#tumblr you have no idea how much you've saved my life

[justsomesapphicbimbo]

Being north Indian and gay is a hell no one deserves. And it only gets worse during pride. Cuz it would be fine if it was only Instagram comments you had to avoid but yahan toh ghar se bahar nikalte hi lagta koi gunah kiya hai just cuz I exist. How am I supposed to have friends when most people my age (the so called dharmic and all loving) are also homophobic assholes.

Man sometimes I do wish I was straight.

[whore-ibly-hot]

THROUGH OUR LORD AND SAVIOR @yanderereblogs THE FACULTY HAVE BEEN FOYND AND RETURNED TO US! PRAISE BE TO REBLOGGERS, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ARCHIVISTS!

Yandere Boarding School Part 2, (Faculty)

18+ Minors DNI

Warnings: Multiple yanderes, non-con touching, dub-con, perverted thoughts, obsession, bullying, masturbation, aphrodisiacs, general perversion, dry-humping, voyeurism, controlling behaviors, typical yandere stuff, breeding, smoking, horny posting.

(AN: Part Two has been reuploaded after a takedown, godspeed @yanderereblogs for saving it! Mmmmmm, old men. Everyone pictured as a student is OF LEGAL AGE TUMBLR MODS HOP OFF MY DICK.

Background: Thinking about a Headmasters Son or Daughter!Reader at a private boarding school. For a Fem!Reader, perhaps you're just visiting daddy for the season while he's running the school, or maybe you've been bad, and need more supervision. For a Masc!Reader, it could be the same case, however, with Ridgemoore Academy being an all male school, this makes it easier to imagine a world where reader is allowed in the school. Now, let's focus on the faculty...

◇ Mr. Joel Murphy, who teaches the majority of the 'life skills' classes at the school. The school being all-boys is very traditional, and teaches things like game hunting and orienteering, which is why they hired a manly-man like Joel. If only they knew what a bitter grump he is. An ex-sheriff of the nearby town, he decided to leave the force after realizing there was no real crime in the small, privileged town, and decided to take up an easy job at the school. Unfortunately, he realized his love for camping and hunting is warped into what he considers 'frilly shit for rich little boys'. He's gruff, barking out orders and easily been exasperated at the sheer incompetence of the boys.

"Shoot one quail, and these boys act like they killed a bear..."

He thought about retiring from yet another job, as living on the ritzy campus just doesn't feel like home to him, and lord knows he's not fond of his job. However, things change when you arrive. Whether you're a delinquent or a little more sweet and obedient, he likes you. If you're a delinquent, he likes seeing a little hell-raiser kick up some shit at the fancy school. If you're sweet or shy, he gets protective. Nice youngins' like you shouldn't be thrown in amongst these spoiled weasels.

He's sure to help you if you need it, a gentle hand on your back as his burly chest presses against your shoulder blades, adjusting your position against the butt of a rifle. Standing by while you're on hands and knees trying to light a fire, making sure none of the boys are trying to get a look at your assessts. Not that he isn't going to, but he justifies it to himself as just making sure your school shorts/skirt is regulation. He's protecting your modesty. After class hours, come to him with any issues, or shit, even his room. He'll put on some coffee and ask you to help him create a curriculum that 'reaches the kids', as your father instructed him to. It's cozy, the fancy school adnorments thrown away for medals and plaques, national parks posters and a few old family photos. He'll keep you tucked in on his warm couch while he strays from curriculum talk to stories of his time in the scouts and on the force. Tells you about how much he loves just... laying out under the stars with somebody special, to sit around a campfire with friends, then slyly ask is you've ever had somebody to do that with. He knows you're younger than him, and he struggles with the idea that you won't want him cause of it, so for now, he'll bask in the feeling of seeing you curled up in his room, keeping the idea of picking you up and having you accept his cock to himself. If you can get pregnant, his fists his cock to the thought of that too. He's not some horned up boy, he wants you in the long term.

He looooooves the yearly orienteering final, in which the students in the class are made to go on an actual camping trip. It's possible a tent will 'accidentally' go missing, leaving you to bunk with him. Don't worry, nothing bads gonna happen while you've got this burly bear of a man practically spooning you, warm gut from his dad-bod pressed against you as he tries his best to make sure he doesn't scare you.

"Sorry those damn boys left your tent back at the school, kiddo. I... wouldn't be suprised of one of them did it on purpose, little bastards." He grumbles, hoping you'll take the hint to separate yourself from those immature preps and stick to being with a man who can treat you right. "Remember that lesson from a couple weeks ago, on body heat? I know it's awkward, but we've only got one sleeping bag. You feel like you can trust this old man to keep you warm?" Unfortunately for his ego and trying to keep down his urges, the trees aren't going to be the only wood in the morning.

◇ Mr. Paul Burton, head of the arts department. He's so over this, a once decent artist who dabbled in pop art and theatre only to stop getting gigs and be black-listed after offending several more famous artists, calling their work 'sell-out chic', he's now a burn-out who smokes and ignores his students all class. He's passionate about art, but frankly he doesn't want tow aste his time teaching when he knows these rats are taking his class for easy credit. He's only teaching here to utilize the facilities and studios so he's not living in a van in the Walmart parking lot. A mix of hippie culture, live and let live and cynical burnout, he's so. Fucking. Done. But... maybe you change that for him.

You're interesting, a headmasters child who doesn't fit in to your fathers perfect mold? Maybe a rebellious student who goes against the grain of this perfect school. Or a blooming ray of sunshine in this dark den of privilege and conformist curriculum for the future lawyers of the world. Either way, he's found a new muse. See him after class.

He'll be thrilled if you're into art, let him guide you. Tell him your favorite artists and he'll tell you when he threw up on there shoes by accident in his hey-day. Gossip about a student you don't like, he'll listen while he smokes and tell you about how that guys mom hit on him. He loves to gossip, but he loves to watch you create more. The way your hands shape a vase or brush across a canvas light a fire in him he hasn't felt in a while. He's more willing to forgo the age gap between you, while it's never something he considered before, he knows he's not gonna let go of the one thing that makes him feel like he lives again. Besides, he's always been unconventional.

He'll have you stay after class, maybe he'll have you pose nude for a painting, assuring you it's fins, it's platonic, it's just for the love of art. He chooses and extra large canvas, it lets him paint while he relieves himself as you explain you're getting cold. He'll put on some artsy, silent, black and white film from the 30s, and while you watch and slowly realize it's pornographic, He'll grin to himself while he watches you flush. He'll ask you all sorts of questions about your thoughts on the film, the actors, what they're doing. He really wants to figure out how experienced you are. "What do you think of the composition? It's really carnal, you know?" He puts out his cigarette. "I'm glad I can show this to you, you'll actually appreciate it. You're not giggling like an idiot when some guys penis is out on the screen." He groans, thinking of his other students.

He does actually like one student, though they make an odd pair. Joseph's easily spooked and shy personality clashes with the brash older man's, but he's glad to have someone he can think of as a protege. Someone who loves art as much as him, but get isolated for it. He was doing a portfolio look over when Joseph accidentally turned in the wrong folder. Joseph feels like he might die as Mr. Burton, a man he admires, flips through nude pictures of the object of his affection, and at a distance no less. A part of him wants to rip it away, but he needs this scholarship.

"Please, please, sir! I-I'll never do it again, it was just a phase, I didn't mean for you to see-"

"They're good." Mr. Burton flips through the folder. "Real good. You could really get somewhere with these, maybe not in the fine art scene, but... tell you what." He adjusts his glasses and leans forward on his desk. "We'll do a special session, you and me, yeah? I'll get your friend here, and I'll vouch for your integrity so you can take some less-" he purses his lips. "Stalker-ish pics- Jesus, kid, is that taken from a tree?"

☆ Anatoli Sidorov, probably the best paid staff given how they got him here. He's a Russian coach for a former Olympic Russian swim team, and he joined the prestigious American school to escape shame after he 'resigned' post a doping scandal which he swears he wasn't involved in. (Whether he was or not is your choice.) Still, he's led the boys swim team and track team to nationals several times, and he's a legend among the wealthy benefactors of the school. He's outwardly very serious, hard on his team but respectful of them. He doesn't put up with any unruly or unsportsmanlike behavior from his boys, at least not what he can see. He's very nice deep down, intellectual and funny, though he still struggles with American humor and English.

He adores you when he meets you, milking about with the other students before class. You seem genuinely social, and wanting to fit in. The idea someone could be so welcoming warms his heart. Deep down, he misses his home, and he misses the friends he once had. You're warm, and he likes that. Not to mention, you're a looker. He's embarrassed, especially if you're male, seeing as he never considered swinging the other way, and much less with someone younger. But he can't help but stare when your pretty tits bounce as you run, or the way those jogging shorts hardly conceal your bulge. He even pulled you to the side one to scold you for not wearing regulation gym clothes, before realizing they were and awkwardly sending you back into class. That was a moment of self-reflection for him.

He's not necessarily outwardly softer to you, you might even think he doesn't like you, given that he has you stay late to run or jump rope, or constantly pulls you into time out mid-game. It's all for your own good, trust him. He doesn't like the way some of the boys were looking at you, and he could tell Evan was a only a play away from trying to practically hump you while trying to 'get the ball'. He's made Harrison, who he loves as a player, run laps for talking to you for only a few minutes. He hates feeling like a jealous boy, but he can't help it. You make him feel young.

He establishes a private locker room area for you, since you're the headmasters kid and not an official student. Besides, you're clearly being harassed by the others! So, he's got a nice little closet for you, with a not suspicious air freshener that's not a hidden camera, and a private key only you have access to. (Technically that's true, he just has a bypass key for himself.) He'll snatch a pair of boxers or some panties, slipping them into his track coat for later. Eventually, he'll tell you he's worried you aren't able to catch up to the others, given that you arrived later and started the gym curriculum later than the others. He'll start having extra 'make-up' workouts with you, starting with stretching. One leg uo on the bar, you'll have to excuses his cold hand running along your thigh, or stroking over your chest as him just admiring how your strength and flexibility is evolving. He relishes the feeling of your body on his, groping you under the guise of training and resisting the urge to just slip aside your gym shorts and veg you to take him.

"Little star, part 'dem a little, there ve go." He keeps your legs parted as he works you into a position on your back, against the rubber mats the tumbling team had laid out. He lays just over you, pushing your legs back a little further with his arms, just far away enough to keep you from noticing his hard on, but enough to lightly press it against the plush swell of your ass. Good, let's just- fuck- hold. Let's hold."

☆ Kory Koffman, English teacher and part time librarian! The school outs so much effort into sports, both admin and students seem to forget about him. Hell, the library is used so little they fired the librarian, and he took it upon himself to try and care for the building himself. He's a sweet, shy man, who just wants to share his passion for literature with others. However, unlike Mr. Burton, he was never popular or famous, so he's content to keep to himself, but the loneliness does get to him.

When you wandered into his library one day, maybe looking for a book or seeking refuge from a hoarde ofadmirers, he was happy to welcome you into his little safe haven. He'll give you some warm tea from the little coffee machine he has set up, and sit you down. Let him help you find a book, or tell you about his creative writing class? He'd let you join, even late in the semester! It's not a very full class.

For the first time in his life, he finds himself craving the attention of another, of someone else's company, other than his books. He hasn't felt that need for connection since he was a boy, after his momma passed. He'll do anything to keep you there, and if reading isn't your thing, much to his chagrin, he'll add a DVD section to the library, but only good films and classic for you! No Adam Sandler, those movies are to overstimulating for poor Mr. Koffman.

As his feelings turn romantic, he's ashamed. You're a student, and he's a lonely old man, you deserve someone better, someone your age. However, the thought of you being with any of the many students who mock him in the halls or disrupt his class, the thought of hand you over to those-those imbeciles, hurts him. He wants you, and he's ashamed at the way his trousers go tight when you bend over to get a fallen book, or when you hand him his glasses after he misplaced them (again), the fact he just stares at your finger prints for awhile and refuses to clean the lens. He's not had sex in a long, long time, but he finds himself masturbating more than he ever did when he was younger. He'll watch library security footage openly, moaning and whimpering at his desk with no fear anybody will stop in, no one ever does but you. He wants you as his spouse, you already make his library, his home away from home seem brighter, imagine what you could do for his actual apartment.

"Oh, hello! It's good to see you, it's been a bit." He's a little bitter at that last statement, but adjusts his glasses and continues. "Just remember to stop by often, okay? I'd really, really hate to impose the late policy on you..."

☆ Atticus Critch, the schools latin instructor and head sponsor of student body, (not to mention the man in charge of detention), is a strict disciplinarian. He takes no nonsense from anyone, and despises the behavioral pardons given to boys like Evan or Harrison simply because they are athletes. Peter is obviously his favorite, and when he catches wind of the ways the boys around campus are speaking about you, he decides to take it upon himself to remove the distraction, by having Carter trail you and give you detention for minor inconveniences. Carter isn't particularly thrilled at always having to send you to detention instead of extorting you to get his rocks off, but he's hoping maybe he'll get to 'monitor' detention one of these days.

Initially, Mr. Critch has you doing small tasks, writing lines or organizing things, but soon he starts to see the appeal. If you're a good student for the most part, he's determined to keep you good, and away from all the vermin in this school. If you're bad, he's had plenty of experience in taming brats. He's open with his sexual desires, it his growing affection for you that makes him struggle.

If you've stayed out too late and broke curfew, you can spend detention on your knees, suckling his cock into the late hours. Maybe you've been running around with Tyler. He'll make you lay down on his desk and deny you your climax over and over again, asking 'if not making you cum' is what that boy does to you, never fully satisfying you. He'll make you beg to finish, and to promise you'll be good from now on.

"Come on, repeat it. Tell me you'll be good now, that you won't bother with BOYS-" He annuciates with a thrust, "When you have a man right here, whose willing to take time out of his day to discipline you!" One the amorous session is over though, he definitely softens, trying to prove he's more than a boy in many ways, including good aftercare. He'll dress your limp form back up in your uniform and walk you get you a cup of water from the fountain. "Only ten minutes till your detention is over, dear. Just sit there, take some time to reflect on how you got here." His tone is demeaning, but as he pets your scalp, his touch is so feather-light. Don't expect is to last into the next day though.

[l4mplight]

Miquella and Trina; A Tragedy

Hey Tumblr. I have a lot of thoughts about Shadow of the Erdtree, and these ones... let's just say I don't think they'd do well on Reddit. It's not often that I feel particularly impacted by a particular fictional character. Usually I connect more with narrative arcs and themes, which is why I think I'm so drawn to the ephemeral, vibes based storytelling of Fromsoft's games. Playing through SOTE, though, I found Miquella (and St Trina) to be extremely emotionally compelling and relatable, and I wasn't sure exactly why. I think I've put my finger on it now though. First of all, know that I am writing from the perspective that Miquella is a sympathetic character. I know that it's not uncommon to read him as a manipulative Machiavellian villain, but I think that's both a misreading of the text as well as just plain boring. Like, he's not a Griffith clone you guys, give From some credit. Anyway, here we go.

"You have no understanding. Of Miquella the Kind. Of St. Trina's Love.

Content Warning: I'll be discussing themes of depression, and the implication of suicidal ideation.

So, a classic Fromsoftware theme is despair, and the ways we cope with a world full of it. It shows up twice in Shadow of the Erdtree; with Midra and the Frenzied Flame, where despair leads to a selfish nihilism that asks us to burn everything down, and with Thiollier and St Trina, who offer sleep as a comfort to the weary. Running a small errand for Thiollier has him say the following.

"If you find yourself… weary of the weight of this life, then just give me the word. Sleep is a balm, and eternal sleep… is an elixir."

Drinking the elixir he offers will, of course, result in an instant death. This is our first encounter with the idea of "Eternal Sleep," a more potent form of the sleep status effect that only appears here in the Shadowlands, after St Trina has been abandoned. The Velvet Sword of St. Trina tells us as much: "Silver sword of St. Trina, now stained the color of velvet. Inflicts eternal sleep. When St. Trina was abandoned, the faint, light-purple mists coalesced into an intoxicating deep-purple cloud." In order to ascend to godhood, Miquella abandons first his physical body, and then the more abstract aspects of himself. As we begin to descend down the fissure where we'll find Trina, a cross marks the spot as the place where Miquella abandoned his love. This connects Trina, "the discarded half" as Thiollier puts it, with Miquella's love. Leda confirms this in her own dialogue:

"St. Trina's love for Kind Miquella is boundless. She is, after all, his other half. Or perhaps her feelings go beyond even that. Even if she was left behind, I doubt her heart would waver."

Keep that in mind, it'll be relevant later.

Near the cross, a spirit offers up some of the most heartbreaking dialogue I've come across so far. The spirit gives us a bigger picture of Miquella's goals:

"Kindly Miquella... I see you've thrown away... something you should not have. Under any circumstances. How will you salvation offer... to those who cannot be saved? When you could not even save your other self?"

I teared up at this. The emotional impacted was aided by the fact that I ran into the spirit right after telling Moore to put his past behind him, leading him to rededicate himself to Miquella. He says:

"Hm. Maybe that’s Kindly Miquella’s love. Love for all the unloved. Love, to banish the pain."

Note here that Moore suggest Miquella's love will "banish the pain." This is also essentially what Trina's sleep does. It's a comfort to those in need. Anyway, between these two instances, we end up with a pretty good picture of the sort of god Miquella wants to become. He was already sympathetic to the outcasts of The Lands Between in the basegame, where he built Elphael and the Haligtree as a haven for those rejected by the Golden Order, such as the Albinaurics and Misbegotten we find there. In the Shadowlands, he has gone a step further. Hornsent tells us that he has committed himself, in essence, to righting Marika's wrongs.

"Miquella has said as much himself – he wishes now to throw it all away. He says the act – though undoubtedly painful – will sear clean the Erdtree’s wanton sin. The truth of his claim can be found at each cross. 'Tis evidence enough to earn my belief."

Of all of Marika's children, Miquella is the only one to see the serious flaws in her empire. Ymir points this out to us as well.

"No matter our efforts, if the roots are rotten, then we have little recourse. Ever-Young Miquella saw things for what they were. He knew his bloodline was tainted, his roots mired in madness. A tragedy if there ever was one. That he would feel compelled to renounce everything when the blame lay squarely with the mother."

My thinking here is aligned with Mother Ymir. You really have to feel for Miquella; he has essentially taken on, alone, the responsibility of making up for centuries of Golden Order imperialism. That's a massive burden to bear, especially for Miquella, cursed with eternal childhood.

(It's easy to miss, but Miquella actually ages up significantly when we see him in god-form. Until he steps back through the Divine Gate, he would have looked and sounded like he does in the introductory art and in ending memory scene. Compare those with how he appears in the boss fight, and it's clear godhood at least helped him reach puberty lol) So we've established that Miquella is the child of Imperial Rome on Steroids, is cursed with eternal childhood, and is an empathetic prodigy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Surely his mental state is perfectly healthy, right? Right??

Final warning, this is where things get quite sad. Here is where I will try to tie Miquella's arc together with Thiollier and St Trina, and the comforting oblivion and relief from despair that sleep represents for them.

As we search for St Trina, we descend down into the Stone Coffin Fissure. This is a place of death, with massive coffins built into the fissure walls, and Gravebirds, Bloodfiends and Putrescent enemies everywhere. St Trina is found at the deepest possible pit of this fissure, in a swamp of putrescence that has since blossomed into a garden of deep velvet lilies because of her influence. Trina offers us nectar of "eternal sleep," as Thiollier did previously, and as established then, "eternal sleep" is essentially nothing more than a peaceful death. Trina seems to fit in quite well in this place of ancient dead things, with some of the ancient remains even being compelled to fight for her in exchange for eternal rest, becoming the Putrescent Knight.

(Side note for levity because we're about to get sad again; I love this guy. It's a knight made out of the skeleton of a horse, riding on that same horse's decaying flesh goop body. Like, ugh. Beautiful. Plus, it may even have taken that shape because of Trina sharing Miquella's memories of Radahn, who was never far from his horse Leonard...)

We meet St Trina in her garden, and when we imbibe her nectar, we eventually begin to hear her voice in our death-dreams. She seems to pity him. Mourn for him, almost.

"Make Miquella stop... Don't turn the poor thing into a god..."

Trina appears to be in a bad state after her fall. She can only manage to get a few words across to us at once. Just as Leda predicted, her heart hasn't wavered. She is only concerned with Miquella's well-being.

"Godhood would be Miquella's prison. A caged divinity... is beyond saving."

Trina's most pressing concern is that godhood will be a prison for Miquella. Now, this could in theory be because gods are subject to manipulation from the Fingers and the Greater Will or a similar reason, but given that she calls him a "poor thing," I think there is likely a more emotional reason behind Trina's plea. I think that Trina is speaking as the embodiment of Miquella's love, but especially his ability to love and care for himself...

"You must kill Miquella... Grant him forgiveness."

...and she asks us to kill him.

In excising Trina from his being, I think Miquella also expelled the part of himself that was able to recognize how miserable divinity would be for him, and how miserable he was. The part of him that was tired of carrying the responsibilities that his compassion demanded of him. The part of him that was exhausted, despairing and desperate from having failed to cure Malenia, failed to save Godwyn, failed to perfect the Haligtree. St Trina is the part of Miquella that wanted to be stopped, to rest, to sleep, to die. In abandoning her as he does, Miquella is essentially repressing those thoughts and feelings, replacing them with more "selfless" ones; self-sacrifice, suffering on behalf of others, his martyrdom and apotheosis. I don't want to forget about "grant him forgiveness" either. She might mean forgiveness for failing to become a god, for not being good enough to succeed Marika and right her wrings. Maybe forgiveness for failing Malenia and Godwyn, or for leaving the Haligtree behind. Maybe even for abandoning her. But on the road to godhood, Miquella can't afford to indulge in this sort of self-pity. A child craves forgiveness and approval, a god must cast these things out.

"I'm feeling rather lost. Haunted by memories. Of St. Trina. Her visage. Her scent. The lure of velvety sleep. Would Kindly Miquella chasten me? For falling for St. Trina, while knowing that she was the discarded half? The problem is… I simply cannot help it. I would sacrifice everything, just to gaze upon her, one last time."

I want to mention Thiollier one more time here too. His primary visual motif is the long white braids that he wears on his clothes, reminiscent of Miquella and Trina's own signature braids (remember, she looked like an older feminine Miquella before her fall and injury). Thiollier is obsessed with Trina, pursuing her to hear her voice and fade into the comfort of her velvet sleep, though this doesn't kill him like it does us. I don't think Thiollier is connected to Miquella in any textual way, but I think he does serve as a reflection of the sorts of thoughts Miquella may have been surpressing. The self-pity, the need for approval and love, the feelings of weakness and uselessness. These are the things that lead Thiollier to pursue endless slumber.

Thiollier doesn't give in to that despair, however. Though he initially takes St. Trina's words... poorly, he eventually realizes what must be done, and dedicates himself to his new purpose: carrying out her final wish.

"I am here to serve St. Trina evermore. I am deeply sorry. For doubting you. I am here only to grant St. Trina's singular wish. I will stop Miquella the kind. He will never become a god."

This post is already quite long, but I also want to mention the obvious gender stuff going on here. There are a number of moments that make it seem as though St. Trina might actually be more than just "half" of Miquella. Firstly, as she is shown falling in the story trailer, Leda is describing how Miquella abandoned his fate, as if Trina had a vital role to play in Miquella's future. It also seems as though Trina isn't cursed in the same way that Miquella is; her voice and size indicate that she is at least more substantial than his "infant form," and she is depicted in "adult form, somewhat unnervingly" on the Torch of St. Trina. Furthermore, her "adult form" has a third eye in the middle of her forehead. The third eye is a symbol of enlightenment in both Hinduism and Buddhism; it seems that Trina has achieved some level of wholeness in this depiction. Meanwhile, when Miquella achieves godhood, his eyes remain permanently shut. He also appears to have only one physical arm. He holds Radahn with two incorporeal arms while casting with his real right arm, but his left arm appears to fade away to nothing before the elbow, as if unfinished. Miquella's blindness and asymmetry here, I think, reflect how unbalanced and incomplete his divinity is without Trina.

One more hint towards St Trina being a part of Miquella's future lies way back at the Haligtree. In Malenia's bossroom, just above where Miquella's cocoon was once embedded into the tree, the branches and roots appear to form a silhouette. This could be Miquella, Trina, or both, but I do see a certain resemblance to Trina's depiction on the torch in the way the "hair" covers the eyes. Given that Miquella's body appears to have grown a decent amount inside of the cocoon when we see in at Mohg's palace, it's possible that the cocoon situation was his original attempt to cure himself of his own curse, or perhaps become a part of the Haligtree itself. In the Shaman Village, Marika's home, there is a similar scene. A woman's body that resembles Marika seemingly mummified within the hollow of a tree. I honestly have no idea what to make of that just yet, but I thought it worth a mention.

So, with all that in mind, abandoning Trina seems to be even more significant. Not only has Miquella divested himself of his love and his fate, but maybe even his future, too. Being eternally nascent, he is always in a state of potential, after all. Am I suggesting that Miquella is a transfeminine character? That he was meant to grow up to become a goddess in the aspect of St. Trina, or maybe even more like Marika than he already is? Well, maybe. If you find it compelling, then absolutely. Fromsoftware's storytelling is always ambiguous, and is always design to leave us some room to read and interpret, to really play in the space we are given. Personally, I do find it compelling in a horribly tragic sort of way, fitting for the setting. It's also entirely possible that I have rather self-indulgently projected some of my own angst onto these character. I likely have, to be perfectly honest. It's rare that I really connect with a set of characters or a story like I have with this lot, and I hope that maybe some of you reading this will feel similarly. If you have read this far, thanks <3

[yandere-sins]

You know how, irl, people get fascinated and turned on by the IDEA Of a yandere? And how a yandere, ofc, stalks and learns as much as they can about their darling? I just imagine the Yandere using that to their advantage and to their Darling's horror. "Oh, but you like this don't you? You've read so many smutty tumblr stories about being taken and taken and held hostage. You reblogged so many headcanons about a character killing your bully or that co-worker you hate. I know all your questionable porn tastes. I know all your deep, dark secrets. I know your violent vent posts that I got to enact for you, Darling! I've given you everything you've ever fantasized about, so of course you'll love me. <3" And of course, the yandere fails to realize that any of those behaviors or actions in real life is absolutely, gut-wrenchingly horrifying. But they think they're giving their darling everything they could ever want, and they'll continue to do so until they stop playing hard to get.

Ngl, probably one of my worst fears for the future, but thanks for requesting because it makes good yandere content :'D

I'm imagining a really smug yandere, you know? One that thinks they are doing you such a big favor and give you all their love by expressing it this way. But in reality, they don't even realize how messed up it is.

They were just breaking into your home after you went to bed to admire their darling from afar for a little bit. They are not daring to stir you from your sleep when they can stand beside you and watch. It is enough; they won't be greedy. But they couldn't have known they'd find the holy grail of smut and depravity on your bookshelf when they started browsing as their curiosity got the better of them. They are almost appalled by their darling, if not for the fact that when they browse through the pages of a random book, the words kidnapping, stalking, love, murder, and quite a few more seem like a temptation made for them especially.

So, you actually like that kind of stuff, huh?

Someone following you on a dark street, their steps noticeable but their face masked as they are always just five steps behind you. You run, they run. There's a red rose on your windowsill the next day. It scares you, but they know now that you are just pretending. That your heart is beating faster now, elated by the chase and the promise of love it brings. The fact that you have your own mad person excites you. The yan continues to borrow one book after the other, annotates them, and takes notes for themselves before putting them back onto your shelf for you to find one day, horrified to see lots of "I'd love to do this to you," "How about I kill the coworker you hate—would that make you love me?" and "Love this, love you, always you" in them.

They thought being a silent observer, loving you from afar, was the way to be with you. But they can't help but masturbate to the sex scenes, thinking about how they'd reenact them with you. Your books will be devastatingly ruined by stains and tears in the pages as they have either ripped out a scene to save for later or bit into the book as they've hit their orgasm. Your bookshelf was a collection of dark romance before, but now it is literally the remnant of a massacre of the once neat collection.

But of course, they won't stop there.

Everyone gets sick of reading books someday, even though it's been nice doing it sitting next to you—part of the yan hoping you might wake up and they get to act out some of the scenes you read about. However, there are more things to uncover and learn from. Your public social media they've stalked so far was nice and dandy, but the favorites and posts you hide on your private computer have so much potential to learn from.

The yan can learn about all these little desires of yours. The masks you like, how you want to be taken, cared for, and loved forever. You seem to believe in soulmates—crazy! They do, too! If the yan is delusional enough, it turns out that you two are so similar to each other—a perfect match. Even the kinks they didn't share with you before can be arranged with enough dedication to you. They'll make preparations so you'll be able to ease into these depraved things that you kept hidden from them. You might have been afraid to act on your desires, but the yan is ready to let you live them out to the fullest.

Never mind that you cry after being chased home, it's what you wanted, right? It doesn't matter how you actually feel when they harass and stalk you, leave you little notes and flowers everywhere, because they are just doing what your book-partners would do (it worked for them, after all). You wanted the yan to be possessive over you; why are you sad that no one wants to be your friend when the yan went to the trouble of making sure everyone would be too scared to approach you? And really, aren't you grateful for the yan taking care of your coworker problem? Was sending you their pinky not enough proof of their love?

How come you don't love them yet? When will you love them like the protagonists of your books?

Haven't they done enough? Are you seriously saying you don't like their gifts and dedication to you? Or perhaps you are just trying to play hard to get... of course! That must be it. You are so lovely; you must know that you deserve to be desired immensely. Only they can desire you as much as to go to such lengths, but perhaps it hasn't been enough yet. You deserve more. You are waiting for the yan to prove their undying, absolute love for you. It must be something big, something extraordinary. Something that will show you just how much they care about your interests and especially you.

They will take you and give you the life you want—you deserve.

Even if you hate them for it.

[hexcoreviktor]

you people think you are so great just cause you put together some gifs

dude what 🤡

ah yes, look at me, everyone! over here on my tumblr blog always acting like some big shot! look at how revered us gif makers are, with an abysmal like/reblog ratio and folks constantly stealing our stuff without credit :')

you people are part of the reason that more and more gif makers just don't even bother anymore; you have no idea how much work it actually is, you've probably never even opened photoshop once in your life, but you think you get to decide 'it's not that hard.' do it yourself then. pay for photoshop or try to find a free version that actually works, learn how to use it, pay for a vpn so you can safely download files, buy external hard drives cause man, you're gonna need so much space for all those GBs you're downloading since you need high quality files, get a player to screencap, cross your fingers photoshop (or your entire computer) doesn't crash when you load the screencaps, crop and resize your gif, make sure your sharpening settings look right for the file quality you're using, TRY TO MAKE UGLY FUCKING SCENES LOOK NICE SOMEHOW with 20 different layers, change said layers a bunch of times to get rid of grain, add subtitles (and don't you dare get anything wrong or have a typo), save your gif...but beware! it might just take ages and then it turns out it's over tumblr's size limit, so you go back and delete frames until it's finally right, and finally make sure your gif is running at the correct speed. go and do all of that for 2-10 gifs that look kinda decent, and then tell me again it's not that hard.

anyway. i don't even know what you think i did to warrant this message, i post my gifs and that's it. none of us think we're saving the fucking world lol, but at least stop talking down to us, and don't act like you'd have a whole lot to look at on here without people making gifs for you. have a nice day.

[trashpandacraft]

I found fibrecraft tumblr after searching drop spindles because my dad *didn’t even know what that was.* And despite having been firmly of the opinion that I didn’t intend to learn it, y’all have me getting ever closer to giving in. However, I’m also growing ever more enamored with the idea of weaving - and despite recently deciding to give knitting and crochet another go - I think it looks the most fun of the fiber crafts. My issue is that I have absolutely no space.

But I’m beginning to realize there’s a lot of different looms and types of weaving. So I was wondering if you have any resources or tips for small space methods and storage?

welcome to fibrecraft tumblr! it's fun here, we have enablers.

i will admit that while i love knitting, weaving is amazing, and is much better with regards to instant gratification—weaving for an hour gets you a lot more fabric than knitting for an hour.

so let's talk about weaving, because i have great news for you: you can 100% totally weave in a small space if you want to, and you even have options for how you do it. i'm going to go through basically all the small space weaving options that i'm aware of in roughly size order, and if you make it to the bottom of this you'll have a pretty good overview of space-saving weaving methods.

the first question to ask yourself is what you want to weave. maybe you're not sure yet, which is totally fine. if you don't immediately have strong feelings about it, though, maybe consider if band weaving strikes your fancy. this is pretty limited in size, but lets you weave belts, straps (like camera or bag straps), lanyards, etc.

if you think that sounds neat, it's worth looking into tablet weaving, an inkle loom, or a band/tape loom. tablet weaving takes up no space at all—if you can fit a stack of index cards into your life, you can fit tablet weaving. the tablets are small square cards, often made out of heavy cardstock, and even with a project on them, you can probably fit them into an index card holder.

inkle looms are larger, and to be honest i've never used one and don't know a ton about them, but they're also used for making woven bands. the looms can also be very aesthetically pleasing, if that's something you're into. they can be very big, but the ashford inklette, for example, is only 36 cm long and maybe 12 cm wide.

tape looms are—in my experience, anyhow—larger than tablet weaving but smaller than inkle looms, and even the larger ones are only about shoebox size. they vary widely, from gorgeous, complicated little looms to a handheld paddle that you use to create a shed, which is what you put your yarn through when you're weaving.

if that doesn't sound like good times, consider a frame loom. these are pretty simple—if you ever wove potholders out of stretchy cloth strips as a kid, you probably used a frame loom to do it on. frame looms are generally inexpensive and readily available, and can be used for small woven objects like potholders, coasters, placemats, etc. they can also be used to make some truly stunning tapestries. while you can buy a huge frame loom, you're still only talking about huge in two directions—it might be as wide as your armspan, but it's still only a couple inches thick.

another option is a pin loom. these don't get mentioned a lot, and i'm not totally sure why. pin looms are shapes with a bunch of pins (metal points, usually) coming out of them. on one hand, you're limited to making things that are the shape of the loom, but on the other hand, if you've been hanging around fibrecraft tumblr, you've seen all the things crocheters get up to with granny squares, right? there's no reason in the world that you can't do all those things with the squares made on a pin loom. or the hexagons! or the triangles! i've been kinda thinking about getting a little hexagon or triangle pin loom and using it to sample my handspun, then turning the shapes into a blanket.

if you hate all of that, that's ok! we have more options.

you could consider a backstrap loom, which is an ancient way of weaving that's still practiced today in many places. backstrap looms are cool because you can weave probably 24 inches wide on them, but even with a project on it, they take almost no room at all. backstrap looms are fairly easy to diy, because they're basically a bunch of dowels, so they can be a good low-cost way to try out weaving. backstrap looms will let you make longer, wider fabric than anything else we've mentioned so far!

another option—stay with me—is a toy loom. there are a number of cheap looms for sale on amazon/ali express/some local places that are actually fully functional looms. recently i've seen a number of people (like sally pointer, though i'm sure i've seen someone using one of the brightly coloured harness looms, as well) who've used them and report that they're functional, if basic, looms. you're fairly constrained in terms of project size, since there's not a lot of space for the finished fabric to wind on, and there's a very limited width, but the looms are quite small and tuck away easily.

ok, but so what if you hate all of those options? don't worry—there are more options! this is the part where things get expensive, though.

as looms go, rigid heddle looms are actually quite reasonably sized. i think the smallest one i've seen is a 40cm (~16") weaving width, which is about 50x60 (20x24") in length/width, and 13cm (5") high. so that's more space than anything else we've talked about, but it's still not a ton of space, you know? a 40cm rigid heddle will let you weave lovely scarves and things of that nature—table runners, placemats, strips of woven fabric to whipstitch together into a blanket, etc.

but maybe that's enough. so let's talk about table looms. some of them are quite large—mine, for example, is about a metre square and sits on a frame that it came with. it is not what you would call space efficient. but many of them, especially modern ones, are very compact, and can even be folded up into something more or less briefcase sized. (weird way to consider it, since the last time i saw a briefcase was probably the 80s, but you know what i mean, i bet.) the cool part here is that you can weave damn near anything you want on a table loom. the less cool part is that for the compact ones that fold up, you're looking at hundreds if not thousands of dollars. the smallest one i'm aware of is the louët erica, which folds down to 42x62x42cm (16.5x24.5x16.5") and gives you 40cm (16") of weaving width. i feel like that's impressively small. you'd have to decide for yourself if that's enough to justify the $500 usd/$800 aud price tag, though.

finally, we've come to folding floor looms. i don't think someone who's never woven before should run out and buy one of these unless money is just literally not at all a concern for you, but they are basically the dream for those of us trapped in crappy rentals, and it seemed weird to leave them out when i'd come this far.

some floor looms are various levels of collapsible. to be clear, this does you absolutely no good at all when you're actively weaving, because you have to unfold them to weave, but it does you a lot of good if you'd like to have a floor loom and still have the ability to, say, walk through the living room when you're not actively using the loom.

most relevant to our discussion about small weaving footprints, some looms fold up entirely. they are incredibly fucking expensive and incredibly fucking cool. the two that i'm most aware of are the leclerc compact and the schacht wolf line, both of which fold up to about half of their unfolded depth. they're still not small—i think that they're both the better part of 75cm (30") wide and tall, so even if they fold down to 40cm (16") deep, they're still 75cm wide and tall. which is Fairly Large, though much better than having something 80cm deep sitting in the middle of the floor.

this was a very, very long post, but hopefully makes it clear that there's a surprisingly wide range of options, and they all have advantages and trade offs. if you're asking my opinion, my suggestion would be to try something—anything—with a backstrap setup and see how you feel about it. maybe you love it and keep at it forever, in which case you're in good company: there are entire cultures that weave exclusively on backstrap looms.

if you like producing cloth but don't love the backstrap setup, or don't like using your body to tension the warp, you have a lot of other options, and you're out maybe ten dollars of dowels.

personally, my next loom is probably going to be a pin loom. unless i win lotto, in which case it's going to be a house that has a weaving studio and like four floor looms in it. but probably a pin loom.

[frenchie-simone]

Awoken

almost pg

tags: confession, x-men 1 Logan, kinda angsty but not really, mutant & immortal reader

a/n: first time writing fanfiction on tumblr!! i didn’t do smut for this one because it would’ve been to long but just say the words and i’m on it

You wouldn't have confessed to Logan if he hadn't been on the verge of death. You would've stayed silent your whole immortal life and eventually forgot about him. That's what you told yourself: it will pass. Somewhere in you, you knew, these feelings would always linger.

Now, there he was, laying on Jean’s table in medical, nearly all life sucked out of him by Rogue. You wanted to blame her, blame him, but you couldn't. Not when you knew it was what needed to be done.

Everyone had already gone to bed hours ago. You’d been sitting next to his limp body for hours on end, squeezing his hand so hard you were breaking his bones. Seeing him like this made you scared that his healing powers weren't enough, that they couldn't save him. You were seriously afraid that he might die that day. Assuming he was unconscious, you began speaking: “Logan… fuck, I can't- even when you can't hear me, it’s so difficult telling you. I know you care about me, and I care about you, but for your part, I think it’s just friendly. We’re friends, yeah? You've saved me so many times, nearly as many times as I've saved you”, you chuckled, “and God, it kills me that I can't help you now.”

Logan’s finger twitched in your hand, but you thought nothing of it. You knew that people twitch in their sleep. You continued: “We got a good thing going on, you know. People tell me that they've never seen you care for someone as much as you care for me. That warms my heart so much, and you have no idea how hard it is to keep my face neutral. I think that in a way, Logan, we’re so similar. We both endured horrible things, and in an attempt to keep us shielded, we've shut off everyone who’s tried to care. And I tried shutting you off, and I know you tried to shut me off as well, and fuck, I did my best. But I can't anymore, because every single interaction we've had just stays in my mind and only leaves until I've seen you again. I wish it was just attraction, a little crush, but I crave to be near you, Logan. Every single sign of affection you show me leaves me wanting more. I can't look at you, let alone be within five feet of you and function normally. You are a distraction, the worst kind. But I need you there, everywhere, to distract me. Logan, I need you. I want you. I… I love you, you fucking idiot.”

With those words off your chest, even if he didn't hear you, you just began weeping and buried your face in him. Your tears were soaking his arm hair and running down his skin. For just a minute, you stayed like that.

All of a sudden, you felt a hand on the top of your head. You jumped at the touch, but then understood. He's awake. Logan is awake. Alive. Healed. His large hand stroked your hair until going down to cup your cheek. You finally gathered yourself from the disbelief and raised your eyes to meet his. He was smiling gently, a warmth in his hazel eyes you'd never seen before. He wiped away a tear that had fallen down to your lips. His touch against your mouth warmed your whole body. Just a second ago, you didn't even know if you were going to see his eyes open again. “Logan,” you managed to whisper shakily. His lips had formed a grin that told you he heard you. He knew how you felt. In embarrassment, you tried turning your face away from him, but his strong hand held your face in place, forcing you to look at him.

“Darling, you should’ve told me sooner. Now we've just wasted time,” he said, lowering his hand and pulling off every cable attached to his bare chest. He noticed the slight confusion on your face and laughed. Before you could even react, he stood up from the table leaving you sitting at the edge. He came to stand before you, opened your legs and pulled you closer to him by your waist. You were pushed against his hard chest, your hands being confused about where to land. “How haven't you realized? You drive me insane, woman,” he said in a low voice, almost growling, before connecting his lips to yours in a surprisingly gentle way. Your body felt like it could combust in sparks just by his lips being on yours. You were caught off guard at first, but then you eagerly kissed him back and grabbed his face in your hands. His grip around your waist tightened when you subconsciously slipped your tongue into his mouth. You moaned against his mouth as his tongue fought back, almost hitting the back of your throat. You grabbed onto his shoulders in an attempt to keep yourself upright. He groaned, and the sound of it just made you even crazier. You tried squeezing him closer, tugging at his body everywhere you could and practically ate his mouth for dinner. He answered your body’s request with almost double the intensity, lifting you further up the table and then crawling on top of you, positioning his knee right between your legs. You tried to muffle a pathetic whimper, but failed. He chuckled against your mouth and lifted himself just enough for you to look him in the eyes. The yearning look on your face was just enough to push him over the edge.

“My room, now,” he purred.

[blackmoonowl]

Hello fellow RJ enjoyer tumblr user blackmoonowl. As we both know, our poor mercenary shoulders several worlds' worth of stress and he doesn't often get a lot of downtime to enjoy things.

What are the little things in life that bring a smile to his face?

Sincerely, a fic writer who keeps making him board the bullet train to whumptown. Here's an older screenshot out of my faves as thanks <3 Have a great day!

𓅓 Hello fellow MacCready enjoyer Twosides--samecoin. I happen to have an idea or two for a little messy list I threw together.

Things that MacCready would probably like!:

❤︎ Caps, obviously. This greedy hog will expect a cut of all the caps you find. He's still a mercenary after all.

❤︎ The games on your pipboy, let him play with them and he'll be content for a while. Same goes for any comics you've collected.

❤︎ Hold him, he'll sink into your arms and you won't be going anywhere for a couple hours whilst he unwinds. Give him a few kisses to boot and he's a goner.

❤︎ Giving him sentimental objects of your past. He gave you the wooden toy soldier out of trust after you saved his son. Return the favor and this man falls head over heels onto his ass in love with you, again.

❤︎ For all his whining about earning caps and not standing around, MacCready loves lazy mornings. Simply lounging in bed with his arms wrapped around you, spooning you as his face lies in your shoulder. Good luck prying him off of you.

❤︎ If you are good with his son, prepare for a very emotional and happy mercenary. He might even consider a second child, one with you this time. With how things are going.. it might not not be such a bad idea.

❤︎ Loves stupid little competitions with you. Who can shoot more ferals? Who can drink more? It's one of his favorite past times to playfully challenge you.

❤︎ Your cooking. If you are somewhat decent at making food he's absolutely inhaling that shit, then asking for seconds. You'll be surprised with how such a thin guy can eat so much. He just has a very fast metabolism.

❤︎ Going out on the town. MacCready loves to drink at bars. At first he did it to drown his sorrows, letting the alcohol soothe the pain to cope. But now he loves going there with you, simply as a date.

❤︎ Also he likes Dogmeat. It's not your dog anymore, it's MacCready's dog. He loves playing fetch with the doggo when he's having some time to relax.

[acalamity]

author's note

first time using tumblr, this account has been untouched for a while. I'm sorry for any mistakes (typos or anything else) and hello!! :D

this idea was supposed to be for a fic (vibrant ribbons weave astral reverie) but I scrapped it since it was too much, so this is a snippet. here's part two

lookism! jake kim x reader as seperated childhood friends. reader is an aspiring tailor.

more under the wubbaboo!!

Jake Kim wondered what else changed in the time you were apart. He used to be your partner, your ride and die. Now, after so many years of seperation, you are different.

Of course you are, you've matured and gone through puberty. You've graduated high school while he dropped out, and chased your ambitions while he was rooted in Big Deal. The two of you lived very different lives, and somehow— no matter how close he is to you physically, the gaping distance is always there. In his heart, he is always a step away from you.

"Jake."

Maybe you'll have to part ways again one day. Criminal life is very dangerous, and he would rather not have you involved in any fights.

"Jake?"

Or maybe you'll grow too big for his little and humble street. He's sure you'll reach great heights and he looks forward to the day you'll stand on a grand stage. A stage grander than he can imagine.

"Jake!"

"Ow!"

He winced, face crinkling as his hand unwittingly travelled up to his face. From beside him, he could see you staring at him with your arms crossed over your chest, very much unamused. Instantly, the leader pieced together that you had probably pinched his cheek to snap him out of his stupor, "What was that for?"

"I've been calling your name for a while." You sighed, "What we're you thinking about?"

"Oh, you know. . ." Jake trailed off, he's not sure how to tell you about the thoughts rampant in his mind, so he settled for a question instead, "[Name], since when did you pick up archery?"

Oh, you realised, bringing up your bandaged fingers and palms, glancing over your hands swiftly, he was concerned.

The words that fall out of your lips are slow— and Jake realised you were unravelling an old, old, hidden wound, ". . . Out of my own frustration, I ran away from my mentors once."

"I was alone and young so a few people came up to me. Although I managed to escape in the end, I promised hat I would never let something like that happen to myself again." You huffed through your nose, "I had to start somewhere and my mentor just so happen to have a bow."

". . . I'm sorry." If he was there, a part of your life instead of living in bloodshed and chasing dirty money that did nothing to save his own predecessor, he would have ran away with you. Yet he was not there, and he can't take the wounds on your hands or your invisible battles away, "Sorry."

"Hm? What are you apologizing for now? Did you accidentally ruin my mannequins again?" Even you didn't know how he did it that one time, but he did.

His reply was instant, eyes wide and dumbfounded, "No!"

"You broke my belongings when we were children too. Then you'd come to me apologizing with that wide-eyed, kicked puppy look on your face." You stared at this face, holding back a laugh with a sigh, "Exactly like that face you're making now. Some things never change."

Jake blinked, once, twice— and just like that he was smiling along with you, "Do you still like the cookies I gave you?"

Gave you after everytime he kicked you in his sleep, kept you up with his snores and unintentionally roughhoused your items, he meant. Of course, like a good elder (of one year) and role model, he'd give Jerry some too.

"Those peanut cookies you received from Uncle Jinyoung and gave Jerry and I as an apology?" There was a nervous chuckle, "Yes, why bring it up?"

"I wanted to know." The beaming gleam in his eyes gave his simple answer away, "That's all."

And two days later, Jerry handed you a bunch of deformed peanut cookies, "Boss Jake wanted to give this to you personally, but he's stuck in his office."

"Well, drag him out." You took the package, and walked pass the second-hand. From what you could tell the cookies were homemade, with plenty of effort and struggle and not much success— though it probably wouldn't taste good, it makes your heart feel warm even in the chilly wind. With a huff, you turned to your friend, "Jerry, let's bother him for old times' sake."

"Please go ahead, Boss Jake is in his office now." And though Jerry is very much against bothering his boss, he can't find it in him to stop you, especially when he knows you'll never actually be a bother his boss. True to his thoughts, Jake's face lit up when he sees you.

"There you go again. Were you waiting for me to come?" So perhaps Jake was hoping you would barge into his office, like you barged into his life many years ago. You sat down next to Jake, placing the pouch of cookies down, "I received the goods—"

"You make it sound like I'm dealing drugs."

"— thank you."

A light remark, perhaps a bit teasing, "Can I have some?"

A pointed look without heat, "After you finish your paperwork."

"[Name]." He called out to you after moments of silence, "Hm? What is it?"

His expression was warm, tainted by overflowing affection, and whisper gentle, like a muted memory of a lullaby, "Thanks for coming."

The person in front of you is no longer the not-so-little bratty menace with chubby cheeks, he has grown beyond your expectations. In the future, the both of you surely continue to change, for good or bad, no one knows. But you (the no-nonsense peanut cookie muncher) are still the same person crafted by your childhood together, and he will surely have many more moments together with you. And those too, will be just as precious as the old stories that shine in his memories.

In the little office, so that he may witness the rest of your life, Jake weaved your name into his heart.

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[mageknight14]

The Dangers and Flaws of Idolization: A NEO TWEWY analysis post

Transplanting and expanding on a thread I made on Twitter to fit within a Tumblr format.

One of the most interesting aspects I see in NEO TWEWY that I don’t see many people touch upon is the commonality between Rindo, Fret, and Shoka in how they look up to others as role models while simultaneously being blind to their flaws/who they actually are up to the end and how the game's themes are reflected in those relationships and today, I'd like to showcase why.

First, we have Rindo and Motoi. With that relationship, the game makes it pretty clear that Rindo looked up to Motoi as An0ther and used his words as encouragement to get through his own daily life and anxiety. The kid could barely decide what he could even eat for dinner before he had come across the account, so if you thought his current indecisiveness nature was bad, he was even worse before the events of the game.

However, what I find interesting is that even though he constantly spouts An0ther's sayings in an attempt to try and steel himself for the challenges he faces, he thoughtlessly does so and only lives by the sayings half-heartedly, since his indecisive nature and fear of responsibility prevent him from committing all the way. I think it's telling that despite claiming that "don't miss your chance to make a friend" is one of his favorite quotes, he's constantly at odds with the idea of bringing potentially new players on board the team even before he gets the chance to properly know/meet them and grimaces at the thought of the structure of the old Reaper's Game in the original.

Keep in mind that Beat saved Rindo's life at the hands of Susukichi at least two whole days ago before this occurrence.

Nagi’s Dive into his head on W1D3 actually does a LOT to reveal aspects of his character: he puts other people at arm’s length (besides Swallow due to their online anonymity) because he’s afraid of the fallout of what would to happen if he got involved with them.

"What if I end up taking on more than I can handle? What if other people end up dragging me down with them? If I just stay at the sidelines and shift the blame onto others, I won’t get into trouble for this."

"I'm in a group project; everybody is contributing and making decisions about how we should go about doing things. I keep my mouth shut and refrain from pitching in despite maybe thinking some of their ideas misses the point of the assignment, because God forbid my ideas could be helpful (or maybe they won't; that's life, but I won't know unless i speak up). We end up handing in our project and whoops, we got a C-. I guess I'm not responsible for receiving that grade because I never made a decision, therefore I shouldn't be accountable for my lack of contribution. It just makes sense."

If you've known/are a person that have had similar thoughts to this mindset, then congrats; you know/are a Rindo Kanade in real life.

This culminates into him latching onto others he finds capable and taking the relationships around him for granted, tying other people's worth to their prowess in might or influence. After all, why bother relying on yourself and others when you can just rely on someone else for you to solve your problems? Especially since it means that if everything goes south, YOU won’t take the fallout for it. After all, they’re clearly much more capable than you are.

To get back to his dynamic with Motoi, Rindo looks up to him immensely after finding out that he was his idol an0ther and came to value his input regarding matters within the Game. So when he eventually finds out the truth and is forced to confront the fact that his hero was nothing more than a content thief and a schemer who would trample over others just to survive, he’s understandably heartbroken.

However, instead of just leaving it there, the game decides to flip the script and have Motoi legitimately apologize to Rindo for his actions, leading to the lad in question learning to recognize that Motoi is ultimately an incredibly flawed human being instead of just writing him off entirely, (even giving him another chance!) and is, in many ways, a mirror to Rindo. Like Rindo, Motoi was deathly afraid of responsibility and the fallout of letting other people down, leading to him copying and pasting other people's quotes so that he wouldn't have to face that possibility. This aspect of himself only got worse when he got trapped in the Reaper's Game for multiple loops on end, forcing him to become a worse version of himself, lying, cheating, and backstabbing just to survive and even looking towards becoming part of the Reapers, the same group that trapped him there in the first place, just so he wouldn't have to be Erased, un a manner that's eerily reminiscent to how Rindo would took towards overly relying on others so that he would make it out okay. In that sense, Motoi is a look at what a grown-up Rindo would look like if he didn't take the lessons he learned within the Game to heart, which is part of why the latter decides to take Motoi’s copypasted quotes and apply them to his life in a positive way, deriving his own meaning from them so that in a way that contrasts him following them in a shallow manner from before.

Next up, we have Fret and Kanon, who form a interesting parallel to Rindo and Motoi's dynamic. Whereas Motoi is a look at one of the worst possible paths that Rindo could take if he didn't learn how to properly deal with his flaws, Kanon actually tries to coach Fret into becoming more true to and genuine with his actual self. She also shows herself to be a genuinely affable and honorable person even in spite of the bad first impression that she had given at the beginning of the game by stealing Rindo and Fret's pin for herself.

However, that's only the surface level stuff, as the game actually goes deeper with her character. While Kanon at first seems to be true to herself and genuine at her core in a way that Fret isn’t, we can see from the Dive into her head on W3D3 that she’s holding back a LOT underneath the surface.

"You always did have a way of destroying things" tends to get glossed over by some and for those who do look at the words, they seemingly come out of nowhere and can be seemingly brushed off as her just being under the influence of the Plague Noise. However , when you look back at some of Kanon’s actions and her words towards the Twisters (accusing the Twisters of sabotaging Fuya and making Motoi drop out of the Scramble Slam against his will, her mood changing when she finds out about Fuya challenging the Ruinbringers in one timeline as opposed to her more cheerful attitude towards Fret when she didn't find that out just yet, her acting suspicious towards the Twisters regarding their prowess as a team, etc), the implication is that she doesn’t just resent the game as a whole but also secretly the Twisters as well.

The thing about the Player teams is that they have formed an unspoken agreement where the top 3 teams (sans Ruinbringers of course) keep their footing by sending new players and other teams to last place, which the Wicked Twisters screw up just by existing. Their synergy and impressive Imagination powers (well, Fret, Nagi, and Sho’s at least) threaten the balance the teams have struggled to keep up for so long, hence why Kanon initially just sees them as another team to point snipe before she changes her mind on them. And while the Twisters do almost bring about change by beating the Ruinbringers, it ultimately doesn’t even matter in the long-run due to how incredibly rigged the Shinjuku game is and as a result, the DRS are eliminated, getting rid of Kanon’s and Motoi’s safety net.

Imagine this from the players’ perspective: you’re stuck in essentially what is a never-ending death game but you’ve got a system going where you can at least stave off your deaths for a bit longer. Then a couple of kids come around and throw that whole system entirely out of whack. And you think, "well, at least they can take out the top team and give us a fighting chance, right?" Only for those hopes to also get dashed because the rules are just that rigged. Like Kubo said, life ain’t fair and the afterlife sure as hell ain’t either. W1D5 and W2D4 are excellent explorations of this kind of mindset as it showcases the player teams falling victim to their desires and abusing their powers as a result of being stuck in an endless loop of playing the Game over and over again with no hope of escaping, as well as highlights paints certain comments made by the leaders in an even darker light.

With all of this in mind, it’s honestly no wonder that Kanon resents the Twisters but what’s interesting is that she tries to keep this resentment under wraps because she knows that it isn’t fair to them. They’re just kids after all who would have no idea about all of that. Hence why she admonishes herself in her Dive for wishing that they had just wipe out the Reapers altogether and why Fret is shown to be hurt hearing her inner thoughts about the Twisters in a way that’s pretty reminiscent of Rindo’s reaction when he found out about Motoi.

And finally, we have Shoka and Ayano. While it’s pretty clear that the two do genuinely care for one another, it’s a relationship that’s been tragically scarred by the events surrounding Shinjuku and the Reapers in general, resulting in a mutually unhealthy dynamic. 

What I find interesting about the relationship is that while Shoka gets pissed whenever Rindo insinuates that Ayano must’ve treated her badly, she sadly realizes in another convo that she doesn’t know much about Ayano on a personal level or what her interests even are.

In spite of how close they are and how much they mean to each other, Ayano still put up emotional walls and closed herself off, never allowing herself to be on equal footing to Shoka and instead just be someone who guides and mentors her over the 4 years they were together.

This is due to her feeling betrayed by Shiba/others while simultaneously using Shoka as her one stable point in life regardless because everything is going up into chaos surrounding the Shinjuku Reapers and she finds herself unable to trust anyone around her anymore. And Shoka herself doesn't even realize this until the end when it’s too late because she was just happy to simply have Ayano by her side without thinking deeper about her and their relationship as a whole due to her own emotional issues and troubled past.

When it comes to children from broken homes, they are prone to imprinting on any adult figure that interacts positively with them and in Shoka's case, this is exactly what she did with the Shinjuku Reapers, especially Ayano.

A running theme throughout all of these instances is how they all involve the younger generation looking up to the adults in their lives as idols as opposed to just role models and thus fail to see them for who they are as actual human beings. And by the time they that finally do, it's too late for the adults.

You also see nods towards this theme via the Shinjuku Reapers and their relationship with Shiba or Shiba’s (who himself is parallel to Rindo if his tendency to subconsciously take on the values of others and mistake his as his own was twisted into the worst possible outcome) relationship with Kubo, with Hishima even flat out stating as such. "You fell at the feet of an idol like an utter fool", indeed.

And this all fits, as well, into NEO's larger theme that even as a 'follower', you have to question the 'leader'. Role models aren't bad -- but idols and failing to recognize their limits/flaws/toxicity are and will end up screwing you over in the long run if you aren’t careful. And I think NEO did an excellent job at exploring the little nuances that come with that, from Kanon’s internal resentment she knew wasn’t fair to the unseen distance between Ayano and Shoka to Motoi being a complete deconstruction of it all. It shows the good and the bad of idolizing someone too much. It shows how you can see the real them and turn the image you liked into something more with Rindo, or how to hold them in your heart while moving on like Shoka. It's okay to acknowledge the flaws and shortcomings of the people you look up to. Hell, it’s probably healthy to do that in some ways. As long as they’re still a good person or even helped you grow, you can still celebrate the good they brought

[nadianova]

How much time do you spend planning some of your visual novels? At least going by some of them being jam submissions, it feels like you go from pre-production to a finished build very quickly, and it's amazing how you can manage that while still having an awesome story and so many assets.

Also, what is like, the process of planning a story out for you, if there's any vague or concrete similarities that you've noticed?

i think the important context here is that if i get bored/have nothing to do i jhust immediately get really suicidal its like ridiculous how bad it gets(ITS FINE DONT WORRY ABOUT IT IVE HAD 5 YEARS OF THERAPY). so i hate being bored and want to occupy my time wit something fun whatever that is. if i have a project to focus on but especially if I'm working for a game jam i have a deadline and i just decide to myself okay i will release a game now.

because ive made a decent amount of games i roughly have an idea on my capabilities, i can estimate how long it takes for me to write a story so and so long and how long it takes for me to draw stuff i need and how long it takes for me to throw stuff in renpy. these are estimates like as in I'm not accurate with it but still enough that i generally know where to start cutting ideas since the most important part is just having something to submit. i also know to plan around my brain wanting to slam my head into a wall an my hands suddenly giving up on being able to draw.

i think thats the beauty of game jams it forces you to just go for it and release something. releasing a 'bad' game is better than no game at all. experience only comes over time and i think just going for it is the best approach there is. like its literally 2 weeks 1 month whatever of your life. if you have the time and motivation go for it. make it work or fuck it up it wont matter in the grand scheme of things

im not sure what is the motivation behind the question but i do want to point out that this is just my method (if you can even call it a method) and the only way to figure out what works for you is to just try until you find something that actually works for you

idk not everyone will find it doable/fun to plan around spending two weeks gamedev 10 hours a day just cause i wanted to fit in 100 cgs for a jam game but apparently i can do that when i cheat my stupid adhd brain into hyperfocus with adhd meds

READMORE BECAUSE I CANT STOP RAMBLING

as for planning tho i think ideas on their own are worthless and its always about execution in the end. a great idea or a meh idea are the same for me but i do still enjoy the planning process so i keep notes

like i see a great tumblr post or i see some art or visual novel has some scene that inspires me: i save that shit for myself

having a big collection of random floating ideas like that helps me easily pick from especially during a jam type duration. right now i have like 4-5 half-baked project skeletons, some are literally like 3 pictures and some like naomida are a hundred hours worth of me writing world building about how the toilets work in a city with no plumbing cause its -30celcius(i love bringing this up)=

i dont normally plan that much, i tend to just wing it. like for malmaid i seriously just had some rough ideas and just went along as i wrote

same thing for dddeviance i had a handful of scenes that i really wanted to make and knew what kind of start and end it was meant to have and just figured out how to fill the in between. a lot of plot points changed vastly like halfway through i realised my devil + angel combination was stupid and i should just go for fallen angel + angel.

i think there really is no simple answer tho (as evident from the long as hell post) i don't really have a 'process' because every single game has been worked on has come with different type of planning since I'm always trying new stuff to try and distract me from boredom. like I've been using obsidian for naomida while previously I've just used a empty discord serve as my notes app for malmaid and dddeviance

and tbh with naomida I'm running to a new problem where I'm definitely planning too much. like I'm spending too much time fidgeting with details in chapter 4 even when i haven't finished writing chapter 1 just cause its so easy to get in the loop of "oh ill just change this one line" and boom 20 mins spent playing with my notes that didn't really progress my game since by the time i reach this point the whole scene might have shifted to something else

.

but if i had to squeeze an answer itd be something like everything related to my art or writing or games is just like "oooooo that seems fun i should remember this for later" and then i just string 10-100 of those into a story

i tend to write my stories in a format of

character A does this and that

this happens here

puppy play ryona piss orgasm

new day and then this happens here

sad thing happens

more piss orgasm

the end

and just like start filling in more details and working on my story in a nonlinear fashion until i feel like i have a strong enough skeleton that i can start writing my scenes. i hop around a lot, often preferring to write the fun scenes first like ero stuff or the ones I'm the most interested in and then the rest is just filling the blanks and stringing the cool scenes together

[insect-whorefare]

Hi, Im Sorry if this isn't very coherent, I'm a little shaken up but I would appreciate any time you spend reading this.

You don't know me but you've seen me at shows before, and you have left an impact on me greater than any one else, and I want to appreciate what you've done for me because you are keeping me alive right now.

This morning I was going over what I would write in my note, who I would give what things to, and who I would want to come to the funeral when your post popped back into my head: If you're transgender you have to live. I love you.

I thought about you. I thought about how you would feel if a trans girl that looked up to you ended her life, and I broke out sobbing. I know it sounds kind of stupid that a tumblr post you made is the reason im not dead, but you're what I aspire to be and I want you to know that you saved my life with nothing but your words, even if we've only seen each other a few times and you don't know my name.

I followed you soon after I started using tumblr and at the same time your band shroud was one of my favorites, but i had no idea you were the same person until you posted pictures from a thotcrime show and I recognized you. After that post I started listening to cybergrind and got really into it. So then on top of wanting to start a hardcore band partially because of you, I want to start a cybergrind band souly because of you. You even gave me an appreciation for cars for the first time since I played gta as a kid.

You've changed who I want to be and I wish i could do more than just say how much I am grateful.

Thank you,

Some depressed trans girl

yo hey I really don't know what to say other than thank you for sharing this

I made that post the night I found out one of my best friends in the world killed hirself, it was a desperate plea i didn't really expect to make a difference so like. I'm glad it did for you

please start a band! come say hi if you end up at a show of ours sometime! send me any music you end up making. maybe someday we can play something together <3

there are already too few of us weird cool girls out there please keep holding onto anything that gives you some reason to keep going. i love you and every other trans person reading this so so much.

[melis-writes]

Eyes like Stars [Bobby Axel x Reader Multi-chapter, 18+ Smut] Chapter 19 - The Secrets We Keep.

Read on AO3 / Read Chapter 18 [AO3] / [Tumblr] / Chapter Masterlist. / Fic Playlist.

18+ explicit smut, multi-chapter read.

"What did he want?! Did you fuck him? Did you?!” / “I WAS GONNA MARRY YOU! I WAS GONNA MARRY A WHORE! A whore!”

Everything you've done up to this point was for Bobby and Bobby alone. What else would your intentions be for if it wasn't to hold onto and save everything the two of you have for one another? Bobby's set in his ways but the idea of losing you to the same fate Helen chose for herself is too much to bear. To see it is one thing, experience it--another, but just how much love can you claim if the one you adore is now the one hurting you?

[WARNINGS]: Mentions & themes of drug addiction and selling / Domestic abuse / Physical abuse / Verbal abuse / Depictions & themes of injury and blood.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]: The Eyes Like Stars girlies can EAT!! 🥺🙏🏻 And especially so since I will be putting this fic on a temporary hiatus as I focus more on finishing up/writing my Godfather fics first. I'm definitely not abandoning this fic and I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea that I am! With so my fics in my rotation and life changes, I'm struggling between balancing all of them and burning out/hitting writer's block. I will definitely return to this fic once I've completed my others and then we will go on with Emily and Bobby's story! For now, enjoy this (temporary) last chapter before the hiatus kicks in. I would also like to clarify for the sensitive nature of this chapter that I do not condone or romanticize abuse in any sort of way. This chapter also doesn't glorify it or anything like that.

Bobby’s release from prison marks the end of his and Helen’s relationship and you find yourself spending more time with Bobby and taking care of him after everything he’s been through. Working and living in Manhattan as a college drop-out, you distance yourself from Helen who Bobby and you take solace with one another in hopes to get out of the toxic lifestyle of drug use—promising each other to start a new life with one another and get clean. Falling in love with Bobby, you experience a mutual, passionate and loving relationship with its own highs and lows that promises to bloom into something more serious but also can threaten to collapse. As Bobby’s new girlfriend, your relationship hangs on a thread with old skeletons coming back into Bobby’s life, relapses, and a new panic on the horizon that threatens to undo it all.

Bobby knows Upper West Side Manhattan like the back of his hand; better than the majority of Manhattan-born residents through every street, turn, and block.

Give him a street and Bobby could tell you every corner store, the names of apartment buildings, if he knows anyone who lives there, who is shooting up, who is selling, and where the narcs are like it’s common sense.

“Bobby Axel” is a name every dealer, junkie, and narco alike knows on the street; word going around and connections made just like everybody else.

Bobby knows every detail of his home like it’s his duty, and it’s given him the advantage of sneaking away from the unwary or police at the perfect time with the layout of the city engrained in the back of his mind.

Bobby can never see himself doing anything else, anywhere else. Upper West Side Manhattan is his home. Needle Park is his home; it always has been, it always will be.

Being from New York City yourself but having memorized the same streets you, Bobby, and your friends are in day after day, everything you know and think you know of Upper West Side Manhattan pales in comparison to what Bobby knows.

Just as you think you’re taking the regular route back home from work, Bobby keeps his distance far behind you—blending into the crowd and particularly remaining next to the other outcasts and junkies dressed in navy jeans and a baggy hoodie like him.

You walk straight towards your apartment as you always have; not a single convenience store or grocery surrounds you upon the path you’re taking and Bobby can’t help but analyze your environment carefully; thinking if you took a different turn, you may bump into him in the next few minutes.

You don’t, and on purpose, Bobby lets you get home far before he does. So as long as you don’t know he’s coming and that Bobby wants to talk to you, he can approach you with time and circumstance on Bobby’s side. 

Bobby takes the “scenic” route home, letting himself linger around the streets with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and the hood up, covering his head.

Trash litters the sidewalks with torn newspaper pages flying about, wrapping over flickering lampposts; the scents of cigarettes, garbage, and body odor lingering around the corners of each street Bobby passes by accompany him with the cool fall air and dimly lit, grimy blocks twisting and leading to your apartment.

It’s been years since Bobby’s memorized the crumbling streets before him, every old building and every hot spot that normally distracts and cools Bobby down when he’s pissed or stressed to shit but nothing gets through to him now.

Bobby can’t walk off his anger this time and he knows it. Bobby’s only able to remind himself why he’s going home—with the belief you’ve been lying to him this entire time.

Lying to him about the true nature of your work relationship with Sykes; every complaint you made, every time you called in sick just to avoid seeing him, and all that you explained to Bobby—what else would it all be for?

‘It makes sense.’ Bobby grits his teeth, keeping his eyes on the street as he continues briskly walking down the block.

Bobby’s judgment is immediately clouded with his irritation and anger; the idea of your encounter that he saw firsthand can’t be thought of as anything else but some sort of affair. 

Why else would that smug son of a bitch have that look on his face watching you leave, let alone stand there adjusting his jeans after another secret get-together the two of you had? 

Unbeknownst of Bobby’s eyes on both you and Sykes, you know the truth of what happened and how you still feel against your supervisor; bitter, mostly indifferent, and annoyed, but when it comes to shooting and selling, everyone’s needs are all the same. Everyone’s the same.

Thinking nothing of it and unsurprised by Bobby’s absence back at your apartment, you step in and set your purse and keys down before locking the front door.

Letting out a sigh of relief, you rub your temple gingerly before slipping off your shoes and shrugging off your jacket.

The only thing on your mind at the moment is relaxation—time to yourself and nothing more; that is all shared with Bobby once he gets back home from what you subconsciously assume is selling or out with Chico, Irene, and the others.

You open your purse and carefully take out the wad of cash from Sykes you quickly stuffed inside before setting it on the coffee table in the living room.

Pulling your hair up into a loose ponytail, you head towards your bedroom and undress; opting for a comfy pair of sweatpants and a black spaghetti-strap tank top. 

Feeling at ease in the comfort of your own home with no need to pretend to be inconspicuous or watch for a narco on the side of the street, you step into the bathroom momentarily to freshen up.

Glancing up in the mirror, you blink at your reflection and realize how you’ve been wearing nothing but exhaustion over your expression—and all too well at that.

Sighing softly, you turn on the tap to lukewarm water before adjusting it to get hotter—grabbing a bar of soap and beginning to scrub at your hands to wash them off and give them a good rinse.

You pause for a moment, staring at the running water as you swallow hard. You can’t help but feel you’re expecting something—anticipating something you’ve forgotten.

Attempting to shake off the queasy feeling brewing in your stomach, you purposefully avoid looking towards your arms and adjust the water to an almost ice-cold temperature.

Splashing your face off to awaken yourself a bit, you then close the tap and dry off your hands and face with a towel before walking back into the living room.

Your eyes land on the wad of cash placed upon the center of the coffee table once more as you begin to approach it; plopping down on the couch and reaching over for the money.

‘Eighty dollars.’ You can still practically hear Sykes’ voice in your head; seeping with the same desperation as someone whose used it more than once, but hasn’t fallen into an addiction just yet.

Your fingers flip through the twenty dollar bills in your hands again and again as you find yourself zoning in and out, barely focused on what you’re doing, to begin with.

You frown, staring at the fading number twenty imprinted on one of the dollar bills before you graze your thumb over it.

You know more than anything you don’t need this money, but Bobby does. 

‘All of this is for Bobby,’ you think to yourself, sitting up to set down the cash neatly on the coffee table. ‘It’s not for me. I don’t need this… I don’t need any of this. This is all for him.’

 Just as you set down the neatly stacked wad of cash down upon the coffee table in front of you again, you almost knock it over and send it flying from the impact of how hard you flinch at the sound of the front door abruptly unlocking and flying open.

Blinking in surprise, you look up to see Bobby entering your apartment and letting the door slam behind him.

Without so much as a smile, a “hello” or even that soft look in Bobby’s eyes you’ve gotten used to seeing when he comes home to you, all you can pick up is the anger, irritation, and bitterness scowling over Bobby’s expression.

‘Bobby?’ The unforgiving look in Bobby’s eyes replaces any look of love he once ever gave you; his body language demanding and expectant as if you demanded Bobby to approach you as such.

In a split second, Bobby’s eyes dart down to the money in front of you before cruelty mixes with the anger in his eyes and he sends his apartment keys flying onto the dining table across the room.

“Bobby—” You flinch again pressing your back against the couch.

“Yeah,” Bobby raises his voice over you sharply, cutting you off. “Counting that good money Sykes gave you? Made sure every dollar was accounted for?”

Stunned and at a loss for words, your reaction merely gives Bobby a green light to continue as he grits his teeth, approaching you in the living room.

“Did that son of a bitch pay you before or after you sucked his cock?”

“What?!” You flinch again as Bobby kicks the stack of money off of the coffee table, sending it flying to various spots in the living room. 

“Answer my fucking questions!” Bobby shouts at you, facing you directly. “What did you do to him, huh? What did he want?! Did you fuck him? Did you?!”

“Bobby, I—”

“You stupid fucking whore!” Bobby seethes, grabbing a fistful of your hair and tilting your head back instantaneously to slap you across the face.

“Ah!” Yelping out loudly in pain, the force of Bobby’s slap with him letting go of your hair was harsh enough to cause you to flail off the couch face down—hitting the side of your body against the armrest. 

“Bobby! What are you—" You hiccup, bursting out sobbing from fear, pain, and confusion hitting you all at once.

Without even realizing it, you’re holding up your arms—still quivering—up to your face to shield you from impact, shakily looking up at your boyfriend.

Bobby breathes heavily, taking a step back from you; his eyes bloodshot and glistening with tears of frustration and anger as both of you take in what just occurred.

‘Bobby…’ Your heart sinks into the pit of your stomach as shock and guilt rack over you in a wave of nausea and numbness throughout your body.

‘Baby…’ Bobby hit you. 

Your boyfriend—the one who cried in your arms night after night, the one you couldn’t bear to see in pain, suffering from his withdrawals or illness from being unable to feed and take care of himself properly; Bobby who you washed away all the pain and sadness off of his body, kissed the scratches over his stomach and would do anything for, hit you over something that never even happened.

Bobby doesn’t wait for another response from you nor is his intention to give you an explanation for his sudden outburst; he’s hellbent on releasing his anger first.

“Don’t act surprised with me,” Bobby hisses, beginning to raise his tone. “You whore! You—”

Seeing as you flinch again by being called a “whore”, Bobby lunges towards you again in response and grabs both of your arms as you scream out and attempt to thrash away.

“YOU FUCKING WHORE!” Bobby hauls you up by your arms and throws you back down on the couch. “WHORE! You were heading straight back home my ass!”

“Bobby—” You cry out in pain, “BOBBY!’

Blow after blow only worsens and grows harsher with each hit over your arms and wrists before Bobby begins to aim his fists toward your head; grabbing a fistful of your hair.

Screeching out, you struggle against Bobby’s overpowering grip but manage to clutch his wrists—digging your nails into Bobby’s wrists and prying them off of you with every ounce of strength you have left in you.

“BOBBY, STOP!” You hiccup again throughout your sobs, pushing him away from you. “Stop it, STOP! Please, stop!” 

“Stop what?!” Bobby scowls, “you didn’t stop fucking lying to me so tell me why I should stop now!”

“Bobby—” Your lip trembles as you notice his gaze fall to the dollar bills scattered over the living room floor.

Bobby nods to himself slowly, eyeing every dollar bill he can see before staring back up at you; ready to lunge at you once more. “He paid you eighty dollars?”

“Bobby—” You sniffle, your bottom lip trembling as you grip the fabric of the couch tightly.

“My girlfriend’s pussy is only worth eighty dollars?” Bobby narrows his eyes, “you cheap, used fucking whore!”

“STOP IT! STOP!” Screaming out at him, you scramble up and off the couch to rush towards the bathroom. “I didn’t! I didn’t do anything, I—”

“Come here, you fucking slut!” Bobby immediately begins to follow after you, reaching out to grab you again.

“I didn’t—no! NO! STOP IT, BOBBY!” Wailing, you barely make it to the bathroom before Bobby sends you flying to the floor with a rough shove like a ragdoll. 

“I SAID COME HERE!” His sudden amount of strength against you who can barely breathe through your tears would take you by surprise if you weren’t the one Bobby was releasing his frustrations out on.

“I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” You shriek, landing on your side with a thud—almost knocking over the coffee table. “Stop it!” You shakily brace yourself for impact, holding your arms up to your face, pleading, “Please stop! PLEASE! L-let me talk to you—”

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit!” Bobby screams back down at you, pointing, “I saw you walking out of the fucking side exit of your corporate shit hole, used and bought like the fucking whore you are! Can’t even face the front street so other people don’t pick up on it, huh?!”

“Bobby—” You flinch, wounded by his words.

“And for what?!” Bobby throws his hands up in the air, “for eighty dollars? You and that fucking asshole you kept telling me about? You think I’m fucking stupid, Emily? Huh—” Bobby hovers over top of you, leaning down to squeeze your face harshly as you continue crying out. “Huh? HUH!? You think I’m fucking stupid?!”

“B-Bobby!” You sputter, hiccupping. “How—”

“How do I know?!” Bobby scoffs, abruptly letting go of your face. “I followed you, you stupid bitch! I followed you because I knew you were fucking lying!”

“NO! I wasn’t—”

“You had someplace to be and I knew it from how you were checking that stupid fucking watch constantly—“ Bobby points to the shattered watch barely holding together over your wrist from the impact of his blows. “You fucking lied to me! You said you were gonna grab some shit from the store before coming back home, huh?! YOU WERE WITH ANOTHER MAN!”

“NO, I WASN’T! I wasn’t, Bobby! I wasn’t!” Your throat burns from screaming back at him in desperation. “I sold him shit, that’s all he wanted! I sold him what he fucking needed so he would get off my ass about it! I didn’t touch him and he didn’t touch me, I swear to you! I swear!”

Bobby ignores you, rolling his eyes; only a clear indication of the lack of a foundation of trust between the two of you.

“Listen to me,” Bobby hisses, pointing at his eyes with his hands trembling from mounting anger. “I would rather gouge my own eyes out than ever see you with someone else. Is that what I have to do? Hmm?” His eyes sting with tears. “Is that what you want me to do? Scratch my own fucking eyes out? I’ll do—”

“NO, STOP IT!” You let out a shriek at the top of your lungs before immediately trying to scramble up to your feet.

“Then my girlfriend’s a fucking whore!” Bobby lunges back at you but trips over the lamp cord, causing it to fall over and shatter to pieces on the floor—buying you a few seconds of precious time to race to the bedroom.

“And I was gonna marry you!” Bobby gives up the chase as you slam the door behind you, pressing your back against it with all of your might to keep it shut. 

“YOU KNOW THAT?!” Bobby follows to the bedroom, screaming at the closed door in front of him. “I WAS GONNA MARRY YOU! I WAS GONNA MARRY A WHORE! A whore!”

Barely able to stand on your own feet and shivering out of control, you sob loudly as you rest your head against the door.

Sneering, Bobby turns back and grabs your keys off the counter before taking off from the suite entirely—purposefully letting the door slam behind him. 

‘Oh my God…’ You crumble to your knees; your eyes tender and aching from sobbing but unable to stop yourself from letting your emotions consume you entirely.

With too much to process and take in, all you can do is helplessly look at the scratches and light gashes over your body from everything Bobby’s done to you.

Promised bruises and fresh blood dripping from your nose; everything stings yet feels hazy and warm to the touch.

Tilting your head back slowly, you attempt to take in a deep breath but every sense of calmness has departed you upon the first blow Bobby delivered. 

All you can do is cry in pain that both your heart and mind feel. All you can do is let it eat you alive now. All you do is lay on the floor by the door and drown in your own tears. 

Bobby walked out on you after all and as he did, he thought about nothing but what his relationship with you has come to now.

Bobby’s true possessive nature got the better of him, and he knows he can’t handle it at its fullest either—not after everything he went through with Helen prostituting herself.

If anything, Bobby’s made it clear to you that he desires and craves you and only you to the extent that just the thought of having to share you or seeing you with someone else makes him want to kill himself. 

Still, even though he’s out on the streets with nothing but a bruised ego, his hatred, his anger, and his broken pride, the only thing he can think of is that you may just have been telling nothing but the truth.

[totally-bogus-timelady]

18+ only!! Oneshot fwb!Steve Harrington x Fem!reader

A/N this is my first fic on tumblr. Had a concept so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm hoping to make this into a series at some point, but I'll see how it's received first. Comments and reblogs are appreciated, I'd love to know what you guys think.

Warnings: Pure smut, filth but kinda sweet. It's fwb!Steve what'd you expect 🤷🏼‍♀️

P.s: If I have used your gif and you'd like me to either take it down or give credit, please let me know as I have so many Steve/Eddie gifs saved and I have no idea where they originally came from 😅💕

Your hand runs slowly up his abdomen, feeling the taught muscles there tensing up in anticipation of what you're about to do. You scratch lightly through his chest hair as he pushes you slightly deeper into the mattress. His mattress that you've been on now more times than you can count. He buries his head into your neck, lightly kissing a path up to your jaw and then lifts his head, big brown eyes deeply searching yours as he hikes your leg higher on his hip and gently squeezes your thigh.

"You ready for me?" Steve asks. In a second your other leg grips over his hip and you push, flipping you both over. You smirk, Steve now under you gawking up in surprise, mouth ajar and lashes fluttering in that beautifully dumbstruck expression that only Steve could make look so pretty.

"Question is pretty boy, are you ready for me?" You tease your hips, grinding ever so gently against his hardening erection.

Steve makes a small gasping sound before quickly recovering from your ministrations. "You think I'm pretty?" He smirks coyly at you and starts to cant up into your gentle grinding, filling you both with pleasure and anticipation. You lean forward and start to mouth at his chest, sucking and kissing, leaving marks that only you get to see. A deep, loud groan resounds from deep within his chest. You move up to that spot between his shoulder and his neck and start to suckle at it, nipping and licking to soothe your hard work as Steve moans in utter bliss, the sound hitting your ear and wetting between your own legs even more.

Your hand slides down through the hair on his chest, teasing along the trail, past his bellybutton and finally reaches his firm cock. You palm at it as Steve's moans climb higher up the rungs of pleasure. You sit back a little, still palming at him and look at his half lidded, blissed out eye's.

"Now I do," You snicker.

"Oh god... Please... y/n, please."

You kiss up his chest again til you reach his jaw, giving it a small peck before you look into the dark, lust-filled hazel of his eyes. Your free hand threads itself into Steve's hair, other hand now moving faster over his pulsing cock. You tug gently at his thick, dark locks. Steve breathes your name against your lips as his hands travel underneath the shirt you slept in. He realises now that it's actually one of his shirts. He's not sure why but this makes him smile into your kiss.

"What're you grinning about Dingus?"

Steve looks up at you, your hand slowing slightly over his boxers. "Nothing, I'm just... I'm glad that we do this. You know, it's nice to have someone to just... blow off some steam with. Someone that you trust and... Well, you know what I mean."

You smile sweetly at your friend. Steve Harrington. The guy who you now struggle to think of not being in your life like this. Steve who you've now been under, on top of, wrapped around in the most intimate of ways. All the ways that you never got to be with Eddie.

Eddie.

Your heart stutters for a moment as you realise you haven't thought about Eddie much lately. A surge of guilt pulses through you as your smile drops, just a little. Eddie's not here anymore. Steve is. Steve's here, hot and all consuming and gazing into your eyes waiting for some kind of response. You decide that you won't let your grief ruin this moment for either of you.

"I'm glad that we do this too," You whisper. "Your a good friend Steve."

Steve's smile falters, unsure as to why those words bother him. But then your hand quickens it's pace again and the moments gone.

Steve becomes a moaning mess, grinding into your hand, hushed praises falling from his lips.

It's then that you hear footsteps through the open window of Steve's bedroom. Deciding to ignore it you pull at the band of his boxers and delicately slide your hand in, using the precum dribbling out of his angry tip to lube up the rest of his shaft. You stroke up and down, twisting your hand a little as you go. The only sounds in the room now being the 'shlick' of your hand on his cock and Steve's pathetic whimpers.

"Oh," He pants. "Oh, god. Y/N! Ugh."

His hands grip your hips again as you begin kissing and sucking at his chest.

Suddenly a loud 'Bang, Bang Bang' sounds against Steve's front door followed by the sound of Robin's voice.

"Hey, Steve! You almost ready to go?"

It's then that you look across at the clock on Steve's bedside table and realise that the three of you have thirty minutes to get to your Saturday morning shift at Family Video.

Steve's eyes widen as he looks down at you in panic after hearing Robin's voice.

"Oh Shit," You whisper against Steve's chest. "Sorry big boy, looks like it's gonna have to just be a quickie for now."

"Wha- OH! OH FUCK YES!" His fingers bruise into your side as his grip on you tightens. Your hand griping him tighter, working faster, harder on his leaking shaft.

"Shhh! Do you want Robin to hear you?" You whisper, now back at his lips.

"Hey Dingus! You coming or what!" Robin shouts again. You and Steve share a small chuckle at the pun your friend has unwittingly made.

Steve turns his head and calls out, "I'll be there in a minute Robin!" Then he turns back to you, his hips now thrusting into your hand, chasing his high now that he has to be quick anyway.

You brush his hair back with the hand not already occupied with his throbbing, hot cock. You can tell he's getting close, his movements getting sloppier. You lean in to kiss him, tongues tangling together. Hand still running softly through his hair, you lean back and whisper to him.

"Well Harrington? You heard her, you Cumming or what?"

His hips stutter as his load spills over into your hand. Steve's jaw clenches as his mouth is screwed shut tight. Aware that he can't make too much noise, Steve let's out a series of the most beautifully pathetic whimpers you think you've ever heard.

You stare at the pure euphoria in his eyes, his lips parted and realise that he's still cumming. You look down to see his cock still spurting out thick loads of white hot cum. Pouring out of the tip and making a creamy lake on his belly. It continues to throb and leak until finally, he goes soft in your hand and Steve, thoroughly spent, sighs in relief, sits up a little and looks down at the mess you've made of him.

His eyes go wide.

"Oh my god, was that all me?"

You laugh, "Yup," You look at his belly, "Well, I haven't had breakfast yet."

Steve looks at you puzzled, "Wha-" he's stopped by the sight of you licking and slurping up his cum and he whimpers again. You lick your tongue up his cock and fit the whole shaft into your mouth, cleansing him of his own cum. His cock jolts in your mouth in overstimulation and leaks a tiny bead as you pop off of him with one last lick at the salty droplet.

"STEVE! We have twenty-three minutes til work, what's taking you so long!" Robin shouts from outside again.

"Oh shit, I forgot she was there," Steve sighs.

You laugh at his expression, "Look, you go and clean yourself up, I'll get dressed, tell Robin your in the shower and that you'll meet us in the car."

"But what about-"

"If anyone asks, we watched a movie last night and I fell asleep before you could drive me home okay?"

Steve breathes a sigh of relief at your brief but not unusual explanation as to why you would've spent the night here.

"Okay, I'll meet you guys in the car in ten. Its a good job FV isn't a long drive," Steve huffs out a laugh. He looks over at you, now standing up from his bed, still wearing his shirt, your hair tousled from last nights and this mornings activities. "Hey," He leans into you, "I'll pay you back for this morning later, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't get yours."

Steve winks, gives you a short kiss on the lips and sends a quick slap to your arse as he heads towards his en-suite.

You stand there, heart thumping in your chest and slightly stunned at how quickly Steve had managed to have you blushing after the mess you'd made of him only minutes ago. But before you could dwell on it much longer you hear Robin hollering again.

"Seriously Steve! Are you masturbating or something! What's taking you so long?!"

Slipping on your own clothes over one of Steve's tighter fitted pairs of boxers, you go downstairs and prepare yourself to face Robin.

[snapscube]

hihihi ok. so i’m in my last of us fixation mode and i’m being extra silly about it but i NEED to know what’s ur current opinion on the last of us hbo?? also i logged onto tumblr and saw a lot of rly good points defending joel’s final choice and i remember during the last of us pt1 playthrough u had differing opinions so i wonder if u think the show’s differences affect that at all? btw i LOVE ur stuff and cannot wait until u do last of us pt 2 wehehehehe!!! anyway besides all that i just want u to know that u are one of the things in my life that makes it easier to get up in the morning

I still feel exactly the same about the final events as I always have! The show didn't change it for me, and actually being able to remove myself from being in control of the situation in the game and actually just watch the events play out in show format solidified that further. The connection I have to Joel as a player when I play the game really helps me understand his perspective more and stomach the goal a bit more easily, but without that immediate intimacy it puts into perspective for me how kinda monstrous the whole thing is from every angle. Obviously I don't ever lose that sympathy for him, and I never stop understanding why, because the whole point of the conflict is that no one is in the right. Ultimately I think the damning thing for every single person involved is that they removed Ellie's agency from the equation, and I still stand by that. They all should have talked to her. They should have told her the truth. All she wants is for her immunity to matter, and I believe that they may have been surprised at the lengths she's willing to go in order to make a difference, whether it's ultimately the right call or not.

I don't know what arguments you've seen exactly in defense of Joel's choice, but personally I don't really agree with one I see a lot and I'd expect will pop up again now that the show is over, which is the whole "well who's to say a vaccine would have worked anyway?????" angle. I think, while reasonable from a meta standpoint, completely ignores the intended framing of the story in order to more conveniently justify a protagonist that the story through its entire runtime is trying to tell you is a little bit of a piece of shit. It's pretty clear and safe to assume that the ultimate intent here is that... yes, the vaccine WOULD have worked. Maybe not in the sweeping way they hoped, but Ellie's sacrifice absolutely would have done something. The whole moral dilemma of the situation really does not make any sense unless you give them that as fact imo.

So then, assuming that is true, you have to wrestle with the idea that Joel is willing to take down the entirety of humanity for Ellie. And not really for Ellie, because none of this is what Ellie wanted. The game AND the show QUITE LITERALLY SPELL OUT for us that Ellie really really really does not want to go back to Jackson without finishing what they started, regardless of the cost. Joel's reasons for saving Ellie, while understandable, are ultimately selfish and rooted in his own trauma and having just seen the light at the end of his grieving over Sarah. Again, incredibly sympathetic, but it's selfish. I know we like to joke as much, but Ellie IS NOT his daughter. They share a similar bond after everything they go through, but by the end of the game you can already feel Ellie pulling away from that notion because she's starting to realize Joel doesn't have the same commitment to the idea of her immunity being meaningful as she does, they're only a few miles away and he's already asking her to give up and go back to Jackson with him.

Then, of course, I think what ultimately damns Joel in my eyes on a poetic/storytelling level is his decision to lie to Ellie after it's all over. That's the nail in the coffin for me. It would be one thing if he said "they were going to kill you on that operating table without even telling you what was going on and I couldn't let them do that", but instead he lies to her to make sure she's still able to see him as the father he desperately wants to be again. It doesn't change anything. He tells her her worst fear has come to pass: her immunity, this unexplainable thing that has taken so many of her loved ones from her, is completely useless. Not only that, but now even more people are dead. Including Marlene, who's known her since birth. The only thing his lie changes is the fact that he's responsible for it all.

Anyway, part of what I love most about The Last of Us Part II is how it follows up on these threads and you may be pleased to know that I actually just started streaming the game last night after the HBO finale premiered cause I was so pumped up I couldn't wait any longer haha. So you'll be seeing VODs for that soon :)