#see if I never downloaded tumblr I might be much better off

[circusclownproductions]

What do I do

[pikespendragon67]

And Now, an Ode to Priam Fire Emblem: The Decade or So Long Blorbo

As I type this, the Nintendo 3DS and WiiU eShop have legally shut down their Internet servers. Pokemon can still be transferred via the Poke Transporter & Pokemon Bank, and content that was downloaded before can still be redownloaded, but now it is legally impossible to not only buy games, but to also download their free content that was distributed online. For some games, this might not have been utilized or was just a small bonus that didn’t mean much. For Fire Emblem Awakening, it meant access to new maps & somewhat new characters. 

4 of the free online characters were within Awakening’s main story & acted as “what if” scenarios. What if Emmeryn survived her character defining fall that ended a decade-or-so-long war? What if Yen’fay was the Chon’sin royal sibling that survived instead of Say’ri? What would Gangrel do if he lived after Chrom defeated him? What would Walhart do? What would Aversa do if it turned out that she was brainwashed by a cult, realized this, and decided to fight against this? Some were better executed than others, in my opinion, but some of these characters also had exclusive skills, such as Aversa wielding dark magic outside of a Dark Mage/Sorcerer class or Walhart being immune to armor & beast killing weapons, or were just more manpower for your army.

There was one final Spotpass map, though, that acted as a nice free challenge mode (if you didn’t plan on buying the DLC for Apotheosis, of course) : 50 whole units against 26 of your own. At the epicenter of it is Priam, the character I’d like to honor with this memoir. 

Priam is a character not found in the main story of Awakening, and is a dweller of the Isle of Giants in the Outrealms (aka bonus content land oooooh). He’s the leader of a very large army (again, 50 units) consisting of people from every nation within the continents of Ylisse & Valm. He’s supposedly related to a radiant hero of legend, though it’s never officially confirmed. He likes to train, eat meat, and fight strong opponents to better himself regardless of their origins. Overall a relatively simple character to understand. 

For many players, they tend to forget he exists or do their best to pretend he doesn’t exist in the first place. Either they didn’t play his map, his character traits didn’t stick with others as strongly as others, or the big meat and potatoes hot button issue: his relation to Ike. Ike is the protagonist of the Tellius saga, or the games consisting of both Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. He does not have a canonical ending where he marries, and within the games, he doesn’t show romantic interest in any female characters. He does, however, have paired endings with characters such as Ranulf (who goes on a journey) and Soren (who accompanied Ike on his own journey, never to be seen or heard from again). And with sources stating Priam is a direct descendant of Ike, rather than an off-shoot through Mist (Ike’s younger sister) and Boyd, many got upset. “How could Ike have a kid? He’s not interested in women. He likes Soren.” is something I see regularly while scouring through Priam’s tag on Tumblr or through comments on Youtube. And I’m not here to argue against that. I do, however, think I have an idea why Priam was chosen to be Ike’s descendant of all the previous lords: Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Brawl, at the time, was the latest Smash Bros. game when Awakening was in development. Smash Bros. is usually how Nintendo fans branch out from just playing Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, or Kirby and get introduced to series they might not have even heard of, such as Fire Emblem. In fact, it was due to Marth & Roy’s appearance in the previous Smash Bros. game, Melee, that the West got their first taste of Fire Emblem games. However, in Brawl, Roy was removed from the roster and was replaced with Ike. This makes sense, as Path of Radiance was the latest console Fire Emblem game when Brawl was released. (I also wonder if it has to do with the west never receiving Roy’s game, but that’s just speculating on my end). Gotta promote your games somehow. Though from what I understand, the Tellius games did not sell as well as Intelligent Systems had hoped. Additionally, with the following games being remakes of Marth’s original adventures now on the DS, those also did not sell well. Heck, the west never officially got the remake for Mystery of the Emblem. 

This could just be fan speculation ruminating throughout the decades, but it seems to be common belief that due to poor sales, Fire Emblem was almost a goner franchise that probably would’ve remained dormant for decades or even had no games developed for it. As such, Intelligent Systems wanted to broaden the market by appealing to newcomers. Some that may have heard about Fire Emblem through Smash Bros., but never gave it a shot due to the permadeath system that the games were infamous for, or just no real interest beforehand. Awakening exploded in popularity, garnering new fans like crazy. And with Chrom, Lissa, Emmeryn, Lucina, and Owain being descendants of the recognizable Marth (especially as Lucian disguising herself as Marth and even being briefly confused for Marth by Tiki), it would make sense to have a supposed descendant of the recognizable Ike as well. …Although one could speculate that Walhart is a descendant of Alm & Celica, which makes sense given how Rudolf looks… And for more reference’s sake, they threw in a bunch of past Fire Emblem throwbacks in weapons & lore that made writing a worldbuilding-centric fic a fucking nightmare.

So, with all of that, what are my thoughts on Priam being related to Ike? 

…Eh? 

My whole explanation beforehand was me retelling how I got into Awakening in the first place sprinkled in with hearsay I’ve read online, but as I grow older & more bitter at the world, Priam could be related to a shoe for all I care. (Although if Roy DID stick in Brawl, it would be cool to see how his descendant would be, especially if we’re going the route of Eliwood/Ninian having Roy, who then marries Lillina). What I like about Priam is traits somewhat shown in Ike, sure, but it’s also just the missing potential that keeps me coming back to him.

SO, time to get into how I started to like him. I remember when I first played Awakening, I asked a friend if I should pick between Stahl or Lon’qu to marry (as I was aware of the auto-marriage to Chrom mechanic and wanted to avoid that). The friend said Stahl was a better pick, as he was a kind lad that loved to eat & had messy hair like yours truly. Then, when the Spotpass maps were released, I immediately made a new save file so that I could marry Priam. Why? …Because he had a bandana and I liked his English voice acting (for the few grunts & battle quotes that were present). The Awakening Hero armor design is eh, but I liked how his was customized to be, well, radiant. The 3D model was shinier than those of Flavia’s or other playable reclassed Heroes, and I really just liked how he paired a tattered cape with his armor. 

I also remember level grinding for an entire summer just so I could finally take on his map efficiently. Granted, I played Normal/Casual, but when I replayed the map a 3rd time for another save file, my units were barely able to beat him. It was worth it, in my opinion. 

What really made me start up that second save file were his supports with Female Robin. Priam is an unfortunate case of “Avatar-sexual”, meaning he only has supports with Robin & Morgan if he’s his dad (although in the Hot Springs DLC, he does have a nice chat with Yen’fay & tries his damnest to fight Walhart). We only learn small things about him, such as his love for training & how he utilizes breathing techniques that would fit right into Jojo or Demon Slayer. He also gets flustered when someone does something nice for him unexpectedly, such as Female Robin doing his laundry as thanks for training with her. He doesn’t really care about expenses, as he bought a really fucking expensive ring when he proposed to Female Robin and says “I don’t give a damn what you do” when you sell items in his inventory. He’s devoted to the point of letting the world burn before seeing Female Robin get hurt (thankfully not to a yandere-like level). …And you learn he fought a bear when he was 12 if you support with Male Robin. He’s what got me to liking characters that had muscle (yes even though Basilio and Vaike were right there).

Combat wise, he was a good non-armor defensive unit (especially with wielding Ragnell to give him +5 defense), but what I find neat is that he learns weapon breaker skills even in classes he can’t become, like Gryphon Rider having Lancebreaker. He has both Sol and Luna, but not Aether like. This might be so Aether stays exclusive to Chrom, Lucina, and a potential daughter/granddaughter, but I speculated this could be Priam either holding himself back from using Aether’s potential or him still trying to figure it out.

Along with this, if you were a budding mythology/history nerd like I was, you realize he was named after not one, but two! TWO! Important figures in the Trojan War: King Priam and his son, Paris (In Japanese, Priam is named Paris, so yes, go ahead and make the French jokes. His English voice actor already plays the Frenchiest Fry Virion himself). In fact, this was one of the many things that sparked my interest in mythology/history. 

And finally, this was around the time I was starting to get interested in voice acting trivia. This meant I wanted to act as a human IMDB page and go “whoa, did you know such and such shared a voice with so and so?! Isn’t that neat?!” At the time, I didn’t know Jamieson Price also voiced Virion, but I DID know he voiced Iskandar from Fate/Zero and Chad from Bleach. Those were 2 of my favorite characters so I was sold. And then for Japanese, Daisuke Ono voices him. Jotaro Kujo from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara!! Of all things! WOW! 

All of this is really fucking cool shit, and it’s such a damn waste that Intelligent Systems doesn’t do anything else with him! 

To fill in my disappointment, I’ve definitely created a version of Priam in my head that’s drastically different from canon. I’ve incorporated elements from what I’ve continued to read in his supports, inspiration coming from moments & traits from other series that I’ve watched/played that I thought would be cool, and overall just positive things to keep me going when I was going through a rough spot. Canonically, he’s probably like what people expect Goku from Dragon Ball Z to be. In my mind, he’s like a battle-hardened tactician brawler that gets very excited about swords (to the point where he takes up blacksmithing to craft his own), loves to speak about life in a philosophical lens, and experiences a quiet yet extremely unsettling quiet anger when someone he cares about gets hurt. I also headcanon he uses his headband to cover scars from his bout with fighting a bear when he was 12. OH! And he gets to have twin girls: Cassandra and Helena. 

…So yeah, completely different from canon. But with only 3 Cipher cards and 1 appearance in Heroes as I type this to go by, I feel like it’s okay to speculate about what could have been. He could have been in Awakening’s main story as an opponent to Walhart during the second arc, or he could have been a recurring superboss in future Fire Emblem games that somehow always ends up in different dimensions. He could have been a hint for an upcoming Fire Emblem game that explored Tellius 1,000 years in the future much like how Awakening explored Archanaea & Valentia 1,000 years after Marth, Alm, and Celica ruled. (And apparently 2,000 years after Seliph ruled Jugdral? Again, consistent worldbuilding in this series is a nightmare if you try to connect all the games). Heck, I thought that was going to be what Fates was when I saw the cutscene of King Sumeragi shielding baby Corrin from arrows. 

Part of the reason why I’m so attached to Priam is spite from this lack of potential, and the fans mostly ignoring him for their own reasons. Like! We could have had so much more with this guy! And that kept me motivated during dark times in my life. I won’t go into specifics, as it’s quite personal & possibly triggering, but I’ll just say I felt very upset, very angry, and very alone at a certain point in my life. But I kept myself going for the unrealistic but still plausible goal of getting to see Priam get his own game. It might sound dumb, but it kept me wanting to move forward in life. And it’s because of that that I’m here today, and I’ve met other Priam fans online that have their own ways of showing that they like him. They have different reasons than me, and that’s awesome! Priam fans, in spite of their small numbers, exist! When I first joined Tumblr, I unofficially joined a “Radiant Waifu Society” where 3 other people were also Priam fans. I don’t talk to them as much as I did back then, but I do see one of the members post art from time to time & another one makes Fire Emblem Heroes content on Youtube now! I’ve also met one of my best online friends through a shared interest in Priam. She introduced me to many new friends I’ve made over the years, and I still talk with a few of them on a daily basis in friend group servers on Discord. I love sharing cursed voice acting trivia with her and the many other friends whenever I get the chance to, especially seeing their initial reactions when I tell them Priam is also voiced by Jelly Jiggler of Bobobo fame. 

All in all, I’d say Priam, in spite of his controversies in fandom spaces, was a great positive in my life that I can’t help but be thankful for. Intelligent Systems probably didn’t expect someone to care for this one-off character so much, but anything’s possible these days. 

Thank you for being such a positive force in my life, Priam Fire Emblem. With your map no longer being legal to download, here’s hoping you get your own game someday.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

this should be obvious to anyone who's used the internet before, but artists sometimes sell their art to afford food. those artists will post their art online and have a link on their profile or artwork where people can commission work or buy merch. that is how lots of artists make money.

when you repost art, you are taking potential customers away from the artist and redirecting them towards yourself.

you're also (I'm assuming unintentionally) giving off the idea that you made the art yourself.

if you really enjoy a particular piece of art so much that you just have to share it with all your followers, then good news. there's a specific feature on this website if the artist you like is on tumblr.

reblog it!

and I should probably preface this, because while it might be obvious to people who have been using this website for a while, some people still don't understand

reblogging =/= reposting

when you reblog something, you are basically passing around a link to the original tumblr post. the original poster, as well as their blog, links, and any other information, is readily available to anyone who wants to check it out, simply by clicking ops username.

reposting is very different. reposting is when you download a picture and post it to your tumblr. that makes you the op of the post, even though you aren't the artist. so when people see that picture and want to see if that artist currently has commissions open, they're just gonna see your blog and not the artist's information.

you should never ever ever repost art. some people will say it's okay as long as you have permission from the original artist, but I'd argue it still isn't. because 1) if that artist is on tumblr, why the fuck would you repost instead of just reblogging. and 2) is that artist isn't on tumblr, posting their work on tumblr (even with their permission) will just redirect people away from their other social media.

if you want to tell your followers "hey check out this person's insta they're a really talented artist" then go ahead. but downloading their art and uploading it on tumblr is a horrible sin and will get you immediately blocked.

r/196 crowd, I'm talking to you! do better

[letterstooldpeople]

to Christopher--2024/07/17

Hi Christopher,

There is so much I want you to know, but I don't want to talk to you because I'm a coward.

Just writing this puts pressure in my eyes, even though you'll probably never see it, unless I die in a freak accident that is posted all over the local news and some tumblr troopers do internet sleuthing and find this. But here is all the news I have for you.

To be honest, I thought I was getting over you, because even though you did pop up in my thoughts now and then, I wasn't really inclined to write them out in these letters and work on processing my feelings, i.e., the feelings I have for you are not as strong any more.

I remember last time you told me about how you were sad that you and Irish don't talk anymore. And I thought about reaching out. But then, I remembered that time where we sat in your dark car after getting Cuban sandwiches in SODO and you told me how Aimee had reached out to you, but that you had just ignored her. I imagined that if I had reached out, you'd be with Kitana, sitting in your new tan car, telling her how I had reached out but that you weren't interested in responding back to me.

Sometimes, when I go to Bellevue with my friends, I'm worried that I might bump into you. I don't know what I'd do.

When Suraj and I accidentally bumped into each other at SBP shortly after we ended things, true to my cowardly nature, I pretended not to see him, so he did the same.

I know that if you saw me, you'd say "hi" and wouldn't let me off the hook in pretending not to know you. The possibility of this situation gives me anxiety. I do want to be acknowledged by you. But, I feel like if you did, I would spontaneously start crying and embarrass myself.

I saw on LinkedIn that you got a new role at your company. I guess you passed that first CFA test. Congratulations, Christopher! I know you tried really hard on studying for that exam. You're one step closer to your dream job of managing larger portfolios at Blackrock. I'm so, so proud of you.

I did see that you updated your Instagram profile picture to one of you and her. The way it happened was that I had accidentally given myself food poisoning on July 2nd. I ate a couple TUMS you had bought me a while ago. To distract myself from vomiting and stomach pain, I downloaded Instagram to see if any of my friends had been up to anything new. When I saw you with Kitana, I felt really pathetic: here I was, alone, vomiting the mid broccoli beef I had made yesterday, and there you were, both of you looking really good. I guess you've really moved on. So in addition to vomiting, I started crying--isn't that hilarious?

The next day, I talked to my friend about it and felt better afterward, but then I woke up to your text the next day saying "I hope you've been doing well."

I genuinely wondered if you were just drunk/lonely/horny because Kitana had gone back home for the holiday. In my defense, you did text me at 2AM on a nonwork night.

One thing I learned from you is that someone would actually want to hang out with me just because I am me. I don't think I've experienced that before.

In our last Facetime together, I refused to say good bye. But, I think now is the time. In one of my birthday cards to you, I lamented how it seemed like we never had enough time to enjoy each other's company. To think that that limited time is now over! I guess it's time to delete all my pictures of you and unfollow you on Instagram and delete your contact on my phone.

At this point, sometimes I wish that we hadn't happened, because at this point you've become a stranger to me, and the cognitive dissonance of knowing you so well and not knowing you at all is killing me. But I think I'm getting over it, slowly but surely.

Maybe, even if we end up in the same room in the future, you won't be able to recognize me because I will have changed a lot too. Maybe we will just pass each other without noticing each other's presence. We will have reverted back to strangers once more with only our memories of our 26-year-old selves to cherish.

Even if I don't text you back, I hope you understand that I do care about you, Christopher. I hope you forgive my cowardice. And I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

You are a goose. But, I love you still.

With lots of love, goodbye, Christopher.

[nectar-cellar]

Reminiscing about The Sims

Share how you discovered the Sims franchise & the very first sims game you played (e.g ts2). 

Thank you for tagging me @nocturnalazure !

Long, meandering post ahead 😂

Have some spicy pictures of Amir to make up for it. He’s thinking. It’s on theme.

@thesimperiuscurse you are responsible for pic 1 btw

The very first Sims game I ever played was The Sims 3, on the Xbox 360 console, when I was a teenager. Back then, TS3 was one of the bigger and newer EA games of the time, and it was everywhere. I spent hours in front of the TV, playing my households with no CC or DLC, wrapped up in my own imagination, no consideration for picture-taking, nothing! Just pure self-indulgent fun. I wasn’t a PC gamer and I had no idea CC or Simblr even existed. It was a much simpler time.

I think it was around the final year of high school when I first stumbled across sims CC somewhere on the internet. (Someone had posted screenshots of their very attractive male sim, that I do remember. Explains a lot doesn’t it?) I can’t remember the exact time. It might have been on my personal Tumblr account (all my friends had one and we thought we were so cool) or even Google Images lmao. My mind was blown. I never knew you could make hot sims. I immediately bought a Sims 3 CD and installed it on my Dad’s laptop. The PC version of TS3 was so much better. That was also when I started a Simblr, to follow others and share my own pics... this very same one!

After I discovered CC and Simblr, I never played the game the same way ever again. My interest shifted to character creation and ~fashion~ I guess. The endless amount of simspiration and CC spoiled me and ruined my appreciation for the game in its untouched form. I wanted my sims, my builds, my pictures, everything to look perfect, and I was never satisfied. I viewed my game and my content through other people’s eyes, not my own.

I remember being so in awe of everyone else on here. At the time, I only had the base game, I didn’t know how to torrent anything, my Dad’s laptop could barely run the game, I didn’t have money to buy dlc, and I had no idea how to make any kind of CC other than the simplest graphic edits. All I really did was make sims and pose them for photoshoots. Obsessively downloaded a shit ton of other people’s CC. Wrote a little bit here and there. Played my household once in a blue moon. Everyone else, with their cliques and fun legacies and bachelorette challenges and CC creations and intricate builds and amazing editing, seemed so much cooler than me. There were so many different websites and forums and blogs. The TS3 player base was huge. I was amazed by all of it. I couldn’t believe we were all playing the same game. I couldn’t believe people were so creative and talented. It was an odd mixture of admiration, envy, and feeling like an outsider compared to the “big” Simblrs of the time.

I made some simple cc here and there to contribute to the community, but I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t take it seriously. I wanted to create better things but it all seemed so complicated, and I didn’t think I was smart enough to learn.

Then, I went off to university. Away from my Dad’s laptop, I lost interest in the game, and became preoccupied with other life things and other console games. I wasn’t really around for the release of The Sims 4. I was busy, and it just didn’t have the same magic. For a few years, I didn’t even log into this Tumblr account. I didn’t pick up TS3 again until right before the pandemic happened, on a nostalgic whim. 

When I first started posting again in 2019/2020, I didn’t expect much. A lot of my previous Simblr mutuals/friends were no longer here. Every post on my dashboard was about TS4. Most of my followers from years ago were no longer active. There were only a few familiar faces left. It was lonely, coming back here only to see how everyone had moved on, and I was nobody. But still, the game was just as fun as I remembered it, with years’ worth of new CC to check out, so I kept playing and posting and catching up on all I had missed, and slowly I started finding community again.

Now that I’m a bit older, I find myself appreciating the game a lot more, in ways I couldn’t before. The beautiful scenery. The open world. The Create-a-Style tool. The maxis-match aesthetic. The humor. The dated yet charming look of the clothes and the townies and the worlds. The time in my life when the game was still new.

I also feel like it’s easier and less stressful to participate in the community now that I have a little bit more maturity than when I was 18. It feels freer and more fun. When I read posts by simmers talking about how they feel like their content is not good enough, or comparing themselves to others, I feel sad. I used to feel the same way. But being “good” at Simblr/social media, and having fun with the game (in whichever way you define fun), are two very different things. I hope that makes sense. It took me some time to learn how to not let comparison steal my joy, and give myself permission to just do what I wanted to do, regardless of whether other people might like it or not. When I look back on my older posts, I feel like I’ve grown so much, both as a simmer and a person.

Well, maybe I haven’t changed that much. I still love my hot pixel men.

I’m so glad I came back to Simblr. My simming hobby has turned into a much bigger thing than I ever thought it would. I mean, I learned how to make CC that other people like? I’ve made so many new connections? My sims have become OCs I’m attached to? I see the TS3 community being revived again as EA drives TS4 into the ground more and more each day? Who would’ve guessed 😆 

I love this game, I love the creativity it inspires in me, and I love the wonderful people that make up this little corner of the internet. ✨💛

[damnesdelamer]

Recommended reading for leftists

Introduction and disclaimer:

I believe, in leftist praxis (especially online), the sharing of resources, including information, must be foremost. I have often been asked for reading recommendations by comrades; and while I am by no means an expert in leftist theory, I am a lifelong Marxist, and painfully overeducated. This list is far from comprehensive, and each author is worth exploring beyond the individual texts I suggest here. Further, none of these need to be read in full to derive benefit; read what selections from each interest you, and the more you read the better. Many of these texts cannot truly be called leftist either, but I believe all can equip us to confront capitalist hegemony and our place within it. And if one comrade derives the smallest value or insight herefrom, we will all be better for it. After all... La raison tonne en son cratère. Alone we are naught, together may we be all. Solidarity forever.

***

(I have split these into categories for ease of navigation, but there is plenty of overlap. Links included where available.)

Classics of socialist theory

~

Capital (vol.1) by Karl Marx Marx’s critique of political economy forms the single most significant and vital source for understanding capitalism, both in our present and throughout history. Do not let its breadth daunt you; in general I feel it’s better to read a little theory than none, but nowhere is this truer than with regards to Capital. Better to read 20 pages of Capital than 150 pages of most other leftist literature. This is not a book you need to ‘finish’ in order to benefit from, but rather (like all of Marx’s work) the backbone of theory which you will return to throughout your life. Read a chapter, leave it, read on, read again. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf

The Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci In our current epoch of global neoliberal capitalism, Gramsci’s explanation of hegemony is more valuable than much of the economic or outright revolutionary analyses of many otherwise vital theory. Particularly following the coup attempt and election in America, as well as Brexit and abusive government responses to Covid, but the state violence around the world and the advent of fascism reasserts Gramsci as being as pertinent and prophetic now as amidst the first rise of fascism. https://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf

Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin Like Marx, for many Lenin’s work is the backbone of socialist theory, particularly in pragmatic terms. In much of his writing Lenin focuses on the practical processes of revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism via socialism and proletarian leadership (sometimes divisively among leftists). Imperialism is perhaps most valuable today for addressing the need for internationalist proletarian support and solidarity in the face of global capitalist hegemony, arguably stronger today than in Lenin’s lifetime. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/imperialism.pdf

Socialism: Utopian And Scientific by Friedrich Engels Marx’s partner offers a substantial insight into the material reality of socialism in the post-industrial age, offering further practical guidance and theory to Marx and Engels’ already robust body of work. This highlights the empirical rigour of classical Marxist theory, intended as a popular text accessible to proletarian readers, in order to condense and to some extent explain the density of Capital. Perhaps even more valuable now than at the time it was first published. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

In Defense Of Marxism by Leon Trotsky It has been over a decade since I have read any Trotsky, but this seems like a very good source to get to grips with both classical Marxist thought and to confront contemporary detractors. In many ways, Trotsky can be seen as an uncorrupt symbol of the Leninist dream, and in others his exile might illustrate the dangers of Leninism (Stalinism) when corrupt, so who better to defend the virtues of the system many see as his demise? https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/dom.pdf

The Conquest Of Bread by Pyotr Kropotkin Krapotkin forms the classical backbone of anarchist theory, and emerges from similar material conditions as Marxism. In many ways, ‘the Bread book’ forms a dual attack (on capitalism and authoritarianism of the state) and defence (of the basic rights and needs of every human), the text can be seen as foundational to defining anarchism both in overlap and starkly in contrast with Marxist communism. This is a seminal and eminent text on self-determination, and like Marx, will benefit the reader regardless of orthodox alignment. https://libcom.org/files/Peter%20Kropotkin%20-%20The%20Conquest%20of%20Bread_0.pdf

Leftism of the 20th Century and beyond

~

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, And The Foundations Of A Movement by Angela Davis This is something of a placeholder for Davis, as everything she has ever put to paper is profoundly valuable to international(ist) struggles against capitalism and it’s highest stage. Indeed, the emphasis on the relationship between American and Israeli racialised state violence highlights the struggles Davis has continually engaged since the late 1960s, that of a united front against imperialist oppression, white supremacists, patriarchal capitalist exploitation, and the carceral state. https://www.docdroid.net/rfDRFWv/freedom-is-a-constant-struggle-pdf#page=6

Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic Of Late Capitalism by Frederic Jameson A frequent criticism of Marxism is the false claim that it is decreasingly relevant. Here, Jameson presents a compelling update of Marxist theory which addresses the hegemonic nature of mass media in the postmodern epoch (how befitting a tumblr post listing leftist literature). Despite being published in the early ‘90s, this analysis of late capitalism becomes all the more pertinent in the age of social media and ‘influencers’ etc., and illustrates just how immortal a science ours really is. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/SOC757/um/61816962/Jameson_The_cultural_logic.pdf

The Ecology Of Freedom: The Emergence And Dissolution Of Hierarchy by Murray Bookchin I have not read this in depth, and take issue with some of Bookchin’s ideas, but this seems like a very good jumping off point to engage with ecosocialism or red-green theory. Regardless of any schism between Marxist and anarchist thought, the importance of uniting together to stem the unsustainable growth of industrialised capitalism cannot be denied. Climate change is unquestionably a threat faced by us all, but which will disproportionately impact the most disenfranchised on the planet. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-ecology-of-freedom.pdf

Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton I’ve only read excerpts of this; I know Eagleton better for his extensive work on Marxist literary criticism, postmodernity, and postcolonial literature, so I’m including this work of his as a means of introducing and engaging directly with Marxism itself, rather than the synthesis of diverse fields of analysis. But Eagleton generally does a very good job of parsing often incredibly dense concepts in an accessible way, so I trust him to explain something so obvious and self-evident as why Marx was right. https://filosoficabiblioteca.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/EAGLETON-Terry-Why-Marx-Was-Right.pdf

By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X Malcolm X is one of the pre-eminent voices of the revolutionary black power movement, and among the greatest contributors to black/American leftist thought. This is a collection of his speeches and writings, in which he eloquently and charismaticly conveys both his righteous outrage and optimism for the future. Malcolm X’s explicitly Marxist and decolonial rhetoric is often downplayed since his assassination, but even the title and slogan is borrowed from Frantz Fanon.

Feminism and gender theory

~

Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches by Audre Lorde The primary thrust of this collection is the inclusion of ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House’, probably Lorde‘s most well known work, but all the contents are eminently worthwhile. Lorde addresses race, capitalist oppression, solidarity, sexuality and gender, in a rigourously rhetorical yet practical way that calls us to empower one another in the face of oppression. Lorde’s poetry is also great. http://images.xhbtr.com/v2/pdfs/1082/Sister_Outsider_Essays_and_Speeches_by_Audre_Lorde.pdf

Feminism Is For Everybody by bell hooks A seminal addition to Third Wave Feminist theory, emphasising the reality that the aim of feminism is to confront and dismantle patriarchal systems which oppress - you guessed it - everybody. This book approaches feminism through the lens of race and capitalism, feeding into the discourse on intersectionality which many of us now take as a central element of 21st Century feminism. https://excoradfeminisms.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bell_hooks-feminism_is_for_everybody.pdf

Gender Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity by Judith Butler Butler and her work form probably the single most significant (especially white) contribution to Third Wave Feminism, as well as queer theory. This may be a somewhat dense, academic work, but the primary hurdle is in deconstructing our existing perceptions of gender and identity, which we are certainly better equipped to do today specifically thanks to Butler. Vitally important stuff for dismantling hegemonic patriarchy. https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf

Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink Or Blue by Leslie Feinberg Feinberg is perhaps the foundational voice in trans theory, best known for Stone Butch Blues, but this text seems like a good point to view hir push into mainstream acceptance where ze previously aligned hirself and trans groups more with gay and lesbian subcultures. A central element here is the accessibility and deconstruction of hegemonic gender and expression, but what this really expresses is a call for solidarity and support among marginalised classes, in a fight for our mutual visibility and survival, in the greatest of Marxist feminist traditions.

The Haraway Reader by Donna Haraway Haraway is perhaps better known as a post-humanist than a Marxist feminist, but in all honesty, I am not sure these can be disentangled so easily. My highest recommendation is the essay ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century‘, but it is in many ways concerned more with aesthetics and media criticism than anything practical, and Haraway’s engagement with technology has only become more significant, with the proliferation of smartphones and wifi, to understanding our bodies and ourselves as instruments of resistance. https://monoskop.org/images/5/56/Haraway_Donna_The_Haraway_Reader_2003.pdf

Postcolonialism

~

The Wretched Of The Earth by Frantz Fanon Perhaps my highest recommendation, this will give you better insight into late stage (postcolonial) capitalism than perhaps anything else. Fanon was a psychologist, and his analyses help us parse the internal workings of both the capitalist and racialised minds. I don’t see this work recommended nearly enough, largely because Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is a better source for race theory, but The Wretched Of The Earth is the best choice for understanding revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and decolonial ideas. http://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdf

Orientalism by Edward Said This is probably the best introduction to postcolonial theory, particularly because it focuses on colonial/imperialist abuses in media and art. Said’s later work Culture And Imperialism may actually be a better source for strictly leftist analysis, but this is the groundwork for understanding the field, and will help readers confront and interpret everything from Western military interventionism to racist motifs in Disney films. https://www.eaford.org/site/assets/files/1631/said_edward1977_orientalism.pdf

Decolonisation Is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang In direct response to Fanon’s call to decolonise (the mind), Tuck and Yang present a compelling assertion that the abstraction of decolonisation paves the way for settler claims of innocence rather than practical rapatriation of land and rights. The relatively short article centres and problematises ongoing complicity in the agenda of settler-colonial hegemony and the material conditions of indigenous groups in the postcolonial epoch. Important stuff for anti-imperialist work and solidarity. https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf

The Coloniser And The Colonised by Albert Memmi Often read in tandem with Fanon, as both are concerned with trauma, violence, and dehumanisation. But further, Memmi addresses both the harm inflicted on the colonised body and the colonisers’ own culture and mind, while also exploring the impetus of practical resistance and dismantling imperialist control structures. This is also of great import to confronting detractors, offering the concrete precedent of Algerian decolonisation. https://cominsitu.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/albert-memmi-the-colonizer-and-the-colonized-1.pdf

Can The Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Spivak This relatively short (though dense) essay will ideally help us to confront the real struggles of many of the most disenfranchised people on earth, removing us from questions of bourgeois wage-slavery and focusing on the right to education and freedom from sexual assault, not to mention the legacy of colonial genocide. http://abahlali.org/files/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf 

Wider cultural studies

~

No Logo by Naomi Klein I have some qualms with Klein, but she nevertheless makes important points regarding the systemic nature of neoliberal global capitalism and hegemony. No Logo addresses consumerism at a macro scale, emphasising the importance of what may be seen as internationalist solidarity and support and calling out corporate scapegoating on consumer markets. I understand that This Changes Everything is perhaps even better for addressing the unreasonable expectations of indefinite and unsustainable growth under capitalist systems, but I haven’t read it and therefore cannot recommend; regardless, this is a good starting point. https://archive.org/stream/fp_Naomi_Klein-No_Logo/Naomi_Klein-No_Logo_djvu.txt

The Black Atlantic: Modernity And Double Consciousness by Paul Gilroy This is an important source for understanding the development of diasporic (particularly black) identities in the wake of the Middle Passage between African and America, but more generally as well. This work can be related to parallel phenomena of racialised violence, genocide, and forced migration more widely, but it is especially useful for engaging with the legacy of slavery, the cultural development of blackness, and forms of everyday resistance. https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/756417/mod_resource/content/1/Gilroy%20Black%20Atlantic.pdf

Imagined Communities: Reflections On The Origin And Spread Of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson This text is important in understanding the nature of both high colonialism and fascism, perhaps now more than ever. Anderson examines the political manipulation and agenda of cultural production, that is the propagandised, artificial act of nation building. This analyses the development of nation states as the norm of political unity in historiographical terms, as symptomatic of old school European imperialism. Today we may see this reflected in Brexit or MAGA, but lebensraum and zionism are just as evident in the analysis. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/SOC757/um/6181696/Benedict_Anderson_Imagined_Communities.pdf

Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison by Michel Foucault Honestly, I am not sure if this should be on this list; I would certainly not call it leftist. That said, it is a very important source to inform our perceptions of the nature of institutional power and abuse. It is also unquestionable that many of the pre-eminent left-leaning scholars of the past fifty years have been heavily influenced, willing or not, by Foucault and his post-structuralist ilk. A worthwhile read, especially for queer readers, but take with a liberal (zing!) helping of salt. https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the_Prison_1977_1995.pdf

Trouble In Paradise: From The End Of History To The End Of Capitalism by Slavoj Žižek Probably just don’t read this, it amounts to self-torture. Okay but seriously, I wanted to include Žižek (perhaps against my better judgement), but he is probably best seen as a lesson in recognising theorists as fallible, requiring our criticism rather than being followed blindly. I like Žižek, but take him as a kind of clown provocateur who may lead us to explore interesting ideas. He makes good points, but he also... Doesn’t... Watch a couple youtube videos and decide if you can stomach him before diving in.

Additional highly recommended authors (with whom I am not familiar enough to give meaningful descriptions or specific recommended texts) (let me know if you find anything of significant value from among these, as I am likely unaware!):

Theodor Adorno (of the Frankfurt School, which also included Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin, all of whom I’d likewise recommend but with whom I have only passing familiarity) was a sociologist and musicologist whose aesthetic analyses are incredibly rich and insightful, and heavily influential on 20th Century Marxist theory.

Sara Ahmed is a significant voice in Third Wave Feminist criticism, engaging with queer theory, postcoloniality, intersectionality, and identity politics, of particular interest to international praxis.

Mikhail Bakhtin was a critic and scholar whose theories on semiotics, language, and literature heavily guided the development of structuralist thought as well as later Marxist philosophy.

Mikhail Bakunin is perhaps the closest thing to anarchist orthodoxy. Consistently involved with revolutionary action, he is known as a staunch critic of Marxist rhetoric, and a seminal influence on anti-authoritarian movements.

Silvia Federici is a Marxist feminist who has contributed significant work regarding women’s unpaid labour and the capitalist subversion of the commons in historiographical contexts.

Mark Fisher was a leftist critic whose writing on music, film, and pop culture was intimately engaged with postmodernity, structuralist thought, and most importantly Marxist aesthetics.

Che Guevara was a major contributor to revolutionary efforts internationally, most notably and successfully in Cuba. His writing is robustly pragmatic as well as eloquent, and offers practical insight to leftist action.

Hồ Chí Minh was a revolutionary communist leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and a significant contributor to revolutionary communist theory and anti-imperialist practice.

C.L.R. James is a significant voice in 20th Century (especially black) Marxist theory, engaging with and criticising Trotskyist principles and the role of ethnic minorities in revolutionary and democratic political movements.

Joel Kovel was a researcher known as the founder of ecosocialism. His work spans a wide array of subjects, but generally tends to return to deconstructing capitalism in its highest stage.

György Lukács was a critic who contributed heavily to the Western Marxism of the Frankfurt School and engaged with aesthetics and traditions of Marx’s philosophical ideology in contrast with Soviet policy of the time.

Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary socialist organiser, publisher, and economist, directly engaged in practical leftist activity internationally for a significant part of the early 20th Century.

Mao Zedong was a revolutionary communist, founder and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, and a prolific contributor to Marxism-Leninism(-Maoism), which he adapted to the material conditions outside the Western imperial core.

Huey P. Newton was the co-founder of the Black Panther Party and a vital force in the spread and accessibility of communist thought and practical internationalism, not to mention black revolutionary tactics.

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a poet-turned-politician who served as Senegal’s first president and established the basis for African socialism. Also central to postcolonial theory, and a leader of the Négritude movement.

***

I hope this list may be useful. (I would also be interested to see the recommendations of others!) Happy reading, comrades. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

[yamagucji]

some tips for writing blogs, especially those who are just starting out. these are some things that works for me and may or may not work for others.

how to add a read more link on mobile

type :readmore: on a free space, then hit the enter or return button

personally i think they’re very helpful because it lessens the space you take up in your dash, and might encourage more people to rb

+ you can also add this on a spot where it gives a sort of cliffhanger, essentially making people want to ‘read more’

headers, banners, and dividers

though not necessary, it’s good to have a title for your work. make sure it’s bold and doesn’t blend in with your notes (aka pairing, warnings, etc.). this also helps when someone wants to look up one of your works in your search bar

i don’t really make banners or covers for my works. but some good apps that i know of would be picsart and canva. if you’re looking for ideas, i definitely recommend going into canva

wondering how to make those really small, thin dividers? you can make them using picsart! to make a divider hit tools > free crop > brush > size (adjust it to your preference > then draw a line along the edge of your photo > save

using the divider you just saved, go back to picsart and edit it again > draw option > hit rainbow square at the bottom left corner > hit suction/droplet symbol right below the check mark > color in the white spots bc for some reason picsart glitches and makes dividers look white-ish

new blog? just opened an account?

this is gonna sound really frustrating. but... tumblr needs to check if you’re a bot or not. what does this mean? it’s likely that your first few posts won’t show up on the search bar. you may not even get to edit your header/pfp yet ://

this happened to me and there was no visibility on my account at ALL. what helped me get ‘verified’ is that i followed a LOT of accounts, liked a bunch of posts, made some posts here and there. now that lets tumblr know you’re not a bot

visibility

the tumblr tagging system usually only allows the first 5 tags in your post to show up. so, what can do you about this? only use FIVE or less tags in your post. wait about 15 minutes or more until you can add some more tags in your post, and they usually all show up like that

another important thing about using tags is not to generalize! especially if you’re using a popular tag. but also don’t specify it too much where barely anyone looks it up. for example, if you’re writing a gn piece about oikawa, i recommend you use the tags such as: oikawa x reader, haikyuu x reader, oikawa x gn!reader, haikyuu headcanons, etc

a good rule of thumb is to use character x reader tags first, then leave the full name or fandom tag last

FOR NSFW: tumblr doesn’t let any tags with nsfw show up. so, give your nsfw works another tag. maybe #namegetspicy idk, you figure it out

FOR WARNINGS: especially if you’re a dark content creator, i highly encourage you to add tw:xyz tags. if you already have a warning note at the top then that’s great. but even better for readers who prefer to actually block these tags that way they never get to see it

another important thing to note is that people have different timezones. it helps if you rb your work at a different time of the day, in case people missed it! (icymi) i’ve noticed that reblogging helps to make your post show up in the tags

interaction + feedback

first and foremost, you are not obligated to write for your followers, and neither are your followers obligated to interact with you. remember that everyone has their own individual lives, and they have their own things to do— so do you, too.

make friends! become mutuals with other writers, visit their ask box. i know it can be daunting having to initiate these things, but you might just turn out to have fun! you can’t expect people to interact with you if you’re not interacting (back). it’s... kind of a two way thing yk? no need to be afraid to interact with other writers. oh, and rb other writers works!

pspsps join tag games or do ask games. it’s fun and very interactive

it never hurts to ask for feedback. i usually do this in a more subtle way because i don’t really expect a full on analysis on my works. maybe a little, is this okay? or feedback appreciated. sometimes it takes a little bit of coaxing for the silent readers

formatting your posts and blog

i generally put in the title at the top in big, bold letters

then comes the header/divider. helps to make the post more... visually appealing ig?

it’s important to add warnings (if any) and the pairing. the audience is not all female, and it might be a little frustrating for male readers having to find out its an x fem reader piece like halfway through your fic

if you have multiple works posted, it’s really really helpful to have a navigation page!

you can organize the posts you make with tags! for example, if you’re shitposting, you can use a specific tag for that. if you have a nsfw related post (ESPECIALLY when your blog is open to the general audience) please make a tag for it

themes + colors

if you have a color in mind but don’t know which direction to go from there, i recommend looking up color + aesthetic

looking to use the same color? download a name color app that’ll give you a hex code for any color you want to use. then, you can type in that hex code for when you’re choosing a color for your tumblr bio

wondering how to make your header image small like mine? just choose a photo for your header and turn off the stretch image option

want to use a different text color that tumblr doesn’t offer? it’s not as complicated as you think. you’ll have to go on a desktop to do this and do some html (but trust me, it’s not very difficult). look up “HTML noob but trying my best - how to use colored text on desktop”

^^ i don’t have the link for the color text tutorial so you can try looking it up

how to make an aesthetic navi and masterlist

step 1: decide a theme! if you’re stuck, think about a character + color/season/mood or look up “[insert] aesthetic” to find some inspiration. or you can try looking at other blogs too

step 2: find a color scheme! it’s easier if you choose fewer colors. if you want to use the same color for both divider and text, download a color name app in order to get the hex code of that color.

step 3: add categories to your navi! most navigation pages include a link to masterlist, about/byi, and rules. your navi should have a title that indicates that it’s... a navigation page. you can add thin colored dividers with the same color to make it easier for followers to navigate

step 4: you can choose to create a ‘cover’ or a picture for your navigation and masterlist! again, i recommend you use the canva app as a starting point

extra: search up emoticon symbols to spice up your titles!

reminder for you as a writer

you’re not obligated to do any of these things. i’ve noticed that we tend to build pressure on ourselves when it comes to content and interaction. remember, this !! is !! for !! fun !! when you realize that it’s no longer fun, then know that it’s time to take a break. and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of self care.

^^ c/p from this post lol

at the end of the day, follower count and interaction doesn’t define you. again for the love of beings, you’re here on your own accord.

will be adding more if needed/asked.

[rizahawkais]

Hi Nia! You're gifs are so pretty! Is it possible for you to show how you get your WandaVision gifs too look so clear and hd? And how do you do your colorings too? (specifically the wanda maximoff in episode 3 gifset ITS GORGEOUS) I'm new to giffing and all the tutorials are kind of old. It's okay if you don't want to though! I understand it may be time consuming.

omg no! never feel intimidated to ask!! i don’t mind at all!

so, i’m going to show you how i made and coloured this gif

mostly bc it’s the only gif in that set w text and i’m going to share my text settings too!

tutorial is below :)

WHAT KIND OF VIDEOS ARE BEST?

.mkv files (the bigger the better BUT i usually think anything above 5 gb is excessive and unnecessary for an episode of television BUT for a movie worth it) itunes downloads (logolesspro on twitter, hd-source on tumblr, live-action-raws on tumblr have some DEPENDING on what you’re looking for) (also, there’s a chance that if you search "show/movie hd download tumblr” you’ll find a tumblr with its itunes download available)

THAT IS IT NO OTHER TYPE OF FILES MAKE YOUR GIFS LOOK GOOD

- my suggestion is always if its new (like just came out the past month) t*rrent it! it’ll be downloaded quickly and .mkv files look the best! BUT if not check the sources above see who has the BIGGEST file if they even have what you’re looking for and then if not then you look to t*rrenting!!

here are the wandavision files i use so you can see!!

SCREENCAPPING

-if you have windows use potplayer! i have a mac so i can’t show you how to use it and it’s not available for me :( HOWEVER back when i had a windows potplayer was the best method in screencapping!!

-I HAVE A MAC! so i use mpv!! (go to mpv.io and follow the directions) BUT DON’T DOWNLOAD THE LATEST ONE (it has a bug that skips frames) try each before the latest one bc from what i heard different ones work differently for everyone!! and i don’t know which one i use (yikes!) THERE ISN’T THAT MANY I PROMISE AND IT’S WORTH IT BC MPV IS THE BEST (i used to use adapter but they didn’t take impressive screencaps in my opinion and it was evident in my gifs you can see it too! )

create a folder for your screencaps! and make sure to rmb the directory order! now we want to create a text file on our built in textedit app on mac! type up all this down below (i like jpg but you can replace jpg w png if you want) AND SAVE THE FILE AS mpv.conf THIS IS IMPORTANT SO DON’T FORGET IT! save it somewhere you’ll find easily and NEVER delete it until you don’t use mpv anymore

just in case you don’t know what to insert after, go to your screencaps folder

now you want to open mpv and go to the corner towards mpv -> preferences and they’ll tell you that there is no .conf file SO GO LOOK FOR THE TEXT FILE WE JUST MADE AND DRAG IT TO THE FOLDER THEY OPENED FOR US AFTER SAYING THERE IS NO .CONF FILE

(i learned all this from @kylos tutorial!! so if any of what i just said about setting up mpv makes NO SENSE to you check out their tutorial at kylos(.)tumblr(.)com/post/178497909311)

now we can screencap!

so let’s find the scene we want RIGHT BEFORE and MAKE SURE SUBTITLES ARE OFF

i pause and then press (option/alt + s) and then SCREENCAPS ARE BEING TAKEN!! and to end the screencaps being taken you once again press (option/alt + s)!!

now we want to delete the excess frames! and put it all into one folder!! DO NOT DELETE FRAMES IN THE MIDDLE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO GIF!! WHEN YOU SKIP FRAMES IT WILL BE NOTICEABLE!!

MAKING THE GIF

this method isn’t used that much BUT I LOVE IT so this is how i put my frames in! first i check to see the size of my frames: 1920 x 1080

so i create a NEW file on photoshop with those dimensions w these settings

now i set my tool on photoshop to path selection tool bc if you have it set on smth like move tool or crop tool at the end you might end up moving or cropping frames you don’t want to!

ok so now we select ALL our frames and drag it on top of our new file on photoshop and the MOMENT we see our first frame in photoshop JUST KEEP CLICKING ENTER until all the frames are loaded!!

you can do file -> scripts -> load files into stack but it is WAYYY slower in my opinion!

now i crop out the excess BUT i don’t resize the gif yet! the dimensions wandavision is filmed in is 4:3 so i go to crop and set the settings to this:

MAKE SURE IT’S ON RATIO SO WE’RE PRESERVING THE ORIGINAL SIZE JUST CUTTING OFF THE BLACK EDGES!! We are going from 1920 x 1080 to 1440 x 1080 this is the dimensions after i cropped

WE ARE KEEPING THE QUALITY BY NOT CHANGING THE DIMENSIONS OF ANYTHING INSIDE !!

now we want to go to actions and create an action!! open up actions w one of these two depending on what your dash looks like!!

so we create an action with this button on the bottom of actions and we’re gonna title it making a gif and hit record!!

NOW LET’S GOOOOO!!

1. make sure you have timeline on your dash!

2. create frame animation (if you see create video timeline just click the arrow next to the button to see your other option which is frame animation!!)

3. now let’s meet our best friend!! the little bar in the top right corner that has all the commands for making our gifs and MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS

4. WE HAVE TO SHARPEN OUR GIFS NOW BUT TO DO THAT WE NEED TO CONVERT TO A SMART OBJECT SO NOW WE ARE GOING TO CONVERT TO VIDEO TIMELINE there are two ways: the button in the bottom left corner or the button in the top right corner w all the other commands!

5. select -> all layers DON’T MANUALLY SELECT THEM ALL BC THE ACTION WILL ONLY SELECT THAT SAME NUMBER OF FRAMES SO IF THERE ARE MORE FRAMES YOU WON’T GET THEM IN THE SMART OBJECT!!

6. filter -> convert for smart filters

7. NOW WE SHARPEN!! (filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen) i sharpen twice!! first, make sure we are on legacy w more accurate and remove gaussian blue! the first sharpening will be 500% with 0.4 px radius. NOW SHARPEN AGAIN (filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen) also w legacy, more accurate and remove gaussian blur BUT this time 10% with a 10.0 px radius!

8. it’s hd now!! so let’s flatten frames into clips!! go to the top right magic button again!! and you should see a pop up saying layers are being made

9. now we convert back to frame animation w either the bottom left button or our magic top right command center!

10. make frames from layers

11. select all frames w our magic command button

12. set the animation delay to 0.05 THAT IS THE BEST ONE ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS only use 0.06 when the character is moving really fast in the video itself and it makes the gif itself look awkward BUT NEVER GO ABOVE 0.06 it’ll look slow and laggy and we don’t want that and don’t go below 0.05 bc then it’ll be tooo fast and we don’t want that either!

13. now delete the very first frame on the timeline bc it is an oversharpened duplicate of the second frame! end the recording w this button!

this is what your action should look like expanded! if you made mistakes on the way and it shows up you can just click the specific step and press the trash can on the action tab to delete in from the order!!

NOW AFTER LOADING YOUR FRAMES AND CROPPING THE EDGES OF YOUR FRAMES IF YOU NEED TO JUST PLAY THE ACTION AND THEN YOUR GIF WILL BE MADE FOR YOU!!!!

now i delete some unnecessary frames in the beginning and end and this is what my gif looks like (the size was 46 mb and the limit is 10 mb so the dimensions of the gif are 540 x 405 to get it to 5 mb BUT I HAVEN’T CROPPED IT YET SO THIS IS ME CROPPING JUST TO SHOW YOU WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE)

CROPPING THE GIF

in my opinion if you want your gif to look hd you shouldn’t crop before you sharpen!! i believe that if you crop before you sharpen you don’t allow photoshop to sharpen all the pixels whereas if you crop beforehand there is less to work with!!

dimensions is all up to you!! just make sure to go by tumblr rules!! 540 is the max width and if you want to make two gifs per row then my suggested width is 268 and for three gifs per row my suggested is 177 px! Just have the right width and the length can be whatever you want!!

now i’m going to crop my gif to 540 by 590!!

NOW THIS IS WHAT MY GIF LOOKS LIKE!

COLOURING BASICS

let me show you the best adjustment tools in my opinion and a brief explanation for what they do!!

brightness/contrast: pretty simple increase/decrease the brightness/contrast BUT one of my techniques for when i first start colouring a gif is i select all my frames and do nothing to the settings of the adjustment but i set the layer to screen LIKE THIS

curves: ik others use curves to change brightness/contrast w the squiggly thing BUT i like it to set a white point and black point, this is also a technique i use when i first start colouring a gif when screen doesn’t look good for me SO you use white point to select a pixel on the gif to set as the lightest color on the gif (setting the white point) and you use black point to select a pixel on the gif to set as the darkest colour on the gif (setting the black point) usually the white point makes it TOO bright and that’s why we use the black point to counter it and same goes for when i use screen with brightness/contrast, it gets too bright so i use black point to counter it below is the button for white point and the button for black point, respectively they are shaped as color picker tools

vibrance: generally, i never use this except for color p*rn sets but they work really well in making colors seem more strong

hue/saturation: like vibrance, i never use this except for color p*rn sets but this adjustment is to help change the colors or hue of a color for example: turn blue into purple or turn a blue into a little lighter shade of blue

color balance: I ALWAYS USE THIS!! except for in black and white gifs BUT THIS IS MY GO TO AND IF I DON’T USE IT MY GIFS ARE JUST BLAND i feel like color balance is what essentially balances the colors on your gif and adds dimension to it, it makes your gif go from looking way too yellow to a more golden neutral look and it is an essential adjustment in my opinion

channel mixer: i rarely use channel mixer BUT it is so so useful when you are working w a dark scene just play w the settings and all of a sudden all the blue in a dark scene will be a little more yellow and red and your scene will kind of just look brighter and more visible

selective color: THIS IS ALSO AN ESSENTIAL this helps SPECIFIC colors pop you’re working on a scene where there is too much red on someones face you use this tool to remove the magentaness from the yellow section OR when you feel someones face is TOO yellow and needs more blush you add more magenta in the yellow section of selective color

gradiant map: gradiant map is perfect when you’re lazy if you feel like your gif looks more neutral and you want some red in it but you don’t want to mess with any other adjustments just set a red to black gradiant on soft overlay with a very low opacity and BOOM slightly red but not too much red added!

NOW TO COLOR THE GIF!

today i have decided to start with a brightness layer set on screen

and this is what we got!

now that’s a little to bright and washed out in my opinion SOOOO to counteract it, i’m going to use my black point tool in curves and i’m going to select this point on the gif (it’s better to choose smth in the background and not smth that’s paid attention to such as monica’s hair or either of their eyelashes)

now my gif looks like this! the base color is complete!

now i think i need to balance all this yellow and red! SOOOO WE GONNA USE COLOR BALANCE!!

i think the best way to use color balance is to keep swinging the balancer until you see what you like and then keep going midtones i think i want more red and i don’t want a cyan midtone and then for shadows i think i want more cyan to counter the redness of the gif but highlights i don’t touch that much NOW HERE ARE MY SETTINGS SO YOU CAN SEE

and this is what my gif looks like

now you can stop here if you want but in my opinion i think the gif looks a lil too dead still SO IMMA USE SELECTIVE COLOR

i think there needs to be a lot lot more RED so i amp up the yellow magenta and black in the red! but i also think the yellows need to be LESS RED so i remove magenta from the yellow! and bc there’s some cyan and blue bc of monica and the flowers in the background im going to make the cyans more cyan and the blues a lil more black! i’m going to remove some yellows from the magenta!! and i add more black to the neutrals and black!! i think it’s always important to add more black to neutral and black bc it adds more depth to the gif by not just making it a bunch of bright colors and having dark colors to contrast to!! my settings are below!

and the result!

now let’s see everything together!

and the before and after!

I HOPE MY COLOURING EXPLANATION MADE SENSE!! if not you can always ask me more questions i don’t mind!!

ADDING SUBTITLES

we want to grab the text tool!

make a text box from anywhere in the middle from the left to right edge. this is so we can make sure our text is centered and will be in the same place for when we have sets w more than one gif w text!

type your text out and make sure you highlight the whole text so that all the settings apply to EACH character! you can find the alignments (for center) in the paragraph tab!

now lets right click on the text layer and go to blending options! add stroke and drop shadow!

now drag it to the desired height you would like and make sure to keep it in mind for when you have more than one subtitled gif in a set!

NOW TO MAKE SURE THE TEXT STAYS IN PLACE AND THE BLENDING STAYS YOU HAVE TO CONVERT TO SMART OBJECT!!

if you want to only have the text applied to certain frames instead of all frames, select the frames you don’t want by clicking the first frame in ur don’t want section ON THE TIMELINE and WHILST HOLDING SHIFT click the last frame of ur don’t want section and then toggle the eye switch next to the text layer

now you see the text

now you don’t

tip: use opacity to fade the text in and out!

the text is going to be on all my frames so i don’t need to toggle the eye but i just wanted to show you just in case!!

now here’s my FINAL RESULT

save for web (file -> export -> save for web) 

your gifs have to always be under 10 mb! so, if your WAYYY overboard YOU HAVE TO DELETE FRAMES! or you can divide the gif in two and have two gifs instead of one! however, if you plan on going the deleting frames route MAKE SURE YOU DELETE FROM THE BEGINNING OR END OF YOUR SELECTION i promise you that most of us won’t notice that your characters dialogue is being cut off BUT WE WILL NOTICE IF FRAMES ARE BEING SKIPPED so, don’t delete frames in the middle of ur gif!! idc how little you do it IT WILL RUIN YOUR GIF AND I SAY THIS FROM EXPERIENCE i would delete every fifth frame to cut down my gifs and that may seem like not that big of a deal BUT IT IS my gif looked choppy and poor so it is way better to cut from the end/beginning of the gif

ANOTHER LAST PIECE OF ADVICE in the bottom left of when the save for web menu shows up THERE’S A PREVIEW BUTTON click on it! it’ll show you your gif on your default browser and show you what it’ll look like once uploaded! this is perfect to check the speed of ur gif and the colouring and to notice if there’s a problem with your subtitles or maybe there’s an obvious jump in frames you never noticed before!! i always use preview bc the built-in photoshop viewer of ur gif shows the colors differently and the speed is NEVER ACURRATE!

I USED THESE SAVE SETTINGS!! many say to use selective pattern but i DISAGREE and i think these save settings are the ✨ best ✨

OK NOW THAT IS THE END OF THIS VERY LONG GIF TUTORIAL!! I HOPE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!! IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK I SINCERELY DON’T MIND!! JUST DON’T BE RUDE OR ANYTHING BC PPL HAVE BEEN RECENTLY :(

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK AND FUN IN YOUR GIFFING ADVENTURES !!

[beelspillowpet]

A Lesson in Love - A “Character Analysis” on Asmodeus

I had to come for the tracks, wigs, and weaves of bitches when Pomade dropped because I saw people talking shit about my boy. This was a milestone “project” or “reward” I guess?

I hit 400 followers today while I was out running errands!!! Thank you guys SO SO MUCH for the love and support! I can’t WAIT to produce more content for everyone!!!

Below the cut there WILL BE talk of season 3, as well as some talk of chapter 16. There’s a healthy amount of theorizing on his personality as well, I hope you don’t mind! This came out more like a plea to get people to change their minds about how Asmo really is, rather than a comprehensive essay of sorts. So here we go!

There’s something we apparently still need to talk about in this fanbase. The unrealistic idea of Asmodeus being a sex freak, and an unreliable person in general despite there being little proof of it. We need to set a few things straight about Asmo moving forward.

December 25th rolled around and Asmo’s audio drama and song were released. I take it everyone enjoyed both parts, as well as I did. My timeline both on twitter and tumblr were filled with Asmodeus content, as well as the other brothers and such. But I mostly got Asmo content. However, in peeks and cracks, if I looked hard enough, I still saw people who absolutely loathed Asmo or who were indifferent to him. Keep in mind; I think it’s okay. You don’t have to like everyone.

I’ve only joined the fanbase in September, but even I could tell some of these takes were old fashioned. I downloaded the game on October 17th, a very important anniversary for me, while I 

was still in bed in the morning. I blazed through the entire story of season 1 and now I am stuck in season 2, specifically in Chapter 24. I obviously don’t have every card of Asmodeus with his Devilgrams, but I have been analyzing his character over the past few days for this.

So needless to say, I have a considerable amount of information on him, as well as personal thoughts that may help some learn to love him. Or at the very least, from spreading a negative idea of him around as if it were true. Enough that should help clear his name, so to speak.

Let’s look at his title; Avatar of Lust. Now naturally the thoughts that come to your head are sex and other sexual bits. So I can understand how some people would come to the conclusion that he’s just a sex freak. But if you look under the surface of his title, like I’m sure you’ve had to for your own personal favorites (*cough* Lucifer, Belphie, and Satan ESPECIALLY) you would discover that Asmodeus is more than just about sex. In fact, sex takes up very little of his pass time, if you were to believe it!

In recent chapters, as I’ve been told, Asmodeus doesn’t really get around much anyways:

Granted, this was said while in Celestia, but I imagine not much has changed for him since his fall, as well as his brothers.

Not really comfortable being with just anyone, huh…? Sounds like someone who doesn’t have sex so warily often as you’d think!

Being lustful can come in many shapes and forms. It can be merely in appearance, which Asmo is not afraid of doing. He’s very comfortable about skinship and it’s very apparent in how he dresses and acts that he wants you to adore his body. To worship it! Maybe not sexually, but aesthetically! Being lustful can mean just thinking about sex or sexual scenarios often, which if you take a peek at Asmo’s chat’s either with you or his brothers, is very apparent too.

Personally, I believe that people would assume he is not good in a relationship because he would have a “cheating problem”. I don’t think Asmo is a monster, just like I don’t think any of the brothers are monsters. They may be demons (technically fallen angels) now but they used to be angels too. Their falling out with their Father doesn’t mean they’ve completely abandoned morality, it was a rebellion for Lilith’s right to live. Not for them to sin as they pleased. For all we know they might have been fine in Heaven otherwise! (with the exception of Lucifer.)

A monster knows right from wrong and chooses evil anyways. An ignorant person doesn’t know right from wrong. Asmodeus is not a monster, nor is he ignorant.

When Asmo genuinely loves you, I think he would take steps to calm down that side of him, if it were to exist. Lust is fairly limited, but it is a part of love to some extent. LOVE is vastly different. Love has many languages, and they aren’t all spoken either. For me, personally, I found that Lucifer’s love language can be either very direct, or roundabout so as to not let it go to your head, for an example. Asmo is just far more direct about his care for you.

I feel as though Asmo gets a lot of crap constantly for his presumed nature and because we don’t get to see much else of him at first, especially in season 1, his impression on us sort of stays. With most of the fanbase either somewhat new to the game or somewhere lost in the sea of the difficulty curve that is season 2, we can only assume based on what we’ve seen, and what others have headcanoned about him.

Let’s break and talk about Satan for a moment; this is going somewhere.

I’m led to believe that Satan can control his sin fairly well. He’s easy to get irritated, sure, but he isn’t as much of a walking ball of rage as I suspected. I would argue that, aside from Leviathan, Satan can handle his sin the best out of the brothers. But again, we’re forgetting about Asmo. The Avatar of “Lust”. Like I’ve shown before, he doesn’t really sleep around a lot, according to anon.

At worst, Asmo being flirty is through text and he’s not actively trying to sleep with you. It can be interpreted that way, but for me personally, it comes down to having a friend that is very up close and in your personal space.

(I myself am one of these types of people. Having ADHD, my social cues are always sort of off, and I’ve struggled with coping with it for years. With my best friend, we have seen each other naked countless times and have slept in the same bed as well. We were never romantic with each other. We were just very comfortable being close and personal with each other.)

I’d like to point out also that Asmo isn’t even there for most of season 1 too. Which can give you the idea that maybe he just was out sleeping around a lot, but to me he probably just went out partying a lot. You don’t get known that fast for sleeping around. Maybe in 5,000 years, sure, but I’d imagine being a party boy, as his Devilgram “Guided by Desire” suggests.

So the idea that Asmo isn’t in the house a lot because he’s out having sex all the time isn’t true is it? He’s probably just out partying, which can LEAD to sex with someone sure, but again, Asmo doesn’t feel comfortable doing that, now does he?

I feel like of all the boys, Asmo is the one who radiates with everyone else the most. Most people will never realize how surreal it is that Asmo is faking it until he makes it. He doesn’t always think he’s beautiful, or that he’s worth all the love he’s striving and straining to get. Something that is extremely relatable for a lot of people with self-worth issues. Asmo is just like that, but instead being sarcastic and self-deprecating, he simply works to make himself look as beautiful as possible, so that in his eyes, his beauty matches the affection he gets.

Which is why, when he falls in love with you, it’s strange. You are constantly telling him he’s nice and pretty, but you aren’t lusting after him. You’re just being nice. It may just be me, but when people are overly nice just for the sake of being nice, I’m very attracted to that. That is Asmo, to some extent. The fact that he reflects the insecurities and habits of others so clearly may make others uncomfortable, but that brutal honesty veiled behind insecurity is what a lot of people with self-image issues deal with.

Now for me to share my favorite personal idea for Asmo that completely changed how I saw him in season 1 onwards; Asmodeus is an empath. Now let me explain:

First, what is an Empath?

The term empath comes from empathy, which is the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others outside of your own perspective. Seems simple, right? Everyone can do this to some extent. However, what makes you an empath is the fact that empaths genuinely feel the same pain as you do. So much so your experience becomes a very personal part of their own. They are capable of being able to feel other people’s emotions without them speaking, or even showing signs of it through their body language.

This would explain, for me personally, why there’s so little of him in season 1. The intensity of what goes on in the house, his sensitive soft-spoken mannerisms, the only time he truly gets mad is when he’s childishly arguing with Mammon? Asmo is afraid of true conflict, he’s afraid of violence and negative emotions. Let’s face it; everyone is indifferent or hates you at the start of the game.

While this changes fairly quickly, all the intense feelings come to a head in chapter 16. All those negative emotions swirling around, of course Asmo isn’t going to want to be in the house when it’s that intense. The attic didn’t just disappear completely, too. Belphie was still in the attic hating humans. That negative emotion could be affecting Asmo and he didn’t know why, so he could have been out of the house more.

Where Asmo can feel the emotions of others, it may mostly be the negative ones because they fill him with anxiety and panic if it persists. Which can be helpful in making him so urgent to want to make others smile and feel better, right?

Imagine being intimate with Asmodeus, and suddenly you aren’t in the mood for it anymore but don’t want to make things awkward. He could pick up on it in an instant and wouldn’t get mad because he understands how you feel completely.

Now to close this out about something that genuinely hurts me; Asmodeus is a narcissist.

I mean, the wiki says that he is, but personally? No, no he isn’t. Since when is loving yourself a bad thing? Sure he may go a bit far sometimes, but people with self-image issues need to go a little harder than the rest to make sure they're getting the love they need.

(Talking about myself AGAIN, but I do this a lot. At random, I will look up in my own mirror in front of my desk that I sit in front of all day and tell myself I am a cute bitch. I am VERY VERY cute and anyone would be lucky to have someone as drop dead gorgeous as myself. I say that a few times a day. In reality, I am very insecure about my looks. I do believe I’m cute, but sometimes it’s hard to say it. Which is why I force myself. Why wouldn’t Asmo do the same?)

Talking yourself up to be as beautiful as a sex god is no easy task, but Asmo isn’t the Avatar of “Lust” for no reason. When an insecure girl talks up her beauty, it’s her being strong and independent. When Asmo does it, its narcissism… it doesn’t really seem fair, now does it? Maybe he’s just an insecure person who needs to tell himself ALL THE TIME that he’s beautiful. That if he stares at his reflection long enough, he may see it too.

(Also, Simeon literally calls him out on being insecure. Insecure people tend to try and overcompensate where they feel they’re lacking.)

”Asmodeus is hinted to be insecure and seeking for love and attention. When Simeon was asked about what he thought of Asmodeus, he says that Asmodeus is still trying to fulfill the role of the angel he used to be; an angel that was adored and loved by many. Asmodeus laughs at Simeon's remark and brushes it off by saying that he is only jealous.” - A section from said Asmodeus Wiki.

People can choose to love or hate Asmo, obviously. Making things up about his character without having anything but speculation and having that dictate how he acts is plain silly. This entire “essay” if you can call it that, comes from the heart. I love Asmo as a character, and in the beginning he did make me uncomfortable, I didn’t like him that much. But I learned to look past that and figure out why he acts the way he does. Something didn’t sit right with me about him for a while, and it was that air of insecurity that I didn’t see at first.

All I can really ask for, is giving Asmo another chance as a character. He’s not as wild and wacky as Mammon, or as cool and sexy as Lucifer, or as edgy and precious as Belphie, but he matters in this story too. He fell from grace with his brothers for Lilith. Give him another chance, and let him show you that he is the Avatar of Love.

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Concert review DALLAS-LOVE ON TOUR! 9/11/2021

At the ending of her set, Jenny Lewis, she of the sparkle tights and witchy ways, said “this really is love on tour!”

Couldn’t agree with this statement more.

Yesterday was a day of love, light, and spontaneity after a long year and a half of few opportunities for impulsive fun. My journey to Dallas starts before the road trip begins with a little by play in a group chat- “I have been kinda thinking about the Dallas show…” I jot off.

“I have a hotel room and am driving anyways.” Is the reply.

It might as well be a flapping red cape to a bull.

I casually mention the idea to my husband, raitionalizing it’s on the weekend and makes more sense than the San Antonio ticket I was still mourning selling. He’s neutral.

I’m preoccupied, planning, and prepping.

The next morning, I’m in the group chat. I’m coming. Plans are made, husband on board and thanked profusely. I’m loved and going to the joy place, Harry’s room.

My love tour begins in Dallas!

One problem, I don’t have a ticket. Skye is sending me options, they’re more than I want to pay, and I’m watching stub hub like a hawk until I’m driving to the rendezvous point and can’t check for an hour.

Skye is road trip ready and we are in the car, but still no ticket. She’s nervous. But, it’s all gonna work out, I feel it, the love.

My first feeler comes in, a ticket, face value, 300 level. It’s mine, but it won’t download. As a distraction, I hop over to tumblr, another line. Lower bowl!

“Where’s it at?” Skye asks.

“103”. I say and fill in the details.

“That’s right next to me!” It’s as close to a squeal as Skye gets. I do squeal.

The rest of the drive, getting ready, dinner, and the walk to the event go as smoothly as 1D Harry’s face.

The line not so much! So long, but moved in chunks. We amused ourselves looking at the outfits!

Harries! You are a beautiful, creative bunch.

We were in our seats by Jenny’s second song. Love her voice, dig the vibe, like her music.

But her statement, about it really being love on tour, that’s what I’ll remember.

And will I ever get over Harry’s pre show playlist. Shout out to Let’s get it on before Sweet Thang! I see you, villain!

Harry’s box goes under the stage, the band comes in brimming with energy and he rises, right in the center of the diamond. What a metaphor that is-Harry our diamond in the rough, front and center.

Golden! I’ll never be over you. I feel this song like sun on my skin and wind whipping over my knuckles stuck out the windows on PCH.

Carolina, you’re not my fave, but I dig you at a show girl. Do your thing!

Adore you is perfect, and note changes baby! Note changes!

Only angel- so glad you are still with us!!

She! Mitch! I love the way Harry highlights Mr. Rowland. He moves into the shadows and let’s Mitch strut.

Falling, I love the little taste of two ghosts, and though you aren’t my jam, I still teared up. This man gets better and better!

Sunflower, joy in a bop! The band is so fun and long live Harry making the silly sounds and playing with the audience.it’s show 4 and he’s ramping up. More interactions every show. These are my shit!

This might have been when Harry spotted a man! “Jeff, Jeff, Jeff!” Harry wanted him to have a good time, and he was the belle of the ball for a minute!

He also sang Happy Birthday, but threatened to only do it to the first sign holder he saw! But he was a benevolent deity as always.

I’m taking a break- cuz WOMAN, always forever, under my skin and on it. Also, so many sexy shapes and lots of beautiful ass shots.

He gave us a choice, ass or face! I really am at a loss for a preference in these satin pants with his tighty whiteys! You flower, you feast for my eyes sir!

I spent all of cherry filming for @dirtystyles​. The harmonies here are so pretty, and I love ny’s voice with Harry. Elin was hard to see most of the show for me, but she was so darling here.

Lights Up, my baby, I do know who I am when I am in this room too! That bass drop still owns me.

Canyon moon- the arrangement is beyond amazing. This was probably my least favorite song on Fine Line, but I freaking love it live!

TPWK followed by WMYB is like a joy machine- love love!

Fine line may be my favorite song, it basically got me through the pandemic. My one complaint is that he didn’t do the last we’ll be alright. If he hadn’t have been so much chattier and just a smiley amazing example of love on legs I might not forgive him.

Will SOTT ever not choke me up?

Watermelon Sugar is fucking a bop/ end of! It’s sexy and I’ll show you exactly what it tastes like.

Kiwi- you beautiful bitch, I will dance myself into a sweaty mess and feel enlivened anytime, every time. Like WMYB- if Harry always shows this much joy doing a song he’s done so many times before, I’ll show up to watch. He shows, we show. I’m still fucking into it!! Forever into it! I’ll never be over Kiwi or Harry Styles.

I can’t tell you all how much this fandom, the community and all of it means to me. Harry’s room might be my favorite place and you my favorite collection of people! Thank you @styloff​ for helping me find a home for my extra ticket, @chasm2018​ and @greeneyesharry​ for finding me the seat right next to @yessoupy!

And @yessoupy​! Thank you for the encouragement to find the spontaneous woman I loved in me and thought I lost and for great conversation, sing alongs, and adventure! I love you! Let’s keep the tour going tomorrow!

[arhvste]

❝ kuroo tetsurō - wedding hcs ❞

tetsu week masterlist

-> nothing over the top

-> you guys agreed upon a modest wedding with the relevant family and friends invited

-> by that i mean you guys don’t bother with inviting far extended family and friends of friends because you guys shouldn’t have to waste your budget feeding people y’all rarely talk to

-> also kuroo doesn’t like his 3rd cousin so he just didn’t invite the whole extended tree

-> it’s a pretty traditional wedding like y’all really don’t add any unecessary features to it

-> like 3 water fountains at the front of the entrance might look nice but there’s a good chance someone bokuto will end up in it somehow so it got scratched off the list

-> anywho

-> your wedding is immaculate because your mans considered everything down to a t

-> of course he took on board everything you said you wanted to include

-> he’s heavily involved in the planning and has pinterest downloaded on his phone too

-> making a romantic playlist for your s/o? nah

-> making a pinterest board for your s/o 😎

-> lowkey y’all get followers on pinterest just because your board is ugh chefs kiss

-> so you guys have a spring wedding because it’s not too hot or too cold

-> also the weather is good enough to hold plthe ceremony outside

-> you know who actually helps you find a good venue?

-> akaashi

-> the mans in the shoujo manga dept he’s gonna know what a good wedding scene looks like

-> so he recommends this pretty place by a river and temple in the distance

-> thank you akaashi, very helpful 😼

-> seeing as the place you guys hold the ceremony is already quite natural and has a nice colour palette to it, you guys don’t go overboard with flowers

-> of course you’ll have some white flowers and soft tones of any other colour flowers you think suit

-> kuroo insists on using your fav flower as the most dominant one

-> in reality he’s just trying to show off to you the fact that even after all these years, he still knows your fav things like flowers off by heart

-> ceo of simps 🤩

-> no it’s actually very cute he remembers and insists upon the small detail being included

-> overall though your decorations are really pretty?

-> like they’re not too in your face they’re just very delicate and dainty 😼

-> as for food, i’m gonna leave that for you guys to imagine because idk if y’all have allergies or religious rules you have to follow etc

-> but just know kuroo’s having the menu made exactly how you want it

-> as long as there’s some form of mackerel on there

-> so back onto your actual wedding day

-> kuroo is NERVOUS

-> he’s marrying the love of his life !!!

-> and he will cry 😜

-> he has no idea what you look like but he’s gonna cry because you’re going to look ethereal

-> okay i know everyone hcs that he would wear some red suit or something

-> but he’s wearing a black and white formal one,, i said what i said 😌

-> and this is purely because this means it can’t clash with your own colour scheme

-> what a considerate husband 😎

-> so when the time comes for him to see you his hands are sweaty asf

-> i just know sakusa is somewhere in the audience cringing because his gross spidey senses are going off

-> his little leg is shaking up and down cause like damn

-> can this old man just shush and get to the part where you walk down the aisle?? he’s missed you all day 😾

-> ugh finally everyone is standing up to welcome you and kuroo is already tearing up

-> his breath hitches from the moment you’re in his eyesight

-> y/n, luv, YOURE SO HOT

-> kuroo is all 🥺😖🤩🥰

-> while he’s taking in your appearance the world just kinda stops for him

-> well actually it gets a little closer because you’re his world duh

-> but he’s never seen someone so breathtaking

-> is this legal?? are you about to cut of his oxygen supply??

-> when you finally get to the front of the alter and stand right in front of him he swears he could die happy

-> he has waited so long to officially make you his

-> and now you’re finally standing here about to take his last name

-> he takes your hand into his and is relieved to feel yours are a little sweaty too

-> ugh you guys are so happy and nervous

-> the whole time the priest is talking neither of you are really listening because wow

-> you’re both finally here together

-> all kuroo can focus on is you

-> and vice versa

-> when the time comes, his vows are stuttered out at first but he grows more confident as you give him a pure and genuine smile

-> “i knew you were the one after you asked me for my homework answers right before class back in our second year 😌”

-> your second year home room teacher and close friend sat somewhere in the audience : 👁👄👁

-> “you were so cute. had i of known that letting you cheat on the homework would’ve led us here i would’ve let you cheat way before so we could’ve met sooner”

-> kuroo is cute but he’s just straight up snaking you up for your lack of homework in your second year

-> you’re like ‘stop talking 😀’

-> overall his vows are very cliche and he has some bad jokes littered in there too but that’s what makes it so him

-> y/n, luv, yours aren’t much better though because they’re just as cheesy

-> that’s okay though because they’re still cute

-> kenma will be gagging behind the two of you while y’all display your affection 😜

-> so when kuroo finally allowed to kiss you he doesn’t told back

-> he’s just made you his officially if you think he’s going in for a shy peck you’re wrong

-> mans a lil stiff but he’s going to the whole arm under back and dip

-> everyones too excited to care over how over the top it is though

-> anyways, your food

-> it was immaculate because your man is getting you nothing but the best

-> and as for your cake

-> kuroo tries to do that thing where he swipes buttercream on your nose to be all cute

-> but he miscalculates his angles and got it in your eye 🤩

-> that’s okay though because you get him back by swiping a handful in his face

-> don’t worry, the baker knew this would happen

-> so there’s a spare layer to make up for the one you kinda ruined

-> ugh your baker came in clutch 🤑

-> anyways onto your first dance

-> kuroo steps on your feet a handful of times 😖

-> he’s lowkey embarrassed but your footwork isn’t amazing either so he feels a little better

-> i’m not calling you guys bad dancers

-> you’re both just still so in shock that you’re really married now 🥺

-> the whole dance is just a little teary eyed as he whispers how much he loves you and how happy you’ve made him while you dance

-> the less tearful dances occur after you’re all done though

-> the whole night people are stealing the two of you away from each other to congratulate the two of you and dance and drink with you all etc

-> the whole time spent with your family and friends is so nice and just fulfilling??? 😌

-> by the end of it though you just want to be in your husbands arms alone

-> and that’s exactly what kuroo grants as soon as the last of your guests leave

-> he carries you bridal style to the car waiting outside for the two of you

-> “tetsu, i can walk”

-> “we just got married arent i allowed to carry you as such? 😿”

-> and with that the two of you are driving off into the night to the 5 star hotel you’re staying at

-> listen, i know it’s been a long day for the two of you and you guys are probably tired

-> but you’re not tired enough not to give him one last wedding gift 👀

-> it it just so happens that this is his favourite one 😼

dt - @aislastetsu

general taglist → @atsumuwoah @bloody-bella @bbymilkbread @miracleboy420 @doggonudez @tsumue @peteunderoos @tsukkisbean @saturnfarie @dear-kozume @zumisace @boosyboo9206 @totorosleaff @27kei @dai-tsukki-desu @angrylittleriri @tsukkaria @kuxredere @warakou @mattsuny @lovinnoya @sophiashortcake @waitforitillwritemywayout

ALL CONTENT BELONGS TO @KUROOSKULT ON TUMBLR 2020 PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, CHANGE OR PLAGIARISE

[a-s-levynn]

I was thinking quite a bit how to make this post. I usually don't do dwell on things like this but this one actually made me pause for some reason.

Not long ago i was messaged by a blog by the url johnlegendblog. If anyone knows him and can correct me on him being actually genuin i'd appreciate that and apologize but for the time being i'd advise anyone whom he contacts to be careful.

At first he seemed harmless enough tho asking oddly targeted questions and sharing weirdly personal things (at least for me) as a conversation starter. I might be mistrustful but i had an odd vibe form the get go. He never really made sure if he was chatting with a minor by any chance and he claimed to be a widower with kids with a kind of job he can't share much details about.. curious innit? i mean sure not everyone is an asshole but.. i don't know. I'm not smart enough for these kinda things i'm just expecting the worst usually.

After the 2nd or 3rd day of light conversation he asked me to switch off of tumblr on to a different platform (like hangouts or whatsapp) and not even answering questions or engaging conversation anymore just fixating on that. And that's just not cool especially after several instances of me saying i'm not gonna leave tumblr. This went on for a few days and even the tumblr chat offered the option to mark him as spam 'cause how many times he said "just download hangouts to continue talking." That's when i blocked him eventually. No fishy seeming guy is gonna get me to do something i don't want to.

He has that stereotypical blog with a cartoonish avatar + header and an odd mess of posts that seems legit and harmless enough at a shallow glance. I don't know but this is the type of blog that has circulating warnings about being potentially harmful if i remember correctly. I might be overreacting or maybe seeing something that isn't there, but better safe than sorry i guess.

[hauntedbythefanficsofmypast]

When you need a Superfriend

By Nach0Ava

On Archive of Our Own

Tumblr user: @nach0ava

So I have not really watched Supergirl however when I read the first chapter I had to share this with you all! This is the first chapter by Nach0Ava. (Second chapter is on its way as well!) Marinette gets sent away by her parents to America! Please go read Nach0Ava's story!

Summary:

When Tom and Sabine believe Lila's lies, they send Marinette off to live with an old family friend in National City. When living with a government agent and a physiologist, how long is it until she gets figured out?

Chapter 1:

“I don’t understand! Why are you sending me away?”

Marinette looked up at her parents in disbelief. They had just told her that she was going to be sent to live with a family friend. In America! Sure, she could speak fairly good English, but it still didn’t make sense!

“Your recent behaviour has led us to think that the change could be good for you. Kelly and her girlfriend Alex are lovely people, and they might be better equipped to deal with you than we are.”

As her mother spoke, Marinette felt a bitterness rise in her. Of course. Lila. She had made good on her threat, managing to turn even her parents against her. Claiming that she was involved in a gang, she had an older boyfriend, she did drugs, the list went on. And when Tom and Sabine had caught Marinette out past curfew one too many times, they took it as the truth. She couldn’t tell them that she was Ladybug, so all she had was half-hearted excuses. Still, she needed a way to stay in Paris, as she couldn’t be Ladybug somewhere else, and if there was no Ladybug, there was no-one to catch the akuma, and no-one to cast the cure, never mind all her guardian duties…

She was getting off track. She had a goal and she needed to accomplish it. Just like taking down an akuma. Except she couldn’t hit this problem really hard for it to go away.

“Is there any way I could stay in Paris? I’ll switch schools, I’ll go live with grandpa Roland, I’ll do anything!”

Tom and Sabine exchanged a look. They didn’t want to believe it, but they had to make sure.

“Honey, calm down, aren’t you worried about an akuma?”

Marinette started pacing as she rambled, mostly to herself.

“Right, I’ll get upset, then you guys will get mad at me, and then one or both of you will be akumatised and then I’ll have that whole mess to deal with.”

Tom reached out a hand to her shoulder to stop her pacing.

“You aren’t worried about you getting akumatised?”

Marinette shook her head.

“No no, I’ll be fine.”

A slight push from her bag and the looks from her parents made her backtrack.

“I mean, I’m really good at calming down before they get to me, I mean, it’s worked so far right?”

She let out a nervous chuckle while her parents stared at her.

“Marinette… Are you working with Hawkmoth?”

Marinette looked for the start of a smile from her mum, the laughter in her dad’s eyes, anything to say they were joking. When the just kept staring she burst into laughter.

“Haha, you guys… You guys really thought… Haha, that’s hilarious!”

Her parents failed to see the humour and gave her thatlook.

“Remember all those times I’ve been attacked? Reflekta, Horificator, pretty much any akuma that clones or traps people I’ve gotten tangled up in.”

Not technically a lie, she never said she got hitspecifically, but she definitely got attacked.

“Well, maybe you should get out of Paris anyway. It’s clearly not safe here, and maybe it’s best for you to leave. You’ll like it in National City, they even have their own superheros!”

Great. A reminder of what I have to give up because of Lila. She was about to keep protesting, but she felt three quick pushed on her side by Tikki. We need to talk.Her argument died on her tongue and she sighed.

“When am I meant to leave?”

Her parents exchanged relived looks.

“The plane is booked for next Friday. That gives you about a week to pack up. We could mail over a box with all of your sewing things once you get settled, if Kelly and Alex are ok with it of course.”

Marinette fought the eyebrow that was threating to raise. A week? I was hoping for some more time to test and train a new guardian, and a new holder for Tikki. It would be a rush, and there weren’t many people she trusted anymore. Still, there was work to be done, so she had to get started.

“I guess I’ll go start packing then. Can I be un-grounded so I can spend my final week saying goodbye and sorting things out?”

Her parents nodded, glad she was taking this so well.

“Of course honey, just not tonight ok? It’s getting rather late.”

Marinette nodded and ran up to her room, shutting the trapdoor quickly. She went up onto her bed and starting crying into her pillow, feeling the weight of all the kwami comforting her. Eventually she rolled on to her back, drying her tears.

“I’m sorry Tikki, you said you wanted to talk?”

She looked at her expectantly. Marinette already knew what Tikki wanted. She needed to find a new wielder and Guardian, and she shouldn’t have been putting it off, but sometimes it felt good to cry. Tikki came to settle on her lap and patted her leg comfortingly.

“Marinette I know what you’re thinking, and you don’t have to give up being Ladybug or being Guardian. So you better stop that train of thought right now missy.”

Marinette sat up, blinking. How could she… Oh.

“I’m an idiot.”

Tikki giggled while she flew up and booped her nose, while Kaalki sniffed from the corner.

“I can’t believe you forgot about me Guardian. You’ve given me out before!”

Marinette giggled at the kwami’s haughty attitude.

“Sorry Kaalki, I got a bit too emotional to think clearly.”

Kaalki just grabbed a sugar cube with a huff and flew off. Marinette climbed off her bed and grabbed her bright pink suitcase.

“So who wants to help me pack?”

~~<3~~

Chloe, Kagami, Luka and Marinette were all sitting at a table at a café during their lunch break. Luka had graduated already, so he was usually free to hang out. Chloe had come up to Marinette not too long after Lila’s takeover with an apology. Marinette had been wary at first, but Chloe was actually really nice when she wasn’t putting up an act. She had soon proven herself and had been given another chance at being a hero, under the new name Honeybee. Kagami had approached her after Adrien had asked for advice on the Lila situation. She had hated his passive approach, and when she had tried to talk to him about it, he just refused her help, ignoring the fact that he had asked for her help. Kagami had come to offer her help, and they become friends soon after. She had re-claimed the dragon, under the new name Tempête. Luka had heard Lila’s heart song and immediately knew that was someone that he didn’t want to hang around. He had tried warning Juleka and the rest of Kitty Section, but Lila had told them that having an older singer wasn’t a good look. He had been kicked out, and Marinette had been there to comfort him with pastries and musicals. After she had introduced everyone to each other, they had become a tightly knit group. So, as one could imagine, they weren’t taking this well.

“They gave you a week? That’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!”

Kagami made a noise of displeasure as well.

“Sending you to America seems a bit extreme, what reason did they give again?”

Marinette scoffed.

“My ‘recent behaviour’ or something like that. Also known as, Lila. Oh, that’s not even the best part.”

Marinette gave out a dry chuckle and everyone looked on in interest.

“Apparently, I’m working with Hawkmoth.”

Luka plucked a string on his guitar, sending out a loud note. Chloe just stared in disbelief, and Kagami made for her foil.

“I’m going to run them through with my sword.”

Kagami gripped it tightly, ready to get up and make good on her threat, but Marinette grabbed it from her, unbothered by the fencer’s unimpressed glare.

“No-one is stabbing anyone. I don’t really have a choice, so I just have to suck it up and deal with it. Besides, it could be good to get away from Lila.”

Chloe was the first to get up to give her a hug, followed by Luka, and then by Kagami, who Marinette wasn’t completely sure that she wasn’t just trying to get her sword back.

“It’ll be ok guys, we can still video chat through Skype or something. I won’t be able to text, because I’ll be on an American phone plan, but we can figure something out!”

Chloe pulled away and took out her phone, tapping away immediately.

“I’m going to get you an amazing phone plan, with unlimited overseas. Same for the rest of you. That way, we can all talk and not worry about the fact that there’ll be an ocean dividing us.”

Marinette slowly took the phone and added it to her slowly growing pile, pointedly ignoring the glare Chloe shot her.

“I’m sure there are other, free, ways to contact each other. I think there’s an online service, what’s the name in English? Chaos or something like that?”

Luka strummed at his guitar in thought before pulling up an app on his phone.

“Is this the one you were thinking of?”

He had opened Discord, in dark mode of course, and had his profile open.

“Yeah, that’s the one! We can talk on there, and it has the bonus of being accessible from computers! So, no reason to go overboard, ok Chloe?”

Chloe humped and opened up the app store, downloading Discord. Kagami noticed what she was doing and mirrored her. They all took a few minutes to make accounts and become friends, before Luka, the one with the most experience, had set up a server for them all. Quickly choosing nicknames, Marinette pocketed her phone with a grin.

“Now that that’s done, anyone want to come help me pick some things to take?”

~~<3~~

It felt like the week passed quickly, lessons passing by in a blur. She didn’t pay much attention, just enough to keep Mrs Bustier satisfied. She didn’t bother alerting anyone in the class (outside of Chloe) that she was leaving, ignoring their taunts and insults. Chloe and Kagami had been big helps in learning how to ignore them, so now they rolled off her like water on a duck. She made sure not to bring anything valuable, most of her stuff was in a suitcase anyway. On her final day, she only had her schoolbooks, the school assigned tablet, and three neatly wrapped gifts. As she was packing up to go meet her friends for a final goodbye, she was stopped by Alya.

“I need you to make a dress for the upcoming school dance.”

Marinette briefly noted that this was a demand, rather than a request, but she just started her usual commission speech with a sigh.

“Depending on the materials used and the time it takes to make, the dress could cost anywhere from €300 to €500. There will also be shipping costs, plus the fact I’m not taking commissions right now, so it will probably be a few weeks before I might be able to get started on it.”

Alya was staring at Marinette like she had grown another head.

“€300, what are you talking about? I’m not paying youfor a dress, and you make mine every year, so what’s the problem? I can’t wait a few weeks, the dance is next weekend!”

Marinette sighed and pushed past the taller girl.

“The problem is that I don’t have time, materials are expensive, and I made you those dresses when we were friends. But we’re not now. So, leave me alone. Goodbye Alya.”

She walked out to meet her friends, leaving Alya behind, too stunned to talk. When she snapped out of it, she grumbled to herself.

“She’ll see reason on Monday. She has no right to refuse after all she’s done to Lila! Maybe if she makes Lila’s dress too, she’ll forgive her! Lila’s nice like that, Marinette will come around after making up for everything she’s done!”

Alya walked away, satisfied, planning her new dress in her mind.

Marinette ran up to her friends, engulfing them in hugs. They all hugged right back, sad to see her go. Marinette suddenly pulled away from the hug, and grabbed three parcels out of her bag. She handed them all out, urging them to open them. Luka opened his first, finding a beanie that perfectly matched his hair, with a teal snake pattern around the rim. Chloe went next, her patience not holding any longer. She got a headband with tiny bees embroidered all along it. Kagami received a red handkerchief, with an elemental dragon on one side, and a storm cloud on the other, a lightning strike going all the way across. They all started to thank her at once, with Marinette just blushing sheepishly.

“I just took note of all your favourite heroes, and added them to a design. It’s not that big of a deal.”

They all hugged again, before the clock chimed behind them, making Marinette jump.

“I have to go! I’ll send you all a message when I land, but you better not stay up for it if it’s late here!”

A chorus of “No promises!” filled her ears as she ran home, taking in the sights one more time. She burst into the bakery to find her mum still working the counter, and her dad busy baking. Not thinking much of it, she went up to her room to grab her belongings. After some quick cuddles from the kwami, she had everything she needed. Most flew into the suitcase, comfy in the hidden area Marinette had made, lined with a soft faux fur. Only Tikki and Kaalki flew into her jacket, ready to transform if need be. They had assured her they wouldn’t show up on the x-ray, so she was fine with having them in there. As she lifted her suitcase and went downstairs, her strength from being Ladybug shining through, she was surprised to see her parents still busy at work.

“Maman, Papa, I thought we were going to the airport now?”

Her parent’s exchanged looks before Tom stopped his baking and walked over.

“Honey, we can’t afford to come with you, we need to keep the bakery open. There’s an Uber outside for you, but you’ll have to go on your own. I’m sorry.”

He pulled her into a hug, one she half-heartedly returned. She walked over to hug her mum as well, and went outside with her suitcase.

This was it.

She was really being sent away.

All because of some dumb liar.

With a comforting press coming from inside her jacket, she got in the Uber, prepared to start her new life.

[honeydvew]

what's the biggest life decision (you feel comfortable saying) that you've ever made? do you ever think about what would've happened if you hadn't made a certain choice/how it would've affected your life?

canofworms0 downloading tumblr. i know that sounds stupid but honestly its real. im not allowed to have anything else in regards to social media. not instagram, not twitter, not snapchat, not tik tok, nothing. my mother knows i have tumblr so i dont know why she doesnt make me delete it (but it might have to do with the fact she thinks its like deviant art or smth) but im so glad she doesnt. as social-media-addicted-teenager as this sounds without tumblr my life would fucking suk right now. i wouldnt have the things i do and i wouldnt be as happy. and i can give you examples.

lets go in order of events shall we :)

1. i downloaded tumblr some time last year (around may i think) and i immediately found a blog i liked! they were a 13yo like me they shared some of my interests and they seemed really cool! so i followed them. i dont know this blogs current @ but im so lucky i ever found them. a month or so later they posted about a server! it was a community server that they and some friends were in. i joined. thats where i met @starry-baby-katie and @gayishgothamite. and i love those dorks (affectionate)! we might not talk very offten but i think of them as people who are SO important to me. i love them with my whole soul and i dont know if my life would be as bright without them.

2. around 11/5 of last year i was scrolling through tumblr like usual. i saw an add for a server. at that point i was in maybe three servers on discord and didnt have many friends so i thought you know why not! its a mental health server and i wasnt in the best place maybe could benefit from it a bit. i joined and there were maybe 14 members including the mods. we didnt really think the server would go much of anywhere for a while and i honestly didnt interact much for a while but you know what. now that server is such a huge part of my life i dont think i would be here without it. i mean i love every last person there so much. literally all of them. @the-final-braincell bun bun is honestly one of the best people ive ever met. they’re funny and joyful and just the best to be around. talking to them always cheers me up and she always manages to make me laugh. were on the mod team together and she is such an important part of the team that we wouldnt run as smoothly as we do without her. i love them so so much and if i hadnt gotten tumblr? would never have met them. then theres @sir-tigerr. tiger. just. tiger. hes so amazing and i honestly would die for him. i love him so much and just talking to him can make my day. i wouldnt be as happy and the sever wouldnt be as fun without him. and @reallyradrat server owner :) sammy im so grateful for sammys existence just.. overall. they made the sever. they wrote the add post. and they’re such a good friend. i cant imagine not having them in my life they’ve made such a difference. so just... thank you <3 and @tiredconfusedandgay!! cub!! i love them!! theyre such a joy to be around and them being in the server is such a lucky thing! it wouldnt be as fun and bright of a place without them and they bring so much every time and i love seeing them in chat everyday. and with leo comes @canofworms0 baby child. anni is so amazing. just overall. so happy and funny and just an amazing person to be around and im so happy to have them in the server. @lentil-darling !!! kittycat!!! i love them!! they're so amazing and have helped me through things on more than one occasion and I'm so grateful for that and for them. they're such a good friend and i always have such a good time whenever we vc! its honestly something i look forward to! and speaking of VCs @gayest-unicorn is amazing. VCing with them is so fun and i hope we can do it more often. and on top of that just messaging them is great! and they're puns (ouns ;)/ij)? FANTASTIC! i hate puns by most means but whenever they crack a joke it makes my day 4000 times better. he's just amazing and i think he deserves the world. cant say enough praise to him :) so i low key have to speedrun this bc im running out of time to type this but all of these people also deserve the world and i wouldnt know them if it wasnt for tumblr @smoll-lightning-bug  @totally-tater-tot @savemycrustysoul @a-broken-laptop @nantuckets-weaver @undead-mutt  @hufflepuff-pide-honey-badger @human331279 and just so so many more whos @s i didnt get or couldnt find. i am so grateful to have in my life because of this server and that post. that post literally changed my life forever and i cant imagine my life without it and without these people

3. a few months went by and i made some mutuals and friends and whatnot. my at the time friend irl then made an account. i was really excited! why wouldnt i be! friend made account! awesome! but another thing about that? i had a crush on them.. and they could now see my account. but fuck it it was a great trade off. we spent a lot of time sending each other asks and messaging while in quarantine and it was just great. then i saw an ask game and i rebloged it. i realized this ask game said “♻ are we a qpp or what?” as one of the asks. now im a coward and i could NEVER have done this outside tumblr in anyway but i took the chance. i sent them the post and said “you should rb this! you have followers that would interact im sure” and so.. they did. i sent the ask and they said yes :) five months later and we’re still dating. whos this amazing person? that my friend would be @mossofthecosmos the most amazing person ive ever met. theyre the light of my life and if it werent for tumblr i would still be a blushy, semi-verbal, embarrassed, mess around them. and we wouldnt be dating. i cant even imagine what that would be like. i love them so much and they make every day wroth living for me and if it werent for tumblr, i wouldnt have that. 

4. and ive made friends. so many of them. and i love them all so much! i dont talk to a few anymore but for the while we did they made my days and made me so happy. without tumblr i wouldnt have met @mimekyo or @books-andbiscuits who are both people that have made my life a brighter place! 

okay so i cried writing this and i cried HARD

bottom line nonie? this question is so loaded it took me three hours to write an answer and a stupid amount of words that no one will read all the way through

i cant put it into words but this website is one of the best things that ever happened to me and i cant imagine life without it 

[stanzoeywade]

Poppy x MC Tinder AU

Summary: based off that one tumblr post about a girl who never experienced an orgasm and their friend hooks them up with their lesbian friend. aka, the au that no one asked for.

in which Veronica and Chloe find out that Poppy's never experienced an orgasm and they decide to help her out by creating a tinder account for her, cue MC finding her account and shenanigans happen.

Warnings: swear words maybe some smut but nothing too graphic. (OWO)

If anyone wants to be added to taglist please reply. As always these are only my headcanons so enjoy my take on that tinder au anon asked @somewillwin about. Your brain anon omg.

Taglist: @somewillwin @belvoiresqueenbee @origmansello @clownery-is-a-new-personality @kamilahtrash @poppysminion @poppysimp @captain-hanadeleine @poppysmc @iiizdumb @uselesslesbianfr @scattered-to-the-winds @idiot-justidiot @toyhenoctus

First of all this discussion happens one night where Poppy, Chloe and Veronica get their asses drunk at a frat party. Believe or not the top 3 girls of Belvoire actually care about each other, they just have a really weird way of showing it.

A heart to heart talk starts and the three of them start to confess things that they would never talk about when sober. Cue Poppy saying "I've never experienced an orgasm in my whole life."

Chloe and Veronica just look at Poppy shocked and their jaws drop. Veronica just looks at Poppy with a weird look of pity, whilst Chloe just stares.

After realising what she said Poppy quickly sobers up and clams her mouth shut. "What do you mean you've never had an orgasm before?!" Veronica all but yells. "Gee V, couldn't you have said that any louder, I don't think the whole school heard you." Poppy replies sarcastically.

Veronica just rolls her eyes and says "Girl, you're not getting out of this convo that easily. Now spill the tea sis." Chloe and Veronica look at Poppy expectantly, waiting for her to elaborate. Poppy just sighs and looks away cheeks flushed, as if embarrassed.

The two don't stop pestering her, so Poppy has no choice but to raise her hands in mock surrender. "Fine, I'll tell you" she says as her eyes narrow dangerously. "But if you tell anyone about this, I will actually erase the both of you from planet earth."

Poppy begins to explain that none of her exes made her feel good, and that whenever she had sex with any of them she always had to fake it, so much so that she's started to find sex boring.

Veronica and Chloe share a look and nod at each other. The both of them say "We're gonna set up a tinder account for you to find a good lay (basically the british version of saying good fuck), because that's just pretty fucking sad. Why didn't you tell us sooner, like bruhhh??."

Poppy just looks away and says "Its not like I can just go up to you guys and say 'I've never orgasmed before'". The two just nod their head in understanding before taking Poppy's phone and installing tinder.

They spend some time taking and choosing the best photos for Poppy to use on her tinder profile. (If anyone has seen Euphoria, you know that scene where Rue helps Jules take nudes, it's like that but PG-13) Considering that the three of them were pretty drunk, it was surprising to see how well it turned out.

Feeling sleepy, both Veronica and Chloe retreat back to their room, and Poppy just feels so tired that she falls asleep as soon as the other girls leave.

Waking up the next morning Poppy wakes up to the sound of her phone beeping numerous times and annoyed by the constant ping, she picks it up to see that almost all the notifications were from tinder.

Poppy is confused because wtf? When did she download tinder??? And then it hits her like a truck, 'Oh shit, we were all drunk as fuck last night, I thought that was some bizarre lucid dream but I actually have a tinder account. Fuck.' - she thinks to herself, embarrassed that Veronica and Chloe know her secret.

She sees a few messages from the group chat. Veronica sent her a message. "Poppy, istg if you delete tinder after all the time we spent making your profile look cute, I will post the ugliest picture I have of you on my insta." it reads. What surprised her is that Chloe actually backs Veronica up by saying "Yeah Poppy, it took our three collective brain cells to curate that account so you better use it."

Poppy giggles a little amused by her friends' reaction and she messages them back by saying "Fine, but if it doesn't work out you guys have to pay for my next shopping spree." Chloe and Veronica just agrees albeit unwillingly, but they know not to argue back.

Poppy decides to check the messages and matches that she got on tinder, disappointed but not surprised, most messages say "Send nudes" or a nude pic is attached to their messages. Poppy just rolls her eyes as she immediately unmatches them.

You were looking on tinder for your latest hook-up with no strings attached because ewww commitment and no one really caught your eye, except Poppy. Imagine your surprise when you find Poppy's profile on tinder, deciding that it was a troll account you decide to message them saying "Wow, of all the people you could choose to pretend to be, you choose the HBIC of Belvoire. Stop trying to catfish people, that's just shitty."

Poppy shocked at the sudden message that she gets from you scoffs and replies back "I'm not pretending to be anyone, Farmsville, in case you didn't know even I'm allowed to use tinder."

You just roll your eyes and text back "If you really are Poppy Min-Sinclair, prove it. I might hate Poppy's guts but trying to ruin her reputation by doing shit like this isn't funny."

This catches Poppy's attention, and suddenly she's curious. 'Why would she even stand up for me?' she can't help but wonder.

Poppy screenshots your conversation and sends it to Chloe and Veronica who have vastly different reactions. Veronica's response compiles of this emoji 👀, and the words "Farmsville likes girls, we been knew." and Chloe's response is more of a "WTF, I thought she was dating that Zoey girl."

The girls tell her that it would be fun to mess with you, and they tell her that she should prove that the profile is hers. Veronica also messages her privately saying "girl, her bio legit says 'not looking for commitment' this is like your chance to sleep with her and if you don't, I will." Poppy just grunts in annoyance and decides that fine, she supposed that you were attractive enough for a hook-up.

When you don't get a reply within the next ten minutes you scoff and roll your eyes. 'Damn, people really stoop so low huh.' - you think to yourself. There's a slight disappointment that crosses your mind once the account stopped replying to your messages. You were kind of hoping that it was the real Poppy after all.

Against her better judgement (gay denial right here folks, you're the first to see it), she decides to take a selfie and sends it to you.

Right as you're about to unmatch to what most likely seems to be a fake account, you're surprised to see a message from Poppy's supposed account. It was a selfie of Poppy, where instead of her usual pink fur coat, she's wearing something casual, and to be fair it's a really nice mirror selfie. (This is what I imagine) (I still stand by my headcanon of Poppy looking like Chungha but I couldn't find a good photo lolol)

Doubting that it's really Poppy, you decide to check your socials to see if she's uploaded any new images, and so far you haven't found anything. However you're nothing if not stubborn. You ask if she could prove that she's real and not some weirdo.

Poppy just rolls her eyes annoyed that she's being questioned, as a last ditch effort to gain your trust she sends another selfie, which is a bit more revealing than the last and once you see it your brain stops functioning.

Regaining your composure, you message her saying "I thought you had a boyfriend? What the fuck?" The only response you get is a reaction gif of some girl rolling their eyes. Being the little shit you are you decide to annoy her by sending selfies back, each photo more provocative than the last.

Poppy amused by the photos decides to get you back and it becomes a game of one-upping each other to see who takes better thirst traps. This continues on for an entire week (It's such a stupid competion and both of you know but you're both competitive af so yeah.) until Poppy snaps and contacts you using her actual phone number instead of the app.

Poppy's already frustrated and she's annoyed because she can't stop thinking about you and your stupidly hot, gorgeous body - oh my god I'm going insane she thinks to herself. She decides enough is enough and messages you. "FUCK YOU FARMSVILLE! BACK DOWN ALREADY!"

You wouldn't be yourself if you didn't have a sassy comeback ready so you reply with "FUCK ME YOURSELF YOU COWARD!" sending her yet another thirst trap, this one more revealing than the others.

Poppy snaps when she sees the message and she's quick to make a reservation to her favourite hotel in NYC, because as if she'd be seen taking you to her room. She gets the biggest room because she's extra like that and she knows she deserves the best.

The only response you get is a pinned location on the map, aptly captioned, "Meet me here Farmsville and I'll make you eat your words."

Still feeling feisty you reply with "Is that a threat or is that a promise? 😘😜" and Poppy just tells you to hurry up.

This is a really stupid idea - you think to yourself. You can't help but be suspicious of Poppy wanting to meet up, after all she can use this information against you. However none of that matters to your lust riddled brain, considering the last hook-up you've had was with Professor Kingsley and that was quite some time ago and you're really horny for some action.

You quickly dress in your best underwear, and choose something fashionable yet casual to wear because let's face it even if you hate Poppy, you don't want to look like a loser if you're gonna hook up.

Once you get there, you quickly make your way to the designated room that Poppy told you to go to. Knocking on the door, you're lowkey expecting Belvoire students to berate you, but once the door opens all you can see is Poppy.

Poppy is dressed in nothing but her underwear as she pulls you into the room. Feeling a bit awkward, you decide to break the ice by saying "I lowkey expected this to be some weird plan where you embarass me in front of your clique."

Poppy just looks at you and she scoffs as she says "As much as I hate you Farmsville, even I wouldn't stoop that low. Plus it's a crime to share nudes without a person's permission." You just look at her in disbelief jaw dropping as you take all of her in. I mean if you thought she looked good in the photos, then damn seeing it in real life was a different experience entirely

She notices that you're staring and she just flashes you a smirk and says "See something you like?" and all you want to do is wipe the smirk off her perfect face.

Stepping closer to Poppy, you make the first move and kiss her roughly, each kiss longer than the last and you can feel your heart pound as your nervousness dissipates and all you can focus on is the smell of Poppy's perfume and how it drives you wild. As well as how soft her skin feels against your hands and it's enough to drive you over the edge.

Poppy pulls away and you follow after her, annoyed by the fact that the kisses stopped. You can hear her pant as she struggles to breathe.

As soon as Poppy catches her breath, she says "I'm starting to feel under dressed so let's fix that shall we?" She pulls you towards the bed and she strips your clothing off, and you can't help but stare because holy shit this is actually happening. You start to wonder if you're dreaming until you feel Poppy kiss you again, this time slower and softer and you can't help the wistful sigh that escapes your lips.

You decide to take the lead until you hear Poppy say something. "Wait a minute Farmsville." You stop and listen because no matter how sexually frustrated you might be at the moment, consent is always important.

You wait patiently for her to start talking and she says "Don't make fun of me, but I've never known what an orgasm feels like." You can tell that she's flustered by the way she looks away and refuses to make eye contact.

Your eyes soften up and you kiss her gently on the neck and whisper "I guess that's something we can improve after tonight, but if you feel uncomfortable at any moment in time just tell me to stop." Surprised that you even cared about how she felt Poppy just nods her head softly at you.

"I'm gonna start touching you, okay Poppy?" you say your voice gentle, as you hope that it soothes her nerves. "Just relax and let me do the work, alright, I promise I won't hurt you." Poppy just shoots you a shy smile and your heart pounds because fuck that's the cutest fucking thing you've ever seen.

Kissing your way to her inner thighs, you can hear and feel her squirm against your touch. In order to keep her still, you place her hands on your hair and assure her that it's okay if she tugs on it. You place your hands on her hips to keep her steady as you tease and suck on her clit.

Poppy's small moans of contentment makes you want to do more, so you try extra hard because you want to hear more. You can feel Poppy's body begin to shudder and you can tell that she's close and spurred on by that you insert your fingers into her core and thrust until you can hear scream in pleasure.

You can't help but stare as her body starts to spasm and you let her grind so that she can climax again and it's the most erotic moment of your life.

Poppy feels her whole vision turn white for a moment and she feels euphoric once she realises that she came.

As soon as she regains her bearings, she turns to you, who looks very satisfied, and omg did she just see you lick her juices off your finger. That sends a wave of arousal straight to her core and she looks away embarrassed from being turned on again just a few seconds after coming.

You put your hand on her chin and turn her face towards you forcing her to make eye contact. "It's not over yet, Princess. I'm pretty sure that we can wriggle more of those out of you and the night is young." you say your voice dropping an octave.

By the time that you've finished, Poppy's mind has gone blank and she feels so tired that she doesn't think she can move. She's got to give you props though, because goddamn that was the first time she actually enjoyed sex and she actually got to cum too.

Noticing that Poppy's too tired to move, you decide to lift her up in a princess carry and surprised by your sudden action Poppy's about to protest until you just tell her to be quiet.

Placing Poppy in the bath tub, you turn on the faucet and makes sure that the water isn't too hot or cold as it fills up. After the bath has been filled you slip into the bathtub behind Poppy as you help her clean up.

'Okay now she's just being unfair, why is she being so nice.' Poppy thinks to herself. Trying to make conversation Poppy says "Why are you taking care of me, I half expected you to leave after we fucked." You rest you chin on her shoulder and say "I didn't want you to catch a cold, and besides what kind of a person would I be if I just left you on your own? I like to think of myself as a gentlewoman." You start to place soft kisses on her shoulders and Poppy just sighs wistfully, feeling at peace as she leans back against you. "Don't tell anyone but this was actually the most fun I've had. Hell I don't think any of my exes would have compared against you." Poppy says shyly.

You can't help the smile that creeps it's way to your face. "You can't say shit like that Poppy, I'm pretty sure you're gonna give me a heart attack if you act this soft." you say teasing lilt in your voice and you can hear Poppy giggle. It sounds so soft and you realise that it's a sound that you want to hear.

Your relationship as enemies with benefits start and the both of you can't really keep your hands off each other, God forbid if you're in the same room.

Intense stares from across the room that everyone assumes to be glares, but little do they know that it's your own way of communicating.

One day Poppy calls you up and tells you that you're going shopping, but in reality it was just an excuse to spend more time with you. On the way to the mall, you guys get frisky in the car and before you can stop yourself you say "Babe" and you can't help but think that you've fucked up.

Poppy doesn't say anything but she likes the new pet name and can't wait to hear you say it again.

You guys go to a high end designer store and one of the staff approaches you and says "You guys look good together." While you're quick to deny it, Poppy just thanks them, but as she hears you deny it her eyes widen and you can see her heart break in front of your eyes. Poppy runs off and you're confused.

The employee looks at you and says "I probably shouldn't say anything else today but you should go after her. It's obvious that you both like each other."

Searching the mall, you're relieved once you see Poppy sitting down on a bench, and you approach her carefully. You see that her eyes are red and you feel shitty because you're the reason why she's crying.

Poppy notices you and she's about to run off again until you catch her wrist in your hand. "Poppy please look at me." you plead and she doesn't budge as she tries to get away from your grip.

Seeing that she can't outrun you considering you're holding onto her she just sighs and looks at you. Her face is covered in tears and you use your other hand to wipe them away.

"You know after you called me babe in the car, I was so happy because I thought that it meant that we were dating, but I guess I was just another girl for you to fuck." Poppy says and your heart breaks.

"I thought that you didn't like me that way, so I quickly denied that we were dating. I do like you Poppy, but you never made it clear that we were in a relationship. Though to be fair I should have tried to clear things up too. I guess we're both idiots huh?" You say as you hold her face between your hands.

Leaning in you capture Poppy's lips and she eagerly kisses you back, happy to resolve the misunderstanding.

Unbeknownst to the both of you a Belvoire student caught everything on camera and by the next day everyone on campus knows that you guys are dating.

No one dares to say anything because uhhh POWER COUPLE and they're highly scared of Poppy killing them lol.

Long story short Poppy sees your tinder account and you compete for better thirst traps and well you start fucking and it ends up with you two dating.

Well that was long, hope you guys enjoy, don't forget to like or reblog if you like it.

[cipher-fresh]

Just Out Of Reach

Posting on tumblr due to Discord's character limit, this one's a lot longer than my other ones. A prompt from @marlinspirkhall about how food on the holodeck doesn't exist once you step off it got me thinking. TW for violence, injury, blood, food, eating disorders I think (?? rather safe than sorry) and long-term distress. Thank you for the Federation gothic prompt!

It's fuzzy, you remember the ship leaving spacedock after repairs, and some of the anticipatory silence as the odd lack of Dominion ships greeted your rush toward the Bajoran sector to help recapture Deep Space Nine and the Bajoran wormhole. You had never been this far away from home, but you'd tried to steel yourself. The red alert had blared in your ears, and you don't remember much else. You look down. You're bleeding. You curse, and look around for medical supplies.

You're in a dark building, with debris strewn around. A force field makes it's presence known as a hurtling piece of Dominion ship tailwing is stopped in it's tracks from perhaps it's original destiny of destroying wherever you were. If there was a forcefield up, there must be an energy source. You find you had crash-landed here, as there's an escape pod near the fallen bulkheads. You saddle up with the materials from the escape pod, and hunt around for any available resources on whatever man-made, oxygenated building you'd been lucky enough to land in. You put your bag down, and take off your Starfleet outer shirt. You're still wearing the gray undershirt, and over it you tie the main shirt over the wound. You wish it had been an easier area to tie, like your lower leg, and press on. After a trek over fallen metal, everything from large carts, a whole shuttle, bulkheads and PADDs, you find the opposite wall, marked with a plaque designating it the Miyamoto, a mini-space station hardly the size of a neighborhood street. Some place, you scoff. It feels like a shadowy castle fallen into disrepair, with the flickering lights looking like the occasional sunbeam brightening it. Atmospheric, at least, if it wasn't going to comfortable. It feels as if you could almost hear sad music, accentuating just quite how dark the station was, cold and alone. The Miyamoto station echoes sadly, the destruction and carnage of Dominion and Federation ships making their final stand above the station feeling long off, although you could place it as happening mere hours ago. Continuing onward, you clear a path the best you can of the debris on the ground, in case you round this area again.

You see places that look like shops- the *Miyamoto*, as per it's informational plaque, was a station commissioned and controlled by Starfleet, but it had housed many Federation-aligned planets, that is to say, planets that hadn't joined the Federation for one reason or another, but remained in contact with it, politically or economically. Your journey around the station ends as you look back down at your outer shirt, wrapped around your torso wound, and it's too red with blood for comfort. You take an unfortunate, seething inhale, processing what this might mean. You have no other than the most basic medical supplies on your bag, and you're alone on a mini-space station with debris that was ripe to fall over and crush you at any time. Nobody else seems to have crashed near you. You're alone, on an at least semi-functioning, mini-space station. And you were determined to survive. The bleeding cut on your torso should be dealt with first. Can't look for food or set up a distress call if you're bleeding to death. You take a tricorder from the bag, and scan around for anything useful. It picks up gauze a few meters ahead of you. Better than your shirt, certainly. You navigate toward it with the tricorder's map, and it navigates you to a holodeck, you recognize from the doors. Gauze in the holodeck? You thought the violin music had been a symptom of a bleeding body and the brain processing your day, but no, the violin was louder. Getting closer to the holodeck, that made more sense. It was extremely lucky the program was still running. You walk inside. The inside is a gothic, turn-of-the-century sort of laboratory. Indeed, a holodeck character playing a violin spots you, and huffs.

"You're bleeding. Are you looking for my partner, Dr. Watson?"

You take a moment- oh, this was a Sherlock Holmes program. You doubt Dr. Watson could help you, but then you take a moment to think. Emergency Medical Holograms are just as holographic as Dr. Watson here, and they have helped millions of people. You're too tired to act, so you ask him, "Yes, I need a doctor. Can you get him?" Too much also eating at your mind to enjoy the program, Dr. Watson fixes you up in the flat. You wince at the old medical technology, and wish the two of them lived in a period of time with more current medicinal knowledge. - Wait. "Computer?" you say. "Change the time period to, uh, 22nd century. No, I mean, to today. 24th century. Keep Sherlock and Watson with me." The computer responds to your request, and you see the program change around you. You laugh at the mystery-solving duo's updated outfits for the 24th century, then look back at Dr. Watson. It's a little jarring how seamlessly they continue from the jump in time, but better that than their program stop working. Watson asks a replicator- a holographic replicator, which makes you laugh a little bit, for a dermal regenerator, and you get patched up. "Stick around for a cup of tea?" Watson asks. "Sherlock really wants to know why you broke into our flat." You consider it. You've heard jokes from non-Federation species when trying out holodecks for the first time, "Calories don't count on the holodeck!" Anything you eat here wouldn't sustain you, the minute you left the holodeck. You could activate this program so long as there was energy to the station, but food was a priority. Assuming the *Miyamoto* had been in a tussle just a few hours ago during your fly-over to Deep Space Nine, now was a crucial time to find genuine replicators before they went offline. You leave the holodeck. You see the gauze over your injury (kept for good measure) disappear as you exit the holodeck, but not the skin you'd grown back from the dermal regenerator. The gauze was holographic, but the stimulated skin cells and tissues were not. You follow the path set by rounding around the small, circular station, and tracing your steps back through the cleared path you made. Your injury healed, you could now look around and find something to eat. You follow around a downloaded map of the *Miyamoto* from the plaque's infochip, and hunt down all the replicators marked on the station. One by one, they're all broken, in pieces, or missing. Maybe the station was in poor shape to begin with. You take another trip around- at least you're getting plenty of exercise in, you halfheartedly cheer- and visit all the food shops. You raid the fridges, cabinets and cupboards, and still find nothing. Intending to not be disheartened, you sit down for a moment. Your hunger is suddenly made aware to you, your vision swirling. Not good, you decide. Your stomach hurts, and you try to remember the last time you ate. Breakfast on- on the *USS Halay*. Maybe tea with Dr. Watson wouldn't be so bad, you assure yourself. You have some food with the two of them, think of a new plan, then go back out there and find some food. Some water, while you're at it, too. You walk back, and almost trip over debris you swore you moved out of your path. You enter back to the holodeck, and smell the fresh air. You find Watson and Sherlock again, and you're offered a pastry you can't remember the name of. You eat, and have some tea, and you feel at peace. You're still directly aware of the stakes, you're stuck on a space station in the middle of nowhere, but you're at least still alive. And going from desperately hungry out there to the sweet scent of buttered pastries in here in a still-peaceful London before the Dominion invaded was a sense of home you'd missed. You sat down, and considered your optics. If you left now, you'd probably be just as hungry as before, but here, you could come up with a plan, and make the time before it worth it. You clued in the holographic Sherlock and Watson into it, without exposing to them they were holograms. Quite tricky, it was, but you were glad they got over

their suspicions and were just willing to help. You and the two problem-solvers looked over the schematics of the *Miyamoto*, and found from your walkaround of the station, the replicator at the Bolarian food shop was the least broken- it had gotten halfway to forming bread before it puttered out. Although not quite a chief engineer, this seemed to be your only option. You picked back up your supplies from the escape pod that you'd kept with you, and journey off to the replicator. You feel the distinct hunger pangs as soon as you leave, and almost regret leaving. Little matter. You'd already gone and done it, you might as well make it worthwhile. You get to the replicator, and try to recall your engineering training. Basic engineering design over necessary machines like replicators and transporters were required classes at the Academy, and you couldn't remember a thing from it. You open a hatch at the back and fiddle with some of the wires and steel EPS hubcaps, and put everything back into place. Not ever quite sure what to do, you feel a fog in your brain, you know you're putting a square peg in a round hole as you try to fix this. You screw things on and off, scan it, flip a switch. Closing the hatch, you hit it for good measure, and try replicating food again. It produces a gray slop of what could only technically be edible, organic material. You take your tricorder out and get a holo-scan of it. A moment of darkness in your vision, you fall to the ground. You're really feeling it. You hold a hand to your stomach, and close your eyes tight. It hurts, it does. You could make the feeling go away, if you just went back.

A deep breath, and you turned around. Just back for a second.

Desperate to get back to the holodeck, you're assured you can figure out the replicator's problem with the holo-imager scans. You get back inside, and feel the pleasant, clean air, and walk back inside. Ravenously, you scarf down the food given to you, and you can feel your mind finding clarity again. If you could find a way to fix the replicator while inside the holodeck, you'd be set. You could fix it there, and only be hungry from the minute you walked over to the replicator, no brain fog as you tried to fix it. Maybe engineers had "Don't fix things on an empty stomach" as a rule. If not, they should. You spend a few more hours there, going over the specs of the replicator, sitting in the nice flat. It's an amalgamation of every depiction of 221B ever put to screen, and all the books are real, wholly scripted ones. You chuckle, certainly sure only a man of fiction could read so many books, bookshelves stacked wall to wall. Many of them had frantically scribbled notes and writings in them. After some time, you fall asleep. You're woken up by Watson, telling you again that you need to wake up. You rub your eyes, and consider everything from the day previous. Hungry, stuck on a space station with no food, and surviving in the holodeck. This would be a lovely nightmare to wake up from, eh? Lovely, for the fact you're waking up, you joke. "-get out there and find something to eat or your body will starve. Please. The program-" You burst out from under the blanket on the couch. Dr. Watson looks at you. "Sherlock and I put together that you're on a holodeck. Incredible inventions, truthfully, but what is more important now is your life. You haven't eaten in how long? A human would starve after not eating for-"

"About a week. But without water is a different story. Three days, at most." Sherlock filled in. You swallowed. Wonderful. You look back at Watson. "Please, we're trying to help you. You need to head back out there." That's the last thing you want to do.

Neither of them were being helpful. "Look, we can't leave the holodeck. All we can do is-" "I don't care!" you yell. "I'll just-stay in here until I figure it out." The two exchanged looks with each other. Watson got closer to you. You feel small. Threatened. "You're Starfleet, right? You haven't even given us your name. How about you-" You lash out. "Computer, delete characters Sherlock and Watson." "Not possible." "Fine! Delete whatever you need to get rid of them." "Confirmed." the computer says. The two of them phase out of existence. You breathe heavily. You hope they won't be mad at you. "Computer, change scenery. Somewhere on Earth. As far away from Sherlock as possible." "Changing location to Dunedin, New Zealand." the computer replied. You stop, and catch your breath. You'd just- stay in here. For a while. Yeah.

The systems of the Miyamoto station degrade. The holodeck, over time, begins to lose critical imaging projectors. One corner of the holodeck shows the depressingly bare and black wall, the whole program not covering the entire room. You try not to mind. You sleep. If you could just- just learn how to fix the replicator....no. You have everything you need right in here. Everything....you need. You take an arduous breath. The holodeck doors have sealed shut. The imagers have stopped working. You're trapped inside. A lone Starfleet officer starves to death on a holodeck, over an agonizing three days, just as Sherlock predicted. The Miyamoto station is destroyed by the Breen a year later, unimportant and completely alone. If one listened closely, passing an unimportant, tiny little station, they may have heard faint music of a violin.