#leaving this kind of stuff open to interpretation is fun

[vendettapandav]

hi!! i've been closely following your readings of the damned fics and i've been loving each and every chapter of them so far!! i have had one question pop up every time i read it, though: how would lisa and father garcia react to john joining the cult? surely, garcia would still go on to try and stop the profane sabbath, right? even if john isn't there to help him? and i'm sure lisa would be worried about him too!!

I’m so glad you’re enjoying the fics!! I’m really pouring all of my heart and my hyperfixative energy into them sjdjdjkd-

Good question! So good it makes me wonder if I accidentally leaked the docs link to my current draft for chapter 2 of The Lovers 🤔

In all seriousness though, their reactions are something I do plan on exploring eventually. One sooner than the other. I’ll try to explain it as best I can without spoiling anything.

Where Garcia is concerned, we’ve seen that he’s a very determined and unrelenting force in his mission to stop the Profane Sabbath and cleanse the world of demons. He’s a lot more steadfast and resistant towards the forces of the UNSPEAKABLE and Gary than John is. Being so much older and having much more experience with conflict has given him a resilience. (Though as we’ve seen with John, even those with the strongest of faith can fall to the forces of the Devil.) He’s also hellbent on saving anyone that he can, as evidence by the whole ordeal with Michael, the desperation to find the twins, and even going as far to follow John into the darkness to help him. Suffice to say, he’s already gone after John once when he sensed something was wrong. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again?

And who’s to say he won’t fail again, even if he does so unknowingly?

As for Lisa… Lisa’s tougher than she knows or gives herself credit for. But being tough only gets you so far when you’re living in a den of wolves. She still has a soft heart and a susceptible soul. She might not trust anybody in the building after what she’s experienced with the cult, but she does trust John. He’s her oldest and dearest friend after all! Her first love! The one person she feels she can turn to no matter what and always depend upon, especially now that they’re older and life has only gotten stranger and more complicated. He’s her hero! They’re each other’s rock and safe space. Home is wherever they are together. So finding out he’s joined the cult will certainly give her mixed feelings. Sure, it’s Gary’s Cult… but it’s also John. He could be Charon leading her across the River Styx and Lisa would only ever see him as Moses parting the Red Sea and leading her to the Promised Land.

How that story ends is truly anyone’s guess. :3c

[brittlebutch]

Adaine is such a fascinating character to me because she's such a compelling combination of having debilitating, choking panic and anxiety while also being utterly, stubbornly argumentative and combative with absolutely everyone she meets and i love her for it

[lukolabrainrot]

Welcome to My TedTalk

Hellooooo, I know I have been a little MIA lately... needed a little break after the energy shift from the rollercoaster last week. But I am still here lol and I have been marinating on quite a few things the last couple of weeks. So below are my thoughts. As always, everything here are just my thoughts and speculation from the information I have seen. Others might interpret information differently, and that is fine. Note: This will be another one of my long posts lol

Let's start with the obvious. October was a ROLLERCOASTER. It started off soooo strong, and the closest I think we have ever come to L/N publicly announcing they are in a relationship. And THEN... It was just total whiplash the rest of the month. Not a fun feeling right?? And I think a lot of people have started to feel like they can't trust L/N and have sooooo many questions on why October went the way it did. I think a lot of people are also feeling very frustrated because we have gotten so many clues/crumbs/Easter Eggs that haven't really led anywhere. All your various feelings around everything lately are valid. But L/N are allowed to do what they want (obviously) and if crumbs/Easter Eggs are all they want/can show us rn, we have to accept that. October was a rough month for me as well on this ship, which is why I took a couple breaks. We have to remember that we choose to be on this ship, we don't HAVE to be. It's totally valid if you're feeling overwhelmed/not having fun on the ship anymore, you can always take a break and come back if/when you want to. WE DO NOT KNOW L/N. NONE OF US. These are celebrities whose lives are very different than ours (which I know is obvious, but I thought it was important to note). They are human though and allowed to be imperfect, and we get to choose how much energy we give to them. And I have said this multiple times, but they do not owe us anything, and DESERVE to have a private life. We have so many questions related to them, and the fact is, we are never going to have all the answers. And you know what, that is how it should be imo. We are not owed every little detail of their life, and honestly, we got lucky we even got crumbs. THEY DID NOT HAVE TO DO THAT. They will go public WHEN they want/can.

People have talked about this before, but we got an AMAZING tour from them and sooooo much content. SOOOO MUCH. And we got addicted, and then were were cut off cold turkey, and papgate was a total grenade that threw everything into chaos. However, L/N were OBVIOUSLY hiding behind their characters during the WT (no one can convince me otherwise). And we talk about blurred lines between them and their characters, but L/N ARE NOT Polin (although there are a lot of similarities with their stories). There were definitely blurred lines between them and their characters yes, but neither of them are their characters and are a lot more complex and complicated. Lastly, I think because we got soooo much content from them, and they were obviously using their own personal relationship/feelings for each other to promote their characters and the season, L/N kind of lost control of their public narrative related to their private lives. I think that, and leaving everything open to speculation (STILL), was their biggest mistake. But like I said, everything has to be on their own time, and they do have good teams to handle this stuff.

I think we all know this already, but in case it's not obvious... DM has a personal vendetta against N, they do not like her getting positive attention, and I can't stress this enough, THEY WANT HER TO FAIL. 1000%. I think there are a lot of complexities on why this is the case, but you can make your own conclusions on why this is happening. But it IS happening. And you should never get your information directly from DM. They are a sensationalist, tabloid blog. THEY ARE NOT A RELIABLE NEWS SOURCE. THAT IS A FACT.

This fandom has turned INCREDIBLY toxic, and most of the drama is coming from WITHIN the fandom and in-fighting. We don't have concrete answers about ANYTHING related to L/N's romantic lives. Shipping should be fun and low stakes, because ultimately, who they are dating doesn't REALLY matter. That is their personal life, and they are not defined by who they are dating. But like I just mentioned, I think L/N leaving the wolves to mass speculation was one of their biggest mistakes, and has now led the fandom to where it is and this mass speculation and interest in their dating lives, which is feeding the tabloid frenzy and rumors.

Alright, now that I got that out of the way, on to my thoughts on everything the last couple of months:

Firstly, I HIGHLY recommend, if you haven't already, reading through this entire post by @fiamat12. It is incredibly enlightening and well laid out! Couple things I want to add/note:

The paparazzi are a money hungry machine, constantly looking for opportunities that will get them the most money. Ethics... out the window. Ethics/respect doesn't get them money. As long as there is a demand for "candid" photos/videos of celebrities' private/personal lives, and unless laws/regulations significantly change around them, this industry will continue being this way. This means though that the material they circulate is not always what meets the eye. It is just a moment in time with very little context, and in general, a total violation of privacy. However, unfortunately, it is a beast celebrities have to navigate, and sometimes they play games with them to protect their privacy.

L has not been seen in real time (via paps or people in public) since Sorrento. THREE MONTHS. And although we joke that L has just been holed up in their house (yeah I said it), L has definitely been out in public living his life. And y'all, people WANT to see him. I know he doesn't stand out as much as N and can blend into the crowd more, but there is NO WAY no one has seen him in three months. There is some strategy in place here where he has been able to keep a VERY low profile, and I think some of these side characters are part of that strategy. And no one can convince me that his low profile has NOTHING to do with the fact that him and N are together.

2. Alright, side characters... let's first get to the A of it because it's pretty obvious to me. I'm going to keep this short. She plays games. This isn't new. There are VERY likely NDAs in place. This isn't new information either. And she LOVES attention by stirring the pot. Therefore, any time we give her any engagement, we are feeding the beast.

3. Onto JD... this post basically summarizes my thoughts. NOTHING about JD has been private. There isn't anything to protect there from the masses. IF JD (and I'm not saying he is) was her serious partner, there wouldn't be so many public games with the two of them. There are a lot of games, and if this was a serious relationship she wanted to protect, she wouldn't be throwing him and her to the wolves. She just wouldn't. But L... she doesn't mess around about him. Although L/N have given us crumbs, they have obviously not been totally honest about their private relationship with each other (which is totally valid), because there is a lot there they want to protect from the wolves.

4. So if you have made it this far, you can see there is a LOT going on, and it's complex. And although L/N have maybe not been totally honest about everything, they don't have to be and there are reasons. And that doesn't therefore mean they have been totally disingenuous about each other and aren't to be trusted. I personally don't think they have. However, they want to protect their privacy. Even though October was a rollercoaster, in no way do I believe L and N are hot and heavy with A or JD. There is just too much evidence to the contrary that L/N are in a serious relationship BTS, and likely have been for a while. Here are some of the reasons I have come to this conclusion:

THE RINGS (everything about them)

The photo of L in her house while she was getting ready with a ring on his ring finger (we can argue all we want, those are his hands and that pic was VERY intentional)

N's TIME article

The October 3rd and BRB story from L (HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS ON HIS PUBLIC ACCOUNT IN A LONGG TIME)

The coordinated travel posts from L/N when they were going to NY

Chaos week from N in early August (that was about L, no one can convince me otherwise)

BLESS THE TELEPHONE (That was how I knew they were together and had been for a while likely... can't exactly explain it)

TalkTalk, Juna

The recent Polin pic they BOTH shared to their stories (they were both really emotional looking (N was absolutely beaming and looked like she had tears in her eyes) and the pic was VERY interestingly cropped 🤔)

All the "boyfriend" pics of L on N's IG page (I did a whole post about this that you can find if you scroll through my page)

The Polaroid(s)

THE WHOLE WT (which is why a lot of us are still here despite all the noise and emotional whiplash)

And trust me, both L and N know what people are saying and how people are interpreting the information they are putting out to the public. THEY KNOW. So if there was NOTHING going on between them, that would have been corrected atp and they wouldn't have fed the flames. But it hasn't and they have... They'll go public when they are ready/can. Until then, we just have to sit back, relax, and wait and see how everything unfolds.

And THAT is where I am with everything atp. Of course, we're all going to interpret the same information we are seeing a little differently, which is fine. This is just my interpretation of the information.

And if you made it to the end... thank you for coming to my TedTalk 😅

[nohoperadio]

I want there to be a website similar to Genius, for annotating song lyrics (and poems and public domain texts and whatever else you want to do with that tech), but instead of each song having one page that just shows the "consensus" annotations, each user would have their own personal page for each song they annotate. So I would have my page with my annotations about Source Decay by the Mountain Goats and you would have your page for yours, and there'd be no such thing as the page for Source Decay by the Mountain Goats that just houses the top-voted contributions (or however it works on Genius, I think it's slightly more complicated but w/e). (Actually there would be a version of "the page" for each song but it wouldn't work like Genius, more on this in a sec.)

Genius is often very good at providing the kind of basic factual information that can't possibly be controversial (the song mentions a town, the annotation mentions that the songwriter lived in that town briefly during 2008, whatever), and it's often very good as a place to collect quotes from interviews of what the band has to say about each song, but on the whole Genius is not as fun to browse as it should be, and I think that's largely because the wiki-like structure prevents it from channeling more than a small portion of the passion and interpretive creativity of, say, songmeanings.com, a once-active site that Genius largely killed and replaced, but it still exists and if you check out old comment sections you can find a lot more rambling and theorycrafting (and crucially, a lot more bad ideas, which are vitally important to any kind of interesting conversation about art).

You will find some of that more speculative stuff on Genius, it's not just for factual background, but the fact that space is inherently limited and everyone's annotation is in competition with everyone else's does not make this impulse thrive. The least weird contributions tend to win out. If you want to add your idea about a particular line, but someone else has already annotated it, your options are: a) "propose an edit" to their annotation that incorporates your own ideas (awkward!), b) try to write your own annotation and have it displace theirs entirely as the thing that comes up when you click the line (you'll feel like a dick even if you're successful at this), or c) leave your thoughts as a "comment" on their annotation (Genius hides the comments by default and doesn't make the button to open them at all conspicuous, but even if that weren't the case your "comment" would still be lower in the hierarchy than their "annotation", and implicitly framed as a reply to the latter).

In my vision nobody's annotation would compete with anyone else's, the annotations are (what they mostly are when made in physical books remember!) more for the writer's benefit than for any other reader, and unconstrained by the responsibility implied in the wiki-ish project of contributing to a public resource you would be free to pursue whatever interpretive rabbit holes strike your fancy, fill each page dissecting evidence for how this record that definitely wasn't intended as a concept album is actually a concept album, fill them with entirely personal connections like how this line reminds you of a weird thing you saw in your Grandma's attic when you were ten, do whatever you want. Other people can come and leave comments on your stuff appreciating your brilliance/sending you death threats if you choose to enable that option, the way I'm imagining it this would actually be a big part of the life of the site and if all went to plan it would actually feel something akin to a social media site some of the time, but that side of it would be secondary to the main goal of each user having a place to house their own thoughts about songs in an organized, presentable, public way.

The site should make it easy to discover the annotation pages of other users writing about stuff you're interested in, the "main page" for each band and then each song would be a sort of hub for accessing other people's pages who have made annotations for that. If it had any substantial userbase this might benefit from some mechanism whereby the community identifies people who are writing particularly interesting stuff and makes those people a bit more visible, although I'd want this to be more subtle than a list ordered by likes/upvotes/whatever, and I'd want there to be some way to show off the range of different ways of using the site, with some people being more diaristic/personal on there, some people doing something like real scholarship (perhaps sometimes on a more ambitious scale than actually-existing Genuis allows for), some people might be doing something more spiritually akin to fanfiction.

I know that this site would be fascinating for (at least) me to browse if it existed and was active; I'm unsure whether there'd be enough interest to make it active. I think it's possible. There's a bunch of you guys I'd like to follow on there if it existed and if you were doing it.

[catboybiologist]

Okay maybe it's time to make an actual designated pinned post

Edit: hiya! A new pinned post will come, but quick note that I am starting my transition MtF now. This pinned post, and all the pictures in it, predate that, however. General guide is that I'm referring to pre transition me as a femboy, and will be referring to myself as a trans woman to moment I start HRT. But I'm leaving this old pinned post up for now.

Hi! I'm CatboyBiologist. I'm a grad student in Molecular Biology with a passion for the ocean, nature, Fromsoft games, national parks, and weird tech stuff. I tastefully hornypost about men, women, and all others (so be warned), post spicy hot memes (fuck you I'm the funniest mfer alive), type out long rambles about science and nature, and play Fromsoft games. PLEASE send me cute pictures of your pets.

Oh yeah, I'm also a cis man who does this sometimes:

I also make shitposts out of myself sometimes

I've also made a couple guides on how to replicate these kinds of looks.

General overview of femboy stuff:

How I create cleavage looks from a relatively flat chest:

If you want a somewhat more realistic idea of what my figure looks like:

The best way to specifically see those posts and filter out everything else is probably to use the femboy tag on my profile.

Pronouns? Uuuuuhhhhhhhhh, idk dude just use whatever. It's far more gratifying to me to throw a look out there and see what people wanna use for it than to declare my pronouns. If that doesn't make sense to you, they/them or he/him is cool.

Asks and DMs are always open for science talk, cute animal pictures, casual non creepy flirting, or whatever else... With the SOLE exception of these two questions that I get WAY too often and will give final answers to here:

"Are you a biologist who studies catboys or a biologist that just happens to be a Catboy?"

Both. Do humans not study human biology?

(also I'm actually studying bio irl)

"why is it not catboyologist, hmmm? I am very clever"

To give a serious answer to a joking question I get way too much: This online persona (or whatever you want to call it) is about balancing and integrating two large parts of my personality: my career in and passion for biology, and my queerness and gender nonconformity. I wanted both of those parts to be clear, in a cute and fun username. Basically, "catboyologist" only has the same effect as my actual username if you already know my actual username- you can't interpret the "biologist" part from "catboyologist".

Plus, "catboyologist" has too many consecutive wide vowels. CatboyBiologist breaks it up so it sounds punchier.

Oh yeah and apparently I was a 196 microcelebrity? I never to thought I was popular enough for that but apparently some people do 🤷‍♀️. So uh, hi 196 tag, I'm abusing you for my pinned post LOL

I'll also abuse other tags I use somewhat frequently, so hi y'all

[kazinsblog]

Thank You for Participating

With that! Yuma month has officially come to an end! *⸜(* ॑꒳ ॑* )⸝*

Thank you for all your hard work \(❁´∀`❁)ﾉ𖤐´-

I had to wait an extra day to post this due to timezone reasons XD and this post is also the reason why I didn’t say much in my Day 31 post as well, I tried to keep it a surprise.

Thank you to everyone who participated and for the kind words as well ;w;. I'm truly grateful, I didn’t think a lot of people would want to participate since monthly challenges are quite daunting. I love seeing all of your works and various interpretations of the prompts as well. It made me look forward to seeing them the next day!

I hope Yuma month was fun and everyone also had the chance to try something new! 

If you still want to draw or write prompts or give it a try some other time, you can tag me and I’ll still reblog it! I’d love to see more entries! :3 

This is also the first time I’ve held this kind of prompt challenge event as well. If there’s anything you’d think that could improved or be changed please let me know~! You can leave a comment, ask, or DM me here on this blog or on my main blog. I’m always open to suggestions :D If I were to make another Yuma event next year I’d probably change it to a Yuma Week. A monthly challenge may have been a bit too much XD (I apologize if I stressed anyone out ;w;)

Long post on the Thank you art itself and other stuff I wanna talk about

I designed this Yuma Month Thank You art based on all the prompts and elements everyone showed in their pieces. Sadly I couldn’t include all of the prompts due to the image being overly cluttered but I did squeeze in most of them.

The NDA and Makoto plushies stand out a bit because I noticed they were featured a lot in some prompts throughout Yuma Month so they get their own little spotlight as well :3c

And I thought Yuma doing a little bow is a nice way to end Yuma Month~ the design was also based on my Makoto Month prompt too XD I thought it would be a nice contrast to my last entry for Makoto month and the thought of Yuma bowing and thanking everyone is a nice way to end the event in my opinion :3c

Once again I’m super grateful to everyone who participated ;w; it really makes my day when I see you post a Yuma Month prompt. I also apologize (again) if I caused any stress or pressure to you during Yuma Month orz…

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest.

Reading Between the Lines

Day #31 - Your Song | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: Language | POV: Goodie (Freak) | Pairing: Pre-Goodie/Gareth (Or Unrequited One-Sided, Your Choice) | Tags: Writing Songs, The Utter Embarrassment of Having a Crush You Don't Even Know You Had, Eddie is Good Friend, Open Ending

The papers are slightly crumpled in his hand, and Goodie tries to smooth them out on the workbench in the garage, hand moving over them, trying to iron out the wrinkles. It doesn't work very well, but it's fine. It's just Eddie. He's gonna make fun, no matter what, Goodie knows that, without a goddamn doubt. 

And Eddie's running late.

Which. Normal. 

But Goodie really wanted to show him this alone, before Jeff and Gareth rolled in. Just to see if it's anything. He's pretty sure it's not. But it's the only song he's ever really written.

Eddie reads the lyrics once, twice, then he looks up at Goodie.

"This is great, Goods," he says, and Goodie feels his face go red. He's not the writer in the band, not at all, but this had come to him, basically writing itself, and he'd just jotted it all down.

"A few things we could improve on to really polish it, but," Eddie says, holding his eyes, "I don't think we can use this."

And Goodie deflates.

He didn't actually think they would, not really, but he'd gotten his hopes up, just a little, when Eddie had said it was good. Great, actually.

He's written something Eddie thinks is great, and they can't even play it?

"You don't like it?" Goodie asks.

"I love it," Eddie says with a smile, "I really do. You did a great job. I didn't know you wrote lyrics."

"I don't, not usually," Goodie admits, because he doesn't. Just the rhythm parts of songs with Gareth, as they find their groove, their place, as the backbone of the band. Working together, hammering it out, making sure they can slide into the pocket together and keep everything else on track and on time.

If they aren't in sync, the band can't be. That's just how it works. 

Eddie's still reading the lyrics, over and over, like he's trying to memorize these words. 

Goodie feels terribly exposed. 

"And you don't think we could, I don't know, salvage any of it? Maybe you could rewrite the stuff that sucks."

"Goods. It's great, as is. Honest. It's a love song," Eddie says, and Goodie nods. It is. It definitely is.

"And?"

Eddie looks at him, big eyes as wide as they ever are, "It's a little on the nose."

"It is?" Goodie asks, because he hadn't written it about anyone specific, he didn't think. It was just shower thoughts, put to the page.

"It's about Gareth, right?"

Goodie snatches the papers back, wrinkling them further. What the fuck is Eddie seeing here? It's definitely not about Gareth. 

"No," he stresses, "no way. Why would you think that?" 

Eddie pats the empty chair and grabs his pen. He leaves the cap on, not making any marks, but tracing lines, and breaking them down. Reading between the lines that Goodie hadn't even realized were there.

Goddamnit. 

Eddie has a point. Even if it's all bullshit, even if it's only all Eddie's own interpretation. It's not unbelievable. 

Goodie can see it. 

And he's embarrassed. 

"It's okay. I won't say anything," Eddie says, and it's a kindness. Eddie is an asshole, a lot. Loud and rude. But Goodie knows he won't use this against him. Believes that, without a doubt. 

He could. Easily. Either run and tell Gareth this juicy gossip. Or hold it over Goodie's head, as blackmail. 

But he knows Eddie. 

He won't do either of those things. 

Gareth rolls in, and taps his drumstick on Goodie's shoulder on the way by, just a friendly hello, and Goodie wants to sink into the ground. Be swallowed up.

He's humiliated. 

"Goodie said he had a song," Gareth says, sitting down behind his kit, "we gonna play it?"

"It sucked," Goodie says, "right, Eddie?"

"Yeah. Big time," Eddie lies, helping him out, "I said no fucking way are we playing that. It's the worst piece of shit-"

"Alright," Goodie says, laughing, cutting Eddie off. He wanted help, not evisceration. 

"It can't be that bad. You let us play that song I wrote about squirrels," Gareth argues.

Goodie laughs. He'd forgotten about Squirrel Song. It's been years.

"It can't be worse than that," Gareth says, trying to help him out. Goodie wishes he'd just let it go. 

"Nothing will ever be worse than Squirrel Song," Eddie snarks, "But it didn't fit our sound." 

"How come?" Gareth asks, "It's not like he wrote the music? We can take anything and shine it up. Make it our sound. That's our biggest strength." 

Gareth's not wrong. He's not. They could turn it into something. Goodie's sure of it. And maybe Gareth would never suspect. He's not exactly as lyrically-minded as Eddie. More willing to take things at face value and not dig deeper. 

But he may or may not have written a fucking love song about his friend without realizing it. He's mortified that Eddie knows, and it'll be over his dead body before Gareth finds out.

He can't risk it. 

Especially when he doesn't even know how he feels about it. Does he have a crush on Gareth? He didn't think so. But those words? 

They're damning. 

Jeff had to leave early for his orthodontist appointment, so Gareth is taking him home in the El Camino. 

Goodie should've just risked his life and rode with Eddie. 

He feels awkward. 

He wishes he'd never shown Eddie. 

"Eddie was a dick for saying no before we could even try to write music to it. We could have made it into something." 

"Eh, it wasn't very good." 

"Can I look? Maybe it's something we could work on together." 

Goodie's face is on fire. This cannot be happening.

"I don't think so," Goodie says, and Gareth's shoulders turn inward, like he's been rejected. 

Goodie hates it.

When they pull into his driveway, uncomfortable silence stretching between them, and in a fit of insanity, Goodie opens his backpack, handing over the lyrics. 

Gareth smiles at him, bright and happy, as he starts reading. 

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @corrodedcoffinfest and follow along with the fun! 🦇

[dailymarshmallows]

I FINALLY FULFILLED MY GOAL!!

Second half of Genderbend Tristan platoon (Tristan and Jade) as promised!!!

The second I realized I would post Tristan and Jade’s designs together I realized I had to redraw this scene from the anime. I did really change their height difference, Tristan’s really just taller though (thank you Elizabeth) for all those curious Chion’s height is like somewhat between them and Isolde is just… jack up the really insane height difference.

For the rest of Genderbend 4kota designs here’s what I’ve done so far: Isolde + Chion and post-timeskip Chion (not a lot but hopefully there will be more)

If I continue with this next update is probably gonna be either more Jade or Chion art, Aged up versions of platoon, or Donny and Edlin

I haven’t put this anywhere but if anyone wants to ask about the Genderbend characters and stuff my ask box is open. If you want to request a specific sds/4kota character’s Genderbend design I might do it, just expect it to probably take a while and it will probably be done in traditional art.

Design rambles about the art as well as some Genderbend Tristan Platoon (emphasis on Tristan) lore below the cut

Jade’s hair was a pain to design yall don’t even kno T-T I like the design better in traditional art but I wanted to post the digital version of the design for consistency.

What made Jade’s design so hard was that how to give her wing like hair to kinda come through, og she was going to have a middle part, then I thought maybe something like Arlecchino’s design from Genshin but I thought Jade would have short hair so I ditched that. So she ended up with this and I tried to keep the wing design there with the shape of her hair.

Tristan’s design was not what I initially had in mind but here’s kinda my thought process behind it: her hair looks more like what I imagine fem Meliodas would look like, and she’s wearing a full suit of armor cuz… do u really think Mel and Elizabeth are letting their daughter go out WITHOUT A SUIT OF ARMOR?! I don’t think so.

Neither of their clothes were what I initially imagined, Tristan was either gonna wear gold or silver and red, but then I put her in dark blue and I got a thought:

Since Jade, Chion, and Tristan tend to match I put them all in various shades of cyan/blue. Chion has light cyan, Tristan has dark blue, and Jade has both for Monochrome reasons.

Also when Jade dies her jewelry is then worn by each member of the Tristan Platoon. Tristan gets the choker and Isolde and Chion get the hair clips.

Also Jade’s hair clips and choker are made of actual jade (gifts from Chion and Tristan respectively)

Quick Fun Facts about them:

They are both tomboys

At some point Tristan had a crush on Jade (she was going through her romance phase yall and Lance was off on missions and stuff what’s a girl gonna do?)

Tristan really likes holding sleepovers (she has tried to do a full Tristan Platoon one but Mel and Elizabeth won’t allow it for Isolde)

My personal hc is that Tristan always wanted a younger sibling when she was younger and kinda projects that fantasy onto Chion. So from her perspective they kinda have an idealized older/younger sister dynamic.

To elaborate further: Tristan kinda sees Chion as this girl that she takes under her wing and dotes on and what not. This leaves her with a pretty wrong overall interpretation of Chion. She very much just sees the “Tristan (platoon)-exclusive part” which is very kind, very helpful, and someone that she needs to protect/look out for.

I love Chion but u see the problem with that interpretation of her

It’s also the reason why I’m on the fence if Chion’s hair is still getting burned off by Gawain if only cuz Tristan and Isolde 100% would throw hands (and I don’t wanna give Chion a hair cut pre timeskip too much work)

Additionally Tristan really likes Chion’s long hair and likes to braid it and play dress up with her at the sleepovers

Tristan gets a lot of flack for how she presents herself, lots of people think that a princess shouldn’t act that way and stuff

Tristan and Jade have a very similar dynamic to canon. Tristan sees Jade as her best friend. And Jade sees Tristan as… a girl she secretly hates… you’ve read her death scene

Tristan was the one who gave the hair bow to Isolde still, but after seeing how much he liked it Jade gave him some of her old girly things she wasn’t really into, and Chion “just happened” to pick up some new accessories and gave them to him.

Idk why I wanted to do this but here’s all there types(romantic)

Tristan - she’s into more masc women or more feminine men (there you go Trislance and Trisolde shippers)

Chion - says she’s into masc women but it’s not really a factor for her. Wants someone bold, and kinda like a knight in shining armor, prob reads Isolde’s romance novels

Isolde - wants cheesy romance, does not care if he is romancer or romancee he wants cheesy rom com romance

Jade - wants someone who needs her/relies on her since she struggles with feeling unwanted

Another random romantic thingy there are so many romcom hijinks with this platoon there are so many misunderstandings with who is and isn’t a couple:

People of Liones think that Chion and Isolde are a couple. Isolde was heavily convinced that Tristan had a crush on Jade (right conclusion but at the wrong time). Tristan was convinced that Jade and Chion were dating at one point. Tristan was convinced Chion had a crush on Lancelot at one point (I may actually write a fanfic on that for comedy reasons).

As for actual crushes: Chion likes Jade. Jade likes Isolde. Isolde likes Tristan. Tristan likes Lancelot

[zmediaoutlet]

Re: Jess/Sam. I remember this great meta post that goes through Dean and Jess meeting in the pilot, and how Dean is really just assessing a threat and then asserting his dominance in his relationship to Sam. Immediately Jess serves as something "getting in the way" of Dean and his family/mission. Its really interesting to think about this in terms of fic where Sam gets married. I also wish something could have been played with more in the Djinn ep dealing with jealousy or expectations.

I think I vaguely remember the post you're talking about -- that Dean is initially just kinda jokey with Sam, and then when Jess comes into the room and interrupts he goes into ultra prickly defense mode. "Asserting dominance" always puts my 'why are we over-applying psych terms to nuanced fictional characters' hackles up, lol. But it's true that Dean does that ott aggro flirting (partly, I think, just to be rude to Sam, who has still very much hurt Dean's feelings and they haven't talked about that in any kind of substantive way), and pushes Jess away so that he and Sam can be oriented inside the circle of The Secret which she's outside of. She does get in the way and Dean needs to move forward and this is his instinctive move.

More interesting to me, though, is that it doesn't work, or not exactly. Sam takes the obvious insult and goes and stands next to The Other Woman, and tells Dean that, no, she is not outside the circle -- that she and I have formed our own circle, with you outside it. And Dean goes, oh, really? Well, let's test that -- and it's Sam who understands that oh shit wait this really is about The Secret, and it's Sam who tells Jess to leave.

idk about any 'dominance' being asserted, but it's endlessly wild to me that Sam continually says that he wants (or wants to want) this good 'normal' committed life away from all that stuff, but he's not actually committing to the relationship with The Other Woman. In the pilot at least, Dean isn't really representing himself as-Sam's-brother (not least because Sam has clearly indicated that he's not interested in Dean as his brother, given that they haven't talked in two years) -- he's the call to action, he's the wild weird horror of hunting itself, he's the Not-Normal -- and Sam turns toward it almost instantly! Of course he has a sense of duty toward the family and toward making sure innocents aren't hurt, even if he's been trying to smother it with a pillow for four years -- but Sam leaps at the hunt, he's good at it, he's running away from a car with Dean and literally making a leap of faith off a bridge and lying to cops and driving cars through walls and having the best time ever. He goes back to the apartment because he's committed to the life he's told himself he should have, but he'd being lying to himself (and viewers would be lying to themselves, too) if that whole adventure were interpreted as some horrible thing Sam had to do. He had fun. He is a hunter. (And it honestly doesn't matter why -- whether he's naturally attracted to danger, whether it was all nurture, if you want to be one of those tedious familyhorror people and say he was stockholmed into it, whatever. This is who he is, and it's interesting to look at his behavior on that level.)

So like -- if Sam actually stayed? If he and Jess actually got married? Oof. That door got opened and it would never stay shut. I don't believe in taking deleted scenes as canon, but there is that deleted dialogue about how Sam looked up hunts when he was in college. And we see Mary doing the exact same thing, when Dean was a baby and she was ostensibly "out" of hunting. It's entirely believable that he'd not be able to fully stay out -- and, in the sense that hunting itself is represented by Dean, that he would also 'cheat' on Jess with his brother -- or want to, which is as close to the same thing as would make no difference.

You know, that line Constance has in the pilot? Sam says, I've never been unfaithful, and she says, you will be. Eager wincesties want to take that as a direct brofuckin' meaning, but that's an overreading, and honestly you don't need to take it that far to make it meaningful. Sam made a commitment, if not out loud then at least internally, that he was going to stay away -- at Stanford, in normalcy, with Jessica. I guess, in a terrible way, he's lucky that fate & circumstance tore him away from that life and forced him into infidelity, before he had the chance to be unfaithful of his own volition. It was coming. One way or another.

[actual-changeling]

(please do not send any asks with fundraiser links)

Hi, you can call me Alex or whatever variation of my username you'd like. <3

I'm in my early twenties, use mainly they/them pronouns, and there is a lot wrong with my brain (both affectionately and in a decidedly not fun way). I have memory issues, so I can and will forget things, including replying to messages. You are ALWAYS invited to send me a reminder—please, please do, I will not be offended, pinky promise.

This blog is 90% fandom, 5% personal shit and 5% misc posts that I like. My DMs are open, so feel free to message me and interact however you like! Asks are currently closed due to spam. If there's something you want me to see, I don't mind getting tagged in posts either.

Please don't be an asshole. I'm incredibly bad at judging my own tone, so if I come across as overly intense or upset, chances are I am actually not—I'm just passionate about the things I enjoy.

Agatha all along is the lesbian dream plus Scully has also taken over my brain and body, and I don't think they will leave me alone ever again.

I will be tagging spoilers for any newly released shows and episodes. If there is something you would like me to tag spoilers for, just shoot me an ask or dm!

Currently following and tagging for:

Agatha All Along: alex watches agatha all along

The X Files: alex watches x files

Doctor Who: alex watches doctor who, dw spoilers

(PJO The Series: pjo spoilers) show is on hiatus

The Magnus Protocols: alex listens to tmagp, tmagp spoilers

I write fanfiction both here on tumblr and on ao3 under actualchangeling. Requests or ideas are fine, though I cannot make any promises.

Wanna chat with other people about good omens? I have a discord you can join, mostly angelfish focused but we talk about all our beloved idiots.

My other misc current active special interests are Doctor Who and Good Omens, but I dabble in a lot of other fandoms, too. Among those are Marvel/Iron Man, Lucifer, TLOU, The Magnus Archives, Welcome to Night Vale, Prospect (2018), and many more.

My tag system for original posts applies to all fandoms I am currently actively engaging with and follows the same patterns. I tag spoilers when I remember to for about a week, so consider this blog to be very much NOT spoiler free.

alex talks x -> meta, analysis, interpretation, or opinion posts

alex writes x -> either self-promotion or tumblr specific ficlets, without any fandom addition it's original writing of some kind

Any personal posts that are not fandom related are tagged as following; feel free to block them if you're just here for the fandom madness!! I really do not mind.

alex yells at the void -> misc personal stuff

alex gets personal -> potentially triggering discussions of my trauma or mental health, vent posts

Last but not least, the tag for my queue is I’ll follow queue anywhere you go. It's a TLOU reference for those who are curious.

[woman-of-many-fandoms]

how do you think vulcans would view and approach autism disorders?

Nice, my obsessions coming together. So interesting.

I'm coping this from reddit:

So I think a looot about what autism is and also about StarTrek so bear with me. The first thing we have to assume is that they don't eugenics us out of existance with genetic engineering and that autism even exists in Vulcans, two things we can't take for granted in the ST cannon. Edit - to clarify; I am autistic and study a vaguely adjacent topic (Deaf studies, which is related under the umbrella of disability studies) in university. I'm also very present in autistic communities and have many autistic friends. My perspective is an autisgic one.

One model or autism would suggest that its by and large 3 main causative factors. This theory is a WIP that isn't heavily substantiated but I believe it to be more or less true so bear with me.

Difference of Ettiquette Aquisition. (EA)

Difference of Stimulation Sensitivity. (SS)

Difference of Spoons. (Sp)

Ettiquette Aquisition

Ettiquette is being used in a very broad sense here. EA refers to the facet of autism which is the fact that we often do not internalise, or internalise differently, a lot of societal messaging and ettiquette. Its often an outright disability, which leaves us incapable of functioning in certain settings with specific ettiquette requirememts or having to overcome and find our own ways to reason and interpret the ettiquette. For neurotypicals this learning is often very passive and internalises at a deep and instinctual level.

BUT it also affects stuff like logic and morality. Present day Earth Human society is quite illogical and contradictory, and while autistic people are just as prone to being as muddled as everyone else - the fact rhat many of us build up our own behaviour sets, moralities (I think the way neurotypicals learn morality is downstream of the way they learn ettiquette, just an observation), ettiquette structures; we tend to have more interally consistent worldviews. I believe this is why a lot of autistic people feel more moral (and why every philosopher was autistic, I will die on this hill /hj).

IRT to Vulcans - if ways of directly teaching ettiquette and logic (which seems to be the case) and if the Vulcan belief system is in fact logical then autistic people wouldn't have too hard a time. If a specific autistic person's personality+EA is such that they cannot learn the Vulcan logic system then this might set them against Vulcan society more.

Stimulation Sensitivity

This is quite simple. Autistic people tend to have bigger or smaller reactions to physical and emotional stimulation of various kinds. There are trends (like audiosensitivity being common) but no decernable patterns and each autistic person's SS is very different. Its honestly quite a fun experience finding out that you have an utterly opposite SS than another autistic person and to have a bit of a playful fight over it. This directly leads to stuff like overstimulation and stimming and it can be argued that it indirectly leads to stuff like putting your toys/things in order or in a diarama rather than playing with them.

But IRT to Vulcans - I can't tell how they'd respond to this. This feels like the thing they'd be most repulsed by, especially the emotional reactions to stimuli and the stimulatory expression of emotion. I think some aspects may be allowable (like stimming in public) so long as its nonemotional and perhaps stimtoys may even be of use as a form of extra emotional regulation.

But on the other hand if stimulations can be accounted for better then maybe part of being a "good" autistic Vulcan is accounting for stimulations ahead of time and making sure you do not encounter those that will cause emotional reactions.

Overall I see the biggest opening for abuse or oppression in this one.

Spoons

Sp here refers to spoon theory, a commonly used way of describing mental and mechanical energy in disabled communities. In the chronic illness and chronic fatigue side of disability it is largely used to mean less energy. In regards to autism its often used to mean that you either have a lot of spoons or no spoons at different points in a day. There is also an extended cutlery theory which includes things like knives (spoons that you can use but will hurt you later).

This can lead to stuff such as inability to do certain tasks as well as hyperability to do others. It bends spoontheory a little bit but I also thing that thats fine, so stuff like I have certain "types" of spoons in different amounts. This adds to executive dysfunction (which is also aversion to stuff you know will cause bad stimulation) as well as hyperfixations and special interests (which again can be a stimulation seeking behaviour).

IRT to Vulcans - I think they might be relatively kind on this front. I think that there would be encouragement to find the logic to your own ability and no logic would be seen in pushing past your own ability. Plus being in a post scarcity world - no labour is mandatory and hyperfixations/special-interests can be engaged with and prove useful to society so I think autistic people would be left to do their own thing. In fact while infodumping (the act of talking at a person about a hyperfixation/special-interest) would have to be done in a calm way - I can even see them being used as a form of public discourse, education and entertainment (whats more Vulcan than going on a night out to listen to someone lecture you on their life's work studying the insect life on a specific planet).

Conclusion

I think that Vulcan society would be relatively well suited (probablt much better than present day society is) to autistic people so long as they aren't abusive around stimulation sensitivities. In fact you could argue that Vulcan culture may promote a number of autistic behaviours even within the neurotypical population.

Edit - This is a best case scenario viewing the situation with rational optimistim.

Original response here -

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

OC Deep Dive Tag

I was tagged by @the-inkwell-variable <3 And those questions sound like questions that would be fun to answer for Caldyn.

I'll leave it an open tag, because it's quite long.

What uncommon/common fear do they have?

It's probably not very uncommon, but he's terribly afraid of fire.

Do they have any pet peeves?

People not putting stuff back from where they took it. Everything has its place, and if it's not there, he'll never find it again.

What are 3 items you can find in their bedroom?

Well, first of all, it's a cave, not a room. Inside is. A bed. Rest depends on whether the lesbians got their hands on his interior decorations already.

What do they notice first in a person?

Very often their voice. Which doesn't do him much good with humans, because he can't interpret their tone. With his kind, it would be what they put in the telepathic meaning behind their words.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

I'd say 9. Poor guy went through it, and he'll ignore anything as long as he can until his body says "nope."

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure?

Depends on the kind of pressure. When panicking, his first instinct is to flee, but when someone else is in danger, he will fight. If both come together, he can also freeze.

Do they come from a big family/are they a family person?

All kalani are one big family, coming from the same tree.

What animal represents them best?

... a stick insect. Possibly a walking leaf. Just kidding. I always say he has capybara energy.

What is a smell that they dislike?

Lilac! For no particular reason whatsoever! :)

Have they broken any bones?

What goes for bones in his kind, yes. Too many of them. I sometimes wonder if it's quicker to list which ones weren't broken.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

What the fuck is that thing???

Are they a night owl or a morning bird?

Neither. His sleep schedule is pretty fucked, and he often stays up for more than 24 hours, but he likes day and night equally.

What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love?

Much to Lily's dismay, he doesn't like honey much. He does love the flavor of grilled meat, much to his dismay, because he's not going near any fire.

Do they have any hobbies?

Little crafts like weaving baskets or carving stuff. Talking to trees and flowers. Hopping into another plane of existence.

Boom, surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises?

What, where did he go?

Do they like to wear jewelry?

No.

Do they have neat or messy handwriting?

His handwriting was already shit before he went blind, and he never writes anymore.

What are the two emotions they feel the most?

I'd say calm and curiosity. On a regular day - and despite all the shit I put him through, there are many regular days - he can sit silently for hours on end and just take in all the different sounds and smells and energies.

Do they have a favorite fabric?

He does not like fabric very much, but as long as it's not on his body, he enjoys fabric with a texture, or items made out of different fabrics with different textures.

What kind of accent do they have?

Well, he sounds rather wooden when he speaks.

[coulsons-fullmetal-cellist]

As the Petals Fall

(Dieter x horror loving female)

Words: 1,773

Summary: since I referenced the fake film in this fic, I decided to expand on that a bit more! My twisted brain that’s watched too many crime shows poses the question: what if a serial killer was into floriography?

Warnings: slightly saucy suggestions, references to events that could happen in murder mysteries, a skewed interpretation of floriography, Dieter being Dieter!

Check out masterlist here

The night is dark and stormy, the lights of the city are flickered with the rain. The calm pattering is interrupted by a phone call, the tones piercing. A hand reaches out to blindly find it. The man finally manages to find it to stop the rude interruption of his slumber.

His voice is still laced with sleep, and he barely croaks out “Yeah?”

“Rockford,” the voice on the other end. “There’s been another one.”

“What kind?”

“But-“

“What kind?”

“A red fuschia.”

“What are you watching?”

You almost jumped from the noise that came form behind you. Pulling back the hood from your face, you looked to see that your boyfriend Dieter. You hadn’t heard the door open, being too absorbed in your viewing of the film.

“I’m watching As the Petals Fall.”

“That’s the one I’m in, isn’t it?” you nodded. “Why do you want to watch that?”

“Because it’s good! I sort of easily guessed who did but that’s just the good writing. And the references to all the flower language stuff is genius!”

“Wait, how many times have you watched it?”

“Uh,” you put a dumpling in your mouth and took your time chewing it. “This is my third viewing.”

“Third?!”

Dieter had been busy the past week with filming leaving you alone during the day. Normally, you’d find some way to work on the same film or another project, but you wanted some time off. And the timing could not have been more perfect. Currently on your third day of your period, all you felt like doing was lounge about on the couch in your oversized Carrie hoodie with something heavily garlicked and watch scary films. However, you were missing your boyfriend, and an idea came to you. This was the perfect time to watch one of his films. Most of them were romantic in their blurbs but one caught your eye. You remembered him mentioning that As the Petals Fall has a dead body, and reading the summary, you discovered it was actually a murder mystery so obviously you clicked on it.

Dieter sat on the couch next to you. “Be honest, it’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No,” you shuffled yourself up from your supine position, careful not to spill your plate of dumplings. “I really like it.”

“Really?”

“Really really. It’s kind of Manhunter meets Seven.”

“Seven? Isn’t that the one with the head in the box and the spiky dildo?”

You nodded and Dieter shuddered. “Oh, that brings back memories.”

You stared at him in curiosity. “There was this one chick…” he shifted awkwardly as his sphincter reminded him of those less than pleasant times. He quickly got up as if something poked him in the posterior. “I’m going to have a shower.”

You give his butt a playful slap as he passes by you. He gives a soft yelp, and he goes off.

Rockford enters the interrogation room. A woman who has seen years is sitting on the other side of the table. She’s possibly played by an actress who is wanting to make a career comeback.

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

Tim shakes his head and takes out a lighter, “You said you have some information?”

She takes a long drag on her cigarette, slowly blows out a long trail of smoke.

“So I teach flower arranging. I throw in some floriography for fun.”

“I’m sorry, what is-?”

“Floriography? It’s the language of flowers. The Victorians were all about sending secret messages through flowers. Anyways,” she takes another drag of her cigarette. “Call me sexist, but flower arranging is a woman’s hobby. Which is why he stood out. First man to ever come into my workshop and boy did he stand out. His flower arranging was terrible, but he took such an interest in the floriography, obsessed almost. No, he was outright obsessed. He’d stay by after class, ask me question after question. I didn’t mind so much; it was once he started stalking me that I drew the line.”

She tries to take another drag of her cigarette but realises it’s out. Rockford lights another one for her. “You didn’t report him?”

“And what would you do? It was harmless until I told him to fuck right off.”

Rockford pushes a file to the middle of the table and opens it up. Her hands are shaking now as she takes a drag of her cigarette.

“Going by your medical report,” says Tim. “You got off lightly.”

“Didn’t feel like it at the time. Felt like my head was split open. And he was pissed I crushed the flower.”

“He didn’t leave it there afterwards?”

“No, he gave me a flower first, then hit me. The bastard.”

“What flower did he give you?”

“A poppy. It means I am free.”

Dieter, freshly showered in his I’m Kenough hoodie makes his way towards you, placing a kiss to your forehead.

“There’s plenty of leftovers if you’re hungry.”

“Do you want anything while I’m up?”

You shake your head, “My tummy is very happy at the moment.”

“I feel like something sweet,” he kisses you tenderly. “I’ll also have some ice cream.”

The coroner moves the sheet to uncover the corpses leg which has a sizable piece of flesh missing. “And here we have bite marks.”

“Bite marks? From an animal?”

“No, the marks are human.”

“Human? You mean he-?” Rockford puts a clenched fist to his mouth to hold back his disgust. “Fuck, and did he have them with fava beans and a nice chianti?”

“Hey, I get the reference now!”

Dieter sits back on the couch with a bowl full of ice cream. You reach for the remote, but he stops you. “You can keep watching it if you want.”

“You sure?” he nods so you go back to watching.

“The suspect started off with assault, that was in inciting incident. It set him free so,” he puts up a picture of a poppy. “Then he escalated to his first murder. He was sending a message,” and puts up a picture of an iris flower. “Then he escalated again to torture: pleasure and pain. But no body parts missing until,” he points at the yellow pansy “It means thinking of you and the brain was removed.” He points at the red carnation. “My heart aches for you and the heart gets taken. Now the latest confirms the act of cannibalism,” he puts up a picture of a red fuchsia. “I like your taste; the sick fucker took that literally.”

The tension was broken by Dieter’s snort of laughter. He looked over at you with that amused look in his eye. “I like your taste, honey cakes!”

You joined his laughter, “I know you do,” you playfully nudged him with your foot. “You must have corpsed a few times with that line.”

“If I did, I don’t remember.”

“’Cause you’re so professional.”

“We got him Tim, we got him!”

Rockford walks towards the interrogation room. The image he has of this killer is someone who cannot be wrapped up in such a psychotic bundle, they would be verged on the monstrous. He opens the door and pauses. The man sitting there, hands and feet chained is the most mundane forgettable man to ever exist. He looks up at Rockford with pale eyes.

“Did you get my flowers?”

“I remember that guy,” Dieter pointed out. “He was really nice.”

You were happily full of dumplings and possibly painkillers, so you were stuck looking at the profile of your boyfriend. Sometimes you just couldn’t believe that this insanely handsome man called you his love.

“Shouldn’t you be watching the film?”

“I basically have it memorised now. Well, the important bits.”

“The important bits?”

“You in that unbelievably sexy detective outfit.”

“That’s just a regular suit.”

“Yeah,” you put down your empty plate and crawled over to Dieter. “But you make it work with those broad shoulders.”

Running your hands over said broad shoulders, your hands wandered over his equally broad chest and down to his soft stomach. Dieter reciprocates by pulling your hips so you could straddle him, his hands run up your back, drawing you closer.

You pull back a little so you could see what was happening on screen.

Rockford sits on his desk with a mug of coffee in his hands. He realises that the drink in his mug has gone cold, so he puts it down and walks towards the wall with his crime board. He stands in front of his board and slowly takes down every picture; every crime scene photo paired with their illustration of its matching flower.

The sigh you gave out was soft but guttural. It was loud enough for Dieter to hear.

“Wait, you’re lusting over the version of me that’s on screen!” you looked away sheepishly. “You most definitely are!”

“You look really good.”

“That’s the lighting.”

“No, you look really good. Really good,” you let out another husky sigh. “Do you have the shoulder holster?”

“Costume would have taken it back,” you pouted. “Should I get one?”

“Oh, we should definitely get one. I want you wearing that and nothing else.”

You didn’t care that your breath could repel all vampires within a kilometre radius and neither did Dieter. The ice cream he just ate mixed with you and created a salty sweet combination in your mouths.

You moved from his lips to nibble at his earlobe which set Dieter off on an incoherent babble of lusty nonsense. He was like a kettle set to boil with his high-pitched whining, but he stopped before he fully boiled.”

“Honey cakes,” he pushed you back slightly. “Aren’t you still on your period?”

“I’m past the heavy bleeding stage.”

“And now it’s the weird horny stage?” he asked, and you nodded. “I guess I better help you take care of that.”

“If only we had some handcuffs.”

“I can improvise something.”

“You can?”

“Call me the MacGyver of sexy times.”

And he carries you off to the bedroom.

Rockford stands alone in a cemetery, in front of a gravestone, smoking. He finishes off his cigarette, tossing it aside. He looks at the bouquet of flowers in his hand and then looks at the gravestone.

“Hope you enjoy these, sweetheart.”

He gently places the flowers on top of the gravestone, he puts his fingers to his lips and touches the stone, giving it all his love.

He pulls his jacket closer, not from the cold, but it gave him something to do with his hands. He turns and walks away.

The gravestone reveals it epitaph.

“Sarah Rockford: beloved daughter.”

Lovingly tagging @morallyinept @boliv-jenta @simpingcowboy @ellenmunn @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi @chaithetics @myloveistoolittle @cevans-is-classic @glshmbl @cupcakehp @gswizzsstuff

[saltynsassy31]

Honestly, despite this post being mainly about dbh, it's sorta of a general thing

But gosh, what's with the ship wars? I mean, every fandom has this problem (sorta, the only fandom I've rarely, if ever, experienced it was the splatoon fandom cuz even the most unfortunate ships are shipped lmao)

I be scrolling, tryna find like, just general content, and someone be fighting over it

And I feel its gotten worse as of late cuz it's gotten involved with familial stuff

I'm a big found family gal

It's why, when I first played Detroit, Kara's story line was my favourite at the time (as of coming back to the game, it's become Hank and Connor, but I blame my Iron dad phase for that lmao)

But I'm not gonna fight people who see it or interpreted their relationship differently. If it wasn't stated in canon, then it leaves the gate way open to any interpretation because that's the fun part of being in a fandom! Different points of view!

And I especially come from the POV of someone who shipped two characters the fandom viewed more as siblings. By the gods, the hate some people had.

I was never at the tail end of that heat, but my mutuals from a server were, and when I jumped in to defend them

Despite coming out victorious (in a sense lol), I wouldn't say it was worth the effort, waisted my breath on petty fighting and I don't wish to again

But on the other hand

I've also been on the other end where I saw two very popular shipped characters as familiar/just friends. It's weird cuz they were/are more popular to the (technically) canon couple and they very rarely, if ever interact (legit got gaslit by the fandom that they did, until I went to look into it and found a desert of canon interactions).

And it's frustrating.

I really wish people wouldn't fight over these petty things. But it's the Internet, what can ya do? I'll just do what I can to avoid this in-fighting, not my monkeys, not my circus ig.

Still though, sometimes it feels like shipping/seeing them as just family really just, leaves out nuance. I like seeing both ends because it's interesting! You don't have to, of course, but discrediting either ends is so boring. Especially in the case of DBH where there are so many endings (total of 85 people!), so many characters, so many possibilities. Being stuck on one interpretation feels redundant to the game.

Now, am I saying to not enjoy your favourite parts of the game? No! I'm not here to judge you! Create that blog about solely the ship or solely familial content! It's your blog! :D

Feel free to block out content you don't like, curate your space.

Just don't....discredit others for their own interpretation. Be kind, or at least tolerable.

Idk where I'm going with this post anymore. I'm Ms. Yapper and this is my yapping page, thats all I do here at this point XD.

Just be kind and enjoy your stuff! Quit fighting! (But don't confuse that with me saying don't have discourse or debates, those are fun too, talking and defending your POV, that's part of fandoms too, just don't attack one another unnecessarily)

[moon-language-0]

10 Questions for Writers

wasn't gonna do this bc i thought nobody probably really cares about this stuff but since i got double tagged by @meidui and @sunnysideprincess here goes nothing:

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

32 and climbing!

2. what’s your total AO3 word count?

ugh i had to go into my stats to find this number (hate looking at stats) but to my surprise that number is a whopping 816,828! (if added to my ff.net word count that figure grows to 1,062,375 🤯)

3. what fandoms do you write for?

stony exclusively, though i opened up to the idea of writing for steve and/or tony paired with any mcu villain for marvel trumps hate, and now i'm writing a steve/loki (with steve/tony as endgame) fic that's more fun than i would've anticipated! (x) still wouldn't call myself a "multishipper," though -- more of a serial shipping monogamist ;)

4. do you respond to comments? why or why not?

i do! sometimes i'm a bit slow to respond for various reasons (e.g. when people angels comment on my WIPs i like to reply when/right before a new chapter drops), and on a few occasions i've belatedly encountered comments that i forgot to reply to (😱) that i'll immediately rectify, but i very much want to encourage people to keep leaving them. a single comment—even short/sweet ones!—can be like rocket fuel to my creative drive -- and as someone who finds myself running on empty and trying to get by solely on fumes from time to time, getting that boost in my inbox is truly priceless.

5. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not in whole but in part :(

6. have you ever co-written a fic before?

i don't even know how that would work!

7. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

currently steve/tony. once upon a time it was spock/kirk, and the flame burned so brightly that it troubles me to wonder how it ever managed to go out. i collected vintage zines. i made insanely thoughtful fanmixes (one of which i recorded onto cassette tapes one-at-a-time by hand through a painstaking process and distributed to a few like-minded folks, with hand-drawn cover art and liner notes!). i read AMAZING fic that changed my brain and yet i never wrote a single thing! i made a secret spacehusbands clubhouse underneath a pool table during one long and otherwise unhappy summer. i even made spirk-themed patches and pins that sold quite well on etsy, and turned one of my large back pieces into the central design of a fully decked-out jacket (which was made specifically to wear while loitering around disneyland while baked). here's some photographic evidence of all of the above:

8. what are your writing strengths?

smut-crafting is the obvious answer, but i flatter myself to think that i also manage to tap into a particular kind of haunted beauty that hovers about, casting its ethereal moon-shadow over all the most poignant relationships; something i've been obsessed with in life, that i'm compelled to pursue further in writing.

9. what are your writing weaknesses?

keeping it short. my punctuation can get pretty erratic sometimes. also, this might be a cop-out of an answer since it can be interpreted as a 'strength' but it really can throw me for a loop: i tend to let the characters tell the story 'they' want to tell rather than keeping a tight hold on the reins and sticking to my own agenda -- this can lead me off my intended course, for better or worse! as a storyteller i'm a bit of a pushover—always open to sudden inspiration wherever it might issue from—and steve and tony are such *strong* personalities that this openness can be a problem when i 'channel' them.

10. first fandom you wrote for?

harry potter. i was a bit of a snapewife for awhile there (don't judge). ff.net has been having some server issues so i recently logged back on to download my 245k unfinished epic from 2012, and found over a thousand people had left comments! some people were calling it a "masterpiece" and/or "the best fic [they] ever read [for that pairing]" which made me doubtful, so i skimmed over some of the story expecting it to be cringey but uhhh... it actually holds up? i mean, 2011/12 was quite a time for me: i was simultaneously finishing my thesis on "fandom, fanaticism, and religious fervor" and can recall having full-on religious experiences of my own while writing that [truly 'inspired'] fic, so i guess i was onto something after all!

some of these folks have already been tagged but i'm whispering a soft 'hello' into the ears of @carsonian, @soliloquent-stark, @pia-bartolini, @avengersnewb, @tinystark616 & all writers who aren't as averse to mirror-gazing as i can be

[petruchio]

PLEASE share your midnights Matty softlaunch theory, it’s such an odd and (to me at least lol) fascinating album

ok so. im going to go into insane detail track by track, but i think midnights makes sense (almost) if we read it as a journey through deciding to leave joe and we read mastermind as being a matty song — so the album is mostly her wondering if this thing she feels with matty is real or in her head, and then wondering, if it is real, if it’s worth it to make the jump. and i think she was ready to do it, and midnights would’ve been basically the matty “announcement,” but then she and joe made up and the 3am tracks are kind of damage control to confuse the narrative and make it less obvious. but we have to do a bit of digging. so let’s dive in.

(obvi we don’t know what happened for real. but it’s just fun to speculate!!!)

we open with lavender haze. and here we see taylor desperate to stay in the happy, peaceful relationship she’s in — she doesn’t WANT to get married, she doesn’t WANT to be talked about, she doesn’t WANT anything more. she just wants this. it’s enough for her. …or is it?

because immediately, we move to maroon. we go from a pastel purple color to various shades of red, changing the image and flipping back through memories. and these memories call back to a lot of 1989 era imagery — we get the wine stain from clean, the rosy cheeks from wildest dreams, new york… that’s a real fucking legacy to leave. something triggered this little trip down memory lane. maybe they hung out, or someone said something, who knows. but i think this is where the cracks in the lavender haze begin.

and so after all that she takes us to anti-hero. it’s me, hi, i’m the problem. i think this is probably the precursor to guilty as sin? — it’s saying, oh no. i’m the problem, fantasizing about my ex again (i dream of cracking locks, throwing my life to the wolves/i wake up screaming from dreaming) and acknowledges that joe is going to leave her when he finds out (one day i‘ll watch as you’re leaving)

but she can’t stop. the fantasy continues to grow in snow on the beach. this song is filled a bunch of space/sky imagery — “a few moons ago,” “stars by the pocketful,” “your eyes are flying saucers from another planet.” let’s keep track of that imagery. (we’ll return to the all space stuff in a big way in down bad, but don’t worry, it’ll reappear on midnights.)

and then there’s the realization of you’re on your own kid. that’s right — you’re on your own, and you always have been. i think this is her deciding to separate her sense of identity from joe. and the first verse brings up a lot of images we see come back on ttpd: “summer went away, still the yearning stays” -> “another summer/rolling thunder/he don’t understand me” and “it’s okay we’re the best of friends” -> “but tell me who else is gonna know you?” and “you’re smoking with your boys” -> “you needed drugs more.” it’s tempting to interpret the first verse as a retrospective on her teenage years, but it could just as easily be about falling for matty while they were “just friends” and she was still with joe. but i think in yoyok she’s still trying to convince herself it’s not real: “just to learn that you never cared.” matty doesn’t want her, she thinks. but she has her songs. maybe that’s all she ever needed?

this triggers an even larger dive into the past: midnight rain. now she’s wondering if the reason she’s so resistant to marry joe is just a repeat of old patterns, so she dives into the past looking for answers. i maintain that midnight rain is about the muse of debut and i think it’s her looking over her own past and trying to make sense of what’s happening now. am i the problem? was i always the problem? am i incapable of marriage or is it just with this guy?

so now she has to know. she has to get answers. is this fantasy about matty her just replaying old patterns of leaving when things get serious? or is this thing she feels with matty something real? basically, can i ask you a question…? we don’t even need to dive any deeper into the 1989 era of it all. this song is pretty obvious. note that we return to the space imagery though: “does it feel like everything is just like second best after that meteor strike?”

i don’t feel like talking about vigilante shit because it’s a bad song but suffice to say i think it’s just her being admitting she’s okay sometimes being the villain. other than that it’s not really relevant to the matty narrative.

so then we get bejeweled. which was strange when it came out and hasn’t gotten less strange, but it’s kind of another step in deciding to leave joe behind. she can’t marry him, because she’s not sure matty isn’t actually the one for her. “when i meet the band, they ask do you have a man, i can still say i don’t.” is the band… perhaps… the 1975? and this is when she leaves. “what’s a girl gonna do? a diamond’s gotta shine.” she sets herself free. you can try to change her mind, but you can’t. she polished up real nice.

and then we get labyrinth. which to me only makes sense as a post-joe song. “it only hurts this much right now.” “i’ll be getting over you my whole life.” “break up break free break through break down.” but what saves her? the person who comes in right at the last second: matty. he turns the plane around. remember all the space imagery? my flight was awful thanks for asking? well, here he is. uh oh, i’m falling in love again.

and actually… she loves it. it feels like karma. (or maybe destiny.) for all her work, all her struggle, all her pain, she gets the guy in the end: the years of pining and coded songs all add up to this.

but she can’t hate joe. she could never hate him. she might have wanted to leave, but it wasn’t because he treated her badly. he never wanted anything from her. just sweet nothing. i don’t think sweet nothing is a breakup song; it was probably even written as a love song. but its placement on the tracklist makes it feel like a goodbye. “they said the end is coming,” she says. but she needed someone who saw her that way. it’s an i will always love you song. it’s a thank you.

and so we close: mastermind. the planets and all the stars aligned from snow on the beach and question. we’re up in space now. she’s been planting these seeds since back in 2014… and now she has him. matty. she did it. all the wisest women had to do it this way. doesn’t that sound like fucking politics and gender roles? the liquor in the cocktails that she’s always drunk on when she’s around him? but he knew the entire time. she’s a mastermind.

okay so that’s the standard edition. the bonus track being hits different makes sense if it’s the joe breakup — “it hits different this time.” she’s left people before, but never like this. she’s SAD! she’s waiting for his key in the door but it never comes. she might have been the one that left, but it still hurt like never before.

but the 3am tracks are the last bit of the puzzle. and here’s where i think we can take taylor’s word for them as sort of “vault tracks” because they don’t fit in the narrative of midnights, but they tell a story in themselves. and that story is of her and joe getting back together after all this.

the first one she tacks on is the great war, a song about making up after a fight. so she puts that one to first, to reassure that they actually made it through. then i think we get the “cutting room floor” tracks — that is, they’re out of order but all part of the larger story. we get another heartwrenching goodbye in bigger than the whole sky, a return to the delusional lavender haze and staring at the ceiling in paris, a song about cheating in high infidelity. all thematically relevant, but not perfectly fitting into the narrative of the original record.

then we get glitch, which imo is also a matty song. “depending on what kind of situationship im in” read: if joe and i are off or on. “2190 days of our love blackout” read: six years since the 1989 era where they dated originally. “nights are so starry” brings us back to the space imagery, the glitch video on spotify glitching to the 1989 tv of wildest dreams… “it must be counterfeit” will come back too, in loml when she says “something counterfeit is dead.” but here… it’s only getting started.

would’ve could’ve should’ve again sees her examining her patterns with toxic men, and begins a lot of the religious theming we’ll see return on ttpd. and then we close with dear reader, a song about self-loathing, and begging the listener not to take her advice because she’s not really a good person. she admits it: she cheats, she lies, joe has left her alone in the house (not a home, cause nobody’s there.) “you should find another guiding light,” she tells us. but she shines so bright…

anyway yeah. that’s my extended theory. i think it was supposed to be the goodbye to joe and mastermind was introducing matty, but then when they patched it up, the narrative changed and 3am tracks got added on and changed the direction. (it makes sense if those tracks were added on late, since they weren’t available physically for a long time after the record was released. hits different, the song about breaking up with a long term partner… was.) we could deep dive into every song and analyze the lyrical parallels with 1989, folkmore, and ttpd too (don’t get me started on the 1 and cardigan) but we’ll save that for another time.

and of course, we all know what happened next. but we wouldn’t be here without the chaos that was midnights. without it, we might never have gotten an answer to that one, burning question…?

now we have the answer. the only thing that’s left… is the manuscript.