#look out for another Twitter art meme! it’s coming REAL soon

[c00kiesart]

Pretty easy to star gaze with eyes like hers✨

+ Not cropped version!

Twitter // Kofi

[1d-discourseoftheday]

Thurs 14 Jan ‘21

Nobody Is Listening, officially out tomorrow, has already arrived in some parts of the world! As of press time it's #1 on itunes in 24 countries and racking up more by the minute, we should have some exciting stats by tomorrow, plus we'll have heard the whole thing! And not only that, the official listening parties begin very soon, and will hopefully have their tech issues sorted by then, cause yes, I bet you can guess what already happened.... YEP WEBSITE CRASH! Yeah baby, that's what we do! But maybe people are right to be excited the chat does include... maybe Zayn? Someone official (“Zayn admin”) anyway! And just because the event hasn't started is no reason not to gather and start screaming about the album, whether it's out in your area, you're listening to a leak (Niall voice: No Judgement... except he would actually be mad about that lol), or you only are looking at the lyrics which tbh is about more than I can handle all by itself. You guys there is a LOT there, I was going to pull a few things but it's SO MUCH. We'll be unpacking (and soaking in) all this for a while to come, wow.

Niall popped on twitter to promo the new JC Stewart song he co-wrote, and he picked a question about whether he was interested in doing more writing for other people to answer; he said “always writing something, this one just felt right for JC and he put his twist on it.” He followed Olivia Rodrigo and posted about how much he likes her new song, Driver's License (“this song is the real deal... beautifully written”), defended his comment (a series of laugh cry emoji) on a meme post using a pic from the WMYB video, said not drinking this month has been “easy!” and he did a “can't sleep talk to me” AMA-- he recommends MGMT, Kacey Musgraves, Artic Monkeys, and, for crossover excitement, Lucius (who feature on TPWK) and DMA'S (who feature as Louis' fave band)! He also agressively rejected some fan fashion suggestions (“no no no no” “I will not”) of outifts that, uh, look AN AWFUL LOT like ones he has worn to me? If he's serious (and not quietly seething about how we don't get his humor) I have to respect that kind of passion about nearly invisible detail tbh. And speaking of attention to detail! An article about the RAH livestream came out in a crew trade publication so there's just reams of very specific tech detail; but there's also plenty of people saying nice things about Niall! “Niall was very involved in every step of the process. He really gained a full grasp of the situation and during the promotion of the show, he really wanted to educate the public, and his fanbase, about what was going on in the sector,” for example. Tonight Niall told us he would want to do another virtual concert but he'd “need a good reason... a music launch or something.”

Liam has a new video for Hugo Man (that's a perfume in case you were wondering); he says about 2020, “I think we've all learned to rest a little bit more this year, I hope we all keep a little a bit of time for ourselves.” HAVE YA learned to do that though Liam, HAVE YA? Where is this sabbatical you said you were taking right now that you definitely were in great need of? Honey please-- just take a break! We worry! Sigh. Anyway also he changed his social headers and bio in honor of the new projects (SIGH) he's doing right now- it says “here's to the future...” (was previously ticket lnks) which would be a great bio to have up indefinitely while taking a break... or something... maybe he should do that...

Hey remember that YA novel about closeted boybanders in love that we were like, well, at least we won't have to deal with that until next year? WELL GUESS WHAT YEAR IT IS NOW-- the release date isn't until Dec 7 which is VERY FAR AWAY but I guess the hype is beginning now; the title and cover art for If This Gets Out, by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich, have been revealed. Becky Albertalli (who once wrote a book [Love Simon] about a gay football player with Louis in his name whose secret code name was “bluegreen”) posted to hype up the book, but then followed up with a long post to tell people that in fact you-know-who were NOT the source of those details in Love Simon, and that she is now a new Harry Styles fan but knows nothing about any of that. Sophie Gonzales, who drew the cover art for her new book- a picture of a light haired guy with a long fringe and a curly haired brunet locked in eye contact and a silhouette of the fictional band they're in that looks just like the famous Steal My Girl video shot (or Louis' Walls video reference of same)- says “this book is fictional, and while we're aware of what Larry is, this book was not written about that.”

And in today's Holivia corner, not much action! A mere trickle! Cosmo published a timeline of events that reads just like a tumblr masterpost, complete with 'what is the truth' gifs at the blatant contradictions, but that's about it. “You live in my imagination**,” indeed; much like the rumor started by a single galaxy brained anon claiming that Harry definitely fucked... wait for it... LIAM'S DAD (like, his actual father, Geoff Payne, not some kind of euphemism.) Someone tell Page Six! I have no comment until I get some good analysis of astrological compatibility from their expert...

(**Harry Styles, Olivia, 2015)

[sunvine-sunavalon]

Archiving this twitter thread (x)

1. How did they meet?

Spectre and Kureha are childhood "friends", Kureha was another child looked after by the orphanage Spectre was found by, she was taken in when she was 4 and adopted when she was 7 or 8, they spent a lot of time at dinner together

2. What are Persona A's current impressions of Person B?

 Kureha thinks Spectre is less scary than he actually is, he'll always be a mean weirdo in her heart but the reality of his cyber terrorist organisation hasn't sunk in since them re-meeting is the start of his redemption arc after all. He's actually helping her be more confident and helping her improve her deck, too. Soon, Kureha will learn the art of the gesogao and start wearing her fringe pinned back, too, to show off her moe forehead & character development

3. What is Person B's current impression of Person A?

Spectre has the  BIGGEST heart eyes for Kureha, he loves her but he is trying so very hard to keep a wall between them, it just wouldn't be right, she's such a squishy little civillian, he used to bully her (he still wants to bully her, only a little, just a little bit, affectionately) but he's nervous. He's never been in a healthy romantic friendship before. He really doesn't want to actually hurt her or her feelings for real because that would crush him. Just all the cuteness aggression ig. 

4. When did Person A realise they loved Person B?

 I know this trope is problematic but their childhood friendship was absolutely tinged with "he makes fun of you because he likes you" so she's always had some love for him bubbling away but Kureha did legit spend 10 years thinking he was Actually Dead because that's what the orphanage concluded when Spectre didn't come home that second time/after he ran away. But more recently, I think she's still clouded by the honeymoon phase to call it Love-Love but she does love him 

5. When did Person B realise they loved Person A?

At the climax of my Obeliskverse fic, Dandelion, when he had to play the heroic rescuer to save his totally not princess from the tower; look Spectre's an idiot, if your nice to him, he's head over heels

6. How did they get together?

I know it’s hard to believe since they are such bumbling sweethearts but they are together & got together at the end of the Earth Obelisk debacle but it’s hard to call their relationship dating but they are mutually exclusive

7. What are their favourite things about each other?

Spectre likes that he feels comforted and soft around her, he doesn't have to be on guard or performing

Kureha likes that he's very protective of her ;w; (this question was so hard so a lil cop out omg)

8. What common interests do they share?

Magical girl anime, duel monsters, kureha has a budding interest in plants and loves listening to spectre talk horticulture, horror films too probably, poetry, and art

9. What dislikes do they share?

They are the shy vs introvert meme sksksks so people; ok more specifically they dislike large crowds, both can be prone to motion sickness, also their tics (ironically the other doesn’t hate each other’s tic)

10. How does Person A express their love for Person B?

Look, I don't know, Kureha just emanates love, there is love in everything she does for Spectre but on purpose... through very awkward verbal affirmation & affection

[artificialqueens]

Level Up, Chapter Eleven (Branjie) - Holtzmanns

“I don’t think I could come up with anything negative about you.”

Brooke’s eyes are sincere as she says it, and Vanessa’s heart starts to beat just a little bit faster. Vanessa’s a person who’s always on the go, not one to slow down if she doesn’t have to but Brooke has the ability to make her world pause for just a second. Brooke changes Vanessa’s focus from what’s in front of her to solely her, and Vanessa almost wishes she could keep it there forever.

It’s never that hard for Vanessa to come up with words to reply with, especially not towards Brooke, but her brain feels like it has shuddered to a stop, pressing on the brakes because the small smile on Brooke’s face is more important to focus on. She could say something stupid, something funny, maybe return the sentiment but she doesn’t get a chance to decide on what to do before Yvie lets out a scoff.

“Except for your dislike of Chicken Little. That’s a negative if I’ve ever seen one.”

AN: Hi, I'm still alive, I promise. Popping back into this lovely fic nearly eight months later (a new job, a new apartment, a new city, and a new cat later too) and I love it just as much as I did in January. Eight months is good for plot to marinate and develop and I'm excited to get back to writing this fic again. If you're still around for this journey, thank you and know I'm so grateful for it. Please do tell me your thoughts if you read! Thank you writ for betaing ily <3

“So you have that interview with Glamour, I’ll set it up for some time this week, and Teen Vogue wants to do something on their Youtube channel. Who knew that was a thing? I’m working on Adidas’ rep to finagle a sponsorship outta them, and Under Armour on the backburner just in case-”

Vanessa bursts through the doors of the gym while Detox continues talking in her ear, not at all apologetic about the way that she has to interrupt her as she ambles towards Brooke’s office. “Just reached the gym. We’ll have to continue this later, ‘cause training waits for no one, right?”

“I see exactly what you’re doing, but I’m not mad at it. Go work on building those boxing skills that’ll keep lining your pockets for years. Toodles!”

Vanessa lets out a snort when Detox hangs up the phone. “Toodles? Who the hell says that?”

“Detox?” Brooke looks up from her book, an amused smile on her face. “I know that trick.”

“What trick?” Vanessa squints her eyes as she sits down, trying to read the cover of Brooke’s paperback. “Are you reading Chicken Soup for the Soul? ”

Brooke waves a hand. “Doesn’t matter. And the trick of dipping out of Detox’s phone calls. Why else would you get to the gym so early?”

“Oh, come on. I’m early sometimes. Occasionally,” Vanessa grins, and Brooke doesn’t buy it in the least from the way she raises an eyebrow. “Okay, maybe not. I like Detox, I really do, don’t get me wrong. She’s hysterical and good at her job, real good at it, but damn.”

“Detox works hard,” Brooke nods, understanding in her eyes. “It’s a lot to handle sometimes.”

“She cranks up the exposure by a million and targets it in specific places and it works, ‘cause I have a lot of followers and deals now but…”

“But what?”

Brooke leans forward, pushing her book to the side as she looks earnestly at Vanessa. It’s striking, sometimes, how Brooke gives her full attention. How much she cares sometimes.

It’s nice.

“It feels real wild, y’know? Like all I did was become a meme, and now my face is going to be in a Spotify commercial. How does that jump happen?” Vanessa shifts in her chair, letting out a sigh. “It’s only been a few weeks.”

It’s as if Vanessa is riding in a car that’s only getting faster and faster, not quite in control of the steering wheel or knowing when she’s going to be able to stop. Sure, the ride is fun, but it also feels like she’s driving without a license, as if she’s skipped the learner’s permit stage and hit the highway instead.

“She wants to capitalize on it as much as possible. Keep you in the spotlight even after the next big meme rolls around,” Brooke shrugs, before pausing for a second, a look of concern in her eyes. “It’s not too much, is it? I can always talk to Detox with you if you feel like it’s overwhelming-”

“Nah, I’ll survive,” Vanessa shrugs, giving her best reassuring smile to Brooke. “Lush sent me some free shit the other day. I like goodie bags.”

Brooke snorts. “Fair enough. Bath bombs are a reason to keep going.”

“Want some? I got enough for a month's worth of spa days.” Vanessa makes a mental note to bring some of the freebies for Brooke on their next practice. She’s earned half of everything, at least.

“You have any of the sakura ones?” Brooke is tentative with her question, and Vanessa nods enthusiastically.

“You’re getting all of ‘em.”

“Now, hold on a second-”

“It’s six. Don’t we have practice to start?” Vanessa’s up and out of the office before Brooke can protest any further. “I’m gonna go change.”

Practice is nice. Practice feels familiar amongst all the new chaos in Vanessa’s life. It lets her turn her brain off and get away from the people that recognize her out in public, the way her Instagram is now solely for sponsored posts. The way she feels like a caricature of herself, almost, because others have an opinion of who she is based on a ten second video clip.

But practice isn’t like that. In the gym, Brooke is the same as ever, pushing and pushing her until sweat is drenching her back and her mind is spinning and she feels more alive than she ever has. When Brooke throws moves at Vanessa that she has to work in overdrive to block and counter with some of her own, it’s familiar. Even though she’s tired and gasping for breath, it’s what she knows how to do, and in an environment that isn’t unsettling or foreign.

The best part about it? Vanessa can still feel herself learning. Growing. Stepping up to the challenges that Brooke throws at her. Sure, she’s not aching to get back into the competition ring anytime soon, but the approving smiles from Brooke when she gets in a good hit or when she avoids a shot that would previously knock her on the ground gives her a thrill every time.

The end of practice leaves Vanessa with a new sense of longing that’s only been present the last few weeks, since this whole meme mess has started. Leaving the gym is hard, because it means Vanessa has to go outside again, pull her hat down when passerby on the sidewalk give her a second look. She has to unlock her phone and pretend to be busy, but then she’s faced with comments pouring in on every social media account that she opens. She can text one of her friends but it’s hard to continue a conversation, really, after it starts with a rousing Miss Vanjie, no matter how much in jest.

Being outside the gym means that she’s reminded of her new loss of normalcy.

She takes her time switching back into her sweats after she showers, dragging her feet as she leaves the change room with her gym bag slung over her shoulder. When she squints her eyes she can see Brooke at the far end of the gym, teetering on a stool as she repositions one of the crooked banners. Brooke turns around almost as if she can tell Vanessa is there, a good natured smile and an easy wave following immediately.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Need any help?” Vanessa’s stalling a bit by asking, but maybe Brooke really could use a hand with the banners, or at least an extra set of eyes to make sure that they’re nice and straight.

She’s just helpful, that’s all.

Brooke, to her credit, doesn’t call Vanessa out for it as she squints, admiring her handiwork. “I think they’re as aligned as they’re ever going to be. I’m going to get ready to leave for the night, too.”

“Oh,” Vanessa doesn’t mean to sound a little disappointed as Brooke jumps off the stool, fiddling with the jacket that’s slung across her arm. “Already?”

“It’s almost eight thirty,” Brooke points out, padding past Vanessa towards her office door and grabbing her coat off of the hook. “You’re not tired and ready to go home yet?”

“I just…”

Vanessa trails off, looking down at the ground. She’s not sure what to say, really. All that’s waiting for her is her apartment, but she can’t mindlessly scroll Twitter or Instagram before bed without seeing her face again. She needs to reply to her friends’ texts, but the notifications are piling up on top of one another like a mountain that she’s not really sure how she’s going to climb.

Vanessa just wants to avoid it all.

Brooke pauses, and each second that passes makes Vanessa’s heart constrict because maybe she should just try to explain, but she doesn’t know how to and it feels like too much-

“C’mon. My roommate and I are having a late dinner and rewatching Chicken Little. Are you in for a nacho night?”

Brooke’s looking at her expectantly and Vanessa wants to say yes, but what pops out of her mouth is what’s pressing on her even more. “Did you say rewatching Chicken Little?”

“It’s a good movie!” Brooke’s defensiveness makes Vanessa crack a smile despite how restless she feels, how much she’s fidgeting while standing in place. “Come over and you’ll see.”

“Y’know, we haven’t talked about movies before, but this recommendation is making me question what your taste is like,” Vanessa lets out a giggle, when Brooke’s mock offense takes over her face as she puts a hand to her heart.

“The disrespect. You’re not getting nachos with those kinds of statements,” Brooke grabs Vanessa’s gym bag, slinging it over her shoulder as she holds the door open. “Now c’mon.”

Brooke’s apartment is not what Vanessa expects - there are colours and tapestries lining the walls and even one on the ceiling, and she’s pretty sure she sees a bong on top of the refrigerator. It’s pretty, though, with the art splashed across every free surface and the shelves filled with books upon books, piles of even more on the actual floor. Vanessa has to resist the urge to go and sit down on the wicker chair in front of the television that’s suspended from the ceiling.

“Yvie’s the one behind the decor.” Brooke has a knowing smile on her face and Vanessa can feel her cheeks heat up, from how easily Brooke can read her mind. “Moved in a few years ago after she broke up with a long term partner. Never really got around to adding things of my own to the walls.”

Vanessa snickers before she can even get her joke out properly. “What would you add? A Chicken Little poster?”

Brooke, for her part, doesn’t miss a beat. “Nah. A poster of your meme.”

“Wow-”

“I know we were thinking nachos, but picture this. Chicken nuggets while we watch Chicken Little.” A girl with bright green hair pops her head out from behind a door, waving at the two of them.

Vanessa waves back, her eyebrows lifting higher and higher on her forehead when she realizes how tall the girl is as she walks closer. Even Brooke has to look up at her which is a strange sight on its own, considering how much Brooke towers over Vanessa.

Then again, Vanessa’s used to being the short one.

“Vanessa here is doubting the movie’s genius,” Brooke raises an eyebrow, and the girl lets out a fake gasp.

“Um, not a movie. Chicken Little is a film. An artistic masterpiece.”

“Are you two the presidents of the Chicken Little fan club?” Vanessa asks, as Brooke sticks her tongue out at her.

“Yes. And no, you can’t join.”

It’s interesting how Brooke’s work demeanor has dropped now that she’s in her own apartment, her normally squared shoulders a little more relaxed. It reminds Vanessa of when they went roller skating, seeing how much fun Brooke had while pulling her around the rink.

Vanessa wants to see more of it.

Brooke points at her roommate as the girl sticks out a hand. “Ness, this is Yvie. Yvie, Vanessa. I’m coaching her.”

“You’re introducing her as if I haven’t heard you talk about her every single day for the last however many months,” Yvie drawls and Brooke’s sputter is immediate, making Vanessa’s breath hitch a little in her throat.

Brooke talks about her?

Yvie pats Brooke on the back as if she’s choking on her water rather than on some words, sticking her other hand out for Vanessa to shake. “You’re Brooke’s favourite student. Also her only student, technically, but still a favourite nonetheless.”

Brooke’s cheeks are bright pink and Vanessa can’t deny that the sight is adorable, seeing her flustered for once. Still. Brooke probably recaps their training sessions and nothing more.

“As long as it’s mostly positive,” Vanessa shrugs, and the way Brooke emphatically nods makes her feel better than she wants to admit.

“I don’t think I could come up with anything negative about you.”

Brooke’s eyes are sincere as she says it, and Vanessa’s heart starts to beat just a little bit faster. Vanessa’s a person who’s always on the go, not one to slow down if she doesn’t have to but Brooke has the ability to make her world pause for just a second. Brooke changes Vanessa’s focus from what’s in front of her to solely her, and Vanessa almost wishes she could keep it there forever.

It’s never that hard for Vanessa to come up with words to reply with, especially not towards Brooke, but her brain feels like it has shuddered to a stop, pressing on the brakes because the small smile on Brooke’s face is more important to focus on. She could say something stupid, something funny, maybe return the sentiment but she doesn’t get a chance to decide on what to do before Yvie lets out a scoff.

“Except for your dislike of Chicken Little. That’s a negative if I’ve ever seen one.”

The platter of chicken nuggets that Yvie places on the coffee table with a flourish is impressive, to say the least. There’s a little bowl of ketchup on the side, along with sweet and sour sauce and something that looks to be...ranch?

Whatever it is, Vanessa’s nose wrinkles at the sight. “Which one of you eats ranch with chicken nuggets? Is that legal?”

Yvie’s cackle and Brooke’s flushed cheeks tell Vanessa all she needs to know as she plops down beside Brooke on the couch, nudging her side. “Really?”

“The flavour combination is great!” Brooke mutters, grabbing a chicken nugget and dipping it in the ranch for posterity, holding it up close to Vanessa’s face. “Try it.”

Vanessa scooches herself towards the edge of the couch, away from the chicken nugget and the ranch that’s slowly dripping down like a melting ice cream. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s delicious-”

“It’s cursed-”

“More for me, then,” Brooke tosses the chicken nugget into her mouth, and Vanessa’s not sure, really, how she’s handling the flavours together without puking. “You’re missing out.”

“Very happy to miss out on that, thank you very much. I’ll take the ketchup.”

It turns out that Chicken Little isn’t so bad with Yvie and Brooke peppering in commentary as they watch, and Vanessa finds herself getting swept into the plot, as ridiculous as it is. The glass of cider that Yvie’s brought for each of them is making Vanessa feel a little more relaxed, her shoulders not as stiff anymore as she leans against the back of the couch. It’s fun to watch Brooke’s face, really, and the way she lights up while quoting the movie as it plays.

Vanessa makes a mental note to invite Brooke over to watch more movies. Better movies. Expand her palate. Chicken Little cannot be at the top of Brooke’s movie pyramid, not when there are better choices available, like Pretty Woman. Sure, Vanessa’s not exactly a film connoisseur herself, but still. Anything beats Chicken Little, right?

Maybe it’s just the cider settling in, maybe it’s the full stomach of chicken nuggets, but...it’s nice. Comfortable. Vanessa pulls her feet up behind her on the couch before grabbing a throw pillow to hug on her lap, and really, she could fall asleep right where she’s sitting, even to the dulcet tones of the main chicken character screaming about an alien invasion. Brooke looks over as Vanessa settles herself more into the couch, her expression unreadable but then she reaches over the back of the couch, grabbing the throw blanket behind them.

“Wanna share? It’s kinda cold.”

It’s not cold and Vanessa knows it, she knows that Brooke does too, but Brooke’s face is soft and tentative and adorable and sharing a blanket with her would make the couch situation even more cozy.

Plus, she can cuddle with Brooke, because Brooke is tall and thus is a tall, comfortable cushion to lean against.

Brooke throws the blanket across both of them and Vanessa scoots closer to her so that their laps are covered, the fabric fuzzy and warm. The side of Vanessa’s upper thigh leans against Brooke’s and she’s not sure why she’s so hyper aware of the fact, or why Brooke’s arm across the back of the couch makes her want to snuggle in even closer.

It’s just Brooke, after all. Brooke, who’s seen her when she’s all sweaty and about to collapse on the gym floor. Brooke, who had been there at her worst after the last tournament and still wants to coach her and spend time with her. Brooke, whose secret love for Twilight will never fail to make Vanessa laugh.

If it’s just Brooke, then why is Vanessa’s heart taking flight in her chest when Brooke starts to absentmindedly trace patterns on her palm? She doesn’t know why Brooke’s touch is lighting up a pattern of sparks on her skin either, or why Brooke’s side is so comfortable to lean against. Why Vanessa almost wishes that the movie could go on forever, so that she can stay warm and safe under Brooke’s arm that’s now draped across her shoulders.

Maybe Vanessa doesn’t need answers for all of those questions, not yet, not if finding out the answers would mean disrupting the delicate balance that hangs in the air between them. Brooke shuffles a little bit and when Vanessa’s head ends up against her chest, she can feel the way Brooke’s heart is beating, surely faster than any heart should. It’s a contrast from how seemingly relaxed the rest of Brooke’s body is, how her arms around Vanessa aren’t tense, restricting, but rather grounding, pulling her down.

Leaning back against Brooke is warm, familiar. It’s a feeling of home in a situation so novel, so different from how they usually are, like pulling on a sweater that Vanessa’s not sure how she’s ever lived without. Maybe, just maybe, Vanessa doesn’t ever have to take it off.

Vanessa doesn’t realize that the credits start rolling on the screen until Yvie rolls off of the lilac armchair, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. She lets out a yawn, stretching her arms up high before shutting off the TV. “I, for one, am exhausted. And as fun as this was, it’s my bedtime.”

Brooke snickers, and Vanessa can feel the way her chest reverberates underneath her. “You and I both know you’re about to go Facetime Scarlet.”

“That’s what bedtime means,” Yvie wiggles her eyebrows, and Brooke’s noise of disgust is immediate.

“Horrifying. You two better keep it down this time. My ears still haven’t recovered from overhearing you both last week,” Brooke shudders as Yvie cackles, shutting the door to her bedroom with a click.

Vanessa turns in Brooke’s grip, shooting a questioning look. Surely Yvie can’t be louder than the average person on Facetime. “Overhearing what?”

Brooke makes a face, the haunted look in her eyes almost comedic from the way that she sighs. “Let me put it this way. Yvie and her girlfriend are in a long distance relationship, which is hard on them for a multitude of reasons. One of them being their libidos.”

“Their libidos…” Vanessa trails off, her face falling when she realizes what Brooke means. “Oh no. Not that. Tell me not that.”

“Exactly that. They’re quieter over Facetime than they are when Scarlet visits, at least. That’s a blessing.”

Vanessa shudders. Sure, she’s not exactly quiet in bed either, but the thought of people on the other side of the wall being able to hear everything is horrifying, especially because of the fact that she lives with Alexis. Her sister does not need to know details about her sex life, that’s for sure.

Still, Vanessa wonders how loud Yvie must be. “How do they even make so much noise with phone sex, anyway? Yodel?”

“Mating calls that would fit in perfectly in a National Geographic documentary,” Brooke lets out a snicker, her hand clapping over her mouth when Yvie lets out an ‘I heard that!’ from behind her bedroom door. “Still, glad I’m not about to suffer through overhearing it alone. You’ve saved my evening.”

Vanessa snorts, pulling back from Brooke’s embrace to face her, leaning against the back of the couch. “Glad to be of service.”

Brooke is softness and kindness and contentment all at once, and the easy smile on her face is one that Vanessa feels so lucky to see the longer and longer that she knows her. It’s moments like these that Vanessa wants to hold on to forever - when Brooke’s guard is down, when her posture is relaxed and she’s looking over with eyes that Vanessa could drown in. She wants to package up this version of Brooke that isn’t tethered by reminders of her past, or with upholding a legacy that defines her whether she likes it or not. At times like this, Brooke isn’t a boxer with her father’s last name, or Vanessa’s coach responsible for facilitating her success. She’s just Brooke, a girl whose gaze is so mesmerizing that makes Vanessa’s breathing hitch in her throat without even realizing it.

Brooke holds out a hand and it’s almost second nature for Vanessa to link her fingers with hers, their hands fitting together in a way that doesn’t make sense, not when Vanessa’s hands are so much smaller. But Brooke’s grip is an anchor that keeps her from floating away, one that centers her and lets her focus on the upward curve of Brooke’s lips, the softness of her eyes when she smiles.

Except then Brooke’s brow is furrowing, a hint of concern in her eyes that Vanessa wants to brush away for her. “You okay? You’re quieter than usual.”

Vanessa can feel her face heating up as she stutters, pulling her eyes away from Brooke’s face to focus on the stitching along the couch cushions. “I’m fine. I...nothing.”

She can’t exactly go out and tell Brooke, someone who’s a coach and also a friend for that matter, that she’s just a little bit mesmerized by her face. Not something that’s likely to go over well.

Vanessa’s past relationships have been nothing short of peacocking, making herself known to those she’s had an interest in because they’d inevitably chase her right back. She knows her worth, knows how to go after what she wants, but…

What does she even want, now?

She doesn’t want Brooke, she can’t, not when Brooke is her coach and someone who’s becoming more and more important towards every aspect of her life, someone who she texts when she wakes up in the morning and who she’s messaging as she’s falling asleep.

Brooke’s not the type of person that Vanessa can parade around and go on a few dates with while drinking the cheapest wine on the menu for shits and giggles. She’s not someone that Vanessa can let go of easily, the way she’s had to with previous relationships that didn’t work out. Brooke is different from them.

She’s not disposable, not someone that Vanessa wants to let go of from her life. She isn’t someone that Vanessa can let go of at this point, because the thought of not seeing her amused expressions in the gym or the pride on her face while they’re training is too much to deal with. Vanessa’s only beginning to read through Brooke’s pages to learn more about her, and finding out little details that make her want to melt and pull Brooke just a little closer to her heart.

Brooke is too important.

Sure, Vanessa’s breath hitches in her chest whenever Brooke pulls her closer, and maybe Brooke’s smile is enough to drown out any background noise buzzing around them, but Vanessa also knows that she falls hard. And fast. She’s impulsive, following what her heart tells her to do and most of the time, she can deal with the consequences because she knows she’ll be able to get back up again.

But if this is a miscalculation? If saying something means that they’ll end up in pieces that neither of them will be able to put back together?

It’s too big of a risk. At least, for now.

Vanessa can’t be the one to take the jump off the cliff, not yet.

So she smiles, puts on the most reassuring expression that she can, hoping that it’s enough to soothe the concern that splays itself across Brooke’s features. “Really, I am. Just thinking about all the press shenanigans that Detox has lined up for me tomorrow.”

It’s enough for Brooke’s features to relax just a little bit, the smile on her face almost nostalgic. “I’m glad it’s you now, and not me, on Detox’s receiving end. She’s ruthless in the best way.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

There’s a sinking feeling in Vanessa’s chest by going for the cop out, but...she has no other choice. It’s not the way she normally handles situations like this, a fact made clear by how much she has to push down the butterflies in her stomach, and hide them behind a door so that they don’t escape and ruin stakes that feel too high, too much of a risk.

Still, Vanessa’s a bit of a sucker for punishment, and so when Brooke pulls her closer into a hug, it’s as easy as breathing to snuggle into her and rest her head against her chest, because Brooke’s arms are warm and safe and manage to slow her thinking down just a bit.

Part of Vanessa feels like she can handle it and hold herself back from doing anything stupid, if only to not mess everything up. She can be this close to Brooke and not have her chest split in two and maybe it’s a blessing, and something that she has to hold on to. Except that by leaning against Brooke, she can feel how fast Brooke’s heart is beating, threatening to escape from her chest before she can possibly stop it. It’s a contrast from the gentle way that Brooke’s fingers run through her hair, betraying the calmness on the outside that she’s trying so hard to convey.

Maybe Vanessa’s not the only one holding back. Maybe Brooke also feels it, maybe she’s also teetering on the bridge that Vanessa’s trying her best not to lose her footing on, and the thought gives Vanessa pause for a second, because maybe the risk is one they can manage, something they can work with...

No. No.

They can’t.

Not if it would lead to everything falling to pieces around them, not if it would mean no more training and no more Brooke in general. Because that’s how relationships always seem to end, don’t they?

As much as Vanessa has always wanted the romantic movie ending and a kiss in the rain, it hasn’t happened to her yet, much to her teenage self’s disappointment. There’s too much on the line to see if Brooke will be the one to veer her onto a different path and change the outcome.

So, Vanessa has to be happy with what she’s getting now, this friendship with Brooke and the coaching and accept it for all that it’s worth. Because Brooke’s important, maybe the most important person in Vanessa’s life and she has to take what she gets.

She’s lucky enough to have it in the first place, after all.

[scaramoon]

OKAY SO LORE I’M TYPING THIS IN MY NOTES APP AS I’M WATCHING THE STREAM TO GIVE YOU THE FULL EXPERIENCE AND TO MAKE SURE I DONT MISS TO TELL YOU ANYTHING

there’s someone playing piano?? like straight up video of someone at a piano,,,,i think it’s yu-peng chen!! the song he’s playing is so pretty :( THEY HAVE A WHOLE INAZUMA THEMED SET HE’S PLAYING IN?? THERES AN ACTUAL INAZUMA ARCHON STATUE IN THE BACKGROUND AND EVERYTHING??

the stream is in chinese!! with subtitles!!

it will be 2.0 AND inazuma is now officially confirmed!!

now there’s a trailer! ITS ALL SO PRETTY AND OMG THE VOICE ACTORS?? GOROU AND THOMA WERE SHOWN!! oh my god the pyro cube?? looks so?? scary?? AAAAH THOMA THOMA THOMA??? STOOD NEXT TO AETHER?? IM SCREAMING rn they’re shaking ayaka!! and now yoimiya!! her voice actor is so cute i’m- SAYUUUU!!!! AGHH SHES SO CUTE BYE GOROU GORIU GORIU GOROU AAAAHHH HE EAS THERE HE WAS THERE AAAAAH

FIRST CODE: AS6BQKLY9GLD

now they’re back to the set!! they’re introducing some of the developers, right now there’s aquaria who’s the combat designer in genshin and rn they’re talking about the stages and joys of development and how the process works,,,i actually like this part!! it’s nice to see the people working on a game i’m so fond of talk so passionately about their thoughts while they’re working on it :> he said everyone at mihoyo loves the game as much as we do and that it’s all of us together in teyvat and i went 🥺 ngl

now he’s talking about inazuma and how different it was than mondstadt or liyue and how different the challenges there were! they put a lot of thought into the electro aspect of inazuma as well as the “eternity” part of it. there will be more dev talk later and now they’re just announcing the fan art contest that starts today

now they had a set change and there’s a different dev, and now they’re talking about the cultural and design aspects of inazuma! they say they love to see fan theories and that they often leave little clues in the game and that it brings them joy and motivation when people find and decipher them. they’re talking about the tea house now and the shiba inu that owns it; they hope players can discover all the little details the writers and designers put all over inazuma,,THEY JUST DRANK IN SYNC BC THEY STARTED TALKING ABOUT UNIFORMITY IN INAZUMA IM SOBBING,,,,ok wait it’s actually rlly interesting bc they’re talking about how they made sure every single detail in inazuma contributes/reflects the story and the “electro archon strives for eternity” story i’m- they’re currently talking about the real life inspiration they had, for example how the sacred sakura tree came to be and what it means

now they’re showing character combat (?) trailers!! ayaka is first, now yoimiya!! they’re actually showing the pyro cube in yoimiya’s!! THEYRE SHOWING SAYUUU MY BBY SHES SO CUTE they’re joking about how genshin players have been waiting for ayaka since the beginning of the game lmaooo bye 😭 they’re talking about the new characters now, what kind of people they are, what to expect from them and what their character traits are!! ayaka is elegant but also sweet and cute, yoimiya is creative and somewhat childish, enthusiastic and gets along with everyone, sayu sleeps a lot to grow taller and is a very well trained tiny ninja

we’re getting two new story chapters, act I and act II as well as ayaka’s and yoimiya’s story quests!!

THEYRE TALKING ABOUT THOMA, he’s observant apparently and has a very mysterious character!! they’re also talking about sara and kokomi AAHHHH GOROU GOROU!! they didn’t say much about him other than that he’s very dependable and fierce in battle!! they also mentioned yae sakura!!

SECOND CODE; GBNA9J5H9Y4H

another scene change and another dev, now it’s cissie!! she’s the one designing the inazuma map/landscape creator and they’ll be talking about geological design and the scenery of inazuma since it’s a archipelago as well!! she’s talking about the different uses of colour and shapes and how they’re using them to impact the player’s gaming experience; she also said that they tried to pay homage to classic ghibli movies with some of the design choices they made!

rn they’re showing “the shimmering voyage” which is the 1.0 ost w 68 songs which will me available soon!! now they’re talking to yu-peng chen THEY HAD THE LONDON SYMPHONIC THEATRE RECORD THE MONDSTADT SOUNDTRACK, THE SHANGHAI ONE THE ONE FOR LIYUE AND NOW THEY ASKED THE ONE IN TOKYO TO DO THE ONE FOR INAZUMA?? HELLOO?? they pay attention to the smallest details i swear i respect that so much wow

THE THEATRE MECHANICS EVENT IS COMING BACK IN INAZUMA!! we’re getting gardening for our tea pot too!! new enemies called “ruin senitel (?)” which is essentially a worm version of the ruin guard?? it looks weird and scary ngl,,,we get new fatui enemies, “the mirror maiden” as well as normal human enemies in inazuma, dressed like samurais,,

ayaka’s banner is first, then yoimiya & sayu,,,we get 2 new 5 star weapons as well 5 new craftable inazuma weapons. we get 2 new artifacts sets, emblem of severed gate and shimenawas remembrance, we get the ability to choose an artifact by sacrificing 3 5 star artifacts and creating an artifact strongbox; new system for the weapon banner: you pick which of the 5 star weapon you want and if you don’t get it, you get “fate points” and with those you can choose the one you want!

THIRD CODE: LS6T4L9ZZ7TH

and that was it!! yu-peng chen is playing the piano again as a farewell, i guess

AHH TYSM BBY ALL THE KISSES FOR YOU 😞🙏

i really like how much detail they put into it though :( like i’m ngl i am an impatient little shit but fr its so nice to know the devs love it as much as we do, i’ll gladly wait knowing they put so much detail in it :(

ALSO SJDJFJ kazuha and sayu sleeping on warm rocks together send tweet side note: big brother kazuha is v sweet me thinks, they’re related now i said so

i saw some stuff about thoma when i opened twitter a second ago and people are lowkey pressed that their characterizations of him are wrong 😞 that’s what they get for saying he got downgraded 😁

also,,, ruin sential,, y’know the “upgrade, go back, I SAID GO BACK” meme ?? that’s me w ruin guards, hunters, and graders so 😃 i stg if that thing can go underground i’m gonna cry. OH ALSO i heard about the garden thing a while ago and i don’t remember a lot of what was said but it’s really cool >:)

pov you’re me using kazuha to fight the samurais bc i think it’s funny

OOH WAIT THE ARTIFACT THING SOUNDS COOL THOUGH :0 do we just get to pick what type it is, or do sub stats and stuff carry over/give you a higher chance of getting certain sub stats? either way i’m v happy about that i have so much maiden stuff and uh. no one to put it on :”)

the weapon banner thing sounds cool too :> i don’t have a five star weapon bc i’m scared to waste primos but mayhaps if i can choose... >:)

also shout out to yu-peng chen for being amazing, thought one of the mondstadt songs would be easy to play and i was Very Wrong

[lucadansembourg]

         𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠…  𝐖𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐃’𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐆

the basics.

name. wren albert d’ansembourg.

title. his royal highness, prince of luxembourg & duke of esch-sur-alzette.

age. 25-31.

family. luca ( @lucadansembourg​ ), wendy ( @wendyjuliette​ ) & lara d’ansembourg (ADOPT HERE) - siblings ; theodor ( @theodcr​ ) & josefina olderburg (ADOPT HERE) - cousins 

relationship status. utp.

occupation. socialite & influencer.

follower count. 27 million followers on twitter,16 million followers on instagram, 11 million followers on tiktok, 6 million subscribers on youtube & 2 million followers on twitch. 

faceclaim options. maxence danet-fauvel, charlie rowe, alex fitzalan, henrik holm, tarjei sandvik moe, deaken bluman, chase stokes, brenton thwaites, felix mallard, charlie gillespie, george sear. 

group. @highsocietyhq

the story.

the d’ansembourg twins were a shock to the world, and maybe that’s the way that wren preferred things. from the moment he was born, he wanted to be an outsider. while his sisters were prim, proper and put together, and his brother an overemotional idiot, wren stood as a monument to the weird that most people kept hidden away, locked in a drawer for no one to see. 

he might have grown up in the palace, but he would escape as often as he could. wren craved normalcy in his early years, and he managed to achieve that by sneaking out a side door to play football in a side alley with the local kids. his friends that may not have been “approved” by his parents, but they were approved to show him about the world - the real world, not the one of royalty. 

wren thought of himself as separate from his siblings, and not just because he was the baby of the family, but because he was just... different. he didn’t care for politics, didn’t care for other royal activities. in his teen years, wren was practically a recluse to his family, hidden away in his dorm room at le rosey or his own private rooms in the grand palace, constantly feeling like the only puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. 

wendy jokes sometimes that he must have been adopted, but wren is sure he wasn’t meant to be born into palaces and riches beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. 

while his parents always expected him to grow out of it, he did the opposite. he never stopped caring about the strange things he’d always regarded as more important that schoolwork. following lara to le rosey was one of the first truly “royal” things wren had done in his entire life, and he still managed to be awful at that. he was constantly in disciplinary hearings or getting shouted at by whichever teacher he pissed off with his detached attitude. but it didn’t crush his spirit at all, in fact, it only made him act out more. 

maybe it was an attention thing - that would explain the next ten years of his life that he’d spend vying for the favor of strangers over the internet to determine his own self worth, or whatever the therapist said. 

perhaps it was the years of his only friends being two kids raised by their laptop screens just outside the palace, or the hundreds of hours of looking at memes instead of actually doing as he was told, but something in wren made him want to do whatever he liked, no matter what others thought of him. 

when lara went off to oxford, wren took a gap year. and then another. and then another, and soon it had been five years - his sister had a master’s degree and he had a massive social media fanbase. he’s not sure which of them did better for themselves.

when his father died, wren realized that he was actually going to have to be a prince for the first time in his life. before, he’d let lara take the reins on anything and just showed up to parties in bright colored suits and weird patterned socks and ties that didn’t match. but now that his older brother was king: wren was expected to pull his weight. 

he was terrible at it, for starters. he said too much, threw jokes and lies out to the press just to see what they’d print the next day. he became somewhat of a cryptid for gossip columnists and tmz reporters, because if you could manage to catch him, wren would deliver biting remarks and hilarious anecdotes about the royalty around him. he loves to watch reporters scramble to confirm stories in any way they can. 

when nathalie died, he came back to luxembourg and found himself a bit aimless. he took up art during this time, making some really dark paintings and a whole lot of collage work, which he then had to convince luca to not hang up around the palace, because luca constantly plays at being everyone’s proud older brother. 

but he managed to pull the family back together, and things got easier, gradually. mainly, he helped everyone heal by not changing a thing - he stayed unabashedly strange through the entire ordeal, and in the process became a rock the others could rely on. 

maybe he wasn’t a misshapen puzzle piece, but just a weird one that took some time to figure out the location of. he didn’t feel like the outcast anymore, but instead a valued member of the family - and had they always treated him like that? he wasn’t sure - and that was the worst part. how could he stay in their favor if he didn’t know what he did to earn it?  

his (not so) “secret  twitter" is well known by most of royal stan twitter, and getting a follow back from him is something that is worn like a badge of honor. he pretty much exists on there to roast his siblings’ outfits and choices, but also to poke fun at all other royals. truly, it’s just one more piece of controlled rebellion. he wouldn’t say things to hurt his family... on purpose, at least. 

it became an arnauld d’orleans hate twitter during the occupation. he would come up with very colorful roasts to go along with photos taken of the french king from bad angles. it was resistance, the only way wren d’ansembourg knew how to do it. his plenty of instagram lives and twitch streams helped, too - bringing visibility tothe occupation of luxembourg to places that many people would have turned away from it altogether. 

and when the occupation ended, he threw a party in the back alley behind the palace that he grew up in. by the end of the night, it was attended by thousands of luxembourgian citizens. lara frowned upon it, but wendy had the time of her life, so he had enough support to call their “sibling vote” on whether he’d fucked up, a dead tie. 

he ran a charity stream that raised over eight million dollars for relief in belgium after the bombings, taking requests for things he could do in his room. he only broke four priceless artifacts during it,.

when he was invited to the protection program, he was the most wary of it. he didn’t need to network, he didn’t need to be protected from anything. wren knew he could care of himself, but a change of scenery seemed... kind of fun. it was getting boring in luxembourg, now that things have settled. and as long as he’s able to be connected to wifi, and he’s allowed to do at least three stupid tings a week, everything ill be alright. 

interested? contact me! 

i do want to say that i feel like the main thing i am looking for in a wren applicant is that his vibe is.... strange. i imagine wren is a 100 gecs song if it came to life.  he’s an ancient chaos god trapped in the lanky body of a d’ansembourg man.

most things are negotiable, and i’d love to discuss any changes or ideas you have. please contact me ( @lucadansembourg​ ) if you’re interested in filling this connection !!

[enigmatic-elegance]

Mas’ Must Follow MASterpost

[In no particular order]

People

@risrielthron One of the best. You will feel as if you are talking with your lifelong friend. Sweet, friendly, and generous. A true example of who we should all try to be more like.

@theodorebennas Daddy Beans. Chill dude. Knows he can be a bit of a meme and owns it. Actually extremely smart and has a ton of good sense. Crusade!

@tanzrielle Super chill in the most not chill way. Will talk your ear off about their awesome characters and want to hear all about your own too. Great person to know and bounce ideas off of.

@thebattlesheep @a-sheep-does-art Sweet thing. Loves to meet new people. Does not RP much but when they do they kill it.

@possum Loser. (Seriously such a humorous, sweet, and all around amazing person.)

@wiedaashcroft Really great character, and the person who plays them is extremely laid back and chill.

@the-petalpaw-family They don’t RP as much right now, but their stories and characters are next level. No lie, they take things like plot and character lineage to places you rarely see. Amazing places.

@kat-hawke ICly very interesting and intense character. OOCly a more grounded individual. Blunt, but never cruel.

@darthscharactervault Someone who does not give themselves nearly enough credit for how creative they are with their ideas and characters.

@gwenya Often NSFW but she’s a gem of a person. Amazing, chill, down for whatever. She’s the raunchy friend you never knew you wanted.

@the-real-arcanist-val Smart person, fantastic writer, extremely sensible and rational. All around someone you want to know.

@vaard Never personally interacted with him, but he’s an iconic figure among the community. Everyone should follow. (Does not take commissions but is an amazing artist, too.)

@harvee-sarah-zena One of my closest RP partners. Might not post as much as they SHOULD but if you can catch them their RP is some amazing work. And their characters are all so unique.

@thegreatnyehehe Likely not returning to WoW any time soon, but still one of the best characters ever. To this day, worth reading through their posts.

@kinzorscarstorm Chill dude with a cool character. Have not interacted much IC, but respect them OOC for their char and methods.

@open-world-azeroth Not really a ‘person’ but a great resource for some fantastic RP spots.

@mediocre-bladeleaf Very cool aesthetic, and from what I see of their writings they have some awesome characters.

@draenei-tales Shout out to a fellow active and really cool looking Draenei RPer. All I see from them is extremely interesting.

@leora-strauss Don’t know much about the character but their aesthetic is so amazingly cool.

@serelia-evensong Active and interesting RPer. Will fill your dash up with fun to read posts of all kinds.

@susan-gampre Hoe. But she knows it. And she’s good at it. The character and RPer both are sassy and take no shit, and I love them for it.

@storykeeper-wra Spooky character. But not tired and boring spooky. The sort that’s very interesting. Like a good book. Makes sense they are the storykeeper, because their story is very appealing.

@halforc-mercenary Have always wanted to interact with their character but never much got the chance. Still adore their writings on my dash, and they often impress me with their plots and quality.

@rhysgoodwin Cute char, updates often, fantastic writer.

@priestess-nightfury Elf RP/Aesthetic at some of its very best.

@stonestridernerd They will love you and make you feel like the best person ever just be hurling likes at you and complimenting your work. They are just a gem of a person. So, so sweet.

@theshadowborn Shame I’[ve not interacted with their character much, but they are a clearly talented writer.

@durotan-ofthe-frostwolf Lot of OOC silly stuff, but genuinely a cool person and always a pleasure to see on your dash.

@ranekvilmas Just a very talented writer and all around chipper guy. One of those people who always has something interesting on their blog to read.

@penvenomstarkstar A good head on this one’s shoulders. ICly their character is extremely well written with so, so much depth. Endless things to discover here.

@ravenpriest DAMN awesome aesthetic. Really nails the gothica vibe.

@longveil Such a cool aesthetic. I’d follow for that alone, and there is so much more there too.

@kyuusei-shadowleaf Another blog worth the follow for aesthetic alone. So cool to see across your dash.

@k-sunrael Followed for a long time. Their blog can sometimes be a bit NSFW but the content is quality.

@monster-of-master In the vibe of ‘dark’ aesthetic without being overtly in your face. The sort of subtle horror we all secretly crave. Very much enjoy their content.

@summysparklesprocket Such an amazing, kind, and funny person. And the character is next level because they are a Gnome taken seriously. Love them.

@quai-mason @andrew-mason Extremely talented writer and one of the few who posts so, so frequently. You’ll eagerly await their next post, trust me.

@unabashedrebel ICly they are a very cool character with awesome stories. OOCly they are a smart and conscience driven individual with a good moral sense. More than once they’ve shown they are not afraid to stick up for what matters. Lot of respect.

@safrona-shadowsun Killer character aesthetic, great reblogs, and does not ruin their theme with bullshit. Fantastic follow, this one.

@helryder666 All over the place with their posts, but its never unwelcome or uninteresting. They always seem to know what you wanna see, even if you don’t know.

@thewardancer Some of the best troll aesthetic I’ve seen, honestly.

@brandstonethings Just a big bear of a man. I love him, and you will too. He’s so well written he feels alive.

@archmage--khadgar I hesitate with people who RP lore characters. This one managed to be one of my few exceptions. They actually do a really great job with it.

@forhonorandglory Only followed for a short time, but still worth it in my books. Sharp wit, great character.

@covexalexanderkingsley Don’t know if they still RP as much these days but they remain a very fantastic and creative individual.

@eilitheduskbringer Very talented writers. One of the best I’ve seen. And they host to an amazing community I’ve come to respect.

@thepalewolfhowls Great artist too, but I mainly know them for their awesome character and fantastic sense of story and plot.

Guild/Other

@the-royal-courier A fantastic source of events and stories. While they don’t host many writings of their own, they still reblog community events. Absolutely advise a follow.

@stormwinduniv Been around about as long as my old arse. Very talented group of writers who put on so many community events and intellectually focused debates.

@the-silver-circle A group of extremely talented writers focused entirely on Kaldorei writing and storylines. Very high levels of respect from me.

@moment-in-time-wra Less a ‘guild’ but still a great service for in game photography. They make your events look fantastic! Run by Risri.

@atc-wra A very talented small group of RPers who know how to make stories pop. You just want to be a part of them, or read what happens next.

@deadsunharbor Very fantastic crew who are open to all manner of amazing RP opportunities. They do criminal/dark correctly and with finesse rarely seen.

@oathswornvanguard Lawful good guild done proper. They have stood the test of time not only with their quality but their kindness and openness to the community.

@wraconnect A great source of WoW events and blogs to follow.

@wowrpevents Another fantastic source of WoW events and blogs to follow.

@wracentral ANOTHER fantastic source of WoW events and blogs to follow.

Artists

@whimsicallyart @elaianna Talented, intelligent, observant, and all around a gem of a person. Worth knowing.

@littleliongod One of the best I have worked with. Talented, priced very fair, extremely punctual, very communicative. Can not possibly recommend enough for any commission work.

@artofaokori Worked with them before and would absolutely do so again. Their style is very unique and you’ll recognize it anywhere in a good way.

@vintrove @vinsketchbook Extremely talented. Some next level stuff. Commissioned them twice and both times they blew me away with the end product.

@catbatart @cat-bat Such a shame I’ve only worked with them one time. One day, I must commission them again because they are the sort of artist who will go that extra mile and bring your piece to life.

@ferachidoesart They are Ferachi. They do art. Really well. Great style, super unique, and their commission prices are way more reasonable than you’d expect for their amazing quality.

@auggusst-art @auggusst Really such a kind and talented soul. One of those hidden gems of tumblr. They deserve more notice, so go give it to them!

@blackdogmelancholyooc @blackdogmelancholy Nerd. But actually a really cool dude with a ton of raw talent. They are great to work with.

@anzka Have not posted here in a while, but you should take a peek. Why? Because no one. Draws. Gnomes. Better.

@planktonheretic You like thick ladies? What about buff ones? Then my friend, have I got a treat for you. That treat is Plank. Check out their Twitter too for even more fantastic work!

@kellydidathing Amazing artist. Very busy person, but worth the investment because the art is top notch.

@izzarra Talk about raw talent refined into a craft. This artist is going places, seriously. Amazing stuff.

@thestringking @jane-fitzgerald @ahn-qiraj Extremely talented young lad who I know will go on to kill it in the art industry. Already one of the best out there, no lie.

Self Plug

My blog should be easy to find, right at the top of this post here, or the bottom. If you want to see all my character blogs, please check out RIGHT HERE (under repairs atm so a few of the characters might not work or link improperly) for a complete list. Each character page here contains a link just under their summary that will take you to their individual blog. Check out the ones that interest you!

Also want to plug my own guild, @coldwall-collective, for still being some of the best writers and content creators I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Go check us out!

Not Here?

Don’t be sad! Many reasons could be the cause. Maybe we’ve just not interacted enough. Or maybe I’ve not seen many of your posts. Maybe I overlooked you because I’m silly. Any of these could be a reason. If you don’t see yourself here, it does not mean I don’t appreciate you. I do. You’re a part of what makes this community great and I have all the respect for you.

[rockislandadultreads]

2020 Contemporary Romances: a reading list

Love Your Life by Sophie Kinsella

Call Ava romantic, but she thinks love should be found in the real world, not on apps that filter men by height, job, or astrological sign. She believes in feelings, not algorithms. So after a recent breakup and dating app debacle, she decides to put love on hold and escapes to a remote writers' retreat in coastal Italy. She's determined to finish writing the novel she's been fantasizing about, even though it means leaving her close-knit group of friends and her precious dog, Harold, behind. At the retreat, she's not allowed to use her real name or reveal any personal information. When the neighboring martial arts retreat is canceled and a few of its attendees join their small writing community, Ava, now going by "Aria," meets "Dutch," a man who seems too good to be true. The two embark on a baggage-free, whirlwind love affair, cliff-jumping into gem-colored Mediterranean waters and exploring the splendor of the Italian coast. Things seem to be perfect for Aria and Dutch. But then their real identities--Ava and Matt--must return to London. As their fantasy starts to fade, they discover just how different their personal worlds are. From food choices to annoying habits to sauna etiquette . . . are they compatible in anything? And then there's the prickly situation with Matt's ex-girlfriend, who isn't too eager to let him go. As one mishap follows another, it seems while they love each other, they just can't love each other's lives. Can they reconcile their differences to find one life together?

The Business of Lovers by Eric Jerome Dickey

Unlike their younger brother, Andre, whose star as a comedian is rising, neither Dwayne nor Brick Duquesne is having luck with his career--and they're unluckier still in love. Former child star Dwayne has just been fired from his latest acting role and barely has enough money to get by after paying child support to his spiteful former lover, while Brick struggles to return to his uninspiring white-collar job after suffering the dual blows of a health emergency and a nasty breakup with the woman he still loves. Neither brother is looking to get entangled with a woman anytime soon, but love--and lust--has a way of twisting the best-laid plans. When Dwayne tries to reconnect with his teenage son, he finds himself fighting to separate his animosity from his attraction for his son's mother, Frenchie. And Brick's latest source of income--chauffeur and bodyguard to three smart, independent women temporarily working as escorts in order to get back on their feet--opens a world of possibility in both love and money. Penny, Christiana, and Mocha Latte know plenty of female johns who would pay top dollar for a few hours with a man like Brick... if he can let go of his past, embrace his unconventional new family, and allow strangers to become lovers. Eric Jerome Dickey paints a powerful portrait of the family we have, the families we create, and every sexy moment in between.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. While the world knows him as Aeneas, the star of the biggest show on TV, Gods of the Gates, he's known to fanfiction readers as Book!AeneasWouldNever, an anonymous and popular poster.  Marcus is able to get out his own frustrations with his character through his stories, especially the ones that feature the internet’s favorite couple to ship, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone ever found out about his online persona, he’d be fired. Immediately. April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she’s hidden her fanfiction and cosplay hobby from her “real life” for years—but not anymore. When she decides to post her latest Lavinia creation on Twitter, her photo goes viral. Trolls and supporters alike are commenting on her plus-size take, but when Marcus, one half of her OTP, sees her pic and asks her out on a date to spite her critics, she realizes life is really stranger than fanfiction. Even though their first date is a disaster, Marcus quickly realizes that he wants much more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. And when he discovers she’s actually Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to hide from her. With love and Marcus’s career on the line, can the two of them stop hiding once and for all, or will a match made in fandom end up prematurely cancelled?

No Offense by Meg Cabot

A broken engagement only gave Molly Montgomery additional incentive to follow her dream job from the Colorado Rockies to the Florida Keys. Now, as Little Bridge Island Public Library’s head of children’s services, Molly hopes the messiest thing in her life will be her sticky-note covered desk. But fate—in the form of a newborn left in the restroom—has other ideas. So does the sheriff who comes to investigate the “abandonment”. The man’s arrogance is almost as distracting as his blue eyes. Almost… Recently divorced, John has been having trouble adjusting to single life as well as single parenthood. But something in Molly’s beautiful smile gives John hope that his old life on Little Bridge might suddenly hold new promise—if only they can get over their differences.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming ― mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account. Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time. All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built. As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate ― people on the internet are shipping them?? ― their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.

Just Like You by Nick Hornby

Lucy used to handle her adult romantic life according to the script she'd been handed. She met a guy just like herself: same age, same background, same hopes and dreams; they got married and started a family. Too bad he made her miserable. Now, two decades later, she's a nearly-divorced, forty-one-year-old schoolteacher with two school-aged sons, and there is no script anymore. So when she meets Joseph, she isn't exactly looking for love--she's more in the market for a babysitter. Joseph is twenty-two, living at home with his mother, and working several jobs, including the butcher counter where he and Lucy meet. It's not a match anyone one could have predicted. He's of a different class, a different culture, and a different generation. But sometimes it turns out that the person who can make you happiest is the one you least expect, though it can take some maneuvering to see it through.

[lysung]

Wabi-sabi (part 1)

Genre: angst, fluff (in the upcoming chapters :))

Pairing: Minsung (Jisung + Minho)

Words: 2,750

Summary: Wabi-sabi means imperfect or incomplete beauty. This is a central concept in Japanese aesthetics, which comes from Buddhist teachings on the transient nature of life. A pot with uneven edges is more beautiful than a perfectly smooth one, because it reminds us that life is not perfect.

Han Jisung and Lee Minho are two average high schoolers who have differences in common; two of them are being from the other high schoolers are being a part from the LGBT community and too thoughtful in an unhealthy way, besides many other things society would see as "flaws". After accidentally knowing each other through Twitter, they eventually became best friends but both of them still had colorless and monotone lives outside internet, until that, someday, one of them is about to get beaten up for being LGBT and the other one defends a random guy from getting beaten up by one of his best friends.

Warnings: bullying, homophobia, depressive thoughts

A/N: hello! i'm alexis and this is my first au :) i know this blog is supposed to be a fluff imagines blog, but i've been feeling like writing some ansgt lately. i hope y'all don't mind it ^^ i've worked hard on this since it's my arts homework as well, so i didn't have all the time to write this, but i did write it on my pace and, honestly, im still a bit unconfident about this one. if this gets a great reaction, i will definitely continue this asap ❤️ i hope you enjoy and please leave a heart and/or reblog, it would help me a lot and make my day 💕

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Legend says that, as soon as you’re born, you get a red string tied to your finger, connecting you to someone you’re destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The string may stretch or tangle but it will never break.

Han Jisung always found the Universe majestic but crazy at the same time. Isn’t it weird how everything happen as it wills? Or, maybe, would it be They? Who is in control of the universe, if there’s someone with such power? Would they be God? But who is God, actually? Is there someone above God? — This kind of thought dominated the teenager’s mind every once in a while and, when it did, it would always keep him up at night. The thought of living his own life but, actually, being controlled by a divine existence, would scare him sometimes.

But, the thing is: the Universe, be it "it" or "they", never did anything out of the blue. Everything happens for a reason; whether if we trip or fall, cry out of pain or laughter, fake or genuinely smile, nothing happens “just because”. And we live to grow up as individuals and learn each and every lesson “it” has to teach us, even the small and silly ones.

Laid down on his bed, Jisung, who strongly believed in such legends, turned off his phone and stared at his dark-ish room’s ceiling, slightly bright thanks to the street lights outside.

These thoughts were, once again, haunting him. All he could do was wonder 3 things: What is he supposed to learn? Why? And, specially, who is going to help him?

These thoughts were soon replaced by self depreciative ones as soon as he looked through the window and noticed the sun rising. He would soon have to be up to get ready for another monotone day of school. He turned around, his back facing the windows, closed his eyes and, one more time, tried to fall asleep. But, as time passed, his thoughts wouldn’t go away; neither his usual philosophical thoughts or the self depreciative ones. There were hundreds of voices screaming in his head – some were calling him, some sounded mad, you would be afraid if you could hear them too. And when he least expected, his alarm ranged, meaning not only it was time for him to get ready for school, but also that he lost another fight to his strong mind.

Later that morning, during class change, he noticed 3 of his seniors in the other side of the corridor. Changbin, Hyunjin and Felix were staring at him and laughing out loud; he tried to ignore them and got his material for Math class. Walking to his classroom carefully, trying his best to avoid them, but they eventually came to him and Changbin pinned him to the nearest locker.

"Where are you trying to go, you shameless fag?" Changbin, their "leader", said to his face in provocation.

"Leave me alone, Changbin. Mind your own busin-" The younger tried to say and break free from his strong grip, but failed and was cutted out by Changbin.

"What are you gonna do? Are you gonna run away? Huh?" The oldest said, the provocation never leaving his tone.

Jisung was speechless. The small anxious boy didn't know what to do — should he fight back? Say something mean to them? Run away? He was totally alone and lost; there was nothing he could do.

"What is going on in here?" A high-pitched voice echoed through the, now, empty corridor, and, right next to them was the school's principal, looking pissed off as usual.

"Oh, nothing, Mrs. Kang! I was just... just... asking him how he'll go back home after school, so that I would know if I should take him home or not, hehe! I love this guy, Mrs. Kang. You have no idea how much I lo-"

"Detention. The 4 of you. And, Mr Seo, I'll let you go this time but, if you ever try to lie to me again, it's detention for a whole week. No buts." Mrs. Kang said and left, cutting Changbin's excuse off and getting a sigh from each of them in response.

"Listen up." To turn back to Jisung was the first thing Changbin did as soon as Mrs. Kang left. "I will get you and teach you how to behave like a real man, annoying faggot. Wait for it." Changbin threatened again, looking deep in Jisung's eyes and left. He watched their figures get smaller as they walked through the long corridor, fear and regret as evident in his eyes than never. Changbin had something in his eyes that made Jisung even more confused and lost.

As soon as the group had finally disappeared, Jisung bursted to the school's restroom without looking back, not being able to hold back the tears. Poor boy wouldn't make it to Math today and he was very aware of it.

This was just a tiny bit of Jisung's daily life, but it always shattered his heart in a billion pieces. He wondered, how can people be this heartless? Why are people like this to people like him, who were just born "different"? What's so wrong in being different? In being yourself? In loving someone, not minding their gender identity? What did Jisung do to deserve to live in such a inhumane society?

What did people like him did for the universe to punish them like this? What did they do to deserve such pain?

Jisung eventually lost his hope on society and hated his mind even more for being so cruel to him. All these voices calling him out, calling him names and saying stupid things would never shut up. How great would it be if he had somewhere to scream freely, without fearing to be heard...

As he walked through a dark path in life, it only seemed to get darker. He tried his best to run away, but something was stronger than him, pulling him further into the endless darkness, regardless of how much he fighted back, until he couldn't fight anymore. That's when he gave up.

After two hours spent locked in the bathroom, including some time to calm down a little bit and reduce the swelling in his eyes at least a little bit, he finally left the restroom and safely got his stuff and went to his classroom, lowering his head to hide his swollen eyes.

And this is how Jisung spent the rest of his time at school: hiding himself from everyone, specially his eyes. No one should see his eyes, or else he would be bombarded with questions and feel even worse with people pretenting to be concerned.

When he was finally back home, his safe place, the first things he's done was locking himself in his room and throwing himself on his bed. It was a way too long day for Jisung and all he wanted was to sleep forever.

Hence he couldn't sleep, he unlocked his phone and tried to look for a calm and soothing song to sleep when he received a message from one of his favorite people ever: Lee Minho, a friend he knew through Twitter. They were like best friends; sending memes, using matching icons, tagging each other in random "love yourself" tweets and even writing sweet things to the other, just to remind them that they are loved and appreciated. It was the kind of friendship people either envy or ship. They would never stop talking to each other and Jisung would never find the exact words that can express all his gratitute for having such an amazing person in his life.

"hey, how was school today? did those dumbasses disturb you again?" Minho asked him in the most "Minho" way as always. Jisung's heart always skipped a beat whenever he would receive a message from him - he's one of the few people who actually worry about him and he loved this feeling.

"it actually sucked as always, but there's not much I can do about it anyways. and yeah, they did, that's why :(" Jisung replied, trying hard not to remind of what happened earlier.

"wait right there bub, i'll brb i will get some tickets to go to your city and kick some asses to mars" Jisung smiled at his reply. Ever since they talked for the first time, Minho's personality amazed Jisung. They were completely opposites, and that was the fun part - their differences made everything perfect.

Minho was, unfortunately, the only person Jisung told about Changbin and his "crew". He just couldn't gather the courage to tell anyone but him, blind by scenarios of his family's possible reactions.

"you're so weird" "i love you so much" Jisung replied and smiled as wide as he could. This kind of reply between them would be pretty common. Now, the question is: is it really a joke or not? Did they mean it, or not? They never even thought about saying this, but it obviously made both of their hearts best crazily fast.

"now that's a lie because i love you more" and tons of heart emojis and memes were shared.

They were each other's happiness, home, a safe place. It was incredible how each message would melt both their hearts. Happiness was endless whenever they would talk. "If only universe could make us live near...", Jisung said to himself. He just wanted to hold tight this bright light that had been brightening up the path Jisung was going through.

"hey, I didn't go to school today so i kept on reading about random facts and found out about a japanese legend that says that two people who are destined to meet are connected by a string tied to their hands and i thought of you" "you said you really like legends like this, so i was wondering if you knew about this one..." Jisung's cheeks began to hurt for smiling for so long. Minho makes him feel so loved, which is a feeling he's still not used to, but he wish he could feel all this in person.

"you're so adorable :( and yes i do know this one, it's one of my favorites!" "i wonder who's on the other side of my string..."

"if you're not gonna be on the other side of my red string then what's the point."

"i love you. i wish i could say this in person."

"i love you too bub and that's fine. some day this will happen, okay? we can and will make it happen. promise?"

"promise."

(...)

It was time for another monotone day at school. He would always know what was going to happen because it's been like this for a while now: he goes to school, sleeps in class, is bullyied, sometimes sleeps a bit longer and then, go back home. It's like he's stuck in a viscious loop - in the end of the day, he would always come back home with a sad expression in his face but he couldn't change this.

At school, waiting for biology class to begin, Jisung decides to try talking to someone. If he wants to stop avoiding people, he should be able to have short conversations with anyone. While talking to this girl who sits beside him about a test they would have later that day, a group of boys sat next to him and started to talk in a much higher tone. Jisung couldn't see their faces before they sat, but it was, surely, Changbin as his crew. Soon they started "talking" about gays and how they are ridiculous. Nice. What a beautiful place with sympathetic people, yay. Poor boy could barely focus in class because of all the noise they were making.

As his class ended and he was about to get his materials for his upcoming biology class, the same group of boys pinned Jisung just like the day before. He was shaking; it was happening one more time and he still didn't know what to do. Shaking under his breath, he didn't say or do anything. He wouldn't dare.

"Hello fairy, we're back." This was enough for Jisung to want to disappear. No, not these feelings again...

"H-hey... b-b-back for w-what?" Jisung asked, stuttering, in deep hopes it wasn't about what he thought.

"I told you we we would teach you how to be a real man, didn't I? And we'll do it now. You'll thank us later when you finally understand what being normal is." Changbin said, clearly trying to scare Jisung even more but, unfortunately, he couldn't get anymore scared. He could barely move or speak. He definitely gave up when he saw Changbin's fist in the air, getting ready to punch him, but another yell from the other side was calling for Changbin this time. His attention was divided between Jisung and the mysterious guy.

"What are you even trying to do?" The guy asked, trying to separate Jisung from them.

"N-no, it's not like that, I swear-"

"What is this supposed to be, then? I saw what I saw, and heard what I heard. So, you're gonna teach him how to 'act like a real man'? Because of what, he's gay?"

"Minho, what are you doing?" Changbin tried to reach him and grab his arms, just like how they would do when they were children, but, this time, Minho wasn't feeling like it. He completely understood what was going on and something must be done about it. He wasn't going to keep anything to himself in such moment, even if the one he's confronting is one of his best friends.

"First of all, he is a man. He's not 'less manly' than you, just because he like boys. Love is normal. Don't you even dare try to say it is not normal, or a sin, or whatever excuse you want to give." Minho kept on yelling and pushing Changbin and his other friends. It did hurt him inside, but he wouldn't stop. "You believe in God, right? Well, God wants you to respect His children as who they are. Also, stop acting as if 'gay cure' exist. You think beating a gay up will 'cure' him, huh? Well, this is not and will never be the right option, Changbin. He's done nothing wrong and there's nothing to be cured. You are the one who should learn to be a man. I thought you had finally understood me when we had that talk, maybe you really weren't paying attention at all, apparently. I can't with all this. You have absolutely 0 respect for people who aren't like you, and I won't stand this anymore. I can't do this. You will never change." At this point, there was a crowd watching Minho, their jaw dropped. He really thouched each of them deeply. Jisung could feel the pain and suffering in his voice. All he wanted to do was to hug him, if it means it would make Minho feel better, even if just for a while. He thought he is so brave for standing up for someone like Changbin because of a stupid dude he didn't even know. This is insane.

Maybe you can still have hope on this society, after all.

[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim volume 2!

So each volume of this VN is semi-self-contained, it seems. There’s not a continuous route through every chapter, or at least if there is, there’s no like persistent state beyond unlocking a little icon for befriending each troll.

The last couple of chapters seem to be bugged, since I have the achievements unlocked already, even though this is my first time playing the game.

Anyway last time our options were to get mind controlled by a twitch streamer, or steal loads of hot dogs with a homeless kid... or accidentally straight up fucking murder him, that can happen too. What are we up against next?

Beginning volume 2, it does in fact seem to be set chronologically after volume 1. Presumably Diemen won’t feature, since he may not have actually survived the first chapter!

So this time we have an indigo blood troll (same as Equius) - and a yellow blood (same as Sollux). So in each case, we’re basically one rung up the hemospectrum from the last game. Let’s go from left to right again.

Amisia

According to the credits, Amisia is written by Aysha U. Farah.

Amisia’s typing quirk seems to be that she doubles up the letter ‘u’. She finds us cute. Or rather, cuute.

She lives in a classy part of town.

Our first choice is whether or not we’re an artist. Going off pattern, saying we’ve never had a knack for art is the rejection option.

...turns out not. Apparently friendships with artists can be ‘frauught’. She’s very happy to have us along, and the narrator seems to be very happy to find someone not a ‘maniac’.

The narration calls attention to the paint on her smock. Which ‘doesn’t really look like paint’. 

Oh.

Ooooooooooh.

Yeah so remember the Grand Highblood who liked to paint his judgement chamber in the blood of various trolls? Yeah I’m pretty sure I can see where this one is going.

She puts our arm in a ‘medicalizer’ which heals our injury. The narration mentions we have a sling so... does that mean the branch where we killed Diemen is canon? Probably shouldn’t assume so. Maybe we got a sling in another branch. Then again... those other branches seem kind of final, so maybe this does follow killing Diemen, and ending up friendless.

We get the choice to be chill or dance around the room. Always dance, I say. Not surprisingly, we end up falling on our ass.

We fall on our ass a lot in this game. But the result is that we get a cut and that makes - shocker - Amisia really excited about our bright red human blood.

Lucky she never met Karkat, I suppose.

She takes the opportunity to be Space Racist.

Then she pulls out a huge axe. I guess if Equius’s thing was a huge bow, her thing might be a huge axe.

Whereas if we don’t flop around, we will surely remain unhurt. So I think we’re on track to become a kind of artistic blood donor.

The narrator finally gets a bit of a clue. But noo, she just wants to show us the axe... and somehow it slashes our wrists.

Sure is Hussie writing.

We get a reveal... she’s not a real painter. She’s ‘really good at the other parts’...

But now she’s inspired, and unlike her other contributors, she’s not gonna just murder us.

So instead we get kept on as a permanent muuse.

We really know how to pick ‘em in this game huh!

So now we have a couple of branch points to try. First, let’s say we’re an artist ourselves...

Amisia is not impressed.

The second branch we can try is to be chill about it when she heals our broken arm.

Ardata gets a mention. Technically this isn’t inconsistent with the route where Diemen dies, but I think it’s more likely this is a kind of ‘floating canon’ where you’ve implicitly tried all the routes, even if it doesn’t make strict logical sense. But if we want to construct a consistent timeline... either an Ardata route happens after Diemen dies, or we injure Ardata’s lusus and then do one of the Diemen routes.

In this route, you tell her you have red blood, and she assures you she has plenty of burgundy. How convenient.

This sounds healthy!

So some troll cops show up with a troll for Amisia to exsanguinate. (Oh it’s good when I get to use a word like “exsanguinate”!)

She tries to get us to do the axe murdering honours, but our ribs give out. We learn that, like Equius, she is STRONG. I recall that wasn’t supposed to be a general indigo-blood trait, but whatevs. So she gets us to hold the troll while she kills them instead.

It goes poorly.

Amisia briefly mentions another troll named Chahut as she kicks us out for messing up her hive.. I presume we’ll meet them later. We get another ending:

Honestly, this seems like a better ending for us. We’re alive, our arm’s repaired and we haven’t lost loads of blood, and we’re not trapped in a ‘friendship’ with Amisia.

Speaking of which... the narration hinted at some kind of supernatural cause behind our obsessive need for friendship, I think. That’s probably worth noting.

So now...

Cirava

I can’t find who wrote Cirava in the credits. Maybe I’m just not being observant!

I kinda like Cirava’s music actually. Feels cyberpunky.

Cirava’s typing quirk seems to be using the word ‘lmao’ a lot, and similar abbreviations. I’m kind of imagining that as saying ‘ell em ay o’ out loud.

We reveal that we’re an alien. Cirava seems chill.

Ohhhhhhh my god this is the vaporwave troll??? And there’s like... a troll bong there?

Also who’s that on the screen? Is that Ardata’s torture stream? ...no, those horns are different.

Cirava, it turns out, is also a streamer, whose viewers are into aliens.

So far... this seems kinda... not horrific? When’s the other shoe gonna drop lol

That’s a little real!

So, in Alternia, instead of vaporwave we have ‘moisturewave’. Which, I’m gonna say, we’re hella into.

Incidentally, the narration seems to be using ‘they’ pronouns for Cirava, so that’s neat.

So I guess we’re making fun of those music youtube channels too? Also trolls have anime, apparently.

The effects of chasing online fame are like, our Theme here I guess. Cirava mentions an ‘incident’ that made them less trusting...

A little on the nose huh.

Cirava, apparently, won’t be our friend unless we get a better aesthetic and a ‘chittr’ account. I’m pretty sure Homestuck already had a Twitter parody, but that was in the whole dream bubbles thing so I guess it wouldn’t extend to Alternia.

Our second choice is whether to let Cirava do our look, or do it ourself. Let’s try doing it ourselves.

Next stop, Harajuku. Cirava, luckily, is into it.

The narration seems to be pretty clear that the generic MSPA reader figure is a guy, alas.

Soon we’re being hit on by strangers. Next up, we’re vaping out of a bug’s ass.

So we get high on alien vape juice hell yeah. Time for THE INCIDENT.

Like a lot of trans girls (come on, vaporwave musician here? blatantly trans), Cirava got in a bunch of twitter chittr fights and started getting fake reported. Only on Alternia getting reported as a psionic means getting enslaved, not just banned off Twitter. This social media fight resulted in Cirava’s friends abandoning them to avoid being targeted (...yeah, that’s real), until Cirava removed their own eye to avoid being used as a psionic battery.

And now... they stay quiet, try not to get in fights, or get close to people.

Help I care about a fucking vaporwave troll now

So yeah that’s like... well of all the endings it’s the least awful one? god ><

Anyway what’s the other route? First, if we say we’re not into moisturewave... predictably, they say this isn’t going to work and kick us out.

Second, we get Cirava to dress us up.

hell yeah

Unfortunately Cirava gets kind of Chidi about the whole ‘making decisions’ thing. Eventually they dress us up...

Exactly like them.

Unfortunately this proves a bit too popular and Cirava freaks out that we’re going to steal their fame.

And as a result of stealing their look and popularity...

As a result, you straight up... kill yourself? With a gun that you find under a stump, because of MSPA memes?

Honestly?

Those wacky kids and their callout posts, am I right? This isn’t exactly a hot allostatic load level critique of disposability and social media mobbing here.

eh. whatever. this definitely feels like an outsider critique... but it feels more personal when I’m vaguely adjacent to the subculture getting mocked lol. (not that i smoke weed and work on vaporwave and make callout posts - but like Cirava’s whole thing is like ‘trans memer’ stereotype, you know?)

Anyway, that’s the outcomes available to us. Chill and smoke space weed with Cirava, be a living blood bank for Amisia, fail to murder someone, or die.

Fun times in Alternia!

I’m not sure if all of these episodes are gonna be like... ‘meet troll, hijinks, backstory dump, suffer’ or if there’s going to be more of a plot later on.

[madzilla84]

how are you xx

Thank you for asking, anon :) I appreciate it!

I suppose it’s as good a time as any for an update. The short version is - Fine, I Guess; the most important thing is that I have food and supplies and am safe and comfortable and as far as I know, so are all the people I know.

Here is the long version lol, because it’s me. 

Real life bit: We’re now into week 5 of working from home, and the last time I went further than the end of my street was over a month ago. I’ve settled into a routine of getting meals delivered semi-regularly (I hate cooking, so it’s kind of a blessing that local companies have started doing affordable, delivered meals in the middle of all this, as opposed to expensive, unhealthy takeaways), and popping to the corner shop for essentials the rest of the time. I guess the last time I spoke to another human aside from on zoom/in the corner shop/waving at delivery people was like. mid-March? when they sent us home?

Despite all that I do feel okay; I joke about having trained for this but the truth is, I kinda have. I already spent most of my non-work time at home and have always lived alone, so I haven’t had to adjust to that. Still, removing really the only social aspect I had in my life - going to work - has been a bit strange. I feel okay now, but I do wonder how difficult the re-adjustment will be when we eventually return to the office - or if we ever will, if they decide they don’t want to pay for the buildings when they maybe don’t need to. We’ll see. I feel like I’m also going to have the stamina of a newborn horse when I start venturing out again; I’ll have to take it slowly. I do quite like working from home, but I don’t want to, like - develop agoraphobia or something, you know?

I’ve really been loving all the special events people have been putting on; both for charity and just to lift peoples’ spirits. I actually think I’ll miss those, and hope it encourages people to keep doing things like that.

All in all, I think I’m pretty fortunate compared to many. I can work from home, I have access to food, they haven’t stopped my pay, I’m not separated from people I’d usually see … it’s not, like, *fun*, and I would love to just be able to resume normality, but realistically I think it’ll be a pretty long time. I was already disappointed about Vidcon but in all honesty I think 2020 is a wash, and probably a chunk of 2021. If it ends up happening I’ll be shocked; I wouldn’t be comfortable going and I can’t imagine they would be either. 

Just gotta get on with it, I guess.

Fandom bit: I DUNNO MAN it’s really all over the place. I have days like Sunday - usually when something disappointing happens or it’s just a bad brain day or whatever - but sometimes, there’ll just be a day when I feel Fully Done; I posted the I’m Straight Up Not Having A Good Time meme the other day but sometimes it really do be like that. (Two memes for the price of one.) I think about taking a break but it never sticks for very long. (I realise I sound a bit like Bender’s ‘I’m Running Away (And This Time I Mean It)’ note from Futurama)

I looked back in my 2018 diary recently and found when I decided to buy my II tickets; it was right after GTPWTW came out. I was already following them, watching vids etc but I wasn’t like - *in the phandom*, y’know? But getting more into it all just as II started was the best and worst time; for the rest of the year we were *so* spoiled (not that we knew it then) and I loved it and just got more and more involved and inspired and was enjoying everything so much - and then it all ended. (Usual disclaimer, before anyone comes for me - of *course* I love and appreciate Phil and his content and am not discounting it in any way; I’m talking about the joint vids and the insta stories and the tweets and the gaming channel and just like acknowledging each other’s existence and Dan being alive.) I - actually don’t remember how much I got into how much they’ve inspired me and helped me, but yeah, and I wasn’t at all prepared for it to be over. I certainly wasn’t expecting 2020 to be like this (in any way).

Sometimes I think I should move on from it, if it’s making me feel this bad on the regular, but I don’t seem to be able to. Animal Crossing has helped recently, and I’m probably going to dive back into another older video game fandom of mine to help, but, like. I dunno. On those bad days I think to myself, Am I A Fool? Am I just sticking around like a sad, jilted ex waiting for - what? Something that will never come? Just reliving the old days over and over? Why do this to myself? It often makes me so anxious and I start catastrophising and like, I joined originally because it made me happy and it was fun? It’s not like I *enjoy* feeling bitter and upset?

And, okay, I know we’ve had this conversation a literal million times and there really is no point any more, but I just wanted to put it out there that there are still regularly days when I am just so damned *sad* about it that I can’t enjoy it on any level. At those times, I don’t want to read fics, let alone write them. I don’t want to watch vids. I don’t even want to look at cute gifs or whatever because it all just reminds me that it’s over. I don’t think Current Circumstances are necessarily making it worse because I was definitely feeling it last year, too, but it certainly doesn’t help that during this time they’ve been, somehow, even more absent than usual.

But then! Other days are much better; I can do all those things and enjoy them a lot and just appreciate that they exist. I have a good time on here (and sometimes, even, on twitter, now I’ve muted like 2/3 of the fandom lmao). I don’t love how those days seem to be getting fewer and further between for me at the moment, but maybe it really *is* the state of the world. I dunno. I guess what it boils down to is that I *do* still care about them, way too much perhaps, and sometimes wish I didn’t because it would make this easier. (How do you switch that off?) 

I ended up leaving my last fandom not because of the dearth of source material - the very nature of video games is that you go years and years between content - but because the fans were awful, except for a small minority (the folks I still keep in touch with). The opposite is true here; I know the phandom has a Reputation but I haven’t found that to be true, mostly - this is probably the nicest fandom I’ve ever been in, and that has definitely gone a long way to keeping me around - I would miss everyone too much. (Obviously every fandom has its bad eggs, but I have curated my experience a *ton*)

I know for many folks they actually couldn’t really care less what D&P actually do and are just here for the fic and art, and I wish that was me but it isn’t (not that I don’t value those things immensely, y’all are carrying the fandom on your backs).

And, like, it really doesn’t take much to cheer me up, lol. Remember how good the first week of April was? Unexpectedly? Things can change on a dime. And yet, while I know that, I’ve also gotten fully used to disappointment and have stopped hoping for good things because I’m just - tired of it. I’ll probably read this back when I’m feeling better and be like, god, what an overdramatic ass (like you might be thinking right now), but that doesn’t help at the time. I’m sure my real life brain problems fully inform how I feel about all of this, too, I’m well aware of that.

So, sorry for writing all that out! But it’s just how things are. I can’t see it changing any time soon, if it ever does, so I guess I need to learn to deal with it better or just - find something else. Except I don’t want to. Which perhaps makes me an idiot.

And the cycle continues.

[fyodorsuggestions]

Tagged by @fy-soukoku

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

My A03 username, and main blog and twitter and facebook and freaking discord and literally every single thing is Darke_Eco_Freak either with hyphens, spaces or underscores and basically I was an edgy 11 year old who loved Jak II and the concept of the evil version of the protag Jak. Only I wanted to be extra Edge™ so I added an extra E to dark.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos)

Hits: Sex Pollen isn’t a real Thing (it was one of the first smuts I wrote and it’s kinda bad now whoops)

Kudos: Sex Pollen again

Comments: T(w)o Me, Fo(u)r Us, or as I call it 2/4

Subs: 2/4

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

It’s been Virus from this piece of art for some months now. Why? Because Kat made it and I love it a lot so you know

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

Um damn, I haven’t gotten regular comments in a few months except from my friends whom I spam with my many many fics. I’m actually in another fandom I made another archive account for because reasons but yeah. My friends are my fave

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

I haven’t actually read fic in a while, there’s one or two Daredevil ones I think about but I don’t go back and re-read, my attention span’s been pretty shit for a while.

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

I’m not subbed to anyone but I have bookmarked 6 fics

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

None really. My latest fandom isn’t really open for AU’s, well written Au’s at least and yes I’m forever salty over that. Hmm, if there’s one I like to toy with though it’s Evil AU’s, you know the villain turns bad AU? Love em

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

Subs: 465

Bookmarked: 2133

I don’t really care though because A) I’ve been in a lot of fandoms since 2014 and I know most ppl are here for the porn as per comments on said porn.

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

Idgaf. I’ve written necro, cannibalism, torture porn, self-insert stuff. Honestly I dump most of what my other fandom wouldn’t accept on this one. Plus Fyodor is a very easy character to manipulate for me so it’s always fun.

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

I’d like to be better about my chaptered fics, not abandoning them and things like that. Also, action scenes, I want to get better at those.  

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

I multiship myself to hell. For this fandom I write whatever catches my eye because I don’t know the characters all that well? The running meme of me not watching the show is still a thing. In my other fandom, I’m one of the few writers around and I write every single ship I can think of cause I can.

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

One my darke account: 73, on my other account; 10 but I post a lot to tumblr and don’t really cross post all that much.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

I can’t tell you that because I just keep huge word docs around but for the year I’ve written about 600 k so that’s cool.

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

I just write off the top of my head most of the time, I’ll talk out a plot with a friend sometimes but otherwise it’s just whatever I feel as the day goes.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

I have, two, soon to be three.

16. How did you discover AO3?

I think I saw someone on ff.net mention it and I started looking at the site.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

Fuck no lol. I’m here writing the rarest of pairs and writing oc/characters, not to mention in first person sometimes and those tags alone mean ppl won’t read. Eh, I’m just posting to archive to bolster the number of fics a character has tbh. (this is for BSD fandom but I’ve never been a popular/famous author in any fandom)

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

Umm, half the time I’m not sure I have ppl beyond friends who read my fics so yeah.

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

I’d say Lakshmi Persad, a local author. Mostly because I hated having to do that book in lit class and wanted to do better than her.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

If you want it, make it. I’m serious, don’t count on anyone to make the content you want to see, do it yourself and people might follow suit, if not, at least you made it. Hella.

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

I finish stories and still have no idea if I figured them out or not.

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

I’ve gotten a few, mostly I ignore them. But there was this one fic, it wasn’t for anyone but me and I shouldn’t have posted it at all but I did and someone told me that the characterization was completely wrong for the character I was writing and I ended up leaving the fic alone for months and months. I got back to it eventually but I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish that fic tbh.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Action gives me joint pain. I just how do you make it flow?

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

I want it All

Deathless Sleep

Missing Pages

Five times he fell

Divine(d) Visions

2/4

Many lil drabbles and sexy times.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

I can’t plan to save my life

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

It used to be 300 a day now it’s 2k because apparently I hate myself. Most of the time I meet it, between the two fandoms I write for daily so yay.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

Absolutely.

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

Step back Through Time and Remember my Touch, definitely those two. One’s the original fic and the other is the sequel. Best things I wrote all year

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

Maybe Gone, that’s a really old one but god the cringe.

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Hopefully I figured out those damn action scenes.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

I think bringing the characters to life in my own head is the easiest thing.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Not letting lack of feedback get to me cause I’m not writing popular shit, I don’t expect it but god damn it gets discouraging as fuck to see something I worked hard on just kinda flop and drown.

33. Why do you write?

I can’t do anything else and crave validation like the attention whore I am.

I’m tagging @chuuyasuggestions @kyusakusuggestions um idk who has archive shit. If you follow me and you see it, you have to do it okay? 

[junker-town]

What WNBA players are saying about their first-time appearance in ‘NBA 2K20’

From left to right: Liz Cambage, Candace Parker, and Breanna Stewart | Via the NBA 2K official trailer

NBA 2K will introduce “franchise” and “season” modes for the WNBA, and will provide a huge platform for the growing the league.

Washington Mystics forward Aerial Powers is such a hardcore gamer that her teammates wish she’d either get her bags pre-checked or let them go through airport security first. Before every flight, they must watch her slowly pull out and place her Xbox One, plus its many wires and cords, on trays en route to road games.

But how else is Powers going play Call of Duty, NBA 2K19 and Apex Legends, three of her favorites?

“I need my games” mocks Natasha Cloud, one of Powers’ many non-gamer teammates.

Powers will soon see herself in one of the games she plays most, as NBA 2K, the biggest basketball video game franchise there is, will introduce the WNBA and all 12 of its teams in the 2020 edition available on Sept. 6. WNBA players have played as themselves in another basketball game, Electronic Arts’ NBA Live in 2018, but 2K is unanimously seen as the premiere hoops game.

“The graphics are a little bit better from what I saw,” Powers said. “The facial expressions are better, the hair is better. You can play online now. In ‘Live,’ you could only play whoever was around you or against the computer, so that’s dope.”

What separates 2K from ‘Live’ isn’t just the game’s popularity, but also the additional features it possesses. For the first time, gamers will be able to become a WNBA general manager and dip into the world of “what ifs.” In ‘Live,’ users could only “quick play” as one team against another, but 2K will feature WNBA “season” and “franchise” modes, allowing users to control an entire franchise, make trades and sign free agents, a spokesperson for the game told SB Nation. (It will not include the option to participate in fantasy drafts, a popular feature with the NBA.)

“We’ve got haters out there, but a lot of them play games ... I feel like they’re gonna start to like us.” -Aerial Powers

“I think it’s gonna bring more excitement to people who game,” Powers said. “People who don’t game, but like the WNBA, are going to get into it. And the people who don’t like the WNBA, you know we’ve got haters out there, but a lot of them play games, so I feel like a lot of them are gonna be like, ‘Let me see what they’re working with,’ especially when they go against other people.”

Through the beginning weeks of the WNBA’s training camp and the regular season, 2K face-scanned the players and head coaches for all 12 teams, taking stationary pictures in an all-white, soundproof van in an attempt to get the face metrics right. That’s come with mixed results.

“I just know that everybody’s saying we look ugly,” Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell told SB Nation. “Our faces don’t match how we actually look.

“I’ve played with DeMar DeRozan,” she continued. “I was like, ‘OK, I know for a fact that’s DeMar DeRozan.’ But when I see us, I’m like ‘Who the hell is that?’”

Las Vegas Aces all-star Liz Cambage posted pictures on her Instagram mocking 2K’s render of her. Later, she tweeted: “Excuse me @NBA2K you forgot my eyelash extensions.”

NBA 2K is far from the first sports video game that gets animation and image backlash. Last year, Seattle Storm legend Sue Bird went on the Players’ Tribune Twitter account to point out NBA Live’s issues.

Hey, @S10Bird here again, real quick. Thing #18: Can someone please tell EA that the “B” in @WNBA stands for “basketball” pic.twitter.com/gBqjnRFVRj

— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) September 14, 2018

And who could forget the meme-ing of Evan Fournier’s 2K17 face scan.

Here it is guys! What do you think? Thanks to @Ronnie2K @NBA2K pic.twitter.com/nkuHTw1T2l

— Evan Fournier (@EvanFourmizz) August 26, 2016

Other new features for WNBA players inside the 2K game remain a mystery. The players SB Nation spoke to hadn’t played the game yet and were learning about it at the same time the public did. The first 2K trailer featuring WNBA players went live Aug. 8.

Proud to be part of the @NBA2K family! I'm honored to help #NBA2K20 pave the way for the WNBA in video games. We continue to break down barriers so young girls and boys can have female athletes as role models #ad pic.twitter.com/h0G1Jr9KiE

— Candace Parker (@Candace_Parker) August 8, 2019

In a press release, NBA 2K said many of the top stars in the league were brought in to the 2K studios to have their bodies scanned for animations including the Los Angeles Sparks’ Candace Parker, the Seattle Storm’s Breanna Stewart, the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson and the Atlanta Dream’s Maite Cazorla. Those scans will allow the game to recreate the players’ shot, passing and running mechanics to perfection. Mystics superstar Elena Delle Donne, the runaway 2019 MVP favorite, told SB Nation that she was not fully scanned. Only two players ratings have been released as of Aug. 9: Stewart (95 overall) and Parker (93).

It does not appear 2K will incorporate prominent WNBA broadcasters for pregame and halftime shows, like they do with TNT’s Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith on the men’s side. Both ESPN’s LaChina Robinson and Ryan Ruocco confirmed to SB Nation they were not scanned for the game.

Still, inclusion in the 2K series provides a huge platform for a growing WNBA. NBA 2K19 sold 9 million copies worldwide, so at the very least, this game will give all 144 players a chance to have their name read and their game seen by a direct (and growing) target audience: hoops fans.

“That’s super dope for us,” Cloud said. “It’s a dream for us to be in the game too. We talk about evening the playing field, and this is giving us different opportunities to be seen in a different light. It shows a progression of us growing as a league, as players, as teams. It’s all part of the progression.”

For hardcore gamers like Powers, the WNBA addition to 2K20 provides a new opportunity to stream, too. She’s already bought a capture card and a webcam to go along with her Xbox. To her teammates’ dismay, those pieces will add to the growing number of electronics slowing down airport security when the Mystics are in town.

But before we’re able to watch Powers’ play as herself on Twitch, she must solve one problem that her non-gamer teammates can’t help with.

“I just need somebody to help me set it up.”

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #26: I Saw a Concert This Week, and I Don’t Even Know If That’s the Most Exciting Thing (2/19/16)

Basically, just read the title, we’ve got too much stuff to cover this week, let’s goooooooooo!

This Week’s TØPics:

Grammy Win: Yes, It’s a Week Old, But Let’s Just Reminisce, Shall We?

New Video Series: Who Are the Sleepers? (oof, that might be the most click-bait thing i’ve ever written, someone remind me to edit that ou- you, hush, you’re not supposed to be reading my notes)

Interview Recaps: Blurryface Returning For Future Projects?

Upcoming Shows: Southwest to Southeast in One Week

Major News and Announcements:

Obviously, the biggest news since the last time I posted a full update is from the Grammys: they fricking won one, and they did it pantsless. Everyone and their Mom knows: I even did a Mini-Update because I knew I couldn’t go seven days without acknowledging it, so I won’t go too far in-depth. But, suffice to say, they slayed, rubbing elbows with entertainment elites, being imitated by James Cordon, getting the attention of everyone from Gordon Ramsay to the Rock on Twitter, bowing to Celine Dion, killing it on the red carpet with their plus-ones (Josh brought Jenna, his mom, and his sister, while Josh brought his brother Jordan- all, frankly, looked right at home among Hollywood’s most beautiful.

The only other main “news” story (if you could call it that) is that Mark has started releasing another tour diary video series. The soon-to-be five-part series comes with a unique title, “Sleepers”, and the first one is mainly edited around the song included in the title of the video, “We Don’t Believe What’s On TV”, including a soundcheck acoustic performance of the track. Does that mean that “Sleepers” refers to “sleeper hits” and that every episode will feature a performance of a Blurryface song that never got to be a radio hit? Does the title have something to do with “Oh Ms. Believer”? Is it a hint at the next album? Will I ever get a life? The world may never know.

Anywho, the important thing is that this honestly might be the best video Mark’s ever shot- it’s edited so, so dang well. Plus, it features a lot of Josh, which is always a great thing: his interviews here contain him confessing that their last break was driving him crazy (hopefully a good sign that they’ll try to make the next one short), wandering the streets of Newark at night and talking to folks out of a desire to see more than just a lot of dressing rooms during his touring experience, and him and Tyler recreating one of the band’s most iconic Vines on a treadmill (#TruFans will know).

Performances, Interviews, and Other Shenanigans:

Holy crap, I can’t believe I complained about too few interviews last week. *deep breath* OK. Let’s go.

First, I need to acknowledge that I went to their second show in Anaheim. While the first show apparently had some problems involving screwed up communication between early campers and venue security, things seemed to have all fallen into place, save for the minor hitch of Tyler having a bit of a cold that added a bit of extra nasal to his speaking voice and, as he humorously noted on stage, caused him to sneeze on-stage for the first time in their career. That wasn’t the only nifty thing from a show this week- as pictured above, Tyler gave Josh a Valentine’s Day rose in Fresno, and the first Anaheim show was attended by Kate Hudson (who praised the band on Ellen, #TOPonEllen) Muse frontman Matt Bellamy, and their young children, as well as (if Twitter is to be believed) Gerard Way himself.

The first Anaheim show was preceded by an awesome acoustic set for an L.A. radio station (I’ve missed those, wish they did more). Highlights include:

An acoustic remix/mashup of “Ride” with the “House of Gold” (and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”) instrumentation that’s just too good for words.

Tyler trying to get a kid in the audience to sing parts of “Stressed Out” and oh my God he’s such a freaking dad.

When asked, Tyler confirms that the break between album cycles will be longer than previous ones- he says that he can’t write without singing his lyrics, and that means he can’t write much when he has to be careful about maintaining his voice on their almost-daily touring schedule. He also says that he enjoyed getting to be an actual person during the last break, from doing stuff around the house like fixing the toilet and changing the oil to just being able to drive himself around and remember “Oh yeah, you can turn right on red”. That said, he doesn’t really want to take too long off, especially when he knows what its like when artists he enjoys take off years at a time. He also trolls the audience at one point, asking “What do you guys want to hear? Cool, new album.” (Oof, this is torture.)

He talks a bit about the Grammys, namely getting texts from everyone he’s ever known (including his mom’s neighbor), probably stealing his speech from a Disney movie, and it being cold.

On collaborations like with Mutemath, Tyler emphasizes that he knows that people can tell when they are done just for the sake of marketing, and he firmly believes that collaborative art should come from a place of friendship (more on that later, although my conspirical (sic) brain has to note that it sure sounds like Tyler might have done more than just the Mutemath collab... I’m still watching you, labelmates).

Beyond that, there were also a bunch of other interviews that surfaced this week. The huge profile of the Grammy win earned them a couple of news spotlights, one from a Grammy after party where Jenna gets to answer a question or two, another from the local Columbus station going over the bands’ history in the town that’s just too cute for words. As far as interviews, highlights include:

SiriusXM, New York (Fan Submitted Questions):

They’re lurking on Twitter, watching those “buggers” that are making fun of them. Thankfully, that means we’re safe on Tumblr.

Being a bean helps Tyler escape awkward social situations.

Josh thinks that all of the fans who yell “I love you!” aren’t really thinking through the full ramifications of that statement, and that they really mean “I respect you”.

Tyler’s dad sends him band memes all the time, which led to him getting blocked.

“TB Saga” and “Coconut Sharks” don’t get played live because singing and playing the drums is difficult when you’re overwhelmed with emotion.

Every time they see someone with a band tattoo, Tyler and Josh are forced to acknowledge that they have to stay together “for the kids”. You heard the men. You know what to do.

Kevin Klein Line, Live 105, Bay Area:

Not sure how I feel about the interviewers being more sarcastic than the boys. There’s something fundamentally wrong about that.

“Baby Sized Man” may be a future single.

Future projects will be focused on the all-important Mom demographic.

106.5 Sacramento:

Tyler’s Grammy wins mean that more than a few folks are now obliged to get some tattoos.

This is big: Blurryface might not be retired for the next album. Tyler says that he continues to get new ideas about the same kind of ideas that Blurryface is based around. More on that in the BLIND SPECULATION section below.

10N1 Sacramento:

Tyler and Josh would not descend from the ceiling in the style of Gaga if they got the chance to play the Super Bowl. Giraffes, on the other hand...

Josh attributes his physique to Reeses Puffs and cinnamon. Cool, I’m almost there.

New Rock 104.1, Fresno:

“Dude, you’re like the best bro in the world.” -Tyler Joseph to Josh Dun, 2017 (Context: Pointing out that Josh totally could have let Tyler walk onstage solo and left him looking like an idiot.)

Josh explains the difficulty he faced getting his dress pants off.

An eating contest with Josh might replace Mario Kart in future shows (though it presents some potential nausea problems.

It’s not a Twenty One Pilots interview, but worth mentioning: Jon Bellion, who notoriously revealed that he’d be opening for the band months before it was officially announced, might have confessed that their teams might be collaborating on something.

As an update from last week: the full video from Andy Signs’ performance with the band last week was posted, and it’s so sweet. Twenty One Pilots have actually been up to all sorts of cool fan things this week, from meeting with more Make a Wish kids on the Grammy red carpet to hanging out with Kate Hudson’s kids before the first Anaheim show.

Upcoming Shows:

After spending most of last week in a single state, this week of touring has some real geographic range, pretty much spanning from one side of the United States to the other. Let’s take a quick look at the varied locales, shall we?

Show 23: Tucson Arena, Tucson, Arizona, 2/19

Capacity: 7,400

First stop is Tucson, the second largest city in Arizona. Twenty One Pilots has played six shows in the state capital of Phoenix, but poor Tucson has always been passed over for its neighbor two hours to the north, which both services more people and is physically closer to other potential tour stops. That will change tonight.

The arena at the Tucson Convention Center usually hosts the hockey team of the University of Arizona. It’s a smaller venue for this tour, but there aren’t many bigger options for this area.

Show 24: BOK Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2/21

Capacity: 13,600

Tulsa is a fifteen hour drive from Tucson (might be time to bust out the private jet again). A fairly active cultural center in the otherwise pretty empty region of the country, Tulsa. The band has played three shows in Tulsa, though the last two concerts they’ve played in the state of Oklahoma were in the eponymous capital, so this will be a minor homecoming.

The Bank of Oklahoma Center lacks any regular tenets other than the minor league Oilers hockey team, it keeps the lights on with basketball championships and concerts like these. It’s a pretty interesting building that features a lot of diverse artwork from throughout the region.

Show 25: American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas, 2/22

Capacity: 21,000

The tour then moves south to the great state of Texas for what is, surprisingly, the only stop in the territory on this tour. That said, it makes sense to place the stop in Dallas, which, when combined with neighboring Fort Worth and several other nearby cities, makes up the largest metropolitan population in the country outside of New York, L.A., and Chicago. This show will be Twenty One Pilots’ twentieth show in Texas and their eighth in the Dallas area. Fans may remember that the last show they played in this area back during the last leg of the Roadshow fell the day after the fatal shooting of several Dallas police officers; Tyler gave what, in my mind, is easily one of his Top 3 best speeches at that show.

This show’s venue is one of the biggest on the tour, in an apparent effort to make up for the strangely small size (relatively speaking) of the last show, which could only fit a little over 6,000 folks; the American Airlines Center, known by some as “The Hanger”, can hold more than three times that number. The Hanger is the home of the NHL Stars and NBA Mavericks, and is a local landmark.

Show 26: Legacy Arena, Birmingham, Alabama, 2/24

Capacity: 19,000

Next stop is Alabama's most populous city, Birmingham. The band hasn't played the city since early in 2013, though they've played near Alabama's southern shore a few times since then. The city will be welcoming them back in one of the state's biggest venues located in Birmingham's convention complex.  

Show 27: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina, 2/25

Capacity: 23,000

Last on the list for this week is Greensboro, North Carolina's third largest city behind Raleigh and Charlotte. Greensboro and its Coliseum has had a pretty interesting history over the last few years involving struggles to hold on to minor league hockey and basketball teams and, notably, Bruce Springsteen's cancellation of a concert in the venue due to the state's backwards transgender discrimination law. Hopefully the Twenty One Pilots concert will go much more smoothly.

Community Spotlight:

Keeping it short and sweet this week: artist/comedian Hannah Hoffman makes funny content (not all related to Twenty One Pilots, of course, but even that stuff’s good, too).

BLIND SPECULATION OF THE WEEK:

Calling back to the central topic of most of the interviews from earlier, I must ask: what’s up with Blurryface returning in upcoming albums? Does that mean that we might have been getting clues about upcoming music this whole time?

In a word: no. In another word: yes? Confused? Good.

I don't think there was any indication at the start of the cycle that Tyler and Josh were planning on carrying Blurryface past his eponymous album cycle, for the simple reason that such things were too far in the future for them to worry about at the time. You have to remember that Blurryface was the first album where Tyler really worked on building a story with the songs more than just grouping them around his own life experience, feelings, and maybe a general underlying theme or idea. Around 2015, I'm sure Tyler was thinking about a million different possibilities for future projects, but he was by no means tied down to one course of action or another.

However, in recent months, Tyler has constantly been talking about how all of his creative ideas have been coming out of what he's experienced during this album cycle. That, I think, ensured that the character would continue to exist, even more than just how successful Blurryface was for them as a band. Tyler has always written from what he has experienced, but with all of the success of the last few years, he's gotta be running short on compelling things to write about. He's experienced so much tremendous success that it's doubtful he'll ever have to worry about doubting his decisions or fearing utter failure again. Frankly, the dude's been so busy working that I wonder how much of his own personal life he even has left to write about. That leaves the illogical manifestation of anxiety that Blurryface represents- that gnawing feeling that it's all been a fluke and everything good is temporary- as one of the few real things he can write about that he's personally experienced and that will still be relevant to his audience.

Of course, Tyler hasn't just written from his own experience; songs like "Guns For Hands" have drawn off of what Tyler has seen in his fans when he's shared his music with them. While Blurryface was very much an album about making music and expressing yourself as an artist, what I've heard from Tyler and Josh so far about how the touring has been informing their music gives me reason to believe that a lot of Album 5 will look at how Blurryface, the ideas he represents, and the music they made to fight him has impacted other people. That excites me.

So, back to the original question: Do I think Tyler's given us any direct hints at future songs yet? I think it's a distinct possibility. Though we haven't been getting any lyrical tweets from him (save for maybe that "Friends close, enemies on the guest list" one), the dude talks so much and so eloquently that there's a veritable laundry list of potential lyrics floating around. We know that Tyler dropped lyrics from "Ride" in an interview well before that track's release. Ultimately, we're just gonna have to wait and see.

As always, but especially this week: power to the local dreamer.

|-/

[audibleaddixion]

AUDIBLE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Eve Minor Discusses Her New 3:33 Album, Paradise Apocalypse, Inspirations, and More!

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Eve Minor is an alien.

And that’s probably the most accurate description you can give this artist. She is completely unique and embodies her art in every breathe, refusing to be labeled. Eve’s music blends sounds like punk, rock, trap, pop, goth, into darkly beautiful gems. As a multi-instrumentalist and completely independent artist, she is always inspired and working on the next big project for her fans. We got a chance to sit down with her in an exclusive interview to discuss her new album, touring, her personal motivation, and upcoming projects.

Audible Addixion (AA): As an artist, you have a huge fanbase and cult following, what do you think connects fans to your music so much?

Eve Minor (EM): I understand them and they understand me on a very intimate level. My art is a reflection of my life in real-time, mostly and they get to live with me and that body of work moment to moment. We share this one life and breath.

AA: What was the inspiration for the single, “Ostara”?

EM: I want to find my forever. I feel in the ether for months someone has been calling out to me. I astral project, and have taught the selective few in my collective, the militia. We meet in the “upside-down” or “3D world” at 3:33. Ostara is me finding this person and culling them. I can feel them in my entity, they need me and I need them; they are my twin flame, my mirror soul and I am determined to find them outside of dreams and in present reality.

AA: That’s amazing, definitely hope you find them! Congratulations on the new album 3:33 now released as well! What can fans look forward to with this project?

EM: A completely unique experience. It combines many different musical and sonic motifs and is a performance art experience. It will walk you to different rooms of my life, heart, and soul. “Epsilon” is actually a unique track that is intended for astral projection soundscape. It combines binaural beats and frequencies which trigger different sensations in the brain; I studied neuroscience and physics and how they correlate to music and sound and color. It elaborates on that and provides a unique listening sensation, that is heard audibly but will give you chills and other sensory feelings. If you listen to it before you go to sleep you can meet me at the source, with most of the militia in 3D.

AA: What can we expect differently from Dear Diary, I’m Over It?

EM: Dear Diary was an accidental album. I constructed it as a long-winded purging of the past and put it up as a visual art piece for the militia on Christmas. It was cathartic and helped me release and transition into the next phase of my life. Dear Diary, sonically uses guitars an alternative rock themes and has a lot of interludes from dark moments in my life. On 3:33, it’s more of a transcendental piece and less of a straight-forward album, much like “Dark Side of The Moon” by Pink Floyd. It’s to be experienced, preferably in person.

AA: How did you develop this dark sound in your music, and why do you think it resonates so well with fans?

EM: I’ve always been very dark but have been hiding it until lately. I used to reel myself back because I had a really shitty group of musicians around me. They used to try and tell me to “lighten up” and be “more poppy” for the sake of money, which I don’t believe in. I am a philanthropist and give with my soul, any dollar I have I basically give away. However, being dark- if you listen to “Agoraphobia” and understand what it’s like to be completely abandoned as a feral child and forced to thrive on your own, I don’t think you’d be much lighter than an occasional smile. It resonates because I am the darkness. I am the red-headed stepchild who’s been cast in a corner and forgotten. I am proverbially a leper, however, it doesn’t aid me much to tell people I have body dysmorphia and all these issues outside of my art, they just wouldn’t believe me, as most are fixed in their thoughts and shallow in this industry. That’s why it resonates because I’m a real mf. I hear my militia, I know what it feels like to feel alone in the world and like nobody can hear you no matter how loud you scream.

AA: Well said! You’re also known as a multi-sound artist that likes to blend genres, how did you develop that ability and when did you know your music could never be put in a box?

EM: I am something different. I studied color theory and with high shamanic mystics in my youth on seeing colors as sound. It’s something intrinsically intuitive that most wouldn’t grasp. I always had natural musical ability and just applied the theory while breaking those rules to every instrument and began creating my own instruments. I think it’s like anything else, if you create so purely it is what the piece calls for. It transfers to life; you must be present. Every piece is present and honest. You can’t think about it if you’re honest, then you’d be lying to yourself and others. When I feel something, I really feel it at that moment, and as someone highly creative my moments are always changing, so I almost never feel the same twice. lol

AA: With the 3:33 tour and 3Summer tour, what can we expect from these live shows and are there any surprises you have in store for us?

EM: Ah yes. lol the 3:33 tour. So conceptually I’m looking for my forever here. 3:33 will be a reflection in real time of that, the first leg is Ostara which will become 3Summer. These live shows are going to be something completely unexpected. I’m really an unrehearsed, raw, honest artist. I can not tell you exactly what will happen but I know it will be different every time. As with my art, I just let it pour out of me, so the performances will be reflective of such. I will definitely be drinking a lot of blood backstage, and the militia knows to bring blood for me I need the prana. I decapitated a life-size teddy bear at a punk show recently, it’s really, however, I feel at the moment. 3Summer will be my move to LA. The universe wants me there so I am flowing with it.

AA: Can you tell us about “Paradise Apocalypse”?

EM: The world is on fire. I was having a conversation with my dear friend Dwid Hellion from Integrity, and he recommended these real cool books for me to read which put a worm in my brain. I am a huge hardcore and powerviolence enthusiast, so it combines breakdown and beatdown hardcore motifs with trap and whatever I bring to the table. It’s a juxtaposition, bliss and despair. It’s about the current state of the world and how it translates to myself. Of course, though, there’s always a boy, I crush all the time with people I never get to meet. I think subconsciously I wanted this guy to fuck with it lol… I digress, I was listening to a lot of Ghostemane at the time too and XXXtentacion, so there’s probably some influence there as well- I think Eric is amazing and I’m so proud of him as an artist. Paradise apocalypse is really me just embracing how truly fucked I am right now. Everything around me is literally in flames and I’m pretty much that meme with the dog drinking coffee going “this is fine”.

AA: You seem constantly motivated, hardworking, and completely living in your art, what keeps you inspired as an artist?

EM: I didn’t choose to be an artist, it chose me. I really tried to do other things, but I’m naturally outside the box in my thoughts and I’m a do-er. I manifest my reality on pure thought and impulse. I’m inspired by so many things it’s hard to pinpoint but a lot of it is true despair and tragedy and trying to pull those feelings out and make them beautiful. It’s like burning pieces of yourself and laughing into the fire because they’re over after that. They’ve evolved into ash, and all you have is that memory of something beautiful blowing in the wind.

AA: With so much going on and already accomplished, what’s next for Eve Minor and what are your future goals as a rising star in today’s music?

EM: I am a star. I am the brightest star shining in the depths of the dawn. I have so many goals artistically. I know I have been working on a new record, even though 3:33 just came out. I have plans to finish that up. I am in talks with some labels and A&R’s and I think maybe it will help me on the managing side of my craft. I’m solely indie so it can be overwhelming at times, juggling so much. I do want to play more shows I think 3Summer will provide that. It’s hard because I live my life so, at the moment, I don’t know if there is a tomorrow, or even another minute for me sometimes. Regardless, I have a few collabs I’m trying to accomplish but mostly I want to continue to give back. I really want to help elevate other people and give back, if it’s buying someone a latte or running a contest and handing out tickets, small things that add up. I want to love everyone. I guess that’s my plan. Pure love. No cap. <3

Thank you Eve Minor for the interview opportunity! Go check out that new album if you haven’t already and be on the lookout for “Paradise Apocalypse” coming soon!

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[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Zach Katz of Framed Tweets, a website that sells framed tweets.Some stats:Product: Framed TweetsRevenue/mo: $25,000Started: May 2017Location: NYCFounders: 1Employees: 0Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi! I’m Zach Katz, and I started Framed Tweets to give people a simple way to beautifully frame their favorite tweets as art, to remember and enjoy forever.You can frame any tweet you want, or pick one from our gallery of tweets from Twitter icons like Kanye West), Donald Trump, or Elon Musk. They come in three styles: Ornate Gold, Sleek Black, and Giant Canvases (which fill an entire wall)!We launched in May of 2017, grossing about $20k in our first year, followed by $110k in 2018. We’re on track to double that in 2019 as we continue to scale our advertising.Our productWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I dreamed up the idea for Framed Tweets a year prior to starting it.It was December 2015, and I was holed up in my room, avoiding the New Year’s party my parents were hosting downstairs. I was scrolling through Twitter, when suddenly, I thought, “what if you could frame a tweet?” (Honestly, that’s how most ideas come about, at least for me. They just randomly happen.)I looked all over the internet. I couldn’t believe that there was no website that frames tweet. Excited about a potentially great idea, but with zero intention of ever starting a business, I wrote it down in my notes app as one of those funny “what ifs,” and completely forgot about it.Later that year, after graduating from film school in Boston, I worked on a food truck for a few months, until I eventually got tired of making sandwiches and wanted a change of pace. That winter, I moved to Portland, Oregon.I didn’t have a job. I just walked around and worked on music all day. I had a few thousand saved up from my previous internet ventures (I had a large YouTube following and monetized some Twitter accounts, which I sold), but money eventually started running out, so one rainy day in February, I set out to find a job. I printed out my resume and took it to a bunch of restaurants, hoping to be a busboy or something. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any experience in the industry, and although there was a brewery that seemed sort of promising, I felt awful. Getting a “normal job” felt like giving up. I walked home dejected and unsure about my future.On my way home, I encountered a man on the sidewalk who was selling homemade Sudoku puzzles for $5 each. After my near-resignation to a life of transporting dirty dishes, seeing this man on the street selling something he made—without permission from anyone—was striking. With more curiosity than I’ve ever had in my life, I asked him if he was making a living selling these puzzles. He told me he makes enough to get by, and that was all I needed to know.I walked away with a new outlook on life. Before talking to that guy, I had never, EVER dreamed of starting my own business, and now, I was 10,000% confident that I could make a living selling something myself. If some guy selling Sudoku puzzles on the street could eek out a living, anything was possible.I opened the notes app on my phone, tapped on my ‘Ideas’ folder, and the first thing I saw was a note that I had written a year prior, which simply read: ‘framed tweets.’ I hurried back to my apartment and started working on Framed Tweets that afternoon.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.I knew I wanted to keep things simple. I didn’t want to overwhelm people with twenty different styles of frames. I wanted to start with one beautiful, ornate gold frame that suits tweets perfectly.At first, I considered buying from an American picture frame company, but I couldn’t find any ornate frames that were sold in bulk. I did some research and found that Alibaba was a good place to buy a wide variety of picture frames in bulk. I requested samples from a few companies, picked out the one I liked best, and ordered 500 of them with the last of my savings.Good thing my building had a freight elevator.Note: the frame wasn’t completely off-the-shelf. We paid extra for a few custom nuances, like using real glass, a thicker backboard, and adding an easel to allow for propping. We also designed it with rotatable tabs to make it extra easy to insert tweets (a style that’s surprisingly uncommon in American picture frames).Describe the process of launching the business.At first, I had no idea you could easily sell stuff online. Inspired by the guy selling the puzzles, and eager to make sales right away, I started selling them on the sidewalks of Portland.I found some used frames at a thrift store, picked out some funny tweets, printed them at FedEx Office, and lined them up on NW 23rd Ave.The business was nice enough to let me use their staircase.I didn’t sell many—maybe six or seven, total—but the response was overwhelmingly positive. Groups of teenage girls Snapchatted them. Dignified old men carefully studied the tweets, as if it were the MoMA. Some people scowled. But almost everyone laughed. That’s how I knew I had a good idea on my hands.Tired of unsuccessfully hawking tweets on the street, I decided to try selling them online. My first mistake? Spending two months and $2,000 trying to get some guy on Upwork to build an e-commerce site from scratch, because I had no idea something like Shopify existed. Lesson learned!My first mockup.Once I discovered Shopify, I spent about two months getting the site ready: Taking product photos, curating tweets, organizing them into categories, writing a FAQ page, etc. Finally, it was ready to go.Working on the website.I launched the website on May 5th. That night, I tweeted the link to some random people who I found by searching Twitter for “frame this tweet.” The next morning, I woke up to find Framed Tweets featured on Product Hunt, Mashable, Uncrate, and a few other websites. (My favorite article came out a few months later, in which I had some fun embellishing to Portland’s Willamette Week.)While that press led to about 100 initial sales (~$5,000 worth), the traffic eventually fizzled out, and I was back to square one.Fulfilling orders from my apartment.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?The #1 most important thing you can do is find a way to consistently get people onto your site. Press is no substitute—even if your store gets featured in the New York Times, the traffic is still going to wither away a few days later, and then you’re back to square one. Which is why a “scalable marketing machine” (Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads, etc.) is so important.Instagram AdsThese have been our bread and butter, and 90% of our sales are attributed to them (in fact, we’re not even advertising on Facebook at the moment, because the return on Instagram has been so much better).One of our best-performing Instagram ads.Just regular ol’ InstagramJust posting to Instagram has worked pretty well. Sometimes I’ll post a photo of a product and we’ll get three or four sales. Other times, nothing will happen. Instagram is unpredictable like that. But I also haven’t been putting as much effort into crafting beautiful photos, which the algorithm loves—that’s been on my perennial to-do list.TwitterI’ll let this screenshot do the talkingPressWe’ve been featured on a few big sites, like Mashable, Hypebeast, and GQ France. We didn’t do any PR outreach—it all just happened randomly. I’d love to get some more press, so if you write for the New York Times and want to write a story about how tweets are changing the art game, hit me up :)InfluencersWe occasionally send free framed tweets to people with lots of followers on Twitter or Instagram. Sometimes, they tweet about it, although we don’t ask them to.It’s hard to know exactly how many sales this kind of thing yields, but I feel like it’s a pretty good long-term strategy, building awareness and whatnot.Email marketingThis is something that we haven’t invested much in yet, but are looking to build up soon. If you’re interested in working with us on this, please get in touch!Other sales channelsOur Etsy store makes up about 5% of our sales. What’s nice is that they’re all organic sales from search (in other words, people searching for “Kanye West gifts” as opposed to ), so since we’re not spending any money on marketing there, profit is higher.We occasionally get sales from Amazon and eBay too, although our presence on those sites isn’t built up much yet.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Things are going pretty well!Sales are steadily increasing as we scale our Instagram ads. We’re grossing about $20k per month from Instagram ads, spending about $300/day. Our ROAS hovers around 2.Operations-wise, we now work with a fulfillment center that prints, frames, and ships all of our products, so I don’t have to handle any of that myself anymore, which allows me the freedom to work from anywhere in the world.I’m also working on growing my other business, Memes On Canvas, spearheading the internet-content-turned-IRL-art industry :)Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Working with a marketing agency has been huge. At first, I spent weeks trying to figure out how to run Facebook ads myself, but I honestly didn’t have the patience or experience to do them myself. Once I hired an agency, it made a huge difference, and sales started to really take off in a reliable way.Broadly-speaking, there are always going to be new and unexpected challenges. For example, the exact day I started Framed Tweets, Kanye West deleted his Twitter. Which meant manually re-creating all of his now-deleted tweets people were buying. Or a few months later, when Twitter changed the entire design of tweets, and we had to re-upload hundreds of product images (this will probably happen again soon). Or the many times we’ve failed to order inventory on time, and had a hundred upset customers pissed off about not getting their order in time for Christmas. There are always going to “speedbumps” on the road to success in any endeavor, which I view as a way the universe “teases” you, simply to prove your dedication to achieving what you want.I’ve also learned that business isn’t some boring thing that involves just filling out a bunch of forms, which is a misconception lots of beginners seem to have. It’s actually more like a form of art. Essentially, every problem can be solved with creativity, which is why I think that being open-minded and thinking expansively are two of the most valuable assets that you can have. I believe that everyone is fundamentally creative in their own way, which means that anyone can succeed at business if theyDo things “the hard way” first, then look for easier ways as you goIn the early days, I printed all of the orders at FedEx Office, took them back to my apartment to frame them, then carried the boxes to the post office. When that started taking too much time, I bought a professional-grade printer and discovered that USPS will pick up from your home, for free (!).When that started taking too much time, I found a fulfillment center to print/frame/ship orders, which now allows me to run the business from anywhere in the world, and scale it up to the moon.Don’t bother keeping your amazing idea a secret.Before I started Framed Tweets, I was scared to tell people about my idea, because I was afraid they would steal it. Now, I can’t believe how silly that was. Over the past year, there have been a few copycat businesses, but they’ve all given up. Execution is everything.Honestly? This is the first time we’ve published our revenue publically, and now that we’ve done so, I hope people compete with us. I think people are starting to get tired of looking at screens 24/7, and will appreciate more opportunities to bring the internet content they love most into their physical, tangible world. The more the merrier.What platform/tools do you use for your business?I’m always experimenting with new apps, but here are my tried-and-true favorites:Shopify. I wouldn’t even consider using anything else to run an e-commerce store. Worth it for the 3 A.M. support calls alone.The Shopify theme Turbo. Blazing fast, looks amazing, tons of features, constantly being updated.Hypervisual for landing pages, and to spruce up the collection and product pages. I tested DOZENS of landing page builders for Shopify, and Hypervisual is by FAR the best. I love it so much.Klaviyo for emailFera.ai for checkout page adjustments, social proof pop-ups on the site, and “get it by” shipping countdowns.Okendo for customer reviews.Onlinejobs.ph for hiring Filipino virtual assistants. $2 USD/hr is actually a competitive wage there because the cost of living is so low.Lucky Orange for heatmaps, to help with improving our conversion rate.LiveRecover for texting customers who abandon their cart with a coupon code. We just started experimenting with this, but it seems promising.Snappic - Automated retargeting ads for Facebook and Instagram. Has driven a consistent ROI for us.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?The War of Art - The Bible of creative productivity.Derek Sivers’ blog - Wisdom that applies to both art and business.My Uncle Oswald - Did you know Roald Dahl wrote books for adults, too? This is one of the most entertaining stories I’ve ever read, and it contains wildly potent lessons in entrepreneurialism.The Millionaire Fastlane - This book is aimed at people who want to break out of the 9 to 5 world, but I’d recommend it solely because it made me completely rethink wealth, and what it takes to become rich.The ONE Thing - When I was trying to do a bunch of things at once and was having trouble deciding what to focus on, this book helped a lot.The Philosophy of Andy Warhol - “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Find amazing people to work with.One good way to run a successful business is to outsource everything to people who are better at it than you. How to find them? Talk to people, and they’ll surprise you. Some examples from my life:A few months after starting the business, I made a post on reddit asking for help marketing Framed Tweets, and I met a guy named Max, who runs a marketing agency called Paradise Growth. He’s not only been running all of our ads campaigns ever since, but has also taught me almost everything I know about business along the way (for example, without his guidance, I wouldn’t have even known to look for a fulfillment center, and I’d probably still be packing orders from my apartment!).Last summer, after emailing a customer apologizing for his order being late, he referred me to his friend’s fulfillment center that could handle our volume. We’re still working with them to this day.I even met a girl on Tinder, and instead of going on a date, she ended up helping me with an influencer campaign!With the entire world at your fingertips, and with basically zero effort or risk in chatting someone up in the DMs, you might as well talk to as many people as possible. You never know who you might hit it off with and end up changing your life.If you don’t have traffic, you won’t get sales.I used to freak out when I wouldn’t get any sales all day—despite only getting like, 30 visitors—and think “what the hell am I doing wrong? Maybe no one likes my product. Maybe changing the font will help. Or maybe making the logo cooler…”Turns out, I just wasn’t getting enough people onto the site. That’s where the scalable marketing machine comes in (Instagram ads in our case).I forget where I heard this quote—and I’m definitely butchering the phrasing—but it goes something like:No marketing leads to no sales. Some marketing leads to some sales. And lots of marketing leads to lots of sales.Success isn’t always overnight, and it usually takes a hell of a lot of problem-solving and persistence than you expect. I truly expected Framed Tweets to be an overnight sensation, and to make millions of dollars immediately. That didn’t happen, and two years later, it’s basically just starting to be profitable. Patience is key. But it’s easy to be patient when you enjoy the challenge. Which leads me to...Do something you actually like doing! This might be obvious to some people, and it might not apply to people who can easily tolerate anything in the pursuit of money. But personally, I can’t fully invest my time and energy in something unless I love it. I’ve always been a huge fan of Twitter. It’s my cup of tea, and selling tweets is the most exciting business I can imagine.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re hiring for a few positions (all paid):Facebook ads managerFacebook funnel strategistPart-time marketing data analystEmail marketing strategist and (short-form) copywriterWhere can we go to learn more?Website: framedtweets.comEmail me, zach@framedtweets.comIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM