now I'm fixing it!" He bellowed just seconds before a shot was made from his gun. You had expected pain but instead you heard a horrible shriek from behind you.

You quickly turned around and petted her whilst whispering sweet words as she took her last breath. You stood up and made your way over to the murderer. You couldn't stand him and you were so tempted to take his gun and shoot him with it, but you didn't. With fire in your eyes and pure hatred, you slapped him hard enough to leave a mark and maybe a bruise as a reminder of his shitty choices. "You can't fire me because I fucking quit you arrogant dick! She had caused no harm to you or I and I'm sure if you would have sorted it sooner, so many more lives could have been saved as she only had humans because flies didn't fill her anymore! She was so kind and just so afraid. I hope you lose everything you pathetic sad sack of boiled shit! You are truest one of the lowest excuses for a human I have ever met and if we meet again please be very afraid, because next time, it won't just be a slap you have to worry about! It'll be your balls as I cut them off beacuse men like you shouldn't repopulate the planet! You horrid scum! I hope your empire fucking collapses!" You spoke with venom lacing every word. You were seething and boy did his face look punchable. Instead you walked away with your middle finger proudly being the last thing he sees as you walk out the normal doors.

Once you were outside, you sat in the steps and finally let out all the emotions. You cried so hard, over your loss of yet another job and a newly found friend. You screamed at him with a string of curses that would offend just about anybody. You suddenly felt somone sit at the side of you. You knew who it was when the string was burning more than ever before and yet you couldn't feel it over the pain your heart.

"You did brilliant back there. You chose, not just your job, but your life over a creature you barely even knew! If you wouldn't have jumped in when you did, I don't think her children would've had a chance to escape to my TARDIS because he's going on a hunt right now for the rest of them. Sure, you didn't save her but you saved so many more lives than you think. And I know each one is eternally grateful for what you did. I know I would be." Her words were certain and sympathetic. They seemed to calm you down instantly. Or maybe is was the way she talked that helped with her soft but strong voice and you knew you already couldn't get enough like it was the best drug ever. You could listen to her all day and yet, she had said very little to you. It was a strange effect but you liked it.

She fell into a silence for a while just keeping you company as you came to terms with had happened.

[dc41896]

Stupid Roses

Pairing: Ransom DrysdalexBlack Reader

⚠️: None, just some soft!Ransom feels💕

Reaching the middle landing of the floating stairs, his hands grip the metal railing giving an impressive view of his toned arms in his baby blue short sleeve shirt as he shakes his head at the sight below him.

“I thought you were supposed to be watching the game with me?”

“I will,” you sit up from your comfy position, bringing your boyfriends cashmere blanket down from your face. “I forgot the Bachelor comes on tonight though, so when this goes off I’ll come upstairs.”

“The Bachelor? You mean that God awful show about women throwing themselves at some random guy and claiming they love him on the second day?”

“For someone so disgusted by it, you seem to know quite a bit,” you smirk.

“Only because I had an ex who was obsessed with it,” he answers descending the staircase. “That’s all she wanted to watch day and night.”

“Aww was someone jealous?,” you pout.

“Ha! Definitely not. She deleted a golf tournament I recorded so there’d be more room for some announcement special, and that was the last time I ever spoke to her.”

“So, I take it you won’t be watching with me anytime soon?” A deep chuckle vibrates through his chest leaning down to brush his lips against your ear causing a shiver to run down your spine.

“Princess, I’d rather go on a week long vacation with my parents,” he whispers against your skin before moving to kiss your neck.

“Fine, but it’s not that bad if you give it a chance.”

“Yea okay,” he snorts before disappearing in the kitchen to get his new box of Biscoff cookies.

Leaning over to pour yourself a glass of wine, your’re quickly sucked back into the tv screen now showing the remainder of last nights rose ceremony that left on a cliffhanger. You’re not too distracted though to not notice your boyfriend’s looming figure slowly make his way back to the staircase with eyes fixed on the formal looking man holding a single red rose, and the camera switching between those who had yet to receive one.

It took every ounce of willpower in you to stifle your laugh hearing him quietly curse one of the steps he tripped over being so entranced with the previews of the next date.

Throughout the episode, those long, “secretive glances would continue during his journey back and forth from the kitchen getting chips to counter the sweet taste in his mouth. Then a beer. Then napkins to clean up said beer when he tripped over the same step once again.

This is how you both ultimately ended up on the couch with the game being long forgotten. You, sat between his legs holding the half eaten box of cookies and bag of chips, and him draping an arm in front of your chest pulling you closer to his broad chest as you discussed your thoughts on the contestants.

“So far my faves are Kelly, Sarah M, Traci, and Lara. I definitely feel like they’ll make it close to the end.”

“Hm okay,” he nods. “And which ones are they?”

“Sarah M is the one in the black, floor length gown there. Then Lara is in the yellow- ugh, why would he give a rose to Veronica?! What does he see in her, no one likes her! All she does is cause drama.”

“And she has no sense of style. Where’d she get that dress from, the side of the road?,” Ransom adds, nudging your cheek with his nose so you’ll feed him a cookie after getting one yourself. “No wonder she chooses violence.”

There’s a comfortable silence as you both continue to watch the rest of the evening play out and girls become frustrated when they feel they didn’t get enough time before being interrupted. Gazing at the side of your face, a small smile forms on his lips watching your features scrunch and react to the different sets of interactions being shown. While he wasn’t one for trashy reality shows, he’d sit and watch you get adorably worked up and invested in people you’d never meet all day.

Well, maybe not all day.

“Let’s say I was the bachelor,” he states lying his chin on your shoulder. “Would you try out?”

“Well I think when you try out, you don’t know who the bachelor is,” you giggle as his lips peck your neck.

“Alright say you did, and we weren’t together of course.”

“I honestly don’t know-,” you answer causing him to sit up looking a bit puzzled as he shifted to look you directly in your face.

“You don’t know?”

“Let me finish,” you laugh before kissing the furrowed spot between his brows to relax his face. “I don’t know because I feel like me competing with a bunch of other women who look like supermodels and pageant queens, I’d probably be sent home on night one. Plus you know I don’t really have the same personality type as them either.”

You had a point. Unlike the women on the screen, it took you a bit longer to be open with people due to your shy nature. When you and Ransom first started dating, at least once a week Ransom would start to mentally question if you really liked him as much as he liked you. He’d even become frustrated sitting alone in his modern home as he thought he was possibly missing signals that showed him this.

It was as if you had been reading his mind when you brought it up over a private, candlelit dinner one night at quite possibly the best restaurant in town that, before, you could only dream of going to.

“I-I know I’m probably not as open about my feelings as the other girls you’ve been with,” you spoke nervously fiddling with the extra cloth napkin beside your plate. “I promise it’s not that I don’t like you or anything because I do! It’s just I get in my head, and don’t want to potentially mess up anything and I’m sorry-,”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he interrupts placing his larger hand on top of yours. Was he used to his prior dates and girlfriends telling every feeling and emotion from day one? Yes, but now he understood that until you were comfortable those feelings and thoughts would probably stay held in. And he didn’t mind waiting.

“You don’t need to apologize. I’ll tell you now that you don’t have to be afraid about sharing how you feel with me, but if you need time I get it. Don’t worry I’ll still be here.”

With a soft “aw” as his hand caresses your cheek and thumb grazes your skin, he leans in to kiss your lips only separating briefly before stealing a couple more.

“You’re right, you wouldn’t last long.”

Now was your turn to lean back, looking at him puzzled as you scoffed. “Wow thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I say that because I’d know you were the one I wanted on night one, so there wouldn’t be any rose ceremonies. It’d be the shortest season in history,” he smiles capturing your smirking lips once more.

“You’d really know on night one?”

You weren’t questioning his loyalty, but you also weren’t gonna forget about his past playboy ways in this hypothetical situation of him being single and surrounded by 30 or so gorgeous women.

“Mhmm. Knowing how long you take to get ready though, you’d probably be the last to arrive but I’d still know,” he chuckles as you lightly smack his chest.

Taglist: @fumbling-fanfics @honeychicanawrites @honeychicana @lady-olive-oil @themyscxiras @melinda-january @lovelymari4 @maxcullen @literaturefeen @damnitaa @curlyhairclub @plokyu23 @fullofmelaninsarcasmandepression @nunubug99 @felicity-x0 @ellixthea @jojolu @jnk-812 @brwn-sgr @captainsamwlsn @wildfirecracker @nina-sj @iammyownlover @chaneajoyyy @secretmysteriousperson @scoop93535

If anybody wants to be tagged, has asked to be tagged but don’t see your name, only want to be tagged for certain people I write for (can be found in masterlist), or no longer wish to be tagged just let me know🤓!

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Taking a Break.

(Aug 24 to Sept 14/20)

So.

You may have guessed this was coming with my hinted responses to recent posts. I talked with a few Lovelies behind the scenes to help ease my fears about this decision. I’ve done a lot of reflective thinking for the past few weeks, and I’ve decided that when I have a three week break from work, I am also going to take advantage of that and take a three week break from here as well.

This is not something any of y’all did. Please do not think this. This is a “Steph hasn’t had time for herself since last summer” thing, a “Steph puts too much on her own shoulders because she doesn’t feel she deserves her own time” thing, a “Steph just needs a break” thing. And it’s been made even worse with C-19 because I’m NEVER off of the same computer nor couch. Before, I’d go to and from work, and blogging in the evenings was fun, because I didn’t do it during the day. Then on weekends, I’d answer asks and leave for the gym, spend a bit of my day running around, and come home, play again on Tumblr, and repeat.

Now, on work days, I literally wake up, spend 16 hours on my laptop, and then go to bed. Weekends, I FEEL obligated to be on Tumblr to help curate the community I love treasure so dearly, so ANOTHER day or so of my weekend is dedicated to making sure I have content for the following week to come, because HEY I can’t leave home anyway, MAY AS WELL. 

My blog is nearly a full time job, one I volunteer my free time for (I have a Ko.fi, shameless segue). I spend about 30 hours a week answering asks, filing my posts, searching for stuff for people, collecting reblog threads and chains, and generally trying to keep a positive attitude because I know so many of y’all come here for safety, love, happiness, and escapism. And I do it ALL because I LOVE doing it. I love being a curator of fandom. I love having a blog that people know they can come and generally have a good time. I love all of my friends and lurkers and the people who help me make this blog an interactive one.

The problem is that with never leaving home, I am becoming emotionally drained, very depressed, and am slowly not enjoying doing this anymore. I DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. So after a lot of discussions with a few people and self reflection, I’ve decided I need Steph-Time™, and I need to FEEL like I’m not obligated to be here all the time, just like I needed time away from work. As I explained to my boss, I just need that time to not feel obligated to answer calls and Slack messages without feeling guilty about it. It’s different when I have a Work Computer and a Home Computer. My home computer is supposed to be Fun Stuff. Now it’s not, because work bothers me on my fun computer. He agreed, as did the Lovelies who I talked to behind the scenes.

I love you guys SO MUCH, and I love receiving the asks I get, but some days, a dozen asks daily becomes overwhelming and new fic lists and song recs become intimidating. I need a break. It’s taken me a lot to say that, because I am crying writing this because I feel so many people need me, and I genuinely don’t feel like I deserve a break ever, because there are people who come to me for comfort and need it more than I need a break.

But the ironic thing is that I can’t help anyone if I’m not taking care of myself. How fitting that my own advice to others comes back to slap me in the face, eh?

So, here’s what’s happening then, because I KNOW I can’t 100% stay away from here...

I am taking 3 weeks off from work starting August 24 until September 14. My “obligation break” from Tumblr will be during that time as well. I say “obligation” because Tumblr feels like I HAVE to do it. I don’t want that. I want to see what it’s like being you guys again, just taking in content, and coming on occasionally, post up shit photos of myself, LOL.

During said break, ALL ASKS AND SUBMISSIONS WILL BE TURNED OFF. I want to, IF I FEEL LIKE IT, take the time to answer some old asks. Essentially, I just want to do my blog because I feel like it, not because I NEED NEW CONTENT. Yeah, I think that’s what stresses me out, is because I’m TERRIFIED that y’all will leave me if I don’t keep producing new stuff, so I just.... never stop, and it’s draining me.

As an exception to the off-inbox rule, ASKS WILL BE TURNED ON ON AUGUST 27 ONLY. That is my birthday, and I know some people will want to send me well wishes. If you send me an un-related ask on that day, I probably won’t answer it unless it’s one of those ones I can answer quickly. But yeah, my birthday is on the 27, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing.

WEDNESDAY FIC LISTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED DURING THESE THREE WEEKS. Namely because I have exactly 4 lists ready to go, and I plan on using them for the this and the three subsequent Sundays. 

Five Fics Friday is still on, as is Fic Rec Sunday. 5FF will probably be fave fics instead of new MFLs, so I’m sorry about that. The Sunday lists are already done and therefore not going to stress me out.

I’m not leaving completely. I’m still here, I just, like I said, need that obligation element removed from my brain. You guys have NO CLUE how guilty I feel every day when I have to choose one or another ask because of the quickness of one ask over another, or the fact that This Day was a Bad Day™ and I can’t answer advice asks in a bad headspace. I need that element removed to just the asks I’ve already got, and let myself answer them on my own time. Draft a slew of them to post when I return (I mean, y’all have been waiting months/years on some of my asks, what’s another three weeks, LOL), and head back with a clear head to better help you guys.

So LITERALLY, the only difference you guys will notice is the lack of NEW posts. My queue is full for the next MONTH, so literally you would not even know I was gone unless you tried to send me an ask or a DM.

Let’s be real here, guys, I’m not going to completely disconnect for 3 weeks. Y’all will be yelling at me to get off and go outside, LOL.

So what am I doing with my 3 weeks then? Updating my resumé, learn some new art skills, go for my Big Walks™ I haven’t been doing, play some video games, get my hair cut, maybe get my cat. Do and post up some of my art I’ve been meaning to finish. You know, stuff that not-losers do, LOL.

Anyway, unlike Mofftiss, please don’t give up on me after three (weeks) :D I just need a mental health check, is really all this is. I’m having a hard time disconnecting work from leisure and I need to do that again. <3 

I will be back, I promise!! And hopefully better. <3

This is a very difficult decision for me, because I’ve been running this blog at full steam for about FIVE YEARS NON-STOP. All because I’m scared of hurting people. I hope you all understand.

I love you guys so much. <3

~Steph