#sorry for this rather long break

[master-of-metal66]

Hello there, I'm back.

First year of studies is behind me, I had my last exam yesterday and now I'm finally free for the holidays.

Which of course means more time to draw and work on the things I want to do, not the things I have to. See you soon 🤘🏻

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

An unbothered queen has entered, and subsequently left.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[luminique]

HEAR ME OUT, one sided love?? Imagine s/o doesn’t like lighter back, being oblivious about lighters feeling and only see lighter as a friend meanwhile lighter is so MADLY in love with them and is aware of s/o not liking him back but he can’t help it because you’re the only one that makes him feel this way even if his feelings aren’t reciprocated… they’re so doomed think about the potential angst!! 🫤

lighter isn’t perfect. his body is littered in scars of his past, his actions are solutions to mistakes he had made before. to say that he deserved something as rewarding as love didn’t sound right to him, but oh, would it feel right if it was from you.

it was definitely not an immediate fall, rather it was slower like starting a fire. you bring the materials you require, some wood and a starter. it’s difficult to get a fire going, even he knows that with his lighter in hand. his hand gets warmer the longer the flame is out but it doesn’t compare to the accidental grazes of your hand against his gloved ones.

he had poked you once with the spikes on his gloves. the look on your face when you brought your hand up to rub it while you apologized for it. why were you apologizing? every soft “sorry” that came out of your mouth was like sprinkling water onto the fire. best to get fresh firewood so that it doesn’t go out.

ensuring that the fire is a consistent flame is also important to prevent accidents. accidents like playfully taking off his sunglasses and putting it on yourself while imitating him. somehow, that didn’t cause the fire to go out, in fact, it made it burn even brighter than before. the redness on his face when he watched you was comparable to the orange and red hues of a fire.

he stayed close to the fire, close to you. feeling the warmth of love on his skin, finding it calming but also terrifying. it doesn’t rain often in the outer ring but that doesn’t stop him from worrying that it would all of a sudden. so he lies awake at night, thinking about all of the possibilities, the what ifs and its outcomes.

he thought he had considered everything. from keeping the fire from going out, to ensuring it was a stable flame, to tending it slowly and carefully. what he didn’t consider was getting too close to the fire, burning through what he thought was tough skin.

he was too focused on trying to maintain a certain personality, not quite showing his interest in you. so when caesar was talking to you about her love stories while everyone was hanging around the bar, his heart rate increased. just like how consuming alcohol affects one’s mental and physical state, so does it affect a fire. maybe someone poured his drink into the flames as he watched it burn even brighter than before, making him eavesdrop on your conversation.

but a large flame meant a higher possibility of getting burnt, and soon he saw the burn marks on his skin. as you continued to talk with caesar, the longer he let the fire burn him. how you had said that real love wasn’t like the stories, how you seemed disinterested in romance, how you had believed that no one was interested in you. at that moment, he ended up getting more drinks from burnice, hoping it would soothe the roaring flames within him. he drank so much and fell asleep to the soft crackling of the fire, your voice acting as background noise.

he woke up to the coldness of the bar counter pressing on his cheek. the fire had been put out by you when you tapped on his shoulder. the memories of last night flooding into his mind like water. maybe it was all some nightmare and you did like him back, but the sudden coolness of your touch made him realize the reality of it all.

you didn’t like him, and not because he did anything wrong but because he didn’t do anything in your eyes. you were feeding the fire in his heart and he mistook that fire for your heart too. he sat up straight, took one look at you and shook his head. you still cared for him, came with water and woke him up gently. he never intended to get so severely injured because of his own growing feelings for you.

his own feelings, you didn’t even know he had any for you. the pile of ashes, you both stared at it and yet only he knew that fire existed. the flames had misled him, danced around his heart that craved for you, that only asked for you as its fuel. now all he can do was sit next to what was once a big fire, feeling the cold on his skin despite the layers. no warmth left, no light left, no love left.

[galacticlamps]

ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--

But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.

And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.

That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.

Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.

And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"

So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.

Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.

[shakingparadigm]

horrendously sick and twisted btw

[downfallofi]

If I had to describe the mood, it really is like when you grow up with an abusive parent; and there are bad days where you're just willing for them to go to work and be gone all day so you don't have to hear them yelling and slamming shit

[veatomis]

Would it. Be too diabolical if i put lucanis in the tailored to elio version of the regret fade prison.

[dimension20stuff]

Nothing like an 8 to 5 to make you need to go to sleep at 9:30 pm. Not even a 9 to 5 anymore. Can't have shit.

[sweetvalentinescandy]

im so disappointed in my art lately . im not a beginner artist, but i feel like everything i do looks like i am . i feel like it would only be acceptable for a beginner . i havent made any progress since i was 11 . today is not a good day

[mad-hunts]

@question-marked asked: “are you making fresh pasta?”

barton managed to barely hear eddie over the sound of two of his kids arguing in the background — who seemed to be jack and matilda, respectively, as he would soon call out to them using their names in his native tongue. but the fact remained that he had heard him and so after he essentially told them to ' get along ' in french, barton turned to face the other. he was currently kneading what looked to be some kind of dough with his hands, ❝ sorry, they've been unusually argumentative today with each other. you're going to have to excuse them. but yeah... lucky for you, you caught me right in the middle of making dinner. ❞

barton seemed to have some experience as he hadn't gotten any of the dough on his hands and it seemed to be quite close to having the right texture (not too dry, and not too wet). and truthfully, he did as the recipe he'd gotten for chicken alfredo from winslow? it called for homemade noodles so he figured he might as well try his hand at it. though barton still wasn't good at certain aspects of it, like actually rolling the dough through the pasta maker. a purposely overdramatic sigh left his lips then, ❝ ahh, but i'm really no good at rolling the dough through the pasta maker myself. if only there were someone here who could do it for me. ❞ he discretely looked over to edward afterward as if to say ' i'm totally not talking about you here, but also, i am. ' barton really didn't like to look like he wasn't an expert at things in the kitchen after all when he'd been cooking so long.

but this was only his second time making this, so he supposed it was more than reasonable for him to still struggle with it. barton stopped kneading the dough and looked at edward through squinted eyes as if analyzing him, ❝ i'm still a bit confused as to why you would come here when you're not injured. would you mind telling me again why you're here, considering i don't think you like me enough to be here simply for a social call? oh, and while you're doing that, could you also get me that dough cutter over there? thanks, ❞ a small unreadable smile ghosted across his features while he gestured towards the blade a little ways away from him. edward had honestly given him no reason to hate him, so as it stood, he felt rather ambivalent towards him. ❝ say, you aren't a vegetarian... right? because i'm making chicken alfredo. and enough to feed a small army, probably, so you can definitely have some. ❞

[dangerous-drabbles]

update

i've been putting off writing this, but i can't exactly not, so... i'll try and make this brief.

in short: i've had an epiphany.

(tl;dr at bottom)

i've been writing/brainstorming this fic since november/december last year, and since then, my ideas and understandings of the show and it's characters have evolved. and with them, my plans and understandings for iwf.

i want to be clear: this is not me saying i'm done with iwf, or going on some long hiatus. in fact, it's more the opposite.

having graduated, with summer in full swing, and feeling more sure than ever about where i want to take this fic (as well as remaining fully invested in this fandom), i plan to do more writing than ever before B)

that said: something needs to change.

this fic has been, and continues to be, my baby (besides my ever-growing, yet rarely spoken of, tmnt iteration) for most of the time i've been active in this fandom.

i've long struggled with motivation for big writing projects, but i am resolved to keep with this one because i have a story worth telling. will it be worth reading? who's to say!! (i hope so /gen)

but, as you might've noticed, my more recent updates (especially around the end of arc I) were... bad. maybe not bad-bad, but still bad from a 'technical writing/story' perspective. i struggled a lot with them, and i think that really shows.

i've was trying to figure out why its come to be this way while pushing forward by forcing myself to write, but that didn't work. it wasn't until this week, tuesday, when realization struck me (while watching a video essay, lol).

it made me realize a big part of what was making me unhappy was something i already knew, an issue underlying the fic (and my writing style) as a whole.

with this in mind, i can't keep going forward in the way i had planned.

i'm not gonna go back and change arc I. while the problem is there, especially in the later chapters, i'm early enough on that i can turn things around and (hopefully) root out the problem(s) without any major changes to what i've written/set up so far.

but to do this, i need time.

i know i know i just took a 2-3 week long break, but to pull this off, i need time to prepare and rewrite. i'm halfway through revisions for the arc II outline, and i'll need to heavily revise/rewrite several chapters, plus write some new stuff (since i'm axing the next couple i had planned/written out... rip.)

if all goes well, it shouldn't take longer than two weeks. best case scenario, i get it done in one. we'll see.

until then, i humbly ask for your patience.

as a note:

i could go deep into my inspirations for this fic, where i wanted to go originally, what's changed since then, and especially what brought me to my realization (plus the specifics of said realization) but i said i would try to make this brief, and here we are, [insert amount of words] later.

are you really surprised, though? (/lh)

[if you would like to see me talk more about that (i would absolutely always be down, i love talking about myself /j /lh), feel free to shoot me an ask. in fact, i would beg on my hands and knees, if i were not a silly guy who lives on your computer (/j)]

(tl;dr -- i am not done writing iwf. however, i had a realization that led to me reevaluating my writing and determining that i need to rewrite/revise my arc II outline, and edit/revise/completely rewrite the next several chapters.

this means i am planning to take another week or so off (i am sosososo sorry) to iron everything out and get ahead.

this whole post was me trying to explain the reasoning behind this decision, with an underlying sense of desperate patheticism to match (/j /lh).)

to conclude, i want to say thank you so much for your support, silent or otherwise, from all who have read and (hopefully) enjoyed this fic thus far. i genuinely couldn't do it without you (yes, sun, this includes you /lh.)

especially to my frequent commenters, who i promise i do see and appreciate. you guys are the real mvps <3

i have some really big plans for iwf, and i hope you'll stick around to see them come to fruition (:<

[majormeilani]

if u didn't know bow and mu friendship is very important to me ❤️ they are the littlest of friends

[rinzi]

every time someone is like, "I see the show is doing away with aes sedai serenity," I'm just like, does Merilille mean nothing to you??

[nerdie-faerie]

If my mum is going to be passive aggressive about my breaks every time I travel home from uni, it's gonna be a long couple of years

[honestlyvan]

In 2018, Quinn Curio made a video essay talking about storytime youtubers, and the cottage industry of people who only exist to criticise the content put out by storytime creators. It's an excellent overall video, but my main takeaway from it at the time was that when you're drinking deep from the well of dunking, it's easy to start dehumanising your target and... essentially getting high off your own supply. The other points -- about how many of these animators had broadly done nothing more than make art in a genre the critics didn't care for -- are also good, but the observation that this kind of "slime ranching" serves to gratify the critic primarily, and it's actual usefulness as criticism is limited by the context.

I'm not trying to make a direct comparison here -- I don't really watch HBG but I did watch this video and I think he did the best he could to impart an anti-slime ranching message to the video -- but the response to the video does, when it's not sheer schadenfreude from people who have carried hatchets for a long time, hit a lot of the same high notes what the appeal of something like storytime critics is. The easy hit of "at least I'm not that bad" is very tempting and sometimes genuinely necessary if you're low, if your self-esteem is truly garbage.

But I did also watch little hoots' video on the dirtbag left like an hour after release and I do kind of... wonder if the urge to find emotional release through "righteousness" isn't kind of inherently reactionary, and how that plays into a general contempt for compassion and giving grace that is inherent to any hierarchies. (After all, hierarchies aim to calcify -- with too much fluidity between classes they will not function as effectively). I wonder if there isn't something inherently sinister about our tendency to absorb criticism of other people from the perspective of the critic, rather than absorbing it from the perspective of a potential target of such criticism.

Because criticism, social pressure tactics, mobbing and dunking aren't primarily tools of the powerless. They're not primarily power wielded by those with little to no social clout to wield them. There's a reason the "twitter reply guy" is such an enduring fixture of the pantheon of people on the internet whose opinions we almost wholesale discard. And the people with no integrity to speak of are, let's face it, not as affected by them as we would like them to be, because the opinion of any given segment of the total population of people they can have influence on doesn't super matter to them.

At the very least, I think what OP is describing is our tendency to want to individualise the problem, and solve it by Getting Rid Of the Bad Ones (against a nearly inexhaustible supply of new Bad Ones), when this is largely a matter of incentives. When is your integrity worth less than the money being a grifter could bring in? (Have you ever even been rewarded for your integrity?) When is the social validation from your peers more than your repulsion towards socially aggressing against the outgroup? (Have you ever been rewarded for aggressing?) When you say "well I would never do something like that", who is that I you're talking about?

i think the thing that is specifically bothering me about the conversation about the new hbomberguy video ("live your life in a way so that hbomberguy doesn't tear into you for 3 hours", "hbomberguy has figured out how to death note someone through video essays", "oh new hbomberguy video [incredibly dense paragraphs of text] i now despise james somerton") is that it really feels like people aren't paying attention to what hbomberguy was actually saying. like, as much as he wanted to make people aware of the plagiarism issue, he also very explicitly did not like the fact that he might even remotely have a financial incentive to make those sorts of videos. and rather than the last video, which was a "get mad about this" call to action, hbomberguy spent this whole video sympathizing with the people who were directly out indirectly affected, and wanted the focus of people's attention to be on uplifting small queer creators

but also, negativity drives engagement so i guess it's to be expected.

[pawfrill]

i miss ur posts... *clutches heart and falls to the floor*

hi anon! no need to worry your pretty head because i am BACKKK !!! hehe please just give me a few more days to readjust and i promise i will be posting more 🥹