#like - first of all - they are doing the same thing about blue candidates and especially biden

[krysmcscience]

This really do be what it feels like existing around American politics rn, damn

[mikareo]

megumi doing smth pls

⌗ THIRTEEN YEARS ₊ ˖ ་. megumi fushiguro x fem reader (2.6k)

⊹ ⠀⠀ 3 times megumi wants to tell you he loves you, and the 1 time he does.

contains; attack on titan au, marleyan!megumi, eldian!reader, aot spoilers!!! (season 4), forbidden lovers, fluff, angst, kissing, major character death, cannabalism? (titans), annie cameo! author's note; here u get an old draft (psa none of this will make sense if you haven't watched attack on titan!!!!)

i. what is love at first sight

it's almost human instinct; knowing which people are more likely to have good fortune. some are simply born with an advantage— these people having the freedom to walk along the river bank, skip flattened rocks down streams, and laugh with their peers. with families who shop in the market together, hand-in-hand with woven baskets strewn over their shoulders, and all the time in the world to live their lives to the absolute fullest as true freelancers facing the rising sun that sees tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.

but in the truth of it all...the sun doesn't shine on everyone.

there are countless amounts of souls who aren't as blessed as marleyans like megumi. souls entangled with the devil herself, ymir, a woman who singlehandedly birthed the 'race from hell'...which he's never fully agreed with. everyone he knows refers to eldians as humanity's sin, but it's not their fault their biology is simply different.

humans are humans, right? they've done no wrong by being born. especially the warrior candidate he's been staring at for the past hour from a distance. you can't be that bad. after all, you're beautiful.

okay, yes. he has a little crush. he can't help it! one day, he was minding his own business on a walk home from the lab, when gojo had the bright idea of sneaking a peak at the warrior training. that's when megumi first saw you and his world stopped. sure, you were covered in mud and crawling through trenches with a rifle strapped to your back; but that didn't make him any less awestruck. since then he's hidden himself in the same bush, week after week, just to get a glimpse of your face.

"she's a cutie. you've got good taste." okay, creepy.

megumi rolls his eyes, glancing up at his mentor who's the only person who knows of his little secret. "don't you have women to harass?"

"ouch, sassed by a ten year old. i see how it is." gojo chuckles, ruffling his black hair and crouching down to the younger boy's level. "you see her out there? she's killing it. i heard she's the top contender for the female."

"i hope so." his blue eyes are locked on you, watching as your focused expression turns to determination whilst helping your teammate off the ground. "she'll have a better chance of living that way."

"...and maybe your family will let you meet her."

ugh, his family. since he was six, the zenin's have raised him with their questionable values and ideals. as the leading researchers in the modern world, they've revolutionized how eldians are studied! at least that's what he's been told. to be frank, he doesn't care about the right or wrong battle they've propagandized to the rest of humanity. all he cares about is knowing your name and telling you how pretty your eyes are.

"i want to talk to her, at least once." his voice is quiet, but gojo hears.

"why? you wanna tell her you love her?"

he hates him so much.

"no!" megumi exclaims, pushing back the older man in defense. his cheeks are bright red from embarrassment and he can feel the flames emitting from them. "i just want to be her friend, that's all. why do you always make things so weird?"

it's amusing to gojo how his little friend is so flustered. usually megumi is a shy boy, keeping to himself and avoiding contact with his peers; but whenever the conversation topic is you, he seems to perk up...and gojo loves to tease a lovestruck kid.

"don't worry," he smirks, "you'll understand your feelings when you're older. you don't need to tell her quite yet that you love her."

love you?

"just shut up and let me watch." megumi grumbles, resting his head in his hands as you're jumping up and down after being praised by your captain. he wishes he could make you that happy one day. "it's not love, i'm serious."

he'll understand what love means when he gets older. for now, he'll just imagine confessing.

ii. what is love that is forbidden

you're a lot more annoying than he thought you'd be.

after having been selected as the new female titan, your ego is boasting with energy and won't stop boasting no matter how often megumi tells you to zip it. though he was excited to meet you, his thirteen year old self now wishes you'd give him a moment of peace. instead, you insist on following him around whenever and wherever you can and yapping his ear off with comments on everyone and everything about your day. please, just give him a break.

"uh, fushiguro..."

he sighs with exhaustion. "what?"

"i think i locked us in here."

dammit.

"you forgot the key?" he asks.

"i forgot the key." you confirm.

of course you did.

with an exhausted grumble, megumi settles himself on the cold, cement floor of the supply closet you'll both call home for the next few hours. it's both of your days off, but he'd wanted to prep his supplies for his training on monday; to which you, of course, invited yourself along for the ride. you'll stay out of the way. it's fine, he can just ignore you. that's what he told himself...though, it's impossible for him to ignore you.

it's likely that no one will visit the storage room until the evening time— with most of his colleagues at home with their families, cooking a warm meal with lamb and stew. it's also uncommon for any of the researchers to be in liberio on their off days. megumi's just the special kind that doesn't think he'll be plagued by breathing the same air as eldians.

"mind if i join you?" he knows you're asking a rhetorical question and you know he'd never reject you.

with a small plop, you take a seat next to him. he's used to your warmth by now— considering you to be an essential part of his every day, despite how much he enjoys complaining about you— and leans his head against yours. it's obvious that you're sleepy. though, you never indulge in conversations about your training, megumi is well aware of how overworked you are. he can't imagine fighting in wars at this age, especially wars in which you're fourteen meters tall and smashing through brick walls; which is why he tries his best to be there for you when you need him.

your life is a battlefield and he's the peaceful conclusion.

"you know..." the sound of your voice is faint, a great contrast to your usual noise and megumi can tell something is wrong. "when they find us here, they're going to think i kidnapped you."

"i mean what else would the zenin heir be doing with a titan shifter?" you start to choke on your words and he instinctively wraps his arms around you. "you don't need to comfort me, fushiguro. we both know i'm going to be punished after this. you can't apologize and make everything okay like usual."

to your surprise, his pointer finger touches your cheek and gently wipes away your running tears. "...fushiguro—"

"it won't always be like this." he interrupts you, cupping your face as if you're a rare gem that he can't afford breaking. "when i'm in charge, i'm going to change things. you won't have to do this anymore. i won't let them do this to you anymore!"

the two of you are a mess on the floor, crying in each others arms, and wishing that the world was a better place. "you still have thirteen years left. please...please keep fighting for me. i promise i'm going to save you."

"fushiguro..."

"call me by my first name."

"...megumi."

you're beautiful. he wants to kiss you so badly, but he knows now isn't the time. he wants to hold your hand in public, but he knows you'll be berated for doing so. he wants to tell you he loves you, but he's too afraid.

megumi fushiguro is a coward.

...but he's a coward in love; and one day, when he's taller and stronger, he's going to be able to tell you that. he's going to be able to protect you.

iii. what is love that is hopeless

"hold still." megumi's voice is soft, his fingers of the same gentle malice as they tend to your open wounds that haven't quite healed yet. with titan steam wafting from the slashes scattering your forearms and shoulders, they blow into his face in a fury of pain. "dammit, i said hold still."

his brings both arms down to your shoulders, heart breaking at the sight of you wincing in retaliation to his force, but carries on. there's no telling what you would've gotten yourself into if he hadn't insisted he care for your wounds; after making it publicly known that he's to be the only researcher allowed within your vicinity after your tireless warrior missions, none of the other researchers even attempt to get near you. he hates how often you put yourself in harms way in order to save your comrades. you're too brave. you've never been just a warrior of marley, but more or less a warrior of all people.

"i've been sitting here for an hour already, megumi." you roll your eyes, swinging your legs over the metal rims and turning to face your very pissed off best friend. "i'm tired and i'd like to get at least an hour of sleep tonight."

his expression is somewhat terrifying. if you didn't know megumi was such a scaredy cat, you'd be intimidated by his reddened cheeks and eyes of fury. it's almost as if he's an inflamed torch held against fluorescent lighting, pasty and saturated in fear and exhaustion. "i need to make sure you're okay."

"well, i have another plane to catch at dawn," you deflect his concerns. "there's some issue i was assigned to when i landed this morning. i guess one of our enemies isn't afraid of titans yet."

"you're not going."

he's firm in his statement. megumi doesn't like how his colleagues take advantage of you and your abilities. they're working you to skin and bones. if they were the ones checking up on you after every battle they'd know so, but they wouldn't treat you with as much care. his only wish in the world is to keep you safe, which he's doing an awful job at as of yet. "i don't want you getting more hurt than you already are."

"as if it matters." you scoff, leaning towards him in an attempt to get him to back off. "i'll just give 'em a little taste of my titan and they'll run away like mice. it's easy, 'gumi. trust me—"

"life isn't a game!" he's furious.

"well mine is!" you're angry as well.

why don't you get it? why can't you just run away with him?

"i only have four years left! four years, megumi! i don't care if i die tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that. i'm going to either way. you don't have that problem. you don't understand."

without warning, his lips are on yours in his best attempt to stop you from spouting all of his fears and worries from your mouth. he doesn't want to hear it. he just wants to pretend none of it is happening, and you're going to be okay. you are going to be okay. he'll make sure of it.

it takes a moment for you to respond until your intertwined in a feverish kiss that sends his medical supplies clanging to the floor— but megumi doesn't care about order, all he cares about now is being as close to you as possible. he's dreamt of this moment for years. what you taste like...feel like...sound like. he knows you're his soulmate. what he doesn't know is why it's taken him so long to kiss you.

but before your connection can move forward and become something more, your touch is gone.

"i'm sorry, i can't do this." there are tears creeping from the corners of your beautiful eyes. "i—"

he calls out your name as your figure dashes out the door, wishing that he was able to confess. he wants to tell you he loves you so badly; except he doesn't have the bravery he needs. with four more years left, megumi has two things on his agenda.

1.) find a way to save you.

2.) tell you he's yours forever.

iv. what is love everlasting

he's finally become a monster like the rest of them.

from the first time he saw you, he told himself he'd be your savior. he made countless promises that he'd find a way for eldians and marleyans to live in peace, that he'd find a way to save you from this shitty war; only to be the very person to lock you in chains, awaiting imminent death as the next female titan will be born.

megumi wanted to be brave. he wanted to stop being such a coward, but some people just aren't capable of changing so much— and what a disappointment that is.

"hey, fushiguro?" when did you stop calling him by his first name? "can you keep a secret?"

he's not supposed to be civil with you. his orders are to chain you up, inject the child, and watch as she devours you; but you're his weakness. he can't resist you. "of course i can."

a smile graces your lips. it's not a smile of happiness or joy...it's one of anguish and pain. "i wish i ran away with you. i should've run away with you. even though we only had four years, we could've been happy."

why are you saying all of this?

now of all times?

you should've told him years ago! you should've let him know your secrets before he let them change him! before he distanced himself from you and became distracted with his work!

"...megumi..."

"yes?" he's desperate to hear you.

"...i don't want to die."

a thought crosses his mind. it's a scene in which two main characters beat all odds and escape the chains and prisons they've faced, running off into the sunset, never to be seen again. this scene has a happy ending, one where there's a small and intimate wedding with no witnesses except the meadow's flowers. he lifts your veil away from your eyes and murmurs sweet nothings as you kiss him to start off your forever. his heart wants that to be true. he wants that to be true. it's too late, though. you have no time left. your thirteen years is up. his thirteen years of knowing you is up. it's time to say goodbye.

"i can't save you." he's struggling to get his words out while maintaining his composure; and your heart breaks as his promise does as well. "i'm sorry."

he's a monster.

you hang your head, nodding and accepting your fate as he makes his way down the stairs. seeing you like that, knowing what your fate is, almost causes megumi to pass out from lightheadedness. he knows he shouldn't be worrying about himself. after all, you're the one who's about to die. he has a whole lifetime to continue living, and your lifetime was a mere twenty-six years.

gently, he takes the newest warriors hands and tells her what he's about to do. the blonde girl nods along to his words, trying her best to ignore your radiating hopelessness as she's about to become the next you; and megumi injects his needle into her neck.

he wants to look away so badly as she grows into a pure titan with eyes locked on your frail body, but he doesn't want it to end like this. there's gotta be something that he can do to help you. anything to save you from this fate; but to no avail, he's powerless. so powerless that the only thing he manages to do is mouth three seemingly meaningless words as he locks eyes with you.

"i love you."

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⊹₊｡ reblogs are greatly appreciated! ˚₊⊹

[icaruspendragon]

Hi! A while ago I saw one of your tiktoks about how northern democrats typically view people from Appalachia, and it really made me re-examine some biases I had and I deeply appreciated that. I'm from New Hampshire, and basically this primary season we were completely ignored by democratic candidates because of some issues with the DNC and our primary being labeled "unsanctioned". It was weird to not feel supported or valued by my party for the first time ever, (especially when NH tends to get a lot of attention) and it reminded me of your tiktok and how you mentioned that republicans tend to reach out to people in the south while democrats tend to ignore them as a lost cause. Because I saw that happening here with an insanly disproportionate republican presence in my state leading to the primaries. I know the comparisons aren't equal, but it helped drive home the message for me and gave me just a taste of what you explained so clearly in your tiktok. I understand if you choose not to post this, but I really wanted to thank you for opening my eyes and helping me face some biases I didn't know I had.

hello and thank you (for re-examining your biases and for writing me this message). i'm gonna use this as a chance to restate some of the things i mentioned in the video you're talking about.

i'd like to start this by saying i know appalachia and the south aren't perfect. there's racism and homophobia and bigotry. being someone who is marginalized or minoritized in appalachia/the south isn't always easy. but appalachia/the south doesn't have the monopoly on bigotry. america is rife with it. it's something marginalized folks all over the country have to face. and when northern dems act like racism and homophobia and bigotry are things that don't occur in their state simply because it's a blue state, they're doing an incredible disservice to the marginalized people that live in their communities who are facing the results of bigotry.

the folks living in appalachia/the south are heavily stereotyped as nothing more than ignorant backwood cousin fucking hillbillies, and while there are people that live here that fit that bill, appalachia/the south is not a monolith.

appalachia is region that spans from mississippi all the way to new york. the south (depending on who you ask) consists of 17 different states. and here's a little fun fact about the south for ya: according to the 2020 census, out of the 41.6 million black people that live in america, 38.9% of them live in the south.

so when that entire region is written off, forgotten about, and treated as a lost cause it's not the bigots that are being left behind; it's the marginalized people that live here that are being written off. the very same folks democrats and liberals love claiming they care about are the ones being left behind.

one of the reasons republicans have such a strong hold on appalachia/the south is because they put in the work to earn the trust of the voter. work that democrats just don't do. so of course republicans are gonna get the vote, they earned it.

other reasons for the stronghold existing (that people never wanna talk about for some reason) are: gerrymandering, voter suppression, lack of state funding that leads to lack of education, general lack of education, high poverty rates, lack of internet access. i could go on and on.

there are so many marginalized people that live in this region that are working themselves to the bone and trying their damndest to make appalachia/the south a better place for EVERYONE to live and when high falutin yankees act like every single person that lives here is the racist uncle you have to ignore at christmas, they are discrediting the work being done to try and change the region for the better.

allow me to say this again: when appalachia/the south is written off as nothing more than a home to bigots, it's not the bigots being written off, it's the people affected by bigotry.

there are people fighting to make these areas better. we are trying. so please, please stop writing us off.

we are not a lost cause.

[medusapelagia]

25 The soulmates program

written for @steddieangstyaugust (prompt: Soulmates ) and @augustwritingchallenge (Prompt: Scientists ) @aug-kissed (prompt: First Kiss) Rating: Teen and Up Relationship: Steve/Eddie TW: no one Words: 901

“So, in this experiment, we’re trying to determine if it’s possible to find the perfect soulmate without even knowing them. We interviewed all our volunteers and found a perfect couple. This experiment is the hardest we have ever made. Not only do the two candidates come from two very different social classes, but this is a homosexual couple.”

The audience gasps loudly.

“I must specify that one of the volunteers declared to be gay and the other was open to a homosexual relationship.” The scientists show a PowerPoint presentation pointing at some statistics, “As you can see they don’t have the same interests or hobbies, they live very different lives, but looking at the diagram you can see that they have the same opinions about relationship, friendship, and commitment. You can see that our first subject, Steve, gives very high importance to family and relationship and commitment, and our second subject, Eddie, is just a little bit under on the commitment but they have the same level of importance given to family and relationship. So they are here, after a few dates, to tell us how it worked out for them. Please welcome them.”

The two boys who get into the conference room couldn’t have been more different: one wears a shirt and a pullover over a pair of dark blue jeans, a pair of squared turtle glasses, and a very soft smile, the other is dressed all in black, with a leather jacket, a pair of high boots and some black jeans ripped at the knee revealing a huge skull tattooed on the right knee and black nail polish.

“So, Eddie and Steve, right?” The scientist asks, looking at his file.

“I’m Eddie. He’s Steve.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. So. How did our experiment go?” the man inquires with curiosity, pushing his glasses with one finger.

They both start talking at the same time, before laughing and begin a little dance of “You go first.” “No, you go first.”

In the end, it’s Steve who grabs the microphone, “Hi everyone. I’m Steve Harrington. I signed up for this experiment because I was tired of dating the wrong person and I thought that maybe someone who didn’t actually know me could help me understand what I was looking for.” he turns toward Eddie with a soft smile, “If it wasn’t for this experiment I don’t think I would have ever go out on a date with someone like Eddie. Nothing wrong with him, but as anyone can see we’re not exactly similar.” he chuckles before giving the microphone to Eddie.

“Yeah. That’s right. I would have never looked at someone like Steve to have a stable relationship. I mean, he doesn’t know Metallica and doesn’t play DnD which is like the first thing I ask everyone I date. But yeah. I signed up for this experiment to prove to my buddies that there’s no way you could find a soulmate thanks to some calculation and look at me! I’ll have to buy a lot of beers this year.” He smirks.

“So we must assume the experiment went well.”

Eddie and Steve share a look, “What do you say? Should we tell them?” Eddie asks, playing with a lock of hair.

“Tell us what?”

Steve beams when he grabs the microphone, “We’re engaged. We’re still working on the specifics, I live in Chicago he lives in Los Angeles, but yeah. We are going to get married.” 

“That was unexpected, especially from you, Eddie. Weren’t you against marriage?”

“Have you seen him? Since the first time we kissed after our first formal date, I knew I couldn’t let him go.”

“Remind us of your first date. We sent you each other's description and asked you to meet at the local mall, isn’t that right?”

Steve brushes some hair away from his face, “When I saw the description I was really in doubt. I didn’t think Eddie could have been the right person for me, but I decided to give him a chance. We met at Starbucks. Drink a coffee or two and by the time we leave the coffee shop I was already in love.”

“I was lovestruck as well. Surprised that someone so hot was still single and looking for flaws I didn’t find, so we just chatted and as soon as we left the coffee shop we kissed. I think we both tasted like burned coffee but it was the best kiss I have ever had. And so here we are. Proving that the program can help you find your soulmate.”

The audience applauds, and then Steve and Eddie leave the conference room, hand in hand, until they are far enough from the conference room they look at each other, “What do you think?”

“They totally eat up all that shit. Great work Stevie.” Eddie replies, giving him a high-five.

“You weren’t half bad either, Munson.” Steve replies with a wink, “Now let's make sure they transfer the money to our bank accounts.”

“Can believe your parents agreed to our little plan.”

“It’s their program. They want people to believe they can actually find their soulmate thanks to this program so… it’s a win-win, right?”

“Still convinced about the wedding?”

“I always wanted a big ceremony. I can give you a couple of months of my life before asking for a divorce.” Steve winks, “Now let’s go. This place stinks of stupidity.”

[aqricus]

SHAMELESS ! feat. bachira meguru

V SAYS . . . “bachira is greedy, especially when it comes to you, and he doesn’t care who knows about it.”

+ WC . . . 4.7k

+ sfw material. suggestive. character aged up 21+. fem reader. bachira is a little off his rocker. heavy(ish) makeout session. bachira likes lipstick prints. just take it, i’m too tired for real editing.

@m-ikage i can no longer be saved.

if there’s one thing you’ve come to learn about bachira, it’s that he’s selfish.

ever since your paths briefly intersected years ago when he was nothing more than a daredevil candidate for the national team with a tenacious streak and wild eyes housing an adrenaline-starved monster, he’s been self-centered. you’ve watched him from the sidelines, even if he wasn’t always aware, eyes analytical and inquisitive as you witnessed him storm the field with enough brazen confidence to shave four years off your life. it was evident from the jump that he preferred hoarding the ball, relying on his own abilities and viewing other players as experiments for his own personal gain rather than as teammates. you didn’t need to be perceptive to notice that the intense hunger for victory and superiority that flowed through his veins was palpable.

but, above all else, he’s selfish when it comes to your attention.

having been the first person to earnestly return his confession without regard to his idiosyncratic personality, he clung to you, craving to be showered in affection and reassurance that you do, indeed, still share his feelings. meeting and befriending like-minded individuals among blue lock was beneficial to healing his social detachment, but having a romantic partner was entirely different. the warmth that seeped beneath the old scar of loneliness was brand new to him. it was silken and ticklish, caressing the tips of his ears with heat every time you touched him, each word of praise or sentiment from you swaddling his brain in a honeyed varnish that left him tugging obnoxiously on your sleeve or whatever limb is closest just to ask you another question.

it’s intoxicating, leaving him desiring more and more of your touch, of your attention, of your time. he’s borderline obsessive, perhaps, in the passing—envious, bachira might also claim—opinion of certain teammates of his, but when you’ve always indulged his touchy-feely behavior, could you truly blame him?

even now, it's the same.

loose granules of cinder crunch beneath the sole of your sandal as you shift your weight from one leg to the other. the jumbled chatter and buzzing conversation swirling among bachira's team as they mingle a little ways away has dulled to nothing more than white noise as you focus your attention on rooting through the mess of miscellaneous items stashed in the bag slung over your shoulder. it's light, the straps not pressing too heavily into your shoulder. light . . . very light. almost too light, you notice with a furrow in your brow.

"something the matter?"

you glance up at the sound of a familiar voice to witness bachira separating himself from the sea of color-block jerseys with a slight, inquisitive tilt of his head and an easy upturn of his lips. you return his smile and shake your head. “no, i’m fine. i just thought my bag seemed a little lighter than i remember. it’s probably nothing.”

he hums and extends his hand without breaking eye contact, seeking your own as if out of habit. “you sure?” his fingers lace through yours. the pads are calloused from countless hours spent honing his chiseled physique and bear a slight chill against your skin. he lifts your hand and sandwiches it between his own as if attempting to shield it from the cool breeze wafting through the scenery. “mm, could just be nerves, y’know.” he muses. his round eyes spark with energy as he squeezes your hand between his own, energy practically rolling off him in waves and prickling along the light dusting of hair blanketing his arms. “i hear the team we’re gonna play is pretty tough!”

“yeah—”

“isn’t it exciting?” he exclaims abruptly, and your eyes soften.

whereas most people would be wracked with nerves when preparing to face a team rumored to be one of the most formidable on the field, bachira has always welcomed such challenges, rivaling them all with a ferocious tenacity and a drive to succeed. and, after spending all that time meditating in complete stillness and sharpening his mind’s focus before boarding the bus, it’s only natural that he’d be buzzing with such energy and enthusiasm. “i spent hours watching footage of their plays, so i know them like the back of my hand now. one of them is super good at dribbling, but i’m still better.” he boasts with a proud grin. “man, i can’t wait to crush them on their own turf! hey,” he leans forward until the tip of his nose is just shy of bumping into your own, gaze trained on yours in a moment of sobriety. his golden irises glimmer as he inquires, “you’re staying for the whole match again, right? you’ll be waiting for me?”

“of course,” your laughter is quiet, but his eyes sparkle, anyways. “i wouldn’t be anywhere else. i even brought—” your sentence is cut into silence when you’re struck by a moment of clarity, and your eyes widen as you finally recall the item absent from your bag. “my camera!” your hands wrench away from his with a gasp, and he makes a small sound of surprise at the sudden absence of warmth that engulfs his hands. the bite of your fingernails into his triceps when you grip at his upper arms is blunted by the polyester material of his jersey. but he doesn’t seem to mind, eyes instead darting feverishly over your own to analyze how dire the situation truly is. “i was gonna take pictures!” you lament to your boyfriend, a whine pitching your voice. “i was gonna be right up front, too! i wanted to print them out and put them in that scrapbook i bought. oh, my—how quickly do you think i can run?”

“pictures . . ?” bachira echoes, but his tone is remarkably less perturbed than yours and so low it can barely be classified as a murmur, as if the idea of you being his own personal photographer was too outlandish to process. ignorant to the way the cogs in his brain are rotating on overtime, you release your death grip on his arms with a groan and whirl around to face the cluttered rows of parked cars stretching nearly as far as the eye can perceive. but, bachira doesn’t seem even remotely interested in assisting you, all of his attention transfixed on the small wrinkle of frustration creasing your brow and the way the artificial light glistens off the fresh film of sparkly gloss overlaying your lips when you pensively press them into a line.

you’re unaware of the way his attention is trained on your side profile despite the intensity of his gaze, pupils constricted with a razor-sharp acuity that most would consider to be borderline predatory. his expression is completely neutral as his gaze sears holes into your temple, which would most certainly make the situation that much more unnerving and disconcerting—if you were paying enough attention to notice, that is. it’s as if his mind has stalled, suspended in limbo as he processes your words. “you . . . were gonna take pictures of me? and print them out? like, with ink and stuff? and put ‘em in a book?”

“why wouldn’t i?” you shift your attention back to him with little care for the off-putting way he’s surveying you, more aghast that he could even be so oblivious to how photogenic he appears whenever he’s focused on the game than anything else. granted, this would be your first time capturing snapshots of his time on the field with an actual camera instead of your phone; however, you both know that this definitely wouldn’t be his first time being photographed on the field. after bearing witness to the incessant clicking of shutters and obsessive fawning from the team’s fan base more times than you can count, you can say that with full certainty.

you hook your thumb beneath the strap of your bag and slide it higher up on your shoulder. “i take pictures of you all the time on my phone, as do your fans.” you explain casually, eliciting the pucker of his lips into a tiny ‘o.’ “i can promise you that there are at least a hundred people out there right now with personal photos they took of you taped to their wall. they . . . wait, you knew that, right?” you blink.

of course, he knew about his fans. after having numerous photos of himself and body parts shoved in his face, all vying for the opportunity to have his name scribbled across them in scarlet ink until his wrist ached, it’s impossible not to be aware of the spike in popularity that accompanies being a member of such a distinguished team. however, to have you, someone perched upon a golden pedestal of admiration and reverence in his mind, find such delight in his abilities that you wish to immortalize them is far different, and it makes his heart swell with pride. you really do like him, it seems. 

the suggestion of such a sentimental gesture only nourishes the pre-existing, vivid gleam of excitement alight in his eyes. plumes of fiery adoration seep through the depths of his gaze, bleeding all the way to his irises and trickling down his sternum to cause warmth to pool in his chest. this time, when he smiles, it’s unrestrained, and he does little to mask the faint flush of rose that scales the tips of his ears.

the thrum of his heartbeat now slightly more noticeable to him, he reaches for you. your attention shifts back to him at the feeling of his fingers curling around your upper arm. “is something wrong?” he wants to coo at the innocuous twinkle in your eye—so attentive yet unassuming, so blissfully ignorant to the underlying touch of mischief to the toothy grin curving his lips as he shuffles a step closer. 

sometimes, you tend to forget that bachira is romantically stunted from having dedicated himself to advancing his physical prowess, this exposure to a brand new situation causing his emotions to fester and swell without a proper outlet before finally manifesting in his own . . . interesting ways. even now, instead of attempting to vocalize his appreciation, his fingertips tingle with the urge to pinch your cheeks, to ensnare you in his arms and smush you against his chest until you have to fight for breath, to just engulf you until you feel him as intensely as he does you. he’s an ardent lover—always been, but that’s part of why you adore him so. 

“baby,” it’s the teasing, crooning lilt in his voice that you recognize as his hands start to drift toward your waist, a warning you’ve learned to identify that’s usually succeeded by some type of embrace or grip you end up having to struggle to escape. it lures you deeper, closer into range, his hold on you barely more than a whisper over your skin until the distance between you is short enough for it to snap shut around you, ensnaring you with an iron strength he has no business having.

he bears a playful glint in his eye and a ticklish touch to match, but you know better. “no, you don’t,” you laugh, palm pressing flat against his stomach to edge him back a step. “meguru, i need my camera.” you lean closer to place a chaste peck against his cheek, which, admittedly, was your first mistake. “you need to be with the rest of your teammates right now.”

your second mistake is lingering to offer him a warm smile. while bachira is sweet to you, you should know by now that he has no problem playing dirty. he tilts his head, teeth vanishing into a closed-lipped smile. “mhm!” however, as soon as you relax, he’s quick to take advantage of it. one of his hands clamps down on your hip before you can turn away, keeping you pinned in place. “but, only if you give me my kiss for good luck.” you’re not surprised at his attempt to bargain with you; although, with how firm his hold is on you, it’s less of a compromise and more of a demand. “it’s tradition.” he reminds you cheekily.

while that much is true, you both know that you would be more than willing to indulge him and uphold your little pre-game ritual, which means that, considering the way he’s taking extra precautions by holding you still, whatever is coming next most certainly entails more than one kiss.

still, you decide to give him the benefit of the doubt, knowing that utilizing all of the time allotted for warming up his muscles is quite valuable to him—your third mistake. “that’s correct,” you agree. “but, i’m wearing lip gloss, and you’re about to head inside, so we have to be careful.” with that, you clasp your hands behind your back and tilt your chin to plant a brief kiss on his almost comically puckered lips. 

but, it’s not enough for him. the retraction of your head is calm, a sharp contrast to the desperation in his touch as the hand resting on your hip abruptly flickers up to cup your jaw and halt your withdrawal. “me—” your gasp of surprise is interrupted by the sealing of his lips over yours once more. the motion is uncalculated and uncoordinated, more spawned from a yearning for close proximity than anything else, but you don’t particularly mind. the press of his lips to yours is firm, the tip of his nose smushed against yours in an endearing display of inelegance that causes the corners of your lips to quirk upward into a small smile. his fingertips are alight with a lively heat that dances over your skin as they adjust into a more comfortable position, and you giggle against his lips at the ticklish caress of his thumb over the hollow of your cheek.

the moment you slip from his hold and start to turn away from him, regret begins to settle in, and you find yourself wishing to return to the warmth of his body when the crisp evening air rushes to engulf the ghost of his touch. regardless, you need to hurry up. unfortunately—or fortunately, whichever you may decide—you only make it a few steps before you feel the familiar weight of his hand on your shoulder once more, spinning you back to face him. 

the silent inquiry twinkling in your eyes is met with a spark of something ravenous, insatiable, puddles of vibrant gold sharpened to an acute point that pierces directly to your core. despite the secluded area of the parking lot and the clear inattentiveness of his teammates, you feel exposed—vulnerable—as if bachira’s gaze alone is intense enough to feel as if you’re being riddled with countless stares from every angle, each watchful eye stripping you down to your bare skin. it’d be unsettling if you were any less involved with him; but, as you relax in his hold, you’d figure you’re well-accustomed.

“meguru,” you chuckle, “i have to go.”

but, he wants more. one more kiss—no, two more, or perhaps three more if fortune deems him worthy. bachira knows you like the back of his hand—knows how to talk to you, where to touch you, and how to kiss you to sap your knees of their strength and leave you pliant enough to refashion your will to align with his. “one more, promise.” his voice is sticky-sweet, but his vow is empty, devoid of even a modicum of truth. it always is when it comes to your affection. just spend five more minutes with him in bed, give him one more kiss before you bid him farewell and head off to work, just let him hold you for one more minute—lies, all of them.

although, when you recognize his attempts to pour a year’s worth of reverence and adoration into such a simple gesture, you can’t quite find it in yourself to protest. so, you allow it, acquiescently tipping your head to connect your lips in a single kiss. but, just as you anticipated, he has no intention of releasing you just yet. every small, unhurried shuffle you take backward, he takes one forward, closing the distance you try to gradually squeeze between you. his presence is inexorable, curling around you and encompassing you entirely until there’s nowhere you can look—nowhere you can reach—that isn’t already occupied by him. he trails after you as if his body is operating on autopilot and all brain activity has idled, unabashedly—obsessively—pursuing you with the intent of stealing a kiss with every footstep if manageable. 

you can feel your resolve weakening with every brush of his lips, heart fluttering and limbs growing cumbersome as you try to focus on placing one foot behind the other. you know you’re a goner, as does he. any long-term resistance is futile. but, it isn’t until the tip of his tongue sweeps mischievously over your bottom lip that you cease motion altogether. your muscles tense, and your eyes widen as you sharply break the kiss, voice a tad breathless when you anxiously object, “wait—”

but, even if he hears you, bachira doesn’t seem to care. you’ve always been more cautious about monitoring the affection you two show each other in public, constantly worried about intimate photographs being snapped and stamped along countless tabloids and magazines with both of your names smeared across the headlines like a stain. you enjoy the privacy you’re afforded, something he can understand. but, he also reasons that it isn’t quite a good enough reason to keep his hands off you. he’s positive his extroverted nature plays a major role in his thought process, but in his mind, it’s quite straightforward—you two are together, and he will not allow anyone to influence that.

it doesn’t matter how envious certain fans may become or how much his manager may gripe about such a “distraction,” every external force and nagging complaint dwindles to white noise with the press of your body against his. you’re all his—his pretty girl, his sweetheart, his girlfriend, and he knows that there exist those who would cheat and steal to experience a fleeting slice of the treatment you lavish bachira with on a daily basis. why wouldn’t he want to show you off? 

with that, he tilts his head forward one final time, enveloping your lips in a kiss far deeper and far more torrid than any of the previous ones. you tense, a small murmur of surprise slipping from your throat, when you feel the slick tip of his tongue delve between your lips, coaxing them further open to allow him unrestrained access to every nook and cranny. his kisses are always energetic, overwhelming in the best way that leaves your knees wobbly and your brain buzzing from oxygen deprivation—this one is no different.

it’s as if you have to switch off conscious control of the rest of your body in order to focus well enough to maintain the fervent movement of his lips against yours. you know that if you fall behind, he’ll be quick to seize the advantage, and that is something you cannot afford right this moment. bachira is shameless with his affection, and only god knows how he’ll utilize any inch of surrender you offer.

you blindly scramble for purchase to balance yourself and manage to curl your fingers into the material of his jersey. the tight pull of the fabric into your fist is met with the feeling of his lips twitching into a grin against your own. contrary to his typical touchy-feely behavior, this time he doesn’t make any move to steady you, and your ears burn at the thought of him actually deriving amusement from your dependence on him after previously demonstrating such resistance. bachira is nothing if not impish—you knew this; yet here you are, hopelessly entangled in another one of his countless ploys contrived to submerge you in the same desire that courses through his veins on a nearly daily basis. he made sure you’d be fighting an uphill battle the moment you allowed him to lay his hands on you; and now, that’s crystal clear to you.

although, you aren’t sure whether the heat coalescing in the pit of your stomach is one of indignation or carnality.

“bachira!”

your heartbeat spikes.

someone’s acknowledged him. someone sees you.

all you can muster is a spark of strength, but it’s enough to break the kiss and retract your head. your stomach flutters at the sight of a strand of saliva webbing between your and bachira’s lips, and you hastily smear the back of your hand across your mouth to disconnect it. oh, god, please let it at least be someone meguru knows. the heat brewing beneath your clothes is almost stifling, the new twinge of desire at the apex of your thighs even more so, and you promptly swivel your head toward an empty area of the parking lot. it’s safe to say that you’re still reeling from your boyfriend’s bold ministrations, so you’re certain that one glance at your face will incriminate you. you exhale slowly. i can’t be seen like this.

you’re embarrassed to have been noticed, to say the least; but, bachira clearly is not. he reacts without any sense of urgency. his eyes twinkle as he observes you, watching you lean closer to rest your cheek against whatever part of him you can reach first. she’s warm, he notices as he lifts a hand to cradle the back of your head, his pinky grazing the nape of your neck. how sweet. his giggle is quiet, an unnervingly sharp contrast to his prior actions. you’re so cute; it makes him want to eat you up—to swallow you whole and keep you all for himself. tempting. instead, he tucks you against his chest and nonchalantly turns his head toward one of his teammates who has detached from the main group and is now standing a few yards away with his hands planted on his hips.

he doesn’t appear ruffled in the least at having caught bachira’s tongue shoved down your throat—more exasperated than anything else. “hurry up,” he advises, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at where the rest of his team is still mingling. “we’re leaving in a few minutes.” 

“yeah, ‘m coming!” bachira calls back, as ebullient and carefree as ever.

his teammate starts to turn back, only to glance over his shoulder at the last minute. “and, wipe your face, too. the paparazzi will eat you alive.” he gripes.

wipe his face? you quizzically lift your head from its place nestled against him, only for your eyes to pop wide with horror at the sight. “meguru!” you gasp. his lips are framed with visible fragments of glitter from your lip gloss, saliva having trickled down to the point of his chin in rivulets of tacky translucence and kaleidoscopic shards. his jersey is a bit wrinkled from where you’d been clutching it, and you clumsily run your hand over the creases to try to smooth them out. “oh, my god, i totally forgot about the lip gloss. i—” you reach into your bag for a clean tissue or napkin—anything, really—and fish out a wadded napkin that seems otherwise untouched. “here, use this to wipe it off.”

“and let it all go to waste?” bachira lifts his chin a bit and touches his fingertips to his bottom lip with a cheeky grin, and your heart almost stops when he angles his face toward the more populated area of the parking lot. “don’t wanna. the color brings out my eyes.”

“what are you talking about? it’s clear—” your teeth close on the tip of your tongue, tension already beginning to stack in your chest. this isn’t new behavior by any means; he’s always had a strange fondness for having your lip prints stamped across his skin, whether it’s his cheeks, throat, or chest. and, it’s not that you don’t like it, no—it’s just that there cannot be a worse moment for him to decide to keep them.

“meg,” you reach for his face to squish his cheeks between your palms and turn his head back toward you, and his lips pucker at the fire in your eyes. “your fans will literally crucify me if you walk out there with lip gloss all over you. they’re insane.”

“ah,” you can tell he isn’t enthusiastic about having to adhere, but he accepts the napkin from you, nonetheless. “fine. but,” his toothy smile returns. “you gotta make it up to me when we get home, m’kay?”

“what do you mean?” your eyebrows furrow, perplexed. “you mean more kisses? i mean, of course, you can have more—”

but, you fall silent when he shakes his head. “nope. ‘s not all i want.” you don’t get the chance to ask for clarification before he’s inclining his head until his face stills mere inches from yours. your eyes flicker down to the space between you when he raises a hand to tap his forefinger against his cupid’s bow. you can’t bring yourself to avert your eyes, his gaze pinning yours in place. “i told you, i liked how it looked.” your stomach flips at his words. “sent a real good message, too.”

“but, you’re making me wipe it off.” he reminds you, as if the blame lies with you instead of his fans. you do like seeing your lip gloss on his skin; it proves that he’s yours. you just don’t want to have to deal with the consequences if photographs spread; because, while he’s not an actor or musician, he still has his own share of unsavory, possessive fans. “so, you gotta make it up to me by givin’ me some more after i win. one for each goal i score—and i get to leave it on.”

your brain idles for a split second. “that’s . . . what you want?”

“mhm,” he nods. “a favor for a favor. so,” he leans forward, bumping his forehead against yours. “we have a deal?”

you’re quiet for a moment, mulling over his words, before dissolving into soft laughter. to make a trade such as this, bachira truly is odd. but, you tilt your chin up to place a chaste peck to the tip of his nose. it’s cute. “we have a deal.” you agree with a smile. “now,” you press your palms against his abdomen to ease him back a few steps. “i’m getting my camera. your team is waiting for you.” this time, he doesn’t object and lets you go, but you can still feel his eyes fixated on your back as you begin your trek through the rows of vehicles. 

“actually . . . i changed my mind.”

you turn back at the sound of his voice to spot a roguish grin playing on his lips.

“the color. i want red, instead.”

[tani-b-art]

Black American folks, especially Black American women, we should have BEEN on this indifference tip since 2 administrations ago. We should have been on this “care for self” and “care for our community” only stance many years ago. Everyone else does, so let’s follow suit too. We’re looking out for ourselves and we are not worrying about anyone else just like everyone else has been. Keep us out of it.

The Democrats have the Democrats to blame in not securing the election! You had a candidate who said they’d never do anything just for Black people years ago and that’s why most Black people stayed home on Election Day and didn’t exercise their vote. The Dems lost a huge number of Black support that they had just prior years before (in Biden and in Clinton and in Obama). And once again, Black people STILL overwhelmingly voted BLUE even with all the odds still factored but the Dems definitely took a major hit with their lack of any specific Black agenda. By in large, many Black people this election cycle simply didn’t participate in voting. Or many who did vote, voted against the establishment of the Democratic Party or voted outside both parties and voted green or whoever else was an option. Lessons best be learned.

First go-round with Trump, we shouldn’t have still touted solidarity with anybody. Not non-white/non-Black groups, not even solidarity with other women. POC solidarity was never really a thing. It’s always been a myth. Because many non-Black people who are not white definitely identify as white because whiteness is about status, people. I’m certain those very people that were insulted on his campaign trial by the comedian still secretly voted for him while standing on the stage next to Harris the next day. Don’t be fooled.

And what I can’t get is just how seemingly surprised some still are with those exit poll figures. Georgia was the litmus this year. Which attests to how much power Black people have in swaying an election. We can capitalize on that fact going into future election cycles on all levels.

To reiterate, there is no Black and brown coalition. There’s no Black and brown solidarity. Everyone looks out for themselves (and so we are finally beginning to, too…we should’ve been on that). Those who immigrate to the US who cannot visually identify as white (melanated people) also aspire to whiteness and the idea determines how they’ll vote too. So unfortunately practicing and being antiBlack and holding antiBlack American sentiments and views is what some will exude and exercise.

These quotes are from decades ago but they reflect modern sentiment towards us.

Y’all gotta learn and remember this. We have centuries of proof with the suffrage movement, daughters of the confederacy and more. White women, in more modern times, have shown us not once, not twice but thrice when given an opportunity to be in favor of uniting with all women (Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump, during the midterms when Roe vs Wade was on the line and now Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump), that they will surrender and turn their backs on the whole “feminism” and back who they are extensions of. Their white male counterparts. Their whiteness comes above their gender. Liberal, progressive, conservative…it don’t matter, they all in huge numbers gave a huge middle finger to us.

And one thing white women will consistently do, is align themselves with their white male counterparts. They are extensions of their husbands/partners or fathers AND, they will place the white male patriarchy above their own feminism. Non-Black/non-white women will do the same in private. Squash the feminism, Black women and keep a conscious reminder that we are alone when it comes to other women. The interests of white women is white men. So no, they aren’t voting against their interests. They’ll allow their matriarchy to take a backseat because the overall of what gives them advantage over any other woman is their race and their proxy to the white patriarchy. They have proxy power by way of their white male partners and their white husbands, white fathers and white grandfathers and eventually, their white sons who will hold all the power so of course, voting as they do is their interests. Trump and what he represents literally is it. They actually aren’t voting against their interests because their main interests is the white men they are either associated with and by way. That will take precedent over their “feminism” and who they are as women even at the collective detriment of women’s rights (which they intersect with). They are operating just as they have. So nope, they did not vote against their own interests—this is their interests. Don’t forget this.

And to say misogyny was the sole reason for a lot of Black men not voting for Harris is pretty ridiculous. If anything, misogyny (misogynoir) is an outlier to the bigger problem of the Dems’ loss. Like STOP IT! Y’all won’t be attempting to inject this imaginary strife and gender war between us over this election. Absolutely not!

As Black American women, we can’t afford to get swindled into ideologies and movements of other women who voted in the very interests that they now want to pretend to disparage. We are not them. They are not us. Handle your own business and we’ll do the same.

So y’all will be seeing more of us really and truly minding our Black American community business. Don’t nobody call on us at all. We absolutely will be fighting our OWN battles and everyone else, y’all fight y’all’s own.

LEAVE US ALONE!

[ntls-24722]

Might be a weird question, but you know how humans tend to anthropomorphize animals and objects and such like in fiction?

Either by just giving them human language and thoughts, or by also making the animals/objects stand on two legs or an upright pose and more human like anatomy in the case with furries and such?

Or even give themselves features of animals like my sona with deer ears and legs and a long tail and such?

Or in ancient Egypt with the depictions of gods with animal heads

Or heck even just furries and fursonas

On Bolur, in any era, do the homo mousike ever anthropomorphize animals or objects in their art and stories? How would a Debu/Zebraman/elf fursona look like? How would they visually anthropomorphize other things in their art and stories?

I think about these things sometimes (when it comes to alien life/spec biology in general)

OOOOH. I LIKE THIS QUESTION A LOT.

So first: Yes, they anthropomorphize their animals and objects! Definitely now when their collective histories just began, but especially so in Zebraman culture all throughout their history, when their entire lives are centered around their animals (recent update, I need to flesh it out). Just about every zebraman god is animal-based because of it, and zebramen have way more societies focused on stewarding the land and its animals.

Debu anthropomorphize objects slightly more than other homo mousike - when nothing around you is your size, you relate to the things that are, and generally those things were the things made for you. They give them faces and have these masks or collective objects dedicated to concepts or people, or a particular figure is embued with a spirit of their own.

As for fursonas...

Ok, here on out, I'm gonna be calling them pycnofiberies, since everything here will be based on the night cloe. This is the debu Dog so I think this is a good candidate for furry-ization, and just for simplicity I'll use the night cloe for the zebrapeople anthros, too.

So, first thing off the bat - the most obvious anthromorphization for debu is sizing everything to their just like we do, it's just more obvious now that they're huge. The front teeth are usually really bunched together and seperate from the others on Bolur and while fusing together into beaks or tusks is common, the teeth are often seperate, like they are in night cloes. Debu often fuse them together to make them resemble tusks more ( since gaps in teeth are kind of uncanny to them) and add a beard, even if it's just stubble to their anthros, the same way we add our hair. They also add a mouthglow! In cartoons, Debu mouthglows sometimes are neon colored rather than just white as an exaggeration of the minute color differences in actual mouthglows, either to tell apart individual debu, as stylization or to be more obvious to the yellow-blue colorblind zebrapeople. (which is why yellow and green dyes are so rare - the species that develops the most dyes don't percieve greens and yellows very well.)

Also, a hump, in the same way we add boobs to everything regardless of the boobage in the actual animal. Humps in debu are attractive in both sexes, and are usually added regardless of the intent on making a character attractive.

And of course, for expressions, the nostrils are exaggeratedly large, no matter what animal it's on.

There's also the exaggeration of facial discs in night cloes the same way ears are in our furries, sometimes so extreme the edges jut out from the face. There's also a feature in a lot of "mary sues"/"gary stus" where the claws are overgrown - in Debu cultures, gods are often depicted with overgrown, curved hooves to demonstrate their age and "mythical-ness", as it's an occurrence in elderly debu but not a very common one. So, to show power, alongside a brightly glowing mouth, mary sue cloesonas have great, curved claws. There's also the "beastars" style hands, where they'll give their hooved hands to animals with little other animalistic detail.

Then there's cloe-girls and "angels"

Debu recognize facial discs as the ears of a cloe, but don't put them at their ears, they put them at the same place they see them - around the eyes. They have the same catgirl ear inaccuracies as us!

There's also angels, winged debu. They have the same gig as us where they just slap cloe wings on there without regard to homologous structures.

Now onto zebrapeople anthros!

Zebramen do the same thing as us, making their pycnofiberies stand on 4 or 6 legs rather than all 6 or 8 (depending on the -pedalism). Zebraelves though, as they are equally hexapodal as they are octopodal, do a mix of both, sometimes relating to sex - "drone" and "queen" pycnofiberies (they project their genders/sexes onto non-eusocial animals too) are often more hexapodal than their worker counterparts, as queen zebraelves are sometimes restricted to hexapodality on account of sometimes being too gravid to walk on all 8's, and drones just generally being found on cloeback or on the ground, where zebraelves usually assume a hexapodal posture. "Taurs" are also very common.

There's also the arm situation when it comes to night cloes specifically, because cloes generally have "plantigrade" forearms, while zebrapeople have "digigrade" forearms; their arm appears to have a second joint. Just like how we deal with digigrade legs in our furries, pycnofiberies have it either-or.

So - this is corny? (just because of the focus on stripes, the one thing that zebras are known for) but a beauty/aesthetically pleasing convention in zebrapeople is the "stripe continuation" comparable to how we like facial symmetry. It's attractive to them to have... geometric integrity with their stripes, which is why monobrows are seen as more attractive than broken brows. It's more exaggerated in zebraelves because their black and white stripes are more common, and they serve more of a purpose than they do in zebramen. Following this, cartoon zebrapeople's faces often are depicted with very simplistic X's, swooping stripes, or are made with "one line". So, abiding by toony laws, so are their pycnofiberies!

Their pycnofiberies have their eyebrows either following or coming off from a continued line, and their lip/nasal area is generally colored black, too, or the color of whatever follows the line. Night Cloes must be super common pycnofibersonas for zebrapeople the same way wolves are common fursonas, because wowza those facial discs follow stripe continuation really nicely.

(sidenote: i think zebrapeople would CONSTANTLY have weird looksmaxxing fads relating to the the geometric integrity of their stripes too, the same way looksmaxxing circles started fretting about canthal tilts and shit. it would get racist fast. just like us :') )

And, they do cloe-girls and angels the same way as us.

[tigreblvnc]

BLUE LOCK MATCHUP EXCHANGE — @isadollie

Your match is...

— Reo Mikage

✦ FIRST OF ALL, Reo is confident and a natural leader, he would have made the first move towards you and quickly made you feel comfortable.

✦ Okay, Reo would probably want to invite you to every restaurant you pass by.

✦ Shopping, shopping, SHOPPING!

✦ Especially for clothes!!!

✦ Because he loves your style and wants to contribute to it with his own touch.

✦ He might be a bit clingy deep down, but that's because he always has something to tell you and he loves spending time with you too much.

✦ He will learn to leave you alone in your moments of solitude...

✦ ... only to come back with tons of project ideas and gifts.

✦ The future doesn't scare him, on the contrary, ambitious as he is, he will show you the way to go and clear the path as you both progress together.

✦ I read that he is an ENTJ and that's an ideal match for any INTP/INFP. When you are scared, he reassures you, and when he is too buried in work, you know how to remind him to take a break and enjoy your time together.

✦ Look look look!! I read this description about Gemini and Leo: "Geminis and Leos make an ideal romantic pairing! Leos bring a bold energy, while Geminis match it with a free-spirited vibe. The match-up needs plenty of communication and patience to make the most of their emotional relationship."

✦ Do I have to add more? It confirms you're the best couple ever.

✦ Even when I look on the internet, Gemini and Leo are always like ☆~10/10~☆ AAAAAH

✦ I stan okay?

✦ Back to the matchup now...

✦ Reo is typically the one who executes your plans for you and he does it well, so you could rely on him and take a load off your shoulders.

✦ On his side, he appreciates your honesty and the fact that you know what you want: there's nothing worse for him than a wavering and indecisive person.

✦ Even though he is very direct in his approach, he would know how to temper you when you start to lose your composure a bit, and that includes comforting words and taking care of your needs.

✦ For me, Reo is not the type to go out of his way for people, he even prefers it when it's the other way around, but for you, he would learn to be attentive to your needs and remember your tastes to buy you expensive things.

✦ As with Nagi, he'd like to carry you on his back when you're sleepy.

✦ Reo is very future-oriented but knows how to keep his feet on the ground. He's good at bringing others back down to earth too.

✦ Besides, I can easily see him as the type who stays with the same partner forever because once he has found the right person, he never looks elsewhere again.

✦ And most importantly: he is definitely the one to confess first!!!

✦ He would do it in an ultra-direct and somewhat clumsy manner but without beating around the bush.

✦ "Anna? Go out with me." Yeah. Like REALLY.

✦ And you can be sure that he would be overprotective. The type to ask how your day went, what you learned, what you want to do this weekend... He can't stop.

✦ I imagined a trip to the amusement park, which might not be your thing at all but Reo would have deliberately chosen it because he thought it would be a great way to show you how to let go and enjoy the thrill.

✦ After all, he knows all about the thrill in football!

✦ Typically the boyfriend who takes you to all his matches and training sessions to show off in front of his teammates.

✦ His best reward? You cheering for him and welcoming him at the end of the day with a fresh drink.

✦ Nothing is better for him than to be acclaimed, especially by someone he respects and loves.

✦ After that, heading to a restaurant, of course!

✦ The little cuteness between you? Couple accessories!!

A word about your match: I don't know why I had Rin in mind when I first read your info, but Reo is definitely a better candidate since he's so much more talkative and caring. Hope you enjoyed it :)

© JAE-PUDDING 2024 | INTERESTED IN A MATCHUP EXCHANGE? CHECK THIS.

[alarrytale]

About ur post about Harry tm and harry, I feel like for harry it’s easy to comply bcos he’s known people in his management for ages now and is seen out with them at times when he could be by himself or alone

BUT ALSO because, he’s shown so much of himself for 5 years, maybe he jus wants to also be private. He may just not want people in his business. And not taking it saying bandmembers names also makes that easy unfortunately cos if he does they’re gonna be like oh so how’s Niall or how long has it been since you nd Louis chatted. I lowkey want Louis to take the same route to grow his career but I know he doesn’t mind and likes to be authentic.

Also are u BG? if so, what if Louis did sleep with Brianna and have F, that means Harry him and had some sort of break? Do you think that’s possible? Especially at that young age you’re going through SO MUCH, with all their breakup songs, do you believe they’ve never broken up as well? Because the emotional and words in their songs doesn’t seem like a small fight that jus happend. I feel like 2012-15 would’ve been a break BUT

During that time they’re getting tattoos during that time they’re serenading to each other during songs, rbb/sbb. Harry wearing the blue bandana….And then 2017 Jamaica or Louis being minutes away in 2016 to where Harry’s movie set was. Every year after the hituas all the proofs, hearing their voices in lou/lotties stories….. them being at the same events yet not pictured together, people close to them beint close with one another. It’s a bunch of stuff that contradicts them breaking up… all but F. Whether or not your bg… that’s Louis twin. I’m just wondering for you who believes they’ve never broken up (if that’s the case) idk like my heads a mess it makes no sense

Take F away and all thoses break up songs, they write from experience not from imagination. Yet it still doesn’t add in bcos again they did Alor of things that showed their fans they were together throughout the band. I cannot think of a time period where they were distant completely from eachother. But I also think F is Louis so I’m confused

I’m saying A lot sorrrrry

But lmk :)

Hi, anon!

You must be new to my blog, so first of all welcome! I'm going to try to address your different things point after point.

About H being papped with his managers. It's not compliance as much as it is contractual promo. You say he could be papped alone. I disagree, H was very much a promotional tool used by Full Stop to promote the newly started management company. Harry wore their merch and hung out with his managers because he was used as a tool to promote the management company to other artists. The management company must be good, because they manage Harry Styles! And i know who manages Harry Styles because he's wearing their merch and hangs out with them. They must have a really good relationship with their clients! It worked, because now Full Stop manages a lot of big names.

And about privacy (the p-word, that's actually sort of banned on this blog). Harry isn't a private person. He's closeted. That's a major difference. A private person don't want any attention on their person, they don't want to be seen or noticed and they want to live their life without being judged by others. A closeted person is forced to hide half of their life to the public, because society will treat them differently or they're under contracts that stops them from coming out. It can resemble wish for privacy, but it's really closeting. How to tell the difference between wish for privacy or closeting? Is the person queer and not in a postition to come out? Is the person attention seeking, papped in candid settings that seems private, papped with friends and family? Do we know the whereabouts of this person almost at all times, because the person is often seen out and about in public, taking pictures with fans, wearing bright clothing? Is the houses they own known to the public, the interior covered in tabloids? Do the person willingly share information about their life, who they're dating, the name of their grandmother, their godson, the cars they drive etc? If the only thing you feel like they're making private is their real love-life, their romantic and sexual relationship, then maybe consider closeting. In Harry's case it's also that they're trying to make him a legend and icon, so they've stopped doing fan service. That will make it seem like he's not as available and become more withdrawn and private. He's not, it's just a strategy to make him a legend. But in reality, he's overexposed and we see his face in tabloids every other week.

About bg. The first you need to do is to find out of it there is a possibility of L being straight, and if he broke up with H, called the paps from the Sun to pap him in full view with an attention seeking Trump-supporter the night of the conception. You also need to consider if bg serves a purpose. I know L is gay, i know he's with H and has been since 2010, i know bg serves a purpose and i was here when it all happened to see for myself how fake it is. I will also say that you're probably unconciously biased if you think F looks like Louis. But also, if you really think F is Louis' kid, would you think he'd abandon him like that and not relocate to L.A to be close to him and raise the kid? Considering his own father left him and how much we know L wants kids and loves kids?

And about using song lyrics as proof of larry being in a relationship or larry being broken off. Just don't use song lyrics as proof of anything. Treat it as fiction, even the lyrics that tells you what you want to hear and affirms your beliefs. H and L have a fourteen year old relationship that's really stable and frankly boring. There is no drama there to make into songs that will relate to teenagers and their fandom. So they make things up, they grossly exaggerate things and they draw inspiration from other's relationships. So i urge you to ignore every lyric you've ever heard from their mouths.

If you consider all this, what proof are you left with? What have you seen with your own two eyes? If you don’t listen to what the tabloids are telling you, what behaviour do H and L show you? Does L's behaviour towards F show you he's F's father? Does H's behaviour show you he's a private person or that he's simply a closeted artist trying to build a sustainable career? Is being papped in a remote village in Italy him being private? Being papped on the tube in Tokyo? Is tattooing the name of his godson or having his goddaughter on his song a sign of him wanting to protect their privacy and his own?

As much as it hurts fighting the gaslighting and lies, and coming to terms with H and L being forced to do things they don't want to do, taking advantage of a kid to hide their relationship and sexuality, it makes perfect sense when you consider all the proof and information we have available. It all sounds unbelievable, and that's why we're considered conspiracy theorists. But once you are able and ready to accept the truth, because that's the only thing that truly makes sense, the puzzle pieces will fall into place for you, and you'll be able to see the full picture.

[gentil-minou]

hi! I hope you’re doing ok! I’ve never written an ask before so I have no idea how to do this, but you’re one of the only people I follow who is posting about Palestine, so I wanted to ask. And as a brown person I’m really worried rn.

Elections are next year and I’ve seen so many saying that people should vote for Biden because he’s at least better than Trump which is… I don’t know what to say, but it’s completely absurd. This is going to be my first time voting and all I get from people is the same “lesser of two evils” rhetoric. It’s genuinely disheartening to see that these are the only options that are shown to people. I was wondering about what you think of what’s happening, and whether voting third party seems possible

I’m sorry if this was rude to ask you, but thanks for taking the time to read this!

It's not rude, I'm glad I made you feel safe enough to ask this!

I only have one answer for you: Do not let anyone tell you who to vote for or make you feel like an evil person if you choose not to vote for the person they want you to.

Vote, definitely vote!!! Especially in local elections, those are the best ways to get people you want in power and they are in charge of a lot of important changes.

As for the presidential elections, I've had so many people I thought I admired or at least felt comfortable around attack me for my choice not to vote for Biden. I've had people claim I was spreading "pro-Trump propaganda" (which is just ridiculously bad faith in all ways), tell me that I—a queer POC—am anti-LGBTQ, and tell me I'll be deported.

They do this all while ignoring and invalidating the very real anger and hurt the Muslim and Brown populations of the US are dealing with, all because their comfort is being threatened. And instead of pressuring the party that's doing that harm and try to listen to why we feel so betrayed by Biden, they double down and attack us. In fact, they are showing their true colors. They, like Biden, only ever pretended to care about us. So I am going to vote for people who actually do care about me, even if they say I'm going to "waste my vote"

Here's the thing; as long as you vote for who you feel the most supported by, as long as you go into that voting booth and step out feeling good about your vote, then you are not wasting it.

Putting this under a read more cause it's getting long

Personally, I'm voting third party. I've had my eye on the Socialist Party but am also keeping an eye out for the others and whether or not they stand out to me

At this point, unless the DNC decides to put another candidate forward, which they most definitely won't, the Democratic party has lost me forever. I'm lucky that my Dem representative has at least shown they're on the right side of history, but I don't think I will ever vote for the Dem party again. I've forced myself to do it for the last decade and I've been disappointed or betrayed every time, so no more.

I agree this two party system is a joke and we are all being made to be a part of it when no other democratic nation has something like this. Even other countries say our "progressive" party is just centrist. And that just doesn't reflect my values.

Liberals and "vote blue no matter who" are going to tell you that you're wasting your vote by voting third party, but in actuality they are the ones supporting a flawed system that only benefits itself, not the people. The more people who vote third party, the more the dems will be pressured to put forth progressive candidates like AOC or Rashida who are actually on the left. By voting third party, you are saying you won't stand by a broken system any longer

does this mean Republicans might win and we get another trump administration? Yes, probably, but here's the thing: when you look at the last 3 years, and I mean really look at it, have things improved all that much under biden? I, as a queer poc can't say that it has. Both are evil, one just pretends not to be. At this point I see no difference between Trump and Biden. Both don't give a shit about me.

The lesser of 2 evils is still evil, why vote for them? Why would I vote for either of them?

Why would I reward anyone who support genocide and cheers for it? Both Trump and Biden openly do. Their only difference is Biden is a better actor.

If my people were the ones being slaughtered (and they were. For a long long time they were), would I be okay with sitting back and letting these parties walk all over me? No, I don't think I would be.

The fact of the matter is that change does not come fast or easy. These things take time and pressure and a refusal to give in. Voting for Biden after all the horrible things he's done the past couple years is just rewarding a system that is fundamentally broken. You can keep trying to chug along on a broken wheel hurtling you towards doom, or you can take the time to force it to change.

I do believe the younger vote has a big chance to change things, to pressure our government to actually support its people, not just the white ones with money.

Ultimately you get to decide who to vote for. Use your right to vote, don't ignore it and don't waste it by voting for someone you don't actually believe in.

[my-plastic-life]

A(nother) Feudal Fairy Tale: Behind the Scenes

Welcome to the behind the scenes footage of creating my Azone Pure Neemo Character Kagome Higurashi! To see the photo gallery, click here!

Step one: Make sure the outfit can be made. Because this will all be in vain if that can’t be done. Once again, I consulted my dear friend Elenpriv and asked if she could make a second Kagome uniform (she’d made the one for the Barbie body) for a Blythe body (Azone Pure Neemo doll bodies are identical to Blythe, or at least very close). She said yes! WOO!

Side note: Azone has made several outfits for their dolls, including a lot of sailor style school uniforms. They’re perfect - but none of them are green! There is a dark blue/navy one, a black one, I think a red one... all kinds of options, but not a green one. Dang it! LOL

Anyway, next up was finding the perfect doll candidate. I didn’t want to use one of the actual character dolls because, well, they’re already a character from another series lol. So my first step was looking at all the 1/6 scale dolls with black hair. Creating a doll without a reroot was ideal.

There were several options to choose from, but even though they had black hair, there were some other issues.

For one, Kagome’s face is more “pointed” than round. I felt this particular face/head shape was too round.

I did start with her, but the slightly smaller mouth just didn’t say Kagome to me lol, especially when I kept looking at these pictures for reference:

So on to the next candidate! This one is nice, she has a nice face shape and a wider mouth:

I like her, but... her eyes don’t go quite high enough, I don’t think. And I need a template, since I can’t draw to save my life, so I wasn’t going to remove the eyes and start from scratch. She also has a side part, and try as I might, I couldn’t get the bangs to shape properly to hide it. I kept her on the back burner just in case, though. I looked into a couple of other ones like these two:

But they both have dark brown hair, not black. And the second one has too round of a face as well.

I went back to my original choice and attempted to style the hair. Well, one thing about Azone dolls - their hair is saran. That means it doesn’t work with heat very well, and it’s hard to style (or dye, apparently). At least, that’s been my experience. Nylon hair works much better, and is much more heat-resistant.

So at this point, I figured I’d have no choice but to do a reroot. Luckily for me, I’d already done a complete reroot with Olivier Mira Armstrong. So this would be my second one!

But I still needed a doll. As I looked at option number 3 more, I absolutely loved her face. The shape was right, and she had the wider smile. All of these dolls would have the same issue of needing their eyes repainted due to how their irises are compared to Kagome, so I wasn’t even looking at that.

Well, I didn’t want to buy one of these dolls (they’re designed for collectors, so they’re not just cheap play line ones you can get off a shelf - plus they’re all from Japan, which raises the price tag) just to “tear up.” So I looked in my stash and discovered I had two of one doll, and it happened to be the one with that face! So here’s the winner:

Her hair is actually the same color as mine in real life lol. That’s super hard to find... but not with Azone! They’ve designed several with that hair color, to which I say hallelujah. I’ve seen maybe two Barbies with that hair color. Come on, Mattel, get with it!

Anyway, the first step was to make sure I could pull off the reroot. I’d repainted Kagome’s face before (plus Sango’s, which is pretty much the same except for pink eyeshadow as well), so you’d think I’d be an expert at that. (More on that later).

I cut the hair off and then used small needle nose pliers to pull out the rest. Azone doll heads, it seems, don’t have glue on the inside - the hairs were all kind of weaved together inside the head. And there was one large piece where the part was that kind of held it all together, so I was left with a larger hole than I liked when I got all the hair out. But I did use some Loc-Tite to close it, just to be safe, and it seemed to be okay.

Next I painted the scalp black to match the hair she’d be getting. Of course, I forgot to use acetone to remove the original paint, and then I forgot to seal the black paint. So during the reroot process, it kept chipping away. Oops. I’m still new at this lol. Fortunately, you can’t see any of that with the final product.

So, during this rerooting process, I kept reminding myself of how I had to go back and add more hair to Olivier a few times because I’d made it too thin. So this time I went all out, even though most rerooters say you don’t have to plug every single hole (even though the factory did)... there’s a head in here somewhere LOL.

Once I was finished with all that hair, it was time for the boil wash. It never fails - whenever I do this, loose hairs that didn’t get plugged always come out. I need to figure out a method to prevent that, as well as prevent the hair from becoming a big stringy mess during the reroot process.

Of course, I probably should have taken a batch of hair and cut it so it didn’t wind up this long because I knew I’d have to cut it anyway:

Anyway, once the boil wash was done, it was time to do the bangs. Bangs have always been tricky for me. I don’t know how I managed to give my Anastasia Steele bangs without much of an issue... but perhaps it was because I used the method in this video, which I repeated for Kagome. I got them cut into shape (and again, they have such an odd shape compared to other characters - they’re almost triangular whereas all the other girls have straight bangs), then used the method in the video to get them to lay flat. When the face was done, I used some of my Volks doll hair spray to help the bangs stay in place.

Speaking of the face, that came next (I cut the hair first to make it easier to work with, with the intention of styling it later). Another difference between Azone dolls and other dolls I’ve worked with (particularly Barbie and Disney Store) - their eyes are stickers. Maybe other dolls are too now, but these particular stickers come off very easily if you rub them with a toothpick. Which I tend to do quite often when painting doll faces/eyes because inevitably some paint will stray from the brush and go where I don’t want it.

But I did use this to my advantage because the doll I chose had eyes with lashes that were pointing outward a little too far to match Kagome’s shape. So I used my toothpick to remove them, giving the eyes a more rounded appearance.

My original goal was to just draw over the eyes already in place, essentially changing the color from light brown/gold to dark brown. Well, Azone doll eyes have large pupils and smaller irises, and the white parts are smaller yet. The Inuyasha art style is different, with a large white part going from the top to the center of the eye, surrounded by a little bit of black and an almost horseshoe shape made up of two different shades of the iris color. Yeah, I studied that a lot. :D Plus, in many instances, Kagome’s eyes don’t look perfectly round, but more oval/oblong. But I did have to work with the shape of the sculpt/eye socket of the doll, so I tried to give her the appearance of having the “taller” eyes with the shape of the iris. And then there was the fun issue of getting those eyes even and the same size! I literally painted over the entire original eye with white paint, then went back in with the blacks and browns. I did discover that watercolor pencils will color on acrylic paint, so that helped me sketch out the design and go over it with paint again. It took some time, but finally, the face was ready! Mod Podge sealer applied!

The next step was styling the hair. You’d think I’d have it down by now, but noooo. Kagome has the most complicated hair of all the Inuyasha girls, I think. Sango and Kikyo have simple hairstyles and straight bangs. Kagome has triangular shaped hair all the way around. It ends at a point in the back, as do the bangs. Sigh.

So I got the hair trimmed into the proper shape using a layering method, which made her look like she stuck her finger in a light socket in the process. :D Once I was satisfied with the shape/length, I attached the head back onto the body, which already had the uniform on. Success!

Except...

The hair looked too thick, and a few people confirmed this when I showed it to them. Yeah, I was so worried about not having to add more hair later that I actually added too much.

It was also too long at this point as well. So then I was frantically trying to figure out how to salvage the situation without completely starting over. Some people suggested using a razor to thin it out. Yeah, I think they meant a straight razor like a barber uses, because my Dollar Shave Club razor didn’t work very well...

Then someone suggested shearing scissors. I’d previously purchased a hair styling set with two types of scissors (one of which was shearing) and combs. I’d never used those scissors before, because I didn’t know how the heck they worked. So I dug them out and used a practice doll to see what they did. And they did what I needed them to! Instead of cutting the length of the hair, it just cuts pieces to thin it out.

So I took these shearing scissors to the hair and made it a lot less bulky. Then I used my curling iron (and a spray bottle to get the hair completely soaked to be safe) to help shape the hair in the back. Of course, that’s easier said than done... there’s that pointy shape at the end, but the primary view will be from the front, so I had to be wary of that as well. And I didn’t want to cut too much, either. Kagome’s hair is most often seen above the waist, about mid-back under her green collar. It’s definitely shorter than Inuyasha’s. I was afraid I’d cut it too short when I applied the curling iron, but I took some of the curl out a bit and it seems to be okay now. Whew! I really didn’t want to have to redo all that... why didn’t I just send the head off to be rerooted professionally? Because I hate the post office and don’t trust them not to lose the head, and these dolls are, again, meant for adult collectors, so they’re not cheap. No way was I risking losing it. Plus, I wanted more practice anyway, and it did save me money. A professional reroot is worth it, but for this doll, I wanted to do it all by myself (except the uniform because no way can I do that lol).

So, finally, after playing with the hair a bit, I added some of the Volks spray and mousse (used to prevent flyaway strands), and she was ready! Woo!!!

But she wasn’t done yet! She still needs her accessories. :D She’ll be sharing her backpack and bike with my Barbie size Kagome, but I wanted to give her a bow for sure and maybe even some better arrows. Well, what luck - hubby got me a 3D printer for Christmas! And I managed to find a 3D print file for Kagome’s bow, arrows, and quiver on Etsy! These were cosplay size, but the seller was able to size them down for 1/6 scale for me. (The seller has since closed her shop, so I can’t post the link here, unfortunately.) Those little arrows were super delicate, but they look better than my first batch! Well, the arrow heads do, anyway. My first batch was the perfect size all the way except the arrowheads, which I attempted to replicate out of Crayola Model Magic. And it didn’t look good lol. So now I’ll probably try to print some more heads and glue them to the Barbie ones so they look better.

But first, let’s get the Azone one done, shall we? Because these were all 3D printed, they were one solid color and needed to be painted. Well, that was easy. I’d kept notes of all the colors and color combinations I’d used for my other dolls, so I just dug those out again and got to work. I glued some thin twine around the quiver like before, as well as a strap to go over Kagome’s shoulder. The bow string is made of black thread.

(Notice how she has her finger pointing to guard her aim! See - interchangeable hands!!!)

I painted one arrow head to look like a sacred arrow. :D We attempted to print probably six or eight arrows, but some of them fell apart because they’re just so fragile. The heads survived, though, so they’ll be good experiments for the Barbie arrows lol.

So, remember how I said Azone dolls are meant to have their hands changed? Yeah, that made for some awesome posing. Kagome can actually properly hold her bow and arrows now! (Okay, the Barbie can too, but removing those hands requires heat and more muscle since they’re not designed to be removed like that.)

I’d originally planned to give Kagome a 26cm Obitsu body. The Inuyasha doll is about 30cm, so 26cm would be about right for Kagome if we’re going in terms of actual height. The Barbie is technically a bit tall, but I’m still satisfied with her. Plus she has the proper skin tone to match the Inuyasha doll. The Azone dolls have two skin tones - flesh and white. Both are much more pale than the Inuyasha doll, so she’d wind up looking more like Kikyo in the long run. Same with Obitsu bodies.

Anyway, why didn’t I go with the Obitsu body? Well, all would have been fine if the shoes had fit. :D Obitsu feet are wider/larger than Azone, despite the bodies being almost identical in height. So with her socks on, the shoes would not go on the Obitsu feet. So back to the original Azone body! But hey, she’s a “true” Azone Pure Neemo Character Series doll now - all the character dolls have either Pure Neemo Flection (this one) or Emotion (more articulation but significantly smaller/thinner) bodies, so this makes her accurate to the series. And she’s not really meant to go with the Inuyasha doll, honestly; she’s my interpretation of another doll line that I love. And many of those dolls only have character made from the series, not all of them. There are a few exceptions like K-ON! and Love! Live! Sunshine! But mostly, it’s just one character like Nezuko and Asuna.

Size comparison to the 12″ collector doll and the Barbie size Kagome I made to go with him:

So for that reason as well, I am not going to make more Azone dolls lol. Or at least, I don’t plan to... we know how that goes LOL. But for right now, I’m content with my Azone Kagome! She may not be perfect, but I’m proud of myself for doing everything completely on my own (except the uniform). It makes her even more special!

[datastate]

9, 19 (even tho I know already ehe) aaaand 32 :3

9: do you have a "type"? if so, what is it?

i have felt romantic attraction three (3) times in my entire life, so i fear there isn't yet enough data for this to be conclusive... but i will say! i've never fallen for a blonde person, fiction or otherwise. which is more than my good sibling kid of streets fame can say <3

for a more serious response though, my standards are depressingly low & i feel it's a bit amusing that so few people have really been considered in my mind as actual candidates for a romantic relationship - even before i develop romantic attraction, i've sometimes tried to decide if it's worth pursuing based on a few different factors... though i'm shy to put the details of that here. romance has never been a very important part of my life, but in terms of wanting a long-lasting relationship, it is the most viable option for most who do experience romantic attraction more often than i, and i'd want to be prepared if the question does come.

& for all the jokes, aesthetic attraction plays a very little part in whether or not i'd want someone as my partner. many people pursue me based solely on appearances, and it's certainly made clear to me how shallow it feels to have that as a significant point of interest.

19: describe your fashion sense. do you "dress gayly"?

HOW RUDE...!! ...i may dress gayly, but that is BESIDES THE POINT!!

aheem. in any case. my wardrobe is primarily filled with reds, blacks, and dark purple/blue hues. i typically prefer clothing with a more formal feel to them, often long-sleeved, and i rarely go without wearing my gloves! i do have a few short-sleeved shirts which have fanciful designs on them or where the sleeve hangs nicely... i need to get a new vest, though. and i'd love to buy more skirts (or loose pants that hang like skirts)

in the past, i used to wear much simpler styles. jeans with a leather jacket, hoodie, or a flannel. i still have my first girlfriend's flannel in my closet bwehehe... it's been there for years.

but of course...! when i'm at home, i typically opt for what is the most comfortable, so i end up reusing the same few outfits if i know i'm not heading out that day :P it's usually simple formal black pants & whatever soft shirt i have around.

as many of my friends have claimed... i dress & speak as though i'm... "a victorian dandy" ... devastating.

32: tell a funny story about something really gay you've done.

haggardly lights my cigarette... 🚬

you've already heard the story of my first gf and i taking literal weeks to kiss each other on the mouth, during which we'd meet after school every day in a secluded spot between school walls, just in front of the student council room... so i shall choose another!

when i was a young dyke, see, there was this lovely girl (soon to discover. they're not a girl. but that's unrelated) i'd met during summer courses (to get academic credits early) and quickly grew fond of. we had a bit of a thing going on here, and they eventually invited me to the "anime club" (& book club + the origami club that they started up. but that's unimportant right now) since i stayed after school anyhow in the library to finish work/etc. and they wished to spend more time with me.

when i went to the anime club, it was primarily their friend group. i was extremely nervous of being the only one who didn't know them, especially as i'd transferred late to the school; but they quickly warmed up to me, and throughout the year, we all came to realize we were gay or trans in some manner.

one person's realization was. through her crush on me, which i somehow didn't realize i was the cause of when i saw her instagram & announcement she was bisexual & her sudden uptick in calling me "honey."

the time it actually registered for me that "oh! this is not just a joke about everyone in this club being gay girls!" was when we finished the final episode of death note. after discussing it, she said that she loved my words & picked me up, twirled me around, and carried me out of the classroom "bridal style" -- my friend stole some flowers from one of the planters to put in our hair when she finally set me down in the courtyard. i was so embarrassed, but it was very fun <3

anyway. dn is gay but not for the reason people think. it's because i permanently associate it with one of the most flustering moments of my entire life, during which i accidentally put my face in her tits multiple times 👍

[xeilon]

Why? No! No! Valeria!

I've seen people speculating about who is her before, how she must have been a fellow Dax soldier to Teshin, who lost her life protecting the Orokin against the Tenno, or, perhaps one of the Golden Lords themselves, massacred, with him being able only to watch.

However, I don't think she would have been any of those things, in fact I don't think she died during the fights at all.

I came up with this theory while rewatching the Duviri Paradox trailer and especially from the comment made during the Devstream, that Teshin will be an important character to the Duviri plot.

So, I'm gonna start at the end, saying it now, evidence under the picture, that this lady IS Valeria herself, or at least the person who is meant to represent her in Duviri.

And I hear you saying: "You lost your mind!"

And all I have to say to this is "I've been non-stop thinking about a character that was name-dropped once, and was relevant for 10 full seconds with literally 0 information on her other that her name, FOR 2 WEEKS, OF COURSE I LOST MY FUCKING MIND. "

Now, having that covered, the promised evidence:

The Yuvan Theatre

The first time we hear about the Yuvan theater is during the War Within quest. Teshin describes it like this:

"A Yuvan theater, long abandoned. In ages past, I would have stood guard as the young and exotic were paraded through the mountain pass and marched by the viewing pane. They'd barter here, the Orokin. Withering and coughing as they prepared for their Continuity."

Part of the ceremony was described by Ordis like this:

"A harpish voice sings a song they've prepared in my honor. Its title the same as mine: 'Beast of the Bones'. I feel the crowd pulled inward, enraptured by the brutal verses, the sickening chorus."

Teshin, as a guard of the Golden Lords, would have had every chance to meet, talk, and have a close relationship with one of the singers of the theater, especially considering his own interests.

He gives us advice about our choices in a poem, one that he starts quoting even under the veil, he talks in riddles and verses, he believes having your mind be as sharp as your blade is a must, it's not at all out of character for him to be fascinated by this part of the Orokin's culture, and to seek out someone who can tell him all about it.

Faces of Duviri

Duviri is full of new, and old, faces, however only a few of those were important enough to appear in the trailers. Dominus Thrax, Bombastine, Teshin, and the singer who entertains Dominus.

In Duviri Dominus clearly meant to represent the Orokin, ruling above all, while everyone else is hoping for him to look at them favorably, and don't make their lives miserable. I believe Duviri is a world meant to torment those who entered it, most obviously by ridding the world of color.

The Drifter also has to parade around as the person, who he despises the most - Dominus - and Teshin? Well, he has to listen to the singing from far away.

(Interesting how the only 2 "places" that naturally have color in Duviri are Teshin's cave, and around the opera singer.)

(Even more interesting, is that if you go close to the Lone Guardian in a Conjunction Survival mission, you can hear her singing.)

The young and exotic

Another interesting thing in Duviri is how the citizens are the ones who look like the Orokin. Blue skin, one arm longer than the other, clothes inspired by Ancient Greece...

If Valeria looked like the singer in Duviri, then she must have been a perfect candidate for Continuity, wouldn't she?

And when the Veil started working on Teshin, the first thing it reminded him of were the lines of the Litany of the Dax that tell you to be patient, and do nothing, and just see how things turn out.

The Veil

A strange thing about the Veil is that it doesn't make you focus on a bad memory, but it very specifically turns memories "inside out".

When the Drifter got theirs the Veil would have had a much easier time reminding us of all those time when the Lotus abandoned us, when Margulis lied to us, but no, it instead started rewriting our memories of Margulis, to fit better with Ballas' fairy tale.

This tells me that memories seen by the Veil are fake, even if they are based on truth. However, Teshin was fighting against the influence of it, so there's a good chance that what he says is based on truth.

But... what does he say exactly?

Why? No! No! Valeria!

Why? Why would he ask "why" like that when the Tenno are killing the Dax and the Orokin around him left and right. There isn't really a question there, and even if there was, wouldn't that be angry? That "why" just sound... I don't know... not one said in the middle of the battlefield, but when something catches you completely off guard.

The whole thing sounds more like "I refuse to believe what you just said to me" rather than "how dare you kill her / oh no, she's dead".

"I-I can... see her... Tenno... why???"

Now, this is where things turn VERY good. Can you HEAR the amount of focus put on the word SEE?

This line to me obviously was said when the Tenno killed the Orokin, that used Valeria's body as their own. But something was out of place, which is that Teshin associates her with VOICE, the opera singer who he listened to for years while on duty, and he knows when "she" dies that he only SEES her at that moment.

He is confused at that memory, he was confused when it happened, knowing that Valeria was dead, yet seeing her die again, in the hands of the Tenno. And that's what the Veil can use, turning him against us. However, just like how the Drifter could tear down their mask, because of the absurdity of what they were hearing, that Ballas was the one who loved and saved them, well, Teshin too knew and felt how absurd all of it was, the anger and broken trust in the Orokin, hearing the voice of the one who gave Valeria the Kuva clashing with false memories.

And so he broke free, just to then fall into the Duviri, where a familiar tune started playing in that very moment.

[kyogre-blue]

Djdjjd oh yeah I remember that, I squinted at Diluc like "are you trying to throw me off the trail? Even if it weren't p obvious it's Venti, I'd literally just need to pick up a book and see the discrepancy?" Then I remembered that this is Mr "between eating a cryo slime alive or joining the fatui I'd prefer to be crushed to death by a meteorite" So subtle is, hm, shall we say, Not his middle name. But! If Diluc could indeed be subtle, that could have been the set-up to a diversion so you'd start looking into to what Diluc may be hiding instead of any possibly-the-wind-god-in-disguise candidates! (yes I know it's a typo but I like yarn-spinning :3)

Oh glad to know there was buildup to Azhdaha bc when I played Zhongli's second quest I did feel like the dragon came all but completely out of left field haha... like was I supposed to feel sad when I didn't get the backstory until the very end and Zhongli was so unemotional abt it? Like yeah I know Zhongli's Just Like That but idk, Venti's desesperate "no, listen to me!" still lives rent free in my brain (like yeah he literally says "you don't have to listen to me" in the end cutscene and it's a direct contradiction so they changed the text in the subtitles, but the delivery was amazing. Venti sounded so pained, I'm not even mad about them leaving the soundbit in) and compared to that Azhdaha just felt like an inferior copycat of Dvalin :/ ik I have the bad habit of comparing every region to Mond, but...

Also I had seen a lot of fans talking abt Guizhong so I came out of the quick-start lantern rite expecting her to at least get mentioned on his story quests lmfao, silly me. Though I may have just been inatentive bc there was like. 0 incentive in archon quest to explore liyue and I had been actively holding back on exploring bc I felt salty about being used like a cheap rag by EVERYONE throughout the ENTIRETY of the archon quest (except for Xiao and the adepti I guess, thank u funny pompous supernatural animals u kept it real) so I was like "you're asking me how do I find this region without an absentee archon? well I wouldn't be able to tell you bc I'M NOT GONNA FIND OUT. Bitch." I feel a bit dumb though because I DID do The Secret of Nantianmen before the Zhongli quests but I have absolutely no recolection of the infodump. Like, straight up, reading through the screenshots with the weird blue haired girl and not getting even deja vu. I remebered the tree bc it's blue-veined and huge and there was a hecking seelie I lost like twice on the branches, but not anything abt the dragon rip.

Djdjdj fair, I have heard THINGS about inazuma and raiden ei (especially from my sister, who's behind me in story despite starting several months earlier bc she's vehemently avoiding inazuma lmfao) but idk, I guess I just like picking up the shiny bits and holding them to the light. Sure, there's stuff I dislike about every region! But there's stuff I like about every region too! I try to focus on that :) reading your posts is super interesting for a more critical perspective though! (And yknow it's actually refreshing for someone to actually give the sideye to Zhongli, instead of the 1000th "haha venti cares more about getting drunk than Mondstadt" abyssmal take)

Wow though, the archon quest ending without removing the sakoku decree is REALLY awful though—I was already feeling like they were pushing it too much by forcing you to do both raiden story quests to unlock literally ANY inazuma characters, but they're pushing it even MORE? And is it me or does Inazuma have, aside from NPC-itis, a subset of the same problem in liyue that it's hard to get attached to the characters? You're basically forced at gunpoint to get close to Ayaka, and Thoma left a. rather bad first impression, shall we say, by leaving you stranded in Ritou with no way to get out. and by act 3 we've barely even met the major players in the war, like Gorou (I like him bc he's fluffy and obviously cares abt his men, and I've had him for a couple of months so I was excited abt finally meeting him, but still) Sara and Kokomi. I was more interested in Kazuha bc I thought the prologue did a fairly good job setting up who he is, what he wants, what he believes in (plus I outright cackled at his intro by beidou djdjdj) but he's literally not even relevant in his own region's archon quest? Straight up vanished until the very end of act 2? Why?? And now you tell me that literally none of what he tells us in the prologue ends up ever being relevant? like what the heck was hoyo thinking :/ that many red herrings with no payoff should be illegal

I have been told (cannot confirm) that Zhongli actually emotes in other languages, but the EN dub is... hahaha.

Anyway, there's a few things here that I've thought about a lot.

One, Genshin has a really bad habit of only giving you context AFTER the climax, which renders the entire quest preceding it just floating meaninglessly in the wind and leaves the actual climax with no impact cause you haven't gotten the context for it yet. Venti's quest is like that (as much as I enjoy it), Zhongli's quests are largely like that, Inazuma archon quest is like that, etc. This is a really obvious tell for the writers being too amateur to pace/structure their story correctly, the writers having no time to do a second draft to fix the pacing issues, or both.

Two, Azhdaha is a massive writing disaster not just in terms of the quest's pacing (let's spend the entire time on tracking down some miners... what is buildup or foreshadowing), but especially in terms of its message and implications. A developer interview video explicitly says that Azhdaha is meant to be a nature vs human progress aesop. And it ends with... "nature" (Azhdaha) being sealed away while suffering endlessly ("A thousand years of pain!") and going "no, you're right, I totally deserve to be sealed away, do it," while the humans learn nothing and face no repercussions for the damage they have done for now generations. (Seriously, there are multiple instances where Liyue's mining caused supernatural problems. It just keeps happening.)

Is this how you do a nature aesop. Is it really.

There is also a throughline in Genshin about the gods doing third party racism on behalf of humans. You get to Azhdaha and he is basically tortured by reckless human expansion and yet it's all his fault and he's the only one who faces consequences. You get the oni in Itto's quest, who have to make bizarre concessions to live with humans. You get the vishaps being a sentient race and the original native population of Teyvat, but due to the gods, they've been forced into the underground and mutated due to contact with the Abyss. Even Dvalin, while it's still okay with him because that's not the focus of his story, we never get the people of the city acknowledging him as more than a monster, which would have been nice, since the whole thing was kicked off by them rejecting him.

I really don't like it because people don't need to be coddled like this. They should be made aware of their mistakes and learn to be better.

Three, Inazuma is a hilarious mess.

See, every nation's story is about the archon. The archon is the most important character and the one we're supposed to care about the most. They're the heavy weight banner that's both meta as fuck AND emotionally appealing. Venti is obvious, but even Zhongli is like... the one actual character in Liyue, who is around the most and has the most complexity and impact.

But then we get to Inazuma. Ei is the final boss, so we can't buddy up with her. We don't even see her except in two boss battles, and then she dumps out her backstory in a poorly integrated animation and the story ends.

And then, the very next thing, is we go on a date with her around town. She likes sweets! She doesn't know what fiction is! She needs you, the player, you stud, to teach her about life! Isn't she so waifu?

And a good chunk of the player base went, "excuse me, what the hell."

The writers really wanted you to go "so maybe she caused a civil war and untold suffering with her negligence and selfishness, but have you considered... I love her??" And that's fine and normal. Fans do that, I do that. Insert Legend of Galactic Heroes meme.

The problem was that the writers did not bother writing Ei into the archon quest enough for people to feel anything for her. They did the opposite, they wrote a whole lot about how much all these NPCs are suffering. So naturally, what people care about is those NPCs and their suffering.

Which Ei's story quests entirely skip over. It's just never addressed.

This gets pretty funny if you look at Sumeru because the writers were obviously aware of the issue, and they tried to patch over it.

You see Nahida a lot in the Sumeru archon quest. She's around for a bunch of the stuff going on. The thing is, Nahida is SO able to move around and do her own thing that it begins to cause dissonance with the narrative they give her (CAGED BIRD METAPHOR). We're concerned later that she got "caught" by Dottore, but this doesn't correlate with freeing her from the Sanctuary of Surasthana. I believe we don't even discuss it until after Dotorre? Because before that, she's just too able to do stuff, so it doesn't really feel like she's locked up.

But the Sages sealing her is then treated like their worst crime (even though they just inherited the situation lol). It's not that they're encouraging people go insane from forbidden knowledge or causing so many scholars to have emotional breakdowns from the pressure or mistreating the desert people. Oh no, we're against them because they were mean to Nahida. But Nahida... was cool with it basically? She could travel around, she could talk to people, she was too fine for this to be impactful even if logically it wasn't nice.

Don't even ask why we're so set on making her the archon ruler. I don't think we even ask her if she wants to do that.

The writers made Nahida present in the story a whole bunch, but they didn't really make her a good character. If anything, her presences raises a whole lot of questions while not contributing much.

(It worked tho, people are totally up in arms about their "radish daughter.")

It's similar for everyone else in Sumeru. They're around a whole lot. But the emotional core of the story is still pretty much entirely NPCs. It's Dunyarzad, it's Setaria, it's the kid whose keeper grandpa was taken, it's Rahman. They're the ones who actually care about what's going on and emote about it.

People say Sumeru is better writing, but imo it's just longer. The core issues are pretty much all the same, just dragged out and more tedious.

[mitchfynde]

I agree with some of what you're saying and I disagree with other parts, some parts vehemently. The talking point about the primaries being rigged... it just doesn't work for me. This was not an example of it being rigged, because there flat out was no primary. There was nothing to rig. Since timing was short, they chose the VP. It's the most obvious choice, as it's the person people already technically voted for when they cast their ballots for Biden.

Another thing about the primaries is that parties don't owe you those in the first place. You can choose to vote for whichever party or independent you want. The parties don't owe you a separate democratic process for choosing their candidate. Simply don't vote for their candidate if you don't like who they chose. That's what happened this time around, clearly.

Sorry, that topic is just a pet peeve.

The assumption of "vote blue no matter who" was definitely wrong and I definitely agree it was a problem. I believe the reason they tried so hard to court moderate Republicans is because they probably were aware of the fact that public perception of the party right now is that they are too far left, as funny as that is to anyone on the left.

Honestly, I think it's hard to energize the Democrat or leftist voters. The leftist media sphere is very anti-America and anti-electoral politics. They mock the idea of voting. They are embarassed to support the candidates, as they view them as an extension of the colonizer state that they loathe so much. I don't have as much insight on why it's hard to energize the moderate left, true Democrats, but I'm sure someone out there knows.

Republican voters certainly don't have a monopoly on being dumb or voting based on emotion. I would certainly never claim that everyone who votes Democrat are intellectuals. Hell, even some of the people who ARE intellectuals voting for the Democrats are people I'd consider dumbasses. People who rallied behind Kamala while still insisting that she was genocidal come to mind.

THAT BEING SAID, I do sort of resent what you said about Democrat voters being histrionic. Voting for the guy who tried to steal the previous election sets a very scary precedent. Especially if you have any knowledge about how it was done. And it seems like the fears of what kind of administration he'd run are already proving to be correct, based on who he is nominating.

The Republicans are, right now, more fanatical and fundamentalist than they've been in awhile. Abortion already got flipped to the states. Trans issues have been center stage for years, primarily because of right wing media keeping it there. It's a scary time if you have any progressive values whatsoever. And those fears are not at all unfounded. The same cannot be said for the opposite side.

For your short list:

Don't agree with your phrasing, but I agree with you on the optics. It was definitely a bad move to skip the primaries, but I wonder if Biden stepping down so late sort of doomed them regardless.

They definitely need to energize their base more.

Appealing to Republicans certainly didn't work this time, although I think it should still be done. Biden had some success with it.

The smugness angle certainly needs to be addressed, but it's difficult with such a huge double standard in demeanor between the parties.

Wasn't even aware they scapegoated minorities, but if they did that certainly isn't a good play either.

I personally like the DNC, but they need a big refresher on strategy going forward. I have some confidence they'll at least have a better attempt next time. If they lose again this brutally, it will be crazy, but that's assuming USA has any more elections lol.

[dallasareaopinion]

Happy Memorial Day and a hodge podge of hodge podge

First of all I am as guilty as anyone about why we celebrate Memorial Day. I do know some who will spend the day in remembrance of our veterans, however we seem to forget what the day is all about. Many of us myself included will be with family, friends doing out door activities that have more to do with celebrating the first weekend of holiday summer than paying tribute to all those who gave their lives for our freedom. So I do want to take this moment to ask anyone reading this to stop and have a moment of silence remembering them especially any family members. Also do not forget to thank a veteran at all times, yet especially during this weekend for their service.

I do hope you get a chance to spend time with family and friends because I always believe the people in your life should be important to you. And if you get a chance at any gatherings you attend to ask the host to dedicate a moment of silence and prayer for our fellow citizens who sacrificed all for us to enjoy this and every weekend.

We were driving across Texas again for the 200th time it feels like (and I don’t think I am exaggerating)  and it was getting to be sunset. This was right past Abilene headed east. And it really struck me the color of the sky or general ambience of twilight or just the general configuration of the light. I do not know how to describe it, yet looking around seemed somewhat rare. It was definitely still light out, but the color of the sky or the general looking through the atmosphere was so unique. It wasn’t hazy, yet the wind had been blowing the whole day so there was quite a bit of dust in the air which I think leant something to the color of the day as it came to a close. It was blue, but not sky blue, darker, but not dark blue. I love to drive so I have seen quite a bit in my travels, yet this was a very unique color that permeated around us. I even mentioned to the better half to look around since she had been reading at the moment. She acknowledged the uniqueness and went back to reading so maybe it isn’t that big of a deal, but for about 15-20 minutes before true dusk set in and after the glaring afternoon soon this moment seemed very special to me. I wish I was a color palette aficionado so I could give you a reference, however no such luck. It wasn’t bright, too light yet it was light and surreal. You could still see for a distance, but it the sun did not feel as if part of the picture. Anyway as life goes on and in your travels you run across moments like I had. It never hurts to have a few moments so unique in your life that it makes you want to drink it all in and keep it in your memory.

Okay I am too the point where I do not know what to say about the election. I fear Trump may win, not because he is the better candidate, but because the economy is hurting people much worse than Biden realizes. People are beginning to feel the ravages of inflation to the degree where they do not want to spend or are having trouble paying their bills. It is subtle now in the national press, but out in the heartland people are hurting. You can see it in people’s eyes when they shop. They are still shopping which surprises me. This maybe because they do not want to deal with the reality of where they stand financially I do not know. Yet if you look closely you can tell the stressors are developing. Trump was President at a good time until the pandemic came along and people remember that. What the do not remember is he had nothing to do with it. And yet these same people are blaming Biden for the current problems. There are too many intricacies involved with our economy for any President to have immediate impact on the economy. Sure there are some things they can do, or try to use political power to get Congress or the Fed to enact laws or policies that have some effect on the economy, but the nuances of that are too much for many people. What affects the pocket book is very straight forward to the average Joe. Can I eat and can I pay my bills? And can I get what I want when I want it? I won’t get into the depths of people need to plan for their day to day lives along with their future, but in our immediate gratification culture when the dollar gets stretched, someone  needs to be blamed and Biden is starting to be the end result of the blame game.

Honestly I am not a fan of how he is handling the economy, but Trump still scares the crap out of me. And worst of all, people are forgetting he will kowtow to the uber rich in any real policy he invokes as President such as more tax breaks for them than you. I ask how many people remember Trump’s tax cuts expire for most of the country in the next couple of years except for corporations and the ultra rich. And he just made a call out for oil companies to give him a billion and he will throw away Biden’s green energy initiatives. And none of the people that support him realize in the long run how much this will hurt them. I am not going to vote for Biden or Trump, someone needs to do something different and fast or are worst nightmares are beginning to materialize. I did see a headline where the Libertarians booed him at their convention so it does make you wonder if he has the popularity to win over everyone not a Democrat or Republican to obtain enough votes to win, yet if Biden doesn’t get credit for doing something for the economy soon, Trump may win votes due to general ignorance.

And talking about general policy issues, I do not think I ever finished my 2024 platform for a fictious third party or independent bid. I need to go back and revisit where I left off and finish that up if needed.

And yes sports fans it is fun being in Dallas right now. Today is Sunday May 26 and the Stars won last night to even up their series. And even though headed on the road, they still have a good chance to move on. And the Mavericks play at home tonight after taking two in Minnesota.  And there are quite a few Mavericks fans over celebrating if you ask me. We are one minute away from being down two games to zero and in dire straights. I certainly hope the Mavericks come out with serious intensity tonight and play like they are down two games because momentum is fickle and we do not want to give any to the Timberwolves. It is so hard for the players game after game once you start getting this close to a championship. Fans are going crazy expecting their team to win, yet for the players every step you get closer to the dream, the next won is harder to make. So sure being up two games sounds great, but winning that third then fourth are twice as hard. The intensity and the strength needed to win the next game grows exponentially. The players and teams that understand this are the ones that win the championships. I hope the Mavericks and the Stars are at that point right now.

Time for dinner and to start gearing up for those said games.

Cheers