#this isn't necessarily ship art . But it always can be

[saltedsolenoid]

this red string of fate will do neither of us any good. hell yeah

[mindfulstudyquest]

❥﹒♡﹒☕﹒ 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 ( 𝗮𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 !! )

𝟭. improve your writing skills ( ✒️ )

i feel that not everyone has the perception of how important it is to know how to write. you don't have to be a poet, nor the new emily brontë, but fluid, conscious, rich writing makes the difference. really. you could write a page without saying anything at all, but if that damn page is written good and smoothly, then you can be sure that you will get extra points. take the time to improve your writing skills, the best advice i have for doing so is reading. read as much as you can. read novels (non-fiction in this case doesn't help because the content is preferred rather than the form), read contemporary authors – you don't necessarily have to read sophocles' tragedies, but read quality stuff. expand your vocabulary, your knowledge of syntax, learn to use punctuation! and then write, tell stories, write love letters, write reviews of films, books, cultural festivals, open a blog on tumblr and write to practice, reread what you write ad nauseam, until it is perfect, until the form of your essay is pulitzer prize worthy.

bonus some of my favourite authors (tell me in the comments about yours!): ian mcewan, banana yoshimoto, haruki murakami, george orwell, josé saramago, albert camus, khaled hosseini, hanya yanagihara

𝟮. develop critical thinking ( 💭 )

if you have always studied passively by absorbing information and vomiting it onto a test sheet then you have wasted your time. taking on information is not enough, you need to know how to rework it and develop your own idea about it. especially in the arts and literature one may disagree with certain information provided by a textbook. developing critical thinking is not easy, especially due to the school system that teaches us to standardize thinking. always consult all available sources on a given topic, compare them, analyze contradictions. it might be difficult and tiring – our brain spends more energy processing two conflicting pieces of information than processing two pieces of information that agree – but it will be worth it. by practicing critical thinking and improving your argumentation skills, you will not only be able to improve in your studies, becoming able to present complex topics and make interdisciplinary connections, but also in daily life, you will become much less influenced and manipulated by external information.

𝟯. find yourself an interest ( 🌷 )

it could be anything, but find an interest that excites you and you enjoy and do research about it. watch videos, documentaries, read articles. it doesn't have to be school-related, it must be an external topic that you are passionate about and that allows you to rediscover the joy of studying and learning every time school seems to suffocate it. sometimes i'm not in the mood to study for exams, so i dedicate myself to my personal research and finally find my spark, my seek for knowledge. for example, my interest is true crime, it has always fascinated me since i was little, but yours could be wild animals, makeup, comics, ships, planes, ocean flora, literally anything. there is no constraint.

𝟰. analyze your mistakes and recognize your wrongs ( 🫒 )

there is no shame in making mistakes. everyone makes mistakes, we are human, but the real sin is getting bogged down in mistakes, refusing to acknowledge them, and continuing to make them again and again. we should be continually growing, continually discovering ourselves, both intellectually and emotionally. how many of you were the "gifted kid" when you were little and then grew up into burned out high school / uni students desperately seeking academic validation? there comes a time when talent isn't enough, you have to put in the effort, and this doesn't make you less intelligent or gifted, in fact, quite the opposite. dedicating time and attention to your personal and intellectual growth also means having to ruminate on your mistakes. it's scary, but it's the most effective way if you really want to improve. take a notebook and at the end of the day reflect on the highlights and the wrongs, what you could have done better, where you would like to push forward tomorrow, what you achieved today. did you make a mistake? first ask yourself why and then look for a way to solve the problem, make every bad moment a lesson, a brick on which to build the version of you you wanto to become tomorrow.

𝟱. don't be afraid of doing researches ( 🧃 )

the amount of fake news and misinformation online is appalling. opening any app like tiktok or instagram we are inundated with information that is often (not always, but not so rarely) inaccurate. don't be afraid to conduct your own research, if you have time to mindlessly scroll through tiktok you will also have five minutes to read an article regarding that information provided. don't know the meaning of a word? look it up before using it. not sure about a piece of information? check it before using it in your argumentation. in the age of immediate access to data we have no excuse to be superficial.

𝟲. master communication ( ♟️ )

mastering communication is essential in both personal and professional realms. it's the cornerstone of building meaningful relationships, whether it's conveying ideas effectively in academia or fostering connections in the workplace. developing strong communication skills not only enhances your ability to articulate thoughts but also empowers you to listen actively, empathize with others, and resolve conflicts constructively. ultimately, honing these skills cultivates confidence, credibility, and success in all aspects of life.

𝟳. push yourself out of your comfort zone ( 🧸 )

build your confidence. confidence is uncomfortable. don't be afraid of it. you are young, this is the right time to experiment, take risks, discover who you really are. this is the best time for you to do those things that you would otherwise never do, you don't want to regret later in life that you didn't accept that scholarship, that trip abroad, that job opportunity, because you didn't feel comfortable enough. do things that take you out of your comfort zone until everything becomes your comfort zone. go on solo dates, be a social butterfly, tell the girl at the bookstore you love her t-shirt, go to the theater alone, eat at a restaurant alone, take that trip. if it goes badly, you'll only have one funny story to tell.

𝟴. stay informed about the news (but not too much!) ( 🌍 )

this might be controversial, but: stay informed about the news, just don't overdo it. personally, i am an easily influenced person and i realized that being constantly exposed to the bad things happening in the world had drained me and made me terribly depressed. don't get me wrong, you need to be informed about what's happening in the world and in your country, just being constantly surrounded by horrible news repeated ad nauseam on TV programs is of no use. be aware.

[conarcoin]

So Elon bought Twitter. I'm honestly not gonna push away Twitter newcomers, but if you're in the MCYT fandom you need to understand that the social etiquette and expectations and culture here are very different than over on Twitter. So as someone who's been an active part of mcytblr for two years now, I'd like to offer some thoughts and advice!

One: Shipping. MCYT communities on Tumblr have always tended to lean more tolerant towards shipping of roleplay characters due to the idea that this is a space for fans primarily. The creators who visit or actively use Tumblr like Eret and Martyn understand that this is a fan space primarily, and don't bother us for the content we make, and we don't bother them with it.

The number one worst thing you could do is share shipping content with creators who have not asked for it. This is a huge social faux pas here. Secondly, on the other end — writing callout posts for shippers here isn't gonna fly. Even for RPF shippers and people who may ship boundary-breaking pairings, our default is usually to not engage with these people rather than publicly call them out. It makes the space a healthier place for everyone and makes it much less likely that CCs may come across content they are uncomfortable with. It's also considered a social faux pas to ask CCs their opinions and boundaries on shipping, since that's bringing it up when they didn't ask!

Speaking of shipping, people typically don't mind you maintagging ship content so long as you also tag it as shipping so people can filter it. For Hermitcraft the tag is hermitshipping, Life Series has trafficshipping, and the lesser known DSMP tag is dsmpshipping.

Two: Reblogging. This is something a lot of newer users tend to struggle with. There is no algorithm on Tumblr, at least not one that works, so content creators rely on you reblogging their work in order for it to spread. If you see a fic or piece of art you enjoy, please reblog it! I often reblog art for MCYT fandoms I'm not even personally in.

Three: Tagging (again). There are a wide variety of tags you can use for your content! The most common tags you'll want to use are "mcyt" and "mcytblr", and any relevant series, pairing/group or character/CC names. However, please don't use the tag "minecraft"! Minecraft has an entirely separate fanbase on Tumblr that we co-exist with and have some overlap with, but don't necessarily appreciate seeing MCYT content in their tags. Any tag with "minecraft" in it is also a no-no, such as "minecraft youtubers" or "minecraft championships". Please use shorthands!

Four: Opinions on MCYT drama tend to be very different here than they are on Twitter. For instance, you should assume by default that most bloggers here either like or are completely neutral towards "problematic CCs" like Schlatt. But also, we tend to be very against spreading anything originating from leakers, and we also tend to not be fond of making posts "holding CCs accountable" for things they did years ago. Generally, mcytblr prefers to be a more drama-free community, and if you do engage in discourse, many would appreciate you tagging it as such!

Five: CCs do not need you to babysit them.

Generally speaking you will see a lot of jokes and memes on mcytblr that wouldn't fly on Twitter, and it is generally looked down upon to try to speak on behalf of CCs personal boundaries — they are grown adults, and you are a stranger! Calling out or harassing people for "breaking boundaries" is mostly just going to get you looked at strangely, especially if you don't have a source for your claims. Most of us will stop doing something if asked, but we don't need stans to tell us to! CCs can speak for themselves when uncomfortable.

Six: Most mcytblr blogs don't want CC notices. There are quite a few CCs who are active here, but the community is chill with them as they don't tend to talk about us elsewhere and allow us to do our own thing. We do not, however, like encouraging CCs to join Tumblr or to follow us or reblog our posts — many people here actually prefer being out of sight of CCs and many of us consider it rude to seek out attention from CCs outside of sending the occasional ask.

Please treat CCs kindly and don't gawk at them like you just saw a celebrity on the street — the ones who are active here are just Tumblr users like the rest of you! Seeing Eret reblog fanart or respond to an ask isn't something to point out.

While we joke about Twitter users joining, we don't actually have anything against you guys, it's just that we've built a very different community here and ask that you respect it and the etiquette we've come to establish! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your stay on mcytblr ^_^

[enixamyram]

My Unpopular Hazbin Hotel Opinions

Chaggie is one of the best couples and is underappreciated because it doesn't follow stereotypical romance tropes that have been forced down our throats by Hollywood for years.

The majority red colour doesn't bother me. In fact I think it works really well as a media tool to make Hell look depressing without being bland while places like Heaven stand out as being really magical because of the variety of color they have in comparison.

Vox, Velvette and Val are all entertaining characters with great designs and while I will enjoy karma and justice (hopefully) kicking their asses at the end, I also hope it isn't rushed and we can enjoy their chaotic relationship a bit longer.

As long as you respect canon, I don't see any problem with having fun with ships, even the OOC ones. (In fact I kinda like RadioStatic as a ship...)

There are no bad songs.

I hope it's revealed that characters like Angel and Husk did genuinely bad things that earned them places in hell. I feel like their greatest crimes being self inflicted abuse with drugs and alcohol takes away from Charlie's goal and the overall storyline.

I understand why people want Angel and Husk to have a relationship that's more emotional than sexual. But it feels a little unhealthy to say they would cut out sex entirely, like going from one extreme to the other is never a good thing.

Saying Niffty is like a child because of her size and goofiness while drunk is really almost dangerously problematic.

Velvette being treated like Val and Vox's daughter also feels really gross to me. Why is it always the women that get this treatment?

Hazbin Hotel is a passion project from an independent creator. Representation is important and great when included but it shouldn't necessarily be a check list everyone has to do. While I would love to see more plus sized characters, Vivzie clearly has an art style and she shouldn't be vilified for that. The same should not be said for mainstream media projects because they aren't telling a story out of love but rather to be popular and they have a much bigger impact on audiences so they should be held to higher standards.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Curious, but do you know of anything Marinette is bad at? I didn't realize this until before, but Marinette always seems to be presented as amazing at everything. Like, I can get baking and designing, since they're things she's had personal experience in, but everything else? She's either super amazing or she needed five minutes of instruction and she's incredible.

Gaming? Absolute pro. Art? Amazing. Fencing? Just a little help from Adrien, and she's so good. So far, the skills she's presented to be absolutely amazing at: gaming, fencing, art, fashion, costume design (surprise surprise, fashion and costume design are two different avenues), baking, DIY, mechanical engineering (Miracle box hiding place and snapping diary box), fighting, leadership, decision-making, Guardianship, school (somehow straight-A student despite her tardiness and Ladybug issues).

And that's all I can get off the top of my head. I'm scared that there might be more. The only things I can think of that she's bad at is ice skating (which feels like a plot device for the Frozer episode, since she adapted so quickly to ice-skating as Icebug) and talking to Adrien.

I have a character (non-MLB) with the kind of genius that lets her master anything if she's seen it two or three times, but that genius has limitations itself that later compels her to actually think and work hard to master said subject. But Marinette is never even implied to be similiar to this, and everything she's good at is just passed off as "Amazing Marinette" and then left alone.

What do you think? If there's any other examples of things she's bad at, clumsiness nonwithstanding, please tell me, because this thought is driving me bonkers.

Nothing comes to mind, though I will say that Marinette wasn't a very good fencer. Then again, the show is actually laughably bad at portraying fencing, so I guess we just have to take Adrien's word for it that she was good. (I fenced for several years. May even have my old meddles somewhere as proof, though I doubt it.)

This isn't unique to Marinette, though. Most of the teen characters are absurdly talented. Kitty Section was so cool XY stole their music and their look. Alya runs a blog that's so successful that she was interviewed on national TV (end of PrimeQueen). Nino got to be on that TV competition in Simon Says. Max has tech in a literal space ship. The list goes on and on. Marinette just has more than most because she's the main character.

This isn't necessarily a flaw. It's normal for kids shows to have kid/teen characters who are super cool and talented because the goal is to inspire real kids to try things. The only reason it feels like a flaw in Miraculous is that this type of super-cool can-do-anything character is usually reserved for low-stakes episodic shows. Serialized shows (aka, shows with an overarching plot) will still have kid and teen characters who do the things adults usually do because that's what the target audience wants to see, but these kid and teen character will be a lot more nuanced and flawed. They're allowed to fail because their stories can take multiple episodes to resolve whereas characters in episodic shows have to have everything figured out and wrapped up in 20 minutes, allowing for way less nuance to their characters.

Because Miraculous is trying to be both an episodic and a serialized show, you get a lot of awkward characterization and writing. Sitcom drama with prestige TV stakes. We want Miraculous' cast to feel like they belong in a serialized drama because Miraculous has a serialized plot, but the individual episodes must stand alone, so the characters can't have the depth they need. It's messy, ugly writing.

[scarletsaphire]

For his entire nine years of life, Danny has had incredible dreams. Featured in every one is a patch of stars, staying just in the corner of his vision, just out of reach. It is only after his first nightmare that the stars appear as what they truly are; a ghost, here to make a deal.

--

This is my Big Boy fic I've been planning for over a year. I hope you guys enjoy.

Danny had always dreamed of stars. It wasn't necessarily that he always dreamed of the stars, but they were always there. Sometimes he'd dream that he was a pirate, fighting glowing green sea creatures that came up from the bottom of the ocean, tentacles grappling on the sides of his pirate ship. Sometimes he would dream of a world made entirely of smudges of color, and he had to save it from the evil people who wanted to erase it all. Sometimes he would dream of exploring other planets, of the taste of space dust on his tongue and a ground that made him bounce like a trampoline. Danny dreamed a lot of things, but no matter what he dreamed about, the stars were always there, just out of reach. They were different then the ones that appeared in the sky; they seemed to flow and ripple like water, and they always seemed to move to the corner of his vision no matter how hard he tried to see them.

For a while, Danny tried to catch the stars. Every time he got close, he'd wake up. But his parents had taught him that Fentons don't give up, and Danny wouldn't be the one to break that streak. So he swore to himself, after what felt like the millionth time waking up in the dead of night, that he'd get to hold those stars someday, even if he needed to go to space to get them. He spent every night that summer trying to catch them, every night waking up disappointed and going through the next day so tired his mom brought him to the doctor's for a check up.

Danny didn't try and catch the stars the night before third grade. In between teaching Danny the correct way to weld, his dad had talked all about how he'd need all his energy to learn the new things that tomorrow would bring. His mom had stolen Danny away to show him the new and improved Fenton Folders she'd finished for him, designed to be able to hold not only the papers for his class, but any textbooks or other supplies he might need as well. They were bulky, and the combination of metal and mesh wasn't the prettiest, but Danny loved them; he'd helped her make them, after all. Jazz had told him while helping him pack that he needed to prepare himself. 

"Third grade is where the real school starts," she said while trying to fit his pack of #2 pencils in the backpack without disrupting the spots she'd already put his other supplies. "I can help you prepare physically, because I'm the best big sister ever, but you've gotta make sure you're prepared mentally. It's a lot of responsibility."

"I don't know what that means," Danny admitted.

Jazz grinned at him, showing off the gap in her teeth. "Yeah, well you're gonna. That's something third grade will teach you."

Danny did not pout. He was nine now, which was basically double digits. He was above pouting. "Why don't you just tell me now?"

Jazz zipped up the backpack and left it on the hook next to the front door. "I can't do that, it's against the laws of third grade. Everyone has to go through a ritual at the start, to make sure they're fit to be a third grader."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "You're lying."

"Would I ever lie to you?"

"Yes."

Jazz stuck her tongue out at him, and Danny did it right back. "I'm surprised Mom and Dad didn't tell you about the third grade ritual. What else do you think they've been having us do those martial arts classes for?"

"Ghost fighting?" Danny said slowly.

"And who says the challenge isn't a ghost?" Jazz was smiling at him in the same way she had when she said she didn't hide his cookies on the top shelf.

"You're definitely lying."

Jazz shrugged and turned around towards the stairs. "Believe what you want. I just know that if I was you, I would listen to your big sister who’s already beaten the ghosts. You don't want to fight them by yourself, do you?" With that she went upstairs, leaving Danny by himself. Jazz was lying to him. She had to be. But...

Danny grabbed one of the half finished inventions laying on the end table in the living room and slipped it into the side pocket of his backpack. It was better safe than sorry.

That morning Danny woke well-rested, having slept better than he had all summer. He’d had a dream about constructing fish bowls out of clouds, wringing the water from them like you would a towel. It had been a good dream, even if the stars still hung in the corner of his vision, taunting him. It would have been a pleasant way to wake up, if the first thing he was aware of wasn't the bellowing of his name from the doorway.

"Danno!" Jack repeated at a volume that only made his ears ring a little bit. "Hurry up kiddo, you're gonna be late!"

Danny blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he tried to interpret the numbers on his clock. 7:10. "Dad, you were supposed to wake me up at 6:20!" Danny yelled, jumping out of his bed, blankets falling in a twisted knot to the floor. "The bus is going to be here in 10 minutes!"

"Sorry, son," Jack said. "You don't have to worry about the bus, your old man can drive you."

"No, I'm sure I can catch the bus."

---

Danny walked out of the GAV at precisely 7:24, with only his nine years of experience keeping him from vomiting. He'd missed the bus by thirty seconds at most. 

"You've got this, kiddo! Face those challenges head on!" Jack called from the open window. "Love you, good luck!"

Danny waved back, and Jack drove away. His mention of challenges reminded him of Jazz's words yesterday. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to take the unfinished device with him to school; his mom had ended up grabbing it to work on, and with how late he'd woken up, he didn't have a chance to grab a new one. That was okay. Jazz was just kidding. Probably. He tightened his grip on his backpack straps and made his way into the school yard.

Danny's plan was to find Tucker. His parents hadn't let him hang out the past week. They'd said something about summer reading stuff that Tucker still hadn't done, and that he was grounded until he got it finished or school started back up. It was completely unfair, and it meant that the couple minutes before they had to go inside were crucial for catching up about all the exciting things that they had done since the last time they'd hung out. Unfortunately, the first person Danny found was not Tucker. It was Dash.

"Are your parents still adding weapons to that hunk of junk you call a car?" he called out from his spot on the stairs. Dash was mean and a bully, and he had been since kindergarten, but he wasn't persistent. Danny had learned early on that the best thing to do was ignore him and walk away, ideally into the sight of a teacher. Danny tried to do this now, but Dash got up and started to follow him. "What are you running away from? Gonna go hunt down some ghosts to talk to? It’s not like any of us want to."

Danny's grip tightened around the straps of his backpack. "Leave me alone Dash."

"What are you gonna do if I don't?" Dash spat. Danny's next step was halted by Dash's grip on his backpack, forcing him to stumble backwards to keep from falling. "Are you gonna tell your weirdo parents? You'd probably have to lie to get them to care." 

Danny spun to face Dash, the force of his twist breaking the taller boy’s grasp. Despite their height difference, Danny didn't back down.

"Stop it," he spat.

Dash sneered. "Oh, I'm so scared." He leaned down until Danny could smell his breath, warm and gross on his face. "Your whole family is a joke, and everyone knows it. You're no different."

There were a number of things that happened in those few seconds. The first was that Danny realized that, whether intentional or not, Jazz had been right about needing to fight a monster. He wouldn't tell her that, of course. She was already insufferable. 

The second was that Danny's hand had let go of his backpack, clenched into a fist, and flew at Dash's jaw with all the speed and might Danny's nine year old body could muster. 

The third thing, which was by far the worst, was the door to the school yard flying open only a few feet from where Dash and Danny stood. This meant that the teacher got front row seats to Dash's tooth flying out of his mouth.

"Daniel James Fenton!" she called, but her voice sounded distant under the rush of Danny's blood in his ears and Dash's blubbering. He only fully processed that his name had been said when he felt her grab his arm. "Just what do you think you are doing?"

Danny flushed red from embarrassment as he realized that the teacher's yelling had attracted the attention of the whole school yard. "He started it," he mumbled under his breath.

"I don't care who started it, young man, that's no excuse for violence!" she snapped. "I'm going to need to call your parents, do you understand that? In all my years of teaching, I've never had to call anyone about something like this so early in the school year." She moved towards the building, Danny dragging along behind her. 

She stopped briefly near the door to point at a student Danny didn't recognize; a 5th grader, by the looks of it. "Would you be a dear and escort Dash to the nurse’s office?" The student nodded.

The teacher led Danny through the halls of the school to the main office. "You are going to sit right here," she said to Danny, leading him to one of the waiting chairs, "-and you aren't going to move a single muscle, do you understand? I'm going to talk to the principal, and then she is going to talk to you." Danny nodded, and the woman disappeared behind the adjacent door.

Danny would not cry. He wanted to, and his eyes burnt with hot, angry tears, but he did not cry. He was nine. That was almost double digits, and someone who is double digits doesn't cry. Danny focused on one spot on the worn, dirty, carpeted floors, trying to get the heat of his anger to burn a hole through it.

It didn't work. Danny cried quietly.

When the teacher walked back into the room, he wiped away his tears as quickly and discreetly as he could before getting out of his chair and following her into the principal's office. Danny had seen Principal Caulfield a couple of times before; she would give announcements in the cafeteria sometimes, and would lead fire drills. He'd never been called to her office before. He'd never wanted to.

She smiled at him warmly, a stark contrast to the teacher's steely gaze he could still feel burrowing into the back of his head like knives. "Hello, Daniel. I assume Mrs. Robertson explained why you're here." Danny nodded. "Mrs. Robertson explained what happened to me, but I want to hear it from your perspective. Can you do that for me?" 

Danny shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Principal Caulfield's eyes. "She can leave, if that would make you more comfortable." Principal Caulfield nodded to her, and Mrs. Robertson took her leave.

"Dash was making fun of my family," Danny mumbled. "I tried to walk away, but he grabbed me and wouldn't let me go."

Principal Caulfield nodded. "So you decided to hit him?" 

Danny nodded. 

"Why don't you take a seat?" Slowly, Danny sat down in the chair opposite of hers. "We try very hard to teach our students that violence isn't the answer here, and it never is. You should've called for a teacher, or tried to settle the issue with words. Do you understand that?" 

Danny nodded again. 

"Now, I'm going to call your parents. I'm going to have a long discussion with, and you will be sent home early. I know that the first day of school has a lot of fun activities, and with your behavior today, I think a fair punishment is missing out on them. If this happens again, however, you will be in far more trouble. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Danny said. He focused on keeping his voice from wobbling.

"Good. Now, let me see here..." Principal Caulfield stood up and made her way over to her filing cabinet, rifling through one of the drawers and pulling out a folder with a label that read "D. J. Fenton." She flipped through it, traced her finger down one of the pages, and started dialing a number on the phone. Just as Danny had expected, it went to voicemail. A voicemail that was completely full.

Principal Caulfield frowned down at the phone. She looked through the file again, before looking up at Danny. "Are your parents busy right now?"

"My mom's down in the lab," he said. "If Dad's home by now, he's down there with her. If not, he's in the car."

Her face twisted in confusion, probably trying to figure out what Danny meant by lab, before it settled on an expression Danny had become very familiar with over the years. It was the mixed horror and understanding that most adults got when they realized that those two jumpsuit-wearing ghost hunting weirdos did in fact have children, and one of them was standing in front of them. Danny braced himself for the conversation that almost always followed, even as Principal Caulfield's expression faded into a professional veneer of kindness.

"I didn't realize that your parents had a laboratory in your house," she said. "What type of things do they do in the lab?"

"They build things, mostly," Danny said. That was a major simplification; even though Danny wasn't allowed to help with a lot of the things they did, he helped with enough to know a lot more than that they just 'built things.' More importantly, he knew that Principal Caulfield wasn't actually interested in hearing about his parents’ work, no matter how interesting it truly was. She was poking and prodding around the house to make sure Danny and Jazz were safe. He'd gone through it many times. It was never a pleasant conversation but it didn't normally bother Danny. "They don't let me or my sister into the lab unsupervised, they have all the proper PPE for both themselves and us, and anything they think will hurt us, or that they don't know whether it will or not is locked away where we can't get it," Danny recited.

Slowly, Principal Caulfield nodded. "It sounds like that's something you've practiced."

Danny shrugged. "I just get asked things like that a lot."

"Daniel." Her voice was hard. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Danny," she said, and her voice softer this time. She reached her hands out on her desk and folded them over each other. "You understand that that's not normal right? That you shouldn’t be in a house where your safety is questioned by everyone?"

That was also something he heard a lot. It wasn't like any of them were wrong. His parents weren't normal, and he knew that; what did it matter that everyone else knew that too? But Dash's words from before whirled in his head, mixing with Principal Caulfield's concern and the remaining whispers of the dozens of other people who'd said it. Danny bit his tongue to keep from either crying or shouting. He wasn't sure which was more likely. 

It took a few seconds before he managed to get out the response he wanted. "I am safe."

Principal Caulfield sighed. "Do you have any other way to get in contact with your parents?" Danny shook his head, and she pursed her lips. "Ok. Do they let you walk home alone?" Danny nodded. "Since I'm not going to be able to get in contact with them, what we're going to do instead is you're going to walk home. Straight home, no detours. You’re going to give them a letter explaining the whole situation, and then they are going to call me back. If I don't get a call back from them by -" she glanced at the clock on the wall next to her "- by nine o'clock, you are going to be in a lot more trouble. Do you understand?" Danny nodded again.

The next few minutes passed in tense silence as Principal Caulfield wrote out the note for Danny's parents. Finally, she handed the paper over to Danny. "You're free to leave." Danny shoved the note into his backpack and stood up. 

Just as he was about to walk out of the room, she spoke again. "Daniel?" He turned back to look at her. "Let's make sure this doesn't happen again, ok?" 

All he could do was nod.

---

It was almost 8:30 by the time he walked through the front door, his face red and puffy from anger, tears, and the rising August heat. As he had guessed, the sounds of clinking metal echoed up from the lab. He threw his backpack on the couch, and crouched to untie his shoes. He needed to gather his bravery to face his parents. He'd gotten in trouble in school before; even Jazz had gotten in trouble a couple of times, and she was as goody two shoes as they got. It was just that most of the time when he got in trouble, it was for something that his parents were more lenient about; they didn't care about him missing homework assignments when he had spent most of the time with them in the lab. They didn't care about him not paying attention in class because neither of them could pay attention to much of anything not related to ghosts or science; they claimed it was a Fenton Family trait. 

Danny knew that they would care about this.

He took a deep breath and started down the basement stairs. "Mom? Dad?" he called out as soon as he reached the bottom, peeking his head around the corner.

"Danny? Is it three o'clock already?" Maddie said, glancing over at him in confusion.

"I could've sworn that I only just got started!" Jack said, sitting upright from where he was hunched over his workbench. 

"Time sure flies when we're working," Maddie replied with a laugh.

"Um..." Danny shuffled from one foot to the other. "It's not."

"What was that sweetie?" Maddie asked. 

"It's not three yet. I got sent home from school early," Danny said. He started to explain everything, the words falling out of his mouth as he talked. When he finished explaining what Principal Caulfield had said to him, he pulled out the note and held it out to his parents. They'd both moved to stand next to Danny while he was talking. 

Maddie took the paper and opened it to begin reading, while Jack lowered himself to one knee to get on Danny's level. "I'm disappointed in you, son. I thought we had raised you to know better than resorting to violence."

"Unless it’s against a ghost," Maddie added quietly as she continued to read.

"Unless it’s a ghost," Jack amended. "Then your old man can show you how to shoot the sorry spook right between the eyes!" Jack bounced to his feet, pointing his hands into finger guns, and imitating the sounds of shooting and explosions. That went on until Maddie finished reading the note.

"Jack dear, you've gotten distracted again," she said, folding the note back up and slipping it into her jumpsuit pocket before turning to Danny. "What your father is trying to say is that we're proud of you for trying to stick up for us, but you should know better than to start fights."

"I'm sorry…" 

"You don't have to apologize to us," Maddie said. "You need to apologize to Dash. And that's what you're going to do, right now. You're going to go up to your room and write an apology note to him, and then you are going to go right to bed. No games, no TV, no books, no toys. I think that's a fair punishment, don't you honey?"

"Sounds right to me."

"But he started it!" Danny protested. 

"I don't want to hear it, young man," Maddie chided. "We can be a lot meaner about this if you make us."

Danny bit his lip. "Fine."

"Good. Now, you go upstairs, and I'll give your principal a call."

Danny and Maddie made their way out of the basement together. She stopped at the phone to wave Danny along. "And I'll be coming up to check on you soon, so don't think you can sneak out of the punishment." Danny gave a curt nod in response, not stopping his trek upstairs. 

Danny sat down at his desk in his bedroom, grabbing one of his new school notebooks. He and Jazz had talked their parents into buying a bunch of stickers, and the two of them had spent an entire afternoon customizing their new school notebooks. Danny had, of course, covered his in stars, rocket ships, planets, and astronauts. 

Danny’s lungs and eyes burned with anger as he realized that the very first thing he was going to have to put in his new notebooks was an apology letter to Dash, of all people. But he didn't have any of his notebooks from last year, so he didn't have much of a choice.

He flipped to the first page and lifted his pencil to start writing. The first couple of words were dark and shaky. The pencil tip snapped from the force he used. Danny let his head fall to the desk, and groaned into his arms. "Why do I have to apologize?" he complained to himself, not lifting his head from the desk. "He doesn't deserve it. He's been nothing but mean for years." 

The burning feeling in his throat got more intense. Hot tears ran down his eyes onto the notebook, smearing the few words he’d managed to write.

Danny turned over and glared at the door. His mom had said that she'd come and check on him, but he had grown up with her. There was the chance that she'd make good on her word, sure, but it was far more likely that something would call her back to the lab and she'd forget all about Danny, at least until Jazz got home. 

Danny didn't want to risk the offhand chance of her coming up and catching him doing something she said not to, but that didn't mean he had to write the letter. Not yet, anyway. Danny pushed his chair back from the desk with a squeak, and made his way over to his bed, flopping onto the mattress. With his pillow muffling him, Danny let the tears flow freely.

---

Danny sat in class, the teacher at the front of the room droning on about something. He wasn't paying attention. How could he, when he could feel the weight of his classmates’ stares on his shoulders? Their whispers joined together in a cacophony of noise, getting louder and louder with every passing moment until Danny couldn't even hear himself think. The sound persisted even when he covered his ears with his hands, pushing against his head until it hurt. "Please, stop," he begged. Like a switch, everyone stopped whispering. Danny opened his eyes to see the teacher from the playground standing above his desk. 

"What was that, Fenton?" she said, her voice dripping with venom. 

"I just..." Danny looked around at his classmates, but he couldn't focus on any of them, not under the heat of the teacher's gaze. "I wanted them to stop talking."

"How dare you interrupt their conversation!" Spittle flew from her mouth, bright green, and splattered against Danny's desk where it sizzled, chewing through the wood. He flinched back. "Apologize. To all of them. And then it's straight to the principal with you!" 

"But I didn't do anything!" Danny protested. 

"And you're talking back? If you're ever allowed back in this school again, you can apologize then. But I think the principal might put a stop to that."

Danny tried to stand up, but his legs were glued to the chair. He strained against the force holding him down until his muscles burned, but no matter what he did, he couldn't move. 

"What do you think you're doing, young man?" The teacher said, and she bared her glistening fangs at him. "You are about to be in a world of trouble!"

"What, are you too weak to get out of your chair, Fenturd?" Dash's voice overlapped the teacher’s. "Or is a ghost holding you down? We gonna have to call your crazy parents?"

They didn’t stop talking even as the rest of the class started again, an echoing cacophony of every horrible thing Danny had ever heard about him and his parents and his sister and his house and everything. All he could do was struggle against the chair even as his legs burned from the effort and his head pounded and his eyes leaked hot tears and- 

Danny sat upright in his bed, gasping for air. His school clothes, which he had fallen asleep in, stuck to the skin, and the blanket he'd been sleeping on top of was soaked with cold sweat. He grabbed at his chest, trying to slow down the frantic beating of his heart. 

"It was just a dream," he said to himself, still breathless. "It wasn't real."

Danny'd had nightmares before, but they'd always been full of fantastical beasts and monsters and ghosts. He’d never felt trapped; any time that he'd get too scared, he'd reach to the stars. Their ever-present shimmering would block out whatever terrors plagued his mind, and he'd wake up calm.

The stars weren’t there to save him this time, and that was almost scarier than the nightmare had been.

---

"Did you get the note finished like I asked?" Maddie asked over their Chinese takeout. (Surprisingly, Jack had tried to cook dinner. Emphasis on the tried. He claimed that the hot dogs started the fire in the kitchen, but they had been peaceful since the Great Toaster War, so Danny was pretty sure that Jack just burned the water he'd been boiling. And the stove he'd been boiling it on.)

"Mhm," Danny answered around his mouthful of pork fried rice. He hadn't even started the letter. Every time he did, the cutting words of his dream flooded his mind. It wasn't like she'd check it anyway.

"Good. Make sure to give it to him tomorrow when you go back to school," she said. 

"I still can't believe you got into a fight!" Jazz said. "I didn't get into any fights when I was your age."

"You're only two years older than me," Danny grumbled, shoveling another bite into his mouth.

"And those two years make quite the difference, obviously," she replied. She twirled the noodle around her fork. "I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that-"

Danny cut her off before she could get started. "Can I be excused?"

Maddie and Jack shared a look before Maddie nodded. "Don’t forget you’re still grounded, mister!" Jack called out after him as Danny shoveled one last spoonful into his mouth and retreated to his room. 

The day had passed slowly and painfully, with Danny spending a lot of time staring at his wall. He'd tried going down to the lab to help his parents, but they had made him go back upstairs to his room. It had taken an hour for them to remember to do so, in which they had told him all about the newest ecto-filtration system they were working on developing, but that hour hadn't done much to help with the other ten hours of extreme boredom. That, and the skin crawling grossness from the dream had yet to leave him.

Despite the fact that Danny had done less than nothing today, he was tired. He may have left the dinner table to avoid Jazz's rambling, but he probably would've done that anyway. In spite of the sun still streaming through the window, he made his way through his bedtime routine, before laying down in his bed, this time in his comfortable pajamas.

Apparently, it didn't matter that Danny's exhaustion seemed to run bone deep; no matter how he twisted and turned, he couldn't get comfortable. Every time he thought he'd found a nice position, his hand, head, or legs would throb. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the teacher from his nightmare with the venom filled fangs, or the disappointed faces of his parents and Principal Caulfield. 

Something told him that if he fell asleep, he would be met by similar dreams. No matter how tired he was, he didn't want to go through that again. He tried to keep his hands busy, and when he was too tired to move them with any more grace then a baby, he moved to keeping his mind occupied.

Despite how much he fought it, the soft ticking sound of his clock lulled him into an uneasy sleep.

—

Danny knew that he was dreaming because of the stars. The stars that had hovered at the edges of his vision in every dream but the last now covered everything, as if they were making up for lost time.

"Woah..." he whispered. He'd dreamed of standing in a field of stars before, but this felt...different. Before, there’d always been that one patch that stood out from the rest, his constant companion, a spot inconsistent with the rest of them. It had always felt more real, more physical, then the rest of them. This time, that patch made up everything around him. 

He dropped to his knees to touch one, an exceptionally bright star that pulsed with the beating of his heart. He cupped it in his hands, pulling it out from the inky blackness that surrounded it. It stayed where he held it, with most of the darkness dripping off like water, only a thin strand keeping it connected to the rest of the starscape. It wasn't warm like he'd expected; in fact, it was cold. So cold that it almost hurt to hold it, but he didn't put it down. He'd been dreaming of this moment, literally, for his entire life.

He stared down at the glowing ball, enraptured by its flickering lights, before he realized that it was… wrong. He knew stars; he had begged his parents to bring him to the space museum so often over the summer the people working there knew him by name. Stars were not just balls of light, they were balls of fire that moved and changed. Whatever he held in his hand was nothing but pure light, perfectly frozen, completely unchanging. 

He let the not-star fall from his hands, slipping back into its place in the inky void.

"Is it not living up to your expectations, little dreamer?" Danny whirled around to try and find the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere, echoing endlessly. The sound traveled in ripples across the not-quite liquid floor, and the echoes only started to fade when the ripples did.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, continuing to scan his surroundings unsuccessfully. "Where are you?"

"You may call me Nocturne," the voice said. "And you already know the answer to the last question."

"I do?" Danny asked, confused. He spun around in a circle slowly. 

"You do. We're in a dream."

"This doesn't feel like my dreams..." Danny said. 

"That's because it isn't one of your dreams," Nocturne said. The surrounding darkness coalesced into one being, the starry cloak extending endlessly into the rest of the surroundings. One cluster of stars became a horned mask, with sunken eyes that seemed to be staring straight through Danny. "It's one of mine. I've brought you here to make a deal."

Nearly every alarm bell Danny had started ringing at once. Despite this, he did not feel scared, just wrong. Something was wrong. He tried to figure out what, but failed. Nocturne was still staring at him expectantly. He had to answer, even if he couldn’t figure it out. “My parents say I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Nocturne's laughter rang out through the dream, even though his mask remained perfectly stationary, his eyes never leaving Danny. "Dearest Daniel, I am many things, but I am no stranger." He moved closer to Danny. Or, Danny moved closer to him, the ground beneath his feet folding over itself as if the world was being moved around him.. "You've known me for many, many years now."

"I don't..." Danny started to say, but he cut himself off with a hard swallow. He did know Nocturne, even if he didn't understand how. "What are you?" Danny asked instead.

"I am a ghost," Nocturne said, and Danny’s alarm bells worsened as a cold dread settled on his shoulders. Maybe he was in danger. "You don't need to be afraid, little dreamer. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it a very long time ago." 

For some reason, that didn't make Danny any less afraid.

He tried to stumble backwards, only to find that the cold liquid of the pool had hardened around his ankles, locking him in place. "What do you want with me?" Danny said, and his voice was barely over a whisper.

Nocturne tilted his head to the side. "I think a better question is how can we help each other? As I said before, I am offering you a deal. All I want from you for now is to listen." Nocturne laughed again. "I suppose in this case your question ended up just as good as any other." He held his hand out to Danny. "Now, shall we?"

Danny struggled to tear his gaze away from Nocturne's piercing eyes, but he managed to. The ghost's hands were barely visible, blending in almost perfectly to the inky blackness surrounding them, but Danny could still make out the vague outline of claws connected to a hand nearly the size of his face. He knew he should say no; he'd spent his whole life listening to his parents talk about ghosts. They were heartless creatures, a sad mixture of energy and ectoplasm and nothing more. They were more dangerous than anything Danny could ever dream up, had the ability to kill him with nothing more than a thought, and may do something even worse with only a little bit more. He should not take Nocturne's hand.

He tried to move again, but his foot was still stuck in the pool, the cold liquid clinging to him like tar. It didn't look like Danny had much of a choice. Hesitantly, Danny reached out and took hold of one of Nocturne's claws, touching as little of him as he could. Nocturne's expression did not change, but Danny could still feel the satisfaction rolling off of him in waves.

Danny could not remember blinking, but he must have, because one second they were in the star-studded abyss, and the next they were standing at the rear end of Danny's classroom. Danny looked around, confused, and his confusion only grew when he saw himself sitting in the middle seat. His doppelganger was hunched in on himself, visibly uncomfortable.

"You recognize this scene, do you not?" Nocturne asked.

Slowly, Danny nodded. "My nightmare. From earlier today."

"Very good. Tell me, what do you think of it?"

"Um, I don't like it?" Danny answered.

"And why is that?"

Danny shrugged. "I mean, no one likes nightmares."

"Yes, but you've had plenty of nightmares before. Why was this one different?"

Danny bit his lip and took a shot in the dark. "It reminded me of my bad day?"

"Excellent, little dreamer," Nocturne said, his voice laced with pride. "The bad things that have happened, or the bad things that might. Everyone gets them, at some point or another. And yet, for a very long time, yours were special. You were never truly afraid of the things that might happen, but created new things to be afraid of. Isn't that right?"

Danny gave a small nod. It felt like the answer Nocturne was looking for.

"Tell me," Nocturne continued. "Do you want to have more dreams like this one? Do you want for them to be built on the ugly truth of your reality?"

This time, Danny shook his head.

"I didn't think you would," Nocturne said. "Which is why I am offering you an escape from it. I can make it so that you never have these dreams, or any like it, ever again. All you need to do is help me in turn."

Danny narrowed his eyes. He may not have been the smartest Fenton, but he wasn't an idiot. And he had grown up with an older sister. "How would I be helping you?" he asked. "Cause my parents have talked a lot about fairy stories, and they say it’s really bad to make a deal with a fairy, and that fairies are just ghosts that have been mislabeled."

"The details are somewhat complex."

Danny crossed his arms. "Well, I'm not making any deal unless I know what it’s about."

The stars in Nocturne's cloak twinkled brighter. "There is an issue within my home, the Infinite Realms, that requires someone special like you to fix. It is, of course, more complicated than that, but that is the important part."

"And what would I need to do to fix it?" Danny asked.

"It is my understanding that you would simply need to be present," Nocturne replied. "As for the how, that comes back to your side of the offer. Instead of having dreams like this," Nocturne swept his hand across the room. "...you would instead spend your dreaming nights in the Realms. In the morning, you would wake up in your bed as if nothing had happened."

"It won't be any kind of sleeping forever thing, right?" Danny asked.

"It could be if you would like," Nocturne said. "Unless you request it, however, no. It would last just as long as any of your other dreams."

"So you want me to agree to let you take me into the world of ghosts, every night, instead of having the occasional bad dream?" Danny asked slowly. "That doesn't seem very fair to me."

"It would not be the occasional bad dream," Nocturne said. "Dreams are my realm. I know them very, very well. And your dreams have been... tainted. It does not matter whether you take this deal or not, you will never return to the dreams you had for so long. I am simply offering you an alternative to this mundanity."

"Why should I trust you?" Danny asked.

"You shouldn't," Nocturne answered easily. "But you don't need to trust me to agree to the deal."

"And if I don't agree to it?"

"Then you will wake up with no memory of ever seeing me, and go back to a life where you can't escape the horrors of the real world even in the comfort of sleep."

Danny took a deep breath through his nose, and looked around the room. He couldn't hear anything that was happening, but his memory worked to fill in the gaps. The teacher was nearly frothing at the mouth with her green, acidic spit, the other kids in the class were either whispering or laughing at him, and the dream Danny was sitting at his desk. His face was a patchy red, tears streaming down his face. He remembered how helpless he had felt sitting there, and he couldn't imagine feeling like that for who knows how long.

Danny turned back to Nocturne, whose gaze had never once strayed from him. "Okay." His voice didn't shake, despite how nervous he felt. "I agree."

"Wonderful." Nocturne reached his hand out to Danny. This time Danny didn't hesitate to take it, and then the world shifted around him.

[ashysmultifandomcatdump]

Rambles about my Lord Wander AU yippee :)

finally Properly drew my lord wander design...he's basically the same but with more sharp edges (inspired by craig mccracken's concept sketches!) and a goofy outfit for when he's Eviling Out with s shooting star motif on it to contrast lord dom's bleeding heart!!! he does have a suit which the shooting star would be more Clear on but i have yet to get around to drawing it...i have been thinking about this AU for over a year now and i think i've finally figured out enough to talk about it so i will under the cut :)

i think for Structural Purposes i will talk about dominator and sylvia first. wander and dom are the only main swaps in this AU (with a smaller swap i think between the hat and dombots because it's Fun) so everyone else stays the same, though due to sylvia's proximity to dom, she has a significant enough change to discuss!!! (i am gonna sneakily reuse art from my last post for this bit hehe)

dee and sylvia travel around together on their own ship! i think the overall tone would be opposite the actual show—while WOY having wander as the main character has it be a goofy, silly show about love and friendship that's interrupted by dominator who's more serious and designed to be more like an anime villain—the tone of the AU with dee at the head would have it be more generally serious and wander's presence brings in something a bit goofier (this is kinda what he does in the show anyway. like everyone takes things seriously and then wander doesn't and people learn from him)! so dee and sylvia are both more keen to use a bit of Violence to get through everything. though that's not to say there's No goofiness, of course there is i mean. when your main opponent is lord hater of course there is!!! dom's also a menace to him like wander is, just in a bit of a different way. they just normally show up and beat them and hater doesn't react well to that of course—his degradation as a villain still ends up happening

dee also builds her little bot friends, for both practical purposes and companionship purposes :) she still names them in numbers though, not out of lack of care she is just absolutely dogshit at naming, forgive her

anyway a reason i brought up the tone thing is that wander isn't necessarily revealed just in the 'season 2' of the AU. there's kind of a looming threat in the background contributing to that. it's gone by lots of different names in lots of different galaxies, but generally is referred to as The End of the Galaxy (or just The End for short!). as suggested by the name, loads of different galaxies have been destroyed in the past. kind of like a force of nature. survivors don't really seem to be sure what exactly it is, only that it's been called by a different name each time, and nobody could stop it before it was too late. and guess who that is!!!!!!!!!!

our silly little friend whom we love the best!!!!!!!

i REALLY REALLY love roleswaps that keep the characters' personalities as intact as possible and that's what i tried to do here!! this guy may be evil as hell, but he's still Wander. he loves friends and having fun and still has that cheery attitude! he almost seems completely harmless at first! and that is part of the Plot in my head is, actually. my first ever thoughts of that spurned the creation this AU were him being a seemingly completely innocuous recurring character throughout the first 'season' of the AU, just showing up at random times, being Wander, you know. all that stuff. with the main gang not really paying him any mind, calling him a 'wandering weirdo' (since he always disappears before they can actually ask what his name is...). and none of them recognize him as The End until he actually reveals himself.

but see, he's actually grown quite attached to them! through all his time following them around, he thinks oh...aren't these folks just lovely!! he truly actually sees him as his friends. and so to honor their wonderful nickname for him, and to pay homage to his dear buddy hater, he decided his name this time around would be Lord Wander! and he'd be a Professional Villain, so they could hang out even more!! isn't he just so nice!!!

and he just doesn't seem to play by the rules at all...while they're trying to fight him, he's giggling and dodging out of the way, hitting them with...pies? just generally bugs bunny-ing out on them? he spends his time messing with them, annoying them, all the same insisting he won't fight because it's Too Violent—you know, the guy who's Killing People. it frustrates them all and he has such fun Playing with them...except dee.

one of my favorite things in the show is how wander just straight up does not like dominator. so i felt it'd be funny to keep that. dee ignores him when he's being all zany like that and he HATES her for it. he won't say it Directly, but it's kinda clear in his attitude how much she annoys him. and with all his Evilness, this would not lead to good things.

another thing about the way He Is is his exemplified traits of the other characters. like how dom was more excitable than wander, tougher than sylvia, more evil than hater and smarter than peepers; lord wander i think would be more chaotic than dom, faster than sylvia, more obsessive than hater, and more strategic than peepers (spinel if you're reading this Thank You for those last two).

anddddd i also must mention his luck because that's Very interesting in this scenario...i do think he has some form of Natural Luck Magic, and he does still have his hat (there's lots i have in mind about the hat. but i won't get into it right now), but a non-insignificant portion of his luck in the show does come from the good karma he receives from helping others. meanwhile lord wander does lots of Bad Things. does he rack up bad karma? does he do good deeds when not Eviling Out in order to cancel it out? i had these same questions a year ago and honestly i am not sure which i want to go with. both are fascinating to me

i do think that unlike dominator he would be in some way redeemable. i don't have his entire methods and motivations mapped out yet, but it's hard to find a way where he just Wouldn't be redeemable. because he's wander. you know? unlike dominator being lonely being why she didn't just kill everyone, wander does genuinely see them as his friends. he's just got a really, REALLY fucked up way of showing it. i've even considered the idea that he doesn't Actually go out of his way to kill people and only destroys the planets, making sure there are survivors but Hmmmmm i don't know about that one. it's a tough balance trying to make sure he's an actual threat. but it is something i consider. him being like a natural disaster in a sense.

this ended up being very disjointed but iiiii needed to get my thoughts Properly out there. here's the twitter thread i made last year of my initial thoughts. i Do have More in my head but i'm not really sure how to get them down in a way that makes sense...i would love to talk more about it though (especially since i have not talked much about the others other than wander. sorry he is my favorite. but i do think about the others A Lot i just didn't know what things to talk about hegshgshhg) so if anyone wants to hear more insane ramblings👍👍👍tell me👍👍👍👍👍👍i'm not normal about it👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[synnthamonsugar]

Sending an ask instead of commenting because I prefer to keep discourse away from my blog. but, I have to get some of this off my chest. it's bound to be lengthy, so don't feel like you have to read/respond. you just seem like maybe you'll get my point. Read this as one big I statement because of course it's my opinion and I'm not out here reading everyone's minds.

On that last post. I think a lot of people have gone and manic-pixie-dream-girl'd Eris beyond recognition, and that some of shippers (not all, ofc) have spent so much time with their own headcanons & fanfic that they've forgotten how their real dynamic is. It's easy to project a relationship onto them if you're already looking for one. People see them bicker and go "aw, they're arguing like an old married couple!" when, no. They're just arguing.

Drifter definitely flirts with her, but she doesn't reciprocate and I don't even think that it's necessarily serious. That man would flirt with a wall if he thought it would be funny. He seems like the type to tease people that way regardless of gender or attraction to them.

I don't deny that there's something between them. knowing the lore as I do I think it's safe to say that they're somewhat close, whatever that can even mean for either of them, but for fucks sake close isn't always romantic. Are they friends? Maybe. Can either of them have friends at their level of stability? I genuinely don't know. I don't think that we've been given enough to go off of, honestly. I don't like the idea that they're going to magically have their trauma cured by dating each other. She doesn't need him to "file down her teeth", and I don't think that he would. He definitely seems to benefit from her input, though. I don't feel like their relationship is very balanced in that. There's plenty of lore to back up him getting and using advice from her, and it being helpful to him, but I haven't seen much the other way around. He's immature in a way that she isn't, and people seem to think she's going to settle for that.

I don't care who people ship or what their headcanons are, that's all their own business. If I don't like it, it's not like I'm going off on their blogs in the space they've made themselves about why I don't agree with them. I prefer to just back off a bit, let them have their space and I'll have mine. But I don't always see that respect going both ways, and it starts to really bother me when people try to project their headcanons onto other blogs and onto the developers. Almost anything I see of them independently, it seems someone has to show up with "but where's [the other one]", and I've seen shippers go after multiple people for asking that their fanart of the two isn't tagged as ship art. It's just overstepping at that point.

Of course, I don't like lumping a bunch of people under the single label of drifteris shippers and calling them all a problem, I'm well aware that it's probably a loud minority silent majority type situation and I'm not going to assume someone's like that just because that's their content. But a lot (that I've seen) are.

On the misogyny part, I've definitely seen it in some. I'm a guy, so I'm probably not going to have the world's best explanation of why, but what gets to me is mostly the over-romanticism of Eris as his quirky goth gf. It's dumb and often comes off as objectifying. Sometimes it's like people think she's some edgy egirl twitch streamer. I find it strange how much fanart of her changes her appearance too, given we can barely actually see her. And sometimes it winds up painting Drifter as this douchy dudebro that he just isn't. One of the best things about his character to me is that he has his attitude without the shit treatment of women that comes along with it with most similar characters in games. I don't understand the need to turn around and twist him into someone that pushes her boundaries, which is pretty necessary to read their arguments as flirting.

I don't know what else to say, it's late and I'm tired and I'll probably feel stupid for letting myself get wrapped up in fandom discourse but I might as well say it while the conversation is happening.

(adding in case you do post this) v

No shade to shippers that don't fit the description I've put here. If you're reading this and go "Hey! I don't do that!" then obviously I don't mean you. You're all just doing what makes you happy and, hey, go for it. Tumblr is a great place for that. It's only an issue (imo) when that crosses the line into expecting everyone else to have the same headcanons or ignore what is canon. Go make art and fanfic and whatever you want, there's plenty of people who will appreciate it. I'm glad the positive side of the ship fanbase helps boost both of their stories, I hope it winds up driving Bungie to put more content in of them, together or apart.

Thank you for the thoughtful message Anon. Honestly I cosign all of this and wish I could respond to each of your points, but will at least try to cover a few of the ones that hit most with me.

Replies under the cut, since this is a long one ...

I think a lot of people have gone and manic-pixie-dream-girl’d Eris beyond recognition

I've thought about this for awhile. Eris is frequently written as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl insofar as being the offbeat catalyst for a jaded man's journey to a better version of himself.

He seems like the type to tease people that way regardless of gender or attraction to them.

Whether you ship them or not, it's odd seeing Drifter's canon characterization as a recklessly charismatic flirt lost in fanon. That special significance is placed on his flirtation with Eris, and not with the Guardian, Orin, Efrideet, or Rahool, or the others I'm probably forgetting.

Of course, the Guardian is a blank slate the player can project motives onto, and the others are characters whose interactions with Drifter are limited to lore. His & Eris' interactions stand out. That still doesn't mean it's inherently romantic; I've platonically flirted, held hands, snuggled, danced, bed-shared, and other things fans would dedicate thousands of words of shipfic to were I a fictional character.

Though reading it as such is fine (and I'll concede, probably lines up with the authors' intent, since we know some of them are shippers), nothing in the lore is explicitly romantic. Note, authorial intent, word-of-god and canon are all separate things, as much as fandom conflates them.

An aside, it's interesting how fanon surrounding Drifter paints him as socially anxious, touch starved, romantically awkward ... until he meets Eris. While I understand the utility in shipping — to emphasize the One True Love aspect since serial monogamy, much less polyamory, is unknown to most, especially F/M, shippers — it also comes off as "did not read the lore" at best, and "perpetuating negative stereotypes about Asian men" at worst.

Can either of them have friends at their level of stability? I genuinely don’t know.

This is why Eris' and Drifter's dynamic peaked in Arrivals & Beyond Light. The tenuousness of their alliance, the acceptance and rejection of each other's flaws, the trust between them that wasn't earned but necessary to survive. It was fun, tense and compelling and I wish more of the fandom focused on this era of their relationship.

I don’t like the idea that they’re going to magically have their trauma cured by dating each other.

Cosigned. The idea that love can mend any wound, heal any trauma, or fix any flaw is textbook amatonormativity, and has unfortunate implications when applied to Eris' story. I shouldn't have to detail why "woman overcomes trauma with the affection of a man" leaves a bad taste in my and many other fans' mouths, especially when it's favored over her longer-standing relationships with other characters. Why is her bond with Ikora ignored? Zavala? Asher? Mara? Why is so much of her growth pinned on one man, when there are other, deeper relationships that have existed since practically the beginning of Destiny's narrative? Why is there so little shipping surrounding Eris and these other characters?

Almost anything I see of them independently, it seems someone has to show up with “but where’s [the other one]”, and I’ve seen shippers go after multiple people for asking that their fanart of the two isn’t tagged as ship art.

I don't typically engage with popular Destiny ships, but I draw Mara Sov frequently. By herself, and, frequently, in non-Marasjur pairings. Not once have I gotten a "Where's Sjur?" comment, or even a "Where's Shaxx?" for that matter, as pushy as the "helmet stayed on" bros are. Meanwhile, I expect these comments when posting Eris art, particularly Eris F/F. I've had this happen in art I've drawn of her and Drifter with a disclaimer that the art is platonic/not to tag as ship! At that point it's not misunderstanding, it's entitlement.

I don’t like lumping a bunch of people under the single label of drifteris shippers and calling them all a problem

Agreed. I'm technically an Eris/Drifter shipper in the sense of consuming and producing art & fic for them, though I've pulled back from interacting with that part of the fandom because [waves hands generally]. I have no issues with drifteris as a ship, nor enmity drifteris shippers as a whole, but the individuals who engage in rude behavior.

what gets to me is mostly the over-romanticism of Eris as his quirky goth gf.

I'm going to repost what @/unsaelig said, since it's a salient point:

"I have no actual way of proving this, but given how much it’s been a staple, for the past 9 years, to speak of Eris as an unpleasant, unstable, worrying, suspicious individual, and given how much people like to fixate on how Eris & Drifter’s dynamic “softens” her and makes her more palatable and conventional, I do strongly feel Drifter is probably brought up with her as a “package deal” so often because in their eyes he “defangs” her & makes her much easier to take."

I do think there's a popular fandom read on Drifter as a funny, quirky guy who's a little out-of-pocket, an edgier fandomified-and-flanderized Cayde-6, if you will, and that Eris has to naturally follow by being an inoffensively gothy dommy mommy. It's perplexing, it's objectifying, and it makes me wonder what people are actually shipping them for if they sand down their characterization so much.

I don’t understand the need to turn around and twist him into someone that pushes her boundaries, which is pretty necessary to read their arguments as flirting.

The misogyny - amatonormativity combo again. Before anyone comes for me because I like enemies-to-lovers: sword-fighting your beloved to the death over a pit of lava isn't normalized, but saying that boys who bully girls are "just flirting" is. "I hate my wife", "I wish my husband was dead" and "ol' ball and chain" 'jokes' are. The patriarchy instructs men to disrespect women, and tells women to be flattered by the disrespect of men because at least you're receiving a man's attention. It's neither cute nor funny, and I equally dislike it when empoweringly reversed so that the man is the target of the insult.

No shade to shippers that don't fit the description I've put here. If you're reading this and go "Hey! I don't do that!" then obviously I don't mean you.

Cosigned completely. I know I have reputation as an arch-hater, but I have nothing but respect for people who are shipping them in ways that don't play into tired stereotypes of M/F relationships. (Or misogyny, or racism, or...)

Sometimes I wonder if I should try to put more good Eris/Drifter out there, but most of the time I fear I would only be stemming the tide; I am just one person with limited resources, and there is so much out there that my work will go unnoticed and my time is better spent boosting small ships that need the help.

Mostly I wish there was more focus on Eris and Drifter as individuals, in the game and in the fandom, further exploration of their bonds with other characters, and an environment where a wider range of gen and ship fic/art could flourish.

[blubushie]

blu i need to bitch because this discourse pops up every two months and the tf2 fandom is pissing me off as usual.

someone on twt was bitching about medicpauling because people still take a joke tweet by pinkerton to mean that pauling is a canon lesbian even though valve has never stated that anywhere in the source material whatsoever.

they even said that medic is "heavily implied to be a gay man" and i feel like im going insane bc how did u even come to that conclusion. heavily implied gay where??? who told you this lil bro. if anything he is implied bisexual because the official comic artist drew him with a wife but funny how people always choose to conveniently ignore that. it's giving bi erasure.

ppl just rlly hate bisexuals in general but no one is ready for that conversation.

It's just bi erasure yeah. People do not like us and prefer to pretend we just don't exist. This is coming from a bisexual man who on some days (and quite often) swings full into gay and feels no attraction to anyone who isn't a man. If you're bisexual you're something tainted—look at the concept of gold star lesbians. You're not considered "pure" unless you're a man who's never slept with a woman, or a woman who's never slept with a man. Bisexuals are too close to heterosexual and the queer community hates us for it, so at worst they're extremely biphobic (see the "Straight+" discourse from a few years back where people insisted that bisexuals were just straight people experimenting or some shit) and at best they pretend we don't exist at all 🤷‍♂️

In my experience gay men don't seem to care much if you've slept with a chick. Lesbians can be fucking vicious though. A lot of them REALLY hate men and any woman who's ever slept with a man is now tainted somehow, even if she's had to sleep with a few men to decide she's a lesbian. It's just radfem/terf shit (you know these are the same lesbians bitching about trans women). To any lesbian who's faced this shit, I am so sorry. Sleeping with men hasn't invalidated you, don't let those kinds of people get under your skin cuz they're not worth your time.

I don't reckon the tweet by Jay was necessarily a joke tweet—I think it's more that he'd like her to be a lesbian, said as much, but he's just one writer on a group project and doesn't speak for Valve. The tweet was deleted and I imagine that was done for a reason—imo it's most likely he caught some flak from Valve for it, whether because it was spoilers on their project or because he was speaking something as canon that they hadn't green-lit.

Medic is implied to be at the least bisexual though yeah—Demo mentions his wife in-game. Artists can draw what they like though, so I'm not taking non-canon art from an artist as canon unless Valve confirms it.

Honestly wish people worried less about "waaaah muh labels" and just enjoyed their ships or shut the fuck up. It's annoying lmao

[amazingdeadfish]

Got any other fav ships besides shadowpuppets? Not that I don't like them.. I was just wondering, cus there are ~other~ toxic co worker pairings 👀👀

Hmmm... I'm not that much of a multi shipper but I do find some ships 'interesting'!

Toxicinsanity (Mayor X Syntax) is always a fun one. I love the art and the angst that goes with it. I mean, Mayor literally kills Syntax so anything healthy coming out from it is a bit of a far stretch. I talked about it in another ask recently but yeah this ship is good lol.

But the idea of a healthy relationship being a far stretch is the same with shadowpeach (Wukong x Macaque) for me. I mean, I kind of like it? I see the appeal (I won't pass up their gay monkey content). But with the way the characters have been established as of right now (pre season five) I cannot see Wukong and Macaque fully reconciling with each other and making full amends for their wrong doings against each other. Even if the idea of these two becoming as close as they used to be before the attack on the celestial realm seems too strange for me. Some relationships can't be repaired. But honestly the idea that the two were childhood lovers or had crushes on each other before the falling out is really sweet so I'll give it that.

Destiny bones (Mayor x LBD) is a ship I would love if not for how LBD literally just replaces Mayor with Wukong in S3 Finale. But honestly given how LBD was literally going to die if she didn't do that I'm pretty sure Mayor would forgive her (I mean, I doubt LBD could do anything for any reason to make them not worship her anymore). And, to be honest, if she really did want to replace the Mayor with a more powerful servant, then she probably would have already gotten rid of him when she regained her hold on Macaque. But anyways, I love the dynamic of LBD having so much control over Mayor and what that could mean for their relationship. I can definitely see Mayor being in love with LBD (in all the ways possible), it's just the idea of LBD loving Mayor in turn which makes me contemplate it a little. I mean, I just don't see LBD as someone who would invest in a romantic relationship? Or any relationship at all? Not because she is heartless but because she has dedicated her life to her destiny. She does not have time to pursue personal attachments. All in all, another not really healthy relationship (in which they are low-key co-workers/partners in crime) but it makes my brain turn/pos! Boss and henchman dynamic for the win!!!

And now for some honourable mentions (might be updated when I think of some more opinions)!:

Silktea (Sandy x Huntsman) - Read a few fanfics and seen fan art, I like it but Cyberhunt (Syntax x Huntsman) has grabbed my brain a little bit more solely because it is in fact, a toxic co-worker dynamic LMAO.

Dragonfruit (Mei x Red Son) - This beats spicynoodles for me ngl. I think it's just because the dynamic between these two is stronger and they have more moments together. But then again, I think the Traffic Light Trio are better off as good friends.

BrokenBonesTrio (Macaque x Syntax x Mayor) - This isn't necessarily a ship but the dynamic between these guys is so funny lmao. None of them are normal and so they will not do normal things.

Freenoodles (Pigsy x Tang) - Also really sweet to me, I just, love those two. I know that Lego will probably never officially make them canon but I think it's just a given that the two are in a relationship, married or not. Sometimes the coding in the writing is enough.

Syntax x Shoe Store Worker - An inside joke between me and a mutual of mine but it's a very silly crack ship.

Regardless, none of these ships will top Shadowpuppet for me. I rest my case.

[irldiancie]

All Kagehina “proof” I know of

Ok i wasnt gonna post this but ive been told by a friend to explain why some might ship Kagehina so... try me. i dont exactly ship this myself but lets just say im a pro when it comes to this topic also it's not as bad as i thought it was there are worse ships idk why i was a hater also i lowkey got some of this from shipping wiki but most of it i knew already, plus NOT ALL OF THIS IS NECESSARILY REFERENCES TO THE SHIP it kinda just adds on to it anyways lets just get into it

ok so starting with common knowledge i think everyone knows that Hinata is the protagonist followed with Kageyama being the deuteragonist, they get the most screen time together and are pretty much paired MOST of the series, we get a lot of content with them together while also getting content of them on their own, they're known as the "freak duo," the "greatest teammates" and like 100 other names they've been called I've seen a lot of people intemperate their relationship wrong, I've seen a few say Kageyama was downright "abusive" to Hinata which I think is a little farfetched, but to each their own! They genuinely do care for each other and it shows, even at the end of the manga you can tell how far their relationship has come, even if they consider themselves rivals, they are without a doubt still friends Now a lot of people have said "well they're not gay they're just friends", while this is true, it has been referenced/implied officially in many places, including manga panels and english dubs, so while it isn't canon there is a few cute things about it which we know are official which is why I'm sharing this, I myself know it isn't canon, plus I didn't really make this to prove anything it was kinda for fun sorry if that made little to no sense but I'll start getting into more interesting stuff 1. at the tip of the iceberg we have the fact they're in so much official art together

theres like a 1000 more of these btw theyre often put near eachother even in official arts not based off them

I have like 1k more of these but i have more proof than this but i think you get my point some of this is probably promo art but that's also considered official art so 2. moving on i think another known one is that Ukai calls them lovebirds ONE TIME in English dub and I have no idea who approved that but I think it's funny and obviously this probably meant nothing but take it as you want video of it here 3. this is kinda randomly thrown in but the fact that they also trust eachother, they've mentioned it a couple times but I think it's nice to know 4. i dont remember when this was or what chapter or something but kageyamas grandfather said "somebody even better will come for you", which just happened to be Hinata of course 5. ALSO after that whole fight scene back in season two, Hinata says this

he didnt really consider kageyama as a friend, but he considered him a partner which i believe is more important to hinata. teammates/partners were always something Hinata wanted, as before he went to Karasuno, he didn't feel like his friends in Junior high were necessarily teammates. Meaning he valued Kageyama more because he was his partner.

(credits to triananero for these images) and when him and Kageyama started working together, they most definitely were perfect together, as they balanced each-other out, which made them become an unstoppable duo or whatever they called them 6. the fact that they have matching jersey numbers 9 and 10 moving on to less canon stuff, there is a light novel of Haikyuu called Haikyū!! Shōsetsuban!! which probably isnt close to canon but Furudate was a part of it even though it wasn't written by him, so it's at least somewhat official 7. anyway according to shipping wiki there is a chapter where Kageyama feels "fluttery feelings at the bottom of his stomach" when Hinata texts him, it's on volume 8 chapter 1, I REALLY WANTED TO SHOW YOU GUYS BUT I COULDNT FIND IT ANYWHERE ONLINE. i searched countless tumblr posts and websites but i could only find chapter five and chapter three so im fully convinced this is lost media LMAOOOO 8. also in Haikyū!! Shōsetsuban!! apparently there's a part where Hinata daydreams about him and Kageyama eating under cherry blossom trees i just found that cute AS MUCH AS I WANNA SHOW YOU GUYS I LITERALLY CANNOT FIND ANYTHING OF THIS LIGHT NOVEL ANYWHERE i just know it's real, if I ever get my hands on it which I doubt, I'll share proof it exists btw AND THIS IS REALLY RANDOM AND SOMEONE WANTED ME TO INCLUDE THIS BUT 9. Basically there was a ad for deodorant a couple years back, collabing with Haikyuu, where you could buy deodorants to “smell like them” or whatever, some shippers believe it’s a Kagehina reference as they also advertised Kageyama and Hinatas scents together as some like matching couple thing

and then there's this

And I think I've said enough, there's way more you can find out about this ship, but I hope with this post you've learned something new or whatever... I MIGHT MAKE THIS A SERIES should i do kenhina next or kuroken ANYWAYS DISCLAIMER I didnt look too much into most of these things but I can gaurentee this stuff is true also this was just for fun and not serious but i hope you liked my little post!

[ballcrusher74]

hello. are you. perhaps 👉👈 willing to talk about the inspector/faux. ive only seen cool arts and no context so im rather curious.

OK!!! I actually love rambling about my ocs so small questions like this make me day. I just get nervous LOL But! I will say, there's gonna probably be a bit I'm leaving out because it does involve my friends' characters and it's still an on-going thing atm (we tend to roleplay on lethal company as our guys. btw the oc group is called Cleanup Crew ! it explains the recent reblogs and new tags I've added on posts with this guy) AND this does also involve my own little interpretations of in-game mechanics and other things, but otherwise, I'll get the rest of him down!

Inspector, also originally known by the name of Terrance Conroy (or Terry), was a typical scavenger working under 'The Company' after a couple rough times on his home planet. (This information isn't necessarily set in stone, but the idea of him being a washed-up rock star before quitting his passion to get a job that pays his rent has been bouncing around in my brain.) He used to be a normal guy, trying to find a little hope in his desperate situation, and was a social butterfly. He tend to bounce from crew to crew, sometimes staying in some for only a couple days, and some for months. He was a very careful man, and looked out for his fellow crew members.

And then, one day, his first death on the job happens.

But instead of being greeted by a bright white light at the end of a tunnel, or complete pitch darkness, he appears on the ship again- completely physically fine.

This.. confuses him at first, yet he continues on.

And then he dies again. And again, and again. Over and over, the more deaths he's endured, the more he comes to a morbid realization that he can't truly die, nor can those around him. He tries to keep this truth hidden away from the others, as they seem to not have mentioned it at all before. He remembers everything. Every time he was ripped to shreds by an eyeless dog, every time he blew up into pieces from a landmine, every time he was shot multiple times, every time he was left behind or ejected as part of the disciplinary process- He felt it all and remembered it all. This goes on for the course of years (around 8-10 roughly) and over that course of time, he begins to grow very careless. What's the point of saving someone if they'll just come back? What's the use of tears when you're only a couple dollars off quota with a shovel in hand?

What's the point of it all? And with that carelessness comes selfishness into the picture. With how long he's been stuck in the cycle, he has become a very manipulative person, putting up a playful and nice persona on the outside- almost sickeningly sweet- in order to help other's do his bidding. He believes that if he were to cause so much chaos, disorder, and disruption within a crew, to where it's like animals mauling each other apart, he'd be able to break free from it himself. He doesn't care anymore about leaving others behind. He's desperate at this point to find a way out. Faux, who is an alter ego / disguise for Inspector, ties more into the on-going events right now, but I can give a basic rundown on his personality. He's a klutzy and quiet man, typically only talking to others when it's just him and them, and nobody else around, playing himself off as a selective mute. Since this is just Inspector in a jazzy little jester outfit, he still possesses all the traits of that man, just hidden away as to not blow his cover. He's still tugging on the strings in some way, people just don't realize. Sure, he's off putting and just a tad bit strange, but how can a goofy man like that be terrifying?

WOOOW ok that's a lot more typing than expected, but here's also a couple fun facts about the guy !

He stands at 6 feet and 1 inch, and is a very lanky guy compared to others, but this wasn't always the case. He used to just stand at 5 feet and 6 inches, and had more normal human proportions. With how many times he has died and how long it's been of the cycle, it has fucked up his appearance a LOT. Other things include : his 'skin' being grey, his voice constantly sounding like it's coming from a walkie talkie, no visible neck, his face becoming the helmet itself (it still bleeds, but there's nothing in there), and inhumanly flexible.

The only thing left of him that represents his last strand of humanity, is a singular, dim eye behind the tape on his visor.

He is very much not a rational man anymore. He is quick to jump to things, and won't hesitant with his actions.

When waiting to return from death, he is able to manifest in someone's head as a disembodied voice, and will typically mock them, or try and manipulate them further. In this state, he can see everything through the eyes of the person he's haunting. ^ Fun fact about this! This was originally based off a stupid bit where my friend was streaming LC to me with other buddies on the game and I kept telling them to step on landmines and then kill someone for a promotion, and then Inspector was born!

and UH I think that's about it I have for the guy atm! If the rest of the cleanup crew gets dropped than I'll update this accordingly perhaps. As of right now, enjoy my oc slop 👍

[sno4wy]

Did you seriously drop that much money to try to make your awful ship more valid? Guess what? You didn't, hope you enjoyed wasting a ton of money. It doesn't matter how much money you pay, you and your lame friends will always be the only ones who prefer your fugly builder with Miguel. Just give it up and go jump off a bridge already.

Hey Anon, based on the three messages you sent me today, it seems that my sharing of my commission from Momodeary in the official Pathea Discord server really upset you. Your rage felt really familiar to me, and I thought about this a lot about why. I'm going to hazard a guess that you're lashing out at me more than usual because of the price aspect, especially for something that seems so frivolous. I get it -- I grew up in abject poverty, and I harbored a lot of rage about it both directly and indirectly for many years. It really sucks not having the money to do what you need, or even what you want, and it can feel like having salt rubbed into the wound when someone else shows off some pricey non-necessity that they got. Everyone deserves to get what brings them joy, as long as it isn't something that causes harm to others, and it sucks that capitalism/corporations/societal structure/etc make most people unable to attain that. I sincerely hope that things improve for you.

I'm fortunate now to do well enough for myself that I can afford a pricey commission like the one that I shared. I got the commission because I like Momodeary's art style, it's not a style that I see myself personally doing, and I'm making it up to myself now for all the things that I couldn't do in the past. I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to say it was to support the artist, as she has tons of clients and certainly didn't need my money, I'm really lucky to have been able to get a slot with her. If you have the means to do so and want to, I really suggest contacting her directly -- the worst thing she can say is no, but more likely is that she'll put you on an (admittedly long) waitlist. The point is, if you're upset about not being able to get a commission from her, don't write it off until you try. Worse comes to worst, she can't fit you in, but there are tons of skilled artists out there with similar styles that you can commission instead. It's ok though if you have your heart set on Momodeary, most artists are very accommodating as long as the client is understanding and willing to wait.

If your anger has to do with not being able to afford a commission from Momodeary, I'm really sorry about that. There are some ways that I can help, if not directly to get you a commission, but perhaps means to address the funds shortage issue. I managed to claw my way out of poverty, and in the process picked up more than a few ideas and tricks, however at the end of the day, there is no magical get rich quick scheme, and everything that you hear about how to find a job is sadly mostly true. For instance, a good resumé is an integral part to finding a job, and a big part of what makes a resumé good is proper formatting. Having gone from someone who sent out hundreds of resumés to someone who's had to review hundreds of resumés, I can tell you that so much of the time, it's a lot less about the contents of the resumé and more about its appearance. Countless qualified, heck, overqualified, people get turned down for positions because their resumés don't even get looked at. I'm happy to look over a resumé if you'd like, and of course I'd understand if you need to anonymize most of it before showing me. Please note that it is sadly the case that having a good resumé, or in many cases, all the correct qualifications, don't necessarily guarantee you a job. Connections are at least, if not more, important, so don't be shy about asking for help from friends and family in this aspect.

Finding and securing a job can be a long-term project though, so picking up some side hustles might be a good way to generate some income, especially as you can keep these side hustles after finding a job. A lot of people have even done so well with their side hustles that they were able to make them into their careers. I'm happy to make suggestions, but I'm afraid that my knowledge is chiefly confined to the US and my ideas may not be applicable or workable in other countries. I have found however that a fairly universal way to generate some income via a side hustle is through selling crocheted items. Crochet is very quick and easy to learn and master, and yarn is very cheap, especially if you get store brands like Joann's Big Twist. Red Heart Super Saver is also very cheap yarn that comes in a ton of colors. There are countless free patterns on the internet, and ones that aren't free tend to be pretty cheap, generally within the $5 range. It is totally legal to sell the stuff you make from purchased patterns; some patterns even explicitly state that this is the case. The best part about crochet is that you can do it while doing other stuff, like commuting to your job, watching a show, listening to music, etc. It's totally possible to churn out a ton of crochet animals (amigurumi) in one day. Dipping into fandom stuff by making characters from a certain franchise is a great way to sell crochet products. Another really cool thing is that there doesn't currently exist a way for crocheted items to be mass produced; while there are items that look crocheted, they're actually sewn together pieces and not true crochet. Machines can't currently make crocheted items. Buyers looking for real crochet products want something that only a human can make.

Online marketing tools are also pretty solid. Etsy is the way to go for handmade crafts, although they do take a pretty hefty fee (15%). You can try to cut down on that fee by listing on your own social media, in which case you'd still have to pay a 3-5% handling fee for payment processors, and it can be a pain trying to beat social media algorithms. If you're handy with TikTok, that's a great way to boost awareness of your brand, and you can use those same videos as Reels on Instagram and Facebook to get your accounts noticed faster.

If you're an artist, you could of course always try to go the commissions route, but I've found that this is a much harder uphill battle than trying to break into the scene marketing crochet goods. If you do decide to give crochet a shot, I really recommend investing in a quality hook -- Clover Armour is many crocheters' go-to. They are pricy, around $9 for a hook, but they last forever and they're super comfortable to use. You only need one to start -- I recommend the size G (4.0 mm) one, as that goes with the most common yarn weight for a lot of amigurumi. Big Twist and Red Heart Super Saver are also both Worsted weight yarn, for which you use a G hook. If this is something you really want to do but are really tight on funds, I'm happy to get one of those hooks for you, just tell me how to get it to you.

I have a lot of other ideas for possible side gigs, which all will require a lot of work, but will return income. However, I'd just be spitballing, so hit me up if you want to talk shop. You know where to find me. ;P

[artsandstoriesandstuff]

The pain of fixating on a character not on art fight that no one will be drawing until they get up there... :,)

Anyway. Crappy artist rendition of the two from earlier!

These are Walt Peters (or Pete Waters or. Idk.) and Bonnibel!

Walt is a detective from maybe the 20s-50s that, out of curiosity, powered on a time machine project from a high schooler and wound up in the 21st century. He's a cold -too cold, sometimes- and calculating guy. Over the course of the series he does learn to have a heart... but the emotions sometimes get in way of his work, in his opinion.

Bonnie (or Bo. Or Bon) is a seemingly ditzy woman from a big city that is one of the first people Walt comes across. However, as previously mentioned she may not be as stupid as she often comes across and this more intelligent side shows further in the series. She has a '60s aesthetic. While at the beginning it's unknown if she traveled from the past too, she may have a deeper connection to one of Walt's cases...

Walt meets Bonnibel at some sort of important building. I know that they become detective partners at some point but I don't know how yet. I do know that Walt is often fed up with Bon's work ethic, but doesn't necessarily hate her, and Bo just really likes working with him. Eventually the big important case shows up but it becomes really hard to work on due to Walt's newly developed feelings for Bonnie. (not specifically that the romance gets in the way! Also speaking of romance though I do ship them I don't think the romance is a main plot point this time. Sorry.)

Design tidbits!

Walt

Walt has arms. And hands! I just find it fun drawing him without 'em. When he's in his detective suit he has black gloves on, nothing fancy.

His coat is supposed to have 3 buttons on it.

His hat is also a taller rendition of the deerstalker (the Holmes hat... look it up!)

Unless he's at home or in a generally comfortable place, Walt doesn't tend to take off his coat. He will, though, add accessories such as a tie or a scarf if the situation calls for it. I always draw him with the hat though.

His face in always in shadow (probably even without the hat). One of his eyes is generally squinted at all times, and his eyes can become more or less stretched depending on the emotion (this means he has NO EYELIDS unless his eyes are fully closed. His eyes show the emotions, not the eyelids or brows.)

The smaller eye generally is the opposite of the direction he's facing. Not necessary if he's looking forward.

Bonnibel

Bonnie has big hair! It isn't overtly big like a beehive, but it isn't really flat like Bel's either.

Oh and freckles. I decided to add them to make her a little more distinct!

She tends to have jewelry on! Mostly bracelets and earrings, though. She doesn't tend to wear necklaces.

She also likes to switch out these jewelries!

She is a very expressive woman! (Close to Enid levels of expressive) Feel free to stretch her emotions more!

Fitting with her accessories she also likes to have many outfits! They're generally 60s too but she has a few modern items in there. (she's kinda like enid but a little psychotic wait what who said that

So why the heck do I include all this information? Well:

Currently I can't get a good laptop photo for the life of me and

I really really want someone to draw them on art fight

That's all I have of them for now. I'm still thinking of a name but I feel like this would work well as an adult swim and/or cartoon network thing, or a webcomic. Both?

Also as much as I want them to get along I feel like these two would have serious beef with the Robo Sleuths.

If you read all this please let me know what you think of them!!! :)

[brw]

5 headcanons about Beast!

5 headcanons about Wonder Man!

And for an encore, 5 Wonderbeast headcanons. :)

For Hank!

Really enjoys cooking but does so extremely rarely because of the whole fur thing. Sometimes he'll just stand behind someone in the kitchen with his arms crossed like an Italian father at a construction site so he can feel involved. Jarvis quite liked having the company.

Has a quite deep voice, particularly when singing. My explanation is that he sings Sinatra in the tub and Sinatra's a baritone, and you know Hank has had enough karaoke nights to know his range.

We've never seen it but I choose to believe he visited Wanda and Vision and the twins at least once! Definitely brought a large collection of books that were way too advanced for some 8 month olds but justified that they'd be old enough for them eventually. It affected him more than he's ever really articulated that they never got to that age, because they were the first superhero couple he really knew to have a family.

I think the Scottish side of his family is from Nairn and I think he visited there once as a child and absolutely hated it but couldn't say this and slightly dreads the thought of ever going there again (his mistake was visiting over Christmas. Nairn in Winter is fucking miserable)

He's an anonymous patron to various art galleries and museums, along with Charles Xavier. Talking to each other about art is the closest Hank feels to Charles and is something he values to try and remind himself of all the good Charles has done for him and all the opportunities he's given him (said through gritted teeth)

And for SIMON.

Played the violin from a young age. This wasn't something he was necessarily forced to do but it was something he kept up for far longer than he would have liked to because of his fear of disappointing his father etc. He's still quite good at it but doesn't make a habit of playing. Eric was taught the piano and if Simon does ever play he's always imagining piano keys accompanying it.

To go with Hank, sings in a surprisingly high pitched register despite his actual voice not being that high. It just makes sense these two would match each other very well for karaoke. Does this count as a Wonderbeast headcanon. Oh well.

Puts on a kind of generic Californian accent most of the time but slips into that run-on, very fast-paced Transatlantic when he speaks to Eric and Vision. Occasionally Hank, if he's not watching himself, and it's something he's oddly self-conscious about.

Every time he returns from death his powers seem to jump forward. Part of his long standing fear of death was the knowledge that it came with him becoming more and more unrecognisably human. Going off the 90s Wonder Man solo, he probably should be able to stop time if he thought about it next time he dies but luckily for everyone he's not going to think about it.

The very few times something penetrates his ionic skin, the underneath glows a harsh magenta until he can concentrate on covering it up with human-appearing skin.

And finally! <3

They do each other's ties before any formal function. I think this started proper at Simon's first premiere and I think the few times they ever did stuff like that during Hank's feline form it's something Simon took very seriously and Hank was very emotionally touched by like the sap he is.

They would be extremely pretentious about their vinyl collection together. Sarah Vaughan is the soundtrack to every lazy Sunday morning.

They can't watch movies together because Simon takes a kind of perverse joy in telling Hank what assholes some actors are to work with or like background rumours and it completely distracted from what Hank calls his cinematic experience.

Simon isn't allowed to go shopping alone because once he bought an entire aisle's worth of eggs because he doesn't know how either shopping or the food requirements of ordinary people works. Hank can no longer eat omelettes as a consequence.

Both of them have pretty good night vision so occasionally they'll be up late chatting or basking in comfortable silence and absolutely scare the absolute shit of some unwilling Avenger coming for a midnight snack and sees a pair of glowing red and yellow eyes hovering in the living room. They make an accident but very creepy pair. Or maybe it's not 100% accidental, who's to say.

[thatonebirdwrites]

Fandom creators tag game

1. What sort of content do you create, and what is the thing you’ve made that you’re most proud of?

I write stories. Usually original science fiction, but in the past two years, I've branched into fanfiction. I also create art and music.

I'm damn proud of my rewrite of Book 2 of Legend of Korra in my Shared Moments series.

I wish I could find a publisher for my original fiction; then I could share what I'm most proud of but alas. The publishing market is incredibly hard to get into and I don't have the health to self-publish, so we'll go with the Korrasami tales for now. For art, I'm damn proud of this piece I did of Lena.

2. What fandom(s) do you create for?

Korrasami from Legend of Korra.

Supercorp from CW's Supergirl

Rojarias from CW's Supergirl.

3. What is your current favourite ship (or brotp if you prefer), and how controversial is it?

Korrasami. Not controversial much at all. (As a side note, Supercorp feels like an angstier Korrasami. Might be why I like that ship equally well. Supercorp doesn't seem controversial?)

4. For your answer to question 3, are they canon?

Yes, Korrasami is canon. (Supercorp isn't necessarily canon, but there's so much evidence of it in the show that it might as well be.)

5. What was your first fandom, and how old were you?

First fandom I created something for? Or first fandom where I dived into and read everything I could? Because if it's read everything I could, then it's Star Wars before Disney threw out the old Canon (still salty about that). I'd have been pretty young -- still a kid when I was devouring all the Star Wars books. I didn't have any favorite ship though while I did this.

For something I created, Korrasami was the first one I wanted to create art and writing for to be honest. That was three years ago when I started writing Korrasami.

6. What is your most unhinged fandom creation to date?

Oh, that's a Supercorp one. I was inspired by a weird camera glitch, and wrote an unhinged horror set after season 6. The first part of it is in tumblr. I have yet to publish to AO3 mostly because I want to finish more of it before I do. Sort of loosely based on Lovecraft's Color out of Space.

7. Do you remember what started you off creating fandom content, and if so, what was it?

Three years ago I first started drawing and writing Korrasami. Then I branched out into Supercorp.

8. Do you let people you know in real life see your fandom creations?

Only my trusted friends and siblings.

9. How do you feel about fanworks of fanworks? Has anyone ever made something based on a thing you made?

If anyone did, they have never shared it with me. I would love to see it, and I'd treasure it always!

Though if I'm being honest. I doubt I'll ever get fanworks. Why would anyone go to that much trouble for something I wrote? I doubt anything I write is worth that much.

10. What feeling do you most often try to evoke with your creations?

I want to show possible healing journeys that aren't the most painful angstfest known to humanity. I want people to feel the journey too, to capture the world within the character's senses so that their tale feels real.

Whether I achieve this, I have no idea. Some people have written very kind comments stating that I have, and I am delighted by those comments.

11. Has someone ever paid your work a compliment (in any form) that has stuck with you, and what was it?

Two people have said I made a place feel alive through the storytelling and worldbuilding I did. That compliment haunts me in all the best ways, and I have done my best to try to keep that tradition going.

12. What’s your favourite thing someone else has made that you’ve seen in the last 24 hours (and link it if you can find it again!)

It was a Supercorp art piece, but after searching, I can't seem to find it again. It was Lena leaning backwards into Kara's arms, while Kara gently holds her. Colored piece, digitally drawn I think. They look almost like they were swaying back and forth.

13. Give a small sneak preview of something you’re working on right now (eg a couple of sentences of fic from a WIP, a gif set theme, a small piece of a larger picture, whatever you feel happy to share)

Korrasami:

Korra looked at their entangled hands. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just some stitching.”

“And yet, that ‘some stitching’ made something wonderful.” Asami was determined to remind Korra of what she could do. It’d been her mantra for the past six months. She wanted Korra to regain her confidence, but it'd been difficult. Thanks to Asami's foolishness they'd both backslid.

Korra had called it Asami’s paranoia.

Maybe they were both right.

Supercorp:

Lena rises before dawn, prepares her corporate armor, and heads to her full-time job as CEO of L-Corp. Today’s agenda includes four meetings, one of them with the board, an hour of lab time, a brief lunch, and a visit to Florence in late afternoon.

It’s the visit with Florence that troubles her the most. The exposure to the strange artifact gave her unsettling dreams, and she woke in a cold sweat after a particularly gruesome one. In that one, she’d had no control over her body, only watched in horror as another person used her abilities to harm all she loved.

Kara had woken too, and her gentle reassurances had helped Lena fall back asleep, this time with no dreams.

Diving into work to escape the nightmares is how she copes. Perhaps not the healthiest, but undoing all her bad coping mechanisms will take far longer than just admitting they exist.

Rojarias:

Tomorrow morning? Sam reeled from the news. That gave her very little time to pack and prepare Ruby for Sam being gone a week or two.

Yet here she was again, unable to say no. Especially not when two beautiful women were looking at her expectantly.

Damn, Sam was too gay for this. “All right. Tomorrow it is.”

14. Have you ever seen/read anything made by the person who tagged you? If so, what was it and what was your favourite thing about it? (pick a favourite if there are several)

Yes, I have. I'm not entirely sure what exactly they published on AO3 however. I found the tiny Kara piece absolutely hilarious.

15. Do you leave comments on fandom works, and if so how would you describe your comment style?

I do leave comments, yes. I share my enjoyment of the piece, sections that really stood out to me, and/or an overall feeling I got from the piece. I'm trying to be more consistent about it since I know how much comments mean to me as a writer, and I know other writers enjoy them too!

16. How many works in progress do you currently have? Will you finish them all?

Original fiction: (on hiatus but I do plan on finishing) 3

Korrasami: 2 (plan on finishing them, yes).

Supercorp: 3 (yes, plan on finishing them.)

Rojarias: 1 (yes, I need to get on this as it's due next month actually).

Art for Supercorp: 1 (I also need to work on finishing this before the due date next month. I got the rough sketch and need to run it by the author to make sure it's what they want, before I go to town inking it).

17. what’s the longest it’s ever taken you to finish a fandom project?

Shared Moments: Books 1 through 3 (the finished ones) took me a year. A million words no less. Whew. I'm working on Book 3.5 now. I tend toward longer works, which takes a few months to complete.

My shorter fiction (the ficlets) take less than an hour usually.

For art, it takes me one to three weeks.

18. Describe the thing you made most recently in a way that is technically true, but also completely misleading. Link the thing if it’s published!

These paralleled kisses shake their world. (A chapter for Unraveling Realities)

19. Do you ever engage with fanworks for a fandom you’re not in? Which one(s) and how did you get into it?

I'm not really sure what counts as being "in" a fandom or not. If I enjoy something, I'll engage with it, but does the engagement mean I'm "in" the fandom now? Or do I have to create something and talk with others in the fandom to be considered "in?" How does this work?

20. Recommend a fan work from your fandom to your followers

I absolutely adore Make this your home by pcrtifacts so much I even made fanart for it. It's not finished, but it's regularly updated and so, so good.

Suggested tag list, but there are no rules here, follow your heart.

A mutual you have never actually spoken to but think seems cool -- All my mutuals are really cool! And I'd love to read more of their stuff. Thanks all of you for sharing your stuff!!

The most recent person whose content you engaged with (eg read a fic, reblogged art, whatever form you feel best fits) -- I'm not sure? Maybe the person I reblogged this from?

Someone whose content you saw via tags/reblogs and you followed them because of it @luthordamnvers (I honestly love the indepth knowledge of the show nic has, how willing to share that knowledge, nic's kindness, the fics they write. Honestly, all around wonderful person.)

Someone in your fandom that you think makes cool things @ekingston (Shape of Soup being my favorite plus the art is amazing.)

Someone in a different fandom that you think makes cool things (this is hard. I really only seem to follow or find Korrasami, Supercorp, and on rarer occasions Rojarias or Dansen. There's some Star Wars folks that do fun things, but I can't remember their usernames tho.)

Someone you always tag on things like this @nottawriter

Someone you have never tagged before (I can't remember who I tagged before, so I guess whoever wants to play this game?)

Someone you would like to get to know better @pcrtifacts (love, love their make this place your home fic. And chatting in comments with pcrtifacts has been lovely.)

Someone who makes art you like -- @snazzy-korra (honestly, she's an all around amazing person, and Iove all her art and chatting with her. So grateful for our chats too.)

Someone who writes fics you like: @fazedlight (I seriously love everything mel writes. It's all so damn good. I even wrote a fanfic continuation of a piece I really liked of mel's ficlets. First and only time I've ever done that.)

I suspect some of these people have been tagged multiple times. My apologies if so. But I did want y'all to know how you're appreciated and how much I enjoy your content too. :)