#so much to look back on

[murderoushagthesequel]

happy new years!

thank you to each and every one of you for making this year special :) i know this account has died down quite a lot over the past few months but i honestly treasure every moment it's brought me

i've met so many amazing people, some of the best friends i've ever had and the love of my life, i've grown as a person and become more comfortable in my art and my writing, and i've been able to connect with myself better

this is not me saying goodbye by any means i'm just reflecting and so grateful for the impact tumblr has had on my 2023

reading and writing fanfiction, making fanart, engaging in the tumblr marauders fandom, and branching out improved my year and helped me through some really tough times so thank you :)

thank you for helping me make this a year i've enjoyed looking back on

i love you all!!

see you soon,

hag <3

a few people who (knowingly or not) made my year: @where-is-vivian @effiepotterisamilf @malakiwis @definitelynotttheo @not-rab @lostforgottenspaces @risetherivermoon @mo0n-water @calamitoustide @withtheoldstars @idkkkjustgay @vini213 @aroacelilyevans @artbyace @olivers-cocoapuffs @apricusapollo @floralembarrassment @ye-olde-trojan-horse @bellathethirstybitch @greenvlvetcouch @nothing-like-a-mad-woman @itsm3m00n @underburningstars @casstration @oesker @deadly-moonlit-embarrassment

[whatkindofnameisella]

can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.

[hinamie]

matching eye horror for u and ur back-from-the-dead bestie <333

[ghosted-jazz]

I hope they got that microwave in the break room

Bonus version with different outfit colours:

[hansoeii]

crowley

[bluebelleisabelle]

I will never get over Pomni’s character development

Like, you’re telling me this woman went from distrusting every member of the circus (understandably so due to being thrust into a new environment), and being on the brink of a breakdown constantly

To having the most tender heart-to-heart with Gangle in which she offers to cover Gangle’s closing shift??

Pomni as a person is genuinely so so sweet, and it’s a side of her that we didn’t get to see in the pilot, considering she was so anxious and tended to place her needs above others. In episode 2, she was such a support towards Gummigoo, which was wonderful to see. She gained a stronger connection with Kinger in episode 3, but it really wasn’t until episode 4 that we saw Pomni lend her support to someone that isn’t an NPC. It’s really heartwarming.

I adore Pomni so much omg

[lemongogo]

life of regret

[firefrightfic]

to anyone missing my writing please know i am also missing my writing

[humming-fly]

He was feeling left out

and the higher rez stills, since gifs always export as if you're sending messages through a metal can~

[soldrawss]

Something something 16yo 2k12 Mikey gets sucked into a portal and sent into the RISE universe and ends up helping raise the RISE kiddos AU

[dragonpikachu]

List of old Gravity Falls things

because fans today probably don't know about all the batshit stuff that used to happen, here's some of the stuff I remember in no particular order:

People theorizing Robbie was a zombie

People also theorizing Gompers was connected to Bill because his eyes looked like that

Mystery trio

That time when Dipper got possessed by Bill, he stuck Dipper's arm in a silverware draw and then there was an avalanche of fan art with forks stuck in the poor kid's arm

The fact people guessed Stan had a twin actual years before the reveal, somehow even getting the name Stanley right, and then it turns out the names were swapped (there's so much old fan art calling Ford "Stanley", how could we have known)

All the crossover art with Over the Garden Wall

The fact Tad Strange's name was leaked and people came up with an entirely made up story about who he was, thinking he was some kind of weird shape demon like Bill, only for him to be a small 8 second gag character

When "Not What He Seems" can out and Stan's quote of "The Author of the Journals, my brother" somehow became a meme

When Steven Universe ended and somehow we got a bunch of fan art of him working at the Mystery Shack

That time "A Tale of Two Stans", the Steven Universe episode "Cry for Help" and the FNAF 4 trailer were all released on the same day, July 13, 2015

This:

I know there's other shit I'm forgetting so feel free to add some if you know any

[egophiliac]

since Eng is getting 7.5 soon(?), I felt motivated to go back to my Meleanor rig and make her a couple of lesson animations! ...except for alchemy, because the cauldron bubbles proved too hard to photoshop around, whoops.

maybe she just got lost on her way to the classroom...?

(credit: backgrounds are from the game, I just put her on top of 'em)

(aside from the backgrounds, this is not an edit, I drew her from scratch! please do not tag or treat as an edit!)

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

Like the majority of society I’m obsessed with Nimona

And I rewatched it a million times and one thing always sticks out to me 

There are moments when Ambrosius is surrounded by light like a little protective bubble 

That keeps him away from the man he loves more than anything 

[hinamie]

morning glory

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[inkskinned]

no, actually, where is the whimsy?

my ex had a best friend named larry who asked me once: what do you think comes after irony?

we were at the bar where larry worked. it was a quiet night, and he'd hopped over to sit with us on the patron side. i swirled the lemon around my limoncello martini.

earnest positivity, i said, while my ex said, art self-destructs.

i stared at my ex. he stared at me.

his argument was the cinemasins argument: look how bad media is becoming! look at the loopholes and the dumb shit!

it was roughly 2011. galaxy print was still in. at the time, i had a favorite shirt that was a wolf howling at the moon. it got ripped in half in the wash and i honestly still mourn it. i dressed like effie stonem, because everyone did. and irony was the name of the thing. men liked MLP "ironically." the internet liked the kind of crass, "anti-mainstream" vibes of things like fuck romance, touch my butt and buy me pizza. we put cats in sunglasses everywhere, which was because we only liked things in irony.

and media had the same vibe in it: anti-hero white men would be "hard to love" and then storm off the scene. nobody was just earnestly trying to save the world: they were jaded, angry, unoriginal. mad you even asked them to try to help.

my ex ends up not being wrong. cinemasins becomes super popular. a lot of people start viewing media with this lens that is the cruelest, most jaded depiction. it's wrong for your character to have unexplained powers, even if the entire movie is about how strange it is she has unexplained powers - that is still considered a "loophole." characters make thoughtless, panicked choices? loophole. characters are actually kind people, despite hardship? loophole. features a woman doing literally anything without assistance? loophole. movies become hyper-aware of scrutiny, and now irony rules the media.

which means you go to a movie, and the character has to turn to the screen and say "beats me!!" or one of the side characters has to have some kind of quip like "are you seriously telling me that you think this is normal?" because nothing can happen in earnest. like a sitcom laugh track, we now anticipate the fourth-wall break: the moment that the media acknowledges it is telling a story. the media has to apologize for itself, or else someone like my ex rolls their eyes.

but here's the thing: i wasn't wrong either.

the difference might be that i am (and always have been) so soft-hearted that any crack in the light of this world will spear me into the ground. and i was the poet in the relationship. (he thought that was the same thing as being naïve and stupid). i was making things daily. i knew how all of us artists are driven by some strange desire to evolve. he notably liked to critique art, not to create it.

so yes, i've made things that are bitter and angry and even ironic. i've made long, sharp poems with all capital letters, and i've made poems about how the silence stretches out like a song. someone wrote once that we will spend our whole lives just circling the place we grew up. i think it's more that we spend our whole lives trying to remake a home. i think it's that as we age, it becomes less exciting to build the castle on the beach - we become aware of erosion, of windforce. we realize what we really want is to come home to our dog, castle or not.

and while art in the foreground is mired in white male violence and irony, and aggression, and not taking anything seriously - i don't think that's true of all art. i think more and more artists are leaning in to the things we love. the world has changed so much. they have taken so many things from us. the only thing we have left is love. at the bottom of the moving box - all we get is the faint sense that we have to appreciate what little we've got. i can't enjoy this stuff ironically anymore: what room do i have for irony? if it makes me happy, that is an amazing thing. there are so few happy places left for me. i want to be happy because of how leaves shiver beside each other like nestling birds. i want to be happy because of the color pink, and how magenta doesn't exist. i have spent so much of this life suffering, i have earned my right to a gentle ending. if nothing matters, i get to assign meaning to the nothing. i get to create meaning. i am an artist first and foremost, which means creation is my thing.

where is the whimsy? wherever i fucking put it. because if this is my last fucking chance to do any good in this world - i want to do it earnestly. i want to write things that make you happy. that make people feel heard and seen. what comes after irony has to be positivity.

it was close to my 21st birthday. in 7 years, i would end up writing a book about this relationship, which is hopefully coming out somewhere around May 2024. i come back to this bar scene in my memories a lot. i keep thinking of how pale my ex was. the look that crossed his face. how i looked back at him. how for a moment, both of us couldn't recognize the other person. like the gulf between us was a suddenly wide and cavernous thing. like we were alien to each other. he never took my opinion seriously, and he always seemed surprised whenever his manic-pixie-dream-girl ever broke free of the plot. like in the whole time we were together, i wasn't human enough.

this knowledge: where he said nothing comes after, my only instinct was what comes after is love.